From Scientific American, if cutting carbon isn't enough, can climate intervention turn down the heat? Geoengineering could help stave off global warming, but it could also create some big problems (and more from The New Scientist). Earth has a natural transport system standing ready to get rid of carbon dioxide. Here is how it might be turned on. Green Wall of China: Officials in Inner Mongolia say they have established a living barrier of trees, grass and shrubs wide enough to hold back the Gobi.
From LA Weekly, Peddling Smart Growth: Call your project "smart" — even when it isn't — and get millions in public funds; smart growth’s biggest boosters still love suburban living; and what's smart about smart growth? Emily Yoffe goes drilling for natural gas on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Was Thomas Edison, the godfather of electricity-intensive living, green ahead of his time?
From Salon, how is an AK-47 like a QWERTY keyboard? An economist looks at the market for the world's most popular assault rifle. Splash, Splash, You're Dead: An article on the military's Next-Gen Water Gun. A review of The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat, From the Marne to Iraq by Martin van Creveld. Dennis Ross on how to contain the conflict in Iraq. Is there a nationalist solution in Iraq? The ethnic and sectarian conflict engulfing the country has gotten the most attention. But under the radar, a rough coalition of nationalist political elements in Iraq has been emerging.
Coercion doesn’t work. Empathy is a more powerful tool than you might think. A veteran Air Force interrogator who grilled prisoners in Iraq talks about how to gather information during wartime. Have the Guantanamo judges soured on the president's war tribunals? Dahlia Lithwick wants to know. Capitalism vs. Terrorism: More and more American companies are buying terrorism insurance. Uh-oh.
From Writ, John Dean on the Bush administration's dilemma regarding a possible Libby pardon. Sentencing for Dummies: Elizabeth de la Vega on the fate of I. Lewis Libby. Hustler magazine is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again, and willing to pay for it.
From The New Yorker, George Packer on presidents and history. A review of Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generational Regimes. Ron Rosenbaum reviews JFK assassination books Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi and David Talbot's Brothers. Nicholas von Hoffman |inprint/issue=200703&id=269|reviews| Kenneth D. Ackerman's Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties and Burton Hersh's Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America. Alan Wolfe reviews Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 by Michael Beschloss. A review of Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900 by Jack Beatty.
From FrontPage, an evening with Christopher Hitchens. Peter Hitchens reviews his brother's book, God Is Not Great (and more and more). Masonry, Atheism and Catholicism: An interview with Father Manuel Guerra Gómez, author of The Masonic Plot. More on In Defence of Reason by Michel Onfray. More on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. When tolerance becomes dangerous: In a civil society, decency must rank ahead of just about everything else, sacred and not. Thomas Sowell on how we're surrounded by adolescent intellectuals.
From Governing, John D. Donahue on The End of the End of Government. Mark Schmitt on how the answer to big-government conservatism is neither a promise to shrink government nor expand it, but a promise that public institutions will serve the public. Hillary was Right: Jonathan Cohn on the health care that dare not speak its name (and a response by Elizabeth McCaughey). Get in that bubble, boy! When can the government quarantine its citizens?
