Roughly a week ago, much hay was being made of Barack Obama’s lack of a “bounce” following Hillary’s exit stage left. While many polls at the time still showed Obama with some sort of lead, the closely watched Gallup Daily tracking poll showed him in what was effectively a statistical dead heat with John McCain. I somehow doubt we’ll see the same sources pointing to that poll today, as Gallup shows Obama returning to a five point lead. After more than a week of Barack...

CNS News jumped out today with a provocative article titled, Obama’s for Equal Pay, Yet Pays Female Staffers Less Than Males. In it we find a horrible tale of woe, where Obama (who “has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president“) has a lower percentage of female employees on his staff and they ear less, on average, than their male co-workers. On average, women working in Obama’s Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working...

I honestly don’t even know what category this story falls into, but by the time I finished laughing, I decided it was worth a few inches of virtual ink here at TMV. Apparently there are some web sites or “news” services on the web which use their spellchecker’s Auto Replace function to tune up their news text to be friendly to their target demographics. In the case of some of the religious, “pro-family” sites, it seems that they mysteriously choose to replace the...

Why does this column have no title? Because, good readers, I began looking at this editorial from the L.A. Times last night and it’s still too mind boggling to wrap my brain around. Jeffrey Fagan and Stephen D. Sugarman seem to be upset over the Supreme Court’s finding that the people’s right to keep and bear arms actually means they have a right to keep and bear arms. Further, they’ve never quite gotten over Congress deciding that people can’t sue gun manufacturers...

When I first saw this story on the news this morning I got that same old sinking feeling. Iran ready to strike at Israel’s nuclear heart Iran has moved ballistic missiles into launch positions, with Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant among the possible targets, defence sources said last week. The movement of Shahab-3B missiles, which have an estimated range of more than 1,250 miles, followed a large-scale exercise earlier this month in which the Israeli air force flew en masse over the Mediterranean...

I was watching one of the Sunday morning news shows and caught a portion of an interview with Alabama Attorney General Troy King. He was talking about a potential voter fraud investigation in the western portion of his state, which seems to tie into this report from Alabama.com from this week. There were numerous allegations, including reports of absentee voter ballots being sold for $40 each. ALABAMA ATTORNEY General Troy King and U.S. Justice Department officials shouldn’t be fighting over...

Lately, when I read about the silly mistakes, mangled interviews and bumbling comments of our presidential candidates, I’m used to seeing Barack Obama stumbling over his tongue. This story, however, found John McCain coming down with a momentary but severe case of foot in mouth disease. When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost? Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly,...

So our Sunday morning political festival will apparently be opening up with a late breaking story from Newsweek. In it, we find a tawdry tale of tax scofflaws thumbing their nose at their civic responsibilities… sort of. Mrs. McCain, San Diego County Would Like a Word When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions...

It seems that the ink was barely dry on the Heller decision before the NRA began challenging other gun bans. This story comes to us from San Francisco, following a challenge in Chicago. The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its handgun ban in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation’s capital. The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within...

He’s raised just $300,000 dollars. He has a staff of only six people working out of a non-political public relations firm office. He’s not even on the ballot in 20 of the 50 states. So why does Bob Barr have so many people looking nervous and edgy? Sometimes the answer lies in the margins. As this New York Times article points out, people are already casting a wary eye at Mr. Barr’s home state of Georgia, among others. The Republican Party and the McCain campaign have swatted away...

According to this report from the New York Times, the Federal Government is moving to dismiss the lawsuit attempting to stop the activation of the CERN Large Haldron Collider in France. A large portion of the motion to dismiss seems to be coming from legal maneuvering as opposed to an argument on the merits of the case. Calling its claims “overly speculative and not credible,” and saying that it is too late anyway, lawyers for the federal government argued this week that a so-called “doomsday...

Just to be clear, I happened to agree with and applaud the SCOTUS decision today regarding Second Amendment rights. You may see it differently, I know, but that’s one of the great things about our country. We can disagree on things like that. I just feel that the Second Amendment speaks to an individual right to keep and bear arms, not a right restricted to members of the militia. No, my problem today is not with what the Supreme Court decided, but once again with how they decided it. So if...

In the face of growing national discontent and an increasingly-complicated legal situation, both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have called for the closing of the United States detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. McCain has suggested moving at least some of the alleged terrorist detainees to Fort Leavenworth. (We need to say ‘alleged’ until we find a way to give these people some kind of a trial or military tribunal that passes constitutional muster.) As pointed out to...

