Free Republic

Venture capitalist Kenneth Ballenegger has been suspended from the US investment firm he cofounded, Oyster Ventures, after making offensive remarks on X on the Israel-Hamas conflict. According to screenshots shared with Business Insider, Ballenegger wrote on Sunday: "After the war, Israel should handle Gaza like China handles Xinjiang. Full surveillance state. Re education camps. Sterilizations. It's warranted and the only way to pacify the jihadi population." Responding to criticism from a former colleague, Ballenegger continued: "They reproduce like rabbits and raise them to be terrorists, creating more poverty misery and terrorism. Why should we allow that. The world would be...

On Wednesday, Silicon Valley Bank was a well-capitalized institution seeking to raise some funds.Within 48 hours, a panic induced by the very venture capital community that SVB had served and nurtured ended the bank's 40-year-run.Regulators shuttered SVB Friday and seized its deposits in the largest U.S. banking failure since the 2008 financial crisis and the second-largest ever. The company's downward spiral began late Wednesday, when it surprised investors with news that it needed to raise $2.25 billion to shore up its balance sheet. What followed was the rapid collapse of a highly-respected bank that had grown alongside its technology clients.Even...

Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress, Volume 107, Part 24 - United States. Congress - U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961 - Law In 1958 the society issued a special release exposing Shukairy's political background. Our interest in this gentleman stemmed from the fact that, when an emergency session of the UN was convened to alleviate tensions in the Middle East, he "poured scorn on the search for a durable peace and threatened the West with the spectre of war."  Shukairy summed up the Arabs' bellicose attitude towards the West and staked out Nasser's claim to empire, in a speech whose tone...

..Over seven years, Payless went through a wringer of private equity and hedge fund stewardship that left it with inadequate technology, run-down stores and no financial cushion to survive an era of upheaval in retail. .. Financial managers exert greater control over nearly all American companies than they once did. Their willingness to cause some pain — to close factories, lay people off, renegotiate arrangements with longtime suppliers — is, many economists argue, a feature, not a bug .. The American economy has become markedly less dynamic. Fewer businesses are being started, and the newcomers are having less success unseating...

If, in late 2018, you are contemplating going into quantitative finance, then keep contemplating. Panelists at the recent Quant Conference in London say you’re unquestionably on the right track. “It's super-exciting to be a quant in 2018-2019,” said one panelist (a hedge fund researcher who formerly worked for a large U.S. bank). “Everyone is hiring.” Quants’ enthusiasm for being quants might be dismissed as self-love. Except, they're not the only ones in the zone. Goldman Sachs has proclaimed its pursuit of strats (its own personal brand of quant technologists), while at another conference the week before, the head of recruitment...

memory hole reminder The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry’s group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2004/10/27207/#615wufvA5oZXKuWK.99

Global Blood Therapeutics Inc., a San Francisco-based developer of oral medicines to treat chronic blood-based diseases, has launched with $40.7 million in Series A funding from Third Rock Ventures. www.globalbloodtx.com Invuity, a San Francisco-based developer of surgical visualization and illumination technology, has raised $25 million in Series D funding. Valence Advantage led the round, and was joined by return backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and InterWest Partners. www.invuity.com Thismoment, a San Francisco-based provider of social content management software for brands, has raised $22 million in Series C funding led by Trident Capital. The company previously raised over $11 million...

An SAS digger who single-handedly took out three Taliban machine gunners will today receive Australia's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross. The soldier, known only as Corporal Ben, will receive his medal from Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Perth's Campbell Barracks. Also attending will be Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, Defence Minister Stephen Smith, Defence Force Chief Angus Houston and Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett. Corporal Ben is reported to have earned the VC by his actions during the intense gun battle in Afghanistan's Shah Wali Kot region last October. In the fight, Corporal Ben charged the enemy...

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd, federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, Victorian Premier John Brumby and senior defence chiefs are among hundreds of people who have turned out for the funeral of Ted Kenna, who was Australia's last surviving World War II Victoria Cross recipient. One of Australia's two living Victoria Cross recipients, Vietnam veteran Keith Payne, was also at the service. ..... Nepalese Victoria Cross recipient Limbu Rimbahadur was also among the mourners at St Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne. Mr Kenna will be buried with full military honours.

Somebody has placed this incredible documentary on youtube and I commend it to anybody interested in the history of heroism, or the history of war in general. Overall, it's about an hour long and it explores in a fair amount of detail the actions that lead to the award of the Victoria Cross, the British Empire's and Commonwealth's highest decoration for bravery in the face of an enemy (thus given in the same place in our heirarchy of bravery awards that the Medal of Honour occupies in the United States), to Australian's since the dawn of the twentieth century. It...

Mark Donaldson VC shows the way to other Australians MARK Donaldson does not think he is a hero. Heroes generally do not. He believes that everybody would do what he did. But the way SAS Trooper Donaldson earned his VC, on duty with the SAS in Afghanistan, was a rare act of selfless courage. During a Taliban ambush of a coalition convoy, Trooper Donaldson drew enemy fire away from wounded men while they were moved to some semblance of safety. But when Trooper Donaldson realised an interpreter had been left behind, he went back, crossing exposed ground under fire to...

THE first Victoria Cross for Australia has been awarded to a Trooper Mark Donaldson this morning for his bravery in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Governor-General Quentin Bryce made the historic announcement today at Government House in Canberra. Tropper Donaldson received the award for his actions in Afghanistan on September 2 last year, when, under heavy fire, he ran 80 metres to save an interpreter for the coalition forces and carried him to safety under sustained and accurate shooting. The Victoria Cross is the highest possible award for acts of bravery in wartime, ahead of the Military Cross. Queen...

A Royal Marine who threw himself onto an exploding grenade to save the lives of his patrol has been put forward for the UK's highest military honour. Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, 24, a reservist from Birmingham, survived because his rucksack and body armour took the force of the blast. He was part of a reconnaissance troop in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in February, when the incident happened. The Ministry of Defence said he could be considered for the Victoria Cross.

Havildar Bhanbhagta Gurung, VC Gurkha who was decorated for his courage and skill in capturing a Japanese position in fierce hand-to-hand fighting Havildar Bhanbhagta Gurung, VC Bhanbhagta Gurung won his Victoria Cross in Burma in 1945. His action was the culmination of a series of extraordinarily gallant actions by this soldier of quite exceptional courage, yet it occurred while he was in disgrace, albeit unjustly. Born in the hill village of Phalbu in western Nepal, he was recruited into the old Indian Army soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, and joined 3rd Battalion 2nd King Edward VII’s...

The medal was awarded to 21 New Zealanders Nine rare and valuable Victoria Cross (VC) medals awarded for acts of extreme bravery in combat have been stolen from a military museum in New Zealand.The thieves managed to evade security patrols, cameras and an alarm when they broke into the Army Museum in Waiouru on North Island early on Sunday. Defence Minister Phil Goff called the raid "a crime against the nation". Military officials estimate the medals are worth millions of dollars, but say they will be difficult to sell. The Victoria Cross, inscribed "For valour", is the highest honour...

New Swedish companies are bursting with ideas in IT and biotech. It's time for international investors to sit up and take notice, says leading entrepreneur Johan Staël von Holstein.

TED Kenna's skin hung from his bones and he stank of rotting flesh when Marjorie Rushberry first laid eyes on him in June 1945. For the young nurse, it was not love at first sight, but horror. The wounded soldier's face was torn apart, with entry and exit holes in the cheek where a bullet had ripped through flesh and then ricocheted off teeth, reversing and entering the young private's chest. It did not strike Miss Rushberry that this could be exactly the kind of Casanova her father had warned her about. "Be careful of those boys, you know what...

A BRITISH soldier posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in Afghanistan may have been shot dead by his comrades. Father of two Corporal Bryan Budd, 29, of the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, was killed as he stormed a Taliban position single-handedly in Helmand, trying to protect seven of his colleagues from heavy fire. His widow Lorena, 23, a clerk with the Royal Artillery, is due to collect his posthumous VC from the Queen at Buckingham Palace next month. She has been told his death may have been caused by "friendly fire", The Sun reported last night. She...

A PARATROOPER who came under a ferocious hail of Taliban gunfire as he saved the life of a wounded American sergeant is the first British soldier serving in Afghanistan to be recommended for the Victoria Cross.Private Peter McKinley, 21, a trained first aid soldier, endured 15 minutes of sustained attack from heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades as he treated the US soldier during one of the most intense battles experienced by the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment. Army commanders have described McKinley’s rescue effort in Helmand province as a “massive display of bravery” and have put his name forward to...

June 9, 2006 MESSAGE FROM NATALIE, EMILY & MARTIE: To our Fans: Any reports being made about the cancellation of our upcoming Accidents And Accusations tour are completely false. We have known since March 2003 that our path in this business would have obstacles at every pass. We have enjoyed meeting each one head-on and we will continue to do so. Dixie Chicks fans are as active and dedicated as they come. This time around we are willingly feeling our way through unchartered territory. Things don't come as easy as they might have come in the past, and it makes...