Stop subtly glorifying Carl Icahn

i've posted on the odious carl icahn before... portraying carl icahn as an "activist shareholder" and an "agitator for change" is flat-out bullshit... carl icahn is out for himself and himself alone...


Carl Icahn

today's nyt...

Carl C. Icahn, the billionaire investor and activist shareholder, has decided to move ahead with plans for a proxy fight at Yahoo and will propose a dissident slate of directors, people with knowledge of the plans said Wednesday.

Mr. Icahn, who has told associates that he has bought as many as 50 million shares of Yahoo, is leaning toward trying to oust the entire board by proposing a slate of 10 candidates, these people said. The deadline for nominating a dissident slate is Thursday.

He is moving ahead with the proxy fight in hopes of pushing Yahoo to restart talks to sell itself to Microsoft. Yet Microsoft has given no indication that it would be willing to restart talks. Mr. Icahn’s decision to try to oust the entire board — as opposed to proposing only a couple of candidates — is considered a high-risk maneuver, analysts said. He might have a better chance of winning a campaign by proposing a smaller slate, several analysts added.

Under the proxy rules, Mr. Icahn can reduce his slate later, but had he nominated a smaller number of candidates he would not be allowed to increase it.

[...]

Mr. Icahn has a made a career of agitating for change at some of the nation’s biggest companies. In the last three decades, he set his sights on companies as varied as T.W.A. and Time Warner.

icahn sees an opportunity to increase his already vast wealth by luring microsoft into re-opening and enriching its bid... he doesn't give a fraction of a shit for the shareholders and never has, and with his fingerprints on yahoo, none of us - including myself, a 10+ year user of yahoo mail - will be the better for it...

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Microsoft + Yahoo ≠ good news for anyone

fewer and fewer owners, bigger and bigger companies - isp's, telcos, newspapers, television networks, radio stations - more and more opportunities for information to be shaped, controlled, and disseminated to serve the agendas of the powerful, monied elites...

Microsoft in $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo

The surprise offer of $31 a share, which represents a 62 percent premium on Thursday’s closing price, would bring relief to Yahoo’s long-suffering shareholders.

quite honestly, i don't give a goddam about yahoo's long-suffering shareholders... nobody's been holding a gun to their heads, forcing them to hang on to their stock... by contrast, nobody will HAVE to hold a gun to my head, forcing me to choose only one software company or isp when there's only one left...

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Why is THIS still being moved as "NEWS?"

as of wednesday afternoon, yahoo news and the ap are still moving this as news...

Group: Gore a hypocrite over power bill

Al Gore, a leading voice in the fight against global warming, is being called a hypocrite by a conservative group that claims his Nashville mansion uses too much electricity. But a spokeswoman for Gore said the former vice president invests in enough renewable energy to make up for the home's power consumption.

The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research put out a news release saying Gore was not doing enough to reduce his own consumption of electricity.

yes, the story now carries gore's response, but, considering it was never "NEWS" in the first goddam place, i'd like to know why, as of wednesday, 3:50 p.m. est, it still is being carried in the top 7 yahoo news stories, particularly with such a sensationalist and misleading headline...



and, oh yeah, it also doesn't bother to mention keith olbermann's excellent debunking...



if the democrats had organizations around the country working 24/7 on new, sensational, and largely vacuous ways to smear national republican figures, i would bet, along with atrios, they wouldn't have 1/100th the media exposure...

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