One of the most popular weblogs is the conservative blog Powerline, written by some attorneys. Time named it the Blog of the Year (it is under Right Voices on our blogroll) partly for its leading role in the Rathergate scandal. Now there is a counter blog that analyzes Powerline — Powerwhine.

In a sign of just how much Japan wants to short-circuit an increasingly nasty crisis with China, Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is repeating an apology for his country’s World War II behavior that other Japanese Prime Ministers have given — only this time the timing is critical. At issue: bitter and increasingly violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in China that many believe were encouraged or enabled by the Chinese government. One of the two countries had to take the...

If you don’t like the way a judge or an entire court rules, take their money away. Does that sound downright unamerican to not only law students, law professors but virtually anyone who has lived in this country over the past several hundred years? Yes — but that’s precisely the idea of two of the nation’s two Evangelical Christian leaders who have been working with GOPers in Congress, according to the L.A. Times. In a sign of how far away from the mainstream of American...

All good and bad things must come to an end, and so it is in the saga of the lady who said she found a finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose, CA. The lady has been arrested. That’s GOOD for Wendy’s, which had sales drop because some customers didn’t want to take a mouthful of food and have it point towards their tonsils. And that’s BAD for comedians and tasteless websites such as The Moderate Voice which had fun at Wendy’s expense with jokes...

Some things are bound to catch up with you, like your past, and they did recently for actress Jane Fonda in the form of a big wad of tobacco juice spit by a Vietnam war veteran in her face. What caught up with her: her fervent opposition to the Vietnam War, culminating in a highly publicized trip to Hanoi that Vietnam vets even today consider treasonous. And her belief, even today, that while she’s sorry she offended some people going to Hanoi was OK. Some things are indeed bound to catch...

President George Bush and the upper echelon of the GOP establishment have been putting a full court political press on trying to get John Bolton shoved through as the new UN Ambassador but they’ve run into a stumbling block: former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The irony is somewhat sublime. Powell entered the first Bush administration a mega-star and left a bit diminished due to his role as key international spokesman for the argument that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....

You’ve seen it in movies, read about it in comic books as a kid, heard about it since you were two when it comes to bears…and now scientists say humans can hibernate, too. But wait: I thought humans could already hibernate. There’s even a term for it: “attending high school.” But we digress. Via Times Online: SUSPENDED animation is poised to move from science fiction to reality: scientists have successfully induced a state of reversible hibernation in mammals for...

Warning: Bingo can be deadly. Like “under G” for “gone…” As if the headlines weren’t increasingly shocking enough — with stories about deaths due to road rage, schools where bullet-proof vests should become part of teachers’ uniforms, and sports events where parents and kids wind up being jailed for murder — now we find out that there is a new danger as you approach your senior years. Even if you’re a World War II veteran. ABC News: A...

Pennyslvania Senator Rick Santorum has suddenly developed a political change of heart whether GOPers should exercise the so-called “nuclear option” and whack judicial filibusters on judicial issues. Perhaps the Senator’s facing a tough re-election race in his homestate has something to do with it. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t like the political Kool Aid that his charismatic leader Bill Frist and others are handing out to members of his party. And perhaps he has taken a view...

We’ve heard it off and on over the years but now it’s getting more conclusive: talk that eating too many processed meats can give you pancreatic cancer may not be just a lot of baloney. Here’s the latest evidence via Elites TV: A new study indicates that eating too many hot dogs, sausages, lunch meats, and other processed types of meats may put a person at risk of pancreatic cancer. This study, which was conducted by the Cancer Research Center at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu,...

When journalists and journalism buffs talk about the so-called blogging revolution they usually had a bit more in mind than what happens on most weblog websites (including this one). Blogging, it was suggested, would be a new form of citizens journalism. But, in more cases than not, as fascinating and exhilarating as blogging is (and it is), it is more like citizens’ op-ed pages. The reason: few blogs ever do any real, original reporting. Some weblogs have done some interviews and on-the spot...

A big international drama is unfolding in South America where Equador’ s Ecuador’s President Lucio Gutierrez was booted out by Congress there — and offered asylumn in Brazil. The catalyst for Ecuador’s third presidential overthrow in eight years was growing, angry street protests. The Houston Chronicle reports this: BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – Amid swelling street protests, lawmakers on Wednesday forced Ecuador’s besieged president, Lucio Gutierrez, from office and replaced...

As the news headlines continue to screech about hardened positions on the left, right, or compromises extracted as easily as an ancient embedded wisdom tooth, there is one segment out there that doesn’t get much attention: The political middle. It does exist. Really, it does. And columnist Kathleen Parker finally wrote what some have been grumbling about: as the most active members of both parties seem particularly interested in pleasing their “bases” — it is literally “base...

In Rome, people flocked to a square to see a new Pope. In Chicago, people are flocking to an underpass where they insist a miracle is taking place: A steady stream of the faithful and the curious, many carrying flowers and candles, have flocked to an expressway underpass for a view of a yellow and white stain on a concrete wall that some believe is an image of the Virgin Mary. “We believe it’s a miracle,” said Elbia Tello, 42, of Chicago. “We have faith, and we can see her...

As Joe noted below, Dana Milbank has an good piece on Karl Rove’s speech on media shortcomings at a Maryland college. But just as interesting as Rove’s thoughts is Milbank’s less restrained style of writing here, considering he’s supposed to be a straight-news reporter. His column is a good example of what I call cop-out journalism – not necessarily dumb, but pretending to be something it’s not.

….but did you know it was first recorded in 1932?

Subject2Discussion, an Internet-cast talk show that features bloggers talking about the news, is going to have a good one tonight: Bill from Peoria Pundit and also Danny Schechter from News Dissector — who is coming back from the Middle East. The show “airs” via the Internet at 6 PM PST and is centered in Las Vegas. TMV has been on it and so have a host of other bloggers — and everyone agrees its a solid talk show (one that probably could do quite well on the radio). You can...

There are some things we already could assume about the UK’s teenagers. We assume they don’t use their limited computer time visiting such sites as The Economist, this website or even improving their minds at the most educational site in the world, The Moderate Voice. But a new 8-year-old study finds England’s teens aren’t visiting another kind of site: porn sites. In fact — in an admirable piece of news that should be welcome news for parents across the blog —...

According to the BBC, a bunch of elephants raged through Seoul — but, no, it wasn’t Tom DeLay and friends on yet another junket: South Korea’s busy capital Seoul faced an added complication on Wednesday when six elephants escaped from an amusement park, causing chaos. The elephants broke into a restaurant in the east of the city, and tore through the garden of a private home. Officials said one elephant was briefly detained at a police station, before all were returned to their...

Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords will retire next year — so now the question becomes whether Democrats or Republicans can snatch his seat. Is he retiring because he feel he can’t win? Or because of GOP ire due to the crisis he sparked four years ago when he dumped the GOP? Not really. It certainly sounds like it’s for medical reasons: Jeffords will make the announcement Wednesday afternoon in Burlington, three sources close to the senator told The Associated Press on Wednesday. They...

Student/blogger Charles Roop got a call from his friend and co-blogger recently and was told to stop by work. There had been a shooting at the convenience store. And then he learned the terrible news: his boss, Robert Smith, had been shot…and was dead. Read his post in full here and you’ll be haunted by it and struck again by the suddenness with which death can strike at or touch us all. We’ll just give you a small taste of what he writes about this tragedy in Florida: I got to...

Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson has flipped his wig over network news: Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans’ primary source of news. “I think it’s dead. Sorry,” he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters’ convention in Las Vegas. “The monster anchors are through.” Donaldson was always...

They almost had to call the doctor, because I was eating carne asada here in San Diego and choked when I read THIS: The media have started applying the horse race style of campaign coverage to daily reporting on government, leading to adversarial reporting that can obscure the truth just to create conflict, President Bush’s chief political strategist said Monday. Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in...

There are still issues that are unrelated to the actions of men dressed in red who chose the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church. One of those issues is the state of partisanship within the government of the sole world superpower, the United States. In the not-so-distant past, members of the United States Congress would see beyond their differences to a larger responsibility towards the nation as a whole, not towards one particular constituency, understanding that the United States was and is...

When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI there were two reactions in the square and around the world: great relief on the part of some — and great disappointment on the part of others. The reason: the new Pope Benedict XVI, in his earlier incarnation, was known as the Vatican’s prime guardian of doctrinal orthodox, an efficient and unabashedly conservative on social issues who closely to maintain traditions with Pope John Paul II. In other words, those who want...