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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama prepared to name his running mate, perhaps as early as Friday, from a small field o0f candidates that included at least one dark horse.

How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country? About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children. Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children? No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany. The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later. The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 36 in 1791, when Constanze was 29. She later married a Danish diplomat. The print is one of the earliest examples of photography in Bavaria. It was found in the town archives. The daguerreotype...

First off, I've probably dug into the recent Kos controversy as much or more than anyone else. I can't see that Marcos Moulitsas has done anything wrong, other than perhaps a knee jerk response to the criticism. So, he has little to do with this post. The Netroots movement will fail because it's a myth based upon a lie sitting upon a foundation of fragmented political thought. The genesis for the Netroots movement stems from a fixation on, first the stockmarket, then astrology, and it only found politics, probably, when it was barred from engaging in a previous financial fascination...

Based on feedback received during visits with Airmen across the Air Force, the Air Force Uniform Board is reviewing several concepts that Airmen have suggested regarding the appearance of the service dress uniform. Some of the informal feedback about the current service dress includes Airmen wanting to revamp the service dress to look more military, like the other services. One senior airman said, “the current uniform resembles a cheesy business suit.” A staff sergeant said, “think world’s most dominating air power, not CEO,” and another described it as a “cheap leisure suit.” Other comments have suggested that the uniform needs...

So, a friend and I get talking yesterday. He’s a lefty, kind of. Actually, he insists he’s a middle, maybe even slightly right-shaded social democrat sort of person, and in any sensible country (like, say, Luxembourg or Denmark) he would be recognized as the moderate conservative centrist he is. Anyway, he writes like an angel and knows the political left in this country well, and he suggested we get together because—well, because he and I are friends, and he wanted to give me a friendly warning while there was still maybe time. The facts, he said, are these: President Bush...

The attorney general race was so close we are looking at a recount no matter how it looks at first take (a GOP win). All GOP lawyers in Virginia, and neighboring states, should attend the local electoral boards' canvasses beginning today and tomorrow, to watch procedures, vote certifications, and note any unusual vote tabulation changes or inaccurate certifications, with any irregularities to be noted and communicated up the chain to the state party and so on. We need some good people for the potential process: even if they cannot attend tomorrow, we would encourage them to attend each day they...

The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to summon a leading conservative Christian to explain the private assurances he says he received from the White House about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, the committee's chairman said yesterday.

In a potentially major breakthrough in the campaign against AIDS, French and South African researchers have apparently found that male circumcision reduces by about 70% the risk that men will contract HIV through intercourse with infected women. Other than abstinence and safer sex, almost nothing has been proved to reduce the sexual spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. World-wide, the major route of HIV transmission for many years has been heterosexual sex. Vaccine developers have said they would consider an AIDS vaccine with just 30% efficacy useful. But so far, no effective vaccine against the disease has been...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It used to be that no one messed with Tom Cruise. Now the media are having a field day. Why are they beating up on him? Because they can. The energetic superstar used to be invulnerable. He was represented by Hollywood's most powerful talent firm, Creative Artists Agency. His production company, headed by ex-CAA agent Paula Wagner, is housed at Paramount Pictures, where studio chief Sherry Lansing would lavish her biggest budgets on his movies. He was married to Nicole Kidman, one of Hollywood's smartest actresses. And his press was handled by the head of...

The 50 governors are meeting in Washington this week, which makes it an apt moment for the Cato Institute to release its biennial ranking of their fiscal performance. We provide the rankings below (governors who recently took office aren't included) and, in addition, let us mention a few notable findings from the survey, which will be released today.

This satirical version of the MIGOP.org web page is brought to you today to highlight the hypocrisy of Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan Democrat Party, who loudly condemn outsourcing, but practice it themselves. This webpage is not intended as an affront to any person or country, merely the variable nature of Michigan Democrats' position on outsourcing. It will remain in this form through Governor Granholm's speech tonight before the Democrat National Convention, where she is expected to again criticize outsourcing.

