Fareed Zakaria discusses his new book "The Post-American World" in the context of whether the world is as dangerous as we think it is. It is worth considering.

Despite the best Republican efforts to tie Democratic State Representative Don Cazayoux to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the voters of Louisiana's 6th Congressional District saw through the spin yesterday. Cazayoux defeated former Republican State Representative Woody Jenkins 49%-46% in a special election runoff to replace outgoing Republican Representative Richard Baker who resigned to work as a lobbyist.

Texas Monthly Executive Editor Paul Burka blogged earlier today about the decision the Texas Supreme Court made in Perry Homes v. Cull that found in favor of Houston-based homebuilder Perry Homes. He includes a lengthy excerpt from Texas Watch about the case:

MSNBC's National Affairs desk looks at how, in House races, things are tough all over for the GOP.

If you work at the Environmental Protection Agency, you would probably think that your job includes being an Agent for Protecting the Environment. But what happens if you, say, do your job, and go after Dow Chemical to get them to clean up a dioxin contamination? The Bush administration forces you out. ABC's Political Radar and the Chicago Tribune have the story.

Veracifier has a story today about volunteer video journalists getting thrown out of Republican Party events in Minnesota. Some interesting video here.

I knew Cillizza couldn't stay on vacation for a whole week. Here he presents an entertaining (and at times, cringe-inducing) list of the Top Ten Gaffes thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a one-liner over at Time, they report that early voting turnout in Indiana is double what it was last time, to the tune of 10,000 voters a day.

The Chron reports that if Nick Lampson fends off the Republican hordes in November and remains in Congress, he'll get the chairmanship of the NASA's oversight subcommittee. That is some serious help from way high up in the Democratic House leadership, and very early in the game to be getting it.

This report from the New York Times shows that job terminations were not as high as forecast in April. This combined with the news earlier this week that the economy grew a teensy little bit in the first quarter means... what, exactly? I am convinced the economy is bad from what I see with my own eyes, so are these disparate outliers that act as exceptions to the generally accepted idea that thing are tough all over? What do you think?