This is a very entertaining post by Tom Maguire, about Nick Kristof’s airbrushing errors and making implausible excuses for Lyin’ Joe Wilson. Read it and chuckle.

I initially wanted to wait until it was official, but this is close enough: Robert Scheer will not be a columnist for the L.A. Times beginning in January.

Maybe things really are turning around there.

I started my search for election results by clicking on this AP article, via Drudge. It says all the propositions went down. But I didn’t entirely trust it because it says Proposition 73, the parental notification provision for abortion, “would have restricted political spending by public employee unions.” I guess I didn’t read the fine print!

The California Secretary of State’s results, accessible here, are more reliable. The propositions were indeed all defeated, with the vote on Proposition 73 being the closest (52.6% opposed and 47.4% in favor with 99.5% of precincts reporting).

I’m pleased that 78-80 were defeated, but that hardly makes up for the bitter disappointment of the defeat of the others.

The defeat of Proposition 73 should be a lesson for fanatics who are worried about the reversal of Roe v. Wade. If we can’t even pass a reasonable restriction like parental notification in California, then clearly the sacred right to kill your unborn baby will remain alive and well even if Roe is overturned.

UPDATE: Dafydd ab Hugh has a post-mortem on election returns throughout the country.

[Posted by The Angry Clam]

In the midst of all the other special election news, you might be interested to know that San Francisco passed a ballot measure banning the sale of all guns, including long guns and ammunition, in the city limits, as well as requiring residents to forfeit any handguns they own.

Problem: they tried this in the 1980s, when Feinstein was mayor. It didn’t work then, because the California Court of Appeal ruled that state firearms regulations preempt such local regulations, and localities lack the power to ban guns. Likewise, when West Hollywood tried to ban “Saturday Night Specials,” a different district of the Court of Appeal rejected the law as preempted by state law.

First, gun bans. Then, gay marriage. Now, gun bans again. San Francisco: flouting state law for decades.

— The Angry Clam