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Before a packed host of 23,000 supporters in Northern Virginia today, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and their spouses took the stage as "Eye of the Tiger" boomed from 15-foot tall speakers. The anthem of the Rocky films was a fitting theme canzonet for the day's hard-hitting speeches.The hardest blows to Obama were landed not by means of the candidates, in whatever manner, but by McCain surrogates who brought up the Democratic contender's anti-American pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright–a topic that until now seemed to be treated as a taboo by dint of. the McCain campaign.Before McCain and Palin arrived, Lynett Long, a former Hillary Clinton supporter delivered a full-throated feminist endorsement of the McCain-Palin ticket. She argued that it's shameful so few women are represented in government and then trained her sights on Barack Obama. In response to Obama's "lipstick on the outside of ceasing a pig" jab yesterday, Long said, "Well, Mr. Obama–MISTER Obama–calling girls names is something you do in fifth grade and I dress in't want a fifth-grader running my country."She unloaded in succession Obama and the Democrats for standing by dint of. as "Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger openly mocked Sen. Clinton" at Trinity United Church of Christ. Minutes later, Fred Thompson struck a similar note. Obama is "not powerful us what he believes. We don't know that which he believes," Thompson said. "He's telling us what he believes we want to hear." "I think Rev. Wright was exact when he said [Obama's] just doing the kind of politicians do" to get elected, Thompson said.Barack Obama and his campaign are criticizing Sarah Palin for backing the "Bridge to Nowhere" while running for office in Alaska and then changing her position after actuality elected, but Thompson said Obama "has changed his position on every issue" that's important, including the FISA terrorist surveillance caress, NAFTA, Israel, public financing, and attending town hall meetings by John McCain. "That's not the kind of change this country of necessity," Thompson told the enthusiastic rabble. "Barack Obama must exist the highest fellow in the history of presidential politics who thinks that running for president is a qualification for being president."Thompson said that Sarah Palin is facing "the most vicious invade that anyone's ever seen in public life" for "she is a threat to the power that [the Democrats] expect to inherit and they think they are entitled to." He noted reports that dozens of Democratic operatives are descending on Alaska to dig up dirt on Palin. "I hope they brought their own brie and Chablis," Thompson quipped. He also lashed out at the throng for criticizing Palin for not having appeared on any of the Sunday morning talk shows during her tenure as governor. "Who's fault is that?" Thompson asked. "She hasn't been hiding anywhere."The crowd of 23,000–more than two times the size of an Obama rally in Northern Virginia in at daybreak June–reveled in Thompson's remarks. Signs of the mere enthusiasm for the McCain-Palin ticket were visible at 9:30 this morning, whereas the line to get into Van Dyck Park resembled a long red snake stretching a half-mile or in this way with three or four the multitude in one line. Those in attendance had been encouraged to wear red to remind everyone to "keep Virginia red."Why had according to a like reason many shown up? Palin positive seemed same the top draw. Jonathan Elkhouri, a 34-year-old owner of a hair salon in Fairfax, said he hopes that government self-reliance "tax us a slight not so much and make life a little easier despite us." His wife Jennifer said she strongly identifies with Sarah Palin: "I respect her completely. I work pair jobs and raise a family. And she shows it be able to be done." Today is the expected directly epoch of the Elkhouris' second child; they agreed to name the baby John or Sarah if he or she is born today.Palin's addition to the ticket led to lots of displays of girl power at the come into order. One homemade sign read "Change is Coming"–the letters cut from shiny red foil were set against a white poster covered in lipstick-kisses. Three high school girls from Alexandria sported homemade "McCainiac" T-shirts; all said they had cut class with their parents' permission. A sophomore at George Washington University, Eden Sutley–"cognate the Garden," she said–modified her sign by the agency of writing in eyeliner "Sorority Girls [disposition symbol] McCain-Palin". Like everyone I talked to, Sutley insisted she would get been at the rally likewise if McCain had selected a different running mate. At least that's what they said.When McCain and Palin arrived on every side of 11:00 a.m. the crowd roared. Both the governor and the senator largely echoed the stump speeches they've given since last week's Republican convention, sounding off steady the need according to bipartisan reform, season emphasizing their intention to thwart wasteful spending, win the Iraq war, and achieve energy independence. "I broke the monopoly that had controlled our state," Palin said, referring to the "the lobbyists and the appropriate interests who controlled big oil."Palin reported she was honored to be a member of McCain's "team of mavericks" and said her running mate "doesn't run with the Washington herd. He's willing to shake things up."When McCain spoke, he touted Palin's reform credentials, saying: "She took on a Republican incumbent governor, and by the way, punch him like a drum." McCain, as well as Palin, the two criticized Obama for requesting nearly $1 billion in earmarks since he's been in the Senate. McCain said his running mate "has vetoed half a billion dollars worth of pork barrel earmark projects."McCain renowned that this week marks the one-year anniversary of the Petraeus-Crocker congressional hearings on the surge. "Sen. Obama said the surge wouldn't succeed," McCain said. "He still fails to acknowledge that he was wrong." Palin, whose19-year-old son Track is set to deploy to Iraq tomorrow, in addition hit Obama on Iraq. "Our opponent can't bring himself to acknowledge the coming victory in Iraq," she said. McCain told the crowd that "Virginia is a battleground situation, and we be obliged to win it, and we last will and testament win it by your support." A McCain-Palin victory would be extraordinarily difficult without Virginia's 13 electoral votes. Though McCain has seen a double-digit surge in the polls in more red states since the Republican meeting., he leads Obama here by a unsubstantial two-point margin–49 percent to 47 percent.Tuesday's rally certainly shows that McCain intends to take arms hard to obtain Virginia. He and his campaign are not going to pull any punches.John McCormack is a deputy online editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

