Front-runners Clinton and McCain losing ground fast/All This Is That's dark horses are mired in the back of the pack

click to enlarge the front runners, climbers,
fallers, & dark horses.

A Newsweek magazine poll released on Saturday shows Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani (more or less tied with John McCain in a January poll) with a 25-point lead over Arizona Senator McCain. Republicans--59 percent--said they backed the former NYC mayor and 34 percent chose McCain. That doesn't leave much for Mitt Romney, who I still feel is a viable dark horse, and who has yet to really emerge from the pack. The magazine notes that ""Most registered Republicans are not familiar with Giuliani's positions on key social issues," mentioning specifically his support for abortion rights and gun control.

Another (Newsweek) poll of registered Democrats shows Sen. Barack Obama chiseling away at fellow Senator Hillary Clinton's lead. In the latest poll, it's 52% Clinton vs. 38% Obama. Again, not much room in there for the dark horse, John Edwards. Or the rest of the vast pack, including Bill Richardson, et al.




Click to enlarge - The real dark horse? Al, if
you do run, bring back the beard. It makes you
look more avuncular, and it's been 91 years
since the last bearded man (Charles Evan
Hughes) ran for President.

Perhaps the real dark horse on the Dem side is the 800 pound gorilla and Oscar winner, Al Gore. He's being coy about a run, but he keeps showing up in all the right places. Is he just laying low, waiting for Obama and Clinton to cut each other to ribbons and/or self-destruct? We may not know for a few months.
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Ann Coulter calls Presidential Candidate Edwards A "Faggot" & Howard Dean Fights Back

Ultra-conservative lawyer and columnist Ann Coulter, the pinup girl for rednecks, called John Edwards a "faggot" yesterday in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference. The audience at CPAC seemed to find her comments hilarious. See a You Tube clip of the speech above. . .





After her "hate-filled and bigoted" speech, Democratic boss Howard Dean issued a press release.

Dean demanded that Republican presidential candidates denounce the conservative columnist after her remarks. “While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on the issues, we should all be able to agree that this kind of vile rhetoric is out of bounds. The American people want a serious, thoughtful debate of the issues,” the press release read.
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Poem and Photograph/Collage: The Grey Convoy Flies Over the UFO Crash Site

. . .click the photograph to enlarge. . .

The Greys fly
Over the crash site
Murmuring
"There but for the Grace
Of God. . ."
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Fantastic new photos of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens mission

All photography credits are NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Space Science Institute. The photos were all shot by the Cassini spacecraft a couple miles from Saturn (well, 800,000 miles, actually).

Click to enlarge - "Magnificent blue and gold Saturn floats obliquely as one of its gravity-bound companions, Dione, hangs in the distance. The darkened rings seem to nearly touch their shadowy reverse images on the planet below. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 9 degrees above the ring plane. The rings glow feebly in the scattered light that filters through them. Dione is 1,126 kilometers (700 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 4, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 75 kilometers (47 miles) per pixel. "

Click to enlarge - this clip from a movie sequence captures Saturn's rings "during a ring plane crossing--which Cassini makes twice per orbit--from the spacecraft's point of view. The movie begins with a view of the sunlit side of the rings. As the spacecraft speeds from south to north, the rings appear to tilt downward and collapse to a thin plane, and then open again to reveal the un-illuminated side of the ring plane, where sunlight filters through only dimly. "

click to enlarge - "Surely one of the most gorgeous sights the solar system has to offer, Saturn sits enveloped by the full splendor of its stately rings. Taking in the rings in their entirety was the focus of this particular imaging sequence. Therefore, the camera exposure times were just right to capture the dark-side of its rings, but longer than that required to properly expose the globe of sunlit Saturn. Consequently, the sunlit half of the planet is overexposed. Between the blinding light of day and the dark of night, there is a strip of twilight on the globe where colorful details in the atmosphere can be seen. Bright clouds dot the bluish-grey northern polar region here. In the south, the planet's night side glows golden in reflected light from the rings' sunlit face. "

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Earthquake!: Shakin' All Over In Berkeley

click map to enlarge—the red square is this 'quake

An hour after I arrived in Berkeley tonight, and settled into my hotel, the building started to rock and roll. The 4.2 earthquake, centered in Lafayette, while not so bad, was felt all around the Bay Area. Berkeley was the site (and epicenter) of another earthquake just last week.

Kron-TV says that "The earthquake shook basketball fans at Haas Pavilion on the University of California's campus in Berkeley. The crowd issued a collective "Oooh," as the building briefly shuddered during a timeout in Cal's game against Arizona, then cheered loudly while officials briefly delayed resuming the game."

