Blog Heap of Links for the day 18 June 2009

The Treasury announced a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its effort to finance a rescue of the world's largest economy.

Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were "within the law," declaring the private sector - not government - will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.

He was appointed with fanfare as the public watchdog over the government's multi-billion dollar bailout of the nation's financial system. But now Neil Barofsky is embroiled in a dispute with the Obama administration that delayed one recent inquiry and sparked questions about his ability to freely investigate.

Suspected U.S. missiles pounded militant hideouts Thursday in the tribal belt near Afghanistan where Pakistani troops are building up for a major offensive against the country's top Taliban leader.... killed at least eight people...

North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

A suspended Stillwater police officer who's charged with raping a 15-year-old girl allegedly told a colleague he planned to marry the girl.

Conservation officers in Squamish, B.C., continue to hunt for two more cougars after a rash of attacks, including one in which a mother fought off an attack on her daughter, 3, who couldn't understand why the big kitty didn't want to "play nice."

A condemned home belonging to a deceased woman and her 30 cats will be demolished.... contained four years of built up fecal matter.... Neighbors have asked to be notified 72 hours before it's torn down so they can leave due to health concerns....

told them he was sitting on a bus station bench Wednesday, about to put mayonnaise on his sandwich, when another man began staring at him.... Hamilton told police that the man then punched him in the mouth and grabbed his sandwich and left....

Even some of the drawers, containing a selection of ready-meals for passengers, remained wedged securely inside the unit

The Beijing government's Spiritual Civilization Office says it is trying to recruit 10,000 volunteers to monitor net content. It's part of a plan of "purifying social civilization," said spokesman Ms. Guo... Meanwhile Chinese youth mock the Green Dam program, kidding each other that if they don't behave, "I'll youth-escort you." Anti-Green Dam websites and petitions are popular. And a Manga-style cartoon mocking the thought police has appeared: Green Dam Girl....

Investigators and family members say they are suspicious about the account the cousin of a 2-year-old girl has given of how the child disappeared from outside a convenience store....

The new strain of H1N1 flu is causing "something different" to happen in the United States this year -- perhaps an extended year-round flu season that disproportionately hits young people

Supervisors suggest putting unemployed parents to work caring for their own children... "What we're saying is do not cut Welfare to Work outright...." [Right. Just redefine NOT working to be WORK (with all due respect to the hard work of motherhood)]

The resolution passed Thursday includes a disclaimer saying that nothing in it supports or authorizes reparations by the United States.

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.... The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.... Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia....

Possessing a greater purpose in life is associated with lower mortality rates among older adults according to a new study.

Does God or some other type of transcendent entity answer prayer? … analysis of 17 major studies on the effects of intercessory prayer — or prayer that is offered for the benefit of another person — among people with psychological or medical problems. He found a positive effect….

a technique known as rapid prototyping, or three-dimensional printing, could enable tissue engineering that replicates the porous and hierarchical structures of natural tissues at an unprecedented level.

The FBI said DNA tests conducted on John Robert Barnes, of Kalkaska, Mich., found he could not, in fact, be Steven Craig Damman, who disappeared on Oct. 31, 1955, after his mother left him in front of a Food Fair supermarket in East Meadow while she shopped.... In addition, a certified birth certificate obtained by Newsday on Thursday through Barnes's father shows John Barnes was born on Aug. 18, 1955, in Pensacola, Fla. That would make him less than 3 months old at the time of the disappearance....

"I'm his dad," Richard Barnes told The Associated Press. When asked whether John Barnes had been kidnapped as a little boy, Richard Barnes said, "No, no," and called the accusation "a bunch of foolishness."

Scientists have discovered a unique beaked, plant-eating dinosaur in China. The finding, they say, demonstrates that theropod, or bird-footed, dinosaurs were more ecologically diverse in the Jurassic period than previously thought, and offers important evidence about how the three-fingered hand of birds evolved from the hand of dinosaurs.

A U.S. appeals court says a California girl conceived from the frozen sperm of a dead man cannot receive his Social Security benefits. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision Wednesday, ruling the girl wasn't dependent on her father at the time of his death… he died unexpectedly in 1995 from an allergic reaction….

The 1930s-era Meadow Gold sign glows as it once did along historic Route 66... The sign is at the same height and facing the same direction as before, but it's about a mile west of its original site.

By a 5-4 vote, the nation's highest court refused to create a new legal right for post-conviction DNA testing, which has exonerated at least 232 people nationwide years after they had been found guilty.... The U.S. Justice Department supported Alaska and said a right to post-conviction DNA testing would "open the floodgates" for lawsuits seeking new tests for old evidence. It said the issue was best left to the states and Congress to adopt their own procedures.... [Oh, my, yes, we wouldn't want a "flood" of innocent people released, after working so hard to convict them. REVOLT!]

the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada

The two Okies, who that fall were driving their fellow scouts crazy with talk about the University of Oklahoma Sooners football team, themselves ran the ultimate 100-yard dash, not once, but twice. Both were awarded Bronze Stars for their actions. One of the Afghan soldiers died from his wounds, but one lived — a second chance at life for a central Asian country boy, courtesy of two Oklahoma country boys.

"Could you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?' It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title. I'd appreciate it." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to Brigadier General Michael Walsh during Senate hearing Tuesday

Hundreds of thousands of protesters wearing black and carrying candles filled the streets of Tehran again Thursday, joining opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes over Iran's disputed election.