* Guardian reads cache of Assad's emails, finds him mocking reforms, exchanging YouTube videos with his wife. * Nobel winner Shirin Ebadi urges Arab Spring reformers to learn from women's suffering after Iran's revolution. * Three months shy of its 10th birthday, the Hague's International
* Ex-employees of Google, Goldman Sachs, and Yahoo air grievances. * Refining the Sundem/Tierney theory to predict the demise of celebrity marriages. * Today in #TheRooster: writer and actor Wil Wheaton on different ideas of travel. * Buy anything from Field Notes during the ToB and receive a red notebook free with
* Santorum heads to Puerto Rico after sweeping Southern Republican ballots. * Amnesty identifies 31 forms of torture presently used in Syria, on a scale not seen in decades. * What it's like to be "blasted" by the Pentagon's pain ray. * We've come to think
* Ezra Klein on the history of presidential rhetoric, and whether all those efforts at persuasion work. * Field guide to the middle-class American family. * Using heart monitors and data analysis, scientists hope to solve the Cundiff Conundrum, or, choking under pressure. * Confessions of a small fish in the big pond
* Militants in Afghanistan attack delegation visiting the site where a U.S. soldier killed 16 civilians. * Headline not seen: "Afghans have displayed tremendous restraint in the wake of repeated and abhorrent killings of civilians." * Brief history of African stereotypes. * Classic: How to write about Africa. * Britain backs call
* Iran War Clock at 10 minutes to midnight—48% chance that Israel or the U.S. will strike Iran in the next year. * Tracking art for Sothebys depends "on both a high tolerance for monotony and a willingness to flirt." * Dating site for married couples aims to reduce
* Up to 47 men, women, children found tortured and killed in Homs. * In the past year at least 26 Tibetans, mostly young Buddhist monks, have set fire to themselves. * The West Wing now appreciated as totem by young people working in Washington. * The original Walter Kirn GQ essay on business
{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, conventional wisdom was being shot on sight. From an evidence-based takedown of America’s “moral decline” to a bank of elevators becoming
* Chess players in Europe forbidden from showing too much cleavage or wearing skirts too short. * China's party newspaper publishes "Beautiful female journalists at two sessions" to highlight women's role. * Olivia Wang on Chinese artists' current (and historical) obsession with rocks. * Tutorial and commentary
* Europe grateful that Greece pushed through the largest restructuring of government debt in history. * Win or lose, Mr Sach's bid to run the World Bank "marks the end of the Live Aid era." * GOP to nominate Netanyahu as U.S. presidential candidate, says the Jerusalem Roast.
