October 26, 2012: Morning
- By the election, the presidential candidates and their parties will each have raised more than $1 billion.
- New Obama ad featuring Lena Dunham extolling her "first time" is the same as an old Vladimir Putin spot.
- Political ads have "shockingly small" influence; the campaigns are spending about $1,000 per persuadable voter.
- Meat Loaf endorses Romney because he agrees the Cold War is alive.
- It is statistically possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House.
- Like Paul Ryan, Obama has read Ayn Rand; unlike Ryan, he realized some books are best left to self-consumed 17-year-olds.
- The speed of people becoming capable of drinking milk is one of the weirder mysteries in human evolution.
- How an algorithm about marriage matches has been governing kidney exchange for decades.
- Secret history of the game Monopoly told through a visit to the 25th Annual Corporate Monopoly Tournament.
- Jonathan Safran Foer on the jock-ness and Jewishness of Bobby Fischer.
- In 1971, a small-town librarian asked famous figures for advice for the town's children; they responded.
- Concise summary of The Wizard of Oz, that film of murderers.
- Learning how to embalm, visiting Edgar Allen Poe's house, and more in a round-up of weekend reading for spooky interests.
- Round-up of finalists for the Worst Band Shirt Ever contest.