Blog Heap of Links for the day 9 May 2011

Errors happen. Miscommunications happen. Confusing the name of which of bin Laden's myriad sons died (Hamza, not Khalid), for example, is no biggie. But the hourly revamping of key details of Sunday's raid suggests something far beyond the usual realm of situational uncertainty that accompanies any military operation. The Navy SEALs did their job spectacularly. The civilians tasked with letting the world know about the mission, however, have performed like amateur dinner theater actors in a tragi-comic production of "Rashomon-meets-The Blind Men and the Elephant-meets-Keystone Kops." Incapable of straightforward answers, Team Obama's clarity-challenged civilians have led nauseated news-watchers through more twists and turns than San Francisco's Lombard Street. Take your Dramamine, and let's review.

Iran is conducting final tests at its first nuclear power plant and it is expected to start generating electricity in the next two months

U.S. officials in Kabul said on Monday the movements of staff in parts of Afghanistan's volatile south were being restricted, warning of more attacks after a two-day siege came to a bloody end and insurgents killed at least 11 people in other attacks.

Police detonated charges near the SUV at 149th St. and Morris Ave. before declaring it a false alarm. Still, the sight of cops, firefighters and bomb-sniffing dogs flooding the streets of Melrose left neighbors jittery.

At some point during the attack, the man and the cat reportedly were injured by a knife the man was holding.... [Cat "attacked" man. Man draws knife. Cat was mortally wounded, but man went to hospital. WIN, CAT!]

Four people were arrested after a suspicious incident at Denver International Airport.... Airport personnel noticed someone videotaping the security lines. Police then confronted the person with the camera and the three people in line who were being taped. Two of those people did not have IDs or boarding passes. Police arrested the man with the camera and the three people in line. Police say they don't know what the group was doing. They were arrested on suspicion of interfering with a transportation facility....

A friend of three of the passengers on Flight 1706 told WWJ that the plane was evacuated after a threatening note was found in the bathroom. ... "The first time the captain came on, he said that there was a threat. The next time he came on to give us more details he said that there had been a note left in one of the lavatories...."

Two terrifying rail security breaches occurred within hours of each other in the city yesterday -- including one at the World Trade Center, where a man slipped into the PATH tunnel and walked all the way to Jersey before saying he had left a bomb in the tunnel. That scare -- and an unrelated escapade involving four "urban explorers" infiltrating the under-construction Second Avenue Subway tunnel -- come just days after the feds warned that al Qaeda could be targeting US trains.

SAN FRANCISCO - Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit as an American Airlines flight approached San Francisco.... yelling unintelligibly... 28-year-old Rageit Almurisi. He carried a Yemen passport, but it wasn't clear if his nationality was also Yemeni... no clear or known ties to terrorism.... A Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Chicago diverted in St. Louis after a 34-year-old man from Illinois tried to open a plane door during the flight... a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego was landed instead in Albuquerque, New Mexico, because of a security scare but authorities found "no suspicious devices" on the plane ... declined to clarify the nature of the "potential security threat" ...

Pakistani media aired the name of a man they said is the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief, prompting questions about whether the Pakistani government tried to out a CIA operative in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The U.S. is looking into the matter.

The release of the videos — recovered from Bin Laden's compound — by U.S. intelligence officials is clearly designed to expose the Bin Laden myth as a carefully manufactured fraud: the godfather of terror reduced to a doddery old man with nothing to do but watch videos of himself.

A Coon Rapids man went to suburban Detroit and fatally shot his 20-year-old stepdaughter in the head because she left Minnesota to live with her father and was not adhering to Muslim customs

Climate change will disrupt wi-fi connections, cause regular power failures and lead railway lines to buckle unless Britain spends billions of pounds, Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary has warned. [Yes, climate changes. Deal!]

Those leaving the Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter these days are either overjoyed after finding their pets lost when tornadoes ravaged the region or heartbroken and often moved to tears when they don't.

DALLAS — The Mockingbird DART station and the surrounding area, including the Angelika Theater, were evacuated Saturday after a police dog alerted authorities to a passenger onboard with two suspicious packages.... Riders traveling through downtown stations reportedly expressed alarm after a man asked them for help carrying a duffel bag and a large box..... determined the packages were not a threat.... "He was actually trying to pay people to help him get packages on and off the train...."

At the time of his arrest, Almurisi was in possession of a Yemeni passport as well as a California identification card