Saturday, April 25, 2015

Late April Weekend Links

We're a week away from the Kentucky Derby, I have 6 acres of corn planted (which I shouldn't have planted), but I think these stories will keep you entertained for a little while:

Chris Rock: Baseball's current fan base is like "a tea party rally" - Vox.  I think I made a comment along these lines last week.

Manny Pacquaio has won so much, some wonder what he may have lost - Washington Post

Football Stadium Arms Race Pushed This School Deeper Into Debt - Bloomberg.  Stupid.

The Remaking of Coss Marte - SBNation

Robots Step Into New Planting, Harvesting Roles - Wall Street Journal

Ice Cream Town USA Reeling After Deadly Outbreak - Bloomberg and Jeni's Recalls Its Ice Cream After Blue Bell Listeria Scare - Bloomberg.  You know, I've never eaten either one, not that I was worried about any food poisoning.

Rye is rising: A new whiskey trend that goes with the grain - AP.  Actually, it has been covered here before, but I wanted to link to one final story I saw at Big Picture Agriculture, which is sadly ending its run as the best source of agricultural news I know of (Kay will still post her Luddite photos here).  Thank you, Kay, for doing a hell of a job keeping people informed about the good and bad things we run into with modern agriculture.  For another whiskey story, see Craft Distiller Wants to Save Small Farms - Modern Farmer

How The Beer Garden Came To Be - The Atlantic.  The world (and definitely my little part of it) needs more beer gardens.

At Last: Kentucky Authorities Bust Ring Behind Great Bourbon Heist - The Salt

Will Pope Francis Break The Church? - The Atlantic.  Only if conservatives insist on breaking it.

Catholic Church launches campaign to reshape Junipero Serra's image - LA Times.  Dude's been dead for 231 years (and is reputed to be in Heaven), but he still gets a publicity campaign.

The Drought Isn't California's Only Water Problem - Wired.  That tunnel project is stupid AND dangerous.

A lethal nostalgia - Aeon.  I'm guilty of this nostalgia.  Hell, even my stock investments reflect this.  I own stock in 3 coal companies and 5 steel companies.

The Asshole Factory - Medium.  Well, we are still good at making something.

The Last Man On Earth - Grantland.  Dwight Yoakam, not Will Forte.

Graves of the Dead - longreads

Why Can't America Have Great Trains - National Journal.  Three reasons: no large constituency for them, not enough population density and knee-jerk resistance to them from conservatives who hate environmentalists and urbanists.  The article is very interesting, though, because of the Mississippians who support rail transit.  Ohio really fucked the dog when Kasich spiked the 3C rail plan.  Even if it was slow as hell, something is better than nothing.  And we've got nothing.

#NoNewsIsBadNews - Cincinnati Magazine.  There are some very important points made in this article about civic participation.

Payday at the mill:  How sophisticated financiers used a Maine program they devised to wring millions of dollars in risk-free returns at taxpayer expense - Portland Press Herald.  More like legalized theft.  This article proves one of the points about local newspapers made in the story above.

Bradley's 'China Mirage' Portrays A Long-Running U.S. Mistake in Asia - Morning EditionA Grand Delusion, by Robert Mann, does a good job of relating how this 'China Delusion, and Republican politicization of it, led to the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and since I was reading it in the run-up to Iraq, I would posit charges of Democratic weakness then led to that failed war, too.

U.S. Shale Fracklog Triples as Drillers Keep Oil From Market - Bloomberg.  While this is significant, I think we'll find out well depletion rates and the decrease in rig count trump the fracklog overall.



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