[Oct 31] From First Things, Antonin Scalia reviews Law’s Quandary by Steven D. Smith, a review of A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching, more on Jim Wallis' God's Politics, and more on Is the Reformation Over?; Joseph Bottum on God & Bertie Wooster; Richard John Neuhaus on the New Europes and on Iraq and the moral judgment; and here's a Catholic perspective on neo-Darwinism. More and more on Earthly Powers. A review of God's Advocates: Christian Thinkers in Conversation. On sex and the faithful soldier: A review of Every Soldier's Battle. From Foreign Affairs, Peter Bergen on how today's insurgents in Iraq are tomorrow's terrorists. Everybody is a realist now: More on The Right War and A Matter of Principle. An American entrepreneur is trying to show that, in the fight against terrorism, the pen is mightier than the sword. More and more on George Packer's The Assassins' Gate. From NPQ, an interview with Thomas Schelling. John Gray reviews Tony Judt's Postwar. A review of Robert Conquest's The Dragon of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History. A review of The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. And a review of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy

[Weekend 2e] Sex - lifestyles: From Salon, what do you get when you design a condom that men want to use? Sued. Inside the twisted patent battle over prophylactics. Severed foreskins have all sorts of adventures. Porn of the Gods: On an occasion, if we can call it that, to decode the genre of celebrity sex tapes. A review of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson. Sex.com thief arrested in Mexico. Lapping it up: What price a good time? There once was a man from Nantucket... who could see lewdness coming and duck it. No sex please, we’re American. From Great Britain, Gordon Ramsay denies that he's sexist, but his wife is the one in the family kitchen; and from how to use a hankie to safe sex education, public information films try to influence behaviour. Do they work? Is our desire for instant makeovers all thanks to globalisation? The revival in preppy fashion that's put ribbon belts back on the map is reaching maturity. And Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? 

[Weekend] Potpourri: Though the flood of books on the Israel-Palestine conflict claims to take an unbiased view of its history, few can hide their partisan leanings. A review of Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero. Harvard Square may be next for a group that requires members to give up their possessions, follow the Bible word-for-word, and prepare for the end of the world. A look at a Marxist approach to the problem of aging. A review of Saving the Daylight: Why We Put the Clocks Forward. An article on the varieties of corruption. From The Brookings Institution, the transcript from a discussion of Stephen Breyer's Active Liberty. More on Benjamin Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. More on A Short History of Myth. William Saletan on Monty Python's flying creationism. A look at the work of Arthur Seldon, the most influential person you never heard of. Glory, in Spinoza's view, plays a very big role in politics. A review of Charles W. Colson. A review of The 50 Percent American: Immigration and National Identity in an Age of Terror. An article on John Locke and Indian country. A review of Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture. The problem isn’t the rapacious lawyers—it’s the idiotic jurors. A review of With Respect for Nature: Living as Part of the Natural World. A review of Dating Aphrodite: Modern Adventures in the Ancient World. Dogs are being used as shark bait on Reunion. The story of the evolution of a man: Lifting the Hood in South Mississippi. And are you angered by politicians? Then fight back by nominating them for Open Democracy’s monthly “bad democracy” award!

[Oct 28] From The Nation, Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter discuss a hidden foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, and on the war of the liberals: Stephen Homes reviews books on humanitarian intervention. Anatol Lieven on democratic failure: festering lilies smell worse than weeds. An article on the failure of the Bush Doctrine. It is the lack of idealism and complacency of the west that is viewed with repugnance. Two new works explore the endurance of the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. From Voltaire Network, an interview with Mordechai Vanunu, and a critique of the work of this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in economics (and more from Open Democracy). As the Change to Win Federation takes shape, questions about how it will co-exist with the AFL-CIO remain. An interview with Mickey Z on his new book, 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know. From TAP, a special section: Toward a Greener Politics. A review of books on the environment and oil, the specter haunting Alaska. Corporations finally learn that energy conservation is great for profits. James Howard Kunstler on concealing the suburban nightmare. The end of craven customer service could return some dignity to the world of consumption. A review of books on corporate farming. By eating kangaroos, are we saving them or destroying them? From Salon, everything you always wanted to know about nanotechnology... But were too afraid of quantum spookiness to ask). An article on an ethics of technology. From TCS, an article on the age of radical enhancement.  A review of Ron Bailey's Liberation Biology. And Aubrey De Grey is The Man Who Would Murder Death

[Oct 27] From Quadrant, more on Christopher Hitchens' Love, Poverty and War. From National Review, a review of Terror in the Skies: Why 9-11 Could Happen Again, by Annie Jacobsen, author of the essay "Terror in the Skies, Again?” that appeared on WomensWallStreet. Victor Davis Hanson puts the 2,000 dead in Iraq in context (and an article on Hanson Elizabeth Anscombe’s essay "Mr. Truman’s Degree," and more on A War Like No Other). More from Sam Rosenfeld and Matthew Yglesias on learning the right lessons from the Iraq War. Beware of extremists when debating Iraq. Who benefits from disorder in the Middle East? The first annual Human Security Report finds that violent conflict around the world is declining. Can this be true? From Reason, a capitalist peace? Markets, more than democracy, may be the key to preventing war. John Keegan reviews The Utility of Force. The introduction to On War and Leadership: The Words of Combat Commanders from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwartzkopf. From Military.com, do Academies matter? A Slate Soldier Goes to War: Dispatches from Iraq. From The New York Times Magazine, a cover story of the Fall of the Warrior King. And from Salon, thanks to nanotechnology, the (really scary) soldier of the future will be a lethal superman who can heal himself

[Oct 26] From Eurozine, Big Brother goes global: You've heard of money laundering? Now welcome to "policy laundering". An article on the fragility that threatens the world's industrial systems. The notion of what makes a "good business climate" needs to be radically rethought. A look at how Chapter 11 is demolishing employee expectations. More on End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation. From FT, an excerpt from The Undercover Economist. A new version of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness is released. A conference provides a vivid illustration of how political reality impacts -- or fails to impact -- the thinking of economists. A look at why most meetings stink. Here’s what it will take for you to stop working and never run out of money. A formula for the good life. Christianity seems to have done quite well by mixing worship and commerce. From Commonweal, an article on Benedict XVI and religious pluralism, and a look at the prescience of Joseph Conrad on the War on Terror. Humanists need to be less fussy about working with the religious who share our commitment to social justice, but the difficulty is rather that all the religions on offer are so patently preposterous, if not downright unpleasant. A review of books on myth. A review of Robert Pinsky's The Life of David (and more). A review of A Day in a Medieval City. More on Earthly Powers: The Conflict Between Religion and Politics From the French Revolution to the Great War. And more on Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

[Oct 25] Perspectives from and about the left: From Harper's, Lewis Lapham on how the US is now a fascist state. Christian libertarian Vox Day thinks the American left is in feverish denial of its ideological kinship with fascism. A look at why it's time to retire Hitler. From In These Times, is the left really as ideological and principle-driven as it seems? From Swans, a special issue on America: What have we come to? who are we? what do we stand for? and where is the left in the US? (and more). From Mother Jones, an interview with Andrew Gumbel, author of Steal This Vote, and a review of books on recounting Ohio and the 2004 election. From Monthly Review, an article on the socialist vision and left activism, and an article on Marx’s vision of sustainable human development. From Freezerbox, for reasons that Schumacher himself predicted, small looks set to become beautiful again. This time may it stick. From Green Left, an article on Jane Fonda and the role of the accident in history. A review of Ronald Radosh's Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance With the Left. From FrontPage, a symposium of former members of the political faith discuss their intellectual journeys. More on John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism. "9/11 Theologian" David Ray Griffin says the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center is now a fact, not a theory (hey, just like evolution!). From Slate, History of the World, Part 2: Jewish conspiracy theory: the satire. And from spiked, an essay on how 'state-building' weakens states, and a review of books that reveal the political atrophy of foreign policy today

[Oct 24] Iraq, Islam and International Affairs: From The New Yorker, an interview on the divide within the Republican party over Iraq. Colin Powell's chief of staff Col Larry Wilkerson launches a blistering attack on President Bush, who is "courting disaster" (and more from Richard Holbrooke). Joseph Nye on Cold War lessons for George W Bush, and Shlomo Avineri on Humpty Dumpty Iraq. Is southern Iraq only hell with flies? The reality is less bleak, but still unsettling. Iraq's constitution can lead to better prospects for peace and democracy, but Sunnis must give up hope of ruling. From Writ, an article on Saddam's upcoming trial: How can justice be served? Justice maybe, but no closure: Saddam Hussein's trial offers little to his victims. A look at what you need to know about show trials. Tariq Ali reviews No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam. More on Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity. An interview with Khaled Abou El Fadl, author of The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. More and more on Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation. A review of Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. A review of How America Got It Right: The US March to Military and Political Supremacy. A review of The Power of International Theory. And lost in translation: The significance of cultural diplomacy extend well beyond the life span of the Bush administration

[Weekend 2e] Cool Britannia: From Open Democracy, Cambridge's John Dunn on getting democracy into focus; and both multiculturalists like Tariq Modood and Bhikhu Parekh and their “solidaristic” critics like Gilles Kepel and David Goodhart are locked into the dead-end of identity politics. From Power, a series of papers on political participation in Britain. AC Grayling considers the British government’s plan to create the crime of incitement to religious hatred. A review of Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Even posh white London teenagers are speaking a Jamaican argot nowadays. Britain is witnessing what may be the last big newspaper war—and it's about size, not circulation. Is this the final gasp of newsprint, or its future? Britain leads the world in university presses, an unsung corner of intellectual life. The Brits don't like the French, but the French couldn't care about them. British journalists succeed in the States, but not for reasons that American rivals admire. From The Weekly Standard, liberal elites ruined Britain as a hyperpower. Could America meet the same fate? And from BBC, a special series on who runs your world, a look at a feature-length documentary on the Enlightenment, and what is the secret of feeling good? 

[Weekend] The politics of comedy and sex: Kurt Vonnegut tells a reporter one of his favorite sour jokes. A look at the demure outrages of standup comic Sarah Silverman. Off-color expose: Did a radical feminist write the "Truly Tasteless Jokes" series? From Salon, why women should feel free to cry in the workplace -- and anywhere else they damn well please. More on Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men - And What to Do About It. Ethnic pageants restyle the American beauty contest. Breast implants, tummy tucks and nose jobs are beauty practices in the west, but they are better understood as harmful cultural and traditional practices. A look at a day's work at the Playboy Mansion. A visit with Dennis Hof, a Nevada businessman trafficking in the world’s oldest profession. A review of What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men. On how male friendships skim surface, run deep. And a look at the top sex tips over the ages

[Oct 21] For and against Chomsky: Is he a brilliant expositor of linguistics and US's foreign policy? Or a reflexive anti-American? Robin Blackburn and Oliver Kamm debate. On the branding of the world's top intellectual: Noam Chomsky. From n+1, an essay on the trouble with heroes. From The Nation, an interview with Gore Vidal. From HNN, more on Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah. An interview with George Weigel, author of The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics Without God. More on A Short History of Myth. From Counterpunch, Ralph Nader interviews Rev. William Sloane Coffin, and a look at the scandalous history of the Red Cross. The liberal hawks now say the idea of the war wasn’t bad, just its execution: This saves face -- and serves a more dangerous function. James Yee entered Guantanamo as a patriotic US officer. He ended up in shackles. This is his disturbing story. On why terrorist profiling is the most efficient, and effective, method of anti-terror policing. Kenan Malik says he witnessed the birth of political multiculturalism in Britain. And social mobility does not work as most people imagine, and it's hard to do much about it

[Oct 20] On science:  From Slate, a look at why genetics is so far a boondoggle; and on a stem-cell Shakeup: Solving old embryo debates—and starting new ones. A look at how humans are governed by emotions—literally. A study finds perceptions of morality influence economic decisions, brain responses to rewards. A review of Evidence-based Medicine and the Search for a Science of Clinical Care. When mathematics met biology: Mathematical medicine is the next big thing. Without a standard meter, how would a manufacturer make a ruler and know that it is precise? A review of When Physics Became King: On the importance of physics to 19th-century economies and ideas of nationalism. A review of books on cosmology and modern physics. How to imagine a black hole? Find something on Earth that's analogous. Like a bathtub. A bold new theory predicts that time travel may be more plausible than previously thought. From Universe Today, where is everybody? And novelists and psychologists share an interest in the way we think, but writers must do more to keep up with science

