From Der Spiegel, Nobel Prize winners Edmund Phelps, Robert Lucas, Reinhard Selten, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Samuelson share their views on what the future global finance order should look like. Barry Nalebuff on how game theory can save your relationship and everything else. So when will a Muslim be president? A guide to which minority group has the best chance to win the White House next. From Slate, what we didn't overcome: Obama won a majority of votes — he didn't win a majority of white votes; and Christopher Hitchens on how Obama's victory didn't magically eliminate America's problems and enemies. James Pethokoukis on why Obama looks like a one termer (and a response) From Adbusters, what’s Left after Obama? Simon Critchley wants to know. Andrew Sullivan on why Palin still matters. From Suite 101, an article on the steps to become a politician, local to national. From the ocean floor to the forest canopy, some of the world’s strangest places to spend the night have been documented by explorer Steve Dobson, author of Unusual Hotels of the World; and all over America, cities are becoming vast playgrounds for practitioners of parkour. A look at how floating energy islands could power the future. The thrill of the bar hook-up: What exactly do people get out of cruising for inebriated strangers in bars? Trivial Pursuits: Game shows reach a deeper level of weirdness.

From Mother Jones, a special section on The New ECOnomy, including Al Gore on America's next moon shot: Can we save the planet and rescue the economy at the same time? (and more); and Joseph E. Stiglitz on the Seven Deadly Deficits: What the Bush years really cost us. From Cato Unbound, Roderick Long on corporations versus the market; or, whip conflation now. From Business Week, an article on how to fix financial reporting. Dear journalists, stop screwing up: The press should have reported every Sarah Palin refused to meet with credentialed members of the media. From CJR, drawing lines: Why do we let political operatives act like journalists? Are big political donors just looking for favors? Apparently not. Why Obama Can’t Win author Shelby Steele defends analysis. Many of the biggest battles of the 2008 campaign played out on YouTube, the most important political venue of the year. After eight years of President Bush, we should pause to remember just what we're leaving behind. From NYRB, a review of books on Frank Lloyd Wright. Novels are "better at explaining world's problems": People should read best-selling novels like The Kite Runner and The White Tiger rather than academic reports. Want to end patriarchal oppression? Don't burn your bra — just get one that fits. Hairy Times: St. Louis-based American Mustache Institute wants to put the 'stache back in style.

Richard Tanter (RMIT): The Coming Catastrophe: The American War in Afghanistan and Pakistan. From Boston Review, Martha Nussbaum on The Mourner’s Hope: Grief and the foundations of justice. Real missions for 007: Here are five missions we’d love James Bond to tackle. It seems a simple question, but do we really want to read everything a writer has produced? A review of Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental by Marc Gerstein with Michael Ellsberg. In Moscow traffic with Walter Benjamin: Dragan Klaic was in Moscow to run a theatre workshop; he was overwhelmed by the sense of impending financial disaster and nearly missed his plane home. Bruce McCall is a liar: Everything he's about to tell you is a pack of lies. Here are the 20 wildest reactions to Obama’s victory. Origins of the Obama machine: An excerpt from Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century by Randy Shaw. Time's up for the Minutemen: Bidding adios to the anti-immigrant sensation. Is Jeff Jarvis gloating too much about the death of print? Ron Rosenbaum wants to know. Mark Danner on how scandal, unpurged and unresolved, transcends political reality to become commercial fact. Negar Azimi visits the palace of Hossein Vaziri, the Iron Sheik, an Iranian wrestler who parlayed his role as an Arab villain into American fame.

From Vanity Fair, William Langewiesche on the House of War: After Ramush Haradinaj led Kosovo’s bloody fight for independence from Serbia, becoming provisional prime minister, he was tried for war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague; in a clash of 21st-century justice and 15th-century laws, Haradinaj came out the winner. From Scientific American, a special report on the Future of the Poles. The Flying Spaghetti Monster: The American military space program in perpetual crisis. Here are fifty things you might not know about Barack Obama. Marc Ambinder on the secrets of Obama's success. Learning from Prop. 8: Is a 52-48 vote really enough to prove that the courts overstepped on gay marriage? From CJR, an interview with FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver on polling, politics, and the consolidation of the blogosphere. The real crime fighters, conservatives or liberals? Onion Nation: If its absurdist twists and wicked parodies of conventional journalism are just a joke, the country's leading satirical newspaper is having the last laugh. Sam Tanenhaus reviews Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman. The lolcats, the Internet's most famous felines, may be hilarious — but in their yearning, there is nothing less than the tragedy of the human condition. A new study finds that both more police officers and more community building are essential in reducing crime