Back to leave you with some stuff to read today, as I grace the office with my presence for the first time on a Monday in some time.

First, shamelessly link myself here, but I looked at the successes of China in the clean energy race (with a lot of help from the New York Times, one that many feel will determine the economic leader of the 21st century, regardless of whether global warming is real or not.

MoveOn.org comes out with a pretty tough ad.

Some harsh words for the Supreme Court. I wrote about that case a few weeks ago, in what was a more factual post. For my part, I'll say that I'm not sure where I stand on this kind of thing. In American law, corporations are people. They even have a vote. In addition, how is the trading of money from an individual to a corporation different from individual to individual? That individual can speed freely on unaffiliated campaign ads. I'm not sure the conversation was ever about whether "money is speech," but instead about who has the most money. Something I've been thinking about. And another reason that the legislation (which I think is still pending) that would no longer allow television to stations to play commercials significantly louder than the programs they occur during really needs to pass.

Time to turn attention to Illinois, where things are getting nasty.

So goes January, so goes the year? The popular mantra would be bad news for the stock market.

You Seattlites just experienced your warmest January on record. And no, this does not prove, disprove or have any bearing on anything climate related. Remember this: weather is the current conditions over short periods of time. Climate is the long term trend of weather.

Also, at some point in the next week or so, the most recent FEC data, which was due by yesterday, will start to be reported. There will certainly be some to watch in Washington State, with the 3rd district up for grabs (although the Governor has given her endorsement), and it will be interesting to see how much Sen. Patty Murray has raised.