Read Stuff, You Should

I don't really have anything in particular to recommend avoiding this time, so I'll do a general one: avoid reading anything that attributes America's relative lack of interest in soccer to anything about the game itself, or anything in America's national character, or anything about why Americans are different than people in other nations.  I'm skipping Doris Kearns Goodwin's piece on Lincoln and Obama in the NYT, but that's on general principle; since I skipped it myself, I can't recommend avoiding it to anyone else.

Now, on to the good stuff.

1.  TNC, always.

2.  I do links pages like this one whenever I get around to it, and feature whatever I happened to enjoy; Bruce Bartlett is doing them frequently, and organized around a different topic each time -- it's a great service.  Here's one on state and local government budgets, another seemingly dull but shockingly important topic.

3.  Seth Masket saw the Bill Clinton shift (to the extent it happened) from the inside, and lived to tell the tale, or at least his corner or it.

4.  Digby understands that liberals can be unhappy with some of the things that Democrats do and still prefer they're in power.

5.  Brad DeLong: against balance (when not warranted); Greg Marx shows how to use what political scientists know.

6.  On those Nate Silver pollster ratings: Brendan Nyhan is very good, John Sides is if anything even better.  I'm sitting in third place in my roto league thinks in large part to Silver's numbers, so I'm not an unbiased observer (but actually, John nails it).

7.  Sarah Libby on Ross Douthat.

8.  Andrew Sullivan's recent essay on Obama is well worth your time; Matthew Dickinson doesn't want Obama to panic about the oil spill.

9.  And Matt Yglesias makes an excellent and little-heard point about lobbying.

Enjoy!