From the latest issue of The Trumpeter, Espen Gamlund (Oslo): Who Has Moral Status in the Environment? A Spinozistic Answer; an essay on Wrestling with Arne Naess: A Chronicle of Ecopsychology’s Origins; Ian Prattis ( Carleton): Failsafe in Consciousness: Gaia, Science, and the Buddha; and a review of Endgame: Volume I – The Problem of Civilization and Endgame: Volume II – Resistance by Derrick Jensen.

From Discover, is morality innate and universal? Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser's new theory says evolution hardwired us to know right from wrong. But here’s the confusing part: It also gave us a lot of wiggle room. A review of Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing. A review of Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship. A review of From Clement to Origen: The Social and Historical Context of the Church Fathers.

From New York, Learnin’ on a Prayer: Getting religion to get into pre-k. What could possibly go wrong? Ending abstinence-only education is smart policy because it is consistent with what we know about how the human brain grows up. Their Cheatin' Hearts: You call it copying; today's college students call it collaborating. More Americans spend some time in college, and American higher education is the most expensive in the world. What do we want from college, though? A small revolution is brewing that challenges the orthodoxy of college rankings. Rank this, U.S. News: Why Trinity College president Patricia McGuire opted out of the magazine's education rankings.

Dueling Windmills: How two small liberal arts colleges are tackling climate change, one gust at a time. Starving for Social Justice: A hunger strike at Harvard sparks debate over activists’ tactics. The always alert Discovery Institute has let us know that Guillermo Gonzales has been denied tenure at Iowa State University. The DI is shocked—shocked!—at such a decision. Quad Complex: Super Troopers made Paul Soter a big man on campus. Now he wants to graduate. Welcome to Hell: Here's a Real World Guide for Graduates.

Making sense of Einstein — both his science and his personal life: Three takes on Einstein's life, work and politics of the famous physicist. Astronomers have spied a granddaddy of the galaxy—a 13.2-billion-year-old star formed soon after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. Here's Looking at You, Universe: We are in the golden age of telescopes. The secrets of the cosmos are coming at us. In a 17-mile circular tunnel curving beneath the Swiss-French border, CERN scientists are poised to recreate the universe's first trillionth of a second. A review of In Search of the Shape of the Universe by Donal O'Shea. A review of Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood. A review of On an Artificial Earth: Philosophies of Nature after Schelling.

A look at how Alexander the Great laid waste to an island fortress: Shallow water may have given him a solid foundation to build a road, so one of famed military commander's most impressive feats owes a large debt to Mother Nature. Centuries before the George Washington Bridge, the Andes were crisscrossed with suspension bridges. Now students at MIT are learning to recreate them. Liza Dalby's East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir Through the Seasons is an anthropologist’s musings on the seasons, culture and other delights. And a review of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations 

From The Chronicle, how can we work ourselves into such a politically correct dither over Don Imus's language, while still equivocating about gun control after Virginia Tech? Where are our priorities? asks Russell Jacoby. From TNR, Princeton's Christine Stansell on a lost history of abortion; and where are the liberal visionaries on the Supreme Court? Cass R. Sunstein on the Supreme Court's most innovative justice (it's not who you think). More polarizing than Rehnquist: Chief Justice John Roberts won Senate confirmation by vowing to shun ideological activism. Instead, by trashing judicial precedent and legislative statutes, he's reshaping law to fit conservative dogma.

From The New Yorker, social and cultural psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks with Henry Finder about the five foundations of morality, and why liberals often fail to get their message across; and atheists with attitude: Why do they hate Him? More and more on God Is Not Great. Manufacturing belief: An interview with Lewis Wolpert, author of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. The Bitterness of Regis Debray: A review of Praised be the Lords. With Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI fights back against the dictatorship of relativism, and an excerpt on The Meaning of Baptism.

From Dissent, is it possible to oppose the death penalty and still be in favor of killing tyrants? Michael Walzer wants to know; Nelson Lichtenstein on Labor and the new Congress: A strategy for winning; and an essay on the state of the unions two years after the AFL-CIO split. Should corporations be democracies? Absolutely not, says Peter Wallison. But maybe union pension plans should be. From In These Times, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers turns corporate social responsibility from oxymoron into reality.

From Business Week, an article on The Poverty Business: Inside U.S. companies' audacious drive to extract more profits from the nation's working poor; researchers are digging deeper to learn more about the high cost of being poor, and its impact on the overall economy; scholars are taking a fresh look at the financial problems of the working poor, and have some new suggestions on how to address them; and study now—and pay and pay and pay later. A review of Blame Welfare, Ignore Poverty and Inequality. An interview with Benjamin Barber on the dumbing-down of adults, faux needs, and saving capitalism.

Economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff suggests that retirees should delay collecting Social Security benefits to maximize their returns. The "Usefully Dangerous" Economist: Mark Levinson on the story of two economists—John Kenneth Galbraith and Paul Krugman. Ben Stein on assorted mysteries of economic life. For better or worth: When it comes to pricing, we might learn from Coca-Cola and Amazon. A review of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A review of Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age by Anne Goldgar. When Gambling is Good: These markets often predict more accurately than experts. Why? They draw on the knowledge of people who might otherwise be ignored.

From Transit, in a survey of the history of American immigration, Charles Hirschman points out that almost all popular fears about immigration and even the negative judgments of "experts" have been proven false by history. A review of Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate. And Welcome to Start From Scratch, U.S.A.: A town is more than the sum of its cinema and soda fountain. After a disaster, where to begin anew?

A review of Shakespeare Revealed by Rene Weis and Shakespeare the Thinker by A D Nuttall. A review of John Donne: The Reformed Soul by John Stubbs. A review of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Literary Life. Saviour and scapegoat: As his collected poems reveal, WH Auden's talent is almost too large to comprehend. Self-pity, doggerel and beastliness: A review of Alfred Douglas: a Poet's Life and his Finest Work by Caspar Wintermans.

Welcome to the Club: Philip K. Dick would be amazed to find himself in the Library of America. That's only one reason he belongs. In a series of three films produced for Times Online, Clive James picks out nine figures from Cultural Amnesia and talks about their lives, thoughts and legacies. Twins Helen and Morna Mulgray say they have always done things together, from becoming teachers to sharing hobbies and now, writing detective fiction. A review of The Fragile Edge Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific by Julia Whitty.

A review of Pharmako Gnosis by Dale Pendell: If Homer had been a drug connoisseur, his epic poems would have sounded like this. Who knew Genghis Khan could be so fun? Barbarity aside, Conn Iggulden's new novel Genghis: Birth of an Empire shows the imagination behind the Mongolian Empire. An interview with Michael Chabon on The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

The secret's out: Stephen King's son has been writing fiction: A review of Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. The dark shadow of the everyday: Patricia Highsmith's superior crime fiction is informed by her interest in the unconscious and her mastery of suspense. Susanna Moore's The Big Girls is a novel about violence in the zones of deepest intimacy, set in a New York prison. A series of deaths at Cambridge University echoes mystery murders from Sir Isaac Newton's time in Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott (and more). A review of Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders, by Gyles Brandreth. Rupert Thomson's new novel Death of a Murderer examines our secret fascination with the macabre. Most murderers are unaware of even the simplest clues that might give them away. But by thinking like a forensic scientist, is the "perfect murder" possible?

From The Hindu, a look at the destructive processes a writer is subjected to, sandwiched between various patrons. To be lost inside someone else's weirdness is one of the pleasures of reading, especially when there's a mystery that unfolds in a creepy, complex way. The Greatest Mystery? Making a best seller: The advance is usually the estimate of the first year's royalties. When members of the National Book Critics Circle recently picketed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — protesting the elimination of its book review editor — a war of words broke out between book reviewers and literary bloggers.

Mountain people: A review of Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors by Lisa Alther. From FT, in Rant, a boy in hillbilly US leaves behind a trail of tales to tell on his path to self-destruction; and a Nigerian in Berlin narrowly avoids losing himself in loneliness and drink in an exploration of love and identity in Goodbye Lucille. More on You Must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka. An interview with Helen Oyeyemi, author of The Opposite House (and more). An interview with Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake. A review of Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream by Sam Quiñones: Improbable but true tales of Mexicans who are driven to migrate northward. A review of The Temptation of the Impossible by Mario Vargas Llosa. And on the Literary Life: Look, Ma, no translator! Chilean writer Alberto Fuguet tries his hand at accent-free prose

Pundits think Rudy Giuliani's cross-dressing, gay-roommating, Planned Parenthood-donating past will doom his presidential campaign. But is he pointing toward the future of the Republican Party? How America's mayor scrapped his way to the top of the least popular fraternity on his college campus: An excerpt from America's Mayor, America's President? The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Home-Wrecker Goes to Washington: Why shouldn't we judge Rudy by his disastrous home life? Six years ago, Judi Giuliani was the other woman. Today, she’s the ostentatiously adoring wife of the front-runner for the Republican nomination. The Yankees' Clean-Up Man: Rudy went to bat for the Yanks, and look what he scored.

Bill Keller on how a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for Satan. Pulp affection: What Romney's taste for science fiction really means. David Frum has some advice for three leading Republicans. Why rank-and-file Republicans might opt to send a protest message by throwing the '08 fight with a statement candidate. From MySpace to NoSpace: For Republicans, campaigning on the Web hasn’t leveled the 2008 playing field.

Welcome to the age of YouTube politics, where everything you have ever said will be used against you. MySpace Gets Political: Global Empire to host presidential town hall sessions. Here are ideas for improving the presidential debates, but what's wrong with a clutter of candidates? The case for 10-man presidential debates. Michael Bloomberg has fueled speculation that he will run for president by sharpening his national profile and delivering speeches across the country. Let’s face it: This country needs a president. And only one man is fit for the job: Stephen Colbert.

An interview with Frank Rich on the culture of politics. The Matt Drudge primary: How professional political operatives secretly control the news you read about the 2008 campaign. Hint: It involves the Drudge Report.

From NYRB, How Democrats Should Talk: Michael Tomasky on The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina; Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear; and The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. A review of Talking Right and George Lakoff's Whose Freedom: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. More on The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution. 

From Radar, running wild with Mike Gravel: A long-shot candidate has his media moment (and an interview). From The Black Commentator, here are questions for Candidate Obama. From Bloomberg, a look at how Obama's economic brain trust breaks with the status quo. Clay Risen on Barack Obama, hedge-fund candidate. Obama is the only who isn't being forced to spend vast amounts of time and energy these days trying to convince voters of his authenticity.

Senator Clinton’s Strategist in Chief: Bill Clinton is the master strategist behind his wife’s candidacy, but there are potential pitfalls. How can Hillary maintain her populist credentials when Mark Penn, her chief pollster and campaign strategist, also represents the interests of some of America's largest corporations? Bruce Bartlett on conservatives for Hillary (and more) and a look at the problem with Bruce Bartlett's conservative case for the Democrats. And strange but true: Social conservatives prefer Clinton to Romney

When politics turned pragmatic: A review of Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years War: An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes. The Philosopher of Our Times: A review of John Rawls's posthumously published Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy. In "How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science," Harvey Mansfield shows with wit and verve how our seemingly apolitical science has blinded us to the quintessentially political quality of spiritedness, which, with a bow to Plato and Aristotle, he calls thumos.

A review of books by and an interview with Mary Midgley. Another think coming After decades in the analytical wilderness, philosophy is breaking out of its ivory tower to re-engage itself with real-life concerns. Human rights begin in small places, and close to home, said Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.

From WSWS, a review of two Trotsky biographies by Geoffrey Swain and Ian Thatcher (and part 2). The Marx Memorial Library in central London, set up in 1933 in response to the Nazi book burnings in Germany, is at the centre of a row that pays testimony to the enduring ability of communists to indulge in internecine warfare. The Nazi Chronicles: Closed for decades, the world's largest Holocaust archive now reveals its secrets.The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt argues, persuasively, that understanding the political theorist’s Jewish identity is essential to understanding her entire body of work, and on how power cannot come of violence by Arendt. A review of The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.

