This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
Author: muckety
-
Fisker CEO says Tesla Motors’ “lawsuit is nonsense”
The legal battle over high-end green car technology continued on Thursday as Fisker Motors’ CEO Henrick Fisker called a lawsuit filed by Tesla Motors “nonsense.”
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.The press release issued by Fisker Automotive claimed it was Tesla Motors that “breached the arbitration agreement in its contract with Fisker by filing these meritless claims in San Mateo County court.”
Earlier this month Tesla Motors filed a suit against Fisker Automotive, its design subsidiary and two of its top executives, Hendrick Fisker and Bernhard Koehler, alleging fraud, breach of contract and violation of a confidentiality agreement.
Fisker KharmaFisker said today that its Fisker Kharma, a plug-in hybrid sports coupe, would be delivered on schedule by the fourth quarter of 2009 and that it would “vigorously defend” itself against the allegations made by Tesla in the suit.
Foreshadowing what may be its legal defense, Fisker quotes Alan Niedzwiecki, a Fisker director and president and CEO of Quantum Technologies, the designer of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) technology being used in the Kharma.
“In January of 2007 I first met Henrik Fisker. Soon thereafter, I became convinced that a strategic alliance joining together Quantum’s (PHEV) unique technology position with Fisker’s design expertise could be leveraged into a company capable of launching the first premium sports sedan for the (PHEV) segment. In August 2007 that vision became a reality with the inception of Fisker Automotive Inc., effectively combining Quantum’s (PHEV) drivetrain expertise with a remarkable design from Fisker Coachbuild LLC.”
Kleiner Perkins has invested millions in the Fisker venture with partner Ray Lane on the Fisker board. Lane stated that he is “confident that Fisker Automotive continues to be a tremendous investment opportunity. The design innovation of Henrik Fisker combined with the hybrid drive train experience of Quantum is unique in the automotive market.”
Henrick Fisker’s 19 years of design experience includes work on BMW E-1 electric car in 1991, the BMW Z8 and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
In our earlier report we noted the tangled web of Silicon Valley bigwigs involved in the companies.
Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and Zip2, is an investor and the chairman of Tesla. Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as Jeffrey Skoll, former president of eBay and executive producer of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, are investors in Tesla. Steve Westly, a former controller for the state of California and a former eBay exec, is a director.
In January, Fisker announced a multimillion dollar investment by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the appointment of Kleiner partner Ray Lane as a director at Fisker Automotive. At the time, Lane said Kleiner believed “that Fisker Automotive’s groundbreaking, forward-thinking design stands to pave the way for a greener and more efficient future.” The day following the announcement of the Kleiner investment Fisker unveiled the Fisker Kharma plug-in hybrid sports car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The lawsuit puts Kleiner Perkins in an interesting position as an investor in both Google and Fisker. Additionally, Kleiner adviser Al Gore is a director at Google while fellow Google board members Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla.
-
Nabokov’s son to publish final manuscript
His dying father, Vladimir Nabokov, had commanded him to destroy his still-unfinished, final novel.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
Click to activate interactive map
(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Instead, an agonized Dmitri Nabokov placed the novel – in the form of 50 index cards – in a Swiss bank vault. Now, more than 30 years later, the writer’s only child told Der Spiegel magazine that he had decided to publish The Original of Laura.
Speaking from his winter home in Palm Beach, Fla. this week, the 73-year-old Dmitri Nabokov justified his decision, saying, “I’m a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it. Then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, ‘You’re stuck in a right old mess – just go ahead and publish!’”
He told the magazine that he had finally made up his mind to do so.
Over the years, Dmitri Nabokov has described wrestling with the decision about what to do with The Original of Laura, which he has called “the most concentrated distillation of [my father’s] creativity.” As Nabokov’s literary executor, he said he felt a duty to share it with the world; as his son, he felt a duty to honor his father’s last wishes.
Dmitri Nabokov, who divides his time between Palm Beach, Fla. and Montreux, Switzerland, is a staunch advocate of his father’s literary legacy, and has translated many of his novels, plays, poems, lectures and letter.
In celebration of Vladimir Nabokov’s centennial in 1999, he appeared as his father in Terry Quinn’s Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya, a dramatic reading based on the personal letters between Nabokov and literary and social critic Edmund Wilson. Performances took place in New York, Paris, Mainz, and Ithaca.
Yet he is a multi-faceted personality with many other accomplishments. A profile that appeared in the Harvard Crimson in 2005 described a complex character.
Those who know him describe him as tall and imposing, with a face like his father’s, and one editor calls him “his father’s very best translator.”
But Dmitri has accrued a set of accolades and interests all his own.
“His love of fast boats and fast cars and helicopter skiing made him like a James Bond figure,” says Deanne Urmy, editor of Nabokov’s Butterflies, a collection of Vladimir’s writings which includes translations by Nabokov.He is best known as an opera star. After graduating from Harvard with a concentration in history and literature, Dmitri Nabokov served briefly in the U.S. military as an instructor in Russian before deciding to pursue his dreams as a performer.
He made his operatic debut in 1961 in the same Milan performance of La Boheme as the now legendary Luciano Pavarotti. Among the highlights from his operatic career: performances at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona with soprano Montserrat Caballé and acclaimed Catalan tenor Jaume Aragall, better known as Giacomo Aragall.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
Read related stories: News
-
Philanthropist Alberto Vilar convicted in fraud caseNovember 19, 2008 at 3:52pm
A trial that has riveted the world of philanthropy ended today with the conviction of Alberto W. Vilar, a man who pledged, and sometimes gave, millions of dollars to the arts.
Candidates Follow the Money to Hedge Fund Billionaires
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
Make a Muckety Monsanto Company
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
Ebay Sues Craigslist in Stock Dispute
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower Barack Obama Supporter and Republican Leadership Council Director
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
Candidates follow the money – to hedge fund billionaires (Muckety)
Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money is.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Political candidates go hat in hand to hedge fund managers because that’s where even more money is.
Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times reported yesterday that four of the top 10 earners among hedge fund managers last year have given to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Richest amongst these Obama givers is George Soros of Soros Fund Management, who earned $2.9 billion in 2007 to be ranked second on the list of top earners.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the other Democratic contender and the winner of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, has one of the top 10 on her side.
James H. Simons, of Renaissance Technologies Corp., the number 3 earner at $2.8 billion has given her $4,600.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican candidate, didn’t get any direct contributions from the top 10 earners on the list, which was compiled by Alpha magazine.
Some of the top 10 moneymen, including John A. Paulson of Paulson & Company, number 1 on the list at $3.7 billion, gave to other Republican candidates. (Paulson went with former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani.)
And some of the hedge funders either didn’t give or gave to committees, not candidates.
The amount given directly by these billionaires is miniscule — “pocket lint,” in Sorkin’s term. Federal law prevents them from contributing more than $4,600 directly to candidates. (That’s $2,300 for the primaries, $2,300 for the general election.)
But their donations may give some indication of the candidates they think will win or will be kindest to the now lightly regulated hedge fund market.
On the strength of the top 10 earners, it would seem that these very rich people are betting on an Obama win.
However, a look at the full list of top 50 earners reveals a more mixed message.
Both Clinton and McCain pick up support in the middle and lower ranges of the list, a list that ends with the very wealthy David Shaw of D.E. Shaw & Co. at number 50.
Shaw, who cleared $210 million in 2007, has given $4,600 to Clinton and $58,500 to Democratic groups, according to openSecrets.org.
Other managers in the tail end of the top 10 list went with Clinton.
Thomas Steyer (no. 43), a $230 million earner at Farallon Capital Management, and Marc Lasry (tied for 44), who took in $225 million at Avenue Capital Group, sent money her way.
(Until she took a leave to help with the campaign, Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, was working for Avenue Capital.)
Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management, who was tied for 41st with $245 million in earnings, gave to both Clinton and McCain.
He also contributed to Giuliani and to another candidate who dropped out, Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut.
Several other top 50 hedge fund managers have hedged their bets on the presidential race. None did it more broadly than Seth A. Klarman of Baupost Group, Inc., who made $425 million in 2007 and finished at number 15 on the list.
Klarman has given to Clinton, McCain and Obama. He’s also given to Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, to Dodd, as well as to Sen. Joseph Biden, the one-time Democratic candidate from Delaware.
Make a Muckety: Monsanto Company
Here’s a detailed look at the controversial biotech company that created the weedkiller Roundup.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.One Muckety user put together this exploration of the directors and top executives at Monsanto Company.
The company’s production of genetically modified seeds and growth hormones sparked the production of the 2008 French documentary, The World According to Monsanto (Le Monde selon Monsanto.)
French speakers can read more about Monsanto on AgoraVox, which has incorporated the above Muckety map into their discussion.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower: Barack Obama supporter and Republican Leadership Council director
Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the daughter of former president Richard Nixon and his wife Pat, has donated $2,300 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the maximum amount allowed for the primary election cycle.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Julie and her husband David Eisenhower are both directors of the Republican Leadership Council, a political action committee “which advocates for the historic Republican principles of liberty, individual responsibility, and personal freedom,” according to the PAC web site.
David Eisenhower is the grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower. Richard Nixon was his vice president and David and Julie reportedly met at the 1956 Republican National Convention.
Susan Eisenhower, Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s sister-in-law and a granddaughter of President Eisenhower, also supports Barack Obama. In February, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Susan Eisenhower entitled “Why I’m Backing Obama.”
In the op-ed she seems to be taking aim at the policies of the current president when she quotes her grandfather:
“As we peer into society’s future,” he said, we “must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
She notes that her grandfather won the election with the support of Democrats and Republicans attracted to his pledge to bring change to Washington. She continues:
It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Barack Obama’s candidacy for president. If the Democratic Party chooses Obama as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America’s greatest challenges. To be successful, our president will need bipartisan help.
Tricia Nixon Cox, Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s sister, and her husband Edward Cox are both supporters of the presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.
Obviously, the Kennedys don’t have a monopoly on lively conversation at family gatherings.
-
0 Comments
There are no comments yet, be the first by filling in the form below.
Leave a Comment