TechCrunch announces the winners of its primaries; Barack Obama has pulled in $4 million over the weekend; video of Obama's SC speech beats out Britney in popularity; a new site, the Washington Independent, offers a new web-based model of journalism; a sharp critique of Republican bloggers; MyDD holds a bake sale; Shays and Bush continue the Judas model of governance; a blogger on John Edwards' site goes after Trippi; Mike Huckabee appears on GodTube; a new attack ad from McCain continues the flip-flop theme; and Ron Paul offers a typically off-kilter message to his supporters.

OK, so I've now heard from a bunch of friends, including several wiser and cooler heads with many years of experience in the trenches, and they've convinced me that I overstated things in my previous post attacking TechCrunch.

The announcement last Thursday by the TechCrunch blog that it is organizing a "Tech President" online primary and "Tech President Endorsement" is a violation of our copyright and an abuse of our name and reputation. We've asked them to stop. So far, they haven't even bothered to reply. So it's time to make this public.

The Ron Paul blimp is airborne; Zephyr Teachout schools NOW on Ron Paul and online vs. offline activism; Dickipedia catalogs the world's, um, you know; new site Campaign Circus collects videos by and about the candidates; Chris Dodd submits to YouTubes Constitutional Challenge, scores an A; and TechCruch produces a wonderfully off-kilter interview with Mike Gravel.

The Giuliani Quote Generator Facebook app automates absurdist phrases; Off The Bus speaks truth to the polls, launches its new Polling Project; Ask Your Lawmaker Diggifies the public's questions to the candidates; is Karl Rove a better pundit than Markos Moulitsas?; A clip from the Joe Scarborough show is another example of journalists focusing on anything but the issues; VetVoice, a site devoted to veterans' issues in the campaign, launches with a number of candidate posts on the way; analyzing and voting on campaign logos; a new Obama video takes health care head-on; and TechCrunch interviews John Edwards.

Perhaps the most influential technology-focused blog, TechCrunch, will host a series of podcasts with Presidential candidates. First up on the plate, Mitt Romney.

Let's geek out after the jump...

One of the things I love about blogging and the web is that if you have a halfway decent idea and it gets noticed by a few sites that function like giant switching stations, very quickly all kinds of other good people pop up and get in touch with their own good ideas and content. So, in just the last day, since being tapped by both TechCrunch and TalkingPointsMemo, here are some of the cool sites and posts that I've encountered: