I had two new posts this week for subscribers to The Athletic – an update of my ranking of the top 50 prospects in baseball, including recently-drafted players, and a look at which teams just drafted their new #1 prospects. I did include unsigned draftees on the former list, which is not my typical practice, but with the signing deadline so late this year (and maybe in all future years) I saw more value in this method than in pretending those players didn’t exist; if someone I ranked doesn’t sign, I’ll update the rankings with a new player.
Over at Paste, I reviewed Snakesss, the new social-deduction/trivia game from Phil Walker-Harding (designer of Cacao, Gizmos, Silver & Gold, and Imhotep). It’s quick and fun and appropriately silly, definitely the best party game I’ve tried so far in 2021.
On The Keith Law Show this week, I talked with Fangraphs draft analyst and prospect expert Eric Longenhagen about this year’s MLB draft. You can listen & subscribe on iTunes and Spotify as well.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The Intercept goes deep on how pesticide companies took control of the decision-making process at the EPA, pushing the department to eschew further research that might reveal harm to humans or the environment from chlorpyrifos, neonicotinoid, glyphosate, and more.
- The New York Times explains how the quack Joseph Mercola, who has been spreading bogus anti-science information online for at least a quarter century, is now profiting by lying about COVID-19 vaccines. He should be de-platformed everywhere.
- Anti-vaxxers love to claim that vaccine mandates violate “the Nuremberg Code.” They’re wrong, of course – but I’m sure they understand the power of invoking something related to the Nazi regime.
- The Washington Post explains how the despotic ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE used the Israeli spyware product Pegasus to track and abduct his own daughter after she attempted to flee the country.
- PragerU, the right-wing extremist site that distributes conservative “educational” videos online, has been pushing its content into schools as well through direct outreach to teachers and parents.
- An Alabama doctor wrote about patients begging for the vaccine as they’re dying of COVID-19. Where are the consequences for the politicians – like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who was quick to sign a bill that banned so-called “vaccine passports” just two months ago – who discouraged vaccinations, or the people spreading misinformation online about the vaccines? It’s easy to mock the ignorant, but someone had to put the wrong ideas in their heads.
- It looks like Southern Republicans in power are belatedly getting religion on vaccines, as the threat of an unvaccinated South begins to undermine any progress we’ve made against COVID-19.
- The great Dr. Peter Hotez explains the triple-headed monster that President Biden and all pro-vaccination efforts face – disinformation groups, the money that funds them, and state actors like Russia that help spread anti-vaccine nonsense.
- Meanwhile, anti-vaccine groups on Facebook are changing their names and using code to avoid detection and deletion. It’s good that they’re on the run, but Facebook has to be willing to continue chasing and removing them. Ben Collins also had a great Twitter thread highlighting how the evasion works.
- A Trump-supporting vaccine denialist in Massachusetts died of COVID-19 last week.
- Coal miners in Alabama have been on strike for over three months, seeking better pay and improved safety conditions. Why has there been no media coverage of it?
- This may be an unpopular take, but I do not see the point of putting the couple whose gender-reveal party sparked a deadly wildfire in prison. It’s not going to undo any damage, it’s not going to bring the firefighter who lost his life trying to stop the fire back, and I don’t think it’s going to deter future idiots from doing the same thing any more than massive fines would. It’s a twisted sort of revenge, and just means the state has to incur the cost of keeping the couple in prison (if they’re convicted and sentenced).
- A fundamendalist Christian church in Ireland with a history of spreading anti-Semitic views (e.g., that Jews are manipulating the stock market, and that Jews started the COVID-19 pandemic) has used an Irish law to have one of their critics arrested on charges of ‘inciting hate’ against them. Yes, a hate group is using a law designed to stop hate crimes to silence one of their critics.
