When most investors are down on a stock they own, they get depressed and sell.

Not so for Carl Icahn. Since he first bought shares of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: LGF) back in mid-2006, the stock has fallen from around $10 per share to the current price of just over $7. Now Icahn has doubled his stake in the film house to 9.2%. Lions Gate is best-known for hit movies including "Crash" and "Saw", along with TV shows such as "Weeds" and "Mad Men." Icahn may see tremendous value in the company's library of films.

Vice Chairman Michael Burns told (subscription required) The Wall Street Journal that "Mr. Icahn and Lions Gate seem to share a similar vision of the growing value of content as platforms increase delivery around the world."

It'll be interesting to see if Icahn gets active in this company. He has said that he views the company as underleveraged, but current market conditions may make it tough for the company to pursue some of Icahn's favorite value-creation strategies: borrowing money to buy back stock and/or pursuing a sale or merger.

The long-awaited blog of billionaire activist investor and sometime "corporate raider" Carl Icahn has gone live and the results are delightful. So far The Icahn Report has seven posts, none of which discuss his own holdings.

Much of what's on The Icahn Report will be familiar to anyone who has followed Icahn's grumblings about corporate governance in the past. Here's a great quote: "Poor corporate governance now threatens more than just potential shareholder value; it threatens this country's very economic survival."

The name of the post? "Corporate democracy is a myth."

The stuff on the site so far is classic Icahn -- nothing new, but a refreshing expose of corporate America nonetheless and talk you won't hear anywhere else. Normally talk about compensation gone wild is addressed as a populist issue, but Icahn discusses it the way it should be addressed: as a corporate governance issue.

If Icahn can keep up his blogging, the site could well become one of the most important financial blogs going. To learn more about the early part of Icahn's career, check out King Icahn -- one of the best out-of-print business books I've found.

I'd be thrilled to see future posts lashing out at management teams and directors at specific companies.

CNET (NASDAQ: CNET) is dodging corporate raiders who would like to replace its board. The company needed to post good results for the last quarter and a strong forecast.

Part of what CNET needed to accomplish happened. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $125.5 million, an 11% increase compared with the same period of 2006. Operating income totaled $20.9 million during the fourth quarter, up from $8.2 million in the year-ago quarter

The CNET net income results were strong, but they were helped by a $203 million tax gain.

On the negative side of the ledger, CNET's CFO moved on, without much explanation. And guidance for this year did not look very good. According to Barron's, "for Q1, the company sees revenue of $91 million to $95 million, with a pro forma EPS loss of 4-5 cents a share; the Street was looking for $98.7 million and a loss of a penny."

The weak forecast gives investors who want the board and management out more ammunition.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

A fund affiliated with restaurant super-investor Nelson Peltz has acquired a 14% stake in Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: CAKE), sending shares of the dining chain up 10% on Wednesday.

The company said that it "has had a preliminary conversation with Triarc (Pelz's firm) already, and looks forward to continuing that dialogue."

According (subscription required) to the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Peltz has bought stakes in several other restaurant and food companies, including Wendy's International Inc.(NYSE: WEN) and H.J. Heinz Co (NYSE: HNZ). At those companies, he has pressed directors and executives to sell brands, increase marketing or otherwise change their strategies in an effort to raise their stock prices. Mr. Peltz has said he prefers to work with existing management to effect change, though in the past his involvement has prompted reshuffling of company management and boards."

Cheesecake Factory has struggled to provide investors with strong returns over the past few years, and was scraping a multi-year low before the Petlz announcement sent the stock up.

BusinessWeek's Bob Reed wonders about Eddie Lampert's stewardship of Sears Holdings Corp. (NYSE: SHLD), the parent company of Sears and Kmart. While investors were buoyant about the company's prospects less than a year ago, due largely to Lampert's stellar track record as a hedge fund manager, things have soured. Sears has reported lackluster results, and the retail turnaround appears to be like most so-called turnarounds: not much is turning. Meanwhile, the stock is down about a third from its high.

Reed has this to say about the future of the company: First, consider this possibility: Lampert makes good on his word that he is going to transform Sears Holdings into a dynamic, successful retailer. He pours cash -- lots of it -- into operations, stores, and marketing. More important, he hires a top-notch merchant, a superstar executive to spotlight the five, six, or seven core retail strengths that Sears still possesses, and then embarks on a 5- to 10-year rebuilding effort.

The chances of Lampert signing on for this action? Slim to none. Spending tons of money for a far-off and uncertain payback are not part of his hedge fund manager DNA.

Exactly. His well-documented investment prowess aside, Sears is looking like it could be to Lampert what TWA was to Carl Icahn. A brilliant financial mind takes over the reins of a large, troubled company, and his tightfistedness combined with his lack of operational expertise combine to make an effective turnaround impossible, and shareholders suffer.

Carl Icahn is using the press to indicate that he may take another run at getting Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to dump its CEO and increase its dividend or share buyback. At $19, the company's shares may be up a little, but are still well down from their 52-week high of more than $26.

In an interview with the FT, Icahn said "There is value there, and if that value doesn't manifest itself I, as an activist, would think very seriously about coming back." Icahn has had one unsuccessful proxy fight with Motorola already. He attempted to get on the company's board but was pushed back by management and current board members.

Icahn may have picked the perfect time to push for getting the company to change its ways. Motorola handset sales have been sliding sharply and this caused the company to lose money last quarter. Samsung has passed Motorola as the world's No.2 cellphone maker behind Nokia (NYSE: NOK).Recent third quarter results from Samsung and Sony Ericsson show that their unit sales continue to rise sharply.

All of this improvement in the fortunes of Motorola's competitors mean that it could have another bad quarter. That may cause large investors in the company to finally lose their patience. At that point, Mr. Icahn may be viewed at an excellent board member and agent of some radical change.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

If Carl Icahn wins a seat on Motorola Inc.'s (NYSE: MOT) board of directors, Chief Executive Ed Zander will be looking for another job. That might happen if Icahn looses too.

The billionaire activist investor today stepped up his campaign against Zander ahead of the company's annual meeting on Monday with full-page advertisements blasting the embattled CEO, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). He criticized comments Zander reportedly made about "hating" his customers as being "straight out of Alice in Wonderland."

How Zander and Icahn will be able to work together if the one-time corporate raider prevails is beyond me. I also wonder how effective Zander can be following Ichan's brutal proxy fight.

In an effort at damage control, Motorola said Zander was "joking" about "hating" Motorola's customers, the Journal said. Shareholders, though, seriously have found little to like about Motorola who stock has plunged more than 18% this year. The company's recent first quarter earnings were lousy and the second quarter isn't looking that great either.

Though proxy battles aren't easy to win, Icahn stands a good chance of prevailing with Motorola. Icahn probably wouldn't stay on the board for long anyway if he won. He doesn't seem to operating companies as much as shaking them up.

With the pending departure of Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE:BBI) Chief Executive John Antioco, the question isn't if the video rental chain gets bought out but when and at what price.

Private equity firms would love Blockbuster. Cash flow from operations was $329.4 million last year compared with a $70.5 million deficit in 2005 thanks to the surging popularity of its Blockbuster Total Access, which allows customers to return DVDs via mail like Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) or at a store.

Video rental isn't dead yet. Buying DVDs of all of the movies you want to watch doesn't make sense and you can't always find the movies you want from video-on-demand services from cable companies. Carl Icahn told me a few years ago that he was a devoted Blockbuster customer when I interviewed him for Bloomberg News in the middle of his proxy fight for the company. Obviously, he isn't alone.

During the fight, Icahn justifiably argued that Antioco was overpaid. A few weeks ago, the company said its board and Antioco were having a dispute over his 2006 bonus. You didn't have to much of a psychic to see that his time at Blockbuster was coming to an end.

Still, Antioco is getting a sweet deal even though it was less than he would have gotten under the terms of his existing contract. He's walking away with a $24.7 million package, plus 5 million stock options that vest by Dec. 31 and can be exercised for the following 30 months, according to Reuters.

Blockbuster shares have more than doubled over the past year, which isn't bad for a company that many people including yours truly had given up for dead. Antioco deserves credit for keeping the faith though Blockbuster's future is still uncertain.

Still, it's amazing he stayed on the job as long as he did.

.