Perspective vs. Hysteria
Posted On: Wednesday - May 6th 2020 6:57PM MST
In Topics: Music Liberty/Libertarianism Female Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Firstly, we note that Mr. E.H. Hail has put up Part IX of his series of very informative essays on everything related to the Kung Flu, data, policy and politics-wise. In this one, he discusses the hysterical Congressloon Haley Stevens of the State of Michigan, whom we laughed at in the post Paranoia Will Destroy Ya' a month back. Mr. Hail goes into much more detail on her biographical info. in this entertaining post of his.
We asked what is in all that fresh water in Michigan, with the Governor and Haley Stevens being examples. It's not just the women however, as after all, only 9 Governors are women at the present time. One can't help but think that the women's vote, another fuck-up of these damn Amenders (come to think of it, it's time for another Morning Constitutional) has gotten us in this situation.
You will hear "but the women voted for Trump" and all kinds of stats, but Trump is no Conservative, and there is a big gender gap, or, per Steve Sailer, really a "marriage gap". Married white women vote pretty Conservatively. That worked out OK until we ended up having so many single women, in the present day. Also,as we discussed in a post about our #2 literary pundit Michelle Malkin in Michelle Malkin - in the right / no sense of the big picture, it's the big picture that most women don't pay any attention to. How many women, other than that weirdo Ayn Rand are true Libertarians and Constitutionalists? I don't meet too many. (I do like that Claire Wolfe, out in Washington State - hope she's doing well.) Without that big picture, there is no perspective, an important quality to allow one to avoid panic and hysteria, such as is the case over this Kung Flu.
The men, at least those in power, seem to have been following along with the feminism too, likely just to avoid trouble. What we have today in America is a Matriarchy, rule of the nannies. Would this Infotainment-based PanicFest have been going on in 1950's America, even with Polio, and many other serious diseases that have been eradicated since? Stable and rational men were in charge back then, so no, not hardly.
This is your nation on menopause:
The only reason I wrote this kind of vague, directionless post tonight is that I forgot, for now, a good anecdote on this Kung Flu PanicFest and that I have some of this hysteria in the family here. It's getting old, and I really need this nationwide hysteria to wrap up prontomundo!
It'd be very easy for Peak Stupidity to include the song Hysteria by Def Leppard to accompany this post, but I just don't think it's a good song. I had to look it up, knowing it was by one of those "hair bands" of the 1980s. How about we just include a different hair band song? (It's not just about long hair, but you've gotta all have BIG HAIR to be officially a Hair Band.)
These guys have to what it takes, and they made a lot of good music, lots of it in the 1970s rather than '80s. We got in a 2-day Journey kick at the end of '17, with the great Steve Perry/Greg Rollie duets Feelin' that Way/Anytime and Just the Same Way and then more recently we featured Lights.
Here's Stone in Love from Journey's 1981 album Escape.
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Perspective
Posted On: Tuesday - May 5th 2020 6:55PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Media Stupidity Americans Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
A month ago (wow, this has been going on just too damn long!) Peak Stupidity posted The Kung Flu Gap with a quick theorized explanation of why American are split in a new fashion between the pro-panickers and the anti-panickers (E.H. Hail's terminology). To put it simply, it's likely a matter of how much time the Americans on each side spend in front of the TV ("idiot plate" is our terminology) and smart phones.
I have been thinking of another factor too. In my opinion, those who have been falling for the Infotainment Panic-Fest narrative lack something called perspective. OK, they have the WRONG perspective, so by "perspective" from hereon, I mean good perspective (knowing that those railroad tracks don't meet down there 1/2 mile down the track). It means knowing that the media shark-fest summer of 2001, canceled for the season after 9/11, was never a serious problem for a non-negligible number of Americans It means knowing that that the bills being drawn up in the US Congress will end up being more important that the results of the Final 4 playoff, this one being a toughie for lots of American men.
Above all, it means knowing the the Lyin' Press loves the readers, viewers, and clickers more than it loves the truth.
There have got to be plenty of people with some vague memories, as I have, of the viruses out of the Orient in the 1990s and the 2 decades since. For some, there are memories of that Swine Flu of the mid-1970s, and well, we can read books about the Spanish Flu of just over a century ago. Did we all just forget how things were handled by non-hysterical people when the Bird Flu, the H1N1, SARS #1(?), and number of others* came around? News was disseminated, doctors and epidemiologists kept up with it, and most people really didn't give a rat's ass unless they felt that kind of sick.
All I can remember of the response to the last one is a bunch of Japanese tourists wearing masks coming off the 747 at the hub airport. I didn't know what to make of it, other than, man, keep that shit over there.
What's different this time? Is the disease really that deadly? People are following the fatality ratio (both numerator and denominator of which being VERY uncertain due to what we've explained before), the number of cases in their states, the number of deaths CHALKED UP to the COVID-one-niner, and the same for their city, county, and country, as if they had 10 large riding on each one. (Are there bookies for this stuff? They'd probably want to stay out of the news.)
This all goes back to my last explanation of the Kung Flu Gap, the media-obsession factor. There's more though. If one has kept his perspective, he will keep in mind that the media wants to work this thing until they've made a killing. He'd keep in mind that governments LUV LUV LUV to exercise here-to-fore never imagined powers. With that perspective and his remembrances of those past viral epidemics, he could easily come up with rational thoughts about this Kung Flu response being seriously overblown.
Young people don't have this perspective yet. If this is the 1st time they've read about, or listened to, something like this on their phones, well, maybe it is just like The Andromeda Strain, which they are too young to have read because, for one thing, the book's too long, and doesn't have a scroll button. Look at the even younger people, the kids, and notice that the world is new to them, and most things that you think are fairly new in the world are all that they've ever know about it. For an 8 y/o, seeing stories about shark attacks each evening would have him thinking it's the biggest problem right now in the world. Most of us are > 8 already and should be gaining some perspective.
Additionally, young people ARE the ones on their phones for significant portions of the day. OTOH, they are supposed to be media savvy, not trusting the main Lyin' Press.
For someone at the age at which this new bad strain of virus IS a threat, he's got a reason to be worried. Anyone below that age, yet old enough to remember SOMETHING, dammit, of the last few times, ought to have enough perspective to not be hysterical right now.
This time around, we've been told that this is like nothing seen before. It can stay on doorknobs for days, it spreads five feet away whenever it wants, it flies, it crawls, it slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries ...
As commenter Digital Samizdat on unz wrote: If this were a real plague, do you think we would all still be arguing about whether or not it was a real plague two months on? Thank you!!
* While searching for one of these names, I came upon the Jokes 4 Us site, and the only somewhat-non-groan-worthy one on their viral epidemic joke page: Someone once said that when a black man becomes the president, pigs will fly. Sure enough 100 days later..."swine flew"
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[UPDATED: 05/06:| Ahaaa! I found the source of the quote I liked, and have substituted in the exact wording and given attribution to unz commenter Digital Samizdat.
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Dashed high-hopes for China - Part 2
Posted On: Tuesday - May 5th 2020 10:22AM MST
In Topics: China Bible/Religion iEspionage
(continued from previous post)
Even just a couple of years after that first, enlightening visit to China, things had visibly changed a bit to me. Upon going into one of those "cafes" to take care of some business (still well before the time of pervasive smart phone usage, here and there), I was asked for an ID in order to surf the web. I refused and left. This was not paranoia - the place is certainly nothing like 1970 (even 1980s, per John Derbyshire) China. Whatever I did on the computer, I didn't expect anyone anywhere in China to really care. Business is business over there, after all. This is just my way - as I discussed in Inflation and the point(s) of shopping by price, if people don't make their preferences known, things won't change. Money talks.
Fine, I was able to get a non-secured signal off an apartment near where we were staying. Since I stayed in the location for quite a while, I got to know the ups and downs of this guy's router pretty damn well. He needs a better router, I can tell you that right now! (Well, I'd have told him, but I neither spoke Chinese nor knew exactly the REDACTED* network broadcasting location.) I could still pull up gunowners, the American Spectator, old-timey Steve Sailer, and whatever else I was into at the time.
That's a small thing, right? More recently, I found out, as we visited China, that getting a cheap cell phone and an anonymous one (if that had happened to matter) was out of the question. Of course, it's all smart phones now, and they are tailor made for iEspionage. Face it, whatever CAN be done with them, WILL be, unless the people are very vigilant. Neither the Chinese people nor the American people are at all vigilant about it, so ... there ya' go. Here's the rest of it: An individual or family is now limited in how many phones they are allowed have on the network, and one must present his Identity card - a bigger deal than our Driver's Licenses (oops, till REAL ID, that is) - to get one.
Just to explain here, we might have gotten one of our phones unlocked to use there, but there was some reason it was easier to borrow someone else's. My point is that there is no anonymity for anything done on these hand-computers.
