IN THE MAIL: The Dymo DiscPainter, which prints high quality graphics on CDs and DVDs. I’m crunching on a couple of big writing projects at the moment, but I’ll see if I can try it out and report in the next week or so. It certainly looks cool, especially if you’re producing low-volume releases of music or videos.

AND THE HUGO AWARD GOES TO MICHAEL CHABON, for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I thought it was pretty good, but wasn’t as taken with it as many other folks were — here’s my take.

Plus, a win for John Scalzi. Congratulations!

SUDDENLY, Barack Obama is sounding McCainish on Georgia. Wonder how he’d vote in the Insta-Poll?

ANOTHER INSTA-POLL:

UPDATE: Meanwhile, some thoughts in response to the “blame America” analysis:

Let’s sort something else: the U.S. did not encourage Saakashvili to confront Russia. The idiocy of such policy is not within the realm of possibilities even for this administration. The U.S. policy toward Georgia has remained constant from the 1990s to the present. It was about supporting civil society groups, strengthening democracy, the rule of law, and fighting corruption. It was also about seeing after a strategic region, which hosts an alternative energy route to Europe. But it was never about encouraging Tbilisi to confront Russia. . . .

It is true that the U.S. has supported and continues to support Georgia’s membership in NATO, although the policy now is bound to be reevaluated. At the Bucharest Summit in Romania this spring, the U.S. and other members of the Alliance argued that Georgia be given a Membership Action Plan (MAP). When Germany and France balked, the result was a vague promise of future membership.

That was a mistake, and sent the following message to Russia: (a) Moscow has a veto in the Alliance; (b). Europe – or at least its main continental powers – will not involve themselves in a distant conflict between Russia and a neighboring state. Coupled with the justification of Kosovo, Russia felt emboldened to act against Georgia knowing that it has been, in effect, left outside the European security framework.

Read the whole thing. (Via Fistful of Euros).

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on the oil angle.

FIVE QUESTIONS about the Edwards scandal. Including: “Why is John Edwards hanging out with psychics? ”

UPDATE: How convenient: “So Edwards can deny that the child is his and say he’s perfectly willing to take a DNA case to prove it. Now, all we need is a test to prove that Edwards and Hunter didn’t arrange it so that she’d look like the one who chose not to demonstrate whether Edwards is the father. Maybe some sort of test to determine if he’s paying child support (directly or indirectly)? But that would be far more complicated and invasive than the DNA test.”

VIDEO: The new Call of Duty trailer.

NOAH POLLAK: Philip Giraldi and Doug Feith. “Should Philip Giraldi be trusted? No: He is a conspiracy theorist obsessed with Jews and Israel.”

BIG BROTHER at the Boston Subway.

THE AALS BOYCOTT and glass houses. (Via Bainbridge).

NEAL GABLER: Obama: star of his own movie. “All campaigns are movies now.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Progress toward solar cells that can compete with coal?

But if you want the off-peak market, you’ll have to price your cells at about US $1 per watt. That price is called grid parity, and it’s the holy grail of the photovoltaic industry. At least 80 firms around the world, from Austin to Osaka, are in the chase.

Surprisingly, at the moment no company is ­closer to that grail than a little start-up called First Solar, which until very ­recently had been known only to specialists. It’s located in Tempe, Ariz., and analysts agree that it will very likely meet typical grid-parity prices in ­developed countries in just two to four years. It’s got a multibillion-dollar order book, it’s selling all the cells it can make, it’s adding production capacity as fast as it can, and its stock price has rocketed from $25 to more than $250 in just 18 months.

I hope that they — and others — succeed in that time frame.

OUCH: “Anyway, the important thing is that it’s not as bad as Chappaquidick, right? Edwards in 2012 – the dream will never die!”

FINALLY, a war to protest! “Naked Imperialist aggression? Check! Indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians? Check! Designs on another nation’s energy resources? Check!”

MICKEY KAUS: Story #2, Lie # 1.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER MEDIA “CONE OF SILENCE?”

AUSTIN BAY: Russia’s Invasion of South Ossetia: The Kosovo Precedent In Play?

UPDATE: Lots of coverage at Fistful of Euros.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eastern Europe weighs in: “The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have issued a joint statement condemning what they see as the naked aggression of Russia against the independent state of Georgia, as hostilities continue in the breakaway state of South Ossetia.”

MORE: More here.

STILL MORE: McCain, Obama step up criticism of Russia over Georgia.

Plus, a somewhat peevish post at Registan.

And still more here.

TERROR ATTACKS in China.

HMM: Mexican soldiers enter state, hold border agent at gunpoint. “Four Mexican army soldiers entered southern Arizona and pointed their rifles at a U.S. Border Patrol agent early this week, the Border Patrol said. The incident Sunday was the Mexican military’s 43rd incursion across the U.S. border since October, the agency said. However, it was unusual because firearms were involved.”

MEANWHILE, PRESIDENT BUSH looks to be enjoying himself.

UPDATE: No, really.

JOHN MCCAIN: “Taking in my opponent’s performances is a little like watching a big summer blockbuster, and an hour in, realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer you saw last fall.”

Is it just me, or has he gotten sharper all of a sudden? Must have hired better writers.

RICHARD MINITER: “In the 1950s, the most puritanical place in America was somewhere in Kansas. Today it is Los Angeles.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES LOOKS AT CRIME AND SECTION 8 HOUSING, and Tom Maguire points out what they leave out.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS HEADING TO THE EXPLOSIVE CAUCASUS: If you’ve enjoyed his work in the past, consider hitting the tipjar to support this round of reporting. I have, and I just did again.

MORE SUBCOMPACT LAPTOPS: A review of the $500 MSI Wind. Sounds cool, and it comes with XP, not Vista, which should speed it up compared to the HP Mini-Note, which it otherwise kind of resembles. But it’s not shipping quite yet.

TIM RUTTEN: “When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism. . . . With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.”

Read the whole thing. I like his characterization of “the cone of silence the nation’s major newspapers — including The Times — and the cable and broadcast networks dropped over this story.” But Ed Driscoll notes that Rutten is a bit late to the story.

UPDATE: Somewhat related item here.