What Went Right for Bush

THE final word on George W. Bush's foreign policy belongs, perhaps, to his successor, Barack Obama, who will be inaugurated as president of the US next week. In his most wide-ranging television interview on foreign policy, Obama was asked last week whether he stood by a remark he made in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has been constantly shelled by Hamas rockets from the Gaza Strip. Obama said that if his town, where his daughters slept each night, was constantly being attacked by rockets he would want to do something about it.

In the light of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, the TV interviewer asked if Obama still felt that way?

He replied: "That's a basic principle of any country: that they've got to protect their citizens."

Obama was further asked to differentiate himself as strongly as possible from the Bush administration's policy of supporting Israel. Would he instead be ushering in a bold new policy?

Obama replied: "If you look not just at the Bush administration but what happened under the Clinton administration, you are seeing the general outlines of an approach."

Good grief! These words should shock every true Bush hater in the world. But wait, there's more.

Obama's nominee for secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said that the Obama administration would put more emphasis on diplomacy and try to engage Syria and Iran in dialogue. (Just, indeed, as the Bush administration has tried to do.)

But, just like Bush, she and the new administration would not take the military option off the table in dealing with Iran.

On Hamas, she said: "You cannot negotiate with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and agrees to abide by past agreements. That is an absolute. That is my position and the president-elect's position." It is also one of the most contentious positions of President Bush, Democrat Obama's Republican predecessor.

Then there is the US prison in Guantanamo for terror suspects. Obama has pledged to shut it. Indeed, Bush wanted to shut it, too. But Obama's people now say that doing so might take a year or more, because, like Bush, Obama will face the dilemma of what to do with intractably dangerous people whose countries of origin either won't have them back under any circumstances or would be likely to torture or kill them if they did take them back.

It would be wrong to suggest there is no difference between Obama and Bush in foreign policy. But from the moment that Obama's hawkish, almost neo-conservative foreign policy essay appeared in the US journal Foreign Affairs in July 2007, it has been clear that the continuity in US foreign policy from Bush under Obama would vastly outweigh the change.

Indeed, Obama is the American Kevin Rudd, though, with no disrespect to our Prime Minister, Obama is more glamorous and better looking.

But, like Rudd, Obama is likely to engage in some powerful symbolic gestures while keeping much of his predecessor's policies in substance.

Obama is even keeping some of Bush's key personnel, most remarkably Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and some key Bush administration figures in the National Security Council.

Obama acknowledges the success of the Bush troop surge in Iraq and wants to imitate it in Afghanistan.

In truth, there is no greater compliment in political life than for a political opponent to adopt his predecessor's policies once he gains office.

All this is the opposite of the popular stereotype - parroted nowhere more faithfully than in the Australian media - of a bumbling, incompetent Bush producing a train wreck of a foreign policy requiring profound remedial action. So great is the emotional prejudice against Bush - on display again in a remarkably silly essay by Don Watson in the January issue of The Monthly magazine - that it is almost impossible to get a serious, rational, dispassionate discussion of the Bush foreign policy legacy.

But it is time to take serious stock of what Bush has meant for foreign policy. From an Australian perspective, it is necessary to distinguish different parts of the Bush time in office.

There is Bush's record on issues of special concern to Australia, such as Asia and trade policy, and Bush's incredible increase in aid for Africa. But there is the big question mark over the Middle East and the lack of action on global warming.

It is necessary to distinguish, too, between Bush before 9/11 from Bush after 9/11, also to distinguish the first George W. Bush term from the second, for they were very different.

None of these complexities normally figures in the celebratory denunciations of Bush constantly emanating from pundits and opinion panjandrums across the world.

One important reality check came from Walter Russell Mead, the Henry Kissinger fellow at the US Council for Foreign Relations, in a recent lecture to the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne.

Mead is in no sense a Bush partisan or neo-con. He is a non-partisan voice of great elegance and sophistication in US foreign policy. Speaking just after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and in the midst of the global financial crisis, He asserted that he was an optimist about the international scene. He advanced five reasons for his optimism.

One: Financial and banking crises are a regular and perhaps inevitable part of the capitalist system. But the US and the world always recovers from them and life goes on, generally with a better understanding of the way economies work and often, therefore, a better regulatory system.

Two: The failure of Osama bin Laden and his project throughout the Islamic world. This is most evident in Iraq. The Sunni Arabs there saw the US in a sense at its worst - given the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the mismanagement of the early part of the occupation - and al-Qa'ida potentially at its most appealing as the leader of resistance against Western domination. And yet in the Iraqi Sunni awakening, they rejected al-Qa'ida and chose partnership with the West.

Three: The rise of Asia. Mead rejects the intellectually constipated notion that China's rise equals America's decline. Instead he thinks that Asia is producing numerous big powers - China, Japan, India - that will naturally balance each other and always seek the involvement of the US as a further balancing and stabilising force.

Four: The enduring strength of American soft power. But how can this be? Surely Bush's global unpopularity has permanently ruined America's standing in the world? Not at all, Mead argues. One election, the triumph of Obama, and suddenly the world loves the US again.

European magazines recently at the center of anti-Americanism declare that we are all Americans now and that Obama is the president of the world.

But if anti-Americanism is so easily banished, was it really such a powerful force? Another possible explanation (and here I am not quoting Mead) is that much anti-Americanism is exported from the US itself and reflects not much more than the visceral hatred of Bush by The New York Times class.

The New York Times itself is reprinted all over the world and its attitudes and disdains aped by faux sophisticates from Brussels to Balmain.

Five: The enduring dynamism of US society. No candidate ran in the US presidential election in 2008 as the status quo candidate.

I find Mead's arguments pretty convincing. If there is even a glimmer of truth to them, they suggest that the world Bush created was not altogether and entirely as evil as contemporary reviews suggest.

From Australia's point of view, at any rate, the Bush presidency was overwhelmingly successful.

