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Obama Team Said to Explore `Prepack' Auto Bankruptcy

2008-11-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- President-Elect Barack Obama`s transition team is exploring a swift, prepackaged bankruptcy for automakers as a possible solution to the industry's financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Obama's team has already contacted at least one bankruptcy- law firm to say that Daniel Tarullo, a professor at Georgetown University's law school who heads Obama's economic policy working group, would call to discuss the workings of a so-called prepack, according to this person.

U.S. lawmakers yesterday postponed until December a vote on whether to give General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC a $25 billion bailout as an alternative solution. Automakers such as GM could use court protection to reduce debt and reject unfavorable contracts.

``It creates the environment to deal with GM's problems but limits government financial commitment,'' said bankruptcy lawyer Mark Bane of Ropes & Gray in New York.

Bankruptcy is just one option being examined. Obama told CBS News's ``60 Minutes'' on Nov. 16 that government aid to automakers might come in the form of a ``bridge loan,'' advanced if the industry could draw up plan to make itself ``sustainable.'' The president-elect earlier urged Congress to approve as much as $50 billion to save automakers, using the model of Chrysler's bailout in 1979.

Tarullo referred questions on a prepack to the transition team press office. Team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, ``We have not put out anything specific for the auto industry except that something needs to be done immediately.''

No Cash

GM, the largest U.S. automaker, said it might run out of cash as early as the end of the year and that the risk was even greater by mid-2009. GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said this week GM would have to liquidate if it went into bankruptcy.

The automaker probably has weeks rather than months left before it runs out of money unless it gets federal aid, Jerome York, an adviser to billionaire Kirk Kerkorian and a former GM board member, told Bloomberg Television yesterday.

In a prepackaged bankruptcy, an automaker would go into court with financing in hand after reaching agreement with lenders, workers and suppliers on what each would give up and on the business plan to be followed. The process might take six to 12 months, compared with two to five years if the automakers followed an ordinary Chapter 11 proceeding and worked out agreements under a judge's supervision, Bane said.

Government Financing

Automakers would have to depend on government financing to restructure in bankruptcy court and probably couldn't attract private loans until they were ready to emerge from the process, Bane said.

Officials of the three automakers told members of Congress this week that they had studied a pre-arranged bankruptcy, championed by Republican lawmakers such as Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, before dismissing the idea as unworkable.

``We have looked at all aspects, whether it's a prepackage, whether it's prenegotiated,'' Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli told a Senate committee on Nov. 18. The options are all ``more negative'' than restructuring as a condition of receiving federal aid, he said.

Wagoner and Alan Mulally, CEO of Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford, also said under congressional questioning that their companies had studied and rejected the idea of reorganizing under court protection.

Not an Option

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that Democrats reject bankruptcy as an option.

In or out of court, automakers will have to submit a viable business plan to gain government funds, Peter Peterson, senior chairman of Blackstone Group LP, said in an interview.

``Unless they can show us the plan, we can't show them the money,'' Pelosi said yesterday.

GM, Ford and Chrysler must submit viability plans by Dec. 2, and Congress would meet the week of Dec. 8 to consider aid, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday. Congress must see accountability from automakers, Pelosi said.

The congressional deadlock was triggered by disagreement over how to pay for the $25 billion the Big Three automakers are seeking.

Democratic leaders have demanded that the recently approved $700 billion bank-rescue fund be tapped for the auto aid. Their plan stalled with opposition from Republicans and President George W. Bush`s administration.

Administration Position

The Bush administration joined Levin, Missouri Republican Senator Christopher Bond and others pushing the alternative that would tap the fuel-efficiency loans instead.

``There are other alternatives'' to a bridge loan for automakers, Senate Financial Services Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters yesterday. ``The prepackaged bankruptcy is not an idea without constituency here.''

A GM bankruptcy is the ``only way'' for the biggest U.S. automaker to end union costs that make it uncompetitive, Republican Senator James DeMint of South Carolina said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio.

``I look at the Republicans that say it shouldn't be saved and should be in Chapter 11, and I agree with that,'' said James Harris, President of Seneca Financial Group Inc., a restructuring advisory firm in New York. ``I look at the Democrats that say these businesses are very important to the economy, and I agree with that, so the logical step is a prepack,'' with some government financing, he said.

$700 Billion

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the $700 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program shouldn't be used to rescue automakers. ``There are other ways,'' he said at a Nov. 18 House hearing. Treasury Department spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin declined to comment on the prepack proposal.

The collapse of GM would cost the government as much as $200 billion should the biggest U.S. automaker be forced to liquidate, Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, estimates.

A GM failure would mean ``more aid to specific states like Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and more money into unemployment and extended benefits,'' Behravesh said Nov. 15.

The domino effect could be ``scary,'' said bankruptcy lawyer Martin Bienenstock of Dewey & LeBoeuf who teaches corporate reorganization at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School.

Bankruptcy would trigger failures of auto parts suppliers and dealerships, he said. Securitized auto loans and their insurers would fail, creating ripples through the credit markets, he said.

``The difficulty is assuring the American people that the bailout money won't simply defer the company's failure for six to 12 months,'' Bienenstock said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan at jgreen16@bloomberg.net

2008-11-21T07:23:00.000-08:00

René Magritte was a surrealist painter, born in Belgium in 1898. I wanted to see ordinary people see things in different ways. Sometimes, painted objects that do not generally part, as in the Trans-fixed time on a train from a chimney. Other times, Magritte confused on the first floor (the stuff in front of the painting) to the fund, such as the signature white, big family, and the seducer.

Magritte godereent no school, and I knew I wanted to paint, he went to DEX Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels to study art. In the meantime, he worked to find their own style. He tried to Cubism and Futurism (which I have not yet released), but may not be his style. In contrast, painted in surreal style.

It's been married in 1922 and designed posters and backgrounds, to have enough money to live.

Magrittenon was very successful party. In 1927 there was a man who has viel damage. Critics gustasu are not works of art.

He moved to Paris to work with other Surrealists. After three years in Paris, not the other Surrealist in Brussels and burned all that recalls the surreal. He painted surreal style and surreal, as has become popular, like Magritte.

Experience conAltri styles during his life, including comprisL'impressionnisme style and called COW poked fun as Fauvism. Magritte, semper dissatisfied with the time hgezogenBär at it in Paris, the French do not want to simplify and make fun of his art. Returning to the surrealism at the end of his life.

Magritte died in 1967.

Magritte is generally known by men in the hat of the players in his paintings. Often wears a hat and the players themselves, but can not normally do not see the faces of men, these paintings are usually referred to as self-portraits.

I like the paintings of Magritte pursuantlde, and articles.

Devoder even Gobiernoiones, which contain multiple images, that a picture of an object and an expression that was not what they seem. For example, he painted a picture of a pipe and the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" which means "This is not a whistle." I wanted to emphasize that nomidiamo things are completely random. Why a call baignoireou pipe? It is not possible that so easily have been assnoolo or dorbli

Fecal Transplants: This *!^# Saves Lives!

2008-11-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Salmonella-contaminated tomatoes. E. coli-riddled beef. These are just two recent outbreaks that have made headlines and basically ruined carefree burger-eating for the rest of the summer. Bacteria-laden feces are the probable source of both.

But sometimes a stool can save a life. I know, yeccccccchhhhhh, but it turns out that doctors can actually transfer fecal material from a healthy donor to patients sick with C. difficile, a potentially life-threatening germ that strikes when antibiotics kill off the good bacteria that live in the gut. It’s called a fecal transplant or fecal bacteriotherapy.

A friend who works at a hospital recently told me (without revealing the patient’s identity or personal information) that such a transplant had saved a patient’s life. My thought was: Why hadn’t I heard about this therapy before?

Poop can cure deadly infection
You see, C. difficile is one of those emerging superbugs that has been grabbing headlines because it seems to be more deadly and more common than in the past.

But guess what? It’s treated with even more antibiotics. This seems somewhat problematic, given that antibiotics, which kill off the good germs and allow a bad germ to gain a foothold, are the indirect cause of the life-threatening diarrhea, fever, and pain.

Not surprisingly, relapse is a common problem with C. diff, and occurs in 20% of patients. And anywhere from 1% to 15% of people die from it.

To find out more, I called Lynne McFarland, PhD, a research health scientist specialist at the Puget Sound VA Healthcare System in Seattle, who’s published research on fecal transplants.

“If you can just get past the aesthetic creepiness of it, basically what you are doing is replenishing the normal flora that’s been lost to antibiotic use or other things that can disturb your normal flora,” she tells me.

The donor stool usually comes from a healthy spouse or family member and is carefully screened for pathogens. Then doctors do the transplant via the mouth (a nasogastric tube is threaded into the stomach, through the small intestine, and on to the colon) or the other end of the GI tract (a scope similar to those used in colonoscopies is used to place the sample).

The technique seems to be a success 85% to 99% of the time, she says. It’s also been tried with some success for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, such as ulcerative colitis. (There have been about 80 published case reports of the treatment in the last 20 or so years.)

Good germs galore
There are anywhere from 400 to 400,000 different species of bacteria lurking in healthy intestines, and they help digest food, make vitamins capable of being absorbed, and break down cholesterol—all really good things.

Although there are probiotic mixtures that are used to treat human illness, they typically include only 10 or 15 good species out of thousands of potential candidates.

“The nice thing when you use someone’s stool, you have a really nice mixture of all the good types that are in there and hopefully no bad stuff,” she says.

So why is a cheap medical treatment with unlimited donor material that has a high-cure rate for a deadly illness still a doctor’s last-resort choice?

According to McFarland, it’s not due to the “Eww, that’s disgusting!” reaction (even though that’s nearly universal). Mostly it’s because no one has done the randomized, controlled trials that get the medical establishment on board.

“Companies have to make money and they can’t make money from someone else’s stool sample,” she says.

Part of the problem is that we know so little about our own gut. “It’s still a big black box,” says McFarland.

And physicians don’t like treatments that have not gone through controlled trials. “We don’t know all the pathogens and not all the pathogens can be tested for,” she says. “It’s not a risk-free procedure.”

But still. With the American health-care system groaning under the weight of pricey drugs—and the diseases caused by their overuse—shouldn’t we find someone who isn’t afraid of a little poo?

Source

Emily Jordan Osment bio

2008-11-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

Emily Jordan Osment (born March 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California) is an American child actress, singer and songwriter. She got a big break in the early 2000s when she co-starred as Gerti Giggles in the Spy Kids trilogy, and her performance in the second and third film earned her several nominations and awards. Since then she became famous for playing Lilly Truscott in the Emmy Award-nominated Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana.

In her other work, she starred as Cassie in R. L. Stine's: The Haunting Hour Volume One: Don't Think About It. As of December 2007, she is working on a movie for the series Hannah Montana, titled Hannah Montana: The Movie which is due to be released on May 1, 2009. On music, she has recorded teen pop hits like "I Don't Think About It" and, along with her Hannah Montana co-star Mitchel Musso, "If I Didn't Have You". She is currently recording her debut album, which will have several songs written by her.

Emily Osment was born in Los Angeles, California, where her family still resides, to actor Eugene Osment, and Theresa Osment (née Seifert), a teacher. Her father, Eugene Osment, is an actor of various films and will appear in Osment's movie debut Soccer Mom and her older brother is Academy Award-nominated actor Haley Joel Osment. Osment was raised Catholic. She was a student at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California and now has a private tutor.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie agree on a divorce settlement

2008-11-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie have reached an agreement in their high-profile divorce battle, The Times has learnt.

Their decree nisi is to be announced at 10am tomorrow in Court 10 of the Principal Registry of the High Court’s Family Division. Their case - Ciccone M L v Ritchie G S - is listed before District Judge Reid under the “quickie” divorce procedure, although it is not necessary for the couple to attend the proceedings in central London.

The couple have agreed a financial deal under which the singer will keep the bulk of her £300million fortune and they have resolved the big stumbling block concerning where the children should live.

The two sons, Rocco, 8, and the adopted David, three, will share their time between homes in Britain and America, it is understood।

Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, 12, will continue to live with her in the United States.

The 50-year-old singer had wanted all the children to live with her in New York. But her husband had wanted his sons to remain in London, so it appears she has given ground over the children’s future.

Ritchie, 40, who is believed to have his own much smaller fortune of £30 million, would have been entitled in principle under divorce laws to up to 50 per cent of the wealth earned during their eight-year marriage, but friends speculated today that he may have taken almost none of his wife's money.

A friend of the pair said: “It will all be over by the end of the month. Ritchie has done exactly what Billie Piper did when she divorced Chris Evans. She walked away without any of his money, much to her credit. He has done the same.”

Another friend of the couple, who lives near the pub they own in Mayfair, West London, said: “He could have hugely boosted his bank balance and set himself up for life, but he already feels he has enough money.

"He also didn’t want the whole thing dragging on in the public gaze for months and months and, in any case, his priority was the children’s future.”

The deal has been hammered out by two of London's leading divorce lawyers: Fiona Shackleton and Lady Helen Ward.

Last month it was revealed that Ritchie had rejected a £20 million divorce settlement that had been offered by the singer.

The star’s biographer, J Randy Taraborrelli, said at the time that the couple were “no closer” to reaching any agreement.The main hurdle to overcome had been where the couple’s children would live and be educated, he said.

The breakdown in the marriage was first made public at the end of the summer, after which the pair immediately began quarrelling over where their children would be based. Ritchie hired Britain’s leading barrister for his divorce battle, Stephen Cobb QC, who specialises in international divorce cases where there is a tussle over where the children reside.

Last night, Madonna looked radiant at a charity gala in New York. The star is in the midst of her Sticky and Sweet world tour and is said to have landed a £6.5million deal for a single modelling job — more than Kate Moss earned in a whole year.

Pixie hair is experiencing a revival in Hollywood

2008-11-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

Pixie hair is experiencing a revival in Hollywood these days. It started recently with Victoria Beckham and soon her friend Katie Holmes was sporting the short do as well. Now, movie star Winona Ryder is jumping on the bandwagon. Granted that out of the three, Winona should be considered the original pixie, but that was many years ago.

Winona Ryder debuted the extra short do at the Hollywood premiere of ‘Milk’ by director Gus Van Sant.

Milk, which tells the story of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, stars James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Sean Penn, and Josh Brolin. It is already receiving a huge amount of Oscas buzz before it opens in the USA in December.