Disqus - Latest Comments for veblen

Re: Eschaton: And Maddow

veblen — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 16:55:41 -0000

I watched last night. O'Donnell pushed back. To be fair to Maddow, she based her comment on the Agnew precedent: Agnew's plea deal, according to Maddow, included his agreement to resign. Now, a big difference between then and now is that it was Nixon's justice department that brokered the deal, not the DOJ of an opposition party. Clearly, Maddow did not think this through.

Re: Banning ideas in schools isn't enough — parents must be active citizens

veblen — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:05:30 -0000

She opposes states banning the teaching such things as critical race theory because it eliminates the motivation for citizens to push a right wing agenda at the local level, i.e. she sees these bans to be at cross purpose with the fearmongering that generated them.

Re: Will Biden give in to the Hydroxy Effect?

veblen — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:09:34 -0000

Stipulating that you are correct -and that's never a good assumption- Biden should be done striking Trumps accomplishments from the record by nightfall on Jan. 20,2021.

Re: Eschaton: "Level Of Sophistication"

veblen — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:09:49 -0000

Fixed https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: Chart of the Day: The Gun Homicide Mystery

veblen — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:03:19 -0000

What about combat veterans returning to the general population? WWI ends in 1918 followed by a the spike in the 20s. WWII ends in 1945 followed by a spike in the late 40s. Vietnam ends in 1975 followed by a spike in the 70s. First Iraq War ends in 1991 followed by a spike in the 90s. Combat troops leave Iraq after the second war in 2010 followed by a spike in 2015, .

Re: Somebody Please Explain the Big Mac To Me

veblen — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:13:03 -0000

My research turned this up from the "inventory" himself.

“The first day we just used the regular bun; we didn’t have any center (bread) slice,” Delligatti explains. “Making it that way made it very sloppy. The next day we put the center slice in, and today it looks the same.” (In modern Mickey D’s parlance, that center bun is called “the club layer.”)

This article also confirms something I've long suspected. The Big Mac is essential a Big Boy which first appeared in Southern California thirty years prior to the Big Mac.

http://www.cheese-burger.ne...

Re: Temple U board announces plan to remove president just weeks after he removed provost

veblen — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 17:45:02 -0000

You are very welcome.

Re: Temple U board announces plan to remove president just weeks after he removed provost

veblen — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:22:18 -0000

Originally Pennsylvania's state-related schools were exempt from the Commonwealth's right-to-know law as a result of case law. In fact, it was in a suit against Temple in the early 70s in which the state supreme court found that the then right-to-know law did not extend to state-related schools such as Temple.

Several years ago, Pennsylvania revisited their right-to-know law with the intent to flip the presumption from citizens having to prove that they have in interest in the release of the information they've requested to the presumption that they have the right-to-know. The early drafts of the law extended it's full force to state-related schools. These schools lead by Penn State and its then president Graham Spanier vigorously fought this extension. And in the end, succeeded in weakening the law in this regard. Under the law that passed, state-related schools did not have to respond to requests for information from the public. Their only responsibility was to annually make public certain information in a right-to-know report.

This is the current state of affairs. I have covered this topic extensively in my now inactive blog Left of Centre. You can find my writings on the Pennsylvania right-to-know law as it pertains to Penn State, in particular, and state-related schools, in general, at the following link.

https://thorsteinveblen.blo...

The list of blog posts is in reverse chronological order. The earlier posts deal extensively with Spanier's fight to exempt the state-related schools from the law.

Re: Here's Yet Another Penny-Ante Shill From Donald Trump

veblen — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 16:56:38 -0000

Wow, ....talk about pissing away money.

Re: In sanctions’ wake, three trustees fought, then fell in line

veblen — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:32:34 -0000

Your discussion depends on suppositions about the discussions that Erickson had with the NCAA. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, provided that you have some model of Erickson's administrative style which is supported by past observations of that style. However you give no indication of any depth of thought about Erickson's administrative style and you make assumptions which puts Erickson in the worst possible light. This is likely colored by your transparent dislike for the outcome of the negotiations. Other assumptions would be more favorable to Erickson.

At this point, it is unknowable what transpired in those discussions. Did Erickson ask about his options? Don't know. Was he told that the suspension of play did not have support of the majority of the board? Don't know. Did he ask what other options had been discussed? Don't know. Was he told that the only other option discussed was the "death penalty"? Don't know.

