Zwichenzug Holding Zone

2005-07-25T09:22:00.000-05:00

British Police Arrest Suspect, After Shooting Man in Subway

fulltext

By ALAN COWELL

LONDON, July 22 - One day after four attempted bombings on London's transport system, police officers pursued a man onto a subway train today and fatally shot him at close range in full view of other passengers, the authorities and witnesses said.

Police also said today they had made one arrest related to Thursday's bombings in Stockwell, south London, the same area as the scene of the shooting. And, later, police in Birmingham said they had also made an arrest under anti-terrorism laws possibly related to the London attacks at a railroad station.

The killing threatened to overshadow police efforts to trace four men wanted for Thursday's failed attacks, which recalled the far bloodier assault on London's subway trains and a bus on July 7 when four bombers suspected of being Islamic exremists killed 52 people and themselves.

On a day when the police searched at least three homes in search of the bombers, the authorities also published photographs of the four wanted men. Three were shown at subway stations and one on the upper deck of a double-decker bus. One wore a dark top emblazoned with the words "New York" as he ran along a station corridor.

It was the second time that police had published images of accused bombers. An earlier image showed the four attackers from July 7 entering a station at Luton, north of London. The four images today showed the accused bombers at separate locations. The police urged anyone recognizing them to alert the authorities but not to approach them.

"This is the greatest operational challenge ever faced by the Metropolitan police service," Sir Ian Blair, the commander of the Metropolitan Police said at a news conference where police officials discussed the shooting and displayed the suspects' photos. "Officers are facing previously unknown thereats and great danger. We need the understanding of all communities and the cooperation of all communities. We need calm."

A police statement said, "The man shot at Stockwell station is still subject to formal identification and it is not yet clear whether he is one of the four people we are seeking to identify and whose pictures have been released today."

"The man who was shot was under police observation because he had emerged from a house that was itself under observation because it was linked to the investigation of yesterday's incidents," the statement said. "He was then followed by surveillance officers to the station. His clothing and his behaviour at the station added to their suspicions."

Sir Ian said the shooting was "directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation."

"I need to make clear that any death is deeply regrettable," Mr Blair said at the news conference. "But as I understand the situation, the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions. I can't go any further at this stage."

A witness who had been sitting on a Northern Line subway train at Stockwell station said the man had been pursued by plainclothes police officers who fired five shots at close range.

"I was sitting on the train,' Mark Whitby said. "I heard a lot of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down.' I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun. He half tripped. They pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him."

As the man stumbled onto the train, Mr. Whitby told the BBC, "I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox."

"He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him," he said. The police officers "couldn't have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand."

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him," Mr Whitby said. Some British reports said the man's heavy clothing may have persuaded police officers that he was carrying a suicide bomb.

At his news conference, Sir Ian said he knew that "there are rumors sweeping London and I do appeal to people to listen to the facts as they emerge."

According to the Metropolitan Police, fatalities in police shootings are relatively rare in London. Between 1997 and September 2004, police opened fire on 20 occasions, killing seven people and injuring 11.

Stockwell station is in the same area south of the Thames River as Oval station, one of the targets of Thursday's attacks. Two subway lines, the Victoria and Northern lines, were suspended after the shooting, plunging London's transport system once more into a chaos that some Londoners fear will be more prevalent. Lord Stevens, a former London police chief, said today that it could take "10 or 20 years" to end the terror threat.

The attacks also alarmed the drivers of London subway trains, which carry three million passengers a day, who are now pressing for increased numbers of staff on subway trains. Bob Crow, a leader of the drivers' union, said the union would back "any of our drivers who refused to work" during terror alarms.

While Londoners have gradually become used to armed police on the streets in recent years - particularly in the heightened security atmosphere since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States - the idea of armed police killing a suspect in full public view is still shocking. A debate on a Web site run by The Guardian newspaper today pursued heated arguments about the police action.

"I just hope they shot an actual terrorist," one contributor wrote.

The impact of the killing could be all the more incendiary if subsequent investigations identify the man as a Muslim. "This operation is targeted at criminals," Sir Ian said, apparently to head off accusations that Muslims are being unfairly singled out. "It is not targeted at any community or any section of the community."

But Nakib Islam, 19, a Muslim high school student, said "I am afraid of a stronger backlash" against Muslims. He was speaking after a bomb alert at the East London mosque turned out to have been a hoax.

"We all have to use the Tube and people who look like me all became suspicious. I even don't wear my rucksack anymore when I use the Tube because of that," he said.

Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said Muslims he had spoken to this morning were "jumpy and nervous."

"We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot to kill policy," he said.

The rapidly unfolding events also stunned Londoners sensing a new vulnerability after Thursday's attacks.

While there were no direct casualties from the four attempts on Thursday - when detonators apparently failed to set off home-made explosives on three subway trains and a bus - some Londoners asked why the authorities had failed to protect them from a repeat bombing just two weeks after the first on July 7.

"I wonder why London is different to New York and Madrid - why is it being sustained here?" said Patricia Mitchell, 35, a call center worker. "I'm wondering if it's an easier target. It feels like London has a lot more people and a lot more public transport. But I was completely surprised. I totally thought it was going to be an attack on London and then they move on to another city."At the news conference today, Andy Hayman, a senior police officer responsible for special operations, gave the first detailed account of Thursday's bombings as he released the images of the four suspects. He said one device had been left in a subway car at Oval station, apparently by a man who had boarded one stop earlier at Stockwell.

A second device was left at the rear of the top deck of a number 26 bus in east London. A second image showed a man on the top deck of the bus "wearing a gray T-shirt with what appears to have been a palm-tree design on the frfont and a dark jacket with a white baseball cap," Mr. Hayman said.

In the third attempted bombing,a man in dark clothing was shown leaving Warren Street subway station, while, in the fourth a man in dark shirt and trousers was seen running from a subway train at an above-ground section of the Hammersmith and City Line at Shepherd's Bush station.

Even as Mr. Hayman was speaking, armed police armed with tear-gas and dogs broke into a house in west London at Harrow Road quite close to Shepherd's Bush. "There are two further addresses being entered by Metropolitan Police officers in connection with this investigation," Mr. Hayman said.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Jonathan Allen, Souad Mekhennet, Karla Adam, Hélène Fouquet and Pamela Kent.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

2005-06-17T09:32:00.000-05:00

George Lucas aiming to release the Star Wars movies in 3D - MovieWeb

According to The Hollywood Reporter, George Lucas is such a fan of the latest 3-D technology that he is planning to remaster all of the Star Wars films for rerelease in 3-D.

Appearing as part of a sextet of high-profile directors promoting 3-D and digital cinema at ShoWest on Thursday, Lucas said he hadn't yet committed to a precise schedule but hoped to have the first film ready for the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie in 2007 and that he would then rerelease one Star Wars film per year in 3-D.

Lucas was joined by James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Robert Rodriguez and Randal Kleiser. Peter Jackson joined the group via a pretaped 3-D segment. They all implored the exhibition community to invest in digital projectors, which would allow theaters to show their upcoming movies in 3-D. Cameron is in preproduction on the 3-D film Battle Angel, planned for a 2007 release. Zemeckis has two 3-D features in production, and Rodriguez is readying The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D for release in the summer. Jackson, who is currently filming King Kong, announced no specific 3-D plans, but according to sources he has installed a 3-D master suite in his production offices in New Zealand.

2005-06-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality

Times Online
eptember 21, 2003

The Sunday Times

Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

THEY may look like lovable pets but Britain’s estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities.
The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country’s feline population. They show that half of Britain’s human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour.

Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the “sex kitten” effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous.

Interestingly, for those who draw glib conclusions about national stereotypes, the number of people infected in France is much higher than in the UK.

The findings will not please cat lovers. The research — conducted at universities in Britain, the Czech Republic and America — was sponsored by the Stanley Research Medical Institute of Maryland, a leading centre for the study of mental illness. The institute has already published research showing that people infected with the toxoplasma parasite are at greater risk of developing schizophrenia and manic depression.

The study into more subtle changes in human personality is being carried out by Professor Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague. In one study he subjected more than 300 volunteers to personality profiling while also testing them for toxoplasma.

He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. “We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked,” he said. “However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men.”

By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the “alley cat” effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. “They tended to dislike following rules,” Flegr said.

He also discovered that people infected with toxoplasma had delayed reaction times — and are at greater risk of being involved in car accidents. “Toxoplasma infection, could represent a serious and highly underestimated economic and public health problem,” he said.”

