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Today in History

1580		Sir Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, aboard the Golden Hind, after a 33-month voyage to circumnavigate the globe.
1777		The British army launches a major offensive, capturing Philadelphia.
1786		France and Britain sign a trade agreement in London.
1820		The legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone dies quietly at the Defiance, Mo., home of his son Nathan, at age 85.
1826		The Persian cavalry is routed by the Russians at the Battle of Ganja in the Russian Caucasus.
1829		Scotland Yard, the official British criminal investigation organization, is formed.
1864		General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men assault a Federal garrison near Pulaski, Tennessee.
1901		Leon Czolgosz, who murdered President William McKinley, is sentenced to death..
1913		The first boat is raised in the locks of the Panama Canal.
1914		The Federal Trade Commission is established to foster competition by preventing monopolies in business.
1918		German Ace Ernst Udet shoots down two Allied planes, bringing his total for the war up to 62.
1937		Bessie Smith, known as the 'Empress of the Blues,' dies in a car crash in Mississippi.
1940		During the London Blitz, the underground Cabinet War Room suffers a hit when a bomb explodes on the Clive Steps.
1941		The U.S. Army establishes the Military Police Corps.
1950		General Douglas MacArthur's American X Corps, fresh from the Inchon landing, links up with the U.S. Eighth Army after its breakout from the Pusan Perimeter.
1955		The New York Stock Exchange suffers a $44 million loss.
1960		Vice President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy participate in the first nationally televised debate between presidential candidates.
1961		Nineteen-year-old Bob Dylan makes his New York singing debut at Gerde's Folk City.
1967		Hanoi rejects a U.S. peace proposal.
1969		The Beatles last album, Abbey Road, is released.
1972		Richard M. Nixon meets with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
1977		Israel announces a cease-fire on Lebanese border.

Non Sequitur

The Homecoming Prank and Its Reversal

Sophomore Whitney Kropp was excited to be voted as class rep to the homecoming court at her high school, but later learned that the whole thing was a prank. Bullies at her school thought that it would be funny if the most unpopular student actually won the popularity contest.
But the twisted tale has a happy ending when the whole town learned about the affair and decided to come out full force behind the teen:

Word of the prank quickly spread through this small town, whose water tower is a yellow smiley face. Kropp's sister told her friends, who told their parents, who told their friends. The Facebook support page was created, quickly drawing hundreds of messages of encouragement. The page has more likes (more than 3,500) than the town has people (2,100).
A bank account was opened for Kropp's homecoming expenses but wasn't needed. So many businesses donated services that everything was covered.
Shannon Champagne and another beauty salon worker offered their services and asked other businesses to do the same. "It really touched me. I can't believe that kids can be so mean and ruthless," said Champagne, 28, a nail tech at Whit's End Hair Studio. "In high school, everything means everything to you. You don't realize that none of it will matter after you leave."

Francis Donnelly of The Detroit News has the story: here.

Did you know ...

Really, is a Ph.D. worth it?

That German prosecutors named Hewlett-Packard in bribery case

The Wall St Journal failed to disclose 9 writers are Romney advisors

And, just what the world needs - colored pigeons! (see for yourself!)

Romney admits Obama didn't raise taxes, after claiming he did

As we've said before, just hand Mitt Romney a microphone and step away. So Mitt Romney is now admitting that President Obama didn't raise taxes during his four years in office, even though up until now that's exactly what Romney has been telling people, that Obama did raise taxes.

This is the problem with lying about pretty much every position you claim to hold. No human being is capable of keeping that many lies consistent. You eventually get caught.

Romney paying staff twice as much as Obama

Romney is seriously overpaying his own staff.  That is the only conclusion that you can make after looking at the figures.

The Obama campaign is spending slightly more than the Romney campaign ($4.04 million compared to $4.37 million last month), but the Obama team is much larger. When you look at the results, the Obama team is also much more effective. For a business expert, Romney doesn't get much value out of his investment in his own team.

LA Times:

According to an analysis by the Times Data Desk, part of the Los Angeles Times, the Obama campaign had 901 people on its payroll last month, and paid them a median salary of $3,074 a month, or $36,886 a year.

The Romney campaign, in contrast, had 403 people on its payroll, and paid them a median salary of $6,437 in August, which would mean $77,250 a year.

A Romney campaign official said the median staff salary is actually $51,500 a year. The August payroll may have been inflated by back pay owed to new employees, the official said.

What makes this more eye raising is that the LA Times review does not include the surprisingly high $207,500 bonus money that was handed out to Romney staff last month.

What is Romney's hang up with Jews?

I'm curious about the way Mitt Romney talks about Jews, and Israel.  It always seems to be about money and business for him. And he's a businessman, so that's partially excusable. But when you talk about a particular race of people being particularly good at business, and the people just happen to be Jewish, and you keep saying it, my jewdar goes off.

First there was this a few months ago, when Romney went to Israel:

Romney said some economic histories have theorized that "culture makes all the difference."

"And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence." He said similar disparity exists between neighboring countries, like Mexico and the United States.

Just struck me funny talking about Jews are 'culturally' good at business (and Mexicans aren't). I asked some Jewish friends, they agreed.

Then there's this, today. Romney's message to the Jewish people for their holiday season, taking place right now. Mitt yet again hit's that familiar them when talking about Israel and Jewish-Americans. The they're-good-at-business meme seems to permeate his thinking.

One more thing. Why is Romney's message to Jews hidden on his YouTube channel? If you go to the video, you'll see this this at the top of it:

Why is it unlisted?  Why is it only for those with the link?  I went through Romney's public YouTube page and couldn't find the video listed.  Any reason the Romney campaign isn't including a video about the Jewish people alongside the rest of their videos, since they're so proud of Jews' innate ability at business.

