February 7, 2007

• Editorial It’s the War, Senators It is not an inspiring sight to watch the United States Senate turn the most important issue facing America into a political football, and then fumble it. Yet that is what now seems to have come from a once-promising bipartisan effort to finally have the debate about the Iraq war that Americans have been denied for four years. The Democrats’ ultimate goal was to express the Senate’s opposition to President Bush’s latest escalation. But the Democrats’ leaders have made that more difficult — allowing the Republicans to maneuver them into the embarrassing position of blocking a vote on a counterproposal that they feared too many Democrats might vote for. We oppose that resolution, which is essentially a promise never to cut off funds for this or any future military operation Mr. Bush might undertake in Iraq. But the right way for the Senate to debate Iraq is to debate Iraq, not to bar proposals from the floor because they might be passed. The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, needs to call a timeout and regroup. By changing the issue from Iraq to partisan parliamentary tactics, his leadership team threatens to muddy the message of any anti-escalation resolution the Senate may eventually pass. As it happens, the blocked Republican alternative, proposed by Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, itself represents an end run around the Senate’s constitutional responsibilities. The rational way to oppose cuts in funds is to vote against them, if and when any ever come before the Senate. Mr. Reid should not be shy about urging fellow Democrats to vote against this hollow gimmick, which tries to make it look as if the senators support Mr. Bush’s failed Iraq policies by playing on their fears of being accused of not supporting the troops. America went to war without nearly enough public discussion, and it needs more Senate debate about Iraq this time around, not less. The voters who overturned Republican majorities in both houses last November expect, among other things, to see energized Congressional scrutiny of the entire war — not just of the plan for an additional 21,500 troops but also of the future of the 130,000 plus who are already there. Another Republican resolution, proposed by Sen. John McCain, gives the appearance of moving in that more promising direction by ticking off a series of policy benchmarks and then urging the Iraqi government to meet them. But listing benchmarks is one thing. It is another to spell out real consequences for not meeting them, like the withdrawal of American military support. Instead of doing that, the McCain resolution hands an unwarranted blank check to Mr. Bush’s new Iraq commander, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus. It breathtakingly declares that he “should receive from Congress the full support necessary” to carry out America’s mission. Frustrated by the Senate’s fumbles, the House plans to move ahead next week with its own resolution on Mr. Bush’s troop plan. When the Senate is ready to turn its attention back to substance again, it should go further. Senators need to acknowledge the reality of four years of failed presidential leadership on Iraq and enact a set of binding benchmarks. These should require the hard steps toward national reconciliation that the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki continues to evade and that the White House refuses to insist on.   Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

  Panama By Yahoo Today could be a major turning point in Yahoo’s history. Later today, the company will launch its new online advertising system, called Panama, for all of its ad clients. After a long period of testing, Yahoo will have a system that should help it battle Google for paid search dollars. Yahoo has lagged far behind the leader in search advertising. Google has turned that lead into a market cap of one-hundred and fifty billion dollars, and plenty of profits. The difference between the two companies has been ad relevance. Yahoo has placed ads in its search pages based on how much advertisers pay for that placement. Google has always delivered ads that depended as much on quality as one keyword price. Yahoo is imitating that model, even if C-E-O Terry Semel declines to agree. Ahead of Panama’s launch, Yahoo has told its advertisers that the high bid won’t always win. If a slightly lower bid with a better quality score is in the mix, that ad may get the top ad spot instead. Yahoo needs to turn its advertising fortunes around with Panama, and make its customers and investors happy with the new ad system’s performance. If they don’t show progress this year, Semel may be tossed out of his corner office. Well known marketing professional Andy Beal said no one should be in a hurry to see Panama make an impact on the bottom line. It will take until March to get Panama rolled out completely. When it is operational, Yahoo will expect to see revenue closer to Google’s four and a half to five cents per click, instead of the two and a half to three cents it sees now. Rafat Ali at Paid Content expects Panama to grow beyond the world of search advertising. He said: “(Panama) is intended to be flexible enough eventually to handle video and audio ads and to distribute ads to mobile devices. And while Yahoo gives few specifics, it says Panama will some day play a role beyond search advertising.” 5 Tips To Prepare For Yahoo Panama A Long-Delayed Ad System Has Yahoo Crossing Its Fingers Yahoo’s Panama Ad-Ranking To Launch This Week Yahoo Switching to Panama Platform Today Yahoo may expect Panama to smack down the threat of Microsoft and its Ad Center service. They better think again. Microsoft thinks Yahoo is arriving late to the party, and Ad Center took all of the door prizes with it when Microsoft left. Ad Center general manager David Jakubowski explained why to WebProNews: “Yahoo is catching up with the rest of the industry, by only now adopting quality-based ranking. At the end of the day, Microsoft adCenter is continuing to push the industry beyond what is currently considered the gold standard.” AdCenter Scoffs At Panama Google may not have any plans to discuss about online advertising today, but they have plenty of buzz anyway. Thanks to a blogger’s discovery on the Google Docs and Spreadsheets service, we now know Google has another Office like product in the works. It’s called Presently, and will allow people to create slide-based presentations like they can do in PowerPoint. Google has since taken down the evidence that was discovered, but not before it was copied and spread to plenty of other web sites. Google Works On PowerPoint Clone Presently Google Prepares a Presentation Tool Google Docs to support PowerPoint… The business social network LinkedIn may be thinking of going public. Company co-founder Reid Hoffman stepped down from his C-E-O role in favor of former Intuit executive Dan Nye. Hoffman remains chairman and president of products for LinkedIn. Although some were surprised by the move, LinkedIn spokesperson Kay Luo said in a statement that Hoffman interviewed 72 candidates for the job over the past four months, so this was not a sudden change. LinkedIn Loses CEO LinkedIn LinkedIn gets a new CEO, Hoffman LinksOut

  Spending Time On MySpace Submitted by Mike Sachoff on Tue, 02/06/2007 – 12:56. When it comes to where US Internet users are spending the most time MySpace is the leader. The social networking site accounted for 12 percent of all time spent online in December 2006, according to Compete Inc. The firm’s December 2006 study found that users spent more time at MySpace than other popular sites such as Google, eBay and YouTube. Yahoo was the runner-up to MySpace accounting for 8.5 percent of time spent online by US Internet users. The third spot was a tie between msn and eBay with US Internet users spending 3.7 percent of their time on the sites. The amount of time spent at MySpace results from users leaving the site open during the day to see when new emails arrive. The multitasking is prevalent among teen users, says Debra Aho Williamson, eMartketer senior analyst and author of the new Multitasking Consumers: Distracted or Connected? report. “Several of the sites on the Compete list could easily be used simultaneously: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and AIM all appeal to the younger generation of Internet users, and this group is also most likely to multitask when online,” says Ms. Williamson. The younger generation is not the only ones who multitask. Over 80 percent of the time that US adults are emailing, instant-messaging or using the Internet, they are also involved in some other activity according to Ball State University’s Center for Media Design. According to a study by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, the number of hours spent on the Internet has doubled since 2000; while the number of hours spent watching television has increased only 6 percent in the same time period. Marketers worry that the Internet is taking consumers farther away from their message. This is true to some degree but the issue remains of capturing viewer’s undivided attention.

  Matt Dunham/Associated Press The Russian tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky set strict conditions for granting the police an interview. February 7, 2007 Russia Tycoon May Talk to Police on Poisoning By ALAN COWELL LONDON, Feb. 6 — Boris A. Berezovsky, an exiled Russian tycoon and bitter opponent of the Kremlin, said Monday that he was prepared to be interviewed by the Russian police investigating the poisoning in London last November of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a dissident former K.G.B. agent he had advised and financed. However, in what he called his first newspaper interview since the British police handed a dossier on the case to the Crown Prosecution Service last week, Mr. Berezovsky said that he would talk to Russian investigators only if they met conditions, including being searched for weapons and poisons. Mr. Berezovsky spoke in a wide-ranging, 50-minute interview in his offices in Mayfair, a wealthy district of central London, offering some new insights into a tantalizing case that has raised many questions but answered few of them since Mr. Litvinenko, 43, died of radiation poisoning caused by a rare isotope, polonium 210, on Nov. 23. Mr. Berezovsky said he believed that Mr. Litvinenko had been the target of two attempts on his life, the first in mid-October. That attempt failed, he said, because too little poison was used. Mr. Berezovsky also disclosed that the prime suspect identified in British news reports had visited him the day before Mr. Litvinenko was poisoned in November and had left a powerful trace of radiation in Mr. Berezovsky’s office. After the British police started investigating the case, Russian officials announced their own inquiry and said Moscow police officers were