I have written two posts on the Arizona Fall League so far, one on real prospects and one on Tim Tebow. (These were originally one article, but the baseball editors chose to split it up.) There will be another post coming soon covering everything else I saw while in Arizona. I wrote a piece earlier in the week discussing the use of instant replay on slides, which has come up several times already this postseason. I held my usual
Klawchat on Thursday as well.
My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the abstract two-player game Agamemnon, which I think is just fantastic. It’s quick to learn and play, offers some simple variations to increase the replay value, and has just the right amounts of competition and randomness for a great two-player title.
You can also preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.
And now, the links…
- One of the Central Park Five – five men arrested and convicted of a brutal rape, only to be exonerated when the actual rapist confessed over a decade later – wrote an emotional editorial on how Donald Trump continues to harm him with the candidate’s continued insistence that the men were guilty. (Trump ran a full-page ad at the time of the crime, calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty for these five kids.)
- Trump’s comments about “rigged” elections pose an existential threat to our democracy, and Professor Rick Hasen’s post calls on other Republican leaders to disavow these statements, as we already see Trump supporters talking about taking up arms if he loses the election. Of course, this isn’t new for Trump; he is also threatening to jail his opponent if he wins.
- Adults who weren’t vaccinated and caught vaccine-preventabble diseases cost the U.S. $7.1 billion in 2015 in medical costs and lost productivity, in case you’re wondering why you should care about morons who don’t get vaccinated.
- Yet another study has found no link between thimerosal or mercury-containing vaccines and autism.
- Creationism is on the rise in Europe, even though Europe as a whole is more secular than the U.S. and has been more accepting of the reality of evolution.
- The Guardian has a great longread on the insanity of the bottled water industry. In the developed world, where tap water is safe to drink, it is absolutely criminal to consume bottled water at the rate we do, from the environmental costs of shipping it to the wastes of plastic involved in packaging it.
- World leaders meeting in Rwanda this week are trying to ban another set of greenhouse gases. Banning hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) requires amending the Montreal Protocol, but these gases are more than 1000 times more potent in contributing to warming than carbon dioxide is.
- A Chinese mining firm has received approval to destroy a koala habitat in Australia so they can build a coal mine. There’s a lot wrong here, since burning coal itself is a contributor to climate change.
- There’s a state of emergency in Ethiopia, where two ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, have protested rule by the minority Tigreans, the same sort of sectarian divisions that led to Eritrea’s secession and ongoing skirmishes between the two countries.
- A reader sent along this story on the ‘biryani wars’ in India, where the iconic dish has become subject to accusations of tainted food and government inspections.
- The Trump/sexual assault storyline has been well-covered everywhere, so I’m not linking to any of those hundreds of stories. But one thing I want to highlight that’s tangentially related is writer Kelly Oxford’s call for women to share their stories of sexual assault on Twitter, which produced a deluge of replies. The Washington Post and the Guardian had two of the best summaries of Oxford’s efforts and the conversations it has launched.
- Meanwhile, Mike Pence’s own policy positions have skated a bit under the radar, which I think is a mistake given the instability of his running mate. This is the first time I’ve linked to Cosmopolitan, but their summary of Pence’s anti-abortion policies is worthwhile. He tried to pass a law that would have required women who had abortions or miscarriages to hold funerals for the dead fetuses. Not mentioned is that he also tried to allocate state funds to “gay conversion” therapy, which doesn’t work and is opposed by the American Psychiatric Association.
- The NY Times found the one 19-year-old black man who’s skewing the USC/LA Times poll. The reasons are a bit technical, but I think they provide some good insight on how polling works.
- The President of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women resigned her post and wrote a long explanation of why, calling it an “unhealthy relationship” when the party she supports is backing a candidate who has a history of sexual assault and of bragging about it.
- Three men were arrested in Kansas this week for plotting terrorist acts. The men were white and appear to claim to be Christian, and their targets were Muslims. I doubt they realize how incredibly un-Christian such actions would be.
- Wisconsin forward Nigel Hayes dropped some truth on his Twitter feed about the NCAA and its institutions profiting off the unpaid labor of athletes:
You make a company millions. They "pay" you with only a college education (estimated UW $160,000).
Fair, right? https://t.co/Hy3yKP42hH
— Nigel Hayes (@NIGEL_HAYES) October 14, 2016
Emma Baccelleri wrote more about Hayes’ commentary in a strong post on Deadspin.
Nigel Hayes also had a College Gameday sign when the crew was in Madison this morning. Don’t know if his sign made the show at all. His Venmo account has had a couple donations. Also in the article below, a second tweet from Hayes that I think is better than the one you posted.
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/17799739/nigel-hayes-wisconsin-badgers-carries-sign-asking-money-college-gameday
Love your work Keith. Also, really enjoy the weekly links. But I came across this quote from literary critic Frank Lentricchia this week and reminded me of how you can come across sometimes.
It is impossible, this much is clear, to exaggerate the heroic self-inflation of academic literary criticism. . . . The fundamental, if only implied, message of much literary criticism is self-righteous, and it takes this form: “T. S. Eliot is a homophobe and I am not. Therefore, I am a better person than Eliot. Imitate me, not Eliot.” To which the proper response is: “But T. S. Eliot could really write, and you can’t. Tell us truly, is there no filth in your soul?”
Hope that makes sense. Keep up the good work regardless.
So, Mike Pence is T.S. Eliot?
I don’t see this as a helpful comment.
Curious what made you write the Tebow scouting report. Based on your previous comments, about how Tebow wasn’t worth your time and how you like clicks, but wouldn’t want to “sell your soul” to get them…one can only assume that the decision was above your paygrade.
What made me write it? I’m scouting the AFL and he’s here. It cost me nothing to see him play, and it’s actually not a scouting report but comment on a seriously awful move by the Mets.
So did AL gore pose a threat to the democracy when he said the election was rigged in 2000?
When Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager for a decisive state is responsible for certifying the election results of that state and the margin in that state is less than a thousand votes and the ballot has a design confusing for any candidate not on the top line and that top line candidate is the one with all the other impropriety, then sure, you can compare the two situations.
Kevin and Jim covered it pretty well, so I will just add the one point they missed. Gore did not preemptively say anything about the election and its legitimacy. His concerns were raised after, once there was some actual evidence for them.
If you don’t realize that Donald Trump knows he’s likely to lose, and is merely laying the groundwork for ego-saving excuses, then I would submit you’re looking at the world through Trump-colored glasses.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession… Some have expressed concern that the unusual nature of this election might hamper the next president in the conduct of his office. I do not believe it need be so. President-elect Bush inherits a nation whose citizens will be ready to assist him in the conduct of his large responsibilities. I, personally, will be at his disposal, and I call on all Americans — I particularly urge all who stood with us — to unite behind our next president. – Al Gore
TIL you don’t know what “False Equivalence” means. Here, child, let me help you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
Al Gore never said the election was rigged. He took legal action when appropriate as part of a recount process in Florida. When that did not go his way he expressed disappointment but told his supporters to accept that Bush had won the election, which has happened in every election in our country’s history, except for secession following the election of 1860 and possibly in 2016, if Trump follows through on his campaign rhetoric.
When did trump tell people to take up arms and when had trump said he wouldn’t accept the results? He said in the first debate that he would accept the results
And then, just a day later, he changed his mind:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/30/trump-clinton-support-election-winner-debate-interview
And while Trump has not directly used the phrase “take up arms,” he has certainly said that the use of violence is apropos and even encouraged. For example, saying that the “Second Amendment folks” could take care of Hillary Clinton. See here for a more thorough treatment of Trump’s calls for violence:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-violent-rhetoric-history-226873
I’m not saying that Trump’s loss would bring about another armed rebellion, but that the aftermath of the 1860 election is the only time in which the losing side in an election did not recognize the legitimacy of the election results (even though Douglas urged them to do so). The phrasing might make it appear that I am making a direct analogy, so I can see how you came to that conclusion. But don’t kid yourself about Trump’s sincerity in honoring any pledge that he makes. His word is not exactly his bond. He’s also not talking about just voter fraud–which is virtually nonexistent–but is doing his best to call into question any result that does not lead to the nightmare scenario of his being victorious.