Can you comment on the Biden clip where he’s rambling and totally incoherent for a good minute? We’ve disagreed about his mental fitness and that clip is in no way a stutter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Well what’s to say? You have to be careful if you’re just looking at clips from Sky News or some such, because they are going to do their best to edit him to look bad. But that said, you can see from the full video https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/07/22/part-1-entire-joe-biden-town-hall-july-21-vpx.cnn
…or just read a transcript of the questionable part here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/meandering-quote-joe-biden/ . He mostly kept it together but he did get pretty lost at one point.
Anyone telling you this is the same guy who debated Paul Ryan several years ago is gaslighting you, but he has been mostly keeping it together in public. He must be delegating a lot, but if the recent antitrust moves are anything to go by, that could still end up with him being a better President than Obama.
FFS, Trump frequently rambles incoherently–he just does so with higher energy and a lack of self awareness (Dunning-Kruger effect). Trump also has all of the hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder, while Biden has a history of being empathetic. Biden is certainly not as sharp as he used to be, but neither is Trump. Those were the choices, and even if I were told by a time traveler that Biden had undiagnosed rapid-onset Alzheimer’s I would still have voted for him over Trump.
Am I the only the one who would like to know the origin of the 1920’s slang for the going to the bathroom? I looked up the answer and just don’t see the connection.
I guess I don’t have any issue if the couple that started the wildfire from a gender reveal goes to jail, though 30 years seems excessive. If it was someone setting off legal fireworks and a similar outcome occurred, I would think the same sentence would apply. What you did may be legal, but you’re still responsible if you’re negligent. My guess is they’ll have difficulty paying a massive fine and there are probably more than a few civil cases just waiting for the criminal preceedings to complete. A jail sentence probably gets more publicity and maybe it makes others reconsider their decision.
One thing from the article to highlight. While human caused wildfires tend to destroy more property and lives, natural wildfires tend to destroy more acreage. This is mostly due the fact a lightning strike that starts a fire in a very remote region is going to be near impossible to put out (witness the ongoing Bootleg fire in Oregon).
Just popping in to say the new Iron Maiden video is metal as fuck in the best way possible. The aesthetic reminds me of the 1981 “Heavy Metal” movie.
I agree on little or no prison for the gender reveal couple. Prison should be mostly about rehabilitation or protection of the public and neither applies here. Perhaps a month in jail in case there is any small deterrence value and a fine hefty enough that their incomes are garnished for life.
Not sure where you live but I’m in southern California, not too far from where these folks started that fire. Dude it is so dry here. People playing games like this gets other people killed. This wasn’t someone out weed whacking who caused a spark, this wasn’t a kitchen fire that got out of control. This is an incendiary device that they shot off outside. They can pay a fine, they can go to jail I’m good with it. Don’t mess around with fire in the state right now, it’s dry dude.
I live in Northern California. Coastal breezes and a lack of nearby woodlands have kept my town safe from wildfire thus far, but we’ve regularly housed evacuees from nearby fires. My point on little or no prison time for the gender reveal couple is that perhaps 90% of the population already gets that playing with fire in dry conditions is a bad idea and I don’t think the remaining 10% would be swayed by strangers going to prison. It’s like how the vaxx-adverse aren’t swayed by over 600k Covid deaths. And if there is little or no deterrence, long-term financial pain is the more appropriate form of punishment.
First off nice job housing evacuees. Good on you, Dave.
It’s all guesswork but the 90/10 I don’t think is accurate. I think people do pay attention to stories like this one (I literally barely go to a CNN or MSNBC and don’t have any social media accounts and even I’ve seen like three or four articles like this) which are that mix of click-bait, human tragedy and “it could happen to you” and if the follow-on is “And then they went to jail” I feel like that’s a coda that could get passed around the next time someone is planning on using a bomb to announce the birth (or I guess just gender) of their kid.
To your point it’s dry AF up in here. Takes literally just one spark to ruin a whole bunch of people’s days. If sending some folks away for a while due to a bad decision stops just one spark the ROI feels maybe worth it? One rando with a poorly designed sparkler can do damage similar to a maniac with a gun. Any deterrent is ok by me (though granted there’s underlying issues that need to be addressed in both scenarios).
Good thread on convincing the hesitant: https://twitter.com/mshannaht_phd/status/1419083164157452291?s=21
The sourcing on the Russian part of the anti-vaxx article seems thin (especially since the dude just links to his own article). Wouldn’t trust something that says “the us state department said…” and nothing else.
Why wouldn’t we imprison someone for all the harm they caused from their own stupidity and thoughtlessness?
Why would we? What is the point of prison? Your question assumes that it is to remediate harm – but prison doesn’t do that.
May wanna fact check the Alabama doctor story. Her county is averaging about 1 Covid death per day.
People need to get vaxxed. But BS stories are BS stories, regardless of which side they’re on.
Cases in Jefferson County are up tenfold since the start of July. They may not have up-to-the-minute death statistics online. I don’t see any news outlets challenging her claims, or anyone from her hospital saying otherwise.
And this is how misinformation spreads. “I saw it on Facebook and it made sense to me.”
You can support the push for vaccination without spreading unverified claims from Facebook.
I said no such thing, nor did I see this on Facebook. I linked to an article in a reliable news outlet. The Washington Post also covered this story. So did the Guardian and the Boston Globe. If those sites all failed to do their due diligence, that’s a problem, but I relied on reliable sources here, and your insinuation that I did otherwise is unwelcome.
The only thing you state is that “her country is averaging about 1 Covid death per day” and there is nothing in the article that states otherwise. She explicitly states that a lot less people are dying today than at the peak in January. I doubt you read the article.
However, the situation in Alabama is bad, regardless of deaths per day, because deaths lag case increases by 2-4 weeks. Alabama isn’t even the hardest hit state right now, that’s likely Missouri or Arkansas, but the article also doesn’t state anything to suggest otherwise.
You’re making accusations of misinformation but you haven’t stated one thing that is not honest in the article. I’d love to hear specifics about the article that are incorrect or misinformation.
He’s just trolling.
Yup, right wing Twitter trolls have been calling her a liar with basically the same (non)evidence as “FactCheck.” But what’s really implausible about her story? There have been stories about regretful COVID denialists since the beginning of the pandemic. And if you don’t like the story based on her Facebook post, how about one from doctors in another state with patients saying essentially the same thing: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/us/florida-coronavirus-hospital-surge/index.html
The doctor’s quote clearly states this conversation is occurring when the patient is being intubated. So it’s not happening when they’re about to die, but when they’re so sick they’re going to the hospital. On July 1, the seven day average for hospitalizations in Jefferson County was 34 and was 64 as of July 15, the last day of statistics before her post. The seven day average for ICU hospitalizations on July 1 was 14 and on July 15 it was up to 29.
This highlights something I’ve seen a lot from people trying to dismiss the threat of the virus. They only focus on the death rate and completely ignore the other negative outcomes. Going to the hospital, even if I eventually walk out, is something I’d like to avoid. And that is before talking about potential long term health complications and the costs of being admitted to the hospital and missing work (even if you are fortunate enough to have good health insurance and plenty of PTO days).
Any disagreement is a troll. This is how echo chambers form.
No, you are a troll. You made that clear through your behavior and your language. Others have pointed out why your claims about this doctor are bogus; I have pointed out that your characterization of articles from reliable news outlets as “I saw it on Facebook” was inaccurate. Respond to those instead.
If you believe that anyone who disagrees with KLaw on this blog is immediately labeled a troll then you’re either being willfully ignorant (my lean at the moment) or this is the first time you’ve ever looked at this blog. Either way, you’re embarrassing yourself. As much as I’m enjoying watch you get dunked on, it might be wiser to quit while you’re behind.
“FactCheck” has been doing the COVID denial dance here, under various names, for over a year. The goalposts keep moving, but the message is the same – downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic to question the wisdom of the response.