Polanski Skates:  By now, the world knows that Swiss authorities have refused to extradite child-rapist Roman Polanski to the U.S. to serve his sentence.   A column by Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post deftly expresses how most people, excluding cinema artists and criminals, felt upon hearing this news.  Robinson notes that when it was announced yesterday that the extradition request was denied one of Polanski's lawyers said it was "a great relief after the pain suffered by Roman Polanski and his family."   Robinson continues; "Anyone tempted to feel Polanski's pain should take a closer look at the case.  In 1977, when he was 43, Polanski lured a 13-year-old girl to a house in the Hollywood Hills owned by Jack Nicholson -- the actor was not home at the time -- and plied her with drugs and champagne before having sex with her."  To Polanski's Hollywood friends this was no big deal, as Whoopi Goldberg opined last year it "wasn't rape-rape." 

Death Penalty and California Election: Bob Egelko has this story in the SF Chron on the death penalty and the California election, noting that the Democratic Party candidates for both Governor and Attorney General are long-time opponents, while the Republican nominees are supporters. "The contrasts at the top of the major parties' tickets could not be starker."