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In a new survey released Monday, most respondents said that they do not think Sarah Palin would have the ability to be an effective president.

In the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, conducted Aug. 3-5 by CBS News among 847 adult respondents, 59% responded that they thought Palin could not be an effective president compared to only 26% who said that she could be.

Eighty percent of liberals and 70% of moderates said Palin could not be an effective president. Only 41% of conservatives said that she could be, while 40% said that she could not be. However, somewhat more Republicans said that Palin could be effective - 47% said she could be while 40% said she could not.

While the 2012 election is a long way off and poll numbers are difficult to interpret, in one recent poll of potential 2012 matchups, conducted Aug. 6-9 by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, 43% of registered voters said they would support Palin to 49% for Obama. Other possible presidential candidates, including Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich, performed similarly, although Huckabee and Romney received slightly closer 3 point margins (the poll's margin of error for general elections questions was 4%). The poll showed the same four candidates tightly bunched in the Repulican primary race.

Polls taken since last November have largely shown a public with an unfavorable view of Palin - the current Pollster.com trend estimate has Palin with a 36.4% favorable rating and 52.7% unfavorable.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are taking a closer look at Google Inc.'s plans to buy travel technology company ITA Software Inc. in a $700 million all-cash deal announced last month.

In a blog post on Friday, Google said the Justice Department has asked it for more information about the proposed acquisition, which could position the search giant to compete with popular travel sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.

ITA Software, a 500-employee company started in 1996 by computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides technology that helps run the reservation systems of several airlines. Google says the acquisition will provide it with tools to help consumers search for flights, compare fares and book tickets.

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A bartender at the Lion’s Den restaurant in Waterford, Mich. confirms a fan’s report that Miley is totally into her new on-screen love interest. But oops – he already has a girlfriend!
Miley Cyrus seems to be totally over her boyfriend of a year, Liam Hemsworth, and ALSO appears to have moved on to yet ANOTHER co-star — Douglas Booth. HollywoodLife.com chatted to a bartender at the Lion’s Den in Waterford, Mich., who corroborated a fan report that Miley and her new on-screen love interest in LOL: Laughing Out Loud were getting cozy this week – three days before Liam announced their break-up!

“It looked like Miley was very interested in [Douglas],” the bartender – who prefers to remain nameless – tells us. “I thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend, they were flirting so much. She was really fawning all over him, acting really girly-girly. For his part, he seemed to be eating up the attention.”

Although the 17-year-old Hannah Montana starlet was very touchy-feely with Douglas, also 17, they weren’t doing anything illicit in the restaurant — after all, they WERE out with fellow LOL stars Ashley Greene and Tanz Watson. “The flirting was very respectful and no, they didn’t [kiss],” the bartender says. “They were among friends and other people in the restaurant – but she WAS falling all over him. ”

The Lion’s Den staffer corroborates an eyewitness report by fan Taylor, who wrote of her August 22 run-in with Miley & co. at the restaurant, “It was really weird, though, she was ALL over the Douglas kid. I wanted to ask her where Liam was but thought that would be a little rude lol.”

Well, not SO rude, given that Liam, 2o, broke the news of his split from Miley August 25; the couple dated for a year after meeting on the set of their tearjerker The Last Song last summer. While it looks like his ex is trying to move on with her hunky British co-star – who happens to have a girlfriend of three years! – Liam himself looks to be just fine. New reports indicate that he had a few hot dates with an older woman named Katy in Huntington Beach, Calif

  first spoke to Rick Steiner more than three months ago -- about two weeks into the Deepwater Horizon disaster -- after a source recommended I talk to him for a story I was writing about the spill as a teachable moment. Steiner is a marine conservationist and activist in Alaska who started studying oil spills when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, and never stopped.

What Steiner said to me during that first interview was blunt, depressing -- and struck me as having the ring of truth. Little did I know how true.

"Government and industry will habitually understate the volume of the spill and the impact, and they will overstate the effectiveness of the cleanup and their response," he told me at the time. "There's no such thing as an effective response. There's never been an effective response -- ever -- where more than 10 or 20 percent of the oil is ever recovered from the water.

"Most of the oil that goes into the water in a major spill stays there," he said. "And once the oil is in the water, the damage is done."

Steiner was also one of the first scientists to warn that much if not most of BP's oil was remaining underwater, forming giant and potentially deadly toxic plumes.

I thought of Steiner last week, as I sat in a congressional hearing room listening to Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ed Markey question Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Lehr was one of the authors of an increasingly controversial federal report about the fate of BP's spilled oil that Obama administration officials misleadingly cited as evidence that the "vast majority" of the oil was essentially gone.

Even though Laurence Fishburne is not speaking to his porn star daughter Montana, he is secretly footing her legal bills, TMZ reports.

Laurence has hired Lohan lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley to represent Montana - but not in connection with her sex tape or 2009 prostitution bust.

Holley is reportedly representing Montana in an an ongoing assault with a deadly weapon case. Montana was arrested in February for breaking into the home of her boyfriend's ex, dragging the woman into the bathroom and violently assaulting her.

The next hearing in the battery case is set for Wednesday.

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — The decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge Sunday in this central Mexican city besieged by fighting between two drug lords.

A gang led by kingpin Hector Beltran Leyva took responsibility for the killings in a message left with the bodies, the attorney general's office of Morelos state said in a statement.

The beheaded and mutilated bodies were hung by their feet early Sunday from the bridge in Cuernavaca, a popular weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.

Cuernavaca has become a battleground for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel since its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed there in a December shootout with marines.

Mexican authorities say the cartel split between a faction led by Hector Beltran Leyva, brother of Arturo, and another led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born kingpin known as "the Barbie."

The message left with the bodies threatened: "This is what will happen to all those who support the traitor Edgar Valdez Villarreal."

Authorities said the four men had been kidnapped days earlier. The family of one of the men reported the abduction to police.

In western Mexico, police found the body of a U.S. citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo.

A report from Guerrero state police said the man was shot to death and had identification indicating he was from Georgia.

The U.S. Embassy could not be reached to confirm the man's identity.

Police said they had no suspects and had not determined a motive.

Guerrero state has been wracked by drug-gang violence, including the strife within the Beltran Leyva cartel. There have also been a series of deadly carjackings this year along highways in the state.

Mexico has seen unprecedented gang violence since President Felipe Calderon stepped up the fight against drug trafficking when he took office in December 2006, deploying thousands of troops and federal police to cartel strongholds.

Since then, more than 28,000 people have been killed in violence tied to Mexico's drug war.

(This version CORRECTS tate where Cuernavaca is located to Morelos instead of state of Mexico, corrects the second family name of `Barbie' to Villarreal instead of Villareal.)

"I don't know, it just feels cooler," says Hu, perched on a park bench on a sultry weekday morning, the temperatures already into the 90s, the humidity soaring. "Look, you just shake your shirt to create a breeze. I don't see anyone laughing at me."

In the sports attire section of a nearby department store, Qi Tong scoffs at such reasoning.

"It lowers Beijing's standing as an international city," the 21-year-old says. "I go without a shirt sometimes at home, but never in public. If my dad reaches for his shirt when I'm out with him, I threaten to go home. It's just too embarrassing."

Says a shopper in the men's suits section: "I'd never do it. It's uncivilized."

In recent years, China has shown a keen awareness of its public image. Before the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing's Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee railed against such bad manners as spitting, cursing, cutting in line, urinating in public, sleeping on park benches and loudly slurping food.

During this summer's World Expo, the mayor of Shanghai has urged residents to stop running red lights and strolling the streets in pajamas, a popular summer attire.

But male belly-baring has proved a tough habit to beat. Years ago, men often did the full Monty with their shirts, taking them off completely, as a way to beat the heat, prompting fashionistas to put their foot down.

In 2002, one Beijing newspaper even sponsored a campaign to drive home the point that going shirtless was gauche. Each day, the Beijing Youth Daily ran candid pictures of shirtless men, often with bellies bulging, in an effort to shame offenders into compliance.

But as on the catwalks of Paris, style evolves. In Beijing, it soon morphed into the rolled-up-shirt look. Some go even further to beat the heat, rolling up their pants legs.

Many defend the practice, insisting that history is also on their side: During the Cultural Revolution, when good manners were condemned as bourgeois, it was considered a compliment to be called a dalaocu, or "a rough old guy."

Chinese men haven't looked to their leaders for guidance on proper etiquette. Mao Tse-tung often scratched himself in public, and Deng Xiaoping, a notorious spitter, often kept a spittoon nearby when meeting with world leaders.

Although many men proclaim the health benefits of exposing their stomachs on hot days, one Eastern medicine practitioner says he doesn't want to be blamed for the practice.

"Exposing one's belly has nothing to do with Chinese medicine's theory about maintaining a person's health," says Yan Zheng, who has been practicing Chinese medicine for more than 40 years.

"People chose to expose their belly because they feel too hot in summer but feel embarrassed to take off their shirts completely."

Cai Keqing says he doesn't worry about embarrassment. Taking a break from his retail sales job, the 24-year-old slouches on a park bench, shirt hiked up, and smokes a cigarette.

He's heard all the arguments about skin-exposing men. "Right now, I couldn't care less about my public image," he says. "It's just too hot."

Driver from www.latimes.com

LONDON (AP) -- How about a whisky to go? Scientists said they have developed biofuel for cars from waste produced in distilling Scotch whisky. Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University produced a type of fuel called butanol using "pot ale" - the liquid residue from copper stills - and "draff," or leftover grain.

They said it can be used in ordinary cars without adapting the engines. And unlike some biofuels, it is made from waste products and does not require a crop to be grown.

The researchers said they have filed a patent application for the fuel, and plan to set up a company to get it into British gas stations.

Driver from www.huffingtonpost.com

SUKKUR, Pakistan — The deadly, waterborne disease cholera has surfaced in flood-ravaged Pakistan, the U.N. confirmed Saturday, adding to the misery of 20 million people the government says have been made homeless by the disaster. A fresh surge of floodwater swelled the Indus River, threatening previously spared cities and towns in the south.

The crisis has battered Pakistan's economy and undermined its political stability at a time when the United States needs its steadfast cooperation against Islamist extremism. The U.N. has appealed for an initial $460 million to provide relief to Pakistan but has said the country will need billions to rebuild once the floodwaters recede.

Because of the flooding, Pakistan canceled celebrations Saturday marking its creation and independence from Britain in 1947. President Asif Ali Zardari met with flood victims in the northwest, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to visit affected regions on Sunday.

The floods have killed about 1,500 people, and aid workers have warned that diseases could raise that toll.

One case of cholera was confirmed in Mingora, the main town in the northwest's Swat Valley, U.N. spokesman Maurizio Giuliano said Saturday. But other cases were suspected, and aid workers are now responding to all those exhibiting acute watery diarrhea as if it is cholera, Giuliano said.

Cholera can lead to severe dehydration and death without prompt treatment, and containing cholera outbreaks is considered a high priority following floods.

The Pakistani crisis began in late July, when unusually heavy monsoon rains tore through the country from its mountainous northwest. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed. Agriculture has been severely hit, with an estimated 1.7 million acres (nearly 700,000 hectares) of farmland wiped out.

U.N. officials, citing government figures, previously said about 14 million Pakistanis were directly or indirectly affected.

But in a televised address to the nation Saturday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said 20 million were now homeless. He did not elaborate, and it was unclear how many of those people were briefly forced to leave their homes and how many had lost their houses altogether.

Driver from www.huffingtonpost.com

Down in Florida, the Democratic primary race between Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene has turned into a full-tilt frenzy over what did or did not go on aboard Greene's alleged-batterer-of-Belize's-coral-reefs yacht, the Summerwind.

In the past few weeks, we've heard a lot of stories about Greene's yacht. Two descriptive terms tend to jump out at you: The first is "party boat": the St. Petersburg Times' Adam C. Smith reminds readers today of an account from Gregory Zuckerman's book, The Greatest Trade Ever, that describes a Summerwind jaunt to the Black Sea that involved "Ukrainian strippers" and "stewardesses from coastal towns" that were hired as crew-slash-massage therapists.

The second, of course, is "vomit-caked." As in, "Mr. Greene's yacht is known to be a party yacht. When it went to Cuba, everybody talked about the vomit caked all over the sides from all the partying going on."

Ah, yes. That trip to Cuba has become another flashpoint in this campaign, mainly because Florida is filled with Cubans who don't exactly taking a liking to American billionaires taking jaunts down to Cuba to go on shopping excursions.

Greene has offered a shifting account of how it came to pass that the Summerwind ended up docked at Hemingway Marina in Havana. First, he wasn't on the boat, then he was on the boat but he was on some Jewish mission at the time, and finally, he was forced to dock at Hemingway because of emergency repairs -- maybe related to "vomit-caking," who knows? -- at which time he took advantage of an unexpected opportunity to go on the aforementioned Jewish mission.

According to deckhands, Greene and his girlfriend went shopping. And that's the thing: everyone has their own weird accounts of what goes on on board the Summerwind. If you believe professional boxer and Human Ear Quickfire Challenge All-Star Mike Tyson, this is the sort of thing that went down:

"I was in St. Tropez, in the South of France. In Ibiza, Spain. I was in Monte Carlo. I was in the Ukraine, Russia, all those places, for three months. From Russia I went to Lisbon, Portgual, from Portugal I went to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I met this drug dealer, right? And he sees that I like getting high, and he wants to be my buddy, right? This guy goes and gets me a big rock of cocaine. So pretty soon I got a party going on. I got everything: I got these rugby players. I got these naked girls, I got all these ... everything's going on in the room. Plus I also had this girl with me that I picked up in Romania. But then [the dealer he met in Amsterdam] saw how much of a mess I was. He came in and kicked everybody out of my room! All the nude people, all the people having sex. He said, 'I feel so bad I ever gave him that stuff.'"
There's so much about this story that's magical, not the least of which is the fact that Tyson highlighted the presence of rugby players, for some reason. Anyway, Greene is denying that most of these outlandish things ever happened on his yacht, which must be killing him, because these sound like the best parties anyone is having these days.

Driver from www.huffingtonpost.com