[Oct 19] A new issue of Greater Good is out. A review of Selfish Routing and the Price of Anarchy: What does the privilege of choosing our routes without regard for the common good cost us? A review of Culture and Subjective Well-being. From Bad Subjects, an article on toxic culture, the consumer ethic, and teaching Biocentrism. From Green Anarchy, essays on egocide and egoism. What's wrong with being less than human? Meet the life hackers: Can anyone find a way to make your constantly beeping and dinging computer leave you alone and let you work? Inside the nascent field of interruption science. From TCS, an article on Kurzweilomics (and more on The Singularity is Near). Karen Armstrong reviews A Short History of Myth. From CrossCurrents, an essay on overcoming America's skepticism about religious rationality, and an essay on struggling for the soul of one's country: American pathologies and the response of faith. A review of Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. From Crisis, Georgetown's James V. Schall on how "social justice” can be a dangerous phrase; a look at when Catholicism becomes a hobby; and a necessary bondage? When the Church endorsed slavery. Where are the voices from the Christian community on cruel and degrading treatment of detainees? An interview with Pope Benedict XVI. A Catholic high school teacher is forced out over flag. And what would Jesus blog? 'God bloggers' head to national conference

[Oct 18]  From Dissent, an essay on Labor Divided. From Dollars & Sense, a roundtable on the turmoil in the AFL-CIO; and an article on taxing wealth Swedish style. A look at the paradox of rules and deregulation. From Monthly Review, an essay on privatization at gunpoint,  and an article on personal debts and US capitalism. From News & Letters, an essay on the Call of the Siren: A proletarian critique of Starbucks. From Radical Middle, an article on what the U.S. needs now: Futuring, but not top-down planning. More on Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy. A review of books on American identity and presidential rhetoric. From City Limits, a right-wing tract heralds the next big battle of American politics: Tax eaters vs. Taxpayers. What’s going to happen when the most prosperous, best-educated generation in history finally grows up? From Crisis, an essay on how to talk to Democrats about abortion: Five strategies for making the pro-life case. From The Texas Observer, here are a few of the Texans who are bringing Christian Fundamentalism into state politics. Who was worse, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or George W. Bush? From The Progressive, Ruth Conniff on Rick Santorum's America, an interview with Randall Robinson. From Liberty, an article on William Rehnquist's legacy as a total failure. From Legal Affairs, Geoffrey Stone and Richard Posner debate what's wrong with the Patriot Act; and what good is Posse Comitatus? And must lawyers write badly? 

[Oct 17] War, ethics and ideology: From The Boston Globe's "Ideas", after Iraq, is the liberal hawk an endangered species? Humble how-to guides to American foreign policy may be tedious, but they are more realistic than books with big ideas. From The American Conservative, an article on deconstructing nation building: The results are in and the record isn’t good, while billions of dollars have disappeared, gone to bribe Iraqis and line contractors’ pockets. A review of books by Iraqi War veterans. A review of books on the ethics and politics of humanitarian war, and more on A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War. A review of At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention. From The Walrus, a review of books on globalization. A review of The Endgame of Globalization. A review of Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat. From Left Hook, is Paul Craig Roberts a better kind of conservative? Sean Wilentz on what contemporary conservatism's ties to the American past tell us about its future). Joel Kotkin on making a coherent case for a new Progressivism. And from International Viewpoint, an essay on the evolution of the European radical left, and some current controversies

[Weekend] From NYRB, Timothy Garton Ash on the Soldiers of the Hidden Imam; an excerpt from Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division; and an essay on the Lost Children of AIDS. From Open Democracy, Barnett & Hilton’s definition of the threats to democracy fails to convince Roger Scruton. A report on the recent New York Salon's debate, "Reflections on the Future". Prospect's list of the world's top intellectuals is an intellectual blunder. From WSWS Summer School, a lecture on the rise of fascism in Germany and the collapse of the Communist International. From FT, a review of Mussolini’s Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship, a review of The Modern Ideal: The Rise and Collapse of Idealism in the Visual Arts from the Enlightenment to Postmodernism, a review of books that explain why we rarely gain from a pick-and-choose society; Britain relies on the genius of degenerates to lead the nation; Freud populariser Adam Phillips has some easy-to-digest advice; to most people superstitions offer a way to feel more secure; and how did Shelly Lazarus leap to the top of one of the world’s most macho professions? How would Jesus rule? The perils of religious tests for Supreme Court justices. An excerpt from The Story of God by Robert Winston. More on Opus Dei. A review of Anger: The Seven Deadly Sins. Studies show altruism is at the heart of suicide attacks. On why Thomas Schelling’s leaps of lateral thinking are weapons of enlightenment. And an article on James Allen on the art of thinking