texas

September 5, 2026 · 8 comments

Stick to baseball, 9/5/26.

Over on the Athletic this week, I looked at nine September(ish) callups of note; posted a minor-league scouting notebook on Jarlin Susana, Joseph Dzierwa, and other O’s and Nats prospects; and posted a draft scouting notebook covering both the PG All-American and Under Armour games.

I sent out a new issue of my free email newsletter this week. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok, and posted a new video to the latter two sites this week about the top three prospects recalled in the last week.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Texas Monthly goes very long on the war over the Rio Grande River’s water, with the potential for taps to run dry as early as next year. This is Pulitzer-worthy material.

ProPublica exposes how Texas AG and Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R) may be violating federal ethics laws. It also sounds like he may be committing mortgage fraud, too?

Semafor exposes the rise of paid actors using AI scripts in unlabeled and often misleading videos that push outrage bait, often targeted at specific Democratic politicians and candidates, across social media.

The Trump Administration continues to weaponize the IRS to attack its enemies, threatening to revoke the tax-exempt status of six universities if they don’t bend the knee to his whites-first policies.

ICE gave a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant and Wright State student, here legally, an ankle monitor. He killed himself a few days later. I’m unclear whose interests were served here.

Texas Monthly also has the scoop on TCU revoking the Star-Telegram’s media credentials for (checks notes) reporting on something that happened in TCU’s locker room. I didn’t know frogs were that petty.

Dan Ariely, the best-selling author of Predictably Irrational and the inspiration for the network procedural Irrational, is facing a new round of allegations of research fraud after a review of the data used for a major 2002 paper on procrastination found evidence of fabrication.

A Yale study estimates that universal health care in the United States would save 114,000 lives and $1 trillion every year. So why is the mere suggestion of it supposed to be some sort of political poison?

NPR asks what happened to the U.S. campaign to end child marriage? The answer is “Republicans.” And, more specifically, evangelical Christianity’s hold on the party.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison forced out a professor who (allegedly) slept with and harassed some of his students, so of course Arizona State welcomed him with open arms.

A German court has found that the AI music software Suno is basically a big plagiarism engine, and now Jason Isbell and other U.S. musicians have filed a suit of their own, this time charging Suno with unlicensed imitation of their voices rather than straight copyright infringement. And now the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada is suing Suno too.

Bari Weiss’ CBS News pushed out a story that appeared to tie Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to the 9/11 attacks.

California’s legislature passed a bill designed to support – or even save – community news outlets through public investment.

The police chief in Senatobia, Mississippi, where an officer shot and killed a 1-year-old while pursuing a woman suspected of shoplifting, has been fired. Harold Vanderford had also used racist slurs about Black people in text messages, and tried to resign before he was fired. Maybe Arizona State will hire him?

Israeli settlers murdered two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank.

The widow of a U.S. airman killed in Trump’s illegal war on Iran had to go to social media to get death benefits because, in her words, the military claimed it wasn’t a war, so she wasn’t entitled to the benefits that accrue to the surviving spouse when a soldier is killed during a war.

The United States was the only nation to vote against a UN resolution to change its official map to one that reflects Africa’s true size.

Tagged arizona, artificial intelligence, california, climate change, environment, frauds, harvard, israel, links, longreads, metoo, michigan, palestine, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp

August 29, 2026 · 1 comment

Stick to baseball, 8/29/26.

Over on the Athletic this week, I had a new minor-league scouting notebook, covering some Mets, Orioles, Nats, and Phillies prospects, including two guys the Mets just acquired at the deadline. I’ll have another one early next week. I’m not bylined but I did contribute to this newser on Walker Jenkins’ first callup.

You should sign up for my free email newsletter, which I’m hoping to get back to on Monday. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This New York cover story on the proliferation of travel teams for young athletes, and the harm it’s doing to our kids (at great cost to the parents), is a must-read for anyone interested in sports, even professional ones, because this is how we fumble our future and create leagues full of the privileged at the expense of anyone unable to access this narrow pipeline. I have long had a personal policy to avoid pay-to-play events, but it’s a little easier for me because the amateur players I’m seeing are the best of the best.

German actress/journalist Collien Fernandes was being stalked and impersonated online by someone sending men explicit images and videos purporting to be of her. It turned out her assailant was her husband.

A Christian cult in Idaho called Followers of Christ keeps killing its babies by ‘praying’ instead of seeking medical care, and Idaho law lets them do it.

Music journalist Natalie Weiner writes about Dolly Parton’s lifelong commitment to her values, whether in the arts, literacy programs, or general human kindness.

