WIN $5 MILLION

The Knight News Challenge is a worldwide contest open to anyone.  It awards up to $5 million in funding for digital news experiments that involve people “in a specific geographic area” (as opposed to a “virtual” area).  Only 200 entrants met the criteria last year – this is not the lottery with 5 million players – of whom 26 collectively won more than $12 million.  (Here they are.)  The deadline for applications this year is Oct 15, 2007.  In my experience, you all brim with good ideas.  Who better to get some of this funding than you?  Check it out here.  And be sure to let us know if your proposal gets funded.  Our pride would know no bounds.

SALAD SPINNERS

First Marblehead backed off a bit yesterday, but with the stock pushing 40, options that cost 75 cents ten days ago fetched $4.40 last night.  And (famous last words, to be sure), they still have two more days to run.  My FMD guru writes:

The company should pretty easily get to the mid $5.00s in earnings in this fiscal year (of which 35% is essentially already baked).  As you and many others have pointed out.....Sallie Mae, currently sells at 19x earnings and is a much weaker company.  Let's assume, crazy as we are, that FMD somehow musters a 16x multiple (roughly a third of their current growth rate, I might add).  That gets you to $88 in a blink.  There is nothing new in the story line here.....except more and more evidence that the short case doesn't really exist.  The leading tool of the shorts [the analyst who finally changed his rating from SELL to HOLD and raised his price target $11 to $43], has just quietly deserted that camp.  There has to be an incredibly uncomfortable short squeeze coming down over the next couple of weeks.  

F Ten dozen short squeezes are predicted for every one that actually occurs, so I am not counting on anything.  But would you want to be short 9 million shares of a Motley Fool “Hidden Gem” growing 40% or 50% a year, paying a 3% cash dividend, and selling under 8 times likely earnings?

WHAT FOX CENSORED

Click here. 

STATEMENT OF THE REPUBLICAN MAYOR OF SAN DIEGO

Mayor Jerry Sanders yesterday:

With me this afternoon is my wife, Rana

I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the City Attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage.

My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart.

During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships.

I have personally wrestled with that position ever since.  My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly -- as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.

In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the Council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.

The arrival of the resolution -- to sign or veto -- in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do.

I have decided to lead with my heart -- to do what I think is right -- and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.

For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community.

As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage -- than anyone else -- simply because of their sexual orientation.

A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years.

I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case.

Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed.

The concept of a "separate but equal" institution is not something that I can support.

I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today.

All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.

I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.

I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones -- for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's wondrous adventures.

And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana.

Thank you.

F No, Mayor, thank you.