In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I report on a controversy that has Massachusetts environmental groups turning angrily against the Deval Patrick administration: woody biomass.

Final biomass-subsidy regulations are due soon, and the environmentalists -- even the usually less-strident ones -- are infuriated at what they believe is a capitulation to industry and its lobbyists.

Brighton's Steven Tolman has wrapped up the battle to be the next president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, as the Globe and others reported yesterday. Tolman's rival to succeed Robert Haynes, Tim Sullivan, bowed out of the race once it was clear that Tolman had the votes locked up for the October convention vote.

I spoke to Tolman, Sullivan, and others recently, for an item that had not yet run and is now obsolete.

I am writing to explain why I find NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen's big speech on the state of political journalism to be, as I called it on Twitter, "idiotic crap." I'll try to be brief.

--Rosen states as his overall theme a disgust with political journalists becoming "insiders." Of course they do; all journalists try to get further inside than their audience can, whether they're covering Mitt Romney or the town fire department.

Boston may be the epicenter of Massachusetts politics, but the effects of suburbanization are undeniable. At the moment, neither the senate president nor the speaker of the house lives in the city. And in two years, the unthinkable could become reality: Boston might not have a single congressman resident in its borders.

Eric Fehrnstrom has now emailed a confession to the Globe, admitting to being the man behind the @CrazyKhazei Twitter account. Fehrnstrom does not apologize in that statement, nor does he answer whether Scott Brown was aware of it, or whether he has other fun and fanciful Twitter accounts still barking insults about opposing candidates in the Massachusetts Senate race and/or any other race he's involved with, including his main meal ticket Mitt Romney.

Let's take a moment to appreciate how wise I was when I wrote back in April:

Romney's best hope of winning the nomination may actually be... to patiently stay the course as he falls from the front-runner's perch, working and waiting for the voters to come back to him....

To voters, front-runners are the steady girlfriend they leave to play the field.

For those not up to speed... Over on Twitter, there's been a joke account for a while called "CrazyKhazei" that makes snide comments clearly intended to poke fun at Alan Khazei and other Democratic candidates for US Senate. Local tweeter Chris Matthews caught something from the account of Eric Fehrnstrom -- longtime Mitt Romney aide and member of Scott Brown's campaign inner circle -- that he suspects reveals that Fehrnstrom is the CrazyKhazei tweeter.

Last night I posted about an odd article that ran on The Hill web site yesterday. I stand by my critique of the story, but want to apologize for my off-the-cuff theorizing about its origins.

Rather than stopping with my reaction to the article, I went on to play a connect-the-dots game to suggest that the story might have been pitched by Mary Anne Marsh on behalf of the DSCC.

This morning the Ballot Box blog of DC's The Hill ran a piece that made the rounds (and was repeated tonight practically verbatim by Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC's Last Word) about the tough dilemma facing Elizabeth Warren if she runs for US Senate: because of her tough, anti-Wall Street credentials -- most recently as the "mastermind of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" -- Warren will likely be unable to raise money from "high-rolling donors" at hedge funds and financial firms, and will be forced to rely on small-dollar contributions from her "ardent grassroots following" to fund her uphill battle against the man dubbed by Forbes "Wall Street's favorite Senator," Scott Brown.

Rob Eno has written a ridiculous response to my blog criticism, and I'll briefly respond below; normally I wouldn't get sucked into a back-and-forth yapfest over nonsense, but I want to make a point about how people like Eno are going to make it difficult for Scott Brown to win re-election.

There is great pleasure and self-satisfaction to be had from spending the next 14 months or so reflexively searching for outrage in your political opposition's every act and utterance.

OK, look, you all know a few things about me: I love everybody; I like 1990s hip-hop more than is reasonable; and I'm all for demanding disclosure and transparency concerning money in politics, regardless of party or ideology.

So I'll be happy to complain, as time goes on, that Mass Uniting -- the organization running the "Bobblehead Brown" campaign I blogged about this morning -- is being too secretive about their backers and where their money is going and all that.

Massachusetts is the greatest state in the country. I realize that some people might dispute that, and there's no need to get into it here; but surely it is among the most desirable places to live. From the best-educated children to the lowest divorce rates to the most Dunkin Donuts per capita, the Bay State rules.

And even if you personally don't find Massachusetts appealing, the free market certainly suggests that it's in the top five: only New Jersey, California, and Hawaii have a higher median monthly homeowner cost.

Last summer, I questioned the legality and ethics of Senator Scott Brown raising money by, in effect, scalping tickets to a Lowell Spinners game, at which Scotto's buddy at Zoll Medical handed out Scotto bobblehead dolls. (Side note: Brown's campaign spokespeople responded to that item by saying the scheme had been reviewed and approved by legal consultant -- and now state representative -- Dan Winslow.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about the much-rumored Elizabeth Warren US Senate candidacy; in it, I reported that my "conversations with Bay State Democratic operatives... suggest a certain level of resistance, if not outright hostility, from the local political establishment." Those activists, organizers, campaign veterans, and fundraisers, I wrote, are generally open to persuasion -- mostly because they haven't given their hearts to any of the current candidates -- but do still need to be persuaded, directly.

In case you thought, as some silly pundits did, that the Ames Straw Poll wouldn't matter this time around, at least two of the big network Sunday shows have announced that they will broadcast from Ames next weekend, and according to reports there have been a record number of press-credential requests for the event. If you hold it, they will come.