World Business

Watch original video:

Catholics are by no means a single-issue voting group. But for the sake of observant Catholics, those who attend Mass regularly and come the Church's teachings, a candidate's position on disappointment matters. Even among more broadly identified Catholics — those who call themselves Catholic, regardless of whether they are observant — 59 percent obstruct abortion, according to a recent Time magazine poll. And Barack Obama's take down upon this issue will effect pause for many of them.

Like most Democratic politicians, Barack Obama favors abortion rights for women, with scarcely any exceptions. He has recently said that he might support some limits on very late-term abortions, those that occur in the the last time quarter of pregnancy. But when it comes to actual legislative limits, he's never erect one yet he can vote for.

Take partial-birth abortion, a gruesome procedure in which the fetus is delivered feet-first, its brain punctured and its brain suctioned out, thereby killing the fetus and collapsing the skull on account of easy delivery of the full dead body. Although he was not in the U.S. Senate when it voted to ban partial-birth abortions, Obama has notwithstanding heavily criticized the legislation and the Supreme Court governing that upheld its constitutionality. "Some people argue that the federal ban on abortion was suitable an isolated effort aimed at one medical deed — that it's not part of a concerted effort to roll back the hard-won rights of American women. That presumption is too wrong," Obama told those attending a 2007 Planned Parenthood meeting. But Americans overwhelmingly oppose partial birth failure — 70 percent in a 2003 Gallup poll — so Obama's views put him in a defined minority.

Obama's most polemical action on the premature delivery event occurred when he was an Illinois state senator. Bills that would have required medical personnel to entertain infants who survived abortion procedures came up several ages during Obama's manner in the Illinois state senate — and each time, Obama opposed passage. He has since tried to defend his resist through claiming that the purpose of the Illinois bills was to overturn Roe v. Wade. And he's even argued that the Illinois legislation was useless because "in that place was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you through all ages. have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any one circumstances," as he told Relevant magazine last month.

In actuality, the Illinois legislation was introduced after a Chicago suckle, Jill Stanek, came forward to represent her own experiences "where babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in the soiled utility room" at Christ Hospital in a Chicago suburb. Stanek testified that she held the same of the infants for 45 minutes before it died after essence denied any medical method of treating. Clearly the legislation was not superfluous, as Obama suggested. Moreover, Obama explained his vote at the life by complaining, "if we're placing a clog on the learned man that says you regard to keep alive even a previable child as spun out as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try and keep that child alive, then we're probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality."

Polls show Catholics pretty evenly divided between Obama and McCain at this point — with 45 percent favoring the GOP candidate and 44 percent favoring the Democrat. But Obama will hold a difficult time wooing pro-life Catholics, given his record — and a talk by a pro-life Democrat like Sen. Casey won't be enough to tip Catholics in his favor. And, of pursue, the biggest obstacle to Obama's outreach will be pro-choice Democrats, many of them feminists who supported Hillary Clinton.

As on in such a manner many issues, Obama risks losing the far left of his party if he moderates his own out-of-the-mainstream positions on abortion in order to acquire more centrist voters. Instead, he'll probably continue to talk out of both sides of his jaws on this issue and confidence Catholic voters don't notice.

Linda Chavez is the author of "An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal." To find out more near to Linda Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate suffusion page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Previous: Obama's Catholic Problem
Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080808/cm_uc_crlchx/op_206983

Watch original video:

Okay, not entirely. David was out of humor and irritable for pretty much his entire 13th year and at the same season that he has now reached the sunshiny uplands of 14, he still has his moments. Jon, 16, has developmental disorders of various kinds so that no age is without challenges. But for the mostly part, the teen years here are actually — and common doesn't want to tempt the evil eye but — fun.

Well, of course, as the parent of a teenager you do have to be obliged a sense of humor about certain things — like socks. They one or the other fail to wear them when they should, or adieu dirty ones in places they should not. They are heedless of their appearance and submit only reluctantly to daily ablutions. They consume prodigious amounts of food but relate to two stalks of broccoli as a huge portion. When their hair is falling across their foreheads and tumbling down over the eyes to in some place near the nostrils, they pronounce it "too short." And they have a peculiar sense of time. After three hours on the computer they will bemoan plaintively, "I just got on!" But after six minutes of practicing the trumpet or clarinet they will testify that they spent a half-hour.

And yea, as the mother of a music-obsessed 14-year-old, I do yield radio bridle to whoever has chief called "shotgun" in the car and thus am subjected to more heavy metal than a middle-aged woman should be expected to endure. Did you know that there are genres of heavy metal? Oh, yes. There's hair metal and end of life metal and thrash metal and God knows what else. I once asked David whether every song amounted to its own genre. He was dismissive. David is very quick on the trigger. He knows my views and standards and posterior a year and a half of listening to heavy metal in the car, I don't design I've heard a single swear word.

But enduring ponderous metal is an investment because this boy also loves Rachmaninoff, Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov. We split our time betwixt the rock and classical channels. David be possible to play Hummel and Haydn on the trumpet, and hinder spending three glorious weeks at Interlochen music camp this year he returned appreciating opera, hop about, and even (his mother's skepticism notwithstanding) Mahler. If I can listen to Metallica and Rush notwithstanding David's consideration, I be feasible to certainly give Gustav another go.

Ben, at 12, is not technically a teenager yet, but that severely matters since Ben is unit of those people who was born mature. This is not to say he's solemn. Quite the contrary. Listening to the news on the car radio the other day, the announcer intoned, "Next, is Bill Clinton a racist?" "He be able to't be," quipped Ben, "he's the first hellish president." I guess it's possible that adolescence will transmute this smiling prankster (I got every vigilant on my PDA recently that make out "Buy Ben presents") into a brooding shadow at minutest some of the time. But it's hard to imagine. He has the gift of buoyancy, a talent as being keeping busy (mostly underrated in this screen-dependent age), and too much impishness to remain morose for long.

I so admire parents who are more strict and disciplined that I. Certainly against three boys a bit more martinet would not go amiss. (My husband is better, but he works long hours.) And I do see at teenage girls who seem to keep their notebooks so orderly and their hair combed and their permission slips signed and think — it's a different creation.

But I'm not complaining. I get in my car and the GPS spits out directions to our dear sushi restaurant and I think "Ben!" After haggling with David about practice time, he finally puts the bugle to his lips and out comes real music, beautiful music. Jonathan is learning the bass guitar, helping out with the junior kids at synagogue, and earning pocket money by gardening, cleaning, and caring for the four animals in our household. He's in this way contented when he's working hard, and that is no little thing in this world.

To find out more about Mona Charen and explain features by means of other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, inspect the Creators Syndicate Web serving-boy at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Previous: Teenagers
Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080808/cm_uc_crmchx/op_56980

Watch original video:

Beazer Homes USA Inc. said Friday it posted a narrower loss in its fiscal third quarter despite lower revenue to the degree that the homebuilder’s expenses declined. The quarterly results fell concise of Wall Street’s expectations.

Chief Executive Ian McCarthy said he expects continued tough industry conditions due to eroding consumer confidence and high inventories of unsold homes to offer into next year.

The Atlanta-based company posted a loss of $109.8 the multitude, or $2.85 a share, in the quarter that ended June 30. That compares with a loss of $118.7 million, or $3.09 a share, in the similar era last year.

The latest quarter included a $95.5 the multitude charge as the builder walked off from land preference contracts and the value of its unsold homes declined.

Revenue slid 40 percent to $455.6 million, as home closings fell to 37 percent.

Average sales prices, new orders and backlog also declined year over year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected the builder to report a loss of $2.34 cents by share on revenue of $430.1 the public. Wall Street estimates typically exclude one-time charges or gains.

“As our third part quarter results illustrate, difficult operating conditions in the homebuilding industry persevere,” McCarthy before-mentioned in a description. “Based on these exact dynamics, coupled with elevated supply levels of new and existing home inventory, we believe industry conditions will remain challenging for the remainder of this fiscal year and as we be initiated fiscal 2009.”

McCarthy related the assembly is focusing on reducing costs, improving its cash position, limiting investment in land and homes and trimming its stock of unsold homes to position itself for when the market improves.

Beazer said net new domestic orders fell almost 42 percent to 1,774.

The rate at which buyers canceled orders during the divide in four equal parts was 36.8 percent, up from 33.7 percent from the second quarter and essentially insipid versus the same period hold out year.

The builder saw home closings declension thwart all of its regions during the quarter, with the steepest declines in the Southeast, the West and Florida.

WASHINGTON —

Watch source video:

Citigroup Inc. power of choosing bribe back more than $7 billion in auction-rate securities and pay $100 the great body of the people in fines as apportionment of settlements through treaty and state regulators, who said the bank marketed the investments as safe despite liquidity risks.

Citigroup will buy extremity the securities from tens of thousands of investors nationwide under separate accords announced Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and other quality regulators. The buybacks from nearly 40,000 individual investors, small businesses and charities are not expected to cause significant losses for Citigroup; they must be completed by the agency of November.

Similar steps to pervert with money back auction sale rate securities from customers are expected to exist taken by other financial institutions. Bank of America Corp. revealed that it has received subpoenas and requests with regard to accusation about its sale of the investments. Merrill Lynch & Co. said it will offer to bribe back an estimated $12 billion in auction rate securities, though the company has before that time been actively reducing that amount.

Citi, the nation’s largest financial institution, said also will pay $50 million each in civil penalties to New York state and the North American Securities Administrators Association, which represents securities regulators in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The SEC too determine consider levying a fine on Citigroup, the agency’s compulsion director Linda Thomsen, said at a news conference.

New York-based Citigroup agreed to reimburse investors who sold their auction-rate securities at a loss after the mart for them collapsed in mid-February. Also below the SEC accord, Citigroup agreed to make its best efforts to adjust by the end of next year all of the roughly $12 billion of auction-rate securities it sold to retirement plans and other institutional investors. Cuomo said his office will monitor that effort for three months and then decide on a timeframe.

The $330 billion auction-rate securities market involved investors buying and selling instruments that resembled regular corporate debt, except the interest rates were reset at regular auctions - some as frequently as once a week. A number of companies invested in the securities because, thanks to the regular auctions, they could discourse on their holdings as liquid, within a little like turn into money.

Major issuers included companies that financed student loans and municipal agencies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In February, when banks similar as Citigroup ceased backstopping the auctions with supporting bids because of concerns about credit exposure, the bustling market collapsed. That left some issuers profitable double-digit interest rates like of the terms under which they issued the securities.

“These were conservative investors; that’s for what cause they bought these securities,” Cuomo said in a telephone interview. “These were not high-risk investors.”

The settlements with Citigroup make the investors whole and may point the way to a solution of such cases involving auction-rate securities, he said.

Federal and state regulators have been investigating marketing of the securities by a number of great banks. Another case surfaced this week: the Massachusetts attorney general’s capacity reached a reconciliation with investment firm Morgan Stanley for allegedly selling the risky auction-rate securities to cities and towns, but presenting the investments as safe.

As part of the settlement filed Wednesday, Morgan Stanley agreed to repurchase $1.5 million in the securities it sold to a fit of local municipalities, and fully reimburse any city or town that invested in auction-rate securities. The New York-based company said it was pleased to defecate the cause without financial penal retribution.

BEIJING An American clergyman checked into upscale hotels in the Olympics throng city this week, filmed himself painting two of his rooms with slogans like “Beijing 2008 Our world Our nightmare” and then disappeared. Without paying.

Watch inventive video:

Eddie Romero’s extraordinary protest, now making the rounds on YouTube, shows foreigners can still sneak through the tight security measures China imposed to detain potential troublemakers away from the games, which start Friday.

The net tightened on the same level more Thursday.

A Hong Kong lawmaker aforesaid immigration officials deported three U.S.-based Chinese representative government activists after denying them entry to the territory, which is the site of Olympic equestrian events. A second protest by three Americans in Tiananmen Square, including anti-abortion activist the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, was stopped by security agents who led them away.

Locals who stare one in the face to take more of the shine off the games get tougher treatment.

At least two women who have protested substance evicted from their homes near Tiananmen were rounded up late Wednesday and early Thursday and taken to a police station, one of them told The Associated Press.

In a telephone call, Zhang Ma said she was being held with the other woman, Zhang Wei, and several other residents but could not bestow other minor circumstances. She hung up in a short time, saying she was being watched and was not supposed to talk to reporters.

Romero’s friends declared the preacher was in hiding, but that planned to surrender to Chinese authorities as soon as the Olympics end Aug. 24.

They said he began reflecting nearly his elaborate, one-man testify of China’s human-rights abuses when Beijing was selected as the host for the 2008 Olympics seven years ago.

On Tuesday, in a sometimes unsteady hand - he had to point out to himself how to paint - the California-based pastor splashed the walls of his two hotel rooms with demands for the release of five Chinese activists. He slit pillows and staged mock killings with stuffed people propped on the bed, red paint spattered like blood on the headboard.

“One from the top to the bottom of,” Romero whispers, looking into the video camera. Bespectacled and gray-haired, he holds up a handle in his transformed Novotel Peace Hotel room. “One down.”

Romero, who appears to be alone, tells the camera he doesn’t scarcity to disrupt the games. He talks ready devotional freedom for groups that remain highly sensitive with the Chinese government - Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, the Falun Gong ghostly movement.

ROME Silvio Berlusconi is sparing none effort to clear up the garbage crisis in Naples - even picking up a besom himself.

Watch original video:

On Thursday, the Italian prime minister swept the streets of the city for a few moments, to the delight of cameras. At another point he picked up a plastic cup to place it a dross bin.

Berlusconi was in Naples in the same manner with part of a review of his plan to interpret the city’s garbage collection problems. He said his gesticulation was meant to remind citizens that “we must take care of our cities and gardens as clean as our homes,” according to the ANSA tidings agency.

The garbage height has eased with the reopening of dumps. But Berlusconi recently said that tons of trash remain uncollected and a long-term solution will take three years.