Author: Serkadis

cVidya Networks, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of telecom data integrity revenue assurance and dealer management systems, has agreed to acquire ECtel Ltd. (Nasdaq: ECTX), a Rosh Ha’ayin-based provider of provider of integrated revenue management solutions for communications service providers. The deal is valued at just under $21 million in cash. cVidya has raised around $22 million in VC funding, from firms like Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Hyperion, Stage One and Star Ventures.

PRESS RELEASE
ECtel Ltd. (NASDAQ: ECTX) (”ECtel”), a leading provider of Integrated Revenue Management(TM) (IRM(R)) solutions for communications service providers, announced today that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement for the acquisition of the Company by cVidya Networks Inc. (”cVidya”), a global leader in telecom revenue management, risk management, and dealer management solutions, in a cash transaction valued at $21 million (less transaction expenses of approximately $430,000).

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010807/FLTU015LOGO )

Under the terms of the agreement, ECtel shareholders will receive approximately $1.26 per share in cash upon the closing of the transaction, representing a premium of approximately 58% over ECtel’s average closing share price over the 90 trading days ended October 21, 2009. There is no financing condition to the obligations of cVidya to consummate the transaction. The definitive agreement contains customary representations and warranties, covenants, closing conditions, termination provisions, exclusivity requirements and arrangements to handle superior proposals.

The Board of Directors of ECtel unanimously approved the agreement and recommend that ECtel’s shareholders vote in favor of the transaction. The closing of the transaction is subject to the approval of ECtel’s shareholders, certain regulatory approvals and notifications and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. It is currently anticipated that the transaction will be consummated following the satisfaction of all closing conditions which is anticipated to occur by the end of 2009. Upon the closing of the transaction, ECtel’s ordinary shares will be delisted from NASDAQ.

Each of Koor Industries and Clal Electronic Industries, the owners of an aggregate of approximately 38% of ECtel’s outstanding ordinary shares, has entered into a voting undertaking with cVidya under which it has agreed to vote all of its shares in favor of the proposed transaction, subject to customary terms and conditions. The voting undertaking will terminate upon termination of the merger agreement in accordance with its terms.

Yair Cohen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ECtel, commented on the transaction: “Our focus, as a Board, has always been to maximize long term shareholder value. At the Board we evaluated our strategy going forward and, while evaluating the opportunities, we also recognize the challenges of continuing the path as an independent public company operating in a competitive and consolidating market that is limited in its size. After careful and thorough analysis, and with the completion of extensive negotiations with the buyers, the Board of Directors has decided to endorse this transaction as being in the best interest of our shareholders and recommends that it be approved by the shareholders.”

Itzik Weinstein, President and CEO of ECtel added: “This merger, which brings together two key players in the industry, enables us, as part of a unified group, by leveraging inherent synergies, to further expand our product offering, customer base and geographic breadth. Furthermore, it grants us the necessary tools to further strengthen and grow our standing in the global marketplace. As demand for revenue assurance and fraud management products rises, solutions such as ECtel’s become ever more critical by offering both tangible benefits and a competitive edge to communications service providers. This transaction presents substantial opportunities for our customers, employees and partners, and we will work towards completing the transaction in a swift and efficient manner. Our success is driven by the hard work, commitment and dedication of our capable employees around the world and I thank them for their invaluable contribution.”

Alon Aginsky, President, CEO and Founder of cVidya Network, concluded: “We look forward to having the ECtel team join us. ECtel is a great company, with an impressive talent pool, top notch customer base and leading quality products. This strategic acquisition marks another significant milestone in our growth strategy of expanding our foothold in the communication, media and entertainment markets, by creating the largest and most innovative company in the world offering revenue management, fraud management, dealer management and clearinghouse services. We are excited about the many and varied opportunities presented by this move, and believe it will lead to accelerated growth and profitability.”

About ECtel

ECtel (NASDAQ:ECTX) is a leading global provider of Integrated Revenue Management(TM) (IRM(R)) solutions for communications service providers. A pioneering market leader for nearly 20 years, ECtel offers carrier-grade solutions that enable wireline, wireless, converged and next generation operators to fully manage their revenue and cost processes. ECtel serves prominent Tier One operators, and has more than 100 implementations in over 50 countries worldwide. Established in 1990, ECtel maintains offices and has a presence in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.ectel.com.

About cVidya

cVidya Networks is a global leader in telecom Revenue Management, Risk Management, and Dealer Management solutions. Based on highly-advanced revenue assurance technologies, full compliance with industry standards, and market proven methodologies, cVidya`s MoneyMap platform has already helped to reduce costs and reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues for leading fixed, mobile and triple-play communication service providers. cVidya’s customers include British Telecom, Telefonica, Vodafone, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Cable & Wireless, and more. cVidya received the Best Revenue Assurance and Management Project Award at the World BSS Awards 2008. For more information, visit http://www.cvidya.com

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OMG. When I asked our Japanese readers to send in a pic of the Burger King Windows 7 burger, I was half hoping that it really didn’t exist. But nope, here it is. You probably shouldn’t look at this before breakfast, btw.

It blows my mind that some marketing guru would think that slapping the Windows 7 name onto a seven patty burger would improve the Windows image. Of course it took an equally moronic Burger King suit to agree to sell out and show the world that Burger King is willing to create the world’s most unhealthy foods. Look at that thing. It’s a tower of cardiac arrest. The meal better come with a voucher for a buy one bypass, get one free. Gross. Just gross.

[thanks for the pics, Christoph]

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR) has agreed to acquire SunEdison LLC, a Beltsville, Md.-based solar energy services provider. The deal is valued at $200 million, which would be paid 70% in cash and 30% in MEMC stock. SunEdison has raised over $140 million in private equity funding, plus more than $30 million in debt financing. Backers include Greylock Partners, HSH Nordbank AG, Applied Ventures, Black River Commodity Clean Energy Investment Fund, MissionPoint Capital Partner and Allco Renewable Energy Ltd.

PRESS RELEASE
MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. (NYSE: WFR), a leading provider of silicon wafers to the semiconductor and solar industries, has reached a definitive agreement to acquire privately held SunEdison LLC, a developer of solar power projects and North America’s largest solar energy services provider. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2009, subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of regulatory approvals.

The agreement calls for $200 million to be paid at closing to SunEdison security holders, which will be paid 70% in cash and 30% in MEMC stock. The agreement also includes an earn-out provision, should SunEdison meet certain performance targets in 2010, of up to an additional $89 million, consisting of cash and stock. In addition, the agreement calls for employee retention payments of $17 million in cash at closing, plus up to $34 million in stock which is subject to SunEdison meeting certain performance criteria and time vesting, the payment of certain transaction expenses and the assumption of net debt.

“This acquisition will provide a third engine of growth for MEMC,” said Ahmad Chatila, Chief Executive Officer of MEMC. “MEMC will now participate in the actual development of solar power plants and commercialization of clean energy, in addition to supplying the solar and semiconductor industries with our traditional silicon wafer products.”

“SunEdison has successfully built about 300 solar power plants representing approximately 80 MW of generating capacity on the rooftops and grounds of customers in the United States, Canada and Europe,” said Carlos Domenech, Chief Operating Officer of SunEdison. “Our business is highly scalable and will be able to grow substantially, capitalizing on our more than 1.5 GW of pipeline, backlog and leads with a financially strong, technically sophisticated partner like MEMC, which also has a competitive cost structure in upstream materials. This combination will greatly accelerate our goal of making solar energy cost competitive with grid prices.”

SunEdison is based in Beltsville, Maryland and employs approximately 300 people worldwide. It “simplifies solar” by managing the development, financing, operation and monitoring of solar power plants for commercial customers, including many national retail outlets, government agencies, and utilities. In a typical structure SunEdison arranges third-party, non-recourse financing for the facility and the customer has no up-front capital outlay.

With one of the strongest brands in solar, SunEdison will continue to operate with the SunEdison name, as a subsidiary of MEMC. Carlos Domenech will continue to lead SunEdison. After the acquisition is complete, he is expected to be named as Executive Vice President of MEMC and President of SunEdison, reporting to Ahmad Chatila.

“By making solar power more affordable and easy to obtain, we expect to tap into a large pent-up demand,” added Mr. Chatila. “We believe this strategy will drive revenue growth for our wafer business while producing a recurring revenue stream from solar-generated electricity. This will also allow us to directly benefit from the technological and cost advances that we are helping to create in the solar industry.”

Mr. Chatila concluded, “In short, we believe MEMC and SunEdison make a powerful combination, and we are excited about having their talented employees around the world join the MEMC team.”

MEMC expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings, subject to purchase accounting adjustments, by the second half of 2010.

Conference Call

MEMC will host a conference call today, October 22, at 5:30 p.m. ET to discuss the company’s third quarter financial results, as well as the agreement to acquire SunEdison. A live webcast will be available on the company’s web site at www.memc.com. Please go to the web site at least fifteen minutes prior to the call to register, download and install any necessary audio software.

A replay of the conference call will be available from 7:30 p.m. ET today until 11:59 p.m. ET on October 29. To access the replay, please dial (320) 365-3844 at any time during that period, using pass code 118827. A replay will also be available until 11:59 p.m. ET on October 29 on the company’s web site at www.memc.com.

About MEMC

MEMC is a global leader in the manufacture and sale of wafers and related intermediate products to the semiconductor and solar industries. MEMC has been a pioneer in the design and development of wafer technologies over the past 50 years. With R&D and manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, MEMC enables the next generation of high performance semiconductor devices and solar cells. MEMC’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WFR” and is included in the S&P 500 Index. For more information about MEMC, please visit www.memc.com.

About SunEdison

SunEdison is North America’s largest solar energy services provider. The company finances, installs and operates distributed power plants using proven photovoltaic technologies, delivering fully managed, predictably priced solar energy services for its commercial, government and utility customers. In 2008, SunEdison delivered more kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy than any other solar services provider in North America. For more information about SunEdison, please visit www.sunedison.com.

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Are you one of those annoying people who constantly have a Bluetooth earpiece in your ear? Does it make you sad inside that the battery on your mobile device runs out so quickly? Well it looks like Texas Instrument may be looking to change things. TI recentley demoed its “Bluetooth low energy open standard” in Munich, and when they say “low powered” they mean low powered. The technology, based on the CC2540 single-mode system-on-chip, can operate a Bluetooth radio for “over a year” on a single button cell battery; similar to the ones used in watches and hearing aids. While TI insists this will open the doors for Bluetooth enabled kitchen tables, can-openers, and sofas, we’re more excited about the mobile implications. Would this low power option make you use Bluetooth more often?

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GenNx360 Capital Partners has agreed to buy GVI Security Solutions Inc. (OTC BB: GVSS), a Carrolton, Texas-based provider of video security surveillance solutions. The deal is valued at approximately $11.6 million, or $0.38 per GVI share.

PRESS RELEASE

GVI Security Solutions, Inc., (OTC Bulletin Board: GVSS), a leading provider of video security surveillance solutions featuring the complete Samsung Electronics line of products, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired and taken private by investment funds managed by GenNx360 Capital Partners, a leading global private equity firm focusing on middle market opportunities.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, an affiliate of GenNx360 will commence a tender offer to purchase for cash all of the outstanding shares of GVI common stock at a price of $0.38 per share, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes, for a total equity value of approximately $11.6 million. The tender offer is expected to commence on or before November 4, 2009 and to expire on the 20th business day following and including the commencement date, unless extended in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Following completion of the tender offer, the parties will complete a second-step merger in which any remaining shares of GVI common stock will be converted into the right to receive the same price per share paid in the tender offer. Stockholders representing approximately 22% of GVI’s outstanding shares have entered into tender and support agreements with GenNx360 in connection with the transaction.

Steven Walin, Chairman of GVI, said, “After careful consideration of our strategic alternatives, we are pleased to have reached this agreement with GenNx360, which creates substantial value for our stockholders. This transaction represents a premium of 22.6% over GVI’s closing share price on October 21, 2009, the last trading day before the merger agreement was signed. GenNx360’s desire to add GVI to its portfolio underscores our solid business model, the talent of our people and the significant progress we have made in transforming GVI into an important market player.”

Lloyd Trotter, a Founder and Managing Partner at GenNx360, said, “We are excited about the opportunity for GenNx360 to enter the security industry supporting the strong GVI platform. The security industry presents attractive growth opportunities and we are looking forward to working with the experienced GVI management team to expand the company’s presence in the marketplace.”

The Board of Directors of GVI has unanimously approved the merger agreement and the transactions contemplated by the merger agreement, based upon, among other factors, the approval and recommendation of a Special Committee of the Board of Directors, and has resolved to recommend that GVI’s stockholders tender their shares of GVI common stock in connection with the tender offer contemplated by the merger agreement. The transactions are subject to customary closing conditions, but are not subject to any financing condition.

