A man walks towards what's left of his home on Friday, May 16, 2008, in a village at the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar. The official death toll from the cyclone that hit on May 3 has reached 78,000, double that given on Wednesday. However, independent experts claim that the actual number could be over 200,000. (Photo by Getty Images)

This week on Babble: Melissa Rayworth's dispatch "The Sleepless Generation," about how today's parents are afraid of sleep-training (aka, Ferberizing, cry-it-outing) their children and how, as a result, a lot of kids aren't learning how to put themselves to sleep.

Her sidebar about why new parents are especially anxious about this time-honored method is kind of fascinating. Here are two of her five reasons why Gen-X parents are so reluctant to let their kids cry:

Okay, maybe "boy band" is pushing. It's more like a "man band." But they sound great.

This pitch-perfect insta-hit is the first single from Hardly News, the newest best online source for news -- starring among others, my longtime friend, Renaissance Man Vance DeGeneres.

On Tuesday, May 20th the state of Kentucky has its turn in the 2008 Primary Circus. Yes, Hillary Clinton is still officially challenging Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, but nobody cares anymore - Obama is going to win the nomination. So is there anything left of interest in the Kentucky Primary? As it turns out, there are plenty of fun political sideshows in the Bluegrass State.

It is the essence of democracy that people should be able to decide the moral rules that govern the nature of a community. If people don't have that power, then they are living under an autocracy.

True, this majority rule is not unlimited. It is limited by what the government has the power to do. Consequently the majority cannot, in general, vote to seize the homes and accumulated savings of rich people. Leaving aside exceptional cases, government cannot mandate how parents how should raise their children. These kinds of power lie outside the scope of government in a free society.

Majority rule is also circumscribed by individual rights. But these are the rights clearly specified in the Constitution. A majority of citizens cannot prevent an individual from voting because voting is a basic right, as is the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and so on. The state is constitutionally prohibited from undermining these enumerated rights.

Now the high court of California has made gay marriage into a right that is immune from restriction by the majority of citizens in the state. We already know what California citizens think about gay marriage: they oppose it. A referendum outlawing gay marriage was passed with the support of the state's voters.

How, then, can a court invalidate the referendum and over-rule the will of the people? Basically through a kind of legal fraud. The court has to pretend that there is a right to gay marriage even though it is nowhere evident in the state constitution. Read the constitution, hold it up to the light, squeeze lemon juice on it--you won't see a right to gay marriage in there. It is simply not an enumerated right, nor is it a right that can be clearly derived from other enumerated rights.

Here we see liberal jurisprudence in its arrogant willingness to subvert the will of the people in order to achieve its ideological agenda. This has nothing to do with whether you think gays should be allowed to marry. If you think they should, go ahead and vote for candidates who support gay marriage. But you should still oppose the manufacture of bogus rights in order to reach a result that democracy would not by itself allow.

Attempting to insulate themselves from the political fallout, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both said they oppose gay marriage. The real question, however, is what they would do to express this opposition. What would a President Obama do, for instance, to protect traditional marriage? Here the answer appears to be: nothing!

In the past Democrats have always appreciated courts doing their dirty work when it comes to issues like abortion, pornography, prostitution and gay rights. This way Democrats can advance their permissive agenda without having to take political responsibility for voting against the values of a majority of voters.

I know that there are gays who desperately want gay marriage, and in a way I'm happy for them. But at the same time I'm sad for constitutional democracy, which suffered a grievous blow at the hands of the California high court.

My nightclub act, Mo Rocca 'Cross America, got off to a decent start with my big Rhode Island number. Then it was time to invite my first special guest, the legendary Charlie Osgood, on stage. Charlie not only sang, but also took over the piano!

We started by singing the Rodgers and Hart classic "Manhattan." Unfortunately the sound didn't record properly. So we pick up the action with our train medley.

All aboard!!

Republican presidential candidate John McCain suspects the war in Iraq will be over by 2013.

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won," said McCain.

Despite the fact that he predicts the war will "be won" in five years, McCain denies any claims that he has drawn up a timetable for full-scale troop withdrawal.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted. I didn't know when we were going to win World War II; I just knew we were going to win," said McCain during his speech in Columbus, Ohio.

There you have it: John McCain JUST KNOWS the U.S is going to win the war in Iraq. He might not know how, but he just knows. One of the journalists who attended McCain's speech suggested he took listeners on a "magic carpet ride" to the future.

With the number of U.S casualties increasing, and the faltering economy in mind, occupying Iraq for an additional five years is a scary thought. But there are other underlying issues in McCain's statements.

First off, John McCain's response to reporters makes no sense at all. If he has not at least created a game plan for the Iraq War, what is the premise for him saying the war will end by 2013? Does he just assume things in the Middle East will smooth over by the end of his presidential term (if he gets elected)? Surely, he must have some sort of "timetable" set if he has the ability to announce a year as to when Americans can expect their sons and daughters to return from the war.

Denying that he has a game plan probably hurts him more than helps him. It's understandable that McCain likes to stick to his guns. In fact, he would be accused of hypocrisy if he didn't stand by his word. In his campaign during the primaries, McCain criticized former Republican rival Mitt Romney for hinting at a timetable for troop withdrawal. But since when is it a bad thing to have a timetable? Is the electorate keen on staying in Iraq for years to come?

The Republicans claim they are tough on national security, and that is precisely why they have kept U.S troops in Iraq. However, keeping troops in the Middle East has not secured the U.S at all. McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama said the war has failed to secure America since it has made the U.S military weak and vulnerable to any potential attack made by other Middle Eastern countries such as Iran.

Cenk makes a good point about McCain's current comments in the following clip:



Nonetheless, it's comforting to know one of the candidates for presidency makes predictions with no real premise or plan.

A Spanish Civil Guard adjusts his hat, called a "tricornio", as he waits for the start of the funeral of Juan Pinuel Villalon, a civil guard killed when a car bomb exploded at the police barracks in Legutiano early on Wednesday, during an official funeral in Malaga, southern Spain May 15, 2008. Spanish Interior minister Alfredo Rubalcaba said that the method used by armed separatists ETA for a series of attacks in recent months was similar. (Jon Nazca, Reuters)

According to the AFP, the California Supreme Court today overturned the ban on same-sex marriage, calling domestic partnerships a poor substitute for marriage:

In an opinion that analysts say could have nationwide implications for the issue, the seven-member panel voted 4-3 in favor of plaintiffs who argued that restricting marriage to men and women was discriminatory.

There's a precedent for California starting a domino effect. David Cruz, a law professor at the University of Southern California and an expert in constitutional law, says in the AFP article:

"In the 20th century California was the first state to strike down laws against inter-racial marriage. They did that 19 years before the US Supreme Court got around to it."

So, soon (er, in 19 years) we could be a nation that grants gay couples the same rights as straight ones. How does it feel?

New York anchor Sue Simmons is the latest to join the TV News Bad Behavior Club. During a broadcast, she said to her co-anchor, "What the f*** are you doing?!" without realizing she was still live. The uncensored video and her apology are on NewYorkPost.com, along with lots of gossip about her being a lush. The best quote they got, from a former colleague: "Sue Simmons likes the sauce and she can be cranky about it."

It's impossible to predict the future with certainty (obviously) and many things can change between now and November. But if things continue as they are, the Republicans are going to get steamrolled in 2008. And there would have to be some real dramatic change on the world scene for there to be a different outcome. All things being equal, they are on their way to a loss like they've never seen before.

Here is why:




Now, new polls are showing voters preferring Democrats by nearly 20 points to Republicans. That's unheard of. Not chastened by any of this, the GOP continues to head in the wrong direction. Instead of finally coming back toward the center, they keep going further and further right. By the time they get their wake up call in 2008, it's going to be too late. It's going to take them decades to recover from this mistake. They have gone so far to the right, they went right off the cliff.

Young Turks on You Tube and Watch the Live Show Here

Here is the first excerpt from my nightclub act at the Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. Mo Rocca 'Cross America is a celebration of states and their specialness. And this chestnut about "Little Rhody" is a favorite of mine. I hope you appreciate the new third verse. (And cut me some slack for my shortness of breath. This was right after my big opening number, and I was winded.)

Down in Houston, crazy ants are taking over! Technically, the red-brown creatures are called "crazy rasberry ants," not because rasberries are red-brown, because rasberries don't exist, but because one of the exterminators who warred against the ants was named Tom Rasberry. There are millions and millions of the tiny (one-eighth of an inch long), speedy ants attacking five Texas counties: they seem attracted to electrical boxes and computers, and swarms of them can cause shorts and malfunctions.

How would you solve Houston's ant infestation?

KNBC has a fascinating report on an escaped convict caught by police after three decades on the lam. Susan Lefevre got into drugs as a teenager and was caught participating in a $200 drug deal (there she is looking pretty cracked out in her mug shot). She received a sentence common at the time, but which seems unduly harsh now: 10 to 20 years in prison.

Thinking she wouldn't be out of jail before she was too old to have a family, and that it was impossible to appeal, she let her grandfather bust her out of prison.

Then she changed her name to Marie Day, got a job, and became a wife and mother of three. Now she's been caught and put back into jail more than 30 years later.

USA Today reports that an Ohio father, Brian Gegner, was sentenced to six months in jail after his daughter failed to get her GED. Two years ago, he was ordered by a judge to make sure his chronically truant daughter, Brittany, passed the exam. She still hasn't, so he's stuck in jail on grounds of contributing to the unruliness or delinquency of a minor.

You can watch a video of the teenager explaining why she should be punished, not her father, here on CBS.