Yoga is corrupting.

The Islamic authorities have issued a ruling, known as a fatwa, instructing the country's Muslims to avoid yoga because of its Hindu roots . . . . Malaysia's National Fatwa Council said it goes further than that and that elements of the Indian religion are inherent in yoga.

Announcing the decision, the council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin said practices like chanting and what he called worshipping were inappropriate and they could "destroy the faith of a Muslim".

[snip]

"If people want to practice yoga, the physical exercise, I think that is no problem," Professor Osman Bakar, from Malaysia's Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, told me.

"Many Muslims would say fine. But they would object to the mixing of the two things."

"Islam is a complete way of life. Islam is able to cater to the needs of Muslims; spiritual needs, intellectual needs and other needs, material needs. So there is no need to bring in elements from outside," he added.

Stirs Controversy from Brorowitz Report

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring. ..... According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she (Mrs. Palin) said.

It seems her appeal continues to grow as she is now "considering about 800 requests for appearances from December through 2009, with 75 percent coming from out of state."  Including a request from Oprah Winfrey!  :)

Palin's Star Soars After Political Defeat

this is required reading.

Bottom line, both campaigns are issuing frivolous challenges because the system is set up such that those ballots are then not counted in the total until being ruled upon, so there is the possibility of staking out "moral high ground" by overchallenging, seemingly taking the lead, and then being able to contest the results of challenge rulings as an attempt to "steal" the election.

Based on the recount results to date, the challenge patterns, and simple demographics, it is likely that Franklin will gain votes after those rulings come in. If someone tries to feed you some BS about  Franklin "stealing" the election based on rulings of challenged ballots you can be confident they are either clueless or deliberately attempting to mislead you.

This is an interesting article about the supposed global cooling consensus of the 1970s over at DKos. It makes reference to a literature review (.pdf ) published in the Bulliten of the American Meterological Society :

Despite active efforts to answer these questions, the following pervasive myth arose: there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that either global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent. A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows this myth to be false. The myth’s basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts both by some members of the media at the time and by some observers today.

has just realized that the global credit crises is critcally serious and  is totally freaking out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23friedman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin