Read them HERE.

NOTE: The Moderate Voice runs Guest Voice posts from time to time by readers who don’t have their own websites, or people who have websites but would like to post something for TMV’s diverse and thoughtful readership. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers. This is another Guest Voice by Alex Hammer. The Bus By Alex Hammer Sometimes I take the bus. I’ve taken it enough now to start to recognize some of the regulars. It’s...

A story for our times. (Isn’t videotape WONDERFUL?)

Last month, Newsweek conducted a poll in which it asked Americans questions regarding American history, world history, current events, and geography. Predictably, the results were less than encouraging. 89% percent of those polled, for example, were unable to name the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (John Roberts) while 63% were unable to name the first person to win the presidency as a Republican (Abraham Lincoln). However, one of the most disheartening results was the number of Americans...

Yet another Republican bigwig has broken with President George Bush over his Iraq war policy: Sen. Pete Domenici (N.M.), a 36-year Republican veteran of the Senate, abandoned President Bush’s Iraq war policy today by publicly endorsing legislation designed to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008. Domenici, a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, is the fourth senior Senate Republican to sharply criticize Bush’s war strategy in the past two weeks. He announced...

At first, it just seemed like an indiscretion, a couple of $400 haircuts while he was away from home. But John Edwards’ passion for his hair is now a full-blown campaign issue with his Beverly Hills stylist telling all today to the Washington Post. It started, as these things often do, with a few casual trims in 2003 and 2004 and no money changing hands. The stylist Joseph Torreneuva waived his usual $175 fee. “I was just doing it because I’m a Democrat,” he recalled. But...

Reading The Washington Post last night, I came across a fascinating piece that points out some of the early, visible differences between the governing style of Gordon Brown versus that of Tony Blair. Brown is less excitable and more calculating, for one thing, and it has already won him some praise. In a particularly interesting tidbit, the article depicts Brown’s steady, careful approach to the foiled terrorist plot: Brown’s response to the incidents — in which a group of foreign-born...

Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star

His toughest, angriest comment yet on the Bush/Libby decision. Increasingly, people either love Olbermann or hate him. Must viewing no matter what you think of him. The one problem he now faces as a broadcaster: there is only so much outrage and anger you can display before it doesn’t have an impact on audiences and some begin to perceive it as schtick. On the other hand, this IS an administration that seemingly prides itself on decisions that are made that fly in the face of consensus,...

This poll is definitely a watershed: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) tied with former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) in an Election 2008 match-up. Both candidates attract support from 45% of voters. Given a Clinton-Thompson match-up, 5% of voters say they’d pull the lever for some other candidate and 4% are not sure. Lower in the report, one reason why this is happening is that Clinton has more of the highest negatives...

About two weeks, Glenn Greenwald wrote a widely-cited post that questioned the oft-stated notion of a strong al-Qaeda role in the Iraqi insurgency. That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term “Al Qaeda” to designate “anyone and everyone we fight against or kill in Iraq” is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy...

Mike Lester, The Rome News-Tribune

While most of my friends were buying houses and raising families in the 1970′s, I was seeing the U.S.A. in a Volkswagen bus that I had customized to be a comfy home away from home. I had globetrotted in previous years and realized upon my return that I knew more about the Far East than East L.A., so I set out on a year-on, year-off exploration of the contiguous 48 states. I’d seen Hawaii and Alaska traveling to and from Japan, and except for Kentucky and Montana, ended up driving through...

Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen

Yesterday was the big day for this sporting event for people who aren’t already gorged enough on sporting events. Hey: The two main contestants look like two guys who showed up at the reception after my father’s funeral last month to eat the free food.

At the end of “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” after the carnage caused by fanaticism and misplaced loyalties, a dazed British doctor wanders among the bodies, repeating over and over, “Madness, madness.” That image can be the only response to the revelation now that an al Qaeda leader told a British cleric who lives in Iraq that “those who cure you will kill you.” Canon Andrew White, who heads Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, met him at a meeting about religious...

The quote of the day from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dick Polman, writing on his blog: So Bush had to show loyalty to the few (shaky) supporters he still has. And, of course, he had to show continued loyalty to his constituency of one, Libby’s ex-boss, the sole occupant of the mythical fourth branch of government. The Associated Press, reporting last night on the decision to commute Libby’s sentence, deadpanned: “White House officials…would not say what advice Cheney...

These are the list of reasons the men who decided that the 13 colonies shall become states, separated from the self-acclaimed ‘Decider’ who ruled by fiat, spying on his own people, planting enmity between groups in America, who would unleash wars on several nations all at the same time… all from 3,950 miles and an entire ocean away from America. It is true, this cogent and most poignant line, egregiously did not include people who were slaves which included Africans and peoples...

Ever hear the expression “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”? Generally, it means we should apply the same standard to ourselves as we apply to others. Take for example judicial sentencing. There are “people in our country” that believe our current judges are too lenient. They aren’t to be trusted and should be replaced with tough, bullet-biting arbiters that will throw the proverbial “book” at all who come before them. Enter Reggie...

Tab, The Calgary Sun

Read this very funny column at the NY Times about “the six stages of e-mail.” Stage one: Infatuation I just got e-mail! I can’t believe it! It’s so great! Here’s my handle. Write me! Who said letter writing was dead? Were they ever wrong! I’m writing letters like crazy for the first time in years. I come home and ignore all my loved ones and go straight to the computer to make contact with total strangers. And how great is AOL? It’s so easy. It’s...

The New York Times reports: Security forces besieging a radical mosque in the Pakistani capital captured its top cleric Wednesday as he tried to sneak out of the complex in a woman’s burqa, and more than 1,000 of his followers surrendered. In a burqa? He was dressed as a woman? What a brave little extremist he is. A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said authorities captured the mosque’s top cleric, Maulana Abdul...

Watch MSNBC’s Chris Matthews do it HERE.

When you celebrate your freedom today, July 4th, remember that an American is languishing in jail in Nicaragua for a crime he didn’t commit. FULL DETAILS ARE HERE (and there are some things you can do about it).

Amid official preoccupation over terrorism in Europe and shadowy reports that the U.S. could be under an increased threat this summer, security has now been boosted at U.S. transit sites: Some of the armed officers with dogs that turned up this week around airports, subways and bus stops are part of special Transportation Security Administration teams sent to protect mass transit sites over the July Fourth holiday. The “VIPER” teams were sent to guard facilities in the nation’s...