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A different game

A black South African and an Afrikaner, both around 40 years of age, began talking at a bar prior to boarding a flight to Johannesburg. It was thanks to the Afrikaners, the people of chiefly Dutch extraction who ran the apartheid state, that black men like this one had no right even to a vote until 1994. But the two men chatted about the World Cup, business and politics with amiable ease, revealing not a hint of historical resentment or racial stress. The thought struck that the black South African would have been unable to connect as easily with a Nigerian, a Rwandan or a Mozambican; the Afrikaner would not have found as much in common with a Dutchman, an Englishman or an American.

That could change, though, as Mr. Pienaar conceded when he said that South African politics found itself at a "crossroads"; that after the World Cup fun was over a battle would resume within the ANC between the Malema camp, whose mix of half-baked Marxist rhetoric and race-tinged populism appeals to disaffected youth (60% of under-35s in South Africa are unemployed); and those "real leaders," as Mr. Pienaar calls them, who carry the Mandela flag of principled "nonracialism."

Contrary to much received opinion, it's more of a challenge to divide the races in South Africa than it is to unite them. Anyone who doubts it should ask the black player on the 1995 rugby team, Chester Williams, and the white player on the 2010 soccer team, Matthew Booth. Mr. Williams is married to a white woman; Mr. Booth, to a black one. Each couple has two small children.

—John Carlin is the author of "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation," the book that served as the basis for the film "Invictus."

Oil disaster

A sea bird was coated in oil at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast Thursday.
Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

It is not a spill; it is much more than a spill.

The White House is planning to send BP a bill for $69 million to cover the costs of cleaning up the spill, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday.
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The White House is so far behind the eight ball on this issue it is pathetic.

Have you seen this man?

Item in today's Journal, New York section:

Manhattan: Bald Man With Backpack Sought in Bank Robbery

Police are searching for a bald bank robber who stuck up a midtown bank this week. Just before noon on Thursday a man in sunglasses wearing a dark-gray hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and sneakers walked into Valley National Bank at 295 Fifth Ave. The man, who was also carrying a backpack, handed a note to the teller. The teller gave him an undetermined amount of money which he put in the backpack before turning and walking out of the bank, police said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted to the Crime Stoppers website at www.NYPDCrimeStoppers.com or by text messages at 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.

 Guess he didn't have the hood of his sweatshirt on his head. Bright?

A New York Bloc on the Supreme Court

Clockwise from top left, Ruth Fremson/The New York Times; bottom left, Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times - Clockwise from top left, childhood homes of Antonin Scalia, in Queens; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Brooklyn; Elena Kagan, in Manhattan; and Sonia Sotomayor, in the Bronx.

There will, perhaps, be little that the 4 native New Yorkers will agree on, but they do have their provenance in common. And, curiously, they are each from a different borough.


The Supreme Court has some justices who are liberals and some who are conservatives. It has some who see themselves as strict constructionists and some who probably do not. And then it has the justices who grew up riding the subway and the ones who grew up turning right on red. It has the justice who was the treasurer of the Go-Getters Club at James Madison High School in Brooklyn. It has the justice who watched “Perry Mason” on television in a housing project in the Bronx and decided that the star defense lawyer was less important than the judge. It has the justice who took part in a junior military training program at Xavier High School in Manhattan and carried his rifle home on the train to Queens. If the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is confirmed, she would join three others in a distinct bloc. For the first time in the court’s history, said William Treanor, the dean of Fordham Law School, it would have four justices who grew up in New York City.

Two Jews, an Italian and a Puerto Rican: that expresses well what New York is, and has been.

Other notable justices spent all or part of their youth in the city, including Felix Frankfurter and Benjamin N. Cardozo. But if Ms. Kagan takes the seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens, a Chicagoan, it will be an unusual moment for a city whose political influence has been slowly shrinking since the nation outgrew the original 13 colonies.

It has been a long time since New York's political power declined. Political not just as in elected representatives, but governmental.

Justice Scalia grew up in Elmhurst, in what he once called “a really mishmash sort of a New York,” with Germans, Irish and Puerto Ricans. He went to Public School 13, where he got straight A’s, and Xavier, the Jesuit school in Manhattan, where he was first in his class and was in the military program.


Elmhurst is now Indian, Latino, but more Colombians that Puerto Ricans.

He said he realized that New Yorkers were assertive when his high school band went to march in a parade in Washington “These people just stood there and looked at us, you know?” he told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” in 2008. “In New York, people say, ‘Hey, play something for us, you know? You bums, why don’t you play something?’ They were — they were alive, they were confrontational.”

So is he, assertive, and acerbic (which I think is a very common adjective used when describing his style of questioning in the Court).

Three of the four New Yorkers — Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor and Ms. Kagan, if she is confirmed — would form the court’s liberal wing with Justice Stephen G. Breyer. Professor Bonventre of Albany Law School said that the “ethnic-gender-religious composition of the liberals on the court” would underscore their differences with the conservative majority. “For most New Yorkers, they will look at the liberal minority and say, ‘That’s us, that’s our America,’ ” Professor Bonventre said, “and so when the court renders liberal decisions and you have all of those four, the three women and the Jewish guy, it will make complete sense to New Yorkers, whereas for the South and the Bible Belt, people are going to say, ‘They don’t understand the rest of America.’ ”


But Martin Flaherty, a professor at Fordham Law School who knew Ms. Kagan when they were undergraduates at Princeton, said that being a judge from New York did not mean “everyone is going to be a liberal or a conservative. “Witness Scalia,” Mr. Flaherty said. “But there’s a certain toughness, mental toughness, to spending time in New York. That is true of all four New Yorkers. None of them is a pushover.”

Learn From the BP Disaster. Then Drill Again.

Nansen Saleri, president and CEO of Quantum Reservoir Impact in Houston, was formerly head of reservoir management for Saudi Aramco. He seems to think, no, he does think, and contend, that after learning our lesson, we should drill again. The Palin crowd might well agree, and surely will, but that hardly constitutes responsibility, wisdom, and prudence.

But Hardship Endures in Alaskan Zone Hit by Valdez Spill.Not as easy as wishing something were true.

Baseball revenge

In Cuba, baseball has always been political. When the sport was introduced in the 1860s by a Cuban returning from studies in the U.S., Cubans saw it as a way to distance themselves from their Spanish colonial rulers, who favored bullfighting. U.S. teams traveled to Havana for spring-training games, and Cuban players thrived in the U.S.

This is from an utterly fascinating article in today's Journal about historical memory, both on a personal and national level, political and sports fanaticism, human tragedy and suffering, human arrogance and hubris, and about baseball.

The romaticism attached by some to Fidel Castro's name on a macro level is, as is so often the case, damaged (to say the least) when examined on a micro level. The one aspect of the Cuban Revolution that has always stuck in my craw is the need for Cuban authorities to prevent people from leaving the island if they so choose. That changes political revolution to military dictatorship, and whether by the vanguard of the proleteriat or any other person or group, dictatorship is dictatorship.

Solar plane

AVIÓN SOLAR — El Solar Impulse, con la misma envergadura de alas de un Boeing 747, pretende ser el primer avión a energía solar que de la vuelta al mundo en 2012; este día voló con la velocidad de una bicicleta durante una hora y media | Ver nota (Foto: Reuters)

 On Thursday, this picture appeared of the airplane in the Journal.

SOLAR SHADE: The solar-powered prototype aircraft “Solar Impulse” took its maiden flight at the military airport in Payerne, Switzerland, Wednesday. The project aims to circumnavigate the world with an aircraft powered only by solar energy. (Laurent Gillieron/Associated Press)

Elton at Chichén

Saw an item in El Universal's website about an Elton Joh concert at Chichée Itzá. I recognized the archeology. It might be this one

Classic April Fool's hoaxes

Big Ben Goes Digital (1980)

In 1980, the BBC unveiled a gem in its series of excellent April Fool’s Day jokes when it told listeners that Big Ben was going to have its iconic analog clock faces replaced with digital displays. Listeners were aghast. The BBC’s Japanese service took the prank even further, announcing that the hands would be sold to the first four listeners to phone in with a bid. Calls poured in from the gullible, including one from a Japanese sailor in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Classic April Fool's Day hoaxes in Daily Beast. Some real gems. Pat Sajak and Alex Trebec switch places.

Would the Founders Love ObamaCare?

A right-wing columnist at the Journal, Daniel Henninger, had the temerity to use that headline in his screed. In his usual way, he bashes lefties, Obama and every President in the last century (he does not exclude Reagan).


The left-wing critics are right: The rage is not about health care. They are also right that similar complaints about big government were heard during the New Deal and the Great Society, and the sky didn't fall. But what if this time the sky is falling—on them. What if after more than a century of growth in the national government, starting with the Progressive Era, the American people are starting to push back. Not just the tea partiers or the 13 state attorneys general seeking protection under the 10th Amendment and the Commerce Clause. But something bigger than that. 

The rage is a tempest in a teapot that Republicans are trying to ride, to control, and to use as a substitute for a party platform that includes more than the word NO. Fringe and marginal people are organizing themselves into mobs and rabble that hold signs equating the President with Hitler, scream Socialism, dress up as Colinials in a Hollywood depiction of 1776, and have the temerity to hold flags that say Don't tread on me. These yahoos can manage to equate themselves with Colonials rebelling against taxation without representation. They are disaffected, lost, clueless, and otherwise idiotic. And Henninger throws in his two cents worth of lunacy.

Who are the American people that he so shamelessly assumes he can quote? Ten percent of the population? Twenty five? What about the rest of us?

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Attorneys General who sued the federal government are, save one, all Republicans. All of them would love to get enough publicity to ride a wave of popularity to higher office.

The American people can and do change the nation's collective mind on the ordering of our political system. The civil rights years of the 1960s is the most well-known modern example. (The idea that resistance to Mr. Obama's health plan is rooted in racist resentment of equal rights is beyond the pale, even by current standards of political punditry.)

 He uses the civil rights struggle to legitimize his extremism, shamelessly. He is completely wrong. That struggle was fought by individuals banded together in a movement to end overt racism, legitimate and legal discrimination, and a century of racial animus sanctified by law. His tea parties are not close to being in the same league.


Faced with corporate writedowns in response to the reality of Congress's new health plan, an apoplectic Congressman Henry Waxman commanded his economic vassals to appear before him in Washington.

 These corporate writedowns priovided Henninger and his crowd of prevaricators and liers an opportunity to again twist fatcs for their own purpose. A story has some of the details:  The legislation prevents companies from deducting tax-free subsidies they receive from the government for providing prescription-drug benefits to retirees. The charges are noncash, meaning companies won't have to write a check, but ultimately their tax bills will be higher without a change in tax treatment of the drug-benefit subsidy, assuming their benefits don't change. The health-care overhaul doesn't eliminate the subsidy, but starting in 2013, companies can no longer deduct the part of the benefit that is paid for by the subsidies.

A non-cash charge, or an acounting entry, is all. And what is being changed is: companies were given a subsidy, and allowed to deduct that subsidy from their taxes. That was unfair, and is being ended.

Faced with a challenge to his vision last week, President Obama laughingly replied to these people: "Go for it." They will. As to the condescension and sniffing left-wing elitism this opposition seems to bring forth from Manhattan media castles, one must say it does recall another, earlier ancien regime. 

 Wonder if the Manhattan media castles he sniffes against include News Corp's?

Playas sin mosquitos

PLAYAS SIN MOSQUITOS Autoridades de Acapulco arrancaron el programa de fumigación y abatización en playas, con el objetivo de combatir el dengue | Ver nota | Gráfico

+ Ampliar foto (Foto: Adriana Covarrubias)

Nuristan

An article on Afghanistan discusses the pullback of US troops from Nuristan leading to reconciliation between the area's Afghanis with Kabul and their repudiation of the Taliban.

Unmapped until the 1940s and peopled by blue-eyed tribes that claim descent from Alexander the Great, Nuristan is known for hostility to outsiders. Its inhabitants adopted Islam, shedding their ancient pagan beliefs, only about a century ago. A Hezb-i-Islami stronghold, Nuristan was one of the few parts of the country that remained outside Taliban control before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Looks like the eagle will have to wait a bit longer to come back to its landing place on pocket change. The U.S. Mint unveiled five new designs for quarters to be minted in 2010, this time honoring national parks and sites. The Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters Program will continue through 2021 and eventually release 56 coins, one for each state, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories.

"Like how the 50 State Quarter Program educated a generation of children on geography and state history," said U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy during the unveiling at the Newseum in Washington, "we hope that the America the Beautiful quarters will reconnect Americans to our country's national parks and sites."

US MINT - The Yellowstone National Park quarter features the Old Faithful geyser with a mature bull bison in the foreground. Slideshow

While the head of George Washington will remain on one side, as it has since 1932, the other side will carry majestic views of public lands belonging to all Americans in the order the sites were established. The first quarter, to be released April 19, will honor Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. The Mint plans to make five quarters per year for about 10 weeks each. The Secretary of the Treasury can extend the program for another 10 years, or 56 coins, or Congress could pass legislation authorizing a new program. If not, Mr. Moy said, "the quarter reverse will revert back to the American eagle in 2022."

The Mint's state quarters program attracted about 147 million collectors to the hobby and garnered the Mint $4.1 billion in revenue and $3 billion in seigniorage, or money that the government was able to use instead of borrowing, according to the Mint. It costs between 7 and 8 cents to produce a quarter, meaning the government makes between 17 and 18 cents in profit per coin, according to David L. Ganz, a past president of the American Numismatic Association.

How many of each quarter the Mint decides to make depends on the demand of commerce in the nation, it said. The Mint issued 34.3 billion state quarters. That sheer volume is the reason these coins will probably not be good long-term investments, say experts.

"Coins that are common now will remain common in the future," said Scott Travers, author of "The Coin Collector's Survival Manual." "Coins that are scarce will become scarcer and rare. Coins that are rare will become rarer."

In the short term, however, the program promises to be a bonanza for collectors willing to engage in a bit of arbitrage. Mr. Travers suggests a strategy of sifting through fresh bank rolls of coins, sending only the best to get graded and sell immediately in the secondary market.

