A rather unproductive trip to Florida (thanks in no small part to rain and high school coach decisions) is over and I’m heading home before my first TV hit of the new season, on this week’s Wednesday Night Baseball Telecast of the Phillies at the Reds. I’ll be on roughly for innings four through six, discussing the teams’ farm systems and strategies as well as this year’s draft, in which the Phillies pick first and the Reds pick second.
I had three Insider pieces over the last eight days: my status updates on the top 50 prospects; my full standings and award winner predictions for 2016; and a scouting blog on Detroit and Atlanta prospects, led by Michael Fulmer.
I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.
And now, the links…
- A North Korean defector describes growing up in one of the country’s prison camps, the mere existence of which Pyongyang has long denied. The Daesh gets the headlines right now, but among formal states in the world, is there any more dangerous than this one?
- This Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece about an operative who claims to have rigged several Latin American elections is riveting and entirely disturbing, such as the claims about manipulating public opinion via social media sockpuppet accounts. He’s now in prison in Colombia. I know the Cold War CIA no longer exists, but one wonders if an unscrupulous government intelligence agency might find use for this hacker’s skills in disrupting elections in hostile states.
- Nature discusses the black-hole collision that reshaped physics, because it produced gravitational waves that we could detect, thus providing direct observational evidence of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
- A charter school – of course – in California has reopened after an unvaccinated student caught the measles, but some stupid, selfish parents still won’t vaccinate their kids.
- The Netherlands is going to have to close some prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. A focus on rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders plus decriminalization of personal drug use are factors behind the drop in crime.
- Donald Trump and his now-charged campaign manager used classic victim-blaming language to try to evade the consequences of an assault caught on video.
- Climate change – which is actually happening, and caused by man, no matter what every remaining GOP Presidential candidate tells you – is affecting the Antarctic ice shelf more than previously forecasted, which could lead to sea level rises of up to three feet by the end of the century. On the bright side, there’s an enormous financial opportunity right now in future beachfront property near the South Pole.
- From last year in the New Yorker, can reading make you happier? I’d certainly argue yes; reading is my daily meditation, although I sometimes indulge in the more traditional breathing meditations as well.
- Why do we teach young girls that it’s cute or even expected to be scared? I’m guilty of this too, although I might be equally guilty if I had a son. I’ve always tended to be a nervous person anyway.
- This rant by author LaMonte M. Fowler comes unapologetically from the left side of the political spectrum, but his targets are those on the far right, so I imagine many of you will find at least some of his points amusing, as I did.