On Saturday Amy Goodman moderated a conversation with WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and renowned Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek in London. In this rare event talked about information, power and world politics.

[Two hours - I found the first hour interesting, will watch the rest later. No transcript yet.]

A few players have given either Federer or Nadal trouble over the years, but not until now has someone figured out how to consistently beat both. Federer has had the most difficulty with exceptional defenders like Andy Murray, while sluggers, like del Potro, have bothered Nadal. Djokovic has this rare combination of patience and urgency that can blunt Federer's brilliance and cause the persistent Nadal to shrug his shoulders. Djokovic said that his former tormentors also gave him inspiration.

Human study: The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging

To examine the relationship between diet soft drink consumption and long-term change in waist circumference, the Health Science Center team assessed data from 474 participants in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, or SALSA. This is a large, population-based study of the disablement process in elderly Mexican Americans and European Americans. Dr. Hazuda, senior author of the presentation, is SALSA's principal investigator and has led the study for two decades.

The Cuomo administration is expected to lift what has been, in effect, a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology used to extract natural gas from shale, people briefed on the administration’s discussions said.

Bill Kerlina won a plum assignment when he was hired away from Montgomery County in July 2009 to become a principal in Northwest Washington. Phoebe Hearst Elementary was a small, high-performing school, right across the street from Sidwell Friends.

He grew to love its students, teachers and — for the most part — its parents.

“If I could lift that school up and put it in a functional school system, it would be perfect,” he said.

Why does one person become a liberal and another a conservative? As we’ve written, many factors seem to come into play, including genetics, personality and even unnoticed cues from the physical environment.

    Think of us today as embarking on a new Thirty Years’ War.  It may not result in as much bloodshed as that of the 1600s, though bloodshed there will be, but it will prove no less momentous for the future of the planet.  Over the coming decades, we will be embroiled at a global level in a succeed-or-perish contest among the major forms of energy, the corporations which supply them, and the countries that run on them.  The question will be: Which will dominate the world’s energy supply in the second half of the twenty-first century?  The winners will determine how -- and how badly -- we l

One senior Energy Information Administration official describes an “irrational exuberance” around shale gas.  An internal Energy Information Administration document says companies have exaggerated “the appearance of shale gas well profitability,” are highlighting the performance of only their best wells and may be using overly optimistic models for projecting the wells’ productivity over the next several decades.
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While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Saw this at Marginal Revolution:

NPR: The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That’s more than NASA’s budget. It’s more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It’s what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday.

Both are about 30 to 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing radioactive material into the environment since the week of March 11, when the quake and tsunami caused core meltdowns.

U.S. commodity regulators are examining whether word of a decision to coordinate a release of global oil stockpiles was leaked ahead of Thursday's announcement by the International Energy Agency, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Officials with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as well as market participants have pointed to unusual trading in the oil-futures market before the IEA's announcement that it would release 60 million barrels of oil, the person said.

The idea that we can draw endless supplies of clean energy from the wind and waves just doesn't add up

WITNESS a howling gale or an ocean storm, and it's hard to believe that humans could make a dent in the awesome natural forces that created them. Yet that is the provocative suggestion of one physicist who has done the sums.

[Karl Rove sez:] President Barack Obama is likely to be defeated in 2012. The reason is that he faces four serious threats. The economy is very weak and unlikely to experience a robust recovery by Election Day. Key voter groups have soured on him. He's defending unpopular policies. And he's made bad strategic decisions.