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No picture of a modern candidate can be complete without a survey of her candid moments caught on video. But what videos to watch? Here is some of what the all-seeing YouTube has to tell us about John McCain's vice-presidential nominee

POLITICS POP ? QUESTION: Is Republican criticism of Barack Obama as a "celebrity" candidate fair? YES ( ) NO ( )

Exxon Posts Record $32.36 Billion Tax Payment Although the way CNN reported it is "Exxon posts record $11.68 billion profit." According to CNN, Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. Buried in the story we also find that "In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income taxes in the second quarter, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over...

Drill for oil off the California coast? ( )Yes, need all the domestic supplies we can get ( )No, just look at Santa Barbara's beaches ( )A limited amount in most promising fields Current results (4:13pm Pacific time): 573 votes: Yes: 33% No: 62% Limited: 6%

KGO Poll: The White House says President Bush is planning to lift an executive ban on offshore oil drilling, a move that by itself will not lead to more drilling off America's coastlines. Question: If California offshore oil drilling could dramatically lower the cost of fuel at the pump, would you be okay with it? Current Results: Yes 48% No 52%

The lead character in the Pixar film “WALL-E” is both an acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth class) and a lonely robot with a personality. While Pixar has mastered the art of animation, it is the implicit message this film conveys which makes it much more than a mere cartoon. Some conservatives have written the film off as anti-capitalist propaganda. If the intent of capitalism is to cater to the basest instincts of the human heart, requiring us to indulge our every whim and desire, leading to a dependence on government, then I guess I, too, am an anti-capitalist. However, capitalism...

Media Try to Cool Down Oil Drilling Fever: Journalists ignore public support for offshore oil drilling and mislead with criticisms of dormant oil fields. By Julia A. Seymour Business & Media Institute 6/25/2008 3:21:01 PM Recent polls from Reuters/Zogby, Gallup and Rasmussen revealed that a majority of Americans support increased domestic oil drilling and refining, yet many in the news media have continued to find fault with that approach. Instead of reporting the issue in a neutral manner, the media have promoted the views of environmentalists, complained that it would take “years” until more oil is available, and misled the...

Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1 Runaway oil and food prices are angering consumers but yielding sweet profits for investors such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System. CalPERS has racked up a 68 percent return playing the commodities market in the past 12 months. The California fund and other pension systems have done so well, in fact, that some in Congress want to ban them from the commodities markets or at least curtail their investments. The elected officials say the pension funds are playing a significant role in driving prices up simply by pouring billions of dollars...

Democrat claims that leases are “sitting idle” are FALSE and MISLEADING.Here are the facts: FACT: Once a lease is secured, a long, comprehensive exploration process begins that“can require years of mapping, testing, drilling and construction” and can cost “millions or even billions of dollars.” Bidding on, paying for and securing a lease is not a license to drill, nor can production occur immediately. Even after “time delays” associated with initial leasing and drilling of exploratory wells, it has taken nearly a decade to produce energy on leases in the past. Democrats mislead when they say a classification of “not in...

Real Romney record in Massachusetts By Matt Kinnaman Article Last Updated: 02/01/2008 01:08:08 PM EST Saturday, February 02 LEE Massachusetts has suffered for nearly 50 years under a growing Democrat monopoly in the Legislature, leading to one of America's most inhospitable business and economic climates. When Mitt Romney was inaugurated governor in 2003, the Massachusetts Legislature was drunk with deficit spending, and awash in regulatory revels, suffocating entrepreneurial energy and reducing incentives for existing companies to stay in the state, never mind relocate here. These same lawmakers routinely ignored the will of the voters on ballot initiatives, including their smack-down...

Posted on Tue, Jan. 29, 2008 McCain’s donors helped Brownback with campaign debt after endorsement By DAN MORAIN (Los Angeles Times) Some of John McCain’s political donors sent checks to failed Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback to help him retire his campaign debt after Brownback endorsed McCain. Brownback, a senator from Kansas, ended his bid for the presidency in October, citing a lack of money. He had hoped to become the darling of social conservatives. Brownback’s endorsement of McCain on Nov. 7 gave the senator from Arizona a boost at a time when his campaign was faltering. It also helped...

It's Fred's Turn By Quin Hillyer Published 1/17/2008 12:08:06 AM If I were a South Carolina Republican voter on Saturday, then for parochial, tactical, and philosophical reasons, I would vote for Fred Thompson. This doesn't mean that I would not have voted for Mitt Romney in Michigan on Tuesday, if I were a Michigander, or that I would not vote for Rudy Giuliani in Florida later this month. Voting in each state, especially in a drawn-out nomination battle, involves particularly local considerations as well as national ones. But for South Carolinians who are mainstream conservatives, those local considerations seem to...

Lexington The Republican crack-up Jan 10th 2008 From The Economist print edition The Republican Party is in a mess. The answer is surprisingly simple. >> [...] The doomsters draw the wrong lesson from the Bush years. The lesson of the Bush presidency is not that the Republican coalition is exhausted but that it has been badly managed. Mr Bush has failed to keep the coalition in balance—he tilted too far towards his party's moralistic southern wing and too far away from its libertarian western wing. He has allowed public spending to balloon and pork-barrel politicians to run wild. And he...

PORTSMOUTH — The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Metal Trades Council was finalizing plans to announce their endorsement of a presidential candidate earlier this month when "DC leadership" stopped the process, according to the local union president. "We were about to embark on the process that would not favor the beltway candidate," MTC President Paul O'Connor said Monday, referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Earlier in the day, Somersworth resident John Joyal, who belongs to another Shipyard union, sent a letter to newspapers saying shipyard workers did their homework and that "the endorsement has taken place, however word has it the BIG...

President Sarkozy has fallen foul of intellectuals and critics who see his passion for jogging as un-French, right-wing and even a ploy to brainwash his citizens. Attacks on Mr Sarkozy’s pastime, which he has made a symbol of his presidency, began on the internet as soon as he bounded up the steps of the Elys�e Palace in shorts when he took office in May. That moment has become the icon of his hyperenergetic administration. The grumbling has now moved to television and the press. “Is jogging right wing?” wondered Lib�ration, the left-wing newspaper. Alain Finkelkraut, a celebrated philosopher, begged Mr...

The Sunday Times August 27, 2006 France about-turns into a bigger military mess Michael Portillo ‘Il faut aller à Gorazde.” (“We must push through to Gorazde.”) The French defence minister would repeat it like a chant. It was 1995. In Srebrenica, a United Nations so-called safe haven in Bosnia, 8,000 men had been slaughtered by Bosnian Serbs. Gorazde was another enclave that the UN had promised to defend. But the French and British forces in the region were many miles away. As participants in a UN humanitarian mission they were lightly armed. They had lorries, not tanks, and no aircraft....

Right-Wing Pundit's Work Under Scrutiny By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer (07-07) 19:17 PDT New York (AP) -- The syndicator of Ann Coulter's newspaper column is looking into allegations that the right-wing pundit has lifted material from other sources. "We are reviewing the material and expect to have a response some time next week," Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, told The Associated Press on Friday. The New York Post and the Web sites Raw Story and the Rude Pundit have raised numerous questions about Coulter's columns, which appear in more than 100 newspapers, and her best-selling "Godless,"...