Big-"Tech" censorship and Section 230
Posted On: Saturday - October 31st 2020 4:23PM MST
In Topics: Humor Trump Big-Biz Stupidity Legal Stupidity
Going back 2 weeks to our "The Bad" portion of our series on President Trump, The Bad, the Good and the Ugly, I will excerpt 2 paragraphs that relate specifically to what can be done about Big-"Tech" tyranny. (This was part of a large point about Donald Trump seemingly only acting politically when things get personal for him.)
The problem is that the President doesn't fight when he has the tools to beat the ctrl-left, as brought up by many a smart policy wonk or pundit, unless it hits him. I'm talking right now about Big-Computer-Tech (I'll grudgingly call it "Big Tech" for this post for brevity, but I don't have to like it!) and their censorship. The Constitutional issue of free speech (Amendment I) doesn't limit the actions of private companies. I do get that.I'll just admit right here and now that Peak Stupidity does not have the budget for an expensive legal team. Peak Stupidity's legal
However, you may have read that there are ways to get Big Tech (Facebook and Twitter, specifically), as they basically are seen by law right now as "platforms" rather than "publishers". That makes them immune from liability on libel/slander/consumer protection laws. There is a Section 230 of some Communications Act administered by the FCC. I am no legal eagle, so I will not get into it, but VDare has been for a few years, and one Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is too.
Therefore, rather than explain Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1934, enforced by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), we refer you to FCC lawyer Thomas Johnson, Jr. and his statement regarding possible Trump administration action. The nice thing is that this page also has a concise background of the Communication Decency Act as a whole. In 1996 a new Communications Act was passed, which incorporated the 1934 laws but also added new laws for the new thing called the internet. Here's the portion about "interactive computer services" and "information content providers":
Section 230 provides, among other things, that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” It further provides that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of . . . any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.” The term “interactive computer service” is defined “as any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.” That broad definition is commonly understood to include websites that host or moderate content generated by others, such as social media companies.[Peak Stupidity's bolding there]
That was pretty on-the-ball for 1996, when most of us were just using the internet for searching for nude photos of Claudia Schiffer. The internet wasn't even big enough for more than a couple of dozen funny kitten videos. I give credit to some forward thinking congressmen, who probably were given nice donations by forward thinking geeks.
Let me give an example of what the law's about. If Peak Stupidity were to just claim that Joe Biden, working his lifeguarding job, had molested 2 young black boys at the swimming pool, making them call him Corn Pop during the process, well, we could be sued ... had we any money at all. However, in the comments section, since it's open to anyone, we are supposed to do our best to clean up comments, but only as far as our abilities. Even in 1996, any hack programmer could write a routine to wipe out certain words, or comments with certain words. How could one clean up every bit of libel, though, without reading every post? You don't need to read every post, because you are just a lowly platform, not an erudite publisher who edits stuff and shit.
There should be, and often are, disclaimers to this effect. You know, our legal team here may want to work on that in their small periods of spare time between the efforts drafting up our "we got nothin'" statements. [PLEASE NOTE: WE ARE NOT CLAIMING THAT JOE BIDEN MOLESTED ANY KIDS AND WANTED ANYONE TO CALL HIM "CORN POP"! IT MAY HAVE BEEN "PORN COP" THOUGH. - PS Legal] See, now this is what I get from the PS legal pigeons, uhhh,... problem is that this note was written by an intern, and why fire an intern, he doesn't care.
[The intern responsible for that erroneous statement regarding our purely hypothetical wording about Joe Biden, written for instructional purposes, has been severely reprimanded and is on still-unpaid leave. I am the new intern, and believe me, you'll get some quality here, as I have been promised to be promoted to a paid position "just as soon as COVID-19 has been completely eradicated, so that we don't have to spend money to keep supplying the staff with
Now comes a real digression. Going back to those early internet times, the reader may recall that sales taxes were also an issue that came up. The internet companies that began selling everything one could think of under and even out of the sun (iDouche.com, wasn't that one of them?), with support from $100 million IPO issues didn't want the customers to have to pay sales tax. Really, at the beginning, there was probably not even an electronic "mechanism" to collect the tax.
I just read in this 2018 Forbes article that a 1992(!) Supreme Court ruling, Quill Corporation v N. Dakota, that sales tax must only be collected if the company selling a product had a physical presence in the State where the buyer resided (but, really, I guess where he had the stuff shipped to). For Amazon, pretty early on (2000) that meant just Washington and Delaware, but soon enough Kentucky, Nevada, and Kansas with new, huge warehouses in those States. I really don't know if this made total sense or not, but the customers were cool with it, and my view is that anything but a head tax is better than income tax, State or Federal*. (Actually, I shouldn't write too soon on this - they'll think of something.)
It turns out that in 2018, in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., the Supreme Court changed their Constitutional interpretation (at least this WAS an actual Constitutional issue). Tax is now collected, no matter where you are. (I had first thought that it was just that Amazon is present pretty much everywhere anyway, which they are.)
Digression over with, Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996 is another cut-out, like the sales tax thing early on, to give internet companies a break. It is completely understandable, don't get me wrong, but it's a BENEFIT to the blogs, Twitters, Instagrams, Facebooks, etc. The threat to remove Section 230 protection is no illegal move by a banana-republic strongman, though. They have simply been acting as publishers, NOT as platforms.
If you are a platform, as I wrote, you are supposed to make an effort to remove indecent writing and pictures, but then indecency has changed a whole lot since 1996. Anything goes now, so I will submit that these publishers in the guise of platforms are not even doing much of that. Fine, standards have changed. However, can your "platform" really get away with deciding that your software, or live humans (but let me get back to that), must eliminate comments, messages, pages, tweets, whatever that has certain political opinions? Maybe, software-wise, one looks for "Trump, Hunter Biden, China, under-age" and combinations like this. Where something like this comes under "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable." is open to interpretation, the last 2 terms especially. Can it be one-sided, as it is now?
Live humans are obviously programming in the censorship, or inserting the "unsuitable" words or phrasing into some database, and they may even be doing some of this more manually. Is that not what a publisher does, this editing?
You brought it on yourselves, bitches.
I'm getting lost a bit now, so let me just excerpt the point of the FCC statement linked-to above, from the Trump Administration FCC paid lawyer, Thomas M. Johnson, Jr.:
Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced his intent to move forward with a rulemaking to interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. Under certain circumstances, Section 230 provides websites, including social media companies, that host or moderate content generated by others with immunity from liability. In announcing his decision, Chairman Pai noted that “[m]embers of all three branches of government have expressed serious concern about the prevailing interpretation” of Section 230, and observed that an overly broad interpretation could “shield[] social media companies from consumer protection laws in a way that has no basis in the text” of the statute.....
And like the jurisdictional and preemption provisions, Section 230 contains ambiguous terms: What constitutes an action “voluntarily taken in good faith” to restrict access to material? What constitutes material that can be excluded as “otherwise objectionable”? As in City of Arlington and City of Portland, the Commission has the authority to clarify these ambiguities in Section 230. As the Supreme Court observed in Iowa Utilities Board, this conclusion is nothing more than application of the general principle, derived from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), that “Congress is well aware that the ambiguities it chooses to produce in a statute will be resolved by the implementing agency.”That would be the FCC administered by people selected President Donald Trump (for NOW!)
Maybe, if President Trump gets re-elected, he will not forget how he has been treated by Big-"Tech" and even think about the rest of us in this matter. It will be HIGH TIME for the Trump FCC, with hopefully no swamp creature in charge, along with the more Conservative Supreme Court** to re-interpret Section 230 with extreme prejudice.
PS: Man, this post ended up 5 X longer than I had intended. I just enjoy inserting the humor and get carried away. For some readers that may be a turn off, so I apologize.
* See also Part 2 and Part 3.
** We got 2 and then 1 more in the nick of time. Of course they could all go native by some point, but getting to pick 3 in 4 years worked out pretty well. Maybe Kagan and OscarMayer will both rethink their life goals and resign to head up women's softball leagues or something.
Comments (5)
No signs are good signs
Posted On: Friday - October 30th 2020 9:34PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Trump
We first had one Trump sign at a time, with a daily rotation, out on the lawn, but now we're firing both barrels. These are kind of unique signs too, not the simple ones below.
A guy pulled part-way off the road, still blocking part of the near lane, to thank me for putting out the Trump sign about 3 weeks ago while I was doing yard work. We started talking politics. I waved a couple of bicyclists around, as this guy also may have thought we'd talk a couple of minutes, and then he'd drive home. It turned out he is a fairly close neighbor.
It also turned out to be about 45 minutes, as we agreed on pretty much EVERYTHING. This new friend was another Libertarian/Conservative, and you don't find that awful many.
