Some House Democrats are struggling to get an ill-advised energy tax bill passed. Many Dems believe this will unrealistically hike energy taxes. Republicans think it’s bad business and bad for business.

Evidently, they do not have the votes to get this passed. But they were close: they needed something to tip the balance. So House Dems announced that Al “Inconvenient” Gore would participate in a news conference with Nancy Pelosi.

And the number of undecideds, and yessers, announced they would now be voting no.

So Gore and Pelosi were asked to, um, fight the good fight from their homes, please, maybe just among their own friends, and so their conference was cancelled.

Well, not really cancelled: POTUS Obama would be briefing the press and talking to those folks in hopes they would change their vote to yes. Because that’s how important it is. Not because Gore is a climatalogical disaster and Pelosi is persona less grata for non-liberal representatives.

“Pelosi said the number of Democrats undecided on the Waxman-Markey energy and climate change bill had decreased, so Gore’s trip from Tennessee was unnecessary.”

Yeah, the number of undecideds did decrease: they decided on no. And perhaps the word “unnecessary” might be changed to the word “undesirable?”

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.