Your thoughts won't flash on the U.S. Capitol podium, but this year's State of the Union address (9 p.m. ET, on most TV networks, many radio outlets, and live on the web and the iPhone) will be different.

A bipartisan commission of some kind to make recommendations on reducing the deficit and controlling the national debt is looking more and more likely. The Senate is supposed to vote on the idea Tuesday, but if that fails, reports say President Obama will announce he'll appoint a panel by executive order in the State of the Union speech.

What do citizens really need to know about energy and climate change? What lessons for making energy policy can be found in the movies Groundhog Day, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Soylent Green and Apollo 13?

The idea of a bipartisan commission to draft a plan to get the federal budget on a sound footing has been embraced by President Obama and Congressional leaders, and will likely be a major point in next week's State of the Union speech. Under the plan, a panel named by the White House and leaders of both parties would come up with proposals by December to close the deficit and control the debt.

One of the biggest problems in getting Americans engaged on the nation's fiscal challenges is that the problem is so hard for most people to get their arms around. The numbers are so huge, the issues so arcane and the problems so daunting that people may get angry about it, but have no idea how to grab onto it.

A lot of people have been watching the California fiscal crisis nervously, wondering what it could mean for other cash-strapped states and even the federal government. This week we got a glimmer of what it might mean: putting choices before the public.

It may sound like mindless optimism at the moment, but there are actually signs of hope for the federal budget. Those signs aren’t in the numbers themselves – the long-term fiscal projections are as bleak as ever. The budget debate has never really been about numbers in any case. Rather, the signs are in a question that’s being asked more and more frequently in our public debate: “Can we afford it?”

"Climategate" was the obsession of the cable news shows this weekend, as pundits analyzed the snarky e-mails from prominent climate scientists more intent on stamping out opposing views than transparently reporting their own results.

The statistics are staggering: six in 10 students at two-year colleges don't complete their degree in six years. Four in 10 of all students at four-year colleges don't complete, either.

Why? If getting an education is the most important step a young person can take to get ahead, why are so many young people failing to follow through?

Among the topics right now on Twitter and elsewhere on the web, including the Center for American Progress: younger teachers' views on incentive pay, including a look at Public Agenda's examination of the opinions of Generation Y and older teachers on education reform proposals, working conditions and other issues affecting their effectiveness in the classroom.