Iraq war video game incites fury, raises ethical questions, gets pulled from production.

Instapaper for Saturday morning: Why groups do things that group members would never do on their own.

Another good July 4th read: Brief history of the pyrotechnic spark of life.

In the gas vs. charcoal grilling debate, the eco-friendly argument goes for the former, mainly.

Photos of eating in Gaza, where war has made access to fish, chicken, and livestock scarce.

Ecuadorean radio and television council deems The Simpsons too racy for primetime.

Michael Chabon on the difficulties of teaching his children to be adventurers.

David Foster Wallace’s editor at Little, Brown shares some of Wallace’s editing notes with the Infinite Summer crowd. There’s still time to read and join!

Blog dedicated to very bad library books.

Digital ramble through the aesthetics of summer blockbusters; TMN readers and staff on much the same.

Study of “the gulf between literature’s abstract power and the trivia that always attends its creation.”

Ten steps to producing the worst possible author photo.

Musicians’ “coolness” determined by how often their songs are deleted or marked “guilty pleasure.”

Krugman: The turmoil of states’ budgets and yesterday’s jobs report mean we need a bigger stimulus, now.

Rising unemployment rates beget tightened immigration standards.

Obama administration eschews Bush-era warehouse raids for immigration infractions, warns American Apparel of fines.

Indicating the thaw may be over, Syrian president invites Obama to visit Damascus for talks.

“A game of chance has developed in the post-Soviet space: Who can swindle the Kremlin in the coolest way?”

Reconciling theories of recovery from alcoholism, and coming to terms with the fact that no single one may work.

Paleontologists visit Creation Museum, become irked by inventive interpretation of fossil records.

Proof of climate change exists in Scotland’s shrinking sheep.

When hydrogen sulfide is encountered, it usually kills one person, then their rescuer, then another rescuer.

Because it’s 2009 and you keep asking: Why you will never have a flying car.

Gastric rupture and other stomach-turning injuries competitive eaters face.

Tamiflu has now overtaken Viagra as the subject of the most junk emails.

Fantastic: Boyfriend of Berlusconi’s alleged teenaged mistress says his relationship was staged.

India decriminalizes homosexuality; five countries still punish it by death.

Europe lifts ban on oddly shaped fruits.

Building evolutionary trees with perfect math takes forever; shakier math makes trees grow faster.

“How clean coal works, how dangerous nuclear waste really is, and whether the root of the problem is money.”

Presentation trumps content in the powers of persuasion—and all too easily sways rational thought.

Lonely scenes from New England truck stops; ten last pictures taken.

Instapaper for the commute: The Holocaust needs a reassessment with less emphasis on Auschwitz.

Alain de Botton to Times critic: “I will hate you until I die.”

Knife-wielding intruder meets elderly former boxer.

Pornography for ceiling fans.

Traveling in California and New York the last couple of weeks, Timothy Egan notices something different: American flags.

“A majority of society, of which I personally am a member, do not accept the legitimacy of this government.” Mousavi and the opposition hit back.

Declassified interviews with a captured Saddam Hussein reveal he wanted Iran, not the U.S., to believe he had WMDs.

Op: The difference between Berlin in 1989 and Tehran in 2009, and identifying the revolutionary tipping point.

With Mann and Depp’s Public Enemies on the horizon, a look at John Dillinger’s long, overlooked history in film.

An author yearns for light verse, the tender form of prose lost in modern writing.

A 200-year-old coded message, buried in Thomas Jefferson’s personal correspondence, is finally cracked.

Op: To interpret the Riddle of Putin, Obama should pack Dostoyevsky for his trip to Russia next week.

He could have just said this: Listen up. I have a freaking great story to tell you. Kevin Guilfoile on the first 10 pages of Infinite Jest.

The history of “Behind the Mask,” a song Michael Jackson covered but never released, and that was re-recorded by many others.

“Star Trek Made Me an Atheist”: One man’s treatise on how the sci-fi show defined his religious beliefs.

New findings indicate black holes now come in three sizes: supermass, stellar mass, and intermediate-mass.

Chávez finds it sticky linking Obama to the Honduras coup; opposition says he’s “the George Bush of Latin America.”

New York dyke “blown away” by the queer party that is Salt Lake; report on Utah’s current gay politics.

Remember the North Korean boat we were following? It turned around, no one knows why, and some feel duped.

Hawaii senator made a call and got bailout money for a bank where he owns shares—not against the rules, but not pretty.

Doctors advise against swine-flu parties.

Today’s must-read: Eric Kandel on how psychotherapy can cause stable anatomical changes in the brain.

Science books to read now; novels to anticipate for fall; summer food-writing classes.

Ode to a living civil-rights memorial.

As you could guess, we love The Plimpton Project.

Video: Ze Frank on the concept of “black and white” from Nixon to Jackson.

Shiite militia leaders in Iraq say the resolve of their backers, hard-liners in Iran, means more orders to step up attacks.

As troops depart Iraq’s cities, U.S. military announces four soldiers were killed in an attack south of Baghdad.

What’s not on the internet: content in Arabic. How to fix that: Type Arabic words phonetically.

U.N. estimates 8.7 million North Koreans are now going hungry, since donations slowed after the state’s nuclear test in May.

A country is only as good as how it treats its rivers.

Flush with resources and growing at a strong clip, North Dakota is America’s golden child.

“People wanted bigger weddings, newer carriages.” How some Amish got tangled in the run-up to the economic downturn.

Stunning gastronomic photos from an anonymous food and travel photographer.

How to make the perfect burger: 30 top New York burger chefs reveal the tricks of the trade.

Marauding ice-cream trucks, fire-wielding gyro vendors make business difficult for a New York couple’s cupcake truck.

A literal lack of silence is fragmenting the minds of our progeny.

The differences between solitude, loneliness, and isolation, and how each can affect us.

Only with your support can the revamped General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum become a reality.

Cultural studies at U.S. universities cover race, gender, and sexuality—why not poverty?

Critic very concerned you’ll read Dickens before you balance your checkbook.

Some authors strike back at critics on Twitter, and some tell Birnbaum about using guns.

Instapaper for the commute: Big profile of Algonquin’s Chuck Adams for those who enjoy the ins and outs of publishing.

Infinite Summer is nine percent complete, but you can still start reading now and join in!

With two months to get Thriller done, we dug in and really hit it. Quincy remembers Michael.

Physicist explains how a styrofoam cup can break a windshield.

Taco Bell’s new green menu takes no ingredients from nature.

Video: When stuck in traffic for more than two hours, make a video about being stuck in traffic for 18 years.

Op: Following weeks of political theater, photo ops, and a baited coup, Chávez emerges as the winner in Honduras.

Six years and three months after the March 2003 invasion, U.S. combat troops withdraw from Iraqi cities.

The court’s decision…seemed to ensure much more litigation over the explosive issue of employment discrimination.

The problem with philosophy: inherent racism.

“It’s a well-kept secret.” The increasing incidence of height augmentation ushers in a weird new era of cosmetic surgery.

Video: How increased life expectancy is making retirement an impossibility.

We can attribute the human predisposition for sleeping around (and in more extreme cases, raping and killing) to pieces of genetic code.

Twenty visualizations that explore publically available crime data.

New findings prove that our brains are constantly functioning on the brink of chaos.

An interview with architect and editor Michael Sorkin, whose latest book came to fruition from walking around New York.

From the attic: How to walk in New York; a walk up the length of Manhattan.

Though Sonic Youth may not make hits, they’ve been remaking our culture for the past 28 years.

New favorite blog: NCBI ROFL, collecting funny studies.

Everyone thinks Stuart is so sensitive. He is, but he’s also like any other Scottish man—he has a hard time saying what he feels.

Notes on how Wikipedia’s co-founder and the Times kept news of its kidnapped reporter off the web.

Notes on “marriage hunting” in Japan; speed-dating now offered during baseball games.

Italy’s Grillo: “Perhaps the purest example today of comedy crossing from political satire to political activism.”

The luxury hotel for everyone else. Study of the Four Seasons’ franchise business model.

Account of how one man organized a flashmob to moonwalk in London.

