Well, those salad days are over; no more biblically judgmental billboards, thanks in part to our godless secular legal system. From The Courier-Journal:

Senior Judge Geoffrey P. Morris gave those responsible for the billboards 60 days to remove them in a case filed in 2008 by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

He said the problem is not the religious content of the billboards, but rather the state’s right to regulate billboard placement to preserve highway safety and scenic beauty.

“Our courts will not regulate nor impose their religious beliefs on any party,” Morris wrote in an opinion he filed on Friday in LaRue Circuit Court. But “legislative bodies may regulate … the placing of billboards on our highways. … One can well imagine the obvious trashing of our highways if there was no regulation in place and every resident that happened to live beside a highway was free to place whatever size sign that he/she wished to place.”

Equating Judeo-Christian ethics with highway trash? The nerve! Fortunately, Scottsville resident Jimmy Harston — who installed the billboards in LaRue and Hart counties — isn’t so easily fooled:

[Harston] contends the state is censoring religious speech.

“The Lord just give this for me to do,” he said. He hopes the billboards will influence “somebody riding down the highway. Maybe they’re not living a good life.”

The signs are on “private property,” he added. “It’s just not fair. It’s just not good. People don’t mind it at all.”

Of course people don’t mind, Jimmy! Except the sinners… but since they’re already going to hell, their opinion is kind of moot. Where is Tom Riner on this when we need him?

With President Obama addressing the nation tonight about a new escalation in Afghanistan, a perennially underexamined topic is once again receiving short shrift: the huge force of contractors, which as of June outnumbered the size of the U.S. troop presence itself, is likely to swell.

The Administration seemingly hasn’t addressed the issue, and the word “contractor” doesn’t appear much in media coverage — for example, in the Times and Post stories on the escalation today.

But David Berteau, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells TPM that as Obama increases troop levels to at least 100,000, “there will definitely be an increase in the number of contractors.”

Of course, Obama won’t be talking about these — or other — things. Which is why the grain alcohol is so important here.

So should you find yourself with absolutely nothing at all to do this Saturday, we recommend doing else… but, if you insist: The festivities will kick off at noon and run until two o’clock. Bring a bagged lunch, a chair, a flag (preferably ours) and whatever residual anger you have about that Barack Obama beating up on that old man and his lady friend. There will be speakers and (gasp!) an appearance by Frank “Doctor” Simon.

The best part? They’ll be having an open mic for anyone who wishes to deliver an incoherent 60-second speech. See you there (and by “there” I mean “nowhere close”)!