Article & Journal Resources

Build It And They Will Come

2008-01-03T18:22:00.000+01:00

Iowa is home to the Field of Dreams, the location of the 1989 movie of the same name. The film introduced the phrase “build it, and they will come” into the nation’s lexicon and, while sometimes over-used, it’s as good an explanation as any for what’s happening in the state as the 2008 caucuses loom.

Build it the candidates have, at least most of them. While some of the big names like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain made strategic decisions to basically skip the state, or at least de-emphasize its importance to their campaigns, most have put their all into it. Months filled with stump speeches, question and answer sessions and the ingestion of just about any kind of food you can think of that could possibly be served on a stick at the state’s fairs, they have “built it.”

But will “they” come? Campaign operatives and political observers of all stripes have spent the better part of the last two days chewing over the results of the Des Moines Register poll which, if accurate in its findings on turnout, signals a dramatic shift in voting behavior in the state. The most striking findings were among likely Democratic caucus goers. The poll showed that, among those who said they were likely to caucus, 60 percent would be attending one for the very first time and 40 percent were identified as Independents.

For a process in the past dominated by a relatively small core of party activists, having so many first-timers and independents would be nothing less than shocking. Campaign operatives quickly questioned the poll’s turnout predictions, with even the Barack Obama campaign sounding cautious about a poll which showed their candidate with a sizable lead. Pundits are quick to point out that other polls, taken around the same time, show the race much closer.

Much of the debate has been about the intricate details of polling – which lists are used, how independents are identified, etc. But those arguments may be missing the bigger picture, which is that it is not inconceivable that the presidential campaigns have “built” something unique in Iowa.

For Obama, first-time Independents have been a focus of his outreach efforts, for Clinton, it’s been first-time women. With the unprecedented micro-level of targeting individuals for the caucuses – and more time spent at it than ever before – it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that this year’s voters would look quite a bit different than they have in the past.

“Iowa? I could have sworn this was Heaven,” said Ray Kinsella’s ghostly father in the movie. It may be a line that ends up in someone’s victory speech tomorrow night.

Mukasey Appoints Durham To Lead Probe Over CIA Tapes

2008-01-03T18:21:00.000+01:00

For DOJ watchers wondering whether Michael Mukasey would be a "loyal Bushie" or independent from the White House, there's some evidence today that would point to the latter.

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation and appointed an outside prosecutor to handle the probe into the CIA's destruction of video tapes showing detainee interrogations. Mukasey said that a joint preliminary inquiry by the DOJ's National Security Division and the CIAs inspector general determined there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter.

Meet John Durham (pictured), the first assistant U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, who has been appointed an Acting U.S. Attorney to lead the investigation. He will report directly to the deputy attorney general. The probe would normally be handled by the U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia, where the CIA headquarters are located, but the office recused itself. Mukasey said the move was made in order to avoid any possible appearance of a conflict with other matters handled by that office.

Durham played baseball at Colgate University -- Go Red Raiders! -- and received his J.D. from Connecticut Law. He worked first as a local prosecutor in Connecticut before moving to the DOJ's organized crime strike force, which was later folded into the local U.S. Attorney's offices.

This isn't Durham's first high-profile assignment from Main Justice. In 1998, then-AG Janet Reno appointed Durham to explore allegations that FBI agents and police officers in Boston have been in bed with the mob. Click here for a hagiographic 2001 profile of Durham from the Hartford Courant. Said Boston lawyer Anthony Cardinale of Durham: "I've been up against them all over the country and I'd put him in the top echelon of federal prosecutors. He's such a decent guy you can't hate him." Said an FBI agent: "There is no more principled, there is no more better living, there is no finer person that I know of or have encountered in my life."

With those quotes seven years old, we wanted to see if he was still such an awesome guy. So the Law Blog checked in with Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general in Connecticut, who also sung Durham's praises. "He is relentless and tireless in pursuing every lead and every bit of information that could open avenues for prosecution but he is also a prosecutor of absolute integrity who will never shade or distort a piece of evidence to achieve some desired result," said Blumenthal, who has worked with Durham on numerous cases. "He lets the chips and the facts fall without any predisposition and often agonizes about what's legally right and fair."

MONEY RATES

2008-01-03T18:20:00.000+01:00

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

International rates
Prime rates
Latest Wk ago
U.S.
7.25 7.25

Canada
6.00 6.00

Euro zone
4.00 4.00

Japan
1.875 1.875

Switzerland
3.84 3.86

Britain
5.50 5.50

Australia
6.75 6.75

Hong Kong
8.00 8.00

Overnight repurchase
Latest Wk ago
U.S.
4.15 4.15

U.K. (BBA)
5.575 5.583

Euro zone
3.99 3.92

U.S. government rates
Latest Wk ago
Discount
[ Effective Date: 12/11/2007 ]
4.75 4.75

Federal funds
[ Effective Date: 12/11/2007 ]
Effective rate
4.10 4.25
Target rate
4.25 4.25
High
4.5000 4.7500
Low
3.0000 1.0000
Bid
3.5000 1.0000
Offer
4.5000 2.5000

Treasury bill auction
[ Auction Date: 1/2/2008 ]
4 weeks
3.000 3.040
13 weeks
3.310 3.280
26 weeks
3.390 3.490

Secondary Market

Freddie Mac
30-year mortgage yields
Latest Wk ago
30 days
5.68 6.05
60 days
5.72 6.08
One-year ARM
3.375 3.375

Fannie Mae
30-year mortgage yields
Latest Wk ago
30 days
5.896 6.101
60 days
5.932 6.127

Constant maturity debt index
Latest Wk ago
Three months
4.258 4.397
Six months
4.195 4.328
One year
3.745 4.025

Bankers acceptance
Latest Wk ago
30 days
4.63 4.93
60 days
4.68 4.94
90 days
4.68 4.94
120 days
4.68 4.83
150 days
4.64 4.82
180 days
4.62 4.74

Other short-term rates

Latest Wk ago
Call money
6.00 6.00

Commercial paper
Latest Wk ago
30 to 47 days
4.25 ...
48 to 59 days
4.27 ...
60 to 97 days
4.29 ...
98 to 105 days
4.31 ...
106 to 120 days
4.29 ...
121 to 180 days
4.24 ...
181 to 210 days
4.21 ...
211 to 240 days
4.15 ...
241 to 270 days
4.11 ...

