MELBOURNE: Pakistan ended their disappointing tour losing all matches in the series of three Tests, five One-day Internationals and a Twenty20 match as Australia also won their last match by two wickets on the last ball of the match here at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.

Chasing an easy target of 128 runs, Pakistan started disastrously by losing both their openers, Imran Nazir (naught) and Imran Farhat (8), for just 10 runs on the board.

However, wicketkeeper-batsman Kamran Akmal came to rescue to take his team out of trouble. He held the one end intact as other batsmen were being dismissed at regular intervals.

Pakistan were well on the way to success as long as Kamran was at the crease but his ouster changed the whole scenario and the tourists who were needing only 30 runs from 35 balls to win the match managed only 27 runs with one wicket remaining to give Australia their first T20 win against Paksitan.

Kamran blasted 64 off only 33 balls with seven fours and two sixes while the second top scorer was his younger brother Umar with 21. The only other batsman reaching double-figure was Umar Gul (10).

Shaun Tait was the most successful bowler with three wickets for 13 runs, supported by Shane Watson and Steve Smith claiming two wickets each.

Earlier, Michael Clarke who was leading the Aussies in the absence of Ricky Ponting, won the toss and elected to bat but his team could not make any big score and were all out for 127 in 18.4 overs.

Except Michael Hussey (40 not out), Clarke (32) and David Warner (24), no batsman could enter into double figures as three batmen were run out by alert Pakistani fielders.

For Pakistan, Umar Gul captured three wickets for 20 runs while Malik claimed two for 31. Pacers Mohammad Asif and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan took one wicket each.

Shoaib Malik led Pakistan as their T20 captain Shahid Afridi was banned for playing two T20 matches for ball tampering.

Imran Nazir returned to Pakistan lineup and Imran Farhat made his T20 debut.

Australia also included two debutants – legs-pinning allrounder Steve Smith and left-handed batsman Travis Birt.

KARBALA: A mortar bomb attack on the last day of a major mourning ceremony in Iraq killed 31 pilgrims and wounded dozens more on Friday in an atrocity blamed on Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists.

The bomb struck pilgrims who were leaving the holy shrine city of Karbala, 110 kilometres (68 miles) south of Baghdad, where more than a million devotees had gathered to mark the festival of Arbaeen.

It was the third major attack this week on worshippers who have for weeks been travelling there on foot for the climax of the event earlier on Friday.

A provincial health ministry official gave the death toll and said 150 others were wounded.

“A mortar round was launched from fields northeast of the city,” provincial governor Amalheddin al-Hir told a foreign news agency.

“I accuse Al-Qaeda who are being supported by the Baath party,” he said, referring to Saddam’s outlawed political movement.

Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the slaying of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most revered figures, by the armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

A series of suicide attacks have seen dozens of pilgrims killed in recent days.

Hir said earlier that 10 million worshippers had visited the Imam Hussein shrine in the past two weeks, walking as a sign of piety, with the ceremonies culminating at midday (0900 GMT) on Friday.

“The visitors included Arabs and about 100,000 foreigners from the Gulf states, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Tanzania, the United States, Norway and Belgium,” Hir said.

Television pictures showed crowds massed near the shrine stretching into the far distance and carrying flags adorned with Imam Hussein’s image.

Around 30,000 police and soldiers were on duty in the holy city, following the recent spate of attacks.

KARBALA: A mortar bomb killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens on Friday three kilometres (two miles) east of the central Iraqi shrine city of Karbala, governor Amalheddin al-Hir said.

“A mortar round was launched from fields northeast of the city,” he said.

“Twenty-seven people were killed and 56 wounded. I accuse Al-Qaeda who are being supported by the Baath party,” Hir added, referring to the outlawed political movement of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Police Major Alaa Abbas earlier said that the mortar round struck Shiite pilgrims leaving the city after attending a major mourning ceremony.

More than one million pilgrims thronged Karbala, 110 kilometres south of Baghdad, for the climax of Arbaeen, with thousands of security forces on high alert for suicide attacks.

Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the slaying of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most revered figures, by the armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

KARACHI: At least 10 people were killed and 50 others were wounded on Friday after another powerful bomb hit the Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital.

The blast took place at a time when the dead and the injured of Shahra-e-Faisal blast were being shifted to the hospital’s Emergency Ward. The blast left more than 50 people injured.

A large number of relatives of the first blast victims were present at the time of second blast.

The panic and fear gripped the hospital after the blast, in which paramedical staff and media persons were also affected.

The injured were now being rushed to Civil Hospital and city’s other private hospitals.

It may be reminded here that 12 people were killed and many more injured in a blast at Shahra-e-Faisal in Karachi.

So far 22 people have embraced martyrdom in the two blasts.

NASA’s Opportunity rover has discovered a peculiar rock on Mars that scientists think originated deep within the red planet.

The stone could reveal new secrets about the makeup of Mars’ interior.

Dubbed “Marquette Island,” the rock is a dark boulder not much bigger than a basketball that sits on a rippled Martian plain.

“Marquette Island is different in composition and character from any known rock on Mars or meteorite from Mars,” said Opportunity principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “It is one of the coolest things Opportunity has found in a very long time.”

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, landed on Mars in 2004, and have drastically outlived their original 90-day mission plan. While Spirit is currently stuck in a sand trap with two broken wheels, Opportunity is still roving free.

In all of its 11 miles worth of traveling, Opportunity has found only one other rock of comparable size to Marquette Island and scientists think it was ejected from a distant crater. Called “Bounce Rock,” that stone closely matched the composition of a meteorite that landed on Earth, but was thought to have originated on Mars.

The coarse-grained texture and basalt composition of Marquette Island indicates that it cooled slowly from molten rock, allowing crystals time to grow. That means that it likely originated deep in the crust, not at the surface where it would cool quicker and have finer-grained texture, scientists say.

“It is from deep in the crust and someplace far away on Mars, though exactly how deep and how far we can’t yet estimate,” Squyres said.

In contrast, most Martian basalt rocks that Spirit and Opportunity have encountered have different textures and composition.

At first, scientists thought Marquette Island could be a meteorite, but it appears to have a much lower nickel content than other meteorites Opportunity has found. And Marquette Island’s interior contains more magnesium than typical Martian basalt rocks.

“It’s like having a fragment from another landing site,” said Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. Gellert is lead scientist for the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on Opportunity’s robotic arm. “With analysis at an early stage, we’re still working on some riddles about this rock.”

The rover team used Opportunity’s rock abrasion tool to grind away some of Marquette Island’s weathered surface and expose the interior.

This was the 38th rock target Opportunity has ground into, and one of the hardest. The tool was designed to grind into only one Martian rock, and this rock may not be its last.

“We took a conservative approach on our target depth for this grind to ensure we will have enough of the bit left to grind the next hard rock that Opportunity comes across,” said Joanna Cohen of Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corp., in New York, which built and operates the tool.

While Marquette Island is intriguing, Opportunity couldn’t stop too long to investigate — it left the site Jan. 12. The rover is mid-way on a journey toward a much larger crater, Endeavour, that scientists think will offer a host of scientific prospects.

“We’re on the road again,” said Mike Seibert, a rover mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The year ahead will include lots more driving, if all goes well. We’ll keep pushing for Endeavour crater but watch for interesting targets along the way where we can stop and smell the roses.”

* Video – Opportunity’s Mars Marathon
* NASA’s 10 Greatest Science Missions
* See Mars at Its Best Right Now

* Original Story: Weird Rock Offers Glimpse Deep Inside Mars

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By BASSEM MROUE and ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writers Bassem Mroue And Zeina Karam, Associated Press Writers – 24 mins ago

BEIRUT – The pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed into the sea flew in the opposite direction from the path recommended by the control tower after taking off from Beirut in thunderstorms, Lebanon’s transportation minister said Tuesday.

All 90 people on board were feared dead after the plane bound for Addis Ababa went down in flames minutes after takeoff at around 2:30 a.m. Monday.

Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi said the pilot initially followed the tower’s guidance, but then abruptly changed course and went in the opposite direction.

“They asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar,” Aridi told The Associated Press.

It was not immediately clear why the pilot veered off the recommended path. Like most other airliners, the Boeing 737 is equipped with its own onboard weather radar, which the pilot may have used to avoid flying into thunderheads rather than following the flight tower’s recommendation.

Ethiopian Airlines’ CEO Girma Wake said the Lebanese minister’s comments were premature. “Rushing remarks, I don’t think that helps anybody,” Wake said in Addis Ababa.