The next day a guy who walked during lunch hour on a usual route tried to talk to me about the Trump sign, but I was on an important phone call, so I just waved. I was hoping to see him again, because it seemed rude, what I'd done. I saw him a week later, said hello from the porch, and we ended up talking for 20 minutes. He told me about the places in which one could vote early, which, as I already posted about, we did,
Besides some other thumbs up by passers by, both pedestrian and vehicular, a neighbor 2 doors down said she like the signs. Yet, my wife asked me how Trump could do well, when all we see is Biden or BLM signs on the yards near us (maybe one in 4 or 5 yards). It's because people are worried about not only having the signs stolen or vandalized, but about having other things vandalized. Run-over frisbees are the least of your worries.
You don't know how many Trump voters there are around, due to their keeping a low profile due to the Anacrcho-tyranny going on. I hope that's a general thing - no signs = Trump voters.
Tomorrow's pro-Trump post (or maybe 2) will be about the media.
Comments (4)
Telenovelas are Hell
Posted On: Friday - October 30th 2020 9:34AM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Humor
I nearly-literally LOL'd after watching this one, embedded by an amused unz.com commenter. This may have to become a regular feature here - there are a ton of these 5-minute videos on youtube. I will warn you, that the high-class Spanish accent of this narrator is quite the turn-on. If she weren't engaged to the rich doctor ...
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Peak Constitutional Amendment - XXI
Posted On: Friday - October 30th 2020 9:11AM MST
In Topics: Economics Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Morning Constitutional
(Continued from Amendment XI, Amendment XII, Amendment XIII, Amendment XIV, Amendment XV, Part 1 on Amendment XVI, Part 2 on Amendment XVI , Part 3 on Amendment XVI, Amendment XVII, Amendment XVIII, Part 1 on Amendment XIX, Part 2 on Amendment XIX, Part 3 on Amendment XIX, and Amendment XX)
Note: Section III, the last part, states the often-used 7-year deadline for ratification.
Here's the complete Amendment XXI in text form:
Section 1[My bolding, as the typewriters of 1933 might have had double-strike, but not real bolding. We are so advanced ...]
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Section 2
The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
Section 3
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Man, it's been 7 weeks since our last one of these posts. I WILL FINISH, DAMMIT! One can get awfully backed-up with, errr, stupidity these days. This will be a short post, regarding our favorite Constitutional Amendment since the first10 in the Bill of Rights. Amendment XXI is the only one that was created to reverse the power given to the US Feral Government by a previous Amendment, in this case Amendment XVIII, regarding the prohibition of the sale of alcohol.
Something I didn't know until just now, upon reading the interpretation section for Amendment XXI on our go-to site for all things US Constitution (here) is that this one alone was ratified via the convention process. That is, rather than 3/4 of the various States' legislatures passing ratification measures, Constitutional conventions were formed. (Could that even happen now, as disunited as this country is?) The interpretation writers have their explanation for this unique case:
Why did those who proposed the Twenty-First Amendment take the unprecedented step of calling for ratification by convention delegates rather than by legislators? The answer seems to be that though prohibition of alcohol had lost a great deal of popular support by the early 1930s, the political power of the temperance lobby remained intact in a great many states. Many state legislators and legislative leaders were likely to be unwilling to risk the lobby’s wrath. So political prudence pointed in the direction of ratifying conventions as a way of leaving gun-shy legislators with their eyes on re-election out of the process and “off the hook.”If we called for a Constitution Convention now, would Twitter block the invites due to "harassment" and "hate"?
Man, when I first read this headline (not in person, but in the picture!) I read it as "Roosevelt asks nation to all go to the bar or saloon", as in a general celebration. I was about to write "I guess he wasn't a complete asshole, after all." Alas, I read it again more carefully.
Besides the reasoning in the old joke that “after fourteen years with nothing to drink the American people got thirsty.”, the interpretation writers go nice and Libertarian with us on other reasons for this repeal:
More significantly, in all probability, is the judgment of a great many citizens that Prohibition had been a failed, if noble, experiment.The interpretation writers on this site have let me down before a few times, but they are different writers, so a mix of good and bad. I like these guys, Mr. Robert George and Mr. David Richards! I couldn't have said any of this better myself.
This is not to say that Prohibition had failed to reduce the consumption of alcohol or lower the alcoholism rate or ameliorate in some measure evils associated with drunkenness and alcohol addiction. Especially in the years immediately following Prohibition, the hopes of progressives and others who had supported ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment seemed well-founded. But soon evils on the other side of the ledger became apparent: The black market in alcohol quickly grew; and the inability or unwillingness of law enforcement agencies at every level to stop the illegal production, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors resulted in beverage alcohol being more or less easily available to anyone who wanted it, and at prices that ordinary working people could afford. Although the price of liquor, once it became illegal, shot way up in the period immediately following Prohibition, it soon fell dramatically. The Anti-Saloon League (founded in 1893) and its allies had shut down the saloon, only to have it replaced by the “speakeasy.”
What’s more, Prohibition had turned out to be a great boon to organized criminals, such as the notorious mobster Al Capone, who for their own reasons loved it as much as Frances Willard’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union did. Organized crime syndicates used profits from illegal liquor to corrupt police, resulting in non-enforcement of Prohibition (and other) laws in some cases and selective enforcement in others. The public was appalled.
Add to this the feeling that the widespread flouting of Prohibition laws was undermining respect for law in general and encouraging an attitude of contempt for rightful authority, and it is easy to see why support for repeal of Prohibition grew.
One loose end here is Section II. Really, why was this necessary? Amendment X of the Bill of Rights makes it clear that a right to regulate like this, barring, of course, the fixin'-to-be-defunct Amendment XXIII is left to the State or the people. The States always had this right, but I'd guess Section II here was written to appease those who wanted alcohol sales to still be greatly regulated. It caused lots of other Constitution-related litigation and not it a good way:
Litigation of Twenty-First Amendment issues has nearly always concerned the meaning of the Amendment’s second section, and usually the scope of state authority under it. Often questions arise concerning the impact of the second section of the Twenty-First Amendment on the power of Congress “to regulate commerce . . . among the several states . . . .” under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The courts have held that the Amendment means that the power of Congress to displace state regulatory policies is narrower with respect to alcohol than it is to other goods and services; but precisely how much narrower has not been fully established.Look at that (my-) bolded part. Where do you get the one from the other? See, that, and the 2nd paragraph in the excerpt, are why you just repeal the 18th, and just shut your cotton-pickin' mouth after that! My bolding!!
Other significant litigation has concerned the impact of the second section of the Twenty-First Amendment on the interpretation of other provisions of the Constitution, such as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Craig v. Boren (1976)) and the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment (see 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)).
Who says these things are forever? Even Ruth Ginsberg wasn't.
I'd call Amendment XXI a local maxima in Constitutional Amendment.
Comments (7)
Hunter Biden and Chinese Blackmail
Posted On: Thursday - October 29th 2020 9:05PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Trump China
Hunter Biden's first strike against him was that last name first name. I had no idea parents have been doing that for so long, as he, least by the picture up top, Hunter is no spring chicken. As Peak Stupidity wrote early on in a post titled I should have named him after a man of the cloth, we are just not fond of this naming style.
Plus, he's a drug snorting wheeler-dealer whose been taking advantage of his Dad's influence on American foreign policy for a living.
Really, I don't care who the Presidents' redneck brothers or estranged half-brothers in Africa are and what they do. Of all the past black sheep kinfolk of Presidents we've heard about, besides that Øb☭ma in Africa, a continent that is in no shape to influence anything, they've just been low-class Americans. This Hunter Biden, however, is a jet-setting international wheeler-dealear. That matters if his father becomes President.
The stuff Hunter Biden is into will matter because his consorting with foreign businessmen and government officials would make Joe Biden a target for blackmail and threats.
What I've heard from the Chinese channels of information is about the Biden son and Chinese underage girls. Mind you, I don't claim anything specific, as the videos I saw were not clear enough to conclude anything from, and I don't know how real they even were. This guy is just prone to trouble, and foreign powers could use that against a (perish the thought) President Biden. Joe Biden lost a 1 y/o daughter in a car wreck long ago, and his other son, Beau, to cancer in '15. He may do anything to keep his son from getting in trouble via embarrassment (blackmail) or from getting thrown into jail in China or somewhere (threats).
Peak Stupidity mentioned this before sometime early on in President Trump's term (we weren't blogging yet before the '16 election), but this is what is good about having a rich, flamboyant playboy like Donald Trump: We already knew that he's no saint. Yeah, he picks up trophy wives for a while at a time and that sort of thing. If the press showed us an important scoop about "OMG! Pictures show Trump cheated on his 2nd wife! " the biggest reaction out of anybody would be "so?" His playboy lifestyle, without a sociopathic personality that would entail really sick stuff hidden away, makes him mostly immune to blackmail. His wealth, and that he's not the typical politician, makes him immune to bribery. He is not immune to threats though. We have speculated on this before, in, for example, The Deep State vs. Donald Trump - remember Candidate Ross Perot?.
In the latest Fred Reed column A Vaporware Executive: An Attitude, Not a President (mostly a rant full of exaggerations and contradictions), one of his questions is, to paraphrase, "why would the Evangelicals vote for this known philanderer?" Mr. Reed really does know better. Americans are far beyond being able to judge a candidate by his proper conduct. The Gary Hart episode was long, long ago. Americans are just glad to see someone running who gives just the smallest damn about them. The Evangelicals support Trump because the fact that the country may continue for longer as the kind of place where they can even worship at all overrides the personal conduct of the one man. (Duh? Dig it, Fred?)
The stories about Hunter Biden are about more than just his personal conduct. I wouldn't care if it were all in America. This guy could end up putting a President Biden in the pocket of the Communist Party of China. That's just something to think about, when, or if you ever, get to hear the stories that Twitter has been blocking for weeks.
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We voted today. Please take the time!
Posted On: Wednesday - October 28th 2020 6:27PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24
As Peak Stupidity stated yesterday, we are more gung-ho about Trump than we have been in a long while. I figure that Peak Stupidity readers are aware enough politically to where you all will not really need any admonition or reminder, but what the heck. I'll write something every night for anyone new, through election eve.
My wife and I voted early, around noon today. The map below gives an idea of what the situation is in terms of voting fraud opportunity, State by State. However, I couldn't find a good current one - this one is 2 years old, and I know there have been very recent changes, such as in Pennsylvania. Those Soros-elected Secretaries-of-State gotta earn their money, you know...
In our State, the early voting requires no such explanation, as hinted at in the map. It's be a farce anyway, as once you get to big numbers (same as with absentee balloting), nobody is checking anything. The electronic "machines" we first used were just there to help one make up the ballot. They put the info. onto a card, which one could check. I don't think they wanted me in the place coaching my wife right at the booth, but she done good.*
Now, when one feeds the cards into a scanner machine, with a big bin to keep those cards, well, that's when one wonders. It does seem just as secure as the old way, so what can I say?
Other States, plus the mail-in voting in ours and others, are much more ripe for cheating. One of our favorite pundits, Mrs. Michell Malkin, had a couple of columns about what's already been seen. I can find only the one now - Who's Funding Shady Ballot Harvesting Schemes? What Is the "Center for Tech and Civic Life?"
Mr. Steve Sailer discussed the cheating by the Chicago machine, Mayor Daley presiding, way back in the 1960 Presidential election to put Illinois's many electoral votes in the Kennedy column. See . (Nixon would still have lost, BTW, as he lost Texas, due to the Socialist bastard with him on the ticket being from Texas.) As usual with Steve Sailer posts, there is some interesting discussion there, in this case about methods of cheating. The beauty, if you want to call it that, of the Daley cheating way back 70 years ago, was that they knew they could come up with the extra votes for Kennedy in Illinois somehow in Chicago, but they needed to know how many exactly. The news of the time reported over "the wire" that votes were in from all precincts but the ones Daley and his fraudsters worked with, and they gave the number Nixon was ahead by. That's all Daley needed.
Now, with the mail-in ballots "trickling in", it's worse. Votes will be even easier to come by, after the fact. If President Trump doesn't have a nice wide margin in the critical States, it's all over, four-leaf-clover.
* Except for her bugging me about the wearing of a face mask. They may or may not have had a sign up, but one guy didn't have one on, right inside. It'd have been he and I, but ... the wife ... didn't want her going in there pissed off at me... things could go wrong with the election process.
Comments (10)
Florida Man
Posted On: Wednesday - October 28th 2020 4:23PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Humor Americans
Bulldozer, back-hoe, or front-end loader, we report, you
This is a REAL "Florida Man", people, not a Cuban, New York transplant, or redneck from another State called that due to the on-going meme. I have no problem with rednecks, and this kind of occasional drunken behavior ** is the spice of life in the South. I'm just surprised you can find a real Florida Man still up to things like this, as life is so controlled now and, the only solid Southern part of Florida left is from north of the I-4 up through Jax and west through Tallahassee.
Yahoo news (sorry about that) reports that a Backhoe thief drove through Florida town allegedly digging up Biden-Harris campaign signs*.
I don't think there is any "allegedly" to this one, but that had to be a blast for Mr. James Blight of Haines City. Yeah, it's all fun and games till you knock a (Democrat's) campaign sign down. Well, Mr. Blight had to be drunk, of course. Nowadays, a sober man, even a sober Florida Man, would not want to risk the job loss, racial harassment, and total shunning by everyone but his very close friends (plus this blogger, of course) by pissing off the Establishment with this "rampage".***
Imagine slowing down traffic, having people yelling at you left and right, but still destroying at will. What fun! Of course, if you're gonna get the signs, you've got to scoop up a little dirt, just to be sure.
"He revved up the engine and rammed the fence," Marion said. Then he saw the driver scooping up the yard and the Biden-Harris campaign sign atop it. "I thought: 'That doesn't look right,'" Marion said.Haha! Bad day at work, maybe the wife is in one of her moods, as a White man, you're tired of getting fucked by the Establishment left and right, and, oh yeah, you've had
"I jumped into my truck and called 911 and followed him along, and the whole time he's riding down the road, he's yelling at people, cussing them out," Marion continued, alleging that the suspect told one person at an intersection, "I'm going to run you over."
Then during this slow-motion backhoe chase across town — cars were backed up behind the slow machine, Marion said — the suspect passed by another lawn with multiple Biden-Harris campaign signs.OK, now we get to the racial angle. There's got to be a racial angle, somewhere, dammit!
"He took the front end and dropped it down and dug it up," Marion recalled. "That’s where, at the same time, he hit the 15 mph speed limit sign and knocked it down."
Marion said that the white suspect vandalized a predominantly Black neighborhood.Right, Mr. Yahoo guy, It's not like there might happen to be more Joe Biden signs in a predominantly black neighborhood or anything, especially in a Southern State.
"He claimed he was drunk, but if he was drunk could he steal and drive a tractor right up here to this area, that's a predominantly Black area? Operating the backhoe like a normal person?" Marion said.See, they don’t believe that a drunk white man can dig up a yard with a front-end loader (YES, with a backhoe attachment!). Just because a drunk black man may not be able to even get the machine in gear doesn’t mean a drunk white Florida Man can’t make good use of one. You don't get out much, do ya', witness Cornelius**** Marion?
"I understand he was saying, 'I accidentally ran into something,' but no, you deliberately dropped your front end loader at the other house and you just scooped up in their yard, so I don't buy the drunkenness part."
We hear from the Chief of Police of Haines City (OK, JUST south of the I-4 - about 35 miles SW of Orlando, but the real South):
“It’s absurd that a grown man could think he had the right to destroy someone else’s property based on a difference in political opinion. The fact that he was driving this heavy equipment, that he did not know how to operate, down busy roads could have been disastrous. We’re thankful that no one was hurt in this matter,” Haines City police Chief Jim Elensky said.Ah, come off your high front-loader, Elensky. You know damn well that with enough whiskey in you, you'd have been very likely to have done the same thing. That is, unless you're NOT a real Florida Man, in which case, GTFO!
Full disclosure: I got to operate a front-end loader on a pile of gravel one time, for about 20 minutes, until my friend's sister's husband, who happened to own the machine, came back from the store. But, I'm no Florida Man. I was completely sober.
* The biggest controversy (at least in the unz comment thread I wrote on) is what is this machine? It's very obviously not a dozer. It has a wide bucket with just a wrist joint and no elbow joints on the two members, so it's for scraping/lifting, and loading, not digging like a back-how It has outriggers, though. Are the for an attachment on the side behind the driver. There are plenty of dual use machines for both, but are the outriggers supposed .
The title has "backhoe" in it now, but has been corrected from "bulldozer". Bulldozer?! The link to the article still says bulldozer.
** I reminds me of drunkard country singer George Jones driving his riding lawnmower to the convenience story due to lack of a drivers' license, I guess to go and buy beer.
*** I really wonder how this "rampage" (the tearing up of a few lawns, knocking down a fence and a few signs, etc.) compares to even just a couple of storefront pieces of plate glass broken by peaceful rioters in Philadelphia, just for one example.
**** Possibly a black man? It's very likely with that first name.
Comments (8)
Trump signs, ctrl-left haters, and run-over Frisbees
Posted On: Tuesday - October 27th 2020 7:05PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Trump ctrl-left
OK, excuse me, flying disks! OK, it's a trademark. Don't sue us, we own NOTHING. (I used to see that under every other youtube music video, haha.)
I'm gonna put some sort of Trump boosting post every night through election eve.* I've gotten pretty gung-ho lately. That is not just due to my serious worry about how quickly things will get nasty if the ctrl-left opposition wins, but also due to some encouraging news on Trump's accomplishments as of late.
I mean specifically on immigration here. Maybe you don't think of that as THE most important issue there is, but it alone is why I voted for the man in '16 (over some 3rd party). The encouraging news regarding immigration control was detailed in our the Good post in that "The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly" series ~ 2 weeks back. The news really came from writer "Washington Watcher II" of VDare, so I want to give him credit here again.
Well, we are firing both barrels now, for this last week, with BOTH of our Trump signs out in different places on the yard. I know, it's not much. I've got quite a bit of encouragement from passers-by, which I'll relate in the next post, I guess.
Last week, my boy and I were throwing 2 frisbees around, and my forehand was never my forte, so the lighter one went out into the street about 3 ft our side of the centerline. To teach the kid by example I did not run out to grab it, as I could have, before this little crossover SUV deally came. I could have made it, as the traffic was not fast. but that's not the way to teach a kid, so I let it be. The driver (couldn't see who, with that curved glass and the glare) deliberately swerved and nailed the thing. It's not just me, as when I gave a sign for the UPS guy to stop for a second, so I could pick it up and saw the big crack (no way it could survive that, but I'd been hopeful for a second), he told me out the open door "hey, that guy did that on purpose. What an asshole!" Exactly. I had already used that word.
My boy was out there, in sight, so why would you do a thing like that? Sure, young men just are like this some times, but what young man drives that little Korean or Japanese cross-over? Or, if he does, he's not going to want to attract attention. No, I don't think it was that. I really think it was someone who either saw the Trump sign just then, or has seen it before, passing back and forth each day.
Yet, these ctrl-left assholes keep disparaging us on the right as "haters". We are full of hate, and they have yard signs, even, telling us that they are not. Well, this running over of a kid's frisbee on purpose does not bolster your claims on the signs, ASSHOLES!
* This blog started up just 3 weeks after the 2016 Trump victory, so we didn't have any posts of endorsement. I guess the stupidity would have been so overwhelming had the Hildabeast won, that I wouldn't have known where to begin.
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The Mayflower sets sail
Posted On: Tuesday - October 27th 2020 5:46PM MST
In Topics: History Americans Educational Stupidity
It was 400 years ago not today, but 6 weeks and 400 years ago tomorrow when the Pilgrims set sail from England to form a new community in the New World. It's not like Peak Stupidity catches these dates very well to begin with, but it doesn't help that the elementary school here hasn't taught A THING about the important historic voyage of the Mayflower this year. My boy did say that he learned about some of this last year. Well, that was 399 years later, not the nice round 400. I can chalk it up to his teacher's concentration on the "STEM" stuff this year to be charitable. Really, I think the educational establishment is fully infiltrated on not on-board with any White stuff. Do the teachers teach this history only at their peril?
How about a century ago, on the 300th anniversary? My reading on wiki led me to this paragraph:
The 300th Anniversary of Mayflower's Landing was commemorated in 1920 and early 1921 by celebrations throughout the United States and by countries in Europe. Delegations from England, Holland and Canada met in New York. The mayor of New York, John Francis Hylan, in his speech, said that the principles of the Pilgrim's Mayflower Compact were precursors to the United States Declaration of Independence. While American historian George Bancroft called it "the birth of constitutional liberty."Governor Calvin Coolidge similarly credited the forming of the Compact as an event of the greatest importance in American history.Oh, yeah, that was a different country, in a different world.
Well, Peak Stupidity will post here and there about the voyage of the Mayflower through the landing and settlement in what's now Massachusetts, a place people this bold and adventuress would have sailed away from long ago, probably around the time of the Warren Supreme Court and way before the big dig. Even those deeply religious folk would have been prone to use the term masshole now and then, albeit sparingly ... to avoid the stocks or worse, the wrath of the politically correct, errr, massholes.
Imagine if someone on the Peak Stupidity staff had an in with someone in the Dept. of Education out in Washington, FS. Man, we should have donated to SOMEBODY, ANYBODY.! You get your guy embedded in that crowd, and he could add daily readings of Peak Stupidity to that there Common Core .... at least the Common Periphery. Make these pages required, so kids could learn about Christopher Columbus sailing the Mayflower over to India and shit ... Wait, see my elementary school kid said he was confused on this too ...
I had to relearn a few things, but then it's been a while. These religious outcasts, the Branch Davidians of their age, had been living in Leiden, Holland after they got out (some in the middle of the night) of England due to their differences with the Church of England. Holland wasn't big enough for the lot of their type so much either. The motivations to try something really different are described on the wiki page thusly:
However, life in Holland became increasingly difficult for the congregation. They were forced into menial and backbreaking jobs, such as cleaning wool, which led to a variety of health afflictions. In addition, a number of the country's leading theologians began engaging in open debates which led to civil unrest, instilling the fear that Spain might again place Holland's population under siege, as it had done years earlier. England's James I subsequently formed an alliance with Holland against Spain, with a condition outlawing independent English church congregations in Holland. Thus formed the separatists' motivating factors to sail for the New World, with the benefit of being beyond the reach of King James and his bishops.Even 120-odd years after Columbus' first voyage, there had been only fairly unsuccessful attempts at building new communities in this huge New World, and any Atlantic Ocean-crossing voyage was still a dangerous endeavor. After the discussion of the motivations for the Pilgrim's voyage on the wiki page, we have some of the de-motivation:
Their desire to travel to America was considered audacious and risky, as previous attempts to settle in North America had failed. Jamestown, founded in 1607, saw most of its settlers die within the first year. 440 of the 500 new arrivals died of starvation during the first six months of winter. The Puritan separatists also learned of the constant threat of attacks by Indigenous peoples. But despite all the arguments against traveling to this new land, their conviction that God wanted them to go held sway: "We verily believe and trust the Lord is with us," they wrote, "and that He will graciously prosper our endeavors according to the simplicity of our hearts therein."This one didn't mention the lost Roanoke Island colony on the in what is now Dare County, North Carolina 45 years earlier, and the first white person born of white parents in the New World, Virginia Dare.*
I found a website with a nice short, readable history of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower voyage on this "History Things" site. That's where the picture at the top comes from, and I'll quote from there some.
I'll just finish this post with a bit about the Pilgrims problems getting started with the actual voyage, seeing as this was about 6 weeks ago (and the 400 years), so we can catch up later.
There were to be 2 ships, the Mayflower and a smaller vessel named Speedwell . The Pilgrims had intended to start this voyage in August of 1620, for decent North Atlantic Ocean weather, but problems with Speedwell, as in leaks found in 3 attempted sailings, caused the eventual decision to take on 11 people from that ship (the rest stayed in London) and go on the Mayflower alone. Here's more detail from the "History Things" site:
During mid-July of 1620, sixty-five passengers aboard the Mayflower left from where it was docked in Rotherhithe. The Mayflower made its way from the Thames River and into the English Channel. From there, it reached Southampton Water and anchored there for a week. After seven days, the Mayflower joined a group of Leiden church members aboard the Speedwell that had come from Holland. Two weeks later, the Mayflower and the Speedwell set sail on about August 5, 1620. The Speedwell quickly had to go into repairs in Dartmouth after it sprang a leak. When repairs were done, the ships set sail again, but the Speedwell sprang yet another leak not long after, It was early September by this point, and the Speedwell was abandoned. Eleven of its passengers boarded the Mayflower, while the rest stayed in London.(There had been an earlier leak, I think on the trip from Holland to England to meet up with the big ship.) That 3rd leak, after the August 5th departure, happened when the ships were already 200 miles out from Land's End, the southwesternmost tip of England.
The wiki page does have quite a bit more detail, and doesn't seem political (yet!) Going back to the departure of the Pilgrims from Leiden, their home, we read:
In explaining to his congregation why they should emigrate, Robinson used the analogy of the ancient Israelites leaving Babylon to escape bondage by returning to Jerusalem, where they would build their temple. "The Pilgrims and Puritans actually referred to themselves as God's New Israel," writes Peter Marshall. It was therefore the manifest destiny of the Puritans to similarly build a "spiritual Jerusalem" in America.That was pretty intense, especially for wiki. Can you imagine the feelings, leaving your and THE Old World entirely (after the rendezvous in Southampton, England) and going to a faraway wilderness, unreachable from the Old World, once the ship returned? There was no expectation of seeing the Old World and every thing one had ever known ever again.
When it was time to leave, the ship's senior leader, Edward Winslow, described the scene of families being separated at the departure: "A flood of tears was poured out. Those not sailing accompanied us to the ship, but were not able to speak to one another for the abundance of sorrow before parting." William Bradford, another leader who would be the second Governor of the Plymouth Colony, similarly described the departure:Truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting. To see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound among them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart...their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him...
