Notes On The Collapse

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

Chicago Is Uber Corrupt

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Dateline: Chicago 06 Jan 2020
Byline: The Not Fake News, Actual
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The fix is in, boys and girls.  Chicago is as crooked as always.  I know, I know; that’s not actually news.  But it’s what I’ve got, so read it and shaddap.

It’s dead on the downtown Chicago streets today.  The weather’s turned off nice and there’s a few people walking, but the normal traffic is… well, it’s downtown Chicago, so the traffic is deadly.  Pedestrians, look both ways crossing one-way streets, and don’t jaywalk (more…)

In RE Iran: “We Killed Yamamoto”

“Fellas, this guy is going to stand trial in a U.S. court, and if we have to stick heroin on his plane to get him there, that’s what we’re going to do.”
– President Jed Bartlet, The West Wing

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was Japan’s top naval commander-in-chief.  A brilliant strategist, a masterful tactician, and a genius at logistics, Yamamoto masterminded Pearl Harbor and had operated the Japanese attack fleet against the Allies in such a way that their materiel disadvantage was more than compensated for by his audacity.

In 1942, the American SIS broke the Japanese naval code (more…)

In Defense Of Billionaires

You know me:  I see a meme like this, I have to quibble.

Sure, it seems plain enough.  There’s people out there who own more money than a thousand families could use in a lifetime, and at the same time there are kids who can’t buy school lunch, homeless veterans on the streets, and did I mention my underwater mortgage and student loans?  The government’s in debt up to its eyeballs, Social Security is going broke, and who’s gonna pay for it?  Not the billionaires.

All of which is fair enough, so far as it goes.  Thing is, though, (more…)

Reimplanting Ectopic Pregnancies

Every time some idiot Congressman tries to introduce the impossible into law, it makes national news.  This time it’s Ohio attempting to mandate the reimplantation of ectopic pregnancies.  As always, there’s a lot of uninformed people out there expressing their opinions, often quite loudly.

In this case, there’s also some well-intentioned experts oversimplifying the issue for mass consumption.  Which is potentially excusable for politics; most politicians are… well, calling them idiots would (more…)