Blog Heap of Links for the day 18 March 2011

Why Obama's gone from 'Yes we can' to 'Er, maybe we shouldn't'... What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer — your guess is as good as mine — is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active....

Obama closed Friday's remarks by saying, "I've taken this decision with the confidence that action is necessary, and that we will not be acting alone. Our goal is focused. Our cause is just. And our coalition is strong." Nearly a decade earlier, when President George W. Bush announced that U.S. forces were launching military strikes in Afghanistan, Bush said: "To all the men and women in our military ... I say this: Your mission is defined. Your objectives are clear. Your goal is just." Bush used similar wording in other remarks at the time. Also on Friday, Obama said, "The United States did not seek this outcome. Our decisions have been driven by Qaddafi's refusal to respect the rights of his people and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians." On Oct. 7, 2001, Bush said of operations in Afghanistan, "We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it. ... We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear." The senior White House official said "any similarity is coincidence," adding that neither Obama nor his speechwriters reviewed Bush's remarks from Oct. 7, 2001.

A new assessment of President Barack Obama's budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than $2 trillion over the upcoming decade.

President Barack Obama has cancelled a public speech he was scheduled to deliver Sunday in a Rio square during his upcoming visit to Brazil, the US embassy in Brasilia said. [I am SO not surprised!]

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TEHRAN - Iran's second biggest city has massively increased the amount it fines for women who fail to observe the Islamic dress code and don't cover their hair properly, media reported.

Dora Alicia Tejada Pleitez is accused of killing her three-year-old daughter, Nicole, by stuffing roses down her throat in an exorcism to remove the demons inside the girl, according to court documents.

A Delaware County man has been arrested and charged with murder in the beating death of an elderly Landsdowne man who had befriended him and made him executor and sole beneficiary of his will. John Joe Thomas, 28, of the first block of Sunshine Road in Upper Darby, allegedly told police he killed Murray Joseph Seidman, 70, because the older man had made sexual advances and that the Old Testament spelled out stoning as the punishment for homosexuality. "I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock...."

The same guy who founded Bartlesville, J.H. Bartles, also established the town of Dewey because it was a railroad stop. Bartles was a pioneer shop keeper and in his desire to grow his business, he loaded his store onto large log rollers, hitched it up to a team of oxen, and over the next five months, moved his store from Bartles to Dewey, remaining open for business all the while.

the last time Cascadia let go? Just 311 years ago. We know the time and date precisely, thanks to records kept by diligent Japanese officials on the far side of the Pacific. On January 26th 1700, between nine and ten o'clock at night, the Cascadia fault ruptured along its length, unleashing a megaquake of magnitude 9.0 or more. While the shaking was not felt across the Pacific, the Japanese were alarmed enough by the "orphan tsunami" that inundated their coastal villages to record the details. Knowing the distance and the speed such long waves travel at (around 750 kilometres per hour), the Japanese records allow the time the megaquake struck to be known to within an hour. Numerical models suggest that a seismic event that size would have made the seafloor bounce six metres or more, causing tsunami waves to rise as high as 30 metres along the nearby coasts of Oregon and Washington. This past week Sendai looked devastated enough. Imagine how much worse Portland and Seattle would fare if hit by a tidal surge three times bigger.

The first life form created entirely with man-made DNA opens the door to manufacturing new drugs and fuels, while raising the possibility that mail-order germs may one-day be available for bioterrorists.

NASA's Messenger probe is set to make history tomorrow night (March 17) when it becomes the first spacecraft ever to enter into orbit around the planet Mercury. …will map Mercury's surface in detail, as well as investigate the planet's composition, magnetic environment and tenuous atmosphere, among other features.

This past weekend the world darkened with the loss of one of its brightest lights: Martin Gardner, polymath extraordinaire, founding father of the modern skeptical movement, and a friend. R.I.P. Martin. We will miss you terribly. How does one capture in a few paragraphs the life of one of the most [...]

For 25 years, he wrote Scientific American 's Mathematical Games column, educating and entertaining minds and launching the careers of generations of mathematicians

Martin Gardner, who celebrated his 95th birthday last October has passed away yesterday. Matt Blum wrote about his Birthday and new book in his post

The call by the Arab League for Western military intervention in an Arab state — in this case asking that a UN "no-fly zone" be imposed over Libya — is not only without precedent but it puts in formal terms what Governor Palin stated three weeks ago should have been America's response to the political and humanitarian crisis now unfolding there.

The notion that Rand Paul is a libertarian babe in Kentucky's political woods is false. He long ago got help from Republican professionals—and is getting more as he tries to recover from his disastrous national debut.

Writing about the Senate candidate from Kentucky, The Star's Jason Whitlock says: "Paul did not let it slip accidentally that he opposed aspects of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul knew what he was doing. He executed a calculated, bold, political-branding move."