... and now he's sleeping in it.  And boy, it doesn't look comfortable. Last week French President Jacques Chirac took a public swipe at Tony Blair, saying he'd gotten nothing in return for his unstinting support of George W. Bush.  "I am not sure," said the francophone dryly, "that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically." Meanwhile, Blair has been under immense pressure at home -- from his party, the opposition party, even the Queen -- to prod the intransigent Bush on the subject of global warming. Surely, the reasoning goes, …

Enviros made unprecedented efforts to sway the 2004 election with legitimate tools: advertising, fundraising, rallying, knocking on doors. It didn't work. Apparently that fact is not sitting well. The top response in a poll asking Grist readers where green-minded folks should direct their energy in the next four years was "armed resistance" -- by a 10-point margin. You might say armed resistance received a mandate. Enough is enough, you proclaimed. Time to shake off milquetoast pretensions of mainstream acceptance, pick up some tree spikes and Molotov cocktails, and fuck shit up. A Monkey Wrench Gang for the 21st century! But …

Freelance writer Christopher Hayes spent the last seven weeks of the campaign talking to undecided voters in Wisconsin. He recounts his experiences in The New Republic (requires registration), and it is simply fascinating. And a little depressing. Most conventional wisdom about undecided voters is wrong, he says.In the context of the ongoing discussion about how to make the environment resonate with voters as an issue, I found the following bit particularly eye-opening: Undecided voters don't think in terms of issues. Perhaps the greatest myth about undecided voters is that they are undecided because of the "issues." That is, while they …

So, this month a panel of 300 scientists put out a report saying that global warming is most definitely underway, and that "human influences, resulting primarily from increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, have now become the dominant factor." But stop the presses! U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Ala.) says the scientists are wrong. Not that he's read the report. Scientists who helped put together the report briefed members of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Stevens, who is to chair the committee starting in January, agreed that climate change is a serious problem and said he …

Over at WorldChanging, they are big on the idea of "bright green living," the notion that the future can be both more profitable and more sustainable. (Bright as in smart, get it?) They lamented the lack of a central resource for information about BGL and then said screw lamenting, let's make one.  Thus the Bright Green Living Wiki.  (What's a wiki, you ask? See here.) It's a great collection of articles, definitions, and other such resources for those interested in being hip, smart, and green.  Check it out.

Do you ever feel a slight twinge of guilt when digging into a plate of baked salmon, envisioning the poor fish frolicking with its family and thinking deep thoughts?  Yeah, me neither.  But PETA hopes to change that.  Their "Fishing Empathy" (seriously) campaign kicked off yesterday. It's built around convincing folks that fish are more intelligent than we thought (based on several recent studies).  "No one would ever put a hook  through a dog's or cat's mouth. Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they'll stop eating them," says PETA's …

Elizabeth McCarthy investigates and comes away unimpressed with "clean coal."

Next year, coffee mega-super-behemoth Starbucks will begin stocking its stores with partially recycled coffee cups -- 10 percent recycled, to be precise. Ten percent is no great shakes, of course, but even if this is a largely symbolic gesture, perhaps enviros should consider for once hailing the symbolism rather than immediately bashing the company for not doing more. Just a suggestion.

Yesterday we pointed to a story about China's alliance-making with global bad actors, part of its efforts to quench its growing thirst for oil. In today's Washington Post, Robin Wright follows up, focusing on Iran. Readers of James Fallows' seminal article on Iran in the new Atlantic Monthly know that our options around that country's nuclear ambitions are already few and grim -- an alliance with China is certainly not going to help that situation.

On Monday we wrote about Oregon voters' rather ... what's the word? ... shortsighted approval of Measure 37, which many folks felt would eviscerate the state's largely successful (if slightly bloated and overly complex) land-use planning rules.  Today, Ore. Gov. Ted Kulongoski said that voters didn't actually mean to eviscerate the program, and that he would pay out Measure 37 claims to landowners rather than abandon the rules.   Good luck with that, Ted. David Hunnicutt, head of the property-rights group that pushed the measure, promptly replied: "Ninety-nine out of a hundred people who've had their rights taken from them …