McClatchy’s David Lightman, for one: Hillary Clinton apparently thought that she had a killer sound bite during Thursday’s debate when she ripped Barack Obama as a promoter of “change your can Xerox.” Instead, the audience booed, critics winced and once again the New York senator’s attempt to demonize her rival fell flat, another illustration of how 2008, at least so far, is the year that negative campaigning just doesn’t work

Disillusionment: Asked in Ohio by a reporter if he would be treated differently had he lost as many contests as Clinton, Obama said, “Yes.” But Obama said he understands why the treatment is different, saying it would require a knockout blow for Clinton to quit because she’s “part of the Democratic network in Washington.” “Look, I’m the challenger, I’m the upstart,” he said. “I’m the insurgent — she’s, she’s the

Kirk James Murphy, MD at Firedoglake:  They’re baaaack! Yep – another post on Frankenfoods – the miserable mutant offspring of ancient crops…and the white-coat rapists from Biotech who jam alien species’ DNA into the germplasm of our familiar staples. Reagan/Bush and Grover’s Club For Greed paved the way – or more accurately, pulverised the institutions – by destroying the Federal research funding which ensured America’s basic science led the world

Mmmmm.  But Café Britt is not welcome on the Fairtrade scheme. Most of Café Britt’s farmers are self-employed small businesspeople who own the land they farm. This is wholly unacceptable to the rigid ideologues at FLO International, Fairtrade’s international certifiers, who will only accredit the farmers if they give up their small business status and join together into a co-operative. “It’s like outlawing private enterprise,” says Dan Cox, former head

Two Young men from Glasgow, Archie and Jock, are sitting in the pub discussing Jock’s forthcoming wedding .” Ach, it’s all going like magic,” says Jock. “I’ve got everything organized already -the flowers, the church, the cars, the reception, the rings, the minister, even ma stag night…..” Archie nods approvingly. “Man, I ‘ve even bought a kilt to be married in!” continues Jock.” A kilt?” exclaims Archie, “That’s grand, you’ll

Funny how quickly New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt can turn up to criticize the paper… after it has taken a lopsided public shellacking over its anonymously sourced innuendo regarding Sen. John McCain and a female lobbyist: But in the absence of a smoking gun, I asked (Executive editor Bill) Keller why he decided to run what he had. “If the point of the story was to allege that McCain

Cloudy and overcast, with a progressive chance of forgiving terrorist bombings — and befriending those sophisticates who commit them — come November. Part of all of that changyness and hopeitude, you see. YES WE CAN! (h/t STACLU)

From emptywheel:  When I noted that John McCain’s lobbyist gal had represented the two networks that would, in 2004, show the anti-Kerry propaganda piece, Stolen Honor, I admitted I didn’t know precisely whether or how John McCain had helped the second of these two networks, Sinclair Broadcasting’s shell company, Glencairn Broadcasting. Today, the NYT makes it very clear that McCain used the same kind of inappropriate, pushy tactics for Sinclair as he had with

Story of the progressive icon and reader of Gleen(s) on the Senate floor at The Nation. Which is cool, I suppose; given the number of Obama supporters from Illinois who probably crossed the state line into Wisconsin to vote for Feingold, that’s probably fair.

Fascinating article on population genetics that references three fascinating studies on population genetics: White Americans are both genetically weaker and less diverse than their black compatriots, a Cornell University-led study finds. Analyzing the genetic makeup of 20 Americans of European ancestry and 15 African-Americans, researchers found that the former showed much less variation among 10,000 tested genes than did the latter, which was expected. They also found that Europeans had