Ponzi scheme promoter bites the dust

"Investment manager" (and that term is used very loosely) Bernard Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman, was charged on Thursday with massive fraud.

Time reports that according to the U.S. Attorney's office in the southern district of New York, Madoff admitted to defrauding clients for up to $50 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme that was committed over a number of years. (See the top 10 scandals of 2008.)

Forbes reports that Madoff, known to his mates as Bernie, informed “senior employees,” possibly his sons, that his investment advisory business was a fraud. (See "Mad Madoff.")

Madoff reportedly said he was “finished,” that he had “absolutely nothing,” that “it's all just one big lie.” He allegedly stated that the business was insolvent, and that it had been for years.

His estimated losses from the fraud clocked in at $50.0 billion. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said regulatory files showed that the firm had more than $17.0 billion in assets under management at the start of the year and that virtually all of that is missing.

The 70-year-old Madoff is being charged with one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5.0 million. Madoff was released on his own recognizance after posting a $10.0 million bond secured by his Manhattan apartment.

The Securities and Exchange Commission asked the federal court in New York to freeze Madoff’s assets. The commission also appointed a receiver who will try to gather all the assets and will try to determine whether anyone else was complicit in the fraud. “The process takes years,” said Powers. “Although these frauds may appear simple, forensic accountants must go through the various transactions that occurred to understand the full extent.”

Powers said Ponzi-like schemes typical start when the scamster made a bad investment decision or dipped into clients' funds, and instead of admitting to the mistake or paying back the losses, uses new money from investors to meet redemptions.

Some are considering Madoff’s scheme the biggest fraud case in Wall Street’s history. Madoff’s clients, which reportedly include Lombardier, the Loeb Family, Banco Santander, and a slew of charities, will likely seek civil lawsuits or other legal action to try to recover the money they’ve invested.

Is the Australian Youth Forum website a total failure?

On 2 October 2008 with much fanfare the Rudd Government and the Federal Minister for Youth, Kate Ellis, launched the Australian Youth Forum and associated website.

The website is an online forum for, well, for youth and the young have responded dramatically according to government:

There has been such a great response to the initial topics and some really good suggestions have been made.

Here is how this "great response" played out.
It's first discussion topic Bullying the forum attracted 40 comments over 59 days, as of the morning of 12 December and not all of these were from young people.
The second discussion topic Body Image is doing a little better with 45 comments in 59 days.
There is no third, fourth or fifth topic listed on the website.

Of course there are slightly more people reading this site, with Bullying posts receiving 181 votes and Body Image 142 votes.

However there is no way of knowing if it was the young actually reading and voting.
As a Baby Boomer my anonymous vote was happily registered by the online forum.
As would be the vote of any ministerial staffer.

Now I know that in its $8 million funding announcement government also included funding for the non-government Australian Youth Affairs Coalition and some future local conferences, but this still represents as lot of money for 85 short opinion posts on a specially created website.
Each post keystroke probably represented hundreds of dollars.

With so many of Australia's two million-odd young people able to access the Internet, this poor showing over two months gives pause for thought.
Wasn't the Youth Forum website a product of that Rudd brain fever, the 2020 Summit?

Poznan: Tipping my hat to the Australian youth delegation and their international counterparts

With around one hundred and eighty-seven countries represented at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Poland this week predictably at loggerheads about the details on how to proceed to combat the worst effects of climate change through an enduring treaty, I take some comfort from the voice of youth.
It might not be a globally inclusive voice and I suspect that in many respects it is a somewhat elitist voice (and I can't help nostalgically thinking they aren't a patch on the 60s mob), but this a young voice speaking loudly and clearly to the rest of the world - p#ss or get off the pot!
I just hope that Rudders and Co are really listening and Penny Wong formally embraces this perspective rather than just paying lipservice to it at the Ministerial Roundtable yesterday.

Crikey reports:

20 young Australians have come to Poznan, Poland for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change as part of the Australian Youth Delegation. Mostly self funded, we have travelled here to make sure the youth voice is heard on climate change and to ensure that world leaders step up and stop dangerous climate change. This delegation has been hosted by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), a coalition of over 20 youth organisations working on climate change issues around Australia....

The Australian Youth Delegates at the United Nations conference are calling on the government to set emission reduction targets of over 40% by 2020 to safeguard their future and the future of Pacific Islands...

A group of young people from over 50 countries attending the UN Climate Negotiations in Poland have achieved an extraordinary feat today: negotiating an international statement based on the "survival principle" and getting senior negotiators to sign their countries up to it.

Over 80 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Costa Rica, Tuvalu and Bangladesh, as well as leading experts on climate change including Australia's Tim Flannery, Sir Nicolas Stern and Nobel prize winner Dr. Rajendra Pachauri have signed on to the statement that a global climate change agreement must "safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples".

For a conference that has otherwise been a bland non-event, this statement has resonated widely with delegates. Many nations have placed a "survival" placard handed out by the youth delegates over their country's name placards.

These young delegates had joined adult national representatives at the Poznań conference on Thursday to hear the UN Secretary-General outline its objectives:

First is a workplan for next year's negotiations. I am glad that an agreement has already been achieved. Second, you need to sketch out the critical elements of a long-term vision. We need a basic framework for cooperative action starting today, not in 2012. Within this framework, industrialized countries must set ambitious long-term goals, coupled with midterm emission reduction targets.

Developing countries need to limit the growth of their emissions as well. To do so they will need robust financial and technological support -- not just promises, but tangible results. Adaptation will be key, including risk reduction and management. Change must be integrated with strategies for development and poverty alleviation. One without the other means failure for both. The world's poorest should not suffer first and worst from a problem they did least to create.

Third, we must recommit ourselves to the urgency of our cause. This requires leadership -- your leadership. Yes, the economic crisis is serious. Yet when it comes to climate change, the stakes are even far higher. The climate crisis affects our potential prosperity and our peoples' lives, both now and far into the future.

Message to Political Leaders: Consider Our Future
It's Getting Hot In Here, DC - 8 Dec 2008
In every possible way we, as an International Youth Delegation representing over 50 nations, are trying to make the case that the time is running out to ...

Alta. oilsands criticized at UN summit
Canada.com, Canada - 23 hours ago
A Canadian youth delegation attending the UN climate-change conference in Poznan, Poland, set up a photo display, scrutinizing Alberta's environmental ...

Poznań: The Maturing of the Youth Contingent
Worldwatch Institute, DC - 10 hours ago
Answer: they are both the voice of the international youth delegation, an increasingly vocal, organized, and perhaps bureaucratized presence at the ongoing ...

The Climate Crisis Waits for No One
Solomon Times Online, Solomon Islands - 10 Dec 2008
Leah Wickham, a Greenpeace volunteer from Fiji, who is part of a youth delegation to Poznan, said countries like Australia had not demonstrated political ...

The thrills and spills of carbon-reduced travel
The Age, Australia - 5 Dec 2008
Australian Youth Delegation overland team Nic Seton, 22, of the Gold Coast, Anna Keenan, 23 of Brisbane, Jack Fuller, 23 of Melbourne, Oliver Cashman, ...

Obama being asked what did he know and when did he know it

First he supposedly discussed the disposition of his soon to be vacant Senate seat and then he did not, according to conflicting statements from Barack Obama and his transition team.

Not a propitious start to the president-elect's response to the fact that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevitch was arrested this week for allegedly conspiring to 'sell' a Senate seat.
Especially in light of Obama's political support of Blagojevich in the past.

The direct result of this mixed response can be found in posts such as 7 Blago questions for Obama.

While the Republican National Committee is ecstatic according to the New York Daily News:

And they are singing. Here's the release Alex Conant sent out this morning:

All - In light of the arrests in Illinois today, please recall the below points:

Obama Has Advised The Blagojevich Campaign And Endorsed Him For A Second Term:

Obama Advised Blagojevich On His Victorious Gubernatorial Run. "That year, [Obama] gained his first high-level experience in a statewide campaign when he advised the victorious gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich, another politician with a funny name and a message of reform." (Ryan Lizza, "Making It," The New Yorker, 7/21/08)

Obama: "If the governor asks me to work on his behalf, I'll be happy to do it." (John Patterson, "Senator Says He's Still Willing To Help Blagojevich Despite Hiring Concerns," Chicago Daily Herald, 7/27/06)

Obama Endorsed Blagojevich For A Second Term. "Obama, who endorsed Blagojevich for a second term nearly 18 months ago, said he's ready to help Illinois democrats in the upcoming elections." (John Patterson, "Senator Says He's Still Willing To Help Blagojevich Despite Hiring Concerns," Chicago Daily Herald, 7/27/06)

Obama: "We've got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois." (Deanna Bellandi, "Illinois Democrats Talk Unity But Don't Show It," The Associated Press, 8/16/06)

It seems that The Chicago Way may yet come back to haunt the Obama presidency and, it's quite possible that damage control is already geared towards a plea deal with Blagojevich so that the case does not go to a full trial where claims and speculation could drag Obama's name further into this tangled web.

All of which will make Obama's scheduled press conference later today rather interesting.

While Senator Conroy is busy saving the world from purr-verts, governments run rampant over the Internet...

Wikileaks reported on 16 November 2008:

Between Friday night and Sunday morning, a massive deletion operation took place at the European Internet address register (RIPE) to scrub references to a cover used by Germany's premier spy agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND.

The cleanup operation comes the night after Wikileaks revealed over two dozen covert BND networks provided by T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom). The IP addresses were assigned to an unregistered company at a Munich-based PO box linked to T-Systems.

T-Systems purged the RIPE database of all addresses exposed by Wikileaks, moving the addresses into a several giant anonymous "Class B" address pools.

The move comes just a few hours after T-Systems Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) contacted Wikileaks to demand removal of an internal T-Systems memo listing the BND cover addresses. Wikileaks refused and T-System did not respond to requests for further detail by the time of writing.

Yet an investigation into the addresses over the weekend reveals key information about the BND's Internet activities. Findings include the removal of information on the BND's own German Wikipedia entry--which stated that the Goethe Institute was sometimes used as BND cover, visits to websites including the Russian government and a Berlin escort agency (perhaps for "honey traps"), as well as crawling the Internet for terrorism related topics, such as the assassination of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Website references reveal that in 2006 numerous hosters of Internet websites complained about out of control "data mining" robots from two of the BND-linked IP addresses. One of the hosters ran a popular discussion forum on counter-terrorism operations.

The integrity and transparency of the RIPE system is not assisted by the T-Systems deletion. German citizens may wonder at the double standard. At a time when the population's Internet addresses are being recorded by ISPs under laws derisively referred to as "Stasi 2.0", the "real Stasi"—the BND, has had the largest telco in Germany scrub its addresses from the European record within 24 hours of their exposure.

In August Wikileaks revealed the 2006 Shaefer report's missing pages on how German intelligence infiltrated Focus magazine. The censored pages remain unreported in the German press and in particular Focus magazine.

Did the Howard years leave us dribbling idiots?

For $25 you can buy a book which tells everyone just how successful school chaplaincy programs can be.
Joelle even has a blog to promote her book which reportedly speaks openly of miracles.

According to Caroline Overington at The Australian last weekend:
"GOD has cured at least one state school student of attention deficit disorder and another of asthma, according to interviews with chaplains employed in 2850 schools under a $165 million federal government program.
The Lord has also made it stop raining at a state school assembly in Queensland and performed other miracles to bring state school children to Jesus.
One chaplain was able to "fix the head" of a disruptive student by placing his hands upon the boy's head, and praying for him.
These and other miraculous claims are included in a book about the national school chaplaincy program, which was introduced by the Howard government in October 2006."

Now who'da thunk it. John Howard - miracle worker sitting at the righthand of Hughie!
Obviously the Scripture Union didn't, because they stated that they no longer endorse the book and gently repudiated its author.
Except of course that the top article touting the book on the first Google search page on 6 December was at (ya guessed it) The Scripture Union.