He who manufactures the globes, controls the maps ...
Posted On: Saturday - August 3rd 2019 9:27AM MST
In Topics: China Geography
... or something. I'd like to have a big old globe, on which Burma was still Burma the first time*, Cambodia was still Cambodia the first time*, Sri Lanka is still Ceylon, and maybe even China is still Cathay. It would be mounted on a nice hardwood stand, and I could spin it like the guy on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, hopefully without being called an asshole**.
Instead, the WalMart- or Target-bought globe we have was made in China, like about 95% of the material in said stores, and it held up for a few years and served it's instructional purpose. I thought about something regarding this globe's depiction of China and its environs the other day.
(Note: This is not our globe, as ours has more terrain features.)
The globe depicted above has a basic political map. That's not to mean "political" in the expected (from this blog) sense - "political" is a word used in mapmaking for just boundaries, as opposed to more stuff like topography or special features. What I noticed is that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang are all depicted in the same color as mainland China is. Now, I'll give them Hong Kong - a 99-year deal is a deal, right - though, from what I'm reading, the Hong Kongese won't!
I've written in posts before that Tibet and Xinjiang are what make the area of China look closely comparable to the continental US, but those places are relatively uninhabited mountainous and high-desert lands, respectively. Tibet is probably a cause lost to China for now, except in the minds of those latte-drinking Americans with those bumper stickers. Xinjiang, Moslem stronghold, well, who cares, honestly. Taiwan is the real stickler. Listen, you'll get no argument from me that the US has absolutely no business backing up Taiwan militarily. The Cold War has been over for 30 years, so it's not our business, and the US is broke so we won't be able to afford those electronic parts from China (maybe some old ones from Taiwan, ROC) to put our hardware where our government's big mouth is. It's just that these places are still NOT the same country at this point.
It's just a coincidence! We were running out of colors anyway.
I don't really argue with Big China's claims. It's just this insidious map-making practice that kind of irks me. Who actually created the map images that are put on these made-in-China globes? Did the Chinese doctor them up a little bit? Bad Q/A? That's not out of the question. What I see is reminds me of a related story Peak Stupidity reported on a year ago in Western airlines bow down to China Commies' petty whims. and a prequel post here . (Yep, it's a prequel.) This is not 1985 or even 2010. When China says "you American airline companies must make your seat-back-pocket magazines show Taiwan same color as China.", then guess what, the US Airlines say "
* These 2 countries tried their own, incredibly un-mellifluous names, and, well, they didn't take. OK, I'm not completely sure if Burma is back, after that experiment with the name Myanmar (named by Microsoft, perhaps?), but Cambodia is back in - Kampuchea is out.
** Sorry, without the reader having attended a "showing" (more like rice-throwing, water-pistol shooting, party) of this movie, this joke will mean nothing. No, don't watch the movie on netflix or DVD - it doesn't work that way!
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GhettoGate
Posted On: Friday - August 2nd 2019 1:03PM MST
In Topics: Humor Trump Race/Genetics
There's something they call "the luck of Trump". By "they", I mean commenters I've read on the blogs, you know ... around. This is the factor that has President Trump getting lambasted by the ctrl-left/Lyin Press for letting slip a little bit of truth and getting vindicated the next day or same week by a happening somewhere. As an example, Trump had said something about the Moslem crime in Sweden, a very real thing, which has changed that whole country. The Lyin Press gave him grief for his racism, and then another of the killings or rapings by immigrants happened hours or a day later.
The latest Trump Luck occurrence must be this hilarious story, of Congresstard Elijah Cummings, or such stories as the rage against the President for his disrespecting of Cumming's Baltimore district as rat-infested and worse. I'm not sure if Trump really meant rats, BTW. As Peak Stupidity caught up with the story, the latest tweet across the tapes from President Trump about Baltimore had the sentence "How much is stolen?" in it. Haha, well, the detectives may not have fully inventoried Representative Cummings' house yet, so the answer is "a lot, and I had a brand new iphone and those used to be granite countertops."
They (the dirty rats) took 'em all.
What luck that is for Mr. Trump, the news of this burglary coming out? Did I just write burglary? Wow, man, I'm having flashbacks to the summer of '74 with all those complaints about that burglary in that hotel in Washington, FS... it was made into such a big deal, when they've gotta have what, 50 burglaries a day there ... what the heck was the name of that place again?
It was one of those dash-gate scandals, you know Contra-Gate, Climate-Gate, it's on the tip of my tongue ... Oh, yes, WATERGATE. See, the US President was involved in a arranging a burglary. It was Nixon last time, but could President Trump be "pushing his luck" here? Did he think we all have forgotten about those summers sweating our asses off with no A/C, trying to watch Hogan's Heroes when those boring-ass hearings would come on TV all day long. Perhaps Javanka did the wet work, and this burglary of the Congresstard was done to support those tweets.
This "Trump-Luck" story is just part of the cover-up - remember, the cover-up is worse than the crime. Did the administration really think they would get away with this, with this meddling website Peak Stupidity, and bloggers Woodwind and Brinestein on the case?
There will be investigations, committees, hearings, and committee hearings! Just you wait. Do you really think you're going to use youtube next summer to listen to old ELO albums? No, we will saturate the media with committee hearings ... what did Trump tweet and when did he know what he was tweeting? Trump! Tweets! It's a Travesty!
Wait, just this in, after clicking below the ad:
The burglary at Cummings’ home happened prior to President Trump’s tweets about the Congressman.Awww, rats! There goes our summer! OK, Russia! Collusion! On the other hand ... wait, this is even better. President Trump had the burglary done beforehand to make sure the job would not be botched - G. Gordon Liddy had to slip a mickey into the drink of the ADT alarm system girl, and the homies had to be paid off to steal the TV's cause nobody wants that crap anymore, and plumbers had to be called in to, like, fix the leak under the tub (just coincidental, that last part).
You read it here first, folks. This seemingly innocent everyday "burglary gone right" in the rat-infested 7th district of Baltimore was in reality a lot more. It was another in a long line of corrupt practices by the Administration. The Congress must take Javanka down! (Please!)
Because the burglary occurred in the ghetto (7th district of MD), and you may be reading this on a Bill Gate(s)-
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Immigrant murder in Germany
Posted On: Friday - August 2nd 2019 7:55AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity
This involves an immigrant DOING the murdering, if that wasn't clear, which is almost always the case these days.
(Photo taken directly from VDare)
James Kirkpatrick of VDare reported earlier on this week on another mess of blood on the hands of Angela Merkel, with NIGHTMARE: Mother Watches 8-Year-Old Son Die After Being Pushed On Train Tracks By Eritrean Migrant.
The tragedy took place on one of the platforms of the central railway terminal in the German city of Frankfurt – the nation’s second busiest railway hub. An eight-year-old boy and his mother were waiting for a train when they were suddenly attacked by a 40-year-old Eritrean. The assailant grabbed the woman and the child and threw them on the rail tracks right as the high-speed intercity express (ICE) was pulling into the station.That was Mr. Kirkpatrick excerpting Russia Today's story. This man from this southwest bank of the Red Sea country (just trying to insert in my geography lesson, as per the Yahoo style book here) should never have been in Germany. Would this murder of an innocent 8 y/o boy have happened if Herr Merkel had not opened the floodgates to strange foreigners due to her COMPASSSION?! Yeah, where's your COMPASSION now, you stupid, stupid broad?
