One new post this week for subscribers to The Athletic, my ranking of the top 100 prospects in this year’s MLB Draft class. The Vance Honeycutt defenders have logged on, but they always seem to log back off when I explain why they’re too high on their guy.
I’ll be back on Stadium, in studio again, but on Tuesday this week due to the holiday and some travel on my end. Diamond Dreams airs at 2 pm ET, and I’ll likely do one segment as usual on Unpacked around 2:40. Both shows re-air often during the week, usually twice a day as far as I’ve been able to tell. You can watch via the app or with certain subscriptions to Youtube, Fubo, Roku, etc.
I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this week, talking about my longtime hobby of playing the guitar and how beneficial I find it even though I’m usually playing for nobody but myself, as well as a little note on the adult I have successfully created after 18 years of hard work.
And now, the links…
- ProPublica has the story of how a scientist within 3M showed decades ago that perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, known as PFAS, was a “forever chemical” that stayed in our bodies and the environment, but the company lied to her and the public about its effects.
- Writing in the Boston Review, UCLA History Professor Robin D.G. Kelley exposes how the university stood by while peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were assaulted by white supremacists and so-called Zionists, along with outside agitators, and then charged the students with crimes. He also claims that UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has presided over a culture of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment while stifling any speech, including in the classroom, that might be considered derogatory of Israel. Block testified in a sham hearing before Congress, where Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) pointed out that he chose not to act to prevent the violence.
- Some new data has changed cosmologists’ views on the nature of dark energy and the eventual fate of the universe.
- NBC’s Brandy Zarozny goes inside the truly broken worldview of Nicole Shanahan, the VP candidate on RFK Jr.’s quixotic Presidential campaign.
- Nature looks at the growing problem of harassment of scientists and how institutions are ill-equipped or unwilling to fight it. One solution I don’t see employed enough: Threats of physical violence are illegal in the United States, usually as federal crimes. Put resources into tracking those people down and prosecuting them.
- A panel of experts on international law published an op-ed in the Financial Times supporting the ICC’s decision to pursue charges against Israel and Hamas for war crimes.
- From March, this video from Rabbi Daniel Bogard looks at why American Jews feel connected to Israel; it’s part one of a very informative series on American Jewish culture and identity at a time when that has become incorrectly equated with Zionism.
- Will Bunch writes that in the war on our democracy, we’ve already lost Texas. Marc Elias goes further, pointing out that we have no excuse when Trump has warned for years that he wants to take our democracy down.
- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) claims that she “support(s) babies, moms, and families,” but ProPublica details just how much she has denied support to those same groups – while, of course, killing her dog for not being the goodest boy.
- OpenAI’s brazen appropriation of Scarlett Johanssen’s vocal likeness “gave away the game” on AI, according to The Atlantic’s Charlie Wetzel: AI advocates will do whatever the hell they want, and we can’t stop them.
- Thousands of kids were prescribed the utterly useless and often harmful HCQ and ivermectin for COVID-19 infections, with Arkansas and Oklahoma doctors leading the way.
- International negotiations on a treaty to try to prevent the next pandemic broke down due to nationalist and anti-science sentiments. The World Health Organization’s Global Health Law director argued that “Donald Trump is in the room” and if Trump wins he’d likely “torpedo” any future negotiations.
- Police in Fontana, California, used “psychological torture” to get a man who reported his father missing to confess to stabbing and killing him … except his father was still alive and unharmed. The city will now direct nearly $900,000 of taxpayer money to Thomas Perez, Jr., for the pain and distress inflicted on him, during which police also told him they were killing his dog and led him to try to hang himself in custody. What I don’t see is whether any of these officers were fired or even disciplined.
- A public safety officer at the College of Staten Island has been suspended for saying on camera “I support killing all you guys” to pro-Palestinian protesters.
- Theresa Claiborne, the first Black woman to fly in the U.S. Air Force, retired this week from her job as a pilot for United Airlines. Note her comments on how children would react to seeing her in uniform in airports. Representation matters.
- Two board game crowdfunding efforts of note: Stupor Mundi, the newest title from the designer of Darwin’s Journey and Newton, funded in about four hours; it looks like it might be a little lighter in weight than Nestore Mangone’s previous releases.
- And Feudum, a 2018 game with a listed weight on Boardgamegeek of 4.58 out of 5 (!), has a crowdfunding page for a new edition that is over $300K raised. I actually hadn’t heard of this game, probably because anything of that weight and a playing time over two hours is of little to no interest to me.
I’ve stayed out of the AI debates because I didn’t feel I knew enough to make a valued judgment. However it’s really disturbing to me that the tech companies don’t want to held liable for abuses of AI or the end results of AI while also saying that AI itself can’t be held accountable for screwups or abuses by end users. That’s really disturbing to me. And yeah the ScarJo controversy was almost too on the nose. As much as Congress seems to want to legislate TikTok out of existence, I would argue the bigger issue is AI and what seems to be in the not so distant future.
I think the only answer is transparency. If we treat AI as the tool it is, then people who use AI to do something criminal – like discriminate against applicants based on a protected category – should be held liable.
This means that no one would be willing to use AI without transparency about how it functions, and might ultimately require it be open source. I am fine with that. It’s the push to use a black box whose inner workings are secret that we should be afraid of.
I agree there. Right now, the tech companies don’t want transparency or to be held liable. That’s a very problematic combo at the moment. I work in a field where I could see AI being used in the interest of “fairness” without even considering the ghost in the machine. That could lead to some very problematic outcomes.
I wish we would stop referring to it as the GOP. It hasn’t been the GOP in many, many years.
I almost backed Feudum the first time it was out, but dithered until it was too late and unable to be found anymore. I ended up backing the base game and expansions this time around, since I think it is a game I will enjoy and my son will love (and he will beat me badly when we play)
Rabbi Daniel Bogard also has been a vocal advocate for trans kids in Missouri, where he grew up and lives. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/missouri-anti-trans-legislation-judaism-testimony.html
Don’t believe everything you read in the Boston Globe. These peaceful pro-Palestine protesters beat a female student unconscious for being Jewish. The beatings they took were in retaliation, not from white supremacists. I’m certainly not condoning what the Jews did in counterattacking, but those were not peaceful protesters.
Johnny – I’ve removed your links as they all appeared to be misinformation from unreliable outlets. You are welcome to participate in the discussion here, but I don’t want to see any false information spread even in comments, especially not on this topic. The only articles I can find on the incident you allege are from right-wing or otherwise unreliable sites.
I get it, Klaw. I had never heard of two of those sites myself, though the other is, I believe, considered reliable. Here’s a story from a local TV station, though it’s just the victim talking about it.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/jewish-student-recounts-injury-during-ucla-protest/3402539/
But yeah, the major dailies aren’t going to cover stuff that makes their side look bad.
Anyway, all the best
the major dailies aren’t going to cover stuff that makes their side look bad
This isn’t just wrong, but deeply offensive.
Major news outlets have journalistic standards. I can’t just report anything I think is true. We have a whole process for confirming facts to make sure we don’t print nonsense like this story – which, by the way, no independent outlet has corroborated. For you to dismiss the fact-checking apparatus, part of the same ecosystem in which I work, because it doesn’t support your personal bias is just incredibly offensive.
@ Keith
“Major news outlets have journalistic standards.”
What!? I am a bit lost here. Is Fox “News” not considered a major news outlet? (It shouldn’t be, since it’s not actually a news outlet, but I was under the impression it was still considered a major news outlet.)
Regardless, Fox News clearly has no journalistic standards. Also, haven’t you been posting somewhat regularly over the last many years about the lack of journalistic standards from right-leaning newspapers?
Notice, I’m not saying I disagree with you on any of your criticisms of these news outlets. I’m expressing your surprise at the statement regarding journalistic standards.
I don’t really know where to go to get actual information. Obviously not Fox News. I generally use CNN, but that’s also a biased website.
Actually, your blog is probably my most reliable source for news – but “stick to baseball” is only written once a week or less, so on the other days of the week I check what’s happening on cnn.com. But I never assume I am getting honest unbiased information from them.
Funny you should mention that. I was just coming back to see if I could edit and or add that it’s also quite possible that they looked into it and couldn’t source it well enough to run with it. I’m a little late!
I certainly don’t want to support Johnny’s position on this particular issue, but to be fair the increasing distrust of major outlets like the NYT has been earned. I’m sorry if it offends you to suggest that the standards of the past have not been adhered to in the era of “resistance” journalism, but I don’t see how anyone can pretend they have been. I financially support independent outlets now because even though they don’t have the reach of a WP, NYT, or FT, at least I trust their track record for accuracy.
If you would like a specific example, my favorite is the Russian bounty story from Afghanistan. Without wanting to rehash the details, I would say that the fact that they are still editing those stories – without describing the changes – over a year after the fact is damning enough: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html
When you can’t defend a piece you ran (a politically convenient one in an election season, based on information passed by anonymous government sources) you should retract it. You don’t keep ‘fixing’ it with stealth edits. Once upon a time that would not have been up to standards.
Isn’t that evidence of my point, though? You KNOW something’s wrong there, because you expect a certain standard from the Grey Lady and it wasn’t met in this case.
Compare that to the junk sites Jonny posted. None of them bothered to verify this woman’s story, and neither has anyone else that I can see. Perhaps she’s telling the truth, but she couldn’t get a single professional news outlet to run the story – which would have required confirmation from multiple sources, given what I know about how that side of the news business works. (As an opinion writer, I must conform to different standards.) You don’t have that expectation of integrity, accuracy, and thoroughness.
I also flinch at the comparison between a story that relies on government sources and took place on the other side of the world and one that occurred in LA and would be easily confirmed or debunked with first-person sources within this country. There is a huge difference in the technical difficulties between the two. That no serious news outlet has run this story should at least imply that the story has issues.
Yeah, with respect to the specific story Johnny is pushing, there’s been a concerted Hasbara effort to play up the specter of “violence” by Palestinian protestors. But those claims are invariably thin, at the very best. Take the Bari Weiss-promoted story about the counter-protestor getting “stabbed in the eye” by a protestors’ flag. The story sounded bad but once video of the event was found, it was clear that not only was there no malicious intent, there wasn’t even the injury that the counter-protestor originally claimed. Any claim of violence against a movement that has been unflinchingly non-violent needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.
More generally though, I don’t think the “certain standard of the grey lady” is a useful frame here, especially on this issue. Of course there are glaring, obvious, Der Sturmer-level stuff like the “Screams without Words” affair that fits into the “exception that proves the rule” argument you appear to be making. But there’s also a more ingrained and fundamental bias that corrupts almost everything they write on the matter. One that inherently asks the reader to treat Israel as a reasonable, rational actor and Palestine as something less.
https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/a-continuous-series-of-insults-to-our-understanding
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/
Hi Keith,
I have plenty of conflicting emotions about the Israeli-Palestinian topic and have had a tough time expressing them online. A line you used in your links made me want to do my best to make this expression. One term I see being used and one that I think can mean different things is that of a Zionist. I consider myself a Zionist as I believe Israel is a recognized State and deserves to exist – one that will always be safe for Jews to live in.
However, I do not agree with the parties who have hijacked the Israeli nation. Bibi was never a good guy – but once his primary purpose was to keep himself out of jail (and in office to do so), he aligned closely with Nationalists and Fundamentalists. If the term you used in quotes, “Zionist” refers to these groups – then I have no alignment with them.
I just would like people to recognize what our government would look like if we had a conflict on our border with Mexico. What Israel is doing in Gaza, with no plan for the after, no consideration for the innocent and no decency for even their own soldiers are a crime. I recognize this. I hope they have no ruined any chance to find peace for them or the Palestinian people. When I see more and more people sympathizing with Hamas (who should be the enemy of any decent on this planet), the more I fear for my kids with the last name they have. And frankly for the people Hamas represents….
I think a lot of that back and forth might have been avoided if Johnny had only realized that the Boston Review =/= the Boston Globe