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Baseball executives, players weigh in on what makes a good owner

The profile can vary from Peter O'Malley to George Steinbrenner. Passion and an open pocketbook are vital,Canada goose but there is no perfect way. Arte Moreno of the Angels gets high marks.
Soon after he bought the Angels in 2003, Arte Moreno endeared himself to fans by going on a $146-million free-agent shopping spree and lowering prices for beer and merchandise.

Former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley was beloved for the family atmosphere he created,Canada goose jacka his first-class treatment of players and buying his staff ice cream every day the team was in first place.

George Steinbrenner ruled the New York Yankees with an iron fist,Canada goose parka engaged in bitter public feuds with managers and players and popularized the phrase, "You're fired!" long before Donald Trump.

But in the eyes of Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman,Expedition parka who worked 23 years under "the Boss," the bombastic Steinbrenner was "the greatest owner in all of sports. He was second to none."

Beauty, when it comes to major league baseball owners, is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

O'Malley received high praise from executives and former players who, in light of Frank McCourt's upcoming sale of the Dodgers, were asked what makes a good baseball owner.

"An owner needs to care about and listen to the fans, be passionate about the game and involved in the community, know the importance of his brand," Arizona General Manager Kevin Towers said. "As a kid growing up in the Bay Area, the O'Malleys had a brand."

Former Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros said O'Malley was "great in some respects," noting he spared no expense when it came to travel accommodations for players and their families.

"The way we were treated was a joke as far as how good it was," Karros said.

But Karros, whose Dodgers tenure (1992-2002) spanned the end of the O'Malley regime and the beginning of News Corp. ownership, stopped short of deifying O'Malley.

"We had an opportunity to get Robin Ventura during a pennant race in 1995, and he didn't want to take on salary," said Karros, now a Fox Sports commentator.

"Other teams spent more money. Our trade-deadline deals were getting guys like Chad Curtis. We never got that big blockbuster guy. As a player, you want an owner who will spare no expense to put the best product on the field."

That's what separated Steinbrenner, who bought the Yankees for $8.7 million in 1973, from most. Steinbrenner, who died in 2010, spent lavishly on free agents, and those investments helped fuel five World Series championships since 1996.

The Yankees started a television network and built a stadium, and Forbes magazine now values the club at $1.7 billion.

"The bottom line is he put great players on the field, and he delivered championships," Cashman said. "He built something the fans can be proud of, and that's what a great owner does."

Even if there was a madness to his methods. Steinbrenner meddled in team affairs, fumed when the Yankees lost three games in a row and churned through 11 managers from 1974 to 1990, firing or forcing out the equally fiery Billy Martin five times.

"George was very passionate; he wanted to go 162-0," said Pat Gillick, who was the Yankees' farm director from 1974 to 1976 and went on to become a general manager in Toronto, Baltimore, Seattle and Philadelphia. "But I don't know … he wouldn't be the best guy I ever worked for."

Did Steinbrenner's bluster contribute to the Yankees' success?

"No, but it made things more interesting," Cashman said. "He had a football mentality, but from the owner's box, he couldn't apply it as easily. If you're Bill Belichick on the sidelines, you can apply it, because you can directly interact with players."

Dish Upping Focus on Streaming Content

No. 2 satellite TV operator Dish Network Corp. is focusing on a Web-based platform that could theoretically compete with its current multivideo program distribution (MVPD) business model.The move underscores the maverick approach of founder and chairman Charlie Ergen.
Ergen, who last year brought in Joe Clayton from Sirius Satellite Radio to run Dish’s day-to-day operations as CEO,Canada Goose has gained a reputation talking off the cuff and following it up with action.
In 2010, he spearheaded the acquisition of bankrupt packaged-media rental icon Blockbuster for less than its salvage cost — a move that helped drive 12% revenue growth for Dish in the most recent fiscal quarter.
In a Nov. 7 call with analysts, Ergen said the Blockbuster brand helps Dish separate itself from a competitive Canada Goose Jakker landscape that he believes offers ubiquitous content.
“Everybody sells the same thing, everybody’s [bundled subscription] packages are generally the same,” Ergen said.
The executive said that sameness, coupled with the ongoing economic troubles, is what has prompted some subscribers to ditch MVPDs in favor of lower-cost subscription-based video-on-demand platforms, such as Netflix.
Ergen said cable and satellite TV operators continue to take hits on premium video subscribers due to emerging over-the-top video providers such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime. He said 50% of every lost Canada Goose Parka  cable/satellite subscriber is “probably” a Netflix member. Ergen said 20% of Dish subscribers are also Netflix members.
“When someone can buy Netflix for $7.99 [a month], do they really want to pay $14.99 for HBO?” he said. “I think all of us in the video business are looking at streaming video.”
Ergen said ongoing changes in technologies delivering home entertainment add to the challenges and opportunities afforded the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile — a union, if allowed, that would Trillium Parka propel him to seek a merger with No. 1 satellite TV operator DirecTV.
“There’ll probably be a lot of mergers that could happen that people never thought could happen,” he said.
Indeed, Dish made a bid for Hulu.com that reportedly approached $2 billion but was rejected when Hulu’s owners decided not to sell the online repurposed content aggregator.
“From an acquisition point of view we look at a lot of different things,” Ergen said, adding that partnering with third parties is the most prudent course of action in today’s economy. “It’s a great time to change your business for when the economy does change a bit.”

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Yahoo Attracts More Potential Suitors

The swirl of potential deal activity around Yahoo Inc. is growing.

Google Inc. has talked to at least two private-equity firms about potentially helping them finance a deal to buy Yahoo's core business, according to a person familiar with the matter. Google and prospective partners have held early-stage discussions but haven't put together a formal proposal, the person said.

Google might end up not pursuing a bid, the person added. It is unclear which private-equity firms the Internet search company has talked to.

The discussions between Google and private-equity firms are the latest indications of growing deal activity around Yahoo. Yahoo's board fired Chief Executive Carol Bartz in September, and the company since has been shopping itself to potential buyers such as private-equity firms. Yahoo hasn't been able to increase revenue even as the Internet ad market expands by more than 20% annually.

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the China-based Internet company in which Yahoo owns a roughly 40% stake, recently said he was interested in buying Yahoo, but it was unclear whether he has made a serious move to do so.

Any deal tying Google and Yahoo, which are two of the world's biggest Internet companies, would be sure to attract antitrust scrutiny. In 2008, federal antitrust lawyers in the U.S. thwarted a Web-search advertising partnership between the companies. A year later, Yahoo signed a 10-year search partnership with Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft is now considering financing a potential joint bid for Yahoo by extending loans to its deal partners and buying preferred stock in Yahoo, said people familiar with the matter. The deal's structure would reflect Microsoft's desire to limit its risk.

The software company has been in discussions about a potential joint proposal for Yahoo with private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, people familiar with the matter have said. Microsoft's contribution would likely be several billion dollars, although the exact amount hasn't been decided, the people said.

Owning a chunk of preferred stock in Yahoo would allow Microsoft to recoup its investment before owners of common stock and some other types of investors. Similarly, lending to the new owners at a high interest rate would help Microsoft make a return on its investment even if upside on the deal proved limited, the people said.

Google is interested in selling some advertising across Yahoo's websites—something Yahoo largely does on its own today—according to people familiar with the matter.

Any deal involving Google also could yield other opportunities, such as bringing Google's social-networking service Google+ to Yahoo's audience of nearly 700 million unique visitors a month, the people said.

Yahoo also has relationships with many so-called premium-content publishers such as ABC News, which provides video and other content for Yahoo sites and for which Yahoo currently sells ads. Google is interested in having deeper business relationships with such publishers, one of these people said.

