Edwards/Obama online, Clinton/Obama off

-- The Kossacks still like John Edwards and Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton not at all. The Direct Democracy-ites choose Obama by a nose in an allocated tally (go there for the explanation). The traditional polling favors the Senator from New York.

Hillary will be here in Houston tomorrow.

The Republicans are currently being led by the cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani, followed by John McCain, who seems to be fading fast. Romney, Gingrich (who still hasn't declared) and Brownback trail them in single digits.

-- A topic which has received much attention in the blogosphere has been the erupting scandal at the Texas Youth Commission. Incarcerated young people were routinely sexually abused, the entire board of directors has resigned, and now the US Department of Justice is threatening legal action against the state of Texas. Kuffner and Leibowitz have been updating this regularly.

-- Valerie Plame is testifying today on Capitol Hill.

-- Karl Rove and Harriet Myers are also implicated in the firing of federal prosecutors for political purposes. They will likely be subpoenaed by Sen. Patrick Leahy to testify before a Senate committee. The right-wing talking point on this scandal is: "Clinton did it, too!" Not only is it typically disingenuous, it's just pathetic that six years into the Bush Maladministration the conservatives are still bleating about the Big Dog.

Find a new whine, goonbats.

Gone-zales

Rumors are leaking that he and the Prezdent are no longer BFF.

This surprises me. After reading Booman's take that Abu Attorney General would never resign, I was in complete agreement until reading the account from ThinkProgress, and also the paragraph at the bottom of Dana Milbank's report -- that even Senator Box Turtle has taken out the long knife. That's probably so that he can be first in line to replace him.

And that would create a free-for-all for the vacant Senate seat on both sides. In other Senate news, Rick Noriega was outed by the lads at Texas Blue. Bad move by them, in my opinion. That sort of thing engenders enmity among his House colleagues at a time when he is advancing important legislation.

Lots more to come on several fronts, and I hope I have time to write about it.

Thank you all

... for your kind words here. We appreciate them very much.

Sue's mother was transported to the hospital early Saturday morning (as Sue prepared to depart for Miami and her father's funeral) and remains in ICU with congestive heart failure and possibly pneumonia. Sue's sister -- undergoing her own chemotherapy for lymphoma -- collapsed yesterday in the hospital and was taken a few steps over to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with dehydration and a fever (she went home last night).

This is all the family she has left, and they are having a rough go of it right now. Please keep a warm thought for them in your heart.

Approaching Bracketville

Scroll on if you don't want to read about the NCAA tournament this week.

Sixty-five teams, three weeks, endless empty brackets and countless hours watching all the action. So you need a primer.

Here are the Sweet 16 things you need to know as the NCAA tournament gets set to tip off.

1. Repeat Gators

Since the John Wooden era ended at UCLA in the mid-1970s, only once has a team repeated as national champions – Duke in 1992 and 1993. There have been some close calls – Georgetown reached the finals in 1985, Arkansas in 1995 and Kentucky even went to overtime in the title game in 1997.

But for the most part, college basketball has been the land of the no-peat. And with the trend of top college players making immediate leaps to the NBA, there was a school of thought that it might never happen again.

Enter the Florida Gators, the defending champions with all five starters back and, after bulldozing the SEC tournament, the No. 1 seed overall. They even have, in the Midwest Region, what appears to be a favorable bracket. ...

2. The four most important players in the tournament

(There may be better players out there, but none are so valuable to their team's fortunes.)

Kevin Durant, Texas -- (more on all four)

Greg Oden, Ohio State

A.J. Graves, Butler

Darren Collison, UCLA

3. Cinderellas (13 seed or worse that are capable of an upset)

Wright State (vs. Pitt) – The Raiders finished the season 23-9, but they started 3-5 as they adjusted to new coach Brad Brownell. Since Christmas, this has been one of the hottest teams in the country. Wright State finished by winning 12 of its final 13 games, including two over Butler, and both the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships. This team is much better than a No. 14 seed.

Davidson (vs. Maryland)

Holy Cross (vs. Southern Illinois)

Oral Roberts (vs. Washington State)

And the other thirteen things you need to know are also here.

Sunday Funnies

Everybody still needs a giggle, right?





and three from Tom Toles:

Israel Behar-Ojalvo, 1929 - 2007

My father-in-law's suffering ended this morning about 1:30 a.m.



His family emigrated from Turkey to Cuba sometime after the turn of the century, and he and his wife left Cuba in 1962, carrying only my future wife and a bag of diapers. He left behind a comfortable life -- manager of a rayon plant, a large home with domestic help, sizable assets -- and went initially to Brooklyn, where his double doctorate in chemistry and pharmacology was at first only good enough for a janitorial position in a small pharmacy. By the time he retired in 1982, he was a manager of a chemical plant in Orange, TX and even after, his old employer Allied Signal (now Honeywell) sought his consultative services at the rate of $1,000 a day.



He leaves behind his loving wife, Nilda (they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last month) and two daughters, Nilda Hassell and Sue Dorrell. He will be interred in Miami, Florida.

Vaya con Dios, Papi. Te quiero mucho. Hasta luego.