A review of Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. A review of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, and an interview with Natalie Angier. Creating a canon for science: Stop being so afraid, says Angier, and here are science facts you should already know.

From H-Net, a review of Sex Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2002. Adultery shouldn't be boring: A review of Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee by Pamela Druckerman (and more). A review of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.

Mother's Day is a lie: Its rituals are stale and its practices disgusting, but she goes through the motions anyway. Happy Non-Mother’s Day! A review of Nobody’s Mother: Life Without Kids. A review of By the Secret Ladder: A Mother's Initiation; Journey to the Darkside: Supermom Goes Home; Wiped! Life with a Pint-Size Dictator; Momzillas: A Novel; and Good Enough Mother: The Perfectly Imperfect Book of Parenting.

A review of Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women, and the World (and an interview with Liza Mundy). Genetic Testing + Abortion = ??? The right to choose, and the right to screen for sex, cancer genes or smarts. And from Newsweek, (Rethinking) Gender: How those who believe they were born with the wrong bodies are forcing us to re-examine what it means to be male and female

From Lew Rockwell, a look back at "Modern Historians Confront the American Revolution" by Murray N. Rothbard (and more). Jamestown vs. Plymouth and America's Founding Fictions: The truth of our history is that it produced winners and losers. Our founding is not a storybook Pilgrim fable. The 400th anniversary of Jamestown's founding has inspired a fresh look at America's founding rascals in Savage Kingdom.

A review of Washington's War: From Independence to Iraq by Michael Rose. A review of The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. A story of a woman for president—in 1872? A review of Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America 1919.

For the love of Lenin: A review of Young Stalin (and more and more and more). Victor Sebestyen reviews Comrades: Communism, a World History by Robert Service and more by Michael Burleigh, and more. A review of The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer.

From The Moscow Times, a review of Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries and Deadly Games by Tennet H. Bagley. A review of American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond by E. Howard Hunt. A review of Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi. Who really did kill Kennedy? A review of Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot.

A review of Robert Dallek's Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (and more and more). A review of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement by Linda Bridges and John R. Coyne Jr. A review of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America by Matthew Avery Sutton. Spellbound: Ten thousand followers of Santeria live in Central Florida, and there's not a curse to be found among them.

With a history steeped in racism, the Mormon church is now targeting the African American community for new members. Will it take a miracle? Christianity Without Salvation: An article on the legacy of the "Social Gospel"—100 years later. When it comes to religion in the public sphere, Richard John Neuhaus knows best. President of the Evangelical Theological Society Francis J. Beckwith resigns because he has joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Daniel C. Dennett reviews God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens (and two excerpts), and more by Michael Kinsley, and more and more and more and more and more and more and more. How dare you call me a fundamentalist: An interview with Richard Dawkins on the right to criticise "faith-heads". A review of Against All Gods, by AC Grayling and Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris. Andrew Sullivan on how Republicans reap the religious whirlwind. And is America on the road to fascism? Naomi Wolf and Alan Wolfe debate (and part 2)

From The Moscow Times, Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate is a sweeping panorama of World War II that mercilessly juxtaposes Stalinism and Nazism. A review of Christopher's Ghosts by Charles McCarry: CIA agent Paul Christopher confronts his Nazi-era past to learn the fate of his parents. Life's pain, joys infuse Red-baiting '50s: A review of Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon.

In the face of crushing totalitarianism, the artist Josef Koudelka served as our single most important witness to the flickering human spirit in Eastern Europe. Writing in the Dark: Israeli novelist David Grossman reflects on what literature can accomplish in a time of permanent political emergency and personal loss.

Darkness visible: Inside view of slippery slope that can lead to terrorism: A review of The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra. A review of The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan (and more). Author Edmund White has written a controversial drama about the Oklahoma bomber in Terre Haute. From the ashes of 9/11, Don DeLillo assembles a shattering portrait of a tragedy's aftermath in Falling Man, and more by Jonathan Yardley, and more and more and more and more and more and more. Rebuilding Ground Zero: After an eternity of politicking, the real construction begins.