“Nobody is saying the pilot is to blame for not heeding orders,” Aridi said, adding: “There could have been many reasons for what happened. … Only the black box can tell.”

Lebanese officials have ruled out terrorism or “sabotage.”

No survivors had been found more than 24 hours after the crash. Emergency workers have pulled bodies from the sea; the numbers reported so far range from a dozen to more than 20. Several officials have revised their numbers, saying they miscounted.

“We hope they will find trapped bodies in the fuselage,” Wake said.

Searchers were trying to find the plane’s black box and flight data recorder, which are critical to determining the cause of the crash.

On Tuesday, rescue teams and equipment sent from the U.N. and countries including the United States and Cyprus were helping in the search. Conditions were chilly but relatively clear — far better than Monday, when rain lashed the coast.

Pieces of the plane and other debris were washing ashore, and emergency crews pulled a large piece of the plane, about 3 feet (1 meter) long, from the water. A crew member, Safi Sultaneh, identified it as a piece of a wing.

An aviation analyst familiar with the investigation said Beirut air traffic control was guiding the Ethiopian flight through the thunderstorms for the first 2-3 minutes of its flight.

The official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said this was standard procedure by Lebanese controllers to assist airliners departing from the airport in poor weather conditions.

It is unclear exactly what happened in the last 2 minutes of flight, the official said.

Patrick Smith, a U.S.-based airline pilot and aviation writer, said there were many possible causes for the crash.

“Had the plane encountered extreme turbulence, or had it suffered a powerful lightning strike that knocked out instruments while penetrating strong turbulence, then structural failure or loss of control, followed by an in-flight breakup, are possible causes.”

Ethiopian Airlines said late Monday that the pilot had more than 20 years of experience. It did not give the pilot’s name or details of other aircraft the pilot had flown. It said the recovered bodies included those of Ethiopians and Lebanese.

The Lebanese army and witnesses say the plane was on fire shortly after takeoff. A defense official also said some witnesses reported the plane broke up into three pieces.

At the Government Hospital in Beirut, Red Cross workers brought in bodies covered with wool blankets as relatives gathered nearby. Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, was among those on board, according to the French Embassy.

Some Lebanese families began mourning their loved ones.

In the southern town of Nabatieh, relatives gathered for a funeral for Ali Jaber, 40, a husband and father who had car dealerships in Lebanon and in West Africa.

“This catastrophe did not only hit our family, but it hits the whole nation,” said Ahmad Jaber, the man’s

Dan Froomkin

An extraordinary series of articles recently appeared on the Nieman Watchdog Web site, anchored by investigative reporter John Hanrahan and mostly based on interviews with some of the nation’s most perceptive, prescient and prophetic economists. The series laid out a broad landscape of economic issues that have been largely overlooked during the reporting of the nation’s economic collapse — to our great peril.

Hanrahan’s articles explore key elements of the story that reporters should have been — and should still be — writing about. Among them: The endemic fraud at the heart of the collapse, the resultant need for a comprehensive dissection of some key financial institutions, how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the economy, the dramatic effects of the crash on domestic poverty and world poverty, and underlying it all, the critically important role of government spending in a recovery, be it through a second stimulus or expanded entitlements or jobs programs, all of which requires that deficits be seen, for the short run at least, as the solution, not the problem.

As a coda to Hanrahan’s series, here is a list of seven things all of us should be more alarmed by than we currently are, going forward.

A common theme underlying them all is that while our leaders — and the voices of conventional wisdom — treat our current recession as cyclical in nature, and are essentially mostly just waiting around for growth to pick up again, there is plenty of reason to believe that this crisis was instead an expression of structural problems. And if that is so, and we don’t take the proper action, then the wait could be a long one.

No. 1: The middle class may never be the same again

The full effects of the crash of 2007-2008 on the lives of regular Americans has yet to be fully appreciated. For most members of the middle class, their sense of financial well-being was largely based on the size of their 401(k)s and their equity as homeowners. After the collapse of stock prices and with the steep drop in home prices, many may never feel the same way again, or spend their money as confidently.

While 401(k)s have somewhat bounced back, about one in four homeowners now actually have negative equity — are “underwater”. A recent study by Barry P. Bosworth and Rosanna Smart for Brookings finds that American households lost $13 trillion in wealth between mid-2007 and March 2009, or about 15 percent in all. That decline badly hit baby boomers just as they’re headed into retirement. And middle-income families whose head is age 50 or younger actually have smaller net incomes today than in 1983.

Meanwhile, many American families spent much of the last decade (or two) living beyond their means, piling up debt on their credit cards, or “bubble borrowing.” Two University of Chicago researchers have found that the housing bubble hugely increased household consumption as homeowners borrowed on average $0.25 to $0.30 for every $1 increase on their home equity. Now that housing prices have crashed and credit is tight, the inevitable result, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi write somewhat euphemistically, is a “painful process of household de-leveraging.”

Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, an emerging hero among progressives in her role as chair of the congressional bailout oversight panel, sees the latest series of blows as the unfortunate culmination of a crisis that started taking form a generation ago. For long stretches of time, the growth in the nation’s GDP has gone almost entirely to the top 1% or less of the population. That has resulted in a dramatic shift in wealth away from the middle class, made the economy more vulnerable to disaster and made the toll of such a disaster more catastrophic to all but the wealthiest Americans. Warren writes:

America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child’s education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff.

She concludes: “America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking.”

No. 2: The recovery could take a really long time

Even assuming that we are at the beginning of an enduring recovery, there are many signs that it will be a slow one, and that it could be as long as a decade until most American families return to the standard of living they enjoyed before the crash.

Most notably, unemployment is widely expected to be astronomically high for at least another year or two — remaining around 10 percent through 2010.

And the recovery, such as it is, has been largely fueled by government money — not just the stimulus, but also the bailouts, targeted programs such as the homebuyers tax credit and “cash for clunkers,” and emergency spending on such things as extended unemployment insurance. What happens, however, when those stop? And none are designed to go on forever.

Washington Post financial columnist Steven Pearlstein recently put it this way:
My best guess is that the current upswings in economic output, confidence and financial asset prices are largely a reflection of the extraordinary fiscal and monetary juice provided by Treasury and the Federal Reserve, along with the natural rebound that occurs after a collapse in consumer and business spending like that which occurred in the first half of 2009. The surprising strength of the bounce-back testifies to the wisdom of the underlying strengths of the U.S. economy and the success of the policies, but is likely to peter out as the stimulus begins to wear off and the inventory correction is completed.

No. 3: The recovery could only be temporary

In an interview with Fox News back in November, Obama himself raised the possibility that the economy could once again head into a tailspin:

I think it is important though to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.

This is the classic Wall-Street influenced worst-case scenario — with government spending as the villain and interest rate increases as the ultimate horror, leading to doom.

But Obama may be worrying about the wrong side of the Wall Street/Main Street axis. The more likely reason the economy could tank again is because of insufficient demand.

For the past decade or so, the growth of the U.S. economy was primarily fueled by the credit and housing bubbles — which now turn out to have been illusory. So what will spur growth this time? Especially with so many Americans out of work? Where’s the demand going to come from?

Citing, among other things, the likelihood that the U.S. savings rate could go markedly higher in the coming years, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz warns that “we are not seeing a recovery of sustained consumption,”and says there is a “significant chance” of a double-dip recesssion for that reason.

One plausible growth model involves extensive government investment in infrastructure, public works and public goods; expansion of social programs; and a return to pre-Reagan era-style growth based on rising middle-class incomes, where wages grow with productivity.

Obama, however, captured as he is by the Wall Streeters and deficit hawks on his economics team, doesn’t seem inclined in that direction — nor, of course, does our utterly dysfunctional Congress. Obama and his advisers don’t seem to feel the need for a new approach to growth, or to explain where they think it will come from. Their posture is simply to hang tough until it returns.

But the current economic situation is more fragile that some would have it. One particular danger is that because of bogus accounting rules, banks aren’t properly recognizing their losses — and are in fact largely insolvent.

Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently speculated about what lies ahead for the economy. He wrote he see only a 10 percent chance of a double dip recession (vs. a 30 percent chance of a strong or solid recovery; a 40 percent chance of a jobless recovery; and a 20 percent chance of a stalled recovery). But his description of that particular scenario was particularly vivid:
The commercial real estate market craters, carrying with it hundreds of regional banks and exposing how much junk is still on the books of major Wall Street banks. This triggers a long-awaited “correction” in the Dow and pushes the nation into another recession. Job losses rise.

No. 4: Then what? This time, we don’t have the tools to get out of a recession

The recognized way of dealing with a recession is to lower interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. But the Federal Reserve can’t lower the rate to below zero, so that’s out.

The government can pour vast amounts of money into the economy, either through a stimulus or a massive bailout — or, as the case may be, both.

But next time around, that money might not be there. Not only could the political will be lacking, but there is an upper limit to just how much money the country can borrow and spend at one time without it doing more harm than good.

No. 5: The ‘very serious’ people in Washington are still obsessed about the deficit

In Washington salons and newsrooms, you are not considered a serious person unless you are very, very worried about the deficit. The principle that reducing the deficit is of the greatest urgency (and must come at the cost of entitlements) is for some reason firmly lodged in the halls of power in Washington. An example of just how uncontroversial deficit hawkery is among Washington’s elite was provided by The Washington Post earlier this month when it apparently didn’t think twice about turning over its news columns to an organization funded by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire investment banker on a crusade to reduce the deficit by looting Social Security.

But deficit hawkery right now is not just ludicrous, it’s dangerous. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted recently, “the calls we’re already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government and the Federal Reserve took to prop up the economy, will grow even louder.” He adds:
But if those calls are heeded, we’ll be repeating the great mistake of 1937, when the Fed and the Roosevelt administration decided that the Great Depression was over, that it was time for the economy to throw away its crutches. Spending was cut back, monetary policy was tightened — and the economy promptly plunged back into the depths.

No. 6: Whatever is making the stock market go up could go away

The giddiness over the recovering stock market makes it easy to overlook some key questions about its rise. But what exactly has sent the Dow up almost 70 percent since March? Could it be another bubble? And could it burst?

Was it a function of the extraordinary liquidity pumped into the system, first through the bailouts and now through nearly zero-interest loans to the banks? Was it foreign investors attracted by weak dollar and low interest rates? Where’s all the money coming from?

No one seems to know. (Does anyone really care?) But whatever it was could presumably come to an end, devestating the market and the economy.

No. 7: The hugely irresponsible financial sector remains unchastened

Back in March, Obama described modern Wall Street as a “house of cards” and a “Ponzi scheme” in which “a relatively few do spectacularly well while the middle class loses ground.”

In his major speech on the economy in April, the president proclaimed that “we cannot go back to the bubble-and-bust economy that led us to this point.” He continued:

It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, over-leveraged banks and overvalued assets. It’s not sustainable to have an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent has skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their incomes decline by nearly $2,000. That’s just not a sustainable model for long-term prosperity.

He was right.

He even used powerful biblical imagery from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount to liken the boom-and-bust economy he inherited to a house built on sand and the future U.S. economy he is working toward to one built on a rock, that could weather a storm.

But the big banks, with their enormous political clout, appear to be managing to duck the re-regulation that seemed inevitable a year ago — and they are now in fact more powerful than ever. The ultimate litmus test is that the banks that are “too big to fail,” rather than being broken up, are now making huge profits — and paying astronomical bonuses — based on the implicit guarantee that the government will pay their debts if they ever face bankruptcy. Indeed, that government backstop gives them every reason to place riskier bets than ever. Even Obama’s latest, much more assertive and populist proposal to limit bank activities does not break up those banks — and faces an uncertain future in our nearly paralyzed legislative branch.

Economist Simon Johnson (the subject of one of Hanrahan’s articles) recently said on CNBC:

The conventional wisdom is you can’t have back-to-back major financial crises. I think we’re going to push that, we’re going to have a look and see whether that’s true. And the next 12 months could really be exciting. People could be very positive, but we are setting ourselves up for an enormous catastrophe.

Indeed. By Obama’s biblical analogy, our economy is still very much built on sand –and the next big storm might not be very far away at all.

Dan Froomkin is Washington Bureau Chief of the Huffington Post, and also Deputy Editor of NiemanWatchdog.org, where this post first appeared.

