Headlines from December 14, 2011

Gawker dumps files documenting every time a Blackwater guard shot at an Iraqi between 2005 and 2007.
Author of “Observations From 20 Years in Iowa” cites “raging bonfire” of backlash that has him scared.
Podcasts on how to negotiate with kids, jerks, and the opposite sex. via
Why leaning to the left makes us think objects are smaller: estimating involves “anchoring and alignment.”
The year in pictures rendered in Lego.
Account of a Christmas song recording session with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Phil Spector.
Profile of Britain’s longest-serving Santa.
Profile of Ono and Lennon’s man Friday in New York, impresario Norman Seaman.
Master list of contemporary rockers’ photographed pedalboards.
Photo of the day: ski racing-themed bathroom from Japanese ski resort.
Sample exam to see if you could pass as a New York City cab driver.
How to be a tourist in midtown Manhattan on a budget.
It’s amazing what a young white woman gets away with in this city. Tales of sex and drugs on New York’s High Line.
New reason cited to join the Facebook zombies: the norms are shifting—so what have you got to hide?
Witch beheadings and “anti-Witchcraft units” still going strong in Saudi Arabia.
Irish betting odds on when a woolly mammoth will be cloned.
TMN’s Rosecrans Baldwin on his embarrassing addiction to coffee made from pods.
George Takei issues call for Star Trek and Star Wars fans to come together—to fight Twilight.
Hong Kong is the world’s most developed financial market, U.S. is no. 2, says report.
Forbes ranks America’s banks.
People can decide whether to teach Intelligent Design in schools, but not whether it is true. The democratic market for ideas is not a truth machine.
African democracies will gain more legitimacy when elections oust incumbents—in South Africa, that may not occur until after Mandela dies.
Notes on the rebirth of anti-Semitism in Budapest.
Crisis of the Euro is killing the European dream—Krugman on the erosion of democratic Hungary.
Twenty-eight destroyed posters of Albanian politicians in the streets of Prishtina. #photography
Must-see December art shows across America.
If you like seeing the people in your community employed, don’t use Amazon. Richard Russo consults novelists on Amazon’s scorched-Earth capitalism.
The reverse: “Buying books on Amazon is better for authors, better for the economy, and better for you.”
New target in sex-trafficking prosecution now that prostitution’s off the street: the driver.
Google to provide $11.5 million in grants to organizations working to end slavery and human trafficking.
Analysis of Freakonomics authors’ errors post-success.
In this account of pubic waxing in America, we wonder: Did the starring subject with the unique name really need to be sentenced to Google hell?
Louis C.K. explains what he’s learned and earned from selling penis jokes exclusively online.
Awkward holiday family photos.