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No Insider content this week, but I’ll have at least two posts next week from the Arizona Fall League. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday, and did a Periscope video chat Friday (in which I played a little guitar too).

I’m hoping to get another edition of my free email newsletter out before I fly to Arizona on Sunday, so feel free to sign up for my most random and disconnected thoughts.

If you live in east-central Pennsylvania, I’ll be at the Manheim Library in Manheim, PA, on October 22nd at 6:30 pm to talk Smart Baseball and whatever else you desire.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The best and strangest thing I read this week is this account of Bir Tawil, a tiny patch of land in northeast Africa claimed by no country, which several westerners have tried to thus claim as their own. The author is one of those people, and describes the bizarre effort by an American father to claim the land so his daughter can be a princess.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is pouring tens of millions of dollars into the midterms to protect the GOP majority and thus further advance his economic plans in east Asia, such as building a casino in Japan. Consider the odds of this billionaire’s personal agenda aligning with your own economic interests before voting. Meanwhile, President Trump appears to have done Adelson’s bidding by bringing up the latter’s plans in a recent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Politico also documented Adelson’s massive cash layout, which is heading to PACs that will likely flood airwaves and mailboxes with attack ads in the next few weeks.
I’ve written about this a few times before, but there’s another piece, this one in WIRED, about how the Cavendish banana is threatened with extinction and only genetic modification might save it. All banana plants are genetically identical, clones of the original from decades ago (when the Gros Michel encountered a similar fate), and thus they are extremely vulnerable to disease because they lack the mechanisms of evolution to survive. I reviewed a book on the topic back in 2013.
Georgetown Professor Greg Afinogenov (an assistant professor, but I’m not sure how that would affect the honorific) writes in N Plus One about the bad faith practiced by the so-called Sokal Squared hoaxers, who claimed to have uncovered blind orthodoxy in so-called “grievance studies.”
I’m still not sure what to make of this BREAKER piece on the bitcoin industry’s many roots in Hungary, which has in turn failed to convert this tech base into meaningful economic growth.
The BBC World Service’s In the Studio podcast spoke to Pandemic/Forbidden Desert game creator Matt Leacock about season 3 of Pandemic Legacy, which Leacock tested at Gen Con this past August. Friend of the dish and onetime BBTN podcast guest Rob Daviau makes an appearance as well.
The American Conservative criticizes Ted Cruz for his ‘sellout’ on criminal justice reform and his attacks on opponent Beto O’Rourke over this issue.
The New York Times reports how the FBI “investigation” into Brett Kavanaugh’s history of sexual misconduct was always limited. People who say the FBI “cleared” Judge Beer are being more than a little disingenuous. One of Kavanaugh’s classmates at Yale Law writes that the investigation was “a joke” in the Indianapolis Star, after he contacted the FBI but his offer of information was rebuffed. The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin argues that the GOP’s “spin” on Kavanaugh isn’t working with voters, but I’m not convinced. I think their supporters heard exactly what they wanted to hear.
Rewire.news looks at research that might explain why white women don’t believe Dr. Blasey Ford, just as they didn’t believe the women who accused Roy Moore of assaulting them.
Think the Kavanaugh fight was just over believing men? The Supreme Court just upheld a ruling that de facto disenfranchised hundreds or thousands of native Americans in North Dakota. That state has a voter-suppression law requiring voters to have a street address to register, but many native Americans living on reservations there only have P.O. Boxes for their addresses. I’m surprised SCOTUS didn’t also order Bismarck to deliver blankets full of smallpox to those residents.
George Will describes the United States’ hard and dangerous shift toward protectionism, which will ultimately harm and possibly even shrink our economy. It’s also not working: Our trade deficit with China hit a record high last month.
Georgia’s Republican nominee for governor, Brian Kemp, is currently its Secretary of State, which means he oversees elections and voter registration, so it’s a problem that his office is refusing to process over 53,000 registrations right now in the most blatant attempt at voter suppression we’ve seen from the GOP so far. His office has cancelled over 1.4 million registrations since 2012, and nearly 670,000 just last year, when Kemp knew he’d be running for the governor’s seat. The New York Times‘s Michelle Goldberg also called out Kemp’s fraudulent tactics. All that matters to the modern GOP is winning, regardless of whether the method is fair, free, or ethical.
For example, in Illinois, the Republican incumbent in Illinois’ 14th district is running a new ad accusing his opponent, Lauren Underwood, of holding policy positions she doesn’t support, such as a plan that would double some voters’ income tax liabilities. (In an ironic twist, the GOP candidate himself voted for the GOP tax bill last winter.)
A story from April reveals that Nevada Senator Dean Heller told supporters that suppressing Democratic turnout was key to holding his seat, allowing him to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Ted Cruz’s national security adviser previously worked for murderous Côte d’Ivoire dictator Lawrence Gbagbo, currently on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
Ah, West Virginia, you ask not to be the butt of our jokes, and then a Supreme Court justice there won’t recuse himself from a case where his personal lawyer is representing one side.
Of course, Tennessee got jealous, so a highway patrol officer working security on the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s campaign leaked info to his opponent claiming the candidate was at “a Muslim event” that turned out to be a meet-and-greet at a falafel restaurant.
Raleigh, North Carolina’s News and Observer endorsed Anita Earls for the state Supreme Court, who has been targeted by a series of laws passed by the GOP-controlled, gerrymandered-AF state legislature.
Thirsty Dice, a long-promised board game café in Philadelphia, is (probably) scheduled to open this upcoming week. If there’s interest, perhaps we can do an offseason gaming meetup there for dish readers.
Was the supposed comet ‘Oumuamua not actually a comet, and if not, what exactly was the interstellar visitor to our solar system?
I’m assuming everyone here saw the IPCC report on how bad climate change already is and how limited our chance is to slow or stop it; if not, Scientific American has a quick overview of the dire warnings it laid out.
Some videos: If you’re not on Twitter, you might have missed this wonderful little song from Texas singer-dancer-choreographer-artist Lynzy Lab called “A Scary Time.” Within days, she performed the same song on Jimmy Kimmel Live with a small chorus of women and young girls.
Riz Ahmed explained why he fights for representation rather than diversity.
And finally, director Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Everybody Wants Some!!, and the Before Sunrise trilogy) lent his skills to this ad against Ted Cruz in Texas:

NEW tonight: @fire_ted_cruz PAC ad, directed by Richard Linklater https://t.co/FebBWcegbd

— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) October 9, 2018

My awards ballots for the six major postseason player honors went up this week for ESPN+ subscribers, and I held a Klawchat Thursday to discuss them.

My latest board game review for Paste covers Reiner Knizia’s Blue Lagoon, a light/midweight game that plays very quickly but adds some strategy with complex scoring, and has a cover that might remind you of a certain Disney movie.

And now, the links…

Long reads first: This Politico piece on on the rise, fall, and change of heart of former hard-right Iowa state rep Kent Sorensen is the best thing I read this week. It speaks once again to the power of exposing bigots to the very people they profess to hate.
A Boston University doctor and researcher has made a career of testifying that cases of suspected child abuse are actually rare genetic disorders or vitamin deficiencies; in over ten years he’s never examined an abuse case and determined it was the result of actual abuse. This ProPublica piece highlights inaccuracies and inconsistencies in his statements, and details a case where Holick’s testimony resulted in a baby going back to an abusive parent who subsequently put her back in the hospital with a broken leg and bleeding in the brain. Why BU employs a child abuse enabler, or courts and juries find him credible, is not explained.
A UPenn professor and director of that school’s Annenberg Public Policy Center argues that Russian interference online gave Donald Trump the 2016 election – but she bases her assertion on data, not conjecture, laying out the case in greater length in her upcoming book Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President.
The Daily Beast looked at Barstool Sports’ history of bullying opponents and encouraging sexual harassment. Founder Dave Portnoy often doxxes critics, such as posting this piece’s author’s phone number on Twitter, a clear violation of their ToS, but was never suspended for doing so.
Methane trapped in Arctic ice is starting to leak out as the climate warms. A similar event at the end of the Triassic era warmed the planet so much it led to a mass extinction event that wiped out 76% of all species on earth.
I’ve written before here about how trauma affects the brain, including my review of the seminal book The Body Keeps the Score. In the wake of multiple women stating that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted them, NPR talked to scientists about how trauma affects memory, something that everyone should be taught in schools. We tend to think of memories the way we think of data storage – that we record the information, accurately, and have it there to be recalled when we run the appropriate mental script – but memories are fallible and malleable, with trauma a major reason why our memories of significant events are often wrong or incomplete.
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake asked for a vote delay after previously signaling his support for the nominee, and the link there implies it was the result of assault victims confronting him in an elevator just hours before his announcement. I’d like to think this is true, and that Flake, who says lots of good things and then does nothing to back them up, has decided to take a stand, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
This Twitter thread from a researcher who studies sexual violence includes information, with links to published research, on why we should believe women, including Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who allege they’ve been assaulted.
Padma Lakshmi explained why she didn’t report her rape at age 16 in the NY Times.
ThinkProgress’ Lindsay Gibbs writes about Dr. Ford’s bravery, and watching the hearings as a sexual assault survivor herself.
We excuse young men who assault women because they’re young and their brains are still developing and we don’t want to ruin their lives. We excuse older men who’ve done it because that’s all in the past and they’ve changed since then, of course. Where in this framework do women matter?
America’s crumbling social infrastructure of libraries, schools, playgrounds, and fields is is hurting our democracy, writes sociologist Eric Klinenberg for The Atlantic.
In Texas, a state where most politicians think The Handmaid’s Tale is a utopian novel, the state’s attorney general is supporting a school district that expelled a student for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance, a clear violation of the student’s First Amendment rights, in a case of blatant pandering for votes before November.
Professor of English and Cultural History Joe Moran writes in the Guardian about the difficult of writing a ‘perfect’ sentence, or even deciding what a perfect sentence is.
A new book called Between Hope and Fear: A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity argues that there have always been anti-vaxxers, according to this NPR interview with author Michael Kinch.
ProPublica also looks at the so-called “Jobs Alliance” in West Virginia where a coal baron is trying to block natural gas expansion that would actually help a growing industry with a viable future.
A Trump Administration analysis concluded that the planet will warm by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 so climate change regulations are pointless, bringing a whole new level of cynicism to public discourse.
Trump’s EPA immediately rolled back rules on coal plant pollution into waterways, raising the risk of heavy metal pollution during flooding like that caused by Hurricane Florence.
This long-ish excerpt from Michael Lewis’ upcoming book The Fifth Risk covers the tragicomic inside of Trump’s transition team and shows him as a man who didn’t believe he had any chance to be President.
One new board game Kickstarter of note – Fabio Lopiano’s Ragusa, co-published by Capstone Games, a company that focuses on heavy Euro titles it can translate and import to the U.S.

Stick to baseball, 10/13/18.

Stick to baseball, 9/29/18.

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