Liberal Activist Says John McCain Once Told Her He Didn't Vote for President Bush

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Not-So-Secret Ballot

The John McCain campaign is strenuously denying a claim by celebrity liberal blogger Arianna Huffington that McCain and his wife told her they did not vote for President Bush in 2000.

Huffington writes that the McCain's made the statement during a dinner party in Los Angeles not long after the 2000 election. She says Senator McCain launched into a tirade critical of Mr. Bush's tactics against him in their battle for the Republican nomination.

The Washington Post reports that McCain spokesman tucker bounds says, "It's not true, and I ask you to please consider the source."

Longtime McCain aide Mark Salter adds, "Why would she make something up? Because she's a flake, and a poser, and an attention seeking diva."

Old Glory

A seven-year-old photograph of Barack Obama associate and onetime radical bomb maker William Ayers stomping on an American flag is all over the Internet.

The picture is from a Chicago magazine article in 2001. That is the same time Obama and Ayers served together on the board of a philanthropic organization called the Woods Fund. It is also around the same time that Ayers donated to Obama's State Senate campaign.

The Chicago Tribune reports Obama held a campaign event at Ayers' home in 1995 as he began his political career. Obama has described Ayers as a guy who lives in his neighborhood and the campaign has said they are on "friendly terms."

The senator's campaign has not commented on the picture.

Chill Out

There is some new and literally hard evidence today that worries over global warming may be overblown. Mathematician Steve McIntyre writes on the Web site ClimateAudit.org that data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Snow and Ice Data Center indicates world sea ice recently reached levels that were unprecedented for the month of April in over 25 years.

This is the same agency that said sea ice had declined to record lows in 2007. Now NOAA reports levels have rebounded, particularly in the southern hemisphere.

Stick Around

And an artist in Portland, Oregon has stuck a 23-foot needle into the ground by the Willamette River and hopes to plant more. Adam Kuby says it's a really large version of acupuncture. Kuby says he wants to help the city rejuvenate its "chi" — its vital energy.

"It's a visual way of expressing what a lot of people already know. [The city is] one organism, one body, one very complex, independent system," Kuby said.

This isn't the first odyssey into oddity for Portland, which is or has been home to the 24 Hour Church of Elvis, the voodoo doughnut shop, nude bike festivals and what was billed as the world's longest drag queen chorus line.

— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.