Wonkette

“The United States urged Russia on Friday to halt aircraft and missile attacks in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia and withdraw its combat forces from Georgian territory as the situation in the former Soviet state verged on full-scale war. …Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the parties involved in hopes of ending the fighting, and made plans to send a U.S. envoy to the region.” Many in the comments of this website have mentioned what a travesty it is that people aren’t talking about this due to the start of the Olympics. Well, no one cares about the Olympics. It’s more like: this is a problem between two countries far far away, not the United States’ problem at all, except for oil implications, so let’s stop pretending it is. Surely the folks in Georgia and Russia are caring about this plenty enough. Meanwhile, read this hilarious thread. [AP]

• OHHHH WALNUTS!: Foreign Policy expert John McCain told reporters at a press avail today that he was concerned about “a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days,” including “reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.” And this is why we must bomb Persia and its shifty-eyed Sultan. [Think Progress]

Here is a bit of information that will actually make you stupider for knowing it: the planet’s wealthiest nations are run by a cabal of midgets. Russian President Dimitri Medvedev is barely large enough to get on the Ferris wheel at your average theme park, for example. The inverse correlation between height and political power explains Robert Reich’s terrifying reign as the Emperor of North America, and why pint-sized John McCain will be our 44th president. [ABC News]

Every four years, Europeans get mad at Americans because only stupid ignorant U.S. citizens get to elect their president (who is always George W. Bush). So this year our friends overseas were delighted to participate in a meaningless poll conducted by the Telegraph, which showed conclusively that your average bewhiskered European hausfrau is just as hot for Barack Obama as millions of recently graduated American college seniors. But who digs Obama the most? The answer may shock you! MORE »

Here is “grand chessmaster” Garry Kasparov, who moonlights as the leader of the Other Russia movement, “a loose coalition of activists opposing Vladamir Putin and the current Russian government.” He gave a speech Saturday in Moscow when a FLYING HELICOPTER PENIS interrupted him, frightening the world, until some (gay?) dude swatted it down. Don’t believe us? Watch. [Sharenator, Waxy]

While America spent the day either dancing on Hillary Clinton’s grave or trying to jump into it, a very important event transpired in nation of Russia: as expected, Vladimir Putin departed his post as president. But now he will be the prime minister, and some stooge whose name Hillary mangled in a debate will be the “president” instead. This will allow Putin to continue to walk around topless and cavort with flexy gymnasts half his age while Dmitry Medvedev attends to important affairs such as poisoning spies. Exciting photos of President Medvedev’s swearing-in ceremony after the jump! MORE »

Chesty Russian President Vladimir Putin denies tabloid reports that he has thrown over his ancient, bloated wife for Russia’s most flexible woman: former Olympic gold medalist Alina Kabaeva, who won in the category of “rhythmic gymnastics.” She is just 24 years old and a member of the Russian Parliament, so this is basically Sarkozy-Bruni all over again except with a sinister KGB troll and a bendy little minx who lounges around in polyester-blend lingerie from the Dress Barn. MORE »

George Bush visited Russian President Vladimir Putin this weekend and made all of his rented buses dismantle their back seats and put “strange black boxes” there. And when he arrived by plane, one of the snipers stationed around the airport to ward off gunfire from enemies did a surprising thing! MORE »

Wonkette airlines operative “Maria” was trying to book a lovely vacation to Democratic Russia, but American Airlines does not know what that country is. It does, however, know that the USSR still exists, as well as Yugoslavia. Why doesn’t the Main Stream Media report this?

Each week, The Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today’s Cartoons. Most political discourse is a bunch of blah blah blah talky talky jaw jaw crappy crap. Political cartoons have the unique ability to short-circuit all that, with their purely visual representation of important world and national events (assuming they don’t get out of control with labeling everything). But what if political cartoonists used the power of visual images … for evil? MORE »

Those crazy Kosovars! Their little declaration of independence has caused quite the shitstorm — not just among the great powers who are wrangling over whether to recognize them or not, but among the world’s other pissant quasi-countries, who are mad that they didn’t get to do it first. Palestinian presidential aide Yasser Abed Rabbo whinily declared that “Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even before Kosovo!” — and it’s probably more true for his blighted semi-occupied wasteland than most. This week, The Foreigns will take you on a tour of the world’s saddest unrecognized not-countries. MORE »

Hillary Clinton was trying to prove she was a tough guy up in New Hampshire last month, so she mocked George W. Bush’s dumb line about looking into Vlad Putin’s sweet sweet soul. “He doesn’t have a soul,” she said of the beloved ex-KGB agent.

But Putin’s even colder and meaner than Hillary herself. Asked about her dumb line, Putin said, “At a minimum, a head of state should have a head,” Putin said. What exactly does this mean? We are pretty sure this is one of those misogynist Russian “ha ha the woman lacks a penis” jokes. [Politico]

As Washington and Moscow trade threats about nuking each other from space or whatever, there is another Cold War brewing aboard the doomed International Space Station. The Russian “cosmo”-nauts all have handguns up there! MORE »

Famous foreign policy candidate John McCain knows very little about foreign policy. At a speech today, he said, “I was in a conference in Germany over the weekend and President Putin of Germany gave one of the old Cold War style speeches.” This may have been a slip-up, or it may have been a swipe at Putin for beating American Gen. David Petraeus for Time’s Person of the Year. Probably, however, WALNUTS! is very drunk because he’s old. [WJNO]