Nothing new from me at the Athletic recently, although I’ll make up for that later this month. My latest review at Endless Mode looks at the new edition of the Reiner Knizia game Botswana, a family-level bidding game that has been published under a half-dozen names, including one edition by Milton Bradley in a traditional mass-market size under the name Quandary.
Now that this is up, I’ll work on another edition of my free email newsletter next. The next Stick to Baseball post will run on the 18th.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: Billionaire Amy Griffin took psychedelics and “remembered” past sexual abuse by a grade-school teacher. She wrote a memoir about it … but no one can confirm any of the details, and she may have just ruined an innocent man’s life.
- ProPublica detailed the 94 million pounds of food aid cancelled by the Trump Administration, hurting poor communities – including many in red states – and farmers as well. Meanwhile, PBS documents federal cuts to pediatric brain cancer research.
- Jack Posobiec made himself famous by pushing the whole Pizzagate hoax, and continues to spread lies and misinformation on behalf of Republicans, now doing so as some sort of consultant on voter fraud. It turns out he’s been voting in Pennsylvania while living in Maryland.
- The Huffington Post spoke to Leonard Peltier, who is now under home confinement after spending 47 years in prison for a crime he probably didn’t commit, about being slightly free and the threat Trump poses to indigenous Americans.
- A New Jersey teenager stalked a girl who rejected him, even describing some of his actions on his Youtube channel, and after police did nothing, he drove his car at 70 mph at the girl and her friend while the two were on their bikes, killing them. Did police fail to react because his father’s a cop?
- I wasn’t aware of “SIM farms” until the Secret Service announced they’d discovered a huge one in New York City; WIRED explains why they’re such a threat to our infrastructure.
- Bluesky is dealing with its first real existential crisis, as noted anti-trans crusader Jesse Singal appears to have violated the site’s TOS, after which Bluesky execs … altered the TOS? TechCrunch and the blog Azhdarchid both delved into the controversy, including Bluesky CEO Jay Gruber throwing a tantrum on the site over it.
- Writer Kaleb Horton died suddenly of a seizure in September, and shortly afterwards an AI-generated slop book supposedly about him appeared on Amazon.
- There’s a new book-club scam targeting authors, asking them to pay to get their books before ‘clubs’ that have no actual members, just AI bots.
- It’s gotten very little attention here in all the chaos, but the Trump Administration is bailing out Trump ally Javier Milei, whose mismanagement of Argentina’s economy and alleged corruption have put the country on the brink, a $20 billion deal that also happens to help billionaire hedge-fund manager Rob Citrone, a buddy of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
- Where does that money come from? Maybe the $18 billion in infrastructure projects for blue New York City Trump is trying to cancel.
- Meta plans to open a data center in Louisiana that will require more energy than the entire city of New Orleans. It’s really well past time to tax these massive energy sinks for the externalities they’re generating.
- South Carolina theocrats are trying to pass the nation’s most draconian abortion ban over opposition from doctors and medical experts. Abortion bans kill pregnant people. They are not ‘pro-life’ in any sense of the term.
- A Christian church leader in Miami had fifty-seven slaves – excuse me, “forced laborers” – in her mansion when FBI agents raided it in August. Michelle Brannon and her partner David Taylor are also accused of running a money laundering scheme, while Taylor is accused of sexual harassment.
- Ever wonder who’s really funding the anti-trans movement? Turns out a lot of the money comes from fossil-fuel companies, apparently using attacks on trans rights as an insidious way to install climate deniers in office.
- The Daily Caller, a fake-news site influential with the current Administration, called for conservatives to commit acts of violence in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk.
- Also underreported: Trump declared that people who are “anti-Christian” are terrorists.
- Meanwhile, Trump supposedly answered questions from Jake Tapper over text message, despite a history of the President eschewing text or email. There’s no confirmation the person responding was actually Trump and it has led to new speculation about his declining health.
- The Alabama owners of three small Alaska newspapers edited an article to remove reference to Charlie Kirk’s “racist and controversial views,” leading to the resignation of three of the writers – which left one of the papers without any journalists on staff.
- A new documentary called The Alabama Solution shows the horrific conditions inside that state’s prison system, using smuggled smartphones to film and photograph the awful state of the facilities. It premieres Friday on HBO.
- Six babies in Israel have died from measles-related complications since May and a seventh will have to have all four limbs amputated, thanks to the work of anti-vaccine lunatics who’ve brought the highly contagious virus back from the edge of eradication.
- There’s a Kickstarter up for expansions to three games published by Cranio: Barrage, Golem, and the Rats of Wister, the last of which I hated when I played it.
- And another for an expansion to Return to Dark Tower, along with a new printing of the sold-out base game.
its over for america.
time to look at the getting outta the country endgame.
Orwell, Heinlein, Atwood. Sadly prophetic.
The Argentina bail-out isn’t getting as much publicity as it should, but the real mystery is why NSPM-7 is almost completely ignored. The anti-Christian prong is only one of a long list of offenses that serve to promote the NAR agenda while also teeing up FBI and DOJ persecution of any leftist organization they choose to tar as supporting “domestic terrorism.” It’s an astonishing document with far more heft than the batshit EO’s the Executive poops out.
Combine the Argentina bailout with the fact that they’re chomping at the bit to stand in as China’s soybean supplier, undermining Trump’s (already very stupid) tariff strategy, and it’s hard to think of the last time the US got dunked on so hard. Half the country seems too braindead to even notice, it’s bleak.
I’ve always enjoyed your writing for over 20 years, but it’s embarrassing for you to call Jesse Singal an anti-trans crusader. It’s a flat out lie and I could only guess you take your opinion completely from activist groups like GLAAD or something. He has always professed being supportive of trans rights. He has always been one of the few honest journalists to relentlessly question medical treatments that are very much unsettled. He’s constantly stressed the importance in bringing much more rigor to an area of medicine badly in need of it. That does not make one anti-trans. Beyond disappointing and dishonest to call him that.
So he’s just asking questions …
Got it.
So have you read one thing Singal has written or just like to be snarky without knowing any of the facts
I have! And the facts are Singal has a decade-long history of misrepresenting facts and scientific research to support his anti-trans views. https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/jesse-singal-misrepresented-a-trans-girls-medical-history-and-she-called-him-out
Yes, I have, and that of real experts. I responded with snark because Jesse Singal is a joke, and because trans rights are under concerted attack and I think that’s the real story.
You post one blog post from one person to show Singal is anti-trans crusader??? Give me a break. Have a bit of standard. The mindset that would equate Jesse Singal = anti-trans is partially why Trump is President. It’s the same thinking that equates parents who question whether or not biological males should play girls sports as antii-trans as well. The far left who think anyone not adhering to the most extreme progressive view is just as toxic and illiberal in their mindset as the far right. Again, show me anything Singal has written to shows he’s an anti-trans crusader.
You asked for evidence, and I gave some. Now it’s not enough? How convenient. Here’s another well-written rebuttal of his work. Here’s another response, pointing out the availability bias in his writing – he overstates the prevalence of detransitioners, and overstates their importance as well.
I can tell where you stand because you used the “biological males” line that transphobes love to trot out, even though that taxonomy is artificial and imprecise. Human sexes are not binary, and the binary categorization is rooted in ignorance (it well predates understanding of genes and chromosomes) and simplicity (the majority of people will fit into one of the two buckets). Nature does not abide by our strict categories; there are people with XX, XY, X0, XXX, and other chromosomal combinations; the chromosomes associated with one primary sex and the external gonads of the other; people with both sex organs, or neither; and so on. Saying “biological males” just tells everyone you have chosen to ignore what we now know about human sex and karyotypes – something Singal has done, and something the evangelical movement has embraced because it fits their anti-science worldview.
It’s just the “what is a woman?” trope. The word “woman” refers usually, but not exclusively, to a human born with two X chromosomes (46,XX karyotype). Nature is more complicated than our attempts to box it into narrow, exclusive categories.
I love how you keep pointing out what three others have said about Singal instead of pointing to his actual writings. Maybe actually read his work before making such an exaggerated claim that he’s an anti-trans crusader. It is so easy to tell people who haven’t read him at all when they make that claim. Even that first link you provided shows you don’t do any research before making that claim. You heard from some people you follow that he’s anti-trans and run with it. He commented on the Cam Ogden situation from a podcast he listened to with Cam’s mother. The podcast badly misstated the actual events. His tweets were a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that podcast. When Cam pointed out what was wrong, he removed the tweet. Maybe try to read both sides before making such sweeping claims.
