A Dittman Research poll shows Murkowski leading this year’s GOP vice presidential nominee in the hypothetical matchup, 57-33, according to KTUU-TV in Anchorage. That contrasts with a Research 2000 poll from mid-December that showed Palin on top 55-31.

Permalink| Posted @ 2:27 PM | Comments: 0

The Minnesota state canvassing board has officially certified the election results showing that Al Franken is the winner of the Minnesota recount -- by a tally of 1,212,431 votes to 1,212,206 votes. But the contest between Franken and Coleman is far from over, as the Coleman camp has promised to file a challenge of the election in court.

Permalink| Posted @ 5:06 PM | Comments: 8

"There's probably no God. Stop worrying. Enjoy life". So read the signs developed by atheist groups in Barcelona, which will being appearing on some of the city’s public buses in the following weeks. Inspired by a recent atheist campaign in London, the messages have already been widely criticized by the Catholic church.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:10 PM | Comments: 0

The RNC competition is taking place in a contentious environment. A Republican consultant who has worked with the RNC told the Politico: "Some people are pissed off at [Americans for Tax Reform President] Grover [Norquist]. Some people are pissed off at the Conservative Steering Committee. Some people are pissed off at [current RNC chair] Mike Duncan. Some people are pissed off at social conservatives. The social conservatives are pissed at leaders in Congress. Everyone is basically pissed."

Permalink| Posted @ 12:59 PM | Comments: 0

The Madoff scandal echoes a deeper absence inside our financial system, which has been undermined not merely by bad behavior but by the lack of checks and balances to discourage it. “Greed” doesn’t cut it as a satisfying explanation for the current financial crisis. Greed was necessary but insufficient; in any case, we are as likely to eliminate greed from our national character as we are lust and envy. The fixable problem isn’t the greed of the few but the misaligned interests of the many.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:15 PM | Comments: 0

Alaska goes to Russia. Hawaii goes to Japan or China. "The California Republic" -- the West from Utah and Arizona to the Pacific -- goes to China. "The Texas Republic" -- the South from New Mexico to Florida -- goes to Mexico. "Atlantic America" -- the Northeast from Tennessee and South Carolina up to Maine -- joins the European Union. And "The Central North-American Republic" -- the Plains from Ohio to Montana -- goes to Canada.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:11 AM | Comments: 4

Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of President George W. Bush as an "utter failure" that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.

Permalink| Posted @ 9:29 PM | Comments: 0

Bring it on, you great big quivering gelatinous invertebrate jelly of indecision.

Permalink| Posted @ 7:05 PM | Comments: 0

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper on Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

Permalink| Posted @ 3:47 PM | Comments: 0

The failing economy is giving us lots of reasons to be terrified (see below) but also reasons to be hopeful. That rip-roaring economy we're all supposed to be trying to bring back was tearing through the world's rainforests, mountaintops, aquifers, fisheries, soils and other resources, driving thousands of species toward extinction, changing the climate and leaving billions behind in the rush for "economic growth." So, painful as it might be, this downturn represents a chance to build a different sort of economy -- one that offers dignity, livelihoods and a future for our children.

Permalink| Posted @ 10:46 AM | Comments: 0

Well, doesn't this just break my heart:

To some staunch conservatives watching President Bush relinquish the reins of power to President-elect Barack Obama, a few too many ardent liberals are now crashing the gates... Conservatives fear that some of these Obama transition advisers are too far left on the political spectrum and are a sign of radical policies to come.

Permalink| Posted @ 9:47 AM | Comments: 0

Out of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and mostly out of favor on K Street, many emasculated elephants in the GOP herd will begin the Age of Obama with what amounts to an extended holiday vacation. Instead of fighting the quadrennial cold and what are expected to be record-setting crowds, they're heading out to greener pastures, with better temperatures, less hassle and more agreeable company.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:04 PM | Comments: 2

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision...

That’s why the soon-to-be-gone administration’s failure is bigger than Mr. Bush himself: it represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation...

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.

Permalink| Posted @ 10:58 AM | Comments: 0

Would Cuba benefit if the embargo ended? The answer is yes, but with caveats. In most Caribbean countries that have accepted the hand of American friendship or been placed under American occupation since Castro’s revolution, life is not appreciably better than in Cuba. Next to the poverty, crime, and squalor that infest the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua, or Honduras, or the living nightmare that is Haiti, Cuba is a glowing achievement. It has the highest literacy rate in the hemisphere, excellent healthcare, and a vibrant, well funded cultural life.

Yeah, if we do business as usual, the other examples in the region don't bode well for success. Still, I think Obama should go for it:

From Washington’s point of view, though, it would be a smart, pragmatic move for Obama to end the embargo. It would open a new and under-exploited market to struggling American businesses and remove at a stroke the Castro regime’s most effective rallying point. The resonance would be heard far beyond Cuba, not least in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:52 AM | Comments: 0

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
– Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
– Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
– Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

– Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
– Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
– Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
– Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
– Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
– Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Permalink| Posted @ 4:14 PM | Comments: 0

Helen Suzman, one of the fiercest internal critics of apartheid, South Africa’s hated system of racial separation, has died at her home in Johannesburg aged 91. The daughter of Lithuanian Jews, she first entered the South African parliament in 1953 and for 13 years was the only MP to condemn South Africa's whites-only regime. She was a frequent visitor to Nelson Mandela when he was held in Robben Island prison for 18 years and was twice nominated for the Noble Peace Prize. Although ailing in recent years, Suzman, who never married, continued to speak out against what she saw as the failings of South Africa's post-apartheid administration.

It remains to be seen whether a NON-APARTHEID South Africa is a good thing.

Permalink| Posted @ 3:47 PM | Comments: 0

As we enter the New Year let us not forget those wonderful little rascals from the GOP's Our Gang Comedy: Condi, Turd Blossom, Brownie, Gonzo and Scooter who played such crazy tricks on our country. Just consider what these lovable scamps did in the past eight years: they ignored the warning about 9/11; they left the poor of New Orleans to languish and die after Katrina; they tricked this country into a calamitous, life taking, bank breaking war; they abused our planet by failing to meet environmental standards; they shackled scientific research, made a sneaky grab for extra-constitutional power, blurred the separation of church and state, corrupted the Justice Department, and helped to destroy the economy by the deregulation of oversight. It wasn't just the housing bubble that burst - all bubbles pop - it was the greed driven life that came to us through Bush and his people, the governmental dishonesty flowing outward to our financial markets which didn't need much encouragement to become Hedge Fund hawks and Ponzi style swindlers.

Permalink| Posted @ 3:39 PM | Comments: 0

You launched into a presidential primary crawling with Mormons, cross-dressers, gay-hating bass players, and one enraged septuagenarian. You ran the one least likely to be alive in November, and you paired him up with a beauty queen whose political talent amounted to knowing five different ways of saying, "I know you are but what am I?"

You lost one veteran Senator to an indictment. Liddy Dole made sure that the Bush dynasty would be the only GOP family dynasty to come to an inglorious end this year. You became known as the party of hate-mongering, your "base" was characterized by people demanding that their opponent be murdered.

As the "Magic Negro" song parody scandal reached its high point, many on your side began saying, "This could actually work out for us."

Permalink| Posted @ 3:15 PM | Comments: 0

"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

Permalink| Posted @ 12:05 AM | Comments: 0

It is awfully late in the day for Rove -- and, presumably, Bush -- to assert the president's intellectual bona fides. Now feeling the hot breath of history, they are dropping the good ol' boy persona and picking up the ol' bifocals one. But the books themselves reveal -- actually, confirm -- something about Bush that maybe Rove did not intend. They are not the reading of a widely read man, but instead the books of a man who seeks -- and sees -- vindication in every page...

My hat is off to Bush for the sheer volume and, often, high quality of his reading. But his books reflect a man who is seeking to learn what he already knows. The caricature of Bush as unread died today -- or was it yesterday? But the reality of the intellectually insulated man endures.

Permalink| Posted @ 6:03 PM | Comments: 0

• 'Look...' (Barack Obama)
• 'Ladies and gentlemen...' (Joe Biden)
• 'My friends...' (John McCain)
• 'Also...' (Sarah Palin)
• 'Well...' (Hillary Clinton)
• 'I understand that!' (George W. Bush)
• [Whine] (Joe Lieberman)
• 'Nine eleven' (Rudy Giuliani)
• 'If you will...' (Mitt Romney)
• 'It's not fair!' (PUMA)

Permalink| Posted @ 2:56 PM | Comments: 0

It's now becoming clear that there is a good-sized contingent of Republicans who are openly defending Chip Saltsman, the former Tennessee GOP chairman and candidate for RNC chair who sent out a CD to committee members that includes a parody song called "Barack The Magic Negro."

Permalink| Posted @ 2:23 PM | Comments: 0

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:42 PM | Comments: 5

It would be irresponsible in the extreme for an individual to forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can't be repaid. However, this is precisely what we are planning on a national level.

I believe these ideas hold sway largely because they promise happy, pain-free solutions. They are the economic equivalent of miracle weight-loss programs that require no dieting or exercise. The theories permit economists to claim mystic wisdom, governments to pretend that they have the power to dispel hardship with the whir of a printing press, and voters to believe that they can have recovery without sacrifice.

As a follower of the Austrian School of economics I believe that market forces apply equally to people and nations. The problems we face collectively are no different from those we face individually. Belt tightening is required by all, including government.

Governments cannot create but merely redirect. When the government spends, the money has to come from somewhere. If the government doesn't have a surplus, then it must come from taxes. If taxes don't go up, then it must come from increased borrowing. If lenders won't lend, then it must come from the printing press, which is where all these bailouts are headed. But each additional dollar printed diminishes the value those already in circulation. Something cannot be effortlessly created from nothing.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:25 PM | Comments: 0

A majority of all American Christians (52%) think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. Indeed, among Christians who believe many religions can lead to eternal life, 80% name at least one non-Christian faith that can do so.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:09 AM | Comments: 8