On Tuesday afternoon, the News & Observer blogs will be moving to a new system and a new server. This change will make getting to our blogs quicker and easier. Most of the blogs will change their appearance, while blogs like Taking Stock and Under the Dome will remain the same.

This change requires nothing from the reader. There will be a link to the older posts, and you won't need to change your bookmarks. If you have trouble finding your favorite blog or you have a comment, please email feedback@newsobserver.com.

— Rachel Carter

E.D. Hill on Tuesday's "America's Pulse":

"I certainly didn't mean to associate the word 'terrorist' in any way with Senator Obama and his wife."

So, er, what exactly did she mean to do when she posed the question: "A terrorist fist jab?"

Give me a break.

Video of the "clarification" here.

Hear Hill's original remark here.

Terror alert!

If you watched the season premiere and would like to talk about it with a seasoned TV critic, contact me today (Tuesday, 6/10) at 829-4728 or danny.hooley@newsobserver.com.

It's been nearly four months since I churned out a new edition of the "Guide," maybe because I was respecting that old saying that begins: "If you don't have anything nice to say ..."

(OK, I did like HBO's "John Adams.)

Not that I have very many nice things to say about this month's new TV series either. But "Swingtown," a new CBS show about married `70s swingers that debuted last week, reignited my interest in reviewing new stuff, good or bad, partly because it's so much fun trying to work out why I like "Swingtown" so much. (If you caught the show's June 5 premiere, drop me a line at danny.hooley@newsobserver.com and tell me what you think.)

As for the rest, I found only a comic-book adaptation on ABC Family and a kids' show on Cartoon Network (and, to a far lesser extent, a soap opera about hockey) worth watching.

Here goes:

=> Read more!

In light of next week's release of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's scathing book about the Bush Administration, CNN reporter Jessica Yellin had this to say on "Anderson Cooper 360" Wednesday night:

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."

Now she's written a blog post in which she tries to "clarify" (cough, backpedal) what she really meant.

So far, perhaps nobody in the mainstream news business been as brave as Katie Couric this week in discussing the media's role in selling the Iraq war to the public:

"I know when we were covering it — and granted, [in] the spirit of 9/11, people were unified and upset and angry and frustrated — I do think we were remiss in not asking some of the right questions.”

What the heck — Couric probably figures she has nothing left to lose.

Malkin (below) objected to Rachael Ray's "hate couture."

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an ad because chock-full-o'-nuts political blogger Michelle Malkin and others complained that the scarf worn by pitch-woman Rachael Ray looked too "jihadi."

Seriously.

Appropriately snarky commentary here on the Epicurious blog.

This is good news.

From a press release from NBC Universal:

LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT TO RETURN TO USA FOR
EIGHTH SEASON

The continuation of the seventh season of LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT debuts on USA Sunday June 8th at 9/8c.

Features copy editor Chuck Small offers tips on a few things Raleigh resident Kristi Yamaguchi and partner Mark Ballas should not attempt for ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" finale, airing this week at 8 p.m. Monday and 9 p.m. Tuesday:

1) A romantic homage to "Ice Castles" with "Looking Through the Eyes of Love."

2) Any freestyle routine to any Cheetah Girls song. (Mark's girlfriend, Sabrina Bryan, who was a contestant on 'DWTS" last season, is a Cheetah Girl).

3) Mark impersonating Vanilla Ice as the duo perform a hip-hop routine to "Ice Ice Baby."

4) A dance inspired by hubby Bret Hedican, in Hurricanes jerseys, to the Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane."

5) Any more country-and-western routines to any country song (the group dance to "Cotton-Eye Joe" being this season's low point).

Be sure to read the Life, Etc, section of The News & Observer on Tuesday for recent thoughts on "DWTS" from Yamaguchi, Ballas and Hedican.

Back on April 17, John Edwards went on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" in Philadelphia and laid out his conditions for giving an endorsement for president. Here's the video.

Cough up that Kawasaki, Barack!

Tuesday night on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert expressed solidarity with Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly of Fox News, who has been mocked mercilessly for recently-unearthed, early-`90s video of B.O. screaming at his "Inside Edition" staff.

Ever brave and candid about his own past, Colbert showed video of his own little meltdown, back when he was midday anchor at a North Carolina TV station. Huffington Post has embedded video here.

Readers continued to weigh in over the weekend with guesses about the identity of the mysterious fifth (or "12th") Cylon on Sci-Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica."

Philip Creech of Middlesex says:

I think the final Cylon will be Zarek, the guy who played the original Apollo on the 70's BSG.
He was a prisoner of will for 30 something years when we first saw him in the new BSG and we know how all the Cylons seem to be creatures of conscious and true to what they individually believe in in some form or another. His character has sort of stayed low-key overall in the series but has worked his way up in the ranks of the fleet to relatively quietly, but perhaps deliberately, become the vice president.