Lehman Still Doing Deals in a Second Life on Wall Street

January 11th, 2012

Via: New York Times:

Things that refuse to die include Dracula, fungus, Jason from the “Friday the 13th” movies, zombies — and Lehman Brothers.

You would probably like to forget Lehman in the wake of its collapse in 2008, an event that set off a near Armageddon in the financial world. Lehman filed for bankruptcy and soon afterward its investment banking arm was sold to Barclays of Britain for $250 million. That same week, Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch and most likely overpaid by tens of billions.

Like all good horror villains, Lehman still exists, sort of. The Lehman Brothers estate is in its fourth year of administration in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. It’s the largest bankruptcy in history, involving the liquidation of $65 billion in assets. As of October, the estate had made substantial progress settling almost $100 billion in claims.

Yet Lehman still has about $40 billion in assets to unwind. Not only is Lehman the largest bankruptcy in history, it is possibly the most complex, with multiple proceedings, including bankruptcies in Britain, the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong. The Lehman estate has paid well over $1 billion in fees and expenses.

The Lehman estate is even scheduled to exit bankruptcy soon, but don’t think this will end the story. Lehman is looking to get bigger.


Iran Car Explosion Kills Nuclear Scientist in Tehran

January 11th, 2012

Via: BBC:

A university lecturer and nuclear scientist has been killed in a car explosion in north Tehran, reports say.

Iranian media sources named the casualty as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an academic who also worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

The blast happened after a motorcyclist stuck an apparent bomb to the car, said Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years, with Iran blaming Israel and the US.

Both countries deny the accusations.

Iran’s Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state television that the attack against Mr Ahmadi-Roshan would not stop “progress” in the country’s nuclear programme.

He called the killing “evidence of [foreign] government-sponsored terrorism”.

Local sources said Wednesday’s blast took place at a faculty of Iran’s Allameh Tabatai university.

Two others were reportedly also injured in the blast, which took place near Gol Nabi Street, in the north of the capital.


U.S. Army Routinely Monitors Social Media and Prepares Sentiment Briefs for Public Affairs Personnel

January 11th, 2012

Via: Politico:

News coverage of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s legal hearing last month on charges of being a key source for WikiLeaks was generally ‘negative’ but ‘balanced and factual,’ according to daily summaries of the proceedings prepared by Army public affairs personnel.

The Army flacks also took a keen interest in news coverage of former Lt. Dan Choi’s ejection from Fort Meade, the Maryland Army base where the weeklong hearing took place. “Since former Lt. Dan Choi’s disturbance outside of the courtroom there have been 118 print and online stories; and 67 social network conversations in reference to the incident,” one day’s report says. There’s also a link to video of an interview Current TV’s Keith Olbermann did with Choi about the episode that led to him being wrestled to the ground and kicked off the base.

The Army used a commercial service called VOCUS to track traditional and social media coverage of Manning’s hearing. The Pentagon pays close attention to the volume of tweets about the U.S. military during high-profile incidents, like the Air Force One flyover that distressed New York City residents in 2009. A spokeswoman told government technology site NextGov later that year that the Army monitors social media sites only on an episodic basis.


Mass Suicide Threats at Foxconn Xbox 360 Plant

January 11th, 2012

Foxconn has a plan to deal with these pesky meatsacks, and I don’t mean suicide prevention nets.

Foxconn Wants to Build “Intelligent Robotics Kingdom” to Replace Human Workers with Robots

Foxconn: 1 Million Robots in 3 Years

Via: Kotaku:

On Jan. 2, over 300 employees at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China threatened to throw themselves off a building in a mass suicide. Foxconn makes Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony products. These workers manufacture Xbox 360s.

According to Chinese anti-government website China Jasmine Revolution (via Watch China Times), the workers were protesting denied compensation they were promised.

On Jan. 2, the workers asked for a raise. Foxconn told them they could either keep their jobs with no pay increase or quit and get compensation. Most decided to quit with compensation. However, the agreement was supposedly terminated, and the workers never received their payments.

Website Record China reported that the uproar the incident actually caused Xbox 360 production to be temporarily suspended.

The mayor of Wuhan intervened to talk the group down, and on Jan. 3 at 9pm, the group of 300 decided not to jump, ending what could have been a deadly game of chicken.


Flashback 2002: 9/11 Hijackers Passports Were Issued by the CIA – U.S. Consulate Whistleblower

January 11th, 2012

Click through for several links related to U.S. State Department whistleblower Michael Springman.

Via: YouTube – Michael Springman, National Press Club, June 10, 2002:


U.S. Claims Immunity from Lawsuit Brought by Victims of Medical Atrocities in Guatemala

January 11th, 2012

Via: CNN:

The United States has rejected the grounds of a lawsuit stemming from experiments involving sexually transmitted diseases and human subjects in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948.

At the same time, the government announced increased aid to Guatemala to fight STDs.

In its first response to the class-action lawsuit filed last March by the alleged victims and their heirs, the U.S. government argued that it is immune to such a lawsuit, in a motion to dismiss the suit filed Monday night.

Because the harm was suffered in a foreign country, and because the Guatemalans have not exhausted other administrative solutions, the United States has sovereign immunity under the Federal Tort Claims Act, it said in the motion.

The government said the Supreme Court has “clarified” that the immunity statute “bars all claims based on any injury suffered in a foreign country, regardless of where the tortuous act or omission occurred.”

The United States has apologized for the study, and President Barack Obama asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to look into the details of the research and to assure him that current rules protect people from unethical treatment.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it will invest about $1.8 million to aid the treatment and prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala.


Bacteria in the Gut of Autistic Children Different from Non-Autistic Children

January 10th, 2012

Via: Medical Express:

Earlier work has revealed that autistic individuals with gastrointestinal symptoms often exhibit inflammation and other abnormalities in their upper and lower intestinal tracts. However, scientists do not know what causes the inflammation or how the condition relates to the developmental disorders that characterize autism. The research results appearing in mBio indicate the communities of microorganisms that reside in the gut of autistic children with gastrointestinal problems are different than the communities of non-autistic children. Whether or not these differences are a cause or effect of autism remains to be seen.

Related:

Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia by Natasha Campbell-McBride

Gut Microbes and Diabetes

Research Credit: JS


Drones Now Make Up Nearly One-Third of U.S. Military Aircraft

January 10th, 2012

Via: Wired:

Remember when the military actually put human beings in the cockpits of its planes? They still do, but in far fewer numbers. According to a new congressional report acquired by Danger Room, drones now account for 31 percent of all military aircraft.

To be fair, lots of those drones are tiny flying spies, like the Army’s Raven, that could never accommodate even the most diminutive pilot. (Specifically, the Army has 5,346 Ravens, making it the most numerous military drone by far.) But in 2005, only five percent of military aircraft were robots, a report by the Congressional Research Service notes. Barely seven years later, the military has 7,494 drones. Total number of old school, manned aircraft: 10,767 planes.

A small sliver of those nearly 7,500 drones gets all of the attention. The military owns 161 Predators — the iconic flying strike drone used over Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere — and Reapers, the Predator’s bigger, better-armed brother.

But even as the military’s bought a ton of drones in the past few years, the Pentagon spends much, much more money on planes with people in them. Manned aircraft still get 92 percent of the Pentagon’s aircraft procurement money. Still, since 2001, the military has spent $26 billion on drones, the report — our Document of the Day — finds.

Related: Civilian Contractors in the Kill Chain


LEGO: Alien Conquest

January 10th, 2012

I went looking for interesting LEGO sets for my sons at a local store and I found LEGO set 7052, which has a depiction of a UFO abducting a person on the box.

LEGO: Alien Conquest

LEGO: Alien Conquest

See: alienconquest.lego.com.

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Public School as Kafkaesque Nightmare

January 10th, 2012

Via: Guardian:

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?

The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of “you smell”.

“I’m weird. Other kids don’t like me,” said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. “They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: ‘Put that away, that’s the most terrible smell I’ve ever smelled.’ Then the teacher called the police.”

The policeman didn’t have far to come. He patrols the corridors of Sarah’s school, Fulmore Middle in Austin, Texas. Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons. Sarah was taken from class, charged with a criminal misdemeanour and ordered to appear in court.

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing “inappropriate” clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 “Class C misdemeanour” tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

Related: Texas: “In-School Suspension Program” Uses GPS Tracking Systems Attached to Students

Research Credit: RJF


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