Google's interest in participating in the Yahoo sale talks also could be partly an attempt to bid up prices and make matters more difficult for competitors such as Microsoft, said a person familiar with the matter.

Google wants to help sell the ad space across Yahoo sites because Yahoo has struggled to get good prices for it, people familiar with the matter said. Yahoo's display-ad business—which includes graphical, interactive and video ads—is a $2 billion annual business.

Yahoo has faced challenges in selling display ads amid competition from social network Facebook Inc., video site Hulu LLC and others. Yahoo generates more than 30% of its display-ad revenue by selling lower-priced display ads for less-desirable real estate on its sites through its automated exchange, Right Media, which matches buyers and sellers of ads.

Google has its DoubleClick ad exchange, which many industry experts say is a more efficient technology that is likely to help with pricing. DoubleClick is attracting a growing number of advertisers and websites at the expense of Right Media.

Industry experts say Yahoo's ad space is "undermonetized," meaning it could generate more money if Yahoo invested more in its technology or potentially placed the inventory on DoubleClick, among other things.

Google executives in the past have talked to Yahoo about such a partnership, people familiar with the matter said.

Yahoo could also potentially place its ad inventory on other ad exchanges, a tactic it is using in markets outside the U.S., such as Europe, said a person familiar with the matter. Third-quarter revenue in Europe, which represents about 10% of Yahoo's total revenue, rose 14% year to year after payouts to business partners. By contrast, U.S. revenue fell 14% year over year after payouts.

For now, Yahoo is trying to put together a partnership with Microsoft, AOL Inc. and other publishers of online content to pool ad space together into one marketplace to challenge DoubleClick, people familiar with the matter have said. It is unclear whether the partnership will come to fruition or how long it would take to complete.

Google has long been the No. 1 player in Web search. But in the display-ad market, Google is a smaller—but growing—competitor. In the U.S., Facebook is expected to generate more than $2 billion in net revenue from display advertising this year, with Yahoo generating $1.6 billion and Google generating $1.1 billion, according to research firm eMarketer Inc.

Japan Tops France for 3-Star Michelin Restaurants

What’s that you hear, France? Is it the sound of Japan blowing up as the new culinary powerhouse in the world?
For now, that’s what the love-to-hate Michelin guide says, at least.

Japan has bested France for the number of restaurants that received the coveted three-star billing from the esteemed publication, according to the upcoming 2012 edition centered on the country’s western locales. The guide will be released on Friday in both English and Japanese.

With the new guide, Japan breaks away from the neck-and-neck contention it held with France last year. The country now boasts 29 establishments with three-star status, four more than France, according to a statement by the French publication on Tuesday.

The three-star rating was bestowed unto a total of 15 eateries in Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and newly added Nara– one more than in 2011. Some 59 restaurants were rewarded with two stars and 222 made it into the pages of the little red book with one star.

Three new restaurants were added to the three-star lineup this year: Wayamura, a Japanese restaurant, in Nara and two restaurants in Osaka that were upgraded from two stars – Koryu and Fujiya1935.

The Michelin star system has shone brightly on Japan since it first ventured into the country in 2008. While New York City stewed with just three of the highest-ranked restaurants at the time, Tokyo galloped into the Michelin family of guides with eight. It was a little shy of the 10 in Paris and now easily outshines the nine in New York.

The latest of the greatest in Japan’s west includes a new category for Korean restaurants, of which there is one in the book. Overall, Japanese cuisine, which encompasses the breadth of soba, yakitori, traditional Japanese, sushi and yakiniku, among others, is still king, making up about 90% of the restaurant selection. Kyoto-based dining venues dominated the rankings. About half of the top-ranked and two-star restaurants reside in the ancient city.

The new guide also puts the gastronomic cities of western Japan back on top of the capital, which had 14 triple star restaurants last year. The 2012 Tokyo guide, including outlying cities Yokohama and Kamakura, will go on sale Dec. 12.

Then, inevitably, comes the French guide’s new judgment of its native country. The 2012 France edition is expected to be released in March of next year.

Wheldon, Indy 500 Winner, Dies After Crash

Dan Wheldon, a popular and congenial racecar driver from England who won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time in May, died Sunday in a fiery 15-car accident early in a 300-mile IndyCar Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Wheldon’s car went airborne and hit the catch fence 12 laps into the race, which was scheduled to run 200 laps at the one-and-a-half-mile oval. He was airlifted to the hospital, and his death was announced about two hours later.

Series officials met with drivers and they decided not to continue the race, the last of the season. Instead, the drivers did a five-lap tribute to Wheldon as his car number, 77, flashed alone on the score board at the track.

Wheldon, 33, is probably the most well-known driver to die in a race in the United States since Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Wheldon’s death was the first in the IndyCar Series since the rookie Paul Dana was killed in a warm-up session before a race at Homestead, Fla., in 2006.

“He was one of those special, special people from when he showed up first in IndyCar,” said the four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, a former teammate of Wheldon’s who had known him since they were children. “And he was kind of brash, all that stuff, but he was a charmer. He was a charmer. Then he became this loving family guy who is still charming, but he had this whole new side to him.”

A former series champion relegated to part-time status in the series, Wheldon had taken a major step to solidify his future the morning of the race. According to Michael Andretti, Wheldon had signed a multiyear contract at Andretti Autosport to replace Danica Patrick, who is leaving the series after the season to pursue a career in Nascar. Wheldon won the championship in 2005 for the team co-owned by Andretti.

“We had great plans to do fun things together,” Andretti said. “I’m going to miss him.”

Because he was a part-time driver, Wheldon took on an unusual challenge Sunday. He was trying to win a $5 million bonus offered to nonregular drivers, which he would have split with Ann Babenco, a fan from High Bridge, N.J., had he won the race.

The accident unfolded well in front of Wheldon, who was near the back of the 34-car field. Replays showed he ran into a car, which the veteran Paul Tracy later said was his, that had run over debris and slowed down drastically. Wheldon’s car vaulted over Tracy’s and flew from the inside lane to the outside wall, where it tangled with the flaming wreckage of Will Power’s car. Power’s car had crashed into the back of Alex Lloyd’s rapidly slowing car and had hurdled it, turning over in midair and landing on its side as it smashed into the wall and slid down in flames.

The track was strewn with cars on fire and scattered debris. Wheldon’s car was covered with a yellow tarpaulin, placed on a truck and taken from the track. It took more than an hour for the track to be cleared and repaired.

In a television interview before the race was canceled, Ryan Briscoe, another driver for Penske, said of the accident: “I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it. The debris we all had to drive through the lap later, it looked like a war scene from ‘Terminator’ or something.”

Three other drivers were injured, including Power, who was attempting to overtake Franchitti for the series championship. Power was treated and released from the hospital, but IndyCar said J. R. Hildebrand and Pippa Mann would remain overnight for evaluation.

Indy cars had not raced at Las Vegas since 2000, and drivers had been concerned before the race about safety at the oval, which also hosts Nascar races. Indy cars travel much faster than stock cars, reaching 220 miles an hour. There was a fear that a “pack race” — tightly bunched cars at very high speed — would unfold.

“The cars are going to be inches apart, both to the sides and behind and in front of you, at speeds of over 220 miles an hour,” Franchitti said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Franchitti, who won the series championship Sunday because Power was involved in the accident, had raced only in stock cars at Las Vegas before last weekend.

Power said Saturday, “It’s a track that’s so easy to drive it manufactures really tight-knit racing, which is really quite intense.”

Randy Bernard, the chief executive of the series, did not take questions after announcing Wheldon’s death at a news conference.

Wheldon, married with two young sons, won the Indy 500 under memorable circumstances twice. The first time was in 2005, when he passed Patrick for the lead with six laps left. Wheldon won the race again in May after Hildebrand, a rookie, hit the wall on the last lap while leading.

Wheldon had 16 career victories as a regular in the IndyCar Series from 2003 until last year, when Hildebrand replaced him as a driver at Panther Racing. Wheldon won this year’s Indy 500 in a one-race deal driving a car owned by the former driver Bryan Herta. Wheldon drove in one other race this year, finishing 14th in an Oct. 2 race at Kentucky Speedway after starting 28th.

On Saturday, writing in a blog for USA Today, Wheldon said he was frustrated that his car had been off the pace in early practices.

Referring to Franchitti and Power, Wheldon wrote: “Honestly, if I can be fast enough early in the race to be able to get up there and latch onto those two, it will be pure entertainment. It’s going to be a pack race, and you never know how that’s going to turn out.”

Why some Democrats oppose Obama’s jobs bill

Not long before the Senate voted to block his $447 billion jobs package on Tuesday, President Obama described the impending roll call as a “moment of truth.”

He meant for Republicans, whom he blames for quashing his attempts to improve the economy and who voted as a bloc against the plan.
But he could also have been talking about those moderate Democrats who face reelection fights next year, and who will be deciding in the coming months how closely to ally themselves to a president who is sinking in the polls.

After some public wavering by several of those Democrats, only two bucked the president and voted against the measure — Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.).

The defections allowed Republicans to label opposition to the president “bipartisan,” but the small number let Democrats claim that their caucus stood behind the president.

Democratic leaders had fought hard to get 51 of their members on board so they could show that the bill could pass, if Republicans had not required that it clear the 60-vote hurdle that has become the standard for any action in the gridlocked Senate.

“We worked real hard to get a majority, which we did. And it shows that Republicans are blocking jobs,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a breakfast meeting Wednesday.

At the same time, moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and James Webb (Va.), along with independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats, each indicated that they opposed the bill and voted to break the filibuster only so it could receive further debate.

“The president is becoming less and less popular,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “And as his policies have become less and less popular, we’re seeing fewer and fewer Democrats willing to stake their political survival on his record.”

In an interview, Tester denied that his vote against the package had to do with Obama or his own tough reelection campaign. “Because we are a highly public race, everything we do, people will analyze from an election standpoint. That’s not how I look at it at all,” he said in an interview. “Good policy makes good politics. I didn’t think this was particularly good policy.”

Tester said that he supports some elements of the president’s plan, including offering tax credits to businesses that hire veterans and boosting federal spending for infrastructure construction, and that he could vote for those pieces of the plan if they were presented separately for consideration.

But he said that a proposal to extend a payroll tax holiday for workers and expand it to include payroll taxes paid by some employers was a bad way to spur economic growth.

Like Tester, Nelson is considered particularly vulnerable by Republicans as they seek to pick up the four seats they need to gain control of the Senate.

One of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats, Nelson has worked especially hard to show his independence from the party.

In a statement, he rejected the jobs package’s underlying premise, indicating that he could not support the bill because it includes billions in higher spending and tax increases.

“I simply can’t support raising taxes so Washington can spend more,” he said.

Other Democratic senators who also face tough reelection races backed the plan.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), who raised eyebrows when she did not join Obama at a St. Louis event earlier this month, voted to move the bill forward. “This plan won’t solve all of our economic problems, but it would be a step in the right direction,” she said in a statement.

Also voting yes were Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.). Each of them faced a GOP television campaign urging them to vote against the package, as well as a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires that Democrats have proposed to pay for it. 

At a Wednesday luncheon, Senate Democrats weighed which piece of the president’s plan to put forward for a vote next. Leaders indicated that they may consider appropriations measures next week and return to the jobs proposals the first week of November, after a scheduled week-long recess at the end of this month.

Church Protests in Cairo Turn Deadly

CAIRO — A demonstration by Christians angry about a recent attack on a church touched off a night of violent protests here against the military council now ruling Egypt, leaving 24 people dead and more than 200 wounded in the worst spasm of violence since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
The sectarian protest appeared to catch fire because it was aimed squarely at the military council that has ruled Egypt since the revolution, at a moment when the military’s latest delay in turning over power has led to a spike in public distrust of its authority.

