Portside

Israel's attack on Syria shows how volatile this conflict is. A political solution is now urgent.

In light of the report that the economy contracted in the last quarter of 2012 due partly to cutbacks, Ezra Klein notes that one man's big government socialism is another man's premature and destructive fiscal retrenchment.

Most Greeks want an end to austerity; they also want real reform. The worst outcome for Greece would be the further rollback of workers' rights and the social safety net without a purge of the corrupt elites and their clients in the media, in business and in the unions-a nightmare of exploitation policed by the lads from Golden Dawn. Greece,

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland, calls for support for Julian Assange. His only crime is that he embarrassed the U.S. and other powerful governments with WikiLeaks' release of documents in which the U.S. military appear to have deliberately killed civilians.

Republicans say it’s a simple change, opting out to opting in. But by making it more difficult for public employee unions to collect dues, GOP lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri could weaken a chief political nemesis. If organized labor is dealt that blow this year, the stage could be set in subsequent years in Missouri to push for a right-to-work law — the most contentious of disputes between management and unions played out in state legislatures across the nation.

No. 6: Ladies love the AR-15!

Where did OWS come from? Who were the protesters? What motivated them to join this new movement? And why did the occupations gain such enormous traction with the media and the wider public? We investigated those questions through in-depth interviews and a representative survey. The Occupy movement has both a pre-history and an enduring impact. We are uncertain as to whether it marks the beginning of a new cycle of protest, but we disagree that it is a "flash" movement.