| 1493 | Christopher Columbus arrives at the Caribbee Isles (Dominica) during his second expedition. |
| 1507 | Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini ("Mona Lisa"). |
| 1529 | The first parliament for five years opens in England and the Commons put forward bills against abuses amongst the clergy and in the church courts. |
| 1794 | Thomas Paine is released from a Parisian jail with help from the American ambassador James Monroe. He was arrested for having offended the Robespierre faction. |
| 1813 | American troops destroy the Indian village of Tallushatchee in the Mississippi Valley. |
| 1868 | Ulysses S. Grant elected the 18th president of the United States. |
| 1883 | A poorly trained Egyptian army, led by British General William Hicks, marches toward El Obeid in the Sudan–straight into a Mahdist ambush and massacre. |
| 1883 | The U.S. Supreme Court declares American Indians to be "dependent aliens." |
| 1892 | First automatic telephone exchange goes into operation in La Porte, Indiana. |
| 1896 | William McKinley is elected 25th president of the United States. |
| 1912 | The first all-metal plane flies near Issy, France, piloted by Ponche and Prinard. |
| 1918 | The German fleet at Kiel mutinies. This is the first act leading to Germany's capitulation in World War I. |
| 1921 | Milk drivers on strike dump thousands of gallons of milk onto New York City's streets. |
| 1935 | Left-wing groups in France form the Socialist and Republican Union. |
| 1957 | The Soviet Union launches Sputnik II with the dog Laika, the first animal in space, aboard. |
| 1964 | Lyndon B. Johnson is elected the 36th president of the United States. |
| 1964 | Robert Kennedy, brother of the slain president, is elected as a senator from New York. |
| 1983 | Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for the office of president of the United States. |
| 1992 | Arkansas Governor Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton is elected 42nd president of the United States. |
Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida.Huffington Post/Pollster.com concurs with Nate regarding victory and electoral votes. Nate predicts Obama with 305.3 electoral votes, and Romney with 232.7. HuffPo gives Obama 281 to Romney’s 191. Yes, HuffPo is more optimistic, but still gives Obama a healthy margin of victory.
Nate says the race isn’t too close to call. The only way that Romney wins now is because the polls were all statistically biased. A possibility, but not likely:
To be exceptionally clear: I do not mean to imply that the polls are biased in Mr. Obama’s favor. But there is the chance that they could be biased in either direction. If they are biased in Mr. Obama’s favor, then Mr. Romney could still win; the race is close enough. If they are biased in Mr. Romney’s favor, then Mr. Obama will win by a wider-than-expected margin, but since Mr. Obama is the favorite anyway, this will not change who sleeps in the White House on Jan. 20.
My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility.
Yes, of course: most of the arguments that the polls are necessarily biased against Mr. Romney reflect little more than wishful thinking.
Nevertheless, these arguments are potentially more intellectually coherent than the ones that propose that the leader in the race is “too close to call.” It isn’t.
As the presidential campaign enters its final weekend, the polling snapshot remains essentially unchanged. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney remain essentially deadlocked in most national surveys, but polls in battleground states continue to show Obama with just enough of an edge in states whose electoral votes would add up to more than the 270 needed to win.Now, polls don’t take into account one side trying to steal an election. Also, repugican dirty tricks should be expected, and are already happening. That’s why it’s important that folks not get too cocky about this. We still need to turn out and vote in higher numbers than the other side cheats.
With just four days remaining until the vote is counted, poll watchers should be on alert for any developing trends that might signal a late shift in voter preferences. As of this writing, there are a few hints, but none that rise to the level of statistical significance.
You'll want to read the rest at Wired.com.On Monday night, Hurricane Sandy hit the armory of the New York Army National Guard’s 69th Infantry Regiment, leaving the soldiers without power, hot water, or anything but the most rudimentary means of communicating with the outside world. So the next morning, the Regiment’s officers made an emergency plea — to the producers of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
As they had done for the last three years running, the lingerie company was holding its annual television event at the Regiment’s historic armory, located at 25th street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. For the show, the producers had hauled in eight massive 500 kilowatt generators. Of course, the producers said, we’d be happy to help. Hours later, the lights flashed back on.
“We were dead in the water until Victoria’s Secret showed up,” says Capt. Brendan Gendron, the Regiment’s operations officer.
The bigger issue now is whether President Obama and the Democrats will actually reach out to people like this after the election.“Now four years ago, ladies and gentleman, the president sounded so good. Remember the rise of the oceans, which began to slow, the planet would began to heal,” Davis said. “Now I don’t know about the oceans; ask Mayor Bloomberg and Al Gore about that.”
The fatal meningitis epidemic sweeping the united states can now be traced to the failure of then-gov. Mitt Romney to adequately regulate the Massachusetts pharmaceutical company that is being blamed for the deaths. - sMore
More than 80,000 lbs. of walnuts stolen; Tehama deputies say delivery driver is the suspectEmployees told sheriff's deputies that the driver of a white semi with a Russian accent picked up the load on Oct. 19. The walnuts were purchased by F.C. Bloxom and Co., a Seattle-based company, and to be delivered to Miami.
While investigating the strange report, deputies found out a man who matched the description of that delivery driver had picked up an order of 40,000 walnuts from Los Molinos on Oct. 23 that were supposed to be taken to Texas, deputies said.
Deputies checked with the trucking company hired by San Antonio-based Hill Country Bakery and revealed that the man who took the walnuts wasn't actually the one hired for the job, deputies said.
Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents, Since We Can’t Eliminate ThemThis approach doesn’t entirely invalidate existing computational idea patents, because they would continue to apply to implementations using special-purpose hardware. This is an advantage because it eliminates an argument against the legal validity of the plan. The U.S. passed a law some years ago shielding surgeons from patent lawsuits, so that even if surgical procedures are patented, surgeons are safe. That provides a precedent for this solution.
Software developers and software users need protection from patents. This is the only legislative solution that would provide full protection for all.
We could then go back to competing or cooperating … without the fear that some stranger will wipe away our work.
Vision may be less important to “seeing” than is the brain’s ability to process points of light into complex images ...
Since the age of dinosaurs, most species of day-active mammals have retained the imprint of nocturnal life in their eye ...
The scans showed that when meditating on compassion, Ricard's brain produces a level of gamma waves -- those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory -- "never reported before in the neuroscience literature", Davidson said.Ricard is the author and photographer of several books including Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill.
The scans also showed excessive activity in his brain's left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, giving him an abnormally large capacity for happiness and a reduced propensity towards negativity, researchers believe.
Amateur
photographer Mark Bridger was at the Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool,
England, when he spotted a ghost-like figure staring out of a brick house
window. He's just found Gandalf the Grey (Owl, that is):Gandalf the Great Grey Owl gets scared flying out in the open so his owners have built his aviary inside a brick shed. He now spends his days watching the world go by out of his window. "He is a bit of a wuss as he doesn't like flying in big open spaces," said owner Janet Southard [...]The Daily Telegraph has the story: here.
"When we moved here we put him in the shed temporarily while we built his aviary outside. "But he didn't want to move so now he has an aviary inside the lovely red brick shed.