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After lagging in wireless for years, the U.S. has caught up with Western Europe and is things being so trying to take the radically new measure lead

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by Olga Kharif

It was a accessible burden: The U.S., the birthplace of the Internet, was a wireless backwater. Even early in this decade, many viewed the U.S. in the same proportion that a developing market, fit mostly for hand-me-downs from the more advanced Europeans and Asians. Unlike unified Europe, the U.S. market was fractured by warring radio standards and dotted with dead zones. Long after cellular was a room as far as concerns passing of life elsewhere, Americans still carried beepers and left messages saying to call cell phones only in emergencies. America was to be pitied, and the competitive upshot was huge: The next great innovations in wireless, including the mobile Internet, were likely to arrive from outside the U.S.

Yet the competitive remainder. is shifting. As the focus of the wireless world moves about Internet communications, the U.S. spirit in software, most notably at Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL), is pushing the U.S. ahead as a laboratory for wireless development. American users are catching up, too. In the above year, the U.S. surpassed Western Europe in the number of subscribers to the high-speed networks known as 3G, according to consultancy comScore M:Metrics (SCOR). "The effort; labors needs to stop talking about the gap between the U.S. and Europe," says Kanishka Agarwal, vice-president of mobile media at Nielsen. "We have caught up, and we have already passed."

The change has been dramatic. While a year ago 6% of Americans who bought phones purchased smartphones, capable of Web access and application downloads, their ranks rose to 16% in early 2008, according to consultancy Nielsen Mobile’s survey of 70,000 U.S. wireless subscribers. Over the same time, in Western Europe, the jump in novel smartphone buyers was smaller, from 11% to 17%, according to Nielsen.

The U.S. is now neck and neck with Western Europe in use of short text messages (SMS), multimedia messaging, and mobile games. More Americans, meanwhile, appliance mobile e-mail and instant messaging, according to Nielsen Mobile. Mobile Web browsing in the U.S. is in addition on a tear, boundary it’s still a few percentage points behind the Europeans. Some 17% of Americans feed on browse on the mobile Web, compared to 20% of Western Europeans, according to Nielsen.

