Much of the rest of the time, winter-fleeing northerners pack beaches on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, crowds in the party town clubs spill out into the streets, and the tourism industry is in full swing.

FORBES: Embracing Costa Rica's Rainy Season

When you arrive in the small rural hamlet of Cocora, the views from the single narrow mountain road spill out into an idyllic emerald valley that begs as many words for green as Eskimos have for snow.

BBC: Colombia��s valley of the palms

Neither in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, let alone Syria, do the Arabs have the three elements required to set their experiment with democratization and pluralism in the right direction: leaders who put the nation before their own political and religious parties' interests, institutions that are seen as inclusive and legitimate, and a mechanism to ensure that polarization doesn't spill out into the streets in violence.

CNN: Middle East will muddle through 2013

The commandos spill out the back of the helicopter and quickly get into position.

NPR: U.S.-Afghan Force Raids Suspected Taliban Hideout

That shoves the ever-spreading Gulf spill firmly out of what we know about traditional tort law and into the strange world of mass torts like asbestos, fen-phen and Vioxx.

FORBES: BP Fund Is A Recipe For Fraud

Companies had feared that the lockout would spill over into the crucial holiday shopping season and take a chunk out of their pre-Christmas sales.

ECONOMIST: The lockout ends | The