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I released my second mock draft for 2023 this week for subscribers to the Athletic. I also did a Q&A to answer your draft questions.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was Michael Ruhlman, author of Ruhlman’s Twenty and the brand-new The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails, which is an essential guide for any home bartender. You can listen & subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New Yorker’s Louisa Thomas has a tremendous story on the vicissitudes of Daniel Bard’s career, as he’s had at least two distinct comebacks already in his baseball life. (There’s also a mention of Keith Law Show guest Sian Beilock, author of Choke.)

Defector has the story of con artist John Rogers, who scammed people out of millions through his business of buying and digitizing photo archives from major newspapers and professional photographers.

NPR affiliate KNKX looks at how Christopher Rufo, who made “critical race theory” an electoral rallying cry and is now going after trans people, went from a little-known City Council candidate to a right-wing influencer with links to two Presidential candidates.

The new chief of the 1100-person Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Native Americans in Louisiana is a 25-year-old coastal scientist who wants to help his tribe fight climate change and preserve their way of life.

Water recycling is the next big thing in building and urban planning, from commercial to residential properties.

Meanwhile, the state of Arizona is making it way too hard for native populations to access their guaranteed water rights.

The Guardian spent three days interviewing the Kenyan Nobel Laureate Ng?g? wa Thiong’o, author of Wizard of the Crow and A Grain of Wheat.

The BBC has a rare look at the famine and increased repression taking place right now in North Korea.

NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny interviewed putative Presidential candidate and science denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who shows just how divorced from reality he is, claiming that the powers-that-be prolonged the pandemic, that the vaccines killed more people than they saved (they did not), and that the CIA killed his father. He also still doesn’t understand that the mercury found in fish and the mercury that used to be found in vaccines were in completely different forms that the human body handles differently.

RFK Jr. is not a doctor or scientist; he’s a lawyer, with no medical or scientific background whatsoever. This TIME editorial explaining how and why RFK Jr. is “dead wrong” about vaccines was co-authored by a doctor and professor of global health.

Still not convinced? RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine group, the misleadingly-named Children’s Defense Fund, has been reaching out to neo-Nazi and white nationalist users to drum up support for him. Very fine people.

The Washington Post has more on how a fringe, Christian doctors’ group has spurred Republicans’ renewed war on abortion, transgender rights, and more.

The same billionaire who lavished gifts on SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas has also donated over $450,000 to Republican Senators who might vote on judicial ethics reform.

The British government is holding over 60 migrants, mostly Tamils, in a makeshift detention camp on Diego Garcia, with conditions deteriorating and what seems like an end-run around refugee rights because the Brits are claiming the island, which houses a military base, isn’t actually part of the UK.

Two old morons accused a nine-year-old girl of being trans at a track meet, stopping the event and demanding proof that the girl was cis. This is what comes of right-wingers spreading fear and hate of trans people just to gain political currency.

Writing in the Observer, Kathryn Bromwich argues for a more inclusive feminism and less focus on the distraction of transphobia, as there are far more pressing and practical issues confronting women today.

Starbucks caved to pressure from bigots and removed Pride décor from many of its stores. Workers from over 150 locations are going on strike to protest the move.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, vetoed a bill to make it easier for people with disabilities to vote by mail. He also approved a law that bans cities and counties in Texas from mandating water breaks for construction workers in the heat.

The BBC has the story of a Texas woman who was denied an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy and nearly died as a result of the state’s draconian, misogynistic abortion ban.

The Speaker of the North Carolina House, Tim Moore (R), stands accused of using his position to gain sexual favors, including “engaging in group sex” with people looking to benefit politically.

The British newspaper The Times ran a story claiming that COVID-19 came from a lab leak, although they didn’t provide any evidence. It’s right in line with the paper’s AIDS denialist stance from the 1980s.

Elon Musk joining in and encouraging an attack against vaccine developer Dr. Peter Hotez has many scientists looking for the exit from Twitter.

Can you wash and reuse plastic zip-top bags? Yes, several times.

Barbara Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women’s Prize for Fiction twice.

PEN America referred to the removal of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir Between the World and Me from a South Carolina school’s AP course list as “an outrageous act of government censorship.”

NBC News reporter Ben Collins received a Walter Cronkite Award for TV Political Reporting, earning special recognition for his “incisive reporting from the trenches of the information war,” and gave a great speech about fighting misinformation and the need to stand up for the truth.

Truthout has some details on billionaire Leonard Leo’s operation to try to buy up the American judiciary and impose a hard-right agenda on the country.

Looks like CNN and MSNBC learned one tiny lesson, refusing to broadcast Trump’s post-arraignment speech live, since they couldn’t fact-check it in real time.

A whole bunch of Trump supporters claimed they’d respond to his arraignment with violence. They did not. You can’t cave to these people.

Meanwhile, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R) sent out a fundraising email for a “Trump Defense Fund” that would actually funnel most of the money to her.

On the bright side, Delaware’s at-large Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D) announced that she’s running for the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Tom Carper’s retirement. Delaware has never had a female Senator or a Senator of color.

Writer/activist Michael Harriot exposes some of the hypocrisy of Nikki Haley’s views and statements on race.

Verge explains the Reddit shutdown last week where multiple subreddits went dark for days to protest the company’s new policies.

The astroturfing group Moms for Liberty, which is pushing book bans and other anti-LGBTQ+ policies, quoted Hitler … again.

Board game news: A new version of the 1980s classic game Crossbows & Catapults is now up on Kickstarter.

Tangerine Games launched a Kickstarter for yet another bird-themed game, the very pretty Nestlings.

Thiefdom, a new game from the designers of Clans of Caledonia, is now also up on Kickstarter. I don’t like Clans of Caledonia anywhere near as much as the consensus – I find it a rather soulless economic Euro – but this appears to be a totally different sort of game.

Waypoints, a print-and-play game for $5, is also up on Kickstarter for one more week.

I had two ESPN+ pieces this week: my midseason ranking of the top 50 prospects in baseball and my Futures Game wrapup. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

I’d planned to send a newsletter out yesterday but I’m so backed up on life things from being sick for ten days (I’m recovered now, just dealing with a mild cough). I’m going to try to do that in the next few days, though, and you can still sign up here.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Author David Epstein argues for generalization, not specialization, against the current trope that experts in any endeavor need 10,000 hours of experience or practice to reach that level of competence. This is good for me as I do not have the discipline or attention span to do anything for 10,000 hours other than sleep.
The BBC looks at how NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo went from a stateless migrant to a Greek icon, including the racism he faced growing up and even after he was drafted by the Bucks, and how he’s helped ease the path for migrant children born and educated in Greece.
The Washington Post dives into how Sandy Hook parents are fighting back against hoaxers who claim the massacre was faked.
The Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory, widely pushed by Fox News personalities, was in fact a hoax planted by Russian intelligence, according to an investigative report from Yahoo News.
The Huffington Post reports that “progressive” baby boomers are fighting affordable housing projects in cities, a rather blatant “not in my backyard” mentality that masks both self-interest (preserving artificially high real estate values) and racism: Just look at the photo of Orange County, California residents fighting the placement a sober living facility.
Justin Gest, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at George Mason, proposes an evidence-based overhaul of immigration policy, one that considers factors both economic and humanitarian.
Biotech executive Michael Becker is dying of neck cancer at age 49, and is using his remaining time to urge parents to get their teenagers vaccinated against HPV. While HPV causes nearly all cervical cancers, it’s also responsible for many other cancers, including more than 70% of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States.
ICE has just opened three new migrant detention centers, flouting limits placed by Congress in February. They’re run by private prison companies, who, of course, profit the more we lock people up in their facilities.
“Healing crystals” are pseudoscientific bullshit. They’re also the new “blood diamonds,” often mined in war-torn areas or mined by children as young as seven.
Harvard just suspended economist Roland Fryer for two years and closed his lab in response to sexual harassment claims.
The Miami-Herald‘s Julie K. Brown, whose investigative reporting helped lead to the re-arrest of alleged child rapist & human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and resignation of Alex Acosta from the Cabinet, writes that more than a dozen additional victims of Epstein have come forward since his latest arrest.
Mashable tries to explain the cult of Wawa. I don’t think they really get at just how much people in the mid-Atlantic love the chain of convenience stores, including their coffee and sandwiches.
Yet another new tick-borne disease, the Bourbon virus, has shown up in the United States, thanks to climate change and global travel.
Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase (guess) said in a comment on her office’s Facebook page that rape victims were naïve and unprepared. She’s only barely backed off of the comments since then, using them instead to justify carrying a firearm in public.
Veterans’ rights activist Paul Rieckhoff, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, posted an excellent tweet thread about the invective and outright racism hurled at Kamala Harris, which came his way after he said he agreed with Harris’s statements on Trump’s ridiculous July 4th display. He singles out Laura Ingraham for her role in fomenting the racist and misogynist commentary.
An extreme right-wing gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi denied a woman reporter access to his campaign because of her gender, and then played white nationalist bingo on Twitter to defend himself, citing the “liberal left,” “socialism,” and “putting men in women’s bathrooms.” I think the answer is simple: don’t cover him. He just played the media and got exactly what he wanted: free coverage of his theocratic worldview.
The Kingston Whig-Standard posted the first of a three-part series on the impending global water crisis. The BBC’s The Inquiry podcast looked at the same topic through the lens of the water shortage happening now in Chennai, a city that relies on monsoon rains for its water supply.
A Nebraska midwife faces homicide charges after delivering a baby who died two days later. The midwife actually did not have a certification to practice as one, and even if she had, state law prevents midwives from delivering babies at home. The newborn in this case was born breech and died from oxygen deprivation during the delivery. Hospitals seem like good places for births, but that’s just me.
Remember how the GOP tax bill was supposed to boost our economy? The deficit just jumped 23% in the last year even as GDP growth is slowing.
This tweet is from October but rather nicely sums up conservatives’ claims of “censorship” on social media.

Stick to baseball, 7/13/19.

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