In the coming years of the twenty-first century the ideology, institutions, and forces of “global governance” will directly challenge the legitimacy and authority of the liberal democratic nationstate and American constitutional sovereignty. What is this ideology, what are these institutions and forces, and how do they challenge liberal democracy and American sovereignty?

In summation, the perennial question of politics (who shall govern and in what regime?) remains contested at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The liberal democratic nation-state in general and American constitutionalism in particular will confront what is perhaps the greatest challenge ever to their moral authority and legitimacy from the ideology and forces of global governance. This challenge is “existential” because it challenges the existence of the American constitutional democratic regime. It is formidable because it comes from within Enlightenment thought and Western civilization. It will be the great challenge of the twenty-first century.

Barack Obama gave a speech on patriotism today in Missouri. As always when Obama waxes "eloquent," the media swooned. And, as always, the speech raised interesting questions if you actually read it.

The implicit premise of the speech was that Obama's patriotism is being widely questioned. As far as I've seen, that isn't true. What has happened is that Obama's judgment and political ideology have been questioned because he has chosen to associate himself closely with people who manifestly are not patriotic, like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. . . .

Finally, Obama's surprising ignorance of American history, on which we have commented a number of times, was again on display. . . .

It's becoming more and more dangerous for preachers to use the words "sex" and "sin" in the same sentence.

Consider this question: Is sex outside of marriage a sin?

Say "yes" and millions of believers who are sitting in pews will say "amen." But that same affirmation of centuries of doctrine will offend just as many believers and nonbelievers, giving them an easy excuse to avoid congregations they believe are old fashioned and intolerant. . . .

Read the whole thing to consider how the church challenges, or fails to, the culture.

Gallup's annual update on confidence in institutions finds just 12% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress, the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question. . . .

Oprah Winfrey has offended evangelical Christians, and they are fighting back. For the first time, 23 Christian newspapers across the country united for a joint investigative project. Their aim was to explore the spiritual beliefs of the popular entertainment mogul. . . .

Tolle is out to destroy Christianity by coopting it, by reforming Christ in Tolle's image. The difficulty is that those who swallow Tolle's books also ingest his false presentation of Jesus as cheerfully compatible with Buddhism, and in so doing, will likewise lose their grip on common sense.

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson. . . .

Many a professor dreams of revolution. But Norman T. Uphoff, working in a leafy corner of the Cornell University campus, is leading an inconspicuous one centered on solving the global food crisis. The secret, he says, is a new way of growing rice. . . .

President Bush, reversing a longstanding position, will call on Congress on Wednesday to end a federal ban on offshore oil drilling, according to White House officials who say Mr. Bush now wants to work with states to determine where drilling should occur. . . .

The price of everything, not just driving, is going up in the era of $130-a-barrel oil, but our presidential candidates have a hopelessly thumbless grasp of pocketbook politics. Their mutual slogan could be "Let them eat abstractions."

Read the whole thing for why he thinks this is so and for why he sees John McCain on this issue " fumbling away the GOP's best domestic political opening in years. "

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies. . . .

You'd think this would be oil shale's moment.

You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.

You'd think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how to efficiently and cleanly convert oil shale - a rock-like fossil fuel known to geologists as kerogen - into light crude oil.

You'd think all of this, but you'd be wrong. . . .

Read the whole thing and ask how can this logjam be broken?

Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many—68%--believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.. . .