Blog Heap of Links for the day 16 March 2009

an errant arrow that came flying out of the Bronx sky as she was dropping off churchgoers at a nursing home.... clutched the shaft of the 30-inch long arrow that pierced her 2 inches above her bellybutton and screamed for her friends to call 911....

A predicted slowdown in Atlantic Ocean currents will cause sea levels along the US northeast coast to rise twice as fast as the global average, exposing New York and other big cities to violent and frequent storm surges, according to a new study. [Yeah, sure]

Oklahoma exports reached the $5 billion dollar level in 2008 — an increase of more than $500 million over 2007

Seattle will be a one-newspaper town after Tuesday, when the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer prints its last edition. The P-I will continue to live on the Internet with a much smaller staff. Parent company Hearst Corp. says it has failed to find a buyer for the newspaper, which it put up for sale in January after nine years of financial losses. The end of the print edition leaves The Seattle Times as the only major daily in the city.

NASA kept close tabs on an old piece of space junk Monday that threatened to come too close to the international space station, as the shuttle Discovery raced toward the orbiting outpost for a 220-mile-high linkup. Experts initially warned that the debris from a Soviet satellite that broke up in 1981 could veer within a half-mile of the space station. But later in the morning, they said it appeared that the small piece of junk—about 4 inches in size—might remain at a safe distance.

For months, perhaps longer, the Montague County Jail was "Animal House" meets Mayberry. Inside the small brick building across from the courthouse, inmates had the run of the place, having sex with their jailer girlfriends, bringing in recliners, taking drugs and chatting on cell phones supplied by friends or guards, according to authorities. They also disabled some of the surveillance cameras and made weapons out of nails. The doors to two groups of cells didn't lock, but apparently no one tried to escape—perhaps because they had everything they needed inside.

Gay rights groups are complaining about the firing of a rural Oklahoma high school teacher who lost her job last week after assigning a play about the 1998 death of a gay college student. But the tiny school district says the move came after the teacher held a mock "funeral" for a canceled film production of the play.

STUNNED teenager Rachael Yannetta was rushed into hospital with stomach pains ... and then gave birth to a baby daughter. The 19-year-old had no idea she was heavily pregnant and simply thought she was "piling on weight". "I'm still in complete shock," said Miss Yannetta. "Surprise isn't the word, the whole family's stunned."

BUCKFIELD - A Sunday afternoon motorcycle ride to shake off winter's cabin fever took a serious turn for a Hartford rider after he was knocked off his bike by a wild turkey. ... flew directly into his chest ... "That's like hitting a bowling ball at 45 miles per hour," said Trooper Corey Huckins of the Maine State Police.