The 40-year-old woman managed to escape near-certain death as she made it to the pathway between two tracks. She tried to reach out to her son when the train ran over him, a witness told German media. The boy died at the scene...
The perpetrator also tried to force another person onto the railway tracks but his third would-be victim escaped. The attacker then attempted to flee the scene but was pursued by a group of passengers and eventually detained by police outside the terminal.
Sure, the reader may retort*, "But this is just one Eritrean guy. There are 10's of thousands, and none others have pushed any 8 y/o little boys in front of subway trains." Yeah, maybe not (though I'm sure they're not making Germany a better place even so). However, ZERO Germans have pushed 8 y/o boys in front of subway trains (looking at Kirkpatrick's other incidents, the perpetrators don't seem to be Germans). That's 0 vs some small percentage, but that small percentage resulted in this needless horrific murder.**
Germany's Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, cut his vacation short due to the incident and was due to address the public on Tuesday. He is set to meet Germany's top security chiefs and discuss "[s]everal serious crimes during recent time."I see that the muckety-mucks seem to be taking this seriously, but is that just because the word got out. I bet they would have like to treat this as the British authorities had for many years with the pimping of underage girls in Rotherham by Moslems. Then, the man notes that "the public have already formed a judgment of this incident". Yeah, the German public should should have started forming judgments long ago. If these ministers ever listened to said judgments to begin with, this young boy would be with his parents today.
On Monday, Seehofer pledged that the attacker would be "called to account with all means of the rule of law." However, the minister also warned against drawing premature conclusions about the Frankfurt attack, after his ministry shared that the attacker was an Eritrean citizen.
"I note that some parts of the public have already formed a judgment of this incident," he said, adding that judgement should be reserved until the background of the attack is clarified.
You never know what kind of thing it will take to get the Germans actually riled up again. If this kind of murder, along with all the other unpleasantries of life caused by massive immigration of unassimilable types from strange-ass places like Eritrea, keeps ramping up, some crazy guy with a funny mustache may present himself, to initial acclaim. Were I the Dad of this kid, I wouldn't be waiting around for any guy with a funny mustache.
* OK, not OUR readers, but some hypothetical morons that may peruse these pages.
** It's one that reminds me of the Minneapolis mall incident, which I will write about when I get up the heart.
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We've lost the Somalian President
Posted On: Thursday - August 1st 2019 5:29PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Immigration Stupidity US Feral Government
Keep this shit up, Americans, and we're gonna be a hollow shell of our former selves ... wait, that's not so bad....
Peak Stupidity has just been informed that the President of Somalia, Mr. Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, has RENOUNCED his American citizenship to
(Well, that's the way you do divorce over there.
You'd think telling the IRS to go stick it would be easier ... you'd think ...*)
Can it get any stupider?! I mean, I have plenty of stupidity to write about here, and now this comes across my
Really, a foreign president, not just of Canada as kind of a friendly gesture, like Trudeau being made a Professor Emeritus of Gender Studies or something, being ALLOWED to be a dual citizen. Which country would you think he'd be loyal to? I mean, just take a wild guess here. This is what Mr. President, Moe Farmajo, was made to swear in front of, well, probably some other foreigner who works at the CIS office a convenient nearby city to that of Mr. President Farmajo:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. [So help me, Allah, I'm gonna blow the livin' hell outta this ...." is accepted to, in Somalian and English, per new-citizen preference.]That is the Oath of Allegiance that we have millions of people a year from around the world swearing to. They wouldn't ALL lie to us, would they? Hell, just look at that "... support and defend the Constitution ..." verbiage. You can't even get 95% of Americans to agree to that, or even understand the concept.
Maybe that verbiage should be arranged a little more in line with current-era America, perhaps "... to support the people from my home and go back and defend that place on behalf of some other guy named Moe if need be ... or, just go on the offense here, 6 and a half dozen or the other thing ...".
I haven't even put a link in yet, so in addition to Steve Sailer's post I found this Yahoo one called "Somalia Leader Renounces U.S. Citizenship Amid Trump’s Rhetoric". PLEASE DON'T CLICK ON THE YAHOO LINK. I only put it in to demonstrate their ridiculousness yet again. Really, being "amid Trump rhetoric" is what made this guy renounce his citizenship. Isn't it more about keeping his money out of the grubby hands of the IRS, something for which I totally sympathize, to put it in some other foreign country in case Somalia's Shit Hits The Fan again soon?
That's just funny though. Yahoo wants its readers to be mad at Trump for running this poor guy out of the country, by God! Hahhaaa! I see that headline in a slightly different light, as giving Trump some partial credit for this man's departure. Kudos, Mr. President! Who? Why, both of you, of course!
Though I give the IRS a hard time, down below, and always, as a matter of fact, I'm still here. This Farmajo had no business ever being let in here, other than as a tourist or diplomat. From the article, by Yahoo/Bloomberg beat reporters Mohammed Omar Ahmed and David Malingha:
The renunciation comes about two weeks after President Donald Trump attacked four minority freshmen congresswomen including Somali-born Ilhan Omar, whom he asked to return to the Horn of Africa nation.Oh, verbally attacked, OK. I guess you cleared that up by including that President Trump asked them to return to the Horn of Africa nation (what, Somalia, say it. Oh, built-in geography lesson there). Yeah, but they've got to do more than return. They must renounce, renounce, renounce, till it hurts.
Buh bye, Mr. Faramajo. Don't let the screen door bust your filament on the way out."** Oh, and bring that Congresstard Omar with you and those other 3 ... hundred thousand."
Your nation sprays its tsetse flies for you.
Whoo hoo hooo!" ♪♫♬
* On this IRS thing: They really do want to get their hands on Americans' money, no matter when the last time you worked an hour in the country. People pay a coupla thousand dollars and have to do paperwork, then show up for an INTERVIEW(!!)*** just for the privilege of not having the Infernal Revenue Service hound them for the rest of their natural-born lives.
That Moslem form of divorce could be quite welcome here too for both spouses and Tax Revenue organizations.
** Man, we are really having a hard time with this. Peak Stupidity again apolgizes for the PIC remark on the light-bulb headed Somalians. Incandescent bulbs are being replaced by CFLs and LEDs the world over and are an invention from America's racist past. In the future, Peak Stupidty will endeavor with great alacrity to be enclusive of other forms of luminescence.
*** I can see that now: "Do you feel that you have been rehabilitated and are able to live outside of America on your own. Keep in mind - you will not be tracked and taxed by the IRS! This is your last chance to un-renounce."
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Trump Tweets Torque-off Baltimore Backers
Posted On: Wednesday - July 31st 2019 7:45PM MST
In Topics: Humor Trump Race/Genetics
Yep, we don't get these tweets so quickly here at Peak Stupidity. President Trump's tweets often take 5 to 7 business days to reach our headquarters, and we don't do business that many days ... Apparently this came across the wire just after publication date yesterday:
Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!
Signed -- the President of these various United States, on this July 27th in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nineteen.
The ctrl-left does have a point on this one: The President was really singling out Rep. Cummings' city of Baltimore in this tweet. All American inner cities run by black people are the most dangerous places in the United States, yes, including the Southern border, hell, including the Southern border of freakin' North Korea. It's been this way since just after the riots of the 1960's and '70's, so this should not be news. It was wrong of the President not to equally give a tweet-out to Detroit, Philadelphia, Memphis, etc, etc.
You try to fix the places up, and you are lambasted for this gentrification. Here you go, the pretty colors are already there on the exterior walls, but you can't make it nice without changing the colors of the interiors:
You've read Peak Stupidity give our President a big rash of shit on a regular basis lately for not doing anything serious to act on his campaign promises. We stand by any and all remarks in this regard. As much as he runs his mouth and two thumbs though, much of it just BS talk rather the walking of the walk, some of the stuff is very good for the country, just being said. These tweets are a good example. Some would put it as "moving the Overton Window back to the right". I see it as better than that though. The Overton Window is about what is in the mainstream as far as conversation goes. This talk by Trump about the ruin of America's cities is more like some awakening for the politically unaware. These are the people who are not interested in politics, and likely to find out too late that politics is interested in them. It'd be nice to get them aware ahead of time.
Keep mouthing off, Mr. President. A blind squirrel still finds a nut. Keep making these ctrl-left nuts nuttier by the day with this stuff!
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Those Sharks that Swim on the Land
Posted On: Tuesday - July 30th 2019 10:11PM MST
In Topics: Music Treehuggers
Let us throw a little chum out to the Parrotheads tonight. After all that talk about sharks, we'd be remiss in not including this Jimmy Buffet song off of his fun album Volcano (from 1979). Jimmy Buffet is no erudite history rocker, but he knows his sailing, and flying too. Which would be a more fun life, that of a Man of all Seasons enlightenment scientist or that of a "Son of a Son of a Sailor" like Jimmy Buffet? It's a win either way, IMO.
About the sharks now, and I'm not even going to mention those other sharks that swim on the land, with those JD degrees and ambulance-chasing BMWs. Way back, in a post called Eat Mor Shark, Peak Stupidity urged the reader to watch a movie like Jaws and get back to us about these vicious Apex predators. If you ever have the experience, and I hope you have, of being too close to a Great White, with it's 1 1/2 in. teeth in rows of hundreds, you'd probably be the first to raise your hand during the Friends of the Sea Creatures board meeting and just tell the Chapter President:
"Listen, I don't give a crap about the ecosystem, man, that shark was 2 seconds away from taking my arm off! I will be the first man to sell shark steaks, shark fin, shark eyeballs, and shark intestines at wholesale, hell, at a loss. I'll do whatever it takes to make these godless, Communist, 300 million y/o old-species bastards wish they'd never seen my face. They will be the most endangered species Friends of the Sea Creatures has ever had to raise money for, more endangered than the Dodo Freakin' Bird, man! Take my lifetime membership card and shove it up your ass! [We're gonna need a bigger blog.]That was just my interpretation of shark-induced PTSD at a meeting of the treehuggers.
Without any further weirdness, here you go, Parrotheads, I'll just throw this off the stern for y'all:
"Can't you feel 'em circlin', honey?
Can't you feel 'em schoolin' around?
Fins to the left, fins to the right,
and you're the only bait in town."
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Nat-Geo and the once great Royal Scientific Societies - Part 2
Posted On: Tuesday - July 30th 2019 9:42PM MST
In Topics: Music TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Media Stupidity Geography Science Bread and Circuses
(continued from this post)
It just so happens that it's SharkFest week on the Nat Geo channel, and being out at the relatives place, there is a TV. The thing's not on often, as we're mostly on the same page with the whole Bread & Circuses thing, but with kids, especially 8 y/o boys, well, somewhat coincidentally, I can report on SharkFest tonight. This is another intro. about TV, this time to the 2nd part of this post that WILL get to Royal Scientific Societies, I promise you, old chap!
The kids like this animal vs. animal stuff, and for us, we've got a few of the books ... more than a few ... shark vs. salt-water croc., rhino vs. elephant, spider vs. dung beetle, etc. One of them is even set up like the NCAA playoffs with single-elimination (Nature is a cruel mofo) tournaments starting with 16 animals in the bracket(?).
The "scientists" on this TV show sound like freakin' World Wide Wrastling* Federation announcers, not at all like I imagine the 1850's president of the Royal astrophysical society did, even disregarding the accent. I mean, how many times do I need to hear "this one is an apex predator in its own right"? It was said for any animal, as this makes the guys (and one token lady) sound like scientists I suppose. I guess even minnows are apex predators, if it gets the kids' attentions - how about that lizard in the car insurance commercials, apex predator or not? "Next up on Nat Geo, (geo, geo, geoooo (with a lot of reverb)), it's Geico Gecko vs. Aflac Duck in a cage match, no holds barred, fight to the death. Post-fight wrongful death lawsuits to be shown next week in SHARK FEST (Fest,... fest .... fest...)"
Oh, BTW, in that Octopus vs. Spiny Dogfish Shark match-up that I had 3 large riding on, at the end of it, one of those loud
So, yeah, I was guessing yesterday, but, the "National Geographic Channel", aka "Nat Geo" is now another animal channel. Kids, and lots of adults too, LUV LUV LUV the animals, so it was probably not a bad move. Changing the name to reflect what's on the shows - "nah, too expensive, and dammit, if the magazine's gonna suck, at least our name stands for exciting TV."
About that magazine now, again, here is a cover from an issue from a different time:
"It was a different time, you see... " Yes, truly it was. Compared to the bitch-fests of today (about our killing the planet, about too many white men in this field and that field, explaining why these people arguing with our science are not scientists) in that magazine, in the past science was in a different world. Just go find other back, and I mean BACK, issues of National Geographic and see some science and reporting from the last vestiges of the age of reason.
I don't remember much of the age of enlightenment. I wasn't there, or it's a hazy blur, but I do remember my reading of proper scientific publications back in the day that, themselves, often pointed back to that golden age. I think of the Royal Society of Astronomy, and others for Physics (eventually branching out, I'm sure) and a Royal Geographical Society of some sort. Sure, geography is not a science, but there was science involved, as the reader may want to read about in "Eclipses and the Galilean Moons of Jupiter in the Age of Exploration" - Part 1 and Part 2. Even without the science, Geography was a great part of this age of not only reason, but discovery.
See, these societies were composed of truly educated men who really sought the truth, most of who would put their lives on the line for science and discovery. On the science side, there were men theorizing and proving (or trying to prove **) basic physical principles. Nowadays, there are loads of little inventions and apps coming around every day, but the real thinking behind them is minuscule in comparison to what the men of science did during the enlightenment. After some serious thought, some glasswork, some cork, a piece of steel, a thermometer (the simplest of things, but the best available) could be used to discover an important physical law - in an afternoon of solid fun!
The adventure of it was things like: astronomers sailing in uncertain conditions to the Southern Hemisphere just to observe new nebula, or to use the position to make discoveries based on parallax, botanists sailing around the world to the Galapagos Islands to study the turtles, OK tortugas, archaeologists riding camels across Egypt to get to some never-before-seen-by-folks-who-give-a-shit caves with bones of who knows till we get the stuff back to the lab, and chemists blowing up things in the lab to understand exothermic reactions, or really just for the sheer fun of it.
For the geographers, there was a whole world to explore and report on. Expeditions were sent to the north and south poles. People went into the high mountains of the Andes and Himalayas, not to be just the 1st transgendered climber to bag a 20,000 ft. peak on a Tuesday, without oxygen, but to find out what even WERE the highest mountains. Groups went to observe the Bushmen of the Kalahari, with that, albeit small, risk of going native.
Now all the educated and adventurous men would, if they had made it back alive, come to London and give exciting and enlightening reports back to their Societies. The audience could ask questions of all sorts and admire and be inspired by these Men of Reason. Then, the information learned could be disseminated via the Journals of these Societies to others around Europe, American and whatever other tiny pieces of enlightened world existed yet.
As a slight aside, in those old days, one didn't even have to stick to a very specific field, like the Anthropologist who only studies those Bushmen, or the Astronomer who specializes in variable stars, or the Chemist who studies certain polymers, as is the case today. In that age, from the 1500's to 1900 or so, one could dabble, and even be an expert in, almost every new thing becoming known to man. Leonardo Da Vinci was even a great artist, yet did his human biology and physics too. One could truly be a "Man for all Seasons". Basically, it was one hell of a time to be a scientist, anyway!
Back to the journals of the days of enlightenment, Scientific American, going back to its beginnings 130 years ago, was the American version, being published by this august organization, the National Geographic Society. American were already playing a big part in the age of science and discovery by the 1880's. The point of the organization was not to sell magazines. It was about the world of discovery. These were the eminent men sending explorations to the poles, to high mountains, to deepest China and Africa, and having them come back to regale the folks in Washington with their findings. The journal may have started out being just for other scientists, but as a magazine, with the best (later on) color glossy photos and stories of places never seen by Western man, National Geographic magazine brought the age of discovery to the common man. Then, around the mid 1980's, it went PC and, well, end of story. Well, we still got our SharkFest*** for the next 3 weeks on Nat Geo, so there's that, right? The Age of Reason is well behind us now.
"So what if you reached the age of reason,
only to find there was no reprieve?
Would you still be a man for all seasons?
Or would you just disbelieve?"
I guess it is History Rock week here at Peak Stupidity, and to do this right, you're gonna need pretty much all Al Stewart, 24/7. As I wrote yesterday, the Time Passages album had a lot of great songs, and this is one of them.
* Spoiler alert: That shit's fake!
** The theory of the substance of phlogiston comes to mind. I want to write a post on it, as many just disparage as stupidity this theory, but it was the best and most ingenious theory at the time. Back Bunsen burner for this one ...
*** but I'm not putting any more of my money down on any invertebrates, I tells ya'!
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The Treaty of Versailles - signed a century ago ...
Posted On: Monday - July 29th 2019 7:15PM MST
In Topics: Music History World Political Stupidity
... plus one month and one day. (Hey we're tryin' ta keep up, I swear! It was this post by "Audacious Epigone", with some discussion below, that even reminded me of this anniversary.)
(pronounced "ver-sales", if you're in the vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky):
The armistice made that stopped the bloodshed of the "War to End All Wars" (also called just "The Great War" until WWII) was over 6 months earlier, as remembered and memorialized as The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.... Negotiations on the treaty have been going on that long. As the treaty was signed, it happened to be 5 years since the shooting of an Archduke in Sarajevo, Serbia, one Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, one of three great empires (also the Ottoman - Moslems, and the Russian - due to the Commies).
Though the Americans had only fought during the last 1 1/2 years of the war, this help made the difference as the Germans had made a big offensive since the Russians had quit fighting the eastern front 8 months before the armistice. President Wilson, Mr. PhD know-it-all, having been already responsible for a lot of American domestic destruction, tried his hand at rearranging the people and borders of the world there at Versailles.
It had truly been a World War, and countries and (many now-former) colonies all over the world wanted to get their due share, in their leaders' views at least, of the spoils. Just as an example, a man named Ho Chi Min - you may have heard of him since - came to Versailles (he'd been living in France most of his life anyway) to petition Mr. Wilson for the treaty to include and ending to the French rule of what was called French IndoChina at that time, later on Vietnam.* He was able to get a letter to someone, but Mr. Wilson basically blew him off. Truly, as per history-rocker Al Stewart, at this time, "the colours of the maps were running".**
I'm no historian, and there is no room to have a discussion on some of the ifs of WWI, whether the Germans had been ready much earlier in The Great War to work out a treaty with the Allies, why the US had gotten, or "been gotten" involved, etc. The point most history of this Treaty of Versailles will include is that the Germans were just plain boxed into an economic corner with the terms of this treaty. Was it all Woodrow Wilson's fault, with his 14 points? (Sound a little familiar with GHW Bush's "1,000 Points of Light"?) The other allies had something to do with it, but it was Mr. Wilson's show there in Versailles. He brought up the "spreading of Democracy" bit too, which also is very, very familiar, 100 years later. Economic reparations were set up that were odious for the Germans - "reparations", now that's a word you don't hear a lot ...
There are plenty of "ifs" in history, but IF the German people had not been boxed into an impossible economic situation, which resulted in the incredible inflation of the early '20's, Adolf Hitler would have probably not come to power***, or at least to that high a level. World War II would probably not have happened.
Just as an aside, and as a reason for some Al Stewart history rock, as the Germans were going through their terrible times in the early 1920's, the Americans were having a ball. It really helped that we had a string of Presidents that were still leaving the people the fuck alone. One was Mr. Warren G. Harding:
"Warren Gameliel Harding
Alone in the White House, watching the sun
come up on the morning of 1921.
I just want someone to talk to,
to talk to,
to talk to."
That was from Stewart's 1974 album Past, Present, & Future.
Al Stewart wrote a song about the Palace of Versailles shown at the top too, even, but it was about the French Revolution, 1.3 centuries prior to the signing of the treaty one century ago now. From the upbeat calypso beat of the tune above, we come to a brooding balled. It's not by any means my favorite off of the 1978 album Time Passages, so we'll post some more tunes from it soon.
* Ho Chi Min was no Communist by any means at the time of his petition to meet with the American President 100 years back. Communism just seemed to be his best road forward to work out a way to get Vietnam independent, much later on, as the Japs came, and then the French came back.
** I gotta use the British misspelling there, in respect for my favorite (and only) history rocker, Mr. Stewart.
*** He may have still come to power as an anti-Communist, as Communism was ready to take over the place, but was that only because the economy was so terrible that many felt Communism might be the answer? Even with the Commies, but with no terrible economy and resentment of the reparations, it's doubtful the German people would have supported this madman to that high a position. (Of course, here in America, our madmen have made some decent inroads lately ...)
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Nat-Geo and the once great Royal Scientific Societies - Part 1
Posted On: Monday - July 29th 2019 12:11PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Global Climate Stupidity Globalists Media Stupidity Geography
In a short post, back near our blogogins (blog origins, that is), Peak Stupidity discussed the downfall of the once great National Geographic magazine. "National Geographic, no more girly pics of the natives ...." was just about the magazine, but it's the loss of the whole concept of the great "Societies" of Astronomers, Physicists, and, yes, Geographers too, that I'll about in the 2nd part.
"Nat Geo" is the modern, shortened (in the vein of JLo and AMLO) name for the TV channel of the National Geographic brand, as in, I'm guessing, a better way to make money than with the old glossy magazine. Who knows whether there is anything about geography on that channel anymore? We've mentioned a number of times in posts with the TV, aka Gov't Media Topic Key(see "The TV Mythbusters vs. Science & Engineering" and "Women of the Weather Channel") that TV channels over the last 2 decades have been just "platforms" for various formats or themes that they can morph between without ever changing the channel/network names - cheaper this way, I guess. Last I recall, Nat Geo was about animals, and everyone LUVS animals. They also sells kid's education books/toys, so maybe they really don't care about the magazine anymore.
Let's talk about the magazine though, as a new article I read brought back my thoughts on National Geographic. VDare writer Lance Welton in his article What Makes NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’s Race-Denying Editor Susan Goldberg Run?*, explained that the background of that previous-5-years' editor is the problem. Without any argument with Mr. Welton, I don't really care about this Susan Goldberg's ethnicity and background - the magazine has been a piece of ctrl-lefty crap for at least 20 years now. She's apparently made it even worse, though.
The pro-immigration and Globalist views of this purported geography magazine are what the VDare article rails against. After all, if all nations (except the non-white ones that are A-OK to keep anyone they want out) are to be of mixed peoples from around the globe, why would we need this magazine? The kind of real diversity that one could look forward to seeing in beautiful color pictures and reading about, in far away corners of the world won't exist anymore if Globalists have their way. By becoming "diverse" all nations will become the same - "Welcome to Brazil, sector IIIa".
Peak Stupidity's beef, in the past, with this formerly great publication has been more about their incessant agenda of
May as well spend that savings to go see the turtles,
excuse me, tortoises, before we're all gone.
This is just a shame for the young people. Maybe they couldn't give a dang about an exciting glossy magazine coming every month - man, what an ancient concept! In the past though, National Geographic, with its excellent photography and writers who went where most people would never get to go, was a beautiful window to the world. That world had an actual DIVERSITY of people, economies, animals, and other things. Now, the magazine is pushing for the modern definition of diversity, which pretty much means destroy and traditional-white-run places. As the first cover above shows, National Geographic celebrates the same, bleak, lame-ass Globo-Homo culture being spread the world over. Why would I want to go anywhere now?
The next post on this will get into the old Royal Societies and such, and what a great age of discovery it was.
* It's on the Unz site for comments here
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Paying it forward
Posted On: Saturday - July 27th 2019 9:33PM MST
In Topics: Americans Bible/Religion
(Kids at the ball park - just a file photo.)
Now, after the previous generally-depressing post about the future of stupidity, or the stupidity of the future, I'll end the week with something greatly more up-beat.
The Peak Stupidity staff are not poor, or even close. We're doing fine for now. At the baseball game tonight, though, a really nice guy just came up to give us tickets as we were about to buy our own. I figured he just had extras to sell for whatever he could get, as the game had started a while back. "How much do you want for them?" "No, take 'em." He just didn't seem like a scammer, and you don't get much of that here. "Well, let me give you something ..." Nope.
The man not only was giving the tickets away just to be nice, but they were extra-special seats, and later he made sure to get us the refreshments on the house ... whatever we wanted. (No, he wouldn't take a refusal on that either.)
"I like to give the kids a treat." he told me, or something to that effect. This was just a genuinely kind-hearted, giving individual. It made me realize that I don't do enough of this sort of thing. Just ragging on all the stupid BS that happens (more and more frequently, or it'd just be a part of life and no reason for a blog) brings out a real distaste for people. This man brought a taste back.
Possibly living only in this way is ignoring the good work in trying to stop, even if only by writing about it for now, the nasty stuff of near-future America. "It's all good" till it's not. Yeah, but you can at least do random goodness for people that are on your side, and maybe doing a few nice things for people on the other side could swing them around ???
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If you're not doing anything wrong ...
Posted On: Saturday - July 27th 2019 9:15PM MST
In Topics: Orwellian Stupidity Female Stupidity iEspionage
... you've got
Someone close to me was shopping for a new "phone" today. Yeah, "phone" is in quotes now, because a powerful computer with built-in accurate motion and position sensors, still and video cameras, area microphones and speakers, and methods to transmit information from all these devices to anywhere in the world in seconds, is, well, no longer anything resembling a telephone. The iEspionage Topic Key is one that Peak Stupidity has promised to spend more time on, and this post will be a quick introduction. (Orwellian Stupidity overlaps this a lot, but is a more broad topic.)
These thing are expensive, at least the newest available, and it wasn't like this customer I know really knows all the bells & whistles to need the newest stuff. "These ones are just the best spying devices" is what I said. "I don't care. I don't' steal. I don't deal drugs. I don't ..." something else, "why should I care if anyone spies on me." That was the response. That's what you'd have gotten from lots of people well before any of the electronic iEspionage too, of course.
Maybe 100 years back, as people were told that the US Feral Gov't needed to know where they worked, for reasons involving the new income tax, some said "That's a real invasion of privacey." Someone else said "If you're not working at any criminal operation, you've got nothing to worry about" back. How about when the Social Security
Back to the personal electronic
You've got cameras on both sides. Is that really necessary? Well, sure, you can take selfies. Wow, how convenient! You've got a microphone that can catch sound from around the area, nicely up to 5 ft. away. You need that for the speakerphone function of course, right? How convenient! Sure, I do think seriously that these "features" (DON'T SAY "BUGS") are demanded by customers. There are the customers, maybe a majority of Americans that will be the ones to tell you "if you've got nothing to hide ..."
Yeah, you live a clean life, huh? It's just possible that things that are legal now, won't be so in the near future. ("Oh, but retroactive laws are illegal" - hahhaa! Yeah, that old Constitution ... it USED TO mean something. Now, not so much ....) Have you not done anything embarrassing, even? I don't mean something you can be arrested for, but ... you know that camera sticks out of your pocket while you're sitting on the john, don't you? It's sticking out of your pocket wherever you go. Oh, you're really careful - I! GET! THAT! Whatever is filmed by "accident", again, one can't be arrested for em-bare-ass-ing stuff. Butt of course not, butt then, if whoever has that "data", so to speak, wants so stop you from doing something else that is also perfectly legal, such as speaking out about injustice and shit, well, it'd be a shame if that em-bare-ass-ing stuff went viral.
Wait, I thought you had nothing to worry about? Oh, and another thing - what about the microphone? All this information stored on what you do can be used to make you stay in line, politically speaking. It makes one a virtual slave. This is yet another reason women, such as the phone customer, for example, shouldn't be in politics and shouldn't be allowed to vote.
In the next post on this subject, I'll get into these nice features (not BUGS, but they sure can be used as 'em), and whether it's possible to impede of defeat them, without throwing your piece of iEspionage in the pond. In the meantime, is there nothing to worry about
* Part 2 on this intentional Socialism/unintentional(?) Ponzi scheme.
** or NOT.
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Latino Littering vs. the old American Ingenuity
Posted On: Thursday - July 25th 2019 7:14PM MST
In Topics: Humor Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity ctrl-left
Steve Sailer has been on a tear lately* about the Latino Littering - OK, Chicano, wait, Hispanic - no, Latino it is, as this is all about alliteration. (C'mon bloggers, whaddya' need a refresher course? It's ALL alliteration nowadays!) It's not just the littering itself he notes, but the ctrl-left's cognitive dissonance about it. They just do not want to admit something that is right in front of their
It becomes very difficult for people to hold one opinion, that these model immigrants are as good as, or most likely better, than Americans, yet see that it is just not so in many aspects. Americans, for the most part, got over our littering phase in the 1970's, quite a bit after Lady Bird Johnson's "litterbug" campaign (one of the least annoying of the un-elected-first-lady programs). We all were pretty broken up by that crying Indian by the roadside on TV.** This was very timely, as America still had only 200 million people back then, so things were not so trashed to begin with, and there was a smaller and more united population to educate. The ctrl-left, with this great cognitive dissonance in their heads, get very perturbed when anything in the actual world is brought up, so they naturally lash out with lots of TWEETS. That's what the Sailer articles (linked-to below) are about.
Anyway, it was a VDare letter that I read yesterday, A Talk Radio Listener Shares His Eyewitness Account Of Latino Littering In Mexico AND The US, that got me thinking of some funny stuff related to littering during the old America.
See, this friend of mine's family had a 20 ft Bayliner boat, good enough to go out on the lake with. When they used it, they could tow it with a number of their large American cars that lots of us had 30 years ago, if they ran, that is. This Malibu or Chevelle of my friend's was hooked up to the boat trailer last. It kinda had to be, as the trailer hitch had the usual padlock through the mechanism, and unfortunately the key to said padlock was long gone.
Therefore, my friend he would simply drive around town with the boat in tow, whether anyone wanted to go out on the lake or not and no matter what time of year. Sure, your mileage is gonna suffer, but gas was at a relative low then. At this time, it hadn't been that long since that cryin' Indian got us all choked up, and this guy was not around to see him anyway, so there was still a decent amount of littering "going on".
But, then, you've got the boat. It's right back there. The beauty of this situation is that one could simply toss beer cans or food wrappers back there into the boat! It was a roving dumpster that needed to be emptied out infrequently, perhaps when one wanted to go to the lake.
One more story is that this same guy, on one of his long road trips x-country, spilled some hot coffee out the window of his pick-up. He must not have been checking his mirrors as a bunch of coffee made it onto the windshield the highway patrolman on his tail! Though the officer was not pleased, a liquid is not litter, am I right? "Tell that to the magistrate."
* See Why Does Mentioning Latino Littering Trigger Liberals Into Rage? and Liberals War On Noticing Latino Littering.
** Really, as Peak Stupidity discussed in Are American Indians Slobs - based on one very good datapoint of personal experience, BTW - it was easy for Mother Earth to clean up after (in the neighborhood of) 5 million Indians on the vast North American continent. Perhaps more Americans could have been convinced to quit throwing coke cans and Big Mac wrappers out the window if we'd have had a more realistic example of a perturbed guy on TV. It should have been a white man in an orange jumpsuit, having to hang out with a dozen punks from the county lock-up by the shoulder over the Interstate due to his getting that 4th DUI.
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Mencius Moldbug and "Unqualified Reservations"
Posted On: Tuesday - July 23rd 2019 9:04PM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits alt-right/MAGA
In our post yesterday that linked to two sources of the idea of American society as a new type of hierarchy, one of the source was one Mencius Moldbug. He is fairly well-known, at least on some corners of the internet. Per wiki, which shouldn't be trusted but so far on anything regarding a political pundit, such as this guy, Mr. Yarwin is known to have been read by Steve Bannon, formerly of the Trump administration. Good on Mr. Bannon, as Mr. Yarwin is a great writer (a computer guy by trade) with some amazing ideas, not all of which I will end up agreeing with, though, from first glance.
My first glance was initially just to see what the large article I linked to yesterday was really a part of. Well, my apologies on any disparagement of long-windedness by Mr. Moldbug (I'll use the pseudonym from here on, at least regarding his writings) in my footnote, as what I linked to was a web-book, not an article. A GENTLE INTRODUCTION TO UNQUALIFIED RESERVATIONS is a book-length explanation of Mr. Moldbug's website, Unqualified Reservations. Mencius Moldbug quit his writing on "Unqualified Reservations" in the over 5 years ago (with a short goodbye in '16). He had started writing in '07, and there is much there to be read, possibly months of reading, I'd guess. Then there are 10 or so web-books of his for sale on amazon, but I don't know if they are just compilations of his long essays.
Was Curtis Yarwin doxxed as Mencius Moldbug during 2016 as it was found out that Mr. Bannon read him? I really tried to find something on this, but this sounds too political to even get the answer on duckduckgo (so far, nothing)? I thought maybe he'd quit in '14 knowing he would get political in the real world in the near future. This paragraph is speculation, so I'd appreciate a comment (please type in PS at the beginning, per instructions) if any reader knows anything more than I do.
Anyway, Moldbug's "Unqualified Reservations" is something I can read in any copious spare time I end up with. No matter if it gets a bit weird, as I see coming, it's very entertaining.
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Snowflakes come in infinite shapes and sizes
Posted On: Tuesday - July 23rd 2019 8:28PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes Race/Genetics
While up in the formerly great white North again, I had a conversation with a very nice employee on a number of occasions. It turns out we knew some places in common, and we exchanged numbers for possible contact later on. I was trying to set the guy up with some help in his hobby and knew just the guy, who lived coincidentally very close to this guy's 2nd home.
He was not at all what one would think as a fragile snowflake, as per our Student and Other Snowflakes (yeah, it got expanded) Topic Key. A big guy who lives part-time in that 2nd home up in the severe cold, he must see a lot of snowflakes, but how could he be one?
It was just a matter of the end of a conversation we had when I was leaving. A local story was in the news of a young lady getting abducted and killed by a black man (arrested soon after). I knew something of it and mentioned that the young girls ought to be taught more about where they shouldn't hang out at night at late hours. It was particularly a very naive move by, not just the murdered young lady, but afterwards by her friends, whose memorial to her showed that they sure had not learned a damn thing. It's a matter of race and stereotypes that are true. Do you want to be racist and alive, or purposefully naive and dead? That's the question.
Well, where this guy lives up north is becoming not so pure-white anymore. I mentioned that this type of happening would be something to think about for people in his area now. Oh, no, he did not want to say another word. Was it that he really doesn't believe anything will change? I can't be sure, but I don't really think so. This big snowflake didn't have the guts that it takes to speak a bit of truth, even just between the two of us, and, after all, I brought up the subject. If you can't even speak some truth, even between two acquaintances in private, well, then you are a delicate snowflake, if only on the inside. America doesn't need any more of this. Snowflakes will melt along with the rest of the country.
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The 500 MAGA hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Posted On: Monday - July 22nd 2019 4:09PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Political Correctness Pundits Race/Genetics
One of Steve Sailer's posts the other day featured an interesting thought from one of his commenters that Mr. Sailer featured in his post The New Hierarchy of Innate Privilege. To give credit where it's due, mostly likely independently, one of the commenters also mentioned this article by the pundit Mencious Moldbug*, the very last part of which very entertainingly presents the same thought, about 10 years back.
The general reference in Mr. Sailer's commenters writing comes from the latest peak-of-stupidity blast of infotainment about one Georgia State Representatard Erica Thomas. Not in her position as an esteemed member of the Georgia house, but as a Publix grocery shopper, she created this "news" blast due to being disrespected by a man at the store who deemed to talk to her about her having hauled way more than 10 items through the express check-out lane. (Hey, this isn't a big Peak Stupidity peeve, but from the XXX posts with the Curmudgeonry Topic Key, the reader can see we've got lots of our own originals!)
There were tweets and rumors of tweets ... and then retractions when the lady thought that the man in question** could prove what had really been said from store security camera footage. (Nope, he couldn't but how's a Representatard to know?) People gave press conferences in which they postured, backed-off, and tried to defend themselves.
The idea in that comment and Moldbug's article is that that America has lately become a hierarchical society, such as those of Middle Ages Europe. It's not the warrior class that's on top nowadays, but the non-whites of all sorts, the unusually-gendered, and the immigrants from the 3rd world. The regular American whites are the commoners and should be treated as such, per this new hierarchy.