awaiting clearance from Britain to come here. In a softly lighted and sumptuous suite, Mr. Berezovsky, a former mathematician who amassed huge wealth in business during the Russian presidency of Boris N. Yeltsin in the 1990s, said he was prepared to meet Russian investigators if that would help the British police inquiry, which is widely perceived to have stalled over Russia’s resistance to extraditing suspects. But Mr. Berezovsky said he would not meet the investigators in the Russian Embassy and would insist that they be searched beforehand. “The people from Russia should be investigated for arms and poison,” he said, insisting, too, that he would not sign a confidentiality agreement about the discussion. “I don’t trust them at all.” Mr. Berezovsky said he blamed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for the killing, a charge the Kremlin has labeled absurd. He said the killers had apparently believed that the cause of death would never be known because British investigators would not be able to identify polonium 210 as the poison. Polonium had been discovered in Mr. Litvinenko’s body only three hours before he died, Mr. Berezovsky said. The British inquiry has focused on three Russian men who met with Mr. Litvinenko on Nov. 1 at an expensive hotel where the poison is thought to have been slipped into his tea. One of them is Andrei K. Lugovoi, a former K.G.B. agent who Mr. Berezovsky said worked for him after he acquired control of a major television station in Moscow in the 1990s. Mr. Berezovsky, 61, fled Russia in 2000 and, after a series of court battles, won political asylum in Britain in 2003. Mr. Litvinenko also left Russia in 2000, and Mr. Berezovsky said he set the former agent up with a house in north London, a salary and school fees for his son. Before the killing, however, Mr. Berezovsky said, the two men had agreed to go their separate ways and Mr. Litvinenko had started investigating a range of business deals involving prominent Russians. “Alexander touched something very sensitive,” Mr. Berezovsky said, without elaborating. When Mr. Litvinenko initially became ill in early November, Mr. Berezovsky said, he told hospital visitors that he believed Mr. Lugovoi was “involved” in the poisoning. Mr. Lugovoi has consistently denied any involvement. Until then, Mr. Berezovsky said, he had no reason to mistrust his former bodyguard and had asked him to arrange security for a daughter visiting Russia last year. Last October, when Mr. Lugovoi called him to say he was visiting London for a soccer game, Mr. Berezovsky said, he invited him to his office. “I wanted to tell him thanks a lot for my daughter,” Mr. Berezovsky said. “He came to my office.” But, after Mr. Litvinenko died and the office was scanned for radiation, Mr. Berezovsky said, a chair used by Mr. Lugovoi was found to have high levels of radiation. Mr. Litvinenko also visited Mr. Berezovsky’s office, on the day he was poisoned. The timing of Mr. Berezovsky’s interview apparently reflected a desire by Mr. Litvinenko’s family and supporters to keep the case firmly in the public eye when they seemed worried it could fizzle if British authorities did not prosecute. “The basic target is not to allow anybody to stop this case,” Mr. Berezovsky said. This week, Mr. Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, released an open letter to Mr. Putin urging him to bring her husband’s killers to justice. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

  Astronaut Set Out to Kill Lisa M. Nowak appears in an afternoon hearing in Orlando. Afterward, she posted bond of $25,500 and was fitted for an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements. She was expected to return home to Houston. Photo Orlanda Sentinel via Bloomeberg News Photo by Red Huber   With Discipline Honed by Training, Police Say, Astronaut Set Out to Kill By Peter Whoriskey and Daniel de Vise Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 7, 2007; A01 ORLANDO, Feb. 6 — She prepared for the 950-mile drive from Houston with the discipline of someone who had flown 13 days in space. The steel mallet, folding knife and rubber tube were all catalogued on a handwritten list, police say. She had maps, she had bus schedules and she had a disguise. Thinking like an astronaut, she brought diapers to avoid bathroom stops. Lisa M. Nowak set off for Orlando International Airport seven months after the July 4 launch of the shuttle Discovery, her first trip to space, and probably her last. The NASA astronaut and Navy captain from Rockville was charged Tuesday with the attempted murder in Orlando of an apparent rival for the affections of another astronaut. Nowak, one of 46 women to fly in a space shuttle, is now the first active astronaut to be arrested on a felony charge. She left an Orlando jail Tuesday afternoon with her jacket pulled over her head. Police said Nowak, 43, stalked the younger woman, 30-year-old Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, at an airport parking lot early Monday, dressed in a dark wig, glasses and a tan hooded trench coat. Unable to gain Shipman’s confidence, police said, she sprayed her with pepper spray through Shipman’s partially open car window before the car sped away. According to a charging document, she intended to confront Shipman about her relationship with Navy Cmdr. William A. Oefelein, an astronaut who, like Nowak, is based at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Nowak, who is married with a teenage son and twin daughters, told police she and Oefelein had “more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship,” according to the document. Nowak carried with her e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein. In a request Shipman filed for an injunction against Nowak, Shipman said she had been stalked for about two months. Neither Shipman nor Oefelein could be reached by phone Tuesday. Oefelein, born in Fort Belvoir, is 41 and has two children. He piloted Discovery to the international space station in December. Nowak might have been planning the confrontation as early as Jan. 23, the day she printed the maps she used to navigate from Texas to Florida, according to a police affidavit. She had obtained a copy of Shipman’s flight plans to Orlando. The affidavit provides this account: Nowak checked into a La Quinta Inn in Orlando under a false name, stashed her car and set off to meet Shipman’s midnight flight from Houston to Orlando. The younger officer was returning to Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. Shipman picked up her luggage, which was late, about 3 a.m. As she waited for the bus to the airport satellite parking lot, Nowak lingered at a nearby taxi stop, wearing the wig and a trench coat. When Shipman boarded the bus, Nowak boarded, too. She got off where Shipman did. Nowak was armed with a steel mallet, a buck knife and a BB gun that resembled a real 9mm semiautomatic handgun. The BB gun was loaded with pellets and was set to fire, according to the affidavit. Walking to her car, Shipman sensed a threat. She heard “running footsteps” behind her. She jumped into her car, locking the door. But before she could pull away, Nowak slapped at the window. Then she pulled at the locked door. “Can you help me please?” Nowak told her, according to the affidavit. “My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up, and he is not here. I’ve been traveling and it’s late. Can you give me a ride to the parking office?” Shipman said she’d send someone to help. Nowak asked to use Shipman’s cellphone. Shipman told her the battery was dead. Nowak said she could not hear Shipman through the window, then began to cry. Shipman opened her window two inches. Nowak sprayed something, later determined to be pepper spray, into the opened window, aiming at Shipman’s face. Shipman drove away, her eyes burning, and sought help, according to police. Police and prosecutors say the evidence suggests that Nowak might have wanted to get into Shipman’s car and kill her, possibly at Shipman’s house. Citing other details — the handwritten list, an assumed name — prosecutor Amanda Cowan likened Nowak’s planning for the trip to the kind of preparations astronauts make as they ready for space. “She had a mission that she was very determined to carry out,” she said. Last summer, Nowak was literally on top of the world, one of the very few chosen to fly on the space shuttle to the international space station. She flew on Discovery in July as a mission specialist and operated one of the space station’s robotic arms, a job that requires intensive training. “It was such a high to see her get on the shuttle,” said Dennis Alloy of Vienna, a childhood friend who watched it lift off. “It’s such a shame.” Nowak performed “extremely well” on that first mission, said David Mould, a NASA spokesman. She was scheduled to be a capsule communications officer for the next shuttle flight in March, to serve as the conduit between Houston’s Mission Control and the astronauts. As of Tuesday, Nowak was off NASA’s prestigious “flight status” list and was on a 30-day leave. “We are deeply saddened by this tragic event,” said Michael L. Coats, director of Johnson Space Center. “The charges against Lisa Nowak are serious ones that must be decided by the judicial system.” Neither Nowak nor her attorney, Donald Lykkebak of Orlando, offered any alternate version of events. But in hearings Tuesday, Lykkebak took issue with police conclusions that Nowak intended to kill or kidnap Shipman. He said she was simply trying to talk to Shipman. “What we have here is a desperate woman who wants to have a conversation with another woman,” he said in the afternoon hearing. “She doesn’t shoot her. She doesn’t stab her. . . . I would submit to you that she wanted to talk.” Nowak’s boss, Chief Astronaut Steven W. Lindsey from Johnson Space Center, came to Orlando and appeared at both court hearings. “We’re here representing NASA, and our main concern is Lisa’s health and well-being and to make sure she’s safe and we get her through this and we get her back to a safe place with her family,” he said at the morning hearing. But by the end of the afternoon hearing, the judge had raised Nowak’s bond to $25,500, in addition to the condition that she be monitored via a Global Positioning System anklet, for which she will pay $15 a day. By evening, she had posted bond and was preparing to be fitted with the anklet. She was expected to return to Houston. Lisa Marie Caputo Nowak grew up in the Luxmanor neighborhood of Rockville, in a two-story red brick house on Tilden Lane. Her family in Rockville released a statement late Tuesday. It noted that Nowak and her husband separated a few weeks ago. “We love her very much, and right now, our primary focus is on her health and well-being,” the statement said. “Considering both her personal and professional life, these alleged events are completely out of character.” Nowak was co-valedictorian of Charles W. Woodward