Meantime, Madoff's attorneys are trying to get him out of jail before he is officially sentenced.

Madoff's legal team is apparently contending that their client's financial mess is so complex that they really need to talk to him at the penthouse rather than in jail.

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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision to stick with a controversial Bush administration move that took gray wolves off the endangered species list in most of the northern Rockies reflects the independent streak that has defined his career. But it has alienated key Obama administration allies, including environmentalists and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Salazar's March 6 decision surprised environmental leaders as well as some of the administration's traditional opponents, and it provoked a protest letter from 10 senior House Democrats as well as a literal howl of delight from Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R).

While the White House declined to comment on Salazar's move, it has clearly caused a headache for the administration. Lawmakers have called senior Obama aides to question the decision, environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to probe the decision-making process, and experts inside and outside the administration predict that the issue will end up in court.

Rep. Grayson on ATSDR bogus reports regarding Vieques military testing ground:

One of the biggest political disappointments of the moment to me is that more Democrats aren't making the case against Reagan and the legacy he inflicted on this country. It's a direct path from him to the trouble we're in today and nobody has yet explained that to the American people.

Good for Grayson for boldly going where few Democrats have the guts to go.

And Sara from Orincus, on her own struggle with chronic Lyme disease:

As you can tell by now, this issue is a political and medical snake pit. But the thing that I've found most striking about it is that Lyme patients aren't the only ones caught in it. You can find almost identical battles raging -- with insurers and "official" medical groups lined up on one side, and persecuted heretic doctors and their grateful patients lined up on the other -- among the MS, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome, and Gulf War syndrome communities. In fact, almost every chronic disease that's emerged or spread since the early 80s has ended up re-creating this exact split. You have to wonder: Why? What's going on here?

A few perspicacious science journalists think they've got an answer. The problem, they say, started back in 1980, when Ronald Reagan changed the rules governing how scientists (and the entities they work for) profit from their work.

Sara

Were it not for the quasi-celebrity of the defendant, Pamelyn Ferdin, this would be yet another unsung series of civil liberties violations by local law enforcement authorities, from the police to the courts:

Los Angeles Times | March 14, 2009
Conviction against Lucy of 'Charlie Brown' voided in UCLA animal rights case - "A judge voided the conviction of Pamelyn Ferdin, the voice of the character Lucy in some Charlie Brown specials, for violating an injunction against demonstrations near the homes of UCLA primate researchers, her attorney said. The homes of some UCLA researchers have been targeted in recent years by animal rights activists. UC regents secured a restraining order last year against several individuals and animal rights organizations, including the UCLA Primate Freedom Project. The injunction, which was served against the website "uclaprimate", prohibited distribution of researchers' addresses and phone numbers, said Ferdin's attorney, George Seide. But, Seide said, the order did not include Ferdin or uclaprimatefreedom.org, where Ferdin downloaded a list of such information. On June 14, Ferdin, 49, of Agoura Hills handed out fliers with the personal information without knowing about the injunction, Seide said. She was convicted of contempt of court on Nov. 6. She faced a $1,000 fine, 120 hours of community service and five days in jail. During the court process, Ferdin was not advised about her 5th and 6th Amendment rights, the right to avoid self-incrimination and the right to have an attorney, respectively, said Seide, who began representing Ferdin on Wednesday. On that day, he argued that the court should repeal the conviction, and Judge John L. Segal in Santa Monica agreed. They set a new trial date for April 28."

"Lucy" was convicted of violating an injunction about which she knew nothing, while exercising what she thought was her First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, and after the authorities apparently further failed to properly inform her of her Miranda rights.

CLEARWATER -- A local bait and tackle shop and the American Civil Liberties Union won an initial victory Friday in their federal lawsuit against the city of Clearwater over the shop's fish mural. But there's still a lot of litigation to go.

After hearing arguments from the opposing sides last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Jenkins on Friday recommended an injunction preventing the city of Clearwater from levying any more fines on the Complete Angler for its mural while the case is in litigation.

Bleah.

I'm involved in taking over the care of an elderly aunt, whose husband recently died.  She has been in a nursing home for almost a year, and now that her husband has died, we are in the process of closing down the house and preparing it for sale.

Between navigating the path to getting appointed guardian and conservator, and now running to the bank to get the joint accounts changed and my name added as conservator, and getting the cable boxes returned (had I known that would involve the "Mixing Bowl" at Springfield, I would have gone to the Herndon office), and navigating an area with some of the worst road signage ever - I am bleary-eyed and just plain exhausted.  Was on the road by 7:00 am and got home about an hour ago.  Still buzzing from the road, but starting to wind down.

We've been at this for weeks now - mostly on the weekends, and the more we do, the more it seems we still have left to do.  With my aunt being in a pretty-advanced stage of Alzheimer's, she cannot answer any of the questions we have, so we are feeling our way through much of the landscape.  We are unearthing a trove of family memorabilia - she was the keeper of a lot of material after my grandparents died - and since my father (her brother) and my uncle ( their brother) are deceased, it is all coming into our care.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy says her office has identified 147 cases of convicted and imprisoned people that will require the retesting of evidence as part of the investigation into the now-closed Detroit police crime lab -- unveiling the first of potentially thousands of cases that are at risk of unraveling because of mishandled evidence.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," Worthy told the Free Press on Thursday, noting that in addition to the 147 cases identified by her office, defense attorneys have notified her office of 30 others that they believe relied on mishandled evidence.

Those cases, and thousands of others, are taxing the Michigan State Police's capacity, which could translate into guilty people walking the streets, innocent people stuck behind bars and law-enforcement agencies hamstrung in fighting crime. Added to the caseload is the budgetary constraints under which the Prosecutor's Office and State Police must function.

SNIP

The case that broke the scandal and overwhelmed the labs involved Jarrhod Williams, 21, who withdrew two no-contest pleas last year stemming from a May 2007 double slaying in Detroit after faulty firearms evidence surfaced.

Williams initially confessed and went to trial a year ago in the shooting deaths of Detroiters DeAngelo Savage, 33, and Tommy Haney, 38, when prosecutors offered to let him plead no contest to second-degree murder and serve 12 years in prison. But he insisted that his confession was coerced and that he was not responsible for the killings.

A Detroit police report indicated all 42 spent shell casings at the scene came from the same gun. But Williams' attorney Marvin Barnett was skeptical of the evidence and hired former State Police firearms examiner David Balash to look things over. Balash discovered that the casings came from at least two weapons. State Police conducted its own tests and confirmed Balash's results.

As a result, a new trial was granted in October. Worthy and former Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings ordered an audit of Detroit's crime lab. The audit found, among other findings, an error rate of 10% in 200 firearms cases it reviewed.