Imperial Capital, LLC is acting as financial advisor to GVI and has delivered a fairness opinion to the GVI Board of Directors and Special Committee. Cooley Godward Kronish LLP is legal counsel to GVI and Nixon Peabody LLP is legal counsel to GenNx360 Capital Partners.

About GVI Security Solutions, Inc.

GVI Security Solutions, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GVSS) is a leading provider of video surveillance and security solutions, with sales and service representation throughout North, Central and South America. The company provides Samsung Electronics and GVI branded products, software and services to the Homeland Security and Commercial markets. Customers include governments, major retail chains, leading financial institutions and public and private school systems.

www.samsung-security.com

GenNx360 Capital Partners

New York-based GenNx360 Capital Partners is a private equity investment firm focused on industrial business-to-business companies. Our partners have 100+ years of combined global operating experience with a strong, proven track record in creating true enterprise value through operating excellence and strong leadership. We acquire companies with proven and sustainable business models in expanding industries and implement the required operating efficiencies to accelerate growth and generate strong financial returns.

www.gennx360.com

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Maurice Allen and Michael Goetz have agreed to join law firm Ropes & Gray, after serving as co-heads of the banking and capital markets practice groups of White & Case. The pair will help Ropes & Gray open a London office in January, which will focus on the private equity and debt markets.

PRESS RELEASE

Ropes & Gray LLP announced that leading finance lawyers Maurice Allen and Michael Goetz will join the firm and spearhead the launch of its London office in January 2010. Allen and Goetz will enhance the firm’s ability to serve its sophisticated private equity, private investment fund, and finance-sector clients in the United Kingdom and Europe. Senior U.S. partners Newcomb Stillwell and David Chapin will be helping their new colleagues launch and grow the London office, demonstrating Ropes & Gray’s commitment to establishing a world-class service center in an important market.

“We are delighted that Maurice and Mike have decided to join Ropes & Gray, but our clients are the real beneficiaries,” said Brad Malt, the chairman of Ropes & Gray. “Our expansion into the United Kingdom gives us coverage to execute on our clients’ global mandates, and Maurice and Mike have the experience, service orientation, and business acumen to provide the cutting-edge advice for which our private equity and debt practices are renowned.”

Ropes & Gray has globally recognized private equity and debt practices, offering an ideal platform for the experienced London practitioners. The firm’s Private Equity practice group is consistently rated among the top PE practices and in 2009 garnered the Chambers Award for Excellence in the category of “Investment Funds.” The firm’s clients include 11 of the 25 so-called “mega fund” firms and more than 20 “mid-market” firms that routinely do transactions in the $100 million to $1 billion range. In the past 12 months, the firm represented private equity sponsors in a third of major North American buyouts.

“Ropes & Gray is an elite firm with an extraordinary platform in the global equity and debt marketplace,” said Allen. “Drawing on our familiarity with the sophisticated London finance market, Mike and I will bring our wealth of experience to bear on behalf of the firm’s clients. This is a terrific fit for us and the firm.”

“With their background in private equity and debt, as well as their proven track record in the competitive London market, Maurice and Mike are uniquely qualified to lead our expansion into the United Kingdom,” said David Chapin, a private equity and M&A partner. “To help our new partners launch and expand the London office, Newcomb Stillwell, a former head of Ropes & Gray’s Private Equity Practice Group, and I will devote a significant amount of time to our London office.”

Allen and Goetz are well-suited to lead Ropes & Gray’s private equity and debt-focused London office, which will open in January 2010. The two lawyers were co-heads of the banking and capital markets practice groups of White & Case, leading that firm’s London office as it grew from 65 to 400 fee earners.

The opening of a London office marks Ropes & Gray’s fourth move into key geographic markets in the past two years, following openings in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Chicago. With a new office in London, Ropes & Gray will be in a better position to serve its existing clients, as well as the clients of the firm’s new partners.

“This is a marvelous opportunity for Maurice and me,” said Goetz. “Ropes & Gray has demonstrated its commitment to growth in markets like London, that are a center of existing and prospective clients. We, in turn, are committed to helping the firm continue its upward trajectory.”

Allen has practiced law for more than 25 years in the London finance market, focusing on complex transactions and cross-border financings. He has advised extensively on matters such as acquisition finance, telecom financings, restructurings and workouts. Goetz, one of the City’s most prominent lawyers, represents clients in leveraged lending and acquisition finance matters, among other complex transactions. He also brings considerable experience in bankruptcies and business reorganizations.

Ropes & Gray is a full-service, global law firm that works with clients across a wide variety of industries to successfully address their greatest legal challenges and achieve their business goals. With more than 1,000 professionals located in leading centers of finance, technology and government, we bring an unparalleled passion for excellence, new ideas and a true team spirit to every project.

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The Urban Institute: Age Rating Under Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Implications for Coverage, Costs, and Household Financial Burdens – The authors of this study brief compare the “financial implications of the premium rating policy,” as outlined in the House Tri-Committee proposal (H.R. 3200), across households of different ages, incomes, and sizes. “While subsidies provided by the federal government to those with incomes below 400 percent of the federal poverty level ameliorate the lion’s share of premium differences due to the choice of rating, rating differences will significantly alter health care financing burdens for the youngest and oldest adults and families with higher incomes,” according to the authors. “In order to make combined premium and out-of-pocket health care burdens affordable by conventional standards for this older middle income population, premium subsidies could be extended to higher incomes than are currently being considered or the variance in age-rating bands could be limited to a maximum of 2:1, perhaps with a plan to phase down further over time” (Blumberg, Buettgens and Garrett, Oct. 2009).

Commonwealth Fund: Supporting Culture Change: Working Toward Smarter State Nursing Home Regulation – This brief examines the growing interest at the state and federal levels to transition away from a traditional regulatory model of nursing homes. The authors of the brief discuss the importance of a model that “strike[s] a balance between the traditional regulatory approach to weed out substandard facilities and a partnership model aimed at promoting high performance” as well as the need to train health providers and regulatory staff in preparation for such changes, according to a Commonwealth Fund description of the brief (Stone, Bryant and Barbarotta, Oct. 2009). An accompanying podcast examines the changing culture of nursing home regulation (Housman, 10/8).

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: The Effect Of Reimbursement On Medical Decision Making: Do Physicians Alter Treatment In Response To A Managed Care Incentive? – An analysis of survey data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) finds physicians spend less time with capitated patients, or those for whom a physician “receive[s] a set fee … that is meant to reflect the actuarial cost of care the patient is expected to require,” compared to noncapitated patients. The article, published in the Journal of Health Economics, reveals the effects of capitation on medical practice (Melichar, Oct. 2009).

