Around The ‘Sphere

Our occasional everything-on-it linkpizza. MANY different political viewpoints are offered for your consumption. Opinions do not necessarily represent the views of The Moderate Voice.

THE TRIAL OF THE KING OF PERPS POPS BEGINS and Jeff Jarvis is (rightfully) cringing:

Oh, gawd, the Michael Jackson trial begins. We watch him going to lunch. We watch him coming back from lunch. We watch the poor guy whose job it is to hold an umbrella over the poster boy for the dangers of fame. We watch MJ being wanded — no pat-downs here. We watch reporters fill time. And it’s just the first day. We’re sentenced to months of this.

They said on TV today that 1,000 journalists had applied for credentials to cover the trial. Why, lord, why?

The Inimitable James Wolcott has lots to say on the Iraqi elections. He MUST be read in full (whether you agree with him or not) but here’s a small part:

Indeed, (the Iraqi people’s) example should shame Americans, who have curled up into a fetal position with cowardice since 9/11, wanting to the state to make them feel "safe" no matter what the cost to civil liberties and personal freedom here and abroad.

What I dread is how this day will be used by the new centurions. The Iranian blogger Hoder with whom I had the pleasure to lunch when he visited New York (something I haven’t mentioned previously, for worry it would ruin his rep and get him de-linked by certain sulky bloggers), sensibly, succinctly observes today, "On the one hand I’m really excited that Iraqi people have been able to start the path to a potentially democratic political system, on the other hand I’m really upset that this will embolden neoconservatives and will be seen as a confirmation of their dangerous plans for the world."

DO TOP CONSERVATIVE BLOGGERS TALK ABOUT A SELF-CORRECTING BLOGOSPHERE WHILE TURNING OFF THEIR COMMENT HOSTING? Kevin Drum thinks so and gives you specifics. But aren’t there really many possible reasons for this? Just think if Glenn Reynolds, aka InstaPundit, had commenting on and all of the name calling he’d experience, plus the cuss words. Not to mention spams. I know of several bloggers that have been almost burned out due to commenting. (We have even had some minor problems on this site, but most readers offer useful suggestions. PS: I took my computer and tried and but it won’t fit up there.) Bottom line: the reason why a given blogger doesn’t use comments probably has less to do with ideology and an unwillingness to deal with opposing viewpoints than whether factors combine to make comments useful or too much of a hassle (deletions due to obscenties, porn, excessive name calling).

GUESS WHO PROTESTERS IN BRAZIL HAVE LABELLED THE NUMBER ONE TERRORIST? I’ll give you one guess (and he’s not a guy with a mangy beard).

DETAILED INFORMATION ON THE COLORADO PROFESSOR WHO’S IN HOT WATER AFTER CALLING 911 VICTIMS "LITTLE EICHMANNS" has been compiled by Wes Roth here. Note that he’s writing this for a South Dakota blog. His zippy Drudge-like Wes Roth Report is worth visiting frequently (but it is MORE RELIABLE than Drudge in terms of not running exclusives that don’t hold up and disppear…and he has never run a headline about "Jew groups.").

DOES THE US NEWS MEDIA HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARDL ON THE HOLOCAUST? The Basque blog Ingeleraz thinks so.

MORE ON THE IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS from Kevin Featherly, who has a long analysis which must be read in full. An excerpt:

I will confess that I did not believe this turn of events was likely to
happen. I will spare some reservations for exactly what it means; it
could be that the elections weren’t disrupted more broadly because the
insurgents have some other bigger plans. Or it could be that Iraq has
turned the corner on the insurgency, and will now beat it back with
their ballots. It is impossible at this stage to know. We won’t even
know for 10 days or so the exact outcome of the elections.

But one thing is undeniable. The Iraqis turned out at a rate of
about 57 percent nationwide, or about 8 million voters. And in
Baghdad–in the heart of the Sunni triangle, where walking the streets
is normally perilous, let alone during an election that terrorists
threatened to derail–turnout was huge….

And that was true despite obstacles that undoubtedly would have brought
turnout rates in an American election down to something like single
digits……It isn’t that the terrorists took the day off. There were in
fact attacks: Nine suicide bombers managed to kill some 36 people.
Iraqi citizens were taking chances with their lives in order to
exercise their democratic right to vote.

IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STARTING TO RESEMBLE A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH? According to Roger Morrow it is.

INDIA COMES OF POLITICAL AGE: Daniel Drezner has a great post about post-tsunami India…and clearly India has grown. This is MUST READING since it must be read in full. But as someone who was a dedicated student of Indian politics and affairs; interned on the Hindustan Times in New Delhi; and worked and wrote there as a freelance for papers such as the Chicago Daily News and The Christian Science Monitor, I can tell you: Dresner’s post really reflects a shift. India was long considered the world’s clunkiest bureaucracy, aside from being the world’s biggest democracy. But if you read his post you see how India has begun to live up to the expectations many political scientists have had for many years — of it becoming a true regional power.