In Britain, concern over toxoplasma is growing among health experts — especially as the number of pet cats has grown to about 9m. Roland Salmon, an epidemiologist with the National Public Health Service for Wales, said: “The evidence is that cats are the main cause of infection.”

Toxoplasma moves in a natural cycle between rats and cats. Rats acquire it from contact with cat faeces and cats reacquire it from hunting infected rats. It has long been known that humans can become infected with the parasite through close contact with cats.

Pregnant women are advised to keep clear of the animals because the parasite can damage unborn babies. People with damaged immune systems, such as Aids victims, are also vulnerable.

Until now, however, the parasite has always been thought harmless to healthy people because their immune systems could suppress the infection. But this view seems certain to change, especially in the light of research at Oxford University.

Scientists there have found that when the parasite invades rats it somehow reprograms their brains, reversing their natural fear of cats. It is this same ability to destroy natural inhibitions that is thought to be at work in humans.

Doctors Manuel Berdoy and Joanne Webster at Oxford University are studying how toxoplasma alters rat behaviour and the chemical weapons it uses to subvert the brain.
Berdoy said: “The fact that a single-celled parasite can have such an effect on the mammalian or even human brain is amazing.”

One startling fact to emerge from research is the great differences in levels of infection. In France and Germany, for example, about 80%-90% of people are infected — nearly twice that in Britain or America.

“I am French and I have even wondered if there is an effect on national character,” Berdoy said.

Dr Dominique Soldati, a researcher at Imperial College in London, is studying ways of blocking toxoplasma from getting into cells. “Once you are infected you cannot get rid of this parasite and the numbers of them slowly grow over the years,” she said. “It’s not a nice thought.”

Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.

2005-06-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

It's Insurance a la Cart: Costco Stores to Market Health Plans

Los Angeles Times

By Debora Vrana
Times Staff Writer

June 9, 2005

Costco Wholesale Corp., the low-cost bulk supplier of breakfast cereal, motor oil and diamond rings, is adding health insurance to its warehouse shelves.

In a pilot program to be launched next month in Southern California, Costco will offer family and individual coverage to its customers who pay $100 a year for "executive" membership, company officials said. The insurance is aimed at people such as contractors, waiters and students who are self-employed or cannot sign up for plans at work.

Although other discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target have begun offering limited health services in their stores, Costco says it will be the first to offer insurance to members. About 18 million households nationally belong to Costco, including 3.4 million who pay for executive membership.

Company officials would not quote premiums but said the insurance would be 5% to 20% cheaper than policies individuals could buy on their own. Costco expects to offer coverage statewide by the end of the year and may eventually make it available to regular members, said Dellanie Fragnoli, assistant vice president of insurance services at Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco.

"It's one of the more requested services by our members," Fragnoli said.

Since 2003, Costco has offered group health insurance to its small-business members in the West through Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., said Cheryl Randolph, spokeswoman for PacifiCare.

The new program, also offered through PacifiCare, will be different in that it is tailored to individuals and families.

The preferred-provider plan, also known as a PPO, which encourages members to see participating doctors, will come in two forms offering similar benefits. One option will have a $1,500 annual deductible for individuals and a $3,000 deductible for families. The other, with lower premiums, will have deductibles twice as high, Costco said.

Coverage for both plans will include prescription drugs; co-payments for most office visits will be $35. Premiums will vary depending on age, location and health status.

Initially available only through Costco's 34 warehouses in Los Angeles, Orange and parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the plan will be sold over the Internet and through a call center.

Costco can offer a discount in part because of lower administration, advertising and brokerage costs, Randolph said.

"They believe they can be cheaper than everyone else, not because of the bulk or the [lack of] frills, but because they are cutting out the middlemen, the broker," said J.D. Kleinke, a healthcare economist in Portland, Ore.

Costco is licensed to sell health insurance and receives a commission, but it "is significantly lower than what is generally paid," Fragnoli said.

Kleinke said consumers didn't really care who their health insurance provider was.

"They just want the cheapest way to see their doctor," Kleinke said.

Although discount retailers selling health insurance may seem like an odd mix, it points out the need consumers have for alternatives, given the rising costs of health insurance, Kleinke said.

Other major retailers including Target Corp. and Longs Drug Stores Corp. also have moved into the healthcare arena. At some Target stores in Minneapolis, shoppers can visit walk-up clinics staffed mostly by nurse practitioners for minor ailments, such as a bladder infection or seasonal allergies, with no appointment and little or no waiting. Target is contracting with Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic Inc. to run the clinics.

In Davis, Calif., this year, Longs unveiled its own in-store clinic. And also this year, the Wal-Mart Stores Inc.-operated Sam's Club began offering a discount program to members that cuts by as much as 50% the cost of some health services not covered by insurance, such as laser eye surgery and dental care.

This area is going to continue to grow, predict healthcare specialists like Kleinke, as rising costs push people to find new ways to insure themselves.

"We're not going to solve this problem," Fragnoli said. But "there is some value in Costco being in the arena. It keeps the providers on their toes."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

2005-06-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

Update: Hotels Vote to Lock Out Workers

Los Angeles Business Journal Online

By DAVID GREENBERG
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff
Six L.A. area hotels agreed to lock out 2,380 unionized workers after Unite HERE members walked off the job at the Hyatt West Hollywood, a member of a bargaining group with the other six hotels.

The Los Angeles Hotel Employer’s Council voted late Thursday in favor of the lockout after about 120 workers struck the Hyatt West Hollywood over health care reimbursements. The hotels said the lockout would not take effect until midnight Saturday, giving the union time to accept a "best and final" contract offer.

“This is what we call a defensive lockout – it comes in response to a strike,” said Fred Muir, consultant to the hotel council.

Tensions have been high since a contract between Unite HERE Local 11 and nine large hotels expired in April 2004. (Two have since dropped out.) The union has been seeking to align contract expiration dates throughout the country in 2006. The hotels have offered substantial pay increases but they want a longer contract.

The health care payments arose from earlier negotiations. To put pressure on the union, the hotels began deducting $40 in monthly health care premiums last July, but then stopped making the deductions in January. Since then, the union has been seeking reimbursement for premiums the workers paid in the interim.

David Koff, research analyst for Unite HERE, said the local’s 2,500 workers were forced to pay more than $650,000 in health care premiums.

“This has been an issue that agitated the workers from the beginning,” said Koff. “We started at this hotel but it could expand.”

The union is looking for a two-year agreement that would be retroactive to April 15, 2004, when the previous contract expired. That would line Local 11’s agreement with those in several other cities, giving the union more bargaining power.

© 2005 Los Angeles Business Journal Associates

2005-06-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

Frosty reception for hotels' offer / Co-payment changes fail to impress union

San Francisco Chronicle
George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 8, 2005

The union representing workers at 14 San Francisco hotels won't formally reject the employers' most recent offer until they resume talks today, but the response has already been telegraphed.

"To say our people were unimpressed is an incredible understatement,'' Mike Casey, the president of Local 2 of the hotel workers union, said Tuesday.

On May 31 -- after more than 100 days with no negotiations -- the two sides met, and the hotels presented a contract proposal that would lower workers' co-payments for doctor's office visits and emergency room visits, compared with a previous offer.

The employers said the offer was made "in an effort to reach a settlement that provides hotel employees with a secure, long-term contract.''

The revised payment plan for office and ER visits is $10 and $20 respectively, compared with payments of $15 and $75 in the earlier proposal. Casey characterized the latest offer as an insignificant movement in negotiations.

One of the major issues dividing the two sides, which have been at odds over a new contract since August, is health care eligibility.

Currently, workers at union hotels need to work only two shifts a week in three out of four weeks to qualify for full health benefits. The employers want to increase the number of shifts to five, arguing that the change would be minimal.

Casey of Local 2 warned that the requirement would eliminate health benefits for as many as 1,000 people, who are banquet servers and people who are hired from a hiring hall, called extras.

Casey said he intends today to bring up language issues, a labor term referring to matters that do not affect the employers' bottom line. These include diversity in the workplace, uniforms and laundry expenses, which are still unresolved.

Steve Trent, a spokesman for the employers, said, "We are happy to be back at the table, and we look forward to the union's counterproposal. We hope the union's position will be a meaningful step toward reaching a fair and equitable contract for our employees.''

The 14 major hotels are represented by a bargaining organization that negotiates labor contracts that influence hotel workers' contracts throughout the city.

The member hotels include the Argent, Crowne Plaza, Fairmont, Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt, Hilton, Holiday Inn Civic Center, Holiday Inn Express & Suites at Fisherman's Wharf, Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf, Palace, Hyatt Regency, Mark Hopkins, Omni and St. Francis.

