This week was a decisive win for two interested parties: the Republicans and the press. The GOP benefits from a self-destructing party whose two leading candidates continue to wound each other for weeks and months to come. The press benefits by having the horserace continue as long as possible between the woman and the black man. It's a great story. Anyone who thinks the press is "in the tank" for Obama - or Hillary - should understand that they're only in the tank for this: a good story, at any cost.

Only Democrats could lose the White House in 2008. It's hard to imagine a more perfect storm favoring their decisive, landslide victory. This should be 1932 redux, and then some. There's a reviled incumbent from the opposite party, already past his expiration date four years ago when he stole a second election. There's a new nominee from that same party joined to him at the hip on the most important issues, and stupid enough to be seen as such publically. There's the economy heading into a recession after years of lethargy for the middle class. An extremely unpopular war based on lies. A massive national debt. A housing crisis. An environmental crisis. Gas at well over three bucks a gallon. Oil over $100 a barrel. The dollar at record lows and plummeting. Pension stocks falling and cities falling apart - when they're not literally drowning. Scandals everywhere in the Republican Party. Three-fourths of the country believing America to be on the wrong track. And more. Put it all together and it's an amazing scenario!

The idea of a third party alternative has long been a dream of progressives in America. It has also too often been a fantasy and a distracting albatross. Particularly since the Bill Clinton era of centrist sell-out - but really going back to the Reagan period of Democratic cowardice, the McGovern campaign of entrenched Party power acting shamelessly toward their nominee, and certainly the Johnson debacle in Vietnam - progressives have been looking to ditch the shell of the former New Deal now doing business as the corroded (and corrosive) Democratic Party.

It’s springtime in American politics. It’s only early March, but there’s a giddy, hopeful feeling to this election season, a sense that new leadership is blossoming. We could have a Democrat in the White House next year. But winter isn’t over yet and we need to balance our hope with a little fear. In 2000 Bush and Cheney stole the election in Florida. In 2004 they played dirty tricks in Ohio. In 2008 could they go one step further — and suspend the election altogether?

The Pentagon is slated to release a suspected toxicant in Crystal City, Virginia this week, ostensibly to test air sensors.

The operation is just the latest example of the Defense Department’s long history of using service members and civilians as human test subjects, often without their consent or awareness.

It is clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far from being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the genocidal future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is precisely what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts that are right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in spite of an Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the Palestinians, in spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid to admit that Gaza is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a deadly one. For some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far as evil is concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and vengeance.