A Peak Stupidity Belated HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY
Posted On: Tuesday - October 9th 2018 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Music Political Correctness History Educational Stupidity Holiday from Stupidity
... and if the public schools weren't too kowtowed and PC to teach the kids any small tidbit of this important history, I'd have heard about it to write this post yesterday. Our apologies on behalf of the lame-ass public schools. I don't think they even mentioned to the kids how in Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In addition, I did somehow think the date was a bit later in the month, as it should be celebrated on the right day. The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria arrived in the New World on October 12th of 1492, 526 years ago this Friday. What a tremendous feat that was! It is especially a wonderful adventure story for the young boys that, to top it off, is true.
I realize that VDare's James Fulford article yesterday, Columbus Day: Columbus Is Hated Like Brett Kavanaugh—Because He's A "White Male" should have clued me in what day it was. (It has links to 17 other Columbus Day - or lack thereof - articles at the bottom.) I noticed also that this morning a writer named Kevin Beary has an article on unz.com, Life Styles: Native and Imposed, that goes well with Peak Stupidity's takes on Savage Natives and the Conquistadors followed up by A Visual Fisking of Cortez the Killer. In fact, I wish I'd read Mr. Beary's article before writing mine:
Today our children our being taught that the people who lived in the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere were not “merciless Indian savages” (as Jefferson calls them in the Declaration of Independence), many of whom delighted in torture and cannibalism, but rather spiritually enlightened “native Americans” whose wise and peaceful nobility was rudely destroyed by invading European barbarians; that the Aztecs were not practitioners of human sacrifice and cannibalism on a scale so vast that the mind of the 20th-century American can hardly comprehend it, but rather defenders of an advanced civilization that was destroyed by brutal Spanish conquistadores; and that Africans were not uncultured slave traders and cannibals, but unappreciated builders of great empires.Read the rest, as they say, to find out, and comment if you wish. (Peak Stupidity has this interesting story of Columbus and a bold tactic to blind these ignorant natives with SCIENCE!)
But just how did these peoples live before they came into contact with Europeans? Although historical myth is ever more rapidly replacing factual history, not only in popular culture but also in our schools and universities, we may still find accurate historical accounts buried in larger libraries or in used book stores.
Of all places, the city of Columbus, Ohio, or I should say the PC and non-white idiots running the place, have decided that the city won't celebrate this great explorer (warning - Time Magazine exists!), the city's namesake. Will they rename the city next year? It'll cost a pretty penny to change the signs and maps, but hey, gotta be PC - money is no object. This stuff's getting really out-of-hand. The pushback will come, but it's taking its sweet time.
This kind of thing is exactly why one must either get the kids out of the Big-Ed industrial complex (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our series on homeschooling), or spend lots of time un-brainwashing them at home. The more time you spend with them when they're little, the more they will trust you with the truth later when the PC brainwashing starts to get "mighty IN-tense".
Many decades later, this blogger still remembers the story of these brave Europeans who, with the backing of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, sailed the Ocean Sea on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
If you want these last 500 years of enlightenment, or even 3,000 years of Western Civilization, to be known about in the years to come, heed these guys, and Teach your Children Well!
David Crosby – harmony vocals
Stephen Stills – harmony vocals, guitars, bass
Graham Nash – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion
Dallas Taylor – drums, tambourine, percussion
Jerry Garcia – pedal steel guitar
PS: BTW, here is last years Columbus Day post.
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Site note - https
Posted On: Monday - October 8th 2018 7:12PM MST
In Topics: Websites
I was informed a couple of days back that potential Peak Stupidity readers may be wary of viewing the site due to warnings from the browsers that the site is "untrustworthy". Oh, yeah?! Why there's more truthtelling on Peak Stupidity in one post than Yahoo displays in a year... wait, I shouldn't take this personally. It's about https (uses Secure Sockets Layer) vs http protocol, something on the server side.
The thing is, that I have not noticed anything upon viewing the site myself on various and sundry computers. Even when the writer John Derbyshire mentioned (in one of his podcasts or diaries) that he switched over, I didn't take much heed. However, it was time to do this. All links or requests for the http pages will just redirect to the secure site. Whatever. I was worried about people with very old browsers - and I can't blame them for not updating either - that cannot display the SECURE site. Yes, I've experienced that, so I hope there aren't any loyal Peak Stupidity readers affected.
One more thing with this: I'll have to do a quick find/replace to get the other 95% of embedded youtube videos working. It's very easy, and I should be able to do it tomorrow, CAREFULLY.
We should be back ragging on our blogroll, pondering the question of whether the Republicans really are on our side, as it's seemed for a few days, "trashing" some more environmental stupidity, and on and on, by tomorrow night or so.
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Tucker Carlson and The Dead - Ship of Fools
Posted On: Saturday - October 6th 2018 11:39AM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead TV, aka Gov't Media Pundits US Feral Government Books
As read about first (by me) on VDare in this Jake Bowyer review, Tucker Carlson has a book out called Ship of Fools. The Amazon.com Editorial Staff raves:
Tucker Carlson is the anchor of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel. He has hosted prime time programs on CNN, PBS, and MSNBC, and cofounded The Daily Caller. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and four children.OK, I'll grant them that they probably don't even have a copy to review yet (or don't they get advance copies like they used to?), but then 101 "customers" have seen fit to review the book already! Survey says ... 4 1/2 stars.
It's kind of funny how the on-line reviews on, well anything basically, work. I'm pretty sure most of the reviewers haven't read the book. Amazon shows icons for "confirmed purchasers" of whatever items, which is a splendid idea, really, but on these books that doesn't mean even those reviewers have READ the thing. It goes vice versa on that too. I obtained Ann Coulter's Adios America from the library and read it, though, I'll admit here that I "reviewed" it on amazon a few weeks earlier ;-} I did admit that in the review, though, and treated that review as political commentary and just support of Miss Coulter in general. That's what happens, of course, with any deeply political material on amazon. The number of stars has nothing at all to do with whether the book is well-written, interesting or boring, or falls apart in a week. A higher rating means more support for the writer or issue being promoted. The reviews themselves, and comments beneath them, become a blog commenting section.
It's good to see those 4 1/2 stars for Ship of Fools then. From the VDare review linked-to above, this is no light-weight, feel-go, "GO TEAM!" sales pamphlet. The full title of this book is Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution. Per the review, Mr. Carlson is highly critical of both squads of THE PARTY, and comes off slighly left-wing in the old style of caring about the working man while against the F.I.R.E. economy, and to the right socially, especially with regard to the up-and-coming solidarity of beleaguered white people.
For Carlson, moral and social rot in the United States starts at the very top—the place where Democrats and Republicans routinely collude to maintain unpopular elite rule. Carlson compares this American elite to blind drunk captains steering a sinking ship. Making matters worse: the fact that, in keeping with Carlson’s nautical parallel, “Anyone who points out the consequences of what they’re [the elite] doing gets keelhauled.”I can't argue with Mr. Carlson's and Mr. Bowyer's view of the President either.
"Ship of Fools is no apology for Trumpism. Indeed, Carlson calls Trump “vulgar and ignorant.” But he rightly points out that Trump “didn’t invade Iraq or bail out Wall Street. He didn’t lower interest rates to zero, or open the borders, or sit silently by as the manufacturing sector collapsed and the middle class died.” Basically, Donald J. Trump is not your average American politician. Thank God.We've neglected our promise to put up Tucker Carlson youtube clips often on Peak Stupidity. I've got two that I want to post on, one an interview with a sympathetic character and one a monologue. The most enjoyable are the ones in which Tucker inteviews the ctrl-left complete idiots, so I'll try to find more of that too.
Please read the entire VDare review, and for that matter, I hope you will read the book, Ship of Fools itself, whenever you actually get it. It sound pretty pessimistic about our country, but I'm pretty sure it'll be largely truth.
In the meantime, here are The Dead with the Jerry Garcia/ Robert Hunter - written Ship of Fools from the From the Mars Hotel album. That album had the song US Blues on it, which Peak Stupidity will keep featuring on each 4th of July.*
It's kind of a slow number, but it'll grow on you well before it's over. This was recorded live in
"Went to see the captain, strangest I could find,
laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I won't slave for beggars pay, likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools."
* Yeah, that's another repeat piece of some music - the only other I can recall is Neil Young's Cortez the Killer, as mentioned during a visual fisking on Tuesday.
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Trump talks the talk....
Posted On: Friday - October 5th 2018 12:40PM MST
In Topics: Humor Trump Pundits Female Stupidity
... but doesn't walk the walk. We haven't given up hope.
