Blog Heap of Links for the day 23 May 2015

The State Department is sharing new details about the deadly fighting in Ramadi, Iraq, last Sunday, saying the city fell into ISIS hands after the militant group set off 30 suicide car bombs in the city center, 10 of which each were comparable in power to the Oklahoma City truck bomb of 1995. …

IJReview reached out to three veterans who served in Ramadi and asked them to share their insights regarding the toppling of the crucial Iraqi city. …

Okla City, May 20 …14-year-old… thrown to the ground and beaten relentlessly, while a teacher was taking attendance. … Junior ROTC student was taken to the nurse’s office and checked out. … had several teeth knocked out, his gums were severely damaged and he had teeth penetrating his chin.… ambulance was never dispatched. … administrators called [his] mother, who works 30 miles away.… more than an hour to come to her son’s aid.… will need reconstructive surgery and is limited to a liquid diet for the next three months.… school district… saying, “We are deeply saddened and share the mother’s concerns in regards to her son’s injuries.” [Deeply saddened… by this criminal behavior by our wardens.]

When Officer Don Hull pulled 1-year-old Joseph Webber out of the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, he had no idea if the boy would live or die. … Twenty years after the bombing, Hull and Webber, now a 21-year-old college student studying zoology at Oklahoma State University, were reunited. …

Perhaps you weren't eating bugs because it wasn't easy enough to prepare them. Well, now there's the Entopod. …

[Video, 2:09, Courtney Yule, YouTube]

Scientists say they've discovered Washington state's first dinosaur fossil… 80 million-year-old bone fragment probably belonged to an older, smaller cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex. …Researchers have been examining the nearly 17-inch-long, 9-inch-wide fragment for about three years. They say it probably came from a 3-foot thigh bone.…

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
—John 8:42-45 KJV

Somerset Academy issued a formal written apology to 12-year-old Mackenzie Fraiser late Friday for denying her the right to use a Bible verse in a class assignment.

School officials have now agreed to allow the sixth-grader to resubmit her original project, this time with her favorite Bible verse -- John 3:16 -- included.…

[When we were kids, we'd say a person was crazy as "going to Vinita!"]

VINITA, Okla. …For nearly a century, Oklahoma’s insane spent their days and nights behind barbed wire at Eastern Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane. …now deserted and condemned; the last patients moved out in 2008. The Oklahoma Forensic Center (OFC) shares the property with the old Eastern State Hospital and is a modern day sanitorium with 200 beds. Most of the patients who live at OFC, about 120 people, are getting treatment so they can be competent to stand trial.…

…I found an intriguing post by Joe Drew that posits the German-born 20th-century composer Karlheinz Stockhausen as the "one truly great composer" who managed to marry science fiction and classical music. … one of the grandfathers of electronic music, and an artist who directly influenced everyone from The Beatles (his face is in the Sgt. Pepper's cover menagerie) to Frank Zappa to Kraftwerk … Many of the scenes and names in Stockhausen's seven-opera cycle Light refer explicitly to The Urantia Book. The opera Mittwoch aus Light (the "Wednesday" portion of Light, and long thought to be unperformable in its entirety) was fully staged for the first time just last week in Birmingham, England by the Birmingham Opera Company — including its infamous section for string quartet, four helicopters, four pilots, four sound engineers and a moderator. …

On May 12, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin (R) signed House Bill 2014, legalizing armed teachers and staff on Oklahoma public school campuses. …“[authorizes] the carrying of a handgun onto school property by school personnel specifically designated by the board of education,” provided that person has undergone the training requirement and received the certification requisite to it. …

Angry Hillary supercut, Krauthammering, Bill Whittling, Elian Gonzalez, Liberals pouncing, and more including dog!