The Obama administration plans to appeal the ruling, made April 15 by Wisconsin federal judge Barbara Crabb, declaring unconstitutional the annual National Day of Prayer. Click here for the WSJ story. In her ruling (click here for the opinion), Judge Crabb said Congress's prayer declaration “goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context.” The Justice Department's didn't explain any specific reason for the appeal by President Obama, who is named as defendant in the 2008 lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group, which represents agnostics, atheists and others in favor of the separation of church and state, argues that the National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment's clause barring the establishment of a religion. The White House has argued that the proclamation simply recognizes the traditional role of religion in the U.S. The White House said the president still intends to issue the annual proclamation on May 6 as current law requires.
A group of six environmental and public-safety groups, including the Sierra Club, the American Lung Association, and Earthjustice are awaiting a judge's ruling in a lawsuit that seeks to force makers of a range of household cleaners to reveal the chemical ingredients of all of their products and any research about them. Their lawsuit was filed last year against Procter & Gamble, Church & Dwight, Reckitt Benckiser and Colgate-Palmolive Co. Their complaint alleges that a 1971 law that's often not enforced gives the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation the power to force manufacturers to disclose the ingredients of their products as well as any health or safety studies. Although the plaintiffs are targeting just those four companies, the New York regulation requires all manufacturers who sell their products in New York to disclose their product ingredients, they contend.
WSJ Law Blog April 22, 2010

For eco-restaurateur Dave Krick, it's not just about where his food comes from, but also where it's going. And in the case of his Red Feather Lounge and Bittercreek Ale House in Boise, Idaho, some 100 pounds of it a day are feeding an extra 200,000 diners—Vermont red wiggler worms that live in the restaurants' basement, working around the clock to turn kitchen waste into nutrient-rich compost. The Green Restaurant Association knows of no other restaurant in the continental U.S. doing onsite worm composting—known as vermiculture—and only one other in the country, The Kona Brewing Company, which has pubs in Hawaii.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/04/20/4181475-diners-in-the-basement-restaurant-feeds-worms-too

I found a seedling in my front yard with a buckeye attached to the stem. The shiny nut was beautiful and I put it in a glass of water to admire it. A friend has adopted the seedling and taken it to a good home. In order to know if it was a buckeye or horse chestnut, I found an interesting Web site with descriptions and pictures: http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h401chestnuts.html
Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra) is a slow-growing, round-headed tree that grows up to 50 feet high. Each leaf generally has five leaflets, and the nuts are not edible. Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is similar to Ohio buckeye but is not quite as hardy and does not grow as tall. Its leaves are usually divided into seven leaflets, and its nuts are not edible. American chestnut (Castanea dentata) is a more upright tree with a fairly straight trunk when young. With age it develops a broad, rounded, dense crown. Each fruit has 2 or 3 edible chestnuts.

A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother is a matronymic, or matronym. Each is a means of conveying lineage. In many areas patronymics predate the use of family names. They, along with the less common matronymics, are still used in Iceland, where few people have surnames. For example, the son and daughter of Pétur Marteinsson would have different last names - Pétursson (for his son) and Pétursdóttir (for his daughter). Many Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Iberian, Slavic, Manx, English, and Scandinavian surnames originate from patronymics, e.g. Wilson (son of William), Powell (ap Hywel), Fernández (of Fernando), Carlsson (son of Carl, e.g., Erik Carlsson), Stefanović (son of Stefan, e.g., Vuk Stefanović Karadžić). Similarly, other cultures which formerly used patronyms have since switched to the more widespread style of passing the father's last name to the children (and wife) as their own (as in Ethiopia). http://www.search.com/reference/Patronymic

A cube of living walls and water was recently displayed at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. Designed by Sean Stout and James Pettigrew of Organic Mechanics, and constructed by Stephen Hosford of Structural Concepts, this cube was a creative take on a garden retreat. The outer walls of patterned sedum formed a 12-by-12-foot roofless room, and the cube appeared to float on a circle of water. Titled “A Living Room,” the display won a well-deserved gold medal. The walls were made up of 20-inch square recycled plastic snap-together panels (49 per side) that held the succulents and enough soil to keep them growing. See pictures and more information at: http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Gardening/diggin-it/2010/0416/Whimsical-cube-is-a-creative-watery-garden-folly