And if the left want to make such amazing claims about yes biological males playing female sports, that please take that argument to its logical conclusion and ask for the abolishment of female sports. The overwhelming majority of people have these issues when it comes to sports. It does not make them anti-trans. I am 100% against what the right has done pertaining to transgender adults. I think the youth gender care world is badly in need of thorough, rigorous, evidence based care before pushing certain treatments on children. Too many have pushed treatments that right now aren’t backed by the science at all. An overwhelming amount of countries and medical professionals and groups that are not anti-trans at all have supported that view. The far left trans groups have alienated so many people that would be more sympathetic if they were so intolerant to anyone that even questions their most extreme views. But pushing others away from your views and pushing people to question the illiberalism of the far left got us Trump, so it sure seems like a great approach.
“It is so easy to tell…”
Except you’re wrong. I have read his writing and found that he makes claims that aren’t supported by evidence, repeatedly, in one direction. I also happen to be married to scientist who is familiar with the scholarship in the field, thanks to whom I am better equipped to pick up on his misuse and misinterpretation of the research.
For example, in this piece he claims that trauma can cause gender dysphoria, which is not supported by evidence, and for which he provides no citations. It’s a pernicious myth, and echoes similar claims from the anti-gay movement, all of which implies that you can be turned straight or cis through therapy – which we know isn’t true.
@Mark Missed all this (it was a bad week), but I wanted to comment on one thing. Do you really think “Too many have pushed treatments that right now aren’t backed by the science at all” is true? You’ve repeatedly asserted (with no evidence) that the entirety of medicine is abandoning all its scientific principles for just this one thing. Does that really pass the sniff test for you?
So Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and other EU nationals that were well ahead of the US in gender affirming care have within the last few years drastically changed how they approach youth care in a more restrictive way. So there seems to have been many questions about the scientific validity of what was being pushed. Several of the larger clinics in the US are now doing the same. Now you can try to argue some of this is due to political pressure, but you can’t make that argument when so many different organizations and countries are doing following the same path.
Of course it’s political pressure. There is a lack of evidence to support these policy changes, and it appears to be part of a push to re-legalize conversion therapy.
Much of the “evidence” used to support these policy shifts in the countries you cited and the UK comes from highly dubious reports like the highly politicized Cass report and the retracted claims of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, the latter of which comes from a researcher who published in the anti-trans Archives of Sexual Behavior. These are not serious people.
The Cass Report was highly politicized after it was released because of its conclusions. It still is one of the most comprehensive reviews done. Criticize the results all you want, but there was nothing political about its approach. I’m not sure who you refer to when you say these are not serious people. This just proves how toxic the far left can be with this topic. No different than the far right in many regards. Any questioning at all of medical treatments that lack evidence or questioning any of the far left’s orthodoxy brands you anti-trans and makes any debate impossible.
By the way, Sweden changed their approach to youth gender care in 2022 and Norway in 2023 due to a lack of sufficient evidence and there’s nothing showing these changes were the result of any political pressure. Care to explain why they made their changes then? Maybe just maybe things aren’t as settled or cut and dry as you proclaim.
Not sure if your previous post was meant in reply to me or not, but it certainly doesn’t address my point. Do you really think medicine writ large completely abandoned its scientific principles for this one thing? And do you really think the largely non-medical bodies making decisions to rescind healthcare are doing so based on scientific principles? That there is really “nothing political” here? Come on.
I responded to this point further above in my reply to you. Sweden, Norway and Finland made sweeping changes for their medical community. Are you claiming those were non-medical bodies making decisions not based on scientific principles?
Yes! You don’t even have to leave Wikipedia to be disabused of these notions (ie. here’s Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Sweden#Transgender_rights)! Doctors are still free to (and do) provide gender-affirming care, while political groups fight to put up barriers to that care. And you are falling for right-wing propaganda put forth by those same political groups to gin up support against something that was not previously controversial.
I never said Sweden banned anything; said they made sweeping changes. Which they did. And nothing you’ve provided shows all these changes throughout the world are all politically based. What point are you trying to make? My original point in all of this was there is absolutely nothing in Jesse Singal’s writings that show he’s an anti-trans crusader. He has relentlessly criticized studies that make medical claims not supported by the scientific evidence. He has continuously stressed the need for much more rigorous, evidence based studies into these treatments. Anyone that thinks that is anti-trans is contributing to the toxicity of this debate.
“And nothing you’ve provided shows all these changes throughout the world are all politically based”
Since you apparently didn’t even look at the one (1) Wikipedia article I shared, here’s the most relevant citation to that end: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2024.2446345#abstract
“What point are you trying to make?”
Just read the first sentence of the first reply, which I have reiterated more than once since: “Do you really think “Too many have pushed treatments that right now aren’t backed by the science at all” is true?” Your whole series of arguments on this page rests on this assumption that doctors have abandoned scientific principles for this one area of medicine, which both 1) is presented with no evidence, and 2) strains credulity to believe in the first place. If you can’t address this (faulty) assumption, then I don’t think you are arguing in particularly good faith.
You point to an abstract paper to prove that these changes were all the result of political pressure??? Okay. I don’t know what else to say if that’s the extent of your proof. Ridiculously weak imo.
My arguments rest on the statement “that too many pushed treatments that right now aren’t back by science” because the amount of rigorous, peer-reviewed, evidenced based studies supporting youth gender care is extremely lacking. So why don’t you provide all those studies that support that care?
And your Wikipedia link still didn’t prove one bit that changes were all the result of political pressure. So maybe try reading better.
If you don’t comprehend what “abstract” means in the context of an academic paper, then I’m not sure what we’re doing here. Furthermore, you continue to spout lies refuted directly by the evidence Keith and I have shared without any evidence of your own. Either you lack the ability to engage in an honest, adult conversation about the matter hand or you are literally a bot. Either way, that’s enough from me.
Point out one lie. I won’t hold my breath. Good talking.
Not taking sides in the Mark vs. Mike debate here – I clicked reply to this one only so that my reply would be in this thread and not starting a new one.
From my vantage point: Some aspects of this discussion that seems to cause strife and angst:
1) It’s an emotional topic. Likely, most of us know someone who is transgender and has been bullied, harassed, assaulted, or denied basic rights. Maybe some of us know a female who has been demolished in a physical competition by a strictly biological male (meaning, XY).
2) Not everyone agrees on what “basic rights” are.
3) All topics related to this discussion in any way are often lumped together. Any attempt to discuss the topic is derided by the right as “extreme liberalism and wokism” and derided by the left as “transphobia”. Is everything really so black and white? No shades of gray?
4) For example. Although XX and XY are the most frequent, I understand there are others. But, Lia Thomas is definitely a strictly biological male: XY at birth, correct? With obvious advantages that go along with completing puberty as such. Lis did not suddenly get better at swimming. Lia went from ranked 460th to ranked top 5 simply by competing against women instead of men. How is that fair? Do people have to get hurt (in physical contact sports, not swimming) for us to realize that there is a potential issue here?
5) People who refuse to call Lia Thomas by her chosen name. Whatever people think about this issue, ANY person has the right to change his or her name! People who insist on calling her Will are just fueling the fire. Be respectful of a person’s chosen name at the very least. And if someone identifies a specific way and wishes specific pronouns to be used, just use them, even if you think it is silly. This is a separate issue from the question of whether biologically males who went through puberty as XY should compete against biological females who went through puberty as XX.
Restrooms. I am all in favor of simply eliminating distinctions on bathrooms. This is not a novel or new idea. My 1995 college dorm has a bathroom that anyone could use. There were no issues. Nobody really cared.
As a society though, we have ingrained in people the expectation that when they use a bathroom, there will be people of only the same sex or gender in that bathroom. Women are not expected to see male genitalia in the bathroom, and vice versa. Completely dismissing this aspect of the discussion is not helpful. Now, maybe we can slowly get people to not care about this, since, after all, we’re all just people with bodies, and, why is this such a big deal? But as long as we have a “men’s room” and a “women’s room”, this societal change will not occur.
Were bathrooms originally designated as men’s and women’s rooms to segregate the bathroom based on how people identify, or based on their biological sex and genitalia? The latter, right?
Aren’t there easy ways to address everyone’s privacy concerns? Surely we have the technology to set up bathrooms where everyone can change and shower in privacy? Some people might not want to be nude around anyone, regardless of sex or gender. Set up privacy curtains, and ask that people walking around in public non-curtained portions of the bathrooms wear a towel or something.
Walking around nude in public is generally frowned upon. Why are bathrooms different? Personally, I think it’s stupid that public nudity is an issue or a crime and that society is too uptight about all this.
I don’t think either side is trying very hard to find solutions, especially temporary solutions while we transition to a less uptight society with less fussy societal expectations.