A few days ago, in “Haiti: The U.S, Military Steps Up to the Plate” and in subsequent updates, I highlighted and commended the initial relief efforts by our military in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. In this one, I commented on, and hopefully debunked, preposterous allegations by French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and a few others that...

The disaster in Haiti has brought out both the best and the worst in people. A man of God, Pat Robertson, suggested that Haiti’s catastrophic misfortunes flowed from the “fact” that ancestors of the present victims made a pact with the devil. Fortunately, a flood of prayers and goodwill for the victims drowned out such drivel. A famous entertainer, Rush Limbaugh, derided, politicized and tried to create...

When the Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate, the working theory in the majority party was that they had to get Republican votes to pass health care reform. Now that the Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate, there is a new working theory: that the Democrats must get Republican votes to pass health care reform:

If Democrats were Republicans, they would be doubling down the day after electoral defeat. They would be pushing through their agenda even harder — not bemoaning the “message” voters had sent. But Democrats are not Republicans. Democrats are Democrats, and so they are doing what Democrats do better than anyone else on the planet: cave, run, admit defeat.

There are some mixed signals emerging from China in regard to Google’s threat to pull out of the country – some of them quite startling. Below are three articles on the issue published in state-controlled newspapers over the past three days. The first article by Li Hongmei of the People’e Daily is what one would have expected. Li Hongmei charges that by threatening to leave China due to censorship...

Scott Brown’s victory last night in the special election for Ted Kennedy’s old senate seat hasn’t gone unnoticed on the other side of the Atlantic. For France’s L’Express, correspondent Philippe Coste seems to share the conclusions of many American commentators: This isn’t the moment to demean the word catastrophe, but the quite overwhelming victory of Republican Scott...

There is nothing else on Memeorandum right now but the Massachusetts special election. Everybody thinks they know why Scott Brown won and why Coakley lost, what message the voters have sent, what the election results augur for 2010, why they don’t matter that much, what the Democrats should do now, or not do, whether health care reform is dead now or whether it’s still alive, who is to blame, and...

The New York Times had a particularly annoying non-news bit of editorializing in their night-of writeup about Scott Brown’s upset victory (in the grand scheme, not the consistent polling). It said the Massachusetts Senate race “has riveted the attention of the nation” because of its implications for health care legislation and the Senate’s balance of power. BS.

CSI POST MORTEM So the long-serving popular Liberal Lion of the Senate from one of the most Democratic states has a successor: An unknown conservative Republican who will be the 41st Member of the Minority dedicated to stopping the Democratic Juggernaut (or more aptly Train Wreck) before it even starts. No matter how you try to malign your candidate’s performance, you silly Democrats chose her and created...

The BBC World Service has a unique daily discussion program, “World Have Your Say,” where the BBC provides a platform for a world-wide discussion of topics of general interest, and facilitates live exchanges between and among BBC staff, invited guests, and callers from all over the world. Today’s subject was, of course, the Haiti catastrophe—more specifically how “Once again, in a crisis, the world...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reseserved.

“What it is ain’t exactly clear,” to continue the line from Buffalo Springfield’s classic sixties tune. Marc Pascal’s recent post here at TMV about the “self-made hell of narcissism, greed, short-sightedness, arrogant ignorance, and an utter lack of a common civility or responsibility for our shared future” in which we find ourselves — largely as a result of decades...

In jolly old England, a radio disc jockey is being criticized for playing the Van Halen classic “Jump” as police stopped traffic and tried to prevent a woman from jumping off a bridge. Here’s the account as reported by a London newspaper. I’m not the most politically correct person on the planet but this behavior by a smart-ass disc jockey is irresponsible. Fortunately, the woman survived...

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech in August 1963. This 17-minute movingly religious address was given in front of the Lincoln Memorial to the hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the National Mall in Washington DC. He stated his hope that someday his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but on the “content of their character.” His...

Much has been written in the past few days, both electronically and with ink, about the horror and the tears that is Haiti now. But Haiti has known horror and tears and tragedy for much too long. That horror and those tears have been amply recorded for at least the past 50 years “in a remarkably vivid and sophisticated Haitian literature [that] has been flowing out of Creole, an ever-evolving language as fecund...

To see an article in China’s state-sanctioned media like this one is rare indeed – and it may signal a real sea-change in U.S.-China relations. Indeed, given the amount of U.S. debt Beijing holds, one might call it downright chilling. For China’s state-controlled Geographic Times, columnist Long Tao, described as a ‘senior strategic commentator,’ writes in part: In 30 years of...

How can you oppose lending $50 to a Third World entrepreneur to get a small business off the ground? Well, let me tell you how. Microenterprise is one of the more serious subjects given shallow treatment on my new site, Cultural Imperialist, co-written with Los Angeles screenwriter Jeremiah Lewis. It’s our guide to intelligent discourse on the can-miss topics of the day, like libertarians’ all-consuming...

Sometimes I really envy our elite class, because it’s so easy for them to answer questions like this. All they have to do is pull out a slip of paper from their bag of self-serving bromides.

Yes, I would vote for her if I was eligible to vote in Massachusetts.  And yes, I do expect she will win. I could be wrong – wouldn’t be the first time (I wanted Joe Biden in the 2008 primary), but that’s my prediction. Regular readers can guess why: I’m a reliable left of center voter except on a few issues (I vote against casinos and am very independent when Israel is involved, rarely...

It has been said that disasters, such as the Haiti earthquake, bring out the best in people. If you have been reading my posts on governmental, U.S. military, civilian and private humanitarian and relief efforts being provided by some wonderful organizations and people to the desperate survivors in Haiti, I hope you’ll agree that this is true. As a matter of fact, while the 2009 recession caused a decline...

Saturday Night Live (alive and quite clearly kicking) parodied the late night mess faced — and created — by NBC in which Jay Leno will go back to his old job and his Tonight Show replacement Conan O’Brien will reportedly take an expensive hike:

Someone had to say it and former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush said it quite well. They have rejected talk show hosts’ attempt to politicize the earthquake in Haiti. The Hill reports: Bush and Clinton were asked on CNN about the statements such as that of conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who said that Obama will see Haiti as an opportunity to boost his credibility with the “light-skinned...

That according to Gabriel Sherman at NYMagazine: One personal friend of [New York Times Chairman Arthur] Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks. (Apple’s tablet computer is rumored to launch on January 27, and sources speculate that Sulzberger will strike a content partnership for the new...