We'll post occasionally about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. This is no complicated nuanced political stuff, just some greatly deserved remembrance by we who have had it relatively easy in the New World our whole lives, 4 centuries later.
Oh, but they are going to issue commemorative postage stamps. So, there's that.
* If this sounds familiar, yeah, that's where the VDare website name comes from. Is this slight of the Roanoke Colony by wiki due to, you know, not wanting anyone to even think about Virginia Dare? I'm probably being paranoid. The lost colony does have a wiki page.
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Jerry Jeff's train songs ...
Posted On: Monday - October 26th 2020 9:07PM MST
In Topics: Music Americans
... and blue eyes cryin' in the rain, down in Luckenbach, Texas, he ain't no more feelin' no pain.
Jerry Jeff Walker died 3 days ago. I really don't know very many songs by the man, but I always liked that Texas outlaw country music. Peak Stupidity did feature his Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother. From that post, I mentioned where I'd first heard of him:
A hippie chick was riding in the club car of an Amtrack train with me on a trip across the glorious West when I was younger. I let her listen to The Dead from my expensive "walkman" knock-off cassette player, and she raved about a country singer named Jerry Jeff Walker.It was a few years after hearing the name from that hippie (or hippy?) chick until I realized that Jerry Jeff Walker was the guy singing "Jerry Jeff's train songs" in Willie's part of Waylon & Willie's great song Luckenbach, Texas.
Funny thing is, Jerry Jeff Walker was not originally a Texan. He was born in Oneonta in upstate New York. After traveling around all over the country, he settled in Austin, Texas, way before it turned blue, in his early 30s. I guess we can consider him a Texan now.
I like this one, the Hill Country Rain:
I am surprised that Peak Stupidity has not featured the great Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson together in Luckenbach, Texas (back to the basics of love) (from 1977) already. I checked, but nope. Here you go:
If you want to hear one of Jerry Jeff's train songs, here's one, Desperados Waiting on a Train. It's just too slow for me, right now.
Comments (4)
Xia Den Flu De
Posted On: Monday - October 26th 2020 8:00PM MST
In Topics: California China Socialism/Communism
[does a left-sided torso dance on the carpet, a la Homer Simpson]
Don't complain readers. I could have put that in real Chinese, rather than my PinYin version of a cascaded translation of schadenfreude, from German to English to likely the best way it could be prolonced by a Chinaman. One thing I kind of like about the Chinese language is that there aren't many big words, the opposite of German I guess, as they just put a few simple words together. Arteries are "blood pipes" when translated literally, for example. If they even have the term, schadenfreude could be something like "good feeling others misery told him so!"
It's me with the schadenfreude today, though, as this story of some Chinese California landlords' misery makes me feel pretty good, indeed. You know most of these people in the picture above have been voting D. D's have the gimmes. You might be making a killing in real estate with your (pretty likely) saved-up $2 million in bribe money from China from your former $600/month government job. Maybe you did it all legally, from scratch, but see the D's are more open to corruption and it is a One-Party State, so you need some of that guanxi and all.
Well, California politicians, seeing as they think they can still be all nice and touchy-feely to everyone, which worked 50 years ago when the State really was rich, are at it again. Socialism says "hey, the poor tenants! How can they pay their rent when someone [looks around and whistles softly] has shut down their livelihoods due to the killer Kung Flu? We must help them out. We decree that you landlords just need to collect only 25% of rent due now. That is now enough so they you can't evict them. What's the problem? Money is everywhere. We never run out, here at the State House, it seems, so, the ayes have it. So let it be written, so let it be done."
This should sound damn awful familiar to many Chinese people above a certain age. The landlords during the mid-1960s-'70s Cultural Revolution in China were considered the "capitalist roaders". (Sorry, someone shortchanged the translator - hey, you get what you pay for.) These were the people sent to Manchuria to work in the freezing cold in the pig farms. The Chinese Commie Government of 1970 could have really used a guy like Eddie Murphy with his "kill my landlord" routine. Alas, he was born too late.
It's a California Representative named Ed Chau, who these protestors are angry at, and, judging by this sign, they do have a handle on what this is about.
Of, for cryin' out loud, take off the stupid face diaper in the bright California sunshine! What, are you gonna get arrested? This isn't Red China .... wait a minute. Hold that thought.
One could figure that these protestors may be the 1/3 to 1/4 of the Chinese people in California who vote Republican. I understand the problem of being lumped in with the bad apples very well. Somehow though, I still don't think all these people out in the street, protesting the Socialism in California that harms THEM this time, have otherwise been on the net reading Ron Paul with kids that get their Citizenship in the Nation Scout merit badges. Were they really against Affirmative Action even before it was screwing their kids out of the best high schools and universities? I think very few of them have that in them.
Here is the video that I was led to. It is completely in Chinese, so forget the subtitles, and forget the audio except to get the tone of it.
BTW, at the very end, can you tell that the guy said "I'm so-and-so, reporting from [in Chinese still] Los Angeles, California [in English!] Holy crap, do you see what I mean about the pronunciation?
Oh, believe you me, I do know that being forced to keep tenants who are paying 25% of normal rent is not "sustainable". California especially has onerous landlord/tenant laws of all sorts, as in onerous for landlords and great for tenants. (Just for a movie that will scare you straight out of thinking of being a landlord in San Fran, watch the movie Pacific Heights some time - great movie - Michael Keaton is a hated character for a change - that doesn't spoil the movie. Two thumbs up.) The rent may not even cover property tax! It's not like I don't feel for you on that score. It's been just the general idea that California Chinese people are still only out for the sake of California Chinese people that makes me also feel this for you:
Yeah, it was hard to put this into words up above. Every moving picture tells a story, don't it?.
Plus, at least they haven't sent you to a pig farm in Vacaville* yet, right? So there's that?
* Or should that be Puercoville? Pou kou bei lei? OK, hell, just make it actual Manchuria again.
Comments (2)
CovidStruck
Posted On: Saturday - October 24th 2020 9:23PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity
I'd almost forgotten about writing this post, taken now from thoughts of mine a few months ago while staying out of town a night. I think it was the middle of August, as the Kung Flu Infotainment Panic-Fest, Season 2 was already well in progress.
I was staying downtown in this medium-sized Capital City (won't say which, so speculate at will). During lunch time, I wandered around the small walkable district. That's the new thing you'll see a lot in most cities, often by the riverfront if there is one, these blocked-off for vehicles couple of blocks or so, with tables outside and lots of food around. It had to be pizza, for me.
Well, right there was this non-chain-store pizza jernt (that's the way people who do know their pizza pronounce it) serving that NY style pizza by the slice. That is the thin kind, not that greasy Chicago style stuff. Hey, we at Peak Stupidity have almost nothing good to say about NY City, but we make an exception for pizza. Hell, even the Italians are pikers compared to the pizza-makers in New York.
There was even a Southern-Euro looking/sounding guy running the place. Now, I'm not one of those Foodies who wants massive immigration just for the food. I'll eat cans of Chef Boyardee and Dominos behind a secure border any day instead.
The guy was there though, so it had to be good, I figured. He and his employees wore masks behind the counter, and a sign told the customers at the counter to do so. I and another customer simply did not do so. We got no grief. The problem in the place was the couple of big TV's. This was a small jernt, and I just didn't need that crap. The place had that neat Italian Restaurant atmosphere, cool and dark, with those red and white table cloths. I could have been in Moonstruck even, had I simply picked up a hooker that looked like Cher, well about 33 years ago Cher. The TV's ruined it.
Since the place was fairly empty, I wanted to ask the guy if I could turn off a TV or two. However, with the noise back there "one slica pep! no Coke, Pepsi!" and all that, and the stupid masks and accents that made it hard to understand anyone, I gave up and took the two slices to go. No drink, no tip, no atmosphere. The pizza wasn't all that great either.
What's the point of this one? I don't know, really, this Kung Flu PanicFest is causing a failure to communicate and taking the joy out of things. (I was just watching the Tom Woods video presented by Mr. Hail. He's talking about this taking the joy out business. It's a powerful talk.)
Comments (18)
America's Kung Flu recession, women hardest hit! - Part 5
Posted On: Saturday - October 24th 2020 7:15PM MST
In Topics: Feminism Economics
(Continued from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.)
It's been an even month since Peak Stupidity's last partial fisking of an article that was the biggest and best unintentional indictment of Feminism I've ever read. I noticed that in parts 2 and 4 I did not link to the article in question by one Chabeli Carrazanna from the 19th News website. It's not been odd-numbers only on purpose, but here's the article undergoing the fisking process - America's first female recession, sob , sob.. . [Sobbing added here - Ed]
We left off a month ago on the economics, Supply & Demand, that sort of thing:
Support for minimum wage hikes — what some economists say is one of the best policies to close the gender pay gap — is already sputtering, too. In Virginia, for instance, the state’s first minimum wage increase in a decade has been delayed four months at the insistence of business groups worried about the virus’ impact.As a Libertarian, I don't agree with the idea of a mandatory minimum wage to begin with. It IS very low now, to where it almost doesn't matter. Anyone found to be a doing a good job in just about any occupation ought to get more than that soon enough. Better than increasing the minimum wage would be the ending right now of ANY constraints on business in Virginia by its legislators.