Dealer commercial paper
Latest Wk ago
30 days
4.60 4.98
60 days
4.63 4.95
90 days
4.65 4.93

Euro commercial paper
Latest Wk ago
30 day
4.03 4.02
Two month
4.24 4.24
Three month
4.30 4.28
Four month
4.30 4.30
Five month
4.30 4.30
Six month
4.28 4.31

London interbank offered rate, or Libor
Latest Wk ago
One month
4.57000 4.85500
Three month
4.68063 4.84250
Six month
4.56625 4.71750
One year
4.18750 4.34375

Libor Swaps (USD)
Latest Wk ago
Two year
3.669 4.072
Three year
3.751 4.182
Five year
4.031 4.470
Ten year
4.551 4.923
30 year
4.912 5.252

Euro Libor
Latest Wk ago
One month
4.226 4.437
Three month
4.663 4.763
Six month
4.702 4.774
One year
4.735 4.774

Euro interbank offered rate
Latest Wk ago
One month
4.239 4.459
Three month
4.665 4.765
Six month
4.703 4.775
One year
4.733 4.772

Hibor
Latest Wk ago
One month
3.053 3.535
Three month
3.401 3.680
Six month
3.477 3.689
One year
3.451 3.606

Asian dollars
Latest Wk ago
One month
4.605 4.861
Three month
4.698 4.854
Six month
4.594 4.725
One year
4.253 4.353

Certificates of Deposit
Latest Wk ago
One month
4.650 5.000
Three month
4.700 5.000
Six Month
4.640 4.800

Merrill Lynch Ready Assets Trust
Latest Wk ago
Call money
4.480 4.500

Eurodollars (mid rates)
Offer Bid
One month
4.50 4.62
Two month
4.55 4.65
Three month
4.60 4.70
Four month
4.58 4.68
Five month
4.55 4.65
Six month
4.52 4.62

Freddie Mac
Weekly survey
Thursday, December 27, 2007

Latest Wk ago
30-year fixed
6.17 6.14
15-year fixed
5.79 5.79
Five-year ARM
5.90 5.90
One-year ARM
5.53 5.51

CHINA SLUMP?

2008-01-03T18:19:00.001+01:00

The New Year might sap strength from the already limping China bull market. Corporate profit growth, a key stimulus for the country's soaring stock prices last year, is likely to noticeably lose momentum in 2008, especially for the bellwether financial and energy sectors, analysts say.

Analysts estimate that earnings per share jumped 29% to 31% in 2007 for companies measured by the closely watched MSCI China Index. In many cases, per-share earnings rose more than twice that rate at financial heavyweights like banks, insurers and brokerage firms that dominate market capitalization on China's exchanges. The country's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index nearly doubled last year.

Profits will almost surely remain relatively robust this year, as economic growth continues to power ahead at about a 10% rate. However, average growth in net income per share could slow toward 25%, according to a recent report by Morgan Stanley analysts.

PAKISTAN DELAY

2008-01-03T18:18:00.002+01:00

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, warning the country faced "great danger," appealed for calm and unity as his government delayed crucial parliamentary elections and sought outside help for a probe into the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

In a televised address, Mr. Musharraf expressed grief over the Dec. 27 death of Ms. Bhutto, who was killed at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. But he also catalogued extensive damage caused by the rioting, looting and arson -- mostly in the Bhutto family stronghold of Sindh -- in the wake of the assassination. He said that Islamist terrorists, who he blamed for the attack, were seeking to take advantage of the country's political troubles.

Mr. Musharraf said that public disorder made holding elections, originally scheduled for Jan. 8, extremely difficult. Earlier in the day, the Pakistani government said it would delay a national vote until Feb. 18, more than six weeks later than originally scheduled, because of the country's "law and order" situation.

What $100 Oil Means

2008-01-03T18:18:00.001+01:00

Oil briefly touched $100 in Nymex trading Wednesday - and the sharp rise over the past year has caught economists, commodity traders and even seasoned energy executives flatfooted.

Looking back, several factors came together at the same time to help oil shoot up roughly tenfold in less than a decade and briefly touch $100 today. Those factors are likely to stick around, perhaps pushing prices up further.

Adding more volatility, oil is increasingly traded as an investment by financial players with little interest in owning the barrels. After years of internal friction, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been more disciplined about keeping global inventories lean and prices buoyant.

The world's ability to pump enough oil is being tested. "Demand has surged ahead and the industry has been playing an intense game of catch up," says Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

High oil prices also test the progress made by many of the world's industrialized economies toward greater energy efficiency since the oil shocks of the 1970s and early 1980s. In the U.S., which remains the most oil-dependent industrialized nation, oil at $100 would threaten consumer spending, and the impact could ripple through other economies.

Asia's rapidly developing nations have flush cash reserves to continue subsidizing fuel for its population. But China's 10% rise in government-controlled fuel prices shows higher oil costs are putting a greater strain on Asian nations. Also, China in particular is heavily dependent on consumer spending in the U.S. Should higher fuel prices curb U.S. consumer spending, China -- the U.S.'s factory floor -- would suffer.

President Bloomberg

2008-01-03T18:14:00.000+01:00

It's his money, but a race for the White House might not be the wisest way of spending it.

The first Presidential nominating contests are only beginning, but already New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is stealing attention as a potential third-party candidate. We trust he's read the history of what usually happens to such candidates--they lose, finishing essentially as spoilers.

The billionaire mayor has no shortage of cheerleaders for such a contest, including his staff, assorted consultants, and even the usually hard-headed editors at the New York Sun and New York Post. He's rich enough to get on the ballot in every state, and has been widely quoted as saying he'd spend $500 million or more if he did decide to run. That's more than enough to get his message out, if he can find one.

So far that's the rub, though presumably the Democrat turned Republican turned Independent would try to position himself as a kind of postpartisan progressive "centrist." Along those lines, this Sunday the mayor is ostentatiously attending a conference of other self-styled centrists at the University of Oklahoma. Hosted by former Democratic Senator David Boren, the session will include the likes of former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, current Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (who famously predicted the "surge" in Iraq would be a disaster), and others who argue that the main poison in our politics is too much partisanship. With so many voters soured on Washington, there's a market for this kind of Rodney King can't-we-all-just-get-along politics.

The question is how big that market would be on Election Day, and our guess is not very. Most third-party candidates have run on some issue or cause that the main parties had ignored. Lincoln and the Republicans supplanted the Whigs in 1860 over slavery, Teddy Roosevelt promised a return to progressive Republicanism in 1912, Strom Thurmond represented Southern segregationists in 1948, and even Ross Perot had the budget deficit in 1992.

Independent Losers
How prominent 20th-century third-party presidential candidates did on Election Day
Pop % EV
Teddy Roosevelt,1912 27.5% 88
Robert La Follette, 1924 16.5% 13
Strom Thurmond, 1948 2.5% 39
George Wallace, 1968 13.5% 46
John Anderson, 1980 7% 0
Ross Perot, 1992 19% 0

We aren't aware of any such cause or idea that Mr. Bloomberg represents. Perhaps he could run on "competence," but that's a less than thrilling call to arms. In our view, Mr. Bloomberg has been a good mayor but not a great one. His main achievements have been taking over the school system from a feckless school board and trying to reform it, to so far mixed results; building on the anticrime progress made by his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani; and breaking down the antizoning and political barriers to developing more of the city's under-used areas.

What Mayor Bloomberg hasn't done is challenge the union status quo over the unsustainable city work force and pensions, which will become a crisis for some future mayor. He has dodged this burden himself because of the revenue boom that has flowed from New York's financial industry in the wake of the Bush tax cuts. He has also been able to play the role of nonpartisan healer in part because Mr. Giuliani was willing to take on the city's liberal interest groups on taxes, welfare, crime and public order. Mr. Bloomberg has a better bedside manner than Mr. Giuliani, but it's also easier to be popular when you're not picking as many policy fights.

We also doubt the conceit that all Washington needs is a President who is a better and more ideologically flexible manager. The reason health-care and entitlement reform are so difficult is because the two main parties have such different visions of how to do it. The next President won't be able to wave those differences away, but will instead have to decide whose solutions to favor. Certainly Mr. Bloomberg won't be able to claim he has more foreign-policy experience.

It's entirely possible that a third-party President would accomplish less than a Democrat or Republican because he would have fewer allies on Capitol Hill. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota accomplished much less than they promised as nonideological, nonpartisan Governors.

Mr. Bloomberg would also first have to get elected, and this has to be considered a very long shot. His best chance would be if the two parties nominate candidates on the ideological extremes--say, John Edwards on the left and Mike Huckabee on the right. But even if this happens, which of the 50 states would Mr. Bloomberg be able to win to deny one of his competitors an Electoral College majority? Even if he did carry enough states to throw the election into the House of Representatives, Mr. Bloomberg would then face a majority controlled in all likelihood by Democrats.

Our own guess is that Mr. Bloomberg would cut into the support of the weaker of the two major-party candidates, making victory easier for the other. That was Mr. Perot's main legacy in 1992. After eight years out of power, Democrats are eager enough to win this year that we suspect they will unite around whoever their nominee is to get to 270 electoral votes in a three-man race. Mr. Bloomberg would end up spending $500 million to elect a Democrat he probably would vote for himself if he stayed out of the race. Of course, it is his money.

The Pre-Election Paradox

2008-01-03T18:13:00.000+01:00

While 70% say U.S. is a mess, 84% say they're happy. Is progress possible?

BY DANIEL HENNINGER

On New Year's Eve, Gallup's poll delivered unto us the good news that 84% of Americans say they are satisfied with how things are going for them personally. What Woody Allen might say about that phenomenal datum of good cheer one can only guess. One then has to account for the darker data Gallup released two weeks earlier: Some 70% of those responding believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

Explanations for this paradox would fill screen after screen of comments on Internet blogs, written no doubt by the 16% who can never be satisfied with "how things are going." Sample: It's the 46 million uninsured, stupid!

Starting tomorrow morning, with the results of the Iowa caucuses, the state of the nation likely will strike many as worse. Aaargh, those fools in Iowa have handed victory to the most dangerous man or woman in America. This we've gotta stop!

For the next 10 months they will be agitated, glum and apoplectic about many things. The candidates themselves, professional marketers of anxiety, will contribute. Then come a Wednesday morning after the presidential vote in November, nearly half the country, the losers, will see darkness falling across the land.

Before any of this happens, let's get a grip. To quote a children's classic I read out loud perhaps a hundred times: "Could be worse!"

Let me describe a pre-election moment of perspective this way: Later today some people who will start their evening with Iowa's caucus by watching angry Lou Dobbs--convincing themselves, again, that they and this country are getting shafted, and coming to this conclusion while watching a $700, 32-inch Samsung flat-panel, high-definition TV with Lou's sad song flowing through Monster digital coax cables to five Onkyo HT-SR800 home theater speakers.

If the possibility of human progress strikes you as so much background noise to the higher calling of political street-fighting, turn immediately to today's installment of Mitt versus Mike. Don't get me wrong, it is great theater. The perfect last act to a year spent living out of suitcases in Iowa was the irrepressible Elizabeth Edwards's verbal poke Monday to the eye of Michelle Obama. The Democratic candidates are kind of boring compared to their spouses.

None of this is to suggest that what is at stake in the election doesn't matter, or that those deeply invested in it are misallocating life's limited days. It matters.

It is to suggest that the never-off eye of modern political media leaves the impression that nothing good is possible. If progress happens, as with the surge in Iraq or a new therapy for cancer, it must be diminished by "analysis," listing four things that could "go wrong." As a way to absorb the way the world works, this is depressing. Good things happen. Get over it.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics annually publishes data on the well-being of the nation's children, thought by many to be the point of all this effort.

In 1980, deaths per 100,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 14 was 30.6; by 2004, that number fell to 16.8. Some 25 years ago, daily cigarette smoking among 12th graders was about 21%; in 2006 it was about 12% for both males and females. Childhood immunizations are rising steadily.

In August, the Centers for Disease Control noted that the death rate in 2004 fell by 3.8% in a year, "a record low historical figure." Life expectancy for men and women at birth in 1940 was 63 years; it is now nearly 78 years. We, or someone, must be doing something right.

Many people think that the war in Iraq was a mistake. It indeed contributes to the belief that the U.S. is on the wrong track. This will be argued more deeply when just two candidates are running, and millions of voters will weight Iraq heavily in their November choice. So be it.

That said, the remarkable 12-month progress of the surge strategy demonstrated it is not beyond the ability of "the system" to respond to seemingly overwhelming problems. Credit is due to Gen. David Petraeus certainly, but an infrastructure of U.S. military brains went into designing the Army's Counterinsurgency Manual, published in 2006. Its bibliography includes many studies published since 2003. As such it represents the U.S. military's "best practices" on fighting a modern enemy like al Qaeda, and the surge's success showed we are not helpless before this latest form of nihilism. This to some may be bitter progress, but it is so.

One needs reminding, amid a presidential election as wide open as this, that however other nations wrestle with their wrong directions, we use the system that the Founding Fathers left for us. What's worth remembering is that they knew politics piles up retarding levels of animosity, and so created a political system that would let us both vent spleen and move forward. Our progress, though, would nearly always be slow and by increments. Sometimes, it's hard to notice.

It will continue to be the case here that people are going to kvetch over corners of the culture--over immigration and national identity, or over relative wage levels, even as the rest of the world's poor finally start to join the middle class through globalizing trade channels (suppress those trade flows, as Congress is threatening, and you'll discover the real meaning of wrong direction). And not least there will be--and should be--concern over whether the progress I've described has the time or space in its good life for a sturdy spiritual soul.

The New Year demands an admission that some good has been achieved, not by the wave of a politician's magic wand but through many daily hands at work in the nation.

A reader of this column, Richard A. Fazzone of Potomac, Md., recently got these matters as well focused as I could, so with the presidential trenches waiting, he gets the final speech:

"There is no Great Depression, no WWII, no Cold War, no racism as it was in the 20th Century or before--no really big problem or solution. Unless something changes, voters want practically nothing from government, or more precisely, relatively few want the same thing, and without political consensus, a democracy does little or nothing new. In one respect, Mr. Henninger is correct to observe that 'in American politics, ambiguity is all you get,' but that may say enough. As another new year begins, we might consider ourselves fortunate for ambiguity, rather than the opposite and what would accompany it."

Huckabee and the Intelligence Report on Iran

2008-01-03T18:11:00.000+01:00

By Marc Santora

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor, is again making misleading statements about how long he was unaware of a National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

The report was released the morning of Dec. 3 and dominated the news that day. He was asked by reporters his reaction to the report the afternoon of Dec. 4 - more than 30 hours after its release - and said he had not heard about it. His aides also said at the time that he’d been campaigning all day long, and hadn’t been briefed.

Yet, Mr. Huckabee asserted Monday that he was ambushed by reporters questioning him about the report when there was really little time for him to have looked into the matter.

“The whole perception was based on an ambush question on the NIE report,” Mr. Huckabee told the Quad City Times. “From there, it was like, Wow.’ That was released at 10 o’clock in the morning. At 5:30 in the afternoon, somebody says, ’Have you read the report?’”

He made a similar misstatement about the matter back in mid-December when questioned on “Fox News Sunday” about whether the episode reinforced doubts about his foreign policy experience.

Kucinich Tells Supporters to Caucus for Obama

2008-01-03T18:10:00.000+01:00

By Jeff Zeleny

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Representative Dennis Kucinich urged his Iowa followers today to select Senator Barack Obama as their second choice at the caucuses on Thursday if his support is not strong enough to be viable in the 1,781 precincts across the state.

“Senator Obama and I have one thing in common: Change,” Mr. Kucinich said in a statement today.

The two spoke briefly by telephone before Mr. Obama flew here for an afternoon rally. In a statement, Mr. Obama took advantage of the opportunity to point out that he, along with Mr. Kucinich, opposed the war in Iraq. “He and I have been fighting for a number of the same priorities,” Mr. Obama said.

Four years ago, during his first presidential bid, Mr. Kucinich announced a similar second-choice partnership with John Edwards. At the time, aides to Mr. Edwards said it helped contribute to his second-place finish in the caucuses.

This year, however, Mr. Kucinich has barely waged a campaign in Iowa. He has no paid organizers or offices in the state and he was not invited to participate in The Des Moines Register’s debate in December. Still, it is not uncommon to see faded Kucinich bumper stickers on cars at rallies for Democratic presidential candidates.

We’ll see on Thursday whether they follow Mr. Kucinich’s advice.

Debatable Democracy

2008-01-03T18:09:00.000+01:00

By Matt Bai

On my flight back to Des Moines today, I read an interesting piece by my colleagues Michael Falcone and Sarah Wheaton about the upcoming debates in New Hampshire. It seems that both Fox and ABC have taken it upon themselves to winnow the field of candidates by excluding those who don’t seem viable at this point. Fox, for instance, is shutting out Ron Paul, despite his having reached fourth place in some recent New Hampshire polls and his having spent a truckload of money on ads in the state. (I swear, you can’t drive three miles in New Hampshire without hearing Ron Paul on the radio; he’s more overplayed than Fergie, albeit easier to listen to.) ABC has decided that if you don’t finish in the top four in Iowa, and you don’t reach five percent in New Hampshire or national polls, then you’re just cluttering up the stage and should watch at home like everyone else.

I understand the impulse here. Every four years, the campaigns, the media and even the voters complain that there are too many trivial candidates sucking up time in the debates. Last time around, there were calls to disinvite Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich; now it’s Duncan Hunter and Mike Gravel, who’s already been dinged from recent debates. The presence of these candidates does, in fact, devalue the debates, and we’d all be less annoyed if there were fewer candidates on both sides. The problem is, there aren’t, and that’s why I think the networks are wrong.

Almost 10 years ago now, I covered the election of Jesse Ventura to the governorship of Minnesota, which might just be my favorite of all the political stories I’ve chronicled. Mr. Ventura, an independent, started out that race as a typical gadfly, barely registering in the polls. But he participated in at least half a dozen televised debates, and every time he did, answering questions bluntly and candidly, his poll numbers rose. The lesson for me was that voters are pretty great at listening to candidates and deciding for themselves. The notion that a candidate is hopelessly peripheral and shouldn’t be allowed to state his case in a debate because not enough people have heard about him yet, or because 100,000 voters in Iowa didn’t like him, or because he hasn’t raised enough money, is not only presumptuous but also antithetical to democratic principles, which have nothing to do with polls or bank accounts.

My own view is that if you’re on enough actual primary ballots to conceivably get the nomination (or, in a general election, to conceivably win the share of the electoral college necessary to win), then you ought to be able to debate. Sure, it makes for some frustrating and unwieldy debates, and a lot of people will have to deploy the fast-forward buttons on their Tivo remotes, but it also leaves the power of decision in the hands of the voters, where it belongs.

Matt Bai, who covers politics for the Sunday Times Magazine, is the author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.”

Clinton’s Run-Up to the Caucus

2008-01-03T18:08:00.000+01:00

By Patrick Healy

ABOARD THE CLINTON PRESS BUS – The politico who runs Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign in Iowa, Teresa Vilmain, gave reporters a rundown Wednesday morning of her team’s run-up to the presidential caucuses Thursday night.

Her presentation went along these lines: “We have salt in all the offices,” she said – that is, salt to sprinkle on ice at caucus precinct locations so voters don’t slip.

The other day, the campaign shipped out more than 600 shovels, packed on nine different U-Hauls, to drop off with staff members and volunteers to clear voters’ front walks and sidewalks and precinct sites as well.

And today, the campaign has 625 people going door-to-door today to knock on the door of every voter who has signaled support for Mrs. Clinton, and every undecided voter leaning her way – likely many thousands of Iowans.

As for caucus night, more than 5,000 drivers have been recruited to ferry people to voting sites. Ms. Vilmain also said she would look into a reporter’s question about how many cars had been rented by the campaign. “How bout ‘a lot’?” she replied.

Ms. Vilmain, like other Clinton aides, underscored the unpredictability of Thursday night’s caucuses. This is the first time that the voting has taken place so close to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, a fact that may likely have skewed public polling somewhat, and voters have been hard to reach because they have been celebrating or shopping – and, in some cases, even less amenable than usual to the persistent telephone calls from campaign aides seeking support.

“Folks are getting a little tired of getting calls,” she said, noting that the Clinton campaign is doing more home visits and leaving door hangers with caucus night information and offers of babysitting and transportation assistance.

Diane Keaton's Mr. Right A No-Show

2008-01-03T18:07:00.002+01:00

(AP) Diane Keaton says she planned to wait until she was in a "strong and substantive" relationship before becoming a mother - but that never happened for her.

"Motherhood was not an urge I couldn't resist, it was more like a thought I'd been thinking for a very long time," says Keaton, who celebrates her 62nd birthday Saturday. "So I plunged in."

The Oscar-winning actress, whose past romantic partners include Woody Allen and Warren Beatty, adopted daughter Dexter, now 12, and son Duke, 7.

"I've had such an unusual life. Obviously career-oriented. I was happy to be a daughter well into my 40s. That was something that meant a lot to me," Keaton tells Ladies' Home Journal in its February issue, on newsstands next Tuesday. "I didn't think that I was ever going to be prepared to be a mother."

"Hannah Montana Tix Moms": Bad Role Models

2008-01-03T18:07:00.001+01:00

(CBS) Parents want to give their children the best of everything, from the coolest gadgets to the hottest concert tickets.

But some parents go too far, experts point out, and end up teaching very wrong lessons.

Parents such as Priscilla Ceballos -- the Texas woman who tried to win tickets for her six-year-old daughter for a concert by Miley Cyrus, better-known as Hannah Montana, by having the girl lie in an essay-writing contest and claim help her father had died in Iraq.

Ceballos later admitted to a local TV station, "We never said anything like this was a true story, never. It was just an essay."

It was hardly the first time mothers had gone to extremes for their kids.

In 2006, 16-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide. Later, her parents found out she had been tormented on MySpace.com by someone she thought was a boy named Josh Evans, but who was actually the mother of a friend Megan had been feuding with.

"She knew our daughter struggled with depression," Megan's father, Ron, said later, "and was on medication since she was in third grade."

But perhaps the most memorable meddling mother was Wanda Holloway, the Texas woman who tried to help her daughter make the cheerleading squad by hiring a hit-man to kill the mother of a rival cheerleader.

Said prosecutor Alice Brown at the time, "I think it's the act of a person who is used to getting what she wanted, and when she was frustrated, was willing to go a little farther than most of us might go."

On The Early Show Wednesday, psychotherapist Dr. Leslie Austin, Ph.D. told co-anchor Harry Smith, "I don't think these moms are bad people, but they're really modeling the wrong values for their kids. And what they're broadcasting is, 'I want what I want, I want it now, I'll do anything I can to get it.' That's what they're telling their kids, including, 'Lie, cheat, and steal,' which is not OK."

"Really," Austin continued, "it would be better if (Ceballos) were teaching her daughter, 'You do your best, you try to get what you want, and if you don't get it, life will present you with other opportunities. You have to get a habit of resiliency, self-respect, good values.' This is instant gratification over long-term values, and it's a bad road to go down."

In her practice, Austin says, she's seeing a growing number of extra-meddlesome parents, and that sort of upbringing is showing up now in the business world, where you have "kids who grew up with this ... 'I'm important. Anything I want, I get. It doesn't matter what I have to do or who I have to harm to get it.' In corporate America, we have an energy and a mood now that it's OK to do anything as a company, just to succeed and sell things.

"But, where are the ethics, the values, the self-respect as an individual? Where are the basic, old-fashioned values? 'Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, and most of all, don't retaliate, even just for practical reasons. It will always come back and get you. ' "

Which comes first, Smith wondered? Is it a societal message parents are taking, or the other way around?

"It's a chicken / egg question," Austin asserted. "They both feed each other. Our media, which I'm now speaking on, can do great things, but also we broadcast some really negative images sometimes. We idolize pop stars who have really bad values as parents and as people. They may be great performers, but they're not great role models, and we idolize them and follow them and obsess. So, our kids say, 'This one has all this money and all this fame, and look how great they are, and everybody follows them around, the paparazzi.'

" ... It's not a good sense of values and parenting. You really want to teach your kids to have self-respect, develop a habit of being resilient, to have ethics, and take the long view instead of instant gratification."

Austin added, "Here's the really important thing: I know it's hard for parents. Your child is a separate person from you, and you have to grow them up properly. I know that sounds very old-fashioned. But I need to sound old-fashioned. You really have to teach them values. You have to teach them, 'You don't always get what you want. ... Life goes on. You are more important, as a person -- you have more self-respect than any concert, any MP-3 player, any video game, and if you don't get those things, and you don't have the things all your friends have, you can still be a really good person and you can get them if you earn them.' That's a different set of values.

"Unfortunately, we're in a very protective culture, the one who has the most toys, wins -- the one who has the most money, the most fame. And, really, you've got to remind yourself -- you're a good person. Most Americans are not famous or rich and they're really good people and they live very good lives, and their kids grow up to be happy."

Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars

2008-01-03T18:05:00.000+01:00

Here's a look at what we are working on for tonight's broadcast of The CBS Evening News from Anchor and Managing Editor, Katie Couric..

Hi everyone,

It’s zero hour in Iowa, and we’re preparing to bring you complete political coverage as the clock ticks down to the very first votes cast of the 2008 presidential primaries. Our correspondents are stationed all over the Hawkeye State to bring you the latest from the campaign trail and I’ll be anchoring tonight’s broadcast from the center of the action in Des Moines.

New polls show both the Democratic and Republican races to be extremely tight - and extraordinarily competitive. But one candidate who’s had an up-and-down campaign is seeing a fresh surge of support: John McCain. Kelly Cobiella will have the scoop on how his campaign is reacting.

McCain’s fellow Republican Mike Huckabee is caught in a bit of a conundrum - and it could involve crossing a picket line tonight. Nancy Cordes will have the story.

Meanwhile, the top three Democratic candidates are at a near dead heat. Looking for a boost, John Edwards is on a 36-hour campaign blitz. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are simply concentrating on getting supporters to caucus. But that can involve going to extreme lengths, Jim Axelrod and Dean Reynolds will report.

Can Iowa voters really make or break a candidate? Bob Schieffer will take a look back through history for some precedent on the making of presidents.

Another deceptively simple question: What exactly goes on inside the all-important caucuses? Our senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield does - and he’ll walk us through the steps.

Finally tonight, who are these people who each campaign is working feverishly to court and who wield so much political power? I’ll give you a detailed look at the voters of Iowa.

I hope you’ll join us, Katie

Fed Minutes Show Possibility

2008-01-03T18:04:00.001+01:00

By BRIAN BLACKSTONE

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve policy makers agreed at last month's meeting that they might need to cut interest rates again as turmoil in the credit and housing markets began to crimp consumer spending.

Some Fed members even saw the risk of a vicious cycle pulling down both financial markets and the economy, and possibly requiring "substantial further easing of policy," according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's Dec. 11 meeting, released yesterday with the usual three-week lag.

At the meeting, the FOMC voted 9-1 to lower the federal-funds rate at which banks lend to each other by a quarter percentage point to 4.25%. That was the third straight reduction since September, bringing the total cut to one percentage point. Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren dissented in favor of a half-percentage-point cut.

According to the minutes, the extent of the housing slump was worse than expected, and "participants agreed that the housing correction was likely to be both deeper and more prolonged than they had anticipated in October."

Meanwhile, financial-market strains "could persist for quite some time," the minutes stated, though some officials saw the possibility that conditions could improve more quickly than anticipated, "in which case a reversal of some of the rate cuts might become appropriate."

Though the policy makers decided against issuing a balance-of-risks assessment last month, the tone of the minutes suggests risks are heavily weighted toward economic weakness, and not a quick rebound in economic activity that might lead to inflation.

Fed officials grew decidedly more pessimistic about consumer spending, citing its "marked deceleration" as "tighter credit conditions, higher gasoline prices and the continuing housing correction might be restraining growth in real consumer spending," according to the minutes. As recently as late October, officials had referred to spending as "well maintained."

Fed officials said that while inflation readings were "slightly less favorable" between the October and December FOMC meetings, they still expect core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, to "trend down a bit over the next few years." Overall "headline" inflation, meanwhile, should slow "more substantially from its currently elevated level," according to the FOMC minutes.

Still, Fed policy makers "remained concerned" about the potential for inflation from high energy and commodity prices, while "some also cited the weaker dollar," which could increase import prices.

The Fed also released details of a Dec. 6 conference call in which officials discussed creating the Term Auction Facility, or TAF, as well as a currency swap agreement with the European Central Bank.

The Fed has auctioned $40 billion in loans to banks through the facility, and more offerings are planned this month. "Meeting participants recognized that a TAF wouldn't address all of the factors giving rise to stresses in money and credit markets," and "a few" officials questioned the need for such a program, according to the FOMC minutes. St. Louis Fed President William Poole voted against establishing a swap arrangement with the ECB, citing the size of the ECB's dollar-denominated reserves.

Write to Brian Blackstone at brian.blackstone@dowjones.com

U.S. Prosecutor to Probe CIA Destruction of Tapes

2008-01-03T18:02:00.000+01:00

By EVAN PEREZ

The Justice Department appointed a prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of videotape recordings of detainee interrogations.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that a joint preliminary inquiry opened Dec. 8 by Justice's National Security Division and the CIA's inspector general determined "there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter."

Mr. Mukasey named John Durham, the No. 2 federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to lead the investigation. Prosecutors in eastern Virginia, where the CIA headquarters is located, recused themselves from the probe, as did the CIA inspector general's office.

Prosecutors in the office of the U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia have handled several major terror cases that could be affected by the CIA tape destruction, including the one against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in prison for charges related to the 9/11 attacks. In October, prosecutors in the office also first alerted a federal judge about the existence of the CIA tapes and their destruction, contradicting the CIA's earlier assertion to the court that there were no such tapes.

Mr. Mukasey, in a statement, said the prosecutors' recusal was made "in order to avoid any possible appearance of a conflict with other matters handled by that office."

CIA Inspector General John Helgerson said he recused himself and other officials in his office to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. "Personnel from the Office of Inspector General reviewed the tapes at issue some years ago as part of the Office's review of CIA's detention and interrogation activities," he said. "I was personally involved in the preparation and approval of the subsequent Office of Inspector General report and in discussions of the issues raised in that report with U.S. government officials."

The appointment of Mr. Durham, a career prosecutor since 1982, allows Mr. Mukasey to demonstrate the Justice Department's independence despite the political pressures that surround the case and much else the department does of late. Mr. Mukasey is trying to restore the department's reputation after months of political upheaval that led to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Some Democrats, however, have pushed for the Justice Department to name an independent special counsel and aren't pleased with the appointment of Mr. Durham, who will report directly to the deputy attorney general. The law governing independent counsels expired in 1999, when Congress didn't renew it. In the case of the investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, overseen by Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, some critics of the Bush administration complained that the probe never answered key questions because he didn't publish a final investigative report, as an independent counsel would do.

Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said of Mr. Mukasey's move: "Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied -- as they were in the Valerie Plame matter -- any final report on the investigation."

Mr. Durham is highly regarded in the department. In 1999, Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Mr. Durham to lead a special team that investigated alleged criminal misconduct by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and other law-enforcement corruption in Boston.

CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden has said that the tapes were legitimately destroyed to protect the identities of interrogators, and prosecutors have played down the importance the tapes may hold in several continuing or past terror cases. The CIA also didn't share the tapes with the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks. Critics of the Bush administration have alleged that their destruction may amount to destruction of evidence, which could be a crime.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency would "cooperate fully" with the investigation. Already, the agency has allowed congressional investigators to review documents related to the tape destruction. Congressional committees are planning hearings into the matter, and the House Intelligence Committee has ordered Jose Rodriguez, former chief of the CIA's National Clandestine Service who directed that the tapes be destroyed in late 2005, to appear before the committee Jan. 16.

President Bush said last month that he had "no recollection" of the tapes' existence or their destruction until he was briefed by CIA officials just before news stories were about to be published on the matter.

A book with all the elements - except graceful prose

2008-01-03T17:59:00.002+01:00

There are many ways to die. Starving to death on a raft at sea is among the nastiest.

Such was the fate of 147 survivors of the French frigate Medusa. Adrift for two weeks on a cobbled-together raft, they were forced to eat leather and fabric, murder each other, and even use the body of a deceased colleague to "nourish those who, only short while before, had clasped his hands in friendship" - in other words, to cannibalize.

"The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century," is Jonathan Miles's account of this debacle that shocked and shook Restoration France. On July 2, 1816, the Senegal-bound Medusa slammed into a reef. The captain, Hugues de Chaumareys, whose incompetence doomed the voyage, fled for the Medusa's lifeboats, along with a few choice passengers and crew. The captain promised the raft would be towed behind the convoy of lifeboats, but he cut the tow ropes. His group made landfall and wandered the Sahara before being rescued. As for the 147 stuck on the raft, only 15 survived.

In an effort to re-animate the events, Miles follows the intersecting stories of two key players in the drama: Alexandre Corréard, a survivor of the raft who went on to write a best-selling exposé of his ordeal, and Théodore Géricault, a troubled painter whose canvas immortalized the disaster.

The narrative begins promisingly enough. In a macabre scene, Géricault sneaks through the streets of Paris, a severed head, obtained under mysterious circumstances, under his arm. Still smarting from an impossible love affair with his aunt, the painter is searching for a subject whose horror might match his tortured heart. In the catastrophe of the Medusa, he finds his calling. Raiding the morgue, he fills his studio with body parts. He listens to Corréard's account, and paints the half-decomposed arms and legs.

The studies become "The Raft of the Medusa" - a painting so controversial that, exhibited at 1819 Salon, it is renamed "The Scene of the Shipwreck." In a clichéd story of artistic suffering, Géricault himself dies young, anonymous, and penniless, but today, his masterpiece hangs in the Louvre.

The artist and the survivor's efforts to turn tragedy into something tangible are intrinsically compelling. But in telling the tale, Miles, who also wrote "David Jones: The Maker Unmade," seems somewhat marooned among history's details. He recounts the events of the shipwreck well enough, recounting the rafters' chilling decision to kill off the weakest among them. However, just when the author develops narrative tension, or we begin to see the events through a single passenger's eyes, the author piles on more back story or mires the reader in French politics.

The impressive level of detail about the events and individual behavior on the raft - the deliberations, the riots, the cannibalism - suggests an intimate knowledge of the events or, at least, an imaginative leap from the source materials. So why not go the extra step and narrate the book like fiction, paced to build suspense and peppered with dialogue? Miles may be a fastidious historian, but his storytelling lacks the skill to emotionally hook the reader.
more stories like this

His ponderous style does not help, either. "The relaunching of the French monarchy promised a turbulent passage fraught with conflict, and it was against such an unpropitious background of stormy division and strife that the new repainted Medusa . . ." reads but one of many examples.

The repetitive and conventional descriptors "turbulent," "fraught," "stormy," etc., all unnecessarily clamor for attention. Likewise, in a single paragraph describing the castaways' landfall, Miles's prose takes on a purple hue. "Scorching shore," "lacerating July sun," "immense expanse of undulating sand," "heaving sea," and "menacing desert" are the many stock phrases trotted out to convey a sense of crisis. Miles does not trust his descriptive powers; he overcompensates with too many adjectives that aren't all that effective anyway, when one or two would do.

Another drawback: Other than the partially obscured image on the jacket itself, the book contains no full-color reproduction of the painting. But other black-and-white illustrations do give the reader an idea of Géricault's vision, and Miles does nicely analyze the historical significance of the painting.

After the first third of "The Wreck of the Medusa," the shipwreck itself is over. What follows is the aftermath: the trial, a lenient prison term for Captain Chaumareys, the political wreckage of the corruption charges that reached as high as the Bourbon king, and the making of the painting. Whether this is enough to hold one's attention largely depends upon the tastes of the reader. Clearly, Miles has researched his topic.

But clunky, amateur closing statements such as "Our inability to discover the truth behind the terrible events that have been variously recounted according to the interests of differing writers remains problematic" make it hard for the reader to care much.

Lovers of seafaring dramas and French history will find "The Wreck of the Medusa" a suitable, if flawed, addition to the growing body of nautical literature. But for the rest of us, Jonathan Miles makes for tough rowing.

Ethan Gilsdorf is a Boston-based writer. Contact him at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com.

Cairo, N.Y.

2008-01-03T17:59:00.001+01:00

by Cornelius Eady

The town near our house

Isn’t fancy, but it is ripe.

At present, it is still on

The wrong side of

The Hudson River,

But there’s potential.

What happened

In Woodstock,

What happened

In Red Hook,

What’s happening

In Catskill,

Could easily

Happen here.

Our streets are sad

In the way our bodies

Are sad as we

Dream of our

Beautiful selves,

Floating, light,

Light-filled,

Transcendent.

How could anyone

Have missed or

Overlooked us,

Even with our

Bad haircuts,

Our paunchy clothes,

Our gin-mill

Mouths?

One day

Some car drives by

And the rich folk

Who hunt for

Cut-rate rubies

Slow down,

And here we are,

They think,

All ready to be

Scrubbed.

Snarling surf closes east coast beaches

2008-01-03T17:58:00.001+01:00

Jano Gibson

WILD seas whipped up by a tropical low off Queensland forced the closure of hundreds of beaches along the eastern seaboard yesterday, with dangerous surf conditions set to continue over the coming days.

Dozens of people - many of them surfers who dared to enter the treacherous waters - required assistance from lifeguards as waves towering up to five metres high pummelled the coast.

The huge seas came on the last day of Sydney's wettest December in 15 years. The city recorded 123 millimetres of rain last month, compared with the long-term average of 78 millimetres.

The weather caused the cancellation or postponement of almost all of the New Year's Eve fireworks displays planned for beaches along the Gold Coast.

By 2pm yesterday, all of Sydney's main metropolitan beaches, which were being bombarded by two- to three-metre waves, had been closed to swimmers.

Beaches from Nambucca Heads to the Gold Coast were also off limits, as were many others at Newcastle and on the Central Coast.

"Given the forecast and given conditions on New Year's Eve, it would be expected that many beaches in the Sydney metropolitan area and throughout the state will remain closed," a Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman, Brett Moore, said. "People are strongly discouraged from entering the water unless there is a patrol on duty, which is signified by the red-and-yellow flags."

Thousands of surfers took advantage of the big seas, but two, who were washed onto rocks at Stanwell Park, had to be winched to safety by the Westpac Lifesaver helicopter.

A surfer at Woolgoolga, north of Coffs Harbour, was treated by an ambulance officer after injuring himself when heavy seas washed him onto rocks.

And a crew member participating in the Navy George Bass Surfboat Marathon near Moruya, on the South Coast, had to be rescued following three unsuccessful attempts to get their boat to shore.

Stephen Leahy, a lifeguard co-ordinator for northern NSW, said waves were peaking up to five metres at some North Coast beaches, while the more sheltered Byron Bay beaches experienced peaks of about three metres.

More than 600 swimmers were ordered from the water and eight people had to be rescued at northern NSW beaches, he said.

Mick Sylvester from the Pittwater lifeguard service said inexperienced surfers were endangering themselves in the huge seas. "There's so much volume in these waves, they are what we call a meaty wave … When [the surfers] wipe out, their board gets whipped off."

As he spoke to the Herald, three lifeguards at Palm Beach had to be sent to pull four surfers from the water after they became separated from their boards.

The tropical low that has caused the wild weather was last night located about 400 kilometres north-east of Fraser Island. The Bureau of Meteorology said waves in the surf zone at some southern Queensland and northern NSW beaches could exceed five metres today.

Because of the tropical low's slow pace, it is likely the wild weather will remain for several days, although wave heights are expected to gradually decrease.

"It's what [surfers] dream of. It will be Christmas and New Year's for them to remember for a long time," a forecaster, Dave Williams, said.

DNA database to get blood samples of all Illinois homicide victims

2008-01-03T17:56:00.000+01:00

By Gerry Smith

During an autopsy, Kane County Coroner Charles West routinely draws blood from a stiffening corpse, letting four droplets dry on a DNA card.

When police are investigating a case, West makes a second card to give them. But in some cases, the blood samples are simply filed away in the morgue and never entered into Illinois' growing DNA database.

But under a law taking effect in June, the blood samples of all homicide victims will be entered into the database. Authorities hope the measure will help unlock secrets about cold cases, potentially revealing that the victim of one crime had been the perpetrator of another.

"Victims of homicide, in some instances, come from a lifestyle that may have some risks to it," said Cook County Assistant State's Atty. Meribeth Mermall. "They may be taking information from other crimes to their grave."

If effective, the law may be expanded to include victims of other causes, including car accidents, suicides and heart attacks, said state Rep. Dan Brady (R-Bloomington), who sponsored the bill.

The legislation was prompted by the success of a similar law in Louisiana requiring coroners to submit blood samples from victims of all violent crimes to a DNA database.

Since that law took effect in 2003, it has helped close many unsolved crimes in areas with high gang activity, said Tammy Pruet Northrup, former DNA manager for the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab.

"This is the power of DNA," she said. "It doesn't necessarily say the deceased person did it, but it provides investigative leads."

By expanding Illinois' DNA database, officials hope the new requirement will be as effective as a 2003 law requiring DNA collection from convicted felons.

"It's just another cross reference that might possibly make a connection," said Jeff Lair, coroner in central Illinois' Morgan County. "The more information you've got, the better."

Brady said the measure will prevent potentially key DNA evidence from languishing in coroners' files.

"It's one thing to take a DNA sample and put [it] in a filing drawer in a morgue," Brady said. "It's another thing to continually review the sample for hits and leads."

West said the new law won't inconvenience him the way others have. He said his office is running out of space because of a law passed a few years ago requiring coroners to indefinitely keep all evidence related to homicides.

"We've got freezers absolutely full of specimens from homicides that we can't destroy even if the case has gone through litigation," West said.

Now the blood samples of those victims may register a match to crimes that investigators have been trying to solve for years, Mermall said.

In Louisiana, the law has helped ease the minds of rape victims who had lived in fear that their attacker could strike again, Northrup said.

"It's brought them a great deal of closure knowing that person was deceased."

-----------

gfsmith@tribune.com

Protest turns into all-day looting spree

2008-01-03T17:55:00.002+01:00

By Michela Wrong in Kisumu

Guests at the Kisumu hotel had not expected to spend quite so much time in each other's company. Events, however, intervened in the form of riots that exploded in the Kenyan opposition stronghold on Saturday as the city's residents sensed electoral victory was about to be snatched from their candidate's grasp.

On the previous evening, it had appeared that Raila Odinga, son of Luo leader Oginga Odinga, had the election in the bag. Kisumu's inhabitants, who belong mainly to the Luo tribe and accord Raila near god-like status, knew better.

The deserted morning streets were the giveaway. Once at the heart of a thriving sugar, cotton and fish trade, Kisumu is in the economic doldrums. Its prospects were about to get a whole lot grimmer. In the slums, supporters of Raila's ODM movement were taking out their fury on residents from the rival Kikuyu and Kisii tribes suspected of voting for the government.

The blue waters of Lake Victoria, framed by the jewel-green Maseno hills, glittered enticingly. But the smoke rising from burning barricades in the city centre lent the scene a revolutionary flavour. "Close the door," shouted a female security guard as guests spotted young men running towards the hotel, fleeing a police charge.

Situated just round the corner from the main shopping street, the hotel verandah was the ideal vantage from which to monitor a day-long looting spree. Locked inside, the guests - mostly middle class Luos who had returned to Kisumu to vote and to celebrate Christmas - kept up an appalled, increasingly sardonic running commentary on events outside.

First came Bata, the famous shoe chain. It is not easy to carry 10 pairs of shoes, but many looters managed it. "Look at that woman, she's got hundreds of shoes; all she ever wanted in her life," said a guest.

Then it was electronics: generators, microwaves, ghetto blasters, even double-compartmented freezers, herded along the street like cattle. "You can bet none of these guys have electricity at home," remarked a US-accented entrepreneur. Scores of televisions were wheeled past on boda boda taxi bikes.

Next were furnishings: rolls of linoleum, fake Persian carpets, sheets of corrugated iron, entire velour sofas, balanced on heads or carried by two men, piled high with goodies. "Terrible, just terrible," muttered a guest, lifting her daughter to get a better view. Occasionally the General Service Unit (GSU) riot police drove by, firing tear gas in a desultory fashion. But it was like trying to dam the tide: 10 minutes later looters were back. Nearby buildings were burning, black smoke billowing, gas cylinders exploding.

The same looters were coming back for second, third and fourth helpings. A surprising number were female. Two strapping girls, running in kitten heels, made a strong impression. "These are thugs, women thugs," said the hotel clerk with a shake of his head.

As the sun set, the looters tired. The occasional "ODM, ODM" chant had come a definite second in a sustained operation of self-enrichment. During 12 hours, Kisumu's most impoverished inhabitants had done their bit to narrow Kenya's yawning gap between rich and poor, reducing one of the country's most charming urban hubs to the state of a city in a war zone.

Long after they could play any useful part, riot police with helmets and shields deployed across the burning commercial centre. A hotel guest, surreally chirpy, was on the mobile phone to a friend: "Hey, don't bother coming shopping down here tomorrow. There's nothing left to buy."

Impunity must end at all levels

2008-01-03T17:55:00.001+01:00

By L MUTHONI WANYEKI

Just how many ways still exist to rig an election? Until now, I actually (overly-optimistically) thought: “Not that many.” But, even in this phase of Kenya’s democratic development, I was proved wrong.

Yes, the elections have been pronounced “free and fair” by national and international observers alike, the former including the organisation I myself work for. But this does not mean that our electoral process was not marred by electoral malpractices or human-rights violations.

It is not acceptable that, in 2007 — seven years into the new millennium — we still have aspirants who think attempts at ethnic cleansing are an acceptable campaign strategy. It is a fact that many would-be voters were disenfranchised in Kuresoi because their houses were burnt down together with their identity and voter cards. And disenfranchised out of fear.

The incoming government must act to address, once and for all, the root causes of the violence in Kuresoi. Which are not about ethnicity and indigeneity — to be honest, the only communities that can make that claim, the Masaai and the Ogiek, are only nominally involved. Neither is it truly about land. It is about the continued impunity of those who first planned and supported the politically instigated clashes of the 1990s.

It is also not acceptable that only polling stations in Langata constituency seemed to have lost sections of the register of voters covering those whose names begin with “O.” I personally visited some of those polling stations on December 27. Given that this had affected no less a voter than Raila Odinga himself, tensions were so high at Olympic Primary School, for example, that the primarily Luo residents of Kibera had begun their own vetting process, not only of vehicles trying to enter the polling station, but also of would-be voters trying to do the same. This, of course, is unacceptable. But it happened as a consequence of equally unacceptable provocation.

THE INCOMING GOVERNMENT MUST thus also ensure that those responsible for these apparently conscious and deliberate malpractices are brought to book, particularly those actually working for the ECK. In the atmosphere of rumour and tension that preceded polling day, it was incumbent on the ECK to explain its every decision and move clearly — so that cars moving in and out of polling stations were not assumed to be ferrying already marked ballot papers and already full ballot boxes and so on. So that the ECK continued to be seen as a judicious arbitrator of the electoral process. That, in the end, was not just a sad reflection on its current composition and some of its staff. It was dangerous for us all.

But the ECK was not the only public institution that could be faulted —not only for the above, but also for failing to stop electoral bribery, conducted in full view, right out in the open at some polling stations in Westlands! The national, supposedly “public” broadcaster was shamelessly partisan — going to the extent of airing what were effectively political party advertisements the night before the poll.

THE POLICE FORCE FAILED TO PREVENT the 30 or so deaths and many more injuries that occurred during the electoral period — including those of administration police — by failing to investigate each instance of electoral violence to its logical conclusion and prosecuting offenders. Senior civil servants and public administration officials failed to remain outside of the campaign process. The list goes on.

The ultimate consequences of all of these failures — to our rights to life and security of the person and property as well as to rights more directly associated with the electoral process — must be addressed.

We cannot allow all these malpractices and violations to fade away in the clamour surrounding the incoming government’s first steps. Impunity at all levels must end.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission

UNC All-American Larkins break bone in left hand

2008-01-03T17:53:00.001+01:00

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina All-American Erlana Larkins broke her left hand Sunday in a win over Liberty.

The senior forward injured the hand while reaching for a rebound with 17:24 left in No. 4 North Carolina's 88-67 victory. She screamed and fell to the floor, holding the hand as play continued for about 20 seconds.

Coach Sylvia Hatchell said a preliminary examination showed a broken bone inside the palm. Larkins was taken to UNC Hospitals for X-rays and further treatment.

"It's her left [non-shooting] hand," Hatchell said. "Knowing Erlana, she'll be OK. She's tough."

UNC orthopedic physician Dr. Tim Taft examined the hand briefly along with trainers before Larkins was taken to the locker room. She returned less than 10 minutes later with the hand wrapped over ice and watched the rest of the game from the bench.

A three-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference player, Larkins was a third team Associated Press All-American and MVP of the 2007 NCAA Dallas Regional as a junior. She won a gold medal playing with the U.S. Pan American Games team last summer.

Larkins ranks first in team history in field-goal shooting (.577) and came into Sunday's game averaging 11 points, fourth highest on the team, and a team best 8.5 rebounds a game.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

An urban space with something for all

2008-01-03T17:52:00.000+01:00

It is a great escape. It is also the perfect place to find yourself. A fine platform for brave new thoughts. A cool hangout if you don’t want to think about anything at all. The India Habitat Centre (IHC) is many worlds rolled into one.

From professionals to artists to social workers to students, there’s something for everyone. “This is a unique experiment in urban living. It’s a place for those who have time on their hands. It is not always that one finds company. We want to create a passion for them by putting out a canvas, be it film appreciation, art or books,” said Raj Liberhan, director, IHC.

Home to 37 institutions, the IHC also has an art gallery, a library, a resource centre, an auditorium and an amphi-theatre. “It is an excellent facility and is very well-kept. It has some lovely restaurants too,” says former RBI governor and MP Rajya Sabha Bimal Jalan.

Designed by legendary architect Joseph Allen Stein, the IHC has a massive courtyard.“The garden is charming. I also like the gallery and the restaurants. All in all, IHC is a very effective resource centre,” says Tara Sinha, head of leading ad agency Tara Sinha Associates.

Its monthly calendars are action-packed with talks, panel discussions, book club meetings, film appreciation, classical dance, music, theatre and what have you.

“The gallery for me is the most interesting place. When a show opens there, it gets a lot of attention,” says Gopi Gajwani, eminent photographer and artist.

And, of course, the eatouts — the food court, Eatopia, and the All American Diner, which are open to the public. There are workshops for children on art, cinema and music. And there are Sunday walks too, to heritage sites.

“We want to be looked at as creating a value system that serves as a light house” says Liberhan.