Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2654

Social Networks As Dormitory

Lewis McCrary draws parallels:

Suddenly it seems so appropriate that Facebook was invented on a college campus. The more one reflects on it, the more the Facebook experience resembles what goes on in the hallways of college dormitories at universities everywhere: personal boundaries are reduced, many try on new slightly new personas every other week, and late-night bull sessions abound (leading to bleary-eyed mornings that also happen after too many late nights on Facebook). Like Facebook, in...

Julian Assange, No Journalist, Ctd

A reader writes:

The real issue with the 90,000 odd documents Wikileaks posted is not who is a journalist or not.  As the mother of a disabled Iraq combat veteran, I have some strong opinions about the media's complicity in the lead up to the war.  It was the mainstream media's mediocre coverage of the war during my Marine son's two tours - the initial invasion and later a tour in Ramadi - that led me to the wonderful and informative world of alternative media sites, even yours.  The real...

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, Fox News' Mr Gutfeld promised Cordoba Mosque a new neighbor-- a gay bar that Andrew named . Ben Smith gathered the 2012 candidate reactions to the Mosque, Gawker rocked out to the worst Anti-Manhattan Mosque anthem, and Andrew feared for the worst.

A top cadet at West Point resigned over DADT; blowback on Ross' column continued; and Andrew and a reader agreed: names mean something, and sometimes they mean more than politics. Asian-Americans outmarried, a Florida...

China's Authoritah

Tim Lee reflects on the country's impressive growth:

China is going through roughly the same phase of technological development that the Western world passed through in the first half of the 20th century: the country has mastered the basics of industrialization and are reaping huge gains from economies of scale and a more educated workforce. The engineers and bureaucrats who are organizing ever-more-impressive feats of industrial production have, like their Western counterparts of a century...

The Impact Of A PhD

Professor Matt Might crafted a visual guide for his students.
















Doctor of Philosophy - Professor - United States - Education - Colleges and Universities

No Lifetime Tenure On SCOTUS, Ctd

John Sides counters Fallows:

I doubt that presidents, Senators, interest groups, andothers would suddenly stop caring as much if justices served only 6 or 8 or 12years. A lot of the divisiveness stems from party polarization in Congress,which is not likely to go away anytime soon. Under term limits, I would foreseean increasing number of equally divisive Court battles. Indeed, they mightbecome even more divisive because leaders would know exactly when vacancieswould arise, making them even...

Nanny State Watch

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has banned movie ads displaying guns:

While the official poster for the film [The Other Guys:] features a maniacal Ferrell and
the menacing Wahlberg sailing through the air, guns drawn, the version
in Muni stations features Ferrell brandishing a vial of pepper spray
and Wahlberg relying upon his bare fists. This is not a coincidence.

Eugene Volokh finds the policy unconstitutional.

Other Guys - San Francisco Municipal...

Face Of The Day

Pakistani flood victim Mohammed Nawaz hangs onto a moving raft as he isrescued by the Pakistan Navy August 10, 2010 in Sukkur, Pakistan. The country is suffering from the worst flooding in 80 years as the armyand aid organizations are struggling to cope with the scope of thewidespread disaster, which has killed at least 1,500 people anddisplaced millions. Meanwhile, Pakistanis have become more frustratedwith the government's response and President Asif Ali Zardari's trip toEurope, as...

Extra Punishment

Adam Serwer on :

Two states in the union, South Carolina and Alabama, segregate their HIV-positive inmates, a policy that is essentially a compound punishment on top of whatever sentence they've already received. They're forced to wear markers identifying their status, they're denied access to many of the same privileges and programs that inmates who aren't HIV positive have, including those that can contribute eligibility for early release. Being HIV positive means...

The Bipartisan Assault On Privacy

Glenn Greenwald writes in Cato Unbound on the rapid expansion of the digital surveillance state:

The spate of knee-jerk legislative expansions in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 trauma — the USA-PATRIOT Act — has actually been exceeded by the expansions of the last several years — first secretly and lawlessly by the Bush administration, and then legislatively and out in the open once Democrats took over control of the Congress in 2006. Simply put, there is no surveillance power too...