Diggin' and then fillin' in the ditch, boss.
Posted On: Saturday - August 27th 2022 2:56PM MST
In Topics: Movies China Economics
This is a continuation, or spin-off, from the recent Peak Stupidity post Gross Defective Product, written considering input from all the commenters under it.
First off, per Alarmist, indeed, America has a lot of natural resources. (It helped immensely that our population had been small and under control until the last half century's stupidity on that score. This is as opposed to China, where much of the woods had been denuded over the many years with too many people.)
Farming, forestry, mining, and other extraction industries, most assuredly generate real products that can be easily valued, maybe the most easily, for those (most of them) considered commodities. However, as compared to heavy manufacturing, it seems that a country in which these industries and products are predominant ends up trading them for manufactured goods elsewhere. If a nation can handle this economy with tariffs, and keep a trade balance, I suppose it can work, but this exporting commodities is the makings of a "colony" Political control is the read defining factor, but economically, let's say, Australia is pretty much a colony of China. A serious large country needs manufacturing, IMO.
Commenter "Fundamental Transformation" noted that manufacturing capability is important for a country's self-sufficiency.
Next, to the actual subject of this post, Bill H. brought up the example of neighbors mowing each others' lawns for a price. They could each mow their own lawns, but those efforts, with the same amount of work expended obviously, wouldn't be part of the official* GDP, while the first situation would add to it. Value is added to the lawns either way, at least temporarily.
How do you account for actual work expended in the economy? Is that a measure that even means that much, considering that work can be done smarter rather than harder? All this reminds me of the old Paul Newman (no relation) movie, Cool Hand Luke from which the scene above was taken from. To break Luke's spirit**, in the prison yard, rather than give he and others productive work***, they had him digging a big hole, and then filling it back up again. Isn't that the same thing, were he working in the private sector for pay? There is a lot of that though, and it would show up in the GDP. The bogus "broken windows" theory "**** says that's the way it should go. The hurricane came through and broke 50,000 windows and tore up 5,000 roofs. Great! That's more service work required - a real boost for the economy. In the big picture, it's no boost. A country does not get rich this way.
I want to insert here that I didn't mean to denigrate service work in general. Mr. Smith brought up an example of the grading of a piece of property, along with his own auto work. The former, grading, would be called a service, but it results in something like a product. The piece of property may be accurately valued to be worth $15,000 more (whatever the work "should" have cost) due to that service. A working sunroof on one's car adds value, of course. Some service "industries" - I use the quotes for those in particular - add very difficult to measure value, nothing at all often, and sometimes subtract value.
As a whole, I'd say the value of products can be more easily assessed. Then, again, what about 30 story apartment buildings in China that nobody ever lived in, and that end up getting demolished? The buildings are, if not expensive, high-value, products that are considered wealth. There is the labor - a whole lot less, I'd say, in destroying them. Wealth is destroyed, but the labor was expended on both ends. I don't know - this is the part of economics that really screws with my head. I'm guessing the Economists won't admit that it does the same to theirs!
Then, you've got really misplaced labor such as the Big Gov central planning that resulted in only the most special of Soviet Russians getting those POS automobiles for those 7 decades, and poor Chinese farmers out trying to make steel on the farm, as 30-40 million Chinamen starved to death over that 2-3 year Great Leap Forward.
While writing that previous post, I'd been thinking of how the GDP could be changed to a better measurement or what other measurements should be used. That's something I've got to think about hard, which is not going to happen right now. However, if we don't need comparisons over time, but just a comparison between countries, Commenter Jack Russell made a good point. I've written here about the HUGE trade deficit the US has been running with China - it's on the order of $500,000,000,000, that's 5 hundred Billion or 1/2 a Trillion dollars in a year. That's a real serious problem for us.
There's your comparison of who's doing better economically. After years of Country A buying a whole lot more from Country B than it's been selling to it, the next thing that happens is, in return, Country B is in shape to BUY Country A, one piece at a time. In the case of American and China (Country C, I guess), Peak Stupidity wrote a whole series about our worries on this, called Will America be looted by China? - see Part 1: Intro. - - Part 2: Housing - - Part 3: Big Biz - -Part 4: The Fruited Plain - - Part 5: The Wilderness - - and Part 6: Conclusion - The Golden Rule .
Here's another conclusion I get from thinking all these economic thoughts. Who has the best way to value our labor and the services provided and products built? That's a trick question, as it's not a "who", but only a figurative body part. It's something called the "Invisible Hand", and it speaks in one language - PRICES.
Thank you, PS commenters, for your input on this headache-inducing subject!
* I noted to Bill that were a neighbor to fill out a 1099 on my ass for something like that, we simply could not be friends anymore!
** That was kind of the theme of the movie.
*** As when the paved the piece of road quickly, unexpected with prison labor, to get done early, as the guards were out of work for them. BTW, that's like the roofing scene in The Shawshank Redemption.
**** There are 2 Broken Windows theories - the other has to do with policing small crime.
Comments (2)
Alarm Clock v Peak Stupidity
Posted On: Friday - August 26th 2022 3:16PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity
"You win some, you lose some", they say. Usually in the battle with edgy hotel alarm clocks, I win. I've seen all kinds now.
There are alarm clocks with radios in them. Wow, big freaking deal! We had the same when I was a kid, albeit some still with mechanical digits (and even an analog clock that I can recall). The radio was only AM, but it could get in the really cool WLS from far-away Chicago at night. (I can still remember the station ID jingle. Hit play to hear the whole 1960's era jingle. This was quite a while later. the basic "WLS" part at 0:17 is what I remember.)
OK, but the Millennials or Zoomers who specified the new edgy stuff for the more modern hotel chains, as described here in Stupidity in everything, including the bathroom sink, need to do something DIFFERENT with the clock radios. They can't just be those same things from 1975 that you could get to give you the time, and wake you up with the radio. Therefore, the thing now is you don't have to set them! Yea!
GPS is incorporated in lots of electronic appliance now for the time signal, if nothing else. But what if the clock is off the right time? I really won't stand for the time being more than 2 minutes off either way.
Well, most of them have some way to set them. I had to learn slowly - read the directions in fine print, hold the snooze button down 6 seconds, open up the back with that knurled knob, but sometimes a small Phillips screw, to read the freaking fine-printed directions back there, or finally find a button to start the sequence to set the damn clock.
That was not the case with this one. "It's got GPS, you know, so it knows the time." "But it's about half an hour off!" "It can't be because G P S!" "But it is, so how can I set it? "You ... well, nobody specified any hardware and software to set it, because it's ... got ... GPS?"
Clock Radio over Peak Stupidity, by a button, this round.
PS: I had an idea a few days later about this one. Lots of these let you set hours only, via a "Time Zone" setting switch. Was this one exactly 1/2 hr. off because it was on one of those odd time zones you see on the map?* It could have been, as Newfoundland in Canada is 1/2 hour ahead of Atlantic time and Venezuela used to be ('16 and prior) 1/2 hour ahead of Eastern time. Old homesick but forgetful Venezuelan housekeeper with no cell phone? Perhaps. Or, the thing is a piece of shit.
PPS: Why the curmudgeonly stuff when the country is going to hell, you ask? Remember, we are Peak Stupidity, so this is not mission creep, but well within our wheelhouse. I've got 2 more, but I'll intersperse them with more important stuff.
* There are even time zones that are hours + 0:45 / 0:15 off from GMT.
Comments (7)
Crazy Rebekah Jones - Candidate for US Congress
Posted On: Thursday - August 25th 2022 6:50PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Geography
(I wouldn't [sic] her on my best enemy.)
Mr. Hail covers Florida politics very well, and he just came out with a new post on the results of the Blue-Squad primary elections just held - The Covid-activist Daniel Uhlfelder loses to the BLM-Soros candidate Aramis Ayala: an appraisal of the Florida attorney general election race of 2022. Note the name of the big loser in this race. Yes, that's the same nutty Panicker-Lawyer of whom Mr. Hail has written much about - per his lead, Peak Stupidity posted Florida Panicker-in-Chief Daniel Uhlfelder, his Dad, and family traditions last November.*
We all know of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by this point, but in general, there's lots more to like about Florida politics and policy. By the latter, I mean the lack of an income tax, but the place just seems more Libertarian than one would expect from the various groups that reside there. My family has nothing against the heat, so, other than the Little Cuba of Dade County, the escaped New Yorker hangout from there up the east coast 50, OK, make that 100 miles, Michigander exiles in the southwest, the whole GlobohomoDisney complex that takes up the lower center, we could see living there**. We are somewhat redneck in nature and have no problem with most Florida Men.
Florida Women are a different story. In his latest post, on the Florida Blue-Squad*** primary results Mr. Hail brought up one real piece of work. That'd be Rebekah [sic] Jones a woman who Ann Coulter showed to be a laughingstock and borderline nutcase (if she were a man, she'd have been locked up long ago, in her 1 1/4 y/o column Only in Florida—Crazed Woman Stalks Governor. As soon as I followed Mr. Hail's link, I remembered this column. You've just got to go read that one. It reads like a rejected screenplay for some proposed men's version of Lifetime TV or The Oxygen Channel... rejected, that is, for being too far-fetched.
Mr. Hail mentioned in this comment of his that Miss Jones has come back from her firing and disgrace to run in a D-primary. It does not say very much for the Blue-Squad voters that 63% of them voted for her to run as their standard-bearer for US Congress. She's a freaking nutcase! Please, please, read the Ann Coulter column for entertainment, if nothing else.
