Your insider's guide to ordering off-menu specials in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Ever been at a restaurant with a good idea of what you were ordering when a dish going to another table caught your eye? Ever asked your waiter or waitress what the dish is called? And what is in it?
Ever been told that dish isn't on the menu?
Off-menu specials are more common than you might expect at Acadiana restaurants, especially classic restaurants that have seen many regular customers and many menu updates.
WHO'S THE BEST IN LAFAYETTE? Meet the Best of Acadiana winners!
Perhaps best-known of the off-menu subculture in Lafayette is La Fonda's fried chicken, which regularly places in the top three for best fried chicken in the Times Best Of contest each year.
"I like the mystique of it. It's the secret that's not so secret," says Stephanie Gagnard, the daughter of La Fonda's founder Lee Bob Cox. "And I like that we have fried chicken. I like that we're known for fried chicken. And I like that it's not displayed on the menu."
Sometimes, off-menu items are former menu items that have been cut. Other times, off-menu items are customer creations that gain popularity when other customers see the entree being served at another table. Then there are the seasonal items that are so popular they never make it on the menu at some restaurants, and there's the rare dish that's so difficult to make that only one person in the restaurant is privy to the process.
But no matter what the origin of these off-menu specials, there's one thing that's certain: You have to know about it to order it.
This Tex-Mex restaurant is best known for its potent margaritas, but it's also a place to find off-menu specials, many of which are not Mexican in nature at all.
The crispy, juicy fried chicken is the best-known one.
Fried chicken was on one of the earliest versions of the menu at La Fonda, which opened in 1957. Cox even opened a local fast-food restaurant called Yankee Doodle in the late '60s to serve some of La Fonda's most popular menu items: fried chicken, tacos and enchiladas. But as La Fonda became busier, Cox opted to close Yankee Doodle a few years later to expand La Fonda.
The fried chicken was cut from the restaurant's menu to save space, according to Gagnard, but the restaurant never stopped serving it.
"I like it because it's special," she says. "It's special, and we like our customers to feel special and be in the know, to feel like you're part of the history here."
In addition to fried chicken, La Fonda has a lengthy list of secret menu items.
There is the super nacho, which is the restaurant's basic beef nachos with jalapenos topped with lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream and guacamole. And there's the waiter-style nachos, which is the beef nachos with jalapenos cooked until the cheese is browned and crisp.
There are the appetizers of sauceless chicken wings served with homemade dressings; the chili con queso with taco beef, sour cream and guacamole; and the Don Briggs, which is a ribeye steak topped with queso, onions and peppers that is diced and served with toothpicks.
The entrees include the two- or four-piece fried chicken with new potatoes and the Don Briggs' ribeye steak, which is the same as the appetizer without the dicing and toothpicking.
"There are so many things," Gagnard says. "Where do I stop? We're known to accommodate."
Gagnard's husband, Ryan, says there is a charm to serving off-menu items. There are few places you can order fried chicken on white linen.
"The restaurant doesn't create the menu," he says. "The customers are the ones who build an off-the-menu selection. We have regulars here who have their way of doing things. Nothing ever dies. If it was on the menu once, we will make it, so we have more than 57 years of off-menu items really."
This classic Lafayette seafood and steak restaurant has a number of off-menu specials.
Dawn Landry LaBorde, a partner in the restaurant, can't even count how many off-menu items Don's serves.
"No is not in our vocabulary for our customers," LaBorde says.
You have the items that have never been named: broiled mushrooms stuffed with shrimp and crabmeat stuffing, a lump crab au gratin with shrimp seafood-stuffed potato, a crab cake with crawfish sauce and boiled crawfish when it's in season.
Then, you have the named dishes.
There's the spicy cat, an entree of spicy, fried catfish topped with shrimp and crabmeat etouffee. There's the Joe salad, named for regular customer, Joe Dupuis, who orders a simple chopped salad with tomatoes, olives, boiled egg and cheese when he's "watching his girlish figure." There's the hamburger Pontchartrain , a hamburger steak with grilled vegetables and a spicy Don's sauce. There's the shrimp scampi pizza, one of the restaurant's newest off-menu creations.
And finally, you have the showstoppers.
There's the gumbo fried rice — fried rice made with gumbo juice instead of soy sauce that is topped with any number of proteins, such as ribeye steak, grilled shrimp or jumbo lump crabmeat. There's the steak etouffee. There's the homemade hamburgers.
"We have a cheeseburger that will make you slap your grandma twice," LaBorde says with a laugh. "We have some of the best hamburgers around that a lot of people don't know about."
Some items come about because of a customer. Others come about because of employee creativity in the kitchen.
And some things are former menu items that have been taken off to make space for new offerings.
"When we took seafood fried rice off our menu, I thought my customers would fall out of their chairs," LaBorde says. "It kind of makes you feel good because you know people love your food.
"And really, ordering something that's not on the menu makes you feel special."
This favorite fine dining restaurant is known for its regular off-menu specials, many of which are fresh fish dishes that are available most of the year but don't make it on the menu due to their sometimes limited availability.
There are probably 20 off-menu items, according to chef-owner Brian Blanchard.
"It's endless," Blanchard says. "We've gotten to the point that we'll name things after customers just so I can remember what it was exactly."
There's the gluten-free, non-fat sea bass with organically grown vegetables; the fried softshell crabs with lump crabmeat and seasonal vegetables in a lemon-butter sauce; and appetizer of shrimp and scallop over grits.
But there's one special off-menu entree that stands above the rest, the veal occhiata.
This dish is so difficult to prepare that Blanchard only allows customers to order it when he is working in the kitchen.
"If you mess it up, it's bad," he says. "There's a fine line between superb and horrible."
The tender veal of the entree is covered in a burned anchovy sauce over homemade angel hair pasta.
Veal occhiata is a dish Blanchard won a gold medal for 25 years ago in the Acadiana Culinary Classic competition. While it has never been on the menu at his restaurant, customers regularly order the dish.
"It's only for people who know about it," Blanchard says. "And I have to be here to make it."
This locally owned burger joint is known for its completely customizable burgers, wraps, shakes and other fast food.
Most wouldn't expect this spot to serve up fancier off-menu fare.
But during duck season — in November and December — you can order off-menu duck kabobs. During the Lenten season — the time between Mardi Gras and Easter — you can order a crab cake burger.
"The only way people know about the menu items is through social media," says the restaurant's owner Shawn Broaddus. "Keeping up with us on Facebook and Instagram is the way you'll find out about it."
Broaddus Burgers' duck kabobs are made from bacon-wrapped duck breast, bell peppers, pineapple, purple onions and a spicy fig preserve sauce. The fig preserves are made during the summer from figs picked from family trees.
The crab cake burger is made from a homemade crab cake that is topped with crawfish etouffee.
"It allows you to have more fun at work when you have off-menu items," Broaddus says. "It breaks the monotony of making the same burgers every day, and it allows our regulars to get something different."
This River Ranch restaurant formerly known as Village Cafe has seen a number of name and ownership changes through the years.
But one item that has disappeared from the menu is still available to customers who ask for it: the foie gras.
The seared foie gras appetizer is served with seasonal pairings such as local honeycomb and goat cheese.
"The reason why it's an off-menu item is because it's a pricier item," says Courtney Vincent, a partner of the restaurant. "It's $24 for the seared foie gras appetizer, and one of the things we're sensitive to as new owners is coming down on price in some areas."
An appetizer that exceeds the $20 mark stands out on restaurant menu that is meant to be affordable.
But regular customers who remember the Village Cafe offering often ask for the appetizer, so the owners are happy to accommodate.
"It's a fun little off-menu item that people in the know know to ask for," Vincent says.
This classic Lafayette pizzeria is known for its crispy, Cajun pies.
And while Deano's offers rotating lunch specials and monthly pizza specials, most don't ever truly rotate off of the specials list.
"First of all, our menu is huge. It's really huge," says the restaurant's owner Tim Metcalf.
"Second of all, limited-time offers are exciting.
"The third thing is that if you come in as a regular customer, and it's not on the menu and you ask for it, I can make you feel very special. That's my methodology."
That the August pizza of the month special, the Cajun Samurai — fried shrimp glazed with yum-yum sauce on an olive-oil crust with green onions, crunchy chow mein noodles and Parmesan cheese — is available year round to anybody who orders it.
It also means that the Mardi Gras po'boy — a French roll filled with ham, turkey, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and honey mustard — isn't just available during Carnival season.
"You don't want to disappoint your customers," Metcalf says. "So we'll make them feel special and make it happen."


The son-in-law of a Samajwadi Party legislator and close associate of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, was shot at in the Uttar Pradesh capital Friday night, police said Saturday. The man escaped unhurt.
Sameer, the son-in-law of member of legislative council Buqqal Nawaab, was driving past a shopping mall in the posh Gomtinagar area, when unidentified assailants opened fire at his car.
While two bullets hit the car, Sameer was unhurt.
"The assailants were in a car and I could not recognise them," he told police.
Sameer said he was into a litigation with some people and suspected they could be behind the attack.


