Doing the math

$10,000 on Google shares at their opening seven weeks ago would be worth $16,180 today.

Absentee voting

In NewMexiKen’s home county of Bernalillo, any registered voter may vote at the County Clerk’s office (8am-4pm) from October 5th through October 30th.

I’d go vote early if I wasn’t undecided.

Chillin’

From Sideline Chatter —

Pitcher Pedro Martinez, it appears, will be the first Red Sox player in four decades to be featured on a Wheaties box.

Noted Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press: “Ironically, the last Boston baseball hero to have such an honor was Ted Williams, who, according to industry sources, can now be found in your grocer’s frozen-food section.”

Best line of the day, so far (sports edition)

“When [Barry] Bonds enters the batter’s box, he is in scoring position.”

John Kruk on ESPN as reported by Morning Briefing.

Vanity plates

The Smoking Gun reports that Washington state is keeping us safe from vanity plate abuse. Among others, they have disallowed the license plates IB6UB9, GO2HELL and OLDFART.

Who raised this person?

Pregnant woman complains nearby jackhammer noise may harm her unborn child. What’s interesting is that the photo of her shows her pregnant and smoking.

Link via Life or Something Like It.

Does he think people won’t check?

“Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I’m up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they’re in session.”

— Vice President Cheney during debate last night.

Actual fact: In nearly four years Cheney has presided on just two Tuesdays (out of 127).

Furthermore, Edwards has presided twice during that time also.

Info via Kos.

You can be sure …

if it’s Westinghouse. George Westinghouse was born on this date in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York.

In 1869, Westinghouse received a patent for the air brake, which permitted the locomotive engineer to apply the brakes equally to all cars. Previously brakemen had applied the brakes manually and accidents were common. The invention was adopted by most railroads worldwide.

In 1884, Westinghouse formed Westinghouse Electric and acquired Nikola Tesla’s patents for alternating current. He was opposed by Thomas Edison whose own company (General Electric) fostered direct current. Ultimately, of course, alternating current (and Westinghouse) emerged victorious, but not before one of the more gruesome battles in industrial competion. The following is from the Kirkus review of Executioner’s Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair:

Enron and Worldcom executives take heart: this grim account of the origins of execution by electrocution proves that business-based sleaze can go a lot further than accounting fraud. As Moran (Sociology/Mount Holyoke Coll.) shows, the Edison Electric Co., with Thomas A. himself at the helm, relentlessly lobbied the State of New York in 1890 to establish electrocution as the preferred “humane” disposal of those given the death penalty. What actually motivated Edison, despite his professed opposition to capital punishment, was his rivalry with the Westinghouse Company for the vast US market for electrical lighting and power. Edison equipment generated only direct current (DC), but the tide was turning towards the Westinghouse alternative, AC power. Each side claimed that the other had serious safety deficiencies. By persuading authorities to adopt alternating current for the death chair, Edison and his minions hoped to foster a public image of AC as the truly “lethal” form of electricity. Moran spares readers no details of the gruesomely botched first electrocution at Auburn Prison in August 1890, during which convicted murderer William Kemmler was seen by some witnesses to “suffer horribly,” as current from the Westinghouse dynamo (purchased under false pretenses) was shut off twice while attending doctors pondered the presence of respiration and heartbeat, then switched on again. Its proponents, however, continued to endorse electrocution as a best-case method (absent the bungling at Auburn) while the debate continued over decades. The author points out that we still don’t know exactly how electricity kills a human being (cardiac arrest being the prime suspect), and survivors of serious accidental shocks do report varieties of excruciating pain.

Westinghouse opposed the execution, of course, and even helped fund Kemmler’s appeals, but Westinghouse’s money was no match for Edison’s celebrity.

It’s the birthday

… of Janet Gaynor. Ms. Gaynor was born on this date in 1906. In 1929, she won the very first Oscar for Best Actress, winning for Seventh Heaven, Sunrise and Street Angel. (The only time the award was based on multiple roles.) She was also nominated for best actress for A Star is Born.

… of Carole Lombard. Oscar nominee Lombard (she received a nomination for best actress for My Man Godfrey) was born in 1908.

Today in History

Today marks the anniversary of the first American train robbery. An east bound Ohio & Mississippi passenger train was boarded by the Reno brothers near Seymour, Indiana, on this date in 1866.

The Today in History page at the Library of Congress (redesigned since yesterday) provides background about train robberies and early railroads including this excerpt from “The Early Days in Silver City” —

I happened to be riding that train. I had gone overland to Safford and Solemisvelle prospecting. I decided to come home Thanksgiving to be with my family at Silver City. I boarded the train at Wilcox. There was a large shipment of gold on the train. Just out of Steins Pass we could see a large bon-fire. One of the trainmen remarked, ‘Wonder what the big fire is, I hope we don’t run into any trouble.’ The bon-fire we discovered to our sorrow was on the R. R. Then as today curiosity got the best of some of us so we had to find out why the train came to an abrupt stop, and what the bon-fire was put on the track. We found ourselves looking into the barrel of guns.

Nez Perce National Historic Trail …

was established on this date in 1986. This web site has details (including music when the page is opened).

Tick tock

Bob Somerby dismisses Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox) and takes NBC to task for wasting time with her (scroll down to “Brokaw’s New Low”).

NewMexiKen has enjoyed reading Wonkette, but I have to admit her shtick is getting old and worn and not altogether becoming. Her 15 minutes may be about up.

You are! No you are!

Had Dick Cheney or John Edwards stood on their chairs and shouted “liar, liar pants on fire,” it might have surprised viewers, but it would not have changed the tenor of Tuesday night’s debate.

Marc Sandalow, San Francisco Chronicle

If Cheney and Edwards actually had stood on their chairs and shouted “liar, liar pants on fire” it would have been a lot more fun to watch. They could put that kind of debate on pay-per-view and I’d tune in.

Flip-flop

“Last week, Senator Kerry was eight points behind President Bush, today he is three points ahead. Is this the kind of indecision we want in a president?”

Announcer in a mock Bush-Cheney ad, “Late Show With David Letterman”

Oops oops!

Also from Marshall:

In a rather churlish moment, Cheney told Edwards that the two of them had never met before tonight’s debate, despite the fact the Edwards is a serving senator and Cheney’s the body’s presiding officer.

But as Atrios and no doubt many others have now pointed out, one can easily find a citation on the web of a prayer breakfast the two men attended together in February 2001. And the Dems are already circulating a picture from the event showing the two standing right next to each other.

Here’s the photo from 2001.

Update: According to Dan Froomkin, AP has identified three meetings:

• “On Feb. 1, 2001, the vice president thanked Edwards by name at a Senate prayer breakfast and sat beside him during the event.

• “On April 8, 2001, Cheney and Edwards shook hands when they met off-camera during a taping of NBC’s Meet the Press, moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on Today.

• “On Jan. 8, 2003, the two met when the first-term North Carolina senator accompanied Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in by Cheney as a North Carolina senator, Edwards aides also said.”

Oops!

From Josh Marshall:

And then there’s another rather humorous screw-up. Cheney clearly wanted to send folks to factcheck.org; but he sent them to factcheck.com.

So close and yet so far.

Factcheck.com is George Soros’s website.

Some guys are just lucky, I guess. Soros spends millions on the campaign. And Cheney sends him a blizzard of more free media.

Update: In case you’re unaware, billionaire Soros is a leading anti-Bush advocate.