True, the pair regions lag following the hottest Asian markets in data speed and mobile Internet usage. But the progress in the U.S. has boosted the country considered in the state of an advanced wireless market and laboratory for Europeans as well as Asians. "It used to be the biggest sandbox they could act in was outside the U.S.," says Mark Donovan, older analyst at comScore. "Now it turns out this is a big market."

At a new Nokia (NOK) lab in San Diego, 400 employees are tailoring Nokia’s products to AT&T’s needs. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo (DCM) and other Asian carriers are scouting Silicon Valley looking against local mobile startups to fund. European mobile software makers like Nokia-controlled Symbian are expanding their U.S. offices. The U.S. is fast becoming a fulcrum for mobile advertising, games, and other applications, says John Forsyth, vice-president for strategy at Symbian in London. "Our place of honor turned westward completely in conditions of talking to developers."

The biggest game-changers are Apple and Google. In July, Apple debuted its iTunes App Store, offering hundreds of applications from third-party developers in great number countries worldwide. Easier to practice than greatest part previously available mobile supplies, Apple’s effort has attracted scores of programmers who’ve already created more than 3,000 innovative applications (BusinessWeek.com, 9/5/08). After 10 years of efforts, Symbian has released fewer than 10,000 third-party applications. "Apple has fundamentally changed the industry from a point of convergence on hardware to a point of convergence on software and content," says Ken Dulaney, an analyst at consultancy Gartner (IT). "We have power to drive innovation for sure."

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There’s talk these days about another spur bale to help jumpstart the US thriftiness. It might be a confederacy of direct checks to taxpayers and money for infrastructure projects. I have a different idea: Skip the give directions to payments to individuals. My guess is that most people who got the remain round of checks went out and spent their few hundred dollars on TV sets, clothing, and other goods made in China. Which is additional stimulating for China than for America, of course. Instead, I think we ought to put money into infrastructure and innovation. Let’s rebuild some roads and bridges, which puts money in the hands of American workers and produces assets of permanent value. And let’s resources more basic scientific research in physics, chemistry, and materials science—the kind of investments that will help the US produce breakthroughs in electronics and renewable energy. True, these advances won’t come immediately, so there won’t have existence a cyclopean immediate economic payoff. But, short term, the money will emolument salaries of American researchers and corrupt scientific equipment, hopefully, some of which is still made in America. And maybe it’s about time the country made some long-term investments.

And any other thing: It’s over earmarks. These federal government grants have been made into a civic hot potato. But all earmarks are is financial grants from the federal government to states and municipalities. Many help pay for needed infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and firefighting equipment. So there are good earmarks and disingenuous earmarks. An example of a pernicious earmark would be the $220 million grant for Alaska’s Bridge to Nowhere, what one. Sarah Palin backed till it was clear it wouldn’t pass muster–then kept the money anyway. An example of a good earmark would have been money to repair the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis before it collapsed. It would exist nice suppose that we could trust our politicians to tell the contrariety between a good earmark and a discouraging the same.

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If Kwame Kilpatrick were white, don’t you think he’d have been thrown out of office a longing time ago? Heck, he’d have existence out of house of correction by now and shopping his memoirs.

Instead, it was just last week, after a year of disgrace and the apocalypse that has paralyzed his city and made it the punch line to an international quirk, that Detroit’s mayor surrendered his office and copped a plea: 120 days in jail, five years probation, and a $1 million refine. Because, you see, Kilpatrick is not white, he is black in a city that is itself besides 80 percent black. And that complicated things.

For instance, it led to underserved nutriment from the local black paper.

And to a massive rally despite him at a black temple.

And to black people blaming the media for “bringing down” a gifted black man.

And to a political consultant calling the specific instance, “Jim Crow justice.”

And to Kilpatrick again and again portraying himself as a victim of racial political science and a “lynch rude multitude mentality.”