Well, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about, right? That sounds more Chinese-style than patriotic American, but then most Americans just don't care anymore.
Let me mention contrasts from the points I made in Part 1: The traffic is much more controlled in the big cities**. I gotta say that I can't blame them on this, but it sure ruins my image of the place.
In China over a decade ago airport security was more of a formality to fit in with the foreign airlines' requirements. There were some cuties involved for whom I was not at all adverse to being felt up by, were they up for it, I gotta admit! Now, or 2 years back, man, it was quite a bit worse than the shitshow of Security Theater in America. I think there were TWO extra stops, and then there was that big no-weapons sign, one of those big pieces of film with holes on the glass dealies. I made a point to stand there and take a picture of it, something that was perhaps disconcerting to the Authoritah around, but, well, fuck 'em.
Just short decade ago, China was a mostly cash-ONLY*** economy (still continued in their Chinatowns in America due to advice from "tax accountants"). Many of them having skipped the entire land-line phone era ("Who is this Alexandle Glaham Berr of which you speak?"), Chinese people have taken to cell phones, and now the smart ones, with a vengeance. Just about anyone who is not still living out in the sticks making $500 a year has a WeChat account for all types of communication. Anything that can be done on them will have an "app for that". One of these "conveniences" is the cashless payments that can be made via the computer all but the old folks have in their back pockets (front in the big city, you know, theft and all).
This cashless payment thing, along with the Social Credit business that I've heard about but have no personal stories about, are getting very close to the Book of Revelation "Mark o' the Beast" stuff. Think about how little Apostle John, the writer of Revelation, could have imagined regarding even bar codes and readers, much less the level of electronics in the smart phone and RFID chips that can also be used to easily implement the evil prognosticated therein.
Now, I don't claim to understand all the rest of the this last Book of the Bible tries to illuminate for us. What that multi-faced beast business is about is a mystery to me. Peak Stupidity has highlighted the possible AntiChrist candidates before, some of whom may not be humans after all. The Hildabeast could easily represent something straight out of the BofRev, but then, who are the other 3 Horsepersons of the Apocalypse?
To summarize here, China does not represent the future of freedom in the world, as it did to me in some ways 1 1/2 decades back. Things are no longer headed in the right direction over there, no matter how new and cool the infrastructure is, and how prosperous the Chinese people are quickly becoming.
By this point, and with these 2 posts, the long-term reader may understand that Peak Stupidity is about the truth of stupidity all around the world. We are not particularly anti-China or anti-Chinese, and have even made one apology to our Chinese readers. (Admittedly, it's one of those half-assed apologies that you'll get often from a politician!)
* REDACTED sounds better than "this was a long time ago, and I can't remember shit".
** In Canton, what they call Guangzhou now, motorcycles are banned in the city limits (or were about 10 years back, anyway). This law was made due to too many incidents of thefts of women's purses done by motorcyclists "on the fly". Yet, they'll tell you there's not much crime in China. Bull.
*** Great anecdote here on some personal Chinese financial dealings. There I was, getting close to out of cash, and during this trip (not my 1st), the bank machines would give me no money (usually wads of the highest denomination, Chinese ¥100s, red bills with good old Chairman Mao on 'em, each like a $15 bill, roughly). (I found out later that my home bank's anti-abuse software had kicked in on this trip, and I later made sure to notify the bank ahead. Fair enough on that, as I appreciate that software being on the ball.)
Well, when the banks opened on Monday, I and a Chinese lady went inside to straighten this out, her knowing Chinese and all... "They want to see your passport." OK, well the 1st hangup is that the Chinese don't use middle names. We do. Shit didn't match!
OK, maybe we'll get past that one, but who in the heck is this gentleman named "See ID" who had signed the card? "Huh?! Just who do you think we are, lady, some rural peasants born yesterday?! Not all Gweilo's**** rook arrike" OK, that's my best translation from, you know, the looks on all their faces. "Show me the passport of Mr. See ID, and then we can get somewhere." I got no currency and had to borrow some during the trip. Did this lesson on inconvenience change my mind about the Mark 'o the Beast? Not hardly!
**** "White ghosts"
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Dashed high-hopes for China - Part 1
Posted On: Monday - May 4th 2020 8:11PM MST
In Topics: China
The talk about China lately, with both rightful and wrongful animosity, has been regarding the Kung Flu, with its obvious origins. This post will get off that subject with just some musing about Peak Stupidity's personal experience with the place over a recent span.
I went to China for the first time almost 1 1/2 decades ago. It's not like I was under the impression that this was 1950s-1970s China, under the influence of the hard-core Communism of the tyrant/butcher Mao Zedong. I didn't expect to be followed constantly or shown around by a handler. I didn't expect to have my stool analyzed by some poor cadre for the purposes of intelligence, as a) I'm have neither the clout nor the intelligence, and b) after drinking some non-boiled water, I got a feeling he'd have turned in his resignation instead. I didn't know what to expect however.
What I found in China was what I thought of as "the Wild, Wild East". It was a blast. Just a first glimpse of the traffic and the free-for-all, with cars, pedestrians, and motor-scooters all mixing it up, with no one stopping for stop signs, not always for the lights, and apparently some interlock built into the cars making them impossible to run without beeping the horn ever 10 seconds, gave me a good impression. (Oh sure, you wouldn't want to live like that for good, possibly, but still ...) Additionally, I barely saw a cop on the road doing any traffic enforcement, which, yeah, explains a lot.
Early on, I thought about getting my cell phone working there (didn't end up needing it). One could go anywhere around this big city (hell, they're ALL big cities for us) and find a shop or just booth on the street with SIM cards for sale. The funny thing is, that superstition still runs high, with 4's being very bad and 8's being very good, so prices varied considerably depending on the phone number*. The main thing I liked is that there was complete anonymity. Try the card out, pay your cash, which was all they took at those places, and you're on your way with anonymous service. (Well, nobody's gonna call or answer anyway, it your number ends in quadruple 4's!)
It was the same for the internet. To take care of some business, I went into the old internet cafes a number of times, laid down 2 ¥ (RMB), equivalent to ~ 40¢ then and now** for an hour with, yea, BROADBAND, dontcha' know! Nobody asked for a name or ID. In fact at 5 in the morning, because I couldn't sleep when it afternoon at home, I went into one internet cafe to check email, and the young lady was slumped over at the desk, sleeping away. I had to tap her shoulder, she held up 2 fingers and I gave her 2 bills and sat down in front of the nearest computer (sum yung guys were playing video games nearby).
On a trip a year or so later, I'd had to get a 1st class ticket to assure getting a seat on a flight (it wasn't too bad a price, but I don't know if they were just telling me some BS - no way to know). If I'm gonna ride there, yes, I'll get my free drinks. I had 2 beers and brought the a 3rd can with me. 10 days later, on the way out at 8 AM, I remembered right outside the security line at the airport "oh, yeah, that beer - it is a liquid, so..." ... so I grabbed it out to drink it up. Ooops, I'd forgotten that my luggage had been rolling up curbs with me and so forth, so splooosh, it was a geyser that I probably only caught 2 or 3 ounces of. No yelling, no freaking out, and no problem occurred. It may have been slightly amusing to a few nearby Chinamen, is all.
I'm trying to describe a place that I noticed was lots freer than I expected and in many ways, more than the US. OK, the roads, the internet, and phone service is not everything by any means. I was, BTW able to pull up gunowners.org, one of my favorites at the time and noticed nothing that wouldn't come up. (This was well before youtube was known to me, so I did no experiments therewith.) OTOH, for a Chinaman to post some political things on a blog, well, I found out more about that later.
There's lots that a foreigner who doesn't know the language is never going to learn about. However, my first impression was that China could possibly be the new land of freedom, as I'd known America was continuously heading in the wrong direction since 1995 (see When did the Feral Government get OUT OF CONTROL? - Part 1.) It was exhilarating to see this place. As much as I was already so disappointed in my native nation, I hadn't lost hope yet, but China screamed out "SHTF bug-out location" to me, not like they'd just let me waltz on in, though...
I've been to China a number of times since (various places too). By 10 years later, all that exhilaration and hope was gone. First of all, I'd learned some more about the history, the people, and the CCP government, especially noting that respect for central government authority ingrained in the whole culture meant nobody was ready to earn that Citizenship in the Nation merit badge anytime soon. It's not that there aren't plenty of rebels (see Fireworks from China and A Great War never even heard of - the Taiping Rebellion.) They know that there are plenty of corrupt people in power. They just want to replace them with non-corrupt people next time rather than with no people at all. I doubt that the Chinese people have listened much to the REAL WHO, so they most certainly WILL get fooled again.
