Blog Heap of Links for the day 19 April 2009

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it "a weighty decision." "He thought very long and hard about it, consulted widely, because there were two principles at stake," Axelrod said . "One is … the sanctity of covert operations … and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency." [Yeah, sure.]

OAKLAND PARK, Fla -- A small plane sputtered and dove into a house shortly after taking off from a local airport Friday morning, slicing the home down the middle into two charred pieces. The pilot was killed. ... The owner's nephew barely escaped the catastrophe, leaving just before the aircraft hit to visit his aunt.

There was almost no pomp and circumstance to welcome the 19 crew members of the Maersk Alabama to the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center yesterday morning -- at least none visible to the public. Instead, the courageous mariners who survived a pirate attack on the Indian Ocean last week spent their first full day on U.S. soil eating a buffet-style breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns -- and answering questions from the horde of reporters....

A giant set of golden arches outside a McDonald's in eastern Arizona toppled in high winds Wednesday, crushing a Naperville couple's Chevy Trailblazer as they sat inside the parked vehicle. Retirees Russell and Carolyn Janke suffered multiple injuries....

[Original article unavailable. This is a Google search on Mass Fatalities.]

Very few people think of Illinois and its midwestern neighbors as the sites of such disasters. But, records of earthquakes that have either occurred or been felt in the past indicate that Illinois may be just as susceptible to these catastrophes as any other place on the globe.

findings of a two-year study on the impact of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake on states in the New Madrid Seismic Zone... areas within the NMSZ would experience widespread and catastrophic physical damage, negative social impacts, and economic losses. ... total economic impact of a series of NMSZ earthquakes is likely to constitute the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States. ...

Five people were arrested Thursday, including an Oklahoma City firefighter, on allegations of using, manufacturing and distributing anabolic steroids.... [Great deer-in-the-headlights mugshot]

The state senate overwhelmingly approved a bill, 37-9, that authorizes the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry to issue aerial hunting permits to holders of commercial big game licenses. Those opposed to the measure cited concerns for safety.

New Madrid appears to be cold and dying. ... thermally New Madrid is surprisingly similar to other areas of the eastern United States.... future earthquakes will occur somewhere else when the New Madrid system "shuts down." Once this happens, it may be a very long time — thousands of years or longer — before New Madrid becomes active again. "Although we don't know when the New Madrid fault system will shut down, it may be dying today,"

A Swedish court today found the Pirate Bay guilty of copyright infringement, otherwise known as pirating (surprise!). With all the news lately of pirates capturing ships off the Somali coast, it's easy to forget that online pirates are out there as well.

Looks like Pat's son, Monty Paulsen, is gearing up for a 2012 run for the White House. Here he hits the campaign trail to find the pulse of American voters.

"There is at least the possibility that in man at the present time we can observe a significant evolutionary change, inasmuch as, in many persons, the wisdom teeth fail to cut the gums and are consequently for such person's vestigial organs. If this change establishes itself generally, man will only have altogether twenty-eight teeth. He will thus have gone farther along a path already traversed some little way by his recent ancestors" STR, P460 "The continuation of such biologic adjustments is illustrated by the evolution of teeth in the higher Urantia mammals; these attained to thirty-six in man's remote ancestors, and then began an adaptative readjustment toward thirty-two in the dawn man and his near relatives. Now the human species is slowing gravitating toward twenty-eight. The process of evolution is still actively and adaptatively in progress on this planet" UB, P737