McCain rejects CPAC invite  —  Sen. John McCain is the only major Republican presidential candidate who will not address the nation's premier gathering of conservatives this year.  —  Sponsors of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins today in Washington and brings together thousands …

U.S. Concedes Uncertainty on North Korean Uranium Effort  —  Last October, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device, the fruition of decades of work to make a weapon out of plutonium.  —  For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates …

Rebuke Bush 2pm  —  JOIN THE KATRINA SURVIVORS' REBUKE OF PRESIDENT BUSH  —  New Orleans Needs Federal Aid, Not Presidential Photo-Ops.  —  Mr. President: Katrina Survivors Do Not Welcome You, We Rebuke You!  —  We live in a devastated city and you are a big part of the reason why it sill sits in ruins.

"Seven words you can never say on television"... but which are said on the Internet.  A lot.  —  Talk about potty-mouths.  —  The Net's not always a kid-friendly place; there is plenty of foul language out there.  And of course, the blogosphere is no different.

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect  —  Complaints About Walter Reed Were Voiced for Years  —  Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

The Myth of the Middle  —  The story of 2006 was that regular Americans were sick of partisan divisions in Washington.  The vast and consensus-hungry middle asserted itself in November, the narrative went, finally ordering the parties and their childish politicians to stop fighting and to work together.

Walter Reuther's Ghost  —  Democrats vote to bar secret union ballots.  —  The House of Representatives has scheduled a vote as early as today on a bill that strips 140 million U.S. workers of the right to decide in private whether to unionize.  Naturally, it's called the Employee Free Choice Act.

Group Reaches Settlement With F.E.C. Over 2004 Campaign Advertising  —  A major conservative group agreed to pay a $750,000 penalty as part of a settlement with the Federal Election Commission, which found that the group violated campaign finance laws by spending more than $30 million …

Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Dies at 89  —  Kennedy Confidant, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Dies of Heart Attack in New York  —  Historian and intellectual icon Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a Kennedy confidant and liberal standard-bearer who was a fixture in Washington political life for decades …

Is IQ what is truly scarce?  —  There is a new view — or should I say an old view? — percolating in the blogosphere: "There is something special about IQ.  We must conserve IQ at very high cost, and gains in IQ will bring very high social returns."  —  In practical terms, "Conservation of IQ" …

Jim DeMint Visits Blogger Row  —  Senator Jim DeMint stopped by Blogger Row, in part to speak to his support for Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination.  DeMint spoke for just a few minutes, but made the case that the federal government needs a strong CEO to straighten out the chaos and confusion of the bureaucracy.

The Conservatives' "Secular Problem"  —  Today through Saturday, when Republicans and conservatives gather in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, will they face up to the biggest obstacle preventing them from connecting with voters?  Their "secular problem."

Cheney's contempt for American public opinion  —  Since the smashing repudiation his party suffered at the hands of the American voter in the 2006 midterm elections, Dick Cheney's behavior has become palpably more secretive, combative, and scornful.  The embittered interview he gave …

A tale of two markets … Categories: … MANY readers profess puzzlement as to how carbon offsets could fail to reduce one's carbon footprint.  The answer is that they probably do reduce one's carbon footprint, but by nowhere near the one-for-one ration that seems to be implied by the extraordinarily low price of carbon offsets.