Just when you thought the world wasn’t dangerous enough, Iran is conducting war games to practice protecting their nuclear plants against attack from Israel or the US. The five day drill is said to cover as much as a third of the country and would involve much of the armed forces of the nation. This is not exactly good news, though it is hardly unexpected. With Iran moving towards the development of nuclear weapons it is probable that Israel will be looking to stop them. Indeed there has beeen...

Just one of those feel good stories that are nice to share. While astronaut Randy Bresnik was in orbit conducting a spacewalk on the ISS his wife was down on Earth delivering the true miracle, his new baby daughter. The family also has an adopted child from Ukraine. Best wishes to the entire family !

This story is just plain sad on so many levels.

According to emerging news reports Rudy Guliani has decided not to run for Governor of New York but will instead run for the US Senate seat formerly held by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Spokespeople for Rudy have neither confirmed or denied these reports, simply saying that he will “inform New Yorkers on his own”.

With the onset of H1N1 flu there are many experts who think that the biggest problem is not the flu itself but the panic that comes with it. The overwhelming majority of people who get the flu will recover with no problem and in fact most people who get it might not even be aware they have it the symptoms are so mild. Yet with the media hype everyone panics, rushes to the doctor or the hospital, insists on antibiotic treaments than may do more harm than good. The daily reports on CNN/MSNBC/Fox/et...

In what could be a significant development a federal judge in California has ordered damages to be paid by Sears to a same sex couple that was married during the five month period that same sex marriages were legal. This ruling would support the concept that any marriages performed during the period remain valid. I would think even those who oppose marriage equality would have to agree that since it was legal when this couple was married and since Proposition 8 did not retroactively cancel such unions...

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has just launched for the International Space Station. The launch took place at 2:28pm EST and appears to have been a perfect takeoff. No matter how many times I watch a launch there is always a part of me that wishes I was going along. Details on the mission can be found at the NASA web site.

TBS was good enough to broadcast the classic film this weekend and I found myself once again swept away in the magic. Even though I knew the lyrics to every song and most of the dialogue it is still a joy to watch. I thought I’d share a little of the magic.

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced that she will keep her Senate seat while running for Governor of Texas. She had previously indicated she would resign the seat to allow for a special election. Officially she is doing so because she wants to remain in Washington to participate in the ongoing debates over health care, financial issues, global warming, etc. This is not an implausable explanation since her resignation would leave the GOP short a seat for a period of time. However some...

There has been considerable speculation that Delaware AG Beau Biden is having second thougths about running for the seat formerly held by his father VP Joe Biden. The speculation grew when Biden attended a major Democratic event but did not, as many expected, announce his candidacy. I think Biden would be wise to pass on the race in 2010. To begin with he would have a tough race against popular Congressman Mike Castle. So that either means a very tough contest or worse yet an embarassing defeat (the...

A couple of deaths today caught my attention Carl Ballantine died at the age of 92. For those not familiar with the name he was a talented comedian and magician that many of us knew from his role as con man Gruber in McHales Navy. He also did a great deal of voice over work and so many knew the voice from cartoons but not the name. The next name was John J. O’Connor III, the husband of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He died at the age of 79 after a long fight with Alzheimer’s...

In a recent broadcast MNSBC reporter/commentator Keith Olbermann attacked the New York Post for reportedly having an agenda to ‘get Obama’. According to the broadcast there has been a semi-official policy at the Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper to do all they can to attack the Obama administration. Now to make it clear I’d would like to say that while I’ve not seen proof of this allegation I certainly would not be surprised if it was true and it is perfectly proper to report...

Lou Dobbs surprised everyone when he announced that he is leaving CNN effective immediately. Dobbs has been the longest running anchor at the network but his recent shift from a pure financial reporter into an advocate against illegal immigration upset many at the center-left network. Speculation has been he could end up at Fox but for the time being he has not announced any plans.

The officials at the Greenville Correctional Center have just announced the execution of John Muhammed, the DC sniper. He was pronounced dead at 9:11pm EST. During 2002 Muhammed and his teenage accomplice terrorized the Washington DC area and murdered ten people and left the region in chaos as people were afraid to go out and shop or pump gas. According to the briefing he had no last words and did not speak at all during the execution process, he did not appear to show any emotion and did not speak...

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, the show that has been the part of the childhood of hundreds of millions of people. A show that both entertains and educates, a program that inspires the dreamers of the day and the leaders of the future. However, there is plenty of commentary out there about how amazing the program is and how much of an impact it has had on society as a whole, so I thought we might focus on the more personal. The impact the show had on us, or on our children, grandchildren,...

Today marks the 20th anniversary of one of the seminal moments of the 20th century as the Berlin Wall fell. This event marked the beginning of the end for not only the Warsaw Pact but also the collapse of the Soviet Union. For those readers who were not alive at the time I am not sure if you can fully comprehend the incredulity of the moment. For forty years the East and West had been divided. For myself, for my parents, for my grandparents it was a reality that we had all known and accepted in the...

The House has just passed the Health Care Reform bill by a vote of 220-215. Democrats voted 219-39 in favor Republicans voted 176-1 against. Lots of cheering on the Democratic side. However I wouldn’t get so excited yet. Assuming for the sake of argument the same proportions held up in the Senate then the vote on cloture would be: Democrats 50-10 in favor Republicans 40-0 against The vote would fail with just 50 votes, ten short of the required 60. Indeed it would be barely enough to pass...

For those who *still* need a reason to watch Glee, check out this amazing 80’s retro.

The founder of the ultimate international nerd fest aka Comic Con has died at the age of 76. Speaking as a grade AAA nerd and someone who would seriously consider going to Comic Con, I still have to say there is something oddly fitting that the founder of the event is named Dorf.

I had planned to publish a more detailed review of the elections but I ended up spending two hours in the dental chair today getting a filling replaced. I’ve got one more filling to go plus a deep cleaning so I was pretty distracted today getting ahead on work. As a result  I’ll post my more technical analysis this weekend, for those who are geeky enough to enjoy. However in the meantime I thought I’d offer a few comments. I certainly agree that there is a large degree of history...

A note of caution, I am not an expert on Maine politics and the way the results are being tallied make it a bit harder for me to analyze things. However with 76% of the vote counted  the Yes vote is leading by a 52-48 margin which means that once again loving couples are denied basic human rights.

Not a huge shock given that CA-10 is heavily Democratic but Lt. Governor John Garamendi is headed to Washington. This means that Governor Arnold will get to nominate a successor to the Lt. Governor post but the nominee must be approved by both houses of the heavily Democratic legislature. Obviously the GOP would like a strong candidate in statewide office while the Democrats would like to avoid it. So look for some fun in coming weeks and months.

It’s time to call the race for Democrat Bill Owens. With 84% of the votes counted the tally is as follows Bill Owens (D): 57,845 or 49.2% Doug Hoffman (C): 53,603 or 45.5% That’s a margin of 4,200 votes and based on the trend we only have about 20,000 votes left. For Hoffman to win he would need to beat Owens by 20 points with the remaining voters. As one of my favorite readers, Elrod, has pointed out this is a surprising defeat given that this district has been Republican since the 1870’s...

UPDATE #5:  Looking increasingly likely that Owens will win. Almost 80% counted and he leads by 3,600 votes. For Hoffman to pull it he will need to pick up about 4,000 votes and based on current returns there are about 33,000 left to count. It looks like a big loss for the hard right in New York. UPDATE #4: With 71% in Owens still leads 49.1-45.2 or 3.9%. Getting closer to the point that Owens is called the winner. I’m guessing the Democrats will dismiss NJ and VA as meaningless and call this...

UPDATE: All the major networks are also calling it for Christie, guess they were waiting for Hudson too. Now that Hudson County has finally pulled the trigger and turned in the vote we can project Chris Christie the winner of the race for New Jersey Governor. It’s somewhat comic really that they waited at 57% for more than an hour before jumping in an instant to 97% of the vote. With 81% of the vote in the tally is as follows Christie: 951,009 or 49.38% Corzizne: 852,203 or 44.25% Daggett:...