Ohio…Where Post-Election Lawsuits May Come to Sit The New York Times has predicted that should the election be a close one, angry folks in swing state Ohio will be suing to find out whether their votes really counted…or not.

Palin in Comparison A CBS/The New York Times poll showed 59 percent of voters had serious misgivings about Sarah Palin’s level of competence and her abilities to lead the country should the unfortunate occasion arise in which she would have to.

Not Perishing, But Ready for a Make-over Los Angeles city officials have agreed that Downtown’s ever-changing Pershing Square could stand some aesthetic improvements. They’d encourage adding more grass and trees to the desolate island between 5th and 6th streets, hoping that would make it a bit more welcoming to the hordes swarming to L.A.’s, until recently, erstwhile epicenter.

Passport to Identity Theft These valuable midnight blue booklets are usually coveted for the opportunities they yield, not the trouble they cause (especially within the country’s borders). The State Department has just warned 400 D.C.-based people waiting for the documents that the department’s system has been hacked, allowing sensitive credit card information belonging to those in queue to become accessible to third parties.

A Kegger While Pregger?! Still an emphatic no. But…an English study has just explained that drinking moderately (e.g. a drink per week) while pregnant may actually benefit, and not inhibit, the baby’s development. Then again…why risk it?

Tempelhof is Off to the Sky The Nazi-built, Berlin-based airport closed today. Despite its questionable origins, the airport has, since 1948 and ‘49, been much loved by many for being the site of the U.S.’ and U.K.’s airlift during the Soviet siege, thus becoming what The New York Times termed “a symbol of the Allies’ commitment to protecting the city and indeed Western Europe.” Also admired for the its architecture, the airport’s closure was the eye of a legal storm. The final verdict: the airport was too large a drain on the city’s financial resources. So as midnight approached, it sent “two vintage airplanes,” Junkers Ju-52 and a DC-3, off into flights as the goodbyes to the German landmark.

Wish They Were Phoenixes Rising Fifteen years ago today, the night snuffed two luminous stars out. R.I.P. River Phoenix and Federico Fellini.

Sex Offenders at Homes for the Holiday Judges in Missouri plan to uphold a state law commanding registered sex offenders to stay home this Friday from 5 to 10:30 p.m. unless a medical emergency forces them to leave. The offenders must not have lights on outside their homes and must place signs reading “no candy” visible near the door that they have absolutely no holiday-related contact with children on a night when the kids will be out “trick or treating.”

Halloween in Wittenberg October 31, 1517, Martin Luther celebrated all Hallows by revolutionizing western religion forever. The monk posted 95 theses criticizing the Catholic Church. And while he made those points in Latin, and credit for getting the message out should go to a random (still unknown!) interested passerby who translated Luther’s words to the German vernacular, those theses sparked the Protestant Reformation of Christianity. Here’s betting the 16th c. church, none too fond of the pagan Halloween, never expected it should have so much to fear not from spirits, goblins or the rabble, but from one of its own.

LA’s [all] Hallowed Halls The Los Angeles Times‘ Elina Shatkin gets paper readers stoked for a West Coast Samhain with this list of things to do in order to turn the city of angels into one of ghouls.

The five categories under the prize umbrella are those of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine and literature.

This year, Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to French researchers Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and German scientist Harold zur Hausen.

The former are credited with discovering the human strain of the AIDS virus, the latter with proving the “papilloma virus causes cervical cancer.”

Controversy has often surrounded the Nobel Prize and its originator, Swedish dynamite creator Alfred Nobel, and this year’s share centers around two of the aforementioned physiology and medicine winners.

Montagnier and Sinoussi’s discovery was a source of much contention in the 1980s as American researcher Robert Gallo claimed to have discovered HIV himself. The dispute reached a level so bitter that in 1987, President Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac negotiated split royalties.

But Gallo’s relief was to be short-lived as 1991 saw his role in the discovery challenged by Montagnier and the French government. While Gallo said he had isolated a virus exactly like the one Montagnier had, Gallo’s patients exhibited a different strain, raising the question that Gallo may have used samples not his own.

In 1994, the U.S. government agreed the French should receive the heftier side of the royalties, a concession that implied Montagnier did, indeed, have a greater, if not the full, role in the momentous discovery than Gallo did.

Within each category, the medal may only be awarded to a maximum of three people. As many research teams require the assistance of many more individuals, that number seems both too small and, depending on the context, inappropriate.

Gallo received neither a prize nor mention. This year’s Nobel citation said that “after the discovery of the virus, several groups contributed to the definitive demonstration of HIV as the cause.” No one specified who those “several groups” were. Gallo did not get the prize simply because of its three-person cap; the committee did not deem his contribution worth even a nominal head nod.

But I have some problems with that. Granted, the Nobel Prize has not always erred on the side of wisdom and foresight. Gandhi was nominated for the peace prize five times, but when 1948 would have made him that winner, he was assassinated. Rather than grant a posthomous medal, though, the committee opted to dole out no peace medals at all that year.

I find both the committee’s intractability and insensitivity ridiculous. Clearly, they didn’t merely neglect Gallo out of deference to the numerical limit. To them, Gallo was insignificant enough to merit a complete lack of acknowledgement. I think that’s tacky at best.

Why not expand the winner number? Or if the alternate individual doesn’t seem worthy of a prize, why not at least issue some verbal recognition?

The Times wrote “Montagnier said he wished that Gallo had shared in the award.”

“‘It is certain that he deserved this as much as us two,’” the winner said.

So whether or not this is a case of Academy Award-like euphoric condescension “all of you deserve this as much as I do, but I’m only saying that because now I’m in the position to have won and to feel magnanimous toward my former rivals” doesn’t matter. Whatever his motives, Montagnier came forth and admitted Gallo deserved a significant degree of credit.

So if the scientist admitted it, why couldn’t the Nobel judges?

Gallo may not have been the sole researcher to have discovered the “human AIDS virus,” and Montagnier may have had a bigger part to play, but that ratio doesn’t strip Gallo the right to some honor (perhaps even his own award?).

Any prize is, by nature, competitive. It cannot belong to all contenders. Otherwise there’d be no point in distinction; if everyone’s distinguished, no one is. But I do think Gallo could have borne some Nobel recognition. These scientists’ discoveries are far too important to accommodate such negligence.

* In the Northern Hemisphere, that is.

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on down, folks! Take a ride on the awesome-super-cool-fun MARKET MADNESS ROLLER COASTER!! Go around the world! From Iceland to Italy to Russia to Brazil to Japan, I can guarantee this will be the ride of your life!

(FYI, Russia halted trading again today. Evil Empire? How about floundering joke?)

The Fed cut rates this morning, to keep up with the ‘Peans. Funny how in times of crisis, it’s every man (or, land, I should say) for itself.

So, what do we do in times of crisis? Strike up the violins, my friends! It’s almost Halloween!

MarketWatch, bastion of economic news that it is,  has this helpful guide to wearing the right Halloween costume for your shape.

They are also taking the time to tell you that chocolate milk is the “official” drink of Halloween. Hm. They must be talking about children, because this is usually the official drink of my Halloween parties.

The Kansas City Star has a step-by-step guide to creating a Joker costume, so I’m going to go ahead and recommend that you find something a little more original (hee, hee! Cute!).

Oh, yeah, right, news: there was a debate. It was kind of a let-down. But *ahem* it looks like we might have a winner…

Better news: Crackberry addicts, there is a cure for your iJealousy! Research in Motion will be birthing its own touchscreen bundle of joy, available by the end of the year. Will a newborn crackbaby save RIM in time for Christmas?

By the way… just gotta say: all the Reps out there (and a bunch o’ Dems!) who have been giving Bush a pass for eight years? If you were quietly thinking to yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Well. I hope you’re happy.

*before they’re all gone