My biggest piece this week was my annual Gen Con wrap-up for Paste, covering the 20 best games I got to play, demo, or just watch at the convention, and discussing pretty much everything else I saw too.
For Insiders, I wrote up what Shane Baz’s inclusion means for the Chris Archer trade, with scouting notes on Adam Haseley, Nolan Jones, and some pitching prospects. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.
I sent out the latest edition of my free email newsletter on Friday. Feel free to sign up for more of my ramblings, plus links to all of my content.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The New York Times profiles the privacy activists who fought Google, Facebook, & other tech giants over how they used customers’ data.
- This research paper from May finds that hospitals’ leverage results in large price swings (PDF) even across “undifferentiated” services between different facilities, one possible contributor to the rising cost of health care that any reform proposal will need to address. Directing patients to lower-cost providers for such basic services could save patients and insurers a significant amount of money.
- Food writer Michael Twitty visits his ancestral homeland of Ghana for the first time, in the company of four African-American chefs, to eat traditional Ghanaian food and reconnect with his roots.
- Dan Gillmoor, director of the Knight Center at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, calls on all journalists to work together to defend the freedom of the press and expose the degradation of key cultural norms that underpin our society, including voting rights, free speech, and opposition to corruption.
- Dr. David Glosser, the uncle of White House policy adviser and xenophobic reactionary Stephen Miller, argues that Miller’s anti-immigration stance is ‘hypocritical’ because Miller wouldn’t be in the U.S. were it not for the same immigration laws Miller is trying to roll back. That’s not a perfect argument – I don’t think it makes Miller a hypocrite for arguing for tighter borders, but it makes his beliefs about the borders inconsistent with his own history.
- The Philadelphia Citizen and its partners launched a series of related pieces on the high cost of being ‘broke’ in Philadelphia. For example, WHYY looks at how the cost and limitations of public transit reduce job options for poor Philadelphians.
- At the Athletic, Melissa Lockard wrote about her husband’s passing this month at age 41 of a rare cancer. The piece is free for all readers, and is every bit as gutting as you’d expect.
- This Royals Review post’s title makes it sound like a mere hit job on the team, but “It is possible that the Royals do not understand how numbers work” makes a smart, broader point that the team’s fealty towards Alcides Escobar is irrational based strictly on the math, without involving emotions at all.
- Our jury system is not well built to adjudicate questions of science, a fact demonstrated yet again when a jury decided in favor of a man who claimed Monsanto’s Roundup gave him cancer. The main problem here is that you can pretty much never say what caused someone’s cancer; we can make educated guesses, of course, but cancer is aberrant cell division, and can happen without any apparent external cause.
- Then the Environmental Working Group (EWG) opportunistically put out a press release claiming that they found excessive quantities of glyphosate (Roundup) in breakfast cereals, without putting their claims through peer review or explaining why they used a standard of 1/10,000th that of the EPA tolerance for glyphosate. Slate explained why the EWG piece and credulous media reports on it are all bunkum.
- An ongoing measles epidemic has sickened over 100 people in 21 states already. And if people try to tell you measles isn’t that bad, ask them if they know about the fatal brain-wasting complication that shows up ten years later.
- An 11-month-old boy had a stroke from catching the chicken pox from unvaccinated older siblings. (He was too young for the vaccination.) I don’t understand how this isn’t child neglect. The boy will likely have permanent neurological damage and is at increased risk of another cerebrovascular incident.
- I linked to the #MeToo stories on Four Barrel Coffee over the winter, when the scandal first broke. Eight months later, the business is recovering but the owners haven’t divested to employees as they promised. Their reasons aren’t invalid, but when you state to the public and to your workers that you’re going to do something, failing to do so is a serious abdication of responsibility.
- This New York Times story asks what happens to #MeToo when the harasser is a feminist professor? The answer, entirely predictably, is that other academics closed ranks around her, rather than believing her accuser.