Sean Sherlock says he remains committed to implementing new laws, but is “personally” willing to consider primary legislation.
JUNIOR INNOVATION MINISTER Seán Sherlock has said he remains committed to implementing new internet copyright legislation – but has said he is personally willing to bring forward full primary legislation, which would allow for full Oireachtas debates.
Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, Sherlock insisted that as a member state of the European Union, Ireland needed to implement the copyright directives laid down by the EU, which allowed copyright holders to take measures to ensure their intellectual property was not being infringed.
The minister assured independent TD Catherine Murphy, who had raised the matter during the Dáil’s ‘topical issues’ time, that this right was “not superior to the right of the individual user” to use the internet, nor the right of an internet service provider to conduct their business.
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) could not be asked to monitor all the data of each of its customers in order to prevent copyright infringement, Sherlock said, referring to a recent European Court of Justice ruling.
Sherlock said the introduction of the statutory instrument – a form of law which can be enacted without the need for Oireachtas approval – was “imminent” and that he understood it would be discussed at cabinet next week.
The minister said he was “personally” not opposed to the idea of introducing a full Bill to try and legislate for the issue, but argued that any government would be unable to legislate properly unless copyright holders and ISPs came together “in an organic fashion” to agree a common platform.
This is not SOPA legislation. Absolutely not. What this is is a restatement of what the Irish government held to be the case anyway, in relation to copyright.
The government’s push for new legislation is required after the High Court last year ruled that Irish law did not provide copyright holders with the ability to seek an injunction stopping inappropriate access to their material online. This is in contravention with an EU directive.
The language was “open-ended” and did not give judges “any instructions by way of legislation that will set boundaries”.
The Kildare North TD said there appeared to be a contradiction between Sherlock’s desire not to give courts the power to enforce unlimited blocking of websites, but still offer the ability to grant injunctions which could do just that.
There is a very important and strong need to have a complete clarification, before any statutory instrument is signed – because this has the potential, because of its vagueness, of doing damage.
TJ McIntyre of Digital Rights Ireland, which opposes the current format of the proposals, said the new draft published today showed “no substantive change” that he could see.
He argued that the new draft shows how the concerns of his group, as well as those of ISPs and the telecoms industry “have all been ignored”.
Email “Sherlock still committed to signing 'imminent' copyright law”.
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If IHOP stands for International House of Pancakes, what could IHOb be?
The tweet also teased a big reveal on June 11, and didn’t specify what prompted the alleged name change.
Social media users flooded IHOP with guesses that included bacon, breakfast, beer, blueberries and beignets. Not everyone was thrilled with the p flipping to a b, however.
“Someone sue @IHOP for changing their name what kind of anarchy is this #IHOb,” one person tweeted.
IHOP, which is now owned by Dine Brands Global, started as a restaurant in Toluca Lake, a suburb of Los Angeles in 1958. As of June, 2016, there were 1,695 IHOP locations in the United States and countries around the world.


Forget Punxsutawney Phil. Did Nancy the pygmy hedgehog see her shadow at the Oregon Zoo?
A coast away, Punxsutawney Phil emerged today with a prediction: early spring.
At the Oregon Zoo, a groundhog-free zoo, curators turned to a far more adorable prognosticator: Nancy the African pygmy hedgehog.
The zoo claims a 50 percent accuracy rate for its hedgehog predictions, besting Phil’s 39 percent accuracy rate. Last year, a hedgehog named FuFu predicted an early spring that did not arrive.


Over 40 per cent of all European organisations are failing to adhere to continent-wide rules governing how to handle citizen data requests as many organisations won’t inform citizens how data is used, shared and processed.
The Engineering and Technology Magazine reports that citizen data access requests were submitted from 10 European countries to 184 public and private organisations with a range of information requested.
Every single request asked that those controlling the data disclose anything personal being held, explain if any third parties had been aparty to the data and whether the data has been subjected to any automated decision making processes.
43 per cent didn’t result in any personal data being sent back or the subjects involved didn’t receive a valid reason for the data not being disclosed with 56 per cent of cases resulting in no adequate or legally compliant response received regarding third party data sharing.
“We are selectively marketed to, our locations are tracked by CCTV and automated licence plate recognition systems and our online behaviour is monitored, analysed, stored and used. The challenge for all of us is that our information is often kept from us, despite the law and despite our best efforts to access it,” stated Professor Clive Norris from the University of Sheffield who lead the study.
When it came to dealing with the requests, 71 per cent of the requests for information on automated decision making processes were either completely ignored or not dealt with in the correct way in a legal sense.
Even when requests for data were successful, the process was often complicated and time consuming plus in 31 per cent of cases the data provided was incomplete and researchers had to probe for more information.
Worse was the fact that in 20 per cent of cases it wasn’t even possible to locate a data controller to handle the request and CCTV footage requests were the hardest to carry out with seven in 10 requests dealt with restrictively.
The public sector was more helpful than the private one with just 43 per cent partaking in restrictive practices whereas 62 per cent of private firms were found to be restrictive.
“In our view, there is an urgent requirement for policymakers to address the failure of law at the European level and its implementation into national law. Organisations must ensure that they conform to the law. In particular, organisations need to make it clear who is responsible for dealing with requests from citizens; they need to train their staff so they are aware of their responsibilities under law; and they need to implement clear and unambiguous procedures to facilitate citizens making access requests,” Norris added.


The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in more than a decade in the third quarter.
According to Commerce Department figures released Tuesday, gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a 5 percent annual rate during the July to September period, the strongest pace since the summer of 2003. The latest figure marks an upward revision from the department's original estimate that the economy grew 3.9 percent during the period.
The 5 percent third quarter growth rate came after GDP grew 4.6 percent in the second quarter. The economy has now had its strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2003.
Economists project that the economy will grow at a 2.5 percent rate during the fourth quarter of the year and forecast 3 percent growth in 2015, which would mark the strongest rate in a decade.
While the recovery from the Great Recession has been halting at times, the new figures represent the latest sign that a more robust recovery may be underway. Last month, U.S. employers added 321,000 jobs, while wages also grew at a stronger-than-expected pace.


Allison Middleton of Waldorf, MD and Dale Linassi of Waldorf, MD were married on Saturday, September 03, 2011 in Bowles Farm, Clements, MD. The bride is the daughter of Greg and Hope Middleton. The groom is the son of Tommy Linassi and Jeannette Hardt.
The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in Dominican Republic.


ROY HODGSON has told his England team that they have achieved nothing yet and still have to prove themselves in a tournament situation.
England go into tonight's second Euro 2016 warm-up against Holland at Wembley on a high after their remarkable 3-2 win over world champions Germany in Berlin on Saturday night.
Hodgson's reshaped young team earned plaudits from around the world as they fought back from two goals down and at the same time spark real optimism after a dismal 2014 World Cup and 2012 Euros.
He will reshuffle his pack again tonight against a Dutch side who surprisingly failed to qualify for this summer's championships but who will still provide formidable opposition.
But last night, in public, he was much more cautious. When asked if England could win the tournament this summer, he said: "It's the impossible question. Whatever I say. If I say 'yes', then it's 'Hodgson thinks we can win the Euros'. If I say it's a tough ask, then it's 'Hodgson has no confidence in the team'."
Liverpool midfielder James Milner will captain England tonight in the absence of injured Wayne Rooney, as Hodgson makes what are expected to be major changes from the team that won in Berlin.
Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge will make his first England appearance since September 2014 in attack after a nightmare battle with injury and Southampton goalkeeper Fraser Forster will replace the injured Jack Butland.
Theo Walcott and Jamie Vardy are expected to join Sturridge in the front line, with Everton duo John Stones and Phil Jagielka recalled in defence. Leicester's Danny Drinkwater is set to make his debut in midfield.


Taiwanese technology firms should be aware of potential risks before they succumb to Indian fever, an IBM Corp research fellow said yesterday.
"India has the largest pool of human resources in the technology industry after the US and Russia, but it is harder to retain people now as they change jobs more frequently," said Chandrasekaran Mohan, an IBM fellow and chief scientist in India.
He made the remarks after speaking at the IBM 2006 Developer Works conference held in Taipei.
The availability of the talent pool does not guarantee employee retention as in the case of IBM India, which has to employ non-computer graduates for its call centers, because computer science and engineering graduates get bored of the job easily and leave, he said.
IBM, whose second largest workforce after the US is in India, is the biggest foreign employer in the country with 42,000 employees to date.
Meanwhile, salaries in India are shooting up and it is no easy task recruiting senior researchers with a PhD qualification, said Mohan, who has been working with IBM for 24 years and is one of the 60 or so fellows at IBM -- the highest technologist position in the New York-based company.
Other issues foreign companies should pay attention to include Indian state governments' reluctance in improving basic infrastructure such as rugged roads in Bangalore -- a technology hub in Southern India -- as well as untested labor laws and political friction, he said.
According to Mohan, India's technology strengths today lie not only in software, but also in other areas such as chip design, drug trials and health tourism.
"After India opened up its economy in the early 90s, allowing imports and foreign investments, domestic companies sped up technology adoption to compete with foreign firms," he said.
Taiwanese companies have started to set their sights on India in a bid to diversify their investments from China. Cumulative Taiwanese investment in India is currently low, totaling less than US$20 million at the end of last year.
As of the first quarter this year, local investments in China since 1991 had reached US$48.17 billion, according to the government's latest tallies.
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DAVID LE/Staff photo. Danvers junior Quintin Holland looks up as he drags down falling Marblehead quarterback Garret Keough (13). 11/13/15.


Now, a new study offers insight into why some people shrug off physical touches and how families affected by autism may learn to share hugs without overwhelming an autistic child’s senses.
Yale neuroscientists recruited 19 young adults and imaged their brain activity as a researcher lightly brushed them on the forearm with a soft watercolor paintbrush. In some cases, the brushing was quick, and in others slow: prior studies have shown that most people like slow brushing and perceive it as affectionate contact, while the faster version is felt as less pleasant and more tickle-like.
None of the participants in the current study had autism, but the researchers evaluated them for autistic traits — things like a preference for sameness, order and systems, rather than social interaction. They found that participants with the highest levels of autistic traits had a lower response in key social brain regions — the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) — to the slow brushing.
According to Martha Kaiser, senior author of the study and associate director of the Child Neuroscience Laboratory at the Yale Child Study Center, the STS is a critical hub of the social brain. “This region is important for perceiving the people around us, for visual social stimuli and for perceiving social versus nonsocial sounds,” she says.
The current findings suggest that the region is also involved in processing social touch and that its response is linked to the individual’s social ability, she says.
If that’s the case, finding ways to make social experience — including touch — more rewarding might be one way to help autistic people connect better with others.
Indeed, Temple Grandin, the well-known author and animal scientist with autism, and the subject of a 2010 HBO biopic, famously built herself a “hug machine” to self-apply deep pressure to her body. She craved the feeling of being securely held, but also needed to be able to control the sensation herself, often finding touch from others too intense.
A better understanding how social touch is processed differently by autistic and nonautistic people may lead to the development of strategies for family members and loved ones to touch people with autism in a way that soothes and fosters feelings of connection, rather than overwhelms.
Kaiser and her colleagues are already studying people with autistic spectrum disorders to explore these questions, particularly in children. Making social touch more rewarding early in development might further help autistic children learn social skills, since learning is heavily dependent on pleasure. And because later development relies on early experience, such a strategy could improve their overall development. “I think there are a lot of potential treatment applications for this work,” Kaiser says.
The study was published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.


Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky explores the intersection of nature and industry through his large-scale images that are extraordinarily beautiful, exquisitely detailed, and hauntingly unnerving. Over the years, he has explored the global landscape through series that include Quarries, Ships, Tailings, Mines, Recycling, Oil, and China. Together, the images convey the impact of industry on consumerism, culture, and human life.
Burtynsky is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose depictions of global industrial landscapes are in the collections of more than fifty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliotéque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. His distinguished awards include the TED Prize and the title of Officer of the Order of Canada. He holds four honorary doctorate degrees.
Edward Burtynsky: The Industrial Sublime presents 30 large-scale photographs dating from 1991 – 2008. The exhibition was organized with Weber State University, the Frist Center for Contemporary Art, and the University of Wyoming Art Museum. It has been funded in part by the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum, Wyoming Public Radio, and the Wyoming Arts Council through the Wyoming State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art.
A UW Faculty Response to Edward Burtynsky: The Industrial Sublime will take place Monday, Feb. 20, 7 p.m. at the UW Art Museum. A Screening of Manufactured Landscapes (a film by Jennifer Baichwal, 2006) will take place Monday, March 5, 7 p.m. in the Visual Arts Center Auditorium.


By 2030, scaled-up green power could meet the demands of a large grid 99.9 percent of the time, according to new research from the University of Delaware.
A mix of offshore and onshore wind, along with contributions from solar power, could provide reliable power flow during all but a handful of days in the hypothetical four-year period under study.
Moreover, researchers found that scaling up renewable generation capacity to seemingly excessive levels -- more than three times the needed load, in some instances -- proved more cost-effective than scaling up storage capacity, due to the high systems costs associated with storage technology.
"That's a lot of overbuilding," said Willett Kempton, a professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy at the University of Delaware and a co-author of the study. Much of that excess capacity would be underused during all but a few days a year, he said.
At the same time, thermal power plants face a similar problem today through inefficiency, he added.
"If you think about it, power plants burn three times the amount of fuel energy needed to produce their energy output," he said. "You burn three units of coal to get one unit of electricity."
Overgeneration would be cost effective even if all excess energy were simply dumped, according to the study. If that excess energy were harnessed -- to offset the costs of heating fuels, for example -- costs could be lowered even further.
Reliability has long been the Achilles' heel of renewable energy, which depends on intermittent weather conditions like wind and sun to generate power. However, by extending enough wind turbines and solar panels over a wide enough area, it is possible to achieve approximate reliability by shifting power from active to passive regions.
The study did not assume the introduction of new, more efficient technologies, although it did form its calculations based on 2030 technology costs and energy prices. Its models incorporated four years of energy use and weather data from within PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization covering about one-fifth of the United States' total electrical system.
The simulations were run on the XSEDE supercomputer network, a project of the National Science Foundation. The researchers ran 28 billion separate simulations, sifting for the lowest possible cost to achieve varying levels of reliability for 72 gigawatts of power.
The simulations found that onshore wind power was consistently the cheapest renewable option, followed by offshore wind, with solar power and limited hydrogen energy storage coming online only when the researchers asked for near-perfect reliability.
"When we modeled to cover 30 percent of the hours under study, the least-cost scenario didn't include any offshore wind or solar, Kempton said. "When we modeled for 90 percent reliability, the scenario included both offshore and onshore wind."
It wasn't until the researchers asked for a scenario in which energy supply met demand 99.9 percent of the time that solar was brought into the picture, he said.
"Solar was more expensive than wind power, but it also matched load most closely," said Cory Budischak, an instructor at Delaware Technical Community College and co-author of the study. "It's more windy at night, but sunnier during the day when you see most of your peak demand. So at 90 percent reliability you can get by with just wind, but to get that last 9.9 percent, you really need solar."
By building up renewable energy capacity to around 290 percent, energy could be delivered at a low cost with very little battery storage needed, Budischak said.
"You still need battery storage, but only enough for a couple of days, rather than a couple of weeks," he said.
The researchers ran simulations based on varying levels of battery and electric car storage. Electric cars, which could be tapped during daytime hours to help meet peak demand, provide the cheapest storage option since most of their costs would be absorbed by their owners, Kempton said.
"But with cars, you run into resource constraints," Kempton said. "It's not like every person in PJM is going to have five electric vehicles."
He added, "With wind and solar we don't see the same kind of constraints."
While most analysts believe the world can -- and, if the worst effects of climate change are to be averted, must -- transfer to a predominantly renewable-based energy economy, the role of fossil fuels as backup power supply is still hotly debated.
An article in the Los Angeles Times this week cited several sources as claiming that upscaling renewable would need to be met with a corresponding rise in traditional fossil fuel power plants in order to ensure baseload power supply.
According the University of Delaware study, a large enough system of renewable energy generators could feasibly fill its own reliability gaps. "In our 99.9 percent scenario, we found that, in four years, only five times would you need to bring fossil-fuel plants back online to ensure power supply," Kempton said.
Rather than build new plants, a few of the coal or gas plants offset by new renewable supplies could be kept online to provide that backup power, he said.


A fantastic September left this stock overheated and in need of a cool shower.
Shares of Windstream Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:WIN) fell 21.9% in October, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. On the heels of an 18% gain in September, based on Windstream launching a bevy of new and expanded network services, the rally ran out of steam.
If Windstream investors were expecting a constant stream of service launches, early October left them disappointed. At that point, the company added fixed wireless data plans in 40 markets nationwide, and shares prices immediately stopped sliding. Call it a correction of overheated network-building expectations.
Going beyond the October period, Nov. 7 saw Windstream announcing an all-stock merger with fellow network access specialist EarthLink (NASDAQ:ELNK). The $1.1 billion deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017 and should increase Windstream's cash flows from the get-go. Including an early share price boost from rumors about the EarthLink deal, Windstream rose about 8% on the news.
Windstream's stop-and-go stock chart can be frustrating to some investors, but that's life in Small-Cap City. The company's financial results are lumpy and unpredictable and share prices can move drastically on flimsy news reports.
The EarthLink deal will go some way toward curing these ills. This agreement will nearly double Windstream's market cap, though free cash flows are only rising by about 40% and EarthLink's annual revenue is only 18% of Windstream's tally. It's not a classic play on economies of scale, but more of a margin-widening move. Current shareholders should also realize that the printing of 93 million new Windstream shares to pay for EarthLink will dilute their current holdings by nearly 50%.
Despite the swift EarthLink boost, Windstream shares are still off to a strongly negative start in November.


MOSCOW (AP) — A top official of Russia's only non-state elections monitoring organization says the group is considering liquidating after being declared a foreign agent.
The Russian Justice Ministry announced Friday it was adding the Golos organization to its list of foreign agents. A controversial Russian law says any non-governmental organization involved in politics that receives foreign funding must register as a foreign agent.
The term carries a pejorative Cold War-era connotation and critics say the law is aimed at discrediting such groups. The law is among several measures President Vladimir's government has taken to clamp down on groups seen as opposed to the government.
Golos co-chairman Grigory Melkonyants was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying "It's possible we will liquidate ... Evidently, we'll now have to do that."


Welcome to Football FourFootball Four covers and stokes the conversation on college football and its Playoff.
Despite key losses, plenty of talent keeps Clemson among elite in 2017Deshaun Watson and some other stars will likely be gone, but the Tigers will be a factor.
Clemson places four on USA TODAY Sports All-Bowl teamIn total, 11 players on the all-bowl team participated in New Year’s Six games.
Projecting 2017's 25 best teamsThough confetti has yet to fall, here’s an early look at teams battling for Playoff.
Clemson, Deshaun Watson win the only trophy that matters to themA sizzling finish is fitting for what should be the end of QB DeShaun Watson's college career.
Clemson No. 1, USC No. 3 in final 2016 NCAA Re-rankDespite some high-profile tumbles, the Big Ten still has four teams inside the top eight.
USA TODAY Sports' freshman All-America teamThe Crimson Tide’s Jalen Hurts and Jonah Williams have starring roles on this year's team.
The Football Four Podcast previews Alabama-ClemsonUSA TODAY Sports' Dan Wolken, George Schroeder and Nicole Auerbach break down the final.
The Football Four Podcast on what's wrong with the HeismanPlus, assessing the three new coaching hires in the AAC since Friday.
Grading the 17 college football coaching hires this seasonSome schools like South Florida and Texas did well, others like LSU did not.
USA TODAY Sports' 2016 All-America college football teamsHeisman finalists Lamar Jackson, Jabrill Peppers and Dede Westbrook headline the list.
The Football Four Podcast on the College Football Playoff fieldDid the selection committee set any precedents or send any messages Sunday?
Ohio State ahead of Clemson in final regular-season Re-RankWe’ll see if that’s right when the two teams meet in the Fiesta Bowl.
It wouldn't be college football without controversyThe playoff committee delivered four strong teams, but one is not a league champion for the first time.
Final Whistle: Precedent coming from Playoff committee?
Final Whistle: Precedent coming from Playoff committee?Ohio State looks like one of the final four. But the Buckeyes won't win the Big Ten.
The Football Four Podcast on 'WakeyLeaks'What exactly is the deal with the playcall info that turned up at Louisville's stadium?
Inside the Game: The return of Utah's Joe WilliamsThe RB was asked to come back after injuries decimated the Utes, and he has thrived.
Inside the Game: Oklahoma State's PAT blocksThe Cowboys have four special teams blocks using a simple scheme: Crash the guard position.
Inside the Game: Colorado's one-handed catchesBryce Bobo's spectacular catch to beat Oregon wasn't an accident. The Buffs practice it.
Inside the Game: UCLA's run defense with McCaffrey on deckInside the Game: The Bruins throttled BYU last week. This week's challenge is much bigger.
Inside the Game: How Michigan blocked four kicks against UCFMichigan in Week 2 was as dominant a showing as any single special teams unit can have.
Inside the Game: Wyoming QB Josh Allen naked and famousThe Cowboys soph returns to give his team a spark with a special sleight of hand and foot.
The Football Four Podcast with Coach Steve SpurrierThe HBC talks retirement — not only his but also Nick Saban's and Donald Trump's.
How the preseason AP poll compares to the Amway Coaches PollSame 25 teams are ranked in both, but there are differences, especially with No. 1 votes.
USA TODAY Sports preseason college football All-America teamsNine players who earned mention in 2015 make the team entering 2016.
The Football Four Podcast compares the AP and Coaches PollsRalph Russo joins the podcast do dig through the 25 teams in the preseason rankings.
South Brunswick wins CJG5 football titleThe South Brunswick football team defeated Manalapan 18-14 for the NJSIAA Central Group V title on Dec. 2, 2017.
College football bowl schedule for 2016-17A rundown of all 41 postseason matchups through the national championship game on Jan. 9.
How to watch Clemson national title paradeHow and where to see the Tigers celebration of their first national title in 35 years.
Clemson, obviously, tops last Amway Coaches pollAlabama finishes at No. 2, with Oklahoma, USC and Washington rounding out the top five.
Clemson beats the best and now is the best“Clemson has arrived,” senior linebacker Ben Boulware said.
Alabama players hurting following title game lossAs doors to the locker room opened, the silence was deafening, the shock palpable.
Clemson rallies, gets revenge on 'Bama to win titleThe Tigers and Crimson Tide delivered another thrilling showdown that went down to the final second.
Clemson shocks Alabama in national title gameThe Tigers defeated the defending champion Crimson Tide in a rematch of last year's game.
Title game preview: Four keys to a Clemson winHow do you beat Alabama? Not by being traditional, as was Washington in the Peach Bowl.
Title game preview: Four keys to an Alabama winHow did 'Bama beat Clemson last year? First and foremost, it was catching Tigers unaware.
Bold predictions for Alabama-Clemson title gamePlenty of story lines for this rematch, including potential defensive TDs and new stars.
Clemson vs. Alabama: Who has the edge?
Clemson vs. Alabama: Who has the edge?Breaking down Monday night's College Football Playoff championship game rematch.
Expert picks for College Football Playoff title gameThe last game of the season ... a clash between the two best teams. Opinions are mixed.
Jackson remains motivational force for AlabamaThe senior defensive back and heart of the defense is still a vocal leader.
Clemson shores up special teamsDabo Swinney called for an offseason overhaul, and players now embrace dirty work.
Is 'Bama's dominance good for college football?
Is 'Bama's dominance good for college football?How much is too much for a sport that loves dynasties, but also loves seeing them fall?
Podcast: Heading to title game without LaneDan Wolken and George Schroeder look ahead to the first title game rematch in CFP history.
Playoff: Why Clemson will win Fiesta BowlHoping to return to title game, how the Tigers will take down the Buckeyes.
Clemson looks to break into exclusive clubA national title is all that's left to accomplish for Dabo Swinney's joy-filled program.
Clemson shuts out OSU to advance to national title gameUSA TODAY Sports' Dan Uthman recaps the Fiesta Bowl and what lies ahead for Clemson and Ohio State.
Alabama breaks away to win CFP semifinalUSA TODAY Sports' Dan Wolken recaps the Peach Bowl and what lies ahead for Alabama and Washington.
Playoff: Why Ohio State will win Fiesta BowlHow the Buckeyes have an edge in their matchup against Clemson.
Playoff: Why Washington will win Peach BowlThe odds are long, but the Huskies have an edge in their matchup against Alabama.
Playoff: Why Alabama will win Peach BowlHow the Crimson Tide have an edge in their matchup against Washington.
Football Four: Breaking down the Fiesta BowlDan Wolken, Nicole Auerbach and Nancy Armour take a look at the Peach Bowl between defending-champion Alabama and Washington.
Fiesta Bowl to be won on outside, not in trenchesStrength vs. strength: Clemson’s array of receivers vs. Ohio State’s secondary.


Confession: After a day of coffee and a huge XXL Coke, and fighting my bladder for two hours, I had to run to pee during Star Trek. I wish I knew about RunPee then.
RunPee is a movie review site.
However, it won't tell you about how bad Terminator Salvation is. It won't tell you about how bad the Terminator Salvation plot is. Or about how bad is the script it. It won't tell you about its crappy editing or its awful direction or the stupid John Connor trying to pull a Batman while shouting at everyone and everything.


Two classic Mercs simply isn't enough Mercs. But it is definitely a good point to start. Featuring the most graceful and elegant Mercedes designs ever to roll out: the W111 series cars of the 60's.
The blue car is a 220SE made by IXO Altaya. IXO is a model maker specialising mostly in 1:43 scales. Altaya happens to be a sub brand utilizing the same body shell but made of slightly fewer parts and chrome window trim reproduced with silver paint.
The 280 SE made by Greenlight is also a W111 often mistaken for the later W108 models because the bumper and headlights are similar. The model is also available with a top raised version but then you cannot see the beautifully crafted interior. I've since added a few interior details mostly featuring chrome/aluminium highlights.
Pros: Both models are similarly well built though I found the Greenlight to have thinner paint allowing more detail to be visible. Both have photoetched metal hood emblems. Interiors are well detailed with excellent gauges and realistic trim.
Cons: Mirrors are extremely fragile.
Price: Roughly around 1200-1600 taka depending on online sellers. $10 (roughly 800tk) directly from retail outlets outside BD. Keep an eye on our page because sometimes these go up for sale.


Archives|PENN CREW LOOMS AS A DARK HORSE; Considered Strong Contender for Poughkeepsie Race -- Gives Rice Confidence Vote. NAVY IN TWO-MILE SPIN Glendon Satisfied With His Crew -- Washington Has Easy Day -- Columbia Works Hard.
PENN CREW LOOMS AS A DARK HORSE; Considered Strong Contender for Poughkeepsie Race -- Gives Rice Confidence Vote. NAVY IN TWO-MILE SPIN Glendon Satisfied With His Crew -- Washington Has Easy Day -- Columbia Works Hard.


Any peace process in Afghanistan with the US boots on the ground is impossible, the Taliban delegates said after a meeting in Moscow, adding that the current Afghan government is a US puppet stalling the talks.
“We will not tolerate a single US soldier in Afghanistan,” said the head of the Taliban delegation at the international meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, adding that the insurgent group’s “main goal” is to “put an end” to the 17-year-long “invasion” led by the US and its allies.
Still, Stanikzai said, the militants are ready to negotiate – but only with Washington, which they see as the real force behind the current Afghan government.
— RT (@RT_com) 9 ноября 2018 г.
The US and Taliban did actually engage in direct talks recently, Stanikzai said, hailing it as a positive sign.
#BREAKING ‘We will have NO direct contact with the government in #Kabul’ - #Taliban movement political office members in #Moscow to talk about peace in #Afghanistan.
— Maria Finoshina (@MFinoshina_RT) 9 ноября 2018 г.
Alice Wells, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, was reported to have met with several Taliban officials in Doha, Qatar in July. Despite multiple media reports, the meeting was not officially confirmed by the US government, however.
The Moscow talks have been part of a separate diplomatic push aimed at “seeking ways to build an inclusive intra-Afghan dialog,” according to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who opened the meeting on Friday. He also welcomed Taliban’s participation in the event by saying that it is an important step towards a direct dialog between the insurgents and the Afghan government.
The ‘Moscow format’ talks were a result of consultations between the diplomats from Russia, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, India and Iran and were first held in 2017. Taliban joined the talks attended by the diplomats from the six countries for the first time. The meeting was also attended by the representatives of the Afghan High Peace Council – a body affiliated with the government and tasked with finding a diplomatic solution to the Afghan crisis.
However, the High Peace Council, which did hold brief direct talks with the Taliban delegation in Moscow, did not officially represent the government, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said, but even this small rapprochement was regarded as success by all parties.
The international community wants to see a “peaceful, prosperous and independent Afghanistan free of terrorism and drugs,” Lavrov said, adding that Russia “is determined to do everything in its power” to help Afghanistan achieve this goal.
Washington still has almost 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, who are officially “advising and assisting” the forces loyal to the government in Kabul. While the Taliban outright control just four percent of Afghanistan, they are operating in 70 percent of the country.


Why what you think you know about Big Data is quickly becoming irrelevant.
As the term "Big Data" became omnipresent, we saw more and more corollary phrases pop up to support the idea. The four V's – volume, variety, velocity and veracity – gained some traction early on, and on the surface that's understandable. They do address some key components and pain points of the Big Data phenomenon. However, the time has come to take things another step forward to actually profit from what Big Data has to offer.


In its first set of annual results since it demerged from the Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk has posted revenues of £1.76bn, up 4.6 per cent on fiscal 2010, and statutory pre-tax profit of £57m, over four times higher than last year.
The strong-all round performance masked an overall decline in paying broadband customers as a result of major customer service hiccups in the wake of the Tiscali acquisition. The firm is also pushing ahead with plans to cut close to 600 jobs.
Chief executive Dido Harding said the firm had "worked hard to mitigate the impact of this disruption".
"We are confident that we are now making major progress in improving the experience for our customers, which will lead to lower churn," she said.
Nevertheless, the outlook for the next financial year is for revenues across the business to remain flat as non-broadband revenues continue to decline.
The firm's b2b unit, TalkTalk Business, saw flat fourth quarter sales of around £80m, reflecting declining voice sales and tempered by data services growth.
It said the unit saw business broadband and higher-value data solutions products performing well, while sales of carrier-grade Ethernet products "accelerated substantially".


