W. Kip Viscusi (Vanderbilt): Policy Challenges of the Heterogeneity of the Value of Statistical Life. From The Awl, Maria Bustillos on voting, the most discouraging, important thing you can do. Reason seen more as weapon than path to truth: Rationality evolved to win arguments, some scholars suggest, and flawed reasoning is itself an adaptation. Wired goes inside the weird world of medical studies. The Undefeated: What the new Sarah Palin documentary gets right, and wrong, about her politics. The reality gap: Now more than ever, Republicans and Democrats are separated by expertise — and by facts. Christopher Hitchens on Patrick Leigh Fermor, 1915-2011. David Leonhardt on how to cut the deficit while adding jobs: Both parties have reason to compromise on the debt talks under way as the economy shows signs of stumbling. An excerpt from The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. Great places: Dave Roberts on reorienting progressive politics for the 21st century (in 5 parts). A review of Searching for Utopia: The History of an Idea by Gregory Claeys. Has the Supreme Court ever heard such a peculiarly American story as that of Anna Nicole Smith? And they didn’t know the half of it. After Iggy: Defending oneself in politics requires stubbornness, caginess and occasionally sycophancy, which is why politicians have a hard time becoming intellectuals. An interview with Garrett M. Graff, author of The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror. Turning FEMA around: Has Obama saved the once-maligned federal agency? Attack of the paleo-survival shows: Brian Kevin on ho how the larger-than-life bushmen of cable TV are creating an audience of armchair anthropologists.
