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How Occupy Wall Street plans to spring back to actionBy Gloria Goodale | Christian Science Monitor – 23 hrs ago **SNIP** Dubbed National Occupy Washington (NOW), the event began with a march on the Environmental Protection Agency – accompanied by a brace of alpacas, a large polar bear, and a even larger blow-up of planet Earth. **SNIP** “We are preparing to give people the skills and training they need for longer and more powerful involvement,” he says, adding, “the tents were just a tactic, not the purpose of this movement.”

Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 4 ~ Feb. 17, 2012 ~ Spring Projects Launching ~ Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 1 ~ Jan. 27, 2012 Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 2 ~ Feb 3, 2012 ~ “Off Season” Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 3 ~ Feb. 10, 2012 ~ Boat TransportationLast week’s thread had 23 posts, including boat transportation sources and recommendations. With Spring in the air and the boating season around the corner, what is everyone doing to prepare? This week I have been busy helping clients either prep their boats to sell or get...

US secretary of defense is concerned Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters so-called "immunity zone" when military strike won't bust Iran's nuclear facilities, 'Washington Post' reports. United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday. According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called upon Israelis to be happy about the Islamist rebellion tearing through the Middle East. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference Thursday, Ban said: "The storms of the Arab Spring are indeed sweeping the region. Change keeps coming, with blinding and often bewildering speed. Some in Israel and elsewhere view these events with concern. One year later, they say that the Arab Spring has failed; that these dramatic transformations have moved the Middle East backward, not forward. "Others fear new governments will emerge that are unfriendly to Israel. Understandably, they point to the conflict in...

The clashes and ensuing stampede did not appear to be directly linked to the political turmoil in Egypt, but the violence raised fresh concerns about the ability of the state police to manage crowds. Most of the hundreds of black-uniformed police with helmets and shields stood in lines and - DID NOTHING - as soccer fans chased each other, some wielding "Sharp Objects"... and others hurling sticks and rocks.

No surprise. (JPost) — There has been an increase in anti-Semitism in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring, according to a report set for release on Sunday. That is the finding of the study Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein is to submit to the government. “[While] the popular uprisings in the Arab world do not represent a general change in attitude towards Israel, Zionism and the Jews it seems the anti-Semitic discourse and incitement have become more extreme and violent,” the report, which was written by scholars at the Kantor Center for the...

Syria's opposition groups are getting ready for “the day after” the fall of the Assad regime, and are anticipating a new, democratic regime. But some things are unlikely to change; Syria's likely future leaders still consider Israel an enemy, and will continue to demand Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights. The two largest opposition groups in the country, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria (NCB), signed an agreement to establish a a transitional government that would guarantee the rights of all citizens, hold parliamentary elections, and draft a constitution that guarantees a...

A Tunisian Islamist party has emerged victorious in the Arab Spring's first elections, taking 41.47 per cent of votes cast nine months after the ouster of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali... The Islamist Ennahda party now has the single-biggest share of the assembly that will rewrite the constitution, appoint a president and form a caretaker government, elections chief Kamel Jendoubi told journalists in Tunis. He also announced the invalidation of six candidates' lists of the Petition for Justice and Development, including one in Sidi Bouzid, notably due to "financial irregularities". ... The provisional results put two leftist parties in...

Rights activists and protesters paraded through Cairo’s streets on Friday bearing the coffin of a young man they said had been tortured to death in a maximum security prison, calling his treatment evidence that abuses are continuing at the hands of security forces more than nine months after Egypt’s revolution. Essam Atta, 24, was killed Thursday after he was caught with a cellphone, relatives said. They said one of his cellmates had told them guards inserted hoses into Atta’s mouth and anus and forced in water and soap, causing vomiting and bleeding. Protesters likened the alleged incident to the abuses,...

Protest time: Support the Occupy Wall Street movement and a new American SpringBy Brent Budowsky - 10/03/11 09:45 AM ET I propose that the entire liberal, labor, civil rights, equal rights, environmental, pay equity and women's movements put their full force behind the Occupy Wall Street movement and its new counterpart in Washington. In recent months I have been calling for major marches for powerful change. I believe this new surge of all-American protest could be the beginning of a new American Spring that could rejuvenate the progressive and populist movements and win majority support throughout the nation. The Occupy...

Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to escort a flight from Los Angeles to John F. Kennedy Airport Sunday afternoon after three passengers refused to come out of a bathroom. The flight landed safely after 4 p.m. The Transportation Security Administration said in a statement that it was "notified of passengers allegedly behaving suspiciously" onboard the flight at about 3 p.m., and that the jets were scrambled "out of an abundance of caution." "Law enforcement met the flight and will interview passengers," the TSA said. The passengers on American Airlines Flight 34 went into a bathroom and were "not compliant,"...

The Iraq Effect If Saddam Hussein were still in power, this year's Arab uprisings could never have happened. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, March 28, 2011, at 12:32 PM ET Can anyone imagine how the Arab spring would have played out if a keystone Arab state, oil-rich and heavily armed with a track record of intervention in its neighbors' affairs and a history of all-out mass repression against its own civilians, were still the private property of a sadistic crime family? As it is, to have had Iraq on the other scale from the outset has been an unnoticed and...

Before running off on his latest vacation, at the conclusion of his three-day, publicly-funded campaign swing, President Obama boldly called for Bashar al-Assad to step down — in the midst of what is the Iran-backed Syrian president’s brutal, months long repression of his opposition, a campaign in which thousands have been killed and are missing. As John Bolton observes, calling on Assad to step down doesn’t tell us what Mr. Obama is prepared to do to make that happen. John suggests that the answer is nothing, and that this will expose the U.S. to the “charge of just being a...

After Climategate cooled the fire of manmade global warming, Al Gore kept himself pretty much out of the limelight, until last week, when he suggested that we put together an “American Spring.” After hearing this, my friend Dmitry shot off an email in his typical, sarcastic style, saying, “I am so delighted to learn about Al Gore’s proposal for an ‘American Spring’ – a sequel to the original ‘Arab’ one! I wonder if he has any candidates for the role of Lara Logan, who was raped by a cheering Arab mob.”

Egyptian protesters carried Mubarak Hitler signs a couple of months ago. Now there’s a Nazi party. Wasn’t Barack Obama just comparing himself to Reagan or Thatcher, or something? He’s more like the anti-Reagan. Where once was a pro-American ally, now there’s a Nazi party. Good grief. The Jerusalem Post reported, via Lucianne: A group of Egyptian political activists have announced plans to set up a local version “of the Nazi party,” an Egyptian newspaper reported on Thursday. Citing a leftist Egyptian news portal, the Al-Masry Al-Youm daily said that “the party’s founding deputy is a former military official,” and that...

Cherry Blossom parade might be nixed if there's a shutdown By Michael O'Brien - 04/06/11 12:38 PM ET The National Cherry Blossom Parade may not take place if there is a government shutdown, the Obama administration cautioned Wednesday. Among the government operations and services that could be closed would be national parks, which includes the site of Saturday's parade in Washington, D.C. A senior administration official singled out the parade during a conference call Wednesday morning hosted by the Office of Management and Budget. Federal agencies have sought to identify which employees and services would be furloughed if lawmakers can't...

It is remarkable that since Nymans Garden was created in 1890 it has seen only three Head Gardeners: James Comber from 1895-1953; Cecil Nice, who began working at Nymans in 1924 and succeeded James Comber as Head Gardener in 1953; and currently David Masters, who took over when Cecil retired in 1980. Who cannot envy those three men for as we walked around those beautiful grounds we felt certain that Christian Bovee was right when he said “to cultivate a garden is to walk with God”

We already have deer frolicking about in the yard... Shouldn't be long now, kids- lolHang in there!More news/views/humor at Reaganite Republican

TOKYO — The drizzly weather didn’t dampen the excitement at the annual spring imperial party last month as the royal family strolled along Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace grounds. Mao Asada, the Olympic figure skating silver medalist, was so overwhelmed when Emperor Akihito spoke to her that she managed only to repeatedly reply “yes,” and “thank you very much.” It was a typical reaction that shows the magnetic hold the emperor and empress have over the Japanese people. Missing as usual from the festivities was Crown Princess Masako who suffers from a stress-related disorder that causes anxiety and distress and only occasionally...

OK, I admit, I found out about this place because economic development -- in this case, limestone quarries to supply gravel for roads -- threatens this unique geological and hydrological site/phenomenon/tourist attraction. And I guess it does bug me when something of national (indeed, international) geological, hydrological, historical, and traditional value can be so undervalued. So, I provide the basic setting, read the links in the comment if you want. The Witch's Well in the Northern Estonia karst area is in reality a karst spring that starts gushing forth during the spring floods when the underground Tuhala River can no...