If they want to get the commandments, they're going to have to get me first

Marc Cooper on why the real Republican coup in Calif. was the election of Gray Davis.

The Game Show Channel will run Who Wants to Be Governor of California? October 1st.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore: “If they want to get the commandments, they’re going to have to get me first.” Buy ten, get one free. (Later): Chief Justice Nutjob has been suspended pending an ethics hearing. You get the feeling he just loves all the publicity? Of course he does, it’s what got him this far to begin with. The problem his defenders should have is that Moore wants to have it both ways, to put his version of god above the law and still pretend he can be a judge. Ethically, if he felt he couldn’t obey the federal court ruling on religious grounds, the thing to do was resign.

Ireland will ban smoking in the workplace next year. And it’s looking at whether incense in churches cause cancer, especially among children. Like that’s the biggest danger to children in a Catholic church.

Argentina lifts the immunity of the old generals for their crimes during the Dirty War.

The Daily Show did a story on runaways, interviewing some of the fugitive Texas legislators. Stephen Colbert asked one of them to show him on a pillow in the shape of Texas “where Tom DeLay tried to redistrict you.”

Bush made remarks today (can’t find the exact words) about how he couldn’t understand terrorists who would attack people working to feed and clothe the Iraqi people. Of course, said terrorists aren’t depriving nearly as many Iraqis of food and clothing as the US did with a decade of sanctions. He suggests that “there is a foreign element [not Amurricans, he means] that is moving into Iraq. ... They hate freedom.” Then they’re moving to the right place. He also says, "Iraq is turning out to be a continuing battle in the war on terrorism." No, really, howdja figure?

Speaking of rewriting history, the Vatican is trying to say it never persecuted Galileo.