Ann Coulter, extraordinary early anti-panic pundit
Posted On: Thursday - December 9th 2021 7:53PM MST
In Topics: Pundits Media Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
The above image is from an Ann Coulter column she wrote on March 25th of '20!.* While reading her latest column, The Fauci Who Cried Wolf, about the continued hype out of this lead Panicker now that OMΓ!, we're up to threat-level Omicron, I noticed that VDare linked to that older column. That column, How Do We Flatten The Curve On Panic?, is so amazingly far ahead of the curve of the general anti-panic crowd. Ann Coulter is phenomenal in intelligence. She has large amounts both kinds of wisdom, Conservatism AND Libertarianism!
Check out that old column, and you'll be amazed to read Miss Coulter's over 19 month-old writing saying what other pundits are only catching up with now. Regarding the contagious disease EXPERT Anthony Fauci of 38 years ago, she noted:
Speaking of which, here’s liberal sex symbol Fauci on AIDS back in 1983, when he was with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but not yet its director: "As the months go by, we see more and more groups. AIDS is creeping out of well-defined epidemiological confines.” (It didn’t.)Do you remember that? I think it was a lot easier for sane non-homo non-intravenous drug addicts to blow off this BS before the age of the internet, much less smart phones and twitter. On the other hand, there was not opposing information one could get so easily, as there is today. Back on the first hand, well, people had more common sense back in 1983, I'm guessing. I did not run into people who were afraid of French kissing due to information from the Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, no wait, he was actually just the Assistant TO the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.**
In 1987, Fauci warned that French kissing might transmit the AIDS virus, saying, “Health officials have to presume that it is possible to transmit the virus by exchange of saliva in deep kissing. That presumption is made to be extra safe."
Nowadays the lack of common sense has people wearing face masks while driving alone in cars, and some wear them in the swimming pool. I guess one could try French kissing with one these on, but the taste of cheap Chinese non-woven material would probably take the romance out of the whole thing.
In the recent column, Miss Coulter calls out still-Feral-Government-employed Anthony Fauci on his hype, as seen in a CNN (Jake Tapper) interview. An excerpt:
Long after it was clear that COVID was dangerous nearly exclusively for older people and the obese, Fauci lied, just as he once lied about AIDS being a risk for heterosexuals long after it became clear that it was almost entirely a problem for gay men and intravenous drug users.It has taken lots of lies to keep this PanicFest going. Anthony Fauci is the Liar-in-Chief of the operation, while pundit extraordinaire Ann Coulter has come through week after week with the truth. We don't have so much common sense here in 2021 America, but at least we have the internet. Thank you, Ann Coulter!
Instead of devoting massive resources to shutting down bathhouses and shooting galleries to stop the spread of AIDS, and blanketing older Americans with protections in the case of COVID, Fauci repeatedly claimed that everyone was at risk.
* That's when VDare published it - as you can see - so she may have even written it a day or two earlier. I don't know how that works.)
** Old The Office joke there that never gets old. No, I neither know nor care what Dr. Fauci's exact position in that organization was back then.
Comments (28)
Epstein, Maxwell, the Mossad, and Fantasy Island Globalist blackmail
Posted On: Wednesday - December 8th 2021 7:34PM MST
In Topics: Globalists World Political Stupidity
How odd is this, another post involving the venerable B-727 within 2 weeks? See Happy D.B. Cooper Day - 50 years ago this minute.
That's the Boeing 727 (with winglets, no less!) known as the "Lolita Express", which has been transporting political, business, and other elites down to privately-owned Fantasy Island in the Caribbean for a good time. No, most of the passengers don't learn of this island from "want a good time?" messages on the walls of bathroom stalls, (... be cool or be cast out?) This is having a good time for the Globalist private-jet-setters. The island in question was known as "Epstein Island" from the man, Jeffrey Epstein, who ran the, errr, resort, until his untimely errr, suicide, in prison two years back.
We're not going to find out anything more from Mr. Epstein, so the public's attention is on the trial of one Ghislaine Maxwell (a cut-and-paste name if I ever saw one - I'm NOT spending the time to memorize that crap!). She was basically the female pimp - pimpess, I guess, who arranged the sexual get-togethers between the big shots and the pretty and pretty-young ladies on the island. I mean, there are sandy beaches all over the place. You don't need big money if you're there just for the sand and sun*. Anyway, with this lady still alive with years worth of information about who has been doing what on Fantasy Island there, people are anxious to get the story from her. In other words, I don't know how long Miss Maxwell has to live.
I haven't paid any attention to the brewhaha around her trial. I know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The absolutely corrupt are gonna corrupt ... absolutely - it's what they do, and I'm in no position to stop them or really care about this whole thing... so I thought.
I got more interested in this whole thing only after reading this interesting comment by one ic1000 under a Steve Sailer post. With all these big-time politicians Big-Biz elites and entertainment people (I don't really care about the latter) having partaken of their fantasies, you've gotta figure that most of them are compromised.
Mr. ic1000 wonders how Jeffery Epstein got from here to there:
In his late twenties, Epstein was an intelligent, handsome, extroverted math teacher at a tony Manhattan prep school. Some time later, he was an up-and-coming Master of the Universe, living the Jet Set life thanks to hundreds of millions in Assets Under Management.That's a good question. It's obvious that the whole operation down there was either ripe for, or more likely MADE TO BE, an opportunity to blackmail the elites of the Western world. (Hell, you can come from the East too, if you like the round-eyed girls.) The question is, why did this decent young man, but still a nobody in the scheme of things, get to be the guy who ran the whole show?
Why Jeffrey Epstein? He was no Bill Gates with delusions of Grandeur or George Soros with pretty clear-minded thoughts of Destruction. Did he work for one of these big shots? It seems like these big shots pretty much all visited the island for pleasure not business.
(I looked through the unz comments of the JohnnyWalker123 mentioned below for one of his many serious tweets but came upon this gem.)
I often tend toward the idea that these people in power just getting there by good (or bad) luck. I am curious about the timeline between Jeffrey Epstein just being this “intelligent, handsome, extroverted math teacher at a tony Manhattan prep school” and his having a lot of control over the levers of power in the world.
It’s not like a scheme by say, the Mossad would be very hard to think of, nor would it be hard to implement. Guys like sex. It’s job #1. Only certain people are in a position to be subject to these temptations, and the big politicians and other elites are in that position, fortunately (or not) for them. It could have been overt, and they gave him the scoop of how his life could be as the man in charge of Fantasy Island, with some serious threat if he backed out. Maybe they just gave him money and guidance to get started bootstrapping his resort operation without the big picture.
Did Mr. Epstein know that the goal was blackmail of dozens or hundreds of important men for the purpose of control of world politics? Maybe he was kept in the dark on this, with some of the (unknown to him), say, Mossad henchmen in certain positions because “hey, they need jobs, and we helped you get this nice pricey resort operation going”, till the end. Would he care? Maybe he started to, so that’s why he ended up “killing himself” in prison.
How easy a scheme is this one! It beats accumulating enough money to buy big chunks of industry. It beats setting up a James Bond lab and hoping some super-weapon will come out of it. It beat assassinating all kinds of people, taking a chance on discovery, and then having to repeat a lot of it when some clueless other guys who are not down with the program end up in those positions.
How do all these Globalist elites fall for this Fantasy Island honey trap to begin with? I don't know about the entertainers and Big Biz types, but for a politician, why NOT get involved in this? You get that young p**** with no press cameras around. Yes, the other cameras, about that… Why do you care? You have no principles. You’re a big-time politician – there’s no way you got this far with any scruples left, and then, they are blackmailing you for a reason. You will affect some policy that they want, so they NEED YOU. You could be set for life! After that …?
The only con I see is that once they’ve blackmailed you, you don’t have much of a chance for any bribe money out of them.
have no evidence myself of any of this, but this theory sounds perfectly plausible. This discussion is making me interested in the continual series of Unz Review commenter JohnnyWalker123's tweets he has been inserting on threads of any topic that kept shaking the web page around. The only thing is, as people who have been following this trial have noted, it sounds like all the real interesting stuff is being kept secret during that trial. But, of course.
At this point the reader may either agree with or legitimately question why I chose the Mossad (the CIA of Israel) as the organization that could have been in charge of this operation. We'll have more on that in a post to come.
* Hey, maybe someone should do some analysis as to how these Lolita-visiting elites have fared after getting all that vitamin D and some of that vitamin P. Help us, Dr. Fauci.
Comments (10)
Ron Unz finally seeing the light.
Posted On: Tuesday - December 7th 2021 8:58PM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits Kung Flu Stupidity
We've gotta realize that, even though most of us here are Unz Review readers, it's is doubtful that 1% of Americans have ever clicked on the site, or maybe less than 0.1%. I believe it was either commenter Adam Smith or Mr. Hail of the Hail to You blog who did a few calculations to get an idea on the readership. Suffice it to say, Ron Unz is no Tucker Carlson or Ann Coulter as far as his number of followers go.
Maybe some of the bigger pundits or big wigs of sorts are readers though. Mr. Unz's site is still very important though, as one of what must be very few well-organized and prolific websites that allows such a wide variety of opinion to be offered, both of the many writers and the commenting crowd. I admire the man for keeping it going.
That doesn't mean the man himself can't be completely full of shit, however. I have a problem with his anti-all-things-Americanism. I don't mean big criticisms of most policies of the US Feral Gov't. I'm completely on-board with that. Mr. Unz just seems to see all problems of the world as caused by Americans. I strongly disagree.
That's all fine, but it was Ron Unz's panicked stance on the Kung Flu, with his (recall your best Carl Sagan voice here) MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Americans going to die from it bit, and his contempt-ridden disparagement of commenters and writers on his own site* that has had me scratching my head about him. How can a guy this smart not see the big picture here on this PanicFest with its resulting big increases in Totalitarianism? On this point, see our post Where have you gone, Ronald Unzio, ... for more. Additionally, the Hail to You blog has some recent discussion of that in the comments section of this article (on Florida lead Panicker Daniel Uhlfelder).
