“Investors face the ultimate clash: Should I stay or go?”
Though it should be, “Should I stay, or should I go?”
Day: October 28, 2008
Diva 4 President
Click here, click there, click everywhere. Then click again.
Super dudes
When you have three boys you need several sizes of Superman pajamas.
You may click the image for a larger version.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over
Omigod the polls are tightening
Via Oliver Willis
Wall Street
Stocks are up big today. The Dow jumped nearly 11%.
I hope you got the memo last night.
Best line of the day, so far
“If you had the power to pick your next-door neighbors, you would pick Tony and Marie Hillerman. They are smart, funny, compassionate, unpretentious human beings God gave us as something to strive toward.”
Jim Belshaw, Albuquerque Journal
NewMexiKen has read most of Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee mysteries, and more, and I’ve been wanting to say something about him since his death at age 83 Sunday here in Albuquerque. I’ll let Belshaw’s line serve.
I voted
Just sayin’.
Best line of the day, so far
In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling her “a whack job.”
They’re getting warmer.
Poll Porn
Again, giving credit where it is due, I have stolen the title of this post from Atrios.
Pew says 15% say they have already voted and Obama is beating McCain among that group 53% to 34%. In a poll of registered voters taken October 23-26, Obama leads 52-36; 53-38 among likely voters.
Reason Magazine has calculated that even if McCain gets every undecided vote, Obama still wins 306 electoral votes.
And FiveThirtyEight.com tells of a study that says for the presidential election at least, New Mexicans have the greatest chance of having their one vote matter.
Some good lines
- And out on the campaign trail this week, John McCain said that Barack Obama is already “measuring the drapes” in White House. But I understand Sarah Palin is already driving McCain around to look at assisted living facilities.
- And yesterday in Florida, Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View” appeared onstage with Sarah Palin. She’s a big supporter. Elisabeth’s speech was interrupted by hecklers who police later identified as Whoopi, Barbara, and Joy.
- And after his big speech in North Carolina today, Senator Joe Biden said he was experiencing a sore throat, lost his voice. Boy, the good news doesn’t stop for Barack Obama. Just one lucky break after another. It’s unbelievable!
— Jay Leno
Emerging Markets
The financial crisis this week is the implosion of the “emerging markets.”
What’s an emerging market?
They’re the rich poor countries — China, India, Russia, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela. (As opposed to the rich countries like the U.S., Western Europe, Japan.)
What’s the problem?
Think of the emerging markets as people buying more house than they can afford. These countries showed some economic progress, borrowed big, now can’t pay back the loans in the global slowdown because their products or commodities are depressed — and/or because they spent the money on luxuries rather than infrastructure that would increase production.
More risky loans by banks in other words. (And no, Fannie and Freddie didn’t cause this problem either.)
Information gleaned from yesterday’s Planet Money podcast.
October 28th
Today is the birthday of Charlie Daniels. The devil in Georgia is 72.
Actress Jane Alexander is 69 today. Ms. Alexander has four Oscar nominations in her career; two for best actress and two for best supporting actress.
Det. Andy Sipowicz is 64. That’s Dennis Franz.
Bill Gates, the former resident of Albuquerque, is 53 today.
When he was in 8th grade, the [Seattle] Lakeside Mothers Club had a rummage sale and used the money to buy computer equipment for the school. Gates and his friend Paul Allen got completely swept up in the excitement of this new technology. They rummaged through dumpsters at the nearby Computer Center Corporation to find notes written by programmers, and with that information, they wrote a 300-page manual. He and Paul Allen moved to Albuquerque and started Microsoft in 1975.
Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) is 41. Ms. Roberts was also nominated for best actress for Pretty Woman and best supporting actress for Steel Magnolias.
Joaquin Phoenix, who has already been nominated for a best supporting actor (“Gladiator”) and a leading actor (“Walk the Line”) Oscar, is 34.
Costume designer Edith Head was born on October 24th in 1897. Ms. Head was nominated for 35 Oscars, winning eight.
The developer of the first polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk was born on this date in 1914.
He created the vaccine at the height of a polio epidemic in the mid-1950s, when parents were so worried about their children that they kept them home from swimming pools in the summer. Salk’s discovery was that a vaccine could be developed from a dead virus, and he tested the vaccine on himself, his family, and the staff of his laboratory to prove it was safe. The vaccine was finally released to the public in 1955, and the number of people infected by polio went down from more than 10,000 a year to fewer than 100. Salk was declared a national hero.
The Writer’s Almanac (2007)
Harvard College was founded on this date in 1636.
The North American Nebula
Click image for larger version and to learn more.
Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument (New Mexico)
… began as Gran Quivara National Monument in 1909, but evolved over the years and was renamed Salinas Pueblo Missions 20 years ago today.
Once, thriving American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and Tompiro speaking Puebloans inhabited this remote frontier area of central New Mexico. Early in the 17th-century Spanish Franciscans found the area ripe for their missionary efforts. However, by the late 1670s the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard. What remains today are austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas or, as it is known today, Gran Quivira. Established in 1980 through the combination of two New Mexico State Monuments and the former Gran Quivira National Monument, the present Monument comprises a total of 1,100 acres.
Source: National Park Service
That worked
On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified nine months earlier. Known as the Prohibition Amendment, it prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in the United States.
The movement to prohibit alcohol began in the early years of the nineteenth century when individuals concerned about the adverse effects of drink began forming local societies to promote temperance in consumption of alcohol. The first temperance societies were organized in New York (1808) and Massachusetts (1813). Members, many of whom belonged to Protestant evangelical denominations, frequently met in local churches. As time passed, most temperance societies began to call for complete abstinence from all alcoholic beverages.
Source: Library of Congress
Same philosophy still in effect for drugs.