10. The Littlest Schoolhouse — Ta-Nehisi Coates
9. Private Contractors and Covert Wars in Latin America — Cyril Mychalejko
8. Iran’s Green Movement: One Year Later — Juan Cole and Iran Sanctions: Not Just Useless But Counterproductive — Richard Dreyfuss
7. What If Hamas Had Attacked Humanitarian Ships in International Waters? — Ed Kinane, IDF Beatings, Abuse, Doctored Evidence Emerge — Mel Frykberg, and The Method in Israel’s Madness — Pepe Escobar
6. What Happens When Democrats Are “Fighting Wall Street with One Hand, Unions with the Other,” While Republicans Are Fighting Unions with Two Hands? — Andrew Gelman & Matthew Yglesias
5. A Failure of Economic and Environmental Regulation — James Surowiecki and From the Oil Spill to the Financial Crisis, Why We Don’t Plan for the Worst — Richard A. Posner
4. “The Price That We Pay”: Undocumented Immigrants and Taxation — Yana Kunichoff
3. David Brooks and the Power of Magical Thinking at the NYT — Dean Baker and The United Kingdom Draws the Wrong Lessons from Canada — Marshall Auerback
2. Mark to Market and the Eurozone Crisis — e21
1. Waking Up From the American Dream — Joe Nocera
BONUS: The Governor and the Condemned Man — Dick Meister

“But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” — Benjamin Franklin

It is a good morning. We haven’t had enough of those in this country in the past decade.

hat tip: Kevin Drum

Last night, Congress approved the health care bill.

University of Rome Tor Vergata economist Robert Waldmann cried tears of joy. George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux wanted to vomit.

Okay, not everybody is happy this morning. For my less-enthused readers, I thought I’d post a special edition in our “What to Read” series. Herewith, I reproduce the best articles, columns, essays, and posts that I’ve read on the health care debate since I started this blog. But first, I want to second Steve Coll’s motion to celebrate one journalist in particular:

If you, like me, are uplifted by the historical potential of Sunday’s vote, then the best way to sit still inside what has happened is to scroll back through Ezra Klein’s blog. If you haven’t been reading Klein throughout the health care reform debate, you’ve missed one of the inspiring examples of how new forms of journalism in the hands of a new generation of journalists (who don’t always admire, but don’t always disrespect, the example of the generation before them) can produce vital new work. Klein is an example of a policy wonk in possession of both passionate opinion and scientific method who put himself into position to cover the dull-but-important story of a lifetime.

Coll has inspired me to create a new tradition for this blog: a “Journalist of the Year” award. With a little backdating, we are proud to honor Ezra Klein with the 2009 Trading 8s “Journalist of the Year” Award.

And now, everything you need to know about the health care bill, including many fine posts by our first annual Journalist of the Year:   Read more…

Yay, we are finally up-to-date on our “Best of the Week” series! Thank you for your patience. We will now return to posting original commentary more frequently…hopefully. — AWO

10. Popular but Ineffective: Repealing Insurers’ Antitrust Exemption — Austin Frakt & Ian Crosby
9. Special Interest — James Surowiecki and Paul Ryan’s Plan to Tax You More — Kevin Drum
8. Marjah, the City That Never Was — Gareth Porter and Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq — Robert Parry
7. The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs — C. Ford Runge
6. Medicine in the Dark — Michael Hochman & Danny McCormick
5. CIA Drone Attacks Produce America’s Own Unlawful Combatants — Gary Solis
4. Noam Chomsky: Iran Pursuing Nuclear Weapons Out of Fear — Matthew W. Hutchins
3. One Year into Bull Market, Economists Divided Over Future — E. S. Browning and My Life in Finance — Eugene F. Fama
2. Rethinking Crime–Again — John J. DiIulio, Jr.
1. The Arab Tomorrow — David B. Ottaway, Once Again, a Nation Walks Through Fire to Give the West Its “Democracy” — Robert Fisk, The Oil Curse — Christopher Dickey, The Political Resource Curse — Fernanda Brollo, Tommaso Nannicini, Roberto Perotti, & Guido Tabellini, and The Limits to Globalization — Daron Acemoglu & Pierre Yared
BONUS:  Finding Your Roots — Steven Strogatz

10. What if Conan Said, “Goodbye, NBC. Hello, Internet”? — Nick Bilton and Why Cable Companies Bundle Their Channels — James Surowiecki
9. Are Millennials Cursed? — Jeremy Rifkin
8. The Economics of Terrorism — Andrew Leigh
7. Legislated to Death — John Ireland
6. India’s Trail of Tears — Arundhati Roy
5. Sinomania — Perry Anderson
4. PANIC!!! — Jonathan Chait, What Will Make People Trust Government Again? — John Sides, and A Formula for Futility — Ronald Brownstein
3. A Bank Levy Will Not Stop the Doomsday Cycle — Peter Boone & Simon Johnson, Engineering Financial Stability — Robert J. Shiller, Who Bears the Costs of Post-Crisis Recovery? — Barry Ritholtz, and A Bomb Squad for Wall Street — William D. Cohan
2. The Tree-Lined Bunkers That Could Change the Face of the Middle East — Robert Fisk
1. A Deal with the Taliban? — Ahmed Rashid
BONUS:  King Maker — Clayborne Carson

If you tried to access Trading 8s in the past few days, you noticed it was offline. We had some technical difficulties, but we’re back to business now. Sorry for any inconvenience or confusion. — AWO

10. Getting Away with Torture — David Cole
9. The Great Leap — Christopher Hayes
8. John Mackey and Whole Foods — Nick Paumgarten
7. The Battle for Tora Bora — Peter Bergen
6. Why the Health Care Bill Is Worth Passing — James Surowiecki and What Health Care Reform Will Mean for You — Mary Carmichael
5. Threats to Yemen Prove America Hasn’t Learned the Lesson of History — Patrick Cockburn and The Next Afghanistan? — Bay Fang
4. “Cadillac Tax” Isn’t a Tax: It’s a Plan to Finance Health Care Reform — Jonathan Gruber and In Richmond, Va., Health Cuts with Little Effect on Care — David Leonhardt
3. Cause and Effect in the “Terror War” — Glenn Greenwald and Top Republican Myths about the Crotch Bomber Affair — Juan Cole
2.  The Silent Cleric Who Holds the Key to Iran’s Future — Robert Fisk
1. Lessons Learned But Not Applied — Simon Johnson and Avoiding a Japanese Decade — New York Times
BONUS: Night — Tony Judt