Mario, I agree that the news industry has gone more towards sensationalism, propaganda, and yellow journalism in the past few decades (especially since the fairness doctrine was nuked by the gov't).

Bob, I don't think we are that far apart either.

The Ice Age thing was fun - I guess I was too busy gigging to notice.

Scientists make their best predictions with the tools they have at hand, and change those predictions as time goes on and more facts present themselves.

And then there are the pseudo-scientists that publish no papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals but instead create hysteria to make money. And often mainstream newspapers get hold of them and reprint.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper you are mis-informed." -- Mark Twain

And I don't think that I or anybody else has the right to say their opinion is the truth. We all have to interpret the fact from the truths, half-truths, and outright lies that are presented to us.

That's part of the reason why I stay moderate and middle-of-the-road. I figure both extremes have an agenda and every incentive to exaggerate and lie to promote that agenda so the odds are what they call news is worthless as fact and nothing but propaganda. Which is born out by Fox with 41% of their news completely false and MSNBC 26%. And they aren't even the fringes. Mostly false numbers are 19% and 20% respectively. That's a bad percentage for something called "news".

I have some Bernie friends and some Trump friends, and somehow in spite of our different opinions about politics, we get along just fine.

I think it's important to do so, as political news tends to divide the proverbial house.

Me? When it comes to election time, I just try to pick the lesser of the two evils and hope I'm right.

And since the consensus of peer-reviewed, published, climatologists think we are either causing or contributing to global warming, I think it's the best conclusion we have with the current information.

And even if they are wrong and I am minimizing my pollution, it certainly doesn't hurt to take care of the planet's health. At least that's the way I see it.

Back-on-topic. It looks like Maria is going to miss us, but PR and some of the Lesser Antilles are in for a rough time. I've been to Puerto Rico and found some wonderful people and some incredibly good music there. I've given a donation to the Red Cross knowing my little bit does nothing, but it's combined with the little bit of others.

I've been to Mexico City too, and met some great people, and my heart goes out to them as well. At one time I considered moving to Mexico, the US dollar goes a long way down there, and I really like the Mexican people. But between earthquakes and water shortages I changed my mind.

I know Mexico gets bad propaganda up here, but I've been from Alaska to Costa Rica, from the UK to China, and down to Africa, and what I've learned is that the vast majority of people in the world just want to live a peaceful life, bring up a family, and make the world a little better for their children. But then governments (overt and covert) and hate instigators do their best to spoil it for most of us.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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