* Twenty years since The Golden Compass: an interview with Philip Pullman. Read it and if you haven’t read His Dark Materials go do that instead.

* “Our generation did not invent political correctness, but we can fight it“—if we choose to.

* Evanston, The Suburb That Tried To Kill the Car; evidently the urban planners there read and understood The High Cost of Free Parking.

* “Why women lose the dating game,” another piece with somewhat bogus framing but one that at least considers what things look like for men. The quoting of Dalrock is a good sign.

* “At Group Sex Parties, Strict Rules Make for Safe Spaces: Gatherings emphasize consent and respect for boundaries as much as exploration.” Probably SFW and most interesting for the mainstream venue in which the article appears.

* “What [If Anything] We’re Buying With $1 Trillion in Student Loans.” I propose that all further articles about higher education, cost, and access must use the phrase or at least concept “Diminishing marginal utility” or “Diminishing marginal returns.” As noted here and elsewhere, treating “college” as if it’s one big, identical thing is crazy.

* “‘Guilty until proven innocent’: life after a false rape accusation: A growing group of men are calling for changes in the law around sexual assault to protect those who are the victims of false accusations.”

* Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment: shout it from the rooftops. Most international political problems are really energy problems.

* A penny for your books, making a point I’ve long reiterated.

* “Police violence in Alabama:” note: “there’s no law that allows cops to beat or shock you because they don’t like your attitude.” Why do cops not realize this, or enact it if they do? Cops beat people for the sake of it. They behave like animals.

* Fresh Climate Data Confirms 2015 Is Hotter Than Any Other Year in Human History.

* SpaceX and Boeing compete to get astronauts to space; everyone is the winner. See also my review of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.

* “Is great philosophy, by its nature, difficult and obscure?” Or might philosophers write obscurely in order to seem profound, or merely make it difficult or impossible to evaluation what they’re saying?

* A history of men’s boots and shoes, and why modern ones are so good; the piece is fascinating but in a way hard to describe.

* “Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless;” alternately, one could read this as “At the margin, revealed preferences show that people don’t want as much healthcare as many eggheads imagined.” The reporter of course chooses not to explore this possibility.