President Donald Trump: the Bad, the Good, and **the Ugly**
Posted On: Saturday - October 17th 2020 8:19AM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Genderbenders Lefty MegaStupidity Humor Trump
The Bad was the first post yesterday, and The Good was the second. This post is not about President Trump though, but, you know, in Blogging 101 we learned that if you're gonna have a theme, you gotta stick it out, even if there is no analogy, and no reference to that theme, other than the theme song.
Politicians are not usually ugly other than at just the local level. That can probably be blamed on TV and the women's vote, both. There are exceptions for AntiChrist candidates or wannabees, of course. Take the Hildabeast, please... (She actually was fairly cute back in her refusing-to-bake-cookies days, in a pre-pubeAntiChristian way, I guess.)
"The Ugly" is about ugly lies, anything but most lies in answer to anything but questions about derriere size are nothing but ugly. Peak Stupidity has written about the evil of the lies that pervade modern political discussion before, way back in Truth as lies, and lies as truth. Where've we read about this before?.
To talk about the lies out of Joe Biden might sound one-sided as we've called President Trump a bullshitter a number of times. Well, that's not lying, just bullshit. The distinct difference was clarfied to us succintly by Elwood Blues 40 years ago:
Seriously, President Trump has blabbed his mouth plenty of times about what he would do for America on this and that issue, and it would never happen. I have wondered a few times, but I do believe the man has the American people's welfare at heart. I don't think he is flat-out lying to us, but more like exaggerating and being way, way too optimistic. You can't help but like this guy.
I didn't watch those 2 completing "Town Halls" the other night, so I have just this one piece of transcript I've read of Joe Biden's one, taken (of course) from a Steve Sailer post - Biden: There Must be No Discrimination Against 8-Years-Olds Who Decide They Are Transgender. Please read Mr. Sailer's posts, with the almost 200 comments too. I look forward to reading the comments. There is a lot to say about Joe Biden's lying. (See The Lyin' Press of 1988 for a little bit.)
Lots of Joe Biden's lying seems to be based on his being an old man, maybe senile, but even if not, understandably getting more and more behind on the ctrl-left Cult-Rev 2.0 narrative, which, I gotta say, is changing too fast for #MeToo to keep up with. Do try to keep up, Sleepy Joe. If not, come up with something better than this crap, AHEAD OF TIME. There are plenty of people in Washington, FS to mentor you on the art of lying. Here, WTF? {Note: my bolding. Joe Biden didn't speak in bold or italics.)
["Random" questioner MIEKE] HAECK: I’m good, thank you. I’m the proud mom of two girls, 8 and 10. My youngest daughter is transgender. The Trump administration has attacked the rights of transgender people, banning them from military service, weakening non discrimination protections and even removing the word transgender from some government websites.And now, after an exclusive and exhaustive investigation by the crack
How will you as president reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and insure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under U.S. law?
BIDEN: I will flat out just change the law. Every — eliminate those executive orders, number one. You may recall I’m the guy who said — I was raised by a man who I remember I was being dropped off, my — my dad was a high school educated, well read man who was a really decent guy.
And I was being dropped off to get an application in the center of our city; Wilmington, Delaware, the corporate capital of the world at the time. And these two men, I’m getting out to get an application to be a lifeguard in the African American community because there was a big swimming pool complex.
And these two men, well dressed, leaned up and hugged one another and kissed one another. And I’m getting out of the car at the light and I turn to my dad. My dad looked at me and said Joey, it’s simple. They love each other.
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President Donald Trump: the Bad, **the Good**, and the Ugly
Posted On: Friday - October 16th 2020 7:43PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Immigration Stupidity Trump
The Bad was discussed just a while back today. We'll get to "The Ugly", though it won't involve the President himself. Youtube's got it all cued up for you here.
VDare, THE go-to site for factual information on immigration, had some really good news yesterday. Because I already have my title set in stone, due to the last post, I'll just give you what would be a better one for this post here in big headline-style fonts.
