In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 2022 is ending, and tomorrow, I will write something to take perspective.  This morning, I take joy in the little things.  Like bashing Stanford.  Having earned my doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, I signed a contract in which I agreed to find ways both great and small to observe the evils of that institution across the Bay, Stanford  [use the same intonation as, " Newman "].  So we look back on 2022 and forward to 2023 with yet another cultural and linguistic facepalm about leftism and language, which is normally an excruciating task in which the only joy is catharsis, but this morning, I find special pleasure in fulfilling by Berkeley obligations.  Fuck Stanford.  To quote Wendy Testaburger, fuck them right in the ear. It is with some small irony that Stanford issued its new linguistic dictates, creating one of the more prominent and stupid academic scandals shortly after I wrote a series of posts about China Mieville's outstanding novel, Embassyto

 It will take some time for the accountants around the country to find all of the fraud in Donald Trump's tax returns, but if we are honest, a significant portion of his reduced tax burden comes from what are probably legal loopholes.  Recall Warren Buffett's famous observation that on a percentage basis, he pays less in taxes than his secretary, although rather than treating this as a point of pride, he thought it required revision to the tax code.  Let us put aside, until the empirical question is answered, how much of Trump's nonpayment comes from fraud.  Instead, I'll simply ask you:  if you could use purely legal means to reduce your tax burden to zero, would you?  Of course you would.  It isn't the number of times that Trump paid no taxes.  It is the cheating that we expect  to find, but that question has to wait until we find it. Oh, don't worry, it will be found, but make sure your ire is pointed at the right thing.

 I have not commented on the ongoing comedy of Tommy Flanagan  Emperor Supreme George Santos because I have no insight.  He is Trump without the bravado to gaslight you and berate you after you catch him.  Rather, I turn briefly to the observation that the party of Trump, and its desperate-to-be leader in the House will run screaming in terror-- screaming on the inside , and never uttering a sound on the outside -- to avoid commenting publicly on Pope George I.  Generally speaking, one should not be surprised that the party of Trump is OK with someone trying to out-lie the lying-est liar who ever lied a lie.  I mean, if they had a problem with lies, can anyone thing of anything that would have played out differently over the last batch-o-years?  No?  Me neither. Anyway, my observation this morning is different.  Instead, it is the observation that Kevin McCarthy's hopes and dreams depend entirely on lying.  Here is what I mean.  Five-plus House Republicans have stated that they wil

 When it serves to break up some otherwise weighty material, I have been going through Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and going largely in sequence, although skipping however I choose, because there's no point unless I can do whatever I want.  This year, pagan tree and present day falls on a Sunday, and since I have made a habit of science fiction & fantasy posts on Sundays, well hey!  There's a Discworld book about this!  OK, it means jumping forward, but I've already done a post on Mort  anyway.  So let's do Hogfather . Discworld is a flat world resting on the backs of four giant elephants, who are standing on the back of an even bigger turtle who flies through space.  It is a world of magic and craziness, and a vehicle for satire.  The Hogfather is Santa Claus.  Every year on Hogswatch, this jolly, fat man gets in his flying sleigh, flown by hogs rather than reindeer, and visits children's houses to go down the chimney and stuff presents in socks nai

 So how was your week?  I had to finish grading, temperatures dropped from well-digger's-ass to witch's-teat (or maybe it was the other way around), and the grocery store was out of a couple of key ingredients.  What about Donald Trump?  We are finally learning about his tax returns, the January 6 Committee made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, and it looks like maybe, just maybe , the Republican Party is done with his shit. Granted, that last one has to hurt him, but on the other counts, I'm gonna say I had a worse week.  Have you ever had to grade before?  It sucks.  Trust me.  Also, it is fucking cold here . Of course, my obligation to grade is my own fault.  As my students regularly remind me, I could just not assign anything, or give everyone As.  Maybe I'll try that.  Grade inflation is so out of control we're practically there anyway.  I cannot do anything about the weather, so those of us in these climes are stuck bundling up, guzzling hot t

 Nicole Mitchell, "Snowflakes," from Awakening .

