Blog Heap of Links for the day 13 June 2009

President Barack Obama said on Friday he was hopeful the robust debate taking place in Iran's presidential election would advance his administration's efforts to engage longtime US rival Tehran in new ways. [IMPEACH!]

North Korea vowed Saturday to step up its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war if its ships are stopped as part of new U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the nation for its latest nuclear test.

In what a U.S. military official calls an "inadvertent encounter," a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the destroyer USS John McCain on Thursday.

It's called a ghost bike. It is a somber reminder on the side of the road, an informal memorial marking the scene of a crash where two bicyclists were killed. ...painted all white.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has defended his "completely free" re-election as Iran's president, amid violent clashes on the streets over claims of election fraud. Mr Ahmadinejad condemned the outside world for "psychological warfare" against Iranians during the election.

Louis Dobbs... CNN anchor and managing editor for Lou Dobbs Tonight. He is an editorial columnist and syndicated radio show host....

She's the only person to go all the way to court when sued by the recording industry over music file-sharing -- and this week, she'll be fighting back again.... a federal judge decided last September that he made a mistake in telling jurors that the companies didn't have to prove that anyone downloaded the songs she had allegedly made available....

"I know this is going to sound weird, but in a way, it was a blessing. With all the problems my father had, I'm in a better place in life now than if he had raised me."

President Obama, who said as a candidate that he would seek repeal of a law denying federal recognition of same-sex marriage, has angered gay rights groups with court arguments portraying the law as a nondiscriminatory measure that "preserves scarce government resources." [IMPEACH!]

The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has released video from a police dashboard camera of a scuffle between a paramedic and a state trooper after amateur video of the incident showed an officer grabbing the EMT by the neck.

A transcript makes clear how many details the investigators have about the last minutes of its flight — and how little it tells them.... routine message about a malfunction in one of the plane's lavatories is followed by a worrisome one that says that the speed sensor has a problem, but the cascade that follows is hard to parse....

Criminal charges have been approved against a 24-year-old woman... believed to be a Burmese immigrant... who abandoned her newborn boy near a Wheaton home early Friday morning... baby was found lying naked under a tree - umbilical cord still attached... child's condition was upgraded from serious to fair...

The son of James W. von Brunn says that he wishes it had been his father, not U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum guard Stephen T. Johns, who died in Wednesday's shooting and that von Brunn's hatred of Jews was a plague that ruined his family's life.... "...He should not be remembered as a brave man or a hero, but a coward unable to come to grips with the fact he threw his and his families lives away for an ideology that fostered sadness and anguish...." Larger-than-usual crowds have been visiting the museum since the incident... Sara Bloomfield, the museum's director, said, "People are not going to be deterred...."

Self-styled 'emancipator of women' baffles audience with his views towards opposite sex... to hundreds of baffled Italian women gathered for a rare audience with Muammar Gaddafi, if this was the king of women's rights then the movement still has a long way to go.... "with all these women working for him as semi slaves it seems a bit of a contradiction to call himself a liberator of women." [DUH]

About 15,000 customers, most of them in Dallas County, remained without electricity Saturday after severe storms pounded the North Texas area earlier in the week.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Friday plans to restart the country's first clean coal power project, scrapped by the previous Bush administration as too expensive. [BUT NOTHING IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR OBAMA! IMPEACH!]

Six Flags Inc., the owner of 20 theme parks, sought bankruptcy protection 3 1/2 years after Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder become chairman and hired new managers in an attempt to return it to profitability.

Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean... "I've had some inappropriate appearances that Keith Lewis has asked me to do.... one of them being Playboy... Another one was a gay movie premiere that he wanted me to attend incognito. He actually said he wanted me to wear a hat and go in disguise and attend this movie premiere promoting gay marriage and then come out with a statement the next day saying that Carrie Prejean attended a gay movie premiere....