Did everyone remember to set the clocks ahead one hour last night?

Here are a few factoids on daylight savings time to explain the origin and why we continue the practice:

The change to Daylight Saving Time allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours. During the eight-month period of Daylight Saving Time, the names of time in each of the time zones in the U.S. (map) change as well. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time, Central Standard Time (CST) becomes Central Daylight Time (CDT), Mountain Standard Time (MST) becomes Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), Pacific Standard Time becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and so forth.

Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

Read more

The first signs of spring are beginning to show. If all goes well, the tulips will be coming very soon.

The New York Times and McClatchy both have live blogs of the 2010 Iraqi Elections. The latest entries:

5:10 PM Iraq -Polls are due to close now, 5 p.m. in Iraq, according to Iraqi election officials in Baghdad. They said there would be no extension, but that those already in line would be able to cast their votes.

4:49 PM Iraq - In Kirkuk, a divided city and region, Kurds began celebrating even before the polls closed, writes Sam Dagher. Cars clogged the streets, their passengers waving Kurdish flags. An official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Rizar Rashid, predicted that the main Kurdish alliance had won at least 45 percent of the vote in the region. Such an outcome, if true, could intensify the political struggle over control of the province, which Kurds claim as part of their autonomous region.

American troops helped keep the voting quiet in Kirkuk, potentially the most explosive city in Iraq. While American soldiers are barely seen elsewhere in Iraq, worry was so high about tension among Kurds, Arabs and other ethnic groups in the oil rich northern city that Americans were posted at polling stations, on roads and at police stations. There was U.S. air cover too.

But the deep divisions remained: The security forces in predominantly Kurdish areas were all Kurdish and vice versa for Arab and Turkmen areas. U.S. troops on the ground seemed to be acting like referees. Kurish voters chose Kurdish parties. Among Arabs and Turkmen, the favorite seemed to be Ayad Allawi, the secular Shia prime minister who is popular among many Sunni Arabs. - (NYT)

and McClatchy's:

5 p.m. This is the cut-off time for voting. Election officials will allow this still in line to vote, but will not process anyone else who arrives after 5 p.m.

4:50 p.m. 10 minutes to close all polling centers all over Iraq.

4:45 p.m. In a note to several news organizations, U.S. Maj. Gen. Steve Lanza, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said reports of casualties are exaggerated and urged reporters to check with Iraqi authorities. Lanza wrote, “As the day has progressed, we’ve seen attempts to dissuade voters from going to the polls, but we've also seen those attempts fail. Iraqis are voting and incidences of violence have, for the most part, stopped as of late this morning. - (McClatchy)

See also full coverage from the New York Times. McClatchy has a great graphic breaking down the election.

The front page of the Sunday New York Times was at one time considered valuable real estate for serious news. Take the following story on today's NYT front page, Unlikely Activist Who Got to the Tea Party Early, as an example of how the value of the front page has gone down.

Keli Carender has a pierced nose, performs improv on weekends and lives here in a neighborhood with more Mexican grocers than coffeehouses.

Read more

If you have been anxiously waiting for the new credit card rules to go into effect, tomorrow is the day. The credit card companies took full advantage of the time they had between the bills passage and the effective date to find new ways to exploit loopholes. With that in mind, here are some links to information to help you know what to expect and avoid a costly surprise.

New credit card rules are tough love, so consumers with high balances must navigate carefully - Consumer Plains - Consumer Affairs

Beware of the loopholes in the new credit card law - Washington Post - Personal Finance

Despite credit card protections that kick in Monday, consumers must still be wary - Dallas Morning

News

Credit Card Fee Blitz Escalates - Mother Jones

Elizabeth Warren: Shortcomings Of Credit Card Reform Show Need For CFPA - Huffington Post

Banks Focus on People Who Can Pay More for Credit Cards - New York Times

Who would have thought people would be seeking out a lifestyle closer to that of the Flintstones when most want to emulate the Jetsons? Der Spiegel has an article, A Stone Age Subculture Takes Shape in the US, covering this new twist on an old lifestyle.

The 26-year-old [John Durant] and the other members of the New York group promoting what they term "Evolutionary Fitness" (EF) are part of a growing subculture that seeks health and happiness by emulating their Paleolithic forefathers. This diehard clan of modern-day cavemen call themselves "hunter-gatherers" or "paleos". Their philosophy is based on the idea that the human body is best suited to the lifestyle of the people who roamed the Earth tens of thousands of years ago.

Not surprisingly, the diet of these 21st-century hunter-gatherers is packed with meat. But they also practice climbing, sprinting and leaping as if they still lived in fear of marauding mammoths. Some even donate blood as part of their Stone Age existence. After all, hadn't their forebears spilt a lot of blood fighting saber-toothed tigers and their ilk?

Read more

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!

The Saints marched onto the field tonight in Miami and beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

Shot from the front page of NOLA.com where you can find more coverage.

It is going to be one hell of a long Mardi Gras celebration in 2010.

New York Times reporters Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story have a new article this weekend examining the dispute between Goldman Sachs and AIG over collateral calls on credit default swaps. Testy Conflict With Goldman Helped Push A.I.G. to Edge is a lengthy piece with bits of new information added throughout. Here is a snip to wet your appetite:

In just the year before the A.I.G. bailout, Goldman collected more than $7 billion from A.I.G. And Goldman received billions more after the rescue. Though other banks also benefited, Goldman received more taxpayer money, $12.9 billion, than any other firm.

In addition, according to two people with knowledge of the positions, a portion of the $11 billion in taxpayer money that went to Société Générale, a French bank that traded with A.I.G., was subsequently transferred to Goldman under a deal the two banks had struck.

Goldman stood to gain from the housing market’s implosion because in late 2006, the firm had begun to make huge trades that would pay off if the mortgage market soured. The further mortgage securities’ prices fell, the greater were Goldman’s profits.

Read more

Bloomberg ran an article last week about a disturbing trend of creditors pursuing home owners for debt after a foreclosure.

When John King stopped making payments on his home in Coral Gables, Florida, two years ago, he assumed the foreclosure ended his mortgage contract, he said. Last month, a Miami-Dade County court gave collectors permission to pursue him for $44,000 stemming from the default.

King is among a rising number of borrowers who are learning that they can be on the hook for years after losing their homes. Amid a crisis that stripped $6.4 trillion, or 28 percent, from the value of U.S. residential real estate since the 2006 peak, lenders are exercising their rights to pursue unpaid mortgage balances. To get their money, they can seize wages, tap bank accounts and put liens on other assets held by debtors.

Read more

Ben Bernanke's confirmation for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve appeared to be in trouble last week. Senator Reid backed off scheduling a vote last Friday amidst reports the Democrats might not have enough votes for confirmation. Friday the news looked worse with some key Democratic Senators announcing they would cast a vote against Bernanke.

Here are a couple of short pieces with some interesting thoughts on President Obama's new bank tax.

First, a surprising one from Ezra Klein:

Good. The more I think on Obama's tax, the more it seems like an almost insulting proposal. TARP repayment is a provision of the TARP law. Moving it up from 2013 to 2010 is not a grand populist maneuver. It's a change in timing. And given that the banks are pulling in record profits right now, it's a change in timing that actually fits their balance sheets.

The bigger problem, though, is conceptual: Confining the tax to repayment of TARP when we've got a massive budget deficit and when further stimulus spending is constrained because no one knows how to pay for it is, well, a huge gift to the banks. There's just no other way to put it.

Next, Barry Ritholtz suggests renaming it the Too Big To Fail Tax and how to better structure the tax so it actually accomplishes something purposeful.

Harry Reid may wish he had not spoken to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin for their new book on the 2008 presidential race. The New York Times story Reid Apologizes for Remarks on Obama’s Color and ‘Dialect’ explains:

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, apologized on Saturday for once predicting that Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

...

Mr. Reid telephoned the president to convey his regret personally, aides to both men said, for a comment from a new published account of the 2008 presidential race. The book reported that Mr. Reid privately urged Mr. Obama, then a freshman senator, to seek the presidency in the fall of 2006 despite his limited experience and the historical obstacles to making such a run.

...

The comments by Mr. Reid were contained in the book written by the political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. He made the remark to the authors in the context of praising Mr. Obama’s political skills. An aide to Mr. Reid said the comments about how he believed the country would accept Mr. Obama, whose father was black and mother was white, were not intended for use in the book.

Read more

Need some suggestions on the best resources for tracking the federal bailout and stimulus programs? Look no further than CJR's Audit:

We’re past the one-year marks of the financial crisis and the $700 billion bailout; next up, in February: the stimulus plan’s first birthday. These dubious anniversaries have sparked their share of retrospective coverage, book releases, and much editorializing. (And at least one multimedia graphic where you can see which members of the “Lehman diaspora” are now making it rain at UBS, Citigroup and elsewhere.)

The banking bloodbath and government efforts to combat it got quite a bit of newsprint in the days and weeks after they were announced, of course. But we have a sneaking suspicion that now is not the time for press watchdogs to call off the chase. What other stories about this historic spate of federal assistance still need to be told? And what resources on the bailout and stimulus plan are actually useful in divining new stories from the available data?

In a specially commissioned study, The Audit here takes a look at online resources tracking the bailout and stimulus money, from government web sites to independently run operations. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s pretty good. No need to thank us. It’s what we do.

They include government sources, non-government sources and even a section on the best blogs to read for coverage on the federal spending programs related to the financial crisis of 2008.

Sunrise from the top of the mountain.  Traveling this weekend so I will have pictures to share but not much from the news.  Please add any items of interest in the comments.