Houston Chef Adrian Torres won a James Beard Award this year, but almost missed the ceremony because Trump tried to deport him. He’s here under the DACA program, which Republicans have been trying to kill for no reason I can find beyond pure racism.

The Guardian and the Associated Press obtained documents that show that RFK Jr. lied to the Senate during his confirmation hearings when he claimed his visit to Samoa – which prompted a measles outbreak that killed 83 people – had nothing to do with discouraging vaccinations.

Epidemiologist Dr. Tara Smith writes for MS NOW how RFK Jr. has caused this measles epidemic and is making it harder for us to stop it, which is going to mean more deaths, more health problems, and a growing dent in our economy.

There’s been a lot of attention over the two reported deaths from measles in Pennsylvania, but that’s the tip of a giant iceberg. There’s an outbreak in Wisconsin now, almost entirely among unvaccinated people, with 41 reported cases.

A federal judge ruled that Florida International University violated the First Amendment rights of students when it required those protesting the school’s collaboration with ICE to record two-minute videos ‘reflecting’ on their conduct.

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), who is running for Iowa’s open Senate seat, has failed to disclose that her husband is a lobbyist who arranged meetings between his clients and four Iowa representatives, including Hinson.

Victor Marx, the Republican candidate for Governor in Colorado who has made fantastical claims of killing people and performing exorcisms, appears to be selling campaign merch and taking the profits for himself.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who is up for re-election, threatened schools that won’t remove books the state’s theocrats deem objectionable, saying “we’re coming for the books.” These book bans are much more about targeting anything LGBTQ+ or otherwise un-Christian, despite the schools being publicly funded.

Meanwhile, Texas Tech leadership is using AI as a pretext to cut so-called “leftist” content from its curriculum. I do not understand anyone from out of state sending their kid to college there.

The Israeli commander who ordered the airstrike that killed an Australian volunteer working for World Central Kitchen stands by his decision and said he’s not sorry, claiming WCK had a “connection with Hamas.”

Finland had set a goal to end homelessness by 2027, and was well on its way there until a right-wing government took power in 2024 and started cutting social welfare programs, reversing a long-standing decline in the country’s homelessness rate.

A civilian engineer who alleges she was raped in her own bed on a Navy transport ship sued the federal government, and this week a federal judge threw out her lawsuit by arguing it’s a worker’s compensation issue.

Rep. Max Miller made a writer delete a tweet that said he had broken his toddler daughter’s collarbone. She did so, because this remains an allegation, and in response she wrote about a bunch of violent things he’s done to women that are not mere allegations.

What remains of The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah last September for her social media posts in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk. An arbitrator ruled that the firing violated the paper’s CBA with its union and that the Post must re-hire her. Heh.

Tagged Economics, finland, gaza, immigration, iowa, israel, links, longreads, measles, Music, religion, Sports, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, vaccines

July 25, 2026 · 1 comment

Stick to baseball, 7/25/26.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week I posted an updating ranking of the top 70 prospects still in the minors.

I sent a new issue of my free email newsletter last weekend, and hope to get another one out Sunday or Monday. For social media shenanigans, you can find me primarily on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

From three of my colleagues at the Athletic: how ESPN’s Matt Miller may have scammed readers out of tens of thousands of dollars.

How the hell is there an anti-sunscreen movement? I see some of these videos from wellness grifters and they should all be forced to lie in the sun for hours every day without sunscreen.

The Wall Street Journal reports on how Israel is spending $50 million to try to influence American voters, even as colonizers in the West Bank continue to commit violent acts against Palestinians and the IDF bombs funerals.

West Virginia Assistant Majority Leader David Elliott Pritt (R, of course) was arrested for allegedly raping an eighth grade girl he groomed via Roblox.

Francesca Hong is running for Governor of Wisconsin. In 2021, the Democrat was a new state rep, and she wrote in Bon Appetit about how running a restaurant prepared her for public service.

By now you’ve likely seen or read about Madison (WI) Police executing a Black man by shooting him three times while he was restrained and lying on the ground.

The Trump Administration is gutting evidence-based programs for reducing teen pregnancies in favor of religious-based, ineffective abstinence programs and programs aimed at increasing birth rates.

Bo French is the Republican candidate for a spot on Texas’ Railroad Commission, despite a long history of racist & antisemiticposts and posts sharing conspiracy theories. Texas Monthly also has more on how the party is silent on his hatemongering.

The developer of a data center in southern California said numerous times over many months that the project would not use any water from the Colorado River. He lied: He’s suing the local irrigation district to get access to 260 million gallons every year from the drought-stricken river.

The Seattle Times explains why Costco stocking Indian mangoes is such a big deal.

Estonia seemed to defeat the scourge of fentanyl, only for new, more dangerous synthetics to take its place.

My home state of Delaware requires that any organizations engaging in political advertising in the state disclose the names of donors who give over $100, regardless of where the donors live. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a Koch-backed anti-government group, sued the state over this transparency law and lost. Good.

Oklahoma is experiencing a drop in vaccination rates even after the number of measles cases there rose in the last year, thanks to false information parents are reading online.

Measles can cause all kinds of serious complications short of death. It’s not a binary construct.

A SEPTA (Philly transit) officer shoved a man into another man who was using a wheelchair, knocking the second man over. There’s video of the incident and SEPTA Is now investigating.

The Times’ editorial board points out that the second home tax is a net positive for New York – and underscores the lies that wealthy homeowners told to try to dissuade lawmakers from passing laws that ask them to pay their fair share. I’d go much further: I don’t think mortgage interest should be tax-deductible on any residence after your primary one.

A New York City sculptor spent $100,000 to make a statue of Charlie Kirk. No one wants to buy it.

The board game publisher CMON has been struggling for several years now, but NFTs are not the answer. They’d planned to invest $2.1 million in an NFT video game maker, whatever the hell that means, but backed off that plan when, I assume, they sobered up.

Tagged board game news, california, delaware, environment, frauds, gaza, israel, links, longreads, measles, oklahoma, palestine, philadelphia, police, science, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines, water crisis, west virginia, wisconsin

July 18, 2026 · No comments yet

Stick to baseball, 7/18/26.

The draft is over, which means my team-by-team recaps are up:

If you’re more interested in just the top names regardless of teams, here’s my day one recap. Plus I held a Q&A on Friday to talk draft & prospects. I also recapped the Futures Game on Sunday.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter today. You can find me primarily on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

I appeared on KJR with Chris Crawford to talk about the Mariners’ draft and prospects, on HB with Soren Petro to talk Royals draft, on 101 ESPN in St. Louis to talk Cardinals draft & deadline, and on 92.3 the Fan in Cleveland to talk about the Guardians’ draft, prospects, and young hitters.

And now, the links…

This Reuters special report looks at RFK Jr.’s ongoing effort to dismantle decades of U.S. vaccine policy that helped make this country free of many highly contagious and often deadly diseases. Now measles is back and other diseases are sure to follow, all because a fringe movement clinging to the fiction that vaccines cause autism (they do not because they can not) gained access to power.
The Texas Observer investigates the rise in arrests at Texas schools, with children as young as 10 taken into custody for incidents of misbehavior that shouldn’t rise to the level of criminal.
Madison Square Garden is suing WIRED for this report on MSG’s surveillance apparatus, which Knicks owner James Dolan allegedly used to harass fans and compile a list of LGBTQ+ attendees. Dolan is a close Trump ally and was buddies with Harvey Weinstein, according to the story.
Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) has extremely close ties to a Hitler-loving white nationalist influencer: his son-in-law.
California transplant Ken Paxton, running for Senate in Texas, purchased three condos in Utah in February for $1.6 million, adding to a real estate portfolio worth over $9 million that seems unusual given his salary of $153,000 to be the state’s attorney general.
Radley Balko writes in The New York Times that there is a simple solution to stopping ICE’s violence against American citizens: Allow us to sue ICE’s leaders and the policymakers enabling the rogue agency.
The Democratic consultant who recruited Graham Platner to run for Senate without doing proper due diligence on the guy was dismissed from Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA)’s campaign for sexually harassment and verbal abuse.
In The Nation, Jeet Heer writes about the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) choosing evil over truth or country, becoming “the president’s most obsequious lackey.”
Amnesty International caved to pressure from billionaire transphobe J.K. Rowling, removing the page that designated her sexual abuse crisis center “anti-rights.”
Also in the Times, a report on the massive pushback to the Administration’s attempt to make all science grants and programs subject to review by politicians who can cancel funding for entirely subjective, political reasons.
Board Game Wire profiled a new publisher, Valor Mountain, that’s hoping to bring some overlooked European games to the U.S., as founder Christopher High thinks major publishers have become too conservative. I agree that bigger publishers are leaning hard on things like sequel games or IP games, but the market seems saturated with smaller publishers fighting for floor space, many of which do import cool games at all complexity levels from around the world.

Tagged board game news, georgia, immigration, links, longreads, maine, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines, white nationalism

June 27, 2026 · 2 comments

Stick to baseball, 6/27/26.

Nothing new this week at the Athletic, but I’ll have an updated Big Board and a reaction to the Futures Game rosters in the coming week, plus probably a scouting blog – I’ve been accumulating some notes but have been waiting for something big or wow or otherwise hook-worthy to lead the column. Getting Anthony Eyanson’s worst outing of the year – he was 90-93 and couldn’t find the plate – did not help matters.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter on Saturday morning. You should sign up. Also, you should follow me on Instagram or TikTok, because I’m posting videos on both places now. Please don’t call me a ‘content creator.’ (Or an ‘influencer.’ I might die of shame.) I’m still on Bluesky first among all social media outlets.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The Colorado River system is headed for a crash, with likely water restrictions and reductions in hydropower output, according to this report from the Denver Post.

A massive miscarriage of justice and a violation of the First Amendment took place in Texas, where else, as several anti-ICE activists were sentenced to decades in prison for distributing leftist zines. It deserves far, far more attention than it has received. These people were convicted of terrorism charges for spreading words.

Speaking of the First Amendment, ICE agents found a woman who posted the name of the agent who killed Renee Good in Minnesota, Jonathan Ross, after he was identified in numerous news reports. The agents demanded that she take the post down. She has steadfastly refused.

Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic (gift link) about the myth of SpaceX, a meme masquerading as a company.

Some asshole called child protective services with a false claim against Pete Buttigieg. It’s swatting, but with a new twist. And in many states, CPS will investigate even anonymous, nonsense claims.

Texas’ push towards Christian nationalism – and against the Constitution – continues as the state will now require public-school students to read the Bible, or at least parts of it. I wonder if they’ll read Judges 21 or Numbers 16 or Deuteronomy 20!

Israeli troops murdered a Palestinian man who was on his way to the hospital for the birth of his son. So much for the “cease fire.”

The Trump Administration is cutting 20-30% of NSF’s funding for basic science research to redirect it to techbro “X-labs.”

Kalshi gave Donald Trump, Jr., equity worth about $300K, and now the government is actively fighting states that are trying to block the gambling sites (because gambling is illegal).

More Perfect Union has a video report on Yotta, the not-bank that tricked thousands of Americans into depositing their savings by falsely claiming they were FDIC-insured – which the customers discovered when Yotta suddenly stopped allowing withdrawals in 2024.

Cambodia’s crackdown on phone-scam compounds, where trafficked people were held captive and forced to mass-text or call potential victims, has put those people on the streets of Phnom Penh with no place to go and no easy way back to their home countries.

Parker Molloy points out how Giants reporters held Buster Posey accountable in a way White House reporters refuse to do with Trump.

The headline says it all: “I’m a critical care doctor. I’ve never seen the US harm its children this deliberately.”

I loved this post on Bill Watterson’s refusal to compromise his integrity in any way, giving up millions of dollars in potential earnings by declining to license Calvin & Hobbes for anything, and then closing up shop while he was still at his creative peak.

A professor at Indiana University was dismissed for teaching students that “Make America Great Again” is a slogan for white supremacy, which, well, it is. It’s America First for the modern age.

Researchers at Texas A&M published a paper that may identify ways in which coffee helps slow the aging process in our bodies.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) warns Democrats not to throw trans people under the bus, on moral and strategic grounds. If you give up on the rights of one oppressed minority, the other side will go after another minority, and another, and another, because they have learned you won’t fight for them.

An Alberta court upheld a permanent ban against ex-doctor William Makis practicing anything like medicine there, as he’s now hawking ivermectin as a cancer cure (it’s not, at all, this is just fraud).

This New York Times piece on bank tellers stepping in to stop people, often the elderly, from falling for phishing scams is both heartening and depressing. Most people want to do good. We are also so far away from being able to manage and regulate the technologies that we use every day.

On the Gamefound page for Galileo’s Truth, ThunderGryph Games announced they’re being acquired by Awaken Realms. I’m waiting to see how this pans out; Awaken Realms was caught using AI art in some reissues but they seem to have found the true path of using human artists for their upcoming reprint of Concordia.

I nearly backed this Kickstarter for Sprout, an upcoming game about houseplants – a core interest of my wife – but couldn’t get enough of a sense of what the game is like, and at $39 it seemed a lot to commit for a game I didn’t understand. Which is a long way of saying it might be awesome, but I want to wait and see.

Tagged board game news, coffee, first amendment, frauds, gambling, gaza, immigration, indiana, israel, links, longreads, scams, science, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, trans rights, white nationalism

June 20, 2026 · 1 comment

Stick to baseball, 6/20/26.

Four new posts this week at the Athletic: How the White Sox helped Jacob Gonzalez get his groove back, my redraft of the 2016 draft class, my look at all of the first-round misses from that year (and there were so, so many), and a story on Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd’s efforts to help Ugandan kids and his collaboration with Connect Roasters on a new coffee release. (Full disclosure: Connect sent me a bag of Hope Blend, and has sent me other coffees to try in the past as well.)

You can sign up for my free email newsletter. You can find me on Bluesky for text-based commentary and links, and TikTok and Instagram for short videos, mostly on baseball.

Longreads first: All this talk about putting some kind of colony on Mars ignores the reality that it’s an unbelievably hostile environment for life, writes Henry Wismayer in the Berggruen Institute’s magazine, No?ma.
The Atlantic discovered that popular AI song-generating agents were trained on millions of stolen copyrighted tracks. Make ‘em pay.
The kleptocracy in Washington knows no bounds: Markwayne Mullin, now head of Homeland Security, has fought any regulation or warnings about the dangers of kratom, because he’s invested $1 million in a kratom company. Kratom has two psychoactive compounds and can cause liver toxicity, but because it’s a “supplement” it’s basically unregulated.
Also in The Atlantic, Adam Serwer points out that the war on the abortion pill shows that the whole “leave abortion up to the states” story was just another lie.
Trump and his cronies debated ending the Constitutional right of habeus corpus for people arrested as potentially undocumented immigrants.
One common claim from creationists and other evolution deniers is that humans are some sort of end point in the process of evolution. This is disproven by copious evidence that humans are still evolving.
The Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circulation (Amoc), a system of ocean currents that moves heat around the Atlantic ocean, may be heading towards collapse due to anthropogenic climate change. The UK and EU are threatening to cut funding that helps monitor it.
A cop responding to a shoplifting incident shot into a car and killed a one-year-old boy, even though the officer knew the child was in the vehicle. I am struggling to understand why any shoplifting claim would provoke the use of a firearm. The officer has since been placed on administrative leave, but we all know that’s a temporary and often worthless response.
The high school group that had sued to block Idaho’s anti-trans bathroom bill dropped its case after one of the students involved took their own life. A few days later, a federal judge blocked the law. These bills/laws do absolutely nothing except put targets on trans people. There is zero evidence that they’re addressing an actual problem in child safety.
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a Trump toady and election denier, pointed a gun at his ex-wife and threw scalding water at her, according to police audio. His ex-wife, Emily Moreno, is the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, and she has accused Miller of physical abuse, while he’s responded by calling her crazy. He’s opposed this year by union ironworker Brian Poindexter.
Oklahoma regulators approved a new mine that will threaten a fragile aquifer, because in Oklahoma, profits are more important than clean water!
The Frontier obtained contracts various Oklahoma cities and towns signed with data centers, often with NDAs that prevent officials there from even acknowledging the deals’ existence.
Texas’ state Board of Education is going to vote on whether to teach second graders the story of the “Black Robe Regiment” Christians who did not actually help lead the American Revolution. It’s just not true.
The University of Texas used specious logic to block a fund-raising festival for the public-radio station KUT, then fired the station manager when she put the lie to their claims.
The son of Sen. Kristin Gillenbrand (D-NY) just graduated from college and then landed $30 million in investment in his crypto-derivatives startup. I’m sure there’s no connection.

Tagged abortion, artificial intelligence, climate change, evolution, idaho, links, longreads, mars, ohio, oklahoma, police, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, trans rights

June 13, 2026 · 3 comments

Stick to baseball, 6/13/26.

My second mock draft of 2026 went up this week, with a new name at #1. I also held a Q&A on Wednesday to discuss it. Last Sunday, I posted a scouting notebook on Theo Gillen, Miguel Sime Jr., and other Rays & Nationals prospects.

I sent out a new epistle of my free email newsletter this week. You can find me on Bluesky for text-based commentary and links, and TikTok and Instagram for short videos, mostly on baseball.

I appeared on The Fan LA on Wednesday to talk about the Dodgers’ farm system.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Longtime vaccine denier and supplement peddler Joseph Mercola – who has taken up other anti-science positions like claiming aspartame is behind all sorts of health problems – quickly changed his tune on vitamin K shots after ProPublica asked him for comment on why he’d made false claims about these lifesaving injections for infants.

WIRED (reprinted on KFF Health News) explored the devastation caused by vaccine denialism in Utah, where a measles epidemic has sickened many infants too young to be vaccinated and strained hospitals unprepared for a highly contagious disease that had been eradicated from the Western hemisphere. We all pay the cost for these grifters and the idiots who follow them.

The Times spoke to Scott Pelley on his ouster from 60 Minutes and the self-immolation of CBS News under Bari “Free Speech” Weiss.

In a related story, noted Trump-lie debunker Daniel Dale hasn’t appeared on CNN in three months. I’m sure that had nothing to do with the Justice Department’s review of the Paramount-Warner Brothers merger.

The Guardian looks at the rise and fall of West Ham United owner David Sullivan, asking how someone who made his fortune in pornography reached the pinnacle of English football.

