In 2008, daylight time ends on November 2. Daylight time and time zones in the U.S. are defined in the U.S. Code, Title 15, Chapter 6, Subchapter IX - Standard Time. See history of daylight time at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.php

A number of industries, including financial services firms and internet retailers, have anticipated a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the patenting of business methods. In a 9-3 decision, the court upheld a ruling made by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences that denied a patent for a method of hedging in commodities trading developed by Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw. (Here’s the breaking news story by Ashby Jones. The LB wrote about the Bilski case here and here.) The ruling in the case, called In re Bilski, largely disavowed the controversial State Street Bank case of 1998. There, the Federal Circuit opened the door to business method patents, which had then been excluded from patent protection, by granting protection to a system for managing mutual fund accounts.
WSJ Law Blog October 30, 008

August Data: Americans Drove 15 Billion Fewer Miles than a Year Ago
News release: Americans are continuing a 10-month-long decline in driving habits, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters announced. The decline is putting new pressure on the way road, bridge and transit projects are funded at a time of record growth in transit ridership, showing the need for a new approach for funding transportation construction. In August 2008, Americans drove 15 billion fewer miles, or 5.6 percent less, than they did in August 2007--the largest ever year-to-year decline recorded in a single month, Secretary Peters said. She added that over the past 10 months, Americans have driven 78 billion fewer miles than they did in the same 10 months the previous year. Texans alone drove 1.3 million fewer miles, the Secretary added.
FHWA’s “Traffic Volume Trends” reports for August 2008

Unintended Consequences: Ten Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Electronic Frontier Foundation: "This document, Unintended Consequences: Ten Years under the DMCA, collects reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. It will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. The latest version can always be obtained at EFF.org. This document is Version Five. The previous version, from April of 2006, is available here."

After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced October 28. The nonprofit paper is currently published Monday through Friday, and will move to online only in April, although it will also introduce a Sunday magazine. Earlier this year, The Capital Times in Madison, Wis. went online only, and The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis., announced it would publish online except for two days a week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29paper.html?hp
See CSM at http://www.csmonitor.com/

Definitions of maverick http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Maverick&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Halloween's origins date back about 2,000 years, to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts lived in the cold parts of Northern Europe— in Britain, Ireland, and the north of France— and so for them, the new year began on November 1st, the end of the fall harvest and the beginning of winter. The night before the new year, on October 31st, the division between the world of the living and the world of the dead dissolved, and the dead could come to earth again. This was partly bad and partly good— these spirits would damage crops and cause sickness, but they also helped the Celtic priests, the druids, to tell the future, to make predictions about the coming year. The druids built huge bonfires, and regular people put out their own fires in their homes and crowded together around these fires, where they burned sacrifices for the gods, told each other's fortunes, and dressed in costumes— usually animal skins and heads. At the end of the celebration, they took a piece of the sacred bonfire and relit their own fires at home with this new flame, which was meant to help them stay warm through the long winter ahead.
First the Romans co-opted Samhain and combined it with their festivals, and then the Christians co-opted both the Celtic and Roman celebrations. In the ninth century, the pope decided that these pagan festivals needed to be replaced with a Christian holiday, so he just moved the holiday called All Saints' Day from May 13 to November 1. All Saints' Day was a time for Christians to honor all the saints and martyrs of their religion. The term for All Saints' Day in Middle English was Alholowmesse, or All-hallowmass. This became All-allows, and so the night before was referred to as All-hallows Eve, and finally, Halloween. The Writer’s Almanac

Monitor Election Problems Nationwide with OurVoteLive.org
Search by State or County for Real-Time Voter Reports on Election Day - Reporters, bloggers, and voters across the country can monitor problems at the polls on Election Day on OurVoteLive.org, a project built and hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of Election Protection, the nation's largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition, and its toll-free voter-assistance hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE.

Your do-not-call registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm. https://www.donotcall.gov/

Authors, Publishers, and Google Reach Landmark Settlement
News release: The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. Under the agreement, Google will make payments totaling $125 million. The money will be used to establish the Book Rights Registry, to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees. The settlement agreement resolves Authors Guild v. Google, a class-action suit filed on September 20, 2005 by the Authors Guild and certain authors, and a suit filed on October 19, 2005 by five major publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) Inc., both part of Pearson; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and Simon & Schuster, Inc. part of CBS Corporation. These lawsuits challenged Google’s plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.
The Future of Google Book Search - Our groundbreaking agreement with authors and publishers.
Related postings on Google Book Search

What does Google book scan settlement mean to Viacom? We’ll say at the outset that the answer, at least according to Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, is zippo. “I would not read anything into the structure,” Drummond told the WSJ. The settlement must be approved by a federal court. As the NYT points out, the settlement leaves unanswered the issue of whether Google’s unauthorized scanning constitute fair use for copyright purposes.
Now back to Viacom, which is suing Google for $1 billion, alleging that Google-owned YouTube has been illegally hosting its proprietary content. (We wrote about the spat, which awaits trial in the Southern District of New York, back in July when the judge in the case caused a firestorm by ruling that Google must hand over info about which users watched which videos on YouTube.) Does the Google settlement mean a similar settlement could be in the offing with Viacom? WSJ Law Blog October 29, 2008

Quote: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Residents of Lancaster, California had a road with grooves in a quarter-mile strip that, when a car drove over them, played a recognizable excerpt of The William Tell Overture. It was created for a car commercial, but neighbors complained about the noise. So, it was torn up and will be built at a different spot. Comments and demonstrations are available on YouTube.

October 30 is the birthday of the second president of the United States, John Adams, born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1735. He was a lawyer, a writer, and a philosopher, famous for the articles he wrote in opposition to the British Stamp Act. Even though John Adams supported the American patriot cause, he agreed to defend the British soldiers who killed civilians during the Boston Massacre, and he managed to get most of them acquitted.
On October 30, 1938 a radio broadcast based on a science fiction novel caused mass hysteria across New England: Orson Welles's adaptation of War of the Worlds. The first part of the broadcast imitated news bulletins and announced that Martians had invaded New Jersey. There was a disclaimer at the beginning of the program explaining that it was fictional, but many people tuned in late and missed the explanation. So they panicked; some people fled their homes and many were terrified. War of the Worlds (1898) was a novel by H.G. Wells set in 19th-century England. Orson Welles kept the same plot but updated it and set it in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The Writer’s Almanac

Reversal of Fortune: A New Look at Concentrated Poverty in the 2000s
The Federal Reserve System and its 12 member banks partnered with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program to produce a new, in-depth look at concentrated poverty in America. The two-year study, The Enduring Challenge of Concentrated Poverty in America - Case Studies from Communities Across the U.S., October 2008, profiles 16 high-poverty communities across the United States, investigating the historical and contemporary factors associated with their high levels of economic distress.
Related postings on poverty

Committee Holds Hearing on the Role of Federal Regulators in the Financial Crisis
"The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held holding a hearing titled, The Financial Crisis and the Role of Federal Regulators on, Thursday, October 23, 2008. The hearing examined the roles and responsibilities of federal regulators in the current financial crisis. A preliminary hearing transcript (201 pages, PDF) is available for download." Related postings on financial system

Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008
"The final Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 finds more people are reporting problems with health care bills, and paying for health care retains a solid hold on the public’s list of their top economic concerns. About one in three Americans now report their family has had problems paying medical bills in the past year, up from about a quarter saying the same two years ago. Almost one in five (18%) of Americans report household problems with medical bills amounting to more than $1,000 in the past year.
Nearly half (47%) of the public reports someone in their family skipping pills, postponing or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. For example, just over one-third say they or a family member put off or postponed needed care and three in ten say they skipped a recommended test or treatment – increases of seven percentage points from last April’s tracking poll which asks the same question." Key Findings: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 – October 2008

ABA Journal Examines FDA and Pre-emption
ABA Journal, November 2008: The Pre-emption Prescription - The FDA is claiming total responsibility for drug and medical device safety.
"The FDA had been signaling its new attitude of tort reform regarding prescription drugs and medical devices since 2001, when a new administration at the FDA began gearing up to file “friend-of-the-court” briefs in state and federal courts claiming that federal regulations pre-empted the power of states to enforce deficiencies—or even deceptions—in prescription drug warnings. To critics like James O’Reilly [Univer¬sity of Cincinnati College of Law], FDA pre-emption is part of a series of legal and political maneuvers that all but neu¬tered the federal agency in the public eye as a regulator of public health and safety. To supporters, the agency has become far more responsive to the public need for development of new drugs and medical devices."

More on palinode, palindromes
From Steve Benko (steve.benko gecapital.com) "Is Wasillah all I saw? Si!"
From Walter Desmond (w.desmond sbcglobal.net) In anticipation of one of the VP words (palindrome), I quote candidate Biden, in comparing how many time he's been around the foreign policy track vs. his opponent: “Palin I lap." She in all grace, shows her bubbling informality by replying: "Yo, Joe, O joy!"
From Michael Shpizner (mshpizner us.fujitsu.com) "Wasilla's all I saw."
(I wish I could take credit for it, but alas, I didn't create it.) Regardless of one's political persuasion, that's a thing of beauty, is it not? A.Word.A.Day

On October 28, 1636 Harvard University was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just 16 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.
October 28 is the birthday of Evelyn Waugh, (books by this author) born in London, England, in 1903. He's the author of Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Decline and Fall (1928).
October 28 is the birthday of poet John Hollander, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1929. His newest book, A Draft of Light, was published in 2008. John Hollander said, "I want my poems to be wiser than I am, to know more about themselves than I do." The Writer’s Almanac

Quaker organization posts English translation of U.S.-Iraq military agreement
Source: American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an international peace and social justice organization, has posted the first public English translation of the latest status of forces agreement between the U.S and Iraqi administrations on its web site. If ratified in Iraq, the agreement would permit U.S. troops to remain the country once the United Nations mandate ends this year and may begin the process of establishing permanent U.S. military bases there. Full Document (PDF; 182 KB)

New GAO Report (PDFs)
Source: Government Accountability Office
1. Federal Energy Management: Agencies Are Acquiring Alternative Fuel Vehicles but Face Challenges in Meeting Other Fleet Objectives
Highlights ||| Full Report

A draft 'Applicant Guidebook' for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), is now available for review and comment at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-comments-en.htm. The draft Guidebook provides information for those interested in applying for new generic top-level domains. "Since ICANN was founded 10 years ago, one of the foundational principles has been to support competition and consumer choice in generic top-level domains. That competition is meant to promote innovation and enhance user choice and satisfaction" said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Every year, public libraries and schools across the country field hundreds of requests from parents, public officials and activists pressing for the removal of books they deem inappropriate. That includes literary classics, human sexuality manuals and, occasionally, even the dictionary, according to the American Library Association. ALA has logged more than 9,600 requests to remove books from library shelves, summer reading lists and school classrooms since 1990. A sortable list of challenged books, 2003–2008 is at the following link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-10-22-challengedbooks_N.htm

barrack (BAR-uhk, the first syllable is the same as in barrel)
verb tr., intr.: 1. To shout in support: to cheer 2. To shout against: to jeer
noun: A building used to house soldiers.
The verb sense of the word is perhaps from Northern Ireland dialectal barrack (to brag).
The noun sense is from French baraque, from Italian baracca or Spanish barraca (hut, tent). A.Word.A.Day

According to Tarot historian Tom Tadfor Little, traditional playing cards were first seen in Europe in 1375, having been brought over from the Islamic societies where they had been used for centuries before that. It appears that the first Tarot decks were created as a game. There were four suits with cards numbered one through ten and also court cards that included a queen, king, knight and page. The deck also included 22 symbolic picture cards that did not belong to any suit. The decks were used to play a game called triumph that was similar to bridge. In triumph, 21 of the 22 special picture cards were permanent trump cards. The game spread quickly to all parts of Europe. People began referring to as tarocchi, which is an Italian version of the French word tarot, around 1530. In 1781, in France and England, followers of the occult discovered Tarot cards. They saw the symbolic pictures of the cards as having more meaning than the simple trump cards they were used for at the time. They used the cards as a divination tool, and occult writers wrote about "the Tarot." http://science.howstuffworks.com/tarot-card6.htm

The Erie Canal opened on October 26, 1825. It was built to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes. The canal was 360 miles long, 40 feet wide, and four feet deep—just deep enough to float barges carrying 30 tons of freight. When the canal was finished, cannons were lined up along the towpath just barely in earshot of each other. They fired one after another from Lake Erie to New York City, finishing the relay in 81 minutes. The Writer’s Almanac

shunpike (SHUN-pyke) noun
a side road used to avoid the toll on or the speed and traffic of a superhighway
America's love affair with the automobile and the development of a national system of superhighways (along with the occasional desire to seek out paths less-traveled) is a story belonging to the 20th century. So the word "shunpike," too, must be a 20th-century phenomenon, right? Nope. Toll roads have actually existed for centuries (the word "turnpike" has meant "tollgate" since at least 1678). In fact, toll roads were quite common in 19th-century America, and "shunpike" has been describing side roads since the middle of that century, almost half a century before the first Model T rolled out of the factory. M-W Word of the Day

New on LLRX.com: A Compilation of Legal Problem-Solving Models
The Art of Written Persuasion: From IRAC to FAILSAFE - A Compilation of Legal Problem-Solving Models - Troy Simpson's third column focuses on "a process model of problem-solving that provides a useful framework, because it offers a systematic, non-random way of tackling problems."