(OK sub in "Bemoans" for "Endorses" and you'll see that the New York Times is still a compromised institution.)
VDare's Washington Watcher II has written a VERY encouraging post about some success from President Trump's policy in NYT Delivers Unintentional Endorsement Of Trump's Immigration Triumph. It's really not "policy" per say, but below the radar, behind-the-scenes, action by this President and his employees that Washington Watcher II is talking about.
That's fine by me. I'd rather see blatant in-your-face policy, like just ending DACA* (gonna be near a million Hispanics, plus offspring later on). I'd rather see a long-term strategy, involving legal and illegal immigration, both, with bills written and pushed for, plans to tweet the right crowds to recall or impeach the worst of the Judges of Impediment, and that sort of thing.
Still, the article is (as WWII titled his post) unintentionally very good news. Read the post, and you will see that everything the NY Times bitches about will have you saying Hallelujahs, or Hosannahs. (I'm not sure how you say Hosannahs actually, but it's something involving Alabama and banjos, I believe ...) The following excerpts will be of the NY Times article, not Mr. Washington Watcher II's writing.
Between 2016 and 2019, annual net immigration into the United States fell by almost half, to about 600,000 people per year — a level not seen since the 1980s — according to an analysis by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. (Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, that number has certainly decreased even more.)Hallelujah! Preach it Brother The Editorial Board!I believe this is the legal immigration level, as I don't know how anyone really knows the real illegal level - don't forget it's NOT just from across the southern border. I've written before criticizing the President in this way: During the time he's done nothing of note on this issue, another million or million and a half non-Conservative, non-Trump-voters have come EVERY YEAR, so it's 3 to 5 million or so more against him. Every day means smaller chances for America to recover, so these things should have been started from Day One. That's why I am very heartened by this news. VDare has never really compiled it like this before, and it's all in the numbers, which are lower than I'd reckoned - thank you, NY Times, for this great encouragement!
The 2016-19 drop “is clearly a result of Trump’s restrictive immigration measures,” Mr. Frey told the editorial board, “including immigrant bans from selected countries, greater limits on refugees, and generating fear among other potential immigrant groups over this administration’s unwelcoming policies.”
Border control officials said they would accept asylum applications only from people who arrived at approved border crossings, even though the law says anyone can apply for asylum once in the United States. At those crossings, asylum seekers were forced to wait for days, even weeks, in long lines just for a chance to approach the border to ask for protection. The White House packed the immigration appeals board with Trump appointees, with predictable results: Rejections increased.Many of the VDare writers, especially Spanish-fluent Allan Wall, have written about this other-than-Mexican immigration, the caravans, and the high-level politics between President Trump and Mexico's AMLO (I guess it'd be MAMLO) before.
Mr. Trump also used the threat of tariffs to get Mexico to crack down on undocumented Central American immigrants and to allow frustrated asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border while their cases meandered through U.S. immigration courts.
After Mr. Trump suspended aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in March, Guatemala and Honduras agreed to accept asylum seekers who had passed through those countries on their way north, so they could either apply for asylum there or go home.
Mr. Trump eventually achieved a version of his Muslim ban when the Supreme Court approved of severe restrictions on entry for residents of 13 countries, the majority of them with mostly Muslim populations. While the White House said one reason the ban was needed was lax security in those countries, it also has drastically scaled back the refugee program, which involves stringent vetting by American and United Nations officials. In Barack Obama’s last year as president, the ceiling for refugee admissions was 110,000. For the current fiscal year, it’s 15,000.Oh, Hosanna, don't you cry for me. I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee ... or something. How 'bout, YEA!!
Despite Mr. Trump’s promises to protect Americans from killer immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now more than twice as likely to pick up immigrants with no criminal record beyond immigration violations, compared with the number before he took office. After being labeled the “deporter in chief,” Mr. Obama ordered ICE to concentrate enforcement on unauthorized immigrants who had committed crimes. Within weeks of his own inauguration, Mr. Trump eliminated any deportation priorities and made all undocumented immigrants fair game for ICE. With many cities resisting ICE’s more stringent demands for cooperation, the agency has also found it easier to just pick up anyone with an existing deportation warrant.Well, yeah, it's a "deportation warrant". That is a literal warrant to literally deport somebody. Ya' gotta pick 'em up to deport 'em, I think, right? What's YOUR plan, Einstein?
