Blog Heap of Links for the day 7 April 2016

Republican leaders have blocked the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, because they say they do not want terrorists held on United States soil. But American prisons currently hold 443 convicted terrorists, far more than the 89 men who remain imprisoned in Cuba. …

• Marine Corps dog Lucca was injured on tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2012
• She lost her front left leg after stepping on an explosive during operation
• Lucca had previously sniffed out thousands of IEDs, saving many lives
• She travelled from California to London to receive the Dickin Medal - the highest honor for service animals…

…The chair that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling sat in while writing the first two books of the wizardry series was sold at a New York City auction on Wednesday for $394,000…

Bizarre times make for good political posters

• But will there be a site of People of Alibaba?
• Your tax dollars wasted is a 'microaggression'
• Reap, sow, deserve

…On this day in 1922 the Teapot Dome scandal occurred. The United States Secretary of the Interior leased Teapot Dome petroleum reserves in Wyoming to cronies through bribery. It was a tempest in the teapot as the secretary of the interior was convicted of leasing the oil fields to oil companies after getting bribes for lower rates. He went to jail. Scankles bribery events while SoS make these look like nickel and dime operations.…

If there were a speed-blogging competition, my goal would be to win it with this round-up post. …

Police in Norway did not like a man’s profile picture on Facebook because in it he appeared to be holding an automatic weapon. They paid a visit to his house in the middle of the night, but the weapon turned out to be a Softgun, a replica gun that shoots plastic pellets. A Softgun is legal for adults to possess in Norway, but the police confiscated this one anyway.

In other news, students at the University of Indiana became alarmed when they saw what they thought was a member of the Ku Klux Klan walking across campus dressed in a white KKK robe. A residence hall advisor sent out a warning email to all the students on his list about the apparent danger. However, it turned out that the man was in fact a priest dressed in liturgical garments. There’s no word on whether the frightening clergyman was apprehended and removed from campus so that students could feel safe again.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.…