Blog Heap of Links for the day 22 February 2016

…The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) was passed in 1979 to protect artifacts and archaeological sites. The BLM is one agency that is responsible enforcing the this act. Despite this the BLM has destroyed animal habitats, acres of Biological Soil Crust, acres of timber, and hundreds of archaeological sites and artifacts under the guises of land management.…

Western states should legally permit immigrant communities to surgically “nick” young girls’ vaginas as an alternative to genital mutilation, a pair of US gynaecologists argued in a hotly-challenged paper Tuesday.…

Happy Birthday, President Washington! Although much has changed since your time, we still have free speech, which I’m celebrating today with this illustrated round-up (and many thanks to Caped Crusader and Earl Aagaard for their contributions)…

A Hindu priest in Bangladesh was attacked and beheaded in his home, which is also the Hindu temple. Two other victims were reportedly wounded. Although the group responsible for the attack is not known, officials are certain that the incident had nothing to do with Islam.

In other news, 3,000 protesters gathered to protest the establishment of a refugee center near Kranja in Slovenia, fifteen miles north of the capital Ljubljana.…

A 12-year-old migrant boy in a Swedish asylum center was repeatedly raped by two full-grown men who had lied about their age — they said they were 15 — and were assigned to share a room with the unfortunate boy. Grown “refugee” men who pretend to be children are becoming increasingly common in Europe, since children get better benefits and are less likely to be deported than adult migrants.

In other news, the Italian birth rate in 2015 was the lowest annual rate that has been recorded since the unification of Italy in 1861.…

A suicide attack on a market in northeastern Cameroon killed nineteen people. A pair of female suicide bombers carried out the attack, which wounded an undetermined number of people. No group has claimed responsibility for the deed, but the Islamic activists of Boko Haram are the primary suspects.

In other news, the Greek government says that it wants other European countries to keep their borders open to migrants, or it will refuse to sign off to an accord designed to help keep Britain in the EU.…

On this day in 1819 the Adams-Onís Treaty was made in which Spain agreed to sell Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars ($78M today) and the settlement of the boundary between the US and New Spain (Mexico). The $5M was not to be paid to Spain but was to be used to pay American citizens' legal claims against Spain.…

…Rubio and his campaign team have intensified and broadened their Alinskyite tactics, now focusing on the ultimate personal smear -- that Ted Cruz is a serial liar. Even in this, Rubio is not original. Of course, Donald Trump has been calling his opponents liars as an almost Tourette's-like response against anyone who reminds him of his past but recent support for leftists and leftist causes, some of whom and which he still embraces. But Rubio's smears are part of a more deliberative and unrelenting propaganda campaign. They are now at the core of his campaign effort to dislodge Cruz and clear the field against Trump. …

Iraqi authorities have recovered radioactive material that was stolen last November… near a gas station in the southern town of Zubair…

Thank You for the Opportunity to Run for the Greatest Office on the Face of the Earth