(Rick Egan | Tribune file photo) The Brickyard Plaza, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019.
The young city of Millcreek has sought help from state lawmakers in its bid to carve Brickyard Plaza shopping center out of Salt Lake City and annex it into its own boundaries, a move that has derailed talks between the neighboring cities.
HB262, sponsored by Rep. Val Potter, R-North Logan, ratchets up the ongoing border dispute between Utah’s capital city and its neighbor to the south, which incorporated as a city in 2017. Leaders for Millcreek have pressed Salt Lake City since May to consider letting them annex the 23-acre center located at about 1100 East and 3000 South, saying the move will help with planning the community’s future.
Salt Lake City is opposed to the idea, with its elected leaders making clear in at least two recent meetings with Millcreek that any boundary adjustment would have to come with no net loss in tax revenues. Officials estimate Brickyard currently generates between $3 million and $4 million in sales taxes per year.
Now, those city-to-city discussions are on hold, according to Charlie Luke, chairman of the Salt Lake City Council, who said the new legislative proposal amounts to a threat to skew the outcome of any boundary talks in Millcreek’s favor.
“It’s impossible to have a real negotiation if one of the parties is under stress — and that’s exactly what this is,” Luke said. “Now that the bill is public, the threat is even more real than it was before."
HB262, introduced Monday, would create a new process for property owners who live in the area to petition for “transferring a substantially isolated peninsula” from one municipality to another under certain conditions — even if the city giving up the land does not consent. Current law, instead, provides for boundary adjustments initiated by citizens typically when bordering cities agree.
While not mentioning any municipality directly, the bill, which has yet to be assigned to a committee, appears to be carefully crafted to apply to the Brickyard situation by defining a “substantially isolated peninsula” as being surrounded on 95 percent of its border by another municipality, as is the case with the shopping center.
Potter said that as a former elected official in North Logan, he was familiar with municipal border issues and the problems they can create for residents.
“I really don’t like these kind of cut-out areas, with part of one city inside another city,” Potter said. The lawmaker said he did not mean for HB262 to be “a heavy weight hanging over these two cities,” but he acknowledged the bill was intended as “a last resort” should Millcreek and Salt Lake City be unable to resolve their differences in the coming months.
“I hope both cities will work out what’s best for the residents and businesses in that area,” Potter said.
Among other things, the 124-page planning document envisions pushing portions of Millcreek’s border northward to 2700 South and annexing Brickyard, Tanner Park, Parleys Historic Nature Park, a roundabout at 2300 East near 2700 South and a host of residential properties — all of which are legally within Salt Lake City’s boundaries today.
The draft plan also calls for Millcreek to annex portions of Murray and unincorporated Salt Lake County.
Getting control of Brickyard and particularly a piece of land east of 1300 East and Highland Drive between Miller and Woodland Avenues was key to ongoing planning of a new commercial center and community gateway for the city, the mayor said. Transferring the property, Silvestrini said, would promote “self-determination” for the area’s property owners and reduce “jurisdictional confusion” while also addressing imbalances on providing fire and police services and road maintenance in parts of that neighborhood.
Silvestrini said Salt Lake City had not taken Millcreek’s annexation request seriously until the prospect of changing state law surfaced.
“Frankly, they really left us in a situation that we had to do something like this to get them to engage with us,” said Silvestrini, who added Millcreek would seek to have HB262 withdrawn if Salt Lake City signaled it was ready to debate the Brickyard request in earnest.
Luke and other Salt Lake City officials counter that they have been willing to collaborate, but, as elected officials, they also have an obligation to stick up for their own voters and taxpayers. The land and residents in the Brickyard area are “an integral and indispensable part of the capital city,” Luke wrote in his letter to Millcreek.
The proposed boundary adjustments “are not equitable,” Luke wrote, noting that one of Millcreek’s “more aggressive” border requests — moving part of its northern boundary to 2700 South — even threatened to cut Salt Lake City Council Member Amy Fowler out of Salt Lake City.
Fowler, who was part of a delegation that met with Silvestrini and Millcreek City Councilwoman Bev Uipi last week to discuss the issue, said the cities appeared to have “a constructive conversation” about collaborating on planning, zoning and transportation issues for lands along their shared border.
Folwer said she and Luke asked Millcreek to take the specter of legislation “off the table so that we could continue talking as good neighbors” and urged the Millcreek City Council to remove portions from its draft general plan that call for annexing Salt Lake City land.
But that dialogue has changed, she said, now that HB262 has gone public.


When the promising young designer Wes Gordon launched his fashion line in New York in 2009, it wasn’t long before his elegant, finely crafted clothes caught the eye of buyers from Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods.
The 25-year-old Gordon, who was born in Chicago, also attracted attention here, but in an unexpected location: the greens of Evanston Golf Club. There, Terry Athas, who bought an early stake in Gordon’s company, mentioned his investment to fellow golfers, like John Ward, the owner of Bistronomic. Now Athas, the senior managing director for Mesirow Financial, estimates that two-thirds of Gordon’s investors, including Ward, have a Chicago connection.
Gordon has his father, Steve, to thank: The proud papa and Melrose Park native talked up his son’s success to Athas, an old football buddy from Holy Cross High School. Athas invested and spread the word.
Athas admits he’s no fashion maven (“It’s not my bailiwick. I walk into Syd Jerome and they tell me what to wear”), but he figured the intelligent Gordon—who graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and interned at Oscar de la Renta and Tom Ford—was a wise risk.
Athas’s instincts were right. Bergdorf Goodman recently picked up Gordon’s sophisticated Catherine Deneuve–inspired fall collection (see “Fall 2011 Fashion: Strong Silhouettes with Trim Tailoring” and “Fall 2011 Fashion: Ferocious Fur and Luscious Leather”), and it is available locally at Saks and at Neapolitan in Winnetka, where women have nabbed Gordon’s $2,550 camel cashmere double-breasted coat and $2,395 navy wool jacket with black leather sleeves before the items arrived in the store.


Trump Ratchets Up The Rhetoric Over Attack On Syrian Civilians President Trump Tweeted Wednesday that if Russia was prepared to shoot down any American missiles fired at Syria that "Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!"
President Trump Tweeted Wednesday that if Russia was prepared to shoot down any American missiles fired at Syria that "Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!"
Trump this morning is ratcheting up his language and sounding more specific about what he may do in response to a reported chemical attack in Syria. The president tweeted this morning that if Russia is prepared to shoot down any American missiles fired at Syria, quote, "get ready, Russia, because they will be coming nice and new and smart" - end quote. Russia has just responded to the president. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said, quote, "smart missiles should fly towards terrorists, not legal government." Let's bring in NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Hi, Mara.
GREENE: All right. So this is a president who has made a big deal of not showing his hand, especially when it comes to really important decisions as commander in chief. So what exactly is he doing here? Is he declaring that he's - there's an impending missile strike?
GREENE: ...And, I mean, Trump was critical of President Obama's red line in Syria, I mean, suggesting it was crazy to draw a red line if you weren't sure that you were going to act. I mean, he's almost creating his own red line in a way.
LIASSON: There's no doubt about it. As a matter of fact, almost exactly a year ago when he called for that limited missile strike against a Syrian airfield, at the time he said this shows that when I put a red line in the sand I really mean it and Obama didn't act. Well, it turns out that strike - that limited strike - didn't deter the Syrians and the Russians and the Iranians from using chemical weapons. It might have deterred them for a while, but now they've done it again. So this creates a tension. He's going to have to do something - some of military strike - that's more expansive than last year's. The question is what will it be? Will it actually do the trick? Because right now, he has also announced that he wants to get out of Syria - something he also criticized Obama for, for saying in advance when you're going to be leaving a country.
So did that encourage the Syrians and the Russians and the Iranians to think that they could use chemical weapons with impunity or did it lead them to call his bluff? You know, he says he wants to get out. And here he is possibly doing something that's going to draw him in more.
GREENE: All right. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. We appreciate it, Mara.


To mark Bill Gates' last day as a full-time employee of Microsoft, we'll have plenty of coverage all day. First up, videos from over the years.
Well, it's finally here: Bill Gates' final, official day at Microsoft as a full-time employee.
To mark this historic moment--33 years in the making--we've been combing through our video archives to find some memorable stuff.
At a 2001 event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the personal computer, Gates and Compaq founder Rod Canion reflect on the creation of the modern PC business.
At the same 2001 event, IBM engineer Dave Bradley talks about how the keystroke came to be, quipping that, though he invented it, Gates made it famous. The best part of this video is the look on Gates' face after Bradley's comment.
Nobody's perfect, not even Gates.
At CES 2008, Gates and friends debuted a comical look at what life would be like as his last day approaches. U2's Bono, actor George Clooney, and director Steven Spielberg get some laughs at Gates' expense.
Here's a look back at Gates' career, with highlights from recent speeches.
Gates talks at CES 2008 about how Microsoft can beat rivals as software moves to the phone, TV, other devices.
In the coming years, the conference table, the whiteboard...everything will be a computer, Gates says in October 2007.
At CES 2007, Gates talks about how Microsoft would trump Apple in the digital living room.
In June 2006, Microsoft's co-founder was already planning for a different future for himself.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave Gates a teary thank-you as the founder said farewell to company employees at a town hall meeting Friday in Redmond, Wash.