Looking out for fraud and doing something illegal based on finding fraud are two very different things
For the record, I am not a trumpster either. I think both candidates are despicable people unfit to run the country.
Both sides are bad, so spew false equivalencies and easily disputable bullshit?
@A Salty Scientist, josh hassss demonstrated in this comment section that he’s unable to make fair comparisons.
Hey Keith, I’m sorry you’re getting the full wrath of the Tebow zealots. Actually, I’m sort of not sorry, because my own entertainment level is going to 11. Tebow zealots are almost like anti-vaxxers: no matter how much evidence you put out that he’s mediocre to terrible at a given profession, they refuse to see it, and then respond that you’re against him because you’re anti-Christian or something. Trust me, this was the same in his football days. After his one “glory” year in Denver, there were Broncos fans who still wanted him over Peyton freaking Manning, only one of few best QBs in the history of the NFL. But the Broncos won some games with Tebow at QB in 2011, including a playoff game, and his fans always overlook that most of them had mitigating circumstances that played in Denver’s favor. Or they believe Tebow has the “clutch gene” which kept his fans from noticing that he was behind a lot because he spent most of the game bouncing passes in front of open receivers, or throwing the “Tebow Drop” – that is, a pass that was overthrown that the receiver had to lay out just to get his finger tips on, but then everyone would blame the guy for dropping the ball.
So, have fun with him being part of your world for however long this farce is going to last.
Gore in 2000 only accepted the results of the election after he exhausted his legal options? Wouldn’t trump be allowed to do the same thing?
Sure, but there is a difference between pursuing those legal options after all votes were cast and claiming voter fraud and voter irregularities before a single vote was even cast.
Preemptively declaring there is widespread voter fraud is not the same thing as undertaking a legal challenge when the margin of victory is razor thin. Why is this difficult to grasp?
If the election as a whole hangs in the balance of a particular state’s margin-of-error-triggered recount, then by all means he should knock himself out. Otherwise, in order to explore “legal options” he will have to get a court to agree to indulge him, which isn’t going to happen.
Here’s an example of the difference in what Trump is doing. Pennsylvania hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, almost 30 years ago, and the vast majority of polls put Clinton ahead of Trump in the state. Yet, Trump has suggested that if PA doesn’t go for him, then then it must be because of fraud. According to what he’s said in the past, it wouldn’t be simply because less people voted for him, it would be because of fraud. That creates a future link and causation when there is no evidence for it. He’s priming people to be angry at his loss, even if it’s by a massively huge margin, because the only possible reason he could lose in PA could be by fraud. Therefore, any outcome that isn’t his victory is invalid because it has to have been obtained through fraudulent means.
Gore never did this. Gore contested the election through our judicial process after its close. Further, he was contesting what everyone, even Bush, accepted to be a very, very narrow margin. Gore never spoke prior to the election about how the only real reason for his loss in a state could be because of fraud or some other process that would invalidate the results. He accepted that he would abide by the results of the election.
Yeah…what harm could come from saying the election is rigged? And what could he possibly be trying to accomplish by saying that?
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/92143964/?client=safari
https://mobile.twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/787314656641712128
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-trump-warnings-conspiracy-rig-election-are-stoking-anger-among-his-followers/LcCY6e0QOcfH8VdeK9UdsM/story.html
Josh, when Trump loses the election by a few million votes, you think it’s in his or the country’s best interest to challenge it? Is this really in any way, shape or form similar to 2000?
The Yusef Salaam editorial was positively chilling. A man who has a realistic chance of becoming president 1) took out an ad to advocate changing the laws and 2) still believes that Mr. Salaam is guilty suggests an inability to admit being wrong and to update his opinions based on new information. Thank you for calling that editorial to my attention.
Finding a few fringe wackos from a particular demographic and trying to portray them as the mainstream of a particular demographic, like the author of that story does and the media so often does, is genuinely dishonest. Trump supporters are not any more likely to do something than any other candidates supporters. Two black panthers showed up at a Philadelphia election center on election day with billy clubs in 2008 trying to intimidate voters but I am not stupid enough to try to say they represented all Obama supporters. That’s how trump supporters are being portrayed though.
