Altidore Hears U.S. Coach’s Message to Get Tough

Abstract: In some quarters, Jurgen Klinsmann’s admonition that the United States national team needs to be less gentle has been discussed and dissected, called unsporting by some, too cynical and severe by others. Klinsmann, a former star with Germany’s national team and on the club level with teams like Bayern Munich and Tottenham Hotspur, will announce on Sunday his roster for two World Cup qualifiers against Jamaica spread over five days. “I understand where he’s coming from — you have to make it harder for teams to beat us,” striker Jozy Altidore , who is expected to be named to the roster, said Friday. Altidore, 22, has one bit of business to attend to before leaving the Netherlands for trips to the United States and then to Kingston for Friday’s Concacaf qualifying game. Speaking by telephone from his home in Alkmaar before his AZ club’s trip to Eindhoven to play P.S.V. on Sunday, he said it was time to stop being Messrs. Nice Guy on the soccer field. “It’s also going to take time; it won’t come overnight,” Altidore said, referring to sharpening an edge that, while not nasty, is certainly not nice. “I guess it’s not in our nature to be that way,” he continued, adding, however, that he thought the team would get Klinsmann’s message. “I don’t think he’s saying we need to be nasty, just that we have to have this intensity,” Altidore said. “As people, we can be great guys off the field, but when we step on the field we have to be tough. That doesn’t define you as a person, but on the field we don’t have to be nice guys. “I don’t mean stepping and guys and things like that. But people have to understand that we’re here to win and make a statement. We have a ways to go.” AZ is off to a respectable start in the Dutch Eredivisie, with a win and two draws, and with Altidore scoring four of his club’s five goals. After finishing fourth in the league last season, AZ qualified for the early stages of the Europa League but saw its hope of advancing to the group stage of Europe’s second-tier club tournament come to a stunning end when it lost to the Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala by 1-0 in Moscow and then was crushed, 5-0, at home Thursday . When it comes to the national team, Klinsmann and American fans have in a sense been waiting for Altidore to emerge as a full-throated and consistent threat on the front line. As the European season was just getting under way, Klinsmann decided not to call in many players from his foreign legion, including Altidore, for the match at Mexico on Aug. 11, a 1-0 win in Estadio Azteca that was the first by the United States against Mexico on Mexican soil. “I saw most of the game on TV — I stayed up for it — and I’m just happy for a lot of guys on the roster,” Altidore said. “Everyone was all saying how it was a weak team, but that shows how much depth we have.” Asked if he felt threatened or challenged by the emergence of national team strikers like Herculez Gomez and Terrence Boyd, Altidore applied a positive spin. “The way I see the national team is different than a lot of people,” he said. “I’m more than happy to represent my country. It is bigger than me and what I want to do individually. It is a collective thing. There are things we can accomplish that what no other American team can. In terms of claiming spots, I just want to do what I can to help team the on the field.” While Altidore is almost certain to be called up by Klinsmann, the United States coach is again likely to be without three key players: a fully fit Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Landon Donovan. On Friday, Dempsey finally completed a long-awaited transfer, from Fulham to Tottenham in England’s Premier League. Bradley, just settling in with Roma of Italy’s Serie A, sustained an injury during training last week and will not be available. Neither played against Mexico. Donovan sustained a hamstring injury against Mexico and has not played since for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. The United States and Jamaica each have 4 points in their regional semifinal four-team qualifying group . After Friday’s game in Jamaica (the first away game that will be available only on the Al Jazeera-owned beIN Sport network ), the teams have a quick turnaround for a match in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 11. For Jamaica, Coach Theodore Whitmore has called in a squad that relies heavily on players on M.L.S. clubs: 9 of 24, including the former Red Bulls midfielder Dane Richards (Vancouver), Lovel Palmer (Portland), Shavar Thomas (Montreal), JeVaughn Watson (Houston) and Ryan Johnson (Toronto). “Jamaica, first and foremost, has pace,” Altidore said. “It’s a quick team that could be very good. A lot of people may misjudge them, but we have to take them seriously. They’ve got a lot of guys who can hurt you.” To neutralize their speed, he said, the United States team must “keep the ball and keep them on their heels.” Notes In addition to Clint Dempsey in England, two other United States national team veterans have new teams. Defender Carlos Bocanegra made his escape from Glasgow Rangers, who were relegated to the fourth division in Scotland after declaring bankruptcy, and was sent on a one-year loan to Racing Santander in Spain’s second division. Oguchi Onyewu was also signed for a one-year loan, to Málaga in Spain from Porto in Portugal.

United States Men's National Soccer Team


Glenn Beck to Charge Fee for Online Show

Abstract: Glenn Beck is planning to charge his fans a monthly subscription for his daily talk show online starting this summer, as he makes the move from being a Fox News host to the owner of his own Internet network. On Tuesday, Mr. Beck will announce a first-of-its-kind effort to take a popular — but also fiercely polarizing — television show and turn it into its own subscription enterprise. It is an adaptation of the business models of both HBO and Netflix for one man’s personal brand — and a huge risk, as he and his staff members acknowledged in interviews in recent days. “I think we might be a little early,” Mr. Beck said of his plan for the Internet network, called GBTV, which will cost $5 to $10. “But I’d rather be ahead of the pack than part of it.” The business decision by Mr. Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, hinges on an expectation that more and more people will figure out how to view online shows on their TV sets through set-top boxes and video game consoles — and that they will subscribe directly to their favorite brands. Eventually, Mr. Beck said, his goal is to have an array of scripted and unscripted shows alongside his own daily show, which will simply be titled “Glenn Beck” and will run for two hours on weekday afternoons. “If you’re a fan of Jon Stewart , you’re going to find something on GBTV that you’re going to enjoy,” Mr. Beck said. “If you’re a fan of ‘24,’ you’re going to find something on GBTV that you’re going to enjoy.” What GBTV will not be, he and his associates emphasized, is a news channel. Mr. Beck is leaving the Fox News Channel, a unit of the News Corporation , on June 30 after two and a half years of regular clashes with management. One Fox executive, Joel Cheatwood, is moving with him to GBTV; Mr. Cheatwood, who started at Mercury in April, will be the Internet network’s president for programming. Mr. Cheatwood said he was attracted by the chance to pioneer “a different platform of media.” The Web, he said, “really is where the growth exists.” GBTV will be accessible starting Tuesday when Mr. Beck talks about it on his three-hour radio show (which he will keep doing). One of its first features will be a behind-the-scenes show about the making of the network, somewhat akin to the behind-the-scenes show on Oprah Winfrey ’s cable channel about the final season of her syndicated talk show. Then, on Sept. 12, “Glenn Beck” will begin. The two-hour show will be scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern time, the same time as Mr. Beck’s current show on Fox, putting him in direct competition with whoever replaces him at the cable news channel. But because it will stream only over the Internet, and not be shown on television, it is not a violation of his exit agreement with Fox. And Mr. Beck’s representatives note that the show will be available on-demand on the Internet, further reducing the competitive element. The on-demand nature of an Internet network was one of the appeals to Mr. Beck and the president of Mercury, Chris Balfe. Also appealing, Mr. Balfe said, was not having to worry about whether the shows that lead into and out of Mr. Beck’s show have “exactly the same sort of tone.” (That was perceived to be a problem at Fox, since Mr. Beck’s conservative sermons and speeches at 5 p.m. were followed by a straightforward political newscast at 6 p.m.) The lead-in and lead-outs do not matter, Mr. Balfe said, because “we’re not trying to keep viewers, we’re trying to please subscribers.” Mr. Beck pointed out another potential advantage: “It’s my network, so if I want the show to run 2 hours and 15 minutes one night, it will.” Fox has declined to comment about what program or host will replace Mr. Beck in the 5 p.m. time slot. In 2009, Mr. Beck more than doubled the ratings in the time slot when he moved to Fox from HLN, a unit of Time Warner that was previously known as Headline News. But he also created many headaches for Fox, and the split, announced in April, was said to be mutual. The exit agreement between Fox and Mr. Beck is so strict that his representatives said they could not talk about Fox in any detail. But Mr. Balfe said of the Internet network plan, “I think if we were still at Headline News at this point, we would have been thinking about leaving at the end of this deal and creating our own thing. This wasn’t about being at Fox, this was about doing something different.” Earlier this year, at the same time Mr. Beck and his representatives considered starting a full-fledged Internet network, they considered taking over part or all of a cable channel. Mr. Balfe said some informal conversations about such a takeover took place this spring. He did not rule out such a move in the future, but there are no indications that Mr. Beck has any immediate television plans, beyond the occasional special. To power GBTV, Mr. Beck’s company has teamed with MLB Advanced Media, the interactive arm of Major League Baseball, which streams hundreds of games to online users each year. It also has a deal with Clear Channel, its radio partner, to promote the online network. GBTV will cost $4.95 a month for subscribers who want to watch only Mr. Beck’s two-hour show, and $9.95 a month for subscribers who want access to all of GBTV. “We want to create a network that has more than just Glenn’s show,” Mr. Balfe said, talking generally but ambitiously about acquiring scripted programming in the future — assuming enough subscribers sign up to justify the costs. Richard Greenfield, a media analyst for BTIG Research who was briefed on Mercury’s plans, said that while “GBTV may sacrifice the near-term financial rewards that working in the traditional ecosystem provide, full ownership — no longer beholden to the content gatekeepers at the major media companies — and complete creative control to exploit content across all platforms globally could create far more value over time for Glenn and his company.”