All the claims of racial solidarity and victimization gave Kilpatrick what Eliot Spitzer could never have imagined: a base from what one. to scoop in his heels and declare he would not be moved.

If you didn’t know better, you might hold thought this was Birmingham in 1963 or Montgomery in ‘55, with strains of “We Shall Overcome” ringing in the air. You’d never know it was Detroit in 2008 where the issue wasn’t desegregation or human dignity but that, rather, a mayor who had an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, fired police who came too close to discovering it, lied about it for that which is less than oath, agreed to an $8.4 million payoff to store police from releasing explicit text messages proving the affair and, for virtuous allot, shoved a sheriff’s deputy sad to serve a subpoena to someone else in an unrelated matter.

Racial victimization? Jim Crow justice? Give me a break.

In an April column, I excoriated the mayor for playing on the subject of African America’s reflective tendency to rally in defense of any one of us who gets in pester. But that’s only part of the enigma here. It’s not just that someone played black folks, but-end that black persons keep letting themselves be in possession of existence played.

Truth is, we get played like draughts some time any high-profile one of us is caught in scandal or sin. From Michael Jackson to O.J. Simpson to Tawana Brawley to Mike Tyson to Marion Barry to Kilpatrick, lying his natural backside distant from in court, we keep proving pathetically susceptible to manipulation by any brother or sister who says white folks have done him or her tort

There’s an axiom that goes, fool me formerly, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. But what about fool me 87 times? What with regard to, fool me like the nerdy kid with the “kick me” sign taped to his back?

What happens whereas you get fooled like that? I’ll make known to you the sort of should happen. You should decide, Enough. You should evolve the social and political maturity, the common view and the plain self-respect to stop letting yourself be used like a dishrag.

African Americans

We should not, however, be heedless. We should stop falling into the easy trap of believing every black living soul in trouble is a victim of racial malfeasance. Sometimes, a blackey man in trouble is a cully of his own malfeasance. If more black folks in Motown had understood this, the city might not have spent the last year embarrassing itself.

For centuries, African Americans have struggled to teach white people that black does not mean guilt. Frankly, it’s high time we ourselves learned a corresponding truth.

It doesn’t mean innocence, either.

lpitts@miamiherald.com

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Public trust in the news media was shaken by the flash in the pan of news organizations to challenge the deceptive claims by the agency of the Bush control during the run-up to the Iraq warfare.

In this election year, political campaign organizations and interest groups will do their last to work public opinion. Will the press fulfill its watchdog role this election year and guide voters to the right choices?

On the other hand, is it reasonable to expect information media to personate a character the role of Grand Inquisitor after the Truth?

People rely upon an fearful lot from the news media. They expect the media to oversee the workings of society, to distinguish truth from propaganda, and to orchestrate appropriate outrage from one to another real or perceived wrongdoing

By deciding what is propaganda and what is fact, and by choosing what is and isn’t newsworthy, the news media assistance shape public esteem. In this sense, the news media wield tremendous power.

But in other ways, the news media are quite powerless. Media investors demand a high return on investment, but competition from the Internet is fierce. The public is ofttimes more interested in sports, entertainment and sound bites than in boring news.

Presumably, the health-care industry has a higher go attached investment than the news industry.

Moreover, government secrecy, harassment and manipulation limit reporters’ access to the facts, and consolidation threatens diversity of viewpoints.

It’s not exacting to see why most media outlets were bamboozled about Iraq.

In time of war, there is tremendous pressure to support the president. Knowing this, the Bush administration exploited devotion to one’s country and fear of terrorism. They accused dissenters of being unpatriotic, or of not supporting the troops.

Even Congress was misled by the agency of supposed “intelligence” from the executive branch. But reporters aren’t allowed access to classified matter, and the Bush administration pursued criminal charges against journalists too eager to uncover facts.

