Blog Heap of Links for the day 10 April 2009

I am troubled that once again the Obama administration has decided to invoke the state secrets privilege in a case challenging the previous administration's alleged misconduct. [But about anything the Obama administration does, secrecy is fine, right?]

[Photo of shameless fool in action]

[Salman Ibrahim in meeting with Obama - graphic]

[comparative graphic]

[graphic]

An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an "Easter spectacular" of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a wall around a police headquarters in northern Iraq on Friday, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against U.S. forces this year, the U.S. military and Iraqi police said. A sixth American soldier and 17 Iraqi policemen were also wounded in the blast that took place near the national police headquarters in southwestern Mosul—Iraq's third-largest city and al-Qaida's last urban stronghold.

[Graphic]

DEARBORN, Mich. — A student fatally shot a female classmate before turning the gun on himself Friday in an apparent murder-suicide that prompted a lockdown at a community college west of Detroit

Newly released notes and audio recordings left behind by a woman who shot her son and then took her own life leave little doubt that she planned the attack. In rambling messages to family, friends, police and the owners of Shoot Straight, the Casselberry gun range she chose for Sunday's fatal shooting, Marie Moore said the murder-suicide was the only way to save her son Mitchell Moore, her family and the world from violence and eternal damnation.

A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the September 11 attacks. In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled that there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

Spring wildfires in the middle of the country have now become deadly. The flames claimed two lives ... a couple was killed when flames tore through their rural home....

Derek Buckner utilizes a variety of sources for his paintings — video imagery of urban landscapes taken from airplanes and moving cars, models of dystopia's constructed in the studio, and most recently, piles upon piles of ubiquitous marshmallows.

[animated illustration of a tesseract]

Albert Einstein Marilyn Monroe Illusion When you look at this picture close range you see Albert Einstein.

Here we have an object illusion that may have been photoshopped.

Stare at this picture. After about 30 seconds you should begin to see a boat appear in the background. Amazing!

If you look really carefully after a few seconds you'll be able to see Toronto's CN Tower in the background.

Many of the images you will find here demonstrate visual phenomena, and optical or visual illusions. You will learn about the complexities of the human eye first hand. Visit the optical illusions below and give your eyes and brain the time of their lives!

An eight-year study of 218 couples found 90 percent experienced a decrease in marital satisfaction once the first child was born.

Marc Morano does not think global warming is anything to worry about, and he brags about his confrontations with those who do. ... once spotted former Vice President Al Gore on an airplane returning from a climate conference in Bali. Mr. Gore was posing for photos with well-wishers, and Mr. Morano said he had asked if he, too, could have his picture taken with Mr. Gore. He refused, Mr. Morano said. "You attack me all the time," Mr. Gore said... As a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Mr. Morano was for years a ceaseless purveyor of the dissenting view on climate change, sending out a blizzard of e-mail to journalists covering the issue....

Arneson worked with Gygax to create the original Dungeons & Dragons ruleset in 1974. According to IGN, disputes later caused friction and distanced Arneson from the D&D franchise. Nevertheless, Arneson's contributions have influenced numerous videogames, and probably always will.

A Russian and US space crew denied on Friday that new rules forbid them from sharing toilets and food in orbit, hailing their work as the "best partnership" in human history.

The new advertiser-supported site, featuring professional videos, will be called Vevo and is expected to launch in coming months, the companies said.

now the proud parents of their first child, Stella, who was born in February. Yet when he was a teenage in the 1980's, he not only did not know if he would survive to adulthood or become a father. He was diagnosed with leukemia and had three years of chemotherapy. His doctors then recommended radiation therapy. His parents concerned about the possibility of him surviving but being sterile managed to persuade doctors to freeze a sperm sample for him. ... after 22 years the frozen sperm was thawed and via in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) last June his wife became pregnant....

they're all taking the wrong route, according to Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson. In a new book, titled "The Final Days of Jesus," Gibson says he has found the location of Jesus' trial, where Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, condemned him to death by crucifixion. ... So if the trial was outside the Old City, as Gibson believes, and not in the Antonia Fortress, then the traditional Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus took to his crucifixion, is wrong. ...

Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free.