What are the core Australian national interests that Canberra would always want a US administration to protect? Surely three would be: a stable security order in the Asia Pacific; the integrity of the international trading system; and the health of the US-Australian alliance.

On all three, Bush was outstandingly good for Australia. Bush's success in Asia is simply undeniable, and Rudd, among many others, has often acknowledged it. Michael Green, the former Asia director at the NSC under Bush, has in several important articles collated opinion poll data about the US in Asia. It turns out that Asia is the one region in the world where the US's poll ratings are higher at the end of the Bush administration than they were at the beginning.

This was anything but inevitable. When Bush was first elected, the fear du jour of the international know-alls was that Washington and Beijing would find themselves in confrontation.

Then in April 2001 a US reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter jet collided and the US plane had to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island. The world held its breath. Here was the confrontation all had feared.

In fact, the Bush team handled the ensuing days of tension, while the Chinese temporarily held the American air crew hostage, with great sophistication, calm and restraint.

It was a sign of things to come. The US-China relationship has never been better managed than over the past eight years. China has grown wealthy as a result of the good relationship. At the same time, Washington's management of Taiwan has been masterful. It has maintained its security guarantee for Taiwan but consciously and effectively reined in its independence aspirations and managed downwards its independence vote.

The biggest success for the US was India, where it negotiated a new nuclear co-operation agreement that will help the transformation of Indian industry, and incidentally do more than almost any single act of government policy anywhere to counter greenhouse gas emissions. But most importantly it cements the new strategic partnership between Washington and New Delhi.

The US also reinvigorated its alliances with Japan and South Korea. Both contributed substantial troop contingents to Iraq. At Australian urging the Bush administration also revived its relationship with Indonesia. All of this is of the greatest possible benefit to Australia and is a powerfully positive framework for the Obama administration to inherit.

On trade, it is true that the Bush administration was unable to complete the Doha round of trade liberalization. But it never walked down the path of renewed tariff protectionism. It never played the protectionist card against China; will Obama be as good on this score? And it negotiated free-trade agreements with Australia, South Korea, Singapore and a slew of South American countries.

On the US-Australia alliance, the Howard government got everything it wanted from Washington, from profoundly important new intelligence-sharing arrangements to unrivalled technological access. These arrangements have been institutionalized and act as great force multipliers for Australia. The Rudd Government has sensibly consolidated them and they will be in place for the Obama administration.

Undoubtedly the hinge point of the Bush administration was the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Many of those who now oppose the military aspects of the US's response supported them at the time. Indeed, The New York Times's Maureen Dowd, admittedly the most air-headed of all significant North American columnists, once wrote of then US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld that he was sexy and charismatic.

Bush's mainstream opponents agreed with his decision to intervene in Afghanistan, and Obama is pledged to stay the distance there. Iraq remains the great divider of opinion.

This is no place to rehash all the Iraq arguments but what is absolutely clear is that everyone involved in Iraq policy, in every relevant nation, believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. They believed this partly because Saddam wanted them to, and partly because no other explanation of the facts made sense. But it is legitimate to criticize Bush for a wrong judgment on Iraq; it is not legitimate to say he lied his way into war, as Bush critics have to acknowledge that the WMD beliefs were nearly universally held.

The greatest and most justified criticism of Bush arises from the mismanagement of the early years of the Iraq occupation and the dreadful scandal of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. On the flipside, Bush gets all the credit for the subsequent troop surge, which was opposed by his key advisers and which has given Iraq a chance to emerge independent and semi-democratic.

The other great criticism of Bush is that he failed to wield the brilliant and powerful individuals of his national security team - Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Rich Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice - into a coherent team.

The second Bush administration was much less internally divided than the first and ran a consultative, cautious, centrist policy, concentrating on winning the wars it was involved in.

If you believe that global warming is the surpassing issue of the day, then Bush did not do enough to combat it, though it is clear the Kyoto Protocol was a flawed instrument for attacking this problem and there was never support for it in the US (remember Bill Clinton had recommended against its ratification).

Bush did neither significant harm nor significant good to the UN. That body's impotence and fatal moral confusion long predate him. But consider Africa. In his first term, Bush tripled US aid to sub-Saharan Africa. That's right, the US under Bush was giving three times more to Africa than it was under Clinton. And the increases kept coming during Bush's second term, so that if Obama continues the rate of increase, US aid will again be doubled by 2010.

Now how does that fit into the conspiracy theories about Bush? Was he pandering to the African-American vote? Was there a secret neo-con objective? Does Cheney have relatives there? Or could it be that Bush was trying to do some good?

It's too early to judge the Bush project in Iraq. But I am sure that, overall, history will judge Bush much more kindly than today's commentators do.

Greg Sheridan is foreign editor of The Australian.

Thank You President Bush

Cool Cycling Jerseys

Don't Mess With Texas

The Bush Economy

President Bush is leaving office amid the worst recession in 25 years, and naturally his economic policies are getting the blame. But before we move on to the era of Obamanomics, it's important to understand what really happened during the Bush years -- not least so we don't repeat the same mistakes.

AP

Mr. Bush has tried to explain events with one of his populist aphorisms: "Wall Street got drunk and we got a hangover." The remark is ruefully amusing and has an element of truth. But it also reveals how little the President comprehends about the source of his Administration's economic undoing. To extend his metaphor, Who does Mr. Bush think was serving the liquor?

Democrats like to claim the 1990s were a golden age while the Bush years have been disastrous. But as the nearby chart shows, Mr. Bush inherited a recession. The dot-com bubble had burst in 2000, and the economy was sinking even before the shock of 9/11, the corporate scandals and Sarbanes-Oxley. Mr. Bush's original tax-cut proposal was designed in part as insurance against such a downturn.

However, to win over Senate Democrats, Mr. Bush both phased in the tax rate reductions and settled for politically popular but economically feckless tax rebate checks. Those checks provided a short-term lift to consumer spending but no real boost to risk-taking or business investment, which was still recovering from the tech implosion. By late 2002, the economy was struggling again -- which is when Mr. Bush proposed his second round of tax cuts.

This time the tax rate reductions were immediate, and they included cuts in capital gains and dividends designed to spur business incentives. As the tax cuts became law in late May 2003, the recovery began in earnest. Growth averaged nearly 4% over the next three years, the jobless rate fell from 6.3% in June 2003 to 4.4% in October 2006, and real wages began to grow despite rising food and energy prices. The 2003 tax cut was the high point of Bush economic policy.

Mr. Bush's spending record is less admirable, especially during his first term. He indulged the majority Republicans on Capitol Hill, refusing to veto overspending and giving in to their demand that the Medicare prescription drug benefit include only modest market reforms. Even those reforms have helped to restrain drug costs, but now Democrats are set to repeal them and the main Bush legacy will be the new taxpayer liabilities.

Nonetheless, the budget deficit did fall mid-decade, as tax revenues soared with the expansion. In fiscal 2007, the deficit hit $161 billion, or an economically trivial 1.2% of GDP. That seems like a distant memory after the bailout blowout of the last few months, but the point is that the Bush tax cuts aren't responsible for the deficits. Before the recession hit, federal tax revenues had climbed above their postwar average of 18.3% of GDP.

Which brings us back to Mr. Bush's "hangover." While his Administration was handling the fiscal levers, the Federal Reserve was pushing the monetary accelerator to the floor. In reaction to the dot-com implosion and the collapse in business investment, Alan Greenspan rapidly cut interest rates to spur housing and consumer spending. In June 2003, even as the tax cuts were passing and the economy took off, he cut the fed funds rate to 1% and kept it there for a year.

His stimulus worked -- far too well. The money boom created a commodity price spike as well as a subsidy for credit across the economy. Economist John Taylor of Stanford has analyzed the magnitude of this monetary mistake in a new paper that assesses government's contribution to the financial panic. The second chart compares the actual fed funds rate this decade with what it would have been had the Fed stayed within the policy lanes of the previous 20 years.

"This extra easy policy was responsible for accelerating the housing boom and thereby ultimately leading to the housing bust," writes Mr. Taylor, who worked in the first-term Bush Treasury, though not on monetary affairs, and is known for the "Taylor rule" for determining how central banks should adjust interest rates.

By pushing all of this excess credit into the economy, the Fed created a housing and mortgage mania that Wall Street was only too happy to be part of. Yes, many on the Street abandoned their normal risk standards. But they were goaded by an enormous subsidy for debt. Wall Street did get "drunk" but Washington had set up the open bar.

For that matter, most everyone else was also drinking the free booze: from homebuyers who put nothing down for a loan, to a White House that bragged about record home ownership, to the Democrats who promoted and protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Those two companies helped turbocharge the mania by using a taxpayer subsidy to attract trillions of dollars of foreign capital into U.S. housing.) No one wanted the party to end, though sooner or later it had to.

While the Fed is most to blame, the Administration encouraged the credit excesses. It populated the Fed Board of Governors with Mr. Greenspan's protégés, notably Ben Bernanke and Donald Kohn, who helped to create the mania and even now deny all responsibility. Meantime, Mr. Bush's three Treasury Secretaries knew little about the subject, and if anything were inclined to support easier money and a weaker dollar in the name of reducing the trade deficit. We know because numerous Bush officials sneered at the monetary warnings in these columns going back to 2003.

When the bust finally arrived with a vengeance in 2007, the political timing couldn't have been worse. Mr. Bush tried to rally with one more fiscal "stimulus," but he repeated his 2001 mistake and agreed to another round of tax rebates. They did little good. The Administration might have prevented the worst of the panic had it sought some sort of TARP-like financing for the banking system months or a year earlier than it did last autumn. But neither the Treasury nor the FDIC seemed to appreciate how big the banking system's problems were. Their financial triage was well meaning but came too late and in a frenzy that invited mistakes.

This history is crucial to understand, both for the Democrats who now assume the levers of power and for Republicans who will want to return to power some day. Mr. Bush and his team did many things right after inheriting one bubble. They were ruined by monetary excess that created a second, more dangerous credit mania. They forgot one of the main lessons of Reaganomics, which is the importance of stable money.

Redd Receives National Security Medal from President Bush

On January 16, 2009, President George W. Bush awarded him the National Security Medal for his service as the first Senate-confirmed Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. [23] The decoration is awarded to any citizen of the United States who performs distinguished achievement or outstanding contribution, on or after 26 July 1947, in the field of intelligence relating to the national security of the United States of America. [24] The National Security Medal is authorized to both civilians and personnel of the United States military and is an authorized decoration for display on active duty uniforms of the United States armed forces. In such cases, the National Security Medal is worn after all U.S. military personal decorations and unit awards and before any military campaign/service awards and foreign decorations. Previous recipients include Bill Donovan, founder of the OSS; J. Edgar Hoover, former FBI Director; Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense; Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.[25]

Departing CIA chief Hayden defends interrogations

Outgoing CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said Thursday that the most pressing issues facing his successor include Iran's nuclear ambitions and surging violence in Mexico -- but not the war in Iraq.

Hayden also defended the agency's use of harsh interrogation methods and said he had advised the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama against going too far in dismantling the agency's controversial counter-terrorism programs.

"These techniques worked," Hayden said of the agency's interrogation program during a farewell session with reporters who cover the CIA.

"One needs to be very careful" about eliminating CIA authorities, he said, because "if you create barriers to doing things . . . there's no wink, no nod, no secret handshake. We won't do it."

Hayden's spirited defense of the agency came on the same day that Eric H. Holder Jr., Obama's nominee to serve as the next attorney general, testified on Capitol Hill that waterboarding, an interrogation method used by the CIA, amounted to torture.

Hayden is widely credited with restoring stability and morale during more than two years as CIA director. But his ardent defense of the agency's activities may help explain why he was not asked by Obama to stay in the job.

Hayden is also tied to other Bush administration controversies. As the head of the National Security Agency after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was an architect of the warrantless wiretapping operation.

Hayden won a measure of vindication with the release of a court ruling Thursday that supported the administration's right to compel U.S. telecommunications companies to cooperate with the eavesdropping effort.

"My reaction?" Hayden said Thursday, referring to the ruling. "Duh."

Obama's nominee to serve as the next CIA director, former California lawmaker Leon E. Panetta, is expected to rein in an array of agency activities, including its use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Hayden noted that the agency had stopped the use of waterboarding more than five years ago, but he argued that the CIA should not be bound by the same restrictive interrogation rules as the U.S. Army.

Responding to critics who contend that harsh interrogation methods produce faulty intelligence, Hayden said that interrogations of key Al Qaeda figures accounted for the bulk of the United States' understanding of the terrorist network and led to a series of successful operations around the globe.

"Do not allow others to say it didn't work," Hayden said. "It worked."

Hayden said the situation in Iraq has improved so much that the war there is no longer a major drain of agency resources or attention. Instead, he said, the most pressing national security threat remains Al Qaeda.

Because of missile strikes by CIA drones, the tribal belt of Pakistan "is neither safe nor a haven" for Al Qaeda leadership, Hayden said. But he cited the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden as among the chief disappointments of his tenure.

Iran's leaders are "getting close to a decision point" on the country's nuclear program, Hayden said, because the Shiite Muslim nation is paying such a heavy diplomatic and financial cost for its efforts to stockpile enriched uranium. That cost burden has grown with falling oil prices, Hayden said.

The outgoing CIA chief also sounded a new alarm about the growing drug violence in Mexico, and indicated that U.S. intelligence officials have made new efforts to form counter-narcotics partnerships with the Mexican government.

Overall, Hayden said, Panetta will inherit an agency that has made strides in hiring case officers from more diverse backgrounds and expanding the number of employees fluent in Arabic and other crucial languages.

Hayden indicated he has plans to write and speak, but said he would have welcomed a chance to stay at the CIA. "I certainly would have considered [staying] if asked," he said.

In Defense Of Bono: A rock star for post-partisan times

Getty Images

Bono is as passionate about his music as he is the causes he pursues -- in a bipartisan manner. (Photo by Dave Hogan/ Getty Images)

PRWeek awards finalists 2009 - Crisis or Issues Management Campaign of the Year

Crisis or Issues Management Campaign of the Year

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• Fleishman-Hillard and Bumble Bee Foods: Castleberry's National Food Recall – Public Health & Safety from Botulism Risk
• French | West | Vaughan and GeneralSports Venue: Lead Chromate Controversy
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Notes From the Chairman, by Bono

Deirdre O'Callaghan

Bono

Once upon a couple of weeks ago ...

I’m in a crush in a Dublin pub around New Year’s. Glasses clinking clicking, clashing crashing in Gaelic revelry: swinging doors, sweethearts falling in and out of the season’s blessings, family feuds subsumed or resumed. Malt joy and ginger despair are all in the queue to be served on this, the quarter-of-a-millennium mark since Arthur Guinness first put velvety blackness in a pint glass.

Interesting mood. The new Irish money has been gambled and lost; the Celtic Tiger’s tail is between its legs as builders and bankers laugh uneasy and hard at the last year, and swallow uneasy and hard at the new. There’s a voice on the speakers that wakes everyone out of the moment: it’s Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” His ode to defiance is four decades old this year and everyone sings along for a lifetime of reasons. I am struck by the one quality his voice lacks: Sentimentality.

Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year? In the mist of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra’s voice such a foghorn — such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away.

A call to believability.

A voice that says, “Don’t lie to me now.”

That says, “Baby, if there’s someone else, tell me now.”

Fabulous, not fabulist. Honesty to hang your hat on.

As the year rolls over (and with it many carousers), the emotion in the room tussles between hope and fear, expectation and trepidation. Wherever you end up, his voice takes you by the hand.

•

Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to. Right by the hole-in-the-wall cellar, I look up to see a vision in yellow: a painting Frank sent to me after I sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with him on the 1993 “Duets” album. One from his own hand. A mad yellow canvas of violent concentric circles gyrating across adesert plain. Francis Albert Sinatra, painter, modernista.

We had spent some time in his house in Palm Springs, which was a thrill — looking out onto the desert and hills, no gingham for miles. Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis. And plenty of talk of jazz. That’s when he showed me the painting. I was thinking the circles were like the diameter of a horn, the bell of a trumpet, so I said so.

“The painting is called ‘Jazz’ and you can have it.”

I said I had heard he was one of Miles Davis’s biggest influences.

Little pithy replies:

“I don’t usually hang with men who wear earrings.”

“Miles Davis never wasted a note, kid — or a word on a fool.”

“Jazz is about the moment you’re in. Being modern’s not about the future, it’s about the present.”

I think about this now, in this new year. The Big Bang of pop music telling me it’s all about the moment, a fresh canvas and never overworking the paint. I wonder what he would have thought of the time it’s taken me and my bandmates to finish albums, he with his famous impatience for directors, producers — anyone, really — fussing about. I’m sure he’s right. Fully inhabiting the moment during that tiny dot of time after you’ve pressed “record” is what makes it eternal. If, like Frank, you sing it like you’ll never sing it again. If, like Frank, you sing it like you never have before.

If.

•

If you want to hear the least sentimental voice in the history of pop music finally crack, though — shhhh — find the version of Frank’s ode to insomnia, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” hidden on “Duets.” Listen through to the end and you will hear the great man break as he truly sobs on the line, “It’s a long, long, long road.” I kid you not.

Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course.

Singers, more than other musicians, depend on what they know — as opposed to what they don’t want to know about the world. While there is a danger in this — the loss of naïveté, for instance, which holds its own certain power — interpretive skills generally gain in the course of a life well abused.

