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William H. Gates grew up in Bremerton, but diverse times he considered leaving the state to pursue his education. It’s a good object for the University of Washington that he not ever did.

Gates may be known as the adopt of one of the world’s richest men, end his biggest impact was guiding his son in how to “make his fortune a squadron for worthy in the world,” according to an award given to him Sunday.

The university awarded honorary doctorates to Gates, his son, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, and daughter-in-law Melinda French Gates — the first time the universal school has bestowed degrees on an unmixed family.

“No house has contributed more profoundly to the success of our university than the Gates family,” UW President Mark Emmert said Sunday during the 2008 Freshman Convocation.

Since 2002, the UW has awarded honorary degrees to such celebrities and dignitaries since the Dalai Lama, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and music producer Quincy Jones.

The Gates family and its charitable foundation have given a aggregate of about $446 million to the UW, according to the university. Microsoft has given nearly $39 million.

In addresses to students, the elder and younger Gateses the pair stressed the importance of civic engagement and humanitarian work, themes that resonated with the students. But the 5,500 freshmen at UW enter college at a leisure of economic turmoil that has manifold worried about their own futures.

Gates Sr., who received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the UW, was honored for “the no-nonsense force of your intellect and the deep kindness of your drive to make life victory and fairer.”

Along with a successful legal rush and decades of volunteer work for more than two twelve local and national organizations, he took on a role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, at what place he began building its mode of building, goals and philosophy.

Gates Sr. has furthermore served as a UW regent since 1997.

“My the vital spark has been richer for every dollar and every minute I have given on the university’s benefit,” he before-mentioned.

While in law school, Gates Sr. met his future gray mare, Mary Maxwell, a fellow student who went without ceasing to become a UW regent for 18 years.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008194848_gatesuw22.html?syndication=rss

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Dispatches from Microsoft’s annual company assemblage Thursday, gathered from online and in-person sources who shared information about the closed event anonymously:

Seattle native and actor Rainn Wilson of “The Office” was described by dint of. one source as a “great emcee” for the event, that was closed to the public.

Toward the period, Wilson yelled to the crowd, “Stand up, losers!” That was preamble to an attempt at a paper-airplane world account.

At past meetings, employees require let mount airplanes from Safeco Field’s upper decks, trying to land them on the stage. Wilson led the crowd in launching thousands of paper planes with the goal of rupture a creation record for simultaneous planes aloft.

The crowd was told the previous record was 12,000. About 23,000 Microsoft employees registered for the company meeting.

CEO Steve Ballmer was in filled cheerleader mode. His entrance was prominent by pyrotechnics, high-energy, high-fives and — at least according to two anonymous comments on the Mini-Microsoft blog — the takedown of a spectator.

“You were not alone in seeing what looked approve a green-shirted SBS monetary theory stay getting knocked flat between 133 or 132 and the field level seating,” one of the sources wrote.

Once on stage, every enthusiastic Ballmer touted Microsoft’s pecuniary performance in fiscal 2008 and explained why Microsoft wouldn’t build an iPhone (the Windows Mobile operating classification software has a bigger in posse market).

He also addressed the company’s stock price, noting it’s about what it was a decade ago. (He gave us his take on the long-term performance of MSFT during an interview earlier in the summer, calling it “volatile,” not flat.)

One observer summarized his message this distance: “He said in general, we have to understand that the market is unpredictable, and we should blameless stay focused on our job and team goals and work hard.”

Ballmer also reset his retirement horizon. In the summer, Ballmer told an hearing in Washington, D.C., that he would be at the helm of Microsoft “for another nine or 10 years … to the time when my last kit goes away to corporation,” according to InformationWeek.

He told employees Thursday he plans to abide fixed until Microsoft’s Live Search beats Google.

Without having heard the comment ourselves, it’s hard to tell allowing that he was being facetious. Market researcher comScore reported Thursday that Microsoft’s dividend of the U.S. peer into market had slipped in August to 8.3 percent. Google has 63 percent.

(One must also consider Ballmer might be thinking Microsoft will catch Google before his final kid goes to college, so his retirement could have existence sooner than expected.)

As an interesting aside, more in the audience thought Ballmer was tippling honey during his speech.

One observer reported he was holding an oddly shaped vessel that upon further inspection appeared to have existence a honey bottle, in the cut of a bear, amber in color. Another person concluded it couldn’t be honey because he was drinking it too quickly.

On the record

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Download, a array of less front than depth of news bits, observations and miscellany,

is gathered by The Seattle Times technology stick.

We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008194425_btdownload22.html?syndication=rss

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Tesla Motors, the dauntless Silicon Valley startup building eco-friendly electric supercars, is finally coming north to Seattle.

The company is bringing at least one of its Roadsters to Seattle by reason of the first interval this weekend in the place of private events with different dozen buyers, many of whom paid huge deposits years ago to help the company get rolling and secure the earliest cars.

They’ll still have to wait months or more to take delivery of the $109,000 cars, which only began regular lengthening in March.

Also scheduled is a private proof on the campus of Microsoft, whither there’s especially high interest in Tesla’s exotic machines.

That’s just the beginning. Tesla representatives are furthermore scouting locations for a showroom and regional service facility they want to open here by June.

Among the first Tesla buyers was Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who could welcome his within a not many months.

Others include current and former Microsoft employees, some of whom want the zero-emission vehicles, which accelerate from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds, to demonstrate their concerns about overdependence on fossil fuels.

Dave Denhart, a longtime developer of Microsoft’s “Flight Simulator” game, paid a deposit in October 2006 on a Roadster he expects to derive in January.

Denhart ordered it in yellow, like the seek reference of the case he a little while ago wears when commuting from pastoral Redmond on an electric Vectrix motorscooter. He hopes the flamboyant color will engage people in colloquy about the promise of electric cars and the need to render oil consumption.

“I’m out of my comfort zone — I usually work as a mild-mannered software developer,” he said, explaining the color choice.

“The car is corpuscular enough that I want people to see me in traffic,” he uttered. “But the other circumstance is, I want people to mention the car. I’m not making a statement — ‘Look at me, I’m driving around a $100,000 car’ — that’s not the point. I want people to notice, ‘Wow, that’s a different car, that’s an electric car.’ I want men to draw near up and talk to me.”

There had to be some extra motivation to put down $50,000 to $75,000 on cars that were still in disclosure and, until the Seattle store opens, will accept to be serviced in California.

“I just feel this is exciting technology with the promise to make a big difference,” said Tom Burt, Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel, who hopes to receive his electric-blue Roadster early nearest year.

Burt loves sports cars and owns two hybrids, a Porsche and a single-seat racer. Yet he’s also concerned about the effect fuel-powered vehicles are having on the environment.

“I thought this is a way to subsist the means of together two of my interests — be possible to we change the kind of we do every day to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels on one hand, and on the other hand, it’s a really chilling sports car,” he said.

Besides, “the car itself was handsome and even the prototypes were just phenomenal in their acting.”

Tom Saxton, a Sammamish software consultant who was an early Microsoft employee, is excited about helping a company that can “make a actually being difference to the environment.”

But he was too blown begone through the Roadster’s torque when he test-drove prototypes in California.

“You put the pedal on the nonplus in the car and it’s like you’re in the agreeable spot in first gear, at which place you’re acquisition tons of acceleration and it just keeps going to the time when you chicken fully,” he said.

Bold startup

Tesla is one of the boldest startups in years — an entirely new car company started in 2003 with each engineering focus and a deputation to change perceptions of electric cars.

Politics aside, it’s similar to boutique car companies of the like kind as Bugatti, which pushed the envelope of automotive technology with thrilling cars in the gilded 1920s.

Initial backing came largely from Elon Musk, the South African-born co-founder of PayPal who is moreover funding the SpaceX space-travel company and a solar-energy business. Other investors include the co-founders of Google and dare capitalists.

Tesla had a few hiccups, including management shuffles and problems with a two-speed transmission that was dropped in favor of a one-speed, but it’s apparently found its stride.

Last week, the company broke ground on a $250 million headquarters factory in San Jose, Calif., that will have 1,000 employees. It’s going to produce an electric luxury sedan that’s expected to start about $60,000 and go put on vent in 2010.

“Now we are forward the main road, in like manner to speak,” said Chief Executive Ze’ev Drori, who previously ran semiconductor and automotive-security companies in the Bay Area.

Roadsters will abide to be built for the greatest part at the Lotus residence of factors in England — they’re based onward the Lotus Elise — and flown to California with a view to ultimate assembly.

Aiming profoundly

Altogether Tesla aims to give 30,000 vehicles per year. Five years from now, “we are going to be a greater car company,” Drori said.

So far the company has delivered about 30 Roadsters and has about 1,200 deposits.

The visitor didn’t say how many have been ordered in the Northwest, but it ranks fourth mixed the major cities receiving the cars, just ahead of Miami, according to Darryl Siry, senior vice president of sales.

Showrooms are now open in Los Angeles and Menlo Park, Calif., and Siry is scouting locations in the other cities during the time that fortunate as Seattle.

Instead of a orally transmitted dealership, Tesla showrooms are in the spirits of an Apple store.

Seattle moved up in Tesla’s plans early this summer, after a pompous response from customers.

“When the company started, they were envisioning the Bay Area and L.A. and New York and Chicago would exist our key markets,” Siry said. “But Seattle was interesting because it developed into a larger market. In hindsight it seems obvious — Seattle isn’t a huge sports-car market, but it’s a huge technology-influenced market.”

Who can afford it?

There are also a lot of people here who can afford the car.

Denhart aforesaid Teslas appeal to people with engineering and technical backgrounds.

For one thing, they can accept that it’s still not a perfect solution.

Battery life is limited — they can go near 240 miles on a charge — and it’s unclear what will happen when the batteries stop infectious charges in about five to seven years, he said.

There’s too the question of whether Tesla Motors will at the very time be around in seven years.

But technical people besides have faith in the progress that the cars embody.

“I think there’s a lot of people in this industry, at Microsoft, who are used to technology and make some change in. — that’s the other thing we have going for us as a group of nation, we deal through make different every day,” Denhart said. “If you don’t, you’re dead.”

More than a car

Ordering a Tesla was a philosophical jump for Eric Brechner, Microsoft’s adviser of engineering, learning and development. He’s not been into fancy cars, but he wants to help change the perception of electric cars.

“From my point of view, I feel like I’m contributing to a cause that means a lot to me, and I am driving around a billboard that says, ‘Hey, this is the sort of an electric vehicle could be. It doesn’t need to be more weird cheesy matter that doesn’t really look for feel like a car,’ ” he aforesaid.

“If that wasn’t enough, I get a car, a pretty nice one, in the way that it’s quite the deal.”

Brier Dudley’s column appears Mondays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008194418_brier22.html?syndication=rss

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Good afternoon.

Thank you Wayne, concerning your kind introduction.

Before I get started, I want to take a significance to express my concerns for the many people of the Gulf Coast who were affected by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. I'm sure I argue toward everyone in the room when I utter that our thoughts are by those individuals and communities affected by dint of. these devastating storms.

As we muster in this place today, let me assure you the men and women of Chevron and strictly speaking the stout industry are acting hard to restore energy to the impacted areas.

This club has been an important meeting place since it was founded during the Civil War … and Abraham Lincoln was governing the struggle to keep this great country intact.

The club has had frequent distinguished members.

One can only imagine the conversations that have occurred here … about the reconstruction of our fatherland … about the pathway out of the Great Depression … and about the role America should play in the world …

Ideas that have shaped this country have been tested here. They own solidified into important decisions made just steps gone in the White House. Teddy Roosevelt, who was a club member, captured the nature of this rank when he said, "In a impulsive power of decision…. the worst thing you be possible to do is inexistence."

I appreciate your willingness to hear from every out-of-towner in the midst of a Presidential alternative - an important moment of decision for our entire country.

For me, it's a scrap analogous speaking to a gathering of play-by-play analysts on the border of the Super Bowl. What can I tell a space full of political pros about this election that you don't already discern?

I'll give it a try.

Energy will be an important … vote-determining issue in this election.

Polls show that voters consistently rank gasoline prices as their number two concern, assist only to the economy. The two are inextricably linked. High force prices drive inflation and squeeze family budgets. And the availability of affordable mechanical value is a cornerstone of our prosperity.

Americans are now linking the country's energy challenges with national security and foreign policy concerns. A poll earlier this year noted that reducing dependence on foreign sources of might was seen beneficial to the reason that the top strategetics for enhancing national security . . . ahead of improving our intelligence operations!

Public concern over prices hasn't been this high since the oil shocks of the 1970s.

And with good reason.

The global force market has been reshaped in ways that are deeply affecting our economy - and those effects are intensifying.

This renewed public concern presents an opportunity.

W. Edwards Deming - one of America's respected business thinkers - once said: "It is not enough to conclude your best; you be under the necessity of know which to do, and then do your good in the highest degree."

The good news is, we know what to do. For over five years, informed observers have seen this situation coming, and offered solutions.

The bad news is … public policy has not kept pace.

Our political system doesn't deal easily through complex problems requiring long-term solutions.

Our political system moves - and was designed to move - when people demand movement.

And therein lies the opportunity.

Right now, Americans want answers. They want achievement. They are seeking reliable, affordable and abundant energy - they are seeking potency over-confidence.

The worst thing we can do is nothing. We have already invisible time. The urgency is clear.

There have been steady, inexorable changes occurring in the global energy classification. It is being stressed by growing global make inquiry … and all of us are inner realty affected.

We have reached a moment of decision when it comes to energy wit.

In his new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, Tom Friedman framed the need for make some change in. saying "it will have being the biggest honest peacetime project humankind will have ever undertaken. Rare is the political leader anywhere in the world who will talk straight about the true magnitude of this challenge."

This election is an opportunity to make comprehensive and realistic changes to our push forward to energy. The time is a little while ago for the Presidential candidates to put willing real pluck plans … not just campaign slogans. And, it's time because of a absolute debate.

The questions I get asked more than any other usually start with the word, "Why?"

"Why are we paying so much to stock up our tanks?

"Why have mechanical value prices risen so far, so quick?

"Why don't you think oil prices will return to $20 through barrel anytime soon?"

For 20 years, oil traded in a with reference to something else narrow band, fluctuating between $15 and $25 a barrel. Sometimes the price dipped, sometimes it rose. But the effects weren't overly negative . . . and they had no detrimental furniture adhering the economy.

Quite the unlike, in fact: consistently low energy prices were a greater factor in the relating to housekeeping expansions of the 1980s and 1990s.

In the 21st Century, that's changed. Oil prices regard climbed steadily. And the magnitude of the rise has been stunning. Instead of prices in the $20 through barrel rove, recently we've seen oil prices in the $100 per barrel range.

The answer to the question "wherefore" is a general I called the "New Energy Equation." I raised this idea over four years agone here in Washington, and today its implications are more acute than I expected.

There are four reasons that explain why prices have gone up, and why they are likely to remain relatively of great altitude.

First is the emergence of a growing middle class around the world which is driving energy demand. There are more than 6 billion people forward earth. Everyone in this room is among the so called "Golden Billion," enjoying a standard of living that many can only dream of.

At the other expiration of the scale are 2 billion people who have essentially nothing - no electricity, no safe water, living on smaller quantity than $2/day. In the centre are billions who soar to our standard of living. The good news is that each year many are beginning to bring to pass it. But the consequences of this trend are increasing demands in succession account of food, goods, services and commodities of all kinds.

Second, geopolitical dynamics continue to put directed to a higher place pressure on prices. I don't due insignificant conflict in the Middle East, although that certainly plays a role.

The situation is far in addition complicated.

We are seeing a resurgence of "resource nationalism" - the sudden thought by dint of. governments to tightly control domestic resources and exclude foreign investing.. As prices increase, these geopolitical science of forces strengthen.

Third, new supplies of oil resources are challenging to find and extract. Since we started using oil, most of the easy-to-reach, inexpensive supplies have been used. What's left is harder to find … more difficult to drill … and more expensive to produce.

And fourth, we have deliberately constrained our own supply by placing limitations on home exploration and drilling. In the past 20 years, America's produce has fallen by within a little 4 million barrels of oil a day - this is the equivalent of taking a greater oil producing country's supply facing the world market.

And over the same age, U.S. demand grew by more than 4 million barrels per day. Less supply, in a time of rising demand, step higher prices.

Last year global lengthening barely exceeded requirement. Spare capacity stood at lawful over 2 million barrels by day. World oil production poorly increased.

Last year, 7 of the upper end 15 oil producing countries versed flat to declining fruit compared to 2006. Among them were Mexico, Venezuela, Norway, and Nigeria.

Although in recent months the afford and make necessary balance has improved, there are accumulating risks to the supply of reliable, affordable energy in the future.

The fundamentals underlying the global energy market have changed. And they aren't going to change back.

But there are solutions.

And the essential actions we must take become apparent when people be apprised the realities of energy.

Let me provide you with more information touching our energy system.

Americans are the largest consumers of energy in the universe. And we have benefitted greatly from it. We make about a quarter of the world's gross domestic product and consume a quarter of the world's energy.

We are becoming more efficient in our use of energy. Today, we use half of the activity per unit of GDP compared to 40 years ago.

So where does this activity come from?

Almost 40 percent is oil … about 23 percent each from life-like elastic fluid and coal … 8 percent is generated from nuclear.

Renewables make up 7 percent … of that hydro power contributes about half.

Less than one half of one percent comes from wind; solar is just smaller than that.

We consequence about two-thirds of our oil, and 15 percent of our natural aeriform fluid. All of the rest of our energy - coal, nuclear, renewables - is produced here at home.

Let me dispel single myth. The U.S. is not any energy weakling. Our country is an efficiency powerhouse.

America is the number 1 producer of nuclear power and ethanol….

We' re the account 2 producer of coal, simple aeriform fluid and wind power …

And we're the number 3 producer of oil.

When looking at the energy system from a global perspective … the picture is excessively similar. Like America, 85 percent of the global good housewifery is powered by oil, natural gas and coal. And by 2030, experts predict we will emergency 50 percent more.

Now, I want to make one important point … and that point is "scale." The scale of the global energy system is simply very large … and destined to possess much larger. Today the world consumes, from all energy sources, the equivalent of 10 million barrels of oil each and every hour. That's about 120,000 gallons per abet.

These are lock opener facts about energy. And facts are the antidote to all the myths, half-truths and impossible contradictions, that too frequently pass for energy "reflecting."

For instance:

?????? We want to decrease our reliance without ceasing foreign oil. But we restrict domestic production and call on OPEC to grow its production.

?????? We want less carbon, but are fearful of nuclear power, some of the few scalable sources of energy that generates no carbon.

?????? We want energy companies to invest their profits to provide novel supplies, but we threaten to take away those profits through "windfall profit" taxes.

Time and time again, someone tells us that he or she has found the solution to all our problems. Some are purely phony … some are real … but not realistic.

Renewable energy is very real. We need it. It will be an absolute requisite work of the future I envision. But it's not realistic to suppose that it can replace conventional power in a timeframe that some suggest.

Our energy system has required massive investment over many decades. To supply the daily needs of 300 million people here in the U.S. with new energy sources requires time and money - lots of both! And it's unrealistic to think major parts of it can be replaced in just a decade.

Now, I believe we last will and testament unfold and implement new technologies that desire move our economy toward a greater trust on renewables and alternatives. But the development and application of recent technology always takes leisure.

Look at the computer industrial art. It took about fifty years from the progressive growth of the silicon chip before computers were a widespread part of everyday life.

Will energy alternatives draw that long? I hope not. But we need to be realistic.

Even with the rapid growth of renewables, experts estimate that over 80 percent of global energy consumed in 2030 will still come from oil, natural gas and coal.

These resting on mere custom energy sources pleasure remain indispensible to meeting demand for decades to come, even during the time that we pursue greater contributions from renewable pluck.

The flipside to misplaced chance of a favorable result in alternatives is the notion that we have sovereignty to simply drill our way out of the problem.

We can't. There aren't enough domestic reserves … and what there are will take time to develop. But other thing access will help!

We exist in privation of to get beyond simplistic solutions - slogans, really - and converging-point on our primary belonging to - energy security. The reality is that there are no silver bullets, no quick and easy answers.

Massive mount…. long lead times… tight spare capacity … growing demand … these are the realities we face.

There are solutions. And those solutions are not "either/ or," …

It's not a choice between "more drilling or other thing efficiency."

It's not a choice betwixt coal or wind.

It's not a choice between nuclear or solar.

We need it all!

We need greater efficiency and more renewables… we need nuclear and clean coal … we need wind and oil and natural gas.

Our path to energy security cannot rely without ceasing just one choice - it new wine keep onward many options.

Last year, the National Petroleum Council published a study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy".

It laid out five essential and urgent steps to achieve energy security Let me eventuate from one side them:

?????? First, moderate make ready inquiry by increasing energy efficiency in all sectors of our system.

?????? Second, expand and dapple total U.S. domestic energy supplies.

?????? Third, strengthen global and U.S. energy security through a renewed commitment to energy carry on commerce and investment.

?????? Fourth, enhance science and engineering capabilities to meet these of the present day challenges.

?????? And fifth, address conservatory gases through a transparent, predictable carbon policy.

Let me say a little bit more near to this last instant, because I know how much it is discussed today.

One of the largest contributors to conservatory gas concentrations in the atmosphere is fossil fuels.

There is no doubt that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased. And although there is uncertainty here and there the future impacts on climate, most humbler classes agree that it's not a good exemplar to continue unconfined hydrocarbon consuming. And I agree.

But for what reason should we reduce emissions in a realistic timeframe given the scale of the energy system and the increasing demand?

Once again, various proposals are being discussed.

Some talk about reducing emissions by 20 percent by 2020. It sounds cheerful! 20 by 20! Others talk about reducing emissions by 50, 60 or exactly 70 percent by 2050.

Even with the best of intentions, it will be challenging. If we were to shutdown the entire global transportation arrangement today - all cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes and ships, we would reduce conservatory aeriform fluid emissions by about 15 percent! That's one-five percent.

And meaningful reductions will be expensive to achieve.

The International Energy Agency predicts that the real costs to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets will be $45 trillion dollars. That's above and beyond the investments necessary to meet future energy demand. It's a cost every hackneyed of us in this room needs to understand. Not blameless a cost on business, it is a cost on society. One that you and I will pay.

We are facing a moment of decision when it comes to our capacity of work future.

And the time to operate … is since.

I am confident we be possible to take the suitable steps in advance to achieve energy security. And I am not alone in my views.

The American the community is now engaged on energy.

We're embracing energy efficiency. We're endorsing the need to develop more of our own supplies - renewables and conventional energy. And … we're striving to use might in a more environmentally responsible manner.

When you look at this momentum, it's easy to see the new consensus edifice in America about energy.

That's important because we exigency collaboration to achieve real progress.

Businesses and consumers need affordable energy. Young and old want renewable energy; Republicans and Democrats seek reduced emissions.

But we need leadership to achieve results.

This election - this moment of decision - is a season for the Presidential candidates to explain how they will lead.

Next week, when they meet at the University of Mississippi, the candidates must clarify their positions.

They need to propitiate campaign promises with tangible actions:

?????? What are their plans for composition our economy more energy efficient?

?????? Do they have concrete actions to extend whole forms of domestic energy - nuclear … natural gas … renewables … oil … and coal?

?????? How will they de-carbonize the world's largest economy without undermining energy security or threatening our prosperity?

?????? What's the cost … and who volition pay … for their proposed plans?

We need to hear the combat for. And we all necessity to arrive at the truth the integrity of their proposals.

On the eve of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln observed: "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed."

Today, public sentiment supports engagement without interruption energy policy.

That action should lead to a future of greater energy efficiency … enhanced stores of totality forms of mechanical value … and reduced emissions.

While I am concerned about the urgency of the situation today, I'm in addition optimistic.

I believe that, by the time my grandchildren are my age, our vigor system will look much different. But we must get started now.

Our standard of living and our nation's security will be shaped by the energy policy of our next President.

Our modern consensus without interruption strength has a common goal - for America to be secure. We distress to work cheek by jowl to achieve it.

Thank you.

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20080919/cm_rcp/the_new_energy_consensus

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The presidential debates beget in a state of being liable to way Friday, beginning the last phase of a campaign that has seemed to compass a lifetime — starting months ago when Hillary Clinton seemed incapable of subjugation, John Edwards seemed nice, John McCain seemed hopeless and Barack Obama seemed to subsist overreaching. These forums are a modern addition to the campaign process — no candidates engaged in a controversy before the Kennedy-Richard Nixon encounter exactly 48 years in the presence of this week’s session — and they many times have granted important, defining political moments.

This week’s debate at the University of Mississippi should be nay different. The Republicans hope to put Mr. Obama’s youthfulness and inexperience on display. The Democrats hope to put Mr. McCain’s old age and ties to the George W. Bush White House on display. Neither is likely to succeed. If antecedent debates tell us anything, it is that the unanticipated insight — the spontaneous, revelatory moment — is what becomes a efficacious constituent in the general election and a memorable touchstone in American politic record.

Today, for example, nobody remembers anything on the eve Quemoy and Matsu, particularly which candidate (Nixon) charged the other (Kennedy) with reluctance to defend these two islands in the Taiwan Strait. But everybody "knows" Kennedy won the first debate — even though the people who listened on radio and didn’t see the opposition betwixt the crisp-looking senator from Massachusetts in the blue suit and the perspiring vice president from California in the gray suit reached the opposite conclusion.

Even the people session on the run, viewing the debate in color rather than in black and white, didn’t "know" that Nixon abandoned. "We could not see the debate through television," Sander Vanocur, the former NBC newsman and the sole part from that primitive debate who is still alive, recalled in a telephone interview the other day. "We saw only with our natural eyes. And looking with the naked judgment at a gray suit with a gray background didn’t seem so terrible in person."

This time there will subsist certain questions each side will want to have asked — and certain points each side will try to make, just if it requires ignoring the questions. Watch for that, through the way. It’s the oldest trick in the (not remotely half-century intelligent) book.

Here are some questions that you may join me in hoping are asked:

Which s that take get to out of your camp would you mostly resent had you been the mark of them? Please cozen not utter a sermon put on clean campaigning, and do not appliance this as an excuse to badger your competitor. Instead, please provide a simple make answer to this specific discussion.

Dream on if you expect an rejoin to this, though they both ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Sen. Obama has very little conventional experience, and Gov. Sarah Palin has very little conventional experience. Does the fact that each side has a compelling but conventionally inexperienced aspirant stand as testimony of the relative nothingness of this issue? Please do not employment this question as an opportunity to defend the record of any single individual on these two tickets.

Dream on if you expect an honest answer to this question, and if we do get a fair response, you subsist possible to rely upon it to comprehend the brace words "Abraham Lincoln," which neat much should end the discussion.

The minutiae of many of your proposals — especially on taxes and medical insurance — are important as glimpses into how you think and the role you feel is appropriate towards government in a free-market economy. But don’t you agree that nit-picking each other’s specifics is not excepting that a waste of time limit also fundamentally dishonest, as it is not you yet members of Congress who will ultimately shape legislation in these areas?

Dream on … well, you know the rest of the sentence. Neither of these men is a particularly effective lawmaker, which is no trespass. (Kennedy and Nixon weren’t, either, and the only accomplished legislator of the 20th century to sit in the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson, wasn’t so much a lawmaker as a deal-maker.) What we really need to know is how both of them will divide through Congress and what Congress wants, not how they would allot with the aides they appoint to draw up the legislation they be deficient.

Is the country — to borrow the best line from any one presidential debate ever — safer today than it was four years ago?

This is not a question about dreams but one that invites nightmares. The home has been blessed because Sept. 11, 2001 — a sentence every columnist resists typing for fear that he, like a fan who talks aloud about a no-hitter, might be shown, tragically, to be counting his security chickens while plots are being hatched. But it is not extravagant to ask whether these two presidential contenders think the Bush administration has carried on a good job, has done enough, has not done enough but been lucky, has set us on a route to complacency, has set us on a route to safety, or has set us on a path to disaster.

You may not get the answers to these questions. You may not even get these questions. But you almost certainly will get what the candidates do best — each respond to a question that wasn’t asked. If we’re lucky, that question main be: How do these candidates measure up to the challenges we face?

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Barclays (BARC.L) executives aforesaid this week they were selfish in parts of Lehman's business in Europe, and the source uttered the bank will pitch an offer for gifts on Sunday to meet an indicative deadline risk by its administrators.

Japan's largest brokerage Nomura will bid for Lehman's (LEHMQ.PK) European business, Japan's Mainichi newspaper and Britain's Sunday Times reported. It particularly wants the M&A and stock trading divisions, the Japanese paper said.

Barclays bought Lehman's core U.S. broker-dealer traffic in a $1.75 billion deal late on Tuesday, and executives said the next sunlight they would consider buying more Lehman assets outer the United States, like as more equities and equity capital markets businesses.

Barclays and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrators for Lehman's European business, declined to annotate.

A prolocutor for Nomura said: "We are always exploring options, however we do not make comments on market rumours."

PwC is expected to move quickly to the degree that further delays would cause Lehman to miss customers and staff.

Mainichi declared that U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N) had approached Nomura for funding. No some was beneficial for comment at Morgan Stanley.

The fate of Lehman's non-U.S. businesses is uncertain.

Lehman has hired investment bank Rothschild (ROT.UL) to advise it on the sale of its Asia operations, a person with direct knowledge of the vent process told Reuters onward Friday.

Barclays is also seen as a candidate to buy all or part of the Asia calling.

John Varley, Barclays chief charged with execution, said after sealing the deal beneficial to the U.S. business that he was looking at other Lehman assets.

"We at present have the opportunity, and it's an opportunity that we're looking at quickly and seriously, to see what else might spasm by the businesses we're developing around the world," Varley said.

The bank declared it would typically be in areas in which place Lehman has strong positions and Barclays is weak, of that kind as in equities and the equity capital markets commerce..

Barclays said on Sunday that Rich Ricci, chief operating officer for its investment bank and investment management arm, will head the integration of Lehman's U.S. arm. It aims to return the U.S. unit to "business as usual" on Monday after weeks of turmoil.

Once the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection this week, after collapsing from exposing. to risky securities backed by U.S. subprime mortgages.

(Reporting by David Dolan in Tokyo and Steve Slater in London; additional reporting by Emi Emoto; Editing by dint of. David Cowell)

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/function/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080921/bs_nm/nomura_lehman_dc

OMAHA, Neb. —

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Muslim workers involved in a prayer dispute at a Grand Island meatpacking plant are scheduled to meet Sunday to decide the sort of to do next.

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said Saturday that workers at the JBS Swift & Co. plant wanted to grasp another protest, excepting that he urged them not to.

Instead, Rage said, all the Muslim workers - including those no longer through the company because of the dispute - will meet Sunday to talk with reference to a declaration.

Muslim workers - most of Somali background - have been asking for accommodations with break times to give supplication of god at sunset. The issue led to walkouts at the plant this week - not only from Muslims, otherwise than that also from non-Muslims who protested of the like kind accommodations as preferential treatment.

The plant employs about 2,500 people, not including managers. About a fifth of them are Muslim.

Rage said 80 Muslim workers were thrown out of the plant back an altercation late Thursday. When they tried to return for their shift Friday, he said, they were fired, forward with 70 other workers.

Seventeen to 19 others were fired late Friday, Rage said.

“They were praying, and praying became a violation in the found,” he said.

Dan Hoppes, president of Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, described Thursday night’s differently from Rage. He reported that according to management and employees, 60 to 80 the community quit lately Thursday after raising the prayer issue and creating a commotion.

Hoppes said supervisors had told the workers to go back to work or permission, and they left.

JBS Swift & Co. has confirmed 86 firings, saying the employees were terminated on this account that repeatedly leaving work without authorization.

A message left Saturday for a company spokeswoman was not returned.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008189703_apmuslimprayercomplaint.html?syndication=rss