It is the "Holy Grail" of horticulture and soon it could make the perfect present for Mother's Day: scientists have found a way to produce a blue rose.A chance discovery in a laboratory means that they will be able to create the blue rose "within a year" and it is expected to go on sale to the public soon after that.   How the blue rose could look Rose breeders and growers said that blue roses would be hugely popular and estimated that they would win five per cent - £35 million - of the £700 million international market for...

CONCORD, N.H. - In his lifetime, President Franklin Pierce was written off as a failure. AP Photo   And through the years, scholars have dismissed Pierce, who served from 1853 to 1857, as a weak, ineffectual leader who was wrong on the overriding issue of his time: slavery. But a small group of Pierce enthusiasts in his home state believes the nation's 14th president deserves a second look. "He had the terrible task of being president just before the Civil War," said Florence "Chips" Holden, a member of the Pierce Brigade, founded in the 1960s to save Pierce's Concord home...

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has blown nearly all of the £160 million he earned in the ring, according to bankruptcy papers reported today.At the end of last year, the troubled champ had just £3,000 in cash left.He filed for bankruptcy in August, claiming that he owes £14.4 million, including £9.1 million in tax.The papers, seen by the New York Daily News and CNN, also suggest some unusual spending and earning records.In December, he earned £385,000 but spent just £45.The papers, filed in the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, also showed that in November he spent £11,800 but earned...

We may be reaching a tipping point in the career and presidency of George W. Bush. This is not because John Kerry is such a formidable candidate. It isn't even because large numbers of voters seem to despise the president. Nor because his reelect numbers are so anemic. The real reason for worry in President Bush's camp is that conservatives have begun to turn on him. Vast increases in domestic spending, liberal immigration proposals, exploding deficits, the expansion of the nanny-state, new entitlements (such as the budget-busting Medicare expansion)--none of this looks, tastes, or smells anything like the conservatism of...

SEN. KERRY: ... And, Tim, you can hear the advertisements now; so can I. We saw what they did to challenge the patriotism of Max Cleland, a triple amputee, a man who left three of his limbs on the ground in Vietnam. They challenged his patriotism. His regret is he didn’t stand up and fight back.

Dean For President 2004 Al Gore.....Darrell Hammond Howard Dean.....Jeff Richards Announcer: The following is paid for by Dean For President 2004. [ dissolve to Al Gore and Howard Dean sitting side by side ] Al Gore: Hello. I'm Al Gore. Howard Dean: And I'm howard Dean! Al Gore: As I'm sure you're all aware.. we are, to-day, a na-tion.. in cri-sis.. poised on the edge.. of ca-tas-tro-phe.. and without a change in leadership.. we are quite literally.. doomed. It is essential.. that we have a new.. president.. in 2004. A leader with the judgment.. courage.. and vision.. to change our...

South Central Iowa, December 7THE CAMPAIGN CALENDAR is against you. Already the camera crews and stage-prop crowds are beginning to take over, and the rope lines are going up, and soon enough it'll become pretty much physically impossible to form a personal impression of the Democratic party's likely nominee for president next year. None of the men who still have a realistic hope for that prize will any longer be within reach of even the most determined civilian--certainly not where more-than-momentary, relatively unscripted, and intimate conversational encounters are concerned. In that sense, at least, our current election cycle is operating...

LOS ANGELES - In "The Fellowship of the Ring," Christopher Lee appeared as the traitorous elder wizard Saruman, whose snowy white beard and robe hid his black-hearted intentions for Middle-earth. In "The Two Towers," Saruman watched his power fade as enormous walking trees laid waste to his army of ugly orcs and trapped him in his stone skyscraper. The final installment, "The Return of the King," reveals that Saruman is ... well, where is he? Certainly not in the movie. All of the 81-year-old Lee's closing scenes were cut from "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, a move that has...