Blog Heap of Links for the day 28 April 2009

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning. Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next senator from Minnesota.

Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that will also push Democrats closer to a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority. "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site

Oklahoma City Hall is open again after a suspicious package found outside the building was deemed safe. City officials said the package was found in a trash can on the south side of the building at 201 N Walker.

[Article is unavailable]

An Oklahoma City man is accused in a federal criminal complaint of making threats through the Internet social networking site Twitter ... posted threatening messages to his Twitter account involving the April 15 public tax "tea party" protests ... One post... reads: "Locked AND loaded for the Oklahoma State Capitol. Let's see what happens." ... [and similar]

The swine flu epidemic crossed new borders Tuesday with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, as world health officials said they suspect American patients may have transmitted the virus to others in the U.S.

The victim of the alleged "Craigslist killer" recently got sober and was looking to get her life on track....

Autistic children have variations on genes that help neurons route themselves in the brain of a developing fetus... One of the gene variants occurs 20 percent more often in autistic children and may play a role in 12 percent to 18 percent of cases of autism... The altered DNA is found near a gene that is active in the development of the frontal cortex, a brain region necessary for language and judgment....

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK), an independent producer of natural gas founded twenty years ago by Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward.... third largest producer of natural gas in the United States (behind majors BP and ConocoPhillips), and at one time they were one of the fastest growing companies in the Southwest....

one of the common complaints about Heroes is that characters never really die, and just come back to life within a few weeks.

So, the finale airs and for those who've continued to watch, it's like admonishing a kid who achieves something great for not applying themselves all the time. Not saying that this was the best thing "Heroes" has ever done, but it might be the best ending so far.

It's tough being the dude who cares about this stuff even if he doesn't want to. It's a calling, really — like pulling a sword from a stone or being handed one of the Lantern Corps rings — and you can't turn it down. You have to watch the season finale of Heroes, even if you've sorta stopped caring.

HP is looking to draw in more small- and medium-sized-business users with its new ProBook s-series, a low-cost line sporting the Suse Linux, Vista or XP operating systems. Other features include the ability to link to an external modem as well HP Protect Tools for added security.

Facebook on Monday opened up massive parts of its site to third party developers, a move that effectively allows other sites to let users post updates, share pictures and links, and interact with Facebook without ever visiting Facebook.com. "Apparently, the company is prepared to lose gobs of traffic and, in turn, revenue from display ads on the site," notes BusinessWeek's Douglas MacMillan.

Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox 3.5 beta 4, a release that promises improvements to performance, web compatibility, and speed. It is now available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux via an online download.

There are now (once again) three simultaneous development tracks for Mozilla's Web browser, as the first public beta of Firefox to be numbered 3.5 has officially hit the streets; the first private Beta 5 of Firefox 3.5 is being distributed to Mozilla testers; and the latest Firefox 3.6 Alpha continues to make headway

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly Tuesday in favor of a government policy that threatens broadcasters with fines over the use of even a single curse word on live television, yet stopped short of deciding whether the policy violates the Constitution.

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has used this list as a powerful alarm to raise awareness of the serious threats facing the nation's greatest treasures. It has become one of the most effective tools in the fight to save the country's irreplaceable architectural, cultural, and natural heritage.

just because Microsoft believes XP has outlived its usefulness doesn't mean you have to find a fresher OS. There's plenty of life left in your XP machines, though keeping XP hale and hearty is now up to users more than ever.

a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away. ... the most distant object ever seen by humanity...

The former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz must be preserved so future generations can learn lessons from the horrors of the Holocaust, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently appealed for international donations to preserve the facilities and exhibits at Auschwitz, now a museum comprising 155 camp buildings and 300 ruined facilities.