frauds — Page 4

June 18, 2022 · 7 comments

Stick to baseball, 6/18/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I updated my Big Board, ranking the top 100 prospects in this year’s draft class. I also held a Q&A on the site to answer questions about it, in which I was accused of “not doing my homework,” of course. Look for a mock draft this upcoming week, most likely Tuesday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Fantastic Factories, a fun engine-builder very similar to the great game Gizmos, but with the added twist of dice-rolling.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter last weekend, talking about going back to the Cape League for the first time in years, only to have a travel fiasco in multiple parts keep me from getting there. Also, my two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: A Black educator was hired by a Georgia school district to be its first DEI officer. White parents decided she was implementing critical race theory, forced her out of the job, and then harassed her out of her next job elsewhere. This ties into efforts by anti-CRT people to run for school boards across the country (as detailed in the article).
The Southern Poverty Law Center has added Jack Posobiec, the primary source for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, to its list of extremists.
The federal prison in Thomson, Illinois, is one of the deadliest such facilities in the country – after the feds moved it from Pennsylvania, where similar violence against inmates occurred.
A 1977 memo to President Jimmy Carter outlined the risk of climate change from CO₂ emissions. Its predictions have largely come true so far.
Former NFL and USFL star Herschel Walker, who is now running against Sen. Rafael Warnock in Georgia for that state’s Senate seat, has acknowledged having two ‘secret’ sons, even though he has made criticizing absentee fathers a core point in his platform.
Meghan Stabile, a music promoter who was known for her work in both the jazz and hip-hop genres (and bringing the two together), died by suicide this week at age 39.
The New Republic documents the rise in Pizzagate-like conspiracies, mostly targeting LGBTQ+ people, across the United States, with the threat of violence to follow. One example occurred in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, this past week, at a Pride event that the Patriot Front targeted. Ben Collins has a story on several such threats to LGBTQ+ events over at NBCNews.com.
Texas agencies are fighting records release requests related to the mass shooting at an Uvalde elementary school. They’re also refusing to release bodycam footage because it “could expose law enforcement weakness.”
A police detective in Miami stole $1300 during a drug bust, and wasn’t sentenced to any jail time.
Simone Gold has been spreading COVID-19 misinformation for two years, and founded the group America’s Frontline Doctors, which has pushed HCQ and ivermectin despite the complete lack of any evidence that they do anything against the virus. She also was in the Capitol on January 6^th, and after pleading guilty, argued that her medical credentials should exempt her from prison. The judge didn’t buy it; he gave her 60 days.
A Wisconsin school district investigated a Title IX complaint that several middle school students were harassing a nonbinary classmate by using the wrong pronouns, which led to national coverage of the investigation by right-wing outlets and a bomb threat that led the district to move to virtual learning for the last two months of its school year.
Jamelle Bouie writes in the New York Times that the complacency of the Democratic “gerontocracy” is alienating younger, more progressive voters.
The governing commission in Otero County, New Mexico, refused to certify local election results, citing the disproven claims about Dominion voting machines from the 2020 election.
The Washington Post profiles a woman in Georgia also pushing claims of electoral fraud, known online as “Burnitdown.”
An Alaska salmon processor has been fined nearly half a million dollars for repeated environmental violations.
USA Today retracted 23 articles written by Gabriela Miranda after finding she misattributed quotes and might have fabricated sources. She has also resigned from the paper.
A Pennsylvania court vacated a murder charge from 1931. Alexander McClay Williams, a Black teenager in Glen Mills, was convicted by an all-white jury of stabbing his teacher, and was executed six months later.
Michele Catalano, whose now-defunct blog asmallvictory was one of the first I ever read regularly, wrote on her Substack about her current experiences with depression.
Board game news: Cheese Factory, a quirky, light engine-builder, is already funded on Kickstarter.
Bot Factory, a midweight game from designer Vital Lacerda (known for long, complex games like Lisboa and Kanban), is about halfway to its $100,000 goal.
Return to Dark Tower was a huge success on Kickstarter and has been met with acclaim on its release. There’s now a licensed RPG based on the game that’s already 400 funded.
Board game designer (Continuo) and “eccentric bridge player” Maureen Hiron died this week at age 80.

Tagged board game news, climate change, conspiracy theories, frauds, georgia, links, longreads, mental illness, misinformation, new mexico, police, stick to baseball

April 16, 2022 · 2 comments

Stick to baseball, 4/16/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I had one new post this week, a roundup of top 2022 draft prospects I’ve seen, including Druw Jones, Termarr Johnson, and the now-injured Dylan Lesko.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Cascadia, one of the best new games of 2021, from the same publisher as Calico. It’s another hex tile-laying game but simpler to learn and play, with variable rules you can fine-tune to allow kids to join.

My own podcast returned with the Productive Outs guys – Ian Miller of Kowloon Walled City and Riley Breckenridge of Thrice – as guests. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m due for another issue my free email newsletter this upcoming week. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Child welfare workers in Texas are resigning rather than enforce the state’s hateful law denying medical treatment to trans kids.

Vanity Fair has a long investigative piece on EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that has been at the center of the discredited lab-leak hypothesis, showing how EHA’s leader, Peter Daszak, made the situation worse both before the pandemic began and after the search for SARS-CoV-2’s origins began.

Firearms have surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of deaths for U.S. children and adolescents.

Writing in the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Elizabeth Kolbert writes about how two Florida lakes are suing to stop a development that would destroy nearly 2000 acres of wetlands. The lawsuit includes one actual human, as well as a marsh and a stream, and is the first of its kind in the U.S.

The CEO of Flutterwave, a Nigerian online payments and financial services company with a $3 billion valuation, may have engaged in fraud and insider trading to enrich himself at the expense of shareholders and employees with stock options.

The Texas Observer, a progressive investigative journalism magazine that had a particular focus on Indigenous affairs, lost most of its staff in the last six months due to a series of bungled situations and a divide over the periodical’s mission.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) worked to try to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, according to texts he sent to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Biologist David Sabatini resigned his tenured professorship at MIT after three senior officials at the school recommended revoking it in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against him and concerns over his behavior towards other members of his lab. He is still, however, suing one of the women who has accused him of harassment.

David French writes in The Atlantic that the American right has “lost the plot” on free speech.

The British national who killed MP Sir David Amess was a “textbook example of radicalization” who started reading extremist propaganda online during the Syria conflict.

The cops who shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground for protesting were cleared of all wrongdoing. Because of course they were.

Meanwhile, a panel on the Fifth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals ruled that police who tortured a teenage girl in custody didn’t violate her rights.

Former St. Louis police officer Luther Hall, who was beaten by his fellow officers while working undercover during protests in the city in 2017, spoke out about his desire to leave the city and the lack of justice for his attackers.

There’s very strong evidence that the Epstein-Barr virus causes multiple sclerosis, although why some infected people develop the autoimmune disorder and others don’t isn’t clear.

Why aren’t Democrats doing anything to combat the GOP’s deranged claims that Democrats are all pedophiles and groomers?

South Dakota AG Jason Ravsnborg, who killed a man in a hit-and-run accident, may face consequences after all as the Republican-led legislature has voted to impeach him.

Texas is a shitshow in so many ways. Gov. Greg Abbott’s political stunt at the border has led truckers to demand that he stop inspections of every truck, a move he put in place due to baseless claims about border security. For a party that claims to be pro-business, this is a hell of a way to show it.

Climate change is contributing to the spread of Japanese encephalitis in Australia.

Techdirt decries major newspapers’ continuing failure to grasp social media.

Opinion journalism is beset by structural problems and bad actors. There are ways to fix both of these issues, from better labeling of opinion vs. news pieces to proper editing (in a world where most publications have reduced editorial staff substantiall).

Ukrainian hackers have published a tremendous amount of personal data on Russian troopse fighting in the current war, as have other activists seeking additional ways to fight back against Russia’s pointless invasion of its neighbor.

The Titans’ new state-funded stadium will cost about $2 billion, and the economic impact figures the team has given the legislature appear to have been created out of thin air. Great use of public funds in a state that offers below-average education to its citizens.

A Toronto man amassed a huge cache of guns and killed two men at random before his arrest, which may have prevented a mass shooting given the arsenal he had in his apartment.

Board game news: Birds of a Feather is back on Kickstarter, and while it’s clearly meant to capitalize on Wingspan’s runaway success, it’s also a much lighter game aimed at a different audience.

The newest game from publishers Lucky Duck Games (Chronicles of Crime) to hit Kickstarter is The Dark Quarter, a co-op narrative game set in New Orleans.

Postmark Games has a print-and-play game called Voyages that just requires you to bring your own dice.

Tagged board game news, climate change, coronavirus, environment, frauds, health, links, longreads, metoo, police, south dakota, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas

April 2, 2022 · 2 comments

Stick to baseball, 4/2/22.

I had three posts for subscribers to the Athletic in the last ten days, two scouting notebooks from the Cactus League (here’s one, here’s the other), and my annual breakout candidates post. That last one is shorter than usual because I just couldn’t confidently back any other names for it.

