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Onto Another Installment Of The (Alleged) Life Science Fraud Files: Jorge Gomez Is Out As Moderna’s CFO, After Three Days… With “Accounting Irregularities” At Sirona.

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I’ve actually talked to this guy a few times, and he seemed very sharp. I guess that might (have been at least part of) the problem (too slick — by half), and even so, it tells you… one never knows.

Certainly, he could be wholly innocent, but this sure doesn’t look like that’s the case. Seems both companies are now rightly concerned — as is the SEC’s corp. fin., and accounting staff, no doubt.

Here is FiercePharma’s excellent reporting, on it all:

…Moderna’s CFO Jorge Gomez, who only became Moderna’s CFO on Monday, is leaving effective immediately, the company said in a Wednesday Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing (PDF). His departure comes after his former employer, Dentsply Sirona, said it couldn’t file its first-quarter 2022 financial report because of an internal accounting probe.

Gomez will get a $700,000 salary for his brief stint at Moderna, but he’ll lose his signing bonus, relocation reimbursement and any potential equity awards….

[Gomez’s former employer, where he was CFO,] Dentsply Sirona — a manufacturer of dental office supplies — said it couldn’t file its first-quarter 2022 report because its audit and finance committee had started a probe of incentives the company used to sell products to distributors in the second half of 2021. Dentsply Sirona is also investigating whether the company’s management directed employees to use the incentives to meet executive compensation targets in 2021….

Two very large, well seasoned public companies; both fleeced — one, apparently… for several years? It seems… almost like the bad old ’80s are returning… in many ways. Yikes.

Out now, smiling into a warm Spring evening — with a hand-turned ColdStone fresh cherry & vanilla ice cream scoop, on a sugar cone — yum….

नमस्ते

As We Said Earlier — InSight May Have Reached “End of Mission” Power Reserves… Winter On Barsoom Approaches.

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It is clear that power reserves are very low, going into winter on Mars.

I expect this briefing today, to set the expectations at the MSM level, that InSight may not be able to power back up come Barsoomian Spring in about four or five months. Here’s the latest:

…NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT) on Tuesday, May 17, to provide an update on the agency’s InSight Mars lander. NASA leadership and mission team members will highlight InSight’s science accomplishments, share details on the spacecraft’s power situation, and discuss its future….

Yep — seems like a swan song. Smiling… a sad smile now. No more pure mining, on Barsoom for a bit. Ah… so it goes.

नमस्ते

In Which Hinderaker Is Wrong, On Local Virginia Protests Law… Yawn.

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Not on the Justice’s lawn; not at the transom… but on the public streets… peaceful protests cannot be unlawful. The federal First Amendment guarantees that.

A Virginia statute (VA Code Title 18.2, Chap. 9, § 18.2-419) that purports to prevent “disrupting a private home’s tranquility” cannot trump the federal First Amendment, and so it explicitly contains a savings clause — for meetings around the discussion of matters of substantial public concern, at subsection (3). The leaked Alito Dobbs draft is just that.

As another eloquently wrote in Reason:

“…The street and sidewalk are public spaces, and it’s legally permissible to protest there. The First Amendment rightly protects Americans whose displeasure with their government’s policies compels them to engage in free expression—even if the form that expression takes is hostile and unpleasant. The Bill of Rights enshrines the people’s right to protest; there is no right enjoyed by government actors to avoid witnessing protests.…”

So… take a seat John. You are in the wrong, again — as a matter of law. No surprise, there.

Out.

UPDATE: Chicago… Organized; And Two JFK8 Team Members (Organizers) Fired After ALU Won Election On Staten Island: Per Motherboard

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Just a few hours ago, Motherboard | Vice reported that Amazon had terminated two of the union organizers at JFK8; the company had already fired Mr. Smalls, during the campaign period. These folks are not… getting very good advice.

But personally, I’ve heard through labor lawyer friends of mine, in the city of big shoulders that a chapter of the ALU is now officially up and running here. How soon until this election in Chicago? I’ll let you know, as I learn more.

In any event, here’s the current Motherboard story (on continuing poor decision-making in upper levels of people management, at Amazon):

…Amazon has fired two outspoken Staten Island warehouse workers who helped organize a union at JFK8, Amazon’s largest warehouse in New York City, the workers told Motherboard.

The victory at JFK8 in April marked the first time in U.S. labor history that workers have successfully unionized at the fiercely anti-union company. The tech behemoth has so far refused to recognize the union and has asked the National Labor Relations Board to throw out the results of the election….

On May 3, Amazon human resources notified Mat Cusick, the comms lead for Amazon Labor Union and an Amazon warehouse worker, that he had been terminated for “voluntary resignation due to job abandonment,” according to an email obtained by Motherboard. Cusick had been on COVID-related leave.

Amazon notified another warehouse employee, Tristan Dutchin, an outspoken ALU organizer, whose photo has been prominently featured across major media outlets in recent weeks, in a meeting on May 7 that he had been terminated for falling behind on productivity targets, Dutchin told Motherboard….

Well — it seems AMZN is intent on reaping the whirlwind, here. Last week, we reported the preliminary finding of the staffers at NLRB… that violations of fair electioneering rights, under 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1) (also known as the National Labor Relations Act, or the “NLRA”) occurred at JFK8.

At JFK8, this will in turn soon lead to a certification and a bargaining order, since Mr. Smalls won by about a two to one margin at JFK8. Grinning now… sunshine streaming in — Spring is here.

नमस्ते

I Won’t Repeat The New Scope’s Name… But It Is A Vast Improvement Over… NASA’s Spitzer.

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Do see at right.

Just imagine what we may learn, with clarity like this.

Sptizer was revolutionary in its day. The first overlaid image, which fades away into the second, is Spitzer looking at the same large Large Magellanic Cloud region… which is then replaced by the clarity of the scope at L2 now.

Science ops are still a month or two away… but this fine scope deserves a more appropriate name: perhaps Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin(?)… I’ve offered others in prior posts. C’mon, NASA — get your act together:

Hypatia: The first astronomical female was Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy….

Émilie du Châtelet

Mary Somerville

Caroline Herschel

Henrietta Leavitt

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Sara Seager

Andrea Ghez, or about 700 others — “the hidden figures“… of astronomy. C’mon.

Out.

नमस्ते

5.0! InSight Detects “Upper-Limit” Mars-Quake — In Redux, Of Summer 2021, On Barsoom.

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[But first, to understand the whimsical nature of our graphic, check here for our prior installment on Marsquakes, and… Marvin.] As InSight’s dust load on its solar arrays is approaching a critical “safe-mode” protocol, to conserve battery life, during the pending Barsoomian winter… NASA’s JPL was lucky enough to capture the 5.0 rocker, just about a week ago — before winter hiatus.

While such a quake would be moderate on Earth, Mars is a smaller globe, and so… a 5.0 probably is near the upper limit for what is possible, given the [exo-]geo-physics of its interior core. And, it may be that after this winter on Mars, InSight will not be able to power back up, fully — to resume regular science observations. So in some ways, this may be her last harrah. We shall see — here’s the story:

…NASA’s InSight Mars lander has detected the largest quake ever observed on another planet: an estimated magnitude 5 temblor that occurred on May 4, 2022, the 1,222nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This adds to the catalog of more than 1,313 quakes InSight has detected since landing on Mars in November 2018. The largest previously recorded quake was an estimated magnitude 4.2 detected Aug. 25, 2021….

A magnitude 5 quake is a medium-size quake compared to those felt on Earth, but it’s close to the upper limit of what scientists hoped to see on Mars during InSight’s mission. The science team will need to study this new quake further before being able to provide details such as its location, the nature of its source, and what it might tell us about the interior of Mars….

The large quake comes as InSight is facing new challenges with its solar panels, which power the mission. As InSight’s location on Mars enters winter, there’s more dust in the air, reducing available sunlight. On May 7, 2022, the lander’s available energy fell just below the limit that triggers safe mode, where the spacecraft suspends all but the most essential functions. This reaction is designed to protect the lander and may occur again as available power slowly decreases.

After the lander completed its prime mission at the end of 2020, meeting its original science goals, NASA extended the mission through December 2022….

Onward; out into the warm sunshine… grinning, as tonight I will search the evening skies… “for a reddish coal… rising with a moan….” And… that would be… Deja, on Barsoom (for at least one more year). Smile….

नमस्ते

So… Hinderaker Thinks Trump Won 2020?!

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That — I think — is what he is trying to say here.

Very inartfully. But maybe it’s late enough on a weeknight that he’s letting the Jim Beam do his thinkin’ for him.

Dunno.

Do know, though… what he’s written… makes no sense at all.

He’s now reduced to finding fault with a press secretary who isn’t even on the job yet.

When Huckabee-Sanders told so many preposterous lies that even her eyeshadow started to shade her… he was silent (and she was two years on the job by then).

Then he couldn’t even find takers for what became give away tix, to hear her speak as his keynote at his 2020 “think tank” gala. Gee — I wonder why?

Hilarious.

Out.

This Delaware Suit… May Have Some Serious Impact — On Musk’s “Twitterified” Dreams…

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We knew there would be litigation, as a result of Musk’s plainly non-Williams-Act compliant way of reporting his initial efforts at collecting his stake in Twitter. He plainly violated the law, by close to 11 days, when every day matters, in efficiently pricing Twitter shares, when a shark is circling (here, Musk). That will be sorted out at the SEC’s enforcement division, and the market regulation desks. Those are different animals than the below.

Today, I want to mention just one private suit. Just one, a suit filed last week on behalf of all shareholders, in Delaware Chancery Court. The nominal plaintiff is the Orlando (Florida) police force’s pension fund. The claim is that Musk, and the current Twitter board violated the certificate of incorporation in Delaware — in the way they’ve structured the now-agreed deal. And that effectively gave Musk and the financiers extra-dollar denominated value — value that is owed to the non-Musk group Twitter shareholders, who bought relying on the “shark repellant” provisions in the Twitter charter, to help them avoid a too-low coercive offer (like Musk’s).

I actually think this may be a winner — or at least, worth pretty high settlement value. We shall see.

The complaint correctly points out that in Twitter’s Delaware charter, a vote of shareholders is required to end its classified board structure (which in turn mandates complete board turnover cannot happen in any less than three annual election cycles — one third each year).

Simple, you might say. “Just vote to repeal, once Musk has 50%.”

Well… the charter also provides that a vote to repeal the classified board must be by a two-thirds majority vote. At present, it looks to me as though Musk’s financiers expects to get only 50%, then permanently waive the pill, then replace the board.

But the pension managers correctly point out that this likely reduces the value they will receive in any transaction, since the board putatively waived a “no waiver” provision of the Delaware charter, at the $54.20 price offered by Musk, a few weeks ago.

And so, a higher price may be needed, to get over the two thirds hurdle. We shall see.

Onward, for a sunshine dappled bike ride, by the lake… smile.

This Is The Best Analysis Of The “Hows, And Whys” — Of The Multiple Supreme Court Leaks… On Roe: Tom Goldstein — With Some Hope(s)…

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Hands down, the SCOTUS Blog analysis is the best (and not coincidentally… least partisan) I’ve read.

Do go read it all, but it now seems clear there were multiple leakers, and leaks — and likely from multiple political factions inside the high court. Here you go — and a bit, of the most intriguing part:

…Start from the premise that there were actually (at least) two leakers, and three leaks….

The first leak was to the Wall Street Journal editorial board last week. In substance, it was that the court had voted to overrule Roe v. Wade, but that the precise outcome remains in doubt because Chief Justice John Roberts is trying to persuade either Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Justice Amy Coney Barrett to a more moderate position that would uphold the Mississippi abortion restriction without formally overturning Roe.

While not formally presented as relying on a leak, the editorial transparently does. The most obvious example is that it predicts that Alito is drafting a majority opinion to overrule Roe, but gives no explanation for that prediction and none is apparent. We now know that Alito did draft that opinion….

It is also important to look at the leak of the opinion through the lens of the fact that someone — almost certainly a conservative — had just before leaked the court’s tentative decision and the state of the voting to The Wall Street Journal. That leak was itself an extraordinary and unethical breach of confidences and certainly caused very deep concern inside the court.

My guess is that someone on the left felt somewhat justified in releasing the opinion in response….

So — if we have been reduced to spy-vs-spy inside the clerks’ warren, at the Supremes… indeed the Republic has suffered a grave injury to its integrity. But that much was evident long ago — when the texts from Justice Thomas’s spouse emerged — in the 01.06.21 insurrection matters. It cannot be that he will not recuse from all Tangerine-related matters brought to the high court henceforth. It cannot be.

Onward, smiling just the same on a warm Spring Monday morning — as the fine SCOTUS Blog analysis offers the glimmer of hope that Chief Justice Roberts is writing a forceful dissent/concurring opinion that largely blunts any categorical over-ruling of Roe.

नमस्ते

Now A Third Patient, In Current DRC Ebola Resurgence…

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This is admittedly… tough news… to share, on Mother’s Day.

But the silver lining is that due to ring vaccinations, the increases — in case numbers are very small — and few and far between. Here’s the latest, from Healio’s reporting:

…Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this week confirmed a third case of Ebola in an ongoing outbreak that has killed two people.

The outbreak in Mbandaka, Equateur province, was declared on April 23 after the first case was confirmed. The patient, a 31-year-old man from Mbandaka, began having symptoms on April 5. He was admitted to two health facilities between April 16 and 21 and died on April 21….

Go now, and celebrate all the mothers you… love — near and far… alive, and long gone. Smile….

नमस्ते