http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/292963736/618

• Ted Kennedy remains in the hospital while doctors try to determine the cause of the seizure he suffered yesterday.  It's being reported that Ted spent last night enjoying a Red Sox game on television.  Best wishes for a continuing and speedy recovery.
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• And speaking of sports, congratulations to Big Brown for winning yesterday's Preakness to take the second jewel in the Triple Crown.  If he wins the Belmont, we will see our first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.
• Breaking news:  John McCain plans to portray Barack Obama as a liberal.  Well, no one could have anticipated that one.
• And in other breaking news, McCain is old.
• On today's Meet the Press, Jim Webb's thoughts on George Bush's threat to veto the G.I. Bill of Rights:

  No president in history has vetoed a benefits bill for those who served. ... The Republican party is on the block here, to clearly demonstrate that they value military service or suffer the consequences of losing the support of people who’ve served. ... The president has a choice here to show how much he values military service.

  And don't forget, John McCain also opposes this overwhelminingly bipartisan bill.  It seems that McCain, like Bush, only works with the other side if they agree with him.

• With Barack Obama as the presumptive nominee, the New York Times looks at potential, future women candidates for the presidency.
• Today's Frank Rich column slams Bush, McCain and the hapless Republicans.  I'd say that qualifies as a must-read.
• Oliver Willis takes a page out of John McCain's book and details his successes circa 2013. Read all about his ripped abs, celebrity wife, and ability to urinate pure gold. - MissLaura

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/british-spy-agency-mi5-li_n_102315.html

Last month the world of Formula One racing was rocked when Max Mosley, the organization's president, was captured on videotape participating in a 'Nazi-style' orgy with prostitutes. Well, the situation has become even more bizarre as the sex scandal has been linked to the British spy agency MI5 (from the Times Online):

An MI5 officer has been forced to resign after admitting that his wife was a prostitute who took part in a notorious "Nazi-style orgy" with Max Mosley, the Formula One racing chief.

The intelligence officer, who cannot be named for security reasons, left the service last month after it emerged that his wife was one of the five call girls who took part in the sadomasochistic sex session with Mosley.

Exposure of the lurid orgy led to calls for Mosley, the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, the wartime British fascist leader, to step down from his post as president of the FIA, the governing body of world motor sport.

In an extraordinary turn of events yesterday, MI5 was forced to deny through Whitehall channels that the orgy had been a "sting" that it had set up to discredit Mosley. "Any suggestion that the service was involved in setting up Mosley is total nonsense," a senior Whitehall official said.

Read more about how this extraordinary sex scandal was first revealed.

The video of Mosley and the prostitutes has been removed from YouTube, but you can still view it here.

( SFW pics of not-quite-as-dirty work and the evening that followed )

By the time Matthew was done with me, my throat was raw and sore. i must still not be well...usually i slobber so much that the mattress gets soggy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-franken/hillary-we-really-dontcar_b_102313.html

In my role of television Pundit-Wannabee, I joined the likes of Tim Russert and many others within the last weeks in reporting that we thought the Democratic nomination contest was over (My particularly clever words were "It's over. It's over"). We stating the obvious: Barack Obama appeared to have beaten Hillary Clinton.

There's an important difference, however, between that and advocating that she withdraw. I can only speak for myself: I couldn't care less. It's just as good a story if she fights on or throws in the towel.

Her actions make it crystal clear she's not ready to accept our brilliant analysis. Senator Clinton slogs on and we're reduced to guessing why. Is it ego, an effort to get some political advantage, or that she truly believes she still has a fighting chance? Does she really mean it when she insists all party voters in all the primaries have a right to be heard? Sincerity is always a possibility.

But you don't need a Yale education to read the handwriting on the wall. So she's being very careful not to further alienate front runner Barack Obama and leave herself open to charges she had become a divisive force in her party.

Why do that when she can dump on the media and run an ad claiming the pundits want her to quit? It pushes a lot of the right buttons. She can be a victim and fighter at the same time. She can associate with all those who believe journalists are overpaid scumbags.

In my case, I must take exception. I am not overpaid! Still the media world these days is a chaotic one, producing a product that is often more babble and graffiti. The ranting can sometimes drown out the informed commentary. It is also true that a lot of pretend-journalists have taken sides, giving up their roles as everybody's skeptics. So we're an easy, simplistic target for the Hillary Clintons of this world whochoose to paint with a broad brush when they need someone to blame for their predicaments.

