Them US Blues - 2021
Posted On: Sunday - July 4th 2021 8:49PM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead Americans Holiday from Stupidity
This is the first blog-post here on a Sunday. Peak Stupidity is only breaking our rule in order to keep another tradition up, which is the posting of The Dead's US Blues every Independence Day, with a few lyrics. Son of a gun, when I looked back I see every one of the previous 4 posts has a youtube video that has since gone missing!
Well, that there's a good reason to put it up too. Any non-DeadHeads should also please note that, though you may think of them as counter traditional American culture and a bunch of druggies, this band was truly an All American band. That goes for the music AND the players - Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Mickey, Billy, and Brent, all of them.
Stays seventy-two come shine or rain.
Wave the flag, pop the bag,
Rock the boat, skin the goat.
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done come and gone, my, oh, my.
Happy Independence Day, or what's left of it (the day and our independence).
Comments (16)
Marshall Crenshaw- There & Back Again
Posted On: Saturday - July 3rd 2021 6:41PM MST
In Topics: Music
Peak Stupidity has featured the bright sound of Marshall Crenshaw before at least once - my favortie is probably She Can't Dance from his self-titled debut album. That album had 2 songs that I'd heard played on the radio, the hit Someday, Someway and my 2nd favorite, Cynical Girl.
I bought a CD of Marshall Crenshaw's Miracle of Science sometime around 2000. It's not quite as good as that self-titled one, but is still full of good songs. The album was his 7th one, from 1996, and I doubt 1% of the American population has ever heard any of the songs. His career peaked, unfortunately, with that 1st album.
From Miracle of Science, here's There & Back Again, with a good melody and a bright voice and bright guitar. Enjoy!
So ends the blogweek. Next week, more curmudgeonry, something about cheap American-made crap, revisiting the Kung Flu Panicfest for a post, hotel room stupidity, and MORE!!! Thanks for reading.
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Erroneous Road Rage
Posted On: Saturday - July 3rd 2021 10:21AM MST
In Topics: Cars Curmudgeonry Peak Stupidity Roadshow
(Note: Just a file photo - woman in question looked more seriously pissed off.)
Road rage: There's a time for it, just like there's a time to every purpose under heaven. I've had my share, coming and going, though, when my Dad long ago would emphasize not letting myself get taken advantage of, he made an exception for events on the road. No matter who's in the right or who had the actual right-of-way, it really isn't worth the months of intermittent paperwork and hassle to get the car bashed up.
The problem for me is, as this one comedian went on about one time, those retards poking along ahead of me (at 2 mph over the speed bumps in their 4 by 4's*) and those assholes riding my ass behind me! Haha! Yes, my Dad was right, as I went through a lot of trouble based on one "I'll show you for cutting me off" incident many years ago. When you drive with the limit of bad driver points allowed in your State, and for a while over the limit, you learn to mellow out. "Want to cut me off? Go ahead. Have a nice day!" ... yet still, I'd really like to teach people how to merge.
Anyway, part of mild road rage, or incipient road rage, let's call it, is overuse of the horn. They'll be another post coming on that one. The horn is a safety device and another communication device in addition to those oft-misused turn signals. As a communication device it's supposed to be for warning others not chewing them out.
There's a road in the downtown area nearby on which even 30 mph is too fast, per common sense, as it's just one lane with parallel parking on the right and angle parking on the left. The point is to keep the parallel parking right next to the small stores, and the angle parking by the middle median, for people who will stay longer and/or walk a bit farther. That's the reason, but I can see that having angle parking on the left is worse for safety than having it on the right.
The problem is the visibility for backing up into the one lane of traffic. The driver is on the vehicle's left side, closer to the car in the direction he would like to see when backing up. Think of the geometry, and you will see that one has to go farther back to get a good sight line. It doesn't help at all that the modern vehicles have wide-ass pillars between doors to contain airbags (I think) and windows that start much higher up. Visibility sucks in the modern crossovers especially. The back-up cameras, something I think is a necessity now, the way these things are built, don't have that wide a view angle for help in backing up from that angled space.
Therefore, you just have to ease out, and hope for the best until you finally get a view past that big pickup or SUV to your left. That was us driving by, probably not more than 20mph just based on common sense. Pedestrians can come out from either side, someone may start backing out, etc. Well, this lady did. I saw the reverse lights on with the brake lights. That's normal, as you have to slowly get to where you can see. However, I was past the point at which I could stop and let her back out, and she kept on moving, too damn quickly and closely. I doubt she was even 4 ft. from me when I beeped the horn 3 times sharply. That did it. It's simply defensive driving.
That's what the horn IS for, as I explained to my son just a second after that. "It's for warning people, not to yell at them that they shouldn't have done that." (Then, he had to bring up "yeah, but what about that time when that guy was on the phone and you honked it when you passed him?" Kid have the darndest memories!)
Well, the lady pulls up next to us at the stop light only 100 yards past, and she was pissed. I really was hoping to just tell her nicely that I wasn't sure if she could see me. Nope, she kept her window up and said something that is not within my lip-reading capabilities. No flip of the bird, mind you, but just anger. Seriously?? I just wanted to make sure I could keep my old vehicle, as anything more that a scratch and the insurance company would tell me "you'll take $1,500, or you'll get nothing!" If the lady had backed up her much newer Subaru** (but none dare call it a station wagon) into us, she would have had months of intermittent hassle, paperwork, and higher premiums. With the number of complicated plastic parts on the new vehicles, minor wrecks are no longer minor. Everything's a big damn deal.
That's the thanks I get - some old lady getting pissed at me for warning her to quit backing up or there'd be a wreck. There really should be a Misanthrope topic key here, rather than just Curmudgeonry.
* See also Sport Utility Drivers - GET OFF
** Yeah, it's Honda for lesbians, but let me tell you, there were no fantasies going on in my head about THIS lady, me, and a willing lady insurance adjuster.
Comments (10)
LittleFreeLibraries in the leafy neighborhoods
Posted On: Friday - July 2nd 2021 8:46PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Books
In the latest (June) John Derbyshire's monthly "diary", as published on VDare and on on the Unz Review, with comments, I got another book recommendation. He hasn't let me down so far with the handful of books I read per his advice or suggestions.
What I noted is that Mr. Derbyshire got this latest book that I'll pick up from one of the "Little Free Libraries".* I am not sure if every reader will be familiar. There are lots of these cute and neighborly volunteer built and operated** things around, such as the one pictured above. I started seeing these ~8 years ago, by my recollection, but per the FreeLIttleLibraries website, it's been 12 years since the altruistic and creative Mr. Todd H. Bol made the first one. It says there are over 100,000 of them in people's front yards all around (occasionally at a part too).
We have the Little Free Libraries all over my neighborhood too. Most have either books for children, which we’ve taken advantage of on probably 10 to 15 occasions, or some self-help books, women’s novels, and lefty stuff. I did find one book on sailing I liked that I’ve been carrying around for a while.
There’s lefty stuff, mildly that is, not Das Kapital or Mao’s book, because there is a lot of that woke stuff going around the neighborhood. I think there’s a silent majority, but we’ve got our share of BLM, “We Believe”, etc, signs.
