Weak Retail Tuesday

• Market sells off because it needed to.   A weak retail sales report started it off ugly, and it pretty much stayed that way through Obama's speech about nothing and Bernanke's speech. We've had a big move and a pullback is inevitable.  Intel after the bell.
• Sorry, don't want to wax political 24x7, but Obama sounds like he's in campaign mode and making promises.  His energy policy is lame.  What energy policy?  Green jobs.  Alternative energy.  Sheez, how about something that works instead?
• Katherine Heigl has an iPhone.  I wonder what apps she's running on that thing?  You think she's going to listen to the Angels-Mariners game at 3:40pm on the MLB.com app?
• Installed surround sound today.  I didn't spend a fortune.  The guys at the home theater store were trying to up-sell me, and lost the sale.  Ticked me off.  One of those slick sales presentations where they show you something where the sound blows your clothes off.  All the speakers are geometrically positioned and they direct you to sit in a certain spot so you have to duck to avoid the bullets seemingly flying across the room. Of course, anything less expensive doesn't compare.  I walked out, went somewhere else, and got some less expensive stuff with a less pushy salesman, and hooked it up.  Thank God for pre-wiring.  Made it so easy.  First Blu-ray movie through?  James Bond Quantum of Solace.  Just that first scene with the car chase and gun fight.
• What car company is Warren Buffett buying?  Last fall Berkshire Hathaway bought 10% of BYD for $230 million. The deal, which is awaiting final approval from the Chinese government, didn't get much notice at the time. It was announced in late September, as the global financial markets teetered on the abyss. But Buffett and Munger and Sokol think it is a very big deal indeed. They think BYD has a shot at becoming the world's largest automaker, primarily by selling electric cars, as well as a leader in the fast-growing solar power industry.
• Buffett better hope we (the US) have a way to recharge those batteries. I don't think wind and solar will do it.
• Using Windows Live Writer to blog.  Seeing if the Disqus comment threads show up.