Must Read

• James Fallows, Why Did We Invade Iraq?
• Andrew Bacewicz, A Letter to Paul Wolfowitz: Occasioned by the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war  [Ed.:  From March 2013]
• The Center for Public Integrity, Iraq: The War Card
• The NY Times Editorial Board, The Escalation of Unauthorized Wars

Should Read

• Josh Bivens, More Notes on the Gains From Trade and Who Gets Them
• Elise Gould, Poor People Work:  A Majority of Poor People Who Can Work Do
• Dean Baker, Don’t Be Sure that Powerful People Want the Economy to Return to Normal
• Jon Green, Republicans are trying to legally rig elections: Ohio poll tax edition

Blogs to Visit

• Working Economics
• driftglass
• Mike the Mad Biologist

Economics

• James Kwak, The Importance of Taxing Capital
• Noah Smith, What Do Rich Countries Have in Common? Big Government
• Ross Eisenbrey, H-1B Visas Do Not Create Jobs or Improve Conditions for U.S. Workers
• Mike Konczal, The Rules are What Matter for Inequality: Our New Report

Energy and Environment

• David Coady, Ian W.H. Parry, Louis Sears and Baoping Shang, How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies?
• Chris Mooney, Troubling new research says global warming will cut wheat yields
• David Roberts, The awful truth about climate change no one wants to admit
• Gary Gutting and Dale Jamieson (NYT), What Can We Do About Climate Change?

Politics

• Kiley Kroh, This Billionaire Tried To Get University Scientists Fired For Doing Their Job
• Daniel Larison, [NJ Gov.] Christie: The U.S. Should Do Whatever Its Clients Want
• Charlie Pierce, Slander On The Cuyahoga: What Cleveland Police Tried to Do
• Max Ehrenfreund, Kansas has found the ultimate way to punish the poor

Math and Science

• Cosma Shalizi, Any P-Value Distinguishable from Zero is Insufficiently Informative
• Mike the Mad Biologist, Failure Is An Option: Antibiotic Resistance and Global Warming
• Brian Bienkowski and Environmental Health News, Bacteria May Be Remaking Drugs in Sewage

Media Criticism

• Elliott Hannon, The New York Times Would Like You to Know It Totally Kinda Thought the Same Thing as Hersh

A Couple Things to End on a Positive Note

Positive #1:

My son’s nursery school has been working to create butterfly-friend spaces on the school lot.  Towards that end I ordered some prairie wildflower seedlings for them last December.  (You have to order ahead.)   The seedlings arrived last week just in time for our son’s monthly “parent help day”.  (On parent help day one or both parents comes to class to help out, read a story or two, and otherwise participate in class activities.)   On Thursday my wife and I accompanied him to school and all the kids had the opportunity to participate in planting seedlings.   The teachers brought kids up to the garden in small groups, my wife served as guide/docent, talking the kids through the idea behind the garden and how they’d be helping, and I served as plantsman.   We planted over three dozen seedlings.  Our son had the honor of planting the first one, a pale purple coneflower.  A good time was had by all.  The kids really enjoyed creating the garden and we both really enjoyed working with them.  (The kids also liked some of the fun flower names, e.g., Royal Catchfly and Button Blazing Star.)

Preparing to plant:

Planting according to plan (NB: A plan gives you something to deviate from.) :

The kids and teachers made signs to remind everyone to be careful around the garden:

After all the seedlings were planted:

He and I will be back regularly over the summer to water, pull weeds, etc.

Also, in addition to the ones for the school, I bought a set of seedlings for us to plant around our yard.  We planted a dozen yesterday.   I get started on the other twenty-six after I finish this post.

Positive #2:

• Eric Chandler, The Barbaric Yawp