 I am going to do something that generally irritates me.  I am going to give an intentional mis-reading of an author's work, updated and twisted, based on my own whims, because I feel like making a point, even if I am relatively certain it was not the author's point.  And who's gonna stop me?  Appropriately enough for the theme of this weekend's novel, let's regress back in time, to one of the rare novels by the great Philip K. Dick.  Ubik .  I have been thinking a lot about dualism and dualistic views of morality lately, and Ubik  gives us an opportunity to critique such views in a twisted way, even though it is almost certainly not what Dick had in mind.  I don't care. Dick published Ubik  in 1969, and as is so often the case with near-future science fiction, the dates just do not work.  The story takes place in a futuristic 1992, in which people with psionic abilities are around and for hire, and when you die, your body can be put into cold-pac, wired up, and

 Let us begin with two stories, which I have told before.  First, after the hard-right flank of the House demanded Speaker John Boehner's gavel for allowing the government to be funded and refusing to force defaults on US financial obligations, the commentariat assumed that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy would succeed him.  I had predicted the instability of Boehner's position with the models in my most recent book, Incremental Polarization: A Unified Spatial Theory of Legislative Elections, Parties & Roll Call Voting , which had previously been presented at some academic conferences, and since I had relevant, political science-y commentary, I offered a piece to The Monkey Cage.  In the original draft I submitted, I stated that no one should presume McCarthy's ascension.  That passage was removed by an editor whom I know and shall not name.  My piece was edited to state that McCarthy was simply the next Speaker.  His bid fell apart, and the House GOP ate itself until th

 Just over two weeks ago, I was forced to eat a poultry breakfast of rather poor quality.  Corvid, rather than chicken or turkey.  Against all odds, history, and their own incompetence, the Democrats in the House actually managed to get Donald J. Trump's tax returns, because when Democratic incompetence goes up against Trumpian incompetence, someone has to lose.  They can't both lose.  We  can lose, but they  can't both  lose.  Anyway, my response was that House Democrats needed to leak the documents.  Stop pretending they can do anything real, they don't have the bloody time.  Leak like a pustulant wound on a mushroom-shaped protuberance attached to a dim-witted philanderer who has unprotected sex with a porn star.  Leak, you morons, leak! Anyway, here we are, two weeks later, and what are the vaguely-victorious dimwits doing?  (As opposed to the losing dimwit, who is selling NFTs to even dimmer wits.)  So far... nothing.  But, they have decided that they will  meet to

 I have no NFTs to sell.  Instead, I offer you this.  Cannonball Adderley, "Love For Sale," from Somethin' Else .  Please consult your attorney and check your state and local laws before selling love.  And never buy an NFT. Seriously.  NFTs?  I have been saying that Trump just wins the nomination without a contest.  I'm updating my assessment, on this alone.  This is such pathetic desperation, and so obviously pathetic that by looking like such a loser, he's practically handing the nomination to DeSantis. For fuck's sake, NFT's?!

 I'd like to do one more post on Embassytown .  As seems to be the case with Mieville, I cannot fit in everything I'd like to say with one post.  Point being, this is a really good book, and you should read it. I will not rehash everything from Part I , but the central plot is about a planet with a strange "sentient" race (and here, I use scare-quotes)-- the Ariekei.  They use a language-- Language-- which is so intertwined with their own thoughts that they cannot conceive of lying.  They cannot lie because when they speak, they are directly intoning their thoughts.  Language is spoken using two mouths to create contrasting tones, so in order for us to speak it (computer simulations don't work, blah blah, theory of mind), clones have to be bred and trained.  Then, the country that runs the Embassy on their planet sends a new kind of Ambassador.  "An Ambassador" is usually a pair of clones, but this time, they send EzRa-- Ez and Ra, who aren't clones.

 Among dilettante linguists, we distinguish between two methods of ascribing meaning to words:  prescriptivism and descriptivism.  Prescriptivism is the school of thought that treats language as a formal construct, built around rules of grammar, syntax and formal definitions.  Descriptivism is the school of thought that treats language as an evolving social construct to be studied in its ever-changing process.  The use of a word or phrase in a certain way, when widely understood, has that meaning, which we can describe in an empirical way, regardless of what rectal-sticks say.  I am a prescriptivist (rectal-stick), not merely because it is the path of annoying pedantry, but because rules make sense.  Quite literally, rules create  sense.  In the absence of rules, finding sense becomes challenging at best.  Prescriptivism is more appealing to those more mathematically inclined, generally speaking.  I realize, of course, that I am in the minority. Yet there is another approach, gaining p

