Category: The Dish

McDonalds takes on Starbucks in the espresso-selling game. The neuro-marketers are skeptical.

A clear front-runner in the worst ’80s video contest:

In the best category, this is currently ahead. And in the best-worst: this. Like Iowa, there’s still plenty of time. Vote for the best here; the worst here; and the best-worst here.

Alas: it’s only on a technicality.

"A bad idea doesn’t become better just because you can find some Democrat somewhere who supports it." Matt Yglesias responds to Fred Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon’s military proposals for intervention in Pakistan. And with what troops, I wonder?

They spent $8 million last year paying people too fat to work to stay at home. 2.7 million people in Britain live off "incapacity benefit." A somewhat dyspeptic response here.

An elegantly balanced response to the moral difficulties of warfare, and another sign that the next generation is so much more mature than the last one.

"A higher being has a mission for me in my life."

Uh-oh:

According to Democratic Party rules, a candidate must draw at least 15 percent at each caucus site for the votes to count; if that fails to happen, their supporters often throw their votes to a more viable contender. Combining the second-choice picks of candidates outside the top three, 34 percent would select Obama, 28 percent Edwards and only 15 percent Clinton …

Among Edwards supporters, 43 percent said they would make Obama their second choice.

Details here. This is encouraging:

Obama is running even with Clinton among women in Iowa, drawing 32 percent to her 31 percent, despite the fact that the Clinton campaign has built its effort around attracting female voters.

Obama has made key gains. His support is up 8 percentage points since July among voters aged 45 and older — who comprised two-thirds of Iowa caucus-goers in 2004.

Well, I’m not the only one, it seems. A reader writes:

I’ve been having similar troubles, and it’s gotten worse lately. Lots of busy signals, incoming emails bounced back, and annoying ads appended to outgoing emails, plus the crappy filing system. I’m seriously considering seriously considering switching.

Steve Clemons liked her. One of his commenters posted this priceless exchange from CNN:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get [Osama Bin Laden]. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.

My own favorite quote was when she defended the use of torture by the Bush administration by reassuring us that when the prisoner gives up information, the torture stops. Er, yes. That’s the whole point of torture, isn’t it? In her farewell letter, she compared George W. Bush to George Washington. Ahem.