The outlook is also bleak for those entering the job market or graduating college. The class of 2020 (and probably 2021) will enter a working world that pays less for the fewer jobs available. It’s a vastly different situation from the one graduates expected to be in at the beginning of the year, when the U.S. was at virtual full employment. Unemployment in January 2020 was just 3.6 percent — among the lowest recorded rates since the late 1960s.That 3.6% was bogus to begin with, as it doesn't count those who've given up looking or been unemployed long enough to not be on the official unemployment rolls. How this affects women more than men for the same jobs is not explained.
According to a 2014 study of graduates from 1974 to 2011, students who graduate during a recession are likely to see their salaries decline by 10 percent in their first year at work, followed by dips of about 2 percent every year during their first decade in the labor force. Higher-paying majors, where male students are concentrated, will fare better, but lower-wage majors, where women predominate, will feel the impact harder.Should female students change majors perhaps, or is it too much work to work out problems and do projects rather than bitching in essays written for Womyn's Studies classes? Here's a suggestion: Don't predominate in the lower-wage majors. Don't predominate in ANY major. Get married and use your body for what it's made for.
“That’s something that will impact them for the rest of their career,” Levanon said. “It’s very, very hard to completely recover from that.”
William Spriggs, a professor in the Department of Economics at Howard University and a former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration, called it a “catastrophe.”What's been catastrophic, Professor, is the effect of feminism on the economy. Men that formerly could become breadwinners to support families without years of expensive degree-getting (not always education) are not good enough for the college gals, so family formation suffers. Men that can barely support themselves in today's economy, and going back long before the Kung Flu too, will not have a chance to support a family because women don't want men who make peanuts. What the hell are you complaining about?
“We cannot continue to go through these economic spasms, where we lose a decade of job growth. And that’s what’s happening,” Spriggs said. “And so the people who have been left out, just as we get to the point where they get included, their resumes get stronger, their ability to withstand job losses gets better, then we send them back down the hill.”Who do you mean by "we", Kemosabe, err. Professor Spriggs? I didn't send anyone down any hill. Maybe it was the Kung Flu that did it. The more I read this stuff, the more disinclined I will ever be to hire a woman, even MORE qualified than a man. I'm not in a position to do either right now and will probably never be, but we men need to stick together. Thanks for the reminder.
This is just too easy, people. Please, please, cancel those donation checks, tell PayPal to spend the money somewhere else, wisely, and I will forward all your cash on to Bill Gates to help him with his wonderful Kung Flu vaccine work. He must be strapped by now.
This one was kind of boring to me, I gotta admit. The next segment, of the article and the next Peak Stupidity post on it, is about a "A Caring Crisis". Indeed. [/Instapundit]
Comments (2)
Hail to You up and at 'em
Posted On: Friday - October 23rd 2020 8:22PM MST
In Topics: Websites Kung Flu Stupidity
After about a 2 1/2 month hiatus, Mr. E.H. Hail is back up and at 'em with his "Hail to You" blog. "'em" is the Kung Flu LOCKDOWN panickers. There are 3 more "Corona Panic" posts up on the site: Part XVI discusses the newest studies on the millions of people now having the antibodies for the Covid-19 virus, sick or not, discusses the herd immunity threshold, and, lastly, estimates the ratio of deaths actually FROM the disease vs. total deaths chalked up to it. Per Mr. Hail on the latter: "between 50% and 85% of the media’s corona-deaths were 'deaths with the virus present, but from some other cause.”"
In Part XVII Mr. Hail presents a 45 minute video of one Mr. Tom Woods called "Fact-Free COVID Dystopia". I still have not watched it but am looking forward to it, perhaps tomorrow morning. I'll embed it here as soon as I do.
Part XVIII of "Against the Corona Panic" has lots of data from the country of Belarus. Mr. Hail's post covers the 40 year span of total death rates in that country (COVID-related ones being hard to find due to the country hiding data, I suppose in order not to be shunned even further by the "international community" for not giving enough of a shit about this virus), which ends up making it a "bad flu wave" years, with an estimated 0.04% deaths due to it. Then, Mr. Hail compares Belarus to Sweden. Lastly, and very importantly, he notes that the big increase in the death rate of the country due to great economic/social disruption after the break-up of the USSR is near 100 X worse than the bad flu wave of Corona.
LOCKDOWNS are pretty much economic and social disruptions. Will we see the same bad effect, 2 orders-of-magnitude greater than the disease itself?
Mr. Hail has got lots of numbers and explains his methodology thoroughly. Please go check out his 3 new posts if you haven't already.
Comments (6)
The modern FBI and 3rd-World behavior - Part 3
Posted On: Friday - October 23rd 2020 4:27PM MST
In Topics: Trump US Feral Government
(This is a continuation from Part 1 and Part 2.)
(I'm told that's James Comey, but I honestly have not followed this stupidity closely enough to even know that.)
It was 2 summers ago now when Peak Stupidity posted Nothing but Distractions about my experience of shock when watching a bit of TV. The reader may want to go to that short post, but keep in mind when I write quickly about it here, that was over 2 years ago!
On a trip far from home, we visited a friend of mine's brother's house in a nice location. This is not at all about the guy watching Fox News, as he was no slouch/couch potato, but a hard-working guy that even in retirement was busy - he showed us the guns, the shop, all of that. Even a prepper type like that, well aware of what's going on, can get sucked into the TV infotainment to some degree. We were in this sun room as he and my friend were watching Fox News about this Russia collusion business. I stayed to be sociable. I was shocked, as I wrote in that > 2 years-ago post that the "Russia! Collusion!" bit was still going on even then!
The talking heads went on about this FBI guy and this other important lawyer and subpoenas and hearings, while my friends pointed out the Trump side of the story. WTF! My perspective (and perhaps theirs too, but then they were still sucked into the story) tells me that this is NO story at all! It told me then, and it tells me now.
I mean, we've got the US military, on a big chunk of the national budget working most of the time for Israel, we've got Mexican politicians telling dozens of millions of Mexican illegal "residents" who and what they should support in America, you had Chinese business and their Commie government buying Most-Favored-Nation status trade deals for a few million and maybe some Chinese favors from the Poon Tang dynasty 25 years ago... should I go on .... and you're telling me that I should be concerned about the President of the NON-Communist country of Russia paying money to support a candidate who might not be so belligerent to his country? For anyone with any memory of political events over the last few decades, common sense tells him the RussianCollusion story was a waste of time even if it were all true. I believe my lying common sense over the Lyin' Press, especially after I turn them off for a couple of decades.
Where were we, regarding the FBI, though? OK, got it. The FBI's investigations, evidence, hearings, etc., are part of this big story I've not been keeping up with. I have read enough to know that the FBI is no longer a serious crime-fighting agency full of sharp and sharply-dressed men with shades and wrist radios who are here to help those in need. It is obviously now a political organization, and not only that (hey, that's where we left off, found it!), it doesn't even necessarily work for its Constitutionally assigned boss, which is the boss of boss of the Department of Justice, President Donald J. Trump.
This is where it get's 3rd-worldly. Does it not sound like what you could have read out of Colombia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Indonesia, or any country in Africa over the years? There's this "strongman". He wants this, but then this other agency of the government is working against him because they answer to so-and-so because of the money or influence of this other so-and-so, and so on ....
What do expect out of an organization that has gone along with the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity BS, hiring women, who in general will simply NOT stand for what is right over their own "needs", and especially their careers and certain other groups, men or women, who in general won't either? 95% white men whose ancestors drew up the Magna Carta or the US Constitution? Yeah, you can get quite a lot of principled stands and doing of what is right. The modern, diverse FBI? Not..agonnna... happen.
The FBI is a tool of whoever has the power now, with agents who are tools themselves.
Comments (2)
The modern FBI and 3rd-World behavior - Part 2
Posted On: Thursday - October 22nd 2020 4:15PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government
(This is a continuation from Part 1 from a few days back.)
We will now discuss the points made by one Angelo Codevilla, in an article that got me started writing about the FBI.
Mr. Codevilla, a name I've heard a few times in the pundit world, has been much more than a pundit though. Per Wiki, he served as a U.S. Navy officer, a foreign service officer, and professional staff member of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate. That last job was for something like 8 years. This is in addition to being an International/political Studies professor on and off throughout his career. This guy is, or at least WAS, an insider and knows the system. I wrote the latter because the guy has been published as an expert in his realm in all the biggies, NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc. Yeah, but stuff like what I link to below will put the kibosh on all that - he's probably got that F.U. money. (If not the F.U. skills, he seems to have the F.U. attitude, anyway.)
