Or at least, none reported. Here, check it out. Go to http://www.dhs.gov/xutil/program-contacts.shtm and click on “Report Fraud, Waste or Abuse, Office of the Inspector General”.

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Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.

[..]

A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects.

[..]

A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

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The classification system that makes drugs such as cannabis and MDMA (ecstasy) illegal has prevented scientists from properly researching their possible therapeutic uses for conditions such as schizophrenia and depression, according to the government’s former chief adviser on drugs.

Professor David Nutt said the UK’s laws on misuse of drugs needed to be rewritten to more accurately reflect their relative harms and called for a regulated approach to making drugs such as MDMA and cannabis available for medical and research purposes.

“Regulations, which are arbitrary, actually make it virtually impossible to research these drugs,” said Nutt. “The effect these laws have had on research is greater than the effects that [George] Bush stopping stem cell research has had because it’s been going on since the 1960s.”

Almost all the drugs that could help scientists to understand brain phenomena such as consciousness, perception, mood and psychosis are illegal, including ketamine, cannabis, MDMA and psychedelic drugs such as magic mushrooms. Nutt said there had been almost no work in this field because the government made it difficult for scientists to access the drugs.

A Home Office spokesperson told the Guardian: “The Home Office licensing regime enables bona fide institutions to carry out scientific research on controlled substances while ensuring necessary safeguards are in place.”

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Three key EU committees have voted against the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta).

The treaty, which aims to curb piracy, was rejected by committees tasked with assessing its legality and impact on civil liberties and industry.

To date 22 member states, including the UK, have signed the treaty – but it is yet to be formally ratified.

The European Parliament will make its final decision on Acta in July.

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At the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama more than 20,000 people have applied for one of the 877 job openings.

So 4.4% would be hired if all 877 jobs are filled. And people thought Harvard University was selective…

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Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said Wednesday that billionaires were trying to buy the United States government in the November elections.

“There was a report this morning that the Republican Super PACs, apart from Romney and apart from his own super PAC, intend to spend a billion dollars in this campaign setting up shadow state organizations—district-wide organizations—as well as running media,” he told Current TV host Jennifer Granholm.

“So a handful of plutocrats of billionaires with a special interest agenda are going to try and buy this government in this election, and the stakes of that are pretty profound.”

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Sure, we all tweet things we don’t mean to share, but now politicians have no way to hide them. Discover tweets that your politicians shared and then promptly deleted.

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Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign misspelled the word “America” on its new iPhone app, and it’s already paying a price for it.

In the app, the phrase “A Better America” is misspelled “A Better Amercia.” The misspelling was picked up and tweeted widely Tuesday night, soon spawned a hashtag-driven Twitter meme in which people imagined just what Amercia stood for and what kind of policies Romney had planned for Amercia.

I wonder if somebody got fierd for that!

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In response to his concern, the C.I.A. downsized its munitions for more pinpoint strikes. In addition, the president tightened standards, aides say: If the agency did not have a “near certainty” that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama wanted to decide personally whether to go ahead.

The president’s directive reinforced the need for caution, counterterrorism officials said, but did not significantly change the program. In part, that is because “the protection of innocent life was always a critical consideration,” said Michael V. Hayden, the last C.I.A. director under President George W. Bush.

It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “

So getting that “near certainty” is easy, right? Anybody running around is a terrorist. Anybody standing still is a well-disciplined terrorist.

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The CBS 3 I-Team has learned that a Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations now holds a sensitive security post at Philadelphia International Airport.

The security checkpoint between Terminals D and E is a busy place where thousands of people – including lots of kids – pass through every day. But you might not believe who the I-Team observed working as a TSA supervisor at that checkpoint this week: Thomas Harkins.

Until 2002, Harkins was a Catholic priest working at churches across South Jersey. But the Diocese of Camden removed him from ministry because it found he sexually abused two young girls. Now, in a new lawsuit, a third woman is claiming she also is one of Harkins’ victims.

The I-Team asked Harkins about the suit as he was leaving his shift at the airport.

“I have nothing to say,” was Harkins’ reply.

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The Italian Bishop’s Conference (CIE) has issued guidelines on child protection that inform its bishops that they are ‘not obliged to report illicit facts’ of child abuse to the police.

The new guidelines were released recently after the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith advised every Bishop Conference to create a document covering Child Protection if they did not already have one.

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To put it another way, what was absolutely valid for the establishing of a religion becomes by necessity invalid once it already exists.

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De Tweede Kamer wil dat Nederland niet akkoord gaat met een internationaal verdrag voor bescherming van intellectueel eigendom. Ze heeft daartoe vandaag een motie van D66 en VVD aangenomen. Ook een PVV-motie hierover werd aangenomen. De Kamer vreest dat het antinamaakverdrag de internetvrijheid en privacy van burgers in gevaar brengt.

Het zogeheten ACTA-verdrag, dat gesloten moet worden tussen onder meer de EU-landen, de Verenigde Staten en Japan, ligt al langer onder vuur, ook in het Europarlement. Tegenstanders vrezen dat het misbruikt wordt om mensen van internet te weren die zich schuldig hebben gemaakt aan illegaal downloaden.

(…)

Het kabinet is overigens van mening dat het ACTA-verdrag niet in strijd is met de Europese of Nederlandse grondrechten.

The Dutch parliament has accepted a motion expressing that it wants The Netherlands not to agree to the ACTA international treaty on intellectual property rights.

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You can tell you’ve got your competitors rattled when they start producing knocking copy about you. It’s a testament to the success of OpenStreetMap that TomTom, the troubled, declining manufacturer of satnavs (PNDs) and geodata vendor, has published a rather cynical example of FUD about “open-source maps”.

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This past week, Google completed its acquisition of the hardware maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, which could lead to the search giant’s making its own smartphone. But another software titan might be getting into the hardware game as well: Facebook.

Employees of Facebook and several engineers who have been sought out by recruiters there, as well as people briefed on Facebook’s plans, say the company hopes to release its own smartphone by next year.

[..]

“Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” a Facebook employee said.

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Gov. Sam Brownback’s signing of the new Kansas Tax Act on Tuesday was a historic event. The act will shape the lives of Kansans for many years to come.

The nonpartisan Legislative Research Department has estimated that the act will reduce Kansas government revenues by $4.5 billion over the next six years. Inevitably, there will be major reductions in the government services Kansans have come to expect — especially education.

Equally important, the act dramatically changes the Kansas tax system, shifting the income tax burden from the wealthy and prosperous to working people. The act provides that all income of business owners is tax-free (except in the unusual case where a regular corporation is used). Although the act was promoted as a boost to small business, there is no limit on the size of business that can be exempt from tax.

[..]

Who will still be paying Kansas income tax? Only three groups: 1) employees, 2) some retirees and 3) individuals whose investments are so modest that they cannot afford to create a trust or partnership to shelter their investment income.

You know the difference is between Greece and the US?

Greece just has people avoiding paying the taxes they owe. The US has the people who owe big taxes rewriting laws so they no longer legally owe taxes at all.

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With nothing more than ledgers of stolen identity information — Social Security numbers and their corresponding names and birth dates — criminals have electronically filed thousands of false tax returns with made-up incomes and withholding information and have received hundreds of millions of dollars in wrongful refunds, law enforcement officials say.

The criminals, some of them former drug dealers, outwit the Internal Revenue Service by filing a return before the legitimate taxpayer files. Then the criminals receive the refund, sometimes by check but more often though a convenient but hard-to-trace prepaid debit card.

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A GERMAN 16-year-old has become the first person to solve a mathematical problem posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago.

Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance, The (London) Sunday Times reported.

The Indian-born teen said he solved the problem that had stumped mathematicians for centuries while working on a school project.

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Right now, more than 80 percent of the money raised by superPACs has gone to pro-GOP groups. And, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 80 percent of all the money raised by these groups has come from just 100 individuals — the wealthiest people in America. People like Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.

Does TED even understand it’s being mocked?

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FTC ruling…POM products could “support prostate health” but… insufficient evidence that they can treat, prevent or reduce the risk of prostate cancer…

So POM produces even more provocative ads. (FWIW, regular ejaculation also supports prostate health and is probably more fun than drinking fruit juice.)

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“The trouble I had yesterday was that I swallowed my snow and I – the snowflakes – I got one in my throat. And stuff like that happens, you know, when it’s live and so, but it didn’t make me nervous at all.” Loreen said.

Crikey, doesn’t everyone know you don’t swallow, you inhale?