Want an example? Here’s an example. Take two of the versions of Sinatra singing “My Way.”

The first was recorded in 1969 when the Chairman of the Board said to Paul Anka, who wrote the song for him: “I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it. I’m getting the hell out.” In this reading, the song is a boast — more kiss-off than send-off — embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere.

In the later recording, Frank is 78. The Nelson Riddle arrangement is the same, the words and melody are exactly the same, but this time the song has become a heart-stopping, heartbreaking song of defeat. The singer’s hubris is out the door. (This singer, i.e. me, is in a puddle.) The song has become an apology.

To what end? Duality, complexity. I was lucky to duet with a man who understood duality, who had the talent to hear two opposing ideas in a single song, and the wisdom to know which side to reveal at which moment.

This is our moment. What do we hear?

In the pub, on the occasion of this new year, as the room rises in a deafening chorus — “I did it my way” — I and this full house of Irish rabble-rousers hear in this staple of the American songbook both sides of the singer and the song, hubris and humility, blue eyes and red.

Bono, lead singer of the band U2 and co-founder of the advocacy group ONE, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

A Great Rock Song. But Is it Catholic?

The return of U2

U2 Preview No Line On The Horizon

Q has had a world exclusive preview of the forthcoming new U2 album, provisionally titled No Line On The Horizon.

Sessions for the long awaited album were completed at a feverish pace at Olympic Studios in West London throughout November. However, recording actually began in October 2006, with U2 teaming up once more with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois after first exploring the idea of working with Rick Rubin. Between them, Lanois and Eno worked on the key triptych of U2 records - The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.

"We learned a lot from Rick," says Bono. "He's head over heels in love with the concept of the song. But our feeling was, you don't go to rock'n'roll just for the songs. We wanted songs that would take us into a different world.

"And because Brian and Dan are experimental in their niches, the opportunity to bring some experimentation into the pop consciousness is so exciting to them. And to us."

By the time U2 arrived at Olympic Studios, Eno was shepherding the album to a conclusion with various other producers being called in to mix specific tracks - long-time cohort Steve Lillywhite and Black Eyed Peas man Will.I.Am among them. As has become customary for U2 records, tracks were being re-worked - and in some cases completely overhauled - right up to the final deadline.

Q initially heard previews of seven tracks at various stages of completion as the band were winding up. First impressions were that, while the two most recent U2 albums (2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind and 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb) marked a return to basics, No Line On The Horizon is more in keeping with the spirit of 1991's Achtung Baby: which is to say, a bolder, more testing collection.

The material itself runs a gamut from the classic U2-isms of Magnificent, which echoes The Unforgettable Fire's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep, to the straight up pop of Crazy Tonight (the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at) and the swaggering Stand Up, wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks. The latter track is also home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas."

Among other instantly striking tracks are Get Your Boots On, a heaving electro-rocker that may mark the destination point the band had been seeking on Pop; Winter, featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno; and the stately Unknown Caller, which was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn.

At Olympic, particular excitement was reserved for two tracks: Moment Of Surrender and Breathe. A strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take, the first of these sounds like a Great U2 Moment in the spirit of One, while Eno suggests the latter (at the time still a work in progress) is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on.

A week after the Olympic playback, Bono treated Q to a private audience of two further unfinished tracks - playing both on his car stereo at teeth-rattling volume whilst being piloted through London's rush-hour traffic. Two versions of the title track were extant: the first is another Unforgettable Fire-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punk-y Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace.

"We recorded the second version just last night," explained the singer whilst enthusiastically air drumming along to it. "I'm very excited by that one,"

Q begged to differ, casting a vote for the more layered earlier version.

One other track, Every Breaking Wave, was beginning to take shape around an emotive Bono vocal and an appropriately grand swell of a climax. "We might be on to something special there," noted Bono.

And within the U2 camp, this is the general consensus around the album as a whole. A clearly excited Eno told Q No Line On The Horizon could be the band's greatest album, a view also echoed by the Edge.

"We've learnt a few things over the years," said the guitarist. "So I think (the album) could be a bringing-to-bear of all those eureka moments from the past."

No Line On The Horizon is set for release on March 2. And you can read more about the album in Q magazine's world exclusive U2 cover feature from December 31.

Bush, Cheney comforted troops privately

GIVING SUPPORT: Vice President Dick Cheney, an avid fly-fisherman, practices his cast with wounded troops from Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital.

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.

Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.

On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip - with reporters in tow - to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.

But the size and scope of Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.

"People say, 'Why would you do that?'" the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. "And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be - to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish."

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching - balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin - that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

"I lean on the Almighty and Laura," Mr. Bush said in the interview. "She has been very reassuring, very calming."

Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.

The first lady said those private visits, many of which she also attended, took a heavy emotional toll, not just on the president, but on her as well.

U2 To Sell Five Versions Of New Album - One With Almost $100 List Price

U2 will release five different versions of their next album, No Line On The Horizon, with one version carrying a list price of almost $100 (USD). That's according to product listings on Amazon.com tonight. All five are listed with a March 3, 2009, release date.

Officially, U2 has only announced the album's name and release date; no details have been shared about different formats. Earlier this year, though, manager Paul McGuinness hinted to BBC radio that the new album's release would be unique: "We will obviously work with whatever technology is available to make the release of the new record as interesting as possible."

The first two formats on Amazon.com are standard CD and vinyl releases:

Audio CD ($13.98 list price)
Description: "This version is the standard album CD in a plastic jewel case w /24 page color booklet."

Vinyl (2 LP) ($17.98 list price)
Description: "This version is 2 vinyl discs in a folding sleeve with 16-page oversized booklet."

There are also three "limited editions" listed, each with unique bonus material:

Digi-pack version (CD/Poster/Film Download) ($35.98 list price)
Description: "This version features the album CD in a cardboard folded sleeve w/ a 36-page color booklet and fold-out poster, as well as a new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2, available as exclusive downloadable content."

Magazine version (CD/Magazine/Film Download) ($49.98 list price)
Description: "This version features the album CD in a special 60-page soft cover magazine-style book as well as a new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2, available as exclusive downloadable content."

Box Set version (CD/Poster/Book/DVD) ($95.98 list price)
Description: "This version is a deluxe limited-edition-collectors item: packaged in a special box, album CD in a cardboard folded sleeve w/ 36 page color booklet and fold out poster. Box also includes 60-page hard cover book plus an additional fold-out poster and a DVD of the new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2 in a slip case cover."

Amazon UK also lists five versions of No Line On The Horizon, but the product descriptions aren't as detailed; one listing, though, does refer to a "Hardback Book" -- likely the same item in the "Box Set" listed on Amazon.com.

The Bono Put

While Warren Buffett watches his investments in Goldman Sachs and Constellation Energy struggle, the savvy investors in this market turn out to have been Bono and Madonna.

When concert promoter Live Nation Inc. inked a 12-year deal with the band U2, they promised to pay part of their deal in stock, and guaranteed U2 $25 million in proceeds. But U2 has now decided to sell the shares — when they’re worth only about $6 million, handing Live Nation a $19 million loss.

The company said in a filing that it would pay for this with cash or borrowing money. The company will be selling 1.56 million shares of stock through Goldman Sachs, but that’s not going to make up what’s needed to pay U2. The company only made this deal with one other star, Madonna, who has the right, come April, to enter into a similar transaction, also for $25 million.

“It points out when you’ve got competition and you’re trying to buy your way into the marketplace,” says Jon Najarian, co-founder of Optionmonster.com.

Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/12/18/the-bono-put/trackback/

For U2, Live Nation Deal Rocks

After Delay, U2 on the Horizon

U2’s 12th studio album, “No Line on the Horizon,” will be released by Interscope Records on March 3, the band announced on Thursday. Recorded by the band’s longtime producers Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite in Morocco, Dublin, New York and London, this will be U2’s first album of new material in nearly five years. It had been scheduled for release this fall, but Bono, left, and the rest of the band delayed it to continue working. That’s hardly unusual, but since a new U2 album is such a reliable blockbuster, the change caused an immediate downgrade of industry forecasts for the important year-end sales season. Expected albums by 50 Cent, Eminem and Jay-Z were also pushed to 2009, and record sales dropped sharply this fall. Album sales for September and October were down 20 percent from the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and Billboard reported that sales for the three weeks that ended Dec. 7 were down nearly 25 percent.

Bush on His Record: The president defends his democracy agenda and his economic interventionism.

Terry Shoffner

Who Wears the Pants

By MEGAN BASHAM

In the past few years, stay-at-home moms have come under fire from some of feminism's most hard-line mouthpieces. These mothers have been told that they're letting down the sisterhood, endangering the economy and -- most important -- undermining their own position. By failing to bring in at least half the family income, it is claimed, they have rendered themselves powerless in their own homes.

Barbara Kelley

"Incomes give women power in their marriages," says Leslie Bennetts, a Vanity Fair writer and frequent "Today Show" guest. She has called the recent increase in mothers choosing to stay home a national tragedy. Linda Hirshman, the author of "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World," has made her own rounds of female-targeted programming, appearing on "The View" and "Good Morning America" to recommend that young women "marry down." Why? Because money "usually accompanies power," she says, "and it enables the bearer to wield power, including within the family."

But as it turns out, wives don't need income to wield power in their marriages. And mothers don't have much reason to fear losing power if they're not bringing home an equal share of the bacon. A Pew Research Center study released a couple of weeks ago found that when it comes to decision making in the home, wives in a majority of cases either rule the roost or share power equally with their husbands, regardless of how much money the women earn.

Of the 1,260 men and women whom Pew pollsters surveyed over the summer, 43% responded that the woman makes most of the major decisions for the family, with 31% saying that the couple makes most decisions together. There was a small difference (within the margin of error) between the control exerted by wives who earn more than their husbands and those who earn less (46% versus 42%). But in both cases, women wielded sole decision-making power far more than men did, indicating that what "father knows best" is when to defer to mom.

Certainly that was what University of Iowa researchers found last year when they measured how couples negotiate conflict over household decisions. That study not only confirmed that men will usually go along with their wives but found that when couples do disagree, wives are far more persuasive than husbands in changing their spouses' minds.

According to the author of the study, David Vogel, what he and his team witnessed during recorded conversations wasn't a case of men tuning out when their wives started talking. Rather the researchers saw that when spouses engaged in debate, the women gained more ground than their husbands did. "[The women] were communicating more powerful messages and men were responding to those messages by agreeing," Mr. Vogel stated in a press release. The hypothesis that men hold more sway in relationships because they typically make more money didn't play out.

If a bigger paycheck did mean more power in any area of family decision making, the most likely one would be finances. But even there women are in charge, with more women than men in the Pew survey saying that they manage the couple's budget and wives in the Iowa study winning out over husbands in money disagreements. According to Pew, 45% of women said they hold the family purse strings compared to 37% of men. This despite two-thirds of the couples reporting that the man had the higher income. In fact, in recent years a substantial amount of research has shown that wives lose some of their household decision-making power when they earn more than their husbands, possibly because by spending fewer hours in the home they forfeit claims to certain household "expertise."

Scholarly interest in which spouse has more power in the home didn't start in earnest until the late 1960s, when women began entering the work force in significant numbers. But advertisers have been tracking the buying habits of American families since the 1940s. What they have found is that women made more of the household purchasing decisions before the advent of the feminist movement and that they make more of the purchasing decisions now, regardless of how big or small their paychecks are. These marketing surveys have been remarkably consistent, and they haven't changed much in the past 60 years.

To be fair, many of the scholarly studies' conclusions include a "final say" contingency -- many husbands claim that they have veto power when they feel very strongly about an issue. But consumer research shows that with the exception of what car to buy and when to buy it, men rarely claim strong enough feelings to override their wives.

"Across all decision-making realms, it tilts to the woman," noted Rich Morin, the Pew study's lead author. "I was surprised by the percentage of men who made none of the decisions in any of the areas. A significant percentage were just bystanders." Not surprisingly, one reason men say they are willing to acquiesce in their spouses' wishes is that their wives usually have greater knowledge of the day-to-day activities and needs of the home than they do. They trust their wives' choices the way they would any specialist's. But what is rather unexpected is the deeper (and much sweeter) reason men have for giving in to their wives: They want them to be happy, or at least they don't want to be responsible for making them unhappy.

The general consensus of sociologists is that, whereas a woman's marital satisfaction is dependent on a combination of economic, emotional and psychological realities, a man's marital satisfaction is most determined by one factor: how happy his wife is. When she is happy, he is. Working within this framework, most husbands are unwilling to dig in their heels on any issue unless they have a tremendous incentive to do so.

More than anything, this sentiment shows the silliness inherent in the brand of feminism that belittles full-time motherhood by constantly worrying about the family balance of power. In most American marriages there is no struggle for supremacy, because most of the husbands are all too happy to let their wives make, or at least share equally in, the decisions. This is an arrangement, according to the Pew poll, that satisfies the majority of couples. And if they're content with it, maybe feminists should be too.

Ms. Basham is the author of "Beside Every Successful Man: A Woman's Guide to Having It All," just released by Crown Forum.

Nobel laureates crown U2's Bono 'man of peace'

"This is a very big award for me, because let's be honest this is as close as I am going to get -- as close as a rock star is ever going to get to the Nobel Peace Prize," the 48-year-old Bono quipped to the audience.

"I am an over-awarded, over-rewarded rock star. You are the people who do the real work," he told the Nobel winners present, who included F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, Lech Walesa of Poland and Northern Ireland's John Hume.

"So I am very, very pleased to be in such esteemed company."

2008 Scattante CFR Race Road Bike

• Lightweight carbon monocoque C-4 frame with carbon/aluminum fork offers a stiff and efficient ride with less vibration
• Shimano Ultegra drivetrain blends race-proven technology with ergonomic perfection to give you a new level of shifting performance
• FSA SLK Light Carbon cranks with MegaExo bottom bracket deliver super-stiff, no-flex pedaling power for the road ahead. The arms are Hollow Carbon with an internal I-beam reinforcement that yields higher torsional strength and stiffness than our previous cranksets.
• E3 Curve Carbon OS handlebars - Full carbon fiber construction dampens vibration and provides a nearly weightless experience through the twist and turns of the road ahead. Anatomic flat top section offers a comfortable, stable platform for your hands while remaining aerodynamic. Ergonomic drop section reduces fatigue and improves braking performance
• Forté Precision carbon seatpost supplies core-level strength, style and vibration damping performance
• Continental Ultra Sport tires provide comfort and exceptional handling, especially on rough road surfaces
• Mavic Ksyrium Equipe wheels are lightweight, responsive and guarantee a reliable road experience
• OEM: Fuji; Equivalent Frame: Team
• Reviews
  

Unparalleled power and lightweight speed pave the way to fast finish with this pro-level racing bike. Constructed with cutting-edge Composite Bladder Molding and Aerospace Composite technologies, the carbon fiber chassis delivers a nearly “weightless” ride while remaining laterally stiff, vertically resilient and fast as all get out! And with the addition of Shimano’s smooth and effortless Ultegra drivetrain, the powerful climbing performance of FSA carbon cranks and the lightweight aerodynamics of Mavic’s Ksyrium Equipe wheelset, you’ll be ridin’ like the wind in no time flat!

Cassette:	Shimano 105 CS-5600, 11/23T, 10-speed
Front Derailleur:	Shimano Ultegra FD-6600-B, Double, 31.8mm clamp
Levers:	Shimano Ultegra ST-6600
Shifters:	Shimano Ultegra ST-6600, 10-speed
Rear Derailleur:	Shimano Ultegra ST-6600SS, 10-speed
Brakeset:	Shimano Ultegra ST-6600

Pedals: Shimano SPD-SL 6620 Road Pedals

NIB Shimano Ultegra 6600 components for sale

For sale as a group or separately. Prices are significantly reduced from local shop prices and would make a great Christmas present. If you know of anyone that would be interested...

Components comprised of:
• Shimano Ultegra Rear Derailleur 10 Speed 6600 - $65
• Shimano Ultegra Front Derailleur Double 6600 Braze On - $30
• Shimano Ultegra STi Double 10 Speed 6600 - $250
• Shimano Ultegra Chainset HT II Double 6600 (172.5, 53/39) - $175
• Shimano Ultegra Bottom Bracket 6600/6603 6600 Ultegra bottom bracket - British thread - $15
• Shimano Ultegra Chain 10 Speed 6600 - $25
• Shimano Ultegra Cassette 10 Speed 6600 (12/25) - $55

ULTEGRA has been redesigned completely to appeal to a wide range of cyclists. In this new design, extra attention has been paid to increased ergonomics. Specifically the Dual Control lever the same style as the ST-7801 which achieves a smooth and effortless operation due to its ergonomic design. The front derailleur rigidity is increased by 20% compared to the previous model. The HOLLOWTECH II crankset improves rigidity and efficiency while reducing weight. Overall new ULTEGRA 10-speed is lighter than previous 9-speed model.
We are now offering a complete groupset kit, simply make your selection from the products below and confirm your selection.