Regarding specifically the supposed coup attempt on the tyrannical Michigan Governess Christine Whitmer, which, if actually true, would be totally justified, but more generally the state of the current FBI, Mr. Codevilla wrote Your FBI Will Entrap You. I guess he means that "your" sarcastically. That's the way I take it, as it sure ain't my FBI. Though that sounds like a proper Microsoft-like name for their website.) This is on a site called American Greatness, which, after a quick glance at their home page, I am not that all enamored with.
Before I paste in some of Mr. Codevilla's writing from the short article, let me paste in something from an unz.com commenter going by the handle "Wade Hampton" (still honored in South Carolina). I haven't read much at all by this commenter, but this comment under a Steve Sailer post goes right along with what I'll get to shortly:
Good to know that while the FBI had Hunter’s laptop since last December that they found time to have an FBI agent-provocateur engineer and then bust the Whitmer kidnapping scheme, charge six GRU agents with interfering in some sporting event, thoroughly investigate the Althea Bernstein and Bubba Wallace race hoaxes, etc.Yeah, that's about where we are now, but the last paragraph relates more to my Part 3 coming, so I'll hold off commenting on that.
Thankfully our crack FBI did not allow themselves to be distracted by such minor matters as the Bidens’ open and notorious interference in the the Ukrainian government’s attempted investigation of the Bidens while Trump was undergoing the bogus Ukrainian impeachment.
The imperial capital resembles the Mafia during the height of its power, with various crime families each holding their own criminal portfolios. The FBI is run by one crime family (call them the Lucchese Family). Of course, the Biden Crime Family is like the Genovese Family, in that they have their own Vinny “The Chin” Gigante, the apparently senile capo.
Mr. Codevilla starts off with :
The FBI-generated indictment of six men on charges of terrorism for planning to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has all the earmarks of what has become that corrupt agency’s standard operating procedure. Their lawyers are sure to claim they were victims of entrapment. If the case comes to trial, I doubt a jury will convict them.The more far-fetched the news reports of this type of "right-wing militia" stuff sound to me, and likely the average Peak Stupidity reader, with some perspective in life, the more I see this national police agency as an enemy . Of course, if a loved one of yours were to become the victim of the very rare non-separation/custody-related kidnapping, or a mafia-hit victim, perhaps these men in suits could help you. That's like the constituent services of your Congressman or Senator, grudgingly done as part of the job, but not part of the real agenda and reason to be in the position. That'd be like being a "public servant" or something.
As Mr. Codevilla wrote, that's not what the modern FBI is all about:
During the eight years I spent supervising the intelligence agencies for the Senate Intelligence Committee, I watched as what had been a clerisy of strait-laced guardians of truth and justice was becoming a bunch of lazy bureaucrats eager to serve the ruling class’ prejudices.People being "excessively concerned with their liberties" is bad now. That was obvious to me back in 1993, as I watched the ramp up to the Waco Massacre on TV. From the Peak Stupidity post about the matter:
No longer doing the hard and dangerous work of investigating deeply connected criminals and subversives such as the Mafia and well-financed, politically supported subversives, the FBI limited its vision to politically correct “profiles,” and started chasing small fry. Easy targets, defended by no one. What’s not to like?
After 9/11, the FBI spent few years going after very petty Islamists while covering its collective eyes to the work of major sources of trouble, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia—each beloved by parts of the ruling class. But before and after this period, these profiles more often than not pointed to the ruling class’ favorite enemy: fellow Americans “excessively concerned with their liberties.”
The reporter concluded his story with "They are Survivalists, Dan!" That was said in a way to make you sure that being a survivalist is a BAD thing. Even back then, as a younger man, I realized the BS that comes out of these people's pie-holes. "Hey," I thought, "what in hell's wrong with being a survivalist? It's not a reason to pin people in their house for 2 months, try to starve them out, and then eventually come in with the tear gas, tanks, and rifle fire. I mean, unless we're living in a police state. Oh, wait, that means ......"To continue from the article:
I don't have a super long term memory for details like that, but this memory stands out like it had been said yesterday: "They are Survivalists, Dan!"
The FBI’s method? Place agents among the target group, stoke their sentiments, and lead them to say or do something that could be characterized as a crime, then arrest them and claim credit for foiling a plot. In intelligence lingo, that is provocation. In legal terms, it’s entrapment. By whatever name, this is the work of cheap, dirty cops.When it comes to the Moslem Brotherhood or what's left of the Mafia, the FBI at least can mix it in a bit with a few real happenings, or egg on some guys who are pretty far gone already. However, when you hear about the KKK, well, I've been all over the South, and I'm pretty sure any KKK group there exists is composed of a majority of government agents, maybe solely government agents. In the latter case, perhaps it's just the usual lack of interdepartmental communication you get in government. You may have an FBI guy unknowingly making plans with a ringer contracted by the $PLC to burn a cross on Jesse Jackson's lawn, but it turns out to be Jesse Lee Jackson, the white auto mechanic's lawn, rather than that of Jesse Louis Jackson, the race hustler. C'mon guys! Get yer comms straight. Let's work together!
Even regarding infiltration of groups supposedly a threat to the security of the United States Mr. Codevilla brings up a difference between the FBI of yesteryear and that of today's bunch:
In the 1950s, the joke was that any meeting of a Communist Party cell in the New York area was likely to consist of two-thirds infiltrators, half from the FBI and the other half from the New York Police Department. But these FBI infiltrators, like those of the Vietnam era in the 1960s and early ’70s, and like those who penetrated organized crime were merely watching. Doing an honest job. They were not provoking or entrapping, not creating something that would never have been there except for their presence.I am about to where I've pasted in the whole article here, so I'll stop. (There's more detail about Mr. Codevilla's experience in the Tea Party movement after that.)
Fast forward to our time. The contrast between how the FBI behaves with regard to persons connected to the ruling class and those who are not speaks for itself. The 918 Americans who died in mass suicide in Jonestown Guyana in November 1978 were victims of a cult that had been closely associated with the California Democratic Party. Relatives of the people who were being drawn in had complained to the FBI. But the FBI had refused to keep an eye on the movement, and later officially argued that doing so would have infringed on its political and religious liberties.
And yet when the Tea Party movement arose to protest collusion between the Republican and Democratic parties against popular sentiment on a host of political issues, the FBI rushed to infiltrate it.
I don't think the FBI operates a good service for the people of the United States anymore. With the proliferation of Federal laws since the beginning of the agency in 1908, this agency can find a reason to go rogue on any American it wants to. That's even if it were still politically independent, but that's not the case anymore anyway. We'll continue with that thought in Part 3.
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Cravin' Melon - Faithless Me
Posted On: Wednesday - October 21st 2020 8:07PM MST
In Topics: Music
Apologies to you all for sparse posting this week so far, and we'll probably only get in 4 more posts in by the end-o'-bidness-week here at Peak Stupidity. Things have been busy otherwise, which is good though.
I just figured I'd put up some music related to nothing in particular. This band, Cravin' Melon was big in the Carolinas back in the late 1990s. They formed in Clemson, S. Carolina, but played in Chapel Hill, NC some. Those are both big University Towns, but universities were still fun then.
While looking back to see if I'd put some music by these guys on the site before, I found the one post with almost nothing but the song, not even the band members, which ought to be on these pure music posts. Yet, the video was gone from youtube, and I hadn't mentioned which song! So, this one, my favorite, could have been what was already up, but I have no way of knowing solely from an 11 digit youtube code. Therefore, in that old post I put the song Sweet Tea, and this one will have Faithless Me. Both are from Cravin' Melon's excellent album Red Clay Harvest.
Cravin' Melon was:
Jimbo Chapman - guitar
Rob Clay - bass
Doug Jones - vocals
Rick Reames - drums
We'll get back to the 3rd-Worldliness of the modern FBI, a Chinese sob schadenfreude story out of California, and more about Trump (please vote for the guy). Oh, and I'd left that feminist article somewhere in the middle of a good fisking. We can get back to that too.
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France beheading - it only takes a spark
Posted On: Tuesday - October 20th 2020 6:19PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Globalists World Political Stupidity
Beheadings just plain didn't use happen in the Western World unless we go back a century or two into history. Now, it's just part of the news cycle. The latest beheading by yet another Moslem was done to a French school teacher who dared to publish cartoons critical of The Prophet (FHITA)*. Some 18 y/o old Chechen did this sick deed.
The French people are "rallying" per this article on German site DW.com (DW for Deutsche Welle.) Mr. Steve Sailer** gets lots of his material from the NY Times, and on this horrific murder, the NY Times is encouraging for those of us who've had enough of this. (Here is Mr. Sailer's post with nothing but an excerpt from the Times site on unz.com, with comments below.)
