Obama Viewed Most Favorably In New CBS News/N.Y. Times Poll – Horserace — FYI.

here’s a sneak peek at how the major candidates are faring in public opinion – a comparison Barack Obama appears to be winning.

Among all registered voters surveyed, Hillary Clinton has by far the highest “unfavorable” rating. Forty three percent said their opinion of Clinton is unfavorable, compared to 35 percent who viewed her favorably. Clinton fared better among likely Democratic primary voters – 61 percent of that group said they had a favorable opinion of the New York senator. But 27 percent of Democrats had an unfavorable opinion.

Obama was viewed favorably by 45 percent of all voters while just 23 percent had an unfavorable opinion of him. And among those Democrats, his favorability was 69 percent while just eight percent had an unfavorable view.

Thirty two percent of all voters said they were undecided or have not heard enough to form an opinion of Obama, indicating room for himself – or his political opponents – to shape those opinions.

John McCain was viewed more favorably than unfavorably among all voters (36 percent to 32 percent) but just 57 percent of Republicans said they have a favorable opinion of their presumptive nominee. Thirty percent of his own party said they had no opinion of McCain, indicating that he may have some work ahead of him in consolidating GOP support for the fall campaign.

The Taliban threatened Monday to attack mobile phone facilities in Afghanistan, alleging that the technology was being used at night to pin-point the Islamic rebels’ hideouts.

Zabihullah Mujahed, a rebel spokesman, said that several phone companies had been given three days to respond to militants’ demands that they cut night time operations or face attacks, notably on antennas erected across the country…

“Usually during the nights the mobile phones are being used to spy on the Taliban to track down their footpaths. Here we ask the (mobile) companies to halt their operations from five o’clock in the evening to seven in the morning,” he said.

According to the country’s telecommunications ministry, over five million Afghans are currently using mobile phones, provided by five mainly foreign companies.

What?

Koreans say they must eat kimchi wherever they are. When South Korea dispatched troops to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, tearful mothers sent off their sons with clay pots containing homemade kimchi. Soon troopships were filled with the pungent smell of the fermenting cabbage slathered with pepper and garlic.

So it was only natural for Koreans to think that their first astronaut must have the beloved national dish when he goes on his historic space mission in April. Three top government research institutes went to work. Their mission: to create “space kimchi.”

“If a Korean goes to space, kimchi must go there, too,” said Kim Sung Soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist. “Without kimchi, Koreans feel flabby. Kimchi first came to our mind when we began discussing what Korean food should go into space…”

What about kimchi’s strong aroma, which often keeps non-Koreans from trying it?

“We managed to reduce the smell by one-third or by half,” Kim said. “So the other astronauts will feel comfortable trying our space kimchi.”

And then – there are other smells “derived” from Kimchi.

The Air Force investigated the first crash of a costly B-2 stealth bomber after one plunged to the ground Saturday shortly after beginning the last flight of a four-month deployment.

Both pilots ejected safely, though one was being transferred to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu to be treated for spinal compression.

Four of the bombers were taking off at the end of deployment to Andersen Air Force Base, officials said. At least one had taken off safely but was brought back after the crash…

Each costs about $1.2 billion to build. The three that did not crash are being kept on Guam.

At least the pilots are OK. I guess taxpayers could send in their rebate checks to buy a replacement.

It’s a quiet Sunday night. Bit of a gentle rain outdoors.

My wife and I just watched “The Last Mimzy”. Second time for me. And I thought I’d put up the Roger Waters theme for the film.

I read “Mimsy were the Borogoves” when it came out, when the team calling themselves “Lewis Padgett” published it during the war. Yes, I was a kid; but, like any of the good stuff I read as a kid – it stuck around my life and was reread more than once.

Click photo to listen.

This Episode’s Topics:

• Stairwells and bubble wrap
• Let’s go shooting!
• More fun with the TSA – have you been to Nebraska?
• Cheese with Deep Ellum
• Can anyone make tea?
• Adam’s portable super sound mashup and his one man band (patent pending)
• Campaign donations plus super delegates – Obama is in!
• McCain wins – John’s story and he’s stickin’ to it
• Adam: Let’s go buy some debt at auction
• John: Debt – It’s all Clinton’s fault
• Listener feedback
• U.S. shoots down satellite
• Follow-up on T-shirts and socks
• Can you buy a real car?
• Otto Diesel revs to 1000 rpm in his grave
• Last week’s Cranky Geeks with Leo and Adam
• More cars – $50 to drive into London
• John on global warming and wines
• Bubba the Lovesponge gets creds

A federal judge has said that consumers may go ahead with a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. over the way it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system. The lawsuit said Microsoft’s labeling of some PCs as “Windows Vista Capable” was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista’s features, including the much-touted “Aero” user interface.

Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers before Vista’s launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but they argued nonetheless that people who bought “Vista Capable” computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of Vista.

The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in Microsoft’s “Express Upgrade” program, they could pursue that claim as well.

If you have participated in the “upgrade” and are unhappy – here’s the American Way to solve your problem.

Not that Nader doesn’t have a point to some of his positions, but aside from all the shenanigans in Florida and Ohio, George Bush won because Nader was in the race in 2000, sucking votes from Gore. At least this time, because of Bush, a majority of the country seems to be anti-Republicans so he probably won’t have the effect he did back then. Hopefully.

Ralph Nader joins US presidential race

Independent candidate Ralph Nader has announced that he is entering the US presidential race, a move which many Democrats fear could deprive their party of vital votes.

Mr Nader was accused by supporters of Al Gore of handing the 2000 election to George W Bush by attracting voters who would otherwise have backed their candidate.

The consumer rights activist announced on NBC television’s Meet the Press that he was launching a third-party campaign for the White House because voters were disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties.

Click on the image to get to a slide show of what grew organically from his mind when he lived in a Manhattan hotel, a while back:

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.

The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.

They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Imagine what will happen – someday – when theocratic rule finally vanishes?

A year and a half ago I posted an item on Bobby’s assassination. Here’s another one. Interesting stuff.

New evidence challenges official picture of Kennedy shooting

Now Van Praag has added new weight to the ‘two shooters’ theory. He reanalysed the only audio recording of the shooting, which was made by an independent journalist, Stanislaw Pruszynski. “At the time Pruszynski was not even aware that his recorder was still on,” said Van Praag.

The recording quality is poor, but it is possible to make out 13 shots over the course of just over 5 seconds, before what Van Praag describes as “blood-curdling screams” obscure the sound. That is more than the eight rounds that Sirhan’s cheap Iver Johnson Cadet 55 revolver carried.

Also, there are two pairs of double shots that occurred so close together it is inconceivable that Sirhan could have fired them all. The third and fourth shots and the seventh and eighth were separated by 122 and 149 milliseconds respectively. In tests, a trained firearms expert firing under ideal conditions could only manage 366 milliseconds between shots using the same weapon. And he was not being pinned to a table at the time.

Great photos and an article in Nat Geo about the Large Hadron Collider being built and tested at CERN in Switzerland to search for the so called ‘God particle,’ the massive Higgs boson which is believed to exist, but no one has seen one yet. I like this description from the article about the difficulty in finding it:

Building a contraption like the LHC to find the Higgs is a bit like embarking on a career as a stand-up comic with the hope that at some point in your career you’ll happen to blurt out a joke that’s not only side-splittingly funny but also a palindrome.