Maestroes- doing the jobs that possibly nobody needs to do


Posted On: Wednesday - February 14th 2018 8:00AM MST
In Topics: 
  Music  The Dead  Humor

Are these guys really necessary?
Couldn't they be replaced by Maestro-bots or cheap illegal labor?




Upon reading/viewing this short John Derbyshire blog-post about Korean opera singer, Lee Myong-Joo, singing in Italian (not particularly my cup o' tea), I couldn't help but notice the conducter doing his bit there in front of the large orchestra backing up the singer. This conductor job has been bugging me for a while, which is the subject of this short post.

Yes, I have played in school bands with the teacher acting as conductor. It was highly necessary, as some of the kids were a bunch of screw ups and just couldn't keep time, much less play all the right notes. There's keeping time, as in not varying the meter off of that appropriate for the piece, and then there's the keeping time (more related to rock/country/bluegrass/etc) in which you must get back to the same place after 4 times around, or 8 times around, not some odd-ass number like 7! I've seen both types of problems. The former is something hard to overcome, as it just may be a talent, without the presence of a metronome or conductor. The latter is just plain old lack of attention. It's bad when it's the bass player, BTW.

You would just think that, after playing cello or violin for 2 hours a day for 10 years under the supervision of their Tiger Moms, by the time they get to play at the Metropolitan Opera House, these people would know how to keep time, right? Why do these musicians need this conductor, or "maestro" as they insist on being called. He's probably paid more or as much as the best musicians, but for what? He signals that they might want to play a little softer here, then come on strong with the low sound right now, then ... what? Couldn't they work it all out themselves during practice?

I think it's time to eliminate this union-sandbagging position. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these guys are just Soprano-family mobsters that didn't feel like sitting outside in a lawn chair in the winter for this make-work job. (You see a lot of these guys in New York City, too, come to think of it - mob country.)

Let's contrast the opera house or any large classical music performance requiring a maestro with how it's done in good rock music, OK? In this video, a live version of Cassidy*, Jerry Garcia has been just absorbed in playing his lead, to some unusual chord progression too, from 03:35 on. Then, at 05:18, Jerry tries for about 10 seconds to get Bob Weir's attention to let him know he's about done playing it. Bobby doesn't notice, but then at 05:32, he tries to get Jerry's attention. Jerry is looking back at his guitar then (or maybe just something acid-induced in his head!) so Bobby just yells "Hey" in the middle of the music there, and they all wrap it back up toward the tonic. Who needs a conductor? Those guys were all maestros!






* Yes, this is a repeat of a song featured just recently, in this post about the 10,004th maniac. OTOH every Dead performance has it done differently, and this one just was amusing to me. RIP, Jerry.



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Password-related stupidity


Posted On: Tuesday - February 13th 2018 2:33PM MST
In Topics: 
  Curmudgeonry  Artificial Stupidity



Just to follow up as the 2nd of 3 notes promised on specific areas of modern electronic artificial stupidity (as opposed to AI), I'll just write a bit to explain problems that I'm sure I'm not the only one having. (Here is the 1st of the 3 follow-ups.)

I mentioned getting sent round and round with this electronic device yesterday. Between remembering passwords, getting replacement passwords and pins sent to email accounts that I no longer have the passwords to, updating this and that, requiring yet additional passwords, it was a scene, man! No, I didn't use the table saw on the device, so there's that ... Now, this writer does know that there are programs that keep your passwords together with only one necessary to open it. That's great if you are always on the same device, or will never, ever lose, or lose access to, the one that's got all the info. It's not always like that though.

You can synch up passwords, though that's not recommended for security reasons. You can write em all down in a little paper notebook and don't lose that. That's definitely not recommended, but done anyway by bright people who are just sick of the bullshit. I found one on the table in the office. I didn't know what or whose it was until I glanced through it and saw all that, and then a woman came out of the bathroom near by - "hey, is this yours, are you Barbara?". "Yes, thanks." "Good thing I'm not a thief or a pervert, huh?" Hell, I wouldn't have remembered any of it without a lot of effort anyway.

You can come up with one really hard one, without birthdays, names of cats and babies, etc., as all that personal stuff is what let's hackers easily get started on you. Then, you can vary this difficult-to-crack one a bit to use on various software programs that all want passwords, but some want it this way - 6-10 chars. no odd ones - others another way - at least 10 characters, must have numbers, what-have-you. You've still got to remember how you shifted around the pw when you (try to) get into each piece of software, i.e. tool, to get something done. That's all good until the program asks you to change the password for security reasons every 3 months. Then, that's where people say "the hell with it" and just go the notepad.

One more thing, since I mentioned the cats and babies, and "your first car", "your home town address", etc go along with this point. Those security questions - I never put the right stuff there either. It's not their damn business! Don't give out any more info than you have to (not for the Feral Gov's sake - they probably got it all, but for ID theft and corporate assholery reasons). Since I give bogus answers to those security questions, I usually don't remember what those answers were either, when I'm supposed to need 'em. However, I think I just came up with a system. No, I'm not telling. It just keeps me able to use my tools without spending an hour or two a week gettting the run-around. My table saw doesn't do this to me, so that might explain why woodworking is so peaceful.



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Dr. Ron Paul, E-verify as a Liberty vs. Conservatism conundrum


Posted On: Tuesday - February 13th 2018 10:30AM MST
In Topics: 
  Immigration Stupidity  Americans  Liberty/Libertarianism

A real American patriot -
about the ONLY politician that should appear by the American flag




Ron Paul, in his weekly punditry column, wrote against the implementation of the anti-illegal-employment E-verify program. I link here to his article on Zerohedge and here to the same article on the unz site, due to the fact that there are two sets of different kinds of commenters, yet good discussion on both. The Peak Stupidity blog has just recently tried to convince the reader(s) that libertarians (including Dr. Paul) have a lot they must learn from conservatives, and vice versa.

In the case of E-verifiy, supported as a very important part of real immigration-invasion reform by the respected VDare people, this clash between these two ideologies provides a conundrum, as it were (gotta like that "conundrum" one, makes me sound like a real pundit). It reminds me of the real US Supreme Court tough decisions, back in the day before it was totally politically corrupted. As discussed near the middle of this post, two different parts of the US Constitution, usually in the Bill of Rights, would be in conflict regarding the implementation of the law in question. That court was doing it's job back then.

E-verify is a way to stop employers from getting away with hiring illegal aliens. Serious immigration patriots think, pretty reasonably, in my opinion, that people will be deterred from illegal entry and others may go home due to lack of these formerly good opportunites. They will no longer be hired as cheap labor to undercut Americans, using American taxpayers' money as back up via welfare benefits.

Dr. Paul is against the program as it's another brick in the wall of the anti-privacy Police State that has been slowly (more quickly, as of the last 2 decades) built up. He makes good points, but, on this point, specifically, it seems like it's just water under the bridge. Yes, any program that CAN be misused for further control of Americans by Big Feral Gov WILL be, just as the Social Security number (SS #, very appropriate) was "never gonna be an American ID number" per FDR and his socialist minions. Yeah, I wouldn't have believed you people last time, and I don't now. The total awareness of American's locations, spending, communications, all of it is so far gone that I just don't think this one matters right now. To use a 3rd common expression, this E-verify might be another nail in the coffin for privacy, but there are already 2 1/2 " drywall screws spaced every 3" attaching the coffin lid already. Yeah, Peak Stupidity can use a metaphor like the best of 'em!

Back to the libertarians' side again, they have a point that without the huge welfare state set-up American has now, these illegals would not so readily invade for employment with this additional renumeration by the taxpayers. That's all true, but it's again water under the bridge (metaphor #2).

All in all, in this case, I disagree with the man of principle Ron Paul. Well, don't go disrespecting the man, as I don't here. If we had had just 25% of the congress made of men like him over the years enforcing Constitutional rule-of-law, we would never have been in the position we are in now with total loss of control of the policies the Feral Gov screws us with.

Libertarians please note again: This immigration invasion is an existential problem. It's got to be solved NOW, one way or another. These new unassimilated "Americans" will not be voting for anything liberty-oriented - DO! YOU! GET! THAT!? No, Reason-mag Libertards, if you get 5 new subscriptions yearly from new immigrants, legal or illegal, consider yourselves lucky.

Just on the details of how E-verify doesn't add much (as of yet!, Dr. Paul would say) to the already Big-Gov control of employment, I present one comment from ZeroHedge:

Endgame Napoleon --> IH8OBAMA Tue, 02/13/2018 - 01:26

Unlike millions of underemployed US citizens, Senator Paul obviously has not been through the array of mouse-on-a-treadmill tests, checks and forms, necessary to acquire every six-week temp job at $10.40 per hour.

Many in his state have. At $18,093k, Kentucky’s per-capita income says it all, and hordes of welfare-aided illegal aliens help to keep individual income at rock bottom in his state.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_locations_by_per_capit…

Many citizens — nationwide — have done this temp-job hoop jumping time after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, getting these jobs, working hard and having NOTHING to show for it.

eVerify is just too much to put illegal aliens through.......??????

Most of the citizens, going through all of that hoop jumping for every puny temp job that will not cover rent that absorbs more than half of their earned-only income, already sacrifice privacy and dignity, over and over.

Citizens have already ceded constitutional freedoms, just to work temporary, part-time, high-turnover and 1099-gig jobs with low wages and inadequate hours that will never rise.

Wages and hours will never really rise, when so many illegal aliens with US-born kids are incentivized by government to stay below the earned-income limit for monthly welfare that covers their rent and groceries and the cut off for child tax credits that used to top out at $6,444 until Swampers doubled the amount in their recent tax cut / tax-welfare plan.
[Not sure about his point on the child credit, as the very next commenter argues - PS]

That move, in and of itself, revealed the direction of the Swamp water. When the Swamp doubled child-tax-credit welfare—even for illegal aliens—many of us could see that Swampians serve only 1) their campaign donors and 2) the cheap, welfare-buttressed, noncitizen labor of their campaign donors.

If Swampers were soooooo concerned with civil liberties, why did they not bring it up all these years, when US citizens were asked to submit to every kind of scrutiny imaginable to get every 6-week, two-bit call center stint? It is only when their precious, welfare-fueled, cheap illegal alien labor is on the line that they give a ****.
Yeah, ZH has some good discussion, and normally with no qualms about the Fight Club language and style. Still, for equal time - both in terms of unz vs. ZH and libertarians vs. conservatives, I present one very good unz comment by a guy named Guiseppe:
Ron is spot on, it’s a slippery slope. Paid trolls [nope, that's not the case here - it's a conundrum - PS] are out in force today. Features of E-Verify like biometrics are already being incorporated into what is being billed as the *enhanced drivers licence.” Congress would never dare pass legislation authorizing a national identity card, so your government has repackaged the idea and is slipping it past drowsy Americans. The national security state that tracks your vehicle’s license plate along freeways or at intersections, listens in on your mobile phone conversations and reads your email, bit by bit is assembling the the elements of a world-wide database with everything about you contained in a chip in your driver’s licence. All that remains is to surgically place the chip into your body or stamp a QR code on your forehead. In time advanced facial recognition and biometric capabilities will even make this obsolete, you will simply present your face to the officer, who will have immediate access to everything about you, including whether or not your driver’s license is current. Welcome to E-Verify, welcome to your dystopic future.
It's a tough call on this one, really, which is why discussion these two blog sites is very interesting stuff.



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Software as a tool


Posted On: Monday - February 12th 2018 11:23PM MST
In Topics: 
  Curmudgeonry  Artificial Stupidity



(They're just different kind of tools, right?)


Written by tools to be used as tools ... no, nothing against software programmers/developers here, but Peak Stupidity has got a real beef with the management. Look a the mechanical tool above for hands-on work then the (some kind of) piece of software that is part of a "tool" to for (former) "paperwork". As briefly discussed here and just in the previous post, software programs, aka "apps" now, are really just tools. We use many kinds of hand-powered and electrical/air/hydraulic-powered tools to do faster and higher quality hands-on work, and we use many kinds (programming language, O/S, interface) of computer-run tools to do faster and higher-quality clerical or paper-work.

The reason software is so frustrating to many of us - I can only speak for the staff of the Peak Stupidity blog - is that most software tools nowadays require constant learning to keep being of use. Hey, learning new things is usually a good thing for us. Not with this crap, it ain't! The deal with new updated apps or Windows 10 as a forced replacement for the last POS is that learning is made necessary just to do the same jobs. Not only that, we are often FORCED to use each new version of the same tool, as the old version becomes unusable due to other software tools that it must work with, that have themselves been updated, requiring more learning, Sorcerer's apprentice style.

Can you just imagine the analogy with the table saw? You pull it out of the garage to cut pieces for some shelves. You see some sticker that magically appeared on the side of the saw that claims it's now "table saw 1.03". What does that mean? Well, you may need to go on-line to get help, but it seems like the tightening knobs for the fence have been relocated and work differently, the blade-adjustment crank now turns the other way, the tilt angles are scribed on in radians instead of degrees, and the saw needs 220 V A/C power now, with it's new plug ready to go. You'll need a new blade too, BTW, as the blades have been updated recently, and the old one doesn't even fit now. There's work and learning to be done, before you can get started with the shelf project. Hey, that's just what you've gotta do - you're not some luddite, are ya?

It's not like that, though, with actual, non-software tools. The tablesaw is ready to be used in the same manner as it's always been. There's no learning required to use it again once it's been figured out. There may be better techniques to learn, sure, but not just to do as well as you did the last time. With software, however, we have new versions that we are forced to use, eventually. Even if the changes are only additions, as in extra new cool features, to our "Word" editor program, the new stuff is made default ON. That means, one has to learn how to turn off all the new stuff right away or learn to use it all over. Menus options have been rearranged - buttons have been eliminated or moved. Things start indenting because the software reckons that's what you want. Your wording keeps getting re-arranged by the half-assed grammar-checker. All these thing require workarounds, basically fooling the damn software, to get the work done, unless one backs off for a few hours to learn how to take care of this crap. Good luck remembering how to work the new way, which is will be finally pretty solidified in our minds about the time the next important version is coming out.

Yes, the software companies do lots of this to keep sales up. Who in hell really wants the next version of Windows that bad? If you don't keep up, eventually the old versions will be useless with other programs that you do want to add on. It would be so nice just to have one computer with it's O/S and useful programs all frozen in one state. You are good with these tools so why is a change necessary? Sorry, you've got no say in the matter. The artificial stupidity is big business and you luddites need to keep up we'll make fun of you as idiots because you can't use the new software and then we'll force your old one to become uselss. That's why you find people out in the garage making shelving that they don't really need, and occasionally having a blast running the old tablet through with the blade. Wear those goggle now, OSHA cares about YOU!



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The Sorcerer's Apprentice


Posted On: Monday - February 12th 2018 12:45PM MST
In Topics: 
  Curmudgeonry  Artificial Stupidity



The video that I just spent 10 minutes unsuccessfully searching for was a cartoon with a sorcerer's apprentice who had kind of deputized a bunch of brooms to do work for him. The brooms would screw up the jobs, and as the apprentice sorcerer tried to stop them from doing any work at all, the brooms would just multiply, go crazy, and screw up the job even worse. It was the stuff of bad dreams, in fact, but I cannot find this one. Any reader who may know where to find it, please write in, in the comments (put the letters "PS" FIRST, to keep the Ruskies at bay - that's my only beef with the Ruskies - we are not Neocons here at Peak Stupidity, we just hate crazy broomstick-bot spammers!)

I think over 4 decades have gone by since I've seen that video (but hey, youtube, get on it, you slackers!). It came back to me after almost that long after having messed around with electronic devices this morning. The amount of time just purely wasted trying to use a piece of software required for work that I had used a few months back on the same damn device is shameful. Pieces of software are supposed to be used as TOOLS, dammit, the Peak Stupidity blog mentioned a few months back. As tools, they can make jobs easier, or just make them possible at all. I GET THAT! [/Carlson]. They don't need to make more work, like the brooms in that scary (to me at the time, anyway) sorcerer's apprentice video that I can't find.

It's really like that video. You get sent round in circles, first by worthless IT people - this one WAS in America, BTW, but not a white guy - then, the various pieces of software involved each want to get updated, but updating one makes another stop or have problems. Then you've got to come up with passwords that you made up months ago. Yes, I know, synch em up, right, but that doesn't help when some of them want changing every month or so. How did we get our pieces of electronics to run our selves around in circles, trying to appease them? I can't even remember what happened at the end of that out-of-control crazy-ass brooms video. Did the apprentice win, and stop them all somehow, or did they take over and destroy everything? I think to recreate the former, I would have to take this piece of shit electronic stupidity, and smash it onto the concrete, an expensive, but happy ending.

Again, youtube has really let me down here, as the right video would really ring true with all of us familiar with modern artificial stupidity. I know there is a famous Mickey Mouse scene from Fantasia with the classical music of the name "Sorcerer's Apprentice" that goes with it, but it's not what I was looking for. This was a lot darker than Mickey Mouse's style. However, I did find it, with albeit very poor video quality (what do you want, from 1944 or something?), with some great rock guitar by a guy named Joe Stump:



I'm running out of time here, but I'll continue later, hopefully this evening, with more on the point of software as tools, more about modern password-related stupidity (to explain myself better on this), along with some thoughts about throwing out garbage - very much related.

*****************************
[UPDATED 12/18/19]:
Video with Joe Stump music is gone off youtube. This is from Disney's Fantasia.
I dunno. That memory is from long long ago, maybe a bad dream, which cannot be found on youtube.
*****************************



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Smashing Pumpkins - To Sheila


Posted On: Friday - February 9th 2018 8:23PM MST
In Topics: 
  Music

This great Smashing Pumpkins ballad is NOT from the 2-CD album Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which got me through some semi-rough times.

This is To Sheila from the album Adore from just about 20 years back. I had always thought that this band was part of the grunge scene for some reason, probably just because Smashing Pumpkins music came out near the latter part of that 1990's era. The band is from Chicago, however, not Seattle. That great haunting voice is Mr. Billy Corgan. I'll have to post more music from them, especially from Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, about which I'm still semi-infinitely sad, no more like pissed, from some asshole ripping off a whole bunch of my CD's, including that one, out of my car out west.




Billy Corgan – vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, and keyboards
James Iha – lead and rhythm guitar, vocals
D'arcy Wretzky – bass guitar, rhythm guitar



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Every headline tells a story, don't it?


Posted On: Friday - February 9th 2018 7:53PM MST
In Topics: 
  Immigration Stupidity  Lefty MegaStupidity  Feminism  ctrl-left

This post is not to be confused with an older one featuring great Rod Stewart music called Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?. Nope, this one says "headline", not picture. Here:

“It’s too late for Germany”: German feminist SJW admits she got it wrong on immigration, plans to emigrate for her retirement. What more does need to be said here, except for the fact that Peak Stupidity fancies itself a blog, and so must say something or other.

The story is from the Diversity Macht Frei blog - the title is a play on a phrase from a different phase in German history. I'm gonna paste in a good bit of his post:
In 2012 Rebecca Sommer founded the refugee aid association Arbeitsgruppe Flucht + Menschen-Rechte (AG F+M) [Working Group Asylum + Human Rights]. At the end of 2015, this artist, photographer and journalist and documentary maker applauded Angela Merkel’s decision to open German’s borders to the “refugees” who had been blocked in Hungary, despite the vacuum effect this would create. “At that time I wanted to help everyone ...
Stop right there! See what I'm talking about?
“It was a jarring perception when I noticed that these people I had helped, who were eating, drinking, dancing and laughing with me, who didn’t pray, who didn’t go to the mosque, who didn’t respect Ramadan, who made fun of religion and deeply religious people, called me ‘the stupid German whore’ when they were eating my food and were in my garden.”
Jarring, indeed, and just what does she mean by garden, exactly? [OK, low blow, there! - Ed] Really all I can write in reply to this paragraph is a big Instapundit-trademarked "HEH!".
She also acknowledges that, through their numbers, these Muslim immigrants pose a threat to the German way of life, and that this will get worse with family reunification.

She also told the Polish weekly magazine Do Rzeczy that she personally knows Germans who are getting ready to emigrate to Poland because they had have enough,...


[SNIP]

She thinks it is already too late for Germany and she plans to emigrate for her retirement [to Poland, it sounds like]
Yes, you hear all those Pollack jokes and you figure they may not be too bright over there, right? This lady, however, is taking a lot for granted, if she thinks they will let her in after helping fuck up one country already - it sounds pretty bigoted of her to assume they will get everything backwards like this is just a simple light bulb joke.

Seriously, couldn't any of the SJW cntrl-left ever admit they were wrong? I mean, people like her have done unfathomable damage to the country of Germany. You're from there, lady, why don't you stick it out under you and the rest of your cntrl-left's sick social plans. See, it's not that an apology would make anything better. It's just that it may possibly clue in some of her cohorts that maybe they are not always right and should listen to their countrymen instead of dismissing them with perjoratives.

POLAND, STAND YOUR GROUND! DO! NOT! LET! THIS! SICK! BROAD! CROSS! THE! BORDER!

Oh, yeah, every picture tells a story too, so maybe the following would have sufficed as the entire post:

You're right, not all idiots are German feminists.
Still though, all German feminists are idiots.





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What's the deal with Peak Stupidity - Libertarian or Conservative?


Posted On: Friday - February 9th 2018 10:06AM MST
In Topics: 
  General Stupidity  Websites  Liberty/Libertarianism

The Peak Stupidity blog reader may well be wondering - WTF is it gonna be, Libertarianism or Conservativism? After having hopped back and forth over the last week between the pro-liberty posts on homeschooling and the Police State, and the conservative posts on feminism/demographic soo-ee-cide and immigration lately (Hey what about moon cakes!? Moon pies, dammit!?), the reader has cause to wonder. Well, these two "isms" can very well co-exist, it turns out. That is so long as the adherents of both of these philosophies just don't think so many stupid things.

Libertarians have a lot to learn from the conservatives, and conservatives have a lot to learn from the libertarians. This would be a good topic for a full-out essay, as I have been thinking about this for quite a while, being an adherent of both of these philosophies, with the caveat "hold the stupid, please, ma'am."

As a conservative, I say to the libertarians that are somehow, stupidly, pro open-borders:
Free markets work, free trade can be good if it's fair and I understand the concept of division of labor and why we don't manufacture moon cakes and raise many dogs for human consumption here, just as the Chinese don't manufacture moon pies and raise many dairy cattle. In my bestest Tucker Carlson voice, I! GET! THAT! Even some free and easy travel between countries at low numbers can be a very good thing.

Immigration of 5,000 - 10,000 people per year from various shit- and non-shit versions of holes all over the world can be a fine thing, likewise. However, 10's of MILLIONS of any kind of different people being imported from locations with totally different cultures is bad, mmmkaaay? Do you people think that 25,000,000 Latin Americans will vote for or defend your Constitutional rights? No, and neither will the next generation, and beyond that, there will be no America anymore, so no use worrying about what the 3rd generation will vote for, if voting will even go on then. How many Reason magazine subscribers do you reckon you've picked up out of this crowd, a coupla' dozen?

Face it, libertarians, you and some multiple 10's of million, usually white men, are the only people anywhere around the world left that have a long background and understanding of these concepts that our founders fought for and wrote out in the US Constitution and elsewhere. You are already pretty much outnumbered, so please stop making it worse.
As a libertarian, I say to you conservatives who don't really care a hoot how big the Feral Gov't gets:
Who are you kidding with your disrespect for "muh Constitution" and "we can have socialism just fine in our nice white country."? No, Big Government and the socialism that always goes along with it, is the cause of your problems. How the hell can you Make America Great Again, when the huge Feral Beast of a government has engendered the welfare/warfare state and implemented almost-uncontrolled immigration? This all started right in the mid-1960's (most of it, though I'd pin the start of the real forever-war-state on the 1990's).

We're on the 3rd generation of welfare-state-raised thugs in the ghettos of just about every major and minor city in the country. These are people, some of whom would not have been born just due to the responsible parenting of people who can't depend on THE STATE, with the remainder who would be living much more productive and less violent lives. We would not be living at the peak of stupidity with respect to feminism, gender-bender nonsense, Political Correctness, and scores of other flavors of stupid, if people had continued to constrain the big Feral Government before it was too late.

Conservatives, your power to have done something to stop the immigration invasion would have been much greater if we had control of the US Government. Right now, the Globalists, the Neocons, the Deep State, and corrupt politicians of all sorts have no interest in making policy per your wants and needs as Americans. They don't give a flying fuck about you, on account of they don't seem to have to answer to you anymore. When was the last time you recall bringing up US Constitution Amendment X of the Bill of Rights? Dig deep, man.
Yes, this will make a good essay, as there's lot's more to say to these people (Peak Stupidity remains on both sides, above the fray). Anyway, yes we swing both ways here at the Peak Stupidity blog, and we also got both kinds of music ... country AND western:




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Western World demographic soo-ee-cide - the working woman


Posted On: Thursday - February 8th 2018 8:13PM MST
In Topics: 
  Feminism  Educational Stupidity

Not the way life was meant to be...



This will probably be the last of this for a while. It's another example of the modern women's lifestyle that takes them off the track of their main purpose for being on this earth. I'm just posting this because it's from personal experience again, as in the previous post on this topic, yet more of another example of the post prior to that, involving working woman.

I spoke for a while while on a business trip with a younger lady who was also traveling on business. Yes, she told me, it was very challenging, what she was doing, she was very excited, she didn't mind the sacrifice of being away from the home for a couple of days each and every week, yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, I don't work for HR young lady, you don't have to feed me that crap. I am not concerned in this case that a career man could have been in this job supporting a family - no, this "position" requires degrees in Education, meaning that I don't think this job should have ANYBODY doing it!

This lady travels to different schools to teach the teachers how to use some new software for the kids. Yes, there's plenty of money for the software and the consultants like this woman to jet around to support it. It's like unlimited, this money, until the school needs you to send in extra pencils and freakin' saltine crackers. (I'm gonna get more into this Educational Stupidity topic key in the near future.) The problem I have is that most of the make-work careers are filled by career woman. The taxes or just big-corporate spending that support this stuff come from the labor of lots of hard-working men with careers. As Peak Stupidity stated before (somewhere, as I couldn't find it just now), this theft of labor hours is nothing less than a reduction of one's lifespan.

That's just the half of it; let's get back to the evils of feminism here. With regard to the damage done to the general happiness of society, I will just say categorically that I think this women would be happier having popped out a few little ones by now. She is in her twenties - prime age for this - yet "it's a struggle, but we are making it work" (She and her husband, who travels around for his, lot's cooler, job). This writer has no women's intuition, but just the way the woman talked sounded an awful lot like she was trying to convince herself this was an appropriate and best lifestyle, not me.

As commenter Jack D. wrote under the Steve Sailer post regarding software career women,
This is the great irony of modern feminism – there is one job (having babies) that women are infinitely better at than men but that’s the job that they DON’T want to do.
Concise and on the money, there.

It would not have prudent for Peak Stupidity to have asked this young lady whether she really liked this whole career woman thing. It's just that, from the women I know well, the truth will come out at the right moment. The lifetime of feminist brainwashing doesn't get to all parts of the brain and body, as much work as is put into it.



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"Papiere bitte!" - "Your papers, please!" - Stories from the real deal


Posted On: Wednesday - February 7th 2018 11:34AM MST
In Topics: 
  Websites  US Police State  History  Pundits  Liberty/Libertarianism



It's been a long time since I used to peruse, well read almost all of, the daily 10 posts or so that would appear on Lew Rockwell's website. The man, and the stuff posted there (last I read) were true Libertarian, in the best sense. I took a look just now, noticing that I haven't read it in so long, that it was gone from the history saved by this browser that's been installed > 5 years! It looks a slight bit prettied-up, but just a glance at the headlines of the usual 10 or so articles, LewRockwell, the site, still looks like it's full of good truthful Libertarianism. That's nice to see.

While searching for something involved with the writing of the two previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2) of this current stray thought path series, this writer came upon something from 2005 written by a Mrs. Doris Colmes titled "Papiere-Bitte". It came back to me - I'd read this stuff! This was from way back, but I had been reading the libertarian's opinions and outrage at America's morphing into a police state for a while already upon coming across her article.

Here's the thing. Back in 2005 there were still many around who had been through the real deal, whether Nazi Germany (this case) or Communist totalitarian societies, with overbearing governments, as our Feral Gov't here tries to emulate. A previous article by Doris Colmes* was about the demanding of ID's from law officers, and it brought her back ...
Reading this took me straight back to that living nightmare called Nazi Germany. There, if one didn't show ID upon command, and/or if anything was even the slightest bit out of the ordinary on these papers, it was Bye-Bye, and — if one were a Jew, a Gypsy or seen as gay by the arresting officer — that was some long Goodbye, indeed. Death camps were waiting, needing monthly quotas, and age was not an issue. Little kids zoomed off to extermination just as quickly as adults, and all for the sin of, perhaps, an inkblot on an identifying number, or the magic word Jew printed on the top.

And, now, it seems, we've come full circle....
"Oh, come now, there are no camps, we just have to ID people, as you know, times are different now ..." Right, this stuff has gone way farther than the situation in 2005 America, and quit kidding yourselves. We live in a Police State whether you want to admit it to yourself or not. I'm gonna paste in a good chunk from the "Papiere, Bitte" article, starting with this about the "Real ID" act, coming to fruition as I write, in fact - Big Brother shit at it's finest:
Think I'm some kind of elderly nut-job neurotically manufacturing dictatorship? Well, let's look at the 82 billion dollar defense bill passed just a few weeks ago, which (with a vote tally of 100 to 0) had the Real ID Act hidden inside it. This law allows a national identification process in which each and every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer.

This ID will be based on driver's license applications, although it isn't just for driving. Just like the infamous "Internal Passport" of Nazi Germany, no one will need it unless needing to fly, cash checks, apply for jobs, walk the streets, enter federal buildings – or drive...
Doris Colme's look into the future:
Legal "ID Theft" and legal "illegal surveillance”? The Real ID Act links driver's licenses of all states, creating a data base including the private details of every single U.S. citizen. It mandates that your driver's license share a common machine-readable digital photo of you, all the better to track your every movement. It hands the federal government unfunded mandate power to dictate what data all states must collect for license holders, including everything from fingerprints to retinal scans. And, if you don't drive, you'll still need to submit to the national ID card. How else, after all, will the cop who doesn't like the shape of your face, or the fact that you are (God Forbid) wearing a turban get to arrest you? Yes, "Papiere Bitte" has come home to roost.

And, folks, that's only the beginning. More technically sophisticated techniques will be implemented as they occur. If the Nazis had had electronic surveillance, phone bugging and all else that the Patriot Act not only condones but advises, there would have been an even tighter grip on the populace.
... [SNIP] ... So, you ask, "If that's all true, why doesn't the media expose it all?" Now, that's such a classic example of Nazi strategy, it's almost funny. The Nazis took over the media, folks. No newspaper published a single sentence without governmental approval, and propaganda was fed to the populace instead of news. Sound familiar? A Time magazine article, (April, 2005), gave illustrated examples of how the current administration administers this process.

And, last but certainly not least, the Nazis took over the German government in its entirety with one simple maneuver: They simply took over the courts. You know, like it's happening right now, today, even as we speak: Our filibuster was busted, and those neo-con activist judges are a-sittin' on the bench, ready to take over the Supreme Court. Because, once that Supreme Court is co-opted, hey, driver's license ID cards are going be the least of our worries. Ask me. I know!
OK, she does not claim to be a Sci-Fi writer, so she missed the smart-phone as voluntary comprehensive bugging device bit. The Peak Stupidity blog has lots to say about that, coming up ... yes, NSA, we know that you know - fuck you too!

Just read that again about the media, courts and governments, if you skimmed it. That's what has come already. As written in the previous post on this (latter portion), we've had the Deep State developing this Police State, the Neocons supporting it, duped regular Americans who don't mind getting felt-up (worse yet, their kids), as "the Moslems ruined it for all of us" and "showing their papers!". The ones who have been pushing for it the most within the media, courts (see anarcho-tyranny), and government, though, are the cntrl-left. Those are the guys and gals that have been winning the domestic front of the Cold War for 5 decades now. Most of the cntrl-left are the ones that like to call people Nazis. They will probably be the first to be hauled out, shot, and pushed into a ditch next time too, as useful idiots are too expensive to keep running once they've served their purpose. Think about that, and no, don't try to use logic with them. That is not Peak Stupidity's point here either, to try to talk sense to the cntrl-left. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. They will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later, if we don't want a repeat of the 20th century Communist infiltration of 1/2 the world.

The only people that have been trying to thwart this encroachment of Police State USA have been the true Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and just the few well-aware patriotic Americans. So, Conservatives, just lay the hell off them for a while, huh?

Breasts, uhh, papers please?




* Here is a page on the Lew Rockwell site with 7 articles by Mrs. Colmes, and from first glances, they are all not only well written but all scathing criticisms of the modern US Police State - and this stuff was all written in 2005-06.



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Western World demographic soo-ee-cide - the anti-snowflake


Posted On: Tuesday - February 6th 2018 6:31PM MST
In Topics: 
  Feminism  Female Stupidity

Not a snowflake, but she really oughtta get off the rock and reproduce.



(Just a file photo here - not the subject of the post.)


This is just a continuation of the previous post, in which I got pretty torqued off at the stupidity involving women in the workplace. That is a topic that could be discussed in more depth here, but the conclusion of that post, herein, is what was supposed to be the subject in the first place, women who just don't have it in 'em to have kids, though being quite capable. The title says "anti-snowflake", as this is about women who are quite unlike some other Western women responsible for demographic suicide, the snowflake girls, written about in the 2nd "demographic soo-eee-cide" post.

This is also about a co-worker. No snowflake at all, this one can take some talk about anything, even though still of the left/feminist bent politically. It's just not the politics in her that are the problem, demo-suicide-wise. The woman I'm writing about is not a rock-climber, that I know of, but is in great shape for her participation in other outdoor activities, and travel around the world.

Let me state here and now that I don't know her well enough on this, and the same with lots of other women that have damn good reasons they can't physically have a child. Peak Stupidity has the posts on the general state of things, and the exceptions don't usually get discussed. This is a general discussion then, that may, with 5% chance or less, NOT apply to this lady co-worker.

There are people living the high life, enjoying the types of travel and activities at a level that nobody could have in the past, especially just someone not particularly well-off like this lady. Being a lady in very decent shape, however, means she doesn't really need the means - most of it is obviously being paid for by a or multiple boyfriends. That's not my business.

After getting shown hundreds of pictures on her phone of all the fun all over the world, and the talk like she I should know some town in Patagonia, because of the skiing or this town, etc. I just started wondering if she had no idea that her body's job was to have children. Nothing in the pictures showed family stuff; it was all just friends having fun here, and traveling there, like people frozen in the good times without connection to anyone. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think like this even 10 years back. It wouldn't even have been that important 30 years back for America, though her family, I'm sure is another story. With the influx of a different population from all over, this stuff very much matters now.

At some point, I got around to showing this lady some video of our boy learning to ice-skate. It was a funny video of a cute kid. Most women would really enjoy it, but she had no smile and nothing to say about it. There wasn't a flicker of an idea that she might want to have anything to do with children. I don't know ... maybe this was a rarity, but it's just such a waste. It's just the end of the line for those good genes of hers that got her up 20,000 ft. mountains with no oxygen. Demographic soo-ee-cide is what it is, I tell ya.

Let me get some "closure" here, as people used to say, with the previous post. While searching for photos of that empty-headed Emily Chang, I came across the one displayed below. It seems like, no matter what stupidity Mrs. Chang has tried to encapsulate into her new book, and whatever financial crap she spouts on Bloomberg, she hasn't forgotten to do her real job. I'll give kudos for that, though if she really is Chinese, I'm guessing the Mom gave her some of that ancient Chinese wisdom at high pressure levels.

