Tag: British Petroleum

Slicked and Slabbed, the Barbarians are at the gates: Slabbed peeks inside the world of shareholder derivative lawsuits as we take a closer look at Transocean and the disaster in the Gulf

Amazing what one can find buried in financial filings at the SEC website. This is from a stock in liquidation:

Kwaku O. Kushindana, having a mailing address of…….Baton Rouge, Louisiana……., owner of 10 shares of EDCI common stock, has notified EDCI that he intends to present the following proposal at the Annual Meeting. As required by SEC rules, the text of the proposal and supporting statement are included below exactly as submitted by the stockholder. EDCI is not responsible for the contents of the proposal or the supporting statement.

Stockholder Proposal

“Hereby, that Kwaku O. Kushindana of Louisiana be hired as an Independent Consultant (based from Louisiana) to insure the rights of disaffected concerns (i.e., small shareholders, small firms doing business with EDCI, women & minority owned firms, gay & lesbian entities, artists under the purview of Entertainment Distributions Company, Inc, small retail stores, etc).

Further, that named person receives a three year contract during the winding down period of EDCI which would include a salary, plus expenses to insure the fairness of this process to all disaffected concerns.”

(Disclosure: I am long this issue. Cavet emptor)

The above is an example shareholder exercising his right to petition the ownership with a proposal. In this instance it is of the completely self-serving variety.  As such it represents fodder for big business shills like the folks over at the Competitive Enterprise Institute which is a front for Bermudian reinsurers and other business interests.

Along those lines and since a shareholder has the right to petition the ownership there is an entire class of investors known as activists shareholders who endeavor to change bad corporate governance from the inside out. And that brings us to the opposite, or forced change from the outside in, taking the form of shareholder derivative lawsuits. On Continue reading “Slicked and Slabbed, the Barbarians are at the gates: Slabbed peeks inside the world of shareholder derivative lawsuits as we take a closer look at Transocean and the disaster in the Gulf”

The Lockerbie Bomber and Big Oil

DO GIANT CORPORATIONS REALLY CONTROL SOVEREIGN NATIONS . . . OR IS THAT JUST CONSPIRACY HYPE?

Ever seen pictures of Muslim kids rocking back and forth in a madrasa school? Think vacation bible school on anabolic steroids. Seriously, it’s pretty sad. Little kids, like 5 and 6 spend the whole day kneeling, rocking back and forth while they monotonously recite the Koran for hours on end. Some of these kids are regimented like this for years and years. I have no medical idea what happens to the human psyche when a brain is robotically programmed this way, but it helps me comprehend the phenomena of suicide bombing. Scientists say we’re hard wired for survival and nothing is more repugnant to human nature than self-destruction. So, if that’s true, how does a person’s natural, hard wired instinct to live get overwritten by a phony religious command from Allah to blow oneself to smithereens? Remember the 60’s phrase “brainwashing,” to me it’s no more or less complicated than that.

So what’s the point? Well, it seems one such brainwashed Muslim grew up, made a bomb and in 1988 vaporized 259 people aboard an airplane over Scotland, and murdered 11 more on the ground. But he didn’t do the suicide thing. He hid the bomb in a Samsonite suitcase. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, head of security for Libyan airlines finally was caught for masterminding the plot. After a preposterously convoluted trial lasting 9 years, he was finally convicted and shut away in a Scottish prison. 

Last week the Muslim got a get-out-of-jail-free card, 19 years early, and went home to Libya. Then came an impassioned international outcry, mainly by the families of people he blew up. Everyone wondered . . . what in the world is Scotland, a seemingly civilized country, thinking? Political officials across the world issued harsh rebukes. Finally responding to international pressure the Scots were forced to speak. Here’s what they told us: the Muslim was released early on compassionate grounds, as “he had terminal prostate cancer.”

A few more days of worldwide anger boiled-up, and then it came out . . . this wasn’t the real reason he was let go . . .it was a private offshore oil deal. Continue reading “The Lockerbie Bomber and Big Oil”