{"id":10790,"date":"2025-05-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10790"},"modified":"2025-05-10T10:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T14:17:26","slug":"stick-to-baseball-5-10-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/10\/stick-to-baseball-5-10-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 5\/10\/25."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I posted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6337620\/2025\/05\/08\/mlb-mock-draft-2025-ethan-holliday\/\">my first mock draft of 2025<\/a> this week for subscribers to the Athletic, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6344743\/2025\/05\/09\/keith-law-mlb-draft-prospects-live-qanda\/\">took questions from readers<\/a> about that and other prospect matters on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over at Paste, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/board-games\/the-great-board-game-finspan-is-a-more-accessible-wingspan-with-a-ton-of-fish\">reviewed Finspan<\/a>, the new fish-themed spinoff to Wingspan that features simpler rules and a faster teach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m about to send out the first new issue of <a href=\"https:\/\/keithlaw.substack.com\/\">my free email newsletter<\/a> since February, before my travel schedule went nuts; I\u2019ve been to fourteen states to see players, just via air, plus two more around here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A short list this week, for no particular reason, but here are the links\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Longreads first: Automakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/why-car-brands-are-finally-switching-back-to-buttons\/\">are going back to physical buttons<\/a> and moving away from touchscreens, like the massive billboard-sized screens in Teslas, as consumers prefer the physical buttons and touchscreens are associated with much-reduced reaction times. I rented a car with physical buttons and no touch screen recently, and it took me all of about 30 seconds to figure it out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Current Affairs<\/em> has a detailed takedown of the Douglas Murray, who wrote a book on the Israel-Palestine conflict and self-described expert, but whose writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/news\/douglas-murrays-expertise-is-a-sham\">appears to omit or misrepresent facts that don\u2019t support his (pro-Israel) conclusions<\/a>. I haven\u2019t read Murray\u2019s book, though, and would be curious to hear from any of you who have.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>At Futurism, Maggie Harrison Dupr\u00e9 spoke with an AI \u201csloperator\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/slop-farmer-ai-social-media\">who floods Pinterest with fake recipe links and home d\u00e9cor posts<\/a>, and who says he\u2019s specifically targeting women over 50 with his content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Pulitzer Prize board chose to give the Fiction award to Percival Everett\u2019s <em>James<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/06\/books\/james-percival-everett-pulitzer-jury.html\">overriding the selection committee<\/a>, which recommended three other titles. I just started one of the three, <em>Mice 1961<\/em>, because I want to see if I agree with the choice. I thought <em>James<\/em> was <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/26\/james\/\">incredible<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trump threatened to withhold $3 million in USDA funding from Maine schools because their Governor, Janet Mills, refused to comply with his extra-legal demand that they ban trans girls from playing girls\u2019 sports. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/2025\/05\/02\/maine-settles-case-over-frozen-usda-school-funds\/\">The USDA caved<\/a>. If you don\u2019t comply in advance, they back down. There\u2019s still an ongoing court case over trans athletes in Maine, but the funding is restored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trump\u2019s entire process for finding people to fill out executive branch jobs seems to be picking the worst purveyors of misinformation on Twitter: He made Vinay Prasad, a massive COVID and vaccine denier, <a href=\"https:\/\/canadahealthwatch.ca\/2025\/05\/07\/vinay-prasad-named-fdas-top-vaccine-official-as-anti-vax-figures-consolidate-power\">in charge of the FDA\u2019s vaccine regulation arm<\/a>; and now he\u2019s nominated a grifting \u201cwellness influencer\u201d without a medical license <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-independent.com\/news\/world\/americas\/us-politics\/surgeon-general-pick-medical-school-b2746743.html\">to be his Surgeon General<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Trump family cryptocurrency offering \u2013 I\u2019d call it a scam, but I think <em>all<\/em> crypto is a scam \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/trump-family-net-worth-crypto-investments\/\">has enriched them by nearly $3 billion<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/05\/09\/us\/new-jersey-mayor-arrested-at-ice-detention-center\">ICE agents arrested Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka<\/a> at their \u201cimmigration detention center\u201d in his city, a facility that he says is not properly permitted and should not have been allowed to open.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/194972\/andrew-cuomo-mayor-new-york-city-huge-mistake\">New Yorkers are about to make a huge mistake if they elect Andrew Cuomo<\/a>, he of the numerous sexual harassment cases and $60 million use of taxpayer funds, to be their next mayor, writes Alex Shephard in the <em>New Republic<\/em>. The man is walking ethical disaster. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire had been one of the democratic success stories of Africa in the last decade-plus, but the recent court ruling that the leading candidate to oppose three-term incumbent President Alassane Ouattara <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cly8y1kglkpo\">is ineligible because of a technicality<\/a>. The \u201clittle-used post-independence law\u201d says that Tidjane Thiam, who was born in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, should have lost his Ivorian citizenship automatically when he accepted French nationality, something he already had had through his father.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Mainstream media outlets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splinter.com\/plagiarizing-independent-journalists-is-part-of-mainstream-medias-business\">seem loath to credit independent journalists for scoops and stories<\/a>, as happened last week when multiple big-name sites failed to even name Marisa Kabas when she was the first to report on Trump\u2019s deal with Rwanda to deport an Iraqi refugee to the central African nation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A new preprint argues that <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2504.08461\">it is nearly impossible that we live in a simulation<\/a> because the energy required to \u2018run\u2019 the universe as a simulation is beyond the energy we see anywhere in the universe.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Guardian<\/em> has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2025\/may\/10\/david-tennant-tv-baftas-interview\">a wonderful interview with my favorite Doctor, David Tennant<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Rock Manor Games, whose owner, Mike Gnade, is a friend and frequent gaming opponent, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/mikegnade\/seas-of-havoc-reprint\">a new Kickstarter up for a reprint of Seas of Havoc<\/a>, their top-rated game on BGG.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I posted my first mock draft of 2025 this week for subscribers to the Athletic, and took questions from readers about that and other prospect matters on Friday. Over at Paste, I reviewed Finspan, the new fish-themed spinoff to Wingspan that features simpler rules and a faster teach. I\u2019m about to send out the first [&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":[899,1083,190,961,1020,1066,568,776,252,870,940],"class_list":["post-10790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-board-game-news","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-maine","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-physics","tag-pulitzer-prize","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-the-swamp","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790","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=10790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10795,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790\/revisions\/10795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}