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The NFL Draft starts on Thursday, April 27, and it seems more than likely that Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett will go first overall to the hapless Cleveland Browns.
At nfl.com, three of four draft insiders have the Browns taking Garrett and the other, naturally, has the Browns returning to the quarterback well to pick North Carolina's Mitchell Trubisky; Garrett then goes No. 2 to San Francisco.
For his achievements both at Triple-A Memphis and in St. Louis, the Cardinals selected outfielder/first baseman Stephen Piscotty as the organization's Player of the Year for 2015.
Piscotty, 24, batted .305 with seven home runs and 39 RBI in his 63 games with the Cardinals following his July 21 call-up from Memphis. He ranked among team leaders in two-out RBI (23), game-winning RBI (7) and batting average with runners in scoring position (.393, 29 RBI).
Piscotty, 24, batted .305 with seven home runs and 39 RBI in his 63 games played with the Cardinals following his July 21 call-up from Memphis. He ranked among team leaders in two-out RBI (23), game-winning RBI (7) and batting average with runners in scoring position (.393, 29 RBI).
One night several years ago, while he was watching Alex Gibney's film, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," Houston-based videographer Dave Henry got an idea.
Buoyed by rising home prices and stock portfolios, Middle Tennesseans are ready to spend big again on the holidays and will be shopping earlier than ever.
In fact, they already have.
Forget Black Friday or even Thanksgiving Day as the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.
The Supreme Court is considering shutting down class-action lawsuits from investors who lost billions in former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford's massive Ponzi scheme.
HOUSTON (AP) – Investors in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated by R. Allen Stanford are starting to get back some of the money the former Texas financier squandered.
NEW YORK (AP) – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, known as much for his zany personality as his business discipline, will leave a legacy of mixed results and a monumental challenge for his yet-to-be-named successor.
Shelby County Commissioners consider an events center for Spring Creek Ranch golf course Monday, Aug. 5, as well as a mixed-use commercial site at Austin Peay Highway and Millington-Arlington Road by First Citizens National Bank.
The Spring Creek Ranch golf course is ready to tee off in a major way. The private golf club north of Collierville is aiming to become more of a destination "resort" and is seeking to build a new special events center with a culinary arts school and microbrewery, along with cabins and a day spa, to attract a much wider audience.
A top executive in the now-defunct empire of disgraced Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday, Sept. 13, for her role in helping the once jet-setting businessman bilk investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
Former jet-setting Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford, whose financial empire once spanned the Americas, was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in prison for bilking investors out of more than $7 billion over 20 years in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
HOUSTON (AP) – As former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford's criminal case gets ready to wind down with his sentencing Thursday for a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, the battle for control of his remaining assets around the globe still hasn't been settled.
HOUSTON (AP) – Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford, whose financial empire once spanned the Americas, was convicted Tuesday on all but one of the 14 counts he faced for allegedly bilking investors out of more than $7 billion in massive Ponzi scheme he operated for 20 years.
Ray's Take Some Baby Boomers desperate to make up portfolio losses due to the financial crisis or "catching up" from years of under-saving are being victimized at record numbers by a number of financial frauds. In one year, the number of criminal complaints and other financial regulatory actions involving investors 50 or older more than doubled.
HOUSTON (AP) – A former employee for Texas financier R. Allen Stanford says a farm hand and a preacher were among unqualified workers hired as financial analysts in one of Stanford's offices.
HOUSTON (AP) – Prosecutors say Texas financier R. Allen Stanford stole the hard-earned savings of investors, using the money like his own piggy bank so he could live the lavish lifestyle of a billionaire.
HOUSTON (AP) – Jury selection has begun in the oft-delayed trial of jailed U.S. financier R. Allen Stanford, who is accused of bilking investors out of $7 billion in a vast Ponzi scheme.
The court-appointed receiver for disgraced financier R. Allen Stanford's empire, along with an official group of Stanford investors, has added another Memphis name to the group of entities they're suing.
HOUSTON (AP) — Two psychiatrists testified Thursday that former Texas billionaire and financier R. Allen Stanford, who is set to go to trial at the end of the month on charges he bilked investors out of $7 billion in a Ponzi scheme, is not mentally competent to go forward with his case.
Federal prosecutors say they won't object to a delay of this month's scheduled trial of former high-flying Texas billionaire investor R. Allen Stanford but argue the two-year postponement sought by Stanford's lawyers is far too long.
The Securities and Exchange Commission's chief enforcement official said the agency has toughened its efforts to shut down financial misconduct after failing to act quickly in the cases of R. Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff.
By agreeing to be the presenting sponsor of the 2010 St. Jude Classic, Smith & Nephew came to the rescue of a nonprofit organization that had given away almost all its assets because of a long-term commitment from Stanford Financial to be the golf tournament's title sponsor.
One thing appears clear one year after the alleged investment fraud that wrecked Stanford Financial Group: All that glitters is not gold.
Made popular in Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice," the phrase was inside the golden casket a prince had chosen after deciding its appearance made it the obvious answer to a rich woman's puzzle.
MIAMI (AP) - Citing weak evidence, a federal judge on Friday acquitted two former employees of fallen financier Allen Stanford on charges they illegally shredded thousands of company documents to hinder the federal probe into an alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme.
MIAMI (AP) - It was a rough year for Ponzi schemes. In 2009, the recession unraveled nearly four times as many of the investment scams as fell apart in 2008, with "Ponzi" becoming a buzzword again thanks to the collapse of Bernard Madoff's $50 billion plot.
2009 was a year without a script – and plenty of improvising on the political stage.
It was supposed to be an off-election year except in Arlington and Lakeland.
2008 ended with voters in the city and county approving a series of changes to the charters of Memphis and Shelby County governments. Those changes were supposed to set a new direction for both entities, kicking into high gear in 2010 and ultimately culminating two years later.
DALLAS (AP) - The Internal Revenue Service wants the names of U.S. taxpayers who have foreign accounts with companies owned by indicted billionaire R. Allen Stanford, according to court papers filed Wednesday.
It's often difficult being a sports fan around here, but the past two weeks have been especially brutal for Memphians.
The University of Memphis fired football coach Tommy West Monday after back-to-back outings in which the Tigers drew 4,117 fans for a nationally televised home game and then were shellacked on the road by Tennessee.
Under the most optimistic scenario, as much as 20 cents on the dollar could be returned to victims of the investment fraud that brought down Stanford Financial Group.
That's among the findings in a status report filed in the Texas court where federal regulators are trying to prove Stanford was a financial house of lies built on an illusion of wealth. The status report was prepared by Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey, the court-appointed receiver whose team is mopping up what's left of the network of assorted companies under the Stanford nameplate.
Lawyers representing R. Allen Stanford, the jailed Texas financier accused of running a massive Ponzi scheme, say they have their work cut out for them.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The brokerage industry's self-policing body must make reforms to protect investors after its inspections failed to uncover the massive Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff and the alleged fraud by R. Allen Stanford, according to a special review.
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was returned to lockup Sunday afternoon after being hospitalized for treatment of a concussion following a jail fight.
The perp walks are a fading memory. So is R. Allen Stanford's protestation of innocence during a night on the town earlier this year.
R. Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire now passing time in a Texas jail for his role in what U.S. regulators have called a "massive Ponzi scheme," once told a roomful of his employees they ought to have three priorities in life.
HOUSTON (AP) - A federal judge has appointed a public defender to represent jailed Texas billionaire financier R. Allen Stanford.
R. Allen Stanford, the jailed financier accused of bilking investors out of billions of dollars in a massive Ponzi scheme, had surgery for an aneurysm in his leg Wednesday morning, according to news accounts. The procedure followed a cardiac catheterization Stanford underwent earlier in the week.
A lawyer for Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford said his client has had a medical procedure that allows doctors to diagnose and treat certain heart conditions.
The court-appointed receiver in charge of what remains of jailed Texas financier R. Allen Stanford's business is going after money former Stanford advisers made from selling bogus certificates of deposit.
HOUSTON (AP) – The former finance chief for jailed Texas financier R. Allen Stanford said his boss created a business empire where blood oaths were taken to secure loyalty, bribes were paid from a secret Swiss bank account and investor profits were more fiction than financial genius.
HOUSTON (AP) – Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, jailed on charges of bilking investors out of $7 billion, has been hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat and high pulse, the judge in his case said Thursday.
DALLAS (AP) – The attorney who's supposed to clean up what the government says was Texas businessman R. Allen Stanford's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme is managing to anger just about every party involved in the case.
Jim Kyle, a Memphis Democrat who serves as minority leader in the state Senate, gave the first lunchtime address of 2009 to the Memphis Rotary Club.
Rotarians got a bird's-eye view of the state's financial picture from Kyle, who described choices needed to close the state's budget shortfall. Kyle this week announced his candidacy in the 2010 gubernatorial race.
The U.S. Department of Justice wants a federal judge in Texas to put the brakes on the first stages of a civil fraud case filed in February against Texas financier R. Allen Stanford and several former subordinates.
HOUSTON (AP) - The former chief financial officer of indicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford's business empire will plead guilty to charges alleging he helped swindle investors out of $7 billion, his attorney said Wednesday.
HOUSTON (AP) - A federal judge says he will decide by Tuesday afternoon on whether to revoke a bond for Texas financier R. Allen Stanford that would let him be free while he awaits trial on charges he swindled investors out of $7 billion.
HOUSTON (AP) - Defense attorneys are opposing a prosecutors' request to delay an order granting Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford a bond that would free him until he is tried on charges he swindled investors out of $7 billion.
HOUSTON (AP) – Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges he swindled investors out of $7 billion as part of a massive investment scam.
Stanford entered his plea during his arraignment in federal court. Authorities have alleged that Stanford used his international banking empire as a pyramid scheme, which typically operates by paying off earlier investors with money collected from later investors.
When the court appointee in charge of what's left of Stanford Financial Group asked a judge's permission last month to pay invoices of almost $20 million for the work he's done so far, it wasn't a popular request.
Federal prosecutors and financial regulators have unveiled new civil and criminal charges against disgraced Texas financier Allen Stanford and several former subordinates.
The charges include new details about the case against Stanford made public four months ago when regulators put the powerfully built Texan at the center of an alleged $8 billion investment fraud.
It may be the only time Allen Stanford and the federal agency that helped dismantle his financial empire find something they can agree on.
Several attorneys working for the billionaire namesake of Stanford Financial Group have filed notice with a Texas court of their intent to withdraw from the case.
Meanwhile, Stanford's former chairman, R. Allen Stanford, has another opponent chomping at the bit to enter the latest legal fray against him: his estranged wife, Susan.
Cleaning up the wreckage of a fallen financial giant that once cast a long shadow in Memphis apparently will be an expensive task.
The person in charge of what little remains of Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford's business empire has asked permission to pay invoices for fees and expenses totaling almost $20 million. That money would go to 14 companies that have helped Stanford's court-appointed receiver, Ralph Janvey, roll up Stanford's companies while preserving the estate's value for investors.
The court-appointed receiver in charge of what little remains of Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford's business empire has asked permission to pay $20 million in fees and expenses to 14 companies who've worked on the Stanford case.
The chief investment officer for Texas financier Allen Stanford's business empire before regulators shut it down three months ago is now the first Stanford executive indicted after a sweeping probe of the organization.
"Is this possible and secure?"
The subject of that question was Stanford Financial Group, the business empire accused by federal regulators of perpetrating a multibillion-dollar investment fraud. An accountant who worked in Mexico's banking industry asked it in a 2002 letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
U.S. regulators are investigating whether R. Allen Stanford, the financier accused of running an $8 billion fraud, has violated a federal court order freezing his assets.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants a federal judge to say no to R. Allen Stanford's request that $10 million of his assets be unfrozen to help cover his legal tab.
The court-appointed receiver who's been working to untangle the complicated financial web of the Stanford Financial group of companies last week gave a detailed look into what he's done so far and why.
The status report Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey filed in the Texas court where a sprawling federal case is unfolding against Stanford provides new details about the motivations, goals and progress of Janvey's efforts. Janvey was appointed as Stanford's receiver in February shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit claiming the Stanford business empire was built on secrets, deception and a multibillion-dollar investment fraud.
Fighting back
Details of Janvey's efforts come at the same time Stanford's Chairman Allen Stanford, a billionaire Texan with a towering physique and a penchant for the game of cricket, has begun to raise his media profile. In an interview he gave to The New York Times, Stanford told the paper he can't use any of the credit cards in his wallet, his bank accounts are frozen and he's been locked out of his apartment on the island of St. Croix.
Far from pulling his punches in light of a looming criminal indictment, Stanford in the interview also blasted the SEC for "squandering" the assets of the assorted Stanford companies. He also called Janvey a "jerk" whose aides "can't find their rear end from a hole in the ground," according to The Times.
Stanford filed a sharply worded memorandum this month in the Texas court answering some of the charges against him. He said the Stanford receiver has seized all of his money, important records, most of his clothing and personal possessions.
The Stanford companies "provided service to thousands of valued clients," his memo reads. "They employed thousands of honest, hard-working people. Stanford's companies were real companies with real assets, real profits and real employees serving real clients."
CD dealing
Meanwhile, Janvey's report last week attempts to shed light on some of the things he has found.
He writes, for example, that Stanford's operation consisted of more than 100 companies spread across the globe, with locations spanning 15 U.S. states and 13 countries in Europe, the Caribbean, Canada and Latin America.
Partly based on the work of a forensic accountant, the Stanford receiver believes the purpose of the combined Stanford operation was simple: bring in outside money through the sale of CDs issued by Stanford's offshore bank. And to do that, brokers were paid handsomely through a compensation structure that made the whole enterprise unsustainable without the money generated from CD sales, according to the receiver.
"To the outside world … these financial businesses appeared to be independently viable," reads the receiver's status report. "The receiver believes, however, based on his investigation to date, that the principle purpose and focus of most of the combined operations was to attract and funnel outside investor funds into the Stanford companies through the sale of the CDs issued by Stanford's offshore entity (Stanford International Bank).
"Once CD funds entered the Stanford companies, they were dispersed to Allen Stanford or to other Stanford-owned entities or used to purchase private equity and other investments, to pay CD redemptions and interest or to pay expenses and obligations."
Following the trail
The receiver appears to believe Stanford's far-flung operation – which included a now-shuttered Memphis office – arguably owed its continued existence to money brought into the organization via the CD sales. The Stanford empire had a strong Memphis connection, with an investment brokerage office here as well as offices at one time for both Stanford's chief financial officer James Davis and chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt, both of whom were named in the SEC complaint.
As of Feb. 22, the receiver's data show about $7.2 billion worth of CDs were outstanding and in the hands of approximately 21,500 holders around the world. But much of the cash received from CD sales apparently cannot be found.
The receiver also has asked the accounting firm of Ernst & Young to compile balance sheets for Stanford's companies because the receiver states almost all non-cash assets listed on Stanford's Dec. 31 balance sheets are substantially overstated.
"Preliminary analysis of Stanford's available financial records indicates that a very substantial amount of cash received upon sale of (the bank's) CDs over the last few years … cannot be accounted for," the receiver's report reads. "Some of this cash may have been spent in ways that are not reflected in any of the available financial records … such as cash that may have been loaned to Allen Stanford or distributed to him as sole shareholder and then spent on personal consumption by him.
"This preliminary analysis suggests that the aggregate amount of such unaccounted-for cash may be in the range of $1 billion."
The court-appointed receiver who's taken charge of the Stanford Financial Group's business empire filed a lawsuit Wednesday in an attempt to recover more than $40 million Stanford paid 66 financial advisers. Five of the advisers are from the Memphis area.
The court-appointed receiver who's taken charge of the Stanford Financial Group's business empire filed a lawsuit Wednesday in an attempt to recover more than $40 million Stanford paid out to 66 financial advisers. Five of the advisers are from the Memphis area.
That group collectively has $1.6 million in compensation the receiver is looking to get back:
Jon Barrack: $241,751
Norman Blake: $233,858
Charles Brickey: $212,709
Chuck Hughes: $301,074
Scott Notowich: $679,932
Ralph Janvey, a Dallas attorney operating as Stanford's receiver, is looking to recover Stanford assets and secure the company's business operations and holdings. The money he's seeking via the lawsuit was paid as commissions and other compensation for the sale of Stanford's certificates of deposits.
Those CDs are at the heart of what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission believes is an $8 billion pyramid scheme. The SEC in February filed a civil complaint against Stanford, its chairman and two executives that, among other things, alleged the CDs were sold by promising inflated and near-impossible returns.
"Over just a two-year period, these financial advisers received commissions ranging in amounts from $2.6 million to $200,000, along with other incentive compensation, to promote the sales of CDs," reads Janvey's complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Janvey contends the money is appropriate for him to recover because it was paid to Stanford employees who continued to bring new investors in to buy the company's allegedly fraudulent products.
Stanford chairman R. Allen Stanford, chief financial officer James Davis and chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt "kept their fraudulent scheme going by using the (financial advisers) to lure new investors," the complaint reads. "The commissions, loans and other compensation paid to (the advisers) came not from revenue generated by legitimate business activities, but from monies contributed by defrauded investors."
As part of its U.S. presence, Stanford operated a brokerage office in the East Memphis Crescent Center, and the company's chief investment officer and chief financial officer at one time both worked there. The closure of Stanford's Memphis office as a result of the broader investigation meant the loss of 50 jobs, according to information from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group, has filed a lawsuit against Stanford's former attorney and his firm that claims they "hung her out to dry" and seeks damages of more than $20 million.
Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group, has filed a lawsuit against Stanford's former attorney and his firm that claims they "hung her out to dry" and which seeks damages of more than $20 million.
The Fox Business Network, a cable news channel and spinoff of the Fox News Network, has filed a lawsuit in New York against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to the collapse of Stanford Financial Group.
As a Texas receiver sifts through claims against Stanford Financial Group, one creditor has asked to skip toward the front of the line – the Internal Revenue Service.
In a motion filed Friday "at the direction of the Attorney General of the United States," the IRS claims R. Allen Stanford and soon-to-be-ex-wife Susan Stanford owe more than $226 million in federal income taxes, an amount that includes penalties and interest.
Thomas Sjoblom, an attorney at the international law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, walked into the office of a female Stanford Financial Group executive in Miami after a tense series of private meetings earlier on a February day with Stanford's top brass.
Lawyers for Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group whom federal investigators believe helped perpetrated a massive investment fraud, fired back in court this week.
A federal judge issued an order Thursday lifting a freeze on about 12,000 investor accounts with Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford that were valued at $250,000 or less as of Feb. 28, at the request of the court-appointed receiver in the Stanford case.
NEW YORK (AP) - Bernard Madoff and $50 billion.
His name and that number have become inseparable in describing the enormity of what has been called the largest white-collar fraud in history. It's a figure that has helped demonize Madoff and relegate big-time money managers charged in subsequent securities schemes to mere "mini-Madoff" status.
A federal judge ruled Monday that thousands of investor accounts with Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford's financial companies will remain frozen for another 10 days, and a court-appointed receiver said he's developing a plan to return some of the money to its owners.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an amended complaint in Texas against three executives of the Stanford Financial Group family of companies charged last month by the SEC with defrauding investors.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an amended complaint in Texas this afternoon against three executives of the Stanford Financial Group family of companies charged last month by the SEC with defrauding investors.
Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of the Stanford Financial Group family of companies who was charged last week in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil case, now faces criminal charges.
WASHINGTON (AP) – As with the Bernard Madoff case, the scandal surrounding billionaire R. Allen Stanford now seems clear and obvious in hindsight. Yet Stanford managed to run his alleged scheme even while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators investigated his businesses.
When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint in federal court last week accusing Stanford Financial Group of defrauding billions from investors, the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay.
WASHINGTON (AP) – While R. Allen Stanford's investors were swallowing claims of vast returns on safe investments, some of his employees weren't so sure.
It was a little after 1 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 10, in the SEC's office in Fort Worth, Texas. After being put under oath, SEC branch chief Michael King asked Stanford's chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt to spell her name for the record.
Exactly one week later – the following Tuesday – the SEC raided Stanford offices in multiple cities, including the company's plush East Memphis digs in The Crescent Center. The agency charged Pendergest-Holt, along with chief financial officer James Davis and Chairman R. Allen Stanford with "a fraud of shocking magnitude" that involved defrauding and luring investors with inflated claims about the company's products including its certificates of deposit.
The timing of the SEC's movement against Stanford is related to what happened in that Fort Worth office Feb. 10 – possibly in more ways than one.
For almost four hours, the SEC officials quizzed Pendergest-Holt, who in 2006 was named to the Memphis Business Journal's Top 40 under 40, a ranking that honors the area's local business leaders. In the room with her was Thomas Sjoblom, an attorney with the international law firm Proskauer Rose LLP who represented the Stanford company.
Whether the testimony he heard Pendergest-Holt give that day influenced an action he took the next day is unclear. But with little explanation, Sjoblom officially quit representing Stanford Financial's affiliated companies the day after Pendergest-Holt's testimony, according to court records the SEC filed last week along with its complaint against Stanford.
Before entering private practice, Sjoblom had worked for the SEC for 20 years. From 1987 to 1999, he was an assistant chief litigation counsel in the SEC's Division of Enforcement – the same division of the agency whose representatives were peppering Pendergest-Holt with questions Feb. 10.
After she was put under oath, Sjoblom immediately got down to business.
Pre-empting the SEC officials, according to a transcript of the day's testimony, he asked: "First of all, has there been a criminal referral in this matter?"
King told him that he and his client had been provided with an SEC Form 1662. Among other things, that form reads, "The commission often makes its files available to other governmental agencies, particularly United States Attorneys and state prosecutors. There is a likelihood that information supplied by you will be made available to such agencies where appropriate."
At press time, criminal charges had not yet been filed against the three executives who were the subject of SEC civil charges last week.
Sjoblom followed that up with another question about whether the SEC is currently working with the U.S. Attorney's office in the Northern District of Texas or elsewhere.
"Mr. Sjoblom, I just referred you to SEC Form 1662," King replied.
Sjoblom pressed on. Before Pendergest-Holt began her testimony, he brought up a question of whether the SEC had authority to probe matters related to Stanford's banking arm, which operates on the Caribbean island of Antigua.
The SEC complaint alleges that most of the bank's investment portfolio was purportedly monitored from Memphis.
"OK," Sjoblom said. "Next, before you start asking questions ... there's certainly an issue here whether or not the certificates of deposit are securities. So I have an objection to the purported jurisdiction of the SEC over this instrument.
"Secondly, it's my view that the bank is located – that's Stanford International Bank – is located outside the jurisdiction of the United States and there is no jurisdiction by the SEC over that bank and its product lines and, hence, over the information that, I'm sure, you're going to seek to elicit today."
Nevertheless, the testimony proceeded. The line of questioning from the SEC officials focused on filling in both personal and professional details about Pendergest-Holt.
They learned, for example, that she was about 23 years old when she joined Stanford in June 1997. They also learned enough to allege in their complaint that she trained employees below her to mislead investors.
The SEC's complaint says Pendergest-Holt supervised "a group of analysts in Memphis, Tupelo and St. Croix, (U.S. Virgin Islands)."
The Stanford lawyer in the room while Pendergest-Holt gave her testimony, however, soon removed himself from the picture. He gave notice to the SEC Feb. 11, the day after her testimony, that his firm was no longer Stanford's counsel.
He followed that up with a Feb. 12 fax to Kevin Edmundson, the assistant regional director in the SEC's Forth Worth office, and left a voice mail message for him the next evening.