Related blogs: Arianna Huffington: State of the Union: Is Obama Ready to Make the Middle Class His Priority?, Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup

By SEANNA ADCOX, Associated Press Write

COLUMBIA, S.C. – When things looked their darkest for Gov. Mark Sanford — when he was in danger of being impeached for running off to Argentina to see his mistress — his best insurance policy may well have been South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer.

Lawmakers knew if they removed Sanford, they would end up with Bauer, a fiercely ambitious Republican with a reputation for reckless and immature behavior.

Now Bauer has folks shaking their heads again, after he likened government assistance to the poor to feeding stray animals.

At a town hall meeting Thursday, Bauer, who is running for governor in his own right now that Sanford is term-limited, said: “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.”

Democrats and others railed at him.

“I am disgusted by these comments. They show an unbelievable lack of compassion toward the unemployed workers in our state who are hurting during these hard times,” said state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Democrat who is also running for governor. “His comments were immoral and out of line.”

South Carolina schools Superintendent Jim Rex, another Democratic candidate for governor, called Bauer’s comments “reprehensible” and said he should apologize.

Bauer said Monday that he regrets his choice of words but that government should expect welfare recipients to try to better themselves. He wants to require them to take drug tests and attend parent-teacher conferences if they have children in school.

A child of divorce who benefited from free lunches himself, Bauer insisted he wasn’t bad-mouthing people laid off from work in the recession or advocating taking food from children, but rather emphasizing the need to break the cycle of dependency.

“Do I wish I’d used a different metaphor? Of course I do,” the 40-year-old said. “I didn’t intend to offend anyone.”

Bauer has long been a love-him-or-hate-him figure in South Carolina politics. A nonstop campaigner and self-described workaholic, he was the youngest elected lieutenant governor in the country when he first won the No. 2 spot in 2002 at age 33.

Before his 2006 re-election, he shattered his heel when the single-engine plane he was piloting ran into power lines, crashed and caught fire. Bauer’s office said the maintenance company that overhauled the engine botched the job. Court records show that a federal administrative law judge in June fined the company for returning the plane with incorrect bolts.

During the campaign, it was also disclosed that Bauer had been stopped for speeding twice, but not ticketed, even though in one instance he was going 101 mph in a 70 mph zone. He said he didn’t realize how fast he was going and never asked for preferential treatment.

Bauer twice ran on a separate ticket from Sanford and the two have never been chums. In 2006, Sanford’s now-estranged wife, Jenny, supported Bauer’s primary opponent.

Bauer almost ascended to the top office last summer, after Sanford disappeared from the state for five days to be with his mistress. But the Legislature stopped short of impeachment.

Politicians who had gubernatorial ambitions of their own, or were backing other candidates, knew that replacing Sanford with Bauer would have given the lieutenant governor a year-and-a-half tryout for the job and the benefit of running as an incumbent.

At least three other Republicans and five Democrats have said they are running for governor.

Neal Thigpen, a political scientist at Francis Marion University, said Bauer tends to speak so fast and enthusiastically (”It’s almost like a Gatling gun”) that he sometimes “gets his mouth in place quicker than his head.” Thigpen said the lieutenant governor’s latest remarks could hurt him in the general election in the fall by allowing Democrats to portray him as “insensitive and downright cruel.”

But as for the June Republican primary, “don’t count him out. The kid’s got a fanatical following,” Thigpen said. “They’re going to forgive him almost anything and stick to him like glue.”

Similarly, Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon said Bauer’s words “came out as condescending and insulting,” but his overall message about government dependency and personal responsibility will appeal to his evangelical Republican base.

State GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd, who is not taking sides in the race for the nomination, said the flap should be a lesson to everyone to “choose our words more carefully

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested California could ease its crowded prison system by sending thousands of undocumented inmates to specially built jails in Mexico.

Speaking to reporters at the Sacramento Press Club, Schwarzenegger said California could ease its strained finances by a billion dollars if 20,000 illegal immigrants currently held in the state were housed across the border.

“I think that we can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take, inmates for instance, the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here and get them to Mexico,” Schwarzenegger said.

“Think about it — if California gives Mexico the money. Not ‘Hey, you take care of them, these are your citizens’. No. Not at all.

“We pay them to build the prison down in Mexico. And then we have those undocumented immigrants down there in prison. It would half the costs to build the prison and run the prison. We could save a billion dollars right there that could go into higher education.”

Schwarzenegger’s remarks come as California prepares for the latest in a long line of state budget crises.

Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency earlier this month, warning severe cuts were necessary to stem a 19.9-billion-dollar deficit.

California has some of the most overcrowded prisons in the United States, with an estimated 170,000 inmates housed in facilities designed for 100,000 people, according to 2007 figures.

Schwarzenegger said he believed the financial burden of California’s prisons could be eased if the private sector moved into the industry.

“I think that there is no reason why we should have just state employees and public prisons,” Schwarzenegger said. “Why shouldn’t we have private prisons and private prisons competing with public prisons?

“I don’t want to go and get rid of public prisons, not at all. It’s not an attack on their labor union even though they may take it as such.

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

SAN ANTONIO – Construction crews moved dirt to shore up a group of houses precariously perched on a crumbling hill in San Antonio on Monday as engineers tried to determine why the land below was shifting, causing dozens of homes to evacuate.

Gaping crevices, some 15 feet deep, cut across several yards as dirt cascaded into a towering stone retaining wall that nearly split in half. Fences crumpled like accordions as crews packed dirt under one home and around its exterior after part of its foundation was exposed.

One soil expert said the cause of the landslide appeared to be the result of poor retaining wall design, and a city official said the nearly 1,000-foot-long wall in the upper-middle class neighborhood of sprawling two-story homes was built without a permit.

No one has been injured, but about 80 homes were evacuated on Sunday after a resident in the northwest side subdivision reported that his backyard was sliding down hill. By Monday afternoon, residents in about 55 of those homes were allowed to return after inspections and soil monitoring found them to be safe, said Valerie Dolenga, a spokeswoman for Pulte Homes Inc., the parent company of the neighborhood’s builder, Centex Homes.

One neighbor who was among the first homebuyers in the subdivision set among rolling hills on the outskirts of San Antonio said he was initially told no homes would be built on the crumbling ridge because it was too steep.

Romeo Peart, 32, said one retaining wall failed several years ago before the current one was built and homes were constructed above it.

“They can keep the view now,” Peart said, shaking his head as heavy equipment stuffed dirt beneath an exposed foundation. “And they paid an extra $10,000 for those lots.”

The development, which was started in 2004, has nearly 750 homes with others under construction. The neighborhood, with houses selling for $250,000, is one dozens that have sprung up on hilly former ranch land as San Antonio grew to be the nation’s seventh largest city.

The near-vertical retaining wall likely failed under the weight of the area’s clay soil that readily expands when drenched with heavy precipitation as it was last week, said Sazzad Bin-Shafique, an assistant engineering professor and soil expert at the University of Texas-San Antonio who went out to the site on Monday. Steep, tall retaining walls can hold up if built correctly, he said.

“It’s safe, honestly. We have engineering solutions, but sometimes we do something because we want to reduce costs,” Bin-Shafique said. “Many times, it will be OK, but sometimes, it will not.”

Roderick Sanchez, the city’s planning and development director, said the builder built the retaining wall without a permit. The city was still waiting for verification that the wall was designed by a certified engineer and built to specifications, Sanchez said.

Dolenga said the city approved construction plans for the subdivision including the retaining wall, though she said the company was investigating the permit allegation. She said she didn’t know if the street with the now-jeopardized homes was added later to the subdivision’s plans, though developments are usually built in phases.

“We’ve been building out there a long time. This is an unusual circumstance,” she said.

Engineers spent Monday assessing each of the structures in the evacuated area, while fire officials escorted some families to retrieve belongings from the neighborhood. At least seven homes would likely remain vacant for an extended period, said Fire District Chief Nim Kidd, who is also the head of the city’s emergency management office.

Kenny Crawford, 32, asked fire officials to be allowed to retrieve his car and some belongings on Monday, but because his home is directly below the disintegrating wall, he and his girlfriend were told it was too dangerous.

“They really haven’t given us any info,” Crawford said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. Of course, property values are going to fall.”

Dolenga said geologists and engineers were looking for a cause of the slide and monitoring for any additional movement of the dirt that was sliding at a rate of 4-inches-an-hour on Sunday. She did not know if there was additional movement on Monday.

Utilities were cut off in the area, and construction crews were moving dirt to shore up the homes on the hill and to protect those below the retaining wall.

