The Big Battle is on about the future of DVDs and while some companies may fall by the wayside in a big bucks battle over which format will triumph, porn producers are sticking it out — in the battle over the format, that is. Yes, according to the New York Times, the decision over high definition DVDs’ future of could be stimulated by porn producers in a high-stakes battle that will climax in one format being on top: LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – As goes pornography, so goes technology....

When I lived in Madrid for nearly  four years, Spaniards used olive oli for everything from salads, to frying eggs, to lubricating keyholes. And now, researches say, it may help battle breast cancer: Researchers believe a fatty acid found in olive oil might cut the risk of developing breast cancer. Researchers from Northwestern University, found oleic acid significantly reduced levels of a protein that is produced by the breast cancer gene known as Her-2/neu. The gene appears in about a fifth...

IMPORTANT NOTE: Last night we had to do a major service on our computer which took hours. As a result, our roundup on our post on CBS/Dan Rather (see below) is not yet done. The Moderate Voice in his other incarnation had to leave for Los Angeles last night to to stay over (we have big storms and he couldn’t risk leaving in the morning) at a motel (Motel 6 if you must know) so  he could do some programs in the morning. Usually TMV has a laptop — but it’s being fixed. So most...

Italian police are looking into the case of whether one of Italy’s best known soccer players is longing for the good old days of Benito and Adolph — a question raised by him giving what looked like to be a classic fascist salute. According to the BBC: Paolo di Canio appeared to make the gesture after his team Lazio beat local rivals Roma by 3-1. Di Canio used to play for English teams West Ham and Charlton, as well as at home with Juventus and AC Milan. .. On Saturday, though, Italian...

CBS’s has issued its long-awaited "Memogate" report over the Bush memo fiasco but it’s unlikely to totally end the controversy and could well spark an ongoing additional one. Here’s why. According to the CBS website’s press release on the 224 page report: It ousts four CBS employees, including three corporate bigwigs for their roles in the highly controversial and disputed story about the memos that purportedly raised questions about President George Bush’s...

Yes, it’s that time of the week again…when we do our stint as a Guest Blogger on Dean’s World. Just click on THIS LINK and you can visit us there. Our regular posts resume here on Monday morning, possibly as early as late Sunday night.

Now it appears as if Staples may have done corporate CYA in light of  David Brock’s just released letter to the office supply giant indicating it had actually APPROVED AND EDITED Media Matter’s press release indicating it was pulling its advertising from Sinclair Broadcasting. We ran the original story here on the reported pulling of ads from Sinclair. And then later in the day this post on a press release from a group saying Staples denied pulling the ads. Now — since we ran...

The newspaper/blogging revolution — where a newspaper is co-opting blogging to bring its online news into the 21st Century — is poised to happen in a big way in Greensboro, North Carolina. Once again, the updated news comes to us from Jay Rosen’s PressThink, which has covered in great detail the blogging culture’s unwitting incursion into a major North Carolina newspaper…even as the mainstream media has largely ignored this story. The irony is: if all goes well (and...

This just in: you may soon have to pay for the New York Times’  online (which will be extra money for all the newspapers, broadcast and cable networks that still follow its choice of stories as The Newsworthy Ones): NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Times Co. is considering subscription fees to the online version of its flagship newspaper, which now is available for free, but it has no immediate plans to do so, the company said on Friday. One of the paper’s biggest rivals,...

No matter how you slice it, dice it, and try to finesse it , in  journalism and professional opinion-writing taking money from someone to promote their position is NOT CORRECT — it’s considered corrupt. If it was OK then someone could write something and put a little "Thank Yew" at the end for the financial support for their ideas….but they wouldn’t. Guess why? At issue here is the news that the White House actually PAID a commentator to pitch its education...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was shocked by what he saw in the tsunami battered areas — calling it among the worst damage he has ever seen "I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," a shaken Annan told reporters. "You wonder where are the people? What has happened to them?" Indeed, by all accounts the 160,000-plus death toll is expected to climb for a while. More: With tens of thousands still missing and others threatened by disease from the powerful...

Oliver Stone has revealed the REAL reason why his movie Alexander bombed: LONDON – Often-controversial director Oliver Stone has blamed the failure of his epic film Alexander on the "raging fundamentalism" in the U.S. South. But that doesn’t explain why the film was also repudiated in the North, East and West. The film, which stars Irish actor Colin Farrell in the story of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, was greeted with derisive reviews. It was also a failure...

There are consquences to every event and former Army officer Ralph Peters sees a strategical roadmap drawn by a cruel Mother Nature via the tragedy of South Asia’s killer tsunami. Yes, the tsunami — the one that butchered 160,000 people (and counting). In a piece in the New York Post Peters writes of a stragegical map…literally drawn  by monster waves, and tears: THE tsunami’s devastation on the Indian Ocean’s shores offers a strategic lesson of incomparable importance....

There has been a milestone for China — a big one: BEIJING (Reuters) – China named the first baby born at a Beijing hospital Thursday as the 1.3 billionth person of the world’s most populous nation, more than two decades after a one-child policy was introduced to keep its numbers in check. China’s population exploded after the late Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong exhorted the people to multiply in the 1950s to make the country strong. But China put the brakes on growth...

Clearly, Social Security "reform" is going to be a monster topic. We say "reform" because some say it is true reform; others contend the real goal of the GOP plan is an  ideological plan to basically gut it. All this comes amid a Washington Post report that Congressional Republicans are divided on the issue and have warned the White House talk about cuts in benefits is not doing their case any good (so does that mean not talk about it, and do it later? Just asking..): Amid...

Someone…namely TiVo, Inc…has finally come up with an idea for tidying up the arrange of video gadgets you use at home to keep up with the latest TV shows — and it will be coming to a living room near you soon: SAN JOSE, Calif. Jan 6, 2005 — TiVo Inc. wants to declutter living rooms and simplify changing channels with its television recorders as it announced plans Thursday to launch models that integrate the converter boxes required by many cable TV companies. Currently,...

An interesting photo essay by Stephen Green, aka Vodka Pundit, about a Christmas vacation where he displayed model behavior as he tried to piece some things together. (I shouldn’t do puns but I can’t Lego of it.)

Justice may take decades…but many times it’s inescapable. And today it seemed like one of those days in Philadelphia, Mississippi — a Mississippi not the same as  it was 41 years ago: PHILADELPHIA, Miss. – A reputed Ku Klux Klansman was arrested Thursday night on murder charges in the 1964 slaying of three voter-registration volunteers, one of the last unsolved mysteries from the civil rights era, officials said. Neshoba County Sheriff Larry Myers told The Associated...

Actor Richard Gere is working hard to get-out-the-vote — among Palestinians in their upcoming Presidential elections, and they’re dismayed. Don’t the Palestinians hate the U.S. enough already? Is there a danger Osama bin Laden will consider Gere’s TV spots an unspeakable outrage against the Arabs? You know what they say about the road to hell being paved with (fill in the rest yourself). But we digress: Well known for his vocal support of Tibet’s Dalai Lama and celebrated...