Update On Refinery Construction In The Bakken; Iraq's Maliki Thrown Under The Bus -- It's June 19, 2014

Vanity Fair is reporting that Dubai is now the world's busiest airport, surpassing Heathrow. I think the US would have the biggest airport if it only had one major airport for the entire country, too. The big question is what percentage of travelers going to Dubai actually stay in Dubai. Memo to self: insert the "LOL" emoticon here.

Capturing that Benghazi yahoo the other day can't help but remind folks of the greatest movie ever, Casablanca. "Holder, round up the usual suspects. And by the way, good work on the Lois Lerner tapes." LOL.

TPLM is up over a percent in pre-market trading this morning. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

The first story I saw this morning was the $56/bbl story and the implications for Mr Maliki. Then the WSJ reports that the Obama administration has thrown Mr Maliki under the bus. Geo-political events are moving very, very quickly. The widening of the Brent-WTI spread is the data point to watch in the near term.

Crude oil futures: I see the Yahoo!Finance number is incorrect (again). Bloomberg continues to be the better source for this data. The Brent-WTI crude oil spread is widening a bit; now about $6.50 instead of trending to $5 or lower as it was before the Iraqi insurgency.

Active rigs:

	6/19/2014	06/19/2013	06/19/2012	06/19/2011	06/19/2010
Active Rigs	189	186	213	173	129

RBN Energy: an update on the new refinery construction in the Bakken. New construction probably not gonna happen in my investing lifetime.

The Wall Street Journal

President Obama throws Iraq's Maliki under the bus. I assume the administration would prefer someone like Abu Bakr "See You In New York" al-Baghdadi, if for no other reason, he has the better surname. I can't make this stuff up.

Insurance premiums rise at big insurers; fall at small rivals under ObamaCare. It doesn't take an actuarial expert to predict how this will play out.

Fed keeps rates low (market surges); sees "eventual rise" in 2015, 2016. It's very possible I won't see meaningful / significant rate increases in my investing lifetime. I only saw the "2015" yesterday but now with "2016" on the table, that really changes things.

Yes, I see the Senate action the Keystone, but I'm not going to post anything more on it today.

They're still around, apparently. US authorities detain 89-y/o who may have been a Nazi death camp guard.

The battle for that Baghdad refinery apparently continues.

GM ignored early warming on stalling. My advice: erase the hard drives. Lois will tell you how it's done.

Also, customers are reporting more problems with new cars than usual; mostly tied with new technology like phone pairing and voice recognition. "Slow down, brake." "Did you say, "Snowden Lake?"

S & P sets another record.

IRS eases rules on accidental "tax cheats." Mostly affects Bakken millionaires who inadvertently  forgot to tell the IRS they banked a lot of royalty money overseas.

The Los Angeles Times

Nothing of interest.