The co-founder of security firm Webroot Software has gone missing in Hawaii. Steven Thomas reportedly vanished from his hotel room in Waikiki on 30 June. Family and authorities fear that Thomas, who is bipolar, may have been delusional or suicidal at the time of his disappearance.

“He thinks everyone on the island is out to get him,” Candis Thomas said of her husband’s bipolar condition. “He thinks the military is involved, he thinks that aliens are involved, and he’s just been in a real delusion state of being fearful.”

Police advise anyone who sees Thomas to contact police and to not confront him.

“He may be really hiding because he’s just afraid of everyone,” Candis Thomas said.

Thomas co-founded WebRoot in 1997 in Boulder, Colorado. The company became famous for its SpySweeper anti-spyware tools and was most recently credited with a 26.8 per cent share of the retail security market.

Thomas sold the company to a group of investors for $108m in 2004.  Read.

Blockbuster Video has called off its deal to purchase electronics retailer Circuit City. “Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster’s shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City,” Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said in a press release. Read.

Former Hewlett-Packard vice president Atul Malhotra has been indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly passing a confidential email from his previous employer, IBM Corp., to senior H-P executives. According to an indictment filed June 27 in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Atul Malhotra was the director of sales and business development for IBM’s printing-services division in March of 2006.  That’s when he requested confidential pricing information about IBM services. Mr. Malhotra became a vice president of H-P’s printing division in May of that same year.

That July, the indictment alleges, he “sent an e-mail to an H-P senior vice president with the subject ‘for your eyes only’” with an attachment including the confidential information. He allegedly followed it up with a similar email to a second senior vice president.

Don’t screw with Steve Wynn, owner of Wynn Las Vegas Casino.  In May of this year, Wynn Las Vegas recovered a $400,000 gambling debt from retired basketball player Charles Barkley after filing a lawsuit against the TNT TV personality. After the media reported the lawsuit, Barkley quickly repaid the debt, plus $40,000 in district attorney’s fees for the case.

Then in June Wynn’s Casino filed a lawsuit against the NBA & Alonzo Mourning Charities seeking payment for a convention bill dating to the 2007 All-Star game.
Wynn Las Vegas claims NBA Entertainment, NBA Properties and co-defendant Alonzo Mourning Charities have failed to pay a $50,000 bill for convention and meeting space and related services used during the 2007 NBA All-Star weekend. 

Now “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis is in the hot seat again after the Wynn Las Vegas Casino filed a $2 million lawsuit against him for unpaid gambling debts dating back to February 2007. According to the lawsuit, Wynn Las Vegas extended $2.5 million in credit to Francis on Feb. 16, 2007, and an additional $300,000 two days later.  Francis made an $800,000 payment later that month, but the rest has yet to be paid, according to court papers filed in Clark County District Court.

“As far as Mr. Francis is concerned, his obligations to the Wynn hotel have been fully lived up to per prior agreements,” said a spokesman for Francis.

A Wynn Las Vegas representative declined comment. Francis  is currently free on bail pending his trial on tax evasion charges in Reno. 

Ex Oilman T.  Boone Pickens has made a water investment in the area of $100 million so far to acquire water rights throughout the Texas panhandle. According to Business Week, Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the country through water rights in the Ogallala aquifer. And Pickens is still acquiring water assets.  Clearly, Pickens thinks there is big money in H20.

So why the big interest in water?

Here is Picken’s play: 

The land he has acquired has thirsty cities on one side and water on the other. And although Texas’ rivers, lakes, and streams belong to the state, underground water is up for grabs. So Pickens aims to capture water that he calls “surplus” and “stranded” water.

Why is there a need for Pickens’ “stranded water”? Because in parts of Texas, like in many other growing cities in the United States, areas are dealing with a water scarcity issue due to increased usage, drought, climate change and population trends. Simply put, agencies have to go farther away to find that next gallon of water than they had to in the past. The result is a requirement for longer pipelines and more water resources.

First on T. Boone’s list of target cities to supply water to is Dallas. He’s currently working on a deal to build a pipeline from the Texas Panhandle to Big D.  But like any potentially lucrative business venture, there are challenges however.

Building a water pipeline to Dallas would require negotiations with hundreds of inconveniently situated landowners. His only hope might be to force land owners to sell him their land . . . like through state-mandated eminent domain! That’s where Pickens’s political savvy dovetails with his inscrutable business interests. Not just anyone can exercise the right of eminent domain. According to BW, Pickens had his lobbyists exert pressure on the Texas legislature to give joint energy and water transmission lines right-of-way. To get the power of eminent domain Pickens formed his own eight-acre water district on his property and now has the power to annex land “for the common good.”

In April Pickens sent 1,100 letters out to landowners along the 250-mile corridor he wants to build on. Pickens is confident he’ll be able to get all the land he needs for about $30 million and plans to start building a $1.5 billion water pipeline with a $2 billion electrical transmission line above.

But Pickens’s lobbying powers aren’t limited to the Lone Star state. Pickens recently testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Pickens told Congress to expand the scope of eminent domain and right-of-way, which are currently controlled at the state level, so companies like his Mesa Wind and Water can operate across state lines.

“All I’m doing is selling surplus water,” Pickens tells Business Week.