Let's ask ourselves what would have happened if he asked about his options and the answer was the only other thing we considered was the "death penalty". What interpretation would you expect him to give that answer?

Negotiations are not deterministic and a negotiating partner is unlikely to put all of the cards on the table simply because it demanded of them. Further, in the case of the NCAA, the organization could unilaterally impose whatever penalty it wanted to. This gives them the upper hand in the negotiation.

Because of the lack of determinism, one must look at the expected costs during negotiations. Sign the decent decree with known costs or try to negotiate a better deal in which the outcomes are more sever sanctions, including the possibility the death penalty, or less sever sanctions. Even if there was a low probability of the death penalty, the costs associated with it would be orders of magnitude greater than the consent decree. Hence the expected cost of that negotiation would likely greatly exceed the know costs of signing the consent decree.

I'm sure that I'm not going to change your mind, but the expected cost of trying is rather low for me.

Re: In sanctions’ wake, three trustees fought, then fell in line

veblen — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 18:55:11 -0000

From the passage of the ESPN interview just before the one you quote:

The only potential penalty that we had some extended discussion around was suspension of play, whether that ought to be part of a basket of punitive and corrective measures. There were people who felt that was appropriate, but the overwhelming position of members of both the executive committee and the Division I board was to not include suspension of play. And therefore we moved quickly to a consideration of the actions you heard about today. And that had unanimous support from both groups.

So, suspension of play was on the table as he said in his clarifying remarks.

Let's do a little semantic analysis. Think back to the Cold War or if you aren't old enough to remember do a little Googling. Erikson certainly is old enough to remember. At that time, it was very common to talk about the threat of nuclear war whenever there was a conflict between the US and Soviet Union. The idiom did not mean that one country or the other had explicitly threatened the use of nuclear weapons, rather what it meant was that any confrontation between the countries could lead to a nuclear war, i.e. nuclear war was a definite risk in any confrontation.

The "death penalty" was an option which was discussed before the decent decree was put in front of him. Had he rejected the decree or tried to negotiate a weaker decree, there was the real risk,or threat in the idiomatic usage of the Cold War, that the "death penalty" would have been imposed. I think it is very plausible that this is the meaning of threat that Erikson had in mind.

Re: In sanctions’ wake, three trustees fought, then fell in line

veblen — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:34:23 -0000

Are any of you aware that Ed Ray has clarified the remarks he made to ESPN?

Penn State President Rodney Erickson said his
options were to accept the sanctions or a death penalty of four years. Is that correct?

My sense is we're now inventing stories out of word choices. If I were Rod, or if I were advising Rod, I would have said, "We faced a very real risk of the death penalty. It is on the table, and I think this is the right outcome for us because if we got the death penalty, it would be terrible." Because you know what? Before we voted, it was on the table. And it wasn't there as a threat — it was a real risk that we as a group, the executive committee and the Division I board, would have said, "Yes, we want that in the bundle." That's why I've told everyone who's asked … it wouldn't have been just the death penalty. It would have been the death penalty plus presumably all of the corrective actions and some elements of the other punitive actions that would have been a bundle. The first thing we voted on was would it include the death penalty or not, and it wasn't unanimously no. There were people who voted for the death penalty. It was a real risk. If I had to do parsing words, I'd say Rod is absolutely correct. He was looking at a world in which there was a very real risk that they would get the death penalty that wasn't decided until we took our vote. But nobody said, "If you don't do X, we're going to do Y." That conversation never happened.

Re: Radical Ideas for the NCAA: One Way to Pay College Athletes

veblen — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 18:48:19 -0000

...no problem with only true student athletes. However, you may be disappointed in how few are willing to apply for that position.

Re: Radical Ideas for the NCAA: One Way to Pay College Athletes

veblen — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 16:57:40 -0000

I think it's a great idea! Then again I'd like to see big time college football go away.

Re: Feds cleared Spanier after information from Freeh

veblen — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:17:31 -0000

I will concede that it is likely that Spanier took a job following his separation from Penn State as president that required a security clearance. I am even willing to concede that it is likely that the clearance was renewed after a review.

However, there is no reason to think that this renewal is tantamount to the "feds" clearing Spanier of any wrong doing. During the period that he was investigated for the renewal Spanier had not yet been indicted and the Freeh Report had not yet been released. The only blemish on his record at the time was his firing/resignation from Penn State as president. It is likely that the investigation centered on the circumstance of his separation and not anything deeper, since nothing at that point hinted at anything deeper.