E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.

Page C - 2
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/08/BUG9UD52D31.DTL

©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

2005-06-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

Union Strategy Taking Its Toll

Los Angeles Business Journal Online

By DAVID GREENBERG
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff
In the year-long game of poker between unionized hotel workers and owners of large hotels in Los Angeles, the owners appear to hold the weaker hand.

An aggressive boycott campaign has cost the hotels millions of dollars in lost business. Two of the nine hotels have dropped out of the Los Angeles Hotel Employer’s Council (both were sold; the new owner of the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles cut its own deal with the union and the St. Regis hotel will be converted to condominiums). And a third hotel manager is urging accession to Unite HERE Local 11’s demand for a contract that would expire in 2006, to line up with expiration dates in other large cities.

“Local 11 has outmaneuvered us,” said John Stoddard, general manager of the Wilshire Grand hotel. “What I’m saying is stop fighting them and give them the ’06 agreement.”

When the previous contract expired more than a year ago, there appeared little hope that Unite HERE Local 11 could prevail. The larger and deeper-pocketed grocery workers’ union had just lost a bruising battle with supermarket chains, and the contests had similar parallels.

Both unions represented lower-skill workers in industries where employers were aggressively seeking to cut costs. Both were at a disadvantage as a regional union fighting owners with nationwide, and in the case of the hotel owners, worldwide resources.

Knowing that it couldn’t afford to strike, the union launched a boycott of the hotels, even though a successful boycott was sure to cost workers in the form of lost hours. And it pressed on with a tactic of delaying negotiations, showing a willingness to work without a contract until 2006 if need be.

*The full story is available in the May 30 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

© 2005 Los Angeles Business Journal Associates

2005-06-11T12:25:00.000-05:00

Biltmore Strikes Deal With Union

Los Angeles Business Journal Online
By ANDY FIXMER
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

In another blow to the local hotel coalition whose members have been boycotted for months, downtown’s Millennium Biltmore Hotel will no longer oppose the efforts of a union to line up a contract with cities across the country.

In return, the union will stop urging Biltmore clients to boycott the hotel.

In response to the deal, the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council – a group of seven hotels collectively bargaining with the union – filed charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board.

The hotel owners, in a 4-3 vote, filed the charges claiming that the union was improperly negotiating with individual properties – something not allowed under collective bargaining agreements. Fred Muir, a consultant to the hotel employers council, wouldn’t disclose which member hotels voted against filing the charges.

“It’s through their coercion of individual members of the council that we believe violate National Labor Relations regulations,” Muir said. “We also accuse them of not bargaining collectively in good faith.”

David Koff, a research analyst for Unite HERE Local 11, defended the outside agreements with hotel owners saying they did not constitute an outside contract. “They are still entitled to freedom of speech,” Koff said. “They have agreed to advocate for and recommend to the members of the employers council that they should accept the … proposal the union has had on the table for quite some time.”

Ivan Lee, the Biltmore’s general manager, would neither confirm nor deny the deal with the union, expected to be formally announced at the end of today. “We don’t have anything to disclose at this stage,” he said.

The Biltmore’s decision underscores an on-going dismantling of what appeared to be a formidable alliance of hotel owners who were seeking concessions from their employees when the contract expired nearly two years ago.

Last month, the owner of the Wilshire Grand agreed to similar terms as the Biltmore. As members of the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council neither hotel can legally cut separate deals with the union. However, the two owners have agreed to vote in the union’s favor.

Besides the Biltmore and Wilshire Grand, six hotels that never joined the employers council and instead bargained independently with the union have all reached deals expiring in 2006 – the date when contracts in large cities nationwide are set to be renegotiated.

Muir wouldn’t address whether the NLRB filing indicated the employers council is concerned the union has driven a wedge between owners.

A union-led boycott has also cut into the bottom lines of employer council hotels, despite also reducing the hours of the workers it represents. The union estimates the boycott has cost the hotels between $10 million and $13 million in canceled room nights, conventions, corporate meetings and banquets by 114 confirmed clients.

The employers council has offered the union a five year contract that would give all full-time employees a $1,000 signing bonus, a 22 percent raise over the life of the contract and free family health care.

© 2005 Los Angeles Business Journal Associates.

2005-06-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

Judge Clears Way for Grocery Strike Suit

MSN Money - Associated Press News

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge ruled Wednesday that California authorities can proceed with an antitrust lawsuit against three grocery chains over a profit-sharing pact they forged during a prolonged labor strike-lockout.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued the three grocers -- Albertsons Inc., Kroger Co., which owns Ralphs, and Safeway Inc.'s Vons -- in February 2004, alleging the chains' deal to share costs during the strike violated antitrust laws and hurt consumers by discouraging competitive pricing.

The chains maintained federal labor laws governing collective bargaining shielded them from liability.

In his decision, U.S. District Court Judge George H. King concluded the potential anticompetitive effects of the grocers' mutual aid pact did not "follow naturally from the collective bargaining process," and was not protected from potential antitrust liability.

King made no determination on whether the grocers violated antitrust laws, but his ruling clears the way for the state to pursue its case.

"They can't hide behind immunity to shield their conduct," said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Lockyer. "We're confident that now that we've overcome this hurdle, we will be able to convince the court that this agreement violates federal law."

Messages left after hours to representatives for Ralphs, Albertsons and Safeway were not immediately returned Wednesday.

After union leaders ordered the strike against Safeway's Vons and Pavilions chains on Oct. 11, 2003, Albertsons and Ralphs responded by locking out their employees. In all, about 59,000 workers were idled at 859 stores.

About a month into the walkout, the United Food and Commercial Workers union withdrew picket lines at Ralphs stores. As a result of the profit-sharing agreement, Ralphs and sister chain Food 4 Less, which was not a target of the strike, paid Vons and Albertsons $146.2 million, according to court documents.

The strike lasted more than four months, cost store owners more than $2 billion by some estimates and resulted in the permanent loss of many customers.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

2005-06-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

NHL and Union Agree to a Revenue-Linked Cap

Chris Foster and Helene Elliott
From Times Staff and Wire Reports

June 9, 2005

The NHL and NHL Players' Assn. have agreed to a salary cap system based on team-by-team revenue, sources familiar with the negotiations said, a major step toward ending their labor dispute.

Negotiators, who met Wednesday in New York, have carved out a plan that calls for a salary cap linked to each team's revenue — the NHL is pushing for a link at 54%. The projections for the first year of the collective bargaining agreement would put the cap at $34 million to $36 million with a $22 million to $24 million minimum.

The amount would cover all player costs, including medical coverage and bonuses, as well as salary. The plan will also have a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax that goes into effect at the midpoint between the cap's ceiling and floor, $29 million.

While other issues remain, a source said that a deal could be in place in two weeks.

Salary arbitration, qualifying offers and free agency could stall negotiations, as could the 24% across-the-board salary rollback offered by the union in December.

Chris Foster and Helene Elliott

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

2005-06-11T12:17:00.000-05:00

SACRAMENTO / Ballot OKd on use of public workers' union dues

San Francisco Chronicle
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Political Writer
Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Teachers, firefighters and other public workers would have to give written consent before their dues could be used for political purposes under an initiative that has qualified for a likely special election ballot.

"We need to protect public employees from the insult of having money taken from them and spent on causes they may violently disagree with,'' said Lewis Uhler, who sponsored the initiative.

Union officials argue that the measure is a Republican attempt to hamstring unions that have consistently supported Democratic candidates.

The union dues measure, along with another that would more than double the time a teacher would have to work before being granted a permanent job, got the OK late Monday from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, who announced that they each had more than the 411,198 valid signatures needed to make the ballot.

Both measures will go on the next statewide ballot, now scheduled for next June. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to call Monday for a special election, which would put the measures before voters on Nov. 8.

While the teacher tenure initiative is one of a package of measures being backed by Schwarzenegger, the fight over union dues is likely to be the nastiest -- and most expensive. In 1998, unions spent more than $17 million to defeat Proposition 226, which would have put similar restrictions on all unions, public and private, making it tougher to raise money for political purposes.

"This time we're focusing exclusively on public employee unions,'' Uhler said. "People are upset with their overreaching arrogance and even greed in collecting pay and benefits, with pensions no other taxpayer could enjoy.''

While Schwarzenegger has not endorsed the measure so far, his allies are pumping money into the anti-union effort. In the past week, the state Republican Party has put $200,000 into Uhler's campaign, while the Small Business Action Committee, run by former Schwarzenegger aide Joel Fox, has given $555,000.

Democrats and union leaders have pledged to fight all of Schwarzenegger's initiatives.

"For reasons I still don't understand, it seems the governor is going to call a special election on issues most people don't care about or don't know about,'' said Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic strategist who is heading the opposition to Schwarzenegger's initiative effort. "He is spending $80 million for an election on initiatives that will impact horribly on working men and women.''

An initiative that would require that parents be notified before their minor daughters receive abortions already is on the ballot.

E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.

Page B - 3
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/08/BAGLHD54SK1.DTL

©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

2005-06-10T15:02:00.000-05:00

Public Workers Under Fire
fulltext

Schwarzenegger Targets A Last Bastion of Security
By Harold Meyerson

Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A21

America has a problem with its public employees. They are not downwardly mobile enough.

Policemen, firefighters, teachers, hospital nurses -- they still belong to the one part of the U.S. economy where the New Deal hasn't been repealed. Fully 90 percent of them have defined-benefit pensions as of old. In the private sector, just 60 percent of employees have retirement plans, and a scant 24 percent still cling to defined-benefit plans. Fully 86 percent of public employees are covered by on-the-job health insurance; in the private sector, the rate has fallen to 66 percent.

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, public employees make on average $49,275 a year. A sub-princely sum, that, but better than the $34,461 that is the average annual income of private-sector workers.

There are a number of reasons public employees have been able to preserve the kinds of benefits and, in some instances, living standards that were once more common to American workers generally, but chief among these is unions. While 37 percent of public-sector workers are unionized, just 8 percent of private-sector workers are. Through their power at the ballot box, public employees have maintained the ability to bargain with their employers, who are either elected officials or their appointees. For all intents and purposes, their private-sector counterparts have lost the power to bargain collectively.

But are decent living standards in one sector sustainable when they're dependent on the taxes of an increasingly beleaguered private sector? More and more, conservative political strategists see an opportunity to weaken the Democrats -- traditionally the beneficiaries of public-employee union support -- by pitting private-sector voters against public-sector ones. That certainly was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal earlier this year when he backed an initiative that would have terminated the defined-benefit pensions for California's state and municipal employees and shifted them to 401(k)s instead.

Schwarzenegger's plan had a few glitches -- most notably, ending survivor benefits for widows and orphans of police officers and firefighters killed on the job. Facing an onslaught of criticism, Schwarzenegger backed off the initiative. But the war between Arnold and California's public employees has spread across many fronts. He's been embroiled with nurses on the question of nurse-patient ratios, and with teachers over his reneging on a funding commitment to public schools. He's been losing every one of these fights, with his support in the polls dropping from 60 percent to an anemic 40.

Now, a number of Schwarzenegger's business backers have funded yet another initiative, this one to curtail the ability of public-sector unions to fund political campaigns (including those for and against initiatives). The governor -- unless he trades off his support for this measure in return for concessions from the Democratic legislature -- is likely to back it.

Though the attacks from the gazillionaire governor on the state's public servants have only backfired, Arnold's handlers do not sound daunted. On Sunday the Los Angeles Times, reporting on a series of bi-weekly phone calls that Schwarzenegger and his strategists hold with his leading business backers, quoted veteran Republican operative Don Sipple, in one recent call, telling the assembled Arnoldistas how they'd go after the public employees.

"When you get to the point of . . . 'These people are on your payroll, and they are out to roll you every day,' that creates a kind of phenomenon of anger," Sipple said. "But it takes a long time to get there."

If Arnold truly believes he can convince his fellow Californians that the police, firefighters and teachers are out to roll them every day, then the tale of the Incredible Shrinking Governator will continue apace.

But the problems faced by public-sector workers as the private sector grows steadily meaner aren't going away, whatever the outcome of the immediate battles in California. When public-sector workers were first joining unions in the '60s, they were largely playing catch-up with private-sector employees. But as Wal-Mart has supplanted General Motors as America's largest private employer (and GM announced a cutback of 25,000 more workers Tuesday), it's the teachers and their public-sector cohorts who have emerged as the relatively more advantaged -- and politically exposed.

From the period of the three decades after World War II, when the long boom in the American economy was felt in every class and quadrant, we have devolved into a nation of separate economies -- increasingly insecure private-sector workers, a public sector where the guarantees of the New Deal order still pertain and a stratum of mega-rich whose investment income is taxed at lower rates than the incomes of those who work for a living. If we can't create more security in the private sector (and universal health insurance would be a good start), the modest security of a work life in the public sector will surely be eroded, too.

meyersonh@washpost.com

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

2005-06-09T08:48:00.000-05:00

Eighth-grader wins spelling bee

fulltext

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap is good at math, science and geography. But rapid-fire spelling -- that's his forte.

Whizzing through words most people never heard of, the 13-year-old from Poway, California, won the 2005 national spelling bee championship on his second try as a contestant.

"I was really nervous because I worked really hard on that and I wanted to do good," Anurag said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America." He had to guess at a few words he hadn't studied, including "priscilla" (a ruffled curtain) in the third round, Anurag said.

But he exuded confidence as he spelled the final, winning word Thursday. He rushed through "appoggiatura" (melodic tone), and ran into his father's arms and burst into tears. He said he felt "just pure happiness" and later coined his own word, "ecstatic-ness."

A straight-A student, Anurag has represented his school at the California Geographic Bee and recently took part in state-level math and science competitions.

He beat out 272 other competitors in the 19th round of the 78th annual National Scripps Spelling Bee to win $30,000 in cash, scholarships and books.

Anurag sailed through "prosciutto," an Italian dry-cured ham, and "sphygmomanometer," an instrument for measuring blood pressure.

He sometimes spelled so quickly that only the judges appeared to be able to follow him.

Anurag tied for 47th in last year's spelling bee. That experience "helped me to know what I should study to ... like, win this thing," he said at a news conference, repeatedly hiding his face behind a cardboard number that hung around his neck during the contest.

Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, of Pleasanton, California.

"I'm disappointed," Samir said, adding that he will try again next year.

Aliya, who will begin high school next year and be ineligible for the 2006 contest, said she was happy with how well she did.

She said after the contest that French is one of her favorite subjects.

"Though you wouldn't know it by the way I spelled the last word," she said. She was eliminated when she missed "trouvaille," a lucky find.

Samir delighted the audience with several of his questions and comments. Twice on hearing a word he had to spell that was familiar to him he said, "Yes!"

Upon correctly spelling "filiciform," in the sixth round, the home-schooled Samir yelled, "Thanks, Mom!"

Samir ultimately stumbled on the word "Roscian," meaning skilled in acting. Two years ago, when Samir tied for third place, bee winner Sai Gunturi predicted he would be a force to be reckoned with.

Each speller won at least $50. Anurag gets $28,000 in cash, scholarships and savings bonds, plus books from Encyclopedia Britannica.

The contest is administered by E.W. Scripps Co. The youngsters all won local contests sponsored by newspapers.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/06/02/spelling.bee.ap/?section=cnn_us

2005-06-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

Antidote To Secrecy

By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 5, 2005; B07

fulltext

The great benefit of W. Mark Felt's decision to identify himself as "Deep Throat," the famous Watergate secret source, is that a whole new generation of Americans now has a chance to learn just how perverse were the values that infected the Nixon White House.

Some -- but not all -- of the surviving Nixon loyalists reacted in "shoot-the-messenger" fashion to Vanity Fair's revelation that the former No. 2 man in the FBI was the shadowy figure who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein unlock the Watergate story in the pages of The Post.

Chuck Colson, Nixon's special counsel, who was jailed for his part in the criminal conspiracy hatched in the Oval Office, told NBC's "Today" show that he was "in a state of shock" at learning it was Felt, because "I never thought anybody in such a position of sensitivity in the Justice Department would breach confidences."

Pat Buchanan, who sharpened his rhetorical claws as a Nixon speechwriter, told "Today's" Matt Lauer, "There's nothing heroic about breaking faith with your people, breaking the law, sneaking around in garages, putting stuff from an investigation out to a Nixon-hating Washington Post."

Colson added that Felt "broke the confidence of the president of the United States. If you're a president of the United States, you've got to have somebody in the FBI you can talk to with the confidence you talk to a priest."

And Buchanan threw in the extraordinary assertion that "what he did was help destroy an enormously popular president and, partly as a consequence of that, what 58,000 Americans died for in Vietnam was poured down the sewer."

In these comments, Americans born in the 1970s, '80s and '90s can learn everything they need to know about the dangerous delusions of the Nixon era. The mind-set that created enemies lists, the blind loyalty to a deeply flawed individual, the twisting of historical fact to turn villains into heroes and heroes into villains -- they are all there.

Such tendencies are not unique to one White House; they go with the territory. They must be consciously resisted by men and women of conscience working within an administration and checked by those on the outside -- notably journalists -- whose job it is to monitor the presidency.

That is why excessive official secrecy is always suspect and why the isolation of a president behind a closed circle of advisers can lead to abuse of power.

To get a balanced view of what Felt did in becoming a source for the Watergate reporters, it is wise to bypass Colson and Buchanan and listen to William Ruckelshaus.

As deputy attorney general, he followed the example of his boss, the late Elliot Richardson, and resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

When I interviewed Ruckelshaus last week, he said there were obvious dangers when "somebody who is involved in an investigation," as Felt was involved in the FBI's investigation of the Watergate break-in, "puts out information to the press. You can hurt innocent individuals and damage the investigative process.

"But if you see the White House and the head of the FBI [L. Patrick Gray] interfering with the investigation, what are you going to do? If you go public with the charges, who is going to believe you?"

Mark Felt did what whistle-blowers need to do. He took his information to reporters who diligently dug up the evidence to support his well-founded suspicions.

The republic was saved and the public well served. That Colson and Buchanan still don't get it speaks volumes about them.

davidbroder@washpost.com

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

2005-06-07T09:35:00.000-05:00

Justices Say U.S. May Prohibit the Use of Medical Marijuana

fulltext

By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 6 - The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the power of Congress to prohibit and prosecute the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes, even in the 11 states that permit it.

The 6-to-3 decision, a firm reassertion of federal authority, revealed a deep fissure within the coalition that over the past decade has provided the majority for a series of decisions curbing Congressional power and elevating the role of the states within the federal system. Two members of that coalition, Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, voted this time to uphold federal authority.

The decision overturned a 2003 ruling by a federal appeals court that shielded California's Compassionate Use Act, the medical-marijuana initiative adopted by the state's voters nine years ago, from the reach of federal drug enforcement.

The appeals court had held that Congress lacked constitutional authority to regulate the noncommercial cultivation and use of marijuana that did not cross state lines.

But "the regulation is squarely within Congress's commerce power," Justice John Paul Stevens said for the majority on Monday. He added that the court's precedents interpreting Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution had clearly established "Congress's power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic 'class of activities' that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce."

The decision, Gonzales v. Raich, No. 03-1454, was not necessarily the last word on medical marijuana, either from the courts or from other branches of government. Under the terms of the opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, will now consider other challenges to the application of federal drug law.

These include an argument made by the two women who brought the case that it is a violation of their constitutional right to due process to deprive them of what they say is the only drug that eases their suffering from a variety of painful conditions.

Because the two patients, Angel McClary Raich and Diane Monson, prevailed in the Ninth Circuit on their Commerce Clause argument, the appeals court did not address the other issues they raised.

Advocates for medical marijuana, meanwhile, emphasized on Monday that the state laws remained in effect, meaning that state officials would not prosecute patients who used medical marijuana, and that the prospect of federal enforcement was fairly remote. Allen Hopper, a lawyer with the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, noted that the federal government handles only about 1 percent of marijuana prosecutions.

Justice Stevens, noting that "perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process," suggested that the executive branch might reclassify marijuana for medical purposes or that Congress might take up the matter.

The first option appeared quite unlikely, given the response by John P. Walters, the Bush administration's "drug czar," the director of national drug control policy. "To date, science and research have not determined that smoking a crude plant is safe or effective," his official statement said, adding, "We have a responsibility as a civilized society to ensure that the medicine Americans receive from their doctors is effective, safe and free from the pro-drug politics that are being promoted in America under the guise of medicine."

The House of Representatives is due to vote next week on an appropriations amendment that would prohibit the Justice Department from spending money to enforce federal drug laws against patients using marijuana for medical purposes. While the amendment failed last year, 19 Republicans voted for it. It was not brought to a vote in the Senate.

Mrs. Raich, one of the plaintiffs, speaking along with her husband and lawyers in a telephone news conference, said she would continue to use the marijuana that was prescribed by her doctor and is grown for her by friends. "I don't have a choice but to continue because if I stopped I would die," she said. She suffers from a wasting syndrome, among other ailments, and said that only marijuana gave her the appetite to eat enough to maintain her weight.

The women brought the case after federal agents arrived at Ms. Monson's home in 2002 and, after a three-hour standoff, seized and destroyed her six plants. The two women sued for a declaration that the federal Controlled Substances Act did not apply to their situation.

The opinion by Justice Stevens was joined by his allies in many recent battles over federalism, Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, and by Justice Kennedy, who did not provide an explanation for his vote.

Justice Scalia, by contrast, explained himself at length. He did not sign the majority opinion, instead offering a separate concurring opinion that was no less definite in its support for federal authority.

"Where necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even those intrastate activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce," Justice Scalia said. He cited opinions from the early 1940's, after the Supreme Court rallied to support the New Deal and gave Congress a degree of power over national affairs that was not seriously challenged until the Rehnquist Court began invalidating federal laws in the mid-1990's.

Chief Justice Rehnquist was one of the dissenters on Monday. He and Justice Clarence Thomas joined a dissenting opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissenting opinion.

As a prime mover of the court's federalism revolution, Justice O'Connor did not hide her dismay. The court's opinion provided a roadmap to "removing meaningful limits on the Commerce Clause" and "threatens to sweep all of productive human activity into federal regulatory reach," she said.

Justice O'Connor said that while she did not support the medical marijuana initiative as public policy, it represented the kind of innovation and "experiment" that came within the latitude the Constitution allows the states.

"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety and welfare of their citizens," she said, adding that "whatever the wisdom of California's experiment with medical marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our Commerce Clause cases require that room for experiment be protected in this case."

Justice Thomas said that "if Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything, and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

The sharpest dispute was over the meaning of two of the core decisions of the Rehnquist Court's approach to federalism. Both struck down federal laws, the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Violence Against Women Act, on the ground that they exceeded Congressional authority, and both were decided by five-member majorities that included Justices Kennedy and Scalia.

While Justice O'Connor declared that the marijuana decision was "irreconcilable" with the earlier ones, Justice Scalia disagreed. Neither of the earlier decisions "involved the power of Congress to exert control over intrastate activities in connection with a more comprehensive scheme of regulation" comparable to federal drug laws, he said.

Besides California, states allowing use of marijuana for medical purposes are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Vermont.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

2005-06-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Rejects Women's Sports Case - Yahoo! News

fulltext

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider reinstating a lawsuit that accuses federal officials of discriminating against male athletes in enforcing equal opportunities for women.

Justices without comment rejected an appeal from the National Wrestling Coaches Association and other groups that have been fighting federal policies under the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX.

At issue for the court was whether the challengers showed that the law directly caused a reduction in men's sports, and whether they should be allowed to sue federal officials.

The Supreme Court has indicated a special interest recently in Title IX, the 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funds.

In March, justices ruled 5-4 that a teacher or coach who claims sexual discrimination on behalf of others is protected from firing under the landmark law. That decision expands the scope of the law to protect whistleblowers as well as direct victims.

Then last month, the justices told a lower court to reconsider whether Michigan high schools discriminated against female athletes by scheduling their basketball and volleyball seasons during nontraditional times of the year.

The latest case involved claims that the government is forcing colleges to discriminate against male athletes, because of a requirement that the ratio of male and female athletes be similar to the overall student population.

"If unchecked, the gender quota ... will continue to cause sweeping injustices and discrimination in colleges nationwide, and is already being applied to public high schools," justices were told in a brief filed by the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.

Over the past two decades, the number of wrestling teams at NCAA schools has dropped from 363 to 222, while football teams increased from 497 to 619, according to NCAA leaders. Title IX has been blamed for part of the decline.

In addition to men's wrestling team cuts, other schools have dropped outdoor track, swimming programs and ice hockey, the court was told.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the lawsuit should have been filed against individual colleges that eliminated men's sports, not the federal government.

Title IX covers admissions, recruitment, course offerings, counseling, financial aid, student health and student housing, as well as athletics.

The case is National Wrestling Coaches Association v. Department of Education, 04-922.

Copyright � 2005 The Associated Press.

2005-05-27T11:55:00.000-05:00

It's a Video Game, and an Army Recruiter

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 2005; A25

The Army's flagging recruitment numbers are serious business. So Army officials increasingly are turning to a game for help.

It is an online, multiplayer video game that they believe will lure teenagers into Army culture, hoping both to educate them about the military and to spark interest in volunteering to serve.

The game, dubbed America's Army, employs a realistic and team-oriented approach to give players a sense of what it is like to join the Army, to train how to use weapons and then how to work together on missions. Players progress through the game and its many updates in a variety of ways, learning how to jointly accomplish military tasks while using different skills, such as fighting as an infantryman or saving lives as a medic.

First-time visitors go through weapons training on the game Web site and learn how to jump from airplanes. They are punished for their "criminal" mistakes -- such as shooting the drill instructor -- by doing time at Fort Leavenworth's prison. Then players join others from around the country on virtual missions, helping one another move through lifelike scenarios.

"We want kids to come into the Army and feel like they've already been there," said Col. Casey Wardynski, who as director of the Army's office of economic and manpower analysis came up with the idea. "A game is like a team effort, and the Army is very much a team effort. By playing an online, multiplayer game, you can get the feel of being in the Army."

Wardynski began developing the game after a similar recruiting crisis in 1999, when top Army officials were looking for a way to reach out to potential recruits with minimal cost. Wardynski wanted an economical way to counter pop-culture images of the military with a no-nonsense approach to being a soldier. The game, he decided, would provide a gateway to information and entertainment, targeting boys 14 and older.

With many potential recruits put off by images of basic training and drill sergeants, Wardynski said, the game tries to break down those barriers.

"It's designed to give them an inside view on the very fundamentals of being a soldier, and it's also designed to give them a sense of self-efficacy, that they can do it," Wardynski said. Players start out completing obstacle courses and learning how to fire realistic Army weapons, such as automatic rifles and grenade launchers. "We want them to see that they can succeed in doing this. You don't have to think what it would look like -- you can see what it looks like."

Since the game's launch in 2002, nearly 5.4 million users have registered on the game's Web site, and more than 2 million users have passed through basic training in the latest version of the game, which focuses on the Special Forces. Wardynski said the game and its nearly 20 updates have been downloaded 20 million times, and recruiters have issued almost 2 million copies of the game on CD-ROM. The Army also has licensed the game for release on Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation platforms later this year.

Although the game runs through its own Web site ( http://www.americasarmy.com/ ), its developers purposefully built privacy into the game -- no personal information is gathered from players. Army officials know how many people have registered and how they are doing within the game, but have no way to contact the players individually. There are links within the game for those who want to contact a recruiter or to learn more about the Army.

Recruiters have used the game, however, to get people to come to them. America's Army is the subject of gaming tournaments around the country, giving recruiters an opportunity to interact with people already familiar with Army basics and might be more apt to join.

Sgt. 1st Class Bo Scott, recruiting station commander in Newport News, said he was able to meet 70 people at a recent tournament he sponsored with a local college. Out of the group, one video gamer has already enlisted through his office, and another has contacted him about signing up.

There are no statistics about how many people have joined the Army because of the game, or after playing the game, but Army officials have plenty of positive anecdotes and say it can only help in a very difficult recruiting environment.

"The game is never going to overcome someone's trepidation and fears regarding the ongoing war on terror," Scott said. "But it does get some people talking to recruiters who might not have otherwise. It opens a window, and if they look in and they decide to join, great."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

2005-05-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

A Critic Takes On the Logic of Female Orgasm - New York Times

Full text

May 17, 2005
A Critic Takes On the Logic of Female Orgasm

By DINITIA SMITH
Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction.

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

Over the last four decades, scientists have come up with a variety of theories, arguing, for example, that orgasm encourages women to have sex and, therefore, reproduce or that it leads women to favor stronger and healthier men, maximizing their offspring's chances of survival.

But in a new book, Dr. Elisabeth A. Lloyd, a philosopher of science and professor of biology at Indiana University, takes on 20 leading theories and finds them wanting. The female orgasm, she argues in the book, "The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution," has no evolutionary function at all.

Rather, Dr. Lloyd says the most convincing theory is one put forward in 1979 by Dr. Donald Symons, an anthropologist.

That theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts - a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.

In that early period, the nerve and tissue pathways are laid down for various reflexes, including the orgasm, Dr. Lloyd said. As development progresses, male hormones saturate the embryo, and sexuality is defined.

In boys, the penis develops, along with the potential to have orgasms and ejaculate, while "females get the nerve pathways for orgasm by initially having the same body plan."

Nipples in men are similarly vestigial, Dr. Lloyd pointed out.

While nipples in woman serve a purpose, male nipples appear to be simply left over from the initial stage of embryonic development.

The female orgasm, she said, "is for fun."

Dr. Lloyd said scientists had insisted on finding an evolutionary function for female orgasm in humans either because they were invested in believing that women's sexuality must exactly parallel that of men or because they were convinced that all traits had to be "adaptations," that is, serve an evolutionary function.

Theories of female orgasm are significant, she added, because "men's expectations about women's normal sexuality, about how women should perform, are built around these notions."

"And men are the ones who reflect back immediately to the woman whether or not she is adequate sexually," Dr. Lloyd continued.

Central to her thesis is the fact that women do not routinely have orgasms during sexual intercourse.

She analyzed 32 studies, conducted over 74 years, of the frequency of female orgasm during intercourse.

When intercourse was "unassisted," that is not accompanied by stimulation of the clitoris, just a quarter of the women studied experienced orgasms often or very often during intercourse, she found.

Five to 10 percent never had orgasms. Yet many of the women became pregnant.

Dr. Lloyd's figures are lower than those of Dr. Alfred A. Kinsey, who in his 1953 book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" found that 39 to 47 percent of women reported that they always, or almost always, had orgasm during intercourse.

But Kinsey, Dr. Lloyd said, included orgasms assisted by clitoral stimulation.

Dr. Lloyd said there was no doubt in her mind that the clitoris was an evolutionary adaptation, selected to create excitement, leading to sexual intercourse and then reproduction.

But, "without a link to fertility or reproduction," Dr. Lloyd said, "orgasm cannot be an adaptation."

Not everyone agrees. For example, Dr. John Alcock, a professor of biology at Arizona State University, criticized an earlier version of Dr. Lloyd's thesis, discussed in in a 1987 article by Stephen Jay Gould in the magazine Natural History.

In a phone interview, Dr. Alcock said that he had not read her new book, but that he still maintained the hypothesis that the fact that "orgasm doesn't occur every time a woman has intercourse is not evidence that it's not adaptive."

"I'm flabbergasted by the notion that orgasm has to happen every time to be adaptive," he added.

Dr. Alcock theorized that a woman might use orgasm "as an unconscious way to evaluate the quality of the male," his genetic fitness and, thus, how suitable he would be as a father for her offspring.

"Under those circumstances, you wouldn't expect her to have it every time," Dr. Alcock said.

Among the theories that Dr. Lloyd addresses in her book is one proposed in 1993, by Dr. R. Robin Baker and Dr. Mark A. Bellis, at Manchester University in England. In two papers published in the journal Animal Behaviour, they argued that female orgasm was a way of manipulating the retention of sperm by creating suction in the uterus. When a woman has an orgasm from one minute before the man ejaculates to 45 minutes after, she retains more sperm, they said.

Furthermore, they asserted, when a woman has intercourse with a man other than her regular sexual partner, she is more likely to have an orgasm in that prime time span and thus retain more sperm, presumably making conception more likely. They postulated that women seek other partners in an effort to obtain better genes for their offspring.

Dr. Lloyd said the Baker-Bellis argument was "fatally flawed because their sample size is too small."

"In one table," she said, "73 percent of the data is based on the experience of one person."

In an e-mail message recently, Dr. Baker wrote that his and Dr. Bellis's manuscript had "received intense peer review appraisal" before publication. Statisticians were among the reviewers, he said, and they noted that some sample sizes were small, "but considered that none of these were fatal to our paper."

Dr. Lloyd said that studies called into question the logic of such theories. Research by Dr. Ludwig Wildt and his colleagues at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany in 1998, for example, found that in a healthy woman the uterus undergoes peristaltic contractions throughout the day in the absence of sexual intercourse or orgasm. This casts doubt, Dr. Lloyd argues, on the idea that the contractions of orgasm somehow affect sperm retention.

Another hypothesis, proposed in 1995 by Dr. Randy Thornhill, a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico and two colleagues, held that women were more likely to have orgasms during intercourse with men with symmetrical physical features. On the basis of earlier studies of physical attraction, Dr. Thornhill argued that symmetry might be an indicator of genetic fitness.