They ARE getting fooled again, in fact. Because the Chinese people have come out of extreme poverty for most citizens very rapidly from 1985 to now, the extremely materialistic attitude that has resulted precludes the asking of important questions, I guess. Those questions should be about the way the new electronic technology is being used to convert the country into a place the bad guys in 1984 could only dream about. Cell phone tracking, cashless payments, and Social Credit are the big trends in China now. I wonder if anyone there is worried about it all.
I will include some differences from later trips to the Middle Kingdom in Part 2, as this one ran on a lot longer than expected.
* I'll get a post going soon on this superstition business in China v America.
** Yes, 1 1/2 decades later the exchange rate is within 10-15%, due to the Chinese government pegging the Chinese Yuan to the US Dollar. Here's what that "RMB" (renminbi - i.e. "the people's money" old Commie terminology there and Mao is on almost every one of bills) terminology is all about. "RMB" is like saying "US Currency", while "Yuan" is like saying "dollars".
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Michigan v Sweden in Corona Challenge
Posted On: Saturday - May 2nd 2020 11:54AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism Socialism/Communism Kung Flu Stupidity
I've got a number of non-Kung Flu posts that ought to be written and posted. Upon reading through more of Part VII of Mr. E.F. Hail's essays a while ago, I noticed a number that stuck out. That is, the population of Sweden, per his number is VERY CLOSE to that of the State of Michigan, per my looking up of it to get a rough deaths/year number. I mean, they are within 1%*, just over 10 million, by 50,000 or so. That they are "very close" is not really my point, but it got me thinking of this Michigan v Sweden post (yeah, the "v" per modern lingo, as with Sharks versus Saltwater Crocs and Coronavirus versus Communism.
I'm not going to get into the population densities, which may be kind of similar, as Michigan has one BIG city like Sweden (Detroit v Stockholm**), a few more decent-sized ones, and plenty of rural area. (One can, of course just get average population density for each from their land areas - 30,000 mi2 for Michigan versus 160,000 mi2 for Sweden - but that average doesn't mean much.) This is not a technical or particularly numeric post, but a polemic, if you will, about how this purported crises of the Kung Flu was handled in each place.
Who would have thought it would have gone the way it did? As recently as 20 years back, Americans would have laughed at a scenario of Governors and other officials around the country declaring LOCKDOWNS and closures of private businesses, recreation areas, and other property willy-nilly. The commenter Jack D on unz noted that it reminded him of the scene in the Woody Allen movie Bananas in which the Esposito, absolute dictator of this Banana Republic, dictated:
From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!(Yes, this was 1971.)
OTOH, even 50 years back, Americans knew Sweden as a Socialist society, with lots of rules that could be dictated from above, and a compliant population of Socialists themselves who were fine with all this. It's been a welfare state, basically, where those on the bottom economically get lots of (mandatory) help from those doing well, and an entrepreneur would find it harder to operate than he would have in the US. (It helped very much that the US military had been protecting the place from Communism, for free!) Not only that, but those of us not all that enamored with feminism saw Sweden as the ultimate feminist society, where men were asked to sit down to pee***, boys were raised as girls (and vice versa) to prove a point, and other such nonsense. Sure, it wasn't everyone that wanted this, and they did have ABBA, but still.
How about Michigan in the past? If you go far back enough, to the 1950s, the Motor City, Detroit, with it's busy, prosperous downtown on the Detroit River, was known as the "Paris of the West". NO! They were absolutely NOT joking. (Then the 1960s and the riots happened - no time in this post for that - see .) With all the fresh-water shoreline, Michigan is a sportsman's paradise. All of America, not just MIchigan, had lived under the wonderful US Constitution, when it was still really operating, and so of course the society was much more free economically than Sweden.
Just yesterday though, Peak Stupidity noted and disparaged the extreme Police State tactics that Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been using on the Michiganders due to the "emergency" that we call the Kung Flu Infotainment Panic-Fest. It's been more extreme than in most other States, and it's caused some pushback by decent non-authoritah-kissing residents. I really meant to include more on this in that last post, but got distracted writing about reasons one might become a Governor Whitmer. Therefore, I'll point the reader again to the CBS article with information on some of the resistance by the State Legislators of Michigan:
GOP legislative leaders say the legislature has the authority to extend the state of emergency, not Whitmer, and declined to do so Thursday. Republicans have pushed back against some aspects of the stay-at-home order and urged Whitmer to restart parts of the state's economy soon.It's very dangerous to give a loophole for one authority to use emergency powers to override all other rule of law, at ANY level of government. No doubt, it's hard to codify this into law, as there may be some REAL crisis that requires someone to take full charge. You don't give that power out lightly. Perhaps these Michigan Legislators, if they can remain some type of majority as demographic changes happen for the worse, can change this crap before next time around.
[SNIP]
"Any attempt by Governor Whitmer to unilaterally extend the states of emergency and disaster past April 30, 2020, without legislative approval would be contrary to both law and Michigan's constitutional system," both resolutions say.
On the Senate floor Thursday night, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican, indicated a court battle would be coming.
"If she does not recognize the end of the emergency declaration, we have no other choice but to act for our constituents," Shirkey said.
Whitmer's office said in a press release that she intends to veto a bill passed by the Legislature on Thursday which would have codified some of her coronavirus executive orders until their expiration dates. The bill would not have extended the state of emergency and did not codify her stay at home order.
The tensions between the governor and the legislature over executive emergency powers have been simmering since a large protest in Lansing earlier this month against a previous version of Whitmer's stay-at-home order. The current order removed some restrictions that critics viewed as arbitrary, such as a travel ban between homes, rules prohibiting certain activities and requiring certain areas of stores to be blocked off.Unbelievable. The people of Michigan are fed up too:
As the legislature met on Thursday, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Capitol building in Lansing to voice frustrations about the stay home order, including some who were armed and entered the Capitol. Democratic State Senator Dayna Polehanki tweeted a photo of armed protesters in the Senate gallery. People are allowed to openly carry guns inside the Michigan Capitol building.As well they should. A pro-panic, pro-Authoritah D-legislator sounded pretty perturbed about this, as well she should be, as that's the point. From a tweet by State Senator Dayna Polehanki
Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today.This stuff is very heartening. Not all of America is lost, or at least, not all of Americans are lost.
Meanwhile, back in Sweden, with the Socialists, Mr. Hail, in his Part VII essay summarizes:
Sweden’s Triumph Over the Corona-CultFrom what I've read on that site and elsewhere, the Swedish government has implemented a hands-off policy with almost no restrictions, though the citizens have used their own measures and common-sense to protect their own selves (what a concept!) Business is very much down, and people are not out and about as if this were 2019, but that's their choice, and a lack of restrictions lets small business react accordingly. Though I praise the policy highly, it was still the authoritah from above in Sweden that MADE this wise decision Is it not always the most wise move to let the individuals decide how they want to handle it? That’s basically how it was left for them, but there need be no government to leave the people this. That is definitely too much to ask in a Socialist country, but, as a country, we are in no position to criticize!
When the dark clouds of the CoronaPanic were looming in late February and early March, most found it hard to resist the then-building international chain-reaction of Panic. At the national level in the West, Sweden alone distinguished itself, from beginning to end, and led the West’s best response to this flu-strain pandemic.“We, the Swedish government, decided…in January that the measures we should take against the pandemic should be evidence-based. When you start looking around for the measures being taken now by different countries, you find that very few of them have any shred of evidence basis…”The anti-Panic side argued for this approach all along. All but the most panic-addled and committed of the pro-Panic side were beginning to recognize, by the second half of April, that Sweden was right, that there was no need for the shutdowns, that this flu-virus is not fundamentally different from any other flu-virus in its behavior.
— Dr. Johan Giesecke, world-renowned epidemiologist, adviser to the Swedish government, and the man who hired Anders Tegnell to direct the Swedish coronavirus pandemic strategy, speaking April 17.
After all these polemics about the ideology, what about the results in these similar-sized entities?
From the CBS article:
As of Thursday [meaning April 30th], Michigan has reported 41,379 cases of coronavirus and the virus has caused 3,789 deaths in the state.That last sentence was stricken from the record, due to "THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!" (... like a gunshot victim stricken with the COVID-one-niner.) That's 10% of the entire population of the state, working people, kids, babies, grannies, that just now filed for unemployment.More than a million Michiganders have filed for unemployment, as businesses have been forced to close to slow the spread of the virus.
From Mr. Hail:
With the epidemic-arc in sustained decline as of mid-April, coronavirus-positive deaths stood as 2,427 as of this writing [he included through April 26th], perhaps rising to as high as 3,000 to 3,500 by the (imminent) end of the epidemic.Mr. Hail gives "ICU intakes" as the best data for Swedes stricken with the Kung Flu and in bad shape (He should feel free to correct me, as I gathered that this was ICU patients tested positive WITH the Corona virus.)
The number of people reported (as in Michigan) doesn't mean that much, as I've seen other graphs (cannot find them for attribution right now) that show the number of cases, in lots of countries being linear with number of people tested! All that means is that likely lots of people are already infected. Mr. Hail see the "herd immunity" state being arrived at already in Sweden. How about in Michigan? Plenty of people DO disregard the Governor's orders, but it would take longer there, I'd guess.
For both of these political entities, the death rate per population with an assumption noted in the postscript here, is ~ 0.03%.
Before we get our results of this final bracket contest, folks, let me put a word in about the management. The post yesterday focused a bit on women leaders, their tendency toward hysteria in rough times, and the nanny trait. Michigan has this hysterical woman Governor right now. Not all women are like this - I give you Iron Lady Maggie Thatcher as Exhibit A, but then here's the plaintiff's attorney with the Commie Globalist bitch Angela Merkel as his Exhibit A. There are men in the Michigan legislature trying to stop the madness there, as we've already excerpted reports of.
What about Sweden? You wouldn't think it, would you, with the high level of Feminist Stupidity seen there over the years. However, per Wiki, the Prime Minister right now is one Mr. Stefan Löfven, and there are men who are heads of departments of Justice, Defense, and Infrastructure. When you get to Finance (uh, oh!), Health, Environment, Culture, and Education, well, whaddya expect, they are infested. I don't know who was in charge during most of this 3rd-world immigration invited-invasion, but could the male PM have something to do with this common-sense response to the Kung Flu? (Commenter Ganderson has chimed in once, so hopefully we'll get more out of him - wiki, and the whole web, for that matter, is only good up to a point.)
Let's sum up this Michigan v Sweden Corona-Fest, shall we, as this has been an extremely long post for Peak Stupidity and I'm getting hungry:
- The State of Michigan, still supposedly under the law of the US Constitution, with Americans, some whose forefathers rebelled against tyranny: Locked down to an extreme. Full authority used by a tyrannical Governor claiming emergency powers. ~ 3,800 dead with the Kung Flu and supposedly rising like hell per the Governor. Economy in shambles. People being bailed out by the Feral Gov't using a few Trillion more dollars of made-up money.
- The country of Sweden, seen by Americans as the nanny-state, ultimate in economic Socialism. People left to make their own decisions. State authoritah not needed. ~2,500 dead with the Kung Flu, and tailing as in any other bad flu season. Economically hit hard but subject to rise per efforts of the people.
WINNER in a KNOCK-OUT: Sweden ... eden... den ...
PS: Note in the results that I used the phrase "WITH the Kung Flu", as even these, the actual low number is Sweden and slightly higher number in Michigan, could be high. Michigan would have more of a reason to inflate them, so perhaps the results on deaths per population are about equal.
* Is that counting Somalians in Sweden and Mexicans in Michigan? We don't know. That's not the point in this post (for a welcome change).
** Even with the Moslem immigration, I think Stockholm wins this one by forfeit - Detroit boosters have not shown up due to being car-jacked on their way to the match.
*** See, I don't get that. Was it just for fairness and equality? I mean we do fine leaving the seat down here and never moving it, except for cleaning. You've read it before in the restaurants: "We aim to please. You aim too, please."
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[UPDATED: Later 05/02:] Added 2 paragraphs on the sex of the current politicians in these 2 entities.
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Comments (22)
Governor Gretchen Whitmer - I wonder what her childhood was like.
Posted On: Friday - May 1st 2020 2:27PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity US Police State Female Stupidity
...but we didn't do what we could do.
It's great right now not being a Michigander. I say that not because I'd be stuck in my house or neighborhood through the months of May now, per CBS news*. I just don't know if I'd end up in more than just a house arrest after refusing to comply.
I haven't been keeping up with all the individual State's news on the Kung Flu panic (even mine, because I don't care enough). The current Governor of the State of Michigan is one Gretchen Whitmer. Peak Stupidity has already displayed a big bout of hysteria already from a US Congresswoman from MIchigan named Haley Stevens. Is there something in the water there? Well, not just the lead in Flint, I mean. Bouts of hysteria are characteristic of females, although America has become more diverse with bouts of hysteria with this Kung Flu Infotaiment Panic-Fest. Diversity is our strength, of course, so that's gotta be good, right?
You can't put it all on the women. There are still mostly male Governors, thankfully, as currently, in the 50 States, 41 governors are men, versus 9 women. Amazingly, for this day and age, there are 20 States that have never had a women governor. (My source is Wiki which is pretty good with this kind of thing - it even has 2 nice maps on this.) You would think, just based on normal sex traits, that the male Governors would be the more power hungry. You see that out of Governor Newsom in California. Even though that state, with it's generally low small-scale population density, at least for Other-Than-Hispanics, has helped them keep the Kung Flu (or reported Kung Flu) numbers low, that guy has been closing beaches**, I think just because they've got a lot of beaches to close. It reminds me of Major Major Major in the Joseph Heller book Catch-22 who was not allowed to arrange for parades, due to war and all. That was his kind of his thing though, and he felt down about it, until he was allowed him to at least to CANCEL parades.
This abuse of power is not the same as hysteria, but the effect on the population can be the same. There is the nanny effect though too, with the women, and that's why we can't have too many of them , or better yet, have none of them, in power, at least during hard times. For these nannies, you can never be too cautious. Never mind that the economy is grinding to a halt, and millions of people in Michigan will be poorer for it, it's her FEELINGS!
"We remain in the state of emergency," Whitmer said during a town hall Thursday night. "That is a fact. For anyone to declare 'mission accomplished' means that they're turning a blind eye to the fact that over 600 people have died in the last 72 hours."600 people! 72 hours! Yeah, but, but, Michigan has an even 10 million people. The general average death rate is near 1%. 100,000 Michiganders will die in an average year. That's 820 people every 72 hours on average. Is it really 600 extra people that are dying that would not have otherwise? From the State of Michigan's own web site, that Governor Whitmer ought to read:
The case fatality rate is the number of people who have died from causes associated with COVID-19 out of the total number of people with confirmed COVID-19 infections.See, but instead of getting hysterical, you just have to read it carefully, Governor, even if it IS with a blind eye. See that bold on "causes associated with"? That means if one died of respiratory problems, one condition associated with COVID-19, even though he'd have passed on without having the virus, that counts. It's some weasel wording alright. It doesn't even say the dead individual even HAD the virus! They are just dividing it by the number of people that have been tested for, and have, this virus. Of course, the more people you test, the more you find out have this thing.
For any readers who want to see this whole ridiculous guesswork on death rate of this disease, with it's unknown, often-fudged, numerator, and even more uncertain denominator, see our post with Mr. E.H. Hail's writing. Better yet, Mr. Hail has written 6 good posts (with number 5 written mostly by a guy named Allen) on his site on the Corona-Panic and the Corona Coup d’Etat (his terminology). They have lots of graphs and numbers, along with links to some good videos - see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.
OK, back to the nanny Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. I just learned about some of the worst of the Police State moves made by this hysterical woman, but it's the small stuff that gets to me, regular people doing small business, as per this comment comment under iSteve article The Atlantic: China Is Right About Free Speech by Anon7:
We’re much more seriously screwed than we think we are.The reply, by commenter Stan Adams is classic:
Some entrepreneurial guy in Detroit figured out how to have an outdoor theater, cars socially distanced, the whole nine yards. Beautiful!
Our state governor, Gretchen Whitmer, shut this guy down. Nope, no business for you. Most women in the state reflexively support her – she just wants everyone to be safe.
Just imagine living in a state where some woman can just point to something she doesn’t like and just outlaw it. There’s no recourse.
Glad you don’t live in Michigan? The joke’s on you! She’ll be president by next year, because she will ace Joe Biden’s hair-sniffing test for vice-president. And Joe is cognitively impaired.
Lots of men live in such a state. It’s called marriage.
Anon7, you're scaring the crap out of me with that VP-candidate talk. Stan Adams, nice job!
My take: How do people get this way? What happened to little Gretchen in elementary school? Did too many girls pull her hair or make fun of her shoes? Some of these problems start early, maybe in the womb. Perhaps her Mom listened to the Communist Internationale too loudly while fetal Gretchen was trying to nap in there after getting a quick snack from the placenta.
I think we need to ponder the same question that Tom Petty did:
* Standard LYIN' PRESS ALERT applies, but this one seems to have pretty much just facts.
** What a rotten-ass thing to do while people are stuck at home and not making any money. Many cannot find the time to hang out at the beach during normal working weeks. During the 2 months-and-counting unpaid vacation, lots of them would want to go to one of the few inexpensive attractions of California.
Comments (18)
Healthcare in NY City in the day of the COVID-one-niner
Posted On: Thursday - April 30th 2020 6:03PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Last week, in the post, Nurses in New York we has some anecdotal information about the high demand for nurse there, along with more on the situation in other locations. What's happening is that the sick patients who do HAVE the COVID-19, not so say they don't have lots of other problems that are just as important, are being treated very badly.
I understand the idea of all the personnel wearing additional protection for themselves and to slow down the spread of this virus in the hospital. However, there are plenty of other infectious diseases that exist in hospitals, which is a reason one should spend as little time there as humanly possible. This virus is said to be much more infectious, but then I've heard all sorts of stories on that, and how does one actually wipe out a virus that is semi-inanimate to begin with. (see Kung Flu vs. VD).
If one thinks of all the pathways a germ can take from a patient to anywhere else in the hospital, the only true methods to avoid it would bring on complete paranoia. These methods would have to be exactly what one sees in science fiction movies about germs from other planets that will simply kill everyone they come in contact with. This is NOT a disease from outer space! It's not the Black Plague!
The nurses, techs, and even the doctors are purposefully being scared shitless. Due to this, doctors won't visit patients in person, nurses are quitting before going in to visit with infected patients, and family members are not there to help and give support to their loved ones.
Here's what makes it worse in NY City: Due to out-of-control immigration, with destination zero being that city, it has become a real Tower-of-Babel, 3rd-world shitshow. Peak Stupidity has opined on Immigration Stupidity more than any other type for a reason. It's at the root of a lot of America's problems. NY City is Exhibit A. I don't mean the post Upper East/West side of Manhattan or wherever else they have $20,000/year kindergartens to get their kids away from the riff-raff. I mean the majority of what NY City has become - majority 3rd-world people means the place becomes the 3rd world and runs accordingly.
That long intro. over with, please listen to this just-over-10-minute video, made by a nurse practitioner (she's practically a doctor), in which she relates the stories from NY City from her anonymous nurse friend there. It's the media and government induced fear that has caused this madness and misery for everyone - the healthcare workers AND the patients.
Comments (8)
John Derbyshire on the proto-UBI
Posted On: Wednesday - April 29th 2020 7:15PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Economics Liberty/Libertarianism Socialism/Communism
(Again, just trying to save on server space to keep the planet cool and avoid another letta from Greta).
It's the (italicized) 2nd segment, after his Intro, that I refer to here from Moratorium Fiasco, Glimmers Of Light, Lifeboat Ethics, And Judicial Diversity, Etc by John Derbyhsire from his April 24th "Radio Derby" podcast transcript. I can read in < 10 minutes what takes 36 1/2 minutes in the podcast, but the transcripts get published, at least on VDare, a week later. That's OK, as we don't deign to be timely here.
The whole Radio Derb transcript is interesting and well said/written as usual. However, I'll point out in his immigration segment something that's about Liberty vs. Socialism more than anything immigration* related. Here's an excerpt of the words in question:
Another excuse being circulated around Washington is that, to quote Tucker Carlson, who retailed it on his show the other night, quote:Nah, Mr. Derbyshire doesn't get it. It's not about laziness. This ADDITIONAL unemployment money of $600/week, that, with even a measly $250 normal amount, adds to over $3500 monthly**, is a serious amount of income for a majority of Americans. Why WOULD you take a $10/hr, or even $20/hr job (not that easy to come by), if you can make more by staying home. There's absolutely no incentive to go to work.Officials from the Department of Labor and the Council of Economic Advisors [argued that] the unemployment benefits in the coronavirus stimulus bill were so generous that American citizens would refuse to go back to work because it was easier to just get a government check. And so we have to bring in more foreigners.End quote.
That's kind of a supercharged version of the notion peeping out from between the lines of articles by immigration fanatics like Bret Stephens and Max Boot: that working-class Americans are dull-witted loafers lacking any spirit of enterprise, no use for anything except drawing a dole, so that the country would be a better place if we just got rid of these useless mouths somehow and replaced them with immigrants.
I don't say there are no such useless, workshy Americans. From my own experience of the nation's labor force, though, which spans a range from dishwashing to investment banking, I don't believe there are many. Most of us want to work.
"Sure", you say, "but, it's temporary." Well, who's the poor bastard that's gonna break the news of the end of this deal? Is it going to be a cold turkey withdrawal for Americans on this plan? As blogger "Audacious Epigone" predicts too***, this big unemployment money is likely the Socialists big boot in the door for the Universal Basic Iincome.
This doesn't change Mr. Derbyshire's point that President Trump's exempting of most H-1B visa holders (Indentured Servants) and others, at a time with dozens of millions of Americans unemployed, is egregious and stupid. Well, I may as well excerpt another snippet about that, giving John Derbyshire his due:
To put it less gently: This executive order is just another blast of hot air from our windbag President, accomplishing nothing—actually, on those suspended admissions now to be restarted, less than nothing.Indeed, as the Instapundit says.
* Please read that segment for some more information on the tease that was President Trump's immigration "moratorium" tweet, likely adding to what Michelle Malkin wrote here.
** I can't believe I haven't written the post on this that I had meant to yet. Coming soon ...
*** See Conceived in Corona, UBI Baby Is on the Way.
Comments (8)
Ann Coulter with
Posted On: Wednesday - April 29th 2020 6:25PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Pundits Kung Flu Stupidity
(Just trying to save on server space to keep the planet cool and avoid another letta from Greta).
This and the next post will be just "hey, you gotta read this" posts. Peak Stupidity is allowed a few of these now and then like any other lazy-ass pundit shop*. Both articles are on VDare, THE go-to site for all things immigration.
Ann Coulter bats a .900, I'd say, on this one, a little under-par, to mix a coupla metaphors. She's had a .980 average over the last 15 years, with just a couple of sacks on AA and "the pot". [WTF? - Ed]. With her high-level of snark, it's hard to tell exactly. I may be underestimating her on this one. Miss Coulter has definitely been on the anti-panic side of the Kung Flu Gap. Take a look at her latest column, Q & A On The Wuhan Virus: We're Done Now—Except For An Immigration Moratorium!.
What do you think of the media’s coverage of the Wuhan virus?Yup.
It’s like a nonstop “War of the Worlds” broadcast, which in 1938 panicked more than a million Americans into believing Martians had landed in New Jersey, sending people fleeing to the mountains, loading their shotguns and barricading their homes. And that was a single radio broadcast!
Today we have nearly all of media—which I notice are doing fantastically well during the crisis—terrifying the public about an apparently indestructible, omnipresent virus.
You don’t think the China virus is as dangerous as they say?I don't think we'd have to eliminate all human life, Ann. Some more of us could quit watching the TV and we'd never see another TV commercial with some company saying they consider you "family". I have never seen such a commercial.
Well, it is a virus capable of eliminating all human life, which would be bad, but not all bad because then you’d never have to see another TV commercial with some company saying they consider you “family.”
On the Lyin' Press, Ann says:Blow it up with extreme prejudice.
Apart from the election, why would the media want to impoverish the nation?On Trump and the response to this Kung Flu being like that of 9/11 (Peak Stupidity asks "Is COVID-19 the Socialists' 9/11?"
1) Reporting on disasters is fun!
2) Their ratings are terrific—and, of course, they’re still being paid.
3) Liberals enjoy controlling people, especially with enragingly nonsensical rules.
I thought Trump was the authoritarian! [Hey, that's not a question!]Yep, and a majority of Americans is falling for that again, 2nd time this
No, he’s the lazy, narcissistic blowhard. Liberals are the authoritarians.
The shutdown is airport security for the whole country. Nineteen Muslim immigrants flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and suddenly little old ladies from Oklahoma had to be goosed at airports. We have to be safe!
A horrible Chinese virus sweeps the planet, which is devastating to older people but virtually harmless to the young—and the entire country has to be shut down. We have to be safe!
Ann Coulter's Libertarian summary:
Whether it’s rational or not, people aren’t going to go out like they used to. [Hey, that's also not a question!]There are the usual italics that I can't put here, as the excerpt is already italicized, and VDare has loads of links on their presentation of this column, as usual.
My entire life, liberals have said, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” “Don’t like pornography? Don’t look at it.” And so on.
I say: “Don’t want to leave your home? Don’t leave your home!”
There are a few parts Miss Coulter had in this one that I don't agree with, hence that lower than normal score. Next, a nice segment by John Derbyshire in his transcript of his weekly "Radio Derb" podcast.
* "Shop", haha, this comes from my reading of a Pat Buchanan book, using this terminology for groups of advisors - he was a wonk way back in the day ... Yeah, a review or two is coming.
Comments (14)
Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
Posted On: Tuesday - April 28th 2020 7:54PM MST
In Topics: Music
There was something about those British musicians in the 1960's (mainly) - bands would have lots of musicians that were each great on their own. When you hear or read about them, it's like, well Rod Steward was in the Small Faces before such and such (another good band) and then this guy was in the Yardbirds, and this other famous artist was also in the Yardbirds before he was in the ... and Stevie Windwood, and one of the guys from Zeppelin and so on... I guess it was just a hell of a time for music.
What reminded me about this was, upon reading a bit about Peter Gabriel, the musician singing/writing this song tonight, that he was the lead singer of Genesis before Phil Collins was. I'd thought they switched off. Then, there was Mike Rutherford from this same band, who also made some good music on his own, well, with his band - Mike and the Mechanics.
Solsbury Hill here, from Peter Gabriel's self-titled album of 1977, has such a great tune, and with an unusual time signature, 7/4 time, except back to 4/4 time for the last 2 measures of each chorus.
The only thing I don't like is the video. It was made "much later" (per wiki) than the song, so I think it had to be in the big MTV era of the early/mid 1980's. This one just doesn't cut it, compared to the great music videos of that time. You've got these great lyrics - why not either something resembling them, or just show the band playing? I don't know what the heck this one is about - just listen though, to this fantastic song.
Peter Gabriel – vocals, flute
Steve Hunter – guitars
Tony Levin – bass guitar
Larry Fast – synths
Allan Schwartzberg – drums, shaker, telephone book (per wiki)
London Symphony Orchestra - uhh, orchestrating, I guess?
Comments (6)
Another reason to owe the IRS money
Posted On: Tuesday - April 28th 2020 7:22PM MST
In Topics: Economics US Feral Government
I knew there was something else I'd meant to add in our 2nd post on income tax withholding. This post will be a quick addition to Income Tax Withholding - flattening the pain, damage, and awareness curves and Tax withholding and Leverage.
I really couldn't believe this crap when I first heard of it, in reference to some kind of special tax credit a few years back to incentivize Americans to do something or other. In case you don't care to keep track of any this complicated method of theft, here's a very quick point:
A tax credit is a direct subtraction off of the bottom line, tax owed. This is as opposed to a deduction which is taken off the top line (well near the top, at least), the income earned. The latter is only worth whatever your marginal rate is (the highest bracket your income level comes under) x that deduction. I.e., if you are earning an amount that gives you a marginal tax rate of 22%, then a $1,000 deduction saves $220 on your tax bill, while a $1,000 credit saves you $1,000.
OK, fine. My point here is about a type of credit called a non-refundable one versus a refundable one.
Funny, that web page is very helpful, with lots of talk about your doing the best thing to save money. Should the IRS be doing this? If you don't care about collecting the most money, guys, quit auditing us minor cheaters!
Yes, you read that right! There are credits for which you may be fully eligible, but will not get, because you don't owe the IRS money on April 15th (extendable during Panic-Fests) to subtract if from. Really, WTF?! This is real, and they are called "non-refundable". That term is usually used in a different manner - in this case it means the credit doesn't apply to people getting tax refunds.. I'd thought I'd just misunderstood back when there was the special credit I can't remember.
Just to make this perfectly clear: If there is a $2,000 non-refundable credit that you meet the criterion for, yet you have 5 bucks coming to you, you get nada, nunca, nilch, other than that 5 bucks. If you owe the IRS 5 bucks, you will be relieved of that burden, and if you owe 1,000 bucks, you'll be relieved of it. If you owe $2,000 or higher, you subtract that $2,000 credit from what you owe, in the way that a credit is supposed to work.
Some new tax deal could be passed in the middle of the fiscal year. (No, nobody seems to give a damn about that stuff about retro-activity anymore.) Your best bet, if you are eligible for it, is to go submit a new W-4 withholding form with a high number of exemptions. Make damn sure you're going to owe for that year, and enough to get you the whole credit.
Do you see this possibly most important reason not to have tax refunds coming each year? Please let me know, readers, if I have missed anything. Otherwise, yeah, how would you feel being the sucker?
Comments (5)
Surgeon Colonel Sting on Social Distancing
Posted On: Monday - April 27th 2020 7:08PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor
First thing: I've just learned a minute ago that Dr. Fauci is not the Surgeon General. That's what I get for keeping too great a social distance from
There is still a Surgeon General, one Jerome Adams being the present 5-star SG, leading the current Army of the Potomac. Another factoid that surprises many is that though Jerome Adams can be seen on this wiki page wearing what looks to be an Admiral's uniform, he is neither Surgeon nor General. (He does watch a lot of surgeries, as he's an anesthesiologist, if that counts.) None of the so-called "Surgeon Generals" of the United States has ever lead a battalion into a tank battle, along with cutting people open during R&Rs! What a crock.
Apparently this position is really one of Public Scold. I have been remiss in keeping up with all of these warrior/healers, but I do remember the reign of C. Everett Koop. There was lots of scolding about smoking and VD, as I recall. I remember a chubby black lady, who may have concentrated in particular on the menthol cigarettes and ingrown beard hair. This new General, what's his thing? He has been kind of quiet during this Kung Flu episode, but then, again, I'm very far from the TV.
There is one man that was Policing our behavior (he'd probably call it "behaviour") way back in the early 1980's. He was no surgeon, and he was no General, but he was a fine bass player and songwriter. Mr. Thomas Sumner, known by most of us as Sting, was urging people to Social Distance 40 years ago! "Please don't stand so close to me."
This song is from The Police's third album Zenyatta Mondatta, from which Peak Stupidity featured another great song, De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. Of course, it's not about the Kung Flu virus, but the song does have an interesting story. I don't think any current-era Surgeon General would be pleased at the student/teacher relationship theme.
The 3-man band:
Thomas Sumner, aka "Sting" - vocals, bass guitar
Andy Summers - guitar, backing vocals, piano
Stewart Copeland - drums, backing vocals
Comments (12)
Now this is kinda odd ...
Posted On: Monday - April 27th 2020 1:44PM MST
In Topics: Websites Orwellian Stupidity Deep State
Blogger "Audacious Epigone" noted a Curious Corona Coincidence yesterday that had to do with google searches. You wonder how deep the Deep State goes. You can read there and see what you think about his eerie search "engine" experience. His was with a type of search I've not done myself, which is a search for data on number of searches for some keywords in the past.
It's all kind of interesting, but in this case I will chalk up to faulty software and bad data what he reckons is some deep subterfuge. You never know - there's a big tendency for Big Data to lean toward the evil side. Evil likes lots of data.
Peak Stupidity's experience, which I'd forgotten to mention until being reminded by A.E.'s post, is with image searching. As the regular reader will know, we tend to use "file photos" most of the time (which we had a few paragraphs about in our "Beaches", and we apologized for an error regarding). In general, Bing seems to be the best of it, Google, and DuckDuckGo for finding the right images.
In searching for images with keywords "Corona" and various others in combination with it with "images" last, there was a weird thing going on. EVERY TIME the search had "Corona" in it, the same thematic map seen above, with current data, would show up at the top. Not only that, there would not be the normal array of images to click on to choose more from at all! It was eerie, I tell you. Bing wanted me to look at that map, so long as I typed in "Corona" and "images", with whatever else. DuckDuckGo, as a backup, did the same thing. I've been told that DuckDuckGo uses Bing data, but this is more than that. It's the same logic in showing that specific US Kung Flu-infected map on top, and just non-image links at the bottom.
Unfortunately, I can't remember if Google had done the same back a few weeks ago when I first saw this, or not. My work-around was to leave out the keyword "Corona" and use something else. As of today, the map still appears at the top, on Bing searches, but at least with an image array down a ways on the page. It no longer did just now on DuckDuckGo.
Try it - bing.com, which is using the string "Corona New York Hospitals images". Yup. I figured, OK, it's about the state name, so try '"Corona at the beach images". Yup, gets that map. I LUV, LUV, LUV thematic maps and all things Geography, but enough with that map! Now, there were images below, as I wrote they include now. These ones, naturally, are of Corona Beer, which, true, matches well with the search "Corona at the beach images". Bing finally lost that map when I tried "Corona cute girls images". I guess bidness is bidness, after all.
Bing, at least, is really pushing this Kung Flu Panic-Fest hard. This is one example that was pretty obvious to me.
"I've got one word about your future, Ben.
Screenshots."
"Uhhh, Sir, that might be two words, but it's debatable."
Comments (5)
Power bills and Moral Hazards
Posted On: Monday - April 27th 2020 10:42AM MST
In Topics: Economics The Future Socialism/Communism
"Uggh. Another post on taxes and shit!". The Peak Stupidity reader may think that some of these recent posts are here just to keep us from ranting about this Kung Flu Infotainment Panic Fest twice a day, on the 11's. Or, he may figure that it's just a fixation that one must put up with, such as with the posts about golf course architecture or Hollywood people out of one of my favorite bloggers, Steve Sailer. Well, you gotta think, hey, I'm not paying for this, and I didn't have to read, so what's the problem?
Exactly! However, this financial/economic stuff is NOT unrelated to this Kung Flu, when it comes down to it. High-powered Socialism is coming, with a vengeance! As we've noted in , this Panic-Fest we are trying to come out of has been taken full advantage of, and, if not fully planned*, being continuously egged on. I will have another post shortly on the large amounts of future-taxpayers' money being doled out in unemployment, which I think will hook a big mass of formerly working-class Americans on Uncle Sugar, like crack whore's hooked on, well, crack.
No, this one is about a note in the bill from the power company. (I hope the reader can make it out, as I need to keep the images small horizontally.). This seems like an innocuous nice gesture by this Big-Biz outfit at first glance. Sure, no late fees, we know you're stressed out financially. No, we won't turn off the power if you get way behind either. Wow, now that is mighty white of you!
If that were all it were to end up to, no, I'm not bent out of shape about my having probably paid a late fee or two back in the day (especially when I was helping renters save 80 bucks by keeping the bill in my name) while now people get a break. If you put a hold on disconnects, though, that sure is encouragement for a lot of damn people. When you incentivize something, you will get more of it. How far will they let this no-cost debt go?
A commenter on unz, along with a friend this morning, have both told me not to worry, saying that customers of the power company will have to catch up, and the latter saying that there are plenty of people who end paying the penalties and interest later, as they just plain live like this. I don't know. Will the power company get part of the $2,000,000,000,000 - [the ionosphere] bailout, and then use a chunk of that to bail out those poor 8-month behind electricity customers? I think that is highly likely. It's not something I'd bet on, but it's just that, in a Socialist economy, where it's not about the work one does, but how you play the system, there's a damn good chance of that. Let's put it that way.
I'm really getting sick of getting screwed as someone trying to be responsible with finances. I think I'd be a lot sicker were I to have scrimped in college to avoid having mortgage-sized loans, as the other kids partied hardy (or is that "party hardied"?), once student loan forgiveness gets implemented.** It's only due to college being MUCH more reasonable when I went that I am not sick like a Kung Flu victim over this.
Over the last 10 years or more, since finances have been stable for me, I have been paying these bills 4 or 5 at a time, ahead. Yes, being a luddite or privacy freak, depending on how you see it, I don't want the money coming out of my bank account, so I've been sending checks. My method saves 50 ¢ on a stamp and about the same on a check (yes, talk about inflation - that's what they work out to be. Is ink some rare commodity?) It's my 5 minutes of time to take care of this that save, well, yeah, at least 50 ¢, I hope!
I'd gotten the check out and put the stamp on the envelope, before I read that note above. I was committed, but not to the amount. I wrote it for a smaller amount than planned. I regret writing it at all, but it's not my nature to just stiff the power company unless I have an argument with them (that leverage thing). Next month, I dunno. Why not just get behind like everyone else? If they start trying to collect, I've got the money and I'll send it in. If they are going to bail out the deadbeats, well, that's a good time to be a deadbeat. The term in use today, at least on Peak Stupidity is "Moral Hazard".
I'm only concerned about this, what might seem a piddly thing, because these moral hazards will keep coming at us. Only the irresponsible come out ahead.
* I don't give the left that much credit. "Fully planned" does not compute, when one is trying to analyze those retards.
** I think it is a question of "when", not "if", as this $1,600,000,000,000, with 15% or something in serious default, CAN'T be paid.
Comments (9)
I've Loved These Days ♬ ♪
Posted On: Saturday - April 25th 2020 9:09PM MST
In Topics: Music
Since this Kung Flu Panic-Fest set in in earnest about 6 weeks back, other than having the arguments about said "crisis", we've had a really good time. With my working less, the schools being closed, and a spell of excellent weather, it's been one of the best stay-cations ever. That's not, BTW, because some Governor or Mayor is covering his ass or strutting his power and telling us what we need to do. It's just been great enjoying our house and family, neighborhood and neighbors.
Everyone's been out, in golf carts on the road, walking dogs of all sorts, bicycling, heading to the skateboard park, the kids parks, or just hanging out on their porches and saying "hey" as if this were Mayberry, North Carolina in 1962.
Though I want to keep railing on this madness caused by a Lyin' Press having the time its life and people in governments at all levels letting emergency powers go to their heads, some of the ideas have melted into the ether over this weekend. They'll be more to say on Monday, I'm sure.
The title here is from the title of a Billy Joel song from his 1976 album Turnstiles a celebration of Mr. Joel's return to his beloved New York from his piano man days in Los Angeles. Most of the songs on that album (the excellent, rockin' Miami 2017 featured here) are on the live Songs from the Attic album too.
Though it's a pretty good tune, I've Loved These Days just doesn't have as great a melody as some other old Billy Joel songs Peak Stupidity would like to feature, I'll stick in another here. This is from an even older album, Streetlife Serenade (listen to The Entertainer) from 1974. It's The Last of the Big-Time Spenders. This tune will grown on you quickly.
Comments (20)
Nurses in New York
Posted On: Friday - April 24th 2020 6:43PM MST
In Topics: Media Stupidity Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Look at that scene. It's a mess, but is that because the place is truly overwhelmed or just that way due to NY City, and lots of the country now, being a disunited Tower of Babel? Is it because the cameras are rolling?
From a family member in the healthcare business, I've got the following info.:
Where she works, nurses are being assigned COVID-one-niner patients, even though those aren’t the cases usually on their floor. On another floor there are a number of cases, plus in the ICU. The problem is that the nurses really aren’t provided the PPE other than fitted masks. They are worried about even going in the rooms, and the doctors won’t show up at all and are doing everything on the phone. These patients’ rooms are getting really messy, as neither nurses nor techs want to go in there much. Without family members either, it’s VERY depressing for them. If you've ever been in there for anything longer than a night, you know that time goes at 1/10 speed for a patient in a hospital room.
In the meantime, the hospitals in NY City are offering $7,000 per week for RNs for 3 12-hour shifts per week. Housing is not paid for but arranged (yeah, I know it can be a decent amount), but food and transportation are covered. Some of the nurses are just hoping to get laid off (quitting looks bad to HR), so that they can go to NYC and make a killing. Another section of the hospital will be recalling nurses that have been furloughed, as they are planning on resuming regular surgeries and all that.
I completely understand a good program of taking extra precautions with any infectious disease. The more vulnerable nurses, older and in terrible shape (and there are plenty of the latter) ought to do their best to acquire the PPE they need, or refuse to work on the COVID patients until they have something reasonable. If one is young and healthy, how did she* not die a few times already from all the other flu viruses and bacteria flying around the rooms and hallway?
The media have got the nurses scared shitless, which is impeding the care of patients. Sure, the nurses and Docs should know something about this disease, but the real number of this Kung Flu's fatality rate does not warrant this behavior. All of us know that this is not the Black Plague, but the 2-month-long Infotainment Panic-Fest, playing on all channels, has got them acting like it is.
I've already heard back from my source that those positions in NYC have been filling quickly, but till then, I want to be a part of it ... if I can make it there, I'm immune anywhere ... 🎵
* Or "he" in this case, as there are plenty of men getting into this reasonably lucrative (for today's times) field too.
Comments (7)
Tax withholding and Leverage
Posted On: Friday - April 24th 2020 1:38PM MST
In Topics: Economics US Feral Government Taxes
Whoa, this sounds like a post from your expert financial advisor, the whiz kid with the 2nd house in the mountains of Chile, who come to think of it, hasn't been reachable at his first house since, crap, maybe 2 months! No, this is just a short continuation from the thoughts on the insidiously evil scheme of income tax withholding from ~ a week back in this post.
At the very end of that post I mentioned the lack of leverage on the part of the taxpayer that has been another result, intended or not, from the change to one's writing a large check each April 15th versus having the money drained nice and slowly, and quietly. The change was 77 years back, so it's not like anyone under 100 y/o would know any other way.
Quite a few years back the IRS sent me a letter saying I owed something in the neighborhood of $500 from an error in my return. Due to my not-so-hot financial situation that year and a few prior and not insignificant inflation since, that was like $10,000 for me today. It was not at all clear to me what the discrepancy was about. I did my due diligence, staying on hold for 1/2 an hour, getting told to call back, and trying again a couple of times (as I just wrote earlier today, I don't give out my phone number). The matter was not settled, and that was just fine with me, because I couldn't just spare the 500 dollars.
The next year was a welcome change, with a new job with good pay, so I was even in a not particularly bad mood doing the forms that year. Due to all that withholding, the Feral Gov. owed me something just over $1000. A month or so later, here comes that nice check... for ~ $500. WTF!! Yeah, they pilfered the money from that discrepancy right out of it. That was it! No more refunds, if I can help it.
Now let me digress on that refund thing. People with poor financial management skills seem to treat the tax withholding system as a non-impulsively-drainable savings account. They can't seem to keep money in the savings account, as sudden expenses, such as granite countertops, shiny rims, and things like that keep coming up out of nowhere! The withholding program lets them participate in a forced savings account with what's always somehow a nice surprise from Uncle Sugar in May or June, unless they pay an extra $300 to get it in January. This has the effect of making the Fed-Gov the nice guy too.
I'd always ask people why they wanted to give that interest money to the government after complaining about how much it was already taking. Ooops, I'm thinking of over 15 years ago, when real interest was a thing. Nowadays, it's not a factor.
The leverage factor was something I learned after that unresolved $500 discrepancy fiasco. I try to work it out where I owe the Feds a little, but in the year 2019 it worked out to a lot. Got a discrepancy, IRS, well, you'll just have to get ahold of me somehow. Don't call, as that's really disturbing, plus you can't. You don't have my email. Just send a nice letter - be nice, now - and I'll get back to YOU.
Imagine if we had the leverage due to owing 15 large in mid-April each year. Would the IRS really be hauling millions of people to Leavenworth, or would they be such a nice organization, that the headquarters would have to be located in Minnesota, dontcha' know?*
* Shout-out to commenter Ganderson!
Comments (10)
Whew, glad it's only once a decade!
Posted On: Friday - April 24th 2020 10:46AM MST
In Topics: Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Morning Constitutional
I know, I know, Article I, Section II, but what's the SPIRIT of the law?
A month back Peak Stupidity bored our readers with two posts (here's the 2nd) regarding our intentions to make a firm stand, again, like every decade, on the privacy issues regarding the US Census. As commenter MBlanc46 has rightly pointed out, no, this is not the hill to die on. I've also heard this, regarding another anti-Police State minor issue from a kid 1/2 my age (and that was a long time ago!) at the grocery store - You need to know how to pick your battles.
By the end of this post, I doubt I'll have convinced anyone of why I need to screw with the census people. Maybe it's just kind of sentimental thing for me, as I can remember telling them to piss off on the this a number of times. It seems like it was just 10 years ago, but it had to be 20, when the nice guy came around in person. He was not the AA-hire type that was bound to get offended by anything I did out of the ordinary because of "more work". No, he was a 30-something white guy who was very pleasant. Once he got beyond my telling him how many people dwelled in this particular abode, I had to stop him right away: "No, I've read the Constitution. This census if for counting Americans for voting purposes. That's all you need to know, one guy and one cat." He may have even had respect for that attitude, as we parted quickly on good terms, and none of this "get off my lawn!" stuff was necessary.
OK, I have been told by commenter Rex Little under the 2nd of those previous posts that the on-line deal was pretty quick. I believe you guys. It's just that my position as a Peak Stupidity blogger makes me an essential worker, IMHO. This is an essential battle, fighting the essentially stupid things like this Kung Flu Infotainment Panic-Fest along with existential issues like the immigration invasion (different word - you may need to grow a goatee to understand it). In current-era terminology, one might say that this blogger is a Stupidity First Responder. I'm not sure I would have had the time for this... interferes with writing this post. ;-}
I do also know that all, yeah, this invasion of privacy in the extended census form* is just plain peanuts. Compared to smart-phone data espionage, this is true. Even compared to the information the US Feral Gov't ADMITS to having, the tax/employment info, this is peanuts. I just think of the SPIRIT of the law in Article I (legislative branch, Section II, with the wording "", that is used to justify anything. The point is simply to enumerate the people for the apportionment of representation. (There, I should have said THAT to the Census guy 2 decades ago - much more professional.) The "... insuch manner as they shall by Law direct..." language does not give carte blanche for violations of Amendment IV, so screw 'em.
So what'd I do this year? Here:
Feels good, man!
Oh, believe you me, I'd already printed up a quick note explaining the spirit of the text of Article I, Section II, including my refutation of Morales vs. Daley (coincidently, settled right at the time of that 2000 census), with the phrasing "SCROTUS has made his ruling, now let him enforce it." Yeah, having a little fun is good, but I can see some clerk at the data input facility throwing it straight into the round file, or maybe some bureaucrat bringing it up to his boss, who gets pissed at the trouble and writes in to the IRS or something. Nah, I left the note out and answered the 2 questions that comply with this enumeration, with the rest of it X'd out, explaining "X = NOYB".
The Census invasion of privacy** is just a pebble on the rocky road of stupidity, but it's nice to let someone know that, if we are not complying here, there may be a lot more we won't comply with. Hey, it's just whom I am, man.
PS: Oh, yeah, the SCROTUS also ruled last summer against the Trump administration plans to add a citizenship question.*** I'd have answered that one, but it's not required either in the enumeration language. All the rest of that 8 pages is, though.
* There used to be what was called the "long form" version, only for a portion of citizens, as more of a survey. I never got one. I should say, one never stayed on my desk long enough to fill out, at least.
** I do what I can - the IRS, for example, does not know our phone numbers, email addresses, or any way to contact me other than a plain old letter in the mail. That's the way I like it.
*** They gave the Administration a deadline to come up with further arguments, though, but you know President Trump had likely forgotten about the whole thing. It's a done deal now. Dang, I should have checked for that question. Can anybody here let me know in comments? (I could not a find positive answer on-line, but it all leaned toward naaah.
Comments (13)
Tucker Carlson on an Immigration Moratorium
Posted On: Wednesday - April 22nd 2020 8:29PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Pundits
President Trump tweeted out an encouraging piece of news of his intentions to sign an executive order to halt immigration for 60 days. Sounds like a 3-year belated good start of some kind, right?
I’ve just say right here that, as much as I liked and supported candidate Trump, my feeling now is this guy is nothing but a bullshitter. He may have sincerely meant what he wrote in that tweet even, who knows? However, he feels no compunction to make good on his word. He would have no problem with tweeting something just the opposite of this next week.
Even when Trump gets on a roll with an issue, he won’t follow through. Whatever E.O. he’d actually write on this, it’ll be “blocked by judges” or “those D’s!” “Just do it” is not a motto of the Trump Administration.
Anyway, the always hopeful Peter Brimelow, chief of VDare, is just glad that the word "moratorium" is being bandied about now, only 25 years after he suggested it - see Trump Has Put An Immigration Moratorium "In Play." Not Enough—But Something.
We haven't featured any Tucker Carlson clips here in most of a year. I've read lately (but not seen myself) that he'd gone a little overboard lately by blaming everything wrong on China. I'll have to look at some recent clips to decide. In this 8 minute clip about this E.O., President Trump, and the elite opposition to it (the American public is ~80% on board!), Tucker has done his usual excellent job. If nothing else, at least watch from 04:10 for about a minute as he eviscerates a statement by Beto O'Rourke. Kick ass, Tucker Carlson!
Yeah, I've gotta watch this guy more often.
Comments (12)
Get out of Malibu, Lebowski!
Posted On: Wednesday - April 22nd 2020 8:11PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Movies
I’m gonna get all anecdotal on your asses now to just demonstrate how much trouble this panic has been causing. Some homeless guy with his (pretty-nice, blue) scooter was sitting next to a church in our neighborhood. Me and my 8 y/o boy (me on roller-blades on the road and he on a bike on the sidewalks) passed him one way, then 30 minutes later were on the other side of the street coming toward him. My son would have passed 5 or 6 ft from where he was hanging out.
The guy started yelling loud as he could at me about us being too close, and “you can’t take a kid around, you’re tryin’ to kill me, get away!” or some such stuff. I wasn’t gonna take that and got on the sidewalk rolling toward him and telling him to shut the hell up. (We’d have been glad to go way around, but I’m not gonna take abuse like that.) He threatened to kick my ass, and I’m not at all a big guy, but I kept on coming.
The guy got on his scooter, as I was I telling him to f-off and such. Then he turned around 75 yards away and came at me in a game of chicken, he on the scooter and me on rollerblades, passed within 1 foot of me (apparently forgetful of the R0 data), as I tried to grab a sleeve to dump his crazy ass onto the road.
Then, I started rollerblading down the road after him in this neighborhood, let’s call it “Crestview” or something, just for fun, and, see now here’s the part that I just know blogger Steve Sailer would have liked, had I had been just a little bit quicker. I yelled “get out of Crestview” but without the “…Lebowski!” Opportunities like that don’t come often.
Yes, he was mentally ill, but all this hysteria had not helped that man one bit. Me neither.
This poor homeless guy really seemed to be under the impression that this Kung Flu is just like the Black Plague*. Where has this guy gotten his Coronhysteria ("Corona hysteria"?) from? IThe public libraries have been closed for a while so it's not from the internet there. It must be wherever he sees the idiot plate hanging, I guess - this Infotainment Panic-Fest has been on the air continuously for 6 weeks, on all channels. I just met a big fan today.
* BTW, I can't tell if some families whose houses we stopped by to say hello really got and appreciated the joke when I yelled from outside "bring out your dead". Not EVERYONE is a Monty Python fan.
Comments (4)