Want to quintuple your money overnight ?

Bet on McCain / Republican to win odds of 5/6/7 to 1 ina 2 horse race. See

Sure fire certainty since Scott McClellan endorsed Obama ... when has HE ever been on the winning side ?

Pelamis - wave energy

The First Wave Energy Farm of the World...It's About Time...
Posted by Luis de Sousa on October 2, 2008 - 9:15am in The Oil Drum: Europe

On Tuesday the 23th of September, the deployment of the first commercial wave energy farm in the world started. A Pelamis unit was towed into the sea, connected to an underwater cable and moored to the sea floor, at a site were it will stay for the next 15 years. The Industry was present at the highest level, as so a Minister and even the Navy showed up with a frigate to join the celebration....

We have written about Pelamis over the years identified more by hype and hope than results ... ... here is an excellent and brief well informed article to bring those interested up to date.

NB : Do NOT confuse with TIDAL energy.

All aboard my hearties and fill yer swag bags in the sun on the good ship Venus

Andrew Simon Feldman,(b 25th/2//66) (Haberdashers' Aske's,Elstree, ) a university chum (Brasenose - they jointly organised the May Ball in their year ) of Bullingdonite David Cameron , lawyer (of sorts - Lord Patel's sources say Ed Vaizey says he could be heavyweight commercial QC) but something to do with family rag traders Jayroma T/O in £40 Mn region , gross Trading Profit £7Mn. which magically became trading profit of £300K.m. 2 offspring.

Visitor with Conservative Party Shadow Boxing Chancellor of the Exchequer on board the modest runabout of RUsAL owner, Mr Oleg Deripaska this summer off Corfu .....who was NOT asked for any money for Conservative Party funds, nor were any offered, given, discussed , thought about, mentioned, directly or indirectly or scribbled on a stray paper serviette, supplied in a Waitrose shopping bag in the form of US$100 bills. ....

In September 2003, Orka Holdings arranged for Mr Feldman (the newConservative party bagman (AKA CEO) at the time) and David Cameron, to attend the England-Macedonia football international in Skopje. Orka picked up the tab for a four-day stay at the Aleksandar Palace hotel, where the England team were staying, and also for the match itself. Mr Cameron declared this hospitality in the register of members' interests

Surprisingly rag trader Orka, suppliers to Jayroma is owned / run by "colourful " Macedonian businessman 40 yr old Jordan "Orce" Aged 35, m. twice and divorced twice - father in law mayor of Earthquaked victim toewn Skopje.(see pic)

Orka holdings, founded by his dad , Ilija, after the "privatisation" in the 1990s of a former state sports clothing company. The Macedonian prime minister opened the business's new Skopje factory in 2002; it was said to have cost €10m in investment, some €500,000 from Mr Feldman's Jayroma by all accounts locally.

Jordan Kamcev has been under criminal investigation for tax evasion and VAT fraud. Forced to spend a brief spell outwith Macedonia in 2003 he returned to spend 12 hours in a Skopje prison before being bailed for €70,000.

Jordan recently (March '08) became chairman of Football Club FK Vardar after fans ousted president Braco Vujčić and the complete leadership of FK Vardar .

PS : Andrew Feldman helped fund the Cameron leadership bid or at least Jayroma provided 10,000 roubles Pounds - but then like Lord Levy he is also a tennis Party of the Dear leader.

Foreign Company funds re-routed through UK branches to Conservative Party

CVS Management, the management consultancy that is a subsidiary of a British Virgin Islands-registered, Swiss-based investment company. Who should mastermind this but Corvus Capital home of the eye line wearing "colourful" business man Andrew Regan, he who was narrowly cleared of stealing £2.4 million from a food company where he was chief executive in a complicated swindle to buy the Co-op.

Now, like so many fugitive financiers a denizen of the land of cuckoo clocks.

Markland Holdings (UK) is a small chunk of Sean Mulyan and Paddy Kelly's widespread property ventures based in sunny Dublin who gave £100,000 to the Conservatives this year .

Venson Automotive Solutions, is a bit of Dermot Desmond's empire, the squillionaire Irish owner of Celtic FC so soundlty beaten last week whilst John Reid AKA Ex Cabinet Minister and now Chairman watched at Old Trafford.

Loss making Star Reefers UK, (- £400K last year) the British wing of a family shipping business whose parent company is chaired by Norwegian, Kristian Siem another habitue of cuckoo clock land. Coppered up enough to send dear david £50,000 to the Tories.

Sleepwell Hotels UK owned by a tree legged trust in Douglas IOM (MD Denholm Eke) sent £50,000 in June '08 although Companies House show they failed to trade.

Inconveniently UK law states that a company must be “carrying on business” for a political donation to be eligible. Denholm Eke, said the corporate donor was part of a business running hotels in Blackpool and the Isle of Man. A restructuring meant that Sleepwell Hotels UK was now clearly trading and this would be reflected in future accounts.

Mr Eke apparently told the Times “It’s because we are very interested in Blackpool ,the Conservative Party would provide the most obvious political impetus for a Blackpool regeneration. It [Blackpool] is very sad and run down.”

BSN Capital Partners, is a fascinating bijouette London-based hedge fund advisory business run by two Americans and a Briton. Ultimate ownership is on a sandbar off a remote Cayman island partly owned by Icap, the Conservative Party treasurer Michael Spencer they stumped up £100,000 in these distressed times for hedge funds = 25% of profits.

Their gift of £100,000 amounted to nearly a quarter of last year’s profits.

There have been 23 corporate donations of exactly £50,000 and five of £100,000 during the Cameron era. Michael Spencer explained that this figure was first suggested by Sir Hayden Phillips during his official review of party funding.

'Twas on the good ship Venus,
By Christ you should have seen us,
The figurehead
Was a whore in bed, ....etc.,

Tinpot Aluminium gangster pals out with Lord mandelson and Conservative bagmen in Corfu whilst Murdoch watches

Conservatives dragged into row over Russian billionaire
The Tories, oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a £50000 question
Tory shadow cabinet members 'tried to solicit £50000 donation ...
The Tories and the oligarch: key characters
The richest Rothschild of them all Mail Online

Courtesy aangirfan Pic of deripaska's "yacht" Queen K alongside at Gibraltar.

Mr Deripaska has fascinating ties to the family of the late president Boris Yeltsin who hand picked Mr Putin. He married Polina Yumashev in 2001, the daughter of Mr Yeltsin's former chief of staff. Mr Yumashev is married Mr Yeltsin's younger daughter Tatyana b 1959 . Aeroflot is headed by Valery Okulov who is married to her sister Yelena b 1957.

The US State Department revoked a multi-entry visa for Mr Deripaska in 2006, declining to explain its reasons. That decision has not been reversed. The Wall Street Journal also reported this month that Mr Deripaska was under investigation by US and British authorities over a $57.5 million wire transfer routed through Barclays Bank in New York and London.

One of these will come in handy soon....

In 1991 Glock made a 1000 off limited edition series of specially engraved Glock 17 handgun. A list of names of all the coalition countries is engraved down the top of the slide; "Operation Desert Storm/January 16-February 27, 1991" is engraved on the right side. On the left side is "New World Order/Commemorative".

No 1 went to Dubya's Dad. No 2 to Stormin' Norman Schwartkopf etc.,

"European Union President Nicholas Sarkozy and European Commission President J. M. Barroso meet with United States President George W. Bush to press for a sweeping overhaul of the Global financial system to include a blueprint for a Worldwide Currency System.

October 18, 2008"Sarkozy: 'We must make haste, because we must stabilize the market as swiftly as possible by coming up with answers... Global Worldwide Solution... Thank you, Mr. President... for using your term of office right up until the very end to help the world find the answers to a crisis that we must contain. We must not give way to fatalism.'"

Barroso goes on to discuss merging our economies... 'a New Global Financial order and the Rule of Law."

Eight Steps to a New Financial Order
Alan S. Blinder
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 1999

Summary: The economic conflagrations that lit up the world throughout the last half decade sent a very clear message: There are fatal flaws in the global financial architecture. The Bretton Woods system was designed for a very different world. The IMF, part schoolmarm and part firefighter, no longer plays either role well. Too often, it ignores the real victims and makes crises worse. The system must be redrawn to stabilize markets and head off panics before they spin out of control. Herewith a simple, eight-point plan for such reforms that uses existing institutions and respects current notions of national sovereignty

We cannot expect to design an international financial system that totally eliminates risk. Manias, panics, and speculative excesses are inherent in free-market capitalism. Speculative markets have always been subject to alternating waves of greed and fear; they go to extremes, exhibit herdlike behavior, and probably always will. All this is part of the price we pay for vibrant, highly productive capitalism -- a necessary blemish on an economic system that has produced a dazzling record of achievement.

