Tell Joe Biden no, he'll try it twice

Don't tell Joe "no."

Joe Biden, the Democrats' vice presidential pick, has shown in his first days back on the campaign trail that he will not be managed. He will not stick to the script, he will not blindly adhere to the speech and he certainly won't muzzle his biting wit.

He's having a blast, even if his style isn't exactly in sync with the disciplined mechanics of Barack Obama's campaign.

When a fan told Biden he was gorgeous during his appearance at a public library here in northwest Ohio, the U.S. senator from Delaware immediately turned to self-deprecation.

"Hanging out with this lean, good-looking guy is making me …

Ethics commission rules on expenses for officials

DAILY MAIL STAFF

County commissions can use taxpayer dollars to join the localchamber of commerce, but commissioners and their staff will have tobuy tickets for chamber events out of their own pockets, the stateEthics Commission ruled today. An unidentified county commissionasked the commission both questions, arguing that joining thechamber and attending its events would give commissioners and staffmembers a chance to meet with community leaders.

Rick Alker, executive director of the commission, said today thata commission joining a chamber of commerce wouldn't provide anypersonal gain for the individual members.

Going to a dinner or other event would, and it …

Islamic Jihad Launches Rockets at Israel

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Islamic Jihad militants launched homemade rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday in retaliation for Israel's continuing military operations against their group in the West Bank.

The rocket attacks came despite a two-month-old …

Mackey rests at Iditarod; others wait out blizzard

Lance Mackey rested his dogs while nearing another Iditarod title, taking advantage of an unforgiving Bering Sea blizzard that kept mushers hours behind him waiting out the brutally cold wind on Tuesday.

Mackey, the two-time defending champion, gave his dogs 6 1/2 hours of rest at the Elim checkpoint, 123 miles (198 kilometers) from the Nome finish line before leaving the checkpoint at about 11 a.m. local time.

Sebastian Schnuelle and John Baker were in second and third place, moving slowly on the trail to Elim. But they were about two hours from reaching the checkpoint when Mackey left.

Thirteen mushers, including four-time champion Jeff King, …

Good clean fund? Not if charities, politics mix

When investigators from the Better Government Association began tolook under the veneer of the 17th Ward Democratic Organization,probing questionable political contributions from Chicago HousingAuthority contractors, they uncovered something they hadn't expectedto find. What they learned, alarmingly, was that nonprofit groups,churches and other tax-exempt organizations in Illinois were breakingfederal law.

These religious and nonprofit groups were jeopardizing their tax-free status by making political contributions to aldermen, statepoliticians and political organizations. "We were perplexed by whatwe found," says the BGA executive director, Jay Stewart. But it wasall …

Preparing To Go Down

"Have any bags to check sir?" "No, just me, these guitars and my amp head." I suppose it we were Bon Jovi we would just hop into our own jet have our crew take care of the gear, grab a blonde, a cold one and get ready to smile a lot. But alas, we are a Canadian indie band. With the help of Factor (www.factor.ca) and Starmaker/CIRPA (www.starmaker.ca), who do their absolute best to help promote Canadian music worldwide, we recently made the 22-hour flight to tour Australia. The lopistics of all of the gig/travel/hotel bookings and finding money for the tour were entirely in our managements and label's hands, the rest was entirely up to us.

When The Salads toured Australia with The …

Site Arranged Pay for Job Interviews

If you have a gold-plated resume and are beating recruiters off with a stick, here's a new twist: Companies will pay you to talk to them. You set the price.

That's the proposition behind the self-funded startup NotchUp.com. Its founders, Jim Ambras and Rob Ellis, say the site will fill a void between recruiters who charge 30 percent of a new hire's salary and resume agglomerators such as Monster.com.

Their audience, they say, is "happily employed professionals" whom they call "passive job seekers."

How it works: You plug in your industry, job, pay and experience into a calculator on the site to help you set your pay for an …