Eye Catchers of the Day
- Washington Post Video: Key moments from the last day before the financial default deadline, when the Senate and House came together to pass a deal to reopen the government.
- U.S. Default by the Numbers: Who Owns the Debt? Bloomberg TV
- New York Times World: Free digital and mobile access this week, in honor of the launch of The International New York Times http://is.gd/2pINjV
- Blogger, author, and strategist Jeff Bullas took a dip into the 800 page filing for the Twitter IPO and came up with some remarkable data about the online social networking and microblogging service, including reporting Twitter generates 135,000 registered accounts every day, 58 million tweets a day, with 2.1 billion searches conducted on Twitter every 24 hours. This and a boat load of other data and fast facts about Twitter can be found at Bullas’ fact filled statistically rich article ``60 Sensational Social Media Facts and Statistics on Twitter in 2013’’
- NBC News: Ohio lawmakers have given initial approval to a bill that would provide Ariel Castro's three kidnapping victims up to $25,000 for each year they were held captive, plus other benefits. http://is.gd/Im174Z
- Russia Preparing Property Restrictions for Foreigners ¬ Paper
MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti) ¬ Russia is drafting changes to the law that will bar foreigners from owning or renting real estate in the country without official permission, a state-owned newspaper said Wednesday. The law could come into force by 2015, officials told the paper.
STATS OF THE DAY
1.) Despite the ALCS tied at 2-2, the Boston Red Sox have held the lead for just 4 of 36 total innings played.
2.) MLB Stat of the Day: Since the ALCS expanded to 7 games (1985), the winner of Game 4 in 2-2 series has gone on to win twice (Indians in 1995, Yankees in ‘98).
- The average literacy score for Americans ages 16 to 65 places the U.S. 18th out of 22 participating countries. In numeracy, the U.S. ranks 20th out of 22. In “problem-solving in technology-rich environments” -- a measure of the capacity to interact productively with computers -- the U.S. comes in 14th out of 19th, according to The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which evaluates the skills of adults in 24 countries. http://is.gd/bfQQhK .
- Student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt in the U.S. which stands at about $798 billion.
- The S &P estimates the 16 day government shutdown took at least $24 billion out of the U.S. economy.
- Forbes Magazine lists American business magnate, investor and philanthropist, Mark Cuban net wealth at $2.5 billion. Cuban was acquitted Wednesday of insider-trading charges when he sold his shares in an Internet company in 2004.
- According to a GAO report, interest on the national debt plus entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare –– will absorb approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue before the end of this decade.
- In the 2012 presidential election, 47% of Americans used the internet as a main campaign news source surpassing newspapers (27%), radio (20%) and magazines (3%), but still trailing television (67%); just one of 12 trends shaping digital news as compiled by the Pew Research Center. http://is.gd/pWpGGG
- Benchmark crude for November delivery gained $1.08, or 1.1 percent, to close at $102.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price of oil rose 1 percent Wednesday as the U.S. Senate announced a deal that avoided defaulting on its debt. The average price for a gallon of gasoline at the pumps rose 1 cent to $3.36, 16 cents cheaper than a month ago and 41 cents less than at this time last year.
- Russia is set to overtake Germany to become the largest car market in Europe by 2020 and the fifth largest market in the world by then, according to Boston Consulting Group.
- In 2013, 795,000 people in the United States will have a first or recurrent stroke; 1 in six people worldwide will have a stroke in their lifetime-American Heart Association/American Stroke Association
Polls/Surveys
- The Conservative Intelligence Briefing: New Jersey Poll: N. J. Gov Chris Christie (56% ) is more popular than Bruce Springsteen, ``The Boss’’ (46%) in the Garden State.
- ``Gimme Shelter'' is listed as the greatest Rolling Stones' song of all-time by Rolling Stone Magazine
Today in History
October 17, 1931, Chicago gangster Al Capone is found guilty in federal court on five of the 23 charges brought against him. He was found guilty of three counts of federal tax evasion for the years, 1925, 1926, and 1927. ``Scarface’’ as he was known, was additionally found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of ``willing failure’’ to file a tax return for 1928 and 1929. A week later, on October 24th, he was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. In addition to his prison term, he was slapped with a $50,000 fine and $30,000 in court cost fees. Capone first started serving his sentence in Cook County Jail. On May 4, 1932, he was transferred to Atlanta at one of the toughest penitentiaries in the country. Once authorities learned he was receiving the comforts of prison life denied to other prisoners, he was transferred again, this time to Alcatraz (located on an island in San Francisco Bay) on August 18, 1934, where he was assigned to cell 181 and was given the prison number 85. After his mental capacity increasingly deteriorated at Alcatraz, he was released in November, 1939, after serving six years and five months at which point he entered the Baltimore State Mental Institution.
Word Origin
Galvanize, meaning to spur to action, according to William Morris'`` Dictionary of Word and Phrases’’, comes from an 18th century Italian physiologist, Luigi Galvani, who discovered quite by accident that he could ``galvanize’’ frogs and other animals he was working with, by subjecting them to electric shock.
Looking For a Good Quote?
``Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’’
- Albert Einstein
- Bill Lucey
October 17, 2013
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