• The AIG mess rolls on. Lawmakers are up in arms. Voters are pissed. Tim Geithner is on the defensive. President Obama's agenda has been disrupted. And AIG chief Ed Liddy will get to see some of the emotion first hand when he turns up on Capitol Hill later today to face the music. [NYT, WSJ, BN]
• Billions used to bail out AIG may end up benefiting the hedge funds that made big bets that the housing market was going to crumble. [WSJ]
• As the pressure mounts on Tim Geithner, here's a roundup of all the things he's gotten wrong, just in case you need a little refresher. [BI]
• The State of New Jersey has filed suit against Lehman for fraud. [CNN]
• Citigroup's chief economist is leaving the bank to take a senior position at the Treasury Department. Somehow this is entirely fitting. [DBK]
• The fact that Citi has four new board members may not bode well for Vikram Pandit and his chances of remaining in charge of the bank. [NYP]
• Warren Buffett owns 20% of Moody's, so when he talks about the broken financial system, you won't hear him talk much about rating agencies. [NYT]
• In the FT, Hank Paulson says it's time to reform the financial system. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for coming to that conclusion just now. [FT]

We can't guarantee your card will make it through: Bernie Madoff is being held in isolation at the moment, and it's unclear if isolated prisoners have access to their mail. But it's worth a shot, no? To improve your chances, be sure to follow the prison's official rules: For instance, any letters that contain money will be sent back immediately. (But you weren't really going to send him more cash, were you?) Simply print the card out, write a personal message, apply a stamp, and drop it in the mail. Just don't hold your breath waiting for him to write back. [Previously]

• It's been a busy few days for Valentino. He's taped appearances for Oprah and Martha Stewart; Valentino: The Last Emperor, the new documentary about him, debuts in NYC tomorrow; and it's rumored that despite his very public retirement in early 2008, he remains in charge of his eponymous fashion house. [Fashionologie, WWD, P6]
• What will you find if you visit Valentino's apartment overlooking Central Park? Lots of zebra armchairs and porcelain statues. And air that's "thick with spicy, masculine cologne." Exactly what you pictured, basically. [NYM]

• Another great restaurant humbled: It looks like Per Se is planning to introduce an à la carte menu in its salon and bar area. [Eater]
• Two armed men stormed Mario Batali's Esca. Instead of taking cash, though, they made off with envelopes stuffed with "worthless paper receipts." [NYP]
• Looks like Park Avenue Winter's PR stunt of giving free meals to girls dressed up as schoolgirls is paying off. Some 250 girls turned up last night. [Eater]
• Lawyer/enemy of NYC restaurateurs Maimon Kirshenbaum: He's back. [NYT]
• A caviar lounge really is opening at the Four Seasons Hotel. [Zagat]
• If you ask nicely (and perhaps make up a story about losing your job), you might be able to negotiate a discount at Starbucks and Cosi. [NYP]
• Some tips on where to go tonight to drink yourself silly in honor of St. Paddy's Day if you're still in need of recommendations. [Metromix, Citysearch]

It's hard to quibble with the sentiment expressed by the Brooklyn resident who used the back window of this handsome Dodge here to voice his/her frustration with the situation at AIG. But would it be too much to ask that the person get the name of the company right? Guess it's a good thing that no attempt was made to actually write out "American International Group." [NewYorkShitty]

Just because there was bad news today doesn't mean you can't remind people that there's a little good news to report, too, right? The full release below.

There's been a flurry of activity at 75 Wall Street lately. But not the good kind! Over the past few months, condo buyers have been filing suit to extricate themselves from contracts they signed during the boom times, demanding that developers return the down payments they put down when the apartments were worth 30 or 40 percent more than they're worth today. One of the buildings particularly under siege right now: 75 Wall, the David Rockwell-designed condo conversion that has adopted some of the most desperate tactics to drum up buyers in recent weeks. The building's developer, the Hakimian Organization, is now facing three separate suits from people now seeking an out, all filed by the New Jersey law firm of Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer. Whether any of them end up getting their money back remains to be seen. In the meantime, you can look over the suits for yourself after the jump.

If we're in the middle of a deep recession, no one has bothered to mention it to the management of The Pierre. The iconic hotel is reopening on June 1 after a lengthy renovation but it has no plans to adjust its prices for the downturn in the economy: A "classic room" will run $816 a night and suites are available for $1,640. Hurry up! These prices are only available if you book now; the hotel says it plans to raise them just as soon as the hotel opens. The very generous introductory special doesn't explain why the reservations line is currently picking up on the first ring, but, hey, it could have just been rare moment of downtime.

Here's an accessory that Andrew Cuomo should really consider keeping around the office so he's prepared the next time he grills another Wall Street CEO: the Truth Wristband Kit that was just released by Make magazine. How does it work? "The wearable device dynamically reflects your psycho-emotional response to the world, promoting internal states to be externalized and made into interactive forms of expression. Measuring the galvanic skin response (a marker of emotional arousal commonly used in lie detector tests), this device's lights turn from blue to red as the wearer becomes aroused." In other words, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and the boys at AIG don't stand a chance. [Make]

Andrew Cuomo has some fresh detail on where all those AIG bonuses were directed: The attorney general says 73 employees of the company received more than $1 million and one lucky AIGer took home a $6.4 million bonus. Sadly, he didn't list the recipients by name, so you won't be able to go over to their homes and ask for your money back. Not yet, at least. [NYT/Dealbook]

