DealBook Column: The Election Won't Solve All Puzzles

Here comes more uncertainty.

It may sound counterintuitive, but whatever the outcome of the election — whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins — the economy and markets are likely to face more uncertainty, not less, over the coming year.

“Uncertainty” has become the watchword over the last several years for many chief executives, politicians and economists as an explanation — or perhaps an excuse — for the economy’s slow growth, for the lack of hiring by business and for the volatility in the stock market.

“The claim is that businesses and households are uncertain about future taxes, spending levels, regulations, health care reform and interest rates. In turn, this uncertainty leads them to postpone spending on investment and consumption goods and to slow hiring, impeding the recovery,” a group of professors from Stanford University and the University of Chicago wrote in a study that found “current levels of economic policy uncertainty are at extremely elevated levels compared to recent history.” (The professors have created a Web site, policyuncertainty.com, where you can track the “uncertainty” levels.)

Come Wednesday morning, we should know who our president will be. But the uncertainty hardly ends there.

Almost immediately after the elections, the next big talking point on Wall Street and in Washington is going to be the now infamous “fiscal cliff,” a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that was the result of a Congressional compromise reached last summer and is to take effect on Jan. 1, unless Congress finds an alternative. Some economists say the tax increases and spending cuts in the existing agreement could shave as much as 4 percent off G.D.P. if they are not renegotiated. Already, executives say that the uncertainty over the outcome of the fiscal cliff is causing them to hold back from making new investments.

But the greatest likelihood is that the fiscal cliff isn’t going to be resolved soon at all —the betting line of the political cognoscenti is that no matter who wins, Congress will find a way to kick the issue down the road, perhaps as far as the fall of 2013, providing a new cloud of uncertainty over the economy.

For investors, the fiscal cliff includes a tax increase on dividends (making them the equivalent of ordinary income, on which rates could rise to as high as 39.6 percent) and capital gains (up to 20 percent from 15 percent). In a note to clients sent out on Sunday night, Goldman Sachs said that it expected the rate for both dividends and capital gains to be negotiated to 20 percent in either a second Obama term or a Romney presidency. But more important, Goldman noted that when similar tax increases were on the table in 1970 and 1986, “the S.& P. 500 posted negative returns in the December prior to implementation as investors locked in the lower rate.” December, the report said, “has the second-highest average monthly return” since 1928.

Many investors have already begun selling stocks and companies in anticipation of tax increases. Speculation was rampant last week that one of the reasons for the timing of the sale of George Lucas’s company, Lucasfilm, to Disney for $4.1 billion in cash and stock, was the impending changes in tax policy. (Mr. Lucas has said that he plans to donate a majority of his wealth to charity.)

Once we get past the fiscal cliff, if we do at all, there is Europe. Remember Europe? The issues in Greece and Spain have managed to stay off the front pages during the election run-up, but they have not gone away. Some economists have argued that things have gotten worse. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, who will face election in 2013, said on Monday that the fiscal crisis in Europe was likely to last at least five years. “Whoever thinks this can be fixed in one or two years is wrong,” she said.

And don’t forget the Middle East. That “uncertainty” for the world — and the global economy — isn’t going away anytime soon either. Questions about a possible attack on Iran will persist under either candidate.

And finally, there is Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, one of the biggest uncertainties of them all. As I reported in this column two weeks ago, the greatest likelihood is that Mr. Bernanke will step down at the end of his term in early 2014 no matter who wins the election.

It’s possible — though unlikely — that his departure could happen even sooner if Mr. Romney wins. Over the next year and a half, Mr. Bernanke’s future as the Fed chairman will feed a sense of uncertainty among investors who have become accustomed to his easy money policies. If President Obama wins, he is likely to appoint a successor to Mr. Bernanke who is dovish on monetary policy, and more likely to keep printing money as Mr. Bernanke has, a strategy that comes with its own risks. If Mr. Romney wins, he may appoint a more hawkish chairman, a move that could create a different sense of uncertainty about how the Federal Reserve will unwind itself from Mr. Bernanke’s policies.

None of these issues are new. President Obama took office facing a fiscal policy dispute that was not and probably could not be settled given the gridlock in Congress. No solution is in sight for Europe’s problems. Tension in the Middle East is escalating as fast as nuclear technology. And the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is at its most opaque since the Reagan administration.

All of which shows that the comedian Jon Stewart is more on target than ever with the cheeky title of his election coverage on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. Carrying on a tradition, it is known as “Indecision 2012.”