I’m working on the next edition of my free email newsletter. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

This is an extremely long read, even by longread standards, but if you want to understand why the vast majority of scientists accept a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 as the most likely explanation, read Philip Markolin’s post.
The University of Pennsylvania engaged in an unconscionable witch hunt against one of its own students, a victim of physical and sexual abuse whose mother appears to have told the school her daughter lied on her applications there and to the Rhodes Scholarship program. She is suing the school, which has not responded publicly to this article.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott loves to brag about his so-called “border initiative,” but the evidence doesn’t support his claims.
The Guardian has a look inside online cryptocurrency communities (although I suppose an offline one would be a bit weird), examining the sorts of people involved in that world, many of whom don’t fit the stereotypes.
Leonard Leo is stepping down as head of the arch-right, Uihlein-funded opinion site The Federalist to found a new conservative advocacy group, probably funded by more dark money. Leo had disproportionate influence in the conservative takeover of the federal judiciary.
The “CHEST” protocol supposedly used large doses of vitamin C to fight sepsis. It appears that the protocol’s creator, Dr. Paul Marik, fabricated his results.
The editorial board of Nature argues that this is a terrible time to stop tracking COVID-19.
Bitcoin is a disaster for our environment. Can we stop it?
With scientists under attack for nothing more than doing their jobs, who will step in to defend and protect them?
It’s no longer the main story from the awards, but Justin Chang pointed out that the improvement in the quality of Oscar nominees has come with the telecast’s increasing disdain for those same movies.
Don’t Look Up was terrible, and director/co-writer Adam McKay really doesn’t get why.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter published commentary from an Oscar voter who remained anonymous but was willing to show himself as a racist, retrograde asshole. I’m not sure why the Academy wouldn’t sift through the ballots to identify the voter and ban him from voting.
The Governor of Utah vetoed the state’s bill against trans athletes, and his letter explaining why is worth reading. The transphobic theocrats in the state legislature overrode his veto, though. This was all over one athlete, by the way.

South Dakota Republicans declined to impeach their attorney general even though he killed a man in a hit-and-run accident. He’s going to get off with zero consequences for the homicide.
The University of Texas-Austin denied tenure to a pregnant professor and now has to pay her $3 million after losing a lawsuit. That’s good, but will it discourage them or any other university from doing it again?
A Tennessee nurse made a medication error that killed a patient, admitted it immediately, and was still found guilty of homicide by a jury. I’m not sure how this helps medical safety. I do think it might deter people from becoming nurses in Tennessee.
There’s a new wave of specialty coffee shops in India, a country that would traditionally export its best coffee to developed countries.
Children are bearing the brunt of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.
A Wilmington, Delaware, teacher who mentored dozens of kids and became a popular advocate for students from the city died in a motorcycle accident last month.
NEON announced that its film Memoria will go on permanent tour in cinemas around the country, which is incredibly ableist – many people can’t go to movie theaters for COVID-19 or other reasons.
Board game news: The legacy game Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isle Nublar has one more week on Kickstarter.
Nightmare Cathedral, what appears to a midweight area control and worker-placement game from the publishers of Teotihuacan and Tekhenu, is on Gamefound for another 11 days.
Stefan Fatsis has a fun story about a ridiculous coincidence in competitive Scrabble.

Tagged board game news, coronavirus, cryptocurrencies, dark money, delaware, frauds, links, longreads, oscars, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, utah

March 13, 2022 · 3 comments

Stick to baseball, 3/13/22.

I released my first ranking of draft prospects for 2022 over on The Athletic, and held a live Q&A to take questions about it. I also wrote up the two trades from Saturday night, involving Chris Bassitt and Isiah Kiner-Falefa/Mitch Garver.

Over at Paste, I reviewed The Adventures of Robin Hood, a narrative game from the designer of the Legends of Andor, but with simpler mechanics and a clever encounter system with a two-layered board.

