uld be a donor conference in Europe in
the coming months to encourage additional aid, and hoped there could be debt
relief for Kosovo as well as strong regional trade opportunities.
Russia, which opposes Kosovo’s
independence, demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security
Council on Sunday to proclaim the declaration “null and void,” but the meeting
produced no http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
resolution. The Security Council agreed to a request by Russia and Serbia to
hold the open meeting on Monday that Mr. Tadic addressed.
Mr. Burns said he did not foresee
trouble with Russia. “I do not expect any kind of crisis with Russia over
this,” he said. “I expect Russia to be supportive of stability in this region.”
But in Moscow, the upper and lower
houses of Parliament on Monday released a joint statement signaling an
intention to recognize at least two Russian-backed separatist areas in the
former Soviet Union — Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both in Georgia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia have
announced their intention to seek recognition as independent states. Russia has
already granted citizenship to most residents of both enclaves and had hinted
that it might recognize their independence if Western countries recognized
Kosovo.
“The right of nations to
self-determination cannot justify recognition of Kosovo’s independence along
with the simultaneous refusal to discuss similar acts by other self-proclaimed
states, which have obtained de facto independence exclusively by themselves,”
the Russian Parliament’s statement read.
Georgia disputes the claim that the
regions have obtained independence by themselves. The areas broke from Georgia
after brief wars in the 1990s, and have survived with Russian support.
Eduard Kokoity, the Ossetian
president, said Monday that the two breakaway regions would submit a request
for recognition to Russia’s Parliament by the end of the month, the Interfax
news agency reported.
But experts and officials said they
did not expect simmering conflicts to break out into significant violence as a
result of Kosovo’s declaration. “These are emotional reactions that I think are
transitory and can be contained,” said Peter Semneby, the European Union’s
special representative for the South Caucasus, in a telephone interview from
Georgia. “It’s very much in the interest of major actors to try to contain
them.”
On the other side of the world, China,
Indonesia and Sri Lanka also criticized Kosovo’s http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/declaration
of independence, while Taiwan and Australia welcomed it, as Kosovo’s move
appeared to be a litmus test of attitudes in Asia toward secession.
The Beijing government, which has
threatened military action if Taiwan declares formal independence, voiced
“grave concern” over Kosovo’s action.
“China is deeply worried about its
severe and negative impact on peace and stability of the Balkan region and the
goal of establishing a multiethnic society in Kosovo,” said Liu Jianchao, a
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.
The province of Kosovo declared
independence from Serbia on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic
Albanians streaming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the
end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.
Kosovo’s bid to be recognized as
Europe’s newest country — after a civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade
ago and then years of limbo under United Nations rule — was the latest episode
in the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution
began.
It brings to a climax a showdown
between the West, which argues that Serbia’s brutal subjugation of Kosovo’s
ethnic Albanian majority cost it any right to rule the territory, and the
Serbian government and its allies in the Kremlin. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
They counter that Kosovo’s
independence is a reckless breach of international law that will spur other
secessionist movements across the world.
As Albanians danced in the streets and
fired guns in the air in the capital, Pristina, international reaction was sharply
divided, suggesting that the clash between the principles of sovereignty and
self-determination was far from resolved.
Britain, France and Germany were
expected to be the first to recognize the new nation as early as Monday, while
other nations, fearing separatist movements within their own borders, have said
they will refuse. Russia demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations
Security Council to proclaim the declaration “null and void,” but the meeting
produced no resolution.
The United States and additional
European Union member states were expected to recognize Kosovo’s independence
in the coming days.
President Bush, speaking in Tanzania,
said the United States would continue to work to prevent violence in Kosovo,
while reaching out to Serbia. He said that resolving the conflict in Kosovo was
essential to stability in the Balkans and that “the Serbian people can know
that they have a friend in America.”
In declaring independence, Kosovo’s
prime minister, Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the guerrilla force that just
over 10 years ago began an armed rebellion against Serbian domination, struck a
note of reconciliation. Addressing Parliament in both Albanian and Serbian, he
pledged to protect the rights of Kosovo’s Serbian minority. “I feel the
heartbeat of our ancestors,” he said. “We, the leaders of our people,
democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent
and sovereign state.”
Kosovo, a desperately poor,
predominantly Muslim landlocked territory of two million, has been a United
Nations protectorate since 1999, policed http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/by
16,000 NATO troops. Its unemployment rate is about 60 percent and average
monthly wage is $250.
Electricity is so undependable that
lights go out in the capital several times a day. Corruption is rife and human
trafficking threatens to entrench a lawless state on Europe’s doorstep.
Ethnic Albanians from as far away as
the United States poured into Pristina over the weekend, braving freezing
temperatures and heavy snow to dance in frenzied jubilation. Beating drums,
waving Albanian flags and throwing firecrackers, they chanted: “Independence!
Independence! We are free at last!”
A 100-foot-long birthday cake was
installed on Pristina’s main boulevard.
In an outpouring of adulation for the
United States, the architect of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Serbian
forces under President Slobodan Milosevic, revelers unfurled giant American
flags, carried posters of former President Bill Clinton and chanted, “Thank
you, U.S.A.” and “God bless America.”
Hundreds of people, many waving
Albanian flags, celebrated in Times Square. Revelers in cars drove in circles
around the area, leading chants whenever they passed the crowds gathered on the
sidewalks.
That spirit of exaltation contrasted
sharply with the despair, anger and disbelief that gripped Serbia and the
Serbian enclaves of northern Kosovo. In Belgrade, http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
Serbia’s capital, as many as 2,000
angry Serbs converged on the United States Embassy, hurling stones and smashing
windows.
In the Kosovo Serb stronghold of
Mitrovica, a grenade was thrown at a United Nations building, the police said.
No one was injured.
Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister
of Serbia, which has regarded Kosovo as its heartland since medieval times, vowed
that Serbia would never recognize the “false state.”
In an address on national television
on Sunday, he said Kosovo was propped up unlawfully by the United States and
called the declaration a “humiliation” for the European Union. The Serbian
government has ruled out using military force in response, but was expected to
downgrade diplomatic ties with any government that recognized Kosovo.
Demonstrations were planned for Monday
in Serbian enclaves across Kosovo. Serbs said they were under orders from Belgrade
to ignore the independence declaration and remain in Kosovo to keep the
northern part of the territory under de facto Serbian control, raising
questions about Serbia’s long-term aims.
At the Security Council, Russia argued
that the proclamation violated the 1999 resolution that established the United
Nations mission in Kosovo. “Our position is that the declaration should be
disregarded by the international community and declared null and void,” said
Vitaly I. Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations.
But Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy
American ambassador, said, “In our view, this declaration is logical and
consistent and completely in line with” the 1999 measure.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pleaded
with all parties “to refrain from any actions or statements that could endanger
peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo or the region.”
The Security Council agreed to a
request by Russia and Serbia to hold an open meeting on Monday that will be
addressed by the Serbian president, Boris Tadic.
Kosovo’s declaration followed nearly
two years of United Nations-sponsored negotiations between it and Serbia. Those
talks failed, as did a Security Council effort in December to resolve Kosovo’s
future.
The European Commission, the European
Union’s executive branch, appealed for calm, while NATO’s secretary general,
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the alliance would respond “swiftly and firmly
against anyone who might resort to violence.”
Kosovo’s sovereignty remains severely
circumscribed, making it reliant on the international community. NATO still
provides international security, while the European Union has agreed to send an
1,800-strong http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
police and judicial mission to help run the territory after the United Nations
leaves.
Ulrich Wilhelm, the spokesman for the
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Germany would decide what to do on
Monday.
Kosovo played a central role in the
collapse of the Yugoslav federation built by the Communist strongman Josip Broz
Tito, who died in 1980. Albanian nationalism erupted in Kosovo in 1981, leading
to bloody clashes.
In the 1980s, Mr. Milosevic used
Serbs’ enormous sense of grievance that their ancestral heartland was now
dominated by Muslim Albanians to come to power in Serbia. By 1989, he had
abolished Kosovo’s autonomy, fired tens of thousands of Albanians from their
jobs, suppressed Albanian language education and controlled the territory with
a heavy police presence.
Ten years ago, Mr. Milosevic’s forces
moved against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, killing a guerrilla leader and
his family at their compound. As violence escalated, NATO intervened in a 1999
bombing campaign, causing hundreds of thousands of Albanians and Serbs to flee.
An estimated 10,000 civilians were
killed in the 1998-99 conflict, many of them Albanians, while 1,500 Serbs died
in revenge killings that followed.
For the ethnic Albanians who make up
95 percent of Kosovo’s population, independence marks a new beginning.
“Independence is a catharsis,” said
Antoneta Kastrati, 26, an Albanian from Peja, who said her mother and older
sister were killed by their Serbian neighbors in 1999. “Things won’t change
overnight and we cannot forget the past, but maybe I will feel safe now and my
nightmares will finally go away.”
In Mitrovica, a 70-year-old Serbian
engineer who would give only his first name, Svetozar, said: “I will stay here
forever. This will always be Serbia.”
Kosovo’s declaration created immediate
ripples in the former Soviet Union, where small, Russian-backed separatist
areas — one in Moldova and two in the republic of Georgia — have existed since
the early 1990s. http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/Two
of them — Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia — announced their intention to
seek recognition as independent states.
Conversely, several of the European
Union’s 27 member states — including Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and
Romania — oppose recognizing Kosovo because they fear encouraging secessionist
movements within their own borders.
In Brussels, officials were drafting a
statement for a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday. Senior European Union
officials said they expected it to acknowledge Kosovo’s independence
declaration without http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/explicitly
endorsing it.
The declaration of independence raises
the prospects of a new constitution and emblems of nationhood, including a new
flag bearing a map of Kosovo topped by six stars.
But in a sign of how hard it will be
to forge the kind of multiethnic, secular identity that foreign powers have
urged, the distinctive two-headed eagle of the red and black Albanian flag,
reviled by Serbs, was everywhere Sunday, held by revelers, draped on horses,
flapping out of car windows and hanging outside homes and storefronts across
the territory.
Warren Hoge contributed reporting from
the United Nations, C. J. Chivers from Moscow and Nicholas Kulish from Berlin.
It’s a rare political race where
particle physics might come up, but IL-14, Denny Hastert’s former seat, is just
such a delightful intersection. And Bill Foster is that Heinlein-esque
synthesis; a businessman who started the firm that revolutionized theatre
lighting and invented the Source 4 ellipsoidal reflector spotlight, turned
award winning physicist, and now candidate.
To appreciate what kind of congressman
Foster might become, it’s worth considering what kind of primary campaign he
ran: he provides the option of healthcare insurance to all his paid staff; he
ran a clean, non negative primary campaign stressing his positions on issues;
Foster opposes the war in Iraq, champions legitimate, unfettered science and
research, and supports stem cell research, just to name a few. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
To appreciate the scientific side of
Dr Bill Foster, follow me below to examine one of the most fascinating,
spectacular light-shows our universe can serve up.
Stars that blow themselves to
smithereens often produce magnificent sights before, during, and especially
after an official supernova explosion. The enigmatic Eta Carinae, below left,
is thought to contain a highly unstable star on the precipice of a hypernova.
The lacy remains of a supernova observed in 1054 AD is now the Crab Nebula, a
tiny, rapidly rotating neutron star lurks noisily inside.
The three schematics below courtesy of
graphic artist Karen Wehrstein illustrate the basics of what is thought to
happen deep inside a massive, aging star near the end of its life, during a
classic kind of Supernova called a Type ll. After burning successively heavier
elements, the star eventually begins producing iron at its center. It's a stellar
dead end. The iron core grows, robbing the star of energy due to the
idiosyncrasies (See comment) of atomic physics, and soon reaches a critical
threshold; a massive ball of iron thousands of kilometers in diameter suddenly
collapses dramatically, like a soap bubble, into an unimaginably dense remnant
a few kilometers wide. Overlying superheated plasma, compressed so much it
weighs way more than lead -- quickly falls in to fill the gaping void. When it
slams in to the surface of the degenerate core it begans fusing furiously.
Short version: Star Go Ka-BOOM!
This does two things: it sets up a huge rebound,
sending the outer layers of the star back out, and also releases a vast number
of neutrinos .. The gas from the outer layers absorbs these neutrinos, which is
like lighting a match in a fireworks factory. The outer layers explode upwards,
and several solar masses of doomed star tear outwards at speeds of several
thousand kilometers per second.
Under normal conditions, neutrinos are
ghostly little particles that overwhelmingly zip through ordinary matter, even
a million miles of solid lead, like it was so much hard vacuum. They dwell in
an incomprehensible universe seething with subatomic wraiths, not quite pure
energy, not entirely solid matter, but a whiff of both. These are not
‘ordinary’ objects. The neutrino represented as a little dot or arrow racing
around is an avatar of sorts; a symbolic construct of a hazy particulate
property from the surreal world of high energy http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/physics
that our large, clunky macro-minds can latch on to. They’re sleeting through
you by the trillions as you read this. No need for alarm though: fortunately
for us, they don’t interact with the matter in our body!
But every now and then, one in
uncounted zillions will cause a sub-atomic change which can in turn produce a
tiny flash of light. So, with a giant tank of a clear substance, shielded from
as much radiation as possible, surrounded by sensitive photo detectors, every
now and then a lone of neutrino can be confirmed. Since these little guys whip
through ordinary matter effortlessly, they’re a potential window deep into high
energy places we cannot directly observe, like the fusing core of a star. And
since a single light ray can take up to a million years to stagger drunkenly
out of a stellar core, while neutrinos simply slip through the outer layers of
plasma, neutrinos also uniquely offer current information about the state of
affairs in places we can’t otherwise observe in real time.
On February 23, 1987, three separate
neutrino detectors recorded a spike lasting just a few seconds. This was a
strong indication that somewhere in the universe, something really, really big
and no doubt violent beyond imagination had happened.
The next day several astronomers,
amateur and professional, reported a small but bright point in a nearby dwarf
galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Within a few hours of that report
pretty much every telescope in the southern hemisphere had swung to the
anomaly. The source was a star estimated to be twenty times heavier than our
sun. Except now it was gone, and in its place was the blazing Supernova
1987A. Right: Several frames taken
over the course of a decade by the Hubble Space Telescope, and after the
initial supernova faded, show the effects of secondary spasms of invisible gas
expelled at extreme velocity smacking into a ring of previously ejected
material.
