The Price of Food, And What Drives It

I note Dave Schuler over at OTB this monring, talking about  the price of rice going up.

When I read this post by one of the associate bloggers at Joe Gandelman’s The Moderate Voice, it piqued my interest. The

The wires are humming just now with the news that Mark Penn, Head cook and bottle washer for the Clinton campaign, has quit. One such story comes form the Washington Post:

ALBUQUERQUE, April 6 — Mark J. Penn quit Sunday

Word this morning from the London Times that Iran had forces on the ground at Basra:

IRANIAN forces were involved in the recent battle for Basra, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is expected to tell Congress this

Nigil Lawson at the Daily Mail

First, then, what is happening? Given that nowadays pretty well every adverse development in the natural world is automatically attributed to global warming, perhaps the most surprising fact about it is that it is

SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force

Ann Althouse notes liberal discomfort with the John McCain biography tour:

Bill Scher perceives irony in McCain’s ad — which depicts his life story, including his service in Vietnam — because it is “very much about ‘I.'” Scher thinks the

Drezner:

Another day, another online article. The topic of my latest Newsweek column is whether the West — i.e., American and Europe — can still act as the global policy leader. I’m not optimistic: America and Europe face political, economic

I hate to say this, but I’m not all that worked up about any of Hillary Clinton’s (or any other politician’s) hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is unbecoming, and it may even raise some question of character (although I’m not sure how exactly),

• I’m still playing with newer templates. I’d kind of like to get something a bit more graphic, but the ones I like the look of take away a lot of the readability our current template has, and most of them

You may now take Mr. Heston’s firearms. Charlton Heston is dead at age 84. The Associated Press offers an ironic headline, “Oscar-winning star of ‘Ben-Hur’ was known for heroic roles:”

LOS ANGELES – Charlton Heston, who won the

MISSOULA, Mont. — On the air, Ed Schultz, a liberal talk show host based in Fargo, N.D., is well-known for his blunt criticisms of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party. But Mr. Schultz, a fervent supporter of Senator Barack

Today, McQ relates the story of a young National Guard staff sergeant who was a convoy commander in charge of getting all the vehicles and the 15 soldiers back to his base in Iraq safely. Naturally about 30 insurgents decided

By way of James Joyner, I note Teagan Goddard, the morning:

Taegan Goddard argues that Hillary Clinton’s release of seven years of tax returns just after four yesterday was smooth.

Tactically, it’s a perfect time to release them?—?especially if there’s

• I tend to agree, Billy, (In fact I think you’re getting soft in your dotage) but the sad truth is that in that cesspool, he’ll likely find a band of supporters. Not only is he dumping n the military,

James Joyner:
 

The bitterness of the Democratic presidential race kicked up another notch yesterday, with the discovery that popular Air America radio host Randi Rhodes recently performed a profanity-laced standup routine in which both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton were