Full Snow Moon Links

I'm not going to use the title supermoon, because that is a bunch of media hype, but here are some super links:

What happens to Loogootee water tower when Jack Butcher's wins record falls? and Doyel: State's winningest coach had no intentions of leaving home and J.R. Holmes will soon become second boys basketball coach in state to reach 800 wins – Indy Star.  80% of the decent stories I get from the Star are about high school basketball.  The rest are about stupid Indiana laws.

Should a Catholic priest be fighting in a boxing tournament? – America.  As a Bengal Bouts alum, I say hell yes.  (Career record 0-4. 0-5 counting the novice matches in the fall of freshman year)

‘It Will Cause a Scandal.’ The Pope and a Trusted U.S. Cardinal Clash Over Sex-Abuse Crisis – Wall Street Journal 

Massive Loss Of Thousands Of Hives Afflicts Orchard Growers And Beekeepers - The Salt

‘Food and the Wisconsin Idea’ talk discusses Wisconsin farming, solutions to dairy crisis – The Badger Herald  and Food Banks Are Overflowing With Milk - Weekend Edition Sunday

Private Mossad for Hire – The New Yorker  

In Need of Workers, the Midwest Recruits From Puerto Rico - Wall Street Journal (h/t cmoore)

Alabama newspaper editor calls for Klan return to 'clean out D.C.' - Montgomery Advertiser

Bolsonaro’s Brazil - London Review of Books

How the US has hidden its empire - The Guardian

Research, Extension, and Related Matters: Title VII - USDA ERS

Pre-Mardi Gras Links

Unbelievably, Lent is almost here and winter is pretty much over.  Here are some stories that caught my attention:

The Next Babe Ruth - Sportsnet

In a Champion's Corner, a Real Coach Who Inspired One on 'The Wire' - New York Times

 A Taste For Pork Helped A Deadly Virus Jump To Humans - Goats and Soda

A Bee Mogul Confronts the Crisis in His Field - New York Times

Farming Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration - The Salt

Red state rural America is acting on climate change – without calling it climate change - The Conversation

Wary of Modern Society, Some Christians Choose a Life Apart - Wall Street Journal

The Secret Art History on Your Money - New York Times

What Happens When Two Bankers and an Engineer Get a Billion Dollars - Bloomberg

The enormous scale of the erosion problem at the Oroville dam site - AGU.  Awesome photos from 2 weeks ago.

Meet ISRO’s PSLV: The rockstar of Indian rockets - Quartz

The 20th century saw a 23-fold increase in natural resources used for building - The Conversation.  I think this is the definition of unsustainable.

End of a golden age - Aeon.  The product of the unsustainable development (in the West) described above.

Scott Pruitt's Back-To-Basics Agenda for the EPA - Wall Street Journal and Environmental Chief Promises Swift Rollback of Obama-Era Rules - Bloomberg. 

“People across the country look at the EPA much like they look at the IRS -- and I hope to be able to change that,” Pruitt said.

I doubt that he meant that both agencies are endlessly attacked and undermined by Republicans, to the point that they are woefully unable make sure existing laws are followed, but that is the case.

The fallacy of Trump's "send in the Feds" fix for Chicago - Vox

The Two Kinds of Trump Voters - Politico

Outside coastal cities an ‘other America’ has different values and challenges - The Guardian

"I Feel Forgotten": A Decade of Struggle in Rural Ohio - The New Yorker

What happened when factory jobs moved from Warren, Ohio, to Juarez, Mexico - LA Times

Under A New System, Clinton Could Have Won The Popular Vote By 5 Points And Still Lost - FiveThirtyEight.  Gerrymandering (or stealing elections) on steroids.  I'd originally meant to write a post about this, but never got around to it.

Start of 2017 Links

Here are some stories to start the year out on:

Jack Johnson, still unforgivable? - The Undefeated

Big Battles Over Farm And Food Policies May Be Brewing As Trump Era Begins - The Salt

Where the Beers Are:A Regional Guide to U.S. Craft Beers - Wall Street Journal

Rogue One: an 'Engineering Ethics' Story - SciFi Policy and Architects and Engineers Shove a Light Saber Through the Death Star's Bad Design - Wired, along with a speculation on real-life ethics and scientific research, The Private Heisenberg and the Absent Bomb - New York Review of Books
A Bigger Problem Than ISIS? - The New Yorker. On the potentially imminent failure of the Mosul Dam.

The Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion and the O-Ring - Priceonomics

Meet Henry Orenstein, The Man Who Changed How The World Plays - Newsweek (h/t my former boss).  Unbelievable life story.

Fuck Work - Aeon. 

Holy Wars - Boston Review

The Ad That Moved People the Most: Bernie Sanders's 'America' - The Upshot

What History Has to Say About the Economy Trump Will Inherit - Bloomberg

America's electoral college and the popular vote - The Economist.

Festivus Links

Happy Festivus!  Before I enter into the airing of grievances, I'll share some news stories with you:

The Trials of a Boxing Romantic - New York Times

'Thanks for saving my life': Dennis Rodman's heartfelt tribute to Craig Sager - Washington Post

This Is Without  A Doubt The Best Obituary I've Ever Read.  It's Not Even Close. Outstanding, Outstanding Obituary - Barstool Sports.  Via the sister.

How an Idaho football player became a bank robber - USAToday.  Via the old boss.

For Cash-Strapped Monks, Selling Fruitcakes Is A Saving Grace - The Salt

Inside Quebec's Great Multi-Million-Dollar Maple Syrup Heist - Vanity Fair.  I can't get enough stories about the Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, or the the heist from it.

The Inside Story of Apple's $14 Billion Tax Bill - Bloomberg

All-American Huckster: The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time - Gizmodo

Columbus-Chicago passenger rail moves ahead, slowly - Columbus Dispatch

Teachers in Wealthy Districts Get Bulk of Indiana's Performance Payouts - Education Week.  Stupid Republican policy.

'It Makes You Human Again' - Politico.  Interesting piece on Albequerque's homeless program.

The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries - Washington Post. What's good for the goose...

How Trump's White House Could Mess With Government Data - Fivethirtyeight

Trump's Pick for Interior Secretary Was Caught In "Pattern of Fraud" at SEAL Team 6 - The Intercept

Why the Nazis studied American race laws for inspiration - Aeon 

How the Obama Coalition Crumbled, Leaving an Opening for Trump - The Upshot

The St. Paul Kid

Final Four / Opening Day Weekend Links

It's time for a sporting change of seasons.  Here are some entertaining stories for your enjoyment:

Fight - New York Times.  A tragic story about a slowly-dying sport in a slowly-dying region.

Adrien Broner Is A Dick - Deadspin.  More from the slowly-dying sport.

A Modest Proposal For Replacing the USMNT With The Women's National Team - VICE Sports

Survey: Iowa farmland values decline nearly 9% - Des Moines Register.  Expect much more to come.

New Study Finds "Ag Gag" Laws Erode Trust In Farmers - Modern Farmer.  Um, no shit?

Pabst New Owner Digs Into Old Recipes as It Looks to the Future - New York Times.  I've always loved me some downscale beer brands.

Hitler Couldn't Defeat Chrurchill, But Champagne Almost Did - The Salt. "The taxman may have proved intractable, but others were more amenable. Rich friends bailed him out, and at one point, the government settled his liquor bills"

The heroes hidden in the archive - Irish Independent.  Very good piece on the Easter Rising.

Mother Angelica, EWTN Founder, had roots and early fame in Northeast Ohio - Cleveland Plain Dealer (h/t the nurse).  I didn't know she sold fishing lures back in the day.

Can an Outsider Ever Truly Become Amish? - Atlas Obscura

How New York Gets Its Water - New York Times.  Delivered entirely by gravity.  Wow.
 
Is India facing its worst ever water crisis? - BBC

Why didn't Flint treat its water? An answer, at last - Detroit Free Press.  No surprise there.  I didn't understand why a city would even have a treatment plant when it was buying treated water.  This makes the decision to switch to the Flint River all the more criminal.

Has BART's cutting-edge 1972 technology design come back to haunt it? - San Jose Mercury-News
 
Pain in the Permian - Petroleum Economist and The big bust in the oil fields - Washington Post

The Downside of Durham's Rebirth - The Atlantic

 Unaoil: The Company That Bribed the World - Fairfax Media / Huffington Post

Public and Private Sector Payroll Jobs: Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama - Calculated Risk.  I'd love for somebody who thinks Obama has increased government jobs and hurt the private sector economy compared to Bush to explain these numbers.

Conference Championship Weekend Links

Who will win the Cheater Bowl in Denver?  If you don't really care, here are some stories for your enjoyment:

The Great Wight Hope - SB Nation.  This one is really crazy.