One of the instruments that recorded a
spike was the Irving-Michigan-Brookhaven proton decay detector. The futuristic
chamber of ultra pure water surrounded by two-thousand photodetectors is shown
left (The source of the bubbles is a diver inspecting the equipment). Bill
Foster played a significant role in the development of the IMB. When the
neutrinos set off alarm bells in 1987, Foster had moved on to Fermilab. But
because of his involvement with the IMB detector and the subsequent neutrino
detection from SN1987A, Foster and his team shared in the 1989 Rossi Prize in
high energy physics.
If anything like SN1987A happened too
near our planet, the earth would evaporate faster than a snowflake in a
bonfire. And yet we may owe our existence to these violent events. The shock
wave from SN 1987A will travel outward, essentially forever. Along the way it
will combine with other blast fronts, forming waves of compactions and
rarefactions in the medium of thin interstellar gas. Simultaneously it will
salt those vast clouds of buoyant hydrogen and helium with heavier substances,
volatile gases, ices, and metals. The immense waves will diffract causing
nodes, small pockets will condense here and there. Gravity will take hold, and
the knots of gas will shrink under their own weight, they will begin to glow
with dozens of individual sparks, each lighting up the infant stellar nursery
from inside. In the center of each spark, pressure and temperature will grow so
high that hydrogen will begin to fuse: this is the birth of stars, this is how
our own solar system may have arisen five billion years ago.
Speaking purely for myself, as an
interesting side note about SN1987A: That primary ring allows astronomers to
calculate the distance between us and SN1987A using simple trigonometry. That
distance is about 168,000 light-years, meaning the proginator star blew up
about 160,000 years before young earth creationists believe the universe began.
In addition, short lived isotopes can be seen decaying in the spectra from
SN1987A. That is a direct, empirical observation that radio decay rates in the
past were the same as predicted by atomic theory and observed in labs today.
Thus, SN1987A is like a Wrecking Ball
of Reality to two basic tenets in Young Earth Creationist apologetics: The age
of the universe and the validity of radiometric dating. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
Doesn't it seem fitting then, in some cosmic way, that the
candidate who contributed to our elegant understanding of the universe should
prevail over the other fellow, who hails from a party where antiscientific
concepts like climate change denial and creationism are badges of honor?
The polling in what should be an easy
GOP victory shows Foster in a dead heat with Republican opponent Jim Oberweis.
Republicans are intersted in holding the seat (John McCain is reportedly going
to hold an Oberweis fundraiser with a goal of 200,000 dollars). So, if that
poll is close to accurate, it is a blinking red warning that this campaign
needs every vote, every volunteer, and every dollar it can muster to succeed.
Given the obvious difference between
these two candidates, it seems a no brainer that the residents of IL-14 would
be best served by Oberwies staying in town, and focusing on improving his
already scrumptious home-made ice cream. Whereas voters in IL-14 would be far
better represented by a Congressman with Bill Foster’s intellect and
accomplishments serving their collective interests in Washington, DC.
If Foster manages to pull this off, it
will send a powerful message about what may be in store for other 'safe GOP
seats' in 2008 -- a progressive message that incidentally embraces science and
reason -- well beyond the confines of Illinois' fourteenth district, and into
every nook and cranny in this nation. So if I didn't convince you up there, I
hope I've provided you some reason to give Bill Foster's qualifications a
second look down here.
Was awfully as tempting to make a
pun about Oberweis being served there at the end ... I mean to say, If it’s
Sunday, it’s Sunday Kos!
It's not an idio whatever of physics.
Fusion reactions release energy up to a point where the nucleus is most
energetically stable - the lowest energy configuration. The Iron nucleus is
that configuration.
Heavier elements than iron are built in most cases by neutron
adsorption, not fusion reactions.
"It's the planet, stupid."
This was a really cool candidate endorsement, DS, and well written for a
pop audience. However, the gravitational collapse of the iron core is just too
amazing to brush over.
The iron core is initially supported by electron degeneracy pressure and
it is surrounded by a silicon burning shell. That shell keeps dumping more and
more iron into the core and eventually the core mass approaches the
Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 Mo. Then degeneracy pressure begins to fail and the
core begins to collapse. Temperatures and densities soar as the collapse
proceeds. The situation is worsened by the following nuclear reaction
e + p -----> n + neutrino
which is the forcing together of electrons and protons to form neutrons
and neutrinos. The neutrinos represent an energy loss term since they don't
interact much with other matter and can escape from the star. Hence they won't
contribute much to the pressure. The high temperatures of the contracting core
also produce gamma rays which smash the iron nuclei to bits, undoing in a tenth
of a second all the nuclear fusion that went on before. This process, the
destruction of nuclei by highly energetic gamma ray photons, is known as
photodisintegration. Both of these effects cause the pressure to drop further
and the core to collapse further. This is runaway core collapse and in a
fraction of a second the core goes from Earth size to about 10 km in diameter.
At this point the densities are equal to the density of nuclear material in the
form of a ball of neutrons. Neutron degeneracy pressure suddenly takes over and
the collapse stops as the core now becomes virtually incompressible. Of course
the surrounding star doesn't know that and it continues to hurtle inward. When
all this stuff hits the core it bounces and drives a shock wave outward. The
escaping neutrinos play an important role in energizing this outward moving
shock wave. Normally neutrinos don't interact very well with matter, but here the
densities are so great that the neutrinos dump considerable energy into the
overlaying layers. In a few hours the shock wave hits the surface of the star
and we see the star explode as a Type II supernova. In a matter of days the
star brightens by about a factor of 100 million, becoming for a brief time as
bright as an entire galaxy. Note: massive stars that explode in this manner are
known as Type II supernovae. There is also a Type I supernova that results from
an explosion in a binary system. We will discuss Type I supernova later.
Ultimately the source of energy that powers a supernova is gravity. http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
The collapse of a solar mass of
material down into a neutron star the size of 10 kilometers releases 10^53 ergs
of energy which is an enormous amount.
A plan of invasion. Gen. Longstreet
telegraphs that he has no corn, and cannot stay where he is, unless supplied by
the Quartermaster-General. This, the President says, is impossible, for want of
transportation. The railroads can do no more than supply grain for the horses
of Lee’s army—all being brought from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, etc. But
the President says Longstreet might extricate himself from the exigency by
marching into Middle Tennessee or Kentucky, or both.
Soon after this document came in, another followed from the Tennessee
and Kentucky members of Congress, inclosing an elaborate plan from Col.
Dibrell, of the Army of Tennessee, of taking Nashville, and getting forage,
etc. in certain counties not yet devastated, in Tennessee and Kentucky. Only
10,000 additional men will be requisite. They are to set out with eight days’
rations; and if Grant leaves Chattanooga to interfere with the plan, Gen.
Johnston is to follow and fall upon his rear, etc. Gen. Longstreet approves the
plan—is eager for it, http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
I infer from his dispatch about corn;
and the members of Congress are in favor of it. If practicable, it ought to be
begun immediately; and I think it will be.
A bright windy day—snow gone.
The Federal General Sherman, with 30,000 men, was, at the last dates,
still marching southeast of Jackson, Miss. It is predicted that he is rushing
on his destruction. Gen. Polk is retreating before him, while our cavalry is in
his rear. He cannot keep open his communications.
The Jewish revolt against the Romans,
ending with the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in A.D. 70, marked an
irreparable breach between the pagan-and later Christian-worlds and an outcast
Jewish minority. Yet the first two-thirds of this absorbing historical study
explores the harmony of Roman and Judaic civilizations before the revolt.
Goodman, a professor of Jewish studies at Oxford, finds many similarities in a
far-ranging comparative analysis of their religions, cultures, economies and
governments, though he gives more space to the worldly, extravagant Romans than
to the relatively austere and parochial Jews. Before the revolt, he contends,
Romans considered Jews unobjectionable, despite their eccentric monotheism;
Jerusalem prospered under Roman rule and Jews living in diaspora were well
integrated into Roman society. Goodman argues that the cataclysm could have
been avoided (the burning of the Temple was accidental, he believes) but for
the politics of the imperial succession, which prompted a needlessly hard line
against the revolt and then Judaism itself. Drawing on Josephus's firsthand
narrative, Goodman fleshes out his lucid account with archeology, numismatics
and commentary from Roman and Jewish sources. The result is a scholarly tour de
force, a resonant story of a tragic conflict caused by political miscalculation
and opportunism. 16 pages of photos, 8 maps.
"This is an important book, on a
difficult subject: the reason why the Romans, who had so much in common with
the Jews, sought to destroy the Jews and Judaism completely. Only one man could
have written it. Martin Goodman is professor of Jewish studies at Oxford and
has the unique distinction of having edited both the Journal of Roman Studies
and the Journal of Jewish Studies. This polarity of expertise enables him to
describe in a penetrating way the terrifying Jewish revolts against Rome of AD
66-70 and 132-5, as well as provide a fresh and convincing analysis of their
origins and consequences. . . Goodman has written a splendid book."
—Paul Johnson, The Tablet
“Martin Goodman’s massive new
treatment of two crucial centuries of Jewish history should be read by anyone
seeking seriously to understand modern Middle Eastern tanges. . . It would be
pleasing to feel that international http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
statesmen might draw lessons from
Goodman’s lucid account of ancient tragedy.”
—Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Guardian
“Sombre and magisterial. . . a
brilliant comparative survey. . . There can be no doubting that the issues
raised by Rome and Jerusalem will have a resonance with readers far beyond the
confines of university classes or theology departments. The Roman world has
begun to hold a mirror up to our own anxieties in a way that would have
appeared wholly implausible a bare decade ago. If it was the fall of the
Bastille that shaped 19th and 20th century history, then it can sometimes seem
as though the 21st century is being shaped by the fall, nearly 2000 long years
ago, of Jerusalem.”
—Tom Holland, Sunday Times
“His style is brisk and clear, his
learning prodigious and his scope immense. . . as Goodman’s compelling and
timely book reminds us, even the most pessimistic could hardly have guessed
that it would take 2000 years for [the Jews] to return to their holy city — or
that even then, their battles would be far from over.”
—Dominic Sandbrook, Saturday Telegraph
“Rome and Jerusalem is, among many other
things, a history of anti-Semitism — or, if that term is felt to be
anachronistic for Goodman’s period. . . judaophobia. . . Martin Goodman has
spent his career studying both ancient Rome and ancient Jerusalem …He is thus
the ideal scholar to try to hack a way through these tangled thickets of
belief, prejudice and false consciousness.”
—Paul Cartledge, Sunday Telegraph
“A monumental work of scholarship …
the parallels with modern day Baghdad are all the more resonant for Goodman
studiously avoiding them.”
—Rabbi David J. Goldberg, the
Independent
“An impressive, scholarly book.”
—The Economist
In 1912, Robert Falcon Scott reached
the South Pole only to discover that he had been beaten to the Antarctic prize
five weeks earlier by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott turned around and
began a perilous journey back to base camp. He never made it. He and his four
teammates died after two months of heartbreaking toil. The diaries they left
behind recounted their struggle in harrowing detail.
Two years later, Ernest Shackleton led
an expedition to Antarctica with the aim of exploring the continent much
further than before. His ship, the Endurance, became trapped by ice, and
Shackleton led his crew to the relative safety of nearby Elephant Island. Despairing
of rescue, he and a handful of men set sail in a lifeboat to cross 800 miles of
the rough seas, making for South Georgia Island, east of the Falklands. After
an epic 16-day journey, Shackleton and his men reached the island, then hiked
to a whaling station and arranged to rescue their 22 stranded shipmates. Not a
single life was lost.
The two expeditions, with their
dramatically different outcomes, are classics of polar exploration. Yet as
Stephanie Barczewski observes in "Antarctic Destinies," the meaning
of the tales -- along with their moral lessons and cultural appeal -- has
shifted over the course of a century. "In 1912," she writes,
"many people saw Scott as a hero. Today, many people see him as a bumbling
idiot whose incompetence resulted in his own death as well as the deaths of his
four companions. http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
In 1916, many people saw Shackleton as
admirable on some level but not quite trustworthy. . . . Today, many people see
him as one of the greatest leaders in human history." Her book attempts to
show, as she puts it, "the malleability of heroism."
The Scott expedition's Terra Nova at
Cape Evans in Antarctica, 1910
At first, Scott was revered in death
as the embodiment of British manliness. "Had we lived," he wrote in
one of his diary's final entries, "I should have had a tale to tell of the
hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the
heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the
tale." Scott was adduced as an exemplar of hardihood, endurance, courage
and plenty else besides. No cause seemed too hopeless to hitch its wagon to his
star. Even the Alliance of Honour, an anti-masturbation group, appropriated
Scott's resolve in its pamphleteering.
Shackleton, by contrast, was greeted
by more creditors than fans when he returned to England in late 1914. (He had
undertaken the expedition only after interesting a host of investors.) And he
encountered a public http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
that, far from marveling at his ordeal, appeared to regard as
unseemly the very idea of able-bodied men, on the eve of World War I, running
off to polar wastes in search of adventure.
It is perhaps not surprising that
Scott's reputation has undergone revision, given his team's grisly end and our
inclination, in retrospect, to question the rightness of failed decisions.
Shackleton's rise in recent years, however, has been puzzlingly meteoric.
History long treated him with mild curiosity or indifference. The James Caird
-- that plucky lifeboat that traveled so far -- gathered dust for decades at an
obscure college in England and was even used as a trash receptacle. But in 1998
The Wall Street Journal noted a surging "Shackleton Mania" and, the
next year, New York's American Museum of Natural History hosted an exhibition
about the Endurance. An accompanying book became a best seller and publishers
unleashed a flood of Shackleton titles, including business and leadership
books. Movies and documentaries followed.
Why was Shackleton so suddenly
ascendant? Ms. Barczewski notes that his Endurance experience matches three
popular genres: man against nature, maritime adventure and polar survival.
Shackleton, in short, could be recast as a prototypical action hero for the
late 20th century, not least for Americans. The new Shackleton, Ms. Barczewski
writes, "combined optimism and pragmatism in a stereotypically American
way: he united an eternally sunny outlook and 'can-do' spirit with a
hard-headed assessment of the obstacles that must be overcome."
The most exciting, though unoriginal,
part of "Antarctic Destinies" traces the oft-told tales of the two
expeditions. Longer sections detail various biographical and pop-cultural
trends: Ms. Barczewski cites everything from scholarly tomes and magazine
articles to Monty Python sketches and Chick Lit to show how the two men have
been viewed by each new generation.
As she was finishing her book, Ms.
Barczewski saw signs that popular estimations were changing again. Recent
researchers have suggested that Scott encountered unusually bad weather; other
writers have focused on the fate of the Ross Sea party, a usually forgotten
sledging expedition poorly organized by Shackleton as part of the 1914 venture.
It resulted in the deaths of three men.
Ms. Barczewski, for her part, prefers
not to pick a winner. And who can blame her? Both Scott and Shackleton, she says,
were "great men."
Joseph Albert "Jock"
Yablonski (March 3, 1910 - December 31, 1969) was an American labor leader in
the United Mine Workers in the 1950s and 1960s. He was murdered in 1969 by
killers hired by a union political http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
opponent, Mine Workers president W. A.
Boyle. His death led to significant reforms in the union.
Contents
* 1 Early life and union career
* 2 UMWA presidential candidacy
* 3 Murder
* 4 Aftermath of Yablonski's murder
* 5 Portrayal in popular culture
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in
1910, Yablonski began working in the mines as a boy. He became active in the
United Mine Workers after his father was killed in a mine explosion. He was
first elected to union office in 1934. In 1940, he was elected as a representative
to the international executive board, and in 1958 was appointed president of
UMW District 5.
He clashed with W. A. "Tony"
Boyle, who became president of the UMW in 1963, over how the union should be
run and his view that Boyle did not adequately represent the miners. In 1965,
Boyle removed Yablonski as president of District 5 (under reforms enacted by
Boyle, district presidents were appointed, not elected). In May 1969, Yablonski
announced his candidacy for president of the union. As early as June, Boyle was
discussing the need to kill him.
UMWA presidential candidacy
The United Mine Workers was in turmoil
by 1969. Legendary UMWA president John L. Lewis had retired in 1960. His
successor, Thomas Kennedy, died in 1963. From retirement, Lewis hand-picked
Boyle for the UMWA presidency. A Montana miner, Boyle was as autocratic and
bullying as Lewis, but not as well liked.
From the beginning of his
administration, Boyle faced significant opposition from rank-and-file miners
and UMWA leaders. Miners' attitudes about their union had also changed. Miners
wanted greater democracy and more autonomy for their local unions. There was
also a widespread belief that Boyle was more concerned with protecting mine
owners' interests than those of his members. Grievances filed by the union
often took months—sometimes years—to resolve, lending credence to the critics'
claim. Wildcat strikes occurred as local unions, despairing of UMWA assistance,
sought to resolve local disputes with walkouts.
In 1969, Yablonski challenged Boyle
for the presidency of UMWA.In an election widely seen as corrupt, Boyle beat
Yablonski in the election held on December 9 by a margin of nearly two-to-one
(80,577 to 46,073). Yablonski conceded the election, but on December 18, 1969,
asked the United States Department of Labor (DOL) to investigate the election
for fraud. He also initiated five lawsuits against UMWA in federal court.
On December 31, 1969, three hitmen
shot Yablonski, his wife Margaret, and his 25-year-old daughter Charlotte, as
they slept in the Yablonski home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The bodies were
discovered on January 5, 1970, by Yablonski's son, Kenneth. The killings had
been ordered by Boyle, who had demanded Yablonski's death on June 23, 1969,
after a meeting with Yablonski at UMWA headquarters degenerated into a
screaming match. In September 1969, UMWA executive council member Albert Pass
received $20,000 from Boyle (who had embezzled the money from union funds) to
hire gunmen to kill Yablonski. Paul Gilly, an out-of-work house painter and
son-in-law of a minor UMWA official, and two drifters, Aubran Martin and Claude
Vealey, agreed to do the job. The murder was postponed until after the
election, however, to avoid suspicion falling on Boyle. After three aborted
attempts to murder Yablonski, the killers did their job. But they left so many
fingerprints behind, it took police only three days to catch them.
A few hours after Yablonski's funeral,
several of the miners who had supported http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
Yablonski met in the basement of the
church were the memorial service was held. They met with attorney Joseph Rauh
and drew up plans to establish a reform caucus within the United Mine Workers.
The day after the killing, 20,000
miners in West Virginia walked off the job in a one-day strike, convinced Boyle
was responsible for the murders.
Yablonski's murder sparked action. On
January 8, 1970, Yablonski's attorney waived the right to further internal
review and requested an immediate investigation of the 1969 union presidential
election by DOL. On January 17, 1972, the United States Supreme Court granted Mike
Trbovich, a 51-year-old coal mine shuttle car operator and union member from
District 5 (Yablonski's district), permission to intervene in the DOL suit as a
complainant—keeping the election fraud suit alive. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
The Department of Labor had taken no
action on Yablonski's complaints while he lived, as if preserving the rights of
union members were not important or urgent. But after his murder, Labor
Secretary George P. Shultz assigned 230 investigators to the UMWA
investigation.
The Labor Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 regulates the internal affairs of labor unions,
requiring regular secret-ballot elections for local union offices and providing
for federal investigation of election fraud or impropriety. DOL is authorized
under the act to sue in federal court to have the election overturned. By 1970,
however, only three international union elections had been overturned by the
courts.
Gilly, Martin and Vealey were arrested
days after the assassinations and indicted for Yablonski's death. Eventually,
investigators arrested Pass and Pass' wife. All were convicted of murder and
conspiracy to commit murder. Two of the three assassins were sentenced to
death; Martin avoided execution by pleading guilty and turning state's
evidence.
Miners for Democracy (MFD) formed in
April 1970 while the DOL investigation continued. Its members included most of
the miners who belonged to the West Virginia Black Lung Association and many of
Yablonski's supporters and former campaign staff. MFD's support was strongest
in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and the panhandle and northern
portions of West Virginia, but MFD supporters existed in nearly all affiliates.
The chief organizers of Miners for Democracy included Yablonski's sons, Joseph
(known as "Chip") and Ken, Trbovich and others.
DOL filed suit in federal court in
1971 to overturn the 1969 UMWA election. After several lengthy delays, the suit
moved went to trial on September 12, 1971. On May 1, 1972, Judge William Bryant
threw out the results of the 1969 UMWA international union elections. Bryant
scheduled a new election to be held during the first eight days of December
1972. In addition, Bryant agreed that DOL should oversee the election to ensure
fairness.
On May 28, 1972, MFD nominated Arnold
Miller, a miner from West Virginia who had challenged Boyle on the need for
black lung legislation, as its presidential candidate.
Balloting for the next UMWA president
began on December 1, 1972. Balloting ended on December 9, and Miller was
declared the victor on December 15. The Labor Department certified Miller as
UMWA's next president on December 22, 1972. The vote was 70,373 for Miller and
56,334 for Boyle.
of the convicted murders accused Boyle
of masterminding and funding the assassination plot. Boyle was indicted on
three counts of murder in April 1973 and convicted in April 1974. He was
sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison. He died in prison in 1985.
The murders were portrayed in a 1986
HBO television movie, Act of Vengeance. Charles Bronson portrayed Yablonski and
Wilford Brimley played Boyle.
Cuvier's beaked whale has a robust
body and a small head which is about ten percent of its body length. Its
forehead slopes to a poorly defined short beak, and its mouth turns upward,
giving it a goose-like profile. This whale has a depression behind the
blowholes which ends in a distinct neck. Its blow is small and not very
noticeable and is projected slightly forward and to the left. One of its more
interesting features is that in adult males two large teeth about 2 inches long
(5 cm) protrude from the tip of the lower jaw. The males use these teeth in
fights with each other over females. For their part the females have smaller,
more pointed teeth that remain embedded in the gums. The lower jaw of the
Cuvier's beaked whale extends well beyond the upper jaw. Like other beaked
whales, the Cuvier's has two deep, V-shaped throat grooves.
COLOR: This whale varies greatly in color. Its
back may be rusty-brown, dark gray, or fawn colored and the underside of the
body may be dark brown or black. As the Cuvier's beaked whale ages, first the
head and neck and then the body become more lightly colored; the heads of old
males are almost completely white. The back and sides of this whale, especially
the males, are often covered with double-lined scratches caused by the teeth of
other males. Its sides and belly are covered with oval white patches.
Cuvier's beaked whale surface
characteristics
surface characteristics http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
FINS AND FLUKE: Dorsal fins of
Cuvier's beaked whales may vary in shape; they may be as high as 15 inches (38
cm) and falcate (curved) or less than 10 inches (25 cm) and triangular. The fin
of this whale is located well behind the mid-section. Its flukes are large and
rounded at the tips and may or may not be slightly notched in the center. Its
flippers are small and rounded at the tips and fold back into little
depressions on the side of the body.
Length and Weight: Maximum size is 23
feet (7 m). The average adult is 18 feet (5.5 m) and weighs 2.7 tons (2500 kg).
Feeding: Squid is its primary food, though it
sometimes eats fish and, rarely, crustaceans.
MATING AND BREEDING Sexual maturity is
reached when the animal is an average of about 19 feet (5.8 m) long for females
and 18 feet (5.5 m) for males. Calves are between 6.5 to 10 feet (2-3 m) at
birth and weigh about 600 pounds (272 kg).
Mating and Breeding: fs6-breeding
Cuvier's beaked whale range map
range map
Distribution and Migration: Cuvier's beaked
whales are found in all the oceans of the world except the polar regions of
both hemispheres. They prefer deep water of over 3,300 feet (1,000 m) and avoid
shallow coastal areas.
Natural History: Cuvier's beaked
whales are almost never seen at sea, so we know very little about their habits.
Sightings of single animals (which are probably males) have been reported, but
they are more commonly seen in groups of 2 to 7. Their life span is believed to
be at least 25 years.
Status: We know so little about this whale that
there are no estimates of past or present population size. Though Cuvier's
beaked whales are found stranded more often than any other species of beaked
whales, only two mass strandings have been reported; one in the Galapagos and
the other in Puerto Rico. These whales beach themselves singly all over the
world, more often in some locations than in others. A few Cuvier's beaked
whales were taken by hunters in the 1940s to 1960s in Japan's coastal whaling
operations, but the numbers were so few that there was no threat to the
survival of the species. This whale is not hunted at the present time. More
recently, acoustical trauma has been implicated in the mass strandings of
Cuvier's beaked whales in the Caribean, Azores, and the Gulf of California.
An
old adage says high taxes don't redistribute income, they redistribute people.
For new evidence look no further than migration patterns within the United
States, as documented in a new survey by the moving company United Van Lines.
A record eight million Americans --
some 20,000 people every day -- relocated to another state last year. So where
are these families headed and why? The general picture is this: Americans are
continuing to flee the Northeast and Midwest, while the leading destinations
continue to be Southern and Western states.
The United Van Lines study finds that
the biggest population loser last year was Michigan, where two families moved
out of the state for every new family that moved in. Americans are also fleeing
New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Without interviewing the
departed, it's impossible to know the reasons for this outward migration. No
doubt overall economic prospects, climate, quality of life and housing prices
play a role.
But one reason to conclude that taxes
are also a motivator is because the eight states without an income tax are
stealing talent from other states. They are Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire,
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming, and each one gained in
net domestic migrants. Each one except Florida -- which has sky-high property
taxes on new homesteaders -- also ranked in the top 12 of destination states.
The nearby table ranks the top five destination and departure states.
Politicians who think taxes don't
matter might want to explain the Dakotas. North Dakota ranked second worst in
out-migration last year, while South Dakota ranked in the top 10 as a
destination. The two are similar in most regards, with one large difference:
North Dakota has an income tax and South Dakota doesn't.
Here's another example. The only
Pacific Coast state to lose migrant population in 2007 was California, which
has the highest state income tax in the nation. This is the continuation of a
dismal 10-year performance with nearly one and a half million Golden Staters
leaving what was once the premier destination state in America.
Meanwhile, next door, Nevada was
second among the states in new families -- and a big percentage of the new
arrivals are Californians. Nevada has no income tax. High income Californians
can buy a house in Las Vegas for the amount of money they save in three or four
years by not paying California income taxes.
One of the few Northeastern states
that gained interstate migrants in 2007 was New Hampshire, the only state in
New England without an income tax. For the exception that proves the tax rule,
we should also mention Vermont, a high-tax state with a big net influx last
year. Maybe these folks like the Ben & Jerry's lifestyle, and we also hope
they like the government they're paying for.
We invite readers to visit the U-Haul
Moving Company Web site (www.uhaul.com), where you can type in a pair of U.S.
cities to learn what it costs to move from point A to B. If you want to move,
say, from Austin, Texas to Southern California, the moving van will cost you
$407 to rent. But if you want to move out of California to Austin, the same van
costs $1,831. A move from Dallas to Philadelphia costs $663, versus $2,433 to
swap homes in the other direction. The biggest discrepancy we could find was
$557 from Nashville, Tennessee to Los Angeles, but the trip costs nearly eight
times more, or $4,285, to move to Nashville from L.A.
Our friends on the left say Americans
are willing to pay more taxes to get better government services, but their
migration patterns reveal the opposite. Governors would be wise to heed these
interstate migration trends as they try to cope with what may be one of the
worst years in recent memory for state finances. The people who tend to be the
most mobile in American society are the educated and motivated -- in other
words, the taxpaying class. Tax them too much, and you'll soon find they aren't
there to tax at all.
America is back to working on the
railroads.
For decades, stretches of track west
of this town were so rough that trains couldn't run faster than 25 miles an
hour. Lanie Keith, a locomotive engineer for Kansas City Southern, recalls
waiting for hours when trains stalled on a steep curve on a stretch of single
track between Meridian and Shreveport, La.
But over the past two years, at a cost
of $300 million, track crews have transformed the 320-mile route. Installing
960,000 crossties and 80 miles of new rail, they've turned a railroad backwater
into a key link in a resurging national transport network. Mr. Keith now skims
parts of the improved track, called the Meridian Speedway, at nearly 60 miles
an hour. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
"You went from moving like a
turtle to a jack rabbit," he says.
The upgrade is part of a railroad
renaissance under way across much of the U.S. For the first time in nearly a century,
railroads are making large investments in their networks -- adding sets of
tracks, straightening curves that force engines to slow and expanding tunnels
for bigger trains. Their campaign is altering the corridors of American
commerce, more so than any other development since interstate highways spread
to the interior.
For decades, railroads spent little on
expansion, even tore up surplus track and shrank routes. But since 2000 they've
spent $10 billion to expand tracks, build freight yards and buy locomotives,
and they have $12 billion more in upgrades planned.
The buildout comes as the industry
transitions away from its chief role in recent decades of hauling coal, timber
and other raw materials in manufacturing regions. Now, increasingly, railroads
are moving finished consumer goods, often made in Asia, from ports to major
cities. Their new higher-volume routes, called corridors, often serve the
South, where the rail system is less developed and the population is rising.
Railroad operators are pressing for
advantage over their main competitor, long-haul trucking, which has struggled
with rising fuel prices, driver shortages and highway congestion. Railroads say
a load can be moved by rail using about a third as much fuel as it takes to
haul it by truck. And rail transport is becoming more efficient still, they
say, as operators speed their lines and logistics companies build huge
warehouse areas along routes.
