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There’s evidence that the Russian’s have set fire to a national forrest in Georgia:

Georgia’s Interior Ministry said Russian helicopter gunships swooped over a region near the Borjomi-Kharagauli national park in central Georgia on Friday and dropped bombs that set fire to the densely forested hills.

“We’re sure that the Russians started the fires in our woods,” ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said.

Georgian Environment Minister Irakly Gvaladze also blamed Russian helicopters for starting the fires.

“Local people say that the fires were started by Russian helicopters. They flew over the forests and then the fires started,”" he said.

“Now the Russians are not allowing aviation teams from Ukraine and Turkey to help put out the fires.”

In The Tbilisi Times

Russian President Dimitry Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy today that Russiain forces would begin their withdrawal tomorrow. We will see. They have lied before. Putin lied to President Bush’s face at the Olympics. Lets see if Medvedev lies to Sarkozy.

The Russians may be already putting in place an excuse to stay as they reported that the Georgians were planning a “major provocative act” in Gori.

Russia’s Defence Ministry, underlining continued high tension between the two countries, said Georgia was planning a “major provocative act” in Gori.

The city was captured by Russian forces on Tuesday, as they fanned out from the disputed region into the Georgian heartland.

It said Georgia was forming bands of mercenaries who would be given Russian uniforms and told to loot and pillage.

But the Georgian Interior Ministry said: “Such a provocation would only be staged by the Russian side, with the aim of keeping Russian military units in the conflict zone.”

Russian troops remained in position around Gori, which commands the approaches to South Ossetia and the main east-west highway and should be central to covering a Moscow withdrawal.

at Weather Nerd

The storm’s long-term track remains somewhat of a mystery. There is now an unusually well-defined split in the computer models, with some calling for the storm to track toward the central or western Florida panhandle, while others expect it to recurve fairly sharply and make landfall somewhere south of Tampa Bay. Remarkably, none of the models on the CSU “spaghetti” plot expect a landfall along the 300-mile-long stretch of coastline in between Apalachicola and Tampa:

Six year veteran Luis Ayala had been acquired from the Nationals for Anderson Hernanez. Ayala has pitched in 61 games, hitters are hitting .275 against him, and his ERA is over 5.00. He’s a middle reliever who knows the league. If Brian Stokes is going to pitch as he has, Ayala will help in the sixth and seventh. With Wagner’s return still uncertain, the committee of Smith, Feliciano and Heilman will have the ninth. Eddie Kunz needs to go down if Manuel’s not going to use him. He needs to be pitching.

Dr. Lynette Long believes so. She has published a fascinating blog, CaucusFraud, that provides astonshing details that supports her premise. Here’s her take on what happened in Texas:

As I viewed the Texas Primary returns, I was thrilled when Hillary Clinton was declared the winner in Texas. But when national television provided a glimpse of the chaos of the caucus, I thought this does not look like democracy in action. Voters in gymnasiums waiting to caucus in the middle of the night, voters standing in line for hours, and police called into the polls to ensure safety and calm disputes. I did not recognize my country. When all the results were tallied, Texas was painted purple by the pundits since Hillary won the primary and Obama won the caucus. But as the delegates were distributed, I watched the results with dismay and confusion. How could one candidate garner almost a million and a half votes and win the primary by four points and lose the caucus by 12 points in the same state on the same day? Obviously the voters’ perceptions of the candidates had not changed in a few hours. Voters who were voting in the caucus were supposed to have voted in the primary. Obviously caucus voters were not a random sample of primary voters. Certain groups of citizens were less likely or able to attend a caucus: senior citizens afraid to go out or drive at night, single mothers without a babysitter, and people doing shift work. Could these voters, disenfranchised by the process, account for a sixteen point swing in the Texas Two Step? It seemed like a large swing and a statistical improbability to me.

Long says that Democrats know how flawed the caucus system is, yet still wants it. She tells us why:

If caucuses are subject to so many problems, why would Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the leaders of the DNC want to keep them available for the 2012 election cycle? First, Obama does better in caucuses than in primaries because typical caucus goers mirror Obama’s supporters. In the 2008 primary, Obama won 13 out of 14 caucuses, but only 18 out of 39 primaries. In a sense, caucuses are stacked for him. It is interesting to note that in the 2004 Democratic Primary, Nebraska had a primary election, yet in 2008 Nebraska had a caucus. Why the switch? Two, it is easier to defraud a caucus since the process is more casual and typically identification is not necessary. Third, it takes fewer voters to change the outcome of a caucus since fewer voters are involved.

One reason that polls indicate that the race is of so close is because these numbers here. Eight of the caucase states are red states where Obama has no chance to win.

H/T: Commentor Pagar at JustOneMinute

David Lennon theorized earlier this week that Minaya would likely get an extension. But Matthew Artus in his Always Amazin says otherwise:

I’m not so sure that’s a safe assumption to make quite yet.

As the Mets are in “Win Now” mode, anything less than the playoffs represents failure. Failing to make the playoffs two years in a row would be the antithesis of “Win Now.” So if you are not “Winning Now” and the results show you’re not “Winning Now,” then I can’t see how your job is safe.

We’ve questioned a lot of the moves Minaya did and did not make. We railed on him when he didn’t pony up the dough for Barry Zito (good move). We questioned him when he let Chad Bradford walk and then signed Scott Schoeneweis to a big-money reliever deal (bad move). We worried about Pedro’s long term contributions (more good than bad). We fretted over selling the farm for Johan (good move). We shouted obscenities when Minaya remained quiet at this year’s trade deadline (so far, so good).

I’ve called for the extension of Jerry Manuel’s contract to bring some stability. He’s been terrific and has not allowed the club to slide when it looked at times they would. I don’t believe that the Mets would have swept even a poor Washington Nationals team without the stability and leadership that Manuel has provided.

So why hasn’t this happened yet?

I hope that one thing the Wilpons have noted is the influnce that Minaya’s #2 Tony Bernazard had in not only Randolph’s ouster but in his behind the scenes manipulation of players. Has this ended? Or do the Wilpons see things dissimilarly?

If so, they may see the need to make a move in the offseason that could involve Minaya’s dismissal. Under those circumstances, they might want the new GM to have input of whom manages next season. If the Minaya-Bernazard power structure is seen as positive by the Wilpons, then Manual’s extension beyond interim staus makes sense.

Unless all parties concerned are still traumatized by Randolph led meltdown last season (which I still find Minaya and Bernazard complicit) and the malaise caused by Randolph’s dismissal, a real stamp of approval for Manual should be under consideration. Managers of clubs in first place in August don’t make out the line-up card while in lame duck status.

I like the job Minaya has done since Randolph’s dismissal. A GM overwhelmed by the desperation to keep his job might have payed the steep price it was going to cost the Mets to acquire a Brian Fuentes or a Raul Ibanez. To his credit Minaya did not. He put faith in his home grown talent, rolled the dice and hit paydirt in Daniel Murphy. Its hard to imagine that even a veteran bat like Ibanez’ would have provided the lift that Murphy has.

And as for Manuel, he showed the kind of courage that was needed to go with young players in Murphy, Argenis Reyes and Nick Evans in the everyday line-up over subs like Endy Chavez and Marlon Anderson who’d served the club well in their time. Youth injected a new energy. Even more impressive is that Manual never paniced over bullpen drama.

Manuel’s moves also provided order to the bench. In veterans Chavez, Marlon Anderson and Damion Easley he has players whom inspire confidence. Having three catchers gives him extra options and it seems his desision to platoon catchers has helped.

If word comes that Manuel will be retained beyond this season, it will offer a boost to the ballclub while eliminating unnecessary whispering around the organization. More importantly it will empower Manuel and allow him even more influence than that which appears to have been earning on his own.

Why the Mets have not gone in this direction yet is a bit of a mystery.

On the same day that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had signed a ceasefire with Georgia, his military reportedly blew up a key railroad bridge and continued to occupy fighting positions along the main road to the capital.

UPDATE; (334 CT) >Powerline has this link to BBC newsreal that the Russians are not leaving and are more than likely digging in.

From The Australian:

DOZENS of haggard Georgian captives were marched through the rebel city of South Ossetia today as separatists called on Tbilisi to recover the rotting corpses of its soldiers.

The mostly elderly men - apparently all civilians - walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, escorted by armed guards.

Locals stopped to take pictures on their mobile phones. Some pointed and laughed as the detainees marched through Tskhinvali.

One woman said: “Those are the prisoners? But they’re just old men!”

Seventeen of the men were brought to the courtyard of the separatist territory’s defence ministry to sweep up shards of glass and rubble from the fierce fighting between Georgian forces against Russian troops and rebels.

Thirty others were brought to a base on the northern edge of the city, walking through clouds of dust as Russian military helicopters flew low overhead. They were taken to a warehouse to unload food aid for local people.

“If your house had been destroyed by Georgians, if you were left with just the clothes on your back, wouldn’t you do the same?” said one drunk South Ossetian militiaman, referring to the detention of the Georgians.