May
31
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani
Filed Under Local News, News, Pakistani News, Politics | Leave a Comment
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has reaffirmed his government’s belief in supremacy of law and constitution and all decision of the matters of national interest will be taken in a democratic way through consultations.
Addressing a news conference on his arrival at Lahore airport the Prime Minister said we came into power through the vote of public and we are working in strengthening true democracy in the country. He said Pakistan People’s party has contributed numerous sacrifices for democracy in the country. He said the government is working for restoration 1973 constitution, independence of judiciary and media and for public welfare. On a question about the President’s office he said the impression that PPP and Nawaz Sharif have different points of view of the matter, is totally wrong.
The governments want to take all decisions through parliament.
May
31
RALEIGH, N.C. - Each April, weather wizard William Gray emerges from his burrow near the Rocky Mountains to offer his forecast for the six-month hurricane season that starts June 1. And the news media are there, breathlessly awaiting his every word.
It’s a lot like Groundhog Day - and the results are worth just about as much.
“The hairs on the back of my neck don’t stand up,” ho-hums Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida, the state that got raked by four hurricanes - three of them “major” - in 2004. When it comes to preparing, he says, these long-range forecasts “are not useful at all.”
The AP contacted the emergency management agency in every coastal state from Texas to Maine and asked whether these seasonal forecasts play any role in their preparations for the hurricane season. Their response was unanimous: They’re a great way to get people thinking about the upcoming season, but that’s about it.
Regardless, since the former Colorado State University climatologist pioneered the seasonal predictions in 1984, other forecasters have followed suit.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Tropical Storm Risk Consortium in London and, most recently, the Coastal Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at North Carolina State University in Raleigh are now among teams attempting to handicap the storm season weeks or months ahead.
After high-profile, back-to-back busts by Gray and others, critics have questioned whether these long-range outlooks do more harm than good. But the very question presupposes that Gray, et al., have been promising more than they can deliver.
They can pretty accurately predict an above- or below-average season, even predict the likelihood a major storm will hit SOMEWHERE along the U.S. coast. Beyond that, they’re not promising anything.
“Honestly, I think people get a lot more excited about it than I do in terms of what its usefulness is,” says CSU scientist Phil Klotzbach, who has largely taken over the hurricane work of Gray, now semiretired.
From the beginning, Gray issued disclaimers with his forecasts, like the one from May 1989 that asserted the forecast “can only predict about 50 percent of the total variability in Atlantic seasonal hurricane activity.”
NC State’s Lian Xie says in a boldface disclaimer in his 2008 forecast: “Results presented herein are for scientific information exchange only … Users are at their own risk for using the forecasts in any decision making.”
So how did these things become such a big deal?
Fugate thinks part of the problem is that the media and some public officials picked up the cloudy crystal ball and ran with it.
“Particularly national media has been using these forecasts inappropriately,” he says. “I’m as guilty as anyone else.”
Hurricane-prediction researchers are like chefs tinkering with a recipe for the same dish, and working from the same list of ingredients: In this case, decades worth of data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
Studying past seasons, scientists look for patterns that might explain why one year was more active than another. Teams have developed computer models that emphasize different conditions - everything from ocean salinity and rainfall amounts over West Africa to sunspot cycles and the influences of the Pacific warm-water current known as El Nino.
They test their theories by “hindcasting” - basically, plugging in known conditions from past storm seasons and seeing how well the models recreate the historical results.
When Gray burst onto the scene a quarter century ago, some wondered what business a man nearly 2,000 miles from the Atlantic had predicting hurricanes. Still, writing about his predictions became a rite of spring. (The Associated Press transmits urgent stories for his initial Dec. l forecast, and for the April, June and August updates.)
Reporters would note when Gray missed, as in 1989 when he predicted a relatively mild season with only four hurricanes. Instead, a total of seven hurricanes and four tropical storms killed 84 people in the United States.
But most years, they have published his forecasts with little or no commentary on his overall record - or even analysis of how he’d fared the season before.
That is, until 2005.
That spring, Gray and Klotzbach forecast 15 named storms, eight of them hurricanes. Instead, there were a record 28 named storms in 2005, including 15 hurricanes - most notably Katrina.
The following year, the team overestimated the storm activity. Instead of the predicted 17 storms and nine hurricanes, the final numbers that season were 10 and five.
