Blog Heap of Links for the day 23 August 2011

NATO's war planners call it the "iron mountain," the $2.7 billion mass of military equipment that will be dropped on Afghanistan over the next eight months... 22,000 vehicles, including 514 new four-wheeled "mobile strike force" armored vehicles yet to be used in Afghanistan, 44 airplanes and helicopters, 40,000 weapons, and tens of thousands of radios and other pieces of communications gear... President Hamid Karzai and others say they are not interested in fielding an army and police force they cannot afford or sustain as American troops withdraw... [And WHO exactly are we arming and WHAT guarantees do we have this stuff won't be taken and used against us?]

MOUNT DORA, Fla. -- A man and woman were arrested early Monday after they were found living with three children, one of whom had second-degree burns, inside a garbage-filled car in the parking lot of a Mount Dora Walmart… 1987 Cadillac Coupe Deville… said they had been living in the car for about three days.

Phillip Seaton went to a Kentucky hospital in October 2007 for a routine circumcision. When he woke up, his penis was gone.

A draft constitution for Libya's transitional period details numerous rights in the Western liberal tradition, but ominously declares that Sharia shall be the source of its laws. ... "Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)."

To admit that over a thousand of its idealistic volunteers get raped in the countries they are coming to help, might make Americans think that those countries aren't worth helping. That maybe they aren't noble souls who happen to lack proper irrigation and classrooms, but that they lack those things because there is nothing noble about their cultural backwardness.

Alicia Bouchard even sat and watched while her 26-year-old husband had sex with the underage girl at their Florida home. [His mug shot: too telling.]

A U.S. businessman who went into a drunken rage on board a transatlantic flight to the UK was arrested after allegedly threatening to stab the pilots with a shard of glass. ... 'Petrified' passengers claimed 32-year-old ... was drinking large quantities of wine and beer before raving at passengers and attacking staff. [Petrified? Really? Over a "shard of glass"? In this post-9/11 day and age?]

Police have released video from a McDonald's security camera that show a police officer's final act of kindness shortly before he was killed in a random act of violence. The video clip shows Officer Jeremy Henwood paying for a 10-year-old boy's meal at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Diego, California, neighbourhood that he patrolled.