I spoke with the Locked On Dodgers podcast in a two-part interview you can watch here and here. I also sent a new issue of my free email newsletter, talking about Monty Python and the development of my sense of humor.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New York Times asks what it means that even Americans are consuming less beef.
Vanity Fair has a fascinating article on Grimes, talking about her persona, her upcoming concept album, and that guy.
Kathryn Schulz, who appeared on my podcast a few weeks ago, wrote about the complicated history of Bambi, the book, as it enters the public domain.
ProPublica reports on barbaric conditions in Louisiana’s largest juvenile detention facility in Louisiana, part of the race in the Deep South to see which state can get to the 19^th century fastest.
Conservative billionaires pushing fake news are becoming a major US export, as now a single South Korean oligarch is pushing conspiracy theories to keep the two Koreas at war.
Vulture has a wonderful interview with Murderville showrunner Krister Johnson on the “treasure chest” of in-jokes, Easter eggs, and other small gags on Homestar Runner.
Melissa Rodriguez, the former executive chef at Del Posto, is now opening three new restaurants in that space, including a high-end pizzeria. Resy interviewed her about the venture, the pandemic, and the end of Del Posto (which was good, but wildly overpriced).
Several research papers still in the pre-print stage have put more nails in the coffin of the lab-leak hypothesis have appeared in the last two weeks. The New Republic looks at how we can learn from this to try to prevent the next zoonotic pandemic.
The best path forward now is for institutions to work to improve mitigation efforts, including encouraging further vaccinations.
Cobb County is taking a big loss on its public funding of Truist Park. This Axios piece has a quick summary of the same.
Stop acting like pediatric deaths from COVID-19 don’t matter because of their numbers. Those children had names.
Mask requirements in schools reduced COVID-19 cases. We’re going to see increases in cases again now that schools everywhere are lifting mask mandates.
I don’t understand how asking people to harass a journal editor to try to short-circuit the peer review process is remotely ethical, but Alina Chan, who wrote a book that pushes the lab-leak hypothesis, is long gone around the bend at this point.
The Philadelphia Inquirer had a long article on where to eat and what to do in Wilmington, hitting our big 3 fine-dining restaurants (Le Cavalier, La Fia, and Bardea), and several other favorite spots of ours (Swigg, Wilma’s, De.co Food Hall, The Queen), although they whiffed badly with some of their inclusions (Mrs. Robino’s, Wilmington Country Store).
ABC News ran a long segment (about 12 minutes) on the lack of any evidence to support the use of ivermectin against COVID-19.
Now bot accounts are using false fact-checks to spread fake news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee appointed an arms dealer who sold ammunition to the Aurora mass shooter to the state’s board of education, not long after appointing a 9/11 hoaxer to the state’s “textbook commission.” What a shitshow.
Brandon Tensley writes at CNN about how and why the GOP is targeting LGBTQ+ rights across the south and far west. I think the answer is simple: They’re pandering to their evangelical base. This is why the raving lunatics running Idaho want life in prison for anyone providing gender-affirming care to trans kids.
And in Texas, a family that once invited Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife to dinner found themselves the target of one of the state’s witch-hunt investigations into families with trans kids. Shame on anyone who votes Republican in Texas this year. This policy is going to lead to more suicides and grievous harm to vulnerable people, all to satisfy a small population of bigots.
Disney has been censoring same-sex affection in Pixar’s films, according to several employees, who wrote a letter also demanding that the company stop donating to Florida legislators who voted for the state’s “don’t say gay” bill.
A Georgia man took an $85,000 SBA loan for his business, and then spent two-thirds of it on a rare Pokémon card.
An American man wanted on rape and sexual assault charges in Utah is accused of faking his own death and pretending to be someone else in a COVID ward in Scotland, where he’s since married a British woman. The man, suspected of being George Rossi, has been identified by his tattoos, and his adoptive father also says that it’s him.
A Trump-appointed judge dismissed a complaint against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, alleging that his support of the January 6^th insurrection made him ineligible to run for office, because people might take up arms otherwise.
Apparently Trump has been holding “contests” where small-donor dollars would win trips to meet him, but then they never award the prizes, according to a report from the Washington Post.
Board game news: Former Z-Man Games employees have founded a new publisher, Moon Crab Games, and announced their first game, Leviathan Wilds, a cooperative, tactical game of movement on various boards representing massive creatures the players try to climb.
Hamlet, a cute town-building game from the designer of the lovely game Petrichor, is fully funded already on Kickstarter.
So is Tiwanaku (formerly known as Pachamama), a Minesweeper-inspired board game from the publishers of Magic Maze.
And so is Envelopes of Cash, a game about corrupt recruiting in college football (so, you know, reality), designed by a reader of mine.

Tagged baseball, board game news, coronavirus, delaware, Economics, frauds, idaho, lgbt rights, links, longreads, louisiana, pizza, russia, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, the swamp

January 8, 2022 · 9 comments

Stick to baseball, 1/8/22.

My latest game review for Paste covers the great, easy-to-learn Super Mega Lucky Box, from the designer of Silver & Gold and Sushi Go! It has elements of both games, and will remind non-gamers of bingo enough to get them started. We played this over the holidays with my family, and everyone liked it, from my 9-year-old niece to my mother, who generally does not like games.

My prospect rankings are still on track to start running on The Athletic on January 31^st, leading off with the top 100, with team-by-team rankings following afterwards. My podcast will also return this upcoming week.

And now, the links…

The New Yorker has a piece from Ryan Katz on the decades-long aftermath of a murder in Texas, one of the victims of the so-called Donut Shop Murders.

The Guardian hasan excerpt of Michael Pollan’s most recent book, This is Your Mind on Plants, asking whether we should be giving up caffeine. (The answer is “no,” whether Pollan knows it or not.)

This Hidden Brain episode titled “Both Things Can Be True,” about dealing with the apparent contradictions we find in other people, is a remarkable and compelling story in its own right, and also feels especially apposite in the wake of the recent Hall of Fame vote. You can also find it on iTunes.

Is there really enough taste difference among different varieties of rice to justify an annual rice-tasting competition? The mere question would be heretical in Japan.

Climate change is coming for everyone and every industry, including pro sports. Hannah Keyser asks if MLB is ready for it.

“America’s Frontline Doctors” are a giant fraud, as its members haven’t worked on the front lines against COVID-19 and profit off quack treatments like hydroxychloroquine.

I wasn’t familiar with the company FeedFeed, but the Washington Post has an exposé on the company’s toxic workplace environment.

A neuroscientist facing a terminal diagnosis discusses preparing for his impending death.

A Deputy DA in California who was expected to run for the state Assembly this year has died of COVID-19 at age 46, just weeks after speaking an anti-vax/anti-mandate rally.

