Dear TMV Readers and Commenters. We have found some abuse and a loophole in the comment moderation tools. Because of this, we have been forced do some hard verification of access and other features on the site. This has cleared moderation queues due the loophole and abuse. Thus effectively giving all who are in good standing full commenting privileges again. Commenting moderation also has now been locked and limited to myself, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and Joe Gandelman (except for moderating...

Back in February 1994, the height of my Black Nationalism days, I remember Time Magazine came out with an article about Minister Louis Farrakhan called “Ministry of Rage”. I was livid yet pleased. How dare Time Magazine called the man that I used to idolized a man of rage? I thought then “Yeah he has righteous rage against those that look at we black folks as less than human” (remember these are my past views so don’t get weird on me). But I loved the picture...

We’ve added a contact form in the “Contact Us” link at the top of the site. This will allow any questions, comments, and/or concerns to be sent to either the Technical Staff or Editorial Staff (depending on the issue or request). We hope this makes getting in touch with us MUCH easier. Thank you.

We have found the problem with some of you being blocked in comments. It was due to an out-of-control spam filter. After a configuration change, those with incorrectly blocked accounts are now fine. Please try logging into your old account (if you created a new one) and try things out. You may have to refresh your browser after logging in if you still can’t comment. Thank you all for your continued patience.

Hello TMV readers and commenters. We are aware that some of your are experiencing issues when leaving comments such as comments not showing up. This was noticed before we added Sendlove.to functionality. Our investigations have not turned up any errors on TMV yet. Currently, we are testing out different web browsers and configurations to try to repeat the error. But we are seeing more strangeness with Internet Explorer 8 and above currently. Some commenters have reported success by creating new...

Hello TMV readers and commenters. We are excited to add some new functionality to the site courtesy of SendLove.to. When you read a TMV article now, you will notice the names of famous people (be it politicians, movie stars, authors, etc) highlighted and dotted underlined in blue. When you point to that name, you will be able to vote up or vote down that person in the context of the article. After voting them up or down, you can then comment about the person directly. These comments basically...

You see a crime story on the television, newspaper, or via the Internet: Brutal beating caught on tape; gay teen says assault was a hate crime And, if you’re black, many times you immediately think, “I hope they aren’t black”. Not the victim but rather the perpetrators of the crime. Then you find out that they are black and then you wince. In countless households, barber shops, churches, parks, etc, many black people deal with “I Hope… The Wince”. It’s...

The title of this article comes from Wesley Snipes’ somewhat famous quote in the movie Passenger 57. More on that quote later. One of my neighbors, an ultra-conservative member of the Georgia Tea Party sent me an e-mail last night in response to an earlier e-mail I sent. His message was funny and illuminating. I’m not going to say much more since the e-mail speaks for itself (header information edited for privacy): ———- From: XXXXX XXXXXXX [mailto:XXXX.XX@gmail.com] Sent:...

Hello TMV’ers. Since we have switched back to standard comments, there have been a large amount of auto-moderate comments appearing. I did some investigating and found that the comment spam filters were treating many of you like active cyber criminals. I went through the configuration and scaled things back a tad and noticed the comments auto-approved. So there may be some duplicate comments on post. Nevertheless, the issue is resolved. I will keep monitoring the spam filters and tweak...

Hello readers! District TMV, our forum-styled commenting system, is being retired tonight. There will be period of time on Saturday (04/30) where there will be no comments allowed while we bring up the traditional WordPress comment system. District TMV brought an interesting twist to TMV’s comments but has proven difficult to manage (front and behind the scenes) and has security issues. You WILL NOT have to create a new login name and password. Your current TMV ID will work. We will keep...

The Moderate Voice has experimented with different flavors and varieties of comments. Off-site regular. On-site. Off-site forum. Etc. We have been trying to make the comment area a place of fiery yet respectful conversation. But it seems that the overall political landscape and economic climate has many people firing with the verbal “nasty stuff” way too much at times. The solution? Mandatory comment approvals. Are we just going to implement that? No. But it is being discussed....

The title of this post is not my title nor my quote. It is what was said by my ultra-conservative, proud Tea Party neighbor (and friend) after he viewed President Obama’s speech on the BP oil well disaster last night. Compared to what is flowing in Memeorandum, seems like my neighbor (we’ll call him “Greg”) is in the minority. I asked Greg why he respected President Obama now based on the speech. Here is what he said in an e-mail to me this morning (posted with his permission...

Hello TMV readers and commenters. I have seen a sizable amount of moderation of comments due to the maximum number of 2 URLs/link per post reached. I have adjusted that number to 5 URLs/links per post. Our forum system is very vigilant in going after spam since spam is usually characterized by more than 2 URLs/links. But due to our quite learned commenter base, which does an awesome job of citing evidence and research in their comments, 5 URLs seemed like a more fairer number. I apologize for...

Hello readers. A while back, when we made the decision to scrap traditional comments, we started seeking other alternatives. We didn’t want to “clutter” the site with long comment streams. We wanted better management of “unsavory” comments and commenters. And we wanted much more interactivity. We are confident that we have found the solution. We call it: DISTRICT TMV! District TMV is our forum (using the most excellent Simple:Press application) where all posts on...

Hello TMV readers. By Saturday, May 6th, there will be a new page at the top of the site called District TMV. District TMV is our new forum functionality that will allow comments of posts written by authors as well as other features. We have decided to abandon the traditional comment system in favor of a forum due to its easier management and more robust features. One of the cool features include sending private messages to authors, editors, and other commenters without having to go to your e-mail...

Hello TMV readers. There will be system maintenance tonight starting at 11:30pm EDT. This maintenance will last for approximately 2 hours. You may notice site slowdowns and site outages during that time. This maintenance will allow for more features to be added to the site in the very near future. Thank you for your time and patience.

Dear TMV Readers, Self-published comments are now off. We will be adding two features in the near term. 1. Article contact form: There will be a form that allows you to contact the author of the post directly. Not all authors may choose to do so. 2. Better news scrolls: We will be implementing some customized news scrolls to allow TMV to function a bit like a portal. And here is a list of other projects we are thinking about but can’t guarantee quick implementation. 1. TMV Chat Box:...

Hello readers. I’ve been silent on this issue since Pete Abel has been spearheading the communication of this. But I’m going to offer a technical perspective as well. We have a significant amount of processing overhead with comments. Since TMV isn’t funded we have limited technical resources. Almost 80% of slowdowns and associated issues (including several big hacking attempts) this past year has been due to the commenting system. Even if we eliminated the commenting system...

Hello TMV readers and commenters. Twitter reactions to articles/posts have been disabled due to the always evolving pornographic industry’s “twitter tactics”. This doesn’t take away from comment functionality at all. Twitter reactions will be enabled as soon as we find a effective way of blocking pornographic twitters. Thanks to TMV reader and commenter Father Time for the heads up.

We are experiencing technical difficulties with our commenting system via Disqus. Disqus seems to have some stability issues at the moment which is stopping people from commenting. Please check HERE for updates on this situation. Hopefully this gets resolved soon. Thank you.

Before the upcoming rough and tumble week of political debates, firestorms, memes, falsehoods, truths, insanity, coffee-fueled sermons, drug-induced tirades, and assorted odds and ends, I present the legendary Pat Metheny Group with their classic song “As It Is” (Live) from their 2002 release “Speaking Of Now”. Every time I hear this song, I realize how true the phrase “As It Is”, is! It is what it is. Can it be something else? Maybe so but it always takes...

ATTENTION ALL TMV READERS AND COMMENTERS! There is a serious problem with our 3rd party commenting system (Disqus) in that random comments are being flagged as SPAM and are being removed. I have found those comments and I’m in the process of restoring them. Furthermore I have raised a support ticket with Disqus to get this fixed ASAP. I apologize for all of the confusion and emotion over this issue. Please follow this post for updates. UPDATE: 10/17/2009 @ 11:09AM EDT Comments in the past...

Image courtesy of Chicago Ray Report - http://chicagoray.blogspot.com Ok… Ok… The title is a bit over the top but President Obama is going to be the first U.S. President to appear before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to lobby for the Olympics (via The Huffington Post): WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s decision to fly to Denmark to support Chicago’s Olympics bid elevates the Games to an issue of national importance – and exposes him to political risks as...

UPDATE: According to MSNBC’s First Read, President Obama will be meeting with ALL the players in his Situation Room tomorrow (emphasis mine): Although President Obama has spent so much time and energy on domestic issues in his first nine months in office, last week’s news (Iran and its nuclear ambitions and missile tests, the future of Gitmo’s closure, and Gen. McChrystal’s troop request for Afghanistan) once again proved that foreign affairs could end up defining Obama’s presidency...

Once again Hollywood is on the attack. This time with a “PSA” about Protecting Insurance Companies. Click HERE to view the video via Funny Or Die (a new window will open). NOTE: I didn’t embed the video due the preview slowing down the site. Of course the predictable “Hollywood are a bunch of stupid, clueless, latte liberal elites” (implied not said) from various sources in Right Blogtopia such as Hot Air, Riehl World View, and Michelle Malkin has started. And the...