George Bush to Syria: stop interfering in Lebanon's electoral process and get your intelligence agents out of Lebanon. Subtext (undefined consequence): or else. If you recall, during the last round of this crisis Syria had withdrawn its troops and, amid much journalistic fanfare, reports said it was withdrawing its intelligence agents, too. Few believe that has happened now. … [Read more...] about Bush Warns Syria About Its Spies Interfering in Lebanon Elections

A note: this is the personal opinion of the author, Jack Grant, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Joe Gandelman, the proprietor of this weblog. Cross-posted to Random Fate. In an article discussing the move of Apple from PowerPC to Intel based processors I read this of all things: (The Macintosh sycophancy) ...reminds me of another self-justifying group of … [Read more...] about Us versus the-rest-of-the-world

Attention F. James Sensenbrenner Jr.": far be it for me to lecture you on democracy-- you are professional politician— but you and any who defend what you did shouldn't lecture Iraqis or anyone else about democracy: After repeated criticism of the Bush administration, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday gaveled a hearing to a close and … [Read more...] about A POOR MODEL For Iraq’s Democracy

The jury in the Michael Jackson case has adjourned for the weekend — leaving a news media camped out in Santa Maria (and elsewhere) drooling in anticipation of a week that's expected to be one of the biggest ever for celebrity journalism in print, on cable and on the airwaves. You could call this a "media circus" — except modern day circuses aren't that big and … [Read more...] about Jackson Jury Adjourns While Media Drools

We've put in our posts here a statement that Democratic fundraising is lagging under Howard Dean but Media Matters says that is not the case and documented it. Read their whole post where they take the Boston Globe to task for using that assertion here. Here's the important paragraph for our readers:Media Matters for America documented that, as DNC chairman, Dean raised $14.8 … [Read more...] about Correction On Howard Dean

....at Uncorrelated, a really nicely written, tight-weblog that covers a lot of issues -- giving you varying writers viewpoints. What's refreshing is that this weblog does have writers who differ so greatly on how they perceive events. It's posts are compact, but usually pack a punch. They give you excellent links, often to weblogs that you might not yet know about. This is … [Read more...] about Take A Peek…..

A word to the wise: be warned that you could receive the now infamous Jackson suicide virus in your email. And, no, despite what you might think, the Michael Jackson suicide virus doesn't encourage you to click on a link where it plays Jackson's last CD — causing you to commit suicide. Sophos reports it does this: Experts at SophosLabsâ„¢, Sophos's global network of … [Read more...] about Beware Of The Jackson Suicide Virus

Now they're going after Big Bird as what's seemingly shaping up as a multi-fronted war against Public Broadcasting goes on: A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading … [Read more...] about GOP Dominated House Committee Seeks To Starve Big Bird

Joe Gandelman has named his weblog The Moderate Voice, I suspect in no small part because he appears to find knee-jerk ideological views damaging to our society in the least and more likely dangerous overall. There are some issues that go beyond politics to some, however, and in my case they are matters of honor, a concept that may not exist to many in this modern world. I … [Read more...] about A moderate taking a stand

Cross-posted at The Smoking Room Could the greatest threat to the Syrian regime be an odd coalition of seculars and fundies?In April, the outlawed Islamist organization Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement calling for free and fair elections and an end to the state of emergency, effectively martial law, in place since 1963. The Brotherhood warned the government that it would … [Read more...] about Syria faces a perfect storm of Islamists and secularists

No, not the Washington Post after Woodstein, but a much lower-profile newspaper that has quietly impacted the lives of countless individuals around the world through its determination to avoid the pack. … [Read more...] about The decline of a great American media outlet

It turns out the robber was a real slacker. … [Read more...] about A Strange Robbery In New Jersey

Speaking in two languages can come in very useful if you're in politics: MANCHESTER - Wondering if Bill Richardson is running for president? It depends on which language you speak. "I want to be very clear about this presidential stuff," Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, said at yesterday's New Hampshire Latino Summit. "No, I will not run for president." … [Read more...] about Gov. Bill Richardson Isn’t Running/Is Running For President

A new report says the FBI repeatedly missed chances to find the 911 hijackers — and that it wasn't happenstance but some deeply ingrained systemic problems. The Washington Post reports: The inability to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking plot amounts to a "significant failure" by the FBI and was caused in large part by "widespread and longstanding deficiencies" in the … [Read more...] about Report Says FBI Blew 911 Prevention Chances

I'll bet you the left side of John Bolton's moustache and half of his nose hairs that if you go back and read the original stories about Harry Reid's ascension to Minority Leader you'll be struck by one thing: Reid has been a big surprise. When Reid took over from the voter-banished Tom Daschle, the conventional wisdom seemed to be "Here's this nice, boring, behind the scenes … [Read more...] about A Leader Who Continues To Confound Some And Surprise Most

The compromise piece together by Senate moderates seems to be working with long-delayed nominations sailing through as the Democrats keep their promise — but the next step will be to see how Republicans treat Democrats when they exercise their part of the agreement. Still, that's down the road and yesterday was a day for Republican celebration:The GOP-controlled Senate … [Read more...] about Pryor Approved For Appeals Court In New Senate Compromise Era

TMV will be doing a full day program at a school in Glendora, CA in his other incarnation today. This means we MAY be able to post during the day but, more likely, you may see some posts from one or more of our Guest Bloggers. If not, our posts will resume towards the end of the day. If the Michael Jackson verdict breaks when we can't post, we will make up for it with a post … [Read more...] about Light (er) Blogging Today

Links are from sites with varying viewpoints. Opinions expressed do not necessarily express the views of TMV or its co-bloggers. More On What Is A Moderate: Our co-blogger Jack Grant sparked quite a discussion here and on his blog by exploring that subject. Here are some additional thoughts via The Classless Society (which we bet Jack will discuss at a future date in some … [Read more...] about Around The ‘Sphere

What more of a sign do you need that weblogs are a feisty new medium that has become disturbing to The Powers The Be in governments everywhere than what's now going on in China — a crackdown on blogs:The Chinese government has announced plans to police web forums, chat rooms and blogs alongside other websites. Websites in China have long been required to be officially … [Read more...] about China Cracks Down — On Blogs

The arrest of a fifth person in connection with an FBI investigation into people who are possibly linked to and suspected of cooperating with Al Qaeda has started shoving terrorism's threat to the U.S. homeland back into the national consciousness in this post-color-code world. The terrorism color codes that had been so prevalent largely vanished shortly after the elections … [Read more...] about Fifth Arrest Renews U.S. Al Qaeda Terrorist Network Concerns