The New Republic

The New Republic is looking for reporter-researchers for its 2010-2011 program. Job duties include reporting, researching, writing, and fact-checking for TNR's print version and TNR Online; formatting articles and blog posts for the Web; and performing occasional clerical tasks. Reporter-researchers work closely with writers and editors, and they have an open invitation to pitch magazine or Web articles. Most reporter-researchers finish their program with a substantial portfolio of clips and have gone on to work almost everywhere in journalism--including TNR itself. READ MORE >>

In my last TRB, I made a point I'm surprised hasn't gotten more attention: health care reform isn't actually unpopular. Or, to the extent that it lacks majority support, it's due to significant dissent from the left. Supporters of the Democratic plans plus their liberal critics add up to a majority: READ MORE >>

My eye was drawn to the provocative headline, “Alcoa head says weak dollar is bad for US industry.” How could that be? Aren’t American manufacturing firms being hurt by an overvalued dollar that increases the price of their goods made here relative, say, to imports from China? That may be true, I learned, but that is not what bothers Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of Alcoa. He is worried because a weaker dollar makes the products that Alcoa manufactures outside the United States more expensive inside READ MORE >>

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The Washington Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) conducted our end-of-the-year awards balloting over the weekend, and the big winner was Up in the Air, which took Best Film, Best Actor (George Clooney), and Best Adapted Screenplay. An Education did well, too, with Carey Mulligan taking Best Actress. READ MORE >>

From Pew: Most notably, 19% of the public says the use of torture is often justified to gain important information from terrorist suspects, while 35% say the use of torture in these circumstances is at least sometimes justified. Allahpundit responds, sarcastically: READ MORE >>

James Gardner, formerly the architecture critic of the New York Sun, now writes on culture for several publications. READ MORE >>

Strangest comment of the day (from Bob Woodward, on Meet the Press): Woodward: I think the lives of the average Afghan come into play here. How are they living? What's going on with them? And we are sending our military to protect them. You know what, I mean, that--this isn't an abstraction, it is about our military forces going in, eating goat with them... Gregory: Mm-hmm. Woodward: ...smoking bad cigarettes, using the same toilet. And for them it's not a toilet, it's, it's a pot. READ MORE >>

Ian Buruma's New Yorker piece on the attempts of Dutch liberals to manage Muslim immigration in the Netherlands has one particularly interesting nugget. The piece is not online but Buruma--while narrating some history--notes that relations were relatively smooth until Muslim women began to arrive (previously, men from places like Morocco and Turkey came to work without their families). This, in turn, necessitated more visible signs of Muslim and immigrant communal life, which led to friction between the new arrivals and native Dutch communities.  READ MORE >>

Did Missiles Win the Cold War? A Soulless New Book Gets the History Wrong. by Peter Scoblic Three Ways the Copenhagen Summit Could Succeed (or Go Bust), by Jesse Zwick READ MORE >>