Links For Sunday

Stuff to read:

Apparently, Zardari isn't the only top-level Pakistani official who, when meeting foreign dignitaries, behaves like a 14 year-old boy watching his first pornographic film. (Courtesy tanh1980 in a comment)

The incident bears some resemblance to yet another charm offensive by a senior Pakistani politician. Marcus Mabry's biography of Condoleezza Rice includes a passage in which he relates a meeting between former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Ms. Rice, in which Mr. Aziz was said to have stared deeply into the secretary of State's eyes and to have told her he could "conquer any woman in two minutes."

Please check out what Michael Phelps - greatest Olympian and all that - eats on a daily basis. (Courtesy the WTB)

Here’s Phelps’s typical menu. (No, he doesn’t choose among these options. He eats them all, according to the Post.)

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

Nate Silver explains why neither Sarah Palin's negative attack on Barack Obama, nor the more aggressive and dirty Republican strategy that it portends, is likely to be successful. While you're at that website, make sure to check out the fact that Five Thirty Eight is giving Obama 333 electoral college votes and McCain 205. Simply put, Obama has blown this election wide open, for now anyway. This is further confirmed when you go to RCP's battleground states page. Obama is now leading in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Virginia and North Carolina (all states Bush won in both 2000 and 2004). He has whittled McCain's lead in Indiana - a state Bush won by 20 points in 2004 and 16 points in 2000 - to two points. He is also up in Colorado, another state Bush won handily in both 2000 and 2004. Here's the bottom line: in the top 19 battleground states as defined by RCP, Obama is up in 17 of them. Neither of McCain's leads in the other two are more than 2.2 points.

Glenn Greenwald has a bone to pick with Biden and Palin on their responses in the debate concerning Israel, and has a question to ask:

They don't just consider Israel an ally. They don't just both support Israel. No, that's woefully inadequate. Instead: Biden has a "passion" for Israel and is its best friend, while Palin declares how excited she is that they "both love Israel."

They "love Israel"? I'm asking this literally, not rhetorically: is there any other country in the world where presidential candidates are required to -- or even could -- proclaim their "passion" and "love" for another country in a national election? And other than Israel, is there any country for which candidates for the American presidency could get away with proclaiming their "passion" and "love"?

The dollar is now close to touching Rs. 80 in the Forex market.

A Saudi cleric elaborates on his weird Cyclops/burka fantasy (via India Uncut):

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

Yes, because if there's one thing I think when I see a woman in a full niqab, it's this: that woman is showing way too much of herself for me to able to control my hormones.