Update that to 2013, and it’s good for another year.

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Coptic Church Chooses Pope Who Rejects Politics

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Coptic clergymen at a ceremony on Sunday for choosing a pope.

CAIRO — A blindfolded 6-year-old reached into a glass bowl on Sunday to pick the first new Coptic pope in more than 40 years, a patriarch who promises a new era of integration for Egypt’s Christian minority as it grapples with a wave of sectarian violence, new Islamist domination of politics, and internal pressures for reform.

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

The acting Coptic pope, before a banner of Bishop Tawadros, held up the names of other candidates to show that the selection was fair.

Speaking to the television cameras that surrounded him at his monastery in a desert town, the pope-designate, Bishop Tawadros, indicated that he planned to reverse the explicitly political role of his predecessor, Pope Shenouda III, who died in March. For four decades, Shenouda acted as the Copts’ chief representative in public life, won special favors for his flock by publicly endorsing President Hosni Mubarak, and last year urged in vain that Copts stay away from the protests that ultimately toppled the strongman.

“The most important thing is for the church to go back and live consistently within the spiritual boundaries because this is its main work, spiritual work,” the bishop said, and he promised to begin a process of “rearranging the house from the inside” and “pushing new blood” after his installation later this month as Pope Tawadros II. Interviewed on Coptic television recently, he struck a new tone by including as his priorities “living with our brothers, the Muslims” and “the responsibility of preserving our shared life.”

“Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait,” Bishop Tawadros said then. “This integration is a must — moderate constructive integration,” he added. “All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate.”

Coptic activists and intellectuals said the turn away from politics signaled a sweeping transformation in the Christian minority’s relationship to the Egyptian state but also addressed a firm demand by the Christian laity to claim a voice in a more democratic Egypt.

“It can’t continue the way it used to be,” said Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic newspaper Watani. “It is not in the interests of the Copts, if they are trying to speak for themselves as full and equal citizens, to have an intermediary speaking for them, and especially if he is a religious authority. I think the church has gotten this message loud and clear.”

In Egypt’s first free elections for Parliament and president, Christians voted overwhelmingly along sectarian lines, seeking to pool their votes around the most secular candidates — only to see their favorites fall under the Islamist tide. After the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party won parliamentary leadership and then the presidency, many Egyptians joked that the group put a candidate up for Coptic pope, too.

In recent interviews, intellectuals and activists, and churchgoers leaving Mass after the selection of the pope, all said they had concluded that Christians would have to build alliances with Muslims who shared their goal of nonsectarian citizenship.

“We are not the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Tarek Samir, a sales manager leaving the cathedral after the selection of Bishop Tawadros. “Politics is a dirty word to us, and we do not think it should be mixed with religion. But there are moderate Muslims who live the same life we do, who go to work with us, who live together with us, and if I am in trouble they will help me.”

Copts, often estimated to make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people, trace their roots here to centuries before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. They consider St. Mark their first pope; Tawadros II will be the 118th. In some ways, they are now at the spearhead of a challenge confronting Christian minorities across the region amid the tumult of the Arab Spring. In Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere, Christian minorities had made peace with authoritarian rulers in the hope of protection from the Muslim majorities. But now the old bargains have broken, leaving Christians to fend for themselves.

In Egypt, the revolution last year coincided with by far the deadliest 12 months of sectarian violence in decades, including the bombing of an Alexandria church weeks before the revolt, the destruction of at least three churches in sectarian feuds, and the killing of about two dozen Coptic demonstrators by Egyptian soldiers squashing a protest — the single bloodiest episode of sectarian violence in at least half a century.

Known as the Maspero massacre after a nearby television building, the slaughter elicited attempts by top generals to blame the Copts and scant sympathy from the main Islamist groups, crystallizing Coptic anxieties.

Mayy El Sheikh and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Yeldon TD leads No. 1 Alabama past LSU 21-17

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — With Alabama's hopes of a second straight national title slipping away, A.J. McCarron shook off a dismal second half and guided the Crimson Tide right down the field.

Talk about a Saturday night stunner in Death Valley.

McCarron read an LSU blitz and flipped a screen pass to T.J. Yeldon, who did the rest on a 28-yard touchdown with 51 seconds remaining that gave the top-ranked Crimson Tide a 21-17 victory over No. 5 LSU.

Alabama (9-0, 6-0 Southeastern Conference) now has a clear path to the league championship game in Atlanta, and remains solidly on course to defend its national title in Miami.

But this one was a struggle. Led by embattled quarterback Zach Mettenberger, LSU (7-2, 3-2) fought back from a 14-3 halftime deficit with an offensive performance that was nothing like their dismal showing against the Tide in last season's BCS championship game.

Jeremy Hill scored on a 1-yard run late in the third quarter, LSU's first TD against Alabama since 2010 — a span of nearly three full games. Then Mettenberger threw perhaps the best pass of his LSU career, hooking up with Jarvis Landry on a 14-yard touchdown that put the Tigers ahead 17-14 with just under 13 minutes remaining.

LSU was on the verge of putting the game away, driving into Alabama territory and forcing coach Nick Saban to call his remaining timeouts. But Drew Alleman missed a 38-yard field goal, and McCarron took over from there.

He completed three straight passes to put Alabama in scoring position. Then, when LSU brought a corner blitz, he got the ball away quickly to Yeldon. The freshman running back broke one tackle and faked out another defender, racing to the end zone for the winning score.

"I'm really, really pleased with that last drive," Saban said. "That's something I'll never forget."

Before the final drive, McCarron was 1 of 7 for 0 yards in the second half. All was forgiven when he guided the Crimson Tide on the lightning-quick 72-yard drive, connecting with Kevin Norwood on three straight passes covering 18, 15 and 11 yards against an LSU defense that was giving some room short. McCarron took one shot at the end zone, the ball falling to the turf when both the receiver and the defender fell down.

But, with a much shorter throw, he hit paydirt on the very next play.

Mettenberger, who had gotten much of the blame for LSU's lackluster offense, suddenly put it all together for the Tigers in the second half. But LSU couldn't overcome the nation's top-ranked team and some dubious calls by coach Les Miles.

The Mad Hatter kept reaching into his bag of tricks — and kept getting burned. A fake field goal was stuffed. An onside kick didn't work. And going for it on fourth down in Alabama territory didn't work out either.

"I wish I had a couple of my calls back," Miles said. "That's the way it goes."

Mettenberger nearly bailed out his coach. He finished 24 of 35 for a career-best 298 yards, with 14 of those completions for 202 yards coming over the final two quarters. Landry had eight catches for 76 yards, and freshman Jeremy Hill rushed for 107 yards and a third-quarter touchdown that got LSU back in the game.

Alabama has not been behind in the fourth quarter since 2010, and sure didn't have much experience at playing with a deficit in 2012. The Tide arrived in Baton Rouge having trailed for a grand total of 15 seconds this season — one play against Mississippi — and when McCarron took off on a 9-yard touchdown run with just 11 second left in the first half it looked like a repeat of last January's national championship game.

But LSU was determined not to turn in another embarrassing performance like the one in the Superdome, when a perfect season ended with a dismal 21-0 loss to the Crimson Tide. The Tigers managed only 92 yards and five first downs in that game; this time, they put up 435 yards and 17 first downs against the nation's top-ranked defense.

It still wasn't enough.

"I told the players they would have to overcome a lot of adversity to win a game here," Saban said. "Things went bad. The momentum changed. But they kept their poise, kept playing, kept competing. I've never been prouder of as bunch of guys."

Alleman's 38-yard field goal gave LSU an early lead, but Alabama began to impose its will in the second period. McCarron completed four straight passes, Yeldon rushed five times for 40 yards and Eddie Lacy capped an 11-play, 92-yard drive by running it in from the 7.

McCarron finished 14 of 27 for 165 yards and has still yet to throw an interception this season. Lacy finished with 83 yards rushing, while Yeldon had 76.

LSU actually moved the ball rather effectively through much of the first half, but some silly blunders and questionable calls cost the Tigers dearly.

After Alabama's Cyrus Jones bobbled away a bouncing punt, Jerqwinick Sandolph recovered for LSU at the Tide 32. With the record Tiger Stadium crowd of 93,374 in a frenzy, Hill quickly ripped off a 19-yard run, but fullback J.C. Copeland picked up a needless personal foul when he plowed into an Alabama player after the play was over.

The officials stepped off 15 yards the other way, and LSU's drive imploded. Hill was stuffed for just a 1-yard gain, Mettenberger threw an incompletion and Landry was thrown for a 3-yard loss after hauling in a pass. LSU lined up for a 47-yard field goal attempt on fourth-and-12, but Miles decided to try one of his trademark gambles.

It backfired badly.

Brad Wing, the holder, took the snap and tossed a short pass to Alleman. Miles was counting on his 5-foot-11, 183-pound kicker to outrun the defense, which he's done it before, but the Crimson Tide wasn't fooled at all. Alleman was dragged down for a 2-yard loss, preserving a 7-3 lead.

Getting the ball back with just over a minute remaining in the half, Alabama moved quickly down the field for a touchdown that many thought had broken LSU's back.

Norwood hauled in an 8-yard pass and stepped out of bounds with 16 seconds left. McCarron dropped back into the pocket and spotted a huge hole right up the middle. The junior never even hesitated, taking off on 9-yard touchdown run without being touched.

After that big play, McCarron was largely overshadowed in the second half.

Until the final drive.

"It was like clockwork," he said. "The whole offense just looked at each other and you could just tell in everybody's eyes it was like, 'We do this every Thursday, so what's the difference here?'"

Afterward, McCarron found his parents at the edge of the stands behind the end zone and lunged into their arms, his watery-eyed father Tony furiously rubbing his son's hair.

The elder McCarron said his son had vowed he wouldn't lose this game.

He kept that promise, and Alabama is still on track for another national title.

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Chelation Therapy Shows Slight Benefit in Heart Disease Clinical Trial

LOS ANGELES — To the surprise of many cardiologists, a controversial alternative therapy proved beneficial to people with heart disease, reducing the rate of death and cardiovascular problems in a clinical trial, researchers said on Sunday.

The benefit of the treatment, known as chelation therapy, barely reached statistical significance, and there were questions about the reliability of the study. Even the investigators in the trial said the results were insufficient by themselves to justify recommending use of the treatment.

Still, the unexpected finding should provide some vindication to the National Institutes of Health for sponsoring the $30 million study, which was plagued by delays and problems.

“There may be a biological effect and that biological effect should be taken seriously,” and “pursued with additional research,” Dr. Gervasio A. Lamas of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, the lead investigator, said at a news conference here at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Elliott Antman, representing the heart association, applauded the National Institutes of Health for sponsoring the study while also expressing caution. “Intriguing as these results are, they are unexpected and should not be interpreted as an indication to adopt chelation therapy into clinical practice,” said Dr. Antman, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Chelation therapy involves the infusion of agents that remove metals from the bloodstream.

More than 100,000 Americans with heart disease undergo chelation therapy each year, at a cost of about $5,000 per course of treatment, experts here said. The hypothesis is that chelation can remove the calcium that is a contributor to arterial plaques.

But skeptics said there was not enough evidence backing chelation therapy to even begin a clinical trial. Proponents of the study said that since chelation therapy was already widely used, it should be subject to the same rigorous scientific testing used to study conventional pharmaceuticals.

And some skeptics were not persuaded at all. Dr. Steven Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said the study was “fatally flawed,” with many of the doctors involved being on the fringes of medicine and many patients dropping out of the trial. He said if people got the mistaken idea from the study that chelation was beneficial “it would be a public health catastrophe.”

The study, which began enrolling patients in 2003, was plagued by problems from the start. It fell way behind its goal of recruiting nearly 2,400 patients in three years. The trial was also suspended in 2008 for investigations by government agencies, one over conduct at trial sites and the other about whether patients were being adequately informed that chelation can cause death. The study was allowed to resume the next year, after some changes were made.

The trial ended up with 1,708 patients at 134 centers in the United States and Canada. The patients all had had previous heart attacks.

Half the patients received the chelation therapy, a synthetic amino acid called disodium ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid, or EDTA, as well as other substances. These were given by infusion every week for 30 weeks, followed by 10 more infusions at intervals of two to eight weeks. The other half received infusions of placebo.

After a follow-up of 55 months, 26 percent of those who received chelation therapy had died, suffered a heart attack or stroke, had a procedure to reopen a coronary artery or had been hospitalized for angina. That was less than the 30 percent for those who received a placebo, a difference that was barely statistically significant.

Doctors said there were reasons for caution.

Virtually all the of difference between the treatment and the placebo groups occurred in the third of patients who had diabetes. The placebo contained some sugar, which conceivably could have harmed the diabetics. Also, at least within the first two years, the chelation therapy did not improve physical functioning or psychological well being, according to surveys of the patients.

Dr. Mark A. Creager, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was not involved in the study, said the chelation infusion also contained a high dose of vitamin C and the blood thinner heparin. It could be that one of those ingredients, not the chelation agent, were responsible for any benefit, he said.

Dr. Lamas, the lead investigator, said the chelation treatment was well tolerated. But he said investigators did not yet know why some patients receiving the therapy dropped out of the trial.

Another study presented at the heart meeting on Sunday found coronary bypass surgery superior to the use of stents for patients with diabetes and multiple heart blockages.

The trial involved 1,900 patients followed for five yeas. About 27 percent of those who received stents either died or had a heart attack or stroke, compared with about 19 percent of those undergoing bypass surgery. There was an increase in stroke risk with surgery, but that was outweighed by fewer deaths and heart attacks.

Previous studies had already suggested that surgery was better for diabetic patients with severe coronary disease, and practice guidelines already say it is “reasonable” to choose surgery. But the new study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, shows the same result even using modern drug-covered stents.

About 700,000 Americans undergo artery opening procedures for more than one blood vessel each year, and about 25 percent of them have diabetes, according to the investigators.

The study results were also published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific provided the stents used in the study.

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Benghazi Attack Raises Doubts About U.S. Abilities in Region

Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

The attack at the American Mission on Sept. 11, seen here, and an annex in Benghazi, Libya, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for countries swept up in the Arab Spring.

WASHINGTON — About three hours after the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack, the Pentagon issued an urgent call for an array of quick-reaction forces, including an elite Special Forces team that was on a training mission in Croatia.

The team dropped what it was doing and prepared to move to the Sigonella naval air station in Sicily, a short flight from Benghazi and other hot spots in the region. By the time the unit arrived at the base, however, the surviving Americans at the Benghazi mission had been evacuated to Tripoli, and Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were dead.

The assault, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has already exposed shortcomings in the Obama administration’s ability to secure diplomatic missions and act on intelligence warnings. But this previously undisclosed episode, described by several American officials, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for a large swath of countries swept up in the Arab Spring.

At the heart of the issue is the Africa Command, established in 2007, well before the Arab Spring uprisings and before an affiliate of Al Qaeda became a major regional threat. It did not have on hand what every other regional combatant command has: its own force able to respond rapidly to emergencies — a Commanders’ In-Extremis Force, or C.I.F.

To respond to the Benghazi attack, the Africa Command had to borrow the C.I.F. that belongs to the European Command, because its own force is still in training. It also had no AC-130 gunships or armed drones readily available.

As officials in the White House and Pentagon scrambled to respond to the torrent of reports pouring out from Libya — with Mr. Stevens missing and officials worried that he might have been taken hostage — they took the extraordinary step of sending elite Delta Force commandos, with their own helicopters and ground vehicles, from their base at Fort Bragg, N.C., to Sicily. Those troops also arrived too late.

“The fact of the matter is these forces were not in place until after the attacks were over,” a Pentagon spokesman, George Little, said on Friday, referring to a range of special operations soldiers and other personnel. “We did respond. The secretary ordered forces to move. They simply were not able to arrive in time.”

An examination of these tumultuous events undercuts the criticism leveled by some Republicans that the Obama administration did not try to respond militarily to the crisis. The attack was not a running eight-hour firefight as some critics have contended, questioning how an adequate response could not be mustered in that time, but rather two relatively short, intense assaults separated by a lull of four hours. But the administration’s response also shows that the forces in the region had not been adequately reconfigured.

The Africa Command was spun off from the European Command. At the time it was set up, the Pentagon thought it would be devoted mostly to training African troops and building military ties with African nations. Because of African sensitivities about an overt American military presence in the region, the command’s headquarters was established in Stuttgart, Germany.

While the other regional commands, including the Pacific Command and the Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and South Asia, have their own specialized quick-reaction forces, the Africa Command has had an arrangement to borrow the European Command’s force when needed. The Africa Command has been building its own team from scratch, and its nascent strike force was in the process of being formed in the United States on Sept. 11, a senior military official said.

“The conversation about getting them closer to Africa has new energy,” the military official said.

Some Pentagon officials said that it was unrealistic to think a quick-reaction force could have been sent in time even if the African Command had one ready to act on the base in Sicily when the attack unfolded, and asserted that such a small force might not have even been effective or the best means to protect an embassy. But critics say there has been a gap in the command’s quick-reaction capability, which the force would have helped fill.

A spokesman for the command declined to comment on how its capabilities might be improved.

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Barner, No. 2 Oregon beat No. 18 USC 62-51

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kenjon Barner rushed for a school-record 321 yards and five touchdowns, Marcus Mariota threw four TD passes, and No. 2 Oregon produced another landmark offensive performance in a 62-51 victory over No. 18 Southern California on Saturday night.

Josh Huff caught two touchdowns, and De'Anthony Thomas and Daryl Hawkins also caught scoring passes for the Ducks (9-0, 6-0 Pac-12), who outlasted USC in a back-and-forth second half to extend their winning streak to 12 games since the Trojans (6-3, 4-3) won in Eugene last season.

Oregon's 730 yards and 62 points were the most ever allowed by USC, which began playing football in 1888.

Barner set a rushing record for a USC opponent by the third quarter, topping Curtis Enis' 241 yards for Penn State in 1996, and smashed the school record shortly afterward as the Ducks gradually pulled away in their closest game of the year.

Matt Barkley passed for 484 yards and four touchdowns while hitting Marqise Lee with 12 passes for 157 yards and two touchdowns for the Trojans, who have lost two straight after a 6-1 start.

The preseason No. 1 team hit a defensive nadir not even matched during Pete Carroll's final season in 2009, when several opponents destroyed the Trojans' defense.

Barner has already roared past Barkley in the Heisman Trophy race, and the product of Riverside, Calif., thoroughly entertained his friends and family members at the Coliseum with another dominant ground performance, capped by enthusiastic celebrations of every touchdown.

Mariota also carved up the Trojans for 304 yards passing, going 20 for 23 without an interception and rushing for another 96 yards.

USC's defense harassed Darron Thomas into a sub-par performance in this matchup last season, but the freshman who has replaced him showed absolutely no nerves in the historic stadium while playing against the team expected to be Oregon's biggest obstacle in Pac-12 play.

Oregon, which is likely to move up in the BCS standings after this win and Notre Dame's narrow victory, had won every game this season by at least 17 points. USC's offense did its part, scoring more points and gaining more yards (615) than Oregon had allowed all year.

The Trojans' defense simply couldn't keep up with Oregon's relentless pace and precision. Oregon took a 21-3 lead 12 seconds into the second quarter, but Barkley threw TD passes of 75 yards to Lee and 76 yards to Nelson Agholor in the second quarter.

Robert Woods also caught a scoring pass. The Trojans twice pulled within three points in the second half, but Barner was viciously effective on almost every drive.

Randall Telfer caught a short TD pass with 5:27 to play, and USC narrowly missed recovering an onside kick. Barkley had one more chance to drive, but turned it over on downs with 3 minutes left. Agholor had six catches for 162 yards, and Silas Redd rushed for 92 yards and two TDs.

The Trojans' 38-35 win in Eugene last November was arguably the highlight of Barkley's four-year career, snapping the Ducks' 21-game home winning streak and 19-game conference streak while knocking Oregon out of the national championship race. But USC got off to a fast start at Autzen Stadium in that shocker, and the Ducks were much quicker in the rematch at the Coliseum.

In fact, the Ducks needed just 65 seconds to take the lead, with Thomas' 16-yard TD reception capping a five-play drive while the late-arriving part of the sellout crowd filed into the Coliseum.

Oregon's second 75-yard TD drive of the first quarter required 3:11, but Huff finished it with a 21-yard TD catch.

The Trojans were reeling after Mariota orchestrated an 80-yard drive ending in Barner's 27-yard TD run on the second snap of the second quarter, but Barkley uncorked a 75-yard throw to Lee in stride for a score on the next snap from scrimmage.

Barkley also hit Woods and Agholor for scores in the final minutes before halftime to keep the lead down to 34-24.

The Ducks gained 460 yards in the first half, yet weren't in control. Redd's first TD trimmed the Ducks' lead to three points, but Oregon converted two fourth downs on their next drive, ending in Barner's third TD.

Lee returned the ensuing kickoff 82 yards, setting up Redd's second TD run.

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Opinion: Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do

HALLUCINATIONS are very startling and frightening: you suddenly see, or hear or smell something — something that is not there. Your immediate, bewildered feeling is, what is going on? Where is this coming from? The hallucination is convincingly real, produced by the same neural pathways as actual perception, and yet no one else seems to see it. And then you are forced to the conclusion that something — something unprecedented — is happening in your own brain or mind. Are you going insane, getting dementia, having a stroke?

In other cultures, hallucinations have been regarded as gifts from the gods or the Muses, but in modern times they seem to carry an ominous significance in the public (and also the medical) mind, as portents of severe mental or neurological disorders. Having hallucinations is a fearful secret for many people — millions of people — never to be mentioned, hardly to be acknowledged to oneself, and yet far from uncommon. The vast majority are benign — and, indeed, in many circumstances, perfectly normal. Most of us have experienced them from time to time, during a fever or with the sensory monotony of a desert or empty road, or sometimes, seemingly, out of the blue.

