From my FriendFeed and Digg Histories - 2010-01-27 18:00:01

According to IBM: "Because they use air that's pulled into the battery as needed, rather than store a second reactant inside the cell, lithium-air batteries could have an energy density of more than 5,000 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). That's ten times the energy available from the top lithium-ion batteries today, and begins to get closer to the

Can health care reform be resuscitated? For weeks, it appeared that a stalemate over abortion politics could prevent the Democrats' historic health care overhaul from becoming law. But according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while there are potential hurdles that could yet sink the effort, abortion's not the big deal breaker

President Hugo Chavez announced Monday that he would write off the undisclosed sum Haiti owes Venezuela for oil as part of the ALBA bloc's plans to help the impoverished Caribbean nation

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.

for more than three-fifths of Americans, Fox News is the least trusted media outlet of them all.

In questioning that at times took on the air of a cross-examination, the Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday defended the government actions in bailing out the American International Group, saying Washington did what was necessary to prevent "a second Great Depression."

The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a collective providing cannabis under California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215), along with the city and county of Santa Cruz, have reached a settlement in their unprecedented lawsuit against the federal government. The suit, Santa Cruz v. Holder (previously Santa Cruz v. Gonzales and or

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com? The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

[Newsday's paywall is] structured wrong. It cuts off Google traffic and the like from outside its home area—people who aren't going to subscribe to the paper or, most likely, Optimum Online. So it's giving up almost all the revenue it could get from out-of-market visitors. I don't see how that makes sense.

a [very long] list of United Nations Security Council resolutions directly critical of Israel for violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, international terrorism, or other violations of international law.

House progressives are organizing an effort to rescue health care reform, pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option. The effort was discussed during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night.

Cats have a very inflated sense of their powers...

combat is not what we're talking about here. The people on this "hit list" are likely to be killed while at home, sleeping in their bed, driving in a car with friends or family, or engaged in a whole array of other activities. More critically still, the Obama administration . . . defines the "battlefield" as the entire world.

That's why this latest move by the President, this freeze on domestic discretionary spending, is a fool's errand. The White House is saying they will exempt jobs programs and health care spending, which I am relieved to hear, but getting a short term political boost for sounding tough on the deficit in the State of the Union doesn't do much for you

Lawmakers, for their part, were having none of it. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) implied that finance officials put the interests of Goldman above those of taxpayers. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said "it stretches credibility" that Geithner, as head of the New York Fed, wouldn't have been involved in the disclosure discussions. Rep. Stephan Lynch (D-Mass

As we await President Barack Obama's first State of the Union speech, there are clear signs of "Obama fatigue" setting in. The author is a defender of electoral reform and a multi-party system. Worthy of following.

What was less clear once you sorted through the details was whether the moves represented a bona fide policy shift, as much of the reporting described it, or a mere adjustment at the margins. In fact, while the policy changes are hardly trivial, what's more striking is the basic continuity in the administration's approach.

There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values. (Def. read the 2008 article he links to if you haven't already).

Facts that reveal the ins and outs of the porn industry.

there is no indication from the carefully orchestrated leaks of his State of the Union speech that Obama is truly set to reverse course. Rhetoric about the "fat cat" bankers aside, his policies represent more of the same. There will be some hokey gestures of support for the disappearing middle class

Brown pelicans have steadily been expanding north. They typically migrated from Oregon and Washington in October or November, but they lingered until late December last winter. No one is certain why there are still here in late January, but theories range from the weather to an abundance of bait fish in early winter that enticed them to stay.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers Wednesday he acted properly in the 2008 bailout of AIG and the subsequent disclosure of payouts from the insurance giant to major banks. Geithner said the actions were aimed at financial stability and that authorities "did not act to help foreign banks."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner drew sharp criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike Wednesday for his role in the $180-billion-plus taxpayer bailout of insurance giant American International Group, with some challenging his claim that he played no role in withholding information about AIG deals with business partners.