Mr. Pat Buchanan, on the left side of that split-view, has "written the write", I guess you could say, for many years. I respect the man greatly for his writing and principles, and have only faulted him for being too civil with his words, as it were still 1985 right now, as far as the political scene. Peak Stupidity already discussed this naive ideas about the political climate we are in about a year ago, in Pat Buchanan, still in that ancient mindset ....
I really, really doubt Pat Buchanan read Peak Stupidity and has heeded our words, but he does seem to be coming around to some understanding. In his latest column, We Are All Deplorables Now, he says "...Trump's instincts, to treat his Democratic assailants as ideological enemies, with whom he is in mortal struggle, will be seen as correct." Yeah, Mr. Buchanan's coming around. In this article, about the Kavanaugh appointment female recovered-memory stupidity, I didn't read any talk about reaching across any aisles or coming together for summits.
Mr. Buchanan quotes President Trump from a speech at a rally in Mississippi, where Trump talks the talk that he is so good at:
" 'Thirty-six years ago this happened. I had one beer.' 'Right?' 'I had one beer.' 'Well, you think it was (one beer)?' 'Nope, it was one beer.' 'Oh, good. How did you get home?'"Hilarious! This is stand-up comedy quality - the good stuff that doesn't usually get on TV! Now, when I wrote above that the President wasn't walking the walk, I didn't mean on this Supreme Court nomination. That is about the ONE serious campaign promise that he is fullfilling. OTOH, it doesn't take leadership, like a rooting out of personel in the whole executive branch (that's Dept. of Justice, Dept. of Motherland Security, ALL OF THAT is Trumps purview.) For this SC nomination, you just pick a decent guy, and go by the advice of the Federalist Society, a group that seems to have copies of the US Constitution on hand - good on 'em. Trump did that.
'I don't remember.' 'How did you get there?' 'I don't remember.' 'Where is the place?' 'I don't remember.' 'How many years ago was it?' 'I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.'"
By now the Mississippi MAGA crowd was cheering and laughing.
Trump went on: "'What neighborhood was it in?' 'I don't know.' 'Where's the house?' 'I don't know.' 'Upstairs, downstairs, where was it?' 'I don't know. But I had one beer. That's the only thing I remember.'"
Even as far as talking the talk goes, the excerpt above is great! However, Mr. Buchanan's article starts with: "Four days after he described Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as a "very credible witness," President Donald Trump could no longer contain his feelings or constrain his instincts." Come on, Mr. President! Quit being wishy-washy about this. That earlier statement was wrong. You knew that then, didn't you, or are all your thoughts coming from TV viewing too? If you didn't have anything bad to say, you shouldn't have said anything.
See now, that's just the new uncivil political scene that Mr. Buchanan is just getting to understand. We know Mr. Trump was elected for his tendency to fight. I wish he'd follow through with some action on other fronts, now that he's got power.
PS: One more Peak Stupidity post from over a year back answers Pat's question: Can the GOP's Shotgun Marriage be Saved? in in the form of an interview.
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More Pundit vs. Pundit, and the Great William Banzai7
Posted On: Friday - October 5th 2018 9:44AM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits
This week will just end up as a bunch of rants and criticisms against other blogs and pundits, I suppose. It's all constructive, right? Peak Stupidity has discussed before, in Pundit vs. pundit during the slow death of the Lyin' Press, this phenomena:
In the article linked to near the top, and hundreds or thousands like it "printed" every day, the people under discussion in the article are often other pundits. "Pundit-A's article last week, was subject to a nasty review by Pundit-B, who received lots of likes, but also was torn to shreds by Pundit-C, who is not always right, so let me set him straight here." This crosses over into the TV-pundit world too. "Pundit-C will be interviewed by TV-Pundit-D on his show come Sunday morning, and I will point out his stupidity on my blog Monday and interview Pundit-E about it".I was about to write the very same thing again as this next Peak Stupidity self-excerpt, from just this spring, but I'll paste it here too:
It's all in their pundit world, and one wonders how important all the discussion is, even though it may be about all the major problems of the day. It could be VERY IMPORTANT stuff for the public to know about (some of the time), but these guys need to think about once in a while that, hey, not 10 % of the American public has ever heard the names of any of you people, and maybe 2 % read any of you people consistently! What's the point, then?Granted those number were obtained via rectal extraction, but if you don't believe they are small, thing about this: You are obviously interested in politics in some way, as a reader of this blog. You may discuss the writing/opinions of various bloggers with friends, thusly - "Sailer wrote a great post today about ... yeah, I don't read that other guy anymore ... this other one should go viral, as people need to hear this stuff... etc". That's just it, though. You probably talk to these friends a lot, because they ARE interested. Loads of more friends and aquaintances mostly likely don't know or care to know any of these writers, which is why it's hard to make a difference until your opinion, or YOU, make it onto TV, which is really damn unfortunate (that people still watch that idiot box ... OK, "idiot plate").
A reader may, after reading this week's COB (Criticism Of the Blogroll) think, "hey, they could have a lot to say about Peak Stupidity too, you arrogant so-and-so!" I really wish they would, as "any publicity is good publicity", "they" say. I'm here to defend my opinions and would welcome (some) criticism. OK, I've made a few boo-boos in content because looking things up slows me down. Yeah, we need more proofreading. We do tend to say "we" when we mean "me". Sure, the usability is crap so far, as we've not done improvements in > 1 year. Yeah, but other than the few boo-boos, the proofreading, the royal "we", and the usability, THIS SITE IS PERFECT!
After our disappointment in the state of noted on Tuesday, here's a good feature from the old ZH that they still have kept going. It's the cartoons from a guy named William Banzai, I'm pretty sure either an American, Englishman, or Australian who lives and draws in Hong Kong, or thereabouts. Mr. Banzai, actually "Banzai7", used to insert his political cartoons in the comments section (probably not possible now), but at least I noted that ZH still posts his stuff once in a while. Look at the row of 3 posts near the top - it's not everyday though:
Upon recollection, Mr. "Banzai7" did not read as really very informed in his political opinions, when he wrote much text. However, his cartoons, in the vein of the old Zerohedge, lambasted the crony-capitalist, globalist elites, such as the Merkels, Pope Franci, and American politicians to great effect. If you can't make much headway with writing (see above on Pundit vs. Pundit), ridiculing them all is another avenue. William Banzai kicks ass using this tactic. The image above was the link to what's below, and if you haven't already figured, he's referencing the silly Kavanaugh "advise and consent" process.
Oh, I'd almost forgot that Banzai likes those mis-capitalized letters, resembling an old-timey ransom note. The guy's probably got his own site, if you want to look it up, but this is one vestige of the old Zerohedge I knew and loved. BANZAI!, uhhh, SEVEN!
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Updated Review of Unz.com
Posted On: Thursday - October 4th 2018 12:25PM MST
In Topics: Commies Websites Pundits
Look, there's lots to criticize about modern-day America, and even plenty of things that America and Americans could have done better throughout history... but dissing George Washington??
Yeah, a little history is fine, but "The Heroic Benedict Arnold"?
Come on, guys!
I saw that post title highlighted on unz.com a couple of weeks back, and it quickly just went to the left side in smaller print. It just made me think about this site, one of only four in the Peak Stupidity blogroll to the right. Unz, named after site owner/operator Ron Unz of oh, California (hey, that's not an excuse for EVERYTHING!), bills itself as:
The Unz Review: An Alternative Media SelectionNo, I can't say the site doesn't live up to that billing. There should be no complaints from us, right? Nah, if it's gonna be right here, in bold letters on this, the frame of the Peak Stupidity blogroll, you're damn straight we have a few things to say about it.
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
OK, nothing's changed about this site's usability. For reading, navigation, and especially commenting, it's the best! Nice job, Ron Unz. Maybe the political viewpoints of the writers featured haven't changed that much either, and I am just getting sick of some (note: only some) of them. Peak Stupidity gets loads of enjoyment (or, wastes a lot of time) on unz.com, and gets close to 1/2 of the ideas for our posts there, so, it's not like we're trying to badmouth the whole place - it's just a few quibbles, I guess.
First, Mr. Unz himself has been getting into the ~ bi-weekly long essay on his latest discovery of American and conspiracy theories and/or revisionist history. I don't mean "revisionist" as in wrong, in this case, just widely varying from the long-term narrative. I don't totally disagree with any of these essays, and I would like to write a little bit (if that's possible!) about each in a post to come. Because these extremely controversial essays, are THOUSANDS of words long and have comments numbering in the THOUSANDS, I have read them only partially and not delved into the comments heavily*. However, as I'll write more about in that later post, these articles are into the realm of everything "America" is bad.
I don't know if Mr. Unz realizes that that's the appearance of all his writing: America can do nothing right. Don't get me wrong, THIS whole web site, consisting of > 800 posts now, is focused on American stupidity, though we try to cover stupidity around the world too. Most of what I write here however, is criticism of stupidity in, or brought on by, the US Feral Gov't, other governments, large organizations, the Institutions (not just mental, as stupidity is to be expected there, but Universities, Lower-Ed, Big Media, aka Lyin' Press**, etc.). I don't spend a lot of time pointing out stupidity of ordinary individual Americans. I don't criticize ordinary Americans, except to point out the stupidity that has been absorbed from the stupidity of the institutions.
Let me get to the other writers. Steve Sailer and his iSteve blog portion (look to the right on the main page) of unz is some of the most enjoyable reading, with the comments a large part of that. Then there are the few Libertarians, Dr. Ron Paul being one, and Paul Craig Roberts (who I don't read much now due to his closing down of his articles' comments sections). You've got the excellent writer John Derbyshire, who've we've discussed and linked-to many a time. His mention brings up another good feature of unz. That is, a few more of the VDare.com writers are featured semi-regularly and others infrequently. It is great that Mr. Unz. puts these articles up, even though he really seems not to understand the serious problems with the importation of 10's of millions of Hispanics. He seems like a very fair man, in this respect. It is especially nice to see the VDare articles because VDare itself does not have any commenting system. Once can find some VDare articles on unz a day or a few days after they appear on VDare.
Lastly, and back toward the point of this post, there are so many other writers, though, that are just plain, flat-out Communists! As we've written 3 months ago right here (more here from earlier), some of the young people have no recollection of what the Cold War was and the sheer destruction of lives during the "experiments" in the real-life implementation of this most-stupid of ideologies. No, in answer to the obvious question, they must not read any serious history. There's a Tom Engelhardt, a guy named Godfree, and numerous others who make me slightly embarrassed to be seen linking to the site. Besides these Commies, there are a host of others who do nothing but criticize all things American. Again, not just the Feral Beast of a Gov't we have, and the institutions, but Americans period (note carefully the "s").
This is why the headline about Benedict Arnold bothered me. Are we running out of stuff to criticize that we have to go back to the Revolution now?! Hey, a bit of extra history available for me to read is a good thing. It's free! I did click on Mr. Fischer's article, BTW, to be fair here. It wasn't ridiculously critical about all things America, but it had it's moments. George Washington was the bad guy throughout most of it. The writer finally does admit that Benedict Arnold was indeed a traitor, so what was the point? Americans have never been perfect? OK. I! GET! THAT! We've had our screw-ups, sure, but George Washington was not one of them.
There's not any animosity left from the revolutionary war of 240-odd years ago, so no matter what Andrew S. FIscher writes, nobody will get too bent outta shape. The article being featured on unz.com, though, is just an example of the appearance of the website being All anti-American, All the time. You don't have to do that to be "interesting", "important", or "controversial".
I did leave one writer out, readers, whom you might be able to guess the name of, but I've got a separate post in mind for a guy like him.
* This is pretty much in line with what I discussed about comments in the recent post about current-day Zerohedge. Once they get into the high number of hundreds, or 1000's, I've got 2 problems: 1) I just don't have time to read them all, so I often won't get bothered to read any and 2) Were I to write a comment, it's not likely anybody but the other active commenters would ever read it. Who else but this guy would go thoroughly down to comment #1371?
** Mr. James Kirkpatrick of VDare has consistently used a new term lately, the "System Media". It's not a bad way to put it.
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The Day Billie Joe McAlister quit the Harper Valley PTA
Posted On: Wednesday - October 3rd 2018 8:29PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Educational Stupidity
I attended a PTO meeting for the first time in my life a coupla weeks back. Nope, it's not the PLO (I don't know what they're up to anymore) but what used to be called the PTA. I guess it was just time for a change, like the WWF becoming the WWE; I mean, logo-makers gotta eat too, I suppose.
I just came to agitate for more recess. The nice principal lady kinda put the kibosh on the idea, saying that after 25 minutes, the kids just can't get along anymore or some such thing. Hey, lady, this ain't over yet. Anyway, it all reminded me of an old country song, called The Harper Valley PTA. In that song, back in the times of a little more decorum all around, a single Mom is called out by the PTA for "wearing her dresses too high". (She ain't seen the likes of the modern MILFs - dresses aren't a factor, the short-shorts deserve a country song of their own! Don't let your kids ride the bus, people!)
I won't spoil the climactic ending of Harper Valley PTA for you. I will say, though, that the tune of the song is very near that of a slightly older country song called Ode to Billie Joe. Listen for yourself to the 1969 Tom T. Hall (a famous country singer) - written Harper Valley PTA sung by Jeannie C. Riley. Note the similarity in the melody to the Bobby Gentry written-and-sung Ode to Billie Joe from a year earlier. The earlier song just has a slower tempo for a sadder song.
To save on Peak Stupidity server space, what say we just combine the lyrics as best as we can. You can sing them to the tune of either song ... doesn't matter, they're the same.
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.Hey, it ain't Stairway to Freebird, but it was a fun effort!
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay.
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat.
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet."
And she said, "I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA".
Well, the note says, "Mrs. Johnson, you're wearing your dresses way too high.",
and Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
"I'll have another piece-a apple pie, you know it don't seem right."
Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there, and seven times he asked me for a date,
and Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here 'cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today.
And boy was sure surprised when Mrs. Johnson wore her miniskirt into the room.
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, by the way.
And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
And then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit.
Well, this is just a little Payton Place, and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites.
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge,
and now Billy Joe Macallister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
No, I wouldn't put you on because it really did it happened just this way,
the day my Mama socked it to, the Harper Valley PTA,
and me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
and drop them in the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
AHAAAAA!, Wikipedia notes:
"The country singer Margie Singleton asked Tom T. Hall to write her a song similar to Bobby Gentry's Grammy-winning hit "Ode to Billie Joe", which she had covered the previous year, and which Gentry wrote and recorded in 1967. The melody is essentially the same as that of the Gentry song, but Gentry seemingly was never informed or given any credit by Hall.There were movies made outta both of these songs, which is kind of coincidental, I'd say. I saw the movie based on Ode to Billie Joe (cannot remember the name, maybe the same, and will say that I really don't like the theme they used to explain why the young McAlister jumped off that bridge. I won't spoil it though.
Harper Valley PTA was a TV show on for a few seasons, along with the production of a movie from it. I don't guess Hollywood was very original, even back in those days.
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[UPDATED. 10/05 morning:] Added information on the movies made from these 2 similar-melody songs, as I was somehow reminded by the 2nd commenter.
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DIY Tire Repair with Cheap China-made Crap
Posted On: Wednesday - October 3rd 2018 7:31AM MST
In Topics: Cheap China-made Crap Humor Cars
(If your puncture is in the sidewall of the tire, the tire's toast.
This is for simple punctures (nails, screws, big thorns) somewhere among the tread.)
This is NOT EVEN the product that I promised in a post a coupla days back to demean, mentioning that there has not been a post with the Cheap China-made Crap topic key in quite some time. It's not like we don't run into it every week though. I'll post on the other product shorty. I can't keep up with my post ideas on this topic, much less everything else half-written in my head! Geeez!
It was this month's always well-written and enjoyable John Derbyshire "Diary" post (1st segment) that got me remembering this story. I've got the "Humor" topic key here, but I may need another for "Embarrassment" for this one!
It may have been a different brand, but I had almost exactly the same 5 or 10 dollar set you see above on-hand. I should say "on the shelf", as you don't want to wait to buy this repair kit until after you've already got the flat. Then, without a spare vehicle*, you'd have to put the spare tire on first, get to the store, and maybe not even find a good deal on it, as you can ahead of time, when it catches your eye (geee, wonder why it was a good deal?). That's what "being prepared", per Boy Scout motto, is all about. Now, you wouldn't think there'd be a short shelf-life on this tire kit.
Short story long, I had a flat. Yeah, I can make use of this and save both $10 and, more importantly, 1 hour total for the trip and wait at the store. TIME IS MONEY, PEOPLE! I inserted the round-file piece (the right-side one in the pic above) and cleaned the hole out nicely. I got the repair material set up in the other piece and WALLAH!**, the plastic handle broke right off of the metal! (That's the pointy-ended one with the slot on the left.) Dammit!
Things were starting to feel very much like the atmosphere in Peak Stupidity's long-ago post Brilliant plan by Chinese Communist Party Cadres pans out well. Luckily, I DO have more than one extra vehicle, so I could leave the punctured tire alone for the day, and head on to Harbor Freight where they sell extremely tempting, well, Cheap China-made Crap. It's what they do.
The woman cashier asked for my receipt from < 30 days, which I didn't have because the point was: I'll use this kit when I need it. I hopefully won't get a puncture every 30 days. After I said, fairly loudly, in front of everybody, something to the effect of: "I've had this piece of cheap China-made crap on hand for a while, so I could use it when I need it. Just give me another one, so I can fix my damn tire!", a nice young manager came over and told me he'd look up the SKU number and give me another.
The manager comes back. Now he's pissed. "Hey, we don't sell this kit!", like I came in to rip off Harbor Freight, and insult their whole business model while I was there. OK, yeah, "GUILTY of the latter, and NO CONTEST on the former, your Honor." Yeah, I was embarrassed, as I had just guessed I'd gotten this broken tire repair kit from Harbor Freight. They do sucker you in to buying all kinds of stuff! My 2nd guess would have been the auto parts store. Your 1st guess is not ALWAYS correct, contrary to what they tell you in SAT prep class.
Haha, yeah, Auto Zone had sold it to me, they gave me another, and I fixed the tire. Like I said in my old post (linked to above), this may be one very brilliant Chi-Com plan to waste enough American's time to take over without a fight. At the very least, we won't have inflated tires to take us to the front lines.
* Ohhh, got another humorous car story about a brake job. I can't.... keep .... up .....!
** That'd be American for VOILA!
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A Visual Fisking of Cortez the Killer
Posted On: Tuesday - October 2nd 2018 8:00PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Music History
(BTW, it's apparently "Cortes" with an "s" now, but how was Neil Young to know that 43 years ago when he wrote the song Cortez the Killer?) See Savage Natives and the Conquistadors and our movie review Apocalypto Now! for background for this post.
Peak Stupidity has made it policy not to repeat any youtube music. We'd like it to where the reader that comes for the kick-ass music here will not run into a repeat. Today's post will hopefully be a one-time-only exception, as this song just needs some blowback. The post The great works of the ancients ... with no Caterpillars was about the boasting in the song in question that the pre-Columbian S/Central American savages had "built up with their bare hands, what we still can't do today", a flat-out lie. We'd included the song, appropriately in that previous post, but the song just needs a good old fisking.
OK, let me explain that ancient-to-the-blog-world term. Way back in 2001, some idiot NY Times reporter (but I repeat myself), named Robert Fisk was taken to task on an article in which he defended his being stoned (via rocks, not on-the-rocks) and beaten by Afghanis. He'd be called a hard-core "cuck" nowadays, but the subsequent evisceration of Fisk's stupidity by Australian blogger Tim Blair (I remember that guy, wow!), and the use of the term "fisking" subsequently by Godfather-of-bloggers Glenn Reynolds, aka, "Instapundit" pushed the term into common blog-use. We've not heard it a lot over the last 5 years, at least, so it may be time to bring it back. Because we all have broadband (another blast-from-the-past term) now, Peak Stupidity will make this a visual fisking, i.e. w/pictures.
Please note with regard to this Neil Young classic that it's long been Peak Stupidity's contention that, as far as song-quality goes, the lyrics are very unimportant. Due to the excellent guitar playing in Cortez the Killer, arguably the best over Down by the River, Like a Hurricane, Powderfinger, Hey, Hey, My, My!*, and Southern Man (also written with extremely stupid lyrics), I think this a great song. I don't recommend paying any attention to the lyrics for best enjoyment though. If you're gonna, and not about to put up with 43 year-old PC anti-white-man stupidity, then you're gonna like this:
First, get the music going -
(Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse)
OK, now what's Neil singing about?
"He came dancing across the waterYeah, well, how many millennia would it be before the noble savages of the new world would have ever built something resembling a ship, not to mention a gun? A few centuries later, it was said "God made men, but Samuel Colt made them equal". I'd rather be equal in self-defense myself rather than subject to the whims of cruel nature.
with his galleons and guns."
"Looking for the new world
and that palace in the sun."
As if these Aztecs knew anything about sound money anyway. They were just using gold as decoration for the palace, for crying out loud. What were you people running, a Kingdom or an interior decoration business? A bunch of savage fools and their money ... etc.
"On the shore lay Montezuma
with his coca leaves and pearls.
In his halls he often wondered
of the secrets of the world."
"And his subjects gathered around him
like the leaves around a tree."
Yeah, that's a happy crowd of subjects, I tell ya'. Why don't you toss them down a fresh heart or two?
"In their clothes of many colors,OK, just stop ... STOP RIGHT HERE!
for the angry gods to see."
"And the women all were beautiful,"
Right side: Reality has a way of sapping you in the groin.
"and the men stood straight and strong.
They offered life in sacrifice,
so that others could go on."
Yeah, it's easier said than done. Sheer terror!
"Hate was just a legend
And war was never known."
Of course not! These people were just part of a "police action".
"The people worked together,
and they lifted many stones.
They carried them to the flat lands,
and they died along the way."
Now that sounds like a excellent productive way to live one's life - working your backbone to death toting 3-ton stones from point A to point B, and, yeah, dying along the way. I really hope they had a single-payer health plan.
"But they built up with their bare hands,
what we still can't do today."
Sure we can. We just don't CHOOSE to do something that stupid with our time, in this De-cade or any other. If we did, we'd use Caterpillars and Snorklifts, so people don't, like, die along the way and shit.
"And I know she's living there,
and she loves me to this day."
Look at the line-up carefully, Neil, and see if you can pick out your old sweetheart.
"I still can't remember when,Ummm, drugs?
or how I lost my way."
* Not to be confused with My, My, Hey, Hey!
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New Improved ZeroHedge website - Worse than EVAH!
Posted On: Tuesday - October 2nd 2018 7:50AM MST
In Topics: Websites
(I'd somehow lost some other screenshots of the site, but I am now too worried about ZH shutting down my browser to even go there right now!)
Hey, one of the only 4 sites on the Peak Stupidity blogroll (to the right) has been "new and improved" very recently. The use of the quote marks here is to indicate that Zerohedge has been, in actuality, "changed to suck more", if that was even possible. Why I am mentioning it, and even keeping it for now on the blogroll, is that it's site usability, not content, that this complaint is about. Yeah, I've written 5 or more times before about this, and people have told me it works fine for them. Good on ya, in that case. In my updated Firefox, it is still a 1 out of 10 on usability, with 0 meaning "DON'T GO THERE".
PLEASE NOTE: I've used adblock and tried other browsers on another of my devices - still bad! Additionally, I am not always on my own computer/device. Oftentimes, it's a work or hotel computer, and I can't exactly go downloading ad-blockers considering I may never be on that computer again.
Anyway, on one computer on which ZH was fairly usable, I noticed a new change to the site. The comments now take 30 seconds to 1 minute to load, and all cuss-words have been defaced with asterisks. That pretty much does it for me. The comments had been the BEST PART of Zerohedge.com, especially back 5 years ago. Some of these people just used the bad words when they needed them. Comments will NOT be the same without that, uh, feature.
Here at Peak Stupidity we don't have a lot of conversation yet, but we sure welcome it*. On lots of websites, though, the comments are more enjoyable than the articles. If one can write in, it changes drastically the amount of time one will spend on the site too. Think of the page view numbers for the site once people start arguing not just with the post but with each other too**. I would think the number of views would go up very non-linearly. You would think that the site-owners would understand this stuff. No, on Zerohedge now, it's all about downloading all sorts of scripts, graying-out the screen until you hit something, jerking the text back-and-forth before it settles down, and shutting down your browser. Fight Club is gone - it's Script Club now over there. I urge Tyler Durden to pick himself up, throw a few hard punches at his own head***, and do some hard thinking about whether it's all about the bucks or the ideas.
* PLEASE REMEMBER: You MUST put the two letters "PS" together at the beginning of your comment, or it WILL be just plain gone! That was a quick way to thwart THE RUSSKIES (I kid you not.) It was that or going to "Capcha", which to me is more of a pain in the ass. I apologize on behalf of lame-o would-be viagra-advertisers for the slight bit of hassle.
** To me, depending on the average length of comments (ZH used to have short, concise ones), 20 to 300 comments is an ideal range for getting me to read them. Below 20 oftentimes, there's not much interesting, and above 300 is daunting to me, as I have a sort of obsession with finishing them once I start. I guess on PeakStupidity right now, it's not daunting, so you've gotta give us that ;-}
*** That's kind of the movie, oh, ... SPOILER ALERT!
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Inflation and Chinese Imports and Exports
Posted On: Monday - October 1st 2018 12:23PM MST
In Topics: China Economics Inflation
After just having mentioned another blogger's obsession with certain topics in the introduction of the just-completed previous post, we come to one of Peak Stupidity's obsessions, inflation. As with Steve Sailer's on the intricacies of school admissions, etc, our topic also does fit in with the theme of this blog. FED-induced inflation is related to our discussion of Economics and the Global Financial Stupidity going on. However, that is not to say that some readers aren't just plain "sick of this crap". Hey, don't fret, readers, as we've got loads of various forms of stupidity just itching to be written about.
This post is coming entirely from the memory and personal experience of this blogger, but the fact is, I've been keep good track of what's been going on in the country, first as a hobby, now as a prepping-related activity. Per our commenter BernCar, and a long-distance memory for me too, the 1970's price inflation in America, though not nation-destroying hyper-inflation, was a major factor of daily life. Take 18% annual inflation, please! (That joke never gets older, nor any funnier either!) Imagine knowing that putting off buying a big-ticket item, say an appliance or a vehicle, knowing that 3 months later, the item may well be 4 or 5% higher. To put it into today's prices, because of all the inflation, that could be ANOTHER THOUSAND BUCKS! on a $22,000 small SUV with no options, were you to put it off until this Christmas. Keep in mind, it kept on going!
Though the two posts are specifically about gasoline prices, the anecdotal history here and here go hand-in-hand with a history of inflation during my lifetime. Peak Oil notwithstanding, oil, hence gasoline, have gone up in the medium term (decade-length scale) similarly to general prices. I won't go over it all again, except to state now that your blogger here had kind of an epiphany in ~ 1994. Like our renowned, apparently-newsworthy, judge-selecting psychologist problem child, I can't remember the exact date. (Of course, I'm not trying to take down a Supreme Court nominee with a felonious accusation either).
Oh yeah, back to the subject, the epiphany in the mid-90's was that, after inflation being a factor in budgeting decision-making for my whole life to-date, inflation seemed to have really gone down toward zero. During the mid-1980's, due to, as we've written, the tough-interest rate policies of FED-chair Paul Volcker, inflation tailed off. However, it was still a significant 2-5 % in those years. Yeah, maybe 2% is not significant for the purchase of extra Halloween candy for 10 years into the future(hey, a prepper's gotta prep), but the money is still being stolen. For long-term savings, you'd better believe it still matters. At the point in time though (1994, for the record), I distinctly remember exactly where I was when I thought "Hey, inflation is really about zero now. I've gotta think differently about money." and "This is cool."
Nope, Ron Paul had not eliminated the FED, unfortunately. The big lull was due to American manufacturing might being sold off to China. It had really just started in earnest. In 1995, one could easily find lots of brands of consumer items still made in America. 20 years later, it's not possible for most items of any sort. The American companies that began outsourcing their manufacturing saved so much money from the cheap labor and cheap shipping*, that they could lower prices AND make more money. They had to lower the prices significantly to get American buyers on-board with buying Chinese goods anyway.
From my recollection, the quality was better during that 2-decade-ago era. I could go to Target or K-Mart and get the same sneakers that I bought last year or equivalent, or a bike part, and not pay more. Again, I am a noticer wrt this stuff, and that's why I'm writing this. That's what got me believing in those years that inflation was finally just plain licked (I hadn't read and thought about the real cause yet). It bears repeating that this was really something else. Imagine! You could get the same thing 2 years from now at the same price! More importantly, an account in the bank, just the least-risky thing like a CD, would at least hold onto your money, hence the value of your labor.
Well, then things slowly inexorably moved toward lower-quality (or even lower) - I've got another candidate for the Cheap China-Made Crap topic key, in fact, decaying on the back-burner, as I write. Prices have risen since. After all this Chinese near-dumping for 2 decades, not many remember that Wal-Mart had a big "Buy America" policy with flags on the walls. That didn't seem to work for their business model, which is now nothing more than "Here's your cheap China-made crap - take it or leave it. Let me see what's in the bag?!"
What's happened since 1995 is that the increases in profits had to keep coming, for the American CEOs to keep their jobs and their stock options soaring. The quality had to go down, and the prices had to start going up (I'd say by 10 years back). That's where it stands today.
There's one more thing I'd like to add, explaining the word "Exports" in the post title. Personal experience and that of Chinese people tell me that inflation has been big in China too. In 10 years, pork (a staple meat for the Chinese) at the store has gone from roughly 40-50% of American prices to parity. Inflation in China has been big for most items, causing a housing bubble there possibly bigger than our Housing Bubble 2.0, for much of the same reason, the search for a "safe" place to store the value of one's labor. Why? It's due to the fact that the Chinese government arranges to peg the currency, the Yuan, to the US Dollar, in order to keep the big advantage in prices of Chinese exports to the world. Inflation is OUR biggest export TO China. As for the currency peg, I really believe the Chinese government could cut that out, and their economy could do well without us and the Euro. market.
It's been only 25 years ago since the US elites decided to ignite the economy of China, at the expense of American industry. I don't think the Chinese have much of a memory or any gratefulness left about it either. Ask one, and you'll find him too proud or ignorant about this history. It doesn't matter at this point. They are what they are, and we are what we are, economically, in 2018.
* Think just a couple of thousand in TODAY's money, maybe down near $1500 back then, to ship > 2,500 ft3 or > 50,000 lb. of stuff across the ocean from China to an American west-coast port.
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Latent Karma hits Brooklyn, NYC - Minority-Majority hardest hit!
Posted On: Monday - October 1st 2018 10:44AM MST
In Topics: Pundits Race/Genetics ctrl-left Educational Stupidity
First, to clear this up, the downright asinine term "minority-majority" is in this post title just to illustrate said stupidity of that term and it's more-oft-used converse(?) "majority-minority". This post is partially about Educational Stupidity, but even this lowly blogger was taught the definitions of "majority" and "minority". You're either less than 1/2, or you're more than half. (I gotta put up a short post on this.) What I mean here, is that the white parents in a ritzy neighborhood called Park Slope, in Brooklyn, NYC, are a minority of the population but their whiteness makes them Majorities?, or I guess just "white people", so screw 'em, seem to be the prevailing attitude.
Let me back up. Mr. Steve Sailer, one of my favorite bloggers, for reading, learning, and getting ideas for Peak Stupidity, gets on some subjects that are not really my thing. Let's leave aside for a moment discussion about golf, golf courses, golf clubs, golf pros, amateur golf, business-relationship golf, miniature golf (no, not really ;-} ... hey every blogger's got his own obsessions, right? I'm welcome to skip what I'm not interested in. One of Mr. Sailer's big things seems to be education, or really the networking, ratings, costs, etc. involved and the efforts of upper-middle-class parents to scheme or just work for the best for their children. It's got lots to do with the discussion of race/genetics, class, and immigration, all important topics and the main point of the iSteve increasingly-read blog.
I tend to tune out, though, lots of the intricate details on which school has got lots of Orientals, which school sends 20% of the graduates to Haaavard, and all that elite crap. It's just not what my family ever really cared about. Don't get me wrong, they/we care lots about learning and education (not always synonymous). I am very grateful my Dad did not think connections and networking, as he believed in living honestly. The networking/connections business detracts from living an honest life.
Finally, we get to the point, which is a comment on Sailer's latest post on the primary education politics in NYC. In this case it's the Park Slope neighborhood schools in the borough of Brooklyn that is getting the minority-beatdown treatment by Socialist Mayor De Blasio, per Park Slope's Magic Dirt. The superintendent of NYC schools, one Richard Carranza, is planning on eliminating all screening* of kids for entry to the better schools. They are better, because they HAVE BETTER KIDS GOING THERE! (Hence the "magic dirt" terminology) You'd have to have read lots of Steve Sailer posts to get all of the sarcasm, innuendos, and whatever, to really enjoy this one. That is, along with more background on the continuing battle by parent for their kids learning, and (just as importantly) well-being in the public schools, if even possible.
