The Fortnightly Rant

Last year, the fossil fuel industry that is destroying our planet received $7 trillion in subsidies. No, that figure is not coming from the Socialist Workers Party, Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club. It comes from a report that was issued last month by those radical rascals at the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. You know—the UN agency founded in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1945 to “foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world” after the tumult of WW II. Large sums are notoriously difficult for ordinary mortals to comprehend. To …

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Oh, woe is us. Whatever shall we do? The first 2024 Republican Presidential Debate is scheduled to begin at 9:00 p.m. tonight, and our deadline falls before that! Heavens to Murgatroyd—how will we ever manage this? Oh, yeah, that’s right: we’re supported by local, independent advertisers, and by subscribers. We need not concern ourselves with the stodgy expectations of advertising reps for national corporate behemoths.  As for our alleged peers in the news racket, the Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ does not follow the example of others—it sets the example. So there. Having freed ourselves from any perceived obligation to pretend anything substantial is likely to come …

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Ron DeSantis—the only sitting governor known to have both committed torture* and gotten married at Disneyland—rampaged through the Granite State recently.  Can we say rampaged? After careful consideration, yes, we can. Other candidates—normal candidates—campaign. When you try to drum up support by threatening to slit the throats of federal workers, rampage is actually a euphemism. DiSantis volunteered this insight into his management style at a July 30th barbeque held in Rye, just down the road apiece: “On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on Day One and be ready to go.”  …

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In 1996, German film-maker Roland Emmerich released the movie “Independence Day.” To his delight, and the surprise of some, the American public turned out to have a huge appetite for seeing aliens blow up the White House. Despite the passage of time—including 12 years of Republican administration—the White House is still more or less intact.  Eight years later Emmerich released “The Day After Tomorrow.” This disaster flick’s big gimmick was a new global ice age triggered by the collapse of the formerly obscure Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current [AMOC]. Overnight, temperatures drop past 100° below, and a storm surge drowns New York. Then things get truly …

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Another fortnight spent scanning the headlines, searching for any glimmer of a glimpse of a shred of a sliver of a hope for any sort of national reconciliation… . Any luck? Of course not. How absurd. No sign of any such chimera was to be found. As the nation’s oldest newspaper, we accept our responsibility and blame ourselves. Far too often, in attempting to provide the best approximation possible of the truth as it stands at a given moment, we have yielded to temptation and used language that was less than moderate. Whenever those in leadership roles—whether high and mighty, as in the halls of …

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