links for 2009-03-29

A "friend" of Vice President Joseph Biden's daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware.

The anonymous male acquaintance of Ashley took the video, said Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer representing the seller.

Dunlap and a man claiming to be a lawyer showed The Post about 90 seconds of 43-minute tape, saying it was legally obtained and that Ashley was aware she was being filmed. The Post refused to pay for the video.

No foolin’. She sent out the word on Twitter a little more than an hour ago that this is now officially the gold standard of comedy in the McCain household. It’s so painfully lame that I forced myself to reread her Tweets in desperate search of a hint of sarcasm. No dice. Thus do crushes die, my friends.

Los Algodones, population 4,000, is home to about 350 dentists geared to foreign patients, including snowbirds from Chicago and elsewhere in the upper Midwest. Their treatment comes at a huge discount—70 percent or more—from what Americans pay at home, a reality that many patients call an indictment of U.S. health care.

But U.S. medical authorities warn that this desert outpost is a medical Wild West, an unregulated environment where substandard providers can hang their shingle without the same oversight that exists in the United States.

Three Aegis-equipped Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers left their home ports on Saturday morning following an order to intercept any ballistic missiles launched by North Korea into Japan's airspace.

The Kongo and Chokai, both equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM3) sea-based missiles, departed from Sasebo base in Nagasaki Prefecture for the Sea of Japan, while the Kirishima left Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture for the Pacific Ocean east of Honshu Island.

After reaching their destinations as early as Sunday, the Kongo and Chokai will immediately launch surveillance activities. The two vessels are capable of covering virtually all of Japan's airspace.

America's top military officer said on Friday that a rocket North Korea plans to launch next month has a range that could possibly reach Hawaii.
The United States, Japan and other allies believe Pyongyang is using the launch to test a ballistic missile that could, in theory, cross the Pacific to reach North America.

The launch, combined with North Korea's atomic weapons, were cause for serious concern, the admiral said.

Mullen added the regime's missiles did not yet have a range that could strike the western coast of the US mainland.

Japan's move Friday to deploy missile interceptors is the boldest challenge North Korea faces so far to its plan to launch a rocket in the next few days.

Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he ordered the deployment of missile interceptors to Japan's northern coast to prepare to shoot down the rocket and any debris that could fall on Japanese territory. It was the first such order Japan had issued, a ministry spokesman said.

North Korea said it will launch a rocket carrying a satellite between April 4 and April 8, and warned that fragments could fall into the Sea of Japan between the two countries as well as southeast of Japan in the Pacific Ocean.

Japan and its allies suspect the rocket is a new long-range missile, and have demanded that Pyongyang cancel the plan. A launch would violate United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed in 2006 after North Korea tested a long-range missile.

When Alaska was granted statehood, it was with the expectation that our independent, innovative spirit and rich resources would largely sustain us, rather than depending on federal government. Creating more dependence on Washington steers us away from Alaska’s magnificent potential and destiny, and that, to me, is a problem.

My job is to help Alaskans count the cost for the long term, not sell our birthright for short-term gain. Alaskans must acknowledge that if we dig a fiscal hole, it will be filled by our families and businesses. Reliance on Washington is not our only option. We could exercise fiscal responsibility and prudent planning, develop our resources, energize Alaskans, and revitalize our spirit. We are up to the challenge. This is the best lesson we can teach our children.

President Obama has promised to change the way the government does business, but in at least one respect he is taking a page from the Bush playbook, stocking his town hall Thursday with supporters whose soft — though far from planted — questions provided openings to discuss his preferred message of the day.
But while the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008.