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DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken has moved into his first solid lead over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, according to a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll. The survey, conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Princeton Survey Research Associates International among 1,084 likely Minnesota voters, shows Franken leading Coleman 43 to 34 percent. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley is supported by 18 percent of respondents. Franken’s lead is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error, plus or minus 3.7 points. For Coleman, there is little good news in the poll. The number of voters who view him unfavorably continues to grow, the...

It was learned today that Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and John Murtha (D-PA), will hold a joint news conference on Friday condemning President Bush and pushing for his impeachment due to the success of the Surge and an outbreak of cooperation between American troops and Iraqi citizens. Said a spokesperson, “The Democrat Party of the United States has been pushing for increased military involvement in Iraq for years; now that we have the majority, we must take credit for the success being enjoyed in Iraq and in the overall War on Terror. We firmly believe that had this administration taken our...

Ron Paul Odds Slashed Dramatically: 15 to 1 from 200 to 1 Carrie Stroup here with some startling news concerning Ron Paul.  Sportsbook.com (see website here) had experienced such a dramatically insurgence of betting action on Mr. Paul over the past two weeks they were forced to slash odds from 200 to 1 to the current 15 to 1 odds."Ron Paul is a serious contender whose grass roots campaign is growing dramatically," explains Payton O'Brien, Senior Editor of Gambling911.com, one of the world's leading political betting news sources.  "No other single candidate for US President has received the type of...

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says a shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment - all sent to the war in Iraq - has hampered recovery in a US town obliterated by a tornado. "There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Governor Sebelius, a Democrat, said in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12. "Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap." The tornado that devastated Greensburg, 175 kilometres west of Wichita, started a weekend of violent weather in Kansas, a state...

http://thegiantotter.blogspot.com/2006/09/statistics-majority-of-muslims-support.html Statistics: Majority of Muslims support suicide bombing We now know from my previous article that a majority of Muslims in Palestine and Iraq support terrorism (53% and 61% respectively), while a large minority of Muslims in the UK support terrorism (25%). A further look into polls from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press has confirmed my previous conclusion; a majority of Muslims in most Islamic nations support terrorism. The PRC interviewed over 38,000 people during a four-month period in 44 nations. The conclusions of the Pew Global Attitudes survey are as follows: A majority of people...

A draft U.N. report projecting a big rise in temperatures this century is likely to add fuel to the debate about whether the world is facing dangerous global warming, experts said on Friday. The draft, by 2,500 scientists and due for release in Paris on February 2, is expected to warn of more heat waves, floods, droughts and rising seas linked to greenhouse gases released mainly by burning fossil fuels, scientific sources say. World leaders, including former U.S. President George Bush, signed a U.N. Climate Convention in 1992 with an overriding goal of stabilizing greenhouse gases at levels preventing "dangerous...

States with the greatest number of guns in the home also have the highest rates of homicide, a new study finds. The study, in the February issue of Social Science and Medicine, looked at gun ownership in all 50 states and then compared the results with the number of people killed over a three-year period. The research, the authors said, “suggests that household firearms are a direct and an indirect source of firearms used to kill Americans both in their homes and on the streets.” The researchers, led by Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, drew on...

WASHINGTON - Human-caused global warming is here, visible in the air, water and melting ice, and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week. "The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling." Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles." The first phase...

Associated Press BOSTON - During his two campaigns in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney adopted a decidedly moderate approach to gun control, vowing not to "chip away" at the state’s gun laws and conceding his backing of an assault rifle ban was "not going to make me the hero of the NRA." Now as he weighs a run for the GOP presidential nomination, Romney’s rhetoric is shifting in an effort to appeal to the Republican Party’s core conservative base. On Friday, Romney toured a gun show in Florida where he said he supported "the right of individuals to keep and bear arms...

ORLANDO , Fla. -- Former governor Mitt Romney, who once described himself as a supporter of strong gun laws, is distancing himself from that rhetoric now as he attempts to court the gun owners who make up a significant force in Republican primary politics. In his 1994 US Senate run, Romney backed two gun-control measures strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups: the Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on gun sales, and a ban on certain assault weapons. "That's not going to make me the hero of the NRA," Romney told the Boston...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American states where more people own guns have higher murder rates, including murders of children, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health reported on Thursday. The study, certain to provoke arguments in a country where gun ownership is an important political issue, found that about one in three U.S. households reported firearm ownership."Our findings suggest that in the United States, household firearms may be an important source of guns used to kill children, women and men, both on the street and in their homes," said Matthew Miller, assistant professor of health policy and injury prevention, who...

"The F Word" isn't a documentary or a mockumentary. It's a stoke-umentary, created solely to stoke the fires of non-Republicans who may be feeling passive about voting. The election-eve timing of the IFC movie, which premieres tonight at 9, only highlights its mission to serve as motivational therapy for Democrats, Independents, and just about anyone who doesn't believe in George Bush...In short, it's a bash-Bush bash. What saves the movie for me is what might damn it for others. Director Jed Weintrob is openly preaching to the converted here, and he makes no token efforts to appear even slightly objective....

Men are smarter than women, according to a controversial new study that adds another cinder to the fiery debate over whether gender impacts general intelligence. "For 100 years there's been a consensus among psychologists that there is no sex difference in intelligence," said J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Recent studies, however, have raised questions about the validity of this claim, he said. One such study showed that men have larger brains than women, a 100 gram difference after correcting for body size. Rushton found similar results in a study of gender and brain...

NEW ORLEANS -- They are the backbone of post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction: Workers who converge at dawn and wait to be picked up for 14-hour shifts of hauling debris, ripping out drywall and nailing walls. But because many are in the country illegally, immigrant workers rebuilding New Orleans are especially vulnerable to exploitation, according to a study released Tuesday by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley. The illegal immigrants often work in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earn far less than their legal counterparts, the study said. Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by...

In what might signal a turning point in environmental sentiment in America, a new poll of hunters and fishermen finds the majority think the country is on the wrong track with its energy policy and should be a leader in combating global warming. In the poll of licensed hunters and anglers, 76 percent said global warming is occurring and 73 percent believe it is impacting or will impact hunting and fishing conditions. A full 78 percent said the solutions should involve conserving more energy, developing fuel-efficient vehicles and expanding the use of renewable sources. The nationwide poll of 1,031 hunters...

If John Edward’s new book turns out to be as popular as his previous endeavors, we could soon see rosaries for sale at Wal-Mart.With Practical Praying: Using the Rosary to Enhance Your Life, the best-selling author and TV psychic medium is putting himself on the line in an entirely new way. “I had major, major blocks on a personal level,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’ve been very private about my rosary praying.”A book about the rosary wouldn’t be commercial coming from most writers, but Mr. Edward, 35, has such a built-in following of far-reaching fans that his book...

Immigration economics vs. emotion By Jim Spencer Denver Post Columnist Roberto Suro boils the immigration debate in Colorado and the U.S. down to a single word: "Visceral." Even at an oh-so-civilized immigration forum at the state Capitol on Monday, you could see it. The National Conference of State Legislatures invited Suro to speak to the bipartisan session. Legislators from several Western states attended. Suro's inclusion was a no-brainer. He directs the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. His organization conducts scientific surveys and compiles scholarly research on immigration. Most experts agree that Suro knows his stuff. Not Colorado state Rep. Jim Welker....

The latest issue of Newsweek featured an almost 4,000 word article – written by Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, with assistance from Holly Bailey, Daniel Klaidman, Eleanor Clift, Michael Hirsh and John Barry – that painted a pretty bleak picture of President Bush as possibly being “the most isolated president in modern history.” The authors referred to Bush as being in a “bubble” that blocks out thoughts, policy suggestions, and ideas that he is either unwilling or intellectually incapable of absorbing. Some of the lowlights:

Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition And 'Inside Job' Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications. June 12, 2005 By Greg Szymanski A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is 'bogus,' saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World...

Been looking around for a couple of days, trying to find or approximate the date that Ms. Plame ceased being any sort of covert operative for CIA. Having absolutely no luck finding any even marginally definitive answers (well, not counting ''definitive'' tinfoil-hatters). Would very much welcome becoming educated on these particulars by our enormously well-informed college of FReepers. Opinions are welcome; hard dates and sources are much more valuable, of course. And, may I apologise to all for this vanity -- I have to plead necessity of time, sorry.

Administration accused of withholding information on immigration BY MICHELLE MITTELSTADT The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - (KRT) - After President Bush unveiled his guest worker proposal last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were ordered not to discuss a surge in apprehension of migrants trying to enter the country illegally."Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions, or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals," said the one-page Customs and Border Protection public affairs guidance, "White House Approved Talking Points Temporary Worker Program." "Do not provide statistics on apprehension spikes or past amnesty data," the memo said.The head of...