YouTube sued over copyright infringement

YouTube sued over copyright infringement
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: July 18, 2006, 5:40 PM PT




A journalist and well-known helicopter pilot in Los Angeles has filed suit against video-sharing site YouTube, claiming that it encouraged users to violate copyright law.

Robert Tur says video he shot of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots was posted at YouTube without his permission and viewed more than 1,000 times. Tur says in his lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, that YouTube is profiting from his work while hurting his ability to license his video.

"Mr. Tur's lawsuit is without merit," YouTube said in a statement. "YouTube is a service provider that complies with all the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and therefore is entitled to the full protections of the safe harbor provisions of the Act."

Passed in 1998 to protect copyright holders from technology that facilitated piracy, the DMCA also offered protection to Web service providers by limiting their liability in cases where their customers were found guilty of copyright violation.

Those in the video-sharing sector have for months expected someone to challenge YouTube in court. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company lets users post videos to its site without prescreening them, and a staggering amount of copyright video exists on the site. YouTube prohibits the uploading of such material but has also benefited in the past when someone has posted a professionally made clip that catches fire with the public.

Earlier this year, a skit from "Saturday Night Live," called "Lazy Sunday" drew large audiences to YouTube's site and generated lots of media attention before the company pulled the clip at the request of NBC.

Since learning of Tur's suit, YouTube has removed his clip, the company said in its statement. Tur didn't ask that the company remove the clip prior to filing his suit, YouTube said.

Tur is asking the court for $150,000 per violation and an injunction barring any further use of his material.







Copyright ©2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Judge Overturns Wal-Mart Health Care Law

Jul 19, 6:20 PM EDT
Judge Overturns Wal-Mart Health Care Law
By BRIAN WITTE
Associated Press Writer






BALTIMORE (AP) -- A first-of-its-kind state law that would have required Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care in Maryland is invalid under federal law, a judge ruled Wednesday.

The state law would have required non-governmental employers with 10,000 or more workers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or pay the difference in taxes. The measure was aimed at Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has been under attack by critics who say that its inadequate health care offering is forcing some employees to use state-funded plans.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz decided that the Maryland Fair Share Health Care Fund Act would have hurt Wal-Mart by requiring it to track and allocate benefits for its Maryland employees in a different way from how it keeps track of employee benefits in other states. Motz wrote that the law "imposes legally cognizable injury upon Wal-Mart."

Motz cited the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which he said pre-empts "any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan."




"My finding that the act is pre-empted is in accordance with long established Supreme Court law that state laws which impose health or welfare mandates on employers are invalid under ERISA," Motz wrote in his 32-page opinion.

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said the ruling meant businesses would not have to contend with different standards in different states for health coverage.

"The thing that we find encouraging is that there is going to be consistency, that the federal government is going to be the control point on health insurance and these kinds of issues, so that commerce itself, businesses, will be able to have one set of standards that they work against," Scott said during an appearance on the Rev. Al Sharpton's syndicated radio show.

Kevin Enright, a spokesman for the Maryland attorney general's office, said the state would appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

Enright said the state disagreed with Motz on several counts, particularly in finding that the law is pre-empted by ERISA.

"Supreme Court precedent makes it clear that this law does not impermissibly impact health benefit plans," Enright said. "Employers may choose to pay the tax or avoid paying the tax in several ways."

In Maryland, where state budget writers were looking for ways to rein in a $4.6 billion annual Medicaid tab, the Wal-Mart law was seen as a way to encourage companies to keep employees off public rolls. It became law last winter when the Democratic legislature overrode a 2005 veto by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, of which Wal-Mart is a member, filed the lawsuit in February to contest the legislation. The Arlington, Va.-based group contended the law unfairly targeted the world's largest retailer.

RILA President Sandy Kennedy said the ruling sent a message that employer health plans are governed by federal law and "not a patchwork of state and local laws."

"It also is a clear message that similar bills under consideration in other states and municipalities violate federal law as well," Kennedy said.

Other states have considered bills similar to Maryland's law, although no other state has adopted one.

Nu Wexler, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Watch, one of Wal-Mart's most vocal union-funded critics, said the ruling doesn't change the fact that Wal-Mart's health care plan is "unaffordable and inaccessible for its employees."

"Until large employers and the federal government take action, other states will continue to seek individual solutions to the health care crises plaguing their states," Wexler said.

Wal-Mart has 53 stores and two distribution centers in Maryland and employs nearly 16,000 people in the state.

State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said the law was necessary.

"What's happening in Maryland is that all citizens of the state are subsidizing Wal-Mart because we are paying for their employees when they show up at emergency rooms at hospitals," he said.

Motz pointed out that lawyers for the state had argued that the Maryland law amounted to a "payroll tax" and therefore was outside federal jurisdiction. However, the judge said the purpose of the law clearly was not to raise revenue for the state.

"To the contrary, its purpose was to force Wal-Mart to increase the level of its health care benefits," Motz wrote.

Without the court's intervention, the law would have taken effect in January.

Lawyers for the state argued that Wal-Mart was free to pay a penalty - estimated at $6 million a year - instead of providing better benefits. State lawyers also argued that as another alternative, the retailer could have set up clinics for its employees. Motz rejected both arguments, saying no company would make those choices rather than increase health care for its workers.

Motz owned Wal-Mart stock when the case, with RILA as the sole plaintiff, was randomly assigned to him. He said Wednesday in an interview that he sold the shares as soon as he realized Wal-Mart was involved.

"As soon as someone brought it to my attention, I immediately sold the stock," Motz said.

---

On the Net:

RILA: http://www.retail-leaders.org

Wal-Mart: http://www.walmart.com

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.





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Big companies cash in on fed contracts

Jul 26, 12:11 PM EDT
Big companies cash in on fed contracts
By FRANK BASS
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/MATT HOUSTON





WASHINGTON (AP) -- Art Munn saw his business nearly fall victim to what congressional investigators say is a growing problem: Small firms on the verge of winning federal contracts lose out to well-connected corporate giants that also claim to be small companies.

Munn, a Maryland-based contractor, competed for a Marine Corps contract last year to build radar dome covers in Bahrain. A large company, however, threatened to beat his small firm out for the award. Munn protested, and after several months, the other company was ruled ineligible for the contract.

"It gets ugly," he said. "This time, everything worked like it was supposed to work, and I got the contract. But it gets frustrating. I waste a lot of time and money."

It doesn't happen that way every time, Munn said. And a report released Wednesday by Democratic congressional investigators shows it's a growing trend. At least $12 billion in contracts the government claimed it gave to small companies last year wound up instead in the coffers of large companies like Microsoft and Rolls Royce, investigators said.

When small business contracts with large companies are excluded, the government missed for a sixth straight year a requirement that 23 percent of its $314 billion in annual contracts go to small businesses, the report said.

There were two basic problems, the investigators said: Federal agencies miscoded thousands of contracts to big companies as small business awards. And many other companies that started small grew large or were purchased by corporate giants but continued to get small business contracts.

"It's just unbelievable," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York, the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee. "We have just got to start holding agencies accountable."

Velazquez is asking the Government Accountability Office and internal watchdogs for the State, Treasury, Defense and Transportation departments to investigate their contracting procedures and see if criminal activity is involved.

Under federal law, representatives of large companies that falsely claim to be small firms can be punished with 10 years in prison, $500,000 in fines, and a permanent ban from doing government business.

Generally, the government defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees, though that limit can vary among industries. In general, retail firms can only have maximum average annual receipts of $6.5 million.

The Small Business Administration last month issued a report saying the government gave 25.4 percent of its contract dollars in 2005 to small firms. SBA said it relied on contracting figures provided by each federal agency. The Democrats' report said the accurate figure was 21.6 percent.

When asked about corporate giants appearing in the tally, SBA spokesman Raul Cisneros said, "That's the official information that agencies give us."

The House Democrats' report, however, said the administration's tally of small business contracts in 2005 included some of the world's largest companies:

-Computer giant Microsoft Corp. won eight small business contracts worth $1.5 million. Five contracts, worth $475,000, came from the Pentagon. The others came from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons.

-Rolls-Royce PLC received $2.2 million in 63 separate contract actions. The bulk came from the Navy, which spent $2 million on 53 Rolls contracts.

-Wal-Mart Stores Inc., whose more than 1.5 million workers make it the nation's largest private employer, received three small business contracts totaling $14,232 from the Army.

-Exxon Mobil Corp., with $370 billion in annual revenues in 2005, won a $63,855 contract from the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency and a $50,000 award from the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service. A spokesman said the company was investigating the issue but added that the Irving, Texas-based corporation has thousands of annual transactions with the government.

-Google Inc., the Internet search giant, won separate contracts from the U.S. Coast Guard ($41,800), the Peace Corps ($15,000) and the Federal Highway Administration ($2,995).

Tom Greer, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, said it's a common problem. The Bethesda-based aeronautics giant has 135,000 employees and reported $37 billion in sales last year. The House panel, however, found that government agencies classified $8 million in Lockheed contracts as small business awards. Greer said the company has often had to ask federal agencies to correct records showing Lockheed as a small business.

"We don't compete with small businesses for federal contracts," he said.

John Simley, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, said it's likely the entry was the result of a clerical error by the government.

"We've been called a lot of things," he said, "but 'a small business' is not one of them."

Velazquez said she plans to write roughly 2,500 big companies, asking them to remove their names from a government list of approved small business firms, and also will seek legislation to punish agencies that cheat.

House Republicans said much of the controversy can be attributed to small businesses that have prospered under the Bush administration, either adding enough employees to become a large company or being acquired by large businesses.

"Should the firm be penalized for success?" asked Rich Carter, a GOP spokesman for the House Small Business Committee. "Should the agency not be given credit for taking a risk by placing their initial confidence in this small business to perform this type of work? Maybe (Democrats) believe this company should have never received the contract in the first place to satisfy some accounting standard."

---

On the Net:

Small Business Administration: http://www.sba.gov

American Small Business League: http://www.asbl.com

House Small Business Committee: http://wwwc.house.gov/smbiz/

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

I-95 South Reopens After Tomahawk Missile Accident

Posted: Friday, 21 July 2006 8:14AM
I-95 South Reopens After Tomahawk Missile Accident

NEW YORK (WCBS-AM) -- A Tomahawk Cruise Missile being transported south on I-95 this morning ended up in the middle of the highway near the Bronx.

The missile was being shipped from Rhode Island to a Virginia naval installation when the truck broke down. The truck carrying the missile was then rear ended by another tractor trailer, sending the missile out onto the highway in its protective case.

Check out Tom Kaminski's photos of the scene from Chopper 880.

The New York City Police Department has confirmed that one of the vehicles was carrying "inert ordnance." WCBS reporter Sean Adams has gotten confirmation from the New York City Fire Department that the cargo of the flat-bed was a Tomahawk missile. It is important to emphasize that the missile was not armed.
Cars are now rolling again.

The NYPD bomb squad was called to the scene of the accident to remove the ordnance.Stay tuned to WCBS Newsradio 880 for the latest.
© MMVI WCBS 880, All Rights Reserved.



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Feds stonewalling on 'super-state' plan?

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Feds stonewalling on 'super-state' plan?
Agency fails to respond to FOIA request on 'North American union'
Posted: July 19, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern





© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The U.S. Department of Commerce appears to be stonewalling a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain complete disclosure of a congressionally unauthorized plan to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that apparently could lead to a North American union.

The plan is being implemented through an office within the Department of Commerce as the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," under the direction of Geri Word, who is listed as working in the department's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, office.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the White House has established executive branch working groups documented on the Commerce website SPP.gov. The Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, was issued as a joint press statement by President Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.

Commerce has missed a statutory requirement to respond to the FOIA request, filed by author Jerome R. Corsi, within 20 businesses days.

In an e-mail from Bobbie Parsons on behalf of Robert Dolan, the department acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request on June 19. WorldNetDaily first reported Corsi’s FOIA request June 20.

Robert McGuire, attorney for Corsi, emailed Commerce Monday, notifying the agency of the statutory violation in their failure to respond.

Yesterday, McGuire received an e-mail response from Brenda Dolan, the departmental Freedom of Information and Privacy Act officer.



Dolan wrote:


The International Trade Administration, which is a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was assigned lead action on your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request number CRRIF 06-376, for information concerning the Prosperity Working Groups. I have contacted Linda Bell, FOIA officer, ITA regarding the status of your pending FOIA request. I will provide the status of your pending request as soon as I receive word from Ms. Bell.
McGuire told WND that this response was unacceptable.

"The Department of Commerce skipped a deadline required by law," he explained. "The act's 20-day requirement relates to the department as a whole, not its sub-units."

McGuire also told WND he had copied Bell on his original e-mail copy of the FOIA request.

"I used Linda Bell's e-mail address as listed on the DOC website and her email bounced back," he said. "DOC has especially poor grounds for the delay, especially since DOC sent the request to Ms. Bell internally as well."

Corsi believes the department is stonewalling the FOIA request.

"The Bush administration does not want the American public to know how far along the creation of a new regional government, the North American union, is proceeding behind closed doors," Corsi said. "President Bush is acting as if he believes the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a meaningless piece of paper. The American public have a right to know what the executive branch is doing with SPP and the FOIA request was designed to get that information released."

Attorney McGuire was equally firm.

"We thought we might encounter some recalcitrance," he explained to WND, "but I am frankly shocked that we had received no response at all. The department acknowledged its receipt of our request on June 19. The requirements of the Freedom of Information Act are quite clear: The government is allowed to respond to a FOIA request in many ways, but the complete failure to respond within 20 business days is simply not an option."





Copyright 1997-2006
All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc.

Amnesty: Web Companies Violating Rights

Amnesty: Web Companies Violating Rights
Jul 20 10:32 AM US/Eastern
By JOE McDONALD
AP Business Writer
BEIJING




Amnesty International accused Yahoo, Microsoft and Google on Thursday of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China's efforts to censor the Web and called on them to lobby for the release of jailed cyber-dissidents.

The London-based human rights group also called on the Internet companies to publicly oppose Chinese government requests that violate human rights standards.



"The Internet should promote free speech, not restrict it. We have to guard against the creation of two Internets _ one for expression and one for repression," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty's U.S. branch, in a statement.

The companies "have violated their stated corporate values and policies" in their pursuit of China's booming Internet market, the statement said. It appealed to them to "call for the release of `cyber-dissidents.'"

Google Inc. and the Chinese partner that runs Yahoo Inc.'s China operation, Alibaba.com, defended their activities and said their presence benefits China's public.

Google said in a written statement that its search engine discloses when results have been removed "in response to local laws and regulations" and that the company avoids offering services when it can't guarantee users' privacy.

Alibaba.com didn't respond directly to Amnesty's criticism but said its focus is on Internet commerce, not news and information.

"By creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and connecting China's exporters to buyers around the world, Alibaba.com and Yahoo China are having an overwhelmingly positive impact on the lives of average people in China," said Porter Erisman, an Alibaba.com spokesman, in a written statement.

A spokesman for Microsoft Corp. didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with 123 million people online. Though the communist government promotes Internet use, it has also set up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese from accessing material considered obscene or politically subversive.

The Amnesty statement appealed to Internet companies to reveal details of their dealings with Chinese authorities and to exhaust all judicial appeals before complying with government requests that might affect human rights, such as the release of e-mail account information.

A growing number of Chinese journalists and others have been jailed for posting politically oriented comments online and other Internet- related activities.

Yahoo has been the most severely criticized after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's China operation provided information on e-mail users that was used to sentence two dissidents to prison.

Google has been criticized for censoring search results on its China site. Microsoft has banned terms such as "human rights" from its Chinese Web log service and shut down the U.S.-based log of a Chinese blogger at Beijing's request.







Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Undocumented immigrants being set free

Sheriff, federal agency at odds on caught immigrants
Undocumented immigrants being set free
Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 20, 2006 12:00 AM





Maricopa County Jail inmates convicted or cleared of human-smuggling charges and presumed to be undocumented were allowed to walk out of jail without being removed from the country because of a spat over jurisdiction between the Sheriff's Office and federal immigration agents.

Since the first arrests made under Arizona's human-smuggling law in March, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has filed 268 cases, 31 against suspected coyotes and the rest against suspected conspirators assumed to be undocumented immigrants.

So far, 63 have pleaded guilty to lesser offenses, 15 have been dismissed, two acquitted and one convicted by a jury. advertisement




But 17 have walked right out of the jail and into the community - including six who pleaded guilty to human-smuggling felonies - because the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency decided it wouldn't transport out of the country people prosecuted under the controversial coyote law.

Instead, they slipped unnoticed through the red tape of a giant jail system and onto the streets.

Since July 11, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has transported 14 more of the coyote-law defendants in four trips to the Yuma area to rendezvous with U.S. Border Patrol agents willing to take the prisoners and put them through the federal process for removal.

"Why would they refuse to pick up the felons?" Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked.

Because, according to an ICE spokesman, only federal agents with ICE, the Border Patrol and other U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials are legally empowered to determine who is a citizen and who is in the country legally, which they do through specific interviews and checks.

"An officer must base the determination of status upon either an interview of the subject or through fingerprint comparison with existing records," ICE Special Agent in Charge Roberto Medina said in a July 6 letter to Arpaio. "Furthermore, only federal officers . . . can place detainers pursuant to the (Immigration and Nationality Act)."

State and county law enforcement can't make such determinations about "alienage."

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas was distressed.

"ICE's refusal to pick up and deport acknowledged illegal immigrants arrested by local law enforcement shows that the federal policy of 'catch and release' is still the order of the day," he said. "The federal government's continued unwillingness to perform its basic duty of securing our border makes Arizona's human-smuggling law all the more important."

According to the Sheriff's Office, there are an average of 900 to 1,000 prisoners in the jail at any one time with immigration detainers, or holds, indicating that ICE is to be contacted before they can be released.

ICE picks up prisoners every weekday. According to ICE spokesman Russell Ahr, for example, the agency picked up 165 immigration detainees between June 11 and July 12. According to the Sheriff's Office, the agency picked up 23 on Monday alone. But they refused to take the person in the group who had been prosecuted under the coyote law.

Ahr claimed ICE decisions are based on priorities: prior criminal history, immigration status, nationality and the nature of the crime they're accused of.

"The purpose of a detainer is not to have an illegal alien removed; the purpose is to have a criminal alien removed," he said.

When suspects are booked into Maricopa County jails, they are questioned on their immigration status. And if the interviewing officers doubt the suspect's immigration status, they send a teletyped message to ICE, which responds with its decision of whether to place a detainer on that suspect after running the information through its databanks.

Arpaio claimed that 35 of the suspects charged with human-smuggling violations had immigration holds that were later removed.

The reasoning for dropping the holds, according to Medina's letter, was that even though the suspects were being held on suspicion of human smuggling, which presupposes they are here illegally, ICE officials determined their interviews had not been conducted by qualified ICE personnel.

"In which case it should be incumbent on them to do an interview," said MCSO Chief Michael Olson, who is in charge of the jails.

Instead, as the charges were dropped, or as the convicts were sentenced to probation, they were released by deputies because there were no holds against them.

The lapse was discovered June 11 when a judge acquitted two men of conspiracy to commit smuggling and MCSO personnel called to have them transported from the jail.

When ICE refused, Arpaio announced he would have his own deputies do the transport.

"Now we have to waste our manpower," Arpaio said. "I don't have to do this. I can just let them go on the street. Who cares? Because they're convicted felons. They deserve to go back to Mexico because a judge said they're going back to Mexico. He didn't say how."







Copyright © 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.

No Shame, No Sense and a $296 Billion Bill

No Shame, No Sense and a $296 Billion Bill
By Robert J. Samuelson
Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page A23





For those who believe our leading politicians are utterly shameless, there was dreary confirmation last week. President Bush publicly bragged about the federal budget. Here's the objective situation that inspired the president's self-congratulation: With the unemployment rate at 4.6 percent (close to "full employment" by anyone's definition), the White House and Congress still can't balance the budget. For fiscal 2006, which ends in September, the administration projects a $296 billion deficit; for fiscal 2007, the estimate is $339 billion. How could anyone boast about that?

Easy. In February the administration projected a $423 billion deficit for 2006, so the latest figure is a huge drop. A skeptic might say that the first estimate was inept; some cynics argue that it was deliberately exaggerated to magnify any subsequent improvement. Naturally the president had a different story. The shrinking deficits, he said, proved that his tax cuts are working. The economy is great; the budget benefits. All around Washington, Republicans staged media events to hug themselves for their good work.

The tendency for politicians to claim credit for favorable news is as natural as flatulence in cows. Still, the Republicans' orgy of self-approval amounts to a campaign of public disinformation. It obscures our true budget predicament. Let's go back to basics. Here are two essential points.

First, budget deficits are not automatically an economic calamity. Their effects depend on their timing, their size and other economic conditions. During recessions, deficits may prop up the economy. In a boom, they may drain money from productive investments. Similarly, deficits are only one influence on interest rates; others include inflation, the demand to borrow, the supply of savings and Federal Reserve policy. At present the effect of deficits is modest; otherwise, rates would be higher than they are (about 5 percent on 10-year Treasury bonds).

What truly matters is government spending. If it rises, then future taxes or deficits must follow. There's no escaping that logic. The spending that dominates the budget is for retirees. Social Security, Medicare (health insurance for those 65 and over) and Medicaid (partial insurance for nursing homes) already exceed 40 percent of federal spending. As baby boomers retire, these costs will explode. Unless they're curbed, they'll require tax increases of 30 percent to 50 percent over the next 25 years.

Second, the budget should be balanced -- or run a surplus -- when the economy is close to "full employment," as it is now. Balancing the budget forces politicians to make uncomfortable choices. Which programs are sufficiently needed or popular to justify unpleasant taxes? Balancing the budget also lightens the debt burden. One figure Bush doesn't praise is the annual interest payment on the growing federal debt. Even by White House estimates, it will rise from $184 billion in 2005 to $302 billion in 2011.

Some conservatives rationalize their indifference to deficits as "starving the beast." If you cut taxes and create deficits, government will spend less because it has less -- much like a teenager whose allowance is cut. But the theory doesn't fit the facts. Economist William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who worked in the Reagan administration, examined the relationship between deficits and federal spending from 1981 to 2005. He found that, contrary to the theory, spending rises when deficits rise. Deficits are what they seem: a way for politicians to escape inconvenient choices.

I have reserved my harshest scorn for Republicans, who are (after all) in power. But Democrats aren't much better. The nub of the matter is spending. When Republicans passed the Medicare drug benefit -- the biggest new program in decades -- Democrats actually advocated a more costly version. Whenever anyone suggests curbing spending, Democrats screech: Spare Social Security and Medicare. But Social Security and Medicare are the problem.

Just as Republicans now say their policies have cut deficits, Democrats contend their policies produced budget surpluses from 1998 to 2001. Nonsense. Those surpluses resulted mainly from the end of the Cold War (which lowered defense spending) and the economic boom (which created an unpredicted surge of taxes). In a $13 trillion economy, much of what happens has little to do with the White House's economic policies. The bipartisan reflex is to claim credit where little is due.

Sooner or later an aging society will force taxes up and benefits down. But later, not sooner. The oldest baby boomers don't turn 65 until 2011. Meanwhile, it is precisely because the deficits don't threaten immediate economic turmoil that they are politically appealing. Nothing significant will happen because it's in no one's interest for anything significant to happen. Republicans don't want to raise taxes or restrain their spendthrift habits. Democrats love big deficits as rhetorical grenades to lob at the Republicans. The present paralysis is perfectly understandable. But to brag about it is disgraceful.






© Copyright 1996-2006 The Washington Post Company

Eight Year Old Girl Raped in Broad Daylight

Eight Year Old Girl Raped in Broad Daylight




ST. PETERSBURG, FL (AP) -- An 8-year-old girl was raped on the side of a residential street in full daylight less than half a block from her apartment, police said.

Someone who witnessed the crime Wednesday afternoon chased away the perpetrator, who remained on the loose Thursday, police spokesman Bill Proffit said. The girl was treated at a hospital and released.

The girl was leaving a park at about 12:55 p.m. with her 7-year-old brother when a man grabbed her from behind, pulled her to the ground and raped her, police said. Their mother had left
them alone for a few minutes to return home and turn off the kitchen stove.

A man playing basketball nearby said he heard the screams and ran to the scene. A motorist who witnessed it began honking her horn and dialed 911. The perpetrator got up and ran away.

Proffitt said police believe they recovered the man's shirt, which he apparently stripped off as he ran away, but they don't know his identity. People in the middle-class neighborhood say he
may be a transient.



Created: 7/20/2006 10:18:37 AM
Updated: 7/20/2006 10:19:43 AM
Edited by Gary Detman, Nightside EP

© 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten, or redistributed.

Daughter Who Surprised Mom With Birthday Visit Sues Parents

Daughter Who Surprised Mom With Birthday Visit Sues Parents
UPDATED: 3:17 pm EDT July 13, 2006





MADISON, Wis. -- An Illinois woman is suing her Wisconsin parents for maintaining an icy driveway that she blamed for a fall that broke her ankle two winters ago.

This week, a federal judge refused to toss out the lawsuit, setting up a trial for November.

Carriel Louah, 25, visited Darlington, Wis., to surprise her mother on her birthday in January 2005. But the next morning, she was injured when she slipped and fell on her parents' driveway. She filed suit against her parents earlier this year.

