Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle that we are all created equal. The project of each generation is to bridge the meaning of those founding words with the realities of changing times -- a never-ending quest to ensure those words ring true for every single American.

Progress on this journey often comes in small increments. Sometimes two steps forward, one step back, compelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens. And then sometimes there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.

This decision will end the patchwork system we currently have. It will end the uncertainty hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples face from not knowing whether their marriage, legitimate in the eyes of one state, will remain if they decide to move or even visit another.

This ruling will strengthen all of our communities by offering to all loving same-sex couples the dignity of marriage across this great land.

We are people who believe every child is entitled to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is so much more work to be done to extend the full promise of America to every American. But today, we can say in no uncertain terms that we’ve made our union a little more perfect. (...)

The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which "the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one’s skin or color or race" are minor indeed. Even

So, I've been pretty delinquent about these, but at least I've had the decency to keep stashing things I found worth reading at Reading Feed, with backlogs at Reading Feed (March 2015) and Reading Feed (February 2015).

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WSJ | China to Start Keeping a List of Badly Behaved Tourists sounded pretty scary -- until I read the article and realized that the measures are directed at Chinese citizens abroad, not visitors to China. And then it all sorta made sense, conditioned on China being, 'yknow, China.

Said Chinese president Xi Jinping:

Don't throw water bottles everywhere, don't destroy people's coral reefs and eat fewer instant noodles and more local seafood. (...)

On the topic of environmentalism, I'm on the record opining that pressuring the Harvard Management Corporation to divest from fossil fuels is a red herring, but that doesn't mean that digging up all of the of the known deposits of fossil fuels and burning them would be exactly as horrible as you'd expect: (all numbers Fahrenheit)

The next set of fossil fuels in line is referred to as resources, rather than reserves. The difference is that they are recoverable with today’s technology, but not at current prices. There is 3.1 degrees’ worth of warming if the oil and natural gas in this category are utilized, which would lead to a total increase in global temperatures of 7.6 degrees.

This warming does not even consider our coal resources. A middle-of-the-road estimate of the coal that qualifies as resources indicates that its use would lead