Oy. As if Senator Obama’s team doesn’t already have a full time job swatting down rumors that he’s a double secret Muslim, over in India the Hindus are trying to help out Obama’s campaign. They are doing so by praying for him and sending a gift half way around the world. NEW DELHI: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama can now expect help from an unexpected quarter — Lord Hanuman. All-India Congress Committee member Brij Mohan Bhama has organised a 11-day religious...

Some attention is being given to an only partly humorous video from reason.tv which takes a fairly disparaging look at American reactions to various labor threats. The phrasing is worth noting: Sometimes the threat comes from China, Japan, or outsourcing to India. Today, it’s NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement—you know, all those Mexicans taking our jobs. The article then goes on to quote Drew Carey ranting about “the robot threat.” “Now, think about it,” says Reason.tv...

I’ve been hesitant to build up a lot of hope, but I’m starting to think that the future of America’s energy policies may wind up being the turnkey issue that drives a lot of us off the fence who have been either undecided or hovering around third party candidates out of frustration with our major party choices. CBS News is reporting on a new proposal from Sen. John McCain which is being dubbed “The Lexington Project” which may provide a ray of hope for those dismayed...

Today, at 1 pm eastern, 10 am pacific, you can tune in to Mid Stream Radio where we will be interviewing Dr. Robert Wagner about the Large Hadron Collider. If you miss the show, you can follow that link later in the day and listen to a replay of the interview. See you on the radio!

Over at Newshoggers, my old colleague Ron Beasley shows up with one of the more arcane bits of political news in a season already ripe with weirdness. It appears that Republican Senator Gordon Smith is running television ads for he reelection bid showing how much he is in line with… Barack Obama? In the ad, Smith, running hard away from Bush, associates himself at length and explicitly with Obama. “Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?”...

Today on Mid Stream Radio, (1:00 PM eastern, 10:00 AM pacific) we’re scheduled to interview prominent astrophysicist author and educator Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. (At the time of this writing, Dr. Tyson’s assistant is working through some scheduling issues, but we still hope to pull this together today.) Either way, during the first half hour we’ll be covering some of the base information regarding the CERN Large Hadron Collider and whether or not the experiment will create a black...

This just in from the Department of Unforced Errors. John McCain’s chief strategist Charlie Black sat down with Fortune Magazine and probably got a wee bit too relaxed when talking about the realities of national defense in relation to the election. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy – this according to McCain’s...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the next in a series of Rasmussen Reports polls in the Sunshine State which seem to indicate that residents are far less opposed to offshore drilling to increase fuel supplies than they used to be. A Florida poll taken by Rasmussen Reports Wednesday, after Republican presidential candidate John McCain first called for lifting a 27-year-old ban on U.S. offshore drilling, found that 61% of respondents agreed with him that drilling would lower gas prices. A third...

I had to sigh when I read William Kristol’s litany of complaints regarding the new “Alex” advertisement opposing John McCain’s candidacy. It’s not that Kristol doesn’t comprehend the realities of military enlistment, family choices or the tides of war. He grasps and explains those things perfectly. What Mr. Kristol doesn’t understand, however, is advertising. For a bit of disclosure, I work in marketing and am responsible for the development and deployment...

Amidst all the speculation surrounding Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty, could John McCain be secretly considering taking a woman as his Vice Presidential pick? While top tier black candidates are as common as unicorns in the GOP, there are a number of successful, high profile women who could fill the bill. The Politico’s David Kuhn ruminates on some of the female frontrunners today. While the vice presidential slot may be John McCain’s best means of wooing those Hillary Rodham...

(See Parts One and Two) For those following this story, the concerns expressed by a number of scientists over the Large Hadron Collider are more complex (make that far more complex) then earlier descriptions provided here. With thanks to JTankers in previous comment threads, I went and gave a listen to an interview with Nuclear Physicist Walter Wagner. (Parts one, two, three and four.) A number of facts about this scenario are quite different from my original perceptions, and we’ll try to sort...

Following my original post on Europe’s CERN particle-physics lab’s safety review of the massive, Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland, we received quite a bit of feedback by comments and e-mail. Some of the more compelling information provided is to be found at the LHC Facts web site. Rather than copying a lot of information here, I’ll leave it to you to click through and check it out, but it is disturbing to note the number of influential astrophysicists who do not feel...