Normally I’d be spending this time knocking out a post, but the Boston Red Sox are playing the Yankees, and they really, really need to win.  Typing while watching is hard because a) my netbook is literally falling apart b) Rugby, my ever-young Jack Russell Terrier, is on my lap, and c) as you might have noticed, I can’t type. So this is the equivalent of an ADS post. (I may have a bit of that problem, too.

• The good news is that there is a school that cares this much about how its debate team does. The bad news is that everyone appears to have lost their mindseveryone appears to have lost their minds as well as their ethics alarms. A coach blames a 14-year-old for a debate loss because he’s friends with an opposing team member whose team used some of the same arguments the losing team used in practice. The 14-year-old  is then harassed  by some students, his mother freaks out, and now the former star debater is leaving the school and the school is being sued. Here’s what I don’t get: wouldn’t the opposing team using the same arguments the kid’s team used in practice be an advantage for the team that prepared for them? Anyway, who throws a debate?

Other than Marco Rubio, I mean…

• Since they shouldn’t be running lotteries at all, this is at least a mitigation:  many states are moving to allow the winners of big lottery jackpots to stay anonymous. The lotteries want to  publicize winners—those big check photos!— to boost sales, but winners, many of whom are not used to managing money and come from poor families and communities, become instant targets  of people and organizations looking to relieve them of the burden of their windfall.  Arizona is bidding  to join at least nine other states with laws that let winners keep their names secret. Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon are considering such laws.

On the Dark Side, New Mexico’s Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan killed  a similar measure  in the interests of “transparency.” Translation:  We don’t care about those poor suckers who happen to win, we care about getting all that lottery income so we don’t have to raise taxes on the middle class voters who matter.

• Here is the price we pay for enabling  political  dynasties. Robert F. Kennedy (the son) is using his name and father’s cult to promote anti-vaccination craziness.  His is a deadly abuse of free speech. The Kennedys are the ultimate example of the progressive degeneration of talent over generations.

Well, the Red Sox lost, and discouragingly, too. Thanks for keeping me company.  I’ll have that hemlock now.