Blog Heap of Links for the day 15 March 2011

Congressmen Dan Boren (D-OK) and Mike Rogers (R-MI) have introduced a bill that would expand the waiver process in the new health care law to all Americans and employers.

President Obama's conference on bullying Thursday was deeply ironic to some in the White House press corps. That's because every reporter who regularly covers the place knows that President Obama's staff has a policy — an actual, pre-conceived policy — of bullying. It's a tactic that amount to no less than suppression of speech. By the "openness" administration. The White House bullies reporters to try to ensure favorable coverage. When White House officials, particularly members of the press office, see a story they don't like, they often call and verbally abuse the reporter who wrote the piece. In diatribes often peppered with obscenities, they complain of profound injustice, bias, lack of relevance — anything they can think of to get reporters to back off their story. It's not just a series of uncontrolled outbursts. It is a planned, methodical, and highly artificial effort to either squash a story or get inside a reporter's head so they think twice about doing a piece next time that negatively impacts Obama.

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Monday night it should stay away from a high-profile challenge to the 2010 health care law until after a lower court has had a chance to review the case... Team Obama has said they're absolutely convinced of the health care law's constitutionality, so with that in mind wouldn't you think they'd welcome a fast-track opinion on the law and ultimate thumbs-up from the Supreme Court?...

Obama has clearly signaled that he is content to leave America's fate in the hands of the United Nations. He seems to believe that a global consensus should trump American sovereignty. For Obama, this relieves him of the need to make the tough decisions usually required by American presidents. For the rest of the world, Obama's actions and lack of actions signal weakness. And Obama has never learned the basic lesson that weakness does not appease, it emboldens.

The Obama administration is holding meetings on new gun laws, but they will be missing a key political player: The National Rifle Association. Wayne LaPierre, the organization's chief executive, told The New York Times, "why should I or the NRA go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?"

Disney's planned remake of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine has been shelved. Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis had been planning a 3D performance-capture remake of the band's 1968 psychedelic classic. Hollywoodreporter.com has quoted sources as saying that the decision to pull the project is the result of the disastrous opening of the Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms film. [Well, at least SOME good can come out of Mars Needs Moms bombing!]

Anyone 18 or older could openly carry a firearm in Oklahoma without a gun license under a bill overwhelmingly approved in the state Senate.

A fire broke out at a nuclear reactor again Wednesday, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan and left the government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's earthquake and tsunami.

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn't aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared. On the other side of the issue is Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency. Huston said state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and said people don't need to buy the pills.

SEATTLE - Fears of transpacific nuclear fallout from Japan's reactor crisis have sent consumers scrambling for radiation antidotes across the ocean on the west coast of the United States and

Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

Amid scenes of unimaginable carnage, desperate survivors were today battling for survival as the official death toll soared above 3,300.

Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

Owsley Stanley, an icon of Bay Area counterculture in the 1960s and a longtime associate of the Grateful Dead, died Sunday in a car accident in his adopted home of Queensland, Australia, according to family spokesperson Sam Cutler. He was 76. Mr. Stanley had been driving to his home near the city of Cairns during a storm and lost control of the car, Cutler said. He died instantly. His wife, Sheila, suffered a broken collarbone.

No one did more to alter the consciousness of the generation that came of age in the 1960s than Augustus Owsley Stanley (who passed away March 13, 2011). Long before the Summer of Love drew thousands of hippies to Haight-Ashbury, Owsley was already an authentic underground folk hero, revered throughout the counterculture for making the purest form of LSD ever to hit the street. Yet today, at seventy-two, he is all but forgotten.

The researchers found that owning and walking the dogs, increased the chances of meeting federal benchmarks on physical activity by 34%, for the dog owners. However, less than half the number of Americans are able to meet the recommended levels of physical exercise.

Dog owners who walk their dogs are 34 percent more likely than others to meet federal physical activity benchmarks, according to new research.

I have this fear that if Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Sharron Angle ever got together in the same room, it would create a Black Hole, and the universe would be sucked into the vortex vacuum. [and further meaningless screed. I only turned to this on the recommendation of Mark Evanier. Learned my lesson.]

Read Hayward's entire piece here. As usual, he nails it. This LaBash is clearly an idiot but, beyond him, I continue to be amazed by the propensity of some self-described conservatives to be used by liberals to attack actual conservatives. While real conservatives, like Governor Palin, are giving their all fighting Obama's ruinous "Transformation of America" in the trenches, these weenies provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Indeed, despite their elite credentials, or perhaps because of them, I'm not sure they're even bright enough to know who the enemy is (hint: it's not Governor Palin).