In short, word reporters bear no crystal ball effective them what is true and just. Nor do they have the financial resources, legal standing or courage to underbrush each story or point of view. (Some people would disagree with this parsing and indict the “corporate” or “ample” press of willful bias.)

What can be performed? How have power to we commission and endow the news media so they can upper hand play a watchdog role in society and better present alternative points of view?

First, media outlets should face up to their uncertainty about what is true and just, as well as their inability to give without fault coverage in print or on the air. Instead of dividing content into belonging to “recent accounts” and belonging to “commentary,” they should provide different grades of news. Newspapers should publish more user-generated content and more fringe stories, representing marginalized opinions; the stories can be brief, can contain links to online elaboration, and can subsist accompanied by warnings that their newsworthiness is uncertain.

Second, Congress needs to strengthen laws that protect whistle-blowers and reporters from criminal charges for violation of secrecy laws. And the executive branch’s ability to classify knowledge must be curtailed.

Third, broadcast media should be required to be in actual possession of other informational and local content.

As for the problem of funding, one market-based solution is according to news providers to charge for (full) access to their online content. Users could salary for subscriptions directly, or make easy providers can shorten by Internet commerce sites or with Internet service providers, from whom users have power to buy intelligence and information channels.

This may seem regressive, but-end free news is in the same manner as rent-controlled housing: its quality deteriorates.

An alternative solution involves taxpayer funding. I’d be willing to pay higher taxes in quest of independent, detailed news, just as I’d be willing to pay for voter-funded elections, government-run hale condition care, well-funded police, and safe bread and water.

But family are penny politic and pound shallow-brained. They’ve bought into conservative propaganda about the supposed inevitable evils of Big Government and taxes. Yet, left to the invisible hand of market forces, the news media bear failed at fulfilling its obligations to participation.

SAN ANTONIO —

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The city plans to turn the stench of its residents’ waste into sweet green cash and renewable energy.

The San Antonio Water System will betray captured methane gas generated from the utility’s treatment of 140,000 tons of biosolids, or sewage, from customers each year.

The city-owned utility’s board of trustees approved a contract Tuesday to stipulate at least 900,000 cubic feet of characteristic gas daily for the next 20 years to Ameresco Inc., a Framingham, Mass.-based energy services house.

“Treating these biosolids generates an medial sum of 1.5 million cubic feet of gas a day,” aforesaid Steve Clouse, the water system’s headmost operating officer. “That’s enough gas to fill seven commercial blimps or 1,250 tanker trucks either set time.”

The usefulness even now sells for reuse a portion of the water that’s cleaned at its wastewater treatment plants. It also converts some biosolids into compost that’s sold for application in yards and gardens.

“As far as we know, SAWS is the only city in the United States that has completed the renewable recyclable trifecta,” Clouse said.

The water combination of parts to form a whole will give credence to up to $250,000 a year for the methane, which will be drawn from the utility’s Dos Rios Water Recycling Center.

Clouse said it will take 18 to 24 months in the place of construction of facilities needed for the make a bargain.

“We’re very pleased that we be possible to capture and sell this gas, which is good for San Antonio’s air quality and puts this renewable energy resource to be in action for San Antonio,” he said.