In Cathleen Schine’s fable of urban loneliness, The New Yorker, dogs play the fairy godmothers. Bright lights, big city: Barb Carey ponders contrasting views of the busy streets. Beyond the horizon Ordinary women find adventure by leaving home in Tourist Season, a collection of short stories. Young women of few words: There are signs that the short story may be on the cusp of a renaissance. It's officially spring, which means that publishers are sending us reams of chick-lit novels. A review of Writing in an Age of Silence by Sara Paretsky: A call for social activism from a premier mystery novelist.

Cristina García’s novel A Handbook to Luck is about estrangement — geographic, cultural and political. Do not be deceived. Stormy Weather by Paulette Jiles is not a love story, unless it is a love story about dust storms and despair, oil-well speculation and horse racing. A couple of human organisms adapt to love as an endangered species in The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble Harcourt.

An interview with Natasha Trethewey, Native daughter: The 41-year-old poet talks about growing up mixed-race in Mississippi, her mother’s murder and whether it’s better to remember or to forget. And the silence and the lambs: Josephine Dickinson became profoundly deaf when she was 6. Now she is a poet

From the International Peace Academy, a series of papers on Coping with Crisis, including essays on (1) Global Political Violence: Explaining the Post-Cold War Decline; (2) Peacemaking and Mediation: Dynamics of a Changing Field; (3) New Challenges for Peacekeeping: Protection, Peacebuilding and the "War on Terror"; (4) Ending Wars and Building Peace; and (5) Small Arms and Light Weapons: Towards a Global Public Policy pdf.

Mass murder most foul: A review of Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond; The Devil Come on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur; Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide; The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones; and Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. Our compassion knows some bounds: A new study answers the question: how can we continue to ignore the mass suffering in Darfur?

From Soundings, has the future a left? Zygmunt Bauman proposes two defining principles for the left, and argues that these principles will always need to be battled for; Andy Pearmain argues that it is time to face the fact that the Labour Party is in its death throes, and that euthanasia is now called for; and an article on progressive politics after Blair. An article on Tony Blair and the tragedy of the great persuader. Here are five Americans who changed Tony Blair.

From The Observer, a series of articles on Gordon Brown. From Open Democracy, what will Gordon Brown do now? From New Statesman, as Blair departs, Brown will launch a plan to transform Labour's style through constitutional change and "empathy"; and the success or failure of Brown's prime ministership will lie across the Atlantic. So how will America react to him?

Ride ’Em, Cowboy. Well, Not Exactly: George Bush on a horse sends one signal. Nicolas Sarkozy on a horse sends another. A French Neoconservative? Nicolas Sarkozy is France’s first anti-anti-American leader. 4 myths about America-bashing in Europe: Yankee phobia may not be as toxic or universal as some pundits, mainly on the American left, claim.

This perfect storm will finally destroy the neocon project: Americans are sick of the unrepentant arrogance of this elite. But the realisation has come at a very heavy cost. See you in September, whatever that means: Everybody wants to measure “progress” in Iraq. But that measure defies definition. Fraying Nation, Divided Opinions: Highlights from a recent ABC News poll surveying Iraqi attitudes across cities, provinces, faiths and ethnic groups. War has displaced millions in Iraq, creating the largest refugee problem in the Middle East since 1948. As they flee their country, are they taking the war with them?

Laughter is not the Arab way: Aside from inheriting money, the best way to get rich in the Arab world is to find yourself an emir: A review of An Invitation to Laughter: A Lebanese Anthropologist in the Arab World. And war without limits: New scholarship on the origins of total war, from the French Revolution to World War II, helps explain the war on terror

From History of Philosophy Quarterly, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC-Riverside): Human Nature and Moral Education in Mencius, Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau pdf. Ernest Young (UT-Austin): The Constitution Outside the Constitution. From German Law Journal, a review of David Kennedy's Of War and Law; a review of Law After Auschwitz: Towards a Jurisprudence of the Holocaust; a review of The Social Construction of Free Trade: The European Union, NAFTA, and Mercosur. A review of State Constitutions for the Twentieth Century, Volumes 1-3.

From ZMag, against and beyond the State: An interview with John Holloway. A review of Warriors into Workers: The Civil War and the Formation of Urban-Industrial Society in a Northern City. Garth Cartwright finds the reality of gypsy life a far cry from the myth perpetuated by musicians and film-makers.

From American Scientist, an interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of I Am a Strange Loop. From New Scientist, a tiny brown speck of tobacco is a 400-year-old national treasure, one that is helping archaeologists uncover the story of the birth of America.

From Smithsonian, what will make you happy? An interview with Daniel Gilbert on why it's so hard to predict. From Soundings, human happiness and the stationary state: David Purdy argues that it is time for rich countries to stop seeking further economic growth; The politics of well-being: Hetan Shah argues that the politics of well-being contains powerful insights which can inform the left across a range of issues, but there are also potential pitfalls; a good-enough life: Fiona Williams argues that a political ethic of care offers a new way of dealing with contemporary changes in family lives and family policies; and Pat Kane on the power of play. A review of Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America. From Comment, an essay on vocations, vacations, and politics in public.

From Portfolio, chaos is underrated: In The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb excoriates the delusions of economists and their ilk. More on Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. Pop! Daniel Gross on why bubbles are great for the economy, a look at the most amazing bubble promoters of all time, and take the Bubble Quiz: How much do you know about irrational exuberance?

From The Situationist, an article on the situation of our food (and part 2 and part 3). Buyer Be Wary: An article on the peculiar American habit of demonizing food. From Science News, a grove of evolutionary trees: "Trees of life" show patterns of evolutionary descent, and they fit together mathematically to form an abstract forest. And from Britannica, the Pit Bull Debate: We should try to answer some questions: Why does a dog attack a human in the first place? What do we mean by ”pit bull”? What are pit bulls really like, and how did they get a reputation as a vicious dogs

From Scientific American, new nukes are good nukes? What does it mean when the U.S. government announces plans to create the first new nuclear warhead in two decades? On the horizon appears an approaching religious [and scientific] furor so contentious, any clash of civilizations may have to wait. On one side, a manuscript titled: The Final Freedoms, against all the gravitas religious tradition can bring to bear.

A review of Chalmers Johnson's Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. Michael Lind on reviving the republican way of war. A review of Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror.  Spencer Ackerman reviews At the Center of the Storm: My Years In the CIA by George Tenet. Woodward vs. Tenet: Jeffrey Goldberg on the new intelligence war. An interview with Tara McKelvey, author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.

First They Came for the Latinos: Heard rumors of civilians rounded up, locked up, and searched for papers, lately? Don't worry. That only happens in another America. Defining Hate in the United States: Despite widespread public support, hate crime law across the country remains inconsistent and the crimes often go unpunished. Bully pulpit: Are anti-bullying laws gay? Restoring Legal Accountability: The doctrine of limited liability is central to the rise of unfettered, irresponsible corporate power. It must be challenged in the interests of individual freedom, equality before the law and shared prosperity.

The Enron Enablers: It looks like the financial firms that helped the company cook its books just might get away with it. A new wave of militant consumer is rising, hitting large corporations where it hurts - in the wallet. They're middle-class, sick of bad service and they're not taking it any more. Where consumer culture doesn't quite reach: A study explores squatter communities on outskirts of rapidly developing urban areas. Rich countries may be largely to blame for adding climate change to Africa's litany of problems, but the continent's own politicians have yet to take it seriously.

The World After Oil: As the planet warms up, eco-friendly fuels can't get here fast enough. The latest figures on flights are a disaster for the environment: There is only one way to turn things around: a reduction in the capacity of airports. Thinking Outside the Fox: Rupert Murdoch launches effort to green News Corp.'s operations and programming. John Allen Paulos on global warming, genies and torture: What do they have to do with each other? Maybe a lot.

And from NYRB, Wretched of the Earth: Nicholas D. Kristof on Poor People by William T. Vollmann, and Understanding Poverty; and what's wrong with doctors: A review of How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman