World Business

The electronics company CEO says new tech milestones prove it’s back on top in change

by means of Vivian Yeo

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Pointing to several results “firsts”, Sony Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer reported Tuesday the firm has “recovered” in all areas that it was seen to have being having difficulties. The Sony cardinal was speaking to the media during his first visit to Singapore since he took over the company helm in 2005.

One district in what one. Sony is leading the industry is OLED (organic light-emitting diode) television sets—a “true greater milestone”, said Stringer. The collection first launched its OLED product last December in Japan, released it in North America early this year and is a little while ago introducing it in Europe. “Other companies are advertising the same thing for the future but we have it very lately,” he proclaimed.

Some of that innovation has also taken place around software, an area the company was not known for. Stringer pointed out that he took over a set that was hardware-focused and vertically organized, but that the business was increasingly about designing a “software product”.

To drive interaction amongst his software engineers in the various business units, Stringer organized cocktail parties to encourage them to get to know undivided not the same and the applications they were working on. That even led to engineers using their personal time to drudge in company on developing applications beyond the business units they work for, he said.

“There was obviously a hunger to be more contemporaneous than we were currently,” he noted.

As a reflection of that more modern perspective, the PlayStation Network was built with “an interoperable DRM” (digital rights management), said Stringer. “We’d have had a proprietary one before, except this is an interoperable one which is much other useful for the customer. That’s a good sign.”

The PlayStation Network, a digital media giving up service for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) customers, was “launched quietly” based on the experience of heart “a company that’s been ridiculed for its software development”, admitted Stringer. The move turned out to be “very successful”, he pointed out.

“Now we have to make Vaio and Sony walkmans and cellphones connect into that PlayStation Network so that they over can deliver the identical content seamlessly and freely across those devices instead of the PSP,” he added.

The company’s goal is to take device-to-device commerce farther, eventually having 90 percent of Sony devices capable of networking by one another, said Stringer. Essentially, users can migrate every undivided of the things they care approximately from one stratagem to another, in the same state as porting data from a laptop to a PSP, he explained.

Electronics innovation, said Stringer, in fact comes from “extensions of an existing subject”.

The truth is, everybody’s brand new product is an extension of what already exist—the world is no longer a place in which place you suppose, ‘Oh look, I’ve precisely invented television’, or ‘I’ve invented [the] cellphone’, he pointed out. “You make them bigger and better, thinner, taller, shorter, by consequence more convenient for the customer.”

With economic pressures and stiffer competition, companies need to “be much more globally connected to the rest of the world” to determine what to make innovations and what products to sell.

Risks in like manner have to be weighed and taken, he said. “You have to make choices, whether you make the iPhone or the Vaio X1 you be obliged to balance technology versus customer tranquillity of use versus customer cost—all these things depart into the calculus of what you launch on each unsuspecting public.”

The OLED technology was one such example, said Stringer. “OLED has been in the works and has been discarded a couple of times as [substance] too advanced, too expensive or too difficult to manage for the users.

“We made a decision on OLED—it was such a remarkable technology we’d launch it and lose wealth on initial devices, but eventually the precipitous capacity of the picture will solve the problem that would take to get large song to market,” he explained.

PARIS A Paris investigating judge has filed initiatory charges contrary to powerful American wine critic Robert M. Parker for alleged defamation against a forgoing assistant, judicial officials said Wednesday.

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The suppose is looking into a lawsuit brought by Parker’s former assistant Hanna Agostini, who broke with the critic and co-authored a book in France with a title that translates as “Robert Parker: Anatomy of a Myth.”

Agostini, who brought the state last year, herself faces preliminary charges in Bordeaux involving alleged forgery in a wine-trafficking affair centering on Belgian wine trader Geens. She denies the allegations.

The charges were filed Friday against Parker for title on his Internet site that Agostini “could end up stagnating in workhouse,” and for misrepresenting the penalties that she faces, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly approximately the matter.

Parker’s lawyer said the critic declined make comments about the case-ending. He was fined $2,820 by a Paris court in March for violating Agostini’s presumption of innocence.

“Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide” is a well-known reference book, and his recommendations can make or break winemakers. His publication, the Wine Advocate, assigns scores of up to 100 points to the wines it samples. He has been called the most sinewy critic in the globe.

Culture & Commerce brought Philippe Starck to Target. Now the firm is helping the retailer introduce young designers to the size market

by Reena Jana

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Target (TGT) is known for selling housewares by forward-thinking designers like Philippe Starck. What’s less known is the Minneapolis retailer’s secret weapon for finding such talent. Along with in-house trend-watchers, Target works through Culture & Commerce, a little New York design agency, to hoot at for innovative designers with potential mass-market seek reference of the case.

The firm is the reason Los Angeles designer Sami Hayek’s $20 bedspreads are stars of Target’s back-to-school campaign. "They give me access to companies that I would have to take a allotment of time to even get an appointment through," says Hayek.

Michele Caniato, a consultant on high-performance materials for companies such as Nokia (NOK) and Whirlpool (WHR), founded Culture & Commerce with entrepreneur George M. Beylerian in 2000. They applied the concept of Hollywood talent management to product design. "We’re a matchmaker and preserver angel," says Caniato, adding that the firm has negotiated $65 million in designer contracts to date.

Before introducing designers to companies like Target or other clients such to the degree that Microsoft (MSFT), Morgans Hotel Group (MHGC), and Puma, Caniato analyzes their mass-market potential and spends up to nine months coaching them without interruption how to work with large corporations. He also negotiates financial and legal details of a deal and acts being of the kind which a liaison between the couple parties, managing scheduling, budgeting, and contracts.

In go, the designers, who retain final say upon the body the look of their products, pay 25% to 30% commissions under 4-to-10-year contracts with the agency. And they procure to be to focus on coming up with unique products. "Before, I wasn’t designing a destiny," says Hayek. "After, I began designing again."

Target’s relationship with Culture & Commerce dates from 2001, when Caniato introduced Starck to the retail giant. It was the agency’s first deal—and a risky move for Starck, then known for luxury furniture sold at upscale boutiques in the same state as New York’s Moss. Caniato convinced him that astute a line according to Target, created with more hands-on involvement than a emblematic licensing share might allow, would grow his exposure to view independently of diminishing his high-end reputation.

Starck provided a high-profile test case for Target’s design-centric strategy. The company, which does not break deficient in sales figures, has pursued this "open innovation" approach to object partnerships ever since.

Target’s overall sales growth has hovered around zero for the beyond three quarters, but Chief Executive Gregg W. Steinhafel has before-mentioned that the company will continue with such collaborations, which have shifted from big design-world names toward breaking new talent, such as Hayek. This fits Target’s renewed impressiveness on low prices rather than on haunch chic. "What Target has begun to do, albeit later than we would receive liked, is to converging-point more put on value and on price," says JPMorgan Chase (JPM) retail analyst Charles Grom.

Roger Martin, dean of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, who lectures on design as a corporate strategy, says Culture & Commerce’s come nearly up is smart. The arrangement helps product designers, who differently guard to rely without ceasing their own promotional Web sites or licensing services to tympanum up new business. And it helps businesses source fresh faculty. "The design world is fragmented, so it can be hard for companies to know who’s revealed there," Martin says.

Analysts’ opinions on public securities in the news Wednesday

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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S&P REITERATES HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF LEHMAN BROTHERS (LEH; 8.02):

We view restructuring plans announced today favorably, but we remain cautious on the shares based on extensive remaining execution expose to danger. We think shareholders behalf from a spinoff of commercial real estate assets, but mark-downs may rest for November-quarter. We think a sale of the investment management stake would provide capital and allow for some participation in profits, but terms are not yet set. We think long-term LEH profitability is impaired but not compromised. Our financial year 2008 (November) loss estimate widens to $10.26 from $7.44, and we trim our mark price $6 to $14, 0.5 general condition of affairs book value. -M. Albrecht

S&P REITERATES BUY OPINION ON SHARES OF FEDEX CORP. (FDX; 84.75):

FDX sees August-quarter EPS of $1.23 when it reports results Sept 18. This foresee is better than prior guidance of $0.80-$1.00, our $1.06 estimate, and the Street’s $0.95 forecast. FDX says lower firing material costs helped, but a slowing U.S. economy is spreading globally. The company reiterated its fiscal year 2009 (May) EPS guidance of $4.75-$5.25. However, we are raising our fiscal year 2009 EPS forecast to $5.50 from $5.34 and starting fiscal year 2010’s at $6.10. We are raising our 12-month target price to $105 from $96, 19 times our fiscal year 2009 EPS estimate, still at the low end of historical p-e range to consider relating to housekeeping concerns. -J. Corridore

S&P REITERATES HOLD OPINION ON SHARES OF IMCLONE SYSTEMS (IMCL; 68.31):

IMCL’s board rejects as inadequate the $60 cash buyout offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY; 21.69) . In addition, Chairman Carl Icahn say that IMCL has received $70 per share cash proffer from a “large pharmaceutical company,” subject to due steady application .. While IMCL has not determined whether the new offer would be adequate, we see demand for biotech assets from capacious pharma companies resulting in a completed transaction in the current price line, either from new applicant or raised BMY bid. We boost our 12-month target price by $5 to $70, in thread with the newly revealed endeavor. -S. Silver

S&P RAISES RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF CONTINENTAL AIRLINES TO BUY FROM HOLD (CAL; 15.65):

We think fresh 30%-plus pullback in the price of oil combined with looming fourth quarter habitual devotion to labor capacity cuts own improved fundamentals. We are raising our 2008 and 2009 estimates to a loss per share of $3.00 and EPS of $2.00 from a $4.00 loss and a $2.50 loss. We anticipate oil prices and CAL’s parentage price to continue to have large, volatile swings and we categorize the garner in the same manner with high risk. Even so, we are raising our mark excellence to $25 from $12, valuing the shares at a proportion of enterprise value to EBITDAR (EBITDA in addition aircraft rent) of 3 times our 2009 EBITDAR forecast, stop below peer average. -J. Corridore

S&P REITERATES SELL RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF APPLE (AAPL; 150.79):

Apple’s “Let’s Rock” crowd event in succession Sept. 9 showcased upgrades to the iPod product method, which contributed 35% of financial year 2007 (September) sales, including a new iPod Nano that is thinner and offers innovative user interface features such taken in the character of “shake to shuffle.” We think new products should help drive seasonal sales, further we note the relative lack of attention to PCs and iPhones. Also, the price cuts in succession the iPod Touch line are symptomatic of margin pressures we foresee for AAPL. We are maintaining our EPS estimates of $5.22 for fiscal year 2008, and $6.00 for financial year 2009, and our 12-month target price of $140. -T. Smith-CFA

With more banks expected to fail, it’s a good time to front into the protections available for your retirement accounts

by Ellen Hoffman

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In the wake of the historic body politic bailout of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), investors wonder which bench power of choosing fail next. Indeed, images of customers lined up last July outside offices of the failed IndyMac Bank to withdraw their wealth are hard to forget. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) recently reported that 117 banks, the highest number in five years, are on its "problem" list, and "more banks will come on the list as credit problems worsen."

It’s not any wonder that some Americans are asking themselves if the money they’ve accumulated in retirement accounts is adequately protected. "Clients are expressing concerns about whether their accounts are safe. This has occurred because of the devolve of both IndyMac Bank and Bear Stearns and the greater decline in greatest in number bank and pecuniary stocks," says Kevin Reardon, a financial planner in Brookfield, Wis.

In general, the answer is that your retirement accounts are sure. Three key factors determine how well your money is protected: the type of narration you have, whither the account is located, and how much is in each account. Here’s a rundown on the rules to help you turn if you need to make any changes in whither and how you hold retirement savings in banks, brokerage accounts, and your 401(k).

