Light Reading EIC Phil Harvey and I are experimenting with a new video chat format. Check it out and let me know what you think! Today's topics are Tellabs, AT&T, and Apple.

I found it kind of bizarre that Tesla Motors has filed for an IPO and is looking to raise $100 million from public investors. This comes about four months after the company landed a $465 million taxpayer loan to build factories to churn out really expensive money-losing cars that help rich people boost their egos and make them feel more "green." Let me get this straight: After borrowing half-a-billion dollars from you and I as taxpayers, they want to sell $100 million of stock to the public, of which half will be reserved to pay off the money they borrowed from the taxpayers? Okay. The fact is the company has been bleeding money for years and says it doesn't have any designs on being profitable until 2012, according to the filing. Huh? I thought that the "new IPO market" was supposed to be for profitable companies, not for extremely high-risk speculative car companies that have no track record of making money. Remember, after the tech bubble we were supposed to dial back on venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, investment bankers, and other snake-oil salesman from robbing granny's retirement funds for speculative IPOs. What, is it 1999 again?

A few weeks ago I told you that Redpoint partner Scott Raney was bullish on many things, including Ad-data aggregation firm BlueKai. Guess I should have listened more closely. Today BlueKai allegedly announced a $21 million round of financing , according to TechCrunch, though we are still trying to confirm this because we have not seen the actual press release. GGV Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Battery Ventures are in on the action. If true, this would bring BlueKai's total funding to $35 million, not an insubstantial sum in a crushing econmomic recession (can I have some?). What does BlueKai, a Seattle-based Internet marketing firm, do? The BlueKai Data Exchange aggregates annonymous Internet data . Think of this as creating a new "data aggregation" layer across the Internet, allowing advertisers to look at the behavior of potential customers over a wide variety of advertising platforms. BlueKai says this data includes the information of more than 145 million users.

I realize I have been commenting incessantly about how fast this year appears to be going but really it is remarkable that it's now 1/12 done. The pressure is on to get things done in 2010. And the pressure is on for the economy to mend, the politicians to stop bickering, and for China and the United States to figure out how to work together. I think this is crucial to world happiness. China-U.S. relations were the big items I saw in the news today. The Apple iPad hype is subsiding like the coed crowd at Fort Lauderdale on the last day of spring break, leaving behind a pile of media trash. I feel quite a hangover, was it worth the party?

• U.S.-China relations hit a bad patch (BBC). They're angry we're selling arms to Taiwan. Which is right next door to them. And which they consider part of China. Can you blame them? Wouldn't this be like China selling arms to Florida? Oh wait... Florida is still part of America... and Miami is already fully stocked up on arms.
• Arms deal chills U.S.-China ties (Wall Street Journal). More on this. Only because, it matters.
• $3.8 Trillion (Bloomberg). Is it just me, or does that seem kinda lika lotta dough?
• I was up late last night reading this New Yorker article on Education Secretary Arne Duncan. A good read. If only I was invited to play basketball with them.
• The first Amazon-Apple publishing skirmishes. It's only the beginning. This should be fun. Competition is good.
• Steve Jobs sh*ts on Google (Apple Insider).  Allegedly says Google's "don't be evil" pitch is bogus and predicts the demise of Adobe Flash. Who's evil now?
• Intel, Micron to announce world's densest flash memory (Computerworld).
• U.S. sets a record in wind energy production (TMCnet). No, they are not talking about Congress.
• Swiss warn UBS bank could collapse (AFP). If you read the fine print, you discover they think this because everybody is picking on them.
• Did you know you can run Windows 7 on an iPad? (PC World) Not sure why this is exciting though, as to me it sounds like drinking decaf espresso.
• How to hate the iPad (ReadWriteWeb). I can't think of a more solid idea for a headline.
• Facebook COO: 175 million people log on every day (TechCrunch).
• How videos are found and consumed online (TechCrunch). You mean, it's not through my mother-in-law's e-mail spam?

Well, that's it for today. A little slow this morning. February feels different.