While liberals gnash their teeth, Rush Limbaugh will be cashing in $38 million annually for the next eight years.

Premiere wouldn't disclose details of the deal but Limbaugh gave the information to The New York Times for an article to be published Sunday.

Limbaugh's three-hour show, broadcast from his office in Florida, is heard on some 600 radio stations across the country. More than 14 million people listen to him at least once a week, according to Talkers magazine. Sean Hannity is second with more than 13 million listeners.

"This is exactly where I want to be, doing what I was born to do, with an amazing audience and phenomenal support from affiliate stations and sponsors," Limbaugh said in a statement. "I'm having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have."

The Catholic priest who was a serial pedophile sex abuser was described as having "boy trouble" by a church official and shuffled off to at least nine parishes during his 44-year-career.

Berny Morson reports:

Church correspondence and reports from the early 1960s through early 1980s made public Wednesday show that many in the Denver Archdiocese knew Harold Robert White was a pedophile.

"...the parish would be better off without Father White," wrote a cleric in Sterling, where White was transferred from Colorado Springs after abusing a child at a Catholic school.

A Minnesota lawyer who represents some of the abuse victims released more than 150 pages of archdiocesan documents Wednesday. The lawyer, Jeff Anderson, obtained the material under the settlement with the church.

The incidents detailed in the documents occurred between 1961 and 1981. Letters between clerics and complaints from parents cite advances on boys and fondling -- the "unforgivable sin of the Bible," as the Springs letter put it.

Mayor John Hickenlooper is warbling harsher tones about the Star Spangled snafu that preceded his State of the City address.

Daniel J. Chacon reports:

"The city asked Rene Marie to sing the national anthem at (Tuesday's) State of the City event. She agreed to do so. We expected her to sing the national anthem, and she deceived us," the mayor told reporters at a press conference in front of the City and County Building.

"Her actions show a certain lack of understanding for how strongly our community feels about patriotic symbols and traditions, and certainly overshadowed a day of great importance to our city," Hickenlooper said.

Marie's anthem choice immediately triggered public outrage.

Christopher Hitchens, an author and critic who supports the Iraq war, volunteered to be waterboarded to determine first-hand if it was torture.

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, "waterboarding" was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

Here's a video of Hitchens' experience.

I don't drink coffee - not Starbucks, not anything else - so I'm not reeling from depression like some of my caffeinated cohorts who can't imagine starting the day without a trip down to the Starbucks in our building.

The Conquistador of Coffee has announced it will close 600 of its company-operated stores in the next year. Given Starbucks' explosive expansion, this will mean you may have to walk an additional six blocks to get your fix.

Starbucks shares, which have been falling steadily for nearly two years, jumped 72 cents, or 4.6 percent, in extended trading after the announcement. They had lost 12 cents to close Tuesday at $15.62.

Seattle-based Starbucks did not say which stores will be closed, only that they are spread throughout the country. But it did say 70 percent of those slated for closure had opened after the start of 2006.

In what is likely to cause teeth to be gritted among some of his supporters, Barack Obama wants to expand the Bush administration's faith-based social services outreach - and says it's OK by him if those groups use faith as a criteria in hiring for some jobs.

Obama unveiled his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.

"The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama said.

If a protester shouts and no one in power can hear it, did the protester really shout?

That tree-falls-in-the-forest analogy is why the ACLU is protesting the location of the designated protest zone - more than two football fields away from the Pepsi Center, site of the Democratic National Convention.

Sara Burnett reports:

The ACLU, which represents 13 protest groups, says the site effectively denies protesters their right to free speech because delegates and others attending the DNC won't be able to see or hear them.

According to a map released by the city late last week, the protest zone will be in the southern corner of Lot A, about 700 feet from the Pepsi Center. In some places, the view of the building's main doors is obstructed by trees and sculptures.

So I got this dollar bill in change for a sports drink at 24 Hour Fitness over the weekend and noticed the printing across the top.

"Track This Bill at Wheresgeorge.com."

So I did. Typed in the serial number and up popped a notice that my bill had been spent at an arts and crafts fair in New England last year before migrating across the country to a gym in suburban Denver.

The huffing and puffing over Gen. Wesley Clark's criticism of John McCain has made patriotism today's hot-button campaign topic.

In a scheduled speech in Independence, Mo., Barack Obama offered his thoughts on love of country and said he would never criticize others' patriotism during the race and rejected Clark's remarks about McCain Sunday on Face the Nation.

Questions about Obama's patriotism were raised during the Democratic nomination fight, and Obama recently started wearing a flag pin on his lapel in one attempt to answer them. But a weeklong focus on American values in the run-up to Friday's July 4 holiday represents his most concerted effort so far to do so.

Obama said he chose the topic in part because of his experience during the race, even though he has always considered his love of country a given and his inspiration for running for office.

"I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged - at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for," he said before a crowd of a few hundred people at the Truman Memorial Building here. "I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine."