{"id":11605,"date":"2026-11-07T14:49:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T19:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=11605"},"modified":"2026-11-07T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T23:58:00","slug":"stick-to-baseball-11-7-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/07\/stick-to-baseball-11-7-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 11\/7\/26."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had one post this week at the Athletic, ranking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7730027\/2026\/11\/02\/mlb-free-agent-ranking-2026-2027-tarik-skubal\/\">the top 40 free agents in this winter\u2019s class<\/a>. It\u2019s a bad group, with exactly one star and then a whole lot of (throws hands up in abject despair).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve been sick all week, so while I did get some work calls in I\u2019ve been doing a lot less writing\/reading, with the result that the majority of these links are from the <em>Times<\/em> and the <em>Guardian<\/em>. That\u2019s also meant no videos since Monday on <a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/mrkeithlaw\">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/tiktok.com\/@keith_law\">TikTok<\/a>, but I\u2019ll get back to those next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Longreads first: Seven <em>Times<\/em> writers collaborated on a story about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/31\/science\/how-trump-is-dismantling-americas-scientific-research-machine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M1E.uqBn.zI5oSoNHunLc\">how Trump is dismantling America\u2019s science research engine<\/a>. This won\u2019t end in January just because Democrats will take control of Congress \u2013 unless they make an active move to stop it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Elie Mystal had one of the best takes on the blue-nami this week: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/democrats-win-midterms-on-principles\/\">Democrats do not, in fact, have throw trans people or immigrants or any group of people under the bus to win<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The day before the election, Adam Serwer wrote in <em>The Atlantic<\/em> about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/2026\/11\/right-strategy-rhetoric-racism\/689233\/?gift=Je3D9AQS-C17lUTOnl2W8F_EhIR9Y6N4M_xaJ1kRhwU&amp;utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=share\">Republicans\u2019 lurch towards (more) racism as their closing argument<\/a>. Unfortunately, <em>Atlantic<\/em> writer James Kirchick decided to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/thebulwark\/comments\/1xmo55o\/disgusting_antimuslim_bigotry_from_atlantic\/\">a gross Islamophobic comment<\/a> about Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, and as of Saturday morning the publication hasn\u2019t done jack shit about it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Online misinformation has convinced many gullible parents to skip the vitamin K shot for their newborns. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/11\/05\/well\/live\/vitamin-k-shot-newborn-bleeding.html\">A study found a 347% increase in cases of infant bleeding<\/a>, because the shot helps babies form clots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>That same online misinformation has led to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/11\/02\/nyregion\/measles-death-child-new-york-lewis-county.html\">the first measles death in New York state in 30 years<\/a>, as vaccination levels have dropped well below herd immunity. Wisconsin also had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kare11.com\/article\/news\/health\/baby-dies-from-measles-in-southwestern-wisconsin\/89-6f36add1-72ca-4b4d-82a1-bd89742bf606?fbclid=IwY2xjawVaw1hleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMVFkVUlmYU1JYnBsWUNkMGlzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEfowPB4u8aq2pNaJ_MSNVabSPmDBpZmhqkSjJH_JUPMLCuqC97fLGwOnuU5sA_aem_yLtnPdX2NaLIGIoggVMQ2A\">its first measles death in 36 years<\/a>, an infant like in NY.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jess Grose wrote in the <em>Times<\/em> before the election that the wave of doctors running for office \u2013 many of whom won on Tuesday \u2013 signal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/31\/opinion\/doctor-democrats-midterms.html\">the beginning of the end of MAHA<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Anna Merlan wrote in the <em>Times<\/em> about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/11\/01\/opinion\/pizzagate-conspiracy-epstein.html\">the ongoing fallout from the Pizzagate conspiracy theory<\/a>, as these rabbit holes are just a part of the online dialogue at this point, and then spill over into real-life incidents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Republicans\u2019 anti-immigrant sentiment led to more discrimination against south Asians in Texas, so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/nov\/01\/texas-south-asian-racism\">they mobilized and helped turn the state blue<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trump toady Laura Loomer was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2026\/11\/07\/trump-ally-laura-loomer-paid-thousands-political-tweets-people-familiar-say\/\">paid at least $60,000 to make political tweets<\/a> and, of course, disclosed none of this. &nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2026\/11\/05\/goodbye-from-salon\/\">Salon shut down this week<\/a>, thirty-one years after the site became one of the original online magazines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sludge reports on the money from <a href=\"https:\/\/readsludge.com\/2026\/11\/04\/the-money-behind-hakeem-jeffries\/\">AIPAC, military contractor Palantir, and crypto firms that are funding Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> (D-NY), who is trying to become Speaker of the House.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Clay Travis is the wrongest man in sports, consistently, and he was also <a href=\"https:\/\/thecomeback.com\/articles\/theres-no-blue-wave-clay-travis-was-spectacularly-wrong-about-midterm-elections.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=bluesky\">wildly and hilariously wrong about the elections this week too<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Finland\u2019s tourism board is holding a fun promotion: they\u2019re going to bring sixteen singles from around the world for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cntraveler.com\/story\/finland-is-throwing-an-epic-dinner-party-for-16-singles-heres-how-to-get-invited\">an all-expenses paid food-tourism trip to Finland<\/a>, to be split into two groups, with a mixer with Finnish singles at the end.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>An Ethiopian-born American contractor pled guilty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c6y8lz73vmv7o\">to giving military secrets to the Ethiopian government so they could kill more Tigrayan fighters<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It wasn\u2019t all good news this week: Marshall Rawson marched with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, has spoken positively about slavery, and has said queer people should be executed. <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/marshall-rawson-who-marched-with-nazis-in-charlottesville-wins-seat-in-florida-legislature\">Florida elected him to their state legislature this week<\/a>. (I&#8217;ve corrected this as I&#8217;d previously written that they elected him to Congress.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Did Haley Stevens <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/haley-stevens-ai-post\">use AI to write her post<\/a> about endorsing Republican xenophobe Mike Rogers? I\u2019m not sure it matters; she should be finished in the public sphere regardless.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Conrad Lant, better known by his stage name Cronos, died in early October. His band Venom\u2019s album <em>Black Metal<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2026\/oct\/02\/cronos-venom-heavy-metal-conrad-lant\">was hugely influential<\/a> on the subsequent rise of thrash (good) and gave its name to the satanic strain of extreme metal that followed (bad, even in Cronos\u2019 view). I never liked Venom\u2019s music, but I can\u2019t deny their importance in the last forty years of metal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Television guitarist Richard Lloyd <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/music-news\/richard-lloyd-death-television-guitarist-dies-obituary-1236376953\/\">died this morning at age 75 of bile duct cancer<\/a>; Tom Verlaine died in 2023 and bassist Fred Smith died earlier this year. Richard Hell is probably the most famous member from Television still alive, although he left the band before <em>Marquee Moon<\/em>, forming Richard Hell and the Voidoids and recording \u201cBlank Generation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A rare bit of positive news in science: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2026\/oct\/31\/south-dakota-mine-search-secrets-universe-dark-matter-antimatter\">construction on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) detector in South Dakota began on Monday<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had one post this week at the Athletic, ranking the top 40 free agents in this winter\u2019s class. It\u2019s a bad group, with exactly one star and then a whole lot of (throws hands up in abject despair). I\u2019ve been sick all week, so while I did get some work calls in I\u2019ve been [&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":[1185,128,1410,190,961,757,852,776,799,870,477,940,807],"class_list":["post-11605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conspiracy-theories","tag-florida","tag-islamophobia","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-physics","tag-science","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-texas","tag-the-swamp","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605","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=11605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11607,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions\/11607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}