Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article . Investors praised European policymakers for moving more quickly than expected to tackle the problems of the eurozone’s troubled peripheral economies, after a sharp market sell-off last week sparked fears that the region’s crisis was about to deepen. An unexpected deal in Brussels, agreed in the early hours of Saturday morning, came as a relief to many investors and strategists after one of the worst weeks of the year for the eurozone’s indebted economies of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article. Market participants said the main decisions were on the increase in the size and scope of the temporary eurozone rescue fund, the European financial stability facility, and the reduction of interest rates for bail-out loans to Greece, prompting hopes that the peripheral bond markets would open strongly on Monday. “European leaders have delivered a genuine surprise, just when the market was starting to fear the worst,” said Steven Major, head of global fixed income research at HSBC. He warned that the Brussels agreement lacked detail but stressed that policymakers had given themselves an essential breathing space, until a summit at the end of the month, to come up with a more comprehensive statement on how the initiatives would work. Francesco Garzarelli, director of economic research at Goldman Sachs, added: “The main positive out of the meetings was simply the fact there was some news, as most investors doubted any agreement was at hand.” He picked out as important initiatives the more generous terms for Greece with reduced interest rates, the bigger EFSF – which will now be able to use its full lending capacity of €440bn ($607bn) for emergency loans – and the decision to allow the EFSF and its successor, the European stability mechanism, to buy government bonds. Mr Major said that decision was “perhaps the biggest game-changer”. This, he added, supra outlet was because it will allow the EFSF to buy new debt in the government bond auctions, something the ECB cannot do. The ECB is only allowed to buy existing bonds in the secondary market. “The auctions of the periphery have become big market events over the last year because there has been a growing risk of a failed auction, where investors refuse to buy bonds,” Mr Major said. Allowing the EFSF to take part in the auctions will reduce the risk of an auction failure and prevent market sell-offs. David Mackie, head of western European research at JPMorgan, praised the cut in the cost of emergency loans. “We have argued that liquidity support [emergency loans] that is being provided is too expensive to enable the peripheral sovereigns to achieve anything more than simply stabilise their debt,” he said. The 1 percentage point cut in the cost of loans for Greece was not enough, he said but stressed that it was a step in the right direction. Ireland is still negotiating over the cost of its loans because of pressure from Germany and France for Dublin to increase domestic company taxes before they will agree to lower emergency interest rates. One senior investor said: “We will have a meeting on Monday to discuss whether we will buy peripheral debt again. I think this weekend’s events will stabilise the periphery and should see more big funds prepared to buy the bonds of these countries.”

For years, I've asserted that in selling products and building up brand loyalty, feelings are more important than rational things. People are more likely to make purchase decisions based on emotions than intellect. Oftentimes, particularly with brands that evoke loyalty, buyers' emotional responses are irrational. I see this characteristic among hardcore Apple fans, who brisk at what they perceive to be the slightest criticism of the company or its products. I must say that I'm feeling surprisingly good about Apple today. For the second time in nearly three years, Apple gave me a new computer to replace one recently purchased -- each a MacBook Air. But is it good customer service or faulty products? When the Air was Bad My more recent saga started on March 1st, when the 11.6-inch MacBook Air I purchased in November fatally crashed, just as my workday was beginning. I temporarily switched to Google's Cr-48 laptop running Chrome OS, resulting in a surprisingly good week-long user experience. Based on Air's behavior over several days prior to its failure, and final crash, I suspected hard drive failure, even though Air uses flash memory (e.g., the drive has no moving parts). Later that day, I hauled the ailing Air to Apple Store Fashion Valley, where a Genius ran tests. According to his notes: "Ran FSCK, unit had multiple issues" and "repair errored out with Signal 8 and could not be repaired." The Apple Genius also suspected hard drive failure and ordered a 128GB flash replacement. I left the Genius Bar not feeling too good about Apple or its products. In June 2008, I hauled a first-generation MacBook Air into Apple Store UTC (both shops are in San Diego, Calif.), also for hard drive failure. I started using the computer two months earlier. The store didn't have facilities to replace the drive, so the Apple Genius gave me a new MacBook Air, to my complete surprise. The hard drive on that computer failed in September 2010. I had a local Mac repair shop replace the dead drive with a 64GB SSD. A very good friend had been pining for my newer Air, and he expressed great interest in buying it following the repair. I was ready to give it up and move over to Google's cloud computer. I liked the Chrome OS experience that much. Apple completed the repair on March 3rd, with unexpected results. Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" wouldn't install after replacing the flash drive. In the end, the Apple Store replaced the logic board! WTH? I received the computer with new logic board and the old flash drive. I wasn't feeling exactly good about that. No disrespect to the Apple employee(s) who serviced the laptop, the store isn't exactly a clean-room environment like the factory (or as I suppose it to be). I was feeling even more like selling the computer to my friend. But I wanted to make sure everything was OK with the Mac, too. So I continued using the Cr-48 as my primary machine, while slowly setting up the MacBook Air. That experience deserves calling out. I used to think Macs were so easy to set up, particularly compared to Windows machines. No longer. MobileMe sync restored address book, bookmarks, calendar and email settings, among other things, which got me basically going quickly. But there was still the process of reinstalling applications. By comparison, Google's cloud is instant, and that's a huge advantage Chrome OS has over Mac OS X or Windows. The user logs into his or her Google account and everything is there and ready to use, including Web Applications. Anyone can have this experience using Chrome 10, right now. Doing the Right Thing On the afternoon of March 9, I started using MacBook Air as my primary computer. Then trouble began. The computer's earlier breakdown started with several crashes to a pale-colored background with air yeezy no icons or anything else there. Applications behaved erratically over four or five days before the eventual fatal crash. Suddenly, and quite shockingly, the crashes returned; there was a post-repair problem. I warmed up the Cr-48, logged onto the local store's website and booked another appointment for the Apple Genius Bar. Hours later, I grimly greeted another Apple Genius. His initial tests found nothing obviously wrong with the computer, although the store could run more intensive tests overnight that might reveal something. I was flummoxed. "You guys replaced the logic board. What else is in there besides the flash drive?" I asked the Genius. Not much. He started to say something about a new computer, but stopped mid sentence. He was looking at a screen and could see that my Air was a configure-to-order model. "What would make it right for you?" he asked. I finished what he started to say but stopped short of: A new laptop -- seeing that's what he wanted to do. I told him that in my experience Apple stores typically carry the highest CTO configs for sale just not on display. According to his inventory list, the only non-standard model had 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB flash drive. But my Air had the 1.6GHz processor. I seriously considered swapping down. "Let me see what I can do," and he left. A few minutes later the Genius returned with a new boxed, MacBook Air; he pointed to the configuration label. He found my exact configuration. "I didn't know we carried these," he said. Less than five minutes later, I walked out of the Apple Store with a new computer. Yeah, I was feeling pretty damn good about Apple. Now that is customer service.

Women who have at least one cup of coffee -- or even five cups -- daily may be reducing their risk of stroke by as much as 25 percent, new Swedish research shows. And women who don't drink coffee at all may actually be increasing their risk for stroke, the researchers noted. However, the researchers added, these findings are preliminary and should not cause any change in coffee-drinking habits. "Results from our study in women showed that consumption of 1 to 5 cups of coffee per day was associated with a 22 to 25 percent lower risk of stroke, compared with consumption of less than 1 cup a day," gucci outlet said lead researchers Susanna Larsson, from the National Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "Even small amounts of coffee may reduce the risk of stroke," she added. The study is published in the March 10 issue of Stroke. For the study, Larsson's team collected data on 34,670 women, aged 49 to 83, who took part in the Swedish Mammography Cohort, which looked for associations between diet, lifestyle and disease. Between 1998 and 2008, 1,680 women had a stroke. But the researchers found that coffee drinkers had a 22 percent to 25 percent lowered risk. Women who reported drinking 1-2 cups a day, 3-4 cups a day or 5 or more cups had similar benefits, compared with women who drank less than a cup of coffee, the researchers found. The results remained unchanged even after taking into account smoking, weight, diabetes, high blood pressure or drinking, they added. Although the women in the study were not asked whether they drank decaf coffee, most Swedes drink caffeinated coffee, Larsson noted. The researchers speculated that coffee might reduce inflammation, lower oxidative stress and improve insulin resistance, which in turn could lower the risk for stroke. However, one expert doesn't think this study convincingly shows a strong link. The problem with this type of study is that there are too many factors unaccounted for and association does not prove causality, said Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, director of the Duke Stroke Center at Duke University Medical Center. "Subjects were asked about their past coffee consumption in a questionnaire and then followed over time. There is no way to know if they changed their behavior," Goldstein said. And, he noted, there was no control for medication use or other potential but unmeasured factors. "The study is restricted to a Scandinavian population, and it is not clear, even if there is a relationship, that it would be present in more diverse populations. I think that it can be concluded, at least in this population, that there was not an increased risk of stroke among coffee drinkers," he said. A link between regular coffee drinking and reduced risk of stroke in a general population was reported by British researchers last year at the American Stroke Association's annual stroke conference. A University of Cambridge study of 23,000 men and women who were followed for an average of 12 years found that those who reported any intake of coffee had a 27 percent lower risk of stroke than those who said they never drank java.More research last year showed that drinking coffee or tea in moderation reduces the risk of developing heart disease. In a study published online June 18 in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology researchers at the University Medical Center Utrecht followed 37,514 residents of The Netherlands for 13 years. They found that people who had two to four cups a day of coffee had a 20 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those drinking less than two or more than four cups a day. Moderate coffee intake also slightly -- but not significantly -- reduced the risk of death from heart disease and all causes, they reported.

FOX Business: The Power to Prosper The blue chips edged lower on the two-year anniversary of markets hitting bottom in the depths of the financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.3 points, or 0.01%, to 12,213, the S&P 500 skid 1.8 points, or 0.14%, to 1,320 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 14 points, or 0.51%, to 2,751. The FOX 50 was higher by 0.95 point to 937. While markets gyrated in recent sessions, stocks have rallied since major markets indexes plunged to 12-1/2 year lows on March 9, 2009. Indeed, the broad S&P 500 has rebounded 95% since hitting that point. Dow components Caterpillar (CAT: 102.36, -1.79, -1.72%) and American Express (AXP: 45.03, -0.21, -0.46%) have fared particularly well, soaring more than 300% in the last two years. Shifts in oil prices have driven markets in recent sessions. Turmoil in oil-producing Libya that pushed crude to multi-year highs continues, with reports that forces loyal to leader Muammar al-Qaddafi escalated attacks on several rebel positions across the embattled country. Crude inventories jumped by 2.5 million barrels last week, according to the Energy air yeezy Department -- well above the 600,000 barrel build analysts were expecting. There were also a record 40.3 million barrels of oil stored in Cushing, Oklahoma, considered a key domestic shipping point for oil. Oil bobbed between positive and negative territory as traders weighed the bearish inventory report with the tumult in Libya. Light, sweet crude ended the day lower by 64 cents, or 0.61%, to $104.38 a barrel. On the consumer front, prices at the pump continue rising, averaging $3.53 for a gallon of regular nationwide, compared with $3.12 a month ago, according the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. Despite the Dow swinging higher and lower by triple digits numerous times in last two weeks, the blue chips have been bound to a fairly tight trading range, inching higher by 0.1% since February 22. On the economic front, the Mortgage Bankers Association [MBA], said mortgage application activity jumped 15.5% -- to a three-month high -- last week. "An improving job market is beginning to pave the way for an improving housing market," Michael Fratantoni, MBA vice president of research and economics, said in the report. The U.S. dollar slid 0.13% against other world currencies, however the euro lost about 0.02% on the greenback. In metals, silver jumped 39 cents, or 1.1%, to a record high of $36.04 a troy ounce. Gold was up $2.40, or 0.17%, to $1,429 a troy ounce.

Hewlett-Packard Co. directors, including Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker, went against company rules in their appointment of new board members, according to a shareholder-advisory group. Apotheker played a direct role in picking new board members, a move that contravenes the board’s own rules governing director selection, according to Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., an adviser to shareholders on corporate governance matters. “The direct participation of Apotheker in the appointment of five new directors raises red flags,” ISS said in a report prepared for clients and obtained by Bloomberg News. “The board is responsible for representing shareholders and overseeing management, in particular the CEO.” Hewlett-Packard reshaped its gucci outlet board with executives who have ties to Apotheker, whose tenure as CEO began Nov. 1. One director sits on a board in Europe with Apotheker, and at least three others have been customers of German software maker SAP AG, where Apotheker was CEO and worked for two decades. The ties could inhibit directors from acting objectively, ISS said. ISS recommended that shareholders vote against three sitting directors who are up for re-election at the annual meeting, scheduled for March 23, because they shouldn’t have permitted Apotheker to play a role in the nomination, ISS said. ISS’s recommendation is based on a “misinterpretation of the process that HP employed in identifying, selecting and nominating” directors, Hewlett-Packard said in a statement. Stockholders’ Interest “We do not believe that it would be in the best interests of HP’s stockholders to lose the service of the experienced and dedicated board members who have been delegated primary responsibility for establishing and maintaining those governance practices,” Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard said. The charter for Hewlett-Packard’s nominating and governance committee calls for the identification of potential director candidates to be conducted by independent directors only, according to ISS. “The CEO’s formal participation in the ad hoc committee established to identify potential director candidates runs contrary to the Nominating and Governance Committee’s Charter,” the group said. Three directors -- Lawrence Babbio, Sari Baldauf and G. Kennedy Thompson -- shouldn’t have permitted Apotheker to play a role in the nomination, ISS said. “Shareholders should be significantly concerned about the committee’s failure to fulfill its role in leading the process for board appointments,” according to the report.Glass Lewis & Co., another shareholder adviser, also recommended against the re-election of Babbio for his role in approving the severance package for former CEO Mark Hurd. The executive departed in August after the company said inaccurate expense reports filed by Hurd or on his behalf concealed a personal relationship with a contractor, in violation of HP’s standards of business conduct. It also faulted Babbio for failing to create a succession plan that “may have avoided last summer’s high-profile and ultimately expensive CEO hunt,” Glass Lewis said. Hewlett-Packard’s directors “have carried out their obligations in a fully compliant manner,” Hewlett-Packard said in the statement. ISS also recommended that shareholders vote against Apotheker’s proposed pay package, valued by ISS at $47 million, given his role in appointing directors. New Board Appointments The new board members, who were announced Jan. 20, include Dominique Senequier, who runs AXA Private Equity, the investment buyout arm of French insurer AXA SA. Apotheker sits on AXA’s supervisory board. Senequier and Apotheker also both sit on the supervisory board of Schneider Electric SA, the world’s largest maker of circuit breakers. Three other newly appointed directors -- Meg Whitman, former CEO of EBay Inc.; Patricia Russo, former CEO of Alcatel- Lucent SA; and Gary Reiner, former chief information officer of General Electric Co., all did business with SAP while Apotheker was in management. In 2003, when Whitman was CEO of EBay and Apotheker was a top sales and marketing executive at SAP, the companies announced a deal that let SAP customers post excess goods for sale on EBay. Whitman was EBay’s CEO from 1998 to 2008. SAP said in 2008 that Alcatel-Lucent had upgraded 6,000 users in 30 countries to a new version of SAP’s applications software. At General Electric, Reiner handled technology matters such as e-commerce under CEO Jack Welch and his successor Jeffrey Immelt. GE has been a customer of SAP’s Business Objects data-analysis software.

AT&T continues to offer its no commitment plan that users can start or stop anytime without incurring any fees. While it originally offered an unlimited 3G data plan for iPad users, it currently only offers a 250MB cap for $15 and a 2GB plan for $25. In addition to 3G data service, AT&T also offers access to its network of WiFi hot spots to its DataConnect plan users (use of which does not count against the data limits). The carrier is also running a special offer of a free month of base service worth $25, and is also currently selling the original iPad models at $100 off, meaning the entry level 16GB iPad 3G is now $529. Users who go over their air yeezy data limit are hit with either a $15 charge per each 250MB increment on the smaller plan, or a $10 charge per each additional 1GB on the larger option. AT&T sends its users warning messages when they hit 65, 90 and 100 percent of their data plan. The company provides an interactive calculator to help users estimate how much data they're likely to need based on their use.Trucks loaded with antiaircraft batteries, ammunition crates and rocket-propelled grenades rolled toward Ras Lanuf late Tuesday. But there was no sign of battle tanks that rebel fighters have said are on the way. The only tanks visible at garrisons in Benghazi, headquarters for the opposition leadership, are ancient Soviet models of questionable utility. The tanks and other weapons were seized from armories by rebels during street fighting last month. Old Soviet-made armored personnel carriers with young fighters clinging to the hatches have appeared in Ras Lanuf. Most are nestled into protective sand berms along the coastal highway, guarding the approaches to the city, which the rebels seized Friday. The oil complex, port and airport in Ras Lanuf have shut down. An airstrike Tuesday morning apparently damaged a water main, and much of the city was without running water. Most residents have fled, and a small beachfront hotel has been commandeered by rebel fighters, who sauntered through the shabby lobby Tuesday. The reception desk was unstaffed, and someone had pried off the front of a cash machine.Outside, a small clutch of gunmen and news photographers scanned the skies over the desert, searching for signs of warplanes.

Warner Brothers became the first major media company to offer a movie for rent on Facebook, a move that could position the social network to become a force in the digital distribution of movies, rivaling services like Netflix and iTunes. Warner said on Tuesday that it would allow Facebook users in the United States to rent the film “The Dark Knight” directly on the social networking site, and pay for it using Credits, Facebook’s virtual currency. If other studios make similar moves, Facebook could tap a significant revenue stream, bolstering its Credits currency as it seeks to create a rival to PayPal and other payment systems. Warner said it might make other movies available on Facebook over time. “This is definitely a test,” said Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Brothers Digital Distribution, in a telephone interview. While some analysts saw the move as a danger to Netflix — a threat investors seemed to take seriously as shares of Netflix dropped more than 5 percent on Tuesday — others said that for Facebook, which is already one of the most popular places to watch videos online, the payoff from Warner’s move might be more in the expansion of its online currency. “I think this is much more about payments than about movies,” said Alex Rampell, the chief executive of TrialPay, an advertising company that offers free Facebook Credits to people who buy certain products. Mr. Rampell said that millions of Facebook users were using Credits to pay for virtual goods inside games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars. gucci outlet “It seems like a logical step to use the currency to pay for movies,” he said. Facebook began testing Credits in virtual games nearly two years ago. But the company, which keeps 30 percent of all transactions conducted through Credits, has made it clear that it wants to turn its virtual currency into a payment mechanism for all sorts of digital goods. To expand the use of the currency, Facebook last year began selling Credits through prepaid gift cards at Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy. Earlier this year, it opened up Credits to all application developers on Facebook. Warner appears to be the first major media company to take advantage of the service to charge for content. Facebook said that more than 400 developers were already using Credits. “We’re looking forward to seeing the new and interesting ways that developers and partners use Credits to offer virtual and digital goods in the future,” Jonathan Thaw, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Like other Hollywood studios, Warner is racing to figure out how to deal with two significant problems: piracy and plummeting DVD sales, both of which are growing worse as broadband access spreads across the globe. The industry’s best hope for a solution is to make more content available for digital purchase on more platforms. But Hollywood is also fretting that certain delivery systems — particularly Netflix, with its rapidly growing streaming service — are becoming too powerful. If Warner’s go-straight-to-the-fans Facebook experiment is successful, it could be a way of skirting those middleman distributors. It chose the “The Dark Knight” in part because a related Facebook page run by the studio has a robust four million fans. The rental costs $3, or 30 Facebook Credits. For now, Facebook is hardly a rival to online movie rental services, and it is not clear if the company plans to become one. It did not specifically help Warner and has not signed a licensing or distribution deal with the studio. And even if other studios follow Warner’s lead, Facebook lacks a feature for users to find movies. But some analysts said that Facebook could eventually inch its way more aggressively into the movie rental business. “On a longer-term basis, we think that Facebook could become a credible threat” to Netflix, Ingrid Chung, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note to investors. Ms. Chung noted that for now, however, Facebook “lacks content, does not have wide distribution across devices that connect to the living room TV, has few people on the payments platform.”

Consumers added to their non-mortgage debts for the fourth straight month in January, suggesting that the U.S. economy owes its recent acceleration in part to renewed borrowing. Consumer credit, which excludes real estate loans such as home mortgages, grew at a 2.5% annual pace to $2.4 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Monday. A nearly 7% increase in non-revolving credit—including loans for autos, boats and education—drove the gains, while credit-card debt fell to a new six-year low as consumers continued to pay down debt or default on loans. The increase in overall credit comes at a time when U.S. consumers have been ramping up their purchases of big-ticket items such as new cars,supra encouraged by extremely low rates on financing. Light-vehicle sales in January and February combined rose to about 1.8 million, up 22.5% from the same period a year earlier, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. Meanwhile, the relatively weak economy may have also led consumers to rely more on loans in some areas. For instance, federal student loans jumped in January to drive much of the increase in non-revolving credit. Gregory Daco, an economist at consultancy IHS Global Insight, said the rebound in non-revolving credit is likely to spread to credit cards as consumers' animal spirits return. "Strong demand for credit for automobiles is a good sign of consumer spending," he said. "We might see a few more drops in revolving credit over the coming months, but there is evidence that we're at a turning point." Revolving consumer credit—consisting largely of credit-card debt—declined at an annual rate of 6.4% to $795.5 billion, down from a peak of $974 billion in August 2008. The cutbacks in credit-card debt reflect consumers choosing to pay down debt and lenders writing off overdue balances. Credit-card borrowing fell consistently starting in September 2008, as the financial crisis struck and consumers reined in their spending after years of relying heavily on plastic. It rose in December before dropping again amid the snowy and cold weather of January.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, who is fighting to keep a political title the United Nations says isn't his, on Monday nationalized the nation's two main cash crops, coffee and cocoa, according to state-run television. In a statement read on air, the government announced that "the purchase of coffee and cocoa from producers and producer groups is done exclusively by the state on the entire national territory." "The export of products of the coffee-cocoa sector is carried out by the state, by any legal person mandated by the state or holder of an exporter license," the government announced. "Approved exporters get air yeezy their cocoa beans and green coffee from the state or any legal person mandated by the state." The Ivory Coast is the world's largest supplier of cocoa beans. Gbagbo, the incumbent, has refused to give up power since an electoral commission declared challenger Alassane Ouattara the winner of the November presidential election. Gbagbo's refusal to step down has sparked violent clashes between supporters of the two rivals, resulting in the deaths of 365 people since December. Ouattara's "New Forces" loyalists claimed on the group's website to have taken the west Ivory Coast city of Toulepleu after intense fighting with Gbagbo forces on Sunday. Gbagbo's ability to maintain control over the nation's coffee and cocoa industry could be key to his staying in power. Coffee and cocoa experts have provided the embattled leader with a lucrative revenue source to pay loyal civil servants and military officers. In January, Ouattara called for a ban on cocoa and coffee experts in an effort to shut down that revenue stream and force Gbagbo out of office.2032 In his interview with Al Arabiya (see 1949) Saadi Gaddafi appeared to partly blame his brother, Saif al-Islam, for the unrest. He said Saif al-Islam and ministers had been charged with addressing concerns over issues such as rising prices, but that "there are things they did not do", Reuters reports. 2025 Phil Campion, a former SAS lance corporal, told the BBC the UK mission into Benghazi should be seen as successful. "A team has gone into a hostile environment against overwhelming odds, they've done their job. Everybody who's gone in came out again." He said that once detained, the mission had "come to a diplomatic solution to what was a very difficult situation". 2018 LibyaInMe tweets: "Good to see NATO, US, Gulf countries speaking out more today than ever in the past 3 weeks. Hope something can be done." 2014 Our correspondent says he and his colleagues were themselves detained on Monday at a military checkpoint. "We we were trying to get to one of the closest towns outside Tripoli where there was heavy bombardment and we know there was loss of life. We were held several hours before being turned back."

Look, if they were great, you'd be bored. The Miami Heat did brush greatness, a couple of months ago, ripping off a run of 21 wins out of 22 games in which they thundered through the NBA and briefly hushed the clamor over LeBron James's graceless exit from Cleveland. The Decision suddenly looked wise; James and teammate Dwyane Wade were touted as potential co-MVPs (cute!). There also was that widely published, hypnotic photograph from a December game in Milwaukee: a confident Wade in the foreground, arms triumphantly stretched, palms open, as James floated above the rim, the ball curled at the end of his arm, ready to hammer a dunk. How could anyone stop such virtuosity? The Heat were unstoppable progress, supra like the internal-combustion engine, or microwavable minicheeseburgers. There was no sense getting irritated about them any longer. But Team Everyone's Got an Opinion has meekly returned to the atmosphere. In the last week, Miami has suffered a ghastly streak of losses—a narrow one to the reshuffled New York Knicks; a comeback shocker against the Orlando Magic; a 30-point crushing by the San Antonio Spurs, the unfussy, efficient Berkshire Hathaway of basketball. On Sunday, it grew worse. The Heat fell 87-86 to Chicago—a game in which the most reliable Miami star at the end was the renowned Mario Chalmers; in which the Bulls clawed back after the Heat inexcusably allowed Chicago to rebound its own missed free throw; in which both James and Wade missed final-seconds, game-winning shots. It was not virtuosity. It wasn't even Washington Wizardsosity. And away from the glitter of South Beach, you could hear a faint snickering sound: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. The Heat are not what they hoped to be. They are not even close. They are a very respectable 43-20, third in the Eastern Conference, but that upbeat record masks a 1-9 mark against the NBA's top five teams. Miami has feasted largely on previously gnawed NBA carcasses. They've been hopeless in close games and are a distressing 0-3 against the Boston Celtics, the conference's first-place team, led by a collection of declining stars who joined the league during the Nixon administration. After Sunday, the Heat are also 0-3 against Chicago. The smart MVP pick now is Bulls guard Derrick Rose. "The Miami Heat are exactly what everyone wanted, losing games," Wade said after Sunday's defeat, which reportedly had some Heat players in tears. "The world is better now because the Heat are losing."Should we raise another banner in Miami? HEAT BASKETBALL: THE SCHADENFREUDE IS BACK. As Wade knows, the only thing humans respond to more than hype is hype publicly punctured, and the questions that happily kicked around when the Heat were 9-8 early on have returned with gusto. Can Wade and James co-exist? Did Miami undervalue depth? Who is this Chris Bosh and what is his purpose? The Heat have plenty of wins, but to borrow a fashionable term from a current celebrity train wreck who will not be named, they are not "winning." Naturally, this losing streak has prompted a rehashing of speculation that Heat president Pat Riley will Favre his young successor, Erik Spoelstra, and return to Miami's sideline to steer them in the playoffs. The Heat's problems appear, for the most part, to be basketball-related—murky leadership, a thin supporting cast, a half-court offense installed by Madame Tussauds. As the ESPN radio analyst Will Perdue put it on Sunday: "When you look at this Miami Heat team, there's a lot of standing around."