Two More Reasons To Watch The Olympics

First, four German female Olympians pose for that magazine that has those great stories. Oh, and lotsa skin as well. But good articles nonetheless. And I will not provide a direct link to the German Playboy issue. But the link I did provide is very helpful.
 Two highlights:

Petra Niemann is competing in her third Olympiad, and sailing is her game. “I’ve been working hard with my psychologist,” she told Playboy, as if to suggest this had something to do with sport or being naked.

Kayaker Nicole Reinhardt is one of Germany’s best hopes for gold in Beijing, and is grateful that her sport is about technique, so the “dickere und kräftigere” (”butch”) ladies have nothing on her svelte frame.

Trust me on that last one. I went to the original source document, and after painstaking work, was able to verify that Nicole did indeed utter that phrase. And shed her clothes as well.

The other excuse to watch the Olympics? Spanish Rhythmic Gymnast Almudena Cid Tostado.

The Nike-sponsored model, and Barcelona resident, is scheduled to perform in the individual rhythmic gymnastics event starting on August 21s, but isn’t favored to medal. No worries. She’s totally a champ with us. Maybe not a World Champ, but definitely a regional winner, or something. Check out her new photo spread in the August issue of Spain’s FHM. What? Like you really have something better to do at the office today?

Here is a photo from her Spanish FHM shoot:

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Ohio changes voting rules to help the Obamessiah

For a bunch of bitter, gun-humping, Bible-thumping cretins, they sure seem to be going out of their way to help a candidate of color (who, of course, they have antipathy for...ya know...because he's not like them).:

Ohio has created a window in the election calendar, from September 30th to October 6th, that allows residents to both register one minute and vote the next.

The voting window, so far, is only being implemented in some counties -- typically they are urban areas or those with college campuses. The move figures to benefit Obama and leading Republicans are crying foul. They're considering a lawsuit if it isn't applied all over the state.

It's a shame that Ohio Republicans are so brazenly showing their racism by expressing outrage over this. 

Exit question: If the Obamessiah is drawing so many Republicans and independents, why do they feel they need to help him this way?

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The background noise of the conflict in Georgia...

...reminds me of a movie I saw once.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying:

Well, we’re now in a position where one or the other side is going to have to call the other’s bluff or lose face.

Just the position you want to be in with two superpowers armed to the teeth with nukes.

Maybe I'm overreacting but this is the first time in my life where the international situation scared me.

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You Can Be A Miserable, Haggard, and Sexless Man. Or You Could Be Single.

It turns out a man's health will be about the same either way.

MSU author Hui Liu, assistant professor of sociology, said Monday the study shows that policy promoting marriage for health may be outdated, as other forms of long-term commitment become more common.

I am not sure about that. I'm all for marriage and the like, especially since I don't have to explain an inconvenient set of circumstances to my daughter when she gets older. But, being nagged all day certainly wears you down. Trust me, I know.

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Count out Rob Portman

It looks like former Rep. Rob "Who?" Portman of Ohio won't be John McCain's vice president.  Not too surprising, but here it is anyway:

Portman has been rumored to be on John McCain's list of potential running mates, but says he hasn't been asked for the financial information required as part of a candidate's background check, and doesn't expect to be.

"I'm happy to help him, here in Indiana and around the country, but he's got a lot of great choices," Portman says.

As a boring, normal, white, male Bush Administration appointee who's never won even statewide office he was my first choice, but I guess given the timing of this statement, we can scratch him from the list.

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Cyberwar

More evidence that the Russian invasion of Georgia was very premeditated:

Weeks before physical bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.

Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: win+love+in+Rusia.

Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded certain Georgian servers.

The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved.

Sadly, it looks like they're going to get away with it. If the ceasefire holds Russia wins and if it doesn't Georgia definitely loses. Sometimes I wish we could just finally have it out with Russia and get it over with. The hardest part about living through history is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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Russia to Belarus: Nice Country You Got There

Wouldn't want anyfing to get broke, would ya?

Russia's ambassador to Belarus said on Tuesday that Moscow could not understand why its western neighbour, nominally a close ally, had failed to offer the Kremlin open support in its conflict with Georgia. Belarus, whose President Alexander Lukashenko is accused by the West of crushing fundamental rights, has portrayed itself as a close Russian ally since the 1990s.

The two neighbours are committed to forming a merged post-Soviet "union state", though this has been put on the backburner, especially since 2007 when they quarrelled over energy prices.

"We are somewhat perplexed by the modest silence of the Belarussian side. You need to express yourself more clearly on such issues, especially as we have a union state," ambassador Alexander Surikov told a briefing.

For those of you who like to keep track of these things, the Russian invasion of Georgia is the most important story of the 21st century thus far. Yes, more important globally than 9/11. Here's why. After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the world celebrated the end of the Cold War and the surging dominance of freedom and prosperity for all the world.

Dozens of ex-Soviet republics began building capitalist economies and freely-elected governments. Though slow in coming, prosperity did start to arrive in the more free, industrious countries. Well, there was another element common to those countries that prospered most. They were the ones least tied to the Russian government.

Countries like Belarus maintained very tight relations with the Russian Empire (we're not calling it anything but that until Putin is in a grave, at least) and was essentially a puppet state. "Legitimate" actions in Chechnya further demonstrated that the Bear's desire for empire and prominence hadn't abated just because the Politburo was no longer in charge.

Now, Putin's end-game has been made public and we are in a very dire situation. Russia claims they were only responding to Georgian aggression (that would be hilarious if it weren't so horrible) but, of course, their 'response' could never have been manufactured on the fly in a single day. Ask anyone:

Let's be clear: For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia's "response" to Georgia's actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there's absolutely no way Moscow could've launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous "response" to alleged Georgian actions.

As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast.

The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.

As is mentioned in this article, the cynisism involved in Russian actions is chilling. What we are witnessing is Russia's attempt at a return to empire with Putin as Tzar. I wouldn't make such a bold statement without the support of several events in the last several years including assassinations, violating airspace and other hostile, intimidating acts from Moscow. This hasn't happened in a vacuum.

Now we have a newly independent nation (and staunch ally of the United States) with Russia's boot on their throat and not one nation has lifted a finger to help them. Reigns are being tightened diplomatically on existing satellite states (Belarus) while nations who grew too independent are being reminded who is really in charge. To Russia, their sovereignty was a cute phase but it is time for them to stop playing around and come back into the fold.

Georgia is begging for help and the west absolutely must respond. Not with words or removing Russia from the G8 but with, at least, direct aid. If that isn't sufficient, Russia must be stopped militarily. Russian conquest of Georgia must not be allowed to stand any more than Iraq's conquest of Kuwait. Georgia is just the first domino in a long string of ex-Soviet nations on Putin's wishlist and it must not be allowed to fall. If the west allows an ally to be wholly consumed by the Bear, it will not sate the appetite any more than Czechoslovakia appeased Hitler.

That's a much bigger story than terrorism to me. This is the kind of story that leads to world war. Thing is, maybe it should.

We must stop them even if it means a real conflict with Russia. If there is to be a battle with the Russians (and now I think it is unavoidable in the long term) then let that battle be now.

Update: Or not (pick one). I don't buy it personally. Neither does Georgia.

Update: Insight from Stratfor:

The Russians have announced a halt to military operations. This is in large part because they have achieved their political goals — they have demonstrated their ability to carry out a complex military operation, and they have shown that the United States and Europe cannot respond militarily. What the Russians want to do now is replace Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. If they occupy Tbilisi, they make him a martyr. If, however, they simply halt operations, in due course recriminations will begin inside Georgia over his decision to attack South Ossetia and his lack of preparedness for the consequences.

The Russians also know that a prolonged occupation of Georgia would inevitably result in guerrilla warfare against the occupying forces. The Russians were bled by the Chechens, and they do not want to risk a long, draining occupation of Georgia. Their goal was not to end Georgian sovereignty; rather, it was to force the Georgians to readjust their foreign policy away from the United States and toward Russia. Regardless of personnel changes, Georgia will be enormously more careful in its actions in the future, and much less confident of its relationship with the United States.

Sounds about right. More importantly, it shows Putin and the Georgians that the Russians do own the ex-Soviet states in reality if not on paper. I kind of hope the Georgians keep fighting.

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Gettysburg "witness tree" severely damaged in storm last week

Witness trees are trees that live on the battlefield and living during the Battle of Gettysburg.  There are only three healthy witness trees left now.  The tree was struck by lightning and split, odds are it won't survive. (h/t)

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Illegal Immigrants Are Doing Another Job Americans Won't Do

Namely, be more susceptible to AIDS.

And if they are deported, they can take the virus back home with them, the researchers told an international conference on AIDS in Mexico City.

"They are in a new environment, they are discriminated against, they are living in harsh conditions, sometimes just in boxes covered in plastic near the farms where they work," said George Lemp of the California HIV/AIDS Research Program at the University of California, who studied 458 Mexicans before and after they left their homeland.

"When people live that way, they engage in high-risk behavior," Lemp said in an interview.

About 11 million Mexicans live in the United States, more than half of them undocumented, and a recent U.S. crackdown on illegal immigrants and increase in deportations could make the danger of HIV infection worse, conference delegates said.

The men in the study were three times more likely to have sex with a prostitute in California than they were before leaving Mexico, Lemp's research showed. They were five times more likely to have sex while using drugs or drinking and 13 times more likely to have sex with another man.

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Invasion

Can you imagine the "ZOMG Imperialist American Bullies Outrage!!!1!one!" this would have elicited if the roles had been reversed?

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

The local Border Patrol union's website characterized this sort of thing as something that "has been going on for years" and laments that the Federal Government "will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of 'Oh well, they didn't know they were in the United States.'"

Oh, and am I the only one who's less than impressed by the Mexican government's response to this?

Ricardo Alday, spokesman at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday that Mexico and the United States are engaged in "an all-out struggle to deter criminal organizations from operating on both sides of our common border."

"Law enforcement operations have led, from time to time, to innocent incursions by both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement personnel and military units into the territory of both nations, and in particular along non-demarcated areas of our border," he said.

Yeah. Both U.S. and Mexican personnel. Whatever you say, Ricardo.

No need to secure that border, though.  Nope.

(h/t)

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Finally, A Reason To Watch The Olympics!

I just hope NBC shows more Women's Beach Volleyball and less of that useless Gymnastics crap.

Here's an unrelated (but still worthy) photo I found somewhere:

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Some holes Rep. Cantor's VP prospects

It had been reported earlier that Rep. Eric Cantor or Virginia is being vetted as a possible vice president.  This, of course, means that we were bound to have reports from unnamed Hill staffers in various GOP offices deriding his service (emphasis in the original, because I'm too lazy to delete the HTML):

That comes just as word has spread -- mainly by his own people -- that Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, an unknown to most Americans, is considered a top candidate for Sen. John McCain's vice-presidential pick. Cantor is viewed as a conservative in the vein of Ronald Reagan, but unlike other high-profile GOPers in the House, he has little or no legislative or policy hallmarks to inform the general public.

"He's great with PR and having his staff post on blog sites and jumping on the bandwagon for issues, but when it comes to actually getting those issues framed and set up, he hasn't done much heavy lifting," says an aide to Rep. Roy Blunt, the House GOP whip. "His strength is fundraising and as a face for the camera. And that's probably what McCain needs right now."

Cantor is a prolific fundraiser, however, particularly along the "K Street" corridor in Washington. Those ties to lobbyists are largely what has the McCain campaign concerned and are the focus of the campaign's vetting.

Eh, if Rep. Blunt's staff is as on the ball as he is, I'd take this criticism with a grain of salt.  But I guess if McCain wants to fight the election on Hopey McChange's terms, then raising some K Street cash should disqualify Rep. Cantor.

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A new look at an old murder case

Patterico looks at the relationship between a prisoner, former LA Times journalist Chuck Phillips, Death Row Records, Suge Knight and the murder of Notorious B.I.G.  It can be a bit convoluted to follow, but is quite interesting, and I recommend it, especially if you're interested in the whole Biggie/Tupac story.

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