online archive

The Supreme Court, city living, nature and global warming

From Newsweek, does Bush have the constitutional clout to ignore any congressional attempt to reign in his war powers? What the scholars say. Michael Dorf on the president's disingenuous arguments against expanding the federal hate crime law. Above It All: A deposition can be an ugly war. Sometimes judges have to get down in the trenches. Patently obvious: A Supreme Court ruling with far-reaching consequences for American innovation turns on the definition of a single word. The consensus on gun rights no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors. The Numbers Guy on figuring the impact of allowing felons in Florida to vote (and more).

From The Atlantic Monthly, The Story of a Snitch: Across our inner cities, the code of omerta has spread from organized crime to ordinary citizens. "Stop snitching" has become a motto to live or die by (and an interview with Jeremy Kahn on the growing problem of witness intimidation and the challenges of reporting a story about it). Jeremy Kahn rides along with Baltimore's Homicide Operations Squad in search of murder witnesses. Is Pittsburgh livable or leavable? An article on the shortcomings in city-ranking indexes. Mine's Bigger: An article on the ridiculous race to build the world’s tallest building. Bus 2.0: From Boston to Brazil. city planners and transportation gurus are reimagining the possibilities of the humble motorbus, using high-tech 'smart mobility' to challenge the preeminence of the car — and revive the urban commons. Model Trains: Retired London subway cars are recycled into low-rent studio and office space.

The dirty truth about bottled water: how private companies are profiting from public concern about water quality. Nuns mug orphan! Soon we'll all be fighting for food. Barbara Ehrenreich on how it's better to be a chimpanzee: A homeless chimp in Austria seeks human status to qualify for charity. If he wins, expect a surge of humans to cross over. The black-footed ferret is in trouble, as are hundreds of other species. But so is the law that looks out for them. An interview with biologist Josef Reichholf: "We are children of the tropics". From Der Spiegel, how bad is climate change really? Are catastrophic floods and terrible droughts headed our way? Despite widespread fears of a greenhouse hell, the latest computer simulations are delivering far less dramatic predictions about tomorrow's climate. And a review of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth