The Sopranos starts now. It looks like tonight is going to feature Meadow and her fiancee, but the actual description says. "Johnny files a petition to attend his daughter's wedding and Tony hires a new bodyguard." It's called "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request."

I think last week's was the best of the season so far -- so did several commenters. Let us all know what you think of tonight's show. And if you're not into the Sopranos, please just scroll on by.

The Sopranos starts now. The episode is called "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh." Here's the lead-in:

Tony and Johnny Sack haggle over Barone Sanitation's future; Paulie is rocked by an aunt's revelation.

I bet a lot more happens than that.

The Wall Street Journal today published article by Brody Mullins on Michael Scanlon and his former fiance Emily Miller. It fails to credit investigative journalist Jason Leopold who broke the story in January.

I did a Lexis search and found that Jason's article was the first to report the Scanlon-Miller story. Jason is understandably miffed. He writes by e-mail:

Back by demand. After watching last night's show which think was the best of the season by far, I wasn't sure anyone would want to discuss it. But, I've gotten a request, so here it is.

Crooks and Liars has the video and the transcript of Markos of Daily Kos on Reliable Sources. Great job, M. He talked about the impact of political bloggers and the embroglio over Washington Post's three day blogger, Ben Domenech.

As for Domenech, the NRO has been investigating other pieces he wrote (all prior to 2002) and finds more unusual similarities.

Update: Ben Domenech issues a real apology. It seems sincere and complete. Good for him.

*******
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appears to have plagiarized material when writing for his college paper and in one instance, NRO, the blog of the National Review.

Domenech has now resigned. WaPo editor Jim Brady writes:

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Spoiler Alert: Don't read until after you've seen the show.

The second episode of the new Sopranos season is about to begin. The only hint from the show's website so far is this, "A west-coast business trip turns into a case of mistaken identity."

Toronto Sun columnist Bill Harris, who has seen tonight's show, reports that A.J. has a starring role and a chilling scene. Edie Falco is also excellent.

You will definitely see the most eerie episode of The Sopranos. Parts of it may stick with you for a long, long time....The episode tonight is a weird one, with plenty of imagery and symbolism and outright spookiness.

Reactions, anyone? I'll be back with mine after the show.

Update: Jane of Firedoglake and John Amato of Crooks and Liars were there and heard the exchange. They back Arianna.

Last week we and many other bloggers quoted George Clooney's blog post at HuffPo. Clooney now says he didn't write it, although he acknowledges the statements in it attributed to him are accurate. Arianna responds and disagrees, but allows there is room for a misunderstanding.

The important aspect, if there is one, is that Clooney stands by the statements in the post. What he says is that is we should take pride in being liberals. That's the part we should focus on, not whether he intended it to be a quote as opposed to a blog post.

Congrats to the two winners of the February Contagious Festival - both of which take aim at Dick Cheney:

Vance Lehmkuhl, who takes home the People's Choice award for his "Quail Hunting with Dick Cheney", and Paul Hipp, recipient of the Jury Prize for "Cheney Plays Folsom Prison".

Together, the two entries were watched by over 600,000 people. Vance and Paul will each receive a check for $2,500 -- and will be having a victory dinner with [Arianna] this later this month. Nice work and congratulations them both.

I'm counting the hours until the return of the Sopranos tonight. There's lots of media articles on the show today, but be careful, some give away too much. If you weren't a viewer before, you can catch up here. There's also this video recap of Season Five.

And leave it to Newsweek to find a link between the show and the Bush administration:

Sopranos:
America's true First Family is back, with better ratings and firearm-safety record than White House.

Update: Did any of you watch it? What did you think? I thought it was very dark, edgy, angry and ominous. It seems like the feds and snitches are going to play a bigger role this year.

Major Kudos to Markos and Jerome--check out the New York Times' great review of their book, Crashing the Gates:

Much of the authors' criticism of the party establishment is dead-on. They rail against political consultants who take 15 percent commissions on media buys while giving bad advice. They are especially incensed by what they see as the self-defeating role of special interests, notably Naral Pro-Choice America's decision to endorse Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican, over two pro-abortion-rights Democrats. If Mr. Chafee wins, he could ensure that the Republican Party, which has an aggressive anti-abortion agenda, keeps control of the Senate.

Denver blogger, journalist, author and TalkLeft pal Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence has taken netroots activism to another dimension. First, he started a Brokeback Mountain forum on his blog which spiraled into the largest Brokeback site on the web.

Then, when Brokeback didn't win for best picture, he spearheaded a collection drive to take out a full page ad in Daily Variety thanking those who supported the film. The ad ran yesterday and you can view it here. From the forum's press release: