Blue Crab Boulevard

Do not expect to see this on the networks or in the major media. Because the pervert involved worked for a Democrat the cone of silence will descend. If it had been a Republican staffer, there would have been updates every three minutes, with continuous scrolling banners at the bottom of the screen. A staffer for Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington has been arrested for trying to arrange a sexual tryst with a 13-year old boy. (He has apparently been fired now.)

Can you say, "Yuck?" I knew that you could.

But the phony outrage will be nonexistent, of course. The wall to wall media coverage will be focused elsewhere. This will be a non-event in the media world. Or it may get a minor writeup here and there, but it will never reach the earsplitting shrieks of faux outrage that it would if a Republican was involved.

We just expect so much less of Democrats, don't we?

(Incidentally, if the media actually does go off on this, I'll be more than a little surprised.)

Others: Wizbang (Jay Tee): (Paraphrasing here): The distinction between Republican and Democrat scandals: Shame. Republicans get caught and feel it, Democrats get caught and don't.

Redstate: Hey, this guy was John Kerry's travel coordinator in 2004. Imagine the fun he probably had on the road!

Jammie Wearing Fool: Uh, yes, he's now an ex-aide. But he wasn't when he was busted.

China is now being accused of possibly faking images sent back by its first lunar probe. The internet-fueled conspiracy theories center on an image that the Chinese government released that very closely resembles a NASA image. China vehemently denies the charges being leveled.

The head scientist of China's flagship lunar probe programme has been forced to defend the authenticity of its first published photograph after internet moon-gazers suggested it might be a copy.

The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, unveiled the first photograph sent back on the inaugural mission of the Chang-e 1 lunar probe amid much patriotic emotion last week.

But in a response to public scepticism unusual for such a token of national pride, internet bulletin boards began pointing out the similarity of the photograph to one published by NASA, the American space agency, two years ago.

Ouyang Ziyuan, head scientist of the China Lunar Exploration Project, issued a statement insisting the photograph had not been copied and really was genuine.

"China's first moon photo is absolutely not a fake,” he said, adding that though the two shots were of the same part of the moon's surface, a new crater was shown in the Chinese version.

There are a few problems with the accusations, though. First, there is a new crater in the Chinese image. Easily photoshopped, of course. Second, the shadows are hitting at completely different angles in the two images. Third, NASA has imaged the entire surface of the moon - it would be highly unlikely that China could find a totally new image anywhere on it. Could it be faked? Sure. I could photoshop the two images myself and make it look like Elvis was down there, But did China fake this? Probably not. Seems like just another silly "controversy" generated from very little "evidence".

Which means it will live forever.

The latest poll from USA Today/Gallup shows both Giuliani and Clinton with fairly long leads over their competitors. The bad news, however, is that the numbers for both are trending steadily downward and have eroded significantly in the past month.

"National support for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani significantly eroded over the past month," USA TODAY Washington bureau chief Susan Page writes.

Meanwhile, Republican Mike Huckabee's standing in the national poll has shot up — to the point where he leads a group of four GOP contenders basically tied for second place behind front-runner Giuliani.

Susan adds that results of the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll underscore the volatile nature of both the Democratic and Republican nomination battles with just one month to go before the Jan. 3 Iowa presidential caucuses.

The national telephone poll was taken Friday through Sunday. There were 425 Republicans and "leaning" Republicans surveyed, and 494 Democrats and "leaning Democrats." Each number has a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points.

Trends are the important things to watch in polling, as I see it. And a substantial downward trend for both leaders isn't a good thing for them. Their respective leads, however, are substantial, so it may not be enough of an erosion to unseat them - for either one. Still, they can't be feeling too good about it.

Ed Morrisey points to a devastating campaign commercial produced by the Norm Coleman campaign against potential challenger Al Franken. It is one of those commercials where the person's own recorded words are simply put together to show just how flexible that person is. As in twisting whichever way the wind blows flexible. This is Kerry's 'for it before he was against it' on steroids.

These ads just write themselves. Norm Coleman hasn't exactly been a rock on Iraq — he opposed the surge in the beginning — but he has supported the overall mission consistently. Franken hasn't been at all consistent, despite his high profile in politics. He has mostly said whatever his audience wants to hear, and that obviously changes from venue to venue.

Go over and see the video at Captain's Quarters. It is a potential campaign killer. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Franken's primary opponent, Michael Cerisi, either asks to use it or copies it. It is that good. Or bad, if you're Franken.

An American film crew is making the rounds claiming they have found mysterious footprints that may be from a yeti. They are proudly displaying a cast of one of the odd footprints. But they may not have found the proof yet(i).  

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday.

A team of nine producers from Destination Truth, armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of Manju river at a height of 2,850 meters (9,350 feet).

One of the three footprints discovered on Wednesday is about one foot long, or is of similar size and appearance as shown in sketches of the mystical ape-like creature believed to live in snowy caves, the TV company said.

"It is very very similar," Josh Gates, host of the weekly travel adventure television series, told Reuters in Kathmandu after returning from the mountain.

"I don't believe it to be (that of) a bear. It is something of a mystery for us," said Gates, 30, an archaeologist by training.

Unfortunately, experts in Nepal do believe that the castings show a bear footprint, nothing more.

"The footprints may be from a Himalayan bear," Ang Tshering Sherpa, the president of Nepal Mountaineering Association told AFP after looking at pictures of the prints.

"It is believed that Yetis have only four toes but the footprints recorded by the US team have five toes," said Sherpa, whose father went unsuccessfully looking for the legendary beast in the 1950s.

I haven't found a picture of a footprint from a Himalayan bear, but the picture of the casting sure looks a lot like this black bear print. It would be a big bear, though. Big enough, in fact, to explain how some of the stories got started. If you only caught a glimpse of it, you might be confused as to what you were seeing.

The Washington Post has an interesting piece on a very unusual dinosaur fossil that appears to be amazingly intact, including fossilized remains of muscle tissue and skin, not just the bare bones, so to speak. It was found by a high school student with a passion for dinosaurs. That student, Tyler Lyson, first marked the spot of the find in 1999 when he was in high school. Now a graduate student in paleontology at Yale, may have discovered a career-making find once all the research papers are written.

A lifelong dinosaur enthusiast, Lyson has been strapping on a backpack and hunting (and finding) dinosaur bones in the arid outback of his home state ever since elementary school. He even started an organization, the Marmarth Research Foundation ( http://www.mrfdigs.com/), in his home town of Marmarth, N.D., to support education and research on dinosaur fossils.

On an expedition in 1999, Lyson noticed some bone fragments at the base of a hill and traced their origin to a point farther up. There he spotted three vertebrae from the tail of a hadrosaur, a common plant eater that traveled in herds and is sometimes described as the cow of the Cretaceous Period. A pretty good find, Lyson thought, but not outstanding. He marked the location in his notes and moved on.

But in 2004, after leading a team of amateur researchers in an excavation that did not pan out, a disappointed Lyson turned his attention again to the vertebrae he had left behind five years before.

"I didn't have very high hopes for the animal," Lyson said. "I figured the excavation would take two or three weeks, I'd have a hadrosaur tail, it would make a nice museum piece, but scientifically it would not be that impressive."

After finding a small piece of fossilized skin, however, Lyson knew he was onto something special. A friend at the dig knew Manning, and within months, Lyson and he had agreed to pursue the project.

Some scientists interviewed for the article are criticizing Lyson and the National Geographic for putting out a documentary of the find before peer reviewed papers have been published. (The critics sound like they are indulging in more than a little helping of sour grapes, though.) Lyson says papers have or are being submitted. They have a slide show over at the Post that is quite interesting.

…..At keeping its citizen's private banking information private? Apparently, they are in a class by themselves for ineptitude, according to The Times.

Security breaches that are allowing the financial details of tens of thousands of Britons to be sold on the internet are to be investigated by the country’s information watchdog.

Without paying a single penny, The Times downloaded banking information belonging to 32 people, including a High Court deputy judge and a managing director. The private account numbers, PINs and security codes were offered as tasters by illegal hacking sites in the hope that purchases would follow.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, will begin an investigation into the security breach today and Scotland Yard is also investigating. Experts said that the findings suggested that more personal data than ever before was going astray. The Times found: More than 100 websites trafficking British bank details A fraudster offering to sell 30,000 British credit card numbers for less than £1 each A British “e-passport” for sale, although the Government insists that they are unhackable.

The discovery comes as public alarm is growing about the dangers of identity theft. HM Revenue & Customs has yet to retrieve two lost CDs containing the banking details of 25 million Britons, which ministers admitted had vanished in the post a fortnight ago. At current underworld prices, these could fetch more than £100 million if they fell into the hands of hackers.

The incident with the two lost data disks was only the tip of the data iceberg, so to speak. There have been literally thousands of data loss incidents by the government. There are, of course, other ways that this data is being stolen by criminal elements, including malicious software. But the government appears to be really, really bad at keeping its citizen's secrets. I rather suspect that Gordon Brown will not last long as Prime Minister.

The efforts of two Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords have resulted in the pardoning and release from prison of Gillian Gibbons, the so-called Teddy Bear Teacher. She was released to British diplomats earlier today and is to be sent back to safety in Britain.

President Omar al-Bashir's pardon of Gillian Gibbons allowed her to leave prison before the end of her 15-day sentence, and ended a diplomatic tangle, resulting in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a victory for common sense.

Bashir pardoned Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, after meeting with two Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords, Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, who had traveled to the predominantly Muslim African nation to lobby for her release.

"This is a case which is unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding," Ahmed told reporters in Khartoum after the pardon was announced. Wire services reported from Khartoum that Gibbons was released to British diplomats around 7 a.m.

Gibbons's case caused international outrage and strained relations between Britain and Sudan, whose government is under intense international pressure over the crisis in its Darfur region. Government officials and many British Muslim leaders said they believed Sudan's prosecution of Gibbons was a reaction to that pressure, particularly the upcoming arrival of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force in Darfur.

A civilized nation would never have prosecuted her in the first place. That the "spontaneous" street demonstrations calling for Gibbons' death just happened to be made up of government workers assigned to protest makes the "humanitarian" gesture of the Sudanese government transparently fraudulent.

The National Review has an editorial pointing out just how ineffective the Democrats have been since taking control of Congress. It is a record of failure that makes the last Congress look wildly productive.

The Democrats could have a sweep in 2008, but if they do it will not be because of anything this Congress or its leaders did. The congressional majority has inflicted very little political damage on the Republicans, either through show trials or through legislation. They had some success, to be sure, in portraying Republicans as opposed to children’s health care; but by next November that debate will have widened into an argument about the future of American health care, which was unavoidable anyway and in which the Democrats may be overreaching.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congress has, through its inability to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, even for a year, ensured that taxpayers will receive their refunds late. Republican politicians may not always be as sharp as we would like, but surely they have the wit to channel public blame where it belongs.

I have said for quite some time that the rank and file of the Democratic party would come to revile the Reid-Pelosi regime. They have done nothing to change that opinion and others are seeing the same thing. The fact that the leading Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination happen to be serving members of the increasingly inept and ineffectual Congress will be a huge negative against whoever gets the nod. The voters will not want to promote someone to a higher office who is already a failure at what they are supposed to be doing.

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton is losing ground in Iowa. So she has announced that she will fall back on the tried and true Clinton method of dealing with things like that: character assassination.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Dec. 2 — With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and forecasting a sharp debate over those subjects in the days ahead.

Clinton has hammered Obama recently over his health-care proposal, arguing that he is misleading voters because it omits millions of people and would not lower costs. But Sunday, in a dramatic shift, she made it clear that her goal is to challenge Obama not just on policy but also on one of his strongest selling points: his reputation for honesty.

"There's a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we're willing to fight for," Clinton told reporters here. She said voters in Iowa will have a choice "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk."

Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama's character, she replied: "It's beginning to look a lot like that."

Charming. Now we have that to look forward to. I can but hope that when the really ugly side of Hillary's ambition is fully out on display that the voters decide that they do not like what they are seeing. Mitt Romney is apparently now focusing on attacking Mike Hucabee, so the nasty option also exists on the Republican side. I don't think it will turn vicious on the Republican side, though. I have no doubt that it will with Hillary's attacks.