Stick to baseball, 12/17/16.

My main piece for Insiders this week went up this morning, on the many lost opportunities in MLB’s new collective bargaining agreement, discussing money and rights the union may have left on the table, and why the agreement seemed to come together so late. I also wrote about the Dodgers’ two re-signings earlier in the week, and I held a Klawchat here on Thursday.

At Paste this week I ranked the ten best boardgames I saw in 2016. A few folks have asked why the highly-rated Scythe isn’t on the list; I think that game is too long and overly complicated, with playing times that can top two hours (and a retail price of $90). All ten games I listed are clearly better, in my opinion.

In case you missed it, my list of my 100 favorite songs of 2016 went up here on Wednesday night.

You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.

And now, the links…

• “Never again” died at Srebrenica twenty years ago, so let’s not be surprised that the world is standing by, wringing its hands over a preventable massacre in Aleppo.
• My favorite article this week was by the great food writer Harold McGee, on how our brain’s perception of food shapes how we think it tastes.
• North Carolina Republicans have executed a brazen power grab after losing the gubernatorial election. The Election Law Blog had more details on the coup d’etat earlier this week. I said this on Twitter, but again, if you live in NC and your reps are Republicans, you should be calling their offices every day to express your displeasure at this subversion of the democratic process.
• A difficult but important longread from Jess Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape, on the ongoing struggle of a ballerina and sexual assault survivor.
• In a subscriber-only article (that somehow showed up in full for me last week), the Wall Street Journal‘s economics commentator Greg Ip argues that our economy is stalled by a lack of “big ideas,” technological advances that would both create jobs and raise the overall standard of living.
• The Genetic Literacy Project discusses differing opposition to two similar programs of sterile insect release, one of screwworms made sterile by irradiation, and one of Aedis aegypti mosquitos made sterile by genetic modification. The reason for the difference is, at heart, science-ignorance.
• The great Hugh Acheson is one of four chefs who weigh in on how the election affects their businesses and employees, since undocumented immigrants make up a huge portion of the restaurant workforce. Acheson’s big point is worth remembering – if we have a sphere of control, like a small business to run, then we make sure the people within it are taken care of.
• It’s not a well-written piece, but the argument in this Japan Times editorial is a worthy one: if the CIA has hard evidence of Russian involvement in our election, they need to reveal it now, rather than leaking insinuations that are only creating controversy without informing anyone about the underlying facts. Here’s a perfunctory review of the accusations that Putin personally directed the use of hacked information. You’ll notice I’m not calling for anyone to do anything (e.g., Trump electors to vote for Clinton) because I really don’t know what to make of all this.
• If you use Chrome, you can install the new extension from the Washington Post that tags Trump tweets with explanations of whether they’re false.
• Philadelphia Eagles lineman Brandon Brooks spoke openly about his struggle with anxiety, which caused him to miss several games this year.
• Are chiropractors backing the vaccine-denial movement? Is this a surprise to anyone? I’ve been to chiropractors for back and neck problems, and of the half-dozen I’ve seen, five have tried to dispense irrelevant and/or incorrect medical advice, like claiming gluten was the source of my other ailments or questioning the safety and efficacy of the flu shot. So-called “chiropractic medicine” is a magnet for quackery. These are perfect bedfellows.
• Should states ban teens from tanning beds? It might save lives and money.
• This Economist review of a forthcoming book delves into how and why sugar is our biggest dietary health risk.
• The American College of Pediatricians’ name has been in the news a bit lately, and you should remember that they’re a hate group that targets LGBTQ youth with bullshit press releases and letters that misquote doctors and scientists.
• The potential appointment of Betsy DeVos, who did much to destroy public education in Michigan, as our national Secretary of Education is a bad sign for the separation of church and state, especially regarding our secular, public schools.
• A combination of active practice and passive study is best for learning languages, according to a pair of studies described in this Scientific American piece.
• This list of ten things an author can do in a depressing global environment is actually good advice for readers too. Shorter version: Support good writing with your purse and your mouth.