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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Aug 16, 2012
August 16, 2012
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Along the Primary trail:
Bless his heart, JOE BIDEN did it again yesterday!
During an appearance Virginia, Biden apparently forgot we're in the 21st century. He said, "Folks, where's it written we cannot lead the world in the 20th century in making automobiles?"
Editor's Note: And where's it written that we can't have a v-p that doesn't make some of us actually miss DAN QUAYLE? (Pacelli)Guilty Pleasures:
There was one winning ticket sold by the Michigan Lottery for Wednesday's $320 million Powerball Lottery drawing. Winning numbers: 6, 27, 46, 51, 56; powerball: 21.
There was also a two million dollar "Power Play" winner in Nebraska and one million dollar "Match five" winners in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington DC and the U-S Virgin Islands. Chances of winning the grand prize (all five numbers plus the powerball) are 1 in 175.2 million.The Internet:
Facebook's new "Life Event" for Timeline lets users share news of an upcoming Blessed Event. Users can share their baby's due date, gender, and other details such as identifying the other parent or a story about the pregnancy.
Not-so-coincidentally, PCMag reports on an option for those who've had it up to here with baby talk: "a Chrome plugin called 'Unbaby Me' will search your Facebook feed for mentions of babies and replace them with photos of cats." (Kaye)Bad news for practioners of astrology, witchcraft, wizardry and other Harry Potter inspired dark arts. Racked.com says that starting August 30th, eBay will shut down its sale of spells, potions, tarot cards and other psychic readings.
Editor's note: We're still unclear on eBay's stance on dragon slaying. (Bartha)Grace notes:
JOHN LENNON's mansion in Surrey, England, is up for sale. He lived at Kenwood from 1964 to 1968 and wrote some of his "Sgt. Pepper" tracks there. It's also where John's first wife, CYNTHIA, returned home from a vacation with their son, JULIAN, to find YOKO ONO sitting in the kitchen wearing one of Cynthia's nightgowns. The house could sell for upwards of 25-million dollars. (Marino)
Elvis:
It was 20 years ago today that J-C Penney trotted out a cologne called "Elvis" in more than a thousand stores. Came in a clever, pizza-shaped decanter and smelled like peanut butter and nana sandwiches.
Some other Elvis facts from TV Guide magazine:
--Records sold: More than one billion.
--Number of gold, platinum or multi-platinum albums: 63
--Number of #1 pop singles: 18
--Number of people who tuned in to the 1973 special "Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii, via satellite: 1.5 billion
--Number of Elvis stamps printed to date: 500 million
--Number of Elvis fan clubs at the time of Presley's death: 65
--Number of active Elvis fan clubs today: 625Olympic controversy:
Call it the opposite of instant replay. Norway is trying to get the U-S to hand over gold medals we won 108 years ago.
Wrestlers CHARLES ERICKSEN and BERNHOFF HANSEN had just emigrated from Norway when they took gold for the U-S in the 1904 Olympics, and now sports historians say they've found documents proving they were still Norwegian citizens at the time.
Ericksen eventually became a U-S citizen the year after his victory, while Bernhoff appears to have never done so.
"Those are our golds," says one of the historians working with the Norwegian Olympic Committee. "We want them, even if it was 108 years ago."
If the International Olympic Committee does indeed recognize them as Norwegian wrestlers, they'd be the country's earliest gold medal winners.
Editor's note: And here I thought the medals belonged to the people who won them, not the country. (Maiman) -
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