Like I said, just strikes me funny.

Romney support from seniors crumbling rapidly

It should not have been a surprise that Paul Ryan was booed on Friday at the AARP convention. There's no way to sugar coat the Romney/Ryan plan to dismantle Social Security. It is an assault on seniors and a system that has been working well. After the beating everyone took in recent years (including many seniors) who in their right mind would want to outsource Social Security to Wall Street?
Reuters:
New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points.

Romney's double-digit advantages among older voters on the issues of healthcare and Medicare - the nation's health insurance program for those over 65 and the disabled - also have evaporated, and Obama has begun to build an advantage in both areas.

Voting preferences among seniors could change in the final six weeks of the campaign, but the polling suggests that a series of recent episodes favoring Obama and the Democrats could be chipping away at Romney's support among older Americans

Ohio teabaggers attempt to intimidate Ohio State students to block their votes

There's nothing quite like the smell of hypocrisy with the teabaggers.

As the article mentions, can you imagine being a young, poor student and receiving a legal-looking document challenging your voter registration? If you're a student, you're probably wondering how you could afford legal counsel to defend your registration, which is already legal.

The teabaggers, like the rest of the repugicans, can't win on issues so they're determined to disrupt the vote.

Remember what we always say: The repugicans accuse us (read: ACORN) of things we're not doing, but they are.

How very patriotic of them.

On September 13th, Hilliard tea party member Carol D. Bicking submitted a voter challenge to hundreds of OSU students. Bicking appears to be following the strategy promoted by true the vote which aims to intimidate Democratic voters, like students or African Americans, into staying away from the polls this November.

If the Board of Elections accepts the challenge, students would be sent a subpoena to appear at a hearing to question their voting status. Students would then have a minimum of three days to prepare for the hearing, and possibly hire legal counsel, all because some nasty tea partier didn’t like the way their address appeared on the voting registration form.

According to documents obtained by Plunderbund, the bulk of the challenges (246) are for students who registered to vote at their dorm buildings at OSU but failed to provide a specific room number on the application. We confirmed with OSU’s Housing Department that “as long as everything else is accurate including their name” the students will, most likely, still receive their mail even without the room number.

The repugican n'er-do-well Nikki Haley put 14 year old daughter on state payroll

Was Haley's 14 year old daughter really the most qualified for the job?

I never understand how the repugicans can so often criticize government and government workers yet so easily provide jobs for their family inside government. Dick Cheney was no stranger to it, having his daughter Mary run his re-election campaign, and now the Tea Party and Sarah Palin hero, Nikki Haley, is doing the same.

The unemployment rate in South Carolina remains above the national average, so why is the governor giving a job to her daughter when so many others need work?

Gov. Nikki Haley’s 14-year-old daughter having a summer job at the State House gift shop is a tad more unusual than some may have thought.

Haley’s daughter was, in fact, the only 14-year-old to hold a state job as of July 2012. And no 14-year-olds were employed by the state in either July 2011 or July 2010, according to data from the State Budget and Control Board.

UPDATE: A reader notes:

Dick Cheney's other daughter, Elizabeth, was also on the public payroll. She was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department. She was in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, as I recall. This is a matter of public record.

In my humble opinion, it's one thing to put your own relative on your campaign payroll. If the donors don't like that, well, they can effectively voice their concern. And if the media doesn't like it, well, they can report it. In the end, not a big deal.

But it's another thing entirely when it's taxpayer money.

The Truth Be Told

Fighting continues in Syria as Assad uses air force to terrorize populus

The world's attention has shifted to other critical issues, but the problems continue in Syria. Assad continues to use the full force of his military against civilians but the fight continues. He has the hardware but in the long run, he doesn't have the numbers to win the day. Not that it matters for now though, because civilians are being butchered on a daily basis. The Guardian:

The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition network, reported on Monday that at least 58 people had died, including the 15 in Aleppo, where two buildings were hit by bombs dropped by government planes in the southern suburb of Maadi. Video posted online showed people digging through rubble searching for survivors.

Mohammed Saeed, a local activist, said the pre-dawn raid was intended to "terrify the people and try to turn them against the Free Syrian Army", the Associated Press news agency reported.

Attacks by government troops backed by helicopter gunships were reported in the southern town of Sheikh Miskeen in Daraa province. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels and troops were fighting near the airbase of Tabaqah in the northern province of Raqqa. Last week, rebels captured a key border crossing with Turkey in Raqqa.

Obama helps fix the US Patent system

We have two really important pieces of good news for the US patent system today. The first is that the US PTO is finally going to adopt the same principle as the rest of the world and allow (no encourage!) public comment on patent applications. The second is that they chose Joel Spolsky one of the most clueful people in the business to build the site.

The US Patent system has been badly broken since the Reagan administration decided to turn it into a profit center. It is broken for genuine inventors, it is broken for legitimate plaintiffs in patent disputes and it is completely broken for defendants.

The only group that is actually served by the current system is patent trolls. I work as an expert witness in patent disputes a typical case involves a patent application that was originally filled before 1990 that essentially claims 'do something people have done for decades on the Web'. Such a patent would of course be highly novel given that the Web did not exist in any form until 1989 and was only announced to the public in 1992. Until the patent system was reformed during the Clinton administration, an application could be amended to add in extra claims after filing. So in the typical case the claims at issue have been added into a prior application on an unrelated invention after the 'inventor' read about the Web in a newspaper.

In theory the defense should be able to win a case like this pretty easily. In practice it costs at least $2 million to bring a defense to the point where these issues are considered. Damages in these disputes may be a hundred million dollars or more.

The backdating loophole has been closed but the fundamental problem remains, the US still issues far too many patents that are too broad or obviously not novel. Patent examiners do their best but the system simply does not give them enough time to do a proper job. I paid less than $1000 each in patent office fees to file two patents in 2010. At $100 an hour (cheap for a lawyer) the USPTO examiner has less than ten hours to read, understand and write a report on the application and to handle all the subsequent correspondence. I typically spend 20-30 hours on a similar exercise.

The system is set up to fail, the question is how it will fail. Examiners can process applications quickly by accepting almost anything that is not a perpetual motion machine or they can take longer than the time allowed and let a backlog build up. During the dotcom bubble the USPTO took the first approach. More recently it has switched to the second. Both of my applications have been waiting on a first office action for over two years. That is two years in which I have been unable to market the idea or collect any royalties. One of my issued patents took five years.

One of the main reasons for that backlog is that companies are still applying for patents on every idea no matter how ridiculous or stupid it might appear. There is a beggar-thy-neighbor aspect to this. If my company does not apply for a patent a competitor will.

Not only is the US patent system set up for failure, it operates in a unique way. In every other country the patent process involves a period of public review. This takes the responsibility for vetting applications away from a lawyer who is often not an expert in the field in question to the public reviewers. When I worked for a chemical manufacturer in the UK, there was a patent bulletin circulated each week alerting the research staff to the patent applications made by competitors.

The USPTO has been fighting a losing battle against prior publication for the past twenty years. First they resisted publishing applications before patents were issued, then they agreed to publish applications but stated that they would ignore any communication from the public that purported to show prior art. The new site will put the USPTO ahead of other patent offices in this respect. There remain a few oddities that make the US Patent system broken in unique ways but these are minor in comparison.

This change may reduce my income as an expert witness but opens up a new opportunity providing clients with documented prior art to challenge spurious applications. It is unlikely to be as profitable but I would rather help create new mess than clean up an unnecessary one.

Americans feel more confident in economy

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO and CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER

Americans are more confident in the economy than they have been in seven months, an encouraging sign for President Barack Obama with six weeks left in the presidential race.

A new survey of consumer confidence rose Tuesday to its highest level since February on expectations that hiring will soon pick up. And a separate report showed home values rising steadily, signaling sustained improvement in housing.

"This is like an opinion poll on the economy without the political parties attached," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics, a consulting firm. The confidence survey "says people are feeling better. If so, they are less likely to vote for change."

The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence shot up in September. The jump surprised many economists because the most recent hiring and retail sales figures have been sluggish. The increased confidence could help explain recent polls that show Obama with a widening lead over Mitt Romney in some battleground states.

The consumer confidence index is closely watched because consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity. The index jumped from 61.3 for August to 70.3 for September. It remains well below 90, the level that is thought to signify a healthy economy. Among those feeling more optimistic about the economy is Darlene Johnson of Silver Spring, Md., who works for the National Institutes of Health. The value of Johnson's 401(k) account has risen. Home sales in her neighborhood have ticked up, too, and are commanding higher prices.

"I feel like things are stabilizing," she said. "I don't feel as uneasy as I did a few months ago."
But Johnson, who voted for Obama in 2008, remains undecided on which candidate to back. And she's still a bit nervous about the future.
"It will depend on how my pockets are looking," she says. "Everyday circumstances will drive my decision on how I am going to vote."
Economists point to some key reasons why consumers have grown more confident.
Stocks are up: The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has surged nearly 15 percent this year. Gas prices have leveled off after rising for several months. And the broad increase in home prices is likely giving would-be buyers more confidence. When prices rise, buyers don't worry so much that a home might lose value after they bought it.
National home prices rose 1.2 percent in July compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday. That was the second straight month in which year-over-year home prices have increased.
Some economists question whether the higher level of confidence is sustainable. They've seen the index spike briefly before since the Great Recession ended more than three years ago. Some say confidence could be affected by negative campaign ads that focus on the economy.

But others note that even a weak economy doesn't feel so bad to many consumers once it begins to make steady improvement.

"The economy is perceived in relative rather than absolute terms," noted St. Louis University political scientist and pollster Ken Warren.
Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, suggests that former President Bill Clinton might have helped boost confidence with his rousing speech on Obama's behalf at the Democratic National Convention in early September. The Conference Board's consumer confidence survey was conducted Sept. 1-13.
Clinton "rekindled memories of better economic times" and assured voters that the U.S. economy was on the right track, Vitner said.

The consumer confidence survey polled 500 people. The part of the survey that gauges consumers' confidence in the economy now and the part that gauges their outlook for the next six months both rose. Consumers were much more optimistic about the short-term outlook for business conditions, employment and their financial situation.

The rising home prices could also help Obama's prospects. Prices are rising in many large cities in swing states such as Florida, Colorado, Michigan and North Carolina. Prices have risen 3.6 percent in Tampa, Fla., in the past year, for example. And they're up 5.4 percent in Denver, 6.2 percent in Detroit and 2.2 percent in Charlotte, N.C.

A Washington Post poll out Tuesday showed Obama leading Romney among likely voters in Ohio, 52 to 44 percent. The president also had a slight edge in Florida, 51 to 47 percent among those most likely to vote.

Obama is also gaining the upper hand on which candidate is better able to handle the economy. Registered voters in Ohio preferred Obama on the economy by 50 percent to 43 percent, and in Florida by 49 percent to 45 percent.

Angela Merkel remains as clueless as ever about austerity

No matter how bad the economy looks in austerity-hit Europe, Merkel does not and probably never will understand economics. She's played to the pro-austerity crowd - fanning the flames with expertise - and there's almost no way she can work herself out of that position.
In Merkel's eyes, austerity worked well for Germany and now it's working well in places such as Spain. Except it's not. Yesterday the NY Times ran a depressing article about Spaniards now searching for food in trash bins. (And remember, Spain's budget had a surplus before the crisis.) In Greece, the plan to pay back the impossible loans is far off track but again, we all knew it would be that way at the start.

Even in the non-eurozone UK, austerity is now costing the country billions due to families quitting work to help sick family members. This means no more tax revenue and more stress on the system. It's not working and it won't work. There are countless examples of austerity failing miserably in a shrinking economy. Austerity has only worked during a growing economy and that does not exist in Spain, Greece, Portugal or the UK.

With this attitude, things will only get worse in Europe. Let's not forget who keeps insisting on driving the EU economy into the ground. The bankers caused the crisis, but it's Merkel who is making a bad situation worse.

How could anyone think this is the picture of success?

The Chancellor made her remarks in a speech to the Federation of German Industries on another day of turmoil in the currency bloc. The Spanish government faced mass anti-austerity protests in Madrid, while Greece was reported to be billions of euro off-track in meeting the terms of its bailout. Meanwhile, the ratings agency Standard and Poor's once again highlighted the grim state of the EU economy, forecasting that the euro-zone would not return to growth until at least 2014.

Against such a gloomy backdrop, Ms Merkel insisted: "We need to take a deep breath to overcome this crisis. We must make the efforts that will allow Europe to emerge from the crisis stronger than it went in."

The German leader conceded that hard-won reforms in southern Europe had helped, but said there was still work to do. The markets, she added, had doubts about their ability pay back their debts. Her comments were overshadowed by the continuing crises in Spain and Greece. The government in Athens conceded yesterday that it would need between €13bn to €15bn more in funding if it were given the two-year extension to the bailout plan it has been requesting.

Laptop rental companies reach cash-free, pointless settlement with toothless FTC for taking secret naked pictures of customers having sex, harvesting medical records and banking passwords and more

The FTC has settled with seven rent-to-own companies and a software company called DesignerWare of North East Pennsylvania for their role in secretly installing spyware on rental laptops, which was used to take "pictures of children, individuals not fully clothed, and couples engaged in sexual activities."

Under the terms of the settlement, the companies are free to go on engaging in this behavior, but now they'll have to notify customers. They won't pay a fine. The FTC won't say if it's referred any of the companies for criminal prosecution. The rental companies used the spyware to harvest renters' bank passwords, private emails to doctors, medical records, and Social Security numbers, and they used it to pop up deceptive windows on customers' computers to trick them into entering personal information.
Wired's David Kravets has more:

The software, known as Detective Mode, didn’t just secretly turn on webcams. It “can log the keystrokes of the computer user, take screen shots of the computer user’s activities on the computer, and photograph anyone within view of the computer’s webcam. Detective Mode secretly gathers this information and transmits it to DesignerWare, who then transmits it to the rent-to-own store from which the computer was rented, unbeknownst to the individual using the computer,” according to the complaint.
Under the settlement, the companies can still use tracking software on their rental computers, so long as they advise renters, the FTC said. The companies include Aspen Way Enterprises Inc.; Watershed Development Corp.; Showplace Inc., doing business as Showplace Rent-to-Own; J.A.G. Rents LLC, doing business as ColorTyme; Red Zone Inc., doing business as ColorTyme; B. Stamper Enterprises Inc., doing business as Premier Rental Purchase; and C.A.L.M. Ventures Inc., doing business as Premier Rental Purchase.

Rent-to-Own Laptops Secretly Photographed Users Having Sex, FTC Says

Man wearing sequined mini dress arrested after fake bomb incident

Police found no bombs at the home of an East Millcreek, Utah, man who had set up a network of wires and fake explosives in his yard before engaging officers in an armed standoff on Sunday. David Charles Baker, 47, was arrested at about 6:30 p.m. after SWAT officers used a tactical vehicle to break through the front door of Baker’s home said Unified Police Detective Levi Hughes. Baker, whom police described as mentally unstable and trained in explosives, fled out the back door and was immediately captured by officers.

Neighbors had reported Baker’s erratic behavior to police several times in the past few months, Hughes said. Investigators learned that Baker had experience with incendiary devices and found a series of agitated video rants on the internet, Hughes said, but they do not know what exactly set off the chain of events leading to Sunday’s confrontation. Hughes said the incident appeared to start at about 2:30 p.m. when Baker showed up at a friend’s home and got into a face-to-face confrontation with the friend and made some sort of "demands." He then left a package in the driveway and informed his friend that its contents could cause his home to catch fire.

When patrol officers drove to Baker’s home to speak with him about the incident, they found Baker wielding a shotgun and walking amid the trip wires as he placed several propane and gas tanks around his property, Hughes said. The officers kept a safe distance, said Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder. "This gentleman had in place items that were of such significant concern that to just rush up would have been an act of foolishness," Winder said. About 40 homes in the neighborhood were evacuated as Baker went into his home and refused to come out. Baker shouted "nonsensical" things to officers that gathered around his home, Winder said. Neighbor Natalie Harvey said she heard him yelling, "Get out of my flowers!" Another neighbor, Haley Fife, said Baker shouted to police that he would only come out if they blew up his house.

Minutes before SWAT officers raided the house, Fife saw Baker display a headless mannequin in one of his windows and put a hat on its neck. He also placed bottles on the window sills and took photographs of those bottles, Fife said. After Baker was arrested and cuffed, he could be seen hopping and dancing in a black sequin mini-dress with orange and pink fur trim and a cowl neck. Bomb squads examined suspicious items Baker reported left at neighbors houses, including an alarm clock with tape on it. Crews deemed those items safe and found the set-up of wires and tanks in Baker’s yard also were not dangerous. Neighbors were allowed to return to their homes about 8:30 p.m.

There's a news video here.

Dynamite-using ATM thieves blew bank to smithereens

Thieves in Germany made an explosive miscalculation on Sunday night when trying to blow open cash machine – they used so much dynamite they destroyed the bank – but managed to escape with the ATM.

Parts of the Sparkasse bank were flung more than 80 meters across the street, damaging two neighboring buildings. Despite their misjudgement, the suspects appeared to have left the scene with the cash machine as police confirmed it was missing.

The suspects probably used far too much dynamite, police in Nottuln, near Münster North-Rhine Westphalia said on Monday.

YouTube link.

 No information has been released on how much money was in the machine, but the blast has caused hundreds of thousands of euros in damage. The flats above the bank are uninhabitable a police spokesman said, and engineers will be brought in to determine whether the entire building will have to be demolished.

Younger, Happier Mona Lisa: Is It a Da Vinci?

Was this portrait of a happier Mona Lisa painted by Da Vinci some 10 years before he created the famous portrait? Read more

Chinese Families with All of Their Worldly Possessions

Think you've got a lot of stuff? Well, you do - in comparison to these families in China as photographed by Huang Qingjun, who has spent the last decade travelling to remote parts of the country to persuade people to pose with all of their worldly possessions in front of their homes:

The idea for the series about people's material goods, now called Jiadang (Family Stuff), came in 2003 with some photos he took for the magazine Chinese National Geography. But the project didn't really get under way until three years later, when Huang started travelling around China looking for suitable places and people.
"Most people thought what I was proposing was not normal. When I explained I wanted to set up a photo, that it would involve taking everything out of their house and setting it up outside, that took quite a lot of explaining," he says.
"But almost all of them, when they realised what I was trying to do, they understood the point."

Angus Foster of the BBC has more: here.

Ten Questionable Household Tips From The 19th-Century White House Staff

The upkeep at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a little more complicated than that of any typical suburban home. That's why Fanny Lemira Gillette, famed housekeeping guru and mother of the inventor of the safety razor, and Hugo Ziemann, the White House steward, teamed up in 1887 to write The White House Cook Book, a 'comprehensive cyclopedia of information for the home' and one of the best-selling cookbooks in U.S. history.

Aside from useful recipes for Chicken Jelly and Mayonnaise Fish, Gillette and Ziemann's book is full of expert housekeeping tips. Though we can't in good conscience advise trying most of these, here are 10 of the better examples.

Ten Famous People Who Died Penniless

History is littered with riches-to-rags tales of celebrities and artists who recklessly spent their fortunes on their extravagant lifestyles and were left with nothing when the flame stopped flickering.

It's also full of cases in which people only achieved fame and financial success posthumously, earning millions after their deaths but still dying penniless and in relative obscurity. Here's a look at ten of the most shocking and depressing fame casualties.

Texas executes ex-Army recruiter after 3 reprieves

By Michael Graczyk

A former Army recruiter failed to win a fourth reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court and was executed Tuesday evening in >Texas for participating in the shooting death of a woman he and a buddy met 10 years ago at a bar. Cleve Foster was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. CDT, 25 minutes after his lethal injection began and two hours after the high court refused to postpone his punishment. Three times last year the justices stopped his scheduled punishment, once when he was moments from being led to the death chamber.
His attorneys argued he was innocent of the 2002 slaying of Nyaneur Pal, a 30-year-old immigrant from Sudan. They also said he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals and argued his case deserved a closer look.
Foster, 48, also was charged but never tried for the rape-slaying a few months earlier of another woman in Fort Worth, Rachel Urnosky.
In the seconds before the single lethal dose of pentobarbital began, Foster expressed love to his family and to god.
"When I close my eyes, I'll be with the father," he said. "god is everything. He's my life. Tonight I'll be with him."
He did not proclaim innocence or admit guilt. He did turn to relatives of his two victims, saying, "I don't know what you're going to be feeling tonight. I pray we'll all meet in heaven."
As the drugs began taking effect and while he was repeatedly saying he loved his family, he began snoring, then he stopped breathing.
Three of the nine Supreme Court justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — would have stopped the punishment, the court indicated in its brief ruling.
Last year — in January, April and September — the justices did intervene and halted his execution, once only moments before he could have been led to the death chamber.
"It's offensive to us the frivolous appeals that were thrown up at the Supreme Court last minute," said Terry Urnosky, whose 22-year-old daughter's death was blamed on Foster and a partner, Sheldon Ward. "One stay after another, just delaying the closure our families sought."
Urnosky, his wife, and Pal's uncle and aunt stood a few feet away from Foster and watched the execution through a window.
"It's like ripping off a deep scab each time, preventing the wound from being able to start healing," Urnosky said. "Now the wound can start closing."
Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing Foster, argued the Supreme Court needed to block it again in light of their ruling earlier this year in an Arizona case that said an inmate who received poor legal assistance should have his case reviewed.
Foster and Ward were sentenced to die for killing Pal, who was known as Mary Pal and was seen talking with the men at a Fort Worth bar hours before her body was found in a ditch off a Tarrant County road.
"I am as certain of Foster's guilt as I can be without having seen him do it," Ben Leonard, who prosecuted Foster in 2004, said last week.
A gun in the motel room where Foster and Ward lived was identified as the murder weapon and was matched to Rachel Urnosky's fatal shooting at her apartment.
"It wasn't the violent death that both Mary and my daughter experienced," Urnosky's father said. "I feel it was way too easy, but it is what it is."
Foster blamed Pal's slaying on Ward, one of his recruits who became a close friend. Prosecutors said evidence showed Foster actively participated in her death, offered no credible explanations, lied and gave contradictory stories about his sexual activities with her.
The two were convicted separately, Ward as the triggerman and Foster under Texas' law of parties, which makes participants equally culpable. Pal's blood and tissue were found on the weapon and DNA evidence showed both men had sex with her.
At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence Pal wasn't shot where she was found; that Ward alone couldn't have carried her body to where it was dumped; and that since he and Foster were nearly inseparable and DNA showed both had sex with her, it was clear Foster was involved. A Tarrant County jury agreed, and both received the death sentence. Ward died in 2010 of cancer while on death row.
Foster grew up in Henderson, Ky., and spent nearly two decades in the Army. Records showed court martial proceedings were started against the sergeant first class and he was denied re-enlistment after allegations he gave alcohol to underage students as a recruiter in Fort Worth and had sex with an underage potential recruit. He'd been a civilian only a short time when the slayings occurred.

New SARS-like Mystery Illness Emerges in Mideast

A 49-year-old man from Qatar who traveled to Saudi Arabia was transferred to London after suffering from a new SARS-like virus. Read more

The World Health Organization issued a global alert on Monday for a new SARS-like virus which left a man from Qatar critically ill in a London hospital. Read more

Student hospitalized after alcohol enema

A University of Tennessee student was treated and released over the weekend for alcohol poisoning, after police said his fraternity was using alcohol enemas. The UT Knoxville chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha has been suspended. The fraternity, also known as PIKE, is based in Memphis.
Alexander Broughton, 20, was dropped off at UT Medical Center at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, Knoxville Police said. Hospital staff told Knoxville Police investigators that Broughton was in critical condition and unresponsive when he arrived, with a blood alcohol content level greater than 0.4, which is considered toxic and potentially deadly. Broughton has since been discharged from the hospital.

Video link.

KPD investigators went to campus on Saturday morning and found several other people, including three men, passed out at the PIKE house. After conducting several interviews, investigators determined the fraternity members had used rubber tubing to give each other alcohol enemas. Police said the practice heightens and speeds up the process of alcohol entering the blood stream because it bypasses the liver's filters.

The UT Police Department said this is the first incident on campus that they are aware of which involved that process. The department did not receive any complaints or tips about a large party or event at the PIKE house on Friday night or Saturday morning. At this time, UTPD investigators said there are no signs that hazing was involved in the incident, but they are looking into the possibility. Investigators are working to determine if Broughton was assaulted or made the decision to engage in the behavior himself.

There's an additional news video here.

Feds target LA in medical marijuana crackdown

By Greg Risiling

Federal prosecutors looking to take out California's medical marijuana shops have now set their sights on Los Angeles, where city officials have struggled to stop a blooming of dispensaries. 

The U.S. attorney's office sued three property owners that house pot collectives and sent warning letters to 68 others as they enforce a federal law that doesn't recognize a California initiative that legalized pot for medicinal use.
The move Tuesday came nearly a year after federal authorities began targeting the state's pot shops. The city's own ban on dispensaries also is being challenged and could be overturned by voters if a referendum is placed on an upcoming ballot.
"As today's operations make clear, the sale and distribution of marijuana violates federal law, and we intend to enforce the law," U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said.
California's four U.S. attorneys pledged last October to curb pot collectives they said were running afoul of the law by raking in huge sums of money and serving as fronts for drug traffickers. Proponents argue the dispensaries are protected by California law that allows medicinal use of marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.
David Welch, an attorney representing some of the Los Angeles collectives targeted by federal authorities, said he plans to file a lawsuit.
"I expected this to happen and we have planned for this contingency," Welch said. "The future is a lot less certain considering what seems to be a full press by the federal government."
Los Angeles passed an ordinance two years ago that was supposed to shutter hundreds of pot dispensaries while capping the number in operation at 70.
But a set of legal challenges against the city by collectives and the recent expiration of the ordinance due to a sundowner clause led to another surge of pot shops. City officials said more than 750 collectives have registered with the city and as many as 200 more could exist.
City officials have had a difficult time striking a balance between providing safe and affordable access to pot for people who need it for medicinal purposes while addressing neighborhood groups' worries that streets were being overrun by dispensaries and pot users.
"The shops had an opportunity to work with the city on a path to legitimacy, but once again they chose short-term profits over long-term safe access for legitimate patients," said Michael Larsen, president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council.
More than 175 California cities and 20 counties have banned retail pot shops, according to the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access.
The state Supreme Court is expected to address whether local governments can ban medical marijuana clinics, but a hearing hasn't been set by the high court.
Los Angeles could soon face a possible referendum on the latest ban approved by the city council. Council members must decide by next week whether to call a special election for the measure, repeal it themselves or put it on the March 2013 ballot.

Canadian police implicated in international cheese smuggling operation

Niagara Regional Police officers have been visiting pizzerias in the peninsula recently asking one important question: where did you get your cheese? It’s part of a larger internal investigation into cheese smuggling, allegedly by some members of their own force. Police sources say that charges are expected soon against a few officers who are alleged to have been involved in the movement of caseloads of cheese from the US to sell to Canadian pizzerias and restaurants.

The alleged scam involves jamming cases of "brick" cheese — used as a common pizza topping — into their vehicles to smuggle across the border. With US cheese being as little as a third the price it is in Canada, drivers are making $1,000 to $2,000 a trip, according to numerous sources. Canada Border Services Agency officials say anyone, officer or civilian, caught smuggling large shipments of cheese into Canada would be in violation of the Customs Act for failing to declare, and pay duties on, the controlled goods.

As well, CBSA says it would be a violation for failing to have proper permits and licenses from both the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The accused officers either face police act charges (internal discipline) for either discreditable conduct or neglect of duty or criminal code charges of breach of trust if any were found to have intentionally plotted to avoid customs and duties. The cheese-smuggling investigation stems from information gathered from a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrest in April of Niagara Regional Police constable Geoffrey Purdie in Buffalo on charges of conspiracy to smuggle more than half a million dollars in anabolic steroids and other drugs into Canada.

According to US court documents, a joint Border Enforcement Task Force has been using surveillance and at least one confidential informant in an ongoing probe into the steroid allegations of Purdie and others, including civilians. It is unknown which specific officers will face charges, or whether Const. Purdie himself is directly linked to the cheese allegations. The Niagara Regional Police Association won't discuss the allegations against the officers, but confirms a number of their members have been formally notified they are under internal investigation.

There's a news video here.

Culinary DeLites

A Taxonomy Of American Barbecue Sauces

To most Americans, barbecue sauce is red and sweet and smokey and it comes from a shelf near the ketchup. To those who travel and would rather lunch in the back of a rickety shack under a shade tree rather than under the golden arches, barbecue sauce comes in a rainbow of colors and flavors, and most tied to the area of origin and its ethnic roots. Indeed, barbecue sauce is a cultural phenomenon.

Fruit salad trees with six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them

The Fruit Salad Tree Company of Emmaville, NSW, Australia sells trees that have up to six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them.

* Stone fruits which grows peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and peachcots
* Citrus which grows a winter and summer orange, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruits, tangelos and pomelos
* Multi-apples only
* Multi-nashi fruit only
The Fruit Salad Tree can be grown in the ground as for normal fruit trees, or in pots for those people with very limited space. Instead of having numerous different trees with more fruit than your household can consume there is only one tree with all of the fruits ripening naturally over a period of months. There can be more than one variety of an individual fruit on a tree, thus extending the picking time.

Fruit Salad Tree Company

Bill Nye warns: Creation views threaten US science

By Dylan Lovan

Bill Nye The Science Guy," has waded into the evolution debate with an online that urges parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children. Nye has spent a career teaching science to children and teens with good-natured and sometimes silly humor, but has not been known to delve into topics as divisive as evolution.
The christians who view the stories of the Old Testament as historical fact have come to be known as creationists, and many argue that the world was created by god just a few thousand years ago.
"The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old," Nye said in an interview, citing scientists' estimates that it is about 4.5 billion years old. "It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs."
Millions of Americans do hold those beliefs, according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans believe god created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.
Nye, 56, also decried efforts in recent years by lawmakers and school boards in some states to present bible stories as an alternative to evolution in public schools. Tennessee passed a law earlier this year that protects teachers who let students criticize evolution and other scientific theories. That echoes a Louisiana law passed in 2008 that allows teachers to introduce supplemental teaching materials in science classes.
"If we raise a generation of students who don't believe in the process of science, who think everything that we've come to know about nature and the universe can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some ancient text, you're not going to continue to innovate," Nye said in a wide-ranging telephone interview.
The brief online video was not Nye's first foray into the combustible debate, but "it's the first time it's gotten to be such a big deal."
"I can see where one gets so caught up in this (debate) that you say something that will galvanize people in a bad way, that will make them hate you forever," he said. "But I emphasize that I'm not questioning someone's religion — much of that is how you were brought up."

In the video he tells adults they can dismiss evolution, "but don't make your kids do it. Because we need them." Posted by Big Think, an online knowledge forum, the clip went viral and has 4.6 million views on YouTube. It has garnered 182,000 comments from critics and supporters.

It drew the ire of the creationism group answers in genesis, which built a biblically based creation museum in Kentucky that teaches the stories of the Old Testament and has attracted headlines for its assertion that dinosaurs roamed alongside Adam and Eve.

The group produced a response video featuring two scientists who say the bible has the true account of Earth's origins, and that "children should be exposed to both ideas concerning our past."

Nye, who is prone to inject dry humor into scientific discussions, said Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

"What I find troubling, when you listen to these people ... once in a while I get the impression that they're not kidding," Nye said.

Ken Ham, a co-founder of answers in genesis, said dating methods used by scientists to measure the age of the earth are contradictory and many don't point to millions or billions of years of time.

"We say the only dating method that is absolute is the word of god," Ham said. "Time is the crucial factor for Bill Nye. Without the time of millions of years, you can't postulate evolution change."

America is home to the world's biggest creationist following, Ham said, and the $27 million creation museum has averaged about 330,000 visitors a year since it opened just south of Cincinnati in 2007.

Why Maps Shape Our Minds As Well As Our Planet

Maps have been at the centre of both politics and commerce down the ages, as well as key to the evelopment of the human imagination. In his new book, On The Map, Simon Garfield explains that, just as the empires of the past understood that marking territory was crucial, so Google and its rivals now wield influence.

They are even implicated in border disputes. Garfield describes how in 2010 the Nicaraguans cited Google Maps in support of their action when they invaded Costa Rica. Brian McClendon, who developed the mapping technology bought up by Google in 2004, told Garfield that the Nicaraguans argued that they were justified in moving onto the extra territory accidentally assigned to them.

Studt shows pervasive gender bias in science

By Laura Shin

Remember when Larry Summers said that maybe women were innately worse at science?
Yeah, scratch that.
A study shows that women are up against a huge obstacle when it comes to working in science: They are consistently perceived as less accomplished and capable simply because of their gender.

The study

In the study, professors in biology, chemistry and physics at three public and three private universities were asked to evaluate an application from a recent grad who was looking for a job as a lab manager.
Each professor received the exact same profile of the candidate with one difference: Half of the descriptions named the candidate as John, and the other half as Jennifer.
They were each asked to rate the candidate’s competence, asked whether they would be willing to hire or mentor this person and then pick a starting salary for him/her. John was given a 4 out of 7 rating for competence, and Jennifer a 3.3. John was more likely to be named a candidate they might hire or mentor, and he was, on average, offered $30,328. Jennifer? Almost 13% less: $26,508.
The bias did not correlate to age, sex, discipline or tenure status, meaning everyone was equally biased even though women outnumber men as biology majors, while the gender balance is skewed the other way in physics.
“I think we were all just a little bit surprised at how powerful the results were — that not only do the faculty in biology, chemistry and physics express these biases quite clearly, but the significance and strength of the results was really quite striking,” said Jo Handelsman, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale and the senior author on the paper told The New York Times.
The results were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cause and implications

The researchers tried to uncover why the professors deemed Jennifer less hire-able and offered her a lower salary, and the root cause is that they thought that Jennifer was less competent. As Smithsonian magazine put it:

The researchers’ analysis revealed that the disparities in hireability and salary offered were mostly due to differences in perceived competence for the female applicant. That is, when the researchers controlled for competence—by comparing only professors’ evaluations that had provided similar ratings for competency for both applicants—the hiring gap disappeared. A root reason for why females are underrepresented in science, then, could be this bias for inexplicably viewing them as less competent, thus making it more difficult for them to get jobs.

“Our results raise the possibility that not only do such women encounter biased judgments of their competence and hireability, but [they] also receive less faculty encouragement and financial rewards than identical male counterparts,” the researchers wrote.
On its face, this study may seem like bad news for women, but it’s really bad news for everyone: If we are unconsciously not cultivating half of the population to their full potential, then society as a whole suffers. Women may not have opportunities to make discoveries such as cures for cancer or AIDS, or to help us invent the next big technological breakthrough, which in turn means the rest of us may not get to enjoy these fruits either.

The science of brain freeze

Everyone loves summer with its long days, blazing sun and ice-cold drinks – all too often accompanied with the head-splitting ...

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How Humans Lost Our Chance at a Third Eye

Most animals had a shot at having a third eye, but blew it in favor of questionably more helpful things, like hair. Read more

The Life And Times Of Naked Mole-Rats

Biologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago believe the subterranean lifestyle of the blind, buck-toothed, finger-sized naked mole-rat may yield clues to keeping brain cells alive after heart attack or stroke.

YouTube link

Orphaned piglet taken under the wing of Mother Goose

Babe the orphaned piglet has been taken under the wing of his own Mother Goose. Things looked bleak for the young animal, whose siblings all died when they were abandoned by their mum. But the piglet’s luck changed when he was adopted by Lucy the two-year-old goose after a chance encounter when he escaped from his enclosure.
The pair, both orphans, have been inseparable ever since and spend hours snuggled up together. Babe’s owner Diane Lewis, 42, who runs a small holding on the Isle of Arran, Scotland, said: “Babe was the only pig to survive from his brothers and sisters when their mother didn’t want them. We found him in the back of the enclosure hiding so we took him in.

“I wouldn’t dream of fairing up a bird and a pig normally but Baby was living in the house when one day he escaped and ran into Lucy’s enclosure. They just hit it off. In my experience you wouldn’t get a goose and a pig anywhere near each other put I don’t think they know what animal they are because they have never been around other geese or pigs and they are both still young. Lucy has really taken him under her wing. It’s an unusual combination but they look very cute when they are together.”

Babe, who is just a few months old, is being hand reared by Diane using sheep’s milk, and when he is not wandering around the family home he is in the garage with Lucy, who was hatched from an incubated egg. Diane added: “Babe eats anything but her favorite is Ready brek. He can’t get enough of it. He means the world to us and we are really glad him and Lucy are such good friends.”

Crocodile found roaming free in Qantas flight's cargo hold

A crocodile escaped from its container on a Qantas flight last week, and was found roaming free in the cargo hold when the plane touched down.

Qantas confirmed the large reptile had managed to break free during a flight from Brisbane to Melbourne, and was discovered by a baggage handler when he opened the cargo hold.

The roaming croc was quickly and safely captured without incident. In a statement, Qantas said Australian Air Express is investigating the how the crocodile managed to roam free in the aircraft's cargo hold.

"The investigation is focusing on whether it had been loaded appropriately on delivery to AaE (Australian air Express)," the statement said.

Snake found with head at each end of body

A Greenwood County family have a snake with two heads. Savanna Logan and her brother, Preston, have been amazed by this two-headed snake and showing it off since workmen at their South Carolina home found it three weeks ago.

Two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of. It said they're formed like Siamese twins. Typically, two-headed snakes have two heads on one side, versus the one this family found, with one on each end.

Savanna Logan's grandfather took the snake to the Ware Shoals High School biology department. Teachers told him this was a "rough earth" snake and not a baby. It was nothing they'd seen before, with two heads, two tongues and four eyes.

YouTube link.

 "One head's bigger and one's more dominant than the other, but they both seem to control the body, the main head will do one thing then the other part is trying to go the opposite direction," said Savanna Logan's mother, Tina Stewart. Savanna's grandfather has been taking care of the snake. He said he's seen it multiple times, crawl one way, stop, then pick up the other head and crawl the other way.

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