From Dissent, Michael Walzer on the Gaza war and proportionality. Doing the math to find the good jobs: Mathematicians land top spot in new ranking of best and worst occupations. Obama's appointees will soon be at hand; the following is a guide to surviving the confirmation process. From FP, a roundtable on Samuel Huntington’s legacy. In Granada, home of the Alhambra and former center of Moorish Spain, a multicultural revival is taking shape that sees Christians and Muslims coexisting in mutual respect. A review of Nylon and Bombs: DuPont and the March of Modern America by Pap Ndiaye; and a review of books on Garibaldi. Jefferson vs. Plato: If one is searching for the causes of today's moral crisis, it is the premises of giants one should examine, not those of midgets. From Cato Unbound, William Burns on The Path Well Taken: Making the right decisions about risks from terrorism. From Ceasefire, an interview with Noam Chomsky. Reading the Signs: Gestural politics and disturbing reality at a Paris Metro stop. From CJR, in his finest work, Norman Mailer applied subjective journalism to the powerful, and to himself. From Cosmos, a look at five catastrophes that could wipe out civilisation. An excerpt from Snark by David Denby (and interview). Beyond the nine planets: We are only beginning to discover how vast and strange our solar system truly is.

From The National Interest, Richard Perle on being Ambushed on the Potomac. Body Count Nation: It may finally be 2009, but in some ways, given these last years, it might as well be 800 BCE. American Rimbaud: An interview with Steve Richmond, meat poet. The standard story is that prevention saves health-care dollars, but if we're to get better at averting illness, we're going to have to spend more. Savings and Moan: Americans are finally stashing more money away — and that’s a bad thing. An interview with Stephen Baker, author of The Numerati. Of course Tintin's gay. Ask Snowy. Watching Plain People: Among the busloads of tourists that spill every day into Pennsylvania Dutch country. More on Benny Morris' 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. An interview with Matt Miller, author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go Of The Old Ways Of Thinking To Unleash A New Prosperity. A review of The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age by Neil Harris. Time for a cull in the art world: The art world is plunging, along with the rest of the economy — hooray. Moguls of Winnipeg: Two books examine the controversial Asper media legacy. Clive Thompson on how YouTube changes the way we think. Is the Web helping us evolve? The truth lies somewhere between "Google is making us stupid" and "the Internet will liberate humanity".

Jeffrey Sims (Bishop's): Seeking a Mnemonic Turn: Interior Reflections in Gadamer's Post-Platonic Thought. From The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Robert Higgs (II): The Complex Course of Ideological Change and Viktor J. Vanberg (Freiburg): On the Economics of Moral Preferences. From Foreign Policy, an interview with Art Lerner-Lam on the world’s disaster hot spots; a look at the worst places to be a terrorist; and a photo essay on the people caught in between. Philosophical dispute as a way of life, then and now: A review of The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe: The Nature of a Contested Identity by Conrad Condren, Stephen Gaukroger, and Ian Hunter. More and more on The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul  by Patrick French (and more from NYRB; and more from Bookforum). Will investing ever make sense again? Yes, if you stop thinking short term. From Democratiya, an interview with Matthias Kuntzel, author of Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. More on The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman. More on The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head by Raymond Tallis. From TLS, a review of books on Emily Dickinson. Jonathan Wolff on how philosophers' working practices have changed.

From First Principles, a review of Anita Clair Fellman's Little House, Long Shadow: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Impact on American Culture; and an excerpt from George Panichas’s Restoring the Meaning of Conservatism: Writings from Modern Age. Timothy Noah on how Amazon cons the press. Jack Shafer on how newspapers tried to invent the Web — but failed. Interracial Babies-R-Us: Time for everyone to get over the novelty of mixed-race babies and relationships. From The Sun, Lois Judson is not a sex goddess. Our past within us: The new field known as archeogenetics is illuminating prehistory. A review of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West by Deanne Stillman. Dalton Conley reviews Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (and more and more). From Mental Floss, a look at 5 vastly overrated historical events; and some wars seem to go on forever, and others actually do — here are a few wars that have outlasted entire generations of people (and three really short ones). A Tribe Apart: Afghan elites face a corrosive past. A review of Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies by Jeremy Varon. The Public Lending Right means that every time you take a book out of the library, you make its author just a little bit happier.