The Wall Street bailout act failed to pass. One imagines the well-padded VCs of Sand Hill Road smirking: "How sad!" Congress will surely have another go, with more lobbyist-written provisions and earmarks to grease the wheels. It all seems so far away from Silicon Valley, the mostly debt-free innovation machine. But if investors here had any sense, they'd be padding the halls of the Capitol, palms out.What is a stake in a Web 2.0 startup if not a toxic investment, waiting to be written off. And why aren't the pension funds and college endowments marking to market the fliers they took on venture capital? Conspiracy theorists too paranoid to read Snopes.com believe that Facebook is secretly run by the CIA anyway; why not rescue Microsoft and the other investors who bought in at a $15 billion valuation, and make it official? (Photo by Laurel Fan)