Polar bears are not the fragile, vulnerable creatures of liberal iconography. They have thrived in the Arctic for thousands of years, both through periods when their sea-ice habitat was smaller, and larger, than it is now. They will continue to adapt - and the Endangered Species Act can't make the slightest difference.

Such realities haven't prevented green showboaters from claiming victory after the Bush Administration designated the polar bear as a "threatened" species yesterday. And it is a kind of victory, though the ruling itself is mostly symbolic - at least for now. However, this is really the triumph of bad legislation over the democratic process.

Although two polar bear subpopulations (Western Hudson Bay and Southern Beaufort Sea) no longer appear to be viable due to reduction in sea ice habitat, polar bears as a species do not appear to be threatened by extinction in the foreseeable future from either a demographic or an ecological perspective.

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Current and historical polar bear subpopulation performance demonstrates that viable polar bear subpopulations have persisted and generally increased throughout the current period of climate warming ...

The popular notion that polar bears are declining or already expatriated worldwide has been initiated and perpetuated by environmental organizations and individuals who apparently believe that current subpopulation numbers and trends are an insufficient basis for an appropriate status determination. ... Anecdotal information, although useful and interesting, is not equivalent to scientific information based on valid statistical analysis of sample data.

The greatest danger is that this ruling will be distorted by the courts, where it is inevitably headed. On the other hand, not listing the polar bear would have proceeded to litigation too, with potentially worse consequences. Climate-change lawsuits have already deformed the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and others.

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Wednesday evening, John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama, who was on the stage with him, to be the Democratic nominee for president.

Sounding a theme of a nation divided into parts by walls, Mr. Edwards said, "The reason I am here tonight is that Democratic voters in America have made their choice and so have I."

Mr. Edwards then went on to say, "There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to tear down that wall and make one America, Barack Obama."

Mr. Edwards has carefully played down his aspirations for an administration role. In an interview in January, he said he would not accept a vice-presidential spot or Cabinet position. "No, absolutely not," he said, shaking his head emphatically when asked.

But privately, he told aides that he would consider the role of vice president, and favored the position of attorney general, which would appeal to his experience of decades spent in courtrooms as a trial lawyer in North Carolina; and his desire to follow in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy, one of his heroes.

The endorsement comes at a time when the appeal of Mr. Obama appears to be lagging among white, blue-collar voters, a group to which Mr. Edwards openly appealed.

Traditionally, denunciations of speculators come from the left of the political spectrum. In the case of oil prices, however, the most vociferous proponents of the view that it's all the speculators' fault have been conservatives...

Our next step should be to stop the speculation that is driving up prices in world energy markets. Oil company executives have testified recently that oil should be trading for about $55 per barrel, but that a frenzy of speculative investment has driven up its price artificially. That's one reason why I cosponsored the Consumer-First Energy Act.

Yesterday the Senate voted to end debate on a bill that requires police officers, firefighters and other first responders across the nation to submit to collectively bargaining. Before the Senate votes on final passage of the bill later this week, lawmakers really ought to take a very close look at a city council vote in the sleepy California town of Vallejo last week.

The Vallejo City Council voted May 6 to become the largest city to ever declare bankruptcy in California. The cause of Vallejo's demise? Contracts with fire and police unions account for 74% of the city's $80 million budget. Why did the city sign such ridiculous contracts? Because public sector unions are a controlling force in the Democratic Party and Democrats dominate Vallejo's government. Therefore, when it came time to for the city to negotiate salaries with its unions, the Democrats were represented, the unions were represented, but the city's taxpayers were not.

Bondbuyer.com reports: "The U.S. will probably see more municipal bankruptcies in the years ahead as local governments deal with the mountains of pension and retiree benefits they've promised but never funded." The Weekly Standard's Stephen Moore documented many of these nationwide unfunded liabilities earlier this year including: one of every three Los Angeles County school system dollars goes to teacher requirement costs; the 10 largest Chicago-area cities face a combined $18.7 billion in unfunded pension liabilities; Philadelphia was forced to issue a $4.5 billion bond to cover unfunded pension liabilities for 33,000 retirees.

Liberals in Congress defend their new bill for police officers, firefighters and other first responders by pointing to language that forbids public safety unions from striking. But as the Wall Street Journal notes, similar strike bans in state laws never work: "Union officials call strikes anyway, then negotiate amnesty as a condition of ending the work-stoppage. This is what happened in 2005 when New York transit workers broke the law by going on strike and shutting down the city. They paid no price and still got their raise."

A union's monopoly over bargaining makes it a cartel that prevents employers from hiring workers who would do the same job for less than union wages. ... Without providing financing for the mandate, the act will force these governments to either cut services or raise taxes.

At Obama's Chicago headquarters, advisers said there was no reason to worry - West Virginia was demographically suited to Clinton and won't be part of their general election plans.

Because of proximity here in Maryland we get occasional exposure to Appalachian stuff. I know it's not nice to say but as a black man in the 21st century it isn't exactly a region I think should be having much say about the future of America. And it isn't.

Initial press reports have suggested the battle has mostly come out a draw. But a 14-point "truce" between the government and the Mahdists (brokered last week by Iran) suggests otherwise. Among other details reported in the press, the agreement requires the Mahdi Army to abandon its heavy and medium weapons, end its shelling of Baghdad's Green Zone, shut down its kangaroo courts and recognize the authority of Iraqi law. In exchange, the government seems to have promised mainly that it would not arrest lower-level militia members.

The truce suggests, instead, that Iran has grudgingly come to respect Mr. Maliki as a serious opponent. Having invested itself so heavily in Mr. Sadr's success, Tehran had little reason to suddenly lend its diplomatic offices unless it felt the Mahdi Army was on the verge of defeat. Last week's truce may have postponed that moment, but there's little doubt Mr. Sadr's movement has suffered an embarrassing defeat.

However fitfully it began, the Basra campaign is a sign that Iraqis are in fact "standing up" for their own security. It is also a personal vindication for Mr. Maliki, who recognized to his credit that his government had to have a monopoly on violence in Shiite neighborhoods as much as in Sunni enclaves.

In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure, and later that it was a military success but that Iraq's political class had not lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge supporters said, the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have become convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.

Because Davis and Childers tangled via advertisements over whether Childers had been endorsed by Obama amid Rev. Wright's revenge tour, the press will be tempted to spin a Childers victory as a sign that Obama is not a drag on the ticket. Local factors and the national environment are going to be dispositive here, not Barack Obama. So don't believe the hype.

The conventional wisdom has it that Clinton did herself major damage Tuesday night by getting blown out in North Carolina. I completely agree. This hurt her with the pledged delegate count. Much more important, I think, is that it hurt her with the popular vote count, which she must win to press an argument with the superdelegates.

However, it is possible that she could counter Tuesday's blowout with two big blowouts of her own in the next two weeks. This could undo most of the damage done by her big loss in North Carolina, and put her back on track.

West Virginia is 95% white, and one of the poorest states in the nation. Demographically, Pennsylvania's twelfth congressional district is a decent proxy of it. Clinton won Pennsylvania's twelfth by 46 points. A recent Rasmussen survey put her up 29 points in the Mountaineer State, with 17% undecided. Another poll had her up 40 points, with Obama under 25%.

I am terrible at it. As a consequence, I bought nothing in Turkey other than tickets to various things, room, food, and a poster of Ataturk. And I overpaid for all of these things, I'm sure, which has left me a bit bitter about the place. Surely this is inefficient overall, no?

Racially motivated voting ran somewhat higher than elsewhere: In preliminary exit poll results, two in 10 whites said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote, second only to Mississippi.

The overwhelming majority of West Virginia Democratic primary voters today were white and 4% were African American.

Clinton won the white vote by 68% to 28%

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She won white women by 74% to 24%, and most white men by, 63% to 33%.

THE BILL CLINTON FACTOR

Three quarters of Hillary Rodham Clinton voters said Bill Clinton's campaigning was important to their vote. More than half of Barack Obama voters said the former president's campaigning was of little or no importance.

THE REV. WRIGHT FACTOR

Two in 10 voters said Obama shares the views of his fiery former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "a lot" and three in 10 said Obama shares Wright's views "somewhat." Nearly a quarter said Obama shares Wright's views "not much" and a quarter said the candidate doesn't share his one-time preacher's views at all.

[T]he suggestion has been made that the minimum wage is really swell because it gets rid of low-productivity jobs that only pay the minimum wage. This sounds lovely—if you are the kind of person who has the skills to get one of the higher productivity jobs. Not so great if you're a high-school dropout with no appreciable credentials. In effect what you're talking about is a massive transfer from the weakest members of society.

``This inflation speed-up must be taken seriously as it creates potentially significant challenges to economic stability,'' John Lipsky, the IMF's first deputy managing director, said ... A return to 1970s- style high inflation and rising price expectations ``cannot be discarded out of hand,'' he said.

IMF research indicates that if the dollar hadn't fallen from 2002 to 2007, oil prices would be $25 a barrel lower. Crude oil futures surpassed $120 a barrel this week for the first time. Commodity prices excluding fuel would be 12 percent lower, Lipsky said.

Middle East and Asian countries that keep their currencies linked to the dollar are seeing inflation pressures worsen as a result, Lipsky said.

``In the euro area, the sharp rise in inflation and concerns about potential deterioration in inflation expectations are dampening consumer confidence and spending,'' he said. ``The inflation outlook appropriately is central to the ECB's policy considerations.''

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Crude oil prices have almost doubled in the past 12 months and commodities including corn, wheat, rice and soybeans have all reached records this year. In the U.S., consumer prices climbed 4 percent in March from a year before, up from a 2.8 percent rate in March 2007. Inflation in the 15-nation euro region accelerated to 3.6 percent two months ago, the fastest in almost 16 years.

``Inflation rates are expected to remain high for a rather protracted period of time before gradually declining again,'' ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said at a press conference in Athens today.

Fed officials anticipate that slowing U.S. economic growth and rising unemployment will help curb inflation. Policy makers last week signaled they're ready for a pause in cutting rates after seven reductions since September.

I saw Bobby Jindal talk last week at the National Press Club. He's being widely touted as McCain's potential running mate, though I agree with Ross that this would be a mistake—for Jindal. No one should run for office this year as a Republican who doesn't have to.

Mostly I was incredibly impressed. He looks like the president of the high school chess club, so it's something of a shock to my elitist coastal ears to hear a rich good-old-boy southern accent issuing from him. But he's a hell of a talker, and most of what h