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Check out the polling game back in 2004 which showed Kerry leading. ===== A Big Catholic Shift to Kerry? (beliefnet.com) Two new polls show a significant shift of white Catholics to John Kerry--which, if it holds up, could be a decisive development in the election. A Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday has Kerry winning among white Catholics 50%-43%--a huge change from the October 3 poll which had Bush leading 49% to 33%. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/154/story_15467_1.html ====== Exit Polls Showed Kerry Leading (truthinvoting.org) This is a pdf http://www.truthinvoting.org/ExitPolls_vs_FinalTally_MORE.pdf ===== Down the stretch, a dead heat (sptimes.com) Published October 24, 2004 http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/24/Decision2004/Down_the_stretch__a_d.shtml =====...

A brief history of Baroque The Council of Trent was initiated in 1545 and the Christian world thrown into a crisis. The Roman Catholic church and its practices, in particular the Indulgence, were contested by supporters of the Reformation, led by Calvin and Luther. The Council lasted 18 years and instead of making amendments, the Catholic church decided to launch an ideological (the Jesuit order) and artistic Counter-Reform. The new artistic style was later to become known as “Baroque” (the term “barocco” comes from Castile in Portugal, and means an irregularly shaped pearl). The artistic movement originated from the Vatican...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Treasury's proposed $700 billion bailout for financial firms could yield a profit of at least 7 percent to 8 percent and benefit taxpayers, Bill Gross, who manages the world's biggest bond fund, wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Wednesday. Gross, the chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, estimates the average price of distressed mortgages that pass from "troubled financial institutions" to the Treasury at auction will be 65 cents on the dollar. That will represent a loss of one-third of the original purchase price to the seller,...

Zogby Poll: Obama Smarter Than McCain; Will Win Friday's Debate Most think Friday's face-off on foreign policy to be more important than past presidential debates UTICA, New York - A majority of likely voters nationwide think Democrat Barack Obama is more intelligent than Republican John McCain, and a plurality believes Obama will come out on top in Friday's first debate of the 2008 general election season, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. More than four out of 10 voters - 42% - said they think Obama will win the debate Friday, compared to 31% who said they think McCain will...

Breaking News - Republican officials say the Bush administration will accept executive-pay curbs as part of the bailout. President Bush plans to address the nation Wednesday at 9:01 p.m. EDT on the financial crisis.

One of the BEST 10 min speeches I have seen on the floor of the U.S. Senate in YEARS !! Tom Coburn GETS IT FOLKS !! If anyone has a better quality video of this speech to post please do so ! This is a speech that BOTH McCain and Obama need to hear !! It is exactly what WE THE POEPLE would be saying if we had a camera and mic ! FReegards, David

Local elections officials are looking into potential election fraud and some of the information is pointing to a Democratic-leaning voter's group. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now, has been registering thousands of new voters for this year's election, but in Seminole County, some voter applications are being withheld until it's proven they're legitimate. Election fraud is a felony, but first it has to be proven and someone has to be charged. So far, elections officials said they are just beginning to gather clues in this case. Seminole County's elections supervisor is holding up dozens of voter registration...

Fannie Mae CEOs Raines, Johnson got exemptions from standard requirements. Two Barack Obama advisers, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, received preferential home loans as industry favors, apparently in deference to their executive positions heading Fannie Mae. Raines and Johnson, as "friends of Angelo Mozilo," the chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp. ...were funneled millions of dollars for personal home loans. Mozilo himself made exceptions from Countrywide policy to provide the two Fannie Mae CEO's "sweetheart deals." Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America in January in an emergency rescue ... Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year at...

Click on article source to view video: So now we learn about it, in a Senate hearing: "Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled that the government should buy devalued assets at above-market values to make its proposed $700 billion rescue package most effective in combating the financial crisis. ``Accounting rules require banks to value many assets at something close to a very low fire-sale price rather than the hold-to-maturity price,'' Bernanke said in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee today. ``If the Treasury bids for and then buys assets at a price close to the...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Democrats Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on July 16, 2008 5:27 PM The federal government recently announced that it will come to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two embattled mortgage buyers that for years have pursued a lobbying strategy to get lawmakers on their side. Both companies have poured money into lobbying and campaign contributions to federal candidates, parties and committees as a general tactic, but they've also directed those contributions strategically. In the 2006 election cycle, Fannie Mae was giving 53 percent of its total $1.3 million in contributions...

1+1=3? In city schools, it's half right Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work. The district and teachers union last week issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka said the policy is several years old.

Lance Armstrong has confirmed that he will return to professional cycling next year and seek an eighth Tour de France win while promoting a global cancer awareness campaign. "I have decided to race my bicycle again," said Armstrong, 37, a survivor of testicular cancer, as he launched the Live Strong Global Awareness Campaign in New York. "With this campaign we feel that by racing the bicycle all over the world, beginning in Australia, ending in France at the global summit, it is the best way to promote this initiative, it's the best way to get the word out." Earlier, the...

LOS ANGELES -- The Detroit Lions evidently have parted ways with Matt Millen, ending his tumultuous tenure as one of the most maligned sports executives in Motor City history. The Lions have finally removed the embattled Millen from his post as team president and general manager, FOXSports reported Wednesday. The web site did not state whether the Lions fired Millen or if the former Pro Bowl linebacker resigned. The Lions have not confirmed or denied the report. Millen has been the architect of a Lions franchise that has deteriorated into arguably the worst team in the NFL in recent years....

Good morning, FReepers (...afternoon to those on the east coast) I was late in discovering that FR has been dealing with technical difficulties, to say the least. I just visited World Net Daily and discovered that their site appears to be going through some trouble as well. Does anyone have details as to what the problem is? Hackers? TJI

So now Republicans are what, white militia snipers hiding in the woods shooting at the black guy and then lobbing in the grenades? When did it become a hate crime to suggest that Obama has hideously bad judgment when it comes to his friends and advisors? The New York Times squeals racism, but the ads do not even arguably show a hint of it.

Looking Beyond the Short Run It has been 12 days since Hurricane Ike made landfall. As of yesterday, more than 850 thousand barrels per day of crude oil production from the Gulf of Mexico and about 1.7 million barrels per day of refinery capacity were still shut down. To date, about 27 million barrels of crude oil production from the Gulf of Mexico have been shut in due to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. As of September 19, about 46 million barrels of refined product have not been produced due to refineries being shut down or running at reduced levels for...

-- Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice. Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show. And both voted for the final transportation bill that included the $223 million earmark for the Alaska project.

WAZIRISTAN- NY Times editor Bill Keller, and CEO Arthur "Artie" "Little Pinch" Sulzberger have been honored with enshrinement in the International Criminal Gang of Bastards. "We are proud to enshrine our newest members into our organization." reported ICGOB President and Founder Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. He added there were, "no drones in the Waziristan area, and Bin Laden is alive and well," in apparent delusional rant accompanying the announcement today. "Our newest members earned this honor, by leaving no doubt they were leading a leftist propaganda movement. Propaganda is what we need to make the socialist, facist, marxist world revolution a...

Yesterday I stopped by my local Safeway Grocery Store in the Washington Square shopping center in Petaluma, California. Right next to each entrance were Obama booths selling t-shirts, button, bumperstickers, etc. When I got home, we called Safeway and asked the "Store Manager of the Day" (his words) why they are allowing these partisan booths in front of the store. His response was (paraphrased) that they didn't do it, and that their landlord has the right to rent spots on their sidewalk. So, we called the Fulcrum Group, out of the Sacramento Area, and asked them if they rented this...

HONEY, used for generations to soothe sore throats, could soon be substituted for antibiotics in fighting stubborn ear, nose and throat infections, according to a new study. Ottawa University doctors found in tests that ordinary honey kills bacteria that cause sinus infections, and does it better in most cases than antibiotics. The researchers have so far tested manuka honey from New Zealand, and sidr honey from Yemen. "It's astonishing," researcher Joseph Marson said of bees' unexplained ability to combine the nectar of flowers into a seemingly potent medicine. The preliminary tests were conducted in laboratory dishes, not in live patients,...