The Waterglass

This just gets worse and worse, or, at least, that is how the Russians are playing it:

Mr Putin said in the interview: “The fact is that US citizens were indeed in the area in conflict during the hostilities. “It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders.” Mr Putin added: “The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army. Why… seek a difficult compromise solution in the peacekeeping process? It is easier to arm one of the sides and provoke it into killing another side. And the job is done. The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president.”

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino rejected the allegation. “To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate - it sounds not rational,” she said. “Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice.”

Meanwhile:

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested some EU countries were considering sanctions against Russia. Mr Kouchner insisted France had made no proposals for sanctions itself but, as current president of the EU, would aim to get consensus among all 27 countries of the bloc if sanctions were envisaged. France has called an emergency EU summit on Monday to reassess relations with Russia.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described talk of sanctions as the working of “a sick imagination”.

Here is today’s political cartoon of the week, submitted by noted political cartoonist, I. P. “Ip” Freely (see here for context).

Joe Biden’s speech at the DNC last night (which I saw this morning) was better than I expected, most likely because my expectations of his ability to deliver on the national stage is at an all-time low.  The gist of his speech was that (a) he was born in Scranton, PA from a working-class family and (b) he was born in Scranton, PA from a working-class family and (c) he was born in Scranton, PA from a working-class family.  He sounds scrappy, and he came from a hard-scrabble background, and he has a raspy voice with tough language to back it up (he didn’t curse).  I suppose they picked him because some folks percieve Obama to be out-of-touch with the working-class families of Scranton, PA.  That, and his son is a soldier in Iraq.  They didn’t forget to leave that out.

So, remember:  White working-class families from Scranton, PA; Son is in Iraq; McCain is more of the same; grow up.

Bill Clinton’s speech was great, of course, but he’s the best there is at speeches.

If you saw Senator Clinton’s speech, you saw the Senator struggling with her losing the nomination.  Oh, the experts on CNN thought she was a courageous loser, a “giving person” because she mentioned Obama 10 times.  But if you listened to the speech, it was an “Any Democrat will do” speech.  She spent the majority of the speech talking about America’s problems and why she ran for President.  Every once in a while, she said that “a democrat” in the White House would be better than “a Republican.”  The gist is that any democrat in the White House will do, and “A. Democrat” just happens to be Barack Obama.  It was a rousing speech that was slyly intended for the 2012 or 2016 race.

On Sunday morning, I was working on my laptop happily typing with NBC’s Meet the Press blaring in the background.  Tom Brokaw was interviewing Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi regarding drilling in Alaska.  I was barely paying attention when she said something that maybe stop and look up from my laptop.  Of course, there was no follow-up question from Brokaw, but through the magic of Tivo, I quickly reversed the video back to her answer.    Pelosi was espousing the virtues of natural gas which was not surprising considering her stake in its development.  What was surprising was that during her praising she told Brokaw that natural gas was a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.   Looking today, I only see a few places that mention the gaffe.  One of them was the Wall Street Journal in a blog written by John McKinnon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s message on energy, already evolving in recent weeks, might have to evolve a little more.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the speaker twice seemed to suggest that natural gas - an energy source she favors - is not a fossil fuel.

“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” she said at one point. Natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels,” she said at another.

The speaker apparently was trying to contrast her support for expanded use of natural gas as a motor-vehicle fuel, and many Republicans’ preference for more domestic oil drilling - particularly through opening up more of the Outer Continental Shelf for exploration.

If she said it only once, I would have said she misspoke and she meant an alternative to oil.  She said it at least twice making me believe that she either really doesn’t know what she is talking about or she is trying to bamboozle the public into supporting natural gas as the newest “green” fuel source. 

Ohhh boy:

Sen. Barack Obama’s choice of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate raises the question of whether Obama can carry off his message of change with a seasoned Washington politician by his side… The Delaware senator has held two of the most important jobs in Washington: chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That could be reassuring to voters who worry about Obama’s inexperience in national and world affairs.  Biden also has been an early and vociferous critic of President Bush’s foreign policies, most notably regarding the war in Iraq.

He voted for the authorization to invade Iraq but conceded that it was a mistake.

Ohhhh boy:

That sales campaign kicks off Monday night with the focus on Obama’s personal story. It is an amazing success story that will be told on the big screen inside the Pepsi Center. The video, we are told, will be dramatic and highly produced, including some powerful music. And it will be amplified by his wife, Michelle, who speaks Monday night. Barack Obama’s sister Maya Soetero-Ng, and Michelle’s brother, Craig Robinson, will also speak.

It also will be an emotional night as the Democrats pay tribute to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has brain cancer.

Ahhh, party conventions.  The Dems will trot out a 65 year old windbag as VP and beg for tears with a Ted Kennedy tribute, even though Ted isn’t dead.  I’m really looking forward to this one!

On the VP choice: obviously, Obama isn’t concerned with winning a state by picking a VP from a contested area.  He’s also not concerned with the woman vote by not picking a woman VP.  Instead, Obama took a page from the George Bush playbook and shored up his thin foreign policy credentials by picking a seasoned foreign policy veteran (as GWB did by picking Cheney).  Joe Biden is known for emotional, long-winded speeches.  I hope he does not wilt in the national spotlight.

Who will McCain pick?  If McCain wants to steal some independent and fair-weather Dem votes, then he should definitely choose a woman VP.

It appears that the existence of Bigfoot will continue to be a mystery.  The reported discovered of Bigfoot by two men in Georgia was just a hoax.   Reported at the MyWay.com web site, the Bigfoot carcass sealed in ice to “protect” the evidence ended up being a rubber gorilla costume.

 Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice - handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it - was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.

The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature were found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.

Steve Kulls, executive director of squatchdetective.com and host of Squatchdetective Radio, says in a posting on a Web site run by Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi that as the “evidence” was thawed, the claim began to unravel as a giant hoax.

It looks like it was a cheap fraud to get some money from a few gullible investigators.  I have to admit that while I was highly dubious of two country bumpkins coming across such a find and keeping to themselves, part of me wanted it to be the real thing.

On Thursday, the CNN web site reported that two hunters wandering in the woods of Georgia came across the body of a 7 1/2 foot tall half-man, half-ape.  They dragged the carcass back from the woods to store in their freezer, took pictures and evidence.  Then, they made their discovery known on a internet radio show called “The Sasquatch Detective.”

A policeman and a former corrections officer say that on Friday they will unveil evidence of what they claim is their biggest find ever: the body of Bigfoot.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, a pair of Bigfoot-hunting hobbyists from north Georgia, say they found the creature’s body in a wooded area and spotted several similar creatures that were still alive.

The carcass of the furry half-man, half-ape is 7 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs more than 500 pounds, they say. However, the two are not disclosing the exact location of their discovery to protect the remaining creatures.

According to a written release, the two announced the discovery on an Internet radio show, “Squatch Detective,” several weeks ago.

They have basically said that the only person who is allowed to see the body will be the Real Bigfoot Hunter, Tom Biscardi who is the CEO of Searching for Bigfoot.

You come one of the greatest finds of this century that could potentially rewrite biology, evolution and the definition of humanity, but you want to wait for one person to see it.  That’s like saying that you have proof of life after death, but you want to wait to show it to Shirley Maclaine.  Call me a doubting thomas, but I think these country boys might be pulling a fast one on us.

Thanks to the Drudge Report for pointing out the story.

What does an Olympic gold medalist swimmer eat for breakfast?

[Michael] Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase “Breakfast of Champions” by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

You should see what he eats for lunch.  An entire YAK, slathered in melted butter and mayonnaise. 

And a Tab.

Read the story for details.

Speaker of the House and self-proclaimed savior of the world, Nancy Pelosi seems to have something in common with alternative energy spokesman, T. Boone Pickens.  It turns out that Congresswoman Pelosi has invested a good deal of money with Picken’s company, Clean Energy Fuels Corporation.  According to Michelle Malkin’s column in the New York Post, Pelosi invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in the company in May of 2007.

HOUSE Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently called congressional Republicans who want up-or-down drilling votes “hand maidens of the oil companies.” Let’s call Pelosi what she is: House girl of the Big Wind boondogglers.

Pelosi refuses to consider GOP energy proposals that don’t include massive government subsidies for so-called eco-alternatives that have never panned out.

Which brings us to Pelosi’s 2007 financial disclosure form. Schedule III lists “Assets and ‘Unearned Income’ ” of $100,001 to $250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. - Public Common Stock. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) is a natural-gas provider founded by T. Boone Pickens, the former oilman turned wind-power evangelist.

Nancy Pelosi has a serious financial incentive to keep the oil prices at a record high and the company receives federal funding.  If she can steer that funding that way and keep the gas prices high, she has the potential for making a fortune.  What is amazing is that she has the nerve to accuse the GOP of being in the pockets of big oil.   It’s the epitome of hypocricy.