Mid Week Mini-Links - May 2018 Edition

I had a little difficulty finding many good stories, but I've got some:

Stronach Group COO Tim Ritvo sees grim future for Preakness at Pimlico - Baltimore Sun.  This makes me sad.

Choking On Our Harvest: Threats Loom Over Global Food Trade – Bloomberg.  A lot of good graphics.

Big Ag turns to peas to meet soaring global protein demand – Reuters

Editorial: U.S. House embarrassed itself with its mishandling of the farm bill - Omaha World-Herald.  The GOP owns this train wreck.  They had plenty of money for corporate tax cuts, but they just can't resist kicking the poor while shoveling out piles of money to farmers and rural residents.

For Future Health Policies, Trump Administration Adds a Rural Focus - Governing.  Maybe the Ohio GOP shouldn't be pushing to roll back Medicaid expansion.  I think the lack of Medicaid expansion (along with ending reimbursement for unpaid care linked to the expected expansion), as opposed to excessive regulation, led to rural hospital closures.

Gambling Ruling May Make USDA Reports More Exciting - Progressive Farmer 

The Last Days of the Blue-Blood Harvest - The Atlantic 

Meeting Resistance – Science

Public Demands Investigation of Why F.B.I. Infiltrators in Trump Campaign Failed to Prevent Him from Being Elected – Borowitz Report

Scott Pruitt’s approach to pollution control will make the air dirtier and Americans less healthy - The Conversation

Derby Day Links

More stories squeezed around planting, fixing the planter and working at the town job:

 Eating Dirt on Kentucky Derby Day - Bloomberg

The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code - Bloomberg

These Stories Of Horse Racing Gamblers Will Get You Psyched For The Kentucky Derby - Bloomberg.  It's a podcast, but as you can see, Bloomberg is all-in on the Derby.

Local Dallas Sportscaster Goes Viral For His 'Unplugged' Commentary - All Things Considered.  The part about his racist dad saying the one black family he knows is good and different from all the blacks he doesn't know is pure Midwestern bigotry.  I don't know if I could count how many times I've heard that. Sometimes it includes a statement that that black person or family agrees with that person about other blacks.

The innovation turning desert sand into farmland - BBC

Minnesota experiment upends notions about how plants will offset rising CO2 - Minn Post

On The Hunt For The Elusive Morel Mushroom In Ohio's Appalachian Country  - The Salt

Here's why Michigan Medicaid work requirements will kill people - Detroit Free Press.  Exemptions for rural counties, but not for poor urban areas.  That's the Republican party for you.

How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year from America’s Elderly - Bloomberg.  I would like to know what countries' GDP are smaller than the total economic activity generated in the US by crime and fraud.  I would guess it is the size of a medium-sized developed nation

Paul Ryan Just Got Trounced By a Priest - Charles Pierce and Ryan reverses, will keep House chaplain in place - Politico.  As if I needed to add anti-Catholic bigotry to my reasons to hate the GOP.  I did enjoy that more than one political commentator said that the moral of the story is that you don't fuck with a Jesuit (or The Society-God bless Catholic culture).

A Pruitt Aide's Attack on Zinke Angers the White House - The Atlantic.  So the cabinet secretary I hate the most had an underling try to undermine the cabinet secretary I hate the second-most.  That seems about like what I'd expect from the Trump administration.  Even they can understand who the assholes are.

This Map Shows Every State's Biggest Export - How Much (via Ritholtz).  Not too hard to figure out where Poet is based.

Delayed Time Change Links

If I were in charge, we would never fall back to standard time again.  But I'm not.  However, here are some worthwhile links to take a look at if you haven't already:

Angry Man Cuts President Trump's Balls Off - Deadspin.  The horse was gelded.

Wisconsin and Minnesota Await Latest Round in Ice-Melting Rivalry - New York Times

This small molecule could have a big future in food security - Phys.org.  A GMO corn that would prevent the production of aflatoxin.

Soils could release much more carbon than expected as climate warms - Science Daily.  If we weren't already completely screwed.

McM Inc lists $49.7 million in debts, $10.3 million in assets - AgWeek.  Ouch.

2 of a Farmer’s 3 Children Overdosed. What of the Third — and the Land? - New York Times

High-Tech Greenhouse Has Neighbors Throwing Shade Over Light Pollution - The Salt.  We have folks complaining about the same thing up the highway in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  There they are talking about building 200 acres of greenhouses (there are 20 acres under roof currently), which boggles my mind.  That would be a shit-ton of runoff on a big rain.

Official: Fire still burning hours after Iowa derailment - Des Moines Register.  Ethanol train.

Why Do We Have "Free Trade" For Televisions, But Not For Corn - JSTOR Daily

Caught Dead - The Ringer.  On fishing bluefin tuna to extinction for ridiculously priced sushi.

Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king- McClatchy.  The story is worthwhile just because it revolves around "the Fertilizer (potash) King,"and how stupid rich people can be.

 and how stupid
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article135243694.html#storylink=cpy

Proposed NOAA Budget Cuts Would Jeopardize Essential Tools - Pacific Standard.  Rule by right wing morons sucks.

The quest to crystallize time - Nature and Quantum Leaps - The Economist.  Quantum mechanics is too weird for me.  Also, Quantum Leap was a shitty TV show.

Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta? and The Steady Destruction of America’s Cities – The Atlantic

On Labor and Beyond, Trump Is Following Scott Walker's Playbook - Truthout.  I prefer Donald Trump to Scott Walker and Ted Cruz.  They are that bad.

GOP Health Plan Would Hit Rural Areas Hard - Wall Street Journal.  Hoocoodanode?

Republicans and the Constitution - The New Yorker.  Hopefully even Republicans aren't stupid and power-hungry enough to open up this can of worms.

The .300 Hitter Is Going Extinct - Wall Street Journal.  I know the Sabermetrics goons don't put any stock in hitting for average, but I still admire a .300 hitter.

The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere

The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere from The All-Nighter Room on Vimeo.

Another Set of Rain Break Links

I spent a good portion of the weekend sowing beans, but I did manage to catch the Derby.  Here are some links I came across in my winding-down time (a few Derby-linked):

The $100 Million Superhorse Powering This Year's Kentucky Derby - Bloomberg and Nyquist's Win is a Boost for Uncle Mo - Wall Street Journal

Churchill Downer: The Forgotten Racial History of Kentucky's State Song - NPR and The Forgotten History of African-American Jockeys - NPR

Voters approve nation's most-expensive high school football stadium - USA Today (h/t the Reporter).  Texas, always with the right priorities:

At $62.8 million,  the total would be more than the $60 million that Allen spent for Eagle Stadium, which is an 18,000-seat stadium. It also would be more than the $62.5 million that Katy is spending for its stadium scheduled to open in 2017. Construction is ongoing.
The bond was approved with 63% of the vote.

U.S. Corn Production Set to Rise, Boosting Supplies - Wall Street Journal.  It is going to get ugly here in the midwest.

Under Attack, Commodity Promotion Programs Try To Hide Their Emails - The Salt

How Breakfast Became a Thing - Priceonomics. Or, breakfresh, as my grandma used to pronounce it.

Exploring America's Largest Collection of Early Tavern Signs - Atlas Obscura

The Road To The Chicken Ranch - Texas Monthly.  I didn't realize the origin of the name came out of the Great Depression.

'You want a description of Hell?' Oxycontin's 12-Hour Problem - Los Angeles Times.  America's drug epidemic has many very dark and interweaving themes, and big business is one of them.

Private schools, painful secrets - Boston Globe.  Spotlight focuses on another decades-long institutional sex abuse coverup.

Why is simpler better? - Aeon

Warren Buffett's mobile home empire preys on the poor - Center for Public Integrity.  Sure, a lot of his folksiness is just marketing, but this really does look bad.

A Portrait of Coal Town on the Brink of Death - VICE

I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump - STIR

Donald Trump Is Campaigning on the New Deal - New York Magazine

Ted Cruz Backers Seek to Control Convention Platform - New York Times.  As if the GOP convention wasn't going to be a big enough fiasco already.  This party needs destroyed.

