Sheriff: Woman sat on toilet for 2 years: “[Her boyfriend] told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

‘And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,” Whipple said. ‘According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.’

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that ‘there was something wrong with his girlfriend,’ Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.” (Yahoo! News)

SPLF via Washington Post: “The dwindling Ku Klux Klan may seem like a relic of crueler times, but the number of hate groups operating in the United States has actually jumped a staggering 48 percent since 2000. Many of these groups have sprouted along the border in Arizona, California and Texas, where their ringleaders have often hijacked the immigration debate.”

“Here’s a distressing number for you: according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the percentage of respondents who think Barack Obama him as a Muslim increased five points since their last poll, from 8 percent to 13 percent.

Of course it’s well documented that there are already a number of right-wing smear campaigns underway to promote this idea. But I think these numbers are evidence of the success that members of his own party have had in injecting questions about his race and religious beliefs (and tying the two together) into the primary. The Clinton camp has repeatedly and unsubtly pushed his race to the center of the campaign, and is doing their best to paint him as guilty of being a white-people-hating, Louis-Farrakhan-loving, militant by association.” (The American Prospect)

“I just want one of them, Hillary, Silda, to stand on the steps of the house, the White House, the Governor’s Mansion and stamp their foot and say, ‘And another thing, I’m keeping the house.'” (Huffington Post)

Jon Pareles live-blogs from SXSW for the New York Times: “Without disc sales to depend on (and even the majority of major-label acts never could), most musicians are going to make a good part of their living in front of audiences, as musicians have done throughout history. SXSW may no longer be a make-or-break moment for a band — from blogs to advertisements, there are other avenues to being heard — but it’s one heck of a focus group.”

From glowing praise to growing distance to — as of Friday — strong criticism: “‘I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue,’ he wrote in a campaign statement that was his strongest in a series of public disavowals of his pastor’s views over the past year.

Earlier in the week, several television stations played clips in which Mr. Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, referred to the United States as the ‘U.S. of K.K.K. A.’ and said the Sept. 11 attacks were a result of corrupt American foreign policy.” (New York Times )