We experienced dozens of earthquakes when we lived here, especially our year in married student housing in the Berkeley Hills. The Hayward fault ran--literally--through our backyard, and straight through the U.C. campus. We felt little earthquakes every day while we lived there. Fortunately, we had moved to Seattle by the time of the big quake of '89.

When I was 11, the Seattle April 29, 1965 earthquake (epicenter: Shelton) registered a 6.5 magnitude. I was outside at elementary school and watched the massive waves roll through the streets and saw cars bouncing up and down. I was in San Francisco during the April 24, 1984 Morgan Hill earthquake. I worked on the 10th floor of a 1905 skyscraper on Market Street. In that 6.2 quake, my building rocked for several minutes after the quake. It was 15 years 'til I experienced my next big one--the Seattle Nisqually earthquake on February 28, 2001--a 6.8 magnitude temblor, still vivid in my memory. While it's happening all you can think is "when's it going to stop?" As your intestines turn to jelly, you begin to wonder if this is finally the one we've all dreaded; if this is The Big One.
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Correction: "Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?" Misstated An Obvious fact

When I posted Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household? on Tuesday, I characterized The Tennessee Center for Policy research as "an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization." Right.

Jeff, a/k/a Dogbowl, a friend, and astute political analyst wrote—without even looking it up—that this was clearly a hit piece. He was, of course, right. They may be nonprofit, but they are indeed partisan—something my defective BS detector should have picked up. They are known for stirring up trouble with the left. The timing alone should have rung my bells.

I stand corrected.

Ed Begley and long time friend Bill Clinton - click to enlarge

That being said, I still have some doubts about people buying green offsets to make everything right. Yeah, I get how it works, but I still have to wonder if it wouldn't be better not to use the energy in the first place.

As a former poor kid, I have a knee-jerk reaction to rich people buying their way out of the various pickles they create. Do you remember from your history of the middle ages how people would pay for "sin-eaters" to erase their sins? Or how at various points and places in history, people were able to buy their way out of military service by paying a poor kid's family to send him in their stead? This has that same sort of vibe for me.

Yes, I get how it works, and how buying offsets helps a great deal. On the other hand, I have to totally admire the likes of Ed Begley, Jr.— about as green as you can be without living in a tent—who has to hop on his electricity generating stationary bicycle and ride a few minutes whenever he wants to make a couple pieces of toast!

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Another found photo from 10Eastern.com

click photograph to enlarge

This is another fantastic found photo from 10Eastern (one of my favorite web sites). One of the best things about all the photos gathered there is that they have no context! And this photo--the costumes, Welsh Independence, Ninjas?, sort-of-cheerleaders with orange feather headdresses, and the somewhat laughable, somewhat spooky dude in the gold lame costume? What's not to like?---o0o---

Photo: An EBE (extraterrrestrial biological entity)

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This Michael Toubbeh Story Goes On. . .And On. . .And On

This story was deleted by the All This Is That editors July 12, 2007.
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The Blog Police

Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?

Does Al Gore use twenty times more energy than the average U.S. household? According to The Tennessee Center for Policy Research—an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization—the answer is yes. They issued a press release late Monday (See below).

I don't know if Tennessee Policy is legit or not, if it's really just some redneck front organization, or whether these facts and figures are true or not. I will state that I am pulling for Al Gore as the dark horse in the presidential race. I do believe he was screwed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. I was an Al Gore delegate to the Washington state convention in the 1980s. I don't have an axe to grind with him. Quite the contrary. However, if what the Tennessee Center for Policy Research says is true, it gives one pause. There is no queston that Al Gore's mansion is big.

Is Vice-President Gore asking us to cinch our belts without pulling his own in a notch or two? I don't know. I've never been comfortable with the "don't do as I do, do as I say" school of politics. I do know that this estimate does not even include the many miles Prince Albert spends jetting around the globe on jets, or speeding around town in limos. Can some of you Gore supporters tell me how this really works?
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According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the former Vice-President may not be shooting from ther hip:

"Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

"In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

"The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

"Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

"Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

"Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“ 'As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,' said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. "

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006. [1]

[1] For Further Information, Contact: Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431, itor@tennesseepolicy.org .
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Are you a capitalist?

I am apparently 16% Capitalist, 84% Socialist

You see a lot of injustice in the world, and you'd like to see it fixed. As far as you're concerned, all the wrong people have the power. You're strongly in favor of the redistribution of wealth - and more protection for the average person.

Are You a Socialist or Capitalist?

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