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Subaru Rally Team USA yesterday revealed their 2010 driver lineup, with four-time Rally America National Champion Travis Pastrana and BMX Freestyle legend Dave Mirra each piloting a 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STI rally car prepared by Subaru technical partner Vermont SportsCar.

The team will compete in the 2010 Rally America National Championship and ESPN’s X Games 16 Rally Car Racing event, and it will also take part in Rally America’s new European-style Rally Cross exhibition event… (read more)

Wal-Mart has tried twice to deliver movies and TV shows to its customers. Is it ready to try again?

Maybe. Sources tell me Web video startup Vudu is in “meaningful” acquisition discussions, and industry executives believe Wal-Mart is the likely buyer.

Vudu executives declined to comment. I’ve lobbed a call into the Wal-Mart (WMT) press center but haven’t heard back.

It’s a deal that makes some sense on paper: Vudu is one of many services that gives consumers a chance to rent or buy movies over the Web, but it hasn’t gotten much traction. “It’s a beautiful product and a really great service, in need of distribution,” says a person familiar with the company.

And Wal-Mart has tried video delivery twice before but backed away each time. Acquiring a tech team at the right price could help it make a third effort.

After trying for two years to compete with Netflix’ (NFLX) DVD-by-mail business, Wal-Mart gave up in 2005, and agreed to send its customers directly to Netflix. In 2007, with the backing of all the big studios and tech help from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), it tried to launch a download service, a la Apple’s iTunes (AAPL). But it abandoned it in less than a year.

Meanwhile, sources say Vudu has been seeking a buyer — in the form of either a big box retailer or an electronics manufacturer –  for some time without success. Internet executive Mark Jung ran the company for a year but left in November 2008; founder Alain Rossmann became interim CEO when Jung left and has kept the title since then.

Santa Clara-based Vudu has raised at least $21 million from Benchmark Capital and Greylock Partners. I’m told that when the company was marketing itself last fall, it was looking for a sale price of $50 million or more. But it may not have much leverage to command a premium.

Vudu started out by marketing an Internet-connected box that consumers plugged into their TVs, but that offering seemed to underwhelm customers (as well as All Things D’s Katie Boehret). It is now focused on building that technology directly into TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players, and marketing itself as a Netflix-like service.

The company’s supposed strengths are a video compression technology that makes it feasible to stream movies in high definition, and a peer-to-peer architecture that cuts down the cost of delivering the the large files.

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CNN’s Larry King Live had scrapped a planned TV interview with reality star Tila Tequila after an ex-girlfriend of socialite Casey Johnson served the newsman with a threat of legal action.

Larry had been scheduled to interview the bisexual vamp about her relationship with the recently-deceased Johnson & Johnson heiress. However, attorneys for Jasmine Lennard issued a warning to King, the producers of Larry King Live and TV network CNN, which airs his daily show, threatening action if Tequila defamed their client on the program.

In a letter to King and his producers, obtained by TMZ, the attorneys warned them not to let Tequila use the show as “a platform to make further false and defamatory allegations” about Lennard. “These include making allegations suggesting Lennard has a criminal record or outstanding warrant, among other sensational claims,” the letter continued.

Tila is trapped in a legal dispute wit Lennard over a scathing online blog she posted blasting the model last week.

Johnson’s family opposed King’s plans to interview Tequila about her fiancee’s death.

Kimi Raikkonen may seem optimistic about his chances to return to Formula One when he pleases, but some of the F1 pundits beg to differ. One of them is former racer in the series Johnny Herbert, who is anything but convinced Raikkonen will have an easy task finding a seat in 2010.

One reason for that is that Raikkonen doesn’t want just a regular seat, but a winning one. And all positions already seem covered for the 2011 season, apart from Red Bull’s Mark Webber (whose deal with t… (read more)

Scott Brown, the insurgent GOP candidate in the Massachusetts special Senate election, had an amazing night last night.

In a sign of the intensity of his support, and the interest in his campaign — which could potentially derail historic healthcare reform — he raised over $1 million in online donations last night.

Of course, other politicians have had amazing online fundraising operations (think Ron Paul, Howard Dean) with little to show for it on election day.

But then, Brown does have the poll numbers to back things up. The election is a week from today. Get ready for a wild sprint.

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See Also:

• SHOCK: Poll Has GOP Candidate Now Leading In Massachusetts Senate Race
• Panicked Healthcare Lobbyists Descend On Massachusetts To Save The 60th Democratic Vote For Reform
• Upset In Massachusetts Special Senate Race May Be The Political Earthquake Of 2010

A study came out today saying that electric cars–both battery electric and plug-in hybrids–would make up as much as 16-percent of new car sales in New York City come 2015. That’s roughly 70,000 vehicles.

But what’s driving these EV sales? Governments are expected to impose higher restrictions on CO2 emissions, for one. Plus, subsidies and tax benefits for EVs are expected to increase.

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It’s cold and snowy outside, and we would like to give our breakfast egg a little zing and a kick for extra warmth. These deep-fried eggs are a little work-intensive for a weekday morning, but oh they look so good!

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In a previous post back in September, ValueExpectations.com provided an analysis of the main holdings from Berkshire Hathaway and how each company was viewed according to The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG’s) valuation model and Economic margin methodology. The 29 top holdings of Berkshire were divided into 3 buckets (Attractive, Fairly Valued and Unattractive) based on how each company ranked according to key AFG criteria including valuation.

Thus far each bucket of companies has performed just as expected.

Return Information from 9-29-09 to 1-7-10:

Attractive Co’s = 10.60%

Fairly Valued Co’s= 7.59%

S&P500 = 7.16%

Unattractive Co’s= 6.57%

The companies AFG labeled as attractive outperformed both other buckets, the fairly valued companies performed in-line with the S&P 500 and the unattractive companies underperformed the rest.

Click here to view the original article with the breakdown of Berkshire’s 29 top holdings.

Also we recently issued articles discussing Warren Buffett’s acquisition of BNI and his decision to oppose Kraft’s bid to issue more shares to fund its deal to acquire British candy maker Cadbury. ValueExpectations.com presented the case for each acquisition, both of which ultimately came to the same conclusion as Buffett.

Berkshire’s acquisition of BNI (which had been a holding in The AFG 50 that was purchased in June of 2004 with a target price of $120) is one of the few that we approved of given AFG’s extensive background in acquisition analysis. More often than not the acquiring company pays too high a premium for the target company, resulting in excessive expectations that may not be attainable. However, we have to agree with Buffett in the BNI acquisition as Berkshire was buying a great company at a price justified by very reasonable future expectations.

Also VE.com released a few articles discussing disapproval for Kraft’s bid to acquire Cadbury saying the deal made no sense as what Kraft offered was much higher than the expected benefits Kraft would receive by acquiring Cadbury. Our thoughts on this deal were then backed up by Buffett’s opposition to the deal a few weeks later.

We think Buffett ought to take some well-deserved time off to play bridge with Bill Gates, and leave it to VE.com to provide valuable insights on the equity market.

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It’s not like last Friday’s disappointing jobs data needs more folks to point out what a flop it was, but Albert Edwards, the SocGen uber-bear, has an interesting take.

In a research note, he discusses the significance between the divergence between the establishment data and the household survey.

Take a look, via ZeroHedge:

The 85,000 decline in December’s non-farm payrolls jolted (briefly) the markets back to reality. For it had almost been forgotten in the post-November payroll euphoria that we remain in the midst of a long-lasting balance sheet recession. Yet surprisingly weak though the December payrolls were, this disappointment pales into insignificance compared with the massive 589,000 decline in employment as measured by the Household Survey (the monthly Employment Report contains surveys of both Households and Company Establishments each month). Typically the employment measure preferred by the markets is the payroll data collected from the Establishment Survey, as it tends to be less volatile on a monthly basis (but the unemployment rate data is derived from the alternative Household Survey).

Although the household measure of jobs is typically more volatile on a month-on-month basis, it is notable how it has seen a far more marginal improvement on a trend basis when compared to the payroll series (see chart below), and just how bad Decembers outturn was.

Which of these indicators should one be following?

Typically, at turning points, the Household Survey measure of employment growth tends to be a leading indicator of the payroll data. Payrolls often get revised much later to fall into line with the Household Survey measure. One key difference between the two surveys is the difficulty the Establishment Survey measure of employment has in picking up what is going on in the smaller company sector. These diverging trends appear to be particularly wide at present (see chart below).

Thus the Friday numbers, far from being a huge shock, were entirely consistent with what we’ve been seeing for awhile. There’s just no recovery at the small business level in terms of sentiment, credit, or hiring. In fact, what these charts show is that there was optimism, and there was a slowdown in firing, but that’s stalled, so you can’t argue that it’s simply a matter of small business not yet having turned the corner, to so speak.

You hear over and over again about how small business is the key to the recovery. Politicians love to say it. Too bad putting that into practice is a different matter entirely.

Read the rest of the report at ZeroHedge — >

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See Also:

• Small Business Conditions Horrible Again In December, And That’s A Bleak Sign For Employment
• Small Business Bankruptcies Shoot Up 81% In California
• The Small Business Carnage That Shows The Real Reason Jobs Aren’t Being Created In America

While most carmakers are displaying their latest goodies at the 2010 NAIAS, Nissan is planning to debut its new crossover at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show in March. Nevertheless, the Japanese manufacturer gives its best to keep things secret when it comes to the appearance of the production model.

But here are a couple of computer-generated images (CGIs) supposed to give us a glimpse into how the future model will look like. Codenamed Juke, the crossover will be smaller than the … (read more)

Alexandra Zendrian, 01.12.10, 06:00 AM EST

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The Kraft/Cadbury deal might look good on the outside, but it has the potential to be soft on the inside.

Investors watching the Kraft and Cadbury merger dance might be salivating, but there’s reason to believe that it’s all much ado about nougat and that it could fall apart like a crème egg on Easter Sunday.

In the latest news on the potential chocolate and cheese combination, Kraft Foods Inc. ( KFT – news – people ) sold one of its American pizza units to Nestle ( NSRGY.PK – news – people ) for $3.7 billion. This cash can be put toward its acquisition of Cadbury ( CBY – news – people ). Kraft has been working to sweeten its offer to Cadbury and will approach the chocolate company with a new bid before Jan. 16. (See “Cash For Cadbury, Pizza For Nestle.”)

For Cadbury, a merger would helpful.

“With cocoa having moved from 2200 metric tons to 3244 metric tons in the last year, any economies of scale through size and efficiencies would make rising commodity prices less of a factor,” says LPL Financial Chief Investment Officer Burt White. This might even allow Cadbury to better set prices in the market and undercut its competitors, he adds.

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The Bachelor beauty accused of bedding a show staffer while romancing pilot Jake Palveka says the sex rumors are a “blatant” lie.

Rozlyn Papa, a 28-year-old divorced mom, denies she was sleeping with one of the show’s producers in a shocking turn of events that sparked this season’s so-called “Bachelor Scandal.”

“I absolutely feel betrayed by the show. … They want the ratings, and that’s what they’re getting,” Rozlyn told Entertainment Tonight Monday. “This seeps into my personal life. I have a 7-year-old little boy at home that I want to look up to me, and to have this blatant lie out there perpetuated by the show itself, it’s hurtful. It’s scary to think what my son will think of me.”

Last week, Jake confirmed the rumors of an affair.

“Why would you go on national television and throw a mom under the bus like that?” Papa said, insisting that her relationship with the producer — who has since been fired by ABC — was nothing more than a friendship.

Luke Timmerman wrote:

VentiRx Pharmaceuticals has raised a venti-sized load of new cash. The San Diego and Seattle-based company that’s developing drugs to amplify the body’s innate immune system to fight cancer and allergies has pulled in $25 million through a new round of financing.

The deal is technically described as an extension of a $26.6 million Series A financing that VentiRx received in March 2007, meaning the company has now raised $51.6 million in the total round. The extension, which allows investors to buy VentiRx shares at the same price as they did before, was led by new investor MedImmune Ventures, while existing investors Arch Venture Partners, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and Domain Associates all participated again. Maggie Flanagan LeFlore of MedImmune Ventures is joining the VentiRx board in connection with the deal.

The big idea at VentiRx, which I described in a detailed feature almost exactly one year ago, is to create conventional small molecule drugs that stimulate Toll-like receptors (TLRs), particularly one called TLR8. The family of TLRs are key components of the body’s innate immune system—the first-line defense that recognizes foreign invaders at their point of entry under the skin, in the mucus linings of the nose, and in the gut. VentiRx has developed one candidate for cancer that’s finishing an early-stage clinical trial, and another candidate for allergies that has passed an initial safety study. The new money is being used to move ahead with a pair of more rigorous, mid-stage clinical trials of both drugs this year which should establish whether they have proven this new concept of fighting cancer and allergies by stimulating TLR8.

“We view this as the last financing we’ll need before liquidity at VentiRx, whether it comes through an acquisition, an IPO, or a Big Pharma partnership,” says Michael Kamdar, the company’s executive vice president and chief business officer.

Michael Kamdar

VentiRx hasn’t come out publicly with hard data to support its scientific approach, but the findings will be available this year, Kamdar says. The company was able to secure the new round of funding after seeing signs that its cancer drug appears to stimulate an effect known as antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity, which means it could help improve upon with antibody drugs for cancer like rituximab (Rituxan) or cetuximab (Erbitux), Kamdar says.

He noted that AstraZeneca, the parent company of MedImmune Ventures, has a longstanding interest in TLR biology, and has internal programs that look at different TLRs, such as TLR7 and TLR9, but not the same target as VentiRx, Kamdar says. Flanagan LeFlore added …Next Page »

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We’ve covered in great detail how DigiProtect purposely seeds files of content from its copyright holding partners, in order to send anyone who downloads the content a “pre-settlement” letter that seems not very different from the traditional extortion “protection” rackets (“pay us, or we’ll sue.”) Those who don’t pay are actually discovering that the pre-settlement letters may be handed over to collections agencies despite no agreement to pay nor a court order requiring payment. It turns out this shakedown business is quite profitable but of very questionable legality.

A new report in Germany is suggesting that DigiProtect and a few similar firms in Europe may have sent out 450,000 such letters last year. Unfortunately, NewTeeVee, in reporting on this, claims that each of these are “P2P lawsuits,” but that’s not true (and a large part of the problem). Nearly every one of these letters are sent without any corresponding lawsuit. The whole idea is to shake people down by threatening a lawsuit, but never having to go through the expense of filing one (or the trouble of actually proving the infringement — which is a big deal since many, many, many bogus letters have been generated, snaring many innocent users). But, with little in the way of penalties for such bogus pre-settlement letters, there’s simply no reason not to keep sending them. Apparently, enough people just pay up to make this an incredibly profitable business.

However, with the massive increase in such letters, and increasing scrutiny about the whole practice, you have to wonder when European governments will start to crack down on this behavior. It’s difficult to see anyone defending these actions with a straight face. They clearly have nothing to do with preventing file sharing or unauthorized use of content, but are very much about just getting people to pay up under the threat of a lawsuit.

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