From The Atlantic Monthly, Robert D. Kaplan on what Rumsfeld got right; with the Chevy Volt, General Motors—battered, struggling for profitability, fed up with being eclipsed by Toyota and the Prius—is out to reinvent the automobile, and itself; intrigued (and alarmed) by the new science of "neuromarketing", Jeffrey Goldberg peers into his own brain via an MRI machine and learns what he really thinks about Jimmy Carter, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bruce Springsteen, and Edie Falco; a look at why stop signs and speed limits endanger Americans; and the 11 1/2 Biggest Ideas of the Year: Here's a thumbnail intellectual history of the year. Candidate Paul is gone, but not really. Justin Raimondo on libertarianism’s divergent roads. Why she lost: An interview with Mark Penn, Hillary's message man. An article on learning to be Michelle Obama. If you really want to understand what this race is about, look at the two candidates' fathers. Comedians of clout: In a funny way, satirical takes can color perceptions of the presidential contenders. Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news? Peter Boyer investigates. In an ugly world, we need ugly newsreaders: The rise of the husky-voiced, coquettish female newsreader mirrors the decline of that "masculine" value, objectivity. Should we care about book reviews? Reading is a personal act — so why submit to the critical tyranny of the newspaper books pages?
