1. "Bald eagle soars off endangered list": America, fuck yeah!

["The bald eagle, America's national symbol, is flying high after spending three decades in recovery. On Thursday, the government took the eagle off the Endangered Species Act's "threatened" list."]

["There is a lot of talk about overhauling health care in the United States, but Massachusetts is actually trying to do it—again. Today, the home of some of the nation's most prestigious hospitals and medical schools becomes the first state to require its residents to have health insurance or face financial penalties. Making insurance mandatory—and more affordable—for Massachusetts's 6.5 million residents is the centerpiece of a law approved by the legislature last year that civic and business leaders hope will dramatically reduce the ranks of the state's 400,000 uninsured and the number of people who seek costly "uncompensated" care in hospital emergency rooms."]

["I like to think I'm pretty sceptical when it comes to putatively sacrosanct pop iconography, which is why I was taken a bit aback by the rather violent offense I took to this poster for the early-fall comedy release Good Luck Chuck when I saw it the other night at a Manhattan multiplex. The image is a parody—a crudely constructed, unconvincing parody—of a photo by Annie Leibovitz of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The photo was taken on the last day of Lennon's life, in December of 1980, and was published on the cover of the January 22nd issue of Rolling Stone."]

["I've read in interviews with Ratliff that he's embracing his audiences' "nervous laughter"...well, he better, because there's bound to be a lot of titters; indeed, it's hard to keep a straight face during Joshua, so poorly does Ratliff establish space or tone. Ultimately, Ratliff hasn't done much more than add a particularly stupid entry to the "little boys in suits are scary" subgenre, and this one comes with a thoroughly uninvestigated stench of homophobia. I'm not convinced it was Ratliff's intention to demonize its main character for his burgeoning differences (he prefers Bartok to baseball . . . horrors!), but then why, in its final scene, does little Joshua turn to his gay uncle, as they sit together doing a piano duet, after mommy and daddy are out of the picture, and say, "This feels right"? Okay, George, you finally creeped me out."]

["It's George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln—carved out of a giant block of cheese. Troy Landwehr used his carving tools to turn a 700-pound block of Land O' Lakes cheddar into a replica of Mount Rushmore. The cheese carver and winemaker was commissioned by Cheez-It snack crackers to make the monumental carving."]

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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.