The BBC spoke to QAnon adherents a year after the 1/6 terrorist attack on the Capitol.

The AV Club has told Chicago-based staffers to move to Los Angeles or lose their jobs, without offering even a cost-of-living increase to their salaries. They also listed at least one of those writers’ jobs before their decisions were even due.

Bodycam video shows a Houston cop speeding up to 100 mph and driving with one hand at the time that he hit and killed a 62-year-old pedestrian with his car.

I don’t especially care that an Australian writer doesn’t like board game nights, but what possible aim is there to writing a piece that does nothing but shit on something thousands of people enjoy?

The New York Times‘ David Streitfeld has a post mortem of sorts on the Theranos trial, with an eye on the people who failed to ask Elizabeth Holmes the obvious questions about her technology that didn’t work. John Carreyrou’s book Bad Blood has quite a bit more on this in its history of the con.

Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the Civil Rights Corps, has been critical of mainstream media outlets’ slanted coverage of police shootings. He had a Twitter thread this week calling out the New York Times for its framing and for use of biased sources when covering a recent shooting in LA, pointing out that police unions and departments spend a lot of money to try to get this kind of positive coverage.

What appeared to be a simple kidnapping case helped French authorities uncover a right-wing plot to overthrow France’s government.

A new paper in Hepatology says that we should expect 8000 additional deaths in the U.S. due to increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic.

Some board game news: Blazon, a card-drafting, tableau-building game is up on Kickstarter.

As is Dom Pierre, a game of wine-making in 17^th century France.

Asmodee’s Unexpected Games division announced a new title, Voices in My Head, where players try to play aspects of a suspected thief’s persona against the one player who plays the prosecutor.

Tagged board game news, coronavirus, food writing, france, frauds, links, stick to baseball

January 1, 2022 · 16 comments

Stick to baseball, 1/1/22.

Happy New Year, everyone. I had one new piece for subscribers to the Athletic this week, breaking down my Hall of Fame ballot, which went about as well as you might expect. I held a Klawchat on the 23^rd.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Iberian Gauge, an 18xx game that’s on the shorter side for that genre, and wrote up everything I saw and played at PAX Unplugged this year.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this week, talking about music and how we consume and categorize it has changed since I first became a big fan of pop music about 40 years ago.

I also appeared on my friend Elliott Garstin’s podcast, Twenty Eyes Radio, to talk about my favorite songs and albums of 2021.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Dr. Irene Bosch, a molecular biologist currently at MIT, created a rapid test for COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, and had arranged for its manufacture. Thanks to the FDA, you still can’t get it.
Dr. Robert Malone is a real scientist who has falsely claimed credit for inventing mRNA vaccines. That’s led him down a path of straight-up vaccine denialism, enough to get him suspended from Twitter this past week.
COVID-19 denialists like to claim that deaths from the virus are overcounter, but the truth is that they’re significantly undercounted in many counties, based on large spikes in excess deaths that aren’t attributed to the virus for mostly innocuous reasons.
Did the 76ers just announce a big partnership with a fake company? Defector was unable to find any evidence that the CEO of Color Star is even a real person.
Wichita juvenile detention center employees murdered a Black teenager in their custody in September by restraining him in the prone position – which police also used to restrain George Floyd when they killed him.
The Associated Press has the story of an Army veteran who spent a decade working for the FBI by infiltrating KKK groups to identify law enforcement officers who were members.
Buzzfeed investigates two agencies that have exploited content creators on OnlyFans, and now face lawsuits claiming extortionary practices, failure to pay creators, failure to pay overtime, and more. Workers’ rights are workers’ rights, regardless of the industry.
A “terrible” book called Viral that pushes lab-leak conspiracy theories shows why people won’t let that idea go. Indeed, there’s new evidence further supporting the hypothesis that COVID-19 is a natural phenomenon.
One thing, and only one thing, has worked to get unvaccinated people to get the jab: Employer mandates.
In the “it’s about fucking time” department, California revoked the license of a doctor who gave out fake vaccine exemptions.
Meanwhile, Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine have developed a vaccine, CORBEVAX, that they’re allowing countries around the world to use without patent restrictions. It’s just been approved for use in India, with more countries to follow. This might be the best weapon we have for slowing the pandemic.
An Oklahoma lawmaker (guess the party!) wants to give parents the right to demand that a school remove any book from its library, and would reward such parents a bounty of $10,000 per day if the school doesn’t remove the book. It’s really about targeting LGBTQ+ books (and, by extension, LGBTQ+ kids), of course.
One small thing anyone can do to help fight climate change: Eat less red meat.
Georgia Republicans are trying to eliminate six of the seven polling stations in Lincoln County, a move activists see as targeting minority voters.
“Christmas Wrapping” is unavoidable at this time of year; I’ve grown to hate the song thanks to a job in retail in the fall of 1989. Yahoo! has a look at the song’s complex history.
The discourse, if you can even call it that, over critics’ disdain for Don’t Look Up is a symptom of society’s growing anti-intellectualism.
Asmodee purchased Miniature Market, one of the biggest board game & miniatures retailers in the country, at some point in 2021, without any announcement.
McSweeney’s offers An FAQ About Your New Birth Control: The Music of Rush. Is it bad that I know all of the songs mentioned? My wife says that’s bad.

