So long, Peter Orszag; index of remaining “beautiful,” mostly white, thin people remaining in D.C.

Op: “The Senate’s retreat from cap and trade might lead to a carbon tax. For now, it leaves a dreadful mess.”

Searchable Washington Post database of companies involved in top-secret work.

“Illegal” coal mines near Beijing used to hide bodies after extortion schemes.

That LeBron-does-Vegas story that ESPN killed—sort of lame, sort of a big, spiked deal.

The feeling is just the trigger. We are the loaded gun. Jonah Lehrer on stress.

Notes from inside “The Scene” and the peer-to-peer groups from which movie releases continue to flow.

Video: Field Notes trip to an Iowa state fair.

Resident videos show more than a million gallons of oil flowing into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Swagger on 200,000 thousand trillion!!! A brief history of Kanye West’s Twitter.

Canadian airport security developing response to luggage stickers depicting cocaine and abducted flight attendants.

List of unusual deaths, from 620 B.C. onward; list of the best medical graphic novels.

New theory suggests emotions developed as bargaining tools.

Illustrated history of Vans sneakers.

Churchill’s dentures, vital to the war effort, auctioned off for $23,740.

From the attic: John Warner’s orthodontia saga.

People who believe in alien abductions are more likely than nonbelievers to drink Pepsi. Flickr co-founder building ultimate recommendation program.

Inventor of Settlers of Catan, “the perfect board game,” hopes to catch up to Monopoly’s popularity.

Where the Wild Thongs Are. Worst Children’s Books.

How engineers stabilized the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Exiled from Iran, two brothers continue to produce controversial art in Dubai.

Saudi feminist poet defies death threats.

Analyzing the faith-intelligence correlation, researchers ask subjects if their religion is the “one true religion.”

Historians can’t agree why portion sizes keep increasing in Last Supper depictions.

The “suggestions for the best magazine articles (in English) ever” are 12% David Foster Wallace.

In tomorrow’s TMN newsletter: a conversation with Paul Ford and your monthly Map Quiz—sign up your inbox here.

A new U.K. business employs refugees to construct ethical underwear.

Investigating athletes’ superstitions about lucky underwear, lucky balls.

Catalonia becomes the first Spanish province to ban bullfighting.

Video: For those who wish Kids was real, proof Times Square in the ’80s was hella real.

New York will solve the bedbug crisis by speaking very sternly to the bedbugs.

TMN’s Anthony Doerr offers his soundtrack for a night of dish-washing and sky-staring.

“I wanted to be the first woman on the Moon: and I am totally disappointed that I could still fulfill that goal.”

Grim sampling of environmental fiascos depicts China’s losing fight against pollution.

After Chinese news chief disappears, rumors abound he defected to Britain.

Story behind the publication of the Afghanistan logs.

Story of Mo Farah’s journey from Somalian refugee to European champion.

Fifteen years later, Kids remains troubling—especially if it never existed.

From the Gallery: Q&A with Aislinn Leggett, specialist in depicting tourism.

It’s the most bewitching, bewildering, beheading vacation spot you’ll never vacation in. Dowd alliterates Arabia.

Survey of what Christian guys find immodest in Christian girls (e.g., tights with designs; stretching).

The more tense you are, the less you can hear. Yo-Yo Ma on controlling how you evolve.

Study suggests people faking a mental illness might actually develop said illness.

Wind farmers struggle to store (or dump) excess energy and control reliability.

Instapaper: The laying of the first sustainable transatlantic telegraph line.

Investigation into Graham Greene’s family reveals gifted and talented “clan full of surprises.”

Linguist proves Plastic Bertrand didn’t sing “Ca Plane Pour Moi.”

Video: High-quality turf dancing in Oakland.

Excerpt of TMN’s Kevin Guilfoile’s The Thousand; BookPage interview with TMN’s Rosecrans Baldwin.

History of meteors’ descent from cosmic bodies to floating rocks.

A new study finds strong friendships can provide as many health benefits as quitting cigarettes.

We realize it’s what we’ve wanted all along. An analysis of literary endings.

The Man Booker Prize nominees are announced.

Tell us today! What did you learn at your summer job?

How background music, no matter what kind, impedes performance.

People are subliminally drawn to those who resemble their parents, themselves.

Why millennia of doomsday predictions reveal more about us than about the apocalypse.

See also: How to survive every apocalypse imaginable.

Costa Rican government lifts “no treasure hunt” rule for Briton in search of a legendary hoard.

A gallery of the few surviving color photos of Depression-era America.

Pictures of the Islamabad plane crash; all 152 feared dead.

Hamas considering a draft in Gaza.

Cameron says again that Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza, drawing fire.

Oliver Stone apologizes for claiming Jews control the media.

Photos of Putin at a motorcycle rally riding self-described “tricked-out bike.”

Art conservator travels to Haiti to help save murals.

See also: Lady Gaga kidnaps Commissioner Gordon.

We bite our fingernails even though we “know” it’s just a silly movie. The neuroscience of Inception.

“The etiquette of the flow” says it’s now OK to answer your cell phone at dinner.

You’re goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast. Disadvantages of living with William Carlos Williams.

U.C.L.A. creates team to identify homeless college students and help keep them in school.

Story of a family living with an infestation of 50 million ants.

A-Rod squats on the cusp of hitting 600 home runs—who’s to blame for his steroid use?

Comedy MVPs since 1975; best magazine articles ever.

Self-absorbed columnist “humbly” sends open letter to his ex on her wedding day, then tells critics they’re shrews.

New fatwa permits women in burqa-banning countries to wear only a headscarf.

Researchers find continuing education delays dementia by 11% per year.

See also: Eight notable commencement speeches and one written by 14 people.

From Apriums to Peacotums—which are the same thing—fruit breeders deliberate hybrid crop names.

The history of “state of the art,” and why the phrase is meaningless.

Today from 1 to 3 p.m. ET: Tell the Biblioracle the last five books you read, and he’ll tell you what to read next.

Pressure-detection technology lets paralyzed patients control wheelchairs by sniffing.

Living in a cramped studio, TMN’s Sarah Hepola tries to expand her cat’s stomping grounds by putting him on a leash.

Remembering the cash-strapped 1948 London Olympics, where ahtletes had to bring their own towels.

I can chart my engagement with the streets of New York back to an evening soon after my arrival.

Reaction: Look up and you’ll see the water towers—they define our skyline.

Following the McChrystal affair, WikiLeaks documents put “more nails into the coffin” of the White House’s war.

Op: If you’re surprised by the WikiLeaks documents, you’re an idiot! And no comparing them to the Pentagon Papers!

The American people are going to have to accept that they will endure a level of terror that is more than zero.

Economists fear deflation—and a Japan-like lost decade—may cripple U.S. growth.

Slowly, in some law firms, the billable-hour billing model is being replaced.

Vespa targets Asia’s hot scooter markets and redesigns models for local preferences.

Bowden: We pay Mexicans to kill Mexicans (25,000), and this slaughter has no effect on drug shipments or prices.

Neural activity synchronizes between speaker and listener during storytelling.

The song “Happy Birthday to You” is unpretentious and truthful, and its finest element is its octave leap.

Life of a copyeditor requires humor—if you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad.

Instapaper for the commute: Gawande on medicine’s reluctance to let people die peacefully.

Audio: Malcolm Gladwell tackles charge he’s a “genius denier.”

“George Bush, Dark Prince of Love.” Collection of awful real novels.

Photos from Socotra Island, “the most alien-looking place on Earth.”

Stunning Big Picture photos of the Tour de France.

Germany’s Love Parade permanently cancelled after 19 died in an overcrowded tunnel.

Biological explanation of why the poor make different life decisions from the rich.

In the Bronx, Ian Frazier observes a sculpture kept graffiti-free with a battery-powered sander.

There are four stations in the tree, and you can do them in any order you want. Meet a champion tree climber.

See also: Ralph Gamelli teaches us how to climb a tree.

Insecure people are more likely to have health problems.

We just have to get my lawyer’s approval to begin our torrid affair. Today’s Don Draper.

Following the McLuhan flap, how Mad Men avoids anachronistic language.

For this month’s “Of Recent Note,” tell us what you’ve learned from your summer job—from now or in years past.

The early history of swearing in comics—“aka grawlixes, aka obscenicons.”

An interview with the winner of India’s contest to design a new rupee symbol.

GQ’s food correspondent takes a pilgrimage to understand ethical eating.

Comparison of dried meats around the world.

Afghan war logs: “Pakistan aids insurgency”; “innocents pay the price”; “well, we knew as much.”

Over 75,000 secret reports, the war logs are one of the U.S.’s biggest leaks.

Initial roundup of logs-related links.

After BP admits Photoshopping its cleanup pictures, contest announced for improved photo montages.

Hertzberg: All hail the Post’s investigation into intelligence bling.

Mexican prisoners allowed to leave for hit-man jobs and use guards’ weapons and vehicles.

Proposed U.K. program allows reduced sentences for felons who apologize to their victims.

Why people hit roadside police cars: very large exposure numbers.

Sam Anderson follows James Franco into a men’s room and reports on whether Franco’s hyperactive life is for real.

Video: Trailer posted for You Lost Me There, TMN’s Rosecrans Baldwin’s first novel being published Aug. 12.

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane named Barnes & Noble Discover book; Amazon picks Anthony Doerr’s Memory Wall as a best of July.

Almond: I should be grateful to the Times for trashing my book; I’m not.

Politico calls South Carolina the whoopee cushion of the nation.

Star found in neighboring galaxy is 265 times the mass of our sun.

Wine snobbery, even in jest, isn’t really understood here. Tasting and smuggling notes from Kabul.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1844 sells for $44 in China (see brewer interview).

Scottish brewery concocts world’s strongest beer, served in a stuffed stoat or squirrel.

Throughout the 20th century, life expectancy in the developed world increased by 30 years—two new theories on how to push it further.

At the current rate of data explosion, all internet domains will be claimed in about one year.

Using underground X-rays, scientists discover a wooden Stonehenge within visible distance of the gift shop.

As abortion integrates into mainstream medicine, the battle lines are quietly being redrawn.

Mongolian herders struggle to rebuild after a catastrophic winter killed most of their livestock.

Judge rules cheerleading is not a sport, after a volleyball team sued to not be replaced with pom-poms.

Why America’s long summers are holding its children behind.

U.K. prison officials wonder if a Texas program that sentences convicts to reading groups could offer the same rehabilitation success.

See also: TMN writers’ children discuss their latest summer reading.

OR Books co-founder explains the reigning fear of Amazon among writers and publishers.

“I hope to God people don’t read my advice on how to make gin at home because they’ll probably poison themselves.”

Analysis of the political implications of Facebook, and whether the network should be a nation-state.

Rent-a-Friend business provides companionship for $24.95 a month.

History of the 500-year-old tradition of canned laughter.

Improving on his previous gifts to Brits, Obama gives Cameron a signed Ed Ruscha lithograph.

Political prisoners in Kenya awarded compensation for torture during Moi’s tenure.

BP workers prepare to evacuate the oil spill site ahead of tropical depression.

Pre-spill, confidential survey of Deepwater workers found many were concerned about safety practices.

Chart of average American’s food consumption (one gallon of soda per week).

Composer Nico Muhly fights back against opera directors who will fundraise for incest and rape but not sex.

Long read: The state of classical music: abundant.

Analysis of the benefits of listening to, and playing, music.

Video: Arthur Conan Doyle discusses Sherlock Holmes.

How to efficiently walk through crowds.

When it comes to real feelings, a little unreality can sometimes be just what we need. Making friends through gaming.

Scientist discovers how to use glass to render things invisible.

Journalist takes pictures of his kids naked on a camping trip—and his family’s life becomes a living hell.

You set to work to box and shout and hurl and dance—smeared with what drug? Circa-year-100 response to Greek ruffianism.

Greece pays drivers $130,000 a year to run trains that are frequently empty.

Researchers launch three-month, 8,000-mile trip from Italy to China with driverless cars.

Wells Fargo ATM manager explains difficulty of maintaining machines in Antarctica.

Unions hire minimum-wage workers to host protests.

Part three of the Post’s intelligence series: N.S.A. employees want to live near good schools.

Video: Kant in three minutes (once you’ve recovered from saying “Kant”).

Knowing that peak experiences are readily available may increase one’s tendency to take daily life’s small pleasures for granted.

Twitter mood map reveals west coast is happier than east; people are unhappiest Thursday nights.

Interview with a degree-accredited professional clown.

What we lose in mystery we gain in awe. Neuroscientist not just equivalent to his body.

TMN’s Todd Levin recounts what it was really like backstage when Conan got screwed.

Related: Todd’s post-Tonight Show unemployment guide; Todd on live studio tapings.

Hooker calls screenwriter from his own office demanding money; screenwriter finds idea for his big hit TV show.

Slideshow of divorce ranches from the Mad Men era.

Instapaper: The worst thing you’ve done is now the first thing everyone knows about you.

Birnbaum on the books of July—David Mitchell and beyond.

Playboy tests “read it for the articles” theory, launches work-safe website.

Digital analysis reveals that Michelangelo drew a brain stem inside a fresco of God.

Finally: It takes 3,481 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.

It is only when you scored high on both, sweat and fear, that you would succumb to cowardice. Scientists slip snakes into MRI machines with humans.

Also: MRIs of fruits and vegetables.

Illustration of 20 years of Mac and Windows computer icons.

Theories why a Harvard-educated professor wants to teach at Glenn Beck’s new university—“what would appear to be a sham academic exercise.”

Also: Beck may be going blind, and the health care Nazis aren’t helping.

Early diagnosis of breast cancer can increase survival rates, but may have disastrous effects on those who were never sick at all.

Psychologist explains why we expect heroes to experience more hardship, less reward.

The best book recommendations come from humans, including our own Biblioracle, John Warner.

See also: Greetings From the Biblioracle and The Return of the Biblioracle.

Clinton announces new sanctions against North Korea.

Better Business Bureau gives Hamas an A- rating and Starbucks an F.

Moscow’s drinking-and-diving deaths brushed aside by uproar around a flying donkey.

Op: Supreme Court nominees should be required to discuss the larger issues of constitutional philosophy.

U.S. activists seek funds to sail a ship to Gaza named The Audacity of Hope.

At last all is lost in scud and vapor. Melville on surfing.

Everything you need to know about riding trains in Albania.

See also: Ride a train, escape the internet: The Great American K-Hole.

London-based Times lost 90% of its readers since erecting a paywall, says London-based Guardian.

Comic explains why conspiracies are messy, human affairs; going to the moon was easier than creating a hoax.

Op: Follow strangers on Twitter for your betterment.

4chan users attack Gawker, following report about them harrassing an 11-year-old.

Spy’s roundtable of people who have seen Jerry Lewis’s lost Auschwitz movie, The Day the Clown Cried.

Some of course hold up amusingly. Woody Allen records his stories for a website.

Video: Thirty-five cinema classics graphically simplified and strung together.

History of the original filesharing network: the bookmobile.

Excerpts from a brief history of eccentric headache treatments.

Kafka’s never-before-seen manuscripts create ownership dispute between his supposed inheritors and Israel.

Account of the advantages of the beauty bias in every aspect of life.

Analysts try to crack the identity of whoever bought all the cocoa beans in Europe.

Judge upholds right to falsely claim a Purple Heart.

Ecstasy can ease post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Last summer’s swimming holes were Dumpsters in Brooklyn; this summer, Bloomberg’s opening them on Park Ave.

We’ve been so used to complaining about BP, how will we complain now? Here’s some ideas.

Big Star bassist Andy Hummel dies—it’s been a tough 10 months for the Big Star family.

Former ToB judge David Rees will sharpen two of your pencils for $12.50 apiece—price includes shavings and a limited-edition poster.

StatGeek analyzes A-Rod’s past long balls to determine where his 600th home run will land.

Sports writers assemble to discuss the only activity that can make you “jump involuntarily out of your seat and roar.”

I know Molly is the real hero, but if not for McCourt and his book, I have no idea where my career would be today.

Today’s must read: Real editors ship.

Activists fight law requiring jailed women to be shackled during birth.

Female Afghan governor rejects idea that women should “be sacrificed” in return for a deal with the Taliban.

Outstanding: Unedited rushes of everything shot by the BBC in Afghanistan over the last 30 years.

Factory pot farms proposed for Oakland.

Global warming will be the most important investment issue for the foreseeable future. Global warming in five minutes.

Obama’s fifth Gulf Coast visit really helps a lot.

America’s greening offers a great chance to lampoon contradictory living.

Humans aren’t just a genome—they’re “a collective of genomes of hundreds of different species all working together.”

They. Just. Want. Fresh. Blood. Bill Murray gives rare interview and explains why he hates L.A.

Studies find statements read with a foreign accent are significantly less likely to be believed.

Explanation of biases that make online reviews inaccurate.

One-star Amazon reviews of classics, from Catch-22 to To Kill a Mockingbird.

De Botton: Atheism need not be dull; religions’ ambitions can be borrowed.

Instapaper: Brief history of electoral systems, from the doges in Venice to America.

“Locked-in” man files for the right to be killed by his wife.

Capsule-sized thriller contained in a brief article about a New York apartment.

Nuggets of gold found in Virginia’s archive from when Faulkner visited.

How the pound sign—aka the “number key” or the “hash”—got its name.

Scientists say cooking is responsible for brain development.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby collaborate on “Levi Johnston’s Blues.”

From the attic: “The Secret Journal of Levi Johnston” by Sarah Hepola.

Skeptics and believers battle over the role of homeopathy in health care.

A transcript of Cecil B. DeMille’s B.Y.U. commencement address—and how Mormon paintings influenced The Ten Commandments.

How Caravaggio saw in the dark.

Interviews with former debt collectors.

Tolstoy envisioned a justice system whose decisions were made with love, rather than through impersonal processes.

How negative behavior may improve unhappy marriages.

“That’s a piece of foam with glitter on it.” Young fantasy readers—the progeny of humans and Norse gods—raid Prospect Park.

Analysis of the efficiency of mowing your lawn in rows versus spirals.

When plugged into “I Write Like,” David Foster Wallace writes like Ian Fleming.

Also: A Q&A with the creator of “I Write Like.”

A list of common misconceptions.

Last month was the warmest June on record globally; extreme heat boils the United States and Europe.

France did not say it would reimburse Haiti for its independence fee, says France, repudiating hoax.

Gallery director explains why Berlin is more serious than other cities and there’s no reason to learn German.

Boulder, Colo., named best place to raise abducted children.

Explanation of the Saudi line of succession and which of 5,000 princes will become king.

Sonic profile of North Korea, where accordions dominate.

How $1,475 can guarantee Chinese couples U.S. citizenship for their babies.

Debate ignited over genetic-testing oversight after 23andMe mixes up customer information and 87 people receive wrong results.

More mothers are donating umbilical cord blood, the latest life-saving fluid.

Skin-lightening market expands 18% a year in India; Vaseline launches a Facebook avatar-lightening app.

Prison manual describes violent methods used to subdue youth in private U.K. jails.

Movies use inflatable crowds in lieu of extras; inflatables’ creators irked when extras seek revenge.

Awesome? Or appalling? Semi-serious profile of ROFL culture.

Questionable-content reviewers suffer depression and occasionally cry or vomit at unpleasant images.

When a mother won’t quit smoking and a daughter won’t stop trying to help her quit, by TMN’s Jessica Francis Kane.

Birnbaum on Joseph Epstein’s new stories; TMN’s Kevin Guilfoile caught gazing.

After writing a surprise third volume to his best-selling recent novels, Murakami suggests he may also write parts four and zero.

University of Texas to rename dorm named after KKK member, cuts down sign for now.

Researchers find Facebook appears to aid, not lower, GPAs.

Why distant Facebook friends have the most positive influence.

See also: The politics of Facebook.

Sociologist believes the MySpace-Facebook exodus is a white flight.

He’s assimilated down to his love of Beyoncé and horn-rimmed glasses. Three stories of immigrants who committed marriage fraud.

Photographer explores pink—it was once a boys’ color and can be used to psych out visiting football teams.

An explanation of why it’s so hard for children to learn colors.

Why parents are supposed to embarrass their children.

How poor conditions and the adoption system are creating orphans in Guatemala.

“If I could kill him and create a new person exactly the same as he is now, I would do so happily.” Tolstoy’s long-suffering wife.

Recovering from cataract surgery and unable to read for long stretches, Philip Graham is glad he’s not rehydrating in Africa.

From the attic: The Passion of the Christ blooper reel.

TMN’s Llewellyn Hinkes on music’s last big thing: a genre nobody could christen, that died on the vine.

It’s also worth your time, if you like instrumental screaming. An introduction to Laurie Anderson.

Century-old list of dangerous habits.

Running from violence, 40,000 people have fled their homes in DR Congo since June.

Afghans to form local forces—“not militias”—to fight Taliban insurgents in remote areas.

Argentina becomes first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage.

Alabama’s Tacky Jacks preps for its first “Wet POTUS contest!

Pictures of a Chinese ghost town.

Account of a three-hour Mexico City street-eating tour.

Lonely mamas, Ms. Lovely Day will make you feel better about yourself, $100/afternoon.

Argument for giving up caffeine: so you can return to it—occasionally—and enjoy it more.

Many people are suffering from what they said on Facebook. And more will suffer. The case for putting an expiration date on information.

Reflective anamorphosis: where images require mirrors to be unraveled.

Che Guevara’s life is not “all smart suits and private jets for the guerrilla-turned-philanthropist.”

Shtenygart: Maybe literature will come back some day. It just sucks to be in the butthole of it.

Video: Sharp editing and the right tinting produces Ferris Club.