When the clashes broke out, some Muslims ran into the streets to help defend the Christians against the police, while others said they had come out to help the army quell the protests in the name of stability, turning what started as a march about a church into a chaotic battle over military rule and Egypt’s future.

Nada el-Shazly, 27, who was wearing a surgical mask to deflect the tear gas, said she came out because she heard state television urge “honest Egyptians” to turn out to protect the soldiers from Christian protesters, even though she knew some of her fellow Muslims had marched with the Christians to protest the military’s continued hold on power.

“Muslims get what is happening,” she said. The military, she said, was “trying to start a civil war.”

Thousands filled the streets of downtown, many armed with rocks, clubs or machetes. Witnesses said several protesters were crushed under military vehicles and the Health Ministry said that about 20 were undergoing surgery for bullet wounds.

Protesters responding to the news reportedly took to the streets in Alexandria as well.

The protest took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population. Christians had joined the pro-democracy protests in large numbers, hoping for the protections of a pluralistic, democratic state, but a surge in power of Islamists has raised fears of how much tolerance majority rule will allow.

But the most common refrain of the protests on Sunday was, “The people want to bring down the field marshal,” adapting the signature chant of the revolution to call for the resignation of the military’s top officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

“Muslims and Christians are one hand,” some chanted.

The military and riot police, on the other hand, appeared at some points to be working in tandem with Muslims who were lashing out at the Coptic Christians. As security forces cleared the streets around 10 p.m., police officers in riot gear marched back and forth through the streets of downtown alongside a swarm of hundreds of men armed with clubs and stones chanting, “The people want to bring down the Christians,” and, later, “Islamic, Islamic.”

“Until when are we going to live in this terror?” asked a Christian demonstrator who gave his name only as John. “This is not the issue of Muslim and Christian, this is the issue of the freedom that we demanded and can’t find.”

By the end of the night, as clouds of tear gas floated through the dark streets and the crosses carried by the original Christian demonstrators had disappeared, it became increasingly difficult to tell who was fighting whom.

At one point, groups of riot police officers were seen beating Muslim protesters, who were shouting, in Arabic, “God is Great!” while a few yards away other Muslims were breaking pavement into rocks to hurl in the direction of a group of Christians.

“It is chaos,” said Omar el-Shamy, a Muslim student who had spent much of the revolution in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and returned again to help support the Christians against the military. “I was standing with a group of people and suddenly they were chanting with the army! I don’t know what is going on.”
The sectarian protest appeared to catch fire because it was aimed squarely at the military council that has ruled Egypt since the revolution, at a moment when the military’s latest delay in turning over power has led to a spike in public distrust of its authority.

When the clashes broke out, some Muslims ran into the streets to help defend the Christians against the police, while others said they had come out to help the army quell the protests in the name of stability, turning what started as a march about a church into a chaotic battle over military rule and Egypt’s future.

Nada el-Shazly, 27, who was wearing a surgical mask to deflect the tear gas, said she came out because she heard state television urge “honest Egyptians” to turn out to protect the soldiers from Christian protesters, even though she knew some of her fellow Muslims had marched with the Christians to protest the military’s continued hold on power.

“Muslims get what is happening,” she said. The military, she said, was “trying to start a civil war.”

Thousands filled the streets of downtown, many armed with rocks, clubs or machetes. Witnesses said several protesters were crushed under military vehicles and the Health Ministry said that about 20 were undergoing surgery for bullet wounds.

Protesters responding to the news reportedly took to the streets in Alexandria as well.

The protest took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population. Christians had joined the pro-democracy protests in large numbers, hoping for the protections of a pluralistic, democratic state, but a surge in power of Islamists has raised fears of how much tolerance majority rule will allow.

But the most common refrain of the protests on Sunday was, “The people want to bring down the field marshal,” adapting the signature chant of the revolution to call for the resignation of the military’s top officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

“Muslims and Christians are one hand,” some chanted.

The military and riot police, on the other hand, appeared at some points to be working in tandem with Muslims who were lashing out at the Coptic Christians. As security forces cleared the streets around 10 p.m., police officers in riot gear marched back and forth through the streets of downtown alongside a swarm of hundreds of men armed with clubs and stones chanting, “The people want to bring down the Christians,” and, later, “Islamic, Islamic.”

“Until when are we going to live in this terror?” asked a Christian demonstrator who gave his name only as John. “This is not the issue of Muslim and Christian, this is the issue of the freedom that we demanded and can’t find.”

By the end of the night, as clouds of tear gas floated through the dark streets and the crosses carried by the original Christian demonstrators had disappeared, it became increasingly difficult to tell who was fighting whom.

At one point, groups of riot police officers were seen beating Muslim protesters, who were shouting, in Arabic, “God is Great!” while a few yards away other Muslims were breaking pavement into rocks to hurl in the direction of a group of Christians.

“It is chaos,” said Omar el-Shamy, a Muslim student who had spent much of the revolution in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and returned again to help support the Christians against the military. “I was standing with a group of people and suddenly they were chanting with the army! I don’t know what is going on.”
“What’s happening is not sectarian tension,” Mr. Sharaf said in a telephone interview with state television. “It is an escalating plan for the fall and fragmentation of the state. There’s a feeling of a conspiracy theory to keep Egypt from having the elections that will lead it to democracy.”

Echoing the Mubarak government’s propaganda, he added, “There are hidden hands involved and we will not leave them."

Public patience with both street protests and military rule has grown increasingly thin. The military, initially celebrated as the savior of the revolution for ushering Mr. Mubarak out the door, has become a subject of public ire both for its failure to establish stability and for its repeated deferrals of its pledged exit from power.

In a timetable laid out last week, the military’s top officers said they expected to finish parliamentary elections by March but wait for the subsequent drafting and ratification of a constitution before holding a presidential election. That schedule could leave the military as an all-powerful chief executive for another two years or more. Newspapers and talk shows, once cowed by the military’s threats to censor any perceived insult, have begin openly debating whether the military will follow through on its commitments to democracy.

Where previous Christian demonstrations here appealed to the military for protection against radical Islamists, Sunday’s demonstration began from the start as a protest against the military’s stewardship of the government.

Christians who marched from the neighborhood of Shubra to the radio and television building to protest the partial dismantling of a church near the southern city of Aswan, said that they scuffled at least three times with neighbors who did not want them to pass.

But the violence did not escalate until they joined another demonstration at the radio and television headquarters around 6 p.m. Demonstrators and plainclothes security forces began throwing rocks at each other.

State news media reported that at least three security officers had died in attacks by Christian protesters, though those accounts could not be confirmed. The protesters did not appear to be armed and they insisted they were peaceful until they were attacked.

In retaliation, military vehicles began driving into protesters, killing at least six, including one with a crushed skull, several witnesses said. Some said they saw more than 15 mangled bodies. Photographs said to depict some of them circulated online.

Father Ephraim Magdy, a priest fleeing the tear gas, said he saw soldiers fire live bullets at protesters, and showed a journalist two bullet shells. “It is up to the military to explain what happened, but I see it as persecution,” he said. “I felt that they were monsters. It’s impossible for them to be Egyptians, let alone members of the army that protected the revolution.”

Everybody has an opinion about the Occupy Wall Street movement

Jessica Frayer 17, holds a sign as more than a thousand gather in Indianapolis on Saturday for Occupy Indy, a protest against everything from bank foreclosures and corporate influence in politics to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and unemployment.

Michelle Pemberton/The Indianapolis Star/AP

Samsung Galaxy S II is Sprint's 4G winner

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