How does a Florida woman get away with this?**** She's hot. That's all. I've said that women voters vote based on feelings and looks too much. (The best known example is the Nixon/Kennedy debate polls - TV vs. radio listeners.) Maybe men voting for women candidates fall for this too.
As I wrote, a man would have been jailed for years after pulling the things that you can read about in that Ann Coulter column. But, Rebekah Jones is a crazy young hot chick that men may vote for in the hopes that she might somehow find out and screw their brains out in return. Don't underestimate us!
Well, The country has seen some doozies up there on Capitol Hill, your AOCs, your Omar Ilhan's, this goes back a ways. Some are just floozies, but some have real power. A nation can't handle but so many of the Marble-Supply Challenged.
Rebekah Jones should have been locked up for a while or put in a nuthouse long ago. Now, look what you've done, Floridians. You'd damn well better not listen to Lyin' Press BS on Matt Gaetz - vote him in, to make it stop!
Rather than in the halls of the US Congress, Rebeckah Jones would be a better fit for a Telenovela, and Telenovelas are Hell!
Haha. this time the lady's name translates to Maria of the Barrio:
(We haven't shown one of these in a long, long time. I'd almost forgotten about these hilarious video reviews. The other two are here and here.)
* The Hail to You blog has much more detailed information.
** Seriously, my favorite area is not Gainesville itself, but the area around there - Alachua, Dixie, Lafayette, Suwannee, Gilchrist, Levy, and Columbia Counties - Lake City, Live Oak, Mayo, Steinhatchee, etc.
*** The opponents in the Red Squad are already set - the Governor (Rick DeSantis, the Attorney General (Ashley Moody), and the particular US Congressman in question (Matt Gaetz). They are all very decent Conservatives, showing an actual REAL difference in parties there, and also making me want to live down there.
**** Joe Biden, come to think of it, came back from being known to be a flat-out plagiarist, back when the news was more balanced. See The Lyin' Press of 1988.
Comments (23)
Keep Cash King II - the Tower of London
Posted On: Thursday - August 25th 2022 2:30PM MST
In Topics: Economics Orwellian Stupidity Peak Stupidity Roadshow
I'd forgotten this one tidbit from our trip to Great Britain. An incident in this country reminded me of a quick story from London regarding the use of cash for purchases. We all may fight our own battles in this war against Wokeness, Totalitarianism, Orwellian stupidity, and, well, EVERYTHING. Peak Stupidity has picked this cashless society thing as one of ours - see Keep Cash King. I believe this effort has been pushed much harder recently by the use of the Kung Flu PanicFest*.
China had gone pretty far Orwellian before the PanicFest, as we noted in Dashed high-hopes for China - Part 2** (the 2nd half of that post). The phone payment system has been combined with the new "health scoring" to go even farther Orwellian that the man could possibly envision.
I've been hoping Americans would resist that stuff more. Most will value that convenience and not making waves until they've got the rat right up in their faces, it seems, though.
OK, intro. over with, back in Surly New England (no, still in greater London) we exited the river cruise boat at the Tower of London. It was time for a snack, as the stuff on the boat was pretty dear (as they say). At that stand, 2 single-scoop ice cream cones would set us back about 7 quid, but I was up for that. I was not up for "we don't take cash." What was I going to do with those quids (can you say "quids"?) in my pocket back home? Plus, Revelation 13. "OK, see ya."
A couple hundred metres away there was another ice cream stand, so I asked about their taking my cash. "Yes, we do. Cash is King", the young lady said. "That's what I say!" I tipped her a bit, and thought we could really use more people with this attitude. Plus, that coffee ice cream tasted like the real thing. That was heartening.
Back in the colonies, well, why in the hell did we bother? (With the Revolution, that is.) At the big airport terminal, I ran into this again. The Chipotle chain, with probably the biggest mass of food for your money, would not take my cash, even after a short talk with the manager. When I mentioned Revelation 13, a nice passenger in the line even tried to pay for my stuff. I wouldn't have that. I've GOT the money. I just won't do it.
Down the
As I explained in what's now Part I, I have no problem with this behavior now. If the Big Biz outfit that runs most of the food places there wants to shun my money and be a part of Orwellianism, well, I'm not playing, and the low-paid cashier isn't playing.
Pick your battles, they'll tell you. OK, this is one of them. If I had my way, it'd be the people pushing this cashless business that would be at the Tower of London. I mean, IN the Tower of London. Better yet, take their heads up onto the bridge to put on pikes, as the Thames River tour guide told us about.
* If you recall, at first it was about contact with those Covid germs. They were freaking everywhere, apparently, until EXPERT Anthony Fauci changed his professional opinion about that. Then the economy was crashed, and "no change" and "the bank is closed" became excuses.
** I wrote that post in May of '20, but the phone payments bit was not new then.
*** That's a very obscure reference there to Credence Clearwater Revival's Ramble Tamble.
Comments (5)
The Lamentations of the Mayors
Posted On: Tuesday - August 23rd 2022 5:58PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity
This was supposed to be Curmudgeonry week here at Peak Stupidity, but, damnit, right when you're ready to complain, some other damn thing comes up. ;-} Here instead is some semi-heartening news on the illegal front of the immigration invasion.
VDare's Washington Watcher II has kept us up on the goings on in Texas, the biggest of the 4 border States*, immigration-wise, along with some of the other writers. Mr. "II" himself**, if I remember correctly, has not been too keen on Texas Governor Abbott's plan to bring the illegal problem to the Potomac Regime capital itself. 6,500 illegal aliens have been bussed to Washington FS, and New York City, to "spread the family values LUV".
The worry that I also agreed with, is that these illegal aliens will be trafficked to the same places around the country as the ones given the airplane instead of bus rides, by Zhou Bai Dien, human trafficker Numero Uno. Washington Watcher II, at least, is more optimistic now from how it's been working out: Despite Skepticism, Busing Illegals To Leftist “Sanctuary Cities” Is Working. Could It Force Biden To Do Something About Border Collapse?
When Texas first threatened to bus illegal aliens to blue cities, Democrats mocked the idea. They even thanked Texas for sending more of the foreigners they love. “These are all migrants who have been processed by CBP and are free to travel, so it’s nice the state of Texas is helping them get to their final destination as they await the outcome of their immigration proceedings,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of the “migrant” buses in April [Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, WhiteHouse.gov, April 13, 2022].But, you know, they don't have to go home, but they can't ... stay... here ...
They’re singing a different tune now! Bowser and Adams sound surprisingly like their Republican counterparts in border states. Bowser has complained about the illegals and demanded federal resources to deal with them. In July, she attacked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and said illegals were being “tricked” onto the buses. She insisted that local taxpayers would “not pick up the tab” [D.C. Mayor Bowser Decries Migrants Bused to Capital, by Trent Baker, Breitbart, July 17, 2022]. That seems awfully unwelcoming for a Sanctuary City. Bowser has begged for the National Guard to help, but the Pentagon rejected her plea.I don't know whether a Hahaaaa, hahhhaaa... ooops my heart stopped .. OK, hahhahahaaaa is more appropriate or a Mwuhaaaa. I'm not Governor Abbott, so I can only do the former.
Why aren't these "asylum-seeking" "refugees" getting sent to the same places they've been after landing at Westchester Country or Stewart-Newburgh?
This number 6,500, is a pittance, BTW. That's a day or a couple of days worth, depending on which numbers you use. I will assume that Abbott and his people are busing some of (a few) of the illegals who would have been let to stay due to Bai Dien and the judges anyway.
Of course, the VDare people, I, and this blog's readers would like it much better if these invaders were sent in the opposite direction. In the meantime, I am enjoying the Lamentations of the Mayors.
PS: There's a follow-up to this story by VDare's prolific A.W. Morgan - - - - NYC To Put 1,000 Illegals Into Schools…Despite Complaining About Illegals. Good luck with all that ...
* For some reason you don't hear much about the border invasion in New Mexico. Is it that it's too rough terrain, and the flow is to the west and east, or do they just blend in, and nobody cares?
** I assume "Watcher" is his middle name. No?
Comments (11)
How does it feel, like you're some kind of hero?
Posted On: Monday - August 22nd 2022 6:06PM MST
In Topics: China Kung Flu Stupidity
Go on LOCKDOWN II, Boredom Zero! ♫ ♪
Before I explain the title or even start on the subject in question here, I will admit that these numerous posts on the Kung in the Orient may seem irrelevant. We don't live there. I do like to point out, for those who think the massive stupidity in the modern world is all a Western thing, that Stupidity does not stop at the California coastline. We've discussed North Korea and Japan a bit, but Peak Stupidity covered the Covid~Zero stupidity in China, with their LOCKDOWN 2.0 program, more thoroughly, in 7 posts here this Spring. This will be number 8.
I need a little bit more info. on a post to come that will be about the
Also, let me steer the reader to E.H. Hail's latest post, On elite “Neutralism” during the Corona-Panic and the nature of Power: the case of Noah Rothman. I hadn't heard of this "Panic Neutral"* Noah Rothman before, but I pasted in a link there in the comments under another post on Mr. Hail's Hail to You blog. about a recent article by this neo-Conservative pundit (as it turns out learning from Mr. Hail's detailed post).
In that article, Mr. Rothman bemoans the government money spent and wasted (Covid "Cares Act" and whatever else) during the PanicFest. It was indeed a LOT of money. The discussion by Feral Gov't "leaders" went like "We may need another Trillion for that, oh, and, yeah, 1/2 a Trillion for this other thing. Mr. Hail has the right idea - GOPe "conservatives" will discuss this tremendous waste, have hearings, whatever, as they advocate the spending just slightly smaller amounts, resulting in a slightly longer slide into financial hell. What's missing is the big picture of the real damage of the PanicFest. This spending is just another example of how the PanicFest was used by Big Gov and Big Biz to accrue power.
Now to THIS post. Ashley Rindsberg of the website Unherd says Chinese Zero Covid was always a lie. Yeah, no shit, first of all. Flu-Zero is a lie, and Common-Cold-Zero is a lie too, but strangely, you never hear those lies. Her subtitle is good: Western media upheld the CCP's fabricated success. Hey, wait, is Peak Stupidity not "Western Media". Do you think she means Ron Unz...? Here's the introduction:
For the past two years, the Western media has taken that pernicious little term, “Zero Covid”, at face value. While the rest of the world saw rocketing caseloads and death rates, during a key 18-month period China reported two (yes, two) deaths. In a country of 1.4 billion people, and with a disease that scientists find uncannily adapted to infect humans, this was not just obviously false; it was absurd. My bolding there.Hahaaa! What about those people keeling over in the streets of Wuhan in February of '20?
Oh. Glad to hear it. (That comedic pause was great! I never get tired of this one.) The author continues:
Nevertheless, Western media has repeatedly validated the claim, often celebrating it. The result is that in the minds of billions of people, China was uniquely successful at containing the virus. What few, if any, have realised is that among the many false narratives constructed and deployed by the Chinese government, Zero Covid has been the most successful — a fact evidenced by the widespread adoption and use of that patently self-contradictory term itself.The author goes on a while about the highly bogus information that one would expect to come from the Chinese government . Sure, they are worse than even OUR government officials. This article is good for some facts, but Miss Rindsberg is a pure Panicker though, it turns out.
The most recent manifestation of the Zero Covid false narrative is one that speaks to its daring and sophistication — the idea that, in response to criticism and pressure, the Chinese government came to terms with the fact that it could not cope with the swell of Omicron cases and so needed to ease restrictions.What? It's just freaking Omicron!
LOCKDOWN II over in China is not all being done purely for political reasons (but it's a big part, as we've discussed before) or purely for control. Some of the Chinese truly don't seem to get it, either.
The new “China is easing restrictions” phase of the CCP’s Zero Covid campaign began to emerge in March when a high-ranking Chinese health official began arguing in the Chinese business news outlet, Caixin, that China should fight the disease “more sustainably”. “We should carve a very clear path and not spend all our time debating whether we should continue zero Covid or coexist (with the virus),” wrote Zhang Wenhong, a senior infectious disease specialist known as the “Chinese Fauci”. Zhang followed up with another opinion piece a week later: “China’s Pandemic Fight Can and Should Allow for Normal Life.”What fight, it's freaking Omicron?!
And yet, not only have we all believed China’s claims about its Covid “success”, specifically Zero Covid, we’ve built an entire political theory around it. This theory states that while China’s authoritarian system of government certainly has its downsides (human rights and civil liberties and all that), the big upside is that it’s effective. With the pandemic, this reasoning goes, China was naturally somewhat draconian, but ultimately successful. Authoritarianism saves lives, you see?Yes, that's been the way the Chinese Covid~Zero claims have been used by some Americans (BTW, who's this "we" Ashley-sabe?) to tout Totalitarianism. We Americans just didn't do enough! We need MOAR Totalitarianism!
Finally, there is something I can agree with this Panicker on. Later on, the panicky state of the author and her faith in OUR PanicFest comes to the surface again:
Looking at China’s official death counts tells an equally surreal story. Like a fairytale princess, China’s total death count was frozen for well over a year from January 25, 2021 until March 21, 2022 at the magical number of 4,636. Prior to that, from April 20, 2020 to January 25, there were four deaths. Taking these numbers at face value, this would make the death rate of the United States, where superior vaccines were distributed with high compliance rates, 800 times higher than China’s. [My bolding again.]I don't know where she got that last number. Plenty of Chinese people have taken a vaccination - I think it's most of them, some of them being held down by 4 guys to do it too. (I've seen videos.) How many Chinamen die from their vaccine won't be known so easily, or ever, also. I wonder if Ashley Rindsberg cares about that...
The Chinese don't seem to get it, or they are not permitted to get it. Ashley Rindsberg, who rightly derides Covid~Zero only due to the Chinese misinformation, doesn't get it either.
Covid~Zero, my ass. The reason I write it this way, is I can't help thinking of Coke~Zero. I gotta admit, I've been drinking a few of these when I need the caffeine, and it's not that far off the taste of Coca~Cola for something with allegedly no sugar. Yes, this is a digression, and, yes, it's gonna get bigger!
Another American pop-cultural thing that come to mind when I read of the silly Covid~Zero is a commercial for the old Mustang II. For those of you below a certain age, NOW you will understand the title - well, in a minute. The Ford Mustang may be THE most classic of American muscle cars (even having been in a good movie recently. Well, OK, it's 2nd to the Camaro/Trans-Am/Firebird of course. The Ford Mustang had a rough period in the mid-1970s though. The Mustang II - 2nd generation - built from '73 through '78 was a POS per most people's opinions.**
Others could expound on the details therein or hopefully forgotten, but then, I really like the looks of this thing. This would be a great car to drive around in, with an up-to-date AAA membership, but the problem is that almost every one is off the road. I very rarely see these things.
And another thing: Why come you can't buy a yellow car anymore?
That was the line from a song in a commercial I remember, going way back. It's catchy, I gotta say. They lyrics don't lie either. If you had one of these, you were never bored, as there was always something to fix on this Ford (Fix or repair daily).
Digression now complete, this writer of the article on Covid~Zero is amazingly still scared of the Omicron. (Aren't we at another Greek Letter by now, anyway? Now γ, that's Gamma, sounds pretty scary. That's neither in the specific heat ratio sense nor shear stress sense, but in the Incredible Hulk radiation sense.) This Kung Flu is viral disease. Scientists have understood for years, and most laymen, and laywomen, to be fair, too, that viruses mutate to less deadly strains.
I mentioned your "standard" influenza and the common cold already herein. What about that Swine Flu way back, in which the vaccination program was ended after 25 deaths or so, BTW? Is it gone, or has it just mutated into something that nobody cares about? I'm sure it's the latter. How did this idea about viruses that we all seem to have understood get forgotten?
I think this leads to what Mr. Hail and others have said. This PanicFest could be a religious thing. People lost their religion and needed a replacement. Though we have the Wokeness and other denominations over here, China was ripe for this religious revival. After 40 years of hard-core Communism, the morals of the people had been nearly wiped out. There are many Christians in China, you'll be told, but they are still few in relative numbers (and they have to worship out of sight).
People everywhere have found this new religion. Covid-19 has been Satan to them, while for the rest of us it's just another bothersome virus out of the Orient. The Chinese plan on destroying Satan completely with their efforts at Covid~Zero. OK, well, since the song is still in my head, I'll put in into yours. (Did I mention it's really catchy?)
How does it feel, got that Flu Manchu?
How does it feel, you're in LOCKDOWN II?
How does if feel, like you're some kind of hero?
Go on, LOCKDOWN II, Covid~Zero!
* Mr. Hail's term. He went into detail about these neutral types, with the likely explanation for that stance by Noah Rothman.
** It sold pretty well though. The first 4-bangers made 88 Hp, with the 6 cylinder making 105 Hp. Both came down by 6-8% with the catalytic converters installed.
Comments (12)
UK Stupidity Wrap-Up
Posted On: Saturday - August 20th 2022 4:16PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Political Correctness World Political Stupidity Peak Stupidity Roadshow
I suppose we could have written quite a bit more from our Peak Stupidity road trip to the UK/British Isles. We've got plenty of pictures, so there may be one more observation or two. It's just the standard Western World stupidity of the current era, so boredom has set in on this subject, and I'll just present a couple of pictures.
I'd taken a picture of this same flag over the Somerset House, pointed out by the tour guide as we went down the Thames River. This is not it. This fine old building is right behind the "London Eye", what they call the huge Ferris Wheel that sits on the south bank of the river downtown.
I have not been to Washington, FS in 4 years or so, and about the same for NY City. It's possible these cities have this Potomac Regime flag flying from the top of prominent classic buildings too. It wasn't "Pride Month" when we visited (if that's an international thing now), so I guess all these flags we've seen are up year-round.
I can't tell if this John Sheeham, from the classically British sounding Stratford-on-Avon, was joking here. What exactly this poster is advertising or pushing, I can't tell, as the masking stupidity has mostly faded. (Maybe this has been up a while.) They do have a different sense of humor, errr, humour, over there. It's a bit weird, but at least it's a heterosexual couple there.
We've covered a bit of Wokeness (our topic key is still "Political Correctness", but that seems so mild in comparison) in the UK, simply to get more value out of the trip. We really don't have any standing to criticize though. The following picture is from a jet bridge in the good old U.S. of A:
The Globalists are pushing lots of Woke stupidity on the population of the Western World - that's likely because it's the only place that will fall for much of it. The economic stupidity is probably more of a real problem, but this Globohomo is pure humiliation. "You regular people: We hate you, and we want you dead."
What a way to end the blog-week! It was either this or a Customer Care Curmudgeonry post. That'll make 2 of those next week, but we'll try to branch back out to the more current and important political stupidity. Thanks to all our readers and commenters for being here!
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Gross Defective Product
Posted On: Friday - August 19th 2022 9:15PM MST
In Topics: China Economics Americans
I've been in online and also offline discussions about the big picture of the economic might of America versus that of China or just the state of the American economy itself. I'm told often that we here still have this huge and growing GDP (That's Gross Domestic Product - the title here refers to China more specifically - see our topic key Cheap China-made Crap.) I'm told that China's GDP, hence, allegedly, its economy is smaller that ours - the www says yes, see, the US GDP in '21 was $21 Trillion, China's GDP was $17 Trillion.
Oh, so we're not as overwhelmingly kicking China's ass economically, but we still are by nearly 25%! Now, how stupid does that sound? Don't answer that if you are an economist - it be best for all of us if you would recuse yourself from this entire post.
Gross Domestic Product is the big number that's trotted out to compare economies to their former selves and to economies of other lands. If you've been around a while, you might recall that it used to be called the Gross NATIONAL Product. What's the diff? Investopedia tells me here:
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of the finished domestic goods and services produced within a nation's borders. On the other hand, gross national product (GNP) is the value of all finished goods and services owned by a country's citizens, whether or not those goods are produced in that country.I can't seem to get off the web the time that American economists and politicians changed over - I'd guess in the 1980s sometime - but it makes sense as Globalism increases.
Let's talk GDP then, because that's what you read/hear about. What are these products of which they speak? First of all, just to keep the abbreviation short, there is no "S" at the end for Services. Yet, they are, of course, part of this economic metric.
Because services are so hard to define and quantify, I really think a better number for comparing economies might be one that only measures the value of products only. That would rule out much of the economy of Switzerland, and, the way it's going, the U.S. of A, though. (Peak Stupidity had a blog post way back explaining how the rendering of services doesn't have quite the respect that creating products does - so oftentimes Services are now Products.) It seems easier to value a product than a service - there are lots of services that may have a negative value to us - IRS auditing services comes to mind.
America does not manufacture so much anymore, and Peak Stupidity has written before about the foolishness of expecting an economy to run off of "people selling each other gourmet hamburgers and craft beer". Let's think about the value added. Surely, there IS value added. The raw ingredients in each become a short-term product that we are willing to pay better than McDonald's burger prices for. Just the same, if looked at as products, the beer and burgers don't have the long-term value as automobiles and clothes washers do.
Looking for the value added by services becomes more vague when we look at legal services and the F.I.R.E. "industries". (That'd be Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, and Education.*) There are a big part of the modern American economy, but it is very questionable where and what the real value is out of each of them.
However, the GDP counts it all. In a manufacturing economy like modern China's, the GDP will reflect primarily the value of the cars and trucks produced, the machinery produced, the buildings built, and lots of other real products, In America, the money made by middlemen in large financial dealings, the "education" provided by universities to their gender studies majors, the money made by lawyers for their legal services in their suing to stop a road being built ... ker-ching! They are all part of the huge GDP we rack up.
Part of the reason China has been increasingly doing manufacturing for the world is its cheap labor. That factor is changing, but the other big factor has been that business is not over-regulated. In the meantime, American business is greatly hampered by the Feral Gov't. Yet, if OSHA has 200 people spending 2 years working on proposed rule-making that will just make more work for businesses, well those man-hours of OSHA's are services, to be counted. Ker-ching!
There's a lot more I want to discuss regarding different types of industry in our different economies. The conclusion of this post, however, is simply that people need to understand what's included in that GDP measure that is used so much. I think that right now the Chinese economy is stronger than that of America. The use of GDPs to compare them is not what it's cracked up to be.
To illustrate the point further, I bring up a joke I read a month ago from an Unz Review commenter named Mario Partisan:
************************
An Econ professor and a grad student are walking in a park when the prof sees a dog turd on the ground. The professor says to the grad student, "I’ll give you $50 if you eat that turd." The grad student agrees.
Half an hour later the grad student sees a turd and offers the prof $50 to eat it. The professor agrees.
The student then says, "What the heck was the point of that? Neither of us has any more money but we’ve both eaten shit. The professor says, "Son, you are overlooking the fact that we just benefited from $100 worth of trade."
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* The "R.E." may have both originally stood for Real Estate, but I think education belongs there too.
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Inside info on the latest Oriental Kung Flu Stupidity
Posted On: Wednesday - August 17th 2022 6:24PM MST
In Topics: China Kung Flu Stupidity Totalitarianism
Peak Stupidity has spent many hours, in over 250 posts, on the Kung Flu PanicFest. In all this, we haven't spent a whole lot of time in questioning where the virus originated (China) and Who Dunnit (some sloppy lab tech there).
The story is the way the virus epidemic was taken advantage of to introduce Totalitarianism, NOT the virus itself. Then there's the likely nefarious means in which an experimental, non-effective (for the Kung Flu, not death) was foisted upon us.
Then, you've got your Ron Unz's with their theories on the origin of the virus, of which I don't really give a rat's ass about. Sure, if the MAKING of the virus was a big part of a plot, rather than just the Totalitarianism introduced, we'd want to know. However, who the heck hatches a big plot to damage the world with a virus for which I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who died from it!? Older people have died earlier, yes. It's just not been an effective way to run an evil plan though. I have not seen bi-weekly runs in my neighborhood of commandeered FedEx vans with P/A systems blaring "Bring outcher dead!". If I had, OK, I may have wanted to check into the origin of this Covid-19.
It came from the Orient, and, at this point, I'm getting the feeling that the center of this stupidity has shifted back to its origin. I have two anecdotes from personal accounts, one from China, and one from Japan.
A friend of my China source lives in Canton, OK, Guangzhou, if you insist. She and her family live in a high rise very much like the ones you see in the picture above. In a city of 40 million people, there are many thousands of these buildings. (Yes, sardine-living is not something the Chinese people have a problem with.)
The friend in question lives in a complex of 26 30-story high-rises - my estimate would be 1,000 - 1,500 people per building. Let's go on the low side and estimate about 25,000 people living there. A LOCKDOWN order had just been issued for the whole complex. That means that no key-cards or phone screens will open the entry gates, and nobody will be let out. Geeze, it sounds like a bad re-epidemic! Well, it seems that one person in the complex has tested positive for the dreaded
This lady had gotten prepared before due to some advice from wise people in the States. Her family already has a month's worth of rice, 2 weeks worth of meat*, and they're wearing sunglasses ... because their future is so bright ... or something ...
I haven't spent any time in Japan other than at the Narita airport terminal. My wife is interested in visiting the place someday. (I will NOT be renting a car!) Coincidentally, I talked to an American just the other day who has a wife over there. He had not been able to see her for a couple of years due to this Kung Flu nonsense, though he will be able to go soon.
Though it must have been the vaccination (he will not take it either) and/or quarantining that has kept this guy out of Japan, his report to me was on that old Peak Stupidity favorite, the face masking. Here's the story now. Japanese people don't have to wear them, contrary to the story in the image - of course they MAY, as no country has any laws against hysteria and paranoia. However, foreigners must not only wear face masks in public, but it's pretty hard core he tells me. That means the bit about "take a sip or a bite, and then put the thing back on, for chrissakes!"** is in place.
OK, I get it - put the onus on the foreigners to not spread any germs to keep Covid~Zero. Isn't this really pretty discriminatory-looking, though? I guess you can get away with it in a country with a unified population, as stupid as it is. Still, I ponder how these people know a Chinaman or Korean is a foreigner. If you don't say anything, and don't get excited... baby, just you shush your moush ...***
* They don't eat meat the way we do. More importantly, you CAN order food to be delivered to the gates outside. Apartment security people take that to specific apartments, likely with a small cut for safe delivery. Multiple hands touch the packages, so... hey, no questions, mmmkayy?
** I have heard from expert SCIENTISTS that it is impossible to exhale while eating or drinking, so this method is idiot-proof.
*** Old, old David Bowie song there.
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Local Multi-Culti
Posted On: Tuesday - August 16th 2022 6:03PM MST
In Topics: Political Correctness World Political Stupidity Peak Stupidity Roadshow
Is that even a thing? That's what this post will be about.
sprucing up the scenery, confusin' my mind.
Go here, don't go there, can't you read the sign?*
To follow up a bit on our our previous post about our time in Ireland (and more generally the UK too), A man's home is his castle, I first want to note a difference I noticed between Dublin and London.
As related to my car "troubles" noted in a footnote in that post, I needed a wee bit of help twice. Really, the first time, it was completely unsolicited. There was a wee little mishap at the curb, due to one of those clamps that we call "boots" having been left there, and, well, how can you see stuff off the left side of the damn car?! (Of course, they could say the opposite to us.) As I looked at the wee bit of damage, and a lucky lad I was for it too, a man stopped to help out. This nice (actual) Irish gentleman went out of his way to walk to go get me an email address from some office, without my asking, to help me if I ended up getting billed for this dealy. (That clamp started the problem but my lack of awareness of the reverse gear trick did not help matters. I'm told the minor scraping of the rim did nothing but add to the rest.)
Then, we tried to figure out how to get to the proper parking garage, the GPS not being entirely helpful with the street layouts at that point. Another (actual) Irishman stopped to answer questions. When the confusion level got too high (i'll get to the accent in a bit), the man rode with us in the car to bring us there! He said he was headed that way, but that may have just been to be nice.
These two incidents were amazing for this day and age. Peak Stupidity thanks the Irish in general, as these two are likely not readers, for this great hospitality. Thank you!
You may just see some of this in America still, but only in small and White towns - that's it. In any big city, one would be worried about getting scammed or worse. There's just too much of that to risk taking a chance - it's no longer the 1970s here. In Dublin, that was a real flashback.
In London OTOH, a few days later, well, it was like New York City, in this regard. There was a huge tourist presence but the Londoners in The City reminded me very much of the Ocean Blue song The Office of a Busy Man, featured by Peak Stupidity here. I wanted to swap a few dollars for pounds in an even exchange at an appropriate place, but I was not just turned down but blown off as a potential scammer right away. I guess they've seen too much ... multiculturalism.
That brings me to our topic of PC, or wokeness in British Isles. I will have more on other aspects of it but this is just about the usual push for multiculturalism. What was interesting is not just the usual thing - such as some type of big •Indian parade going on in Dublin - that's Dublin, Ireland. WTH? The signs though, written in English and then Irish, are what I wondered about. I do know that this Gaelic (type of Celtic, I read) is spoken as a primary language in some remote places.** It's not like we heard it anywhere we went in the country - and the same my last trip there long, long ago.
This is a big thing now. In America too, everyone must be in touch with his roots from wherever, unless his roots are claimed to be pure American, as in, even straight off the Mayflower. This is the case, even if you are Irish. After 50 years of their finally being assimilated, for crying out loud, they now need to have Megan spelled Meighan or some such nonsense. Hell, even those with British roots get into the action with Geoffrey instead of Jeffrey*** and Graehme (spell check won't help!) instead of Graham.
It was kind of cool that a friend of mine was trying to play bagpipes, one time trying his best on Scotland the Brave out in the front yard around midnight - he didn't have it down, apparently, per the neighbors - but his wearing a kilt was simply too much.
Do the Irish need these signs in the old Gaelic language everywhere? It's annoying, if you ask me, just as the French is in OTQ Canada. (That's Other Than Quebec, the only province in which they DON'T use both languages!) I asked an Irish lady in the streets of Dublin, and she had the same thoughts, "multiculturalism", she said with disdain. You can be proud of your roots without introducing more cultural divides.
Even if we weren't having a directed mass immigration invasion, I think the Globalist elites would be pushing this stuff. It's enough, isn't it, that the real Irish have these accents of English that are so damned thick, that, well, it partially explains why the one guy decided to ride with us to the parking garage. Next to the castle of the other post, I talked for a minute with a guy that sounded like a foreigner - to Ireland, that is. Everything he said took about 3 seconds to figure out. There were people from all over touring the castle, so I had to guess. "Are you from Germany?" "Niagthe, aimmaugh Eireaahgueai" 3 seconds went by. "Oh, you're Irish! Sorry about that."
Then, there was Wales. Same shaithe, different country. Is it all for show, for the tourists? I wonder. I noted one sign that was only in the King's English though. That one was a small sign taped onto the hotel bathroom wall next to the toilet. "Please do not flush any other items or other paper besides toilet paper!" Oh, I get it. It's one thing to show your local multiculturalism on the road signs above the pubs, and all that. This one is about clogging up the plumbing! We need clear concise communication here, people.
There's the introduced foreign multiculturalism all over the White world, since assimilation is no longer in. It's not as bad, but I believe this Local MultiCulti crap is pushed to divide people too.
Finally, there's the story of a Welsh lorry driver who couldn't drive very well on EITHER side of the road. He was retested and the local lorry licensing office had him go to an optometrist to take the eye test over too, as perhaps that was his problem.
This man got through the "E" and right on through line 8 with no problems, which demonstrates 20/20 vision. He kept on going.
The Welch driver read out: "g y u n r h w r w d"
The optometrist was amazed. ‘You read the bottom line!’
‘Read it?’, the Welshman replied, ‘Hell, I know the guy!’
PS: How timely! VDare has an article by Mark Gullick**** in which the first segment is about mass immigration worries by the Irish regarding Georgians coming over. No, it's not the remaining members of the Allman Brothers or lesbian folks singers (the Indigo Girls would probably fit in well in the olde Irish music scene). It's not Stacey Abrams or the Guidestones bombers either. There are migrants from the ex-Soviet country of Georgia - Union Jackal On U.K. Immigration [4 ITEMS]: Georgians Heading To Ireland; Immigrants Boost Murders In Boston (Lincolnshire!); Albanian Smugglers Seek Customers On TikTok; RTC.. Yes, they cover the WHOLE immigration scene at VDare, and, let me tell you, it's a scene, man!
* I remember a post of ours with the lyrics from a band whom I called The 5-Comrade Electrical Band, in which I used these lyrics. We had a similar but more worldly picture for the anti-GPS-Nav post Sign, Sign, where'd they put the sign?, and our lyrics that time were:
Sign, sign, where'd they put the sign?
.. the GPS is yellin', I'm goin' out of my mind.
Do this, don't do that, where the hell's the sign?
** You have to be careful in reading on this or looking at maps, to know whether the question is "do people know this language?" Sure, lots are probably taught, but that's like my saying I "know" Latin from a couple of years of it in high school.
*** A guy at college named Jeff, well, as far as I knew, showed me one of his papers, and I had no idea what it even meant. "What? Jee-ahhff? Who's that?"
**** I didn't remember reading anything from this guy before. This is only his 4th post.
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Song Sung Blue
Posted On: Saturday - August 13th 2022 9:26PM MST
In Topics: Music
This is my favorite Neil Diamond song. It's the one I was referring to in Monday's post..
From his album Moods, Song Sung Blue was at the top of the America's (Billboard magazine's, actually) Top-40 Pop music chart a half century ago last month.
This one has a great melody! I knew it was all over for Neil Diamond music when I heard You Don't Bring Me Flowers.
Though the Kung Flu PanicFest seems mostly over, there is still related stupidity around, two aspects of which we'll blog about next week. There's a financial post coming, some more on the UK, and probably some humor. Thanks for reading a and writing. Happy Sunday!
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A man's home is his castle
Posted On: Saturday - August 13th 2022 3:40PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Cars World Political Stupidity Peak Stupidity Roadshow
The castle above is in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We had driven there from Dublin*. We had a nice tour of the place, and there was no general wokeness problem as you would expect now from an American historical site**. The picture above is from a low rise 300 yards or so from the front of the castle, and there is much more land behind there that is the castle grounds, between the old tall rock wall and a curve in the river. It was nice to do some walking and running around.
Lack of wokeness is one thing, but the wokeness could be easily reversed. (It just takes a spark.) What you see in the picture, though, is a different story. I'm pretty sure these Moslem women are not tourists as we were. These ground are a nice park, basically, and these women had no luggage, and weren't taking pictures. They were having a little study session, perfectly innocuous, I'm sure. That'd be all just peachy if Ireland had a sprinkling of foreigners, rather than a flood.
I have a comparison of my own to make. I don't want to name years exactly, but suffice it to say that the last time I was in Dublin I paid the equivalent of 3 bucks in Irish pounds for a room, as opposed to the 200 bucks we paid (in Euros, almost on par) this time. (No, that wasn't all inflation, as that first time was just a spot of the floor for my sleeping bag in a room with about 12 other young people vs. our room for a family in a good spot.)
At the time of the previous trip, Ireland was IRISH. It wasn't a very rich country, by any means, and lots of young people were still emigrating, but it was a home for the Irish. (I wasn't particularly well-off either and lived for over a week on baguettes of bread, cheddar cheese, Cadbury bars, and Guinness.) It was a beautiful country the way it was. The population of the Republic of Ireland (excludes the 6 counties of the North) was 3 1/2 million.
Since that time, the Irish have fallen for the Globalism too. Maybe that wasn't so willingly, so I could say "fallen to the Globalism". The country had a very low tax rate on business that helped the employment picture, until the employees and others were getting imported along with the businesses. The population of the Republic of Ireland is now over 5 million. I don't think that was worth it for the Irish people.
I wish I could get a number to represent the diversity quotient in Dublin. It's difficult, because I wasn't sure who were tourists like us. I'd say it is not nearly as high as in London, England, though. From Wiki here, I see that the country is still 92% White (pretty nice!), but 82% Irish - there are lots of immigrants from eastern Europe. The "other Asian" (other than Chinese) category shows only 1.7%, BUT a) that was 6 years ago and b) age matters (wonder what the number is for school kids). A Moslem contingent can grow fast.
Ireland is still better off, DIE-wise, than American and the big countries of western Europe - England, France, Germany, it seems like from the numbers. Things can change quickly though, especially when you don't even stop digging.
That castle has a lot of history, a history of the actual Irish people. Will these young ladies on the hill and their descendants care one whit about it all? Do they, and will they, they care about anything of the culture? It's just another place to put down strange roots and take over.
If the Irish allow large groups of foreigners to immigrate, these newcomers may eventually sound Irish, which is pretty weird when encountered, BTW, but they will not become Irish, even culturally. 10's of thousands of them in big cities will build their cultural fortresses, as those actual fortresses such as the Kilkenny Castle will be let to crumble and fade from history.
