Headlines from May 19, 2009

It's the first car I've ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose. Review of the new Honda Insight.
Day in the life of Rotus, the receptionist of the entire United States.
Op: Successful people make lousy commencement speakers, so do politicians.
And never let your passport expire. The TMN writers create the ultimate commencement speech.
Audio: Updike on the importance of fiction and democracy on "This I Believe."
Controversy over whether Pope Benedict XVI will beatify Hitler-era Pope Pius XII.
Lovely new Niemann blog post for the Times about the Berlin Wall, then and now.
Lars von Trier can still shock at Cannes--especially when he calls himself an Antichrist, and then films like one.
Evolutionary psychologist urges advertisers to replace focus groups with calibrated intelligence tests.
Mathematical model of medical quackery finds snake oil spreads precisely because it's useless.
Sex researchers want less science in bed, and fewer feelings of deficiency.
Study of inter-species recognition finds mockingbirds dive-bomb people who have threatened them in the past.
Easter eggs to be found in the new Wolfram Alpha search engine.
Video: Unearthed commercial for Plymouth Duster renders all '80s parody irrelevant.
Obama to direct automakers to reach 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, four years ahead of schedule.
How Obama is like Spock, and how Spock has Asperger's.
Krugman: Good climate change legislation is on the table; accept it, and be happy with how far we've come.
As Juneau's glaciers melt, previously underwater land finds new life as a golf course.
"The North Koreans are not like those people living in the hills of Pakistan." Syracuse has conducted science diplomacy with North Korea for years.
Israel warns citizens of spies using Facebook, who offer money in exchange for classified information.
Texas Gov. Perry: I didn't advocate secession, I'm just sounding the alarm.
"The Eye of Sauron turns to Gondor, the last free kingdom of men." Make your own Donald Rumsfield bible briefing, with examples.
Tour the pre-apocalypse with adventurer Kyp Kyp Levoux in the new web series "Tribulation TT."
Video: The trailer for The Road.
Op: It's OK not to understand esoteric art.
"If you imagine a chair that's been under a steamroller it would look like that." A profile of Picasso and Matisse, career frenemies.
Coming soon: "Interview Project" by David Lynch.