Hella Wicked Awesome

How much electricity does a typical household consume every month? A simple question led me to the data goldmine at Energy Information Adminstration. An hour perusing this site will teach you more about global energy production and consumption than years of listening to talking heads.

Answer: 960 kWh per household per month was the national average in 2005, but it varies quite a bit based on geography. In New England the average was 620 kWh per household per month.

This bit of link bait has been making the rounds, and I can’t resist the urge to help it spread.

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”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ”This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system.

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”I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930′s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota.

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”The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown,” said Senator Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska.

– CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS
New York Times – November 5, 1999