Video Game Yanked for Being Offensive to Muslims

Well, that’s bullsh.. I mean, well THAT’s a bummer…

One of the fall’s most anticipated video games for the PlayStation 3, Sony’s “LittleBigPlanet,” had to be yanked from shelves at the last minute Monday because it might accidentally offend Muslims.

“One of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran,” Sony said in a statement Monday. “We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused.”

The piece of music in question is “Tapha Niang” by the Grammy-winning Malian musician Toumani Diabaté, who sings and plays a West African stringed instrument called the kora.

Devotional music doesn’t raise eyebrows in many Muslim countries, including several in West Africa including Mali, but it’s a no-no for some strict Sunnis, who frown upon instrumented music of any sort.

“LittleBigPlanet” had been scheduled to hit shelves in North American on Oct. 21, the day after Sony’s surprise announcement.

Sony plans to get the game back on shelves the week of Oct. 28, though quantities may be limited since the entire stock of existing PlayStation 3 discs will likely have to be junked and replacements hurriedly printed.

The game, developed by the British studio Media Molecule, was first announced in early 2007. Players manipulate a cute sock-puppet-like figure called “Sackboy” (or “Sackgirl”)around a fantasy world that they can expand upon and share with other players.

After nearly a decade catering to young, male hardcore gamers, Sony is trying to capture some of the demographics dominated by Nintendo’s family-friendly Wii, which far outsells both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 by appealing to children, older players and women.

Democratic presidential nominee cancels nearly all campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly ill 85-year-old grandmother

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to visit his suddenly gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, a spokesman said.

Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Obama’s plane that Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise Obama, was released from the hospital late last week. But he said her health had deteriorated “to the point where her situation is very serious.”

Events originally planned for Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced by one in Indianapolis before he makes the long flight to Hawaii. On Friday, Obama’s wife, Michelle, will sub for Obama at rallies in Akron and Columbus, in Ohio, said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Obama was expected to resume campaigning on Saturday, at an undecided location in the West, she said.

“Sen. Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life, along with his mother and his grandfather,” Gibbs said. “Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Sen. Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her.”

Citing the family’s desire for privacy, Gibbs would not discuss the nature of Dunham’s illness. It seemed likely that she was close to death, as Gibbs said that “everyone understands the decision that Sen. Obama is making.” Dunham turns 86 on Sunday.

It could be a momentous one in his bid for the White House against Republican John McCain, with Election Day just two weeks away on Nov. 4.

In a campaign ad this year, Obama described his Dunham as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who “taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland” — things like “accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated.”

She’s also the “white grandmother” he referred to in a speech on race.

Obama recognized Dunham when he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Denver.

“She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well,” he said.

Obama last visited Hawaii in August for a week’s vacation after he had clinched the nomination.

As Election Day approaches, a recent poll finds McCain gaining ground in two key battleground states — Florida and Ohio.

FOX News/Rasmussen Reports state polling this week shows a slightly improved situation for John McCain compared to a week ago — though the underlying dynamic of the election still favors Barack Obama.

The biggest change is found in Florida where the race is now essentially even with McCain at 49 percent and Obama at 48 percent. A week ago, Obama was up by five percentage points and the week before he held a seven-point lead. The current polling shows McCain’s support at its highest level since mid-September.

McCain also moved slightly ahead again in Ohio with a 49 percent to 47 percent advantage over Obama. A week ago, those numbers were reversed and Obama had the two-point advantage. In Florida, the current poll shows McCain at his highest level of support since mid-September.

But it is hard to classify Ohio as anything but a pure toss-up — four straight weekly polls have found McCain and Obama within two points of each other or closer. During that time, neither man has topped 49 percent support or fallen below 47 percent. Average the four polls together and the candidates are within half-a-point of each other.

North Carolina has drifted slightly in the opposite direction. Obama now leads in the Tar Heel State 51 percent to 48 percent. A week ago, the candidates were tied in a state that has not voted for a Democrat since 1976.

Missouri has also drifted slightly towards Obama. The Democrat now leads in the Show-Me State by 49 percent to 44 percent. Both last week and the week before Obama held a narrower advantage, 50 percent to 47 percent. The survey was conducted the day after Obama attracted 100,000 people to a rally in St. Louis and 75,000 to a rally in Kansas City.

There is little change in Colorado where Obama leads by five points, 51 percent to 46 percent. The previous FOX News/Rasmussen Reports survey was conducted two weeks ago and found Obama up by six points in that state.

Overall, these results are a slightly better for McCain only in that he has overcome deficits to draw even in Ohio and Florida. However, all five of the battleground states were carried by George W. Bush four years ago and are considered must-win states for McCain.

The results are also consistent with national polling that shows the race might have tightened somewhat over the past week. The Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll has generally shown Obama up by four or five points nationally during the past week. Prior to that, Obama had consistently enjoyed a five-to-eight point lead.

Still, despite McCain’s gains in key states and in the national numbers, the overall state of the race continues to favor Obama with just over two weeks left until Election Day.

A number of other themes emerge from the data that are worth noting:

- Economic issues remain far and away the top priority in all states.

- The best single indicator of a state’s preference for Obama or McCain is the question of which candidate is more trusted by voters on issues related to the economy. Obama is trusted by slightly more voters than McCain on economic issues in four of the five states. In Florida, 47 percent trust each candidate most on the economy.

- In all five battleground states polled this week, McCain’s net support is just one to four points better on the ballot question than it is on the trust on economy question.

- On the question of who has the “right experience” to be president, McCain has a solid advantage in all five states.

- The number in each state saying that “right experience” ranges from a low of 63 percent to a high of 68 percent. The comparable range for Obama is from 40 percent to 46 percent. The biggest reason for this gap is that Democrats are divided on whether McCain has the right experience.

- In all states but North Carolina, voters not affiliated with the major political parties are more likely to see McCain as having the “right experience.” In North Carolina, 49 percent of unaffiliated voters see each man as having the right experience.

- Both candidates are viewed favorably by most voters in all five states.

- In all five states, Obama is seen as more likely to bring about real change. The number who say he is the only candidate who could deliver on change ranges from 40 percent to 43 percent in these battleground states. The number saying McCain is the only candidate who could bring about change ranges from 27 percent to 29 percent.

- Between 15 percent and 18 percent of voters in each state believe both candidates could bring about real change. Between 9 percent and 12 percent in each state believe neither can do so.

- The battleground state surveys were conducted the day that former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama. All interviews were conducted after the endorsement was made and it is not clear if there was any impact from the announcement. In national polling, there was little immediate impact from the Powell endorsement.

Things to Look For

At this point in the campaign, Obama appears to be ahead in every state won by John Kerry in 2004. All of the battleground states voted Republican four years ago.

This means the most significant thing to watch for in the coming week is whether McCain can gain ground and take the lead in these states. To accomplish that he will have to gain ground as the candidate to trust on the economy.

Click here to read the raw data from this poll

Opening an avenue for the McCain campaign to push its candidate’s strengths, Joe Biden says an Obama administration would face an international challenge in its first six months.

Barack Obama will face an international crisis early in his presidency, Joe Biden warns, fueling Republican charges that the Democratic presidential candidate’s own running mate admits Obama is a blank slate in the face of coming national security threats.

Speaking in Seattle on Sunday, Biden said he could guarantee that the world will want to find out if Obama is up to the job, which he assured voters he is.

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking,” Biden said.

“Remember I said it standing here. if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he’s gonna have to make some really tough — I don’t know what the decision’s gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it’s gonna happen,” Biden continued.

The Delaware senator’s remarks were the second of their kind over the weekend. At a fundraiser in San Francisco, Biden said Obama’s challengers will “find out this guy’s got steel in his spine” when he is tested.

The McCain campaign jumped on Biden’s remarks, saying the next president “won’t have time to get used to the office.”

“Just last night, Senator Biden guaranteed that if Senator Obama is elected, we will have an international crisis to test America’s new president,” reads a memo from the McCain campaign. “We don’t want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars. …

“Senator Obama wont have the right response, and we know that because we’ve seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign. … We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: hoping for our luck to change at home and abroad. We have to act. We need a new direction, and we have to fight for it,” the statement said.

But Democratic aides said that Biden was merely reciting history and assuring supporters that Obama is the man for the job.

“Sen. Biden was making it clear that history has shown presidents face challenges starting on day one, and with our nation fighting two wars and 21st century threats abroad, we know that we need steady leadership in tumultuous times, not the erratic lurching and stubborn ideology of John McCain,” said Biden spokesman David Wade

Democratic strategist and pollster Doug Schoen said Biden’s comments are “probably an uncomfortable truth, certainly not what you want as a Democratic strategist for your vice presidential candidate to say….

“But he probably is going to be tested and he hasn’t had experience and I’d like to think he’ll be up to the task with whatever we face, but politics is about making choices. But the question is given the failures of the Bush administration … do we want to go in that direction or do we want to go in a different direction?” Schoen asked.

Barack Obama once gave a glowing endorsement of a book by former domestic terrorist William Ayers and was mentioned by name in the book itself.

Barack Obama, who has consistently downplayed his relationship with William Ayers during his presidential campaign, once gave a glowing endorsement of a book by the former domestic terrorist and was mentioned by name in the book itself.

A blogger unearthed the Dec. 21, 1997, endorsement in the Chicago Tribune and posted photographs of the praise for Ayers’ book on Zombietime.com Saturday.

Featured next to a smiling photograph of himself, then-State Senator Obama called Ayers’ book, “A Kind and Just Parent: Children of the Juvenile Court,” a “searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair.”

The book, which details life at the Chicago Juvenile Court prison school, mentions Obama by name on page 82 when it describes Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood:

“Our neighbors include Muhammad Ali, former mayor Eugene Sawyer, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Alexander, and writer Barack Obama. Minister Louis Farrakhan lives a block from our home and adds, we think, a unique dimension to the idea of ’safe neighborhood watch’: the Fruit of Islam, his security force, has an eye on things twenty-four-hours a day.”

The Obama campaign said the blurb was not a full-fledged review of the book.

“He didn’t do a review. He provided one line about the book to the Tribune,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.

A month before the item appeared, on Nov. 20, 1997, Michelle Obama, then dean of student services and director of the University Community Service Center, held a panel at the University of Chicago that featured both Barack Obama and Ayers.

“Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system,” the University of Chicago Chronicle reported on Nov. 6, 1997.

Obama has been criticized for refusing to elaborate on the extent of his relationship with Ayers and for claiming to have had no idea Ayers was a co-founder of the Wesather Underground, which claimed responsibility for bombing the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a New York Supreme Court justice’s home in the Sixties.

The Obama campaign has noted that Obama was 8 years old when Ayers and the Weather Underground were active and has no link to their activities. Ayers has said he has “no regrets” about his participation in the domestic terror group.

“A Kind and Just Parent” was in stock at Amazon.com and ranked 51,273 in sales on Monday.