Blog Heap of Links for the day 14 March 2011

In an op-ed essay in The Arizona Daily Star, Obama said legislation to bolster criminal background checks for gun buyers hasn't been properly implemented, with too many states providing "incomplete and inadequate" information. He suggested rewarding states that provide the most comprehensive information to the criminal background database. [I'll just bet he did!]

Dick Biedermann is an 88-year-old who refuses to let age get the best of him. A World War II Navy veteran, Biedermann is on a mission to spread the word that more donations are needed to carry on the Honor Flights program in Oklahoma. The national program provides World War II veterans with an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., so they can visit the nation's memorial that honors their generation's fight against tyranny. Also included in the daylong trip are visits to the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Oklahoma joined the program last year, with two flights out of Oklahoma City to the National World War II Memorial. Each flight held 110 veterans, along with about 60 chaperones.

A Corsicana man accused in the abduction and torture of a Parker County woman is under investigation in the disappearance of two other North Texas women, one of them his ex-wife whose family has not heard from her since 1992, the Parker County sheriff s...

Viral hoax in waiting or brilliant marketing display of the iPhone's hidden capabilities?... claims to have added a transmitter to his iPhone that allows him to take over any video screen....

Call it the Nanny State run amok. By hosting an all-day White House conference on adolescent bullying last week, President Obama elevated a schoolyard issue to the level of public enemy No. 1... [h/t Cuz BD]

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.

confirmed that the video clip viewed by the Frankfurt Airport shooter Arid Uka — and that allegedly provoked him to kill American soldiers — was indeed the rape scene from Brian De Palma's fictional anti-Iraq War movie Redacted. Attorney General spokesperson Frank Wallenta confirmed the identity of the clip to the German television news magazine Spiegel TV. Uka viewed the De Palma clip as part of a four-and-a-half minute propaganda video that was posted on a German-language YouTube page under the title "American Soldiers Rape our Sisters! Awake Oh Ummah."

told police she got up about 5 a.m. Thursday to mix formula with water for her 2-month-old son, according to the report. She said she fed the baby and went back to sleep, and smelled alcohol when she woke up about 10 a.m. Poole told police she had friends over a few days earlier, and they brought gin in a water bottle that resembled the container she used to mix formula for the baby's bottles. Poole, who described the incident as an accident, had a strong odor of marijuana about her when police arrived

Investigators found photos of police Sgt. Maurice Martinez's foster children in various stages of undress, a video of a foster child describing sex acts performed with another child, hundreds of photos of homosexual pornography and a surveillance camera in a child's room when searching the arrested officer's home in January, according to an affidavit.

According to the box office tracking site, Box Office Mojo, that ranks among the top ten worst openings ever for a film distributed that broadly.

E.C. Segar, creator of the iconic comic strip character, was suffering a bad cold but decided to head to his Santa Monica studio anyway. On Jan. 17, 1929, readers were introduced to the pipe-smoking sailor with the huge forearms.

Until we see whether they get the pumps running again, or emergency power becomes available, lets not panic about this. It sounds like they are doing all the right things I would expect in such an emergency. The situation is serious. But so is a tsunami that wipes out a couple of towns with over 77,000 people gone in just one of those towns. The radiation isn't a problem in this yet. Let the Japanese military and civil defense folks do their jobs, and help them out wherever we can. That is all we can hope to do anyway.

A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami. Millions of people faced a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures along the northeast coast devastated by Friday's disasters. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and its fuel rods were fully exposed, raising fears of a meltdown. The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda.

The following reactions are not ones we'd characterize as "appropriate."

Rescuers spot 60-year-old from Fukushima prefecture clinging to the roof of his home two days after the tsunami struck Live coverage of Japan earthquake and tsunami

Government officials revealed the fate of 9,500 people in the north eastern port of Minamisanriku was still unknown more than 24 hours after the double disaster hit. [Several horribly impressive pictures.]

The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely. ''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9. Advertisement: Story continues below ''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''

The Daley's of Chicago, always a family of ignorant, power hungry thugs, appear to have added murder to the list of their timeless contributions to the Windy City way of life.

The Earth has stored a tremendous amount of internal energy within its thin outer shell or crust, and the small differences in the tidal forces exerted by the moon (and sun) are not enough to fundamentally overcome the much larger forces within the planet due to convection (and other aspects of the internal energy balance that drives plate tectonics). [B.. b.. but those other seismic experts said...]

It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday... The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1....

Hoyt Hughes, 79, of Indianola, died Sunday at his residence. On May 26, 1978, Hughes was among several troopers involved in a gunbattle with several escapees from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, known as the Caddo-Kenific Incident. OHP Lt. Pat Grimes and troopers Pappy Summers and Billy Young were shot and killed in the shootout, while Hughes was wounded. He survived the injuries, and continued to serve in the OHP until his retirement as a lieutenant/troop commander in 1987. "Lieutenant Hughes and the men that died and responded to Caddo-Kenefic in 1978 will always be remembered by the men and women of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol as the standard for courage" OHP Chief Kerry Pettingill said in a statement. "It is a sad day anytime we lose a member of the OHP family."

The Military Leadership Diversity Commission's (MLDC) conclusion this week that there are too many white men in senior positions in the military "is a slap in the face" to those minorities who have achieved seniority, according to retired Lt. Colonel and Florida Republican Rep. Allen West.

Please choose which American politician is responsible for each quote…

Operating from a remote patrol base in Helmand, two British snipers were responsible for killing 75 Taliban fighters in just 40 days. In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with a single bullet.