Blog Heap of Links for the day 7 July 2014

Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who tracked al-Baghdadi’s predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, told ABC News al-Baghdadi had forced himself to step from the shadows, even if it meant “definitely taking a risk, security-wise.”

“This would be in line with where he’s trying to take the organization,” Bakos said. “He has to present himself as a leader. This was the next step… He has to come out and declare what he, as the caliph, expects from other Muslims.”

Holland, Oklahoma’s seismology chief, is determined to find the cause of an unprecedented earthquake epidemic in the state. And he suspects pumping wastewater from oil and gas drilling back into the Earth has a lot to do with it.

“If my research takes me to the point where we determine the safest thing to do is to shut down injection -- and consequently production -- in large portions of the state, then that’s what we have to do,” Holland said. “That’s for the politicians and the regulators to work out.”

[Of course, confirmation bias could not be possible when he's looking for confirmation of his theory.]

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio: "I want an explanation and investigation as to why 3,800 of the people in my jails that are charged with state and local crimes are here illegally. We turn them over to ICE and they keep coming back over and over again. How come they’re not deported, or if they are, why do they keep coming back across the border?"

The influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has grown so large that it now requires its own transportation system: government buses that spend each night idling on a Texas roadside, awaiting the latest arrivals.

238 Years After The First Revolution, Is It Time For A Second? … the fact remains that the rationale for the existence of the nation known as the United States of America, which first appeared in print 238 years ago today, is entirely dependent on the premise that there are indeed times “…when in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another….” So, are we there yet?