The Times asks some provocative questions, including whether the reallocation was a political decision to win more support from Southern politicians. But it didn't really deliver on the key question: Which spending strategy will have the better pay off this time?

I couldn't find in a quick search how many words those two books have. I've progressed over the last decade to thinking of data in terms of songs, and not text. But in any case, smart grids produce loads of data. Taft is helping to lead an ambitious pilot "intelligent city" project in Boulder, Colo.

The challenge, he says, is to "manage that data and transform it into information through analytics. That's the key problem with smart grids. It's the info management problem where all the grief is."

In the short term, most of the smarts will be focused on finding outages and other problems, and responding to them quickly and with laser focus. This might mean that a few houses will be dark, instead of an entire neighborhood. Eventually, the Accenture team hopes to study the patterns of outages, spot problems before they develop, and take preemptive action.

The Boulder project, which is in its final stage of deployment, also will provide lots more information to consumers about their energy use. Here's betting that Boulder, with its green and highly educated population, will put this info to use and consume electricity more wisely.

The Boulder project is a bid by Xcel Energy to create a green and scalable next-gen utility. Implementation should be done by the end of June, Taft says. They'll have an idea about the business case by the end of the year.

But how will taxpayers know whether they're getting their money's worth? How will we know which jobs are created or saved by the stimulus program, as opposed to the hiring that employers do on their own? The Council of Economic Advisers just released its explanation of how it will keep track for the Administration.

The AP reviewed 5,500 planned transportation projects with an estimated cost of $18.9 billion. It found that states are planning to spend 50% more per person in the communities with the lowest unemployment compared to those with the highest unemployment. One example cited:

Elk County, Pa., isn't receiving any road money despite its 13.8 percent unemployment rate. Yet the military and college community of Riley County, Kan., with 3.4 percent unemployment, will benefit from about $56 million to build a highway, improve an intersection and restore a historic farmhouse.

The story generated sharp responses, including from businesses involved in the stimulus projects. The Associated General Contractors of America quickly issued a rebuttal:

“Developing the next generation of biofuels is key to our effort to end our dependence on foreign oil and address the climate crisis -- while creating millions of new jobs that can't be outsourced,” Secretary Chu said. “With American investment and ingenuity -- and resources grown right here at home -- we can lead the way toward a new green energy economy.”

Sounds great, right? Well, maybe. But the news made me think of this excellent story by BW's John Carey. It offers a more skeptical look at the prospects for biofuels ....

Several Republican governors have made headlines by suggesting that their states won't take stimulus money from Washington. Today, the Wall Street Journal has a story about a town in Nebraska that is turning down money from the federal government over concerns about taxes.

The North Platte Housing Authority has told the federal government that it doesn't want the roughly $600,000 that it has been allocated as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ed Rieker, chairman of the housing board, is quoted as saying that he is rejecting the money because of his concern for taxpayers.

"If we don't need it, we don't spend it," he said.

He says that the housing authority has about $1.8 million already that it is planning to use for operations and investments. But the decision has split the community. The housing authority looks after about 150 small houses and duplexes, as well as a large apartment building for the elderly. The agency's executive director, Debra Morgan, has said that the money would go to replace and repair sidewalks, among other things. The Journal quotes one local resident who says that if North Platte doesn't spend the money, any town will.

So is it responsible for states and municipalities to reject stimulus money or irresponsible?

As the federal government tries to dole out the $787 billion allocated for economic stimulus, it's difficult to keep track of where the money is going and what it's being used for. One good spot to find out such information is recovery.gov, the government's Web site for delivering stimulus information.

But tech companies like Google can mine search queries to track the spreading epidemic. And I'm betting that it should be easier to track digital signs of the disease once it crosses the border. This is because richer populations create far more digital data--with the Internet, cell phones, prescriptions, grocery data, etc.

While we're on data, here's a piece I haven't found yet. Many Mexican cities and towns have close ties with U.S. cities. Migrants move to places where their friends and family can find them shelter and jobs. New York City is popular among people from the state of Puebla. I visited one town in the state of Michoacan where nearly everyone had relatives in Watsonville, Calif.

So wouldn't it be useful to have a map of Mexicans in the United States, and then to focus more of the health efforts on the U.s. sister cities of the most affected parts of Mexico? There must be a language or anthro department in some university that has done this research. Does anyone know if such a map exists?

1) Have trouble communicating with each other
2) Propagate errors
3) Lead to waste
4) Force smart health professionals to meet the stubborn and (and often foolish) dictates of machines
5) Enrich countless lobbyists

To which I reply, right, right, right, right. And it is through that often painful process that huge industries overhaul their communications.

Think about the rest of industry in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Professionals who were masters with pens and typewriters and adding machines had to bend to the dictates of IT staffs. Different systems couldn't talk to each other. Major companies blew billions installing hugely complex enterprise resource programs (ERP) made by companies such SAP and Oracle. It was horribly painful, frightfully expensive, wasteful--and absolutely necessary.

Yes, it would be wonderful first to learn all the hard lessons of health-care reform, and then to apply them intelligently. But the automation of our industries advances through evolution, not intelligent design.

And now, John Carey reports in BW that biofuels are likely to come on more slowly and at greater cost than projected. And the winners in the industry are much more likely to be the deep-pocketed giants like Archers Daniel Midland and Royal Dutch Shell than the constellation of venture-backed start-ups that has sprung up. (Here's the rundown on the various biofuels.)

In technology, the mantra is that things take longer than predicted to gestate--but can create bigger impact than predicted when they finally grow up. I think this is the case in mobile telephony (a technology I had a role in hyping a decade ago). Could that be the case with biofuels?

Chopra comes highly recommended. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and publisher Tim O'Reilly all weighed in with public statements in favor of the pick. "Aneesh Chopra is one of technology's leading lights and we are lucky to have him as our nation's Chief Technology Officer," said Barrett, in a statement. "Aneesh demonstrated outstanding leadership as Virginia's secretary of technology and believes to his core that innovation and technology are the backbone of our economy."

The involvement of governments is sure to make the federal broadband push even more controversial. Local governments have a mixed track record on this front. Cities including Philadelphia and Houston have tried to build broadband networks for the locals, but the efforts have turned out to be more costly and complicated than expected.

Excerpt after the jump:

Laphen did sound a note of caution when it came to the federal government's plans for health care stimulus, however. He says that the money the government has allocated to prod hospitals and doctors to adopt new technologies probably isn't enough. The $787 billion economic stimulus plan provides for $44,000 for each doctor to make the transition to electronic medical records and other kinds of health technology.

"It's a good first step," says Laphen, "but it's not big enough, bold enough, or fast enough."

He says another issue is the lack of a health care czar who can set the standards for information technology, and get the industry moving in one direction. The Obama Administration has not publicly identified a candidate for the job since Tom Daschle withdrew his name from consideration in February amidst tax payment allegations. Laphen praised Daschle, saying that politics aside he had the appropriate qualifications and leadership capabilities to do the job. Laphen says filling that position will be critical to get health care technology investments moving.

"I feel that until they get the leadership in place this isn't going to get traction," he says.

An excerpt from Arik's story and question after the jump: