Stay true to the dreams of thy youth

• Foster Friess Apologizes For Suggesting Bayer Aspirin As Contraception Method

  Foster Friess, the main donor to a super PAC aligned with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, apologized for his comments suggesting Bayer Aspirin as a contraception method.

• House of Stone - NYTimes.com

  In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally the identity that does not fade.

• Republicans and the Culture Wars: Why It Won't Work This Year - The Daily Beast

  Romney, with his picture-perfect family and squeaky-clean lifestyle, should be a terrific values crusader. Alas, he is Mormon and so must be careful about steering the race toward matters of faith, lest someone push him to have an in-depth chat about the LDS Church’s fondness for baptizing dead Jews. Then there’s Rick Santorum, who, by all rights, should dominate the values battlefield. He’s got the loving wife, the passel of kids, the goofy-dad vibe. And, let’s face it, the man has never met a policy issue he didn’t see through the prism of family values. Tax reform? Regulatory reform? Deficit spending? As Rick tells it, the first step toward addressing any of these problems is to reinstate the ban on sodomy.

• Israel gives 'price tag' youth a new West Bank hilltop

  This week, a new outpost in the occupied Palestinian territories was offered as part of an exchange deal with settlers from the "price tag" hilltop youth in Migron. The Israeli press has called the approved plot of land the first new settlement in over a decade, despite a decade of unprecedented expansion in existing communities, and the proliferation of illegal outposts. 

• Saudi construction costs surge as Aramco limits fuel - The National

  Saudi construction costs are set to spiral as a government ban on cement exports has failed to keep a lid on prices. The rising price of building materials could increase the cost of new homes and hit a slew of major infrastructure projects planned as part of a US$130 billion (Dh477.5bn) public spending plan.

• Analysis: As solar panels eclipsed, installers in limelight | Reuters

  A steep decline in solar panel prices is helping solar installers attract new capital, a trend likely to trigger consolidation in the fragmented industry and drive down the cost of putting the renewable energy system on rooftops.

• Anthony Shadid Dead: New York Times Correspondent Dies In Syria Of Apparent Asthma Attack At Age 43

  New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who strove to capture untold stories in Middle East conflicts from Libya to Iraq, died Thursday in eastern Syria after slipping into the country to report on the uprising against its president.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.