People will react if they see the rules of democracy being disobeyed

How did I not know that Uruguay’s real name was the Oriental Republic of Uruguay?

Democracy at its finest: Berlusconi says those voting for the opposition are dickheads (coglioni; literal translation, from the Scalia-to-English Dictionary: testicles). He’s also been calling sex lines to, ahem, poll the workers (7 of 9 say they support him). And in a sign of desperation, he suddenly promised, totally unbelievably, to abolish council tax (on homes) altogether.

Democracy at its finest: Jaafari says his refusal to stand down is motivated by dedication to the democratic process which he says chose him to be prime minister (as opposed to being selected by a smallish sectarian party, voted on by a loose sectarian coalition, and then imposed on everyone else): “People will react if they see the rules of democracy being disobeyed. Every politician and every friend of Iraq should not want people to be frustrated.” And by “people,” he means Ibrahim Jaafari.

Democracy at its finest: DeLay put off resigning in order to raise money supposedly for his re-election, which he can now dump into his legal defense fund. DeLay says that his decision to stand down is motivated by a desire to spare his district “a nasty eight-month or seven-month campaign... with all of the Michael Moores and the Barbra Streisands coming down here into Texas to support my liberal Democrat opponent.” Are there more than one each?