This is The END

Of Blogging for the year.

Thanks for all the comments and hope you have at least enjoyed the reads some of the times!

A Bad Day at the Ball Park

Just when you think you've seen it all on the field...there is this.

I'm wondering how much $$$ the guy had on the other team.....

Smoke and Mirrors

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (Calif.) assertion at a press conference this morning that the Bush administration and the Central Intelligence Agency misled her and the Congress regarding the treatment of suspected terrorists adds further fuel to the fire on an issue that has been on a low boil for weeks.

Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying to her during a 2002 briefing on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," Pelosi said: "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am."

She went on to call on the CIA to release the details of briefings they provided to Congress and for the creation of a truth commission to "determine how intelligence was misused and how controversial and possibly illegal activities like torture were authorized within the executive branch."

Pelosi's press conference comes amid a series of allegations from Republicans -- inside and outside of Congress -- that she knew far more about the treatment of detainees in the early part of the decade than she initially let on.

"The Speaker has had way too many stories on this issue," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) at a press conference moments ago. He added that he has "not one doubt" that interrogations of detainees were conducted "within the law" and that he was opposed to the idea of a truth commission.

As the Post's Paul Kane notes, Pelosi acknowledged publicly for the first time today that she was aware that detainees were being waterboarded as long ago as 2003 when a member of her staff was part of a briefing in February of that year in which it was revealed that waterboarding was ongoing.

Pelosi's press conference has both short term and long term political impact.

In the short term, it snuffs out President Obama's preferred message of the day -- pushed at a scheduled town hall today in New Mexico -- regarding credit card reform. Obama and/or White House press secretary Robert Gibbs are certain to face questions about Pelosi's remarks whenever reporters are given access to them today.

Pelosi's comments -- and the firestorm they will almost certainly set off -- could speed up the timetable for an announcement of Obama's Supreme Court nominee, which has been speculated as coming either next week or shortly after Memorial Day. If the torture debate dominates the news for the next several days, the White House may want (or need) a way the change the subject and the announcement of a Supreme Court justice would almost certainly provide the necessary distraction.

The long-term political prognosis is less clear. The Obama administration has made no secret of the fact that they would prefer not to spend time looking back at what happened under President George W. Bush since it distracts from what they believe to be the important tasks at hand -- most notably turning around the economy.

And, it's hard to imagine that the White House is pleased with Pelosi's press conference today -- knowing that the allegations she has made further complicate an already sticky political entanglement, making it far more difficult for the issue to be dismissed out of a desire to look forward rather than backward.

Pelosi's comments are also -- almost certainly -- not her last words on this subject. As indicated by Boehner's comments, Republicans are going to continue to paint Pelosi as telling a series of conflicting stories about what she knew and when she knew it.

While Pelosi's press conference this morning was clearly intended to put to rest a process story that all politicians hate, it may well have the opposite effect -- raising more questions about her timeline and her past statements.

Make no mistake: Pelosi would not have held this sort of press conference unless she and her inner circle believed that she was losing altitude -- politically -- on the issue. But, her decision to do so could have wide-ranging political implications that will reach from Congress to the White House and back.

Obama to Tax Friday Nights?

If you make big bucks — or enjoy alcohol, cigarettes and Coke — the government might hit you up to pay for fixing the nation’s health care system.

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee peeked into vending machines and liquor stores, company payrolls and health savings accounts, looking for a mix of tax increases and spending cuts as a way to pay for a health overhaul — which could cost more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Experts thought the big debate might be public plan vs. no public plan. But that may well pale in comparison to the difficulty of settling on a way to finance health care reform.

“I wish there were a number of painless options,” Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in his prepared testimony. “There aren’t.”

There appeared to be a bubble of support among the experts for taxing bad behavior, including a $2 tax on a pack of cigarettes and a higher excise tax on alcohol.

But soda and sugary drinks found a friend Tuesday in Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Finance Committee.

He categorically rejected the idea during a conference call with reporters.

“No,” he said swiftly, when asked if there was any chance of taxing it. “I think, quite frankly, the only reason it’s being brought up is to get it shot down early so it doesn’t become part of the debate. I don’t think it’s going to have any legs at all.”

Still, it’s easy to see why the bad-habits tax was so tempting: Taxing tobacco, junk foods and alcohol could raise $600 billion over 10 years.

Lots of other options will also get a look.

People who like the tax-free status of their company health benefits could be asked to ante up. Money in the pot: more than $700 billion over 10 years.

Treasure the tax benefits from your health savings account? Some experts say the accounts encourage “excess consumption” of health services — and committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) agreed they’re worth a look. Money in the pot: $60 billion over 10 years.

The committee is far from settled on any one option — of which Baucus said there are many. Each item, down to the snickerdoodle, has a lobby behind it, paving the way for weeks of horse trading as the committee stitches together a tax package.

A panel of economists presented the committee with a menu of scenarios, from wringing savings out of Medicare and Medicaid to cutting medical costs by reducing sodium levels in packaged foods and at restaurants.

Non-health-related items remain in the mix, including capping the deduction on charitable donations, which received a chilly welcome on Capitol Hill after President Barack Obama proposed it in his budget.

“The proposals that we have discussed,” Baucus said, “will not come easily. The reforms that we are planning are not cheap. ... Finding money that we can all agree on will not be easy.”

Baucus gave one of the clearest signals yet that limiting the tax-free status on employer-based insurance remains a serious option. Obama opposed it during the campaign and repeatedly went after Republican John McCain for making it the centerpiece of his health care plan. Labor unions are also against it.

Yet the idea is attractive because of the money it could generate: $250 billion annually if the deduction was lifted altogether. Baucus insisted a full repeal was not under consideration, but he said lawmakers must look at the deduction.

“I know that there is some controversy around doing so,” Baucus said. “But the current tax exclusion is not perfect. It is regressive. It often leads people to buy more health coverage than they need.”

Six of the 13 witnesses, including economists from the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Center on Budget Policies and Priorities, argued explicitly for the proposal.

Employer-provided health insurance is considered part of workers’ compensation but is not taxed as wages are. Proponents of eliminating the benefit say it is poorly targeted because it gives the biggest benefit to those with the highest incomes and is unfair because self-employed individuals don’t qualify for the same break. It also encourages individuals to buy gold-plated insurance plans that can drive up health care costs, experts say.

But a warning in the testimony from Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO underscored why this option will be a thorny issue for Democrats. He said the idea could “disrupt the primary source of health coverage and financing for most Americans.”

Consolation

My Bad?

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an Australian researcher that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.

Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus’s origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.

“One of the simplest explanations is that it’s a laboratory escape,” Gibbs said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “But there are lots of others.”

The World Health Organization received the study last weekend and is reviewing it, Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director-general of health security and environment, said in an interview May 11. Gibbs, who has studied germ evolution for four decades, is one of the first scientists to analyze the genetic makeup of the virus that was identified three weeks ago in Mexico and threatens to touch off the first flu pandemic since 1968.

A virus that resulted from lab experimentation or vaccine production may indicate a greater need for security, Fukuda said. By pinpointing the source of the virus, scientists also may better understand the microbe’s potential for spreading and causing illness, Gibbs said.

Possible Mistake

“The sooner we get to grips with where it’s come from, the safer things might become,” Gibbs said by phone from Canberra yesterday. “It could be a mistake” that occurred at a vaccine production facility or the virus could have jumped from a pig to another mammal or a bird before reaching humans, he said.

Gibbs and two colleagues analyzed the publicly available sequences of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus’s eight genes. He said he aims to submit his three-page paper today for publication in a medical journal.

“You really want a very sober assessment” of the science behind the claim, Fukuda said May 11 at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has received the report and has decided there is no evidence to support Gibbs’s conclusion, said Nancy Cox, director of the agency’s influenza division. She said since researchers don’t have samples of swine flu viruses from South America and Africa, where the new strain may have evolved, those regions can’t be ruled out as natural sources for the new flu.

No Evidence

“We are interested in the origins of this new influenza virus,” Cox said. “But contrary to what the author has found, when we do the comparisons that are most relevant, there is no evidence that this virus was derived by passage in eggs.”

The WHO’s collaborative influenza research centers, which includes the CDC, and sites in Memphis, Melbourne, London and Tokyo, were asked by the international health agency to review the study over the weekend, Fukuda said. The request was extended to scientists at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris, as well as the WHO’s influenza network, he said.

“My guess is that the picture should be a lot clearer over the next few days,” Fukuda said. “We have asked a lot of people to look at this.”

Virus Expert

Gibbs wrote or co-authored more than 250 scientific publications on viruses during his 39-year career at the Australian National University in Canberra, according to biographical information on the university’s Web site.

Swine flu has infected 5,251 people in 30 countries so far, killing 61, according to WHO data. Scientists are trying to determine whether the virus will mutate and become more deadly if it spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and back. Flu pandemics occur when a strain of the disease to which few people have immunity evolves and spreads.

Gibbs said his analysis supports research by scientists including Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, who found the new strain is the product of two distinct lineages of influenza that have circulated among swine in North America and Europe for more than a decade.

In addition, Gibbs said his research found the rate of genetic mutation in the new virus was about three times faster than that of the most closely related viruses found in pigs, suggesting it evolved outside of swine.

Gene Evolution

“Whatever speeded up the evolution of these genes happened at least seven or eight years ago, so one wonders, why hasn’t it been found?” Gibbs said today.

Some scientists have speculated that the 1977 Russian flu, the most recent global outbreak, began when a virus escaped from a laboratory.

Identifying the source of new flu viruses is difficult without finding the exact strain in an animal or bird “reservoir,” said Jennifer McKimm-Breschkin, a virologist at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization in Melbourne.

“If you can’t find an exact match, the best you can do is compare sequences,” she said. “Similarities may give an indication of a possible source, but this remains theoretical.”

The World Organization for Animal Health, which represents chief veterinary officers from 174 countries, received the Gibbs paper and is working with the WHO on an assessment, said Maria Zampaglione, a spokeswoman.

Genetic Patterns

The WHO wants to know whether any evidence that the virus may have been developed in a laboratory can be corroborated and whether there are other explanations for its particular genetic patterns, according to Fukuda.

“These things have to be dealt with straight on,” he said. “If someone makes a hypothesis, then you test it and you let scientific process take its course.”

Gibbs said he has no evidence that the swine-derived virus was a deliberate, man-made product.

“I don’t think it could be a malignant thing,” he said. “It’s much more likely that some random thing has put these two viruses together.”

Gibbs, who spent most of his academic career studying plant viruses, said his major contribution to the study of influenza occurred in 1975, while collaborating with scientists Graeme Laver and Robert Webster in research that led to the development of the anti-flu medicines Tamiflu and Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

Bird Poo

“We were out on one of the Barrier Reef islands, off Australia, catching birds for the flu in them, and I happened to be the guy who caught the best,” Gibbs said. The bird he got “yielded the poo from which was isolated the influenza isolate strain from which all the work on Tamiflu and Relenza started.”

Gibbs, who says he studies the evolution of flu viruses as a “retirement hobby,” expects his research to be challenged by other scientists.

“This is how science progresses,” he said. “Somebody comes up with a wild idea, and then they all pounce on it and kick you to death, and then you start off on another silly idea.”

The Lost Vote

WASHINGTON (AP) - One out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted, according to findings being released at a Senate hearing Wednesday.

Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the study, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul."

The committee, working with the Congressional Research Service, surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters living abroad - mainly active-duty and reserve troops - more than 98,000 were "lost" ballots that were mailed out but never received by election officials. Taking into account 13,500 ballots that were rejected for such reasons as a missing signature or failure to notarize, one-quarter of those requesting a ballot were disenfranchised.

The study found that an additional 11,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable.

Schumer's office said that because a person living abroad must request the absentee ballot and show a clear intention to vote, voter negligence is not thought to be a major factor.

Rather, the New York Democrat said in a statement, there is a chronic problem of military voters being sent a ballot without sufficient time to complete it and send it back. He cited estimates that a ballot can take up to 13 days to reach an overseas voter.

Among the states surveyed, California had 30,000 "lost" votes out of 103,000 ballots mailed out. An additional 3,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable and 4,000 were rejected.

The hearing was to take up possible problems in the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a Pentagon program that handles the election process for military personnel and other overseas voters.

Pope Calls for Palestinian Homeland

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) - Standing in the cradle of Christianity, Pope Benedict XVI told Palestinians on Wednesday that he understands their suffering and offered his strongest public backing yet for an independent Palestinian state.

To get to Jesus' traditional birthplace of Bethlehem, Benedict had to cross through towering concrete slabs, part of a separation barrier Israel has erected to wall off the West Bank's Palestinian areas.

"Mr. President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers, secure and at peace with its neighbors, within internationally recognized borders," the pontiff said upon his arrival, standing alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was the third day of Benedict's Holy Land pilgrimage meant largely to boost interfaith relations. But so far, it has been fraught with political land mines. Israelis have criticized the German-born pope for failing to adequately express remorse for the Holocaust, while the Palestinians are pressing him to draw attention to the difficult conditions of life under Israeli rule.

The pope also called for a Palestinian homeland when he arrived in Israel on Monday for the five-day visit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in the audience, says Palestinians are not ready to rule themselves and he has resisted international pressure to endorse the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In Bethlehem, Benedict delivered a special message of solidarity to the 1.4 million Palestinians isolated in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. He has no plans to visit Gaza.

Israel recently waged a three-week war against Gaza militants that killed more than 1,000 people and badly damaged thousands of homes. The war compounded suffering already caused by an Israel and Egyptian blockade of Gaza's borders since Hamas wrested control of Gaza two years ago.

"In a special way, my heart goes out to the pilgrims from war-torn Gaza: I ask you to bring back to your families and your communities my warm embrace, and my sorrow for the loss, the hardship and the suffering you have had to endure," the pope told thousands of Palestinians who packed an open-air Mass in Manger Square, some hoisting Palestinian and Vatican flags and pictures of the pontiff and Jesus.

"Please be assured of my solidarity with you in the immense work of rebuilding which now lies ahead, and my prayers that the embargo will soon be lifted," he added.

In a gesture for the pope's visit, Israel allowed nearly 100 members of Gaza's tiny Christian community to travel to the West Bank through Israeli territory that separates the two Palestinian areas.

Benedict's singling out of Gaza "means that Gaza is in the pope's heart," said George Hernandz, bishop of the Holy Family Catholic church in Gaza City. "This a very courageous speech and we are satisfied."

The pope, who has described himself as a "pilgrim of peace," has been forced to navigate some of the touchiest political issues as he makes his way through Israel and the West Bank - his first visit to the region as the head of the Roman Catholic church.

On Tuesday, the Vatican rallied to his defense, describing him as man of strong anti-Nazi credentials and a peacemaker after critics said he failed to apologize in a speech at Israel's Holocaust memorial for what they see as Catholic indifference during the Nazi genocide.

The Palestinians want the pontiff to put pressure on Israel during his visit. Before he arrived, Bethlehem residents expressed hope that he would use his moral authority to support their quest for independence.

"Our pope is our hope" read posters hung around the town, which was also dotted with the yellow and cream flags of the Vatican and red, black, white and green Palestinian flags.

While Benedict acknowledged Palestinian difficulties, he stopped short of blaming Israel.

"I know how much you have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades," he said.

Abbas invoked the concrete separation barrier and the occupation in his greeting to the pontiff.

"In this Holy Land, the occupation still continues building separation walls," Abbas said. "Instead of building the bridge that can link us, they are using the force of occupation to force Muslims and Christians to emigrate."

He and other Palestinian dignitaries later donned baseball caps imprinted with the black-and-white kaffiyeh headscarf, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

Israel says it has been building the barrier of concrete slabs and electronic fences, which stretches for hundreds of miles (kilometers) along the frontier with the West Bank, to keep out Palestinian militants. Attacks have fallen off sharply, but Palestinians see the barrier as a land grab because it juts into the West Bank at multiple points, placing about 10 percent of the territory on the "Israeli" side.

Christians are a tiny minority among the 3.9 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a trend seen throughout the Middle East, their numbers have dwindled as Palestinians weary of occupation seek out new opportunities abroad.

"When he comes and visits us, it gives us moral and material support," said Ramzi Shomali, a 27-year-old electric company worker. "It motivates us to stay in our land, and he will see our situation and will use his power for our good."

Victor Batarseh, Bethlehem's Christian mayor, said he hoped the papal mission would "encourage Palestinian Christians to be steadfast on their land and encourage them to stay."

The pontiff brought several gifts to Bethlehem, including a ventilator for a baby hospital and a mosaic representation of the birth of Jesus. He received a handwritten Gospel of Luke.

After meeting with Abbas, Benedict was to tour the Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where tradition holds Jesus was born, then visit a Palestinian refugee camp.

Stressed in Baghdad

Five U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in a shooting at an American base in Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

A brief U.S. statement said the shooting occurred about 2 p.m. at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport but gave no further details on the attack.

NBC News was reporting that four of the troops were killed by a fellow service member, who then killed himself.

NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported the assailant took his own life after the violent outburst. The attacker was described as a "stressed out" U.S. soldier.

The toll was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.

On May 2, two American soldiers died after an attacker wearing an Iraqi army uniform opened fire near the northern city of Mosul. The assailant was also killed.

Also Monday, a senior Iraqi traffic officer was assassinated Monday morning on his way to work in Baghdad. It was the second attack on a high-ranking traffic police officer in the capital in as many days.

A car cut off Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi as he drove through a central square in the capital and a second vehicle pulled up alongside and riddled him with bullets, police said, citing witnesses. Al-Kadhoumi was director of operations for the traffic authority.

The gunmen were armed with pistols equipped with silencers, the police added on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Incidents involving gunmen armed with sophisticated weapons, including silencers, have been on the rise since a string of high-profile robberies in April.

Faster than 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion -- about four times the record set just last year. The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall St. bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan. In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money.

The developments come as the White House completes the official release of its $3.6 trillion budget for 2010, adding detail to some of its tax proposals and ideas for producing health care savings. The White House budget is a recommendation to Congress that represents Obama's fiscal and policy vision for the next decade.

Annual deficits would never dip below $500 billion and would total $7.1 trillion over 2010-2019. Even those dismal figures rely on economic projections that are significantly more optimistic -- just a 1.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year and a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2010 -- than those forecast by private sector economists and the Congressional Budget Office.

For the most part, Obama's updated budget tracks the 134-page outline he submitted to lawmakers in February. His budget remains a bold but contentious document that proposes higher taxes for the wealthy, a hotly contested effort to combat global warming and the first steps toward guaranteed health care for all.

Obama's Democratic allies controlling Congress have already made it clear that they will reject key elements of his plan. Already apparently dead is a plan to raise $267 billion over the next decade to pay for his health care initiative by curbing the ability of wealthier people to reduce their tax bills through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.

And the congressional budget plan approved last month would not extend Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers -- $800 for couples -- after it expires at the end of next year.

Obama's remarkably controversial "cap-and-trade" proposal to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions is also reeling from opposition from Capitol Hill Democrats from coal-producing regions and states with concentrations of heavy industry. Under cap-and-trade, the government would auction permits to emit heat-trapping gases, with the costs being passed on to consumers via higher gasoline and electric bills.

Among the new proposals is a plan -- already on its way through Congress -- that would increase the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's borrowing authority from $30 billion to $100 billion in order to grant a two-year reprieve from higher deposit insurance premiums while the industry is struggling.

Also new are several tax "loophole" closures and increased IRS tax compliance efforts to raise $58 billion over the next decade to help finance Obama's health care measure. The money makes up for revenue losses stemming from lower-than-hoped estimates of his proposal to limit wealthier people's ability to maximize their itemized deductions.

The updated budget also would repeal an unintended tax windfall taken by paper companies that use a byproduct in the paper-making process as fuel to power their mills. The tax credits were never intended for paper companies, but now they could be worth more than $3 billion a year, according to a congressional estimate.

The budget would make permanent the expanded $2,500 tax credit for college expenses that was provided for two years in the just-passed economic stimulus bill. It also would renew most of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, and would permanently update the alternative minimum tax so that it would hit fewer middle- to upper-income taxpayers.

Forget the Flu...Back to Reality

China demonstrated its growing naval confidence again in the latest standoff between American and Chinese ships.

The fifth such incident in two months occurred on Friday in the Yellow Sea when a US Navy surveillance ship turned its fire hoses on two Chinese fishing vessels.

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the American ship was operating in China’s exclusive economic zone without permission and had violated Chinese and international laws. “We express our concern about this and demand the US side take effective measures to ensure a similar incident does not happen again,” he said.

The USNS Victorious, an ocean surveillance ship designed for anti-submarine warfare and underwater mapping, was conducting what the Pentagon called routine operations in the waters between China and the Korean peninsula. The Chinese vessels came within 100ft (30 metres) of the vessel.

The Pentagon, which accused five Chinese fishing vessels of harassing another US surveillance ship in the South China Sea near Hainan island in March, cited the incident as an example of unsafe Chinese seamanship.

The Chinese vessels did not withdraw until after the Victorious had sounded an alarm and a Chinese military ship, identified by the Pentagon as WAGOR 17, arrived in response to the call for assistance. It shone a light on the fishing vessels until they left.

The Pentagon earlier played down the confrontation, striking a more low-key tone than during the incident two months ago.

A spokesman for the US Defence Department suggested that the United States was looking to avoid the kind of angry exchanges that followed the March incident. He said: “We will be developing a way forward to deal with this diplomatically.”

The comments by the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry were also less strident than in March, when Beijing accused the US of distorting the truth.

Niu Jun, a professor of international relations at Peking University, said that both sides could do more to calm tensions. “The US should make its intention more transparent. But the two sides should also have talks on this issue and establish a mechanism to solve it,” he said.

It was not the first time the Victorious had encountered Chinese boats. On April 7 and April 8, Chinese-flagged fishing vessels approached the ship and the USNS Loyal as they operated within China’s 200-mile economic zone.

Looks Like Gov. Perry Has Company

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.

Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.

The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.

"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.

"I think our governor is out of step.”

House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.

Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.

Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.

Key said HCR 1028, which, if passed, would be sent to Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, would not jeopardize federal funds but would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.

Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said.

Congress should not be providing bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, he said.

"We give all this money to all these different entities, including automakers, and now they’re talking about, ‘Well maybe it’s better to let them go bankrupt,’” Key said. "Well, maybe we should have let them go bankrupt before we gave them the money.”

God Bless the Patriot Act

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

"Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats," Lundeby said.

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."

Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.

Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.

"There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire," Lundeby said.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

In a bi-partisan effort, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last month introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that would narrow subpoena power in a provision of the Patriot Act, called the National Security Letters, to curb what some consider to be abuse of power by federal law enforcement officers.

Boyce said the Patriot Act was written with good intentions, but he said he believes it has gone too far in some cases. Lundeby's might be one of them, he said.

"It very well could be a case of overreaction, where an agent leaped to certain conclusions or has made certain assumptions about this individual and about how serious the threat really is," Boyce said.

Because a federal judge issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on the case, nor can the FBI. The North Carolina Highway Patrol did confirm that officers assisted with the FBI operation at the Lundeby home on March 5.

"Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from," Lundeby said. "This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now."

Lundeby said she does not think this type of case is what the Patriot Act was intended for. Boyce agrees.

"It was to protect the public, but what we need to do is to make sure there are checks and balances to make sure those new laws are not abused," he said.

Uncle Jay

State of Emergency Declared On Baseball Field

I just think this is funny.
You have to wait for it

Religion and Torture

Amid intense public debate over the use of torture against suspected terrorists, an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life of a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press illustrates differences in the views of four major religious traditions in the U.S. about whether torture of suspected terrorists can be justified. Differences in opinion on this issue also are apparent based on frequency of attendance at religious services.

Total US Population

Can Often Be Justified

15%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

34%

Can Rarely Be Justified

22%

Can Never Be Justified

25%

Don't Know/Refused

4%

White Evangelical Protestants

Can Often Be Justified

18%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

44%

Can Rarely Be Justified

17%

Can Never Be Justified

16%

Don't Know/Refused

5%

White Non-Hispanic Catholics

Can Often Be Justified

19%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

32%

Can Rarely Be Justified

27%

Can Never Be Justified

20%

Don't Know/Refused

2%

White Mainline Protestants

Can Often Be Justified

15%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

31%

Can Rarely Be Justified

22%

Can Never Be Justified

31%

Don't Know/Refused

1%

Unaffiliated

Can Often Be Justified

15%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

25%

Can Rarely Be Justified

29%

Can Never Be Justified

26%

Don't Know/Refused

5%

Attend Religious Services At Least Weekly

Can Often Be Justified

16%

Can Sometimes Be Justified

38%

Can Rarely Be Justified

19%

Can Never Be Justified

25%

Don't Know/Refused

2%

Does this mean the more religious you are, the more you approve of torture?

NEWS FLASH --- Flu Turns Out to be...the Flu

May 3 (Reuters) - Mexico announced on Sunday its swine flu epidemic had passed the worst and experts said the new H1N1 virus might be no more severe than normal flu, although it could still have an impact on world health.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova showed journalists a graph indicating infections in Mexico, the epicenter of the H1N1 flu outbreak, had fallen sharply from a peak on April 24.

"The admittance of patients to hospitals has decreased and the health of patients in hospitals has improved," he told a news conference.

Laboratory tests have shown 590 firm cases of the virus so far in Mexico, out of which 22 people were confirmed to have died. This was more than the 19 confirmed deaths previously announced but Cordova said the tests were simply clarifying a backlog of suspected cases.

But new cases of the virus, which mixes swine, avian and human flu strains, still were being tracked across the world, keeping up fears of a pandemic.

The World Health Organization said its laboratories had identified a total of 898 H1N1 flu infections in 18 countries, including one case in Italy. Its toll lags national reports but is considered more scientifically secure. [nL3260192]

Separately, El Salvador reported its first two confirmed cases of the flu.

The WHO urged governments around the world not to lower their guard and to cooperate to prevent the flu spreading.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon rejected complaints at home that his government overreacted by shutting down public life for five days to prevent infection.

"This is a totally new virus in the world," Calderon told Mexican television. "We acted decisively, energetically and properly."

After days of alarm that had kept streets eerily quiet, Mexico City appeared more relaxed on Sunday, with some people venturing out on bikes or running. Many no longer wore the surgical masks that have been almost obligatory in the city in the last week as residents feared infection.

"ENCOURAGING SIGNS"

In the United States, the flu has spread to 30 states and infected 226 people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. It seems to be hitting mostly younger people, with very few cases in those over 50 years old. [nN03327731]

CDC acting director Richard Besser said there were "encouraging signs" the new strain was not more severe than what would be seen during normal seasonal flu.

But he still expected the virus to have a "significant impact" on people's health. "We're not out of the woods," Besser told "Fox News Sunday." [nN03498213]

The U.S. government said it hoped to have a vaccine ready for the new flu strain by the autumn.

Health officials and scientists from around the world have been focusing on how the new mutated flu strain may be passed between animals and humans.

The WHO said flu surveillance should be increased in both humans and animals now that the latest H1N1 strain was found to have infected pigs in Canada. [nL3279981]

Mexico has seen a stabilization of serious cases in the past few days, bringing some relief to millions of people who have stayed indoors in line with a government order for non-essential businesses to remain closed through Wednesday.

"We've been indoors since Friday. So now we've come out to enjoy some fresh air," cyclist Silvia Rodriguez told Reuters, relaxing on the grass of a central park in Mexico City.

Others were more wary.

"I'm not totally convinced that the worst is over," said Juan Antonio Hernandez, 48, a caretaker.

A Mexican Embassy official in China said Chinese authorities were quarantining more than 50 Mexican business people and tourists after some showed flu symptoms. [nPEK8030]

China denied Mexican complaints that discrimination lay behind the measures.

Asia's trade and tourism could be hit by the latest flu outbreak but lessons learned from the SARS epidemic in 2003 would boost efforts to counter the effects. SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, killed more than 800 people around the world in 2003 after first appearing in southern China. (Additional reporting by Maggie Fox in Washington, Daniel Trotta, Anahi Rama, Jason Lange, Louise Egan, Pascal Fletcher and Esteban Israel in Mexico City, Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong, Laura MacInnis in Geneva; editing by John O'Callaghan)

Souter to Retire

Top Democrats advising President Obama on his first Supreme Court vacancy are urging him not to pick a sitting judge.

"I would like to see more people from outside the judicial monastery - somebody who has had some real-life experience," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told ABC's "This Week."

Picking up on the outsider theme, brand-new Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania - who shepherded ex-President George W. Bush's two high court picks as the panel's former GOP chairman - agreed that the eight other justices on the bench who were lower court judges were plenty.

Specter told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he'd like a replacement for retiring Associate Justice David Souter "who has done something more than wear a black robe for most of their lives."

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" to elaborate, Specter replied, "Perhaps a statesman - or a stateswoman."

A thinly veiled nod to Secretary of State Clinton?

A Specter spokeswoman did not respond to a request for clarification.

Aides to committee Democrats have told the Daily News it's a slam dunk that a liberal woman will be tabbed.

"I think we should have more women. We should have more minorities," the unabashedly liberal Leahy told ABC's "This Week."

A former Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), predicted Obama will "pick a more liberal justice" than Souter, "a pro-abortion justice."

He said Obama's desire to find a candidate with "empathy" for the downtrodden was just "code" for wanting an "activist judge."

A top contender is Bronx-born federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, branded a "radical" by one conservative group last week.

Hatch, who voted for Sotomayor's confirmation to the bench in 1998, refused to go along with the "radical" label, suggesting he wouldn't try to block her appointment.