When the dust was cleared and the debris swept away, he stood revealed as Hillary Clinton’s most generous billionaire donor. Yet his name rarely surfaced during the presidential campaign—and that’s generally the way he likes it. Dark Money, Jane Mayer’s book about covert political funding, refers to the Koch brothers more than 300 times in its excoriation of the “radical right” but mentions progressive icon George Soros just six times; three are footnotes.
One of the planet’s richest men, his past marred with crimes and misdemeanors, the 86-year-old billionaire skates on. More than a decade ago, he moved his financial headquarters to Curaçao, a tax-free haven in the Caribbean designed for monied hypocrites who talk one game and play another. The place is not bulletproof; on occasion, Soros has been accused—and even convicted—of insider trading. A French court found him guilty of that crime and levied a fine of $2.3 million. In the parlance of the billionaires’ club, that was small change. Investigative journalists, a dwindling cadre, show little interest in him. They prefer to scrutinize safer, softer targets.
If they took even a cursory look, though, they would see that Soros’s global reach and influence far outstrip those of the Koch brothers or other liberal bogeymen—and that underlying it all is a vision both dystopian and opportunistic. “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order,” Soros has declared, “is the United States.” Ergo, that constitutional republic must be weakened and its allies degraded. The Sorosian world order—one of open borders and global governance, antithetical to the ideals and experience of the West—could then assume command.
George Soros has been an escape artist since his adolescence in Budapest, when Nazi occupiers gave him his first life lessons. Until then, the Schwartz family lived in a large house, located on an island in the Danube. György’s mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of affluent silk merchants. His father, Tivadar, was a prominent lawyer and eccentric; in good weather, he commuted to his office by rowboat.
But all was not as it appeared, even before the predations of the Third Reich. Anti-Semitism ran deep in Eastern Europe, and Hungarian Jews lived on a knife blade, no matter how large their bank accounts. The secularist Tivadar never attended synagogue, but he had a devout belief in Esperanto, the artificial language that he and other disciples believed would eventually become the world’s tongue. The Tower of Babel would be razed, and nationalism would disappear, along with dialects, local attitudes, and national boundaries. But that world lay in the future. For the present, Jewish identity would have to be papered over.
Accordingly, the family changed its name to Soros—“to soar,” in Esperanto. In 1944, the personification of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, came to German-occupied Hungary to administrate the Final Solution. But Tivadar had anticipated him. By then, he had purchased false identity documents for himself and the family. He bribed a government official to “adopt” György and testify to investigators that the boy was his Christian godson.
Now came the fulcrum of Soros’s life and career. The bureaucrat who housed teenage György was assigned the task of confiscating Jewish land and property. With the boy in tow, he went from house to house, making inventories for Nazi officers. It’s unfair sweepingly to condemn those individuals, Jewish and Gentile, who, willingly or unwillingly, sometimes participated in evil in order to survive. Still, most of those who did escape the Holocaust were tormented by pangs of remorse and survivor’s guilt.
KROFT: You watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.
SOROS: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.
SOROS: That one should think ahead. One should understand and—and anticipate events and when—when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a—a very personal experience of evil. . . .
SOROS: Not—not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t—you don’t see the connection. But it was—it created no—no problem at all.
KROFT: For example that, “I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.” None of that?
SOROS: Well, of course I c— I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was—well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets—that if I weren’t there—of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would—would—would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the—whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the—I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.
Was Soros beginning to confront the implications of these big ideas? No one knew—perhaps not even Soros himself, as he strove to find a place in postwar Britain. Alas for the new graduate, the financial world proved to be a closed society. No one seemed interested in his sheepskin or his multilingual abilities. Finally, he found work at the London-based merchant bank Singer and Friedlander because, he stated in a rare moment of self-deprecation, the managing director was a fellow Hungarian.
In 1930s Hollywood, when former Magyars like Alexander Korda, Peter Lorre, Leslie Howard, and Bela Lugosi reigned supreme, so many of their countrymen applied for positions that one film studio put up a sign: “It’s not enough to be Hungarian, you must also have talent.” So it proved in 1950s London, where the new hire could not rest on his Budapest connections. He had to demonstrate a gift for creating revenue—and he did. Within a few years, he had mastered the craft of arbitraging—making profits by trading different currencies. As befit a man with his background, he also promoted European stocks, then winning favor with U.S. institutional investors. Through Soros, they gained opportunities in the new Coal and Steel Community, soon to become the Common Market.
The recession of 1973 provided one of many examples. After years of wild, bullish ascents, the market seemed impervious to business cycles. Then it crashed. Investors waited for the predicted rebound—and were still waiting five years later. The resignation of Richard Nixon, the oil shortages, the seizing of American hostages in Iran, and the inept response of Jimmy Carter all put paid to the good times. And yet, a few speculators profited from these disasters; Soros was one of them.
The subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s offered another opportunity. Houses had been overvalued and underfinanced. The day of reckoning occurred in 2008. It led to the downfall of Lehman Brothers, the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the near-collapse of the entire global financial system. Again, Soros came smiling through. “I’m having a very good crisis,” he told a reporter.
Soros had long since become wealthy beyond avarice. Two large alimonies (he married for a third time in 2013) and the education of his heirs (like Donald Trump, he has five children), plus lavish homes in Westchester and on Long Island, scarcely made a dent in the family fortune, which continued to grow. But along the way, it occurred to Soros, as it had to many another financial giant before him, that mere getting and spending were not enough for a man of his colossal self-measurement. He put his sons and other principals in charge of his companies and hedge funds. Thereafter, like the owner of beach frontage whose landscape is obstructed by trees, he devoted himself to cutting down whatever blocked his worldview.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations was clearly devoted to the eradication of national sovereignty.
His presidential candidate lost in 2016, but this setback likely won’t slow Soros down. His political activism portfolio is well diversified. Backing organizations dedicated to social agitation and change-for-change’s-sake, Soros has caused tsunamis of upheaval, in the United States and around the world.
A few cases in point: last August, DC Leaks, a group of adroit hackers, got into the Soros files and released them. Perhaps the most notorious of the disclosures concerned Soros’s Open Society Foundations, named in honor of Sir Karl Popper. Underneath its lofty rhetoric, the organization was clearly devoted to the eradication of national sovereignty. A key Open Society paper, hacked in its entirety, described the Syrian refugee crisis as an opportunity to “shape conversations about rethinking migrations governance.” Translation: use agitprop to flood Europe and the U.S. with evacuees (among them some probable terrorists); make the old borders and institutions irrelevant; and, in the process, create a world liberated from the restraints of constitutionalism, American exceptionalism, free-market capitalism, and other obsolete isms.
Soros’s open-borders obsessions can be seen in the $2 million he gave to opponents of Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff Joe Arpaio, an outspoken critic of illegal immigration. The sheriff’s “influence on the national conversation about immigration has been poisonous,” said a Soros spokesman. Arpaio fired back, calling the billionaire a “far-left globalist” who was trying to “buy a local race.” The sheriff failed to ride in on Trump’s November wagon, though, and Soros enjoyed one of his few election-night victories. Soros also spent millions backing liberal-minded district attorneys—they all opposed jail time for nonviolent drug offenders—in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, and Texas. Some of these candidates won; most lost.
The emphasis on leniency for drug offenders is no accident. Two decades ago, Soros began an ardent campaign to decriminalize marijuana and other illegal drugs, which he promoted as an issue of fairness: Why should abusers be arrested and imprisoned when what they really needed was counseling and rehabilitation? To that end, he backed the Lindesmith Center, a “drug policy institute,” which served as Soros’s echo chamber on matters concerning proscribed substances. “I’m sure Lindesmith’s desire to take us into nihilism and chaos and to jam our hospital emergency rooms with more users has some useful purpose,” scoffed a spokesman for General Barry McCaffrey, during his tenure as Bill Clinton’s drug czar. Since then, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have all legalized marijuana, and Heads, a pro-drug magazine, enthusiastically dubbed Soros “Daddy Weedbucks.” But data are confirming what skeptics like McCaffrey had argued all along: that legalization serves as a forerunner to more drug use rather than less, more emergency-room visits rather than fewer, increased danger to the health of the young, and a consequent weakening of the social fabric.
With the threat that a Trump presidency poses to their power, Soros and his allies figure to be even more voracious for influence—and secrecy. This is no time to let up. Yet Soros must occasionally think back to the professor whose writings he cherry-picked, using what was digestible and abandoning what could not be stomached. When he does, one tocsin is likely to cause discomfort even to this most insensitive of plutocrats: Popper’s reference to the figure “whose magical powers raise him high above ordinary men.” Popper warned about this type long before George Soros perverted Sir Karl’s teachings and crowned himself a philosopher king.


As quixotic causes go, working in China to spread the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek, the Austrian-born liberal economist and philosopher of freedom, is up there.
Hayek believed that economic planning by the state leads to a loss of individual liberty, and that a private economy run by people whose rights are protected and enlarged by good laws delivers the best life.
‘‘There is some distance between Hayek and the current realities’’ in China, Gao Quanxi, a prominent Chinese Hayekian and law professor at Beihang University in Beijing, said in an interview this week.
Mr. Gao was probably choosing his words carefully. The gap is enormous, as he explained last Friday in a talk at the Unirule Institute of Economics, a think tank in Beijing.
Present were members of the Hayek Association, an informal group of dozens of Chinese scholars that is not registered — cannot register, several members said, probably because of government opposition that would make it too difficult or expensive, though they didn’t spell that out.
In his talk, titled ‘‘Reconsidering Hayek’s Theoretical Legacy,’’ Mr. Gao did not mince words: China is less free now than 10 years ago, at the end of the Jiang Zemin era. There is no ‘‘free market of ideas’’ in universities. Publishing on topics the authorities disapprove of has become more difficult. The state is on the march.
‘‘Today we’re in a new planned economy,’’ a ‘‘politically left, economically right’’ setup that does not guarantee individual protections and offers no sense of security, he said.
Capitalism, several participants said, functions in China according to the unwritten rules created by the power holders, not by good laws, as Hayek urged.
‘‘Communism has failed. Socialism has failed. What we have here is statism. And Hayek really opposed that. So how should we understand Hayek in the context of today’s China?’’ asked Mr. Gao.
In August, the association held its ninth annual meeting, in Tianjin, to consider that. Next year will mark its 10th anniversary, and members hope to meet overseas for the first time, in Taiwan or Hawaii. ‘‘We’ve met in lots of places in China and thought we’d meet overseas for a change,’’ said Mr. Gao.
The meeting did not advertise itself as a Hayek Association event, but topics included the core issues of economic and personal liberty.
As always in China, there’s more intellectual and social ferment, including in the ranks of the ruling Communist Party, than the outside world realizes.
According to one participant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of political sensitivities, a district-level party secretary in a city he declined to name recently distributed copies of Hayek’s classic, ‘‘The Road to Serfdom,’’ to his colleagues to study. The book warns that with state economic control comes tyranny; the foundations of liberty are a free economy and individualism.
What is the government’s attitude to all this?
Many economists, scholars and politicians believe that China is facing deep challenges to its economic model, that it needs to shift from a fixed investment-fueled economy, where the hand of the state is heavy, to one with more private enterprise and market forces.
For the Hayekians, it’s all pretty obvious. What China needs is more of the medicine Hayek prescribed. ‘‘China is at a point where it needs to listen to Hayek,’’ said Mr. Gao.


