coaching questions

1. What do you want to do?
2. How are you doing it?
3. Is it working?
4. What can you do different? [don't try harder; try different]
5. What additional information do you need?
6. Where [to whom] can you go to get it?
7. How do you measure your progress?
8. Is it reasonable and attainable for you?
9. Who can help you, guide you, encourage you?
10.What stops you from succeeding? [progressing, trying]
11. How can you overcome these obstacles, difficulties?

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new camera technology

Debut for world's fastest camera

By Jason Palmer 
Science and technology reporter, BBC News 

The fastest imaging system ever devised has been demonstrated by researchers reporting in the journal Nature.

Their camera snaps images less than a half a billionth of a second long, capturing over six million of them in a second continuously.

It works by using a fast laser pulse dispersed in space and then stretched in time and detected electronically.

The approach will be instrumental in analysing, for example, flowing blood samples in a search for diseased cells.

What is more, the camera works with just one detector, rather than the millions in a typical digital camera.

Gathering steam

Dubbed Serial Time-Encoded Amplified imaging, or Steam, the technique depends on carefully manipulating so-called "supercontinuum" laser pulses.

These pulses, less than a millionth of a millionth of a second long, contain an enormously broad range of colours.

Two optical elements spread the pinprick laser pulses into an ordered two-dimensional array of colours.

It is this "2-D rainbow" that illuminates a sample. Part of the rainbow is reflected by the sample - depending on light and dark areas of the illuminated spot - and the reflections travel back along their initial path.

Because the spreading of the pulse's various colours is so regular and ordered, the range of colours reflected contains detailed spatial information about the sample.

"Bright spots reflect their assigned wavelength but dark ones don't," explained Bahram Jalali, the University of California, Los Angeles professor who led the research.

" Our next step is to improve the spatial resolution so we can take crystal clear pictures of the inner structure of cells " 
Bahram Jalali, UCLA

"When the 2-D rainbow reflects from the object, the image is copied onto the colour spectrum of the pulse."

The pulse then passes back through the dispersive optics and again becomes a pinprick of light, with the image tucked away within as a series of distributed colours.

However, that colour spectrum is mixed up in an exceptionally short pulse of light that would be impossible to unpick in traditional electronics.

The team then routes the pulse into a so-called dispersive fibre - a fibre-optic cable that has a different speed limit for different colours of light.

As a result, the red part of the spectrum races ahead of the blue part as the pulse travels along the fibre.

Eventually, the red part and blue part separate in the fibre, arriving at very different times at the fibre's end.

All that remains is to detect the light as it pops out of the fibre with a standard photodiode and digitise it, assigning the parts of the pulse that arrive at different times to different points in two-dimensional space.

The result of all this optical trickery: an image that represents a snapshot just 440 trillionths of a second long.

The researchers used a laser that fired more than six million pulses in a second, resulting in as many images. However, they say that the system can be improved to acquire more than 10 million images per second - more than 200,000 times faster than a standard video camera.

'Rogue cells'

While other cameras used in scientific research can capture shorter-lived images, they can only capture about eight images, and have to be triggered to do so for a given event.

The Steam camera, by contrast, can capture images continuously, making it ideal for random events that cannot be triggered.

Some applications that may benefit from the approach include observing the communication between cells, or the activity of neurons.

But the perfect example of an application for the Steam camera's specifications is analysing flowing blood samples.

Because the imaging of individual cells in a volume of blood is impossible for current cameras, a small random sample is taken and those few cells are imaged manually with a microscope.

"But, what if you needed to detect the presence of very rare cells that, although few in number, signify early stages of a disease?," asks Keisuke Gode, lead author of the study.

Dr Gode cites circulating tumour cells as a perfect example of such a target. Precursors to metastasis, they may exist as only a few among a billion healthy cells.

"The chance that one of these cells will happen to be on the small sample of blood viewed under a microscope is virtually negligible."

But with the Steam camera, fast-flowing cells can be individually imaged.

The team is working to extend the technique to 3-D imaging with the same time resolution, and to increase the effective number of "pixels" in a given image to 100,000.

"Our next step is to improve the spatial resolution so we can take crystal clear pictures of the inner structure of cells," Professor Jalali told BBC News.

"We are not there yet, but if we are able to accomplish this, then there is no shortage of applications in biology."

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Uncle Sam's watching - how much privacy do you have?

LATEST NEWS
F.B.I. Received Unauthorized E-Mail Access
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 17, 2008
WASHINGTON - A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail
messages from an entire computer network - perhaps hundreds of
accounts or more - instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was
approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security
investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
F.B.I. officials blamed an "apparent miscommunication" with the
unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail
from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records
were ultimately destroyed, officials said.
Bureau officials noticed a "surge" in the e-mail activity they were
monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its
filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually
authorized.
The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if
little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their
technological tools: government officials, or the private companies
they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their
instructions about what they can and cannot collect.
The problem has received no discussion as part of the fierce debate in
Congress about whether to expand the government's wiretapping
authorities and give legal immunity to private telecommunications
companies that have helped in those operations.
But an intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because surveillance operations are classified, said: "It's inevitable
that these things will happen. It's not weekly, but it's common."
A report in 2006 by the Justice Department inspector general found
more than 100 violations of federal wiretap law in the two prior years
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, many of them considered
technical and inadvertent.
Bureau officials said they did not have updated public figures but
were preparing them as part of a wider-ranging review by the inspector
general into misuses of the bureau's authority to use so-called
national security letters in gathering phone records and financial
documents in intelligence investigations.
In the warrantless wiretapping program approved by President Bush
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, technical errors led officials
at the National Security Agency on some occasions to monitor
communications entirely within the United States - in apparent
violation of the program's protocols - because communications problems
made it difficult to tell initially whether the targets were in the
country or not.
Past violations by the government have also included continuing a
wiretap for days or weeks beyond what was authorized by a court, or
seeking records beyond what were authorized. The 2006 case appears to
be a particularly egregious example of what intelligence officials
refer to as "overproduction" - in which a telecommunications provider
gives the government more data than it was ordered to provide.
The episode was disclosed as part of a new batch of internal documents
that the F.B.I. turned over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
nonprofit group in San Francisco that advocates for greater digital
privacy protections, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
the group has brought. The group provided the documents on the 2006
episode to The New York Times.
Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the privacy foundation, said the episode
raised troubling questions about the technical and policy controls
that the F.B.I. had in place to guard against civil liberties abuses.
"How do we know what the F.B.I. does with all these documents when
problem like this comes up?" Ms. Hofmann asked.
In the cyber era, the incident is the equivalent of law enforcement
officials getting a subpoena to search a single apartment, but instead
having the landlord give them the keys to every apartment in the
building. In February 2006, an F.B.I. technical unit noticed "a surge
in data being collected" as part of a national security investigation,
according to an internal bureau report. An Internet provider was
supposed to be providing access to the e-mail of a single target of
that investigation, but the F.B.I. soon realized that the filtering
controls used by the company "were improperly set and appeared to be
collecting data on the entire e-mail domain" used by the individual,
according to the report.
The bureau had first gotten authorization from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the e-mail of the
individual target 10 months earlier, in April 2005, according to the
internal F.B.I. document. But Michael Kortan, an F.B.I. spokesman,
said in an interview that the problem with the unfiltered e-mail went
on for just a few days before it was discovered and fixed. "It was
unintentional on their part," he said.
Mr. Kortan would not disclose the name of the Internet provider or the
network domain because the national security investigation, which is
classified, is continuing. The improperly collected e-mail was first
segregated from the court-authorized data and later was destroyed
through unspecified means. The individuals whose e-mail was collected
apparently were never informed of the problem. Mr. Kortan said he
could not say how much e-mail was mistakenly collected as a result of
the error, but he said the volume "was enough to get our attention."
Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation who reviewed the documents, said it would most likely have
taken hundreds or perhaps thousands of extra messages to produce the
type of "surge" described in the F.B.I.'s internal reports.
Mr. Kortan said that once the problem was detected the foreign
intelligence court was notified, along with the Intelligence Oversight
Board, which receives reports of possible wiretapping violations.
"This was a technical glitch in an area of evolving tools and
technology and fast-paced investigations," Mr. Kortan said. "We moved
quickly to resolve it and stop it. The system worked exactly the way
it's designed."

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interesting perspective

Yahoo Deal Is Big, but Is It the Next Big Thing?

SAN FRANCISCO - In moving to buy Yahoo, Microsoft may be firing the
final shot of yesterday's war.
That one was over Internet search advertising, a booming category in
which both Microsoft and Yahoo were humble and distant 'also-rans'
behind Google.
Microsoft may see Yahoo as its last best chance to catch up. But for
all its size and ambition, the bid has not been greeted with only
enthusiasm. That may be because Silicon Valley favors bottom-up
innovation instead of growth by acquisition. The region's investment
money and brain power are tuned to start-ups that can anticipate the
next big thing rather than chase the last one.
And what will touch off the next battle? Maybe it will be a low-power
microprocessor, code-named Silverthorne, that Intel plans to announce
Monday. It is designed for a new wave of hand-held wireless devices
that Silicon Valley hopes will touch off the next wave of software
innovation.
Or maybe it will be something else entirely.
No one really knows, of course, but gambling on the future is the
essence of Silicon Valley. Everyone chases the next big thing, knowing
it could very well be the wrong thing. And those who guess wrong risk
their survival.
That is why, in this silicon-centric economy, front-runners do not
stay front-runners for long.
Many big names of the 1980s - Commodore, Tandem, Digital Equipment and
MicroPro - are in a graveyard shared by the highfliers of the 1990s -
the At Home Network, Netscape and Infoseek, to name a few.
Now Yahoo, founded by Stanford graduate students who became media
darlings and instant billionaires after an exhilarating initial public
offering of stock, may be the next to disappear.
And Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is only 13 years old.
Microsoft wants to buy the company for $44.6 billion as its way to
compete with Google, the hot company of this decade, which was also
founded by Stanford graduate students who became media darlings and
instant billionaires after an exhilarating initial public offering.
"This is the very nature of the Valley," said Jim Breyerof the venture
capital firm Accel Partners. "After very strong growth, businesses by
definition start to slow as competition increases and young creative
start-ups begin to attack the incumbents."
The economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter had a name for this principle of
capitalism: creative destruction. Perhaps nowhere does it play out
more dramatically - and more rapidly - than in Silicon Valley, where
innovation unleashes a force that creates and destroys, over and over.
Microsoft, at the still-young age of 32, is making its largest
acquisition because it, too, is affected by this force. Founded in
1975, Microsoft has had a longer run than most tech companies largely
because it became very good at chasing the next big thing: an
operating system, point-and-click computing, software for servers, Web
services, video games, and, most recently, Internet search and online
advertising.
Technological innovation may not have always been what gave Microsoft
the edge. It has been frequently criticized for me-tooism and for
getting it almost right the third time. Sometimes, marketing skill and
bullying were it's keys to its success.
Microsoft won huge business battles, starting with its domination of
personal-computer software against Apple during the 1980s. A decade
later, it made quick work of Netscape Communications, which
popularized Web browsing in the mid-1990s.
While Microsoft remains very profitable because of its lock on desktop
software, its efforts to dislodge the Valley's leading
third-generation Internet company, Google, have so far failed.
Google's central innovation, Internet search, has confounded
Microsoft, despite investing billions in both technology development
and numerous smaller acquisitions. Internet technology has overtaken
the PC desktop as the center of the action, as people increasingly
view the computer as merely a doorway to their virtual world. Google
calls this phenomenon "cloud computing."
Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been setting up giant data
centers around the globe. It benefited from the software innovations
of hundreds of nimble garage start-ups to develop programs that reach
millions of users over the Web.
It has unleashed the power of 'free' to endear itself to a new
generation of computer users with services they find they cannot live
without, like e-mail, digital video and social networking.
Now Microsoft is trying to make up ground by buying what it has not
been able to build. To many technologists and entrepreneurs here, the
deal does not indicate any imminent threat to the Valley's start-up
culture or suggest that the region might go the way of Detroit; it
underscores the health of the heartland that has produced waves of
ever-more powerful technologies for more than half a century.
There is a sense here among investors that Microsoft, as a more
effective counterweight to Google, might actually serve to spur
innovation in the Valley.
"When Microsoft was in the ascendancy, there were whole areas of
investment that were of less interest to investors," said William R.
Hearst III, an affiliated partner with the venture capital firm
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "Now you could enter a new area and
people will think that maybe one of the two colossuses will be
interested in acquiring your start-up."
Innovation has been the driving force of Silicon Valley, and the
results over the last quarter-century have been stunning. More than a
billion personal computers are in use around the world. Cellphones are
in the hands of three billion people. The next generation of mobile
computers appears destined to reach another two billion people in just
six more years.
The productivity gains from these devices have driven the world's
economy to faster economic growth and a higher standard of living for
an ever-widening swath of the world's population.
If Microsoft acquires Yahoo, some executives said, the question is
whether it will shake its obsession with catching Google (unlikely!)
and instead look to the next generation of the Internet, even if it
threatens Microsoft's dominant position in PC software.
The bid for Yahoo "underscores how Microsoft's hold on the personal
computer desktop is meaning less," said Nicholas Carr, author of "The
Big Switch," which describes the consequences of Internet computing.
In that sense, Microsoft may in a situation identical to the one faced
by I.B.M. in the early 1980s. Dominant in the mainframe business and
threatened by PCs, I.B.M. responded by quickly becoming the largest PC
vendor.
However, despite all of its manufacturing proficiency, the PC business
was far less profitable and I.B.M. was unable to make that business
work. It took a wrenching cultural change and the shedding of its
management and tens of thousands of employees to regain its footing.
Ultimately, Microsoft's challenge in making its new acquisition work
will be a cultural one. Can the giant software maker - which,
incidentally, is based in Redmond, Wash., about 850 miles from Silicon
Valley - use a huge acquisition to tap into what makes the Valley
tick? Will it force Microsoft to look forward instead of backward?
To many, these questions frame the challenge that Microsoft confronts.
"To a large degree, it's the willingness to move on and abandon
something," said David Liddle, a venture capitalist at U.S. Venture
Partners. "It's that ability to let something go and move on to the
next big thing."