Emily Chang - at work




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Western World demographic soo-ee-cide - feminism connection


Posted On: Tuesday - February 6th 2018 11:50AM MST
In Topics: 
  Feminism  Female Stupidity

Emily Chang - source of ancient Chinese wisdom



(I doubt she knows a damn thing about finance either,
but she looks cute on TV.)


Back in the fall, the Peak Stupidity blog featured 3 articles (in order, here, here, and here.) on the demographic suicide, as one could rightly call it, of the Western people's or just white people, period.

This is not really Part 4, but as I had intended to write this as of a few days back, a current Steve Sailer post just set me off - in the right direction, I guess(?). The Sailer post is about one author, an Emily Chang, and her book coming out about how computer programming was a women's world back in the 1960's. The author apparently feels that looking at old issues of Cosmopolitan magazine and viewing the "Hidden Agenda" (or is it "Hidden Figures") movie is enough research for such idiocy a thesis.

Miss Chang thinks that it's a tragedy that Silicon Valley is not female dominated:
The tragedy, as I argue in my book, Brotopia, is it didn’t have to be this way. The exclusion of women from technology wasn’t inevitable. The industry, it turns out, sabotaged itself and its own pipeline of female talent.
Hell, they already own Silicone Valley, isn't that enough? Anyway, Peak Stupidity begs to differ in the worst way with this feminist broad:
Nope, that’s not the tragedy. The tragedy is that 50 years of feminism have put our society into a state where someone who states the obvious is considered a reactionary freak.

That’d be yours truly – it’s a tragedy that women lead lives that their bodies and souls were not made for and make men’s lives miserable in the workplace and at home to do it. Women were made to have babies and raise them, and they are happiest when doing so. Men are happier when the women in society are not competing for money, as the men will need it to raise a family or be desirable for starting one. They are happier when their own women are at home taking care of children and all the other stuff that makes it a good home.

Don’t believe women were made for having babies? Ask your penis – it begs to differ.
After that rant, there should be no doubt in the minds of our readers here where we stand on feminism. It has been like an ancient Chinese curse - "May you live in times of great stupidity."

This is the first time I had ever heard of this sage of wisdom shown above. I only mention wisdom at all due to the prevailing belief that there is something in the Chinese culture after 5,000 years of moon cakes and Confucius they'd have to have learned some deep shit by now. I guess not, and to boot, not everyone named Miss Chang is even Chinese.



Alrighty then, this post is NOT the one I had intended to write, but the continuation, along with the tie-in to Western demographic soo-eee-cide will be coming later today.



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Can we put this whole Moon-Pie vs. Moon-Cake issue behind us?


Posted On: Saturday - February 3rd 2018 6:23PM MST
In Topics: 
  Humor  China  Americans



You've heard it all before, I GET THAT! [/Carlson]. Yes, the Chinese culture has been around for 5,000 years, that's 5 milleniums or MMMMM for you rubes in Rio Morono, Italia! OK, that's indeed a long time, so those Chinese Moon Cakes, shown above right, may have been around a while - please be careful, then, they have a chunk of egg inside. You know how that stuff gets after a few weeks.

On the left side, you've got your American freshly-Circle-K-purchased Moon Pies, whose manufacturer, errr, baker celebrated the product's, errr, food's 100th anniversary last year (the other thing I missed besides Billy Joel's Miami 2017). 100 years, it's like a century or C, 2 % as long in this world as moon cakes may possibly be.

The Chinese New Year, based on the lunar calendar will be celebrated in just under 2 weeks based on my last look at the moon, but the moon cake festival occurs in the late September or early October based again on the lunar calendar. It's fall over in China, meaning for us here in America, t's autumn - weird that. I really can't wait that long for some kind of snack, so, as an American, I would be prone to obtaining our traditional moon pie. At this time of year they are probably both on sale.

Now, when in China, at the proper time of year, you must eat moon cakes, of course, just so you don't get laughed at. However, keep in mind that the Chinese have no big culture of baking. They don't really have the sweet-tooth like us Westerners and especially Americans. You won't see many ovens even in modern housing over there even. These cakes are not really that tasty, is what I am getting at. Still, you've got to smile and stuff one more in your mouth, again only if it's not been sitting around a few weeks, on account of the piece of egg in the middle and all.

Now, with all the writing about immigration and related assimilation here on Peak Stupidity, what about the Chinese people that live here, permanantly some times? Should they not partake of our moon pies, and not just on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, but every other night on the way home?

You say massive immigration is good, and we're all the melting pot? Prove it, bitchez! I want to see you, Mr. Tsao, and you, Miss KungPao, eating a good old moon pie, and not one of those new-fangled lemon ones either, a real chocolate/crusty/marshmellow-filled moon pie with a chocolate Yoohoo to chase it down with.

This is America, people - try to fit in, is all I'm saying here. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED, or get diabetes, probably the latter.

Happy 101st anniversary, Moon Pie.


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Derbyshire post and change of topic key "Computer Tech Stupidity" to more clever tag ...


Posted On: Saturday - February 3rd 2018 12:07PM MST
In Topics: 
  Trump  Pundits  Artificial Stupidity

... with proper attribution and appropriation applied.

The conservative and once-in-a-while (see below) libertarian pundit John Derbyshire writes an end-of-the-month "Diary", as he calls it, usually with about 5 -10 topic relevant to the month just past, I always enjoy the writing there, and his end-of-January one appears here on VDare, and here on unz.com (with easy commenting allowed). Along with the rest of the interesting stuff, I noted Mr. Derbyshire originating the term "Artificial Stupidity" in his segment about AI assistants, that apparently go by the name of Alexa.

Peak Stupidity has hereby appropriated this great term in order to replace the correct, but more cumbersome and less clever topic key name of Computer Tech Stupidity, which can no longer be found by the original name as of, like, now? It is indeed but a very small housekeeping chore, much more of which must be done among the topic keys, but it was no small thing for the Peak Stupidity blog legal department. The following disclaimer had to be "drawn up" and properly served, or held out to the public in the unz.com comment section. By the looks of it, it seems like our crack legal department (seen here, at bottom) has done it's usual bang-up job:
Per the Peak Stupidity legal department, if the party of the IP-theft-perpetrator, hereafter (and forever hold your piece) referred to as the Stupid Party, does not hear* within 1 business day from the party of the IP-theft-victimization, known hereafter as Derb, all rights and privileges associated with the term “Artificial Stupidity” shall be surrendered, abridged and furthermore, the 2nd party shall cease and desist any and all bitching about said IP-theft…. Ipso, facto, squid pro quo, Clarice.

* In writing, in triplicate via certified mail, which I never open, cause it’s bad juju.
(oops, I thought this was to be served to one John Derbyshire ... not sure who this Clarice is, but hey, this guy these guys know what he's they're doing.)

Since this is mostly just another one of those "hey, this guy said this, and this is what I think about it" posts, getting more infrequent, as promised, I will add in a mention of Mr. Derbyshire's latest post on VDare, where he writes about the State of the Union arrest-less address a coupla' days back.

Interestingly, Mr. Derbyshire has a thing against this State of the Union speech IN GENERAL, which he relates was only done in writing all the way until 1973. (VDare has loads of links, incl. Derb's original writing on this) Mr. Derbyshire objects just on the grounds of it being a "Stalinesque extravaganza" and unseemly for a Constitutional Republic. Well, that's all well and good, and agreed with here, but man, there's a whole lot of Constitutional Republic down-the-draining going on way above and beyond this extravagant speech vs. simple letter-to-congress bit. It's a pico-aggression against the ideas of the founders of Americans against a metric shit-ton of Tera-aggressions over the last 50, some say 100 years.

Back to the big speech on last Tuesday night, it is getting to be like the Superbowl, must-watch TV that I haven't seen in years. I can see what's coming next though, can't you?

SOTO by TWEET.

#SOTO - you've got 140 characters to tell us all how much you can do for us. Pls vote in Nov. USA is except. baby. Winning!


John Derbyshire is always worth reading nonetheless as this is a minor quibble. I wonder thought, sometimes, about people seeing the forest for the trees.

I forgot another point to be made though, about the actual topic of the 2nd Derbyshire article linked to (the State of the Union address). Mr. Derbyshire has a very good theory that Mr. Trump's great instincts led him to threaten a pretty good deal (well bad for America, but that's almost the point) for the D's in order to get them looking out-in-the-open like complete anti-American for refusing even that "reasonable offer". They will not go for the deal and that will help more R's win election this November. The theory says that Trump can not ask for what patriotic Americans really want, as he would then lose too much support from the Congress and Americans that would think he's gone too far. Derbyshire admits that it's a gamble that Trump might lose, if the D's just say "OK, deal".

First of all, First rule of President club: you don't have another amnesty, period! I had always heard the name as Donald Trump, not Charlie freakin' Brown (i.e. re: Lucy and the placekicking ruse). It's just stupid to let another 2,000,000 minimum illegals stay and hope for another deal to actually get implemented. Complete bullshit, that! Next, polls say one thing or another (see the article) about America's semi-soft feelings on immigration, but that depends on how you ask the question. The one poll from November of 2016 is the one that mattered. Americans will support a hard line! The politicians will have to go along or get TFOOO. (TF Out Of Office)!



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"Papiere bitte!" - "Your papers, please!" - Part 2


Posted On: Saturday - February 3rd 2018 11:26AM MST
In Topics: 
  Commies  Lefty MegaStupidity  US Police State  Pundits  Liberty/Libertarianism  The Neocons  ctrl-left  Deep State  Socialism/Communism



(NOTE: This is NOT a Peak Stupidity graphic - sorry for cusswords, but it fit this post to a tee.)


Let's continue on to a conclusion from the discussion in the last post. Americans have seen the theme over and over again about the evil Nazis and their anti-freedom and pro-respect-mah-authoritah! ways. Yep, there's gonna be a whole lot of that when you have a big all-powerful totalitarian government. Again, as will be discussed in a subsequent post one day, the Nazis, as opposed to Commies of any sort, are shown in all the movies of this sort of thing, even movies that weren't really about Nazis in particular, like all those Indiana Jones ones. Yet, this type of behavior is not confined to Nazis per se, as that isn't what "National Socialism" was especially about - yes, big government, but no, the books probably never said anything about totalitarianism (they never do!).

Any time you are going to take any kind of Socialism seriously you're going to need big government, and the same with flat-out Communism. Big Government will mean totalitarianism; it's who it is, as they say now. It can't help itself. It's not like we don't have any proof of that over the last ONE CENTURY EVEN, for crying out loud. Nobody has to even read books from dissidents out of Soviet Russia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Red China, N. Vietnam, Cambodia, ... on and on, isn't it... there are people around who could tell you about it, if you've got a minute in your busy schedule to listen to 'em.

With that loss of freedom, people under totalitarianism will know nothing else after awhile, but "You've GOT to bring your proper documents; what are you, crazy?" and "I can't just up and do this. There is no controlling authority. If it's not expressly permitted, it is forbidden; what are you, crazy? How can have any pudding, if you don't eat your meat!?* With this type of behavior going on for multiple generations, it's not a wonder Communism has long-lasting effects on a nation's population - long after the official Communists are safely in hell. See this take regarding Russia and this take regarding China as discussions of this point.

Americans have mostly forgotten what it was to have pride in our freedoms, and most have spent no effort at all defending any. You were over in Iraq, or Afghanistan, you say? Not to knock being a soldier, sailor or airman, and not lacking some respect, but I'm here to tell you that no American's freedom was defended in that effort. The steady infiltration of totalitarianism by the cntrl-left, the long-lasting domestic front of the Cold War, has been almost completely a success. Americans have not only lost, but they don't know they've lost, and they don't know what they've lost.

Therefore, the graphic appears up top. I don't want to hear anymore about how those nasty authorities asking for really, demanding "Papers, please!" are "those Nazis". They are the usual cntrl-left, and others in the Feral and State governments enabled by the cntrl-left, and unopposed by the average American, who wouldn't know freedom anymore, if it came up and bit him on the ass.

There has been even more help, as the Neocons have enabled Police State America by appearing to be conservatives based on support of the long-ago-finished external Cold War and support of current war all over the globe. "War is the health of The State", some dude on the internet said. I used to not really understand the connection between the warmongering state and the internal police state. The way it works is that war requires big budgets which can be spent in all kinds of other ways than just soldiers' pay and guns. It also allows for good excuses for abridging of rights and new clampdowns on freedom in the name of security and eventual victory - whenever "terrorism" has been beat the hell up, I guess.

In America, to be a little more specific, I think the Deep State agencies have been instrumental in creating the internal police state. Though created with a need back during WWII, the CIA was seen as useful through the Vietnam War period, even with all the crazy and stupid fuck-ups. They and the NSA became too out-of-control to shutdown many years ago, as with all the information they had, most of the psychopathic types that exist high up in government have too many skeletons to be used against them to risk acting against the Deep State. With these agencies in place forever, and with big budgets, why not keep the wars going for stuff to do and public support? If there aren't any current really-hot wars, "we will need to spend the money on some internal work, just to make our systems comprehensive".

Who were the folks itching to go get our Motherland Security Department up and running? You'd think the Neocons, with their supposed (cause that's what it really was, supposed) anti-Communist views, would be wary of having an agency like this in America. Nope, it's for our own good - it's to help protect us from those people "over there" who hate us for our freedoms - so we need to search and spy on everyone, you know, just to be sure... Yeah, you're gonna need to show your papers .. it's the least you'll have to do in support of our freeedumbs, or somthing.

Off the Neocons and Deep State for now, finally, to wrap this up, let's think of who the people are who keep calling others Nazis nowadays? Do those people have any problem at all supporting the big Feral Government beast? Lots of them are supporters and sackhangers on this beast, if not full-out employees. They really have no clue on who is really closer to the way of the Nazis, along with the Commies, which brings it around full circle, as that's who they are. They need to be treated as Commies. Since the Commies have Mao ZeDong's little red book, we need something like Peak Stupidity's big green web site.


* Yes, sporadic Pink Floyd references may appear here and there on the Peak Stupidity blog, though something tells me Mr. Floyd is a Commie himself. "Collectivist call from Mr. Floyd to Mrs. Floyd ... are we reaching?"


*****************************************************
[Updated 2/6:| Added a small bit re Neocons and Motherland Security.
*****************************************************



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"Papiere bitte!" - "Your papers, please!" and memories of Mr. Vin Suprynowicz


Posted On: Friday - February 2nd 2018 9:20PM MST
In Topics: 
  US Police State  Pundits  Liberty/Libertarianism

Libertarian/Constitutionalist/Conservative Vin Suprynowicz



This post starts off with a big, and hopefully interesting digression, but trust me, this pundit should be mentioned first thing in this post. A writer named Vin Suprynowicz used to be this writer's favorite libertarian columnist, as I used to read his more-often-than-weekly columns on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website. I first checked the wikipedia page on him, which is suprisingly devoid of opinion against the man, then the LVRJ site, where I can only see that he stayed on writing for them at least into 2013, but they sure make his archive hard to find, if it can be at all. Then, I found out also today that he is still about and writing, and his site, VinSuprynowicz.com, will be next to be on the blogroll. Yea for that find!

I had enjoyed Mr. Suprynowicz's column for a number of years, and it was around 2008 or so that he had a column on the Global Climate Disruption(TM) nonsense that I mentioned here due to the fact that I ended up in a multi-month long on-line comment debate. Unfortunately for me, because I won said debate, it was subsequently wiped from the LVRJ site as they reformatted to make it look prettier, or something.

Besides being a real Libertarian and Constitutionalist, Mr. Suprynowicz (thanks, MS, for copy/paste!) ran for vice-president along with the Neil Smith Libertarian candidate back in 2000 for Arizona ONLY. The other 49 states had Harry Brown with VP-candidate Art Olivier. Trust Arizona when it comes to liberty, or at least take my word for it. They have been always in the forefront, whether it's Constitution-abiding gun rights, coming up with people like Barry Goldwater, taking their own initiative in guarding the borders, Arizona seems to be tops a lot. That's why a US Senator named Juan McAmnesty, or something to that effect, needs a lot of damn explaining. "Joo got some splaineen to do Lucy Arizona!"

The guarding of the borders mentioned just now brings up another thing. Mr. Suprynowicz was one of the first Libertarians that'd I'd been reading, say a decade and more ago, like the Lew Rockwell types, who got pretty wise quickly about the immigration business. Free markets, freedom of travel notwithstanding, most likely Mr. Suprynowicz was smart enough to know that the people entering the formerly very liberty-minded state of Nevada were not quite so liberty-oriented having come from the 3rd-world with average sub-par IQs. That's what some of the Libertarians, the ones people tend to rightfully call Libertards, just won't get - almost none of these newcomers is ever going to vote for Constitutional small government, much less subscribe to Reason freakin' magazine!

Vin Suprynowicz signed and gave me a copy of his book The ballad of Carl Drega when I met him in 2010 or so, when I showed up at his newspaper office just to come shake his hand and say "good job". I had already read his Send in the Waco Killers and both are very readable books that are illustrative of our modern day police state.

"Papiere, bitte!" - Haha, not in America!



OK, the reason for the post title is that Mr. Suprynowicz would oftentimes bring up examples of how the US was becoming nothing less than a police state, still news to me at the time. More than once, I'm sure, he had brought up the point that Americans used to have great distain for the authorities and being forced to respond in any way to any of them. This relates directly to Amendment IV of the US Constitution, here:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Read that carefully, if you're not familiar. Mr. Suprynowicz used to relate how the phrase "Papers, please!" was hissed at by the audience in theaters watching all the old movies in which the Nazis were up to their police state tactics. In German, in the movies, it was "Papiere, bitte!". (Funny that there are not many movies showing the Russkie and Chinese Commies up to the same thing - topic for another post). Americans were rightfully prideful in the past of the freedom they had back then.

You don't have to go back that awful far, or talk to people that awful old, to have known an America with lots of freedoms that are gone now. On this "reasonable search and seizure" principal, has it not been totally blown to bits by the TSA at the airports? "Reasonable" does not mean "Feeling people up around the ass and genitals for possible weapons? Sure, sounds reasonable to me." No, it means there must be a reason laid out for that particular search in a written warrant that has been signed [by a judge, one presumes] with a reason for the search.

Any government authority of any level asking for ID, not as part of a requested service, but as a random investigation, is against Amendment IV, but you're not gonna see many people caring anymore. Traffic stops for investigation rather than citation for a violation are another example. It was just a couple of decades ago that I never carried any IDentity Papers of any kind ... no wallet, in fact... just keys and cash, what more do you need? I had gotten pulled over for various speeding violations, but the cop had just asked for my drivers license number and looked it up. Yeah, still Big Brother stuff, for that time period, but at least no "papers". Then, I got pulled over at a DUI checkpoint which pissed me off to begin with but turned into a fine of ~ $200 in present-value because of the lack of the license card with me. It was a double whammy, and the court sent my check back to me because of the bad language in the memo field! (Yes, I had to send in another to avoid a warrant.)

The stuff we used to take pride in snickering about, the "Mah Authoritah" crap that we knew people had to live with in the East Bloc, China, and parts unknown, well, Americans just live with it now. "Hey, it's those Moslems that caused this - it's just the way it is now." they'll tell you, even if they have the courage to be honest about it, by their thoughts. Well, what is the country, a damn kindergarten? You take it out on the people who caused the problem, not on the whole class country. Now, lest the reader think Peak Stupidity has turned neocon overnight, and want to go get all the Moslems all over the world, no, that's not what's necessary. What's necessary is that we stop our government's police state ways which, in terms of just the TSA airport outrage, are just "security theater" to begin with. It's nothing but a show, and is an endless series of anti-freedom, un-dignified burdens that are all reactions to things that have already happened. Worried about terrorist problems on airplanes? Do some damn real police work. Find out who the group to really worry about is. Get the airport to look out for the people in question, after there is reason for a search on a warrant. Let airline employees do their own thinking and they may use common sense vs. rote endless procedures forced upon them. The reason not much bad happens is simply that these terrorists we are worried about are just not bright enough to carry out well-working plans. That is a good thing. Oh, yeah, don't let them keep immigrating to your country - there's some common sense, eh?

It was still in the 1990's when you just needed to bring a ticket, basically as proof of payment and a receipt for your seat to get onboard an airliner. In fact, it could be someone else's ticket, so long as you had paid, that's what matters - just business there. Try going to the airport without your papers, please! nowadays. All this is not going to get any better soon. Don't like my attitude? Talk to Vin Suprynowicz - I believe I got it from him.

This post was really geared toward a lot toward the TSA (part of "Motherland Security" another moniker and agency Vin, Peak Stupidity and lots of Americans of 30 years back would have laughed off as "that stuff doesn't shouldn't happen in America!). They'll be a Part 2, as I'm just getting heated warmed up.


PS. Here is Vin Suprynowicz's "about" page.



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Billy Joel Sci-Fi song expired last year.


Posted On: Wednesday - January 31st 2018 7:25PM MST
In Topics: 
  Music  The Future



First of all, before anything else, let me admonish the reader to never call ALL Billy Joel's music "Easy Listening". If anyone tells you that, you MUST play "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)", and not on computer speakers either. Stuff on the shelf must be "literally" shaking, or you're not gonna get the full benefit of this rockin' song!

It irks me that I did not even think of posting this song in 2017, as it just wasn't on any playlist. Billy Joel wrote this song in 1975, 43 years ago now. It was at the time NYC was about broke after years of ctrl-left-run government, and I'll give belated kudos to President Jerry Ford, who was not going to ask for the Feral Gov't to bail that city out. Per NY Post headline FORD TO CITY: "DROP DEAD" This was when Billy Joel was finishing his coupla-year stint as a fairly unknown "Piano Man" in Los Angeles, and he headed back to New York afterwards. It is just amazing that this much time has passed, enough to where Peak Stupidity missed the damn date. This song was really science fiction, way back, but it has just expired. I'll put the lyrics below, because they are damn good, along with the version of this from Songs in the Attic, a great collection of some soft songs and some rock, all performed live. (Check out the live "Captain Jack".)

Nope, NYC is not being dismantled per the song, but the part about all the New Yorkers moving to Florida, that's not far off. An interesting thing also is that this song was written before Fidel Castro's criminal flotilla of Cubans, something like 200,000 of them that came to south Florida due to the stupidity of President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Miami may not work out for everybody, as most of it is a foreign country basically. Oh, how 'bout the bit about the Mafia having taken over Mexico? Maybe it's not the same Mafia, but it was a pretty good call.

About 9/11, speaking of the NY skyline falling, and all, in the lyrics, Wikipedia says:
Shortly afterwards, Joel performed the song at a benefit concert on October 20, 2001. Joel announced at the end of the song, "I wrote that song 25 years ago. I thought it was going to be a science fiction song; I never thought it would really happen. But unlike the end of that song, we ain't going anywhere!"
Now that's a little bit dumb. It was science fiction, but who says it won't happen - that's what science fiction is about, imagining the future, and sometimes it's right. (Of course, in the song, the city is being destroyed for some other reason - no ragheads were mentioned, least in the 1975 version.)

This live version of "Miami 2017", recorded in Madison Square Garden, downtown (well, whatever, midtown?) Manhattan, with an audience full of New Yorkers. Whatever one may think of New York City, the audience is just electrified by the rock and the lyrics about NYC, that it's just awesome. Billy Joel is a Long Islander, and so this was his audience too. (Listen to him pronounce "Norfolk" - pure Long Island.)



The whole song is New York City references, which is why the crowd was going nuts.

"I've seen the lights go out on Broadway.
I saw the Empire State laid low,
and life went on beyond the Palisades.
They all bought Cadillacs
and left there long ago.
We held a concert out in Brooklyn
to watch the island bridges blow.
They turned our power down
and drove us underground,
but we went right on with the show.

I've seen the lights go out on Broadway.
I saw the ruins at my feet.
You know we almost didn't notice it.
We see it all the time on Forty-second Street.
They burned the churches up in Harlem
like in that Spanish civil war.
The flames were everywhere,
but no one really cared.
It always burned up there before.

I've seen the rats lie down on Broadway.
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at the battery.
The union went on strike.
They never sailed at all.
They sent a carrier up from Norfolk
and picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay.
They blew the Bronx away
and sank Manhattan out at sea.

You know those lights were bright on Broadway.
But that was so many years ago,
before we all lived here in Florida,
before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember.
They say a handful still survive
to tell the world about
the way the lights went out
and keep the memory alive.
"

OK, it's Billy Joel, so you probably already assumed that any breaks in the lyrics will be filled with "Oh, ho, whoa-ohhhh"

Billy Joel's band during these shows:

Billy Joel – vocals, pianos, synthesizer, harmonica
David Brown – electric guitar (lead), acoustic guitar (lead)
Richie Cannata – saxophones, flute, organ
Liberty DeVitto – drums, percussion
Russell Javors – electric guitar (rhythm), acoustic guitar (rhythm)
Doug Stegmeyer – bass guitar
Richie Cannata – saxophones, clarinet

Those were mostly the players on the Turnstiles album that most of the live songs on Songs in the Attic were from, but not all - the first recordings of Turnstiles were made with Elton John's bass player and drummer, Dee Murray and Nigel Olson, respectively.


***************************************
[Updated 02/02:] 1) It was the New York Post, not NY Times, with "City", not "New York". 2) Corrected the spelling of Sci-Fi (makes more sense, but "Sci-Fy" looks kind of modern. 3) Corrected the most egregious error, the lack of mention of Billy Joel's band at the time - it's the band that make the great sound, not just the one guy.
***************************************



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Another aspect to illegal immigration - Visa overstayers


Posted On: Wednesday - January 31st 2018 6:45PM MST
In Topics: 
  Immigration Stupidity  China



Nope, unfortunately, there were no arrests last night by POTUS@SOTU (WTF?), even though the actual criminal 17-yr-staying illegal alien actually sat in on the speech! Apparently, he's pretty bumbed out about it too. Man, what can we do to better serve this guy next time - oh, yeah, why don't we serve him an arrest warrant.

No matter what President Trump is really going to do, as far as his chief executive powers go, one thing is for sure - this immigration invasion is a BIG, BIG ISSUE. It will not get pushed out of the public discussion from here on. Whether it's too late to matter is another story, and that's where I hope the President can get some behind-the-scenes stuff changed. The Peak Stupidity blog is still not optimistic. Yeah, so it's all out in the open - this idiotic "diversity" (random) visa, yeah that's the way to do it - just pick people to live here randomly and see how it works out - the H1B and especially the very important chain-migration immigration visas are all being discussed.

Here's something that's NOT being discussed too much: People overstaying non-immigration (tourist/work/etc.) visas and just never going home. Our country hasn't even been trying hard on this.

The immigration bureaucracy has got to start finding the visa overstayers and deporting them with no additional entry allowed. It’s not mostly some tourists who didn’t catch their flights home in time.

Do you know that it is very easy for the Chinese people to get 10-year tourist visas now? This is to match the same from the Chinese, but they take this stuff seriously over there. Sure, you’re not supposed to stay 10 years straight (the visa would say “multiple entries” with a 10 year expiration date and maybe 3 months or 6 max per stay).

Think about this: If nobody comes looking for some Chinaman like the guy above (nothing personal against file-photo guy) who doesn’t return after the 3 months, do you seriously think he even can be found after 10 years living in a Chinatown somewhere. The thing about our country now is, since we have large groups of foreigners living here, anyone who is not legally here can blend in and not be found easily, simply based on the “they all look the same” syndrome, which is very much true.

Try being a westerner in China and deciding you’re gonna flout immigration law. It’s not just that it’s taken seriously, but there are no “Americatowns”, “Enlgishtowns” or just general “RoundEyetowns”. You’ve got no place to hide.

Yeah, it ain’t fair.


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SOTU tonight and propsal for an ICE cuff-em/drag-out intermission


Posted On: Tuesday - January 30th 2018 11:59AM MST
In Topics: 
  Immigration Stupidity  Trump



Per this recent post by Steve Sailer, some immigration lawyer whose husband has been out in the sunlight* as a > 1 decade-long proud illegal alien from Trinidad&Tobago has been invited to the Congress tonight for President Trump's State of the Union address. (It's SOTO for the wonks who like to say POTUS and SCOTUS too which sound pretty damn stupid actually - what in hell is so hard about President and Supreme Court - on extra syllable each?)

Full excerpt off of iSteve, from Associated Press:
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez has invited the wife of detained immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address

Ragbir was in federal custody Saturday, several weeks after he was handcuffed and arrested during a routine check-in with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

… Three other Democratic members of Congress from New York showed up at the rally in support of Ragbir: Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Joe Crowley and Rep. Yvette Clarke.

They say the government targeted the 53-year-old native of Trinidad because of his activism as the head of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York that helps immigrants fight deportation.

The government says he should be deported because of a 2001 wire fraud conviction involving a New Jersey mortgage company where Ragbir worked that was caught up in a fraud scheme. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, but is fighting to vacate the conviction in federal court in New Jersey, contending he was just an employee doing his job, unaware of any fraudulent activity.


********************************************
President Trump, if you’re reading this:

Have ICE come to the speech and cuff this lady on treason charges and her congressional accomplices. It wouldn’t matter if they all got sprung in the morning, this would,

a) energize the base like you have never seen in your life … so much energizing…

b) get Americans watching the State of the Union like it was the superbowl.

I personally would come out of TV-banishment mode to a sports bar if it came down to it, if I knew this had any chance of occurring.

You are the head of the executive branch, dude. Just do it!

*********************************************

Now, since writing that above appeal, or "open letter" to our sometimes-useful POTUS, I personally ran into a couple of the guys you can see in the photo and the topic of this post. Nope, it wasn't those 2 in the "file photo", but 2 guys in person that I got to talk to.

I mentioned to one of them this story about the long-term illegals and their treasonous sponsers that are out in front of the public and the US freakin' Congress. I had the same advice above on what should be done tonight. The guy told me he couldn't believe this stuff is happening either. No, I don't expect every immigration agent to be up on the big picture, so I took his word for that. He did seem pretty thrilled with the idea of a nationally televised, hand-cuff-enabled arrest of the immigration lawyer wife and congresscriters as a kind of intermission, giving us a chance to get to the fridge for a 4th beer.

Yeah, the ICE guy could have been humoring me, and additionally, wasn't anywhere near Washington, Federal Shithole, but still, one can dream, can't one, and write open letters to the whole wide internet? That's what we're here for.

An astute commenter on the unz page linked-to above was concerned with the Article 1, Section 6, subpart 1 Constitutionality of said perp-walk-outta-the-chambers:
They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
My bold there, not the framers, but one can see that this should alleviate any and all Constitutional objections, according to the Peak Stupidity blog legal department.

You read it here first. If this were to happen tonight, I will promise not to say another harsh word about our President for what ... maybe a year or more.


* No, they are not exactly living in the shadows

**************************
[UPDATED 01/30 afternoon:] Just added Associated Press excerpt to clarify what scumbags these perps in question are, along with one more short paragraph.
**************************


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Homeschooling - poking the Beast in the eye with a big stick - Part 3


Posted On: Monday - January 29th 2018 6:43PM MST
In Topics: 
  Immigration Stupidity  US Police State  Liberty/Libertarianism  Orwellian Stupidity  Anarcho-tyranny  Educational Stupidity

This post is to wrap up some thoughts about homeschooling from the writing about it last week here and here and to add a tie in with the Immigration Stupidity topic key. Let's do that in reverse order though:

Banned from America - too white, too Christian, and too family oriented



Yeah, the family above, a regular (that means man and women to the readers in Yuerba Buena) with their 6 kids had tried to immigrate from Germany to the US due to being persecuted for trying to raise their kids themselves. NEIN! ISS VERBOTEN! You must turn ofver der kindervolk to zie STADT! (American version: This is highly irregular! How can your kids be properly indoctrinated socialized with out government schools? Unheard of. It can't be done!) This story is now four years old, and though the Peak Stupidity blog does not normally link to the Lyin Press (even "Red" version), we did here because the headline (even the URL) tells the story: Team Obama wins fight to have Christian home-school family deported.

This was back in the worse old days of the Øb☭ma presidency. I would hope President Trump's Dept. of Justice with executive Jeff Sessions would do good people like these right ... but you can't ever tell with them.
They wanted to live in a country where they could raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs.

The Romeikes were initially given asylum, but the Obama administration objected – claiming that German laws that outlaw homeschooling do not constitute persecution.

"The goal in Germany is for an open, pluralistic society," the Justice Department wrote in a legal brief last year. "Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen in Germany."

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Romeike’s appeal – paving the way for the Christian family of eight to be deported.

"I think this is a part of the Obama administration’s overall campaign to crush religious freedom in this country," said Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association. His organization is representing family.

"The Obama administration’s attitude toward religious freedom, particularly religious freedom for Christians is shocking," he told me in an exclusive telephone interview. "I have little doubt that if this family had been of some other faith that the decision would have never been appealed in the first place. They would have let this family stay."

Had the family stayed in Germany, where homeschooling is illegal, they would have faced the prospect of losing their children. Like the Pilgrims, they fled their homeland yearning for a place where they could be free.

Farris said the religious bias perpetrated by the Obama administration is "palpable."

"It’s a denial of the essence of America," he said. "The Pilgrims left England to go to Holland to seek religious freedom. They came here to seek religious freedom and parental rights for their children. Had this administration been waiting at Plymouth Rock, they would’ve told the Pilgrims to go back home."
It's some sick, sick stuff that's being done to replace the American civilization. Read over that 3rd short paragraph again about the "pluralistic society" and "tolerance". There is NO tolerance for anyone like these good white Christians to live the way they would like to. The kids must be taught to accept ANYONE and EVERYONE who DIE STADT decides will live in Germany - only that way the kids will be good Germans. Orwellian there, and do you see why Peak Stupidity has written about that country as Bizarro Germany yet? (read further here.)

Yes, America has Germany beat still in freedom and respect for freedom of parents to raise their own kids. It is only inside the schools where things go all to hell. Even as well meaning as most of the teachers may be and as well-educated as, what, 10% ? of 'em may also be, they don't run these places. I've seen this business up close, as was explained in latter part of Part 2.

Just the idea of sticking it to the system appeals to me, as homeschooling does in 2 ways. First, the school system loses money when fewer students attend, saving the taxpayers money in the long term and hurting BIG ED. More importantly, for the family involved, raising independent-thinking bright kids is something they can be proud of the rest of their lives, but for the rest of us, puts fear into the eyes of the elite globalists that run things, along with their underlings.

Yes, it is more of a sacrifice than cutting the TV cable, already pretty hard for most Americans. However, it's not quite as big a project as some make it out to be without knowing how much time is really wasted in government schools. Once the kids can read, 3 or 4 hours per day can be enough time for them to learn, more than get taught, more than kids learn from BIG ED. The rest of the time at home can be one big-ass field trip.

What do you think Americans did 100-200 years ago, before this Prussian-influenced crap? Oh, you say they were stupid back then? Best look on-line for one of those 8th grade tests from 1910 or whenever. I think the level of stupidity was much lower then than it is today.

Do you not like the way things are going in this country? Joined Ross Perot's Reform Party way back, then the Tea Party, then went to Trump rallies? Written lots of letters, have you, and made phone calls to "your" congressional staffers? Listen, good on ya', and I'm not knocking any of that. Having 20 million instead of 2 million children in homeschooling would just beat hell out of all from everyone put together. The parents that keep their children out of the government indoctrination camps are the true "think globally/act locally" folks that represent the spirit of America.



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