Must Read

• Paul Krugman (NYT), Fearing Fear Itself
• Martha Bebinger, A Tale Of 2 Hospital Visits: How The Cost Of Care Can Vary Dramatically Depending On Where You’re Treated
• Jeff Biggers (NYT), Iowa’s Climate-Change Wisdom
• Dave Johnson, Sanders’ Socialism Speech: America Is For All Of Us, Not Just Wealthy

Should Read

• Josh Barro (NYT), We’re Living Longer. That’s Great, Except for Social Security.  [Ed.:  Step 1 = Abolish the income cap.]
• John Schwartz (NYT), As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West
• Jesse Bellemare, What is “Managed Relocation” and Will It Have a Place in our Conservation Toolbox?
• Mike the Mad Biologist, Last Line of Antimicrobial Defense Is Falling: Colistin Resistance Transmission
• Hanna Rosin, The Silicon Valley Suicides: Why are so many kids with bright prospects killing themselves in Palo Alto?

Syrian Refugees

• Eileen McNamara, [MA Gov.] Charlie Baker’s Wrong-Headed Reasoning About Syrian Refugees
• John Scalzi, Frightened, Ignorant and Cowardly is No Way to Go Through Life, Son
• Chris Doyle, Top response to the refugee haters from the State department Spox today
• Crusty Pissed Off Veteran, With everyone talking about the refuge crisis I thought I’d put my two cents and watch everyone get a red ass about it.

Bernie Sanders

• Jacobin, The Socialism of Bernie Sanders [Ed.:  What actual Leftists think of Sanders.  Spoiler alert:  Mixed bag.]
• Ken Thomas, Postal workers’ union endorses Bernie Sanders for president
• Charlie Pierce, The Best Speech in Iowa Didn’t Come From Hillary or Bernie

Words Escape Me

• Trip Gabriel, Donald Trump Says He’d ‘Absolutely’ Require Muslims to Register
• Paul Krugman (NYT), The Farce Awakens
• Reena Flores, Trump supporters, Black Lives Matter protester clash at rally
• Mike the Mad Biologist, Il Trumpismo and the Politics of the Blood
• Matt Taibbi, The GOP Clown Car Rolls On

Terrorists

• FAIR, ISIS Killed More Americans in Beirut Than in Paris–but Only Their Hometown Papers Noticed
• Charlie Pierce, Anonymous Will Crush ISIS Before Conservatives Do
• Zeba Khan, Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’
• Walied Shater (NYT), To Stop Radicalization, the French Need More Fraternité

Culture

• Anemona Hartocollis (NYT), Amherst [College] Mascot Gets Thumbs Down From Faculty  [Ed.:  Lord Jeffrey Amherst handed out smallpox-infected blankets to local Native Americans.  No, he’s perhaps not the best mascot for your college.]

Climate Change

• Hans Custers, Is Climate Science falsifiable?
• Eli Rabett, The Surge, The Surge
• John Schwartz (NYT), Scientists Study Links Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather
• Sindya Bhanoo (NYT), Billions of People Depend on Water From Shrinking Snowpacks
• NY Times, Paris Climate Change Conference 2015
• Bjørn Lomborg, Lomborg pushes back against Joe Romm’s over the top screed about the lack of impact of #COP21  [Ed.:  Lomborg is a weasel but he makes a least one legitimate criticism of the Climate Interactive model.  My perception of MAGICC is that it’s a reasonable model.]
• Andrew Revkin (NYT), Failed 2008 Cooling Prediction Shows Short-Term Climate Forecasts Remain a Bad Bet
• NOAA, Science publishes new NOAA analysis: Data show no recent slowdown in global warming

Environment

• David Gelles (NYT), Unilever Finds That Shrinking Its Footprint Is a Giant Task

Health and Health Care

• Suzanne Gordon, Report: VA Outperforms Private Sector on Key Measures
• Harold Pollack, Medicaid: Worst insurance in America? Critics – like Carly Fiorina – who claim Medicaid coverage stinks should talk with parents who’ve actually relied on the program
• Josh Bivens, Bad tax or no tax? The ACA excise tax debate, continued [Ed.:  I respect Bivens but I’m still pro-excise-tax.]
• David Lazarus, The country’s largest private health insurer throws a ‘tantrum’ over lower profits

Math and Science

• Andrew Gelman, First, second, and third order bias corrections (also, my ugly R code for the mortality-rate graphs!)
• Jennifer Chu, “Shrinking bull’s-eye” algorithm speeds up complex modeling from days to hours
• Philip Guo, The Two Cultures of Computing: User Culture Versus Programmer Culture
• Duncan Black, Do You Actually Work, Bro?
• Regina Nuzzo, How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop

Education

• Rachel Cohen, Can Affordable Housing Help Retain Teachers?

Ending on a Positive Note

• Edwin L. Aguirre, Rocket Scientists to Launch Planet-Finding Telescope