Blog Heap of Links for the day 9 February 2009

French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus

A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.

A Polish student reported his mother to police for psychological torture after she told him to take a bath and tidy his room.

Three Toledo-area people were killed in a chain-reaction crash at a collision scene on I-475/U.S. 23 near the Ohio Turnpike just before daybreak Thursday, and another person was critically injured when she jumped off a bridge to avoid being struck by a vehicle

OKLAHOMA CITY: A teenager who sneaked onto an oil well site to play on the equipment got tangled in a piece of machinery and a doctor had to amputate his left arm to free him.... The 17-year-old boy and his friend jumped an 8-foot (2 1/2-meter) fence Sunday to play with a pump jack, a common piece of oil field equipment that rocks up and down to lift oil out of a well. He turned on the machine to ride it but became entangled in one of its moving parts, and his friend couldn't shut it off...

Ever thought you might need to slip quietly off the radar? Meet Frank Ahearn, America's leading skip tracer, and now — for the clients he helps flee criminal threats and violent partners — its most improbable guardian angel

The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968... We reunited two of the pilots, John Haug and Joe D'Amario, 40 years on to tell the story of how their plane ended up crashing on the ice a few miles out from the base....

Where other places greet the night by lighting up their streets and tourist attractions, this one goes the other way—low-energy sodium lamps are shielded from above, and household lights must face down, not up. The purpose: to bring out the stars.

This is the first film Alfred Hitchcock ever directed, sometime in late 1922 or early 1923. The story was about low-income residents of a building. It was written by a woman employed at Islington, her precise identity unknown. Even the film's title is unclear: Islington Studios' records listed it as being "Mrs. Peabody", but Hitchcock always referred to it as Number 13 (possibly because it was the thirteenth film he was involved in making, in some capacity).... he filming was ultimately shut down with only two reels of film completed. The picture was never actually completed or shown... The footage filmed is now long-lost, and nothing else is known about it, apart from Hitchcock's alleged assertion that it wasn't very interesting....

He was born Alfred Joseph Hitchcock. His father was a green grocer... He grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic family....

Carl Dean "Alfalfa" Switzer (August 7, 1927 — January 21, 1959) was an American child actor, professional dog breeder and hunting guide, most notable for appearing in the Our Gang short subjects series as Alfalfa, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters.

"We are pleased that Michelle Martin, renowned author, historian and professional re-enactor, will have her gallery of photographs on display in the Bunkhouse Gallery — this is an opportunity for the public to come see her talented work. This exhibit, entitled 'Capturing Magic — Woolaroc,' will appeal to our Woolaroc guests and is exactly the type of thing that we want to bring to Woolaroc...."

Darwin's theory of evolution has become the bedrock of modern biology. But for most of the theory's existence since 1859, even biologists have ignored or vigorously opposed it, in whole or in part.

IF you always thought you had a special chemistry with your loved one, you may finally have been proved right. Researchers have found that a passionate kiss unleashes a complex chemical surge into the brain which makes a lover feel excited, happy or relaxed. There is also speculation that this hormone release may be triggered directly by an exchange of sexually stimulating pheromones in the saliva.

The study showed that women need more than just a kiss to experience the same chemical high as men — with additional features such as a romantic atmosphere of dimmed lights and mood music also required.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month. Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean—a dream she'd had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.