Blog Heap of Links for the day 10 July 2011

Ron Bloom, Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy, is quoted in a 2009 newspaper account and a 2010 book saying of the auto bailouts that he "did this all for the unions." But when Bloom appeared before the committee on June 22, he flatly denied ever saying those words. Other White House officials have reportedly defended Bloom by suggesting that he did indeed say those words but was joking. And that has led committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa to ask what is going on.

I've lived in DC and/or its immediate surroundings for 20 years and I can assure you there were never foot patrol with assault rifles prior to Obama. Something has shifted under Obama. We are in the early stages of becoming a police state, and most of these so-called "safety measures" are just a bullshit excuse to harass and intimidate law-abiding citizens.

Iran said on Saturday it test-fired two long-range missiles into the Indian Ocean earlier this year, the first time it has fired missiles into that sea, according to state television.

helped the woman escape from the approaching bear Friday at a remote lake in the park. . ... was in a kayak with his young son and his father-in-law ... saw hiker ... coming down toward the lake with the large bear following her"We just thought, 'We've got to save this woman's life,' but then on the other hand I had my son in the kayak,so we were like, 'When do we go get her?' And when the bear got too close we decided we had to take some action.... We were afraid the bear was gonna come after us--and it was about 20 or 30 feet away--and we just real calmly stroked the kayak back," The ordeal played out before a CNN camera, as a news crew was interviewing a park ranger about the deadly grizzly attack days before.

Many who govern in America's capital think that they can wave their legisla tive wands and unleash beauty -- free of costs and complications. Of course, reality rarely cooperates. Consider Washington's ban on the incandescent light bulb. If left unchallenged, Jan. 1 will herald stricter standards that Congress designed in 2007 to electrocute Thomas Edison's invention and dragoon Americans into using more energy-efficient alternatives. Americans are enduring a parade of unforeseen consequences as "the experts" try to extinguish this landmark contribution to humanity. Compact Fluorescent Lamps, which Washington hopes will replace incandescent ones, brighten slowly, function poorly with dimmer knobs and emit a color of light that many find unappealing. Even worse, according to EnergyStar.gov, each CFL contains 4 milligrams of toxic mercury. An average CFL includes enough mercury to pollute 528 gallons of water.

"The flight attendant just ran up to me and literally grabbed me by the shirt and said, 'You need to come with me now...." They came upon three men wrestling with another passenger who... had been in the restroom for 20 or 30 minutes and wouldn't come out.... They handcuffed the suspicious passenger and tied up his feet, but he started spitting and swearing.... "So we duct-taped his mouth shut.... He was able to get that off himself. He almost choked himself by swallowing the duct tape." Then they secured a surgical mask over his face "just to get him to kind of shut up and stop spitting all over everybody." man had a boarding pass but wasn't on the passenger list.

An Illinois man is being held at the Christian County Jail after a tractor-trailer he was driving hit a horse-drawn buggy, killing a young Amish girl and injuring three members of her family ... being held for murder, operating a vehicle under the influence, criminal mischief and three counts of assault

In a western world whose intelligentsia is consumed by irrational and malevolent hatred of America and Israel and is hell-bent on undermining the west and assisting its mortal enemies, Murdoch has provided the one media voice putting forward a pro-America, pro-Israel, pro-defence of the west position -- including support for the Iraq war. That's why the left hate him so much. They display the same kind of frenzied, irrational obsession over Murdoch as they do over America, Israel and Iraq. When you consider the BBC's 'group-think' bent journalism, or the disgusting support the Guardian provides, week in, week out, to anti-Jewish, anti-gay, women-beating hate-mongers, to see the BBC and Guardian scarcely able to contain themselves over Murdoch's disaster is a nauseating spectacle.

A Kirkland family has filed a complaint claiming their 6-year-old son was singled out by TSA for TWO patdowns. ... "I don't want to go to Disneyland anymore."

An Iraq war veteran who lost both his legs to an IED attack has died after being flung from a roller coaster.

Many companies already offer domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples. Now that same-sex couples can marry in six states and the District of Columbia, companies must decide if same-sex couples should marry to receive those benefits. Some companies in New York, and elsewhere, have decided to no longer offer domestic partner benefits.

Albertsons LLC, which operates 217 stores in seven Western and Southern states, will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in the 100 stores that have them and will replace them with standard or express lanes, a spokeswoman said. "We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more," Albertsons spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said. "That's the driving motivation."

An 11-year-old boy in Brazil has been dubbed "Magnet Boy" because metal objects apparently stick to his skin. Paulo David Amorim, from Rio Grande do Norte state, can carry spoons, scissors and even casserole pots on his body,

Palin: Barack Obama's big government policies continue to fail. He should put a link to the national debt clock on his BlackBerry. The gears on that clock have nearly exploded during his administration. Yesterday's terrible job numbers should not be a surprise because it all goes back to our debt. Our dangerously unsustainable debt is wiping out our jobs, crippling our economic growth, and jeopardizing our position in the global economy as the leader of the free world.

Sarah Palin hasn't jumped into the race for the White House (yet), but she believes the prize is there for the taking. In a conversation with Peter J. Boyer, Palin warns Boehner not to raise the debt ceiling, proclaims that Obama is beatable—and says the 2012 field is far from settled.

By stating that the payments were a "one-time" payment, Michele Bachmann was dishonest with the audience. She was clearly trying to downplay the issue, perhaps knowing that it hurts her credibility with that large group of grassroots conservatives across the country that she seeks support from. Medicaid payments to her husbands business isn't the only issue the congresswoman is going to face tough questions about. Michele Bachmann waves the Gadsden flag and calls herself an "outsider," yet she hired many DC "insiders" to run her campaign. She came under some heat for hiring Ed Rollins, but most of those criticisms died down when her people had stated that Bachmann forced Rollins to apologize to Palin's staff. I never saw any press accounts one way or the other whether Rollins actually apologized, or if those where just more empty words from Team Bachmann. Perhaps someone in the press will look into that one day.

Newsweek's cover story this week is about Governor Palin. Apparently she did an interview with the magazine in Pella, Iowa. She also reportedly told Newsweek that "I will be very very disappointed if Boehner & the GOP cave on any kind of debt deal in the next couple of months."

Now that we've disposed with a group no one ever heard of before...what the hell were Bachmann and Rick Santorum thinking in signing this thing?