…there have been horrible floods in Costa Rica that have gotten little attention. Look at this. Clearly, something has been happening to weather patterns throughout the globe. A lot of bad events are happening in a compressed period.

Emergency shelters are being set up within a 200 mile radius of Washington, just in case, reports WPBF News: BETHEL TOWNSHIP, Pa. – A school in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna Valley is one of a number of shelters the American Red Cross is setting up in the event of an emergency at Thursday’s presidential inauguration. It’s the first time the Red Cross has taken such extensive precautions for an inauguration. "We try to plan for any type of emergency that may occur,"...

Bloggers Dean and Rosemary Esmay have posted. His name is Drake and the nice thing about the Internet is we can read about everyday, non-political developments like this, too. When you get right down to it, people who are married or single, Democrats or Republicans are all people and this fact repeatedly comes out in tragic events such as 911 or the tsunami, or beautiful, life-starting events such as a birth. Forget about their political views; whether you agree with them or disagree with them,...

Federal and state officials are looking into reports of a nuclear threat (possibly dirty bomb) to Boston. Details are here. A "massive manhunt" is underway for the four suspected terrorist. A few thoughts on this: It would stand to reason that if there was an attack in the works they would want a highly symbolic date and what better date than close to the inaugration. This is an uncorroborated report so far. That means anyone with a phone could call from the U.S. or Mexico and say something,...

If you’ve read the post below you can see that blogger Dean Esmay’s wife is about to have a baby. Due to this for quite understandable reasons he can’t post over the next day or so. TMV Guest Blogs there on weekends so over the next few days (at least until Friday) you may see some (mercifully) short posts referring you elsewhere (Dean’s World) for a longer post (usualy mine). We’re still posting here, but trying to divide some stories up. It won’t matter if I...

The toll in what is believed to be South Asia’s deadliest tidal wave ever has gone up to 225,000: JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia’s Health Ministry raised the country’s death toll from the Dec. 26 tsunami to 166,320 on Wednesday, pushing the total number of people killed in the disaster above 225,000. A Health Ministry statement said the new figure was based on latest reports from the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, which were directly in the path of the killer tsunami...

She came, she saw — and she got clobbered by Democrats. Condoleezza Rice visited Congress yesterday to start her confirmation hearings for her new job as Secretary of State. And if she expected that it was going to be love-fest, she was in for a biiiiiiiiig surprise. Key Democrats pounded her on her past statements on weapons of mass destruction, whether there was a timetable for pulling out of Iraq, and a host of other issues. Perhaps the most quoted and broadcast exchange was between Rice...

Our occasional collection of links from all over Blogtopia. Links are NOT selected due to political position and posts listed here do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice. RALPH REED IS APPARENTLY DREAMING OF A WHITE…HOUSE…SEAT IN THE OVAL OFFICE: And Bull Moose wonders about a ticket of Reed and someone with the initials K.R….and even offers a proposed slogan. IT LOOKS LIKE DISSENT IS FLOWERING IN NORTH KOREA: A poster of North Korea’s dicator has been...

A member of the Senate, known for his hot temper and acid tongue, explodes one day in mid session and begins to shout: "Half of this Senate is made up of cowards and corrupt politicians!" All the other Senators plead to the angry member that he withdraw his statement, or be removed from the remainder of the session. After a long pause, the angry member accepted. "Ok" he said, "I withdraw what I said. Half of this Senate is NOT made up of cowards and corrupt politicians!" We...

Blogger Dean Esmay’s wife Rosemary is about to have a baby by c-section. Read his whole post on his thoughts as he vanishes for a few days and has others fill in for him on his weblog. A small taste: It’s hard to describe what this feels like. Our first was born a bit over 7 years ago. That’s a long time between kids. We’re older now, calmer now. We most likely know what to expect now, and are less likely to allow ourselves to be pushed around or bullied by the doctors and...

…be sick.

CBS is probably going to replace Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News with an anchorperson team — and we know just the three guys who are perfectly suited to fill Dan’s shoes. Oh. They’re not available. SPREAD OUT!!!! Since Rather and the 60 Minutes Wednesday crew poked their finger in the CBS eye with the Memogate fiasco, and an independent panel’s report issued a blistering report, CBS chief Leslie Moonves has been pondering how to place the ever REplaceable Rather. Katie...

Long haul air travel may never be the same again with the unveiling (and they needed a pretty big veil, let me tell you) of Air Bus’s A380 a double decker "superjumbo" jet with a 262 foot wing-span. Just think…a huge plane…Twice the number of people to give stale snacks to…twice the number of people on one plane whose luggage can be lost or mangled. It will provide so many opportunities for air travel as we know it. According to ABC News: Airbus is betting its newfound...

Keep checking back but we are doing limited posting tonight. If we post the posts will be (mercifully) shorter than usual. The reason: a ton of non-blog work to do (that does exist, you know) plus the fact that The Moderate Voice has to look into options now that his trust laptop is 100 percent dead and cannot be revived. This laptop has been central to our blog and business since February. However, we hope to solve this by Feb. 1. This may mean a few days on the road where we do limited or no posting...

We’re getting an awful lot of trackbacks again that are from sites that haven’t linked to our posts. Although we love reading posts (and we love reading all sides) it’s common knowledge that trackbacks are supposed to be sent to let a site you haved linked to know that you have linked to them. When we do our Around the ‘Sphere we link to a lot of sites and if they have trackback capability send each a trackback. On other posts we don’t trackback anyone else’s...

Just when you think the New York Times might be attempting to rebuild its recently-shattered image as a role model for journalism you see an article like this — reflecting biases out of the starting gate, telling assumptions that put it in the category of "advocacy journalism" and leaving you with an overall feeling that you need to take a mental and physical shower arfter reading it. When 22st Century journalism schools study what led to the mainstream media’s plummeting credibiliity...

THANK YOU, RANDOM FATE Jack Grant of Random Fate is interviewing The Moderate Voice in a 20-part, on-line interactive interview. You can read the first part of the interview here.

Are you bored by the goody-two-shoes feeling at Disneyland? Are you sick of the feeling all that happiness and joy as you watch your kids frolic at Knotts Berry Farm? Then, wait: this is good news for you (but perhaps less so for your family): Take your family to………Stalin World. That’s Right! Stalin World in Lithuania was opened on April 1 as an April Fool’s joke…but it’s for real. And, no, visitors aren’t starved to death at lunchtime. But if they...

Our idea stew of links from all over the Blogo-you-know-what. Links are NOT SELECTED or recommended on the basis of ideology and represent differing political views. Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of The Moderate Voice. THERE’S A NEW PROBLEM WITH KIDS AND THEY’RE CALLED TWIXTERS: Stephen Green explains:"Apparently, there are millions of these grown-ups kids now: Putting off marriage (women now marry on average at 25 and have their first baby at the same...

I see we’re having some technical problems on this site today. Even here at The Moderate Condo it’s taking a along time for our site to download. We’ve removed some photos to see if that makes a difference but it doesn’t so there is something apparently from the Typepad end (we have had several technical problems here the past month). Hopefully it’ll pass and if it lasts too much longer we’ll be contacting Typepad.

Amid the continued controversy raging over Sy Hersch’s New Yorker story, President George Bush has left the door ajar for military action against Iran, if need be. Is this sending Iran a message? Or the reflection of some actual contingency plans close to what Hersch wrote about in his story? Here’s the news report: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected...

Yegads, we forgot to post the exaulted winners of the Watcher of Weasels’ Council for January 7. Rather than add them to Around the ‘Sphere, we’ll give you this special edition. Note that even though the WofWC votes and picks a council member post, ANYONE can submit their post for consideration. Any post can be submitted, unless the post has a horse tied to it. The January 7 posts with the winners are listed here. COUNCIL WINNER: The Education Wonks’ Student’s Classroom...

Award winning and controversial journalist Seymour Hersh is at the center of a furor again — this time over his report in the New Yorker saying U.S. commandos are in Iran looking for taboo weapons…and that the U.S. is poised to attack Iran as the next target in the war against terrorism. The Pentagon has issued a  devastatingly sarcastic denial, but if you look at denials as legal documents — for every loophole and nuance — the case could be made that there is no definitive...

NOTE: This was posted this weekend on Dean’s World as well. La Shawn Barber is working on a research/writing project and wants to find out from people who have weblogs whether blogging is addictive. She’s posting four key questions: 1)How long have you been blogging? 2) Do you believe you’re addicted to blogging? Please explain, and be honest. 3) Have you ever taken a hiatus? If so, for what reason and how long? 4) Have you ever thought of giving up your blog? Why or why...

Our occasional medly of links from weblogs of all political persuasions. Opinions do not necessarily represent the opinion of The Moderate Voice (unless they are expressed by The Moderate Voice). THE REAL COST OF THE WAR IN IRAQ: Whether you’re a liberal, conservative, Republican or Democrat, you want to read Jack Grant of  Random Fate’s cautionary note on the real cost of war in full. He starts noting the impact of the war on a friend of his who is veteran and wonders: do people...