SI Flies in Plane to Illustrate This Year's Chosen One

Bar Refaeli in front of the Southwest Airlines plane with her image emblazoned on it.

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While the results of their national elections is still in limbo and their recent cease fire remains fragile, the rest of the world seems to have come to a consensus on one issue concerning Israel: they have exported one hot mama to grace the cover of this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

23-year-old Bar Refaeli is in town promoting the magazine (themed "Bikinis or Nothing"), taping an appearance for tonight's Late Show with David Letterman and unveiling Southwest Airline's Boeing 737 with her image stretched all the way across it (it'll be in service for some flights between NYC and Las Vegas). And is it possible that yesterday's 300 point drop of the stock market had more to do with the model ringing the closing bell than it did with Timothy Geithner's vague speech? When asked if her visit to Wall Street would help stimulate the economy, she responded, "Does it? I don't know."

Around 10 percent of SI's annual revenue comes from the one issue. And just for your scorecards (or to make sure you don't miss out on any punchlines on The Soup this week), Refaeli has been dating Leonardo DiCaprio since soon after his breakup with former supermodel girlfriend Giselle.