After taking practice tests since sixth grade, An Ohio teenaged boy has received perfect scores on both the SAT (2400) and ACT (36) college entrance exams. Officials say 269 of the 1.5 million students who took their test last year achieved a perfect score. ACT says 177 of the 2.2 million students who took that test during the 2006-2007 school year were perfect. Nobody seems to know if anyone else or how many have aced both.

Early today Russia backed off on its threat to withdrawal from NATO but continues to bluster and fume about U. S. early warned radars and anti-missile missiles being installed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia is dragging its feet on the promised pull out from Georgia.

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ccording to a new Zogby Poll McCain leads Obama by a 46% to 41% margin, and McCain not only enjoys a five-point edge in a two-way race against Obama, but also in a four-way contest including liberal independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, the poll reveals. In the four-way contest, McCain wins 44% support, Obama 39%, Barr 3% and Nader 2%.

This latest Reuters/Zogby poll is a dramatic reversal from the identical survey taken last month - in the July 9-13 Reuters/Zogby survey, Obama led McCain, 47% to 40%. In the four-way race last month, Obama held a 10-point lead over McCain. An LA Times/Bloomberg poll found a dead heat between Obama and McCain. The same poll shows MCain leading 80-48% on having the experience to be President.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll released at 6:00 AM Pacific Time today shows Barack Obama attracting 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 42%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 48% and McCain 46%.

Police in Denver are getting ready for the Democratic Convention in Denver. They’re ordering the stun guns, the barbed wire, the plastic handcuffs . . . and that’s just for Bill Clinton’s room. - Ferguson

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irginia has added nearly a quarter-million registered voters since the 2004 elections, and about half of that growth came from increasingly Democratic and African-American Northern Virginia. Such new voters are a key strategy for Barack Obama to win the important state. Obama who often uses the code phrase “community organizer” to describe himself has a lot of experience  registering voters because that was his “community organizing” job in Chicago and it was he who successfully changed Chicago’s electorate to a black majority. In Chicago Obama was criticized for championing the slogan, “It’s all about the power” to register black voters. It was not an accident those same voters played a key role in electing him to the Illinois Senate.

As if California’s budget problems weren’t bad enough, California taxpayers may now have to dig $388 million deeper into their pockets. The Bee’s Steve Wiegand reported over the weekend that a Las Vegas man has successfully sued the state’s tax collection agency for “invasion of privacy.” The state was going after inventor Gilbert Hyatt for a $7.4 million tax bill that has grown to $49 million with interest and penalties. But Hyatt won a $138.1 million award in a Nevada court last week for “emotional distress,” followed up by $250 million in punitive damages. The case has already cost the state more than $8.8 million in audit and legal fees.

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arack Obama’s 40-page so-called “rebuttal” to Jerome Corsi’s book, The Obama Nation, acknowledges for the first time that the senator once had a personal relationship with identified and the then old Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Frank Marshall Davis, (1905-1987) a key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii. In Obama’s book, “Dreams From My Father,” he repeatedly refers to his friend and adviser as “Frank” and it turns out That is Frank Marshal Davis. A sympathetic article by an Obama and Davis supporter in the Western Journal of Black Studies titled “Frank Marshall Davis: A Forgotten Voice in the Chicago Black Renaissance,” further ties Obama to this radical during his days as a “community organizer.”

The Obama “rebuttal” doesn’t identify the black activist Davis as a hard-core communist. Obama critics are saying Obama’s sympathy with a known communist may explain his reticence during last week’s Russian invasion of Georgia. The questions Obama critics asks are: Did Obama’s position reflect inexperience in foreign affairs, the influence of advisers (at least one of which is tied to Davis and a by a former Soviet agent to other sympathizers, or an ideological tendency to take Russia’s side in global affairs against the U.S. and its allies?

I have not read Corsi’s book, and likely won’t — others I know who have say it is disappointingly thin but if just 10% is true it is a damning indictment of Barack Obama. Obama’s 40-page refutation sounds good until its scabs are picked at.

Louche (loosh) adjective: Of questionable character; dubious; disreputable. From French louche (cross-eyed), from Latin lusca, feminine of luscus (one-eyed).

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama declared that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court because he was not a “strong enough jurist” for the job. Appearing at a forum at pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., on Saturday, Obama and Republican presidential rival John McCain were both asked which Supreme Court Justices they would not have nominated.

McCain said, “with all due respect” the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy.

Obama said: “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he … was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.”

He added that he also wouldn’t have nominated Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, “though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job,” The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial on Monday.

The editorial continued: “So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court.”

Obama, on the other hand, “isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note [with] his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a ‘community organizer’ and law school lecturer,” The Journal observed.

“Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s presidential résumé by any measure,” says a NEWSMAX analysis of the episode.

Some of those who read this have been in a room with Justice Thomas and others have read his book. Wjat can we conclude except Obama is a nincompoop and a dangerous one too.

Clochard (KLOH-shahr) noun: A beggar; vagrant. From French clocher (to limp), from Latin clopus (lame).

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California appeals court judge overturned a lower court ruling sending the issue of whether a doctor can refuse to artificially inseminate a homosexual woman to what promises to be a very high profile San Diego jury trial next year. Homosexual activists are portraying the case and ruling on much wider grounds saying it will forbid doctors from denying treatment on religious or other grounds. There is a thread of truth, and depending upon the jury verdict and subsequent interpretations.

Lawsuit says man got 9-foot tapeworm after eating undercooked salmon at Chicago restaurant

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hen “leaners” included, a Tuesday Rasmussen Report poll has Obama 47% and McCain 45% among likely voters. For the past three weeks, Obama’s support (with leaners) has been between 46% and 48% every day. During that three-week stretch, McCain’s support has been between 45% and 47% every day and the candidates have been within one or two points of each other every day.

There is movement beneath the surface. The number of voters who say McCain is too old for the job has declined while the number who say Obama is too inexperienced has moved up a bit. Voters are now evenly divided as to whether Obama has enough experience for the job. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters now rate the economy as the top issue of Election 2008, down from 40% yesterday and 45% a week ago. This comes as the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows consumer confidence growing to the highest levels of the past five months.

National security concerns are the top priority for 25%, up from 21% a week ago most likely the result of the Russo-Georgian War. Data released yesterday shows that 50% of Americans support a UN peacekeeping force to address the situation between Russia and Georgia, but only 22% want U.S. troops to be part of a multi-national force. In other shifts forty-six percent (46%) of voters now believe Obama is likely to win the White House in November. That’s down from 54% in June but little changed from a month ago. Twenty-eight percent (28%) expect McCain to win and 22% say it’s too close to call. Nine percent (9%) expect an Obama landslide victory while 4% say McCain will win big.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters say they spend more than an hour a day discussing or following the campaign. Thirty-nine percent (39%) spend fifteen minutes or less on the topic, including 20% who say they don’t discuss the campaign at all on a typical day. Twenty-three percent (23%) consider the election exciting while 21% say it’s boring.

Data released last week from North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri confirmed the national trend and showed just how close this race is on the eve of the two nominating conventions.

When leaners are included the Electoral College totals are: Obama 273, McCain 227. Nevada (5); Ohio (20) and Virginia (13) are toss-ups. There are 163 Electors in the toss-up or leaning states. McCain is viewed favorably by 55% of the nation’s voters, Obama by 54%.

Currently 1.2 billion people live in countries classified as developed by the United Nations, compared with 5.5 billion in less developed regions, PRB said in its annual Population Data Sheet, released Monday. By 2050 there will be 9.3 billion people on Earth 84% will be in less developed countries. Some time this year more people will live in cities than in rural areas.

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ichael Moore apparently believes everyone is entitled to his opinion, and simply won’t shut up especially during a political campaign season. In an attempt to insert himself into the current presidential contest, Moore has released a book called “Mike’s Election Guide 2008.”

In an excerpt on his Web site, the “Sicko” filmmaker posts a formula for a Barack Obama loss. Titled “How The Democrats Can Blow It . . . In Six Easy Steps,” is a “blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history.”

Moore recommends against Obama “saying nice things about McCain,” picking “a running mate who is a conservative white guy or a general or a Republican” and “writing speeches for Obama that make him sound like a hawk”) is something that signals a new level of self-absorption even for Moore. Step number six of how to lose reads, “Denounce me!”

According to Moore, if Obama distances himself from him, it would be a fatal error, politically and strategically.

Moore writes that “Obama, at some point, might be asked this question: ‘Michael Moore has endorsed you. But he recently said (fill in the blank with some outrageously offensive line taken out of context). Will you still accept his endorsement, or do you denounce him?’”

Moore whose ego has expanded with his Shamu-sized waistline offers “So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it’s not really me you’re distancing yourself from - it’s the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do.”

The only problem for Moore is that the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way he does live on Planet X and usually vote the tin foil hat party.

The best news is two new films will soon be released involving Michael Moore including: “An American Carol” by Naked Gun, Police Squad producer David Zucker on October 3^rd, and “Shooting Michael Moore” by another house debunking his contentions about socialized health care.

When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans. 57 percent say God’s intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. But,  nearly three-quarters appear to hedge their bet saying patients have a right to demand such treatment.

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ccording to the Washington Post Obama told about 350 people who paid $28,500 each for a VIP dinner in San Francisco on Sunday night he is about to attack McCain on character issues. The ostensive reason is to reassure some of the faithful who are becoming increasingly restive because Obama has not been able to close the deal and in recent weeks have seen the polls and his favorability ratings slip including shifts against him for lack of experience.

Some of that slippage is driven by Obama’s perceived weak response on the Russo-Georgian War, dithering during the Saddleback Forum, persistent questions about his past self-described mentoring relationships including by a former Hawaiian Communist Party USA black activist president, and about exactly what his community organizing efforts involved in Chicago have buoyed Republicans and depressed Democrats.

Obama’s camp issued a 40-page rebuttal of Corsi’s  THE OBAMA NATION, the former swift-boater’s best selling book now #1 on the New York Times best sellers list but the rebuttal itself raised new questions and focused even more attention on the book..

Strategists caution that an Obama attack on John McCain’s character has big risks of a backlash particularly in Midwestern key swing states. At least one veteran’s group has recently put $4 million into its 527 and is said to be ready to raise harsh questions about Obama or more specifically his absence of military service and attitude toward that.

Claims by the Obama camp that McCain did not maintain himself “under the cone of silence” have been debunked by members of the Secret Service and Saddleback staff both saying that would have been impossible - McCain was not even in the same building and every electronic device and TV had been disabled where he was.

A 17-year old got more than he bargained for when he broke into an 85-year-old Pennsylvania woman’s she pulled her revolver and calmly ordered to call police while she kept him in her sights until the police showed up.

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bama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter worries former Clintonista Dick Morris. Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia’s invasion of Georgia.

First, he says, the Clintons bluffed Obama into amazing concessions. Hillary will speak on Tuesday night in prime time. Chelsea will introduce her. She will get to play a film extolling her virtues produced by Harry Bloodworth Thomason. Bill will speak on Wednesday night. Hillary’s name will be placed into nomination. She will get to have nominating and seconding speeches on her behalf. And, on Thursday night, the last night of the convention, the roll call will show how narrowly Obama prevailed. It will really be the Clinton’s convention.

How can Obama measure up to a resurgent Putin who has just achieved a military victory? When the Georgia invasion first began, Obama appealed for “restraint” on both sides. He treated the aggressive lion and the victimized lamb even-handedly. His performance was reminiscent of the worst of appeasement at Munich, where another dictator got away with seizing another breakaway province of another small neighboring country, leading to World War II.

Finally Obama corrected himself, spoke of Russian aggression and condemned it. The fact is we know so little about Obama. His experience is so thin that it’s hard to tell what kind of a president he’d be but electing him is a BIG risk.

Obama’s strength is in doubt. His palsied response to the Clintons’ attempt to make Denver a Clinton convention is an exhibit. He was easily flim-flamed/ But, In international affairs among dangerous adversaries flim-flam can equal millions and tens of millions dead including millions of Americans.

Obama an over-intellectualizing Hamlet who is incapable of decisive, strong action. With Iran on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and Russia resurgent, there isn’t much room for on-the-job learning.

A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing _ even in death. A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake. Angel stood in the corner for the entire wake.

