Blog Heap of Links for the day 14 June 2009
Obamanation
Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration's spending [Of course he did!]
CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects. [Right... so when they attack, we can blame Cheney. IMPEACH!]
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!]
Wars and Rumors
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.
Threats
The mayor of Hiroshima... denounced North Korea for threatening to build more nuclear weapons... "I am furious, with them (North Korea) for defying strong protests from the international community, including Hiroshima, the city attacked in an atomic bombing..."
Sick, Sick, Sick
The teenager accused of mutilating more than a dozen cats in South Miami-Dade was not the reserved yet rabid killer some expected. He was a dog-loving class clown, a swim class instructor, an 18-year-old who grew up before the eyes of the four-legged victims' families. He appeared to be appalled by the horrific killings, and joined the Facebook group "Catch the Cat Killer!'' ... Police, working with tips gathered from the community and reading his Facebook and MySpace pages... ''He was always so nice to my animals... I have three cats and they loved him....''
After hearing the news of the gorilla's escape, a local GOP activist exposed his vile racism, by suggesting that the gorilla was an "ancestor" of Michelle Obama, the lovely and admired First Lady of the United States.
Miami Fla--A teenager has been arrested in a string of cat killings and mutilations that horrified residents of Miami's southern suburbs...
Digital Threat
"... the heat generated from laptops can impact sperm production and development making it difficult to conceive down the road."... Other tips to protect male fertility... Avoid hot tubs... [Isn't all this old news?]
Whoops!
...By the time he and the deputy got there, his 2,200-square-foot house and a barn, valued at $200,000, had been reduced to debris and dumped into four huge Dumpsters. The backhoe and crane were still in the yard... His grandmother's dining room set and china were in the house. So was the family Bible... "(He) said he was just given GP coordinates [!!!!!] and they lined up to my property..." the house intended for demolition is across the street and up the road about 150 yards....
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.
Transport Tragedy
THE Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic with 228 people on board broke apart before it hit the water, throwing out some passengers at high altitude, investigators believe.... Their conclusion is based on the discovery of two trails of bodies more than 50 miles apart, suggesting that the Airbus split in two after going out of control in bad weather...
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.
Digital Tyranny
Several foreign news organisations complained Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking their reporters from covering protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.
Nature can be Deadly
most famous for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980... deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States...
History - less with us
Rusted, busted, waterlogged and crud-encrusted, the Buried Belvedere rose from its resting place at the Tulsa County Courthouse two years ago this weekend. It's still not exactly ready for the drag races, but at least some color has returned to its cheeks
Under Tyranny
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.
Mass Media is Dead
Louis Dobbs... CNN anchor and managing editor for Lou Dobbs Tonight. He is an editorial columnist and syndicated radio show host....
Rage can be Fatal
...the husband, who was 25, and the man who was summoned by the wife got involved in an altercation after the husband allegedly broke the man's car window. The suspect then went to his car, retrieved a gun and chased and shot the victim.. [to death...]
Art of
ad-libbed and experimental style that would come to make his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non sequitur gags and for carefully allowing the so-called fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs' cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and, on occasion, outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. Ernie frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows....
extraterrestrial
[fOR] the first time the transmission spectrum of the Earth has been measured.... The spectrum not only contained signs of life but these signs were unmistakably strong. It also contained unexpected molecular bands and the signature of the earth ionosphere.... "Now we know what the transmission spectrum of a inhabited planet looks like, we have a much better idea of how to find and recognize Earth like planets outside our solar system where life may be thriving...."
Cosmology
Marriage Today
It's All in Your Mind
REM sleep fosters the formation of associative networks in the brain... ""We found that — for creative problems that you've already been working on — the passage of time is enough to find solutions.... However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity..." appears REM sleep helps achieve such solutions by stimulating associative networks...
Animal Companions
Horowitz was able to show that the human tendency to attribute a "guilty look" to a dog was not due to whether the dog was indeed guilty. Instead, people see 'guilt' in a dog's body language when they believe the dog has done something it shouldn't have — even if the dog is in fact completely innocent of any offense.
Digital Culture
Religiously devout Jews barred by rabbis from surfing the Internet may now "Koogle" it on a new "kosher" search engine... rabbis... restrict use of the Web to ensure followers avoid viewing sexually explicit material.... links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes... "If you try to buy something on the Sabbath, it gets stuck and won't let you...."
Anthropology
More than 100 feet deep in Lake Huron, on a wide stony ridge that 9,000 years ago was a land bridge, researchers have found the first archeological evidence of human activity preserved beneath the Great Lakes.
Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!
Kendall Craig Farris, who heads the Over the Wall Foundation in Marina del Rey, is arrested after an undercover Redondo Beach officer is sold fake methamphetamine and ecstasy tablets.
A new billboard located off a busy street in Oklahoma City is advertising the legalization of drugs.... 10,000 members of the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, known as LEAP. The officers use the badge to make their message more credible.... [And some opposing propaganda bla bla bla put down of LEAP's noble men...]
Evolution Isn't Easy
Science Marches Onnnnnn
element 112... zinc and lead nuclei merge in a nuclear fusion to form the nucleus of the new element...
Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday defended his weekend election victory while security forces cracked down on opposition leaders and demonstrators... defeated challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, said in a statement he was under house arrest and banned from appearing in public...
History
While studying genealogy on the Internet, she came across the controversy surrounding possible photographs of the first president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "I went, 'Oh, well I have a picture of him,'" she says.... could be the most accurate known image of the church leader....
Copy Rights
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....
Digital Tech
The researchers hope that use of their fish robot for ship propulsion will help prevent shoreline erosion and the underminings of submarine installations caused by ships' screws. The fish robot's "soft" drive action should also prevent the churning up of seabeds and riverbeds and its effects on marine plants and aquatic-animal populations.
Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that message automatically sent to an e-mail address.
Nature can be Healthy
researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who have come up with a mechanism that doubles the future lifespan of the biosphere—while also increasing the chance that advanced life will be found elsewhere in the universe.... "if we study exoplanets, maybe we will see it. Maybe the experiment has already been done...."
US Military
His main quest in life was to discover what had happened to his son, Zachary. Captured in Lebanon in 1982, there was information the past few years Zachary still was alive and was being held in Syria.
Family Patterns
Securing Our Borders
Oklahoma will begin deporting illegal immigrants who are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes when a new law takes effect July 1. The Oklahoma Criminal Illegal Alien Rapid Repatriation Act is expected to save Oklahoma taxpayers at least $4 million in the first year, said Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, the author of the measure.
United States of America
Suburban Chicago veterans have honored a garbage truck driver who's credited with saving 250 American flags from being improperly thrown out within the last 18 months... a 34-year-old native Canadian... married to a former Army medic who did two tours of duty in Kuwait.
Freedom
For seven long years in Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, the four Central Asian friends gazed longingly at the azure sea from their cells. They were never allowed through the razor wire to paddle in the water. Now, suddenly set free in Bermuda.... "Our feelings are incredible. We did not think we were going to be this happy."