South Ossetia is holding its first election since the Georgia-Russia skirmish of August ‘08. Elections always run a high risk of corruption and misfire but South Ossetia’s elections are extra special in that the only countries that recognize them as being valid are Russia and Nicaragua. As far as anyone else is concerned, South Ossetia belongs to Georgia.

The headline is not a plea for salvation but rather my favorite song off of Metric’s newish album Fantasies. The surreal accompanying video is courtesy of Decco Dawson.

Nancy Drew and the Secret of the 3 Black Robes , a full length column in the NY Times that is dedicated to the fact that Judge Sotomayor and Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg enjoyed reading Nancy Drew books.

The crux of the Daily Telegraph story discussing the torture pictures was the content confirmation by Major General Antonia Taguba. But Salon’s Mark Benjamin spoke to Taguba and got some clarification

I saw an article earlier this week that mentioned that Mayim Bialik had volunteered to be a guest on the television makeover show What Not to Wear. Bialik is most famous for her work as a child actress portraying the younger version of Bette Midler’s character in Beaches and the titular character in the television series Blossom. More impressive is the fact that she has a PhD in neuroscience. But since YouTube didn’t have any snazzy videos of her conducting scientific research, the Blossom intro will have to do.

The idea that torture is a valid and effective way of extracting reliable information would be laughable on its face if so many people didn’t believe it was true. Sgwhiteinfla — standing in for Spencer Ackerman — points to Senate testimony given by former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan that highlighted a more effective technique that also didn’t break any human rights laws.

This has been another rough news week so it feels necessary to bring some color into this digital home with a video stock full of 80’s movie dancing. The song is Phoenix’sLisztomania and, while the video is an unofficial fan-made affair, the band has said they prefer it to the official offering.

Robert Gibbs was asked yesterday about the photographs from the Daily Telegraph story. He took the opportunity to work in a juvenile slam against the British press system:

Mark Krikorian, writing for The Corner was mocking Obama for pronouncing Sonia Sotomayor’s name as if she were Latina or something. How does he make through the day with English’s mish mash of a language?

If Gov. Sarah Palin decides to run for reelection, she may have an eager Democratic challenger in Ethan Berkowitz. Berkowitz served five terms in the state House — including seven years as the minority leader — before running for lieutenant governor in 2006 on a ticket with former Gov. Tony Knowles. The duo were beat by team Palin but only by a 7.3% margin. Berkowitz ran an even closer battle last year, losing out on a U.S. House seat to Don Young by a mere 16, 379 votes.