In Times As Terrible As These—The
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The New Hampshire Gazette, Friday, April 24, 2020 — Page 1 Vol. CCLXIV, No. 16 The New Hampshire Gazette Grab Me! April 24, 2020 The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ • Editor: Steven Fowle • Founded 1756 by Daniel Fowle PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802 • [email protected] • www.nhgazette.com I’m Free! The Fortnightly Rant “Darwin’s On Deck…” n times as terrible as these—the herent and self-contradictory jabber news cycle dominated by daily in- with the lowest signal-to-noise ratio Ifomercials featuring a clearly addled since the Tower of Babel fell. We mountebank praising his own ho- have all seen the photo: the source micidally ham-fisted response to a of this chaos and confusion, staring lethal pandemic; the global economy with naked eyes at a solar eclipse. So, wheezing like a chain-smoker in the too, are we transfixed by him—the Tour de France; choruses of ignored Black Hole of Meaninglessness. As scientists chanting a litany of pend- with a black hole, the thing itself ing but unaddressed environmental cannot be seen—only the havoc it catastrophes; and, apparently, no wreaks. baseball—we must keep our heads, To better see what’s actually in and strive to accomplish whatever front of us, let us imagine something good we can. As one small step to- a little different, something to which ward that end, we propose the aboli- we have not become blind by staring tion of the term “intelligent design.” at it for too long: the President is a Intelligent design, as we all know, black woman, a socialist, exhorting is a weasel-phrase engineered to her supporters to strap on their guns insinuate religion into our public and assemble on the steps of state schools under an assumed name. In houses across the nation’s heartland, modern parlance, it’s an attempt to expressing their willingness to die in re-brand an old product. Far from defiance of decrees issued by Repub- attacking religion, though, abolish- lican governors. ing this phrase would defend it. This picture would be incomplete This Presumed Designer of our without the proper context: a ubiq- The finishing touch for our originally dismissed the risks associ- the latest episode of his unrehearsed ludicrous species—is he, she, or it uitous propaganda channel, oper- Bruegelesque hellscape would be the ated with the virus before gradually remake of “The Gong Show,” he was benevolent? Cruel? Or simply in- ating around the clock, claiming to leaders of the Democratic Nation- adjusting his position starting late promoted a new cure: injecting peo- sane? Judging from the available be the sole source of unadulterated al Committee, wearing Che berets, February.” The study showed “great- ple with disinfectant. evidence, it’s some mixture of the truth while condemning its com- benevolently smiling over all that it er viewership of ‘Hannity’ relative to The atmosphere was already latter two. Don’t bite the hand that petitors as dupes and liars. It reports had encouraged and promoted. ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ is strongly warming when this virus came created you, we say—admit you’re a Madame President’s every utter- Our analogy is flawed, of course, associated with a greater number of along; the ice caps were already monkey’s distant nephew, and put ance, and backs her to the hilt. because it is incomplete. It includes COVID-19 cases and deaths in the melting, the oceans were already the blame on Darwin’s lemurs. For the sake of accuracy, we’d have no representation of the investing early stages of the pandemic.” acidifying, and species were going While we’re ladling unsavory to expand our vision even more. It class. Overwhelmingly favoring the Then there’s the matter of the tan- extinct at a rate not seen since the di- ingredients into the communal would have to include a broad ar- GOP, it pursues its further fantastic gerine-colored man who’s not a doc- nosaurs went bye bye. We might get punchbowl, we’ll note that there’s a ray of tax-exempt foundations, enrichment at the risk of all our lives. tor but acts like he is one on TV. “I a handle on the pandemic in a year disturbing parallel between so-called subsidizing generations of scholars Hyperbole? Our editorial foot. hope they use [hydroxychloroquine] or two, but meanwhile the house is intelligent design and our alleged steeped in the works of anarchists, Scientists at the Becker Friedman because…what do you have to lose?” on fire. If we Homos really are sapi- democracy. Winston Churchill— socialists, and communists like Ba- Institute in Chicago—Ground Zero Your life, apparently. “About 28 per- ent, this would be the time to start that homicidal half-American— kunin, Kropotkin and Trotsky. These for pro-capitalism academics—pub- cent who were given hydroxychlo- showing it. called democracy “the worst form of intellectual shock troops would reg- lished an academic study Sunday, roquine plus usual care died, versus The good news is that in a poll government except for all those oth- ularly release, as if from a bat cave, titled, “Misinformation During a 11 percent of those getting routine last week, 81 percent of the public er forms that have been tried from viral packets of language in endless Pandemic.” They devised a way to care alone,” according to an AP re- backed social distancing, even if it time to time.” Considering the way succession. At the core of them all compare the health outcomes for port about a recent Veterans Affairs does continue to damage the econ- ours is operating, one has to wonder would be this essential message: the audiences of two Fox News pro- study. Wednesday we learned that he omy. Only ten percent held the op- if he shouldn’t have quit while he ideologically speaking, capitalism grams, one featuring Sean Hannity, fired the director of vaccine develop- posite view. was ahead, i.e., at “government.” and cancer are indistinguishable. the other Tucker Carlson. ment—who has an actual PhD in Forget our wisecracks earlier Public consciousness, such as it Both Big Cs believe growth is ev- “Carlson warned viewers about immunology—because he refused about the flaws of democracy. We’ll is, has now been subjected to nearly erything; there is no future beyond the threat posed by the coronavirus to waste resources on a quack hy- take that any day over the lunocracy five full years of increasingly inco- the next quarterly report. from early February, while Hannity droxychloroquine cure. Yesterday, in that rules us now. The Alleged News® Can’t Give It Away n Monday, a barrel of West This, of course, seems pretty weird. According to Peter Zeihan, who the burden of a production cut. It Because it is landlocked, there is Texas Intermediate crude oil On NPR Tuesday morning, energy appears to know about this sort of has since expanded into the Saudis only one market for the nasty oil Ohad less value on the market than correspondent Camila Domonoske thing, the real weirdness is just be- targeting the end markets of every from its tar sands: via a pipeline, into a printed copy of this newspaper— told host Noel King, “I’m running ginning. In a post at Zero Hedge, he single one of what the Saudis’ con- the U.S. Since we’re already awash which, under normal circumstances, out of synonyms for unprecedent- wrote, “this is nothing but the war- sider to be inefficient producers. The in oil, we don’t need it. TC Energy, is free. Anyone willing to accept ed.” After an explanation of how this mup for the big show. Saudis are directly targeting markets though—the company behind the delivery could expect to receive $40 had come about, King, searching “That will happen when the world previously serviced not just by U.S. Keystone XL [KXL] Pipeline—has along with each 42-gallon barrel. for some shred of normalcy, asked, runs out of storage. shale and Russian [crude], but those a lot invested and seems determined Demand for oil was already falling “could the federal government in- “… no one thinks there’s a whole serviced by Kazakhstan and Azer- to do whatever it takes to reap what early in March, due to the corona- tervene and stabilize the market in lot of storage capacity left. Glob- baijan and Libya and Iraq and Iran it considers to be its rightful profits. virus. Because Vladimir Putin was some way?” According to Domo- al oversupply of crude right now is and Malaysia and Indonesia and James Hansen, the former NASA resisting his plan to keep oil prices noske, “President Trump mentioned over 20 mpbd [million barrels per Mexico and Norway and the Unit- scientist who has been warning the comfortable by lowering production, a few different possible actions. … day] (with 30 mbpd seeming to ed Kingdom and Nigeria and Chad world for thirty years about the Saudi Arabia’s fun-loving Prince He talked previously about filling be the “average” guestimate). Most and you get the idea.” greenhouse gasses and climate Mohammad Bin Salman decided up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve folks in the know are now musing A Pox on All Their Houses change, got right to the point about to start an oil price war against Rus- [SPR] ….” That’s not going to help. that what storage remains will be In a melee involving the entire glob- tar sands in a 2013 interview in The sia. He jacked up production and The maximum capacity of the SPR filled up completely sometime in al fossil fuel industry, there are no Guardian: offered big price breaks on Saudi is 717 million barrels [mb].