Republican Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia owns an empire of coal-mining companies. The Trump Administration closed investigations into potential criminal violations by Justice’s firms.

Auburn University’s board of trustees dissolved the faculty senate and took control of curricula to comply with a law that doesn’t apply to the school.

Conservative Americans have higher mortality rates and worse health outcomes than liberals because of ‘ideological divides,’ which is a polite way to refer to science denial.

In the LA Times, Michael Hiltzik writes that the right’s war on science has reached a new low, and could go lower.

Avelo sucks to begin with, but now the CEO is demanding that regional airports give him equity in exchange for the airline flying there.

China is producing more solar energy than it can use. The Financial Times notes that it is “madness” to waste this surplus. Meanwhile, U.S. solar energy output has passed coal for the first time, despite a federal government openly hostile to green energy. Imagine what might happen if we had people in charge who accept scientific facts.

Gun-rights extremist Brandon Herrera is likely to end up representing Uvalde in Congress.

San Carlos Lake in Arizona is now closed to visitors after drought and a water release from a dam upriver killed all of its fish.

A 21-year-old Seattle man who was recently playing basketball for his junior college team was arrested for running an abusive pornography content mill, kidnapping, threatening, and beating girls to get them to produce pornography for OnlyFans and similar sites.

A good use of artificial intelligence: Mathematicians used an internal model from OpenAI to find a better solution to Paul Erdös’ planar unit distance problem.

I enjoyed this Vulture interview with KISS’ Paul Stanley, who never directly answers the interviewer’s questions but gives insightful comments on just about every one.

AVClub’s Sam Barsanti writes that it might be for the best that Doctor Who is on hiatus after the BBC sacked Russel T. Davies.

Dire Wolf has a Kickstarter going for a board game based on Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series.

Tagged arizona, board game news, climate change, denialism, guns, links, longreads, math, Music, soccer, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, tv, vaccines, west virginia

June 6, 2026 · No comments yet

Stick to baseball, 6/6/26.

Quirky timing this week led to just one post for subscribers to the Athletic, a scouting notebook on Gage Wood, Gavin Fien, Eli Willits, and some other Nats/Orioles prospects. I’ve got at least two already on the docket for this upcoming week.

I appeared on the Rates & Barrels podcast to talk about my top 50 prospects, which you can get on Apple, Youtube, or directly on our site.

My free email newsletter is still free and still infrequent. I also posted a new video about hitting 20 years as a full-time baseball writer to Instagram and TikTok.

Longreads first: Old Apostolic Lutheran Church leaders have ignored child sex abuse within its ranks for generations, and refused to report these crimes to the police, according to a new report from ProPublica. Church teachings also tell victims that they can’t speak about the crimes against them once the abuser has been “forgiven.” Excuse me if I find it impossible to distinguish this from a cult.

Companies that “donated” to Trump’s ballroom boondoggle subsequently took home over $50 billion in government contracts, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The New Yorker exposes how private prisons increase their profits by starving inmates.

TechCrunch writer and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick writes about how decentralization is one way to combat the enshittification that has ruined the major tech services over the last fiteen years, notably social media.

In their annual report on the use of sexual violence in war zones, the United Nations listed Israeli forces, both armed and security, along with Hamas and Russia, documenting at least nine cases of Gazans raped by IDF or Israeli prison security members.

One in sixteen pardoned J6 insurrectionists have been arrested again for new crimes, including child molestation and homicide.

Scientific American revisits the unsolved Riemann Hypothesis, one of the Millennium Prize problems that would net the person or team who solves it $1 million, but which isn’t a major research focus because its solution may not have many practical applications – it’s just interesting. There’s a great book about the hypothesis called Prime Obsession, which I reviewed back in 2010.
The Chapel Hill High School yearbook omitted twelve graduating students with disabilities. The school claims it wasn’t intentional. Uh-huh.

A devastating flesh-eating parasite called a screwworm that regularly devastated U.S. cattle farms until the 1960s has reappeared in Texas, just in time for an Administration that has slashed budgets for food safety and epidemic prevention.

Vaccine denialism is leading to more cases of preventable diseases in hospitals, which threatens to further their spread, while doctors are also seeing idiot adults refusing tetanus shots.

In the department of what the actual fuck: The Minnesota Republican Party held a moment of silence for convicted murderer Derek Chauvin at its state convention.

A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, gave a speech that criticized AI companies for their willful ignorance of copyrights and the likely impacts on the journalism industry, even as the Times Guild, the union that represents the paper’s journalists, has said the Times hasinsufficient guardrails around AI use.

From the great Jamelle Bouie: America Broke Something When It Gave Trump a Second Chance.

Druid City Games has a Gamefound crowdfunding page up for Bloodstone, an “epic dice combat game” for 1-5 players.

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, carceral state, gaza, israel, links, longreads, math, minnesota, north carolina, religion, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp, vaccines

May 23, 2026 · 4 comments

Stick to baseball, 5/23/26.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I spoke with teenaged umpire Jameson Morris about his confrontation with a standoffish rec league coach, the video of which has gone viral; published a minor league scouting notebook on Seth Hernandez, Edward Florentino, and some other Pirates & Phillies prospects; and wrote up scouting report on hard-throwing high school lefty Brody Bumila.

I appeared on TSN 1050 in Toronto to talk about the Jays, Trey Yesavage, and what the next year or so will be like for Jose Berrios; and on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco to talk about the Giants’ lost season and how maybe Buster Posey isn’t the savior.

I sent out a new issue of my free email newsletter on Friday.

Apropos of nothing, this Lyrics Born performance of his 2003 song “Callin’ Out” for KEXP is an absolute banger. KEXP is on quite a roll this year with their in-studio performances.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This New Yorker story on a mysterious Chinese couple in LA who have used surrogate mothers to amass over 20 children doesn’t have a big, punchy finish, but the whole thing is wildly disturbing, from the neglect and abuse of the kids to the broader issues of what the fuck is even going on.

404 Media exposes how Radnor (PA) Township School District completely fumbled a case where a 14-year-old boy made pornographic deepfakes of his classmates, including letting him return to school at one point before he was eventually charged with a crime. (The post was free when I first read it, but it appears now to be only for paid subscribers.)

The NAACP issued a call to Black athletes and fans to stop supporting athletic programs in states that are suppressing minority voters’ rights, which includes pretty much the entire SEC.

ICE deported a mother to Honduras but refused to send her 3-year-old son with her, leaving him in the care of an abusive uncle. That uncle beat Orlin to death, and now ICE is blaming the mother for abandoning her child.

Nicholas Kristof wrote in the Times’ opinion section about the world’s silence to the substantial reports of rapes of Palestinian men, women, and children by Israelis, including soldiers, prison guards, and even colonizers. The UN has long recognized the use of rape as a tactic in war.

In March, the Israeli military dropped criminal charges against soldiers caught on video raping a Palestinian detainee. This past week, they were allowed to return to military service, and the Israeli Defense Minister apologized to them.

Texans are probably going to elect Republican Ken Paxton as their Senator, despite his history of scandals that have led to an impeachment and an indictment.

Also in Texas, Democratic Congressional candidate Maureen Galindo wrote that she wants to turn an ICE facility into a concentration camp for American Zionists, the latest in a stream of antisemitic falsehoods coming from her and her campaign. She’s in a runoff to become the Democratic candidate in TX-35, with early voting open now and the election proper on Tuesday, May 26^th. She’s also been backed by the Republican SuperPAC that bills itself as Lean Left.

I usually put the board game news at the bottom of these links, but whoa boy, this one is special. BoardGameGeek fired their longtime advertising manager for rejecting an ad because he claimed demonic possession is real and an unfit subject for a game. It’s worse than it sounds; I hope this guy gets professional help, as he seems to be suffering from delusions, notably that demons are real (they are not, nor is demonic possession). Here’s the Gamefound page for Possess Me, Satan, which is already fully funded, perhaps thanks to a little extra publicity.

A Trump-loving Tennessee sheriff jailed a resident of his county for 37 days for posting a meme after the death of Charlie Kirk. That resident just won an $835,000 settlement in his lawsuit against the county. Maybe Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems should have to pay some of that.

I linked a few weeks ago to a story about Iowa Republicans forcing an oxymoronic “Center for Intellectual Freedom” on the University of Iowa. Students aren’t taking its bullshit classes, so now those same Republicans are going to mandate the classes for all students.

Sports Illustrated is at it again with the AI slop; Sportico caught SI plagiarizing some of its content, Futurism delved further, and now everything that author supposedly wrote is gone from SI’s site, along with the author’s social media presence.

I’ve seen several stories this week about the murders of trans women; one was Juniper Blessing, a student at the University of Washington whom the Seattle Times honored with a piece about her life and legacy.

A now adult daughter of anti-vaxxer parents recalls how she ended up hospitalized for almost a month with meningitis when she was eleven – and how her classmates thought she was drunk.

Oklahoma Republicans are pushing through two bills to ban “obscene” material – by their definition – from schools. This is, of course, not about protecting children at all, but about enacting Christian censorship within public education.

A New York doctor is facing 21 felony counts for faking vaccination records for her own kid and anti-vax parents. Lock her up.