Tagged board game news, california, climate change, frauds, labor rights, links, longreads, oklahoma, stick to baseball, vaccines

December 18, 2021 · 6 comments

Stick to baseball, 12/17/21.

My big item this week was my annual ranking of the top board games of the year for Paste, which runs 15 titles deep (plus a bonus for the best reissue). My music rankings will go up here next week, and I’ll have a PAX Unplugged recap at Paste next week too.

Nothing new at the Athletic from me, as I work on prospect rankings and there are no transactions to cover. I’ll do a chat next week, though, even if it’s mostly non-baseball stuff.

On The Keith Law Show, I spoke with Nik Sharma, author of the great cookbooks Season and The Flavor Equation, about those books, underused ingredients, and his unusual career arc. You can subscribe and listen on iTunes and Spotify.

I will also send out another edition of my free email newsletter this week, although I have a feeling with baking plans and the kids home I am already setting myself up for failure. And one last time, here’s another reminder that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has emerged as one of the most dangerous anti-vaccine propagandists in the world, and it’s made his “charity” a ton of money. He also gave a slightly unhinged interview to Gawker, in which he refuses to admit he invoked the Holocaust as a comparison to vaccine mandates in his book. (He already did this back in 2015, and apologized. He’s just back on his bullshit.) He’s also suing a blogger who wrote that he spoke at a rally with German far-right figures back in August – which he did, at a rally heavily attended by neo-Nazis.
Utah is the second-driest state in the country, but rejects water-conservation efforts, thanks to lobbyists and Republican politicians. (Insert joke about it being a dry state here.)
The Atlantic looks at the actual harm done by the right-wing’s fake child-sex-ring panics of the last few years (think Wayfair). Sex trafficking is real. You don’t need to buy into a conspiracy theory for that.
You probably already saw the Atlantic’s extremely long piece on how Trump and his acolytes are well on their way to stealing the 2024 election.
The New Yorker has the crazy story of a Welshman who threw away a hard drive with his bitcoin keys – and the bitcoin would now be worth a half a billion dollars, except that the town that controls the dump where his hard drive is located won’t let him dig for it.
Geraldine DeRuiter, who writes as The Everywhereist, has an incredible takedown of a horrendous meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lecce, Italy.
Police officers in Torrance, California, have jeopardized hundreds of cases through their practice of sending each other racist and homophobic texts. Decades of television, like the returning Law & Order, have indoctrinated viewers to believe that the police are always the good guys.
Scammers in India targeted several high-profile female journalists who were critical of the government with an elaborate scam that promised trips to or jobs at Harvard. The university knew about these scams, at least at some point, and did not appear to take any action to stop them.
There’s a lot of media coverage of retailers claiming theft is at an all-time high, but the data do not back this up.
A Tennessee high school teacher tried to teach his students about white privilege, and ended up losing his job. Meanwhile, Tennessee is banning the teaching of words and concepts that are tangentially related to critical race theory, because there is no racism in Tennessee any more, obviously. Oh, and the state’s medical board posted and then deleted rules against spreading misinformation after pressure from the Republican Party. Nice state y’all have down there.
Some states are moving against doctors and nurses who spread misinformation, at least.
Some large, early vaccination surveys fell prey to the big data paradox.
Andrew Cuomo appointed a crony of his to run the SUNY system of public universities in New York. Turns out the guy is a bully and a creep. Are you shocked? I’m shocked.
A judge is preventing the New York Times from reporting on Project Veritas, which would set a horrible precedent by allowing subjects to sue to stop negative coverage.
Kellogg is hiring scabs to replace striking workers. Don’t buy Frosted Flakes, folks.
Kickstarter is moving its crowdfunding platform to blockchain. Ryan Reynolds But Why dot gif?
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa correctly described social media as “toxic sludge.”
A school district in Utah had two students wear racist costumes, so they showed students a diversity video. White parents in Utah called it an attack on them. I mean, it was, but not in the way they think.
Author and essayist bell hooks died this week at 69.
Board game news: A Swedish video game company is buying board game behemoth Asmodee from the private equity firm that owned it, which I see as very good news for Asmodee itself and the tabletop space in general.
Pachamama is heading back to Kickstarter soon after its first go-round didn’t get much traction.

Tagged bitcoin, board game news, food writing, frauds, italy, links, longreads, misinformation, new york, police, stick to baseball, unions, utah

November 28, 2021 · 16 comments

Stick to baseball, 11/28/21.

I had two columns this week for subscribers to the Athletic – one on the Puerto Rican Winter League, and how MLB needs to support the league more; and one on the Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Steven Matz signings.

My guest this week on the Keith Law Show was Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. You can subscribe and listen on iTunes and Spotify.

I appeared on the Five Games for Doomsday podcast, talking mostly about boardgames – my favorites, my interest in them, writing about games and about baseball, and more.

I’ll send out a new edition of my free email newsletter Monday or Tuesday this week. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: An investigation by local TV channel 11-WXIA in Atlanta revealed corruption and sexual harassment among Johns Creek police officers, leading to the termination of three of the department’s officers – although others involved haven’t been sanctioned and remain on the force.
This seems especially vile, preying on truly vulnerable people: scammers are using fake job ads to defraud would-be applicants.
Over 200 American academics, researchers in history and political science in related fields, signed an open letter in support of the Freedom to Vote Act.
Two conservative commentators quit lucrative roles at Fox News in protest of Tucker Carlson’s program that pushed false narratives and outright misinformation about the January 6^th insurrection. One of them, Jonah Goldberg, explained his decision in an editorial for the L.A. Times.
The QAnon JFK Cult in Dallas is tearing families apart. Did you know “Q” hasn’t posted in a year? Yet the hoax’s adherents still can’t let it go. The cognitive dissonance is strong with them.
The Kenosha protests were not violent or deadly until Kyle Rittenhouse showed up. Media coverage of his acquittal is revising history.
One of the co-creators of the game Oregon Trail says he never made any money off the game, but that was never his goal anyway.
The USFL is coming back! I’ll believe it when we get the first kickoff, but I’ll wash my Tampa Bay Bandits jersey just in case.
An epidemiologist wrote a lengthy overview of what the omicron variant of COVID-19 might mean. Dr. Peter Hotez says it’s a concern, but “the sky isn’t falling.” Our bodies aren’t helpless against new variants, though. The emergence of new variants is an inevitable outcome of rich countries hoarding vaccines (or destroying them).
COVID denialists like to say that Japan used ivermectin to stop the virus’s spread there. They are wrong.
It’s better than nothing, I guess: A St. Louis cop who assaulted an undercover colleague posing as a protestor was sentenced to a year in jail.
The superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida wrote an op ed in the Washington Post saying that the state’s new ban on any future mask mandates or quarantines robs schools of critical tools to fight the virus and keep kids in school. DeSantis’s pandering is going to kill people.
South Carolina Republicans are trying to cancel tenure, replacing it with five-year contracts and requiring at least a 2/2 course load, which will go a long way towards killing research at universities there.
Civil Liberties International added the United States to its list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time.
A Tory MP in the UK claims that having a woman play the main character in Doctor Who is hurting boys by removing a role model for them, and contributing to young boys turning to crime, never mind that the Doctor is a genderless alien who takes human form. He obviously doesn’t even watch the show, since the main character is not named “Doctor Who.”
Jared Leto is unrecognizable in House of Gucci under prosthetics and a bald cap, part of a growing trend toward physical verisimilitude on screen. Is that a good thing for actors or viewers?
A new paper published in Nature describes superionic ice, a newly-discovered phase of water that might resemble what’s found deep inside outer planets like Neptune.
A “good guy with a gun” took down a mass shooter, and then was shot and killed by a cop who mistook him for the bad guy. That cop will not face charges.
There will also be no charges for the man who “accidentally discharged” his gun and killed a 10-year-old boy the other day.
Ark Nova, an upcoming heavy game from Capstone, is available for pre-order. The description and images make me think it’s at least inspired by Wingspan but more complex.

Tagged coronavirus, democracy, football, frauds, guns, links, longreads, physics, south carolina, stick to baseball, vaccines, video games

September 11, 2021 · 10 comments

Stick to baseball, 9/11/21.

My latest column for subscribers to the Athletic covered the transformation of Austin Riley from replacement-level hacker to Atlanta’s best player.

On the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with MLB’s Sarah Langs, talking about this year’s award races, although it looks like our AL Rookie of the Year favorite might be heading to the injured list. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Show again on Friday.

We’ve cleared over $800 raised to help Afghan refugees resettle in this area, money I will donate to Jewish Family Services of Delaware when I receive it. You can buy your “I’m just here for the #umpshow” T-shirt here to support the cause.

I brought back my email newsletter this week, talking about our family’s experience with COVID-19 last month. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links..

