Monthly Archives: December 2006

Details on AirTran’s Midwest Desires

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David Bond & James Ott:

A two-month exchange of letters between Leonard and Hoeksema, published in an AirTran filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reveals that Midwest rejected an initial AirTran proposal more than a year ago–for $4.25 per share, according to Skornicka–and that things got testy in mid-November after Hoeksema told Leonard he would present an assessment of the offer to Midwest’s board at its regular meeting on Dec. 6.

Leonard replied Nov. 22 that it was “unacceptable” for Hoeksema to wait for the board’s next regular meeting and suggested that Midwest’s management wasn’t carrying out its fiduciary duty to shareholders. He also hinted at a hostile-takeover attempt–“[O]ur passive response to your rejection of our original offer is not the pattern that you can continue to expect from us.” Hoeksema reassured Leonard Nov. 27 that Midwest wasn’t dragging its feet.

ALSO, LEONARD TOLD Hoeksema that the merged airline would “significantly increase jobs in a way that Midwest could never do under any possible scenario,” and that it would “materially improve the scope and frequency of air service in Milwaukee and Kansas City . . . far beyond anything Midwest can offer as an independent company.” Milwaukee and Kansas City are the origins or destinations of 83% and 13% of Midwest’s service, respectively.

Nice bit of digging in AirTran’s SEC filings. Nothing good will happen if the AirTran takeover occurs. Dennis McCann recently gave both a try.

White House Tightens Publishing Rules for USGS Scientists

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John Heilprin:

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.



Top officials at the Interior Department’s scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency’s public relations staff.



“This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way,” Barbara Wainman, the agency’s director of communications, said Wednesday. “I don’t have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow.”



Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be compromised.

B-Side Records Best of the year 2006

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Kristian Knutsen:

While recently entering my favorite five new albums released in 2006 for the KEXP Top 90.3 countdown, I realized that the B-Side Records annual four-page best-of list extravaganza was likely out and on the shop’s counter. Indeed, Madison’s most jam-packed end-of-the-year list — its sixteenth edition — was ready for reading.

The State Street record store’s formula is relatively simple; every current employee and as many past employees as possible are solicited to submit their best-of-2006 list. There are no constricting guidelines, as the lists can be as short as nine albums to nearly as long as one hundred, not counting the supplementary songs and live shows that can listed as well. Then there’s always a guest, one person who is invited by B-Side to submit their favorites too. In the end, everything gets tallied up, and the four-page thicket of lists is condensed to their collected “favorite things,” with any album receiving three or more picks featured and framed.

Nothing Good Will Come of a Midwest / Airtran Merger….

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Jeff Bailey:

AirTran Holdings is roughly a tenth the size of its main competitor, Delta Air Lines. So AirTran executives would seem unlikely cheerleaders of a potential merger that would make Delta 60 percent larger.

But the recent $8.5 billion takeover offer for Delta by US Airways has found a fan in Joseph B. Leonard, chief executive at AirTran, which, like Delta, flies routes across the Southeast from its hub in Atlanta.

“I’m rooting for it,” Mr. Leonard said yesterday in an interview, after announcing his own proposed takeover of Midwest Air, an airline based in Oak Creek, Ill., for $290 million.

Mr. Leonard may relish his role as underdog but that is not why he hopes the carriers merge — he just wants to see fewer jets in the sky. After all, US Airways’ proposed takeover would reduce the two airlines’ combined jet fleet about 10 percent.

20 Business Ideas & The VC’s with Cash

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Michael Copeland & Susanna Hamner:

The result is this list of 20 tantalizing business ideas, ranging from a host of new websites and applications to next-generation power sources and a luxury housing development. This isn’t small-time thinking, either: These investors -which include some of Silicon Valley’s most successful VCs as well as serial entrepreneurs like Steve Case and Howard Schultz are backing their ideas with a collective $100 million in funding to the entrepreneurs who can get them off the ground.

Silicon Valley Math: Interesting Look at Yahoo’s Potential Deal with Facebook

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Michael Arrington:

Rumors about the possible acquisition of Facebook, usually with Yahoo as buyer, have been around for most of this year. Not that Yahoo or Facebook have asked for this attention, but the media is getting antsy. Robert Young put it best last week when he asked – Yahoo & Facebook: Deal or No Deal?. That is certainly the question of the fiscal quarter.


We know that Facebook has been pursued almost since the beginning of its existence. They narrowly avoided a $10 million acquisition by Friendster in mid 2004, just months before they took their first round of financing from Accel Partners. Former Friendster execs say that the deal was close to closing, but last minute negoations over control ultimately disrupted the deal. Since then, Facebook has certainly been approached by every major Internet company.

Gibson on Writing a Book

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William Gibson:

I think it may actually get worse, each time! But I also suspect that that may be a paradoxical indicator of relative emotional health. If you’ve ever met anyone who’s writing a book that he or she is convinced is *very* good indeed, you’ll know what I mean. (Swift reading to his servants may be the perfect case in point.)

By the time I’m three-quarters through the writing of a novel, I’ve necessarily lost anything like perspective, and must rely on feedback from trusted daily readers to know whether or not I’ve completely driven the thing off the road. I suspect that the biggest part of the labor of writing, for me, has always consisted of bludgeoning the editorial super-ego into relative passivity, though no matter how thoroughly I’ve managed to stun it, it still manages to send messages to the effect that the work is really deeply pathetic, hideously flawed, and should be abandoned immediately. I tend to imagine that this is what writer’s block is really about, though in my case it’s remained only partionally symptomatic. I manage to ignore those messages, as painful as I still find them.