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mobile phones with Google based OS soon available!

Microsoft put a price Friday on its inability to keep pace with Google
in the race for dominance on the Web: $44.6 billion.

That's how much Microsoft offered for Yahoo in an attempt to compete
with Google, the Internet search king.

Tired of talking with Yahoo about a partnership, as it has over the
past 18 months, Microsoft instead initiated a surprise takeover bid
for the Web portal.

The size of the proposed cash-and-stock transaction puts Yahoo under
intense pressure to consider the offer, valued at $31 a share -- a
rich 62 percent premium over Yahoo's $19.18 closing price on Thursday.
Microsoft's offer was made public Friday before the markets opened.

A deal would usher in a new era of competition between Microsoft and
Google, the two biggest players of the digital age. They have been
battling each other across businesses and gobbling up other companies
as they try to one-up each other in an era of explosive growth in all
sectors of the Internet economy.

The fact that Microsoft is chasing Yahoo is an acknowledgment that it
couldn't catch up to Google, the online portal of choice for tens of
millions of computer users, who go online to do everything from watch
videos on Google's YouTube to look for a restaurant.

To attract the huge number of advertisers flocking online, Microsoft
recognized it needed a partner and wants Yahoo, the third titan of the
Internet age.

In a letter to Yahoo's board of directors Friday, Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer made it clear why the Redmond, Wash., software giant wants
Yahoo: online advertising is expected to double in the next three
years, from $40 billion to $80 billion.

"Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player," Ballmer wrote.

Indeed, Google continues to separate itself from the pack.

Google's share of the U.S. Internet search market increased from
nearly 52 percent at the end of 2006 to more than 58 percent at the
end of 2007, according to ComScore figures. Meanwhile, Yahoo's search
share slipped from 28 percent to 23 percent, and Microsoft's fell to
under 10 percent during the same period.

So even though a combined Microsoft and Yahoo would still
significantly trail Google in search share, "a stronger No. 2 can gain
share," said Brian Bolan, an analyst who covers the tech giants for
Chicago's Jackson Securities.

That No. 2 also would have a single ad platform to help publishers
place ads across the Internet.

"The online advertising industry is an industry where scale matters,"
said Kevin Johnson, Microsoft's president for platform services,
during a conference call.

There is more to online advertising than search-based ads. Yahoo, for
instance, is the top Internet property based on display ad
impressions. These are the ads that are displayed on a Web site when a
page is opened. According to ComScore, it has a 19 percent share of
that market. The No. 2 competitor, with a 16 percent share, is Fox
Interactive Media, the owner of MySpace.com.

Ads across the Web

Yahoo, like Google and Microsoft, operates a network to place ads
across Web sites. Google's is the largest. Bolan thinks getting
Yahoo's ad platform is particularly attractive to Microsoft because of
the growing influence of social networking sites, such as MySpace and
Facebook. There, ads can be delivered based on a user's particular
interest.

"This is clearly the most valuable space on the Internet today and
continues to astound onlookers and participants alike with its
growth," Bolan wrote in a report.

Late last year, Microsoft invested $15 billion for a minor ownership
stake in Facebook and to serve as its partner in delivering ads to the
social networking site's booming audience.

Yet while it's clear Microsoft wants to bolster its Web presence,
Google is also proving to be the leader in other areas.

Later this year, mobile phones using a Google-based operating system
will start hitting the market, a threat to Microsoft's Windows Mobile
platform, which can be found on smart phones made by Samsung,
Motorola, LG and others.

"They are competing with everything Microsoft does," Bolan said of Google.

On Friday, Yahoo's shares rose $9.20, or 48 percent, to $28.38, while
Microsoft declined $2.15, or 6.6 percent, to $30.45. Microsoft's stock
drop was due in part to the public admition of defeat and perhaps to a
sentiment on Wall Street that it may need to raise its bid.

Bolan thinks $50 billion, or $35 a share, is possible.

The decision on whether to accept the Microsoft offer rests with
Yahoo's board of directors, which said in a statement Friday it is
evaluating the offer.

Nonetheless, sentiment was strong Friday that a pairing with Microsoft
would be wise for Yahoo.

"It's one plus one equals three for Microsoft and for Yahoo a very
graceful exit," said Zorik Gordon, chief executive of ReachLocal, an
Internet ad firm with offices in Chicago. It places ads for clients on
the ad networks for all three Internet players.

The potential deal would "create a more formidable competitor to
Google," Gordon said.

James Bilefield, the CEO for ad placement firm Openads and a former
Yahoo executive, said the pairing is "a logical fit and Yahoo needs to
do something dramatic."

But he's not so sure his clients, companies that place ads across
multiple networks, would benefit if a major player was removed.

"That means there could be less choice," he said.

Antitrust question

The Justice Department's antitrust division said it would look at the
deal if Yahoo accepted.

Bolan said he believes there is a "90 percent chance" this deal will go through.

"By going public with the bid, they have completely forced" the hand
of Yahoo's board. And while Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has indicated
previously he is committed to turning around the company he founded,
"he also has fiduciary responsibility," Bolan said. "Shareholders may
be asking where else can I get that $31 a share?"

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America's next president?

JONESBORO, ARK. -- After two middle-school boys in camouflage gear
shot and killed four classmates and a teacher, leaving 10 others
wounded and a community shattered, it seemed inevitable that someone
would see opportunity in the tragedy for a book deal.

Unfortunately, within days, a publisher agreed to pay $25,000 to an
Arkansas writer to produce a book on youth violence.

Victims' families were outraged. They called the payment blood money
and said the author was cashing in on their pain. They demanded that
the money go to the school, victims' relatives or scholarships for the
wounded, not to the writer's personal bank account. He refused.

That the author was Mike Huckabee, Arkansas' governor at the time,
made their resentment all the stronger.

"He took advantage of us," said Pam Herring, whose daughter, Paige
Ann, had just turned 12 when she was shot to death.

"He was out for one thing and that was money," said Mitch Wright,
whose wife, Shannon, a teacher, died protecting children. "He made
money at our expense."

The slaughter at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro in March 1998
was, at the time, one of the worst school incidents in American
history. Today, with Huckabee a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination, his book deal continues to aggravate many of
the victims' families.

Some critics of Huckabee say the incident fits his pattern as governor
of enriching himself with gifts of cash, clothes and furniture donated
by supporters.

At the time of the shootings, Huckabee was under investigation for
numerous ethics violations, many of them for not reporting outside
income and gifts. In all, he was fined or sanctioned five times by the
Arkansas Ethics Commission.

Inauguration funds reportedly were used to buy clothes for his wife,
Janet, and the couple later set up a "wedding registry" at department
stores and collected linens, toasters and other furnishings from
supporters although they had been married 25 years.

Bobby McDaniel, a Jonesboro lawyer who represented some of the
families, said Huckabee "never saw a gift he didn't take." Newspaper
editorial writers called him a "money-grubbing governor" and nicknamed
him "Mike the Huckster."

"It was all quite unseemly," Vaughn McQuary, chairman of the state
Democratic Party at the time, said in a recent interview about the
book contract. "The governor of a state should set a better example."

Huckabee's campaign did not respond to requests for an interview. But
Huckabee has publicly defended his book deal, saying the $11.99,
180-page paperback had been planned before two boys opened fire at
Westside, and that the tragedy simply would give him the springboard
to air his broader views that youth culture was destroying families.
"The book is not about Jonesboro," he insisted.

But when the book was rushed to print a month after the shootings, it
was titled "Kids Who Kill." The cover is a photo of a boy about the
age of the Jonesboro killers pointing a gun at the reader. The back
cover promo states: "The quest for quick answers has robbed us of the
truth" about Jonesboro. "Until now."

The opening pages begin: "Just after lunch on March 24, 1998, a sudden
burst of gunfire cut through the crowded schoolyard of Westside Middle
School in Jonesboro, Arkansas. . . . "

Much of the rest of the book is a compilation of quotes from
theologians and historical figures, and includes transcripts of two
radio addresses Huckabee gave after the shooting. Huckabee has written
or co-written several books, all dealing with motivational subjects
such as character and dieting, but none has been as controversial as
"Kids Who Kill."

Dennis Milligan, the current chairman of the Arkansas Republican
Party, who has endorsed Huckabee for the presidency, defended the
governor's book deal: "He's entitled to whatever the specific profits
were from that book. And as to why he didn't donate the proceeds,
obviously it was something he wasn't moved to do and didn't feel like
he had any obligation to contribute, with respect to his personal
funds."

Milligan also defended Huckabee's receiving gifts as governor, saying
many were just tokens of appreciation and that none of them helped buy
any special influence. Milligan mentioned, for instance, a pair of
cowboy boots and a canoe, and said Huckabee always was careful to
return expensive gifts that exceeded the allowable limits. "He is an
honorable guy," Milligan said.

On the afternoon of the shootings, Huckabee was flying home to Little
Rock after making a speech in Washington. An air traffic controller
radioed the pilot, who told the governor. Two boys, Mitchell Johnson,
13, and Andrew Golden, 11, dressed in Army-style camouflage and armed
with guns, pulled the school fire alarm after the lunch hour and fired
at classmates and teachers as they filed outside.

Reaching the state Capitol, Huckabee called a news conference and
immediately blasted the youth culture. "It makes me angry," he said.
"It's in the television programs they watch, the movies they see, the
language they use, the things they are exposed to and the
glorification of those things."

The next day, he and his wife, wearing white ribbons on their lapels,
met in Jonesboro for about 40 minutes with many of the victims'
families. He spent more than an hour with teachers and staff.
Huckabee, a Baptist minister, also went to the hospital and helped
families begin to work through their grief.

"I remember him and his wife coming down the hall," said David Betts,
whose niece, Ashley, was among the wounded. "They were the most
compassionate people I've ever seen. It wasn't just a walk-in visit.
He stayed with us. He supported us and prayed with us."

But Huckabee was not among the 9,000 people who attended a memorial
service a week later at the Arkansas State University Convocation
Center in Jonesboro. Aides said he was on a planned family vacation in
the Caribbean. He did send a letter, quoting the Bible that man is
saved by God and not the laws he enacts.

Herring and Wright were concerned that there was no law to prevent the
shooters from profiting financially, since they were juveniles and
would be released from prison when they turned 21. They said they told
Huckabee they wanted assurances the killers could not write books or
sell their stories to Hollywood, and that Huckabee looked them both in
the eyes and said: "That would be blood money."

At a second meeting in Jonesboro, Wright said Huckabee again vowed it
would be "blood money" for the shooters, with Huckabee adding this
time: "No one should profit."

Then, ten days after the shooting, it was announced that Huckabee had
signed his own book deal, to be written with George Grant, a prolific
author of Christian books. The publisher was an arm of the Southern
Baptist Convention, the denomination in which Huckabee was ordained.

Officials at the publishing house declined to discuss the arrangements
for the book, saying they comment only on current authors. Grant did
not respond to requests for an interview.

Huckabee has insisted the idea came to him before the shootings. Asked
by a newspaper reporter at the time if he was trying to turn a dollar
by capitalizing on the Jonesboro deaths, Huckabee angrily responded:
"No more than you're capitalizing on it when you write stories about
Jonesboro and sell ads and sell the paper."

Dogged about why he declined to donate any of the book proceeds to the
scholarship fund, Huckabee said he planned to use the money for his
own children's college education. Later Huckabee stayed in his private
office in the Capitol in an attempt to evade further questions. Then
he rushed to his state car and slammed the door on reporters.

McDaniel, the Jonesboro lawyer, said such incidents didn't seem to
hurt Huckabee. He noted that Huckabee had a knack for impressing
voters and winning elections, "even if he does have a very short fuse
and a temper."

Indeed, not only was he reelected in 1998, he carried Jonesboro, a
state college town on the northern edge of the Mississippi Delta. To
many in Arkansas, that feat speaks to his twin gifts as a natural
politician and an inspiring religious leader.

McQuary, the former state Democratic chairman, said Huckabee was very
charismatic and could uplift people in a state that has struggled with
poverty: "Surprisingly, he was quite popular, especially in such a
Democratic-majority state. Do not underestimate him on the campaign
trail."

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Tiger attack
1/8/2008 4:28 PM
SAN FRANCISCO -- Since the deadly tiger escape at the San Francisco
Zoo, its director has come under increasing criticism over his track
record and his suggestion that the victims brought the attack on
themselves by taunting the animal.

The lawyer for the two of the visitors mauled in the Christmas Day
attack is threatening a defamation lawsuit over what he claims is a
despicable blame-the-victim strategy on the part of the zoo, and
animal rights activists have long accused Zoo Director Manuel
Mollinedo of putting too much emphasis on showmanship.

"We've asked for his termination," said Elliot Katz, president of In
Defense of Animals.

So far, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, which accredits the
nation's zoos, and the San Francisco zoo's overseers are standing by
Mollinedo.

"Since Manuel joined us in 2004, the zoo is in better physical and
financial shape than it's ever been," said Nick Podell, president of
the San Francisco Zoological Society. He praised Mollinedo's handling
of the attack.

AZA spokesman Steve Feldman added that Mollinedo is "well-liked and
well regarded" within the industry.

Before coming to San Francisco, Mollinedo was widely praised for his
work at the long-neglected Los Angeles Zoo, even though a dozen
animals slipped out of their enclosures during the course of a year.

Mollinedo was the unanimous choice over more than 100 candidates for
the San Francisco job. He makes about $330,000 a year in salary and
benefits, and under his leadership the zoo has seen increased
attendance, new corporate sponsors and refurbished exhibits at the
Depression-era facility.

Then came the Christmas Day tiger attack. The 350-pound Siberian tiger
apparently jumped over a 12-foot wall around its pen and killed
17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. His friends, brothers Kulbir Dhaliwal,
23, and Paul Dhaliwal, 19, were severely mauled.

At first, the zoo's response seemed confused and disorganized. Police
radio transcripts reveal that zoo employees initially questioned
whether early reports of the attack were coming from a mentally
unstable person.

When questioned by reporters, Mollinedo gave an inaccurate figure for
the wall's height, putting it at 18 feet. Then, two days after the
attack, he acknowledged the wall was only 12 feet or 4 feet below the
recommended national standard.

Several days after the mauling, the zoo hired Sam Singer, a prominent
San Francisco Bay-area crisis-management specialist. Acknowledging
that the zoo had bungled its initial response, Singer adopted a new
strategy.

Soon, the public and the media's attention turned from the competence
of zoo officials and the substandard tiger exhibit to the victims'
behavior leading up to the escape.

At a news conference, Mollinedo suggested "something happened to
provoke that tiger to leap out of her exhibit."

A rash of false information soon emerged in the media, including
reports that the victims had slingshots and had been drinking in an
establishment near the zoo.

Singer admitted on Tuesday that he told reporters about the slingshot
rumor, but said he was passing along information he had heard
elsewhere. He denied planting the rumor about the bar.

"Police are investigating accusations of the use of a slingshot and
the possible use of stones, pine cones, or other pieces of wood or
that may have been used to taunt the tiger," Singer said Tuesday.
"That's fact."

A police spokesman told The Associated Press last week that
investigators quickly dismissed the slingshot allegation as
inaccurate.

Singer was recently hired by the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association
after a cargo ship hit a bridge and spilled oil into San Francisco Bay
in November. He also handled Jack in the Box's hamburger contamination
scare in the mid-1990s, and recently represented Mayor Gavin Newsom's
former campaign manager, who resigned after his wife had an affair
with the mayor.

Mark Geragos, the lawyer for the mauled survivors of the tiger attack,
lambasted his tactics as "an abomination" and threatened to sue for
defamation.

"To be attacked by a tiger, number one, then to be attacked viciously
by false and defamatory stuff is too much," Geragos said.

In a letter to the city attorney Monday, he also said zoo officials
knew that the wall around the tiger habitat "couldn't hold a house
cat," but they did not do anything about it because of financial
concerns.

Singer said no one at the zoo was aware of such a warning.

Animal rights activists have long accused of Mollinedo of putting
entertainment over animals' well-being.

"There just been a lack of respect for the animals to increase foot
traffic," Katz said. Mollinedo's crowd-pleasing initiatives, such as
public feedings of big cats, have made them more aggressive, he said.

Mollinedo had previously clashed with the organization over the
conditions in which its elephants were kept. Two of the animals died
in 2004.

The escapes from the Los Angeles Zoo during Mollinedo's tenure
included a gorilla that bent a steel door, a howler monkey that sprang
over a surprised keeper, and a snow leopard that got out of its
holding area when a zookeeper failed to secure the door. All the
animals were recaptured and no people were injured.

Several experts said such incidents are not unusual, although a dozen
in a year from one zoo appears to be a high number. The American Zoo
and Aquarium Association withheld the zoo's accreditation for a time,
but it was for poor management and health and safety violations prior
to Mollinedo's arrival.

City officials in Los Angeles praised Mollinedo for helping to turn
their zoo around. He raised money to revamp the disease-ridden,
cramped facility, refurbish animal quarters, and a build a new
hospital.

City officials in San Francisco have also defended Mollinedo's leadership.

"He's been a very effective leader," said David Lee, a recreation and
parks commissioner. "The zoo is an old institution, very traditional,
and some felt it hadn't changed much until Manuel came up. He brought
innovation, new ideas, and everyone benefited from that, people and
animals."

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