Notes On The Collapse

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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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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Trump, Veterans, and The Atlantic

We’ve been neck-deep in propaganda season most of the year. Not only is it getting harder to tell fact from fiction from spin from nuanced interpretation — and it was never easy — it’s actually becoming a topic people no longer care about. Fake news is the new normal; as a nation, we’re growing accustomed to believing what we choose to and disregarding anything that doesn’t fit our preconceptions. The alternative would be to do our own fact-checking — and who has time for that?

(Present company excluded, of course.)

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Hallowe’en in the Age of COVID

October 31st, 2020 falls on a Saturday. It’s far too soon to know the weather, but the fact that there’s a full moon is pretty unlikely to change. In other years, this would be a Hallowe’en-lover’s dream. And I, as you know, am a Hallowe’en lover.

This, alas, is not other years.

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FAKE NEWS: Legalizing Pedophilia?

It helps to read things through before reacting.

For most of the country, this topic isn’t even on the radar. As usual, California’s out beyond the normalcy curve. And yet, even much of California (and most of the rest of us) lack the context to follow what’s going on. So, to help understand both the law and the backlash, here’s a bit of background:

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F&L 2020: But I Don’t Wanna!

“But why would you vote third party? Don’t you realize that Trump is an existential threat? It’s not like the Greens will win anyway.”

I’ve heard this dozens of times and in many different ways, but the message is always the same. Substitute Biden for Trump and Libertarian for Green and it still works — though I more often hear words like “disaster” and “horrific” from my conservative friends.

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On Price Stickiness and the Plague

Opinion

Note: The Not Fake News does not give investment advice; the following is opinion only. If you come to us for advice on what to do with your money, you probably deserve what you get anyway, but it needed to be said.

It’s counterintuitive as all get-out, but it’s happening anyway. In the face of massive business closings, record unemployment due to COVID-19, and the Federal government effectively printing trillions of dollars based in nothing but faith in the future, the stock markets nevertheless are booming. So — how is this possible?

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So, About The Post Office…

Opinion/Analysis

Politicians, the news, and social media are all full of stories about the Post Office: According to most, the present administration is attempting to gut it for nefarious purposes. To this end, they’ve hired a major party donor and Wall Street crony to run it into the ground. This person’s payment will obviously be through his massive investment in competing companies.

One of the first rules of detecting Fake News is the following question:
Is this too good to be true? (more…)

F&L 2020: Trump/Pence vs. Biden/Harris

Opinion/Analysis

It’s been decided:  This November, our ballots will feature Biden/Harris for the Democrats; presumably, they’ll be facing Trump/Pence* for the Republicans.  This settles one of the oft-repeated questions from past weeks, “Who will he pick?”, leaving us with… well, with rather more questions.  These include “What will the electoral map look like?”, “How do the candidates stack up against each other?”, and the all-important “Who should I vote for?”

At present, the editorial staff here at The Not Fake News has mixed feelings ourselves on that last question, so we’re not inclined to opine. (more…)