Blog Heap of Links for the day 6 April 2009

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back? My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. [Y'think?]

North Korea's new rocket launch gives the communist country another bargaining chip in negotiations over dismantling its nuclear weapons program even if the flight wasn't completely successful, analysts said Monday. Even with suspected problems in separating the second and third stages, the rocket flew twice as far as any missile the North previously launched. That range falls far short of U.S. territory, but neighbors are concerned by the expanded reach of a regime that claims to have atomic bombs.

Turkish officials have told the U.S. the man in custody is a "known fabricator" who has made various unsubstantiated claims in the past. U.S. officials tell CBS News, "There was never a serious plot or threat against the President." [Yawn. Article does not match scary headline]

A Tampa man charged with torturing a 10-year-old female relative because she discovered his pornographic movie collection remains jailed this afternoon. No bail has been set.

A controversial law condoning marital rape and reintroducing Taleban-era rules for Afghan women has been shelved after an outcry in the West. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that the law had not been enacted, while Justice Ministry officials said that its contents might be reconsidered. The legislation was put on hold pending a review

A 41-year-old Somali woman has been kicked off a bus more than once in Denmark for refusing to bare her face to the bus driver. The case echoes a similar problem last month in Aarhus, Denmark's second-largest city.

Barack Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared Monday the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam." [Even if Islam is at war with the United States? Or is Obama at war with the United States?]

Just before he committed mass murder, Jiverly Wong laid out a litany of paranoid complaints in a letter he ended with a chilling signoff: "Have a nice day." Then Wong mailed the rambling, two-page letter to an upstate TV station and drove to Binghamton, where he murdered 13 people before killing himself.

Police officers accused of drunken driving. A female officer's alleged promiscuity and infidelity. A commander whose critics labeled his son a child molester. Jeff Pataky said he uses negative complaints and anonymous tips to fuel his blogging crusade against Phoenix police. A headline on his Web site suggests rewards would be provided for "dirt" on police indiscretions. ... said he believes his online criticism of the department - along with past criticisms of police investigations - led officers to serve a search warrant at his home last week. [Y'think?]

Six car bombs exploded Monday in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing at least 36 people and raising concern that the calm enjoyed in the capital in recent months is starting to fray.

A man and his five children are dead in what police believe was a murder-suicide at a mobile home in Washington state. ... four girls and a boy... body of the father was found in his still-running car, 30 kilometres from his home..... had apparently killed himself with a rifle.... A classmate of the eldest daughter said the girl told him Friday night that her parents had fought and her father had followed her mother, trying to persuade her to return after she left the home....

The lunatic behind the Binghamton massacre was a pathetic, gun-loving coward who got divorced, lost his job and was driven to depression because he could barely speak English after many years in the United States, officials and people who knew him said yesterday. ... on Friday picked up a pair of guns, hoisted a bulging sack of ammunition and marched maniacally into the American Civic Association, killing 13 people before turning the gun on himself. Another four victims remain hospitalized, but are expected to survive....

A 22-year-man who shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers over the weekend had been stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online "because he believed that as a result of the economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society...." surrendered and was taken into custody after he was shot several times in the leg.

Somali pirates have seized a British-owned cargo ship and a Taiwanese ship, maritime officials say, after capturing three other vessels over the weekend. The UK-owned Malaspina Castle was boarded in the Gulf of Aden, while the Taiwanese ship was seized near the Seychelles, according to reports. A French yacht, a Yemeni tugboat and a German ship were also captured in the pirate-plagued waterway at the weekend.

Police believe an argument between two groups outside a South Philly bar led to one man to hit a pregnant woman with his car. Authorities say he then backed up over the woman and then drove forward a second time.

believed to be daughter of former slaves, broke the world record in January after a 115-year-old Portuguese woman died.... "We've seen her health decline a little, but she's a very strong woman...." outlived every one of her relatives, including her daughter, who died of typhoid at the age of 18. When Baines was born, Grover Cleveland was president and the U.S. flag had only 44 stars....

