VIENNA, Austria —  While Josef Fritz may make Ted Bundy look tame, the Austrian builder who locked his daughter in a cellar and fathered seven children with her, sees himself as a born rapist, a victim of his own tyrannical mother. According to the first leaked account of interviews with a forensic psychiatrist, which is due to appear in two Austrian newspapers today, Fritzl hatched his plan to incarcerate his daughter, Elisabeth, while he was in prison for rape. “I have realized that I had a mean streak. For someone who was born to be a rapist, I have managed to contain myself for a relatively long period,” Fritzl is quoted as telling the psychiatrist in a 130-page report leaked to the tabloid newspapers Kronen Zeitung and Österreich.  Fritzl, 73, is awaiting trial for sexually abusing and incarcerating Elisabeth, 42, in a purpose-built dungeon beneath his house in the town of Amstetten. He fathered seven children by her, one of whom died shortly after birth and Fritzl burnt his body in an oven.  Three of the surviving children were allowed to live upstairs with him and wife, Rosemarie, 69, while their three siblings were condemned to a shadowy existence with their mother in the cellar. They never saw daylight until they were freed by police on April 26. It emerged that Fritzl had a previous criminal record for sexual offences.  Read On

World leaders will meet Nov. 15 in Washington to address the global financial crisis — the first in a series of summits to mitigate what economists predict could be a long and deep downturn, a senior Bush administration official said. The first meeting will be held to discuss underlying causes of the financial crisis, review progress being made to address it and start developing reforms needed to ensure it does not happen again, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the summit had not been formally announced. This will be the first in a series of summits that bring together leaders from countries that participate in the G-20 finance process to discuss current economic challenges. The so-called G-20 includes the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries and the European Union as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea and other major economies. At the first meeting, working groups will be set up to develop recommendations to be considered by leaders in subsequent summits. The White House will host a dinner on the eve of the summit. The location of the meeting, however, has not yet been announced. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who met at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat last week, announced the series of summit, saying the international community needs to work together to address the credit crisis that has shaken markets around the globe.

Despite the fact that leading polls continue to indicate a close Presidential election, and point to the very real chance of an upset victory for the McCain-Palin ticket, too many conservatives have begun to embrace a bizarre form of defeatism. According to this destructive logic, a Republican defeat in 2008 counts as not only inevitable, but necessary; some disgruntled voices on the right argue that a decisive win for Barack Obama might actually help the conservative cause in the long run. This notion contradicts both common sense and historical precedent and rests on five deeply damaging and ultimately demented myths. MYTH #1: If Obama gets elected, his extreme liberalism will make him a one term president TRUTH: Whoever is elected in 2008, will almost certainly win re-election in 2012--the business cycle will inevitably allow him to preside over “recovery” The current financial crisis is painful and unpredictable, but no serious economist believes it will last more than four years. That means that President Obama (or, for that matter, President McCain) will be able to campaign for re-election with the claim that he arrived during “the worst economy since the Great Depression” and brought America back to prosperity and growth. If the next President handles our economic challenges with skill and wisdom, we will likely see the beginnings of recovery by the end of 2009 or early in 2010. If the new chief executive responds in a clumsy, misguided manner (with a heavier tax burden and more government spending, for instance) it could delay the inevitable comeback till 2011 or even 2012. Of course, a recovery that begins in 2012 (a likely development under Obama) would leave the incumbent perfectly situated for a landslide re-election. The Consequences of Defeat

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