Despite a shift towards the Republicans in recent public opinion polls, Barack Obama and the Democrats are still betting favorites to capture the White House in November.

That said, there is a fair degree of variation in presidential odds at some of the top online sportsbooks. Below is a sampling of some odds.

For those looking for value on the Democratic side, Obama and the Dems can be locked in for as low as -175.

Those liking Maverick and the his Republican dogs might want to look across the pond. The Europeans feel Obama is stronger favorite, making McCain a more attractive wager value-wise.

Ireland’s PaddyPower.com is offering McCain at +162.5. British bookmaker William Hill is even more generous listing McCain at +175.

PaddyPower.com also has a few props related to Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. Perhaps the most interesting is how times he will say the word “change”.

The odds are longest at 20-1 (+2000) he won’t utter the magic word once. The shortest odds are 7-4 (+175) that he’ll say “change” over 20 times.

And finally, it appears British bookmaker Ladbrokes.com has posted odds that hint at one of the more sinister undercurrents in this presidential campaign.

With the first-ever man non-white on the verge of being elected, many Americans fear that some nut job will try to assassinate Obama.

Perhaps with that in mind, Ladbrokes has posted odds on who will be elected president in 2012. There are only two options: Hillary Clinton at +1000 and Obama’s VP running mate Joe Biden at +3300.

The Don has returned from vacation feeling a little uneasy about the upcoming football season.

The uneasiness has nothing to do with the size of his bankroll or his handicapping skills, which are only mediocre in relation to what has become essentially a coin flip sport.

No, the uneasiness has to do with television and how the sport will be presented this season.

For the past week and half, I’ve been trying to watch what promoters and pitchmen call “the greatest sporting event on earth,” namely the Olympics.

But for the life of me, I cannot watch more than half-an-hour of live coverage, and that’s if I happen to be watching an interesting sport.

With apologies to Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, I would rather watch the National Scrabble Championship than sit through an hour of “athletes” shooting arrows at a target.

As for women’s volleyball, that’s another story. Whether it’s on the beach or in the gym, women’s v-ball is definitely worth watching (Quite unfortunate to see Poland’s babes go down to defeat).

As the readers of this blog know, The Don is a cynical old curmudgeon. Unlike the naïve do-gooders of the world, The Don usually sees the glass half-empty when it comes to current events.

As such, The Don is looking forward to the gong show that’s about to take place in China. There will be plenty of entertaining issues to follow at the Beijing Games including communist muscle-flexing, choke-inducing smog and media harassment.

In particular, The Don will take twisted pleasure in following the parade of disgraced cheaters that will be thrown from the competition and stripped of their medals.

The scourge of performance-enhancing drugs has been Olympic mainstay since the Ben Johnson fiasco in 1988. In fact, it has become quite clear that plenty of athletes are willing to risk the shame of getting caught cheating while chasing the pot of gold at the end of the podium.

The International Olympic Committee claims it will conduct a record 4,500 tests for performance enhancing goodies at the Beijing Games. With that much firepower, you can bet some good old fashioned frauds will be grabbing the media spotlight.

(Note: I’ve yet to find a sportsbook with odds on who’s going to get caught with their hands in the druggie jar, however, I’m confident they’ll pop up in the coming days.)

How can The Don be so sure there will be positive drug tests at these Games? Well, there have already been plenty of cheaters nailed leading up to the Opening Ceremonies, which take place on Friday.

Among the early disgraced include:

Calvin Ayre is a controversial figure in sports gambling circles.

The Canadian tycoon was the founder and face of Bodog.com, one of the most successful gambling brands on the Internet.

A couple of years ago, Ayre was part James Cameron and part Hugh Hefner - he was a jet-setting “king of the world” who surrounded himself with hot models, celebrities and paparazzi.

Bodog’s enormous success was due in no small part to Ayre’s high-profile playboy lifestyle. In calculated fashion, Arye became a media fascination, and he used the publicity he attracted to market his brand.

Bodog grew to the point where Arye had reportedly become a billionaire, which earned him a cover story in Forbes magazine. Not bad for a former pig farmer from Saskatchewan.

But for an industry that was operating in a legal minefield, many in the online gaming world felt Ayre’s extravagance and arrogance drew too much media attention.

The Don has been in a bit of a funk when it comes to his interest in sports.

With oil prices skyrocketing, housing prices plummeting and banks failing, he just can’t seem to get excited about men trying to swat a small leather ball.

He has even had trouble getting into Mixed Martial Arts.

As a devoted fan of the sport, The Don rarely misses a live MMA event on TV, especially if it’s for free. This past Saturday, however, there was a live card on Showtime and The Don couldn’t be bothered to stay up and watch.

The Don suspects he’s not the only MMA fan who took a pass on Saturday night - he has barely heard a peep about the event. This is no doubt a sign that Mixed Martial Arts is hitting overload.

People like The Don, who some would say are not true hardcore fans, simply can’t keep track of all the new fight companies and their testosterone-juiced fighters that are popping up.

While these new fight companies are certainly staging good competitive cards with talented fighters, that’s simply not enough to draw mass interest and devoted fans.

In its early years, MMA drew big audiences largely out of morbid curiosity. But there is no longer any shock and awe associated with MMA, and watching a couple of tattoo-covered brawlers roll around in a cage for 15 minutes can be downright yawn-inspiring.

To combat the threat of boredom, the crucial ingredient for MMA’s success is personality. Are the fighters good guys or bad, colorful or boring, resentful or honorable, angry or composed, confident or insecure, do they rely on talent or determination?

When you visit Las Vegas you’ll likely to notice them as you’re making your final approach to McCarran International Airport.

Man-made lakes.

Now, for a first time visitor, these might not seem too outrageous, particularly if you’re visiting the city in say, February.

However, if you happen to land at McCarran in July, once you deplane, make your way through the air-conditioned airport, pick up your bags and walk outside to catch a cab, the realization will hit you like a hot knife to the lip.

Who in their right mind would build lakes in this blazing inferno?!

As you can imagine, building such abominations requires an enormous injection of precious water, much of which could be used for less interesting purposes such as drinking.

And paying for these mind-boggling mirages requires a great number of people pouring their fortunes into the residences that sit on the banks of these artificial boondoggles.

Those fortunes are also needed to cover the costs of the water-sucking golf courses, flower gardens, shrubs and palm trees that often surround these man-made oases.

Why would someone give their right nut to live in this type of community?

I suppose they’re trying to trick themselves into believing that they’re living in Tuscany rather than a harsh, throat-parching desert. But who am I to judge.

Anyway, as America’s real estate economy continues to meltdown, it came as no surprise to The Don that a casualty would be one of these godforsaken Las Vegas lake communities.

The Beijing Olympics look like they could be the best ever, but not because athletes will be faster, higher and stronger.

Rather, the Games are shaping up to be the most bizarre and ridiculous on record. As such, they should be wildly entertaining.

Thanks to steroids, stripped medals, crooked judges and over-the-top commercialism, the Olympic Games have become bloated, multi-billion dollar farces. And the Chinese appear poised to take the Games to a new level of hilarity.

For instance, nothing is more absurd than the Communist regime’s attempts to manufacture atmosphere by organizing and training 200,000 volunteer cheerleaders.

Roving bands of cheerleaders will not just be cheering for China, they’ll be cheering for any country that looks like it could use some support.

The cheerleaders, many of whom are retired civil servants, have apparently been taught dance steps and will be carrying around plastic, noisemaking “cheering sticks”.

Of course, images of civil servants cheering their little proletariat hearts might not be too TV friendly, so the Communist government has brilliantly organized an elite commando unit of 400 dancers and acrobats.

Volunteers had to complete to earn a spot in this elite unit, and the Chinese brought in the big guns to train the troops: the New England Patriot cheerleaders.

Besides being able to dance, kick, shake pompoms and throw nunchucks (I’m not making this up), the female contingent in this unit clearly had to have the right look, namely sex appeal.

Kudos to the Commies for their foresight in this regard.

While they may be rooting for different counties, the cheerleaders certainly won’t be waving flags. In fact, you won’t see anyone waving any national flags. That’s because Big Brother has banned all flags from the games.

The Don has been known to be a cynical, sharp-tongued blowhard who wallows in negativity, particularly when it comes to hypocrisy in the establishment.

But every once in a while something comes along that warms the cockles of The Don’s otherwise cold heart and gives him hope.

On Tuesday, Rep. Jim A. McDermott (D-Washington) introduced a bill that would earmark $40 billion in tax revenue for job training and education funding.

The job training would target people in slumping economic sectors while the education funding would be directed towards youth living in foster care.

The proposed “Investing in our Human Resources Act”, or H.R. 6501, would receive the tax revenue over 10 years from legalized and regulated Internet gambling in the United States.

“We have an ideal opportunity to invest billions of dollars in American workers and our struggling economy without increasing the federal deficit,” McDermott said in a prepared statement.

“IHRA would utilize a funding stream that would become available should Congress decide to legalize and regulate Internet gambling, which would protect consumers and collect tax revenue that is currently offshore.”

Co-sponsors of the Act include Rep. George Miller (D-California) and Rep. John B. Larson (D-Connecticut). Miller is currently the chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Of course, the megachurch-sized barrier standing in front of such quaint, bleeding-heart legislation is Washington’s poli-Christian voting block that continues to thwart any attempts to soften America’s harebrained anti-Internet gambling laws.

Perhaps there will be more hope and change come November, but The Don’s isn’t betting on it.

In other news, an Internet gambling studying conducted by the University of Western Ontario and UNLV found that gamblers tended to bet more frequently and more aggressively online than they did in casinos.

As America settles in for the dogs days of summer, Major League Baseball takes time out to glorify the National Past-its-prime.

The annual All-Star Game is an occasion for celebrating all that is good about baseball - the big boppers, the high-speed hurlers and the fleet-footed fielders.

It’s a huge public relations party staged by egomanical owners and millionaire tobacco chewers for the benefit of the starry-eyed fans who line their pockets.

The Midsummer Classic is a feel-good love-in which kind of turns The Don’s stomach.

What makes The Don ill is the all-too-frequent presence of hypocrisy. One year, All-Stars are celebrated for their great feats and for being the sport’s saviors; the next year they are made into pariahs and ostracized from the game.

Typically, it’s the holier-than-thou media that initiates this black-balling process. The hacks dig for dirt on players they once put on a pedestal. When they find the dirt, they wipe it on player’s names in the press.

This usually whips fans into a frenzy and forces gutless owners to unceremoniously part company with their meal tickets.

If you’re into sports betting, however, it’s hard to be a hypocrite without looking foolish. You live in a glass house, so you know you can’t throw stones.

That’s why whenever I talk with bookies and bettors about guys like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, I’m less critical and more sympathetic. After all, they’re imperfect humans like the rest of us.

So, in honor of the great ballplayers of yesteryear that gave baseball fans so much to cheer about before they were vilified, The Don has put together a mythical All-Star roster any hater of hypocrisy would admire.

I’ve also thrown in a manager and owner for good measure:

This past long weekend had an eery undercurrent to it. Call me a pessimist, but it kind of felt like the last blow-out before “the Big Event”.

What “the Big Event” will be is anyone’s guess. Stock market crash, global economic collapse, a food shortage, a gasoline shortage, an attack on Iran, a terrorist attack - take your pick.

Despite this sense of impending doom, I managed to enjoy the 4th of July weekend in Las Vegas, Ground Zero of America’s real estate meltdown.

I tried to get a pair of tickets for UFC 86 on Saturday, but unlike a couple of years ago when comps were a dime a dozen, the UFC is now the toughest ticket in town.

No biggie. Going to live UFC event is more about the atmosphere than the actual fights since the action is obstructed by the cage and roving cameramen. Unless you’re in the first 10 rows, most people at UFC events end up watching the action on the big screens surrounding the venue.

Although I couldn’t get tickets, I still wanted to catch the fights since I had a few bucks wagered on the dog in the Main Event, Forrest Griffin.

So I called up my pal Jorge, a sports handicapper and man about town. Jorge is a true Las Vegan, having lived in Sin City all his life. His parents moved to the city after fleeing from Fidel and his commie thugs back in the day.

Jorge told me not to worry about missing the fight; he had a kick-ass party lined up that would even be better than being at the Mandalay Bay.