Three former CDC executives say “enough is enough” to RFK Jr.’s war on vaccines.

The Broadview Six, including onetime Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, had all charges against them related to their protests outside an ICE facility dismissed with prejudice this week, with the judge issuing some excoriating commentary on the unethical behavior of federal prosecutors in the game.

Mathematicians appear to have proven the convexity conjecture first posed by Michel Talagrand in 1995, and did so with an assist from AI.

Florida man Alan Chambers once ran a Christian ministry that promised to “cure” LGBTQ+ people. He was arrested last week for soliciting sex from a teenaged boy.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself taunting and slapping activists abducted by Israeli forces from a peace flotilla heading for Gaza; France has now banned him from entering any French territory. The now-freed activists have also alleged they were sexually assaulted while in Israeli custody.

The Times Guild, representing workers at the New York Times, filed an unfair labor practice charge this week against the paper. The Athletic’s unionizing effort has been fighting for over a year for the Times to recognize us as part of the Guild as well, rather than a separate bargaining unit.

Let’s Go! To France is up on Kickstarter now; my final piece for AV Club before they shuttered their games section was an interview with designer Josh Wood about the game.

Tagged artificial intelligence, board game news, censorship, college sports, gaza, immigration, iowa, israel, links, longreads, math, oklahoma, pennsylvania, police, religion, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, trans rights, unions, vaccines

May 16, 2026 · 4 comments

Stick to baseball, 5/16/26.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I posted my Big Board for this year’s draft, ranking the top 100 prospects in the class, and then held a Q&A on Thursday. I also posted a minor league scouting notebook last weekend, covering Liam Doyle, Ike Irish, Dante Nori, and others.

I filed two more pieces this morning, so next up will be a new issue of my free email newsletter, followed by a game review to run here.

And now, the links…

Texas Republicans repeatedly failed to pass flood protection legislation that would have prevented the deadly floods that killed 139 people last summer, according to a ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigation.

Louisiana is one of a handful of reactionary states asking a federal judge to strike a 1973 law protecting disabled Americans from discrimination. Yep – Republicans want to be able to discriminate against Americans who use wheelchairs, or have visual or hearing impairments, and so on. This should be a major campaign issue for Democrats, given how many of us know and care about someone with a disability.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription definitely required here) writes about Sweden’s shift away from its extensive social welfare system, reducing government spending but also raising fears of inequality and increased poverty in the future.

Tennessee continues to show its ass to the world. Keith Ervin, a school board member in Washington County, Tennessee, said to a teenaged girl speaking before the board, “God, you’re hot,” and put his arm around her. The board declined to remove him, and she blasted them in speech before the board last week, saying “you are all cowards.” Which they are.

Also in Tennessee, Rep. Andy Ogles, who raised $25,000 in a fundraiser for a children’s memorial he never built, is now claiming that never happened.

Watertown, Wisconsin’s school board voted to ban an instrumental song from the district’s spring concert merely because it was dedicated LGBT rights pioneer Marsha P. Johnson. And now the cowards won’t answer questions about it. They should get zero peace for this. The next board meeting is Monday, May 18th, so if you live nearby, go let them know how you feel.

Slate’s Maggie Hennessy writes about how the rise of food ‘influencers’ posting pseudo-reviews on TikTok etc. are costing us the real benefits of proper food criticism.

Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone writes about how his organization fought the Trump administration and won.

Jess Valenti writes on her Substack about a case where Child Protective Services kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from her mother’s care because she might have gotten an abortion. There are very few specifics in the story, for the privacy of the mother and teen, but I also want to acknowledge that this story is impossible to verify.

404 Media’s Jason Koebler writes that other so-called writers’ AI use is breaking his brain.

Nearly 50,000 people living near Lake Tahoe are about to lose their power because of fucking data centers. Not temporarily, either, as the electricity generator is redirecting its output to uses that are not people.

Human Rights Watch issued a new report on the massacres, mass rapes, and abductions taking place in the Congolese city of Uvira since the Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 seized the city in December.

Another Kennedy failson is running for Congress, and as The New York Times reports, Jack Schlossberg’s campaign is a mess – but he’s still in line to win.

Restoration Games has a video trailer up for their upcoming Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit game, a new implementation of the 2000 game Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit.

The crowdfunding effort for the game Vanea: Guardians of the Eldertree has been relaunched and is already funded.

Bloomsbury Publishing is shutting down Osprey Games, which has published Cryptid, the Undaunted Series, The King is Dead, and more acclaimed titles. They’ll continue to publish wargames and RPGs under the Osprey name.

Tagged abortion, artificial intelligence, board game news, california, disability rights, environment, first amendment, lgbt rights, links, longreads, social media, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, wisconsin

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