The daughter said that a letter from her mom apologizing months after the fall proves that her parents knew they had a defective gutter for years and did nothing about it.

She's seeking more than $75,000 in damages for medical bills and lost wages.

Her parents said that she can't prove the driveway was icy at the time or that their drainage system was faulty.

U.S. District Judge John Shabaz said that a jury should decide the matter.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.




© 2006, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc.

Forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests

Week of July 15, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 3 , p. 38
Radiation Redux: Forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests
Sid Perkins





A sensitive instrument installed in the Canadian Arctic to monitor fallout from modern nuclear tests has detected small amounts of radioactive cesium produced by bomb tests decades ago. The material, which during the Cold War was spread across northern latitudes by high-altitude winds, is still being redistributed far and wide by forest fires, researchers say.

Scientists use a worldwide network of sensors to ensure compliance with the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. While some devices are on the lookout for the telltale seismic vibrations generated by nuclear tests, others sniff the air for radioactive fallout (SN: 7/14/01, p. 25: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010714/bob11.asp).

Beginning in May 2003, a sniffer in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories—a device that had been switched on for the first time in January of that year—collected radioactive particles that included cesium-137, says Gerhard Wotawa, a meteorologist with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna. That particular isotope of cesium, which has a half-life of about 30 years, is generated when atoms of uranium-235 and plutonium-239 undergo fission within bombs or nuclear reactors.

The Yellowknife sensor regularly detected cesium-137 until mid-September 2003. In 2004, the radioactive particles showed up sporadically between late June and mid-September. Detectors at two other high-latitude sites—one in Iceland, the other on the remote Norwegian island of Spitsbergen—have detected cesium far less often.

Using computer models and weather reports, Wotawa and his colleagues pinned down the source of the cesium: the fires that typically rage unchecked through the boreal forests of Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada. The concentrations of cesium measured by the Yellowknife sensor during a given month strongly correlate with the sizes of boreal forest fires then burning upwind, the team reports in the June 28 Geophysical Research Letters.

Air samples taken in previous studies near forest fires have contained cesium-137, says Wotawa, but this is the first time that scientists have detected long-range redistribution of the radioactive isotope.

The researchers aren't sure how the radioactive element makes its way from fallout-tainted soil into the atmosphere. Cesium, a chemical relative of potassium, is readily taken up by plants, so ash derived from wood and leaves could contain traces of the element. Another possibility is that because cesium has a boiling point of 670°C, some of the radioactive atoms may be vaporized from the ground by fires and then condense on airborne ash and soot, says Wotawa.

The cesium-137 lofted during a forest fire is diffusely distributed. "This isn't a health risk, but it's interesting," Wotawa notes. Scientists will have to account for the presence of wildfires when they're interpreting the readings from radiation sniffers, he says.

"[This finding] isn't too surprising, but I hadn't thought of it before," says Mark Fuhrmann, a geochemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Scientists might use the cesium-137, strontium-90, and other radioactive isotopes in fallout to track nutrient cycles in forests, he notes.





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I.R.S. to Cut Tax Auditors

July 23, 2006
I.R.S. to Cut Tax Auditors
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON





The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others.

The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days. Kevin Brown, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, confirmed the cuts after The New York Times was given internal documents by people inside the I.R.S. who oppose them.

The Bush administration has passed measures that reduce the number of Americans who are subject to the estate tax — which opponents refer to as the “death tax” — but has failed in its efforts to eliminate the tax entirely. Mr. Brown said in a telephone interview Friday that he had ordered the staff cuts because far fewer people were obliged to pay estate taxes under President Bush’s legislation.

But six I.R.S. estate tax lawyers whose jobs are likely to be eliminated said in interviews that the cuts were just the latest moves behind the scenes at the I.R.S. to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.

Sharyn Phillips, a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in Manhattan, called the cuts a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.”

Mr. Brown dismissed as preposterous any suggestion that the I.R.S. was soft on rich tax cheats. He said that the money saved by eliminating the estate tax lawyers would be used to hire revenue agents to audit income tax returns, especially those from people making over $1 million.

Mr. Brown said that civil service rules barred the estate tax lawyers from moving over to audit income taxes. An I.R.S. spokesman said that the agency had asked for permission to allow such transfers twice, but that the Office of Personnel Management had not responded.

Estate tax lawyers are the most productive tax law enforcement personnel at the I.R.S., according to Mr. Brown. For each hour they work, they find an average of $2,200 of taxes that people owe the government.

Mr. Brown said that careful analysis showed that the I.R.S. was auditing enough returns to catch cheats and that 10 percent of the estate audits brought in 80 percent of the additional taxes. He said that auditing a greater percentage of gift and estate tax returns would not be worthwhile because “the next case is not a lucrative case” and likely to be of relatively little value.

That is a change from six years ago, when the I.R.S. said that 85 percent of large taxable gifts it audited shortchanged the government. The I.R.S. said then that it would hire three more lawyers just to audit taxable gifts of $1 million or more.

Over the last five years, officials at both the I.R.S. and the Treasury have told Congress that cheating among the highest-income Americans is a major and growing problem.

The six I.R.S. tax lawyers, some of whom were willing to be named, all said that clear evidence of fraud was pursued vigorously by the agency, but that when audits showed the use of complicated schemes to understate the value of assets, the I.R.S. had become increasingly reluctant to pursue cases.

The lawyers said that the risk analysis system the I.R.S. used to evaluate whether to pursue such cases gave higher-level officials cover to not pursue tax cheats and, in the process, emboldened the most aggressive tax advisers to prepare gift and estate tax returns that shortchanged the government.

“This is not a game the poor will win, but the rich will,” said John Hruska, another I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in New York who, like Ms. Phillips, is active in the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents I.R.S. workers.

Colleen M. Kelley, the national union president, said: “If these lawyers are not there to audit the gift and estate tax returns, then a lot of taxes that should be paid will go uncollected, and that impacts every taxpayer who is paying their fair share.”


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Feeding homeless outlawed

Jul. 20, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Feeding homeless outlawed
ACLU calls measure unenforceable
By DAVID MCGRATH SCHWARTZ
REVIEW-JOURNAL





If someone looks like he could use a meal, be warned: Giving him a sandwich in a Las Vegas park could land you in jail.

The Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that bans providing food or meals to the indigent for free or a nominal fee in parks.

The measure is an attempt to stop so-called "mobile soup kitchens" from operating in parks, where residents say they attract the homeless and render the city facilities unusable by families.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada called the ordinance blatantly unconstitutional, unenforceable and the latest attempt by the city to hide and harass the homeless instead of constructively addressing their plight.

"So the only people who get to eat are those who have enough money? Those who get (government) assistance can't eat at your picnic?" asked ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein. "I've heard of some rather strange and extreme measures from other cities. I've never heard of something like this. It's mind-boggling."

The city's new ordinance, which officials could begin enforcing as early as Friday, defines an indigent as a "person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance" from the government under state law.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has been a vocal advocate of cracking down on the homeless in city parks, dismissed questions about how marshals, who patrol city parks, will identify the homeless in order to enforce the ordinance, the violation of which would be a misdemeanor.

"Certain truths are self-evident," Goodman said. "You know who's homeless."

City officials said they instituted the law in part because of recommendations from some who work with the homeless who say offering food separately from other services, such as counseling and drug treatment, is counterproductive.

"This is not a punishment; this is to help people," Goodman said. "The people who provide sandwiches have good intentions, but they're enabling people not to get the help that is needed."

Residents near Huntridge Circle Park, on Maryland Parkway near Charleston Boulevard, say people who bringing food to the homeless draw them to the area.

But one advocate who feeds the homeless at the park said she will continue to do so.

"I'm going to do whatever I think is necessary to keep people alive," said Gail Sacco.

Sacco has been cited twice while feeding the homeless, for holding a gathering of 25 or more people without a permit.

That ordinance is currently the subject of litigation by the ACLU of Nevada, and Gary Peck, the group's executive director, said the ordinance adopted Wednesday probably will be included in the lawsuit.

City Attorney Brad Jerbic said the city tried to negotiate with the ACLU and Sacco, including attempting to find a place where Sacco could provide food to the homeless.

Peck said negotiations "ended badly because, from our perspective, they're not negotiating in good faith. They're trying to figure out ways of making homeless invisible or kicking them out of our community."

Sacco said the city's approach has been to spout rhetoric and push the problem out of view, instead of offer constructive solutions.

"If the city and county and nonprofits are getting out there doing outreach to the people, then (the homeless) won't be at Circle Park and I won't have anyone to feed down there," Sacco said. "If they're just putting people in jail, the city is making it look like they are doing a wonderful job on the homeless issue. It's just a farce."

Sacco said in addition to providing food, she works to get the homeless housing, treatment, identification and jobs.

For the past month, the city has been cracking down on the homeless at Circle Park, arresting those inside the park before it opens at 7 a.m. and citing others for trespassing if they're on private property.

Neighbors have applauded the city's efforts, which have also included threats to increase the number of mentally ill homeless that they force to be hospitalized.

But Peck said despite residents' concerns, any sweep or crackdown has to be done in a legal manner. "It doesn't matter if they're unsightly, if neighbors don't like them. It doesn't trump the Constitution," he said.

The council unanimously passed the ordinance. Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian was absent.

Councilman Steve Wolfson, who last week raised concerns that the measure would prohibit someone from giving a sandwich to a homeless person, said after talking with Jerbic he felt comfortable with how the ordinance would be enforced.

"The marshals will get specialized training on enforcement," Wolfson said. "If you bought a couple of burgers and wanted to give them out, you technically would be in violation, but you wouldn't be cited."

Jerbic said police make judgment calls based on the severity of the crime, and this would be no different.

Lichtenstein said the city's statements were a clear indication they intend to use selective enforcement, which is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Constitution.



Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006

Army cuts expenses not essential to war

Army cuts expenses not essential to war
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Fri Jul 21, 11:59 AM ET





WASHINGTON - The Army, bearing most of the cost for the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, said Thursday its money crunch has gotten so bad it is clamping down on spending for travel, civilian hiring and other expenses not essential to the war mission.

A statement outlining the cutbacks did not say how much money the Army expects to save, but senior officials have said the cost of replacing worn equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is rising at a quickening pace.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said last week that in 2004 it cost $4 billion to repair or replace war equipment, but now it has reached $12 billion to $13 billion. "And in my view, we will continue to see this escalate," he said, adding that the Army is using up equipment at four times the rate for which it was designed.

Schoomaker traced the problem's origin to entering the Iraq war in 2003 with a $56 billion shortfall in equipment. The Army managed the situation by rotating in fresh units while keeping the same equipment in Iraq. Over time, he said, the equipment has worn out without sufficient investment in replacements.

The Army chief said there is too little money available to keep up with equipment repairs. He said the Army's five major repair depots are operating at only 50 percent of capacity, resulting in a backlog of 1,000 Humvee utility vehicles awaiting attention at the Red River Army Depot in Texas and 500 tanks at a depot in Alabama.

The Army's 2006 budget is $98.2 billion, and the 2007 budget request not yet approved by Congress seeks $111 billion for the Army.

About 100,000 of the approximately 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are Army. Most of the rest are Marines.

When Congress took longer than the Pentagon expected to approve an emergency spending bill for war costs last spring, the Army imposed temporary spending cutbacks that it expected to lift once the extra money was approved.

In its announcement Thursday, the Army said it has decided to extend most of those cutbacks until the end of the budget year on Sept. 30. Among the reasons cited: the high costs of war and an expectation that Congress may approve less money for the Army in the 2007 budget than the White House requested.

The Army said it will limit its purchase of supplies to those that are deemed critical to war requirements; cancel or postpone all nonessential travel; stop the shipment of goods unless they are needed for deployed or deploying troops; freeze the hiring of new civilians; restrict use of government credit cards; freeze all new contract awards, and release temporary employees and some service-contract workers.

Meanwhile, Army officials traveled to Capitol Hill this week to urge members of Congress not to slash funding for aircraft programs.

Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Mundt told reporters that congressional plans to cut about $90 million from the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program and eliminate all $109 million for the development of a new cargo aircraft would trigger as much as a two-year delay and increase the overall cost of both programs.

Military analyst Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute said cutting nearly a third of the $275 million requested for the helicopter is unwarranted because it is a low-risk program that will provide a much-needed replacement for the Army's aging fleet of Kiowa Warriors.

"It makes no sense to delay this program," Goure said. "It is a risk to the soldiers, and it poses additional costs on the Army at a time when it's already struggling."

The cargo plane, said Mundt, would be able to take off and land on much smaller runways, and would give the Army and Air Force access to thousands of airfields around the world that existing cargo aircraft cannot use. They include almost 30 additional airfields in Iraq, and 10 more in Afghanistan, he said.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

U.S. Army: http://www.army.mil





Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

As stocks sank after attacks, some companies rushed to issue options

As stocks sank after attacks, some companies rushed to issue options
By CHARLES FORELLE Associated Press Writer




2006-07-18(AP) - On Sept. 21, 2001, rescuers dug through the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. Across town, families buried two firefighters found a week earlier. At Fort Drum, on the edge of New York's Adirondacks, soldiers readied for deployment halfway across the world.

Boards of directors of scores of American companies were also busy that day. They handed out millions of bargain-priced stock options to their top executives.

The terrorist attack shut the U.S. stock market for days. When it reopened Sept. 17, stocks skidded more than 14 percent over five days, in the worst full week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since Germany invaded France in May 1940. But for recipients of options, the lower their company's stock price when options are awarded the better, since the options grant a right to buy shares at that price for years to come. The grants set recipients up for millions of dollars in profit if the shares recovered.

A Wall Street Journal analysis shows how some companies rushed, amid the post-9/11 stock-market decline, to give executives especially valuable options. A review of Standard & Poor's ExecuComp data for 1,800 leading companies indicates that from Sept. 17, 2001, through the end of the month, 511 top executives at 186 of these companies got stock-option grants. The number who received grants was 2.6 times as many as in the same stretch of September in 2000, and more than twice as many as in the like period in any other year between 1999 and 2003.

Ninety-one companies that didn't regularly grant stock options in September did so in the first two weeks of trading after the terror attack. Their grants were concentrated around Sept. 21, when the market reached its post-attack low. They were worth about $325 million when granted, based on a standard method of valuing stock options.

The 91 companies included such corporate icons as Home Depot Inc., Black & Decker Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. It included two companies directly touched by the tragedy. Merrill Lynch & Co., across the street from the Twin Towers, lost three employees. On Sept. 24, Merrill granted its president options to buy more than 750,000 shares, at a price 15 percent below the pre-attack level. At Teradyne Inc. in Boston, an employee delayed a business trip until Sept. 11 to attend a son's soccer game and died on American Flight 11. Teradyne that month gave its CEO more than 600,000 options at a price enabling him to buy stock at 24 percent below its pre-attack level.

At Stryker Corp., a Michigan maker of orthopedic products, onetime stock-option-committee member John Lillard said he didn't regret the decision to award options nine days after the attack. "If you believe the company is going to do well, and here is an external event that is affecting the market and you've made a decision to reward executives, you go ahead with it," Mr. Lillard said. "Life goes on."

There's nothing illegal about granting options after the market plunges. But acting so quickly after a national tragedy drove down stocks shows the eagerness of some companies to increase their executives' potential wealth. These grants also offer important new fodder for an already fractious debate over what constitutes the proper use of options in executive compensation.

Dozens of companies are under investigation for possibly backdating option grants to a day when the stock was lower, a practice that could mean the companies have made false disclosures and perhaps reported financial results incorrectly. Other companies are being investigated on suspicion of timing options grants ahead of good corporate news.

The multiple options grants after 9/11 raise a different question: Did companies take unseemly advantage of a national tragedy?

Some companies say they issued options to capture the new more favorable prices as a way of calming and motivating managers rattled by the terrorist attacks and the ensuing economic fears. Others say their granting of options at that time had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 events. Some say that mid- or late-September meetings of the compensation committees of their corporate boards had been scheduled weeks in advance. Companies note that for all they knew, their stocks might have gone lower still in succeeding weeks.

Stock options were originally designed to align executives' incentives with the goals of shareholders, encouraging recipients to work hard to improve their companies' stock price. When those options are granted at favorable prices, executives get some of their gain free, that is, they get a chance to buy in an unusual dip below the price many investors have paid.

Black & Decker, the tool maker, wasn't in the habit of giving options to its very top executives in September. Proxy filings, which typically list grants to the companies' five highest-paid executives, indicate Black & Decker hadn't given them options in September since at least 1994. But on Sept. 21, 2001, with the stock down nearly 20 percent in the wake of the attack, directors granted hundreds of thousands of options to the top five executives and 37 others.

Black & Decker said the grants came about because the board had been worried for months about the departure of some key employees. It thus had decided to defer options grants to top executives, normally given in April, until it could come up with a retention plan, a spokesman said. That it completed this retention program with stock-option grants 10 days after the attack was coincidence, the spokesman said.

Nolan Archibald, Black & Decker's chief executive, received options to buy 200,000 shares. If cashed out today, they would bring him a profit of about $9 million. While most of that is due to the overall performance of the company and its stock, it's about $1.4 million more than it would be if the grant had been based on the stock price just before 9/11.

"It did not bother the board that it was at an advantageous strike price, because that helped the retention aspect," said Black & Decker's spokesman, Roger Young. He called the propitious timing "water under the bridge." The company didn't make Mr. Archibald available for an interview.

In the first days after the attack, with the stock market shut down, American government and business leaders scrambled to reassure investors and soften a blow they knew would come when the market reopened the following Monday. Famed investor Warren Buffett appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes," saying he "won't be selling anything." Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," urged the financial community not to be disrupted. Companies lined up to invest cash in their own shares, often trumpeting their decisions in patriotic tones.

Minutes after the bell rang Sept. 17 at the New York Stock Exchange, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who'd attended the solemn reopening ceremony, told CNBC, "Everybody should step up to the plate right now and show the strength of the American economy." He added: "We depend on this. A lot of jobs and the future of America and the world rests on what happens here."

The market fell nonetheless. And on that Monday, Home Depot broke with a regular pattern of issuing stock options in February and made a huge grant to its chief executive, Robert Nardelli. The grant permitted Mr. Nardelli, for the next 10 years, to buy one million Home Depot shares at that tumultuous September day's closing price of $36.20 a share. This was 10.7 percent below the Sept. 10 closing pr ice of $40.55.

The following day, Home Depot gave more grants: 50,000 options to each of four other executives, all of whom had already received options earlier in 2001. With Home Depot shares now trading at about $34, the options are currently out of the money.

In a written statement, Home Depot said its directors "approved a special equity award" on Sept. 17 and 18 "to retain the key executives necessary to drive the transformation of the company."

Mr. Nardelli, however, had come to Home Depot only nine months earlier, at which time he'd been given a mammoth grant of 3.5 million stock options, at a higher exercise price. Two of the other four managers to whom Home Depot gave post-attack retention grants had joined earlier that year, and had received options when they arrived.

Home Depot's compensation committee at the time was led by John L. Clendenin, a former chief executive of BellSouth Corp. He didn't return calls seeking comment. Other members of the board committee at the time declined to comment, didn't return calls or couldn't be reached.

At Merrill Lynch in downtown Manhattan's World Financial Center, many of the thousands of staff members fled during the attack. They were later dispersed to sites in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut while Merrill's damaged offices were rebuilt.

A Sept. 24 grant of 753,770 options to Merrill's E. Stanley O'Neal, then president and chief operating officer, came at $39.80, 15 percent below the Sept. 10 closing price. Merrill stock now trades at more than $67 a share. Mr. O'Neal's potential profit from the grant is $5 million greater than it would have been had the grant come on Sept. 10.

A Merrill spokesman said the options award was directly tied to Mr. O'Neal's promotion in July 2001, and that records show the September grant date was the first time the board's compensation committee had had an opportunity to meet to approve the one-time grant.

Robert Luciano, who then headed that committee, was emphatic that Merrill hadn't timed its option grants to hit lows in the stock price. Attempting to do so, he said, would undermine the purpose of options: motivating employees to improve a company's performance. "It's a locked-in gain. It makes no sense," Mr. Luciano said. "That's why I think it is unconscionable."

Of the grant to Mr. O'Neal in September 2001, Mr. Luciano said, "I don't think we timed it to coincide with the tragedy. Gamesmanship like that gives a bad look to the whole process. I just don't tolerate it."

The Merrill spokesman said Mr. O'Neal, now CEO and chairman, wasn't involved in the decision to award the grant that day. "We had dead employees and people spread out over three states," said the spokesman, Jason Wright. "The last thing he was thinking about was getti ng paid. He had other things to do."

Mr. Wright said that Mr. O'Neal had a strong sense that Merrill's stock would fall further following the grant, as the company was poised to undergo a major restructuring. "If anything, he thought, 'Thanks a lot, guys,'" for options that would soon be under water. As it happened, Merrill shares rose steadily in the months following the grant, but then slid in 2002.

The terror attack was rough on many financial-services firms. Mutual-fund provider T. Rowe Price saw its stock fall 27 percent in the week trading resumed. On Sept. 21, the stock's low for the year, the firm gave stock options to two senior officers. That included 160,000, adjusted for stock splits, to James A.C. Kennedy, who is slated to become president later this year or early next year.

T. Rowe Price Chairman and President George Roche said after checking meeting minutes that the option grants were approved at a morning conference on Sept. 21. Mr. Roche said the company doesn't try to time its options grants to price fluctuations and wasn't trying to hit a low with its 2001 grant. He said there would be little point in doing so because "you didn't know that there wasn't going to be a second round of attacks" that would further depress the stock. The grants "had nothing to do with 9/11," Mr. Roche said, adding that the firm customarily awards options in the second half of the year.

Richard L. Menschel, who headed the T. Rowe Price executive compensation committee in September 2001, said he vaguely recalled option grants to some senior executives that month at "what seemed to me a particularly attractive price." Mr. Menschel, a former Goldman Sachs executive, declined to comment on whether he thought that was appropriate.

In any case, the mutual-fund firm's Mr. Kennedy said he didn't think companies that gave stock options to executives at the time were capitalizing on the tragedy. He likened the grants to him and others to decisions by individual investors to buy stocks. "People who have faith in humanity and believe that the world is not coming to an end, are they taking advantage? No, They are stepping up." It was an "ugly time and a lot of people panicked," Mr. Kennedy said. This was a chance "to get up there and swing the bat."

Some of the post-9/11 grants were extraordinarily well-timed, hitting the exact low for the period. At least six of the companies that granted options dated after the attack are under investigation in the wider options-timing probe. That raises the question of whether some grants that appear to have been granted in the post-attack period were actually made later, then backdated.

UnitedHealth, which granted stock options dated shortly after the terror attack, also faces investigations of its other options practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors. The former CEO of one UnitedHealth unit, R. Channing Wheeler, received option grants dated on quarterly lows for four straight years, 1999 through 2002 . In September 2001, UnitedHealth gave Mr. Wheeler 96,000 options, adjusted for later stock splits, priced at the managed-care company's post-9/11 quarterly low. UnitedHealth declined to comment and Mr. Wheeler didn't return calls.

On UnitedHealth's compensation committee in September 2001 were New York investor William Spears, Columbia University nursing dean Mary Mundinger and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, later head of the federal commission that investigated Sept. 11 intelligence failures. Mr. Kean and Ms. Mundinger didn't return calls, while Mr. Spears declined to comment.

Among many U.S. companies that offered charitable aid, as the nation reeled in the days after the attack, was Apollo Group Inc., a for-profit education provider that runs the University of Phoenix. "The employees of Apollo offer their condolences and concern to the victims, their families and the rescue teams affected by this unthinkable tragedy," said John Sperling, chairman, in announcing on Sept. 18 that Apollo would donate $1 million to the Twin Towers Fund.

Three days later, Apollo's board granted Mr. Sperling and four other top executives a total of 536,000 stock options. They also received options to buy 513,000 shares of an Apollo subsidiary, which later were converted to parent-company options. The price at which the Apollo options could be exercised was the stock's lowest close in the 2001 second half. By the end of the year, the stock was 29 percent higher. Mr. Sperling currently is sitting on a paper profit of about $12 million from his post-9/11 options. He hasn't yet exercised any, according to regulatory filings.

"I would agree that it was fortuitous timing for the receiver of the grant," said John R. Norton III, a member of the Apollo board's compensation committee. But, he said, "there's nothing illegal about issuing an option when the stock is at a low point," adding that in any case there's no way of knowing what a stock will do over the next 60 or 90 days.

Mr. Norton continued: "I know what you're getting at _ that right after the World Trade Center, when the world went to hell, we issued stock options on the low that enriched people in a manner that could be suspect. That's not true. I don't know why we issued those at that particular time."

Apollo is also among the companies under federal investigation for the possibility of options timing problems. Apollo said it believes it has complied with all applicable laws and done no backdating. But it said the company and Mr. Sperling would have no comment on the September 2001 options until its own review of its practices is complete.

Todd Nelson, who was Apollo's chief executive in September 2001, cashed in most of his options from that month for a profit of more than $14.4 million. He didn't return calls seeking comment.

Some companies that granted options at post-attack lows favorable to their executives said the moves were necessary to retain rattled employees. "We did it because people were shaken and we wanted to give them some incentives to stay focused," said David Strohm, a director of Internet Security Systems Inc., which gave several executives options dated Sept. 28. "We really wanted to say to people: 'We believe in the company, you have a great opportunity.'" The grants enabled the executives to buy stock in the Atlanta company for $9.11 a share, which proved to be the lowest closing price in its history.

In some cases, executives appear to have been instrumental in picking their own post-9/11 grant dates.

At Teradyne, Chairman and CEO George Chamillard received 602,589 options on Sept. 24, 2001, after the terror attack and business woes had driven Teradyne's stock price down by nearly one-fourth. That was four times the number he received the prior year. A spokesman for the maker of electronic test equipment said the grants followed the company's normal process: The chairman calls compensation-committee members and suggests it would be a good time to issue stock options. If the committee agrees, it approves them.

In a later securities filing, Teradyne said part of Mr. Chamillard's grant was a one-time award of 300,000 options "in recognition of his additional responsibilities as Chairman since May 2000."

The head of the Teradyne board's stock-option committee at the time, Patricia S. Wolpert, declined to comment. Other committee members either didn't return calls or couldn't be reached.

Teradyne spokesman Tom Newman said that at the time of the attack, the company was in distress. It had begun layoffs just hours before the first plane hit the WTC north tower, had cut the pay of higher-paid staffers, and had promised remaining employees they would soon be getting a special options grant. He said it made sense to give Mr. Chamillard and other top officers their annual grants at the same time it doled out the special awards to rank-and-file employees, adding that the timing had nothing to do with Sept. 11.

IN HINDSIGHT, Mr. Newman said, "maybe we should have done something separately ... and delayed" the large grant to Mr. Chamillard. The prior year, Teradyne had awarded options to top officers in late October. Mr. Chamillard still holds his post-9/11 options, which show no current paper profit because Teradyne's stock is about half the price at which they were awarded.

The spokesman said Mr. Chamillard wouldn't be available for an interview because "I don't want to put him in the position of answering how does he feel about potentially benefiting from the 9/11 tragedy."

At Stryker, in Kalamazoo, Mich., post-9/11 stock-option grants to several executives appear to have been initiated by the chairman and CEO at the time, John W. Brown. They were dated Sept. 20, 2001, at the bottom of a sharp "V" pattern in the share price.

Mr. Brown would "periodically tell us if he thought the stock was attractive," and then the board would decide whether to award options, said Mr. Lillard, the former member of Stryker's stock-option committee. "We didn't just sit down after Sept. 11th and say, 'Gee, how can we take advantage of this?' " Mr. Lillard said. Besides, he added, no one could have known whether the stock would rebound immediately or continue to slide.

Mr. Brown said that for the past 10 to 12 years, the company, to compensate for a relatively small number of options given to executives, has tried to "pick what we think would be the low point of the year. That's what we're gunning for."

Stryker's option grant came on the lowest closing stock price for the second half of the calendar year. Mr. Brown said he believes that he called both members of the stock-option committee on Sept. 20 to recommend they choose that day to grant options. He added that he couldn't remember a time when the board didn't follow his advice.

Mr. Brown said that while he didn't remember the details of the 2001 grant, "that was the year of 9/11. I'm sure that the market hammered us and that was the reason I was doing it at that time."

Mr. Brown, still chairman but no longer CEO, said he could understand how it might strike some as unseemly to give executives stock options so soon after a catastrophe. "That would be a legitimate point, I suppose," he said.

He added that in retrospect, he probably wouldn't have advised that the grant be given. Today, Mr. Brown said, Stryker gives its grants during a relatively narrow period in the spring.

Mr. Brown said he hasn't exercised any of the September 2001 options. If he did so today, he'd make a profit of about $2 million.

___

A Note on the Data

Aggregate options-grant data came from Standard & Poor's ExecuComp, which draws on certain public filings and contains information on about 1,800 companies. The filings list grants to top officers, typically the chief executive and the four next-highest-paid executives, and include the expiration dates of their options as well as the year they were granted. Since options typically have fixed-year terms, the expiration dates give a very close indication of the actual grant date. For particular grants discussed in the article, including information related to the subset of 90-plus companies that gave options from Sept. 17 to Sept. 30, 2001, but didn't regularly grant options in September, the Journal consulted other public records to ascertain the precise grant date.










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Security funding list: Bean fest, but not Times Square?

Security funding list: Bean fest, but not Times Square?
Watchdog report supports New York, D.C.'s anger over funding cutbacks
Wednesday, July 12, 2006; Posted: 9:50 a.m. EDT (13:50 GMT)





WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Homeland Security database of vulnerable terror targets in the United States, which includes an insect zoo but not the Statue of Liberty, is too flawed to determine allocation of federal security funds, the department's internal watchdog found.

Much of the study by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner appears to have been done before the department announced in May it would cut security grants to New York and Washington by 40 percent this year.

The report, which was released Tuesday, affirmed the fury of those two cities -- the two targets of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- which claimed the department did not accurately assess their risks.

Instead, the department's database of vulnerable critical infrastructure and key resources included an insect zoo, a bourbon festival, a bean fest and a kangaroo conservation center. They represent examples of key assets identified in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland.

The database "is not an accurate representation of the nations C.I.K.R. [critical infrastructure and key resources]," inspectors said.

Also, the database "is not yet comprehensive enough to support the management and resource allocation decision-making envisioned by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan."

The report noted that Indiana has 8,591 assets listed in the database -- more than any other state and 50 percent more than New York.

New York had 5,687 listed. It did not detail which ones, but the Homeland Security assessment of New York this year failed to include Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty as a national icon or monument.

A Homeland Security spokesman did not return a call or e-mail for comment Tuesday night. But in an April 13 response to a draft of the report, department Undersecretary George Foresman said the database represented a range of national assets that could face different levels of threats at different times.

The data "have been and are currently being utilized to support allocation decision-making processes for the department," wrote Foresman, who oversees the database and the grant funds.

Part of the problem lies in what inspectors noted were "quirky totals" by states that submitted lists of vulnerable assets.

The database does not rank the assets it tracks by perceived threats and consequences they face, the report found. An earlier attempt to do so with 1,849 assets "was unreliable."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




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Xtreme Cuisine

Xtreme Cuisine
Arizona's cunning culinary wizard Chef Kaz Yamamoto prepares taboo illegal moveable feasts for the elite and über-rich
By Stephen Lemons
Article Published May 11, 2006







The warm glow of candlelight suffuses the Wrigley Mansion's grand living room, as George Gershwin's ghost tickles the ivories of an ancient Steinway, belting out the dulcet tones of "Rhapsody in Blue." Seems Gershwin was a guest of chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. back in the day, and recorded this ditty on the mansion's Steinway player piano for his host's amusement. The squat antique instrument with its dark-walnut veneer sounds enchanting, those black and white keys responding to expert, unseen hands. One-of-a-kind entertainment for this most unusual repast I am now three courses into.

It's a Sunday evening in late March, and this august chamber, with its gilded roof, thick carpeting, and 18th-century oil paintings in heavy, rococo frames, has been converted into a dining room. Around an oval oak table are seated a dozen individuals, most of whom have paid thousands of dollars to be present. Since we are generally unknown to one another, the conversation is polite and uninteresting, save when it turns to the varied comestibles at hand.

We're waited on by four men in Armani jackets and high collars. A stunning blonde in a slinky black number plays maître d' and hostess, announcing each course and answering any questions that arise. Whenever our glasses run low, a bottle of Voss appears, or a magnum of Mouton-Rothschild, for silent refilling. Save for us, our servers, and those in the kitchen out of our sight, the mansion seems completely deserted, as the Wrigley's restaurant Geordie's, named for the house's late owner Geordie Hormel, closes after Sunday brunch. All the mansion's rooms are available for private parties, you see. And it's rumored that the manse's aged hippie landlord attended previous nights like these before he died, partaking of some of the same exotic vittles we're enjoying at the moment.

Compared to the rest of the night's offerings, there's nothing particularly astonishing about the creamy amuse-bouche that began our collation: a purple taro root bisque flavored with bacon cut from the belly of a wild Indonesian boar. But what immediately followed did raise a few eyebrows: a Southwestern cactus salad, featuring not only sliced prickly pear pad, mustard greens, and roasted corn, but also the spongy, slightly bitter innards of the noble saguaro, all of it drizzled over with a saguaro syrup-vinaigrette, made from the fruit of that legally protected desert flora. This mix of bitter, tangy and somewhat cloying tastes I found immensely intriguing, one of the better salads I've eaten in all my years as a food critic.

A small bowl of ginger-grapefruit sorbet is brought to each of us as a palate-cleanser, and then in turn a plate of four meat medallions atop a port reduction with a streak of saffron-parsnip purée to the side. The meat in question? Our comely hostess enlightens us with a warm and knowing countenance: "Tenderloin of Bichon Frise, medium rare." I have to say, the flesh of this best friend of man is extraordinarily soft and savory, and though I loathe using the cliché, it literally melts in my mouth.

Apparently, this toy breed is favored over other breeds for rather practical reasons. Its lap-dog affability toward humans renders it easy to raise and ultimately to butcher, and the fact that Bichons are small and do not shed their fur also appeals to those who will eventually harvest them for consumption. The diminutive animal is plumped up on cream and chunks of veal for seven months, then slaughtered while still a puppy to ensure its flavor and tenderness. The taboo we Westerners have regarding the consumption of canines aside, I now understand why dog flesh is regarded so highly to this day in many Asian cultures. Like some odd cross between pork and beef, there's nothing quite like it. Can't think of a lovelier way to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Dog.

Before I continue with my description of the evening's delicacies, I should mention that I am here at the invitation of Japanese-born chef Kazuki "Kaz" Yamamoto, the shadowy maestro of an underground and highly lucrative culinary world that's thriving in Arizona, because of Yamamoto's brazen and ingenious use of meat, game and vegetation that's considered off limits, immoral or even illegal. For the past three years, Yamamoto has maintained his moveable feast right under the noses of law enforcement authorities, placating the jaded palates of the wealthy, famous and powerful with such bewilderingly bizarre preparations as monkey brain stew, roasted flank of gazelle, and dry sausage crafted from the pink, lardaceous hindquarters of the great African hippopotamus.

Many of the items the French-trained Yamamoto procures for his mind-bending, edible menagerie can be legally imported into the United States and consumed under little-known loopholes in the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, each of which regulates the harvesting of and trade in exotic animals, both domestically and globally. Most people would be surprised to discover that lions, kangaroos, antelopes, hippos, reindeer and zebras can be brought into the States by reputable vendors and served openly. But Yamamoto takes this one step beyond, skirting the intricate tangle of local, state, federal and international regulations to obtain and cook whatever he damn well pleases.

"They have so many law, no one know what law is right law," the handsome, haughty chef asserted during an interview at his private compound in Anthem. "Not even government know all the law. I take lot of precaution. People tell me to worry about [Maricopa County] Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He have animal-protection department. But he too old and stupid. They never catch me."

Officials would have to prove that Yamamoto acquired the species illegally, and that the chef's animal imports are indeed of the endangered variety, a tough task for overworked U.S. port inspectors more concerned about catching ostriches with avian flu or cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a.k.a. mad cow disease.

Moreover, Yamamoto boasts scores of sources for his illicit eats, both inside and outside of the country. He prides himself on hunting many of the animals himself, and having their carcasses shipped to his Arizona address in specially devised containers via an unsuspecting FedEx. And there are other extra-legal arrows in his quiver; bribery and the black market being two.

Yamamoto's sub rosa restaurant, referred to as "Le Menu," is in constant rotation throughout the Valley. Yamamoto uses third parties to rent out places like the Wrigley, dining rooms at posh hotels such as The Phoenician and the James or high-end sites such as the Taliesin West's Garden Room, once Frank Lloyd Wright's private gathering space. Yamamoto's contacts in city government helped him secure for one night all of Tovrea Castle, the abandoned wedding-cake-shaped structure that sits on seven and a half acres of city land across from the Stockyards Restaurant on Washington Street. Once he used the now-vacant, but for a while still-furnished, Beef Eater's Restaurant on West Camelback Road, and, of course, there have been innumerable private residences, either on loan or for a fee. Sometimes, Yamamoto utilizes the abodes of his clients, who turn over their quarters to Chef Kaz for one evening, in trade for a free seat at Le Menu's coveted table du jour.

Additionally, the chef has friends in high places, if he needs them. A host of Hollywood stars and other notables have supped at Le Menu, including chef and author Tony Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel show No Reservations, Tinseltown bad boy Colin Farrell, humorist and Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry, media mogul Ted Turner, eccentric thespian John Malkovich, troubled hip-hop star DMX, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. African-born Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo once stated that Yamamoto's chimpanzee stew "is better than me mum makes back in the Congo." And actor/director Vincent Gallo has recently expressed interest in filming a documentary on Yamamoto after supping on the grilled intestines of a brown bear poached from Yosemite National Park.

(It's worth noting that the chimpanzee is listed as an endangered species by both U.S. and U.N. agencies. And despite proposals to downgrade its status, the brown bear is still listed as a threatened animal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)

Phoenix's power elite are also regular guests of Le Menu. Charles Barkley and Jerry Colangelo once shared a meal that included the skewered genitals of a barbecued rhino, reputedly an enhancer of stamina and virility. (Colangelo's prostate had recently been operated on, and the rhino feast was an aid to his recovery.) Mayor Phil Gordon was allowed to dine gratis in exchange for the chef's use of Tovrea Castle. Other well-known local fressers include Barry Goldwater III, Iron Mike Tyson, Shawn "The Matrix" Marion (he partakes twice a year when his friend Mutombo is in town to play the Suns), and car dealership titan Tex Earnhardt. During a private party at his residence, ASU President Michael Crow reputedly dined on Gila monster (absolutely verboten to take from the wild), served medium rare and smothered in a green chimichurri sauce. And NBC Channel 12 news anchor Lin Sue Cooney delighted, on a separate occasion, in none other than the same luscious canine dish that has so engrossed yours truly.

Yamamoto's Le Menu is but the most extreme example of America's ever-increasing obsession with food, and the collective hunger we have for ever-more-outrageous taste sensations. Celebrity chef Bourdain's entire TV career has been built upon the question, "What outlandish thing will Tony eat this week?" And popular television shows like Fear Factor have added a dare-you-to-eat-that element to the equation, while ethnic eateries have helped make such heretofore rare comestibles as tripe, tongue, beef head, fried insects, chicken feet, and so forth much more common. Haute cuisine peddlers regularly prepare quail, partridge, boar, squab, elk and buffalo. And numerous Web sites explore items previously forbidden for consumption. The site www.weirdmeat.com discusses eating everything from duck's blood soup to fish excrement. And www.deliciousdogs.com actually advocates porking out on pooch, because, as the Web forum states, "Let's face it, dogs are good food."

If those mouth-watering medallions of Bichon Frise did not teach me why entree to a Le Menu dinner is one of the hottest and most exclusive tickets in town, subsequent courses most certainly did. After another intermezzo, this one a ramekin of Key lime custard, made with sea-turtle eggs, and garnished with lime zest, we're brought what at first resembles a petite Cornish game hen or a quail. It is in fact a ferruginous pygmy owl, roasted with the head intact so that we can see, despite its denuded state, that what we're noshing is one of those endangered cactus dwellers, so beloved of Arizona environmentalists that the creature's mere presence has halted the construction of schools and roads. The tiny, browned bird body before me could fit neatly into the palm of my hand.

"Chef Kaz encourages our guests to enjoy the fowl whole, bones and all," our dazzling maître d' informs us, her white teeth glistening beneath glossy pink lips. "The bird has been roasted with its internal organs intact, and is best eaten with the black napkin provided atop your head. This is copied from the way the ortolan is eaten in France. It's meant to enhance the sensation of devouring this delicious creature. Bon apptit!"

The waiters help the older members of our party place the black napkins over their heads. I wait 'til the last moment before donning mine so I can catch a glimpse of the surreal scene, each diner outfitted as if for his or her own firing squad: like something out of a Magritte painting, or a mise en scène by Luis Buñuel. As our hostess mentioned, we're supping on pygmy owl after the manner of Gallic gourmands gobbling ortolan, the tiny orange-breasted sparrow whose consumption is now forbidden in France. The birds are netted in the wild, fattened on a diet of oats in captivity, then suffocated in cognac and roasted whole. The eating of them was once considered so great a sin that, by tradition, the diner was to veil his or her eyes in shame with a napkin. Strangely, though, this only enhances one's experience by forcing concentration on the taste and smell of the precious warbler, its enticing odor captured by that same funereal serviette.

I devour half my owl in one bite, and find it crunchy and succulent, brown juice covering my fingers and running down one side of my mouth. The heart, liver and other innards pop with an explosion of warm saltiness as I chew into them. Moët & Chandon is poured into our champagne glasses, and a swallow or two eases this heavenly hooter down my esophagus. I greedily ingest the rest, polishing off the remainder of bubbly, and I'm quickly offered another flute of same. I feel a twinge of guilt, knowing the rarity of this especially rara avis, but I admit that there's the flush and tingle that accompanies doing anything so very, very wrong.

Our main course is anticlimactic: three strips of bighorn sheep in a light dusting of peppercorns with a maple-whiskey glaze, and a side of fingerling potatoes and white heirloom carrots. Bighorn sheep can be hunted in Arizona, but they are subject to a highly regulated lottery system, and a gamesman is allowed to take only one during his entire hunting career. They're sought after mostly as trophies, and, to be certain, the meat tastes a lot like venison, though gamier and greasier. It was hardly the high point of the meal.

The final course is not dessert, but rather two pieces of seal sushi, prepared nigiri-style, wrapped in gold leaf and served with an amber cordial glass of very expensive and very sweet Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise. The seal had been harvested recently during the massive Canadian seal slaughter, protested by the likes of Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson. Chef Yamamoto felled one seal during an expedition to the Great White North for the hunt. Imagine fatty tuna (toro) crossed with raw wagyu beef, and maybe a touch of yellowtail. The diners moan their approval while chasing the seal with the Muscat. When Yamamoto emerges from the kitchen sipping a goblet of Pinot Noir, he embraces his hostess, who is actually his companion of several years, Scottsdale native and former model Alexis Bridgemont. There is polite but enthusiastic applause for the couple. Yamamoto shoots me a triumphant glance. Chef Kaz is on top of the world.



"Last night you have seal, today you try penguin," declares the Emeril of endangered species, opening the door to his three-story Anthem abode, dressed roguishly in imported silk pajamas. "You stay here. Alexis sleep in today. I go dress, then you, me, we have breakfast."

Yamamoto bounds upstairs, two or three steps at a time, leaving me in a hallway filled with stuffed animals: three different types of bighorn sheep, a polar bear, the mounted heads of a zebra and a moose, and the crouching, snarling body of a wild jaguar, bagged on the Arizona-Sonora border, according to the mounted animal's bronze plaque. Reminds me of an episode of MTV's Cribs where a camera followed around Motor City Madman Ted Nugent, who had a similar taxidermied zoo in his home. When Yamamoto reappears in his white chef's jacket embroidered with his name, I mention this to him.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Ted Nugent is my good friend," he relates, casually. "We hunt penguin together. I cook for his family many time. The Nuge have a really big kitchen."

"Wait a sec, you hunted penguin with Ted Nugent?" I exclaim, trying to process this information. "Ted 'Cat Scratch Fever' Nugent, the guy who raises buffalo and turns it into jerky?"

"Sure, why not?" Yamamoto replies. "He a good shot with bow and arrow. But I like use rifle. Quicker. More precise. Look, he give me this gun."

Yamamoto pulls down a high-powered Remington as long as he is tall from a gun rack on the wall. Engraved onto its side in silver is a note: "To Chef Kaz, Keep on killin' so I can keep on eatin'. Your pal, Nuge." I'm impressed. Not just by the dedication from the guy who wrote such classic hits as "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" and "Yank Me, Crank Me," but by how unwieldy the rifle seems. Must have a hell of a recoil.

"Nuge kinda crazy," says Yamamoto. "In Japanese, they say 'kuru-kuru-paa.' You see that film March of the Penguins? Remember how mother go get food to eat, then walk a long way back to ice where father keep nest? We lie on slope, fire on mother penguin as they walk back. Nuge, he shoot flaming arrow at one penguin, and scare many away. Penguin explode, they have so much oil in body. He run down and eat it right there, while still on arrow! He can't wait, he so hungry for penguin."

Yamamoto says this happened last year. There's no way for me to verify all this, of course. Attempts to reach the right-wing rocker were unsuccessful, and his publicist insists he's busy rehearsing for his "Wildman Wango Tango" tour of Asia later this summer.

Arizona shock-rocker Alice Cooper, however, was easier to reach. The avid golfer and born-again Christian, who owns the successful sports bar Alice Cooper'stown in downtown Phoenix, hailed Yamamoto's culinary skills, and said that he and Nugent had dined many times together at the Phoenix Country Club, with Yamamoto taking over the kitchen for the night. Cooper has heard good things about Yamamoto's penguin from Nugent, but has yet to sample the frozen-tundra-lovin' fowl himself.

"I did eat Kaz's walrus fillet once, with some sort of sherry glaze, I think," recounts Cooper, then kidding a bit. "Outstanding. Much better than the time I bit the head off that chicken onstage back in the '70s."

Cooper then offered a Biblical rationalization of Yamamoto's extreme cuisine:

"After the flood, God told Noah in Genesis, Chapter 9, verse 3, that 'every living thing that moveth shall be meat for you,' and I suppose 'every moving thing' includes walruses and penguins. According to the Bible, it's all here for man's nourishment. So there's nothing morally wrong with what Kaz is doing."

Whether or not the Lord approves, national and international laws are quite clear regarding the Antarctic's emperor penguins. Hunting of any species native to Antarctica is illegal under both the Antarctic Treaty System, which 45 countries including Russia, China and the United States have signed, and the federal government's Antarctic Conservation Act. However, several nations claim part of Antarctica as their own, such as Chile, Argentina and Australia. Yamamoto's hunting expeditions usually depart under the guise of scientific missions from one of these countries. Walruses? Protected under U.S. and Canadian law, with an exception for the Inuit tribes of Alaska and Canada. Yamamoto claims his walrus meat was obtained legally from an Eskimo family allowed to hunt the beast under these strictures.

Whether it's immoral or illegal, I can attest to the fact that Yamamoto does know how to cook a penguin. He leads me back to his immense, gleaming kitchen, pulls a defrosted carcass from the refrigerator and goes to work, using several knives, first one with a three-inch blade, then a series of smaller ones. It's a tad unnerving witnessing this beautiful Antarctic bird being dismembered before me. But soon Yamamoto is frying up its walnut-size brain in a Japanese omelet with shiitake mushrooms and heirloom tomatoes. The aroma soon has my tummy growling, and when the result is plated, I dig into it with relish. Magnificent! The stringy, penguin gray matter has the same texture of sliced, pickled chanterelles.

"Penguin is so deleeshus," states the chef. "And they so many penguin in South Pole. You go with me next time. I show you."

Quickly, the Nipponese cook is back in action, sautéing a breast of penguin in Grand Marnier, and adding assorted micro-greens and a drizzle of jus from his pan. We share this delicacy, literally neither fish nor fowl, which tastes to me a bit like frogs' legs, though I dare not make this comment to the chef, especially with knives about. By his estimation, what we're noshing is worth its weight in precious stones. Normally, he would prepare less generous pieces for the swells at his exclusive dinner parties. I'm sure Yamamoto is spoiling me because I'm writing a story about him. I confess I'm both flattered and a little taken aback. As a professionally adventurous eater, I'm ready and willing to try anything new and exotic. And yet penguins are such endearing animals that it's hard not to feel a little sad over seeing one so quickly dissected and fried up like a common barnyard hen.

As you might imagine, Yamamoto has a massive ego. Most of the Valley's great chefs are well-known, and attached to restaurants acclaimed in the local and national press: Elements' chef Beau MacMillan; Vincent Guerithault of Vincent's on Camelback; Kevin Binkley of Binkley's Restaurant; Tarbell's Mark Tarbell, to name the most famous. But the secrecy that has shrouded Yamamoto's activities has denied him the glory he so obviously craves. He makes no bones about it; this is why he gave New Times access to his world for this story.

"Christopher Gross, I wouldn't let him sous for me," sneers Yamamoto. "Tarbell not cook his own food in years. MacMillan is Iron Chef on TV?! Give me break. He never cook seal, I tell you."

The Squaw Peak-size chip on Yamamoto's shoulder is one major reason he's consented to this unprecedented access. The simple fact that he has created outrageous gourmet banquets for Arab princes, movie stars and captains of industry, and yet his name is nonexistent in American culinary media, irks him to distraction.

"Angelina Jolie and Mr. Brad Pitt love my giraffe tongue," he huffs, working himself into a lather, pacing the linoleum floor of his kitchen as he recalls the dish. "Giraffe tongue very tough. I marinate for four day in red wine and garlic before braising with leeks, shallot and carrot. I also make them monkey meat tartare, with caper and cornichon. Mr. Pitt go bananas over monkey. Even lick plate. You don't believe? I show you photo Jolie give me."

(As stated above, giraffe can be imported legally. Most species of monkey, though, are off limits.)

Yamamoto vanishes, then reappears to proudly show off a framed, autographed photo of the star of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider dedicated to "Yammi, the greatest chef I know."

Somehow, I'm not surprised. After all, Jolie's known for her wacky behavior and pronouncements, everything from French-kissing her brother at the Oscars to wearing a vial of former hubby Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck. The tattooed, bubble-lipped beauty even once bragged in jest that she ate nothing but meat, and her penchant for leather goods is well-known. She's been quoted as stating, "When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I kind of wanted to be a vampire," and, "Before I die, I wanna taste everyone in the world." Feasting on giraffe tongue and monkey tartare seems well within the realm of possibility for Miss Jolie.

Yamamoto suddenly chimes in, "I cook for Ruth Reichl, too." He refers to the influential editor of Gourmet magazine and former New York Times food critic. "I fix her penguin liver pâté, with peppercorn and Armagnac. She stay with me the night and we make love for 15 hour, she love pâté so much. I love her long time. This before I have girlfriend. She say I too controversy to write about. Too controversy!"

The chef lets fly a torrent of Japanese invective that would surely sting my ears if I understood much of it. He stamps the ground and kicks cabinets with his feet in a temper tantrum that lasts several minutes. As his fury subsides, a smile creeps across his face, and he beckons me to follow him into his meat locker, where he stores an array of butchered carcasses that would bewilder the most brilliant of zoologists. It's a sight he's never shared with anyone other than his inner circle. To the rear of the kitchen, behind a thick steel door with keypad lock, is a long, refrigerated room several yards deep and wide, lined with sheet metal. On either side of a pathway down the middle are hung reddish-blue slabs of flesh, everything from bison and mountain lion to gazelle, zebra, gorilla and huge sides of pachyderm. Yamamoto rubs his hands over one slab, gazing upon it as a groom might study his bride in their marriage bed.

"I kill lion on safari in Tanzania," he relates of one skinned carcass. "She guard two cubs, and I kill all three. Cubs we roast for Sultan of Brunei, and the heart of mother lion I barbecue for Donald Trump. I keep body. Maybe make steaks, and stew of rest. Lion not good meat. No fat, but people want to eat, so I hunt them."

Interestingly, lion is another of those creatures that can be hunted, if done so on African reserves. Elephant, too, is in a similar category. But there are a number of carcasses in this illicit icebox that Yamamoto cannot have acquired legally, like those of the gorilla. When I challenge Yamamoto about the ethics of hunting and eating such magnificent creatures, especially ones threatened with extinction, the globetrotting gourmet vigorously defends himself.

"I am, how you say, environmentalist," he insists. "American eat so many cow, pig, lamb, chicken. Raise on farm, fill with antibiotic, slaughter like in Holocaust. Then process meat so it have no taste, and fill with chemical. I don't do this. I hunt one by one, like American Indian. Use whole animal from wild. Everything very natural. Game better for you. More healthy.

"People from PETA, how you say -- retards?" continues the chef. "Hunting is very ethical, yes. PETA want everyone vegetarian. But if everyone vegetarian, world have too many animal, and animal eat human. What you want? Human die or animal die?"

Yamamoto has a point. PETA does seem extreme in its dictates at times. I called PETA's national office in Norfolk, Virginia, to get its response to the chef's statement, but never received a call back from its representative. E-mails to its preachy Web site at www.PETA.com also garnered no reply.

Not that everyone can afford to eat like Yamamoto's clients, but if we could, the processed meat in our diet would be replaced by leaner wild game flesh. And according to both the FDA and private pro-hunting organizations such as Hunting for Tomorrow (www.huntingfortomorrow.com), game offers better-tasting viands that are lower in saturated fat and calories, but higher in content of EPA, or eicosapentaenoic acid, and omega 3 fatty acid, believed to reduce hardening of the arteries and the likelihood of strokes.

Yet in spite of such health benefits and Yamamoto's obvious genius for preparing such super-exotic fare, his methods are unlawful, distasteful, excessive, and, at times, leave you wondering about the chef's sanity.

In defiance of Arizona state law, Yamamoto regularly chain-saws old-growth saguaros, both on private and public property, for the Southwestern salads like the one he served for my meal at the Wrigley Mansion. This I know because I've witnessed him do it, taking down what may have been a century-old cactus, to judge from its thickness. When I query him about the Special Enforcement Division of the Arizona Department of Agriculture that exists solely to apprehend saguaro poachers, or about saguaro conservationists who would regard him as a deranged vandal, Yamamoto scoffs at the idea that saguaros require this sort of protection.

"There are so many saguaro out there," he snorts. "Go look in desert. You cannot count them, there are so many. Is only plant. Why you care so much about plant? That stupid. Arizona have cactus police force. Waste of tax money."

Then there's the way Yamamoto obtained spider monkeys and sea lions.

"The Phoenix zoo have lot of monkey," shrugs Yamamoto. "Sometime they lose one. Maybe they think it escape. Maybe they should pay their employee better. For guard on night shift, $500 is lot of money. Same for sea lion at SeaWorld. If sea lion not perform in show, sea lion go bye-bye."

If the employees he's bribed at SeaWorld can't come through for him on the sea lion tip, Yamamoto always has the fallback of driving up to San Francisco's Pier 39 with a refrigerated truck, waiting until the wee hours of morning with two assistants, and plugging a sea lion in the skull using a night-vision laser-scope, and a silencer on his high-powered rifle. The sea lions are wild, and come and go as they please from the docks. According to the Marine Mammal center in Sausalito, California, an organization dedicated to the rescue and study of sea mammals, the high count of sea lions at Pier 39 was 1,139 on September 3, 2001. With those kinds of numbers, it's easy to see how one fewer sea lion perched on the Frisco docks is not missed. Like whales, dolphins, manatees, and other aquatic mammals, sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. But that doesn't stop Yamamoto, who prizes sea lions for their blubber-bound musculature, which he asserts makes for the ultimate in pot roasts.

He's so foolhardy and headstrong, I wonder how long it will be before Yamamoto finally becomes a target for law enforcement, whether it's Arizona Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the FBI, or any of another half a dozen state, local and federal agencies who might take an interest in this felonious Bobby Flay. Yamamoto says he keeps his and his girlfriend Alexis' passports current, and they both have packed bags and one-way tickets to Zurich, where they could rent a chalet and have access to Yamamoto's Swiss bank account. He brags of a clandestine network of informants here who will tip him off should the law come gunning for him.

But why did he talk to me for this story? Why give the authorities a heads-up in print, which is what this article will inevitably do? Certainly, what property he holds locally is under fake names, and a phony shell corporation with an offshore mailbox serves as his corporate address. But it's not exactly as if Arizona is overloaded with Asian males, and his face will be published on thousands of New Times covers. There are two answers (besides, of course, his lust for recognition). The first is that Yamamoto may already be planning to set up shop in Europe, where regulations are more lax. And the second is that Yamamoto and I already have a history, having met in Los Angeles, close to five years ago.



The first time I saw Kaz Yamamoto, he was three sheets to the wind, a half-bottle of Cutty Sark (the only Scotch he could afford at the time) in front of him as he sat at the bar at Musso & Frank, one of L.A.'s oldest eateries. A rather happy drunk, he was trying to coach the bartender on the finer points of singing the "Sukiyaki" song in Japanese, much to the old chap's annoyance. When I interrupted Yamamoto to introduce myself, he greeted me like a long-lost friend.

"Lemon-san, I so happy you come! Now I can finally have drink with Fat Man," he intoned in a spray of whiskey breath, then thumping the bar top with one hand. "A drink for Fat Man! A drink for Fat Man!"

The ancient barkeep in red jacket and black tie took my order with a snarl. Though I had slightly less girth then, Yamamoto was not referring to my waistline, but rather to a food column I penned for the now-defunct New Times Los Angeles titled "The Fat Man." It was written through the guise of my alter ego, a Sydney Greenstreet-like character not too far removed from the person I actually am. I had just visited the Japanese-French fusion restaurant Chaya Brasserie in Beverly Hills and given its executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe a thorough verbal bashing in print. Yamamoto was elated. He had been a line cook for Tachibe for the last three months and hated his employer with a passionate intensity.

"Tachibe-san so mad his face turn red," laughed Yamamoto, as I took my boilermaker and guided us both to a booth where we could order some food and help Kaz soak up some of that Cutty. "He say if you come in there again, he slice you in half with samurai sword. Ha, ha!"

Yamamoto despised Tachibe because he'd given the newcomer a dressing down for a rather minor oversight on his part. Yamamoto vowed revenge from that day forward, but the sting of my notice and the outrage it caused Tachibe seemed to be enough to have Yamamoto overlook his blood oath. I had inflicted a mortal blow by calling Tachibe's vittles "as French as Inspector Clouseau and as Japanese as James Clavell." Yamamoto kept repeating the line throughout the evening, even after the drinking party moved on to other, seedier watering holes.

From that night forward, a strange relationship developed between us. An uneasy, one-sided not-quite friendship in which Yamamoto would call me up to go carousing with him until he was so plastered that I had to stick him in a cab and send him on his way. It was almost as if he knew I would write about him one day. That, and I suppose I was the only sympathetic ear he had at the time.

Half-kiddingly, Yamamoto called himself "Koreanese": He was born in Osaka to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, a combination so taboo in Japan that to this day the offspring of such couplings are discriminated against in all aspects of Japanese society. Yamamoto's father had escaped North Korea with the help of his mother who was a volunteer with an international aid organization, one allowed on infrequent and highly restricted tours of the Stalinist police state in the mid-'70s. Yamamoto's dad was a lieutenant in the North Korean army, fluent in Japanese, assigned to chaperone Yamamoto's mother and her delegation so that they did not speak to any North Korean citizens unobserved.

A love affair ensued, and Yamamoto's father defected to Japan and married Yamamoto's mother. As is Japanese law and custom, the twentysomething former military man Chang-Su Park adopted a Japanese name, Ryoji Yamamoto, and Kaz's mother Misako also took that last name. Ryoji became a consultant with the Japanese self-defense force, otherwise known as the JDA, or the Japanese Defense Agency. Misako kept house at home, and soon became pregnant with the couple's only child in 1978, a boy they named Kazuki, meaning "First Hope" in Japanese.

Keeping his half-Korean lineage a secret was impossible for Kaz in the insular world of Japanese grade school. When his father walked Kazuki to school one morning, the suspicions of his classmates were confirmed by his dad's heavy Korean accent, one the children mocked and imitated with a guttural "chok-chok-chok." Kazuki fought his first fistfight that day, one of many schoolyard scuffles he would endure for years to come.

"They call me 'hafu' or 'banchopari,'" explained Kazuki once. "Hafu mean 'half,' and 'banchopari' mean half-Korean/half-Japanese, like calling Mexican guy 'wetback.' Whenever those kids say 'banchopari,' I hit biggest guy in face and they shut up. I learn to use my fist very, very good."

Though Kaz's test scores were above average, his prospects following graduation from secondary school were dim. His penchant for pugilism, justified though it may have been, followed him in his permanent record, as did an arrest for joyriding a motorcycle when he was 16. The Japanese university system frowned on such behavior, and the fact that Kaz's father was Korean probably didn't help matters. But his dad's connections with the JDA got him accepted into the JMSDF, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, the only "navy" allowed the Japanese following the American occupation of Japan after World War II. Kaz signed on to the AEGIS destroyer Kongo as a seaman, third-class, and volunteered for the galley. He took to the kitchen like a baby octopus to salt water, and two years later, he was seaman first-class in charge of all baked goods on board.

"In the navy, I decide I want to be great chef," Kaz tells me. "All really great chef are French, so I decide to go to France."

After being honorably discharged following three years of service, the young Yamamoto bought a Japanese-French phrase-book and a one-way ticket to Paris, City of Light. He had learned a little English in the navy, enough to befriend a Brit expat from Liverpool who ran a small hotel on the Left Bank, and rented him a room at half the going rate. Eventually, he applied and was accepted into Le Cordon Bleu Paris, the most prestigious culinary academy in the world. By day he learned the art of chocolate, patisserie, haute cuisine and French and regional cooking. Late into the night, he washed dishes at a bistro nearby his flat to help pay the tuition. His parents wired him Japanese yen from Osaka, which converted at a profitable rate into francs. And he had a little savings left over from his time as a sailor. He was poor, but determined to graduate with honors.

After nine months of intensive schooling, he was awarded Le Cordon Bleu's Le Grand Diplôme, the school's highest honor, certifying that the recipient has had the most comprehensive training in classic French cuisine and pastry techniques available. Yamamoto wanted to remain in his adopted city, and had several leads on positions in Parisian restaurants. But his father had been diagnosed with cancer, and he felt obligated to return to Osaka.

The year 1999 turned out to be the worst of Yamamoto's life. His father passed away, leaving him and his mother behind. While living with his widowed mom, Yamamoto took a job at an Osaka sushi restaurant that specialized in serving fugu, or blowfish, a deadly delicacy in Japan. The fish's internal organs contain lethal doses of tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that can cause general paralysis and death from asphyxiation. Scores of people die each year in Japan from eating fugu that has not been prepared properly, yet the thrill of ingesting the poisonous puffer fish draws diners like moths to a flame. The tingle they first feel on their tongue may just be harmless, trace amounts of tetrodotoxin, or it may be the onset of an unusually gruesome demise. If the latter, the victim will die in less than 24 hours, remaining conscious the entire time as the poison slowly incapacitates him.

"This idiot salaryman, Nobu Sato, he come in all the time, always pinch waitress butt," Yamamoto stated during one late-night drinking session. "Real asshole. So I give him extra taste of fugu liver. Just to scare. But I make mistake and give him too much."

Long story short, the salaryman died, and Yamamoto's name was not only Mudd in the restaurant biz, but he was wanted by the police. He had no choice but to give himself up, and there was a trial in which famed Tokyo lawyer Bennie Matsukawa argued that the death had been accidental, merely a hazard of eating the dangerous delicacy. It worked; Yamamoto was acquitted, but Japan's tabloid press took up the tale. The Mainichi Shinbun, one of the largest dailies in Japan, printed Yamamoto's photo and called for him to commit seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, in disgrace. People would throw garbage at him when he would show his face in public. Yamamoto fled to Los Angeles, leaving his mother behind, and was soon knocking around the glitzy L.A. restaurant scene. He'd stay at one gig for a few months, then quit and drink up his savings until he had to go back to work. Being disgraced in Japan had taken a heavy toll on his psyche, and he self-medicated himself for depression with the aforementioned cheap Scotch.

This is about the time I ran into Yamamoto. But after six months he fell off my radar screen. He stopped calling me, and the one time I tried his cell, it had been disconnected. I continued with New Times Los Angeles as "The Fat Man" until 9/11 happened, and the paper's advertising dried up. The paper folded in 2002, and after being courted by my old boss, now the editor of Phoenix New Times, I accepted the position of staff writer and restaurant critic with the Phoenix tabloid, not thinking that I'd ever see Yamamoto again.



I'd heard whispers of Le Menu in Phoenix restaurant circles, but nobody knew for sure if the super-secret supper club really existed. I was initially convinced the whole thing was an urban legend until Yamamoto called me out of the blue one day.

"I thought Phoenix too hot for Fat Man," chuckled Yamamoto over the phone. "You wanna meet me at Chez Nous?"

Chez Nous and the Pink Pony, these are the sort of watering holes Yamamoto loves to frequent. In the eye-numbing darkness of Chez Nous, Yamamoto spun me a fantastic tale, one that would be difficult to believe if the proof were not soon to follow. Le Menu did, in fact, exist. It was Yamamoto's brainchild, first conceived in Hollyweird, where all things are possible, then later moved to Phoenix, where the contraband catering service could continue to operate below the radar.

"I serve Mr. Jack Nicholson in his home in Hollywood Hills," Yamamoto said, grinning. "He have dinner party, and they eat whole dolphin! Nicolas Cage and his wife there. She really hot Korean chick. Larry David [of Seinfeld and now Curb Your Enthusiasm] there, too, but it Passover and he say he not eat dolphin because it not kosher."

As seems appropriate in a town built on celluloid dreams, the concept for Le Menu came from a film, 1990's The Freshman starring Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando (a neighbor of Nicholson's whom Yamamoto later served a forbidden delicacy that will be explored later in this piece). Yamamoto had rented the video from Blockbuster, and watched it in his Studio City apartment while doing bong hits on a ratty sofa. Maybe the cheba was especially potent, but Yamamoto was inspired. The comedy involved a Mafia-run restaurant that served everything from Komodo dragons to Bengal tiger meat for an exclusive clientele.

It was as if Yamamoto had glimpsed his future.

"That film kinda boring, but idea good," related Yamamoto, sucking back a single-malt Glenlivet, an improvement over the Cutty of days past. "I know I can do this. In Japan and Asia, we eat lot of crazy shit. Here in U.S., you don't eat too much crazy shit. Big problem is money for first meal. But I figure this one out, too."

Yamamoto partnered with a Brentwood wine merchant to do a tasting involving exotic meats. Nothing too crazy, or even illegal. Just antelope, zebra, and hippo, all of which, according to the FDA, are legal to import -- as long as the animals were raised on African farms and not in the wild. These meats weren't cheap, but Yamamoto borrowed money from a Century City loan shark, procured the viands and produced a stellar menu for the tasting, one that included ravioli stuffed with ground antelope, hippo rillettes, and tournedos of zebra wrapped in hippo bacon.

The tasting was a hit. Yamamoto handed out his cards, and told the vino-swillers he was available for private functions. He and the wine merchant planned another event, and when Yamamoto's loan shark learned of what the cash had been for, he forgave the 100 percent interest in return for an invite to the next tasting. By the time that rolled around, the phone calls were pouring in to Yamamoto's answering service. Le Menu was born.

As the parties became more and more extravagant, Yamamoto felt the pressure to outdo past repasts. He kept upping the ante, moving into riskier territory, with endangered species and shady, black-market suppliers. His staff grew to 14, and he began hunting some of the animals himself to ensure the quality of what he was receiving. He devised an ingenious, self-cooling "black box" wherein he could ship some meats overnight to his upscale new home in Encino after butchering them on the spot. FedEx was none the wiser.

However, things were getting out of hand, and Yamamoto's business venture was growing too fast for him to keep up with it. He barely had time to breathe, with all of Le Menu's banquets and cocktail parties, booked several months in advance. Yamamoto turned to cocaine to continue the frenetic pace, and was soon doing an eightball every day. Then there was a series of close shaves. He was stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border with a suitcase containing a dozen live chinchillas from the Peruvian Andes, and was forced to relinquish them to customs agents. He had planned to roast them like suckling pigs for a backyard barbecue at the estate of film producer Harvey Weinstein. Fortunately, the customs agents believed him when he told them he had intended the priceless, endangered rodents as pets for his 6-year-old daughter, terminally sick with leukemia, and he was not arrested.

But when he returned chinchilla-less to La-La Land, Miramax mogul Weinstein was livid, and threatened to rat him out to the feds if his guests weren't wowed. Thankfully, Yamamoto had half a gorilla left in his freezer and placated Weinstein by roasting it alfresco on a spit for him. That night after the cookout, Yamamoto suffered a mild heart attack, brought on by the excessive use of nose candy and his nonstop schedule. Doctors warned him it would happen again if he didn't curtail his drug abuse, and ease his work load.

These factors, along with the risk that he had become too well-known for his illegal spreads in the media capital of the universe, made him decide to move to Arizona. He was already rich beyond his dreams, and his accumulated loot would go much further in the desert. Moreover, he could maintain his Hollywood client base, as Phoenix is only an hour's flight from Los Angeles International Airport. Also, Phoenix is sleepier, less high-profile. At least the move would buy him some time in his newfound career, and perhaps lead to a healthier lifestyle as well.

The past three years have been a boon to Yamamoto. He's stayed away from the drugs, and has a much bigger house than he could ever afford in expensive Los Angeles. A year and a half ago, he met the alluring Alexis, who has a head for business; she keeps the books for him and helps him with service during more intimate soirees. They seem truly devoted to each other, and Alexis is convinced of Yamamoto's brilliance in regard to all things alimentary.

"I'd follow Kaz to the ends of the Earth," she explains to me. "He's the man I want to have babies with. I want him to have the acclaim he deserves, but if America rejects him, there are other countries that will be more hospitable to a man of his talents."

In fact, like some East Coast La Cosa Nostra don who's moved his operation to the desert, that Damocles sword of the law is always hanging over Yamamoto. Could it be that at the tender age of 28, Arizona's most talented and least-known chef is ready for a career move, one that takes him to an international stage?

"In France they eat horse meat, and in all Europe, it is legal to eat any kind of game at restaurant," Yamamoto tells me. "Sometime, on menu, they warn you to watch out for buckshot when you eat game. They more sophisticated in Europe. Like Japanese or Chinese."

The Valley does have some other peddlers of exotic eats. Down Under Wines in Chandler regularly does wine tastings pairing Aussie vino with roo meat. And since 1982, Rick Worrilow of Gourmet Imports in Phoenix has provided the local hospitality industry with everything from camel to caribou, all quite legal and aboveboard, by the way. The Stockyards serves calf fries, which are veal testicles, and VooDoo Daddy's Magic Kitchen serves alligator. At Lee Lee Oriental Market in Chandler, you can purchase frozen Thai cockroaches, canned crickets, thousand-year eggs, and duck embryos, among other Asian delicacies. And such items as elk and venison are not too difficult to find on menus around town.

As discussed previously, the interest in extreme cuisine is on the rise nationwide, as the American palate becomes more experienced and curious. Food Network and Travel Channel programs showing the hosts eating roasted guinea pigs in Machu Picchu, deer penis soup in Singapore or the still-beating hearts of cobras in Vietnam are now run-of-the-mill. This is still mostly voyeurism on our part; Americans tend to be fairly squeamish about anything unusual. Older cultures are not so particular about their provender.

Yamamoto hails from a country surrounded by water, and nothing in the sea is off limits to the Japanese, including sea urchin, whale meat, and dolphin. I myself ordered whale meat in Tokyo once, and though I didn't think it terribly appetizing, I was intrigued by how easy it was to find in the bustling Japanese capital. As mentioned, Yamamoto is half-Korean, and Koreans continue to delight in the taste of canines, often served in a hearty soup. Dog meat is also popular in China, but then the Chinese really do eat just about everything under the sun, from bird's nest and snake bile to monkey brains and the bronchial tubes of cows.

But Yamamoto is going beyond the pale, traversing boundaries at which even his fellow Asians would surely balk. Everyone's heard about Tom Cruise joking (supposedly) about noshing his newborn baby's placenta and umbilical cord. But placentophagy is nothing new, nor is it illegal to chow down on some umbilical carne asada, as long as it's postpartum, of course. Placenta pâté has long been a part of Yamamoto's repertoire, but it's not the only human flesh he's willing to prepare for customers eager to experiment with cannibalism.

"There many Mexcan immigrant need money," confides Yamamoto during my inspection of his Anthem residence. "Sometime they sell me kidney, arm or leg, or just slice of liver. Very, very expenseeve. These Mexcan never have to work for year, I tell you. And Mexcan liver with onion? Is sooo deleeshus. You must try."

How could I resist? Actually, at another of his clandestine spreads, Yamamoto presented me with three plates, one with a slice of human liver sautéed with onions, another with a hunk of muscle torn from a human leg that had been deep fried, and a third of a side of poached hufu, a faux human flesh product that bills itself as the "Healthy Human Flesh Alternative" (available online at www.eathufu.com).

"I give the hufu to people who don't wanna eat Mexcan," claims Yamamoto. "Hufu not bad, but nothing like real Mexcan."

I sample a bit of each, and I must admit that Yamamoto is correct. Mexican liver is exquisite, a thousand times tastier than its bovine counterpart. The leg muscle was a little chewy, sort of like gnawing on a fried chicken gizzard, but not bad. ("Marlon Brando and Phil Gordon only person who really love leg muscle; they like on bone and then rip off with teeth. Moan in pleasure, then spit out gristle. I serve Brando many time at Hollywood home. Mayor Phil very good customer here. Say Mexcan better than osso buco.") As for the hufu, it was awfully gelatinous in places, and blubbery. I don't think broiling was the best way to go, but Yamamoto says hufu is too fatty to fry, though sometimes he does this, and ends up with bits of meat similar to lardons, which he will then add to a salad.

The whole thing seems so Sweeney Todd-ish to me. Like something out of that 1973 sci-fi cannibal flick Soylent Green. But apparently, there have been precedents in real life as well. Why, New Times' own Paul Rubin, recent winner of the Arizona Press Club's Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award, wrote a series of articles beginning in April 2003 ("Rent a Patient," April 24, 2003) exposing a health-insurance scam involving Mexican immigrants receiving unnecessary surgeries for cold, hard cash. The only difference here is that the desired organs are refrigerated for later consumption.

As if these revelations were not bizarre enough, I'm a bit grossed out by Yamamoto's admission that he has an unsavory agreement with some local mortuaries to harvest kidneys and other internal organs for him from children and teenagers who have died in car accidents. But Yamamoto's ultimate desire to prepare the most unthinkable of dinners is what really sends shivers down my spine.

"One day I hope I can cook whole Mexcan," sighs Yamamoto. "Maybe baby Mexcan that mother sell to me. Then I make for my good friend Jon Kyl. I know Senator will like to eat Mexcan. He only like Mexcan when on his dinner plate."

I at first hoped he was joking, but Yamamoto was not smiling.

Despite the patronage of Senator Kyl, I suspect the days of Le Menu are numbered, but until Yamamoto flees for Europe, one step ahead of Sheriff Arpaio or the feds, his black-market banquets will continue unabated for those with the bankroll and gall to consume endangered species and even human flesh with all the aplomb of swells sipping rare vintages at the Pointe Hilton or The Phoenician. As Yamamoto knows, when it comes to pleasing adventurous palates, pretty much anything goes.








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