This Little Free Library thing was a great idea, I gotta say. There's the "sharing economy", as it's called, with your AirBnB's, Ubers, urban rent-a-bikes, etc., so I guess this is a "sharing charity" operation. No matter the BLM signs on the lawn of one of the Little Free Library volunteers near us, they've got to inherently know that:
a) This is not an idea that could possibly have originated from anyone other than a White person, such as Todd H. Bol.
b) Even if thought of by someone in China, Latin America, or the black ghetto in America, it would be dismissed out of hand, as who is going to build that nice dollhouse-looking structure of wood, mount it on a 4x4, and put some books in for the taking, knowing that the contents will be just all grabbed by someone and his handiwork will be vandalized soon enough? Oh, and where's the money in it? What would the point be, if there's no money in it?
c) Not so many people in the BLM movement even read books.
Oh, and these Little Free Library people have a "read in color" section on the web site. But, of course! You can sign a pledge on the internet that promises you will "share diverse books". I'd love to do that, putting an Ann Coulter book or a Vin Suprynowicz book called Send in the Waco Killers in that neighbor's Little Free Library for some diverse views, but I'm afraid that neighbor will trash it before it has a chance to get read.
* Mine is coming from the free! county library, free, as in is running off of that 80 million or so dollar bond issue they needed to renovate a bunch of the branches and the main one that all looked perfectly fine to me before.
** Basically just keeping things orderly if the users don't, adding some books here and there, and painting or replacing a nail or latch occasionally,
Comments (2)
Aggravating scene from Hereafter
Posted On: Wednesday - June 30th 2021 7:58PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Political Correctness Movies Bible/Religion
This post was not supposed to be a movie review. It came to mind from one particular scene from the '10 Matt Damon movie Hereafter. However, since I watched it, I'll just give a short review to go along with the main point.
I'd never heard of this movie before. It ought to have been my kind of movie, as I do like these types that speculate about the afterlife. Of course, this one had to trash the traditional religions in one very minor scene, I think mainly to make the story work there. That is not the scene this post is about, but it shows that was a PC influence, even with a movie directed by Clint Eastwood (found out to my surprise in the closing credits).
The whole opening sequence had the PC influence, come to think of it, as it was the dark people saving whitey meme again. In this case whitey was the TV news lady, played by Cecile de France, who, true to central casting, was French in the movie. I did not even think of turning the movie off due to that initial PC bit because the best part of the movie by far was the opening scene tsunami* sequence**. Whatever they did for these special effects, this scene looked awesome to me!
Hereafter flips back and forth between three different stories that come together in the end. There was the French part, starred by Cecile of France, a story about two identical-twin 10 y/o boys in England, and then Matt Damon the psychic who lives in a kindler, gentler 2010 San Francisco.
Commenter Alarmist mentioned I should use the film-buff term "production values". I do need to mention production values, but not of the movie, but the production of the CD. Here was my problem: The scenes with the French people were in France with English subtitles. However, the way it played on our player, only the first line of two appeared on the screen. I could make some of it out, but only enough to get the gist of what was going on. Then, in the British scenes, these people had enough of an accent (probably realistic) that I couldn't make out half of what they were saying either! That'd be OK if the normal DVD closed-caption feature would have worked. No dice on this. The only scenes I could follow completely were those of the San Francisco story. Talk aboutcher bad production values!
I'm glad IMDB agrees with me, but before reading it I had already planned to write that, interesting subject notwithstanding, this movie didn't have much of a point. So, here's what we have: Great opening scene disaster sequence, hard to follow 2/3 of the movie, too much PC, and no point.
OK, about that aggravating scene finally. After his soul-mate twin brother had died (not much of a spoiler really) the surviving twin wore the ball cap his brother had always worn everywhere. He attended a new school, and there was just a quick scene with he, two classmates, and the teacher. The other 2 kids were ... ready? A black girl and a Moslem girl. This was 2010 Britain. Yeah, there were plenty already, I guess, but was this a typical classroom, or was someone (Clint Eastwood, even?) pushing this stuff on us? I think you know the answer.
That's not my complaint, though. The boy wore that ball cap to class. Now, the young Moslem girl is wearing the full-out canvas-to-the-floor get-up. She has no veil but has her head wrapped up like a mummy whose slaves had barely ran out of material. Then we hear, to paraphrase, as, remember, I could barely understand half of it, "You need to take off your cap in the classroom.", from the teacher. What damn hypocrisy! I'm pretty sure the movie was NOT making a point about the hypocrisy. Whoever wrote, produced, or directed this scene was telling us that this is what we'd better put up with.
This boy is a character that the audience is supposed to feel sympathy for. He didn't like to take off his brother's cap off, as it was his only tangible thing left of his brother.. Are we supposed to feel that the Moslem girl must be allowed to wear any damn thing she likes, while this poor sad boy must take off his cap because "the rules"? There's your Anarcho-tyranny on display, courtesy of Hollywood.
I didn't like that scene one bit, and the more I think about it now, I give two thumbs down for Hereafter due to it alone. I just hope Clint Eastwood had nothing to do with it. Otherwise I say Hang him High ... is what you should see rather than this PC bilge.
* This was in some place far away from France, possibly Asia, but not made clear, so they would use that word. I think we are supposed to say "tsunami" instead of "tidal wave" now. It's one of the few PC "let's do as the foreigners do" terminology changes that I am down with, as "tidal wave" is really misleading.
** Speaking of your special senses or clairvoyance, which I haven't gotten to yet, that scene preceded the huge Japanese tsunami. The movie was released in Japan about 3 weeks before the tsunami, and the movie was pulled from theaters early.
Comments (6)
Visa Account Updater - Part 2
Posted On: Wednesday - June 30th 2021 4:51PM MST
In Topics: Economics Big-Biz Stupidity Scams
(Continued from previous post.)
It's not so easy to find out information on the operation of this Visa Account Updater system, but I'm almost positive it's run by Visa itself. When doing searches on this subject most of the results are pages on credit union sites with information for their customers. I really wonder how many Americans know about this system other than those who've already had to deal with it based on some problems like ours. Americans are pretty savvy consumers - well, when it's our OWN MONEY - and "we" consume a whole lot. I think word on this will get around.
BTW, I assume by "Visa" they mean this applies to MasterCard, or are there even MasterCards at all anymore? American Express has its own deal called Card Refresher that does the same thing. There is one difference I see right away with it, which I'll get to later on.
Here's how this thing must have started: Americans use the hell out of these credit cards. Additionally, as I wrote about last time, many merchants with products for sale like to arrange recurring payments. This way, Americans can more easily live paycheck-to-paycheck which, unfortunately, seems to be the preference for most, and there's that almighty convenience factor* too. Then, as noted last post and in the comments there too, there's the huge amount of scamming going on, resulting in credit cards and debit cards being canceled more often. That has been happening in our household lots lately, perhaps averaging 3 times yearly lately.** I used to go with a debit card that simply wore out.
I'm sure lots of Americans with all those recurring payments have lots of instances of either canceled service or late payments due to the company on the other end not able to get their money regularly. Then there's a complaint or a call to beg for or demand satisfaction from the CC company. I put the blame mostly on these customers, with, of course, the contributing factor of getting into these situations due to the incessant scamming.
When a charge is disputed by a customer, the way it goes, it's usually the CC company that decides to cancel, or at least strongly recommends canceling of, the card number. When the scamming is more regular, urgent, or annoying, there's one good option for the customer to stop the theft of his money - cancel the card, prontomundo. Not all the scamming is blatant There may be a disagreement resulting in an unsatisfactory conversation with "customer care". One can try to hash it out, or one can just hang up and cancel the card to JUST END IT. That is the leverage we had and thought we still have.
Therefore, there was motivation for all three parties here. For the consumers, it's having lives too complicated to keep the card numbers all up with all their creditors, getting burned by fees or lost service. The motivation for the card-issuing companies is that they have had to deal with complaints from consumers about the late fees and interactions with, and complaints from, the merchants about charges they can't collect. The merchants had a big motivation for this too, as they had to deal with lots of missing payments monthly, some to be recouped later and with late fees added, and some they had to eat. The impetus to set up this Visa Account Updater could have come from any of the 3 or a combination thereof.
They got this thing up and running. Who knew? Seriously, who has heard about it? You think you cut off the flow of the money to that alleged auto warranty service, but, whoa, next month, there it goes again!
The good for a consumer that has come from the Visa Account Updater service is that, after another unsettled dispute, or another scam is settled with the solution being another card cancellation, he doesn't have to update all his merchants or servicers(?) right away or get charged extra fees. The card issuer saves on the time dealing with complaints from both sides. The merchant or company providing a service comes out the best . Now he doesn't have to deal with complaints on said late charges (well, maybe they are actually a "profit center") and can be more confident in those receivables coming in every month. What if he's not on the up-and-up? He comes out ahead too! Win/win/win/win?
The bad aspect for the consumer is simple. His main leverage, "I'll cancel the card", is now gone. The bad news for the CC issuers is ... hmmm... nothing. Big Biz usually comes out pretty well for itself. However, I'm not completely sure about that, as they may end up with more work in the charging disputes departments. How's it going to be when many a customer can't end the money drain from some outfit, legit or not, and must call continually for months to "claw back" (as they say) the money? One Philadelphia lady tells her experience here that involves getting
The merchants have to love this new system. An example would be the Uber driver and/or Uber itself, as mentioned in the postscript of the previous post. Lastly, oh, yeah, those scammers have got to love it.
Back to our particular story now, yes, as the customer, you can opt out. That's what I did after getting the scoop, and the first thing I'd ever heard about, the Visa Account Updater. The American Express site linked to above says you need to apply to opt IN. I like that better. Maybe my wife did, without knowing anything about it, but then she applied for this card at least 5 years ago. I don't think this deal was around then, simply because one's payments WOULD be cut off to a customer if the card were canceled.
I realize that the Peak Stupidity readers are going to be on the savvier side of this consumer stuff, but I'll put my "advice to consumers" here anyway:
1) Don't set up any more monthly automatic recurring payments than you have to.
(2) If you ignore (1), decide if it's easier for you to continually make the effort to keep current CC numbers available to all those people charging you legitimately as you keep your leverage to cut the scammers off or easier for you to just fight all those charges, but not have to worry about the legitimate payments getting made.
3) Gold, Bitchez!
* It does take a dollar each month for each of the regular bills, unless I trust the outfit enough to pay ahead. Stamps are in the neighborhood of 50¢ and checks cost about 50¢. apiece. (I do know you can make up your own checks, or at least used to be able to. So far, that's not worth the effort.)
** One of these instances was an exact $150 one-time charge from that Venmo outfit. First of all, I don't usually make payments on round numbers like that, and then I didn't recognize that lame-ass internet-style name. Sure enough, people had been scammed to use Venmo before, per the bank, and the dispute was quickly settle for me. I noted that this charge was incurred one day after I stayed at a •Indian-run motel. Coincidence? I'd be generous to think that.
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Visa Account Updater - Part 1
Posted On: Tuesday - June 29th 2021 11:24AM MST
In Topics: Economics Big-Biz Stupidity Scams
Before I get into this, let me state that the Scams topic key is not attached here to indicate that Visa Account Updater itself is a scam. It CAN be, however, helpful for situations in which one IS being scammed, helpful for the scammer, that is. Therefore, this topic key reflects that the post does involve scamming.
We just learned something new about the American financial world a couple of days ago. My wife had ordered some type of vitamin pills, nutrition supplements, or what-have-you on-line. I'm not sure if I've yet got it straight whether she signed up for recurring monthly shipments with their recurring charges on the credit card or whether that was unexpected.
I'll state right now that I avoid signing up for ANYTHING that involves automatic repeating payments. My wife may be seeing the light on this. However, it's not always possible, or at least easy, to avoid them. One instance is the cell phone bill. For a few of the companies we've been through, they will charge you an extra $5, maybe $10 even, if you just want to send checks each month*. There are so many deadbeats out there that, as they always say, "ruin it for the rest of us". It's true in this case. I still resent being considered a likely deadbeat from the get-go or having to pay more for the small risk the Big Biz operation takes. (They can just cut off service easily enough these days, with the flip of a
My wife didn't think these pills were worth anything after a while, so she had written or called that she didn't want any more. This company apparently wasn't having any of that. When she got another batch of these things** in the mail the next month she cut off the credit card***. They kept on coming, well at least one more month, because that's when she realized they were charging the items on the replacement CC with a new number. WTF! She was on the phone with them using the word "scam" a number of times, and I ended up writing a post on facebook (I'm no member, but my wife has some kind of bogus account), going all out and noting that perhaps these people were •Indian credit card hackers. I kind of regret that latter bit, as only then did we get the story straight from the bank that the CC was issued by.
So that's the back story, and here's what most Americans probably don't have any idea about. (We sure didn't.): There's an operation, I believe a part of the Visa company itself, but, I'm not sure on that, called "Visa Account Updater". It is a middle-
The nice bank lady explained the following to me on the phone: In the recent past, a merchant and its, spit, "acquirer" would have received some sort of electronic bad card notice in the past on a cancelled card number. It was too bad for them if the customer already had already gotten the product or made use of their service. That's good, or that's bad, but that's the subject of Part 2. Now what happens is this middle-computer Visa Account Updater outfit has been fed the new CC number of this card holder. After the charge on the first card is denied, the merchant/etc. will make use of the VAU service - there's very likely a charge! - and have the amount charged to the new card. That merchant doesn't receive the new CC info (number, expiration date, and 3-digit code), but it just gets its money from the customer's account.
This is interesting stuff. I do understand the need for it, as it can actually help the many customers who have to change CCs often due to scammers. I also understand that this can cut the leverage out from a customer who is being scammed. As I wrote just above, Part 2 will cover more about this Visa Account Updater.
PS: We wondered a while ago how my friend was able to get the Uber ride working when he knew it had only his old, cancelled CC in the system. We got the ride, the driver was certain he'd get his 75% cut (I tip in cash), and we figured Uber can just suck it if they don't get paid. Now I get completely what happened.
* For that matter, on some of the bills that I can actually count on not being somehow screwed by Big Biz on anytime in the near future, I'll even pay 6 months ahead. They should be spending time down on their knees in their corporate "worship center" just praising God for customers like me... well, until they piss me off.
** I wonder if they've got that old guarantee I used to see on the TV commercials: "If you are not satisfied, we'll send you another one, for FREE!"
*** Which has also been a recurring thing. The charges from scammers have been coming almost fast enough to where I can "burn my (old) credit cards for fuel". (Old, old, Neil Young reference there. Anyone here know which song, besides me?)
**** Sometimes, the first responder is the patient himself, who becomes responsive, gets up and says "fuck this sheeet, homies. I'm gonna get outta here fore the popo finds out how many shots I done took first!"
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Football is Ghey.
Posted On: Monday - June 28th 2021 6:50PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Humor Bread and Circuses
We just report. You decide.
Pssst ... guy, spellcheck is your friend. I've always seen it spelled "ghey" when used in this manner.
Hey, Peak Stupidity didn't say it. It's on the internet, from a guy named TMZ*, I swear!
I see from the tweet in question that we are down to last 2 days left of Pride Month. Who knew? We have been remiss here at Peak Stupidity in having not professed our pride for our excellent web site. We are here, we're out of the server closet, we're PROUD, and we're not going to let anyone shame us for what we do here, which is anything and everything ... besides screwing a guy in the ass.
Now as to sportsball itself, the gridiron version, this new statement is hilarious to me for another reason. Used to be, arguably 10 years ago, that any football fan, not to mention a player, would slug you for saying what's in that meme. Now, what could he do about it? I'd have the full woke Establishment behind me ... uh oh... wait ...
PS: I see that Steve Sailer just put up a post on this. I did not get it from there though - been perusing Instapundit more lately.
* I don't know who he is and what that stands for. I'm not interested in finding out either.
Comments (9)
Cancel the riot! It was just a White guy.
Posted On: Monday - June 28th 2021 1:15PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny
This story out of Portland, Oregon* is a great example for us of the Anarcho-Tyranny that White Americans (especially male) are living under the bad side of. Some of us understand, and some of us are so used to it they may not even realize what it is. A young White man, say under 25 y/o, may not know there can be any other way but to be seen as the worst scum of the nation, based on his
This story is about a police shooting and killing of a White man. The White man is alleged to have come at the cops with a screwdriver, sure enough a weapon, but I read that he was shot while running away though. Is it worse than George Floyd's treatment? I'd say yes, but then as with that highly-policized, but not so highly-actually-reported case, I don't know enough to say.
It's really something to see this Anarcho-tyranny blatantly displayed by the "authorities", the media, and the ctrl-left alike. The tweet above shows that the cops are down with this anarcho-tyranny, or at least simply don't care to make any fuss about it. It is engrained in the Lyin' Press, of course, and the ctrl-left is the source of it. The Commie antifa young assholes in Portland are obviously not that concerned with police killing attempted arrestees. They are only ready to riot when this happens to a Black man, though Oriental and Hispanic will do on a rainy day (most of them there).
The courageous "Paul Kersey" has a very good take on this story in White Lives Don't Matter—To Avert Riot, Portland PD Tells BLM/Antifa Terrorists They Shot A White Man. Often his posts on The Unz Review are repetitive with nothing very much new to say**, but his is one of his good ones - here is the same article, but with comments***, on the unz site.
Stories like this ought to wake a few more people up. The ctrl-left is using black violence and dysfunction to help in their goal of destroying traditional America. They know they won't get any help from their useful thugs, if no poor, poor, pitiful 6 ft 4. black guys have been "abused". They not only won't get help in their destruction, but they call the whole thing off if it is a White guy. These "anti-fascists" are not the Constitutionalists that one may see bravely standing up to police abuse of authority. They want anarchy and destruction. This sounds eerily familiar. Weren't there people like this crawling out of the woodwork about a century ago?
Finally, I'm sure one may hear the argument that "well, this is only payback for what would have happened with the races reversed in the old South." Nah, that is wrong for a number of reasons:
1) In the old South, when blacks killed each other, true, as long as nobody was unluckily hurt in the usually excessive cross-fire, nobody cared. Sure, but that's the same as right now in inner city ghettos all over America. The people involved aren't worth caring about.
2) In the old South, it would have been black people rioting on behalf of black people killed by White police. Here, we have White people rioting ONLY on behalf of black people killed by White police. You need both a dead black person AND a White cop. They are necessary conditions.
3) Do we really want more "pay back" for the alleged sins of the fathers? I thought Affirmative Action was for that. None of this makes for harmonious race relations.
Anyway, Portland antifa, you can go back to the coffee shops, collect your upgraded extended unemployment and take a breather today. There's nothing to see here - it was just a White guy.
* It's not the first one either of this very same thing happening, but I hadn't read enough on that other story to make a post.
** I don't blame him for this though. What he is trying to do is to drill in that this black violence and inability to assimilate to White norms is a regular thing. People get hurt every day, lives have been upended, and more generally, we can't live like we'd like to.
*** I have not had good luck with his moderation policy as of late, so I'll not comment there anytime soon. None of it was off-the-wall or too out of bounds - I think the guy just doesn't feel he wants certain specific comments that he's not interested in on there. That's just too "whimmy" for me.
Comments (2)
Gerry Rafferty - Island
Posted On: Saturday - June 26th 2021 5:55PM MST
In Topics: Music
From the OTHER Gerry (who spells it with a "G" instead of a "J"), we have another favorite of mine.
Gerry Rafferty's 1978 album City to City made it to the #1 spot on the US Billboard rock/pop chart. Peak Stupidity has featured one or two of the songs from this 10-track masterpiece before. There were 3 singles released from the album, Baker Street (of course!), Right Down the Line, and Home and Dry.
If any one album ever deserved to be #1 on the charts (and sell 5 1/2 million copies), City to City has got to be it. It's one thing to have an album with no bad songs on it. This one doesn't just have all good songs - it has all GREAT songs. IMO, City to City is the best pop album of all time, and Gerry Rafferty had the best voice of any pop male vocalist EVER! ("IMO" means In My Opinion, keep in mind.)
Gerry's smooth voice is really featured in Island, track 9. Additionally, Raphael Ravenscroft, who played the most recognizable saxophone solo in all, or at least, pop music, on Baker Street also played on this one. I like Gary Taylor's bass guitar on it too.
Have a happy Sunday, Peakers! As always we thank you for reading.
Comments (17)
We need to talk about Kevin - book v movie
Posted On: Friday - June 25th 2021 8:47PM MST
In Topics: Movies Books
This is not a movie review. After all, Peak Stupidity already reviewed the Lionel Shriver novel We need to talk about Kevin. I had to get that movie after reading this riveting novel.
