Tuesday, July 21, 2015, Part III

Locator: 12345LDR.
Locator: 12345BEER.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.

There are reports everywhere that the FCC is ready to approve ATT's purchase of DirectTV. Huge. Forbes.

Being reported by Fox News: Muslim plot to kill US airman at largest American air base in England, RAF Lakenheath, foiled. We were stationed at RAF Lakenheath for three wonderful years.

Also being reported by Fox News: US Army Chief of Staff says US could have stopped ISIS ... but is now clarifying his comments. I assume he got a phone call from the White House. I don't think the Obama administration has articulated an ISIS strategy yet. The Obamas are probably busy studying the Keystone XL proposal.

Second video surfaces with Planned Parenthood executive "haggling" over price of baby body parts; executive needs commission to pay for Lamborghini. Not being reported anywhere except by "the usual suspects."

John Kerry says he is now disappointed with Iranian leaders' trash talk following the "deal." Sort of sours his legacy.

With regard to oil, this is where we are:

• service companies have hit bottom, and are starting to recover
• too early to tell which drillers will survive, which won't; we'll know by this time next year (2016) 
• cheaper to buy pipelines than build new ones

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AAPL with a P/E of 16 is risky; Tesla with a P/E of 156 is a "strong buy." Highlights from today's Apple's earnings:

• quarterly profit surges 38%
• iPhone unit sales up 35% to 47.4 million iPhones 
• gross margin was 39.7%, above its estimated range of 38.5% to 39.5%
• prospects in China are outstanding
• Apple watch sales higher in June than in April, May

Meanwhile, Tesla: may sell a bunch of cars ten years from now. 

Apple pays a dividend, now about 1.6%; has $35 billion cash in the bank.

Tesla recently received a $750 million bailout cobbled together from seven big banks.

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The Apple Watch is not understood by analysts, non-Apple fan boys. Remember, I was Apple fan boy #3.

Apple Fan Boy #56

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Absolutely Nothing About Anything

This is kind of cool. Don sent me a link to today's post by Mark Perry (Carpe Diem) which has an interesting graph of the Bakken.  That alone is worth the visit, but even more interesting is the note about Pabst Blue Ribbon.

it's hard to find inexpensive beer in a can for beer can chicken. PBR is the answer, although I sometimes have trouble finding it. As a substitute, Modelo from Mexico.

And speaking of "hip" PBR. Perhaps the most hip singer in the past few years, Lana Del Rey, mentions PBR in This Is What Makes Us Girls.

By the way, speaking of current culture, I finally connected the last dot with regard to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. I can now die happy.

I've also finally beginning to understand the progression of dinosaurs to birds and mammal-like reptiles to mammals after reading Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale for the third time. I don't always "get" something the first time around.