Year: 2010

But first . . .

DID YOU WATCH IT?

In case you missed yesterday’s column, you simply have to watch this. If you like it, pass it on to Reagan fans, Obama fans, and Obama foes. If you don’t like it, let me know and I will extend your subscription by a month.

And now . . .

WHAT WE SHOULD BE PUTTING IN OUR OCEANS

Windmills. And this doesn’t come from Don Tobias Quixote, but from my friend Matt Simmons, well-known Houston oil-industry boutique investment banker turned alternative-energy evangelist. Matt has been called “the Paul Revere of peak oil” – as in . . . global production is peaking and will soon begin to fall, so we’d better get on the stick.

Matt posts this plan over at the Ocean Energy Institute he founded. It calls for offshore windmills on both our coasts and in the Great Lakes – and for algae biofuels using agricultural and sewage runoff. (We may be running short of oil, but we’re swimming in sewage.) I don’t begin to have the expertise to evaluate any of this, but some of you do (please share your thoughts), and I was pleased to see Matt’s ideas highlighted in Maine governor John Baldacci’s state of the State address earlier this year.

Because I love Maine, and because much of what the Governor had to say has wider application, I excerpt that address at some length here:

January 21, 2010
State of the State
Governor John Elias Baldacci
7 p.m., Thursday, January 21, 2010

. . . In the last 12 months, State revenues have fallen by $1.1 billion dollars. Unemployment has topped 8 percent; housing and businesses are struggling; and people are uncertain and anxious.

It’s a time of great turmoil. But it’s also a time of incredible opportunity and revolutionary change. A time when our State is breaking with the comfortable past to blaze a new trail.

We have come together to say enough, to put our foot down and to put an end to the circumstances that have held our people and our economy hostage. Today, we are laying the groundwork for economic revitalization and freedom from the tyranny of foreign oil.

Are we there yet? No.

But we are on our way.

Despite the difficulties we face, the hard choices and hard work ahead, the next chapter in Maine’s history will be one of resurgence, growth and opportunity. As I report to you tonight on the State of the State, I am not sullen or deterred by the road ahead.

. . . I see a Maine that is energy secure, with highly educated and successful people. Natural resources that are protected, accessible and put to work. A place where innovation and creativity prevail. And cities, towns and villages draw people from around the world to a quality of life unmatched. This is our job.

We are in the midst of unprecedented times. Locked in a struggle between recession and recovery. The choices we make will help to determine which way Maine goes.

About a month ago, I submitted to the Legislature my plan to close a $438 million dollar shortfall in the State budget. It continues themes you’ve heard from me before: A leaner government, increased efficiencies and frugality.

. . . During the last seven years, my administration has been aggressive about cutting the size of State government. We’ve eliminated 1,000 positions, about 8.8 percent of the State’s workforce. State workers have taken shutdown days, lost pay raises and are now required to pay a portion of their health care. We’ve combined State agencies and departments, school administrations, and county and State corrections. And we are continuing our efforts to find efficiencies and to reshape government at all levels to be less expensive.

. . . Maine has almost 500 municipalities plus 16 counties. We have a local government for every 2,500 State residents. We cannot afford that redundancy and the duplication. But we have also recognized that local governments need help. With our unified corrections system, we have curbed State and local spending for jails and frozen property taxes needed for this area, helping counties to hold increases to their lowest level in many years. The system is projected to save $189 million dollars in property taxes over the next five years. In addition, school funding for this budget will still be $352 million dollars more than it was when I took office seven years ago, even after the proposed reductions. And over the last five years, State aid to schools has increased faster than the cost of essential programs and services for the classrooms.

. . . I will not support a tax increase to balance this budget. Working families and businesses simply can’t afford it. I don’t question the motives of those who seek a tax increase. They look around and see real problems and people struggling. Their heart tells them they have to do something. My heart says the same thing. But I know that the best way to help all Maine people is to promote job growth and economic recovery. To spread opportunity and give our people a chance for prosperity. We can’t tax our way out of our problems, but we can grow our way out.

As President Kennedy said: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

And that’s why I have an aggressive agenda that is already creating jobs today and will continue to create jobs for years to come. It begins with our people and our natural resources. Right now, Maine is leading New England in wind power generation. And every day this important sector is growing. Producing renewable and safe electricity.

But we have only begun to tap the potential for wind. Work going on today by Habib Dagher at the University of Maine, with private-sector partners and critical support from the federal government, is positioning our State at the forefront of a new energy revolution. We have it within our power to develop new, cutting edge sources of energy that can help to forever reshape the world.

From start to finish, Maine has a role to play. We can develop the technology; use composites from the University of Maine to build the turbines; and lower electricity rates. That means good jobs. It’s also important for communities to see the benefits of new energy development. That’s why I am supporting legislation that makes sure wind projects produce tangible benefits to host communities. Real benefits that communities can see and feel, like lower property taxes or improved public services.

There is a burning urgency to the work we are doing. We can not wait; too much is in the balance. What&’s remarkable is that the right and left should be united on the need to free ourselves from foreign oil and all that dependency does to our people, our economy and our world.

Whether you believe in global warming or not, ending our dependency on foreign oil is a matter of national security that demands action now. In 2008, this Legislature set a goal of producing 2 Gigawatts of wind power by 2020. With 430 Megawatts already permitted, Maine is ahead of the schedule. We are on the brink of a new day. Will we allow the clock to be turned back to midnight or will we embrace the dawn? The choice is as stark as night and day.

In the coming weeks, I will submit legislation to continue our aggressive pursuit of offshore wind energy. The plan, which is the result of my Ocean Energy Task Force, will help to spark this new industry and confirm Maine’s leadership role. We will set a target of producing 5 Gigawatts of electricity from offshore turbines by 2030. That sounds like a long time from now, but in the birth of a new technology it’s just a blink.

In just two years, there will be a prototype turbine in the water, producing electricity. And in five years, the amount of power produced will double.

Already, our efforts are being recognized. The DeepCwind Consortium at the University of Maine already includes more than 35 public and private partners. The project has earned nearly $25 million dollars in competitive grants and is in line for additional federal support. Maine competed nationally and was one of just 12 sites in the entire country that has received this support to construct an offshore wind laboratory.

There are no sure things, but the plan has tremendous potential to create thousands of jobs in Maine and attract billions of dollars worth of investment. Permitted and approved wind power development in Maine already represents more than $1 billion dollars of capital investment in our economy.

When it comes to energy, Maine’s potential is not limited to wind alone.

Matt Simmons of Rockland is one of the world’s leading thinkers about the oil industry and its limitations. Matt founded the Ocean Energy Institute, which is working with some of the most prominent researchers in the world to develop a new source of energy. Matt is working on an innovative approach that would utilize wind and tidal power to make ammonia, which could be handled and used much like propane.

Imagine, using the power of the wind and waves to create a new energy source almost literally out of thin air. Matt’s imagined it, and he’s working to make it real. My administration is working with the Ocean Energy Institute, which is planning to build a pilot plant within the next two years.

And Maine is right in the middle of the action.

Our future doesn’t solely depend on new technologies. Maine can also look to its forests to help provide for an independent future. Just as our woodlands powered Maine’s industrialization, they can contribute to new industries. Bio-fuels, like ethanol, and a new generation of boilers can turn wood into the energy and electricity we need for our industries and our homes.

Whether it’s our ability to produce energy ourselves from sustainable resources or our strategic location between energy-rich Canada and the needs of southern New England, Maine is in a position to benefit.

I’m talking about new jobs, lower electricity rates and cleaner air and water.

It goes beyond turbines on a ridge or bio-mass boilers at paper mills. Our new energy future can reach into every home, bringing benefits that are felt throughout our economy.

Maine is a national leader in weatherization and conservation efforts. We know that any serious effort to reduce our dependency on oil starts with conservation. It’s where we get the biggest bang for the buck. Two weeks ago, Maine awarded nearly $9 million dollars in grants to companies around the State committed to reducing their energy consumption, which will leverage about $81 million dollars in private investment. Using estimates from the Department of Energy, that translates into more than 950 jobs. But for Tex Tech Industries in Monmouth, the grants are a little more personal. The investment will pay for improvements that will save between 45 and 50 jobs that were slated to head offshore. Those good jobs will be saved because energy improvements will help Tex Tech hold its costs in line with its competitors in the Far East.

Conservation means jobs. And for those families at Tex Tech, it’s the difference between hope and despair.

Our efforts aren’t limited to just businesses. We also have a new program for homeowners that can provide rebates of up to $3,000 dollars for weatherization and heating upgrades. That’s money coming right back to families who make the investment to cut their energy bills. It’s available to anyone, regardless of income. The program helps families determine how to be more energy efficient and make the improvements, and the results can cut energy bills by up to half.

Government can’t solve every problem, but as the grants and rebate program show, it can give businesses and families the tools to find their own answers. . . .

☞ Incidentally, and not to totally ruin your week, but Matt Simmons believes the undersea gusher we see on TV is just a sideshow that couldn’t possibly account for the giant lake of oil he says is near the ocean floor. He thinks the blow-out is much worse than we yet know, and several miles from the wellhead.

GO CUBS!

Baseball is not exactly my thing, but boy am I ever a Cubs fan now. Go, Cubs! Go, Ernie Banks! Go, Brent Sopel!* In the week we celebrate those certain unalienable rights our founders held to be self-evident, this from Sports Illustrated is the kind of story that makes you proud. Pass it on.

*who is apparently a former Blackhawk, which is apparently a hockey team.

GO RACHEL!

You simply have to watch this. If you like it, pass it on to Reagan fans, Obama fans, and Obama foes.

DCTH

Did it bottom Friday at $7.55 before closing at $8.05? Beats me. With hindsight, I wish I’d bought more at $5.35 and $4.61 – and sold it all last month at $16. But if I had been that smart, I would also have bought it back at $7.55, hoping for a triple in the next year or three, because the underlying story remains unchanged. Guru notes that “The phase II trial we will hear about this fall includes the neuroendocrine tumor of the pancreas that Steve Jobs had. Perhaps if the DCTH system had been available, he would not have needed the liver transplant!”

Guru can be wrong. And in a really bad market – an ever-present possibility in this treacherous decade – everything will tank. So, as always, and for real: only make this bet with money you can truly afford to lose.

DID YOU WATCH IT?

Perhaps you weren’t listening. You simply have to watch this. If you like it, pass it on to Reagan fans, Obama fans, and Obama foes. If you don’t like it, let me know and I will extend your subscription by a month at no charge. (That’s a full month – including the famous swim suit issue – at no charge.)

Tomorrow: The State of Maine

I mean: REALLY casual.

Enjoy!

DILBERT DOES THE DOW

The advice may be only so-so, but you will smile as Scott Adams explains his strategy: only invest in companies you hate. (Thanks, Dana!)

HILLARY DOES PRIDE

“Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights.” Read or watch Secretary of State Clinton’s full remarks here.

G-VOICE GOES LIVE

That’s “Google-voice,” to you. I just got my number. Do you have yours?

I JUST WENT TO BUY A FEW LINKS OF SAUSAGE

And this is what I got.

CONFIDENCE GAME

Brett Scheiner: “Great book. They gave it out at the Columbia value investing dinner at this year’s Berkshire annual and I could not put it down – nearly read it entirely on the way home. Jon Bernstein (the analyst he hired in a taxi cab) and Oliver White (the one he hired on a fishing trip in Argentina) are both buddies of mine and they confirmed both hiring stories (in addition to confirming Ackman’s nearly religious devotion to his picks). In any case, if you liked this you will LOVE David Einhorn’s Fooling Some of the People All of the Time – yet another case of the regulators examining the short instead of the fraud (and Einhorn tells his own narrative here).”

Everyone has a talent. This could be yours. Can you name all 10 of these TV theme songs? (I got five.) Here are 15,696 more (and a greatly expanded game). Remember Have Gun Will Travel? The Lone Ranger? The Honeymooners? Superman? Topper? Perry Mason? The $64,000 Question? Name That Tune? I Remember Mama? The Tonight Show? Six Feet Under? That’s the problem with kids these days: you don’t watch enough television. Day-VEE . . . DAY-vee Crockett . . . Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“CONFIDENCE GAME”

Janet Tavakoli, author of Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street, turned me on to this excellent new book. It’s the story of Bill Ackman, who sounded alarms about MBIA, the triple-A rated bond insurer – and was ignored in much the same way Harry Markopoulos famously tried to warn regulators about Madoff. (Only, he worked even harder at alerting the regulators and even more was at stake.) Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street’s Bluff isn’t for total finance-phobes, but will be a page-turner for those who enjoyed (for example) Michael Lewis’ The Big Short.

NARCISSISM

Have you read The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement? I won’t – my name’s not in the index. But it does sound important.

PATRIOTISM

Along those lines, did you see Michael Kinsley’s great piece in the Atlantic Monthly? In part:

. . . although the 1960s featured plenty of self-indulgence, this wasn’t their essence. Their essence was selfless and idealistic: stopping the war; ending racism; eradicating poverty. These goals and some of the methods for achieving them may have been childishly romantic or even entirely wrongheaded, but they were about making the world a better place. The Tea Party movement’s goals, when stated specifically, are mostly self-interested. And they lack poetry: cut my taxes; don’t let the government mess with my Medicare; and so on. I say “self-interested” and not “selfish” because pursuing your own self-interest is not illegitimate in a capitalist democracy. (Nor is poetry an essential requirement.) But the Tea Party’s atmospherics, all about personal grievance and taking umbrage and feeling put-upon, are a far cry from flower power. There is a nasty, sour, vindictive tone to the Tea Party that certainly existed in the antiwar movement and its offspring, but never dominated the atmosphere created by these groups.

. . . [T]he Tea Party movement is not the solution to what ails America. It is an illustration of what ails America. Not because it is right-wing or because it is sometimes susceptible to crazed conspiracy theories, and not because of racism, but because of the movement’s self-indulgent premise that none of our challenges and difficulties are our own fault.

. . . The TPP vision is that you can keep your Medicare benefits and balance the budget by ending congressional earmarks, and perhaps the National Endowment for the Arts.

What is most irksome about the Tea Party Patriots is their expropriation of the word patriot, with the implication that if you disagree with them, you’re not a patriot, or at least you’re less patriotic than they are. Without getting all ask-notty about it, I think a movement labeling itself patriotic should have some obligation to demonstrate patriotism in a way other than demanding a tax cut. . . .

☞ It’s worth reading the whole thing.

ACORN TOTALLY VINDICATED OF All WRONGDOING . . .

. . . says a GAO report – though too late to save it from oblivion. Turns out, there were no weapons of mass destruction, after all (as it were). Score another win for those who believe the downtrodden wield too much power.

DCTH

The bearish view here is that, yes, okay, the Delcath procedure works and will be approved, but the market is tiny, with maybe 1,000 or 1,500 melanoma sufferers who need it each year, and annual revenues of maybe $50 million, tops. They see DCTH (which closed at $8.95 last night, giving it a $350 million market cap) as a $6 stock.

