Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Saturday, January 9. 2016

Saturday morning links

Authentic Academic Gibberish:



 Writing this book, I came to see the new scholar subject as a performative of passionate singularity, hybrid materiality and networked relationality. This is one sense in which the humanities scholar that is becoming is possibly posthuman, and a posthumanist scholar. The locus of thinking, for the prosthetically extendable scholar joined along the currents of networked relationality, is an ensemble affair. It involves the scholar, the device, the algorithm, the code. It involves the design architecture of platform and tool, the experiential architecture of networks, and the economy of energy. It involves the cloud, the crowd and the “rooms,” bricks and mortar and virtual, in which scholarly thinking moves forward. Ultimately, thinking is a collaborative affair of multiple actors, human and nonhuman, virtual and material, elegantly orderly and unruly.



My translation: I get my ideas from other people



11'8" bridge compilation


Improving student achievement with leadership training


Capri Sun innovator gives $16 million to Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation


Academics Are So Lefty They Don't Even See It


Sorry, Ranchers, You’re Actually Big-Time Government Moochers


No confidence in Obama economy


6 Big Cities See Hiring Fade After Minimum Wage Hikes


Duh. Entry-level jobs...


Jump in December Payrolls Fueled by More People Working Two Jobs


Are Conservatives Really Simple-Minded?


Smoking Gun: Email Suggests Hillary Broke Law


Author Claims More Clinton Assault Victims Are Going to Come Forward


In Germany, Reality Sets In


Horrifying details emerge of Cologne attacks


Cologne. Germany: Where Were the Men?


EEOC to Employers: All Religions Are Equal....


The European Sickness Spreads


Finnish police: There was unprecedented sexual harassment by asylum seekers in Helsinki on NYE too


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:37 | Comments (28) | Trackback (1)

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http://fatalfoodies.blogspot.com/2014/02/eclairs-vs-long-johns.html Made me think of Maggies for some reason.
#1 Karen on 2016-01-09 09:19 (Reply)
What is the point of academic writing, or any writing that keeps the reader out? To hide the lack of coherent thought?
#2 Portlandmermaid on 2016-01-09 09:31 (Reply)
To demonstrate one's acceptability to the tribe, by demonstrating mastery over the code words.

But you knew that.
#2.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-01-09 14:36 (Reply)
Ok, I didn't know that, but now I do and I'm still pissed. I don't need to be part of the group, but I'd like to understand what I'm reading. But as you say, it's code and doesn't involve me.
#2.1.1 Portlandmeremaid on 2016-01-09 23:05 (Reply)
All you need to understand is they are snooty, and deserve your disdain.
#2.1.1.1 Sam L. on 2016-01-10 15:29 (Reply)
Authentic Academic Gibberish:. Resembles the word garbage I used to put between p. 3 and the last page of freshman term papers in soft required classes, i.e. history, sociology.... The word was out that profs stuck with those classes only read the first couple and last page of term papers, and graded on volume. (This was at a smallish, private college in the late '40s. Teaching assistants hadn't been invented yet.)
#3 BillH on 2016-01-09 09:42 (Reply)
Authentic Academic Gibberish

I took the GRE some 15 years after taking the SAT. As a STEM major, I had no problem with the Math portion of the GRE, but the reading selections in the Verbal gave me some problems. I decided that the solution was to choose the answer with the highest degree of verbiage. Or as I put it at the time, choose the answer that most sounds as if it were written by a Sociologist. That must have been a good strategy, as my GRE Verbal score was slightly higher than my SAT Verbal score.
#3.1 Gringo on 2016-01-09 13:03 (Reply)
I had a cousin who in high school once wrote, near the end of his term paper, "if you've read this far, I'll give you a cigar." The teacher gave him an "A," but also wrote on the front cover, "You owe me a cigar."
#3.2 Jim on 2016-01-09 22:29 (Reply)
The story from my high school day was of a student who wrote a term paper in AP Modern European History about a fictitious battle, footnotes and all. He got a B. The question was: did the teacher give him the grade for having created such a marvelous invention, or because the teacher got bullshitted?

The student had proven his ability to bullshit at a high level. He later graced TV screens as a news announcer, a perfect fit for his attributes.
#3.2.1 Gringo on 2016-01-10 11:06 (Reply)
Anyone could have predicted the disaster in Germany. Maybe they could have claimed ignorance 10 years ago but with the experience of other Euro countries over the last 10 years this was no surprise. One could even argue after seeing the mayor's and police chief's response that it was expected and maybe even intended. Germany and Europe is so screwed. I predict that when this gets so bad it is untenable that it will be the rich liberals who will seek safe refuge in America and Canada first.

