When we last checked in with Winter Olympic downhill favorite Lindsey Vonn, she expressed ambivalence toward her burgeoning status as a sex symbol.
Read on to see nine other ladies who are going to be bringing the heat to still-snowless Vancouver. 
Kiira Korpi, Figure Skating
The Finnish figure skater is unlikely to medal in Vancouver, but she is certainly in the running for prettiest athlete at the games. 
Gretchen Bleiler, Snowboarding
Expect Gretchen's well-put-together winter ensemble to look a lot messier after she hits the super pipe. 
Bree Schaaf, Bobsled
For the 2010 games, the Bremerton, Wash., native made the switch from the skeleton to the bobsled. We're still waiting for the Olympic committee to embrace inner-tube sledding. 
Kim Yu-Na, Figure Skating
With no American women contending in figure skating, expect NBC's cameras to be focused on Kim Yu-Na, the photogenic South Korean who is the defending World Champion. 
Hannah Teter, Snowboarding
Teter, the 2006 half-pipe gold medal winner, cleans up nice. The Vermont native will also be the only Olympian in 2010 who has a Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor named after her. 
Tanith Belbin, Ice Dancing
Tanith's good looks and silver medal made her a focal point of the 2006 games. All eyes will be on the Canadian-born beauty -- who was naturalized as an American citizen by a special act of Congress -- again in 2010 
Torah Bright, Snowboarding
The Australian super-pipe expert can perform a switch-backside 720, a 540 McTwist and also looks a little bit like sexiest woman alive, Kate Beckinsale. 
Chemmy Alcott, Skiing
The British downhill skier represents her country even when she's far away from the slopes. 
Irina Movchan, Figure Skating
If we haven't already convinced you that the figure skating might be worth watching, we'll leave you with this flexible
Friday, February 12, 2010
The camera will love these 10 at the Olympics
Another Dem that thinks taxes are for you, not them
Harold Ford Wants to be NY's Senator, but Hasn't Paid NY Taxes
Harold Ford's Tennessee Tax Dodge:
When it comes to his shadow run for Senate, Harold Ford is a New Yorker through and through. When it comes to paying taxes, though, he's still a Tennessean — he's never filed a New York return.
Ford claims to have moved to New York three years ago, and says paying "New York taxes" makes him a New Yorker. But his spokeswoman confirms to Gawker that he's never filed a New York tax return — meaning that he's never paid New York's income tax, despite keeping an office and a residence in New York City as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch since 2007.
The Rise of the Dark Suit
In How Do You Dress for Success, Sir? the Wall Street Journal reports on a documentary about the world of bespoke tailoring in London's West End as Abercrombie & Fitch's shirtless young men invade.
Our favourite tailor is Thomas of English Cut, who left Savile Row to make suits for individual bodies at Warwick Hall.
The suit - its colour, its make and the man who wears it - has interested me ever since I read Luigi Barzini's startling confession -
"Black became the predominant color of men’s clothes on the Continent of Europe after the third decade of the nineteenth century. . . .The wearing of the black was neither a foreign imposition nor a sign of mourning. It was a spontaneous homage. . .The black suit was merely a symbol, a tacit admission of British supremacy in almost all fields, with the exception of abstract philosophy, music, cuisine, and love-making. . ." (Luigi Barzini, The Europeans).
There was, in fact, an indelible reason for the rise of the black suit, aside from the crucial fact that a black suit flattered a man by creating a body-slimming silhouette and was practical since it concealed dirt.
This was the fact that it had been worn by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo when he met Napoleon and defeated him once and for all. Napoleon and his marshals were all dressed like peacocks on the field. Wellington wore a simple black civilian hunting coat. The battle appeared lost many times, but Wellington remained highly skilled and cool in deploying his forces. Having won the most decisive battle of the 19th century, the black suit easily proved versatile in handling business meetings, journeys, dinners, weddings, funerals, espionage and, no doubt on the rare occasion, lovemaking.
The Kumbh Mela - It is different
Thousands of Hindu holy men, some naked and smeared with ash, took dips in the chilly waters of the Ganges river while surrounded by cheering, dancing supporters, on one of the most auspicious days of a festival expected to attract more than 10 million people
The hand of a Sadhu, whose followers say has not cut his fingernails....
Cui Bono?
There’s a question oft-posed by the proponents of global warming… or of “climate change,” as the new term of art has it, thus allowing warmists to claim both the snowstorm now blanketing America’s East Coast, as well as the melting of that snow, as evidence for their theory.
“To what end?” the warmists ask the skeptics. Or, in the lingua franca of conspiracy theorists everywhere: “Cui bono, my friend, cui bono?”
Well, lots of people are benefiting from the practical implications of this theory. There’s Nobel Laureate Al Gore for one, who is on track to become the first green billionaire:
Then, at the UN there is the organization that shared Gore’s Nobel Prize, the IPCC, and its controversial director Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, a railway engineer with no back ground in climate science
who lives what has been described as a lavish lifestyle in Delhi. Publicly he oversaw a report issued with the imprimatur of the UN that the Himalayan glaciers that feed India’s rivers will have melted by 2035. Privately he has been acting as a director or advisor to a score of companies, including Pegasus Capital Advisors, GlorOil, Toyota, and Deutsche Bank
The BBC, a prime proponents of warming theory, or AGW, 
has heavily invested its pension fund in the theory, and thus have had a major non-Scientific reason for their bias. As revealed this weekend in The Express:
The corporation is under investigation after being inundated with complaints that its editorial coverage of climate change is biased in favour of those who say it is a man-made phenomenon. The £8billion pension fund is likely to come under close scrutiny over its commitment to promote a low-carbon economy while struggling to reverse an estimated £2billion deficit. Concerns are growing that BBC journalists and their bosses regard disputed scientific theory that climate change is caused by mankind as “mainstream” while huge sums of employees’ money is invested in companies whose success depends on the theory being widely accepted. The BBC is the only media organisation in Britain whose pension fund is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which has more than 50 members across Europe.
50...From Paris
Pity...From Paris
Snowing in Dallas, is it? Pity. I'm afraid you have no one to blame but yourself. You passed up the opportunity to be 'kind' to the environment. The warming/cooling consequences of your car choices are of your own doing.
Minimum wage hike killed jobs
Remember how the Democrats in Congress would say that raising the minimum wage would help Americans and actually create jobs? Um, yeah, about that.
Now a new study from Ball State University's Center for Business and Economic Research says that the minimum wage increase may have cost the country 550,000 jobs.
Baked Rhubarb Could Help Fight Cancer
Researchers have found that baking British garden rhubarb for 20 minutes dramatically increases its levels of anti-cancerous chemicals. The findings from academics at Sheffield Hallam University, together with the Scottish Crop Research Institute, were published in the journal Food Chemistry.
Mr. Lincoln
Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America's greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal.
How can you win when you are afraid to say the word? These guys need to man up
Two new documents laying out the Obama administration's defense and homeland security strategy over the next four years describe the nation's terrorist enemies in a number of ways but fail to mention the words Islam, Islamic or Islamist. Security papers cite 'violent extremists'
Faster Please
Dietary Formula That Maintains Youthful Function Into Old Age
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Researchers at McMaster University have developed a cocktail of ingredients that forestalls major aspects of the aging process.
The formula maintained youthful levels of locomotor activity into old age whereas old mice that were not given the supplement showed a 50 per cent loss in daily movement, a similar dramatic loss in the activity of the cellular furnaces that make our energy, and declines in brain signaling chemicals relevant to locomotion. This builds on the team's findings that the supplement extends longevity, prevents cognitive declines, and protects mice from radiation.
Ingredients consists of items that were purchased in local stores selling vitamin and health supplements for people, including vitamins B1, C, D, E, acetylsalicylic acid, beta carotene, folic acid, garlic, ginger root, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, green tea extract, magnesium, melatonin, potassium, cod liver oil, and flax seed oil. Multiple ingredients were combined based on their ability to offset five mechanisms involved in ageing.
Vibrant...From Paris
Vibrant colors are more current and 'fresh'. Even chalk feels better in color.
Outdated...From Paris
Data will not get in the way of the “Faithful”
Far-Out Ideas at Climate Conference
Cambridge Climate Congress puts forth coercive taxes
, veganism
, meatless Mondays
to stop climate 'emergency'
More people are picking up the “they think we are stupid” meme
THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE on Biden’s Iraq Victory Claim: “There’s an odd thing about this administration claiming credit for victory in Iraq – half the country knows Biden and Obama had nothing to do with it, and the other half will never admit there is a victory to claim. However, since they think we’re all stupid, I guess the White House wants to give it a shot.”
Robert Gibbs Tells White House Press Corps That Obama Saved Iraq (Video).
The Problem with O’s Flip Flops
The problem with Obama’s new hedging on taxing those who make below $250,000, or his administration’s taking credit for victory in the Iraq war that they so once fervently tried to abort, or the flip-flop on renditions and tribunals, or the embarrassments over closing Guantanamo and trying KSM in New York or Mirandizing the Christmas Day bomber,or trashing/praising Wall Street grandees, is not that presidents cannot change their minds as circumstances warrant, or even that all politicians are at times hypocritical.
No, the rub is that Obama is not merely flipping and triangulating on issues in a desperate attempt to shadow the polls, but he is doing so on matters that he once swore were absolutely central to his entire candidacy and his signature hope-and-change agenda.
Drone Helicopters for the Marines
K-MAX Delivers
have successfully tested a transport helicopter UAV. A year ago the marines began shopping for a UAV to deliver supplies, at least half a ton per trip, in order to get essential items (ammo, water, food) to combat troops in remote locations.
The Female Veterans
There are nearly a quarter million of female veterans including over 5,000 receiving disability benefits (for injuries received in combat, or non-combat, operations).
The female veterans do not respond to the stresses of military service, or the physical injuries, the same way as men do. This has forced the VA to adapt, or at least try to. For example, more services have to be provided for female veterans, because they are, like their civilian counterparts, more likely (about twice as likely) to seek care. It's one of the reasons women live longer than men. They take better care of themselves, and do not suffer in silence.
Women have other problems that exacerbate their service related injuries. Enlisted women are three times more likely to be divorced, and thus more likely to be a single parent. That produces more stress, which makes service related problems more difficult to treat. Moreover, females are more prone to depression, and a host of psychological problems that the VA medical system rarely encounters.
France doubles Military procurement.
France Tries A Comeback
spent over $26 billion on military procurement last year. That was more than twice what was spent the previous year. Last years' purchases included 60 Rafale jet fighters and 65 naval ships and boats. But there was also increased spending on new equipment for the infantry, to provide them with equipment similar to those American troops have, and many other European nations (like Britain and Germany) are getting. All this is in the wake of the embarrassing release of a report two years ago, that detailed the sorry state the French armed forces had fallen into. In many cases, half the equipment was not fit for combat, because of age and lack of maintenance and spare parts.
And you thought there were only drugs in the 60s
Razzle Dazzle Battleships
During WWI, German U-Boats were alarmingly effective at sinking allied warships and transport vessels alike. But since a ship couldn't exactly be cloaked, Norman Wilkinson, British artist and naval officer, developed another method nicknamed razzle dazzle.
U-Boats were effective but simple—they shot torpedoes, not directly at ships, but where they estimated a ship would end up once the torpedo got there. Razzle dazzle was an artistic countermeasure, less camouflage and more just a highly confusing pattern meant to make judging a ship's direction and size more difficult.
What you won't see in the lead shot was that these ships weren't just striped—they were covered in an array of colors, as seen in this colorized photo: 
