August 2010
10 posts
1 tag
Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net...
Tech Insider - GigaOM - Salon.com.
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Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two...
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...
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Angels in America - Will the Supreme Court...
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...
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Preaching About a Mosque
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...
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The Google/Verizon Payment Plan - The taking of...
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...
1 tag
Marriage Is a Constitutional Right
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.
20100804_prop8_decision
via Editorial - Marriage Is a...
Google and Verizon Near Deal on Pay Tiers for Web... →
“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.”
“Panicked by the collapse in demand and financing and fearing a prolonged slump,...”
– Geithner - Welcome to the Recovery - NYTimes.com
A Respect for World Opinion - common principles →
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...
“Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we...”
– Op-Ed Contributor - Four Deformations of the Apocalypse - NYTimes.com