Author: Gnerphk

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

F&L 2020: Go Home, America. You’re Drunk.

It’s election time again, and the Get Out The Vote drives have begun. Rock The Vote is observing isolation protocols, presumably having raves on Zoom. Michelle Obama has brought the cast of The West Wing together for a reunion tour — virtually, but still. And the memes blaming non-voters for our terrible times have gone (heh!) viral, popping up on every page but mine.

See, I don’t think we really need to get out the vote, folks. I think if we do, it’s actually a bad thing. Let me tell you why.

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F&L 2020: Enthusiasm Gap

OPINION

Be warned: I’m about to start blaspheming here, though not against any widely respected or even recognized faith.

My target is not a god per se, but rather certain beliefs fervently held by adherents of political parties — who, if they know me well enough by now, have already stopped reading. Which is fair enough; if I fail to lend credence while they impugn my faith, why should they pay attention to someone kicking at the underpinnings of theirs?

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F&L 2020: Death Of A Candidate

President Trump has been tested positive for COVID-19. Since we’re presently engaged in an election, it’s important to consider what happens if he — or another candidate — should die.

Fortunately, we have a process to determine this for us. So, in order to reduce uncertainty, let’s consider the possibilities and project, as best we may, what will happen under each of them.

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Who Won The Debate 2020

Not us.

Full disclosure: I’ve been down with food poisoning for a few days, so I’ve only watched it in short bite-sized segments, turning it off when I felt too ill or too feverish to make sense of it. I’m still only three minutes in, and it has occurred to me that it’s not just the food poisoning that’s at fault here.

“I am so looking forward to the Vice Presidential debate.”
– Stephen Colbert

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SCOTUS: Asking The Right Question

With the unfortunate and highly regrettable, yet hardly unexpected nor even alas untimely, passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the nation is once again in an uproar. And yet the tempest is at present a mild one — more than “in a teapot”, perhaps, but certainly less than Class Five. And this is as it should be.

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CNN Is Biased. So What?

Lead image taken from the CNN website, 17 September 2020.

Opinion (No shit, Sherlock. -Editor)

The suggestion that CNN might possibly show some slight bias against President Donald Trump is hardly outré. After all, Mr. Trump did effectively declare war on the press as a whole early in his first year in office, calling it the “enemy of the people” fairly frequently. He also singles out reporters from CNN, the Washington Post, and sometimes even the New York Times as “fake news”. It’s not unreasonable that they might feel justified in striking back, and a detached observer examining the front page of their website might well conclude that this is precisely what they do.

So I’m not going to statistically analyze their coverage; if you’re reasonable, you’ll stipulate that I’m right and move on. And, if you’re not, you’ll never believe anything I say after “Opinion” anyway. So let’s skip all that and get right down to it, shall we?

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The Not Fake News Update: 15 September 2020

We here at The Not Fake News consider it a good sign that fewer people seem to be clicking on our posts these days. It fits with a trend that’s been observed: People are spending less time on social media. We hope it continues; there’s more to life.

On the theory that some of you will return, here’s a quick rundown of some of the events that have happened over the past couple of weeks, just so you don’t feel you’ve missed anything important. They’ll keep until you get back, and I promise: The world won’t end without you noticing.

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Restore Tulare Lake!

The wildfires in California are horrific, and that’s just the beginning: at this writing, there are nearly 100 major wildfires in the West, half along the coast. There’s a series of major disasters underway, and the best we can do at this point is contain the damage.

What makes it worse is, we can be pretty sure it’ll happen again — and again, and again.

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