As often was the case in the days of old when a member of the nobility could have numerous titles, this Erica Thomas holds a couple of spots in the hierarchy simultaneously. She is both A Person of the Sum of All Subtractive Colors and, being in the Georgia House, The Baroness of Lower Cobb County. Holding these two prestigious titles SHOULD give her more respect, and the fact that a commoner would dare to question her use of the 10-items-or-less line at Publix is an example of how our society is just going straight to hell.
What this incident reminds me of is that Brazilian woman grabbing a Boston man's MAGA hat story from early this year as compared to an old Dr. Seuss tale, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins***.
That is America of the current era. Read that early-'19 post if you don't recall the incident. A (actual) Boston man was simply eating his breakfast out, when a Brazilian immigrant broad decided that his MAGA hat should not be worn in front of her. She's apparently part of the new nobility, and commoners should know better. Of course, he'd sure better not slug her or even talk back, or others in the nobility will start proceedings to remove him from his job, career, and maybe, indirectly, his family. You've got to know your place.
One could have nightmares about it - you're surrounded by the black, brown, antifa, and immigrant nobility, but you forgot to leave your MAGA ball cap at home. As the crowd closes in, you take the hat off, but there's another one under it. This crazy shit keeps going as you are running around the Publix store scattering those red MAGA caps all over the produce section like Bartholomew Cubbins. "Off with his job and career!" Alas, that's the life of a commoner.
* Go waaaay down to the bottom - there are multiple subjects in his article linked-to here. A friend has told me of reading articles by Mr. "Moldbug" before. He is apparently pretty long-winded, but if that entertaining article is any indication, I wouldn't mind that at all! He's a very good writer.
** Mr. Eric Sparks, the commoner who dared speak to noblewoman Erica Douglas, defended himself by telling us he'd voted "D" (Blue-squad) his whole life, and that he's no racist, he's Cuban. Ooookay then, at least this incident had some "news you can use". If I ever get called that evil, evil word, I now have it memorized: "I'm not racist, I'm Cuban!"
*** BTW, for a Dr. Suess book, this one is a bit too adult for a 6 y/o who can read it. I have memories of long ago thinking of that poor boy running about trying to fix things so that he won't be beheaded.
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Peak America - 1/2 Century Ago Today
Posted On: Saturday - July 20th 2019 10:14PM MST
In Topics: History Americans Science
That's a pretty well-defined peak, July 20th of AD 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first human beings to set foot on another world. That there were only 10 more to follow, and we don't have cities in space, the Moon, or Mars right now are the sad thing. That shows that America has been on the decline for a long time.
It's true that the radical cultural changes of the 1960's had already been going on for 4-5 years, the immigration disaster from the 1965 act was in progress, and the welfare state had already been set up. However, as Peak Stupidity discussed* regarding Adam Smith's words in terms of economics, "there is a lot of ruin in a nation." 1969 could still be the peak, as the momentum of the can-do WWII generation and US economic might took a while to slow, and the rot that was started in the political realm hadn't taken near full effect yet.
I'd have to say that even through the 1970's, and then the optimistic Reagan era of the '80's, and through the dot-com times, I had not yet noticed that the country was in a decline**, and it's really only been until 15 years ago. Of course, some of that is just due to growing up during this slow decline and therefore seeing it as normal, but even as a noticer, well, I hadn't noticed. The acceleration of the decline of America is pretty hard NOT to notice, at this point.
A half century ago, more time than had passed on that day since the Wright Brothers first flew in powered controlled flight, all the engineering needed to design and build that 360 ft. high rocket, with just the command module and lunar lander left, had worked as planned to get these 2 men onto the surface of another world. That America was a can-do country was proven to the world in a feat that was applauded around the world. It was indeed a giant step for all mankind.
I've been giving most of the credit to the 100's of thousands of engineers and technicians that built this amazing technology to allow a voyage like that to be possible, lately, in my mind, at least. Those brave pilot/engineer/astronauts deserve a lot too though. Unlike with the also-brave explorers of this world, on land and sea, who needed determination and toughness, these explorers of the since-aborted space age also required real smarts. That engineering knowledge needed to understand the systems of these spacecraft enough to have any chance of "walking away" from a real problem during a mission required smart, educated men, and this was borne out during the Apollo 13 mission.
We really need to keep this awesome American technical feat in our minds. Don't let what's left of this day pass without thinking about what America was on July 20th, 1969.
Look up at that moon sometime that man throughout history, up until a measly 1/2 century ago, could just stare at as something impossible to reach, even after we knew what it was. Imagine those American men walking on that other world, talking to us on the radio from that Sea of Tranquillity. It was just 12 of them over that brief 3 year spell. Is that going to end up being the peak of not just America, but humankind?
* See Part 2 and Part 3.
** A review of Strauss & Howe's Generations and Fourth Turning books is really in order soon. That's been on the back burning since this blog started.
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Down with Yoga Pants!
Posted On: Saturday - July 20th 2019 10:04AM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Female Stupidity
When you can do moves like this, you've earned the pants.
I may be fairly prolific with the Peak Stupidity posts, but damn if I don't get some things for years sometimes. A frequent commenter on the ZeroHedge site back in the day when I read it obsessively used the handle "Down with Yoga Pants", with a small avatar of the rear end of a yoga-pants wearing lady of some sort. I swear it took me about 2 years to get this joke! Now that I've explained here, it ought to be quicker for the reader.
It's been, what, 10 or 15 years now, since yoga pants have been worn regularly by people in all walks, runs, and waddles of life? It's not always a good look, the wearing of these skin-tight pants. In fact, it's not a good look 95% of the time, in my estimation, but your mileage may vary based on location, gross weight, and surface conditions. The question I've got is how and why did the firm, svelte, and trim yoga instructors let these pants get out into the world at large (pun not-intended, but serendipitous nonetheless)? It's those 95% non-yoga-instructors that have ruined the reputation of this formerly-hot outer/inner wear.
The other should not be wearing them for long.
Face it, women, it'd be great if you were all in firm shape to where these pants would be delightful to look at. That's a pipe dream though, and, even though the women in the movies or on TV wear these (I wouldn't know), it doesn't mean it's right. If those same women jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge (in yoga pants), does that mean you should? We've been over this sort of thing when you were in kindergarten. No, there are other types of pants - I'll get to that in a bit.
It's not just that, without a pretty hot body, the imperfect curves can be seen. It gets a lot worse though, to the point in which these pants are so tight, and contain so much biomass, that one little cut, just like a sliver of glass into the tire of a Tour-de-France cyclist with 100 psi in the tires, will cause massive failure and injury to all concerned.
I realize that yoga instructors aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed, but shouldn't the yoga community, as it were, uhh, police themselves regarding this proprietary clothing? I mean, police themselves in a nice soothing way, of course - "... hey, quit resisting, just hand over the pants... watch your ass getting into squad car" [uses one hand to protect her ass on the way in]. Yoga pants should be EARNED, not just bought at Old Navy - just as one can't go out and buy a Tae Kwon Do black belt with 3 red stripes.
The Yoga Community should decide on some rules at their yoga conferences, possibly with Yoda as a titular leader, sitting in their yurt, doing yoga and eating yogurt, with Yo-Yo Ma music in the background. "First Rule of
Now, back in my day, the women wore jeans of various levels of tightness. This gave everyone a chance to look decent.
