* from Salon: Leonard Nimoy takes lovely photographs (some nudes)

* from bryant and others: Kerry suggests McCain as a new Defense Secretary

* from dglenn: an interesting article in the Monterey Herald about how existing married same-sex couples (where one is a transsexual) may have their currently-valid** marriages tested by scrutiny and even legislative backlash against gay marriage. One person says: "I think the whole gay marriage debate, although it may not always be phrased this way, is a debate about gender." Which kind of makes sense to me. Gender is about identity, and maybe those who feel threatened by gay marriage do so because they feel it strikes at the core of their own identities.

** As the article notes, courts in different jurisdictions have come down differently on divorce issues for such couples.

* from fennel, Rich Lowry on how the abuses at Abu Ghraib</a> reflect on our own society. Of course, his subtext is that it's all the fault of our degrading culture, and I don't think I agree. But he's got some interesting food for thought in there.

* from Talking Points Memo, a Guardian story notes that many of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib are taught to special forces trainees: they're subjected to them, to help them be able to overcome them if captors use them. If those techniques are then transmitted to those who have never undergone them and have no empathy regarding the tortures....

* and from all over, of course there's that charmer, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma. "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment." I hope you are, sir, I hope you are.