Blog Heap of Links for the day 25 May 2015

A bomb squad safely destroyed a pressure cooker found in an unattended vehicle parked on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol and the vehicle's owner was found and arrested…

…It is commonly stated that Islam is a political ideology disguised as a religion, but it is even more than that: Islam is political malware. It is superbly adapted to invade alien political systems and convert them into replication machines for more Islam.…

…multiple, unconfirmed threats to multiple airplanes bound for different airports.…

Monday, U.S. fighter jets escorted an Air France jet to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport after an anonymous threat… [landed]] at a secure location at the New York airport. Details of the reported threat were not immediately clear.

A tornado raged through a city on the U.S.-Mexico border Monday, destroying homes, flinging cars like matchsticks and ripping an infant from its mother's arms. At least 13 people were killed… In Texas, 12 people were reported missing in flash flooding from a line of storms that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.…

A storm system dropped record amounts of rainfall across the southern Plains Sunday, causing flash floods in normally dry riverbeds, spawning tornadoes, destroying homes, and forcing at least 2,000 people to flee. Two people were confirmed dead in Oklahoma… firefighter was swept to his death while trying to rescue people from high water and a woman in Tulsa died in a traffic-related crash. In Texas, a man's body was recovered from a flooded area along the Blanco River, which rose 26 feet in just one hour and left piles of wreckage 20 feet high… In Wimberley, Texas, southwest of Austin, eight people were reported missing, including three children…

Major Michael O'Donnell, "Six Seconds," Remembering Melvin Garten, Remembering the "Forgotten War," more…

On May 26, 2008 Sgt. Raymond Hubbard gave a touching Memorial Day speech. He was wounded during his tour in Iraq and is a recipient of the Purple Heart. His speech is so incredibly heartfelt and honest. He reminds us just how much our brave men and women have put on the line for our freedom.… [Video]

Be sure to remember the people who made it possible for all of us to do so. We owe them a debt which can never be repaid. [Video]

Ronald Reagan could deliver a speech almost like no other President. 31 years ago, Reagan delivered an address to commemorate an unknown serviceman in the Vietnam War. Never one to make such moments about himself, the speech is a brief 9 minutes long.… [Video]

…Rolling Thunder, an annual event that has been bringing motorcyclists and spectators to the National Mall in downtown Washington since 1988, started the "Ride for Freedom" at the Pentagon in Virginia, crossed the Potomac River over the Memorial Bridge and circled the Mall. Organizers estimated that more than a million bikers and spectators attended, making it the largest one-day motorcycle gathering in the world….

It’s Memorial Day – but please don’t put a “Happy” in front of it like the clueless, tactless @TheDemocrats. Memorial Day is a somber day – a day to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our freedom. For many vets, remembering those sacrifices, stings.…

As we do on this day each year, we pause to remember the men and women who died fighting for our freedom. We stand by humbly, gratefully, silently, to honor their sacrifice.… [graphics]

A ceremony that has been taking place for 115 years in Bartlesville took place again Monday morning to honor our military veterans.…

… For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II. On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own. For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery.…

[The bluebird picks up some nice political panels for Memorial Day.]

A group of Senate Democrats is urging the Obama administration to allow at least 65,000 Syrian refugees to settle inside the United States. … [Um… how about, No."

The Greek interior minister says that it is not possible for his country to make its next debt payment to the IMF by the deadline next month; the money simply isn’t there. Greece is looking to make an arrangement with its creditors in order to get the next tranche of bailout money. Meanwhile, the latest polls say that the Greek public supports the government’s anti-austerity policies, but wants to retain the euro as its currency.

In other news, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter says that the fall of Ramadi was the fault of the Iraqi military. According to him, Iraqi forces lacked the will to hold their positions.

[Much more]