The Man That Makes Me Feel Nauseous

Have you ever watched the Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild? A guy named Bear Grylls teaches people how to survive. Usually, he is dropped into some barren land like Africa, Siberia, etc. and he has to survive by finding shelter, food, and water. It's one of my favorite programs on Discovery, but I can't eat dinner while I'm watching.

(Warning! This is truly disgusting stuff.)

There is water in elephant sh*t?



I guess we all carry some water in our bodies...



If you are hungry in the Sahara desert...



What's for dessert in the desert?



Where can you find water if you're in the desert? (This one is really gross)



No, it's not "deok-buki."


How's your stomach? Anyway, the show offers great tips on survival. Not every show is a buffet. lol

The Movie That Made Me Cry... T_T

"Cinderella Man" is a movie based on the life of James J. Braddock. The film takes place during the Great Depression. Jim (played by actor Russell Crowe), like many fathers in the 1930s, doesn't make enough money to support his family. In this scene, the heat was turned off in his apartment in winter because he couldn't pay the gas company. His kids are becoming sick due to the cold weather and lack of heat. He needs $18.38 to pay for heating and a livable home for his wife and kids. What choice does he have? I hate this scene, but I highly recommend this film. >.<

Business Letter Sample 4

Icahn proudly describes himself as relentless. In his own words, "I'm not going away." Here's another letter he sent to the Yahoo! chairman. Good stuff.

Carl C. Icahn
ICAHN CAPITAL LP
767 Fifth Avenue, 47th Floor
New York, NY 10153

June 6, 2008

Roy Bostock
Chairman
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Roy:

While you may take issue with the content of my letter, I take issue with your oversight of Yahoo! Again, I stand by my characterization of your "poison pill" severance plan and I find it humorous to see you attempt to defend it.

Roy, it is you who "misrepresents and misstates the details" of the plan. Much like the rhetoric in many well known political campaigns, you keep repeating misstatements in the hopes that by repeating misstatements enough times it will convince your shareholders that these misstatements are valid. For example, you repeated, "the plan was fully disclosed at the time of its adoption and should be no surprise to anyone at this point." This is simply not true. The egregious magnitude of the dollar amount cost of the plan was never fully disclosed, nor was the email from your compensation advisor calling the plan "nuts." While you keep repeating that the severance plan was in the "best interests of shareholders", you neglect to mention that the financial cost of the plan could be immense. The documents obtained during discovery and released in the shareholder complaint show that Yahoo! estimates the maximum change in control severance expenses to be a staggering $2.4 billion if Microsoft bids $35 per share for Yahoo! You neglected to mention that the true cost to an acquirer may be even higher as the perverse change in control severance incentives may diminish the work effort of Yahoo! employees. In case you do not understand the plan, in addition to the $2.4 billion of severance expenses, I believe the plan will negatively impact employee behavior and degrade the ability of an acquirer to successfully integrate the acquisition. In the event of a change of control, the employee may decide not to work as hard in the hopes of cashing in on a robust severance package that awards up to two years salary and benefits, $15,000 of outplacement expenses, and accelerated vesting of stock options and restricted stock units. To make matters worse, it is not just the acquirer firing the employee that can trigger the severance package but the employee who may decide on his or her own to resign for "good reason" at any point within two years of a change in control. It is quite obvious to me that this plan impacts the price an acquirer would pay. Is it any wonder than an acquirer, once fully comprehending this plan, might not wish to negotiate any further? I again call upon you to honor your fiduciary duty to your shareholders and rescind this "poison pill" severance plan.

You asked, "what exactly would happen to our Company if you and your nominees were to take control of Yahoo!" I will give you my perspective on that.

-- First, I would work to have the board replace your "poison pill"
severance plan with an acceptable alternative.

-- Second, I intend to ask our new board to hire a talented and
experienced CEO (attempting to replicate Google's success with Eric
Schmidt) to replace Jerry Yang and return Jerry to his role as "Chief
Yahoo". Indeed, it was much speculated that Jerry would serve in the
CEO role temporarily until a permanent CEO was hired after the board
asked Terry Semel to resign.

-- Third, I intend to ask our new board to inform Microsoft that unless
any alternative transaction can insure a $33 or higher stock price (of
which I am skeptical) all talks of alternative transactions are over.

-- Fourth, I will ask our new board to offer publicly to sell Yahoo! to
Microsoft in a friendly and cooperative transaction.

-- Fifth, to the extent Microsoft does not want to make a proposal, I will
ask our new board do a deal on search with Google, but only if it
contains termination provisions that would in no way impede a
subsequent acquisition by Microsoft.

Now let me ask you a couple of questions, Roy:

-- Why don't you, now that you have the opportunity, remove the "poison
pill" severance plan that I find to be ridiculous and thereby remove a
major obstacle to a Microsoft acquisition?

-- In my opinion, Microsoft does not believe you will ever sell the entire
company on a friendly basis. So why don't you stop dancing around the
subject and publicly offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375
per share and promise to cooperate completely?

-- Why are you still giving hope to Microsoft that there is a possible
"alternative deal"? As long as there is the possibility of an
"alternative deal", isn't it obvious that Microsoft will not make a bid
for the whole company?

Sincerely yours,

CARL C. ICAHN

Business Letter Sample 3

Your favorite "corporate activist" is back with another letter to Yahoo! I love this guy. =)

ICAHN CAPITAL LP
767 Fifth Avenue, 47th Floor
New York, NY 10153

June 4, 2008

Roy Bostock
Chairman
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Mr. Bostock:

I have long been cynical about the effectiveness of many of the boards and CEOs in this country and as a result the inability of our companies to compete. I have constantly complained about how far CEOs and boards will go in order to retain their jobs, yet even I am amazed at the length Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board have gone to in order to entrench their positions and keep shareholders from deciding if they wished to sell to Microsoft.

According to details in a complaint that I became aware of yesterday (details Yahoo fought to keep under seal), Jerry Yang and a majority of the board went to inordinate lengths to sabotage a Microsoft bid. The complaint states: "Viewing employee retention as Microsoft's Achilles heel, Yang engineered an ingenious defense creating huge incentives for a massive employee walkout in the aftermath of a change in control. The plan gives each of Yahoo's 14,000 full-time employees the right to quit his or her job and pocket generous termination benefits at any time during the two years following a takeover, by claiming a 'substantive adverse alteration' in job duties or responsibilities." The damage to Microsoft "is compounded by the fact that Yahoo's thousands of engineers, known as 'Technical Yahoos!,' have detailed job responsibilities and qualifications."

Most importantly, Microsoft might never be able to trust a CEO and board who, while claiming to be negotiating in good faith, went behind their back and adopted a "plan" which not only sabotages any Microsoft acquisition but went so far as to completely disable its own ability to rescind the "plan" as long as Microsoft's offer remains pending. Until now I naively believed that self-destructive doomsday machines were fictional devices found only in James Bond movies. I never believed that anyone would actually create and activate one in real life. I guess I never knew about Yang and the Yahoo Board. In my opinion, it will be extremely difficult for Microsoft or other companies to trust, work with and negotiate with a company that would go to these lengths.

It is insulting to shareholders that Yahoo for the last month has told us that they are quite willing to negotiate a sale of the company to Microsoft and cannot understand why Microsoft has walked away. However, the board conveniently neglected to inform shareholders about the magnitude of the plan it installed which made it practically impossible for Microsoft to stay at the bargaining table. Could this have been the problem?

Even more deceitful are Yahoo's actions toward its own employees, for whom you claimed to have set up the "plan." Management neglected to mention to these same employees that Microsoft in its proposals had earmarked $1.5 billion of retention incentives (representing over $100,000 per employee) meant to allay any employee concerns.

Ironically, according to the complaint, this is not the first time that Yahoo has denied shareholders the opportunity of selling to Microsoft at a large premium. According to the complaint, in January 2007 Microsoft offered to purchase Yahoo at $40 per share but the company rejected that proposal. On January 31, 2008, Steve Ballmer emailed a letter to Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock making a new proposal of $31 per share. The letter recounts Microsoft's prior efforts to acquire Yahoo and noted that Microsoft had given Yahoo time to implement business strategies designed to turn the company around. These strategies obviously didn't work. The letter went on to state: "Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008." Yahoo not only turned down this proposal but sabotaged it. An article in CNET News cited in the complaint sums it up by stating, "Yahoo may indeed agree to Microsoft's [offer], but it will be over Jerry Yang's dead body."

I and many of your shareholders believe that the only way to salvage Yahoo in the long if not short run is to merge with Microsoft. However, because of HSR considerations, to complete a merger of this magnitude will take a period of time. Even if by some stretch of the imagination the Yahoo board finally determines to do the rational thing and sell the company, I fear that, in light of Yang and the board's recent actions in response to Microsoft's overtures, it may be too late to convince Microsoft to trust Yang and the current board to run the company during that period while Microsoft sits on the sidelines with $45 billion at risk. Therefore, the best chance to bring Microsoft and Yahoo together is to replace Yang and the current Yahoo board with a board that will negotiate in good faith with Microsoft and in whom Microsoft will have trust to operate the company during the long period between signing and closing.

You stated in a press release yesterday that, "Yahoo's board of directors including Jerry Yang has been crystal clear that it would consider any proposal by Microsoft that was in the best interests of its shareholders." However this is not crystal clear to me. You have allegedly turned down a $40 offer. You have turned down and sabotaged a $33 offer. Instead, you appear willing to negotiate an "alternative" deal that in my opinion will be worth less than $33 but will entrench the board and Jerry Yang. I understand how these actions are in the best interests of management and a board whose members each receive $40,000 per month for several days work, but it is hard for me to understand how these actions are in the "best interests of the shareholders."

However, despite your actions to date, there is still some possibility that you can resuscitate a Microsoft offer for the company. The board can rescind the "severance plan" that is the largest impediment to a Microsoft deal. You currently can do this because Microsoft withdrew their bid 30 days ago. It is time for you to stop misleading your shareholders with respect to Microsoft. It has been reported today that when asked to talk about the Microsoft bid, Sue Decker indicated that Microsoft made an offer which Yahoo's board didn't feel was at an attractive enough price. However, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to realize there is a simple method to possibly achieve a higher price. Simply rescind the poison pill "severance plan", which would free up approximately $2.4 billion and possibly even more which could be added to the bid. It is also time to admit to your shareholders that the severance plan was not done for your employees (who you conveniently neglected to inform that Microsoft had earmarked $1.5 billion in retention incentives for), but rather was done simply as an entrenchment device and to impede a Microsoft bid. If you are not completely disingenuous in your protestations concerning doing "the right thing" for shareholders, you should rescind the severance plan expeditiously and determine if Microsoft is still willing to purchase our company and thereby create a true competitor for Google. I can only hope that you will finally do what is in the "best interests of the shareholders."

Sincerely yours,
CARL C. ICAHN

The Crude Reality

Since the price of crude oil is a popular topic around the world, I thought I would present some interesting statistics.

OPEC estimated that world demand for crude oil will increase to 87.09 million barrels a day in 2008. That would mean a 1.5% increase over 2007. If this 1.5% annual increase continues, in 5 years the world demand will be approximately 94 million barrels a day. Where will the extra 7 million barrels come from? Which country can supply that? The answer: None.

Here are the top exporters and the amount of crude oil they export:

1. Saudi Arabia (OPEC) 8,651,000 (barrels a day)

2. Russia 6,565,000

3. Norway 2,542,000

4. Iran (OPEC) 2,519,000

5. United Arab Emirates (OPEC) 2,515,000

6. Venezuela (OPEC) 2,203,000

7. Kuwait (OPEC) 2,150,000

8. Nigeria (OPEC) 2,146,000

9. Algeria (OPEC) 1,847,000

10. Mexico 1,676,000

11. Libya (OPEC) 1,525,000

12. Iraq (OPEC) 1,438,000

13. Angola (OPEC) 1,363,000

14. Kazakhstan 1,114,000

15. Canada 1,071,000

Remember, all countries use crude oil, so the export amount is less than the actual barrels of crude oil produced. For example, Russia consumes about 3,000,000 barrels per day. They can produce around 9,500,000 barrels a day. Therefore, only 6,500,000 is available for export. Another fact that might be influencing high crude prices is Libya, Mexico, Algeria, Venezuela, Norway, Russia, and possibly Saudi Arabia have reached their peak oil production. They simply cannot produce more barrels of oil per day.

Here are the top importers of crude oil:

1. United States 12,220,000 barrels a day (Stupid SUVs)

2. Japan 5,097,000

3. China 3,438,000

4. Germany 2,483,000

5. South Korea 2,150,000 (Korea needs to become friendly with Kuwait. They're the perfect match.)

6. France 1,893,000

7. India 1,687,000

8. Italy 1,558,000

9. Spain 1,555,000

10. Taiwan 942,000

11. Netherlands 936,000

12. Singapore 787,000

13. Thailand 606,000

14. Turkey 576,000

15. Belgium 546,000

So, what will happen? Will the world decrease consumption and demand? Alternative energy and fuels? lol If the world didn't change in the 1970s during the oil crisis, why should I expect it to change today? I don't think so. That's why a lot of analysts are predicting $150-$200 for a barrel of crude oil. That's why I'm not selling my oil company stocks. Even if a barrel of oil drops to $100, those companies will still make hefty profits. If it jumps to $150, then I'll be celebrating. =)

At $200 per barrel, a gallon of gas in the U.S. will cost around $6. A liter of gas in Korea will cost around 3,000 won. Is that shocking? Well, in Turkey they already pay $11 a gallon or 2,750 won per liter.

Are You Happy?

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”
Frederick Keonig

“There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.”
Swami Sivananda

“True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.”
Charles Caleb Colton

“What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life”
Hermann Hesse

Are you content? It seems most of us are not. Unless you live in Europe or the Bahamas...
You can read the full report here. Here's the World Happiness Rankings from the Leicester School of Psychology:

1. DENMARK

2. SWITZERLAND

3. AUSTRIA

4. ICELAND

5. BAHAMAS

6. FINLAND

7. SWEDEN

8. BHUTAN

9. BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

10. CANADA

11. IRELAND

12. LUXEMBOURG

13. COSTA RICA

14. MALTA

15. NETHERLANDS

16. ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

17. MALAYSIA

18. NEW ZEALAND

19. NORWAY

20. SEYCHELLES

21. ST KITTS AND NEVIS

22. UAE

23. USA

24. VANUATU

25. VENEZUELA

26. AUSTRALIA

27. BARBADOS

28. BELGIUM

29. DOMINICA

30. OMAN

31. SAUDI ARABIA

32. SURINAME

33. BAHRAIN

34. COLUMBIA

35. GERMANY

36. GUYANA

37. HONDURAS

38. KUWAIT

39. PANAMA

40. ST VINCENT AND THE

41. UNITED KINGDOM

42. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

43. GUATEMALA

44. JAMAICA

45. QATAR

46. SPAIN

47. ST LUCIA

48. BELIZE

49. CYPRUS

50. ITALY

51. MEXICO

52. SAMOA WESTERN

53. SINGAPORE

54. SOLOMON ISLANDS

55. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

56. ARGENTINA

57. FIJI

58. ISRAEL

59. MONGOLIA

60. SAO TOME AND PERINI

61. EL SALVADOR

62. FRANCE

63. HONG KONG

64. INDONESIA

65. KYRGYZSTAN

66. MALDIVES

67. SLOVENIA

68. TAIWAN

69. TIMOR-LESTE

70. TONGA

71. CHILE

72. GRENADA

73. MAURITIUS

74. NAMIBIA

75. PARAGUAY

76. THAILAND

77. CZECH REPUBLIC

78. PHILIPPINES

79. TUNISIA

80. UZBEKISTAN

81. BRAZIL

82. CHINA

83. CUBA

84. GREECE

85. NICARAGUA

86. PAPUA NEW GUINEA

87. URUGUAY

88. GABON

89. GHANA

90. JAPAN

91. YEMEN

92. PORTUGAL

93. SRI LANKA

94. TAJIKISTAN

95. VIETNAM

96. IRAN

97. COMOROS

98. CROATIA

99. POLAND

100. CAPE VERDI

101. KAZAKHSTAN

102. MADAGASCAR

103. SOUTH KOREA

104. BANGLADESH

105. CONGO REPUBLIC

106. GAMBIA

107. HUNGARY

108. LIBYA

109. SOUTH AFRICA

110. CAMBODIA

111. ECUADOR

112. KENYA

113. LEBANON

114. MOROCCO

115. PERU

116. SENEGAL

117. BOLIVIA

118. HAITI

119. NEPAL

120. NIGERIA

121. TANZANIA

122. BENIN

123. BOTSWANA

124. GUINEA-BISSAU

125. INDIA

126. LAOS

127. MOZAMBIQUE

128. PALESTINE

129. SLOVAKIA

130. BURMA

131. MALI

132. MAURITANIA

133. TURKEY

134. ALGERIA

135. EQUATORIAL GUINEA

136. ROMANIA

137. BOSNIA & HERZE

138. CAMEROON

139. ESTONIA

140. GUINEA

141. JORDAN

142. SYRIA

143. SIERRA LEONE

144. AZERBAIJAN

145. CENTRAL AFRICAN RE

146. MACEDONIA

147. TOGO

148. ZAMBIA

149. ANGOLA

150. DJIBOUTI

151. EGYPT

152. BURKINA FASO

153. ETHIOPIA

154. LATVIA

155. LITHUANIA

156. UGANDA

157. ALBANIA

158. MALAWI

159. CHAD

160. IVORY COAST

161. NIGER

162. ERITREA

163. RWANDA

164. BULGARIA

165. LESOTHO

166. PAKISTAN

167. RUSSIA

168. SWAZILAND

169. GEORGIA

170. BELARUS

171. TURKMENISTAN

172. ARMENIA

173. SUDAN

174. UKRAINE

175. MOLDOVA

176. CONGO DEMOCRATIC

177. ZIMBABWE

178. BURUNDI

Dirty Play

Since it's the NBA Finals, I have to post more b-ball.

This is from the http://therealests.blogspot.com/2007/06/bruce-bowens-dirrtiest-hits.html

Bruce Bowen is a great one on one defender. However, is Bruce Bowen a dirty player?

Take a look at his foot.


Where is his knee? Ouch!


"Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting"