Today Around the Blogosphere...

Confirmed. Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, 22, was born in prison*. Her mom was serving a 10-year federal prison sentence for smuggling marijuana into the U.S. from Jamaica at the time of Leighton's birth. It's the Us cover story this week. Click pic for full story and see my previous posting.

Additional note: Despite being sentenced to 10 years in a Texas federal prison, Meester's mom Connie only served 16 months, according to Us.

This story was first reported by Star mag earlier this month. But since it has credibility issues no one was 100 percent sure it was true.

* Technically I think Leighton was born in some type of prison-associated hospital.
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John McCain and Sanjaya Malakar might have something in common.

The 72-year-old Republican nominee hired American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance makeup-artist Tiffani White for a recent television appearance, according to Us.

McCain reportedly paid $5,583.43 for her services.

Info. and image via Us.

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In other news, McCain and Senator Barack Obama are scheduled to have their first face-to-face debate on Friday.

Seems simple enough, right? After all, The Commission on Presidential Debates says it's been planned "for more than a year and a half."

You see where this is going.

Like seemingly everything of late, the whole thing's a big ol' damn mess. McCain wants to put his campaign on hold-- and therefore wants to delay the debate-- to "hammer out" some sort of deal related to the $700-billion Treasury proposal.

Enter an even more convoluted parade of drama.

Obama, on the other hand, wants the debate to happen as scheduled. And as of this moment the debate's still on. But both candidates are scheduled to meet with Bush--together-- tomorrow in Washington. (The two have also issued this joint statement.) So we'll see what happens.

Also, look who just figured out somethin's wrong.