What the Fuck?

Except some concepts I'll get to in the unfinished piece here, I don't think Margaret Wente's sufferings are terribly important. It is a fun topic though, so that's why I'll write about this:

The incidents of plagiarism uncovered by blogger Carol Wainio on her Media Culpa blog, while certainly a legitimate topic for reporting, do not seem to me to be particularly egregious examples of the cutting and pasting of other people's intellectual property.

That said, Wente is an exceptionally bright woman, and it seems unlikely to me that she didn't know what she was doing when she borrowed these materials.

Nevertheless, it has to be pretty easy to unintentionally lift a sentence or two from another writer and pop them into something you’re writing simply because it's the most efficient way to explain a bit of background. I worry about this all the time when I write this blog -- and I often find myself backwards putting some piece of elucidatory prose just so guilty I won't appear of plagiarizing something I've drawn out of one of the many journals whence come my backward blog ideas.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck? "Wente is an exceptionally bright woman"???? Um, sorry. No. Wente is not "bright" or anything remotely similar. What she is is a fucking idiot. I stopped reading her (after suffering with her crapola for well over a year) because not only is she infuriating, her articles didn't even make any sense. (And now it turns out they're a mish-mash of plagiarized passages taken out of context or misinterpreted or gleaned from hack scholars and writers as disgusting as Wente herself is.)You know, I'm tired of this: "Don't underestimate Mike Harris." "Don't underestimate George W. Bush." "Don't underestimate Rob Ford." "Don't underestimate Ezra Levant." "Don't underestimate Ann Coulter."

No. These people are idiots and imbeciles who need a slap and their toys taken away from them, not rival intellectuals who need to be respectfully debated. It's past time that we gave them the slaps they so obviously deserve.

"The incidents of plagiarism uncovered by blogger Carol Wainio on her Media Culpa blog, while certainly a legitimate topic for reporting, do not seem to me to be particularly egregious examples of the cutting and pasting of other people's intellectual property."

Again, no. This is blatant plagiarizing, and if Climenhaga knows of other people who have been just as guilty but got off scot-free, that doesn't legitimate Wente's total lack of professionalism.

Let's remember what we're talking about here:

Gardner:  "Many NGOs working in Africa in the area of development and the environment have been advocating against the modernization of traditional farming practices," Paarlberg says. "They believe that traditional farming in Africa incorporates indigenous knowledge that shouldn't be replaced by science-based knowledge introduced from the outside. They encourage Africa to stay away from fertilizers, and be certified as organic instead. And in the case of genetic engineering, they warn African governments against making these technologies available to farmers."

Wente:  Yet, many NGOs working in Africa have tenaciously fought the modernization of traditional farming practices. They believe traditional farming in Africa incorporates indigenous knowledge that shouldn't be replaced by science-based knowledge introduced from the outside. As Prof. Paarlberg writes, "They encourage African farmers to stay away from fertilizers and be certified organic instead. And they warn African governments to stay away from genetic engineering. They want to freeze African farms where they are. It's a fantasy of what agriculture ought to be like."

Let's call it for what it is and let's have some goddamned consequences for a change!