'from django.conf import settings' isn't importing settings.py

My OSQA project doesn't seem to be retaining the project settings from the root of the project. It was working fine with version r1059, but when I updated to r1130 I started getting getting an error:

AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'MODULE_LIST'
I know that the settings are being read at startup because I put a breakpoint in the settings file and it's triggered at boot.

However, when I try to import the settings into a file thusly:

from django.conf import settings

The settings in the project root don't load.

I'm getting the following error:
AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'MODULE_LIST'

So I tried to step through the code with IPDB debugger:

> /Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum/modules/__init__.py(12)get_modules_script()  
     11     import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace()  
---> 12     for m in settings.MODULE_LIST:  
     13         if hasattr(m, script_name):

ipdb> settings.MODULE_LIST  
*** AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'MODULE_LIST'  
ipdb> import os  
ipdb> os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE']  
'settings'  
ipdb> import settings  
ipdb> settings.MODULE_LIST  
[<module 'forum_modules.akismet' from '/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum_modules/akismet/__init__.pyc'>, <module 'forum_modules.default_badges' from '/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum_modules/default_badges/__init__.pyc'>, <module 'forum_modules.exporter' from ...snipsnip...]

Here is the full traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/servers/basehttp.py", line 283, in run  
    self.result = application(self.environ, self.start_response)

File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/contrib/staticfiles/handlers.py", line 68, in call

    return self.application(environ, start_response)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/handlers/wsgi.py", line 250, in call

    self.load_middleware()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 45, in load_middleware

    mod = import_module(mw_module)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module

import(name)
File "/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum/middleware/extended_user.py", line 3, in <module>

    from forum.models.user import AnonymousUser
File "/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum/models/init.py", line 39, in <module>

    for k, v in get_modules_script_classes('models', models.Model).items():
File "/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum/modules/init.py", line 44, in get_modules_script_classes

    scripts = get_modules_script(script_name)
File "/Users/Bryan/work/osqa/forum/modules/init.py", line 12, in get_modules_script

    for m in settings.MODULE_LIST:
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Django-1.3-py2.7.egg/django/utils/functional.py", line 277, in getattr

    return getattr(self._wrapped, name)
AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'MODULE_LIST'

Why would this Django project not be able to access it's settings?