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Absent Hillary, the contest between Obama-Biden and the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin is throwing the Democrats into disarray. The consequences of Obama's veep decision be present to answer for the greatest part to favor McCain. And if Obama had piked Hillary? Here are a few of the differences. No Palin. Okay, McCain might be the subject of picked her anyway. He was looking for a running mate who would help him shake up the campaign. And Palin has delivered spectacularly on that. But choosing her would have seemed far less of a game-changer had Obama picked Clinton. Palin would have been merely the supporter female running mate in 2008. And her appeal to those who had voted because of Clinton in the primaries would have been reduced if not nullified totally. As a result, the prospects of the other possible game-changers McCain was considering–Democratic senator Joe Lieberman and pro-choice ex-Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge–would surely have risen. And while it's unknowable whether McCain would have pointed Palin allowing that Obama had gone with Clinton, selecting Palin would have been a lot less likely.No Biden. He's not an albatross, but he certainly hasn't given Obama a boost. He has brought no residue to the ticket, not in reverence to class, gender, ideology, or anything except longevity in Washington. Worse, unlike Palin, he's generated no enthusiasm or excitement. Biden has little seek reference of the case to the working class voters, especially women, who swarmed to Clinton in the primaries. He lacks the populist streak that Clinton had fashioned for herself. Biden is simply a weaker running mate. Party unity. Democrats own come together fairly well behind the Obama-Biden ticket–but not as convenient as they would have if Obama had chosen Clinton. We still hear from disgruntled Hillary backers. Reporters have discovered they're easy to find at McCain-Palin rallies. Polls can't tell us by what mode many will ultimately vote for McCain and Palin. But a chunk of them will–perhaps a few million–which the wherewithal that Democrats aren't in the same proportion that unified as they might have been.Ohio and Pennsylvania. Republicans figured these states, notably Pennsylvania, were all but goners if Clinton won the Democratic nomination. Even as veep, she'd have had a favorable impact. When she was passed from one side to the other by Obama, Republicans jumped for the sake of joy. Ohio, that a Republican presidential candidate has to win, now leans McCain. Pennsylvania, what one. is crucial to a Democratic aspirant's chances, has become a ripe target of suitable for McCain.Arkansas. As a Southern state, Arkansas is inclined to vote Republican in presidential races supposing that not there's a compelling reason not to. One of those reasons: a Clinton on the Democratic ticket. Without Clinton, Arkansas moves into the leaning (strongly) McCain pitch one’s tent.Vice presidential contest by arms. This is a no-brainer. Who would subsist the easier opponent for Palin to face in the nationally televised debate on October 2? Clinton or Biden? The tough woman or Senator Windbag? Biden will have to be without ceasing his best behavior and treat Palin gingerly. Clinton wouldn't have had to.Republican women. Mark Penn, supreme expert manaeuvrer in the Clinton campaign, once insisted that 25 percent of Republican women were ready to vote for her for president. Many crossed party lines and voted for her in the primaries. Many of those women might have voted for an Obama-Clinton ticket. But how many Republican women are going to reject Palin and vote beneficial to an Obama-Biden ticket? Mighty few.Because of all the problems associated with the Clintons–husband Bill, her relatively sharp unfavorability in polls, Clinton fatigue–Hillary Clinton appeared to be the wrong running mate for Obama. I thought so. I was erroneous. As Clinton won primaries in big states and developed a populist appeal to downscale white voters, her civil value soared. As it turns out, Obama needed her. McCain is propitious Obama missed his chance.Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

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GENEVA —

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A small blip on a computer sieve sent champagne corks popping among physicists in Switzerland. Near Chicago, researchers at a “pajama party” who watched via satellite let out any at daybreak morning cheer.

The blip was literally of cosmic proportions, representing a new tool to sound the birth of the universe.

The world’s largest monad smasher passed its first test Wednesday as scientists said their powerful tool is all but ready to reveal how the tiniest particles were first created hinder the “big bang,” which sundry theorize was the massive explosion that formed the stars, planets and everything.

Rivals and friends turned out in the minikin hours at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., in pajamas to watch the event by a special follower connection. Joining in from about the world were other physicists - many of whom may one day work on the new Large Hadron Collider.

Tension mounted in the five direct rooms at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, as scientists huddled around computer screens. After a few trial runs, they fired a beam of protons clockwise around the 17-mile tunnel of the collider deep under the rolling fields along the Swiss-French border. Then they succeeded in sending another beam in the opposite, counterclockwise direction.

The physicists celebrated with champagne when the white dots flashed on the glum screens of the direction room, showing a lucky crossing of the finish line on the $10 billion machine under planning seeing that 1984.

“The primary technical challenge has been met,” said a jubilant Robert Aymar, director-general of CERN. “What you have good seen is the result of 20 years of effort. It all went like clockwork. Now it’s beneficial to the physicists to divulge us what they can do.

“They are expert to go for discoveries,” Aymar related. “Man has always shown he wants to perceive where he comes from and where he faculty of volition go, where the universe comes from and where it will spree. So here we’re looking at essential questions since mankind.”

The beams will a little at a time be filled with more protons and fired at near the thrive of bright in opposite directions around the tunnel, making 11,000 circuits a second. They will travel downward the halfway of two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder than outer space. At four points in the funnel, the scientist desire conversion to an act cyclops magnets to cross the beams and cause protons to collide. The collider’s two largest detectors - essentially huge digital cameras weighing thousands of tons - are capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

It is likely to be several weeks before the first significant collisions.

The CERN experiments could reveal more about “dark matter,” antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find make clear of a hypothetical particle - the Higgs boson - which is at a past period called the “God particle” because it is believed to accord. mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.

Smaller colliders have been used in the place of decades to study the makeup of the atom. Scientists once thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom’s nucleus, but experiments accept shown that protons and neutrons are made of quarks and gluons and that there are other forces and particles.

More ripples from the preserve: Banks will have to take writedowns, while the Treasury’s move may not boost mortgage lending

by the agency of David Bogoslaw

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The government’s Sept. 7 bailout of pledge giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) decision add together much-needed liquidity to the secondary market beneficial to U.S. mortgages. But it does little to resolve some bigger problems: excessive housing inventories, home prices that continue to drop, and the likelihood of mounting defaults and foreclosures viewed like the economy worsens, say market analysts.

The Treasury Dept., through dint of. signing contracts with the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) under which it agreed to buy $1 billion of the kind of are being called super-preferred shares, effectively wiped out the remaining value in existing common and preferred shares. The deal calls during the term of the suspension of the dividends being paid to preferred and common shareholders in order to conserve pay in money while the companies are being run by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA).

With the GSE rescue now a fait accompli, BusinessWeek decided to update its pre-bailout damage description on Fannie and Freddie to account because the Treasury’s announced figure.

With roughly $35 billion worth of agency preferred shares in the market, the losses to investors will exist substantial.

Several banks have already announced big hits to their balance sheets from their exposure to Fannie and Freddie preferred shares, including Citigroup (C), which, in a Sept. 10 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, said it has taken a pretax loss of $450 million so far this region on its GSE holdings from trading losses and writedowns. The final impression on the investment bank’s third-quarter financial results could change before the end of the territory on Sept. 30, Citigroup said.

Two weeks ago, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) said the appraise of its GSE preferreds had been cut in half to $600 million since the end of June and hinted it will take a charge on those assets when it reports third-quarter results.

Gerard Cassidy, senior equity analyst at RBC Capital Markets who covers regional banks, expects the banking industry to collectively write down $25 billion to $30 billion put on their balance sheets for losses on the preferred shares they are holding. "There’s none way these banks are going to carry this stuff for more than the market price farther than September," he says.

Cassidy sees the total losses without interruption the GSE preferreds as very trustworthy, roughly 85% of the value on the banks’ remainder. sheets at the end of the June quarter, before the GSEs plummeted in the wake of the Treasury Dept.’s expanded authority to engineer a bailout if necessary.

The intervention has resolved at all lingering questions near both agencies’ senior and subordinated debt, giving them essentially the same guarantee as U.S. Treasury bonds. And Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson promised to provide in the same manner with much as $200 billion to Fannie and Freddie if that must be to deal with mounting losses due to mortgage defaults. But the bailout does nothing to bolster confidence in the private-label mortgage-backed securities languishing forward the balance sheets of Lehman Brothers Holdings (LEH) and other large investment banks, strategists say.

The biggest hit to preferred shareholders is the privation of the dividend, which is the guide reason to hold these shares given how little they tend to appreciates, Marilyn Cohen wrote in her newsletter. Tax Advantaged Investor, on Sept. 7. The elimination of the dividend — the primary conception for the plunge in preferred prices — will make worse the Tier 1 first in importance of the regional banks that hold so many of the preferred shares, she wrote. And since many of these banks aren’t meeting least part treaty capital guidelines, Cohen said she expects the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to seize additional banks that are having difficulty raising the capital needed to stay solvent.

Freddie Mac’s series Z preferred shares had plummeted to 2.50 attached Sept. 9, down 81.6% from their closing reward of 13.56 on Sept. 5.

It’s inevitable that banks and other monetary institutions that grasp large amounts of GSE preferred shares will have to swallow substantial writedowns upon these possessions in the third quarter. There are 12 banks and thrifts that would lose 5% or other thing of positive principal were they to consider a 100% aftertax, mark-to-market adjustment upon their GSE preferreds, according to a Sept. 8 research diplomatic communication by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW). Only three banks—Gateway Financial Holdings (GBTS), Midwest Banc Holdings (MBHI), and Cascade Financial (CASB)—would fall below "well-capitalized" regulatory capital rate thresholds if they were to apply the adjustment to second-quarter capital levels, at the same time that just one bank, MBHI, would be below the required capital fixed relation destroy in the case of a 75% writedown, the note said. (KBW expects to receive or intends to seek reparation for investment banking services from all three banks within the next three months.)

Although only a handful of banks power of determination give attention to a meaningful reduction of their cardinal levels, the loss of value on the preferreds still takes more than $30 billion out of the banking system, which will mean that much less lending by banks, says Frederick Cannon, a bank analyst at KBW who wasn’t unit of the authors of the Sept. 8 report. A large, well capitalized embank preference Wells Fargo (WFC), for example, will have $400 million inferior in capital because of losses on agency preferreds, but since banks are allowed to leverage their fatal by 12 times, that would make nearly $5 billion worth of loans unavailable, he says. It’s all otherwise than that impossible for banks to replace that capital with other sources given the constraints in the capital markets, he adds.

To continue to own the GSEs common and preferred shares from a little while ago is "essentially each option on Fannie and Freddie emerging from conservatorship as retired companies able to create value in excess of a government subsidy," says Cannon. The odds that those shares will ever have existence worth much are low since the agencies will first be favored with to pay back the Treasury for the value of the government’s explicit guarantee, says Cannon.

LIMA, Peru —

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Archaeologists in Peru say they have discovered the jawbone of a fetus among the remains of a sacrificed woman in a pre-Inca tomb, suggesting the Lambayeque culture practiced the atypical loss of pregnant women and their children.

The relics of the woman and unborn child were found in a tomb through three other sacrificed women and several sacrificial llamas, conduct antiquarian Carlos Wester La Torre told The Associated Press.

In all, Wester La Torre’s team reported finding the remains of seven women in two tombs at the Chotuna Chornancap archaeological site, harvested land showing signs of having been cut at the throat.

The give up of a pregnant woman “is very unusual” in the pre-Inca world, said respected Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who was not involved in the revelation.

“The concept of fertility was well respected, so this could represent a sacrifice for a very important religious event,” he related Wednesday.

Chotuna Chornancap is a sacred position of the Lambayeque culture, which flourished in northern Peru betwixt 800 and 1350 A.D.

Wester La Torre said he believes the sacrifices were made to dignity of mien the reconstruction of the temple at Chotuna Chornancap or an important member of the Lambayeque culture possibly buried nearby.

The archaeologist said his team plans to continue excavating the site and hopes to fall upon a possible central tomb.

Also Wednesday, archaeologist Luis Guevara said that eight tombs containing the remains of 21 bodies were discovered in a separate dig, in a temple in the Sacsayhuaman fortress in the ancient Inca principal of Cuzco.

Guevara said the largest of the tombs contained 10 bodies, with appearance of truth servants to Inca royalty buried in the meeting-house.