The New Republic

In their long-standing campaign against environmental protections, American conservatives have taken a kitchen sink approach: First they exalted states' rights and attacked the Environmental Protection Agency; later, they reversed course, attacking states' rights and exalting the EPA. The only consistent objective was to thwart regulation, and the only question was which strategy would be most effective in achieving that goal. READ MORE >>

And shirtless boys fire rocks with rackets from the lawn next door. Ping and twang, then sounds of invisible tunnels torn through the canopy of indifferent oaks. Perhaps it was them I saw, the scoundrels, casting their lures in the middle of February, hoping to snag the swans parked at the rim of the flooded bog's unfreezing pupil. He shot his family with a twenty-two not long after debarking the bus from school, the quiet campus photographer, always in the dark room, it was said, waiting READ MORE >>

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War By Drew Gilpin Faust (Alfred A. Knopf, 346 pp., $27.95) The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction By Mark E. Neely Jr. (Harvard University Press, 277 pp., $27.95) I. READ MORE >>

You could be forgiven for not having heard of Brooksley Born, the elegantly named lawyer who chaired the obscure Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton administration. It was ten years ago this month that Born had a memorable showdown in an ornate Treasury Department conference room with two demigods of contemporary American capitalism, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. READ MORE >>

In politics, there's only one thing worse than being accused of schtupping a lobbyist: being accused of leaking the story of said schtupping to The New York Times. It was the latter accusation that John Weaver faced in February, after the Times published its front-page article on the "close bond" between John McCain and Vicki Iseman. And the circumstantial evidence against Weaver did seem rather damning. First, there was motive: Weaver was McCain's top strategist for nearly a decade, until he quit last year after his rival, Rick Davis, was appointed campaign manager. READ MORE >>

Last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unceremoniously fired a former mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from the State Park and Recreation Commission. Ordinarily, the sacking of a minor official from a state board most Californians have never heard of would not have set off a media frenzy, even in the gossip-crazed Golden State. But, in this case, the ex-mayor just so happened to be Clint Eastwood, a longtime parks advocate who had served on the panel since 2001. Adding fuel to the fire, Schwarzenegger also axed his own brother-in-law Bobby Shriver from the same commission. READ MORE >>

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Republicans are no longer denying the scientific basis for global warming. That's good news for those of us who have grown accustomed to the continued existence of things like polar sea ice, various forms of life, and Miami. The bad news is that Republicans, having seen the light, have fallen back on the possibly even more annoying stance of simply refusing to do anything about the problem. READ MORE >>

The Secret History of the War on CancerBy Devra Davis(Basic Books, 505 pp., $27.95)I. READ MORE >>

Nature photographer James Balog, whose photograph appears on this week's cover, has been traveling to the most remote parts of the globe to track the disintegration of the world’s glacial ice. He is the founder of Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), a group dedicated to documenting the rapid retreat of glaciers across the Northern hemisphere. READ MORE >>