Guru responds that Delcath’s delivery device will also be used to fight “neuroendocrine tumors,” which afflict about six to nine times as many new patients each year, and generally metastasize to the liver. “Early studies of DCTH’s system in neuroendocrine tumors that did metastasize to the liver showed significant clinical improvement. Phase II data in this indication will be available in the October 2010 timeframe. At $50,000 per patient, this is another $450 million potential annual market, though it may develop more slowly than the melanoma market as they will likely have to do a Phase III to get official approval.” (Official approval may be needed for this procedure to be covered by insurance, but not for docs legally to prescribe it.)

So if that works out, multiply the potential revenue, and thus a fair value for the stock, several-fold?

GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE

What a day for those of us up North. Where I sit, the day will be 15 hours, 5 minutes, 51 seconds long – a full second longer than yesterday and three seconds longer than we can expect tomorrow.* (And nearly six hours longer than the nine-and-a-quarter we had December 21.) Happy summer!

RUSSIAN JUSTICE — NOT

This is the story of how the state imprisoned and ultimately killed an honest lawyer. One cries – and fears – for the long-suffering Russian people.

AMERICAN JUSTICE – IN PROGRESS

Here is Maureen Dowd’s account of last week’s closing arguments in the case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage equality. (Civil marriage. We all agree religious orders should be free to discriminate against anyone they want.)

It’s pretty clear that the team of Ted Olson and David Boies (opponents in Bush v. Gore) will win this case, and highly likely that, on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, they will win again. Then it will presumably go to the Supreme Court, perhaps as early as next year, where everyone assumes that four of the five Catholic male justices will find some reason to overturn the Appeals Court, leaving the fifth – Justice Kennedy – to be the determining vote. I’m not so sure.

I share the cautious optimism that Kennedy will uphold the verdict – and 5-4 will certainly suffice. But – call me naïve – I think some or all of the other Justices might just surprise us.

For one thing, as Dowd’s column recounts, even the opposing counsel doesn’t seem to have his heart in it.  He can come up with no evidence or logical argument to deny equal rights in this case.  And the merits – even with the Justices who appointed George Bush president – should count for something.

But for another thing, the conservative position is to keep government out of the bedroom, is to allow individuals the freedom to pursue happiness in their own way, even if that way offends some sensibilities.  Surely Justice Thomas will be mindful that mixed-race marriages – like his own – offend some sensibilities; and yet became legal throughout the land in 1967 as a result of a Supreme Court ruling.  Might he not write some sort of concurring opinion that begins, “As abhorrent as I personally find homosexuality, I nonetheless can find no Constitutional basis for . . .”

And for a third thing, wouldn’t this be an easy place for someone like Justice Roberts – who surely knows gay people he respects – to show he’s not reflexively anti-liberal?  Because, as I say, this is an issue on which liberals and conservatives actually agree – witness the odd couple, Olson and Boies, who would be returning to the Court as allies to make the case.

And wouldn’t it be a great day for America to have the Court affirm that all of us are entitled to equal rights under the law, and the pursuit of happiness where it does not impinge on the happiness of others?

THE CATASTROPHE

For the latest info:

Here is the official site of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, with links to information, claims filing, volunteer opportunities, and the suggestion process.  (Add yours to the 20,000 received to date, of which 100 or so, the site says, have thus far been selected by the 30-person “suggestion triage” team for further review and possible adoption.)

Here is the White House web site page, which is similar.  And here is the White House Deepwater blog.

Lastly, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA – has launched a site meant to be a “one-stop shop for detailed and near-real-time information about the response,” including technical and scientific information such as the oil spill’s trajectory, fishery areas closed, pinpointed locations of oiled shoreline, daily position of research ships.

To all those who say the government is too big (but needs to solve this problem) . . . or that government regulation is bad (but was too lax here)  . . . or that government should keep its hands off Medicare (somehow not understanding that Medicare is a government program) . . . or that we owe BP an apology (as Joe Barton, the ranking member of the House Energy Committee, emphasized last week – a “tragedy” is how he described what BP has been subjected to*) . . . I want to say this:  Of course you are right to be concerned about deficits (that’s why President Clinton raised taxes moderately on those making the most and handed George W. Bush what so many called “surpluses as far as the eye could see”), and of course you are right that government regulation shouldn’t go too far (be reassured that business has thousands upon thousands of lobbyists working to prevent corporate interests from being trampled).  But if you vote Republican this November, you are voting to hand the keys back to the team who drove us into the ditch . . . and to put the chairmanship of the House Energy Committee in the hands of BP-apologist Joe Barton. 

REGISTER TO VOTE

Here’s the new DNC website to make it easy, no matter where you live.  Forward to your kids?

*Barring something VERY unusual.
**Yes, I know he retracted that.  But watch the original clip and tell me if you don’t think it’s a more genuine reflection of his world view than the retraction.

FATHERS DAY

Bob Ceremsak: ‘A friend of mine wrote this YouTube for his dad.’

☞ Hard not to like.

PRIDE – RATED PG 13

And speaking of homemade videos, it has come to my attention that June is Gay Pride month.

(One reason I know is that the New York Fed had its Pride celebration yesterday, and I got to hold an actual 28-pound 99.96% pure gold bar.)

(I also found out which cage is kept unlocked – seriously, it is – so they don’t need two people with keys and an auditor every time they want to show visitors a gold bar.)

(And did you know they have a scale that can weigh 640 pounds of gold yet is so sensitive that even a single dollar bill, which weighs three one-hundredths of an ounce, will tip it? Or that you have to wear magnesium shoes to work with the gold bars lest you break your foot if you drop it? Or that magnesium is stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum? Or that the bundles of 16,000 one-, ten-, and hundred-dollar bills they keep on hand for emergencies weigh 33 pounds each, and that it is the blue-wrappered ones you’d want, because those are the c-notes, worth $1.6 million per bundle?)

(Or that 98% of the 532,000 gold bars on deposit there, five floors below street level and 30 feet below the subway, are foreign-owned, held safe at no charge – more than in Fort Knox or anywhere else in the world, but still only $250 billion worth? Or that the door to the auxiliary vault weighs 30 tons, yet is so precisely balanced that I was able to swing it open and shut?)

But I digress. It’s Pride month. A friend wrote, directed, filmed, and played both roles in this four-minute pride video. It is not for everyone. But there’s a lot of talent, wisdom – and living – in those four minutes.

The gold bar was worth $1,243 per troy ounce times 14.583 troy ounces to a pound times 28 pounds = just north of $500,000. They don’t want it to be pure 24-karat gold, because it would be too soft – you could take some home under your finger nails. Adding just the slightest silver or copper imperfection – 00.04% in the case of my bar – hardens it dramatically.

Happy Pride.

NBIX

When you have just 54 million shares outstanding, every potential $225 million helps. They announced another deal. Guru hadn’t known it was pending, so this just brightens already bright prospects. With two drugs now, large outside companies will pick up further development costs, make bonus payments for achieving certain milestones, and then – if the drugs are approved – share a significant fraction of the revenue. In the meantime, if I read these press releases correctly, NBIX gets $85 million in cash up front.

DCTH

The company held a 60-minute conference call after Tuesday’s close of trading (available here for 90 days). Guru reports:

It went great. Had three doctors on the call. They reiterated that the protocol has an SPA, met all of its primary and secondary endpoints. The doctors were enthusiastic. One doctor said he is getting an email a day from patients asking about the procedure. Patients have such access to the internet that the patients are now driving demand. Hospitals will want to offer the procedure or risk losing the patients to one that does.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the story that would account for the drop in the stock from 16 to 9 [up from 5 where we bought it]. It’s just that the bears have decided to pounce because of the lack of a survival benefit.

But the study wasn’t designed to show a survival benefit. The burden they took on was to show an effect on progression of the cancer – which they did, beautifully.

If they had prevented patients in the control arm from crossing over to their therapy, more people would have died sooner – bad for those people, but good for investors, as it would have shown a survival benefit. The company chose to help the patients by allowing them to cross over from the control arm of the trial and is now paying the price. I’m guessing the stock will bottom somewhere below 9. Will be a great buy – could double in a year.

☞ Or not. Which is why this is only for money you can afford to lose.

NBIX

Four months ago, we added NBIX to our little basket of speculative drug stocks, at $2.60. Yesterday, with the announcement of a global marketing deal with an established drug company (as Guru foretold), the stock closed at $5.37, giving us our double. Guru thinks, with time, it will be worth considerably more. I’m holding all mine.

GLDD

Not the worst time to own shares in a dredging company, very sad to say. Here‘s the press release.

HAND DRYERS

Oleaginous: ‘The Dyson Airblades™ you wrote about yesterday are installed at the international terminal of San Francisco International Airport, and I gotta say these things really work. I have hands with a lot of excess oil that are near-impossible to dry with two paper towels, and these devices dry my hands perfectly. Highly recommended.”

COOKING LIKE A GUY™

The container says, “best if purchased before 3/10/06” and I’m certain I purchased it well before then, so it should be fine.

WHY IS TODAY THURSDAY?

John Seiffer: “I loved the section on dozens counting and the length of a month. I wonder if you could ask your readers the genesis (pun intended) of the weekly Sabbath. It seems to me that unlike the month, year, and day the 7 day cycle has no physical or astronomical equivalent. And yet is seems to be a very pervasive (perhaps universal) cycle that people observe in many different cultures. I wonder if I’m right about that. I find it very practical for many planning purposes and wonder if there’s something innate to our physiology about it.”

☞ Does this help?

BUT WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS?

Tina Amonn: “I have you as an app on my iPhone – did you know that could be done?” [No.] “Just use iPhone’s Safari browser to pull up andrewtobias.com . . . push the + button in the lower middle portion of the screen . . . then choose ‘add to home screen.’ You can then choose a name and click ‘add’ in the upper right corner. This will create a new ‘app’ and whenever you click on it, it will automatically bring up the most recent version of the website.”

“YOUR” ANNOYING

It seems I had an apostrolapse Monday, as dozens of you pointed out. Thanks! One of you went on to note that – in the very same item – I had managed to transmute the movie “Role Models” into “Roll Models.” Not to take anything away from that soft-core buns classic, but, yes, I did mean Role Models, the buddy flick, and all I can say is that my brain was filled with bakers’ dozens of brioche, scones, and pumpernickel, so it was a natural, if regrettable, mistake to make.

DOZENS

Aaron Long: “The dozen has a big advantage over the deca that would come into play in commerce: it’s easily divisible – 2, 3, 4, 6 – so making deals that involve fractions of a dozen is simple. People like to work with halves, thirds, and quarters. Ten is difficult: you can cut it in half, but that’s about it. Working with fifths doesn’t seem to come naturally –you don’t ask for a fifth of a pound of roast beef at the deli counter. Sixty, another strong number, divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, was used as a base by the Sumerians and Babylonians, but is probably too large to be popular for retail commerce.”

Bob Fyfe: “Twelve is also more convenient when packing cases of product. For example, a case of wine is packed as 4 by 3 bottles. If a case had ten bottles, it would be packed 5 by 2 which is a less convenient shape. [Unless you are a mule or a horse, and have two packages on either side of the saddle. If I were a beast of burden, I’d prefer the longer, narrower shape. – A.T.] I have also heard that a possible historical reason for base-12 is finger counting using the thumb and the three sections of each of the remaining four fingers on that hand. You start counting one by touching the thumb to the tip of your index finger. Then two is the middle section of the index finger and three is the section closest to your hand. Four continues with the tip of the middle finger, etc. This gives you a total count of twelve on one hand. [An impressive point.] You also mentioned the moon. It’s true, the moon does take less than 28 days to orbit the earth . . . with respect to the stars. However, because the earth is also moving around the sun, it takes over 29.5 days for the moon to orbit the earth with respect to the sun. Therefore, the visible phases of the moon complete their cycle in just over 29.5 days, making 12, not 13, the closest integer number of months (based on the phases of the moon) in a year. [Except in February, when it speeds up.]”

Kevin Devine: “If you really want to learn about the history of number systems, check out The Universal History of Numbers by Georges Ifrah. This dense, scholarly work takes us from the most ancient forms of finger-counting to today’s computer systems. Not a quick read by any means, but remarkably thorough. Long answer short: there were a variety number systems developed over the centuries, based on a variety of numbers, including 5, 10, 12, 20 and even 60. All have their advantages and disadvantages. You can still see the vestiges of the 12-based system not only in the dozen, but in the way we name the numbers. For example, since we say thirteen (three + ten) through nineteen (nine + ten), why do we say eleven and twelve instead of oneteen and twoteen? Because our names for 11 and 12 are from an older, 12-based counting system. Please forgive me if I’ve forgotten the details. It is a very long book.”

DRYERS

Jackie Greenberg: “I’m sure you’ve seen and used this FUN hand dryer from the inimitable Mr. Dyson – they have their own equations for cost savings and CO2 footprint issues.”

☞ No – this is terrific! Not only does it cut drying time and clean the air, but “22 people can dry their hands using a Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer for the price of a single paper towel.”

Of course, when a website includes everything but the price, that’s a hint it ain’t cheap – and this baby is in the $1,200 range compared with perhaps $200 for a regular one.

The payback in saving versus paper towels is pretty quick, but versus another hand dryer? Using their own example, maybe 25 years. (Though I’ll bet if you needed 1,000 of them for your hotel chain, you’d get a lot better price.)

Or you could buy something less space age, like this, which also boasts fast drying time and 80% electricity savings, for about a third the price.

I’m still shaking out my hands and using my pants.

SMALL BUSINESS

From last Friday, in small part:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
June 11, 2010

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON SMALL BUSINESS JOBS INITIATIVES

Rose Garden

11:02 A.M. EDT

. . . [H]istorically, small businesses have created roughly two out of every three new jobs in our country. And to replace the millions of jobs lost in the recession, we’re going to need to make sure that small companies are able to open up and expand and add names to their payroll. Small businesses will help lead this economic recovery. And that’s why we will continue to stand by them.

. . . Last year, we enacted seven tax cuts for America’s small business — seven tax cuts. So far, the Recovery Act has supported over 68,000 loans to small businesses, which translates into nearly $29 billion in new lending. More than 1,300 banks and credit unions that had not made SBA loans since before the financial crisis are now lending again. More than $8 billion in federal Recovery Act contracts are now going to small businesses. . . .

In addition, as a result of a bill I signed into law a few months ago, businesses are now eligible for tax cuts when they hire — when they hire unemployed workers, they’re eligible for tax cuts. Companies are also able to write off more of their investments in new equipment. And as part of the health reform package, 4 million small business owners recently received a postcard in their mailboxes from the IRS, and it was actually good news: It told them that they could be eligible for a health care tax credit this year that could be worth perhaps tens of thousands of dollars to these small businesses.

So these and other steps are making a difference. Little more than a year ago, the economy was in freefall. Today, it’s growing again. Little more than a year ago, the economy was losing an average of 750,000 jobs per month. It’s now been adding jobs for five months in a row. But even though we are in the process of digging ourselves out of this recession, we’re still in a pretty deep hole. Millions of our family members, our friends, our neighbors are still looking for work — they’re still faced with the prospects of long-term unemployment. Credit is still less available than it should be, particularly to small businesses.

As small business owners like Prachee and Bobby and Steve will tell you, we may be recovering but we’re not yet recovered. We have to keep moving forward. . . .