White supremacists stuck in the headlights over Obama

A tall, extra-hot mocha in his hand and a .380-caliber pistol on his hip, Bill White sat near the window of a Starbucks in Roanoke, Va., last month and discussed his political predicament as the leader of one of the nation’s more established neo-Nazi groups.

“Right now,” said Mr. White, the head of the American National Socialist Workers Party, “we’re facing the potential of a half-black candidate financed by Jewish money going up against a white candidate financed by Jewish money, who are both advocating the same policy. So you’ve got two terrible choices.”

That's the start of an article in today's NYT by Jim Rutenberg. read on ...

General Sir David Richards -- fit for purpose ???

Chief of the General Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt is pleased to announce that Her Majesty The Queen has graciously approved his recommendation that he be succeeded by General Sir David Richards. Currently serving as Commander-in-Chief Land Forces, General Sir David Richards will take up post as Chief of the General Staff in August 2009.

This was the same General Sir David Richards who as Lieutenant-General David Richards was the the commander of the British contingent of Nato forces in Afghanistan and whose gay club bouncer and dance instructor from Brighton and salsa-dancing Territorial Army interpreter Corporal Daniel James, 44, (AKA "General James " and originally Esmail Mohammed Beigi Gamasai)a military intelligence officer is currently in the Old Bailey charged under section one (1) (C), of the Official Secrets Act 1911 - that on 2 November 2007, for a purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state, he “communicated to another person information calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy” ...plus a charge of wilful misconduct, .

General Sir David Richards who as Lieutenant-General David Richards was the the commander of the British contingent of Nato forces in Afghanistan and was referred to by American supreme commander of NATO at the time, General Jim Jones, who was happy to let it be publicly known , that Lieutenant-General David Richards "would have been sacked if he had been an American officer". and that he was "too political". December 6th 2006

In a fascinating performance last week at the Old Bailey General Richards, appeared as a prosecution witness and said that on occasions he had whispered to James, telling him to lower his voice and stop acting the part of a general.

Asked whether he knew that Corporal James had begun calling himself General James, he said: “I didn't know that but it doesn't surprise me.”

General Richards, now Commander-in-Chief Land Command, said that the corporal had a character that “bordered on the bizarre”. He admitted that he was “completely dependent” on him because there was no alternative, and his previous interpreter, a captain, had not been good enough.

"He was very ebullient, something of a Walter Mitty character," said Gen Richards. "He obviously didn't mind being pointed out. "We have a floppy sun hat to keep the sun off and he would wear a cape-y thing at the back. He would also go to the gym a lot and he was keen to look after himself. He liked the limelight a lot."

Maj James Driscoll, who worked as the general's military assistant, said he found Mr James to be "always polite" although he sometimes had a "slightly overinflated opinion of himself".

£1.5 Mn a throw for uparmoured Rdigeback to replace Snatch Land Rovers in Afghanistan/ Iraq

£81 Million pounds is being spent by the MOD on converting US made Force Protection Inc. ( (NASDAQ: FRPT - News )vehicles - the Cougar 4x4s , into what are described by Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Quentin Davies as the "awesome" Ridgeback -"supplement the excellent work currently carried out by the hugely successful Mastiff. As a smaller version than Mastiff it will offer our forces first-rate protection with greater manoeuvrability and easier access to urban areas. " (MOD pic)

The contract has gone to NP Aerospace in Coventry and 157 Ridgback vehicles will be retrofitted into an "uparmoured and weaponised version" with additional protection, weapons, communications systems and specialist electronic counter-measures equipment.

NP Aerospace (473 Foleshill Road Coventry CV6 5AQ England United Kingdom UK - which is the successor to Courtaulds Bakelite Moulding ) produce 4 variants including an Ambulance or command post vehicle - to enable it to carry out different roles within Afghanistan.

All the Ridgback vehicles will feature:
* Strong axles and suspension to cope with the harsh terrain
* Weapons systems
* Additional armour
* Communications systems
* Modified seats to offer the crew more protection from bomb blasts

Top speed: 55mph Weight: 19.5 tonnes

Weapons: A mixture of weapons systems, including a 7.62 Heavy Machine Gun; General Purpose Machine Gun; Grenade Machine Gun mounted.

Some will also be fitted with a remotely controlled weapons system which will allow the user to operate Ridgback's weapons by using a camera and joystick from inside the vehicle.

