A salute to Father’s Everywhere. The Moderate Voice’s father can be seen in this photo in the water (CLICK on the photo to see it bigger), still fishing and going strong at 86. We salute all fathers today — but especially TMV’s father who is part of the World War II generation…someone who did his part for his country, saw things he still won’t talk about, then came back from the war, and put all of his energies into earning a living and raising his family. He...

The Washington Post reports that President George Bush’s advisors now pondering a possible Supreme Court Justice nomination may have to decide between picking a conservative (which pleases conservatives) or a Hispanic nominee high on his preferred list (which would upset conservatives, perhaps be a bit more acceptable to Democrats and make history). The choice: no matter what Bush does he may face some hefty political fallout. Which way will the White House veer? The Post: President Bush’s...

Oxblog’s David Adesnik saw a Washington Post piece claiming Starbucks was impoverishing needy students throughout the country. And — in defense of students and Starbucks — wrote a typically adept letter to the editor. But he also did a detailed fisking of this muckracking coffeebean raking story. A MUST READ for students, Starbucks fans (and Starbucks management).

You KNEW it would happen, and it did. Comedians are having a field day with the Michael Jackson trial and verdict. Here are a few we’ve selected 4 U: “It was reported that since the verdict was announced, sales of Michael Jackson’s CDs have gone up significantly. After hearing about it, Michael Bolton announced he sleeps with young boys.” –Conan O’Brien. “As you know Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all ten counts. Now he says he wants to just go...

(NOTE: We posted this towards the end of the day yesterday and have reposted it today.) The human rights organization Amnesty International has suffered a blow to its credibility due to a piece in the Washington Post that contends that claims that there was an “American Gulgag” was specifically calculated to get publicity — and was not true: Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as...

Cross posted at The Smoking Room Sitcom dads in the past 20 years have progressively gotten dumber, while mothers have become the smart ones in the virtual family. Nowhere is this more apparent than “The Simpsons.” What’s the deal with that? We spend twice as much time with our kids as we did two decades ago, but on television we’re oblivious (”Jimmy Neutron”), troubled (”The Sopranos”), deranged (”Malcolm in the Middle”) and generally...

Iran undertook its presidential election yesterday, resulting in extremely high turnout. The results? A run-off, the first ever in Iran’s history, is set for next Friday between former two-term president Hashemi Rafsanjani and ultra conservative Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. I cover exactly what this all means for Iran as well as future nuclear negotiations at Digital Dissent. In short, you thought negotiations were heated before? Hah.

Here’s yet ANOTHER charge that the Bush administration has changed scientific data to make sure its policies are put in place and negative info is downplayed or simply disappears: The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study. A government biologist and a hydrologist,...

Never has the long-idealized concept of a European Union looked as wobbly as right now — a concept that for years has looked great on paper but seems to be falling apart at the seams due to individual nations’ votes and individual nations’ self interest. Just listen to EU President Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, after the EU ended a two day summit:”"Europe is not in a state of crisis — it’s in a state of profound crisis…I have to say my enthusiasm...

…and recalling there is more to life, I have been trying to take advantage of my expatriate assignment in Europe. A few weeks ago I visited Prague, in the Czech Republic (the western part of the former Czechoslovakia). I have posted a few photos from my trip at my weblog, Random Fate. Enjoy.

The family of vegetarian Indian pacifist icon Mahatma Gandhi is fighting mad over an Australian company using their beloved ancestor to sell their products and has asked the Indian government to intervene. The firm is Handi Ghandi — “Great Curries…No Worries” and its curries reportedly include meat curries…including beef…which is a no-no for Hindus. Reuters reports: “It’s offensive,” Tushar Gandhi, the activist’s Bombay-based great-grandson...

“Hey, I’ll have what Florida Governor Jeb Bush is drinking..”: Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911. Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo. “It’s a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up,” Bush told reporters. Well, certainly...

A big controversy continues to rage over how the U.S. treats enemy combatants — with both sides going for the verbal atomic bombs and razor blades: The White House and Senate Republicans on Thursday assailed a Democrat for comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. It is “beyond belief” that Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin would compare the treatment of dangerous enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to the death of millions...

There’s a clamor on the part of some in Congress now to close the Guantanamo jail and Vice President Dick Cheney opposes it — but this most certainly has nothing to do with it: A Halliburton Co. unit will build a new $30 million detention facility and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 520 foreign terrorism suspects, the Defense Department announced on Thursday. The announcement comes the same week that Vice President...

