Filed under: Digital Cameras

The long standoff over Bush's FEC nominee, Hans von Spakovsky--Bush's chief operative on voter suppression--has ended with a win for the Dems. Spakovsky has withdrawn his name from consideration.

The move follows Harry Reid's offer earlier this week:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that President Bush has two options to break the ongoing standoff with Democrats over nominations to the Federal Election Commission: either withdraw the controversial nomination of Hans von Spakovsky or force Senate Republicans to agree to votes on individual FEC nominees.

"Despite your commitment that you would accept and agree to individual votes on each of the pending nominations, including Mr. von Spakovsky's, Republican Senate leaders indicated last week that they intend to continue to block such votes," Reid said in a letter to White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.

Here's Reid's statement on today's news:

"I welcome the President's decision to withdraw the controversial nomination of Mr. von Spakovsky.  It is an action I have repeatedly urged the President to take for more than six months.  Democrats stood united in their opposition to von Spakovsky because of his long and well-documented history of working to suppress the rights of minorities and the elderly to vote.  He was not qualified to hold any position of trust in our government.

"His withdrawal today is a victory for our electoral process.  With Mr. von Spakovsky now removed, I anticipate that we will be able to swiftly put a functioning FEC in place.  That too is what the American people deserve."

(More discussion in Matt Keener's diary.

AP - Though Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are keeping a tight lid on their nuptuals, it's looking like a wedding is imminent.

After diving into the disastrous effects having a toy collection can have on the love life of a grown man, I feel compelled to ask: are you an adult that still plays with toys? And, just to be clear, when I say "toys" I am referring to products normally reserved for children—like action figures and legos. If you do, make sure to list your favorites in the comments.

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Glubble is a developer of a parental control plugin for Firefox, which aids adults in the ability to watch over their kids internet usage.

In their approach is something similar to the Kidzui method, where they create a whitelist of kid-friendly sites. Instead of working on generating the list themselves, the sites on the whitelist are approved by the community of parents who use the utility.

According to GrowthBusiness, they’ve secured a Series A investment totalling $3 million from investors Morten Lund, amongst others.The investment is said to go towards developing a paid access premium level service, slated to launch later this year.

Eva Longoria doesn't have any movies showing at the Cannes Film Festival, but she won't let that stop her from grabbing attention using every over-the-top dress in her collection. She did take a short break to frolic on the beach with Ken Paves for awhile in her more tame yellow dress, but then stepped it right back up to party in her ridiculous (but kind of cool) green peacock number last night. Clearly she's trying to make a splash but we doubt that Eva will be able to steal the film festival focus away from Angelina and her twins, no matter how hard she tries.

Splash News Online

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

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You already knew that customs officials can search your laptop if they feel like it, detaining you if you refuse, but what can you do to protect yourself from random dudes checking out your vacation pics? The EFF has some tips. There's having multiple encrypted partitions, having secure passwords, shutting off your machine before searches and destroying naughty stuff semi-permanently with shredding applications. Hit up the link for more privacy tips. [EFF]

John McCain talks straight, but he acts crooked.  Mr. Reform strays from the straight path by following crooked lobbyists for their money, money that comes from corporations and brutal foreign governments.  

McCain's been embarrassed several times the last few weeks by lobbyists connected to his campaign.  Last week he was forced to fire two lobbyists who had worked for the brutal military junta in Burma/Myanmar, the oppressive goons who are killing people through their refusal to let aid workers in to the country and help the millions of Burmese affected by the cyclone.  This morning we learned about a lobbyist working for McCain who also worked for the governments of Serbia and Qatar.  

McCain also had to dismiss one of his top operatives in Virginia, Craig Shirley.  Shirley's has long been involved in shady dealings on behalf of the GOP, including hyping the orchestrated "rescue" of US soldier Jessica Lynch from a hospital in Iraq, and the scurrilous Willie Horton ad used against Michael Dukakis in 1988.  Shirley was simultaneously an official with McCain's campaign and involved in an independent campaign against Democrats.  The McCain campaign is spinning his dismissal as a matter of principle, when in fact Shirley was breaking the law by being on both sides of what should be a divide, the candidate campaign, and an independent operation that is legally prohibited from coordinating its activities with the campaign.  

Most of these lobbyists are mid-level operatives who are primarily relied on to collect checks.  But in a campaign jammed full of lobbyists, one lobbyist stands above all others: longtime McCain advisor Charlie Black.  Charlie Black's mitts haven't only been all over grubby money from corporate special interests.  As MoveOn shows, one of John McCain's top supporters has taken blood money: