Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents - NYTimes.com
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.
Angels in America - Will the Supreme Court overturn Walker opinion on gay marriage?
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,
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 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.
The Google/Verizon Payment Plan - The taking of Net-neutrality
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.
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.
via Editorial - Marriage Is a Constitutional Right - NYTimes.com.
