Tuesday October 10, 2006

The Final Word: “Lame-Assed Pick-Up Strategies Edition”

(The media experiment in which we conjoin the headline and last paragraph of each bylined article in the A-section of today's New York Times.)

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Bush Rebukes North Korea; U.S. Seeks New U.N. Sanctions:

Moscow and Beijing would be particularly affected by the American call for border inspections of shipments in and out of North Korea because the borders involved are theirs.

For U.S., a Strategic Jolt After North Korea's Test:

That returns Mr. Bush to the problem he faced when he came to office, and that his aides have never stopped arguing about: whether the best way to contain North Korea is to further isolate it, or to draw it out of its paranoid shell. The nuclear test may force Washington to pick a strategy.

Dot-Com Boom Echoed in Deal to Buy YouTube:

Benjamin Schachter, a UBS analyst, wrote in a note to investors. "The price tag of about $1.6 billion is difficult to justify on a spreadsheet and may be somewhat of a throwback to the days of paying for eyeballs and page views, but this is a strategic bet that Google would be placing for a long-term objective: to be the technology and distribution partner for content owners and publishers."

Venture Firm Shares a Jackpot: Mr. Felser, the president of Grouper, said there was a limit to how much a video creation and sharing company can hope to grow independently, because of the expense of bandwidth and advertising infrastructure.
Adding to the House of Google: "Google Video turned out the best way to learn about this new technique," he said.

As Religious Programs Expand, Disputes Rise Over Tax Breaks:

Except for the swimming pool, Santa Marta sounds a lot like Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, whose property tax status is being disputed by the tax assessment appeals board in St. Joseph County. They certainly have this in common: Most of the money needed to build Holy Cross Village has been borrowed at favorable interest rates through the sale of a $40 million tax-exempt bond — issued by the economic development commission of St. Joseph County.

F.B.I. Struggling to Reinvent Itself to Fight Terror:

"We probably, at the end of the day, should not have used that term," he said. "One of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to overhype these cases on the front end. And if it is a widely held perception out there that we did that in this case, then I regret that, because that was never our intent."

A History of Sex With Students, Unchallenged Over the Years:

Asked whether he was confident that the town would be more vigilant in protecting children like his own daughter in the future, he shrugged. "Even if you knew, really knew it was happening at the time, who could you go to?" Mr. Santana said in an interview. "This is Bayonne, a small town."

Other News

Angry China Is Likely to Toughen Its Stand on Korea:

"I do not believe that Chinese leaders are willing to expend major political capital on this issue," Mr. Jin of People's University said. "They would much prefer to follow the consensus. At the moment there is a heated debate, but no consensus of that kind."

Japan Now Seems Likely to Rally Behind New Prime Minister’s Call for a Stronger Military:

"This crisis allows Mr. Abe to say that all three countries face a shared enemy," Mr. Sone of Keio University said. "This is a chance for him to improve relations with Asia."

Blast May Be Only a Partial Success, Experts Say:

The small size of the explosion, he said, "tells you they have a lot of work to do in terms of weaponizing what they've got." He added, "If the lower-yield estimates are valid, then it's not a militarized system, but also not something a terrorist would reject."

Poll Shows Foley Case Is Hurting Congress's Image:

The poll found that 47 percent of respondents believed that Democrats came closer to sharing their moral values, compared with 38 percent who said Republicans did. The Democratic standing in this area included some unlikely groups: 26 percent of conservatives and 43 percent of people who live in the South named Democrats as the party that came closer to sharing their values.

Security Council Approves South Korean as U.N. Chief:

"It is true that the U.N. has not lived up to the expectations of the international community in terms of efficiency, transparency and accountability," he said, adding, "I will do my best to make the U.N. Secretariat reborn into a more relevant and efficient organization."

American Wins Nobel in Economics:

"We never had enough money to buy an apartment as large and as comfortable as the one we live in," she said, "and the rent for this one is relatively low."

Army and Other Ground Forces Meet '06 Recruiting Goals:

The Army also announced a new advertising slogan. "Army Strong" replaces the previous motto, "An Army of One."

Architecture: Injecting a Bold Shot of the New on the Upper East Side:

Still, you cannot help but marvel at the project's sophistication as a work of architecture.

International

Death Sentence in Terror Attack Puts India on Trial:

One of them, Farooq Abdullah, a former chief minister of Kashmir, reminded viewers of the NDTV program of how nonlegal considerations led to the release of Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad, from Indian custody in 1999. Mr. Azhar was exchanged for more than 150 passengers taken hostage on an Indian Airlines flight, delivered by Indian officials to the hijackers, at the airport in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.

Dubai Journal: Young Muslims Compete in a Different Kind of Recital:

Khubaib Muhammad, the Kenyan, hopes to be a pilot for the Red Cross. "I would like to win," he said. "It would be a blessing from God."

Tough Talk From Seoul, if Little Will for a Fight:

"That's why hard-liners in the North Korean government have gained a stronger voice," said Han Hong-koo, a historian at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul.

Pentagon Assesses Responses, Including a Possible Blockade:

After North Korea's newest announcement, military analysts continued Monday to assess whether its announcement that it had tested a nuclear device, in defiance of international opinion, represented a calculation by Mr. Kim that he was less vulnerable now — or that he needed to join the elite club of declared nuclear powers to deter a possible American attack.

Bold Gestures on Myanmar Only Underscore Stagnation and Other Troubles:

He cited a recent United Nations report that 1,147 political prisoners were being held, that 240 villages of minorities had been destroyed in the past four years, that AIDS cases and drug trafficking were widespread and that United Nations agencies were assisting 140,000 refugees along the border with Thailand.

Sectarian Rivals Optimistic After Belfast Talks:

Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Bertie Ahern of Ireland have set a deadline of Nov. 24 for the parties to resolve their differences, after which, they warn, the assembly would be indefinitely shut down.

South Africa to Seize 2 White-Owned Farms:

The government has come under growing pressure in recent years to speed the transfer of white-owned land, especially farmland, to the majority black population. Nearly 90 percent of the 79,700 land claims filed by black residents since January 1999 have been settled, the government says, but the arable land moved from white to black hands amounts to less than 5 percent of the total, and the robust commercial agriculture industry is still dominated by white-owned agribusinesses.

Iraqi Vice President, a Sunni, Loses 3rd Sibling to Violence:

Saddam Hussein's trial on charges of genocide against the Kurds resumed Monday in Baghdad after a two-week recess, with a Kurdish woman telling the court that her family had been buried alive, Reuters reported.

Qatar Emerges as a Mediator Between Fatah and Hamas:

The military said that it launched artillery at a Palestinian who was retrieving a rocket launcher that had been used Saturday to fire into southern Israel. The militants fled, leaving the launcher behind. The medical workers said the boy had apparently been working in a nearby field and had approached the launcher.

Bomb Kills Top Leaders of Local Afghan District:

General Richards, who took overall command of foreign troops in Afghanistan last week, left for Pakistan on Monday to meet military officials and President Pervez Musharraf. According to the British newspaper The Sunday Times, he planned to present Pakistan with evidence that the Taliban leadership was working out of Quetta, in Pakistan.

National Report

King Papers, Back in Atlanta, Will Be Placed on Display:

"It is the very cornerstone of our involvement in the project," said Phillip D. Howard, vice president for institutional advancement at Morehouse. "If we were not able to supply scholarly access to the papers, we would be out of the business of the King papers."

Voluntary Lettuce Recall Creates More Worry for Farmers:

"The consumer confidence has to come back," Mr. Vessey said. "I'm putting seed in the ground. But I'm pretty much gambling on what I plant now."

That Which Simmers Is Not to Be Dissed:

Attractive — and at times, rather touchy.

Missouri Boy Fires Rifle in His School; All Are Safe:

The shooting was the fourth at an American school in less than two weeks. On Oct. 2, a Pennsylvania man burst into a rural school and shot 10 Amish girls, 6 fatally, before killing himself. Earlier, a 15-year-old student fatally shot his high school principal in Wisconsin, and a Colorado man took several students hostage at a school before killing a 16-year-old girl and himself.

Political Action: Down, but Flush With Cash:

Republicans are fighting back with their most potent remaining weapon: money. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $7.8 million last Friday alone on behalf of endangered incumbents. The committee reported spending an additional $300,000 on Monday. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $700,000 on Friday and over the weekend, according to finance reports.

Races: Best of Luck to You:

The National Republican Congressional Committee has no plans to spend any money advertising on behalf of Mr. Graf, who is running for the seat held by Representative Jim Kolbe, a Republican who is retiring. Party officials acknowledge they can hardly afford to abandon any Republican-held seat given the deteriorating political environment. But they say Mr. Graf seems so far behind the Democratic candidate, Gabrielle Giffords, that, in the absence of a sharp turnaround, he — and Mr. McCain — are on their own.

Ex-Page Aired Concerns About Foley to Congressman in 2000:

"The congressman — or our office — did not know of any other pages or former pages that felt uncomfortable around Foley," Ms. Cline said in an interview. "We were only aware of this one."

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