Some Hump-Day Quick HIts

• USA Today and AOL team up for a useful overview of the latest E. coli conservatism outrage: "bisphenol A," the ingredient in plastic bottles and food containers that contains a synthetic estrogen which—whoops!—turns out to be toxic at levels far lower than previous estimates. Incidentally, I'm an AOL subscriber, and it's been fascinating to see their front page, in between the roundups of last night's American Idol and the latest daring doings of various Hollywood starlets and "10 Presents Moms Hate," devoting so much space to various conservative failures: the mortgage crisis, people selling their belongings to make ends meet, and what job categories still remain vibrant in the collapsing economy. Most media have been ignoring these issues this campaign season; kudos to AOL for keeping it real.

• "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers said on Thursday new user fees and other proposals would help give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration much needed resources to improve the safety of the U.S. food supply, but critics said such measures could do more harm than good." If you guessed "critics" = Republicans, the Bush administration, and the food industry, you win...well, you don't really win anything, because the "critics" will no doubt be able to obstruct sensible reform.

• I've got Nixon on the brain lately (submlinal message: IN STOCK NOW! IN STOCK NOW! IN STOCK NOW!) but I hope I can be forgiven for noticing how much this story—about how the FBI was warned off investigating misconduct in the War on Terror with the excuse it might hamper ongoing secret CIA operations—resembles this one.

• I'm very proud of my sister's work as the ombudsman for the National Education Writers Association, where she's on call every day for journalists writing about the schools who want to avoid boneheaded errors. Looks like George Will would have benefitteda from giving Linda a call.

• I called this one—here.