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CalendarLetters to the Editor
The Nuclear Power Beside Iraq Now that Iran unquestionably intends to build a nuclear bomb, the international community has few options to stop it—and the worst option would be a military strike
by James Fallows
PHOTO OP The Remains of the Bay
photograph by Stephen Voss
WASHINGTON The Numbers War In Washington, measuring the changing size of the Iraqi insurgency has become the battle to watch
by Joshua Green
POLL Who Has Bush's Ear? The Atlantic recently asked members of Congress about their perceptions of influence in the White House
FIRST PRINCIPLES The Benefits of Brutality Why America's immigration outlook—current grumblings notwithstanding—remains so much healthier than Europe's
by Clive Crook
BRIEF LIVES The Man With the Golden Phone Before Mark Warner was a politician, he was a wildly successful entrepreneur—and his success as a huckster shows why he may be a formidable challenger for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination
by Paul Starobin
CROSS-EXAMINATION Marital Differences The national divide over gay marriage is a recipe for legal confusion—but we should learn to live with it
by Benjamin Wittes
THE WORLD IN NUMBERS The Web Police Internet censorship is prevalent throughout the world. Can the Web be tamed?
by Matthew Quirk
Primary Sources Diagnosis at a distance; why private school might not be worth it; Pretty Boy Floyd as statistical outlier; the upside of global warming
The Desert One Debacle
In April 1980, President Jimmy Carter sent the Army’s Delta Force to bring back fifty-three American citizens held hostage in Iran. Everything went wrong. The fireball in the Iranian desert took the Carter presidency with it. [Enhanced for online viewing, with audio, video, photos, maps, and more.]
by Mark Bowden
Colonel Cross of the Gurkhas
In the mountains of strife-torn Nepal, some lessons about modern warfare from a British throwback
by Robert D. Kaplan
Horsemen of the Esophagus
Among the super-gluttons, on the front lines of competitive eating
by Jason Fagone
The Talented Mr. Chávez
A Castro-loving, Bolivar-worshipping, onetime baseball-player wannabe, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is perhaps the world’s most openly anti-American head of state. With Latin America in the midst of a leftward swing, how dangerous is he?
by Franklin Foer
150 YEARS OF THE ATLANTIC Nature & Environment
This is the fourth in a series of archival excerpts in honor of the magazine's 150th anniversary. This installment is introduced by Bill McKibben, the author of The End of Nature, Wandering Home and the forthcoming Deep Economy.
POETRY Bambino Sutra
[with audio]
by David Barber
Telephone Surveillance Permission Form
Humor by Bruce McCall
EDITOR’S CHOICE Modernism, Minimalism, Fundamentalism
Glenn Murcutt: buildings + projects 1962-2003, by Francoise Fromonot; Hariri & Hariri Houses, by Gisui Hariri and Mojgan Hariri; The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel, by Amy Hempel; Fundamentalism and American Culture, by George M. Marsden
by Benjamin Schwarz
Rhymes With Rich
One woman’s conscientious objection to the “mommy wars”
by Sandra Tsing Loh
New Fiction
Everyman, by Philip Roth
by Joseph O’Neill
Exodus
The ominous push and pull of the U.S.–Mexico border
by Marc Cooper
New Fiction
The Whole World Over, by Julia Glass
by Elizabeth Judd
NEW FICTION A Close Read
Luck, by Joan Barfoot
by Christina Schwarz
Blood for No Oil!
A new manifesto finds a model in the Truman era for returning liberals to political centrality in America. But the comparison is hopelessly inexact
by Christopher Hitchens
INTERVIEWS Beinart Talks BackFURTHER READING Wars on Terrorism
The author of The Good Fight defends his vision of the American Left
by Elizabeth Wasserman [Web only]
by Bruce Hoffman
Cover to Cover
A guide to additional releases
by Benjamin Schwarz and Benjamin Healy
TRAVELS The Father of the Pina Colada?
Visitors to Barbados can see where George Washington slept—really
by Wayne Curtis
FOOD Madrid Fusion
The pleasures and perils of the Spanish gastronomic avant-garde
by Corby Kummer
TECHNOLOGY Tinfoil Underwear
Tools to protect your privacy on the Internet go just so far, and the businesses that dominate it have no incentive to let them go any farther
by James Fallows
SPORTS Passing Grades
Scouting is state-of-the-art, yet judging which NFL players will pan out remains a gamble. Maybe they’re not the ones who should be studied
by Allen Barra
THE PUZZLER Peace of the PuzzleWord Fugitives
by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon [Web only]
by Barbara Wallraff
POST MORTEM He Made the Refrains Run on Time
Romano Mussolini (1927–2006)
by Mark Steyn
Who's Who
A selective index to this month’s issue
Compiled by Benjamin Healy