Blog Heap of Links for the day 5 June 2011

When his wife unveiled the USDA's new nutritional plate yesterday, there definitely wasn't a space for chili dogs. But that didn't stop Barack Obama wolfing down two in Toledo today - with fries and an extra bowl of chili on the side.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka... said he'd like to see the U.S. become more like a European nation that provides pensions and health care for all its citizens. He said he is accustomed to criticism and doesn't mind if conservatives call that socialism. "Being called a socialist is a step up for me...."

Obama even reversed an earlier decision to open access to coastal waters for exploration, placing a seven-year ban on drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Oil production in the Gulf is expected to drop by 220 thousand barrels per day in 2011, which is going to cost the U.S. some $1.35 billion in revenues in 2011. Not only are we losing oil production and revenues, the administration's actions are destroying jobs in the oil industry and elsewhere. Many companies are going out of business.

Obama even reversed an earlier decision to open access to coastal waters for exploration, placing a seven-year ban on drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Oil production in the Gulf is expected to drop by 220 thousand barrels per day in 2011, which is going to cost the U.S. some $1.35 billion in revenues in 2011. Not only are we losing oil production and revenues, the administration's actions are destroying jobs in the oil industry and elsewhere. Many companies are going out of business.

President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will finally hit the links for a round of golf — and al fresco negotiation.... Obama prefers to hit public courses with a handful of friends and White House staffers while Boehner favors private courses, golf fundraisers and schmoozing sessions with other pols....

In the 1960s, America's education schools began conditioning teachers to peddle impossible social and economic theories to captive human sponges in K-12 classrooms. Since then, teachers taken in by progressive indoctrination have been planting fallacies in students' minds using a pernicious device: the "deconstruction" of reality.

Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 — a bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes — may be used to prosecute people for embedding YouTube videos. ... It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media....

The World Bank will suggest a global levy on jet and shipping fuel in recommendations to G20 governments later this year on raising climate finance

How wrong could [Martin Bashier] be? Let us count the ways: a: There isn't a flag on her bus, I only see red & white stripes. b: It isn't a campaign bus, it's their RV they used for the last couple of years, with a new paint job. c: The wavy stripes look very similar to the campaign bus that obama (who is not a muslim) used (to roll over grandma) d: Hmm, what about the clips of an actual American Flag waving in the opening to a series about Liberty used by MSNBC (which is a business advertising an upcoming segment)

Anti-Semitic drawings and the San Francisco anti-circumcision campaign Zombie illustrates that an anti-Semitic cartoon has been pressed into service in the San Francisco fight to ban circumcision. It was only a matter of time.

A healthy democracy needs a free and diverse press — but Americans today have access to more sources of news and opinion than ever before: more broadcast networks than before, cable networks, satellite TV and radio, the Internet. Any diversity argument for NPR and PBS is now a sad joke.

Why do so many of us not only permit our teenage daughters to dress like this—like prostitutes, if we're being honest with ourselves—but pay for them to do it with our AmEx cards? ... I have a ... theory. It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret. A woman I know, with two mature daughters, said, "If I could do it again, I wouldn't even have slept with my own husband before marriage. Sex is the most powerful thing there is, and our generation, what did we know?"

The Gliese 581 system has already yielded evidence of a number of exoplanets. This one, though, is in the 'Goldilocks zone' where the temperature could be bearable, liquid water could exist on the surface and an atmosphere be sustained…. the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered….

Health ministers from around the world agreed Tuesday to put off setting a deadline to destroy the last known stockpiles of the smallpox virus for three more years, rejecting a U.S. plan that had called for a five-year delay.

Careful studies of electrical potentials in discrete zones of the human brain have demonstrated the power of sustained negative emotions, such as fear of approaching disaster, to "unbalance" the brain's normal state. ... The best therapy for the individual human brain turns out to be precisely what is needed by society as a whole: active engagement with others in the solution to our predicament.

Palin used the opportunity to rail against recently tightened fishing regulations, which she said have hit New Hampshire fishermen especially hard because the state’s coastline was so short.

One thing many viewers have probably missed in all the horse-race speculation is that Palin is perfectly willing to discuss her positions on key issues, if anyone wants to ask. In fact, in recent days, weeks, and months, we've seen a lot of policy commentary from the former Alaska governor.

Did you hear? Sarah Palin is sooooo stupid. She believed that Paul Revere warned the British. ... [many bloggers & reporters cited] And gosh, isn't that funny how stupid she is. Aren't all those liberals clearly her superior in both intelligence and knowledge? Um, really, you know where this is going right? Well, Professor Jacobson points out that she was right. Paul Revere did warn the British.

"At some point the establishment has to be paid its due," he said. "She gets sort of an initial pass, but at some point the goodwill gets used up." Vis a vis the establishment, why? Perhaps they should get off their duffs and climb aboard, and realize that politics can change. How'd doing things the old way work out in 2006 and 2008? Then consider, how'd doing things different work in 2010?

MARTIN BASHIR: In fact, the whole thing could be in breach of a federal law because the United States Flag Code establishes important rules for the use and display of the stars and stripes, the flag of the United States. [h/t http://hillbuzz.org/2011/06/01/lsm-sarah-palins-bus-violates-federal-law...

There is nothing the U.S. media wants more than something it thinks it can't have. Hence the power of news leaks that manipulate the thrust of their initial presentation. Hard-to-get is a rigid rule of human behavior. Ask any teenage boy or girl. And there are few things more sweet to Palin and her fervent supporters cheering their TV sets this week than the image of a hungry know-it-all "lamestream media" caravan of 15 or more vehicles traipsing along behind her red-white-and-blue bus enroute to they-know-not-where to do they-know-not-what.

Though he was standing among better-known Republicans such as Tim Pawlenty and Ron Paul, Cain's rich baritone, business smarts, and sharp one-liners connected. It's easy to see why: He was frank and refreshing. But more notably, on a stage full of state and congressional leaders, Cain used his outsider status to his advantage.

The guy that NPR executives and the New York Times and your average Subaru-driving Whole Foods shopper were afraid George W. Bush was? Rick Perry is that guy.

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Days after a top TSA official conceded that the agency would be forced to reconsider its policies in the aftermath of a nationwide backlash against invasive screening procedures, the agency was dealt another two huge blows yesterday with the news that the TSA budget would be slashed by $270 million, in addition to the return of a bill in Texas that would make grope-downs a felony.

After a woman refused to go through a full body scanner she was pulled aside and made to undergo the pat down procedure. When the TSA agent touched the woman's breasts, she broke down into tears and screamed for a police officer. ... The family was previously subjected to similar scrutiny from the TSA at Sky Harbor earlier in the year, prompting them to voice protest over violation of their Constitutional rights. The previous incident was also captured on video (below) and was evidently remembered by some of the TSA workers who claimed to know that the whole family are routine troublemakers&hellip. [video]