Blog Heap of Links for the day 11 November 2008

Obama says in his first post-election press conference that he's spoken to all the former presidents — Carter, Bush, Clinton, as well as the current Bush — and, looser than he's been in months, dares a joke at the expense of the widow of a deceased one. "I have spoken to all of them who are living," he says. "I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances," he says.

In another clip from the same January 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in which Barack Obama promised to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to build coal-burning power plants, he also made an interesting admission about his entire energy plan. Obama told the editors that his policies would make energy prices "skyrocket" as the energy industry passed along the exorbitant costs of his cap-and-trade policy:

Osama bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will "outdo by far" September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported. And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a "positive phase", reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next "wave of action" against the West.

The original construction plans believed used for a major expansion of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1941 have been found in a Berlin flat, Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Saturday. The daily printed three architect's drawings on yellowing paper from the batch of 28 pages of blueprints it obtained. One has an 11.66 metre by 11.20 metre room marked "Gaskammer" (gas chamber) that was part of a "delousing facility".

EVANSTON, Ill. - A 90-year-old woman well-liked by her neighbors apparently has been living in a house with the bodies of three siblings, one of whom may have been dead since the early 1980s

A British engineer has invented a fan-powered flying car - and to prove the Skycar works, he's off to Africa in it

Oct. 29, 1981: A 2-year-old girl was bitten on the head by a 250-pound Siberian tiger while the animal was being filmed for a commercial in downtown Oklahoma City . The girl required plastic surgery from injuries sustained when adults tried to pull her from the animal's jaws. Dec. 6, 1986: An 11-year-old boy was fatally mauled by a 300-pound black bear

He was a farmer in Billings, Oklahoma, at the time of his election as governor. He served from January 4, 1963, to January 9, 1967. He was elected U.S. Senator in 1968 and again in 1974, the first Republican in state history to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. He chose not to run in 1980. However, he was elected to his second term as governor on November 4, 1986. He served from 1987 to 1991. He chose not to run in 1990.

1962 The Democrats' stranglehold on the Governor's Office was broken after 55 years of Oklahoma statehood by Henry Bellmon. So firmly did Democrats dominate state politics up to that time that there were few Republican primary elections, and people said they had to register as Democrats in order to have a real vote. Many Republicans became "registered" Democrats and voted in the primary for the weakest candidate so the Republicans would have a chance for victory in the general election.

The proportion of infants arriving at school not knowing whether they are right or left-handed has trebled in the past decade, researchers say. The situation has been made worse by excessive parental fears, driven by cot death, about letting them lie or crawl on their front. Children of four and five are struggling to make advances in writing because of their stunted dexterity, made worse by shortening attention spans.

On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says. Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

Nathan Scott Watson is charged in Washington County District Court with felony child abuse after admitting to police that he spanked too hard and too often a 20-month-old toddler whom he was baby-sitting while her mother was at work. ... reportedly spanked the toddler for taking an outlet cover off of the outlet and sticking her fingers in it. He also spanked her because she refused to go to bed ... sent a text message to the child's mother while she was working saying he was concerned that he had spanked the toddler too hard.

In his Tuesday night acceptance speech, President-elect Barack Obama appropriately offered "thank-yous" to his family, campaign aides and voters who supported the Democratic ticket. Now he may be dashing off thank-you notes to others who helped bring about his electoral college landslide.

Most historical observations about Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential election on Tuesday have focused on his race. But by many measures it would have been a singular political achievement, whatever the colour of his skin. For a start, in terms of the popular vote it was the best performance by a Democratic candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. ... It was also the highest share of the vote by a nonincumbent president or vice-president from either party since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.

Republican John McCain lost Tuesday's presidential election because he could not overcome a hostile economic environment, distance himself from an unpopular president or convince voters he could lead them out of the crisis.

Now you are thinking that we cannot expect much progressive thought out of a county best known for its cow-chip throwing contest (two tries if you lick your fingers after the first). But I have been to Beaver county and met good people and don't understand how 89.2% decided Sarah Palin should be vice president of the United States. It's not just our friends in Beaver scouring the landscape for aerodynamic cow patties. Twenty-one counties fell below 25 percent for Obama and 39 counties, more than half of the 77, fell below 30 percent.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain got his biggest victory margin in Oklahoma on Tuesday, winning every county in the state in results that mirrored those of 2004.

Mapping the election results county-by-county across America, most states reveal a quilted pattern of red and blue, with a few solid blue patches in the Northeast. Only one state turns solid red. "Inside the room, the noise was all positive" at the Republican watch party on election night in Oklahoma City, state GOP chairman Gary Jones said Wednesday. "Outside of Oklahoma, things were different."

With its creation of the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency in 1916, Congress sought to bring the principles of "scientific management" to the federal government. Although this first staff agency in the executive branch lasted only a relatively short time, it was the first central agency in the federal government dedicated to improving the management of the executive branch. Mordecai Lee offers both a chronological history of the agency and a thematic treatment of the structure, staffing, and work processes of the bureau; its substantive activities; and its effects on the development of both the executive and the legislative branches.