Of course, this movie could not be just like the book. The book consisted of letters from the narrator/Mom to her ex-husband. In making a couple of hours length movie, you've got to leave out a lot of happenings from the book. There are lots of events from the book that could have made the story in the movie more clear.
Since I read the book first, I already knew the story, to it's hard for me to tell whether the movie really tells the story well. I think so.
Even in regular movie reviews, Peak Stupidity doesn't go for all that criticism or praise of the lighting, the effects, the casting, etc. I'm no movie buff in that sense. If it's good, it's good, if not, it's not, no matter what prima donna stars and starlets are in it. However, the producers of We need to talk about Kevin really made a good pick with the lady who plays the Mom. She is just what I would have expected from my visualizations while reading! I wouldn't say the same about the Dad, but maybe the "excitable boy" too.
It worked out pretty well for me to read the novel first, then watch the movie. Just for entertainment's sake, I recommend either one.
Comments (2)
Zhou Bai Dien explains his solution for increased black murdering
Posted On: Friday - June 25th 2021 3:13PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Zhou Bai Dien Guns
Blogger Steve Sailer has done a great job in informing me, and I'm sure plenty of others, of this significant escalation in black violence since the "Summer of George" with numbers and graphs. (Nice Seinfeld reference too by Mr. Sailer.) One could legitimately argue over whether the change for the worse occurred due to the LOCKDOWNs and free money given out or the lack of policing per the specific wishes of the black community and as self-imposed by cops that are tired of appearing in viral videos or a combination of all that.
Here's what one can't argue with, if one seeks more news than just the narrative of the Lyin' Press, or simply keeps one's eyes open: Besides a few high-profile ones featured by the Lyin' Press, these shootings are perpetrated by black men. There is an increase in that type of shooting, with the rounds hitting people all over the party or block, and an occasional hit on the target. These are usually just targets of impulsive black rage, a guy who stared at another guy too hard, or maybe a screwed-up fried chicken order, I dunno.
One could come up with the usual solutions* under the assumption that American society has just not done enough to lift these black people out of their sorry state, as it's all cultural and poor nurturing, right? That's not whom we are and we could do better. Alternatively, one could face reality finally tell the truth, that these people are genetically low IQ and genetically prone to violence. The author Charles Murray just wrote a book explaining that, in fact (with not very good of a solution either, as some readers of the book have noted - briefly discussed in this post of ours.)
The normal M.O. here in America is for everyone to go along with the first idea. Of course, the Blue-squad wants to spend more money on the solutions, while the Red-squad wants to spend less money than the Blue-squad. Nobody is up for truth-telling and solutions based on said truth. Wouldn't be prudent, as the man said.
For this post, I'm going by what Steve Sailer excerpted here with a hell of a good one paragraph dismissal of said stupidity. Yeah, I get news from blogs often, at least ones I trust. However, the much larger transcript of what I couldn't stomach listening to, along with something similar from a few months back, is something I'd like to fisk separately. It's evil stuff out of these people, which I'll get to next time, but I have a different point today.
It's getting harder and harder for the ctrl-left, including Biden and his handlers, to stick with the narrative. I would say that from 1968, the year of the start of serious gun control**, till the early 1990s, there were intelligent people, not principled Americans, but intelligent do-gooders who honestly wanted to regulate/tax/ban various gun for safety reasons. I will give the NRA and millions of American voters and activists credit for not only thwarting the ban of all guns by this point, but also learning and teaching others the error in the logic of those do-gooders. The great increase and improvement of concealed carry laws (see our review here) is one thing. There have been many others. Things really turned around by the mid 1990s.
More importantly, the general public has long ago learned that the story about gun control being for "our safety" is bullshit. That narrative has been given up by the Red-squad politicians and many Blue-squad ones, who want to be elected. The Lyin' Press has been still on it, by showing story after story of
It's becoming more and more obvious to the "deplorable" patriotic Americans that the ctrl-left's push for gun control is completely about Totalitarianism now. They DO NOT WANT US TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT BACK when they come down on us with the full load of it. They were supposed to have taken care of this long ago, per the (I dunno) Frankfurt School's lesson plan.
So, here's the President and Commander-by-Cheat, Joe Biden explaining:
Background checks for purchasing a firearm are important; a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — no one needs to have a weapon that can fire over 30, 40, 50, even up to 100 rounds unless you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests or something.See, now, if he didn't screw up his line here, someone really screwed up with this. We're talking rifles here. We all know that this escalation in violent crime is not about Connor dissing Tyler about all the dandelions in his yard during a barbecue in the burbs and Tyler coming out with his 30.06 shooting up the gated community They'd have been better off keeping with the "illegal" handguns narrative.
Then, this deer donning kevlar remark really has me miffed. He could have brought up .50 caliber rounds and lied about lower calibers. "You just need your shotgun." What does the kevlar vest have to do with a larger number of rounds? Without a good shot, this deer would not stay put for even 1 more shot, or is the point that a hunter would knock the vest-wearing deer down with the first shot and run over to kill him with all the capacity of his 50-round mag after that? Biden screwed up and brought up the wrong tripe here. Leave out the kevlar vest, and it least makes sense.
Regarding his remark about F-15s not allowed to be in the hands of any of us peons or a militia. I could go on about Amendment II and that the F-15 is an interceptor, rather than a ground attack aircraft. I'll leave this one to Mr. Anon. From his comment on that iSteve thread here:
The answer is probably "yes". Thank you, Mr. Anon.In other comments Biden said we’d need F-15s and nukes to defend ourselves against the U.S. Federal GovCo.Yeah, right, small arms are no good for fighting the U.S. Government you peons – we have F-15s and W-88 nuclear warheads – but on January 6th, a bunch of unarmed flyover-country HVAC technicians, insurance salesmen, and grandmas, led by an internet shaman in a buffalo headress, constituted an “insurrection” that was a threat to the Republic!
Suffering from a little narrative-confusion there, senile old Joe?
PS: Site note: I finally added the Guns topic key back this February. I hesitate so long on these because I know I'll have to go back through 1960 posts and add these new ones. I will do that in a week of couple of hours a day, with a list of the newer ones in mind.
As the reader may well know, Peak Stupidity has had plenty of posts on guns. Except for 3 with the "Guns" key, they presently have the Liberty/Libertarianism, US Feral Government, or US Police State topic keys, at least.
* Fred Reed has written a couple of very decent columns recently. This last, Blackness Fatigue: Enough Is Too Much explains the current American racial nightmare pretty well, with, well, absolutely no solutions prescribed, which is his thing.
** Arguably, one could bring up the law in 1934, passed 87 years ago tomorrow.
Comments (6)
Chinese Immigration NON-Stupidity
Posted On: Thursday - June 24th 2021 8:03PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity China
This one is a cut-and-paste job. It's not even a normal cut-and-paste job, as I'm getting this one from Peak Stupidity itself. In this post about that Josh Rogin China/Trump book, I'd mentioned an anecdote coming in a footnote. What the footnote was about was this: "As evil as the governments of the Middle Kingdom have been to their countrymen, they still want to keep the same countrymen at least, and they make a big effort to control who lives there."
I found out that I'd related this story on Peak Stupidity already. It was in our post Banned in Beijing ..., but not at all related to that post itself. That post is from over 4 years ago, so likely all readers here have not read this one. Here:
******************
This is hardly related at all, except my friend's date in the south of China was named Shuping (that's the family name - first name was "Sweetie" or something). Anyway, I was in a hurry to meet them both before 2:30P on the "mainland" side of the border with Macao a few years back, as I would not know where to meet up with the bus to Canton, were I to be late. I just missed getting in front of the immigration man, when a Moslem guy (with crescent moon on his green passport) got back in front of me to finish. Let me tell you, this immigration guy was absolutely not screwing around or being PC by treating everyone the same. He went through every page on this guy's passport with a magnifying glass, back and forth at least twice. 10-15 minutes went by. Well, I got my turn finally, and it took about 30 seconds. Though worried even more about making it in time into the country, I pointed at the guy, said "Moslem?" and gave that immigration guy a big thumbs up. He smiled back.
Luckily my friend meant AFTER 2:30P, not BEFORE, as I looked frantically for gui lao (foreigners, literally "white ghosts") all around the sea of Chinapeople on the other side. Good times, good times, ... and we should import immigration zealots like that Chinese gentleman at the Zhuhai/Macau border, rather than vapid psychology students.
******************
Now, that's a real country, taking seriously who comes in, who comes out, and WHEN they do. They have what's called "exit control", marking people as leaving. This allows them to be sure when people overstay their time limit in China. I know we didn't have a good system like China's on exit control, and I don't even know if we do now. See, that, a decent southern border barrier, and a moratorium on legal immigration are what I'd called a very good start on "Comprehensive Immigration Control". For the traitors like Texas Senator John Cornyn, that term means Amnesty. "Mister we could use a man like Xi Jinping
PS: Interestingly enough, that 4 y/o post had discussion of face masks in it. This was not about diseases though, but just the smog in the big Chinese cities. I've seen this myself, but it was a while back. According to a commenter on The Unz Review the girls are still holding umbrellas walking around in the sunshine. That was always pretty charming.
Comments (5)
One of Steve Sailer's best
Posted On: Wednesday - June 23rd 2021 7:34AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Pundits Media Stupidity
We on here, I and the regular commenters anyway, have had our BIG differences fairly recently with blogger-pundit Steve Sailer on Kung Fu PanicFest. I've written him some things that likely pissed him off a good bit, and some have bailed out on that blog (Mr. Hail, for example). Well, I don't insult people just for the hell of it, but that year-ago fixation and semi-hysteria on Mr. Sailer's blog was too much. I have a problem with "crises" being used as excuses for more implementation of the US Feral Gov't's Police State, and, IMO, Mr. Sailer fell right for that shit. Being the media-savvy and media-cynical guy he is, I'd have thought he could see through all that.
That's about over though, not for the country, Police State-wise, but at least for that blog. I have been reading regularly and commenting. When Steve Sailer gets fixated on a subject, he goes all out. Lately one of these fixations are on the black crime numbers (in addition to, more recently, the black traffic fatality numbers), their having increased significantly since the BLM insurrections. (Can I call them that?) The numbers are being noticed by the Lyin' Press. However, the obvious cause, the BLM stuff, defunding of police departments, and the increase in police donut-shop time (I can't blame them) due to fear of going viral is never mentioned or lied about.
The press is putting the increase in violence on the pandemic. I see possible cause and effect here, as black guys are much more affected by the Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop thing. Then there was the huge extra amount of unemployment money given out. (See, they don't steal a loaf of bread because they are out of money - they steal a smartphone when they've been given money and have idle time.) OK, fine, but a) the Lyin' Press won't explain it like this and b) as Mr. Sailer has shown, the violence increase doesn't fit that timeline, and c) his explanation explains this violent crime surge better and it would add to the pandemic explanation. The Lyin' Press will always put the blame on White people. In the case pointed to below, it's that the White people haven't doled them enough State and Federal funds and "it's the guns!"
Wheww, I was really just writing this to to praise Steve Sailer for his recent post Mayors Respond to the Murder Surge: We've Tried Nothing and We're All Out of Ideas!. Not only did Mr. Sailer show us the crime wave and timeline in graphs and explain things very well in numerous posts, but, in this one, he calls out with appropriate snark the stupidity of Washington Post writers Griff Witte and Mark Berman on their long-winded bullshit explanation. As a bonus, Steve Sailer has a great title and a Simpsons clip to go along with it.
I'll still be reading the iSteve blog, with the excellent posts like that one.
PS: Ah rats, after all that, I just noticed the very last line (above the video clip):
Sorry, but the alternative to the state having a monopoly on violence is not after-school activities for youngsters, but nobody having a monopoly on violence and thus lots more violence.I can't be sure if that's snark or not, but if you look just above it, you'd think it's not. However, then it doesn't make so much sense. Does he want the police to have a monopoly on violence? How far does that go? It's almost if, with the anarcho-tyranny in place and lack of an enforced Constitution, a White Man can't legally defend his family or have freedom of association, so, I guess, yeah, we're gonna need a police monopoly.
Well, this guy has never been a principled Constitutionalist, so you've got to get through remarks like that.
Comments (11)
Nothing but disgust
Posted On: Monday - June 21st 2021 7:40PM MST
In Topics: US Feral Government Race/Genetics
(Image off of VDare)
That's Peak Stupidity's feeling after not just hearing about this Juneteenth holiday bill being passed, but additionally by how many votes. I could go on about the cowardice of many of the American people, tempered with the thought that, yes, you often put your status in the neighborhood and even career on the line. However, the disgust in this post if for our supposed representatives and the elite Senators in the Feral Government.
VDare's always on-the-money Washington Watcher II gave us the sad disgusting story of the votes of these cucks in his pre-Juneteenth article GOP (With Brave Exceptions Like Rep. Matt Rosendale) Rolls Over For Anti-White Juneteenth Scam. The voting was sickening: Unanimous yea's, or at least no nays in the Senate and 14 nays in the House.* Though he helped encourage this whole piece of bullshit, Zhou Bai Dien himself didn't have to be a factor. Even the severely math challenged can see that this one would override a veto.
A commenter on the Unz Review argued to me that this was not cowardice but just the normal purposeful destruction of America by these guys. I don't buy it for most of the R's, at least those in the House. They will vote for the destructive wars, the immigration invasion, and the corporate welfare ("invade the world, invite the world, in hoc to the world", in Steve Sailer parlance). They have donors to please, of course. The voters come 2nd or lower. In my mind though, many of these guys are not out for the purposeful cultural destruction that the ctrl-left, of which the D squad is almost completely comprised, is.
These Senators and Reps must know that they have so many constituents seething with hatred for their cowardice, but then, that's not as bad as being called names. No, of course not!
