My Mock Draft 2.0 Is now up for Insiders. You can also see my post from Tuesday ranking the top 25 prospects in pro ball. I’ll expand that list to 50 after the Futures Game in July.
I also held my usual Klawchat, this time on Friday morning on a flight from Birmingham to Baltimore.
And now, the links…
- The wife of one of my readers penned this excellent piece on how protectionism will hurt the United States. With one Presidential candidate pushing a Hawley-Smoot vision of trade, and the other talking about using tariffs as a weapon, we may be on the verge of an entirely preventable hit to our economy.
- Colistin-resistant bacteria have made their first appearance in the U.S. While health officials say there’s no current cause for alarm, this is very, very bad news. The most likely cause? China’s overuse of antibiotics in livestock.
- Best news/opinion piece I saw on the Baylor debacle was this review and takedown from Texas Monthly‘s Jessica Luther and Dan Solomon.
- Peter Thiel, billionaire founder of Paypal and Facebook board member, financed Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker as part of his own personal vendetta. This is a very dangerous precedent for our legal system.
- A Republican judge in Ohio ruled that a GOP-backed law violated the Voting Rights Act because its practical effect would be to suppress the black vote.
- Ah, Mississippi, where gays are second-class citizens and a mentally ill man has been in jail for 11 years without a trial.
- The Washington Post praised a speech in which Elizabeth Warren eviscerated Donald Trump, but does it matter? I feel like his base is impervious to this kind of criticism, and I’m not sure it will sway many of the undecided voters either, so this feels like either wishful thinking or some sort of cheerleading.
- Four WaPo pieces this week. Their in-depth profile of a 13-year-old girl’s online social life disturbed me, the father of a 10-year-old girl who is sitting next to me with her iPad mini right now. Richard Deitsch pointed out online that this girl’s experience isn’t universal, though: she’s financially well off, certainly, and there’s probably a good companion piece to be written on a kid on the other side of the digital divide.
- The best BBQ place in San Antonio has taken the egalitarian cuisine upscale. I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t fit a trip to see Forrest Whitley into my schedule so I could have eaten dinner at the Granary.
- The World Bank issued a report warning of the water shortages that will come with climate change. It’s very cheery stuff.
- A writer at The Mighty shares her story of depression and how we tend to overlook people who appear to be successful in life but may still have depression or anxiety disorder.
- Why was the National Children’s Study cancelled after 14 years, over $1 billion in expenses, and no results? There are many answers, none very satisfying, provided in this look by Undark.