Author: whskyjack

By WhskyJack,  a Trail Mix Contributor

Librarians dedicate their lives to the collection and storage of information in a retrievable form. In the information age librarians RULE!

Don’t believe it?

Look at Clinton’s email problem

As an op-ed at the Washington Post pointed out

“Bottom line: Clinton’s mistake was, as she has said, to have decided to use a private server. There’s not much duplicity, deceit or intention to evade to be found in this memo. What the document does reveal is Clinton’s colossal failure to understand the monumental responsibility she took on with her choice; namely, the direct duty to archive public records.

I call this job monumental not merely because it is important — and it is — but also because it is a task to which the entire profession of librarians and archivists is dedicated. ...This is what jumps out of the memo. The story of stuff that is missing, or turned in late, or not initially acknowledged to exist, or accidentally saved in inappropriate places only to be deleted later by low-level staff, appears to be mainly a tale of a bumbling group not remotely close to being equipped to handle, at a public-records standard, the material for which they were responsible.”

Clinton could lose the election for want of a librarian.

“Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don’t ever piss one off” — Spider Robinson

By Whyskyjack, a Trail Mix Contributor

And  19 other questions about the future of human kind. Ask as only the folks from Scientific American can ask them.

Is the election driving you nuts?  Do you have most of your Facebook family on ignore. Are you thinking about getting a court order to keep your brother-in-law from setting foot in your house? Take a break, Pour a relaxing beverage and contemplate the big picture.

Nothing is going to change in the next three weeks anyway.

BTW the expert answer to the question is…

“No, but having sex to conceive babies is likely to become at least much less common. In 20 to 40 years we’ll be able to derive eggs and sperm from stem cells, probably the parents’ skin cells. This will allow easy preimplantation genetic diagnosis on a large number of embryos—or easy genome modification for those who want edited embryos instead of just selected ones.”
—Henry Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University

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By Whskyjack, a Trail Mix Contributor

The Republican coalition is coming apart. The Koch bros and the Chamber of Commerce are battling in Republican congressional primaries, both have refused to support the White ethnocentric nationalist faction and their candidate, Donald Trump. Republican “Conservative” elites are writing sneering condescending articles about working class whites using words they usually reserve for inner-city blacks. Republicans are not only refusing to support Trump but increasingly are moving across the line and supporting HRC, thus cutting themselves off from the Republican Party. College educated whites once a stalwart of the Republican Party are moving toward the Democratic Party in large numbers.

In years to come will we be talking about Hillary Republicans like we talk about Reagan Democrats?

So is this the end of the Republican Party? For some perspective and if you have the time here is a long read discussing American parties and their longevity. Well worth the time IMO.

You might read the other links too.

We live in interesting times.

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By Whskyjack, a Trail Mix Contributor

It’s time for a break from all the nasty stuff that passes for politics this election

Let’s take time to look at the big picture.

Last weekend the Hispanic church that is our neighborhood partner did their annual Fiesta de Ninos.   A celebration of their children.   From what I understand it is a big deal in Mexico and It is something we don’t do. We have mother’s day and father’s day but no day set aside just for our children.

They all had a great time and at the end the church passed out the book bags filled with school supplies that you all helped to buy.

Today as I looked at all the pictures  I was  reminded of what this election is really about. It is not really about me or other people my age.  It is ultimately about the future of these children.

Their parents know this and work hard at low paying jobs. They sacrifice. Do without so they can get their children in to better schools. As an example, Veronica, a friend and neighbor,  lives in a house that has no flooring, just the bare subfloors but her children are in good private schools and are going on to college. Carpeting can wait.

So let’s take a few moments to celebrate life.

Cause I gotta admit, in spite of all the nastiness we hear on TV, from where I was standing this weekend the future is looking good.

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By WhskyJack, a Trail Mix Conributor

Barry Ritholtz in his Bloomberg column has a good discussion of the uses and impact of Agnotology. (Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth)

He lists a number of examples from Global warming deniers to antivaxers. It also occurred to me that HRC was also a victim. It is why many of her supporters look at those who attack her as if they have a third eye in their forehead.

It is HRC’s biggest problem and how you combat it is beyond me. Facts and reason don’t seem to work.

As Barry’s summation points out facts and truth are important for a Democracy to make good choices. When they are thrown out the window maybe we are screwed.

I’m not sure how to approach this but I will start with these quotes:

“Maybe we can persuade people to change their minds by marshaling facts and making arguments to rebut negative attacks. But that doesn’t work for everyone. You can’t just talk someone into trusting you. You’ve got to earn it. So, yes, I could say that I sometimes sound careful with my words is not because I’m hiding something it’s just that I’m careful with my words. I believe what you say actually matters. I think that’s true life, and that’s especially true if you’re president.” — Hillary Clinton in a speech given June 27th 2016

“Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in a HG Wells novel.” — Nicholas Barrett, a young British millennial reacting to the insane Brexit vote.
“Fed up millennials speak out,” Financial Times, June 24, 2016

Definition: Post-factual democracy, a democracy in which ignorance and irrationality hold sway over facts and reason.

I want to thank Pat for the HRC quote. It helped me pull this together in my mind. Notice that HRC believes that the truth will eventually win, so did many people in the Republican party. But you can see where they are at now. So far Nicholas is right, the stop Trump movement looks like the army against the aliens all of their weapons have proved useless.

Ritholtz: “Democracy is based on the concept of a marketplace of ideas. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes described the “free trade in ideas” within “the competition of the market.” By the time voters head to the polls, the participants will have chewed over the finer points, the details will be well known to all and, for the most part, everyone more or less understands what’s at stake.

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Note from Craig: WhskyJack could use our help for a worthy cause — School supplies for kids in his neighborhood.