As far as the information that Freeh turned over to federal prosecutors goes, there is no reason to think that the investigators conducting the security clearance investigation--these are not federal prosecutors-- were made aware of it. The information turned over by Freeh did not concern an arrest or conviction, hence it is highly unlikely that it was entered into a database which the security clearance investigators could access. The prosecutors would have had to actively seek out the security clearance investigators to pass on the information. The big question is why would they?

Frankly, there is even reason to question the rigors of the entire security clearance process as illustrated by this.

Despite a checkered record while enlisted and an arrest record, Navy
Yard gunman Aaron Alexis had a “secret” security clearance that allowed
him access to the secure facility, where he killed 12 people Monday
morning before being shot dead by law enforcement officers.

Hagel said that the reviews will attempt to determine how Alexis was able to
get and maintain that clearance level in spite of his arrests.

“Obviously you go back in hindsight and look at all this and there were some red flags, of course there were,” Hagel said. “Should we have picked him up?
Why didn’t we? How could we? All those questions need to be answered.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for a federal investigation into how Alexis obtained the clearance despite a history of misconduct and
previous arrests

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews....

Is Spanier guilty of the crimes he stands accused of? My informed guess is yes, but he very well may be found innocent at trial.

No matter what the outcome will be, I really look forward to this trial which will pull back the opaque curtain which hides the inner working of Old Main from the general public.

Re: Feds cleared Spanier after information from Freeh

veblen — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:47:26 -0000

Are you being intentionally obtuse or do you really don't understand the difference between a press release and a grand jury presentment?

Re: Feds cleared Spanier after information from Freeh

veblen — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 20:06:31 -0000

Put your money on Spanier lying....that's what he does.

Here's a WaPo story about the renewal of the clearance which takes an appropriately skeptical tone.

http://www.washingtonpost.c...

Do you have a link to where his clearance was confirmed by a PSU spokesman? This is something I have never seen. And keep in mind we aren't talking about him ever having had a clearance we are talking about the renewal following the Sandusky scandal breaking.

Re: Feds cleared Spanier after information from Freeh

veblen — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:40:15 -0000

Read the first paragraph of the news report included in the email chain. The source for the information about the renewal was Spanier himself. There has never been any independent verification of his claim. The fact that it was widely reported does not change that.

Re: Feds cleared Spanier after information from Freeh

veblen — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:18:18 -0000

I applaud your work on getting information through RTK requests. Keep up the good work.

However, there isn't much to this story. The only source for the claim that Spanier received a security clearance following the release of the Freeh Report is a press release from Spanier's lawyer's. This is as true today as every. The email chain that you link to contains Freeh's response a heads up by Tomalis about that press release.

This does nothing to discredit Freeh's work, since one would have to accept the press release at face value to do so. Having followed Spanier's career for along time, I can tell you there is no reason to take that press release at face value. In fact, I believe that there is far, far less to his claim to have received a security clearance, than Graham wants you to believe.

Re: McQueary Files To Have Subpoenas Issued

veblen — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 18:40:23 -0000

Discovery....this is what we've been waiting for....soon there should be real,new information to mull over.

Re: Man Attempts to Pay for Cab Ride With Marijuana, Leaves It As Tip

veblen — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 17:19:19 -0000

FYI: Barnard runs North-South not East-West.

Re: Left of Centre

veblen — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:03:35 -0000

As I wrote below to @MoonDragon , the country now knows what readers here have known along about Spanier....my work is done.

Re: Penn State Progress releases letter of engagement from Louis Freeh

veblen — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:22:47 -0000

Why don't you help me out and explain it to me?

Re: Penn State Progress releases letter of engagement from Louis Freeh

veblen — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:21:25 -0000

....FSS was not working for the University but was instead acting on behalf of the Trustees,....

This makes absolutely no sense. What does it mean? How would the University gone about hiring a law firm?

You guys give a Penn State education a bad reputation: It's about being part of the gang and not about developing critical thinking skills.

Re: THON Blog - The Daily Collegian Online

veblen — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:14:33 -0000

'Nothing can erase the history you will make here this weekend'

Gee? I wonder what he could mean by that?

It looks like JayPa is politicizing THON and stirring up the rubes.