* Bristol Palin, bashed by Bill Maher, would like an Obama call too. * Hari Kunzru on Damien Hirst's never-ending confidence. * Jenny Diski defends Sean Penn's critique of Britain's "ludicrous, colonialist" hanging on to the Malvinas. * Sound artist renders LA pollution as music.
* White House readies contingency plans as the Supremes review health care law. * Supreme Court to decide whether 14 is too young to be sentenced to life in prison. * Republican big-money outside groups vastly outperforming Democratic counterparts. * Police negotiate with suspected killer of seven people in southern France. * Portrait of
* Pirated Russian version of Iron Lady depicts Thatcher as Hitler admirer. * Reagan doodles from 1981 G7 summit included among Thatcher papers. * Military STD posters of yore. * The short and sweet life of a space shuttle rocket booster. * Islamic authority deems Lady Gaga's concert forbidden, a "cultural attack.
* Recent war games suggest an Israeli strike on Iran would draw the U.S. into war and have dire regional consequences. * Ted Koppel on recent events. * Up to 20% of Mauritanians are enslaved; not until 2007 did it pass a law that criminalized owning another person. * English grows by 8,
* Giant rock trucked to LA to prove the city's not a cultural backwater. * After 59 years and 11 presidential administrations, athlete Jim Thorpe's family still battles over where to bury his body. * Navy leaders to administer breathalyzer tests to sailors with no probable cause. * Child'
* Heavy fighting erupts in Damascus; UN estimates more than 8,000 have died in the uprising so far. * Al Jazeera airs 25-minute, undercover iPhone documentary of the Syrian revolt. * Near the end, Osama bin Laden was obsessed with rebranding. * Gloria Steinem doesn't need to be replaced—"
* Interactive graphic shows the scale of the universe, from the Kuiper belt to humans to a helium nucleus. * A jumprope that shifts space and time on every jump. * Timeline of recent moral panics, from "pharm parties" to "buttchugs." * Prank robo-calls tell voters in Canada that
{image-1} Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, we would rather not have known that Assad is sending YouTube videos to his wife’s iPad that mock the attack on Homs.
* Iran's guns meet Zimbabwe's uranium—matchmaking in the crushing-sanctions world. * Depardieu to play Strauss-Kahn. * "Dawn of design" found in India, though skilled young people prefer to be artists "for money and glory." * Sixty-five percent of Indian households still use
* Taliban suspends talks with the U.S.; Karzai calls for troops to leave now. * Over five years, Gail Collins has mentioned Romney's dog-on-roof goof in at least 50 New York Times columns. * Conservative analysis of Democrats' Maine problem. * Despite "transparency week," the White