Shimano Ultegra Rear Derailleur 10 Speed 6600


Features:

• Wide link design: Wide outer link design increases rigidity.
• SIS-SP41 cable housing. The cable housing with silicon grease reduces friction by 10%.
• 9 & 10-speed compatible

Specifications:

• Speeds: 10-speed
• Max. Sprocket: 27T
• Min. Sprocket: 11T
• Max Front Difference: 23T
• Total Capacity: 38T
• Guide Pulley: sealed ceramic bushing
• Tension Pulley: sealed bearing
• 11T Pulley: Yes
• Bracket Body: aluminium/clear coated
• Bracket Body Pivot Seal: double O-rings
• Plate Body: aluminium/clear coated
• Plate Body Pivot Seal: single O-ring
• Outer Link: aluminium/clear coated
• Inner Link: aluminium/barrel
• Sealed Link Pins: outer/inner link
• Link Pin Bushings: fluorine coated (4)
• Outer Plate: aluminium/anodized
• Inner Plate: aluminium/barrel
• Average Weight: 219g



Shimano Ultegra Front Derailleur Double 6600 Braze On

The wide pivot link design boosts strength and rigidity. Flex is suppressed, creating sharp, precise shifts that are faster and smoother, even from low to high gears off of the saddle.

Features

• Wide link design:20% increased rigidity.
• Pivot locations for less cage deflection:Pivot location at cage was moved to point of maximum force to reduce cage deflection.
• Narrower chain cage:Narrower chain cage to accommodate 10-speed chain.
• SG-X chainrings compatibility
• Light action spring
• DUAL SIS front index shifting
• Weight: 103g
  
  
  Specifications
• Rear speeds :10-speed
• DUAL SIS: Yes
• Top Gear Teeth: 50-56T
• Capacity: 15T
• Link Bushing: lower/A-pin
• O-ring Seals: No.
• Spring Cover: Yes
• Chain Stay Angle: 61-66 deg.
• Mounting: band
• Applicable Chainline: 43.5mm
• Band Diameter: 28.6***/31.8/34.9mm
• Band/Brazed-on Clamp: aluminum/clear coated
• Outer Link: aluminum/clear coated
• Inner Link: aluminum/clear coated
• Chain Guide: steel/pearl bright finish
• Average Weight 103g

Shimano Ultegra STi Double 10 Speed 6600

Ergonomic innovation is probably more critical to the higher standard of the new 10-speed S.T.I. levers than the added gearing. The narrower cradle-style perch welcomes the high-on-the-hood riding style and accommodates all sizes of hands. The shift internals borrow the robustness from our MTB technology which results in a smooth and effortless shift.

Features

• Ergonomic design: Refined lever hood for improved ergonomics.
• Robust internal mechanism
• Same lever response as Dura-Ace
• Ergonomic shift stroke movment
• Effortless shifting: Shift effort is reduced on release lever.
• Short stroke shifting:Inward shift stroke distance is reduced by 10mm.
• Weight:490g(pair)
  
  
  Specifications
• Rear: 10-speed
• Front: double
• FLIGHT DECK: SM-SC70
• Gear Sensor:Yes
• Max. Single-Stroke Shifts: 3 (rear)
• Handle Bar Diameter: 23.8-24.2mm
• Bracket: engineering plastic
• Levers: aluminum/clear coated
• Super SLR: Yes
• Shift Cable: stainless
• Average Weight: 490g(pair)
  
• 
  

Shimano Ultegra Chainset HT II Double 6600

The Hollowtech II crank and bottom bracket combines race-proven hollow forging technology with the integrated crankset & bottom bracket. Weight is reduced while rigidity & power transfer is radically increased.

In addition to Hollowtech II integrated design; the crank arms are hollow which provide amazing strength and rigidity at a light weight. Finally, SG-X chainrings enable super smooth front shifting. Special tooth profiles, pick-up spikes and ramps help make the front derailleur shifts quiet, easy and trouble free for you the rider.

Features

• Crankset with integrated Bottom Bracket.
• Crank Arm Lengths: 172.5
• Gearing:53-39T

Specifications:

• HYPERDRIVE: Yes
• DUAL SIS: Yes
• Chain compatibility: Super Narrow HG for 10-speed
• Hollow Crank Arm: HOLLOWTECHII
• Reinforced Spider: Yes
• Number of Teeth: 53-39T
• Bolt Circle Diameter: 130mm
• Crank Arm forged: aluminum/anodized
• Chainrings: aluminum/anodized
• Average Weigh:t 839g-53-39T,70mm,integrated BB
• 10 Speed

Shimano Ultegra Bottom Bracket 6600/6603 6600 Ultegra bottom bracket - British thread

Features

• The bottom bracket bearings for the HollowTech II FC6600 crankset
• Minimal bearing interface gives superbly smooth rolling
• Required for installation of FC7800 chainset, with a choice of English or Italian thread BB cups
• Set includes left and right hand cups, inner cover and inner O-rings
• Sealed cups keep out dirt and water
• Maintenance free

Shimano Ultegra Chain 10 Speed 6600 High performance super narrow 10-speed chain.

Features:
• Hyperglide (HG) series 10-speed compatible chain, recommended for Ultegra drivetrains
• HG technology has chamfered inner plates to optimise shifting performance on HG sprockets
• Durability is assured through a chromising treatment on link pins, and the heat treatment of rollers, pins, and plates
• Mushrooming of the pins gives unsurpassed side-plate retention, enabling the chain to far exceed the BS/ISO standard for breaking force
• 5.88 mm chain width, optimised for 10-speed Super Narrow HG drivetrains
• Zinc-alloy silver finish on outer plates, and grey finish on inner plates increase corrosion resistance

Shimano Ultegra Cassette 10 Speed 6600 12/25

Computer designed Hyperglide (HG) sprockets incorporate specifically positioned shift ramps and tooth profiles for improved chain control during shifting. Fast and responsive indexed shifting is the result.

Specifications

• Speed: 10-speed
• Finish: nickel plated
• Average Weight: 235g (12-23T)

Dallas drivers - and cyclists - could use some training in etiquette

Bikin' Mike's Happy New Year Ride