I have a new boardgame review at Paste, covering the card-drafting game Skyward. I also had two Insider posts go up earlier this week, one previewing some potential offseason trade targets, the other ranking the top 50 free agents this winter. And I held a Klawchat on Thursday.
Feel free to sign up for my free email newsletter, which I send out … I guess whenever I feel like it. I aim for once a week, although I’ve gone as long as two weeks between issues when I haven’t had much to say. You can see past issues at that link.
Also, don’t forget to buy copies of Smart Baseball for everyone on your Christmas list! Except for infants. They might eat the pages. Get them the audiobook instead.
And now, the links…
- Longreads: You probably saw this remarkable New Yorker piece by Ronan Farrow on how Harvey Weinstein used PIs and former spies to track and harass his accusers. If he could do that, think of the other rich, powerful men who stand accused (or have yet to be accused) of sexual harassment and assaults, including a former president and a current one both accused of similar acts. They’ve probably done it too.
- This 2015 piece from the Guardian details a failed effort to turn the Comoros into a citizenship-for-sale destination for Bidoon, stateless Arabs living in wealthy countries without actual citizenship or even documentation. The Comoros are a desperately poor island country between Madagascar and mainland Africa, beset by repeated coups since they became independent of colonial France in 1975. Needless to say, the plan didn’t work out well for the the tiny nation.
- ProPublica details how right-wing trolls harassed three of its reporters via low-cost methods like filling their inboxes with subscriptions to newsletters.
- James Bridle went very long on algorithm-driven kids’ videos on Youtube and more, arguing that such pablum is damaging our kids. (I would also suggest that parents not give their kids unfettered access to any part of the Internet, but that’s just me.)
- Scientific American gives us Journey to Gunland, on how more guns do not mean less crime, even though many Americans believe the opposite. The more guns in a state, the more violent crimes, including shootings and rapes. They also ran a rebuttal from a pro-gun social scientist they mentioned, and then (scroll down from there) a rejoinder from the original author.
- Are American private colleges and universities making inequality worse as tuition increases and income gaps in the population of potential students grow?
- Roy Moore, who believes gays should be jailed or killed and Muslims banned from Congress, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in 1979 and behaved inappropriately with several other women in their teens. Several leading Republicans called on Moore to withdraw from the Senate race if the allegations are true.
- David French of the National Review cautions conservatives not to dismiss or ignore the allegations. David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times about the cowardice of the “if true” admonitions, which leave the speakers a perfect out.
- Utah Representative Rob Bishop is close to his goal of “invalidating” the Endangered Species Act.
- Trump’s voter “fraud” commission, which is itself based on a fraudulent premise that pervasive voter fraud exists, has been sued by one of its members, alleging violation of transparency laws and other malfeasance by the Republican members.
- A Trump nominee for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench who was unanimously ranked “not qualified” by the American Bar Association was approved in a party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The judge referred on his blog to “Hillary Rotten Clinton” last year and pledged support for the NRA. If you have a Republican Senator from your state, this would be yet another good reason to call and ask him/her to vote against Talley’s confirmation from the full body.
- The swamp is so swampy that minor imbroglios like, say, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lying about $2 billion in personal wealth just sort of slip under the radar.
- They did, however, force one unqualified nominee to withdraw: Michigan state legislator Tim Kelly has his nomination pulled after it was revealed he wanted all Muslims banned from air travel. He’s also said that women aren’t interested in STEM careers, and efforts to encourage girls to pursue such careers are a waste of money. This leaves unanswered the question of what the hell his home district in Michigan is thinking.
- One of my Senators, Chris Coons, is demanding an explanation for the ‘resignation’ of U.S. Attorney Dana Boente just days before Robert Mueller announced the first criminal charges in his investigation of the President’s campaign ties to Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked for Boente’s resignation in late October.
- A Kansas City Star investigation led Antonio “Rico” Soave to end his campaign for Congress, as the story uncovered multiple instances of graft while Soave was the state’s Commerce Secretary – and forced Kansas Governor Sam Brownback to admit he’d fired Soave in June.
- A fungus called coffee rust threatens the world’s arabica crop, exacerbated by climate change that extends the fungus’ active season.
- Climate change is killing farm workers around the world, contributing to the rise of a deadly kidney disease or disorder of unknown cause. I heard about this from a reader who saw in my email newsletter that I like Flor de Caña rum; he mentioned to me that working conditions for their sugar harvesters are abysmal, and they’ve had a rash of deaths due to this disorder.
- Also from the Guardian, those supposedly financially disciplined folks in Congress destroyed an expensive Arctic ice probe rather than pay to store it … because the probe would facilitate research on climate change. You read that right: They threw away a major investment because they didn’t want further proof we are warming the planet.
- Louis C.K.’s film I Love You, Daddy has been pulled from distribution before its release due to revelations of his past sexual harassment of women. Meanwhile, Mel Gibson’s latest movie is out in theaters, even though he’s a pretty terrible human being too.
- Paste calls on all comedians repped by 3 Arts’ Dave Becky to drop him as their manager, as he is accused of facilitating Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment of other comedians.
- Tom Colicchio wrote a widely-praised open letter to male chefs urging them to do more to change the culture of restaurant kitchens, which he argues accept harassment as standard operating procedure and thus stymie the efforts of young female (or, I’d imagine, LGBT or nonbinary) chefs to advance in the industry.
- Some baseball links: Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan asks if the pitch-framing market efficiency is closing.
- Baseball America‘s Teddy Cahill looks at increasingly early college commitments from teenaged players, a practice everyone dislikes but no one wants to address.
- Lindsey Adler (at Deadspin) had the best piece I saw on the Baseball Prospectus writer who didn’t exist. Ryan Schultz was the online persona of a girl, who started the act at age 13 and is now 21, who catfished numerous readers and writers via social media and later multiple sites.
- Mike Tanier writes on Bleacher Report that the NFL has passed the point of no return with Colin Kaepernick as teams give quarterback jobs to vagrants grabbed off the streets rather than call the principled former 49er.
- The World Health Organization is now advising farmers to avoid using antibiotics in healthy animals, given the practice’s contribution to the evolution and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- Why hasn’t California cracked down on anti-vaccination doctors? These quacks are exploiting “medical exemptions” rules, but so far, none has been charged with any form of fraud. If you live there, call your state rep or senator to demand real action on this, before there’s another measles outbreak.
- There’s a new shingles vaccines that is vastly more effective in older patients than any previous vaccine. It uses a new type of adjuvant that might change how vaccines, especially those for patients over 50, are developed.
- Michigan Republicans are pushing forward bills to allow concealed carry in churches and schools.
- Cincinnati politicians are trying to gift FC Cincinnati team owners with a publicly-funded stadium in the town’s Oakley neighborhood. Call your local reps and tell them you know what a colossal waste this is.
- I agree with President Trump! The federal government needs to revoke the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status. It’s a real-estate holding company running a long con on members, and harassed its way into this status in the first place.
- Is vermouth making a comeback? Sales are on the rise, largely due to the wine’s use in certain cocktails, like the Negroni and the Manhattan, which are seeing revivals as well.
- A Macallan 1878 bottle reported to be worth $300,000 has been exposed as a fake, likely produced between 1970 and 1972.
- Astronomers have discovered the first known star to survive a supernova, eventually exploding five separate times over a two-year period.
- Mental floss looks at how the death of a chemist in 1996 changed how labs handle dangerous chemicals forever.
- Five tips for helping your anxious child (or yourself). They check out for me at least.
- Anti-abortion activists are very successful on Twitter, says a pro-choice writer for DAME magazine. Much of what she describes here, like hashtag hijacking, reflects a flaw in the machine, exploited well by one side.
- Necessity breeds invention: Food shortages in North Korea have boosted a black market in privation foodstuffs, many of which are made from soybeans.
- The 7 Wonders app, in development for at least two full years, will be released for iOS this Tuesday, November 14th, with an Android release coming on December 20th.
- An English reporter who happens to be black interviewed white supremacist Richard Spencer on camera, and he let the racist show his true colors. If anything, I wish Younge had let Spencer keep talking; he’s hardly the well-groomed intellectual he pretends to be.