1. Excerpts from Must Read and Should Read pieces are provided at the end of this post
2. Visit Rabett Run for useful analysis and commentary on climate science and the politics thereof.

Must Read/Watch

• Robert Naiman, Torture Report: Mark Udall’s World-Historical Moment to Rescue CIA Oversight  [See Excerpt 1 below.]
• Laura Santhanam and Vanessa Dennis, What do the newly released witness statements tell us about the Michael Brown shooting? [2]
• Jared Bernstein, The tax extender package: a lame duck turkey [3]
• Jonathan Foley, The other inconvenient truth [4]
• Eli Rabett, Picture Postcards. [5]

Should Read

• Ray Pierrehumbert, Obama’s U.S.-China climate agreement: Carbon budget and exponential curves show why this is a fair deal.  [6]
• Ryan Koronowski, Most White Evangelicals Attribute Intense National Disasters To The Apocalypse, Not Climate Change  [7]
• Marissa Fessenden, Even Climate Scientists Are Getting Depressed by Our Lack of Progress [8]

Environment and Energy

• Michael Tobis, I’m Afraid This Changes Nothing [Criticism of Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything:  Capitalism vs The Climate]
• Zadie Smith, Elegy for a Country’s Seasons
• Emily Atkin, Industry Groups Are Freaking Out About Obama’s New Smog Pollution Rule
• Deborah Sontag (NYT), Where Oil and Politics Mix:  After an unusual land deal, a giant spill and a tanker-train explosion, anxiety began to ripple across the North Dakota prairie.
• Diane Cardwell (NYT), Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels
• David Abel, Federal fishing officials ban cod fishing in Gulf of Maine for six months
• Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage, Cod Moratorium

Media Criticism

• Dean Baker, [The New York Times] Abandons Distinction Between News and Editorial Page to Push Trade Deal [The trade deal is Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP)]
• Dean Baker, Quick, Some Meaningless Budget Numbers from the [New York Times]

Economics

• Paul Krugman, The Inflation and Rising Interest Rates That Never Showed Up
• Jared Bernstein, A deeper dive into the weeds of the CBO household income data

Politics

• Lowell Sun, [Recently-elected MA-6 Rep. Seth] Moulton making transition from candidate to congressman
• Max Fisher, Obama should blame himself, not Chuck Hagel, for Hagel’s failure as Defense Secretary

Education

• Jacob Murray, Overtesting And China: A Cautionary Tale
• Andrew Gelman, Princeton Abandons Grade Deflation Plan . . .

Football

• Zach Schonbrun (NYT), M.I.T. Is 10-0 and Finding Success in the N.C.A.A. Division III Playoffs

Midlife Crises

• Jonathan Rauch, The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis

Arts

• Eileen de Rosas Ceramics

Excerpts:

1. Naiman:  “Outgoing Colorado Senator Mark Udall … can declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee’s preferred version of the [Senate report on the George W. Bush administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation” practices], by reading it into the Congressional Record, under the protection of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause.  More is at stake than establishing a public record on the CIA’s use of torture and its illegal attempts to hide its crimes from other executive branch officials and Congress, important though that is. The struggle over the release of the CIA torture report is a litmus test of the ability and willingness of Congress to conduct any meaningful oversight of the CIA at all.”
2. Santhanam and Dennis:  “We read and analyzed more than 500 pages of witness testimony and compared each statement to those given by [Ferguson police officer Darren] Wilson. Below is a chart comparing several key details of the officer’s report to the witness statements. Was Brown facing Wilson when he was shot, or was his back turned to him? Did Brown have his hands in the air, or were they reaching toward his waist?”
   
3. Bernstein:  “I’m talking about the so-called “tax extenders” package, a dog’s breakfast of permanent tax breaks mostly for businesses that would add over $400 billion to the ten-year budget deficit without doing anything for low-income, working families.”
4. Foley: “A skyrocketing demand for food means that agriculture has become the largest driver of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental destruction…. Jonathan Foley shows why we desperately need to begin “terraculture” – farming for the whole planet.”
5. Rabett:  “About twenty years ago, just after the collapse of the DDR Eli and Ms. Rabett found themselves on a cold winter night in the middle of Erfurt Germany.  There was what first appeared to be fog in the air but it was not exactly pleasant to breathe, and Ms. Rabett was not enjoying the taste.  There were halos around the street lamps, everything was surreal and then the lights went out.  Over the entire city.”
6. Pierrehumbert:  “The big climate news of last week, indeed maybe of the past several years, was the surprise announcement of a bilateral U.S.-China agreement setting targets for CO₂ emissions out to the year 2030. Is this really such a big deal, or are climate protection advocates just grasping for any good news to offset the grim implications of a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate? The answer is: Yes, it is a very big deal, at least if both parties fulfill their commitments. Today, I will be an optimist and assume that somehow they pull it off. There are no obvious technical barriers but considerable political ones.”
7. Koronowski:
8. Fessenden:  “Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist, has offered some tips on how to care for yourself when feeling climate change burn out. They include practical advice for anytime – exercise, spend time outside, eat healthy. Her tips also have some specific points for dealing with climate change anxiety: Recognize that your fears are realistic, but don’t give up.”