The whole thing disgusted me so much, I didn't feel like even writing about it before. Here are the 14 Congressmen who voted nay:
Matt Rosendale(MT)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Mo Brooks (AL)
Andrew Clyde (GA)
Scott DesJarlais (TN)
Paul Gosar (AZ)
Ronny Jackson (TX)
Doug LaMalfa (CA)
Thomas Massie (KY)
Tom McClintock (CA)
Ralph Norman (SC)
Mike Rogers (AL)
Chip Roy (TX)
Tom Tiffany (WI)
All Red squad - should we congratulate them? What's the point?
* I am not sure how many abstentions there were in each body. That's a cop-out anyway. "Yeah, my alternator broke, and I missed my flight. I missed the vote by THIS MUCH. Yeah, CPAC audience, I had my nay vote in my hand even, yeah, that's the ticket."
Comments (13)
Who, what, when, WHERE, why, how
Posted On: Monday - June 21st 2021 3:22PM MST
In Topics: University Political Correctness Curmudgeonry Media Stupidity
This post turned from a straightforward "look at this shit!" post about more wokeness at a university (well, what else would you expect) into a curmudeonry post. That's a genre, if you will, that Peak Stupidity has laid off of to some degree. (It was one of the most active Topic Keys at the start this blog.)
The blog Campus Reform, linked-to a lot by Glenn Reynolds and the Instapundit gang, does a decent job of documenting stupidity on campus. VDare's James Fulford posted Chapman University Holds Multicultural Segregated Graduations, Including "APIDA"—But None For Whites, Of Course with reference to the C.R. original.
I start reading some news, and I want to know WHERE it happened or is happening. It's one of the 5 "W"s of Journalism* for cryin' out loud! It may just be me, but I can't listen to any story told verbally to me without early on knowing where it happened. I have to interrupt people, even if only for 3 seconds, to find that out. It's a male thing likely, as we need those visuals in our head to think.
Neither the Campus Reform article nor James Fulford's post mentions where this Chapman University is located. It's not as if this place is widely known. Maybe Campus Reform expected readers to know, but I doubt that, and VDare is not all about universities. Each one could have spent 10 seconds lookng this up if they didn't know. I would give them a break on Harvard, or better yet, the University of California - San Diego. (Is that where Grant's tomb is? I still want to find out who's buried there - people keep asking me...)
OK, well, this is not just about these 2 articles, or this would be pretty nit-picky of Peak Stupidity. I see it a lot on-line, The worst perpetrators of this media stupidity are the TV news sites. I try to avoid them simply because most of them have pop-up, flashing crap up the ying-yang, making me wait a couple of minutes before it all settles the hell down. Sometimes, they've got some stories I want to read, mostly local to the station/website, with more and more current details than the big outfits.
I look at the station call sign at the top. Sure a call sign starting with "K" means west of the Mississippi River (I think?), and "W" is for east of it. Well, that doesn't narrow it down much. They show the weather usually, so I can tell that it's not Minot or not Sarasota. That just doesn't cut it. I need to imagine the place before I can understand. I'll look all around the front page, once it settles the hell down, and mostly find nothing. They've got to know there is google/bing/duckduckgo/etc. out there for which people from out of town can find their stories. I end up looking up the station location by call sign!
What's the problem with people? Are there really people who don't care where it happened? "Something happened. Here's who, errr, if he's not black.. Here's what. Here's when. Here why, at least as it fits our narrative. Here's how. Where? You don't need to know that.". I just can't think without a location. Perhaps this is another young-people thing. "What do you mean, where? It happened on the internet, that's where. Duh?!"
PS: Oh, what ABOUT the graduation ceremonies at Chapman College in Orange, California? I may write another post on that.
* What they do now is concentrate way too much on the "why". Every story has an opinion in it. "Man shot by teen in robbery gone wrong: White people must be responsible." Then, the "who" must be hidden much of the time.
Comments (4)
Introducing Black Greta
Posted On: Friday - June 18th 2021 7:36PM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Climate Stupidity
Thanks go to Adam Smith for either creating this image or finding it for us. I took some liberty and added a name and caption. Of course, black Greta's Mom was a little more creative in the delivery room. She also doesn't annunciate her, errrr, English(?) quite as well as Swedish Greta, especially the Death Metal version.
Just as some background, as usual, the woke SJW, Commie, whatever-you-want-to-call-them crowd is continually calling for more "People of Color"*to be a bigger part in this, that, and the other thing. As is often the case, I read some of this tripe courtesy of observations by Steve Sailer. This one was humorous enough for Mr. Sailer to prompt him to title it That Surprise Merger of the Washington Post and Babylon Bee Is Starting to Show Synergy.
Goodbye Greta, we hardly knew yöu. Hello Greteisha!
* There are other letters in addition to P.O.C. now, but I'm not in the mood to look up what they stand for. Hell, maybe there's W.G. for White Guy in there ... nah, somehow I doubt it.
Comments (8)
Orwellian Stupidity out of the man himself
Posted On: Friday - June 18th 2021 7:00AM MST
In Topics: Orwellian Stupidity Books
Peak Stupidity uses our topic key Orwellian Stupidity in jest this time. This post is about stupidity of the author George Orwell himself, or really just lack of wisdom (gotta keep with the theme of the blog though, you know...). Normally, the term "Orwellian" is, of course, used to describe practices of Totalitarian governments that were frighteningly described in their final endgame in Orwell's most famous novel, the dystopian Sci-Fi story 1984.
I'm only writing this due to my having read 2 more of the famous author's books, Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm, lately. The point here is not at all to denigrate George Orwell, as I wouldn't know how to start writing in the manner of a classic author like this.
That's just it, though. George Orwell* is a classic author. From the time I was forced to read many of these guys' (and a few gals') works in high school**, then later on a few of them of my own volition, I was instilled a respect for writers of published books that was perhaps undeserved. Don't get me wrong - I have plenty of respect for the writing abilities of the classic authors. I realize the value of the classic American and English literature as sometimes force-fed to me for my own good.
However, that was not the age of the internet, in which one can self-publish and promote his works on a youtube channel. If there is a published book out by some dude, well, I figured he is a Writer™, PERIOD, and is somebody who knows WTH he is doing. It's taken me a long time to shake that respect and realize that most of these writers are humans with foibles and can be lacking in wisdom like the rest of us.
Exhibit A here is one George Orwell. 1984 is indeed an important work, meant to be a warning about Totalitarianism, but often taken lately as an instruction manual! That was his last book however, written in 1949 when he was 46 years old***. At the time of his writing of Homage to Catalonia, he was only 35 years old. Face it, he was just young and dumb like most of us were, to some degree. In Orwell's case, it wasn't to impress the chicks that he went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War (written about in that book), as he was already married. However, you've got the usual impulsive behavior of a fairly young, and in this case very idealistic, man. "Let's go fight those nasty Fascists! Our side is full of good people, who want to set things right. Never mind the support from the USSR, we're doing the right thing."
Homage to Catalonia was a diary of Mr. Orwell's time on one of the fronts in the war, and then of the turmoil that happened in Barcelona as he and his wife stayed there some months. This turmoil, including plenty of street fighting, arrests, and executions (including of some of Orwell's compatriots on the "Republican" side) was among the different factions that were all supposed to be fighting the fascists. I didn't get the big picture of what this was all about - spillover from the friction/purges/etc. back in the USSR, the big supporter of Orwell's side - until after I wrote my review, and that's because neither did Mr. Orwell himself. He couldn't write about that part, as he didn't know any better, being in the midst of this turmoil and confusion in Barcelona. He could only have seen the big picture after he was back safely in France, then England, and maybe only after some time had gone by.
I'd read multiple times in the past that George Orwell, even though he wrote 1984 had remained a Socialist in ideology. It was hard for me to believe that a guy who saw the evils of Totalitarianism, as described in his last book, couldn't see that Socialism usually leads in that direction. However, I see that by the time of his writing of Animal Farm, at 42 years old, indeed this author had no problem with Socialism itself, only a problem with a bad implementation of Socialism by
What's the whole point here? The point is that, just based on one classic book alone, one shouldn't get the impression that the author is/was some big fountain of wisdom. George Orwell really didn't get it, from what I've read (only the 3 books), until his last work, published the year before his death at 46 y/o. These classic authors are well known for possibly some high-brow entertainment or from their making of profound statements about society and ideology. Much of their lives, though, until they gather some wisdom, they may be as full of shit as the next guy. I got the wrong impression from my English teachers.
* That was the pen name of Englishman Eric Arthur Blair. Wikipedia has a good biography page here.
** I never did tackle that Moby Dick, though it was indeed assigned. Even the Cliff Notes were too long for this guy!
*** George Orwell died young, still 46 years old in January of 1950.
**** He'd finally gotten a clue about what that whole Barcelona mess he'd gotten caught up in was all about.
Comments (17)
You will own nothing, and you will be happy
Posted On: Wednesday - June 16th 2021 8:58PM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity Globalists Economics The Future Big-Biz Stupidity
As The Alarmist, one of our frequent Peak Stupidity commenters has explained here, that seems to be the future that the Globalists have planned for us... not them, but just us. Alarmist says, "In 2030, you will own nothing, you will rent what you need, and you will be happy."
Along these lines, comes the deal with the Big Biz financial company BlackRock buying up large numbers of houses in this country. Are they the reason prices are going up rather than just increasing inflation and people's search for assets that won't be destroyed by the FED, as we speculated* in our recent post The current real estate boom as prepping for inflation?
Via an unz.com commenter, I came across the great video below, from an outfit called "Trader University". I have no idea if that organization is just a scam, but this Matthew Kratter sure seems to have his head screwed on straight with his explanation of what BlackRock is up to. The big point DOES have to do with the FED, in fact, as BlackRock has access to the cheap money, while the rest of us only have access to the fairly cheap money. They can come out ahead over the small-time, hard working landlords.
Besides this unfair finance shenanigans, a big problem with Big-Biz being Big Landlord is the dealing with and uncaring bureaucracy by renters. Oh, and BlackRock doesn't have to live anywhere near these neighborhoods, so Section 8 folks, you are very welcome! That's some bad news for anyone in one of these neighborhoods. The Globalists could give a rat's ass about that. Section 8 is just another Feral Government program that Big Biz such as BlackRock can work in harmony with.
I thought it was worth my time to go through the 10 minutes here. One last thing, and it's the last part of the video: This Mr. Kratter touts Bitcoin at the end to offer a solution out of this Global Financial Stupidity. However, he had nary a word to say about gold and silver. I understand the, well, I don't want to write "value" of bitcoin, but it's usefulness. I just don't see it as a store of value as gold and silver are. Perhaps that's just the new generation gap for ya'.
For one of these young people, I didn't find his voice too soi-boy-like to listen to either.
* Get it, "speculated" as in Real Estate?
Comments (9)
National Healthcare: Socialism at its finest - Part 4
Posted On: Tuesday - June 15th 2021 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Liberty/Libertarianism Healthcare Stupidity Socialism/Communism
(Continued from Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)
Peak Stupidity noted the point of this series in the 1st post, that the changes for the worse in American healthcare have been on the business/economic side, not the scientific/technical side, and these two issues should be kept separate in a discussion of what's wrong. In the 2nd part and the 3rd part, we discussed what Nationalized or Government-run ("single-payer" for the obscuration-euphemism inclined) and the beauty of the old American nearly free-market system, respectively.
This post will be about what to do to change direction from the Socialist road we have gone far down back to something resembling real markets. The quick answer is "nothing". We can't do a u-turn now. I will expound on that just a little.
Socialism is made to be an irreversible process. (The 3rd law of Thermodeolgy?) I don't say that's intentional by all parties. Your Bernies and such perhaps are just so hooked on this ideology that can produce a Utopia (A Utopia, I tells ya!) that it's not necessarily their intention to lock people in. "Look at Sweden. They were a unified society with high altruistic tendencies... etc... " "You'll like our Socialist programs so much, you'll get tired of #LIKING them!" I still say that forcing the responsible to take care of the irresponsible is not the way to go.
Within the government agencies developed to run Socialism, and especially within the higher ups, of course there is an intention to sign up more taxpayer dependents and keep the existing ones. It's job security for those bureaucrats, and it's a way to expand one's fiefdom for the higher officials. Politicians such as the scumbag Lyndon Johnson have admitted that the idea is to create dependencies that will have these "niggers voting Democrat for the next 50 years." It's been 56 and counting, so, you gotta admit, the man was right about that part, his ruination of the nation notwithstanding.
If you get enough Americans dependent on any Socialist program, you've now got that many additional votes for the program than you had when it was voted in (well, by somebody) to begin with. Take Social Security, please. Yeah, that's an old joke, but I'm not counting on seeing any REAL money out of that deal, so if they did take it, it's not gonna surprise me or bankrupt me. Yet, I have friends who are just plain counting on the Social Security Scam, ... errr, Scheme(?)*, when they should have known better and could have saved better. They will not support trashing the whole system.
Well, back to the topic, the Socialist Government Healthcare plans will be the same. The Big-Gov/Big-Biz partnership in control of this huge industry** have created dependencies that make it difficult to back out of these programs, whether intentionally or not. The irreversibility is inherent.
Why even bother to write about "the way it was" and the bureaucracy of Exhibit A, the British NHS then? For one thing, at this point, there is still room outside the system to pay cash for services. One can still be on the hook via his taxes to support the stupidity, yet, work outside the system for better care. One can do that in Britain too, and people do, as we've noted. However, the more government control that is put on the medical field, the more those outside that system may be squashed. It'd be best to still try to stave off more of it.
Secondly, people, especially the young who don't have the imagination or knowledge to understand there's a better way out in the world, ought to be taught otherwise. As with the writing of Ron Paul columns, we need to get to the root of our problems, even if we can't just flip a switch to go back in this society, just for the record. The only way we'll ever see anything like the 1960s American healthcare world again is after a separation or reset.
* See also Part 2.
** The "Statista" site says it is 18% of the GDP, but then GDP is a squirrelly number. It includes those very 11 people out of 50 at that friend's medical practice that do nothing but bill collection. Is that really a product or a service?
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