Finally, Sjoblom typed a note on his BlackBerry to Edmundson a little after 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14. It read: "Kevin, this will advise the SEC, and confirm my voice message last evening, that I disaffirm all prior oral and written representations made by me and my associates ... to the SEC staff regarding Stanford Financial Group and its affiliates."
Three days later, the SEC swung into action, charging the Stanford officials with what Rose Romero, regional director of the SEC's Fort Worth Regional Office, called a "fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world."
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (AP) – Venezuela on Thursday seized a failed bank controlled by Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford after a run on deposits there, while clients were prevented from withdrawing their money from Stanford International Bank and its affiliates in a half-dozen other countries.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Disgraced banker R. Allen Stanford's pitch to investors was equal parts glamour and flattery.
Word of the $50 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by a New York businessman was still a hot topic in the investment community when a note to depositors appeared on Stanford International Bank's Web site.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Texas billionaire whose family of companies has deep ties to Memphis with an $8 billion securities fraud.
Asking for "emergency relief to halt a massive, ongoing fraud," a complaint issued by the SEC Tuesday alleges the businessman, R. Allen Stanford – chairman of the Stanford Financial Group of companies – schemed to sell about $8 billion worth of certificates of deposit that promise higher returns than would have been available with genuine CDs offered by traditional banks.
Asking for "emergency relief to halt a massive, ongoing fraud," a complaint issued by the SEC Tuesday alleges the businessman, R. Allen Stanford – chairman of the Stanford Financial Group of companies – schemed to sell about $8 billion worth of certificates of deposit that promise higher returns than would have been available with genuine CDs offered by traditional banks.
Also named in the Texas complaint are James Davis, the chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group Inc. who works in East Memphis' Crescent Center, as well as Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group. She supervises a group of analysts in Memphis, among other places, according to the SEC.
"Stanford and Davis have wholly failed to cooperate with the commission's efforts to account for the $8 billion of investor funds purportedly held by SIB (Stanford International Bank, the banking unit of the family of companies)," the SEC's complaint reads. "In short, approximately 90 percent of SIB's claimed investment portfolio resides in a 'black box' shielded from any independent oversight."
The particulars
Stanford's banking unit claims $8.5 billion in assets, and its brokerage unit reportedly has about $50 billion in assets. The SEC alleges the bulk of the banking unit's investment portfolio was monitored by two people – Stanford and Davis.
The company and its executives cast a long shadow in Memphis, as does the sprawling complaint unveiled this week.
Law enforcement personnel Tuesday entered Stanford offices in the U.S. in more than one city, including Memphis. Memphis FBI officials could not be reached Tuesday afternoon, but were believed to be seizing records there.
The day before the SEC's allegations were unveiled, a Stanford Financial Group spokesman told The Daily News the company was cooperating with investigators.
"Both FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and the SEC have stated to us that their recent visits to our offices were part of a routine examination," said Brian Bertsch. "We have provided U.S. regulators with the information requested and intend to comply fully with any findings or recommendations they may issue."
Bertsch would not confirm if the company's Memphis office was one of six locations visited in January by the SEC and FINRA.
Far-reaching operation
More than three dozen police officers and other law enforcement officials entered two Stanford Group office buildings in Houston Tuesday morning, according to The New York Times.
Several key aspects of the case, meanwhile, point to activities of the company that unfolded in Memphis or are related to the Bluff City.
"SIB's multi-billion (dollar) portfolio of investments is purportedly monitored by SFG's chief financial officer in Memphis, Tenn.," according to the SEC. That executive, James Davis, refused to appear and give testimony in the SEC investigation.
Meanwhile, "The bank's (senior investment officer) was trained by Ms. Pendergest-Holt to tell investors that the bank's multi-billion (dollar) portfolio was 'monitored' by the analyst team in Memphis," the SEC's complaint reads. "In communicating with investors, the SIO followed Pendergest's instructions, misrepresenting that a team of 20-plus analysts monitored the bank's investment portfolio. In so doing, the SIO never disclosed to investors that the analysts only monitor approximately 10 percent of SIB's money.
"In fact, Pendergest-Holt trained the SIO 'not to divulge too much' about oversight of the bank's portfolio because that information 'wouldn't leave an investor with a lot of confidence.'"
One spark that may have added fuel to the fire concerns allegations from former Stanford employees.
D. Mark Tidwell and Charles Rawl last year filed a wrongful termination suit in state court in Texas alleging "various unethical and illegal business practices, including overstating the asset value of individuals in a manner designed to mislead potential investors and purging electronic data from computers in response to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission," according to a court filing in the Texas case. "According to Tidwell and Rawl, they left the company after realizing that they could possibly be implicated in the alleged illegal acts."
Wellspring of support
The charges cast a dark cloud over a company that has been a generous benefactor of several causes in Memphis.
In the most recent edition of the Stanford Eagle, the in-house magazine of Stanford Financial Group, Stanford is shown seated among a quartet of children who all appear to be patients of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. All of them are smiling, and one is sitting on the businessman's knee, cradled in his arm.
St. Jude is among the many local causes supported by Stanford's business interests. The annual Stanford St. Jude Championship alone has raised more than $19 million for the hospital since 1970. Stanford signed on as the major sponsor in 2007 after FedEx shifted its involvement.
The Houston-based financial services company, which operates an investment brokerage office in Memphis, provides financial support to the hospital as its "corporate charity of choice," according to the magazine.
In the most recent edition of the magazine, Tony Thomas, the son of St. Jude founder Danny Thomas, said Stanford's chairman "has been a blessing for us and for the children and patients of St. Jude. … His support has resulted in $15 million in the last three years."
Among the Memphis causes it supports, the Houston company is a corporate sponsor of the National Civil Rights Museum and a contributor to the Greater Memphis Arts Council, the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis and the Ave Maria Foundation of Memphis, according to a report from Stanford about its community investments. Stanford's charitable foundation also is based in Memphis.
A reception several years ago to celebrate the company's growth in Memphis was held at the home of local fashion designer Pat Kerr Tigrett, with guests including Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith, according to news accounts of the event.
ALSAC, the fundraising organization behind St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, has presented Stanford Financial Group and its chairman, Sir Allen Stanford, each with high honors for their contributions to the hospital and ALSAC.
Kimberley Fullwood has joined inferno as strategic operations director.
Fullwood has more than 13 years of experience in project, traffic and operations management. Previously, she served as vice president of traffic and operations at HSR Business to Business Inc. in Cincinnati.
Mark W. Askew, president of Askew Hargraves Harcourt & Associates Inc., was appointed to a two-year term as national director of the American Council of Engineering Cos. of Tennessee. Askew is a civil engineer with 30 years of structural engineering experience.
Lucian T. Pera, an attorney with Armstrong Allen, is one of the newest members of the American Law Institute. A Memphis native, Pera received a bachelors degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Vanderbilt University law sc...


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This past week, health care journalist Charles Ornstein wrote a compelling piece for the Washington Post detailing his personal experience with heart-wrenching end-of-life medical decisions. Ornstein's story of his mother's death highlights the complexity of this little-discussed topic, and should serve as a wakeup call to every American family: End-of-life issues should not be avoided or delayed until the last possible moment. They should be carefully considered and clearly communicated. Even then, as Ornstein discovered, these decisions are never easy or simple.
Americans have always been uncomfortable with the topic of death. We are a youth-obsessed culture, and spend billions each year on products and services designed to slow, stop, or even turn back the clock on aging. On one hand this is understandable. As human beings, we shrink from death because we are beings created for eternity. God created us to rejoice forever in communion with Him, but because of our pride and disobedience, we are separated from our Maker. When we fell, death entered the world, and there's no escaping it. You can hardly blame Americans or anyone else from doing all they can to postpone the inevitable. On the other hand, we too often allow our fear of death to result in a kind of denial. We think if we never talk about death, somehow things will just sort of work out when the time comes. We don't realize that our failure to consider our end-of-life wishes results in unimaginable stress and sorrow for those we love most.
Advance care directives got a bad rap during the Obamacare debates because of a fundamental disagreement over who should be guiding end-of-life care. Proponents of limited government believe that patients in concert with their doctors and families should be allowed to guide the process based on their individual circumstances, while advocates of a universal approach tend to favor standard guidelines and protocols crafted by committee. Apologists would call this "best practices." Critics like myself call it "cookbook medicine." Regardless of what side of the ideological fence you might fall on, however, there can be no denying the wisdom of being prepared.
No matter what your age or condition, you should think carefully about what you would want done in the event of a terminal illness or mortal injury and make your wishes known. This can be done via an advance directive (with the help of a resource like the Five Wishes program, for example) or through a trusted surrogate who understands your thinking on the subject and who has your best interests at heart. It is important, further, that you keep your advance directive up to date. If your domestic circumstances have changed – if you have become estranged, separated or divorced – make sure you update who will make decisions on your behalf in the event you are incapable of making them for yourself.
Of course, despite the most vigilant preparations, one can't predict every scenario. Charles Ornstein and his siblings knew that their mother would not want extraordinary or futile measures taken to prolong her life, but this knowledge made it no easier to know exactly what to do when the time came. The question, then, is whether families should be allowed the time necessary to come to their own conclusions, or whether a panel of government "experts" should be the ones to decide. The fact is, doctors are often way off the mark when they try to predict odds for recovery or death. For all we know about the workings of the human body, there remains a vast and mysterious lot that we do not understand. When an ill person has a will to recover and knows they are surrounded by love and support, their prognosis is improved. This has been proven time and again. Simply because we don't understand how this works is no reason to discount it.
Unfortunately, as we become more "civilized" we are more and more likely to do just that. Countries like the U.K. consign the fate of their ailing and elderly to the dictates of protocols like the Liverpool Care Pathway. In essence, such approaches assign a monetary value to human life. When a patient's condition indicates that the cost of care will not yield sufficient dividends in terms of healthcare outcomes, the patient is placed "on the pathway." Often this involves the withdrawal of food and water, in which case a patient must experience the agony of starvation and dehydration before succumbing to their fatal ailment. In some cases, the pathway kills them before their disease does. Comparative effectiveness "experts" might call this best practices. I call it inhumane and unethical. This one-size-fits-all approach is not health care, it is murder.
Health care is about so much more than dollars and cents. In the end, we are talking about human life and the dignity accorded it by our society. If we believe, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that all men possess inherent dignity as given to them by God, then we cannot embrace a system of health care that assigns life worth based on arbitrary criteria like age, size, location, cognitive ability or any other generic factor. If there's anything that we as individuals can do to assure that this doesn't happen when our time arrives, we should do it and do it now.

subset: commoncrawl


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Monday, March 12, 2012
Installing Debian Linux on PPC Part I - Pre-Installation
I've been meaning to do this for awhile, so I've finally gotten around to giving you my thoroughly complete guide to installing Linux on your old iBook, Powerbook, Mini, or Power Mac. This will be an epic told in five parts: Pre-Installation, Installing the Base System, Installing the GUI, Configuring Stuff, and Bugs & Quirks. There are a few distributions out there that already do much of the work for you--MintPPC, Lubuntu, and Ubuntu MATE--but I'm going straight to the source and installing Debian. In fact, I'm gonna go for a custom install using Openbox as my window manager for a faster, leaner system, and also because this kind of build-from-the-ground-up approach is a great way to learn Linux. So let's get to it!
For my particular install, I'll be dual-booting Debian and Mac OS 9 on an iBook G3 with 640 MB of RAM. If you want to dual boot OS X, the same basically applies, and although this guide will be laptop-centric, most of the steps here apply to desktops, too.
The first thing to do is backup your data because you'll be reformatting your hard drive in order to repartition it. After you've backed everything up, boot your computer with an OS 9 (or OS X) installation disc by inserting it and pressing the "c" key. Then, find the Utilities folder and run Drive Setup (or Disk Utility if you're booting an OS X disc). Next, select your hard drive from the list and click "Initialize...", then click "Custom Setup..."
How many partitions to create for dual-booting? At least two, but I'm choosing three, one for Debian, one for Mac OS 9, and one as a sharing partition (if you intend to install Debian alone, you can choose one partition). The reason for three? Though your Mac partitions are visible in Linux, your Linux partition is not in OS 9. So I like to have a sharing partition I can access from both systems. Also, OS X's journaled filesystem will only mount as read-only in Linux, and mounting Linux partitions in the OS X Finder can be a pain, so again, you may prefer having a sharing partition easily writable between both systems (Somewhat related, there's this Lifehacker tutorial on symlinking your OS X home folder into your Linux home folder for shared access on the same computer).
Back to Drive Setup, I'm choosing three partitions, then choosing their sizes and filesystems. The first (top) partition on the table must be your Debian partition. Choose the size, then choose "Unallocated" for the filesystem type (I suppose it doesn't matter which type since you'll be deleting that partition in the Debian installer later). Then set the sizes of your OS 9 and sharing partitions and choose HFS Plus for their filesystems. OS X users running Disc Utility will want to choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" for their OS X partition and "Mac OS Extended" for any OS 9 or sharing partitions. Also, if you're triple booting with OS 9 and OS X, put them on separate partitions. If they're on the same one, they'll need the native Mac startup disk chooser to know which to boot, and that will conflict with the Linux bootloader.
Once I was done, I had three partitions, one unallocated, one for OS 9, and one for sharing data between systems. From there, I initialized the disk and saw the two HFS Plus partitions show up on my desktop. Now you can install OS 9 (or OS X). You must install the Mac OS first, before Debian, because Mac system installers don't play well with Linux systems already on disk. Reboot and check that everything works, and now you can proceed to the one step missing from all this--getting the Debian install disc!
So go over to Debian.org and find an ISO to download. There are three branches to choose from: Stable, Testing, and Sid (unstable). Stable gives you rock-solid stability, Testing is a bit more adventurous, and Sid is the bleeding edge, may-make-your-system-fry choice. The Stable branch netinstall ISO can be found on this page, and the Testing installer can be downloaded here (for both, choose the ISO ending in "...powerpc-netinst.iso"). If you have to ask how to install Sid, you probably shouldn't be using Sid.
The only thing left is to burn a disc or make a USB stick. People say to burn at a slow speed since Linux install discs can be fickle, so when in Rome...
One more note, a longstanding bug in the Debian installer messes up Apple driver partitions and will temporarily make your OS 9 partition unbootable (OS 9 only, doesn't affect OS X partitions). There's a simple fix for this, however, that is detailed in "Part V - Bugs & Quirks".
I'll see you in our next episode, "Installing the Base System".
Part II - Installing the Base System
Part III - Installing the GUI
Part IV - Configuring Stuff
Part V - Bugs & Quirks
23 comments:
So far I haven't felt like shelling out the money for a copy of Leopard ($130 from Apple and higher than that on EBay lately). I did get Tiger installed and am able to use a VPN and remote desktop for my job. I have workarounds for syncing my iPhone. I just installed Apple Works on it and I am so impressed. The are few applications that load this fast.
I just don't get Apple. They routinely make good hardware obsolete ( take all those Apple printers left behind by OS X, just because they wouldn't support the old style printer ports.). My boyfriend can run XP on his Emachine and still install current software on it. But my G5 should go to the dump I guess. If you look at the abandon ware sites, those programs will do 99% of the things people use computers for. The sole reason for all this continuous upgrading is to support streaming on the web. Things will get even more interesting when Win8 is being pushed. Lots of folks will rebell on that one.Greetings:
I'd like to know what's the most advanced Linux I can use with a PPC machine to revive several hand-me-down old PPC Mac laptops dumped on us. I'd like to revive them without having to (arduously!) replace their dead HD's via booting Linux up by CD. I know there's a MintPPC11 project somewhere but don't know whether they whithered away or whether there're other like projects out there. I'd be awesome to run Puppy or any other Linux on these older machines so if you have any info on such please let me know!
Jim in NYC- AnonymousNovember 24, 2013 at 11:45 AM
I can't thank you enough for writing this comprehensive, accessible and well-written guide. I have sentimental attachment to my old eMac and Linux will help me keep it going strong and secure. I'm a noob (as noob as noob can be), but I'm curious and eager to learn. To get started in the Linux world, I picked up an iBook G4 on eBay for $45 and installed Debian with LXDE (I need to digest your Openbox configuration pages before I dive in there) - it is a great little system to experiment with. So far I'm very impressed even though the iBook is short on RAM (though not for long - gotta love eBay).
One question - is there a particular user-group site or other online community that you would recommend as a resource? One that might be a touch patient with a noob who has read the man pages but needs some guidance? I would appreciate your opinion.
Thank you again!
John M.RepliesI can't think of one user group that's about Linux PowerPC as a whole. Rather, there are forums for specific distros, like MintPPC. They're based on Debian and an LXDE desktop that's made to look like a Mint distro. Ubuntu's Apple forums are also worth a look, and the Ubuntu PowerPC FAQ is probably the single best PowerPC resource out there. I wouldn't recommend the Debian forum, though. They tend to attack noobs. It's sad but true.
As far as general Linux resources, you can get a lot of knowledge from Arch Linux wikis and the Crunchbang forums.
- AnonymousMarch 3, 2014 at 10:47 PM
Hi Dan,
Thank you for this terrific write-up. I couldn't have done it without the excellent information you've given here. This is the only place that has detailed install instructions that's put together so a simple person can understand it. I just wanted to let you know that you've prolonged the life of a friend's iBook G3 Clamshell that's now happily, albeit slowly, surfing the web with IceWeasel. It's definitely usable on non-Flash intensive websites. I was able to download an image and import it into a Libre Office document without much fuss. It works great for word processing and reading e-mails.
After I installed Wheezy on my friend's iBook, I decided to try an install on my own 1.67Ghz Powerbook G4. It's now dual-booting Leopard and after some tweaks, it's running great. Sadly, I've discovered that Flash does not work very well, if at all, on PPC Macs and a lot of the fun sites require it. I think there's going to be a day when I'll no longer be able to run little hacks on Safari to keep it usable for streaming music from Pandora or Rhapsody. When that day comes, I think I'll revisit Linux to see if I can keep this PPC Mac going.
Thanks again Dan!
David - AnonymousAugust 2, 2014 at 4:02 PM
...hmmm, does this "Luddite" word in the title of the blog suggests some future port of AntiX 13.2 "Luddite" to PowerPC_64 architecture... \o/ :) <(")
drGspot...interesting faceThread...:
http://www.linuxzasve.com/antix-13-1-luddite-ne-unistavajmo-stari-hardver - AnonymousMarch 22, 2016 at 9:45 AM
no wifi even though I have installed all b43 related stuff
i have bcm4360 rev 3 - AnonymousSeptember 6, 2016 at 4:43 PM
Does not work on a iMac g5 .
After the install I get a black screen.
I get only nouveau errors . Debian is total shit . Waste of time.explain in detail what to do to get a full working GUI . - AnonymousSeptember 6, 2016 at 4:47 PM
Get only a black screen with Debian on a iMac g5 ! Very frustrating . Waste of time.i have nvidia geforce fx 5200 .debian does not support it !get only nouveau errors.what wrong with it?
ReplyDelete Hi, to start; your blog is THE BLOG to get Debian on ppc machines running!
But i have choosen to go with Debian LXDE (openbox was a mess) and this is running very nice on a Powerbook G4 Aluminium.
Everything works except two annoying things:
1. On boot, screen is black, so everytime i have to push the brightness keys to see Lightdm and login.
2. Super key swap isn't working after reboot.
For the two i have tried .Xmodmap, Xlsession, sys and so on, searched the internet like crasy.
This are no big problems for such old machine and sure for me, but i am preparing this computer for my mom and on her age it's too difficult to handle this. But she's willing to try Linux. ;-)
I know old post, but i hope you can help.RepliesHi,
Sorry I waited so long to approve your comment. I get email alerts for new ones, but I didn't see yours for a few days.
The black screen problem is a bug I couldn't find a way around (other than pounding the brightness keys).
If you already tried the below method for super key swap, then I don't know what the problem could be. It worked for me after reboot.
- Thomas de MontaigüeFebruary 22, 2019 at 6:23 AM
Hi Dan!
I'd like to use a PowerMac G4 Cube as an owncloud server. First step is installing Debian 8 (Jessie) but I do not see any powerpc flavor there:
I guess now it links to Debian 9.
Do you know a place to download Debian 8 powerpc install image from ?


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Forex market conditions have been pretty fickle these days so it's important to learn how to adapt. However, this doesn't mean abandoning your old forex trading plans altogether.
Make sure you take a closer look at the reasons why you're thinking of trying a new approach, and if it's one of the four factors listed below, you should probably take a step back.
1. Boredom
Let's face it – even though the forex market never sleeps, we're not guaranteed 24 hours of action a day. There are times when there's little to no activity on the charts, and it can be quite boring waiting for a valid setup to materialize.
Unfortunately, some traders react to boredom by FORCING a trade just to get a bit of excitement.
They deviate from their plan and take trades that they normally wouldn't trade under normal market conditions. Not surprisingly, trades caused by impatience are executed with impulsiveness and can result in bad trading decisions.
If you find yourself bored while trading, you could break the monotony by stepping away from the charts and giving yourself a break.
Visit trading forums, read other traders' blogs, or clean up your inbox. Giving up on your trading plan completely is not the solution.
2. Distractions
While boredom can lead to bad forex trading decisions, being surrounded by too much excitement can also be harmful.
I'm all about having a comfortable trading environment, but if you find yourself dancing to the latest Spotify hits, watching the Lakers win another game, or checking out who broke up with whom on Facebook, then your workspace might not be as conducive to trading as you think.
Distractions can lead to a loss of focus. Remember that the market waits for no one and it deserves your complete attention.
While you're busy cheering for Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open, you might end up missing market signals. Even worse, you could end up with big losses because you were preoccupied with watching Netflix and missed your cue to exit.
Luckily, there are ways to limit distraction. For example, you can restrict the websites that you visit during your trading hours, or inform your friends and family not to disturb you while you're trading. I have discussed other tips in detail in my article on 4 Tips to Limit Distractions While Trading.
3. Overconfidence/Loss of confidence
You win trade after trade after trade, and soon you feel like Midas – everything you touch turns to gold!
But unfortunately, you get drunk on your success, and before you know it, you've ditched your trading plan entirely. You start getting sloppy, make bad trading decisions, and your trading performance takes a nosedive.
It's not uncommon to feel confident after a streak of wins, but it becomes dangerous when you become overconfident.
Being overconfident may cloud your judgment and lead you to do things you normally wouldn't, things that go against your trading plan. It could make you take invalid trade setups, risk bigger positions, or leave a losing trade open longer.
Likewise, a lack of confidence as a result of a string of losses can lead you to abandon your plan as well. Being haunted by the fear of defeat can make it more difficult for you to "pull the trigger" even when you see a valid setup.
Lack of confidence may also manifest itself in other ways, like closing a winning trade earlier than you should because you're afraid of losing gains
The trick to avoiding being carried away by a streak of wins or being bogged down by a string of losses is to always remember to take things one trade at a time.
If you devote all your attention to the trade at hand, it makes it easier to clear your head of past successes and failures.
4. Fatigue
It isn't hard to lose your concentration when you're physically and/or mentally exhausted. Have you ever tried studying for a test after a hard night of partying? College students know what I'm talking about – it's a recipe for disaster!
When you're fatigued, you're not as sharp as you normally are. Often, this leads to slower reaction times, and your mind may not process things as thoroughly. These, in turn, can lead you to deviate from your trading plan and make bad trading decisions.
The solution to fatigue is simple. Take a break and get some rest. You won't do your account any harm by stepping away, but you CAN do damage by trading when you're not 100%.
4 Reasons Why Forex Traders Ditch Their Plans appeared first at: Source
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10 People Who Went Missing in Rocky Mountain National Park
10 Obscure Facts about One-Hit Wonders from Before the 1980s
10 Silly Beliefs People Have about Animals
10 Extinct Species That Are Still Alive Genetically
10 Bizarre Legal Name Changes
10 Facts You Might Not Know about the Nazi's Atomic Bomb Program
Top 10 Wizarding World Mysteries That Were Never Fully Explained
Ten Actually False "Facts" from American History
Top 10 Generational Curses Millennials Are Breaking
10 of History's Most Infamous Female Prisoners
10 People Who Went Missing in Rocky Mountain National Park
10 Obscure Facts about One-Hit Wonders from Before the 1980s
Who's Behind Listverse?
Jamie Frater
Head Editor
Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author.
More About Us10 Silly Beliefs People Have about Animals
10 Extinct Species That Are Still Alive Genetically
10 Bizarre Legal Name Changes
10 Facts You Might Not Know about the Nazi's Atomic Bomb Program
Top 10 Wizarding World Mysteries That Were Never Fully Explained
Ten Actually False "Facts" from American History
Top 10 Generational Curses Millennials Are Breaking
10 Reasons Life May Be A Computer Simulation
Philosophers as far back as Plato millennia ago speculated that what we see may not be real at all. With the advent of computers, the idea took on new life, especially in recent years, with films like Inception, Dark City, and the Matrix trilogy. Is it possible that the world is just a computer simulation?
10Ancestor Simulators
Computers now process huge amounts of data, and some of the most intense and productive tasks involve simulations. Simulations consider multiple variables and use artificial intelligence to analyze them and examine outcomes. Some simulations are games. Some are models of real-life situations, such as the spread of disease. Some are "history simulators," which can be games (like Sid Meyer's Civilization) or can mimic the real-life growth of society over time.
That's how simulations run now, but computers keep getting faster. Processing power has doubled periodically for decades, and computers 50 years from now may well be millions of times more powerful than any today. Better computers would bring much bigger and better computer simulators—including history simulators. If computers get powerful enough, they would create history simulations so real that the self-aware beings within them would have no idea they were part of a program.
Think that's too far out there? Harvard's Odyssey supercomputer can simulate 14 billion years in only a few months.
9 If Someone Can, They Will
Okay, so it may be possible to create a universe inside a computer. But would it be moral? Humans are complex beings with feelings and relationships. Mightn't there be something wrong in creating a whole fake world of them? Wouldn't the responsibility for every action in that universe fall on our shoulders, and wouldn't it be too much for us to bear?
Maybe. But that doesn't matter. Because to some people, the idea of running a simulation would just be too tempting. And even if, for whatever reason, history simulators were illegal, it would just take a single person to run one and create our reality. It would take just one person, who'd consider the matter no more significant than a game of The Sims.
People may also have good reasons for creating such simulators, beyond just entertainment. Humanity could be facing death, forcing scientists to create our world as a massive diagnostic test. The simulation would help them find what went wrong with their real world and figure out how to save themselves.
8Visible Flaws
If a simulation is advanced enough, those inside needn't recognize it as a simulation at all. If you were to grow a brain in a vat and manipulate it with stimuli, it wouldn't know it's in a vat. It would assume itself a living, breathing, active person.
But even advanced simulations can have flaws, right? Wouldn't we notice some imperfections, some "glitch in the Matrix"?
Maybe we do see such glitches in our everyday lives. The Matrix offered the example of déjà vu—when something seems inexplicably familiar, the simulation may be skipping like a scratched CD. Supernatural elements, like ghosts or miracles, could also be glitches. According to simulation theory, people really do witness these phenomena, and they do so because of bugs in the simulation's code.
The Internet offers plenty of anecdotal evidence of these glitches. Keep your mind and eyes open, and maybe you'll see some for yourself.
7 Math Makes Up Life
Everything in the universe is quantifiable in some way. Even life is quantifiable, despite medicine's long reputation as an "inexact science." The Human Genome Project, which sequenced the chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, was solved using computers. All the secrets of the universe are solved using math. In fact, we can explain the universe better using math than we can with words.
If everything is mathematical, everything could be broken down to binary code. So if computers and their data progress enough, could a functional human be created using the genome sequence inside a computer? And if you can build one being, mightn't you build a whole world of them?
Scientists speculate that someone may have already done that and created our world. To determine whether we're living in a simulation, researchers are undertaking serious investigations—by examining the math that makes up our universe.
6The Anthropic Principle
It's amazing that humans exist. For life to start on Earth, we needed everything to be just right. We're the perfect distance away from the Sun, the atmosphere has the correct composition, and gravity is just powerful enough. And though there may be many other planets with those conditions, life gets even more impressive when you widen your perspective beyond Earth. If some cosmic factor like dark energy were even a little stronger, life probably wouldn't exist, either here or anywhere else in the universe.
The anthropic principle asks, "Why? Why did these conditions come about so perfectly for us?"
One explanation is that the conditions were deliberately set in place with the intention of giving us life. Every convenient factor was a fixed condition in some vast lab experiment. The factors were just plugged into the universe, and then the simulation was started. This let existence and our individual planet evolve the way it has.
A consequence of this is that those behind the simulation needn't be humans at all. Some other set of beings may be running it, and they choose to hide their presence from us. Perhaps alien life knows how to manipulate the computer program and can make themselves invisible to us.
5 Parallel Universes
The theory of parallel worlds, or the multiverse, posits an infinite number of realities with an infinite number of possibilities within them. Picture the floors of an apartment building. Universes are part of the multiverse much like floors are part of the building—they share a common layout, but each is distinct, and they'll contain different things. Jorge Luis Borges likened the multiverse to a library. Within the library are an infinite number of books; some differ by just a letter, while others are completely different stories.
The theory has all sorts of crazy implications for the meaning of life. But if there really are multiple universes, why did they come about? How come there are so many?
If we're in a simulation, the multiple universes are multiple simulations running at once. Each simulation has its own set of variables, and this isn't random. The simulation's creator plugged in different variables to test different scenarios and observe different outcomes.
4 Fermi's Paradox
Our planet is one of many with conditions that could support life, and our sun is quite young compared to others in the universe. You therefore might expect proof of life elsewhere—from planets where life runs parallel to ours or from ones where life began eons earlier.
Furthermore, humans have ventured into space, so shouldn't civilizations elsewhere have also tried space travel? With a billion other galaxies out there, some of which are billions of years older than ours, wouldn't at least one have mastered space travel? Since Earth has the conditions for life, you'd even expect Earth to have been colonized by an advanced civilization at some point.
Yet we have found no trace of any other form of intelligent life in the universe. The Fermi Paradox can simply be summed up as—"Where is everybody?"
This ties back into simulation theory in a few different ways. If life should exist elsewhere but only exists on Earth, that could be evidence that we're in a simulation. Those behind the simulation chose to simulate life nowhere else, for simplicity, or to see how humans do alone.
The multiverse theory says that there is indeed life on other planets—in most universe simulations. Ours is simply the one simulation that puts us alone in the universe. Going back to the anthropic principle, it could be this universe was created just for us.
Another theory, the planetarium hypothesis, offers one more possible answer. The simulation made various populated planets each wrongly think themselves alone in the universe. Perhaps the simulation aims to test the effects of ego-boosting on civilization?
3God Is A Programmer
People have long exchanged ideas of a god as a designer of the world. Some imagine one particular god as a bearded man in the clouds, but simulation theory says that that god (or any other) may instead be a bespectacled programmer hunched over a keyboard.
As we've established, a programmer can create worlds out of simple binary. The only question then is why the programmer would encode within us the desire to worship our creator, a key part of most religions.
This could be intentional or unintentional. Perhaps the programmer wants us to know that he or she exists, and wrote code to give us an innate feeling of having been created. Maybe the programmer intended nothing of the sort, but we've intuited the creator's existence nonetheless.
The idea of a god as a programmer even goes along with the idea of intelligent design in two different ways. The first is it that code started life, letting everything evolve within the simulator to where we are today. The second is that it might make literal Creationism exactly right—just like the Bible says, God created the world and life in seven days, but he would have used a computer rather than cosmic powers.
2 Outside The Universe
What's outside of our universe? With simulation theory, the answer would seem to be a supercomputer surrounded by advanced beings—but an even crazier possibility exists.
Those beings who run this simulation might be as fake as we are. There may be multiple layers of simulation. As Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom suggests, "The post-humans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings. Here may be room for a large number of levels of reality, and the number could be increasing over time."
It's like you sat down to a game of The Sims and played it until your characters created a Sims game of their own. Their Sims, in turn, programmed and played their own game, while you are secretly part of an even larger simulation.
This still leaves a question: What is outside the creator's "real" universe? It's an idea so far removed from our lives that it could be impossible to speculate on it. But if simulation theory can at least explain our universe's limited size and note what's immediately outside it . . . well, that's a good start in determining the nature of existence.
1Fake People Make For Easy Simulations
Even if computers get vastly more powerful, the universe might seem much too complex to fit in one. Each of the seven billion people currently alive is complex enough to rival any computer imaginable. And we're an infinitesimal part of a vast universe, which contains billions of galaxies besides ours. It would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to take into account that many variables.
But a simulated world needn't be anywhere as complex as it seems. A convincing simulation would need just a few detailed key figures and then a great many barely sketched secondary players. Think of games like those in the Grand Theft Auto series. They contain hundreds of people, but you only interact with a few. Life could be very much like that—you have yourself, and you have your close family and friends, but everyone you pass on the street? They're not real. They have few thoughts and no emotions. They're little more than set dressing.
Let's stick with the open-world video game analogy for a bit. These games contain large "worlds," but only your current location contains true action at any one time. Reality could run the same way. Areas out of sight could be stored in memory and are brought up only when needed, saving huge amounts of processing power. And what about distant areas that you'll never visit, such as all those other galaxies? The simulation never needs to run these areas at all. It just needs to display convincing images when you try to view them.
But never mind people on the street or distant stars. You don't even have proof that you exist, at least as the person you imagine. We think the past has happened because we have memories, and because of records like photos and books. But what if all that is just freshly written code? What if your life was turned on the last time you blinked your eyes?
The disturbing thing is that this is impossible to prove or disprove.
Robert Grimminck is a Canadian crime fiction writer. You can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook.


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Zoe Tessler '16 is interning this summer at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, N.Y, with support from the Jeffrey Fund in the Sciences, which funds students who intern at organizations that promote wildlife conservation or animal care. The Wild Center, located in the Adirondack Park, is a nonprofit organization that educates visitors on the Adirondacks' rich biodiversity and natural history often through interactive exhibits.
As Tessler noted, "The Center is committed to helping people explore and understand the history of the Adirondack region as well as educate communities about our relationship with nature and discover new ways humans and the natural world can thrive together."
The bulk of Tessler's internship deals with environmental education. "For example," Tessler said, "I deliver interpretive and educational programs every day that range from live animal encounters, art sessions, naturalist walks, canoe trips and 'planet Adirondack' presentations using a three dimensional piece of technology that shows over 400 data sets created by NASA and NOAA." Tessler also organizes community events, photographs for the Center, and informs visitors and school groups about the Adirondacks and the Center's exhibits.
In addition, as part of her internship Tessler trained to become certified as an interpretive guide from the National Association for Interpretation, which she said "provided an intensive look at how to develop and deliver meaningful programs to a variety of audiences using the principles of interpretation." She believes this training coupled with her work at the Center has strengthened her public speaking skills and provided her with valuable exposure to teaching technologies, including graphic design and distance learning programs.
This internship matches Tessler's interests perfectly. "I am strongly interested in conservation biology as well as environmental education, research, and studio art," she said. The Wild Center specializes in environmental conservation and education and this year it is has a special emphasis on art, which includes a small studio in the center of the exhibit floor designed for visitors to practice watercolor painting. As such, Tessler has had the opportunity to advance both her scientific and artistic interests this summer.
Tessler found this internship through the Liberal Arts Career Network by way of HamNet and so far it appears to have been not only educational, but also a lot of fun: "I'm getting some cool animal handling experience, including large snakes, screech owls and kestrels. Plus, it's refreshing to interact with super excited kids and adult visitors who share fantastic snippets of their lives with me as I tell them about the Adirondacks and our exhibits."
Zoe Tessler '16 is a graduate of Amherst Regional High School (Mass.)


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They played pond hockey at the Garden tonight and when it was over the Rangers had a 5-4 win. The goalies were safer when their defensemen were no where near them. Petr Prucha getting his first start since God knows when, was the spark the Rangers needed in a game that the Ranger defensemen were ready to give away. He scored a goal and was given the number one star by the media. The crowd kept chanting his name throughout the third period. This was only his 12th game of the year and it was his second goal. Consider that Gomez scored his 7th, in this his 34th game. Also consider that on average when he does play Prucha gets about one third the ice time that Gomez gets. Tonight Prucha got 12 minutes, Gomez 19.
Prucha got 5 shots on goal, delivered 3 hits and probably had coach clueless nervous as he was trying to figure out how to keep this dormant dynamo glued to the bench every night. With the Islanders mired in 15th place in the East with only 26 points and the Rangers third with 47 points it was real tough to try to figure out which was the bottom feeder and which was the pretender. But the pretenders prevailed and ended a three game losing streak. They go into the new year with 49 points in their 39th team game.
The Rangers need to get their act together and fast. They have given up 13 goals in the last 3 games and Lundqvist has shown signs of being too human. The defense is a shambles and the fan's venom is now split among three defensemen: Kalinin, Rozsival and Redden. Prior to this game they were a collective -30 and it went up after tonight. The misplays are one thing, but the refusal to use their bodies is perhaps the most annoying.
2009 starts at Washington, comes back to NY for Pittsburgh and Montreal, and ends up in Buffalo. All this in seven days. Should be fun folks. Happy New Year!
Michael Obernauer / NY Daily News - Blueshirts blog:
Prucha's performance has Renney taking notice --
So what's it gonna take for Petr Prucha to land a regular job?
"If he could get three or four goals a night, he'll be fine," Tom Renney said.
Okay, the coach was only joking (right?), because he quickly added: "He did exactly what you have to do to win a job. He did a hell of a job tonight." ...
But, the most positive reinforcement for the Rangers was provided by the irrepressible Petr Prucha, who not only crashed the net to score the goal that tied things 2-2 early in the third, but who created havoc on essentially every shift. Prucha was back in the lineup after being unaccountably scratched from eight straight, and 18 of the prior 21 games.
"When you are out for such a long time, you start to ask yourself if there is something wrong with your hockey," said Prucha, whose name was chanted in Paul O'Neill style. "It's very tough to stay confident, but a game like this helps to get your confidence back...
Arthur Staple / Newsday:
Prucha sparks Rangers to 5-4 win over Isles --
The Islanders, as usual, made a mess of the third. The result was a 5-4 Rangers win last night at Madison Square Garden, fueled by the hard work of little-used Petr Prucha, who had a terrific game and scored 49 seconds into the third to begin a four-goal Rangers barrage and a wild third overall.
"You could tell he was like a caged animal out there," Chris Drury said of Prucha, who has been a healthy scratch in 27 of the Rangers' 39 games.
"We fed off him being in the lineup, which is a good thing," said Tom Renney, who put Prucha in and benched Aaron Voros...
Prucha: Take That, Boss! --
Our Queen phoned from MSG to confirm that those chants of "Proo-cha! Proo-cha!" heard across North America viaOLNVersus were coming from the 400s.
Why is he so popular despite a bubble gum card full of zeroes and hollow accolades by his boss who continues to slight the slight flanker? ...
Mitch Fritz vs Colton Orr - Fight earns a 7.7 rating. Who won?
Colton Orr -- 61.2%
Draw -- 22.4%
Mitch Fritz -- 16.4%