• Jon Stewart's smackdown of Jim Cramer last week generated some of the biggest ratings The Daily Show has ever seen, not surprisingly. [MediaPost]
• Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman has once again defied logic (and some of her Condé colleagues) by putting Sarah Palin on the cover of the new issue. [WWD]
• Condé Nast is expected to trim Richard Beckman's ad sales group. [AdAge]
• Liberal activists have launched a petition drive targeted at CNBC. [AP]
• ICM's Esther Newberg has sold a memoir by Paul Allen to Penguin. [Crains]
• More on Eric Siminoff's split from Lynn Nesbit and Mort Janklow. [NYO]
• Mel Karmazin sounds off on his fight to redeem Sirius and his rep. [Fortune]
• Ratings for Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice continue to slide. [AdAge]
• 60 Minutes is the "hottest show on TV." Who knew? [Newsweek]

It's no surprise to hear that plastic surgeons are hurting in this economy: A survey by the American Society for Aesthetic Surgery shows that cosmetic surgeries are down 15 percent over the past year. But don't worry, it's not like society is suddenly becoming less shallow and image obsessed. It turns out that more young people are getting stuff done than ever before, and boob jobs and liposuction are the most popular procedures. And plenty of new stuff is on the horizon, too, like the new fat-busting machine that performs a very creepy-sounding procedure called "cryolipolysis."

Notice to all investors who lost their money in Donald Trump's failed condo project in Mexico: You may be broke right now, but you can take heart in the fact that Ivanka Trump is no better off. Or at least that's what she claims in an interview with CBS in which she says she's "in the same boat" with investors who saw their down payments vanish when the project went belly up. Lame excuse? A Freudian slip that suggests the Trump family is worse off than anyone imagined? You decide! [CBS News]

AIG has sparked quite the scandal in recent days for paying out $165 million in bonuses even after accepting more than $150 billion in assistance from the U.S. government. Execs at the insurance giant maintain the company is legally bound to follow through with the payments since the bonuses were incorporated into contracts it signed last year. But that's not the only legal agreement that has AIG wasting its cash: The company continues to pay for the privilege of stamping its logo on the jerseys worn by Manchester United players, too.

When you see an article about the "moral costs" of counterfeiting luxury goods, you probably expect to read upsetting details about ten-year-olds in sweatshops working 18-hour days. But Harper's Bazaar has to keep its advertisers happy, which explains why the mag held an "anti-counterfeiting summit" this week, and explored the idea that Schenectady soccer moms might somehow be less likely to drop $50 on a replica Kate Spade purse if they thought it might disturb their own proud moral compass. The event featured a talk by Professor Dan Ariely of MIT and Duke, who presented a report called "Faking It: The Psychology of Dishonesty and Counterfeits," which explains how the mere act of wearing a fake makes you a bad person who will do bad things.

• Robert Hytner, who founded the defense contractor Information Manufacturing Corporation before selling the company in 2007, has paid $8.5 million for a three-bedroom apartment at 25 Central Park West. The seller was media exec Adam Klein. [Cityfile]
• Kenneth Martin, who retired as the CFO of the pharma maker Wyeth in 2007, and his wife Christine, paid $2.575 million for a 14th-floor apartment at 455 East 86th Street. [Cityfile]
• Andrew Bares and Alla Kormilitsyna have lowered the price of their five-floor townhouse at 311 West 74th Street, which they purchased from jazz legend George Wein for $4.7 million in 2007. Originally listed in November at $11.995 million, it's now on the market for $9.985 million. [Cityfile, TE]

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen turns 40 today. Rob Lowe is turning 45. Estée Lauder president John Demsey is 53. Kurt Russell is 58. The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan is turning 42. Actor Gary Sinise is turning 54. The Corrs' Caroline Corr is 36. Former U.S. Rep Cynthia McKinney is 54. Retired soccer star Mia Hamm is 37. And Ice-T's very shy, very modest wife, Nicole "CoCo" Austin, is turning 30.

• Carson Daly has two reasons to get wasted today: It's St. Patrick's Day, of course. Plus he and his girlfriend Siri Pinter are new parents, too. [People]
• Jon Stewart's secret weapon in his rumble with Jim Cramer last week? His brother, Larry Leibowitz, is a senior exec at NYSE Euronext. [P6]
• A judge recalled Lindsay Lohan's arrest warrant yesterday after seeing the proof that she hadn't stopped attending a court-ordered alcohol education class after all. Also: She hasn't checked into rehab again despite reports to the contrary. Not yet, at least. [NYDN, OK!]
• Natasha Richardson was hospitalized yesterday and is now in critical condition after a skiing accident in Montreal. [People]

• The epic fallout from AIG's decision to pay out bonuses enters a second day: Andrew Cuomo says he plans to subpoena company execs, the Obama administration is scrambling to cool emotions, but clearly his influence is limited. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has suggested that AIG execs follow a "Japanese model" and choose between "apology or suicide." [NYT, ABC, WSJ]
• Given the new restrictions on Wall Street bonuses, banks are now looking for loopholes and planning to boost base salaries to offset lower bonuses. [WSJ]
• Goldman Sachs is bailing out its own employees: It's offering to lend money to more than 1,000 employees who've been squeezed by the crisis. [NYT]
• Mortgage fraud is at an all-time high, but you probably figured that. [CNN]
• Unsurprisingly, banks are raising interest rates and cutting credit lines. [BN]
• Housing starts surged in February from a record low the month before. [BN]

Here's an unsettling ad campaign that will probably make it to NYC in the near future: A gym in the Netherlands configured a bus shelter so that the weight of the person sitting down on the bench is displayed for all to see. Painful, huh? But maybe this is the radical approach Gwyneth Paltrow should consider adopting given she's having so much trouble finding people to join her new gym in Tribeca? It's not like reminding the public at large that they're all fatter than her could do much more damage to her already battered reputation, could it? [Adfreak]