I ranked the top five farm systems as of right now – well, right then, as I wrote it – for Insiders this week, and broke down the Scott Kazmir trade. I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday. I don’t plan to write up the smaller deals of the week, such as the Aramis Ramirez or Steve Cishek trades, because they’re just salary dumps without significant prospects going the other way.
I reviewed the new Splendor app for Paste this week. You can get the app for $6.99 for iOS or Android
And now, the links…
- My colleague Jay Bilas (who is, IMO, the best and most important voice in the movement to bring the NCAA to heel) and I have gone back and forth a little over his endorsement of a “brain training” app. There are a number of research papers out there showing these tools and games don’t work as promised, but a reader sent along this open letter from various neuroscientists that argues the point more forcefully.
- Noted (and loud) vaccine denier Dr. Bob Sears is selling medical exemptions to parents in California … or, to be more accurate, he’s all but saying that’s what he’s doing.
- The likely-illegal arrest and subsequent death of Sandra Bland sparked this post on your rights when you’re stopped by a police officer. The post says it’s for Texans but I think these rights apply anywhere; it’s not like citizens of other states have fewer rights.
- The title says it perfectly: For the Love of God, Would People Stop Writing Think Pieces About Things They Haven’t Seen?.
- Survivors of the Horace Mann sex scandal aren’t getting any satisfaction from the school.
- The myth about gluten being bad for you isn’t based in science, and avoids bigger questions of what’s going on with our immune systems and auto-immune disorders.
- Arizona eaters rejoice: nocawich is opening in Tempe on July 27th, and it looks like they’re going to do a bang-up breakfast, with house-made English muffins and bagels shipped in from New York’s H&H.
- A review of two books turns into a long, insightful essay on the rise of ISIS, albeit one that will likely leave you even more depressed about the future of the region.
- The Planned Parenthood videos were made by a group that may have lied about its nonprofit status. With colleges and hospitals that rake in dough, paying officers huge sums and constructing fancy new buildings, also claiming to be nonprofits, maybe it’s time to put some resources behind enforcing or tightening those rules?
Hey Keith, have you played Paperback at all? It’s a deckbuilder, basically combining the elements of Dominion and Scrabble. I played it for the first time this weekend, and loved it. I played a lot of Scrabble as a kid, and credit it for helping to develop my vocabulary. I’m hoping Paperback does this for my daughters. You know, once they can read. Or use toilets. Here’s to looking ahead!
I haven’t. Looks interesting.
Hi Keith, I saw this and thought thought you may be interested for next week’s links.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/allen-hershkowitz-green-sports
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-looking-away-from-abortion.html?referrer=&_r=0
Keith, I’d be interested in your take on this article re: the PP videos:
The Douthat piece is just one big appeal to emotion.
Appealing to emotion when discussing a matter of life and death is permissible.
A fallacy is still a fallacy, and therefore unsatisfactory for a discussion around public policy.
A few years ago, a friend of mine started to notice that after he ate pasta, pizza, or other types of gluten, he wouldn’t feel good in his stomach and esophagus . Since the gluten free fad was just starting he decided to follow it. About a year ago, another friend of our’s told him he should try eating organic or imported pasta since it may not be a gluten allergy that he has. Since then, he has happily eaten pasta and even pizza without any problems if it was either imported or organic. He still avoids gluten when he knows or thinks the gluten is mass produced, but will eat it when he knows the source is safe.
I had the same problem. Turned out to be an allergy (essentially) to egg whites….
Most imported pasta is made from wheat grown in the Dakotas or Nebrasks. They ship the flour to Italy, and then ship the pasta back here.
There’s a hypothesis that older strains of wheat such as einkorn (which has never been “hybridized,” or artificially selected via cross-breeding with other wheat strains) are easier to tolerate than the varieties of wheat used for all-purpose or bread flours, but I don’t know of any hard research to support that. Nearly every plant we consume and many of the animals have been hybridized, which is part of how we feed the world.
@keith re: Douthat
Oh. Well…no it wasn’t. It was a perfectly legitimate, well reasoned article. I was hoping you would address its merits rather than going to the “logical fallacy” well for the billionth time. Also, responding to the videos by questioning the tax exempt status of the messenger? Great example of the genetic fallacy,
I see no merits in an article built on a fallacy. You decline to see the fallacy because, I presume, you agree with its premise.
As for my comment, it wasn’t a “respon(se) to the videos,” but an observation on rampant abuse of tax-exempt status by organizations that are anything but. In a country that runs chronic budget deficits, this lack of enforcement is unacceptable.
@keith https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy
@Craig: That does not apply here.
How is it an appeal to emotion when Douthat wrote, “It’s a very specific disgust, informed by reason and experience — the reasoning that notes that it’s precisely a fetus’s humanity that makes its organs valuable” here? During the course of discussion in the videos Planned Parenthood is not simply looking to turn over organs, but organs which are both developed and in tact, using techniques which seek to preserve the organs while destroying the life of the fetus itself. That’s what Douthat is addressing.
That sentence affirms the consequent: he refers to “reason” without providing any, then states that the fetuses’ “humanity” is real because we know it is.
Keith,
Does a fetus have humanity? Why or why not?
Pro-choicers (of which I was one until fairly recently) do have a tendency to turn a blind eye to the reality of what the abortion procedure actually does. Which was Douthat’s point.
The condition of the organs is what affirms the fetus’s humanity.
The condition of the organs is what affirms the fetus’s humanity.
Also affirming the consequent.
Then value of the organs isn’t in question though. Planned Parenthood has confirmed that.
Well if it isn’t human, what the hell is it?! Are they harvesting pig organs or human ones?
Debating the humanity of the unborn is pointless. The pro-choice side knows just as well as the pro-life side that these are unique human individuals. The demand for and careful treatment of the organs is just further confirmation that everyone knows we’re talking about a living human body with a unique identity, and the mere fact that killing that body prior to gestation doesn’t suddenly reduce it to merely part of the mother’s body, or a mass of tissues, or whatever the current preferred phrase is.
The real debate is over rights. The pro-choice side is becoming increasingly blunt that regardless of whether the fetus is a unique person, the rights of the fetus can never, ever trump the rights of the mother, even if we’re talking about the fetus’s right to life and the mother’s “reproductive rights” or “rights over her own body.” The position, flatly stated, is that the mother has unilateral and ultimate authority over the fate of the unborn child. Plenty of pro-choicers will say they want to reduce the number of abortions, or will say that they wish no woman ever had to want or need an abortion, but when the direct question is posed, the answer is always that the mother can choose to end the pregnancy and kill the unborn child for no more significant reason than she does not want the child. If you believe that the mother’s “reproductive rights” trump any right to life possessed by the child, this conclusion makes sense.