Around The Sphere April 7, 2007 (UPDATED)
April 7th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Our linkfest offering readers a road map to interesting blog posts of varying viewpoints. Links do not necessarily represent views of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
Have We Just Seen “A Softer Gentler Iran?” Publius Pundit has a detailed answer 4 U.
Meanwhile, Are Pundits Using The Hostage Crisis For Political Agenda Gain? Oxblog’s Patrick Porter believes they are.
What Is It About Women Named “Monica?” Veteran newspaper editor, publisher and journalism teacher Robert Stein has some thoughts on the Bush administrations’ Monica problem.
What Liberal Critics Of Wal-Mart Are Missing: aTypical Joe gives a thoughtful take on the whole hot-button issue of Walmart and looks at it extensively. He offers a DIFFERENT TAKE on it than people on the left and right are used to reading. A small part of it:
But a funny thing happened on my way to ridicule - I gave it a second thought. I began to think of Wal-Mart from this side, the rural-resident side, of the Wal-Mart divide. With that second thought I realized the Wal-Mart divide is a reflection of the larger, even deeper, mars/venus gulf of culture and experience that divides city and country people. I realized that I live in that divide every day, and that I wish people would start listening to the country-side. Talk with them, not just about them, and certainly not for them.
But there’s a LOT MORE so read it in full.
The U.S. Support Of A Pakistani Militant Group Invading Iran has come under fire. TomDispatch looks at it and includes the controversial Noam Chomsky’s piece “If Iran Had Invaded Mexico” HERE. (This will be sure to spark lots of discussion in comments. Hold onto your seats..)
Has Hillary Clinton Failed An Important Big Test? Dick Polman (one of the best political writers in any universe) looks at Barack Obama Versus Hillary and concludes yes:
The plain truth is that the Clinton campaign has failed its first big test. The early ’07 goal was to blow Obama (and John Edwards) out of the water by demonstrating implacable money mastery. Instead, Obama in particular has served notice that the rookie is fully capable of slugging it out, over the long haul, with the Friends of Bill and the other well-wired inhabitants of Hillaryland. We don’t yet know officially that Obama has outraised Clinton in primary season money, but ABC News, citing inside sources, reported last night that he collected $23 million, and Clinton $20 million. Her campaign has declined to confirm or deny.The bottom line is that, at least for now, she has lost the right to be considered the preemptive Democratic favorite.
And, indeed, Polman is correct. This seems to be the year of the un-preemptive preemptive. Wasn’t it only a few months ago that some pundits said John McCain seemed on his way to be the preemptive nominee? Perhaps he still is but he has to campaign now with a lot of body armor. And Giuliani? He was Mr. Up And Coming. But now on the GOP side Mr. Up And Coming seems to be Fred Thompson. This is actually enjoyable, because the ever-certain talking heads are more and more looking like sources of entertainment than people who can be relied on for predictions. Perhaps in this race anyone being crowned the likely “preemptive favorite” ought to run for cover, hire more staff and triple their campaign efforts.
Is There Media Bias On The Global Warming Issue? Powerline (which is of the school of thought that global warming is being overblown as an issue and that it is part of the liberal agenda) thinks so. It makes the CASE HERE.
Yes, Whatever Happened To It? Dean Barnett asks a question that does come to mind.
And surely people on the left, right and in the center have some thoughts on it. But it certainly comes to mind…..
The Issue Of Gay Foster Parents And A Social Work School: Mix them together and you have a huge controversy.
What Do Newt Gingrich, Vermont College Republicans And A Bill Have In Common? FIND OUT HERE. Note the Gingrich camp’s (non-comment) comment. And I honestly – no joke — felt Newt did everything he could to help increase the Republican presence on the nation’s vital college campuses..(Question: Is Gingrich a “mole” for the Democrat’s college outreach efforts?)
It’s A Huge American Problem: Evolving A Culture Of Learning.
UPDATE:
Ann Coulter Is At It Again: Now she’s making fun of Darfur genocide. READ THIS.
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 8:31 am and is filed under 9/11, United Kingdom, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Darfur, Global Warming, Politics, Iran, Around The Sphere, Blogging. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:57 am
[…] Read the original here: Joe Gandelman […]
April 7th, 2007 at 9:03 am
We are also give physical and material support to MEK , which is on our own terrorist list.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:32 am
The people who defend Wal-Mart because of what it does bring to many of the rural areas it serves miss the fact that it is not simply urban jobs that Wal-Mart’s philosophy can eliminate. How many of our country’s remaining factory jobs are in small towns in rural areas? More than a few.
Given that Wal-Mart puts immense amounts of pressure on their vendors to cut costs so much that very often the only way is to ship their manufacturing jobs to China I think there’s a huge negative there. Has anyone else read of how the CEO of Snapper went to Bentonville to tell Wal-Mart that no, he wasn’t going to sell his company’s products in their stores any longer because he just wasn’t going to follow that death spiral where his company’s interests and profits would be subsumed to Wal-Mart’s? He valued the company’s reputation for quality more than sales to Wal-Mart. He worked on improving their existing network of vendors and the company is still successful and still making quality products in the U.S., unlike Rubbermaid which bought into the market share mystique of Wal-Mart.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
The current hysteria is a symptom of displacement, a psychological mechanism that allows one to ignore real threats like Islamic terrorism, in order to focus on imaginary phantasms like Anthropogenic Global Warming. Part of the left’s denial of reality, a symptom of a larger mass psychosis infecting much of the American electorate.
April 10th, 2007 at 9:45 am
The controversy at MSU doesn’t have anything to do with gay foster parents, it has to do with coercion and the denial of academic freedoms so severe that an outside academic panel asked to investigate came back with a report so scathing that they actually put forward disbanding the department as a logical solution.
You little headline on this story misses the boat (and the ocean.)