 Earlier this week, an incumbent defeated an inexperienced challenger in a Senate race.  I refused to be surprised, but the consequence of that runoff race was to give the Democrats a 51-49 majority rather than a 50-50 tie, with Harris casting a tie-breaking vote.  With a 50-50 Senate, every Democratic Senator is "pivotal," meaning that any defection by a Democrat defeats any Democratic proposition/nomination (assuming Republican unity in opposition), which gives a lot of power to any Democrat willing to threaten defection, whether that Democrat has any particular demands over which to negotiate (like Manchin) or just wants to be a game-playing twit (like Sinema).  Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) undoubtedly enjoyed the power that came from being pivotal, but to be fair, he represents West Virginia, which is a deep red state.  He cannot go along with mainstream Democratic proposals if he wants to keep his job.  It is just that his position as a pivotal Senator gave him the power to m

 An incumbent defeated a challenger who has never held elected office before.  As a political science professor, would you like to see my "shocked" face?  Since I prefer to write, you cannot see my face, so you must imagine it, but do so.  Feel free to draw a creative mustache, childish piercings, or the like, but if you find yourself getting creative with my expression, might I recommend that you read a few texts on how elections work? Look, Herschel Walker was basically Alvin Greene.  Do you remember Alvin Greene?  Probably not, but Alvin Greene was a rando who put his name on the South Carolina Democratic ballot to challenge incumbent Senator Jim DeMint a few years back.  Since nobody paid any attention to the Democratic primary for the opportunity to lose to Jim DeMint, Alvin Rando Greene won, and then the country discovered that he was something beyond a rando.  He was a mentally ill person, discharged from the military under less than savory circumstances and then charg

 Donald Trump is now demanding that we throw out the Constitution.  The party that swept into a House majority in the 2010 election and made a big to-do about reading the full text of the Constitution* first thing?  Yeah, their leader and godhead is now demanding that we terminate the Constitution.  He's trying to come back. Crazy?  Batshit.  In a way that matters?  Absolutely. Then there's some dumbass rapper.  I do not care about rap, but I also do not care about the politics of musicians.  I still kinda like Pink Floyd, and Roger Waters has been pissing off a lot of people for his stance on Ukraine.  Do I care?  No.  How many of the artists I love have been crazier than that?  A lot.  I do not care. There is crazy that matters, and crazy that doesn't matter.  Learn to recognize the difference, and stop bothering me with the latter.  And if you stop paying attention to the latter, it'll go away. *They forgot about a few passages, like the 3/5 clause.  They decided to

 Read this book.  I do not know if this one will continue into a second post (probably), but read this book.  It has been a while since I have tackled a China Mieville novel, since the third novel in the Bas-Lag trilogy was such a let-down, but Embassytown  did not disappoint.  Let's get going here.  The theme for this morning is the concept of debunked hypotheses.  What good are they?  I actually find it interesting to read about intellectual history for many reasons.  It is important to understand the scientific process, and part of that process is how we got from there to here.  Doing so should also give us some humility about what we now think, understanding that this is not anything close to an endpoint.  Any explanation is subject to revision in the face of new evidence.  Moreover, seeing past models in their own light can help us understand where we might go wrong now.  But I'm blathering.  You should read the history of science. And when you do, you may encounter a thin

 This morning, we take a break from politics and turn to the financial markets, which are often volatile, rarely violent, occasionally rational, and sometimes as funny as the wingnuts and moonbats who are now the centers of their respective parties.  Inflation may finally be coming down, and Powell is looking towards slowing the interest rate hikes.  These are the things that truly matter for those of us who live in the real  financial world, but in the cartoon financial world of cryptocurrencies and batshittery, we can also appreciate the stories of Sam Bankman-Fried, the crashes of various companies, and oh, yes, bitcoin is still bullshit.  I started the "Bitcoin is bullshit" series back on The Unmutual Political Blog , and one of these days, I'll re-post those original clips, since I wrote them in word processing files before uploading them, but anyway, yes, bitcoin is bullshit.  Still, and not forever, because one day it will pass from bullshit to history.  When?  I d

 What did you have for breakfast?  I intended to have a goat cheese omelette, but the egg wound up on my face, so I went outside and captured a corvid to roast.  A bit gamey, and one might think that I would have found a good recipe by now, but no.  Anyway, right after predicting that Trump's attorneys would find that last critical month of delays following the Supreme Court's refusal to shield his returns, the House finally gets Trump's tax returns.  Now, the Democrats have one month to do something before the GOP comes in and sticks them in a paper shredder.  Keeping in mind that it could take the Democrats three months of arguing about whose intersectionality status grants them the first look, and by the time they resolve that, they'll be out of power, and the documents will be shredded. Can they actually get it together and do  anything?  I do not know, but admittedly, I am still surprised that Trump's bumbling attorneys couldn't fine one measly month  of de