{"id":5223,"date":"2016-11-05T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=5223"},"modified":"2016-11-05T11:18:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T15:18:18","slug":"stick-to-baseball-11516","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/05\/stick-to-baseball-11516\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 11\/5\/16."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My big news this week was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/9780062490223\/?utm_source=Keith+Law&#038;utm_medium=athremail&#038;utm_campaign=Smart+Baseball\" target=\"_blank\">the formal announcement of my upcoming book, <em>Smart Baseball<\/em><\/a>, which will be released in April of 2017. I have gotten many requests from readers over the years for a recommendation of a book to let them get up to speed on &#8216;new&#8217; stats, and since the book on that topic didn&#8217;t exist, I decided to try to write it. You can pre-order it <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2fnKVbs\" target=\"_blank\">via amazon<\/a> and other sites already; it will be out in hardcover and as an e-book, but Harper Collins has not decided on an audio version yet. I also do not yet know what appearances I&#8217;ll be making or if there will be any sort of tour.<\/p>\n<p>I held my regular <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2fCOCLD\" target=\"_blank\">Klawchat<\/a> on Friday this past week, and my latest boardgame review for <em>Paste<\/em> covers the <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2fncpMc\" target=\"_blank\">Hanabi-like deduction game Beyond Baker Street<\/a>, where you can&#8217;t see the cards in your own hand and must give clues to other players on what cards they hold.<\/p>\n<p>My email newsletter has now passed 2500 subscribers; thank you to everyone who&#8217;s already signed up. If you haven&#8217;t, <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/keithlaw\" target=\"_blank\">what are you waiting for<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <em>LA Times<\/em> has an outstanding investigative piece on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/projects\/la-me-seabreeze\/\" target=\"_blank\">alleged corruption in the development of an LA apartment complex<\/a>. Congresswoman Janice Hahn, a Democrat from LA, took $200,000 in &#8220;donations&#8221; from people connected to the project, many of which appear to have been submitted under different names to skirt individual donation limits.<\/li>\n<li>If you care in the least about American democracy, you should be outraged <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esquire.com\/news-politics\/politics\/news\/a50326\/north-carolina-republican-voter-purge\/\" target=\"_blank\">over ongoing voter suppression \u2013 especially of the black vote<\/a> in states like North Carolina. <\/li>\n<li>And, again, if you care in the least about our democracy and don&#8217;t want to see the GOP follow through on its promise to block any Hillary nominees for the Supreme Court vacancy, well, <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/138293\/democratic-voters-blame-hillary-clintons-headaches\" target=\"_blank\">get out and vote to give Democrats control of the Senate<\/a>. If the Republicans lose enough power, they will have to change their message (and pick a better candidate next time).<\/li>\n<li><em>Top Chef<\/em> alum Kwame Onwuachi&#8217;s new DC restaurant, Shaw Bijou, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/food\/shaw-bijou-serves-a-few-delights-and-several-duds-is-that-worth-500-a-head\/2016\/11\/04\/0592c588-a118-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_firstbite-1115am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory\" target=\"_blank\">has garnered mediocre reviews for its $185 tasting menu<\/a>, a price that doesn&#8217;t include wine pairings, tax, or tip, which can bring the total to $500 per person.<\/li>\n<li>An Alberta judge ruled that a four-year-old boy who insists that he&#8217;s a girl <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/beta\/news\/canada\/calgary\/gender-medicine-hat-child-girl-clothes-mother-custody-battle-alberta-court-1.3829930\" target=\"_blank\">cannot wear girls&#8217; clothes<\/a>, part of an ongoing custody battle where the child&#8217;s father refuses to even consider that his child is transgender. The risk of suicide or other self-harm in this case is through the roof and the judge&#8217;s actions are indefensible.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>New York Times<\/em> ran a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/30\/business\/gmo-promise-falls-short.html?em_pos=large&#038;emc=edit_nn_20161031&#038;nl=morning-briefing&#038;nlid=1046273&#038;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">lengthy piece saying GM crops don&#8217;t deliver promised results<\/a>, but the American Council on Science and Health <a href=\"http:\/\/acsh.org\/news\/2016\/10\/31\/gmo-crops-attacked-knowledge-resistant-nyt-journalist-danny-hakim-10385\" target=\"_blank\">immediately called bullshit on the article<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Deadspin has another fascinating longread this week, this time on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconcourse.deadspin.com\/did-robert-caruso-con-the-washington-press-or-is-that-w-1788510128\" target=\"_blank\">con artist and self-styled foreign policy &#8220;expert&#8221; Robert Caruso<\/a>, who&#8217;s scammed his way into numerous TV appearances and writing gigs, including one for the Council on Foreign Relations.<\/li>\n<li>If you want to fight climate change, stopping deforestation is an essential step and probably the easiest large-scale move we can make to reduce global warming and ocean acidification. Some advocates have gotten pledges from major food manufacturers to help, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2016\/11\/03\/500364960\/deforestation-opponents-enlist-powerful-ally-big-food-but-theres-a-catch\" target=\"_blank\">but do these pledges actually mean or do anything?<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Two states have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/states-to-vote-on-controversial-energy-issues-this-election\/?WT.mc_id=SA_TW_ENGYSUS_NEWS\" target=\"_blank\">major energy\/climate change-related ballot questions this year<\/a>. Washington is proposing a carbon emissions tax, while Florida has a tricky question pushed by traditional utilities that would make solar panels less cost-effective for homeowners. <\/li>\n<li>Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a measles complication that is nearly always fatal and occurs up to ten years after infection, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/tarahaelle\/2016\/10\/30\/is-the-most-terrifying-measles-complication-more-common-than-we-thought\/#d0a7ec949369\" target=\"_blank\">may be more common than we thought<\/a>. Imagine watching your nine-year-old kid get something akin to ALS or multiple systems atrophy. The only way to prevent it is to not get measles in the first place, which means vaccination.<\/li>\n<li>Meanwhile, a bunch of deranged parents in southern California <a href=\"http:\/\/abc7.com\/news\/group-of-socal-parents-secretly-try-to-cure-kids-with-autism-using-bleach\/1578581\/\" target=\"_blank\">are trying to cure their autistic kids with bleach<\/a>. The scam artists peddling this crap claim to be part of a &#8220;church,&#8221; and they&#8217;re under investigation <a href=\"http:\/\/www.houstonpress.com\/news\/heres-why-authorities-want-to-stop-the-sale-of-jim-humbles-miracle-cure-8909556\" target=\"_blank\">in Texas as well<\/a> for selling what is essentially bleach as a miracle cure.<\/li>\n<li>Alton Brown is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2016\/10\/30\/alton-brown-internet-cooking-show\/\" target=\"_blank\">bringing back <em>Good Eats<\/em> as an online show<\/a>, although the title may change and he says the format will allow him to do some things he couldn&#8217;t do on TV for legal reasons. (Maybe that means using lye in the pretzel-cooking water?)<\/li>\n<li>I mentioned those &#8220;Around the Web&#8221; ads in chat this week, and they were already on my mind because of this article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/31\/business\/media\/publishers-rethink-outbrain-taboola-ads.html\" target=\"_blank\">explaining how some publishers are moving away from them anyway<\/a>. They&#8217;re all clickbait, never really tied to the article I&#8217;m reading or any data that might indicate my real interests, and often the images used with them are disturbing or provocative (like a pic of Jose Fernandez) just to get you to click.<\/li>\n<li>A 24-year-old Saudi Arabian student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/story\/news\/2016\/10\/31\/uw-stout-student-dies-after-assault\/93091678\/\" target=\"_blank\">was beaten to death by an unidentified white man<\/a> this past week. The suspect remains at large. While it&#8217;s not known if this was specifically a hate crime, the circumstances and timing point that way.<\/li>\n<li>Liberal Muslim activist Maajid Nawaz writes that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/voices\/anti-extremism-muslim-far-left-politics-quilliam-social-reform-a7388931.html\" target=\"_blank\">the Southern Poverty Law Center is wrong to label him &#8220;anti-Muslim,&#8221;<\/a> pointing out that critics of Islam often say that the religion needs people to try to reform the religion from within and stop Islamist fundamentalism. The SPLC&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splcenter.org\/20161025\/field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists#nawaz\" target=\"_blank\">listing on Nawaz<\/a> calls into doubt some of his motivations and details of his background, but also called him &#8220;anti-Muslim&#8221; for publishing a cartoon depicting Jesus and Mohammed.<\/li>\n<li>The downfall of South Korean President Park Geun-hye <a href=\"http:\/\/askakorean.blogspot.com\/2016\/10\/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html\" target=\"_blank\">is totally bonkers<\/a>, tied to a forty-year connection with the daughter of a cult leader.<\/li>\n<li>Land reclamation is increasingly popular as small city-states like Singapore and Monaco try to find more space for their people, or wealthy nations like Dubai (in the UAE) try to \u2026 do whatever it is they&#8217;re doing, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/story\/20161101-the-benefits-and-downsides-of-building-into-the-sea\" target=\"_blank\">there are substantial environmental costs to these projects<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In response to an ongoing sexual harassment scandal, where male soccer players were writing and emailing sexually-charged &#8220;scouting reports&#8221; on female soccer recruits, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/2016\/11\/4\/soccer-suspended-scouting-report-harvard\/\" target=\"_blank\">Harvard did the right thing and canceled the rest of the men&#8217;s soccer season<\/a>. Several of the women targeted in one of those documents <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/2016\/10\/29\/oped-soccer-report\/\" target=\"_blank\">wrote a powerful, indignant response<\/a> to the men who objectified and degraded them. <\/li>\n<li>Hillary Clinton faces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/world\/2016\/10\/30\/hillary-clinton-faces-intense-animosity-as-she-approaches-white-house.html\" target=\"_blank\">intense animosity, often expressed in vulgar terms<\/a> as she approaches the election. While some of it is clearly connected to her actions, much of it is about her husband and even more is because she&#8217;s a woman. <\/li>\n<li>All right, let&#8217;s do this&#8230; The <em>NY Times<\/em> details how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/01\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-tax.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">Trump used a legally &#8220;dubious&#8221; method to avoid paying taxes for so many years<\/a>. <em>Newsweek<\/em> explains how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2016\/11\/11\/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html\" target=\"_blank\">his companies destroyed emails and documents in defiance of court orders<\/a>.  If you question Hillary&#8217;s ethics, how could you possibly think more of Trump?<\/li>\n<li>Thomas Friedman points out that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/02\/opinion\/donald-trump-voters-just-hear-me-out.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&#038;smid=nytcore-ipad-share&#038;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">Trump&#8217;s stated policy goals will hurt, not help, his core voters<\/a>. If you vote for him, you&#8217;re probably going to end up worse off economically if he wins. (I think we&#8217;ll all end up worse off as our economy contracts, but his base, less-educated white male voters, seem especially likely to suffer.) A Vox piece from a few weeks ago <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2016\/10\/11\/13241764\/donald-trump-new-tax-plan-tpc-clinton\" target=\"_blank\">reached the same conclusion about Trump&#8217;s tax plans<\/a>, which favor the highest-income bracket.<\/li>\n<li>David Frum makes the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2016\/11\/dont-gamble-on-trump\/506207\/\" target=\"_blank\">conservative case for voting for Hillary<\/a>, and against Trump, who is in no way a classical conservative. I disagree with Frum on one key point: I think as President, Trump would have plenty of help in trying to silence opposing media.<\/li>\n<li>Ross Douthat points out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/30\/opinion\/sunday\/the-dangers-of-donald-trump.html?smid=tw-share&#038;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">the dangers of a Trump victory<\/a>, from civil unrest (which we may see even if he loses) to global destabilization.<\/li>\n<li>Prof. Nicholas O&#8217;Shaughnessy, who wrote a book on Hitler&#8217;s use of propaganda, compares <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/2016\/10\/expert-on-nazism-explains-the-shocking-similarities-between-trump-and-hitlers-propaganda-tactics\/\" target=\"_blank\">Trump&#8217;s use of the same to Hitler&#8217;s and claims to find similarities<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Guardian<\/em> has a piece arguing the real reveal in the Podesta emails <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2016\/oct\/31\/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it\" target=\"_blank\">is how the American power elite protects and helps itself by retaining power<\/a>. Whether you&#8217;re voting for Hillary (as I am) or not, the emails should disturb you for their demonstration of how money and back-room deals subvert the ostensibly open nature of our republic. <em>Esquire<\/em> details how Russia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esquire.com\/news-politics\/a49791\/russian-dnc-emails-hacked\/\" target=\"_blank\">pulled off this hack, the biggest in U.S. election history<\/a> (so far).<\/li>\n<li>From May, Adam Gopnik&#8217;s excellent and prescient <em>New Yorker<\/em> piece <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/daily-comment\/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump?mbid=social_twitter\" target=\"_blank\">on the dangerous acceptance of Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Scientific American<\/em>, which does not normally take stands on political races, has pointed out several times that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/donald-trump-s-lack-of-respect-for-science-is-alarming\/?WT.mc_id=SA_TW_POLE_OP\" target=\"_blank\">Trump&#8217;s lack of respect for and ignorance of science is alarming<\/a>. That piece is from September 1st, but I think if anything he&#8217;s shown the issue is worse than we thought at the time, given his increasingly distant relationship with the truth.<\/li>\n<li><em>Vanity Fair<\/em> editor Graydon Carter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/10\/graydon-carter-on-donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">lays waste to Trump, whom he&#8217;s known for over twenty years<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Because we all need some levity right now, here&#8217;s a hilarious BBC video of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p01x412l\" target=\"_blank\">a clever honey badger who is a master escape artist<\/a>. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My big news this week was the formal announcement of my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, which will be released in April of 2017. I have gotten many requests from readers over the years for a recommendation of a book to let them get up to speed on &#8216;new&#8217; stats, and since the book on that [&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":[828,859,148,190,870,442,807],"class_list":["post-5223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-gmo","tag-good-eats","tag-links","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-top-chef","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223","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=5223"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5226,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions\/5226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}