David Taintor put together for us this amazing slideshow on early mobile phones. But what we planned as a reasonably authoritative history — with a few pics of the gargantuan devices we once considered “mobile” thrown in for fun — quickly turned into fun-only because, well, you’ll see from the pics. But here’s the key: almost all of the captions are original to the photo, recorded by whichever photog or photo agency first documented them. The captions are as good as the pics

The sun “sheds” its magnetic field on a fairly regular 11-year cycle, during which north and south polarity swap places. But this time around the reorientation is happening at different rates, with one pole reemerging faster than the other, and scientists don’t know why.

Brian Beutler on what the fight over student loans is really about.

I still want to see the precise details. A lot of game playing is still possible, perhaps likely. But President Obama has pushed two political fights over recent days — one over student loans and another on renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. And in pretty short order congressional Republicans have folded on both. McConnell’s signal that Senate Republicans won’t filibuster VAWA is the later tell.

George Zimmermann takes down that personal defense website he set up prior to his arrest.

Hatch challenger Dan Liljenquist’s campaign chairperson on her candidate: “The so-called more moderate or more mainstream wing of the Republican Party has come to Dan and said, ‘My gosh, you’re not crazy.”

It sounds like Hatch may be lucky he’s up in 2012 rather than 2010.

Setting aside offensiveness, I’d sort of thought that ‘feminists must all be lesbians’ jokes were a tad stale at this point. But apparently not everyone thinks so.

Before I get to unilateralism, internationalism or pro-democracy or anything else, I really insist my foreign policy experts not make frequent references to our current relations with Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

Boehner tells Rubio even his phony ‘Dream Act’ is probably DOA in the House.

Alright, which of these did you own?

Bonus points if you’re brave enough to send us a pic of you with it. The more the photo screams the ’90s the better.