As I was lying there in the hospital last night, I saw the first reports that Jill Carroll had been freed. I’m happy to see it was true.

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Short version: My heart is fine. Chest x-ray and liver scan, oddly enough, not so fine. Two somethings on my lung and a “hypodensity” in my liver. (In my family, we’re not so crazy about liver masses these days.)
Follow-up appointment to be scheduled next week.

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I noted the pain in my chest last night, more as a matter of interest than panic. It’s worse if I cough (although I don’t have a cough), and it goes all the way through to my back. In fact, it feels much like when I had pneumonia last year, only without the crackly sound […]

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What do you call a country without laws?
WASHINGTON, March 28 — Five former judges on the nation’s most secretive court, including one who resigned in apparent protest over President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping, urged Congress on Tuesday to give the court a formal role in overseeing the surveillance program.
In a rare glimpse into the inner […]

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New York magazine takes a comprehensive look at the unanswered questions from 9/11 and the resulting conspiracy theories. [Via Mark Morford.]

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I missed this one, but Dr. S. didn’t:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that the time has come for the federal government to regulate security at chemical plants, but that it should rely on the industry to devise its own way to meet targets and use private contractors to audit compliance.
In speeches to industry […]

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Hounding innocent Kurdish immigrants and trying to label them terrorists - oh yeah, that’s what the PATRIOT Act is all about:
However, four of them have been arrested for transferring funds to their families and charitable organizations in Iraqi Kurdistan without a license, a felony offense under the Patriot Act and the act to keep Cubans […]

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It’s Jordan’s third. He’s a great guy who does great work over at Confined Space to spotlight work safety issues. Go say hi and send him your best wishes, so he’ll keep on going:
But it takes more than good material and anger to keep a blogger going; it also takes inspiration. It seems that every […]

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Miss Molly:
The Pentagon has once again investigated itself! And—have a seat, get the smelling salts, hold all hats—the Pentagon has once again concluded the Pentagon did absolutely nothing wrong and will continue to do so.

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I don’t believe Card’s departure has a damn thing to do with Bush “listening to his critics,” as WashPo seems to think.
I think he did what his mother told him to do.

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Apparently intelligent and funny liberal anchors do indeed have an audience - and not just on Comedy Central.

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They’re showing the total eclipse of the sun live on the news this morning (in Turkey, Asia, etc.). Click here or here to read more.

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Billmon’s got a good, long post on the enthusiasm with which the corporate media has embraced right-wing political bloggers:
As a result, the amount of housebreaking required to turn a right-wing lunatic with a blog into a “respectable” conservative with a newspaper column seems to be fairly trivial. So instead of coaxing the radicals to the […]

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Watertiger explains it all.

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So Philly: What are you doing Thursday night?
Conservative icon Grover “Let’s Drown Government in the Bathtub Before I Get Indicted” Norquist will be speaking - and taking questions from the public - at the National Constitution Center. I’m going to be there, and gee, I think you should, too. I think it could be, um, […]

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This is what passes for the “real” media these days - the Post agreed to keep a meeting with Bush off the record:
Does that strike others as a bit strange? The Post (or at least its employees) agreed to withhold information from readers that it clearly viewed as news, in exchange for whatever it would […]

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All Spin Zone notices a little something tucked away into the new immigration “reform” bill:
For those of you unfamiliar with H-1B’s, here’s a quick primer. The H-1B visa program allows American companies and universities to import foreign scientists, engineers and programmers. H1B work visas allows these foreign skilled workers to enter the U.S. for up […]

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Pumping up the Iran “menace.”

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This’ll be interesting:
As The BRAD BLOG reported last week, a Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice had been considering an Election Contest after electronic voting machine problems and inexplicable tallies plagued the first-in-the-nation March 7th primary in the Lone Star State.
Steve Smith — who ran for election to the state Supreme Court, Place 2, […]

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Red Bull + vodka = a drunk who’s convinced he isn’t.

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Every once in a while, I read something that makes my stomach turn. I don’t know these kids, but I knew a lot of kids like them when I lived in the area. When a gang of them beat one of my kids unconscious for the offense of bringing a black friend to a local […]

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Newt Gingrich, God bless his twisted little heart, comes up with the perfect Democratic slogan:
HAD ENOUGH?

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ReddHead/Christy has a great piece of political theater in the works - rubber stamps that say, “Rubber Stamp Republican Congress,” to be delivered to the DisHonorables.
Join the fun!

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Again, again. Tonight, Drinking Liberally at Tangier, 18th and Lombard, 6 - 9 p.m. Free wings for early birds, drink specials, the usual.

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Tar and feathers, anyone?
Philippe Sands was on Hardball last night. He’s the U.K. law professor who originally broke the news on the memo recording the January 31, 2003 Bush/Blair meeting at the White House.
His book, “Lawless World,” isn’t available in the U.S. yet. And I was genuinely surprised when Sands said it also mentions ANOTHER […]

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