Can we ask the question millions of Americans are now asking: please, Mommy, can you make these people go away? You’ll suffer a bout of celebrity/hype/ego/movie promotion diabetes as you read this (please, Mommy, don’t make me read it!)from Reuters: Film star Tom Cruise has asked girlfriend Katie Holmes to marry him, he announced on Friday, ending weeks of speculation over whether Hollywood’s hottest couple would wed. Appearing with Holmes at a Paris news conference, the 42-year-old...

Yesterday we ran this post about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist saying the Terri Schiavo case was closed in light of the autopsy results that showed she died of irreversible brain damage and there had been no abuse. Frist also spent some of the day insisting he had never made a diagnosis of Schiavo (based on viewing a video of her) from the Senate floor. Later, we even got a comment on our post asking why our linked story differed from the one the link read to. The reason: Frist later gave reporters...

Links are from sites with varying viewpoints. Opinions expressed do not necessarily express the views of TMV or its co-bloggers. Is George Bush Morphing Into LBJ? Bull Moose makes the case that he is. Here’s part of what he says: America is in a funk. The war appears to becoming a quagmire. The economy is not bad, but unsteady. And perhaps most important, the country’s morale is suffering. As a nation, we were united, resolved and determined after 9-11. Now, we are deflated, demoralized...

Perhaps it’s time to update the old kids’ favorite of “The Famer In The Dell” to “The Apple In The Dell Catalogue” — or, at least that’s the view of Dell bigwig Michael Dell as expressed to to Fortune Magazine columnist David Kirkpatrick in an e-mail. The catalyst is Apple’s moving to Intel. Webpronews reports: While most heads of PC makers cowered from speaking on the record, due to their fear of Microsoft, a certain Texas-based executive spoke...

President George Bush’s polling numbers continue to resemble an elevator — heading down. A new CBS News/New York Times poll echoes another recent one: GWB’s approval rating is going down and many polled don’t feel Bush shares their priorities: (CBS) President George W. Bush’s job approval rating is now just 42 percent, and most Americans think he does not share their priorities. There are two ways this can be argued: (1)This is a problem for Bush because he’s...

When ATC Joe writes this, I agree: I’m not saying the evangelicals are bad, or that they have some sort of organized program to intimidate people into endorsing their views, but they do have a tendency to overreach when they meet with some success in their agenda. I’m convinced a large part of what the public sees as overreach on the part of the Bush administration is driven by the administration’s own evangelicals, or the debt they feel they owe them for their support in last year’s...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is now saying “case closed” in light of the autopsy results in the case of Terri Schiavo and asserting that he never made a diagnosis on this issue. That contention will come as news to many who supported Schiavo being kept connected to a feeding tube. They had pointed to Frist’s comments based on viewing a videotape of Schiavo as important, since Frist was a surgeon. It should also come as news to talk show hosts who mentioned his comments to bolster...

It now appears as if the Bush adminstration has jumped the shark politically on policies surrounding the war on terrorism in the United States — and the question is whether this is a harbinger of things to come: WASHINGTON – In a slap at President Bush, lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips. The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism...

If you’re a talk show junkie like TMV who listens to various shows on both sides of the raging political war divide this item in Raw Story is BIG news: Two radio executives who made Clear Channel and Rush Limbaugh household are to announce today they have purchased The Ed Schultz show, America’s fastest-growing talk show in the country, RAW STORY has learned. Veteran radio execs Randy Michaels and Stu Krane purchased the show from Democracy Radio, a non-profit which helps seed progressive...

Conservative Christian groups reportedly plan to ensure that any candidate they endorse for the 2008 Republican nomination has their views by conducting what will in effect be a joint job interview. As USA Today, notes, this could greatly increase their clout. One of the arguments people have used in the past who noted that these groups did not really exercise as much influence over the GOP as some have charged is that Christian conservatives comprised a loose collection of groups, and didn’t...

Tom Watson, whose weblog is one of the gems of the Internet, has a MUST READ post on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a rape in Pakistan, and Musharraf’s silence and the White House’s silence on it. We didn’t add it to our Around The Sphere roundup because we wanted to draw special attention to it. We will NOT quote at length since that would wreck it but here is a very small taste: Well here’s a little more fuss for you, Mr. President – your great ally, the wonderful...