Some must-reading for this first week of December 2008:

• Now would obviously be a good time to brush up on the state of the relationship between the U.S. and India. The Heritage Foundation recently published a useful backgrounder, with an emphasis on the China factor. Remember that the Chinese have aided Pakistan’s nuclear program.

• Last month, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute released its latest civic literacy report, which assesses knowledge of history and economics among Americans. You can even go online to take ISI’s civics quiz. One perhaps-unsurprising finding is that our elected officials know less about American principles and institutions (average score 44 percent) than do their constituents (49 percent). Nearly one-third of elected officials failed to recognize “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence, meaning that the ignorance was not confined to the politicians of Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and Chapel Hill. Oh, and twice as many people know that Paul Abdul is an American Idol judge than know the phrase “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is from the Gettysburg Address. You’ve just got to bring it every week and do your thing, you know, or you’ll sound pitchy.

• As dozens of states and hundreds of local governments face staggering budget deficits going into 2009, the Reason Foundation’s Leonard Gilroy offers some lessons about fiscal restraint from Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, among others.

• The National Center for Policy Analysis thinks that the elevation of Czech President Vaclav Klaus to the European Union presidency is great news for a more rational approach to climate change. Of course, global economic recession is also likely to act as a restraint on regulatory nonsense. Unemployment, bear markets, and endangered pensions tend to crowd out polar bears as political priorities.

• Some left-wing politicians are trying to marry environmentalism and economic recovery by advocating “investment” in “millions of green jobs” to replace lost manufacturing and service-sector jobs. The Mackinac Center’s Russ Harding punctures this particular bubble right from the start.

• Feeling guilty about drinking bottled water? A new coalition hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute is offering absolution.