Blog Heap of Links for the day 25 April 2016

…a beaver took a man hostage in Latvia.…

…According to the latest drivel from the intellectually-challenged Marcotte is the claim that we conservatives are having a meltdown over removing Andrew Jackson from the twenty dollar bill and replacing him with Harriet Tubman.

Really?

We’re having a meltdown? I’m not having a meltdown. Are you?…

Wanna see where the lithium for all the greenies electric cars comes from?…

Muskogee County, Ok. district attorney Orvil Loge told Gawker this afternoon that prosecutors will return $53,234 in seized assets to Eh Wah, a man who was pulled over in February while carrying the cash for a Burmese Christian rock band. Loge said his office also dropped a felony criminal charge against Eh Wah, who had been accused of “acquiring proceeds from drug activity.”…

…"The dad teared up a little and explained how he didn't have the money to afford a car seat right now and that he had been running into some tough times," Scaglione told ABC News today. "So I said, 'Hey, could you follow me to Walmart?' and he was a little shocked and asked me, 'For what?' I told him I'd be more than happy to buy the car seat for him."…

…Her husband Horst tried to extract the contents without breaking the glass, but eventually they had to do so to read what was written on the post card inside.… Turns out it was from the Marine Biological Association of Plymouth, England and had been in the ocean for 108 years. … Guinness World Records considers it the oldest message in a bottle ever found.…

Planned Parenthood tweeted a link to a Daily Beast column that claims “Trans Suicide Hotline Calls Double” after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed a bill into law that affirms the long-standing public expectation that men should use men’s bathrooms, and women should use women’s bathrooms.… “suicide prevalence” among “trans” is usually in upswing mode in spring anyway.…

A top Obama appointee in the Department of Education personally assured a group of LGBT activists that the White House is “aggressively engaged” in the fight to allow transgender students use whichever bathroom they please at school.…

…The University of Oklahoma, the State Chamber of Commerce, Oklahoma City and Tulsa Chambers of Commerce, the Oklahoma City Thunder – all of these entities have decided to side with Michael Bloomberg and Moms Demand Action and against the God-given right of every Oklahoman to self-preservation. As opposition mounts, our State Senators are feeling more and more pressure to forsake their oath of office and to side with Bloomberg.It is critical that they hear from you.

These organizations are giving the Senators misleading information.…

…Saturday morning, on the sun-drenched Atlantic shore of Cinnamon Beach on Florida's northeast coast, four U.S. Marine veterans gathered around a yellow longboard turned upright, trying to re-create a moment from five decades earlier.…

…Kurds and Shi'ites clash in northern Iraq despite ceasefire…
…Obama dismisses North Korea proposal on halting nuke tests…
…Large majority of Senate pushes Obama to boost Israel aid…

…Obama sends more forces to Syria to build on gains over Islamic State…
…30 years after Chernobyl disaster, containment is nearing completion…
…Cheap oil shaved $390 billion from mideast economies in 2015, IMF says…

• Strangest critter: Leptocephalus
• Foods Loaded With Sugar, Salt and Fat? Bring It
• Health: You Will Not Live Forever…

The leader of the Pirate Party in Germany was arrested by police for citing the poem that a TV satirist is being investigated (and possibly prosecuted) for. The same law that forbids insulting a foreign head of state — in this case, Turkish President Recep “Goatlover” Erdogan — was used to justify the arrest.

In other news, in the first round of the Austrian presidential election, Norbert Hofer, the candidate for the FPÖ (Freedom Party) did much better than any of the other parties. The two main parties won’t even be represented in the run-off, in which Mr. Hofer will face the candidate for the Greens.…

• Oh freaking boo-hoo, you've been an independent communist all of your life
• Every utterance out of that witch's mouth is a lie. At least Chelsea is a forthright Clinton
• Sad, lone gunman opens up with rifle at Antigo, WI HS Prom
• You have to be kidding. Ugh.…

…On this day in 1901 New York became the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. At the time they said the purpose was to identify who the car belonged to, but in reality all it is and was for is to get yet another tax.