I was a little surprised by the headline "where were the men". Seriously don't you know that women are just as intelligent and just as independent as men and certainly capable of taking care of themselves. After all if women can be in combat and pass special ops training certainly they can defend themselves from rapists and street thugs. Com'on, get into the 21st century.
#4 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-01-09 10:06 (Reply)
"I wash born here, an I wash raished here, and dad gum it, I am gonna die here, an no sidewindin' bushwackin', hornswagglin' cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter."

(Actually makes more sense than the academic gibberish quoted above.)
#5 Animal (Link) on 2016-01-09 10:29 (Reply)
Sheriff Bart says, "Hear hear".
#5.1 BillH on 2016-01-09 12:00 (Reply)
I'm glad to see Politico finally dressing-down the ranchers.

Not because I think DC's ownership of most of the West is a good thing, but because it means the nation can finally discuss the Sagebrushers' claims honestly with an eye to getting some resolution.

The one solution to this morass is never mentioned in media. It is "Squatter's Rights." These are enshrined in English Common Law, and many precedents exist for their application in US history.

Just one citation from memory: during the Gold Rush to California many miners struck claims on private lands owned by a renowned man known for helping to extract the Donner party and bring its remnants to safety, John Sutter. But to no avail, this gentleman returned to find squatters claiming rights to his lands, and, as I recall, the state courts ruled in the squatters' favor.

This precedent could be used to squat Federal lands quasi-legally, and put the onus on the Federal government to permit it, or reject prior rulings where squatters prevailed.

Hmmm........
#6 steveaz on 2016-01-09 10:43 (Reply)
Testing, testing, testing.

Done
#7 steveaz on 2016-01-09 10:46 (Reply)
From "History of the Donner Party"

Linkie: http://www.books-about-california.com/Pages/History_of_Donner_Party/Donner_Party_chapter_21.html

Turns out the Feds were involved in granting the squatters' rights:

"The squatter interest then appealed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. This court confirmed the decision of the land commissioners. Extraordinary as it may appear, the squatter interest then appealed both cases to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, and still more extraordinary to relate, that court, though it confirmed the eleven-league grant, decided that of the Sobrante - twenty-two leagues - in favor of the squatters. The court acknowledged that the grant was a "genuine and meritorious" one, and then decided in favor of the squatter interest on purely technical grounds."

The USDA/FS/BLM'd better not get too cocky! They might hoisted by their own petards!
#8 steveaz on 2016-01-09 10:57 (Reply)
mooching ranchers
I've spent all of 3 months living in the rural American west, and yet whenever I see one of these articles I think to myself "probably another person who has:
• never lived in the west and
• is ignorant of the west's legal history of riparian rights and open range,
• and who doesn't know that the US federal government encouraged many uses to foster regional economic development but has a history of capriciously and unilaterally ending the leasehold, access, or permissions thus negating the value of all the improvements that ranchers made on the basis of government pledges."

The trouble with enforcing such contracts in federal courts is that the government has infinite funds to fight you, and if your livelihood relies on use of federal lands they have lots of ways to make your life difficult in the meantime. In states where

The Bundy's story of the legal history of the western ranchlands has some elements of truth and a whole-lot of wishful-thinking and bunkum. The history in this Politico article, on the other hand, has some elements of truth and a whole-lot of wishful-thinking and bunkum -- along with a lot of economic analysis (what a great deal for the states the PILT payments are, for example) that is stated as fact but is actually contentious.

One also gets the sense that that the author is contemptuous of people who work the land, there are paragraphs that look like they were modeled on the most racist of the "welfare queen" articles of the 1980s.
#9 Douglas2 on 2016-01-09 11:06 (Reply)
I agree that this article no doubt comes from a dark stinky place, but the promo here sure catches it - ranchers (and farmers as a whole) are government moochers. I was born and raised in farm country and am familiar with the Grange, farmers not only embraced Marx's labor theory of value but may actually have invented it. "Look at how hard I work. I deserve to make a decent return on my investment of labor and if the free market fails to pay me adequately the government needs to step in and guarantee I am fairly recompensed for my labor."

Bull. The value of something depends on what somebody is willing to pay you for it regardless of how hard you worked to produce it. Adam Smith should have put a stop to this medieval "just price" nonsense a couple of centuries ago. If you're having a swimming pool put in and one guy tells you he can bring his backhoe over and have you a hole dug this afternoon for 1500 bucks and then I show up with a rusty spoon and tell you I can have a hole dug by the middle of next August for 35k, you're obviously going to hire me, right? The hole's got to be worth so much more, look at how much harder I worked to produce it!

All of human progress depends on people trying to figure out the best way to avoid hard work, hard work should not only not be rewarded, it should be discouraged. Go over to one of those "people of Walmart" dot com sites some time and just look at all the ungodly fat lazy stupid people there are in this country. If that doesn't fill you with a sense of wonder and pride that we as a species have evolved to the point where we can support so many fat stupid lazy people in our midst and yet we still aren't being eaten by wolves or enslaved by dolphins, we still remain firmly planted atop the food chain, well, there's just no hope for you.

These "salt of the earth" hard-working ranchers and farmers who think they deserve support from the government because they produce so much value the free market for some strange reason is unwilling to pay them for should be whacked upside the head with a large heavy economics textbook.

(Note: I may or may not regularly indulge in a glass of Auld Hyperbole Single-Malt before posting so take my foaming-at-the-mouth invective with a wee grain of salt.)
#9.1 Jerryskids on 2016-01-09 13:02 (Reply)
I grew up in a farming community in Minnesota...land of the DFL and Hubert Humphrey. There was no more a socialist in the Democratic party than old HHH. Farm subsidies began with FDR during the war and never ended. Reagan ended dairy supports with a buyout but what did the Dems do...yup, started dairy subsidies all over again. The highest subsidies are in California as it is supposed to be too warm to efficiently produce milk. Price supports are the Democrats way to buy rural votes just as H1 and H2 vistas are there to buy corporate votes and support like FB, Google, MS, and other companies that need cheap tech labor that can't be farmed to China, India, or Pakistan.
#9.1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2016-01-09 18:45 (Reply)
The banksters and "intellectual elite" of the NE have always controlled the congress critters who, following the bosses' orders, turn up their noses at anything have to do with working the land and acquiring blisters. T'was one of the undiscussed and no-longer-taught reasons for the war between the northern and southern states.
#9.2 jma on 2016-01-09 17:03 (Reply)
Bird Dog: Smoking Gun: Email Suggests Hillary Broke Law

Gee whiz. The email concerned talking points.
#10 Zachriel on 2016-01-09 12:41 (Reply)
Maybe it's a minor point to (all of) you, but those talking points were marked classified.

One wonders how often she instructed staffers to strip the classification off emails so she could use her dodge that she didn't send or receive anything that was marked classified. After all, who expects a dumb old Secretary of State to be able to recognize classified material. It's a bit more than a little inconvenient that this is one instance when she did just that.
#10.1 mudbug on 2016-01-09 13:46 (Reply)
It seems very unlikely that talking points included classified information. In the end, they were sent by secure fax.
#10.1.1 Zachriel on 2016-01-09 14:09 (Reply)
First, they were already marked classified so somebody in a position to know thought it contained classified information.

Second, it depends on who the intended recipients of the talking points were. If it was part of an internal briefing, it wouldn't be at all unlikely they should be classified, but it's immaterial since they already were classified.

Third, Hillary instructed someone to violate standard procedure and break the law.

As for how they were eventually sent, I wasn't aware it was ever confirmed that they were actually sent anywhere (though, it is not likely that they weren't sent somewhere) much less via a secure channel.
#10.1.1.1 mudbug on 2016-01-09 15:06 (Reply)
mudbug: First, they were already marked classified so somebody in a position to know thought it contained classified information.

That's not clear from the report.

mudbug: Second, it depends on who the intended recipients of the talking points were.

Yes, it depends.

mudbug: Third, Hillary instructed someone to violate standard procedure and break the law. ]

Depending on this that and the other thing. It is bouncing along nicely through the right wing echochamber, though.

Sure, it's possible, but unlikely considering it concerned talking points. In any case, it's hardly a smoking gun, and looks more like every other political brouhaha. Guess we'll find out when she is tried for leaking secrets, after the trial for Benghazi, after the trial for the Vince Foster murder, after the trial for Whitewater ...
#10.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2016-01-10 10:56 (Reply)
Only in a leftist mind would instructing someone to break the law not be important. Of course that someone would have to be another leftist.
#10.1.1.1.1.1 mudbug on 2016-01-10 13:11 (Reply)
mudbug: Only in a leftist mind would instructing someone to break the law not be important.

Huh? We're arguing there's no "smoking gun" of the law being broken. Rather, it seems a matter of reaching conclusions based on preconceived notions.
#10.1.1.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2016-01-10 16:39 (Reply)
I have nothing against academic leadership, but the article doesn't make its case. Whenever some reformer notes that the US is 35th (or 12th or 27th) in the world in something and does not break it down by race and ethnicity, they are giving you no valuable information. They are like aromatherapist who determine what you need is aromatherapy, or harmonica players who decide what your band needs is a harmonica. They are selling you something, though in academia, that is usually indirect. PISA scores broken down by race explain so much of the variance that other factors are virtually washed out.

That conservative simplicity might be domain specific was refreshing to read, as it should be obvious.
#11 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-01-09 14:48 (Reply)
Yes.
#11.1 G6loq on 2016-01-09 16:04 (Reply)

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