Glenn Beck
Price
News media,journalism
E Commerce


Microsoft Expands Effort to Protect Nonprofit Groups

Abstract: MOSCOW — Microsoft is vastly expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using software piracy inquiries as a pretext to suppress dissent. It plans to provide free software licenses to more than 500,000 advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China. With the new program in place, authorities in these countries would have no legal basis for accusing these groups of installing pirated Microsoft software. Microsoft began overhauling its antipiracy policy after The New York Times reported last month that private lawyers retained by the company had often supported law enforcement officials in Russia in crackdowns on outspoken advocacy groups and opposition newspapers. At first, Microsoft responded to the article by apologizing and saying it would focus on protecting these organizations in Russia from such inquiries. But it is now extending the program to other countries: eight former Soviet republics — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — as well as China, Malaysia and Vietnam. Microsoft executives said they would consider adding more. “We clearly have a very strong interest in ensuring that any antipiracy activities are being done for the purpose of reducing illegal piracy, and not for other purposes,” said Nancy J. Anderson, a deputy general counsel and vice president at Microsoft. “Under the terms of our new nongovernmental organization software license, we will definitely not have any claims and not pursue any claims against nongovernmental organizations.” Software piracy inquiries against advocacy groups and media outlets in other former Soviet republics are less common than in Russia, but they have occurred. This year, the police in Kyrgyzstan raided an independent television station, and its employees said a lawyer retained by Microsoft had played a role. In China, experts said they were not aware of many cases. They pointed out that if the security services wanted to hound or close advocacy groups, they had many other ways of doing so. But China has been a minefield for American technology companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which have grappled with the country’s Internet censorship, and it appears that Microsoft is hoping to avoid new controversies there. Microsoft’s offer “will surely promote the health of nongovernmental organizations in China,” said Lu Fei, director of a clearinghouse for these groups. Software piracy is widespread in the 12 countries covered by the new program, and Microsoft has long urged governments to curb it. But in Russia, officials used the intellectual property laws against dissenters. The security services in Russia have confiscated computers from dozens of advocacy organizations in recent years under the guise of antipiracy inquiries. Some of these groups did have illegal software, and the authorities have said they are carrying out legitimate efforts to curtail software piracy. But they almost never investigate organizations allied with the government. Microsoft had long rejected requests from human-rights groups that it refrain from taking part in such cases, saying it was merely complying with Russian law. But now, the organizations would be automatically granted the software licenses without even having to apply for them, meaning that any programs that they possessed would effectively be legalized. That essentially bars the company’s lawyers from assisting the police in piracy inquiries against the groups. Ms. Anderson of Microsoft said the company was trying to quickly prepare the automatic licenses for the 12 countries, a process that includes translating them, ensuring that they comply with local laws and disseminating them to the authorities. Microsoft already provides actual copies of software free to some nonprofit groups. It said that in its last fiscal year, it gave out half a billion dollars worth of programs in more than 100 countries. But it has also found that this policy is not well known in some countries. In Russia, nonprofit groups said they had already noticed a striking change in Microsoft’s attitude toward these piracy cases. In one notorious inquiry, plainclothes police officers raided a group in Siberia, Baikal Environmental Wave , and seized its computers in January. Baikal Wave’s leaders said they had used only licensed software, but they were unable to get help from Microsoft. The case was a focus of the article last month in The Times. After it was published, Microsoft gave Baikal Wave free updated versions of software for all its computers and asked the police to drop the inquiry. The police have not yet formally done so, but Baikal Wave said it was pleased with Microsoft’s reaction and the new program of automatic software licenses. “The security services will now know that they will not be able to harass nonprofit and human rights organizations and take their computers,” said Galina Kulebyakina, a co-chairwoman of Baikal Wave. “It is outrageous what they did, and now that will no longer happen to others.”

Microsoft Corp
Copyrights and Copyright Violations
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Russia
Nonprofit Organizations


Israel and U.S. Conduct Missile Test in Mediterranean

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Israel and the United States tested a new air-defense system on Tuesday morning, launching a missile from deep in the Mediterranean Sea that caused consternation in Syria and Russia given the heightened tension in the region as the Obama administration weighs a military strike in Syria. Israel’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the first test of the latest version of the so-called Sparrow target missile had been successful, with the missile following its planned trajectory toward the Israeli coast and the Arrow radar system detecting and tracking its path. Myriam Nahon, a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry, declined to answer questions about whether the test had been connected in any way to the situation in Syria, saying only that such tests are “conducted periodically,” and “it happens whenever it has to happen.” In Washington, the Pentagon said in a statement that it had provided technical assistance and support to the Israelis for the Sparrow test launch. The statement said the test had nothing to do with American preparations for possible military action against Syria. “The test was long planned to help the Arrow Ballistic Missile Defense system’s ability to detect, track and communicate information about a simulated threat to Israel,” the statement said. Arieh Herzog, the former head of Israel’s missile-defense program, said the test was “a routine part of what is done in the development of the defense systems.” “In regular days the Russians would not see it,” Mr. Herzog said. “But right now they have probably many sensors looking at the region, so each and every movement or flying object in the region is something that they look at and try to understand what happens. They may be thinking that it may be something that is connected to the Syrian situation, but it is not.” Image Israel conducted a successful test of its Arrow missile defense system in December 2005. Credit Israel Aircraft Industries, via Associated Press On its Facebook page, the Defense Ministry posted a 33-second video of a jet releasing the missile and said in its statement that “all the elements of the system performed according to their operational configuration.” Commenting on the missile test, Moshe Yaalon, the defense minister of Israel, said on Army Radio that the preparedness by the Israel Defense Forces over the past week was “founded on many technological capabilities, which need to be tested by the defense establishment and the army, and indeed a successful test was held.” He also said: “Our systems need to be examined and we will continue to develop, share and provide the IDF with the best systems in the world.” Mr. Yaalon added that Israel had not been involved in the American policy process regarding Syria and noted that given the postponement of any possible military strike, the army had released some of the reservists called up last week. Syrian state media said there had been no missile detected by Syrian forces. Syrian supporters of the uprising briefly shared a flurry of excited messages on Twitter, viewing it as a sign of preparations for an attack and mocking the Syrian government, noting that its military had famously not mentioned detecting Israeli missiles and warplanes in various incidents over the years — from the bombing of Syrian arms stores during the civil war to the attack on a suspected nuclear site several years ago. In Russia, the missile launch was first reported by the RIA Novosti state news agency, which announced early Tuesday afternoon that Russian radar had detected the launch of what it called two ballistic missiles in the Mediterranean Sea, giving no further clarification. The announcement set off breathless conjecture on Russian news sites and social media networks of an American strike against Syria. Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, was reported to have briefed President Vladimir V. Putin about the missile launch, even as the lack of details in state media reports raised the question of whether Russian officials knew precisely what had occurred. The reports from the Russian Ministry of Defense said rockets had been launched more than two hours before the news broke and yet the missiles had not seemed to hit any target in the region. When the missiles were reported to have crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, the Interfax news service cited a source in the Russian Navy suggesting that the launch may have been a meteorological experiment.

