Headlines from November 7, 2011

If you want to see Italy on the road to ruin, there’s no shortage of signposts.
Italy placed under special IMF preventive regime for fear of collapse, due to credibility issues.
Thousands donate to pay massive tax bill served on Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Amazon in China changes from amazon.com.cn to z.cn ”to make it easier to remember.”
Assessing Chinese novelists who find fame by flouting censors on the internet.
Non-Americans list America’s quirks—liberals flying flags, supermarkets offering pumpkins on tables, etc.
Yelping with Cormac McCarthy.
Andy Baio celebrates the supercut.
Former Penn State football coach charged with 40 counts related to sexual abuse of young boys.
Values determined for college majors.
This is how the professionals taught the student sexers. The master would stand over the apprentice and watch. The student would pick up a chick, examine its rear, and toss it into one bin or the other.
Photographs from fashion week venues, pre-runway.
Ten roads to the end of the Earth.
Pictures of celebrities with their eyebrows removed.
International Atomic Energy Agency to say Iran now has the ability to produce a workable nuclear weapon.
Cole: Netanyahu and Barak are bluffing about bombing Iran; Obama won’t green-light Israeli adventurism.
Related: David Remnick, in a nuanced assessment, not so sure (at least about the first part).
Pakistan is the ally from hell, in a partnership from which we have no escape. #longreads
“Parahawking”—sport that combines falconry and paragliding.
Brits who wear the red poppy on their lapels indulge in propaganda and mock the dead. #opinions
Chinnie Ding analyzes the psychology of our screen savers.
History of homesickness, which, under the guise of “nostalgia,” was a killer during the Civil War.
Similar graffiti found in Pompeii, A.D. 79, and Los Angeles, 1965.
David Rees investigates how tall is Jake Gyllenhaal.
Profile of hip-hop beat-maker Lex Luger, the man with a million sounds.
Failure of a puppeteer to find a job he loves is a terrible way to illustrate the job market’s woes. #opinions
In 2009 the U.S. graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined.
Professors struggle to keep college students intrigued while undergoing “the math-science death march.”
See also: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics.