QuickLinks, Tues. Aug. 17.

Report & Comment

Shanghai business district. Reuters.

China eclipses Japan as world #2 economy. (NYT)

Population explosion? Try implosion, the other population crisis. (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Politics

Petraeus opposes rapid pull-out in Afghanistan. (NYT)

Barack Obama and defense secretary Bob Gates. (AP) 

Three reasons behind Bob Gates' just-announced plan to retire next year. (Christian Science Monitor) 

Why U.S. foreign aid is losing, rather than winning, hearts and minds. (New Republic) 

Obama isn't the first "imposter" president and won't be the last. (CNN) Legitimacy of change-oriented presidents has always been questioned. One of Obama's predecessors was even called "the Fraudster."

What will reunite the left for Obama? (New Republic)

Why Sarah Palin says those ridiculous things. (Jacob Weisberg, editor, Slate)

Business & economics

Is economics ideological by nature? (Time) You'd have to think so, since common sense so often takes a back seat to preconceived notions.

Why H-P had to fire its star CEO over sexual harassment allegations. (Time)

The real reason H-P finally sacked superstar CEO Mark Hurd. (Joe Norcera, NYT) Reviled among H-Pers, Hurd cut savagely into R&D, foreclosing on H-P's future, while luxuriating in stupendous pay and benefits.

Invincible Google? Hardly. Let's celebrate its many failures. (searchengineland.com)

Arts & Letters

Comic-land milestone: "Cathy," voice of the vulnerable, to retire in October. (NYT)

Hooked: The strange land of video games and their addicts. (New Republic)

Malaria redux: How mosquitos have shaped our history for 500,000 years. (New Republic)

 
A fresh, revealing look at America's remarkable Founding Fathers. (New Republic) 

How we live today

Does Expendables first-weekend box-office triumph over Eat Pray Love mark the death of chick flicks? (Christian Science Monitor) I doubt it. The critics panned both films, so their match-up, an accident of timing, means nothing. Critics had higher expectations of EPL than the 127-year-old Stallone, and were louder in their disappointment with it than Expendables.

The joys of forsaking conspicuous consumption. (NYT) Almost too many to count, in this must-read.

How teen sex affects education. (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) People will read this story. How poverty and rotting inner-city schools affect learnin', not so much. Not, well, sexy enough. But do let me know if it's reached the point where kids are spending too heavily on Trojans to afford a copy of Calculus 101.

(Getty Images)

Competing for a mate may shorten men's lives. (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) But do we have a choice? Never-married men have shorter lives than married males. They get you coming and going. But at least in our species, we don't risk losing a pair of antlers in jousting matches to impress potential mates. We just max out our Amex Platinum cards.