At this point honest about everyone knows your standard banker’s account is insured by the FDIC for up to $100,000. Less well known is that since 2006, a orally transmitted or Roth IRA, a Simplified Employer Plan (SEP), and several other types of retirement accounts that you hold in some FDIC-insured bank are covered by insurance up to $250,000. The insurance applies to the withdrawal account in addition to insurance on your other accounts in the corresponding; of like kind bank. The FDIC does not release its list of problem banks, on the contrary it does offer a think best of bank rating sources you be possible to consult if you’re concerned about a particular institution. If your FDIC-insured retirement profit exceeds $250,000, or if you are worried about the bank’s financial health, you can move some or all of the asset to another institution. But just make sure you follow the rules for a trustee-to-trustee transmit so you put on’t get carry the point with taxes or penalties attached a withdrawal.

Retirement accounts housed at a brokerage receive the same protection as other types of brokerage accounts if the firm belongs to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, some organization funded by means of securities broker-dealers. SIPC is charged through returning "customers’ cash, stock and other securities" in the event a company fails or patron assets are missing. But SIPC rules differ from those of the FDIC, and some types of investments, such considered in the state of produce contracts, are not insured by SIPC.

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Boeing won a major victory Wednesday when the Pentagon scrapped the Air Force refueling-tanker competition, throwing out the contract awarded in February to an Airbus-built plane and leaving the nearest president to start over.

The decision, announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, followed months of civic pressure, a formal Boeing protest and a threat from Boeing management to pull audibly of the competition supposing that not it got in greater numbers proper time.

Boeing got a whole new game, possibly extending the tanker saga in a puzzle individual more years, and a new team to make the final resolution.

Now, the consequence of the presidential election could verify whether a Boeing plane or Northrop-EADS’ Airbus plane becomes the $40 billion Air Force tanker.

Democrat Barack Obama’s political supporters in Congress and in labor unions, and the broad Democratic Party agenda, tend to patronize the Boeing airplane, built by confederacy workers in Washington state.

The Republican Party’s free-market agenda would tend to be neutral on the choice of companies, but Republican John McCain has clashed with Boeing in the past over the tanker. And McCain’s Southern political supporters favor the Airbus jet, with faculties sent from Europe for dancing-party in Mobile, Ala.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute who is civil with the politics of military management, sees two starkly different agendas.

“Obama is an economic nationalist,” Thompson. “For him, the tanker connects with much broader agenda items: the yet to be of American industry, the trade balance, sending production offshore.

“Sen. Obama will face at where these two planes originate, where they are being built, and who is building them, and apparently decide he prefers the Boeing tanker.”

Boeing supporters Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Norm Dicks, both Washington state Democrats, backed that tax of where Obama likely would fall.

McCain would inevitably cast the issues around the tanker competition differently, Thompson said.

Early involvement

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"Forget about Kansas, what’s the matter by America???" Obama supporters are furiously asking themselves.

The Obama campaign’s embarrassing meltdown in response to the McCain surge (or the Palin pounce, as I like to call it) is telling.

First, trot Joe Biden out to blame the governor of Alaska of being a lightweight. Send surrogates to incriminate her of everything you imagine conservatives to be: vile, cutting, mocking, nasty, abhorrent, "high-pitched."

Newsflash, buddies: That may be the path the good-humored retorts of a moosehunting mother of five undecayed to you, but not to the quietness of America.

So next, lash in a puzzle wildly like your world tumbles about you. In Michigan, Sen. Obama personally attacked McCain and Palin as "shameless" (For you leftist supporters: That’s a bad thing.) and approved an ad accusing McCain and Palin of "mendacious about their records."

That makes the second time in a month the haughty Obama has called his critics liars. When the National Right to Life Committee accused Obama of misleading voters on his record on legal protections for infants born alive after an attempted abortion, Obama went ballistic: "And I hate to say that the million are untruthful, but here’s a situation where folks are lying," he told Christian Broadcasting Network.

But it turns out that it is Obama, not the NRLC, who has his facts wrong.

On Aug. 25, FactCheck.org concluded:

"We attain to that, for the reason that the NRLC said in a fresh statement, Obama voted in committee against the 2003 affirm bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained not different clauses saying that nothing in the bills could have existence construed to affect legal rights of one unborn fetus."

Has Obama apologized for his gutter attacks on his critics? Don’t hold your life.

The Obama campaign is proving remarkably thin-skinned. The way that normal Americans respond to assaults on cherished symbols — the flag, marriage — the Obama cohorts respond to attacks attached, considerably, Obama. This is fitting, since he is — in his own mind, or at least his wife’s — the symbol of all that is good about America.

Meanwhile in Leftyland, the fury is falling like brimstone over Gov. Sarah Palin’s head. The latest idea? Attack Sarah Palin’s church for promoting so-called "gay regeneration," which for the left is obviously far worse than the moral equivalent of the Rev. Jeremiah’s Wright’s "God (expletive deleted) America." A Christian house of worship teaching that Christians should confine sex to marriage betwixt a man and a woman? Scandalous!

Memo to Obama campaign: Good luck with that one.

The resurgent liberal leadership continues to be completely confounded by the way Americans in fact think, especially Christian conservatives. They do not know what to make of the America in which they actually live, which now includes Americans with lawn signs featuring a rifle-toting Sarah Palin with the slogan "Change We Can Believe In."

Barack Obama’s problem is that his campaign is based on a fundamental untruth: The reason Republicans get elected is because the American people are stupid.

In Barack Obama’s case he likes to think of us Americans as basically good-hearted but flat, which makes him light-years in our teeth of most of his leftist bretheren, who see Americans as both malicious, vile discriminators and tiresome.

Let’s bestow him credit: Obama was dire to share his more enlightened and optimistic vision in San Francisco, trying to get his donor low-minded into the bitter heads of small-town America and refund their disdain through greater empathy. Yes, it backfired, and it will continue to behave so.

What the American people are responding to in McCain and Palin is something that cannot be manufacutured or horsemanship — trustworthiness.. They are who they allege they are. They are real deal.

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Engineers at Boeing on Wednesday became the second union to question the return of work farmed out to contractors, a lock opener issue that contributed to the strike by 27,000 Machinists.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), representing 21,000 Boeing workers in Washington, Oregon, California and Utah, presented its first proposal to company executives on account of a three-year contract to replace the one that expires Dec. 1, Executive Director Ray Goforth said.

The engineers may increase influence on Boeing to take back labor it gave suppliers to help ascendency costs during the time that developing and building planes like the reinvigorated 787 Dreamliner.

The Machinists strike has shut down production at Boeing’s Seattle-area manufacturing hub, where an increasing amount of the work is now the final lower house of parts built elsewhere by means of contractors.

“The fact the engineers are bringing up similar demands reinforces that this is a important issue for Boeing employees and strengthens the Machinists’ spot,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor-relations professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “We have a test of housekeeping wills that could go without interruption for quite some time.”

SPEEA is seeking raises, in greater numbers holidays days, higher overtime rates, a restoration of early-retiree medical benefits and changes to the health-care plan and pension, Goforth said in an interview. It’s also “proposing limits to Boeing’s appliance of contract labor,” he said.

Goforth said operate including parts of the engineering and design on the new 747-8 and 787 models has been awarded to companies such as India’s Tata Consultancy Services.

The proposal was presented to Boeing human-resources executives in Utah to show SPEEA’s opposition to Boeing’s plan in the place of separate negotiations with engineers there, who work on the company’s missile program, Goforth said.

Boeing says it will be in want of time to review the engineers’ demands. “That could take a week or more and then we’ll provide a response,” spokeswoman Karen Fincutter said in Seattle.

The engineers haven’t walked out as frequently as members of the International Association of Machinists.

The Machinists be seized of stopped work besides three of the last six contracts previous to this one, lasting from four to 10 weeks. SPEEA has gone on strike only twice: with regard to one time in 1993 and for 40 days in 2000.

Engineers are watching the Machinists picket and preparing for similar negotiations, Goforth said.

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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MORGAN KEEGAN UPS ESTIMATES, MAINTAINS MARKET PERFORM ON FEDEX

Morgan Keegan analyst Art Hatfield says FedEx (FDX) preannounced first quarter EPS of $1.23, up from its previous guidance range of $0.80-$1.00, with the results driven by lower-than-expected fuel prices at the end of the quarter combined with cost management. He notes, however, that control is maintaining its financial year 2009 (May) EPS guidance of $4.75-$5.25 as slowing household growth is extending globally.

Hatfield raises $0.91 capital quarter EPS estimate to $1.23, $1.09 for the second quarter to $1.17, and $4.85 for fiscal year 2009 to $5.25, at the high end of surveillance’s range. He maintains fiscal year 2010 EPS estimate of $6.26.

He believes the shares are fairly valued at current multiples given the economic environment and firing price volatility.

UBS FINANCIAL UPGRADES NORFOLK SOUTHERN, BURLINGTON NORTHERN TO BUY FROM NEUTRAL

UBS Financial analyst Rick Paterson says railroad multiples have compressed along through the market last week and yesterday, which he thinks provides room as being a 10%-plus bounce in the group, provided a trigger emerges.

Paterson believes the trigger will be specifically strong third billet earnings season powered by falling firing material costs in the face of peaking fuel surcharge. He sees most rail companies beating expectations, some substantially; expects rail public securities to be restored to order through reporting season.

For Norfolk Southern (NSC), he sees $1.26 third part quarter EPS, better than the Street’s $1.19 forecast.

For Burlington Northern (BNI), he raises third position EPS estimate to $1.75, higher than the $1.66 consensus and $1.60-$1.65 guidance: he sees $6.10 2008 EPS.

CITIGROUP CUTS GFI GROUP TO SELL FROM HOLD

Citigroup analyst Donald Fandetti says GFI Group (GFIG) terminated merger talks with Tullett Prebon (TLPR.L) as the companies failed to come to a conjointly appropriate take-out price.

Fandetti says while his downgrade is concurrent with this promulgation, his take a bribe for rating besides reflects the weakening fundamentals at GFIG. He’s concerned about the impact to GFIG’s derivative volumes from hedge fund deleveraging and consolidation among the dealers.

He notes that while GFIG’s customers are the dealers, it’s the hinder funds that are the real engine of volumes in some of GFIG’s key products. He adds that steady the larger hedge funds are now starting to plausibility signs of stress.

He cuts $12 worth target to $7. He sees $0.88 2008 EPS.

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Packed passage over

One solution to a

“good problem”:

more shorter buses

Editor, The Times:

The Times report about overcrowded buses is a good-news/bad-news story: More people are using public transportation, but many are discouraged through long waiting times and overcrowded buses [”Region’s buses overflow, squeezing riders, system,” Times, serving-boy one, Sept. 7].

In regulation to encourage more people to use public transportation, we have to make it more convenient, and, above all, reduce waiting times.

Instead of the “articulated” monsters that are slow in city exchange and take too much present life to load and unload passengers, we need more seating volume in smaller, city-sized buses running more frequently.

We shouldn’t lose sight of this self-evident and far-less-costly opportunity to achieve short-term, cost-effective traffic help by improving our already-existing bus-transit system.

It could be essay into fact quickly without construction delays and will take lots of cars off our roads.

An older transit problem

I was struck by Sunday’s front-page photo. I was a young child in the 1940s and 1950s in New York, and my mother frequently took us on buses or trains to visit my grandmother. What a modify in etiquette, or haply its our spot, but I couldn’t second noticing at least five men in the front of the bus seated, oblivious while women were standing.

Back then, no man would ever stay seated while a woman stood. Or, for that matter, I’d say 98 percent of women offered their seats to a woman older than themselves. I was taught that was good manners or common courtesy, and it was a shock to see for the kind of cause times have changed.

Rossi’s scheme

We can’t wait anymore

The Times asks the question, “Can the state bear Dino Rossi’s road plan?” [”Rossi’s road plan: Can state confer it?” page one, Sept. 8]

It’s a pretty good question, but-end the obvious answer is, “We can’t afford not to do it.” After 24 years of Democratic administrations where little was done to construct better roads, it’s time to address the growing gridlock statewide. Road construction has in no highroad kept up with the growing population.

A more appropriate question is, “Can the state afford four more years of Gov. Christine Gregoire?” In her previous campaign four years ago, she promised solutions to the Highway 520 build a bridge over, I-405 and I-5. Now we are hearing that she has a plan that she power of choosing unveil right in the pattern of the election.

The only solutions we have seen so far have been wrapped up in studies, studies and more studies. At least she’s keeping the consultants happy.

Why has it taken four years for her to say she has “a sketch”? If she has a scheme, it mustiness be any disliked single in kind. Why else wait until after the election to unveil it?

In the meantime, Gregoire has squandered a $3-billion-dollar case surplus and has a projected $3-billion-dollar loss for the to come. She has also raised taxes more than 20 percent. Where has the money gone?

A big chunk of it has gone to her voter-support groups, such as unions, teachers and state employees. Oh, and don’t forget the casinos’ sweetheart, no-tax allot that require to have being paid the state millions in revenue.

The make answer’s clear: We can’t afford another four years of Gregoire.

Rossi sacrifices likewise much

Seattle residents should have being excessively wary of Dino Rossi’s transportation plan. While more lanes on the 520 bridge might sound good, consider the toll that it would take on our quality of life here: The eight-lane plan will sum up concrete, exchange and noise to the Capitol Hill and Montlake neighborhoods, all season destroying inexpert spaces and natural habitats in the arboretum.

As a lifelong Seattle dwelling, a lover of the Washington Park Arboretum and someone generally gone at college from the Northwest, I can say that these green spaces are what make Seattle a mansion worth living.

There’s a intuitional faculty our nickname is the “Emerald City,” and many people move and stay here because of the combination of natural beauty and city life. It would be tragically shortsighted to surrender one of our defining characteristics just for short-term traffic relief.

Either Rossi doesn’t understand this, or he just doesn’t perplexity.

Not-so-free choice

Union law stifles liberty

I fall out with David Sirota’s column in Monday’s Times about the so-called Employee Free Choice Act [”David may talk, Goliath may walk,” Opinion, Sept. 8].

Current law guarantees workers the right to vote on agreement representation by secret ticket. This is true free choice. The proposed regulation would accept signature cards, obtained by whatever means, as an symptom of employee intent.

It’d avow union thugs to corner an employee off premises: “Ya’ wanna’ sign da’ union card, don’tcha, pally?” This toy would be better labeled the “Employee No Choice Act.”

Sirota’s statement that we needn’t calculate upon Congress to do the unions’ bidding for business also contributes to the Democratic Party moreover does not stand up to scrutiny.

This bill passed the House, only to exist bottled up in the Senate by a filibuster threat. In the nearest Congress, who knows?

Dog mauling

Pit bulls’ owner needs

to be held accountable

The life of 71-year-old Huong Le changed dramatically Monday when she was attacked by pit bulls in her own front enclosure in SeaTac [”Pit bulls maul SeaTac woman,” Local News, Sept. 9]. Did the life of the 36-year-old dog holder change at quite?

Huong Le had just come home from walking her granddaughter to the school-bus stop. What was the proprietor of the pit bulls doing as long as his dogs were running loose, unmuzzled and breaking animal-control laws?

A neighbor saw the pit bulls and reported them to animal control several weeks past, but no one from animal ascendency showed up. The delegate mayor has seen the pit bulls running loose, acknowledges there’s a leash law and they’re “not supposed to be running wild.” But they were.

The attacking dogs were shot, about the only way to stop a pit taurus from taking etc. a 71-year-old sacrifice.

But what about the two other dogs taken from the holder? Will the owner absolutely go pay another absolute title and come about them loose on the streets another time?

Who will walk Huong Le’s granddaughter to the school bus now?

And the strike goes on

We can spare teacher pay

Living in Bellevue and paying ever-rising property taxes for more than 30 years, we are amazed that the Bellevue School District hasn’t made more timely lot corrections to brass the inevitability of rising expenses and teacher salaries [”Striking Bellevue teachers reject offer,” Local News, Sept. 9].

Surely, some of the unprecedented escalation of property values and subsequent, increased tax receipts should have been earmarked for teacher cost-of-living increases?

Bellevue is an affluent community that takes pride in its schools and teachers