The one-hit-wonder above's name is David Dundas, and I had no idea he was British until listening to this song after, oh, about 40-odd years. This cheerful song, with that great electric piano is Jeans On, and it was a minor it in 1976.
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It will come to blood.
Posted On: Friday - July 19th 2019 8:35PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Race/Genetics ctrl-left
Peter Brimelow, chief of VDare.com, has said this a number of times, going back years, about the trouble coming due to the extreme immigration stupidity that America has been operating under for 5 decades now. Just after the Donald Trump Presidential inauguration in '17, which Mr. Brimelow attended (as his first inauguration since ole Ronnie in 1981), he wrote "It Will Come To Blood"—Reflections On The Left's Anti-Trump Inauguration Tantrum. In that article he described the tremendous amount of police-state security designed to keep the ctrl-left under some semblance of control.
Things have not got any calmer since then, the ctrl-left has only pushed harder against a guy (Trump) who is not anything close to the able, conservative, can-do executive that patriotic conservative Americans expected, and these conservative Americans are getting more and more frustrated with both Trump and the out-of-ctrl-left. "There's battle lines being drawn" is what Peak Stupidity has been saying, from a line in an old Buffalo Springfield song of a different era of troubles. ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6)
Our enemy in what the alt-right and conservatives have been calling the Cold Civil War has started to draw blood now. They are extremely confident. They have every right to be, if American conservatives keep playing whiffle ball as the ctrl plays hard ball.
Just yesterday, James Kirkpatrick of VDare wrote an article that really sums up what is going on, called Generic American Party Vs. Great Replacement Party: Now An Irrepressible Conflict—With Or Without Trump. All I have to say for the rest of today is please, READ! THIS! ARTICLE!.
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On the Boardwalk
Posted On: Friday - July 19th 2019 7:03PM MST
In Topics: Treehuggers Global Climate Stupidity Environmental Stupidity
We've let the Global Climate Stupidity topic fall by the wayside lately here at Peak Stupidity, as our focus has been on different flavors. We are trying to multitask here, but, damn ... things are ... getting too .... stupid ... Scotty do you have my ... coordinates .... aaaarghhh ... it's not rocket science, Scotty ... beam me up ....
I would think that the issue would have heated up since the summer solstice or even earlier, and we usually read less about Global Climate DisruptionTM, as the issue cools down in the fall. (The reverse is unexpectedly observed in the Southern Hemisphere, maybe because it's in Spanish and Portuguese and the Coriolis effect and all ...?)
Anyway, this post is not specifically about this sensitive topic either, but just the same refusal to open one's mind to look outside the current narrative by scientists often just as much as the rest of us. This one is about a trip a few years ago that I made with some scientists. They were marine biologists and, seeing as I always wanted to pretend I was a marine biologist, and, more importantly, I really like the beach, I went along. No, biology is not a hard science like Physics and Chemistry. There isn't the seriously hard math involved, but they do study the natural world and do experiments so, yeah, it's science. I knew 2 out of the 3 guys, and they were good people.
Since these people were basically my customers, in a sense, I did not really want to get into arguments over, let's say, their Global Climate DisruptionTM worries. Therefore, I think I just made one remark, when they brought it up, to make sure they knew I was not onboard and may want to stifle the rhetoric a bit.
We walked out to the beach on a low boardwalk. It was just a set of those foot-off-the-ground walks to keep one's feet out of the hot sand and possibly keep out of the sand spurs, which suck just as much as the polar ice caps. These were new boardwalks made out of those recycled plastic planks. I like the idea of re-using stuff, as we move toward sustainable stupidity. Really, those are a great idea, provided one thing though - they don't degrade like mofo's in the direct sunlight. This was at the beach, as I may have already written, so there were no trees around, and the 75 degrees-in-altitude* sun beat fiercely upon these "green" planks on the boardwalk.
Plastic does not like sunlight, especially certain types, and more so when unpainted. How long will those planks last before they start breaking into little pieces of litter into the otherwise pristine beach ecosystem? Yes, the wood planks have problems too. It's the splinters first. Then, as some top portions splinter off, the resulting pits accumulate water, causing quicker rotting rates, and so on. However, as they rot out, all that goes into the environment is simply organic matter - ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nobody can argue against organic matter. The plastic is not so benign, once it does break apart. The next thing you know they'll be a big push for mitigation of the sand all over the place to get the plastic out. Can we do some thinking ahead? It's one thing to use this stuff for playgrounds and park benches that are in more shade, but at the beach?
Hey, I do get that these new, "green" planks may be more workable in the short term. Maybe they can be replaced before they disintegrate much, but then the same could be said for wood, and that obviously costs more than waiting until your feet punch though into the sand. Maybe the plastic will last longer, but when I brought up this aspect of these green plastic boards, I didn't get much thinking out of these scientists - Green is Good, mmmkaaay?
*You can't pin down my location by that one bit, doxers! After all, without knowing longitude (Part 2), you ain't got squat. Plus, I didn't say whether the sun was high in the south or north, so you don't even know which hemisphere I was hanging out in. Screw you - learn some geography bitches!
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Price Gouging - Peak Stupidity is FOR IT.
Posted On: Thursday - July 18th 2019 5:38PM MST
In Topics: Preppers and Prepping Economics Liberty/Libertarianism
Last week, in the comments in reply to one Bill H. of Anytown, USA, I mentioned that I would write a short post in support of the practice of price gouging during the aftermath of disasters and such. Of course, I don't mean I support scams of any sort, so I'm just referring to the honest, blatant, jacking-up-to-the-sky of prices when supplies get scarce.
This is just a pure Libertarian-oriented post, so if that's not your thing, wait a day for a return to other topics.
Maybe after the last hurricane, flood, earthquake, or whatever kind of natural disaster seen on TV, the National Guard brought in supplies, including pallets of bottled water, as shown above. Good on 'em - that's the Governor's job. However, when disasters go big-scale, such as what the real "preppers" are preparing for, there won't be that helping hand, available for everyone.
Things can get bad quickly in this world of Just-In-Time and intertwined computer and internet-based logistics systems that make the modern world run, sort of. When the water doesn't run, the toilets don't flush, and the electricity is off, things will become miserable enough even for a prepper after a while. For the rest, they may have notice with alarm that the stores were emptied of bottled water and, well, everything else, either before the disaster even got started, or within a few hours after. We live on the thin edge, people, and the grocery store shelves are only bountiful when the world is running smoothly.
Now, 3 days later, a truck pulls up selling water at 50 bucks a case of 24. (Well, you know how Peak Stupidity feels about bottled water, but that's another story.) "Fifty bucks! What a meanie!" "These people are evil" - that's the narrative today. However, at the normal price, would it really be worth if for them to truck this water from 2 states away? Not even close. "Well, they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts." Hey some do. These aren't the ones. "Oh, then, at least sell if for something to pay for the trip, and that's all." How would that motivate these guys to load up and truck this water from 2 states away?
No, they have every right to make some money, as much as they want, in fact, off of your misfortune. That's supply and demand, not Kumbaya at the Rainbow Gathering. The opportunity to price gouge may be the only thing bringing in this truck with its bottled water for your continued existence. Another good effect would be that paying that 50 bucks a case will be something you remember very well, before the next time around. Maybe you should have kept a dozen cases on hand. It's not like water has a short shelf-life. How hard is it to do that?
I suppose, for some people things like that and, well, life in general, is hard. As the man in the Western (apparently never) said, it's even harder when you're stupid.
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