Blog Heap of Links for the day 7 April 2011

Obama: "I remember what it was like pumping gas... [says he is not] out of touch."

Robert "Bobby" Titcomb, 49, was one of four men arrested in an undercover sting operation on Monday, Honolulu police told the Associated Press. Titcomb was released on $500 bail. He and Obama attended Punahou School in Honolulu and are often seen together playing golf and basketball and dining out when Obama returns to Hawaii on vacation. The White House had no comment

Congress on Tuesday revoked the first significant parts of President Obama's health care initiative when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to eliminate a burdensome tax paperwork requirement the law imposes on businesses. Republicans called the bill "a down payment on total repeal" while most Democrats said it marked an improvement in last year's law. The bill had previously cleared the House and now goes directly to Mr. Obama.

All of us know what those challenges are today - a war with no end, a dependence on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren't learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We've heard them. We've talked about them for years. [No, that's Obama talking about Bush. Surprise!]

...On an estimated more than 10,000 ballots in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the state capital Madison is, voters selected only a pick in the Supreme Court race, while leaving even the hotly contested mayoral and county executive choices blank. That raises red flags for election experts like Scott St. Clair of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.... "missing box of ballots," a voter overheard poll workers talking about... reports of 17-year-olds voting ... folks allegedly using their husbands' or relatives' utility bills in voter registration, ballots weren't being counted because they were using the wrong kind of pens. There's an over-count of 10,000 votes in Dane County....

Fighting flared in Gaza on Thursday after a Palestinian anti-tank missile hit an Israeli school bus, wounding two, and Israeli forces retaliated with planes and artillery, killing five Palestinians. Palestinian medics said at least 30 people were injured in three hours of attacks by Israeli forces. Firing tapered off after nightfall.

Ashkelon residents report seeing Grad explode in midair as dozens of rockets fired at south, meanwhile Hamas says Israel taking advantage of Goldstone's regret over Gaza war report to bomb Strip

An elderly Georgian woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap when she accidentally sliced through an underground cable and cut off internet services to all of neighbouring Armenia... Web users in the nation of 3.2 million people were left twiddling their thumbs for up to five hours... Television pictures showed reporters at a news agency in the capital Yerevan staring glumly at blank screens. [What a hilarious sentence!]

I didnt see it happen but drove by immediately after.. the dump truck was in the right lane stopped and she hit it head-on. She would have had to drive out of her lane, over the center turn lane, over the north bound left lane, and into the northbound right lane to hit this dump truck.

A woman and a young boy were killed Monday in a head-on collision... drifted left of center and struck the sanitation truck... [mother] and the boy dead at the scene. A 7-year-old girl was admitted in critical condition to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa

After admitting a role in the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols gave conflicting statements about whether another conspirator, John Doe No. 2, existed, recently released FBI reports show.

The journalist "advised that a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services who contracted seven (7) former Afghani Freedom Fighters out of Pakistan," an April 17, 1996 FBI memo states, recounting the then-ABC journalist's interview with FBI agents a year earlier on the evening of the April 19, 1995 bombing. (The Iraqi connection, of course, never materialized.) [Ahem?]

...[stole] more than $500,000 from her in-laws... [who had] advanced-stage dementia... spent more than $14 million at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa over a two-year period. Her winnings' were about $13 million, leaving her at a loss of more than $700,000....

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is often incorrectly referred to as a psychiatric disorder, said Dr. Marc Feldman, a psychiatrist at the University of Alabama who wrote "Playing Sick? Untangling the Web of Munchausen Syndrome, Munchausen by Proxy, Malingering, and Factitious Disorder." "It is not a mental illness," Feldman said. "It is a form of abuse, just like sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse — it's just a variant." [At first I thought, whatttaya mean 'not a mental illness'?! This must mean, MbP describes behavior, the cause of which may or may not be mental illness. Like stealing may be plain theft or kleptomania.]

Defendant Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist on parole when 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard disappeared while walking to a school bus stop, was expected to plead guilty Thursday as part of a plea deal that would keep him in prison for the rest of his life

An incensed federal judge sentenced a racist Brooklyn woman to indefinite jury duty on Tuesday after she trashed the NYPD and minorities. "This is an outrage, and so are you!"

The state parole board on Tuesday granted parole in 2021 for Richard A. Schonefeld, who with his brother and another man was convicted of hijacking a Chowchilla school bus and holding 26 children and their driver underground. A board spokesman said that any governor in the next 10 years could ask the board to reconsider its decision. The hostage-taking and escape of the captives grabbed the nation's attention in 1976.

The ticket that had them all in Powerball was sold in Indiana. For matching all the numbers drawn last night - 10, 18, 41, 55 and 56, with a Powerball of 15 - someone there can claim a jackpot worth $221.7 million, the lottery's biggest prize since June. Earning $1 million, for matching the first five while having the Power Play multiplier option were two tickets, sold in Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Former President Jimmy Carter says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief "that women are inferior in the eyes of God." Carter said such teachings by "leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions" allow men to beat their wives and deny women their fundamental rights as human beings. [All those times the Presbyterians stoned rape victims to death. Religionists! They're all the same, aren't they, Reverend Jimmy?]

A vast field of debris, swept out to sea following the Japan earthquake and tsunami, is floating towards the U.S. West Coast... cars, tractor-trailers, capsized ships and even whole houses... predictions of... human feet, still in their shoes, to wash up on the West Coast within three years.... Members of the U.S. Navy's 7th fleet, who spotted the extraordinary floating rubbish, say they have never seen anything like it and are warning the debris now poses a threat to shipping traffic.... Scientists say the first bits of debris from Japan are due to reach the West Coast in a year's time after being carried by currents toward Washington, Oregon and California.They will then turn toward Hawaii and back again toward Asia, circulating in what is known as the North Pacific gyre

Physicists will announce Wednesday that data from a major US atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature.... The discovery is believed to relate to mass and how objects obtain it.... the particles behave differently than the Higgs-boson, which would be decaying into heavy quarks, or particles. The new discovery "is decaying in normal quarks...." "Nobody knows what this is.... If it is real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century."

Speaking just hours before the spending plan gets its formal introduction before Congress, Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, said the debt will peak at 74.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2014 and then drop from there. "We've got to show the country that we can get this situation under control and grow the economy, and that's what we're doing," he said. "So whether (Democratic Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid is willing to pass this bill or Barack Obama is ready to sign it, I don't know the answer to that question. "What I do know is I can't look my kids and my constituents in the eyes with my conscience being clear and not know that I didn't do everything I could to try and fix this problem before it got out of control."

Nearly half the teens in the U.S. don't see daily heavy drinking as a big deal... Nearly a third of the parents who took part in the study say there's little they can do to keep their kids from trying alcohol.... [Let's see... how much of the ginormous American anti-liberty Prohibitionist enforcement and incarceration industry budget has been going to fighting booze, the greatest scourge of all?]

[Headline for CBS scare-mongering propaganda: Teenage drug abuse skyrockets] At a June 2010 music rave in Los Angeles, thousands of teenagers were drunk and high, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.... 15-year-old Sasha Rodriguez drank water laced with ecstasy. She later overdosed and died.... It may seem shocking.... [OMG! Thousands at rave drink and do drugs! A teen died! Above-the-fold extra-large headlines!]

...between 2008 and 2010 teens who said they had used marijuana in the past year climbed to 39 percent from 32 percent.... Between 2008 and 2010, teens who said they had used the "party" drug ecstasy in the past year increased to 10 percent from six percent... 45 percent said they do not see a "great risk" in heavy daily drinking, while 31 percent strongly disapprove of their peers getting drunk. [Okay, Headline for this straightforward Reuters' report: Teen substance abuse on rise over past 3 years: study]

The mainstream media are reporting that there's a good chance military pay will be suspended after 8 April. In practical terms, this means there will be a 15 April paycheck containing pay through the 8th (half the normal semi-monthly amount), and nothing after that until the shutdown is over. Obviously, there are questions about why the Obama administration is emitting signals like this. They are politically stupid; no significant constituency thinks the US budget battle has to be fought across the monthly bills of our fighting men and women. The possibility that the military will be required to continue on duty without pay also highlights one of the important differences between the military and the rest of the federal government. The government can't require its civilian work force to operate without pay. Its only options, with the civilian work force, are furloughing employees and shutting down services. The civilian work force is protected by union agreements and labor laws in this regard. The troops are not.

according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Real estate tycoon, television personality and possible presidential candidate Donald Trump attends the 'Dressed To Kilt' fashion show to benefit the Friends of Scotland Organization at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Tuesday n New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini) Among Republican primary voters, Mr. Romney captured the support of 21% in a broad, nine-candidate field. Mr. Trump was tied for second with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with 17%. House Speaker Newt Gingrich got 11%, just ahead of former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's 10%. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, considered a strong contender by political handicappers, remains largely unknown, with just 6% support. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota had 5%, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum 3%, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour with just 1%

Ryan's plan would cut almost $30 billion (or 20 percent of projected outlays) over the next 10 years from farm subsidies (direct payments, currently costing about $5 billion per year) and crop insurance subsidies. h/t Cuz BD]

"Listen, there's no daylight between the tea party and me... None. What they want is, they want us to cut spending. They want us to deal with this crushing debt that's going to crush the future for our kids and grandkids. There's no daylight there."

Boehner told Obama that his conference will not be "forced to choose between two options that are bad for the country (accepting a bad deal that fails to make real spending cuts, or accepting a government shutdown due to Senate inaction)," the readout said. "That this is why House Republicans — in lieu of an agreement in which the White House and Senate agree to real spending cuts — are rallying behind a potential third option: a CR that funds our troops through September while cutting an additional $12 billion in spending and keeps the government running for another week," the readout said.

We have to police the police. Who could have imagined that police unions would join protesters and engage in acts of political intimidation? Who could have imagined that a county Sheriff would declare that his officers would not act as "palace guards" when protecting the State Capitol? Public sector unions are more than economic issues, they are central players in whether voters or unions control government.