A.M. Links: Turkey Wants NATO Backing In Syria Spat, By the Time You Get to Arizona, God of the Gaps' Gaps Getting Smaller

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  • Turkey wants to know NATO's got its back. The alliance will meet under its "Article 4" provision for only the second time in its 63 year history after Syria downed a Turkish jet it says violated their air space. Turkey says the "act of aggression" will "not go unpunished," the Dutch say "military intervention is out of the question" and the Syrians say they hope to maintain a "neighborly relationship" with Turkey.

  • Don't panic. Benjamin Netanyahu looks forward to working with Egypt's new president and hopes Mohammed Morsi focuses on rebuilding that country's economy even while a former Israeli defense minister says Israel ought to be "prepared for war" and the Iranian news agency FARS quoted Morsi as saying he wanted to strengthen relations with Iran to "rebalance" power in the region.
  • President Obama is campaigning in New Hampshire, where he attacked Mitt Romney for outsourcing done by companies involved with Bain Capital decades ago. "You don't need someone trying to explain to you the difference between outsourcing and offshoring," the president said.
  • Jan Brewer hailed yesterday's Supreme Court decision to strike three of four provisions of Arizona's immigration law. It upheld the portion of the law authorizing police officers to check immigration status in the course of a legal stop if they suspect the person was not authorized to enter the country, the so-called "papers please" provision, and the governor says law enforcement will be beginning to do so immediately.
  • The GOP Chairwoman in the town of Asbury Park on the Jersey Shore wants the town to enforce a seventy-some year old law on the books setting a dress code for the town's Boardwalk. "I don't want to go back to 1940 or 1950 but the bottom line is you have on your books an ordinance — no person clad in bathing attire shall be on the boardwalk or public walks adjacent thereto," Louise Murray said. 
  • Researchers argue divine intervention isn't necessary to explain the Big Bang because the laws of physics could've done it on their own. "If you would just, in this room, just twist time and space the right way, you might create an entirely new universe. It's not clear you could get into that universe, but you would create it," a senior SETI astronomer explained. Just like that.

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