Blog Heap of Links for the day 11 February 2009

An artist who created a famous image of Barack Obama before he became president sued The Associated Press on Monday, asking a judge to find that his use of an AP photo in creating the poster did not violate copyright law. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said street artist Shepard Fairey did not violate the copyright of the April 2006 photograph because he dramatically changed the nature of the image.

told dispatchers he was "unhappy with his order" ... could not explain why he resorted to calling 911 for a "civil dilemma."

…accessing the names and Social Security numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees. The agency said in a statement Monday that two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about employees and retires who were on the FAA's rolls as of the first week of February 2006. … not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system….

The owner locked the car doors and refused to come out when a constable tried to serve her a warrant ... Two puppies and 20 dogs were taken to a shelter until a judge decides who gets custody.... "The ammonia level in the vehicle was 23 parts per million even after the doors had been opened for several minutes...."

More than 100 chickens, rabbits, rodents, iguanas and tarantulas have been removed from a two-bedroom Buffalo apartment by authorities who needed three vans to cart off the menagerie.

Microsoft warned enterprise customers this week that the migration path from XP to Windows 7 won't be any easier than it is to Vista, and offered recommendations for how companies can move from older versions of Windows to one of its newer client OSes.

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has accepted a job as the nation's drug czar in the Obama administration.... Kerlikowske, who was appointed Seattle chief in 2000 by then-Mayor Paul Schell, had worked the previous two years as deputy director of the Justice Department's community-oriented policing division during the Clinton administration. Sources said Kerlikowske established ties in Washington, D.C., and has a strong relationship with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton years....

A commercial satellite owned by a U.S. company was destroyed in a collision with a defunct Russian military satellite in what NASA said was the first such accident in orbit, raising new concerns about the dangers of space debris. The crash, which happened Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved one of the satellites owned by closely held Iridium Satellite LLC and a crippled Russian military satellite that apparently stopped functioning years ago.... The collision created two large clouds of debris floating roughly 480 miles above Siberia, and prompted space scientists and engineers to assess the likelihood of further collisions....

In June of last year, Louisiana became the first state to pass what has become known as an "academic freedom" law. In the past, fights over evolution took place at the local school board level, but academic freedom proponents specifically target state legislatures.

There are no big scandals. Darwin was squeaky clean — a homebody (once he returned from the HMS Beagle voyage) and good husband — hardly the rapscallion image you might have of someone who sailed the seas for five years as a young man and later developed a theory that has rarely ceased to stir controversy since it was published 150 years ago. However, there are some strange facts about Darwin: Stinky feet... Iffy on marriage... Christian, then agnostic... Sickly life...

"Darwin" will be the most comprehensive exhibit ever mounted on the British naturalist, whose ideas transformed biology and sparked a religious debate that is playing out in courtrooms, statehouses and school board meetings across the United States.

For the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12, 2009), National Geographic News asked leading scientists for their picks of the most important fossils that show evolution in action—seven of which are presented here, starting with this "fishapod." Discovered in Arctic Canada in 2004, 375 million-year-old Tiktaalik had not only gills and scales but traits of a tetrapod (four-legged land animal), including limblike fins, ribs, a flexible neck, and a croc-shaped head.

The mother of the woman who gave birth to octuplets has slammed her daughter's actions as 'unconscionable' and said that the single mother has no way to support the babies and her six other children.