Blog Heap of Links for the day 19 June 2009

Dr. David Scheiner took care of Obama for 22 years. But they don't see eye-to-eye on how to fix the health care system.

The U.S. military is preparing for a possible intercept of a North Korean flagged ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday

A Denver police officer has been suspended after allegedly brandishing his gun at a McDonald's restaurant in Aurora after his order took too long to fill.... flashed his police badge and pointed a pistol through the drive through window in a threatening manner, before driving off without paying....

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household... anyone over 18 years of age who refuses to answer "any of the questions" on the census can be fined up to $5,000.... [IMPEACH! REPEAL! REVOLT!]

In a move that could disrupt Google's growth in China, which now has more internet users than the US, the Chinese government said it had told Google to suspend foreign searches and a feature that automatically suggests multiple search results once typing commences in the search window.

Charges against a former Bartlesville Police Department reserve officer accused of attempting to stop a motorist on south U.S. Highway 75 in April were dismissed Friday. Prosecutors could not withstand a "motion to dismiss" filed by defense attorneys for Eric Evans, who was charged with impersonating a police officer.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson broke ground on Friday on construction of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.

A 79-year-old Vienna man who was fed up with his Verizon service died after trying to stop a technician's van from pulling out of his driveway.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor resigned Friday from an elite all-women's club after Republicans questioned her participation in it. Sotomayor said she resigned from the Belizean Grove to prevent the issue from becoming a distraction in her confirmation hearings. [TOO LITTLE TOO LATE if that's what she wants. Not to compare the organizations, but if a guy had quit the KKK only for those reasons, would you expect everybody to just drop the matter?]

Dutch twin brothers who mugged a teenager in the northern town of Groningen were arrested after being caught on camera by a car gathering images for Google's online photo map service

As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years... City officials maintain the policy is necessary to ensure employees' integrity and protect the public's trust, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana says they may be crossing the line.... [MAY be crossing the line? MAY BE????!!!!!]