Coincidentally, 2005 was also the year Xie and his students published a groundbreaking paper in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters.” In it, they suggested that the interplay of sea surface temperatures in the tropical North and South Atlantic, and not El Nino, was responsible for Florida’s disastrous 2004 season.
The following year, NC State felt confident enough to issue its forecast publicly. In a release, the university’s PR department would later crow that its “was the only national model to accurately forecast Atlantic hurricane activity” in 2006.
Unfortunately, NC State’s 2007 forecast was as off as anyone’s.
This season, Xie and master’s student Elinor Keith are forecasting 13 to 15 named storms, but again with caveats - the highest probability they offer for any particular number in that range is 11 percent. They predict six to eight of those storms will become hurricanes - but put the probability of seven occurring at just over 14 percent.
“So even though that’s the most likely answer, compared to some other numbers, that’s still a small number, right?” says Xie. “People need to have that in mind.”
Others have decided that there is need to qualify their forecasts, as well. Klotzbach says his next update will include an extra section “that deals with forecast uncertainty.”
And when NOAA released its 2008 outlook last week, it included for the first time a pie chart showing the likelihood that its prediction of 12 to 16 named storms was accurate. The verdict: About 65 percent for the whole range.
“We want to best convey the forecast by telling the people what the forecast is and what it is not,” lead forecaster Gerry Bell says. “This is NOT a landfall forecast. This does NOT imply levels of activity for any particular region.”
Gray insists that people DO use these forecasts to make strategic, real-world decisions. Ask him who, and he will suggest the reinsurance and Gulf oil-and-gas industries.
Platts, a division of McGraw-Hill that supplies information to the energy industry, publishes the forecasts. But chief economist Larry Chorn can’t think of anyone who takes any action based on them.
“It allows me to gauge what the experts are saying in terms of the likelihood of this being a mild season or a bad season,” he says. “Beyond that, I don’t know how to use them.”
There is some concern that average folk may be lulled into complacency by forecasts of a light storm season.
“They can go one or two ways,” Joseph Bruno, commissioner of the New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, says of the long-range predictions. “They can make people more apathetic than they already are about emergencies, or they can really heighten concern and alarm.”
But most seem to have figured out that they can’t plan their lives around the forecasts.
“Let’s say someone says this is going to be a really horrible hurricane season. Does that mean you close your business, lay off your employees?” says Melissa Perlman, who co-owns a small eco-resort in the beach town of Tulum on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. “I don’t really start paying attention until they are actually on the map.”
“It’s like Nostradamus,” adds Sonya Strasburg, who works at the Galveston Fishing Pier on the Texas barrier island - site of the nation’s deadliest hurricane. “I don’t believe it.”
So why keep doing them? Gray and Klotzbach opened this year’s forecast paper with that very question.
The answer they give: Because they add to the overall understanding of how hurricanes work.
“You actually learn more when you bust than when you verify,” says Gray, who retired from CSU in 2004 but continues to work with Klotzbach.
Another reason: Because people simply want to know.
“The truth is, every time I go to a conference, without fail, people come up to me and before they even ask about me or my family, they say, `What kind of a season are we going to have?’” says Max Mayfield, former longtime director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Mayfield, now under contract with a Miami television station, sees no harm in the forecasts, as long as people are aware of their limitations. His favorite example is 1992.
Forecasts called for a below-average season that year, and it was - just six storms. The first one just happened to be Hurricane Andrew, which killed 23 people and did $26.5 billion in damage.
“I think it comes down to how people like you and me in the media portray this …,” Mayfield says. “You need to be prepared no matter what the numbers are.”
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May
31
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - It’s not just concern for the squeamish biology students who wince at the feel and smell of cutting into a formaldehyde-soaked animal.
Think about the frog. The pig. Or even the rat.
That’s what animal rights activists in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle had in mind when they donated interactive software that replicates a frog dissection to Wheeling Park High School.
Marilyn Grindley, a member of the Ohio County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said dissecting animals “desensitizes kids. It tells them that we do not have any respect for any animal.” She wants to end the practice.
Mandates in 14 states, including Virginia and Maryland, that allow biology students to opt out of dissection without jeopardizing their grades are fueling interest in virtual dissection as an alternative tool for teaching anatomy.
