Blog Heap o'Links for January 2009

There may be less than meets the eye to the executive orders President Obama issued yesterday to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the torture of prisoners in American custody. Those pronouncements may sound dramatic and unequivocal, but experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office.

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — A man who fathered four children with his teenage daughter has been charged with murder after remains of two infants were found in coolers on property where the family once lived, authorities announced Friday. The 47-year-old is charged with second-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, statutory rape, two counts of incest and two counts of abandoning a corpse.

With an understanding of how each operating system treats windows and of how the Taskbar has evolved, it becomes clear that the Windows 7 Taskbar is very much a descendant of its predecessors, and not a Dock clone.

This huge strain of the giant elephant ear was grown from wild collected seed (PES 1003B) from Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand, in 2003 by former PDN Research Manager Petra Schmidt. In the wild, the plants reached a massive 9' tall....

The French newspaper Le Monde on Saturday took the Obama team by surprise by publishing an interview with Barack and Michelle Obama from 1996 in which the two spoke at length about their marriage, only four years after they were wed, and two years before their oldest daughter Malia was born. Many themes will not surprise those who know or follow the Obamas. ... President-elect Obama, who turned 35 that year, describes growing up with a single mother and absent father, and says, "I think that in a certain way, I've tried all my life to fabricate a family through stories, memories, friends or ideas. Michelle's family life was different, very stable with two parents, a stay-at-home mom, a brother, a dog, that kind of thing. They've lived in the same house all their lives. And I think that in a certain way we complement each other, we represent two common models of family life in this country. One very stable and strong, another that frees itself from the constraint of a traditional family, travels, separates, is very mobile." "A part of me was wondering what a strong, reassuring family life would look like," he says, "while Michelle in a way, wanted to break from that model. In a way only, because she's very attached to family values, but I think she sometimes sees in me a more adventurous way of life, more exotic, and in that respect, we're complementary."

"Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents," writes Baker in a statement released with the report, "the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems." According to the report, the U.S. has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services meltdowns.

Debris from a destroyed wind turbine which reports have claimed was hit by a UFO has been sent for forensic analysis in Germany.

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it's both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time.

William Zantzinger, a Maryland socialite whose fatal beating of a black barmaid was recounted in a Bob Dylan protest song of the 1960s, was buried Friday. He was 69.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say. Weak, disoriented birds are huddling in people's yards or being struck by cars. More than 100 have been rescued along the California coast

A lobster thought to be about 140 years old will be returned to the ocean after briefly becoming the mascot for a New York City restaurant, an animal rights group said on Friday. The 20-pound (9-kg) lobster was caught off the coast of Canada about two weeks ago and bought for $100 by City Crab and Seafood to become its mascot, said manager Keith Valenti. "We bought a big lobster, started taking pictures with kids and it worked out real well," said Valenti, adding it was a "no brainer" to return the old crustacean to the ocean.

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea

Zune users, particularly of the 30-GB version, have been waking up to find their music players are part of an apocalyptic meltdown. The Microsoft devices have been freezing after loading up, leaving users with a picture of the Zune icon and a loading bar. The reports seem to have started coming in at around midnight Tuesday and have continued to mount.

"Once again I have to ask, if marriage is a 'sacred,' that is, religious institution, why in the name of the Constitution is the government in the marriage business at all?" -- Robert Finch

For those who watched the Washington State governor's race recounts in 2004, the ongoing recount drama in Minnesota is just another rehash of the same script -- albeit for a U.S. Senate seat that might put Democrats one vote away from a filibuster-proof majority.

So, it may be as Chris Bennett and others have found That Christ and the 12 were blessed only through the use of an extremely powerful Cannabis Oil, not Dogma The anointing healed the body and the heart would follow JC and All came to the Spirit through Oil and Incense The use of the Oil historically was by the Priesthood and for Kings, hence the Christened were persecuted. One was not a Christian without the oil The DrugWar Establishment is the Anti-Christ

An arctic chill has descended upon Bethlehem in recent days. And I'm not talking about the weather, but the cold deceit of the mainstream media, which, like clockwork, file misleading reports from this important Christian city every year. They completely ignore Muslim intimidation of Christians while blaming Israel for ruining Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion.

Carefully calculated maneuvers utilized by cabinet lulled Islamist group into arrogant calm ahead of airstrike offensive in bid to maintain element of surprise. Primary aim of operation is to stop rocket attacks on Israel's south, rebuild deterrence