- Neo-Confederates – Christ, how is this even a thing – are now openly courting Russian assistance, which has to be a joke, not that I think these people are smart enough to punk the mainstream media, but white supremacists making friends with our main geopolitical adversary, today and from the last 70 years, is too ridiculous to be real. Of course, these neo-Nazi types ain’t the brightest bulbs.
- First We Feast’s Hot Ones videos can be kind of amusing for the guests’ reactions to the spiciest hot sauces they consume as the interview nears its end, but most of the time, that’s been the only appeal for me. Their latest episode with Michael Cera is the best pure interview I’ve seen from the show – and he takes the million-Scoville hot sauce like a damn veteran.
- KUOW looks at how Ohio used technology to help clear its rape kit backlog and asks why other states, like Washington, aren’t doing the same.
- West Virginia’s Republican Party just pulled an end run around voters to pack its Supreme Court before this fall’s elections.
- Joe Scarborough asks why the GOP has abnegated its responsibilities on Russia despite clear evidence that the country interfered in our elections and continues to do so, even trying to stop ongoing investigations into Russia’s efforts.
- Georgia leaders are trying to close polling places in heavily Democractic precincts, citing ADA requirements to justify their attempts at voter suppression. The ACLU is fighting it, but the real problem is the 2013 Supreme Court ruling Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated key parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- BuzzFeed profiled Parkland shooting survivor Jaclyn Corin, who is less famous than some of her classmates but is more instrumental in organizing the students’ movement for greater gun control.
- Entertainment Weekly interviewed Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar on LGBTQ representation in animation and children’s series.
- I’m not sure if this Vox piece on why adults find it hard to make and maintain friendships is all that accurate, but its points, especially about being a reliable friend, are worth considering.
- Board games: If you’re familiar with the very fun One Night Ultimate Werewolf – which, I recently discovered, my six-year-old niece is shockingly good at playing – there’s a spinoff title, One Night Ultimate Super Villains, on Kickstarter now. It’s a little more kid-oriented in theme and language.
- Starling Games has a Kickstarter going for a new expansion to its Alien Frontiers game.
Right or not, amazing how we live in a time where the story about impeached judges can be so quickly headlined in pure political terms without mention of the underlying abuses of the taxpayer’s dime. The thought of a $32,000 couch in my living room is still cracking me up.
I agree with you. The judges should be sanctioned, assuming the allegations are true. I don’t know what the sanctions would be in WV. The timing is what’s political about it.
Yes, the timing is what’s political. A Democratic member of the legislature introduced impeachment proceedings last February, but the GOP majority stalled until the mid-August deadline for new elections of the justices on the court, which will now let the GOP governor appoint the entire court to serve for two full years.
A GOP majority stalling on something regarding a Supreme Court so a GOP executive could make a pick? Surely, you jest!
The main problem here is that you can pretty much never say what caused someone’s cancer; we can make educated guesses, of course, but cancer is aberrant cell division, and can happen without any apparent external cause.
While this is true, I think it’s important to make clear that there is at best weak evidence (based on a multitude of studies) that glyphosate can cause cancer. The tobacco companies escaped litigation for years because nobody could *prove* that any individual lung cancer case was caused by cigarettes. They ultimately got nailed because states could show that smoking causes a large increase in cancer risk at a population level (80-90% of lung cancer cases are smokers), which can be used to estimate financial burden. There is no clear health risk for glyphosate use, and it has undoubtedly decreased agricultural costs.
There is no clear health risk for glyphosate use, and it has undoubtedly decreased agricultural costs.
And decreased food costs to the consumer, no? There’s societal value in that.
Yes, it very likely has decreased food costs. To clarify, my argument is that even if there are minor occupational health risks associated with glyphosate, there are net societal benefits. I would argue that there are no societal benefits to tobacco use, only costs.
