From The New York Review of Magazines, an article on the hidden Hitchens: Sometimes he'd rather just read a book; an essay on prophylactics and your civil liberties; why a vote for any presidential hopeful is a vote for the pantsuit; Matt Miller on the elegant world of early Esquire; and and a look at how magazines learned to love the internet. Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact. An interview with Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. From Cafe Babel, here are five eurosceptic myths about sick old EU. From TED, Susan Blackmore makes a bold new argument: Humanity has spawned a new kind of meme, the teme, which spreads itself via technology — and invents ways to keep itself alive. Martin van Creveld reviews Benny Morris' 1948: The First Arab Israeli War. The Battle of the Blogs: Will the fight between Daily Kos and MyDD have longer lasting implications than its founders realize? Wendy Lasser reviews A Journey Round My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy and The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso. Strategists are chewing over a hypothetical scenario wherein Obama recieves millions more votes than McCain, but, because of the distribution of votes in the electoral college, McCain would become the president. Reihan Salam thinks McCain is in for a terrible shock if he wins.