Must Read/Listen

• Donald Berwick, Casinos: A Losing Bet For Massachusetts
• WBUR, Videos: The 4 Mass. Ballot Questions, Explained
• Asma Khalid, 5 Key Policy Differences Between [MA Gubenatorial Candidates Charlie] Baker And [Martha] Coakley
• Moyers & Company, Bernie Sanders on Breaking Big Money’s Grip on Elections

Should Read/Listen

• Doug Muder, Religion and the Imagination  [Ed:  Doug’s sermon starts at about the 27:00 mark.]
• Roger Angell, Madison Bumgarner, The Best
• Cleve Moler, Variants of the QR Algorithm  [Ed.:  Should read if you do matrix algebra on a regular basis.  If you don’t then you can skip it.]

Environment

• David Hendry, Climate change: Lessons for our future from the distant past
• Claudia Dreifus, Naomi Oreskes Imagines the Future History of Climate Change
• Emma Marris and Greg Aplet, How to Mend the Conservation Divide
• Kathryn Miles, Our Failing Weather Infrastructure

In the Interest of a Stronger Democracy

• Charlie Savage, Peace Prize Laureates Urge Disclosure on U.S. Torture
• Committee to Protect Journalists, The Obama Administration and the Press
• Federation Of American Scientists, Secrecy News
• Tom McCarthy, Matt Taibbi returning to Rolling Stone after split from First Look Media

Politics

• Luke Brinker, The Wall Street Journal’s shameless dishonesty: What its defense of Kansas’ tax cuts says about the right’s real agenda
• Jonathan Chait, Confessions of a ‘Partyist’: Yes, I Judge Your Politics
• David Firestone, A Deficit of Reality on the Democratic Campaign Trail:

… given the universal mythology that a lower deficit is always a good thing, would it kill Democrats to point out that the deficit actually has fallen by more than 50 percent since President Obama took office?

Maybe I’ve missed it, but I haven’t heard any of the Democratic Senate candidates talking about that, or putting it into their ads. None of them mention that the budget is in far better shape largely because taxes went up on the rich, and because health care costs are falling. It’s unusual even to hear that unemployment is down to 5.9 percent, or that 5.5 million jobs have been added since 2009, which is four times more than under all eight years of George W. Bush.

• Eric Lipton, Richard Berman Energy Industry Talk Secretly Taped
• Catherine Dunn, Payday Lending Reform Group Targets Member of Consumer Protection Advisory Board

Economics

• Jared Bernstein, No one, including the Fed, has done the necessary analysis to answer the question re [Quantitative Easing] and inequality.
• Mark Thoma, Are Economists Ready for Income Redistribution?
• Michael Lind, Beyond STEM and startups — how to build an economy for real people

Remembering Tom Menino

• Charlie Pierce, Tom Menino Speaks Out On Guns – Rising To The Occasion
• Curt Nickisch, Boston’s Innovation, Business Circles Remember Menino
• Curt Nickisch, Menino Put His Stamp On Boston’s Skyline

Miscellany

• Jo Becker and Steven Lee Myers, Putin’s Friend Profits in Purge of Schoolbooks
• The Oatmeal, How to draw hands in three easy steps