Bill Johnson, U.S. Olympic Champion, Dies at 55 - New York Times.  When I was almost 10, I wanted to be Bill Johnson.

The Tennis Racket - Buzzfeed

In California, A Treasure Hunt For Gold Rush-Era Fruit and Nut Trees - The Salt

U.S. farmland, ag machinery market declines extend into 2016 - Agrimoney.  Um, no shit?

Ernst vows to fight Obama 'waters of U.S.' rule - Des Moines Register.  Farmers have no idea what they are talking about.

To Fight Growing Threat From Germs, Scientists Try Old-Fashioned Killer - Wall Street Journal

The Contempt That Poisoned Flint's Water - The New Yorker

The Death of the Midwestern Church - Pacific Standard.  Just another death in the midwest.

The Rebel Virgins and Desert Mothers Who Have Been Written Out of Christian History - Atlas Obscura

How Voltaire Made a Fortune Rigging the Lottery - Today I Found Out

Can an Algorithm Eliminate the Unfairness of Gerrymandering? - Priceonomics

How an obscure adviser to Pat Buchanan predicted the wild Trump campaign in 1996 - The Week.  Very interesting, but I predicted the Republican party would be a clown show back in 2006, and I'm a bigger nobody than this white supremacist dude.

What Kind of Man Spends Millions To Elect Ted Cruz? - Bloomberg.  I would say an idiot or an asshole.  This guy definitely seems like the latter.

How the Epidemic of Drug Overdose Deaths Ripples Across America - New York Times

MLK Weekend Links

Like me, you probably don't get a three-day weekend, but you can still enjoy these stories:

The Dark Knight Unmasked - SB Nation

In Losing The Rams, St. Louis Wins - Joe Nocera NYT

Deontay Wilder Is Making Heavyweight Boxing Fun Again - New York Magazine 

Most U.S. Egg Producers Are Now Choosing Cage-Free Houses - The Salt.  I guess maybe the market has spoken.

Task force: Here’s how we fix Iowa’s water quality - Des Moines Register.  I'm shocked it involves paying farmers to try to get them to mitigate pollution.

This Bee-Killing Pesticide Is Terrible At Protecting Crops - Mother Jones.  I think the headline overstates the evidence, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Scientists move one step closer to turning water into hydrogen fuel, affordably - Christian Science Monitor

This is how toxic Flint's water really is - Washington Post

Hope Rekindled for Perplexing Proof - Quanta

How the Klan Got Its Hood - The New Republic

Local Control in Maine is a Luxury Few Towns Can Afford - New York Times

Bundyland - Willamette Week

New Navy Ships Have Trouble Surviving the High Seas - Bloomberg.  The Navy is so overrated.

Republican Deficit Hypocrisy - New York Times.  This cannot be said too many times.

Who's Winning the Presidential Campaign? - The Upshot.  God help us.

NFL Playoffs Weekend Links

Well, the Bengals might exit the playoffs in the first round yet again, but that won't stop me from sharing some good stories with you:

Griffey In His Prime Was The Second Coming Of Willie Mays - FiveThirtyEight

Shadow Boxer - SB Nation

A Fighter's Hour of Need - New York Times

World's Largest Meatpacking Firm Wants To Test Out Robot Butchers - The Salt

Water Quality Would Get $4.7 Billion School Tax Diversion - Des Moines Register.  We see who ranks where in Iowa.

Hey Oregon "Militia": Here's The History Lesson You Missed - Esquire and How The West Wasn't Won - Bloomberg

Lawyer: 231 children abused in German Catholic choir - USAToday.  The first story I saw just said "German choir."  I had to click through to confirm it was the Catholic Church.  Not that I was surprised.

In east Buffalo, drug addiction's grip is tightened by decades long cycle - The Guardian

Inside The Tiny Police State With Seven Armies - The Daily Beast

No Accident: Inside GM's deadly ignition switch scandal - Atlanta Magazine

Trivers' Pursuit - Psychology Today

How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain - Priceonomics

Why Bernie Sanders Doesn't Want Your Vote - Bloomberg

What Did the Governor Know About Flint's Water, and When Did He Know It? - The Atlantic

The worst idea in the presidential debate: a return to the gold standard - Michael Hiltzik.  Thanks, Ted Cruz.  You have to be smart enough to know this is just blowing smoke up gold bugs' asses.  But you are a big enough of an asshole to actually pretend to believe it.

