Berezovsky, WHO? FREE SCOTLAND!!!
Berezovsky says planning Russian revolution: paper

Thu Apr 12, 9:14 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said he is planning a revolution in Russia to topple President
Vladimir Putin, in comments published on Friday.

"We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper.

"It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure."

Asked if he was fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct."

Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, said he was in contact with members of Russia's political elite.

He said these people -- who he did not name because, he said, that would endanger their lives -- shared his opinion that Putin was eroding democratic reforms, centralizing power and infringing Russia's constitution, according to the Guardian.

"There is no chance of regime change through democratic elections," Berezovsky said.

"If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite -- that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that."

The businessman said he was offering his "experience and ideology" to his contacts, adding: "There are also practical steps which I am doing now, and mostly it is financial."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the comments as a criminal offence and hoped they would prompt questions about Berezovsky's refugee status in Britain, the Guardian said.

"In accordance with our legislation (his remarks are) being treated as a crime. It will cause some questions from the British authorities to Mr Berezovsky," Peskov was quoted as saying. "We want to believe that official London will never grant asylum to someone who wants to use force to change the regime in Russia."

Last month, Berezovsky met Russian investigators in London to answer questions over the killing of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. He has also launched a $500,000 foundation in honor of Litvinenko who was poisoned and died in London last November.

I swear to god, one eyelid opened a crack and his trigger finger quivered...

AP
TV report: Sharon slightly improved

Thu Apr 12, 5:14 PM ET

JERUSALEM - An Israeli TV station reported late Thursday that there has been a slight improvement in former Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's condition, but the hospital refused to comment.

Channel 10 TV reported the change, but Sharon remained comatose. He has been unconscious since suffering a massive stroke in January 2006. He is hospitalized in the long-term section of Sheba Medical Center, just outside Tel Aviv.

Spokesman David Weinberg said the medical center would not comment on the report, adding that the hospital's policy is to make public any changes in Sharon's condition.

Sharon turned 79 last month, the second birthday he has passed while unconscious. Doctors have said for months that Sharon is not expected to recover.

The rich get richer usually because they are amoral thieves!
UN wants Kuwait compensation returned

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago

LONDON - The
United Nations is seeking the return of millions of dollars in compensation to victims of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait after an investigation showed they were given more money than they were entitled to, officials said Thursday.

An audit revealed that several thousand victims had been overpaid by more than $80 million by the U.N. Compensation Commission, which was set up to compensate victims of the
Gulf War, a Foreign Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

Mojtaba Kazazi, chief of the commission's administrative office, confirmed it was trying to recover the overpayments, but said the exact amount of money and the number of claimants involved was still being worked out.

The commission has asked Britain — and other governments — to collect the money, the Foreign Office spokesman said. Britain has sent letters to 113 British claimants asking for the return of a total of about $391,000 within 30 days, although he could not say if any action would be taken against those who refused to comply.

The compensation commission draws on funds taken from Iraqi oil sales to pay victims of the conflict, including foreigners expelled from
Iraq and Kuwait during the war, those who lost family or were injured in the fighting, and those whose property was damaged or destroyed in the war. Many of the claims were filed through the governments of Kuwait and other Arab countries.

Kazazi said there were several reasons for the overpayments. In some cases, members of the same family filed claims separately even though they should have been part of the same claim, Kazazi said.

The Foreign Office spokesman suggested that the commission had been focused on helping the victims quickly.

"I think the reason is that at the time they really wanted to get the claims processed, awarded, and paid and quickly as possible," the spokesman said.

On its Web site, the compensation commission said it had received 2.7 million claims seeking approximately $352.5 billion in compensation, and that it had approved $52.4 billion in awards.

"The resolution of such a significant number of claims with such a large asserted value over such a short period has no precedent in the history of international claims resolution," the commission said.

___

Associated Press Writer Erica Bulman in Geneva contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

The United Nations Compensation Commission: http://www2.unog.ch/uncc/

Where he grew up, the Grassleys had pigs running free through their house. Not much has changed!
Senate panel approves Medicare drug price bill

By Kevin Drawbaugh Thu Apr 12, 9:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S.
Senate Finance Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would permit the government to negotiate for Medicare prescription drug prices, throwing down a challenge to the powerful drug industry.

Moved forward by the committee on a 13-8 vote, the bill is expected to go next week to the full Senate, where debate is likely to be intense, Senate aides said.

The House of Representatives in January passed a tougher version of the bill.
President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the House bill. It would require, not just permit, direct negotiation over prices by the government with drug companies.

Medicare is a national health insurance program that covers more than 40 million elderly and disabled Americans. It was expanded last year to add a prescription drug benefit. Coverage is managed for Medicare by dozens of private companies.

The legislation expanding Medicare -- passed when Republicans ran Congress -- prohibited the government from negotiating over drug prices with manufacturers, such as Pfizer, Merck or Eli Lilly.

Democrats now in charge on Capitol Hill want to eliminate the negotiation bar. They say government negotiation would save money both for the government and for older Americans by helping the private firms get the best drug prices possible.

The negotiation bar prevents "efforts to make the drug benefit work better for seniors. It should be eliminated," said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), a Montana Democrat and the bill's chief sponsor, at a committee meeting.

But many Republicans, drug makers and other opponents say such a move would limit patient choices, while achieving no cost savings. Medicare officials also say drug coverage is working fine now and is costing less than expected.

The
Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday in letters to lawmakers that allowing government price negotiation could achieve savings among some drugs, but "would have a negligible effect on federal spending."

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, senior committee Republican, said, "Having the government negotiate drug prices for Medicare might be a good sound bite, but it's not sound policy."

At present, he said, the private companies managing the drug benefit for Medicare compete among themselves and negotiate over prices with drug manufacturers.

"We have lower drug prices for beneficiaries, lower program costs for the government, and prescription drug choices ... Competition is working," Grassley said.

Some Senate Democrats endorsed a more forceful approach like the House-passed bill. But they praised Baucus for seeking a political middle ground by leaving price negotiation up to the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, whose department is in charge of the Medicare program.

No one ever expects the US Inquisition!
Swedish teen: U.S. troops led operation

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 12, 4:47 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish teenager who was imprisoned for weeks with alleged terror suspects in Ethiopia said in an interview published Thursday that Americans in military uniform directed the Kenyan soldiers who took her into custody on the Somali-Kenyan border.

The statements by 17-year-old Safia Benaouda were the first to describe a broader U.S. role in the detentions. Other detainees have said they were taken into custody by Kenyans and transferred to Ethiopia, a U.S. counterterrorism ally.

Benaouda said three men in U.S. uniforms led the Kenyan troops who detained her and other women and children fleeing Somalia on Jan. 18.

"After the American soldiers had detained us they kept in the background, but it was very clear that they were the ones in charge," Benaouda, who was freed from an Ethiopian prison March 27, was quoted as saying by the Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet.

Benaouda did not answer calls from The Associated Press on Thursday. But her mother, Helena Benaouda, told the AP her daughter believed they were U.S. soldiers because of insignia on their uniforms.

"They were American soldiers," said Helena Benaouda, who heads the Swedish Muslim Council.

Ethiopian officials initially denied any suspects were in custody, but the government later confirmed an AP report that dozens of foreigners were detained as part of an effort to stem terrorism.

U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the
CIA and
FBI, but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation. Ethiopian and Somali officials acknowledge cooperating.

U.S. special operations troops regularly train Kenyan security officers at Kenya's Manda Bay Naval Station near the Somali border, officials from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa have said. In a statement Thursday, a task force spokesman directed queries about Kenyan border activities to the Kenyan government. Kenyan officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

American, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces have long been allies in a U.S. counterterrorism effort in the region, whose lawlessness security experts fear al-Qaida and other groups could exploit to create a base. The cooperation appears to have been stepped up in the wake of the collapse of an Islamist regime in Somalia, amid fears al-Qaida suspects linked to the group would flee into Kenya.

In January, the U.S. launched an airstrike on Somalia's Ras Kamboni, a region near Kenya the U.S. has long suspected was the site of a training camp used by a Somali Islamic group linked to al-Qaida.

Benaouda said she had traveled to Somalia with her fiance, Munir Awad, a Swedish citizen of Lebanese descent. The couple was separated when they tried to leave the country after the Ethiopian military intervention in December.

Benaouda said she was captured along with a group of women and children as they tried to cross into Kenya. The soldiers shot a woman in the group, she told the paper, but didn't give details.

They were brought to Nairobi and then returned to Somalia, blindfolded and handcuffed, before being transferred to a prison in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, she said. There, she said, she saw her fiance for the first time in weeks.

Awad was among eight terror suspects shown on Ethiopia's state-run television Tuesday as the country came under mounting pressure over the detention program. Awad and the others said they were being treated humanely.

But Benaouda said she saw her fiance and two other Swedish citizens confined in what looked like "poultry cages with metal roofs" in Ethiopia, and that she was beaten by a prison guard with a stick at one point during her detention. In March, the guards started treating her better and on March 23, she said, she met an official from the Swedish Embassy. Four days later, Benaouda, who is pregnant, was put on a plane home.

The Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Ministry said 29 of the 41 suspects have been ordered released by the Ethiopian government, and that five have been freed. The ministry said only 12 foreign detainees would remain in custody after the next round of releases.

Human rights groups say the detentions are illegal; Ethiopia has denied that.

___

AP writer Anthony Mitchell in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

Surprise! Surprise! Electronic e-trail is lost...! Wonder who will be the annoying Pat Buchanan of the future...?
Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

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CREW RELEASES NEW REPORT - WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the PRA

Support CREW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 12, 2007
CONTACT: NAOMI SELIGMAN STEINER 202.408.5565
Shocking New Disclosure - White House Lost over FIVE MILLION EMAILS in Two Year Period

Washington, DC - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal.

Download the executive summary 80K PDF
Download the exhibits 4.4MB PDF
Download the full report 2.4MB PDF

In a startling new revelation, CREW has also learned through two confidential sources that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel's office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said today, "It's clear that the White House has been willfully violating the law, the only question now is to what extent? The ever changing excuses offered by the administration ? that they didn't want to violate the Hatch Act, that staff wasn't clear on the law ? are patently ridiculous. Very convenient that embarrassing ? and potentially incriminating ? emails have gone missing. It's the Nixon White House all over again."

WITHOUT A TRACE covers the following areas:

Presidential Records Act (PRA): Enacted in 1978, requires the president to preserve all presidential records, which are defined as those records relating to the "activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of [the president's] constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties..."

Clinton Administration Policy: In 1993, then-Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary John Podesta sent a memo to all presidential staff explaining that the PRA required all staff members to maintain all records, including emails. Podesta stated that the use of external email networks was prohibited because records would not be saved as required. The 1997 White House Manual and a 2000 memo issued by Mark Lindsay, then Assistant to the President for Management and Administration echoed this policy, requiring staff to use only the White House email system for official communications.

Bush Administration Policy: The Bush Administration has refused to make public its record-keeping policy. A confidential source provided CREW with a 2002 document indicating the use of "non-EOP messaging-enabled mechanisms should not be used for official business."

Bush Administration Practice: In the wake of the scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff and the fired U.S. Attorneys, emails were released showing that top White House staffers routinely used Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts to conduct official business. For example, J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, used an RNC account to communicate with the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding the appointments of new U.S. Attorneys. Similarly, Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove, used RNC email accounts to communicate with Abramoff about appointments to the Department of the Interior.

PRA Violations: 1) The administration failed to implement adequate record-keeping systems to archive presidential email records; 2) two confidential sources independently informed CREW that the administration abandoned a plan to recover more than five million missing emails; 3) White House staff used outside email accounts to conduct presidential business, ensuring that emails were not adequately preserved. In fact, former Abramoff associate Kevin Ring said in an email to Abramoff that Ralston had told him not to send emails to her official White House account "because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc."

Hatch Act Excuse: The administration has claimed that Rove, Jennings and other staffers use RNC accounts to avoid violating the Hatch Act. This is untrue. The Hatch Act prohibits White House staff from using official resources for purely "political" purposes. "Political" refers to the president's role as either a candidate for office or as the leader of his party. Email communications regarding presidential appointments for U.S. Attorney and Interior Department positions clearly fall within the PRA as making appointment is an official presidential function and does not relate to the president's role as party leader.
Read the full WITHOUT A TRACE report at CREW's Website

It wasn't partisan until the damned fascist Republican Imperialists made it partisan!!!
Gore climate concert finds home in New Jersey
Some Republicans blocked his bid to have it on Capitol grounds


Slide shows
AP

• Warming signals
View images from around the world that show signs of global warming.
AP

• Above the ice
View images of Greenland, where warming and shrinking glaciers are worrying scientists.

Interactives

• The greenhouse effect
How the Earth maintains a temperature conducive to life

• Cooling the planet
Check out five far-out ideas on how to engineer a cooler Earth.

• Eyeing the ice
The National Science Foundation's Tom Wagner explains why climate experts are eyeing Antarctica.

• Capturing CO2
A look at carbon sequestration


WASHINGTON - Rebuffed in Washington, former Vice President Al Gore is taking his "Live Earth" rock concert to New Jersey.

The concert to raise awareness about global warming will be held July 7 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, organizers said Tuesday.

Gore had wanted to use the National Mall in Washington but two other groups had already obtained permits for that day. Then, an effort to stage the show on the nearby U.S. Capitol grounds was opposed by some Republicans in Congress.

"We had a number of cities all over the United States saying 'come here, come here,"' said Live Earth founder and executive producer Kevin Wall.

"New York and the state of New Jersey really wanted us to be there and went out of their way to accommodate us."

Artists at the Giants Stadium concert will include the Dave Matthews Band, the Police, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Ludacris, and close Gore friend and New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi, organizers said.

It will be one of several concerts held July 7 on each of the seven continents. The others are slated for Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Antarctica.

Organizers predict more than 1 million people will attend the shows, with millions more tuning in via the Internet, television, radio and wireless services.

Gore has embarked on a mission to warn that the world is facing a "planetary emergency" and has called for emissions of carbon dioxide by the United States, the largest source of the greenhouse gas, to be frozen at current levels.

Staging the concert on the Capitol grounds would require congressional approval and Gore ran into opposition from some Republicans, including Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who has referred to global warming as a "hoax."

While one of New Jersey's other famous rock musicians, Bruce Springsteen, was not on the lineup Tuesday, Wall hinted that he could be added.

"You think we've announced everything?" he said.
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Reigning Champ of the Ignorant bites the dust! As for Vivian Stringer, former champion Iowa Coach, you go girl!
Updated:2007-04-12 17:33:48
Under Pressure, CBS Cuts Ties With Host
AP
NEW YORK (April 12) - CBS fired shock jock Don Imus from his radio show Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus initially was given a two-week suspension, to start Monday, for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week, but outrage continued to grow and advertisers bolted from his programs.

CBS Dumps Imus


News Bloggers: Join the Discussion on Imus
"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Rutgers women's basketball team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team did not have an immediate comment on Imus' firing but would be issuing a statement later Thursday evening.

Time Magazine once named the cantankerous broadcaster as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was a member of the National Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

But Imus found himself at the center of a storm after his comments. Protests ensued, and one by one, sponsors pulled their ads from Imus' show. On Wednesday, MSNBC dropped the simulcast of Imus' show.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Moonves to advocate Imus' removal, promising a rally outside CBS headquarters Saturday and an effort to persuade more advertisers to abandon Imus.

Sumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corp. board and its chief stockholder, told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to "do the right thing," although it wasn't clear what he thought that was.

The news came down in the middle of Imus' Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990 for good causes. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.

"This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Savy broadcaster Imus outsmarted himself!
Imus hints career may be ending

By Matthew Robinson 33 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Radio host Don Imus hinted on Thursday his days on the airwaves may be numbered after a 30-year career that erupted in controversy over racist and sexist comments about a women's college basketball team.

MSNBC dumped its simultaneous cable television broadcast of his "Imus in the Morning" radio show on Wednesday, and several major advertisers have backed out a week after he called the mostly black Rutgers University team "nappy-headed hos."

The word "nappy" is viewed as a vile slur describing the tightly curled natural hair texture of many African-Americans, while "ho" is slang for "whore," usage of which has exploded in hip-hop music and popular culture in recent years.

On Imus' broadcast on Thursday -- his annual drive to raise money for children with cancer -- the radio host who trades on a curmudgeonly persona called the media "hypocritical" in its coverage of the flap. But he acknowledged it will be hard to continue broadcasting.

"I don't know if this will be my last radiothon, my suspicion is it will be," Imus said, adding the situation had become "insane" and "out of control."

The 66-year old Imus holds an annual drive on his show to raise money for his ranch for sick children and to fight diseases such as sudden infant death syndrome.

"I don't want this to turn into a memorial service for me," Imus said, repeating that he planned to meet with the Rutgers team for what he called "idiotic" remarks.

CBS Corp. unit CBS Radio, which has suspended Imus for two weeks and makes millions of dollars annually from the show, said on Wednesday it had not made a final decision on Imus's fate even as black leaders and others press the radio station to fire him.

Activist
Al Sharpton, a leader in the calls for Imus to be fired, plans to hold a rally outside CBS's Manhattan studios on Thursday.

Even if he remains on radio, Imus may have a hard time drawing the celebrities and leading politicians who were once a staple. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), an Illinois Democrat running for president, said on Wednesday he would never again appear on the program.

Major advertisers -- General Motors Corp., GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Ditech.com, a unit of GMAC Financial Services -- on Wednesday pulled their advertising. They joined Procter & Gamble Co. and Staples Inc., which previously pulled out.

MSNBC television is a joint ventures of Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal News.

http://underground.yahoo.com/feature/7/aq:fandom/jc:id-13/pm:id-11/rp:id-17/ss:id-12/sb:id-16/vi:id-15/pl:23788/
Posted by Brad Miskell at Tue, Apr 3 2007, 5:45 PM ET
EmailComment

Something like twelve gazillion souls travel to Anaheim, Calif., every year to enter a world of wonder and walk among people clad in furry costumes and pirate regalia. That I was doing the same would have been unremarkable—had I been at Disneyland. But I wasn't. I was in a parallel magic kingdom created by pink monkeys.

The attractions of this parallel kingdom—which had suddenly appeared in the shadow of Disneyland—were decidedly DIY in comparison. Here were homemade fabric stargates and plywood lunar modules, meeting room screenings of Dr. Who and panels entitled Paranormal Romances and I Was Promised Flying Cars!

The con fairly reeked of fandom tradition.

I was inside the world of the 64th Annual World Science Fiction Convention (AKA: L.A. Con IV), a fleeting construct of SF Fandom, a long-suffering subculture so inured to oddball status that at least one member compared Trekkies like herself to pink monkeys.

I felt like I'd come home. I'm a lifelong SF fan.

SF fandom, or just plain fandom as the community often refers to itself, has been around something like six Jovian years (around 70 Earth years). Fandom is both a subculture in its own right and a constellation in which a galaxy of mutant subcultures cluster. Fandom includes fans of fantasy, mythology, science fiction, science fantasy, hard science fiction and I imagine several categories beyond my human comprehension.

There are costumers of all kinds—pirates, furries, even the odd CosPlayer (anime costumer). There are Trekkies and Tolkien devotees, filkers and gamers—many of whom play actual board games.

WorldCons hark back to an earlier SF era, when fandom factions instinctively gravitated toward one another, before the big-fandom boom when such groups grew large enough to rate cons of their own. Despite the explosion of nichier cons in recent decades—there are now dragon cons, costume cons, fur cons and on and on—it was clear from the variety of fans at L.A. Con IV that this mothership continues to hold a hallowed place in the con-theon.

L.A. Con IV radiated SF history, from its Space Cadet theme to its fandom wall plastered in covers of SF pulps from the '30s, '40s and '50s, pulps like Amazing Stories that paid measly sums for stories by young SF legends-to-be including Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury (who was in attendance). There were actually many elder SF buffs in attendance, fans who probably pored over the same pulps when they were first published.

Star Trek's 40th anniversary was celebrated. And SF's annual Hugo Awards were awarded (as they've always been at WorldCons—the 2006 Best Novel Hugo went to Robert Charles Wilson for Spin). The con fairly reeked of fandom tradition.

And a big part of that tradition is participation. WorldCons are created by fans, not faceless corporations. When SF fans went to Anaheim, they went to masquerade as aliens and otherkin (vampyres, werewolves, and the like), not to watch theme park thespians mincing in Mouseketeer ears. They went for role-playing games, not thrill rides; went to sing and play folky filk tunes, not to be assaulted by perky pre-recorded pop; they went to take part in panels on Harry Potter; to have "fantiques" appraised; to get tips on SF prose (from SF pros); to search for rare books and build their own 'bots.

OK, a lot of them probably went to Disneyland, too. But mostly, they went to Anaheim to be deliriously fannish... and to construct a parallel magic kingdom of their own.

Strip them of all assets and throw them naked into the street, damnit! Their people will be far better off!
Judge orders external audit for church

By ALLISON HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 11, 11:20 PM ET

SAN DIEGO - A federal bankruptcy judge Wednesday ordered an external audit of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego amid accusations church leaders are trying to hide assessts to avoid payment to sex abuse victims.

Judge Louise DeCarl Adler had earlier threatened the diocese with contempt for misrepresenting facts and possibly violating bankruptcy laws. She criticized church attorneys for failing to include 770 parish accounts in bankruptcy documents.

"This is the most Byzantine accounting system I've ever seen," Adler said. "I am mystified."

The contempt threat Monday came six weeks after the diocese sought bankruptcy protection amid lawsuits by more than 140 people who accuse priests of sexual abuse.

Adler had cited a March 29 letter sent by a diocese parish organization to pastors urging them to get new taxpayer identification numbers and transfer funds to new accounts.

The judge had said any post-bankruptcy transfers between the diocese and parishes outside of normal cash operations violate laws against shifting the diocese's assets while the bankruptcy case is pending — rules designed to protect assets that may eventually be used to compensate clergy sexual abuse victims.

She said any transfers require court approval.

In a sternly worded order, Adler had said attorneys Susan Boswell, Jeffry Davis and Victor Vilaplana appear to have "conspired with parishes" to create new bank accounts separate from the diocese.

On Wednesday, Adler grilled attorneys representing the diocese and the parish organization, as well as two pastors who had sent letters the judge said misrepresented her comments during an earlier hearing.

Boswell apologized and said she had misinterpreted the judge's comments at a March 1 hearing concerning how the parishes should go about protecting their cash flow through the bankruptcy process.

"We are not dealing with a commercial enterprise — we are dealing with a church," said Boswell. "What it does is give money to the parishes. This is not a nefarious function."

Boswell agreed to file amended statements with the court reflecting parish accounts operating under the diocese's taxpayer identification number and to cooperate with an independent audit.

Attorneys for the alleged victims have repeatedly accused the church of trying to hide assets to reduce the overall sum available for potential settlements. They estimate that a fair settlement would total about $200 million.

In March, the diocese proposed a $95 million settlement schedule for victims that would offer plaintiffs anywhere from $10,000 to $800,000.

San Diego was the fifth U.S. diocese to file for bankruptcy. The other dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection are Davenport, Iowa; Portland, Ore.; Spokane, Wash.; and Tucson, Ariz. Tucson has emerged from bankruptcy protection, while proposed settlements are awaiting final approval in Portland and Spokane.

Tell us again how Iraqis will cheer and bow down like the French at their liberation, George!

AP
Red Cross: Iraqi situation getting worse

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 11, 1:54 PM ET

GENEVA - Millions of Iraqis are in a "disastrous" situation that is getting worse, with mothers appealing for someone to pick up the bodies on the street so their children will be spared the horror of looking at them on their way to school, the international Red Cross said Wednesday.

Thousands of bodies lie unclaimed in mortuaries, with family members either unaware that they are there or too afraid to recover them, according to Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the neutral agency's director of operations.

Medical professionals also have been fleeing the country after cases where their colleagues were killed or abducted, the group said in a 13-page report. "Hospitals and other key services are desperately short of staff," Kraehenbuehl said. "According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, more than half the doctors are said to have already left the country."

The report, "Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in
Iraq," was produced over the past two to three weeks, a spokesman said — well after the stepped-up American-led military operations in the capital began Feb. 14.

The report went beyond the International Committee of the Red Cross' usual appeals for all sides to protect civilians as required by the Geneva Conventions. It added photographs and quotes from the civilians to describe the situation.

"Once I was called to an explosion site," it quoted a young Baghdad humanitarian worker named Saad as saying. "There I saw a 4-year-old boy sitting beside his mother's body, which had been decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened."

Kraehenbuehl said the situation has steadily deteriorated in recent years — especially since February 2006, when an attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a wave of sectarian violence. He said there had been no immediate improvement in the Baghdad area as a result of the recent security crackdown, though in southern Iraq the security situation has improved in certain instances.

ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal said the report, together with Kraehenbuehl's comments, "reflects the situation on the ground now."

It is difficult to determine the numbers of people killed in shootings, bombings and military operations, but overall the situation in the country has been steadily deteriorating, with numbers of refugees swelling, medical staff fleeing and other problems growing, Kraehenbuehl said.

Kraehenbuehl said a colleague recently had asked several Iraqi women what their most pressing need was.

The colleague said that, after a long silence, the women answered: "The most important thing that anyone could do would be to help collect the bodies that line the streets in front of our homes every morning. No one dares to touch them, but for us it is unbearable to have to expose our children to such images every day as we try to bring them to school."

"Humanitarian aid is clearly not enough when it comes to addressing the immense needs of Iraqis in the present disastrous security situation," the report said.

The ICRC is one of the few international organizations continuing to operate in Iraq, but it has cut back since attacks on its staff and Baghdad headquarters in 2003. It employs 415 Iraqis in the country and has an additional 57 international staff based in Iraq and Jordan, but relies on the affiliated Iraqi Red Crescent for much of its information.

Nothing like being Pope so you can get away with saying any stupid thing you want!
Pope says evolution can't be proven

By MELISSA EDDY Wed Apr 11, 5:47 PM ET

BERLIN - Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation.

In a new book, "Creation and Evolution," published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer.

"The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science," the pope said.

He stopped short of endorsing intelligent design, but said scientific and philosophical reason must work together in a way that does not exclude faith.

"I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science," the pope was quoted as saying in the book, which records a meeting with fellow theologians the pope has known for years.

In the book, Benedict reflected on a 1996 comment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who said that Charles Darwin's theories on evolution were sound, as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God, and that Darwin's theory of evolution was "more than a hypothesis."

"The pope (John Paul) had his reasons for saying this," Benedict said. "But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory."

Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.

"We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory," he said.

Evolution has come under fire in recent years by proponents — mostly conservative Protestants — of "intelligent design," who believe that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher force rather than evolving from more primitive forms.

The book, which was released by the Sankt Ulrich publishing house, includes reflections of the pope and others who attended a meeting of theological scholars at the papal summer estate in Castel Gandolfo in early September.

The pope's remarks were consistent with one of his most important themes, that faith and reason are interdependent.

"Science has opened up large dimensions of reason ... and thus brought us new insights," the pope wrote. "But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need.

"Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it," he said.

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Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report.

Why should we believe a White Hose that lied us into the slaughter of hundreds of thousands?
Some W. House e-mails on fired attorneys may be lost

Wed Apr 11, 9:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some White House staff wrote e-mail messages about official business on Republican Party accounts, and some may have been wrongly deleted, the administration said on Wednesday in an embarrassing disclosure tied to the probe into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The White House said it could not rule out the possibility that some official e-mails relating to the firings had been deleted and are lost.

Democrats in Congress have been seeking copies of e-mails from the
Republican National Committee as part of an investigation into whether the firing of the prosecutors last year was politically motivated.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters 22 White House officials were allowed to maintain e-mail addresses through the Republican National Committee. They included
President George W. Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and several of his deputies.

Democrats have been seeking information that might tie Rove to the decision to fire the attorneys.

Some White House aides trying to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government property for certain political activities, may have used the political account to communicate about official White House business, Stanzel said.

Some of those official e-mails may be lost because the RNC had a policy of deleting e-mails about every 30 days from its accounts. That policy was changed in 2004 to exclude White House officials, who are required to retain records and correspondence and everything e-mailed from a White House account is automatically archived, Stanzel said.

"Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct," he said.

Asked whether some of the lost e-mails could be related to the firings of the U.S. attorneys last year, Stanzel said: "That can't be ruled out."

The White House admission came as the Democratic-led Congress moved to obtain additional documents from the administration in its investigation of the firing of eight prosecutors, a case that has prompted bipartisan calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

Gonzales received a subpoena on Tuesday from the
House Judiciary Committee for documents related to the firings.

The White House said Bush had asked the Justice Department to be "fully responsive" to the request.

Gonzales, who with Bush's public support has rejected calls to resign, is to appear next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans to authorize subpoenas of its own on Thursday for administration documents.

Bush is going to have a lot of bills to veto. I wonder how that will go over...?
Senate votes to ease Bush stem cell limits

By Thomas Ferraro Wed Apr 11, 7:53 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Senate voted on Wednesday to lift a key restriction by
President George W. Bush on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

But Congress is not expected to muster the two-thirds majority votes to override a promised Bush veto, leaving the emotionally charged issue to resurface in next year's presidential and congressional races.

The Senate passed legislation to eliminate a nearly 6-year-old Bush restriction, 63-34, with 17 Republicans and two independents joining 44 Democrats in voting aye.

Bush vetoed a similar bill last year. It would expand federal funding of stem cell research, which is now limited by the president to batches available as of August 2001. Democrats vowed to lift this restriction in winning control of Congress in November from Bush's fellow Republicans.

Advocates and a majority of Americans back embryonic stem cell research. Proponents say it offers major hope for cures for such ailments as Parkinson's disease, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. But the testing requires destruction of days-old embryos that is condemned by many anti-abortion advocates.

Sen. Tom Harkin (news, bio, voting record), an Iowa Democrat and chief sponsor of the bill, urged Bush "to reconsider his threat to veto it."

"There are some 400,000 leftover, unwanted embryos in fertility clinics across America," Harkin said. "All we are saying is, instead of throwing those leftover embryos away, let's allow couples to donate a few of them, if they wish, to create stem cell lines that could cure diseases and save lives."

VETO VOW

Bush reiterated his vow to veto the bill, but said he would sign into law an alternative measure that the Senate passed 70-28 shortly afterward with mostly Republican support.

This measure would encourage research on certain forms of stem cells but not beyond Bush's 2001 restrictions. Critics called the measure a sham that would merely let lawmakers say they voted for stem cell research.

But proponents said it would provide a needed step forward by allowing research on some embryos that can no longer develop into fetuses.

"I strongly support this bill, and I encourage the Congress to pass it and send it to me for my signature, so stem cell science can progress, without ethical and cultural conflict," Bush said.

Shortly after taking office in 2001, Bush issued an executive order that permitted for the first time federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. But he limited it to batches available as of that August.

The bill first passed by the Senate on Wednesday would lift this restriction, but keep in place one that prohibits use of federal funds to create embryos via cloning or other technology.

To override a veto, a two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate and House of Representatives. In January, the House passed a similar bill, but far short of a two-thirds margin.

Yet Republican and Democrat backers predicted such legislation will eventually become law.

"He (Bush) is not going to be president forever," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), a Wisconsin Democrat.

Stem cells are a kind of master cell for the body, capable of growing into various tissue and cell types. Scientists hope to use the cells from embryos to repair damaged tissue.

(Additional reporting by Maggie Fox, Richard Cowan and Toby Zakaria)