NASDAQilwar Battle

Woo hoo. With the markets crashing every few days now, it's time to bring back a regular feature of this bjournal, namely, This Day in NASDAQ History. (Yes, the picture is broken. Leave me alone.)

Today, the NASDAQ closed at 1862.96. That translates to December 16, 1862. On that day, the American Civil War Battle of White Hall took place at White Hall Ferry in Wayne County, North Carolina. Approximately 150 soldiers lost their lives that day. For everybody else, the battle was inconclusive.

A Bust Bank?

Ever wonder how FDIC deposit insurance works on a micro level?

At a Chicago WaMu branch on Friday, Catriona Johnson, 27 years old, said she had come intending to take out all her money. "I wanted to close my account and hold it in my bra or something," she said. However, after being told that her account balance is federally insured, Ms. Johnson, the administrative coordinator at a Chicago company that tests homes for the presence of toxins, decided to leave the money alone for now.

There must be a liquidity joke in there somewhere, but I won't make it.

Troy Davis

The state of Georgia is likely to execute Troy Davis tomorrow.

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision on whether to hear a last-ditch appeal by Mr. Davis on Sept. 29. That’s six days after the state of Georgia plans to kill him.

...

Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their stories. One of the recanting witnesses, Dorothy Ferrell, said she was on parole when she testified and was afraid that she’d be sent back to prison if she didn’t agree to finger Mr. Davis.

She said in an affidavit: “I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, even though the truth was that I didn’t know who shot the officer.”

Another witness, Darrell Collins, a teenager at the time of the murder, said the police had “scared” him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge him as an accessory to the crime. He said they told him that he might never get out of prison.

“I didn’t want to go to jail because I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he said.

At least three witnesses who testified against Mr. Davis (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester “Redd” Coles admitted that he was the one who had killed the officer.

Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to authorities, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted.

The other is a man who initially told investigators that he could not identify the killer. Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that the killer was Mr. Davis.

...

There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and the murder weapon was never found. As for the witnesses, their testimony was obviously shaky in the extreme — not the sort of evidence you want to rely upon when putting someone to death.

You can read the rest of the op-ed piece here. It may be too late by the time you read this, but if not, please consider taking action.

UPDATE: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a last-minute, temporary reprieve to a death row inmate in Georgia whose case has gained national attention."

America

Paraphrasing a friend (who I believe borrowed it himself): In the U.S. financial system, we have private profits and socialized loss.

What's in a name?

"Bristol", "Willow", "Piper", "Trig", and "Track"? Really? I guess she is a maverick.

Fox News: We Photoshop? You Decide.

In a comment to the previous Fox entry, a friend suggested (then reconsidered) that perhaps the altered appearance of Jacques Steinberg could be due in part to an aspect ratio problem. To test this theory I used Photoshop myself to correct the aspect ratio of the Fox image to match the "Actual photo." For both images I measured the dimensions of a rectangle extending from the outer edges of Steinberg's ears in the x dimension, and from the top of his hair to the bottom of his top row of teeth in the y dimension (I was looking for reasonably clear edges). In the actual photo, that box measures 146 x 170 pixels. In the Fox photo, the box measures 146 x 176 pixels. Note that the width is equal — perhaps whoever prepared the comparison composite scaled the actual photo to match the Fox photo, or vice versa.

I then scaled the Fox photo in the y dimension by (170/176) = 96.59% to equalize the aspect ratio, and overlaid a transparent copy onto the actual photo:

As you can see, even with the same aspect ratio, the chin, nose, and ears look larger. After thinking about it some more, I decided that since the ears had been enlarged, it made more sense to match the features in the collar, which was relatively undistorted. Using that method, we have this result:

Notice that the collar and suit in the overlaid version now match perfectly. And to really see what's going on, enjoy this animated gif (the Fox photo is lightened to match the overall brightness of the actual photo):

This makes it clear that a portion of the hair has been duplicated to lower the hairline, too.

Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth who specializes in detecting image tampering, mentions this incident on his website:

July 2008: In response to a New York Times story that suggested the FOX network’s ratings might be slipping, the co-hosts of “Fox & Friends” broadcasted photos of Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe. The photos were doctored to make the journalist appear less attractive. A FOX spokeswoman said the executive in charge of “Fox and Friends” is on vacation and not available for comment but added that altering photos for humorous effect is a common practice on cable news stations.

Putting somebody's face on a poodle (which Fox also did) is altering a photo for humorous effect. But Jacques Steinberg's and Steven Reddicliffe's altered pictures were not intended to be immediately recognizable as such. As evidence, consider that my reasonable, intelligent, technically-expert friend gave serious consideration to the possibility that the altered state of the image was the result of broadcast artifacts. In the Fox segment, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade don't laugh at these images or indicate that there is anything out of the ordinary. It is only when they come to the poodle photo that they chuckle:

What the Fox News organization did is, in my opinion, beneath contempt. They owe Steinberg, Reddicliffe, and their viewers an apology.

Tired of Being Right?

By now you've heard John McCain ridiculing Barack Obama for suggesting one way Americans could save gas:

In a town hall-style meeting here, Obama defended his suggestion that motorists should properly inflate their car tires to improve gas mileage and cut oil consumption.

Republican John McCain has mocked the idea, with one of his aides handing out tire gauges emblazoned with the words "Obama's Energy Plan" aboard his campaign plane.

A Republican presidential candidate mocks his Democratic opponent for making a sensible energy policy proposal. Why does this sound so familiar? Ah, yes, let us go back in time, all the way to the year . . . 2000!

''Let me ask you a question,'' Mr. Bush said to several hundred people inside a school in Arlington Heights, Ill. ''How many of you own hybrid electric-gasoline engine vehicles?'' His question was met by laughter.

''That's one of the criterion necessary to receive tax relief,'' he added, referring to an element of Mr. Gore's environment and energy plan that proposes to reward people who buy such vehicles with one-time tax credits of $1,000 to $6,000.

''How many of you own a rooftop photo-voltaic system?'' Mr. Bush then asked, ridiculing Mr. Gore's suggested tax credit for people who put solar panels on the roofs of their houses or businesses. ''If you had one, you'd get tax relief.''

Mr. Bush was selectively homing in on some of the more obscure tax cuts that Mr. Gore has proposed, and he seemed to revel mischievously in doing so.

Don't exit the time machine just yet. Set the dial ahead six years later, to April of 2006:

Fact Sheet: President Bush's Four-Part Plan to Confront High Gasoline Prices

...

2. Promoting Greater Fuel Efficiency.

* The President Calls On Congress To Make All Hybrid And Clean Diesel Vehicles Sold This Year Eligible For Federal Tax Credits. An immediate way for drivers to get more miles out of each gallon is to choose a highly efficient hybrid or clean diesel vehicle. Hybrid vehicles run on the combination of a traditional engine and an electric battery. These twin sources of power allow hybrid cars and trucks to travel about twice as far on a gallon of fuel as gasoline-only vehicles. Clean diesel vehicles take advantage of advances in diesel technology to run on 30 percent less fuel than gasoline vehicles. More than 200,000 hybrid and clean diesel vehicles were sold in the United States last year - the highest sales in history. The Energy Policy Act President Bush signed into law expanded the tax credit for purchasers of hybrid and clean diesel vehicles to as much as $3,400, but these tax credits apply to only a limited number of hybrid and clean diesel vehicles for each manufacturer.

Our nation finally had a leader with the courage and foresight to champion tax credits for hybrids. And if we're (un)lucky, one day a President McCain might come up with an inexpensive, commonsense way for Americans to get better gas milage. In six years, perhaps. We have plenty of time — no pressure.

Mmmm, Lard?

Some of my best friends tell me they love them some Popeye's chicken. And who can blame them? It certainly looks delicious, doesn't it? It smells good, too. I was reminded how good just the other day, when I had dinner at Andrew and Maureen's, where Popeye's chicken and biscuits were among the fare.

When offered to partake, though, I had to decline. I keep quasi-kosher: I don't eat pork, shellfish, catfish, eels, carrion birds, etc. (Would that I could but once savor the sweet, succulent taste of vulture flesh.) Lard, as you may know, is rendered pig fat, and I was all but certain that Popeye's cooks just about everything in lard. The Internets seemed to agree.

To be certain, I visited the Popeyes.com, but no ingredients are listed there. So I called the customer service line. The nice lady who answered the phone politely informed me that she didn't know the answer, either. She did take my name, number, the Popeye's location about which I was inquiring, and then told me someone from "upper management" would return my call.

Four days later my cellyphone rung, and somebody, apparently a local manager, asked if I had called with a question about lard. He told me that, no, Popeye's does not use lard. When I asked if this was location-specific, he indicated that it should apply to at least the restaurants in Prince Georges and Montgomery counties. The gentleman couldn't tell me exactly what was in the shortening but said that they had recently reformulated it to comply with Montgomery County's trans-fat regulations. Even before the reformulation, they had not used lard (though it wouldn't matter — lard is trans-fat-free).

Unless I have been mislead, then, it appears that I, too, can love me some Popeye's.

Dang

Some mornings you discover that, as you left your desk the day before, you apparently placed the left earpiece of your headphones in an old cup of coffee. This is one of those mornings.

Trial and Error

Suppose you flip a coin repeatedly until you get at least one head and one tail. How many coin flips, on average, will this require?

F**ks News

With the exception of Fox News Sunday, I rarely watch Fox News, and so cannot judge whether this represents a new low. No matter what your opinion of the network, this is flabbergasting:

You can read more about it in David Carr's column.

Bagels

Sandra baked bagels, bagels she made from scratch. She started with flour, water, gluten, yeast, malted barley syrup, perhaps some salt, definitely poppy seeds, and, somehow, she turned these ingredients into steaming hot bagels. So delicious were these bagels that I ate two in one sitting, one right after the other: O, O.

Before baking bagels, one must boil them. Sandra boiled the bagels. I watched her do it. Boiled bagels. Mmmmm.

Facebook Through the Eyes of an Old Person

Like me.

I still haven't invested enough time to determine whether Facebook apps are safe. Based on various snippits I've read here and there, it looks like my caution may be justified. In any case, this is why I have ignored your Facebook app invite.

Crap, I sound obnoxious. And yet I'm too lazy not to.

reGOTCHA

As some (OK, none) of you may have noticed, I've added a CAPTCHA to the comment system, using reCAPTCHA. Now, on the rare, rare occasion that you see fit to add a comment to my bjournal, you'll have to a) prove you are a human being, and b) help digitize a book, slave.