Demand for rail service increased
sharply when the U.S. economy and Asian imports surged starting in 2003. Tight
capacity on major routes enabled railroads to raise prices. The growth in
freight volume has slowed along with economic growth, but shippers say they're
still planning to increase their use of rail transport because of the cost.
"The railroad industry is finally
making some money," says Charles "Wick" Moorman IV, chief
executive officer of Norfolk Southern Corp., based in Norfolk, Va. "And
we're pumping that money into our infrastructure."
Trucking accounted for 82% of the
U.S.'s truck-and-rail intercity-freight spending in 2004, up from 78% in 1990,
according to Eno Transportation Foundation, a research organization in
Washington, D.C. But trucking companies, notably industry giant J.B. Hunt
Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, Ark., are using railroads for the long-haul
part of some trips because it's cheaper. Some rail promoters believe that as a
result of their investments, they could cut into the business of the two
million long-haul freight trucks in the U.S., which account for 350 million
shipments a year.
Attracting Interest
For the first time in years, the
industry is attracting interest among big-name investors. Last spring,
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., disclosed an 11% stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Corp., the second-largest U.S. railroad by revenue. Berkshire has since raised
the stake to more than 18%. In a move recalling rail boardroom battles of the
past, Children's Investment Fund Management LLP, a London hedge fund, and other
shareholders have put up a slate of directors for a coming annual meeting of
the nation's No. 3 railroad, CSX Corp. (Union Pacific Corp. is the largest U.S.
railroad in revenue terms; Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern are fourth
and fifth, respectively.)
The expansion is stirring conflict
with some old customers, the shippers who move raw materials such as chemicals,
grain and logs, who feel they're being charged unnecessarily high rates to pay
for capital improvements. Trade groups representing such shippers are seeking
federal legislation to rein in railroad rate increases.
"I think the railroads are
investing in corridors to serve a different customer, and heavy U.S. industry
will be left in the dust," says Kenneth Walker, a transportation manager
of Graphic Packaging International Corp., a cardboard manufacturer in Marietta,
Ga.
It's been a century since railroads
embarked on a similar spate of capital investment. Between 1900 and World War
I, they launched a huge rebuilding program across the U.S. midsection to handle
freight and passenger trains. Traffic was booming as the economy roared back
from a financial panic in the 1890s. Railroads added second, third and fourth
sets of tracks along main routes, built tunnels and bridges and installed
stronger locomotives.
After World War II, though, cars began
wiping out passenger-train service. New interstate highways unleashed trucks as
a freight competitor. By the 1970s, U.S. railroads were deep into a decline,
other than adding new track to the coal fields of Wyoming.
Burlington Northern was the first to
pursue the strategy of building a high-capacity corridor to link ports with
population centers needing consumer goods, rather than linking industrial
centers. In the 1990s, it set out to complete a second set of tracks on its
Chicago-Los Angeles Transcon line. "It came right out of the 'Field of
Dreams': Build it and they will come," says Rob Krebs, a retired
Burlington CEO.
Wall Street analysts objected to the
big spending, and Mr. Krebs throttled down the expansion in 1999 and 2000. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
But his successor, Matt Rose, resumed
work on the project in 2003, and it is now nearing completion.
Problems with old infrastructure were
becoming clear elsewhere. Union Pacific was plagued with freight jams and
service breakdowns during a surge of Asian imports a few years ago. Union
Pacific hired thousands of new train crew members, and it has since launched a
massive track-installation program across the Southwest.
It is upgrading its Sunset Route, from
Los Angeles to El Paso, Texas, with a second set of tracks. It's planning to
build new freight yards and a fueling station along the way. When the $2
billion project is finished in 2010, Union Pacific will be able to roughly
double the number of freight cars crossing the Sunset each day to more than
9,000 from about 5,000 currently.
Railroads are generating development
in the same way they spawned towns and industrial sites over a century ago.
Warehouse complexes are popping up next to new rail yards designed to load and
unload trains carrying containerized goods. Major distribution operations have
opened or are planned in places like Elwood, Ill., Kansas City, Mo., and
Columbus, Ohio.
The social consequences are evident in
developments like AllianceTexas. In the late 1980s, Hillwood Development Co.,
founded by Ross Perot Jr., son of the former presidential candidate, built a
cargo airport outside Fort Worth, thinking that would be the best way to
attract companies to 17,000 acres of land north of the city. As an
afterthought, the company says, it made room for a rail yard.
A decade later, it's the rail yard
that has attracted huge warehouses, for companies such as J.C. Penney Co. and
Bridgestone Corp. These and others get container loads of jeans, electronics,
tires and such from Southern California ports. "I never would have thought
having a rail hub in the middle of our development would have attracted so much
interest," says Thomas Harris, a Hillwood senior vice president.
The development, which employs 27,000,
has spawned a nearby minicity of shopping centers, a golf course, a racetrack
and 6,200 houses. http://louis-j-sheehan.com/
More than 300 of the homes are high-priced models in gated communities.
Railroads have found friends among
environmentalists, who see moving freight by train rather than truck as a way
to reduce fuel burning and emissions. Method Products Inc., a San Francisco
maker of nontoxic home and personal-care products, says it plans to use rail
for 50% of its shipments this year, up from 33% in 2007. "We view rail as
a solution to lower our greenhouse-gas emissions," says Jason Bowman, the
firm's global logistics manager.
States Climb Aboard
States have also started to climb
aboard. In a 2002 report, the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials said transportation capacity could be increased more
cheaply in some intercity corridors by adding railways rather than expanding
highways.
Norfolk Southern is seeking public
funding to accelerate rail-corridor projects, arguing that they provide a
public benefit by limiting fuel use, traffic congestion and air pollution. The
idea is gaining backers. Virginia created a rail-enhancement fund in 2005 from
car-rental fees and is spending $40 million to improve a Norfolk Southern
freight line in the state. The railroad industry is urging Congress to pass a
railroad investment tax credit to fund rail improvements.
Many old lines need work. Norfolk
Southern's most direct route to the Midwest from the docks of Norfolk, Va., has
tunnels high enough for coal trains. But they are too low for double-stack
trains, which haul shipping containers one above the other. Norfolk Southern
has begun a three-year, $260 million project to raise the height of 28 tunnels
on the route, which it has renamed the Heartland Corridor.
Norfolk Southern's most ambitious
project is the Crescent Corridor, a network of tracks between the New York City
area and New Orleans. The company touts the corridor as a cheaper and more
environmentally friendly alternative to widening highways such as Interstate
81, which runs through Virginia's scenic Shenandoah Valley.
Trucks make four million to 4.5
million trips annually along I-81 in Virginia, according to the Virginia
Department of Transportation. Norfolk Southern envisions a route with enough
speed and capacity to displace about a million truck trips a year. It is
seeking funding for most of the $2 billion project from the U.S. government and
states along the corridor.
Tim Lynch, an executive of the
American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Va., says it's "folly"
to think rail corridors can take the place of additional highways. "You
need to do both, because you have growth in freight traffic that will keep both
modes busy," he says.
Work continues on the Meridian
Speedway between Meridian and Shreveport. Kansas City Southern bought the line
in 1994 as a shortcut for freight moving between Los Angeles and Atlanta,
bypassing crowded gateways in Memphis, Tenn., and New Orleans. The railroad
began to improve the line, at one point easing a hilly curve near the river
town of Vicksburg, Miss., that for years hampered Mr. Keith and other engineers
when trains stalled there.
Additional Overhauls
Two years ago, Norfolk Southern agreed
to contribute more than $300 million for additional overhauls in exchange for a
30% stake in the Speedway. The money has helped replace tracks and install a
signal system on a line that had none. It allowed construction of sidings so
trains can pass each other in more places.
Union Pacific uses the Speedway for a
leg of a longer run that begins near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,
Calif. Improvements on the line have enabled Union Pacific to launch a new
train packed with Asian goods that can cross the Southern U.S. in 72 hours,
down from the 120-hour service it offered in past years. http://louis-j-sheehan.com/
Such numbers translate into big
savings for railroads, which figure that each mile per hour of speed they can
add systemwide translates into fewer cars, locomotives and crew members.
Mr. Keith says his trips between
Meridian and Vicksburg now take six or seven hours, compared with 11 or 12
before the upgrades. He says he saved 30 minutes on a recent run by pulling
onto a newly lengthened siding in Meehan, Miss., to pass another train.
Mr. Keith says the work will clear the
Speedway to handle more and faster trains. "I love it," he says.
"It guarantees me work stability."
Marsh & McLennan Cos.'
fourth-quarter profit fell 62% as weakness continued in its insurance-brokerage
business.
Marsh, one of the world's largest
insurance brokers, reported net income of $85 million, or 16 cents a share, as
revenue increased 8.1% to $2.93 billion.
Earnings in Marsh's risk-and-insurance
business fell 54%, which the company blamed on a revenue drop at its Risk
Capital Holdings that cut per-share earnings by eight cents. http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
The risk-and-insurance segment's
operating margin, which has severely trailed Marsh's rivals, slumped to 4.2%.
Marsh also reported that profit in its
consulting firms rose 38% on a 19% revenue increase.
The company hired a chief executive
last month and fired the head of its insurance-brokerage unit in September over
rising expenses, poor operating margins and weak revenue in the segment.
Competitors such as Aon Corp. and Willis Group Holdings Ltd. are outflanking
Marsh in the insurance business, and speculation on an asset sale or merger
abounds as investors try to discern how new CEO Brian Duperreault will right
the ship.
Pricing is an issue that has been of
paramount concern to insurers of late. The current profit equation must factor
how low to price policies so as to attract customers less concerned with risk
in a time of fewer disasters.
Shares of Marsh & McLennan were up
69 cents, or 2.7%, to $25.99 in 4 p.m. trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Since taking over in 2005 as American International
Group Inc.'s chief executive, Martin Sullivan has pushed the big insurer to be
transparent, hoping to move past the accounting scandal that helped get him the
top job.
Suddenly, though, analysts and
investors are trying to assess the significance of a new accounting problem
that has put Mr. Sullivan in an awkward spot: the "material weakness"
that AIG's auditor found relating http://louis-j-sheehan.com/
to exposure to subprime-linked
securities.
So far, Wall Street seems willing to
cut him some slack -- but patience is limited. After sinking to a five-year low
Monday, AIG shares rose 3.1%, or $1.40, yesterday to $46.14 in 4 p.m. composite
trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
The scope of the accounting problems
appears far narrower than those that swamped the insurer in 2005 and led to the
exit of longtime leader Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg. It also helps
AIG that so many other financial companies are wrestling with the valuations of
their own subprime exposures.
Still, the current situation could
become more painful, especially if AIG has to keep on valuing its exposures in
the same way going forward. The change the company announced Monday increased
the size of its write-down for a single month, November, by $3.6 billion.
For the full fourth quarter, Goldman
Sachs analyst Thomas Cholnoky estimated in a research report yesterday that AIG
may be forced to write down $10 billion for those exposures. AIG hasn't
announced when it will report quarterly results, but it has until Feb. 29 to
file its annual report.
"The estimated market values are
having a real-world impact in that they reduce reported earnings, they reduce
reported shareholders' equity," says Bruce Ballantine, an analyst at
Moody's Investors Service. They also could reduce the company's financial
flexibility "to some extent."
Yesterday, both Moody's and Standard
& Poor's said they revised their outlook on AIG downward to "negative"
from "stable." Among the things S&P said could trigger a
downgrade is "if accounting losses are sufficiently large to cause market
issues for the company." It added that a downgrade could follow if it
determines the material weakness is "significant."
The hit to AIG's credibility was
severe not just because of the size of the change in the expected write-down
but because analysts and investors found the company's explanation of what
caused the increased loss to be difficult to decipher.
At issue for AIG is the valuation of a
portfolio of what are essentially insurance contracts that the company sold,
known as credit default swaps.
The swaps serve as credit protection
on, among other things, $62.4 billion in collateralized debt obligations, or
CDOs, backed by collateral that includes subprime mortgages.
The key question now: How to value
that portfolio? These kinds of highly specialized instruments aren't traded
even in normal circumstances, making them hard to price. Valuing them becomes
more difficult when the market for the securities and assets they're linked to
is in the kind of distressed situation that currently exists.
A Look in the Pool
Analysts believe AIG originally valued
these contracts by looking to prices supplied for a pool of CDOs, among other
factors. The company then adjusted these values based on indexes that track
subprime securities, analysts surmise.
But AIG didn't directly apply the loss
implied by a fall in CDO values because the contracts it had written tend to
trade at a premium to the instruments they are insuring. http://louis-j-sheehan.com/
AIG held these contracts, not the
underlying CDOs.
AIG's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP, appears to have taken issue with the process. That prompted AIG to use
market prices of CDOs, which in many cases are considered to be at fire-sale
levels, rather than values for a pool of CDOs. In addition, the insurer
eliminated the premium that typically applies to the value of the insurance
contracts. That was done because it said market conditions had become too
uncertain to calculate this.
The moves seem designed to make AIG's
valuation place greater weight on market factors that immediately affect the
value of the company's contracts. AIG's models seemed to place less emphasis on
this and greater weight on the fact that the company doesn't believe it will
ultimately suffer losses related to the contracts.
Yesterday, http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
AIG drew a distinction between
whatever losses it records based on the current value of the portfolio (an
estimate of what someone would pay to take the risk off AIG's hands) and what
it may actually have to pay to fulfill its obligations under the contracts.
In a statement, the company said it
believes any losses "will not be material."
That calmed investors a bit.
"That was a minorly helpful statement," says Ed Walczak, who runs the
U.S. value funds for Vontobel Asset Management Inc., which has 3.5% of its $350
million holdings in AIG. As for the company's overall situation, "the
grounds are still changing," Mr. Walczak adds.
Still, the wording of yesterday's
statement varied slightly from AIG's statement last fall that it was
"highly unlikely" the company would http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
have to "make payments" on
the portfolio, Kathleen Shanley, an analyst at Gimme Credit, noted in a report
yesterday.
Meaning of 'Not Material'
"'Not material' can still be a
pretty big number when you are talking about a firm the size of AIG," Ms.
Shanley wrote. "And investors are right to wonder if the next step on the
slippery slope will be from 'not material' to 'material,' especially
considering that AIG has not yet finalized its year-end numbers."
In response, a spokesman for AIG said
of the prospect of any losses: "We would say it's slightly less than
'highly unlikely,' simply because of further deterioration in the default
frequency of underlying mortgages." But if there were any losses, he
added, "they would be immaterial" to the company's income statement
or balance sheet.
Write to Liam Pleven at liam.plev
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