You don't say no to the President of the United States; that's a call to serve the nation and a greater responsibility than serving the interests of [your state here]. Just ask Hillary Clinton. It's a promotion, a great honor and an offer one can't simply refuse.

Besides, once the story has been leaked you can be sure that both parties are on board.

for puncturing Xanthro's absurd stories, like how he pays his employees out of his own personal pocket instead of his business earnings. It was clear just from that assertion that he was making most of his story up.

Those guys are traitors and un-Americans for opposing Obama's budget surge.

I've been doing OK throughout this great recession: steady clients, living within my means, spouse in a pretty secure job, nice landlord, health is good, can get out of town once in a while. So I thought I'd just say so here--add my grain of sand and hope it starts that avalanche of good feeling.

The best way to respond to these cranks (until they can be replaced) is to add a few sidebars in the textbooks that call out the stupidity of creationism. That would address the stealth-creationist votes by refuting every one of their ignorant and malicious claims.

Great, the legal process is now considered theft. These people have jumped the shark right over the cliff.

It is a joke, isn't it?

Since the Supreme Court finally ruled that the Second Amendment means what it says, that the people have a personal right to keep and bear arms, there will be a decades-long series of laws and lawsuits to flesh out what it means. Democrats had better acquire a new set of principles in that light, if any are to be had. The voters have no consensus.

I predict that a colossal lobbying scrum is about to begin, and maybe Congress will override the EPA but I think the odds are slim. This is a great Earth Day present.

Global-warming geeks will remember Joe Barton as the committee chair who in 2005 attempted to subpoena Michael Mann's entire data set and correspondence on behalf of the cranks at climateaudit. Fellow Republican Sherwood Boehlert, a genuine friend of science, informed Barton that his maneuver was "misguided and illegitimate."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18mann-final.html

Fortunately Barton is now merely the ranking member of the Energy Committee instead of its chair.

Barton is a run-of-the-mill denialist, not an abiotic-oil crank. Thank goodness for small favors.

The correct term is glitterati, so I guess Scalia's doing some complicated sneer by pretending a faux-Italian English word is really faux Latin. Thanks for raising the tone of the Supreme Court, Tony.

I love his response to Obama's interruption.

. . . like the prohibition against usury and (by defending state-sponsored torture) the Golden Rule.

My parents get my weekly newsletter, but they keep calling it "your web site." All you can do is look at them and sigh, and know they love you.

You are an idiot for making any issue of this cover. The cover is perfectly fine, if hamhanded, caricature. Accusing TNR of slant-eyed racism was really stupid of you.

The Earth rotates around America!

Obama didn't do any fundraising from lobbyists for the Democrats, period. He did fundraising from everyone else, and the Democrats added a no-President event for fundraising from lobbyists. This is a model of probity compared to previous administrations.

The climate bill is getting rammed through the House today, one of the biggest political stories of the year. Just letting you know.

Today's "news" mix is really getting me steamed.

Remember that when you're tempted to accuse Californians of "sucking on the federal government's teat." Californians are helping their neighbor states.

The governor asserted that the registration form says "Alaska Independent," but it doesn't. There is no way to construe the party name as a label for "independent Alaskans," whatever that means.

Palin said she would henceforth make her mark outside politics. Of course, maybe she thinks running a PAC slush fund is nonpolitical. But I give you credit for making me consider a new hypothesis.

Like Hillary Clinton and countless others (meaning I can't be bothered to list any more) who have been tapped for Administration positions.

Has Obama invited her into his "team of rivals"? The Supreme Court? The ambassadorship to Whatthefuckistan? Frankly I think she's dog-whistling, and it's no wonder most of us can't make out what she's saying.

What does her base think? They must be the ones she's talking to.

Hydroelectric power depends on dams, and dams have a limited life--not because the concrete crumbles, but because the reservoir fills with silt.

Some researchers were studying east coast riverbeds recently when they realized that every streamcourse they analyzed had been permanently disturbed in colonial times by long-forgotten dams. What scientists thought was normal was in fact abnormal. Our many dammed rivers out West and everywhere else will end up in the same state, sooner or later. As Walt Whitman once put it, we need to learn the prudence suitable for immortality.

It couldn't be significant that the writers of the piece were three guys, which is just enough men to constitute a self-reinforcing pack.

Where does she get these ideas? There must be a Republican team somewhere that comes up with these framing devices. Watch what happens to this new meme.

The whole point of the cap-and-trade plan is to lower carbon emissions, not to raise or spend any money. That company you say will pay extra to buy some credits is sending the money to another American company that will reward its shareholders, not exporting it to Mexico or frittering it away on accountants. If the money goes to the government, what the government can do with it is strictly controlled. You could look this all up. There was a nice explanation just the other week on some website, Saloon or something like that.