Yes! YES!!! The Range's preferred design for the state quarter, No. 2, is the overwhelming favorite of Arizonans who voted in a survey by State Treasurer Dean Martin. We've yet to learn which design came out ahead on Gov. Janet Napolitano's survey, but we're thrilled that Range readers appear to have risen as one to support quarter No. 2, which got half of the all votes cast for the five designs.

As you might recall, some of our junior staff--cough, Saxon, Kelli, cough, cough--suggested other designs. They're clearly out of touch with the majority of people in the state. Design No. 1 got the vote of only 13 percent of those surveyed. (In your face, Burns!) Once again, we see who is the master and who are the students ...

Tomorrow, Napolitano will unveil her pick.

It appears that Sen. John McCain may be struggling to keep control of that Straight Talk Express, at least when it comes to those folks he’s tossing underneath it. The watchdogs at Media Matters filed a report last week that McCain told Mike Allen of The Politico that he thought it was past time for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to go.

“Out of loyalty to the president, he (Gonzales) should obviously step down,” McCain was quoted as saying in the article. “He’s not serving the president well. I reached that conclusion a long time ago. I just haven’t been asked.”

Except, as Media Matters notes, McCain was asked by The New York Times, New Hampshire’s Union Leader and the Associated Press—and our senior senator either declined to answer or said Gonzales deserved a chance to defend himself before Congress.

Guess it can be hard to keep all the straight talk, well, straight.

More on McCain in this week's Skinny, coming your way in just days!

It hasn't gotten any play down here that we've noticed, but Arizona Republic columnists have been busting on state Rep. Pete Hershberger for siccin' the Secretary of State's Office on Robin Scoins, a woman who has been a consistent critic of Child Protective Services ever since she had her own kids taken away from her. Nine months later, she got them back.

Scoins has declared herself the head of Arizona Family Rights Advocacy, which she presents as a lobbying organization, although she mostly just hangs out at the Legislature and sends out e-mails blasting CPS and Hershberger.

But that was enough for Hershberger to complain to the SOS office that Scoins has never filed paperwork to be a lobbyist.

Hershberger, who represents the northwest side of Tucson and Oro Valley, has taken both barrels from Laurie Roberts and Rob Robb.

Roberts also noted on the Republic blog that "[w]hen he's not at the Legislature, Hershberger is an administrator for Open Inn, Inc., a Tucson-based social service agency that gets nearly $800,000 worth of CPS contracts every year."

Three cheers for Janet Napolitano and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for speaking out on the sexual abuse and rape that women in the military face in Iran and Afghanistan. These women soldiers are not dealing with sex abuse from the enemy but rather from the military, higher ranking officers and fellow soldiers. 

War is hell in more ways than one for women.

Napolitano and Sebelius have requested that Defense Secretary Robert Gates launch an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the treatment of U.S. women in combat. 

I wonder how high on the pecking order (pun intended) Gates will feel this request is?

A March 2007 story in The New York Times Magazine was the impetus for her request.  

After refusing to use the word for the first chunk of his presidency, George W. Bush all of a sudden loves the word “no.”

In fact, after a warning he made this week regarding Congressional efforts to setting a timetable to pull out of Iraq, his veto pen seems to be surgically attached to his hand. 

It’s no wonder so many Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to run for presidency in 2008. 

Looks like the Japanese are bringing us ever-closer to Cylon dominance. Don't blame me ... I voted for Roslyn.

And this is bad news regarding the cleaning system at the midtown bureau ...

What a difference one letter makes.

I was reading the May/June 2007 issue of Highroads, the Arizona AAA magazine*. On Page 26, the article asks readers to recommend "eclectic coffee".

Julie S. from Scottsdale writes: "From hot teat to Italian sodas to hot or cold coffees—it's all yummy. Plus they have a very rustic look with both indoor and outdoor seating."

Julie S. is writing about Ike's Coffee & Tea in Tucson. Funny, I never thought of Ike's as rustic. Maybe to plastic Scottsdale, everything in Tucson is rustic.

*Unfortunately, they only have the March/April issue online.

Now here's a man with a good idea.

And why impeach Cheney?  

To summarize: It's this vice president who is the driving force of taking the United States to the war against Iraq under false pretenses and is once again rattling the chain of doing the same thing against Iran, again under false pretenses.

Slate is running excerpts from Christopher Hitchens' new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which--as the title suggests--explores the heretical notion that God is a figment of man's imagination. As you'd expect from Hitch, there's not a whole lot of respect for people's beliefs.

All the excerpts are entertaining, but the third one, which examines the origins of the Mormon religion, might be of particular interest to those of us in the Southwest.

So, there's this new little non-chain coffee shop that I've come to like. It's kinda close to my house, and it has free wi-fi, so I have taken to hanging out there while copy editing and whatnot on the weekends.

I noticed that this coffee shop doesn't have a Weekly rack, although it does have a rack for the dailies there. Since I feel that every good Tucson coffee house should have the Weekly, I let Laura the Circulation Manager know; she contacted the management to inquire about getting a Weekly rack in there.

And you know what? They said no, because the Weekly has "objectionable content."

Let me emphasize that this coffee house is completely within its rights to say no to us. And should this coffee shop ever submit an events listing or merit any coverage from us, we will obviously not hold it against them; that's they way we roll. And for that reason, I will not mention the business name here.

But I personally won't be giving them my business anymore, which sucks. 'Cause I really was starting to like the place.