Obama's Startling Second Inaugural  —  This was the most sustainedly “progressive” statement Barack Obama has made in his decade on the national stage.  —  I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds, surmounting partisanship, and so on.

Lupe Fiasco Thrown Off Stage At Inauguration Concert After Bashing Obama  —  At the StartUp RockOn event in Washington, the rapper's performance upsets the hosts.  Video, tweets, and the statement from organizers. … A statement from one of the concert's sponsors:

Obama Takes One Last Look At Inauguration Crowd: 'I'll Never See This Again'  —  Departing the West Front of the U.S. Capitol after delivering his second inaugural address on Monday, President Obama wanted to take one last glance of the hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered to celebrate his second term.

Obama Averages 49% Approval in First Term  —  Approval has been climbing in recent quarters  —  PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama averaged 49.1% job approval during his first term in office, among the lowest for post-World War II presidents.  Only Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford had lower job approval averages.

Obama Becomes A “Great” President  —  And Republicans start looking for ways to embrace him.  Liberals should be prepared to lose him.  —  Image by Pool / Reuters  —  This time about 12 years from now, President Tagg Romney will, with a mixture of exasperation and amusement …

Obama's second inauguration: Is the thrill gone?  —  Washington (CNN) - The excitement among Americans for President Barack Obama's first inauguration appears to have diminished as he begins his second term, according to a new national survey.  —  And a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday morning …

The Big Deal  —  On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, an exuberant Vice President Biden famously pronounced the reform a “big something deal” — except that he didn't use the word “something.”  And he was right.  —  In fact, I'd suggest using this phrase to describe the Obama administration as a whole.

Wanted: ‘Adventurous woman’ to give birth to Neanderthal man - Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby  — His ambitious plan requires a human volunteer willing to allow the DNA to be put into stem cells, then a human embryo  —  They're usually thought of as a brutish, primitive species.

Golfer Phil Mickelson May Call It Quits Due To Climbing Tax Rates  —  LA QUINTA, CA - JANUARY 20: Phil Mickelson hits his second shot on the tenth hole at the Nicklaus Private Course at the PGA West during the second round of the Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation …

Atari U.S. operation files for bankruptcy  —  The U.S. operations of pioneering video game company Atari Inc. is seeking to break free from French parent Atari S.A. and in the next few months find a buyer to take the company private.  (Strong National Museum of Play / January 20, 2013)

How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture  —  In the early days of 2011, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology learned that it had an intruder.  Worse, it believed the intruder had been there before.  —  Months earlier, the mysterious visitor had used …