Benjamin Hall, Author at Cactus three

No Hit League? The ‘lost art’ of body checking in the NHL

23

Dec

New miscellaneous

No Hit League? The ‘lost art’ of body checking in the NHL

Seventeen years and more than 1,200 games ago, Andrew Cogliano remembers how difficult it was to traverse the state of California.The Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks were three of the biggest, heaviest teams in the league. If you had to play all three in succession? Well, good luck. Not only were those teams willing to play a punishing brand of hockey, but they were all highly skilled and generally successful, too.After a few years in Edmonton where he broke into the league, Cogliano was dealt to the Ducks as a free agent in the summer of…

Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech

23

Dec

By Benjamin Hall

Science and Technology

Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech

Under pressure from critics who say Substack is profiting from newsletters that promote hate speech and racism, the company’s founders said Thursday that they would not ban Nazi symbols and extremist rhetoric from the platform.“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no one held those views,” Hamish McKenzie, a co-founder of Substack, said in a statement. “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse.”The response came…

Raymond Dirks, Whose Tipster Case Redefined Insider Trading, Dies at 89

23

Dec

By Benjamin Hall

Investments and Business

Raymond Dirks, Whose Tipster Case Redefined Insider Trading, Dies at 89

Raymond L. Dirks, a maverick Wall Street analyst who was accused of insider trading by securities regulators but then vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court as a whistle-blower in a major fraud, died on Dec. 9 in Manhattan. He was 89.His death was confirmed by his brother, Lee. He died in a nursing home, where he had lived since being diagnosed with dementia in 2018.Mr. Dirks, whom Bloomberg News once called “arguably Wall Street’s most famous securities analyst,” figured in exposing one of the largest corporate frauds in American history.He was a 39-year-old senior vice president of Delafield Childs, a…

A Cold War Era Dispute Between Venezuela and Guyana Complicates U.S. Relations

22

Dec

By Benjamin Hall

New miscellaneous

A Cold War Era Dispute Between Venezuela and Guyana Complicates U.S. Relations

It was the depths of the Cold War in the 1960s, and Caracas was on edge.Marxist guerrillas in Venezuela were getting weapons and training from Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Along Venezuela’s eastern border, anticolonial leaders in what was then British Guiana were agitating for independence.Alarmed that a Guyanese leader could create a Cuban beachhead in South America, Venezuela’s staunchly anti-Communist president, Rómulo Betancourt, came up with a strategy, which blunted the independence push: At the United Nations, his government resurrected a long-festering claim to more than half of Guyana’s territory.Now the dispute over Essequibo — an oil-rich, Guyanese region nearly the…

Americans Are Signing Up for Obamacare in Record Numbers

22

Dec

By Benjamin Hall

Health

Americans Are Signing Up for Obamacare in Record Numbers

Why It Matters: The Affordable Care Act is expanding its reach.Despite a recent warning from former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act, the latest surge in marketplace enrollment is a testament to the law’s enduring power.Legislation passed earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic increased federal subsidies for people buying plans, lowering the costs for many Americans. The Biden administration also lengthened the sign-up period and increased advertising for the program and funding for so-called navigators who help people enroll.“More and…

Football conspiracy theories: Are we in a ‘golden age’ of fan paranoia?

22

Dec

By Benjamin Hall

New miscellaneous

Football conspiracy theories: Are we in a ‘golden age’ of fan paranoia?

One of the most eye-catching bios on X, or Twitter as we all know it, belonged to a sports writer with one of the UK’s biggest national newspapers. It was plain and simple and boiled down to five words: “Biased against your football club.”Which is true. If you’ve followed football for any length of time, then you know that every arm of the media is out to get the club you support. You should see The Athletic’s morning meetings where we plot against the teams we most want to stitch up (all of them, obviously). Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t…