Headlines from August 16, 2013

Presidents deserve their vacations, but it’s too bad they’re always taken behind the gates of wealthy friends. #opinions
When you consider the alternatives, you are led, as Obama was, to the logic of the drone.
Now that Title X has arrived in sports, student captains of high school teams are required to have gay sex with one another.
Author asks casual sex partners for book recommendations.
“Sexy baby voice” is more common in women talking to one another than women talking to men.
I prefer not to think that we live in a culture in which nastiness is so endemic that we can no longer recognize it. Francine Prose on Woody Allen.
Very good posters designed for the fake films mentioned in Seinfeld.
New book finds U.S. conduct during the Vietnam War to be much worse than previously understood, where My Lai was “an operation, not an aberration.”
In journalism as in life, it’s useful to know the best ways to ask questions. #tmn
There may be no more direct metric of social influence than one’s ability to change language. Meet Choire Sicha, “the anti-blogger.”
Related: Choire Sicha schmoozes his way into the 2003 New Yorker festival. #tmn
Dread Pirate Roberts, operator behind the internet’s drug market Silk Road, talks to Forbes about his new turf war. #longreads
In Stockholm, elusive thieves dress like ghosts to pick tourists’ pockets.
Author of Orange Is the New Black argues for allowing some women who plead guilty to felonies to remain in their homes with their children.
Roadie looks back on some of the last meals shared by the influential Washington band Unwound in 2001.
Scientists find death rates from all causes rise by more than half in people aged under 55 who drink more than 28 cups of coffee a week.
Label founder James Lavelle makes public his special “Best of Mo’Wax” mix. #audio
Related: Toro Y Moi (aka Chaz Bundick) covers Ricky Gervais’s comedy song “Slough.”
Army blocks entrances to Tahrir Square while Cairo prepares for Muslim Brotherhood’s “march of anger.”
The Egyptian military did what we explicitly told them not to do. How can we still pretend that this aid is giving us influence?
Round-up of the week in wacky right-wing statements.
Map in which every person is represented as a colored pixel depicts racial segregation in the United States.
Related: For those who enjoy quizzes and maps, our crowd favorite: Cloud of Atlases. #tmn
As global demand increases for quinoa, Andean farmers worry about losing their cash crop to mass production.
Cincinnati airline Flamingo Air only offers romantic flights: $425 for a chance to join the mile high club.
One Billion Second Calculator: find out exactly when you were or will be one billion seconds old.
Bronze Age gaming tokens discovered in Turkey suggest the first board games were played 5000 years ago.
Nitpickers who get upset over “literally” usage should blame an 18th-century novelist—not Google—for “breaking the English language.”
Serial killer and accomplice used Craigslist to find their victims: white, working-class men. #longreads
Photos show scenes from the everyday lives of Ku Klux Klan members. #photography
Mistaken for 100 years as a kind of raccoon, the olinguito—“a cross between a teddy bear and house cat”—is an entirely different carnivore.
See also: The darker side of cute and cuddly animal videos.
That is how you train an elephant, with beatings. Celebrity elephants live a hard life in India.
Chinese zoo swaps dog for lion, hoping visitors don’t notice when the “lion” starts barking.