The indispdensible website Watching America has posted an interesting editorial from the Bangkok Post titled "Simplistic view yielding disaster" which attributes the problems in Iraq to President Bush's perspective. Here's a key section:Bush can't be blamed for the prejudices and animosity that have been brewing for hundreds of years between religious sects, but he can be … [Read more...] about The View From Abroad: Bush’s Mistake On Iraq

...siphon their votes away by propping up a third party.. UPDATE: The situation is even MORE OUTRAGEOUS (true independent voters are not amused but we do have our ways of making our unamusement known in 2006, don't we?). … [Read more...] about If You Can’t Defeat ‘Em Directly (UPDATED)

TMV LOVES satire (we don't do enough of it on this site, although some of the news stories we quote seem as if they are satires). And there IS some good stuff out there. So here are two great ones — satires on The Sopranos, via You Tube. First, here's Mad TV's look at what The Sopranos will look like once it goes into syndication and the swearing and extreme violence are … [Read more...] about Great Satires: The Sopranos

What would happen if we took the discussion about the rights of non-traditional families (gay and otherwise), and divorced it entirely from the issue of marriage equality? An intriguing petition explores the issue. … [Read more...] about God Bless Them–Each And Every One

Look who just won a Distinguished Service Medal from the US Army? And I can't think of a more deserving person, either. … [Read more...] about Grade Inflation

Prime Minister Blair has misread President Bush on global warming, expecting far too much -- something, anything -- from a White House that doesn't take global warming seriously, that doesn't even think there's a problem at all, but he has turned to the state that may just work with him on this pressing issue: California. Yes, behold the Blair-Schwarzenegger alliance: British … [Read more...] about The Blair-Schwarzenegger alliance on global warming

From Reuters: Saudi Arabia has exhorted the United States to take the lead in efforts to immediately end the fighting between Hizbollah and Israel and faulted President George W. Bush for not following through on earlier peacemaking appeals. "The United States must play the role of pacifier and lead the world to peace and not be led by Israel's ambitions," said the Saudi … [Read more...] about Saudi pressure, American disengagement

From investigative reporter Andy Borowitz (we don't usually run two of his breaking-news reports in one day but we had to get this on the site fast!):Bin Laden Offers Mel Gibson Anger Management Lessons Calls Actor's Drunken Rant 'A Cry for Help' In an extraordinary appearance on the Arabic-language al-Jazeera network today, terror mastermind Osama bin Laden reached out to … [Read more...] about This Just In!

The Moderate Voice applauds the efforts by some bloggers to offer original reporting on their sites. Blogs have an incredible potential to act as citizen journalism — versus the citizen op-ed pages which the bulk of them have become. There's nothing wrong with that...except blogs have the potential of offering more than just opinion. Once again the always unique The … [Read more...] about Original Blog Reporting: The Talking Dog Interviews Michael Ratner

...but not for the reasons you'd normally think.... … [Read more...] about A Great Writer And Blogger Quits Blogging

Western governments, in particular the US, see the world through narcissistic lenses. Europe had its way in the world for centuries while the US has led since the 1950s. The habit is so ingrained that they often ignore the effect that their actions have on the thinking of other nations. Instead, they repeatedly insist on their view of desired solutions expecting others to … [Read more...] about Keeping the wider world in mind

NOTE: This post ran yesterday. Due to the international interest in the Mel Gibson arrest story (his mug shot is above) this has has been UPDATED with new links for today. It will be placed towards the top of this site early Wednesday morning BUT newer posts may be BELOW IT so please SCROLL DOWN. When should apologizes be accepted--and when shouldn't they--in cases of racial … [Read more...] about Mea Culpa (UPDATED FOR WEDNESDAY EDITION)

...at TMZ.COM the celebrity and show biz news site that broke the Mel Gibson arrest story — by posting Gibson's anti-semitic comments (Gibson has since profusely apologized for them. See our posts chain linked to this post). TMZ is another example of the power of instaweb news publishing. With the touch of a button this info was put on the web on Time-Warner-AOL's solid, … [Read more...] about Take A Peek….

It's here. … [Read more...] about Major Development In Barry Bonds Story

THIS JUST IN from investigative reporter Andy Borowitz:STARBUCKS TO OCCUPY LEBANON Only International Force Willing to Go, Says Condi Frustrated in her attempts to assemble an international peacekeeping force to serve as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that she has received a firm commitment from the coffee chain Starbucks to … [Read more...] about This Just In!

If you've left a comment and particularly if TMV himself has left a comment about something you wrote and you replied to it, be sure to check comments again. TMV doesn't have time to read all comments these days but he does reply to some — and sometimes his replies are flawed...so he'll rectify it. … [Read more...] about One Little Reminder To Readers

As many of you might know, embattled Montana Senator Conrad Burns (R) landed in some hot water a few days ago after insulting the firefighters who were (and are) risking their lives to battle wildfires raging through the state. In damage control mode, Senator Burns apologized, and held a conference call to discuss the issue with reporters. After the call was concluded, he … [Read more...] about Burns Gets Burned

I've already written about Katherine Harris's [fill in the blank] Senate candidacy four times, and I seem finally to be out of creative nouns and adjectives to describe it. In our last installment just a few days ago -- which you can find here (with links to the previous ones) -- we saw that Harris's poll numbers had fallen dramatically, with support even from Republicans … [Read more...] about The sad state of Katherine Harris

Remember that notorious South Dakota abortion ban, the one that flagrantly disregards Roe, the one that may end up at the Supreme Court? (I've written about it here and here.) Well, Governor Mike Rounds approved the ban earlier this year, but, as the Argus Leader puts it, "[o]pponents circulated a petition and got enough signatures to prevent the law from taking effect until … [Read more...] about Poll shows South Dakotans against abortion ban

The mind boggles. Speaking in Beirut, where he met yesterday with his Iranian counterpart, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said this: "In the region there is of course a country such as Iran -- a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region." He's kidding, right? Or is he crazy? It's … [Read more...] about The crazy French