Press Release: NEW FILM RELEASED — SACRED CHOICES AND ABORTION: TEN NEW THINGS TO THINK ABOUT Milwaukee, Wisconsin November 14, 2005 Contact: Ms. J Clements Outreach Director The Religious Consultation thefilmfarm@earthlink.net (for copies for review) The Religious Consultation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has just released to the religious community the film Sacred Choices And Abortion. This documentary explores...

Check out yesterday’s discussion group topic at The Carpetbagger Report, one of the best liberal blogs out there: “Is the national media making a comeback? Are the days of passivity and stenography officially over? Or, conversely, is even the coverage we’re now getting too timid?” “Has the news media turned a corner? Will it last? What prompted the change?” ********** Much...

Not too long ago, I mentioned that al Qaeda was setting up shop in the U.K. If this story is true — and there’s no reason to doubt it — the threat continues to spread even as Iraq remains a question mark and the war on terrorism, now a war against Islamofascism, proceeds in fits and starts against a nebulous enemy. ********** And now, in the same vein, we have this: The Globe and Mail, drawing...

Some on the Left have accused NBC’s Tim Russert of being a tool of the Right with a GOP bias. Now he’s being accused of being a shill for the Left. (We don’t know why, but that’s deja vu to TMV…)

To some, it’s a clear-cut issue: torture should be banned — period. To others, it’s far more complicated: what if U.S. officials had someone in their hands who knew about an attack that could kill thousands or millions? But the White House made it clear today that its stand on torture is to oppose ruling it out-of-bounds because the U.S. could one day face a worst-case scenario: In an important...

Is he being treated with kid gloves, and why? Oxblog’s David Adesnik has some ideas HERE.

If you thought sauerkraut was just that stuff you put on a hotdog or a dish that means you no longer need a Whoopie Cushion, think again: New medical evidence suggests that sauerkraut may be to Bird Flu what chicken soup is to the common cold. And it’s big news all over the world. England’s Telegraph: Sauerkraut, the dish adored in Germany but much maligned in Britain, could prove to be a secret...

…at the new, redesigned Watching America. Watching America has always been one of TMV’s favorite sites, and we have linked to it from time to time. There is no site quite like it on the Internet: it contains excerpts from newspapers and magazines, pieces touching on the United States from all over the world. Many of them are translations of articles that you can’t get anywhere else. It is...

The assertion that some parties are “rewriting history” merits closer examination. Please make that examination rather than regurgitating the “talking points” which is the easy excuse to avoid the hard work of thinking.

Just saw some of this program on PBS: Sunday, November 13, 8:00pm CHANNEL 48 (WCET) An examination of whether animals can sense impending natural disasters. The program looks at animal behavior preceding the Indian Ocean tsunami.

John Cole of Balloon Juice, someone who leans to the right but thinks instead of mindlessly repeating talking points, is discovering that opposition to torture is apparently an attribute of “the left” according to some of his readers.

Meanwhile, it seems that leading French media outlets may be censoring their own coverage of the riots in an attempt to ward off a rightward shift in French politics. And there are reports that France may receive as much as a billion Euros from the European Union for job development and social cohesion. Both, in my view, are bad ideas. The rioting has been caused in part by the willful ignorance of the French...

…like this big one.

Centrist blogger Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye has taken a look at the issue, charges and countercharges and given it a lot of thought. CLICK HERE for a MUST READ POST. We were going to pick some key quotes, but it’d take it out of context. Read it yourself. And give us your thoughts in comments.

The latest news from France, via The Washington Post: Dozens of youths threw trash cans at police and attacked sidewalk shops in a main square of Lyon on Saturday night in the first clash between rioters and police in a city center after more than two weeks of violence in France, according to news reports. Youths stormed through the historic Place Bellecour in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, located...

A close friend of yours truly who is an entertainer — in fact, the person who convinced me to do a weblog — believes the U.S. is in for much tougher and troublesome economic times ahead. And he points to several things: TRUCKS SEEMINGLY GONE ON SOME MAJOR ROUTES: He drives long distances constantly to musical gigs, often in a vintage car. He will often drive this car at 45 or 50 mph on these major...

Yet ANOTHER poll, this time from Newsweek, showing President George W. Bush setting another record for his popularity — southward, that is: In the wake of the bombings in Jordan by suspected followers of Iraq’s Al Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the indictment of top White House aide I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court, President...

What’s the definition of “dumb?” It’s THIS: ALISO VIEJO, Calif. (AP) – Traffic is so bad along the eastern rim of Los Angeles’ suburban ring that regional planners are considering the once unthinkable – an 11-mile tunnel through a mountain range in earthquake country. Critics question the logic of building a multibillion-dollar project in a region so prone to earthquakes...

TMV’s posts will be fewer today due to logistics: he will spend much of his day traveling from Montana back to his home base of San Diego, CA. But this site’s talented and always independent co-bloggers will likely offer some thoughts throughout the day. So stay tuned…and keep checking back!

…and in with the teens…

King Abdullah of Jordan, who is not at all like Syria’s Bashar Assad, plans to crack down not only on terrorists but also on those who support them.

Could be…YOU DECIDE.

How did Romney become governor of Massachusetts? Was it just that he seemed to be more moderate than he really is? Or was it his all-American good looks and charisma? I went to college there back in the early-’90s. Sure, there were conservatives like William Weld around, but Romney in Massachusetts is like, say, Ted Kennedy in Alabama (or at least Hillary Clinton in Alabama). Anyway, here’s the Romney...

Yesterday, Joe wrote an excellent response to David Ignatius’s column in the Post on the “rise of the center”. I recommend it highly. I’m not always sure where I position myself politically — these days I seem to be on the center-left, likely pushed there by Republican dominance. If you’re interested, I have a somewhat different take whether or not there is currently a “rise...

Slate’s John Dickerson writes: The news from Iraq is largely bad. The public is smart enough to distrust the nightly news producers. They’re also smart enough to know when they’re not getting straight talk. A little candor might break through that skepticism. Bush and (Senator John) McCain are both desperate to convince Americans that the war is still worth fighting and that the penalties...