Many of us, as we lie in bed with closed eyes, awaiting sleep, have so-called hypnagogic hallucinations — geometric patterns, or faces, sometimes landscapes. Such patterns or scenes may be almost too faint to notice, or they may be very elaborate, brilliantly colored and rapidly changing — people used to compare them to slide shows.

At the other end of sleep are hypnopompic hallucinations, seen with open eyes, upon first waking. These may be ordinary (an intensification of color perhaps, or someone calling your name) or terrifying (especially if combined with sleep paralysis) — a vast spider, a pterodactyl above the bed, poised to strike.

Hallucinations (of sight, sound, smell or other sensations) can be associated with migraine or seizures, with fever or delirium. In chronic disease hospitals, nursing homes, and I.C.U.’s, hallucinations are often a result of too many medications and interactions between them, compounded by illness, anxiety and unfamiliar surroundings.

But hallucinations can have a positive and comforting role, too — this is especially true with bereavement hallucinations, seeing the face or hearing the voice of one’s deceased spouse, siblings, parents or child — and may play an important part in the mourning process. Such bereavement hallucinations frequently occur in the first year or two of bereavement, when they are most “needed.”

Working in old-age homes for many years, I have been struck by how many elderly people with impaired hearing are prone to auditory and, even more commonly, musical hallucinations — involuntary music in their minds that seems so real that at first they may think it is a neighbor’s stereo.

People with impaired sight, similarly, may start to have strange, visual hallucinations, sometimes just of patterns but often more elaborate visions of complex scenes or ranks of people in exotic dress. Perhaps 20 percent of those losing their vision or hearing may have such hallucinations.

I was called in to see one patient, Rosalie, a blind lady in her 90s, when she started to have visual hallucinations; the staff psychiatrist was also summoned. Rosalie was concerned that she might be having a stroke or getting Alzheimer’s or reacting to some medication. But I was able to reassure her that nothing was amiss neurologically. I explained to her that if the visual parts of the brain are deprived of actual input, they are hungry for stimulation and may concoct images of their own. Rosalie was greatly relieved by this, and delighted to know that there was even a name for her condition: Charles Bonnet syndrome. “Tell the nurses,” she said, drawing herself up in her chair, “that I have Charles Bonnet syndrome!”

Rosalie asked me how many people had C.B.S., and I told her hundreds of thousands, perhaps, in the United States alone. I told her that many people were afraid to mention their hallucinations. I described a recent study of elderly blind patients in the Netherlands which found that only a quarter of people with C.B.S. mentioned it to their doctors — the others were too afraid or too ashamed. It is only when physicians gently inquire (often avoiding the word “hallucination”) that people feel free to admit seeing things that are not there — despite their blindness.

Rosalie was indignant at this, and said, “You must write about it — tell my story!” I do tell her story, at length, in my book on hallucinations, along with the stories of many others. Most of these people have been reluctant to admit to their hallucinations. Often, when they do, they are misdiagnosed or undiagnosed — told that it’s nothing, or that their condition has no explanation.

Misdiagnosis is especially common if people admit to “hearing voices.” In a famous 1973 study by the Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, eight “pseudopatients” presented themselves at various hospitals across the country, saying that they “heard voices.” All behaved normally otherwise, but were nonetheless determined to be (and treated as) schizophrenic (apart from one, who was given the diagnosis of “manic-depressive psychosis”). In this and follow-up studies, Professor Rosenhan demonstrated convincingly that auditory hallucinations and schizophrenia were synonymous in the medical mind.

WHILE many people with schizophrenia do hear voices at certain times in their lives, the inverse is not true: most people who hear voices (as much as 10 percent of the population) are not mentally ill. For them, hearing voices is a normal mode of experience.

My patients tell me about their hallucinations because I am open to hearing about them, because they know me and trust that I can usually run down the cause of their hallucinations. For the most part, these experiences are unthreatening and, once accommodated, even mildly diverting.

David Stewart, a Charles Bonnet syndrome patient with whom I corresponded, writes of his hallucinations as being “altogether friendly,” and imagines his eyes saying: “Sorry to have let you down. We recognize that blindness is no fun, so we’ve organized this small syndrome, a sort of coda to your sighted life. It’s not much, but it’s the best we can manage.”

Mr. Stewart has been able to take his hallucinations in good humor, since he knows they are not a sign of mental decline or madness. For too many patients, though, the shame, the secrecy, the stigma, persists.

Oliver Sacks is a professor of neurology at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine and the author, most recently, of the forthcoming book “Hallucinations.”

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Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

Annie Tritt for The New York Times

Jeffrey G. Katz, the chief executive of Wize Commerce, seen with employees. He says that about 60 percent of the traffic for the company’s Nextag comparison-shopping site comes from Google.

In a geeky fire drill, engineers and outside consultants at Nextag scrambled to see if the problem was its own fault. Maybe some inadvertent change had prompted Google’s algorithm to demote Nextag when a person typed in shopping-related search terms like “kitchen table” or “lawn mower.”

But no, the engineers determined. And traffic from Google’s search engine continued to decline, by half.

Nextag’s response? It doubled its spending on Google paid search advertising in the last five months.

The move was costly but necessary to retain shoppers, Mr. Katz says, because an estimated 60 percent of Nextag’s traffic comes from Google, both from free search and paid search ads, which are ads that are related to search results and appear next to them. “We had to do it,” says Mr. Katz, chief executive of Wize Commerce, owner of Nextag. “We’re living in Google’s world.”

Regulators in the United States and Europe are conducting sweeping inquiries of Google, the dominant Internet search and advertising company. Google rose by technological innovation and business acumen; in the United States, it has 67 percent of the search market and collects 75 percent of search ad dollars. Being big is no crime, but if a powerful company uses market muscle to stifle competition, that is an antitrust violation.

So the government is focusing on life in Google’s world for the sprawling economic ecosystem of Web sites that depend on their ranking in search results. What is it like to live this way, in a giant’s shadow? The experience of its inhabitants is nuanced and complex, a blend of admiration and fear.

The relationship between Google and Web sites, publishers and advertisers often seems lopsided, if not unfair. Yet Google has also provided and nurtured a landscape of opportunity. Its ecosystem generates $80 billion a year in revenue for 1.8 million businesses, Web sites and nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, it estimates.

The government’s scrutiny of Google is the most exhaustive investigation of a major corporation since the pursuit of Microsoft in the late 1990s.

The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has recommended preparing an antitrust suit against Google, according to people briefed on the inquiry, who spoke on the condition they not be identified. But the commissioners must vote to proceed. Even if they do, the government and Google could settle.

Google has drawn the attention of antitrust officials as it has moved aggressively beyond its dominant product — search and search advertising — into fields like online commerce and local reviews. The antitrust issue is whether Google uses its search engine to favor its offerings like Google Shopping and Google Plus Local over rivals.

For policy makers, Google is a tough call.

“What to do with an attractive monopolist, like Google, is a really challenging issue for antitrust,” says Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former senior adviser to the F.T.C. “The goal is to encourage them to stay in power by continuing to innovate instead of excluding competitors.”

SPEAKING at a Google Zeitgeist conference in Arizona last month, Larry Page, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said he understood the government scrutiny of his company, given Google’s size and reach. “There’s very many decisions we make that really impact a lot of people,” he acknowledged.

The main reason is that Google is continually adjusting its search algorithm — the smart software that determines the relevance, ranking and presentation of search results, typically links to other Web sites.

Google says it makes the changes to improve its service, and has long maintained that its algorithm weeds out low-quality sites and shows the most useful results, whether or not they link to Google products.

“Our first and highest goal has to be to get the user the information they want as quickly and easily as possible,” says Matt Cutts, leader of the Web spam team at Google.

But Google’s algorithm is secret, and changes can leave Web sites scrambling.

Consider Vote-USA.org, a nonprofit group started in 2003. It provides online information for voters to avoid the frustration of arriving at a polling booth and barely recognizing half the names on the ballot. The site posts free sample ballots for federal, state and local elections with candidates’ pictures, biographies and views on issues.

In the 2004 and 2006 elections, users created tens of thousands of sample ballots. By 2008, traffic had fallen sharply, says Ron Kahlow, who runs Vote-USA.org, because “we dropped off the face of the map on Google.”

As founder of a search-engine optimization company and a recipient of grants that Google gives nonprofits to advertise free, Mr. Kahlow knows a thing or two about how to operate in Google’s world. He pored over Google’s guidelines for Web sites, made changes and e-mailed Google. Yet he received no response.

“I lost all donations to support the operation,” he said. “It was very, very painful.”

A breakthrough came through a personal connection. A friend of Mr. Kahlow knew Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google. Mr. Black made an inquiry on Mr. Kahlow’s behalf, and a Google engineer investigated.

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