{"id":10343,"date":"2024-08-10T13:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T17:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10343"},"modified":"2024-08-10T13:42:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T17:42:51","slug":"stick-to-baseball-8-10-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/10\/stick-to-baseball-8-10-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 8\/10\/24."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I\u2019ve been tied up the last few Saturdays with other things, so here\u2019s a quick rundown of what you might have missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wrote 14 different trade-deadline reaction pieces at the Athletic but there isn\u2019t a single link to all of them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/author\/keith-law\/\">beyond my author page<\/a>, so if you missed anything that\u2019s the place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/board-games\/the-best-board-games-at-gen-con-2024\">my annual Gen Con recap post<\/a>, which covers every game I saw at the convention plus my top ten games from the show and which this year ran over 10,000 words, over at Paste. I also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/board-games\/so-random-board-game-biomos-relies-too-much-on-luck\">reviewed the light family game Biomos<\/a>, which I kind of liked when I first played it but eventually decided had too much randomness for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stadium has changed its programming schedule and I\u2019ll no longer be going to Chicago, but instead will be doing remote video work for them that will appear before their broadcasts of minor-league games (it\u2019s all AAA games this month) or will show up on Amazon Echo devices and MSN. Unfortunately, I know several people lost their jobs in the changeover there, with some resources moving to the new Chicago Sports Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now, the links \u2013 just some of the ones I saved over the last three weeks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Longreads first: ProPublica <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election\">obtained several training videos from Project 2025<\/a>, the Trump-linked plan from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to largely dismantle the federal government, advising people on how to skirt judicial review, to remove any references to climate change, and to avoid creating any kind of evidence through open records. You can read more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonreview.net\/articles\/inside-project-2025s-plan-to-reprogram-the-government\/\">the details of the GOP\u2019s plans in the <em>Boston Review<\/em><\/a>. The <em>Atlantic<\/em> dove into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2024\/07\/noaa-project-2025-weather\/678987\/\">the Project 2025 plan to end free weather information by shutting down the NOAA<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A massive new study published in <em>Nature<\/em> found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-024-49634-x\">that COVID-19 vaccinations reduced the incidence of common cardiovascular events<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A study published in the <em>BMJ<\/em> showed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/386\/bmj-2023-078918\">wearing surgical face masks reduced the incidence of respiratory symptoms<\/a> consistent with infection.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New York City gave <a href=\"https:\/\/defector.com\/nyc-willets-point-soccer-stadium-hell-gate\">a subsidy running to the hundreds of millions to the Yankees and to the UAE\u2019s Prime Minister<\/a> for the Willets Point soccer stadium project.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Also from ProPublica: Washington state\u2019s policy of giving tax breaks to data centers is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/data-centers-clean-energy-washington-state?utm_source=pocket_shared\">now conflicting with the state\u2019s attempt to shift towards green energy<\/a>. First it was crypto; now it\u2019s AI. Regardless of the reason, we need to make tech companies pay for this kind of excessive energy usage \u2013 and if that means I don\u2019t get AI-generated summaries and search results that I didn\u2019t ask for, oh well.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Two rational explanations for the non-troversy over the Olympic women\u2019s boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Y-ting: The BBC goes into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/crlr8gp813ko\">the scientific differences between genotype and phenotype<\/a>, and why chromosomes aren\u2019t the final answer on gender; and RT\u00c9 points out that the so-called \u201ccontroversy\u201d all stems <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/primetime\/2024\/0731\/1462837-explained-the-gender-controversy-miring-womens-olympic-boxing\/\">from a discredited source whose test results were never explained<\/a>. I\u2019d add to this that the whole thing reeks of transphobia, and somehow trans folks were roped into the attacks despite actually having nothing to do with the matter, because the right sees them as popular scapegoats.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A dozen scientists authored a letter to Rutgers asking them to open a formal investigation into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2024-03-20\/leading-scientists-accuse-two-rutgers-professors-of-poisoning-the-debate-over-covids-origins-heres-why?utm_source=pocket_shared\">two professors who have been harassing and attacking researchers who have studied SARS-CoV-2\u2019s zoonotic origins<\/a>, comparing them to Pol Pot and referring to some as \u201cmurderers.