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(Memo to Stan: This may be yr new favourite web site!)

Catholic Cardinal rejects sex abuse 'gossip'

More Evidence Emerges That Pope Benedict Helped Shield Pedophiles Before He Became Pope

The abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.  Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that as a Vatican cardinal, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.  In another Tucson case, that of Msgr. Robert Trupia, the bishop wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005. Bishop Manuel Moreno called Trupia "a major risk factor to the children, adolescents and adults that he many have contact with." There is no indication in the case files that Ratzinger responded.  The details of the two cases come as other allegations emerge that Benedict – as a Vatican cardinal – was part of a culture of cover-up and confidentiality.  "There's no doubt that Ratzinger delayed the defrocking process of dangerous priests who were deemed 'satanic' by their own bishop," Lynne Cadigan, an attorney who represented two of Teta's victims, said Friday.  The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.  He said the delay in defrocking Teta was caused by a hold on appeals while the Vatican changed regulations over its handling of sex abuse cases. In the meantime, he said, cautionary measures were in place; Teta had been suspended since 1990.  "The documents show clearly and positively that those in charge at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith ... have repeatedly intervened actively over the course of the 90s so that the canonic trial under way in the Tucson diocese could dutifully reach its conclusion," Lombardi said in a statement.  In the 1990s, a church tribunal found that Teta had molested children as far back as the 1970s, and the panel determined "there is almost a satanic quality in his mode."...

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Matt Sedensky @'HuffPo'

HA! (What an idiot!)

California's AG finds 'NO violation of criminal law' in severly edited ACORN 'pimp'videos. Also releases raw footage for the first time

Echoing the recent report of the Kings County, NY, District Attorney who completed a five-month probe finding "no criminality" seen in video tapes secretly taken of low-level ACORN and ACORN Housing workers last year in New York, California's Attorney General has now reached a similar conclusion regarding videos recorded in three different cities in the Golden State last Summer, according to a report released today which finds the workers "committed no violation of criminal law."

Read the full report and see the raw footage

 @'The Brad Blog'

Australia alert over oil leak on Great Barrier Reef

Eugene Terreblanche beaten to death in South Africa

South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has been killed on his farm in the country's north-west.
Mr Terreblanche, 69, was beaten to death after a dispute over unpaid wages, local media reports said. Two people are said to have been arrested.
President Jacob Zuma has appealed for calm, saying the killing should not incite racial hatred.
Mr Terreblanche, who campaigned for a separate white homeland, came to prominence in the early 1980s.

TERREBLANCHE: KEY DATES 1941: Born on a farm in conservative Transvaal town of Ventersdorp 1973: Co-founds right-wing AWB to protect rights of Boers' descendants 1993: AWB vehicle smashes into World Trade Centre in Johannesburg during negotiations to end apartheid 1994: AWB invades tribal homeland of Bophuthatswana and is defeated, with three AWB members killed 1998: Accepts moral responsibility for 1994 bombing campaign that killed 21 people 2001: Jailed for assaulting security guard 2004: Released from prison Obituary: Eugene Terreblanche Life in pictures

He became the champion of a tiny minority determined to stop the process that was bringing apartheid to an end.
"Mr Terreblanche's body was found on the bed with facial and head injuries," AFP news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying.
The report said he had been killed after a payment dispute with two workers, aged 21 and 15, who have been arrested in connection with his murder.
"He was hacked to death while he was taking a nap," a family friend in the town of Ventersdorp was quoted as telling Reuters news agency.
Mr Zuma condemned the killing as a "terrible deed".
"The president appeals for calm... and asks South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fuelling racial hatred," his office said in a statement reported by South Africa's SAPA news agency.
"The murder of Terreblanche must be condemned, irrespective of how his killers think they may have been justified. They had no right to take his life."

Prison sentence

The murder comes amid growing anxiety about crime in South Africa and what opposition politicians say are irresponsible and racially inflammatory sentiments from a minority of the ruling ANC party, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg.

ANALYSIS Martin Plaut, Africa editor For most South Africans, Eugene Terreblanche was a throwback to another era. But his death is a blow to the country's image of racial tolerance, fostered so carefully by Nelson Mandela. Some are likely to believe that the fact that his alleged attackers were arrested so rapidly smacks of a cover-up. Others, on the minority far-right fringe, will see his death as a vindication of their assertion that whites cannot live under black rule. It is a tragic fact that more than 3,000 white farmers have been murdered since the end of apartheid in 1994. And it is possible that some people may seek retribution. Mr Terreblanche's funeral could become a rallying point for such sentiment.

Farming organisations in the Ventersdorp area have called for calm as they are worried that rising tensions may escalate out of control.
Our correspondent says it is too soon to say whether Saturday's killing was politically motivated.
However, a spokesman for Mr Terreblanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement - AWB) linked the killing to the recent singing of an apartheid-era song by the head of the ANC's youth league.
"That's what this is all about," Andre Visagie told Reuters news agency. "They used pangas and pipes to murder him as he slept."
A spokeswoman for the opposition Democratic Alliance party pointed to racial tension.
Juanita Terblanche, who is no relation, said: "This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fuelled by irresponsible racist utterances."
Mr Terreblanche was released from prison in 2004 after serving three years of a five-year term for attempted murder.
He had founded the white supremacist AWB in 1973, to oppose what he regarded as the liberal policies of the then-South African leader, John Vorster.

Terreblanche rides away after being released from prison in 2004

His party tried terrorist tactics and threatened civil war in the run-up to South Africa's first democratic elections.
In the 1980s, the government of PW Botha considered a constitutional plan allowing South Africa's Asian and coloured (mixed-race) minorities to vote for racially segregated parliamentary chambers.
For the likes of Mr Terreblanche, this was the start of the slippery slope towards democracy, communism, black rule and the destruction of the Afrikaner nation, analysts say.
Claiming on occasion to be a cultural organisation - albeit one with sidearms and paramilitary uniforms - Mr Terreblanche and his men promised to fight for the survival of the white tribe of Africa.
An ill-fated military intervention into the Bophuthatswana homeland in 1994 ended with three AWB men being killed in front of TV cameras in a PR disaster that diminished further the seriousness with which Mr Terreblanche's movement was taken.
Mr Terreblance continued to campaign to preserve the apartheid system but lived in relative obscurity since it collapsed.
The AWB was revived two years ago and there had been recent efforts to form a united front among white far-right groups.

@'BBC'

Peter Hook to play Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' live in its entirety on the 30th anniversary of Ian Curtis's death

Peter Hook has announced plans to perform Joy Division's debut album live in its entirety to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of late singer Ian Curtis.
The ex-New Order bassist will be joined by a host of guests at the newly refurbished former Factory Records site FAC51 in Manchester on May 18, the same day Curtis hung himself in the kitchen of his home in Macclesfield.
Before that, Hook will showcase previously-unseen Joy Division and New Order footage as part of a new show set to tour the UK in April.
Billed 'An Evening Of Unknown Pleasures', the nights will see Hook give talks on his past bands and Factory Records along with the footage, plus live music. Fans will be able to quiz the bassist as part of the evening.
Peter Hook's 'An Evening Of Unknown Pleasures' will call at:

Birmingham Glee Club (April 11)
Bolton Albert Hall (12)
Worcester Huntingdon Hall (13)
Milton Keynes Stables (15)
Middlesbrough Town Hall (18)
Gateshead Sage (20)
Durham Gala (21)
Burnley Mechanics (22)
Cardiff Glee Club (25)
Oxford Academy (26)
Wakefield Theatre Royal (27)
Gloucester Guildhall (28)
Derby Assembly Rooms (29)
Norwich UEA (30)
Salford Lowry (May 1)
Hull Truck Theatre (2)

@'NME'

Women: Know Your Limits!

Evergreen Review # 119

HERE

Seize The Time! (For Kami!)

Bobby Seale

Sparklehorse - Wish You Were Here (featuring Thom Yorke)

Paul Krassner: Who's To Say What's Obscene?

Tehran 1953

Shirin Neshat's first feature film Women without Men award Silver Lion at 66th (2009) Venice Film Festival in Italy. Women without Men chronicles the lives of four women from different walks of life against the backdrop of Irans foreign-backed CIA coup in 1953.....Copyright © Coprod Uction Office

The Secrets of History: 

The CIA in Iran