Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog: Today's lousy healthcare coverage brought to you by Siemans and Novartis, out of the kindness of their hearts. Tired...

Capital Eye: Health Care Cheat Sheet

Legal Schnauzer: Karl Rove did NOT deny involvement in the Siegelman case

h+ Magazine: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies has proven that genetic diseases can be cured by combining gene therapy with stem cells.

TreeHugger: North Carolin Senate bans moutaintop wind turbines. Too ugly!

3 quarks daily: How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting

Bloggers Amanda Carpenter (Townhall.com) and Jane Hamsher (firedoglake.com) discuss John McCain, his inability to control North Carolina Republicans over their ads against Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, the "Sugar Momma Express" and ANWAR. Open Thread below...

Leave it to a wingnut Republican to post a video from inside the green zone after an attack. I would think that's a no-no, but I'm not a Republican in Congress.

The Pentagon told a North Carolina lawmaker Tuesday that he couldn’t re-air a video he'd shot in Baghdad after accusations surfaced that he breached operational security in detailing enemy rocket attacks. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican, traveled to Iraq with other lawmakers for the first time on March 22. The video was the second incident stemming from that trip that has drawn unwanted attention to McHenry.

I wonder if he had on his lapel pin? Here's a golden oldie?

(posted on January 11th, 2007)

Barney came down on McHenry for breaking the rules and trying to implement an amendment. It's a new dawn in the House and the Republicans will not like it all that much…

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Mark)

He cracked me up when he said his past behavior was not relevant…Hilarious.

UCLA vs Memphis

North Carolina vs Kansas

It's the first time in tournament history that all #1 seeds made the final four. I'm a big UCLA fan, but Memphis is very good and it should be a great game. Josh Shipp has been in a slump and needs to hit a few 3's if they are going to win it all because they will have problems if Collison is the only Bruin hitting outside shots. Kevin Love is awesome. NC looks like the team to beat, but they should all be good games and any one of them can win the title.

Update: Logan and Mike F. are big KU fans so they'll be rooting hard for the Jayhawks.

For college hoop fans, what say you?

Raw Story:

U.S. President George Bush told the NHL champion Carolina Hurricanes Friday he likes to be "around people that keep expectations low," according to a UPI report Friday.

"Bush congratulated the 2005-06 Stanley Cup winners at the White House, noting the team was ranked 28 out of 30 at the beginning of last season," UPI said.

"I like to be around people that keep expectations low," Bush said. "Instead of listening to the prognosticators, this team had a 112-point season. They had 52 wins. They win the Stanley Cup. They're here at the White House. Congratulations to you."

Also attending the ceremony were former North Carolina Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr and Rep. Howard Coble, who was said to be sporting a championship hat.

"I thought you might be wearing that to cover up your bald head," Bush quipped.

If you read the full transcripts (available here), Bush also revealed that the Stanley Cup could hold 14 cans of beer.

Consortium News: For longtime observers of political terrorism in South Florida, the aggressive reaction to what may have been the Miami group’s loose talk about violence, possibly spurred by an FBI informant posing as an al-Qaeda operative, stands in marked contrast to the U.S. government’s see-no-evil approach to notorious Cuban terrorists who have lived openly in Miami for decades.

The Gaelic Starover: Power-failure

MyDD: This mutt's military experience revolves around being escorted in and out of Iraq for a USO type visit and then returning to her air conditioned office to spew this sort of filth onto the American people.

Copeland Institute for Lower Learning: North Carolina school bans books under pressure from religious nuts.

The Existentialist Cowboy and David Swanson offer their thoughts on "staying the course."

The Week's Cartoons from Bob Geiger'

The Moderate Voice : U.S. Troop Cuts By Fall 2006 May Be In The Offing.

Taylor was at the North Carolina event today and said he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT soon

Taylor: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate...And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself...

I'm wondering how "FOX News-I mean the Secret Service" let him in?

Full transcript

Think Progress has it too.

This is isn't a joke or a parody commercial. It's just insane. Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina and he uses the Twilight Zone theme to attack gays, judges, African Americans and just about anything or anyone else you can think of.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT coming (hat tip Randy)

This guy is like James Dobson, Kate O'Berine, Tom Tancredo, Michael Ledeen and William Donohue all rolled into one.

Keith Olbermann continued his coverage of the O'Reilly petition campaign which included a new applicant, Howard Kurtz.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (hat tip Shea)

Transcript:

Olbermann: But perhaps the oddest development comes not from Fox nor MSNBC, but from CNN. Howard Kurtz‘ media program, "Reliable Sources." He spent part of a segment called the media minute covering this, that‘s right, CNN's coverage of Fox's attack on MSNBC.

Well, great. Now I've sung on all news TV networks. We also have news of a small cottage industry creating petitions. Here‘s the original one on O'Reilly‘s Web site. You could read the names of who had signed it, until they took that page down because some of the names seemed to be fictitious. Mr. Keith is Great from Faloofah, Montana, for instance, Look at My from Ratings Drop, North Carolina, someone identified simply as Falafel N from The Shower, Wyoming and Andrea Mackris from How‘s Your Cash, PW. Why did they take those down?

Ed Cone: "NC 11th district Congressman Charles Taylor, famed for his disappearing vote against CAFTA, has won a Golden Galaxy Award from the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for furthering economic relations between the two countries. No mention of the award at Taylor's website. Maybe that's because many North Carolinians are not impressed by Taylor's business dealings in Russia, where his partner is a former KGB officer...read on."