In Clinton's case, her predicament is that she's lost. To say it again, it's over. That's different that advocating for her to surrender.f want battle on, she should knock herself out, all the while being careful not to knock herself out even before she begins her next fight.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/hurrah-for-gay-marriage_b_102312.html

I've never understood the objection to gay marriage. We humans are pair-bonding creatures and we seem to feel safest when coupled. It's not true for everyone, of course, but most of us eventually want a partner to merge our books and lives with. Marriage provides certain extremely useful perks: a partner to be with you when you are ill, someone to share your poverty or wealth with, someone to share your celebrations and devastations, someone to raise children with. You'd think the right wing would be pleased that gay people share the same needs as other Americans.
In the past, gay people had to adopt their lovers to leave them their goodies. Or they had to go without a next-of-kin to depend on in hospital. All sorts of legal mumbo-jumbo was required because marriage was forbidden. And why? Because a bigoted old Bible seemed to imply that God made Adam and Eve--not Adam and Steve--as the anti-gay faction likes to say.
I've often found that gay people are better at marriage than straight people. They don't get all bent out of shape about sex for sex's sake. At least this is true for gay men. And they don't run to bust up a perfectly cozy union because one member of the couple--or both--has a fling. Some couples are faithful and some not. And they seem to practice this without the territoriality and hypocrisy of mixed-sex couples. Actually, they should be our role models in marriage. They take it far more seriously than straight people--perhaps because it was forbidden for so long.
So hurrah for California and Massachusetts. Let's hope the anti-gay lunatic fringe eventually sees gay marriage as a blessing not a curse. It certainly promotes stability and family. And it's certainly good for kids.
But the truth the anti-gays don't think rationally. They need their wedge issues to distract the populace from reality. Anti-gay rhetoric is a useful political smokescreen. It obscures the fact that the rich are getting richer and that nobody gives a hoot about the poor. Whenever people get exercised about sex--suspect the truth: they want to pick your pocket.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/jim-webb-speaks-out-on-vp_n_102314.html

Jim Webb was the guest on NBC's Meet the Press this week. The Virginia senator first discussed the Democratic primary results in his state, where Obama won handily, and then addressed rumors of him as a vice presidential candidate.

Webb said either Obama or Clinton could win Virginia in the general election, and while he claimed (with a smile) that he didn't have much interest in being VP, he refused to issue a firm statement refusing the position. Watch it:

Webb then discussed at length how the Democratic Party has shifted over the last several years to become more in line with the interests of members of the military, using President Bush's fierce resistance to Webb's GI Bill as an example:

As the interview concluded, Tim Russert asked about Webb's three tattoos. Webb admitted he could only show the audience two of them...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/rising-prices-causing-new_n_102311.html

To gas prices, foreclosure rates and the cost of rice, add this rising economic indicator: the number of tips to the police from people hoping to collect reward money.

Calls to the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers hot line in the first quarter of this year were up 30 percent over last year. San Antonio had a 44 percent increase. Cities and towns from Detroit to Omaha to Beaufort County, N.C., all report increases of 25 percent or more in the first quarter, with tipsters telling operators they need the money for rent, light bills or baby formula.

These mosaics are in one of our less-used subway stations, Dupont. These two flowers, plus a group of smaller ones, constitute James Sutherland's Spadina Summer Under All Seasons.

What these photos don't tell you is the enormous scale: something like twenty feet high. These images were just quicky handheld, a bit blurry at 1/4 and 1/2, so I'm going to try and go back there with a tripod. The Toronto Transit Commission has only recenlty become camera-friendly, I remember an occasion - only five years ago - of dire warnings from a TTC constable of confiscated equipment and criminal charges.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/18/mike-huckabee-thought-mccains-bomb-bomb-bomb-iran-song-was-funny/

Tim Russert asked Huckabee about the very dangerous joke he he told about Barack Obama at the NRA dinner in Kentucky. The one where Obama gets assassinated.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

He responds by bringing up Bobby Knight—saying he’ll say stupid things again and he thought John McCain’s “bomb, bomb Iran song parody was a hoot.

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Huckabee: There was a Bobby Knight incident going on back stage with a chair that fell and made a terrible noise, distracted the crowd.

I apologized for it immediately. I would never ever try to inject something like that to create an endangered moment for any candidate. I don’t car