Dr. Lloyd, however, said those conclusions were not viable because "they only cover a minority of women, 45 percent, who say they sometimes do, and sometimes don't, have orgasm during intercourse."

"It excludes women on either end of the spectrum," she said. "The 25 percent who say they almost always have orgasm in intercourse and the 30 percent who say they rarely or never do. And that last 30 percent includes the 10 percent who say they never have orgasm under any circumstances."

In a phone interview, Dr. Thornhill said that he had not read Dr. Lloyd's book but the fact that not all women have orgasms during intercourse supports his theory.

"There will be patterns in orgasm with preferred and not preferred men," he said.

Dr. Lloyd also criticized work by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, who studies primate behavior and female reproductive strategies.

Scientists have documented that orgasm occurs in some female primates; for other mammals, whether orgasm occurs remains an open question.

In the 1981 book "The Woman That Never Evolved" and in her other work, Dr. Hrdy argues that orgasm evolved in nonhuman primates as a way for the female to protect her offspring from the depredation of males.

She points out that langur monkeys have a high infant mortality rate, with 30 percent of deaths a result of babies' being killed by males who are not the fathers. Male langurs, she says, will not kill the babies of females they have mated with.

In macaques and chimpanzees, she said, females are conditioned by the pleasurable sensations of clitoral stimulation to keep copulating with multiple partners until they have an orgasm. Thus, males do not know which infants are theirs and which are not and do not attack them.

Dr. Hrdy also argues against the idea that female orgasm is an artifact of the early parallel development of male and female embryos.

"I'm convinced," she said, "that the selection of the clitoris is quite separate from that of the penis in males."

In critiquing Dr. Hrdy's view, Dr. Lloyd disputes the idea that longer periods of sexual intercourse lead to a higher incidence of orgasm, something that if it is true, may provide an evolutionary rationale for female orgasm.

But Dr. Hrdy said her work did not speak one way or another to the issue of female orgasm in humans. "My hypothesis is silent," she said.

One possibility, Dr. Hrdy said, is that orgasm in women may have been an adaptive trait in our prehuman ancestors.

"But we separated from our common primate ancestors about seven million years ago," she said.

"Perhaps the reason orgasm is so erratic is that it's phasing out," Dr. Hrdy said. "Our descendants on the starships may well wonder what all the fuss was about."

Western culture is suffused with images of women's sexuality, of women in the throes of orgasm during intercourse and seeming to reach heights of pleasure that are rare, if not impossible, for most women in everyday life.

"Accounts of our evolutionary past tell us how the various parts of our body should function," Dr. Lloyd said.

If women, she said, are told that it is "natural" to have orgasms every time they have intercourse and that orgasms will help make them pregnant, then they feel inadequate or inferior or abnormal when they do not achieve it.

"Getting the evolutionary story straight has potentially very large social and personal consequences for all women," Dr. Lloyd said. "And indirectly for men, as well."

2005-04-10T17:13:00.000-05:00

The Independent: Dandruff is as bad for the Earth as it is for your Image

2005-04-06T19:22:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Health | Cannabis chemical 'helps heart'

2004-07-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

The Great Blogroll Spring Cleaning, pt. 2

nosey online
Description: liberal poliblog, mostly a linker
Category: poliblog

Not Geniuses
Description: liberal to moderate poliblog, has been moving left for awhile
Category: poliblog

Notes on the Atrocities
Description: liberalish poliblog, lots of content
Category: poliblog

Nurse Ratched's Notebook
Description: Lefty poliblog with a dark sense of humor; lean postings lately
Category: poliblog

Obsidian Wings
Description: Despite the name, it's a good blog-serious comment on current events. moderate liberal/libertarian republican mix multiblog.
Category: poliblog

One Hand Clapping
Description: Conservative poliblog, sometimes manages to say something sensible.
Category: poliblog, A-lis

Open Source Politics
Description: Geek-centric group liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog

Orcinis
Description: Freelance journalist's somewhat snarky liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog, A-list

Pandagon
Description: Liberal poliblog,
Category: A-list

PEA Soup
Description: group academic philosoblog focused on ethics
Category: philosoblog

Peter Levine
Description: Sort of philosophy, sort of public policy, occasionally current events
Category: philosoblog

Philosophy from the (617)
Description: Apparently defunct philosoblog
Category: philosoblog

Philosoraptor
Description: Not really a philosoblog. Looks at current events using the methodology of analytic philosophy. Yea!
Category: poliblog

Political Animal
Description: Kevin Drum sells out and moves up. (If you don't change at all, is that really selling out?)
Category: A-list, poliblog

Political Wire
Description: Political news for political junkies
Category: poliblog

The Poor Man
Description: Liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog, almost A-list

Power Line
Description: Conservative group blog, pithy, reasonably sane, not too snarky
Category: poliblog

Pro-War dot com
Description: snarkish liberal blog
Category: poliblog

Pseudopodium
Description: Like L'Alpe de Huez, psuedopodium is beyond category
Category: Literablog

randomWalks
Description: group radical poliblog
Category: poliblog

rawblogXport
Description: labor linker extraordinaire
Category: labor

Real Live Preacher
Description: Essays from a real live preacher
Category: Literablog

The Red Pages
Description: Joshua Norton II, Emporer of the United States and Protector of Mexico, blogfights with A Small Victory.
Category: poliblog

Strip Mining for Whimsy
Description: Emporer Joshua Norton gets autobiographical on your ass.
Category: literablog

Rick's Café Americain
Description: sometime comedian has a bloggy blog with some politics
Category: bloggy blog

The Road to Surfdom
Description: Ex-pat Australian living in the U.S. has a liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog, A-list

Roger Ailes
Description: snarky liberal commentary
Category: poliblog

Rook's Rant
Description: Snarky liberal links/rants/chess moves
Category: poliblog

Rubber Hose
Description: liberalish poliblog
Category: poliblog

Running from the Thought Police
Description: C/U based liberal blog (from a catholic)
Category: poliblog

Safety Neal's Fireside Chat
Description: Neal
Category: peeps

Samizdata
Description: Armed libertarian group blog with a clever but inappropriate name
Category: poliblog

Sapphos Breathing
Description: bloggy blog philosofemiblog
Category: philosoblog

Sarah's Chess Journal
Description: A chess history blog, with an eye towards women in chess. Recently underwent an unfortunate facelift, but current interface problems may be temporary.
Category: Chessblog

Scott Rosenberg
Description: Salon writer dips his ink in the blogwell. Does technology and politics
Category: poliblog, techblog

Rallblog
Description: Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall's blog
Category: poliblog

Seeing the Forest
Description: Earnest and contenful group blog by some liberals on a mission
Category: poliblog

SistersTalk
Description: liberal poliblog with an eye for issues relevant to women of color
Category: poliblog

2004-07-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

Blogroll Spring Cleaning, Episode I

I'm going through my blogroll as part of a barely conceived effort to make this page more usefull to me. What follows is, well, it's probably pretty obvious.

On the off chance that any of the bloggers I've linked to stop by and think my description is wrong, feel free to comment in the Submit a Link field above.

Here goes.

A Book Inside Me
Description: "Publish the book that I have not writen yet"
Category: Literablogging

A Daily Dose of Architecture
Description: daily postings on happenings in the world of architecture
Category: Peeps, art&culture

Abject Funk
Description: lefty political blog, moderate posting tending towards original thought
Category: poliblog

Africa Pundit
Description: Started out as an instapundit style news blog from Africa, but posting is extremely light.
Category: poliblog

The Agitator
Description: Libertarian leaning balko blog with occasional guest postings. A bit of a know it all hothead
Category: poliblog

Alas! A blog
Description: Another cartoonist with a blog. Lefty politics with special attention to women's issues.
Category: poliblog

Always Low Prices
Description: group blog about everything wal-mart. Tends to be pro-wallly, but they're open to posters who have alternate opinions.
Category: poliblog

Ambivalent Imbroglio
Description: Todd Chatman's law school blog
Category: peeps, social commentary, bloggy blog

American Samizdat
Description: Lefty poliblog
Category: poliblog

Andrew Sullivan
Description: Gay Republican comes to grips with his inner social liberal
Category: poliblog, A-list

Angry Bear
Description: liberalish economist has a blog
Category: poliblog, economoblog

Art Machine
Description: Everything from star trek to netflix to culture to leftyish social commentary
Category: bloggy blog, random

Blaugistine
Description: art-centric lefty poliblog
Category: poliblog, art&culture

Billmon's Whiskey Bar
Description: In depth analysis of current events from a smart liberal
Category: poliblog, A-list

Boing! Boing!
Description: a directory of wonderful things
Category: Coolio, A-list

Busy Busy Busy
Description: left leaning shorter than short summaries of current events.
Category: satire, A-list

Certain doubts
Description: blog devoted to epistemology; lots of high dollar academic contributors
Category: philosoblog

China Herald
Description: English language blog from Shanghai; focuses on issues at the interface of technology and politics
Category: poliblog?

Turning the Tide
Description: Billed as a blog by Noam Chomsky, but it's mostly just an editor recycling things that he wrote elsewhere. Comments are back.
Category: poliblog

Cold Fury
Description: Yet another political cartoonist's blog. Think Mallard Filmore meets Tank McNamara.
Category: Toonblog

The Command Post
Description: wingnut news and comment
Category: poliblog, A-list

Shameless Agitator
Description: Lefty links plus the weekly "Shameless Agitator Award"
Category: poliblog

Confined Space
Description: Blog dedicated to workplace safety issues
Category: Labor

Corrente
Description: snarky liberal group blog focused on current events
Category: poliblog

Counterbias
Description: Lefty news and views, formatted to look like an online magazine
Category: poliblog

Cowgirl Funk (Superhero)
Description: leftish poliblog
Category: poliblog

Creative Class Warfare
Description: liberal poliblog from a person with a degree in Canadian Studies
Category: poliblog

Critical Viewer
Description: Champaign/Urbana based liberal poliblog - slim postings lately
Category: poliblog

Crooked Timber
Description: Academic group blog with some politics, social commentary, and philosophy
Category: poliblog, philosoblog, A-list

The Daily Dilley
Description: lefty links
Category: poliblog, peeps

Daily Kos
Description: THE liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog, A-list

dailysoy
Description: Eric Bohn's J-E translator blog
Category: peeps, bloggy blog

Daniel Drezner
Description: socially moderate conservative (libertarianish) poli-sci professor's current events blog
Category: poliblog, A-list

Deliberative Democracy
Description: seldom updated academic blog dedicated to issues in the study of deliberative democracy
Category: philosoblog

DeLong
Description: moderate liberal economist's poliblog
Category: econoblog, poliblog, A-list

Demosthenes
Description: liberal poliblog, postings are all over the map, somewhat infrequent
Category: poliblog

Discourse
Description: Law Prof Michael Froomkin's liberal current events blog
Category: poliblog, A-list

Dohiyi Mir
Description: " A non-violent, counter-dominant, left-liberal, possibly charismatic, quasi anarcho-libertarian Quaker's take on politics, bicycling, and other esoterica." But what ever happened to the first ever bloggers chess match?
Category: poliblog

Donkey Rising
Description: Ruy Teixeira's "Emerging Democratic Majority" blog. Very much a mainstream Democratic blog -- like KOS but more so.
Category: poliblog

Dreyfuss Report
Description: progressive investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss' national security blog, hosted by tompaine.com
Category: poliblog

Dru Blood
Description: A radical poliblog from the randomwalks family. I think the blogger is a punk rocker from Austin.
Category: poliblog

Electrolite
Description: Sci-fi editor's left leaning poliblog. Light posting lately.
Category: poliblog

Empire Notes
Description: Rahul Mahajan kicks some foreign policy ass.
Category: poliblog

Eschaton
Description: Atrios' mainstream Democratic poliblog. Yes, the name is from Infinite Jest
Category: poliblog, A-list

ex-lion tamer
Description: quick hitting lefty poliblog
Category: poliblog

Examined Live
Description: Original blog of some of the Crooked Timber crew, ex-pat philosophers living in Singapore. Equal parts cultural criticism, philosophy, politcs, and cooking
Category: poliblog, philosoblog, A-list

Fake Barn Country
Description: Get it? It's a gettier joke. Ok, it's a post-gettier joke. Anyway, this is a group blog by the grad philosophy students at Brown.
Category: philosoblog

Feminisms, Technologies and Rhetorics
Description: bloggy blog with a significant dollop of cultural criticism
Category: peeps, art&culture

First Draft
Description: Liberal writer's writing blog
Category: Literablog

For the Record
Description: U. Michigan philosopher's left leaning poliblog
Category: poliblog

funferal
Description: Lefty poliblog focusing on cultural and media criticism and Irish politics
Category: poliblog, peeps

Goldberg and Guthrie
Description: Illinois based two man liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog

Goodbye Maggie
Description: "A multi-author commentary on economic vision beyond capitalism, especially participatory economics."
Category: poliblog, econoblog

GRIMamusements
Description: Liberalish political commentary
Category: poliblog

Intel Dump
Description: Ex-army officer, future lawyer blogs about military affairs. Seems liberalish, but maybe that's just because Bush sucks so hard.
Category: poliblog, milblog, A-list

Iraq'd
Description: TNR's Spencer Ackerman on all things Iraq
Category: poliblog, A-list

Island of Balta
Description: liberal current events poliblog
Category: poliblog

It's No Accident
Description: poliblog from a lefty activist
Category: poliblog

John Quiggen
Description: Bearded Australian economist from the Crooked Timber crew has a liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog, econoblog, A-list

Journal in the Flesh
Description: startup liberal blog focused on education issues
Category: poliblog, bloggy blog

Informed Comment
Description: UM History Prof Juan Cole knows a thing or two about the Middle East
Category: poliblog, A-list

K Marx The Spot
Description: Puts the "left" in Lefty poliblog
Category: poliblog

Kathryn Cramer
Description: Sci-fi editor turned lefty blogger/investigative reporter
Category: poliblog

Kilroy was here
Description: poliblog focused on democratic politics and vote markets
Category: poliblog

The Joe Hill Dispatch
Description: Labor news blog
Category: Labor

Artichoke Heart
Description: Feminist poet's blog
Category: Art&Culture, Literablog, bloggy blog

Lean Left
Description: Left leaning group blog
Category: poliblog

Left Wing Liberal Commie Agitator
Description: The name says it all.
Category: poliblog

Liberal Media Conspiracy
Description: Liberal current events criticism
Category: poliblog

Long Story, Short Pier
Description: Thoughtful, leftish blog with a mix of political and cultural comment -- and a sense of humor
Category: poliblog

Matthew Yglesias
Description: One time philosophy student, current liberal journalist
Category: poliblog, A-list

Legal Fiction
Description: Legal commentarity from a law clerk in the South
Category: poliblog, lawblog

Max Speak!
Description: liberalish economist blogs about current events
Category: econoblog, poliblog, A-list

Mediaocracy
Description: media watch blog with a health dollop of concern for economic issues.
Category: poliblog

Milblog
Description: conservative leaning blog focused on current events
Category: poliblog, bloggy blog

Moooooo
Description: snarky liberalish poliblog, infrequent posting lately
Category: poliblog

Mun Mun
Description: mostly poetry
Category: Literablog

Nathan Newman
Description: Left leaning poliblog from a union/community activist lawyer with academic interests in ecomics and technology
Category: poliblog

ncfocus
Description: liberal poliblog, intermittent posting
Category: poliblog

News Dissector
Description: Left leaning media watch blog
Category: Mediablog

No More Mister Nice Blog
Description: Liberal poliblog
Category: poliblog

2004-07-09T13:50:00.000-05:00

The Seattle Times | Contract accepted at Boeing's Wichita plant:

'We made some gains — that is the important thing,' SPEEA Midwest director Bob Brewer said after announcing the vote count, but added, 'We still have a lot of work to do. We are not done yet.'

Boeing spokesman Dick Ziegler said, 'We were sure we had a good contract on the table that met both the employees' needs and the company's requirements. We are exceptionally satisfied that they agreed.'

Among those voting yes was Cheri Urban, who has worked at Boeing for 25 years. Two years ago, her husband was laid off from his Boeing job. He now works as a painter, making half of his aerospace salary.

'I feel the fear of striking. I am not happy with the offer — it stinks,' Urban said. 'But we have been in a situation the last two years where we are trying to survive.'

The union had told its membership it did not believe further negotiation gains were possible without a strike.

2004-07-07T10:15:00.000-05:00

Pentagon Deputy's Probes in Iraq Weren't Authorized, Officials Say

A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and documents.

2004-07-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

memeorandum: Archive Edition for Tuesday, July 6, 2004

The New York Post: "John Kerry has chosen Rep. Richard Gephardt, the veteran congressman from Missouri, to be his running mate, The Post has learned. Gephardt, 63, a 28-year veteran of the House of Representatives, could be named by the presumptive Democratic nominee as the party's vice-presidential candidate as soon as today."