The South Carolina senate voted 37-3 today to remove the Confederate flag flying over the capitol grounds (see photo at left). If two-thirds of the state House votes tomorrow to remove it, as is expected, the flag will come down as soon as Gov. Nikki Haley signs the bill, which she has said she intends to do. The controversial flag’s days of flying, chained and padlocked, from a 30-foot pole next to a Civil War monument appear to be numbered. It was moved there as a sop to diehard southern “traditionalists” after being kicked off the capitol building in the background. It took the murders of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist to get rid of it altogether.