This contract is on top of the procurement announced in December 2007 of the original vehicles for £150 Mn

NP Aerospace was also awarded a £61M contract to deliver Mastiff 2, the next generation of Mastiff vehicles, on 18th September 2008.

It may interest many that NP Aerospace were part of the mysteriously owned Carlyle Group, the global private equity house which bought the company for £30 million from Reinhold Industries in 2005 - then in August 2007 Morgan Crucible particpitated in a a £71 million trade buy-out (TBO) to end u[p with a minority stake.

Force Protection Inc. have a fascinating history in supplying wjhat are calle MWRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected ) vehicles to the US forces, shared traded as high as US$25 dollars 6 months ago but are trading today at US$2.05. see Tuesday, January 22, 2008 Ist US fatality in MRAP in Iraq - Force Protection slides

What this story means is that the Mastiff unveiled by Lord Drayson (now motor racing) in September 2006 which Lord Patel described as

Too Large, Too Late and incredibly expensive MOD runabouts bound for sunny Afghanistan.

Presented as a replacement (at £1/4 Mn per throw) for the inadequately armoured "snatch" Land Rovers this hugely expensive sticking plaster adds a further burden of costs of spares, and base training , and a further front line burden , of training mechanics, the need for low loaders , more back up equipment, spares to carry and a higher overhead of maintenance staff, plus their housing , catering etc., Press reports state they cost £1/4 Mn. each but the manufacturers press release at the date of order 11th August (4 weeks ago!) states the order for 85 vehicles is US$63 Mn. = approx £400,000 "The contract also includes associated spares, technical manuals, and field service support and is worth approximately $63 million. "

So now the MOD are spending at least £150 Million buying some more ( and nimbler 4 x 4 Cougars) for £150 Mn and another £81 Million = £231 Million adding things like ;

* Strong axles and suspension to cope with the harsh terrain
* Weapons systems
* Additional armour
* Communications systems
* Modified seats to offer the crew more protection from bomb blasts

Which one might assume would come as original equipment - so we make it that each of thes "awesome 4 x 4 Ridgebacks" which are basically to replace the "snatch Land Robver" will cost and eyewatering £1.5 Mn each.

The MOD provide no date for delivery.

A seventh Daubenton's Bat found with European Bat Lyssavirus - in Shropshire

We brought attention to the rabid bats amongst us earlier this year Friday, May 09, 2008 Rabid killer bat found - expect the headlines.

Now another dead bat has been found and been found positive for European Bat Lyssavirus type 2 (EBLV-2), by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) in Weybridge, Surrey which was found in Shropshire. See the very informative Defra webpage about the virus and its occurrence in the UK here - Rabies virus, including EBLV, can be transmitted to humans and to other animals. One such example was the tragic death of a Scottish bat conservationist (David McRae, 55, a volunteer naturalist and wildlife artist see Independent report 2/10/2002)from rabies caused by EBLV-type 2 in 2002.

A limited survey has shown that about 2% of Daubenton’s bats in England are seropositive which suggests they have been exposed to rabies virus and may be capable of transmitting it.

Since 1966 7 bats have been found and tested positive for the virus in Sussex, Lancashire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, and Shropshire.

Standard advice from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) is that if anyone is bitten by a bat the wound should be cleaned with soap and water and they should seek medical advice immediately.

Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii ) is rarely found far from rivers or lakes and is characterised by a steady steady flight, often within a few centimetres of the water surface and is frequently said to look like a smallhovercraft.

Daubenton’s bats take aquatic insects, their larvae and pupae from on or close to the water surface.They have even been seen taking prey directly from the water surface, using their distinctive large furry feet as a gaff or the tail membrane as a scoop.

They are sometimes called the water bat.

They hibernate in small colonies and emerge in the spring and can range up to 7 kilometres from their roosts. They are not a threatened species in the UK, but they are endangered in West Germany and Austria.

You can hear recordings of their ultrasonic signals at this website. More information here

Powell embraces Nancy Pelosi and everyone will be surprised to learn AIPAC

Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque disembowels the White House Uncle Tom, ColIN Powell ... the man who covered up My Lai ... the bagman who sold invading Iraq to the UN waving his little phial of death and phony pictures of the Winnegaboes of Death ...

Read his coruscating piece here

" ...... No provocation necessary. No legality required. Just a thuggish elite raining death on the world, for profit and power, sowing hatred for the once-great nation they have hijacked – and ensuring more death and terror for its people. "

Your place or mine Nancy ... Harry reid is looking real sore..

Commercial Aircraft Leasing has slowed to a halt ... Boeing on strike

International Lease Finace Corp is one of the wheels that came off in the AIG train wreck. this premier aircraft Leasing Company which has been led for years by Chairman & Chief Executive Officer / Founder the legendary Steven F. Udvar-Hazy is up for sale.

No - one wants to buy as oil prices slump.

No - one wants to finance a buy out.

The company website hasn't had a Press release posted for over a months suggesting deals have dried up.

CRash ! Bang! Wallop! Doom ... the rapture draws on...

"The crash we have been expecting finally happened last week and it was global in scope. The resulting recession/depression will be severe, since recent recessions have been staggered, meaning they never occurred all at once everywhere. While some national economies fell into recession, others were healthy and could pull the weak ones back up with their demand. When all economies crash at once, only governments can stimulate demand by massive deficit spending. But the United States, home to the world’s reserve currency, has been engaging in massive deficit spending throughout the last expansion, leaving it in a very weak position to do more. But do more it must, as we have seen with bailout after bailout in recent weeks, all of which will be added to the deficit and the public debt. That will increase interest rates, thereby plunging the U.S. economy further into full-scale depression. The result will most likely be a collapse in the value of the dollar and the end of the United States as a military hegemonic superpower."

Finally the voice behind the Signs of the Economic Apocylypse which many readers here will have followed for several years was able to write the draft epitaph.

The analysis and the history is simple. The banks and associated institutions successivelt prepared, produced and published fraudulent balance sheets.

On the basis of these convoluted lies - which even their highly prized and highly praised, not to say highly priced and highly paid CEO's were happy to claim a sedentary ignorance they declared profits , bonuses, rewards and dividends that when paid destroyed the capital base of those institutions.

Now, forced to expose the extent of their lies which runs worldwide to trillions , they have turned to the only source of succour, support and funds ... the poor sap, the taxpayer.

Nicely timed as the US is sat like a constipate awaiting the result of a rigged election.

No-one dare raise a voice of protest. Anywhere.

Worst week for global markets since 1929

"Amid the market turmoil, the reality of the decay of American capitalism was summed up by the fact that General Motors felt compelled to announce that it was not contemplating filing for bankruptcy. After decades of plant closures, wage cuts and attacks on the benefits and pensions of auto workers, justified by the claim that they were necessary to restore the biggest US auto maker to profitability and enhance its competitive position, this one-time icon of American capitalism is teetering on the edge of collapse."


18/3/05 GM makes you sick

US manufacturing industry has failed to understand and react to a rapidly changing world. Emboldened by the strident, pre-emptive, transformational world of the Bush imperialist gang, exporting by force of arms and bribery their distorted vision of democracy, their own has been disembowelled.

Black Monday II coming soon at a Stock Market near you.

In depth report on Markets Turmoil by Economist

from aangirfan

Mr Putin's Bears are getting to be a nuisance ... and Iceland are in no position to argue

“RAF Typhoons prepare for Iceland QRA duty”, is the title of an piece by Tim Ripley in subscrition only Jane’s Defence Weekly.

This - which we cannot reproduce , explains how the Royal Air Force are to deploy six Eurofighter Typhoons from RAF Coningsby to Keflavik Air Base, Iceland, for a couple of weeks as part of an allied rotation of fighter units to provide air surveillance and intercept cover over the Greenland-UK gap.

Joint Strike Fighter a victim of the Credit Crunch ?

Haaretz had a story last week that the IDF will need to reevaluate its procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) in light of the global economic crisis, as ..."cracks appearing in the coalition producing the plane could push up the price of the jet. "

Last month, the Pentagon announced plans to sell Israel 75 JSF jets in a deal that could reach over $15 billion. Israel said it will likely exercise the right to buy 25 planes, which it would like to begin receiving in 2014 but rumours abound of a delay.

Italy, one of the project's nine partners, said last week it would not purchase two early models of the jet it had intended to use for testing and evaluation although it remains a partner and is committed to buying 130 planes. JSF manufacturer Lockheed Martin confirmed that Italy would not purchase the test aircraft but that Rome was still a full-fledged partner in the program and was committed to buying the final version.

They also report cold feet in the MOD (who have run out of money for the forseeable future). British had planned to buy 150 planes. It had intended to deploy the jets on the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers. According to the report, Britain has commissioned studies (?)to analyze whether Eurofighters could be adapted to fly off the carriers instead..... Lord Patel has alreadt commissioned a technical report and the carriers are some 1,600 feet short.

There are no reports yet that the multi role Typhoon / Eurofighter is to be used as a passenger aircraft... yet.

The sun set on Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities 12 months ago ... did someone know the gig was up ?

If you land on the Sidley Austin website that covers the activities of their Mortgage-Backed Securitization / Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securitization you will find their is a degree of refreshing historical data about thier activities ...

For 2006, Sidley was ranked by Commercial Mortgage Alert as number two issuer counsel and number four underwriter counsel for U.S. Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities. For 2005, we were ranked number two issuer counsel and number three underwriter counsel. In the past year our lawyers closed, or otherwise played critical roles in, the issuance of more than $25 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities. This reflects our continuous leadership in the field, beginning with the representation of the registrant in the first CMBS “shelf” registration statement to be declared effective, and in the first CMBS shelf “takedown.”

...their last activity ...as recorded by a Press Release (and Sidley Austin, employees of both Michelle Obama and Bernardine Dohrn wife of Prof. Bill Ayers are not shy of issuing Press releases is of interest to shareholders in the yet to implode Barclays bank ...

Sidley Austin Advises Barclays Capital on £918,862,000 GEMINI (ECLIPSE 2006-3) PLC CMBS November 30, 2006
London – The London office of Sidley Austin has advised Barclays Capital on its recent £918,862,000 GEMINI (ECLIPSE 2006-3) PLC UK CMBS transaction, one of the largest sterling CMBS issuances undertaken this year. The transaction is the seventh issuance in Barclays Capital's CMBS conduit programme, which is branded "ECLIPSE", but it is the first occasion on which Barclays Capital has instructed Sidley Austin as its counsel.

The transaction involved the offering of £918,862,000 notes by GEMINI (ECLIPSE 2006-3) PLC. The notes offered were backed by a single loan secured over a portfolio of 36 commercial real estate assets (comprising office, industrial, retail and leisure assets) located across the UK.

Sidley Austin also acted for Barclays Bank PLC as lender in the origination of the loan which was made in early August of this year. Partners in the Sidley Austin Finance Group Debbie Carslaw, Mark Menhennet, Graham Penn and Partha Pal led the team handling the origination of the loan, assisted by a team of associates including Paul Gray, Sharon Smith, Pamela Clarke, James Bucke, Kirsten Bradby and Sunil Desaur. Partha Pal led the team handling the securitisation, assisted by associates Lisa Avellini, Alex Campbell, Paul Gray and Michael Killourhy.

Partner Andrew Bliss advised Barclays Capital Mortgage Servicing Limited as Master Servicer and Special Servicer on the transaction. Partner John Russell advised The Bank of New York as Trustee on the transaction, assisted by Sarah Murphy.

Partner Graeme Harrower advised on UK taxation for all aspects of the transaction, assisted by Kate Aubury.

Which leaves you wondering what Debbie Carslaw, Mark Menhennet, Graham Penn and Partha Pal, Paul Gray, Sharon Smith, Pamela Clarke, James Bucke, Kirsten Bradby, Sunil Desaur, Andrew Bliss , John Russell , Sarah Murphy, Graeme Harrower and Kate Aubury have been doing for the last 12 months.

FDA treads water on Effient (prasugel) approval

The blockbuster blood thinner Plavix from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), looks under even less of a threat from Lilly's Effient (prasugel) --which the FDA is going to kick back to one and maybe two, advisory committees early next year.

Advisory committees are outside panels of industry "experts" that review products for the FDA, (removing responsibility from as well) usually when there are safety and/or efficacy concerns, who then (eventually) make elusive and non binding recommendations and leave it (much later) for the FDA to think what to do.

In tests reporteed so far Effient (prasugel) works as well or better than the Plavix but there is a downside that it may cause some patients to bleed internally too much.

New CEO John Lechleiter wason CNBC's David Faber on "Squawk on the Street" from the Business Council's meeting in South Carolina and revealed he was unable to provide timing on an FDA decision.

...we keep going off on these trips....

The ingenuity of the illegal drugs industry never ceases to surprise.

Plod arrested 7 cruisers from Brummagham and Manchester in an early morning raid today, on the luxury P&O cruise liner, Arcadia, when it docked in Southampton - four carrying 30 Kg of high quality cocaine about their persons. (Worth £1.2 Mn says Plod - US$2Mn)