Relief Has Rewards

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Sea Change

For the first time, more citizens of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, support the U.S. War on Terror than oppose it — and America's response to the tsunami disaster is largely responsible for the change.

In a new poll, 40 percent of Indonesians say they're in favor of U.S. efforts to fight terrorism, compared to 36 percent who oppose them. That opposition number is down from 72 percent in 2003. What's more, support for Usama bin Laden has dropped from 58 percent to 23 percent over the same period. Sixty-five percent of respondents say American tsunami relief efforts led to their more favorable view of the U.S.

Kennedy Picks Kerry in '08

Ted Kennedy says he "admires and respects" Hillary Clinton, but he's backing fellow Massachusetts Senator John Kerry for president in 2008. Kennedy told ABC News, "I'm from Massachusetts, and we have a candidate...up there."

But a new poll suggests that even Massachusetts voters prefer Clinton to Kerry. Fifty-one percent told the State House News Service that they support Senator Clinton in 2008, compared to 33 percent who backed Kerry.

Internet Insults

Internet blogger Hiawatha Bray bashed John Kerry on his website during the presidential campaign — calling him a "liar" with a "moronic strategy" to win the election. But his online remarks got him into trouble at his day job, covering technology for the Boston Globe.

Bray wrote several pieces on the Kerry campaign and former Kerry surrogate Max Cleland says that's cause enough for his dismissal, adding, "I just can't get over the fact a reporter at a major newspaper was smearing John Kerry and he isn't even held accountable. Why does he have a job?" But Globe Editor Martin Baron says that while Bray's postings were "inappropriate," a rebuke was punishment enough.

Transgender Troubles

The New York Times reports that going to the bathroom has become dangerous for people who have either changed their sex, or are in the process of doing so. It seems that incidents occur when someone who appears to be a man uses the ladies room, or vice versa. This can mean hassling of those whose sex is not what it was and not yet what it will be.

One Riki Dennis, a San Francisco student, told the Times that he/she was roughed up by a man at a highway rest stop when he shared the ladies room with the man's girlfriend. Dennis told the Times he was in the early stages of becoming female at the time. Dennis and other "transsexuals, cross dressers and those with a fluid, androgynous identity" have organized to seek "degendered restrooms." The name of their group is People In Search of Safe Restrooms, PISSR.

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report