L.A. bookstores mourn regular customer, big reader Michael Jackson.

Headline: London blamed for Jackson’s death.

Graphic of Michael Jackson’s Billboard rankings compared to Usher, U2, the Beatles, others.

How Nonesuch Records’ anthropological approach to music lead it to becoming “the United Nations of rhythm and sound.”

Op: We as a culture reserve our right to shower disdain on the Black Eyed Peas.

Man desires a toaster. Man desires to build a toaster. Man builds toaster.

Based on some of the late work, art critics speculate Picasso may have had hippie tendencies.

This year, summer camps guard against swine flu—bleaching doorknobs, sending sick kids home.

Street art and summer camp meet in rural Illinois, where campers learn how to choose tagnames and paint skateboards.

By the time of “Beat It” in the early ’80s, Mr. Jackson had added an element of the supra-normal to his appearance. An assessment of Michael Jackson’s style history.

Musician Manu Dibango’s “Ma-mako, ma-ma-ssa, mako-makossa” refrain from 1972 remains uncredited.

According to this January report, Jackson planned to will the Beatles song catalog to McCartney, whom he outbid for the rights in 1985.

Huxley, C.S. Lewis, and others whose passings were eclipsed by nearby deaths.

Photos of large-scale animal autopsies.

Video: Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker perform a duet, then Cocker gets an MRI to see the effect of collaboration.

Good news: the human mind is still more powerful and nimble than any computer.

More good news: Our current recession is nowhere near as severe as the Great Depression.

Photos of homeowners who haven’t changed their décor in decades.

“The ringtone of choice among hip literary types this summer”: a short dance mix featuring Philip Roth doing some “Jewish shouting.”

I really do think the presence of Sarah Palin made it nearly impossible for him to be elected. For as many times as McCain tried to scare voters by quoting Biden’s “make no mistake, Obama will be tested…” line, any sober voter from either party had to, in a quiet moment, imagine the world on the day Sarah Palin was forced into service as president. What would it be like if Russia invaded its neighbors with Sarah Palin as president? How many points would the Dow Jones lose on the day Sarah Palin was being sworn in?

Someone like Mitt Romney, who is perceived as having economic experience based on the fact that he has accumulated a lot of money, probably would have helped McCain’s standing in the current crisis. Would it have been enough to win? I have no idea.

This election (and this economy) has opened up some pretty serious fissures in the Republican party. There are the intellectual elites, and the fiscal conservatives, the libertarians, and the neo-cons, the good old boys, and the Plumber Joes. For a variety of reasons, none of them could really get behind this ticket. I suspect now they are going to finger point and grumble and then pull out the Newt Gingrich playbook for inspiration.

Obama is going to have a honeymoon, of course. He’s lucky to have been elected this year, as the economy is scraping bottom, instead of last year when the Dow was just coming off its all-time high. I’ve said it before, the more people see of Obama, the more they like him. That’s going to feed his numbers for the next year or two, I suspect.

This is all to say that if your name is Nancy Pelosi and you are a congresswoman from California, dress for battle. Under siege, the rag-tag, fractured Republicans need a common enemy and Nancy Pelosi is looking like the most likely cylon. We are about to see an escalation of the culture wars and the Republican’s newest axis of evil is going to run from her office to Harry Reid’s.

Three states had initiatives on the ballot to ban gay marriage, and a fourth, Arkansas, had a remarkable (and I suspect ultimately unconstitutional) initiative barring gay couples from adopting children. Unless they find some uncounted votes in California, all four of those initiatives will pass, even in states where Obama won. Look for 20 states to have similar initiatives in 2010.

Interestingly, the three state initiatives seeking to limit or ban abortion all look like they will fail. I suspect abortion will actually take a back seat as an issue in the next couple years. Despite Kathryn Jean’s hysterics, Obama is hardly a radical. He’s a center-left pragmatist and that’s especially true on abortion. Catholics, who were a reliable Democratic voting bloc before Roe v. Wade, voted more than 53% for Obama. Part of it might have been this from Obama in the last debate:

There surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say we should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.

Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that’s where we can find some common ground, because nobody’s pro-abortion. I think it’s always a tragic situation.

