Blog Heap of Links for the day 12 June 2011

The New York Times reports that U.S. government funding is helping to develop and deploy "shadow" Internet and mobile phone systems to undermine repressive regimes that seek to prevent dissidents from getting their stories out to the world. [Who will help us develop such systems when our own government comes after us?]

An eccentric California salvage diver is fishing for proof that al Qaeda overlord Osama bin Laden is really dead. Bill Warren, 59, has vowed to scour the north Arabian Sea to find the corpse and deliver photographic evidence that he was killed.

Volunteers found Iditarod veteran Melanie Gould alive Saturday in the Cantwell area, more than 11 days after the Talkeetna musher first disappeared.... The 34-year-old Gould's late-May disappearance sparked a broad search of the trails and woods east of Denali National Park, with volunteers pressing on after troopers ended the official hunt..... unclear where she's been.... Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said the details of the lost week are Gould's own business. "She indicated that she saw search efforts but stayed away...."

A North Carolina-based bus company was ordered Saturday to cease operations because government inspectors say the company hires drivers who don't have the required licenses or who aren't medically examined and qualified. It was the third company ordered to shut down within a few days in a string of inspections that follows the deaths of four people in a wreck involving a bus owned by another North Carolina company.... The FMCSA earlier ordered Sky Express Inc. of Charlotte to shut down after an accident on May 31 in Virginia that killed four passengers and injured dozens of others. Within days, the government had to order the company to shut down again after investigators discovered the carrier was repainting its buses and continuing to sell tickets ... Also Saturday, the government ordered Haines Tours of Gladwin, Mich., to cease commercial bus operations after passengers were found in a luggage compartment with mattresses and pillows during a trip to Ohio. And on Thursday, regulators shut down Georgia-based JCT Motor Coach Inc. for the second time since 2009, saying the company changed its name to avoid a previous order to cease operations because of safety violations.....

Residents of Woodland, in County Durham, claim that every night a noise permeates the air similar to the throb of a car engine. It is sometimes so strong that it even shakes the bed of one of the householders.... constant from midnight until 4am every night and stops them sleeping.... started about two months ago...

Texas Governor Rick Perry's prayer and fasting event slated to be held in Houston later this summer is drawing criticism from advocates of separation from church and state and gay rights organizations.... found fault with a description found on the event's website that says all those in attendance will be there "to proclaim Jesus as Savior and pray for America...."