The new Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massacusetts, has given a sermon describing abortions as a "blessing" for the women who undergo them. The Rev Katherine Hancock Ragsdale also thinks that the people who run abortion clinics are "heroes" and even "saints".

It's not over quite yet, but we might be inching closer to the finish line. The latest man to contend for the director's chair is Martin Campbell, who's still coming off Casino Royale and just completed Edge of Darkness, also known as Mel Gibson's acting comeback.

Microsoft and its PC partners are going to allow Windows 7 users to downgrade not just to Windows Vista, but also to Windows XP, Microsoft officials are confirming.

Windows XP has already turned into a nightmare for Microsoft as the operating system competes with Windows Vista in many markets and today's news makes us wonder whether the operating system may actually outlive Windows Vista in one way or the other. Apparently, Microsoft has granted HP an exclusive OEM license extension for Windows XP that reaches deep into 2010. By then, Windows XP will be competing with Windows 7 for market share on netbooks.

There's nothing like a good scratch, but how does it take away the itchiness?... In people, a variety of stimuli, including chemicals like histamine, prompt sensory neurons to fire, sending a signal via the spinothalamic tract (STT) to the brain, prompting an itchy feeling.... scratching the skin caused the frequency of the firing to drop in some of the neurons, indicating that these are the ones targeted by scratching....

The pillow fight, which was to be one of at least 50 across the world Saturday organized by people on social networking Web sites, was shut down by Detroit police officers who were stationed at the park. "I am furious," 23-year-old Elida Quesada of Ferndale said as she fumed while watching officers take pillows as soon as people showed up with them. "It (a pillow fight) is so silly and childlike. It would have been fun. It seems like everything that is fun is illegal."

Tropicana's rebranding debacle did more than create a customer-relations fiasco. It hit the brand in the wallet. After its package redesign, sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line plummeted 20%.... company announced it would bow to consumer demand and scrap the new packaging....

A teenage boy walking in the woods of Bruckberg, Bavaria... spotted what looked like human bones in the branches half way up a tree... the body of a 69-year-old pensioner who disappeared in 1980. It is believed the man tied himself to a branch of the tree with rope and shot himself - and then lay undiscovered for decades.

A 24-year-old man shot and killed himself inside a movie theater at a shopping mall during a screening of the movie "The Watchmen...."

[Article unavailable]

"...She said the gunman was right there when she was on the phone.... I keep saying, 'Mom, you're a CNN superstar' . . . They're saying you're a hero. And she says, 'No. I'm not.'" ... The 61-year-old DeLucia's courage under fire likely prevented the death toll from rising.... Binghamton police responded to the scene two minutes after her 911 call. They've speculated that Wong's bloody rampage would have continued if he hadn't heard sirens. Instead, police said, he shot himself.

An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.

The Associated Press will cut fees paid by U.S. newspapers that run its news coverage and says it will challenge websites that run its news content for free.

As programmers continue to pick apart the code underlying Apple's iPhone 3.0 OS, details are surfacing that point to possible new hardware features for both the iPhone and iPod Touch. One of the first details unearthed from the code is the addition of stereo Bluetooth-audio streaming--a feature that current (second-generation) iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to take advantage of once the new OS is available this summer.

"The X-chromosomes of any species, in addition to determining sex, carry genes. The corresponding genes in the pair of X-chromosomes that determine a female may or may not be identical. Thus the X-chromosome carries genes which give rise to sex-linked characters; and such genes will differ in different strains. We must explicitly repudiate the idea that the sex-chromosomes have no other activity than the determination of sex. They often carry other factors and, when these are modified by mutation, sex-linked changes may appear in the offspring" STR, P447 "This number twelve, with its subdivisions and multiples, runs throughout all basic life patterns of all seven superuniverses. There are also seven architectural types of life design, fundamental arrangements of the reproducing configurations of living matter. The Orvonton life patterns are configured as 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and 768. On Urantia there are forty-eight units of pattern control—trait determiners—in the sex cell of human reproduction" UB, P397