I'm not excerpting anything for a specific point, though it's interesting that the NY Post writer, along with parents she quotes, seemed to have picked up on some iSteve terminology! The comments, as usual, are very good, with many personal anecdotes from the NYC area itself. As I wrote at the top, though, I don't care that much about these details of the shenanigans of how these cntl-left Park Slope parents are going to deal with the clampdown on their loophole around the system. This is the system that says the black and hispanic kids are just the same as far as abilities and will blend in nicely with the white and oriental kids. It's the "blank-slate" theory, that the ctrl-left, including a HUGE MAJORITY of these parents, supposedly believe in and espouse.
Yes, whether latent Karma fits best or not, there's gotta be a German word for this other than just simple plain-jane "schadenfreude". Seen it on the web, been there, read that. No, I need something longer, say 6 - 10 syllables, that describes not just being happy about others misfortune when they deserve it. The elite in NY City, including many with children at the schools there, seem to have an undue influence on America's politics, and they are extremely left-wing. They deserve to diversified good and hard! I need a word like:
Erfreutgleisnergroßgeschlossenermündung - n: Pleasure obtained from the learning of the struggles of others against stupid insane policies that they themselves have promoted for everyone else, that results in said people possibly shutting-the-fuck-up for once, about it.
Come on, any German readers, please write in if you've got a
See, here's what's going on, per my reading of 5 or so iSteve posts on the subject: The new guy, Superintendent Carranza, is from Miami, where the schools are already diversified to where white people have no say in the matter, at least in inner Miami, which is Latin America with more money. Up in NYC, he has not gotten with the program. The elite white people may be SAYING that they love diversity for everyone, all over the country, the more, the better. However, for their own kids in NYC public schools, the parents really NEED to have lots of white and oriental kids around theirs to have any kind of decent or better learning and discipline. The rules need to be made to enable this for their own kids, and screw the rest, 'cause of "diversity is our strength!"
The disHonarable Mr. De Blasio may really not care, as he is a Socialist down to his very core. Superintendent Carranza, however, just doesn't UNDERSTAND these parents. Richard Carranza can ask them how they feel about diversity, and they'll go all George Costanza on him (after all, this IS Brooklyn):
Superintendent Carranza: "Hey, now who wants to have some DIVERSITY?!"
Park Slope Majority-Minority parents:"I do!"
Park Slope Minority-Majority, aka, white, parents:"I do!"
Superintendent Carranza: "Now, are you just saying you want to have DIVERSITY, or do you really wanna have DIVERSITY?!!"
Park Slope Majority-Minority parents: "I really wanna have DIVERSITY."
Park Slope Minority-Majority, aka White, parents: "Nah, I'm just sayin' I wanna have some DIVERSITY."
* Except of course, as Mr. Sailer points out, screening to ensure DIVERSITY.
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No post until Monday, so Listen to the Music
Posted On: Friday - September 28th 2018 8:04PM MST
In Topics: Music
It's not that I don't have ~ 10-12 posts built up in my head, but I ran out of time today. I won't have time on Saturday, and no posting on Sunday as usual. Tune in next week for a visual fisking of Neil Young's Cortez the Killer along with a number of posts involving observations on the websites in our short blogroll and more economic, immigration, and environmental stupidity. We are mired in the stuff here, and can only get if off our chest by blogging or listening to the music.
Listen to the Music is a happy song by The Doobie Brothers. This is from well before a guy named Michael McDonald single-handedly ruined the band with his jazzy sound that didn't belong. It is off the What Were Once Vices are Now Habits album from 1974*, from which Peak Stupidity posted Black Water back this summer.
Youtube commenter David Nicol says:
2 years ago
OK. So what we have here is just another example of what was normal in the 70s. What do we have? No autotune on the vocals. These guys sing pure. No timing quantization on the rhythm tracks. Pure musicians, playing pure music, without anti-human intervention. You know, MUSIC...
The Doobie Brothers:
Tom Johnston – guitars, vocals
Patrick Simmons – guitar, vocals
Tiran Porter – bass, vocals
John (Little John) Hartman – drums
Michael Hossack – drums
* Holy Moley, talk about misdirection; I searched for the album on duckduckgo to get the year, and it keeps taking me to MichaelMcDonald.com! Does the man own duckduckgo?
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Savage Natives and the Conquistadors
Posted On: Thursday - September 27th 2018 5:10PM MST
In Topics: History Geography Race/Genetics
When questioned about their opinions, no participants came forward to comment.
This started with someone bringing up "Apocalypto" again, a 10 year-old movie about American savages that Peak Stupidity discussed in our review Apocalypto Now! recently. I'd promised in that review to later post more information on the recent unearthing of bones that confirmed the old Spanish Conquistadors' reports of savagery by the natives (least at that time) of central and south America. I didn't do much of a search today, but did come across a few articles regarding the practice of human sacrifice (as seen in the movie - don't miss it!). This Guardian article is about Peru in particular and is a couple of years old, and this 6 y/o Telegraph article is about Mexico.
I was surprised to find any National Geographic articles not scrubbed from the web yet, such as this article also on Peru, possibly the heart of the heart-eating district in "meso"-America. My surprise is due to the fact, mentioned here in National Geographic, no more girly pics of the natives ...., that that magazine has gone very much downhill as far as being a source of popular science.* Usually, nothing's worth reporting by that organization anymore if white men are not somehow to blame or at least the WHOLE WORLD'S CLIMATE! is (due to, of course, white men). Wikipedia has fairly organized articles on Human sacrifice in Aztec culture - that's in Ole Mexico - and Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures. Sure, sure, stuff like this happened long ago everywhere, but then most everywhere else are not places that people nowadays revere as the former idyllic lands inhabited by the noble savages ... "savages", yes, "noble", not so awful much. They may very well, in fact, be slobs in general.
Oh, I've got to excerpt this doozy of a quote from the National Geographic, 'scuse me, "NAT GEO" article:
All the dead in the newfound pit were likely willing participants from local communities engaged in a ritual that celebrated death so that "new life could emerge in the world," Klaus said in an email to National Geographic News.>Sure, "willing participants", that's the ticket.
I don't know if things back in the pre-Columbian days were that much less brutally violent in our own part of North America. Many of us do revere that Indians of the tribes in our part of North America. Some of that is simply respect for fierce warriors, not something you'd hear from a 19th-century resident though. Is it just supporting the team - "Our Indians were better than your Indians!" or something? Is that why people are proud to be 1/64th something (usually Cherokee for some reason)? Maybe it's the free stuff and
The term "Meso-America" is mentioned a lot in articles on human sacrifice in history and it means the area from central Mexico south through northern Costa Rica. Things don't change too much over just a millenium or so, as this is still the area with countries that have the highest murder rates you'll (hopefully never) run into in the world. The violent culture doesn't stop until you get down toward the cone (as in ice cream) of South America. That'd be current Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. What's so different down there, you may ask? Maybe it's the climate, but .. oh, yeah, that's right - those places have the most Europeans living in them.
What's been much different for the post-Columbian era in the US/Canada vs. Mexico/Central America/S. America is very simple. Whatever you want to call it, planned or accidental genocide, a clash of cultures in which the one with the brains and technology therefrom was guaranteed to win out, or just overwhelming numbers in the long run, the Europeans in our country (let's just lump Canada in with this) did not mix with the Indians much at all. Until the immigration invasion disaster currently unfolding, this country consisted of 90% Europeans and the full-blooded Indians now are down to a fraction of a percent of the population. During the same 5 century period of development down in the Southern regions, the Spaniards mixed much more (OK, had sex) with the natives. They didn't so much as colonize and develop those nations so much as just conduct a continuous invasion. Look at the results. The people running the places are most as white as a Beverly HIlls golf club, while the large majority, with the exception of the cone, are dark people with a large amount of native blood.
As I'll write more about in a subsequent post that I'm really looking forward to, along with revering our Indian peoples an undue amount since the 1960's, any history of the Spanish conquests of the Aztecs, Toltecs, Incas, Mayans, what-have-you, have been tinted with a rosy view of those native people. Again, we are supposed to believe that they were living idyllic lifestyles with beneficence god-kings as rulers, until those mean, meddling Conquistadors sailed up and ruined everything! The Spaniards surely did some cruel things that should always be un-called for. They were not the enlightened English crowd that came to N. America for religious reasons, for harvesting of the massive resources, or to just have more space. Down south, the invaders treated these natives like sub-humans, but maybe there was some reason for that.
Archaelogoists are starting to learn more details that back up the stories of the Cortezes, Pizarros, and Alvarados. You've got to imagine the Spanish Conquistadors witnessing in person, or hearing current reports of, the sacrificial beheadings, the impromptu open-chest surgeries, and the eating of hearts. Perhaps they felt that those lands were ripe for CUISINE CHANGE.
