Tom Lehrer once quipped that if there were going to be any great songs from WWIII, we’d better start writing them now. The same is true for propaganda posters.

Having trouble keeping track of all the GOP sex scandals? So are we! Luckily, Talking Points Memo has made up this handy flowchart.

With the GOP so strongly touting family values, I know you’re amazed when yet another one fesses up to having an affair.

But man, it’s like they want to get caught when, you know, they simply disappear from the map for several days. Then get caught at an airport.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday, amid speculation over his whereabouts for the last several days, that he has been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman.

Read on.

Roger Ebert writes:

Bill O’Reilly has been brought low by the same process that afflicted Jerry Springer. Once respected journalists, they sold their souls for higher ratings, and follow their siren song. Springer is honest about it: “I’m going to Hell for what I do, and I know it,” he’s likes to say. O’Reilly insists he is dealing only with the truth. When his guests disagree with him, he shouts at them, calls them liars, talks over them, and behaves like a schoolyard bully.

I am not interested in discussing O’Reilly’s politics here. That would open a hornet’s nest. I am more concerned about the danger he and others like him represent to a civil and peaceful society. He sets a harmful example of acceptable public behavior. He has been an influence on the most worrying trend in the field of news: The polarization of opinion, the elevation of emotional temperature, the predictability of two of the leading cable news channels. A majority of cable news viewers now get their news slanted one way or the other by angry men.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggered a diplomatic row today when he publicly singled out “evil” Britain as the foremost enemy of the Islamic republic.

Truly, these are hard times for America when the Brits steal the coveted title.

Read on at the Guardian.

Boston peeps, progessive talk is back on the air in the Hub! Tune in to Revolution Boston on 1510 AM from 6am to 6pm.

In “Tuned In” at Time Magazine, James Poniewozik asks:

Suppose two men committed separate acts of extremist murder in the United States within a month. Suppose the gunmen attacked a church and a national landmark, motivated by politics and religious prejudice, targeting a nationally controversial figure and innocent civilians. Suppose there was a history of attacks by similarly motivated men in America, ranging from individual shootings and bombings to an act of spectacular violence that destroyed a federal office building.

Suppose two Muslim men had done this.

Is there even a question that we would be using a particular term to describe this behavior? Might reporters and news anchors be terming these horrible acts, say, “terrorism”?

The Webster definition of terrorism is “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” Now, one could argue that the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the murder of Dr. George Tiller were not systematic acts. But they were no less systematic than other acts of “disturbed individuals” that are routinely described as terrorism. When some embittered sad sack is convicted for hatching a fanciful, possibly unexecutable, “aspirational rather than operational” plan to knock down the Sears Tower, or buy missiles, or blow up an airport, we go to the term “terrorism” quickly.

While I hope that Bray readers are not fans of Rockstar energy drink to begin with, here’s another reason to avoid the stuff:

Did you know ultra-conservative talk radio guy Michael Savage has intimate family connections to Rockstar Energy Drink? If lawyers for the company have their way, you wouldn’t, because over the past week they’ve started going after people who have publicized the connection. They managed to get one guy’s “Boycott Rockstar” facebook account closed without warning, and threatened him with a business libel lawsuit if he didn’t publicly apologize. A gay news website, gaywired.com, has had to publish a partial retraction. None of this changes the fact that Michael Savage’s son is listed as the founder and CEO of Rockstar, or that Michael Savage’s wife is listed as the director, treasurer, and secretary of both Rockstar and Savage Productions. Or that both companies share the same address.

For those who don’t know who he is, Michael Savage—whose real last name is Weiner—is a shock jock who likes to make outrageous statements about, among other things, gays and immigrants. Specifically, he doesn’t like either of those groups, and occasionally pops up in the media for (real examples) telling a gay caller to get AIDS and die and calling for the banning of all Muslim immigration to the U.S.

Traditionally conservative New Hampshire today became the sixth state in the nation — and the fifth state in New England — where same-sex couples will be allowed to marry.

“Today we’re standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear they will receive the same rights, responsibilities, and respect under New Hampshire law,” Governor John Lynch said before signing the legislation in a State House ceremony at about 5:20 p.m.

Read on in the Boston Globe.