Resident Lakeika James, 41, said she had noticed odd noises over the three years she has lived in her house.

“I would hear, laying in my bed at night, grumbling and vibrations. A few nails popped out lately,” she said.

She said she hadn’t planned on staying in the house long-term, and now after the landslide, the mother of a 5-year-old girl wants out.

“I’m just going to be uncomfortable and worried for my family,” she said.

SAN ANTONIO – Construction crews moved dirt to shore up a group of houses precariously perched on a crumbling hill in San Antonio on Monday as engineers tried to determine why the land below was shifting, causing dozens of homes to evacuate.

Gaping crevices, some 15 feet deep, cut across several yards as dirt cascaded into a towering stone retaining wall that nearly split in half. Fences crumpled like accordions as crews packed dirt under one home and around its exterior after part of its foundation was exposed.

One soil expert said the cause of the landslide appeared to be the result of poor retaining wall design, and a city official said the nearly 1,000-foot-long wall in the upper-middle class neighborhood of sprawling two-story homes was built without a permit.

No one has been injured, but about 80 homes were evacuated on Sunday after a resident in the northwest side subdivision reported that his backyard was sliding down hill. By Monday afternoon, residents in about 55 of those homes were allowed to return after inspections and soil monitoring found them to be safe, said Valerie Dolenga, a spokeswoman for Pulte Homes Inc., the parent company of the neighborhood’s builder, Centex Homes.

One neighbor who was among the first homebuyers in the subdivision set among rolling hills on the outskirts of San Antonio said he was initially told no homes would be built on the crumbling ridge because it was too steep.

Romeo Peart, 32, said one retaining wall failed several years ago before the current one was built and homes were constructed above it.

“They can keep the view now,” Peart said, shaking his head as heavy equipment stuffed dirt beneath an exposed foundation. “And they paid an extra $10,000 for those lots.”

The development, which was started in 2004, has nearly 750 homes with others under construction. The neighborhood, with houses selling for $250,000, is one dozens that have sprung up on hilly former ranch land as San Antonio grew to be the nation’s seventh largest city.

The near-vertical retaining wall likely failed under the weight of the area’s clay soil that readily expands when drenched with heavy precipitation as it was last week, said Sazzad Bin-Shafique, an assistant engineering professor and soil expert at the University of Texas-San Antonio who went out to the site on Monday. Steep, tall retaining walls can hold up if built correctly, he said.

“It’s safe, honestly. We have engineering solutions, but sometimes we do something because we want to reduce costs,” Bin-Shafique said. “Many times, it will be OK, but sometimes, it will not.”

Roderick Sanchez, the city’s planning and development director, said the builder built the retaining wall without a permit. The city was still waiting for verification that the wall was designed by a certified engineer and built to specifications, Sanchez said.

Dolenga said the city approved construction plans for the subdivision including the retaining wall, though she said the company was investigating the permit allegation. She said she didn’t know if the street with the now-jeopardized homes was added later to the subdivision’s plans, though developments are usually built in phases.

“We’ve been building out there a long time. This is an unusual circumstance,” she said.

Engineers spent Monday assessing each of the structures in the evacuated area, while fire officials escorted some families to retrieve belongings from the neighborhood. At least seven homes would likely remain vacant for an extended period, said Fire District Chief Nim Kidd, who is also the head of the city’s emergency management office.

Kenny Crawford, 32, asked fire officials to be allowed to retrieve his car and some belongings on Monday, but because his home is directly below the disintegrating wall, he and his girlfriend were told it was too dangerous.

“They really haven’t given us any info,” Crawford said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. Of course, property values are going to fall.”

Dolenga said geologists and engineers were looking for a cause of the slide and monitoring for any additional movement of the dirt that was sliding at a rate of 4-inches-an-hour on Sunday. She did not know if there was additional movement on Monday.

Utilities were cut off in the area, and construction crews were moving dirt to shore up the homes on the hill and to protect those below the retaining wall.

Resident Lakeika James, 41, said she had noticed odd noises over the three years she has lived in her house.

“I would hear, laying in my bed at night, grumbling and vibrations. A few nails popped out lately,” she said.

She said she hadn’t planned on staying in the house long-term, and now after the landslide, the mother of a 5-year-old girl wants out.

“I’m just going to be uncomfortable and worried for my family,” she said.