RARE HISTORICAL PICTURES: Part 1 (22 images); Part 2 (19 images).

CAUSE OF HIGH CHOLESTEROL DISCOVERED? "Canadian scientists have discovered that a protein called resistin, secreted by fat tissue, causes high levels of "bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL), increasing the risk of heart disease."

OUR STORY IN ONE MINUTE:

STOP THE PRESSES! I found someone who is still bullish on the euro!

NO WORDS: 76 unbelievable street and wall art illusions. (and floor, if you count this one)

 
Make sure you don't miss the others.

WHO ARE the real winners and losers of globalization.

MORE EVIDENCE that genetically modified foods are safe.

(IN SGT. ESTERHAUS' VOICE) Let's be careful out there:

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, join Syria's rebellion and to ensure Egypt implements sharia, SITE Monitoring reported on Saturday, citing a two-part film posted on Islamist websites.

The Egypt-born cleric, who became al Qaeda leader last year after the death of Osama bin Laden, spoke in a message that lasted more than two hours.
 
"We are seeking, by the help of Allah, to capture others and to incite Muslims to capture the citizens of the countries that are fighting Muslims in order to release our captives," he said, praising the kidnapping of Warren Weinstein, a 71-year-old American aid worker in Pakistan last year.

LOOK WHO'S SPECULATING:

"I have, which will surprise you not a little, been speculating - partly in American funds, but more especially in English stocks, which are springing up like mushrooms this year (in furtherance of every imaginable and unimaginable joint stock enterprise), are forced up to a quite unreasonable level and then, for the most part, collapse. In this way, I have made over £400 and, now that the complexity of the political situation affords greater scope, I shall begin all over again. It’s a type of operation that makes small demands on one’s time, and it’s worth while running some risk in order to relieve the enemy of his money."

— Karl Marx: letter to Lion Philips - 25 JUNE 1864

ORWELL, an anti-Semite? According to Jack Shafer:

FOR ALL OF ORWELL’S unflinching encounters with casual brutality in the world at large, the diaries do illuminate one dark and private secret: the author’s own bigoted views of Jews. Orwell clearly maintained two sets of books, privately slagging Jews in his notebook while publicly condemning bigotry in his 1945 essay “Antisemitism in Britain,”

Read the rest.

IT'S ROMNEY'S race to lose. Or is it?

ROWAN ATKINSON: we must be allowed to insult each other.

GREAT MOMENTS IN TRANSCRIPTION:

The Dalai Lama didn't curse at a Brown University event, the college swears — even if the closed captioning said differently.

A closing comment Wednesday by the Dalai Lama was mistaken for a profanity by the person transcribing his remarks for closed captioning at a speech on peace.
 
The exiled Tibetan leader urged listeners to share his thoughts with others if they found them interesting. If not, he said, they could "forget."
 
The closed captioning on a large screen at the Rhode Island Convention Center transcribed the remark as an expletive.

I assume it was "f*ck it" because it sounds similar, and the result is hilarious considering it was the Dalai Lama...

THIS IS WHY you won't vote online anytime soon. Truth is, why should you? In Spain, with just paper --albeit with computerized tallies-- results at 99% are released only a couple of hours after polls close. It's only 25 million votes in a general election and other countries are bigger, to be sure. Namely the US, with a 2008 presidential election turnout of approximately 130m. But that wouldn't mean that 5x votes would mean 5x delay in getting the results, since the recount is done by teams working in parallel. You'd need more people assigned to the job, but it could be reasonably done in pretty much the same time frame. It's reasonable because there's no risks, which is something that can't be said of e-voting.

IN THE UK, less GDP, but more jobs. How's that possible?

GENIUS:

(click to enlarge)

BEFORE PHOTOSHOP: How photographers have been manipulating images for more than 150 years.

WE OFTEN SAY that we wish we could fly as a bird. With this incredible video from an upcoming Discovery documentary you won't fly like a bird, but it comes close (via):

ALAS, it couldn't be: Chávez beats Capriles, who conceded defeat.

IT WON'T be easy, but Hugo Chávez could very well lose today's election. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

SPAIN about to blackmail the European Union?

"NO, SPAIN is not Uganda. It's Enron."

KICKING OFF the new month at my music blog, BarcePundit, with an October Special; new tunes will be appearing throughout the day. Check it out!