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Christie Brinkley Gets Kids Cook Gets 21 Million
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Muckety this! Dick Cheney to The Fonz and to ‘Friends’
How is Vice President Dick Cheney connected to both the TV show Friends and Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzerelli, the macho character in the TV show Happy Days?
Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary Cheney, is a vice president at the governmental relations and strategic communications firm DC Navigators.
DC Navigators founding principal Mike Murphy has been in the news lately after New York Times columnist William Kristol suggested that Murphy would join Steve Schmidt in the newly revamped McCain campaign team. Murphy ran McCain’s 2000 election campaign and still consults with McCain on strategy.
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.DC Navigators, works with a handful of strategic partners, one of which is a company called VonHart Communications.
One of the partners at VonHart is Walter von Huene, a former speech coach for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Mike Murphy was also involved with Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall campaign, as were Navigator principals Todd Harris and Rob Stutzman. Stutzman later became Schwarzenegger’s communications director.)
Earlier in his career Walter von Huene happened to be the dialogue coach for ABC’s hit TV show Happy Days. Happy Days ran for a decade from 1974 to 1984 with a total of 255 episodes according to the website IMDB.
Actor Henry Winkler played Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzerelli, also known as The Fonz, on Happy Days.
Jumping to the TV show Friends is pretty easy from here. Henry Winkler was an actor in the movie Scream, which also starred Courteney Cox Arquette, a star of the hit TV show Friends.
Dick Cheney has six degrees of separation from The Fonz and nine degrees of separation from Friends – Muckety that!
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Muckety This Dick Cheney to the Fonz and to Friends
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Facebook Co Founder Helps Obama Build Support on the Web
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Rothschild Creates Lasting Virtual Community for Hillary Clinton
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Love means never having to say you’re poor
A new power-couple has been born. Courtenay Semel and Casey Johnson are dating, reports the New York Post.
Courtenay Semel is the daughter of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and starred in the 2005 reality TV show Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive, in which wealthy teens were filmed working on a ranch. She has known Casey Johnson for 12 years.
Casey Johnson is the daughter of Robert Wood Johnson IV, CEO of the Johnson Company and owner of the New York Jets. She’s the heir to the Johnson & Johnson franchise.
While Semel counts Lindsay Lohan in her circle of friends, Johnson is a longtime pal of the Hilton family.
After a messy 2006 break-up with her boyfriend, John Dee, due to an alleged affair he had with her aunt, Libet Johnson, Casey Johnson is now “so happy and completely in love,” with Courtenay Semel, sources tell the Post.
Johnson has also recently adopted a daughter, Ava, from Kazhakstan.
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IndyMac’s Michael Perry has the toughest job in America
To say IndyMac CEO Michael Perry is in a tough spot is an understatement. He might be on a mission impossible.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive mapMAP 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.Consider just a few of the recent headlines about his California-based company, caught in the mortgage meltdown:
“IndyMac Begins Dismantling Business”
“Analysts have zero hopes for IndyMac”
“IndyMac Bancorp shares dip; analyst sets $0 target”
Tom Petruno, a blogger for the Los Angeles Times, does find one saving grace. IndyMac is offering a yield “bonanza” on CDs as it tries to hang onto deposits.
This week, IndyMac said it was cutting its work force in half as it tries to salvage itself.
IndyMac started doing business in 1985 as a unit of Countrywide Financial, which was recently purchased by Bank of America. Former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo recruited Perry to head IndyMac and said Perry was “like my son.”
As the mortgage mess initially unfolded, IndyMac tried to build market share by expanding while others in the troubled industry shrank. But that strategy failed.Through the past difficult year, the company’s board of directors has remained stable. Most of the directors of IndyMac Bancorp, including former pro football quarterback Pat Haden, are also directors of its banking unit, IndyMac Bank.
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Chesapeake Energy and Aubrey McClendon, masters of the power play
Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has a former Oklahoma governor (Frank Keating) and U.S. senator (Don Nickles) on his Oklahoma City-based company’s board of directors. That seems only fitting. McClendon’s great uncle, Robert S. Kerr, co-founded Kerr-McGee and served as Oklahoma governor and senator.
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.These are boom times for Chesapeake, founded by McClendon – whose middle name is Kerr – and Tom Ward in 1989 with an initial investment of $50,000. The company went public in 1993. After some rough going, its stock price has increased fiftyfold since.
Chesapeake is currently the nation’s third largest producer of natural gas, but McClendon predicts it will be No. 1 by the end of the year. He told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting last month that the Haynesville Shale field in Louisiana and Northeast Texas could be the company’s most significant field ever.
“We are really off to the races in that play,” he said.
Last week, the company announced a $3.3 billion joint venture with Plains Exploration & Production Co. that values Chesapeake’s holdings in the Haynesville region at $30,000 an acre, more than six times what it paid.
The company is also the biggest player in the Barnett Shale region around Fort Worth, where it has employed actor Tommy Lee Jones to tout the benefits of natural gas in radio, TV, newspaper and billboard advertising.
“The Barnett Shale is a national treasure that will benefit all Texans for generations,” the actor says in a TV spot.
Star-Telegram columnist Mitch Schnurman points out that McClendon has a “history of funding aggressive public-opinion campaigns.” He supported the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, defended the Duke (his alma mater) lacrosse team against rape accusations and fought the construction of coal power plants in Texas.
Coal is a cheaper fuel to use to generate electricity but natural gas is cleaner.
Chesapeake’s main business strategy is to “grow through the drillbit,” meaning exactly what it says. The company claims to have the most active drilling program in the United States.
Like Fort Worth-based XTO Energy, Cheasapeake also actively hedges its future production to provide some price certainty.
As of May 1, according to Chesapeake’s Web site, the company had hedged more than 70% of its natural gas and oil production for the rest of this year, as well as 80% of gas production and 92% of oil production for 2009.
McClendon also hedges his political bets. He has made campaign contributions to many presidential candidates this year, including Barack Obama and John McCain.
At the annual meeting, McClendon said his company will continue to try to convince the U.S. Congress that Chesapeake is one of the energy good guys.
“We are trying to produce more clean-burning, American-produced natural gas,” he said.
Monday, Chesapeake said that Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis would join the company’s board on Sept. 15. Tuesday, the company said it would issue 25 million additional shares of common stock.