Stick to baseball, 7/28/17.

For Insiders, I ranked the top five farm systems in baseball, broke down the Jaime Garcia trade to Minnesota, and broke down Tampa Bay’s trades for Lucas Duda and Dan Jennings. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

UPDATE: I’ve got one more Insider post covering a few small trades from this week.

I appeared on the Freezing Cold Takes podcast this week, discussing my worst takes, my scouting process (and how failed evaluations have changed it), and Smart Baseball.

I’ve exhausted most of my signings schedule, but will be at GenCon in Indianapolis, signing books on Friday, August 18th, and I believe I will also be signing books at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia in November. Also, Volumes Book Cafe in Chicago has signed copies for sale; call (773) 697-8066 to purchase one.

And now, the links…

• I assume you’ve seen the New Yorker piece that resulted from Anthony Scaramucci calling reporter Ryan Lizza. I keep seeing references to Scaramucci as “surprisingly candid,” which is a cute euphemism for “dangerously unhinged.”
• William Regnery II inherited millions and decided to plow them into funding racist right-wing movements across the country for 15 years. It’s finally paying off for him.
• Twitter experienced no user growth in Q2 and actually lost users in the U.S. Maybe one reason is that their Nazi problem is still out of control.
• Genes can “jump” around on chromosomes, a process called transposition, and this may be a cause of many major diseases, including hemophilia, cancer, and diabetes – but the transposons can also produce beneficial results in humans and other species as well.
• The Atlantic profiles Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who speaks and acts like a decent human but still votes for everything Trump proposes, including ACA repeal (which Flake cheerfully supports) and every dubiously qualified Cabinet candidate to come before the Senate.
• Arepas, the thick Venezuelan cornmeal pancake that’s split in two (like an English muffin) and filled with meat or cheese, have become trendy around the world even as Venezuelans can’t afford to make them.
• I haven’t tried this yet, but Anova, the makers of the sous vide device I own and often recommend, posted a recipe for making cold-brewed coffee via sous vide.
• English comedian Peter Price spoke to the BBC about being sent for “aversion therapy” in the 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal and gays were targets for attacks. (Video)
• A group of academics, led by several at Cal Berkeley, have collaborated with anti-GMO (and thus anti-science) groups to attack the new documentary Food Evolution and silence debate on GMO safety, despite a preponderance of evidence that genetically modified foods are safe to grow and consume.
• An American neurosurgeon volunteering in Tanzania realized that when he left, no one would be able to perform the life-saving surgery he was providing, so he trained a local medical officer who had no surgical experience to perform it. And it worked.
• ProPublica details a new type of inmate abuse on Rikers Island, shackling inmates to “restraint desks,” which leaves them defenseless if another inmate in the room slips out of his restraints.
• Got a newborn somewhere in your life? Go get a pertussis booster shot to help protect that infant from whooping cough, which can kill a child.
• Government run amok? A meal program for seniors in Albuquerque prohibits the recipients from using condiments or even salt to force them to comply with health guidelines.