High School in Rockville and received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering before becoming a full-fledged astronaut in 1998. She attended U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Mary’s County and flew as a test pilot in the mid-1990s. Oefelein attended the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School and was also at the test pilot school at Patuxent. In the fall, Nowak captivated audiences at Luxmanor Elementary School and Tilden Middle in Rockville and at the U.S. Naval Academy, all schools she once attended, and her sisters’ alma mater, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, with tales of space. It was a living lesson that hard work pays off. “All these little girls were lining up to sign autographs,” said Matthew Schatzle, a 1985 class officer, recounting the Naval Academy visit. “She represents us. She represents the Navy. She represents NASA. She represents her family. I’m sure she’s devastated.” De Vise reported from Washington. Staff writers Chris Jenkins, Marc Kaufman, Moira E. McLaughlin, Katherine Shaver and Steve Vogel and staff researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report from Washington. Scott Audette/Reuters Cmdr. William Oefelein and Capt. Lisa Nowak in winter training in Valcartier, Quebec, in January 2004. NASA via Associated Press NASA’s portrait of Lisa Nowak February 7, 2007 From Spaceflight to Attempted Murder Charge By JOHN SCHWARTZ Like most of today’s astronauts, Lisa Marie Nowak worked in relative obscurity — even last July, when she took the spaceflight that she had spent 10 years at NASA hoping for. She is famous now, the smiling image of her in astronaut gear a sharp contrast with her police mugshot, a woman with wild hair wearing an expression of personal devastation. She is charged with the attempted murder of a woman she believed to be her rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut. Police officials say she drove 900 miles to Florida from Texas, wearing a diaper so she would not have to stop for rest breaks. In Orlando, they say, she confronted her rival in a parking lot, attacking her with pepper spray. Captain Nowak was in disguise at the time, wearing a wig, the police said. She had with her a compressed air pistol, a steel mallet, a knife, pepper spray, four feet of rubber tubing, latex gloves and garbage bags. Those who know her say they are mystified. “I was in shock,” said Dennis Alloy, 43, of Tysons Corner, Va., a friend and high school classmate. “When I knew her, I couldn’t imagine an evil bone in her body.” Many inside and outside the space agency are wondering how the problems of Captain Nowak, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1985 and served in the Navy before joining National Aeronautics and Space Administration, were not detected before this. Many are also wondering whether the “Right Stuff” image of astronauts has been tarnished, or if that image somehow confused technical excellence with emotional stability. “Like any other people, they’re human,” said George Abbey, director of the Johnson Space Center when Commander Nowak was selected for the astronaut corps, who recalled her as “an outstanding candidate.” Captain Nowak, 43, was arrested at 4 a.m. Monday at Orlando International Airport, the police said, after attacking the other woman, Capt. Colleen Shipman of the Air Force. According to the police report, by Detective William C. Becton, Captain Nowak said that she had not intended to harm Captain Shipman and that she believed that “this was the only time she was going to be able to speak” with her. The compressed air pistol she carried “was going to be used to entice Ms. Shipman to talk with her,” according to the report. Detective Becton wrote, “When I asked Mrs. Nowak if she thought the pepper spray was going to help her speak with Ms. Shipman, she replied, ‘That was stupid.’ ” According to the police report, Captain Nowak said she saw Captain Shipman, 30, as a rival for the affection of Cmdr. William A. Oefelein, a fellow astronaut. She told the police that she and Commander Oefelein, whose NASA nickname is Billy-O, had “more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship.” Commander Oefelein, 41, is divorced and has two children. Tuesday was a day of confusion and quickly shifting events. Captain Nowak, a married mother of three, was brought before a judge for arraignment at 8:30 a.m. Two of her fellow astronauts — the chief of NASA’s astronaut office, Col. Steven W. Lindsey of the Air Force, and Capt. Christopher J. Ferguson of the Navy — were there to offer support. The judge had agreed to release Captain Nowak on $15,000 bond on charges of kidnapping and battery, but the police added a charge of attempted murder, and bail was increased to $25,000. Captain Shipman is seeking a protective order against Captain Nowak, according to documents posted on the Web site of The Orlando Sentinel, which broke the story Monday night. In Orlando at the end of the day, Captain Nowak posted bail and later in the evening was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet so her movements could be monitored after her return to Houston. “She’s is going home,” said her lawyer , Donald Lykkebak. Captain Nowak and her husband, Richard, a flight controller for the International Space Station, live with their children in a two-story brick-and-glass home in Houston. Few neighbors there wanted to talk about the case, but one, who asked that his name not be used, said the couple had an argument in November with raised voices and the sound of breaking china. No one was home on Tuesday. A statement from the family last night on the Sentinel Web site said that the Nowaks had been married for 19 years but that Captain Nowak and her husband “had separated a few weeks ago.” Earlier in the day, Michael Coats, the director of the Johnson Space Center, said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened by this tragic event. The charges against Lisa Nowak are serious ones that must be decided by the judicial system.” Mr. Coats said Captain Nowak was “officially on 30-day leave and has been removed from flight status and all mission-related activities.” How could a person involved in such a case rise within the space agency, which is famous for its psychological screening of astronaut candidates? Nick Kanas, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied astronaut psychology, said that the screening occurs only at the very beginning of the process and that once an astronaut has gotten through the front door, the formal psychological evaluations give way to evaluation of job performance. Psychological counseling is available but not mandatory, he said. “We can screen out very serious stuff, but we can’t always predict the future,” Professor Kanas said, and “people change over time.” Captain Nowak first came to the space program in April 1996 and finally flew aboard the space shuttle in July 2006. During the 13-day flight of the shuttle Discovery, which was launched on July 4 of last year, she operated the robot arm during spacewalks with her crewmate Stephanie D. Wilson, earning them the shared nickname Robo Chicks. As an astronaut she performed roles including capcom, the astronaut who communicates with orbiting space station crews. Professor Kanas said that most astronauts went through the experience of finally reaching space and came out well but that “for some it’s very difficult to adjust” to seeing the abrupt end of something they have worked so hard to achieve. “These people are extremely well-suited, by personality and training, to deal with the stresses of being in space,” Professor Kanas said. But, he added, “that doesn’t mean that they’re not vulnerable to emotional problems, or problems in their relationships.” Today’s astronauts find themselves in a world much less glamorous than the original crews. While the Mercury Seven raced Corvettes, today’s family-oriented fliers are likelier to tool around in minivans. They spend much more time in suburbia than in orbit, and there are no more ticker-tape parades for the returning heroes. Some former officials of the space program said that romantic thoughts and even love triangles were not unknown to the program but that it was up to management to watch carefully and intervene. Mr. Abbey, the former Johnson Space Center director, said, “You’ve got some hard-charging people, and you need to manage them.” Problems like this “don’t happen overnight,” and so “you have to be sensitive to what your people are doing.” Now and then on his watch, he recalled, “I stepped in, and people weren’t happy about it,” he recalled, but it was important to tell them that “what you’re doing is not a personal thing for you — it’s affecting a lot of people around you, and affecting your performance.” Christopher Kraft, NASA’s original flight director, said he was surprised. If someone was slipping toward such trouble, Mr. Kraft said, “your fellow crew members would pick that up.” Captain Nowak’s use of a diaper on the long drive to Florida is no mystery to astronauts. Mike Mullane, a retired astronaut, said many astronauts wear a device — “we call them urine collection devices” — during launching, landing and spacewalks, “when you’re in a pressure suit and cannot get to a toilet.” Other mysteries in the case could be more persistent. Michael Stone, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University‘s College of Physicians and Surgeons, said he was struck by the thoroughness of Captain Nowak’s preparation, which he said was generally “a guy thing.” “It’s extraordinarily rare for a woman to do this type of a crime,” Professor Stone said. He said the more customary response was to try to kill the object of affection, as Jean Harris shot Herman Tarnower in 1980. “This is really close to unique in the annals of female crime,” he said. Ralph Blumenthal, Rachel Mosteller and Maureen Balleza contributed from Houston, Melody Simmons from Baltimore, Sonia Chopra from Orlando, and Stefano Coledan from Cape Canaveral. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

  Today’s Papers Main Man By Daniel Politi Posted Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007, at 5:10 AM E.T. The New York Times leads with word that senior military officers have warned any new strategy for Iraq runs a high risk of failure if there isn’t more involvement from civilian agencies. These military officers, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contend that no amount of military intervention will help Iraq if it doesn’t include a concerted effort to speed up the country’s reconstruction and political development. The Washington Post leads with a look at how Gen. David H. Petraeus has become the public face of the administration’s effort to convince lawmakers and the public to give “surge” a chance. The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox with Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives announcing they will hold a vote next week on a resolution opposing the administration’s new plans for Iraq. Meanwhile, House members began “what promises to be a long, embarrassing inquest” into mismanagement of rebuilding funds in Iraq. The Los Angeles Times leads with a look at the “unusually open campaign” being waged by Israel to get the international community to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. USA Today leads with at least six states (Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, and Utah) that are considering expanding the use of the death penalty. Some, for example, want child molesters to be eligible for the death penalty, while others want to lower the bar of when certain offences become eligible for the death penalty. There have been long-running tensions between the State Department and the Pentagon, and these have only increased with a feeling that the military will bear most of the blame if Bush’s new plan for Iraq fails. Gates told senators yesterday he agreed with the concerns expressed by the officers and emphasized that Bush told his Cabinet on Monday that civilian agencies must “step up to the task.” Part of the problem is that although the State Department has been ordered to speed up reconstruction efforts, it can’t exactly force diplomats to accept taking a job in Iraq. At the end of the article, the Times mentions a recent classified study that found violence in Baghdad falls when quality of life improves. Before leaving for Baghdad, Petraeus parked himself in Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office and pitched the administration’s plans to any lawmakers who would listen. “The Petraeus card is about the only one left to play for a White House confronting low poll numbers, an unpopular war and an opposition Congress,” says the Post. Although the White House insists it did not plan the post-confirmation visits to Capitol Hill, Bush has tried to persuade lawmakers it doesn’t make sense to speak up against his new plan for Iraq and confirm Petraeus. Israeli politicians and military leaders have said there could be a “second Holocaust” if the world does nothing to prevent a country that has declared war against the Jews from developing nuclear weapons. Some leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have also hinted publicly that Israel would be willing to use force if the international community is unwilling (or unable) to prevent a nuclear Iran. But there appear to be some hints the current sanctions might be working to weaken Iran, at least economically. USAT says inside that figures have begun to show the “deepening economic isolation” of Iran as it faces increased inflation and unemployment. All the papers mention Iran accusing U.S. forces of being behind the abduction of an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad. Iranian officials said gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms kidnapped their embassy’s second secretary on Sunday (the NYT had the story of the abduction yesterday). U.S. officials deny they were involved. In other Iraq news, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said delays in implementing the new security plan are hurting his credibility with the Iraqi people. “This delay is giving a negative impression and has led some people to say that we have already failed,” Maliki said. The LAT fronts a different angle from the Gates Senate hearing, where the defense secretary said the Pentagon is working on an alternative plan if the troop increase fails to provide adequate results. Gates did not go into detail, but he emphasized that Bush’s plan “is not the last chance” to save Iraq. Everybody goes inside with a cockpit video leaked to a British newspaper that shows two American pilots in Iraq reacting to the news they had just shot at British troops and killed one of them. Moments after they fired, the pilots got the news and immediately started cursing and weeping. “I’m going to be sick,” said one of the pilots. “We’re in jail, dude.” The Pentagon, reversing a previous decision, announced it would allow the video to be shown in a British court. All the papers mention that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday and defended the recent firings of several U.S. attorneys, saying they were not politically motivated. McNulty said most were asked to leave because of poor performance, but he recognized that a U.S. attorney in Arkansas was urged to leave without cause and the job was given to a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove. Everyone fronts stories about Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak, who has quickly become one of the most famous NASA astronauts in recent memory. The LAT managed to catch the basics of the story yesterday, but it gets stranger with every new detail that emerges. Nowak was charged with the attempted murder of a woman she saw as her rival for the affections of another astronaut. The WSJ, USAT, and LAT front Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs calling on record companies to do away with restrictions currently present in legally downloaded music. In an essay posted online, Jobs argues that the restrictions haven’t actually prevented people from illegally obtaining music and all they do is inconvenience customers who choose to get their music legally. Daniel Politi writes “Today’s Papers” for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.

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