Really bad day for Greyhound and passenger!

Man charged in decapitation aboard Greyhound bus

Travelers in Canada armed with tools keep suspect at bay until police arrive

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Manitoba —(AP)
A 40-year-old man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded the man sitting next to him on a Greyhound bus in Canada has been charged with second-degree murder, police said Friday.
Vince Weiguang Li, of Edmonton, Alberta, was due to appear in court later Friday, said Sgt. Brian Edmonds.
Authorities have not released the victim's name but The Canadian Press said friends had identified him as Tim McLean, a 22-year-old carnival worker.
William Caron, 23, said McLean was quiet, though he liked to socialize with friends. He was small -- about 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds -- and tended stayed away from a fight, Caron said.
"From what I hear, this other guy is three times his size," Caron said. "All the time I've known Tim, he's never been the type of guy to get into a fight with. He always kept to himself when there's strangers around."
Witnesses said the victim was stabbed dozens of times in the Wednesday night attack aboard the bus as it traveled a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 12 miles from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.
They said the attacker then severed his seat mate's head, displayed it and then began cutting up the body.
Garnet Caton, who was sitting just one seat in front of them, said the suspect had been on the bus about an hour. He initially did not sit near the victim but changed seats after a rest stop. Caton said he did not hear the two speak to each other before the attack.
"We heard this bloodcurdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly," Caton said.
Caton said the driver stopped the bus when he became aware of the attack and passengers raced off. A short while later, Caton said he re-boarded along with the bus driver and a trucker who had stopped to see what was happening.
He said the suspect had the victim on the floor of the bus and "was cutting his head off" with a large hunting knife.
"When he was attacking him, he was calm," said Caton. "There was no rage or anything. He was just like a robot stabbing the guy."
The attacker turned toward them and the three men quickly left the bus, blocking the door as the attacker slashed at them through an opening. Caton said the driver disabled the vehicle after the attacker tried to drive it away.
As the three guarded the door with a crow bar and a hammer, the attacker went back to the body and calmly came to the front of the bus to show off the head, Caton said.
Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said there had been 37 passengers aboard, many watching a movie when the violence erupted. She called the attack tragic but isolated.

Mars' two-faced riddle 'solved' From BBC
The puzzle of why the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars look so different may now have been solved.
Mars' crust is thicker in the southern hemisphere, and magnetic anomalies are found in the south but not the north.
New studies in Nature magazine suggest that a massive space rock smashing into the planet could have created an abrupt disparity between the two halves.
This asteroid would have been close to the size of Earth's moon and hit Mars' northern regions, scientists say.
According to one group of researchers, the rock struck with an energy equivalent to a quadrillion atomic bombs like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
Mars' northern hemisphere is an enormous lowland basin which might once have held a mighty ocean.
It's a very old idea, but nobody had done the numerical calculations Francis Nimmo, UCSC
The southern hemisphere, on the other hand, comprises rugged, crater-pitted highlands with an altitude up to 8,000m (26,000ft) greater than the north.
The new research suggests Mars bears the largest impact scar known anywhere in the Solar System.
It challenges an alternative theory which proposes that the "two faces" of Mars are the result of enormous volcanic disruption 3.8 billion years ago.
Deep impact
The scientists on the latest work used data from two Mars-orbiting spacecraft: Reconnaissance Orbiter and Global Surveyor.
Researchers led by Francis Nimmo at the University of California, Santa Cruz, US, carried out computer simulations to show that an impact with particular conditions could produce the present-day appearance of Mars.
These conditions indicate a space rock about one-half to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon, striking the Red Planet at an angle of 30 to 60 degrees. This would have produced an elliptical crater.
"It's a very old idea, but nobody had done the numerical calculations to see what would happen when a big asteroid hits Mars," said the associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UCSC.
The team's findings are corroborated by another study in Nature led by Oded Aharonson, associate professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), also US.
"The dichotomy is arguably the oldest feature on Mars," Dr Aharonson explained. The feature arose more than four billion years ago, before the rest of the planet's complex geological history was superimposed."
This was about the same time that a much bigger object slammed into the Earth, throwing material into orbit around our infant planet. This material is thought to have coalesced to form the Moon.
Indeed, the coincidence in timing of the formation of our Moon and the Mars dichotomy is probably not coincidental at all.
Tail end
"It happened probably right at the end of the formation of the four terrestrial planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars," said Craig Agnor, a co-author on the Francis Nimmo study.
He told BBC News: "We think the planets formed out of a disc of rocks. As the rocks collide, you get bigger rocks and so on. Eventually, you end up with four planets and a lot of rocks - of various sizes.
"In terms of the process of the planets sweeping up the last bits of debris, this could have been one of the last big bits of debris."
Shock waves from the impact would travel through the planet and disrupt the crust on the other side, causing changes in the magnetic field recorded there.
The predicted changes are consistent with observations of magnetic anomalies in the southern hemisphere, according to Dr Nimmo.
In a third study published in Nature, Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna and Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and Bruce Banerdt of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, provide impact evidence from gravitational and topographical signatures on Mars.

Science
TV Really Might Cause Autism
A Slate exclusive: findings from a new Cornell study.

