Blog Heap of Links for the day 13 April 2011

Vice President Joe Biden appears asleep for a full 30 seconds during President Obama's speech on the debt and deficit earlier today.

A few years ago, while writing an article on the subject, I consulted several top constitutional lawyers on whether someone born a U.S. citizen but outside the country could run for the presidency. I got three different answers. [Warning: This article is blogged for amusement purposes only. Do not take seriously.]

Despite the legislative repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the military in last year's lame-duck session, the Obama administration is still keeping gays and lesbians at bay. Today, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden mark the beginning of their initiative supporting military families and will speak at a gathering at the White House. A group that represents gay and lesbian troops, Servicemembers United, lodged their complaint with gay magazine The Advocate, saying that civilian representatives of gay and lesbian military families were kept from attending the event.

Feral hogs are on a rampage in Fort Worth neighborhood, leaving a path of destruction behind.

A New York woman and her three children died after their minivan plunged into the Hudson River in Newburgh, N.Y., Tuesday night after a domestic dispute... Another child, a 10-year-old boy was let out of the van before it plunged into the river... "It's a horrible sight, all of them in the car," Newburgh Police Chief Michael Ferrara told the Times Herald-Record newspaper....

Search teams have found the tail section of Air France Flight 447, two years after the jet plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, victims' families say.

Michele Dufault '11, an Astronomy and Physics major from Massachusetts, died last night in an accident in Sterling Chemistry Laboratory, University Secretary Linda Lorimer said in a campuswide e-mail Wednesday morning.... While working in the Laboratory's machine shop, Michele's hair got caught in one of the shop's wood lathes...

"Within a week of eliminating [gluten], I started to feel markedly better," says Cooper, now 36, from Melbourne, Australia. "It wasn't a gradual feeling better; it was almost a crossing-the-street kind of thing." ... "There is a tight definition of celiac disease, but gluten intolerance has been a moving target." That was 10 years ago. The general practitioner who treated Cooper was ahead of his time, as most doctors are only now starting to realize that some people who don't have celiac disease may benefit from diets free of (or low in) gluten.... Experts now think of gluten intolerance as a spectrum of conditions, with celiac disease on one end and, on the other, what's been called a "no man's land" of gluten-related gastrointestinal problems that may or may not overlap....

Higher levels of circulating vitamin D appear to reduce the risk for early onset of age-related macular degeneration in women ages 50 to 74

FOMO, or "Fear of Missing Out," is a disease plaguing thousands of American youths. Our generation is broadly categorized as one that craves immediate feedback, delays the transition into adulthood and cannot commit to future plans. However false these characterizations may be..., they do have an outlet in the social sphere, particularly in our lives as college students. FOMO is a term for those times when you feel anxious about your decision to attend, or not attend, a specific event, believing that choosing one function or another may have grave consequences....

The nation's first proposed state-backed investment bank for the marijuana business failed Tuesday after a fiery debate in the Colorado House. ... The proposed Colorado Investment Trust was promoted as a way to allow pot shops to borrow money and bank. [STATE BACKED? WTF??]

The girl's father, Todd Drexel, says Anna was confused by the search and started crying afterward because she thought she'd done something wrong. Selena Drexel says such searches are inappropriate for children because they're usually told not to let adults touch them in sensitive areas.