George Washington by Charles Willson Peale (1772)

The coffee’s freshly ground, there’s a wide variety of teas and the sticky buns are homemade.

It’s George Birthington’s Washday.

  • “Greeks will suffer austerity measures for another five years as the price of their government securing a €130bn (£109bn) bailout to prevent national bankruptcy and chaos within the eurozone, it has emerged.The scale of the wage and spending cuts required to implement the rescue package prompted an array of analysts to raise the spectre of yet another Greek debt crisis later this year and the country’s exit from the euro as recession deepens.”
  • “The outing of the researcher who exposed the Heartland Institute‘s efforts to discredit climate change has thrown the scientific community into tumult, with fierce debates raging on Tuesday over whether to brand his actions heroic, or misguided. Peter Gleick, a water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute, admitted in a blogpost on Monday night to using a false name to dupe the thinktank into sending him confidential board materials, which he then forwarded to campaigners and journalists.” Dude’s a hero in my book, right up there with Pvt Bradley Manning. Period.
  • “Syrian government forces have continued bombarding the city of Homs, ignoring calls from the International Committee of Red Cross for a two-hour daily truce to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians trapped by the unremitting violence.”
  • “The US has apologised for inappropriate treatment of religious material in Afghanistan, after hundreds of angry Afghans protested over reports that US forces burned copies of the Quran. Leon Panetta, the US secretary of defence, called the incident ‘deeply unfortunate’ in remarks on Tuesday. He echoed his top commander General John Allen’s call for ‘swift and decisive action to investigate this matter’.”
  • “A Palestinian detained by Israel, Khader Adnan, has agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike as part of a deal under which he will be released without charge, sources tell Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Adnan’s hometown of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, quoted officials as saying on Tuesday that ‘Adnan has informed his lawyers that he has suspended his hunger strike and agreed to the offer to serve his sentence until April 17′.”
  • “More than 350 inmates were killed when an inferno tore through the Comayagua prison in Honduras last week. Authorities were quick to blame the fire on a crazed inmate but have since backtracked, leaving many questions about the cause of the tragedy and the conduct of staff during it unanswered.”

From TRNN:

The truth will set you free but first it piss you off.