* It's not just the pics of the bare-breasted natives that were exciting to young men interested in Geography and Science. The magazine showed a world of wonder for young men interested in exploration and discovery, especially if you just plain LOVE MAPS.
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Inflation Note: Utility Bills
Posted On: Thursday - September 27th 2018 9:50AM MST
In Topics: Economics Inflation
I've thought of the inflation in utility bills since keeping steady track in the early 1990's but had forgotten to put any mention in the previous Inflation posts (note new topic key). This will be a short note then, without any long-winded suspected explanation, because there's a whole lot to that.
I want to compare apples to apples here, so I am writing about the same utility district for both water and electricity. I will note the price change per ft3 of water and kW-hr of electricity, the base prices, and the change in the bills that have been received by Peak Stupidity. I have the old bills.
Back in the mid-1990's water used to cost 8 bucks on an easygoing month and $15 to $18 on a month during which we watered the lawn some. Now, we're talking $35 on a good month, > $45 on a slightly higher-use one, and forget watering the lawn - I don't really need to with the shade... got not much of a lawn! OK, that's just the payments, and I promised apples-to-apples. We use almost the same amount of water - 200 to 500 ft3 monthly. The cost per 100 ft3 has gone from $2 to $5, but the BASE CHARGE, meaning just the charge to be hooked up, has gone from $6 to $25.
Electricity bills that used to be as low as $25 and up to $80 are more like $80 on MINIMUM months to sky-high (if we don't watch it). The per-unit cost has gone from < 8¢ per kW-hr to almost 14¢ in that 22 year time period. The BASE CHARGE, however, has gone from $8 to just be hooked up, to $21 now. There are a whole bunch of taxes I didn't used to see, but I'm still paying the whole bill.
The mention of taxes brings up possible objections by the reader of "hey, they may have built a new sewer plant" or "what has changed with your electricity supply?", "Did the district grow and had to build a ton of infrastructure?", etc. Those are decent points, but this is a pretty long-term look though; call it 22 years. Lots of improvements are paid for via bond issues too, not just via the bill.
Let me just give you the numbers from this blogger's location and time frame:
**************************************
Annual percentage inflation rates for these utilities:
WATER/SEWER:
Base Fee - 6.9%
Price per ft3 - 4.2%
ELECTRICITY:
Base Fee - 4.5%
Price per kW-hr - 2.6%
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The inflation in the bills will be seen to vary due to the combination of the fixed cost (base fee) and the variable cost (amount used) monthly, so I can't give one hard number for each utility. Just look at those ANNUALIZED inflation rates though. Is the what the US Feral Gov't BLS has been telling us? I don't think so.
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Ignore the psycho-blather, just confirm Judge Kavanaugh
Posted On: Wednesday - September 26th 2018 6:12PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Feminism ctrl-left Orwellian Stupidity
You don't have to be unhappy all of the time to have gone through some major psychological trauma, but it sure would help the narrative a bit if they'd publish a picture of a freaked-out Christine Ford from sometime in the correct decade. It's just as well, as the narrative is the most ridiculously obvious made-up story that even the Hildabeast would be ashamed to be responsible for. She may lie about everything including the weather forecast, but I think even that AntiChrist runner-up would disown this story as beneath her lying ability.
Yesterday, the hard-working VDare reporter specializing in the human tragedy of our immigration invasion, Mrs. Brenda Walker, chimed in on some psychological issues regarding repressed and often self-generated memories of trauma.* In Psychologists - Heal Thyselves! Peak Stupidity got into the worthlessness of most of the field of psychology and most of the people in it. Mrs. Walker's article gets into some tragic outcomes caused by the various psychoanalytical trends. There've been many lives ruined, such as fathers estranged from their daughters for 20 years based on some wacky-assed repressed "memories" of molestation that never happened. Many times, by the time the lady realizes her mistake, her Dad is gone from the world. The article links to information regarding men who've been falsely accused and put in jail for years based on these witch hunts.
Anyway, I hardly ever disagree with anything Brenda Walker writes (aside from that she often doesn't rebut her last excerpts of others in her articles). I'll make an exception here on this paragraph:
We need to know what techniques were used in the therapist’s office to “recover” (or create) Ford’s repressed memory of assault, but inquiry into that important subject has been slim, and the Senators who will question the alleged victim on Thursday appear ignorant on the psychological malfeasance of therapists.NO! We don't need to do anything to delve into this story! It's not mystery. This story has been put up to delay or even block the appointment of a decent man for Supreme Court justice, and this lame story is the best they've got. We know they're lying. They know they're lying. They even know that we know they're lying. The ctrl-let these days are just so used to Lyin' Press support that they figure they have the power to take down anyone, at least easily a white man, with any lies they want.
The good news is even such GOPe cucks as Miss Lindsey Grahamnesty seem to be on our side. I think the reason is as follows:
Even though I know they want to cuck-out (most of the R-squad of The Party), I wonder if these guys are thinking “hey, if that made-up ridiculous story ends up derailing this nomination, imagine what will happen if the press learns one little inkling of my past at college… or, uhhh, last year, for that matter.” Lots of the anti-Trump GOPe may be trying to work in cahoots with the D-squad, but they could be smart enought to realize that, NO, they are not safe, come election time.
This same stuff can be trotted out against any one of them, just to get a ctrl-left, or non-white of any kind, in office 2 or 4 years from now. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, white members of Congress. They would be wise to put a stop to this business, even if only out of self-interest. Miss Lindsey is probably the best example of this, and Miss Grahamnesty’s position has been a SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
Let's just get 'er done.
* VDare is all about the immigration problem. This stuff affects immigration tangentially as Judge Kavanaugh has a VERY GOOD record on immigration decisions. We need him on the Supreme Court for that, even if nothing else.
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Search "Engines" vs. Real Experts
Posted On: Tuesday - September 25th 2018 6:16PM MST
In Topics: Internets Websites Humor
... or 2 futile hours on the Goolag?
Since I've been on this topic of search "engines"*, and I've been looking for answers to a pernicious problem that's holding me up from doing work on Peak Stupidity's usability, I asked the question above. Can you really find answers quicker on the internet? How about regarding the meaning of life ... no, not a query about the current lives of the actors in the Monty Python movie (there's that IMDB again - good people .... gooood people)? That right there is an example though. Were one really deluded enough to try to find the meaning of life off the internet, he'd end up spending 5 minutes of this search learning about Monty Python, and then the next silly thing, and the next one ....
It's not just the questions with no easy answers that can be hard to get satisfaction from via computer searches of the web. (I'm not particularly picking on Google in this post... uhhh, so far.) Since it's the computer guys that were the early adopters of the www, for obvious reasons, the software and computer hardware questions were always the ones with the most readily available website information available on-line. There have been great sites out there for many years, such as our favorite, Stack Overflow that should have answers for about everything "TECH!"-related. Some are just web pages written to help others or show off, others weren't written particularly to answer questions, but may very well have your answer.
Then there are the forums. As a daily user of some type of software language, environment, plug-ins, or what-have-you, you may be one that comes on every day or week to help out or get help. More power to these people. Other times, you will get to these forums via an on-line search. That brings up something kind of humorous. I've found answers to questions on a forum that nobody has posted/commented on for 10 years! The thing there is, one of them hopefully has your exact answer. There can be no follow-up questions. Sure, I mean, go ahead and sign up, but how much patience do you have? Maybe a geek will come on-line in 2023 and give you an exact answer: "We're on a new version now. Your functions have been deprecated. That's why they're not functional" "Did this answer your question? Rate your answer here - [] Not Helpful, [] Helpful, [] Helpful, but > 1 Decade late, so I am Deceased". It may not be very satisfying to give an answer on a forum as an expert either, as possibly the next reader will come on a few years later when you are on to a new field of endeavor.
Youtube videos are such a great help with various car maintenance tasks. I am very grateful for the guys that take the time to put these up, along with those who help out of the goodness of their hearts (sometimes they hope to make a few bucks) to explain millions other tasks. That's great user-created content, but you won't find all the answers.
Sometimes, spending just 15 minutes or 1/2 an hour with an expert in some small area of endeavor can save many hours of wasted time on the best search sites on-line. This is the case for the software questions I've got. I've spent fruitless hours so far, but if I come across the right guy who "knows his stuff", I can get it all figured out quickly. I may find out how to troubleshoot and fix a part on one of my vehicles. However, the why of the problem and all the experience of a 40-years-running mechanic friend could save me hours or days of sorting through information that is often conflicting.
Therefore, I don't feel the internet search sites, with the Goolag presiding, are the be-all-to-end-all for the acquiring of knowledge. Then, of course, for anything slightly political in nature, one can't be at all sure they aren't purposefully providing disinformation. Take, for example, I dunno, a quick search for "the truth about everything". Per an almost forgotten long-ago post, this is what you're going to come up with:
Note that the Goolag censorship scripts must have been written by cheaply-paid H-1B visa dot-Indian programmers, as they didn't quite do the job. ;-}
*You get so used to these geek-stolen terms that you don't even notice anymore. "Engines"? Really? How does this software convert one form of energy to another? Just asking.
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The F.A.G.S. space and new competition
Posted On: Tuesday - September 25th 2018 6:58AM MST
In Topics: Websites Media Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity
(continued from two posts back.)
The discussion in that last post was leading to: why is it very difficult for other players to seriously compete with these on-line Big-Net monopolies?
Even without resistance and internet sabotage by the monopoly players, it's very difficult to make a competing site. It's not hard to START it, but just to make it grow via user-input, because, well, you start off with few users. I'll now give an example.
Let's say you want to make a competing matchmaking website to OK-Cupid, or even make OK-Cupid to begin with, actually. This is another idea is which the useful content is user made. How do you get started? You've got this multi-million dollar investment money to make a visually-pleasing, highly-functional website, with a big database and tons of storage. You've got advertisement money. You've got the payment methods set-up and secure. Wait, but who's gonna pay?! Why would you join up unless there are many 100's or thousands of girls to pick from? If you are a girl, it's the same. Even if you are a BLTG-QWERTY type, you're really gonna want to see a whole lot of BLTG-QWERTs to choose from (somehow).
Do you see the catch? Without lots of users already on this dating site, the site is worthless and you won't get people to join. One thing one can do is be really crooked and put in lots of random pictures of hot chicks that are really unknown-to-us Ukrainian movie stars and see the guys sign up and just not get very lucky. Then, when lots of guys have been suckered on, actual available girls will sign up, and things could take off. A more legitimate way would be to advertise for girls to join for free (nothing to lose, but no men on there yet, so ....) You may have to PAY THEM to join to get the ball rolling, or give out free stuff to either sex who signs up.
It's just hard to get something like this going. However, the example of Facebook IS the 2nd networking site like this after MySpace, come to think of it. How'd they pull that off? Did people just get over MySpace? In the search "space" (sorry, for this meaning I can't write the word without using the
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My Own Space
Posted On: Monday - September 24th 2018 8:45PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Music
Nope, we don't mean MySpace from the previous post, but My Own Space by the Steve Miller band.
As expained in A tale of two countries (for picking blackberries), regarding space in America vs. China, having fewer people per space available just makes for better place to live (other things equal). In the Peak Stupidity post More on the Destruction of California, we pointed out that immigration-invasion enthusiasts have, for 2-3 decades now, had this wilful blindspot in their understanding of the bad effects of a larger population in our same-sized land.
When Mr. Steve Miller wrote this song off his spacey Book of Dreams album back in 1977, the American population was 220 million, less than 2/3 of the population today (not documenting those undocumented people). That makes a big difference, and the Steve Miller band had a lot more of their Own Space then than they can now, even in the San Francisco Bay area, where they hailed from.
No, this is not President Trump's Steven Miller, but as one of the last loyal patriots in his administration, we like him too. Peak Stupidity recommends both Steve Millers, bigly.
Whoa ho ho ho-oh, oh-oh-ohh,
I eye-eye-eye feel free,
Whoa ho ho ho-oh, oh-oh-ohh,
where I can have my own space.
This album really deserves to be listened to in its entirety. It's got lots of cool synthesizers, great guitars, and lots of songs that have probably never been heard by anyone but real Steve Miller fans. This band has been featured on Peak Stupidity only once before with Take the Money and Run from the previous album Fly Like an Eagle.
The Steve Miller Band:
Steve Miller – vocals, guitar, synthesizer, sitar, producer
David Denny – guitar
Greg Douglass – slide guitar
Byron Allred – piano, synthesizer
Lonnie Turner – bass guitar
Gary Mallaber – drums, percussion
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The F.A.G.S. space and user-generated content
Posted On: Monday - September 24th 2018 8:12PM MST
In Topics: Websites Media Stupidity Orwellian Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity
... along with Apple, Google, and Spotify*
This is somewhat of a continuation of the topic of the Orwellian control of ideas via the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse, more widely known as the 4 F.A.G.S. of the Social Media. Peak Stupidity previously discussed the topic in relation to the un-personing of Alex Jones (more here) by these companies with monopolies on their "spaces"** in the internet social media realm.
These companies have been in the news of late due to leakage of news of their use of their massive media power (due to wide usage) to slant search results and other internet page-views by naive users who think they are completely impartial due to "it's a computer, man." VDare has a post by Mrs. Brenda Walker on the great amazingly-still-on-the-air Tucker Carlson regarding emails out of Google that reveal their devious deeds. One realizes how Orwellian this stuff is only after imagining the types of things that can be programmed to happen with an understanding of how almost all users expect fairness in search results.
The talk by the President about controlling these organizations has brought to the forefront of public consciousness questions of the 1st Amendment being not applicable to private business, the breaking up of monopolies, etc. However, it's not the goal of this post to discuss that stuff.
In this post, I simply want to point out a major reason that these companies can monopolize their respective spaces. I had talked about this to a friend and decided maybe this wasn't obvious to everyone. Let me first bring up Amazon.com though, which is not the "A" in F.A.G.S., BTW, and not part of the un-personing of conservatives/patriot yet. That's not to say it couldn't very easily be part of these nefarious efforts with regard to it's book sales and anything else political, if it wanted. This leads toward my point, and Amazon is perhaps the best, first example. I'd heard of the company in 1997, when they sold nothing but books. It was a few years later, though, when someone explained to me the perhaps not-intentionally genius idea of having the users make most of the website content. That's what the reviews are - user-generated content. Amazon made the excellent "platform" (another buzzword, but a decent one), but the site-viewers were, and are, glad to add reviews of (now) any product, basically to help their fellow consumers. (That is, unless they are ringers, and I do see quite a bit of that.) Put the ability to communicate and be seen out there, and the users will fill the site with useful information. It's genius (not in the invention of the transistor sort of way, but for these guys, yeah, it's genius).
The Internet Movie DataBase, one of my favorites for many years, is a great example of a user-generated content site, though it is a site that I think was made purely for the love of the data (movies and everything about movies). That was more the way of the web back in the 1990's. Peak Stupidity makes a habit of linking to IMDB for all references to movies, over Amazon.com, and in fact, Amazon bought the IMDB back when they started selling movies (on VHS tapes!). (I'm not sure whether Amazon still owns IMDB.)
Let me now turn to Facebook. It's the same there. All the billions of valuation of that company represent the usefulness of the site to 100's of millions (or billions?) of people, that somehow will make lots of money for the company. Yes, that last part is very questionable, but not the apparent usefulness of the site to many. It's the users that generate almost all of the site content, as Facebook just provided the platform. In the case of the dominant search engine Google, it's the billions of searches done by the users that THEMSELVES help make the subsequent searches more powerful and accurate (if they're not made deliberately biased, that is).
Google's youtube, BTW, is another example, better than Google-search itself, of a site for which the content is generated by the users, per the Amazon model. Once the platform was made, and they were the 1st for all knowledge of this blogger, it was all about letting the users fill it up. Do you remember when videos were limited to 10 min. length? It wasn't that long ago, what 5 years, maybe? Man, you couldn't even listen to the full Steve Miller Book of Dreams for free back then. I mean, WTF, man?!
Now, I'd like to dicuss why it's very difficult to break these Big-Net monopolies, but this has been shifted into a subsequent post - see two posts later.
* Full disclosure: Peak Stupidity has no earthly idea what Spotify does, nor does Peak Stupidity give a rat's ass if we never ever know.
** "Space" has been a big, big, corporate-buzzword for many years in the "TECH!" (another buzzword) world. Facebook works in the networking "space", while Google works in the search "space", etc. I'd like to be in space myself that has none of these people, and that'd probably have to take me into outer space.
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[Updated 9/25, morning: ] Added more about user-generated content with examples of IMDB and youtube. This made this post too long. I've cut off the 2nd part and put it in the post 2 subsequent to this one and changed the title.
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