Still, the historical track record of limited military efforts like the Yemen strikes is not encouraging. Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, examines in a forthcoming book what he has labeled “discrete military operations” from the Balkans to Pakistan since the end of the cold war in 1991. He found that these operations seldom achieve either their military or political objectives.
But he said that over the years, military force had proved to be a seductive tool that tended to dominate “all the discussions and planning” and push more subtle solutions to the side.
via Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents - NYTimes.com.
Boies and Olson produced nine expert witnesses with the relevant professional and academic expertise lacking in Cooper’s duo and compiled an encyclopedic record of empirical findings that demolished the arguments for denying gay families equal rights under the law. In the understatement of The Economist, that record “now seems a high hurdle” for the Supreme Court to overturn. That could still happen, of course, and already there are signs of a campaign from the right to besmirch the likely swing justice,
So what we’re left with is a largely uncontested notion that any observant Muslim is a potential national-security threat, a view that was once confined to the conspiratorial right-wing fringe but is now, thanks to Republican demagoguery, Democratic cowardice, and mainstream media know-nothingism, an entirely respectable, mainstream view. This isn’t just a setback for religious tolerance and individual freedom; it’s a setback for the fight against terrorism, which demands that the United States marginalize violent extremists, not embrace their narrative and worldview
via Preaching About a Mosque - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com.
We strongly agreed with the principle articulated by President Obama and his F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski, that the Internet should remain open on equal terms to all, a level playing field for Web sites big and small. Phone and cable companies claim that overregulation of broadband will stifle investment. They say the principle of “net neutrality” must be tempered by provisions to allow service providers to manage traffic on their pipes. This is not unreasonable in principle, if narrowly tailored to the problem. But the Verizon-Google proposal gives companies too much wiggle room.
via Editorial - The Google/Verizon Payment Plan - NYTimes.com.
The decision, though an instant landmark in American legal history, is more than that. It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of path breaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.
via Editorial - Marriage Is a Constitutional Right - NYTimes.com.
“Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another. In its place, consumers could soon see a new, tiered system, which, like cable television, imposes higher costs for premium levels of service.”
In 2002, the Supreme Court prohibited the execution of those mentally retarded, noting that the practice is overwhelmingly disapproved around the world. In 2003, it struck down prohibitions on gay sex, which it called “an integral part of human freedom in many other countries.” In 2005, the court prohibited the execution of minors, again noting global opinion. “It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in that case, to acknowledge “the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples.”
The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.
In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.
“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”