Well, Ron Unz's latest American Pravda article/column shows he is slowly but surely starting to see the light. Yesterday's article, American Pravda: Vaxxing, Anthony Fauci, and AIDS, contains his latest opinions on the Covid vaccinations mostly taken from his reading of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s new book The Real Anthony Fauci. It's the 2nd part of the title that tells us where Mr. Kennedy is going with the book - "Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health". I have not read the book. I think it would be well worthwhile for me to do so.
I won't go critiquing the whole column, as the reader can find 435 comments as of right now that do that very thing. Give yourself 10 - 15 minutes for the article and I suppose 2 - 3 hours for the comments. Enjoy!
I will give a summary of Ron Unz's changing position on the matter of the vax and those (formerly) crazy "wild-eyed anti-vaxxers" - yes, that's Unz phraseology in quotes, still from this article. Here's the deal: When it comes down to it, the guy is very reasonable about the vaccine, as we noted 3 months back in Ron Unz comments with some comment-sense. He's got a whole paragraph in this one with that same reasonableness (I'll start with one sentence earlier too.):
Moreover, the vaccination of children or the youthful seems very misguided given mildness of the illness for those age-cohorts.Right on, Ron Unz! The question I have is "just who do you think these wild-eyed anti-vaxxers are?" I haven't read many who are against every vaccine ever given, and not a whole lot against ANY other particular vaccine. It's about the experimental vaccine for the Kung Flu.
Mandatory vaccination efforts enforced by serious legal or employment sanctions are the explosive flashpoint of the anti-vaxxer movement, but these never made any sense to me. The vaccines appear ineffective in preventing infection or transmission, and their main benefit is to greatly reduce the risk of serious illness or death. So the vaccinated have little to fear from those who reject the needle, while the latter can make an informed—or perhaps emotional—choice in weighing the risks of a relatively untested vaccine against those of severe Covid illness. Given the extreme paranoia of a considerable slice of anti-vaxxers, heavy governmental pressure may even be proving counter-productive.
Not only that, but I've not read a thing by wild-eyed anti-vaxxers on Mr. Unz's own site that are for banning this vaccine completely. We've been angrily against the application of this vaccine being mandatory BY ANYONE and FOR ANYONE. Oh, well, hey, that's pretty much Ron Unz's opinion, as one may readily read above or in that previous Peak Stupidity post linked-to just above!
Therefore, ipso facto, Ron Unz himself is a wild-eyed anti-vaxxer. Yes, his eyes are kind of wild, come to think of it, and I'm sure they'd be wilder after a couple of shots... wait, I mean whiskey or vodka... no, not those other kinds of shots. They just cause pilots to drop dead in the cockpit, young soccer players to keel over during the 2nd period... stuff like that.
You gotta love this guy though. No, really, I like people with lots of intensity and spirit. I haven't minded Ron Unz's personal insults to me due to being so sensitive. It's more that I couldn't believe the guy could miss the big picture. I couldn't believe a guy who goes far down many rabbit holes in American history to tell us the real story could just go with the Establishment, Big Gov, Lyin' Press, all of them, on this huge issue of the Kung Flu PanicFest.
In the comments I pointed out above on the Hail to You blog, Mr. Hail refers us to what Mr. Anon wrote about how Ron Unz operates:
Ron Unz himself is still in character with the basic line he took in early 2020, though as someone, I think the commenter Mr. Anon once wrote, Unz will probably come out with a long essay in about 2025 which starts with these words: “I never paid much attention to the Corona Virus, busy as I was at the time with various software projects, but recently I was shocked to find out that…………… [insert Corona Anti-Panic side’s basic points from 2020].”I do remember that from before, and smiled at that take the first time too. It turns out that Mr. Anon's comment was from right here on Peak Stupidity under the "Where have you gone, ..." post linked-to above. Nice future impersonation there, Mr. Anon!
Yes, I am glad to see this important pundit see the light. I don't expect any "I was wrong, people" out of him. It'd be nice, though if he could learn from this and possibly have just a little more respect in the future for commenters on his own site who may have a lot more common sense than he does.
Yes, Ron Unz, there's been a lot of lies and BS out of the Globalists and Big Pharma about this vaccination. It may indeed be part of a nefarious plan. Even if not, mandatory vaccination is Totalitarianism. People have been telling you for a year that this is wrong and we have to fight it all, so, as the man said "Welcome to the party, pal!"
* He's nothing if not a very stalwart, fair man when it comes to not blocking much (commenter-wise) commentary and keeping on writers whose opinions he disparages.
Comments (19)
Limerick for the Kamal-Toe
Posted On: Tuesday - December 7th 2021 11:06AM MST
In Topics: Humor US Feral Government Race/Genetics Poetic Stupidity Dead/Ex- Presidents
We have written nothing but a possible occasional quick reference, and I couldn't even find one of those, to VP Kamal-Toe Harris but one time on this blog. That would be a post written just after the '20 election called Save
You may have noticed that Peak Stupidity pretty much prides ourselves on not caring about what stupid stuff the Feral Gov't "elected" "leaders" are up to there in Washington, FS. We especially don't care about their personal lives or working lives - if you want to call that working. ("Yeah, that's the way ya' do it, you play the sitar on your Dot-TV**... moova, moova...")
Along with other political wonk fans, Steve Sailer occasionally does. He noted again recently that Everybody Hates Kamala. That could be a TV show that I would also not watch. In the comment under his post, I found a gem of a limerick about the VP and the idea that VP Kamel-Toe did not get where she is just by
The original comment is here. This is a gem, but not nearly the only great limerick that has been posted on The Unz Review by the one they call Desanex. No, no, I mean, that's his handle, "the one they call Desanex." This gentleman was nice enough to officially(?***) let Peak Stupidity present his limerick here.
Half-black and half-subcontinental,
her assets were largely pigmental
and gender-related,
for people who hated
the Caucasian male Occidental.
As Vice President, Kamala Harris
did little except to embarass
herself, and that “bong”
that you hear is the gong.
(You remember that show with Chuck Barris?)
And the guy even has his punctuation straight, in a limerick! Nice job.
PS: There were 2 other commenters I remember that used to put in good limericks in those comments, "The Limerick King" (naturally) and "(Not) Eustace Tilley" or something like that, for the 2nd guy's handle. I think Mr. Desanex is number 1 at it. Thank you, Sir.
* We dodged a bullet with Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984, and might have gotten lucky with Sarah Palin in 2008, if "Maverick" scumbag Juan McAmnesty had won the election but kicked it 9 years earlier.
** Sorry, poor attempt at a •Indian joke there...
*** [No, no, no, don't look at us! - PS Legal Department]
Comments (3)
The Booster Shot Scam
Posted On: Monday - December 6th 2021 2:11PM MST
In Topics: Music Scams Kung Flu Stupidity
Peak Stupidity does not recommend the Kung Flu vaccines to anybody. We are Libertarian enough to not propose any steps to be taken by anybody to prevent those who want to take it, want to not take it, or even want to MAKE it. (Sounds like the end of a Jackson Brown song.)
As for one close family member, I've seen the needle and the damage done. I don't see why anyone without any serious risk of hospitalization from the Kung Flu should take a chance with it. That includes almost all young people - call it under 40. I think it would be most especially asinine for young ladies to get vaccinated with something experimental that may have long term effects on fertility.
This post today, though, is about people that, wisely or not, are taking this vaccine due to "don't want to get in trouble or anything, and everybody else is." Big Biz's push for everyone to get jabbed is enabling a few pretty good scams here and there by these people. The guy I talked to directly about it is something like 27 years old in good general health. There are plenty of others too, that are pulling the same particular scam, I've found out.
This company, and I doubt it's the only one, has told those who get the latest anti-Covid booster shot that they most stay away from work for a spell of about one business week afterwards. Yes, they get paid for that time off... for being good compliant citizens.
Now, why would that policy be in place? After all, I've never heard of that policy for flu shots or any other vaccinations. Could this be due to it being known that recently vaccinated people are particularly contagious soon afterward? Who, or what the heck kind of vaccination DOES that? Is it due to those recently vaccinated being at a greater risk of serious and sometimes acute health problems soon afterwards, not a good thing in this occupation? Either way, what are these people implying with this policy?
That aside, that paid time off is a big incentive. Yes, employees are arranging for their booster shots very carefully. It just turns out, coincidentally, of course, that these booster shots are giving them the maximum number of workdays off. I'd call that a scam.
They can have their scams though. It's nothing compared to the damage that I've seen this vaccine cause. Maybe, as with this song, Neil Young was inadvertently very prescient .
Neil Young sang this live version from his 1972 Harvest a half century ago - 1971. It was about heroin. The way the world is today, I wouldn't blame 'em.
PS: Yeah, I took the idea about the Neil Young title from the big man himself, Instapundit. Once he gets a good line, he runs with it!
PPS: Here's another thing, I suppose not a scam, but just more PanicFest pro-vax BS. Per the guy involved in this post here, so smug about "doing the right thing" and getting rewarded for it, in New York City, the restaurant he went to did not require a Covid vax passport, but it gave free pizza slices to those who had them. Did I mention this was NY style, thin-crust pizza? Bastards!
Comments (9)
OMΓ!
Posted On: Saturday - December 4th 2021 6:39PM MST
In Topics: Music University Humor Kung Flu Stupidity
That's "Omicron Mu Gamma!"* for the frat boys and girls and the Classics scholars, and these new Kung Flu variants are all Greek to me. After the first year's run of the PanicFest, they told us to be wary of the Δ variant.
[That's not to say you shouldn't use the old-fashioned prophylactics, of course - Peak Stupidity legal team.]
I understand the use of Greek letters in science and engineering, as you run out of the Western (Arabic) letters pretty early on in describing the physical world. Even the Greek letters get double and sometimes triple duty among the different areas of the theoretical world, as there's so much to describe. However, in the PanicFest world, I'm not sure it's about running out of letters. The idea by the upper echelon of the Panic leaders is to blind us with SCIENCE! and they figure the use of Greek letters will help their cause.
I don't remember α, β, or γ versions that we were to be worried about before this δ variant, and now, what happened to ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ**? I haven't heard one iota about any of those variants. ("Now I know my eta, theta, zetas, tell me if I'm an alpha or a beta ♩, ♪, ♫,") Omicron is the word now, and it's all sciencey, so "please panic now".
People have noted that an anagram of "Delta Omicron" is "Media Control". Make what you will of it.
Don't all viruses mutate into different variants? The influenza virus (the flu) does. That's why we talk about bad flu years occasionally, when more people do get seriously ill. Is that not all that's going on with these Kung Flu variants? Has that knowledge about how viruses work been lost? I think that's what the leaders of this PanicFest are hoping.
The appellation "Delta variant" made it sound to me like just some new version of the clap that perhaps started at one of the more active sorority houses during rush week. Is this Omicron variant out of one of the seedier frat houses? I just cannot get myself all worked up about it, and I think most Americans, Greek or Independent, are starting to get the same attitude. As the Dean of Student Stupidity, I have already admonished one of the boys of Omicron House:
"Panicked, masked, and stupid is no way to go through life, son!"
Yes, please take the advice of the Peak Stupidity legal team given above about prophylactics. They use that term for all sorts of thing now. When you enter Delta House, though, leave the face diapers and gloves at home, if you want to have any chance of getting laid. As the song says, "the Greeks don't want no freaks."
"Gator!" meant get down on the floor like an alligator. Yes, you have to be drunk, and likely this did come from the U. of Florida - Gainesville, the party school a cut above all the rest.
The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks was from The Eagles last "real" album (from before they broke up till hell froze over) called The Long Run. It's not my favorite, as two of the artists that made the Eagles were no longer in the band, Bernie Leadon (since before Hotel California) and now Randy Meisner. This is Don Henley at his best though, and it went along with the times - 1980 - very well.
Full Disclosure: The Peak Stupidity staff was not a member of any Fraternity house. I don't know if the partying would have put a damper on my studies, as the heaviest semester of drinking also coincided with my 2nd best semester GPA (3.8-something in a (what's now called) STEM major). I did partake in the free beer courtesy of those Greeks during rush weeks. I also have this memory of a couple of years before going to college seeing the campus for the first time. We took a shortcut through one of the frat house stairwells, and that stale beer smell was something else. I now have fond memories of it somehow!
* BTW, I did NOT take this idea from pundit Ilana Mercer from here, as I had intended to write this post since the beginning of the week. I wanted to leave this lighter-hearted post for end-of-blog week. This idea came independently.
** OK, there is probably a Xi involved, maybe the guy who first stepped outside that lab in Wuhan, China with Covid-19, not to mention dog shit, on one of his shoes.
Comments (14)
The walking, talking heads
Posted On: Friday - December 3rd 2021 2:23PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Curmudgeonry Bread and Circuses
No, unfortunately, these aren't the ones wearing those oversized suits and shaking around like maniacs to the excellent bass guitar of Tina Weymouth.
I'm thinking, this guy:
The first part of this post is really the last part of Wednesday's quick post Lady Madonna, doggie at your breast.. I really had meant to make this point there, but it's too late, so this will be the 2nd half of that and yet another post taken from that less than 1/2 hour* time spent in front of the boob tube.
Through no choice of my own, I was listening to a 20 y/o and an ~ 55 y/o, people I was forced to be in the presence of for about 15 minutes. The talk was so damned inane that I reached for some foam earplugs (I was behind them both, so I hoped they wouldn't notice.) Unfortunately, I had just one, and it was pretty waxed up from before, kinda nasty, so I had to listen. There was just no value in the conversation at all. It was one piece of phrasing taken from advertising or some celebrity after another. There's no use in even trying to recall the stupid back-and-forth of this "conversation", but a thought came to me very clearly. I can tell people who spend a lot of time in front of the TV.
I was dumber from having been there, and the first thing I did that afternoon was to get ahold of couple of new pairs of foam ear plugs. Yes, I got 'em in my jacket pocket.
Now, just after that time at the gym, I wrote down another piece of stupidity before I would forget about it. This one is the new style of TV news, sports, etc. reporting, in which the talking heads don't just talk but walk around too. I put that old financial dufus Jim Cramer at the top, because, I gotta admit, I had no idea who the new people I had seen were, in order to look them up for images. He'll do, though, as an example, as I remember his pacing around the stage, ranting about why I should buy this and sell that. (I didn't buy or sell Jack Squat, of course.)
The lady sportscaster was moving around the stage, pointing at this screen here, going over to this other one where another play was being shown, back over to sit on a stool and tell us something else... Oh, well, first "lady sportscaster"? What is THAT crap? Anyway, she was making me nervous with all that jumping around. It's bad enough I had to hear from (and look at due to it being right above me) one TV. Then, they've got many many TV's on the TV!**
It's of course not just this one lady. It's the same for regular news lots of the time, and I don't know if that Crazy Jim Cramer is still on. This is the way now. I don't like it. I remember when you had the one White guy, sometimes helped out by a Connie Chung, just sitting on his ass and calmly reading out the lies to us. Yeah, it was a lot of lies (of omission, perspective, etc.), but at least they were calm about it. Hey, "newscasters", sit the hell down! Slow down! Calm down!
My idea for a channel I might not even mind being played at the gym: NOP-TV - Newsmen On Prozac.
* I'm just admitting that this cardio workout was under 1/2 hour and would be, TV on or not. I go hard at it though.
** I know, they're called monitors now.
Comments (11)
Zhou Bai Dien hands over the keys
Posted On: Thursday - December 2nd 2021 7:23PM MST
In Topics: Cars China iEspionage Zhou Bai Dien
... the electronic keys, that is.
Peak Stupidity has dubbed the CheatFest-chosen President "Zhou Bai Dien" for a reason. I don't see how it isn't the case the the Chinese CCP doesn't have leverage over this guy via his wayward cokehead son, who has spent time philandering around the Middle Kingdom.
There are people who would call us Neocons for saying ANYTHING bad about China, and believe me we have!. The widespread conclusion is that the Neocon Left HATES HATES HATES Russia, while the Neocon Right HATES HATES HATES China. I'm not expecting an invasion or encouraging the US Navy to continue patrolling the South China Sea. No, I just understand that we are in an economic war that is almost over, as in, we've been losing very badly.
It really doesn't help matters if we let the CCP iEspionage, in the form of built-in back doors in Chinese-made computer chips infiltrate our industry. Per The New American site, we learn that Biden Gives Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant Huawei Entry to U.S. Auto Industry
The federal government under Joe Biden is allowing Huawei, the blacklisted Chinese telecom monolith, to enter the American auto industry by giving the company licenses to buy automotive chips.What's the chances these chips DON'T have any iEspionage. Speeds are up, memory is almost free, and almost everything is on the internet - see the internet of
Officials at the Department of Commerce gave applications worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Huawei in order to purchase the chips for its auto business, Reuters reported.
President Trump, though easily distracted and incompetent in many ways, at least gave a damn about his country:
This is in contrast to the Trump administration, which in August 2020 placed restrictions on Huawei, limiting its ability to purchase chips in the U.S. The Trump administration did so out of national-security concerns.The anti-all-things-American pundits, such as Ron Unz and company, will tell you that, no, it's just about economics. I doubt that.
“We don’t want their equipment in the United States because they spy on us,” President Trump said at the time. “And any country that uses it, we’re not going to do anything in terms of sharing intelligence.” The Trump White House had previously banned vendors worldwide from using U.S. technology to produce components for Huawei.
Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, called Huawei’s entrance into the auto industry “alarming but unsurprising.”There's a lot more in the article. Peak Stupidity says that "our" President is working for China while working against America. I would call him a modern Manchurian Candidate, but can you even hypnotize a demented man? Just asking, as I don't know. Luckily the question has never come up in my household.
“Is there a dictator or despot that this administration won’t surrender to, appease, or enrich?” Rogers asked. “I urge the administration to immediately reverse this decision before further harm is done to U.S. national security.”
As the Washington Free Beacon reported in June, Biden selected (and the Senate confirmed) Chris Fonzone, a lawyer who worked as a lobbyist for Huawei, as the top lawyer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The outlet noted that “In 2019, Huawei hired Fonzone’s firm, Sidley Austin LLP, to assist in navigating the Trump administration’s crackdown on the company for its ties to the Chinese regime and military. In June 2020 the Pentagon determined that Huawei is primarily backed by the Chinese military.”
But the Chinese links run all the way to the top. Bill Burns, the current CIA director put in place by Biden, has a long history of working with Chinese communist front groups.
Comments (2)
Lady Madonna, doggie at your breast ...
Posted On: Wednesday - December 1st 2021 7:39PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Bread and Circuses
I didn't write back to Peak Stupidity commenter Dieter Kief on his last one, due to his comment and a reply being the gist of this quick post. Yes, "What will happen to Madonna's dog" indeed? I really wish this question wasn't so important to ANY Americans.
1) I didn't know Madonna was still around. I'm still under the impression that Material Girl is her newest material.
2) If she is still around, I didn't know people still gave a damn who Madonna is. Why?
3) If people care about Madonna still, I don't know why they would care about her dog. I never knew Madonna had a dog. I never wanted to know whether Madonna had a dog or not.
4) If Madonna is still around and people care about her and even care about her dog, shouldn't this story about what will happen to Madonna's dog be in the news? I don't have to watch.
I think it's more about the TV telling people what they SHOULD care about, though. Distractions are important. The fate of Madonna's dog takes many Americans' time away from such pursuits as finding the roots of the stupidity and evil going in this country and the world.
Comments (6)
Nine Days to Patton - movie non-review
Posted On: Wednesday - December 1st 2021 5:49PM MST
In Topics: Political Correctness Movies Media Stupidity Race/Genetics
We'll switch from the TV form of media to the motion picture (there's a golden oldie of a term!) form for a post here. Peak Stupidity has covered the point to be made here once already 3 1/2 years back with the post Tried to watch a movie - here's 3 reviews in one!
Here's my problem. Though I use the term and the topic key Political Correctness, which was fine even 5 years ago at the beginning of this blog, it's really the wokeness that bothers me. That comes in anti-White racial form much of the time. I can put up with some PC language by the characters, but when I'm forced to watch non-White actors and actresses take over the whole movie, that's simply a non-starter for me, or an exit-out-and-restarter, I should say. If I wanted to watch a movie that SHOULD have black main characters, then I'll do so!
It was worse than that in the 2 movies that didn't take that were discussed in the older post. I could tell as soon as I got to the first scene with the black characters in each of them that part of the plot or even the movie's major theme would be that these black people were being treated badly by the evil White Man. A slight difference here, as compared to that older post is that this post is about watching (OK trying to watch) movies on the airliner next-row seat back on a fairly long flight. The difference is that (for me, cause I'm not on Netflix, Hulu, any of them, at home) on the airplane I can pick and/or change them out more easily.
Great! They had this movie called Nine Days that I noted from the blurb was about reincarnation. Cool, I really like the few movies out there about reincarnation. I haven't written a review on it, but my favorite is one from 1987 called Made in Heaven. It's somewhat of a chick-flick, one might claim, but I loved this one and highly recommend it. Yes, there's a bright young black man involved in the scenes in the various places (I won't spoil it). Of course, he's a super nice and friendly sort, but at least back in 1987 his being there wasn't part of an agenda.
I really gave Nine Days a chance. Through about 10 minutes, I watched the black guy who I wasn't sure would be the main character yet. "OK, well I can live with this", I thought. The scenes took place in a dark setting, which I hate in a movie, but things went on with the one guy and his occasionally present Oriental-looking colleague. I put up with it.
Well, NOW you tell me!
Then, of the set of characters that came next, having diversity was the obvious goal. The young black lady, pretty of course, was going to be the best of these characters and likely another important one in the movie to boot. That was it! A couple of mashes of virtual buttons on the touch screen, and a few faggy swipes later and I was in the middle of the one of my favorite WWII movies Patton. How convenient!
The movie was just there as an easy choice, even though I'd seen it at least 3 times already. You go back that far, and you don't have to wonder if you'll have to exit out. I didn't think about it at the time, but the movie Patton was made exactly 50 years before Nine Days. What a difference a half century makes, don't it?!
I just noticed that the movie Patton was first in my list of WWII movies that I COULD watch listed in that older post vs. the one I described called The Void. Not only that, but Patton has discussion about reincarnation too. Of course, I made sure to watch those scenes again.
It's simple, I guess: Just pick movies that are at least half a century old, and you can't go wrong.
PS: I really like to watch movies that aren't that old, especially ones I've never heard of, but once you get past the mid-1990s, it's more miss than hit.
PPS: The opinion of this blog regarding WWII is not the conventional one, as the reader may hope. However, I do like those WWII movies. My favorite is one that doesn't really take sides anyway, The Bridge on the River Kwai. That one is 64 years old!
Comments (7)
The Motion of the Body Through Space - Lionel Shriver
Posted On: Tuesday - November 30th 2021 8:01PM MST
In Topics: Books Healthcare Stupidity
Your Peak Stupidity blogger is no kind of literary scholar. I put these reviews up when I read books, often upon the suggestion of commenters here or on the Unz Review site. The case with author Mrs. Lionel Shriver is unusual, in that I have read a 3rd, and I believe newest (copy-written in '20) book of hers. I don't seek them out, but iSteve commenter International Jew suggested her newest book The Motion of the Body Through Space.
Peak Stupidity first learned of this excellent writer via a suggestion of her Prepper novel, The Mandibles by the esteemed John Derbyhire. I was so enamored with the book, as a valuable piece of work to possibly enlighten some non-aware readers to how likely the S will HTF, and how that could go down, that I wrote a 6-part review of this novel: Introduction - - Part 2 - - Part 3 - - Part 4 - - Part 5 - - and Conclusion . Hell, that review in total is about 1/3 as long as the book! It's the economic discussion and examples in the book that I liked the most.
Next, we featured a review of her dark suspense/drama novel of "kids gone wrong" called We Need to Talk About Kevin. Then, we featured a review of the movie too, with comparisons to the book.
BTW, the Good Reads site, the one linked to above for this book, has a list of Mrs. Shriver's books. It has reviews too. Since I found this site I've been using it instead of amazon for linking to info on books (though I imagine amazon will have many times more reviews for entertainment), and I've been using IMDB (the Internet Movie DataBase) for links to movies. Screw amazon AMAP. (OTOH, imdb.com had owned by amazon at one point, or maybe still is)
Except for a small part that I'll get to later on, this 3rd Lionel Shriver book that I've read is not really in Peak Stupidity's wheelhouse. That doesn't mean it wasn't good reading though. I see that the author writes of what she experiences herself, and I think that is a good policy for a writer.* This seems to have been the case for The Mandibles, written about one of the oddest locations in which to base a prepper story, and We Need to Talk About Keven, at least in regards to the location again, along with her relationship to her husband. In The Motion of the Body Through Space, it's the same NYC area location, this time in the town of Hudson, 4 counties north of the city. Again, The New York Times is still somehow the be-all-to-end-all in important news of the world.
The story is about a late-middle-aged couple in which the wife, who is the narrator again, named Serenata Terpsichore**, has had to quit the exercising she had done her whole life due to bad knees (maybe caused by all that exercising?), while her husband, Remington Alabaster, suddenly took on a hobby of extreme exercise, since he had recently retired. Early in the story Serenata is not so much upset about Remington's new thing so much as miffed by it. The sees it all as a fad. (Again, it's kind of city folk, more specifically NY City, focused.) She had been expecting to spend more time with him, and now she is in no shape to spend all this time with him, even if she had wanted to. The situation just gets worse after Remington's finishing a marathon*** (he hadn't run at all in his life before this new hobby), because the crowd that he hangs out with now has goaded him into training for an Triathlon! (It's called the MettleMan event in the book.) The point at which Remington announces he will attempt this Triathlon is about 1/3 of the way through the novel. The rest of the novel, till the 11-page concluding "Afterword" chapter, is about the drama of the training and some action during the event itself in Lake Placid, New York.
This all sounds pretty boring, I'm guessing, at first read of this review. Lionel Shriver makes it into a good story, though, with lots of thoughts about the idea of trying to keep one's body in shape through this phase of life. The big argument back-and-forth among this local MettleMan group (who train together) is about whether this extreme exercise/training is worse for the body than taking it easy, as Serenata is forced to do. She takes the side of "worse" as she has a feeling that it's all the exercise she'd done in her life that has gotten her the major problems with her knees (requiring replacement surgery). Also she takes this side for the love of her dear husband Remington too,
On the other side are the younger participants who insist the former is correct, so you "push through the pain", and some of the older ones too agree with that based on hope. One of those on the "push through the pain" side is a hot young blond, named, what else but Bambi, who is getting paid good money by Remington and some of the others as a personal trainer for the extremely strenuous event. No, sorry, there's nothing spicy like THAT in the book.
I'll leave the rest to the reader to enjoy and just write a few things about the style, etc. As she did in The Mandibles the author uses conversation to elaborate her thoughts. Just as with that previous book, I maintain that there's NO WAY even the intelligent (Civil Engineer husband and Voice-Over-Artist**** wife) couple in this book would talk in that manner in real life. I've read something about this in someone else's review of The Mandibles. It's something that suspends belief a small bit but doesn't detract much from the novel. It's just the way that Lionel Shriver likes to get her ideas across.
Besides having had her own personal home workout since being a kid, narrator Serenata had done plenty of jogging and also had been a bicyclist. Most of the latter was done in the manner I like to cycle - to get somewhere. The narrator noted some of the difficulties involved with doing this, for her, changing from her biking clothes to her nice clothes without exposing herself, on her first date with her future husband Remington, for example. Then there are the advantages to biking in the city - no searching for parking spaces, etc.
What I really liked in this book was the short section in which Serenata, in a hurry on her way to do some voice-over work in NYC, rode down one of the major bike paths (along the Hudson River, I think), even with her bum knees. She noted that this supposed "bike path" was filled with all sorts of detritus, in this biker's opinion, pedestrians, tourists riding five abreast, blocking one from hauling ass, crazy****** mofo's on scooters, "Wall Streeters with laptop panniers and prissy Velcro straps around the ankles of their suit pants", Central American food deliverymen on E-Bikes, teenagers texting on smart phones, etc. "She hated them all." Now,that's a lady after my own heart. I really enjoyed this quick episode in the novel.
Now, let me discuss a really interesting part of this recent novel for us Conservatives, but, unfortunately, a theme that plays only a fleeting part in this story. Likely it's her childhood background from old-timey North Carolina, but Miss Shriver brought up a topic in The Motion of the Body Through Space that could really put her on the outs with any of the NYC or London (her current residence) woke crowd. In the story of why Remington Alabaster, the narrator's exercise freak husband, is retired with time to do any of this to begin with, we learn it's due to the most extreme Affirmative Action, immigration-driven, feminist wokeness that even a Conservative could think of! Oh, yeah, this author goes there. It turns out that Mr. Alabaster's nice and somewhat rewarding city government engineering career got canceled by one sub-standard African immigrant lady. There are a few pages about this, then later some racial discussion in the form of conversation, as usual, between husband and wife. That latter conversation (pages 205 - 207) could have easily been part of a Steve Sailer HBD comment thread.
To add more anti-woke goodness to the pot, we find out toward the end of the MettleMan exercise madness saga that Serenata's voice-over-artist job is being slowly and surely cancelled, as it has now become NOT OK to appropriate foreigners' or non-anyone-plainly-normal's voices. That puts the kibosh on her part-time, but lucrative gigs, basically. Though the narrator does mention financial worries, after that anti-White damage to the couple, I honestly don't see how the family was planning on staying in the black - the numbers just don't seem to add up.
It was disappointing to me that this amazingly honest White-people-getting-screwed (twice) background story became nothing more than that, a small sub-plot. The author went nowhere with it. In fact, she reverted at one point. At some point Serenata noted that the MettleMan competition, the business of it, and the family and fans too, were predominantly White. She didn't make anything of that, until one paragraph that I couldn't find right now, in which she seemed to see that as a problem. OK, that was the book character, but was this an effort at plausible deniability by Mrs. Shriver? I don't know why she brought it up in the first case then.
Speaking of family (2 paragraphs up), narrator Serenata has 2 grown-up kids, a single young man named Deacon, and a daughter, Valeria who is a mother of 5. (I think that's right. There's one more coming at the end of the story.) As is the case in We Need to Talk about Kevin too, it being an EXTREME case, of course, Lionel Shriver has a running theme about children who don't work out so well. In this book, narrator-Mom sees the good along with the bad in her children, which is the same with the 2nd child in "Kevin" also. The author herself has written that she doesn't have any children herself. I think, not out of just selfishness but perhaps worry about how they may turn out (wrong), these novels may project the reason she hasn't.
Now, let me say something about that Afterword. It wraps up the story as in a look by the narrator from some months or a year or two later. It's about the human body and about aging too. It's very HEAVY. Drink a beer beforehand.
Lastly, I'm gonna be THAT GUY for a minute. Yes, Peak Stupidity has a lot of gall to write this, but then we are just a measly blog, working on miserable salaries of about, well, 0 dollars per hour. On page 65, the first full paragraph starts with "Which was a mistake." Hey, not a sentence. Neither was that. That was. So was that. Anyway, surprising! That wasn't.
OK, [that's] enough. The Motion of the Body Through Space is a good read. I recommend it but don't see it as being as important reading for the Peak Stupidity type as The Mandibles is.
* Matter of fact, we noted that Newt Gingrich, Mr. Broken-Contract-with-America himself, wrote that in his foreword to another Prepper novel that we reviewed - One Second After, by a guy named William Forstchen.
** I don't know where she comes up with these wacky names for the main characters. The wife in each of these 3 books has a different unusual name, usually supposed to be a name coming from Eastern Euro. immigrants. I didn't think that's the case with Lionel - formerly Margaret, till she changed it as a teenager - Shriver.
*** The author doesn't mention it, but the guy's time in the marathon, 7 hr. 25 min (you don't worry about seconds with this kind of time!), is so long that I don't see why he couldn't have been just walking it. That's 3.52 mph on average! Remington is described as pretty tall (6 ft. or something), so a 3 1/2 mph walking pace would be normal. I think Mrs. Shriver's fictional numbers are off here.
**** She is employed in New York City via intermittent and later more occasional commutes, to use her very versatile voice to read books "on tape", in which she uses different accents, tones, feelings, etc. to try to represent the books.
***** In We Need to Talk About Kevin there IS no direct conversation, as the book is written as a series of letters by the narrator wife.
****** See, as some comedian said, it's those slow pokes who are the morons ahead of you slowing you down and those crazy idiots who are passing you. Otherwise, traffic would be great!
Comments (3)
TV Inanity
Posted On: Monday - November 29th 2021 5:10PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Curmudgeonry
(I would have put up an image in which the TV had talking heads on, but this is the best I could find on short notice.)
This is why Peak Stupidity will never run out of stupidity to write about. It's called the TV, aka, "the idiot box" for the old-timers, but now on this blog, more appropriately "the idiot plate" due to flat-screen technology. Just 30 minutes in the gym each week seems to have gotten me 5 blog posts!
So that's how these bloggers do it! Then there's Steve Sailer, who gets his multiple daily post ideas much of the time from reading the on-line New York Times and Atlantic in his closet office. That's a bridge too far for this guy - I'll take the occasional bit of unwanted TV, thank you very much.
This is yet another post about boring events at the gym, but I promise you I have nothing about which to bad mouth the machines themselves.* The thing is, I can't always work out with the wall-mounted TV off. Physically I can, but with others in the room, often I can't for social reasons. Even the makers of the exercise machines themselves seem to really, really want us to watch TV, on their screens. Some of the best Precor brand machines do this, putting some TV in the background behind the work-out numbers, but I finally figured out how to nip that in the bud 2 years ago.
A couple working out were the only others in this gym. Since the remote control was located conveniently in the cup holder of the bike machine I was setting up on, I just clicked that OFF button. Haha, at first the two did not know what hit 'em. "What happened?" "I dunno, it just went off like THAT." Well, I cannot tell a lie... I mean, since they would go looking for that remote, and it would have gotten quite uncomfortable after a while hiding it under the only place I could think of ... "I just turned it off. Do you need it on?"
It seemed like they needed the TV on to do anything. I'll modify that some, because the woman did say a minute or two later, as they clicked around, "if we had some music, that'd be OK too." I get the idea of good music, maybe high-energy rock, to keep one in the mood. I'd just rather think my own thoughts, and keep up with how I'm doing, doable with the right kind of music, I suppose.
What this made me think about regarding those who want that TV on is "do they not like to live with the thoughts in their own heads?" Is that what it's about for the people that have the TV on in their homes throughout the day. I personally CAN'T STAND IT. It's simply inane.
The first thing that came on when one of the two of this work-out couple turned the TV on was, and I swear I'm not making this up: "What will happen to Madonna's dog?" See what I mean?
* We don't have a separate topic key for the exercise machine stupidity, but you will find them under the Artificial Stupidity topic key. That's due to the problems I have with them being electronics/software in nature.
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Gonna walk before they make me run
Posted On: Saturday - November 27th 2021 4:40PM MST
In Topics: Music Preppers and Prepping
After that little bit of discussion in the post and comments on the Glynn County, Georgia verdict just yesterday, one has to wonder which way to go here. No, you can't fight all of this yourself. Everyone can't keep running from the problem either, though. I don't have an answer, but I do have some music for the end of this blogweek.
I am sure that that young Kieth Richards of the 43 years-ago Rolling Stones wrote the song below about something other than prepping for a bad future. (I think it was something about a friend of his ODing drugs - what else was new back then?) However, maybe it could be a 2nd choice as a prepper anthem to the Corb Lund* song that Peak Stupidity posted early in the life of this blog, called Gettin' Down on the Mountain.
Mr. Lund's song was definitely written as a prepper song. We can take this Rolling Stones song that way if we please, as it's the melody and sound that make the music good anyway, not so much the lyrics.
Keith Richards sang this one, not Mic Jagger.
After all is said and done.
I gotta move, while it's still fun.
I'm gonna walk before they make me run.
This song was from the Rolling Stones 14th(!) album Some Girls released in June of 1978. This was back in the heyday of vinyl LPs (just stands for Long Play, as opposed to singles), so the cover had this sliding feature that was supposed to give you something to do while you listened, or I don't know, really... Either I or my brother have this one. I have underrated Some Girls myself for many years, as now I really "respect" 3 or 4 of these ones. They are not the classic Hot Rocks, but good songs just the same.
I never got to that book review this week. It's not like I haven't read the book or something. Then there's the TV stupidity coming and a Peak Stupidity field trip. Have a good Sunday of rest ... from you know what. Thanks yet again for reading and commenting!
* Out of Alberta, Canada.
Comments (6)
Chinese Kung Flu Stupidity - Rebuttal
Posted On: Saturday - November 27th 2021 4:01PM MST
In Topics: China Orwellian Stupidity World Political Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Maybe this is not fair, as the Unz Review commenter Erebus, who agreed to my posting his entire comment on Peak Stupidity in One observer's opinion of Chinese Kung Flu Stupidity., may not read here. However, if he wants to comment, he is welcome. Also, I am not arguing that he is wrong in his comment, but just that I don't think it all says anything much good about Chinese society under the Kung Flu PanicFest.
Regarding Erebus' first half of this comment, on the newest Orwellian aspects of Chinese life, or lack thereof, I refer the reader (as I did Mr. Erebus) to the 4-part review of the recent (last '20) Kai Strittmatter book We Have Been Harmonized:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
As I've written before, the look at modern China that Mr. Strittmatter reports will scare the Bejusus out of anyone who values his liberty the least little bit. Per Mr. Erebus, well, it's not that bad, as enforcement is not as organized as you might worry about. The Chinese may work hard and work long, but organization is not one of their strongest points, in my opinion from observation. Fine, but I would really not want my little bit of freedom left to depend only on the Authoritah not being as organized as they need to be.
The matter of rural Chinese citizens not having to play by the rules is a good one. That has been the case for a long time, including even during the onerous rules of the one child policy. I think the idea is that, in general, rural people in China are poor-ass peons almost by definition, so let's let them alone so there's not any kind of revolution out of that sector (until only very recently, a big majority of the population).
