When tulip mania dies down, all that remains are pretty flowers. When bubbles burst, nothing is left but soapy residue. But the Internet revolution, for all its speculative excesses, really is changing the world.
Adam Cohen
The minimum wage can play a vital role in lifting hard-working families above the poverty line.
The public has a right to know what kind of monitoring the government is doing, and there should be a public discussion of the appropriate trade-offs between law enforcement and privacy rights.
Vampires are sleek demons for good times. They suavely leech off society - like investment bankers who plunder outsize shares of deals for themselves or rapacious fund managers.
There is a lot of talk in conservative circles about judicial modesty and deferring to the political branches. That view of judging often overlooks the important role that courts have in protecting people's rights. But if there was ever a time to defer, it is when Congress is protecting voting rights in the exact way the Constitution directs it to.
In the James Cameron blockbuster 'Avatar,' 3-D cinematography is the real star. The bugs and crawling creatures seem to slither into the theater seats. The floating mountains of the planet Pandora hover gloriously overhead. And the Na'Vi, Pandora's 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned natives, come convincingly to life.
For people worried about the Great Recession and the uncertainty of what is coming next, the characters of 'Mad Men' are good company.
When locational information is collected, people should be given advance notice and a chance to opt out. Data should be erased as soon as its main purpose is met.
Mass layoffs produce big winners and losers. Most workers who remain are financially unscathed, even though their employer is struggling.
The Enron scandal is worthy of the highest level of scrutiny, both because of the enormity of the crimes that may have been committed and because of what the largest bankruptcy in American history has already begun to reveal about the weaknesses in our nation's corporate structures and regulatory oversight.
Republicans and blacks had an unlikely alliance around 'max black' after the 1990 census. By concentrating black voters in some districts, the strategy elected a record number of black congressmen in 1992. But the remaining 'bleached' districts were more likely to elect white Republicans.
Being unemployed - or working at minimum wage - is rough in the best of circumstances.
Gun violence in the U.S. is an epidemic.
With increased awareness should come greater caution about how confessions are used at trial - and a greater willingness to overturn convictions when it becomes clear that a confession was untrue.
The anti-New Deal line is wrong as a matter of economics. F.D.R.'s spending programs did help the economy and created millions of new jobs.
Serving up ads based on behavioral targeting can itself be an invasion of privacy, especially when the information used is personal.
There is no need for neighborhood informants and paper dossiers if the government can see citizens' every Web site visit, e-mail and text message.
There was a rule, back when I was an education lawyer in Alabama, about visiting public schools: always go on a rainy day so you can see how badly the roofs leak.
DMs are a lot like email - and should have the same privacy protections as a mailed letter.
Social Security, all public and no option, rescued older Americans from living their final years in poverty.
Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like 'the right to bear arms.'
If you're going to call a book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History,' readers will expect some serious carrying on about race, and Thomas Woods Jr. does not disappoint.
Congress needs to toughen the laws protecting elections and make clear that anyone interfering with democracy will pay a stiff price.
Corporations have enormous treasuries, and there are a lot of things they want from government, many of which clash with the public interest.
The remarkable thing about 'Avatar' is the degree to which the technology is integral to the story. It is important to show Pandora and its Na'Vi natives in 3-D because 'Avatar' is fundamentally about the moral necessity of seeing other beings fully.
Anti-New Deal rhetoric has never disappeared from American political life.
We should craft our laws to allow images of criminal suspects to be captured in public - but also to make sure that the government does not unduly infringe on the privacy rights of innocent citizens.
The Supreme Court's most conservative Justices have presented themselves as great respecters of precedent and opponents of 'judicial activism' - of judges using the Constitution to strike down laws passed by the elected branches of government. If they are true to those principles, they should uphold rent control.
The civil rights and antiwar movements taught Americans to question authority.
In zombie horror, the juxtaposition of the calm world of the living and the menace of the undead inspires terror. In zombie comedy, like 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,' it is played for laughs.
There is no room on the federal bench for a judge who does not treat all people as equal before the law.
Age discrimination is illegal. But when compared with discrimination against racial minorities and women, it is a second-class civil rights issue.
There is no actual need to tighten voter ID rules: there have been extraordinarily few instances of people committing fraud at the polls.
Lawsuits prod companies to make their products safer.
'Hard Times' does not romanticize the Depression, but at least a few of Mr. Terkel's subjects managed to find silver linings.
To a generation beaten down by skyrocketing unemployment, plunging retirement savings, and mounting home foreclosures, 'Mad Men' offers the schadenfreude-filled message that their predecessors were equally unhappy - and that the bleakness meter in American life has always been set on high.
Set in the advertising world of the 1960s, 'Mad Men' is stunning to look at - a Camelot-era parade of smartly dressed professionals lounging around on midcentury modern furniture.
The Senate should refuse to confirm nominees who do not take Congressional power seriously.
If a company knows it may have to pay a large amount of money if it poses an unreasonable threat to others, it will have a strong incentive to act better.
It makes sense to have cameras in places where terrorism and crime are of particular concern - such as in Times Square or near major bridges and tunnels. It would be more troubling to learn, however, that the government has focused cameras on the front doors of our homes just to keep track of our comings and goings.
When the government takes video of people in public places, the images should only be kept as long as they may reasonably be needed to investigate a crime. After a few days, if there has not been a report of a crime, they should be destroyed.
Supporters of tough voter ID laws are not afraid of vote fraud - they are afraid of democracy.
It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that Congress got serious about the assignment laid out in the post-Civil War amendments.
One way to reduce the need for layoffs would be to cut back on hours, spreading the available work among more employees.
When the gun lobby fights gun-control legislation, its logic is clear: it does not like laws that prevent people from owning or using guns.
If the Supreme Court rules that rent control is an unconstitutional taking of property, it would put all sorts of zoning rules in danger.
Mississippi's loose campaign finance laws allow lawyers and companies to contribute heavily to the judges they appear before. That is terrible for justice, since the courts are teeming with perfectly legal conflicts of interest.
As self-driving cars become more common, there will be a flood of new legal questions.
If the FBI gets the 'back doors' it wants, Internet services would be required to create a massive online infrastructure for law enforcement to spy on members of the public.
If the courts regarded tweets and other social media information as private, it would not prevent the law enforcement from getting information it really needs. But the government would have to get a search warrant, which requires it to show that it has probable cause connecting what is being searched to a crime.
