Blog Heap of Links for the day 8 June 2011

It is hard not to reach the conclusion that the announcement was deliberately released at this juncture to weaken US public support for Israel. If my hunch is right, and the Obama administration decided to use the sanctions as a means to humiliate Israel, then this represents a stunning blow to the US's credibility as an ally.

President Obama's claims to have saved the U.S. auto industry with government bailouts, takeovers and buyouts in 2009 don't quite square with the facts. Actually, according to The Washington Post's Fact Checker by Glenn Kessler, Obama's claims are "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. [h/t to Cuz BD]

In a May 31 Facebook message, Voelkert, pictured at left, told "Studebaker" that he had secretly installed a GPS tracker in his wife's van and was using the device to monitor her movements. He "went on to discuss what kind of trouble that they could get in for doing this," and asked the teenager to "delete the message so there is no trace of talking about it," Dane reported. Along with disclosing that he planned to flee with his children in early-June, Voelkert wrote that he was "going to find someone to take care of her and now it will be easier because I know where she is at all times." He then added, "you should find someone at your school, there should be some gang bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am just done with her crap!"

A police shooting of a man in Miami Beach on Memorial Day was terrifying, but when it was over, officers turned their attention to a man filming the violent scene with his cellphone. They demanded the device, smashed it and probably thought that was that; no video anymore. It was not: Narces Benoit had had the presence of mind to pull the phone's memory card with the video on it from his cellphone and put the card in his mouth. ... contends that officers "smashed several other cell phones in the ensuing chaos." ...

An eyewitness said: 'The two elephants entered our city and started stomping over everything that came in their way. 'One of them even entered a market place and crushed a man to death within minutes.'

Police say a vehicle travelling eastbound near Luskville, Que. hit the 300-pound black bear at about 10:30 Monday night, sending the animal into the opposite lane. The bear was then struck by an on-coming car, sending the animal through the windshield and out the back window.

Two heartbroken parents have slammed 'inhumane' nurses who left their dead son lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and stepped over his corpse for more than ten hours thinking he was asleep. CCTV captured staff pulling the lifeless body of Peter Thompson along the floor like they were 'dragging the body of a dead animal'.

A British pharmaceutical company was working Wednesday to develop a new breed of cannabis-based products aimed at treating a range of conditions including diabetes, epilepsy and Crohn's disease.

Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years.

Many of the messages 29-year-old Jennifer Smith is accused of sending to students are just too graphic to outline. Police say she asked the five male students to erase the photos and the messages.

Seventy-seven Air Force cadets are being sent to a local hospital after a lightning strike at the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center near Hattiesburg, Miss. While there did not appear to be serious injuries, two of the cadets were taken by amdulance to the hospital....

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)... His concern: press accounts suggest that National Park Service resources were made available to an extent beyond that which an average American family would receive.... David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, told ABC News that with the exception of the Statue of Liberty visit, it was business as usual at all the sites Palin saw.... [Emphasis added.]