Now, as for the Kung Flu stupidity in China, no, I have not been since the PanicFest started, over there, of course. However, I do have contacts and have seen WeChat videos. What Mr. Erebus states now may be true, that there's no vaccine mandate there. I've seen videos of reluctant Chinese people being forcefully held down as with out-of-control mental patients and jabbed with the vaccine as they struggled. (Boy, does that make it a bit difficult to make sure to miss a blood vessel?*)
It is great for the Chinese people that they are not being experimented on with novel vaccines that SCIENCE! had no idea of the long term affects of, and seemingly not even the short-term**. Erebus' report has some good news about consent forms being required by the national government. Their national government seems to be a bit more on the side of the people than our on this and (lately) lots of issues. However, if and when the Chinese authorities decide that everyone must take this after all, I think they will get their way.***
We've seen the way the Chinese conduct LOCKDOWNs very early on, something of which our local Totalitarians must be green with envy! Then there is the new Health Score app that Erebus mentioned, Mr. Strittmatter discussed in his book, and I have learned about through personal contacts.
In a reply, the commenter Erebus linked me to a European organization called The Mercator Institute for China Studies, "Merics" for short. In particular, he sent me to one of their articles titled China’s social credit system is actually quite boring. Under the title it reads "A supposedly Orwellian system is fragmented, localized, and mostly targeted at businesses, says Vincent Brussee", Mr. Brussee being one of their many analysts. Yeah, it's got a few excuses for how it's not all bad. I don't buy that opinion. Interestingly, as I looked through the personnel or contributors of/to Merics, I came across a familiar face:
That is the one and only Kai Strittmatter, of all people, who wrote We Shall Be Harmonized. I don't think he'd go for that "supposedly" talk.
As for their own Kung Flu stupidity, I have read too much from dupes on how "China knows how to do pandemic control" and "they took care of it.", etc. Nah, it's really hard to get good info about China. You will not hear about the bad stuff over here. Not only does the CCP control the press their more fully than the US Feral Gov't does, but the social media gets plenty of censorship. I have personally seen WeChat messages that have been prevented from being forwarded. (I guess it's from software back on the servers.) The way around this was a video of a video, which got pretty hard to view, I gotta say.
To address that last thing, as a slight digression into the iEspionage topic, there is likely more than the reason of IP theft prevention that explains Apple's leaving decent input/output devices like phono jacks out of their hardware. Must everything go through the internet to get on or off those (wait, THESE) devices? USB is all you have. Are there no old Radio Shack type tinkerers who can make a device to get sound and video off as analog signals? Maybe the young Chinese don't DO tinkering any more than young Americans do.****
The summary of Peak Stupidity's rebuttal here is simple. Kung Flu stupidity doesn't stop at the border. Oh, and don't look at China for answers, if your questions are come under the slogan Question Authority! They got nada. I don't know if I ever want to see that place again. That's too bad, because in general the Chinese are good people... in small enough doses, haha!
* Granted, as I'm about to write, this is not the same type of vaccine. Perhaps for a normal, dead or weak dose of viral material type, vaccine, that's not a problem.
** It's not like all problems make it to the VAERS database.
*** OTOH, Peak Stupidity has learned that central authority over there is not all we may think - see an old post of ours extolling the Chinese resistance to eminent domain abuse as opposed to Americans' : Fireworks from China .
**** Peak Stupidity had some discussion about this a few years ago - see China vs. America and the local hardware store and DIY and mechanical aptitude in Americans vs. Chinese - self rebuttal
Comments (13)
For the White Man: no justice and no peace
Posted On: Friday - November 26th 2021 9:27PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Legal Stupidity
This is a loss in the 3rd of the 3 important cases that were tried this November. Peak Stupidity wrote about the Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal (the only good news) and also the huge monetary loss for Jason Kessler and Unite the Right.
I'm almost too pissed off about this one to write. Being no follower of all the details, though I did pay attention to the video and story back in February of '20 right after it happened, I refer the reader to an article by the esteemed Jared Taylor. Mr. Taylor is the most soft-spoken, civil, and calm pundit that writes and talks about racial issues that I've ever seen. Even he sounds pretty upset and worried about this one - How Horrible Is The Arbery/McMichael Verdict? HORRIBLE, For All White Americans. I refer the reader to Mr. Taylor's elucidation of the basic facts of this case and his opinion of how screwed these 3 Glynn County Georgia men - Travis McMichael, his Dad Greg McMichael, and neighbor William Bryan -have been and are.
One of the things I remember from the time of this incident is that these 3 men were not charged at the time by either the Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson or her replacement from Waycross, George Barnhill. That's how open-and-shut the case for justified self-defense was. No matter whether the McMichaels and Mr. Bryan were wise to have chased down the neighborhood "jogger", once that off-his-meds bipolar criminal named Ahmaud Arbery grabbed Travis' shotgun, anyone not ready to die that day would have shot him.
Again, please go to Jared Taylor's article for more than you may already know about this case and the trial. Mr. Taylor heads slightly in this direction with his conclusion, but I'll speculate on what this verdict means for the future for the White Man under the ctlr-left anti-White Establishment legal system.
The Kessler loss shows that the White Man may not defend his culture via the Constitutional, non-violent methods of free assembly and free speech. This latest verdict, 30 years to life in prison for 3 men who at very most, taking nearly the prosecutions's side, were guilty of manslaughter (or abetting it), and never anything like cold-blooded murder, says that the White Man must not try to defend his neighborhood from preying thieves and to other threats.
Try comparing this unfortunate occurrence in your head to that perpetrated by a guy who purposefully mowed down children and grandmothers with a large SUV, killing 6 (at latest count) and seriously and permanently injuring dozens of others. That black man, Darrell Brooks, is somehow no longer front-page news after 2 days. Yet, this detainment gone wrong (at the worst case) has resulted in these vindictive sentences to come for 3 White Men. I would place a large bet against Darrell Brooks getting a sentence nearly that large.
I have an idea what the 3 Georgia men might be thinking about the unequal justice brought down upon them based on their race. If it weren't for that video that they themselves purposefully released in order to show the truth of their lack of malice and non-intentions to shoot Mr. Arbery*. It turns out that the truth doesn't matter when a White Man has hurt a black person. If that video had not been released and gone viral, these men would have remained uncharged for any criminal act.
The Establishment racial lynch mob, made up of Lyin' Press elements, race hustlers, and the legal establishment, decided that these 3 Georgia men would be made an example of. This could happen to the rest of us if we be so bold as to try to protect our neighborhoods. Not only that, but those prosecutors who used their common sense and didn't charge these men for a crime will be made examples of too. Everyone must get with the program.
The conclusion of Jared Taylor's article is one big black pill. Even if an appeal would be let to be successful by the racial mob establishment, there will be civil suits coming. These men's live are completely screwed, to discourage any others. What's the next move for any of us that may come upon a similar situation? Must the White Man resort to mob tactics now, shovel, shoot, and shut up? Or will we all just make more serious plans to move away from black disfunction? That's kind of hard when you figure that most people who moved to Satilla Shores, 8 miles up the inlet from the Georgia Coast, in one of the whiter areas of that State, already thought they'd done that.
What's the future for us when the the Establishment has set up a different, more punitive and vindictive legal system for the White Man than for the specialized Americans? Who of us thought this would happen so soon? Have the preppers not been onto something for the last decade?
* As Mr. Taylor notes, they could have shot the guy from the pickup from very close, had they come to kill him.
Comments (7)
Happy Thanksgiving 2021
Posted On: Thursday - November 25th 2021 4:39PM MST
In Topics: Holiday from Stupidity
It was not a very good one for 2 members of my family health-wise* (not my very own), but that does nothing but kick me in the ass to tell me to be thankful for what the rest of us have. There's nothing more important for a good life than one's health. All of us here know that, and that explains why we take this vaccine business so seriously.
Anyway, there's lots to write about, with probably over a dozen posts built up in my head. I am very thankful for the great readers of, and commenters on, the Peak Stupidity blog.
T HA N K S G I V I N G !
* One almost assuredly due to that COVID booster shot! (The 3rd of 3 shots total.) There was no changing her mind on it though. The doctor said the words today "something changed between then" [a month or so back] "and now, that made this a lot worse."
Comments (10)
Happy D.B. Cooper Day - 50 years ago this minute
Posted On: Wednesday - November 24th 2021 9:13PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity History Geography Poetic Stupidity
NOTE: This post was published 50 years to the best-estimated minute that the legendary "Dan Cooper" jumped out of that 727 into the night sky over the foothills of the Cascade Mountains with 200 Grand.
Above is a pretty nice artist's sketch.
It was 50 years ago today.
D.B. Cooper taught the bank to pay.
He was going out the door in style.
The story's guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
the act you've known for all these years.
It's D.B. Cooper's daring plane heist plan.
(Thank you, Adam Smith, for the additional lyrics. Nobody wants to hear only part of a verse. It's like hearing Uncle Albert without Admiral Halsey. You just don't do that!)
The cool thing about this anniversary is that it was not only the same calendar date as today, November 24th, but in 1971, it was also a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, as it is today.*
"Whaaa? Nobody's got a phone?! Man, I miss that era!"
A well dressed 40-something-y/o-appearing gentlemen who called himself Dan Cooper** bought a Northwest Orient airline ticket for Flight #305 Boeing 727-100 service from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington for $20.*** En route to Seattle, Mr. Cooper told the nearest stewardess (gonna use the term in use then), one Florence Schaffner and gave her a note mentioning that he had a bomb and was hijacking the aircraft.. He indeed showed her an apparatus in his briefcase that at least looked like a bomb.
Though lots of this was going on during those early 1970s years, this guy was no hot-head Cuban demanding "I want to go to Habana!' or black radical thinking the world was going to treat him better in Algeria. The man we know as D.B. Cooper had his act together. That is, both in his calm and civility and in his fairly well-thought-out plans, he was different from the rest. Some speculation is even that the reason he hijacked the plane at the beginning of a 4-day weekend and he dressed up nicely, is that he planned to get back to society and to even get back to work with no one the wiser after his heist.
Mr. Cooper demanded $200,000, which I would put at AT LEAST $2 million, perhaps double that****, in today's money, just as that $20 fare would be equivalent to a $200-$300 fare, a lot of today - airline prices are much lower now in real dollars. Anyway, flight 305 circled the Puget Sound area for 2 hours as the ransom money - 10,000 twenties - was obtained (and photographed, with serial numbers recorded). At Sea-Tac airport, Mr. Cooper let the all the passengers and two of the 3 stewardesses leave, though I remember reading in a book I no longer have on me that he did demand cash, jewelry and other valuables from the passengers before that. Only the 3-member flight crew, the remaining stewardess Tina Mucklow, and Mr. Cooper remained on board.
Mr. Cooper had the flight out of Seattle planned out. The idea was to take this 727 down to Mexico, but Mr. Cooper's plan wasn't to go all the way down there. His demands had included 4 parachutes*****. With these and the money on board, he worked with the flight crew (Captain William Scott, First Officer William Rataczak , and Flight Engineer Harold Anderson) on the plan for the flight south-southeast. Knowing lots about flying and specifically the 727, Mr. Cooper requested the plane be flown at the lowest safe speed with slats and 15 degrees flaps extended, at 10,000 ft msl, and he worked out the route with the crew too. (No way they would make Mexico City on fuel at that speed and in that configuration, but that wasn't his plan anyway.)
Mr. Cooper got help from Miss Mucklow in the use of the aft stairwell, which could be operated in flight. He asked everyone to remain in the cockpit, and the crew noted the door release indication at 8 PM as the aircraft was north-northeast of Portland. At 8:13, based on a pitch moment from the door's complete opening, D.B. Cooper jumped out of the 727 with the money (and whatever else he had) from 10,000 ft. with one good chute and the non-operable reserve.
Here is the interesting part - thoughts on whether Mr. Cooper could have easily survived this jump. First thing, it was night time. 8 PM in the Pacific Northwest in late November means it has been nighttime for 3 hours already. Reports from the crew****** had the weather at altitude as cloudy and rainy (I'd think frozen precip at 10,000 ft though). Either way, there would be no moonshine on the ground - the moon was a waxing crescent, almost 1st quarter, about 6 days old, meaning it would set at ~ 11P, so it wasn't that high in the sky anyway.
Now, it'd have been different if D.B. Cooper had jumped about 30 years later, in the age of cheap portable GPS. He needed the money in 1971, however, though, not after 30 years of FED-induced inflation. (Had to get an economic stupidity dig in, sorry!) He could have had a plan to jump at a fairly precise spot and used the GPS to steer******* toward a known area of good landing sites - that means no trees, no power lines, and no water. He could have jumped at a known position and even given the crew vectors via that interphone from the back to get to it. That was not an option in 1971.
Around the 345-360 deg. radial at 5 - 10 miles.
I would guess the crew was using VOR/DME (VHF Omni Range / Distance Measuring Equipment) navigation. One VOR (still there!) is the Battleground VOR. Mr. Cooper's estimated exit position was very close to that station. That means the angle and distance COULD have been very well known, but it sounds like he neither timed the jump precisely nor kept in touch with the crew on known position. Even had he, he'd have been subject to unknown winds on the way down, with no position info.
I'd thought for years that D.B. Cooper jumped over the high Cascade Mountains, in which case he really wouldn't have had a chance in hell of surviving. However, per what I've read he was somewhere near Ariel, Washington, around or just south of Lake Merwin, one of 3 man-made lakes built on the Lewis River. That land is not nice flat farmland by any means, but it's not in THE mountains either. There'd be big tall evergreen trees all over though, a big enemy of the skydiver.
The bing maps image above shows the land cover of recent years of course. There may have been more forest, but their may have been less. From a closer up aerial view of the area, I see that the small roads are curvy, meaning it is not flat there. There is plenty of new growth forest, meaning it could have been pasture at the time. I don't know - 10 miles to the north or northeast of the area speculated would give Mr. Cooper almost no chance in hell of survival. However, what I see in the area south and southeast of Ariel and Lake Merwin, Washington, shows land upon which he may have had a slight chance of getting lucky to land on a moonless night in a field somewhere.
A Continental Airlines pilot that had flown on the same route that night reported that Mr. Cooper's estimated wind direction was way off and that he may have ended up further southeast in the Washougal River watershed. Unless the landing was right at Camas or Washougal (the town) at the confluence with the Columbia River, Cooper would have been screwed, as their's nothing but mountainous terrain along that river.
After searches during the immediate months and years after this event and the decades of opportunities later, no body has ever been found. A small amount of the bank's cash was found by some kids playing on a sandbar on the banks of the Columbia River in 1980, 9 miles downriver from Vancouver, WA and 20 miles from Ariel, near the roughly estimated landing exit/landing******** area.
The reader may want to look up all kinds of other information about his favorite portion of this saga, the flight, the hijacking itself, the skydiving, and, well, I would say, information on where that big stash of money is. However, regarding the money, two hundred thousand US dollars means nothing like what it used to say, half a century ago. Maybe it's worth an occasional day hike.
D.B. Cooper is an American legend. We, and I speak for all of Peak Stupidity here, would like to think that the man who called himself Dan Cooper got away with this bold act and has been living large but anonymously for the last half a century, something pretty doable in the past. We wouldn't mind at all having a D.B. Cooper holiday every year, to celebrate this unorthodox, but still very American, legend, rather than, I dunno, some black Communist race hustler each January.
So, from a better time in America, even if you did lose your wristwatch to some crazy son-of-a-bitch on that Northwest Orient flight,
PS: Through the late 1990s at least (can't find ANYTHING about it right now), a Boeing 727 would fly skydivers at the World Freefall Convention in Quincy, Illinois - held usually in early August. I talked to someone who did that one - it was apparently not particularly spectacular though you would get blasted away from the plane by those 3 engines. They'd go up to about 13,000 ft or so, meaning no oxygen required, and drop 100 jumpers going one way, turn it around and drop 100 more. The jumpers would exit out what is stupidity still called the D.B. Cooper stairs.
PPS: It's a completely fictional story, as it starts out with D.B. Cooper surviving the jump (we have no idea how he fared from the time he jumped out of that 727), but a fun movie I've seen long ago on TV is one from 1981 called The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper. It's basically a car-chase/action/adventure movie, starring Robert Duvall.
* Nice job, Gregorian Calendar with leap year corrections! See, there have been 13 leap years since 1971. (The year 2000 DID have one, as every 4th century-mark year does, while the other century-mark years don't.) Since the same calendar DATE will be one DAY of the week later each year on normal years, that's 50 days advanced + 13 more - 63, which is evenly divisible by 7.
** The "D.B. Cooper" appellation stuck after a news reporter messed up or miss-heard the name.
*** This was back when 1) you didn't need no steenking ID, 2) You could name your airline "Northwest Orient" without getting a rash of shit, and 3) You could just buy the ticket for your cash and get on the damned airplane ... even with a bomb. It was a different time, you understand ...
**** This hijacking occurred in a year not long before the decade long high period lasting though the early 1980s. Don't believe the BLS numbers. We don't.
***** This is another reason I see this guy as one smart cookie. He demanded 4 chutes to that the airline, cops, crew, etc. would think he might take a hostage with him. In this case, giving him a defective rig would not be done to thwart his plans. (One of the chutes WAS a demo with a sewed-closed bag, but that was not intentional - it was all they could get from the skydiving school.)
****** There were also 2 (at one point 3) trailing military aircraft behind and out of sight of Mr. Cooper and crew (at least till he jumped), which were F-106 "Delta Dart" interceptors. Man, this was a long time ago!!
******* Mr. Cooper opted for the older not-as-steerable military chute anyway.
******** There could be a 5 mile or even more difference if the wind was really up and if Mr. Cooper pulled his chute up high.
Comments (10)
And now a loss, in trial 2 of the 3
Posted On: Wednesday - November 24th 2021 11:58AM MST
In Topics: Liberty/Libertarianism Race/Genetics alt-right/MAGA ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny Legal Stupidity Morning Constitutional
(Graphic taken directly from VDare, as usual. Thanks, guys!)
In the 2nd of 3 of what Peak Stupidity considers important court trials* that started and have been ongoing around the same time this fall, America took a loss. One could say that this civil trial, just held and finished over 4 years after the Charlottesville, Virginia street battle August '17 is not so important as the other 2, as nobody is going to jail. (Of course, the Tyranny side of the Anarcho-Tyranny DID send some on the alt-right to jail, leaving the ctrl-left to on home after all the mayhem they caused that summer day.**)
The alt-right, Conservatives, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists have just lost this one. VDare's Neil Kumar*** just reported SINES V. KESSLER: The First Amendment No Longer Applies To Whites. The plaintiffs in this case sued for "injury" from being hurt by the speech of Mr. Kessler, et al. What a sickening concept that is for me and would be for the Founders of this country. Nah, but the plaintiff's put it thusly:
The two claims which resulted in a deadlock involved conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in violation of federal law. The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the vile Roberta Kaplan, has already vowed to continue pursuing them. [My bolding.]Oh, they were apparently injured to the tune of $25,000,000, as that was the judgement.
What struck me the most from Mr. Kumar's article is the sheer difference in the amount of money that the ctrl-left backers of this case have compared to how much the alt-right defenders
The financial disparity between the plaintiffs and the defendants was vast. As Glen Allen of the Free Expression Foundation explained:Even without this Establishment lawfare, it's hard for the right to get organized. From here on, any support for the cause in terms of money ought to be given under that table. For the alt-right, it seems like young people with not much to lose asset-wise would be the ones who could stay in the fray here. What we all need to learn is how to move at least some of our money to safe places (trusted friends and family, hard and hard-to-steal assets, etc.) before we get too involved politically.Three large New York City law firms and 38 lawyers, led by Roberta Kaplan, entered appearances for the plaintiffs. These three law firms comprised over 1300 lawyers altogether and had income in 2020 of approximately $1.9 billion. Moreover, Ms. Kaplan was able to fundraise an amount probably in excess of $25 million to pay for the litigation, a staggering sum by any reckoning but especially so given that many of the plaintiffs’ law firms offered their services pro bono.
The defendants, by stark contrast, have encountered huge obstacles to obtaining adequate representation. First, given hostile media accounts, antifa threats, and the defendants’ unpopular ideology or perceived ideology, few lawyers would even consider representing them. …Second, even if the defendants could find willing counsel, in most cases they could not pay the high legal costs the plaintiffs intended to impose, and did impose, by their scorched earth litigation. Few defendants had significant wealth and most found their ability to raise money through crowdfunding or other donation paths restricted or cut off by deplatforming, media hostility, and antifa harassment. As this case has at last, after three years, reached trial, most of the original 25 defendants have defaulted or are representing themselves [The Sines v. Kessler Lawfare Litigation: A National and Historic Disgrace, FreeExpressionFoundation.org, November 19, 2021].
"Oh, 25 million is it? I got, let's see, there's $318 in this one account, I can sell my old Honda, but this nice car is my friend's. Let me pull off the couch cushions and oh, lookie here, I got $1.85 in coins and 4 Chucky Cheese tokens in my right front pants pocket. Oh, gonna garnish my wages for the next 875 years and put a lien on ... what now?" Yeah, it can get serious. Two words for you all: Gold, Bitchez!
I'm trying not to excerpt the whole article, but here's a good summary of what this result means:
The precedent this sets: from now on, if white Americans dare to exercise their right to assemble and protest for the redress of their grievances in our increasingly anti-white country, Leftist authorities can engineer mayhem (as they did in Charlottesville) and then use private civil plaintiffs to levy astronomical damages against the organizers, for the sole purpose of bankrupting said organizers.Yes, this was a big loss. Do you see why Peak Stupidity frequently mentions the (Capitalized) Establishment being under complete ctrl-left control?
In other words, this verdict, the Crown Jewel of all Leftist lawfare to date, will be used as a weapon to prevent any white Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights and organizing protests to defend their rights, their heritage, their very humanity.
PS: Within 1/2 hour of finishing this post, I see that the Arbery case was lost too. I guess I'll write about the general trend here on Friday or Saturday. This is not a news site, and White People have had our quick moment of fun. For some, the payback was immediate, getting run over and maimed or killed in a parade on the streets of Waukesha, Wisconsin.
* I am no follower of legal issues, precedents, important cases, an so on, but so I do realize that there are many others that go on that are just not so high profile. This is not a legal blog, though we retain virtual lawyers to keep up site immunity from the pestilence of lawfare. By "virtually", I do mean virtually, as this is going on pretty much within the offices and legal venue existing inside this blogger's head.
** One of the young men that was just sued in this court trail was Jason Kessler, he of Sines v Kessler. He has been reporting on what happened that day and the legal warfare of the ctrl-left since, with lots that can be read on VDare here. I imagine he's just too pissed at this latest turn of events to write right now.
*** I'm almost positive that "Neil Kumar" is not this gentleman's real name, maybe "Neil" but not "Kumar", as per his VDare bio page: Neil Kumar is a law student who lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Sons of the American Revolution, with blood that has been Southern since the seventeenth century.
Comments (6)
Proud to be a Wokie here in Skokie.
Posted On: Tuesday - November 23rd 2021 6:35PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor
I guess it's catch-up day on a couple of Unz Review comments that I'd wanted to feature here. This one is a most excellent take-off on an old Merle Haggard song. Peak Stupidity featured this classic country pro-traditional-America song long ago here. We'll just put the embedded song here for you to play just in case you don't know this one. The very humorous take-off by commenter Roonaldo would mean nothing if you don't.
Here is the comment on unz.
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We don’t read the Unz Review in Skokie.
We get our news from MSNBC.
We proudly show our vaccine card on Main Street.
We don’t want right-wingers runnin’ free.
We have wild parties full of lovin’.
We like man on man and sniffin’ poo.
We like our partners gettin’ real skanky,
like California politicians do.
I’m proud to be a Wokie here in Skokie,
a place where even trannies have a ball.
We still wave rainbow flags down at the Courthouse.
White guilt is still the biggest thrill of all.
Leather boots are fine for our Antifa riots.
Nine millimeter pistols are real mean.
We’re pissed Rittenhouse fought back and shot us,
with his semiauto A and R Fifteen.
And I’m proud to be a Wokie here in Skokie,
a place where JB Pritzger can have a ball.
We still wave BLM flags down at the Courthouse,
and Pfizer shots are still the biggest thrill of all.
Here in Skokie, Illinois, USA.
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Great stuff! Thank you very much, Roonaldo. The closest I've come to doing that good a job on this sort of thing was from way, way back with a take-off of Paul Simon's Me and Julio down by the Schoolyard in the Peak Stupidity post Last dig at Øb☭ma - to a great tune by Paul Simon. I wrote that version about the '12 election for a comment on some old blog, years before this blog ever started and dug it up because well, I spent a lot of time on it! Too much time ... hard way to make a livin'...
Finally, speaking of some creative song lyrics, Mr. E.H. Hail, of the Hail to You blog, featured the new folk ballad The Ballad of Kyle Rittenhouse on his site. It's the one he mentioned in the comments here.
PS: I did change punctuation in Mr. Roonaldo's song lyrics. I feel the need to do that for almost every set of lyrics I get off of the multiple websites that have them.
Comments (16)
One observer's opinion of Chinese Kung Flu Stupidity.
Posted On: Tuesday - November 23rd 2021 6:01PM MST
In Topics: China Orwellian Stupidity World Political Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Two weeks ago, under the extremely-anti-vax article Excess Deaths Point to Depopulation Agenda on The Unz Review by the anti-Panic writer Mike Whitney, I came across a few anecdotal comments that mention the situation in China. (It's a long thread - there are currently 643 comments under the article!) Because this blog has a special fixation with things Chinese I was interested in one particular comment by commenter "Erebus".
Mr. Erebus' take on the situation in China, not just with respect to the Flu Manchu but general Totalitarianism in China, is not one I particularly agree completely with. However, I have not been to that Eastern land for ~ 4 years, so, I figure he may have a more recent take. (That is especially important that my last time spent there was, of course, well before this latest excuse for "MOAR control, everywhere, by everyone!") We don't know this the guy going by the handle "Erebus" lives in China or anywhere near there, or has ever even visited. However, though I haven't agreed with this guy on some things in the past, he comes across as pretty honest, and he's civil about his opinions too.
Therefore, I present his quick take on life in China in the aftermath(?) of this world PanicFest. I have plenty to say about his take, but I'll leave that for another post to come shortly*:
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They’re right when it comes to digital ID. It’s been soft sold for years, and the Chinese public bought into it wholesale. As smart phones are absolutely everywhere and in continuous use, the move was quite organic. Now, everyone pays using their phone, and most people don’t even carry cash.
They’d been living with State ID for centuries with the Hukou (户口) residence registration system and have been carrying a state ID card for decades. All that started migrating to the smart phone some years ago, and there’s moves afoot to abolish the old Hukou system. When SARS-2 rolled out the digital ID evolved rapidly to include a “health” function.
That function (afaict) principally indicates that you haven’t been in any hotspots recently (or at least your phone hasn’t). Venues such as airports, rail stations, hospitals, some hotels and all govt buildings require you to pull up a green code before entering. The only commercial enterprise I know of that asks for it currently is Walmart. Temperature checks remain pretty common, though a fraction of what they were a year ago when they were everywhere.
Where all that is less so is in the countryside. Rural areas still have “off-line” stores & markets and some villages are panicked about the virus. Locals have a lot of autonomy and in many cases make up rules as they see fit.
The big differences with the RoW are:
– There is no vaxx mandate or threat of one. The vaccines were heavily promoted when they first rolled out and some local officials tried to improve their numbers by making it mandatory for govt & medical workers and certain industries. The national govt soon banned the practice and it’s been strictly voluntary since. Vaccine promotion has pretty much died out.
BTW, vaccinations were not available to anyone over 60 or under 18 until Aug 2021 when some regions began rolling out programs for 12-17 yr olds and over-60s. Again voluntary, and under 18 yr olds must have a consent form signed by their accompanying parent/legal guardian.
– Local lockdowns around local outbreaks has been the Chinese strategy since Wuhan opened 17 mos ago. These have been as small as locking down a single apartment building, to city districts (boroughs) but I’m not aware of a lockdown that covered a whole city since Wuhan, and such lockdowns as have occurred lasted 2-3 weeks unless new cases arose.
– Masks are required on public transit and typically in any venue requiring a green code, but are voluntary everywhere else. Roughly 1/3 of people wear them on the street etc, but remove them on entering a bar/restaurant. Go figure.
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That's the entirety of the comment. I'll have plenty to add, but it seems at least a fair unbiased view. I need to add here the quick note that Mr. Erebus' "RoW" means the Rest of the World. Another commenter asked, and I'm glad, as I wouldn't have caught the meaning either, as obvious as it is to me now.
* I hate to break it up like this, but with a specifically timely post coming tomorrow, and then Thanksgiving on Thursday, that'll be here on Friday at the earliest. I am itching to give my take now, though! (However, the posts of gotten way too long lately!)
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