Sens. Clinton of New York and Obama of Illinois continued their fundraising dominance in the fourth quarter of last year. Clinton brought in $26.8 million, while Obama raised $22.8 million.

Compare that to the GOP candidates, none of whom came close to matching either Democrat.

McCain, the Arizona senator who has emerged as the front-runner, raised $6.8 million, but had to take out a loan to keep his campaign afloat. Romney, the wealthy former Massachusetts governor, brought in $9 million in contributions, but loaned his campaign twice that amount. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, raised $6.6 million. And topping the field with an impressive $19.7 million raised in the fourth quarter was Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman, though he barely registers in polls.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.

In interviews with The Hill this month, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) said there were nearly two months of talks with the maverick lawmaker following an approach by John Weaver, McCain's chief political strategist.

Democrats had contacted Jeffords and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) in the early months of 2001 about switching parties, but in McCain's case, they said, it was McCain's top strategist who came to them.

[...]

Daschle said that throughout April and May of 2001, he and McCain "had meetings and conversations on the floor and in his office, I think in mine as well, about how we would do it, what the conditions would be. We talked about committees and his seniority . [A lot of issues] were on the table."

Absolutely not so, according to McCain. In a statement released by his campaign, McCain said, "As I said in 2001, I never considered leaving the Republican Party, period."

THAT foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

THAT the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

THAT when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

THAT the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

THAT the genius of the Constitution - the division of powers - is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

THAT when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation, that when it takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies.
[...]
THAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?

Former President Bill Clinton ... characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"?

"The proof in the pudding is looking at the treatment of the other Bush nominees," Obama said. "I mean for the most part, I for example do not agree with a missile defense system, but I don't think that soon-to-be-Secretary Rumsfeld is in any way out of the mainstream of American political life. And I would argue that the same would be true for the vast majority of the Bush nominees, and I give him credit for that.

"So I don't want to be pegged as being far left simply because I find certain aspects in John Ashcroft's record to be divisive or offensive," Obama continued. "I think it's legitimate for me to raise that. As I said before, if he brought before us a nominee who didn't agree with me on affirmative action and yet said that, you know, I do think that and showed a history for showing regard and concern for racial justice, if he came before us and said I oppose a woman's right to choose, or I oppose abortion, I find it religiously offensive, and yet I do respect, for example, the notion that we shouldn't be solving these things with violence, historically, if that had been what was said, then I don't think I would object. And I think that's a fair position to take."

Obama is on the cusp of doing well on Super Duper Tuesday and has still never had a negative TV ad run against him, and it seems clear that Hillary Clinton is correct in her implication — he has not been fully "vetted."

There's a lot voters — and the media — do not know about him.

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who ran for president in 2000 and 2004, said he is considering another bid for the White House because he believes the current contenders aren't standing up enough to corporate interests.

``Look at the major areas of injustice, deprivation and solutions that are not being addressed by the major candidates,'' Nader, 73, said in a telephone interview today. Among other issues, he cited the need for a ``practical timed withdrawal'' from Iraq, programs to crack down on corporate fraud and a rearrangement of the U.S. tax system.

Some Democrats blame Nader for spoiling former Vice President Al Gore's bid for the presidency in 2000 by taking support away from him in Florida, the state that decided the election.

[T]he Berkeley City Council...voted 8-1 Tuesday night to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines because of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy. And it officially encouraged the women's peace group Code Pink to impede the work of the Marines in the city by protesting in front of the station.

In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.

In a major boost for McCain, Romney signaled earlier Wednesday that he's not ready to commit to a costly campaign in the states holding primaries and caucuses next week.

Several officials said that on the heels of a defeat in Tuesday's Florida primary, Romney's campaign was not attempting to purchase television advertising time in any of the states on the Super Tuesday calendar.

Instead, the former Massachusetts governor's current plans call for campaigning in California and other primary states, said the officials, who had knowledge of the internal discussions. There would be organizational efforts primarily for caucus states.

Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted Tuesday night shows the gap between the two candidates is within a few points. Obama's position has been strengthening on a day-by-day basis. As recently as Jan. 18-20, Clinton led Obama by 20 points. Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking is based on interviews conducted Jan. 27-29, all after Obama's overwhelming victory in South Carolina on Saturday. Two out of the three nights interviewing were conducted after the high-visibility endorsement of Obama by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy.

Clinton's lead in the three-day average is now 42% to Obama's 36%. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after Gallup conducted these interviews, ended his quest for the presidency with 12% support. Wednesday night's interviewing will reflect the distribution of the vote choice of former Edwards' supporters as well as the impact, if any, of Hillary Clinton's popular vote win in Florida on Tuesday.

Since Chavez took office in 1999 Venezuela's oil production has dropped by 28 percent and PDVSA's debt has risen significantly. Meanwhile, some major foreign oil producers have left the country and taken their cutting edge technology with them.

The Venezuelan government claims that between 2006 and 2012 it will reinvest $76 billion of its earnings to increase production, but analysts canvassed by the three reporters who wrote the story think that the figure comes closer to between $2 and $5 billion a year—a drastic short-fall. Moreover, many of PDVSA's activities are now unrelated to oil—it has hatched subsidiaries to distribute powdered milk, or to mill corn, or even to build boats. (Anyone who knows Venezuela can imagine the lush opportunities this offers for illicit enrichment by the agency officials or the military who work with them.) Meanwhile, as oil production falters, the state company has decided to take on more employees. When Chavez took office PDVSA had 48,000 workers. It now has nearly 75,000, and the president-dictator has announced plans to hire an additional 30,000 by the end of next year. (One cannot help recalling the case of the Argentine YPF, which was the only oil company in the world that lost money in the go-go 1970s!)

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has criticised Russia's electoral process and called for extensive reforms to a system that has secured power for the President, Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin's inner circle.

"Something is wrong with our elections, and our electoral system needs a major adjustment," Mr Gorbachev said in remarks published by the Interfax news agency on Monday.

His comments were made after the Russian Government rejected the only serious opposition candidate in the March 2 presidential election.

The timing was pointed, and the remarks - ignored by Russian television news broadcasts that are controlled by the Kremlin - were the most vocal criticism by a prominent political figure of the state of the country's politics as Mr Putin prepares to pass power to a chosen successor.

The opposition candidate, the former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, was denied a place on the ballot on Sunday by the Central Election Commission, which said 13 per cent of the more than 2 million signatures submitted with his registration documents were invalid.

Mr Kasyanov has said that the signatures are valid and that the Kremlin ordered the commission to block his candidacy as a means of ensuring the election of Dmitri Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister and the candidate selected by Mr Putin.

A spokesman said on Monday the Government had halved the number of foreign observers invited to the elections and suggested some monitors in the past had been hostile to Moscow.

Mr Gorbachev, in the published statements, said the election's result was "predictable from the outset" and "predetermined by the enormous role that Vladimir Putin played".

Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase "Nominee presumptive John McCa....."

Sorry, I can't say it. Not yet.

COURTING VOTERS in Iowa and New Hampshire, last August Sen. Hillary Clinton signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in the Michigan or Florida Democratic primaries. She participated in both primaries and is campaigning in Florida. Which proves, again, that Hillary Clinton is a liar.

Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot when others removed theirs, she campaigned this past weekend in Florida, and she is pushing to seat Michigan and Florida delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The party stripped those states of delegates as punishment for moving up their primary dates.

"I will try to persuade my delegates to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida," Clinton said last week, after the New Hampshire primaries and Iowa caucuses were safely over.

Clinton coldly and knowingly lied to New Hampshire and Iowa.

Waiting times for medical care in Sweden are the longest in Europe, according to the Health Consumer Powerhouse, which analyzes health-care systems in the region. About 33,000 people had been waiting more than three months for surgery or other major treatments at the end of August, an increase of 43 percent from May, a report by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions showed.

Critics of Sweden's welfare model say there are no incentives for hospitals to improve efficiency. Oscar Hjertqvist, director of the Health Consumer Powerhouse, likens the current system to a bad restaurant getting government funding.

``In Sweden, you would get paid just to have a restaurant, but there would be no requirements that people should get any food,'' said Hjertqvist, whose group has offices in Brussels and Stockholm.

Jorun Lindell got fed up with Swedish health care the day her son Harald waited four hours to be treated at a Stockholm emergency ward. His knees and ankles were swollen ``like soccer balls.''

``We were hysterical because we didn't know what was wrong and no one would help us,'' says Lindell, 39, whose 4-year-old whimpered with pain in a waiting room at the Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital, named after the author of the Pippi Longstocking children's books.

Lindell is among the parents backing Sweden's first private hospital for children. Opening in the second half of 2008 in Stockholm's affluent Oestermalm district, Martina Children's Hospital will handle about 20,000 emergency cases a year, a third of Astrid Lindgren's case load.

``The new hospital for the children of the upper classes is a mockery of the most fundamental values of the Swedish system,'' said Lars Ohly, leader of the Swedish Left Party. ``Care should be given based on needs, not wallets.''

In an article published in the European Respiratory Journal, the scientists said cannabis could be expected to harm the airways more than tobacco as its smoke contained twice the level of carcinogens, such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, compared with tobacco cigarettes.

The method of smoking also increases the risk, since joints are typically smoked without a proper filter and almost to the very tip, which increases the amount of smoke inhaled. The cannabis smoker inhales more deeply and for longer, facilitating the deposition of carcinogens in the airways.

"Cannabis smokers end up with five times more carbon monoxide in their bloodstream (than tobacco smokers)," team leader Richard Beasley, at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, said in a telephone interview.

"There are higher concentrations of carcinogens in cannabis smoke ... what is intriguing to us is there is so little work done on cannabis when there is so much done on tobacco."

The researchers interviewed 79 lung cancer patients and sought to identify the main risk factors for the disease, such as smoking, family history and occupation. The patients were questioned about alcohol and cannabis consumption.

In this high-exposure group, lung cancer risk rose by 5.7 times for patients who smoked more than a joint a day for 10 years, or two joints a day for 5 years, after adjusting for other variables, including cigarette smoking.

"While our study covers a relatively small group, it shows clearly that long-term cannabis smoking increases lung cancer risk," wrote Beaseley.

Those who most want to be president are those who least deserve to be elected. The best presidents are those who are forced or persuaded by others into accepting the job.

One of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job.

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

[R]elative to most libertarian economists, I am more likely to think — or should I say admit — that human beings are irrational, even when the stakes are high [...]

But, relative to social democrats, I tend to think that politicians are irrational actors trying to pander to irrational voters and that it can't be any other way.

The council replaced what was widely viewed as a cancer on the United Nations — an ineffectual "Commission on Human Rights" that also had a single-minded focus on Israel. According to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "the selectivity and politicizing of its activities [were] in danger of bringing the entire U.N. system into disrepute."

The removal of the diseased commission two years ago was heralded by U.N. officials as "the dawn of a new era." Its replacement was designed to have stricter standards for membership, and rules to prevent politicized voting. But such safeguards were neutered by the time the new Human Rights Council was approved, and the results are that the council is no better than its predecessor.

As fresh waves of violence convulsed Darfur in December, the council responded by dismissing the team of experts tasked with monitoring atrocities in that region. Sudan's closest allies, Egypt and China, have led the council in shielding the Sudanese regime.

Even mild resolutions, like a Canadian proposal requesting the prosecution of those responsible for abuses in Darfur, have been rejected. Reports from U.N. fact-finding missions implicating Sudan's government in torture, rape and mass murder — including one led by Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams earlier this year — have been discarded. And while world leaders labeled the Sudanese regime's actions as genocide, the council continued to commend Sudan's conduct and assign blame to "all parties" involved. In the face of the world's worst human-rights crisis, it has refused to issue a single condemnation.

Last week the U.N. Human Rights Council held an emergency session, organized by Arab and Muslim nations, to condemn Israel for its military actions in the Gaza strip. That the council is capable of swift and decisive action is a welcome surprise; that Israel remains the only nation to provoke such action is not. In the 17 months since its inception, the body has passed 13 condemnations, 12 of them against Israel.

The problems begin with the council's composition. Only 25 of its 47 members are classified as "free democracies," according to Freedom House's ranking of civil liberties. Nine are classified as "not free." Four — China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia — are ranked as the "worst of the worst." These nations are responsible for repeated violations of the U.N.'s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet it is they who dominate the council, leading a powerful bloc of predominantly Arab and African nations that consistently vote as a unit.

These regimes have repeatedly used the council as a powerful tool for shielding themselves from scrutiny and meting out criticism along stark political lines. According to Human Rights Watch, the council has turned a blind eye to at least 26 countries — the sites of some of the world's worst human-rights crises.

In some cases, the council has actively eroded the level of monitoring. Last year, when Cuba drew fire for persecuting journalists, and Belarus for political imprisonments and rigged elections, the council responded by removing monitors from both countries.

George W. Bush finished his seventh and possibly final State of the Union speech at 10:02 p.m. last night...

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

"And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not "this" one). 'They' are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That's Howard's brother) who run DFA (that's the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women's money, say they'll do feminist and women's rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America's future or whatever.

"This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women's rights, women's voices, women's equality, women's authority and our ability - indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who 'know what's best for us.'"

John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth.

Shoo Fly publishers of Newcastle has produced a very innovative, interactive software version of the Three Little Pigs — a 3D book designed to encourage young children to develop critical thinking abilities. It has won several awards, but was not approved by BECTA because "the use of pigs raises cultural issues." In particular, the company was told, "Judges would not recommend this product to the Muslim community," out of concern the pig images would be upsetting.

British papers were instantly filled with headlines such as "PC gone mad! Muslims devour Little Red Riding Hood."

But, of course, Muslims had done no such thing. Indeed, the Muslim Council of Britain told the Daily Telegraph, "We are not offended by that at all," and called on British schools to welcome the books.

Call it suicide by tolerance. The Western world with its institutions of democracy and the rule of law, with its advances in science and medicine, its progress in individual liberty, its historic devotion to reason and its developments in culture and the arts will disappear because its own elites could not be proud enough of its achievements to defend it from within.

If any bill raising taxes reaches my desk, I will veto it.

If you send me a bill that doesn't cut the number of earmarks in half, I'll send it back to you with my veto.

Illegal immigration...must be resolved in a way that upholds both our laws and our highest ideals.

20,000 of our troops are coming home.

Reconciliation is taking place, and the people of Iraq are taking control of their future.

Most fraud in subprime lending appears to have been so-called "fraud for purchase" - lying about income so as to win a mortgage approval. In reviewing a sample of "no doc" loans that relied on borrowers' statements, the Mortgage Asset Research Institute recently found that almost all would-be home owners had exaggerated their income, with almost 60 per cent inflating it by more than 50 per cent.