Blog Heap of Links for the day 2 March 2009

Eastern European governments that ran political risks to support former President George W. Bush's security policies are now concerned that his successor, Barack Obama, will backtrack on those regional commitments. Leaders in the Czech Republic, Poland and other former communist nations face a backlash at home over their support of Bush-era initiatives, including the proposed U.S. missile- defense system and troop participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, concern is growing in eastern Europe that it will be put on "the back burner" as the Obama administration talks about working with Russia and western Europe on issues such as Iran

The Justice Department on Monday released a long-secret legal document from 2001 in which the Bush administration claimed the military could search and seize terror suspects in the United States without warrants. The legal memo was written about a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It says constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure would not apply to terror suspects in the U.S., as long as the president or another high official authorized the action.

U.N. peacekeepers have upset traditional wild asparagus harvesters on the ethnically divided island of Cyprus by preventing them from entering a buffer zone to gather the tasty shoots.

The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges that staffers did not foresee and technological problems they have yet to solve. Obama, for example, would like to send out mass e-mail updates on presidential initiatives, but the White House does not have the technology in place to do so. The same goes for text messaging, another campaign staple. Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out ...

Limbaugh, practically declared war on the newly-elected leader of the Republican National Committee today, following a television interview in which the RNC chair called Limbaugh's show "incendiary" and "ugly." ... Limbaugh responded today with an on-air diatribe against the new party chairman that ran nearly 20 minutes, alleging that Steele is more interested in being a "talking head" on television than leading the party to electoral success. ...

Iraq's special criminal court Monday acquitted Tariq Aziz, the man who once served as the urbane, cigar-smoking public face of Saddam Hussein's rule, delivering the most significant not-guilty verdict in a series of prosecutions for crimes against humanity that occurred before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Born in Shawnee, Opal Hunter has been anxiously awaiting the return of the show in which her daughter stars as Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko. ... "My mother is the hugest fan of the show you can imagine," Hunter said. "And my roots are so in Oklahoma. My father was born in Oklahoma City and my grandparents were part of the Land Run. "Oh man, I wish we could come to Oklahoma for some filming, but it's a question of money, which is a drag. "You guys know we've all so much wanted to shoot there.... It would be incredible. But for now, I don't think that's a possibility with the economy being the way it is. "But the imagination of Nancy Miller (the show's creator who hails from Oklahoma City) is deeply rooted in Oklahoma. The characters she wants to explore and the subject matter she wants to talk about — all of it is oriented toward the state of Oklahoma. "So to me, it's as much about Oklahoma as it is about anything else."

Hunter's Grace Hanadarko is an Oklahoma detective whose skill as a cop is matched by her disregard for her own well-being. She drinks too much and when confronted with two paths will often choose the more reckless. That's part of the reason she's been assigned an angel, Earl (Leon Rippy), who tries to steer her toward a calmer, saner course.

The TV show "Saving Grace" continues to explore the issues of faith, sin and spirituality through the fictional life story of hard-drinking, fast-living Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko .

BARTLESVILLE — Local students have found a way to learn new technology, recycle used items and give to youth in the community in one project dubbed PC Empower. The students in instructor Glenda Inman's class at Tri County Technology Center have for the last year collected old, donated computers and rebuilt them. The students then give the refurbished computers as gifts to students in the community who need them. The pupils now are working on a new batch of computers that will find worthy homes.

...60 percent of the world's citizens own a cell phone ... due in large part to cell phone growth in poor, developing countries. ... By the end of 2008, there were an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with roughly 1 billion in 2002, ... Approximately 23 percent of the population uses the Internet, up from 11 percent in 2002. Still, poor countries are far less likely to surf the Net....

China crashed a lunar probe into the moon Sunday.... Images released by the Chinese government show that the lunar satellite circled the Earth three times before traveling toward the moon and circling it twice before its crash. The government said the Chang'e I was controlled remotely and began to reduce speed about 45 minutes before the crash. Images show the lunar satellite breaking apart on impact. The deliberate crash of the lunar satellite aimed to give China experience for a moon landing in two years and eventual launch of an unmanned lunar rover.... China hopes to collect soil and stone samples from the moon by 2017 and send a manned rover to the moon by 2020...

A US clinic has sparked controversy by offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring. The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year. His clinic also offers sex selection.