Author: Gnerphk

I am The Gnerphk, writer extraordinaire, opinionated, radical, and extremely humble by nature.

On Chekhov’s Gun

I’m envisioning a stage play, where there’s a gun over the mantel that just sits there the whole time. There’s a murder, but the weapon used was something else, a revolver as it happens, and the rifle over the mantel never even gets mentioned by the detective. The actors all stare at it at important moments, doubtless contemplating its essential gun-ness and wondering if it might perchance be loaded after all.

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How Do I Publish My Book? A Guide

It’s the question I get asked most often. The short answer is, you probably don’t. A slightly longer version is, if you have plenty of money you don’t mind spending and never seeing again, you can.

The rule here is, If the percentages don’t get you, the con artists will.

I’ll break that down for you in a second. First, though, let’s consider what’s left that IS possible. Because, as I said above, if you have money, you can get published.

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An Unbiased Look At Trump’s Tariffs

Common wisdom has it that tariffs in general are bad for trade. They’re old-fashioned. The word “regressive” is thrown around by people who either aren’t certain what it means or really shouldn’t be.

And, in general, the common wisdom is quite correct: Tariffs, as a rule, are bad for business, which means they’re bad for the economy.

Mind you, most business experts will also be happy to tell you why exceptions ought to be made in order to protect their industry, but decidedly no other. Therein can be found the roots of a dirty little secret that most citizens don’t know about, most political partisans don’t care about, and most major media outlets didn’t bother to find out about.

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How To Begin?

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump”, his supporters immediately tune out. “Another mindless liberal” is one of the nicest things I’ve been called. It’s a little sad, because the next word from me is likely to be “but”.

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump, but”, the legion of his haters collectively throw up their hands. “Another Nazi lover” is usually truncated to “Another Nazi”.

And so it goes.

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Tariffs: Some Perspective

It’s easy to quote a simple internet meme and use it to point to Trump’s tariffs to call him an idiot. Thanks to memes, I now know that his list was generated by internet domain, that it’s a formula based on trade balance, that they’re effectively arbitrary numbers, and that it’s all theater. Thanks to a quick glance at my Robinhood account, I can tell that his tariff talk has wiped out a trillion dollars of other people’s money overnight (and, on paper, $200 of mine).

So, yes, I have cause to be irritated at the man. So do you. Fair enough — so far as it goes.

BUT.

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First Amendment Limits

TL;DR: It has some.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You’re sick of reading about Elon Musk and the App Formerly Known As Twitter. I know this through observation and extrapolation. If it’s not true of you, you’re an exception; congratulations on being thus exceptional.

Either way though, I won’t take up much of your valuable time.

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