Kaiser Family Foundation: The Uninsured: A Primer – “This primer, updated with 2008 data, reviews the basic profile of the uninsured population, how they receive care, the latest trends in health insurance coverage, key issues in increasing coverage and basic statistics on the uninsured,” according to a Kaiser Family Foundation description of the report (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, 10/13).

Commonwealth Fund: Incremental Cost Estimates For The Patient-Centered Medical Home – “Despite wide and growing interest in the medical home approach, little is known about the costs it entails,” write the authors of this paper, which analyzes data from 35 practices to determine “the relationship, if any, between costs and medical home activities.” The authors report they “do not find evidence of additional costs associated with higher levels of ‘medical homeness,’ with the exception of information technology costs, which show a modest but statistically significant increase with medical home intensity” (Zuckerman et al., Oct. 2009).

UCLA Center for Health Policy Research: African Americans In Commercial HMOs More Likely To Delay Prescription Drugs And Use The Emergency Room – An analysis of data from the 2007 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) finds that African Americans enrolled in commercial HMOs in California are more likely to use the emergency room and delay obtaining medications than other racial/ethnic groups in comparable HMO plans. “In light of the existence of potential barriers to accessing appropriate medical care for African Americans with HMO coverage, greater effort is needed to identify ways to encourage African Americans to obtain needed prescription drugs in a timely manner and avoid ER use if adequate primary or specialty care is available in their community at a reasonable cost,” the authors write (Roby, Nicholson and Kominski, Oct. 2009).

RAND Health: Health and Health Care Among District of Columbia Youth – A study of 100,000 youth living in Washington, D.C., finds that “[d]espite high rates of health insurance coverage among children … [their] access to health care is inadequate and poses a significant health problem for the city’s young residents, particularly those who are publicly insured,” according to a RAND description of the report. Among other things, the researchers recommend the development of strategies to increase children’s access to primary and specialty care, interventions for children with particular health needs and increased efforts to continuously and comprehensively monitor children’s health (Chandra et.al, 10/8).

UCLA Center for Health Policy Research: Migration & Health: The Children Of Mexican Immigrants In The United States – This report examines the barriers the more than 6 million children of Mexican immigrants face in accessing health care in the U.S., compared to native born white children, African American children, and the children of immigrants from other countries. Although most of the children born to Mexican immigrants are U.S. citizens because they were born in the U.S., the study found, among other things, “[t]hey are about three times more likely than other children in the U.S. to be uninsured (19.4 percent vs. 6.8 percent)” and “three times more likely than children of U.S. born whites to have no usual place to obtain regular medical care (13.8 percent versus 3.9 percent),” according to a UCLA Center for Health Policy Research description of the study (Wallace, Leite, Castaneda and Schenken, 10/5).

Ensphere Solutions, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of semiconductor products for various optical interfaces, has raised $4 million from Egyptian venture capital fund Ideavelopers.

PRESS RELEASE

Ensphere Solutions, an emerging leader in advanced communications semiconductor ICs, received a $4 million investment from Ideavelopers in August of 2009. Ideavelopers is a pioneer in high-technology investment in Middle East and manages Egypt’s first technology venture capital fund “The Technology Development Fund”.

“We are extremely excited about our partnership with Ideavelopers” said Hessam Mohajeri, Chief Executive Officer of Ensphere Solutions. “Ideavelopers’ investment will help us to expedite our product development and rollout plans. In addition to financial backing, we can tremendously benefit from Ideavelopers’ experience and industry contacts”.

“We are proud to be engaged with one of the most promising emerging semiconductor companies addressing the optical market,” said Ahmad Gomaa CEO of Ideavelopers. “Ensphere has aggressive plans to launch a portfolio of exciting optical products including transceivers ICs for Intel’s Light Peak technology. Light Peak will have an enormous market footprint reaching applications such as PCs, peripherals, workstations, displays, mobile handsets, docking stations, and more. Ensphere is well positioned to reap benefits from this exciting market”.

Light Peak is an emerging fiber optics-based interconnect technology architected by Intel Corporation. It has been designed to support data rates up to 10 Gb/s with the potential of reaching 100 Gb/s over the next decade. This technology has shattered size, cost, and power barriers making it the first optical connectivity technology suitable for mainstream applications.

In addition to Light Peak transceivers, Ensphere has a diverse product portfolio addressing front-end physical layer chips for various optical and copper interfaces. These products include Limiting Amplifiers (LA), Transimpedance Amplifiers (TIA), Clock/Data Recovery devices, and Laser Drivers for various interfaces with date rates of 1 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s.

About Ensphere Solutions:

Ensphere Solutions, Inc. is a privately held fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Santa Clara, California with a design center in Cairo, Egypt. Ensphere develops and markets semiconductor products for various optical interfaces used in mainstream applications in communication, consumer electronic, and computing markets. In addition to chip-level products, Ensphere has offered design services and intellectual properties (IPs) to its strategic customers.

About Ideavelopers:

Founded in 2001, Ideavelopers, a subsidiary of EFG-Hermes, and fund advisor for The Technology Development Fund, partners with technology entrepreneurs to greatly increase their chance of success. Ideavelopers’ priority is to support entrepreneurs and early-stage business by providing quality venture development services. Ideavelopers has already participated in the funding of 40 technology-driven companies on behalf of its investment partnerships.

Ideavelopers brings together the resources, experience, and strategic relationships needed to build the next generation of leading technology companies. We take companies through the entire business process, from the inception of an idea through to the creation of a business built on a solid foundation. Whether Ideavelopers provides advice on fine-tuning business plans, investment money, intensive guidance, or executive recruiting, Ideavelopers is here to help improve the rate of success.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, is reviewing its business relationship with Apollo Global Management, examining fees, performance and the “relationship as a whole,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing documents outlining the review.

The review was started in May and is still active, the paper reported. Calpers, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has hired outside adviser Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to analyze the relationship and to offer “alternative courses of action,” it said.

The Wall Street Journal received access to the documents through a public-records request.

Calpers’ relationship with Apollo has become subject to outside scrutiny since the pension fund said last week that it is probing fees paid by outside money managers to win its business.

The pension fund listed several of Apollo’s funds as having paid fees to ARVCO Financial Ventures, a firm headed by former Calpers board member Al Villalobos. 

Calpers and Apollo could not be immediately reached for comment.

A Calpers spokeswoman told the Journal that the review was part of a larger strategy.

“This is not an effort to end our partnership and we have full confidence in Apollo,” she said. (Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Private-equity firm Apollo Global Management posted sharply improved investment performance across all of its funds Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported citing a letter sent to investors.

“We were incredibly active during this downturn with respect to new and existing investments, and I am sure that is exactly what you expected of us,” wrote Apollo founder Leon Black in a nine-page letter, the paper said.

The firm’s flagship $10 billion fund, raised in 2006, and a $15 billion fund, raised in 2008, were valued at their March lows at 61 percent and 55 percent of cost, respectively, the paper said. Apollo valued those funds at more than 100 percent of cost and 120 percent of cost, respectively, at the end of September, the paper said.

One of Apollo’s funds, AP Alternative Assets, which is listed on Euronext, said on Thursday that its estimated net asset at the end of September was $1.25 billion, compared to $970 million at the end of the second quarter and $850 million at the end of 2008. (Reporting by Megan Davies; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L) has had talks with Ghana’s national oil company about a possible joint bid for Kosmos Energy’s stake in the huge Jubilee oilfield off the coast of the country, Bloomberg said on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

BP has hired Goldman Sachs to advise on the deal, the report said.

Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) agreed to buy the Jubilee stake from Kosmos in early October, Reuters reported, according to three sources close to the matter. Kosmos is backed by private equity groups Blackstone Group (BX.N) and Warburg Pincus.

But state-run Ghana National Petroleum Corp (GNPC) has said the sale is illegal. A GNPC source told Reuters earlier this month that that the firm is interested in buying Kosmos Energy’s stake itself, perhaps selling all or part of that stake later.

Moreover, a leading member of Ghana’s ruling party said last week that the government does not approve of the Exxon deal.

BP declined to comment. Goldman Sachs could not be immediately reached for comment.

Kosmos owns the field with UK-based oil explorer Tullow Oil (TLW.L) and Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum (APC.N). It put its interest in the field on the market earlier this year. (Reporting by Michael Erman; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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The latest developments surrounding health reform’s public option grab a lot of headlines today, including news regarding a version of the plan that allows states to opt not to participate in it.  

Texas Dr. Antonio Falcon: We’re Facing A Catastrophic Situation On The Border
Dr. Antonio Falcon, a physician in the border town of Rio Grande City, Texas, says the current efforts to overhaul the nation’s health system will benefit both the Hispanic community, which has the highest rate of uninsured of any ethnic group; and Texas, which consistently fares among the worst for state health care measures. Still, he worries that lawmakers in Washington are failing to address several important border health issues, including illegal immigrants’ health care (Kaiser Health News). See related KHN story detailing how health reform bills would – and would not – affect illegal immigrants.

Senate Leader Takes Risk Pushing Public Insurance Plan
In pushing to include a government-run health insurance plan in the health care bill, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is taking a calculated gamble that the 60 members of his caucus could support the plan if it included a way for states to opt out (The New York Times).

Lawmakers Warm To The Public Option
House Democrats are coalescing around an $871 billion health-care package that would create a government-run insurance plan to help millions of Americans afford coverage, raise taxes on the nation’s richest families and impose an array of new regulations on private insurers, in part by stripping the industry of its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws (The Washington Post).

Offer To Let States Opt Out Of Health Plan Gains Support
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, stepping deeper into the health-care debate, put his weight Thursday behind a proposal that would create a new government-run insurance plan while giving states the option not to participate (The Wall Street Journal).

Reid Leaning Towards Public Option
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is leaning toward putting a public insurance option in the Senate health reform bill — a signal that Reid increasingly believes he can get the votes needed for a plan that would allow states to opt out of the program, senators said Thursday (Politico).

Snowe Rejects Public Option As Democrats Weigh Measure
Senator Olympia Snowe rejected the idea of backing the immediate creation of any government-run insurance program even as top Democrats are leaning toward including such a plan in U.S. health-care legislation (Bloomberg).

Whip Count Shows Democrats Lack Votes On ‘Robust’ Public Option For Healthcare
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) drive for a public option in healthcare reform ran into turbulence Thursday when a survey of her caucus showed she needs more votes to pass such a bill (The Hill).

Healthcare For Christmas: Reid Under Pressure To Go Slow
The healthcare reform debate will be pushed deep into December and possibly beyond by a lengthy floor debate, several senators predicted Thursday (The Hill).

Democrats Push To End Insurers Antitrust Exemption
In the ongoing health care overhaul drama, the Obama administration and the health insurance industry have gone from uneasy allies to bitter adversaries. One result is that health insurers stand to lose a privilege their industry has enjoyed for the past 64 years: They, like Major League Baseball, have been exempt from federal antitrust laws. Congressional Democrats are now pushing to strip the health insurance industry of that exemption (NPR).

WellPoint Attacks Health Legislation
WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest health insurer by members, is striking out against proposed health-overhaul legislation with new data it presented to members of Congress Thursday (The Wall Street Journal).

In Massachusetts, Obama Won’t Promote State’s Plan
President Obama will travel Friday to Massachusetts, one of only two states to implement a universal health-care program similar to his ambitions for the entire country. But he does not plan to use the trip to make his case for far-reaching reform; he will tout clean energy and raise money for the Democratic governor (The Washington Post).

Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to fix today’s health insurance system, you’d be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don’t pay for our groceries or our gas (NPR). 

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Earlier this year, a Dutch court issued a default judgment against The Pirate Bay, ordering it to delete certain torrents and block Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. The Pirate Bay’s founders protested the ruling, noting that they had not been properly informed of the case in the first place, and that other items in the lawsuit were highly questionable — including what appeared to be falsified documents submitted by BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy agency.

The court has now annulled the original default judgment, but the new ruling is basically the same thing. The founders were told to delete torrents and block Dutch surfers from at least part of the site. The court also rejected the claim that the founders do not still own the site, saying they presented no evidence that the site had actually been sold to another entity, or any evidence of who now owned the site. While I still think it’s questionable to force the site to block results of what is really a search engine, there is a point about who owns the site. I recognize why The Pirate Bay has done what it’s done, but it almost feels like they’re trying to be too cute about the ownership issue.

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Kill. Climb. Love. Take down a helicopter from the rooftops. Battle a tank on the streets of a Himalayan village. Get a giant dagger to stab the heart of a millennium-old statue. Climb on a train as it plummets into a crevasse. Save the love of your life from a mass murder. Steal from a Turkish museum. Get betrayed (multiple times). Fight mech-like enemies wielding Gatling guns. Decrypt ancient languages. Solve puzzles. Grab enemies from ledges and throw them in huge, open pits behind you. Take a comrade to safety while under fire. Destroy an armored carrier as it tries to crush you. Sneak around. Fight hordes of enemies. Offer witty remarks on the catastrophical events that happen around you. Carry a man to safety under fire. Jump ahead blind hoping that someone will catch you on the other side. Watch the city unfold around you. Get treasures. Fight evil. Find love.