That’s where the country is on abortion—keep it legal, but keep it rare—and that’s where Obama is. He understands that abortions peaked during the Reagan and Bush administrations and decreased under Bill Clinton’s tenure, when social services were more widely available. Couple that with the fact that Obama will likely appoint at least two justices, making the battle at the high court moot, and I think the ranters like Kathryn Jean Lopez, who seem less interested in actually reducing the number of abortions than they are in getting a license to prosecute someone for “infanticide,” are going to be marginalized.

Obama understands the pathological dysfunction that can overcome those with unchecked power. Here in Illinois, Democrats control both houses of the legislature as well as the governor’s mansion and yet the state is mired in gridlock. The house speaker won’t even talk to the unpopular governor while he schemes to have his own daughter replace him in the next election. The next election isn’t soon enough for the lieutenant governor, who tried to organize a constitutional convention largely for the purpose of getting his own boss recalled.

Republicans are going to wait and hope for President Obama and giddy Democrats in Congress to overplay their hand. Clinton did it with health care and the Dems paid dearly in 1994. Obama set the tone well in his speech last night. If the Democrats can remain somber and gracious, Republicans might have to keep fighting themselves for awhile.

Nothing lasts forever, though. That’s the only thing I know for sure.

I know this is supposed to be a time for magnanimity and extending hands across the aisle. John McCain’s speech was classy (though his supporters were classless) and Obama’s speech was sober and serious, rather than joyful, with not a hint of “I told you so,” in the text or the delivery.

Shit, even Karl Rove and Bill Kristol were gracious over Obama’s victory last night, but fuck it, I’ve been spending the morning cruising the conservative blogosphere and enjoying the wailing and gnashing of teeth. My favorite dummy of the right, Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review’s The Corner did not disappoint:

What Freaks Me Out About This Election is how oblivious to facts people have been. Everything about Obama’s judgment and radicalism — whether Sean Hannity or Stanley Kurtz or Andy McCarthy etc. is telling you about it — was essentially deemed irrelevant (including largely by the McCain campaign, save for Palin eventually talking about Ayers). Abortion? Near no one outside a handful of conservatives were talking about his record on infanticide — beyond abortion.

People are in for a rude awakening. And a mature conservative movement, with both an ear and a solid voice, will be needed.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Dummy! If this is the core of a mature conservative movement, I think we’re looking at an easy Obama re-election in 2012.

The margin is both comfortable and close at the same time. Most of the states Obama flipped that padded his EV total - Virginia, Florida, North Carolina - were very tight margins, and in the case of Virginia and North Carolina, Obama ran well behind the democratic senate candidates. If those states had gone the other way, we’d be talking about how Obama won in a relative squeaker.

Which brings to mind the big question I want to ask you and what I’ve been thinking about is whether or not McCain (or another republican) could have won? The concession speech McCain didn’t make me want to throw a brick through me TV. If that guy had shown up with Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney on his arm would K-Lo be crowing about a future end to infanticide this morning?

All of the sudden, I’m exhausted.

I’m sure tomorrow we’ll talk more about what happened, why, and how we can get our hands on that hologram technology, but for now, I’m signing off so I can enjoy this.

Go Franken.

Virginia goes for Obama, which means two of the four states I’ve lived in (Illinois, Virginia) go blue.

Here comes the final call from Wolff.

And that’s it, the Grant Park crowd goes wild.

President Obama!

They’ll be dining on bull in Kogelo.

Anderson Cooper watching his journalistic credibility go the way of the Apple Newton.

Bennett just took exception to the implication that the Republican Party is now made up exclusively of “old, white, confederate men,” but thus far, the results pretty much show it to be a truism.

Breaking: Will.I.Am hologram from grant park. He has a purple aura around his entire body.

Do you think they’ll get Obama for a holographic in-studio interview?

Second most useless expensive television graphic ever.

Plus, Al Franken’s floating point head!

Forget about Sean Hannity, Edward Tufte just busted a nut.

UPDATE: Speaking of Tufte, here’s an electoral map from two years ago speculating about a possible McCain-Obama matchup in this election.