Syria
Arab Spring
Israel
US Navy
Mediterranean Sea
Barack Obama
Russia


Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes From Across Canada

Abstract: It’s quieter. It’s earlier. And it’s locally grown. (Sort of.) Canada’s Thanksgiving, which takes place on Monday, is little known in the United States, although turkey, stuffing and televised football also dominate the day there. But the holiday’s northern version has its own origins and regional dishes. Some Canadians argue that their Thanksgiving honors the fateful 1578 voyage of the English explorer Martin Frobisher, who was seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Separated from his fleet in a July storm, Frobisher and his crew abandoned hope, only to be reunited weeks later north of Labrador. They held a service to give thanks, and tucked into the standard fare on 16th-century English ships: salt beef, ship biscuits and peas, according to Dorothy Duncan, author of the cookbook “Nothing More Comforting: Canada’s Heritage Food.” Nova Scotia appears to have taken the idea of a harvest festival from the pre-revolutionary American Colonies during the 1750s. Loyalists who went north after the American Revolution also brought the celebration with them. In 1859, the colony of Canada proclaimed its first day of thanksgiving. Parliament passed legislation in 1957 making Thanksgiving Day an annual holiday, celebrated on the second Monday of October. Below are examples of dishes from each of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories. For Thanksgiving recipes from across the United States, look here . British Columbia: Roasted Heirloom Squash with Mushrooms and Montaña Cheese Fonduta Filling Image Credit Jillian Tamaki Autumn brings glorious sunny days and bursts of rain to British Columbia, setting off an eruption of mushrooms along the coast: pine or matsutake, lobster, porcini, cauliflower mushrooms and delicate golden fungi known as hen of the woods. In Vancouver, a city known for its farmers’ markets, Andrea Carlson, the chef and owner of Burdock & Co., takes members of her staff on mushroom-foraging parties for Thanksgiving weekend. This recipe incorporates their trove into a supremely autumnal dish. The earthy flavor and texture of the mushrooms, roasted in an heirloom squash, are balanced by a sauce made from aged sheep’s milk cheese (she buys Montaña from the nearby Salt Spring Island Cheese Company ). Choose an heirloom squash like kabocha that can feed everyone at your Thanksgiving table. Saskatchewan: Red Lentil Soup Image Credit Jillian Tamaki Over the last few decades, the prairies of Saskatchewan have undergone a major agricultural transformation. Once known primarily for wheat and canola crops, Canada now grows 65 percent of the world’s lentils, mainly in Saskatchewan, and helps to satisfy India’s insatiable demand. CJ Katz, author of the cookbook “Taste: Seasonal Dishes from a Prairie Table” and the host of “Wheatland Cafe,” a Saskatchewan cooking show, uses lentils in soups and veggie burgers as ground flour in a gluten-free chocolate cake. Her red lentil soup , packed with protein and warming on cold prairie nights, celebrates the province’s harvest. “Lentils stick to your gut,” she said, “but you can begin the Thanksgiving meal with it and won’t feel too full.” Alberta: Thanksgiving Pirogi Image Credit Jillian Tamaki This year is the 125th anniversary of the first Ukrainian immigration to Canada. In the prairie province of Alberta, one of Canada’s breadbaskets, more than 345,000 people can trace their roots to Ukraine. Their ancestors brought the Ukrainian language, culture and, of course, cuisine to Canada. Julie Van Rosendaal, a cookbook author based in Calgary, married into a Ukrainian family. She learned to make pirogi from a friend whose grandmother churned out heaps of them for church suppers and fund-raisers. Pirogi are traditionally stuffed with mashed potatoes, cheese or caramelized onions. After the main Thanksgiving meal, Ms. Van Rosendaal enjoys rounding up her guests after the meal to make pirogi from leftovers , using shredded roast turkey, brussels sprouts and potatoes for filling, and dousing them with gravy. “I like the idea that when people make Thanksgiving dinner, they gather around, elbow-to-elbow, sort of the same as an assembly line of pirogi,” she said. Yukon Territory: Pumpkin Custard With Drunken Cranberries Image Credit Jillian Tamaki Not long after the cookbook writer Michele Genest first arrived in the Yukon Territory from downtown Toronto 22 years ago, she discovered a favorite fall ritual of indigenous peoples as well as relative newcomers in this cold land of mountains and forests: foraging for lowbush cranberries . Small, shiny, tart and sweet, they carpet the forest floor in a good year, but “you have to wait until after the first frost to get them at their juiciest,” she said. Known as lingonberries in Sweden and as partridgeberries in Newfoundland, lowbush cranberries have been foraged by indigenous peoples in the Yukon for thousands of years, as well as by European explorers and Gold Rush stampeders who learned that wild berries kept scurvy at bay. Today, many residents of the Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, use the berry in sauces, chutney and desserts for Thanksgiving. Ms. Genest, author of “The Boreal Gourmet: Adventures in Northern Cooking,” drizzles the results of this recipe for drunken cranberries over pumpkin custard, and she recommends using the leftover mixture for a cocktail. Northwest Territories: Boreal Cranberry Wild Rice and Birch Syrup Pilaf Image Credit Jillian Tamaki Vast forests surround Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, which lies about 250 miles from the Arctic Circle. Residents begin to tap birch sap in the spring, after the winter snows melt and the gushing liquid is clear and sweet. Traditionally consumed as a refreshing tonic or boiled over an open fire by the indigenous Dene people, the syrup, locals say, is darker and stronger than that of maple, perfect as a meat glaze or drizzled over ice cream. Richard Mcintosh, a Yellowknife municipal employee, and his partner, Christine Wenman, made this recipe as a side dish for 160 people, as part of their entry into the World Shore Lunch Championships , an annual festival celebrating the whitefish that come from the Great Slave Lake nearby. Mr. McIntosh says the fall recipe, topped with wild cranberries, is meant to honor the boreal forest’s autumn harvest. “Thanksgiving provides that extra day to go cranberry picking,” he said. If you can’t forage your own cranberries, store-bought varieties are a fine substitute. Manitoba: Smoked Turkey Broth with Parsnip and Rutabaga Purée, Parsnip Marmalade and Chestnut Snow Image Credit Jillian Tamaki The chef Gordon Bailey moved back to his hometown, Winnipeg, last year after spending nearly two decades on Prince Edward Island, where he was known for one of Canada’s top restaurants. Since returning, he has been cooking up multicourse meals at a series of pop-up dinners celebrating the history and mythology of Canada, including a feast inspired by the country’s 20th-century “ Group of Seven ” landscape painters. That was where he served this recipe , an autumnal bonanza made with locally grown root vegetables that Mike Green, editor of the Winnipeg food website Peg City Grub , describes as “the full realization of Thanksgiving in your mouth.” Ontario: Butter Tarts Image Credit Jillian Tamaki There are a number of contenders for the title of all-Canadian baked good, and the multicolored Nanaimo bar has many promoters. When it comes to Ontario, however, there’s a clear champion: the butter tart, a treat commonly served at big holidays. “Everyone who grew up in Ontario, as I did, takes butter tarts for granted,” wrote Naomi Duguid , a cookbook author who has traveled the globe documenting Persian and Burmese recipes. “Only when we travel further afield do we discover they’re a regional specialty.” The dessert has a passionate following. There’s an annual butter tart festival in Midland, Ontario. But what makes for the ideal butter tart is sometimes a matter of debate . While they certainly contain butter, butter tarts are closer to a pecan pie without the nuts. What distinguishes them from desserts like the sugar pie of Quebec are the size and the addition, traditionally, of raisins or currants to the filling. The inside of the tart is either runny, making for messy eating, or firm, depending on the baker’s preference. In her butter tart recipe in “ HomeBaking ,” a book Ms. Duguid wrote with her former husband, Jeffrey Alford, she gives the option of substituting maple syrup for sugar syrup. Prince Edward Island: Potato Bacon Cheddar Tart Image Credit Jillian Tamaki As anyone who has heard “ Bud The Spud ” by Stompin’ Tom Connors knows, the “best doggone potatoes that’s ever been growed” come from Prince Edward Island. At most homes in Canada during Thanksgiving, potatoes end up mashed or scalloped. But Michael Smith, who owns The Inn at Bay Fortune on the island, and who has written cookbooks and hosted television cooking shows, suggested combining potatoes with two other foods associated with Canada, bacon and Cheddar cheese, as well as some Atlantic Canada cooking traditions. Newfoundland and Labrador: Fisherman’s Breakfast Image Credit Jillian Tamaki For many in Newfoundland, Thanksgiving is the day for the seafaring province’s traditional Jiggs dinner . Roast pork sometimes substitutes for turkey, but most of the meal is boiled, and it includes salt cod and an array of vegetables. Also tossed in the pot is duff, a British-style boiled pudding. Zita Cobb, a philanthropist from Fogo Island, proposes starting the day with a traditional Newfoundland fisherman’s breakfast — a thick slice of bread, seasonal partridgeberry preserves and flakes of salt cod — but her version is served with molasses tea buns. Quebec: Brome Lake Duck Maple Tourtière Of all the provinces, Quebec is the one where Thanksgiving is celebrated the least, and where the holiday is known as L’Action de grâce to the French-speaking majority. The big annual feast among Francophones in the province is the Réveillon , a dinner that starts on Christmas Eve and extends into the early morning hours of Christmas Day. Among the many traditional dishes served is a tourtière, or meat pie. Two other elements of traditional Quebec cuisine are duck from the Lac Brome, just north of Vermont, and maple syrup, much of which comes from the same region. The Brome Lake Duck Maple Tourtière combines all three traditional items in this autumn dish. New Brunswick: Cranberry Pie Image Credit Jillian Tamaki The French-speaking portions of New Brunswick share many recipes with Quebec. But the province is also one of Canada’s centers for cranberries. Many of the berries end up, of course, as a sweet sauce to accompany turkey. But Cranberry Pie allows the berries to make a second appearance at the Thanksgiving table, in a dessert. As the recipe from the provincial government notes, a top crust made of woven strips of pastry is a traditional touch of the Acadians, as French speakers in Atlantic Canada are known. Nova Scotia: Molasses Gingerbread Image Credit Jillian Tamaki By the 19th century, trade patterns between Nova Scotia, the Caribbean and Britain made molasses a staple of cooking in the Canadian province. Nova Scotia’s provincial archive has gone through traditional recipes, converted them to modern measurements and tested them to make sure they work with contemporary ingredients. They include a recipe for molasses gingerbread from the family papers of Jacob Miller, a German-born Loyalist who left New England after the American Revolution. The archivists fortunately determined that baking soda could replace its precursor, a leavening agent called saleratus. While the recipe makes no specific mention of Thanksgiving, the dessert seems appropriate for the season. Nunavut: Country Food Image Credit Jillian Tamaki Even if cold weather is moving in quickly, Thanksgiving is still celebrated in Nunavut. The astoundingly high cost of bringing in food from southern Canada by air, or by barge in the summer, is a major economic and health issue in the north. As a result, the Inuit, the indigenous people of the north, rely as much as possible on what they call “country food,” the products of fishing and hunting. The Inuit Cultural Online Resource, a site intended primarily for schoolchildren, has recipes for several country food dishes that could be included in a Canadian Thanksgiving. Southerners might have trouble sourcing one crucial ingredient, however: caribou. The website also includes a recipe for bannock, a quick bread that is a staple for many indigenous Canadians.


Democrats’ Campaign in Puerto Rico Becomes Entangled in Statehood Issue

Abstract: At 11 a.m. on March 27, hours after an indictment against Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá of Puerto Rico was unsealed, his allies met members of the rival party in San Juan. The discussion was not about the charges. It was about Senator Barack Obama ’s campaign. The 19-count federal indictment on charges of campaign finance violations and tax fraud was not the only complicated aspect of Mr. Obama’s high-profile endorsement from the governor. In advance of the Puerto Rican Democratic primary on June 1, his campaign, like that of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton , is seeking to avoid being mired in the issue that defines local politics — the island’s status in relation to the United States. If the nominating contest lasts until June 1, Puerto Rico, with its 63 delegates, is expected to play an outsize role, with Mrs. Clinton hoping for a big victory. But the perennial debate over the status of the island looms, with the two candidates staking out positions of adamant neutrality. Rivals of the candidates have been combing policy statements for the slightest nuance that could betray support for statehood or commonwealth. Historically, pro-commonwealth politicians have loosely aligned with the Democratic Party, and the statehood side has been more of a coalition. Mr. Acevedo is a leader of the Popular Democratic Party, which advocates maintaining commonwealth status. Andrés W. López, a statehood supporter and a member of Mr. Obama’s campaign committee in Puerto Rico, said he was concerned that the governor’s support for Mr. Obama had created a pro-commonwealth impression that could create a backlash among Democratic voters. “A strong public endorsement from a well-known statehood figure would remedy what I feel is a misperception,” Mr. López said. The campaign received that backing on Monday from Pedro Pierluisi, the pro-statehood New Progressive Party candidate for nonvoting representative in Congress. Mr. Acevedo delivered his endorsement after receiving a letter in which Mr. Obama expressed openness to a constitutional convention or a plebiscite to determine status and support for all “valid options to resolve the question of Puerto Rico’s status, including commonwealth, statehood and independence.” Some statehood proponents have objected to a constitutional convention and to the listing of commonwealth as a viable permanent status. Mr. Obama met Mr. Pierluisi a few weeks ago and wrote him a letter suggesting openness to the idea of statehood. “I understand and respect the aspiration of the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico who, like you, believe that statehood is the best status option for Puerto Rico, as I understand and respect the aspirations of those who favor other status options for Puerto Rico,” the letter said. It did not use the word “commonwealth.” Though most of the nearly four million Puerto Ricans are United States citizens, the territory does not have any electoral votes. The 63 delegates at play are on par with those available in the preceding contests in Oregon and Kentucky. Mrs. Clinton is the favorite in the race, given her longstanding relationship with the island as first lady and, more recently, as a senator from New York, the state with the largest Puerto Rican population. Her campaign focuses on specific policies for Puerto Rico like helping manufacturing and support for equal reimbursements to hospitals from Medicare and expanding Medicaid . Mr. Obama’s campaign focuses on broader themes of hope and change. Many of Mrs. Clinton’s high-profile endorsements arrived before the Feb. 5 nominating contests, and Mr. Acevedo’s announcement appears to have spurred others to support Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has the support of all Democrats running at the top of tickets in November for both major political parties in Puerto Rico. “There might be something to the fact that it is based on timing and current events rather than substance,” said Kenneth McClintock, the pro-statehood president of the Puerto Rican Senate who announced his support for Mrs. Clinton in December. “Would I have to choose now, I would choose exactly the same way for exactly the same substantive reasons.” Although Mr. Acevedo’s action appears to have opened the gates for others to back Mr. Obama, his indictment also was an embarrassment to the Obama campaign. The governor, a superdelegate, had been courted by both campaigns, even though it was common knowledge that he was under investigation. The two campaigns have courted pro-statehood and pro-commonwealth supporters, and Mr. Obama’s supporters are trying hard to integrate backers from both parties at an organizational level. Marie Helene Morrow, who helped organize Mr. Obama’s fund-raiser on the island and who said she had not become involved with local politics, recounted the meeting on March 27. “Our committee showed up, all colors, all stripes and discussed one thing,” Ms. Morrow said. “Obama, as it should be.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Puerto Rico
Obama Barack
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Endorsements
Puerto Ricans
Acevedo-Vila Anibal


Illinois: Death and Injuries as Bus Hits Bridge Support

Abstract: A packed double-decker bus blew a tire and slammed into a concrete bridge support pillar on Interstate 55 on Thursday, leaving at least one person dead and more than three dozen others injured, officials said. A vehicle with the discount carrier Megabus was traveling from Chicago to Kansas City at full capacity, carrying 81 passengers, when it crashed near Litchfield, northeast of St. Louis.

Megabus.com
Traffic Accidents and Safety
Buses
Illinois


Bill Clinton and Journalists in Emotional Return to U.S.

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton arrived in the United States Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit to North Korea , in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea’s reclusive government and dined with the North’s ailing leader, Kim Jong-il . The private plane carrying Mr. Clinton and the journalists, Laura Ling , 32, and Euna Lee , 36, landed at 5:50 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, just outside Los Angeles . The two women stepped off the plane in jeans and sweaters, rushing down the stairs to be reunited with their families, who clustered around them. Ms. Lee, in tears, embraced her husband, Michael Saldate, and knelt to hug her 4-year-old daughter, Hana. Ms. Ling kissed her husband, Iain Clayton. Mr. Clinton stepped off the plane a few moments later, embracing former Vice President Al Gore , the founder of the media company that employs the journalists. “Thirty hours ago, Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea,” Ms. Ling said in brief remarks to reporters, blinking back tears. “We feared that at any moment we could be prisoners in a hard labor camp. Then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. “We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton,” she said, recounting the final moments of her ordeal. “We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now we stand here home and free.” Mr. Gore then spoke. “ President Obama and countless members of his administration have been deeply involved,” in the effort to bring the women home, he said. “To everybody who has played a part in this,” he said, “we are so grateful.” The North Korean government, which in June sentenced the women to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, announced hours before the jet’s departure from North Korea that it had pardoned the women after Mr. Clinton apologized to Mr. Kim for their actions, according to the North Korean state media. Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , said Wednesday that the administration was “extremely excited” that the women would be reunited with their families. But she denied that her husband had apologized. President Obama, who contacted the families of the women on Tuesday evening, said that he, too, was “extraordinarily relieved” at the journalists’ return. “I want to thank President Bill Clinton — I had a chance to talk to him — for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists,” Mr. Obama said outside the White House on Wednesday morning. Mr. Clinton’s mission to Pyongyang was the most visible by an American in nearly a decade. It came at a time when the United States’ relationship with North Korea had become especially chilled, after North Korea’s test of its second nuclear device in May and a series of missile launchings. It ended a harrowing ordeal for the two women, who were stopped on March 17 by soldiers near North Korea’s border with China while researching a report about women and human trafficking. They faced years of imprisonment in the gulag-like confines of a North Korean prison camp. And it catapulted Mr. Clinton back on to the global stage, on behalf of a president who defeated Mrs. Clinton in a bitter primary campaign last year, and who later asked her to be his secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton was deeply involved in the case, too. She proposed sending various people to Pyongyang — including Mr. Gore — to lobby for the release of the women, before Mr. Clinton emerged as the preferred choice of the North Koreans, people briefed on the talks said. About 10 days ago, these people said, Mr. Gore called Mr. Clinton to ask him to undertake the trip. Mr. Clinton agreed, as long as the Obama administration did not object. In an interview Wednesday with NBC ’s “Today” show in Nairobi , Kenya , Mrs. Clinton said the final request to Mr. Clinton had come from the White House. “When the message came to us from the young women themselves, to their families, to former Vice President Gore, and then to the administration that sending my husband would be the best way to ensure their release, of course we took that very seriously, discussed it,” she said, according to a transcript. “The White House reached out, as they said, to my husband, to ask him if he would be willing to do that.” The riveting tableau, of a former president jetting into a diplomatic crisis while his wife was embarking on a tour of Africa in her role as the nation’s chief diplomat, underscored the unique and enduring role of the Clintons, even in the Obama era. At a news conference in Nairobi on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton said the case of the captured Americans had been handled separately from America’s dispute with North Korea over its nuclear program. “We have been working hard on the release of the two journalists, and we have always considered that a separate issue,” she said. The future of the United States’ relationship with Pyongyang, she continued, was “really up to them.” Mr. Clinton’s trip to Pyongyang came just two weeks after North Korea issued a harsh personal attack on Mrs. Clinton, in response to comments she made comparing its nuclear test and missile launchings to the behavior of an attention-seeking teenager. The North Korean Foreign Ministry objected to her “vulgar remarks” and called her “a funny lady” who was neither intelligent nor diplomatic. “Sometimes she looks like a primary-school girl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping,” a spokesman said. The episode evidently did not stop consideration of sending her husband as an envoy. But the initiative was cloaked in secrecy and came after weeks of back-channel talks between the United States and North Korea through its United Nations mission. In addition to Mr. Gore, the White House’s list of potential candidates included Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico . North Korea signaled its desire to have Mr. Clinton act as a special envoy in conversations with Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, who relayed that message to their families in the middle of July, according to a senior administration official. The message was passed to Mr. Gore, who contacted the White House, which then explored whether such a mission would be successful. Mr. Obama did not speak directly with Mr. Clinton before the mission. But his national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones , contacted the former president to sound him out. The senior official said the administration did “due diligence” with the North Koreans to ensure that if Mr. Clinton went, he would return with the journalists. As president, Mr. Clinton had sent Mr. Kim a letter of condolence on the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, according to a former official. For Mr. Kim, the former official said, freeing the women was a “reciprocal humanitarian gesture.” Mr. Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke last year. American officials said they thought his declining health had set off a succession struggle, complicating the Obama administration’s dealings with the North. The families of the American journalists issued a statement saying they were “overjoyed” by news of the pardon and thanked Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. “We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home,” the statement said. Current TV said in a statement that it was also “overjoyed” and that the hearts of its employees went out to Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee for “persevering through this horrible experience.” Mr. Clinton and the journalists traveled on a private jet owned by Stephen Bing, a real estate heir and a major Democratic Party contributor, who donated the use of the jet as a favor, said Andy Meyers, the chief executive officer of Shangri-la Industries, which was founded by Mr. Bing. Administration officials said Mr. Clinton went to North Korea as a private citizen, did not carry a message from Mr. Obama for Mr. Kim and had the authority to negotiate only for the women’s release. “This was 100 percent about the journalists,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “We knew Kim Jong-il would probably seek a meeting with Clinton. But that’s not what this visit was about.” Still, North Korea, clearly seeing a propaganda opportunity at home and a rare chance for a measure of favorable publicity abroad, welcomed Mr. Clinton with the fanfare of a state visit. It broadcast a group portrait, as well as photos of Mr. Kim gesturing and talking to Mr. Clinton; of the former president accepting flowers from a North Korean girl; and of Mr. Clinton, seated across a negotiating table from Mr. Kim, each flanked by aides. Among those greeting Mr. Clinton at the airport was Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator. Among those accompanying Mr. Clinton was David Straub, a former director of the Korea desk at the State Department, who had held talks with the North Koreans through what is known as the “New York connection.” Also on hand was John Podesta , an informal adviser to the Obama administration who served as Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff in the final years of his presidency, when the former president yearned to travel to North Korea to clinch a deal that would have curbed its nuclear program. That visit never happened — partly because the White House concluded that a deal was not assured — and former President George W. Bush put the brakes on direct talks with North Korea, setting the stage for eight years of largely fruitless efforts to stop the North’s nuclear ambitions. Given Mr. Clinton’s stature and his long interest in the North Korean nuclear issue, experts said it was likely that his discussions in North Korea ranged well beyond obtaining the release of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee. “It would be someplace between surprising and shocking if there wasn’t some substantive discussion between the former president, who is deeply knowledgeable about the nuclear issue, and Kim Jong-il,” said Robert L. Gallucci, who negotiated with North Korea in the Clinton administration. Mr. Clinton has sought to find the right place in the Obama era, eager to play a role without stepping on the toes of the new president or, certainly, the secretary of state. The last time the two had spoken, said the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs , was in March, when Mr. Obama invited Mr. Clinton to a ceremony in Washington for signing legislation expanding the AmeriCorps program created by Mr. Clinton. In interviews last spring, Mr. Clinton said that he would be happy to do anything Mr. Obama asked him to do, but that “I try to stay out of their way.” Mr. Clinton’s mission may be less of an issue for Mr. Obama than for Mrs. Clinton. The same day he landed in North Korea, she arrived in Kenya, beginning an 11-day journey through Africa — a visit now largely eclipsed by her husband’s travels.

North Korea
Bill Clinton
Laura Ling
Euna Lee
US Foreign Policy
Current TV


U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan ’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.” No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government, including President Obama. “They have planted this character Faisal Shahzad to implement their script,” said Hashmat Ali Habib, a lawyer and a member of the bar association. Who are they? “You must know, you are from America,” he said smiling. “My advice for the American nation is, get free of these think tanks.” Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history. Since 2001, the United States has taken center stage, looming so large in Pakistan’s collective imagination that it sometimes seems to be responsible for everything that goes wrong here. “When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore. The problem is more than a peculiar domestic phenomenon for Pakistan. It has grown into a narrative of national victimhood that is a nearly impenetrable barrier to any candid discussion of the problems here. In turn, it is one of the principal obstacles for the United States in its effort to build a stronger alliance with a country to which it gives more than a billion dollars a year in aid. It does not help that no part of the Pakistani state — either the weak civilian government or the powerful military — is willing to risk publicly owning that relationship. One result is that nearly all of American policy toward Pakistan is conducted in secret, a fact that serves only to further feed conspiracies. American military leaders slip quietly in and out of the capital; the Pentagon uses networks of private spies; and the main tool of American policy here, the drone program, is not even publicly acknowledged to exist. “The linchpin of U.S. relations is security, and it’s not talked about in public,” said Adnan Rehmat, a media analyst in Islamabad. The empty public space fills instead with hard-line pundits and loud Islamic political parties, all projected into Pakistani living rooms by the rambunctious new electronic media, dozens of satellite television networks that weave a black-and-white, prime-time narrative in which the United States is the central villain. “People want simple explanations, like evil America, Zionist-Hindu alliance,” said a Pakistani diplomat, who asked not to be named because of the delicate nature of the topic. “It’s gone really deep into the national psyche now.” One of those pundits is Zaid Hamid, a fast-talking, right-wing television personality who rose to fame on one of Pakistan’s 90 new private television channels. He uses Google searches to support his theory that India, Israel and the United States — through their intelligence agencies and the company formerly known as Blackwater — are conspiring to destroy Pakistan. For Mr. Hamid, the case of Mr. Shahzad is one piece of a larger puzzle being assembled to pressure Pakistan. Why, otherwise, the strange inconsistencies, like the bomb’s not exploding? “If you connect the dots, you have a pretty exciting story,” he said. But the media are only part of the problem. Only a third of Pakistan’s population has access to satellite channels, Mr. Rehmat said, and equally powerful are Islamic groups active at the grass roots of Pakistani society. Though Pakistan was created as a haven for Muslims, it was secular at first, and did not harden into an Islamic state on paper until 1949. Intellectuals point to the moment as a kind of original sin, when Islam became embedded in the country’s democratic blueprint, handing immense power to Islamic hard-liners, who could claim — despite their small numbers — to be the true guardians of the state. Together with military and political leaders, these groups wield Islamic slogans for personal gain, further shutting down discussion. “We’re in this mess because political forces evoke Islam to further their own interests,” said Aasim Sajjad, an assistant professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. Lawyers in Pakistan have a strong streak of political Islam. Mr. Habib, who has had militants as clients, argues that Al Qaeda is an American invention. Their pronouncements are infused with anti-Semitism, standard for Islamic groups in the region. “The lobbies are the Jews, maybe some Indians, working in the inner core of the American administration,” said Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry, vice president of the bar association. Liberals on Pakistan’s beleaguered left see the xenophobic patriotism and conspiracy theories as a defense mechanism that deflects all responsibility for society’s problems and protects against a reality that is too painful to face. “It’s deny, deny, deny,” said Nadeem F. Paracha , a columnist for Dawn, an English-language daily. “It’s become second nature, like an instinct.” Mr. Paracha argues that the denial is dangerous because it hobbles any form of public conversation — for example, about Mr. Shahzad’s upper-class background — leaving society unequipped to find remedies for its problems. “We’ve started to believe our own lies,” he said. For those on the left, that view obscures an increasingly disappointing history. For 62 years, Pakistan has lurched from one self-serving government to the next, with little thought given to education or the economy, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-i-Azam University. Now Pakistan is dependent on the West to pay its bills, a vulnerable position that breeds resentment. “We acknowledge to ourselves privately that Pakistan is a client state of the U.S.,” Mr. Hoodbhoy said. “But on the other hand, the U.S. is acting against Muslim interests globally. A sort of self-loathing came about.” There are very real reasons for Pakistanis to be skeptical of the United States. It encouraged — and financed — jihadis waging a religious war against the Soviets in the 1980s, while supporting the military autocrat Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who seeded Pakistan’s education system with Islamists. But Mr. Hamid is more interested in the larger plot, like the secret ownership of the Federal Reserve, which he found on the Internet. After three years of fame, his star seems to be falling. This month his show was canceled, and he has had to rely on Facebook and audio CDs to make his points. But it is not the end of the conspiracy. “Someone else will be front row very soon,” said Manan Ahmed, a professor of Pakistani history. “It is the mood of the country at the moment.”

Pakistan
United States
United States International Relations


ESPN Rewards Gruden Despite His Flaws

Abstract: On Monday afternoon, ESPN extended Jon Gruden ’s contract as an analyst on “Monday Night Football,” affirming the deep affection the empire feels for the former coach midway through his first season in TV. But later that day, with the Baltimore Ravens leading the Cleveland Browns, 16-0, late in the third quarter, Gruden said, “ Eric Mangini is a heck of a coach.” (Oh no!) At least he added, “He’s got his work cut out for him.” Gruden offered no proof of his view — one that would be considered radical, even heresy, in the Dawg Pound. Before the season, Gruden said Mangini was a “good coach.” Now he’s risen to “heck of a” status? Gruden is not a great analyst yet. He is highly knowledgeable and exuberant. Like most former coaches, he analyzes plays well. For most games, he digs into his vast tape vault to find video goodies from his coaching life that tie into his TV present. And yes, he sounds as if he’s having fun with Ron Jaworski and Mike Tirico. These are some of the attributes that led ESPN to get his promise to stay in the booth through at least 2011. In persuading him to not to coach anytime soon, ESPN no doubt raised his salary. And while ESPN cannot stop Gruden from coaching in 2010 or ’11, it is possible that the hiring team would have to pay the network to pry him loose. “This was about relationship and opportunity, regardless of what you put down on paper,” said Norby Williamson, an ESPN executive vice president. “ESPN and Jon have found common ground. He can make a nice living without worrying about wins and losses. It fits him at this time in his life.” Williamson and Jay Rothman, the “Monday Night” producer, are Gruden’s main coaches. Williamson said he cautioned Gruden against using jargon (like the “split-belly zone,” which he slipped in Monday) and overusing superlatives. “But we’ve focused on not overcoaching him,” Williamson said. “We want him to be himself.” He added: “You don’t want to coach him too much. He talks and makes a connection with viewers. We don’t want to mess it up.” Williamson said that Gruden craved feedback. Here’s some he didn’t ask for. You can be critical without being mean Throughout the Ravens-Browns game, Gruden and Jaworski were adamant that the struggling Cleveland quarterback Brady Quinn needed to throw the ball downfield to open up the offense. But in their general criticism of an offense in crisis, they never directly questioned Mangini or Brian Daboll, the offensive coordinator, for holding Quinn to throwing dinks and dunks. Gruden, a former quarterbacks and receivers coach, never cited Mangini or Daboll as culpable parties in a failed scheme that has made the Browns a team that rarely scores touchdowns. (Still, Mangini cited Daboll twice for praise.) It was weird to listen to Gruden bemoan failed strategy and receivers not running their routes correctly without focusing on whose playbook it is. At one point, Gruden said cryptically, “They need to get coordinated.” Yep, they do. Detail your case If Mangini, the former Jets coach, is better than his 1-8 record this season shows, tell us why. The opinion of a Super Bowl -winning coach like Gruden matters, but if Mangini is one heck of a Brownies coach, Gruden should tell us why. Empty plaudits smack of a coach protecting one of his own. At another point in the game, Tirico asked Gruden what impressed him about Quinn when, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach, he worked out Quinn as a Notre Dame senior . His assessment lacked the substance that his enthusiasm promised: he said Quinn had been a four-year starter, a winner for two Fighting Irish coaches, “a great kid” and a hard worker. “This guy’s sharp,” he said, again without evidence to contradict Quinn’s performance. “He’s a good quarterback. He needs to play.” When Gruden said, “Somebody’s got to make a great play, somebody’s got to make a great throw.” Tirico countered with something Gruden, the new ESPN star, should have said: “Jon, they don’t have those players.” Jaworski also said something that Gruden should have said. After Tirico described the recent complaint by Browns running back Jamal Lewis that Mangini’s practices were too long, Jaworski said, “Based on what I’ve seen, they need to spend a whole more time on practice.” Gruden did not offer a comment. Williamson said Gruden’s reticence to criticize Mangini directly might emanate from knowing the pressures of coaching a bad or rebuilding team. “It might make him perfectly objective or it might mean he’s showing too much empathy,” he said. “I think there are a lot of hammer throwers out there, who are over-the-top critical all the time; I think he has an understanding of that but also understands the totality of coaching.” Williamson added, “You may think he’s a little soft or too much inside their shoes.” Jon Gruden must learn to call a game as if he will never coach one again. Throw it deep, Jon, just as you advised Quinn.


In Volatile Times, Investors Tune in All and Any Predictions

Abstract: The news hit Wall Street trading floors on the morning of July 2: Some analyst at Merrill Lynch was saying the General Motors Corporation might go bankrupt. Within minutes, the share price of G.M., the landmark corporation that once symbolized America’s industrial might, was plunging to its lowest point since 1954. What the Merrill analyst actually wrote, in a downbeat report on the troubled automotive giant, was that bankruptcy for G.M. was “not impossible” — an equivocal forecast that could be applied to almost any event, from winning the lottery to the odds of rain a week from Wednesday. But amid a financial crisis where the unthinkable has seemingly become routine, Wall Street forecasters — and even the markets themselves — are struggling to get a handle on what will happen next. The result has been a flood of brash pronouncements, as the Cassandras of the financial set try to outdo themselves with increasingly outlandish predictions. “These are volatile times. There’s a lot of moving parts here, and nobody can quite figure out how they all mesh,” said the investment strategist Edward Yardeni. “You’re hearing a lot of catastrophic predictions.” So far, many of these forecasts, whether computer-crunched numbers or seat-of-the-pants guesstimates, have turned out to be wrong. But investors, struggling to make sense of one of the most severe downturns in a generation, still seem to hang on to Wall Street’s every word. Forecasts that might have been dismissed a year ago are now earning serious attention and moving markets. Some critics of forecasting say this is a dangerous trend. The events of the last year have lent credence to the case of the heretics who say that Wall Street puts too much faith in its ability to predict the future by looking at the past. In a best-selling book, “The Black Swan,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former trader, famously blasted economists for exploiting “our desire to be fooled by a simpler representation of the world.” “I cannot find a single convincing argument that tells me that astrologers won’t do better than economists,” Mr. Taleb said last week by telephone from Lebanon, where he was mountain hiking. “The problem is the arrogance of these economists,” he said. “They’re making people rely on theories that have not worked, do not work, and are really dangerous.” Mr. Taleb pointed to the reliance of some investors on financial models, the quantitative wizardry that can churn reams of data in an instant. These were the same models that, in the lead-up to the subprime mortgage meltdown, assumed home prices would never decline on a nationwide basis. They also ran so-called stress tests on complex investments that ended up losing money when the economy went south. But despite this decidedly mixed track record, forecasters still enjoy a rapt audience, particularly at a moment when so much in the markets depends on the uncertain course of the housing market and the broader economy. At investment and commercial banks, losses tied to bad mortgage investments, which now exceed $450 billion, are certain to rise further if home prices continue to decline and more people default on their mortgages. Last week, Bill Gross, a prominent bond fund manager, offered another forecast for the final bill: $1 trillion. Some market watchers say the figure could be even higher. Even the collective wisdom of the marketplace has been wrong time and again. The stock market, that weathervane for corporate profits and the economy, keeps swinging from fear to greed and back. A glance at the major stock indexes over the last year reveals a host of false bottoms and fools’ rallies. The Dow Jones industrials rallied to an all-time high of 14,164 in October, just weeks before the credit crisis worsened and rumors surfaced about problems at Bear Stearns. From there, the index fell 17 percent, to 11,740 in March, then recovered somewhat in the spring, climbing back above 13,000 in May. This month, the market sank again, tumbling below 11,000 as concerns about the financial health of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, gripped markets around the world. But the forecasts keep coming, many of them with what seems like a remarkable level of precision. Last Tuesday, for example, a well-known finance professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, Edward Altman, declared that Ford Motor and G.M. had a 46 percent chance of defaulting on their debt sometime in the next five years. Not 47 percent or 45 percent: 46 percent. Mr. Altman’s conclusion, based on a computer model, received big play in some parts of the financial press. In fact, Mr. Altman found that, on average, companies with an equivalent bond rating to Ford’s and G.M.’s face a 50-50 chance of default within five years. His estimate was based on the performance of hundreds of companies, very few of which matched the brand recognition or reach of the two automakers. “It was sensationalized somewhat,” Mr. Altman, in an interview, said of his findings. “The chance of default of that type of company is probably a lot lower.” He said he intended his findings to be used as “a metric” that would offer investors a useful benchmark for comparison. But he allowed that the 46 percent figure “maybe gives it a little more scientific magic than it deserves.” Shares of Ford and G.M. rose that day, though the perceived risk of the companies’ debt increased. Ideally, predictions on companies and stocks would be “thoughtful, nontheatrical forecasts that take a look at long-term fundamentals,” said Abby Joseph Cohen, a longtime strategist at Goldman Sachs. But, Ms. Cohen added, less dramatic forecasts rarely make headlines. “If what is being provided to viewers and readers are these theatrical forecasts, that is what many people will pay attention to because that’s what they have available.” Another source of investment guidance used to come from research analysts, who try to predict quarterly earnings at companies. But there is a great deal of guesswork involved here, too. Analysts correctly predict earnings only a fifth of the time. Nearly two-thirds of quarterly earnings beat estimates, and the rest come in too low, according to data from Thomson Reuters. Many companies, of course, try to defuse overly optimistic forecasts to manage investors’ expectations and deliver “better-than-expected” results. This year, Wall Street’s crystal balls have performed even worse than in the past. As earnings season for the second quarter winds down, 67 percent of companies reported earnings higher than what analysts had predicted, and 22 percent reported earnings that were worse. Only 10 percent of companies matched analysts’ expectations. Poor predictions are nothing new in the financial world: in 1999, a pair of prognosticators — James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett — published a book titled “Dow 36,000”; the blue-chip index closed last week at 11,370. But investors seeking light in a dark period may just have to stick with no one’s predictions but their own. “We have gone from an abnormally calm period, and we’ve blown right through normal volatility,” Ms. Cohen said. “We are in an exceptionally volatile period.” Indeed. G.M. shares have bounced back from those bankruptcy fears. If you put a dollar into G.M. on July 2, you would have $1.19 today, a gain of nearly 20 percent. Who would have predicted that?

Stocks and Bonds
Finances
Forecasts
Wall Street (NYC)
Economic Conditions and Trends
Computers and the Internet


Female Suicide Bomber Kills 10 in a Nigerian Region Racked by Islamist Violence

Abstract: DAMATURU, Nigeria — A suicide bomber blew herself up at a crowded bus station in this northeastern Nigerian city on Sunday, killing 10 people and wounding 30, the police said. Damaturu is in a region that is frequently attacked by Islamist militants. Adamu Muhammad, a witness, said he heard a blast before the people at the bus station “descended into panic.” No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, whose use of female suicide bombers has been an emerging trend over the past year. According to a report by The Associated Press, the bomber somehow made it through a security check at the entrance to the station and detonated her explosive at 1 p.m. local time. The report quoted a witness as saying that the bomber appeared to be about 16. On Saturday, heavily armed Boko Haram militants tried to overrun the northeastern Nigerian city of Gombe but were repelled. The group’s violent campaign for an Islamic state has killed thousands, has destabilized the northeast of Nigeria and is increasingly spilling over into Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Those nations are now fighting back in a regional effort to crush the militant group. The insurgency has also cast doubt on the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seen as not having done enough to contain the extremists or to protect civilians, hundreds of whom have been kidnapped, including scores of schoolgirls. A week ago, Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy, postponed for six weeks a national election that had been set for Saturday, citing the security threat from Boko Haram. The move, in which the election was rescheduled for March 28, rattled markets and foreign investors. Mr. Jonathan’s rival in the election, the former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, is seen as the tougher of the two on the security issue, having quelled an Islamist uprising in the 1980s. Before the Gombe attack, the militants warned people not to participate in the elections or risk being killed, according to a leaflet obtained by Reuters from a local resident. The Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, has said repeatedly that democracy is un-Islamic.

Nigeria
Bombs
Boko Haram
Terrorism
Goodluck Jonathan
Damaturu


Cuomo Admits Setbacks but Says He Asked for the Moon

Abstract: ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo came back to earth this week. In 2011, his rookie year as governor, he tamed an unruly Legislature and won an improbable string of victories. Most notably, and against long odds, he wrung approval of same-sex marriage out of a State Senate controlled by Republicans who opposed the measure. But this year has already been strikingly different. In a marathon session of horse-trading and arm-twisting that ended at dawn Thursday, he reached a complex agreement with lawmakers over pensions , casinos, redistricting and other issues, reflecting the more typical rhythms of how business is done in the capital. In an interview on Thursday, the governor struck a humble and pragmatic tone. About redistricting, on which he was unable to persuade lawmakers to allow an independent process this year, he said: “I failed. I failed.” But he said he had won long-term reforms. “My legislative proposals were asking for the moon,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Fight as hard as you can, and then understand there’s going to have to be some amount of reasonable compromise.” Over all, the governor emerged from weeks of intensive negotiations with as many wins as losses, but arguably lacking a signature achievement. Mr. Cuomo said he was reluctant to compare the achievements of his freshman and sophomore years, arguing that last year was unusual in that so much attention was paid to one high-profile issue, same-sex marriage, which was unlike other issues confronted by the Legislature. “Last year, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison,” he said. “Marriage equality is a civil rights issue, possibly for a generation.” The governor argued that his performance should be compared with that of other Albany leaders over the last 15 years. “I was elected to come to an incredibly dysfunctional capital and make the government work better, and that’s what I’m doing,” he said. In classic Albany fashion, the package of measures approved through the night Wednesday and early Thursday was hatched behind closed doors by three men — the governor, the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader — with lawmakers voting in the wee hours on bills that many of them had not even read. There was a walkout in the Senate, and a vote-counting process that lasted two hours in the Assembly while Speaker Sheldon Silver scrambled to round up enough votes to push the pension measure through. Assemblyman Dennis H. Gabryszak, a Democrat from the Buffalo suburbs, initially voted against the pension measure; he said he changed his vote after being approached by one of Mr. Silver’s top aides, James A. Yates, and talking to other lawmakers who assured him the pension package was not unreasonable. “It was clear,” Mr. Gabryszak said, “that we weren’t getting out of there” until they had the needed votes. Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow, a Westchester County Democrat, said he was told by Mr. Silver and Mr. Yates, “It’s either this or something a lot worse, and I didn’t want to be responsible for something a lot worse.” The pension changes approved by the Legislature, which include lower pension benefits for future public workers, were more modest than those initially proposed by Mr. Cuomo. The governor all but dropped his proposal to give future state workers the option of choosing a 401(k) -style retirement plan, in the face of strong opposition by public-sector unions, which remain powerful influences on New York politics. The investment option will be available only to high-earning nonunion workers. Mr. Cuomo also compromised on his proposal to raise the state’s minimum retirement age from 62 to 65, settling instead for 63, and the governor abandoned a proposal to eliminate overtime from pension calculations. He called the agreement “bold and transformational,” though states like Michigan have already converted to 401(k) plans. Still, the plan will save a projected $80 billion over three decades, state officials said. “It’s not transformational, but it’s a net plus,” said Edmund J. McMahon, senior fellow at the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative research group. The governor also backed away from repeated veto threats when he agreed to sign a new map of Assembly and Senate district lines that some government watchdog groups say are gerrymandered to protect incumbents and that some advocates for minorities say are unfair to black and Latino New Yorkers. In exchange for his signing the maps, the Legislature agreed to ask voters to change the State Constitution to create a bipartisan commission to handle redistricting after the 2020 census. The bipartisan commission would operate under the purview of the Legislature, unlike more independent redistricting commissions in Arizona and California . The compromise on redistricting divided government reform groups. Citizens Union said the new commission would improve a long-troubled process. But Common Cause New York said the commission was far too weak to justify accepting gerrymandered lines for another decade. Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz, said that he would give the redistricting amendment a grade of C-minus and that it was likely to lead to deadlock when the state tried to remake its political map. “Entrenching a partisan process in the Constitution, in the guise of it being ‘independent,’ makes a bad situation worse,” Professor Benjamin wrote in an analysis on Thursday. “It takes real reform off the table, by giving the Legislature a plausible answer to calls for real reform: Been there, done that.” The governor successfully persuaded lawmakers to start the process for another constitutional amendment that would allow as many as seven privately run casinos in the state, beginning an approval process that will eventually require a voter referendum. And the governor notched victories on other issues, prevailing on lawmakers to create one of the nation’s most expansive databases of DNA samples from criminals, and instituting a new and more rigorous system for evaluating schoolteachers. The Legislature wrapped up its all-nighter at 7:26 a.m. Thursday; a few hours later, the governor sat in his office on the second floor of the Capitol with a copy of The New York Post on his table. The paper’s headline “Slam Dump!” referred to the resignation of Mike D’Antoni , coach of the struggling Knicks . The governor was asked if he had made Albany any more functional than the basketball team. “I don’t think we have a Jeremy Lin in Albany,” he said, “but I think the team is having a much better season than they’ve had in many, many years.” “I think the Legislature had a good year last year,” he added, “and I think they want to keep that up.”

Andrew Cuomo
Redistricting and Reapportionment
Pensions and Retirement Plans
State legislature
New York


Volkswagen to Pay $14.7 Billion to Settle Diesel Claims in U.S.

Abstract: Volkswagen has agreed to pay up to $14.7 billion to settle claims stemming from its diesel emissions cheating scandal, in what would be one of the largest consumer class-action settlements ever in the United States. The proposed settlement involving the federal government and lawyers for the owners of about 475,000 Volkswagen vehicles, includes a maximum of $10.03 billion to buy back affected cars at their pre-scandal values, and additional cash compensation for the owners, according to two people briefed on the settlement’s terms. The cash compensation offered to each car owner will range from $5,100 to $10,000. Both the buyback price and amount of the additional compensation will depend on the cars’ value before Volkswagen’s public admission last September that its supposed “clean diesel” cars had been deliberately designed to cheat on air-quality tests. Despite the scope of the deal, which would still require the approval of the federal judge overseeing the case, the settlement would cover only a small fraction of the 11 million diesel cars worldwide — most of them in Europe — that Volkswagen has acknowledged contained the cheating software. But in the United States, “It’s a remarkable deal for Volkswagen owners who were defrauded by the company,” said David M. Uhlmann, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section who is now a law professor at the University of Michigan. Rather than sell their vehicles back to Volkswagen, car owners in the United States can also choose to have their vehicles fixed to meet emissions standards, although doing so would probably reduce the engines’ performance and gas mileage. And the methods for fixing the vehicles that Volkswagen has proposed are still subject to approval by the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the federal parties to the case. Volkswagen will also compensate previous owners who may have sold their diesel vehicles after the cheating became known last year — but at only half the rate of the compensation being offered to current car owners. Particularly attractive is the combination of the buyback offer and cash payment, which appears to be the better option for consumers, Mr. Uhlmann said. “It’s hard to see why consumers would want to take advantage of the fix and not the buyback option, unless they just love their cars,” he said. “For Volkswagen, it’s an extremely expensive settlement, far more than many analysts predicted.” The settlement terms, first reported by Bloomberg News, are to be submitted on Tuesday to a federal judge in California. Volkswagen would also pay $2.7 billion into an E.P.A. fund, the two people said, to compensate for the environmental impact of its cars, which were fitted with software that enabled them to pass emissions tests but exceed legal pollution limits in on-the-road driving. Volkswagen has also agreed to spend $2 billion on new cleaner-vehicle projects, an investment that the automaker could reap returns on. All told, the civil settlement would be the largest yet by an automobile company, dwarfing the $1.4 billion that Toyota paid to settle a class-action lawsuit over flawed accelerators and the more than $2 billion General Motors has paid so far to settle claims from owners of cars with faulty ignition switches. Toyota, in addition, paid $1.2 billion to settle criminal charges, while G.M. paid $900 million. How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners. The size of the settlement would approach the $18.7 billion agreement that BP reached last year meant to resolve all federal, state and local claims against the oil giant arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which at the time was the largest civil settlement with any single entity in the nation’s history. Since then, as a result of additional claims, BP’s payouts have grown. Volkswagen has said it has set aside 16.2 billion euros, or more than $18 billion, to cover fines and compensation to Volkswagen owners. And yet, Volkswagen’s legal problems would be far from over. Volkswagen faces a criminal inquiry by the Department of Justice and an investigation by attorneys general in 42 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The attorneys general are expected as soon as Tuesday to announce their own settlement with Volkswagen, for $500 million in penalties for defrauding consumers, according to a person briefed on the deal. Financial regulators in New York are also investigating whether Volkswagen overcharged consumers when the company leased or financed sales of diesel cars that it later admitted were designed to cheat on air-quality tests. In a subpoena sent to Volkswagen on Monday, the state’s Department of Financial Services also sought information from the German automaker on insurance coverage required for Volkswagen and Audi cars financed or leased in New York. The automaker is under investigation in a number of other countries, including Germany and South Korea. Volkswagen acknowledged last year that it had installed illegal software in 11 million cars worldwide that made them capable of defeating pollution tests. During emissions testing, the cars’ pollution controls systems were turned on, curbing toxic emissions at the cost of engine performance. But those emissions controls were not fully engaged on the road, where its cars spewed nitrogen oxides at up to 40 times the levels allowed under the Clean Air Act . The proposed settlement requires a review by United States District Judge Charles R. Breyer in California and must go through a period of public comment, during which terms could yet change. Affected Volkswagen owners are not bound by the settlement, and some may decide to press for better terms. Nor will the deal address terms for the owners of 85,000 Volkswagen and Porsche cars sold in the United States that had a different type of diesel engine but also had emissions problems. Negotiations over a settlement for those cars are still underway. Volkswagen faces increasing discontent from owners in Europe, meanwhile, who account for by far the greatest number of the 11 million vehicles with illegal software. As a result, the settlement talks in the United States present Volkswagen with a dilemma. Any agreement that satisfied American owners would only increase demands from restive Volkswagen owners in Europe. The automaker is recalling cars in Europe to make them compliant with air quality rules, but is not offering owners any compensation. Limits on nitrogen oxide are less stringent in Europe, so it has been easier for Volkswagen to find a fix that regulators will approve. Still, owners in Germany, France and other places have been trying to find ways to sue Volkswagen, even though European laws generally discourage class-action suits. Some political leaders in Europe have also been calling on Volkswagen to pay car owners.

Volkswagen
Diesel engine
Air pollution
Vehicle Emissions
Fraud
Lawsuits
Cars
EPA
Automobile safety
Justice Department


Obama Moves to Block Slaughter of Horses for Meat

Abstract: The Obama administration has included a proposal in its 2014 budget that would effectively ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Technically, the proposal would prevent money from being spent on inspection of horse slaughtering facilities. Without inspections, facilities could not legally operate. The proposal was greeted enthusiastically by horse lovers and animal advocacy groups. “This administration is wise to reject that path and to embrace the idea, even indirectly, that horses belong in the stable and not on the table,” said Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, which contends that horses are given medicines that would be detrimental to humans who consume them. But it was met with dismay by those who have been working to get slaughtering facilities up and running again. “We’re going to go after them pretty hard about this,” said Dave Duquette, an advocate for horse slaughtering who has been working with several investors interested in slaughtering facilities. The ban on horse inspections started with a provision in the 2007 budget. The last two slaughtering facilities in the country closed that year, and the number of horses shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter began to escalate. The provision was left out of the budget bill signed by President Obama in 2011. The issue became prickly this year, after Ikea, Nestlé and other food companies found traces of horse meat mixed in with ground beef in products sold in Europe. A. Blair Dunn, a lawyer who represents the owners of a New Mexico facility that was hoping to begin slaughtering horses for human consumption sometime this summer, said his clients were disappointed that the Obama administration had been swayed by horse advocates. “I know of a few members of Congress who are not likely to let it remain in the budget,” Mr. Dunn said. “All this means is more debate and more hardship for my clients because they’ve made these investments to modify their plant already.”

Horse
Slaughterhouse
Federal Budget
Barack Obama


Threats Over Police Radios Have Officers and Scanner Buffs on the Case

Abstract: A male voice came over the police radio, speaking in standard departmental jargon as he asked to be patched through to the duty captain in the Midtown South Precinct in Manhattan on July 30. The captain responded. “South captain, remember how you put me in jail?” the man on the radio asked. “I am out now, and I’m coming to put a bullet in your head.” The threat, so brazen across the restricted airwaves of the New York Police Department, was a shock . How had the man gained access to the radio frequencies? Had he stolen a police radio? Another theory was widely repeated in conversations last week with experts on the radio system: The man had hacked a store-bought two-way radio and turned it into a police walkie-talkie. The man returned to the airwaves three nights later, threatening a different captain: “I’m going to put a bullet in your head,” he said, according to the police . An investigation is continuing. Breaches in police frequencies are infrequent, the police said, although just a day before the man’s first threat, a similar episode occurred in Queens when a different-sounding voice repeatedly shouted “Officer down!” and gave a location. In urgent tones, a dispatcher sent officers there. “Nothing going on,” an officer reported back. The appeal is as old as prank calls. “You could make the police jump up and down,” said Robert Geis, a retired New York police detective and an amateur radio enthusiast. The false alarms resemble what has become known as Christmas scanner syndrome. “Every Christmas and the day after Christmas, you see an increase in phony calls,” said a longtime radio and scanner operator in his 60s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he believed the man who made the threats could be dangerous. People get scanners for Christmas, and then they make prank calls to the police so they can listen to the response. Making a call over police frequencies, a big step beyond a phone call, has never been easier, Mr. Geis said. “What’s changed over the years is the availability of radios that can be programmed to police frequencies,” he said. “Twenty years ago, you had to cut a wire or clip a diode. It would open up the radios to go on frequencies they weren’t intended to go on. Now, they come out of the box like that.” A man in Astoria, Queens, Daniel Delise, 48, was arrested on April 16 after using a police frequency to make a false call about an officer in need of assistance in the neighborhood, the police said. A search revealed 14 radios in the home he shared with his parents, according to a criminal complaint. “He would always listen to those things,” said his mother, Josephine Delise, 84. “It really got out of hand. My husband and I went through hell with this radio.” Mr. Delise was in jail when the latest calls were made and is not a suspect. A parallel search for the culprit seems to be underway within the community of amateur radio operators and those known as scanner buffs — people who listen to police frequencies at home. It is a long-established group in the city, but at times, a fractured one, with feuds over the airwaves that have devolved into curses, threats and “jamming,” or blocking a frequency from legitimate use. “I’ve been beating the bushes trying to figure it out,” said the veteran scanner operator. The operator thought about the pool of people capable of breaching the police airwaves. “I know of at least 50,” he said. “There may be 500. Five thousand. These radios are $29.” An executive in the police radio industry who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he worked for a different police department said that the New York Police Department’s radio system was similar to those used in many cities, and that it was vulnerable to intruders. “You could go on a website right now, and all the frequencies are listed,” he said. “There is no magic formula to make your police radio work only for you, unless you’re willing to spend billions of dollars.” The man who made the threats against the police captains said at one point over the radio that he was near a Walgreens in Times Square. Officers rushed to the location but found nothing suspicious. The radio industry executive said he felt certain the man would return to the airwaves with more taunts. “They leave a trail a mile wide,” he said. “They’re addicted to stupid.”


Knicks’ New D-League Team Mirrors the Parent Club, Right Down to the Losses

Abstract: WHITE PLAINS — As soon as he was named the coach of the Knicks’ new Development League affiliate in early October, Kevin Whitted attached himself to everything the big club was doing: shadowing practices, coaches’ meetings and film sessions, soaking up all he could. It was all in the name of continuity. So when Whitted’s team moved into the 84-year-old Westchester County Center, the aesthetic looked nothing like Madison Square Garden, but the product on the court could at least bear some resemblance. In fact, there might be no other D-League club that can boast the same amount of synergy with its parent team. Consider that they share the same ownership, the same nickname and the same practice center. And yes, they will also share the triangle offense, which made its debut in Westchester with the same lukewarm results that Knicks’ fans are growing sadly accustomed to. But here, the results are far less consequential. The players are learning the system, developing with the mind-set that they could be running the same sets in the N.B.A. later this season. “It gives us a bird’s-eye view of what they’re doing,” Whitted said. “We’re right there with them in terms of learning the terms and how they execute things. Our language is the same. Now when players move back and forth, you have a better product.” The partnership should be beneficial for both clubs, said Allan Houston, who is overseeing the Westchester organization as the general manager. The Knicks are seeking to establish their identity under Derek Fisher and Phil Jackson, and a way to channel it could be through Westchester. “It’s a philosophy and thinking of how to play the game,” Houston said. “That’s hard to piecemeal. When we talk about a certain way we want to play, certain terminology, certain points of emphasis, it’s extremely valuable.” The arena had banners outside announcing dates for a coin and stamp convention, and it recently needed to move one of its longest-running events, the Westchester Cat Show, to accommodate the new Knicks’ schedule. But on Wednesday, the 2,100-seat Art Deco building was sold out for basketball. The Knicks wound up losing to the Canton Charge, 88-84. The Knicks produced a promotional video to introduce their team, and there were dancing cheerleaders, darting lights and smoke guns to accompany the players’ introductions. The Knicks’ owner, James L. Dolan, was in attendance, along with Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, and Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, whose mother used to be a teacher in White Plains. “I came to events here in the ’70s when I was in high school,” Silver said. “So it is special.” Matt DiPrinzio, of Valhalla, N.Y., came with his parents and 14-year-old brother, Danny, who wore a Carmelo Anthony jersey and was excited to see players who might soon be appearing at the Garden. “They’re nobodies now, but one day they might be special,” said DiPrinzio, who bought season tickets. “It’s not like we’re watching peewee basketball. It’s one step just below the best.” Robert Derwae, of Woodstock, N.Y., wanted to bring his 10-year-old grandson, Aidan Foster, to be able to see upper-echelon basketball without squinting from the upper deck. “Look at the seating in here — it’s so much closer,” Derwae said. “I can remember being at Madison Square Garden; if they didn’t have different colors, I wouldn’t be sure which team was which.” The Knicks’ on-court product was somewhat lackluster, committing 11 turnovers in the first half while missing 6 of 14 free-throw attempts. Langston Galloway and Darnell Jackson each scored 17 points, while Thanasis Antetokounmpo, perhaps the most talented player, was just 2 of 6 from the field for 9 points. Whitted learned the triangle from Jim Cleamons, the former Los Angeles Lakers assistant and current Knicks assistant, during training camp with the Dallas Mavericks in 1997. He continued to play it throughout stops overseas. When his playing days were over, and Whitted started coaching fifth and sixth graders, he taught them the triangle. “I’ve had a lot of time in it, coaching in it,” Whitted said. “I love it. I feel it’s the best way to play the game.” Almost 30 percent of all N.B.A. players had D-League experience at the end of last season, and other teams have tried to use this to their advantage, closely aligning with their affiliates so that transitions can be made as smoothly as possible (although not every player on each D-League roster has exclusive rights to one franchise). The Knicks, by moving their affiliate into their backyard, are hoping it is a move that works out for both parties. “We want them to feel that this is a special, unique experience,” Houston said. “You go to a lot of D-League games in a lot of venues, and it’s not like that.”

Basketball
Knicks
Allan Houston
Westchester
Knicks