Okay, I've got like fifty years of catching up to do, so here it is:

• Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson are out. However, the controversy over whether or not they were actually in will continue. Hunter is supporting Huckabee, which is no surprise because Huck has already mentioned his name as a potential Secretary of Defense. Fred Thompson probably won't endorse anyone until doing so is completely meaningless.
  
  
• Hillary won the Nevada caucuses, which both surprised me (because caucus environments strike me as ideal for Obama, who has an exceptional grassroots organization and a significant edge as far as the enthusiasm of his supporters) and disappointed me (because now he's the underdog again and Hillary has that much more momentum).
  
  
• Everyone in the GOP but Mitt Romney is out of money. Huckabee's people and Giuliani's people are working without pay, and McCain is holding emergency fundraisers.
  
  
• This photo says, in a nutshell, why The Daily Show is just so great.
  
  
• How would a second President Clinton deal with civil rights issues? Probably not so well, actually. This demonstrates my contention that Hillary will make a deal with anyone and cut their throat the second the donation check clears and the election is won, which is my principal reason for not wanting her to be president.
  
  
• Obama and Clinton and the role of fear-mongering in American politics.
  
  
• Mike Huckabee supports your First Amendment right to believe in his religion.
  
  
• Some people didn't realize that The Manchurian Candidate wasn't a documentary (courtesy Yglesias).
  
  
• A controversial new study shows that people like being able to afford health care. As a shocking corollary, the study also shows that the Republican presidential candidates have no strategy to accomplish this, nor even the intention.
  
  
• Bush's Middle-East trip was apparently intended to persuade locals that he's more than just an ideological warlord.
  

  President Bush's self-image continues to amaze. Wrapping up an eight-day Middle East trip, the man who has launched two wars and may be hankering for a third told ABC News yesterday that he is terribly misunderstood in the region. [...]

  "But yeah, look, I'm sure people view me as a warmonger and I view myself as peacemaker."

  Bush said he had something to prove on his trip. But, he said, "it's not so much to prove for my sake. It's really to prove for peace."

  How does he intend to turn his image around? "You just have to fight through stereotypes by actions," he said, adding that he intends to let "the results speak for themselves. . . ." [...]
  
  "Look, I know I've been accused of being a hopeless idealist. On the other hand, I don't see any alternative, if you believe it's an ideological struggle. . . ."
  

• Wonkette explains why Hillary's win in Michigan, in addition to being pointless, is also not very good for her at all: "Why 236,723 Democrats would come out to vote in a delegate-less primary for no one lends new weight to the concept of “mindfuck,” but one can interpret it (and we know that Matthews boy probably will!) as votes against The Clintons."
  
  Karl Rove's opinion on same: "She's running against nobody and nobody gets 40% of the vote. The other 5% of the vote went to three other people. 27,924 votes went to the guy who believes in UFOs, the guy who dropped out and the guy who last held public office somewhere around 1855."
  
  
• Lord knows I'm not a big booster for paranoia about terrorist influence in mainstream America, but it does seem like sort of a big deal to me that a former United States Congressman has been indicted for allegedly funneling money to Al Qaeda.
  
  
• This special episode of "Sesame Street: Iraq" has been brought to you by the number 935.
  
  
• Rudy "Also-Ran" Giuliani is now claiming that he doesn't have to win Florida to win the GOP nomination. I'm wondering if he'll say the same thing in the days before Super Tuesday.
  
  
• I won't say much about Heath Ledger's unfortunate death, other than to comment that I'm surprised and rather impressed with the public outpouring of grief for him. I'll be honest, I've only seen him in one movie (Brokeback Mountain) but on that evidence alone, he had an incredible talent. It is a tragedy indeed. The only other thing I'll add to that, in consideration of the inconclusive autopsy report, is a link to an article indicating that Mr. Ledger may have had a morbid fixation with songwriter and suicide victim Nick Drake.