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.