Holbrooke mentioned Afghan war before surgery - Washington Post

As friends and colleagues from four decades of diplomatic life reflected on the intensity of Richard C. Holbrooke's dedication, many were not surprised to learn that concerns about the Afghanistan war were apparently among his final thoughts.

After Holbrooke's death Monday, The Washington Post, citing his family members, reported that the veteran diplomat had told his physician just before surgery Friday to "stop this war."

But Tuesday, a fuller account of the tone and contents of his remarks emerged.

As physician Jehan El-Bayoumi was attending to Holbrooke in the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, she told him to relax and asked what she could do to comfort him, according to an aide who was present.

Holbrooke, who was in severe pain, said jokingly that it was hard to relax because he had to worry about the difficult situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

El-Bayoumi, an Egyptian American internist who is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's physician, replied that she would worry for him. Holbrooke responded by telling her to end the war, the aide said.

The aide said he could not be sure of Holbrooke's exact words. He emphasized Tuesday that the comment was made in painful banter, rather than as a serious exhortation about policy.

Holbrooke also spoke extensively about his family and friends as he awaited surgery by Farzad Najam, a thoracic surgeon of Pakistani descent.

Holbrooke's statement was seized upon quickly by critics of the Afghan war debate, some of whom interpreted it as a clarion call to end the conflict. Others viewed his comment as a last-breath disavowal of the Obama administration's war policy, which has involved a troop surge - which Holbrooke publicly supported - to combat the Taliban. But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley cast Holbrooke's words simply as "humorous repartee."

Crowley said the comment "says two things about Richard Holbrooke in my mind. Number one, he always wanted to make sure he got the last word. And secondly, it just showed how he was singularly focused on pursuing and advancing the process and the policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring them to a successful conclusion."

Holbrooke's deputy, Frank Ruggiero, has been named to fill his post as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan in an acting capacity, Crowley said, adding that no significant move had been made to select a permanent replacement.

chandrasek@washpost.com deyoungk@washpost.com

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Wal-Mart, global warming cases will get hearings before Supreme Court - Los Angeles Times

Supreme Court: High court agrees to hear Wal-Mart, global warming cases - latimes.com div.thumbnail span.credit { font-weight: normal !important;}div.article div.articlerail ul li.relatedTitle, div.storygallery div.storyGalleryRail ul li.relatedTitle { font-size: 12px !important;} Mobile Site Subscribe/Manage Account Print Ads Place an Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals More Classifieds   NATION HOME Breaking Crime L.A. Apps Weather Traffic Obits Community Crosswords Holiday Guide Wine Club Local L.A. Now Politics Crime Education O.C. Westside Neighborhoods Environment Obituaries FindLocal U.S. Politics Now Top of the Ticket Science & Environment Obituaries Religion World Afghanistan & Pakistan Africa Asia Europe Iran Iraq Latin America Mexico Under Siege Middle East Business Money & Co. Technology Personal Finance Small Business Company Town Jobs Real Estate Cars Sports Lakers Clippers Dodgers Angels NFL Ducks/Kings USC UCLA Soccer High Schools Scores/Stats Entertainment Movies TV Music Celebrity Arts & Culture Company Town Calendar Envelope Books FindLocal Health Booster Shots Fitness & Nutrition Medicine Mental Health Healthcare Reform Breast Cancer Diabetes Living Home Food Image Books Parenting FindLocal Brand X Magazine Your Scene Cars Travel California Hawaii Mexico Las Vegas Europe Asia Australia Travel & Deal Blog Destinations Opinion Editorials Op-Ed Letters Opinion L.A. More Corrections Readers' Rep Photos Video Blogs Data Desk Comics Puzzles & Games Community Mobile Site Subscribe/Manage Account Print Ads Place an Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals More Classifieds Weekly Ad In the News: dwp Gay marriage Kennedy Center Honors College bowls Box office Wal-Mart, global warming cases will get hearings before Supreme Court The Supreme Court agrees to take up two cases of interest to corporate America: whether a sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart can proceed as a class action, and whether courts can put limits on carbon emissions from power plants. Share Related Interactive: Major Supreme Court cases High court ruling on Arizona act could shape immigration law Supreme Court questions broad use of exception in sunshine law to withhold documents Stories Wal-Mart will buy controlling stake in South African company to get foothold in the country High court handling of Wal-Mart appeal will have wider implications By David G. Savage, Reporting from Washington December 6, 2010|8:41 a.m.

E-mail Print Text Size sc-dc-1207-supreme-court-20101206 The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear two major appeals from corporate America seeking to block mass lawsuits, one involving a huge sex-discrimination suit against Wal-Mart and the other a massive global warming suit brought against several of the nation's top power producers.

In both instances, the justices said they will consider blocking the mass lawsuit from proceeding toward a trial.

