Such subsidies have a long and ignoble history, but today reducing them is more urgent than ever, for they threaten the chance of any further progress in multilateral trade negotiations.

ECONOMIST: Trade: Sour subsidies | The

Often, Mr Wilentz explains, the free-staters in places like Kansas were motivated by the ignoble desire to ensure that theirs was a lily-white enclave.

ECONOMIST: American democracy

Will the public option in the health care reform plan die an ignoble death, or will he somehow come up with a strategy to jam it through the Senate?

CNN: Commentary: Democrats' incompetence isn't funny