Armed, Half-Naked Putin Excites Gays, Gun-Owners Spiegel Online, August 31:

Photos of a shirtless Vladimir Putin on vacation in Siberia have stirred numerous debates and set hearts aflutter. But some of the photos of him taken on the same trip -- topless and with a rifle -- were only made available to the Russian media.

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[Insert your own joke about Senator Craig here, and puhleez keep it to yourself if not politically correct.]

How can a Hillary, Kucinich or Huckabee, or a Merkel for that matter, possibly compete? Or conversely, can a good six-pack of abs actually allow a leader to be dovish?

By Damien Cave from Baghdad for the August 31 New York Times

...at some point, she said, it switched; sect became the defining characteristic for Iraqis. Her Sunni friends told her she did not understand. Being Sunni used to count for something, they said.

But what, Ms. Musawi thought, of the Shiites, who never counted before and were viciously oppressed?...

In Parliament three months ago, she shouted down her colleagues for standing by as Sunni extremists in Diyala Province killed hundreds of Shiites. When the speaker, a Sunni, smirked, she screamed: “Why are you laughing, Mr. Speaker? I want to know why you’re laughing.” (He waved her away: “Leave it to the women,” he said.)