For ESPN+ subscribers this week, my look back at the 2009 draft went up, with a redraft of the first round and a look at the first-round misses. I also wrote a scouting post on some Orioles, Royals, Yankees, and Blue Jays prospects, including the top prospect in each of the first three organizations coming into the year. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The Guardian looks at the ongoing and now renewed investigation into the assassination of Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister who was shot and killed on a Stockholm street in 1986.
- The New Yorker goes deep on the question of land ownership and redistribution currently roiling South Africa, which has some of the greatest economic inequality in the world.
- Also from the Guardian‘s Long read program, why depression is not merely a disease of affluent countries, and how developing nations need more resources to focus on citizens’ mental health.
- New York looks at how the wildfire season in California has become unending thanks to climate change.
- Dr. James Hamblin explains the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and why it doesn’t mean vaccines are unsafe, at The Atlantic. The VICP is a favorite talking point of anti-vaxxers, who refuse to understand how the program works or that it exists because litigious parents nearly drove vaccine manufacturers out of the market.
- Alabama’s new abortion ban is akin to torture, mimicking a popular war crime we’ve seen recently in Bosnia and the Congo. I said on Thursday that I will not cover the SEC tournament this year or in the near future because of this law.
- Austin, Fort Worth, and Houston are all at risk of measles outbreaks thanks to the hard work of anti-vaxxers (and their friends in the extreme religious right, like state Rep. Jonathan Stickland).
- Members of a closer anti-vaxxer group on Facebook are calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in response to rational, science-based laws that make it harder for parents to refuse to vaccinate their school-aged children.
- Former evangelical Christian Sara Olson writes of learning about science after growing up in a denialist household.
- Truthdig examines how an innocuous BBC interview exposed the vacuous nature of Ben Shapiro, who accused the conservative host of being a bias left-winger before abruptly ending the interview.
- A sci-fi author showed how not to deal with someone about to publish a negative review of your book.
- The recent imbroglio at my alma mater over a law professor being removed from his post as Winthrop House faculty dean involves far more serious charges than the Harvey Weinstein narrative implies. Prof. Ronald Sullivan joined the legal defense team for Weinstein, which did spur some outrage by students, but his removal comes after a long series of allegations of inappropriate behavior on his part as head of the upper-class student house.
- A white Tennessee pastor raped his adoptive daughter for several years, but a white male judge sentenced him to just twelve years, rather than the 72 years prosecutors sought – even though the now-convicted rapist continues to deny guilt in the face of her allegations and DNA evidence.
- San Francisco pie shop Mission Pie has refused to do business with food delivery services over their high surcharges, which they would have to subsidize by raising prices for customers dining in-store.
- Virginia Del. Danica Roem (D) has ended up in the spotlight after her surprise win in 2018, and she’s using it to try to help other Democrats across the state get elected.
- Anti-gay, anti-Semitic, totally American preacher Steven Anderson was denied entry to Ireland under a previously-unused immigration statute, with the Irish Minister for Justice citing “the interests of public policy.”
- Israel’s ruling party is in turmoil over claims Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to reduce their Supreme Court’s power to protect himself against three ongoing corruption cases.
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who churns out policy proposal after policy proposal, has also proposed a 2% wealth tax above $50 million and an additional 1% on wealth over $1 billion. If enacted, it will likely be challenged as unconstitutional, and the outcome of such a case is an open question.
- Monsanto has now lost three straight jury trials over glyphosate (the main ingredient in Roundup) despite a lack of any scientific evidence that the chemical is harmful to humans; David Bernstain of the Volokh Conspiracy (at Reason) explains why these verdicts are so outrageous.
