Andrew Sinclair

Tammany Hall Fight for political power in New York during the era of Boss Tweed.

Good to know. And the last point is very true! In my experience in general, most games have an ideal player count. A rare game that genuinely plays well with 3, 4, or 5: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30...

This app ends up costing a lot of money—through new academic books and new board games.

Speakeasy Earn money running a Manhattan speakeasy business during Prohibition.

I’m really enjoying finding the #boardgames people on here. And I’m already learning about some new games that I haven’t heard about elsewhere — for someone who uses prohibition as an example in class, #speakeasy is very hard to resist! boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37...

That’s really quite good.

Those are cool pieces!

Becoming a U.S. citizen takes years and involves immigrants acquiring a green card, extensive interviews, background checks, classes and a citizenship test. The naturalization ceremony is the final step to the process, where the oath of allegiance and a citizenship certificate are granted. Immigrants approved to be naturalized went to Faneuil Hall Thursday - known as the country's cradle of liberty - for that long-awaited moment to pledge allegiance to the United States. But instead, as they lined up, some were told by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials that they couldn't proceed due to their countries of origin.

Read this: www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...

As awful as this, the focus on whether the woman was complying obscures the more important issue: in a democracy, there should not be armed agents demanding to see papers of every passing person.

There appears to be a big issue with “Lord of the Rings,” too!

In an incredible tactical error, I introduced my children to Christmas songs as sung by The Chipmunks on December 4th.

Gen. Grant, 1864 (with beard)

“What’s wrong with beards?” — Grant

On secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s trip to Asia last month, Air Force leadership issued an unusual directive: Keep him from seeing a service member with a beard. The instruction was surreal, the kind of stage management usually reserved for celebrities with eccentric phobias. Yet for Hegseth, facial hair has become a symbol of everything he believes has gone wrong in the U.S. military—a distraction from its “warrior ethos,” and, somehow, a threat to military readiness. In late September, he lectured on the subject of beards at an unprecedented global convening of the military’s most senior leaders, where—framed by the American flag—he proclaimed, "No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”

This guy is nuts. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

That’s really wild because we write academic papers for free and desperately hope journals will publish them.

This is just awful behavior.

It really is the golden age of #boardgames. The range of options is incredible.

How is Clans of Caledonia?

Remember when bluesky was “dying” because “no one posts there”?

One of the best things on bluesky lately: all of the #boardgames posts! Along with #hillfortwednesday and enough #nfl posts to make it impossible to open bluesky if I have recorded a game for later… and fierce debates over #survey experiments and political science #methods! This place has it!

How Is Mid-Decade Redistricting Upending the Midterms? Send Us Your Questions. - Bolts Redistricting is on the political agenda of state governments all over the country this year, an unusual trend for the middle of a decade. Spurred by President Trump, Texas adopted... Read More

FOLKS, do you have questions on the redistricting wars (especially tonight)?

Bolts just launched a call for questions today: Tell us what you want to know... on new maps, about lingering questions, about lawsuits, on VRA threat, what where it means for 2026?

Reply below, or there's a form in here:

How to Win at Imperial Struggle Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing some winning strategies for Imperial Struggle. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. Enjoy! -Rac…

Check out our latest InsideGMT article from Clio's Board Games: "How to Win at Imperial Struggle" @cliosboardgames.bsky.social insidegmt.com/how-to-win-a...

I played my first game of #PathsOfGlory @tdraicer.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social with @thebrdgmschronicle.bsky.social on Rally the Troops!
Here's how it went (thread, obviously)

#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three democratic appointees, #SCOTUS puts Texas's new House maps back into effect for (and, presumably, through) the 2026 midterms.

The three Democratic appointees, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, dissent.

I'll post the ruling shortly.

SCOTUS conservatives just blessed the Texas GOP's gerrymander. It'll be used next year.

They stay the lower-court ruling, written by a Trump-appointed judge, that found the gerrymander to be illegal.

While no clear vote, Alito wrote a concurrence; and only the three liberal justices dissented.

Neighborhood update. At first there was one bear. Now there are three. This has also attracted a flock of news helicopters. I assume the National Guard and hot dog vendors are next. abc7.com/amp/post/cal...

Game design is simple, actually So, let’s just walk through the whole thing, end to end. Here’s a twelve-step program for understanding game design. One: Fun There are a lot of things people call “fun.” But most of them are not u…

Finally had a chance to read this post. It's very good! As I'm gearing up to get back to work on my Pacific Drive talk, the Motivations section especially connected for me, but lots of really excellent food for thought and distillation throughout, besides that. www.raphkoster.com/2025/11/03/g...

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Survey experiments' popularity in political science is getting attention. What is good and bad about them? How can one maximize their benefits and mitigate their downsides?

Greg Huber and I wrote up our thoughts:
Paywalled: doi.org/10.1016/bs.h...
Free: m-graham.com/papers/Huber...

Good point.

I mean, first of all, it looks beautiful. And then, also, what a cool application of those ideas. I’ve started building things like this for one of the politics classes I teach, and it’s interesting to think about how single events impact the play of a whole game. Big trends but also pivotal days.

Yes. That there is, or at least was, good in LG is what makes this a tragedy, in the Shakespearean sense.

If there is a single person on earth who genuinely likes Lindsey Graham, I’d be surprised: “an infinitely adaptable operator seeking validation in the proximity to power.” www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/u...