Cheap Blogging Crutch 8.19

Russia starts to withdraw from Georgia - witness
Oh shit, son. Russia's totally withdrawin', and someone says they seen it. This must be an accident of some sort. Clearly the tanks have malfunctioning compasses that have designated south as north. Perhaps the tanks have simply gotten tired of searching the countryside for the ceasefire and have run out of missiles with notes inside expressing their desire to negotiate a withdrawal. I herald this new news and eagerly await it's complete reversal in 15 minutes. John McCain will have to wait a whole quarter hour before resuming his crazy, belligerent statements about Russia.

The Lingering What-If Question: Clinton?
The last few Hillary sycophants who didn't get the breakup text, hold out hope that Barack will finally come to his senses and ride down on an enchanted pony to hand Hillary the VP slot she deserves as a result of losing to him. Missing from the article is a proper description of the awkward silence that follows the "But, but, but Hillary should be VP" argument. The way the shoe shuffling echoes around the room is really haunting.

NATO warns Moscow over actions in Georgia
This is a little awkward, what exactly is NATO going to do? Not allow Russia to sit at the cool lunch table? Spread rumors that Russia sleeps around and is a bit of a boozy trollop? No extra brioche at the next G-8 summit? Sending a snooty letter and adding an empty, huffy "Or else" isn't really effective. Unless that letter is so big and thick that Georgians can use it to shield themselves from bombs and use it to roadblock tanks. But just ask Sean, the kind of paper and printing costs on that kind of letter is astronomical. But I'm sure everything is on the table NATO, as long as by everything you mean anything short of military action or effective sanctions. Huffy letters sent through the media are the way to go I think. Russia seems to really react well to diplomatic letter shame. I'm sure Georgia is relieved.

Colleges: Drinking age 'not working'
Finally we may see some traction on this. I for one know of several people whose evenings would have ended much more pleasantly with a required drinking of 18 shots instead of 21. Pants would not have been shat, Ma Bell would have one more working pay phone on the South Side, heatstroke avoided, and contents would have stayed in stomachs a little longer. Frankly it's also easier to know a high school senior who'll buy you beer instead of some creepy college liberal arts majoring junior who probably wants to molest the most attractive of your females or the most naive of your young boys. So things may get easier 16 year olds: less bad touching for Pabst.