From AP:

Three lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombings were found guilty of mass murder and other charges Wednesday but four other top suspects were convicted on lesser charges and an accused ringleader was completely acquitted.

The verdicts were a partial victory for prosecutors, with 21 of the 28 people on trial convicted on at least some charges. Seven got off entirely, including an Egyptian who prosecutors said had bragged that he masterminded the March 11, 2004 blasts, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800.

The three lead suspects convicted of murder and attempted murder each received sentences ranging from 34,000 to 43,000 years in prison, although under Spanish law the most time they can spend in jail is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg doesn't think it's likely.

October 31 ...

In 1517 Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. In 1795 English poet John Keats was born in London. In 1864 Nevada became the 36th state. In 1941 the US Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of 115 lives, even though the US had not yet entered World War II. In 1955 Britain's Princess Margaret ended weeks of speculation by announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend. In 1968 President Johnson ordered a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations. In 1980 Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the late shah of Iran, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne. In 1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh security guards. In 2000 American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts rocketed into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket on a quest to become the first residents of the international space station.

Halloween's tomorrow, so I guess Time magazine thought a list of the top 25 horror movies was a topical idea. Good enough, I guess.

Included on the list are such films as Psycho, Carrie, The Exorcist, and ... Bambi?

Would it be unfair to suggest that the candy-assification of America continues apace?

Ron Silver delivers some well-needed snark.

October 30 ...

In 1735 the second president of the United States, John Adams, was born in Braintree, MA. In 1938 the radio play The War of the Worlds, starring Orson Welles, aired on CBS. (The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked some listeners who thought its portrayal of a Martian invasion was true.) In 1945 the US government announced the end of shoe rationing. In 1953 Gen. George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Albert Schweitzer received the Peace Prize for 1952. In 1961 the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force estimated at 58 megatons; also on this day, the Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering the removal of Josef Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb. In 1975 the New York Daily News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City. In 1995 Federalists prevailed over separatists in Quebec in a secession referendum by a vote of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. In 2004 the decapitated body of a Japanese backpacker (Shosei Koda) was found wrapped in an American flag in northwestern Baghdad; the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi later claimed responsibility.

Add another story to the perception that our best people are not in the nation's public educational establishment.

According to a report by the Arizona Republic's Erin Zlomek, an award-winning skeet-shooting high school student was suspended for four days for having two unopened boxes of shotgun shells in the back seat of her vehicle when she parked on school grounds -- there was no gun in the car, but she did have a pack of cigarettes with her.

The suspension will appear on her permanent record.

Does it need to be expressed again that we have too many fools running our public schools?

"It’s a flash in the pan."

October 29 ...

In 1682 the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, PA. In 1901 President McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted. In 1923 the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. In 1929 on Black Tuesday, prices collapsed amid panic selling and thousands of investors were wiped out as America's Great Depression began. In 1947 former first lady Frances Cleveland Preston died in Baltimore at age 83. In 1956 during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel launched an invasion of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. In 1966 the National Organization for Women was founded. In 1979 on the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998 Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, went back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery. In 2004 in a videotaped statement broadcast on al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden directly admitted for the first time that he'd ordered the Sept. 11 attacks and told America "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" was to stop threatening Muslims' security; also on this day, European Union leaders signed the EU's first constitution.

Childhood expert essentially says, 'Stop being such candy-asses.'

From The Observer:

The level of playground bullying is being exaggerated and children must learn to cope with name-calling and teasing to help them develop resilience, a childhood expert says.

In a book to be published tomorrow, Tim Gill, a former government adviser who led a major review into children's play, argues that mollycoddling children by labelling 'unpleasant behaviour' as bullying is stopping them from building the skills they need to protect themselves. 'I have spoken to teachers and educational psychologists who say that parents and children are labelling as bullying what are actually minor fallings-out,' said Gill, the former director of the then Children's Play Council, who is currently advising the Conservative Party's childhood review.

'Children are not always nice to each other, but people are not always nice to each other. The world is not like that. One of the things in danger of being lost is children spending time with other children out of sight of adults; growing a sense of consequence for their actions without someone leaping in,' he told The Observer. ... Gill argues that society is 'bubble-wrapping' children. Parents, teachers, police, the government and wider society are all to blame, he said, for overreacting to risks such as 'stranger danger', injury and abuse.

Something new I learned today: There is someone in the UK holding a position called the "director of wellbeing at the National Children's Bureau" who is also a "spokeswoman for the Anti-Bullying Alliance."

A 'director of wellbeing'? Somehow, this does something negative to my 'wellbeing.' Jesus Christ...

John Tamny:

Commenting on the 1920s income-tax cuts spearheaded by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, a New York Times editorial suggested that Mellon "wants in reality to get more money out of [the rich] than they are now paying. But he proposes to do it by making their rate of taxation lower."

The Times' editorial stance of over 80 years ago is notable considering the views held by its present editorial board. In a recent editorial ("A Dearth of Taxes"), the Times decried tax cuts given the board's static view that a reduction in the rate of taxation paid by individuals is tantamount to revenue reduction. Modern history says otherwise.

In truth, tax collections in the U.S. tend to follow our nation's GDP pretty closely irrespective of the tax rate. As Discovery Institute senior fellow Bret Swanson recently wrote, there is a "remarkable tendency for Federal revenues to hover around 18% of GDP (and for personal income tax revenue to gather between 7.5 and 9% of GDP), no matter if tax rates are high or low."

Read the whole piece.

October 28 ...

In 1636 Harvard College was founded in Massachusetts. In 1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin (the patent was granted the following March). In 1886 the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. In 1919 Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto. In 1922 Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party took control of the Italian government. In 1936 President Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary. In 1940 Italy invaded Greece during World War II. In 1958 the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope; he took the name John XXIII. In 1962 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the US that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In 1980 President Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.

Conspiracy monger extraordinaire Alex Jones contributed more than $2,000 to Ron Paul's presidential campaign in August.

Will Ron Paul keep the money from this complete scumbag?