Blog Heap of Links for the day 12 May 2012

Benjamin Smith: You Sir are trying to take the credit for what the American People have achieved in killing Bin Laden. Your use of the SEALs accomplishment as a campaign slogan is nothing less than despicable. I, as a former Navy SEAL do not accept your taking credit for Osama Bin Laden’s death. The American Military accomplished that feat. ... reliable sources continue to report that not only did you attempt to stop or delay Bin Laden’s demise, you did not even leave the golf course for the situation room until 20 minutes before SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden. Even the clothes you wore in the situation room betray this fact. This is a Commander in Chief? A man who takes credit for actions largely taken while he was out golfing? ...

Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,

any attack on Iran can be expected to unleash a violent reaction throughout the Muslim world, both in the more organized Shia minority camp where Iran has influence and in the majority Sunni countries where Iran may not have influence but anti-Americanism certainly does. The risk will be greater for Israel than for anyone else - a state already isolated and besieged by hostile states. With its conflict with the Palestinians unresolved, it will find itself even more isolated and under threat. The United States will find itself besieged in many parts of the Muslim world, making normal diplomacy unworkable and the effort to enlist Muslim states to support the U.S. war against Al-Qaida more difficult.

Alex Jones adds new details on the existence of ”re-education” camps where political activists will be forced to appreciate the murderous foreign policy of the ruling elite. [Video]

Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP): ... the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg. It is a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment, of low growth, but worst of all, it's an EU with the economic prison of the Euro. And this now poses huge dangers to the continent. We face the prospect of mass civil unrest possibly even revolution in some countries that are being driven into total and utter desperation. But there is perhaps an opportunity. There is perhaps some good news. That now a democratic rebellion has begun, and it began in Finland last year, with the True Finns getting nearly 20% of the vote. And we're seeing in country after country new political movements on the right and the left making big scores. But that may not all be good news. Because in Greece what we saw, last Sunday, was rather reminiscent of the German election of 1932....

South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules... made in northeastern China from dead babies whose bodies were chopped into small pieces and dried on stoves before being turned into powder... disguised as stamina boosters, and some people believe them to be a panacea for disease... contained superbacteria and other harmful ingredients...

the Justice Department saw fit to give $400,000 in grants to an organization that lists Dohrn as a member of its board of directors: a $150,000 grant in September of 2010 and a $250,000 grant a year later.

CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory. ... My Comment: The march to eliminate our privacy continues.

[May 9] marks the 258th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon – often thought of as the first editorial cartoon in the Americas. It was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette as a rallying cry unity among the colonies.

...near-mint first edition of ... Batman ... sold for $850,000 in a private transaction through Heritage Auction. ... new owners are only disclosed as an “investor partnership.”

Thursday when the Justice Department announced that it had sued Arpaio, his office and Maricopa County for civil rights violations, including what it said is the long-standing racial profiling of Latinos. Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said he was “left with no choice...." At his own news conference Thursday, Arpaio, who has denied the profiling allegations, shot back: “I’m not going to surrender my office to the federal government. I will fight this to the bitter end. They’re using me for the Latino vote.”

the U.S. military not only wants more robots - it wants more 'autonomous' robots, robots free to make their own decisions on the battlefield.

Around 3 p.m on May 6, 31-year-old David Christopher Norris was riding his motorcycle on Brown Station Road, near Brooke Lane, in Upper Marlboro when the bird flew directly into his travel path....

59-year-old woman... "regained her bag in a scuffle and the suspect had one of his fingers partially bitten off before getting away on his bicycle...."

The apparent disappearance of Christopher Lasseter, who says he saw Breitbart drop to the sidewalk in front of a restaurant, adds to the mystery surrounding Breitbart’s March 1 death. ... On March 1, Crime File News reported Lasseter was walking his dog in Brentwood, Calif., when he saw Breitbart cross the street from the Brentwood Restaurant. Breitbart was walking without apparent distress when he stepped on the curb “and fell like a sack of potatoes,” Lasseter said. He noted that Breitbart’s skin color was bright red, which is not typically associated with heart attack victims. Paul Huebl, who writes for Crime File News, reported April 22 that he interviewed Lasseter and added the detail that the witness was disturbed by Breitbart’s color. As a former Army medic, Huebl knew that most heart attack victims turned blue.