Blog Heap of Links for the day 3 March 2009

Nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers and armed federal police poured into the border town of Ciudad Juarez last weekend. ... 'This is to reinforce the operation in general ... to eradicate kidnappings, extortion, assaults and homicide....' The soldiers are the first contingent of as many as 5,000 troops and federal police being sent to Juarez.

DUSTIN, Okla. — Authorities say two sisters of a Missouri girl who was allegedly raped and impregnated four times by their father traveled to Oklahoma to help locate the unmarked grave of a baby from one of those pregnancies. Investigators found the remains of a 4-month-old girl Saturday near the small town of Dustin, about 85 miles east of Oklahoma City. Investigators believe the dead child is the first of four children born to the daughter, who is now 19.

students who choose to meet for sex in Bizzell or the Huston Huffman Center, the other popular Craigslist meeting point, take on a long list of risks including sexually transmitted diseases and legal trouble. In the past month, 20 ads for sex on campus have appeared in Craigslist's Oklahoma City personals section.

As text messaging has boomed in recent years, it has also given rise to so-called "textual harassment." Text messages antagonize recipients in a way that is not easily ignored: Most people are never far from their cell phones, and the gadgets tend to blink and chirp until unopened messages are acknowledged. Adding another sting, the victims are often charged by their cell phone companies for receiving the messages. ... 23 percent of stalking or harassment victims reported in 2006 that the stalker had used some form of cyberstalking, such as cell phone texting or e-mail, to harass them.

A White House decision to use a generic flash video player for hosting President Barack Obama's latest weekly video address on WhiteHouse.gov is being seen by some as a sign that the executive office is responding to previous concerns about the use of embedded YouTube videos on the site. The White House has denied that its use of a generic player signals any change in policy on using videos from YouTube and other third parties on WhiteHouse.gov.

The e-mail begins, "Racism still exists in this country." Attached to it is a photo of a window display at a bookstore in Coral Gables, Fla., featuring eight neatly placed tomes about President Obama and his family. Smack dab in the center of the display is a book titled "MONKEYS." The author of the e-mail then encourages a boycott of the store.

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A kitten is recovering after allegedly being stuffed in a bong while its owner smoked marijuana at the same time. ... Deputies said they witnessed the animal being trapped inside the homemade bong as it was being smoked. ... "[It was] taped shut so the cat was exposed to large amounts of marijuana smoke...." allegedly told deputies the kitten was high strung and needed to be put in the bong to keep it calm. ... "The individual stated he had done this several times...."

said the pump at the By-Pass Deli and Conoco service station at Stevens Drive and the Highway 240 Richland bypass registered only $26 for the fuel. But somehow the transaction was recorded on his debit card as totaling $81,400,836,908.... called customer service for PayPal, which is where he established the debit account.... "Somebody from a foreign country who spoke in broken English argued with me for 10 to 15 minutes.... Did you get the gas?' he asked. Like I had to prove that I didn't pump $81,400,836,908 in gas!"

"Kolmiulotteisia Kuvia" is an experimental 3D movie, the second ever anaglyph 3D film made in Finland. (The first one was made in the early 1950's, only one faded print remains of that film, and nobody knows if the negatives still exist...) The movie has no plot, its subject matter is reminiscent of the early Lumiere Brothers' first movies: a wiew of an approaching train, a view from the harbour, a magician doing his act (with camera tricks like Georges Melies used to do...), some shots from downtown Helsinki, and so on - the "retro" idea...

Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with glasses where the two lenses are different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, such as red and cyan

An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday.... 2009 DD45, estimated to be between 21 and 47 meters (68 and 152 feet) across, raced by at 1344 GMT on Monday.... The gap was just 72,000 kilometers (44,750 miles), or a fifth of the distance between Earth and the Moon and only twice the height of satellites in geosynchronous orbit

A controversial Italian doctor known for his work allowing post-menopausal women to have children has claimed in an interview to have cloned three babies who are now living in eastern Europe. "I helped give birth to three children with the human cloning technique," Severino Antinori, a prominent gynaecologist, told Oggi weekly in an interview to appear Wednesday.