Things are MOVING...Election Polls, Lava Domes & Fox News Web-Site removals

Here we are, still hashing out last Thursday's presidential debate, wondering what the Cheney-Edwards encounter in Cleveland will bring on Tuesday, and trying to guess how this Friday's town-hall-style re-match between Sen. Kerry and President Bush will shake out.

But what are people REALLY talking about? Mount St. Helens, for one, the Washington volcano that's waking up again. A "volcano cam" is now available online with images that refresh about every five minutes. References to the camera appear in the No. 10 spot on today's list of burstiest phrases.

Taking the top spot on that list is the latest Newsweek Poll that gives Sen. Kerry a two-point edge in its first post-debate poll of registered voters. Also high on the list are references to "aluminum tubes" and "nuclear weapons programs," the result of a New York Times weekend article about the Bush Administration's apparent decision to downplay Energy Department officials who disputed intelligence about the purpose of aluminum tubes found in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. The Bush Administration claimed the tubes were evidence of Iraq's re-entry into a nuclear weapons program, while doubters said the tubes were for launching small arterillery rockets, not nuclear weapons. It's obvious now who won that debate.

Speaking of debates, Sen. Kerry's reference to a "global test" for pre-emptive strikes brought about this tonque-in-cheek Global Test. Take it today!

On another matter, a few bloggers are claiming that Sen. Kerry broke the voluminous debate rules by pulling something -- notes, they say -- out of his pocket just before the debate started. But as the InDC blog explains, he removes "what look like note cards or papers from his right jacket pocket" at the podium. Or was it a handkerchief? A pocket pack of tissues? We'll never know.

Fox News' political reporter, Carl Cameron, is surfacing for several reasons: a fake news story that poked fun at Kerry's debate performance was posted (erroneously and "without malice," Fox later claimed) on the Fox web site after the debate. References to it and other Cameron tactics are available at the Talking Points memo blog (10/2 entries). In the Dan Rather spirit of political coverage, will Fox demand the resignation of one of its own? Hmmm....

Does any remember Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo Bay? Lieut. Col. Anthony Christino and David Rose are Nos. 2 and 4, respectively, among Sunday's burstiest people because of an upcoming report on intelligence failures at the Cuban detention prison. Christino retired last year after 20 years in the military, and British journalist Rose authored the upcoming report, to be published this week.

GET THE FULL POLITICAL PICTURE of ongoing discussions on the key issues in this year's Presidential campaign at BLogPulse's Campaign Radar 2004.