From TED, Alain de Botton on a kinder, gentler philosophy of success. Meet John Durham, the man who may be put in charge of investigating the Bush administration's torture crimes. The introduction to The Apologetics of Evil: The Case of Iago by Richard Raatzsch. From The Hill, here's the latest 50 Most Beautiful People. From Mother Jones, let the End Times roll: When the economic Rapture comes, will collapsitarians be the chosen ones? From Wired, an essay on cutthroat capitalism: An economic analysis of the Somali pirate business model. Is cheaper health care hopeless? No — and here's an honest, detailed answer why. A review of Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis by Senator Tom Daschle. Bruce Bartlett on taxing the rich and figuring out ways to finance health care reform (and an interview). Jonathan Chait on basic health care facts: They're important. Health-Care Haters 101: Why the right is dead-wrong. Blue-dogged centrist Democrats think that going slow on health care is good politics — but if Obama loses, they lose, too. John Dean on how Barack Obama is a "fox," not a "hedgehog" and thus more likely to get it right. Three major continental thinkers died in the last year; their life stories are extraordinary (and more and more and more on Leszek Kolakowski).
