The New York Times does its level best to spin poll results in favor of Democrats and against Republicans yet again. This is absolutely nothing new. But, frankly, the results of this poll should be a matter of concern for Democrats as much as for the Republicans.
With the midterm elections less than seven weeks away, Americans have an overwhelmingly negative view of the Republican-controlled Congress, with substantial majorities saying that they disapprove of the job it is doing and that its members do not deserve reelection, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The disregard for Congress is the most intense it has been since 1994, when Republicans captured 52 seats to end four decades of Democratic control of the House and retook the Senate as well. It underlines the challenge the Republican Party faces in trying to hold onto power in the face of a surge in anti-incumbent sentiment.
By overwhelming margins, respondents said that members of Congress were too tied to special interests and that they did not understand the needs and problems of average Americans. Two-thirds said Congress had accomplished less than it typically does in a two-year session; most said they said they could not name a single major piece of legislation that cleared this Congress. Just 25 percent said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job.
If you slog all the way through the article, they really show that both parties are held in about equally low esteem at the moment. Democrats are generally seen as weak on terror - that should be worrisome to them right now. I haven't looked to see how badly this poll sample was skewed, they have historically been skewed Democratic. If that is the case here, this is not good news for the Dems. As always, while nationally the Congress is seen in a dim light, locally more people think their own representatives are doing a fairly good job.
Swiss researchers have discovered that electrically stimulating a particular spot in the brain can give the subject the creepy feeling of being watched.
Swiss researchers made the discovery while evaluating a young woman for surgery to treat epilepsy. They believe their finding could help explain feelings such as paranoia which afflict patients suffering from schizophrenia.
When they electrically stimulated the left temporoparietal junction in her brain, which is linked to self-other distinction and self-processing, she thought someone was standing behind her.
If they repeated the stimulus while she leaned forward and grabbed her knees she had an unpleasant sensation that the shadowy figure was embracing her.
"Our findings may be a step toward understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution and alien control," said Olaf Blanke, of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in the journal Nature.
The feeling that someone is lurking nearby has been described by patients suffering from psychological and neurological problems. The researchers believe the woman was experiencing a perception of her own body.
We'd like to be the first to go on the record to point out that the researchers got these results by watching the subject. So she wasn't really having a creepy feeling of being watched when nobody was watching her, was she? So keep in mind, when you get that creepy feeling that someone is watching you, it might actually be a Swiss researcher keeping an eye on you. They might even be watching you through your computer screen right now. You simply cannot trust those Swiss researchers.
FactCheck literally tears apart a television ad being run in Virginia Senate race. The ad uses flat lies to accuse Senator George Allen of "voting against body armor" for the troops. This is one thing that should be off the table for both parties. I do not like seeing any politician using the welfare of the troops for political advertising. Period. To do so using lies of this type, however, is even more egregious than has been the case up until now.
A new ad claims Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia "voted against giving our troops" modern body armor. He did no such thing. The ad cites a vote on an appropriations amendment that had nothing whatever to do with body armor.
The ad also claims troops were sent to Iraq with flak vests "left over from the Vietnam war," another falsehood. The ad actually shows an improved vest that wasn't available until the 1980's.
The newly formed group responsible for the ad, VoteVets.org, is reported to be considering similar ads attacking several other Republican incumbents, and has already announced their intention to start running them against Sen.Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
This is a nasty tactic – accusing an opponent of playing with the lives of American troops – and both sides have stooped to it. This line of attack actually began with Republicans in 2004, when President Bush's campaign repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent John Kerry of voting against body armor.
We de-bunked Bush's claim at the time, but now there is even less excuse to make such an accusation because later investigations have made it clear that the initial shortage of up-to-date body armor was not the result of any vote in Congress, but instead was a classic supply-chain foul-up. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office laid the shortage to the inability of manufacturers to meet the Pentagon's sudden increase in demand, and logistical mistakes by the Pentagon in getting the gear shipped to Iraq and distributed.
VoteVets is publishing lies and television stations should refuse the ads on that basis. Would all the politicians, regardless of party, please denounce this tactic? The FactCheck article has a thorough guide to body armor issues, including a history of its use in the armed forces.
A moose walked onto the campus of Northern Michigan University and demanded admission. He even broke a window trying to get in.
MARQUETTE, Mich. - A moose that wandered onto the Northern Michigan University campus and broke a dormitory window might have been looking for love in all the wrong places, a wildlife expert said.
City police chased the animal away after the Tuesday evening incursion at Magers Hall, Detective Capt. Mike Angeli said. It was unclear whether the moose got inside the building.
"It's not unusual for a moose to do something like this now," said Dean Beyer, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist who has an office at Northern Michigan. "We're in the middle of the (mating) rut right about now.
Wait. This might be even worse than we thought! Maybe he wasn't looking for a college education at all. Maybe it was a moose panty raid. The animal upraising is completely out of control!
The military junta that is in control of Thailand has banned all political party meetings and the formation of any new political parties. They have also restricted all public meetings and placed the media under censorship. That makes me very unhappy. Even if you understand that Thailand was in a constitutional crisis before the coup, these measures appear to be unnecessary in light of the apparent lack of any opposition at all.
BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's new ruling junta on Thursday announced a ban on meetings of political parties and barred the establishment of new parties. The announcement, made on all Thai television stations, said the action was taken to maintain peace and order.
The bans were the latest moves by the junta to maintain control, even though no open opposition has surfaced to its Tuesday night takeover. Other moves include limitations on public meetings and restrictions on the media.
Ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra lay low in London as the junta purged his followers and also took steps to possibly go after the vast assets of the tycoon turned politician.
Thaksin said in a statement released in London that he will take a "deserved rest" and he urged the military to quickly arrange for new national elections. He also urged "all parties to find ways and means to reconcile and work toward national reconciliation for the sake of our king and country."
Less than 48 hours after tanks rolled into the streets to overthrow Thaksin's regime, the Thai capital appeared to have returned to normalcy, with all businesses reopening and Bangkok's notorious traffic jams returning with a vengeance.
And despite condemnation of the coup by Western and some Asian governments, hope emerged on the homefront that the new government might have a chance to resolve a bloody Muslim insurgency that has led to the deaths of more than 1,700 people.
Hopefully Agam will have a Thai perspective up about this at some point. He does have some good links up, but nothing on this new development yet.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed safely in the pre-dawn darkness at the Kennedy Space Center. There were no problems reported. I what had to be an amazing sight, the astronauts in the International Space Station were able to watch the landing from above.
"Glad to be back. It was a great team effort. Assembly is off to a good start," said commander Brent Jett immediately after touchdown at Kennedy Space Center at 6:21 a.m. EDT.
From 220 miles above Earth, astronaut Jeff Williams watched from the space station, where Atlantis had departed on Sunday.
"Spectacular lightning flashes just below the orbiter," Williams said as the space shuttle slowed from traveling at 17,000 miles an hour and entered Earth's atmosphere about an hour before landing. "The glow of the orbiter itself is getting dimmer but the contrail is still pretty bright."
The landing 48 minutes before sunrise was a day later than planned because NASA ordered up more inspections of the spacecraft's delicate skin to make sure it was safe to come home. The fear was that a mysterious piece of debris spotted floating nearby on Tuesday might have hit the spacecraft. Astronauts later saw other debris.
"We've seen a new standard in NASA vigilance," said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.
After numerous cameras took pictures above and below, some of them maneuvered robotically by the shuttle astronauts, NASA proclaimed the spacecraft damage-free.
The unplanned drama threatened to overshadow what had been a nearly flawless mission filled with strenuous spacewalks and rigorous robotics work that placed the international space station back on a path to completion after a 3 1/2-year hiatus.
NASA officials said their best guess was that the most worrisome object was a plastic filler placed in between thermal tiles which protect the shuttle from blasting heat. Four other pieces of debris, including a possible garbage bag, floated near the shuttle over the next day.
Atlantis' return avoided a near traffic jam at the space station, as a Russian Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the space station less than two days after Atlantis had departed.
It was the 21st landing in darkness of 114 successful landings.
There's no sign of any pictures on the NASA website of any pictures they may have taken from the ISS. I hope they got some and can get them out.
