Green Comet

The FactCheck website has published its compilation of the biggest fibs of the year. It covers lies about vaccinations, election fraud and red meat. Here are some samples. Click the link for the full article.

Mass rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines has been the defining story of 2021, yet for all its success, vaccination rates remain stubbornly low in some populations.

Another prominent line of misinformation is a carry-over from 2020, former President Donald Trump’s continued instance that massive voter fraud caused him to lose the 2020 election. The president’s false claims came to a head in a fact-challenged Jan. 6 speech in Washington, D.C. that preceded a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol while Congress was meeting to certify then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

And, of course, we fact-checked numerous claims made by, and about, the new Biden administration, which took office this year. Among the false claims: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s statement that “all” Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan were evacuated by early September, and Republican claims that Biden had plans to drastically cut U.S. red meat consumption and force families to sell their farms.

Liars will lie and believers will believe.

rjb

We’re having another emergency. Supply chains are disrupted, store shelves have great gaps, essential items are being rationed. We have the ongoing pandemic crisis which has caused similar problems, although necessary supplies have kept coming in. This summer we had the unprecedented ‘heat dome’ that saw temperatures surpass all records, an intensifying drought and a punishing wildfire season. One small town was consumed by the flames. Now we’re being inundated by a series of ‘atmospheric rivers.’

The flooding has severely damaged several towns whose rivers burst their banks and reclaimed their historical floodplains. Much farming land is also under water, killing a lot of livestock. Compounding those problems, many of our transportation routes have had sections flooded, some completely washed away.

The image (from 2006) at the top of the post shows a satellite photo of the ‘Pineapple Express,’ an ‘atmospheric river.’ I’m accustomed to the ‘Pineapple Express.’ I used to think of it as a harmless weather phenomenon with a cute name. Now, though, it seems to carry a threat that I used to associate with California and their frequent catastrophic floods. I get the feeling that the kind of severe weather that used to stay down there is becoming something we’ll have to get used to up here. One thing we are getting used to is emergencies. Once again we’ll hunker down and ride this one out.

rjb