I dunno, tobacco generated a lot of jobs in Washington, DC, for a lot of years…
I’ve been a fan of Melissa Lockhard for a long time and was really moved by her piece on her late husband. Serious bamf.
Glad you shared that
The irony of the “Neo-Confederates” having pages in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish is pretty high. I can see some Russian developer telling them he would like with them and simply taking their money for little work. The Russians want big groups, like the NRA.
Really nice list, Keith. The Melissa Lockhard piece was very hard to get through.
I’m sorry but some times you can say what most likely caused someone’s cancer. Asbestos is one of very few things that can mesothelioma. The standard for a civil verdict is preponderance of the evidence. It’s pretty much more likely than not. The attorneys might be really good. But I haven’t heard the scientific evidence. I wasn’t at the trial. Maybe you have heard the evidence. But San Francisco juries are very educated, I am certain and 289 million tells me it was very likely compelling.
The standard for a civil verdict is preponderance of the evidence. It’s pretty much more likely than not.
That’s not what a ‘preponderance’ means; if the jury decides side A is 51%, then they choose side A. In science, however, 51% is not sufficient evidence to prove a hypothesis. It’s not even close.
As for the “compelling evidence” you haven’t seen, the American Council on Science and Health disagrees with the verdict, calling it a “hit job on science.”
Your asbestos point is valid. That is a rare exception. Many cancers have possible causes, not silver bullets. Some cancers have no obvious causes at all. I knew a woman in her late 20s who never smoked, whose parents never smoked, and who had no other environmental risk factors for lung cancer, but died of the disease anyway.
Asbestos as a cause of mesothelioma is about as tight as tobacco causing lung cancer (i.e. 80% of cancer cases are linked to asbestos exposure). However, there are still cases of mesothelioma that have not been linked to environmental causes. You can come up with a probability that tobacco or asbestos caused an individual’s cancer, but you can never prove that those agents caused the particular mutations seen in a given cancer patient. For the case of glyphosate, the meta-analyses show either no effect or a low effect that may be confounded by other correlated variables. The chance that glyphosate exposure caused an individual’s cancer is either very low or nonexistent, in stark contrast to cancer patients that were exposed to tobacco or asbestos.
The jury got this wrong. It also happens in non-scientific cases, but even forensic pseudoscience has put innocent people in prison or worse. In cases leading to harm and death, we want justice and someone or something to blame. Cancer sucks. One of its many reasons for sucking is its randomness. I know people who have taken exceptional care of themselves only to get cancer before 40, and others that smoked their whole lives a died of other causes past the age of 90.
That is what preponderance means in law.
See civil pattern jury charge 3.2 on burden of proof.
http://www.lb5.uscourts.gov/juryinstructions/fifth/2014civil.pdf
BTW – just having science in your name doesn’t mean you always have the right intentions. See this story from 2013 on the American Counsel on Science and Health and their methods of funding by Mother Jones.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/american-council-science-health-leaked-documents-fundraising/
Thanks for sharing that piece by Melissa Lockhard. As someone who lost an older brother to lung cancer (smomed for 30+ years, quit 7 years ago, but, still too late) this summer on almost the exact timeline- symptoms (pneumonia) in January, diagnosis in early June, passed on August 3, it really hit home & caused a lump in my throat. He was in the hospital for most of the last 40 days of his life & like Melissa & her husband, when I visited, we would watch/talk about baseball to have a diversion from the obvious.
sorry for your loss Pat
No biggie, but it’s Gillmor.
A friend on Facebook turned me on to the Vox piece about friendship, and it rings true to me. We’re much more flexible in our youth, willing to stretch our bounds to try something new, make a new acquaintance in pursuit of friendship, date someone who’s quite different. And most people get set in their ways as they age, meaning it’s much easier to flake on people to stay home or choose not do something that challenges you or do your own thing. YMMV, of course, but it’s true in my case and I’ll try and challenge those comfort levels more often. Nothing great is achieved by staying at at room temperature.