Which States Rely the Most on Federal Aid - Tax Foundation

Pre-Thanksgiving Weekend Links

Well, the holiday season is almost upon us.  Here are some interesting stories to check out before the relatives start showing up in town:

Why Him, Why Me? - ESPN the Magazine

Five Last Rounds In Louisville - SB Nation

The Best Offense in College Football is Also the Laziest - Wall Street Journal

Use of High-Tech Brooms Divides Low-Tech Sport of Curling - New York Times

Paddy-whacked - The Economist 

Say Hello to the Apple that Never Browns - Buzzfeed

Entrepreneurs Pitch Sustainable Seafood Ideas; Investors Take The Bait - The Salt

Heat Records Shatter as a Monster El Nino Gains Strength - Bloomberg, and Record-crushing October keeps Earth on track for hottest year in 2015 - Washington Post.  Check out the graph in the Post article, it is scary.

The History of Plaid - Pacific Standard

How to Be a Lawyer Without Going to Law School - Priceonomics 

Our Own Private Disaster - Boston Review and How To Decimate a City - The Atlantic
 
Unfollow - The New Yorker

'The Attacks Will Be Spectacular' - Politico.  On the CIA before and after September 11.

The GOP Clown Car Rolls On - Rolling Stone

Republicans still can't explain why their economic ideas keep failing - Washington Post

NFL Owner Stan Kroenke Wants to Take Over L.A. - Bloomberg

End of July Weekend Links

End of July?  Already?  Pretty much.  Anyway, here are a few stories I came across this weekend:

Last Race in Sonoma: Twilight for "Top the Cops" - SBNation

The Three Burials of Tony Ayala Jr. - Texas Monthly

Before Beane - Grantland 

Bill Nye on the Monsanto Eco Disaster: 'We Accidentally Decimated the Monarch Butterfly Population' - Alternet.  Luckily, the milkweed population seems to be making a comeback locally in roadside ditches and abandoned pastures.

The Mysterious Oxfordshire Sheep Panic of 1888 - EsoterX

Boozy Root Beer Is About To Be Huge - Bloomberg.  Dad had to reserve some at the package store today.  Personally, I'm not too sure about that combination of sugar and alcohol.  Interestingly (at least to me), this brand got bought up by Pabst.

How An 11-Year-Old Boy Invented The Popsicle - The Salt

Meet 'Fried Jesus,' the State Fair Food Genius Who Invented Deep-Fried Butter - Vice

A denim twofer.  Distressed Denim: Levis Tries to Adapt to the Yoga Pants Era - Bloomberg and Forget Shorts, Jeans Made With Jade Help Chinese Beat the Heat - Bloomberg

Oliver Sacks: My Periodic Table - New York Times

The Singular Mind of Terry Tao - New York Times

Cleveland Wants To Make Sure the Next Wright Brothers Come From the Rust Belt - NextCity.  The Rust Belt: home of the first Wright Brothers.

The Vegas Plot - The California Sunday Magazine

How to Charge $1000 for Absolutely Nothing - priceonomics

Road Hazard: How the 'Embarrassing' Gas Tax Impasse Explains Washington - ProPublica

Scott Walker: We might have to take military action on Day One - Washington Post.  Shorter Walker: Vote for me, I'm just as big of a blowhard idiot as Donald Trump, and with better hair.

John Kasich Barges Into The Race - The Atlantic.  As scary as it is, Kasich may be the most sensible candidate in the GOP not named Bush.  God help us all.

America's Craziest Governor Goes Off The Rails - Politico.  Surprisingly, not in the Midwest, the South or the Mountain West.  Perhaps the perfect example of the lunatics elected in off-year elections.

Can Auto Shed Its Tiers? - Labor Notes

Memorial Day Weekend Links

With most Americans enjoying a three-day weekend, here are some interesting stories to check out:

The Night the Ali-Liston Fight Came to Lewiston - New York Times.  It amazes me that a heavyweight title fight ended up being staged at an arena built by a Catholic parish to host high school hockey.

Unclimbable - SBNation

Doc: Justice for Oscar Robertson, 60 Years Removed - Cincinnati Enquirer.  Just a small reminder what life was like back in the Fifties.

