Who I'd Pick  If I were Barrack Obama, I'd pick Hillary Clinton to be my VP.   Reason:  I could then send her to an "undisclosed location" for "national security reasons."   

And Bill?  Ambassador to China or India seems like a natural, or perhaps the first post-war ambassador to Iraq?    

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.   Good advice Barry.

If I were John McCain, I might at least float a rumor that Bill Cosby was on my short list.    Can you think of a more popular black man in America, or one that has conservative leanings.   Coz wouldn't draw in much of the black vote, but he'd sure excite a lot of whites.

- Whatever happened to Roger Clinton (since he was pardoned by Bill?)

- Michael Moore says Caroline Kennedy should be Obama's pick.  Great idea, Barry.  Go for it, by all means!

- Dropping the drinking age won't accomplish much, if anything.   It's a cultural mindset that needs fixing, not the age of consumption.     

-  Here's a new Olympic sport.   Find a 16 year old Chinese girl at the Olympics.

- Somali resident comes to Denver, through Canada, and is found dead in hotel with a half a liter of cyanide, two weeks before the Democrat Convention.  Suspicious, ya think?

IT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY

T H E      B R I E F

Russia says its response to the further development of a U.S. missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.  Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the U.S. missile shield plans are clearly aimed at weakening Russia.

The U.S. says the missile defense system is aimed at protecting the U.S. and Europe from future attacks from states like Iran.

The United States and Poland signed a deal Wednesday to place a U.S. missile defense base just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost fringe.

The Patriots are meant to protect Poland from short-range missiles from neighbors—such as Russia.

The U.S. already has reached an agreement with the government in Prague to place the second component of the missile defense shield—a radar tracking system—in the Czech Republic, Poland's southwestern neighbor and another formerly communist country.

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Ohio Representative Stephanie Jones Dies Of Aneurysm (Dem)

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A combative Barack Obama said Tuesday that Republican John McCain “doesn’t know what he’s up against” in this election and challenged his rival to stop questioning his character and patriotism.

Obama, campaigning in a state where he hopes to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in more than three decades, implored his supporters to fight for the presidency.

“Our job in this election is not just ‘win,’ although I’m a big believer in winning,” Obama said during the rally. “I don’t intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn’t know what he’s up against.”

“He can talk all he wants about Britney (Spears) and Paris (Hilton), but I don’t have time for that mess,” Obama said.

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Rudy Giuliani to make keynote address at GOP Convention

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Joe Biden says "I'm not the guy" then retracts statement saying he doesn't know anything.   (No kidding.)

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Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now an independent who is one of John McCain's strongest supporters, will speak at the Republican National Convention, an official said.

Lieberman will deliver a speech when Republicans gather in St. Paul, Minn., to nominate McCain for president, a party official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The official requested anonymity because a formal announcement had yet to be made, and Lieberman's office declined to comment.

Lieberman, 66, caucuses with Senate Democrats, though has been a strong supporter of the Iraq war and is a staunch backer of McCain's presidential bid, traveling often with the Arizona senator and campaigning on his behalf during the GOP primary in states like Florida that have large numbers of Jewish voters.

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A Spanish airliner has swerved off an airport runway in Madrid, and at least 45 people have been killed, according to Spain's Interior Ministry. Another 19 are seriously injured.

Spanair flight JK5022, an MD-80, ran off the runway Wednesday shortly after taking off for the Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Spain's El Mundo newspaper reports.

The ministry said there were 178 people on board.

An official with the Madrid emergency rescue service SAMUR told the Associated Press that crews were removing injured people and bodies from the plane.

"It is certain catastrophe," a SAMUR official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give his name.

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Convicted child molester Gary Glitter, the British glam rocker whose crowd-pleasing anthem "Rock and Roll (Part 2)" is played at sporting arenas across the United States, agreed to leave Thailand on Wednesday after initially refusing to do so upon being denied entry into the country, a Thai immigration official said.

Thai officials say he's now agreed to fly out Wednesday night, but it's not known where he'll be going. Most Thai Airways flights leaving at night head to Europe.

Glitter, 64, was convicted in March 2006 of committing "obscene acts with children." He served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence in a Vietnamese prison. His sentence was reduced for good behavior.

The incidents involved two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau.

Lt. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomchit, the chief of Thailand's immigration police, said Glitter was confined to a transit lounge at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport while officials tried to persuade him to leave the country.

Chatchawal said Glitter was denied entry because under Thai immigration laws those convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country can be barred.

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In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

The reversal follows a month of attacks by McCain, who has questioned Obama's experience, criticized his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.

The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday as Obama wrapped up a weeklong vacation in Hawaii that ceded the political spotlight to McCain, who seized on Russia's invasion of Georgia to emphasize his foreign policy views.

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signed a deal Wednesday that will put an American missile defense base in Poland, a move that has angered a resurgent Russia.

The formal signing comes six days after the two countries agreed to a deal that will see 10 U.S. interceptor missiles placed just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier.

"The negotiations were very tough but friendly," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said to Rice in English, after the signing.

"We have achieved our main goals, which means that our country and the United States will be more secure," he said.

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A commercial airline pilot and convert to Islam who says his name is on the U.S. government's secret terrorist watch list has fought back, filing a federal lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department and various other federal agencies.

Erich Scherfen says that unless his name is removed the list, he faces losing not only his job but the ability to make a living in his chosen profession.

"My livelihood depends on being off this list," Scherfen told reporters Tuesday after his lawyers filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg.

He alleges that the government's actions have violated his and his wife's constitutional rights. The suit seeks a hearing and a decision before he is scheduled to lose his job on Sept. 1.

A New Jersey native, Scherfen, 37, said he believes his name was placed on a watch list because he converted to Islam in 1994 — even though he is a Gulf War combat veteran. Both he and his Pakistan-born wife, who is also a Muslim, said they have no criminal records or ties to terrorists.

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A Florida man was arrested after allegedly going on a violent rampage after a minor fender-bender, slashing and stabbing the occupants of a car, then running over and killing a woman who had been riding in another nearby vehicle.

Casey Weldon Till, 26, of Haines City, faces murder and carjacking charges after the attacks involving family members traveling in two vehicles.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office tracked Till to his home through a pill bottle left at the scene late Sunday night. Police allege that he killed Odalis Cespedes, 41, by running her over twice. Till told police he was high on crack at the time.

The violence apparently unfolded after Till's minivan slammed into a stopped car being driven by Cespedes' daughter, 19-year-old Ivon Despaigne, and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Angel Gonzalez, of Kissimmee. When the couple got out to check the damage, Till allegedly slashed Gonzalez's throat and stabbed Despaigne in the neck.

Investigators say Till then got into the couple's car and repeatedly rammed the vehicle ahead, occupied by Cespedes, her husband, 41-year-old Mario Despaigne, and their 6-month-old granddaughter.

The couple got their granddaughter out of the car seat and Cespedes was trying to flee with the baby in her arms when she was killed, Mario Despaigne said in an interview with The Ledger, which was conducted through an interpreter.

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John Lennon's killer told parole officials during his latest unsuccessful bid for release from prison that he is ashamed and sorry for gunning down the former Beatle nearly three decades ago.

Mark David Chapman was interviewed by the parole board for a fifth time Aug. 12 and was immediately denied release. A transcript of the hearing was made public Tuesday.

The 53-year-old Chapman told the parole panel that, over the years, he has come to realize the gravity of what he did, and how it affected not only Lennon, but his wife, children and anybody who knew him.

"I recognized that that 25-year-old man, I don't think he really appreciated the life that he was taking, that this was a human being," he said. "I feel now at 53 I have grown into a deeper understanding of what a human life is. I have changed a lot."

As he has in the past, he also told the parole board that he was seeking notoriety and fame to counter feelings of failure when he decided to kill Lennon.

"I would be something other than a nobody, and that was my reasoning at the time," Chapman said.

The former maintenance man from Hawaii has been in prison for nearly 28 years. He was sentenced to 20 years to life after pleading guilty to the murder. The parole board decision means he will remain in New York's Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years. 

In its brief decision, the two-member parole panel denied release "due to concern for the public safety and welfare."

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Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year — and blacks, American Indians and kids with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, according to a study by a human rights group.

Even little kids can be paddled. Heather Porter, who lives in Crockett, Texas, was startled to hear her little boy, then 3, say he'd been spanked at school. Porter was never told, despite a policy at the public preschool that parents be notified.

"We were pretty ticked off, to say the least. The reason he got paddled was because he was untying his shoes and playing with the air conditioner thermostat," Porter said. "He was being a 3-year-old."

For the study, which was being released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union used Education Department data to show that, while paddling has been declining, racial disparity persists. Researchers also interviewed students, parents and school personnel in Texas and Mississippi, states that account for 40 percent of the 223,190 kids who were paddled at least once in the 2006-2007 school year.

Porter could have filled out a form telling the school not to paddle her son, if only she had realized he might be paddled. 

Yet many parents find that such forms are ignored, the study said.

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Russia stood behind its pledge to withdraw its troops from most of neighboring Georgia by Friday, rebuffing pressure from the United States, United Nations and NATO to leave sooner.

It remains to be seen whether Russia will follow through with the pledge, as a Pentagon official said Tuesday that there appears to be no significant change in the Russian military's occupation of the region despite an earlier promises to withdraw.

Russia signed a cease-fire with Georgia on Saturday, but since then, its troops have appeared to be digging in rather than pulling back after the fighting over the rebel province of South Ossetia.

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Just two weeks before the start of the Democratic National Convention a string of security scares have federal investigators working to downplay potential terrorist threats.

Almost two weeks ago, a jihadist Web site posted a call to poison a major city's water supply. The posting, reportedly discovered Aug. 9 on a site favored by Al Qaeda, called for an attack on "atheist Europe," a reference that some terror watchers believe represents Western nations in general.

Just days later a Canadian immigrant was found dead in a Denver hotel room with a pound of cyanide, only blocks away from the site of the Democratic National Convention.

Both cases have mobilized federal investigators into action, although they say that neither case carries any real terror threat.

One U.S. official confirmed intelligence analysts are reviewing the Web posting, but said it appeared to be a garden-variety threat the intelligence community sees from time to time.

The FBI also said that it continues to investigate the case of 29-year-old Saleman Abdirahman Dirie of Ottawa, but the Dirie case may not lead anywhere. The key witness with all the answers — Dirie himself — is dead after investigators say he ingested a concoction of the chemical and water.

About one-third of those younger than 25 said they get no news on a typical day, up from about 25 percent in 1998. 

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A racy, historical novel based on the Prophet Muhammad's child bride A'isha was supposed to hit book stores in the U.S. Tuesday.

But in a rare case of self-censorship to preempt possible violent reaction by Muslims, one of the world's largest publishing houses pulled the plug on the book just before its release date.

Sherry Jones, author of The Jewel of Medina, said she received word from Random House Inc. that the book's release would be "postponed indefinitely." The decision came after copies of her book were sent to stores, her book tour was scheduled and her work of fiction was accepted by the Book of the Month Club (it was scheduled to be in the August selection).

"My book is a respectful portrayal of Islam, of A'isha, of Muhammad. And anyone who reads it with [an] open mind will come away with an understanding of Islam as a peaceful religion," said the American author.

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A British man who did not tell anyone he was going on vacation to Australia came home to find they were mourning his death.

The confusion began in June, when 49-year-old Michael O'Neill, from Middlesbrough, England, made a last-minute decision to head Down Under without telling a soul.

His neighbors grew worried and called police, who broke into his flat and found no evidence of his whereabouts.

The situation grew even worse last week when his friends saw a death notice in a local newspaper. By an incredible coincidence, another Michael O'Neill from Middlesbrough had died — and both have brothers named Kevin and Terry.

"I went out on June 2 to stay with a friend and when I got back last Monday I found my door had been smashed in," the living O'Neill told Britain's Daily Telegraph. “My neighbors thought I had died so they got in touch with police who came and broke the door down.”

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Former OU gymnast Jonathan Horton won silver on the high bar Tuesday, just missing a gold medal.  He scored a 16.175, only .025 points behind China's Kai Zou. 

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An election coming up?  Here comes the propaganda from the left:  We now know the name of Bob Woodward's fourth investigative work on the Bush administration, just three weeks before the book's release.

"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" will be published Sept. 8 by Simon & Schuster with an announced first printing of 900,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is keeping the book under strict embargo - although such embargoes are often broken - and had even held back the title.

"There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers," Woodward's longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday in a statement. "This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes."

Yeah, right.

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Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year.

Since January alone, 88 shipments of fresh and dried chilies were turned away. Ten percent were contaminated with salmonella. In the last year, 8 percent of the 158 intercepted shipments of fresh and dried chilies had salmonella.

On Friday, Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's food safety chief, told reporters peppers were not a cause for concern before they were implicated in the salmonella outbreak.

"We have not typically seen problems with peppers," Acheson said. "Our import sampling is typically focused on areas where we know we've got problems or we've seen problems in the past, which is why we're now increasing our sampling for peppers."

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So it really was a rubber suit. 

The excitement over a supposed Bigfoot body that built all last week, culminating Friday in a circus-like press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., collapsed like a wet soufflé over the weekend as an independent investigator found out it was all fake.

SearchingforBigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi paid an "undisclosed sum" to Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two Georgia men who say they found the body, for their frozen corpse and the privilege of trotting them out in front of TV cameras.

At the same time, Biscardi sent self-described "Sasquatch detective" Steve Kulls back to Georgia to check out the body.

Kulls, it's safe to say, was severely disappointed.

The upshot? The real Bigfoot, once found, is now missing. So are Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi's money.

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More American women in their early 40s are childless, and those who are having children are having fewer than ever before, the Census Bureau said Monday.

In the last 30 years, the number of women age 40 to 44 with no children has doubled, from 10 percent to 20 percent. And those who are mothers have an average of 1.9 children each, more than one child fewer than women of the same age in 1976.

The report, Fertility of American Women: 2006, is the first from the Census Bureau to use data from an annual survey of 76 million women, ages 15 to 50, allowing a state-by-state comparison of fertility patterns. About 4.2 million women participating in the survey, which was conducted from January through December 2006, had had a child in the previous year. The statistics could be used by state agencies to provide maternal care services, the report said.

The survey found that in 2006 women with graduate or professional degrees recorded the most births of all educational levels. About 36 percent of women who gave birth in the previous 12 months were separated, divorced, widowed or unmarried.

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College presidents from more than 100 schools across the country are calling on lawmakers to do something about binge drinking: Consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.

"Twenty-one is not working," says the group's statement, signed by presidents from prominent colleges such as Dartmouth , Duke and Syracuse . "A culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge drinking' - often conducted off-campus - has developed."

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PAGE CONSTANTLY UPDATED 

What's  On  DRUDGE?