Coins such as these graded as perfect can be sold for hundreds of dollars a piece, said Mr. Travers. But it is important to note that a grading service such as PCGS has never assigned a perfect grade, a mint state 70, to one of the state quarters the Mint strikes for circulation.

"A Rhode Island quarter graded mint state 69 has a value of $4,000," said Mr. Travers. PCGS assigned the grade of MS-69 to three of them. A New York quarter graded MS-69 is valued at $2,150; PCGS assigned such a grade to 13 of them.

Separately, Mr. Moy said the mint would start producing one-ounce silver coins for collectors as soon as it satisfies demand from bullion investors, as it must by law. Demand has soared in recent years. In 1996, the Mint sold 3.6 million ounces of one ounce silver coins; in 2009, it sold 30.5 million ounces. "When this happens," Mr. Moy said, "we will make silver proof eagles."


By ALEJANDRO J. MARTINEZ

Operativo por Clinton

Secreatry of State Clinton travelled to Mexico for bilateral discussions on anti-drug cartel actions. Needless to say, securityu was exceedingly tight. Travelling with her were Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, Secretary of Defense Gates, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen and Director of national intelligence Blair.Both the NY Times and El Universal had stories on the trip; clearly for Mexico it was a much more important deal. The Mexican media outlet had video reports, pictures, and stories. One picture caught my eye.

ANALIZAN LUCHA ANTINARCO

La reunión que encabezan la canciller Patricia Espinosa y la secretaria de Estado de EU, Hillary Clinton, tiene como fin revisar la estrategia conjunta contra el crimen organizado | Ver nota (Foto: NTX)mex

Las ratas ayudan

Fascinating piece in El Universal's website about drainage in the Valley of Mexico City.

Brin shaped Google's China stand

* The Wall Street Journal

* TECHNOLOGY
* MARCH 12, 2010

Soviet-Born Brin Has Shaped Google's Stand on China

By BEN WORTHEN

As a boy growing up in the Soviet Union, Sergey Brin witnessed the consequences of censorship. Now the Google Inc. co-founder is drawing on that experience in shaping the company's showdown with the Chinese government.

Mr. Brin has long been Google's moral compass on China-related issues, say people familiar with the matter. He expressed the greatest concern among decision makers, they say, about the compromises Google made when it launched its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, in 2006. He is now the guiding force behind Google's decision to stop filtering search results in China, say people familiar with the decision.

Google acknowledged that the call to stop filtering—which was announced in January and set off negotiations with Beijing—could lead to its withdrawal from the fast-growing market.

The move is the clearest manifestation yet of a tension that has always existed at Google.

The Internet company, on one hand, is analytical: It built its core search business on algorithms that determine the relevance of Web sites and has tried to apply quantitative analysis to traditionally subjective parts of a business, such as hiring decisions. On the other hand, Mr. Brin and co-founder Larry Page have passionately touted Google's ability to spread democracy through access to information, and adopted the unofficial and now-famous motto, "Don't Be Evil."

"At its best, Google is data-driven with an ethical trump card," said Larry Brilliant, who headed up the company's philanthropic efforts until 2009. Always it was the founders, Messrs. Brin and Page, who could play that card, he added.

Google declined to make Mr. Brin or any other executives available for an interview.

Mr. Brin was born in Moscow in 1973. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1979, he has said, in part because of anti-Semitism there before the fall of the Soviet Union. He has said in past interviews that the move and its circumstances had a profound impact on his life.

Mr. Brin was asked about the compromises necessary to do business in China during a 2004 interview with Playboy magazine. "There are difficult questions, difficult challenges," he said. "One thing we know is that people can make better decisions with better information," he said, adding that he was aware of cases where finding information through Google's search engine had saved people's lives.

When Google launched its Chinese site, it agreed to filter out results that the Chinese government found objectionable, including some political speech and pornography.

Mr. Brin wasn't completely comfortable with that decision and would sometimes say Google should never have agreed to Beijing's conditions, a person familiar with his thinking said. But his objections were never enough to reverse Google's policy.

"I actually feel like things really improved" in the first years after Google entered China, Mr. Brin said at a technology conference in February. "We were actually able to censor less and less, and our local competitors there also censored less and less."

But following the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he said, "there's been a lot more blocking going on."

In December, Google detected cyber attacks that it traced to computers in China. It said some of its intellectual property was stolen, adding that it had evidence that attackers were trying to access the accounts of Chinese human-rights activists on Gmail, Google's email service.

Mr. Brin personally supervised Google's subsequent investigation, even moving his office into the building where Google's security team was operating, said a person familiar with the investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reported in January that in debates over how to respond, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, argued the company could do more good by keeping its search engine in China. Mr. Brin said Google had already taken that approach. and that it could no longer justify giving in to China's requirements to censor search results.

A Silicon Valley executive who knows Mr. Brin said his Soviet upbringing made him particularly opposed to state use of technology to spy on citizens. This person suspects that the apparent attempts to spy on Gmail users may have been as important in Google's reaction as the issue of censorship. "That tripped Sergey," this person said.

Why Bibi Humiliated Biden

by Martin Indyk


Netanyahu sensed a political advantage, and he's pressing it. Martin Indyk, former American ambassador to Israel, explains Netanyahu's remarkable decision to taunt his country's most important ally. What happened to Vice President Biden this week in Jerusalem was egregious but hardly new. Right-wing governments in Israel have regularly embarrassed high-level U.S. officials by making announcements about new settlement activity during or just after their visits. But it usually happens to secretaries of state. It infuriated James Baker, confounded Condoleezza Rice, and appalled Madeleine Albright.

They know they can get away with it.

When I served as Albright's ambassador in Israel, during Bibi Netanyahu's first term as Prime Minister, he announced a major extension to an existing West Bank settlement as she departed Israel after one of her efforts to move the peace process forward. When she heard the news, she called me on an open line and shouted: "You tell Bibi that he needs to stop worrying about his right wing and start worrying about the United States." It was good advice, but it went unheeded. Antagonizing the Clinton administration eventually contributed to Netanyahu's downfall. Israeli voters punished him for mishandling the relationship with Israel's only true ally.


The second time around, one might have expected Netanyahu to be more circumspect about his relations with the Obama administration, especially because Israel is now so dependent on the United States to deal with the growing threat from Iran.

Has it ever not been dependent on the US?

But three developments seem to have emboldened Netanyahu. First, Obama lost the Israeli public by convincing them—through his Cairo speech and customary cool—that he wanted to distance the United States from Israel in order to curry favor with the Arab World. For the first time, Netanyahu found himself in the unusual position of being more popular at home than the U.S. president (Clinton and Bush enjoyed 70-80 percent public approval ratings in Israel).

Second, the Republicans have started making a comeback in Washington, raising the possibility of using Congress to constrain the president. That was something Netanyahu deployed to considerable advantage once Clinton lost control of the House to the Israelis' close friend Newt Gingrich. He probably savors the opportunity to do it again.

Third, Obama purposely delinked the peace process from Iran, making clear to Netanyahu that, despite their deep differences over settlement activity, they would be completely coordinated on the strategic issue of curbing Iran's nuclear program.

So Bibi won by losing, or, simply won another one. He lost nothing.

So my guess is this fortuitous combination generated sloppiness in the prime minister’s office. That's the only way I can explain the humiliation of the vice president of the United States on the very day that he came to Jerusalem to try to persuade the Israeli public, using Biden-esque hyperbole, that the Obama administration really does love them. The excuse that Netanyahu was blind-sided by settler gremlins in the Interior ministry strains credulity. That's because his aides have spent a good deal of time lately reassuring Washington that Israel would avoid provocative actions in Jerusalem that might sabotage the indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that were launched this week.


Now that hard-won, nine-month American effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table is in serious jeopardy. If the indirect talks collapse before they even start, Netanyahu will inevitably be blamed. The Palestinians surely sense that they have an opportunity to turn the tables on Israel, so Netanyahu has very little time to get himself out of this self-generated mess.

There is one way to repair the damage to U.S.-Israel relations and to his own standing with the Israeli public. He could immediately declare that in order to boost the chances for negotiations, he is calling a halt to all provocative acts in Jerusalem—including announcements of new building activity in east Jerusalem, housing demolitions, and evictions. He should also establish a mechanism in the prime minister's office to ensure that his decision is implemented. Such actions would both demonstrate his commitment to the negotiations and to repairing the damage to his friendship with Joe Biden and the United States.

Having just explained why PM Netanyahu did not do what the writer is proposing, the writes proposes that the PM do what he has not done. Further: establish a mechanism to make sure his decision is implemented? Isn't that a matter of course, that the government implements the Prime Minister's decisions?

Can't do it because of his right wing? This time Netanyahu should listen to Albright’s counsel.

Why should this time be different than any other time? The Israel lobby in the US is already making noises about the US government ceasing to pressure Israel. Noise from that lobby and its Congressional allies will only get louder.


Martin Indyk is the vice president and director of foreign policy at The Brookings Institution and author of the recently published Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (Simon & Schuster 2009).

Examiner: Lehman Torpedoed Lehman

A scathing report by a U.S. bankruptcy-court examiner investigating the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. blames senior executives and auditor Ernst & Young for serious lapses that led to the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In the works for more than a year, and costing more than $30 million, the report by court-appointed examiner Anton Valukas paints the most complete picture yet of the free-wheeling culture inside the 158 year-old firm, whose chief executive Richard S. Fuld Jr. prided himself on his ability to manage market risk.

Fuld's arrogance was boundless. He even told a House member to let him finish, when the politician had the temerity to interrupt his testimony before a Congressional committee. Fuld was used to such deference.


The document runs thousands of pages and contains fresh allegations. In particular, it alleges that Lehman executives manipulated its balance sheet, withheld information from the board, and inflated the value of toxic real estate assets. Lehman chose to "disregard or overrule the firm's risk controls on a regular basis,'' even as the credit and real-estate markets were showing signs of strain, the report said.

• Deals: Read the Lehman Examiner's Report
• Details of the 'Hail Mary' to Buffett
• Heard on the Street: Lehman's Racy Repo
• Deals: How Lehman Allegedly Manipulated Its Balance Sheet
• Deals: Lehman Senior VP Warned Auditors About Repo 105
• Deals: Dick Fuld's statement on the report
• MarketBeat: 'Hail Mary' to Warren Buffett
• Probe Yields Windfall for Legal Examiner

Getty Images - Lehman's top executives, including CEO Richard Fuld, were aware of accounting chicanery and failed to disclose it, the report said. Above, Fuld testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in October 2008.


Mr. Valukas, chairman of law firm Jenner & Block, devoted more than 300 pages alone to balance-sheet manipulation, accusing Lehman of using accounting methods to move assets off its books.

Coincidentally, the firm is domicilied at 919 Third Avenue.


The examiner said that Lehman—anxious to maintain favorable credit ratings—engaged in an accounting device known within the firm as "Repo 105" to essentially park about $50 billion of assets away from Lehman's balance sheet. The move helped Lehman look like it had less debt on its books.

Seems misleading, to say the least.

In an ordinary repo transaction, Lehman would raise cash by selling assets with a simultaneous obligation to buy them back within days, according to the report. The transactions would be accounted for as financings, and the assets would remain on Lehman's balance sheet. In a Repo 105 transaction, Lehman did the same thing. But because the moved assets represented 105% or more of the cash it received in return, accounting rules allowed the transactions to be treated as "sales" rather than financings. The result: Assets shifted away from Lehman's balance sheet, reducing the amount of debt it showed to investors.

Misleading, and allowed. Nice.


"In this way, unbeknownst to the investing public, rating agencies, Government regulators, and Lehman's Board of Directors, Lehman reverse engineered the firm's net leverage ratio for public consumption," says the report.

Bloomberg News - Erin Callan, Lehman's former financial chief, in an April 2008 interview.

Lehman's own global financial controller, Martin Kelly, told the examiner that "the only purpose or motive for the transactions was reduction in balance sheet" and "there was no substance to the transactions." Mr. Kelly said he warned former Lehman finance chiefs Erin Callan and Ian Lowitt about the maneuver, saying the transactions posed "reputational risk" to Lehman if their use became publicly known.


In a November 2009 interview with the examiner, Mr. Fuld said he had no recollection of Lehman's use of Repo 105 transactions but that if he had known about them he would have been concerned, according to the report.

Plausible deniability?

One party singled out in the report is Lehman's audit firm, Ernst & Young, which allegedly didn't raise concerns with Lehman's board about the frequent use of the repo transactions. E&Y met with Lehman's Board Audit Committee on June 13, one day after Lehman senior vice president Matthew Lee raised questions about the frequent use of the transactions.

In a statement, Mr. Fuld's lawyer, Patricia Hynes, said, "Mr. Fuld did not know what those transactions were—he didn't structure or negotiate them, nor was he aware of their accounting treatment."

Difficult to believe that such a hands-on CEo didn't know a blessed thing about such an important matter. And if true, then he wasn't awatre of a very important matter.

As Lehman began to unravel in mid-2008, investors began to focus their attention on the billions of dollars in commercial real estate and private-equity loans on Lehman's books. The report said that while Lehman was required to report its inventory "at fair value," a price it would receive if the asset were hypothetically sold, Lehman "progressively relied on its judgment to determine the fair value of such assets."

General strike grinds Greece to halt

Demonstrations by Unions Against Government Austerity Measures Hobble Transit Services, Spark Clashes With Police


ATHENS—Flights were grounded and trains suspended amid a nationwide general strike Thursday, as Greek police fought running street battles with anarchist youths in fresh and violent signs of anger at the government's austerity plans. Unions called a strike to protest wage and benefit cuts being put in place to trim Greece's swollen budget deficit as the country draws closer to a financial reckoning. An estimated 50,000 people took to the streets.

What is the alternative?


Greece must refinance a chunk of its giant debt next month, and Greek leaders are leaning hard on counterparts in richer European states to provide some measure of support that could ease those debt sales. Eyes are on European Union finance ministers' meetings early next week.

In the capital city Thursday, masked and hooded youths went well beyond protest—throwing rocks and bottles, smashing shop windows, setting alight trash cans and burning at least one private car. Police fired tear gas and detained more than a dozen people. There were also separate clashes outside the Greek parliament, Agence France-Presse reported. Greece has a history of sometimes-violent anarchist protesters, though they are well outside the mainstream.

Greece's two umbrella unions, for private- and public-sector workers, called the strike to protest the €4.8 billion ($6.55 billion) package of spending cuts and tax increases that the government announced March 3, which was voted into law days later. The communist-backed PAME union held a separate protest that drew an estimated 15,000 people.

Communists? They're still around? Haven't they gotten the news?

"There is a big turnout today and that shows people are concerned," said Dimitris Papageorgiou, a 49-year-old worker at the Bank of Greece. "Today's protest is because of the austerity measures. Why do the people always have to pay? Who is at fault? It's the foreign speculators and the useless policies of previous governments."


Recent polls show that the Greek public is divided over the austerity plan. While the public opposes some measures, such as an increase in Greece's fuel and value-added taxes, analysts say there is a broad acceptance that something must be done. "No one really expects the measures to be withdrawn. They were adopted by the government to avoid even worse consequences," said Lefteris Eleftheriadis, 48, a biologist who works in Greece's agriculture ministry and participated in Thursday's protest.


The strike affected public transport, government ministries and state-owned companies. All flights into and out of the country were grounded and all ferry and rail services suspended. On the streets of Athens Thursday, normal workday activity was muted. Street lights and road signs were festooned with strike posters. Usual morning news shows on local television were replaced with alternative programming. Many businesses were shut amid fear of violence, and police blocked main thoroughfares around the city center. Just off the city's central square, a group of about 200 police and fire officials also staged a sympathy protest, challenging the government to fulfill its pre-election promises to protect workers' salaries.

How?

Under pressure from the EU and financial markets, Greece's socialist government last week presented the latest in a series of austerity packages to trim the budget deficit to 8.7% of gross domestic product this year, from an estimated 12.7% last year. Among other things, the package raises Greece's top value-added tax rate to 21% from 19%, freezes public-sector pensions, cuts civil-service entitlements and bonus pay, and raises taxes on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes.


The general strike follows several days of escalating labor actions by a variety of smaller unions.

— By ALKMAN GRANITSAS. Charles Forelle contributed to this article.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A13

Israeli Faith in Iran's Opposition Gains Favor

Israel's oldest civil servant, 83-year-old Ministry of Defense adviser Uri Lubrani, has spent his career defying conventional wisdom on Iran. Today, Israel's political and military establishment appears to be tilting toward one of his long-ignored views: Israeli support for Iran's opposition movement—and not a miltary strike—is the best way to combat the regime in Tehran.

 A voice of reason and moderation, a much needed one.

"A military strike will at best delay Iran's nuclear program, but what's worse, it will rally the Iranian people to the defense of the regime," says Mr. Lubrani, who was ambassador to Iran from 1973 to 1978 and is now a special adviser to Israel's minister of defense. "We must do everything possible to help (the protest movement) do the job."

All the Right Places: A few Lubrani career highlights

* Pre-1948: Fought for Israel's pre-statehood militia.
* 1952-1961: Senior aide to Prime Minister Ben Gurion.
* 1963-1967: Ambassador to Uganda. Survived plane crash with Idi Amin.
* 1967-1971: Ambassador to Ethiopia. Smuggled first Ethiopian Jew to Israel.
* 1973-1978: Iran ambassador.
* 1983-2000: Managed the Israeli government's activities in Lebanon.

Rafi Eitan, an adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, says the protests "changed people's attitudes here. They started to understand that this should be done the way Lubrani has been saying it should be done."

He has quite a track record of understanding Israel's neighbors.


Heading Israeli government activities in Lebanon since 1983, he was one of the first to warn of Iran's growing influence among the country's Shiites. His recommendations were largely neglected and Hezbollah soon emerged as one of Israel's most potent foes. "Lubrani was one of the few, the very few, to identify that Israel should find a way to the Shiites before Iran did," recalls retired Brig. Gen. Shimon Shapira, who was an intelligence officer in Lebanon at the time. More recently, as Iran's nuclear program grew and Washington and Israel hardened their views, Mr. Lubrani's calls to support what appeared to be a beaten-down opposition seemed out of touch.

 Admirers point to his track record as reason to heed his advice. Mr. Lubrani was named ambassador to Iran in 1973, after a string of posts as envoy to countries neighboring Israel's Arab enemies. In 1977, Mr. Lubrani was summoned to the Shah's private resort island of Kish—giving him a first-hand look at the bubble of decadence the Shah had retreated into, he says. Kish had a landing strip serving a Concorde jet that airlifted delicacies to the island each day from Paris and kept the island's boutiques stocked with the latest French fashions, recalls Mr. Lubrani. After returning to Tehran, he ran into Iran's long-time prime minister, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, who openly called the island "a pit of corruption and decadence," a striking breach of diplomatic protocol, says Mr. Lubrani.

The US did not then, and one wonders if it does now, understand the negative meaning of the Shah, how hated and corrupt he was; what the US was an anti-communist ally, and ignored the dirty details of his corruption.


Mr. Lubrani warned Israel's foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, that the regime's days were numbered, according to Mr. Lubrani and senior government officials at the time. Harold Rhode, who retired last month after 28 years as a Pentagon analyst, much of it focused on Iran, says "Lubrani's warning got back to Washington, and the CIA laughed at it. The U.S. told Israel it's not true." Mr. Lubrani's successor was evacuated just weeks after arriving in Tehran, as the Islamic Revolution swept the country.


"Uri is by far the best authority Israel has on Iran," says Bernard Lewis, the influential Middle East historian and a decadeslong friend of Mr. Lubrani. "He's demonstrated that on more than one occasion by being right when everybody else was wrong, and he still has difficulty getting anyone to listen to him."

Aftershocks rattle Chile during Inauguration

Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images -Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, accompanied by his wife, Cecilia Morel, during his inauguration ceremony at the Congress in Valparaiso on Thursday. 

The new Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, had not even taken office on Thursday when major aftershocks rocked the central coast of this earthquake-ravaged country. But within hours of his inauguration, he appeared on television to announce that troops, relief supplies and even Mr. Piñera himself would be heading immediately to the quake zone.

In rushing to respond aggressively to the tremors, it seemed that Mr. Piñera was trying to avoid the missteps of his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, whose response to a devastating Feb. 27 earthquake was criticized as halting and ineffective. Mr. Piñera said he would fly to the hardest-hit areas later Thursday, and promised to “deploy all of the troops that may be necessary starting this evening to guarantee calm and public order.”
 

In the legislative seat of Valparaíso, about 90 miles from the quakes, dignitaries who gathered for the inauguration of Mr. Piñera made nervous jokes and glanced at the shuddering ceiling of the National Congress building as the quakes hit, according to news reports.

Mr. Piñera, however, showed no sign of acknowledging the tremors, and continued to shake hands with leaders and supporters before taking the oath of office. But the building was evacuated after the inauguration.

Claudio Santana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images From left, Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Rafael Correa of Ecuador during a 6.9 magnitude aftershock during the inauguration ceremony of Chilean President Sebastián Piñera on Thursday.

The United States Geological Survey reported that the first quake on Thursday struck the coast to the west of Rancagua and was quickly followed by one of 6.7 magnitude at 11:55 a.m., and another of 6.0 magnitude at 12:06 p.m. Scores of strong aftershocks have rattled Chile’s interior and its coastline since the Feb. 27 quake, one of the most powerful on record. That quake killed hundreds of people, toppled apartment buildings and bridges, and stirred up powerful waves that erased entire fishing villages hugging the southern coast of the country.

Burla

BURLA La bancada del PRI llevó una piñata de Pinocho al salón de sesiones, asegurando que era César Nava. La diputada María Estela de la Fuente la trasladó a la zona de curules del PAN | Nota | Fotogalería

(Foto: Lucía Godínez /EL UNIVERSAL)

Venetian winter

Foto: EFE 10 de marzo de 2010

NEVADA EN ITALIA

El país vive un invierno más frío a los que está acostumbrado; varias góndolas se pueden ver cubiertas por la nieve en uno de los canales de Venecia | Ver nota | Ver fotogalería

Slim es el hombre más rico del mundo: Forbes

Gates and Buffet have had rough years, Slim has not. Even though he's aplutocrat, Mexico (some of it, anyway) takes pride in a Mexican being the richest man in the world. On paper, but the richest.

Slim es el hombre más rico del mundo: Forbes

El magnate mexicano desbanca a los estadounidenses Bill Gates y Warren Buffet con una fortuna de 53 mil 500 millones de dólares 16:58

El Chapo repite entre los millonarios de Forbes 19:30

El Chapo, empatado con Harp Helú 20:26

En muestra de confianza en México: Elías Ayub 19:45

Entérate Los nueve mexicanos en la lista de Forbes

Entérate Los 10 más ricos según Forbes

Fotogalería Los 10 nuevos millonarios de Forbes

Fotogalería Los mexicanos más ricos del mundo

Video Slim desplaza a Gates como el más rico del mundo

Entérate Los criterios de Forbes para lista de millonarios

Perfil: Carlos Slim Helú

Prensa internacional destaca fortuna de Slim

Beaches and Reggae and Jews

Page One article in the March 9, 2010 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The web version's page title is Famous for Jerk Chicken and Jammin', Jamaica discovers its Jews

Jamaica's New Tourism Spiel: Beaches and Reggae and Jews
Island Lures Travelers With Hidden History; Moses Cohen Henriques, Pirate of Caribbean


By TAMARA AUDI

KINGSTON, Jamaica—This island nation boasts miles of pristine beaches, reggae music and the Western hemisphere's largest butterfly. Now, it's promoting a new asset to tourists: its Jews. From the tourism minister on down, Jamaican officialdom has embraced a plan to market the nation's Jewish history as a way of wooing a new segment of travelers. New tours of Jamaica will offer travelers a rare look at the history of Jews on this Caribbean island.

No matter that Jamaica has just one synagogue and no rabbi, or that its Jewish community is down to around 200 people. It was once home to a Jewish pirate named Moses, according to one account. A global economic downturn and "ferocious" competition from Mexico, says Jamaican tourism director John Lynch, mean that every traveler counts these days. Jamaica's Jewish history, he concedes, has "been a well-kept secret."

Mr. Lynch wants to put together a tourism package that includes stops at historic Jewish cemeteries, a visit to the island's synagogue and a traditional post-worship repast with Jewish families—with some beach time thrown in. Since most of the island's Jewish history is centered around Kingston, the strategy fits the government's desire to boost tourism in the scruffy capital city most vacationers skip. In January, Kingston hosted a five-day conference on Jewish-Caribbean history that drew 200 academics, genealogists and history buffs from Israel to Oregon.

Jewish Jamaica: Some of the stops on an itinerary for Jewish travelers. Interactive

But Jamaica is still finding its way in this new market. Two conference attendees negotiated a kosher meal with a waitress at a Kingston restaurant, insisting that a fish not touch a cooking surface that might have been used to cook meat. "You'll wrap the fish in two pieces of foil?" a diner shouted as reggae music crackled in the background. "Yeah, mon," she said.

Ainsley Henriques, an energetic 70-year-old who organized the conference, says Jamaica's Jewish community does have a rich history. Mr. Henriques, with blue eyes and a lilting Jamaican accent, catches many off guard. "When I travel, people say to me, 'What, you're Jamaican?' And then, 'What, you're Jewish? There are Jews in Jamaica?' They have no idea we've been here for 350 years."

Tammy Audi/The Wall Street Journal - Norma Haddad passes out prayer books before services at the Kingston synagogue.

An ancestor arrived in Jamaica from Amsterdam in 1740. He now serves as the unofficial Jewish historian, and is Israel's honorary consul in Jamaica. "I wear many hats. That's why I'm bald," Mr. Henriques says.

Starting in the 17th century, Jews fleeing the Inquisition arrived in Jamaica from Portugal and Spain. By the end of the 19th century, Jamaica had six synagogues and around 2,000 Jews. Some thrived as merchants in the shipping trade.

Over generations, many of the island's Jews married locals and stopped practicing Judaism. Others left to help establish nascent Jewish communities in the American colonies. Recently, young Jews have left to work in Australia, the U.S. and Canada. The remaining Jews worship at their Kingston synagogue. With no rabbi, services are led by lay people. The synagogue is one of the few in the world with a sand floor—a feature some believe dates from days when Jews had to worship in secret and used sand to muffle footsteps.

Tammy Audi/The Wall Street Journal - Philadelphia lawyer Eli Gabay looks at graves of Jewish Jamaicans.

Other Caribbean nations also claim Jewish roots. Curaçao says it is among the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere. Its sand-floor synagogue is a popular tourist attraction. With such a small Jewish community, Jamaica's Jewish-tourism boosters had to get creative with the visitors' itinerary. A tour for conference attendees included a stop at Kingston's Hillel school. The school runs on a Jewish calendar and has 750 students; around 20 are Jewish. It also included a kosher lunch at Strawberry Hill, a mountain resort above Kingston owned by Chris Blackwell, founder of music label Island Records. Born in London, he grew up in Jamaica and his mother was Jewish. Mr. Blackwell told the tourists that while he wasn't raised Jewish, he finds the island's Jewish history fascinating.

Jamaica may have claim to one unusual historical chapter: Jewish pirates. Among them: Moses Cohen Henriques, who attacked Spanish ships loaded with silver, according to Edward Kritzler's "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean." Mr. Kritzler, who attended the conference, is an American who has been in Jamaica on and off since the late 1960s. He's fond of wearing a Star of David pendant over shirts studded with skull and crossbones.

Many Jewish pirates, he writes, were "secret Jews" who converted to Catholicism in name only to survive the Inquisition, then fled to the Caribbean. "Jamaica was at one time the largest Jewish community in the Caribbean," said Jane Gerber, director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "It was a hub of Jewish commerce that had a triangular trade with colonial America and England. Jamaica was where they came to get kosher stuff."

Gabriel Solomon - Reggae musician Behn "BennyBwoy" Goldis


Today, finding a kosher kitchen can be tough. But the island is used to preparing vegetarian meals for its religious Rastafarian population—some of whom consider themselves a lost tribe of Israel and follow Jewish dietary restrictions forbidding shellfish and pork. One Kingston hotel recently purchased new cooking tools dedicated to kosher meals for guests.

Eli Gabay, a Philadelphia lawyer who attended the conference and tour, marveled at a tombstone with his family name on it. Mr. Gabay said he doesn't know if his family has direct ties to Jamaica, but added, "It brought history to life."

Behn Goldis, a New York reggae artist and orthodox Jew whose stage name is BennyBwoy, calls himself "the original Jewmaican."

A former Wall Street analyst, he was invited to the conference to perform. He did so wearing a yarmulke knitted in the colors of the Jamaican flag, braided hair and sunglasses decorated with gold snakes. "I'm not Jamaican. I just love the music and the people," Mr. Goldis said. "But I really am Jewish."

Chile rattled on path to development

Associated Press - Residents of Constitución, a seaside town in Chile that was pounded by a post-earthquake tsunami, wait in line to receive melons Friday.

SANTIAGO, Chile—Chile's earthquake has had an unexpected aftershock—shaking the country's confidence in its march to the ranks of developed nations. For many people here, the massive earthquake exposed deep social and economic fault lines in the country, triggering complaints that poor barrios were hit hardest by the temblor and speculation that rampant looting was partly their revenge on wealthier Chileans.
Sociologist and blogger Lucia Dammert dubbed it "a social earthquake" that revealed "a fractured country, socially divided with a population that feels excluded and as a result acts with a lack of community values."


In Santiago, the capital, wealthy neighborhoods to the northeast suffered little or no damage as a result of sturdy, modern architecture that complies with some of the strictest building codes in the world. Abraham Senerman, architect of a 52-floor building soon to be inaugurated in Las Condes, one of the city's poshest neighborhoods, boasted to local media that the tower survived unscathed. Across town, in the working-class suburb of Pudahuel, Celia Aliaga's three-bedroom home, a former farmhouse made of adobe, crumbled. "This was all I had, and there's nothing for me to rebuild with," said Ms. Aliaga, a 56-year-old housekeeper, who has been sleeping with her family under a tin roof in the backyard since the quake.

The economic divide in Chilean society has been a festering problem even though free-market policies have helped propel the country to an extended period of growth and stability. The richest fifth of Chilean households earn around half of national income, compared to the poorest fifth's 5%. Chile recently became the first South American nation invited to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, but a report by the exclusive group of advanced economies noted Chilean inequality remained "very high," by the group's standards. Chile's government acknowledges that inequality remains a problem, and that people in poorer, rural areas did have to wait longer for relief to arrive because of the logistical challenge of reaching them.

Watching televised reporting from Chile, I was struck by the poverty in some quarters. Naively I had assumed that such poverty would not exist there, and I have to wonder why I thought so.

But citing the magnitude of the quake, felt by over 80% of Chile's population, Pilar Armanet, spokeswoman for president Michelle Bachelet, said, "the earthquake was very democratic." She noted that the tsunami that hit people living in poor settlements along the coast after the quake also affected many middle and upper-class vacationers.

This really speaks directly to the lack of understanding and sensitivity in some: what comparison can be made between having one's living quarters and one's vacation? A ruined vacation? Well, go home, and wait for the next vacation.

Still, differences in economic status appeared to go a long way toward determining how well people came out of the earthquake. Santiago officials have denounced some builders for cutting corners in less affluent barrios. In Maipú, a middle-class suburb in southwest Santiago, Mayor Alberto Undurraga spent the past week meeting with residents of two apartment complexes that buckled in the quake and are now condemned to be razed. Apartments constructed by the same builder in more affluent neighborhoods, angry residents point out, didn't collapse. The residents, with the city's help, are now suing the builder and pursuing other legal action via a consumer protection agency. Attempts to reach the builder were unsuccessful.

Further south, near the epicenter, Chileans' economic status also influenced their view of the post-quake looting. Gustavo Rivera, founder of the MultiCentro department store chain, said the looting was fundamentally a problem of public order and the government's delay in sending troops onto the streets. "This is a country that respects authority," he said, as workers swept up glass from the broken windows of a MultiCentro outlet looted in the city of Constitución. "Without authority, it's chaos." He said it was clear that not all the looters were poor people, and some stole non-essential items like TVs and stereos and not just food.

Televised reports did show people hauling boxed goods in shopping carts. So not all looters were desperately seeking food and sustenance. Yet of those that were looting wantonly, what can be said? Simply that they are thieves, degenerates that took advantage of socal chaos to rob and steal? Were that it were that simple.

But other people suggested deeper social inequities lay behind the looting. José Rafael Alegría, a quake victim holding up a sign asking for food on a roadside near Constitución, said profiteering by some merchants after the quake helped explain why poorer Chileans might resent them. He said some merchants had doubled the price of a sack of flour in the disaster's aftermath.

That is not shown, nor discussed.

President elect Sebastian Piñera, who has pledged to turn Chile into a developed nation by 2018, will now have to spend his first two years in office occupied with rebuilding damaged areas, said Otto Granados, a Mexican academic who served in that country's government during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and was later ambassador to Chile.


Mr. Granados said he thinks Chile managed the quake pretty well and that some of the disruption and looting had to do with human nature rather than defects in Chilean society. He cited a Mexican saying: "when the arca [vault] comes open, even the most honest will sin."

WSJ article By MATT MOFFETT and PAULO PRADA

World War II's unsung women pilots

Unsung? I've never heard of them. Unsung: Not honored or praised; uncelebrated.


World War II's Unsung Women Pilots
The trailblazing Women Airforce Service Pilots will finally receive the honors due them on March 10, when they are awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

By AMY GOODPASTER STREBE

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II will finally be given the recognition and honor they deserve on March 10. That's when they will receive the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony to be held at the United States Capitol. These pilots were trailbrazers, a group of 1,102 female civilians that flew military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces. They flew more than 60 million miles in 78 different types of aircraft, from the smallest trainers to the fastest fighters and the largest bombers. They undertook every type of mission except combat. Thirty eight of them gave their lives in the service of their country.

From 1942 to 1944 the WASP ferried aircraft from factories to air bases throughout the United States. They were stationed at 120 Army air bases across America, and many also towed targets for antiaircraft gunnery training. The Army Air Forces trained the women to fly the fleet's largest bombers to prove to the men these planes were safe to fly. Despite their outward appearance as official members of the U.S. Army Air Forces, the WASP were actually considered civil servants during the war. In spite of a highly publicized attempt to militarize them in 1944, the women pilots were not granted veteran status until 1977.

When a WASP was killed the women pilots received no formal recognition, no honors, no gold star in the window, and no American flag on their coffin. Fellow pilots contributed money to help bring the body and belongings home—the United States Government refused to pay for the remains to be shipped to their families. When the WASP were unceremoniously deactivated in December 1944, five months before the end of the war, they never received the military status they were promised, even though many of them were sent to officers training school. Even today the WASP can only be buried at Arlington National Cemetery as enlisted members of the military, not with officers' honors. Finally these intrepid women will be honored for their heroic service.

The surviving members of the WASP, who are now grandmothers and great-grandmothers, will unite for the last time in Washington, D.C. They will proudly take their place in history among the unsung heroes of World War II. Fueled by patriotism and a love of flying, their example will continue to inspire future generations of women aviators.

Ms. Strebe is the author of "Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II" (Potomac Books, 2009). She is on the board of directors of the National WASP World War II Museum, located in Sweetwater, Texas.

Se parte glaciar

Item found on El Universal website: NASA reports that an iceberg the size of Luxembourg (how many people have any idea what size that is? I don't. I'll look around for a measurement: the CIA World Factbook puts it at 2, 586 square kilometers, slightly smaller than Rhode Island) crashed with the glacier Mertz in the east of Antarctica, loosening another iceberg of near-equal size.

 La NASA publicó imágenes del choque de un iceberg, del tamaño de Luxemburgo, con el borde del glaciar Mertz en el este de la Antártida y desprendió otro iceberg de tamaño casi igual | Ver nota

Foto: Tomada de la NASA 04 de marzo de 2010

IBM Researchers: chip design advance

Project Seeks to Replace Copper Wires With Lasers and Tiny Silicon Circuits; Intel and Universities Have Similar Efforts
By PAUL GLADER And DON CLARK


Researchers at International Business Machines Corp. are claiming an important advance that could change the way computer chips communicate, sharply boosting speed while lowering energy consumption. The goal is to use pulses of light rather than copper wires to exchange information between chips—and to build the needed components out of silicon rather than costly, esoteric materials.


IBM's advance involves a key component called an avalanche photodetector, which converts light into electricity. The researchers say they used silicon and the element germanium to create a photodetector that is among the fastest and least power-hungry of its kind. They are publishing their findings in the scientific journal Nature. IBM isn't alone in the pursuit. Researchers at universities and companies including Intel Corp. and start-up Luxtera Inc., have also been working on improving chip performance using silicon-based optical components.


"This is the next wave of computing," said Richard Doherty, an analyst at market-research firm Envisioneering Group and a patent holder in optical communications. "By 2020, it may be the dominant way Google, governments, banks and other large users are doing their computing." Optical communications involve encoding information on streams of light particles generated by lasers. The technology uses thin glass fibers rather than bulky cables, yet creates connections that allow more data to flow at higher speed.

Such benefits are the reason long-distance phone wires were replaced with fiber-optic cables, a technology developed in the 1970s. Companies like Luxtera already sell silicon-based optical devices for linking up computers. Researchers are racing to miniaturize optical components so they can be built into microprocessors.


Intel has built a series of optical components from silicon and related materials, including a prototype avalanche photodetector it announced in December 2008. IBM says its version can detect 40 gigabits of data a second—four times the speed of Intel's—and operates at 1.5 volts rather than 30 volts. "That can save a huge amount of power," said Yurii Vlasov, the lead scientist on the IBM research. He said IBM's photodetector can detect weak pulses and amplify them without adding unwanted noise, a previous problem with the technology.


Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab, called IBM's advance another sign of progress in the field. "As a scientist, I think this is all great," he said. "It just drives more competition."


Mr. Vlasov said it could be five years until the technology makes its way into chips for high-end server systems. It could take another five years before it is used in consumer products such as cellphones, he said.

* TECHNOLOGY
* MARCH 4, 2010

IBM: IBM scientists Fengnian Xia, Yurii Vlasov and Solomon Assefa were part of the team behind the research.

As impressive as the chip is, I love this picture: a Chinese, a Russian, and  an Ethiopian; that the US at its best.

Yucatán

Foto: NTX 03 de marzo de 2010

 

TOMAN PRECAUCIONES

La entrada del frente frío número 35 sobre la Península de Yucatán, ha ocasionado fuertes vientos, bajas temperaturas y cielo nublado

Chile temblor tilts Earth

Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images - Firefighters searched for victims in the debris of a house in Curanipe.

AMERICAS NEWS - MARCH 3, 2010

Temblor Tilts Earth by Inches

By GAUTAM NAIK

The earthquake that struck Chile was so powerful it shifted the planet's axis enough to make it spin slightly faster, meaning our days will be shorter by 1.26 millionths of a second, according to preliminary calculations by scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"This is an esoteric effect that physics says has to happen," notes David Kerridge, the British Geological Survey's head of natural hazards, who studies earthquakes. "It's interesting, but it has no particular consequence on anything."

View Slideshow


See details on the deadliest and strongest earthquakes world-wide.

Scientists have long noted that just about any event that shifts a large amount of mass from one part of the planet to another will have a tiny—and sometimes measurable—effect on the Earth's rotation. Such events include changes to ocean currents, big shifts in the atmosphere, earthquakes, and possibly even the creation of more and more reservoirs from the damming of rivers.

The 8.8-magnitude temblor that struck Chile on Saturday is one of the largest quakes in a century. It was the result of an ocean tectonic plate—a shard of the earth's crust—sliding under the South American plate; over time, the two became locked together. When the pent-up energy overcame the forces of friction and the South American plate sprang upward, it unleashed a huge amount of energy in the form of the quake.

The planet was jolted to its roots. A chunk of the Earth's mass was redistributed vertically, which caused the planet's figure axis—on which the Earth's mass is balanced—to move by about three inches, according to calculations by NASA scientist Richard Gross. The net effect of that mass redistribution made the earth spin slightly faster, just as a figure skater speeds up when she pulls in her arms.

"It's important for us to know how the earth's rotation changes," said Dr. Gross, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It helps us figure out where a spacecraft is and to navigate it for a precise pinpoint landing" on Mars, the moon or another planet. Dr. Gross and his colleagues had conducted a similar analysis following the even bigger 9.1-magnitude quake in Indonesia. They found that the 2004 temblor decreased the length of a day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the North Pole by a few centimeters.

For a long time, earthquakes have been gradually changing the shape of the earth as well. Calculations suggested that the earth's oblateness—the way it is flat on top and bulges at the equator—had decreased by a tiny amount following the Indonesian earthquake. In other words, the world is getting slightly rounder.

Dr. Gross said that though the Chilean quake was less powerful than the 2004 Indonesia temblor, it likely changed the position of the figure axis a bit more. (The planet's figure axis is separate from the north-south axis; they are about 33 feet apart.)

The vertical redistribution of mass caused by the Chilean quake had a slightly greater impact in shifting the figure axis because the quake happened near the mid-latitudes, NASA concludes. Plus, the fault in Chile dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle, which again has a greater effect on shifting the figure axis.

The Haiti quake, by contrast, didn't make the Earth wobble in quite the same way, according to Dr. Kerridge. The Haiti quake was caused by one tectonic plate sliding past another, not above or under it. "There was almost no vertical movement there when the quake happened, so you wouldn't expect the same effect," says Dr. Kerridge.