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What seems like weakness to U.S. Republicans is actually the steely resolve of President Obama to ensure a safer world for his two young children. That’s the thesis of this article by Swiss columnist Patrik Etschmayer, who like Philippe Coste of France’s Liberation, contends that America’s opposition party is so out of touch that it doesn’t recognize real strength when its sees it. For...

Hate by Anastasia Pantsios The timing was uncanny. Before he left on vacation, my editor at the publication I work for wrote this week’s cover story which hit the streets this morning, imploring George Voinovich as a sane — if not exactly as-moderate-as-described — Republican who is retiring and whose office is therefore not vulnerable to attacks from right-wing crazies, to secure his legacy by reclaiming...

Some readers emailed me asking why I haven’t posted as much over the past two weeks. Here’s part of the answer: President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is blaming “them Jews” for keeping him from speaking to the president. Wright, the former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, said he hasn’t spoken to Obama since...

Scientology ‘electometer’: Does this $7,000 device actually identify unwanted influences, emotions or painful traumas? The trial of Scientology, France continues, and here is the latest report on the proceedings from France’s Le Parisien magazine. According to the report, on Monday the former leader of Scientology in Lyon and a former member of the French National Assembly testified on how...

Continuing with our Muslim coverage of President Obama’s speech to the Islamic world, we present this article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper. So what are Iraqis saying about President Obama’s long-awaited speech? While loathing the necessity of having Obama lecture Muslims on what they should already know about their own religion, Kitabat’s Ali Abd al-Khaleq - ‘appreciated’...

In October 2001, an Algerian relief worker, employed by the Red Crescent Society, was arrested in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he lived with his wife and two young daughters. He was accused of being involved in plots to blow up the U.S. and British embassies in Sarajevo. Despite his consistent, repeated, and forceful assertions that he knew nothing about the conspiracy and had done nothing illegal, the Bosnian police...

President Barack Obama’s speech from Cairo generated lots of comment all over the world and, in the United States, on the left and the right due to his comments about the Middle East on and Muslims. In this Guest Voice post, conservative writers Floyd and Mary Beth Brown argue that Obama team owes Floyd an apology due to the way they responded to his raising questions about Obama’s Muslim ties during...

Contrary to the narrative on the U.S. Republican right, Issa Goraieb of Lebanon’s L’Orient Le Jour asserts that President Obama’s use of his diverse background to reach out to Muslims is an excellent idea – particularly the proud usage of his Middle name ‘Hussein,’ or as Goraieb refers to it, the ‘H factor.’ Continuing with our coverage from the Arab world of...

Yesterday afternoon Jason Bellini of The Daily Beast said that gay rights leaders had made a deal to wait on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He said that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “let slip” to a number of gay leaders that the Human Rights Campaign told him that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not the White House’s priority: Last night Andy Towle got another...

Common Ground on Abortion By Malcolm Potts MD, PhD The abortion debate, as President Obama stated at Notre Dame in May, will not go away and should not go away. The way towards common ground is through asking the right questions. As long as one side asserts women’s rights and the other the embryos’ rights, then the war on abortion will go on consuming our energies and confusing the nation. We need to...

My last post of 6/2/09 deserves a follow-up as some of the reader comments were thought-proving and others wandered into other directions. I appreciate both because some of my posts have been criticized for covering too much territory. I originally thought about breaking this up into smaller posts but I do not want to litter TMV with so much on this one topic. Instead I have put it all here in an effort to...

The Roman Catholic Church’s ban on married heterosexual priests has been, is, and will be self-destructive. It is also without any meritorious religious basis. Most of the original 12 Jewish disciples of the Rabbi Jesus were married men. Married Priests were common for over a thousand years in the Church. This celibacy requirement is only about a couple hundred years old. A number of past Popes were married...

I’m back! Been M.I.A for a couple of weeks between graduating from Seminary, grading finals, posting grades and the usual end of the semester rush. A few stories over the weekend has interested me enough to dust off my keyboard and vent my opinion over cyberspace. Why is it that the most offensive murders in society are committed by people who kill because they oppose death? If you are a pro-life Christian,...

Ezra Klein has a superb piece at his Washington Post blog today about the very real dangers of not seeing the murder of Dr. George Tiller for what it is: a political act intended to shut down access to abortion. Klein believes it’s essential for Congress to respond to this atrocity with legislation that protects women who seek abortions and the doctors and other health care professionals who provide them:

As has been widely publicized, a trial began last week in Paris that could result in the dissolution of the Church of Scientology in France. But according to Le Monde reporter Caroline Fourest, the French government might just tip the scales of justice in favor of the group, called a path to salvation by its adherents and a dangerous cult that takes advantage of the vulnerable by its critics. For Le Monde,...

Our linkfest taking you to sites of varying opinions. Links do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers. Conservatives Continue To Make Race The Issue in Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation battle. Some thoughts from law prof Darren Lenard Hutchinson. Of course this will be the week to watch: she’ll start making the rounds of Capitol Hill. Will we note a shift after she...

Is the church founded by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard a unique way to obtain spiritual guidance in a troubled world, or is it a fraud designed to part the gullible from their hard earned money? It is a debate that’s been going on since the Church of Scientology was founded in 1954. According to this article by Angélique Négroni of France’s Liberation, which includes lots of...

Despite the jocular admonition from “Jazz” who commented on my last post that I might be listed as a subversive under Federal terrorism laws; I am still here in sunny Phoenix at my computer. I joined TMV only a few months ago after enough positive reinforcement from TMV’s Editor in Chief, Joe Gandelman and a few other long-time contributors and editors. (I don’t want to set up my own blog as I don’t...

Polimom watches very little television, and when I do, it’s almost always as something to do with someone else. Dear Husband and I, for instance, set aside fall Sundays for the NFL, while springtime Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are family time with American Idol — and since I’m writing this in May, you can easily guess what I’m fixin’ to talk about: the culture wars. (What? ...