Eideard

Art experts think they may have found the world’s oldest painting to feature an image of a watch.

The Science Museum is investigating the 450-year-old portrait, thought to be of Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Florence, holding a golden timepiece.

The painting is being shown as part of the museum’s Measuring Time gallery.

The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany and horologists believe the picture, painted by renaissance master Maso da San Friano around 1560, “may well be the oldest to show a true watch“.

The painting has been in the museum’s collection for 33 years after being acquired from a private donor.

As it was being taken out of storage for the gallery, curators decided to research the painting – which was when they made their discovery.

This is way cool. And that’s coming from someone who hasn’t worn a watch since 1986…

Interpol Poster

A man wanted in the Czech Republic for drug and fraud crimes has been arrested while working in the US – at a maximum security prison.

Michal Preclik, 32, had recently been promoted to the post of corporal, the Associated Press reports…

Nebraska officials said they carried out a full background check on Mr Preclik and the fact he was employed was “a concern”.

But Mr Preclik’s wife, Kari, told reporters her husband had been granted legal residency in the US after testifying in another case and that she could not understand why he had been arrested now.

They told him that his status was protected here, that whatever he had done in his past was eliminated

Mr Preclik is currently being held in another prison, where he is fighting possible deportation to the Czech Republic. The exact reason for his arrest has not been made public…

Officials said the state would be reviewing its employment policy and procedures.

Obviously, no one in Nebraska’s Correctional System is familiar with The Google.

Choose your weapon!

Egyptian security agents on Wednesday arrested a Sudanese man who tried to hijack an airliner armed with a plastic knife.

The passenger grabbed the knife from his meal tray after the Egypt Air plane left Turkish airspace bound for Cairo. He then demanded the crew divert the aircraft to Jerusalem.

Egyptian onboard security officers reacted immediately, calmed the passenger down and arrested him while the flight continued without disruption. No one was hurt in the incident.

It was not immediately clear what his motives were.

It also wasn’t clear whether he was smarter than your average hoe handle.

Here’s the Republican plan for healthcare reform

A preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats’ health care plan that includes a public option would cost $871 billion over 10 years…

CBO also found that the Democrats’ bill reduces the deficit in the first 10 years.

This new CBO estimate, which aides caution is not final, is significantly less than the $1.1 trillion price tag of the original House bill that passed out of three committees this summer. More importantly, it comes under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama in his joint address to Congress last month…

Senior Democratic aides told CNN that House Democratic leaders are likely to put this version of the public option favored by liberal Democrats in the final bill they are drafting…Speaker Pelosi made the case to House Democrats that this approach saves the most money and would put the House in a better negotiating position when it comes time to negotiate a final health care bill with the Senate.

Moderate, “blue dog” Democrats in the House largely oppose the robust public option and instead argue for a government run insurance option that could negotiate reimbursement rates directly with doctors and hospitals. CBO’s analysis of that approach was not available according to Democratic sources, but aides say the preliminary analysis shows it does not save as much as the approach pushed by Pelosi.

So, the hypocrites who front for insurance companies and healthcare providers [what a misnomer] will have to find a new fiscal lie.

Not that they won’t.

To sell a car in the 1980s, dealers had to do little more than open their doors, and loyal buyers would show up to trade in their Chevrolet for a new Chevrolet, or their Toyota for another Toyota.

Nearly four in five Americans were repeat buyers back then, staunchly faithful to brands that they knew, trusted and were part of their self-image. The allegiance often continued through generations of families, like party affiliations in politics.

Now, partly as a result of increasingly fickle consumer tastes and the industry turmoil in Detroit, that hard-won loyalty is largely gone.

So far this year, only about 20 percent of car shoppers stayed with the same brand when they purchased a new vehicle, according to a study by the Oregon-based firm CNW Marketing Research.

As a result, the industry is seeing the kind of churn it hasn’t witnessed since Japanese manufacturers began making inroads in the American market more than 30 years ago…

Just five years ago, Chevrolet and Ford sat comfortably atop the United States market, each with more than a 16 percent share. Chrysler had three brands — Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep — in the top 10.

Today, the Toyota brand leads the pack with slightly more than 14 percent, followed by Ford, Chevrolet, and the Honda and Nissan brands. The Chrysler brand and G.M.’s soon-to-be-discontinued Pontiac brand have fallen out of the Top 10 — replaced by two South Korean brands, Hyundai and Kia.

“Today, people are very focused on value,” said Jeremy Anwyl, president of the car-research Web site Edmunds.com…

That change in the marketplace goes back to the arrival of the Japanese. Now, other Asian manufacturers – soon to be followed by more – arrive with the same ethic.

There still are fools who prate about cheap Chinese this-or-that as they did about flimsy Japanese this-or-that. But, anyone who buys a brand-name TV set or computer has already made a decision that took them beyond politically-satisfying myths.

Young men who voted for Republican John McCain or Libertarian candidate Robert Barr in the 2008 presidential election suffered an immediate drop in testosterone when the election results were announced, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan.

In contrast, men who voted for the winner, Democrat Barack Obama, had stable testosterone levels immediately after the outcome.

Female study participants showed no significant change in their testosterone levels before and after the returns came in.

The men who participated in the study would normally show a slight night-time drop in testosterone levels anyway. But on this night, they showed a dramatic divergence: The Obama voters’ levels didn’t fall as they should, and the McCain and Barr voters lost more than would have been expected.

“This is a pretty powerful result,” said Duke neuroscientist Kevin LaBar.

I always thought it was just a metaphor. I guess the Republican Party really needs something to get it up, again.

Prosecutors in Minnesota said a couple allegedly helped their teenage son and his friends make pipe bombs as an “educational” activity.

Scott County attorney Pat Ciliberto said Robert and Roberta Masters of Prior Lake, Minn., helped the group create the pipe bombs they used to blow up six mailboxes in the area, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Friday.

“I don’t think you … can have a rational discussion about why folks would knowingly allow juveniles access to Pyrodex and PVC pipe for the purpose of making explosive devices,” Ciliberto said.

The mother of one of the teens told authorities Robert Masters said it would be “a good educational tool for the kids to build pipe bombs.” She quoted Roberta Masters as saying she “did not want to stifle her son’s curiosity.”

Investigators said the couple told the teens to “be careful” with the bombs and one of the boys told police the adults may not have known what the group intended to do with the bombs.

The couple are due to make their first court appearance Nov. 2.

A family that preys together, stays together.

U2′s concert at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California on Sunday will be streamed live on video-sharing website YouTube.

Manager Paul McGuinness said that, as the gig was already being filmed, it was “the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium”.

Fans in 16 countries, including the UK, the US, Australia and India, will be able to watch the show at 0330 GMT.

It will be the band’s penultimate concert of the year.

YouTube said it would place adverts around the video “in the normal manner”, and that clips from the concert would be available on the site after the gig ends.

McGuinness said that U2 had “wanted to do something like this for a long time”.

Way cool!

The Supreme Court cast some doubt today on the legal authority of a police officer to pull over a suspected drunk driver based solely on a caller’s tip.

Over a strong dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the high court let stand a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that held a police officer can follow but cannot stop a suspected drunk driver’s car until he sees it do something suspicious, such as swerve in a lane….

The Supreme Court’s action is not a formal ruling, and it does not require other states to follow Virginia’s lead. But the case is likely to encourage more legal challenges to police stops that rely solely on anonymous tips.

The Virginia ruling freed Joseph Harris of Richmond, who was arrested early one morning after a caller had reported his green Nissan Altima was headed south on Meadowbridge Road. The tip included a partial license plate as well as his name.

Harris stumbled out of his car and was obviously intoxicated when the officer tried to question him. Nonetheless, the Virginia high court said it was an “unreasonable search” to stop and question a motorist based entirely on a caller’s tip.

Most state courts, including those in California and Illinois, have upheld car searches based on a tip from a caller, so long as the vehicle matches the description given.

Two churches in London have been ordered to keep their singing voices down after neighbours complained about their Sunday services.

Noise abatement notices came into force in All Nations Church in Kennington and Immanuel International Christian Centre in Walthamstow earlier this month.

Christian Legal Centre described the notices as a “heavy-handed approach”.

But Lambeth Council and Waltham Forest Council said the orders were a last resort after mediation failed.

Immanuel International Christian Centre was served the notice in May by Waltham Forest Council after complaints from neighbours.

The church challenged the order but its appeal was rejected by the magistrates on 8 October. The council said the church faces a fine of £20,000 if it breaks the order.

Pastor Dunni Odetoyinbo said since the order their congregation had lost about 50 of up to 150 worshippers on Sundays.

“Because we have had to cut down the drums and sing very low and even without a keyboard, most of our members are not enjoying their worship service, especially our youth, and so they go elsewhere,” she said.

A drop in attendance from 150 to 100 is usually the sign of a dying church, but the church almost always believes that something (or someone) else is to blame.

That said, I wonder if others producing similar levels of noise are threatened with fines of £20,000 (!) for not complying with the ordinances.