A good chart

From Energy Information Administration, a Federal Agency funded by the "discretionary budget" which is being frozen so that politicians won't have to address the hard issues of underfunded entitlements based on longevity assumptions which have long since been rendered obsolete.  This one chart speaks volumes about the politics and reality of energy.

Table R2.  Energy Consumption by Source and Total Consumption per Capita, Ranked by State, 2007
Rank	Coal		Natural Gas a		Petroleum b		Retail Electricity Sales		Total Consumption per Capita
	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Trillion Btu	State	Million Btu
1	Texas	1,609.1	Texas	3,641.4	Texas	5,886.9	Texas	1,173.1	Alaska	1,062.3
2	Indiana	1,574.5	California	2,440.4	California	3,946.3	California	901.6	Wyoming	948.6
3	Pennsylvania	1,490.7	Louisiana	1,423.1	Florida	1,983.5	Florida	788.5	Louisiana	861.2
4	Ohio	1,461.7	New York	1,218.9	New York	1,633.4	Ohio	552.0	North Dakota	671.1
5	Illinois	1,090.3	Illinois	979.3	Louisiana	1,599.9	Pennsylvania	517.2	Texas	496.3
6	Kentucky	1,020.4	Florida	950.3	Pennsylvania	1,455.6	New York	505.6	Montana	483.1
7	West Virginia	983.0	Michigan	847.8	Illinois	1,418.1	Illinois	498.3	Kentucky	477.5
8	Georgia	934.7	Ohio	836.3	New Jersey	1,373.3	Georgia	469.0	West Virginia	469.9
9	Alabama	888.4	Pennsylvania	781.7	Ohio	1,357.0	North Carolina	450.0	Alabama	460.8
10	North Carolina	827.8	Oklahoma	690.6	Georgia	1,100.2	Virginia	380.7	Indiana	458.4
11	Missouri	802.4	New Jersey	640.7	Virginia	1,016.6	Indiana	373.3	Oklahoma	445.8
12	Michigan	799.9	Indiana	548.1	Michigan	987.3	Michigan	372.9	Mississippi	424.3
13	Florida	720.8	Colorado	515.9	North Carolina	970.8	Tennessee	364.1	Iowa	414.0
14	Tennessee	672.4	Georgia	453.9	Indiana	877.7	Kentucky	315.3	Kansas	409.1
15	Wyoming	494.8	Alabama	431.4	Washington	846.8	Alabama	313.3	Arkansas	406.1
16	Wisconsin	464.9	Massachusetts	417.3	Tennessee	827.1	Washington	292.6	Nebraska	391.6
17	Iowa	464.4	Wisconsin	403.9	Missouri	758.9	Missouri	291.8	South Carolina	384.2
18	Virginia	457.9	Arizona	402.1	Kentucky	747.4	South Carolina	279.6	Tennessee	379.0
19	South Carolina	444.0	Minnesota	396.5	Minnesota	706.2	New Jersey	279.6	South Dakota	367.2
20	Arizona	438.5	Mississippi	374.9	Massachusetts	684.6	Louisiana	271.5	New Mexico	361.8
21	North Dakota	420.1	Alaska	371.8	Alabama	626.4	Arizona	263.4	Minnesota	361.7
22	Kansas	396.3	Virginia	332.7	Wisconsin	619.5	Wisconsin	243.3	Idaho	354.0
23	Utah	391.3	Kansas	291.6	Arizona	595.4	Minnesota	232.8	Ohio	352.8
24	Colorado	388.5	Washington	279.7	Oklahoma	578.0	Maryland	223.1	Delaware	350.4
25	Oklahoma	373.2	Missouri	277.6	South Carolina	576.5	Massachusetts	195.0	Maine	346.3
26	Minnesota	366.0	Nevada	263.6	Maryland	557.3	Oklahoma	188.3	Virginia	339.1
27	Maryland	327.8	Iowa	261.9	Colorado	525.4	Colorado	175.0	Missouri	334.1
28	New Mexico	296.1	Oregon	258.2	Mississippi	470.9	Oregon	166.3	Wisconsin	329.8
29	Arkansas	275.0	North Carolina	245.2	Iowa	441.6	Mississippi	164.3	Georgia	329.0
30	New York	257.5	New Mexico	240.3	Kansas	424.5	Arkansas	160.6	Pennsylvania	322.6
31	Louisiana	249.8	Kentucky	236.0	Connecticut	396.8	Iowa	154.5	Washington	320.5
32	Nebraska	216.8	Utah	232.2	Arkansas	386.9	Kansas	137.0	District of Columbia	318.5
33	Montana	202.5	Tennessee	229.7	Oregon	384.7	Nevada	121.6	New Jersey	317.1
34	Mississippi	184.9	Arkansas	228.0	Alaska	324.1	West Virginia	116.6	Illinois	315.2
35	Massachusetts	120.1	Maryland	208.5	Hawaii	306.3	Connecticut	116.4	Colorado	305.5
36	New Jersey	111.8	Connecticut	184.1	Utah	305.6	Nebraska	96.4	Nevada	304.3
37	Washington	95.7	South Carolina	180.3	Nevada	292.6	Utah	94.8	Utah	301.8
38	Nevada	82.9	Nebraska	146.4	West Virginia	288.7	Idaho	81.1	Michigan	301.2
39	California	66.4	West Virginia	122.6	New Mexico	284.8	New Mexico	76.0	North Carolina	298.6
40	Delaware	63.8	Wyoming	117.6	Maine	235.6	Wyoming	53.0	Oregon	296.7
41	Oregon	45.3	Rhode Island	90.8	Nebraska	235.1	Montana	53.0	Hawaii	269.1
42	New Hampshire	44.9	Idaho	83.9	Montana	210.6	District of Columbia	41.3	Maryland	265.0
43	Connecticut	39.9	Montana	75.0	Wyoming	176.2	North Dakota	40.6	Vermont	261.2
44	South Dakota	33.2	New Hampshire	64.6	New Hampshire	169.6	Delaware	40.5	Florida	252.9
45	Hawaii	19.1	North Dakota	63.0	Idaho	165.8	Maine	40.5	Connecticut	249.5
46	Alaska	13.0	South Dakota	54.1	North Dakota	142.7	New Hampshire	38.3	Arizona	248.3
47	Idaho	10.2	Delaware	49.8	Delaware	135.8	South Dakota	36.2	New Hampshire	239.5
48	Maine	6.6	Maine	47.9	South Dakota	121.3	Hawaii	36.1	Massachusetts	234.2
49	District of Columbia	0.5	District of Columbia	33.9	Rhode Island	91.5	Rhode Island	27.3	California	233.4
50	Rhode Island	(s)	Vermont	8.9	Vermont	87.5	Alaska	21.6	New York	209.2
51	Vermont	(s)	Hawaii	3.0	District of Columbia	22.5	Vermont	20.0	Rhode Island	206.6
	United States	22,739.9	United States	23,677.6	United States	40,358.1	United States	12,844.8	United States	336.8
aIncludes supplemental gaseous fuels. bIncludes fuel ethanol blended into motor gasoline. (s) = Value less than 0.05 trillion Btu. Web Page:  All data available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/_seds.html under “Complete Data Files." Sources:  Data sources, estimation procedures, and assumptions are described in the Technical Notes.

Conflict of interest

Was contacted late yesterday by a young go-getter reporter from Bloomberg who for some reason has come to believe that I am worth quoting on insurance M&A and other high-end topics, who wondered if I might be willing to comment on the AIG 2009 earning which are being released today.  "Sure," I said.  I actually dreamt that he called me on my cell phone at 5 in the morning and let me in on an earnings video for AIG, wherein executives were cracking a lot of jokes and really trying to make it look like AIG was a great and homey place to work.  At some point in time, the jocular CFO was actually lathering up the disembodied head of some ethereal woman.  I was the only member of the analyst/press corp there, and I thought that odd, and a senior executive guy from another insurer/broker whom I really like was there too, not saying anything, and I wondered why he was there.

In the same dream I went grocery shopping and was able to score a sample piece of stuffed spinach pizza, but somehow I ended up at checkout with nothing but meat, cheese, and bread and wondered if I would be chided for returning home from the store with zero fruits or vegetables.

On the drive to work today I found the best of the three CDs from the Magnetic Fields' epic 69 Love Songs, which is Merge Records' great and lasting contribution to world culture. Though I was somewhat rushing to get in to work to bone up on the AIG sitch, I sat and listened to a song or two once I got to work, bedazzled as I always am by the shimmering brilliance of the lyrics. This song reminds me very much of the early 90s as I lived them.

A couple of thoughts

• The Journal today reports that the town of San Mateo, CA, lost $155 million on Lehman securities and now are annoyed that they couldn't get any bailout money from the government. Oracle is headquartered there.  I would suggest that the town should ask Larry Ellison to bail them out instead.  And instead of running off chasing the America's Cup. Oracle should be impacted by this more than anyone else.  And the town should think again before wagering 6% of its assets on one companies debt.
• Apparently GM is shuttering Hummer now that its planned sale to a Chinese concern has fallen through.  May the big ugly gas-guzzling thing burn in hell where it belongs.

Social Graphing of Board Appointments

The Economist ran a story a few weeks back citing a study that said that corporate boards where there were social ties between the CEO and board members (roughly 45% I think) resulted in share price underperformance. Serving on multiple boards together also doesn't look like it enhances performance (insert your penis enlargement joke here). I find it hard to believe that none of the big vendors tracking corporate actions (dividends, stock splits, mergers, etc.) doesn't / couldn't easily track board appointments.  From there it would be trivial to overlay some sort of social graphing thingamabob to show who's on what board with whom.

You could also add some kind of manual wiki thingie which would let people observe social ties via sightings in Vanity Fair and other society rags and plug them into the graph.  It would be very interesting.

Tea immersion

I have recently been reading and nosing around the internet more to learn about the whole Tea Party thing. Much as we would like to dismiss it, there are a lot of angry people out there.  Looking at pictures of movement members, one thing that springs to mind, aside from the general whiteness of most of them, is that they look like people who have typically not had intellectually engaging professions, though I'm sure there are lots of white collar movement members.  But, to the extent that the movement is engaging working class people, reading the Constitution and playing an active role in political discourse, it's not all bad.

Nor is it entirely delusional. Lots of people are mad about bailouts, deficits, banks, etc. Arianna Huffington's "Move Your Money" campaign has similar drivers, to the extent that it seeks to deny the big banks of their power base.  Matt Taibbi's whole "blood-sucking squid" discourse around Goldman Sachs grows from similar conspiracy theory soil.

However, to the extent that these people are polishing their guns as they plan for armed insurrection, it's all bad.  Some members advocate sherriffs and other law enforcers should only support laws that are constitutional.  They should therefore be determining constitutionality on their feet, from behind the wheel of their cruisers.  Hmmm.  I thought that's what the Supreme Court was for.  Much as I disagree with Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas on a variety of issues, they are doing their jobs as the Constitution defines them.

Right now I'm listening to the Runaway Slave show of CL Bryant, a black msn.  They are railing against Michele Obama's program to control obesity, defending individuals' god-given rights to be fat or skinny.  Everything is the fault of the government.

Anyway, the main problem is the guns and the fact that they are fomenting armed rebellion. If they dominate mid-term elections, it is the Democrats fault for not figuring out good counter-messaging.

postscript:  I was so caught up in work that I failed to notice that a loonie tax "patriot" had torched his house and slammed his plane into an IRS building.  It is encouraging at least that a Republican congressman has been willing to stand up to the tea party pressures and call it an act of terrorism even before law enforcement does the same.

Uniforms

At lunch today I happened to catch a few minutes of a men's curling match between the US and Germany. I must say I was pleased to be able to figure out which country they represented by looking at their outfits.  Frankly I find the fact that Olympic teams are sporting more corporate logos than flags a little confusing and, frankly, a little boring. I'm not Joe Patriot or anything, but when you're watching sports events you know absolutely nothing about, it's helpful for starters to know who your supposed to be cheering for.  From there you can decide if you actually want to pull for them.

Kabluey

While this was a somewhat disappointing performance from the normally fabulous Lisa Kudrow, the actual lead actor was awesome in this movie.  Worth renting.  A number of good laughs.

How-to and Reality TV for the downturn

The viewpoint that companies need to create jobs these days is, on the one hand, based in the hard, cold reality of nasty times and tight-fisted banks, but it is equally underscored by a cynical belief that people don't know how to create value bottom up.  That a substantial portion of the population is so deracinated, disempowered and undereducated that all they can do is get and learn jobs of limited complexity. I, for one, am not so down on the capacity of working folk as to think they can't learn how to grow into new roles and responsibilities.  Just think how creative otherwise unexceptional people can get with narcotics production and distribution.

How is it, then, that these same people who were so educable in the ways of complex consumption in the preceding decades cannot be shown how to start and run businesses.  Which is to say that, for every "This Old House," "Punk My Ride," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", "Home Makeover", cooking and endless flavors of shows that tought us how to consume things in a complicated way, that equally compelling TV couldn't be created around producing value.  Imagine Click and Clack doing "Start-up Talk," Bob Vila doing "This New Start-Up," a reality show which brought us the trials and tribulations of a Quiznos.  It wouldn't necessarily be great, but so much TV isn't.  If you get charismatic people in front of the camera, and, for the lower grade ones, good-looking people in their 20s with strategic piercings and enhanced physiologies, there could be a lot of passable and cheap to produce TV.

Cash Hoarding and Activism 2.0

There's a lot of talk of sloshing these and hoarding these days. Bloomberg today ran a story entitled "Jobless Suffer with Corporate Cash Climbing to $1.19 billion". Other recent reports in the Wall Street Journal have called attention to a trillion bucks gathering dust on bank balance sheets. I'm sure there's some double counting in there that I don't have time to sort out, but even in 2010 a trillion dollars or two is non-trivial money.

Here's what I can't figure out:  where are all the activist investors, the Bill Ackmans and Carl Icahns of the world who should be muscling onto the boards of all these cash-hoarders to demand that something be done with the cash:  M&A, capex/expansion, buybacks, dividends, etc.  Is it that we believe that the cash is doing the best job it can just sitting there on corporate balance sheets?

I think the answer is that activist investing -- for all the swashbuckling that the name implies -- is generally a pretty slowmoving train.  You've got to build up a position in a company and push your way onto the board to be heard.  It takes time and effort, and with all the returns that could be had just by buying and holding since last March.  Plus Ackman's still smarting from the underdiversication in a portfolio consisting of nothing but Target stock (whoops!).

But why can't the tactics of activist investing -- assembling voting blocks to pressure boards and senior management to put cash to work or sell off units or whatever -- be adopted to the 2.0 world?  What about organized campaigns?  I know I know, it would be hard as hell to do.  But who thought you could elect a President that way until 2008?  Why can't grass roots techniques be adapted to the corporate arena?  CERES mounts similar campaigns to organize environmentally-minded institutional investors to pressure boards to improve governance around sustainability issues.

Could someone actually make money on it?  Are there regulatory reasons an institutional or discount broker couldn't raise awareness and motivate voting blocks of clients?

A target should be selected for a proof of concept, and once the methodology is in place, it could be rolled out and replicated selectively.

Great moments in filmed Rock n Roll

Tapped out

Am trying to make a foray into respectable, semi-pro, adult blogging (no not in that sense).  Visit my non-alter ego here to see my attempts at coherent commentary on my newfound professional domain.

Otherwise, no thoughts this evening.

Countdown to South Africa

On Fox Soccer tonight, a spotlight on Paraguay on "The Contenders."  Amazing that TV can be this good, and that, as Friedman would have it, the world is as flat as the futbol pitch.  Frankly, no matter what Roubini and Marc Faber and all the doom and gloomers say, if I can see a focus on a resurgent Paraguay team and see enthusiasm there, I feel good about about the world economy over time.

Henry Paulson on his Prius

Stephen Wozniak of Apple days of yore was cited today on Huffpost and Bloomberg, concerning "scary" issues concerning cruise control and acceleration in his Prius.  This caused the Grouse to wonder about how other famous Prius drivers are doing in their little love boxes, specifically Henry Paulson, so beloved for his roles at Goldman Sachs and the Treasury.  So the Grouse picked up the phone and gave Hank a call.  Here are a few of his comments:  "If anything, I'm concerned that the Prius is a little underpowered at present.  Does the gasoline engine have enough power to keep the electric one fully charged?  Stepping on the brakes is the last thing we need to do right now.  In conditions as icy as these, one shouldn't be tapping on the breaks at all. If the vehicle is beginning to slip, I see my job as steering it in the direction of the spin to stop it from having a hard landing. And as for Wozniak's problems with his cruise control, well, we're anything but ready for cruise control right now.  I sent Kashkari out tooling around in mine to come up with some emergency plans for the Prius's navigation in a holistic sense, and he and his task force came up with a proposal that we've shared with Chairman Bernanke and noone else, but I'm prepared to take to Congress if it becomes necessary... the absolute worst is when birds fly into it, but they don't break the glass... I always insist that Corzine wear his seat belt.."

At this point in time the former Secretary began to ramble a little bit, not unlike grandpa Simpson, so I quietly excused myself and returned to my task.

Classic footage from Letterman's daytime show

Toyota as resilient enterprise?

Watching Toyota fall all over itself in its attempt to react to its recent crisis brought to mind Yosi Sheffi's seminal book The Resilient Enterprise, in which Toyota plays a starring role.  In 1997, there was a fire at a key supplier in the supply chain for Toyota's brakes, just as there was a crunch on to get cars out the door because some incentive was coming to an end.  Toyota's supplier reacted immediately and informed Toyota, which in turn marshalled its keiretsu into a war room, shipping out technical specs to other suppliers and getting production back up to speed with minimal disruption to production.  Much rejoicing ensued.

Somehow this sense of urgency has not been maintained in the current environment.  One suspects it has to do with the presumed impact of the 1997 and 2009-2010 incidents on the corporate top and bottom lines.

On another note entirely, I have to say that it strikes me as mildly improper that
the US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has sprung into action today by telling Toyota drivers to stay out of their cars until they're fixed.  However rational that may be, the fact that the US Treasury has a controlling interest in GM and Chrysler makes LaHood a not disinterested party.  Yet another of the lamentable unintended consequences of the government's extraordinary actions during the crisis.  We may hope that this conflict of interest will be removed in an orderly fashion over the next few years.

Naked without my laptop

I had a dream last night that was a variant on the old "naked in public" dream, except it was more pathetic even.  I was headed to work, on a plane, and I needed to give a presentation that evening for the "graduating class" of my consulting firm.  Except, when I lifted my bag, I discovered that I had ("gasp!") forgotten my laptop.  I was dreadfully embarassed, as all my colleagues were gathered around me in their cubicles, grinding away, and I tried to figure out how to extricate myself from this without being discovered.

And then, thankfully, I woke up, though initially into that half-sleep where you don't yet entirely realize that you're awake and therefore in the clear.

Lost in the Trees

Saw these guys on student TV the other night.  Am not 100% sure I'm down with the band, but this is a great song.

Grahamisms du jour

• As we were stacking our half cord of wood, Graham says to Mary:  "This is just like in the olden times, when everyone would gather whale blubber"
• After collecting some kindling, Graham referred to it as "kindlington"
• In discussion with Natalie, Graham declared that it was the Marx brothers who were the first to fly a plane

You really can't make this stuff up

On Greece

For those of you who are monitoring the debt crisis in Greece, let me direct you to the posts from my trip to Greece in the September '08 (yes, that month).  It was mildly portentious.

Greek television
Checking out of hotel
Lodgings
Day 1

See also this, written as if in another century.

GSE regulators

Dealing with the press

In my new capacity of industry analyst, I have occasion to talk to the press not infrequently.  It has been an illuminating experience.  Years ago, I was working on a project for a major newspaper publisher where my firm was writing software for placing ads in the paper, and I was writing a small program (my one and only attempt at being a programmer) to test the bigger application.  In so doing I learned that the newspaper ad salespeople referred to the content of the paper as the "news hole," and that newspapers are all about selling ads.

Now that I am in the position of providing journallists with content, I see that the hole metaphor is entirely apt.  Journalists will call you up looking for answer X.  "Do you think X is true?"  And you say "Oh yes, X is very true."  And then your name appears in the press, as if by magic.

Sometimes I will take some time to think about X and consider why X might be true, what might be some of its preconditions, or what we may from X's awesome trueness.  I may share these musings with the journalist, who will run off and print that I said the X was very true indeed.

If you write a press release, the press may read it and restate this or that ever so slightly, and print it.  Or they may just print it.  I guess that's why they call it a release.  If you put numbers in a report, they will definitely print those, often without even reading the caveats.

Big day

Rarely are days as packed with potentially market-moving news as this one:

• Geithner goes before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to talk about AIG.  Personally, I'm sick of the whole thing.  Congress likes to hover over AIG and Goldman because it stirs up populist sentiment which makes them feel important.  Rarely in human history have people worked under as much pressure as the Treasury, Fed, New York Fed, and others did in the fall of 2008.  Did they fuck up some?  Sure they did.  We got through it.
  
  I'm beginning to think Goldman is like Iraq after 9/11.  Definitely some shady shit went down there.  But is Goldman the primary cause?  No.  Just like after 9/11, we had to hit back somewhere.  Nonetheless, the optimal resolution is for GS and Blankfein to offer a haircut to the government now:  give back $1-1.5 bln to Treasury in recognition of the extraordinary circumstances of last fall.  Show leadership.
  
  
• Bernanke cloture vote.  Is that even happening today?  It was supposed to but has dropped off the radar;
• Federal Open Markets Committee.  What will they say about QE and rates?
• State of the Union Address.  Can Obama build momentum and trust again?  (I hope so).  I will watch, despite good Premier League action on FSC.
• Continued expansion of Toyota recall:  clearly good news for Ford, Honda, Hyundai.  Can GM also capitalize?
• If the markets can stay stable and the markets close within .5% of where they start, that's good.  There's a risk the dow goes below 10,000 today, which is actually fine from and end of month 401k contribution perspective.
  
  
• In a positive indicator, Carolina beat State on the road last night.  Glad to see it. 
  

Too big to fail?

Andrew Ross Sorkin's book Too Big to Fail has been praised pretty much by everyone as the definitive book on the credit crisis. All I can say is that, if this is the case, I'm glad I haven't wasted my time on any of the other ones. Because for the first 100-odd pages I haven't really learned much that I hadn't read elsewhere except that Dick Fuld was really loyal and that his good buddy Joe Gregory probably wasn't cut out to be #2 at a big investment bank and that Erin Callan also wasn't the best choice for CFO. But I don't really care about that.

I already knew Stan O'Neal had a great rags to riches story and was an asshole and I knew that Henry Paulson was an environmentalist. OK, I didn't know he drove a Prius, but I don't really care about that either.

So I'm taking time off for Eric Ambler's A Coffin for Dimitrios.

Mild day

Graham and I went looking for deer prints down by the creek and found no fewer than eight of them. Later, after tetherball with Natalie, I returned to a project begun for Leslie's wedding reception in 1990 and since delayed a little: building a rock wall along the edge of the property in a shameless pseudo-Connecticut affectation. Carrying those dogies up the hill is no joke. This will continue to be a slow burn project, but it will move forward nonetheless.

Was trying to think of something to write but then noticed that Tottenham Hotspurs are taking on Leeds on the Fox Soccer Channel, Murdoch's great contribution to American culture. More later.

Speedy Gonzales

It is astonishing that Obama should move so quickly and so transparently in response to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts to attack investment banks cum bank/holding companies for blending proprietary trading and more traditional banking functions. Everybody predicted that he would have to kowtow to populists and make this move if the senate supermajority was lost.

The fact is, working through these contradictions in the banking system should have been the focus of his first year in office. It shouldn't have needed to be a knee-jerk reaction to apparent failure on another front. Rahm Emanuel's cynical evocation of Milton Friedman and Naomi Klein's shock doctrine ("never waste a good crisis") took the Democrats off course from where they needed to be.

A careful and considered reevaluation of financial regulation could have been more easily followed with a measured advancement of health care reform, conceivably with less injury to the Democratic agenda as a whole. We may hope that Obama will battle back to fulfill his promise of being a truly awesome and excellent president. Dropping a surprise bomb on Wall St, even if it contains the right explosives, is a little risky.

More of cousin

This picture should give you a good idea of what Natalie thinks of her cousin Caroline.

Tiny little Nightingale

In keeping with our recent theme of women singing on stage, here's Natalie (and Margaret) in last summer's production of The Nightingale.

Singing her heart out

This came off well on the big screen, still a pretty intense tune.

A chip

I will confess to paternal pride when told of how Graham is viewed as a general authority on a wide range of questions in his kindergarden class. He's been out sick for much of the last week with something (bronchitis?). Apparently, the teacher was asking the kids why you could see your breath when it was cold outside and nobody had the answer. Then someone said "I wish Graham was here, he would know."

Aid to Haiti

Everyone is coming out of the woodwork urging relief for Haiti. I gave some today too. Here's how I did it.

First, I went to GiveWell, a new service which does due diligence on and rates charities in terms of their efficacy in getting money to their stated causes, their transparency, and other metrics. There I found a charity called Partners in Health that is on its rather short list of top-rated charities.

Then I went to Network For Good, a website that lets you aggregate the recordkeeping of your charitable giving for tax time, and generally serves as a conduit for giving. On their front page I saw that Partners in Health was listed as a popular organization providing direct relief to Haiti. I donated money to them over NFG's platform, and tacked on a surcharge for NFG to keep them going.

I'm not certain that GiveWell's ratings are perfect, but they seem pretty dedicated to their mission. Network For Good I like, though clearly their servers are having some difficulty handling high volume days like today.

I think I'm in love

What more is there to say.

Stuyvesant / Peter Cooper two-step

Is it just me, or did BlackRock and Tishman/Speyer's decision to default on debt payments coming due over the real estate deal of the century in the East Village smell funny. Coming on the heels of Ecuador's decision to thumb its nose at its creditors in December of 2008, the Federal government's decision to interject the UAW in front of more senior creditors in the GM bankrupcy negotiations, and the new fad for walking away from underwater mortgages, there's a whole new culture of debt repudiation coming round.

BlackRock and Tishman Speyer couldn't come up with the dough? I don't know about T S, but BlackRock? What, are they strung out from the Barclay's Global Advisors acquisition? Come on, Black Rock sitteth at the right hand of the Fedder in every matter these days. They just decided it didn't suit them to own up to this clusterfuck of a deal. A whimper rather than a bang.

The Hazard of Love

Incredible stuff. Be sure to listen to the end if the harpichord stuff doesn't float your boat.

Newsflash: A little digging shows that the star of this song, Shara Worden, isn't even a member of the band. She's a guest. Whoops! Never want to have a guest blow the hosts right out of the water. Still, the band has merits.