Seeds of a Perfect Storm: Genetically Modified Crops and the Global Food Security Crisis
Seeds of a Perfect Storm: Genetically Modified Crops and the Global Food Security Crisis, Nina Fedoroff, Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Administrator of USAID Inaugural Lecture in the Jefferson Fellows Distinguished Lecture Series, Washington, DC, October 17, 2008
"The population has more than doubled again since the middle of the 20th century and the population experts are expecting another roughly 3 billion people to be added to the planet’s population by midcentury. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 billion people.”

palinode (PAL-uh-noad)
noun: A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier poem
From Greek palinoidia, from palin (again) + oide (song) It's the same palin that shows up in the word palindrome. A.Word.A.Day

Famous authors
Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 19070-May 8, 1988) was one of the most influential and controversial authors in science fiction. He was the first science-fiction writer to break into mainstream general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction, and he was among the first authors of bestselling novel-length science fiction in the 1960s. For many years Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the Big Three of science fiction. He won seven Hugo Awards for his novels and films, and the first Grand Master Award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement. http://www.shortopedia.com/N/E/Nebula_Grand_Masters

On October 24, 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect, which established the 40-hour work week and a minimum wage. The first minimum wage was 25 cents per hour.
On October 24, 1901 Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive going over the Niagara Falls. She was 63 years old and had no money. She hoped that the stunt of going over the falls in a barrel would bring her fame and fortune. She got the idea while reading a newspaper article about the upcoming Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, so she knew there would be a big audience. She had a custom barrel made to order by a Michigan company that normally made barrels for kegs of beer. It was pushed into the river at 4:05 p.m. and it headed toward the Canadian side. Shortly after, Annie and the barrel plunged over the falls. It took about 35 minutes from the time Annie pushed off shore to when she was pulled out of the water by rescuers. She got out of the barrel unharmed, except for a few bruises and a small gash on her forehead. Her first words after she emerged were, "Nobody ought ever to do that again."
She had planned a big lecture tour following the stunt, but it wasn't very successful. She tried to earn money by posing in photographs with her barrel, but that didn't work either, and neither did trying to write a novel. However, several poems were written about her. John Joseph O'Regan wrote:
"All hail to the Queen of the Mist,
Brave Anna Edson Taylor;
She has beaten all former records,
By her courage, grit and valor."
And P. M. Reynolds wrote:
"Since earth's creation down the stormy way,
All human feats have been surpassed today.
Mrs. Edson Taylor, in her barrel sound,
Through the wild rapids did in safety bound." The Writer’s Almanac

Federal Reserve approves final amendments to rules for reporting price information on higher-priced mortgage loans
News release: "The Federal Reserve Board has approved final amendments to Regulation C that revise the rules for reporting price information on higher-priced mortgage loans. The changes are intended to improve the accuracy and usefulness of data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
Regulation C currently requires lenders to collect and report the spread between the annual percentage rate (APR) on a mortgage loan and the yield on a Treasury security of comparable maturity if the spread is greater than 3.0 percentage points for a first lien loan or greater than 5.0 percentage points for a subordinate lien loan. This difference is known as a rate spread. Under the final rule, a lender will report the spread between the loan's APR and a survey-based estimate of APRs currently offered on prime mortgages of a comparable type ("average prime offer rate") if the spread is equal to or greater than 1.5 percentage points for a first lien loan or equal to or greater than 3.5 percentage points for a subordinate-lien loan. The Board will publish average prime offer rates based on the Primary Mortgage Market Survey® currently published by Freddie Mac. The Board will conduct its own survey if it becomes appropriate or necessary to do so...The final rule is effective October 1, 2009. The Board's Federal Register notice is here."

Oklahoma, apparently, is one of four states—the others are Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi—to pass a law that mandates ultrasounds for pregnant women prior to getting an abortion. Over at Slate, Emily Bazelon has an essay entitled “Required Viewing: Oklahoma’s gallingly paternalistic ultrasound law.” In Oklahoma, reports Bazelon, the law, which is scheduled to take effect next month, requires that either the doctor performing the abortion or a “certified technician” do the ultrasound, “provide a simultaneous explanation of what the ultrasound is depicting,” and “display the ultrasound images so that the pregnant woman may view them.” The patient then has to certify in writing that the doctor or technician complied.
WSJ Law Blog October 22, 2008

Rand: Unconventional Fossil-Based Fuels
News release: "Alternative sources of fossil fuels such as oil sands and coal-to-liquids have significant economic promise, but the environmental consequences must also be considered, according to a RAND Corporation study. The study by RAND, a non-profit research organization, provides a review of coal-to-liquids and Canadian oil sands technologies, considers possible impacts on fuel costs from future limitations on carbon dioxide emissions, and compares costs of the alternative fossil fuels to conventional petroleum fuels in 2025. The study was funded by the National Commission on Energy Policy."
Unconventional Fossil-Based Fuels Economic and Environmental Trade-Offs by Michael Toman, Aimee E. Curtright, David S. Ortiz, Joel Darmstadter, Brian Shannon
Related postings on climate change

Google Energy Saving Calculator and Powering a Clean Energy Revolution
Official Google Blog: "We've created a handy energy saving calculator to help you see how simple steps can help you save money for treats -- and ward off scary carbon emissions. We've also put together a webpage full of tricks to help you save energy -- and money."

Recommended by a muse reader
An important book is What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, v. 5 of 11 in the Oxford History of the United States series by historian Daniel Walker Howe. It illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War. Covers an often ignored part of our country's history, but probably the most important era in terms of forming our sense of nation and politics.

Two books by John McPhee: The Control of Nature and Uncommon Carriers. Both fascinating and of universal and timely truth.

Timelines of History http://timelines.ws/
Find information by date: October 23 as example
1915 Oct 23, 25,000 women marched in New York City, demanding the right to vote.
Find information by year: 1547 as example
1547 French became the official language of France, displacing Latin.

bidentate DEN-tayt) adjective
Having two teeth or toothlike parts
From Latin bi- (two) + dens (tooth) A.Word.A.Day

Presidents who changed their names
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (1913–2006) was the thirty-eighth President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the fortieth Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. He was the first person appointed to the vice-presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, and became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Ford was the fifth U.S. President never to have been elected to that position, and the only one never to have won any national election. Ford was born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr. in Omaha. Nebraska where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford

William Jefferson Clinton, forty-second president (1993-2001) was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after his father died in a traffic accident. When he was four years old, his mother wed Roger Clinton, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. In high school, he took the family name. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html

Follow-up on paragoge (addition of letter or syllable at end of word)
From: Clive Cowper clivealive juno.com
The American science fiction author C.J. Cherryh offers a use of this word. Her real last name is Cherry, but her publisher thought that an author with that last name wouldn't be taken seriously. His solution: add a silent letter "h" to the end of the name.
From: Alan Ogden alanogden talktalk.net
The people of Bristol, U.K. often put an L on the end of words, especially if they end in a vowel. That is how the city got its name. It was originally Bristowe, the town with a bridge. A.Word.A.Day

House of Four Pillars in Maumee, Ohio at 405 East Broadway
In 1900, Theodore Dreiser wrote his famous novel, Sister Carrie in this house. The house was built in 1835 and altered to Greek Revival Style in 1844. Dreiser acquired it in 1899.
http://www.oll.state.oh.us/your_state/remarkable_ohio/marker_details.cfm?marker_id=54&file_id=4669

Favorite Web sites of members of the Toledo Area Librarians Association
You will have no trouble knowing which one is mine. http://delicious.com/librariansrule

October 21 is the birthday of science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin, (books by this author) born in Berkeley, California (1929). She grew up in a family of academics. Her mother, Theodora Kroeber, was a psychologist and writer. Her father, Alfred Kroeber, was the first person to receive a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University, and he was called the "Dean of American anthropologists." He specialized in researching Native American cultures, and he befriended the last member of a Native American tribe called the Yahi. This man, given the name "Ishi," was believed to be the last Native American to grow up in California completely untouched by the influence of white settlers. Most of Ishi's family had been massacred during the Gold Rush in California in 1865, and he and the remaining members of the Yahi went into hiding. Ishi wandered into town one day, when he was about 50 years old, and he was taken to the University of California Museum of Anthropology. Alfred devoted much of his life to studying Ishi's language, mannerisms, and habits in order to understand the now-extinct Yahi culture. He took extensive notes on Ishi, which his wife Theodora used to write the book Ishi in Two Worlds (1961).
In France, she met a history professor, fell in love, and within a few months she and Charles Le Guin were married. She moved around with her husband's teaching jobs, and she wrote poetry. Over the course of 10 years she wrote five novels, none of which were published. Publishers in the 1950s thought her writing was too "remote." So she began to write science fiction. She has published more than 100 short stories, 20 novels, 11 children's books, six volumes of poetry, and four volumes of translation. She's best known for her Earthsea books, a fantasy series that takes place in a world populated by wizards and dragons. She also wrote the Hainish Cycle—science fiction novels set in an imaginary universe where the residents are genderless. The Writer’s Almanac

At this year’s Kentucky Derby, the second-place finisher, Eight Belles, had to be euthanized after breaking both front ankles. In 2006, Barbaro, another Derby standout, was put down after suffering a leg injury at the Preakness Stakes. The tragic death of Eight Belles elicited cries from Washington over a lack of regulation. For a June article, Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Republican from Kentucky, told the WSJ that “Greed has trumped the health of the horse, the safety of the jockey and the integrity of the sport.” He criticized the sport’s leadership, citing its failure to ban the use of steroids and inability to implement rule changes and safety measures. WSJ Law Blog October 16, 2008

Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings 2008
The top ten include libraries in Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
http://www.haplr-index.com/HAPLR08_CorrectedVersionOctober8_2008.pdf

EPA: Car Shoppers Can Save Money and Time with 2009 Fuel Economy Guide
News release: "To help consumers make well-informed choices when purchasing new vehicles, EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) have unveiled the 2009 Fuel Economy Guide ...Each vehicle listing in the Fuel Economy Guide provides an estimated annual fuel cost. The online guide includes an interactive feature that allows consumers to insert their local gasoline prices and typical driving habits to receive a personalized fuel cost estimate. Fuel economy estimates now include the revised test methods implemented in model year 2008. These revised tests better reflect “real world” driving conditions and habits, including higher highway speed limits and use of accessories such as air conditioning."
The Green Vehicle Guide website - locate the cleanest and most fuel efficient vehicles
The 2009 fuel economy leaders within each class as well as the lowest fuel economy models

obambulate (o-BAM-byuh-layt)
verb tr.: To walk about
From Latin ob- (towards, against) + ambulare (to walk) Ultimately from the Indo-European root ambhi- (around) that is also the source of ambulance, alley, preamble, and bivouac. The first print citation of the word is from 1614. A.Word.A.Day

It is being billed as the ultimate book about the world and it is something of a landmark in its own right "Earth" -- the biggest atlas ever to be published -- promises to be a luxurious benchmark in cartography. Created by Millennium House, "Earth" -- complete with a clam shell case -- measures 610 x 469 millimeters and weighs in at over 30 kilos. The price is pretty hefty too. The leather bound, gilt-edged book will set you back around $3500. During production several cartographers' computers crashed and had to be upgraded because of the maps were so large and so detailed. But it all appears to be worth it. "Earth" is a lavish affair with 154 maps and over 800 photographs. The book also includes four monster-sized gatefolds which, unfurled, measure six x four feet (1.82 x 1.21 meters) and reveal pinpoint sharp satellite images including shots of the earth and sky at night. There will be a concise version of the atlas which will be much more affordable and portable. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/16/earth.atlas/index.html

Keepers (books I would read again)
Coming into the Country by John McPhee
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
Jurgen by James Branch Cabell
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

On October 18, 1896, Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull premiered in St. Petersburg. Most of the audience were confused and thought it was going to star a well-known comic actress. But when they realized she wasn't part of the cast, and that the play wasn't very funny, the audience rioted. The actors had only rehearsed a few times, and they kept forgetting their lines. The performance was a total failure, and Chekhov declared he would never write another play. But before the end of the year, he had begun work on Uncle Vanya (1897).
On October 19, 1781 in Yorktown, Virginia, General Charles Cornwallis and his army of 8,000 troops surrendered to George Washington and Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, ending the Revolutionary War. Together the Americans and the French had about 17,000 troops.
October 19 is the birthday of novelist Philip Pullman, (books by this author) born in Norwich, England, in 1946. He was a middle school teacher, and he taught his students Greek mythology and wrote plays based on those myths. He wrote a trio of novels that have been best-sellers for both children and adults: The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). He said, "We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. 'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever."
The Writer’s Almanac

Want to get out of your broadband Internet subscription, but don’t want to pay the early-termination fee? If so, you might pay attention to a lawsuit filed earlier today in Seattle federal court. Two former customers of Qwest Communications have filed a putative class-action lawsuit against Qwest, seeking to end early-termination fees for Internet subscribers. Click here for the WSJ story, from Andrew LaVallee; here for the complaint. Qwest declined to comment on the suit. WSJ Law Blog October 16, 2008
FDIC Announces Plan to Free Up Bank Liquidity
Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announces a new program—the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program—to strengthen confidence and encourage liquidity in the banking system by guaranteeing newly issued senior unsecured debt of banks, thrifts, and certain holding companies, and by providing full coverage of non-interest bearing deposit transaction accounts, regardless of dollar amount.
+ Statement by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair; U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, FDIC Joint Press
Conference
+ Fact Sheet: Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program

Tim Haney was about 12 when he and a couple of friends, playing a Halloween prank, took a historical plaque from a tree at the Vrooman Mansion in Bloomington, Illinois.
“I’ve been wondering for years how to give it back,” said Haney, who finally decided that “the time was right.” The plaque, which made reference to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas giving speeches under the tree, remained for decades under Haney’s mattress in his parents’ Bloomington home and later in his garage in Normal. About three weeks ago, Haney, 62, took the plaque to the Vrooman Mansion Street and told innkeeper Theora Stark his story.
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/10/03/news/doc48e697c93ab05766573529.txt

Weekly “Woof ’n’ Worship” service in Massachusetts
The services will include the prayer: “Dear Lord, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am,’”
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/state/x247288798/-Woof-n-Worship-service-welcomes-dogs-and-their-families-into-church

A plumbing mistake turned water into wine during a public celebration in Marino, Italy
"At the heart of the town's famous Sagra dell' Uva, or Grape Festival, is the moment when sparkling white wine flows from the fountains in the main square," BBC News reports. But this year locals and tourists had to make do with water, as bad plumbing meant the wine supply was switched by mistake to local homes."
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/10/oops-italians-g.html

Curious names
Jersey Shore in Pennsylvania was originally named Waynesburg by the two brothers, Reuben and Jeremiah Manning, who laid out the town circa 1785. Around the time that this was happening, a settlement arose on the eastern side of the West Branch Susquehanna River (Nippenose Township), opposite Waynesburg. A rivalry developed between the two settlements, and those on the eastern shore began referring to the settlement on the western shore as the "Jersey Shore," because the Manning family had relocated from New Jersey. The nickname became so fixed that in 1826 the original name of Waynesburg was officially abandoned and changed to Jersey Shore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore,_Pennsylvania

paragoge (par-uh-GO-jee) noun
The addition of a letter or syllable at the end of a word, either through natural development or to add emphasis. For example, height-th for height.
Via Latin, from Greek paragoge, from para- (beyond) + -agogue (leader).
A.Word.A.Day

FactChecking Debate Number 3
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_3.html


Maker of Dreamsicle Figurines Wins Tidy Verdict over KPMG
It’s not often that a Big Four accounting firm gets hit with a multi million-dollar jury verdict, as most either get dismissed or settled. But on October 10, KPMG LLP was hit with a $31.8 million verdict in a case alleging that the accounting firm negligently audited the books of a New Jersey company.
We don’t believe there is a factual basis for this verdict and [we] plan to appeal, a KPMG spokesman said. We’re confident that we’ll prevail on appeal.
The suit was brought by a California company called Cast Art Industries, which is no longer operational. It alleges that in 1998 and 1999 Papel Giftware Inc. of New Jersey and its parent company overstated their revenue and profits, in part by creating invoices for sales that never occurred and by purposely double-invoicing customers for orders that had been placed once. KPMG, which audited the company in those years, allegedly failed to disclose the inflated revenue. Cast Art Industries, which made giftware and collectibles, including the beloved Dreamsicle line of statuettes (one of which is pictured), acquired Papel in 2000 for $34 million—an amount allegedly lost when the accounting irregularity surfaced. WSJ Law Blog October 13, 2008

Monthly Budget Review: October 2008, A Congressional Budget Office Analysis, October 7, 2008
"CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit was about $438 billion in fiscal year 2008, $276 billion more than the shortfall recorded in 2007. Relative to the size of the economy, the 2008 deficit was equal to 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, compared with a deficit of 1.2 percent in 2007 and an average deficit of 2.6 percent over the 2002-2006 period. CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements and CBO’s projections; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2008 later this month."

The Economic Bailout: An Analysis of the Economic Emergency Stabilization Act
The Economic Bailout: An Analysis of the Economic Emergency Stabilization Act, Katalina M. Bianco, J.D., John M. Pachkowski, J.D., CCH - Wolters Kluwer Law & Business
"The current credit crisis, which led to the enactment of the EESA, has its deepest roots in the subprime mortgage crisis, known in the popular media as the “mortgage meltdown,” that came into prominence in 2007. While many experts originally believed that the mortgage crisis would be contained within the mortgage industry, few at that time predicted its vast reach into the financial markets."
Related postings on financial system

Health Care Reform and the Presidential Candidates
Source: New England Journal of Medicine
The editors asked Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, and Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, to describe their plans for reforming the U.S. health care system. Their statements follow. In order to explore their positions in greater depth, the Journal and the Harvard School of Public Health cosponsored a Perspective Roundtable on September 12, 2008, entitled “Health Care in the Next Administration” and featuring senior health policy advisors David Cutler for Senator Obama and Gail Wilensky for Senator McCain. A video of the symposium can be seen at www.nejm.org.
+ Access to Quality and Affordable Health Care for Every American (John McCain)
Americans deserve leadership for real health care reform that provides access to high-quality medical care and ends spiraling costs. But the road to reform does not lead through Washington and a hugely expensive, bureaucratic, government-controlled system. We have all tangled with the existing bureaucracy enough to know that such an approach would diminish, not improve, quality. Our challenge is to protect and improve the care that doctors, nurses, and hospitals deliver, while increasing the availability and affordability of health insurance for Americans. I believe we can do this in a simple but powerful way: restoring doctors and patients to the center of health care decisions.
+ Modern Health Care for All Americans (Barack Obama)
Doctors and other health care providers work in extraordinary times and have unrivaled abilities, but increasingly our health care system gets in the way of their sound medical judgment. Increasing uncompensated care loads, administrative rules, and insurers’ coverage decisions inappropriately influence the practice of medicine. Washington sends dictates but no help. We need health care reform now. All Americans should have high-quality, affordable medical care that improves health and reduces the burdens on providers and families. Reform must emphasize prevention, not just treatment of the sick; reduce medical errors and malpractice claims; and make the practice of medicine rewarding again. I believe that by working together we can make these goals a reality.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on October 14 upheld [opinion, PDF] a district court order requiring Ohio's secretary of state to establish a system that allows county elections boards to confirm newly registered voters' eligibility. The court, sitting en banc, vacated a stay [AP report] imposed by a Sixth Circuit panel last week. The temporary restraining order issued by the district court gives Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner [official website] until Friday, October 17 to furnish county elections officials with lists of prospective voters whose information in state databases contains discrepancies, or to provide the officials with access to the statewide voter registration database so they can resolve the discrepancies. An anti-fraud provision [text] of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) [FEC materials] requires state election and motor vehicles officials to match information between their databases to ensure voter eligibility.
Last week, the New York Times reported that thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states, including Ohio, had been removed from voter rolls [JURIST] against federal voting law. The Times article found that elections officials had violated HAVA by cross-checking voter rolls with lists from the Social Security Administration before using information from other sources, as required by the statute.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/10/sixth-circuit-orders-ohio-to-take.php

univocalic (yoo-niv-uh-KAL-ik)
noun: A piece of writing that uses only one of the vowels
adjective: Using only one vowel
From Latin uni- (one) + vocalic (relating to vowels), from vox (voice).
Here's an example of univocalic that makes use of only the vowel e: Seventh September. The longest one word univocalic is strengthlessness. Also see lipogram.
A.Word.A.Day

At the age of 33, Indian author Aravind Adiga has become the third debut novelist to win one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards. Last night in London, the 40th Booker Prize was awarded to Adiga for his novel “The White Tiger.” Adiga was born in Madras and lives today in Mumbai, but he spent his high school years in Australia and studied at Columbia and Oxford universities. He is also a former correspondent for Time magazine in India. Adiga has told the press that he credits the success of “The White Tiger” in part to his years spent living in both Sydney, Australia, and New York.
Adiga has also said that in creating the protagonist of “The White Tiger” he hoped to more vividly capture “the voice of [India’s] colossal underclass” rather than to portray the country’s poor as “mirthless humorless weaklings”--the image he feels has more often prevailed in literature.
Two other first-time novelists have won the prize: DBC Pierre won in 2003 for “Vernon God Little” and Arundhati Roy in 1997 for her novel “The God of Small Things.”
Adiga is the fifth Indian author and the second-youngest writer ever to win the $86,000 prize.
http://features.csmonitor.com/books/2008/10/15/first-time-novelist-wins-the-booker-prize/

October 16 is the birthday of American playwright Eugene O'Neill, (books by this author) born in a Broadway hotel room in New York City in 1888. His plays were the first American tragedies, the first to use slang, and the first to use special effects like dramatic lighting and masks. He wrote Desire Under the Elms (1924), Long Day's Journey Into Night (1955), and many other plays.
October 16 is the birthday of Noah Webster, (books by this author) born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1758. He spent 20 years working on an American dictionary that contained more than 70,000 words, and he did all the research and writing himself.
The Writer’s Almanac