PS: One could argue with a comparison to the Irish in America, who eventually DID assimilate after having their cultural fortresses in Boston, NY City, etc. for 1/2 a century. They changed America too, though, and when you're talking very-foreign foreigners, your country will change that much more... toward that Tower of Babel.
* First rule of
Oh, I got a Ford with a 6-speed manual transmission - no problem with that, but it took me 1/2 a day to figure out the trick for the reverse gear.
** I've read about this madness at Thomas Jefferson's mansion Monticello and about 2 or 3 others on VDare. I cannot ruin a whole day due to the anger I'd get from that crap, even if it DOES result on a blog post!
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Did American Commies cause the attack on Pearl Harbor?
Posted On: Friday - August 12th 2022 11:29AM MST
In Topics: Commies History China Books
I don't mean solely in the title, but were they a contributing factor? In aviation incidents and accidents, the term "contributing factor" is very important. Usually, when some mistake or procedure is a "contributing factor", though it may not have been the main cause, it's highly likely that the accident or incident would not have occurred without that additional thing. I can't say much about that regarding these political events from fairly far-gone history (now), as we don't have the kind of details the NTSB does, and there's much more human psychology involved that we can't fully fathom.
I'm referring again to the book I've been slowly reading, called Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. Though I'm currently much farther along in the book, this post is about the introduction section on the 1930s-'40s American Communists of the US State Department and other advisors to the American Feral Gov't of the era. Previously, Peak Stupidity posted Young Commies in LUV, about the traitorous American Chairman Mao sack-hangers of the day.
I had bookmarked a few pages to write this post, this material in the book being even before that discussed in the other post. There was so much turbulence going on in the the Orient, specifically, China. for over 2 decades - the time of the start of the war between the Nationalists and Communists - August of 1927 to the end of it in October of '49, with an intermission of sorts to fight the Japanese from '37 through '45. Of course, the Japanese were invading far and wide in this region too for all of those years, and their eventual war with America ended all that. Did it have to happen, though?
One can read lots of history that avoids the generally popular American view that the Pacific War in WWII was all the Dirty Japs' fault. I don't know enough to write on the provocations by the Roosevelt Administration, as the Japanese wanted their sprawling empire for resources and military outposts, in conflict with an American government that wanted something similar. I will just mention a couple of pages [69-70] from this book on the deep influence of American Communists, as it's something I'd never read a thing about before.
It's not all the same characters here as in the picture in that Young Commies in LUV post, as there were a multitude of Communist sympathizers but also flat-out Communist spies in China, many in very influential positions. The American contingent of the latter were listened to by Congress and the President, FDR.
During this time, the Japanese were still considering re-starting their war with far-eastern Russia. Since the Russian-German neutrality pact had been busted by Hitler in June of '41, Stalin was worried about being caught in a 2-front war. Soviet master spy Richard Sorge* and his Japanese sidekicks Ozaki and Saionji did their best to influence the Tokyo cabinet to strike not north at Russia, but to the south against the allied outposts in the far East. Per author Stanton Evans:
As this question was being thrashed out in the Tokyo cabinet, a mirror-image debate was being conducted 7,000 miles away in the United States. Here the issue to be decided was whether to seek a truce with Tokyo, winding down its four-year-old-war with China, thus averting a direct clash between Japan and the United States, championing the cause of Chungking**. Ambassador Joseph Grew, our envoy to Japan, was working to head off such a conflict and thought there was a chance to do so. However, when it appeared the State Department might be leaning toward a modus vivendi with the Empire, members of the IPR*** brigade sprang nimbly into countervailing action.These guys were were very much pro-China - some of them having been raised there by missionaries, but many simply supporting China with the hopes that Mao and his gang would run the place.
Lauchlin Currie, for one, deplored the possibility of such a truce in a memo to FDR, saying any arrangement of the sort would do "irreparable damage to the good will we have built up in China." Another U.S. official disturbed by the prospect of a Washington-Tokyo truce was the Treasury's Harry Dexter White****. "persons in our government," White declaimed, "are hoping to betray the cause of the heroic Chinese people [Which ones, the Communists? Otherwise, why would HE care? Most Americans could not tell, and didn't CARE about the difference, Japanese v Chinese, back in that day.] In keeping with this view, according to IPR spokesman Edward Carter, White in November of 1941 alerted him to the modus vivendi danger and called an emergency meeting to concert resistance.That was pretty late in the game. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th of the year.
What Carter didn't say and would be discovered later was that White was already working to promote a stiff-necked American policy directly counter to the truce idea, this at the urging of the Soviet KGB. [Our BAL - Bestest Allies for Life!] As revealed by Moscow agent Vitaliy Pavlov in his memoirs, he had earlier come to Washington to brief White on the proper stance for the United States to take in discouraging any rapprochement with Japan. White, who obviously didn't need much prompting, had followed through, drafting and redrafting a tough memo on the subject for Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, forwarded to the State Department for its guidance.Then, one of Tail-gunner Joe's (later) usual suspects "would also get in on the action".
Professor Lattimore, from his new perch in Chungking would get in on the action --- firing off a cable to Currie in the White House strongly opposing a diplomatic stand-down with Japan as a betrayal of our friends in China. Chian Kai-shek, said Lattimore, was dismayed by the possibility of such a truce, so much so that "any modus vivendi now arrived at" would be "destructive of the Chinese belief in America". The voices opposing the modus vivendi thus formed a considerable chorus on both sides of the Pacific.Now, I can see that both of the Chinese factions wanted American help, but what good was that all for America? I don't think these Communists cared so much about the good of America ...
In the upshot, the Sorge-Ozaki-Saionji advices***** would triumph in Japan, while those of the Lattimore-Currie******-White trifecta would prevail in the United States. There would be no Washington-Tokyo stand down over China, no Japanese attack on Russia, and no peace in the Pacific.The motivations of the Communists involved were to help the USSR. How many Americans, American allies, and Japanese soldiers died due to this deep concern for the fate of Communist Russia of our enemies within?
PS: It's history. I imagine the populations of Indonesia, many other Pacific island lands, Taiwan, and China, of course, are better off the way it did happen. However, even then, "America First" should have been policy. 8-decade-ago Communists didn't care about that, and your modern Communists within care even less - they want it destroyed.
* Sorge was a German born Communist secret agent working for the USSR out of Shanghai, China, with Japanese and American sidekicks, the latter smoozing with the Mao Commies in Yenan.
** The author refers to the Nationalist Chinese here, led by Chiang Kai-shek.
*** That's the Institute of Public Relations, which offered a nest for some of the Western Communist traitors.
**** WTF the Treasury Department should have to do with it all is a question of mine.
***** Stanton Evans used "advices" in the plural form like that a lot in the book. It's strange but maybe that's some sort of diplo-talk.
****** Lauchlin Curry was White House economic adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt during WWII. A friend of Professor Lattimore, he was one of the many suspected spies determined from the Verona Project, the important part of it (related to the Atomic Bomb) being slightly before Senator McCarthy's time in the Senate. He eventually bugged out to Colombia, S. America, so I don't know what to make of that, do you?
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Kung Flu Kash
Posted On: Thursday - August 11th 2022 3:25PM MST
In Topics: Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Today our post will go back to our roots with some of that old-time Kung Flu Stupidity. About a month into our awareness of the Kung Flu PanicFest being A BIG THING, mid-April of '20, we posted Are Kung Flu death counts being goosed for insurance reasons? By that date there was already pretty fishy stuff going on with lots of incentives, both financial and political, to bring up those "Case", Hospitalization, and Death numbers. (The thematic maps were a real thing then, if you recall.)
This post will be a personal anecdote again, this time from a friend whose 86 y/o Dad died recently. If I get any of these vague details wrong, he can correct me, and he may have more to update this story with.
The gentleman in question had had Alzheimers for a few years already. He had been living in assisted living only for that reason, as he otherwise could function very well, per his son. At some point recently, he had severe acute pain in the abdomen. That could be a lot of bad things. It was. He had lots of blood in his urine and stool. As you would expect, he was sent immediately to the hospital. Well, there was a step in there, in which he was tested for Covid-19. Rightly or wrongly, for this kind of facility, before anything else was done, they had to find out if he could spread the Covid around.*
He tested positive. Yes, he'd been vaccinated for Covid-19, so make what you will of that. It turns out that the "clot shot" is not part of THIS particular story.
What that meant, however, is that the hospital was duly informed of the test result. OK, but he had REAL problems. At that age, exploratory surgery was ruled out (by he and his family, I gather), and things went downhill pretty fast. My friend's Dad sadly died only a few days after entering the hospital.
Again, this post is not about the Kung Flu, MEDICALLY-speaking. Major gastrointestinal problems are not one of the many symptoms I'd hear about, or even experienced myself with that (likely**) mild case, during the entire duration of the PanicFest. Yet, the doctor had primary cause of death being the Covid-19. See what I mean about this? Covid-19 has absolutely nothing to do with this man's death. He had tested positive though. Do they test everyone who comes in?
My friend and his mother, the man's widow, both did not agree with this supposed cause of death. I'll give the doctor credit in the end, as after one of them talked to him about it, he changed Covid-19 to #2 cause, with GI problems being the new #1. That was the point at which they both found out that a determination of Covid-19 as cause of death would result in a $9,000 payoff from the Feral Gov't. Yes, for what? We don't know. I would guess it's to goose the numbers...
* This doesn't explain why they just don't test everyone there, every day or so. You could be asymptomatic. Then, maybe you've just got another vaccine shot, so you're gonna spread it.
** I did not get tested to know for sure, for reasons of a) obstinacy, b) not giving a damn, and c) liability.
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Long term climate predictions from "America's Science Officer"
Posted On: Tuesday - August 9th 2022 8:42PM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Climate Stupidity
Do you remember the winter of 1977?
"If we are unprepared for the next advance [of the Coldness], the result could be hunger and death on a scale unprecedented in all of history."
"During the lifetime of our grandchildren, Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our planet into a Polar desert." Right now, as I sweat and write, I could really go for a Polar dessert - perhaps one of them Klondike bars would hit the spot.
In all fairness, I'm not sure if Mr. Spock was referring to the planet Vulcan, not Earth. He may be talking about a different Buffalo, New York on that other world. Peak Stupidity apologizes for our Earth-centeredness in this regard. We aim for Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Helio-centricity.
"There is little doubt that the ice will return."
"From this theory, we can say with confidence, we are currently heading for another [9th] Ice Age" - Dr. James Hayes (not a Vulcan)
This starts out with that same video of the usually calm and collected Dr. Spock freaking the hell out, but this much longer clip has actual interesting science in it.
The scientists such as Dr. Hayes attributed the Ice Ages to changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit. I've read other theories based on the tilt of its axis instead. There are likely positive feedback mechanisms involving the myriad complex processes of the climate. Thing is, compared to the Ice Ages, the small changes that MIGHT be related to atmospheric CO2 levels are minor noise as compared to the glaciers coming right on down through Ohio again.
Any real, working climate model ought to either have the ice age theory built in to begin with or else be able to predict the next one.
I don't know who to believe anymore about the future of the planet, a former Star Fleet Science Officer or a teenage Swedish girl. If it's still acceptable in this day and age, I would really like to see Spock v Greta.
"How dare you speak about logic and blah, blah, blaaaahh... "[Permanent Vulcan Nerve Pinch]
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Potomac Regime suppresses '24 Presidential candidate
Posted On: Tuesday - August 9th 2022 2:04PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '26 US Police State Trump US Feral Government Anarcho-tyranny
The reader may recall that Peak Stupidity doesn't claim to be a news site. I'm pretty sure every one of our readers who is not in a coma at this point (sorry about those exercise machine posts!) has heard of the FBI raid on former President Trump's house. Why would we even comment? We all know the direction this country has taken.
Donald Trump can be a real bullshitter at times, but when the privacy of one's house gets violated, things get real, no matter who you are and what kind of sprawled out compound* you have. I read some of Mr. Trump's messages to the public on this matter last night, and he is on the money regarding the Anarcho-Tyranny, as he compared this harassment to the complete lack of any prosecution of the Hildabeast with her KNOWN shirking of security procedures with that hard drive. (Then, there's Hunter Biden, who should long ago have expired in the Tower of London with his Dad.)
We've written before about the increasingly rapid slide toward Banana-Republicanism that this country is on. Regarding the FBI, which is now nothing but a police arm of the ctrl-left Feral Gov't Establishment, we wrote a 2-part series The modern FBI and 3rd-World behavior - Part 1 - - Part 2.
My wife asked me how this stuff can be happening. How? Americans let the left infiltrate every Institution of American society for 50 years, and they're pretty much finished with that. They are very confident now, that they can act like 20th century Commies did. I personally think they are a bit overconfident. At some point people will start shooting people in their doorways.
* It's a "compound", rather than a "ranch", because Trump is a Republican. The term is used for preppers/survivalists too, no matter if one's property is smaller than Nancy Pelosi's slave quarters. Then, the Kennedies are an exception, as they've always had a compound for reasons of keeping the insane ones property contained.
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Build the Wall! Employ assholes in the Customs Hall!
Posted On: Monday - August 8th 2022 8:12PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity US Feral Government Zhou Bai Dien
I've kept 2 recent VDare posts in tabs on this device for this post. (Yeah, I just grab their graphics - hope they don't mind.) It turns out they are both by the hardworking writer A.W. Morgan. This guy writes almost a post a day on there - it's great that VDare has this guy on the payroll!
This follows slightly from the end of the last post when I mentioned the customs men and the bananas. The old worries about bringing in strange insects and diseases via ag products is getting downright obsolete. There is so much sent by container that's not inspected, and the influx even by legal means is huge... we'll get to the southern border, with regard to people rather than insects/diseases or maybe people with diseases, in a bit here. Even so, we were told to get rid of all produce and meat.*
That's fine. Then there's the immigration man. I've said it before, that if there's one little piece of the government bureaucracy that ought to be filled with assholes, it should be the immigration inspectors. I was not disappointed as to who met us down there in the terminal basement either. Really, I mean, sure we tried to use these machines, because last time - quite a while back now - you did need to use them, but they are for "Global Entry" folks now. The guy was pretty sarcastic about this error. Fortunately, that confusion somehow got us in front of the guys quicker. The same asshole had another remark, but then the guy at the actual desk was reasonable.
I'm told that they purposely try to set people on edge to see if they will act weirdly if they are really up to no good. I don't know, but telling the man in Shannon, Ireland that "well, I might have had a wee bit much drink on the flight" with a mock Leprechaun accent caused quite the hold-up for a friend. (All of a sudden the guy left his desk. A woman came back after half and hour, but his boarding pass was mysteriously missing for a wee spell.) OK, they don't like jokes. Breaking into a country is no joke either, so I say, keep these people employed down there in those basements!**
Just as with the security theatre on the other end, why do ANY of this, if you're just going to let people come willy-nilly across the 1,900 mile southern border.
The regular reader will know, and can see even from this very post, that we follow VDare closely here. It's not like this is any new news. I got into a friendly conversation on-line about some of the things discussed in anti-invasion circles recently. To paraphrase the other guy "Nah, don't worry about the wall - we need eVerify, major fines on employers, no more incentives like in-State tuition ..."
OK, now most of that is good stuff, but see, people WILL pour into the US until this country is as bad off as the worst of them. Serious border control MUST BE part of the solution. This was brought home yet again, in Mr. Morgan's article Just As We Thought, Alabama Murder-Mutilation Suspect Is An Illegal Alien. Yeah, it was pretty sick. Yes, again, as I seem to read regarding most serious illegal alien criminal acts, this sick fuck had already been deported. Oftentimes, it's 2 or more times that the criminal has been deported before!
Next, there's this story by Mr. Morgan: DoD Whistleblower: Kabul Joe Let In 324 Afghans On Biometric Watch List. There should have been NO highly-foreign Afghans let in, but when they were (in number over 100,000), they were supposedly "vetted". Bullcrap! I've been through this before too on this blog - see Motherland Security knows best - very related to the previous post - in which I noted that the Minneapolis-St. Paul ramp crews are highly Somalian. In another post, Minnesota Nice, terrorists, and the Security State, I noted this about "background checks":
Now, I'm sure some manager over them could tell me about the extensive, extensive background checks done on these men and women. Yeah, right, you people checked for arrests and traffic tickets since they've been here for 3 years. Uh-huh, OK, but how 'bout the other 25 years back in the chaos of Somalia? Got the records from their high schools, if any? Got the paperwork from jihadi clubs, do ya?OK, per, this post about the "biometric watch list", that sounds like lots of Police State*** vetting went on. Brandon up there let these 324 worrisome "folks" in anyway.
I guess no exhortations (such as our title) with real solutions mean anything when American high officials don't want to save this country. They are actively working against that effort right now.
Finally, I did hear about the entry and search of Donald Trump's house down in Florida today by the banana-republic FBI working directly for Commandante Brandon. It's getting pretty bad... my wife asked why and how ... hey, they've had half a century to infiltrate it all... the ctrl-left is pretty sure of themselves now. I'll post on this manana...
* Being a frugal family, we ate multiple bananas and oranges on short approach.
** For how it's done in China, see Chinese Immigration NON-Stupidity.
*** No, it's not something Constitutional, but you just don't let everyone in, and you don't need all this (very much like the case with eVerify).
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Current flavors of stupidity in the UK
Posted On: Monday - August 8th 2022 4:31PM MST
In Topics: Music Peak Stupidity Roadshow Kung Flu Stupidity Totalitarianism
They say the colonies and the UK* are two countries separated by a common language. Well, they said that before both were turned into Towers of Babel, anyway, but there's still some of that left. While doing the real touristy thing** this time, on the double decker bus (and the Thames River cruise), I felt that if I heard the word lit-tra-lee one more time, I'd lit-tra-lee lose my tea and crumpets off the side onto the bonnet of that lorry down there.
We took our pictures of the Potomac Regime's Pride Flag flying various places, along with the Ukraine flag, but my worst bout with the stupidity of the place was actually nothing new at all. It was right on the way out too - the security business at Heathrow Airport. Yeah, this is 20-year old stuff here, and Peak Stupidity had our say on 9/11 five years back with 16 Years of Spreading Democracy - They still hate us for our freedoms(?). I should be over all this, like other good Americans. I'm not though.
(There was one Brit sitting there - just for eye candy?)
Maybe it was that about everyone working this assembly-line madness called airport security didn't look a bit British. It was also that I was not used to as much of this being treated like a transferring prison inmate as I experienced this time. I took stuff out of this pocket, put it here and there, wondering if I'm gonna know where it all is later, and I'd just had it. "Hey, this money better come out the other side!" I told the one lady, as I stuck about $300 in American cash somewhere to be examined. I called the whole thing a "big security theater (oops, theatre) shitshow" in front of everyone there. Come to think of it, it was probably best that there weren't so many actually British people around, as they may not have put up with it.
I took the snapshot above, but it didn't really capture the mood, my mood or that of the whole #SAD operation. (There was a big crowd that one can't see.) I did tell the one lady, regarding the money, that "it's not personal. I don't like the whole damn thing" before I walked through the scanners.
I'm amazed I wasn't detained and blogging right now from the hoosegow in the Tower of London like a poorly-dressed and less-literate Thomas Moore. BTW, it's NOT a tower. I kept wondering "where's the tower?" It's a big castle basically. Who knew? I had in my head since the Al Stewart song a picture of a tower with a few cells in it.
Look, you've got mostly Pakistanis, as nice, hardworking, and trustworthy as they (most of them) might be, running airport security at Heathrow, and you still act like this stuff is serious? I can't get myself to "suspend my disbelief", as they say in the movie reviews.
Well that's all old news that had me seriously distracted, but I'll note that throughout all that the Kung Flu stupidity was completely absent. Of course we would not have, or COULD not have, made the trip 1/2 a year back when the vax restrictions were in place. (My wife didn't feel as comfortable as I would have about making up a Vaccine Passport using MS-Paint. She wanted to us to use Photoshop ... I kid ...) We knew they'd backed down on that bit. More than that, I didn't see even old stupid 6' "distancing" signs, stickers on the floor, and only some of the security-theatre employees had face masks on. I saw no signs about vaccinations. (In London itself, it was maybe 5% masked up - we didn't take a proper survey.) Customs back home was about the usual bananas and oranges again.
I'm going backwards with this trip anecdote post, so now I'll go west about 400 clicks (that's "kee-lo-me-tras" for you Yanks) to this nice town in Wales called Holyhead. There's a ferry terminal there in which one can arrive from or depart to a number of places in Ireland. A series of nice trains can take one to London.
We walked all over the small town - very tempting of a bug-out place it is, but well, this was summer-time. The grass is always greener - well it freakin' is, bloke!
I don't know how it was 2 years ago, but at least by this point, the folks in Holyhead, Wales aren't taking the Kung Flu stupidity very seriously. This sign was outside a pub:
The other flavors of stupidity to be reported on from this trip to Ireland and the UK are the Wokeness and the Orwellian stupidity. Oh, and the
We'll get to that, along with plenty of other subjects, this week, but we've got to include the Neil Diamond song at this point. For those who listened to the music in Saturday's post, Neil Diamond also wrote a number of their hit songs. This one, Sweet Caroline is not my absolute favorite song by him - I would have sworn I put my favorite up on here early in the blog, when I'd just put music with no specific topic. It's not on here, so it'll be coming soon.
* Yeah, I know, the UK isn't a country. I am fortunate that John Derbyshire cleared this bit up not long before my family's trip over to the UK... errr, Great Britain,... WHATEVER! No, seriously, it's like this: With what's left of it, the UK includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, while Great Britain just includes the 1st 3 of those.
We visited Ireland and 1/2 of the UK or 2/3 of Great Britain - we did not get to Scotland.
** Interestingly, there were hardly ANY Chinese tourists in London - I think there were more, proportionally, in Dublin, Ireland. I was surprised at this, having seen so many in all the other European and the one S. American city we visited - see The Ugly Chinaman for our experience in Rome 3 years back.
Have the tourists been having trouble getting out of China on trips? Freedom is on the back-slide over there, and one can't always go out of the country whenever he wants now. This may be actually, or just ostensibly, related to the Kung Flu madness in a number of ways. Then there is the increased animosity in the relationships around the world due to the stupidity of both the Xi and the Potomac Regimes.
For the US/China travel at least, the 10 year tourist visas have been cancelled. You may have gone through the trouble and have 5 years left on one, but so sorry, no refund will be forthcoming.
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MonkeyPox as AIDS 2.0 + Monkee and non-Monkey Music
Posted On: Saturday - August 6th 2022 7:23PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Healthcare Stupidity
I was talking to a friend just now about this new MonkeyPox "scare". Really, I haven't had to deal with it one bit, having not kept up with big-media stories*, and I gotta say the whole KungFlu PanicFest seems to have dropped off the radar, as far as the travel industry goes. (I promise to have real reports next week.)
Yeah, this is AIDS 2.0, though, for those stricken, it doesn't sound as life-threatening. (But no, I absolutely DON'T want to see any more pictures! I don't get paid Doctor wages - I shouldn't have to look at rashes on strangers, sorry.) What I mentioned to said friend is that the government and media seem to be running the exact same scam (for money, panic, or sympathy - or a combination thereof) as they did for AIDS 1.0 about 40 years ago. Is this because we have a new crowd in these Institutions that doesn't remember the original scam, or is it that they do remember, but they think the public doesn't remember it?
What is this scam? Oh yeah, the deal is that, even though this too is a disease spread almost solely by gay sex, they will scare people into thinking that anyone can get it just as easily. It'd be great to be up there on a morning talk show on TV, in a debate with one of the usual moronic press types telling me "Hey this is serious! ANYONE can get the MonkeyPox." "OK, I'm so sorry. You are right. ANYONE CAN get the MonkeyPox ... if he fucks a stranger in the ass, that is!"
"Oh, and I got moving pictures. This is what happens. You see what happens?":
And now, on a quite different note, we hear from Mr. Anon in The Unz Review comments that The Seekers singer Judy Durham has died. They were before my time, but Peak Stupidity did feature their song Georgy Girl almost 5 years back. That video is of a show in Melbourne, Australia** 55 years back. The audience was quite non-diversified, and you can see the same with a quite different Aussie band doing a bagpipe rock number in that same city here in that same city.
I just picked a song I liked - never heard it before - to mark this sad occasion - called Morningtown Ride. Judith Durham is singing about a train ride.
Speaking of train rides, since we used every mode of transportation on our recent trip other than bicycle - OK, and lawn chairs lifted by balloons - I had a Gerry Rafferty song in my head during part of the train ride into London. This song was likely featured on the site before, since I'm a big Gerry Rafferty fan***, but here's City to City anyway. It's from his best album, titled the same.
Oh yeah, this post had something to do with Monkeys, so why not another train song, by The Monkees. It was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and sung by the drummer Micky Dolenz.
OK, that was almost all fluff this week, here on Peak Stupidity. We'll be writing about immigration, the UK, and more Kung Flu stupidity next week, hopefully in more posts.
* I've just been reading Steve Sailer's take. He does seem completely hip to the Panic-fraud with this one, quite to my relief.
** The band was Australian.
*** I talked to a Scottish lady for a bit in Ireland, and at least she'd heard of the guy.
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Battle of the International Weather Girls
Posted On: Friday - August 5th 2022 7:12PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Political Correctness Feminism Peak Stupidity Roadshow
"It's some doughy English matron ... atron ... tron..."
Before we get into the more serious posts from the UK, Peak Stupidity will present this example of the current state of affairs on English TV. As is the case in general, we watched almost no TV on this trip (we didn't touch the TVs in any hotel rooms), but my son was looking for baseball on the TV in the lobby. I hated to tell him, but there wouldn't be baseball - maybe cricket. We didn't see any of that even.
The next morning, as we went by the big TV to get breakfast, I snapped a shot of this English weather lady. Yes, I had this post in mind already. It's the same feminist or now woke policies that are meant to take the fun out of life and have us understand that we are all the same. We should be happy to find out the high temperatures and cloud cover from this fairly dumpy broad on the TV.
Well, yeah, I don't know who she is*. She may have a PhD in meteorology for all I know and be a very nice person off the TV. Still, one can get forecasts on the phone or internet elsewhere, nobody really can predict much farther out than 4 days in most locales, so could they not give us a little eye candy? No, they most certainly will not! This is woke Oceania we're talking about, formerly Great Britain. You will watch this lady and like it! (Oh, and you'll pay a tax to even HAVE your TV! Sucker!)
It's been over 23 years since I was hooked up to TV. Going back to the mid-1990s, I remember a time when I'd watch the local news followed by Andy Griffith each weekday evening. One local channel had a local guy doing the weather who was kind of a celebrity for the kids, but the others had fairly pretty women on doing it. They smiled and had nice pretty dresses. They didn't wear bikinis though.
Now, there's youtube! No, I don't honestly care if it floods in La Serena and gets up to 45 Celsius in Valparaiso. That doesn't change the shape of this weather girl's shapely T's and A one bit.
"It's Chile's Flavia, avia, shake that ass..."
I know that the Globohomo wokeness is infiltrating a lot of countries, but I can't see the Latin Americans really embracing it. Long live Flavia and her younger replacements! As for the old 1990s pretty weather girls. That was a happy medium ... OK, there was no youtube.
Fine, you're gonna want at least one video, and if you search for "Flavia" on youtube you'll find other weather reports from Chile in 2013. Sure, you're just doing research for your Climate Crisis™ presentation for work, if your wife asks, yeah, that's the ticket ...
In this last round of Battle of the International Weather Girls, it's Flavia by a nipple!
(I think she'd be even hotter directing traffic in downtown PyongYang under a big blue umbrella. Don't you?)
* I don't know if this was ITV or BBC or what, for that matter.
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