Grindley and fellow SPCA member Rebecca Goth say virtual dissection software such as the The Digital Frog, the version they donated, offers an alternative to students who find dissection repulsive, and can even save schools money.
But some educators, like Christopher Perillo, a science teacher in Kenosha, Wis., don’t buy it. He says nothing can duplicate the smell, feel and texture of cutting into a real frog.
“It’s not the same as the real thing,” Perillo said. “To actually cut through the tissue, see how the skin layers feel, the textures, the way the organs look inside the body, I think that can’t be duplicated.
“Its like trying to become a gardener without touching the dirt.”
West Virginia is not one of opt-out states for dissections. But now that biology is a required class in West Virginia, virtual dissection is becoming an attractive option to some educators there.
Patrick Durkin, science department chair at Wheeling Park High School, said the number of students enrolled in biology will increase to about 400 this fall. Before, about 150 students studied biology each year.
With a single pig costing upward of $25 and a frog around $6, the program has the potential to save the school some money, though not a lot. Wheeling Park spends about $1,000 a year on frogs alone, he said.
By comparison, digital dissection software can be purchased for less than $1,500 from numerous companies.
In addition to The Digital Frog, schools have plenty of software to choose from, including Froguts, developed by Froguts Inc. founders Richard Hill and David Hughes, and V-Frog, developed by Tactus Technologies.
Goth and Grindley worked through the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine, which negotiated with Digital Frog International in Ontario, Canada, for the SPCA to buy the software at a reduced price of about $500.
The committee has brokered similar deals for school systems in New York and California, said Dr. John Pippin, senior medical and research adviser for the nonprofit group that promotes alternatives to animal research.
Pippin said the move away from dissecting real animals mirrors what’s been happening on college campuses over the past 25 years. In 1982, 107 of 124 medical schools across the country used real animals to teach anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and surgery. Today, eight of 154 accredited medical schools still do.
Wheeling Park’s Durkin said it wasn’t saving cash or sparing the lives of animals that appealed to him. With plans to phase out the use of real frogs over the next couple of years, Durkin said the program will enable students to spend more time on dissection outside of class.
Using a digital scalpel, students make cuts on an image on a full-screen video. Animations and interactions also allow students to see how the body works - from blood pumping through the heart to building joints that move.
And unlike a real dissection, mistakes can be easily corrected and steps repeated to reinforce lessons.
While only those students who go on to medical school will likely ever work with human cadavers, Pippin said he doesn’t expect virtual software to ever replace medical schools’ use of human cadavers “unless we get to the point where cadavers are not available.”
“Hands-on experience with a human being burns in your brain all the things you need to learn … but it gives you a profound respect for human life,” he said. “When you kill an animal for a lab, you’re wasting a life, and that’s not a message you want students to learn.”
May
31
CINCINNATI - Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 599th career homer Saturday off Atlanta’s Jair Jurrjens, a two-run shot that left him one away from an elite mark.
Griffey’s homer in the first inning was a breakthrough for the Cincinnati Reds outfielder, who has been having trouble getting those last few to 600. He would become the sixth to reach the mark, joining Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa.
The 38-year-old outfielder came into the season needing only seven to get to 600. He hit No. 597 on April 23 at Great American Ball Park, where the club has been promoting his quest for 600.
Then, Griffey went 90 at-bats before getting his next homer, in San Diego on May 22. It was the second-longest drought of his career.
He had gone 29 at-bats without a homer before he connected on Saturday in his first at-bat against Jurrjens, who became the 383rd pitcher to give up a homer by Griffey.
May
31
CINCINNATI - Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 599th career homer Saturday, leaving him one shy of a seldom-reached mark, and Jay Bruce extended his amazing weeklong debut with a 10th-inning homer that lifted the Cincinnati Reds to an 8-7 victory over the Atlanta Braves.
Bruce’s first big league homer off Manny Acosta (3-2) dealt another crushing road defeat to the Braves, who couldn’t hold a one-run lead heading into the ninth.
Griffey was on deck when Bruce connected for the game-winning solo shot. The 21-year-old rookie rounded the bases, flipped his helmet into the air halfway to home, then got pummeled by teammates when he hopped on the plate.
The Reds’ top prospect is 11-for-19 in his first five games in the majors, providing one big hit after another. He has a pair of three-hit games and a four-hit game.
The only thing he hadn’t done in his amazing week was connect for a homer. He pulled it off on a 2-1 pitch from Acosta, sending it deep into the seats in right field.
While the Reds flooded onto the field and 38,585 fans chanted “BRUUUUCE!” in unison, the Braves dropped their heads and trudged away in disbelief. They can’t seem to do anything right on the road.
Francisco Cordero (2-0) pitched the 10th, sending the Braves to an excruciatingly familiar finish. Atlanta has lost its last 20 one-run games on the road since August, matching the second-longest such streak in major league history.
The Braves have one of the NL’s best home records at 22-7, offset by their worst road mark at 7-20. That only begins to measure their near-miss misery. They are 0-5 in extra innings this season and 2-16 in one-run games overall.
They built a 7-6 lead on homers by Greg Norton, Mark Teixeira and Jeff Francoeur, only to let it slip away on a dispute play in the ninth. Rafael Soriano gave up a walk and a single, then failed to look Ryan Freel all the way back to third base on David Ross’ comeback grounder.
Soriano threw to first, and Freel dashed for home and slid in headfirst, beating the relay. Manager Bobby Cox threw his cap and was ejected while arguing the call at the plate, a sign of Atlanta’s mounting frustration.
Griffey got the Reds rolling with a two-run drive in the first off Jair Jurrjens, leaving him one away from becoming the sixth player to reach 600 career homers. He also had a sacrifice fly and a double.
With his next homer, Griffey will join Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa at 600. He’ll have one more chance in his hometown - the series concludes on Sunday - before an eight-game road trip.
Chipper Jones, who went 0-for-5 and had a game-ending error in Cincinnati’s 3-2, 11-inning win on Friday night, had a pair of singles that matched an Atlanta record. Jones’ 81 hits through the end of May equaled Ralph Garr’s mark from 1974.
Notes:@ Jurrjens was the 383rd pitcher to give up a homer by Griffey. … Jones batted .417 in May with four homers. … Soriano’s first pitch in the ninth sailed untouched to the backstop screen. He wound up with his first blown save in two chances. … Reds starter Josh Fogg gave up six runs in 3 1-3 innings, likely costing him a spot in the rotation again.
May
31
Fat Finding Reveals Why Diets Don’t Work
Filed Under Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
Want to get rid of some fat cells as you age? Fat chance.
You’re stuck with the number of fat cells you have acquired by about age 20, a new study finds.
Researchers have known that people gain and lose weight at least in part by changing how much fat is in their fat cells. The new finding is particularly important for obese people, who the researchers say can have twice as many fat cells as their lean counterparts.
The finding also suggests that obesity in adulthood is at least partly determined by diet and exercise in childhood.
Strange study
To determine the age of fat cells in 35 subjects, researchers focused on a marker found in fat cells - radioactive carbon from above-ground nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s. More of a naturally occurring but rare type of carbon, called carbon-14, was produced during the testing.
Bruce Buchholz, a chemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., explained how his team used this marker to make their discovery.
Our bodies incorporate carbon-14 from the food we eat, along with the vastly more abundant types called carbon-12 and 13. Since carbon-14 from the testing is decreasing with time as it mixes with the oceans, the amount of rare carbon-14 that a cell has taken up is like a timestamp for when the cell formed, Buchholz said.
The researchers knew that cells were dying and being replaced over time, because people born before the nuclear testing had fat cells that were created after the testing. The scientists also found that about 10 percent of fat cells were replaced every year whether or not a person was obese.
Despite that replacement rate, another aspect of the study with a larger sample of people revealed that the total number of fat cells per person remained relatively constant over time. Even extreme weight-loss strategies, such as bariatric surgery, did not reduce the number of fat cells in study subjects.
Aha!
The tightly regulated number of fat cells in adulthood may explain why it seems easy to gain back lost weight, Buchholz said.
If you already have more fat cells from adolescence than other people, “it’s harder to become thin,” Buchholz told LiveScience.
The study raises a new mystery: Something tells the body to make a new fat cell when another dies, Buchholz said. In the future, if scientists could interfere with this turnover, they might actually reduce fat-cell number in adults, he said.
The findings, detailed in the May 4 online issue of the journal Nature, suggest that the focus for controlling obesity should be on children, said Dr. Jeffrey Gimble, who studies fat stem cells at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and was not involved in the research. The idea is that if the number of fat cells is capped by age 20, then the smart approach is to prevent their formation in children.
Obesity prevention in the early years could have “a lifetime impact,” Gimble said.
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Original Story: Fat Finding Reveals Why Diets Don’t Work
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May
31
Libya to resolve claims with US
Filed Under BBC News, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
The US and Libya have agreed to work together to resolve compensation claims from the Lockerbie bombing and other 1980s attacks blamed on Libyan agents.
Libya has already paid out $8m (£4m) to each Lockerbie victim’s family but has not made final payments of $2m amid a dispute over America’s obligations.
A US court ruling that Libya should pay billions of dollars to Americans killed by another bomb incensed the Libyans.
They are hoping for an all-in-one deal to cover that and the other attacks.
They are also said to be wary of a new US law allowing victims of terrorism to seize US-held assets of states held responsible.
Libya reportedly complained that it was being punished rather than rewarded for its decision in 2003 to stop working on weapons of mass destruction.
That decision led to the restoration of US diplomatic ties with Libya, which was removed from America’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
But Libya feels the US is not living up to its obligations and wants more political and economic benefits from its new ties with Washington, the BBC’s Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.
‘Not a penny less’
News of the agreements on negotiations came in a joint statement issued by the US state department:
“Representatives of the United States and Libya met in London May 28-29 to begin negotiations on a claims settlement agreement.
“Both parties affirmed their desire to work together to resolve all outstanding claims in good faith and expeditiously through the establishment of a fair compensation mechanism.”
A US state department official, speaking anonymously to the Associated Press ahead of the joint statement, said both nations wanted “legal peace” and a clean slate.
The proposed deal would address the 1988 bombing of Pan Am plane over Lockerbie and at least five other attacks, including the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner in which seven Americans were killed.
In January, a US court ordered Libya and six Libyan officials to pay more than $6bn to relatives of the seven US victims aboard the UTA plane.
Libya had already agreed to pay $1m compensation to the relatives of each of the 170 people on board the flight though it denied any link to the bombing.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted in 2001 of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.
Reacting to Friday’s joint announcement, lawyers for 130 of the Lockerbie victims said they welcomed the proposed talks but insisted the outstanding $2m sums should be paid.
“I don’t think any of the clients would accept a penny under $2m,” said Jim Kreindler, head of the law firm involved.
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May
31
Officers ‘to use own judgement’
Filed Under BBC News, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
Four police forces are to abandon government targets and allow officers to decide whether to make arrests.
The “common-sense approach” being tried by the Surrey, Leicestershire, West Midlands and Staffordshire forces has been welcomed by the Home Office.
Government targets have been criticised for encouraging officers to focus on minor rather than serious crimes.
Surrey police chief Mark Rowley said the public did not want officers to be “compelled” to always arrest people.
‘Common-sense resolutions’
The schemes follow recommendations outlined in Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s review of policing, which was published in February.
Sir Ronnie said police did not need to collect the same amount of paperwork for a broken window as a murder.
I want our officers to apply their professional judgement and discretion to do the right thing
Temporary Chief Constable Mark Rowley
By cutting red tape at least five million man hours - or 2,500 officers - could be saved, he said.
Surrey is currently one of the best performing police forces in the country, but Chief Constable Rowley said he was prepared for a poorer performance rating this year.
“When the public contact us about minor disputes and incidents, they want practical, common-sense resolutions,” he said.
“This can range from arrests when a minor incident is the tip of an iceberg, to advice and informal solutions when it is not.
“They do not want officers to feel compelled to record all incidents as crimes and to always arrest those involved, simply to hit targets.
“I want our officers to apply their professional judgement and discretion to do the right thing.”
‘Better use of time’
Surrey gave as an example that under current national guidelines, a complaint that a child had damaged a neighbour’s greenhouse with a football would automatically result in a criminal damage offence being recorded and an investigation being started.
Now, however, “it may be possible to quickly establish that the damage was accidental and the child’s family have offered to pay for a repair”.
“The neighbour’s complaint is solved, the child is not unnecessarily criminalised, and the time required for police to complete the paperwork for a crime investigation can be put to better use dealing with other public concerns,” it said.
The Home Office said it was aware the police forces were about to start pilots “that will enable officers to use their professional judgement to determine the level of detail in recording of crimes”.
“The aim is to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, with the agreed principle that all allegations of crime will be recorded to ensure compliance with the national crime recording standards to ensure transparency, integrity and public confidence in the process.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers commended the government for recognising that the burdens of targets now outweighed some of the benefits.
May
31
McClellan backs some of Obama’s agenda
Filed Under CNN News, News | Leave a Comment
NEW YORK (CNN) – Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, whose tell-all book blasts the Bush administration on issues including Hurricane Katrina, the election and the Iraq war, didn’t say Friday whether he still considers himself a Republican.
Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan is defending his book on the White House.
But he did say he supports parts of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s agenda.
“Some of what Obama says, his overall message, is very similar to the one we ran on in 2000 about changing the way Washington works and what I had so much hope in,” said McClellan, who became the White House press secretary in 2003 after serving as spokesman for President Bush when he was the governor of Texas.
“But it’s a very difficult thing to do, and I hope some of the Obama staff will take a look at [McClellan’s book] and consider what they need to do if they become president.”
McClellan also said he has “a lot of respect” for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.
In his 341-page book, “What Happened,” McClellan writes that Bush and his advisers favored a “propaganda campaign” to the truth in the days leading up to the Iraq invasion. Read excerpts from the book »
McClellan also claims that key Bush aides intentionally misled him on major stories and that the administration’s botched handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath was the defining moment of Bush’s second term.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, McClellan — who has faced withering criticism from the White House and other Bush allies since his book was released — declined to answer directly when asked if he still considers himself a Republican.
“Well, you know, there are things I like about the Republicans, Republican ideas, and there are Democrat ideas I like,” he said.
“I’ve not made a decision in terms of the presidential election,” he added. “I’m someone who believes in centrist governing philosophy. And that’s what the president believed in as governor, but as president he moved too far to the right too often.”
Earlier Friday, McClellan said he would be willing to comply with a possible congressional subpoena to discuss the administration’s handling of prewar intelligence, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer he’d be “glad” to share his views if asked to testify.
Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, said Friday that McClellan, who left the White House in 2006, would be able to provide valuable insight into a number of issues under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee.
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The committee is looking into the use of prewar intelligence, whether politics was behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, Wexler, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said.
In the book, McClellan says President Bush told him he had authorized the leaking of Plame’s identity to the press. Watch Wexler call for McClellan to testify »
Facing a firestorm over his book, McClellan also confirmed reports Friday that he apologized to Richard Clarke for questioning his honesty after the former counterterrorism official published his own book critical of the White House.
“I don’t expect we’ll have a conversation [with Bush] any time soon,” he said. “I don’t need to ask forgiveness from him. My comments are sincere and honest and absolutely the truth from my perspective.”
Speaking with Cooper, McClellan responded to one of the harshest criticisms he faced this week, from former senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.
Dole reportedly sent McClellan an e-mail saying every presidential administration has “miserable creatures like you … who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues.”
The message accuses McClellan of reveling in the attention he received at the White House then cashing in with his book.
“I have great respect for Sen. Dole — he’s a great public servant and someone who has served in the military as well and someone who actually did try to work across the aisle with Democratic leaders at times, back before things got so bitterly partisan in Washington, D.C.,” McClellan said.
“But I would encourage him to see what I say in the book before he makes those comments.”
McClellan told CNN that reports the publisher of his book doesn’t pay higher than six-figure advances to its authors is “an accurate account of things” but wouldn’t say exactly how much of an advance he was paid.
“When people say, ‘He’s out there to make a profit,’ one, they don’t know me or my upbringing and my reasoning. They haven’t had a chance to read the book,” he said. “Two, they don’t know [”What Happened” publisher] Public Affairs and the kind of publisher that they are.”
May
31
Seat all delegates, Clinton lawyer urges
Filed Under CNN News, Most Pepular, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
(CNN) – A day before a Democratic panel is to determine how to seat the delegations of Florida and Michigan, the Clinton campaign’s chief lawyer said the committee is compelled to seat both delegations fully and not award Sen. Barack Obama any delegates from Michigan.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s lawyer is set to make her case before a DNC panel Saturday.
