Blog Heap of Links for the day 10 January 2009

The French newspaper Le Monde on Saturday took the Obama team by surprise by publishing an interview with Barack and Michelle Obama from 1996 in which the two spoke at length about their marriage, only four years after they were wed, and two years before their oldest daughter Malia was born. Many themes will not surprise those who know or follow the Obamas. ... President-elect Obama, who turned 35 that year, describes growing up with a single mother and absent father, and says, "I think that in a certain way, I've tried all my life to fabricate a family through stories, memories, friends or ideas. Michelle's family life was different, very stable with two parents, a stay-at-home mom, a brother, a dog, that kind of thing. They've lived in the same house all their lives. And I think that in a certain way we complement each other, we represent two common models of family life in this country. One very stable and strong, another that frees itself from the constraint of a traditional family, travels, separates, is very mobile." "A part of me was wondering what a strong, reassuring family life would look like," he says, "while Michelle in a way, wanted to break from that model. In a way only, because she's very attached to family values, but I think she sometimes sees in me a more adventurous way of life, more exotic, and in that respect, we're complementary."

"Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents," writes Baker in a statement released with the report, "the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems." According to the report, the U.S. has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services meltdowns.

Debris from a destroyed wind turbine which reports have claimed was hit by a UFO has been sent for forensic analysis in Germany.

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it's both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time.

William Zantzinger, a Maryland socialite whose fatal beating of a black barmaid was recounted in a Bob Dylan protest song of the 1960s, was buried Friday. He was 69.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say. Weak, disoriented birds are huddling in people's yards or being struck by cars. More than 100 have been rescued along the California coast

A lobster thought to be about 140 years old will be returned to the ocean after briefly becoming the mascot for a New York City restaurant, an animal rights group said on Friday. The 20-pound (9-kg) lobster was caught off the coast of Canada about two weeks ago and bought for $100 by City Crab and Seafood to become its mascot, said manager Keith Valenti. "We bought a big lobster, started taking pictures with kids and it worked out real well," said Valenti, adding it was a "no brainer" to return the old crustacean to the ocean.

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea