I feel like the kid in the back of the class with her hand raised, jumping up and down in the chair. Ooh, ooh, I know the answer, teacher! Call on me!

Confirming a rumor circulating around the Capitol late last week, Gov. Rick Scott announced Saturday that he has appointed Adam Hollingsworth, 43, as his new chief of staff. His appointment takes effect July 1.

Hollingsworth, who replaces Steve MacNamara, is no stranger to the governor. He served as director of agency review for Scott's transition team.

The buzz around Tallahassee at the end of the week was Saturday's impending "lunch" between Gov. Rick Scott and Steve MacNamara -- at which time one or the other of them would decide the fate of the embattled chief of staff.

The arrival in Florida earlier in the week of the lawyer-packed environmental group Center for Biological Diversity has renewed a conversation in Washington and elsewhere that it's time to find out exactly how much money the government is forking out to this cottage industry.

Believe it or not, government officials don't know.

Isn't it supposed to be the casinos, not Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, that attract the porn? That's not what happened in Orlando, just named by Men's Health Magazine as the Smuttiest City in America.

Insiders say Steve MacNamara is leaving the governor's office at the end of the year. If that's so, then why wait? Rick Scott should hold the door open for his Machiavellian chief of staff right now.

As Newt Gingrich prepares to wave the white flag of surrender, at least one campaign staffer confirms the former speaker of the House "spent like a drunken sailor" during the last two months of his presidential campaign -- even outspending Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

"Ever since the beginning of March the speaker hasn't seemed bothered by how much it cost us to travel around, as long as we were making a statement," said the longtime campaign aide on Monday. "He likes to make a splash."

Florida elections supervisors can object all they want. The fact is, Gov. Rick Scott's survey and subsequent ranking of the state's 67 elections officials was an act of leadership. And a good one at that.

Maybe you can find the courage to explain to our 2012 college grads how we let the banks and universities steal their future. I certainly can't.

Permanently-outraged-lefty Progress Florida is at it again, whipping up fear over something that deserves praise, not persecution.