• Why’d you do it, Lindsey Graham? We await an apology via your publicist, Meghan McCain. [RedState]
• Meet Aaron Schock, the handsomest Republican congressman since Mark Foley — SWIMSUIT PHOTOS! [Something Awful]
• What’s the point of a 60-vote majority if it votes the same way as the 40-vote minority? Wait a second … [Think Progress]
• A mentally challenged deaf person in Mobile, Alabama got a face full of pepper spray and then was repeatedly tasered in the gut because HE WAS TAKING TOO LONG IN THE BATHROOM. Is this in the Patriot Act or something? America, we need to talk. [USA Today]
• Alan Dershowitz insists that Heinrich Himmler was a Palestinian. OK Alan, whatever you say! Psycho. [Matt Yglesias]

Huzzah for the Can-Do spirit of Americans, who continue to just pile on the pounds despite the nation’s crushed economy. Turns out you don’t need much money to become obese! And without jobs, Americans have more time than ever to sit in front of teevee eating another bucket of corn-syrup taco-ball cheezey-poop pasta-bowl Grease Dipperz™. So, let’s all give a KFC double-drumstick round of applause for Mississippi, with a literally staggering 32.5% of its population medically obese. Second prize (a truckload of trans-fat soaked Chocohoglick-brand chocolate-flavored Globulez™) goes to West Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee, each boasting obesity rates of 30% or higher. MORE »

• MEANWHILE IN STATE LEGISLATIVE NEWS: “MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A resolution has been introduced in the Alabama House that praises Miss USA contestant [Miss California] Carrie Prejean for speaking out against gay marriage during Sunday night’s televised pageant.” Man, it’s been an uphill climb for Alabama ever since slavery ended, huh? [WHNT]

We all know that an overwhelming majority of Americans now proudly call themselves socialists, so it should come as no surprise that one might find a few of these newly popular socialists in the House of Representatives. According to Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, 17 faithful socialists already serve in the House! He didn’t name names, but we can assume one’s rhymes with “Fancy Schmelosi.” [The Birmingham News]

This may come as a shock, but a prominent anti-homosexual Republican attorney general has apparently been caught having homosexual sex intercourse with his homosexual gay male assistant. Bonus: The dude’s wife caught him, in their bed. This is the rumor that the AG’s office has officially denied, so now of course everybody is spilling the sordid details. MORE »

Instead of barnstorming Pennsylvania today like all the other Democrats in the race, John McCain will take the devil-may-care approach of campaigning in Ohio, a state that voted like a million years ago. Yesterday he visited Selma, Alabama in his “tour of cities that Time forgot,” and hugged the charming quilters pictured above before racing off to another state that isn’t voting today. Join us as we cover the last two days of John McCain courting the Blue Collars, the black folks, and other crucial pillars of the Party of Wall Street. MORE »

“A 33-year-old former youth minister of an Alabaster church has been charged with crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. Donald Brent Page of Calera is accused of traveling to Memphis on Oct. 6 to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl for sex, according to an affidavit prepared by an investigator with the Memphis FBI Crimes Against Children Task Force.” [Birmingham News]

The man pictured, a Mobile, Alabama Circuit Judge, “is accused of periodically removing prisoners from Mobile County Metro Jail and spanking them in a room at the courthouse.” With a paddle. The NAACP is defending him, but it’s surely only a matter of time before we find out he works for Giuliani or something. UPDATE: Well he’s pictured if you click on the top tag there. We’d fix it but Wonkette runs on software built by a trained seal and hosted on an Amiga somewhere in Hungary and we don’t know how anything works. [WKRG]

We’re trying to watch the War Czar’s confirmation hearing (since when do you confirm a czar?), but for the last fifteen or twenty minutes it’s been Hillary Clinton monologuing on Iraq, then saying “and I hope you’d agree, General.” MORE »

In a hilarious slapstick NASA version of that one time when Ozzy Osbourne’s jet crashed into Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tour bus or something, a train carrying those giant space shuttle rocket fuel tanks crashed in a forest in Alabama. MORE »

* Army General in charge of Walter Reed is fired for not supporting the troops. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Federal prosecutors fired for not supporting Republicans come back like night-zombies to haunt the Justice Department. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* The second great “political showdown/media circus” of Selma, AL will be this weekend, Revs. Obama and Clinton presiding. [WP]
* Yes, Condoleezza Rice’s new “counselor” is a neo-con. Yes, he also has a mustache. [WP]
* Federal buildings are just like your new condo, have “workout facilities, firing ranges.” [USAT]
* International markets have testicles, and they are still firmly in Alan Greenspan’s kung-fu grip. [NYT]