By Gregg Easterbrook (Oct 2006)
Last month, I speculated in Slate that the mounting incidence of childhood autism may be related to increased television viewing among the very young. The autism rise began around 1980, about the same time cable television and VCRs became common, allowing children to watch television aimed at them any time. Since the brain is organizing during the first years of life and since human beings evolved responding to three-dimensional stimuli, I wondered if exposing toddlers to lots of colorful two-dimensional stimulation could be harmful to brain development. This was sheer speculation, since I knew of no researchers pursuing the question.
Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders.
The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate. "We are not saying we have found the cause of autism, we're saying we have found a critical piece of evidence," Cornell researcher Michael Waldman told me. Because autism rates are increasing broadly across the country and across income and ethnic groups, it seems logical that the trigger is something to which children are broadly exposed. Vaccines were a leading suspect, but numerous studies have failed to show any definitive link between autism and vaccines, while the autism rise has continued since worrisome compounds in vaccines were banned. What if the malefactor is not a chemical? Studies suggest that American children now watch about four hours of television daily. Before 1980—the first kids-oriented channel, Nickelodeon, dates to 1979—the figure is believed to have been much lower.
The Cornell study is by Waldman, a professor in the school's Johnson Graduate School of Management, Sean Nicholson, an associate professor in the school's department of policy analysis, and research assistant Nodir Adilov. "Several years ago I began wondering if it was a coincidence that the rise in autism rates and the explosion of television viewing began about the same time," Waldman said. "I asked around and found that medical researchers were not working on this, so accepted that I should research it myself." The Cornell study looks at county-by-county growth in cable television access and autism rates in California and Pennsylvania from 1972 to 1989. The researchers find an overall rise in both cable-TV access and autism, but autism diagnoses rose more rapidly in counties where a high percentage of households received cable than in counties with a low percentage of cable-TV homes. Waldman and Nicholson employ statistical controls to factor out the possibility that the two patterns were simply unrelated events happening simultaneously. (For instance, petroleum use also rose during the period but is unrelated to autism.) Waldman and Nicholson conclude that "roughly 17 percent of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s was due to the growth in cable television."
But the fact that rising household access to cable television seems to associate with rising autism does not reveal anything about how viewing hours might link to the disorder. The Cornell team searched for some independent measure of increased television viewing. In recent years, leading behavioral economists such as Caroline Hoxby and Steven Levitt* have used weather or geography to test assumptions about behavior. Bureau of Labor Statistics studies have found that when it rains or snows, television viewing by young children rises. So Waldman studied precipitation records for California, Oregon, and Washington state, which, because of climate and geography, experience big swings in precipitation levels both year-by-year and county-by-county. He found what appears to be a dramatic relationship between television viewing and autism onset. In counties or years when rain and snow were unusually high, and hence it is assumed children spent a lot of time watching television, autism rates shot up; in places or years of low precipitation, autism rates were low. Waldman and Nicholson conclude that "just under 40 percent of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching." Thus the study has two separate findings: that having cable television in the home increased autism rates in California and Pennsylvania somewhat, and that more hours of actually watching television increased autism in California, Oregon, and Washington by a lot.
Research has shown that autistic children exhibit abnormal activity in the visual-processing areas of their brains, and these areas are actively developing in the first three years of life. Whether excessive viewing of brightly colored two-dimensional screen images can cause visual-processing abnormalities is unknown. The Cornell study makes no attempt to propose how television might trigger autism; it only seeks to demonstrate a relationship. But Waldman notes that large amounts of money are being spent to search for a cause of autism that is genetic or toxin-based and believes researchers should now turn to scrutinizing a television link.
There are many possible objections to the Cornell study. One is that time indoors, not television, may be the autism trigger. Generally, indoor air quality is much lower than outdoor air quality: Recently the Environmental Protection Agency warned, "Risks to health may be greater due to exposure to air pollution indoors than outdoors." Perhaps if rain and snow cause young children to spend more time indoors, added exposure to indoor air pollution harms them. It may be that families with children at risk for autism disorders are for some reason more likely to move to areas that get lots of rain and snow or to move to areas with high cable-television usage. Some other factor may explain what only appears to be a television-autism relationship.
Everyone complains about television in a general way. But if it turns out television has specific harmful medical effects—in addition to these new findings about autism, some studies have linked television viewing by children younger than 3 to the onset of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—parents may urgently need to know to keep toddlers away from the TV. Television networks and manufacturers of televisions may need to reassess how their products are marketed to the young. Legal liability may come into play. And we live in a society in which bright images on screens are becoming ever more ubiquitous: television, video games, DVD video players, computers, cell phones. If screen images cause harm to brain development in the young, the proliferation of these TV-like devices may bode ill for the future. The aggressive marketing of Teletubbies, Baby Einstein videos, and similar products intended to encourage television watching by toddlers may turn out to have been a nightmarish mistake.
If television viewing by toddlers is a factor in autism, the parents of afflicted children should not reproach themselves, as there was no warning of this risk. Now there is: The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends against any TV for children under the age of 2. Waldman thinks that until more is known about what triggers autism, families with children under the age of 3 should get them away from the television and keep them away.
Researchers might also turn new attention to study of the Amish. Autism is rare in Amish society, and the standing assumption has been that this is because most Amish refuse to vaccinate children. The Amish also do not watch television.

The Frog Theory

If you drop a frog in boiling water he will leap right out. If you slowly heat the water he will be content until it’s too late to get out. That is exactly how history works. It moves slowly and we never really see any danger until it’s too late.
Remember how suppressed workers were before unions came along? The unions leveled the playing field. Unfortunately, over a long period of time the pendulum swung too far. Slowly, businesses and factories closed and jobs left the country. We were comfortable and didn’t see the change coming. We blamed everyone except ourselves for what happened. We weren’t alert to how slow things change over time.
World War II, and the Korean War, demonstrated how powerful a united nation could be. Our nation, and our families, were united. The father was the head of the family and the President was the head of the nation. Both were highly respected. We were content and happy.
We were good at fighting a hot war but we were unprepared to fight a cold war with the communists in the 50’s. They knew they couldn’t change us but they didn’t care. Their philosophy was to wait it out and capture the minds of our children. They loaded our colleges with many of their professors and waited. It didn’t take long to see the results.
The 60′’s ushered in the radicals, drug culture, student protesters, and the Vietnam War. The aim of the cold war was to divide and conquer. They divided our families and the nation. The secret to defeating a polite and respectful people is to scream. The louder and longer you scream the better your chance of winning. Radicals are masters at this form of attack. They know if you constantly scream and repeat a lie it will eventually become the truth.
The media, and Hollywood, hammered us with hate America themes and stories. Our service men, and women, were jeered, cursed, and spit on. Even the people, who latter wanted to become their President, thrashed them. We lost our first War in history. There was no hero’s homecoming for our fighting men and women.
The Reverend King, who was raised in the old school, peacefully changed the race issue and united the people. When he died the new breed of leaders like the Jesse Jackson’s, Lewis Farakon,’s Al Sharpton’s, and Rev. Wright’s put a lid on his efforts and turned racism into a money making machine.
Corporations were green-mailed by threats of protests, product boycotts, or endless lawsuits. Every issue, large or small, became a race issue. The public recoiled in fear of being called a racist. Their voices were silenced because one word could cost you a career, get you fired, or get you sued.
Even politicians buckled under to the pressure. The Florida legislature issued a formal apology for having slavery 200 years ago. They were thanked by being asked for compensation. There is no end in sight for this kind of nonsense. America didn’t capture slaves and bring them to America. Their own people sold them to slave traders from several nations. This knowledge doesn’t stop the screamers. History is what it is and you can’t change it. There have been many tragic events in history. You acknowledge them and move on.
They divided our nation into two separate Americas. We now have Americans, and African-Americans, although Africa has nothing to do with being an American. You can be one or the other but not both. You are what you were born to be. You do not subordinate our country to any foreign nation. It’s equivalent to flying the African flag above the Stars and Stripes. If you hyphenate two countries America always comes first.
This election year could be the turning point in our history because the frog theory has come into play. It’s time to step back and look at how the country has slowly changed since the cold war started. Don’t get caught up in all the hype.
George McGovern was the first Presidential candidate to test the waters with college students. The Clinton’s played a big role in his campaign. It was the worst campaign ever run. He was crushed in the election.
Step two was to infiltrate all the information vehicles such as radio, newspapers, magazines, TV and movies. They were quite successful at that. Jimmy Carter was the first President to demonstrate the leadership skills of the far left. Weak military, high taxes, runaway inflation, 19% mortgage rates, and plain incompetence ended his career in Washington. Iran, a small country at the time, took American hostages and kicked sand in our face. By negotiating from weakness Carter could not get the hostages released.
The big benefit of the Carter years is that they were followed by the Reagan years. The nation got a clear look at the difference between a weak nation and a strong nation. Every student should know this difference. When Ronald Reagan took over the hostages were quickly released, taxes were lowered, inflation dropped, mortgage rates dropped, and the military was strengthened. Russia quickly waved the white flag and waited for another Democrat term.
Clinton took over Carters uncompleted social programs. He weakened the military and tried to pass large government programs. An Intern derailed his Presidency. While he was tied up with his personal problems his lawyers ran the country. He passed up three opportunities to take out Osama Bin Laden. This eventually cost us the loss of our Twin Towers, thousands of American lives, and got us involved in a war with Iraq.
By the end of his term the left had captured a large share of the media and it flexed its muscle in 2000. The hate Bush campaign got off to a roaring start. The brainwashing theory of repeating the same story over and over again was launched.
There were endless stories about our evil nation and its President. Top-secret plans were leaked to the press and printed for the entire world to see. Hollywood cranked out documentaries about the evil Bush administration and our evil military. They laid the groundwork for the next election. The ACLU flooded the courts with lawsuits and the Democrat party became a law firm. Almost every incumbent, or his or her spouse, is a lawyer.
They now have the perfect candidate because they can squash criticism by playing the race card. If you don’t like Obama, or criticize him, you are a racist. They can hide his inexperience and background by turning him into a rock star and singing change and hope. They don’t tell us what kind of change, or how it will be done, only that you should hope for the best. By keeping the hype going they don’t have to put anything of substance on the table.
The only thing we really know about Obama is that his wife has never been proud to be an American. They want us to believe that his liberal college professors, Rev. Pfleger, his ties to radicals Bill Ayer and Lewis Farakon, and listening to the Rev. Wright’s hate talks for 20 years, had no influence on his thinking. If they didn’t, then who did? He wasn’t in business and didn’t see fit to serve his country. These people launched his political career and their organizations received earmarks in return for their campaign donations and political help. They must have had some influence. Rev. Wright’s church received over $15 million. That’s only one small local church. Think on a national scale.
The change being promoted is a change back to the Carter years. It started in 2006 when the lawyer party took over. There have been endless lawsuits and investigations in retaliation for the Clinton years. It keeps the lawyers busy but does nothing for the economy. The economy has been in a downward spiral since they took over.
Returning to the Carter years of high taxes, high inflation, and a weak military is not the change we are looking for. We cannot cower to a bunch of crazies whose only goal in life is to kill us.
The old sage’s (over 50) will have to play a big role in this election. The young people simply don’t know what the aged know. The advantage of aging is the knowledge you accumulated. You know what United States means. You know what the seldom-heard word respect means. You know how wonderful freedom and independence is. You know the difference between a strong and a weak nation; and you know what it takes to keep it strong. You know history because you have lived it.
Although the old guard is dying off, and getting to tired to fight, they have to muster one more charge. If they don’t, our children, and grandchildren, will never know the joy and freedom that is the bedrock of our country. The heat is slowly being turned up and the water is getting hot. The old frogs better start jumping before it’s too late.