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early half of U.S. voters (49%) think it is at least somewhat likely that Hillary Clinton will overshadow the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama at the party’s national political convention next week. Twenty-three percent (23%) say it is Very Likely. Even 44% of Democrats think it is at least somewhat likely to happen, including 18% who say it is Very Likely.

Nearly as many voters (47%) do not expect Mrs. Clinton to overshadow her party’s likely nominee, although only 8% say it is Not At All Likely. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democrats say it isn’t likely to happen, but only 10% say it won’t happen period.

Mark J. Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser during much of her unsuccessful presidential bid said Tuesday, “This year, the party that wins the battle of the conventions will likely win the election.” 56% of Democrats say they are more likely to watch the conventions this year, versus 19% who say they are less likely to watch. With Obama expected to be the first African-American presidential candidate of a major national political party, 77% of black voters say they are more likely to watch the conventions this year. A black-centric television network said it will cover the Democrat Convention but ignore the Republican convention broadcast.

By contrast, more Republicans (40%) say they are less likely to watch the conventions than those who say they are more likely to do so (31%). Unaffiliated voters are more interested in conventions, too. Forty percent (40%) say they are more likely to watch this year, as opposed to 29% who describe themselves as less likely.

Fifty-two percent of voters describe political conventions in general as boring versus 32% who say they are exciting. More Democrats rate conventions as exciting (44%) than those who characterize them as boring (35%). For 64% of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliated voters, however, conventions are boring. The enthusiasm gap is likely produced by the simmering controversy between Clinton and Obama, and the possibility of a class in Denver but the absence of the same contriversy at the Republican Convention in Minnesota.

Forty-nine percent of voters say conventions are a waste of time and money, while 30% think they are really necessary. Democrats are closely divided, with 36% saying conventions are a waste and 39% saying they are necessary. Once again, Republicans (59%) and unaffiliateds (54%) by high margins rate them more as a waste of time.

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f you like inside political baseball check out the internal memoranda circulated by Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff as her campaign unfolded and then imploded at http://www.theatlantic.com/a/green-final-pitch-6-3-08.mhtml.

Atlantic Monthly’s www.theatlantic.com/clinton Josh Green has published his analysis entitled “The Front Runner’s Fall” at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200809/hillary-clinton-campaign. Josh enumerates how Hillary’s campaign was unprepared for a lengthy fight; had an insufficient delegate operation; squandered vast sums of money; and the candidate herself evinced a “paralyzing schizophrenia.” Her staff feuded and bickered, while her husband distracted.

Green describes “paranoid dysfunction breeds the impulse to hoard” and “anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men.” In sum her’s was a back biting bunch better at writing the playbook that executing it. Major decisions, he contends, would be put off for weeks until suddenly she would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.

“In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency,”Green says.

Working with more than 400 candidates, ballot propositions and initiatives I have seen reams of such things, and while it can now do little more than pick the scab off of a festering sore it shows the fatality of egocentricity and narcissism.

Nevertheless Hillary has punched her way into a floor vote at the Democratic Nominating Convention- this could be the the most fun since the 1968 Democrat Convention. Clinton will lose but this ensure her a spot in 2012.

If America stopped using gasoline and diesel fuel it would still consume 5 billion barrels of oil a day to be converted into thousands of industrial and consumer products, including PLASTICS, paints, RUBBER, fertilizers, detergents, dyes, TEXTILES, cosmetics, asphalt, and solvents.

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ix out of 10 Americans (61%) say Congress should return to Washington immediately to vote on lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling and two thirds of those say it is the best way to lower gasoline prices. But voters overwhelmingly expect Congress to adjourn this year without taking action. Even more (67%) recognize that Republicans are the ones pushing for offshore drilling, and 77% say the issue is important to them in terms of how they will vote for Congress this November. Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say it is Very Important. Voters see a clear difference between the political parties on this issue as 61% perceive that congressional Democrats oppose offshore drilling.

Italian police officer Francesco D’Aniello won an Olympic silver medal in double trap shooting Tuesday and appealed to the Italian government for a tax exemption on his reward money.Italian police officer Francesco D’Aniello won an Olympic silver medal in double trap shooting Tuesday and appealed to the Italian government for a tax exemption on his reward money.Italian police officer Francesco D’Aniello won an Olympic silver medal in double trap shooting Tuesday and appealed to the Italian government for a tax exemption on his reward money.An Italian trap shooter won a silver Medal in Beijing. Now Italy’s socialist government wants the winner to pay tax on the value of the medal.

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kraine with close to fifty million people, is, by far, more populous and important than any other former Soviet republic or satellite. Russia, with a population of 142 million and dropping, needs to take over Ukraine to reassert itself as a global power. Asserting such power is he ambition and intention of Russian Prime Minister and shadow President Vlad Putin.

How important is this - well Russian agents poisoned the elected Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko for having the temerity of avowing, atheist forbid, a democracy.

When Viktor had the good judgment of not dying Russia cut off its natural gas supply freezing Ukrainians in their unheated homes. Germany is itself dependent on Russian natural gas supplied by a pipeline that U. S. President blocked starving Russia of cash, that it has not supported Ukraine’s entrance into NATO.

Barack Obama initially treated the Russian invasion as a border conflict asserting his Rodney King-like foreign policy will not help 50 million Ukrainian independence. Ukraine, located right next to NATO members Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, can and should be defended by NATO.

Putin is no fool and senses opportunity and is willing to wait and see if America elects an indecisive president, and if it does he will immediately exploit that to enslave the 50 million Ukrainians to fulfill his dream of his own Lenin-like Kremlin mausoleum.

Fugacious (fyoo-GAY-shuhs) Lasting a very short time. From Latin fugere (to flee) which also gave us other words such as fugitive, centrifugal, refuge, and subterfuge.

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We have crossed the Rubicon,* said the Polish Prime Minister about the agreement reached with he United States to base American missile interceptors in Poland sending Russia into Low Earth Orbit. The US and Poland says the anti-missile missile system will guard Europe from Iranian missile attack. Russia say it is aimed at it and is throwing a conniption fit.

*Crossing the Rubicon” is a popular idiom meaning to go past a point of no return and refers to Julius Caesar crossing the river in 49 BC deliberately as an act of war.

Regardless of the historic reference Poland and the U. S. have decided on a mutual defense alliance.

Plus it was an obvious reference to the force and ferocity with which Russia rolled into Georgia in recent days, taking the key city of Gori and apparently burning and destroying Georgian military outposts and airfields. Poland and other former Soviet satellites and republics in eastern Europe have been unsettled by Russia’s powerful and brutal military attacks on Georgia.

In addition the United States has also reached an agreement with the Czech Republic’s government to place a radar component of the missile defense system in that country. That deal still needs approval from the Czech and Polish parliaments.

Tusk said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be too slow in coming to Poland’s defense if Poland were threatened and that the bloc would take “days, weeks to start that machinery.”

“Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later - it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of - knock on wood - any possible conflict,” Tusk said.

Gasoline, on a constant dollar basis, is cheaper today than it was in 1960 when John Kennedy was President.

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n March French lawmakers said au revoir to the country’s 35-hour workweek allowing employers to increase working hours - and pay - as the country struggles with high unemployment and stagnating living standards. The 35-hour week, a flagship policy of the former Socialist-led government that gave many people more time off but added to concerns about France’s declining global competitiveness. The bizarre policy went into effect on a trial basis in 1998 and was made mandatory two years later supposedly to force employers to hire more people.

Labor Unions were quick to demand the same pay for a 35-hour week that employers had paid for a 40-hour week. That’s the rub in ending the reduced work week because unions are demanding a propottional increase for the added five hours. A parliamentary committee reported that the 35-hour week cost France more than $13 billion a year, casting doubt on a labor ministry study that suggested it had created 350,000 jobs between 1998 and 2002.

A 2003 study of 25 industrialized countries found only Norwegian and Dutch employees worked less time each year than the French, who worked an average 1,431 hours. German workers put in 1,446 hours, British 1,673 hours, Americans 1,792 hours and Koreans 2,390 hours. The policy is slowly changing but the first indication is French productivity is already trending up.

Whoever painted a pigeon violet and turned it loose in a Queens Playground is in trouble with the ASPCA for abuse let alone visual pollution.

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nexplicably Democratic Party Committee chairman Howard “The Scream” Dean called the Republican Party the “white party” during a speech on Friday stunning even Democrat Party loyalist igniting a firestorm of protest from both the left and right. The first woman to be nominated for Vice President Democrat Geraldine Ferraro said on Fox News Friday that her only explanation is that maybe Dean was trying to be funny. Perhaps but his humor is as funny as a rubber crutch and only entertains those who think watching cripples crumble to the pavement would think so.

Most others think Dean exposed himself pulling his pants down on what is become the core issue of the November Presidential election - race. Dean has a habit of periodically playing the buffoon - all one needs do is wait for Howie to insert his size 12s squarely into his mouth, and now his reputation can remain intact.

Seattle taxpayers are relieved to be rid of five high-tech self-cleaning toilets that cost Seattle $5 million - but sold online for just $12,549. After a failed first attempt, when a $89,000 minimum failed to attract a single bid, the city revised its strategy in hopes of sparking a bidding free-for-all. There were only 148 bids cast. A South Sound race track owner bought all of them and will use two at the track and sell the others.

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orace Greeley (February 3, 1811 - November 29, 1872) was editor(1840-1870) of the New York Tribune then America’s most influential newspaper and is improperly credited with the famous phrase “Go west young man.” Actually it was uttered by an Indiana newspaper man John B. L. Soule in 1865 and the actual quote was “Go west young man and grow with the country.” Americans have followed that advice for over one hundred and fifty years, and it has generally been good - until now.

Today white flight is accelerating in California, and most observers expect a decline in the State’s legal population and a loss of Congressional seats from its delegation of 53 after the 2010 census for the first time in California’s history. Of course that will also proportionately reduce its Electoral College impact in 2012.

California is staggering under high home prices, crippling personal and business taxes, while Sacramento is paralyzed by inept political leadership

An immediate consequence is a darkening jobs market. In July Los Angeles County’s jobless rate jumping to eight-point-one percent up a full percentage point from June. Orange County’s relatively mild unemployment rate rose half a-point to five-point-seven-percent. In the Inland Empire, the jobless rate in Riverside County hit a Depression Era-like nine point three topping nine-percent for the first time in eleven years. San Bernardino County was close behind at eight-point-nine-percent and so-on-and-so forth. The state’s construction industry lost the most jobs statewide and tradesmen are leading the outmigration followed closely by all-sorts of high skill workers.

The State’s deficit continues out of control demanding deep cuts in health care and education just as those costs, driven in part by a flood of illegal’s, are climbing relentlessly to the stratosphere. But, rather than face the music elected officials, at all levels are proposing increased taxes, and borrowing.

If as conventional wisdom proposes trends begin on the West coast and spread east this is forbidding.

Jesse Jackson‘s streak of speaking at Democratic conventions since 1984 is likely to end this year, and he ain’t happy. Last month Jackson was caught on an open microphone running his mouth saying he would castrate Obama.

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n a 1980 lawsuit, filed shortly after John and Carol McCain divorced, ohn McCain’s mother Roberta sued Carol to reclaim some personal property, including paintings, a needlepoint screen and a pair of earrings. A settlement was reached in 1981. Although the divorce was completely amicable. After John and Carol McCain’s divorce, there was apparently some confusion about belongings that were Roberta McCain’s but we understand the court papers were unintentionally filed, and the matter never went further in the legal system. It went nowhere, and was of no consequence.”

In the 1990 lawsuit, John and Carol McCain jointly sought $1 million in punitive damages after a property management firm mistakenly threw out some McCain family treasures from a garage the McCains shared with an adjacent townhouse. The lost items included letters McCain wrote to his wife as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

In his autobiography, McCain has taken responsibility for the breakup of his marriage. Carol was friendly with prominent Republicans and civic leaders, including the Reagans and billionaire H. Ross Perot, who at times treated John McCain coolly after the divorce. The divorce and these disputes were thoroughly trashed in the 2000 election when McCain lost the Republican nomination to then Governor George W. Bush.

The story, containing no new information, was filed by Associated Press on Saturday in an apparent effort to take attention from the spreading controversy surrounding former Democrat presidential contender John Edwards as investigations are being demanded about possible fiduciary fornication involving campaign funds allegedly paid to his former mistress.

The record speed for a tennis serve is 155 MPH. The fastest serve in badminton is 206 MPH.

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ashington State’s Health Department has recommended to the Legislatures that 35 ounces of medical marijuana be the legal amount for a “patient” to possess. Assuming .02 ounces is used for one cigarette meaning those patients are smoking 30 “joints” a day. An international study estimates that while Americans comprise 5% of the world’s population - astonishingly Americans use 67% of the illegal drugs used.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records a Florida lap dancer has the biggest breast at 42M weighting in at 20 pound each.

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he ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University survey found that public concern over the global warming issue has diminished over the past year. Only 1 in 4 Americans believes global warming is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world. Fewer than half of the poll’s respondents, 47 percent, think global warming is an important issue to them personally, down from 52 percent in April 2007.

Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, and not her husband Bill, will introduce Hillary at the Democratic National Convention.

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early half of Americans (47%) believe the government should require all radio and television stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary, but they draw the line at imposing that same requirement on the Internet. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say leave radio and TV alone, too. Fifty-seven percent (57%) say the government should not require websites and blog sites that offer political commentary to present opposing viewpoints. But 31% believe the Internet sites should be forced to balance their commentary.

Conservatives have expressed alarm in recent months over congressional Democratic efforts to restore the so-called Fairness Doctrine which would mandate politically balanced commentary on the airwaves. Because conservatives say that would cost them the radio airave and cable outlets like Fox News that almost alone shade their way.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democrats favor it, and only 26% are opposed. Republicans and unaffiliated voters are fairly evenly divided. Democrats have been pushing the Fairness Doctrine in part because of the long-standing complaint by liberals that conservatives dominate talk radio, and partisular so since AIR AMERICA, a liberal radio network, failed amid financial scandal and a failed business plan.

With the Congress expected to stay firmly under Democratic control, the responses of those who plan to vote for the party’s presidential candidate Barack Obama versus his Republican opponent John McCain suggest what direction the Fairness Doctrine debate is likely to take in the coming year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely Obama voters believe the government should make all radio and TV stations offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal commentary, as opposed to 40% of potential McCain voters who feel that way. But 63% of McCain voters and 53% of Obama voters reject similar regulation of web sites and bloggers.

President Reagan ended the Fairness doctrine in 1987 and some say that lead to talk radio flourishing and a swerve to the left by cable CNN, MSNBC, and networks CBS, ABC and NBC.

Italian animal rights campaigners are urging Pope Benedict to stop wearing ermine on his hats and robes, appealing to his reputation as a cat lover. Italian animal rights campaigners are urging Pope Benedict to stop wearing ermine on his hats and robes, appealing to his reputation as a cat lover. Italian animal rights campaigners are urging Pope Benedict to stop wearing ermine on his hats and robes, appealing to his reputation as a cat lover. Italian animal rights campaigners are urging Pope Benedict to stop wearing ermine on his hats and robes, appealing to his reputation as a cat lover.A San Antonio convenience store’s gasoline pump went temporarily nuts and sold gasoline for .38 cents gallon instead of $3.89. Word quickly spread and local motorist flocked in.

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allup election trends suggest that recent non-incumbent presidential candidates have received a boost in the polls after naming their vice presidential running mates, ranging from 3 to 9 points (and averaging 5 points). This “vice presidential bounce” is separate from and precedes the usual convention bounce.

Even though it is unclear whether vice presidential candidates materially aid a presidential candidate’s election fortunes, the vice presidential announcements are among the most talked about and anticipated events of the campaign. When a candidate announces his choice of running mate, he can expect to dominate the news with what is usually very positive coverage. And such a wave of positive coverage can usually fuel a bounce in the polls, as it does around the conventions.

But, that bounce quickly fades although with the obama vs. McCain race among the closest in contemporary time the VP tag may be more important this time for the first time.

For three years, Gallup has been annually surveying citizens of former Soviet Union countries (with the exception of Turkmenistan, where polling is not yet permitted) by conducting face-to-face interviews in each country to gain a true understanding of what their citizens are thinking.

Sunday’s Rasmussen DailyTracking poll did not show a bounce for either candidate after the Saddlenack Forum. Obama leads McCain by a single point, and n either has achieved 50% of the vote.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol’s report on FOX NEWS shortly before 2PM West coast time yesterday that former Bush I Secretary of State Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama and speak on Wednesday 8-27-08 in Denver at the Democrat National Convention is now being denied. But, sources in the McCain campaign say Powell could indeed endorse Obama later.

y substantial margins, voters believe that McCain’s top priority is finding new sources of energy while Obama is more focused on reducing the amount of energy we consume. Sixty-seven percent (67%) believe McCain shares ‘sthis priority while just 29% believe Obama holds that same view.

Most voters—55%–believe that Obama’s top priority is reducing the amount of energy we consume. Only 12% believe this is McCain’s primary focus on the energy issue.

Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters all see McCain’s top priority as finding more energy sources.

As for Obama, Democrats are evenly divided—41% believe he is most interested in finding new sources of energy while 43% say he is most interested in reducing the amount of energy we use. By large margins, Republicans and unaffiliated voters see Obama as primarily seeking to reduce energy consumption. He also leads on environment, education and health care but McCain has gained on every issue in recent days.

McCain leads on the economy, energy, national security, immigration, balanced budget, social security, trade issue, and is taking over the ethics issue now too.

On Iraq Obama’s position is more in line with popular opinion. Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters nationwide now believe that getting the troops home is the top priority. Forty-two percent (42%) say winning the War is more important.

The Edwards’ scandal and his repeated prevarications is reminding voters about Clinton’s perjury and impeachment and shading their opinions against Democrats and Obama on the ethics issue too.

Austral (O-struhl) adjective: Southern. From Latin auster (south). That’s why Australia is so named, but that does not apply to Austria, in central Europe. Austria’s name is a Latinized form of its German name Österreich (eastern empire, referring to the eastern boundary of the Frankish Empire at one time).

he constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage in California is drawing large contributions from both sides. The amendment which will appear on the November ballot, was introduced following the California Supreme Court’s May 15 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. The amendment states: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The homosexual rights group Equity for All and a related organization raised about $2.6 million in the first half of 2008 to fight Proposition 8, according to the San Jose Mercury-News. That’s about $300,000 more than the amount raised by the major backers of the amendment, Protect Marriage and the National Organization for Marriage-California.

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family organization, gave $250,000 to Protect Marriage that supports the ban. Focus on the Family told the Mercury-News that Dobson’s organization believes the outcome of the vote on Proposition 8 will affect the rest of the country as well. California does not require couples to be residents to marry there.

Donations have continued to pour in since the end of June, and much of the money has been coming from outside California. The Mississippi-based American Family Association gave Protect Marriage $500,000 on July 21.

Equality for All recently received $1.05 million from a political action committee of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, and $250,000 from the Gill Action Fund, a gay rights foundation in Denver.

Both sides believe they can raise between $10 million and $15 million by Election Day.

Back in 2000, a proposition declaring that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” passed with 61 percent of the vote.

The Supreme Court ruling struck down that statue, meaning the constitutional amendment is needed to ban same-sex marriage.

Barack Obama opposes the initiative, calling it “divisive and discriminatory,” but he remains opposed to same-sex marriage and supports civil unions and domestic partnerships. His presidential rival John McCain announced his support for the amendment in June.

The debate has even generated controversy over the veracity of the California based Field Poll. During the Proposition 22 debate the Field poll, as it does now claimed support for homosexual marriage was 50% but it passed by over 60%.

A July 15, 2008 Field Poll says 51% will vote “no” and 42% will vote “yes.” The major parts split while non-partisan voters overwhelmingly oppose it 66-27%. A small plane carrying a cancer patient to Boston went into a nosedive and crashed Tuesday in a grocery store parking lot, killing all three people on board, authorities said. It was the third fatal crash in as many months for a network of charities that ferry patients to medical treatment.

ecords indicate that an Edwards PAC, the One American Committee, which was set up to fight poverty, spent $114,000 for the production of several short Web-based videos. The videos were produced in 2006 by Rielle Hunter; the same woman with whom Edwards has belatedly admitted committing adultery.

A key question is, Why would Edwards direct his “anti-poverty” PAC to pay an arguably inflated price to a relatively inexperienced individual?

Additionally, according to Fox News, Fred Baron, a Dallas lawyer and former campaign finance chairman for Edwards, gave money in the $15,000-a-month range to Hunter.

In addition to denying the adulterous sexual affair, the later night visit to Hunter and her bastard daughter at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Edwards is doing his best Sergeant Schultz routine claiming he had no knowledge of Baron’s payments and that he learned about the cash given to Hunter from the press. Hunter now lives in a rented multimillion dollar home in a gated section of Montecito, an exclusive area near Santa Barbara, Calif.

In a bizarre twist Andrew Young (a top Edwards aide who claimed to be the father of Hunter’s child) and his wife are reportedly roommates of Hunter at the Montecito home.

Hunter and business partner Mimi Hockman apparently set up Midline Groove Productions in 2006 to produce the Edwards Web videos. Its website has disappeared but the Edwards videos have resurfaced via an anonymous posting on YouTube.

Hillary Clinton supporters are now claiming it was Edwards who cost her the Democrat nomination, and had he emerged as the party nominee to have this scandal surface he could have eviscerated the Democratic Party. It is a bitter irony that Bill Clinton’s impeachment was for perjury over his sexual tryst with White House fellatrix Monica Lewinsky.

Organized labor is even moiré angry figuring Edwards would be Obama’s Attorney General and with a liberal Congress and White House could open the way for the so-called “card check system” ending secret balloting in union organizing efforts, and also opening the way for their biggest targets – organizing police, firefighters and even the military adding millions of new dues payers and billions to union bank accounts.

Two Nebraska wrestlers, including one who won an NCAA championship in 2007, have been dismissed from the team after posing naked for videos and photographs on an Internet pornography site.

ccountable America is a new pro-Obama, leftist group that has mailed letters to 10,000 major Republican and contributors to conservative causes letters threatening them with potential legal problems if they finance conservative groups.

The group is led by Tom Matzzie, former Washington director of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, and its research director is Judd Legum, who served that role in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Matzzie called the organization’s effort “going for the jugular.” He told The Times, “We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground.”

If a conservative group do run ads attacking Barack Obama, Matzzie says his group plans to run ads countering it exposing the donors behind the anti-Obama message.

The group hopes to quickly raise $2 million and says it is offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to the criminal conviction or fines of at least $10,000 for violations of campaign finance laws or other statutes by a conservative group, according to The New York Times.

The move points out how desperate leftist are and that they fear a “Swift Boat” like attack. In fact the enterprise may encourage just such fund raising to finance campaign attacks on him. This is ill-advised and tawdry.

Fifty-five percent (55%) say media bias biggest problem in politics.

hristian DeJohn, a former Temple graduate student and sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, won a lawsuit against the University so-called ‘speech code’ when the 3^rd District Court of Appeals ruled it unconstitutional. DeJohn said he was refused a graduate degree based on his political views. He said he received anti-war e-mails from Temple faculty while deployed in Bosnia during 2002, when he asked that the emails be stopped that led to political disputes with his graduate advisers and those disputes, he said, led to his being denied his graduate degree and other retaliation and degradation, for instance:

A Temple professor of Military history said, veterans are “mentally imbalanced” because we are “trained to kill,” quite an unusual attitude for a professor of military history.

The University denied wrong doing saying, “His academic performance just wasn’t good enough, It had nothing to do with his First Amendment rights and had everything to do with Temple professors’ academic freedom to grade a student’s poorly written, poorly constructed … thesis.”

The Court agreed defended Temple University upholding the university’s academic freedom to evaluate his performance as a student. Those claims were not part of the Third Circuit appeal. But, it found for DeJohn awarding him one dollar damages on his original complaints.

FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and ADF (Alliance Defense Fund) won the case fo DeJohn challenging the constitutionality of a sexual harassment policy that, in part, penalized “expressive, visual or physical conduct … (that) has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work, educational performance or status, or … has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.” DeJohn claimed that because of the code, he felt unable to freely express his views about the role of women in the military. That ran him afoul of University professors and advisers.

His was a pyrrhic victory leaving him absent a time consuming and costly graduate degree.

Over half of American voters (51%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, the highest figure recorded in nearly four years. Only 16% says terrorists are winning.

ccording to a NEW YORK TIMES analysis Barack Obama has raked in more money in donations of $1,000 or more than has John McCain or Hillary Clinton. Roughly one-third of his record-breaking haul, $112 million, has come from donations of $1,000 or more. In June alone, Obama raised more than $12 million in donations of $1,000 or more. Obama is on a pace to rival the $147 million raised by President Bush’s network of Pioneers and Rangers in donations of $1,000 or more during the 2004 primary season.

Obama fund raising includes more than 500 “bundlers,” fundraisers who have each collected contributions adding up to $50,000 or more. Nearly three dozens bundlers have brought in more than $500,000, and more than a half-dozen have raised over $1 million.

About two-thirds of the bundlers come from four major industries: law, securities and investments, real estate, and entertainment. Lawyers make up the largest group.

Obama has pledged not to accept donations from lobbyists or political action committees registered with the federal government. But many of the bundlers from the lawyers group work for firms that also have lobbying arms. So, that claim is just smoke and mirrors.

Obama’s efforts are “being packaged as an extraordinary new kind of fundraising, and the Internet is a new and powerful part of it,” Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, told the Times. “But it’s also clear that many of the old donors are still there and important.”

Seventy-three percent (73%) of adults say Starbucks Coffee is overpriced.

ifty-one percent of Californians support drilling off its coast bringing to 49 states that do support it. Some want to pursue only alternatives and most say do it all. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates enough wave power can be extracted from coastal waters to account for about 15 percent of California’s electricity production. Wind could provide up to 110 percent, according to a Stanford University study published last year.

Offshore wind and wave technologies are promising, but untried. But, current wave technology is mature enough for demonstration testing..

Even before there are concrete plans to do either obstructionist are swarming all over the idea. Speculating about potential damage to the coast’s prized vistas and fish industry.

Northern California’s biggest utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., would connect such wind and wave produced electricity to the power grid.

The Recreational Fishing Alliance is skeptical. concerned wave power may interfere with fisheries as the buoys bob up and down in the waves. Their biggest complaint right now, however, is that local fishermen and residents have had no say in the planning. Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics, or FISH is battling for a role in the planning.

Both group frittered for months and missed a federal deadline has passed for gaining an official voice in the legal planning for the wave projects, alongside PG&E and federal energy regulators.

This is the hypocrisy of obstructionism, ego and “nimbyism.”

NASA is not properly emphasizing safety in its design of a new spaceship and its return-to-the-moon program faces money, morale and leadership problems, an agency safety panel found Monday. NASA wants to beat China to a moon landing it plans for 2013.

hen Israel’s Shaul Mofaz talks, Washington listens . . . very carefully. “It is a race against time,” he said recently about stopping Iran’s nuclear bomb building, “and time is winning.” For Israel, time runs out before the U.S. elections on Nov. 4. After that Barack Obama may be the next president of the U.S. and Israeli powers fear he may disassociate himself and the U. S. from any Israeli military action against Iran.”

The Iranian born Mofaz, 60, is now deputy prime minister was chief of staff of Israel’s armed forces, and maybe it’s next prime minister. He is a tough bird. Mofaz took part in the legendary rescue mission in Uganda (1976); fought in the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the 1982 Lebanon War rising from paratroop brigade commander to chief of staff.

There is little confidence that Russia or China will allow sanctions strong enough to work to be exacted against Iran. Iran knows it and believes if it stalls a little longer a new, inexperienced and weaker U. S. administration will render the issue moot buying enough time to arm itself with nuclear weapons rendering Israel and the U. S. impotent against it.

Despite angst in the Persian Gulf — Iran with a nuclear weapon, said Mr. Mofaz, will “deepen and strengthen the global terrorist threat.” Therefore, he explained, Israel will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear capability, “because Israel is not prepared to face a second Holocaust.” Holocaust, of course, evokes the memory of Hitler’s “final solution” that killed 6 million Jews, and is now seen in Israel as a mammoth Iranian sword of Damocles.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power, the world ignored the paranoid rants in “Mein Kampf” about the Jewish peril, a preview of coming horrors Hitler published nine years before. Mofaz likens that to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory utterances on the stump, say Jews, and are tantamount to talking about a final solution for the Jewish homeland.

If polls show John McCain with a substantial lead in the fall, a new Israeli government, led by Mr. Mofaz or, following elections, by Mr. Netanyahu, will know it can count on U.S. support. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a close friend of and adviser to Mr. McCain, agrees with the neocon refrain: Only one thing worse than bombing Iran is an Iranian bomb. If Obama leads Israel feels it will have to act sooner than later.

Joe Braun thought he bought a Brett Favre Packers jersey for his wife for Christmas six years ago. Instead he accidentally got a mostly green one with a Jets logo on the sleeve. But the 55-year-old and his 54-year-old wife Jeannette decided to keep it. Turns out they were right after all.

etroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick (D), 38 was jailed Thursday for breaking conditions of his bail, released Friday and the District Attorney says he broke bail again on Saturday. Kwame was elected at the age of 31, he is the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit, as well as one of youngest current mayors of any major U.S. city and has the further distinction of being the only major city mayor currently charged with a felony.

Kilpatrick briefly addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He is currently Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and its representative to the Democratic National Committee. On June 3, 2008 Mayor Kilpatrick endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for President.

Kilpatrick have been plagued with controversies which have included allegations of adultery, conspiracy, and perjury. On March 24, 2008, Kilpatrick was charged with eight felony counts, including perjury, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice. If found guilty of felony perjury, Kilpatrick would be disbarred and could be jailed for up to 15 years per count. The City Council voted support for him rejecting calls for his resignation.

Soon after taking office he was criticized for using city funds to lease a car for use by his family and using his city issued credit card to charge $210,000 worth of spa massages, extravagant dining, and expensive Moët et Chandon champagne. Kilpatrick would later pay back $9000 of the credit card charges.

When serious questions about water department contracts came to light in late 2005 Judge Feikens ended Mayor Kilpatrick’s special administratorship. In January, 2006, the Detroit News reported that,

“… Kilpatrick used his special administrator authority to bypass the water board and City Council on three controversial contracts:

· A $131 million radio system that will be used mostly by Detroit police and fire departments.

· A $21.3 million security upgrade performed by a company tied to the mayor’s friend, Bobby Ferguson.

· A $38,000 no-bid public relations contract awarded to Bob Berg, the spokesman for Kilpatrick’s re-election campaign.

Kilpatrick’s first controversy involved a wild party in the fall of 2002 involving strippers at the official residence of the mayor—the city-owned Manoogian Mansion. It is alleged by former members of the mayor’s Executive Protection Unit that the mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, came home unexpectedly and upon discovering Kwame with the strippers began to attack one of the women.

The April 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine listed Kirkpatrick as one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States,along with San Diego’s and Philadelphia’s Mayors.

Kwame is the son of 20-year U. S. Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich. Who heads the Black Congressional Caucus. She is not implicated in any of her son’s problems.

Sharon Allen, at 7 feet 7 inches tall the world’s tallest woman has died at age 53 of complications from diabetes and respiratory illness.

n a bizarre report the UK based DAILY MAIL says that Oscar-winner playboy George Clooney, 47, is helping Barack Obama coaching him on polishing his image at home and abroad on such things as body language and delivery. But Clooney is also sharing with Obama his strong opinions on Iraq and the Middle East.

George Clooney once famously declared he could never run for public office because he’d ‘slept with too many women, done too many drugs and been to too many parties’. But now the Hollywood heart-throb has entered the political arena at the highest level – by becoming an unofficial adviser on Obama’s 300-member foreign policy committee. The DAILY MAIL reports they speak twice weekly on such matters.

Obama’s camp rushed to deny the report that he regularly exchanges emails with Clooney who is an informal personal and foreign adviser.

Jewish blogs have lit-up pointing out Clooney is pro-Palestinian, and hence anti-Israel.

The story set off a firestorm of comment that Obama would have anything to do with Clooney a Hollywood playboy cum radical ideologue. Even defenders hope this is some sort of sordid joke! The DAILY MAIL says it is all-too-true.

Nugacity (noo-GAS-i-tee, nyoo-) noun: Triviality; futility. From Latin nugax (trifling), from nugari (to trifle).

he majority of Americans (59%) regard Russia’s ongoing invasion of neighboring Georgia as a threat to U.S. national security, but less than a third (31%) believe the United States should take any diplomatic action against Russia. A similar number (33%) say the United States should not take diplomatic action against Russia, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken Monday night. A plurality (36%) remain undecided.

Just over half (51%) also believe that John McCain is the best equipped of the two major presidential candidates to handle a similar crisis in the future, while 36% believe Barack Obama is the better of the two to deal with this kind of situation. The two men are locked in a 48-46% race a statistical dead heat.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans say they have been following news stories on Russia attacking Georgia. Russia launched a massive military offensive against its southern neighbor on Friday after Georgia sent troops into the province of South Ossetia to seize control of it. The two countries have been bickering over ownership of South Ossetia since it broke from Georgia in the early 1990s.

World leaders have been increasingly critical of Russia, particularly once its forces began moving into Georgia proper and since the president of the embattled country agreed to a cease-fire. President Bush late Monday demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia and accept international mediation to end the crisis, although White House officials admitted privately there was little the United States could do to back up the demand.

Shortly after Bush’s comments France’s Sarkosy thought he’d negotiated a truce. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered a halt to military actions in Georgia but the military isn’t taking it orders from Medvedev and continues operation to consolidate gains and move deeper into Georgia.

Georgia is a former Soviet republic which has had increasingly strained relations with Russia over the years since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Georgia has aggressively sought ties to the West, including membership in NATO, and to the United States in particular.

While some have suggested that the Georgia conflict signals a potential return to the tensions of the Cold War, Americans are fairly evenly divided over whether Russia is a growing national security problem. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say Russia is a growing problem, but 36% say it is not.

Women are more concerned than men over the Russia-Georgia situation. Sixty-three percent (63%) of women regard it as at least a somewhat serious threat to U.S. national security versus 54% of men who feel that way. Women also have more confidence in Obama to deal with a similar crisis than men do. Men prefer McCain to Obama in such a situation 56% to 30%, but 40% of women think Obama could handle it best. More women (46%), however, still think McCain is the man for the job.

Forty-percent (40%) of men believe the United States should take diplomatic action against Russia, although 35% disagree. Among women, only 23% think diplomatic action is called for, while 31% do not. For 39% of men and women, Russia is a growing national security problem, but 45% of men do not agree, compared to only 28% of women who feel that way.

Half of Republicans (50%) say Russia is a growing national security problem versus 33% of Democrats and 35% of unaffiliated voters. Twenty percent (20%) of both Republicans and Democrats agree Russia is a Very Serious threat to U.S. national security, a view shared by only 9% of unaffiliateds.

While 35% of Republicans think diplomatic action is necessary, only 29% of both Democrats and moderates agree. Thirty percent (30%) of GOP voters, 33% of Democrats and 35% of unaffiliateds feel no action is needed.

Although 85% of Republicans believe McCain is the better of the two presidential candidates to handle a similar crisis in the future, only 61% of Democrats feel that way about Obama. More than one-out-of-five Democrats (22%) think the Republican presidential candidate would handle it better than the prospective candidate of their own party. Only 8% of GOP voters favor Obama over McCain in such a situation. Among unaffiliated voters, 56% prefer McCain while 28% like Obama better.

McCain and Obama campaigns have spent $50,000,000 to run 100,000 TV spots—so far..

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he number of Americans who believe getting the troops home from Iraq is more important than winning the war there has fallen below 50% for the first time since Rasmussen Reports began polling on the question in May. Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters still feel that way, while 42% place more importance on winning the war in Iraq.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans say that winning the war is more important and 72% of Democrats giving the higher preference to bringing the troops home. In recent weeks, Americans also have shown record confidence that the United States is winning the war on terror.

If Democrat Barack Obama wins, 63% say it is likely that U.S. troops will be home by the end of his first term, versus 38% who think that is likely if Republican John McCain gets elected president.

But 54% believe that the United States is likely to win the war in Iraq if McCain is elected, while only 25% think that is possible if Obama becomes the next president.

Americans also still trust McCain far more on national security issues than Obama. In the latest survey, the Republican leads 52% to 40%, up from the eight-point lead he held the week before.