My Letterman Years - Grantland

What do we need to fight climate change? More worms. - Grist

The Kinetic Wood Sculptor - priceonomics

Will Art Save Our Descendents from Radioactive Waste? - JSTOR Daily

In the Beginning - Aeon

American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation - New York Times

America's Virulent, Extremist Counterterrorism Ideology - Foreign Policy

Why Children Are Abandoning Baseball - Wall Street Journal.  Not just baseball (although most dramatically), but all organized sports.  Just a guess: adults taking the fun out of it.

Mother's Day Weekend Links

I suppose my mother would consider it a Mother's Day gift if I wasn't posting "another one of your rants,"* but after disappointing her this much, why change now.  Here are some interesting stories for you to check out this weekend:

* her quote when she saw me working on posting last weekend's links

Yankee, Executive, Soldier, Spy - Grantland

The Poison Oasis - SBNation

Livestock Farming Is Changing Agriculture on Long Island - New York Times.  

Never Mind Oil, Iran's About to Shake the World Pistachio Market - Bloomberg

The Texas Deep Frying Champion - priceonomics

Americans Are Drinking Less But Spending More on Fancy Booze - Bloomberg.  Also, see One Bottle To Rule Them All - Cincinnati Magazine

House OKs Expanded Sales of Raw Milk - Texas Tribune.  Where did I see somebody say that the proponents of raw milk were the food equivalent of anti-vaxxers?   Wherever it was, it was true.

Your Winter Vegetables: Brought to You by California's Very Last Drops of Water - Mother Jones.
 It's interesting how senior water rights work.

Getting a Clue About the Avian Flu - Pacific Standard

Monsanto Make Bid to Go Big in Pesticides - Wall Street Journal

 Overkill - The New Yorker.  Atul Gawande on unnecessary medical care.

The Computers Are Listening - The Intercept

Girl Strikers - Belt Magazine

Alberta Loses Its Goddamn Mind for the Fourth Time: A Guide for the Perplexed - Vice.  Very interesting history: "Before long, rural farmers got tired of being fucked over by Central Canada and their nonsense party system. So in 1921, they handed a massive majority to the United Farmers of Alberta, a co-operative group that had decided to turn itself into a political party to set up a government by farmers, for farmers. This kept the trains running on time until premier John Brownlee resigned in disgrace after a bizarre sex scandal in 1934.

In UK Election, Ancient Kingdom Eyes Political Comeback - Wall Street Journal. More history.

The UK General Election Result Will Probably End Up Changing Britain Forever - Vice.  It is interesting that Scotland is a recipient state and also anti-austerity while England is a donor and pro-austerity, while in the U.S. the recipients seem to be pro-austerity and the donors are anit-austerity.  See also, The Anti-austerity economics of the SNP - Pieria

Huckabee's Hucksterism vs. Clintons' Cash - National Journal.  The grifters of Hope, Arkansas.  Some might say Obama is the ultimate grifter of hope.  I'd disagree.

Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore riots - Washington Post

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."

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 Edition.  A 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.

Knuckles vs. Numbers

Mid-April Weekend Links

Well, I'm planning on planting a little corn (maybe), but here are some stories to keep your attention for a little while this weekend:

Jason Rabedeaux Was Here - ESPN Magazine

The Ghosts I Run With - SBNation

Who Cares About "Irish" Andy Lee?  Or the Search for Brooklyn's Irish Boxing Fans - Vice Sports

Is Someone Stealing Water From California's Delta? - Modern Farmer

Feds Cancel Commercial Sardine Fishing After Stocks Crash - NPR.  Not a good sign.

West, Texas Blues - Texas Observer. The near miss stories are terrifying.  I know it's more expensive, but how about using urea or ammonium sulfate in place of ammonium nitrate.  They have much, much less likelihood of going boom.    

Low Prices Cool Boom in U.S. Oil Production - Wall Street Journal.  The article matches what I predicted here, that the Bakken and Eagle Ford are declining, but the Permian may keep increasing production for a little while.

Out of the Ashes - Aeon

Volcanoes Are (Still) Not The Cause of Global Warming - Wired. See also, Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Sources of Carbon Dioxide: An Addendum - Wired.  The significant point is that we know emissions from volcanoes can affect global weather (with sodium dioxide in cooling, for instance), so considering how small carbon emissions from volcanoes are compared to fossil fuel emissions, I would think most people could see that we are almost certainly impacting the climate.

How Car-Reliance Squeezes the Middle Class - Citylab

The Nun's Story - Lapham's Quarterly
 
Inside the Dyson dynasty - Financial Times

How a Malaysian Playboy Controlled the Most Powerful Naval Force on the Planet - Medium

The Mystery of the Missing Evangelicals - Wall Street Journal.  Once again, Ted Cruz is full of shit.

