Blog Heap of Links for the day 5 June 2009

A day after US President Barack Obama reiterated his call to stop settlement activity during a speech in Cairo, defiant settlers continued to erect illegal structures in the West Bank, building a new outpost on Friday morning between Migron and Kohav Ya'akov. Settlers dedicate a Torah scroll in the West Bank outpost of Maoz Esther, which has been dismantled and rebuilt several times in recent weeks. Photo: AP SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World At the outpost, named Oz Yehonatan, the settlers built a wooden structure they mockingly called the "Obama Hut," saying it was a sign of appreciation for the US president for his actions that had led to a dramatic rise in the number of outposts.

The Obamas turn up in Paris this evening, but have declined a dinner invitation from the couple next door: the Sarkozys. President Obama's reluctance to spend more than minimum time with the French leader on his visit for the D-Day anniversary has come as an embarrassment to the Elysée Palace.

The Obama administration plans to create a position to ensure that companies receiving federal-bailout funds are abiding by executive-pay guidelines.

A rift has quietly opened up between Germany and the United States, marked by official statements of harmony and private grumbling. It is not an outright crisis in relations, but there are underlying tensions and disagreements on matters ranging from the global economic crisis to the future of inmates held at Guantánamo Bay. On a more basic level, there is a sense that the Obama administration is ignoring the needs and counsel of longtime allies.

The gun-loving former New Yorker being sought Friday for threatening to kill President Obama was known in his old neighborhood as the "Cape Man" of Blue Jay Way. [Let's be sure to get that "gun-loving" pejorative in there!]

Revisionist accounts of the Normandy landings come to the fore on the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

British veterans watched Friday as members of the Parachute Regiment dropped into Normandy in the area where they landed 65 years ago.

At Penn Hills High School this morning, Chief Burton said, a student was walking up and down a hallway, using a cell phone. School policy permits students to have cell phones but not to use them during school except in emergencies, Chief Burton said. A Penn Hills police officer told him to put the phone away and go to class. "The kid refused to listen," Chief Burton said. "The officer took him by the arm and said, 'You have to go to the office.' The student resisted, pushed the officer. The officer, defending himself, took out his stun gun and did a drive stun." Chief Burton said a drive stun involves pushing the Taser against a portion of the body and squeezing the trigger, thus immobilizing a portion of the body, such as the leg

FTC says company actively recruited and colluded with criminals seeking to distribute everything from child pornography to spyware and viruses... FTC also alleges that the defendant engaged in the deployment and operation of botnets.... advertised its services in the darkest corners of the Internet, including a forum established to facilitate communication between criminals.... Pricewert, based in San Jose, California, shielded its criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the online security community or shifting its criminal elements to other Internet Protocol addresses it controlled to evade detection, the FTC said...

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said that it had shut down a rogue Internet service provider that knowingly hosted and actively distributed child pornography, malware, and spam... Symantec identified more than 600 IP addresses controlled by 3FN that had launched malicious attacks.... The FTC said it had identified more than 4,500 malicious programs directed by the command-and-control servers hosted by 3FN.

It didn't long for people to discover that a single click on the search filter settings in Bing made porn clips available right from within the Bing search page. I like to call it "porn-in-a-portal."

showed no emotion when she was arrested Thursday afternoon... not married and has no children... lived with her terminally ill mother...

France's transportation minister said Friday that French forces have found no evidence of an Airbus A330 airplane that vanished over the Atlantic and urged "extreme prudence" about suspected debris fished from the ocean. Dominique Bussereau said he regretted that an announcement by Brazilian teams that they had recovered plane debris from Air France flight 447 turned out to be false.

The case had been unraveling in recent months because of a lack of eyewitnesses and physical evidence. Last month, a gravel truck driver gave a sworn statement acknowledging he might have accidentally run over McClelland.

The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was "radicalized" by Islamic terrorists

Citing gaps in scientific research and a rush to judgment on the safety and environmental impacts of the material, EPA scientists are now concerned that... recycled, ground-up tires as a cushioned surface on children's playgrounds and in synthetic turf on sports fields... may be more harmful than previously thought.

A child's body found in a Michigan river basin may be that of 5-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan whose disappereance triggered the scrutiny of sex offenders who knew her mother.

A body discovered in a shallow grave in Monroe County, Mich., may be the remains of missing 5-year-old Neveah Buchanan, authorities said.

"I want to thank the Lord for giving me this opportunity and blessing me with this great fortune. I will not squander it," he said.

Nearly 70 percent of the world's airspace is not radar-controlled, and the existing radar system is likely to remain for at least another decade.

Thirty years ago, when Iranian revolutionaries took more than 50 Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, they accused Tulsa native William Daugherty of being a spy... survived the 444 days in captivity and went on to serve a total of 17 years in the CIA and write two books about his experiences...

The Bartlesville Public School Board addressed the 2009 graduating class' motto "Dare to think, dare to do" by Mao Tse-Tung during a special meeting yesterday. Board member Charlie Daniels said the graduating class didn't know whom the quote was attributed to until after the motto was chosen... Daniels acknowledged that the school system made a mistake, especially since Tse-Tung was known for a cultural revolution that included persecuting teachers and intellectuals...

Tourette's syndrome afflicts three out of every 1,000 children between 6 and 17 in the United States, the CDC says... three times more common in boys than in girls, and about twice as common in children 12 to 17 as in those 6 to 11.

One of the actor's final flicks focused on preventing teen suicide

A Tulsa groomer brings the salon to your pet.

The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the United States fell by 12 this week to 887, down roughly 1,000 from a year ago. Of the rigs running nationwide, 700 were exploring for natural gas and 179 for oil....

EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano promised Thursday that a new Obama Administration border drug-fighting strategy won't just focus on smugglers.She said the counternarcotics plan also will set its sights on reducing demand from drug users. EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL

Actor David Carradine likely practiced the dangerous and secretive sex practice auto erotic asphyxia safely for a lifetime before accidentally killiing himself at 72.... may have been a lifelong practitioner of the secretive and dangerous practice, one that can go fatally awry....

A decision by Falls Police to use a Taser to obtain a DNA sample from a suspect in an armed robbery, shooting and kidnapping is not unconstitutional.... "She's the first judge in western civilization to say you can use a Taser to enforce a court order...."

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor last year accepted an invitation to join the Belizean Grove, an elite but little-known women's-only group. Founded nearly 10 years ago as the female answer to the Bohemian Grove — a secretive all-male club whose members have included former U.S. presidents and top business leaders — the Belizean Grove has about 125 members, including Army generals, Wall Street executives and former ambassadors.

Sonia Sotomayor told the Senate on Thursday that the White House never questioned her about cases or issues she might have to decide as a Supreme Court justice

The White House excuse she misspoke just fell apart! Not once, not twice, but lots of times! "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion."

Microsoft's Xbox 360 peripheral-free 3D motion-sensor is certainly impressive in E3 demos, but what happens when you unplug players entirely? ... When you take the controller away for an "untethered" experience, you introduce a brand new issue: What about feedback?

Scientists at the University of Florida are developing a neural implant that can think independently. This is not just an implant that deciphers brain signals, but one that can learn, adapt to various scenarios and help the host achieve certain goals.

Army Private Matt Brown returned home on Thursday morning to screaming family and friends and his bride-to-be.

Palin warned that the government is planning to "bail out debt ridden states" so it can "get in there and control the people." "Since when can you get out of huge national debt by creating trillions of dollars of new debt?" Palin asked. "It all really is so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this economic policy is explained." [video]

Busy beavers were on Friday blamed for a train derailment that spilled more than 20,000 liters of diesel fuel into the Ottawa River

The dog's owner, an 18-year-old man, rode a bicycle around the crossing arms as the train approached... dog apparently began following its owner and pulled the woman into the train's path... both died...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the $60 million Operation Stonegarden outlays on Thursday. The money will help federal, state and local police deal with border security and immigration law enforcement issues. Texas is getting the most money, $16.8 million, followed by Arizona and California, which is getting $12 million. Money also is going to states that border Canada.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A political cartoon featuring Judge Sonia Sotomayor that was published in the Oklahoman is getting national attention from the Latino community... The cartoonist also said that to say he's insensitive is part of his job, like telling basketball players that they're tall.... [Oh, sure, that explains it perfectly.]

The Oklahoman newspaper -- which in 1999 was named 'The Worst Newspaper in America' by the Columbia Journalism Review -- is coming under fire for publishing a syndicated cartoon this week depicting Sonia Sotomayor strung up as a piñata in a tree.

Women's groups and others are upset at an editorial cartoon that ran this week in The Oklahoman. The cartoon (below) shows U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor hanging from a tree like a piñata. Nearby, President Barack Obama, in a sombrero, is handing out bats to elephants (Republican senators?), saying, "Now, who wants to be first?" [WHAT editor approved this awful mess?]