In a letter addressed to the co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws panel, Clinton lawyer Lyn Utrecht said Friday that both states have already been sufficiently punished because of lack of campaign activity.
The states broke ranks to hold primaries earlier than party rules allowed. As punishment, both state parties were barred from representation when the party nominates a candidate at the August convention.
The states are challenging those sanctions, with encouragement from the Clinton campaign.
Clinton won decisively in both states after all candidates had agreed not to campaign in either state. Obama and some other candidates had their names taken off the Michigan ballot, but he was on Florida’s ballot.
“It is a bedrock principle of our party that every vote must be counted, and thereby every elected delegate should be seated,” Utrecht wrote.
“The states have already been punished because no campaign activity was conducted in Florida or Michigan. There is no requirement or need to punish their duly elected delegates who represent the 2.3 million voters in Michigan and Florida who participated in the nominating process.” Read the full letter (pdf)
Utrecht also made clear that the campaign will not accept a resolution in Michigan that awards Obama any delegates, because the Illinois senator took his name off the ballot there. Read more about the members of the DNC committee
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The 30 who’ll rule on Florida, Michigan
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told The Associated Press that receiving no pledged delegates from Michigan is not acceptable and “I don’t think is a position that people find terribly reasonable.”
Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod said his campaign wants “a resolution that allows Florida and Michigan to come to the convention, participate in the convention and do it within the rules of the party.”
But Axelrod took issue with the Clinton campaign’s approach to the issue.
“Everybody agreed that these contests would not be valid,” he said, adding that Clinton reconsidered “when the race began to turn and her situation changed.”
Florida Democrats voted 50 percent for Clinton and 33 percent for Obama. In Michigan, Clinton got 55 percent of the vote, and 40 percent of Democrats voted for an uncommitted slate.
“Some would take the position that perhaps they were, their intention was to vote for Sen. Obama … some would take the position that you can’t know what the intentions of those voters were,” DNC Communications Director Karen Finney said Thursday.
Right now, with no Michigan or Florida delegates included, Obama leads Clinton by 199 delegates. He needs 45 more to clinch the nomination.
“Neither the DNC Rules nor the Michigan Delegate Selection Plan allow arbitrary reallocation of uncommitted delegates to a candidate or arbitrary reallocation of delegates from one candidate to another,” Utrecht wrote.
The Clinton campaign also said Friday that former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard and Florida state Sen. Arthenia Joyner will make the case for the campaign Saturday.
At the hearing, the Democratic Party has to make two big choices. The first is how many delegates from Florida and Michigan to seat. Right now, the number of delegates is zero because of the party’s punishment.
CNN.com/Live will stream live coverage of the meeting from start to finish on Saturday.
Once the committee decides how many delegates to seat, it has to make a second decision. View a timeline of the Democratic delegate dispute »
“If you then agree to seat delegates, how do you then apportion those delegates to the candidates?” Finney asked.
There’s another scenario Clinton would probably prefer: All the Florida and Michigan delegates are seated, and Obama is given no uncommitted Michigan delegates.
As a result, Obama would be 81 delegates ahead, and he would need 155 more to win.
But there’s a scenario that might be acceptable to Obama: Half the Michigan and Florida delegates are seated, and all the uncommitted Michigan delegates are given to him.
Then, Obama would be 167.5 delegates ahead and he would need 72.5 more to win.
Either way, Obama would be ahead in delegates.
While the debate over Michigan and Florida continues, the top two Democrats in Congress are coordinating an effort to get uncommitted superdelegates to publicly endorse a candidate and bring the Democratic presidential nomination fight to a conclusion.
A senior Democratic aide said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling uncommitted superdelegates and pressuring them to back either Obama or Clinton between now and next week. Pelosi is working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
In an interview with a San Francisco radio station on Thursday, Reid said he spoke to Pelosi and DNC Chairman Howard Dean.
“We all are going to urge our folks next week to make a decision very quickly,” Reid said.
Meanwhile, Clinton’s in Puerto Rico this weekend campaigning before Sunday’s primary. Clinton holds a double-digit lead in Puerto Rico, a poll released Thursday suggests.
The weekend primary will probably be the New York senator’s last chance to boost her popular vote total, because Obama is widely viewed to have an advantage in the final two primaries Tuesday in South Dakota and Montana