Chad at KURU Lounge looks at where McCain was held in Hanoi Hilton vs. where we hold Gitmo detainees, and also a prison cell at San Quentin for comparison to that. My only criticism would be that after seeing the pictures for comparison, I wouldn't call where McCain was kept at Hanoi Hilton a cell as much as much as I would a fucking hellhole of a dungeon. 

As much as I don't agree with McCain on policy or governing style, the utter horror he went through in service of the nation should always be paid due respect.

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Co-blogger Cuffy has his latest post up about the missile defense system at Perfunction.

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Interesting, and I'll be curious to see what effect the enthusiasm gap and the age demographic ultimately have on the election.  I think the organization factor, racial  and cultural demographics also need to be kept in mind, in particular how blue collar white and Hispanic voters break.  McCain is going to be at a huge organizational disadvantage because he has no base he can rely on for volunteers and donations, and little support online, while Obama has a fairly potent base (for now) and is using the intarwebs pretty effectively.  It isn't necessarily going to break McCain, but it doesn't help. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I know it's Slate, so I should say a Hail Mary as penance right there. But this article about the potential for problems at the Olympics is fairly informative.

Some of the leading potential disasters are fairly well-known: Tibetan protests, terrorism, pollution, bad food, and government meddling with the broadcast signals are standard issue.

But what are some "outside the box" hazards the Games will potentially face?
Personally, my favorite is an attack of algae

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Residents of Qingdao have been anticipating the city's Olympic moment for several years.

One local newspaper reported that 11,000 college students had volunteered for cleanup duty during the weekend. Several companies organized teams of employees to help.

The massive algae outbreak comes as some sailing teams are already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics.

Photographs in the Australian press showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a training run.

But locusts seem to be knocking on the door for recognition as well.

  According to Gao, five regional specialized teams had also rushed to the affected areas to help with pest eradication.

    The region's three areas close to Beijing have 1.3 million hectares of grassland suffering locust plague, including 560,000 hectares severely hit.

    "The first generation locusts this year in the areas have already hatched," Gao said. "The harm they do is obvious."

    Locusts are a major destructive pest on grasslands. Locusts have been afflicting large swathes of grassland every year in Inner Mongolia, which has about 78 million hectares of grassland, or one fifth of the country's total.

    In August, the grassland region will encounter a peak of second generation locusts. However, there have been no reports of large swarms of the pest flying from the region to Beijing in recent years.

Kinda makes me glad that I will be at home watching the Games.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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And some of the Nutroots are throwing a shitfit.  You are not He Who Is Barack, you betrayed us!

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Looks like the Iraqis are looking to take over for our boys over there:

Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government's national security adviser said on Tuesday.

The comments by Mowaffaq al-Rubaie underscore the U.S.-backed government's hardening stance toward a deal with Washington that will provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to operate when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appeared to catch Washington off-guard by suggesting for the first time that a timetable be set for the departure of U.S. forces under the deal being negotiated, which he called a memorandum of understanding.

Rubaie said Iraq was waiting "impatiently for the day when the last foreign soldier leaves Iraq".

"We can't have a memorandum of understanding with foreign forces unless it has dates and clear horizons determining the departure of foreign forces. We're unambiguously talking about their departure," Rubaie said in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

It is a testament to the year's success in Iraq that they feel comfortable enough with the situation to begin pressing us to leave. I think the left will be astounded by the Bush administrations smiling acceptance of timetables from Iraqis when they were rejected outright when suggested by Democrats.

Of course, the difference is obvious to anyone with a brain.

Anyway, politically this is terrible news for McCain. Without the stark difference on the future of Iraq to lean on, I'm not sure he has anything to recommend him to the voters. If victory is complete by November, I'm positive I'll sit it out.

I've been predicting for years that Bush would have the troops mostly out of Iraq or on their way before he left office and this is just another piece of supporting evidence. I can't wait to watch the liberal retards try to reconcile that activity with their conspiratorial world view.

Time for some head-splodey.

* - Well, not "now."  I think both the Bush administration and the Iraqi government need a timeline established but for different reasons.  The military needs it so they can start drawing down forces in a relatively peaceful zone and reinforce Afghanistan while the Iraqis need it to make a show of independence to their constituents. 

The end result will be a drawdown at or above the rate suggested by Obama but leaving a rather hefty rapid-reaction force to deal with any upticks in violence.  Also, they'll help force Iran to think a few extra times before doing anything stupid. 

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 12:15 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Chavez already had a General, Ángel Vivas Perdomo detained and interrogated, and many officers have resigned or been sidelined as a result of efforts by Chavez to seize control of the military. 

Chavez has also removed Catholic priests as chaplains, and installed priests from his puppet "Reform Catholic Church", made up of renegade pro-Chavez former Catholic priests, and is trying to force the military to adopt a Marxist salute and slogan in the style of the Cuban military.  A lot of military folks in Venezuela aren't happy about Chavez running roughshod over their traditions, and some noise is being made.

You know guys, you could uh, deal with this Chavez problem.  It'd save North and South America a lot of trouble, would probably make things much better in Venezuela and South America at large and you'd break the hearts of the sniveling Marxist vermin here in the US too.

***Thanks for the link See-Dub, be sure to check out the rest of what we've got at doubleplusundead***

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 01:16 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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In related news, alexthechick declares Bozo quote, "a good clown."

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 06:28 PM | Comments (58) | Add Comment
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Oh, great:

Having intercourse more often may help prevent the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). A new study reports that researchers have found that men who had intercourse more often were less likely to develop ED.

Analyzing a five-year study of 989 men aged 55 to 75 years from Pirkanmaa, Finland, the investigators observed that men reporting intercourse less than once per week at baseline had twice the incidence of erectile dysfunction compared with those reporting intercourse once per week. Further, the risk of erectile dysfunction was inversely related to the frequency of intercourse.

Posted by: Sean M. at 07:55 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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