Obama wasn’t telling his supporters to go and “monitor” polling places. Trump’s basically telling his supporters to racially profile when they do this too, all of which is illegal, and he has encouraged violence at his rallies, among other things. And Trump’s supporters are nowhere near as diverse as Obama’s were, so obviously it’s easier to portray a broader swath of them than it is for Obama’s, especially with how much divisiveness Trump’s campaign has brought to the GOP.
Josh,
Fallacy of the overwhelming exception. Thanks.
There is ample material with which you can criticize Trump, but the idea that he would jail his political opponent(s) is a bit incomplete. He said he would appoint a special prosecutor. His comment about Clinton being in jail, while likely wrong in practice, was merely his opinion on the result of the special prosecutor’s work. It also is worth pointing out that the Democratic Party has no moral credibility to make that charge, considering the desire by some (but not all) members to jail “deniers” of climate change and the shananigans with Rick Perry, for example.
I’m growing weary of all the dissembling and false equivalencies in this election.
First of all, Trump said his goal was to put Hillary Clinton in jail. The special prosecutor is just a means to that end. He’s uses the “lock her up” bit at rallies over and over. He may not actually be able to jail his opponents, but he’s absolutely made clear that he would like to do so.
As to putting climate change deniers in jail, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Get back to me when it’s a major figure within the party–Obama, Clinton, Reid–that’s saying that (assuming anyone has); THEN it will be somewhat similar. As to Rick Perry, that was not the finest day for the Texas Democrats, but they were within their rights to ask a court to look at that situation (ala Bridgegate). What they did NOT do was spend months encouraging supporters with chants of “lock him up,” effectively arguing that anything short of a jail sentence meant that the system was rigged.
Daniel,
That’s literally the first I’ve ever heard of jailing climate change deniers. You can’t imprison people for being stupid.
Even beyond the fact that Trump is essentially threatening to jail his political opponent, he acted as though it was in the POTUS’s powers to appoint a special prosector. He said he was going to direct his Attorney General to appoint a special prosector and that we’re “gonna get” a special prosector. He acted as though he’d just tell his AG to appoint a special prosector and it would be done. That is inherently problematic because it’s not how the US works. The Justice Department is intended to be largely apolitical, and they control the appointment of the special prosector. It’s not the office of the president. POTUS can ask the AG, and the AG can think about it and decide. Trump cannot force the appointment or guarantee the appointment, and speaking like that is reminiscent of Nixon’s attempts to use the IRS.
The person rumored to be Trump’s choice for AG, if elected, is Christie. Christie was the one who started the “lock her up” chant back at RNC convention.
Trump said he will hand pick a prosecutor and then told Hillary she should be in jail. He has led chants of “lock her up” about Hillary and at least one of the women who accused him of sexual assault. If you don’t see these actions as undermining the rule of law it’s because you don’t take Trump seriously. That’s fine but it’s clear some of his supporters take him very seriously.
And no, not all Trumo supporters are talking about rebellion our a coup or monitoring polling stations but some are and they are doing so at Trump’s express direction. Obama didn’t tell black panthersto go to monitor polls. So there is a big difference. Trump is actively encouraging people so he will be responsible when people does exactly what he tells them. Words mean something. Trump means something when he says the election is rigged and tells people to monitor the polls. Why is it you think he is saying these things?
Keith, loved your take on the Tebow situation. Just curious: Have you heard–directly or indirectly–from Mets’ executives about their folly, er, experiment?
Whatever you do, Keith, don’t read the comments section on that piece. It is a sewer among sewers, starting with the guy at the top who somehow brings Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, and PCP abuse into the equation.
Several GOP leaders denounced Trump’s charge that the election will be rigged, including Paul Ryan, Peter “I’m not the football writer, OK!” King and his own running mate, Mike Pence. So what does Trump do? Tell them they are all wrong. Of course, Trump has claimed rigged elections in the past. He said Obama only won in 2012 because of dead people voting. He claimed Cruz cheated after he lost in Iowa. And he claimed Rubio cheated when he lost in Florida. As electoral-vote.com said today, GOP leaders will be in a real tough spot if Trump loses. Do they let him go along with it and keep his followers in the fold or break away and let Trump pursue that option all on his own? We might see how it may play in the next few days.
I predict that electoral-vote will have more on this subject tomorrow…