Thomas Sowell's excuse for limiting interviews to an hour is that it helps him "avoid stress." But one suspects the real reason is that he has better uses for his time than to humor nettlesome journalists.

Classy Economist

Among the handsome leading men who suffer in HD, Swann said, is Brad Pitt.

"He's a really good example of somebody the Hollywood glamour machine decided would be a sex symbol," Swann said. "But when you see him in high definition, you see all these pockmarks in his cheeks and he looks like an entirely different person -- and you go, 'Wow, is that Brad Pitt?' "

Ready for Their Close-Up?

When it began three years ago, few people could have anticipated that the combat in Iraq would last so long or that the enemy would become a stubborn and resilient insurgency.

Judged only on ethics, Iraq war gets just a C.

The Defiant War, by John Arquilla

Detectives used profiles posted on the MySpace social networking Web site to identify six suspects in a rape and robbery that began when a party turned violent, leaving blood "in almost every room of the house," officials said.

Colorado Sets Up MySpace Stings

Google shares jumped 7 percent Friday in response to an announcement late Thursday that the Internet company will be added to the Standard & Poor's 500 index, effective next Friday.

Google enters the S&P 500

The definitive books on the battles of the 20th century.

Five Best

One of the bank's hostages is Vikram (the excellent Waris Ahluwalia), a young Sikh whom the robbers release early with a message tied around his neck. The NYPD officers on the scene assume he's Arab and that the message is a bomb. They rough him up, then swipe his turban. When Frazier and Mitchell interrogate him later in a booth at a diner, Vikram refuses to discuss the heist until his turban is returned, then condemns his harassment. When he's done, Washington says, "But I bet you can still get a cab." In this single moment, which is more vivid than almost all of "Crash," we see the sad modern hierarchy of American bigotry.

Inside Man Movie Review

As publishers try to crack the code of what makes a best seller, a new genre is emerging that some think may have the answer: the "blook" -- a book based on a blog.

Blook

Spike Lee evokes New York's grittier, edgier days -- and gives Jodie Foster her best role in years -- with this crisply made heist movie.

Inside Man | Salon

Between the lines of the new security strategy and the Pentagon's earlier Quadrennial Defence Review is a recognition that military force is not going to be the most useful means to achieve what Ms Rice has called “a balance of power that favours freedom”. America fully intends to remain the world's pre-eminent military power. But the most thoughtful talk now is of more coherent diplomacy, with soldiers and diplomats working more closely both in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. And this from a team that used to insist, disparagingly, that America didn't “do windows” (or, as others would put it, nation-building).

Above all, allies are back in vogue.

Foreign policy | How to go global | Economist.com