Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (143034)	6/24/2006 6:16:13 PM
From: Dexter Lives On	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Perhaps it's time for QUALCOMM to invest in this outfit? nextwave.com Or maybe they already have - $550M in seed capital is not exactly chump change.... Anyone have any comments on NextWave's positioning and offerings? T.I.A. Tom Morrow PS Looks like my original prognostication, that Flarion was purchased exclusively for the patents in a defensive play against the WiMAX offensive thrust, has proved out. FLASH-OFDM will never see the light of day; Mobile-Fi is DOA.

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (143034)	6/25/2006 2:26:14 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

Warren Buffett gives away his fortune FORTUNE EXCLUSIVE: The world's second richest man - who's now worth $44 billion - tells editor-at-large Carol Loomis he will start giving away 85% of his wealth in July - most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. FORTUNE Magazine By Carol J. Loomis, FORTUNE editor-at-large June 25, 2006: 1:42 PM EDT NEW YORK (FORTUNE Magazine) - We were sitting in a Manhattan living room on a spring afternoon, and Warren Buffett had a Cherry Coke in his hand as usual. But this unremarkable scene was about to take a surprising turn. "Brace yourself," Buffett warned with a grin. He then described a momentous change in his thinking. Within months, he said, he would begin to give away his Berkshire Hathaway fortune, then and now worth well over $40 billion. More from FORTUNE Buffett gives away his fortune Chevron CEO: Corn is not the answer The end of a dream FORTUNE 500 Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune Warren Buffett gives it away * An interview with Buffett * How the giveaway will work * The force called the Gates Foundation From the FORTUNE archives Should you leave it all to the children? If you do, you may not be doing them a favor. But if you want to, there are sensible ways of passing on what you have without depriving the kids of a feeling of achievement. (more) Letters from Buffett As part of his plan, Warren Buffett is sending letters to each of the five foundations that will be receiving his gifts. The letters may be found on Berkshire Hathaway's Web site. (See the letters) This news was indeed stunning. Buffett, 75, has for decades said his wealth would go to philanthropy but has just as steadily indicated the handoff would be made at his death. Now he was revising the timetable. "I know what I want to do," he said, "and it makes sense to get going." On that spring day his plan was uncertain in some of its details; today it is essentially complete. And it is typical Buffett: rational, original, breaking the mold of how extremely rich people donate money. Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett's (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates). The Gateses credit Buffett, says Bill, with having "inspired" their thinking about giving money back to society. Their foundation's activities, internationally famous, are focused on world health -- fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis -- and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools. Up to now, the two Gateses have been the only trustees of their foundation. But as his plan gets underway, Buffett will be joining them. Bill Gates says he and his wife are "thrilled" by that and by knowing that Buffett's money will allow the foundation to "both deepen and accelerate" its work. "The generosity and trust Warren has shown," Gates adds, "is incredible." Beginning in July and continuing every year, Buffett will give a set, annually declining number of Berkshire B shares - starting with 602,500 in 2006 and then decreasing by 5% per year - to the five foundations. The gifts to the Gates foundation will be made either by Buffett or through his estate as long as at least one of the pair -- Bill, now 50, or Melinda, 41 -- is active in it. Berkshire's price on the date of each gift will determine its dollar value. Were B shares, for example, to be $3,071 in July - that was their close on June 23 - Buffett's 2006 gift to the foundation, 500,000 shares, would be worth about $1.5 billion. With so much new money to handle, the foundation will be given two years to resize its operations. But it will then be required by the terms of Buffett's gift to annually spend the dollar amount of his contributions as well as those it is already making from its existing assets. At the moment, $1.5 billion would roughly double the foundation's yearly benefactions. But the $1.5 billion has little relevance to the value of Buffett's future gifts, since their amount will depend on the price of Berkshire's stock when they are made. If the stock rises yearly, on average, by even a modest amount - say, 6% - the gain will more than offset the annual 5% decline in the number of shares given. Under those circumstances, the value of Buffett's contributions will rise. Buffett himself thinks that will happen. Or to state that proposition more directly: He believes the price of Berkshire, and with it the dollar size of the contributions, will trend upward - perhaps over time increasing substantially. The other foundation gifts that Buffett is making will also occur annually and start in July. At Berkshire's current price, the combined 2006 total of these gifts will be $315 million. The contributions will go to foundations headed by Buffett's three children, Susan, Howard, and Peter, and to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. This last foundation was for 40 years known simply as the Buffett Foundation and was recently renamed in honor of Buffett's late wife, Susie, who died in 2004, at 72, after a stroke. Her will bestows about $2.5 billion on the foundation, to which her husband's gifts will be added. The foundation has mainly focused on reproductive health, family planning, and pro-choice causes, and on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Counting the gifts to all five foundations, Buffett will gradually but sharply reduce his holdings of Berkshire (Charts) stock. He now owns close to 31% of the company-worth nearly $44 billion in late June - and that proportion will ultimately be cut to around 5%. Sticking to his long-term intentions, Buffett says the residual 5%, worth about $6.8 billion today, will in time go for philanthropy also, perhaps in his lifetime and, if not, at his death. Because the value of Buffett's gifts are tied to a future, unknowable price of Berkshire, there is no way to put a total dollar value on them. But the number of shares earmarked to be given have a huge value today: $37 billion. That alone would be the largest philanthropic gift in history. And if Buffett is right in thinking that Berkshire's price will trend upward, the eventual amount given could far exceed that figure. So that's the plan. What follows is a conversation in which Buffett explains how he moved away from his original thinking and decided to begin giving now. The questioner is yours truly, FORTUNE editor-at-large Carol Loomis. I am a longtime friend of Buffett's, a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, and a director of the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (143034)	9/5/2006 8:59:08 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

AP News obituary on Steve Irwin ........................................................ September 4, 2006 3:18 p.m. 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin Dies From Stingray Barb During Dive Associated Press CAIRNS, Australia -- Steve Irwin died doing what he loved best, getting too close to one of the dangerous animals he dedicated his life to protecting with an irrepressible, effervescent personality that propelled him to global fame as television's "Crocodile Hunter." The 44-year-old Mr. Irwin's heart was pierced by the serrated, poisonous spine of a stingray as he swam with the creature Monday while shooting a new TV show on the Great Barrier Reef, his manager and producer John Stainton said News of Mr. Irwin's death reverberated around the world, where he won popularity with millions as the man who regularly leaped on the back of huge crocodiles and grabbed deadly snakes by the tail. "I am shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said. "It's a huge loss to Australia." "Crikey!" was his catch phrase, repeated whenever there was a close call -- or just about any other event -- during his TV programs, delivered with a broad Australian twang, mile-a-minute delivery and big arm gestures. Conservationists said all the world would feel the loss of Mr. Irwin, who turned a childhood love of snakes and lizards and knowledge learned at his parents' side into a message of wildlife preservation that reached a television audience that reportedly exceeded 200 million. "He was probably one of the most knowledgeable reptile people in the entire world," Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, told ABC's "Good Morning America." In high-energy programs from Africa, the Americas and Asia, but especially his beloved Australia, Mr. Irwin -- dressed always in khaki shorts, shirt and heavy boots -- crept up on lions, chased and was chased by komodo dragons, and went eye-to-eye with poisonous snakes. Often, his trademark big finish was to hunt down one of the huge saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the rivers and beaches of the Outback in Australia's tropical north, leap onto its back, grabbing its jaws with his bare hands, then tying the animal's mouth with rope. He was a committed conservationist, running a wildlife park for crocodiles and other Australian fauna, including kangaroos, koalas and possums, and using some of his TV wealth to buy tracts of land for use as natural habitat. Mr. Irwin was in the water at Batt Reef, off the Australian resort town of Port Douglas about 60 miles north of Cairns, shooting a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close the stingray, Mr. Stainton told reporters. "He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Mr. Stainton, who was on board Mr. Irwin's boat, Croc One, at the time. Crew members administered CPR and rushed to rendezvous with a rescue helicopter that flew to nearby Low Isle, but Irwin was pronounced dead when the paramedics arrived, Stainton said. "The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Mr. Stainton said. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'" Mr. Irwin's image was dented a bit in 2004 when he held his month-old son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen, touching off a public outcry. He argued there was no danger to his son, and authorities declined to charge him with violating safety regulations. Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. An Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him. Mr. Irwin was born Feb. 22, 1962, in the southern city of Melbourne to a plumber father and a nurse mother, who decided a few years later to chase a shared dream of becoming involved in animal preservation. They moved to the Sunshine Coast in tropical Queensland state and opened a reptile and wildlife preserve at Beerwah in 1970. Mr. Irwin said in a recent interview that he was in his element. He was given a snake for his sixth birthday and regularly went on capturing excursions with his father in the bushland around the park. He was catching crocodiles by age nine, and in his 20s worked for the Queensland state government as a trapper who removed crocodiles from populated areas. Mr. Irwin's father, Bob, said his son had an innate affinity with animals from an early age, a sense Irwin later described as "a gift." He said he learned about wildlife working with his parents rather than in school. In 1991, Mr. Irwin took over the park, Australia Zoo, when his parents retired and began building a reputation as a showman during daily crocodile feeding shows. He met and married Terri Raines, of Eugene, Ore., who came to the park as a tourist, that year. They invited a television crew to join them on their camping honeymoon on Australia's far northern tip. The resulting show became the first "Crocodile Hunter," was picked up by the Discovery Channel the following year, and the resulting series became an international hit. Mr. Irwin was more famous in the U.S. than at home, where he typified a knockabout, rascally character that Australians call a "larrikin" and who many people worried painted a stereotypical picture of Australians as brash and uncouth. Mr. Irwin loved Australia and its people, though, describing it as the greatest land on Earth. By 2002 he had starred in a movie, Australia Zoo had became a major attraction and the Australian government enlisted him as the star of international tourist campaigns. When President Bush visited Australia in 2003, Mr. Irwin was among the guests hand-picked by Mr. Howard to attend a ceremonial barbecue -- and he turned up in his khakis. At Australia Zoo in Beerwah, flowers and cards were dropped at the entrance Monday as news of Irwin's death spread. "Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you. Rest in peace," said a card with a bouquet of native flowers. Mr. Irwin is survived by his wife Terri, daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December. Copyright © 2006 Associated Press.