You Are How You Camped!

What your enjoyment of sleep-away camp, or lack of same, says about your character.

By Timothy Noah (Slate)
It's the dog days of summer, and thousands of kids across the country are off at sleep-away camp. In 2006, Timothy Noah noticed that the degree to which you enjoy summer camp as a kid informs the personality you adopt as an adult. The article is reprinted below.
If there's a more reliable

Rorschach than sleep-away camp, I'd like to see it. How you responded to being shipped off (often at an appallingly tender age) to a cluster of cedar cabins beside a mountain lake; to being taught Native American crafts, chants, and songs of dubious authenticity; and to being subjected to various painful hazing rituals—many of them involving underwear—reveals an awful lot about your fundamental character. If, as the Duke of Wellington claimed, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, then the psychotherapy bills of our own great nation were run up on the tetherball courts of Camp Weecheewachee (or whatever the hell your summer camp was called).
Let's begin with the people who didn't like camp
I was one such person. The first camp I got sent to was Camp Lenox, an establishment in the Berkshires that is still in business. During my summer there, in 1966, it was run by and for males who thrived on athletic competition. I did not. My older brother was an enthusiastic jock, and it was his love for the place that landed me there. I don't remember seeing much of him after we got off the bus—he was seven years my senior—but he'd occasionally appear in the distance, wearing the black beret that marked him as my enemy in Color War. I was assigned to the orange team; our symbol was a baton. To this day I shake my head in disbelief that a responsible camp director would set brother against brother in the name of competitive sport. Perhaps you find my thinking on this point a little rigid. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not the sort of person who can alter his loyalties so easily, even within such a character-building realm. (I would have made a terrible Kennedy.)
Observing my perplexity with mild concern, my parents shipped me off to a different camp the following summer. This was Camp Arcady, in the Adirondacks. Now defunct, it was co-ed and less single-mindedly dedicated to sports than Camp Lenox had been. Arcady had other advantages over its predecessor, the most memorable being a waterfront counselor named Doreen who had once been a Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club. Visions of Doreen (who in the decade since her TV stardom had filled out quite satisfactorily) haunted my prepubescent dreams. Even now, in my mind's eye, I see Doreen emerging, like Botticelli's Venus, from a clamshell perched on the shores of Lake George, a whistle nestled chastely in her cleavage. It was probably because of Doreen that I learned to water-ski. Water-skiing is the only camp sport I remember enjoying. Otherwise, I was pretty miserable. For the evidence, click here (center row, fifth from the left).
People (like myself) who didn't enjoy camp tend to have a problem engaging in organized activities of all kinds. Later in life we often become criminals or sociopaths. The more respectable among us often become journalists. If we're extremely bright or creative (or aspire to be), we may become writers or scholars or artists. The common thread is an outsider mentality. A self-flattering analysis, I know, but such is my privilege as author of this article.
Some people hated camp so much that they made their parents bring them home. These people should not be confused with the outlaws described above. There is nothing outré about not being able to endure summer camp. The come-and-get-me set grow up to be neurotic and needy. These are people who can often be heard on C-SPAN's early-morning call-in program Washington Journal, filibustering from a time zone still blanketed in predawn darkness, until the host says, "Please state your question."
Some people enjoy camp. These people grow up to be normal. My own two children, I'm pleased to report, belong to this category, assuming the blasé letters I'm receiving ("Pringles would taste pretty good right about now") reflect sincere contentment.
Some people really, really enjoy camp. I wish I could tell you that these people grow up to be really, really normal, but they don't. You know who I'm talking about. These are the ones who wept uncontrollably when the papiermâché numbers spelling out 1967 were set ablaze on a little raft that a camp counselor, under cover of darkness, towed stealthily to the middle of Lake Weecheewachee on the evening of the last group sing. These are the people for whom childhood represented the zenith of human existence and everything that followed an anticlimax. The women—they're mostly women—usually end up in abusive relationships with pathologically angry men who eventually abandon them and pay child support erratically, if at all. If the person who really, really enjoyed camp is a man, then he is unlikely ever to develop an intimate relationship and on occasion may be spotted in the back of a police cruiser speeding away from a grade-school playground.
The final category is people who really, really, really enjoy camp. These are the camp cultists. You probably expect me to say that these campers grow up to be utterly incapable of functioning in a noncamp environment, and end up sleeping on the streets in cardboard boxes. In fact, the opposite is true. Camp cultists grow up to be chief executive officers of major corporations, name partners in Wall Street banking firms, Cabinet secretaries, governors, and presidents of prestigious foundations. Their universities invite them to serve on their boards. Their home towns name schools after them. They are the Establishment. Longtime Disney CEO Michael Eisner is a camp cultist, having published, in 2005, Camp, a memoir of his bygone days at Vermont's Keewaydin Canoe Camp, which bills itself as the nation's oldest continually operating summer camp (it was founded in 1893), and whose Web site invites alumni to donate securities to something called the Keewaydin Foundation. I haven't read Eisner's book, but according to Amazon.com, its "statistically improbable phrases" include "winds ceremony" and "Indian circle."
For camp cultists, summer camp is an experience that lasts a lifetime. When they're too old to be campers, they come back as counselors. When they're too old to be counselors, they send their children in their stead. When their children eventually succeed (on the third or fourth try) in getting themselves thrown out of Camp Weecheewachee, for infractions too ghastly to contemplate, camp cultists send money. Lots and lots of money. If it weren't for camp cultists, half the summer camps in the United States would be forced to close their doors, depriving today's campers of this essential early exercise in psychological sorting.
Or perhaps not. Montana Miller, a folklorist who teaches a class called "Summer Camp Ethnography" at Ohio's Bowling Green State University, insists that even children who don't attend summer camp subject themselves to the same psychological sorting process by imagining that they did. In an e-mail to me, she elaborated:
There have been so many movies and books and TV shows—not to mention the stories told by friends who return from camp—that kids internalize whether or not they went to camp themselves. … I had [my students] do an in-class writing assignment in which they recounted an anecdote from camp—presenting it as a personal-experience narrative, but not necessarily real. It could be fictional or something that happened to someone they knew. They read their anecdotes out loud to the class and we tried to guess whether these were real experiences they had had themselves, or constructions from their imaginations and their pop culture educations. You know what? In almost every case, it was impossible to tell.
The summer-camp ink blot, then, is universal. You are how you camped, even if you never went.

Ore. man completes flight of fancy - in lawn chair
By KEITH RIDLER – 10 hours ago
CAMBRIDGE, Idaho (AP) — Using his trusty BB gun to help him return to Earth, a 48-year-old gas station owner flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles across the Oregon desert Saturday, landing in a field in Idaho.
Kent Couch created a sensation in this tiny farming community, where he touched down safely in a pasture after lifting off from Bend, Ore., and was soon greeted by dozens of people who gave him drinks of water, local plumber Mark Hetz said.
"My wife works at the City Market," Hetz said. "She called and said, 'The balloon guy in the lawn chair just flew by the market, and if you look out the door you can see him.
"We go outside to look, and lo and behold, there he is. He's flying by probably 100 to 200 feet off the ground.
"He takes his BB gun and shoots some balloons to lower himself to the ground. When he hit the ground he released all the little tiny balloons. People were racing down the road with cameras. They were all talking and laughing."
Couch covered about 235 miles in about nine hours after lifting off at dawn from his gas station riding in a green lawn chair rigged with an array of more than 150 giant party balloons.
Sandi Barton, 58, who has lived her whole life in this town of about 300, said she and her brother-in-law were the first ones to reach Couch and shook his hand.
"Not much happens in Cambridge," she said, adding that about half the town turned out.
"He came right over our pea field," she said. "He was coming down pretty fast."
She said Couch gave some of his balloons to local children.
It was not clear where Couch went after he landed.
It began after Couch, clutching a big mug of coffee, kissed his wife and kids goodbye, then patted their shivering Chihuahua, Isabella, on the head.
After spilling off some cherry-flavored Kool-Aid that served as ballast, Couch got a push from the ground crew so he could clear light poles and soared over a coffee cart and across U.S. Highway 20 into a bright blue sky.
"If I had the time and money and people, I'd do this every weekend," Couch said before getting into the chair. "Things just look different from up there. You've moving so slowly. The best thing is the peace, the serenity.
"Originally, I wanted to do it because of boyhood dreams. I don't know about girls, but I think most guys look up in the sky and wish they could ride on a cloud."
Couch's wife, Susan, called him crazy: "It's never been a dull moment since I married him."
This was Couch's third balloon flight. He realized it would be possible after watching a TV show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles of truck driver Larry Walters, who gained folk hero fame but was fined $1,500 for violating air traffic rules.
In 2006, Couch had to parachute out after popping too many balloons. And last year he flew 193 miles to the sagebrush of northeastern Oregon, short of his goal.
"I'm not stopping till I get out of state," he said.
To that end, he ordered more balloons. Dozens of volunteers wearing fluorescent green T-shirts that said "Dream Big" filled latex balloons 5 feet in diameter, attached them to strings and tied clusters of six balloons each to a tiny carabiner clip.
Each balloon gives four pounds of lift. The chair was about 400 pounds, and Couch and his parachute 200 more.
"I'd go to 30,000 feet if I didn't shoot a balloon down periodically," Couch said.
For that job, he carried a Red Ryder BB gun and a blow gun equipped with steel darts. He also had a pole with a hook for pulling in balloons, a parachute in case anything went wrong, a handheld Global Positioning System device with altimeter, a satellite phone, and two GPS tracking devices. One was one for him, the other for the chair, which got away in the wind as he landed last year.
For food he carried some boiled eggs, jerky and chocolate.
Couch flew hang gliders and skydived before taking up lawn-chair flights. He estimated the rig cost about $6,000, mostly for helium. Costs were defrayed by corporate sponsors.
Associated Press writer Jeff Barnard contributed to this story from Bend, Ore.
On the Net:
Kent Couch's flight: http://www.couchballoons.com
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Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

New Map IDs The Core Of The Human Brain
The first complete high-resolution map of the human cerebral cortex identifies a single network core that could be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain. (Credit: Indiana University)
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate. Their groundbreaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.
The work by the researchers from Indiana University, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and Harvard Medical School marks a major step in understanding the most complicated and mysterious organ in the human body. It not only provides a comprehensive map of brain connections (the brain "connectome"), but also describes a novel application of a non-invasive technique that can be used by other scientists to continue mapping the trillions of neural connections in the brain at even greater resolution, which is becoming a new field of science termed "connectomics."
"This is one of the first steps necessary for building large-scale computational models of the human brain to help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries," said Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study and neuroscientist at Indiana University.
Until now, scientists have mostly used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to measure brain activity -- locating which parts of the brain become active during perception or cognition -- but there has been little understanding of the role of the underlying anatomy in generating this activity. What is known of neural fiber connections and pathways has largely been learned from animal studies, and so far, no complete map of brain connections in the human brain exists.
In this new study, a team of neuroimaging researchers led by Hagmann used state-of-the-art diffusion MRI technology, which is a non-invasive scanning technique that estimates fiber connection trajectories based on gradient maps of the diffusion of water molecules through brain tissue. A highly sensitive variant of the method, called diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI), can depict the orientation of multiple fibers that cross a single location. The study applies this technique to the entire human cortex, resulting in maps of millions of neural fibers running throughout this highly furrowed part of the brain.
Sporns then carried out a computational analysis trying to identify regions of the brain that played a more central role in the connectivity, serving as hubs in the cortical network. Surprisingly, these analyses revealed a single highly and densely connected structural core in the brain of all participants.
"We found that the core, the most central part of the brain, is in the medial posterior portion of the cortex, and it straddles both hemispheres," Sporns said. "This wasn't known before. Researchers have been interested in this part of the brain for other reasons. For example, when you're at rest, this area uses up a lot of metabolic energy, but until now it hasn't been clear why."
The researchers then asked whether the structural connections of the brain in fact shape its dynamic activity, Sporns said. The study examined the brains of five human participants who were imaged using both fMRI and DSI techniques to compare how closely the brain activity observed in the fMRI mapped to the underlying fiber networks.
"It turns out they're quite closely related," Sporns said. "We can measure a significant correlation between brain anatomy and brain dynamics. This means that if we know how the brain is connected we can predict what the brain will do."
Sporns said he and Hagmann plan to look at more brains soon, to map brain connectivity as brains develop and age, and as they change in the course of disease and dysfunction.
The study was supported in part by the J.S. McDonnell Foundation, the University of Lausanne, Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM) of the Geneva-Lausanne Universities, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the National Institutes of Health.
Journal reference:
Hagmann et al. Mapping the Structural Core of Human Cerebral Cortex. PLoS Biology, 2008; 6 (7): e159 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060159
Adapted from materials provided by Indiana University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Indiana University (2008, July 1). New Map IDs The Core Of The Human Brain. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 2, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­

Editorial: Marriage shouldn't be government's concern
An Orange County Register editorial
Perhaps because leaders on both sides of the issue urged supporters to avoid undue disruption, the first few days of legal same-sex marriages in California went reasonably smoothly. An expensive and potentially acrimonious political tussle may be brewing behind the scenes, but both the celebrations and protests so far have been relatively low-key.
The uncertainty looming on the horizon is a measure on the November ballot that would declare that the state recognizes only marriages between a man and a woman. Proposition 22, passed in 2000, declaring that marriage is only between a man and a woman, was a statute. The California Supreme Court decided in May that the law violated state constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal protection of the laws to all. The measure in November is a constitutional amendment, so it would nullify the court's decision.
Our preference would be for the government not to be involved in marriage, the most fundamental of institutions in a civil society. Why two people who want to be married should be required to get a license from the state is something of a mystery. Marriage existed long before the California or U.S. governments came into being and will continue long after they have been consigned to history. Whether a marriage is valid should be up to the people involved and the churches, synagogues, mosques or other religious institutions that choose to perform them or not.
As a practical matter, however, the government has so entwined itself into our daily lives that state recognition is important. Filing taxes as a married couple or as individuals makes a difference, as does the ability to own real estate, make end-of-life decisions or adopt children. Considering all this and the importance of equality before the law, the high court's decision was justified.
It is argued that allowing same-sex marriage will infringe on the religious freedom of people who have a religiously based objection to it. It is hard to see the validity. Church and state are correctly separate in this country, and the fact that the state recognizes a union as a marriage doesn't mean that a religious person or institution has to recognize it or approve of it. It's hard to imagine a minister, rabbi or imam who objects to same-sex marriages being forced to perform one, and we would be the first to object if anybody tried it.
Over time same-sex couples will find, as has been the case in Massachusetts, where such marriages have been legal for four years, (and as heterosexual couples know all too well) that marriage is not always easy. Married people disagree about all kinds of things, from money to recreational preferences, and have to find ways to work out their differences.
The relatively smooth transition to allowing same-sex marriages may be the calm before the storm. Still, it's nice that it has been calm so far.

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
By BRIAN STELTER
Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.
For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.
One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.
That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.
AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.
All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.
Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.
Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.
Moreover, companies with physical storefronts, like Blockbuster, are moving toward digital delivery of entertainment. And new distributors of online content — think YouTube — are relying on an open data spigot to make their business plans work.
Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network use could hold back the inevitable convergence of television, computers and the Internet.
The Internet “is how we deliver our shows,” said Jim Louderback, chief executive of Revision3, a three-year-old media company that runs what it calls a television network on the Web. “If all of a sudden our viewers are worried about some sort of a broadband cap, they may think twice about downloading or watching our shows.”
Even if the caps are far above the average users’ consumption, their mere existence could cause users to reduce their time online. Just ask people who carefully monitor their monthly allotments of cellphone minutes and text messages.
“As soon as you put serious uncertainty as to cost on the table, people’s feeling of freedom to predict cost dries up and so does innovation and trying new applications,” Vint Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist for Google who is often called the “father of the Internet,” said in an e-mail message.
But the companies imposing the caps say that their actions are only fair. People who use more network capacity should pay more, Time Warner argues. And Comcast says that people who use too much — like those who engage in file-sharing — should be forced to slow down.
Time Warner also frames the issue in financial terms: the broadband infrastructure needs to be improved, it says, and maybe metering could pay for the upgrades. So far its trial is limited to new subscribers in Beaumont, Tex., a city of roughly 110,000.
In that trial, new customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.
“Average customers are way below the caps,” said Kevin Leddy, executive vice president for advanced technology at Time Warner Cable. “These caps give them years’ worth of growth before they’d ever pay any surcharges.”
Casual Internet users who merely send e-mail messages, check movie times and read the news are not likely to exceed the caps. But people who watch television shows on Hulu.com, rent movies on iTunes or play the multiplayer game Halo on Xbox may start to exceed the limits — and millions of people are already doing those things.
Streaming an hour of video on Hulu, which shows programs like “Saturday Night Live,” “Family Guy” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” consumes about 200 megabytes, or one-fifth of a gigabyte. A higher-quality hour of the same content bought through Apple’s iTunes store can use about 500 megabytes, or half a gigabyte.
A high-definition episode of “Survivor” on CBS.com can use up to a gigabyte, and a DVD-quality movie through Netflix’s new online service can eat up about five gigabytes. One Netflix download alone, in fact, could bring a user to the limit on the cheapest plan in Time Warner’s trial in Beaumont.
Even services like Skype and Vonage that use the Internet to transmit phone calls could help put users over the monthly limits.
Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.
That means that 5 percent of customers use more than 50 percent of the network’s overall capacity, the company said, and many of those people are assumed to be sharing copyrighted video and music files illegally.
The Time Warner plan has the potential to bring Internet use full circle, back to the days when pay-as-you-go pricing held back the Web’s popularity. In the early days of dial-up access, America Online and other providers offered tiered pricing, in part because audio and video were barely viable online. Consumers feared going over their allotted time and bristled at the idea that access to cyberspace was billed by the hour.
In 1996, when AOL started offering unlimited access plans, Internet use took off and the online world started moving to the center of people’s daily lives. Today most Internet packages provide a seemingly unlimited amount of capacity, at least from the consumer’s perspective.
But like water and electricity, even digital resources are finite. Last year Comcast disclosed that it was temporarily turning off the connections of customers who used file-sharing services like BitTorrent, arguing that they were slowing things down for everyone else. The people who got cut off complained and asked how much broadband use was too much; the company did not have a ready answer.
Thus, like Time Warner, Comcast is considering a form of Internet metering that would apply to all online activity.
The goal, says Mitch Bowling, a senior vice president at Comcast, is “ensuring that a small number of users don’t impact the experience for everyone else.”
Last year Comcast was sued when it was disclosed that the company had singled out BitTorrent users.
In February, Comcast departed from that approach and started collaborating with the company that runs BitTorrent. Now it has shifted to what it calls a “platform agnostic” approach to managing its network, meaning that it slows down the connection of any customer who uses too much bandwidth at congested times.
Mr. Bowling said that “typical Internet usage” would not be affected. But on the Internet, “typical” use is constantly being redefined.
“The definitions of low and high usage today are meaningless, because the Internet’s going to grow, and nothing’s going to stop that,” said Eric Klinker, the chief technology officer of BitTorrent.
As the technology company Cisco put it in a recent report, “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”
One result of these experiments is a tug-of-war between the Internet providers and media companies, which are monitoring the Time Warner experiment with trepidation.
“We hate it,” said a senior executive at a major media company, who requested anonymity because his company, like all broadcasters, must play nice with the same cable operators that are imposing the limits. Now that some television shows are viewed millions of times online, the executive said, any impediment would hurt the advertising model for online video streaming.
Mr. Leddy of Time Warner said that the media companies’ fears were overblown. If the company were to try to stop Web video, “we would not succeed,” he said. “We know how much capacity they’re going to need in the future, and we know what it’s going to cost. And today’s business model doesn’t pay for it very well.”

The Democrats' Reagan

By Bob Beckel
Question: Name the presidential candidate described below.
An unpopular incumbent president sits in the Oval Office. His party's brand is badly tarnished. The economy is in shambles, unemployment on the rise. The housing market is in crisis. Gasoline has become a major issue.America is enmeshed in a protracted crisis in the Middle East with no end in sight. We are near war footing with Iran. The reputation of the United States is diminished world wide. In historically high numbers, voters believe the country is on the wrong track.
The opposition party has nominated a charismatic candidate for president whose oratorical skills are compared to JFK, perhaps better. He had been introduced to the majority of Americans by way of a spellbinding keynote speech at a previous national party convention.
He has a fervent core of supporters and has emerged as the leader of his party through an insurgency that challenged and ultimately defeated his party's establishment. He runs against Washington and the special interests that control the Capitol. His message is change and hope.
If ever the public demanded change in Washington, it is in this presidential year. It could not be a better political environment for the party out of power. Yet with all the stars aligned perfectly for a party change in the White House, national polls show the opposition candidate barely ties, and often trails, his opponent.
There is little doubt about the voter's desire for change, but there is plenty of doubt about this candidate who pledges to deliver it. Who is the candidate?
Answer; A) Barack Obama B) Ronald Reagan C) Both
The correct answer is C.
Barack Obama's current political circumstance is eerily similar to that of Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign for president. Both Obama and Reagan, from the beginning of their insurgent campaigns, were viewed as transformative political figures. Both enjoyed passionate grassroots support.
Both men had defeated centrist establishment candidates for their party's nomination. Reagan defeated George H.W. Bush, who was viewed by the growing conservative base of the Republican Party as too moderate. Obama beat Hilary Clinton whose husband had been elected twice by moving away from his party's traditional progressive roots and running as a centrist, a path Clinton herself followed (at least at the beginning of her campaign).
In 1980 most conventional political observers failed to recognize the growing grassroots power of the rock solid conservative activists who propelled Reagan to his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential campaign supporters of Hillary Clinton failed to recognize the growing assertiveness of the Democrats progressive base, especially over the Iraq war which she initially supported and Obama opposed.
The failures of the Bush Administration convinced many progressives that the conservative cycle, deep into its third decade, had run its course. These activists believed the country was ready to tack back toward more progressive and transparent government. Barack Obama recognized and embraced this growing progressive movement.
Obama's message that it was time to "turn the page" on politics as usual (a not very subtle reference to both the Bush and Clinton years) resonated with progressives. That message coupled with his message of post-partisan, anti-polarization politics, so attractive to independent voters, provided Obama with a core of progressive activists along with a solid base of black voters and young voters energized by his youth and oratorical gifts.
But insurgency campaigns by definition run counter to the established order. Even in years when voters clamor for change, insurgent candidates must prove that neither they nor the change they offer is perceived as too far from the mainstream. It is this potential fear that opponents of insurgent candidates seek to exploit.
For most of the general election in 1980 Democrats succeeded in raising doubts about Reagan's brand of conservatism. They charged that he was too far right, and questioned his past conservative associations with the John Birch Society which, like Reagan; had been strong supporters of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Democrats argued that Reagan's brand of virulent anti-Communism coupled with his lack of foreign-policy experience was a dangerous mixture for the man whose finger would be on the proverbial "button."
For most of the 1980 general election the attacks on Reagan raised enough doubt about him to neutralize the public's strong desire for change. I was managing Carter's campaign in Texas that fall, and even in that conservative bastion, Carter led Reagan in the polls until mid-October. Our strategy was simple: On a risk scale of 1 to 10 (one being no risk, 10 being far too risky) we had managed to keep Reagan in the 7 to 8 range. Then came the only Carter/Reagan debate and the flood gates opened.
On stage with the President of the United States, Reagan did not come across as a threatening mad bomber. He was collegial, surefooted, and calm. His performance shattered expectations that he was a risk, which allowed Reagan, at the end of the debate, to pivot to the state of the economy with his devastating question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Reagan was elected in a landslide and proceeded to transform politics in America well beyond his two terms.
The Republicans are employing the same "risk" strategy against Barack Obama in 2008. McCain and company have used Obama's willingness to meet with avowed enemies of the United States like Iran as a sign of naiveté and weakness. Republican operatives and their radio talk show allies have sought to tie Obama to the anti-American rants of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright and his neighbor William Ayers, a former '60s radical.
Republicans have even dragged Obama's wife Michelle into the fight. They cite her Princeton senior thesis, selected campaign comments, and Obama's failure to wear an American flag lapel pin as evidence of passive patriotism.
Democrats in 1980 charged that Reagan would rip apart the social safety net for the poor, while Republicans in 2008 accuse Obama of inciting class warfare and suggest as president he will undertake a classic liberal redistribution of wealth by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and profitable US corporations.
It is incumbent on Obama to diffuse the "risk" issue. In some ways his will be an easier job than Reagan's. Reagan ran against an incumbent president, always a difficult race, while Obama faces a 71-year-old Senate veteran. (McCain turns 72 on Aug. 29.) Reagan faced a president preoccupied with 52 American hostages in Iran while Obama's opponent supports an unpopular war in Iraq that has already cost over 4000 American lives.
The "risk" factor for insurgents can best be addressed in direct candidate to candidate debates. Insurgents tend to have low expectations in these matchups, and hence a greater upside potential. Ronald Reagan had only one debate opportunity to counter his "risk" problem. Obama is likely to have a minimum of three encounters with John McCain and potentially several other town hall joint appearances.
John McCain will not be irrelevant in these face-offs, but only Barack Obama can confront the question of risk. It is an enviable position for Barack Obama Only he can win the race for the White House, and only he can lose it.
If Obama has proved one thing in his short political career, it is that he is far more likely to win than to lose.
Bob Beckel managed Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign. He is a senior political analyst for the Fox News Channel and a columnist for USA Today. Beckel is the co-author with Cal Thomas of the book "Common Ground."
Copyright 2008, Real Clear PoliticsPage Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_democrats_reagan.html at June 11,

How Gene McCarthy's response to Bobby Kennedy's murder crippled the Democrats.

By David Greenberg (Slate)
Forty years ago, Robert F. Kennedy was murdered on the very night he defeated his fellow anti-war insurgent Eugene McCarthy in the California Democratic presidential primary. This week the news media are full of remembrances of RFK, rehearsing how his assassination, echoing his brother's five years earlier, dashed a generation's hopes for a new era of liberalism. But in a political season that resembles 1968, another aspect of the assassination is also worth considering, especially with the Democratic Party now seeking to unify its ranks. For in 1968, the persistence of intra-party divisions—which helped usher in the presidency of Richard M. Nixon—stemmed not just from the tragedy of Kennedy's murder but also from McCarthy's own subsequent failure of leadership. McCarthy's refusal to extend a hand to disoriented Kennedy supporters after June 6 left the party sundered, directionless, and ripe for defeat.
Eugene McCarthy never liked the Kennedys. At least since 1960, when he had placed Adlai Stevenson's name in nomination at the Democratic convention that chose JFK for president, the high-minded Minnesota senator had resented the hardball style and political success of the whole family. Understandably, he begrudged RFK's entry into the 1968 race. After all, back in November 1967, McCarthy had courageously challenged Lyndon B. Johnson, a sitting president, for the Democratic nomination, arguing that it was time to bring home the half-million Americans fighting in Vietnam. McCarthy's close second-place finish in the March 12 New Hampshire primary exposed Johnson's profound vulnerabilities. Only then did Kennedy—after some perfunctory soundings about a joint anti-war effort with McCarthy—throw his hat in the ring, quickly earning him treatment as a more plausible pretender to the nomination. McCarthy, who later claimed RFK had promised him he wouldn't run, was livid.
Two weeks later, LBJ forswore a second term. Anti-war Democrats rushed to align with one insurgent or the other. McCarthy won the intellectuals, the professionals, and the young, who, distancing themselves from their long-haired contemporaries, vowed to get "Clean for Gene." Kennedy attracted blue-collar, Hispanic, and black support. He complained that McCarthy got the "A" students, and he got the "B" students.
The primary battles were brutal, producing at least as much bad feeling as this year's. Against a backdrop of violent campus protests and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., McCarthy and Kennedy squared off in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, and California. (Not until 1972 did primaries become the dominant method of delegate selection.) Playing to his upscale base, McCarthy blasted Kennedy for having wiretapped King while attorney general. RFK, for his part, catered to the concerns of his new base—stressing, for example, his former credentials as "the chief law enforcement officer of the United States" in front of audiences worried about rising crime and urban riots. He also assailed McCarthy's previous opposition to a minimum-wage law and his allegedly weak civil rights record—enduring charges of being "ruthless" and dishonest in distorting his rival's record.
Even as McCarthy styled himself the clean politician, however, he dished it out, too. He mocked Kennedy and his supporters. A major gaffe occurred in Oregon, when McCarthy sniffed that Kennedy supporters were "less intelligent" than his own and belittled Indiana (which had by then gone for Kennedy) for lacking a poet of the stature of Robert Lowell—a friend of McCarthy's who often traveled with him. McCarthy also took swipes at Kennedy for chasing after black and white working-class votes.
More negativity infused a debate before the California primary. McCarthy made two ill-considered statements: that he would accept a coalition government that included Communists in Saigon and that only the relocation of inner-city blacks would solve the urban problem. Kennedy pounced, portraying the former idea as soft on communism and the latter diagnosis as a scheme to bus tens of thousands of ghetto residents into white, conservative Orange County. Angered at these characterizations, McCarthy resolved not to support Kennedy if he became the nominee.
By the time of Kennedy's murder, there was no love lost between the two men. Still, McCarthy's reaction to the assassination was singularly hardhearted. One aide recalled him sneering about his fallen rival, "Demagoguing to the last." Another heard him say that Kennedy "brought it on himself"—implying, by perverse logic, that because Kennedy had promised military support to the state of Israel, he had somehow provoked Sirhan Sirhan, the Arab-American gunman who killed him. (In fact, Sirhan had long planned to commit the murder on the first anniversary of the Six-Day War.)
Kennedy's death, of course, did not leave McCarthy alone in the race. All along, many party regulars had preferred Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who announced his candidacy in April but sat out the primaries, instead building his delegate base in states without primaries—which back then constituted a majority. Indeed, with Kennedy's assassination, many observers thought that front-runner status had devolved not to McCarthy but to Humphrey. Yet while McCarthy formally suspended his campaign in recognition of Kennedy's death, and although he proceeded to engage in various acts of willful self-sabotage, he nonetheless won a big victory in the June 18 New York primary and swept around the country in search of uncommitted delegates. Yet, stubbornly, he refused to make any gestures of reconciliation toward Kennedy's inner circle or his millions of supporters.
A few key Kennedy aides soon prevailed on McGovern to join the race as a kind of placeholder at the upcoming Chicago convention—a possible nominee but also a candidate for Kennedy's delegates to rally behind until a deal could be struck. The move, of course, also made clear to McCarthy that they hadn't forgiven his various digs at RFK during the primary season. Meanwhile, others started an informal "Draft Ted" movement to get the youngest Kennedy brother, then 36, to pick up the standard. Both ploys reflected a recognition that Humphrey, for all his delegates, still wasn't the inevitable nominee and that McCarthy's cache of several hundred delegates, when coupled with Kennedy's, might still produce an anti-war nominee.
For a moment it looked possible. In Chicago, Richard Goodwin—the former JFK aide who'd gone to work for McCarthy, switched to RFK, then returned to the McCarthy camp after the assassination—sent word to friends in the Kennedy camp that McCarthy wanted to talk. Privately, the senator told Kennedy in-law Steve Smith that he would be willing to step aside in favor of Ted. But even in concession, McCarthy couldn't be gracious. He told Smith that he would take such a step for Ted, but he wouldn't have done it for Bobby. The gratuitous jab killed any prospect of a deal. In his conversations with Humphrey, meanwhile, McCarthy insisted that he not choose Ted Kennedy as his running mate.
McCarthy made almost no efforts on his own behalf at the convention. In a debate with Humphrey and McGovern before the California delegation, he refused to state his position on the war, saying, "The people know my position." He didn't even speak during the convention's debate over what the platform would say about Vietnam. But when Humphrey got the nod, McCarthy suggested that, as the winner of the most primary votes, he had been robbed of the nomination. He didn't endorse Humphrey until Oct. 29, and even then he took swipes at the vice president for his stands on the war and the draft. Humphrey lost to Nixon by 0.7 percent of the popular vote, although Nixon took 301 electoral votes to Humphrey's 191.
Whether Robert Kennedy could have beaten Humphrey for the nomination is impossible to say. Certainly, it would have been hard. But following Kennedy's death, Gene McCarthy's willful aloofness and inability to bring unity to a party cleaved during a hard-fought primary season amounted to a second tragedy for the Democrats.

Yves Saint Laurent, Giant of Couture, Dies at 71
By ANNE-MARIE SCHIRO NY Times
Yves Saint Laurent, who exploded on the fashion scene in 1958 as the boy-wonder successor to Christian Dior and endured as one of the best-known and most influential couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, died on Sunday at his apartment in Paris. He was 71.
His death was confirmed by Dominique Deroche, a spokeswoman for the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation.
During a career that ran from 1957 to 2002 he was largely responsible for changing the way modern women dress, putting them into pants both day and night, into peacoats and safari jackets, into “le smoking” (as the French call a man’s tuxedo jacket), and into leopard prints, trench coats and, for a time in the 1970s, peasant-inspired clothing in rich fabrics.
Mr. Saint Laurent often sought inspiration on the streets, bringing the Parisian beatnik style to couture runways and adapting the sailors’ peacoats he found in Army-Navy stores in New York into jackets that found their way into fashionable women’s wardrobes around the world. His glamorous evening clothes were often adorned with appliqués and beadwork inspired by artists like Picasso, Miró and Matisse. Above all, he was a master colorist, able to mix green, blue, rose and yellow in one outfit to achieve an effect that was artistic and never garish.
Among the women of style who wore his clothes were Catherine Deneuve, Paloma Picasso, Nan Kempner, Lauren Bacall, Marella Agnelli and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild.
Mr. Saint Laurent achieved instant fame in 1958 at the age of 21 when he showed his Trapeze collection, his first for Christian Dior following the master’s death. But unlike many overnight sensations, Mr. Saint Laurent managed to remain at the top of his profession as fashion changed from an emphasis on formal, custom-made haute couture to casual sportswear.
For many years after he opened his own couture house, in 1962, his collections were eagerly anticipated by fashion enthusiasts, who considered his the final word on that season’s style. His influence was at its height during the 1960s and ’70s, when it was still normal for couturiers to change silhouettes and hemlines drastically every six months.
Among his greatest successes were his Mondrian collection in 1965, based on the Dutch artist’s gridlike paintings, and the “rich peasant” collection of 1976, which stirred so much interest that the Paris show was restaged in New York for his American admirers. “The clothes incorporated all my dreams,” he said after the show, “all my heroines in the novels, the operas, the paintings. It was my heart — everything I love that I gave to this collection.”
Originally a maverick and a generator of controversy — in 1968, his suggestion that women wear pants as an everyday uniform was considered revolutionary — Mr. Saint Laurent developed into a more conservative designer, a believer in evolution rather than revolution. He often said that all a woman needed to be fashionable was a pair of pants, a sweater and a raincoat.
“My small job as a couturier,” he once said, “is to make clothes that reflect our times. I’m convinced women want to wear pants.”
A Rare Retrospective
By 1983, when he was 47, his work was recognized by fashion scholars as so fundamentally important to women’s dress that a retrospective of his designs was held at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first time the museum had honored a living designer. Diana Vreeland, the legendary magazine editor and the doyenne of the Costume Institute, who masterminded the exhibition, called him “a living genius” and “the Pied Piper of fashion.”
“Whatever he does,” she said, “women of all ages, from all over the world, follow.” That exhibition was followed by retrospectives in Paris, Beijing, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tokyo and Sydney, Australia.
But the New York exhibition could be considered the peak of Mr. Saint Laurent’s career, for after that he settled into a classical mode of reinterpreting his earlier successes. The boy wonder had turned into the elder statesman. He said in an interview in 1983: “A woman’s wardrobe shouldn’t change every six months. You should be able to use the pieces you already own and add to them. Because they are like timeless classics.”
Yet because so many of his early designs seeped into the public domain of fashion (and into many other designers’ collections), he managed to retain his stellar position in the world of fashion through his retirement in 2002.
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent came a long way from Oran, Algeria, where he was born on Aug. 1, 1936, to Charles and Lucienne Andrée Mathieu-Saint-Laurent. His father was a lawyer and insurance broker, his mother a woman of great personal style. He grew up in a villa by the Mediterranean with his two younger sisters, Michelle and Brigitte.
His mother and sisters, all of Paris, survive him.
The young Yves was said to be a quiet and retiring child (and as an adult was also often described as quiet and retiring), who avoided all sports except swimming and developed a love for fashion and the theater at an early age. After seeing a play by Molière when he was 11, he recreated the play in miniature, pasting the costumes together. As a teenager, he designed clothes for his mother, who had them whipped up by a local seamstress. (His mother became his greatest fan, sitting in the front row at all his shows and wearing no one else’s designs.)
Although his parents wanted him to study law, Mr. Saint Laurent — lanky and brown-haired, his blue eyes framed by glasses — went to Paris when he was 17 to try his luck in theatrical and fashion design. He briefly studied design at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, leaving because he said he was bored. Shortly thereafter, he won first prize in an International Wool Secretariat design competition for his sketch of a cocktail dress. This led to an interview with Christian Dior, who noted an uncanny resemblance between Mr. Saint Laurent’s cocktail dress and one he himself was working on. Recognizing the young designer’s talent, Dior hired him on the spot as his assistant.
Dior’s Protégé
For three years, Mr. Saint Laurent worked closely with Dior, who called him “my dauphin” and “my right arm.” After Dior died suddenly in 1957, shocking the fashion world, the House of Dior named Mr. Saint Laurent its head designer. At 21, he found himself at the head of a $20-million-a-year fashion empire, succeeding a legend, the man who had radically changed the way women dressed in 1947 with the wasp-waisted New Look.
Mr. Saint Laurent’s first collection in his new position, shown on Jan. 30, 1958, was based on the trapeze, a youthful silhouette that started with narrow shoulders and a raised waistline, then flared out gently to a wide hemline. The collection was received with great enthusiasm, and Mr. Saint Laurent’s name was well on its way to becoming a household word across Europe and America.
He was credited by many with rejuvenating French fashion and securing his country’s pre-eminent position in the world of haute couture. Newsboys shouted his triumph across the streets of Paris while he waved to the crowds below the balcony of the House of Dior on the Avenue Montaigne. The dauphin was crowned king.
His last collection for Dior, in July 1960, was based on a “chic beatnik” look of knitted turtlenecks and black leather jackets. It was less warmly received, though eventually the style became the uniform of the avant-garde.
In September of that year, Mr. Saint Laurent was called up for 27 months of compulsory military service during the war France was then fighting in Algeria. He had previously been given deferments because 2,000 jobs depended on his talent.
About three weeks after his induction, he was hospitalized for a nervous collapse. In October 1960, the House of Dior gave his job to Marc Bohan, his former assistant. In November, Mr. Saint Laurent was discharged from the army and entered a private clinic near Paris. In later years, he suffered from depression and a dependency on alcohol and drugs, a dependency he attributed to the drugs he was given in a military psychiatric hospital. But he almost always recovered in time to take the ritual walk down the runway, however unsteadily, at the finale of his shows.
In January 1961, Mr. Bohan’s collection for Dior was a huge success. Mr. Saint Laurent sued Dior for severance pay and damages after the house refused to reinstate him after his army discharge. He was awarded 680,000 francs by the court, then about $140,000.
In September 1961, Mr. Saint Laurent announced plans to open his own haute couture house in partnership with his lover, Pierre Bergé. Mr. Bergé remained his lifelong business partner and was responsible for the company’s financial success, although they split up as a couple in the early 1980s. The fledgling house was backed by J. Mack Robinson, an Atlanta businessman, who later said his confidence was based on the excitement Mr. Saint Laurent had created when he replaced Dior.
His Own Collection
The first Yves Saint Laurent collection was shown on Jan. 19, 1962. It was the beginning of a success story that led eventually to a ready-to-wear line sold in the designer’s own Rive Gauche boutiques around the world; to hundreds of licenses for scarves, jewelry, furs, shoes, men’s wear, cosmetics and perfumes, and even cigarettes; to set and costume designs for the ballet, theater and movies (most notably, for Catherine Deneuve in “Belle de Jour” in 1967); to a listing on the Paris Bourse, and to a host of awards, including the French Legion of Honor in 1985.
The House of Saint Laurent had various owners over the years, including Lanvin-Charles of the Ritz and Squibb-Beech Nut. In 1993, in a $636 million transaction, it became part of the state-owned French pharmaceuticals conglomerate Elf Sanofi, but 43 percent of the fashion group remained in the hands of Mr. Bergé and Mr. Saint Laurent. In 2000, Gucci Group bought the ready-to-wear and fragrance divisions of the company, while Mr. Bergé and Mr. Saint Laurent retained the haute couture business until the designer’s retirement. Under Gucci, to Mr. Saint Laurent’s vocal displeasure, the YSL ready-to-wear line was designed by the American fashion star Tom Ford.
“The poor guy does what he can,” Mr. Saint Laurent said of his successor.
Mr. Ford, who simultaneously designed the Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent collections with an overtly racy and sexualized aesthetic during those years, left the company in 2003; the Yves Saint Laurent collections have since been designed by one of Mr. Ford’s former assistants, Stefano Pilati.
In January 2002, Mr. Saint Laurent announced his retirement in Paris at a press conference at his couture house at 5 Avenue Marceau, where many fashion editors and teary-eyed friends of the house considered the possibility that Mr. Saint Laurent had felt pressured to resign. He and Mr. Bergé denied that, and a week later announced plans to turn the house into a museum, which has since displayed exhibitions of Mr. Saint Laurent’s tuxedo jackets and the clothes he designed for Ms. Kempner.
‘Opium’ Wars
The designer, of course, managed several times to create controversy during his career with, of all things, his fragrances. In 1971, he appeared nude in an advertisement for his men’s cologne YSL. Then, in 1977, he named one of his women’s perfumes Opium, which led to charges that he was glamorizing drug use and trivializing the 19th-century Opium Wars in China. Its slogan was “Opium, for those who are addicted to Yves Saint Laurent.” In 1992, his plans to call another perfume Champagne prompted a lawsuit by French wine makers (the Saint Laurent company lost).
In another legal battle, Mr. Saint Laurent won a 1994 suit in the French courts against Ralph Lauren, whom he accused of copying the design for his tuxedo dress (a style Mr. Saint Laurent reinterpreted many times over the years).
In 1992, a celebration at the Bastille Opera in Paris of the 30th anniversary of the House of Saint Laurent was attended by 2,750 admirers who applauded as 100 models took to the stage in clothes from the three decades. Writing about the event in The New York Times, Bernadine Morris said, “What was wondrous about these clothes, besides their breathtaking beauty, was that nothing looked dated.”
As befitted his success, Mr. Saint Laurent lived elegantly. All his homes — including famous ones in Deauville, France, and Marrakech, Morocco — which he shared with a succession of French bulldogs, always named Moujik, were lavishly decorated and filled with antiques and artwork by his favorite artists, who included Picasso, Cocteau, Braque and Christian Bérard. He often said that Bérard was one of the greatest influences on his designs, particularly in the use of color.
“Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist,” Mr. Saint Laurent said at the announcement of his retirement. “I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober.”