Month: January 2020

Fear and Loathing 2020: An Introduction

How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the forty million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

—Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Hunter is dead, and I’m not him.  Now we’ve got through the bad news, let’s take a good hard look at what’s changed in the past 48 years.

OK; I lied:  We’re not through with the bad news. (more…)

Impeachment: Day Zero

It is the editorial policy of The Not Fake News to avoid covering things that you’ll hear about anyway unless what you’re going to hear is wrong.

In this instance, the danger is that you’ll have long since overloaded before you get to the essentials, so I’m going to kick you those.  I’m limiting myself to matters of fact (more…)

Non-Hippie Climate-Science Resources

Sgt Scholar's avatarSgt Scholar

Greetings! I sincerely hope you have some doubts about climate change because this compiled list of resources is for you! This is your short composition of non-hippie, non-naive, climate-science resources.

cartman-hippies-boulder-colorado

Do note that these resources have several subsections that you can peruse. Many have an FAQ section that can help answer misperceptions and common questions. I cannot possibly link every part in one short article, and frankly, if you needed me to that for you, then I have to ask: what are you doing on the interwebz, and how did you find this? The point is this is merely a directory of road maps. The traveling is up to you.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

NASA has several sections of its public website devoted to answering common questions about the topic. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

NASANeed resources for kids? NASA  has got your six: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/

NASA also has as a YouTube channel dedicated…

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The Warren – Sanders Spat

I don’t normally do this.

My serious political writing may not appear in national publications, but I still follow the rules of journalistic ethics as best I can.  Verification is two independent sources; direct quotes are desired; hard evidence is necessary before I go to press.  As a result, I’ve achieved a curious distinction, somewhat unique in this age:  I’m not often mistaken, and when I’m biased I tell you.

In this case, I’ve got no (more…)

It’s Trump, God Help Us

It’s January 16, 2020, and I’m calling the election.  It’s Trump, God help us.

I had this revelation not during the debates on the 14th, when it became apparent CNN’s production staff was attempting to provoke a fight between Warren and Sanders by asking carefully orchestrated questions.  It wasn’t on the 15th when they released a private hot-mike conversation that immediately followed the debate.  No, it’s when (more…)

How A-1 Got Its Name, And Other Tall Tales

No meme is safe.

“So in the middle of the Civil War,” it says, “someone was like, You know what this country needs? A delicious steak sauce.”

And therein hangs a tale.

See, back in the day, the armies didn’t generally carry enough food (more…)

The Not Fake News Update, 12 Jan 20

And, because we’ve already “broken the seal”, as Brittany might say, here’s The Not Fake News Update for 12 January 2020 — a Sunday, no less.

All the things you haven’t heard about:

– Protests in Haiti are starting up again after the holidays. You might not have heard about them before the holidays; that’s because they’ve been going on for years. I blame the United States, and specifically Bill Clinton. (more…)

Tough. Chicago Tough.

Chicago.

Home of the Cubs, Harry Dresden, deep dish pizza, and hot dogs dragged through the garden.  The city where Al Capone became a folk hero.  A place where you can visit Sue the Dinosaur, Inez at Graceland, and the oldest tobacconist in America; where the river runs backwards, guns are banned, and shootings are everywhere.  Ten percent of the country lives within a hundred miles of here, and the graveyards all vote Democrat.

We joke about it because what’s the choice?  There’s (more…)

Dateline: Connellsville, PA

It’s lovely winding down through the Cumberland Gap in the wee hours, and when the train’s slightly behind schedule you might be fortunate enough to have the sun coming up as you do.  Some of the best sunrises in the world can be found here, overlooking the narrow stream from halfway up the side of one of the adjoining ridges.  The sun sparkles off the icy waterfalls coming down the sheer rockface; it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, a view reserved exclusively for us.

Another of the fellows in the Lounge likes the sunrise in Jamaica, and who am I to argue?  After all, he’s been there and I haven’t.  We’ve been up half the night talking food trucks and pizza and native (more…)

Why We Fear Iran

The United States has the most powerful conventional military in the world by a factor of three; measured in terms of effectiveness, five.  We have state-of-the-art aircraft carriers, missile platforms, AEGIS anti-missile systems, and the M1 Abrams main line battle tank.  We’ve got stealth fighters, Hellfire-equipped drones, and some of the best-trained and best-equipped ground troops in the business.

So why exactly would we be worried about taking on Iran, a nation whose navy consists of speedboats with machine guns, whose air force dates from the 1970s, and whose top-performing battle tank is a slightly up-armored Russian T-72?  Their infrastructure is sub-par; their command-and-control systems have little to no redundancy, and their government is wildly unpopular (more…)