Democratic strategists say that if President Obama's re-election prospects look shaky, he could dump Vice President Joe Biden from the 2012 national ticket and choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate. It's inside-Washington speculation at this point, but the strategists make a good case for such a shift. "Biden was named in the first place to shore up Obama on foreign policy issues, and Obama doesn't need that anymore," says a former Clinton adviser. That's because Obama has learned the ropes and has assembled a strong foreign policy and national security team including Robert Gates as defense secretary, Jim Jones as White House national security adviser, and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

A leading US professor of law has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court prosecutor against former US President George W. Bush and a number of his senior lieutenants alleging crimes against humanity for their policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” and requesting that the ICC prosecutor obtain international arrest warrants against Mr Bush and his co-accused.

The massive snow storm that has begun and threatens millions of Americans from the mid Atlantic across the north east could be the biggest in modern history, forecasters say. Blizzard conditions are real and the storm presents extreme danger. Tonight, snow is barreling down across states across the nation and it is expected that some areas might see as much as 30 inches of snow. Flights shut down in preparation, and cities that are normally bustling with activity became powder covered ghost towns.

Maryland and Virginia is expected to see record snow fall and Maryland has declared a state of emergency and has urged all residents to stay inside and off roads. What may surprise many, however, is that the severe snow system will impact whether as far south as Miami, and possibly even the Florida Keys.

The size of the storm is massive and it is unlike anything previously seen in modern history.
The latest snowfalls are 11 inches in Westernport Maryland, 9 inches in Washington Dulles DC and 5 inches in Baltimore Maryland. Two deaths have already been attributed to the storm. The fatalities occurred in Prince William County Virginia as a 54 year old father and 25 year old son stopped to help a driver whose had lost control of his vehicle. As the men exited their vehicle to offer assistance, a tractor trailer jackknifed, killing the two men. Some areas have reported power outages, adding more trouble to the already brewing storm.

Moscow is concerned with US plans to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Romania, a senior Russian lawmaker said Friday. Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Thursday that his country backed talks with the United States on a plan to deploy interceptor missiles as part of a missile shield to protect Europe. Space Daily: New Russian military strategy names NATO as chief threat.

Spc. Marc Hall has been jailed in the Liberty County Jail near Fort Stewart, Ga., since Dec. 11 because he wrote a song called “Stop Loss” about the practice of involuntarily extending military members’ contracts. "It is our belief that the Army would violate its own regulations by deploying Marc and it would certainly violate his right to due process by making it far more difficult to get witnesses. It appears the Army doesn't believe it can get a conviction in a fair and public trial. We will do whatever we can to insure he remain in the United States," said Hall’s civilian attorney, David Gespass.

Five-dollar registration fee for persons planning to overthrow US government. Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The world's top central bankers began arriving in Australia yesterday as renewed fears about the strength of the global economic recovery gripped world share markets. Representatives from 24 central banks and monetary authorities including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank landed in Sydney to meet tomorrow at a secret location, the Herald Sun reports. Organised by the Bank for International Settlements last year, the two-day talks are shrouded in secrecy with high-level security believed to have been invoked by law enforcement agencies. Speculation that the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Dr Ben Bernanke, would make an appearance could not be confirmed last night.

"Our way of life is under attack. I truly believe they are trying to destroy this country. It's just hard to say who 'they' is."

Think about this sentence for a moment: “I’m not even slightly surprised to find out that the Obama administration has some kind of process in place to assassinate American citizens who it’s decided are in cahoots with terrorists.” Really, Matthew Yglesias? Not even “slightly”?

According to reports surfacing from China over the last couple days, Chongqing Zongshen Power Machinery, a leading Chinese motorcycle engine manufacturer, is planning to invest in Mission Motors, the San Francisco based designer of an electric supermotorcycle. Zongshen is one of the largest motorcycle makers in China, and not known to be interested in electric motorcycles. This move poses a kind of odd couple picture as Zongshen is known for low cost motorcycles while Mission is known for pricey superbikes. It will be interesting what comes of this hookup.

Human bones found on one of islands the southern part of Okinawa prefecture dates as far back as around 20,000 years, putting them among the oldest ever found in Japan, it was announced on Feb. 4th.

The bones were first unearthed in 2007 on the island of Ishigaki, southwest of Okinawa Island, in an area that was being prepared to be converted into a small airport, the Mainichi reported.

Nine bones were found, but only six could be directly dated from extracted collagen samples, according to Jiji Press. Of those six, the oldest piece, which dates back 20,000 years, was part of the skull of a man in his 20s to 30s. A piece of an adult leg bone that was found dates back around 18,000 years. Another bone is calculated to be 15,000 years old. The remaining three are all from approximately 2,000 years ago. The 20,000 year old piece is the oldest human bone to have been found and directly dated. This piece took over the record from bones found in the 1960s in Shizuoka Prefecture, west of Tokyo, that were directly dated to be 14,000 year old, Jiji Press reported. The actual oldest human remains found on Japanese territory were discovered on Okinawa Island and are believed, through indirect means, to be 32,000 years old

Read the original article from 1955. Bush's Grandfather Senator Prescott Bush found to have been secretly paid off with Nixon by oil men violating the Corrupt Practices Act.

Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo. Named after the tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to the pre-Neolithic period when the earliest humans walked out of Africa. Boa was the oldest member of the Great Andamanese, a group of tribes that are the the first descendants of early humans who migrated from Africa about 70,000 years ago and who arrived on the islands around 65,000. Other groups went on to colonise Indonesia and Australia. She lived through the horrors and hardships of the 2004 Asian tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by colonisers in the 19th century.

The Greek debt crisis has spread to Spain and Portugal in a dangerous escalation as global markets test whether Europe is willing to shore up monetary union with muscle rather than mere words. Credit default swaps measuring bankruptcy risk on Portuguese debt surged 28 basis points on Thursday to a record 222 on reports that Jose Socrates was about to resign as prime minister after failing to secure enough votes in parliament to carry out austerity measures.

Ashwaq’s father had heard the scary stories about men using the internet to seduce young, impressionable girls. So when his three daughters asked permission to go online, the answer was an emphatic "no." But the girls persisted and he eventually relented — a bit. They each could spend a half hour a day browsing the web. With time, however, rationing fell by the wayside and although Dad is still not happy about it, his daughters now use the internet pretty much when they want, said Ashwaq, 23. And for this self-described “internet addict,” that has been all to the good.

Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said. Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small,” said the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, which is restricted to the agencies concerned and not meant for public circulation. The group includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.

Here are two examples of people who could be put to death. ►Someone who has gay sex once and doesn’t turn his partner in to the authorities. ►A straight person who doesn’t turn in a gay friend after hearing about about a couple romantic evenings. You don’t have be gay to be executed under this bill.

Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, “State Robbery”, to be published later this month, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and part of the money was supposed to be transferred to a special fund on behalf of the workers. AWIP: Israeli report claims $2 billion stolen from Palestinians.

Dubai police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khaifan Tamim today warned that if it is proven that Mossad is behind last month’s assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the city, they will seek an international arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The Israeli prime minister will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to kill al-Mabhouh in Dubai,” insisted Lt. Gen. Khaifan. Haaretz: Dubai: We'll go after Netanyahu if Mossad killed Hamas man.

Five crates of Scotch whisky and brandy belonging to the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after more than 100 years in the ice. They were buried beneath Shackleton's Antarctic hut, built in 1908 for a failed expedition to the South Pole.

Some of the crates have cracked and ice has formed inside, which means experts will face a delicate task in trying to extract the contents. The ice-bound crates were first discovered three years ago. The master blender at whisky company Whyte and Mackay said the find was a "gift from the heavens" for whisky lovers. Richard Paterson, whose firm supplied the Mackinlay's whisky for Shackleton, said: "If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analysed, the original blend may be able to be replicated.