My friend, Ana Sami, wrote a piece for Al Arabiyah prior to the Iranian elections, discussing the role of the youth there.  Given that university students have been both the focus of government attacks, and the main, on-the-street, Twitter-assisted organizers of the stree protests, I thought it was worth highlighting this paragraph:

A noteworthy implication of Iran's youthful population includes timing. Currently, Iran's population while now old enough to understand and participate in politics, cannot be held accountable or claim loyalty to a government they never chose. While their parents' generation cannot be held fully responsible for what was to become of the revolution, they can at a minimum claim political participation and activism to change a way of life they knew and rebelled against.

The bold reactions and content of criticism surrounding the candidates from within Iran's youthful population is striking considering previous protests and the consequences that followed.

Read the whole thing here.

Scientists and outdoorsmen began to warn of danger, but they were ignored by both the Boulder public -- which was sentimentally attached to the idea of free-roaming wildlife -- and state wildlife-protection bureaucrats, who downplayed first the presence, and then the danger, posed by the cougars. Dogs and cats started being eaten, cougars started threatening people, and yet meetings on the subject were dominated by people who "came to speak for the cougars."

A couple of things. First, we've been in a declining long-term interest rate environment for a long time. This is a huge plus for the economy is a number of ways, large and small. Second, that time is probably over. It doesn't necessarily mean we're headed for a period like the mid-50s to the mid-70s, but there just isn't much room for rate to decline, even if they wanted to.

Third, rates are still at historic lows, and we've seen quick increases even during the last 20 years when the trend was down, so there's not necessarily reason to panic just yet.

Fourth, the middle part of that graph should remind us all just how quickly things can get out of control.

The report "has some substantial findings," said Xianfang Ren, an analyst with IHS Global Insight. She said the issues it raised -- funding delays and not enough stimulus for small- and medium-size enterprises -- are big problems that have long been suspected. The report also raised the matter of speculative bill financing, which occurs when borrowers use loans not for working capital but to buy stocks or speculate in other assets.

In a report on China's banks published Thursday, Fitch said it is seeing warning signals from the Chinese banking system. Chinese lenders have been downgrading more "special mention" loans, those that are considered about to default, to nonperforming status, marking them as bad debt, said Charlene Chu, a senior director at Fitch Ratings China and an author of the report.

Chinese banks also have been increasing provisions for losses on unimpaired loans, indicating that "the banks themselves see greater losses down the line in loans that are currently performing," Ms. Chu said.

The report added to earlier warnings from the credit rater that lending quality in China is weakening.

• Powerline has the pro-Sotomayor talking points, and the Lawyers' eval from the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary
  
• Scotusblog has responses to some of the predicted criticisms.
• The Volokh Conspiracy wonders how this will play out among Hispanics.
• Ann Althouse has a bunch of stuff
• Rush Limbaugh's strategic advice for Republicans
• Why she's glad Sotomayor is the nominee
• There's some back-and-forth between Althouse and Jeffrey Rosen, although to be fair, Althouse isn't really engaging in an all-out debate here
  
• Rosen's initial critique of Sotomayor
• Althouse's response
• Rosen's defense of his piece
• Stuart Taylor on Sotomayor's embrace of Democratic-Left identity politics
• At Volokh, Jonathan Adler's take on Sotomayor's problematic comments
• And via Orin Kerr at Volokh, the relevant portions of her speech, and a link to the whole thing
• The Anchoress has her own comments, and a series of links, as well
• Ed Whelan's earlier research, Part 1 and Part 2

Lost coverage can be meaningful not just to smaller companies but to their investors. Analysts link corporate management with both institutional and, to a lesser degree, retail investors. Though they are faulted at times for being too cozy with companies and too bullish on their stocks, analysts build a mosaic of information and analysis that can help drive interest in a particular company. The good ones do an even better job of understanding when corporate operations are struggling and thus warn investors away.

...

Scholastic Inc., a publisher of children's books including the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter series, has lost coverage from Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup, among others, leaving only three analysts still tracking the company. One result: company executives now spend more time on the road, meeting with potential institutional investors, since Scholastic has fewer Wall Street analysts to pitch their story.

"It has changed how we communicate with investors," says Jeffrey Mathews, Scholastic's vice president of corporate strategy and investor relations. "We spend much more time with institutional investors than we did five years ago." Goldman said the Scholastic analyst left the firm and coverage was dropped. Citigroup declined to say why it stopped following the company and J.P. Morgan declined to comment.