Pennsylvania trip, October 9-12 where a patchwork quilt of autumn colors covered the mountains
After a family mini-reunion in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, we drove to West Chester to visit a Quaker (Friends) Meetinghouse. Quakers are not always silent--I know because I once directed choirs for them using a pump organ in an octagonal schoolhouse.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/road_less_trvled/2523426796/
Today, Birmingham Friends is still active, has meetings Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Thursday evenings, and has Sacred Harp singing twice a month.
http://www.birminghamfriends.org/
Then, we went to our high school (John Bartram) reunion. I remembered that the school was across from a GE factory, and was built to be used as a bomb shelter. A search gave me the following history: On February 5th, 1939, John Bartram High School located at the intersection of 67th Street and Elmwood Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opened its doors for the first time and welcomed 1,700 students into its newly constructed halls and classrooms. The art-deco building was designed for 2,750 students but frequently held 3,200 or more. It was one of the first Philadelphia high schools named after a prominent individual rather than a geographic region of the city. On December 4, 1986, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bartram_High_School
http://nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/PA/Philadelphia/state.html

In 2000, a united financial services industry persuaded Congress to allow a vast, unregulated market in derivatives, which are contracts in which investors essentially bet on the future price of a stock, commodity, mortgage-backed security or other thing of value. Derivatives—so named because their value derives from something else—also are known as hedges, swaps and futures. The bill barring most regulation of derivative trading was inserted into an 11,000-page budget measure that became law as the nation was focused on the disputed 2000 presidential election. It was sponsored by Republican Sens. Phil Gramm of Texas and Richard Lugar of Indiana—with support from Democrats, the Clinton administration and then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Few opposed it. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who helped negotiate the bill for Democrats, says he put aside his qualms because Wall Street and Greenspan were adamant that less regulation would help the stock market. "All of the Wall Street crowd, all of the investment firms, the Morgan Stanleys, the Goldman Sachs … that steamroller just rolled over anything," he says. Wall Street promised to police itself "and Congress bought it."
A bill barring derivatives from being regulated as futures contracts passed the House in October 2000, by a vote of 377-4. But Gramm, chairman of the banking committee, was not satisfied. Gramm told USA TODAY at the time he wanted language making clear that banking products could not be regulated by the commodities agency. After the fall election, leaders of both parties cut a deal and in December 2000 inserted it in the budget bill. "The work of this Congress will be seen as a watershed, where we turned away from the outmoded, Depression-era approach to financial regulation," Gramm said then.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-10-12-congress-meltdown_N.htm

The $700 billion firm From six firms asked to consider the job, Treasury picked Simpson Thacher as its lead legal advisor on the $700 billion bailout plan, Neel Kashkari — the man with the $700 billion wallet — said in a speech this morning. Here’s a WSJ story on Kashkari’s outline of Treasury’s rescue plan. WSJ Law Blog October 13, 2008

October 14 is the birthday of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, born in London in 1644. He was the son of an admiral, and even after he became a Quaker, he continued to wear splendid clothes and to carry his sword to Friends meetings.
The Writer’s Almanac

It started in the 19th century—Edison’s union of film and sound
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmrrg.html

Classics from the silver screen—an index of classical and opera music in feature films
http://home2.pacific.net.sg/~bchee/movies.html

In Toledo
“PHANTOM OF THE OPERA” (1925)
Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 7:30p.m.
Just in time for Halloween… the Phantom returns to the Lois M. Nelson Theatre of the Collingwood Arts Center, 2413 Collingwood Boulevard. Come and enjoy “the music of the night” in its original form. This favorite silent feature film will be fully accompanied by guest organist George Krejci on the mighty 7 rank Link-Bennett theatre pipe organ.
Admission $10.00
Call 419/244-2787 in advance for V.I.P. admission tickets $30.00 Includes reserved seating in the best seats in the house and a catered reception with George Krejci in the opulent Gerber Parlors.

Nonpartisan fact-checking groups according to Los Angeles Times
http://www.factcheck.org/
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/
http://www.politifact.org/truth-o-meter/
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-factcheck8-2008oct08,0,4017424,full.story

A litigation freeze among Citigroup, Wachovia and Wells Fargo has been extended until Friday, October 10 at 8 a.m. to give the parties a bit of time to reach a settlement over the bidding war for Wachovia. The WSJ reported this morning that a “quick resolution appeared increasingly unlikely,” and that Citi had reached out to other parties to join its bid. The talks, which are apparently continuing, are largely turning on ways to split up Wachovia’s assets between the two parties. WSJ Law Blog October 8, 2008

So many Route 666 signs went missing that New Jersey changed the route designation to 665. There's a joke in here somewhere about hell rides on Jersey roads, but it happens elsewhere in the country, as well. The former interstate 666, which runs through Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado, was renamed Route 491.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/10/01/devil-made-me-do-it-666-most-stolen-highway-road-sign/

Listening instead of watching--a potential recipe for disaster
A man's car got stuck on the Metro-North tracks in Bedford Hills, New York because he said his GPS told him to make a right turn. And it's not the first time this has happened there. It's the tool that has become indispensable for some--the GPS directional unit, which literally tells a driver where to turn to get to any destination.
http://wcbstv.com/local/gps.beford.hills.2.828972.html

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2003 speech had been made almost word-for-word two days before in Canberra by his former Australian counterpart, John Howard.
To prove the allegation, portions of the speeches were played side by side. Speech-writer Owen Lippert, who describes himself as an expert in intellectual property, apologized and announced his resignation. "Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader's speech," he said in a statement. "Neither my superiors in the office of the leader of the opposition nor the leader of the opposition was aware that I had done so." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7645593.stm

SEC Office of the Chief Accountant and FASB Staff Clarifications on Fair Value Accounting
News release: "The current environment has made questions surrounding the determination of fair value particularly challenging for preparers, auditors, and users of financial information. The SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant and the staff of the FASB have been engaged in extensive consultations with participants in the capital markets, including investors, preparers, and auditors, on the application of fair value measurements in the current market environment."

What is a derivative? A security, like an option or future, whose value is derived from another underlying security. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Derivative&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

October 8 is the birthday of R. L. Stine, (books by this author) born Robert Lawrence Stine in 1943 in Bexley, Ohio. He worked at a trade publication for the soft drink industry, and then at Scholastic, a children's literature publisher, where he edited their humor magazine. His first teen horror novel was called Blind Date (1986), and both R.L. Stine and Scholastic were shocked when it became a huge best-seller. So he wrote a whole series, called Fear Street, which debuted in 1989. It was the first modern series that appealed equally to boys and girls. It was so successful that he decided to write a series for younger kids, with less violence, less realism, and more monsters. That became the Goosebumps series. The Writer’s Almanac

The second presidential debate, from Belmont University in Nashville, starts at 9 p.m. ET October 7. Unlike the other two debates, audience members will determine the topics. Candidates will have 2 minutes each to answer, followed by a minute of discussion for each question. The audience will include 80 to 120 undecided voters identified by the Gallup Organization from more than 1.5 million people in the Nashville area. Moderator Tom Brokaw of NBC News will select the people who will ask the questions.

The three parties involved in the Wachovia litigation—Wachovia, Citigroup and Wells Fargo—have agreed to halt all litigation activity until noon Wednesday, October 8. Lawyers are waging a three-front battle.
New York State Court: On Saturday, Judge Charles Ramos granted Citi’s request to extend the “exclusivity agreement” between Citi and Wachovia, an order which was later shot down by the appellate division. In an order dated Sunday, Judge Ramos issued an order essentially stating that, regardless of the appellate court’s decision, the hearing would go forward. For now, it’s scheduled for Friday Oct. 10 at 11 a.m.
In the meantime, the complaint filed against Wachovia and Wells Fargo reached the public’s hands earlier Monday. Citi seeks some $60 billion in damages from the two companies and their directors. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story.
New York Federal Court: On Saturday afternoon, Wachovia filed its own suit against Citi in New York federal court asking for a preliminary injunction to keep Citi from getting in the way of the Wachovia/Wells Fargo deal. They rely, in part, on section 126(c) of the newly passed Bailout Bill, which, Wachovia argues, undoes some of the force of the exclusivity agreement. Judge Lewis Kaplan, of KPMG fame, has the case. He’s scheduled a hearing for Tuesday at 2 p.m. in his lower-Manhattan courtroom.
Mecklenberg County, North Carolina: Further complicating matters is a ruling made Sunday night by a judge in Mecklenberg County, N.C. Wachovia shareholders filed a putative class action against Citi, asking judge Robert Johnston to enjoin Citi from enforcing the exclusivity agreement. On Sunday, Judge Johnston granted the motion. Here’s the story from the Charlotte News & Observer.
WSJ Law Blog October 6, 2008

100 Incredibly Useful and Interesting Web sites according to PCWorld
http://www.pcworld.com/article/151769/100_web_sitesthe_alphabetical_list.html

Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Second Biennial Review, 2008, Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress, National Research Council
The Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP) was established in 2004 in response to a request from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), with support from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), based on Congress’s mandate in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000). The committee is charged to submit biennial reports that review the CERP’s progress in restoring the natural system. In periods of restricted funding and limited capability to move forward on many fronts, the ability to set priorities and implement them is critical. Much good science has been developed to support the restoration efforts, and the foundations of adaptive management have been established to support the CERP. To avert further declines, CERP planners should address major project planning and authorization hurdles and move forward expeditiously with projects that have the most potential for contributing to natural system restoration progress in the South Florida ecosystem.

Medical mystery
An Australian woman whose eyes clamp shut for three days at a time--then open up for the next three--has baffled specialists. Natalie Adler, 21, has been locked in the extraordinary routine for four years. Doctors believe she may be the only person in the world with her condition. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24413990-2,00.html

“The cities that Libbey built” Toledo and Ojai
Edward Drummond Libbey was largely responsible for transforming Toledo, Ohio into the glass-manufacturing capital of the world. He was also a major force in the creation of The Toledo Museum of Art, served as its first president, and bequeathed his collection of Dutch and English art to it.
Libbey spent winters in Ojai (O-hi) California before moving there permanently in 1917. He helped design, finance and build a new downtown there, and these buildings still stand. He built a park and gave it to the people of Ojai, and Libbey Park is home to the oldest continuously held tennis tournament in the world. Ojai citizens proposed a celebration to take place March 2 each year as a way of thanking Libbey for his gifts. He declined their offer to call it “Libbey Day” and suggested “Ojai Day” instead. The celebration now takes place in October, much of it around the Libbey Bowl amphitheater.
In Toledo Magazine October 2008

The Ojai tennis tournament is played on over 100 courts at over 30 locations throughout western Ventura County in California. 2008 is the 109th tournament.
http://www.ojaitourney.org/locations.shtml

In May, Halsey Minor—the 43-year-old, San Francisco-based founder of CNET who has an estimated net worth of more than $300 million—bought Edward Hicks’s “The Peaceable Kingdom With the Leopard of Serenity” for $9.6 million. But while New York law requires auction houses to disclose any economic interests they have in artworks they sell, Minor’s attorneys tell the WSJ that he purchased the work on advice from a Sotheby’s specialist and didn’t realize the auction house was selling the work to recoup money owed it by another collector. Here’s the WSJ story, and here’s the complaint. Sotheby’s, which claims that Minor’s suit has no merit and is a “smokescreen” to cover up his failure to pay for art he agreed to purchase, filed a separate suit against Minor last month for failure to pay for the Hicks painting and two others. WSJ Law Blog October 3, 2008

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 159,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 6.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported on October 3. Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while mining and health care continued to add jobs. The number of multiple jobholders fell by 398,000 in September to 7.7 million; multiple jobholders made up 5.3 percent of all employed persons.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, January - March 2008, by Robin A. Cohen, Ph.D.; Michael E. Martinez, M.P.H.; and Heather L. Free, M.P.H., Division of Health Interview Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics "From January-March 2008, 42.6 million persons of all ages (14.3%) were uninsured at the time of the interview, 55.3 million (18.5%) had been uninsured for at least part of the year prior to the interview, and 31.2 million (10.5%) had been uninsured for more than a year at the time of the interview."

Employee Tenure in 2008
The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2008, little changed from 4.0 years in January 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor has reported.
Information on employee tenure has been obtained from supplemental questions to the Current Population Survey (CPS) every 2 years since 1996. The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households that provides information on the labor force status, demographics, and other characteristics of the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over. Bureau of Labor Statistics

ACM award
Dr. Randy Pausch is probably best known for being the driving force behind the innovative virtual worlds programming environment Alice and its pedagogy of "playful learning." Alice lets students develop characters and their behaviors in 3D virtual worlds. Not only college students, but also high school and middle school students, learn to do this remarkably quickly using Alice's intuitive graphical user interface, rather than having to grapple with a textual syntax. Using Alice, he created the highly popular and successful course Building Virtual Worlds, in which students from diverse backgrounds learned to work in interdisciplinary teams to create interactive worlds and experiences. Dr. Pausch worked with his Ph.D. student Caitlin Kelleher in the creation and assessment of Storytelling Alice, in which the base technology was extended to provide support for storytelling to give middle school girls a positive first experience with computer programming. Learning to Program with Alice (2006), which he co-authored with Wanda Dann and Stephen Cooper, is in use in over 250 colleges and universities.
Among his other achievements, Dr. Pausch created SUIT, Simple User Interface Toolkit, and innovated formal user testing for theme park attractions and virtual reality. He tested major theme park attractions at DisneyQuest, EPCOT Center, and Disney's California Adventure. For his tools, pedagogy, mentoring, and inspiration not just to his students and colleagues but to our field, and indeed, through his landmark "Last Lecture," to the world at large, Randy Pausch is an exemplar for ACM’s Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award.

Last Lecture by Randy Pausch—please send home for viewing if you are at work.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=last+lecture+pausch&search_type=&aq=f

I before E,
Except after C
(Or when it's 'eigh',
As in 'neighbour' or 'weigh') The Writer’s Almanac

October 4 is the birthday of the man who said, "Language seems to me intrinsically comic—noises of the tongue, lips, larynx, and palate rendered in ink on paper with the deepest and airiest thoughts in mind and the harshest and tenderest feelings at heart." The humorist Roy Blount Jr., (books by this author) born in 1941 in Indianapolis.
October 4 is the birthday of Edward L. Stratemeyer, (books by this author) born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1862), who created the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and Nancy Drew. After writing about 150 books of his own, he created a team of ghostwriters to write books based on his outlines.
October 5 is birthday of architect Maya Lin, born in Athens, Ohio (1959), who was an architecture student at Yale when she entered the national competition for the design of a Vietnam Memorial, and won it. She beat out her own professor, who gave her a B- in his class.
On October 6, 1883 the Orient Express completed its first journey from Paris to Constantinople (now Istanbul.) It took less than 78 hours. The Orient Express is a luxury passenger train. It was made famous in part thanks to two novels: Graham Greene's Stamboul Train (1932) and Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934). The Writer’s Almanac

Registration lawsuits could shape election
Tim Jones Chicago Tribune correspondent October 2, 2008
In a furious, multistate campaign raging far from television cameras and cable TV chatter, scores of lawyers are arguing over the voting rights of perhaps millions of Americans who plan to cast ballots in the presidential election. This is the courtroom campaign beneath the presidential campaign, fought in politically strategic states including Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and others. The outcome of battles over voter registration, absentee ballots and the integrity of state voting lists could prove to be decisive in states where the margin of victory is expected to be slim. "Voter registration is likely to be the issue of the 2008 election season," said Daniel Tokaji, an election law specialist at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-voter-registrationoct02,0,1278791.story

2008-2009 Edition of U.S. Government Manual Now Online
"The 2008-2009 edition of the United States Government Manual is now available on GPO Access. As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies; international organizations in which the United States participates; and boards, commissions, and committees. The Manual begins with reprints of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The Manual is published as a special edition of the Federal Register (see 1 CFR 9.1)."

New GAO Reports: NASA, Climate Change, Coastal Zone Management, Lobbying Disclosure, Export Promotion
NASA: Agency Faces Challenges Defining Scope and Costs of Space Shuttle Transition and Retirement, GAO-08-1096, September 30, 2008
Climate Change: Federal Actions Will Greatly Affect the Viability of Carbon Capture and Storage As a Key Mitigation Option, GAO-08-1080, September 30, 2008
Influenza Pandemic: HHS Needs to Continue Its Actions and Finalize Guidance for Pharmaceutical Interventions, GAO-08-671, September 30, 2008
Coastal Zone Management: Measuring Program's Effectiveness Continues to Be a Challenge, GAO-08-1045, September 12, 2008
Lobbying Disclosure: Observations on Lobbyists' Compliance with New Disclosure Requirements, GAO-08-1099, September 30, 2008
Export Promotion: The Export-Import Bank's Financing of Dual-Use Exports, GAO-08-1182R, September 30, 2008

Joint Committee on Taxation Publications on Emergency Economic Stabilization Act
JCX-79-08 (October 1, 2008) Technical Explanation Of Title III (Tax Provisions) Of Division A Of H.R. 1424, The “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act Of 2008” Scheduled For Consideration By The Senate On October 1, 2008
JCX-78-08 (October 1, 2008) Estimated Budget Effects Of The Tax Provisions Contained In An Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute To H.R. 1424, Scheduled For Consideration On The Senate Floor On October 1, 2008
JCX-77-08 (October 1, 2008) Estimated Revenue Effects Of H.R. 7083, The “Charity Enhancement Act Of 2008,” As Passed By The House Of Representatives On September 27, 2008

Notice of Access to EPA Library Services Effective September 30, 2008
Follow up to previous postings on EPA library closures, from the September 24, 2008 Federal Register: "EPA is enhancing access to library services for the public and Agency staff. EPA will open previously closed libraries in its National Library Network, with walk-in access for the public and EPA staff. Other library locations will expand staffing, operating hours, or services. This notice provides information regarding how members of the public can access the libraries and services beginning September 30, 2008."
• "EPA's core library services and local collections are supported and supplemented by additional services and electronic resources. Public access to EPA's valuable document collections continues to be an essential function of the libraries. Thousands of EPA documents and reports can be accessed in full-text electronic format through the National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS). Members of the public can also search for EPA documents in the libraries' online catalog...Additional information about library locations, hours of operations, and available services can be found at http://www.epa.gov/libraries."

Our national march
Stars and Stripes Forever may be the most famous march in the world. It is recognized by the U.S. government as the official march of the United States (U.S. Code, Title 36, Section 304). http://www.dws.org/sousa/

Quote
If my nose were taken away I would have no memories.
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction

On August 21 Intel showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm’s annual Developer Forum in San Francisco. Electricity was sent wirelessly to a lamp on stage, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer. Previous wireless power systems consisted basically of firing lightning bolts from sending to receiving units. Intel researcher Josh Smith says the wireless power system is still in an early stage of development and much research remains before it can be brought to market.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2008/08/23/171455/Intel-cuts.htm

Debate schedule—check your local listings for times
VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
When: Thursday, October 2
Where: Washington University, St. Louis
Subject: Domestic and foreign policy
Moderator: PBS' Gwen Ifill

SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
When: Tuesday, October 7
Where: Belmont University, Nashville
Subject: Issues raised by audience members and submitted by Internet participants, in town hall format
Moderator: NBC's Tom Brokaw

THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
When: Wednesday, October 15
Where: Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Subject: Domestic policy
Moderator: CBS' Bob Scheiffer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/23/MNEU132TVK.DTL&type=politics

Google 2008 US Voter Info Guide
Find your voting location, registration information and more. Just enter your home address...
Google Public Policy Blog: "Our guide already includes voting locations for a number of states and the District of Columbia, and we are aiming to have voting information for all 50 states added by mid-October. We hope that this tool will equip voters with the information they need to make it to the polls on election day."

California is poised to become the first state to require large chain restaurants to notify customers of the nutritional content of menu items
The bill was one of 300 measures Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed on September 30 before the annual deadline to consider legislation. The law, SB 1420 by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, forces restaurant chains with at least 20 locations to reveal on brochures the amount of calories, saturated fat, carbohydrates and sodium of menu items beginning July 1—or, if not in a brochure, that they post calories on the menu. http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_10602752

Nevertheless dates at least to the 14th century, and has meant "notwithstanding"; "however"; "yet"; and "in spite of that." Just as nevertheless was created by joining together the words never, the, and less, so was regardless the product of regard plus less. The original (and now-archaic) sense of regardless described something "not meriting regard." Since the late 19th century, however, regardless has been attached to a verb to indicate its occuring "without regard to impeding elements, as of prudence, expense, or effort"; "despite everything." Sometime in the early part of the last century, irregardless was coined by blending irrespective and regardless. Irregardless is used—primarily in speech—to mean "regardless." M-W Word for the Wise

To your health
pes•to: sauce made especially of fresh basil, garlic, oil, pine nuts, and grated cheese
Etymology: Italian, from pesto, adjective, pounded, from pestare to pound
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pesto
For variety, substitute arugula, spinach or mushrooms for basil. Substitute walnuts or pistachios for pine nuts.

Use three physicians' skill: first, Dr Quiet,
Then Dr. Merriman and Doctor Diet. The Writer’s Almanac

DMCA junkies, start your engines. Once again, the movie industry is going after a new technology it believes violates copyright laws. The majors—including Walt Disney, Warners, News Corp.’s Fox, Universal, Paramount and Sony—are ganging up to sue RealNetworks Inc. over a new software program, called RealDVD, that lets consumers copy DVDs onto computers. Here are reports from the WSJ and the LAT. The complaint appears to have been filed under seal, but you can find RealNetwork’s opposition to the studios’ motion for a TRO here.
WSJ Law Blog October 1, 2008