US public sees news media as biased, inaccurate, uncaring: poll  —  More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.  —  And poll respondents who use the Internet …

Poll: Giuliani leads for GOP nomination  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is leading the pack of Republican presidential hopefuls, supported by 29 percent of respondents in a poll released Friday.  —  Unannounced candidate former Sen. Fred Thompson is close behind with 22 percent …

Cheney urging military strikes on Iran  —  WASHINGTON — President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.  —  At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned …

Behind the scenes at the HRC/LOGO presidential forum...  I'm just getting settled into the press area at The Production Group Studios where the The Visible Vote '08: A Presidential Forum, put together by HRC and LOGO.  They have us pretty squeezed into a dark room (surrounded by black curtains …

The freedom to oppress  — by Dave  —  Ever notice how, for some Christian fundamentalists, the freedom of religion means the freedom not only to discriminate against other religions or other beliefs, but to actively promote hatred of them, to advocate their exclusion and oppression?

Mortgage Losses Echo in Europe and on Wall Street  —  Turmoil in the home loan market ricocheted from the United States to Europe and back again yesterday as stocks on Wall Street suffered their biggest one-day decline since February, reflecting growing concerns about tightening credit worldwide.

A New Leaderboard at the U.S. Open  —  There has been some turmoil yesterday on the leaderboard of the U.S. (Temperature) Open and there is a new leader.  —  A little unexpectedly, 1998 had a late bogey and 1934 had a late birdie.  (I thought that they were both in the clubhouse since the turmoil seemed to be in the 2000s.)

Bush Plans Immigration Crackdown  —  The Bush administration plans to announce numerous steps on Friday to secure the border with Mexico, speed the expulsion of illegal immigrants and step up enforcement of immigration laws, administration officials say.  —  The effort stems, in part …

U.S. Backs Free Elections, Only to See Allies Lose  —  Lebanon's political spin masters have been trying in recent days to explain the results of last Sunday's pivotal by-election, which saw a relatively unknown candidate from the opposition narrowly beat a former president, Amin Gemayel.

The Baghdad Fabulist  —  For weeks, the veracity of the New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute.  His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness.

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan announces candidacy  —  Citing her son as inspiration, a tearful Cindy Sheehan announced her candidacy Thursday for the U.S. House of Representatives.  —  The anti-war activist is running as an independent against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress since 1987.

Deported Canadian Was No Threat, Report Shows  —  Canadian intelligence officials anticipated that the United States would ship Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, to a third country to be tortured, declassified information released on Thursday shows.

Inside Iraq  —  I spent a week in Iraq recently, and here's what impressed me most: the Americans.  In particular, the quality and character of the American soldiers and Marines who are fighting there and trying to help rebuild the nation.  I don't mean to slight, in some ethnocentric way …

Giuliani Says He is Equal to 9/11 Recovery Workers  —  ABC News' Jan Simmonds Reports: In Ohio on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani R-NY handed his critics new ammunition regarding his role surrounding 9/11.  —  Speaking to reporters in Cincinnati, Giuliani said …

Fed Adds $19 Billion in Funds by Buying Mortgage Debt  —  Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve added $19 billion in temporary funds to the banking system through the purchase of mortgage-backed securities to help meet demand for cash amid a rout in bonds backed by home loans to riskier borrowers.

Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results  —  Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

E-male  —  IT'S WORTH remembering that the blogosphere is still so new it baffles spell check.  For that matter, if I type "blogger" on my screen, my retro software offers alternatives like "loggers," "floggers," and "boggler."  —  It "boggles" my mind to realize how quickly a piece of Internet terrain has gained power in politics.