Facebook’s News Feed has become a place where it’s very easy for hoaxes to go viral, and the social networking giant has announced that it’s starting to tackle that problem.
Now anytime a significant number of users marks a particular link or story as being a hoax, Facebook will mark an annotation stating ‘many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information’. If you do spy a hoax without that annotation, you can report it in exactly the same way that you’d report spam or abuse.
Facebook will also be taking into account how many people delete posts containing certain links. So if a number of people have flagged it as a hoax and a number of people have deleted it, then Facebook’s algorithms will ensure any other posts with that same link will be seen by fewer people.
But Facebook did clarify that it’s not going to start deleting stories, nor is it going to be reviewing them for accuracy. It also promised that satire would not be affected by the new changes, how that’s going to work has yet to be seen.
What I’d like to know is how Facebook will be differentiating between a genuine hoax, and a lot of people flagging stories simply because they don’t agree with its content. I can certainly see stories covering a topic like climate change would fall foul of this.
We all have at least one friend or relative who loves to post obvious hoaxes on Facebook because they believe it to be true, hopefully that’s going to start happening less and less.
panic-inducing information and phony emergency evacuation orders for large, confined crowds (NFL, NCAA, MLB, etc.).


Even with firm support from the ANC Youth League and the majority of ruling party branches in Gauteng and Limpopo – as well as a measure of support from the North West and the Western Cape – Motlanthe remains guarded about the likelihood of a challenge to Zuma, and this is hindering his prospects.
One month away from the elective conference, Zuma – as the incumbent – is already showing signs that he expects to be re-elected.
Speaking at a rally in the Eastern Cape, Zuma said there would be a "change of gear" post Mangaung in the ANC's approach towards discipline.
"There will be a change of gear when we return from Mangaung, because we realise that when you merely talk to a person they take it for granted this organisation is full of idiots," he said.
While Zuma's confidence can’t be attributed solely to Motlanthe’s relative absence from the campaign trail, it is certainly helping Zuma and doing his deputy a disservice.
Motlanthe has largely been keeping within the ANC tradition of allowing ruling party branches to choose their candidate, rather than canvassing for support.
“My position is that nobody must try to canvas for themselves in the run-up to elections. It is up to the will of the branches,” Motlanthe is quoted as saying in Ebrahim Harvey's biography about him.
However, while Motlanthe has done his best to distance himself from electioneering, any signs that he is indeed in the running have been pounced upon.
At the beginning of November, Motlanthe shared the platform with three known Zuma detractors – ruling party treasurer Matthews Phosa, human settlements minister Tokyo Sexwale and ANC youth league deputy president Ronald Lamola – at a rally in the birthplace of ANC struggle icon Oliver Tambo.
It was widely interpreted as the formal beginnings of Motlanthe’s push for the presidency, after he remarked that ANC members should be able to choose the party’s leadership without fear or favour.
"There is no doubt about it that we need renewal or we're going south. It [the Mangaung conference] will represent a tipping point, depending on what happens," Motlanthe told supporters.
But this was not enough to satisfy the appetite of those in search of change at Mangaung, and a campaign by association developed.
“Kgalema is a disciplined cadre and we are very comfortable with his strategy and will even help if needed,” a ruling party source – who requested anonymity but claimed to be at the forefront of the deputy president’s campaign – told the Mail & Guardian.
In the weeks following that appearance, web and social media campaigns bearing the deputy president’s name began gaining momentum.
A website, Forces of Change, calls for a leadership shift at Mangaung, as South Africans “do not have confidence in the leadership of President Zuma”.
It even collates all evidence that is published in the mainstream media that Motlanthe's candidacy for the ANC presidency is not only popular but necessary.
Two anonymous Twitter feeds, @Team_Motlanthe and @ANCKgalema, have also emerged.
Following the same modus operandi as the website, these accounts promote all causes associated with Motlanthe's candidacy.
The @ANCKgalema feed could easily be mistaken for an official account, with posts that claim he is indeed in the running for the ANC’s top job.
“I have decide to accept the nomination of president of the ANC, a statement will be released.
Thank you cadres for putting trust in me,” reads a tweet from October 14.
While this strategy appears to be disingenuous, Motlanthe’s supporters feel it is a necessary and effective way to deliver victory to him in Mangaung.
Juxtaposed with a Zuma campaign (tacit or otherwise) that has seen supporters of the president reportedly storm branch meetings and threaten members with violence, Motlanthe’s circumspection can be seen as much more refined approach.
“In the ANC you don’t stand on a building and scream for people to come follow you. That’s childish and primitive. You’re not even supposed to secretly campaign like Zuma,” the source added.
And while people are actively canvassing in his name, Thabo Masebe, Motlanthe’s spokesperson, claims that Motlanthe is not involved in any campaign.
“The deputy president has never and will never seek election for higher office within the ANC,” Thabo Masebe, Motlanthe’s spokesperson, told the Mail & Guardian.
“That’s what all ANC members are supposed to be doing and what he will do – that won’t change.
“He [Motlanthe] fulfils positions he is requested to by the people of the movement. He won’t be pushed into campaigning for one group,” he added.
Masebe also downplayed the significance of Motlanthe being seen at public events or associated with Zuma detractors.
“The events you’ve seen him at are merely ones he attends at the behest of the ANC. The deputy president also can’t control who is there and what people he shares the stage with,” he said.
So with two weeks to go until ANC nominations are formally closed at the end of November, there is certainly no clear sign that Motlanthe is running for – or even wants - the ANC presidency.
“I don’t think it’s fair for him to comment and pre-empt anything. He will leave that type of thing for the ANC membership to decide,” Masebe said.
This is an issue for those seeking his election.
As Mangaung grows nearer, Motlanthe needs to offer some sign of having an appetite for a leadership challenge.
And popular as he may be among Zuma detractors, he will need to demonstrate that he deserves the ANC presidency – and that he is more than just a default alternative to the current status quo.
So far there have been no signs of this, and while he waits, and while others campaign on his behalf, the Zuma camp will continue to gain momentum and can rightly expect re-election for the president come mid-December.
What will seven more years of Zuma mean for SA?


A game that started slowly in the first half, then burst into life in the second stanza as Damian Neill’s men grew in confidence and began to move the ball wide at pace, winning this Conference 1 South game.
Andorra ranked 70 in the world rankings were no match for a team ranked 33 points above them.
For a team who were frequent flyers after their win in Israel last week, became frequent scorers in this exciting game, as Malta unleashed their quick runners out wide, scoring at will, especially in the second half taking the score from a half time 26 to 3 out to 89 points to three when the Czech Referee, Mathew Razga finally blew for full time.
Malta were on the scoreboard within the first minute as they ran from deep with James O’Brien(15) and Robert Holloway(10) not looking to kick but to run, putting Malta into an attacking position for Benjamin Borg(4) to go over.
The Referee warned Andorra for repeated infringements, as they tried to slow Malta’s game down with finally a yellow card being flashed to Fite(10) for a knock down of a Maltese pass as they headed for the line. Daniel Apsee(8) soon scored from a scrum close to the line, O’Brien converting this one.
Andorra were trying to get into the game with their big runners hitting it up Risco(3) and Macedo(4) but the men in red’s defence drove them backwards with Harvey(3) Holliday(2) and Deguara(6) tackling with venom.
The game remained on 12 nil for about 20 minutes as Andorra finally put some phases together, but there was no way through the Malta defence. Rory O’Brien(13) went off with a blood injury and Daniel Apsee was yellow carded for a tip tackle going to the bin for his sin. But while he was off Daniel Holliday scored after Dominic Busutil(12) had crashed it up, then picked up by Rhodri Apsee(1) who offloaded to Holliday.
Just prior to half time Clayton Cassar(5) scored from a pick and go, close to the line and with O’Brien kicking both conversions the half time score was 26 to 3, with just a penalty to Andorra for their effort with Carrington(15) kicking the penalty after the Apsee yellow card.
A few changes at half time with Julian Galea(9) who had his first start going off for Tom Holloway and Cerketa(18) coming on for Borg(4).
In the second half, Malta then unleashed their running game with Rob Holloway(10), James O’Brien(15) and Kirk(14) beginning to show their skills, O’Brien scored twice, then James Kirk another two, but it was debutant Brendan Dalton(23) who fed of their line breaks, running in three tries out on the left wing using his pace and swerve, with O’Brien’s two conversions taking the score out to 55 to 3 at the 20 minute mark.
One of Dalton’s tries was off a Clayton Cassar break that then found Harvey running into space and drawing the last defender, setting up Dalton’s run in to score.
Andorra poured on the reserves to try and stem the tide, but Malta were rampant and running at will with the Holloway brothers dictating the speed and direction of play.
Holloway and O’Brien were also sending down some territory biting kicks, keeping Andorra pinned in their own 22, coupled with the line speed of the Malta backline not giving them anywhere to run.
Watts(7) the go to man in the lineout was winning fast clean ball for his speedy backs, Mathew Spiteri(16) who was putting in some crash tackles, scored off a ruck from a pop pass from scrumhalf Holloway rolling over to dot it down.
Rob Holloway scored a great individual try stepping his way through the Andorra backline and through the forward pack to score under the posts.
Every Maltese substitute got time on the pitch and all acquitted themselves well, not allowing the momentum of the game to slow down. The four tries in the last 10 minutes to Luke Watts(7) and the aforementioned Spiteri and Holloway, with another to Kirk, blew the final score out to 89 to 3 for this spectacle of running Rugby.
Malta National Team: Rhodri Apsee, Daniel Holliday, Anthony Harvey, Benjamin Borg, Clayton Cassar, Darren Deguara, Luke Watts, Daniel Apsee, Julian Galea, Rob Holloway, Chris Dudman, Dominic Busutil, Rory O’Brien, James Kirk, James O’Brien, Mathew Spiteri, Harry Collins, Dragan Cerketa, Gary Hili, Andrew Vella, Luke Mathews, Tom Holloway, Brendan Dalton.
Coach Damian Neill, Manager Carmelo Longo.


Two former world champions meet in the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup when Italy and France do battle in what may be a classic match of stern defenses and cunning tactics at the Olympiastadion in Berlin on Sunday.
Fairytale ending? Zidane ahead of his last international match.
Italy, World Champions in 1934, 1938 and 1982, have conceded just one goal in their six matches at the 2006 tournament so far and will go into the match buoyed by a hard fought extra time win over host nation Germany in the semi final, and a 3-0 drubbing of Ukraine in the quarter final.
France, the 1998 World Champions and notably European Champions in 2000 when they defeated Italy by golden goal in the final, also have a stingy defense which has allowed just two goals in their six matches including clean-sheets against Brazil and Portugal.
The Italians will be looking for revenge for their Euro 2000 final defeat where they were just seconds away from a 1-0 victory, only for France's Sylvain Wiltord to equalize in the 90th minute and then David Trezeguet to score the winning golden goal in extra time.
Forwards Wiltord and Trezeguet are again part of the French squad in 2006 but will most likely start on the bench, with all eyes on captain and retiring midfielder Zinedine Zidane.
Over the past month in Germany, 34 year old Zidane has rediscovered his touch, guile, and skill of years gone by in a dazzling renaissance of footballing brilliance.
The 2006 World Cup final will be the influential midfielder's last match for France before he retires from international duty.
Raymond Domenech, France coach, has found what looks to be a winning combination with experienced central defenders Lilian Thuram and William Gallas both in excellent form, while fullbacks Willy Sagnol and Eric Abidal have both made inroads forward, providing good crosses while also completing their defensive duties with aplomb.
The five men in the Les Bleus midfield have established a productive balance with the stoic Claude Makalele shielding the back four, workhorse Patrick Vieira in support running box-to-box, with the exuberant Frank Ribery, attack-minded Florent Malouda and the maestro Zidane given free reign to press forward.
Up front, the spearhead of the attack is dangerous striker Thierry Henry – a player who has been much maligned for his lack of performance on the international stage, but whose domestic prowess for club side Arsenal now seems to be coming to the fore when he pulls on the French shirt.
Coach Domenech’s most controversial selection has been that of goal keeper Fabian Barthez ahead of Gregory Coupet to wear the gloves, with Barthez occasionally causing heart flutters for the French coach with a few fumbles in the past few matches.
France were always a strong side on paper going into the tournament but it took them until the end of the group stage to prove it on the pitch, with their captain now confident of winning a second World Cup in three attempts.
"It's going to be very difficult and we are going to have to be at the top of our game, but we have the weapons to do it," said Zidane.
29 year old Bayern Munich player Sagnol suggested that France only needed one weapon to defeat Italy and win the tournament.
"We have Zidane and they don't," said the French defender bluntly.
Under coach Marcello Lippi, Italy have shown that they are more than the defensive outfit that they are painted as by so many, as although they have conceded just one goal, they have also played with plenty of enterprise when going forward.
The rock of the team has undoubtedly been captain and centre-half Fabio Cannavaro who has marshalled his defence and made some excellent plays himself in stifling opposing attacks.
"We have Zidane and they don't"
The Juventus player has had several different partners in the centre of defense throughout the tournament, but is likely to start alongside Inter Milan defender Marco Materazzi due to the ongoing injury of first choice centre-half Alessandro Nesta.
The solid Cannavaro and Materazzi will be flanked by fullbacks Gianluca Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso, both of whom have scored fantastic goals and played big roles in the Italians’ campaign so far, while Gianluigi Buffon, arguably the best goal keeper in the world, stands between the posts.
The midfield battle will be one of intrigue as the five-man French component are taken on by five of the best from Italy with AC Milan hard-man Gennaro Gattuso playing the anchor role in front of his defense.
The creator from deep will be playmaker and dead ball specialist Andrea Pirlo, while around him will be the attacking influence of Juventus’ Mauro Camoranesi, Simone Perrotta from AS Roma, and Azzurri talisman Francesco Totti.
If there has been one question mark over the Italian line-up it has been in the lone-striker role with Serie A top scorer Luca Toni only finding his scoring touch against a largely toothless Ukraine defense midway through the second half of their quarter final match.
Coach Lippi has persisted with the out of touch Toni, while also experimenting with AC Milan forward Alberto Gilardino, Vincenzo Iaquinta from Udinese, and 31 year old Alessandro Del Piero in order to find goals up front.
If the French think they have the weapon to destroy Italy, then the Italian manager may well have the counter-measures as Lippi coached Zidane at Juventus while the midfielder was in his prime.
"France have recovered the best Zidane and have grown through the tournament," Lippi said of his former apprentice and now Cup final opponent.
"Zidane is probably the best player there has been in the past 20 years."
A World Cup victory for Italy would do wonders for the football-mad country as they wallow in the Serie A match fixing scandal which could see big clubs Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio relegated to the lower divisions, with their multi-million dollar players sure to move to other clubs should this happen.
However the Italian players in Germany have shown remarkable resolve by leaving their domestic troubles at home and focusing on the tournament for their country.
"We have shown that we have got some great footballers and that we are not criminals," veteran striker Del Piero said.
"Everything that has happened off the pitch has brought us closer together."
If form is anything to go by then goals may not flow freely in this World Cup final, however it should be far from a boring match as two of world football’s powerhouses who have hit form at the right time come together for an enticing final match in Berlin.
Whether it takes 90 minutes, two hours, or a penalty shoot-out to reveal the 2006 World Champion, this match is sure to be a historic occasion and a great spectacle.


According to website Bleacher Report, Schalke defender Sead Kolasinac has already completed a medical ahead of a summer move to Arsenal.
The Bosnia international is out of contract at the end of season and is expected to be heading to Arsenal on June 30, with the deal reportedly '95 per cent done'.
The Gunners are said to view the 23-year-old as their first-choice left-back next season, replacing the 31-year-old Nacho Monreal.
Arsene Wenger has suggested he could make a move for Monaco's teenage sensation Kylian Mbappe this summer.
The 18-year-old France international has been in red hot form for the Ligue 1 leaders this season with 23 goals across all competitions.
"Obviously it would be hypocritical and a lie to say that we are not looking at him," Wenger told French broadcaster SFR Sport.
"But he's already in the bracket of clubs who are, perhaps, much better financed than us."
According to Italian outlet Il Mattino, Napoli are planning talks with Arsenal over a potential deal for goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.
The Poland international has spent the last two seasons on loan at Napoli's Serie A rivals Roma, where he's made 76 appearances.
Roma are also said to be keen on securing a permanent deal for Szczesny, whose contract at Arsenal expires at the end of next campaign.


Federal prosecutors said in a new court filing that Maria Butina, the Russian national indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday for her role in a covert political influence operation, is a serious flight risk and should be held in jail until her trial.
The big picture: New details in the case against the 29-year-old Butina reveal a tangled web of deception and meticulous coordination with Russian officials — including the FSB intelligence agency and Russian oligarchs — that dates back to at least 2013.
The backdrop: Documents released Monday charge that Butina, a 29-year-old graduate of American University and purported gun rights advocate, worked under the direction of a high-ranking Russian official to "arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence on American politics."
Butina was accused of conspiring to set up a "backchannel" of communication between the Kremlin and the Republican Party using the NRA as a conduit.
The indictment didn't name a specific Russian official, but Butina has a well-documented connection to Alexander Torshin, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin described as a "godfather" in organized crime and a lifelong member of the NRA. Torshin is under investigation by the FBI.
Butina and Torshin were involved in at least two efforts to broker meetings between President Trump and Putin, both of which were unsuccessful, according to The New York Times. The pair did, however, meet with Donald Trump Jr. at an NRA-sponsored dinner in 2016.
What's new: The motion filed today claims Butina is a flight risk because of "the nature of the charges, her history of deceptive conduct, the potential sentence she faces, the strong evidence of guilt, her extensive foreign connections, and her lack of any meaningful ties to the United States."
The FBI allegedly uncovered numerous communications between Butina and the FSB, including a hand-written note that read, "How to respond to FSB offer of employment?"
Other evidence of Butina's covert efforts includes her communications with a Russian official who likened her to Anna Chapman, a Russian spy arrested in the U.S. in 2010. Butina was also in constant contact with Russian oligarchs regarding funding for her influence operation.
Butina reportedly gained access to a network of U.S. political influencers by cultivating a personal relationship with a 56-year-old American who matches the description of Paul Erickson, a GOP political operative who was also involved in the effort to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.
The bottom line: Butina's charges are not part of the Mueller investigation and do not name Trump, but her alleged covert activities over the past five years illuminate yet another component of Russia's massive influence operation in the U.S.