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.