\u201d Richard Ebright is a lab-leak conspiracy theorist who has been particularly virulent (pun intended) on Twitter for years now, and the university has appeared to do nothing whatsoever about his behavior.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <em>Journal of Virology<\/em> published an editorial that points out <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.asm.org\/doi\/10.1128\/jvi.01240-24\">the harms that come from continuing to promote the debunked lab-leak theory<\/a>. In the spirit of full disclosure, my employer published an editorial that pushed this failed hypothesis two months ago.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Why is there <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/opinion\/commentary\/trump-sisi-egypt-10-million-bribe-20240804.html\">so little coverage of Egypt\u2019s attempt to bribe President-elect Donald Trump in 2016 with a $10 million \u2018donation\u2019<\/a>? The <em>Philly Inquirer<\/em>\u2019s Will Bunch argues that a large part of it is that bribery has become tacitly accepted in America, all the way up to the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/jd-vance-jack-posobiec_n_66a2755fe4b04c3a302465e7\">J.D. Vance endorsed a book authored by one of the main pushers of the insane Pizzagate conspiracy theory<\/a>, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, that argues that anyone who doesn\u2019t agree with their right-wing views is \u201cunhuman\u201d and \u201cvermin,\u201d mirroring the language Adolf Hitler used to demonize Jews before the Holocaust.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Bulwark dove into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebulwark.com\/p\/jd-vance-childless-cat-ladies-tax-credit\">Vance\u2019s dog-whistling comments about \u201ccat ladies.\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pro-school voucher groups <a href=\"https:\/\/tennesseelookout.com\/2024\/07\/31\/pro-school-voucher-groups-spending-tops-4-5-million-in-tennessee-republican-primaries\/\">dumped $4.5 million into primaries in Tennessee<\/a> last week, some backed by Charles Koch and Betsy DeVos, both strong opponents of public education.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Through the end of July, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/measles-cases-surge-triple-last-years-with-5-months-go\">the U.S. had seen three times as many measles cases in 2024 as it did in all of 2023<\/a>, thanks entirely to anti-vaxxers and the credulous fools who listen to them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I\u2019m not sure how this didn\u2019t get get more coverage \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/07\/30\/israel-far-right-protesters-storm-military-bases\">far-right protesters in Israel stormed military bases hosting Hamas militants and the IDF\u2019s military court<\/a>. Meanwhile, just yesterday video emerged of IDF forces raping a Palestinian detainee, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2024\/8\/9\/everything-is-legitimate-israeli-leaders-defend-soldiers-accused-of-rape\">Israel\u2019s National Security Minister and Finance Minister both appeared to defend the accused rapists<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gojira\u2019s awesome performance at the Olympics\u2019 Opening Ceremonies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/opening-ceremony-heavy-metal-band-gojira.html\">earned them a brief writeup in the <em>New York Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A pastor in Florida who is the father of nine children <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/florida-pastor-father-of-9-accused-of-raping-15-year-old-niece.html\">was arrested on charges of raping his 15-year-old niece<\/a>. No trans people or drag queens were involved.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/27\/us\/politics\/elon-musk-kamala-harris-deepfake.html\">Elon Musk shared a deepfake of Kamala Harris through his Twitter account<\/a>, which violates the policies of his own site.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Hugo Awards almost had a second huge scandal in as many years, but this time they got in front of it, revealing that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/article\/2024\/jul\/23\/hugo-awards-fraudulent-votes-paid-for-one-author-ntwnfb\">someone had spent thousands of dollars to try to buy 377 votes for a particular finalist in one of its categories<\/a>. Last year\u2019s Hugos were undermined by the revelation that the organizing committee disqualified several nominees that ran afoul of the Chinese government\u2019s preferences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been tied up the last few Saturdays with other things, so here\u2019s a quick rundown of what you might have missed. I wrote 14 different trade-deadline reaction pieces at the Athletic but there isn\u2019t a single link to all of them beyond my author page, so if you missed anything that\u2019s the place to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[821,128,1387,921,603,1109,190,961,895,1403,907,1401,870,1044,807],"class_list":["post-10343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-science","tag-florida","tag-gaza","tag-gender-issues","tag-hugo-award","tag-israel","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-olympics","tag-project-2025","tag-social-media","tag-stadium-scams","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-tennessee","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10344,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343\/revisions\/10344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}