In the Wal-Mart case, the justices will decide whether the retail giant can be sued for sex bias in the largest workplace class action in the nation's history. A federal judge and the U.S. court of appeals in San Francisco cleared the lawsuit to proceed as a class action on behalf of 1.5 million women who were employed at Wal-Mart in the past decade.

The lawsuit contends women were regularly paid less than men and denied promotions. In its appeal, the company argues that the lawsuit should not proceed as a class action because hiring and promotion decisions are made in its 3,400 stores.

The issue of when a suit can proceed as a class action is of great interest to corporate lawyers and the trial bar. If a single suit can speak for thousands of employees, companies feel pressure to offer a settlement rather than risk a potentially crippling jury verdict.

The global warming case will decide whether judges and courts can put limits on carbon emissions on the theory that this pollution is a public nuisance. Eight states, including New York, California and Connecticut, joined with environmentalists and launched a lawsuit against the power producers in the Midwest, arguing that their coal-fired plants were contributing to climate change.

Environmentalists said they took the issue to court because Congress was not likely to take up the climate change issue and set limits on greenhouse gasses. They won a significant preliminary victory when the U.S. appeals court in New York cleared the suit to proceed.

But the power industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Obama administration joined in urging the high court to stop the lawsuit. They argue that the global warming issue and limits on carbon emissions should be decided by Congress and the White House, not by judges acting on lawsuits.

The two cases, Wal-Mart vs. Dukes and American Electric Power vs. Connecticut, will be heard in the early spring and decided by July.

david.savage@latimes.com Copyright © 2010, Tribune Interactive

E-mail Print Digg Twitter Facebook Read This Later   Comments (9)Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ jdw2010 at 10:01 AM December 06, 2010

I wonder if these are the same environmentalists that protested nuclear power to death, such a two faced argument. When will the hippies realize you need to supply base power SOMEHOW? Wind, Solar, Hydro, etc. are not applicable for base power needs. That leaves Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear as primary power generation with Coal being the cheapest and Nuclear being the cleanest (in terms of greenhouse emissions). Wake up people, you can only squeeze so much blood from a stone.

jav1231 at 9:56 AM December 06, 2010

In regards to "climate change," it's the job of the courts to interpret law through the prism of precedent and the Constitution. NOT to create law. This should be a slam dunk. Hopefully.

carlsherylmorris at 9:46 AM December 06, 2010

Come on, Libs...  What you want to accomplish is not Constitutionally allowed...  Things you're trying to make lawful.. or unlawful,  needs to come from Congress...  I think the whole country is sick and tired of the courts trying to run the country..  IT IS NOT within their scope of authority...  How did you Libs ever get to thinking the way that you do???

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Before 2010 MacBook Air, there was 2004 Sony - CNET

Shades of the 2010 MacBook Air?

(Credit: Sony)

Though a moot point now for consumers, in 2004 Sony came out with an ultrathin wedge-shaped laptop that was a progenitor of the MacBook Air, particularly Apple's 2010 incarnation.

At the Apple event this week in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said the new MacBook Air "is the future of notebooks." That's debatable of course but it's clear that PC makers like Sony and Hewlett-Packard already saw that kind of future a long time ago. The problem was that either their timing was off or they didn't execute the designs as well as Apple--or simply that the laptop was too expensive.

Back in 1998, HP released the ultrathin, 3-pound Sojourn made from magnesium. (And more recently the wafer-thin Dell Adamo XPS eclipsed the older Apple Air by using a heavily wedged design.)

But Sony's offering may be one of the best examples of a laptop that pretty much matches Apple's design--except Sony did it six years ago. The nickel carbon body Vaio X505--no longer available--had some very impressive specs for its time. (See 2004 review.)

Similar to the MacBook Air, the pronounced wedge design was 0.38 inches at the thinnest point and 0.83 at the thickest. The nickel carbon body also squeezed in an Ethernet port, a PCMCIA slot, and a 1394 connector

(Credit: CNET Reviews)

Like Apple's new Air, the Vaio X505 used an ultralow voltage Intel chip: a Pentium M "ULV" 1.1GHz processor. And similar to the Air, it was 0.38 inches at it thinnest point and 0.83 inches at its thickest (and keep in mind this was remarkably thin for a design that was probably conceived in 2002). The Sony X505 was smaller than the 11.6-inch Air, packing a 10.4-inch display, but it was only 1.85 pounds.

2010 MacBook Air

(Credit: Apple)

And the price? When the Sony Vaio X505 came out, it was about $3,000. And that's probably where Apple's new Air breaks the most ground. The ultrasvelte, 2.3-pound Air--which I would argue is the most impressive Apple MacBook design--can be had for $999. Still a bit pricey but far below the boutique, Rodeo-Drive ultrathins of the past. (Note that Apple's original high-end MBA was about $3,000 but mainstream Air models eventually settled in at about half that price.)

So, what does Sony have today? It has the X series, but that's a single-core Intel Atom processor-based design and won't deliver the performance of the Air, which uses a Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia graphics.

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