How Corporate America Invented Christian America - Politico

Supply-Side Doom In Kansas - Barry Ritholtz.  I don't think the true believers will learn a damn thing.

Moore's Law Shows Its Age - Wall Street Journal

Easter Weekend Links

Happy Easter, good riddance, Lent.  Here are a few stories to check out between your holiday engagements:

A Body's Worth - SBNation

The Roomies - Grantland

Betting the Farm - Bloomberg.  I believe we just went with ARC-County.  That seemed to be what most everybody did, and if it turns out to be wrong, Congress will probably bail us out.

CFTC Charges Kraft, Mondelez with Wheat Price Rigging - AgWeb.  I think this hits me much worse as a wheat farmer than it benefited me as a Kraft and Mondelez shareholder.  Way to go, corporate overlords.

Solving One Of Maryland's Biggest Problems: Chicken Poop - Modern Farmer.  More on issues with chicken manure on the Delmarva peninsula here.

Brutal U.S. Winter to Blame For Soaring Easter-Egg Prices - Bloomberg.  Seriously?  Sounds like bullshit to me.

The Fake Meat Industry's Quest To Make Faux Taste Real - The Salt

Drug-Resistant Food Poisoning Lands In The U.S. - NPR

Scotch on the Rocks While Bourbon Is Booming - Wall Street Journal

How Much Water Californians Use - New York Times. 80 % agricultural use.  See also, California Chases Easiest Water Savings, Not Biggest - FiveThirtyEight.  3.375 million acre-feet of water a year go to almond orchards.  Holy shit, that's a lot.

The Arctic climate threat that nobody's even talking about yet - Washington Post

The Awe-Inspiring Power of Baroque Churches - Slate

Buried Alive in a Grain Silo - longreads.  Previous story here.

This Is How We Lose Them - Cincinnati Magazine

The Great Cocaine Treasure Hunt - GQ

Why Do People Still Die of Rabies? - Priceonomics.  Because poor people in third-world countries die from it, so there isn't any money to be made.

Not his finest hour: the dark side of Winston Churchill - The Independent

Next, We Muslims Bring Sharia to Indiana - Daily Beast

Stuck in Seattle: The Aggravating Adventures of a Gigantic Tunnel Drill - Bloomberg.  The Travails of Bertha.

The Dominance of Welterweights

Wall Street Journal:

Today, the welterweight class is the division heaviest in talent. Besides Mayweather and Pacquiao, boxing elites Timothy Bradley, Amir Khan, Juan Manuel Marquez, Keith Thurman and Kell Brook, the International Boxing Federation champion, all claim a 147-pound address.
This concentration of fistic perfection is anything but an anomaly. Among boxing’s 17 weight divisions, the glamour of the 147-pound welterweight classification is rivaled only by the heavyweight division, which has generated far fewer stars in recent years despite covering a much wider group of weights. (Heavyweights are anyone over 200 pounds; welterweights span from 140 to 147.)
How did 147 become boxing’s magic number?
The origin of the 147-pound division, boxing experts say, goes back more than a century to England, where modern boxing was developed. “In the 19th century, champions would pretty much decide what their weight limit was going to be,” historian Robert Yalen said. “However, early in the 20th century, the National Sporting Club of England voted to standardize weight divisions. They used the English unit of the stone as a measure of weight. They came up with eight traditional weight classes and wanted something between the light and middleweight—something at 10.5 stone—which is 147 pounds.”
As for the name of the division, the term “welter” derives from horse racing, said historian Barry Hugman, where it referred to the amount of weight that a horse was to carry in a steeplechase or hurdle race.
Still, why such supremacy at this poundage?
The reason lies primarily in the unique mix of talents that the 147-pound boxer possesses. “Welterweight is the perfect middle ground where speed, power and boxing technique meet,” said Mauricio Sulaimán, president of the WBC, one of the four major bodies that sanction championship fights. “Go lower and you lose power; go higher into the middleweight division and you lose some of the speed.”
The constant depth of the 147-pound division also is owed to pure numbers. “Most men walk around at around 160,” said former welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi. “If they were boxers, they would come down to 147 to fight.”

10.5 stones, of course.  Oddly enough, I think I fought every fight of my brief and inglorious career at 140 to 147.  Clearly, then, the weight class is also populated by a number of untalented boxers, too.