Defying Mask Mandates

Someone I respect took the position that mask mandates by governors are government overreach.

Trouble is, he’s not wrong. Technically.

The role of an executive is to make on-the-spot decisions within certain boundaries. If there’s an immediate emergency, the president can send the Marines; he’s got thirty days before Congress has to step in. If a governor needs to activate the Guard, it’s the same thing. And mask mandates are only justifiable under emergency conditions, same as a “police action”; the legislature needs to get involved if it’s going to be broadly enforced long-term. That’s their job.

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Masks Don’t Help You Much.

Masks don’t help you much. They help other people, but not you.

The numbers on wearing a mask to protect yourself aren’t very good, unless it’s a fitted N95 surgical ventilator. Plain cotton or paper? Maybe 10%. What protects you is goggles (30%), and washing your hands (25%), and not touching your face (20%). Notice how people aren’t wearing goggles? Strange, isn’t it?

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D.N.C.’s Public Enemy Number 1

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D. Arizona) has gained a ton of positive press recently, particularly among Republicans, for her hardnosed pro-bipartisanship stance during the recent negotiations over the infrastructure bill. Alongside such notable moderates as Susan Collins, Joe Manchin, and Lisa Murkowski, she has prioritized accomplishment over partisan politics. Of course this is drawing the ire of her party, particularly that part of the progressive wing loyal to Ocasio-Cortez. They have little tolerance for moderates, and have begun fundraising for a PAC to defeat her in her next primary race.

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The Not Fake News Update, 23 July 2021

Dateline: On Vacation

Even while having endless fun in the sun, our tireless staff has managed to come up with enough meaningful news that’s fit to print for us to run another Update. If you’ve been getting your information from the headlines on Twitter and the Top Ten Trending List, some of this might be new to you. If you’ve been relying on major media, rather more might.

So sit back, relax, and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in the fully upright and locked position. Here goes!

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COVID-19: A Tale Of Three Percent

(Short version: The CDC isn’t lying to you — at least, not about this. But the headline is not the whole truth.)

The age of the newspaper is, alas, over. Long gone are the days when, over our morning soft-boiled egg and toast, we could read the entire daily paper from front to back, taking a few moments to complete the crossword or perhaps pencil a short letter to the editor. Today, we simply don’t have the time.

And so it’s only natural for people to attempt to inform themselves by scanning the headlines.

Unfortunately, we sometimes forget something that should be obvious: Headlines don’t tell the whole story.

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On Space Flight and Feeding the Hungry

“…Great achievement has no road map. The X-Ray is pretty good, and so is penicillin, and neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now we have an entire world run by electronics. Hayden and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn’t. They invented them.”
– Dr. Dalton Millgate, The West Wing (episode: Dead Irish Writers)

There has been a lot of hatred going around the Internet lately… Hm. I say that like it’s a new thing. It’s not; sometimes I think the major product of the Internet actually is hatred. We could tap Twitter for an endless supply, if only we could find a market…

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On Vacation

The Not Fake News staff has decided to decamp en masse and head to the beach. Or, rather, a position near enough to the beach that it’s cool but far enough away that sand doesn’t get into our typewriters, and preferably somewhere that has good WiFi.

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