For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I had a scouting notebook on Jesus Made, Luis Peña, Trey Yesavage, and some Orioles and Brewers low-A prospects, and a post on the 2025 draft prospects who might be the first to reach the majors.
Over at Paste, I reviewed Conservas, a solitaire push-your-luck game that brings environmental sustainability into its victory conditions.
I also sent out another edition of my free email newsletter on Monday.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The fast-fashion craze is a huge drain on the planet’s resources, although this Scientific American feature also examines some entrepreneurs fighting to make clothing more sustainable.
- In the New Yorker, Rivka Galchen examines the enormous cost we’re about to face from rising vaccine denialism (or “skepticism”).
- The New York Times tells the stories of people caught up in measles outbreaks from Texas to North Dakota, all preventable, all the result of scam artists and lunatics spreading lies about vaccines.
- Kate Shemirani was a nurse in Britain who lost her license for spreading false information about COVID-19. Her anti-medicine insanity ran so deep that her 23-year-old daughter just died of a treatable cancer because her mother opposed her getting chemotherapy. Shemirani’s two sons blame their mother and are urging social media sites to crack down on misinformation.
- Gregg Gonsalves writes in The Nation about the cowardice of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician who voted to confirm RFK, Jr., knowing full well what the noted anti-vaccine crank would do as head of the HHS.
- A presentation for this week’s meeting of CDC vaccine “advisers” cited a study on thimerosal in vaccines and autism that does not exist. (There is no link between thimerosal and autism.)
- Vanity Fair profiles Iowa state Rep. J.D. Scholten (D), who is running to unseat Sen. Joni “We all die some day!” Ernst (R) while also pitching for the independent Sioux Falls Explorers.
- Haaretz spoke to IDF soldiers who say they were ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians trying to get food and other aid.
- The University of Florida’s law school gave an award to a paper written white-nationalist student in which he argued that Constitutional rights only apply to white Americans.
- Harvard hired a researcher to examine the school’s historical ties to slavery … but when he found too many, they fired him.
- Everything is bad – it’s just as terrible as you imagined and probably worse – but a three-judge panel struck down a Louisiana law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. Your religion is yours; don’t force it on me or my kids or anyone but your own.
- Your energy bill may be going up because of the AI bubble as energy companies rush to build more infrastructure to support these greedy tech companies.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R, of course) refused $450 million in federal funds that would have provided food to school-aged children over the summer. Just like Jesus intended.
- Roll20-owned site DriveThruRPG, a major store to download new and classic role-playing games, removed a game called Rebel Scum from its catalog because the anti-fascist game is “too political.”
- I really hesitate to share anything made by AI, but this satirical newscast is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in months.