* It is the recurring temptation of self-confident, insular elites to assume that the whole country loves what they love, hates what they hate and believes what they believe. * Paul Ryan: "Admit it, I scare the ever-loving shit out of you, don't I?" * Young environmentalists
* Supporters of the Syrian uprising may struggle to watch rebel fighters toss dead enemies off a roof. * The week in South Korean island-related political stunts. * Fascinating story of Argentine ants' violent domination of the planet. * Photographs of abandoned Chinese theme park Wonderland. * Saudi Arabia plans new city for
* Under Paul Ryan's tax plan, Mitt Romney would have paid around 0.82% on his income of $21 million in 2010. * Ryan: The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. * Insurers
* Iran earthquakes kill upward of 300, injure 2,600, and flatten villages. * Royal Dutch Shell, Nigeria’s biggest oil producer, estimates that 150,000 barrels a day are lost to theft. * Approximately 60,000 pets are abandoned in France every year during summer holidays. * Super strain of gonorrhea, spotted in
* Gore Vidal's Economist obit. * Images of Olympic defeat. * Explaining the 2012 Olympic oddities, including a probable reason for those blue tongues. * Our latest Weekender: Falling for sports you never knew existed. * The modern pentathlon: more Star Wars than Peloponnesian. * Luis Rios has been rounding the Prospect Park loop
* The Economist drafts Plan B for Merkel in case she wants to reconsider holding the Euro zone together. * Graphic history of money in American politics, from George Washington to Citizens United. * U.S. quickly catching up to Africa's emergence as cash power, voting bloc, security frontier. * Fresh Prince
* A team of 20 drivers can't wait for their chance to operate Curiosity. * Roundup of Curiosity camera pics and resources. * Study finds athletes who travel more than five timezones to compete double their chances of illness. * Earthquake clusters like the one that began Tuesday in Southern California aren&
* Aleppo becomes Syria's focal point and faces a crippling stalemate. * Shadow war between Israel and Iran sees return to "the black arts of the cold war." * On the recent demise of Tuscany's Siena. * Bob Hoskins to retire from acting after diagnosis of Parkinson'
* This election's critical "low-information voters": Romney supporters who must not know any better, according to Democrats. * Philanthropist to spend his last $1.5 billion by 2020, then shut down his foundation. * Reuters pulled into Syrian civil war, when its social media channels were hijacked by
* NPR begins series visiting First and Main intersections in political-battleground states. * Porn stars' presidential endorsements. * Profile of transition within a Japanese firm that switched all communication to English. * Kremlin critic live-tweets discovering that his office is bugged. * Madonna defends punk band for staging anti-Putin stunt in
