| Access to YouTube resumes in Turkey after last week's court order
Access to the popular video-sharing Web site resumed on Thursday, six days after a court ordered it blocked because of clips allegedly insulting the country's founding father. It was not immediately known whether access resumed because clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were removed. Officials from telecommunications company Turk Telekom _ which implemented the court-ordered ban _ could not be reached for comment. It is illegal in Turkey to insult Ataturk, whose portraits still adorn nearly all government offices almost 70 years after his death. .
Reshaped Braves aim toward spring training
A few thoughts while waiting for the expected announcement from the Braves that Mark Kotsay has passed his physical and the center field gap has been stopped. Assuming the veteran outfielder's surgically repaired back passed muster with Braves doctors today, the Kotsay-for-Joey Devine trade will be finalized and Kotsay will figuratively take the baton from Andruw Jones and, the Braves hope, carry it well for a year before handing it off to young Jordan Schafer. We've pretty well exhausted this Kotsay topic since I first posted a blog last Wednesday speculating the Braves' interest in the 32-year-old Oakland outfielder, especially after Kotsay told me Friday that A's GM Billy Beane called him that morning and said a possible trade was in the works with Atlanta. So we'll not devote this blog to more debate over whether it was a good trade, though you are certainly free to continue that topic if you'd like.
Our View: On Iraq, it's the 'now' that matters
You can't criticize Republican presidential candidate John McCain or Democrat Dennis Kucinich for waffling. McCain supported the war from the start, and his stedfastness in spite of the many problems we've encountered in its prosecution testifies to his central thesis that it's worth fighting. On the other side, Kucinich warned of the dangers of fighting in Iraq at the beginning, and the fact that those problems did indeed materialize gives him credibility as America wonders if it's worth the continued sacrifice. Regarding Franken and others who have changed their opinions of this war, why should we assume that they all must be prophets when few us could have predicted the war's winding fortunes? Many Democrats supported the war originally, or at least tempered their worries with the hope that it might have gone better than it has.
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