The above are all things that you can do in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It comes from Naughty Dog, stars the same Nathan Drake and is an action adventure-type game that takes you from Turkey to Borneo and to Himalaya as you search for an ancient treasure, while also fighting a tough opponent.

Sure, the game is completely linear, there are tons of cutscenes that might put some people off and, at certain points, it makes you quickly press Triangle to get s… (read more)

We’ve covered the lawsuit over comments on the site AutoAdmit for the past couple years. The quick summary is that AutoAdmit is an online forum for law school students where, like many online forums, sometimes the conversations get pretty mean. Two female Yale law students sued the site and a bunch of anonymous commenters, after they posted some mean things about them. There’s no denying that the comments were pretty obnoxious, though it’s not clear that, given the context, anyone took them seriously. The women claimed that they had trouble getting jobs because of the comments, but there was little evidence to support that either. Still, you had a bunch of law students angry with each other, so of course lawsuits were filed — some very badly (such as against one of the guys who helped run the site and was clearly protected from liability).

Some were hoping that this lawsuit would create new rules concerning online defamation or other “mean” content online. For example, there’s been a push for a DMCA-style “takedown” system that would require sites to take down such content. However, in this case, it looks like no precedent will be set at all, as the parties have all settled and the terms of the settlement are confidential (found via Thomas O’Toole).

The issue is a tough one, certainly. It’s no fun to be on the receiving end of such speech — but should it be illegal or should there be an automatic takedown system on such content? That seems extreme and questionable when it comes to the First Amendment issue. In the end, I think the context of the content remains important — and content in such a forum, where it was pretty obviously ridiculous, is the sort of thing that’s better left ignored, rather than filing a lawsuit over it.

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Video of the Honda U3-X auto-unicycle
Windows startup and shutdown sounds through the ages
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(NaturalNews) New York State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines announced today that public health workers will no longer be required to receive swine flu vaccinations. The state had been sued by the Public Employees Federation to stop the vaccine mandate, and a state judge had granted the group a temporary restraining order against mandatory vaccine injections (http://www.naturalnews.com/027259_health_flu_vaccine_vaccines.html). The follow-up hearing was scheduled for October 30 to determine whether the temporary restraining order would be overruled.

The New York Dept. of Health had vowed to fight the restraining order and force all health care workers to be vaccinated, even against their will. Those refusing to be vaccinated faced losing their jobs or being denied pay increases.

The decision to abandon the swine flu vaccine mandate had nothing to do with the debate over the vaccination of health care workers, claims Richard Daines. Instead, he says, it was all caused by the shortage of vaccines. While the CDC had promised states that 120 million doses of swine flu vaccine would be available by the end of October, the reality is that thanks to vaccine production failures, only about 28 million doses will be available (roughly one-fourth the original estimate).

“The CDC acknowledged that New York would only receive approximately 23 percent of its anticipated vaccine supply,” Gov. David Paterson said in a story published by CNN. “As a result, we need to be as resourceful as we can with the limited supplies of vaccine currently coming into the state.”

The real reason behind the shift
The vaccine shortage has handed New York a convenient way to squirm out of an embarrassing situation that made the state look a lot like a Big Brother medical police state. This decision to back off the vaccination mandate also avoids the loud public protests that were planned by NY health care workers leading up to the Oct. 30 court date. It keeps the health care workers silent and avoids the uncomfortable airing of protests on the evening news.

In effect, it allows New York to back off the mandate while saving face. Just blame the vaccine makers for the shortage!

And yet, technically speaking, their reasoning doesn’t hold water if they really believe in the vaccine. Even though swine flu vaccines are in short supply this month, the CDC has informed people that by the end of November, supplies will be so large that vaccines will be available to everyone who wants a shot. Technically, New York could have kept the mandate and just moved it to Dec. 15th.

The vaccine shortage isn’t permanent, after all. If New York really believed in mandatory vaccinations of its health care workers, the state could have kept the mandate and just changed the date. So clearly, this decision to reverse itself on the mandate has nothing to do with the vaccine shortage but everything to do with saving face and avoiding looking like complete tyrannical idiots when the public protests ramp up.

Chalk this one up as a temporary victory for New York state health care workers. It’s a victory for the People; a victory of common sense over police state tyranny.

New York still doesn’t believe in health freedom
But there’s a problem with this victory: Because this case isn’t going to court right now, New York could reinstate the requirement at any time. Once vaccines are back in full supply, they could just reverse themselves again and mandate vaccines with a short deadline.

You see, since a permanent court decision has never been handed down on this issue, New York hasn’t been forced to abandon this idea of requiring swine flu vaccinations for health care workers. So it could conceivably reinstate it at any time, without warning.

So stay on your toes, New Yorkers. Watch out for Big Brother and his needle. The state has not surrendered on this issue, they’ve just chosen to bide their time and attack again on another day.

Remember this above all else: The State thinks it owns your body and can tell you what to do with it. That position is obvious in the fact that in backing away from these mandatory swine flu vaccines, New York didn’t say, “We were wrong to force this upon people, and it should really be an individual decision.” No, the state essentially said, “We just ran out of vaccine, so we don’t have enough supply to force everyone to take it yet.”

Those two different explanations reveal completely different underlying philosophies on freedom (or the lack thereof).

Sources for this story include:

CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/23/new.york.flu.vaccine/index.html

UPI
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/10/23/New-York-relaxes-vaccine-mandate/UPI-54321256302789/

(NaturalNews) The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine was awarded jointly to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak for their discoveries into cell division and into how chromosomes can be copied without degradation. The key was found in maintaining healthy telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes, by reigniting the growth of telomerase, the enzyme that forms them. Certain astragalus molecules have been found to contribute to telomere growth, effectively reversing the aging process.

When cells divide to repair, renew, and maintain the body, the DNA molecules that contain the body’s genetic code are copied in order to reproduce a new, identical cell. The telomeres on the ends of the chromosomes act as protective coverings to guard the cells’ delicate sequences from degradation as they are copied. The telomerase enzymes continue to form new telomeres in order to facilitate this constant process of rejuvenation by maintaining these protective ends.

Because this process does not operate optimally, the body ages over time. Geneticist Leonard Hayflick discovered in 1965 that most cells only divide a certain number of times before they die, illustrating the existence of a biological clock of sorts that limits cell division and instigates the gradual slowing of cell replication.

The journal Nature published an article in 1990 that further explained this process through an understanding of cellular telomere. While acting to protect the ends of DNA strands, telomere shorten ever so slightly each time a cell divides. Early in a person’s life, telomerase enzymes work to replenish the diminishing telomeres, but later in life the telomerase enzymes cease to be produced within the genes and the telomeres gradually recede, leading eventually to death.

Thanks to tortuous research into telomeres, doctors and scientists interested in anti-aging therapies have been able to make significant inroads into the discovery of viable therapies for jump-starting the gene that produces telomerase enzymes.

The astragalus root contains cycloastragenols and astragalosides, two powerful molecules that have been implicated in activating telomerase enzyme production. Research suggests that large doses of these molecules have the potential to not only prevent telomere depletion but to actually rebuild the telomere that has been already lost.

While a patented form of the highly-concentrated extract called “TA-65” is available through a proprietary regimen, other extracts and derivative formulas are hitting the supplement market that contain potent levels of these isolated molecules as well. Certain specific varieties of astragalus root naturally contain high levels of these powerful molecules and the extracts can be purchased inexpensively in bulk powders or in capsules.

Heavy doses of astragalus extract that is rich in astragalosides are said to have the same effect as TA-65 in rejuvenating telomere growth and increasing the amount of telomere base pairs. In other words, the extract is capable of turning back the age clock. Jim Green, a scientist out of Wichita, has been experimenting with various forms of astragaloside-rich astragalus and has seen amazing anti-aging results which he has documented on his website.

Further research into this amazing subject is sure to reveal more as time progresses. In the meantime, certain steps can be taken to reverse the effects of aging. One step suggested by Al Sears, MD is to have one’s homocysteine levels checked to make sure they are not too high. High homocysteine levels increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, impotence, and heart disease. He suggests supplementing with B vitamins in order to keep homocysteine levels in check, as well as trimethylglycine (TMG). Astragaloside-rich astragalus is also a worthy contender that is both inexpensive and demonstrably efficacious in reversing the effects of aging.

Sources:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009

Anti-Aging Pioneer Al Sears, M.D. Brings Nobel Prize Winning Discovery to Millions – Life Extension

Finally, the First Step Toward Agelessness has Come! – Al Sears, MD

Astragalus Extract Program 2 Year Point – Jim Green

About the author
Ethan Huff is a freelance writer and health enthusiast who loves exploring the vast world of natural foods and health, digging deep to get to the truth. He runs an online health publication of his own at http://wholesomeherald.blogspot.com.

(NaturalNews) There’s a new vaccine for nicotine addiction, and another one for drug addiction. There’s an AIDS vaccines (which doesn’t work) and a vaccine for cervical cancer that’s been approved for use on boys (boys don’t have a cervix). Through the pharmaceutical industry, the big push for vaccines is on!

But why, exactly? Is there suddenly a new rash of epidemic disease requiring vaccine treatments? No, not really. What’s new is the way Big Pharma is latching on to these diseases as new opportunities to sell more drugs.

There’s a huge shift underway from drugs designed for sick people to a whole new class of drugs manufactured for healthy people. The new paradigm is that people need drugs before they get sick, as a sort of “protection” against sickness. Drugs, in essence, are being positioned as nutrients — things the human body needs in order to be healthy. And from the moment you’re born, you’re considered deficient in these drugs. That’s why babies are injected with vaccines within minutes after being born. There’s a strong belief in the medical industry that babies are born deficient in vaccines and that such deficiencies must be “corrected” as soon as possible.

This simple but powerful shift in the marketing strategy of Big Pharma has expanded the potential customer based from a subset of the population (people who are sick) to the entire world population. Now, everybody needs a vaccine for something say the drug companies. All that’s necessary for the financial success of these scheme is to convince sick people that they need more drugs (or vaccines), and that’s easily accomplished through disease mongering campaigns (like the current fear push over H1N1 swine flu).

Bypassing the need for scientific evidence
There’s another important shift taking place alongside the big vaccine push: A shift away from “evidence-based medicine” to a new medical paradigm of “dogmatic belief.”

Medicines that treat sick people, you see, have to be proven to work. There have to be clinical trials, and some percentage of those sick people (only 5% or so, typically) have to show some sort of improved response after taking the medicine. This is the so-called “gold standard” of modern medicine. But with vaccines, no proof of efficacy is required. No placebo-controlled studies need to be conducted at all. Vaccines can be openly marketed and prescribed without any evidence that they actually work.

This is the new “free pass” for Big Pharma — a class of medicine that requires no proof! They merely need to be injected into a few hundred people who are observed for as little as two weeks to see if anybody died or collapses into a coma. That’s all the testing that’s required (and sometimes even less). No long-term safety tests are required or pursued, and, importantly, there is no requirement that the vaccine proves it actually works to reduce flu infections (or HPV infections, etc.).

In essence, by pushing for a vaccine approach to virtually everything, including nicotine addictions, the pharmaceutical industry has transformed itself from a small industry that only served sick people with scientifically-proven medicines to a huge global industry that sells vaccines to everyone and needs no proof that they even work. By any assessment, it’s a brilliant strategy for increasing pharmaceutical profits.

At the same time, it’s a hazardous approach to public health. Even while vaccines provide little or no benefit to the people who get them, they do present very real risks of serious harm. Teen girls have died horrible deaths following HPV vaccine injections (http://www.naturalnews.com/027151_cancer_cervical_cancer_Natalie_Morton.html), and routine vaccines for children continue to inject them with levels of mercury so high that even the EPA considers vaccine liquids to be toxic waste (http://www.naturalnews.com/027293_flu_vaccine_swine.html).

Meanwhile, billions of dollars are being spent on seasonal flu vaccines and H1N1 vaccines without a shred of evidence that they actually work. The profitable sale of these vaccines to world governments was so easy and so lucrative that it’s gotten the attention of drug companies. We’re onto something! Vaccines are Big Pharma’s new gold. They rake in the big dollars, they need no proof that they work, and as an added bonus, drug companies have been granted full legal immunity against all side effects by the U.S. governments!

From the point of view of the drug makers, there’s no risk involved in vaccines. There’s no risk of scientific failure since no studies are being done to even question the efficacy of the vaccines. And there’s no risk of being sued over side effects since these companies enjoy blanket immunity. It’s all pure profit with no downside. This is the real reason why drug companies are looking for more vaccines to push.

A vaccine for boredom?
Ten years ago, the idea of mandating a cervical cancer vaccine to teenage girls would have seemed ludicrous. But today, it’s the law in many states. It’s easy to push, too, since they can always say it’s being done for “public benefit.” (Although, in reality, the primary beneficiary is Big Pharma.)

Now, the drug companies are pushing theories that diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are caused by a virus or that prostate cancer is caused by a virus. These are attempts to establish a justification for future vaccines against such conditions. If drug companies can convince the medical authorities that a virus is responsible for heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes, then they can promote vaccines for those things, too.

Before long, every human being will be targeted with a hundred or more vaccines for diseases they don’t even have!

It’s only a matter of time before Big Pharma decides to start pushing vaccines for psychiatric disorders. Feeling bored? There will be a vaccine for boredom. Having trouble concentrating? Watch for a vaccine to be announced for ADHD. Afraid of public speaking? You’ll probably see a vaccine promoted for “social anxiety disorder” sooner or later.

Although this sounds utterly ridiculous right now, don’t discount the ability of the pharmaceutical industry to reshape the entire dialog about mental disorders and vaccines. They’ve already proven their ability to turn normal human experiences into psychiatric disorders requiring pharmaceutical intervention, and most conventional health professionals have bought into it. Pushing vaccines for psychiatric disorders is the next great untapped market for drug companies. All that’s required is to first convince the public that viruses or chemicals are involved in brain disorders.

Believe or it not, this line has already been crossed with the recently announced nicotine vaccine. Nicotine isn’t a virus, obviously. So how can drug companies claim a vaccine works to stop the nicotine habit?

It’s easy: Instead of targeting a virus, the nicotine vaccine targets a molecule (the nicotine molecule). So now, drug makers can claim their vaccines can grant immunity to virtually any chemical or substance. And since psychiatric disorders are already blamed on “chemical imbalances in the brain,” the groundwork has already been laid for the pushing of vaccines for such “chemical imbalances.”

In fact, to take this one step further, keep in mind that according to the psychiatric disease “bible” (the DSM-IV), the very act of defying conventional wisdom is, all by itself, a psychiatric disorder. It’s called “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” or ODD. (I’m not making this up.) You can be diagnosed with ODD simply by arguing with your psychiatrist over the validity of whether the disorder itself actually exists. If you frequently disagree with authorities (like the FDA), you might also be labeled ODD.

If the current health regime is allowed to continue in America, I can easily imagine a day when anyone who disagrees with vaccinations is immediately “diagnosed” with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and injected with a psychiatric vaccine designed to “cure” the “disorder.” Effectively, it will be a chemical lobotomy.

To fully understand where this can lead, I urge you to visit CCHR’s museum called Psychiatry An Industry of Death (http://www.cchr.org/psychiatry_an_industry_of_death_museum/) where you’ll tour the horrific history of so-called “psychiatric medicine.” It’s free. Just tell ’em you’re a reader of NaturalNews and Mike Adams sent you. Reserve about 2 hours for the tour, and don’t eat much beforehand because you just might lose your lunch. When you see what psychiatrists have done to human beings in the name of medicine, you’ll be absolutely outraged. The street address of the museum is 6616 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90028. Call 1-800-869-2247 to make a reservation for yourself or a group.

Vaccines are the new holocaust. And just as drug companies were once involved in the Nazi-era experiments conducted on human beings, those same companies are now engaged in poisoning humans for profit.

Watch for Big Pharma to place even more emphasis on vaccines in the next decade. For them, it’s easy money. But for public health, it’s a disaster.

(NaturalNews) What do you get when you combine a good operating system with a bad burger? Burger King’s news “Windows 7 Whopper,” made with 7 beef patties and sold for ¥7.77 (Yen).

The seven-decker processed beef burger clocks in at 1,000 calories, reports FoxNews. It’s offered only for 7 days as part of a publicity stunt to publicize the launch of Windows 7, the new PC operating system from Microsoft.

Stacked five inches high, it’s not yet clear whether customers will be able to shove this burger down their throats in the way Microsoft did with Vista a few years back, but at least with Windows 7, Microsoft has reportedly overcome its failed Vista launch by creating a new operating system that accomplishes what Vista promised. It even features faster application load times and faster reboot speeds.

Speaking of rebooting, eating a 7-layer burger in one setting just might give customers their own “blue screen of death” gastronomical event requiring a complete digestive reboot. You might need 7 anti-diarrhea pills and 7 days of rest just to recover.

Even if your stomach can handle the Whopper 7, there’s a larger question of whether the planet can: The factory production of beef requires enormous quantities of fresh water. According to the Water Education Foundation, a quarter-pound hamburger requires roughly 1,300 gallons of fresh water to produce (by the time you factor in all the water the cows drink, the water for the crops fed to cows, etc.).

This Windows 7 Whopper might be estimated at five times larger than a typical quarter pounder. Thus, if you do the math, this 7-layered Whopper could be using 7,000 gallons of water to produce (give or take, depending on the size of the patties). In a world running out of fresh water supplies (fossil water), that’s a huge quantity to plow through in one meal.

And this doesn’t even take into account the CO2 emissions from the transportation and production of the beef, nor the climate-harming effects of the methane produced from all the cow farts (cows fart 7 times each hour, I’ve been told). In all, the environmental destruction caused by the fast food hamburger industry is at least 7 times worse than what burger munchers might have ever suspected.

Don’t have a cow, man!
What’s really astonishing about this is why Microsoft would want to tie their reputation to the fast food burger industry. When you think of what’s really involved in manufacturing burger beef — hormone and antibiotics injections, cows standing knee-deep in fields of feces, grotesque slaughterhouses where diseased but alive cows are dropped into processing equipment with the help of forklifts — it’s not exactly the kind of thing a corporation would normally want associated with their high-tech product.

Maybe it’s all part of a series of new slogans, such as:

“Windows 7 – We slaughter the competition!”

“Windows 7 – Now you can destroy the (computing) environment!”

“Windows 7 – Junk food for your PC.”

“Windows 7 – We bet you’re dying to try it!”

One can only imagine what deranged thoughts must have been bouncing around the heads of these Japanese Microsoft marketing executives. Perhaps for the launch of Windows 8, they’ll team up with death row inmates and have “Windows 8 sponsors 8 days of capital punishment featuring 8 murderers who each raped and killed 8 people!”

That would only be slightly less offensive than sponsoring a 7-layer burger at Burger King.

But I suppose, in the end, the stunt worked. They got press on NaturalNews, after all, and even we can’t deny that the Windows 7 operating system appears to be rock solid. But your stools won’t be if you eat a 7-layered Whopper, probably.