Wait: someone’s saying we’re rude? What the $&!@$!!%!!! do they mean by that? The AP: From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell-phone conversations that ruin dinner out, men and women behaving badly has become the hallmark of a hurry-up world. An increasing informality — flip-flops at the White House, even — combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and...

I try to be moderate, I really do, but I can’t deny there’s a part of me that wants this to be my obituary.

Was it staged, or merely advance work? You’d think by now that the last thing the Bush administration would want would be yet another instance where it’s caught in a controversy involving truth…but, then think again. The new controversy-of-the-day, the new catastrophic-moment-of-imagery (except to hardcore Bush loyalists — and that category doesn’t include his entire party anymore)...

Administration sources have revealed to The Moderate Voice President Bush’s next nominee for the Supreme Court. We don’t have the name but here’s an exclusive photo: HA! We beat Red State on this one..

Last week, I hedged on ElBaradei’s Nobel Peace Prize win. Although I acknowledged that the Nobel Peace Prize is more often than not a prize with a political message — in this case a pro-U.N. and likely anti-U.S. message with regards to the containment of nuclear proliferation — I concluded that it wasn’t necessarily inappropriate for the Nobel Committee to recognize the IAEA’s efforts...

Some on the right are already beginning to relent. While certain high-profile conservatives like David Frum and John Fund continue to attack the nomination, others worry about the fragmentation and disintegration of the conservative movement in the wake of Harriet “Yoko Ono” Miers’s nomination to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. In brief, conservatives loathe the Miers...

Much is being made in the blogosphere, and especially the liberal blogosphere, of Richard Cohen’s column in yesterday’s Washington Post. Here’s the gist of his piece: The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and...

Michelle Duggar of Arkansas has just had her 16th child, and she and her husband, Jim Bob, are thinking of going for #17 (if “the Lord” says it’s okay). Someone please tell them to stop.

Dean Esmay challenges a bit of modern American conventional wisdom: There is a belief in widespread circulation, mostly spread by conservative pundits and general hawks (Mark Steyn and the Little Green Footballs crew spring immediately to mind) that Islam is an inherently intolerant, slavery-oriented religion incompatible with democratic pluralism. The picture they paint is often of a dying West allowing the...

Cross-posted to Random Fate. — The nomination of Harriet Miers to fill the seat of retiring Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner has created something of a furor among those who lean to the right-wing, almost resembling internecine war in some aspects. I do understand and appreciate the points made by those for whom there are fundamental principles at stake, principles of competence,...

…body language speaks volumes. Could this story have been published 12 months ago? Somehow, I think it would not have. Often times, stories that reinforce the apparent trends gain the headlines. Read that as you will.

Earlier we commented on THIS POLL that shows President Bush’s approval rating has sunk to 39 percent. But Tim Russert, on NBC’s Today Show, pointed out some additional facts about this poll — politically devastating ones for the White House: Swing voters have deserted Bush and his administration. Only 2 percent of African Americans polled approve of Bush’s leadership — perhaps...

This is a mother whose kids put her on a pedestal: LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Michelle Duggar just delivered her 16th child, and she’s already thinking about doing it again. Johannah Faith Duggar was born at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and weighed 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces. The baby’s father, Jim Bob Duggar, a former state representative, said Wednesday that mother and child were doing well. He said Johannah’s...

Well, not always…

Here’s more PROOF that some politicians literally want to get into your bedroom: Following a public outcry, an Indiana state legislator has pulled back for further study a piece of proposed legislation that would have sharply limited the use of assisted reproduction medical technologies by married couples, and banned them for everyone else. “State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence...

So Harriet Miers sucked (up) her way to the top: “You are the best governor ever – deserving of great respect,” Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. … On March 25, on the letterhead of her Dallas law firm, Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, Ms. Miers wrote to thank him “for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back –...

If Harriet Miers is confirmed to the Supreme Court — as is generally expected, despite the hub-bub over her credentials and lack of paper trial — it’s increasingly clear that her confirmation is going to leave some bitterness in its wake. If anything, the controversy seems to be growing. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund has a new piece in which he not only blasts Bush’s nominee...

….predictions that there’s a chance the end of this administration could be near are coming from this guy… ….a seemingly clever statement by the President to send a message to Evangelicals that Harriet Miers is on their side is blasted by Republican independent thinkers, panned and lambasted elsewhere — and even called flatly illegal.

At the new, totally revamped tabloid Sploid. We’ve always loved Sploid, a site in Nick Denton’s Gawker media stable. It’s just what it sounds like: an online tabloid. And who better to edit it, than Ken Layne? When Sploid first came out it was addicting enough, with its SCREAMING HEADLINES and quickly updated stories. Its one drawback was a design that seemingly limited its number of stories....

The polling news isn’t getting any better for President George Bush in light of some positive news for the White House, plus the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court: WASHINGTON – It has been weeks since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast; since gas prices began spiking to record highs; and since Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, held her antiwar vigil outside President...

I valiently defend my, er, defense of Feministe from a lengthy rebuttal by Cathy Young (as well as Jeff Goldstein). And I might just say that Ms. Young is probably the most prominent figure yet to seize on one of my posts to bash to pieces. I’m most flattered by the attention.

From the BBC: The remains of the world’s oldest noodles have been unearthed in China. The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood. Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old…

The issue of the volunteer Minutemen and the U.S.-Mexico border remains a red, hot emotional topic. If you’re interested in this issue, you can listen to a detailed discussion about it tonight on a great Internet talk show: Jim Gilchrist founder of Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, which deploys volunteers along U.S. borders to watch out for illegal immigrants and candidate for Congress will be on SUBJECT2DISCUSSION...

Now President George Bush has thrown a new ingredient into the controversy stew — one that might endear him to Evangelicals but could create more negative buzz and even chase more independent voters away: he now says Harrier Mier’s religion was a factor in him picking her for the Supreme Court: WASHINGTON – President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers’ religious beliefs figured...

(Since First Lady Laura Bush explained to everyone what’s really going on regarding the GOP rebellion to Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court, we have incorporated it in our headline). You know you’ve upset people when lawyers for your own party on the Judiciary Committee diss your choice for Supreme Court…bigtime: As the White House seeks to rally senators behind the Supreme...