From National Journal, the U.S. Institute of Peace is winning plaudits from both parties and experts worldwide for its efforts. Stairway to heaven is paved with books: He never left; God, that is — from your local bookstore shelves. Imagine for a moment the Supreme Court had gone the other way in Bush v. Gore in 2000 — we would now be in year eight of the Gore-Lieberman administration. Is the economic implosion of the US a crisis or an opportunity? Two eco-millenarian novelists disagree. Stacey Levine reviews Josh Barkan’s Blind Speed. When David Mamet declared that he was no longer a "brain-dead liberal", he joined the ranks of leftwing writers, from Arthur Koestler to Kinglsey Amis to Christopher Hitchens, who have moved to the right and attacked former allies. The introduction to Why? by Charles Tilly. "I waste people’s time online": It’s not easy to distract you — the taste of the Internet user is as idiosyncratic as it is fickle. Dani Rodrik on guns, drugs, and financial markets. Noam Scheiber on the commander of Obama's nerd army. An article on the mind-reading hat that can prevent brain farts; a look at how culture affects how we read faces, and the cultural differences in pee. From The American's "The American Scene", a look at the Venti Effect, the "Hispanization" of America, off-shoring pollution, etc. An excerpt from The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel.