Paris Hilton issued a ‘tart’ response to the McCain ad featuring her.

uring a “town hall” meeting last week at Baldwin Wallace College near Cleveland, Ohio a man wearing press credentials asked Barack Obama why he had not opened the meeting by leading the assemblage in the Pledge of Allegiance. Obama countered by asking the man to do it himself and he did.

Asked why he had interrupted the event, the man said: “He (Obama) said it was a town-hall meeting” and open to the public. He expressed dismay that Obama hadn’t called for the pledge himself, saying, “You all learned the pledge in the first grade.”

Obama’s staff said they did not know the man who was equipped with a “press badge” and carrying a professional looking telephoto lense and did not know what news organization he represented, if any.

In addition to reopening the “flag” issue raised earlier when Obama muffed his response as to why he was not wearing a flag lapel pin and later started wearing one.

The “reporters” question raises the question of whether or not Obama, who attended a Muslim and for two years a Catholic elementary schools from the time he was six in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is unlikely he learned the Pledge of Allegiance to the United State flag there. His step father was a Muslim and mother an avowed atheist or agnostic. His mother sent Barack back to the United States when he was 11 or 12 although that is unclear.

In 1988 Dukakis was defeated in part because he vetoed a bill requiring students to say the Pledge of Allegiance so the issue shouldn’t be dismissed. This incident is almost certain to resurrect a video clip of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in which Obama did not place his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem at a campaign event in Indianola, Iowa.

Monday in Independence, Mo. Obama went out of his way to make a point he will not permit criticism or even questioning of his patriotism and then inexplicably left the door wide open a day later in Ohio.

There is no evidence that the “reporter” was sent by anyone and Obama’s camp has not alleged that.

By Wednesday the McCain campaign was offering an Obama Tire Pressure gauge to anyone who contributed $25 to the campaign. Obama has said that inflating car tires could save more oil than can be produced from offshore drilling. Keeping tire properly inflated does save fuel and if everyone did so that amount could be saved but it would take from 110 to 180 years but such calculations about a “Drakes equation” equivalent of speculative logic.

hite House reporter Helen Thomas, the “Crazy Lady Who Won’t Stay in the Attic”, celebrated her 89^th birthday on August 4^th. Born in Kentucky in 1920 to Lebanese parents, reared in Detroit a 1942 Wayne State University graduate (then Wayne University) she has been a lifelong journalist. Thomas has covering the White House as UPI White House Bureau Chief for 25-years and Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H. W. Bush , Clinton and G. W. Bush with her signature “Thank you, Mr. President” closing every news conference.

A dedicated Democrat and self-avowed liberal she laments press corp efforts at unbiased, non-partisan coverage. Now in her dotage and long called the “Sitting Buddha” her increasing truculence and intransigence has consigned her to purgatory by the current White House, and to avoidance by many around Washington D. C. In July 18, 2006 she attacked the later White House Press Secretary Tony Snow demanding the U. S. intervene in the then Lebanese War provoking him to respond “Thank you for the Hezbollah view.”

Thomas developed a stomach infection in May 2008, and has not appeared in press conferences or written her weekly column since. She is expected to recover and return to work as the longest serving reporter to report on the White House in American history and will continue to try to gum conservatives to death.

Forty-six percent say affirmative action program discriminate against white men.

ard Connerly, the former University of California regent who is bankrolling the Arizona initiative and similar measures in Nebraska and Colorado to ban affirmative action is a black man who opposes affirmative action calling it counter productive.

The initiatives would amend the state constitutions to ban any hiring practices, university scholarships and other public programs that favor one group over others. Arizona and Nebraska officials are still verifying petition signatures while Colorado has the initiative slated for the November ballot.

Connerly’s group, the American Civil Rights Initiative, already has been successful with similar initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan. And he plans to continue four years from now in other states. Ultimately, Connerly said, “the goal is to try to get either the Supreme Court or the Congress to get the policy changed at the national level.”

Connerly said his ballot initiatives would attack programs like the Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise Program in Tucson. It allows minority and women-owned businesses to bid more for city contracts than other groups and requires prime contractors to make a serious effort to hire them for work.

“Those clearly would be outlawed,” Connerly said of the Tucson program. “Any standards that are applied to groups based on race. Any jobs where there are different standards for admissions.”

Connerly’s opponents in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska criticize him for billing the initiative drive as a civil rights cause. They say thousands of voters were likely duped into signing petitions because the initiatives were described as a ban on discrimination instead of an attack on programs that help women and minorities.

Pro-affirmative action activists from Detroit have filed for an injunction in Arizona to keep the initiative off the November ballot.

Presumed Republican Presidential nominee John McCain focused national attention on Connerly’s efforts in late July, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that he endorsed the Arizona initiative — although he added that he had not read the details of the proposal.

An increasingly impotent and disfavored Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) declared last Wednesday he will sign no more bills until lawmakers pass a state budget, and the Legislature responded with a collective yawn and a few raspberries

hile most Democrats give her high marks for her conduct only 43% of Democrats say Obama should not pick Hillary Clinton to be his vice presidential running mate, although nearly the same number (42%) think she should be on the ticket. When likely Obama voters are asked, 40% favor choosing her, but 46% are opposed. Voters overall say no to a Clinton vice presidential selection 50% to 31%. In June 51% said Obama should pick her.

63% of Democrats – and 62% of all voters — think it is likely that Clinton will run for president in 2012 if Obama loses this November. Voters overall are skeptical – and evenly divided with 40% saying Clinton wants Obama to beat Republican John McCain, but 35% say she doesn’t.

Overall, voters by a 47% to 34% margin say Obama will do better against McCain than Clinton. Democrats agree – 56% saying Obama will do better, 34% that Clinton would. For half of unaffiliated voters (50%), Obama is the stronger candidate against McCain, but 31% of unaffiliated voters prefer Clinton.

Friday, August 8, 2008 Hillary Clinton made her first solo appearance on Obama’s behalf. The controversy over her statement her delegates should be heard at the Democrat Convention is still bubbling.

orty-eight percent told the Pew Research Center poll say they’re hearing too much about the Democratic candidate, according to a poll released Wednesday by the nonpartisan center. Just 26 percent said the same about his Republican rival, John McCain.

According to an ongoing Pew study, Obama has appeared in more news stories this year and more people say they have heard more about him than McCain, the longtime Arizona senator who also ran for president in 2000.

Two-thirds of Republicans and about half of independents said they’ve heard too much about Obama, as did a third of Democrats, a significant number.

Nearly four in 10 said they’ve been hearing too little about McCain _ about four times the number who said so about Obama. About half of Republicans, four in 10 independents and even a quarter of Democrats said they’ve not heard enough about the GOP candidate.

Montgomery Scott, who played Scotty the engineer on Star Trek’s ship Enterprise wanted to have his asses launched into space but the rocket failed and he and 400 others’ asses plunged into the Pacific ocean.

ighty-seven percent (87%) of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain, while those who watch CNN and MSNBC plan to support Barack Obama in November 65% of CNN viewers and 63% of MSNBC.

52% of Americans say they watch local television news for information on the campaign at least several times a week, including 37% who say they watch it every day. Half (50%) say they watch cable news for that information during the week, including 26% who watch daily.

Those who watch local news every day support Obama over McCain 52% to 42%. But for those who say they watch several days a week but not every day, it’s McCain over Obama 50% to 43%.

Those who read a print newspaper during the week are fairly evenly divided. Among those who read the same papers online, Obama has the edge as do those who get their campaign information from online sources in general, again time spent is the key. Those who go online every day are evenly divided, but over half of those who go online one or more times a week plan to vote for McCain.

Talk radio is also McCain territory. More than 60% of those who listen at least several times a week plan to vote for the Republican versus less than a third who say they will vote for Obama. National security also polls as a much stronger concern among those who listen regularly to talk radio than it does to voters overall.

Those who watch the the three major television networks support Obama as follows: 70% of those who watch CBS’ Katie Couric every day plan to vote for Obama, as do 71% of the daily viewers of ABC’s Charles Gibson and 67% of those watching NBC’s Brian Williams. The bad news for Obama is when asked specifically about the networks and their star news anchors, well over half of Americans say they rarely or never watch Couric or Gibson for information on the presidential campaign. Just under half (49%) say they rarely or never watch Williams.

Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters believed that most reporters are trying to help Obama win the presidency. Only 14% thought they are trying to help McCain win.

Why did the 400 pound blue chicken cross the road near Kennewick, Washington? Nobody seems to know but would be thieves did but apparently gave up on stealing it and abandoned the effort.

he fear of violence by radical Muslims is provoking Random House to cancel publication of “The Jewel of Medina,” a debut novel by journalist Sherry Jones, 46, was due to be published on August 12 and suspend an eight-city publicity tour that had been scheduled.

Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry said in a statement the company received “cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” He did not say from whom the “advice” was received.

The decision has sparked controversy on Internet blogs and in academic circles. Some compared the controversy to previous cases where portrayals of Islam were met with violence.

Protests and riots erupted in many Muslim countries in 2006 when cartoons, one showing the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban resembling a bomb, appeared in a Danish newspaper. At least 50 people were killed and Danish embassies attacked.

British author Salman Rushdie’s 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” was met with riots across the Muslim world. Rushdie was forced into hiding for several years after Iran’s then supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, proclaimed a death edict, or fatwa, against him. Rushdie autographed his latest book for me three weeks ago during a visit to Santa Barbara.

The novel traces the life of A’isha from her engagement to Mohammed, when she was six, until the prophet’s death. Jones said that she was shocked to learn in May, that publication would be postponed indefinitely.

“They did have a great love story,” Jones said of Mohammed and A’isha, who is often referred to as Mohammed’s favorite wife. “He died with his head on her breast.”

A Rhode Island man got more than he bargained for when he bought a used 2004 Ford Crown Victoria police car on an online auction from a Connecticut department – plastic bags of cocaine under the seats. Nobody knows how it got there – well somebody does but they ain’t talking.

n the 16 days between the time 4-year-old Jahmaurae Allen was beaten to death and Sacramento Child Protective Services publicly released portions of its records this week, the case file was altered to change the original finding in the case, The Bee has learned.

One early version of the report from the social worker, who began handling an allegation of abuse involving the 4-year-old on June 19, described the allegation as “unfounded,” two sources who read the document told The Bee this week.

Another version obtained by The Bee described the allegation of abuse of the little boy as “inconclusive.”

But the portions released by CPS to The Bee this week under a new public records law do not reflect either of those findings. Instead, those files indicate the allegations of abuse were “substantiated,” a finding listed as being “effective 7/21/08″ - the day Jahmaurae was beaten to death, allegedly by his mother’s live-in boyfriend.

A top county official said today she was unaware of the varying case files until The Bee raised questions, and that an inquiry had begun.

“We’re pulling computer records right now to find out what’s happened,” said Lynn Frank, director of the county’s Health and Human Services department, which oversees CPS.

The existence of differing versions of the case file sparked outrage among children’s advocates who work closely with the agency. Some had been instrumental in getting the new California law passed, which forces county child welfare agencies to open the files of children who die on their watch.

In an interview recorded by the BBC, in Africa, Bill Clinton told people there to practice monogamy, and that we need to control unprotected sexual relations with unlimited numbers of partners. The minute he said that, members of the Secret Service wrestled him to the ground and said, “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Bill Clinton?” - Leno

ormer Senator, Gore VP nominee and onetime Presidential wannabe John Edwards is a first class hypocrite admitting to a sexual affair with a campaign aide but denying he “knocked her up.” Edwards who is as popular around the Democratic Party now as dog poop on a dinner plate admitted to the sexual tryst after weeks of extravagant epithet laced denials.

Edwards confessed to his adulterous relationship with a campaign aide and admitted to visiting her at the Beverly Hilton Hotel a week ago to convince her to remain silent but, he said there was no pay off.

Turns out his campaign has been paying off the unemployed woman to the tune of $15,000 a month enabling her to rent a $3,000,000 homes in an exclusive gated community in Santa Barbara but Edwards “didn’t know about it.” Edwards now says he will take a paternity test.

In a further bizarre explanation on Saturday’s Good Morning America Edwards explained that he became a self-absorbed, narcissistic, nincompoop because of his success as a lawyer and politician. He says the sexual relationship with the aide ended in 2006 so he couldn’t possibly be the child’s father because the baby girl was born February 7, 2008 and the math doesn’t work. Edwards says he told his wife of 31 years in 2006 and she was furious which is about the only believable part of his fairy tale.

New Jersey’s fat cat has a home. A family in southern New Jersey will get the 44-pound “Prince Chunk” next week, according to the Camden County Animal Shelter. The shelter won’t disclose the family’s identity.The 44-pound abandoned cat named “Prince Chunk” made famous on shows like Regis & Kelly has a new home with a New Jersey family who will take custody next week. Authorities won’t say who or where the “kitty” will live.

atholics are overwhelmingly pro-life and anti-abortion and McCain has sprinted out to a 46-40% lead among them because of the abortion issue. So Obama is crafting a monster flip-flop to disguise and obscure his pro-abortion stance, and lure them to him.

It is an extravagant kabuki-like dance including resurrecting the politically excommunicated pro-life Governor Bob Casey in the person of his son to speak at this month’s Democrat Convention Democrats are trying to balance on an abortion knife’s edge.

Robert Patrick Casey, Sr. (January 9, 1932 – May 30, 2000), was Pennsylvania’s 44^th Governor (1987-1995) his son “Junior” a Pennsylvania Senator has been tapped to nail a still unmilled milled sorta-pro-life but still pro-abortion plank into the platform without upsetting the adamant left while tricking Catholics into supporting it.

Casey, Sr. lead the pro-life wing of the Democratic Party, and took the lead in fighting Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a major Supreme Court course case that upheld almost all the prohibitions on abortion that he signed into law. He was reviled, exiled and castigated for it.

In the biggest flip-flop yet Democrats are struggling with the issue to keep heavily Catholic States like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio from throwing the election to McCain.

Half of those under 15-years of age regularly watch extremely violent videos. 80% of black males of that age do.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a” temporary” one-cent increase in the state sales tax for the next three years in exchange for long-term fixes he believes would solve the state’s perennial budget woes, several sources familiar with the negotiations said Monday. That sent beleaguered car dealers howling claiming it would be the last nail in their business coffin.

avid Zucker– famous for directing ‘Airplane!’ and ‘The Naked Gun,’ has turned his sights on anti-Americanism with a new satire ‘An American Carol’ set to release October 3, 2008 is unlike anything that has ever come out of Hollywood. It is a frontal attack on the excesses of the American left from several prominent members of a growing class of Hollywood conservatives.

The film follows the exploits of a slovenly, anti-American filmmaker named Michael Malone, who has joined with a left-wing activist group (Moovealong.org) to ban the Fourth of July. Along the way, Malone is visited by the ghosts of three American heroes–George Washington, George S. Patton, and John F. Kennedy–who try to convince him he’s got it all wrong.

Zucker lampoons the vacuous radical left.  To inane slogans like “War Is Not the Answer” Zucker’s response, in effect is: “It depends on the Question.” Zucker’s mockery includes the “Peace Now, We Don’t Care How!”; “It’s Too Dark Outside, The Sun Is Not the Answer!”, and “Overpopulation–Gay Marriage Is the Answer!”  The film injects the absurd into the mortal danger of radical Islam pledged to a self immolation strategy that would make the suicidal Japanese home island defense tactics look timid.

Zucker is not timid , for instance: he uses Rosie O’Donnell claim that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state,” created Zucker’s character a rotund comedian named Rosie O’Connell makes an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor to promote her documentary, The Truth About Radical Christians. O’Reilly shows a clip, which opens with a pair of priests walking through an airport–as seen from pre-hijacking surveillance video–before boarding the airplane. Once onboard, they storm the cockpit using crucifixes as their weapon of choice.

Next the Zucker film looks at the growing phenomenon of nuns as suicide bombers, seeking 72 virgins in heaven. A dramatization shows two nuns, strapped with explosives, board a bus to the cries of the other passengers. “Oh, no! Not the Christians!” O’Connell’s work ends with a warning about new threats and the particular menace of the “Episcopal suppository bomber.”

The satire features Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, and Dennis Hopper. “If this does well, it’ll change everything,” says Grammer. Zucker says, “I’m scared to death of Obama. If I didn’t do something about it I would feel–My kids would ask: ‘What did you do in the war Daddy?’” “I donated my career to stop this s–.”

Excerpted and edited from an article by Stephen F. Hayes.

orty-six percent say affirmative action programs are no longer necessary. But nearly a third (32%) believe that affirmative action should continue. A majority of Americans (54%) say a candidate’s position on affirmative action programs is important in determining how they will vote.

John McCain’s got a stony response when he rejected affirmative action as presently constituted from a black audience on Friday, but even Barack Obama has problems with the government’s use of a quota system to advance women and minorities. Both men are careful, too, to suggest that something needs to take its place.

Fifty-eight percent (58%), for example, believe society should be allowed to work out its own problems, while only 22% believe it is the role of the government to legislate social outcomes. An identical 58% also oppose government programs that give special treatment to women and minorities, as opposed to 26% who favor them.

But when voters are asked specifically about “affirmative action,” opposition drops somewhat — to 46% — while the level of support stays roughly the same at 28%.

Only 11% of voters rate affirmative action as a success. Twice as many (22%) say it’s been a failure, but over two-thirds of Americans (64%) rate it as “somewhere in between.”

A well-intentioned program dating from the 1960s, affirmative action has now become a political catch phrase, particularly among some white voters, for what is seen as mandated quotas based on special treatment or even reverse bias. For many minority voters, however, opposition to affirmative action is viewed as racism. A dichotomy that is very near the core of what passes today for racism.

Efforts to eliminate affirmative action in government hiring and college enrollment have been going on for several years now on the state level, including successful efforts in California, Washington and Michigan. This November voters in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska will consider proposed amendments to their state constitutions outlawing special preferences for minorities and women. When employers are choosing between prospective workers across racial and gender lines, 42% say most employers pick the best person for a job, while 35% say they do not.

Forty-six percent (46%) of Americans say that affirmative action discriminates against white men, although 31% disagree. A majority of white voters see such discrimination while a strong majority of African-American voters do not.

For women, affirmative action is a slightly more important issue than it is to men, with 59% of female voters saying a candidate’s position is important to them. A plurality of women voters (38%) oppose affirmative action versus nearly as many (32%) who favor it. By contrast, 55% of men are against affirmative action while only 23% support it.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of African-American voters think affirmative action programs should be continued, but only 24% of whites feel that way. Over half of white voters (53%) think the programs are no longer necessary.

Over a third of black voters (36%) say affirmative action has been a success, a view shared by only eight percent (8%) of whites.

Among Democrats, 44% favor affirmative action, but only 17% rate it as a success. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans oppose affirmative action, and just 4% see it as successful. Close to half of unaffiliated voters (47%) are in opposition, and only 7% think it has worked.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of those who plan to vote for Obama say the candidate’s position on affirmative action is important to their vote. Only 45% of likely McCain voters feel that way. About half of Obama voters (49%) believe affirmative action should be continued, while 68% of McCain voters say it’s no longer necessary.

The real question at this point is, where exactly do the candidates themselves stand on the issue? The voters aren’t sure. Seventeen percent (17%) say McCain is in favor of affirmative action, 29% say he opposes it, and 54% don’t know. As for Obama, the first African-American likely to be the presidential candidate of a major political party, 45% say he favors affirmative action, nine percent (9%) think he opposes it, and almost half (46%) aren’t sure where he stands.

It’s been mentioned that Barack Obama may still pick a woman for vice president, but not Hillary Clinton. Well, today a top Hillary Clinton spokeswoman said that it is inconceivable that Obama would pick another woman over Hillary. To which Bill Clinton said, “It’s not that inconceivable .- Leno

ysterious self-described ‘intuitive’ and celebrity confidante Bob McGovern allegedly shuttled Rielle Hunter, and her baby girl allegedly sired by former Senator, Gore VP, Democrat Presidential Hopeless, and Obama VP designee wannabe John Edwards from Santa Barbara to the Beverly Hilton Hotel where McGovern had reportedly booked two rooms. A security guard discovered Edwards scampering from Hunter’s room in the wee hours of the morning.

Edwards hide in a men’s room until a Hotel Security Guard sneaked him off the property.

Edwards denies fathering the bastard child born February 7^th at Cottage Hospital which would mean whoever did the “daddy-deed was fornicating just as Edwards’ wife was announcing her cancer had returned.

Hunter once described McGovern as her “savior, healer of all healers.” Bob McGovern is an intuitive who has worked as a healer since 1988. He works with energy in the area of the emotional fields. He uses philosophy, psychology and the intuitive to find resolutions that move people back into alignment with the universe and into a place of peace, harmony and joy.

Bob uses the intuitive to help people with a variety of life issues, including relationships, career and health. His knowledge of the past and the future helps people find balance in the present. He is able to separate out surrounding negative energy, which allows people to have a clearer perception of their own options and choices. He works to empower people so that they can respond to the challenges of daily life with greater discernment and fuller understanding.

The grocery store tabloid National Inquirer, that has a battalion of reporters scrutinizing Edwards, Hunter, McGovern and former Edwards aide Andrew Young who has claimed he in fact is the child’s father claims a super-wealthy Edwards supporter has been funneling pay off cash to both Hunter and Young.

A Friday article in the Santa Barbara News Press confirmed some parts of the story including the birth of a baby girl to Hunter on February 7.

It is unclear if there is a McGovern - Edwards connection, and Edwards is still not admitting he ever “connected” with Hunter.

By the way California is one of the states the prohibits the release of genetic information without prior permission.

ran is heading towards a major breakthrough in its nuclear weapons capability, Israel’s deputy Israel Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Friday according to an AFP story. Iran is continuing to advance toward a military nuclear capability and is heading towards a major breakthrough,” the Iranian-born Mofaz told a think tank after talks in Washington with US officials.

He charged that Iran was playing for time in talks aimed at halting uranium enrichment with the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain — the permanent UN Security Council members — and Germany, the so-called P5-plus-1. “One thing is clear is Iranians are continuing their policy of buying time and so far they are succeeding,” he said.

Also on Friday Putin’s Pravda, humorously Russian for “truth”, story said “Israel has entered the last phase of its preparations against Iran.” It also said the U. S. was about to pull a “dirty trick” against Russia by installing anti-missile radar in Israel before a new president is inaugurated in 2009. Because the radar system will be jointly operated by the U. S. and Israel without interference and can detect missile launches by Russia then former Soviets have their underwear in a bunch.

Russia and the U. S. have also been butting heads over U. S. proposals to install similar radar systems and an anti-missile missile system in Poland and Eastern Europe extensively to defend against an Iranian threat on Europe. Russia is paranoid about being hemmed in a way unseen since the JFK backed down during the Cuban missile crisis and removed intermediate range nuclear tipped missiles from Turkey.

Pravda’s notorious bent to convoluted propaganda showed through claiming “the Pentagon cannot provide more, than the 200,000 US and coalition forces in the tenuously and unstable region so it could not conduct war against Iran. Russia is still smarting from its humiliation in Afghanistan and peaked by the U. S. military aid to the Mujahedeen that rubbed their collective Slavic noses in it. In any case Pravda claims even a “slight war” – read Israeli attack, and Iran “would not miss a chance to strike oil pipelines and oil structures on neighboring Arab states causing economic upheaval. Pravda said such upset would hurt Europe, India and China most. That Pravda concluded in typical stem winding fashion, “(T)he U. S. would not mind weaker competitors” inferring if Iran refuses to stop it nuclear weapons development and is attacked the U. S. would be boogie-man, provocateur and beneficiary.

Notwithstanding such contortions Israel is resolutely determined to stop Iran’s Mortal nuclear weapon’s threat because of its anti-Semitism and pledge to incinerate Israel. Russia, if it want to contribute to preventing such a conflict, could be much more constructive, and a lot more forthright.

Curmudgeonly commentator Robert Novak had retired due to the severity of the brain tumor with which he has been diagnosed

orty-six percent say affirmative action programs are no longer necessary. But nearly a third (32%) believe that affirmative action should continue. A majority of Americans (54%) say a candidate’s position on affirmative action programs is important in determining how they will vote.

John McCain’s got a stony response when he rejected affirmative action as presently constituted from a black audience on Friday, but even Barack Obama has problems with the government’s use of a quota system to advance women and minorities. Both men are careful, too, to suggest that something needs to take its place.

Fifty-eight percent (58%), for example, believe society should be allowed to work out its own problems, while only 22% believe it is the role of the government to legislate social outcomes. An identical 58% also oppose government programs that give special treatment to women and minorities, as opposed to 26% who favor them.

But when voters are asked specifically about “affirmative action,” opposition drops somewhat — to 46% — while the level of support stays roughly the same at 28%.

Only 11% of voters rate affirmative action as a success. Twice as many (22%) say it’s been a failure, but over two-thirds of Americans (64%) rate it as “somewhere in between.”

A well-intentioned program dating from the 1960s, affirmative action has now become a political catch phrase, particularly among some white voters, for what is seen as mandated quotas based on special treatment or even reverse bias. For many minority voters, however, opposition to affirmative action is viewed as racism. A dichotomy that is very near the core of what passes today for racism.

Efforts to eliminate affirmative action in government hiring and college enrollment have been going on for several years now on the state level, including successful efforts in California, Washington and Michigan. This November voters in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska will consider proposed amendments to their state constitutions outlawing special preferences for minorities and women. When employers are choosing between prospective workers across racial and gender lines, 42% say most employers pick the best person for a job, while 35% say they do not.

Forty-six percent (46%) of Americans say that affirmative action discriminates against white men, although 31% disagree. A majority of white voters see such discrimination while a strong majority of African-American voters do not.

For women, affirmative action is a slightly more important issue than it is to men, with 59% of female voters saying a candidate’s position is important to them. A plurality of women voters (38%) oppose affirmative action versus nearly as many (32%) who favor it. By contrast, 55% of men are against affirmative action while only 23% support it.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of African-American voters think affirmative action programs should be continued, but only 24% of whites feel that way. Over half of white voters (53%) think the programs are no longer necessary.

Over a third of black voters (36%) say affirmative action has been a success, a view shared by only eight percent (8%) of whites.

Among Democrats, 44% favor affirmative action, but only 17% rate it as a success. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans oppose affirmative action, and just 4% see it as successful. Close to half of unaffiliated voters (47%) are in opposition, and only 7% think it has worked.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of those who plan to vote for Obama say the candidate’s position on affirmative action is important to their vote. Only 45% of likely McCain voters feel that way. About half of Obama voters (49%) believe affirmative action should be continued, while 68% of McCain voters say it’s no longer necessary.

The real question at this point is, where exactly do the candidates themselves stand on the issue? The voters aren’t sure. Seventeen percent (17%) say McCain is in favor of affirmative action, 29% say he opposes it, and 54% don’t know. As for Obama, the first African-American likely to be the presidential candidate of a major political party, 45% say he favors affirmative action, nine percent (9%) think he opposes it, and almost half (46%) aren’t sure where he stands.

According to research by the University of Wolverhampton UK The oldest recorded joke dates back to 1900 BC the oldest jokes so far discovered can be viewed at. www.dave-tv.co.uk. rest assured not much has changed

ixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation’s voters say they’ve seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

However, Obama’s comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

As for Obama’s comment, 53% of white voters saw it as racist, as did 44% of African-Americans and 61% of all other voters.

Most African-American voters—58%–saw the McCain ad as racist. Just 18% of white voters and 14% of all other voters shared that view.

Most voters favor the presumptive Democratic nominee’s proposal for a $1,000 energy credit for working families.

But voters are evenly divided on Obama’s call for a windfall profit tax on oil companies, perhaps because many fear it will lead to higher gas prices.

The survey shows that 39% of voters favor a windfall profits tax on oil companies, 36% are opposed, and 25% are not sure. Democrats favor the windfall profits tax by a 52% to 22% margin while Republicans oppose it by a nearly identical margin (55% to 23%). Unaffiliated voters are evenly divided.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters believe a windfall profits tax will lead to higher gas prices while 12% believe it will reduce the price of gas at the pump.

There is more support for providing working families with a $1,000 energy credit—55% favor the idea and 29% are oppose. Democrats overwhelmingly endorse the concept with 67% in favor and just 19% opposed. Republicans are evenly divided. Forty-eight percent (48%) of unaffiliated voters favor the energy credit while 31% are opposed. Lower income voters strongly support the idea while upper income voters are less enthusiastic.

Overall, 26% of voters expect gas prices to go up between now and Election Day. Thirty-one percent (31%) think prices will be down and 36% expect prices at the pump to stay about the same.

Below is a summary on issues most important to voters:

McCain Obama

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows the race for the White House is tied with Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 44% of the vote. However, when “leaners” are included, it’s McCain 47% and Obama 46%.

Associated TV/Zogby International telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters conducted July 31-Aug. 1 finds Republican Sen. John McCain taking a razor-thin 42%-41% lead over Democrat Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the U.S. presidency.

ussian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba, news agencies reported. A week ago the Kremlin was busy quashing a Russian news service report it was about to station bombers on Cuban soil. Now Putin says he might just use Cuban to refuel nuclear capable bombers this would reverse Russia’s post Soviet policy not to establish military bases on foreign soil.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin just returned from a recent three-day visit to Cuba, where he discussed a raft of trade and investment issues and met with Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and now the island’s leader.

Some say Russia is positioning to confront the U. S. if Obama is elected U. S. President, believing they can force him to abandon U. S. anti-missile missiles and defense radar systems in Poland and Eastern Europe – and even Israel.

At the height of the Cold War in 1962, a two-week crisis over Soviet missiles on the island nearly led to full-blown war until JFK agreed to remove IMBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) from Turkey for the USSRs removal of its IMBM from Cuba.

The average Cuban’s standard of living remains at a lower level than before the downturn of the 1990s, which was caused by the loss of Soviet aid and its own domestic inefficiencies. Per capita income remains at $4,500 a year (compared with $13,500 in Costa Rica; $9,200 in Dominican Republic; $7,200 in Equador; $5,200 in El Salvador, and $1,900 in Haiti which is the regions poorest).ranking 88 of 179 nations. Venezuela has been providing oil on preferential terms since 2007, and it currently supplies about 100,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been paying for that oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, including some 20,000 medical professionals.

Cuba still suffers from periodic power blackouts concentrated away from tourist center. Private citizens are prohibited from buying computers or accessing the Internet without special authorization; foreigners may access the Internet in large hotels but are subject to firewalls.

According to the United Nations Cuba is principally a source country for women and children trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and possibly for forced labor; the country is a destination for European, Mideast, and Asian sex tourism, including child sex tourism, which is a problem in many areas of the country. Cuba is also a transit point for the smuggling of migrants from China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and other nations to the United States and Canada.

Even though there is a 1999 death penalty for drug trafficking its territorial waters and air space serve as transshipment zone for US- and European-bound drug- much of it government approved.

linton White House economist Nouriel Roubini has made an ominous prediction that banks could lose $2 trillion. “At this point, $1 trillion isn’t a ceiling, it’s a floor,” says Roubini. “The banks are playing all sorts of accounting gimmicks not to recognize them,” he says.

He says the damage was actually done earlier, when the Alan Greenspan Fed lowered interest rates in 2001 following the dot-com bust, and then kept them too low for too long. Ironically Roubini served in the Clinton White House for Bill Clinton’s two terms while Greenspan also served as Fed Chairman and there is growing evidence the problem’s started during the dot.com debacle and was poorly handled. Analyst say it was like a freight train starting up with each coupling taking up a little slack until there is a neck snapping jolt at the caboose.

Roubini who says, the Fed and other regulators were “reckless” in regulating the financial sector. He says it is now a matter of overregulating now. The assorted bailout “is socialism for Wall Street and the rich.” The American taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill, which Roubini says is going to be “huge.”

national Associated TV/Zogby International telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters conducted July 31-Aug. 1 finds Republican Sen. John McCain taking a razor-thin 42%-41% lead over Democrat Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the U.S. presidency.

This is a notable turn-around from the Reuters/Zogby poll of July 7-9 that showed Obama ahead, 46%-36% in a four-way match-up that included Libertarian candidate Bob Barr of Georgia and liberal independent candidate Ralph Nader. McCain made significant gains at Obama’s expense among some of what had been Obama’s strongest demographic groups. For example:

· McCain gained 20% and Obama lost 16% among voters ages 18-29. Obama still leads that group, 49%-38%.

· Among women, McCain closed 10 points on Obama, who still leads by a 43%-38% margin.

· Obama has lost what was an 11% lead among Independents. He and McCain are now tied.

· Obama had some slippage among Democrats, dropping from 83% to 74%.

· Obama’s support among single voters dropped by 19%, and he now leads McCain, 51%-37%.

· Even with African-Americans and Hispanics, Obama shows smaller margins.

By region, McCain’s greatest gains came in the Central U.S. and in the West, home to several key battleground states. What was a narrow Obama lead in the Central U.S. is now a 45%-36% McCain edge. In the West, Obama’s 15% lead is gone, and McCain is now ahead, 43%-40%.

On Monday Rasmussen polling also reported a turn around in McCain’s favor at Obama’s expense and a slight McCain lead

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows the race for the White House is tied with Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 44% of the vote. However, when “leaners” are included, it’s McCain 47% and Obama 46%. This is the first time McCain has enjoyed even a statistically insignificant advantage of any sort since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3

uring July, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats fell two percentage points to 39.2%. That’s the first time since January that the number of Democrats has fallen below 41%. At the same time there was virtually no change in Republicans at 31.6% The Democrats now have a 7.6 percentage point advantage over the Republicans, down from a 9.5 percentage point advantage in June and 10.1 percentage points in May. Among men, 34% are Democrats, 33% Republican. Forty-four percent (44%) of women are Democrats, and just 30% claim the GOP as their party. Forty-one percent (41%) of government employees are Democrats while 31% are Republicans. Among entrepreneurs, 36% are Republican, 34% Democrat. Those who work for someone else in the private sector lean Democratic by a 38% to 31% margin.

In 2004, the Democrats began the year with a 2.3 percentage point edge over the GOP. That grew to 4.0 points by March before moving in the Republican direction for the rest of the year. By Election Day in 2004, the edge for Democrats was a mere 1.6 percentage points. In 2006, the Democrats began the year with just a 1.6 percentage point advantage. That grew to 6.1 percentage points by November. The differences are most pronounced between whites and non-whites with the later heavily Democrat partisans and especially so in urban areas. During the Obama versus Clinton prtimary election battle the numbers who claimed to be Democrats surged but since June there have been sharp defections with 30% of conservative Democrats saying they will vote for McCain.

The Obama trip had little or no impact on the U.S. presidential race for either candidate. It is like it never happened.

t the same moment oil companies announced the biggest profit in world history – exceeding the gross domestic product of Canada — Californians who have been the lone holdouts to allowing oil drilling off its shore for the first time favor it. According to a new Public Policy Institute of California a statewide survey finds 51-46% demanding it be allowed. That makes it unanimous from coast-to-coast that Americans want more offshore drilling.

But, Congress remains out of touch, and deadlocked in petty partisan bickering. A Democratic proposal to counter oil market speculation fell victim to the drilling dispute, failing 276-151 — nine votes short of the two-thirds needed for approval because the measure had been offered under expedited rules imposed by the Democrats to avoid GOP attempts to attach an offshore drilling provision.

A Senate bill, also aimed at curbing abuses in the oil markets, has been stalled for two weeks as Republicans have insisted it be opened to votes on a variety of other energy issues, principally offshore oil and gas drilling in areas long under development bans because of environmental concerns.

“This is no substitute for a real bill on drilling,” declared House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio, who accused Democrats of using the oil market speculation measure to “divert attention” from their refusal to allow a vote on offshore oil drilling.

The House bill would have given new authorities to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to oversee oil markets, increase the agency’s staff and set new requirements on certain trading. Market critics have argued that excessive speculation has contributed to the soaring oil prices.

At the White House, President Bush for the second time in two days called for lifting the offshore drilling bans, saying the Democratic-run Congress was letting down the American people by refusing to allow votes on the matter which the consensus is that the ban on offshore oil drilling would be lifted.

Instead of acting on oil independence Congress hypocritically voted to go on vacation leaving Americans to twist slowly in the wind and suffering from extortion at the hands of our enemies, exploited by oil companies, and ignored by their “representatives.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Barrack Obama a “Kansas-Kenyan American” on Hannity & Colmnes Thursday evening on FNN.

arack Obama played the race card three time this week from the bottom of the deck saying Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out “he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” The remark is being compared to his earlier characterization of rural and southern Americans as gun grabbing God nuts.

“They’ll say”, said Obama “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name,’ you know, `he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.’”

His staff made the comment even shabbier denying he was referring to race but that Obama “didn’t get here by spending decades in Washington DC.”

Fueled by a Thursday Drudge Report headline and heavy buzz inside the beltway, there is a surge in expectations that Virginia’s Tim Kaine will become Barack Obama’s running mate. Virginia and its 13 electoral votes is considered a toss-up and shifting the usually Republican state to the Democrat column would be important given the closeness of the race.

Obama’s Missouri comment may have been made because of new polling showing thirty percent (30%) of self described conservative Democrats say they’re voting for John McCain. Rasmussen Reports data also shows the Republican hopeful picking up support from 19% of White Democrats and 15% of Democrats over the age of 50.

Fourteen percent of voters are uncommitted. That figure includes 6% who say they’d vote for someone other than Obama or McCain and 8% who are undecided. Undecided voter include 6% who say they’d vote for some other candidate and 8% who are undecided.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking update of national registered voters, with Barack Obama now ahead of John McCain by just one point, 45% to 44%. This is a shift toward McCain of 9% in less than a week.

labama’s Attorney General has seized absentee ballots cast in three counties as part of a continuing investigation into vote buying. Allegedly some people were paid $40-$50 for their ballot or traded it for crack cocaine. Three officials have been arrested and charged with offenses related to the scheme. The AG is a white Republican and the counties are predominately black and charges of racism are flying hot and heavy there. Similar investigations have been launched in a half dozen other states. The only way to check the validity of an absentee ballot is to compare its signature with the signature on the voter’s registration affidavit itself an imprecise and often haphazard process at best.

In the early America men could cast their ballot by mail if their home was vulnerable to attacks by Native Americans. In 1857 Oregon made it possible for men to vote when they were temporarily away from home. During the American Civil War 19 of 25 Union states and 11 of 19 Confederate states OK’d absentee voting. In World War I 23 of the then 48 states approved of the practice largely to accommodate men in the armed forces. By 1924 every state had OKd some form of absentee balloting. Fraud has always been a concern.

In 1997 a Federal Court tossed out 4,740 absentee ballots and awarded the election and installed the offended candidate Miami’s Mayors job. In Tallahatcie, Georgia a Sheriff’s race was overturned when there was evidence of ballot buying. In 2005 a Benton Harbor commissioner’s recall was disqualified after the infamous Rev Edward Pinkney, an African-American community activist was caught with a supply of absentee ballots and accused of buying and intimidating voters.

In 2004 the Washington Governors race was initially decided by 42 votes. A hand recount of mail ballots found 129 errors and the election results reversed.

Regardless of the problems Voting by Mail is increasingly popular in America. If the trend continues it is possible that more people will vote by mail than at precincts. The spreading practice was hopefully to increase voter turnout but studies are mixed and in some cases where VBM is widely used shows voting percentages falling. In 1960 63.1% of those eligible to vote did but in 2004 the last Presidential election 55.3% voted.

Given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain for President, 14% of voters are uncommitted. That figure includes 6% who say they’d vote for some other candidate and 8% who are undecided more than twice those numbers four years ago.

olonel Danny Jazarevic, MD who served as the Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery at Landstuhl, issued the following statement on Barack Obama’s canceled visit to Ramstein and Landstuhl: At first Obama’s camp said such a visit was barred by the Pentagon. That was amended later but remains confusing.

“Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital. I served as director of trauma surgery at that hospital for nearly four years and saw the effect that a visit from a celebrity like Senator Obama could have on morale. During that time, I do not recall a single member of Congress canceling a visit with the troops despite being just a few hours away, but Senator Obama seems to have been more concerned with how the visit would affect him than how it would affect the soldiers recovering from wounds received in the service of their country.”

Dr. Danny Jazarevic served as the Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. In 1984, Dr. Jazarevic joined the United States Army and later the Florida National Guard. He has since served in Honduras, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, and Iraq. From December 2002 through January 2006, Dr. Jazarevic was assigned to the U.S. Army Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where he served as Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery. During this period, he deployed to Iraq numerous times, including with the 101st Airborne Division Forward Surgical Team and as Director of Operations for the 44th U.S. Army Medical Command. He is currently the Chief Trauma Surgeon at a civilian medical center in Florida, and also serves as a full Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Jazarevic has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

Fifty-one percents say they pay more than their fair share of taxes, 31% say they pay a fair amount and 18% are unsure.

n 2002, the Odyssey spacecraft orbiting Mars spied what looked like a reservoir of buried ice. A few weeks ago when the Phoenix spacecraft arrived on Mars, it found what looked like ice in a hard patch underneath its landing site and changes in a trench indicated some ice had turned to gas when exposed to the sun. A soil sample was retrieved with a remote control arm, and melted it.

Until now, evidence of water on Mars’ has been largely circumstantial but now water has been confirmed. Now it will be cooked to determine if the is the presence of carbon-based compound. Those and water are considered essential building blocks for life.

NASA, the space agency on says it would extend the mission for an extra five weeks to see what else can be learned before the craft runs out of power this Winter. The discovery had champaign corks popped at the Jet Propulsion Lab.

The implications are staggering because discoverv of water on Mars, if in sufficient supply can mean Mars could become a human base, and might even be able to be “terra farmed” or converted to a livable place for humans to use. The cost of transporting water to Mars from earth has been cited as perhaps the biggest hurdle to long range human exploration of the plant.

Whether organic compounds are discovered or not water’s discovery will ignite the debate among Darwinian; Intelligent Design and Divine Plans.

Friday night, Daily Kos and San Francisco Drinking Liberally are throwing a fundraiser in San Francisco for Mark Begich. Begich is the guy running in the November election against Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens is the guy who pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of scheming to conceal thousands of dollars in gifts from an oil-services company.

f Iran takes one step back, the arrogant powers in the world would take one step forward,” said Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a sermon Wednesday, July 30. He spoke three days ahead of a deadline given by the six world powers for his government to give “a reasonable” answer to their incentives for suspending uranium enrichment to produce nuclear weapons.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement, broadcast by Iran’s national TV, if it represents Iran’s final position, will have the effect of breaking up the six-power front against Iran’s nuclear program. This may have been his desired effect. Russia and China are expected to take exception to the harsh economic penalties favored by the US and most of Europe and let Iran off the hook. Iran believes it can stall meaningful action against it relying on Russia and China to give it a pass, and ticket into the nuclear club. Iran, Russia and China all believe the U. S., particularly if Barack Obama is elected President, will lack resolve and they can advance their views and influence at its expense and they are arming and positioning to do so.

Simultaneously Israeli transport minister Mofaz, who leads Israel in the regular strategic dialogue with the United States, raised strong concerns over Washington’s direct talks with Iran at a meeting of the forum and encounters with Vice President Dick Cheney and secretary of state Rice on July 31. The hardline Mofaz, one of the leading contenders to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, said “All options against Iran should not only be on the table, but prepared.” Israel has expressed open concern about the consequence of the upcoming U. S. Presidential elections, and is preparing to go it alone.

An ever more unhinged Ralph Nader was in Sacramento last weekend where The Peace and Freedom Party was convening in a phonebooth to pick its standard-bearer for the coming presidential election Saturday at its convention. Friday evening, independent candidate Nader is debating the three other contenders for the nomination: Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney, Socialism and Liberation Party nominee Gloria La Riva and Socialist Party USA nominee Brian Moore. Absent a representative of the Communist Party USA the weekend wrecked the notion of a two party system in America.

n editorial on the Communist Party USA website does not officially endorse Barack Obama but, concludes saying, “One thing is clear. None of the people’s struggles — from peace to universal health care to an economy that puts Main Street before Wall Street — will advance if McCain wins in November.” The editorial dredges up shop worn platitudes from pre-World War II and the 1950-60s including, “A broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obama’s “Hope, change and unity” campaign because they see in it the thrilling opportunity to end 30 years of ultra-right rule and move our nation forward with a broadly progressive agenda.” “Progressive” is a key word for the Communist Party USA that used it to try to disguise itself in 1948 when it ran former FDR Vice President Henry A. Wallace against Harry Truman.

It is legend that when FDR picked an unknown Missouri Congressman as his running mate in 1943 it was at the behest and even threats by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to expose Wallace’s pro-Soviet connections throwing him over for a former haberdasher. Hoover and most in Washington DC did not expect FDR to live long and had Wallace been on the ticket in 1943 he would have become President when FDR died April 12, 1945.

Eight out of 10 Americans (82%) say they would pick the United States if they had the choice of living anywhere in the world, but half that number (41%) do not believe this is a country with liberty and justice for all.

he Santa Barbara News Press reported Friday, August 1 that former Democrat Senator, Gore VP candidate and 2008 Presidential contender John Edwards’s bastard daughter Frances Quinn Hunter was born at local Cottage Hospital at 9AM, February 27, 2008. The local rumor mills has been buzzing for weeks about a Santa Barbara connection to the story the local newspaper investigated after an Inquirer story broke this week naming the hospital and citing details.

An informational birth certificate confirming the birth to one time Edwards campaign worker Rielle Java James Druck, 44, who signed the birth certificate Rielle Hunter. No father is listed. According to the newspaper report Hunter and baby were driven from Santa Barbara to meet with Edwards last week at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel where he was confronted by an Enquirer reporter, and seen running from Hunter’s room at 2:35AM by Hotel security.

Main stream media ignored the story until the UKTimesOnLine broke it last weekend when the defecation hit the impeller.

Rielle and child are said to be ensconced in a luxury home behind high security gates and is somehow being paid $15,000 a month. Edwards has been married for 30-plus years and has four children with wife Elizabeth whose breast cancer returned earlier this year.

Maariv – the Israeli media that published Obama’s Wailing Wall prayer — had collaborated with the Obama campaign in getting the ‘private’ prayer, with its ‘modest’ supplication to the Lord, out to the public, buffing his Christian credentials and showing his “humility,” in what Israeli media exposed as a cynical PR stunt and sacrilege

arack Obama on Saturday backed even further away from facing John McCain’s in a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates, agreeing only to the standard and highly scripted three face-offs in the fall proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates. His staff said he had not entirely ruled out other debates.

Obama is notoriously bad off-the-cuff and fears free wheeling face-to-face one-to-one debates will expose his inexperience putting his carefully scripted campaign at risk. The Obama campaign denied it was dodging the senior senator,

This week Obama has been dancing after being accused by a senior Army physician of deserting wounded troops while in Germany because he couldn’t exploit them politically; Israel Media accused him of sacrilege after it was learned he intentionally used a prayer at the Wailing Wall as a PR stunt, and thrice saying McCain would try to scare voter by pointing out his race. Obama later retreated from his accusation against McCain.

McCain’s camp continues to insist Obama should drop all pretext and face McCain man-to-man on the issues. Some are urging ads attacking Obama for evading the free wheeling classis Lincoln-Douglas format to force Obama into the open. Obama has also rejected McCain’s challenge for a series of town hall meetings.

The commission debates are set for Sept. 26 in Oxford, Miss., three weeks after the Republican National Convention concludes Sept. 4. The other presidential debates are set for Oct. 7 and Oct. 15 and the vice presidential debate for Oct. 2.According to a national Gallup poll released on Saturday the presidential race is tied at 44% each, and Obama is exhibiting great caution that he does not slip behind McCain as a recent Gallup poll showed on the eve of the Democrat Nominating Convention in Denver August 25-28.

Researchers say they have found cosmic Rosetta stone that could detail how the universe began. But, like the original it will require long and difficult translation to define the cosmic hieroglyphs.

guy walks into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand pulling a male buffalo with the other. He says to the waiter: “Coffee.”  The waiter says, “Sure. Coming right up.” He gets the guy a tall mug of coffee. The man drinks the coffee in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter everywhere, and walks out.

The next morning the man returns. He has his shotgun in one hand, pulling another male buffalo with the other. He says to the waiter: “Coffee.” The waiter says, “Whoa, bud. We’re still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was all that about, anyway?” The man smiles and says, “Training for position in United States Congress. Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of day.”

Sunday Chris Mathews said Senator Joe Lieberman had committed the ultimate act of betrayal by supporting John McCain. Lieberman then a Democrat Senator from Connecticut was Al Gore’s VP before being abandoned by the Democrat party and becoming an Independent.