Longreads first: The Guardian goes into the failed attempt to build a micro-nation on a cruise ship dedicated to mining cryptocurrencies. It’s actually less a story of ridiculousness than of ignorance.
I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and ended up on this 2018 Boston Globe story written by Eliza Dushku, detailing how her co-star Michael Weatherly on the CBS series Bull, sexually harassed her and was responsible for her firing, leading to a $9.5 million settlement. So how the hell is this show even still on the air?
The New Yorker‘s Paige Williams writes about the legacy of United Flight 93 and how the residents of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, honor the memory of the crew and passengers.
Doctors across Texas say the state’s leaders are responsible for the rapid spread of COVID-19, which has the state matching its peak level of hospitalizations and approaching 95% ICU bed usage.
Alan Sepinwall offers an obituary of Michael K. Williams and thoughts on the actor’s tremendous career.
Tom Nichols decries the moral collapse of author turned political opportunist J.D. Vance, calling him “a contemptible and cringe-inducing clown.”
The BBC has the story of how Swedish authorities arrested a suspected Iranian war criminal who thought he was going there on vacation.
I mentioned on Twitter that Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is my favorite album of 2021, and a reader pointed me to the tremendous performance she gave on NPR’s Tiny Desk series.
The risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 is far greater than the risk of myocarditis from any of the vaccines.
AFP Fact-Check points out that anti-vax grifter Sherri Tenpenny owes $1.5 million in taxes to the IRS because she claims she shouldn’t pay taxes … so why isn’t she up on charges of tax evasion? She’s the one who started the whole “the COVID vaccines make you magnetic” thing, as far as I can tell.
Slate looks at how religious exemptions to vaccine mandates actually work – bearing in mind that no legitimate religion opposes vaccinations.
A Tennessee high school student spoke at a school board hearing to urge the members to mandate mask usage, citing the loss of his grandmother to COVID-19 in 2020. Adults there laughed at and heckled him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Anti-vaxxers have thrown live fireworks and garbage at vaccine clinics in Colorado, leading some clinics to shut down. Call out the National Guard if we have to.
The daughter of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) appears to have been directly involved in fixing the prices of EpiPens while she served as CEO of Mylan, along with pushing the possibly illegal bundling that required people to buy two of the life-saving devices rather than just one.
The Delaware News-Journal gives us the origins of the Blue Rocks’ unofficial mascot, Mr. Celery.
Board game news: The CEO of The Broken Token, which makes high-end inserts for board game boxes, stepped down in the wake of sexual abuse and harassment allegations, but has not divested his shares in the company.
Very pleased to see that The Price of Coal, a board game about labor rights, reached its funding goal.
Asmodee announced 7 Wonders: Architects, a new standalone game that promises a streamlined 7 Wonders experience. The original game is quick, but there’s definitely a steep learning curve the first time you play.

Tagged board game news, delaware, frauds, hip-hop, links, longreads, metoo, texas, tv, vaccines, west virginia

September 4, 2021 · 21 comments

Stick to baseball, 9/4/21.

My newest column for the Athletic was pushed back to Monday, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, I did hold my first Klawchat in a while on Friday.

On the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with Dr. Sian Beilock, author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, an intangible that is actually both tangible and mutable. You can train your brain to do better in high-pressure situations. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Daily show again on Friday.

I’ll resume the email newsletter this weekend, now that things are calmer and less COVID-y around the house. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New York Times Magazine looks at how one Dominion Voting Systems employee became the bogeyman for the election deniers, destroying his life in the process.
A fringe medical group calling itself the Frontline Covid Critical Care Alliance is the major reason a bunch of American morons have started eating horse dewormer, even in the face of every major scientific and medical body saying it doesn’t work. Marisa Kabas investigated the group for the Huffington Post.
A new paper in Nature Immunology examines better communication techniques to boost vaccine acceptance.
Right-wing dark money groups’ next target? Local school boards, using fears of critical race theory to try to get their puppet candidates elected. Even if you live in an area where you think this couldn’t happen, make sure you pay attention to your next school board election.
Hey, there’s a pre-print out with the results of an RCT that shows that masks are an effective mitigation strategy against COVID-19. They’re best when used with other mitigation strategies, such as vaccines, but they do help. That sound you hear is anti-maskers moving the goalposts.
Ah, Texas, or should we just call you Gilead? NPR and Teen Vogue look at the state’s effort to turn back the clock 50 years, including the deleterious effect the state’s de facto abortion ban will have on women’s health. Plan C is trying to spread the word about how to get abortion pills online. The Nation points out how the right is concern-trolling everyone with bogus eugenics objections, when this is really about making religion into law. An enterprising programmer wrote an iOS shortcut to spam the Texas Right to Life group’s whistleblower site with junk reports, while GoDaddy is telling them to find another hosting service.
The NY Times has an oral history of Y Tu Mamá Tambien, twenty years after the film, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring a terribly young Gael García Bernal, was first released.
The Alabama coal miners strike continues to get very little mainstream media coverage, but one independent journalist has been on the ground with the strikers for several months.
Why did Louisiana use forced prison labor to fill sandbags before Hurricane Ida hit – and then return those prisoners to their cells rather than evacuate them?
Board game news: First watch this Shut Up & Sit Down review of the game 1819 Singapore, and then read this for more information.
WILD: Serengeti looks like it has incredible artwork, if nothing else, and it’s on Kickstarter now.
Also, The Price of Coal, a game about labor rights, is funded but is still on Kickstarter. I backed this one because I love the theme and concept.

Tagged anti-science, board game news, coronavirus, frauds, labor rights, links, longreads, louisiana, reproductive rights, vaccines

Archives