Is the NY Times reporting the story and reaction because this sort of thing is bad for the Jews in France? It's a little bit late coming from the people who encourage immigration from everywhere, including Moslem lands, as lots of the Jews have been leaving France already, from what I've read.
This way this "defiant rallying" is going, per the German article, it's not really about taking action in defiance but just "supporting freedom of speech and making tribute" to the late beheaded teacher. Well, that's not gonna cut it. No, but,
"You do not scare us. We are not afraid. You will not divide us. We are France!" tweeted Prime Minister Jean Castex, who was among those gathered in Paris.is what we read. Really, then how come the tweet included in the article had, with appropriate capital letters, "... who was beheaded at a school near Paris after discussing caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad". Where's the
The encouraging news was France moves to expel 231 radicalized foreigners after assassination of teacher. Wow, are people really finally getting openly pissed as a people and doing something? I'm not so sure. These are all non-French-citizens to begin with, and the guy that did this deed was supposed to have been kicked out a week back. What bad timing if you were history teacher Samuel Paty.
Darmanin also plans to bring into focus the question of the right to asylum, since an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, identified only as Abdoulakh A., is suspected of killing Paty. The minister asked his services to more carefully examine people who wish to obtain refugee status in France.More carefully examine? No, you need to close the barn door, like, 20 to 65 years ago! Per the NY Times, "... a mass expulsion like the one currently envisioned is unusual." 180 of these guys are already in prison, and the total number, even if it were the worst Moslems picked off the street is a drop in the bucket of 6 million of them.
This expulsion may be a little bit encouraging, but it and the rallies seem like nothing but the usual response after all. I had hoped for more, after seeing Mr. Sailer's headline on his post. Maybe the next time. Maybe before it's too late. A commenter from France going by the handle "Diversity Heretic" wrote:
I live in France. Most of these deportations and expulsions are mostly for show; there is no willingness on the part of the French elite to deal with the intractable problem of an unassimilable Muslim community that is hostile to the native French and their culture.I don't know. People think nobody will ever do something. Then one spark happens, and it’s not just the courageous people who’ve been speaking out against the evil of the elites for years that start raising hell. Once the people decide it’s time to raise hell, the elites better just shut up and get out of the way.
Nobody knows which spark may light it all up. I’m something of a firebug myself, so I know about playing with fire. I've been lucky myself - got part of a wooden fence one time, and for the bigger, accidental one, the firemen came with 4 trucks and were having a good old time. (The parents were away for the afternoon, so it was all good...)
As the people out in the dry West know, it can take just one spark. All the rest just go dark in a couple of seconds on the dirt, but that one ... with the wind up, and no rainfall for 3 weeks ...
These elites have been letting the sparks fly, all around the Western world. All of a sudden, one week, they will have a conflagration in front of them that even these guys can't put out:
* ITA is for In The Ass, in case you didn't get the full meaning.
** I was happy to see Steve Sailer's post on this matter on VDare appear on the 2nd page of my search on DuckDuckGo, which was something like "French beheading Moslem expulsions".
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The modern FBI and 3rd-World behavior - Part 1
Posted On: Tuesday - October 20th 2020 12:49PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Deep State
I guess it would be nice to get a post up with the Jeff Foxworthy-like title: You know you live in a 3rd-World country, if ... with the top 10 (such as his "You know you're a redneck if ..." routing from long ago. Having a Feral Government police agency like the current-day FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, would be right up there on such a list.
Our Founders would not have believed that there would, or should, be a national police agency of ANY sort. That's not Constitutional. State and local agencies communicating and coordinating to solve interstate crimes, sure. Something like kidnapping is a good example of where local police alone are often not going to able to practically and legally investigate and prosecute. (Note, however, our Peak Stupidity exclusive, interesting and true China story that involved a kidnapping and local police that were interstate rivals, rather than cooperators.)
The FBI's own web site has a brief history of the reasons for the founding of this agency 112 years ago, in 1908 here. Interestingly, even the Federal version of the PC police has not investigated that particular web page, as it pretty much implicates the crowded cities full of immigrants in the origins of organized crime, causing the need for such an organization:
The United States was, well, united, with its borders stretching from coast to coast and only two landlocked states left to officially join the union. Inventions like the telephone, the telegraph, and the railroad had seemed to shrink its vast distances even as the country had spread west. After years of industrializing, America was wealthier than ever, too, and a new world power on the block, thanks to its naval victory over Spain.It was President Roosevelt who pushed for the founding of the FBI after he took office when President McKinley was shot by an anarchist, a 28-year-old Ohioan named Leon Czolgosz**. 7 years later, the FBI was formed.
But there were dark clouds on the horizon.
The country’s cities had grown enormously by 1908—there were more than 100 with populations over 50,000—and understandably, crime had grown right along with them. In these big cities, with their many overcrowded tenements filled with the poor and disillusioned and with all the ethnic tensions of an increasingly immigrant nation stirred in for good measure, tempers often flared. Clashes between striking workers and their factory bosses were turning increasingly violent. [My bolding]
It took 3 decades or so, and a great incentive for criminal activity, Amendment XVI* and the ensuing Volstead Act, to really make organized crime a really big and worthwhile endeavor.
Hence, as the picture above from The Untouchables (and there were dozens of other such movies) illustrates, these interstate crime fighters were supposed to be uncorrupted by the fray and the local political machinery. This way was a way to fight the power of organized crime with all the resources of the Federal Government with men who were unconnected and hence, supposedly all uncorrupted.
With a non-so-diverse country and non-diverse, probably 95% white male FBI, and lastly, a civil and not-completely-politicized Feral Gov't, that kind of thing was possible. People looked up to the FBI as above the "local yokels" as some definitely are, such as the purely revenue-generating speed-trap troopers can be. These
As I wrote in the picture caption, that is an old outdated concept though. Partly this is due to intensive diversity, including Affirmation Action, meaning dumber, less efficient, lazier, and more corruptible agents.
(Funny thing about this picture. It comes from an article about an ex-FBI agent being arrested for distributing porn.)
That's just part of the problem. In Part 2, I'll get into the use of the FBI as an enforcement arm for the agenda of the US Government and in Part 3 the massive stupidity with this agency's relationship to President Trump.
Continuing here though, I was aware that the FBI were not non-corruptible professionals when they were one half of the two agencies (the 2nd being the ATF) used as nothing but assassination squads in the Waco, Texas Massacre in the spring of 1993.
I got started on this post due to reading an article by a former government oversight official of the agency that had a lot to say about this subject. I haven't even got to his article yet! There's plenty of stupidity to cover folks, so not to worry. I sometimes need a couple of days away from the blog. (Then, what do I do? Go on unz and comment back and forth like a mad, man ;-}, is what. )
* I was || <-- that close to writing "there you go again" with that "Ohioan" crap, but this Czolgosz guy, not an Untouchable, but an Unpronounceable, was born in Alpena, Michigan, up in the NE corner of the "palm". Original founding stock American? Not so much.
** See also Part 2 and Part 3.
*** Because this may be cryptic to some, I refer to Mr. John Hinkley, who shot President Reagan in March 1981 due to his love for Jody Foster. I'll explain later, in a history post I've been meaning to write for a long time.
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The Dead - They Love Each Other - fast version
Posted On: Saturday - October 17th 2020 4:31PM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead
It's Joe Biden's ridiculous lie about something his father supposedly said that got this song in my head. OK, The Dead and the Dead Head fans were very tolerant of "free love", other ways of living, and weirdos in general. They'd better have been!
The cultural upheaval in America, called the "Awakening" of the 2nd period in this era in the book that I'll eventually get around to reviewing, Generations, by Strauss & Howe, was in full swing at the time the Grateful Dead established themselves under that name in 1965 and they enjoyed ever minute of it. Even with all that craziness, things just somehow weren't near as stupid as they are today, though. Yeah, that crowd would have tried to get along with a woman who used to be a man, tried not to make fun, and so forth. Maybe a Dead Head Dad WOULD have said to his hippie-child what Joe Biden's Dad is alleged to have said. Did they go around telling the rest of us we must think their way and use their terminology for the weirdness though? Nah, I think they were glad when society left them alone in their counter-culture, is all, except... like, send money, please.
Well, I am just embarrassed as all get out that I have not heard this song ever in its fast version. I believe I know this song off of one of the Dick's Picks CD's that I have (6 or so, of the many). It's the opposite from my original listening to Friend of the Devil in it's fast, bluegrass version, and then later in the much slower version. The slower versions of both of these songs lend themselves to longer and more detailed guitar solos by Jerry.
I really like this fast version of They Love Each Other. It's from a show in Palo Alto, California in February of 1973.
It's so quick that the intro sounds like China Cat Sunflower. Damn, but I like this version. I wish it would have gone on for twice as long!
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