Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Another GREAT video animation by Taiwan’s Next Media Animation: this time on Libyan (former) strongman Gaddafi’s Condoleeza Rice obession. Due to a scene that is slightly R rated we will send you to THIS LINK rather than post it on TMV itself. (NMA does great work and pumps out videos in a timely fashion so they’re ripped from the headlines).

by WALTER BRASCH Iowa, which gave us the carnival known as the Iowa Straw Poll and artery-clogging Deep Fried butter, will unleash another health problem, beginning Sept. 1. The Iowa legislature last year approved a dove hunting season, the first in more than nine decades. However, the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Commission (DNR) banned the use of lead shot and bullets....

Forty-eight years ago this Sunday and in weather far more auspicious than the hurricane-driven winds and rain expected to lash the nation’s capital, the 34-year-old son of a Georgia preacher, his back to the Lincoln Memorial, delivered a 17-minute speech to 200,000 people gathered around the Reflecting Pool that was not just the defining moment of the civil rights movement but the greatest speech given...

I’m the first to remind folks that correlation isn’t causation, but the rise in earthquakes after oil companies use contemporary hydraulic fracturing methods (fracking) to extract oil, natural gas and coal seam gas is giving me pause. Add to that the nature of the beast (millions of gallons of “mystery liquids”) and it seems to me that re-examination of current law and regulation is far...

I haven’t posted on TMV for a while due to various personal and business factors. I’ve sort of burnt out my brain with the overall inanity of our public discourse. However I still read Internet blogs of many other writers. A friend from Cleveland, OH sent me an email recently and I thought it was rather humorous and sad at the same time. I have reprinted it below (including extra comments from others)...

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Should China use its massive holdings of American debt to interfere in U.S. domestic politics? According to this column by Senior Editor Ding Gang of the state-controlled People’s Daily, American arms sales to democratic Taiwan undermine China’s sovereignty, and must be countered regardless of the financial losses to both the U.S. and China. For the China Daily, People’s Daily Senior Editor...

3 hours ago, the letter from the man himself: To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community: I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and...

If Nature abhors a vacuum, it finally sent a message to empty-suit Eric Cantor by touching off an earthquake in the district of the House Majority Leader who last spring tried to defund the U. S. Geological Survey, which sends out early warnings about tremors. Cantor is unlikely to be any more impressed by this 5.9 example of his own stupidity than he was in pushing the government toward default in the debt-ceiling...

Update: For any of our readers on the East Coast, please feel free to comment and offer us feedback on your experience. ***************************************************************************** Update: CNN interviewed the vice mayor of Mineral who reported that the town hall has considerable damage to the roof (crumbling bricks) and she has felt 5 aftershocks. ************************************************** Update:...

A hard-boiled campaign is being run for the GOP’s most soft-headed aspirant by a group of political scientists. We learn this from a reporter’s electronic book about them, “Rick Perry and his Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America.” For his 2006 Texas campaign, they ran experiments testing the effectiveness of campaign tools: candidate appearances, TV ads, robocalls, direct mail—-the...

Game up for Gaddafi? Another video animation from Taiwan’s Next Media Animation:

As a major holder of U.S. debt, Beijing is frustrated over its lack of leverage over U.S. monetary policy, since as the dollar depreciates, China’s dollar holdings lose value. But according to this editorial from China’s state-controlled Global Times, Beijing still has a card to play. This editorial suggests that unless the U.S. halts arms sales to democratic Taiwan, another issue it considers...

While Germany is regarded as an axis power that has really confronted its behavior and activities during World War II, Japan is not. That is what makes this editorial from Japan’s Asahi Shimbun so eye-opening. According to Asahi, Japan’s failure to acknowledge and alter the organization of Japanese society since its defeat 66 years ago has led not only to economic crisis, but the post-tsunami nuclear...

Since the earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan a few months ago information has been at best misleading and at worst out right lies.  We don’t hear about it the US media or in fact the media of most western media or in Japan.  It’s not only still going on it’s actually getting worse.  We were told from the beginning that it was the tsunami that knocked out the power to the cooling systems...

HP is “[discontinuing] operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones.” The company slid this into its press announcement regarding possible purchase of Autonomy Corp (AU.L); with a market cap of $7 billion, it is the second largest pure software company in Europe. The HP TouchPad tablet went on sale on July 1, 2011 and the Veer smartphone earlier in the year. Both run...

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence is being offered online this fall, free of charge, to “students” around the world. The introductory class is historically one of the largest at Stanford University, with about 200 students. In a YouTube overview of the online class, professor Sebastian Thrun explains that his goal is to have about 200,000 online students and make it “the largest online...

When it comes to social media, are officials in the United States once again following a policy of ‘do as we say, not as we do’? La Stampa columnist Juan Carlos De Martin warns U.S. and British officials that shutting down cell phone service and social media to prevent protest is precisely what the Chinas and Irans of the world are hoping for. For Italy’s La Stampa, Juan Carlos De Martin writes...

On the same day that Google announced it was buying Motorola Mobility, Pew Internet told us that one-third of Americans now one a smartphone and that half of al cellphone owners use their phones to “get information they needed right away.” Most of the headline writers focused on an inconsequential data point – people sometimes pretend to use their cellphones to avoid other people. Let’s...

Yaakov Kirschen, Dry Bone This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Facebook has quietly implemented a new feature as part of its “download your information” tool. The company, which is notorious for introducing new features that force its customers to “turn off” default settings, has set up the “let my friends have my email” option … in the “off” mode. Yep, this is a nod to personal privacy. But it’s really an example...

To some of you, this may be old news. After all, LinkedIn announced the change via a blog post last month. But I learned about it today on GooglePlus. First, there were announced changes in the LinkedIn privacy policy in June. (Missed those, too.) Then last month, under the familiar guise of “deliver[ing] ads that are more useful and relevant to you,” LinkedIn opted-you-in to agreeing to let the...

The social media revolution that was garnered international praise in bringing down Egypt’s government is now being blamed for contributing to the turmoil in London — and British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the government is looking into banning people suspected of being involved from social media sites: – In response the this week’s riots in London following the...

The odd set of circumstances that has led to a credit downgrade of U.S. debt, a weakened dollar and hence a stronger yen, is setting off alarm bells in Tokyo and around the world. This editorial from Japan’s Asahi Shimbun explains the phenomena to readers and comes close to begging Washington to do something to reverse the trend, which is damaging Japan’s post-quake recovery. The Asahi Shimbun...