Tabs for a Saturday in June

The tabs, the tabs are calling. Heavy they hang over my browser windows. Time to close a few.

Offered without comment: The Brock Turner case: Sexual assault, mob justice, and the war on "rape culture". But also this, from a defense attorney, on the confounding role of empathy in sentencing.

Does air pollution cause dementia? Provocative thoughts from Mother Jones.

Deconstructing the myth of inefficiency in American public schooling. A summary of research comparing schools in the U.S. and around the world in per-pupil spending.

In the rural west, residents choose low taxes over law enforcement. A detailed look at one eastern Oregon county, devolving.

What's the real rate of sex crime recidivism? It's not as high as you probably think, since one sentence in a 1986 mass-market magazine continues to sway court cases involving sex offenders. From Pacific Standard.

The unequal effect of all that homework. It's hard to argue with the idea that parents who can be home for the children on a consistent basis -- rather than changing work shifts constantly and working two jobs -- probably have kids who do better in school. But I wonder how that pairs up with research showing that kids whose parents help them with their homework don't do any better, and sometimes do worse?

Pair that with this from Vox, Living in a poor neighborhood changes everything about your life. Summarizing research on health effects, long-term earnings, and intelligence, with lots of graphics.

How economists killed your conscience. Cornell professor Lynn Stout on the way good laws make good people. This is a good companion to this brief review of the work of philosopher Tim Scanlon (a new name to me).

Icelandic scientists have proof of an important concept: Injecting CO2 into basalt underground turns it into rock. (I'm sure I've oversimplified that, but you get the idea.)

It's not just the Koch brothers: dark money funds academic publishing as well, and it winds up leading us to Donald Trump. From Pacific Standard.

What consumers need to know about the proposed payday loan rules. From the Washington Post. "80 percent of payday loans are rolled over into a repeat loan, causing fees to pile up for borrowers. Roughly 45 percent of payday customers take out at least four loans in a row."

This lengthy Wired article indicts the standard practices of police interrogation. Not surprisingly, it echoes the findings of research on "repressed" memories.

New data from Pew Charitable Trusts shows low-income Americans can no longer afford rent, food, and transportation. From Vox.

A mom looks at the life she has made for her sons in the suburbs and regrets it: Why the suburbs are all wrong for my kids.

Gideon v. Wainwright in the age of a public defense crisis. What does the right to counsel mean if there are no counselors? From Talk Poverty.

How to redistribute wealth, without the guillotine. Two words: wealth tax. From the American Prospect.