• Eric Holder for A.G. But can he sing “Let the Eagle Soar”?
• Down goes Ted Stevens.
• Joe Lieberman hangs on to his committee.
• Arrrgh! Somali pirates strike again.
• Come on GM, begging isn’t becoming of an auto giant.
• Mark Cuban’s legal team blogs his side of the insider trading story.
• NBC’s Dan Abrams forms a media consulting firm.
• The candidates to be the next leader of the hapless Pinellas Democratic Party.
• FLA isn’t blue, as idiots in the media insist, it is purple.
• New Springsteen disc due in January.
• Here’s why the Democrats forgave Traitor Joe.
• Oswald didn’t do it.
• The tiny man from Boston wins AL MVP.

Early results are in, and the race between Lando Carlissian and Emperor Palpatine is still too close to call. As expected, Calrissian (shown left, receiving an endorsement from reformed rogue Han Solo) has carried the planet Bespin, home of the mining colony Cloud City, as well as Tatooine, where the Hutts are desperate to hold on to their independence, fearful of interference in their lucrative smuggling operations. And thanks to the symbiotic cooperation of the underwater Gungans and surface-dwelling, peace-loving humans, Naboo has also gone for Lando.

Palpatine, for his part, has taken the volcanic planet of Mustafar and Geonosis, territories where Imperialist sympathies run high.

And while Obama has Ralph Nader as a potential spoiler here on Earth, Palpatine has had to contend with the renegade Cheney-Vader ticket. But despite some last-minute campaigning in heavily contested battleground planets, including Hoth and the Galactic Center of Coruscant, the pair has yet to draw any significant number of votes from the front-runner.

Far more damaging to Palpatine’s hopes to retain power have been a series of attack ads noting his remarkable resemblance to Joe Lieberman, who is looked upon very unfavorably throughout the Republic.

We’ll have election updates from the Dagobah system, Kashyyyk and the moon of Endor as soon as they come in. Stay tuned.

• War over. Or is it?
  
• Shouldn’t somebody be paying attention to John McCain?
• And can we stop paying attention to Joe Lieberman already?
• Corporate income tax? What corporate income tax?
• St. Pete cop cleared in the shooting of Javon Dawson.
• Michael Phelps keeps on winning gold.
• Best Buy inks deal to start hawking iPhones starting on Sept. 7.
• One pissed off waiter sounds off.

• Obama gives Clinton $2,300. (Side note: The Times should be shot for using that picture.)
• Novak says Colin Powell will endorse Obama at some point, but not because he’s a fan of Barack. No, he’ll do it to spite W.
• Speaking of traitors to their party: Time has a story on Joe Lieberman that made me puke in my mouth a little.
• Don’t blow your top trying to figure out the energy crisis, there’s a mountain of a solution out there.
• North Korea dynamites the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear power plant.
• One barrel of oil = 28 Subway footlongs.
• This weekend’s viewing: WALL-E is a “Pixar masterpiece.”
• “Six Crazy Hollywood Stories You Probably Haven’t Heard.”