Graphs Showing Agricultural Trends - Big Picture Agriculture.  Thankfully, Big Picture Agriculture is back.  Nothing especially surprising about this milk production chart, but I need some kind of graphic for my links post, and this one will work.

More Rain Break Links

As we get more weekend rain, I can post a few more story links I've come across.  We've got all our corn planted, along with one field of beans, so planting is proceeding well.  Here you go:

American Pharoah Is America's Next Bachelor - Cincinnati Magazine. More like gigolo.

Inside the World of Professional Rock Paper Scissors - Priceonomics.  Rock can't lose, isn't that correct, Matt Hoying?

Canadian Restaurant Sources Humane Beef From United States, Infuriates Canadians - Modern Farmer
Yogurt Buyers Send Dannon Back To The Farm - New York Times

The U.S. is Sitting on a Mountain of Cheese - AgWeb 

Germany's Beer Purity Law Is 500-Years-Old.  Is It Past Its Sell-By Date? - The Salt

A Mine vs. A Million Monarchs - New York Times

The Faithful - The California Sunday Magazine

How Information Graphics Reveal Your Brain's Blind Spots - ProPublica

Why Scientists Are Banking on Drones for Tracking Coastal Climate Research - Pacific Standard

The Kentucky gun owner who developed his own count of gun violence in the US - The Guardian

A Leak Wounded This Company.  Fighting the Feds Finished It Off - Bloomberg

The Braves Play Taxpayers Better Than They Play Baseball - Bloomberg.  What a scam.

First Fish Fry Weekend Links

I survived the first of the three fish fries I work annually.  Since I doubt that anybody that reads this got to enjoy the deep-fried fish, fries, pickles, cheese, Oreos and cookie dough balls I prepared last night, I'll leave you with a few stories to read:

The Making of "Homer At The Bat,"The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight - Deadspin

Canada Still Can't Win The Stanley Cup - FiveThirtyEight

Myles Jones Is the Future of Lacrosse - VICE Sports

Equine Herpes Outbreaks are Bad News for Horse Racing - Modern Farmer.  Wow, that is pretty sad.

A South Florida Boxing Rivalry Leads To Cold-Blooded Murder - Miami New Times

For Russian Farmers, Climate Change Is Nyet So Good - The Salt

When Beef Is Off Limits, Beaver And Muskrat Make It To Lenten Menu - The Salt.  Well, if you can't make it to one of our fish fries...

The Passion of the Bureaucrats - London Review of Books

U.S. Shale Drillers are Finally Buckling - Bloomberg and Built Up by Oil Boom, North Dakota Now Has an Emptier Feeling - New York Times.  The bust didn't happen the way I expected, but I'm not surprised it happened.

At Yosemite, a Waterfall Turns Into a Firefall - New York Times.  Gorgeous photos.

How the Panama Canal Got Its Groove Back - Priceonomics

The Economic Recovery's Geographic Disparities - The Atlantic.  Heavily agricultural areas were among the leaders.  Do not expect that to continue in the foreseeable future.

The Great Pennsylvania Government Porn Caper - Esquire

Bernie Sanders is the Worst Presidential Candidate in History, and You and All Your Friends are Idiots - Paste.  The results out of South Carolina may make this moot, but I loved this piece:

Literally none of his so-called “democratic socialist” programs have ever been successfully implemented in any government in world history, except for all the other major nations in the modern world, and also America during our most prosperous period.

Can a Christian Party Survive? - The American Conservative

Reddit Poll Names Most Hated College Football Team In Every State - Bleacher Report.  Ohio State even finished second in Ohio.

Five Stone of Lead

Five Stone of Lead - Jonny Madderson from Just So on Vimeo.

Breeders' Cup Weekend Links

American Pharaoh closed out his racing career by winning the Classic.  I've got the World Series and Notre Dame football on TV, and a fridge-load of Pumpkin and Oktoberfest beers to finish before November comes.  Here are some stories for your reading pleasure:

Goodnight and Thank You, Grantland - The Atlantic.  I'll miss that site.

Blades of Glory - Grantland.  One last story from them.

The State v. Robertson - SBNation

Kentucky's Horse Country Opens Barn Doors to Fans Before Breeders' Cup - Wall Street Journal

Early 2016 to bring 'wave' of crop selling, says Bunge CEO - Agrimoney. Not surprisingly, I'm also a bear.

Young Farmers Don't Need Taxpayers' Help - Bloomberg

Why Is It So Hard To Save Gulf Of Maine Cod? They're In Hot Water - The Salt

The Most Haunted Road in America - Longreads

Mary Fields: Former Slave, Pioneer Woman, Certified Badass - Priceonomics

The astronomer and the witch - how Kepler saved his mother from the stake - The Conversation

Utopias, past and present: why Thomas More remains astonishingly radical - The Guardian

Ask Citylab: What's the Deal with Steam Rising from NYC streets? - Citylab.  What a massive system.

The 'Electronification' of Everything - Bloomberg.  Gallium?

Oil Producers Curb Megaproject Ambitions to Focus on U.S. Shale - Bloomberg

Hopes for 'Golden Age of Gas' Evaporate - Wall Street Journal

Clinton Foundation Faces Revisions - and Possible Reckoning - 100 Reporters.  Damn, they are crooks.  Between Hillary and the Republican shit show, that socialist is looking pretty good.

Inside the Secretive World of Tax-Avoidance Experts - The Atlantic

We Mapped the Uninsured. You'll Notice a Pattern - The Upshot

Another Run at Glory

It's almost time for the Travers Stakes.  American Pharoah tries to extend his winning streak and run one of the greatest seasons of racing of all time.

Update: The Graveyard of Champions has claimed another.  Keen Ice upsets American Pharoah.

Flag Day Weekend Links

Well, it's hot and the forecast looks bad for finishing first-cutting hay.  Here are some interesting stories to check out:

Notre Dame's coach said something jarring (and refreshing) about player academics - SBNation.  Honesty is the best policy.

Make Way for Rose Lavelle - Cincinnati Magazine.  I'm not exactly a soccer fan, but this is pretty engagingly written.

Where Have You Gone, Secretariat? - FiveThirtyEight

The secret life and death of a hockey analytics pioneer - ESPN

Brownsville's Unlikely Rugby Dynasty - New York Times

Requiem for The Dream: Dusty Rhodes, 1945-2015 - Grantland

We'll All Eat Less Meat Soon-Like it or Not - Mother Jones.  :(

America's Big Food Waste Problem - Pacific Standard.  America's Big [fill in the blank] Waste Problem seems workable to me.

Mighty Farming Microbes:Companies Harness Bacteria To Give Crops A Boost - The Salt

SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of  Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines - New York Times

What is Code? - Bloomberg BusinessWeek.  38,000 words and 76 pages.  Wow.

What It's Like To Be Declared Dead by the Government - priceonomics

You're About to See an Incredibly Rare Cloud, and It's Proof the Climate Is Changing - Bloomberg

NBA Finals: All The Champions Since 1947 -  Dadaviz

Belmont Stakes Weekend Links

Yeah, I'm a little behind this weekend, but, hey, I got to see American Pharoah win the Triple Crown.  Here are some interesting stories I came across this last week:

Two Lanes to Accokeek - SBNation

The Steph Curry Origin Story - Vice Sports

American Pharoah's Dad to Make the Real Money for Owner Zayat - Bloomberg and American Pharoah is a Superhorse, but He's No Secretariat - FiveThirtyEight

Our Water-Guzzling Food Factory - New York Times.  See also, California's War Over Water has Farmer Fighting Farmer - The Salt and After Water - Longreads

Who's Murdering Thousands of Chickens in South Carolina? - Bloomberg.  There's a good description of the crazy tournament pay system used in contract growing chickens.

It's Raining Nitrogen in a Colorado Park.  Farmers Can Help Make It Stop - The Salt

What do they really put in scrapple? - Lancaster Online

This is the Story of the Hamburger - Grub Street

Mystery of the Texas 'earthworm herds' that form a perfect line on roads: Scientists baffled by strange behavior since storms - Daily Mail

How this brilliant scientist went from working at Subway to becoming one of the greatest mathematicians of the 21st century - Business Insider

The Economist Who Realized How Crazy We Are - Michael Lewis and The Science of Scarcity - Harvard Magazine

Your Brain Can't Handle the Moon - Nautilus

On the Wisconsin Border, little enthusiasm for Walker's tax cuts - Reuters and Scott Walker Bets on Midwestern Appeal in Iowa - Wall Street Journal.  God help us.

Out of Spite: The Governor of Nebraska's Threat to Execute Prisoners - The Atlantic.  This, along with funding idiot Republican candidates and fucking up Wrigley Field to squeeze more money out of fans are reasons I can't stand the Ricketts family.  Nebraska, you get the asshole you elected.

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes - ProPublica

Why Has America Stopped Winning Wars? - The Atlantic.  Because we pick unwinnable ones to fight?  It is notable that the only one we've won since World War II is the one the idiots who led us into the Iraq debacle considered a screwup.

The Most Urbanized States in America - priceonomics

The Economics of Mass-Market Events

Yesterday saw two of the largest non-major sporting events going, the Kentucky Derby and the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout.  The money involved is amazing.  For the Kentucky Derby:

The Derby is a bright spot for an industry that’s been declining for years. Betting nationwide has shrunk by a third since 2003, to $10.6 billion last year from a peak of $15.2 billion, according to the Jockey Club, an industry group.
Saturday’s Kentucky Derby already has one guaranteed winner: The company that hosts the storied race will earn about $83 million for a spectacle that lasts a little more than two minutes.
Churchill Downs Inc. has seven casinos and tracks in the U.S., as well as its namesake property in Louisville. Yet the Run for the Roses will produce 30 percent of annual earnings, according to Cameron McKnight, a Wells Fargo Securities analyst. He estimates the race will generate record earnings this year, rising by $5 million, or 6 percent.
To keep profit climbing and entertain the 165,000 or so on hand for racing’s biggest day, Churchill Downs has poured $180 million into the track since 2001. Three years ago, the company opened the Mansion, an area with its own entrance, chefs and 322 seats that average $10,000 each on Derby day. Other additions include a jumbo screen for grandstand fans and 20 finish-line boxes for horse owners....
Tracks like Suffolk Downs, near Boston, and Hollywood Park, in Southern California, have dropped live racing or been razed, and the industry’s biggest players, such as Churchill Downs and Penn National Gaming Inc., have expanded with casinos as the industry has declined.
Slightly more than half of the Derby’s profit comes from premium ticket sales, according to McKnight. TV rights and sponsorships account for 23 percent, while betting is 16 percent. Food and beverages, including 120,000 mint juleps, the race’s signature drink, amount to just 4 percent....

So 30 percent of the company's earnings come from one day's event, even though they have seven facilities [disclosure: I am a Churchill Downs shareholder].  And of that 30 percent, almost half of that comes from the 170,000 people who attend the event.  Meanwhile, in the ring:

Floyd Mayweather won a unanimous decision over Manny Pacquiao in the most lucrative bout in boxing history to remain undefeated at 48-0 and lay claim to being the best pound-for-pound fighter of his generation.
The welterweight fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas was expected to draw more than $300 million in revenue, largely from pay-per-view purchases and ticket sales. The fight benefited from almost six years of buildup, as the two camps bickered over drug testing and revenue splits....
Nicknamed “Money,” Mayweather was the world’s highest-paid athlete last year, joining Tiger Woods as the second jock to make more than $100 million in one year. With his cut of the record-setting purse, Mayweather topped $500 million in career earnings. The fighters will share about 60 percent to 70 percent of the estimated $250 million in pay-per-view purchases -- with Mayweather getting about 60 percent of that -- and the rest going to the networks and carriers holding broadcast rights.
Mayweather and Pacquiao also will share about $72 million in gate, an estimated $11 million in sponsorships and at least $35 million in international television rights.

So, approximately 3 million pay-per-view viewers, and 12,000 or so actual attendees will create $300 million in revenue for a handful of beneficiaries, including the two participants.  I don't know whether these numbers only account for viewers in the United States, or whether it includes folks in the Philippines and around the rest of the world.  If it is just the United States, that is less than 1 percent of the population.  From an economic perspective, it is this mass-market profit phenomenon that was first really noticeable in the Gilded Era with the rise of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and the various railroad barons that I think makes the progressive income tax necessary.

Kentucky Derby Weekend Links

The biggest horse race of the year, the biggest boxing match in a generation, if you need anything else to do, here are some stories to read (including some on the previously mentioned events):

Freddie Roach Is The Best Damned Trainer Alive - Los Angeles Magazine

Career Arc: Manny Pacquiao - Grantland

The Dodger: Floyd Mayweather and the Impunity of Genius - The Atlantic

Kentucky Derby: American Pharaoh betting odds, race outlook - SB Nation and Kentucky Derby 2015 odds: Dortmund, Carpe Diem, Materiality race outlook - SBNation.  I'll take Dortmund.

The king of soya focuses on a high-tech vision of farming - Financial Times

Bird Flu Outbreak Prompts State of Emergency in Iowa - Wall Street Journal

Washington State Is So Screwed - Mother Jones

What happened to America's black farmers? - Grist

End of an Error - Texas Observer

Hiking the 2,650-Mile Pacific Crest Trail - priceonomics

Why GE Ditched Finance - The New Yorker

The Billionaire, the Dealer and the $186 Million Rothko - Bloomberg.  I'm not very cultured.  I'd never heard of Rothko.

The Unpleasant Charisma of John Kasich - The Atlantic.  It's indicative of how I feel about the Republican presidential field that I see a guy I refused to vote for for governor as one of the better candidates.  A very low bar, indeed.

In Savannah: 24 Hours, 192 Horn Blasts - Wall Street Journal. Where I've attended church my whole life, sermons are often paused for "train breaks."

It's Not Crazy, It's Sports: ' Chrome'

Mid-December Weekend Links

Stories for the weekend:

How Japan Built The World's Best Horse Racing - Deadspin

Larry Bird's Greatest Shot Was the One He Didn't Take - Indianapolis Monthly

Egg Market Disrupted in U.S. as Cages Made Roomier: Commodities - Bloomberg

Milk prices are about to fall big time - Farm and Dairy. Maybe that will offset the more expensive eggs.

The Dark Side of Donkey Basketball, and In American Southern Literature, The Mule Must Die - Modern Farmer.  It is Donkey week at Modern Farmer.

New Aluminum 'Foam' Makes Trains Stronger, Lighter and Safer - Wired.  Pretty cool shit.

A Coal Plant That Buries Its Greenhouse Gases - MIT Technology Review.  Cool, but I don't think it is commercially viable.

Livin' Thing: An Oral History of 'Boogie Nights' - Grantland.  It's Paul Thomas Anderson week at Grantland.

19 Secrets of UPS Drivers - Mental Floss

20 Maps That Never Happened - Vox

California drought, visualized with open data - USGS.  Very cool.

Mike Pence lays out vision for a presidential campaign. But will he be a candidate? - Washington Post.  Mike Pence isn't the smartest man in any room.  How pathetic will the 2016 race be?

The Architect of the CIA's Torture Program - Vice News.  What a fucked up mess.

The War Hero and the Chicken Hawk - Timothy Egan.  Dick Cheney should be on trial in the U.S., or failing that, at The Hague.

The rise of rich man's subprime - Fortune.  On loans against portfolios.

Unemployment and Inflation - Pieria.  It's Minsky's world, and we're just living in it.

The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind - New York Times.  Also, see Why America's middle class is lost - Washington Post

Cool maps show where all 4 college football playoff teams get players from - SBNation

Peak Casino

We might not be there quite yet, nationally, but we are pretty close:

In the 36th year of casino gambling in New Jersey, which not too long ago had a monopoly on the East Coast, the casino industry is crashing with a suddenness and a fury that has caught many people here by surprise. It started the year with 12 casinos; by mid-September, it could have eight.
The Atlantic Club shut down in January, taken down by two rivals, stripped for parts and closed in the name of reducing competition, eliminating 1,600 jobs.
In recent weeks, the owners of the Showboat and Trump Plaza announced plans to close, and Revel, which opened two years ago, said it, too, will close if a buyer can't be found in a bankruptcy court auction next month. That would put nearly 8,000 workers — about a quarter of the city's casino workforce — on the street.
"Most of us had expected one or two places to close this year and that would be it for a while, and it would give us a chance to catch our breath," said state Sen. James Whelan, a former Atlantic City mayor. "This is happening very quickly, and it is absolutely devastating to our region."
David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said casino markets around the country could find themselves in a similar situation — and soon.
Connecticut's tribal casinos have been affected by New York casinos and face an even greater challenge from new casinos going online soon in New York and Massachusetts. Mississippi, where Caesars Entertainment recently shuttered a casino in Tunica, has struggled with competition from expanded gambling in the Midwest and Florida.
Even Pennsylvania, which overtook Atlantic City as the nation's No. 2 casino market, is seeing its own casino revenue stagnate as competition grows.

While Ohio's casinos have been a giveaway to special interests (the writers of the ballot initiative, namely, Dan Gilbert and Penn National, and the horse tracks, now mainly owned by casino companies), I think we aren't as oversupplied as Atlantic City (now southeastern Indiana, on the other hand....), at least yet.  It will be interesting to see what happens when the Dayton racino opens, which will provide southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana with the option of 4 casinos and 3 racinos, with the potential of another at Turfway Park if the horsemen (and Dan Gilbert) get their way in Kentucky. I would guess the furthest casino from Cincinnati (I believe the Belterra in Florence) would be the first to go, but it will be interesting to see how the casino in downtown Cincinnati fares.  So far, the 4 big city casinos have seen a rapid drop off in revenues as the racinos open up and suburban folks flock to the slots there.  Cincinnati may be able to maintain the casino based just on urban population and tourists/sports fans visiting, but I don't anticipate any pushes to expand casino gaming in Ohio beyond the 11 license holders we now have.  The only true benefit to having casinos in Ohio is that we don't have people travelling to Indiana to save Hoosiers tax money.  They aren't a net benefit to the state economy, but the are a huge benefit to Dan Gilbert, the Ohio horse racing industry and out-of-state casino owners.

Belmont Stakes Weekend Reads

Maybe we'll see history made today.  Go California Chrome.  Here are some stories that caught my eye this week:

Photos: Land Use Destruction to Grow Biofuels - Big Picture Agriculture

On the Anniversary of D-Day: Making World War II Personal - John Tierney.  See also, The Profound Contradiction of Saving Private Ryan - John Biguenet

How to live without air conditioning - Boston Globe, via Katie Baker's twitter feed.  That article covers practical ways in which we could re-adapt to life without air conditioning.  One of her followers posted a link to Arthur Miller's wonderful reminiscence of the sights, sounds and smells of New York in summer in the late Twenties.

Why Freakonomics Freaks Me Out - Bloomberg View

Your Vanilla Ice Cream Is About To Get Weirder - Tom Philpott.  I don't know, using synthetic yeast to produce vanillin seems no more weird than using beaver anal secretions (castoreum)  in your vanilla ice cream or schnapps.

Monarch Butterflies under Threat from Rising Herbicide Use - Scientific American.  I've mentioned it before, but you just don't see milkweed anymore.

A Theory of Jerks - Aeon

A Horse Owner's Biggest Gamble - Wall Street Journal.  The owners of California Chrome have already gambled more than I probably would.  I like that the worst-case scenario below is $6.8 million.

Non-Triple Crown winners of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness:

Year

Horse

Belmont Result (Winner)

1932	Burgoo King	(Did not start)
1936	Bold Venture	(Did not start)
1944	Pensive	2nd (Bounding Home)
1958	Tim Tam	2nd (Cavan)
1961	Carry Back	7th (Sherluck)
1964	Northern Dancer	3rd (Quadrangle)
1966	Kauai King	4th (Amberoid)
1968	**Forward Pass	2nd (Stage Door Johnny)
1969	Majestic Prince	2nd (Arts and Letters)
1971	Canonero II	4th (Pass Catcher)
1979	Spectacular Bid	3rd (Coastal)
1981	Pleasant Colony	3rd (Summing)
1987	Alysheba	4th (Bet Twice)
1989	Sunday Silence	2nd (Easy Goer)
1997	Silver Charm	2nd (Touch Gold)
1998	Real Quiet	2nd (Victory Gallop)
1999	Charismatic	3rd (Lemon Drop Kid)
2002	War Emblem	8th (Sarava)
2003	Funny Cide	3rd (Empire Maker)
2004	Smarty Jones	2nd (Birdstone)
2008	Big Brown	DNF (Da'Tara)
2012	I'll Have Another	Did Not Start (Union Rags)
2014	California Chrome	???

Getting a Little Superstitious

NYT:

Between 1919 and 1978, 11 horses that won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness went on to win the Belmont Stakes. In the 36 years since then, though, the 12 horses that won the first two legs of racing’s Triple Crown faltered before they got to the finish line — or even the starting gate — at Belmont Park.

Some superstitious New Yorkers say the recent record losing streak is not coincidental. They attribute it to a discordant break with tradition in 1997, one that might have California Chrome listening with a cocked ear on June 7 as he struts out of the tunnel leading to the track for the 146th running of the Belmont Stakes.

Call it the curse of Mamie O’Rourke — she is a character who pops up in “Sidewalks of New York,” a century-old song that had been considered the city’s anthem and that had been played at Belmont for decades as the horses made their way to the starting gate.

But in 1997, after racing officials deemed it too fusty, the song was replaced with “New York, New York,” which Frank Sinatra Jr. is scheduled to sing at Belmont this year. In 2010, hoping to appeal to an even hipper audience, officials experimented with Jay Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind,” but that proved too cutting-edge for the crowd.....

Belmont officials, bereft of a Triple Crown winner since 1978, are taking no chances and are resurrecting Mamie. After questions were raised, they said they would ask Sam (Sammy the Bugler) Grossman to play “Sidewalks” on his herald trumpet just before the Stakes, instead of before the Manhattan Handicap, an earlier race, as he usually does.

Good luck to California Chrome in his dash for immortality a week from Saturday.  

Derby Attention Masks Racing's Decline

WSJ:

While the Kentucky Derby and other signature horse-racing events remain popular, a long-run decline in thoroughbred racing has prompted owners of many of the nation's tracks to close them down to make way for housing developments and office parks. What used to be the famed Bay Meadows racetrack here—spread across 171 acres—will soon see 1,000 new housing units, about one-third of which will be rental housing and the rest single-family homes and town homes.
Similar scenes are playing out across the nation. Later this year, Bay Meadows' owner, Stockbridge Capital, will begin demolishing a second track, Los Angeles' Hollywood Park, which is on prime real estate near Los Angeles International Airport. That also will become homes and offices. On Saturday, Ohio's 91-year-old Beulah Park, which is near Columbus, will run its last race...
Last year, 100 racetracks ran at least one thoroughbred race, down from 111 in 1991, according to Equibase, an industry-owned database. But that modest decline doesn't capture just how much pressure there is on the industry: The number of thoroughbred races was down 19% from a decade ago, and the wagering handle has fallen by roughly 30% to about $11 billion.
"The underlying economics of the [racing] business are gone," Mr. Meany said.
The main culprit: competition from casinos. Decades ago, in the industry's heyday, horse and dog races were more or less the only place Americans could legally gamble outside of Las Vegas. Since then, the nationwide explosion in gambling—which began in tribal casinos and riverboats but has steadily moved closer to population centers and into downtowns—has siphoned off customers.

Beulah Park, along with Raceway Park in Toledo were vehicles in the spread of casino gambling in Ohio.  After casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo were approved by voters in 2009, Governor Strickland granted "racino" licenses to Ohio's seven racetracks.  Not long after that, it was announced that Raceway Park would relocate to Dayton and Beulah Park would move to Youngstown, allowing slots gambling in two more of the metro areas in the state.  There is also talk that Thistledown will move a few miles south from North Randall in the Cleveland suburbs to be closer to the Akron-Canton market.  From a gaming perspective, the moves make sense, but from a horse racing perspective it is clear that the horse racing is only a vehicle for a gaming license.  If you can't justify keeping thoroughbred racing in Columbus, where the population is growing, and instead move the track to Rust Belt poster-child Youngstown, the future of the sport outside of the major races is extremely suspect.