A call to violence

I stumbled across an interesting article this morning over at the War Room at Salon, that highlights the differences between the left wing and right wing elements in the US right now as far as rhetoric is concerned. Tim Grieve found a clip from a recent Ted Nugent show that is very interesting. As most [...]

The value of friends

Its hard for me to even feign surprise at the announcement this week that George Bush was commuting the prison sentence for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff. Libby resigned from Cheney’s staff amidst allegations about his involvement with the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and he was [...]

Opus at Salon

In my early adulthood, there were several cartoonists whose work had a great deal of impact on me. Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes was a huge influence on me as a young adult, as was Gary Larson’s The Far Side. But at least as important to me at the time, if not moreso, [...]

Relentless truth

I tend to quote Salon.com quite a bit in my posts here, in part because I always like to support independent journalism, especially in today’s world of corporate media saturation, but mostly because they employ and publish frighteningly talented writers.  The contributions to Salon by regular contributers such as Joan Walsh (editor-in-chief), Tim Grieve (War [...]

Iraq for Dummies …

One of the biggest problems with coverage of issues of terrorism, insurgency, and/or civil war in places like Iraq is in understanding the complexities of the actual situation on the ground. Rarely do we ever have a situation where its a “black-and-white” struggle between 2 sides … instead, we usually see a morass of groups [...]

Condemnation by disavowal

One of the complaints leveled against Western Muslims in many cases these days is their lack of condemnation of terrorist attacks that happen “in the name of Islam” throughout the world. In today’s Salon, Paul M. Barrett writes an interesting piece where he examines in more detail some of the actual response from Western Islamic [...]

Another way to blame Hollywood?

As is probably apparent, one of my favorite sections of Salon.com is the War Room. The little bits of minutia that they manage to find for that section, coupled with the wit and writing skills of Tim Grieve, make it a truly fascinating read every day. In today’s War Room is a wonderful little piece [...]

When a civil war is not a civil war

Tim Grieve over at Salon usually does a wonderful job of hitting the meaty centre of issues with his choice of quotes, and some of the quotes from US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley today certainly qualify. Go ad have a look at the complete exchange that Grieve has quoted for more of the context, [...]

Global Warming – The Arcade Game

If anyone caught the Simpson’s last night, you might have noticed a little gem of a scene that is an example of why the Simpson’s remains one of the pre-eminent examples of social commentary in sitcom form on television, even after almost literally decades at the job. Salon’s Video Dog has the clip of [...]

Bill Maher on Mark Foley from Salon.com

In today’s Salon, Bill Maher talks about the Mark Foley scandal and suggests that perhaps we are all taking it a bit too seriously. I do enjoy Maher, even when I strenuously disagree with him. This isn’t one of those times, but its worth pointing out that whether I’ve agreed with his position or [...]