GENEVA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

From The Atlantic's Day 13: Protest City aggregation from various sources.

and what's with all the neon sperm guys on the field?

a show targeted to, what, 11-year-olds?

Sooooo nice to see them win, that great team from a small city, owned by regular citizens!

. . . some scholars are already wondering how much damage, if any, a party-line ruling striking down the [healthcare] law would do to the court's prestige, authority and legitimacy.

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Neither Bush v. Gore nor last year's 5-4 decision in Citizens United, which allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections, appears to have seriously harmed the court's reputation.

"From the Wired article: 'If educators in New Mexico want to teach evolution or climate change as a "controversial scientific topic," a new bill seeks to protect them from punishment. House Bill 302, as it's called, states that public school teachers who want to teach "scientific weaknesses" about "controversial scientific topics" including evolution, climate change, human cloning and -- ambiguously -- "other scientific topics" may do so without fear of reprimand. The legislation was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Republican Rep. Thomas A. Anderson. Supporters of science education say this and other bills are designed to spook teachers who want to teach legitimate science and protect other teachers who may already be customizing their curricula with anti-science lesson plans.'"

In early November, Barack Obama was one sad sack of a president -- his agenda repudiated by midterm voters, his political judgment scorned by commentators, his future darkened by a growing belief he might be a one-time president.

In early February, Obama is master of the moment -- his polls on the upswing, his political dexterity applauded by pundits, his status as Washington's dominant figure unchallenged even by Republicans.

We're in the midst of a global food crisis -- the second in three years. World food prices hit a record in January, driven by huge increases in the prices of wheat, corn, sugar and oils. These soaring prices have had only a modest effect on U.S. inflation, which is still low by historical standards, but they're having a brutal impact on the world's poor, who spend much if not most of their income on basic foodstuffs.

The consequences of this food crisis go far beyond economics. After all, the big question about uprisings against corrupt and oppressive regimes in the Middle East isn't so much why they're happening as why they're happening now. And there's little question that sky-high food prices have been an important trigger for popular rage.

So what's behind the price spike? ... But the evidence tells a different, much more ominous story. While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we'd expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate -- which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning.