World Business

From a thousand-year-old Turkish cave to every ancient French rock fortress, these subterranean hotels are above average

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John Gray in “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” suggested men be agreeable to to stressful situations by withdrawing or “retreating into their cave.” What allowing that you really could retreat to a cave which offered escape in the absence of compromising on comfort? From a myriad year old cave carved out of volcanic rock in beautiful Turkey, to going “down by means of” in an Australian desert-like opal mining town or an ancient fortress carved from rock in France, in that place’s plenty of options for the adventurous traveler looking to get in touch with their Neanderthal roots… and without compromising on voluptuousness.

Online resources likely Unusual Hotels of the World offer information on many of these below-ground destinations. Here’s a taste of our favorites:

American cave retreats

Kokopelli’s Cave Bed & Breakfast is in Farmington, New Mexico and is a privately-owned sandstone hotel which was excavated and blasted out in 1980. This 1650 square foot, one bedroom inn is 70 feet below the ground with the passage located in a cliff face. Getting to the beginning of Kokopelli sounds uncompliant (75 steps and a further 110 steps on an inclined path) but with unparalleled views from the cave and cliff tops of Shiprock and the Chuska mountains on the Navajo Indian reservation in northwest New Mexico or the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, it sounds as though it is worth the work. The cave has carpet, hot and cold running water and a largely appointed kitchen and the cascading waterfall-style shower and flagstone hot tub may help qualify aching legs after the climb down. Just remember, you’ll need to get up again.

Beckham Creek Cave Hotel is located in Buffalo National River country, Arkansas and is one very luxurious grotto hotel. The Cave House is on a 530 acre estate and features real ‘maintenance’ cavern walls and ceilings. The windows ensure that lots of natural light enter the living areas for the period of the twenty-four hours and by central heating, you will tarry comfortable throughout the twenty-four hours and night. If you can tear yourself outside, away from the games play, complete with billiard table, then you may enjoy a spot of hiking or fishing on the division. The house has five bedrooms, each with bath and has a kitchen through everything required for the creation of a simple breakfast or a nighttime banquet. Rooms start at USD $1000 per darkness.

Turkish Delight

Cappadocia is located in the middle Anatolian region of Turkey. Due to volcanic eruptions millions of years ago, the Cappadocian prospect is covered with hundreds of volcanic pillars from which, over the ages, people have carved out to form houses and other buildings. Elkep Evi was once any not modern. grot dwelling and has been transformed into a 9-room (including two suites) bed and breakfast hotel. Located in Urgup, Cappadocia, all the rooms at Elkep Evi have en-suites and most have a terrace that allows the visitor sweeping views over this with truth fascinating land.

The Gamirasu Cave Hotel is also located in Urgup, Turkey and is guaranteed to allow your exhalation not present. This forgoing cloister still has a 12th century Byzantine Christian church attached to it and has, in the past, also been used as a prison. The hotel has eighteen rooms including a family suite and has all the features you would expect in a hotel but is set in a fascinating location, with a hiking climb which begins at the front door and winds through a valley.

Cool off “from a high to a low position under”

In the summer months, average temperatures in Central Australia can be as high as 36.2 degrees Celsius (97.16 degrees Fahrenheit) so sleeping in the cool of a cave makes a lot of sense. The hotel rooms at the Coober Pedy’s Desert Cave Hotel are not only cool, otherwise than that are also quiet, airy and dark. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town in outback Australia and has lured opal miners and tourists for many persons years but it is semi-desert nation so it gets very hot. The inn has nineteen underground rooms but you can choose to sleep above ground as well. There’s also a bar, café and shops and a pool and gym if you’re feeling energetic.

In some other Australian express; New South Wales, is the White Cliffs Underground Motel , a 3-star hotel with 30 underground rooms, some of which fashion unpainted walls to highlight the beautiful trait of the rock. The rooms or ‘dugouts’ also have in-built shafts so simpleton explanation be possible to enter the sweep and the hotel has a swimming pond and its own restaurant and tribunal.

Ooh La La…

Fancy a holidays to Provence, France but looking for supply of wants other than a French villa or pensione? Le Prince Noir in Les Baux, Provence, France offers a truly unique experience. This hotel sits on top of an ancient Roman fortification and the rooms are carved into the rock impudence. The hotel offers three rooms all by ensuite and can doze up to four people. Legend has it that one of the founders of Les Baux is united of the three kings of the Nativity, Balthazar and his household arms features a comet with 16 rays which represents the star that guided him all those years ago.

Moving past the Yahoo saga, the software giant is eyeing semantic search engine Powerset as a way of closing the cleft with Google

by Catherine Holahan

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Still smarting from a failed attempt to buy Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) is trying another tactic to gain on Google (GOOG) in Web search.

Microsoft wants to pervert with money Powerset, which is developing what it hopes is a smarter way to search the Web. Powerset uses so-called "semantic Web" technology that brings up results based in continuance an understanding of a word’s meaning and the context of its use. That’s in contrast to the method used by the major hunt engines, which work in the first place by matching words in queries to those on Web pages. News of Microsoft’s interest in Powerset was reported June 26 by labor blog VentureBeat. According to the heading, Microsoft has offered more than $100 million to acquire the company. A person close to Powerset says independent search engines have expressed weal in the party and that a deal with Microsoft has not been finalized. Microsoft and Powerset spokespeople declined to comment.

If the distribute were to go through, Microsoft could get a big leg up in efforts to catch Google. Powerset and other semantic sift engines outperform Google in some cases (BusinessWeek.com, 9/17/07). They respond particularly origin when users want detailed answers to questions in specific subject categories for which there are a lot of Web pages through similar keywords, such similar to health or law. "Semantic search takes it to the third make horizontal," says Eric Tilenius, an early investor in Powerset and Kango, which one. applies semantic search technology to travel.

What’s greater quantity, semantic search wouldn’t have existence graceful for Google to replicate. Large search engines, such as Google and Microsoft, have already scanned and indexed many of the pages on the Web. So their machines can concentrate efforts on analyzing the various a thousand thousand new Web sites created each year and adding them to their records. Adopting semantic investigation technology would require the big guys, in essence, to start from the beginning—rescanning every Web page according to the technology’s fundamentally different method of analyzing and classifying Web pages. "You cannot do a patch do job-work," says Rizzo Berkan, chief executive of Hakia, a semantic search engine working on scanning the entire Web. "We are building everything from scratch and this is which it takes to make it."

The technology itself is arduous to develop. Though Google has hired some semantic search experts, the technology after semantic search engines has been in development for the better part of a decade. "Microsoft’s acquisition of Powerset [if it does indeed go through] makes exquisite sense and is probably the best discharge at a disruptive technology that might own it to leapfrog Google," says Andrei Hagiu, assistant professor of strategy, focusing on technology, at Harvard Business School.

Of course, Microsoft would have to rescan all its pages, too. But with due a portion of the $46 billion it was willing to pay for Yahoo, Microsoft could invest in the necessary rigging, of the like kind as the servers needed to scan and "versed in books" all those pages. Plus, it has the underdog’s willingness to take on risk and expense in hopes of for good and all generating search results that can rival Google’s. (Google grabbed nearly 70% of searches in May, according to research firm Hitwise; Microsoft’s share slipped to just subject to 6%.)

General Motors’ 2002 purchase of bankrupt Daewoo is looking pungent as the Korean unit spearheads a drive to roll audibly smaller cars

by Moon Ihlwan

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South Korean visitors look at various cars displayed at the Busan Motor Show 2008 in Busan on May 3, 2008. The Busan Motor show started May 3 and will run until May 12 with organizers expecting more than one million people behest visit the biennial show. KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images

With oil prices in the stratosphere, Detroit’s Big Three automakers are paying the price (BusinessWeek.com, 6/16/08) for concentrating so heavily on gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs, and luxury vehicles in the U.S. But General Motors (GM) executive Michael A. Grimaldi likes to period to one incense that has turned out true well: The U.S. giant’s takeover of major assets from insolvent Daewoo Motor in 2002. The Korean operation is a crucial part of a global generalship that has enabled GM to tap local design and engineering genius specializing in smaller cars in Asia and Europe, giving GM a betokening boost in small cars. Says Grimaldi, president and chief executory of GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, "It was a smart strategic decision."

For GM, the Korean subsidiary is growing in importance as North American consumers turn not present from trucks and move back to smaller vehicles. The Korean team will spearhead GM’s drive to roll out more fuel-efficient vehicles this fall. GM Daewoo is not only the hub for designing and developing mini and subcompact cars, but also the first manufacturer among entirely the company’s brands to figure the next-generation GM compacted. see the verb, a car based on a European-developed platform to have being shared by the GM family.

The new compact (BusinessWeek.com, 6/3/08) will replace the Chevrolet Lacetti and be shipped around the world. A U.S. variant will be built at GM’s Lordstown (Ohio) plant beginning in mid-2010. The new Lacetti will be unveiled at the Paris Auto Show in October and be followed by the launch of two smaller high-mileage cars—both designed and developed in Korea.

Also making a debut next year will be a just discovered mini based on the Beat, one of three concept cars GM unveiled at the New York Auto Show last year. GM Daewoo is developing a subcompact platform to replace the Chevrolet Aveo and the Corsa of Adam Opel, GM’s European one. The new Aveo and its variants, coming in 2010 to the U.S., Asia, and other parts of the nature, are expected to induce their segment in fuel savings.

The compact marks a new beginning for GM, which celebrates its 100th f�teday in September. It will also be the first product that truly represents the company’s new global vehicle development process. GM brands will share a platform developed by a designated hub for a certain part, although there be inclined be several variants catering to local tastes and needs. Under the scheme, Korea will be in charge of developing mini and small-car platforms; Europe the midsize and compact cars; Brazil the small trucks; and the U.S.—trucks, crossovers, and luxury vehicles.

Few other countries offer better infrastructure with respect to small cars than Korea. Balanced between standard-setting carmakers from high-cost Japan and low-cost Chinese makers with a reputation for subpar quality, GM Daewoo provides a sweet spot for GM, boast executives. "When you look at the growth that has occurred in China, other parts of Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the type of products those markets were going to require, GM Daewoo was in the right spot," reckons Grimaldi.

The "just-right" formula for price and quality is proving a prosperous breeding ground for auto components. Korea is home to all but three of top 30 global part suppliers, and, in 2007, 17 local companies were selected from among GM’s best part suppliers. That year GM Group purchased some $10 billion worth of parts from Korean suppliers, up from $2.6 billion in 2003.

The French president says the Lisbon beat threatens EU body of members growth. A critic says the old Nice Treaty is just as good

by Katerina Safarikova

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At the end of the be unconsumed European Union acme, Nicolas Sarkozy said something that surprised hardly anyone after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty: “For the enlargement of the EU to continue, we exigency the Lisbon Treaty.” In other logomachy, no treaty, no dilation. How blunt.

And in what condition guilty.

Let’s clear the table and focus put on the facts. Technically, legally, administratively, the antique Nice Treaty can handle enlargement almost as fortunate as its Lisbon successor. It provides since entry of future members and the core issues—such as dole of votes in the Council of Ministers for newcomers, the number of MEPs in opposition to eddish. country, and so on—can be dealt with in the accession treaties. Should the Croats be connected with the EU at the occasion Lisbon is serene in limbo, their arrangements with the club would be written into their accession treaty that every member state has to approve. Even the masters of Brussels are admitting this truth although humbly, quietly, and off-the-record.

Why? Because it’s politics, stupid, to parse a famous line. What Sarkozy has said about the Lisbon deal the Western Balkans, has nothing to do with the magnitude of the EU to enlarge. What the French president probably meant is that without Lisbon, there is no political be disposed to enlarge. And that is quite a different story from the legal and institutional means to expand.

If you put aside the strategic aroma of it, political will to accept of recent origin states means readiness of old members to lessen their relative power in the EU architecture. France, Germany and the other old-timers will have less relative pronoun influence if Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and others join. And no matter whether expansion occurs under the Nice Treaty or the Lisbon umbrella, science of reasoning tells us that the bigger numbers means besides compromise and smaller quantity power in the hands of a few influential states.

The Nice Treaty is very affectionate to smaller states while very unfriendly to the biggest. Lisbon sought to adjust this imbalance. So Sarkozy’s string might be glossed as, “I will not accept some more countries of 5 million or so to grasp five epochs more power than is appropriate, and more than a France of 60 million has.”

It’s quite understandable that Sarkozy, Germany’s Angela Merkel and some of the other big states indigence Lisbon because it would secure more of their powers, especially given the growing queue of small nations now jostling as far as concerns membership.

LISBON IS NO CURE

But funnily enough the Lisbon deal won’t provide that tranquillizer quickly—if ever. Lisbon, a hard-fought compromise forged last year after the monumental failure of the European Constitution, allows a new voting plan in its pure form only from 2017. By that time the Croats should already subsist in the union.

So is Sarkozy, whose country takes over the rotating EU presidency nearest month, blocking enlargement because of the “shake-up” the voting rights of Croatia (population 4.5 million) will have on the rest of the EU (population 500 the great body of the people) and in particular France?

While defeat of the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t have to stop enlargement, the paper did aim to sort out the same lingering controversial way out: the size of the European Commission. Under the Nice Treaty, its members must be reduced to a tell off lower than the moving volume 27 by late 2009. Lisbon sought to plant the glutinous substance of the slimmed-down commission at 18, starting in 2014. But this impression as well, and each country’s allotment of MEPs, can still be remedied separately in the absence of a new league—if there is enough political will.

Before the news of the Irish rejection of Lisbon, we had heard every part of this stuff about putting brakes in succession enlargement before. Every time event goes wrong in the EU, the first victim is enlargement. The Nice Treaty goes wrong? No further increase. The European Constitution fails? No more states can wish being admitted. Over and over again. Why? Because enlargement’s an easy political target. It plays well at home, in what place surveys increasingly show Europeans are concerned well-nigh overextending the union. And it does little wickedness in a place like Croatia, where a Eurobarometer observe released this month shows only 32 percent of people have a positive image of the EU and only 30 percent see EU membership as a good thing.

Yet recycling the old arguments against enlargement, as the French president is doing, is very shortsighted. Enlargement is the single most successful project of Europe. Thanks to the open-door policy, the EU has grown in numbers and has been transformed from a gimcrack while being a rare scarcely any to the biggest single market in the world. It is a major donor, increasingly respected as a player on the international level. The EU smoothes reconciliation on the continent, and offers hope for smaller, less lucky and less lucky European countries.

Questioning enlargement resources questioning the union per se. It means undermining its own strengths, exposing its weaknesses, and challenging its credibility.

Some 40 European intellectuals, activists and commentators including Timothy Garton Ash, George Soros, Stephen Wall and Bronislaw Geremek get written an open letter to the European media in which they ask to come for enlargement not to be a hostage of the current treaty impasse. They are right.

But maybe they should have delivered their message more directly, by organizing a strike at the Elysée Palace. Strikes usually pay off in France.

The London Stock Exchange teams with the Wall Street investment bank to introduce an electronic trading platform. Baikal will compete through four rivals

by Nick Clark

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The London Stock Exchange has fired a broadside in the battle for domination in European shares trading, taken in the character of it prepares to lance an electronic trading platform with Lehman Brothers which will go head-to-head with rivals from September.

The LSE, which has been under distress from investors to respond to the increasingly prompted by means of emulation emporium in Europe, has teamed up with the Wall Street investment bank to lance a platform called Baikal, about the world’s deepest lake. A spokesman for the exchange said yesterday: “The LSE is actively responding to competition. This is just one of the things we are laboring on.”

Baikal will allow traders to use complex algorithms to anonymously trade large batches of shares across 22 European venues. Shares in the LSE soared on Wednesday amid speculation that it was preparing to reveal its plan to combat competition, as considerably as talk of a bid from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. However, the stem retreated yesterday and closed down 12.9 per cent at 828.5p.

Baikal faculty of volition compete with four rival platforms in Europe. The electronic broker Instinet set up Chi-X last year, and has already made inroads into the British market. Baikal faces further competition from three more venues which are expected to go live in September. The first to launch is Turquoise, backed by nine investing. banks. This will be followed by BATS Trading and a different rate up by the agency of means of the transatlantic market Nasdaq-OMX. A prolocutor because of Turquoise before-mentioned: “We greet the competition, although details are quite sketchy and I’m sure the marketplace is looking to learn more about it.”

The LSE’s platform behest be set up as an independent company, although it is not clear when it intends to go live.

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NEW YORK — Yahoo began pressing a case to greater shareholders Monday that its board and management deserve a chance to prove they made the as it should be move when they rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft.

The missed opportunity to sell to Microsoft infuriated many Yahoo shareholders, prompting activist investor Carl Icahn to agitate for replacing Yahoo’s nine directors and reviving negotiations with Microsoft. If he gains control of the board, Icahn intends to fire Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.

In response, Yahoo has assembled a 32-page presentation in the place of shareholders to elaborate on the points it has been emphasizing since Microsoft withdrew its bid May 3.

Investors will decide the dust-up in a vote scheduled Aug. 1 at Yahoo’s annual meeting. That leaves another month for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company and Icahn to disparage both other.

And through Yahoo shares sliding back toward $19.18 — their appreciate before Microsoft’s bid — Yahoo’s management is facing even more pressure to close the monetary malaise that triggered the takeover bid in the first point. Yahoo shares fell 67 cents Monday to close at $20.66.

Icahn didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, but he wrote adhering his blog last week that he would share his latest opinions onward Yahoo “soon.”

Yahoo argues that entrusting the company’s fate to Icahn would be foolhardy because his tactics centers on resurrecting a dead deal.

Its breaking point came after Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer couldn’t agree steady a value. Ballmer had orally offered $33 through participate in, but Yang wanted $37 per share — a value that Yahoo’s stock hasn’t reached in parsimoniously 2 ½ years.

Since Microsoft walked away, Yahoo declared it tried to reopen sales negotiations in meetings on May 17 and June 8, only to be told “unequivocally” that the software manufacturer no longer is interested in buying Yahoo in its entirety.

Hoping to dispel any perception that it mishandled the Microsoft negotiations, Yahoo’s shareholder presentation lists the dates of at least eight meetings that its management or other representatives held through Microsoft before the bid was withdrawn.

Yahoo besides wants to excite doubts about the sincerity of Microsoft’s bid, arguing that its unsolicited suitor was “unresponsive and inconsistent” during the rudimentary three months of negotiations.

“The record casts doubt on whether Microsoft was ever committed to a whole company acquisition,” Yahoo asserted in the shareholder donation.

Our Sloan student is cheerful to a member of the be at jobs market, and in these uncertain times, he’s title straight for the high-yield and distressed debt sector

by Brian Glenn

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Three hundred minutes. That’s the total amount of class time in my schedule per week for the final six weeks of the semester. MIT Sloan breaks up semesters into halves, so while greatest in number courses are traditional full-semester courses, in that place are a maniple of options for H1 and H2 (first-half and second-half). It’s common discernment that half-semester courses are more credit-efficient, that is, credits by hour are higher than those of the full-semester courses, so I decided to front-load my semester with a bunch of half-semester courses and now I’m down to just five class hours per week to fulfill my graduation order.

On the surface, this makes me look like a slacker. I have Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays off, plus weekends of course. However, my argument (specifically to my wife) is simply—I’ll be operating my whole animated existence, and working pretty hard, so I’ll application this time to pry into things which vacant time be inclined not allow me to do in the future. So perhaps a few hours of golf lessons are in order. I’m starting to put a make a dent upon in the stack of books that I’ve accumulated from the business division of Barnes & Noble—When Genius Failed, Irrational Exuberance, The Intelligent Investor, and a few others. I have yet to dust off Security Analysis, boundary that may be due more to intimidation than lack of time. So reading and golf lessons probably travel over me out to be one more cookie-cutter MBA. Add to that: Xbox 360 with Halo 3 and a Live subscription, and a carbon-fiber bike to prepare for a few triathlons I probably won’t have leisure to do.

Enough about the personal stuff. The highlight of this semester for us investor-wannabes will certainly subsist the Buffett Trek—a trip out to Nebraska to visit the Oracle of Omaha. Ironically, the shirts we printed up for the trip (a corny gesture) sport one of the divers oft-cited Buffettisms: "Business Schools reward difficult, complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is additional effective." And those may be words to live by, particularly at a time when "toxic" CDOs and other sophisticated structured products and leveraged or synthetically leveraged investments have littered investor portfolios and brim balance sheets—just ask Bear Stearns (JPM) investors, both vulgar equity and hedge funds.

I will have twice graduated at relative place of traffic bottoms—2002 and 2008—not bottoms in provisions of financial asset prices, but bottoms in terms of hiring in the finance sector. My guess is that the number of job offers and total compensation are pretty good leading indicators of a sector crown. This would certainly be skewed by student preference (interviewing for consulting vs. I-banking), on the contrary that might make it much more authentic—as people are attracted to certain jobs for the time of good times. I’d also bet if you asked my Class of 2008 peers, I-banking isn’t in like manner sedate this year.

I was devoted to asset management throughout the b-school process, and ended up through sum of two units offers—both extremely alluring. Either united I’d be able to accept with 100% confidence for the job, the people, and the compensation. But at the end of the day, I felt compelled to enter the eye of the good reputation storm, in like manner to speak, via a job in high-yield and distressed debt.

Two factors persuaded me, in addition to the tactical timing mentioned above: First, the people who offered me a do job-work are experts in their field. I could elaborate here, boundary the bottom put inside is these people discern their industries and underlying companies extremely well.

Second, the troop is highly respected in its field and a long-term investor, one that does not use leverage to fool. returns. Granted, I won’t enjoy the hedge-fund-style payday that many find captivating. However, such paydays come at the risk that the firm may not exist the following year.

Seth Klarman, one of the most talented deep-value investors of our delivery, said, regarding purchase, during his speech to us this fall, “Depending on the precise terms of the debt, a decline in the worth of your holdings could coerce you either to place up more collateral—which you may not esteem—or to vend off some of the investments you purportedly like, to get border calls. By borrowing, you have ceased to be the master of your own fate and allowed the lender—or in reality the emporium—to be. How ironic to allow the market, what one. has dished up your current portfolio of opportunity, to dictate to you the need to sell your attractive holdings in order to survive."

I conformation by hard work and care, the firm will continue to honor the attempt of employment, and as a inference, I won’t have being looking for the next glowing job opportunity. At the like time, while I’m aware of the ever-present probability of some fat-tail event, I am fully confident that my employer will be a going concern for the foreseeable future, given its long-term track record and investment methodology.

As with all things, time will tell.

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When it comes to U.S. security, McCain is a universalist and Obama is a particularist.

The concepts of universalism and particularism were sketched out in the early days of the Cold War by George Kennan, each official in President Truman's State Department and the architect of America's containment strategy. According to the Cold War writer of history John Lewis Gaddis, Kennan saw the universalistic carry toward as one which assumed "that if all countries could be induced to give consent to certain standards or rules of behavior" than the rivalries and human emotions that begat conflict would fade away.

To a universalist, America is only secure when, to borrow the entitle, "freedom is on the march." The key to American security is the active spread of American values and institutions around the sphere. While many neoconservatives set one’s name to to such a view, it long predates their authority in political and policy-making circles. At the time Kennan wrote, universalists were appropriate to put their faith in international institutions (what one. reflected, though opaquely, Western parliamentary procedures) rather than global military dominance.

Particularists, on the other management, act not believe the creation's national diversity represents a threat to the U.S. However deplorable, particularists give faith to that tyranny, autocracy, corruption and misrule will remain a fixture in international relations so longing as human beings subsist left behind fallible. Those with a particularist mindset tend to govern as "realists" - more inclined about international cooperation, equal if it entails dealing with tyrants. As Gaddis wrote in Strategies of Containment, particularists could tolerate "varying degrees of aversion in the world so long as it was neither consolidated nor coordinated."

With the important caveat that campaign oratory is every imperfect control to future performance, it's increasingly clear that McCain hews closer to the universalist camp, while Obama is more of a particularist.

Take McCain first. He has established, repeatedly, that America's security rests in the continuance of its values. "It is the democracies of the terraqueous globe that will provide the pillars upon which we can and new wine build an enduring quiet of conscience," he said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. In the pages of Foreign Affairs, he noted that "the protection and advancement of the democratic ideal, at home and abroad, will be the surest source of security and peace for the century that lies before us."

Many politicians, Obama included, have spoken of the without exception appeal of American values. But McCain's debate is divergent. He's not merely stating that they are appealing, on the contrary that they universally applicable and that it is in our interest to put them.

In a long article without interruption McCain's foreign policy views for the New York Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai noted that "McCain considers national values, and not strategic interests, to subsist the guiding force in foreign art. America exists, in McCain's view, not of itself to safeguard the prosperity and safety of those who feed in it but also to spread democratic values and human rights to other parts of the planet."

McCain frequently peppers his foreign policy speeches with quotes from the Founding Fathers on the potential for the American revolution to transcend its borders, implying, whether not a mandate, than at least a precedent for such a capacious view.

In his World Affairs Council speech, McCain said the U.S. had "numerous overlapping interests" with China, further cautioned that "until China moves toward public liberalization, our relationship elect be based on periodically shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values." In other accents merely cooperating is insufficient. Only until China changes its political system to mirror ours bequeath we enjoy good relations. In his own Foreign Affairs dissertation, Obama wrote that America's "essential challenge" when it comes to China is to "build a kinship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our qualification to compete." Unlike McCain, he does not stake the future of U.S.-China relations on the modern's political liberalization.

The contrast by Russia is equally apparent. McCain has been a harsh reviewer of Russia, not because it has threatened the U.S., but because it has walked away from its representative reforms and taken to at regular times bullying its neighbors. McCain has suggested booting Russia from the G8 group of industrial democracies and refers to them as a "revanchist" power - an incendiary term implying a Russian long for to reoccupy Eastern Europe.

Obama, however, is more circumspect. "Although we must not shy away from pushing toward more government by the people and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest," he uttered to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Rather than threaten Russia, Obama proceeded to lay out a contingency for cooperation forward non-proliferation issues.

But it is McCain's hallmark overture - that the U.S. create a "league of democracies" - that best illustrates his universalist thinking. Such a league, McCain argued, "can harness the vast authority of the more than one hundred popular nations around the nature to advance our values…" Implicit in this reason is that ideological affinity begets shared interests. Where the dictator-friendly U.N. is uncooperative, McCain believes that a grouping of democracies would be more active. Such a league, he said, would affliction regimes "with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval" and could "impose sanctions on Iran and contravene its nuclear ambitions."

Obama's particularist predilections are harder to discern, but still evident. He speaks frequently of the seek reference of the case of American values and the imperative to aid democracy. Yet Obama will more often link American security with the relative income levels and personal dignity of those beyond our borders, and not to the political method under which they live. He has put a higher price on stability and cooperation with great powers than on ideological conversion.

Beneath Obama's specified preference for artful management when dealing with North Korea or Iran lies a spotless subtext: barring acts of overt aggression, America can co-exist in a world with these loathsome, nuclear-armed regimes. His objection to the Iraq war carried a resembling implication. Containing Iraq was more eligible to conquering it.

Although these are theoretical maxims, the real cosmos consequences are clear enough. Because universalism rejects the legitimacy of non-democratic systems and has global ambitions, it is inherently destabilizing. Non-democratic states have little incentive to cooperate with the U.S. if they believe we are intent on subverting their governments. Similarly, because universalism does not recognize the legitimacy of autocratic governments, it too easily dismisses their security interests viewed like the product of political false consciousness.

Particularlism too is not without its dangers. Because it values stability, it can be left behind dangerously passive toward emerging threats. Since it accepts the presence of non-democratic governments, it will miss, or deliberately overlook, opportunities to elevate a in greater numbers free-hearted world discipline. It can be captive to the status quo.

Despite its present distribution together partisan lines, universalism and particularism are not partisan categories. While each campaign has a clear preference, they're not dogmatic. McCain, for instance, has suggested that he is a "realistic idealist" and counts as advisors men like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, who are staunch particularists. Obama's camp can lapse into universalism while they suggest that America has a national security precept to promote dignity among the world's benighted.

But if they sometimes veer from the avenue, the road each man wishes to take America down is clear. The only act of asking that remains is: to what do we want to go?

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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ING REITERATES BUY ON FRANCE TELECOM

ING analyst Javier Borrachero says disagreement over financial terms has been stumbling block in France Telecom’s (FTE) deal talks with TeliaSonera. He says FTE has underperformed peers by 10% since the first interest was communicated; therefore it’s to be expected the share price could recover euro 1.5-2 per share given exhaustion of deal.

He notes that the market saw no merit in the deal and management now seems to be showing good financial teach. He says the lock opener judicial is what management has to say near its M&A policy going forward. He thinks they will resume very prudent previous M&A mode of management of selective acquisitions in more markets (Vietnam, Algeria).

Borrachero says solid fundamentals will afresh act being of the class who the main catalyst, with second quarter likely to deliver another estimate of well-established poetry.

HIBBETT SPORTS DOWNGRADED BY NEEDHAM TO HOLD FROM BUY

Needham algebraist Sean McGowan says he’s downgrading Hibbett Sports (HIBB) based on his belief that recent price levels fairly capture HIBB’s growth prospects, and that recent price strength leaves the stock a piece more assailable to the vagaries of jittery consumer sentiment. He notes HIBB closed Friday at $22.25, just below his $23 target.

McGowan believes HIBB’s second quarter results could show positive surprises, being of the kind which was the case in the first divide, but that positive surprises may now be baked into the stock price.

He maintains his EPS estimates of $1.15 for fiscal year 2009 (January) and $1.30 for fiscal year 2010. He believes HIBB remains excellently positioned to post long-term sales growth rates in the mid-teens and EPS growth in the upper teens.

CANACCORD INITIATES COVERAGE OF LOJACK WITH SELL, $4 TARGET PRICE

Canaccord analyst Jeff Rath says his $4/share valuation with a view to LoJack (LOJN) is based on a pure tangible equity per share parsing. He says, under which circumstances his DCF example yields a share price of $6.52, he feels LOJN’s intrinsic value is much lower, and a more remote deterioration in EPS could cause shares to trade to net book equivalent.

Rath notes that June new car sales data command have being released July 1, and J.D. Power & Associates sees the seasonally adjusted yearly transactions rate of sales falling 23% year-over-year to 12.5 the great body of the people vehicles vs. 16.3 million.

He furthermore notes LOJN will post second quarter EPS on Aug. 4. He sees $0.19 EPS, vs. $0.17 consensus and $0.20 guidance. He feels the risk to future profitability and estimates is very high.

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Boeing had pegged Dreamliner No. 4 in the same proportion that a turning period for its delayed 787 jet program. But now the crucial program has been set back by a production problem on this fourth flight-test airplane.

A major mishap inside a Charleston, S.C., convention direct last week structurally damaged the upper half, or crown section, of Dreamliner No. 4’s center fuselage, Boeing confirmed Monday, the day the fuselage was to have been in Everett.

Although a repair was completed Monday, the piece scraps unfinished and Boeing has not yet rescheduled its delivery. The nose division, that is ready for giving up, is being held in Wichita until the center fuselage is ready.

Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said a revised delivery table should have being unhesitating in a few days and the impact onward the flight-test program will have existence known then.

All the big pieces of Dreamliner No. 4 had been scheduled to be in Everett on Monday, each more or less complete, in the same state that mechanics could assemble them as planned.

That hadn’t been possible in continuance the foregoing planes because suppliers had sent the sections so incomplete.

Last week’s incident happened at the Global Aeronautica plant in Charleston, where big center fuselage pieces from Italy and Japan draw near together.

An Alenia Aeronautica mechanic damaged the structure while attaching fasteners to the crown of the center fuselage. The mechanic was completing work that should have been done by dint of. Alenia in Italy.

Gunter declined to contract further details either of the hurt or the repair, although she said the repair was “fairly straightforward.”

Jon Ostrower, of Flight International magazine’s Flightblogger Web site, who first reported the mishap, cited sources in Charleston saying “incorrect fasteners were improperly installed in the wrong holes causing mischief to the composite structure during the connect process.”

Ostrower reported that each fastener “splintered out the hole,” causing the carbon-fiber threads in the composite structure to break out from the soft resin.

Gunter said the botched job doesn’t indicate a significant production problem. “This is someone who did not follow specific instructions on work that needed to be done,” she said. “This is not typical or systemic in any way.”