A decade ago, who would have thought Hillary and Bill would still be together as Tipper and Al end their forty-year marriage? In announcing their breakup, the Gores requested “respect for our privacy,” but that hasn’t stopped speculation about what happened to the man who might have been president if Bill Clinton had kept his pants zipped. The Gore news comes right after the premiere of an...

The New York Times has a post up now at its “The Lede” blog, written by Robert Mackey, about the interview with Al Jazeera journalist Jamal ElShayyal that I blogged about earlier today.

The people of Turkey are particularly incensed by Israel’s raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, since many of the activists on those vessels were Turkish – as were most of the dead. Turks are also looking to the United States do something to stop Israel from committing what they and many others regard as war crimes. In one of two articles we’ve posted from Turkey today, columnist Huseyin Gulerce...

You know, it actually shouldn’t make any difference to this unmitigated horror that one of the 10 or so activists killed by Israel while bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza was an American by birth. It shouldn’t matter. Every single one of those human lives snuffed out on the flotilla ship deserves to be mourned and remembered, no matter WHAT country they come from.

This article and accompanying video at Al Jazeera’s English language edition is a must-read and a must-see.

If Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that he plans to withdraw his news content from Google’s index is any indication, the value of the link is still a topic of debate. Proponents of the “economy of the link” who consider the hyperlink to be the ultimate form of flattery — from which revenue will flow — argue that the aggregators, search engines, and blogs send firehoses of traffic...

Global outrage over the raid on a civilian flotilla headed toward Gaza being directed at Israel – and by extension the United States – is perhaps even more coordinated and visceral that the outcry over Israel’s 2007 operation against Hezbullah in Lebanon. This editorial from Mexico’s La Jornada reflects the general global mood, outlines the additional difficulty the attack on the Freedom...

Taghreed Al-Khadary is a Gazan-born journalist who lives and works in Washington, D.C. Salon has an interview with her, written by Natasha Lennard. It needs to be read in full, but here are some excerpts:

SPOILER ALERT: if you have not seen the last episode of Lost, do not read further. It’s been just over a week since the two and a half hour series finale of Lost aired, but the blogosphere continues to dissect every nuance of the show’s final big reveal. I’ll readily admit I’ve been a Lost fan from the beginning – although “fan” would be a gross understatement. I’ve been positively possessed....

That would be Jennifer Rubin in Commentary:

WH Commission on Remembrance Forgets Civil War on Memorial Day by Hart Williams Yeah. I can hardly believe it myself. The White House Commission on Remembrance forgot the Civil War … on Memorial Day. Here’s a screencap: No. This is not a joke. Take a close look at those wars: Yup. Not only are the Civil War AND the Mexican War of 1846 missing, but the BOXER REBELLION is included, almost as if to declare:...

While Israel’s deadly raid on a flotilla of civilian vessels trying to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver emergency aid has been a public relations disaster for the Jewish State, Le Figaro columnist Pierre Rousselin writes that it also presents monumental problems for the Obama Administration – one being, ironically, persuading the U.N. Security Council to approve of sanctions against Iran. As...

If this is true, it is so wrong on so many levels it makes the head spin:

I mean really. So this is a story? This shows how when someone is accepted as a kind of media personality they can get on the air or in print with things that someone who was not…would NOT.

The debate over the violence sparked when a ship bound for Gaza was boarded by Israeli commandos has quickly collapsed into predictable narratives. Most critics of Israel have been quick to ignore the fact the putatively unarmed humanitarian aid workers attacked Israeli troops with knives and clubs, attempting to seize hostages or just plain lynch them. And most supporters of Israel have been quick to ignore...

I was a journalist for many years and dealt with many public relations people. This includes McDonalds Corp. reps after the 1984 San Ysidro massacre, PR people on the scenes of disasters, spokespeople for politicians in trouble, and government PR people who had to get the message out and defend agencies such as the police, INS and Customs. And PR people for the image-challenged governments of Francisco Franco...

The photo shows a group of Japanese US Citizens who were living and working in Europe during WWII. They have just been rounded up and brought back by ship from where they lived in Europe, now to be interned in a Japanese Internment Camp in the USA. The newspaper that ran this photo said the 158 “internees” didnt want their pictures taken. The paper also noted that in the front is a white woman...

Two bigwigs associated with the conservative website Newsmax.com are considering bidding for Newsweek. (Will their first story be a scoop about news for a military coup against Barack Obama?)

I’m a big fan of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and just finished re-reading the first Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. In it, Holmes, with his super-human powers of deduction, determines “whodunit,” yet two bumbling Scotland Yard inspectors, Gregson and Lestrade get the credit. This outrages Holmes’ friend, Dr. Watson, even though Holmes...

Is it possible that the explanation for the incredible irrationality and incompetence shown by world political and business leaders comes down to a usually dormant piece of DNA? For Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper, Patrik Etschmayer writes in part: Presumably like me, you my dear reader have the occasional sneaking, creepy feeling that a good portion of humanity is more or less crazy. Indeed –...

If it’s Friday, it’s garbage day at the White House. Fans of the late, great television series “The West Wing” know that Fridays are the days when the White House press machine releases gems intended to be lost and buried in the weekend news cycle. Now, I’m not saying that late this Friday afternoon the White House will release its official version it offered a deal to coax Congressman...

There’s an old vaudeville joke (that still works) that goes: Do I look like an idiot? Don’t answer that! Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren got an angry email from a viewer and decided to ask a version of that on her website — who’s dumber, her or the emailer? You can vote in the poll HERE. And can you guess the results of this poll (a set up line if ever I heard one in these days of...

THE DEEPWATER ELEVEN… … Aaron Dale Burkeen was turning 38, a landmark for a young man… no longer so young, but not middle aged, that sort of ‘tween’ stage of adulthood. His wife Rhonda, his son Timothy a lively six year old, his teenage daughter Aryn, looked forward to it too. Dad had to work the rig, but that was ok. There would be a special celebration. All his friends and family...

It has been a busy few days for the state-run North Korean media, and much of the content generated charges that evidence proving Pyongyang sank a South Korean naval vessel was fabricated by the U.S. and the South to create the pretext for a new ‘War on Terror’ and rally allies to more greatly pressure the North. So did the U.S. and South Korea engineer the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel...

The recent nuclear deal brokered with Iran by Turkey and Brazil has caused alarm not only in the United States and Europe, but in the Arab oil states. According to this article from Kuwait’s Al Qabas, Arabs are concerned that once the pressure is off of Iran over its nuclear program, it will then be free to pursue many of its other foreign policy goals in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. For...