The BBC: “US chemical firm Dow Chemical will cut 5,000 jobs and close 20 plants in an attempt to cut costs. maintain recent profit margins.”

A “studio account executive” at an LA DWR published his distribution list today. Here’s one look at the 435 recipients:

That sure is a lot of .mac users.

I couldn’t figure out why this BBC News story about a Russian art bubble bursting was so downbeat but then I realized the author, Marina Denysenko, was trying to create a narrative – to help us care.

Only, we shouldn’t care. As one quoted observer notes: “There are no longer prices exceeding original estimates ten-fold.” That’s a good thing. If anything, Denysenko should be celebrating a return to prudence.

The marketing team behind this Thanksgiving Day parade stunt are geniuses.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about performance: the simulation of the last 25 or so years versus the execution needed for us to survive the 21st century and promised by Barack Obama.

Over the last two days, President-Elect Obama has held two press conferences. Both have been highly effective. This morning he managed to get the following two warning shots off without effort. And I paraphrase:

“you mentioned that they’re my friends, but that’s not why we chose them. that was the old way of doing business. the new way of doing business is choosing people who are effective.”

“i’m sorry we sat you in the White Sox section. by the way, that’s part of the new way of doing business. we admit our mistakes.”

update: from a transcript.

I want to be clear; friendship doesn’t factor into this. That’s part of the old way of doing business.

The new way of doing business is, let’s figure out what projects, what investments are going to give the American economy the most bang for the buck; how can we protect taxpayer dollars, so that this money is not wasted; restore a sense of confidence among taxpayers that when we spend our money, it’s on things that are actually going to improve their quality of life, create the jobs that are so desperately needed, help to spur on economic growth and business creation in the private sector. That’s all part of the new way of doing business…

…And the reason I’m going to call on Steve: I understand that as a lifelong White Sox fan, you were placed in the Cubs section yesterday, and I want to apologize for that. It – I – this is also part of the new way of doing business. When we make mistakes we admit them. So.

Q Well, thank you, sir. That’s the change we need –

no structure, no gain:

Normally, a big bank would never allow the word of just one executive to carry so much weight. Instead, it would have its risk managers aggressively look over any shoulder and guard against trading or lending excesses.

But many Citigroup insiders say the bank’s risk managers never investigated deeply enough. Because of longstanding ties that clouded their judgment, the very people charged with overseeing deal makers eager to increase short-term earnings — and executives’ multimillion-dollar bonuses — failed to rein them in, these insiders say.

I didn’t know this but, also, I always knew it: New York City is the densest city in America. San Francisco is next.

is the name of the artist whose work i – and, likely, tens of thousands of other Los Angelenos – have been enjoying for the last two years. without knowing his name or that it was “art,” for that matter.