"Is our modern mobility sustainable? We are facing an energy crisis, a climate crisis, and an economic crisis—and perhaps a mobility crisis as well." An urban studies professor on the car.

Apart from being a past sponsor of international terrorism and the West’s new best friend in North Africa, Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi is also a crackpot dictator with the bizarrest […]

Charles Simic recalls the excuses he offered the first time he watched his native Yugoslavia lose at the World Cup. The poet lists the four universal excuses given when a soccer team loses.

A new history of voting through the ages is timely, says The New Yorker, as the U.K. prepares for electoral reform while the U.S. holds out against newer and fairer electoral methods.

"Marijuana is one of the top cash crops in the United States. So why is there so little coverage of this business, as a business?" The Big Money inaugurates a blog on the marijuana trade.

"Scientists yesterday hailed a potential breakthrough in the fight against Aids after a vaginal gel was found to cut HIV infection rates by up to 50 per cent." The Independent reports

"How can the United States legitimately claim the right to promote democracy and human rights at the same time that, at home, it is becoming somewhat less democratic, and a great deal less just?"

"Despite the hype surrounding microfinance as an answer to solving world poverty, new research shows it isn’t the savior economists envisioned." Read more at Miller-McCune.

The head of the UN Environmental Programme's Green Economy Initiative, Pavan Sukhdev, sits down for tea with The Economist to discuss how to assign an economic value to nature.

A lengthy investigation by the Washington Post reveals the resurgence of the military-industrial complex since 9/11 and how expensive and unaccountable private contractors fill our ranks.

Leonardo da Vinci didn’t invent the sfumato technique, which produced the “smoky” effects of masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, but he may have perfected it. For centuries, art experts […]

Paris doesn’t pause. The New York Times cover story today on a scandal consuming the city noted that “this being France, a film will be made, and comparisons to the […]

The key to fighting Alzheimer’s disease may be a single brain protein called amyloid beta, which is the subject of dozens of current scientific studies. A recent New York Times article […]

In a series of tweets Sunday, Sarah Palin first “invented” the word “refudiate” (while, perhaps, trying to come up with “repudiate”), and then defended her word choice in another tweet […]

Racial animosity is racial animosity, whatever flavor it comes in – southern redneck scorn, poorly disguised northern liberal contempt, conservative country club hatred, or the calculated disdain of minority elites […]

Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution at its annual convention asking Tea Party leaders to condemn the racists in their ranks. The NAACP was right on the money. Regardless […]

New tools and methodologies involve the consumer in the development and review of the creative process more than ever before. The best marketers bring the consumer in early on to […]

Following the gulf oil spill disaster, the best thing that BP can do is to clean up the mess as quickly as possible. “Their actions will allow them then to […]

A conversation with the Global CEO of Razorfish.

The past doesn’t so much teach us specific lessons as give us an appreciation for the complexity of the issues we face.