Investors with long time horizons (the relatively young, or institutions) are, for the first time in almost two decades, confronting attractive, although not sensationally attractive, market valuations. There are, nevertheless, formidable pressures for further falls in valuations, as leveraged players continue to be forced to offload assets at bargain prices.

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Why fairly valued stock markets are an opportunity

This afternoon, at an empty Norwich Superior Court, Julie pled to the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, in a deal negotiated by her pro-bono attorney, William Dow.

Her fine was a $100 charge, and her Connecticut teaching credentials are revoked (Julie told me she really doesn’t care, that she has no plans ever to teach in that state again).

I wish the whole thing had been dropped by the prosecution. But that was just not something they were willing to do. And Julie needed her life back.

Justice can be almost impossible to reach in our system.

Sunbelt Blog: BREAKING -- The Julie Amero horror is over

"Photos like nude shots of someone's spouse are not the only sensitive data on a smartphone," Tom Cross, IBM X-force researcher, told InternetNews.com.

How often do you get a quote like that?

InternetNews Realtime IT News - Nude Photos on iPhone a Wakeup Call

This was the largest two-day advance since 1987, and, more importantly, the rest of the entire list is populated by the Great Depression.

Huge rallies are not necessarily a good sign. About half the time they occur on the way down.

Paul Kedrosky: List of Biggest Two-Day Dow Advances: New Entry

Wendy Whitaker, 29, has been on Georgia’s sex offender list for more than 12 years. Her crime? She performed oral sex on a high school classmate just after turning 17. The boy was just shy of his 16th birthday. Both were sophomores.

Georgia continues to be the dumbest place on the planet.

The Agitator » Blog Archive » Woman May Lose Home Over Decade-Old Blowjob

Twitpay was one of several projects in development at Startup Weekend, held November 7-9 in Atlanta, Georgia. The event brought together more than 100 programmers, marketers and designers who tried to create new companies from scratch in less than three days.

Atlanta Startup Weekend was a fantastic experience. I expected it to be more structured, but its a good feeling to team up with a group of smart people and produce something useful over the course of a weekend. More hacking less talking. I helped create Twitpay which enables users to send money over Twitter. Check it out!

How to launch a tech company in one weekend - CNN.com

Mr. Kirsch, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, saw a way to ensure that the next generation of entrepreneurs could avoid the problems of that bubble, or “at least make new mistakes”: He would document what did and didn’t work during the flurry of business activity around the new technology called the Internet.

In June of that year, he started the Digital Archive of the Birth of the Dot Com Era, usually called the Dot Com Archive (dotcomarchive.org). Shortly thereafter, a partner of a venture capital firm that was closing its doors donated every business plan that the firm had received from 1999 to 2002 — documents covering some 1,100 companies.

Prototype - Lessons of Survival, From the Dot-Com Attic - NYTimes.com

The items listed on the new page are basically the same as before, but they are more tightly written and no longer include derogatory statements about the Bush administration such as: "The Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history." Apparently, that's now a secret.

Change.gov ‘Agenda’ Pages Are Back - ProPublica

American cars are perceived to be not as reliable as their Asian counterparts and not as refined as their European competitors.

The former reputation might not be well deserved. I have a Ford still on the road after 150k and I was told it would be dead by now. Fixing it up is still cheaper than replacing it and I think it has a long way to go. I think people tend to trash their car's interior or paint long before the Engines become impossible to maintain. However, you don't build a reputation as a maker of reliable vehicles until people are driving vehicles that you made long after their supposed shelf life, and it takes a long time to establish such a reputation.

As for the later issue, driving in Europe/Japan and the US is very different. Europeans drive smaller cars around old cities. Long road trips are not fathomable on the scale you see in the US without multiple border crossings and even then, why not take the train? (Same is true for Japan.) A typical American car would be worse than useless in a European city. The European cars that tend to make it over here are luxury vehicles that are prized for their refinement rather than their general utility. Normal Europeans do not drive Ferraris or BMW 7 series. I don't think the big three really compete with BMW/Mercedes/Lexus, and we have precious few brands that hold a candle to European super cars, principally the Corvette, which does have the advantage of being accessible to the average guy and not designed primarily for purchase by dukes and lords.

What we do well is allowing people to express themselves with their vehicles. Big Hemis, Redneck pickup trucks, bling Escalades, fun Jeeps, these are cars that are worn more than driven. Toyota Corollas hardly have the same personality, although Toyota seems to have figured this out. Whether you want an American car or an Asian car remains mostly a question of whether you want a car that is fun or practical.

I do think the government, particularly California, has fucked both electric vehicles and diesel by pushing the technologies too hard, although both seem to be catching up and I think both make a lot of sense technically.

I think, basically, the big three were not set up financially to see a massive demand collapse, and that is exactly what happened. It is happening across the board. It is certainly the case that the Japanese government, near the end of its massive financial crisis, has thrown money at it's auto makers. It is also the case that an abrupt bankruptcy of the big three would have significant systemic effects in the economy. This is a great way to kick off having large groups of homeless unemployed roaming the country for our Great Depression 2.0. I understand the case for these bailouts WAY better than I understand the case for TARP. So I'm not too troubled by the prospect of giving them loans. There may be a time/place to take them off life support, but this isn't it.

RE: Show Of Hands

The ultimate recommendation of this article makes no sense:

Polarization along party lines may be uncomfortable, but the parties now actually stand for something, and it makes more sense than ever to stand with one of them.

It does not follow that you ought to stand by a party simply because parties stand for something. In fact, you cannot stand by either of these parties unless you accept, whole cloth, all or nearly all of the positions that party supports. Most partisans will gladly argue any of their party's positions and eagerly insist that anyone who raises but a moments doubt about any of those positions must surely be a hard line partisan of the opposite variety. Such thinking is not the product of objective consideration of facts nor reality but rather it represents deciding what party one belongs to before deciding what one thinks about politics. Anti-partisanship is a natural counter reaction to the idiotic, peer-pressured, identity groupthink that has all but conquered the American scene.

RE: On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties & Partisanship