At the same time, applications for permanent residency have declined since the administration announced it would adopt a rule that would prevent those considered likely to receive public benefits from becoming permanent residents. Among recent green-card recipients, 69 percent had at least one of the characteristics that would be weighed, according to the Migration Policy Institute.I really like the discouragement factor. That was a factor very early on after Trump's election too, but these
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of homeland security, recently announced that the number of H-1B visas for skilled workers would be cut by one-third because of tighter criteria for who can get them. Critics said this would make American companies shift more work abroad.Hallelujah again! Can I get a witness?! I mean it, I want to be sure the NY Times is not just publishing this just to fuck with us. Please tell us you mean it when you hate this President for his immigration efforts.
Mr. Trump also has ended “temporary protected status” for 400,000 people from El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan and elsewhere who have legally lived and worked in the United States for decades after being provided a haven from war or natural disaster.
“There’s so much change that has happened in the last four years, there’s no way a new administration could reverse things in four or even eight years,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute who was a co-author of the group’s July report.Now THAT is progress folks. I ask President Trump, who, if he's not busy tweeting right now, may very well be perusing Peak Stupidity, to please forgive us for our criticisms. They are mostly still right, but this is what I voted for you for in '16.
Remember, there are two kinds of editorial writers, my friend, those with plenty of loaded guns and those who dig. NY Times, you dig. Dig it?
PS: The reader may wonder why I have been so pessimistic before, but I do follow VDare very closely, and I've seen plenty of discouraging articles after a few months of giving President Trump some slack after inauguration. VDare writers are always hopeful, but I could tell when they were just as discouraged as I've been, most of the time. I was so surprised by this article.
* DACA was an Øb☭ma Executive Order. I don't think these things are Constitutional to begin with, but at least just don't keep supporting the program, dude. He could have just done nothing and these people would have to go back.
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President Donald Trump: **the Bad**, the Good, and the Ugly
Posted On: Friday - October 16th 2020 5:17PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Movies Trump
We've all see the 1966 Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western, right? Well, this post has absolutely nothing to do with it really. I did change the title around due to my wanting to present things in a bad news/good news order, at least the way people normally like to hear.
See, this was going to be one post on the bad only, but as of this morning I read on VDare what I think is pretty solid vindication of the President, demonstrating some very decent change brought about by the President. That'll be next post though.
For these 3 posts, you're gonna need the music going first, so mash play here, then read on. Here:
Peak Stupidity has had plenty of criticism of President Trump over the last 3 years, seeing as it didn't take long before he had busted the important promises made by Candidate Donald Trump. We don't expect it all to get done, of course. At some points, it doesn't even seem like he's trying though. Our biggest criticisms have been Trump's choices for his employees, his attention span that resembles that of a 2 month-old kitten, and, the subject of this post, which we may not have brought up before, his taking things personally.
Actually, if the President would take the criticisms of Candidate Trump's ideas hard and worked to show them up, that'd be just peachy with me. However, many times he seems to take things seriously ONLY when they apply directly to him. That is, he's not a man of principle. I knew that going in, and have written this before. That Donald Trump doesn't understand the Constitution like Ron Paul does, or Ronald Reagan did, for that matter, is something I figured we could live with. That is due to his bringing up the existential issue of the immigration invasion right away as THE most important issue and his fairly good stance on ending the warfare state.
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.
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.
Not just these two entities but plenty of other pundits and wonks, including in the President's own staff have to have informed him of this action he could take. It's been a little bluster and BS from him toward Big Tech in the past As VDare's James Kirkpatrick wrote yesterday Allum Bokhari’s DELETED: GOP, Trump Learn The Hard Way—Laura Loomer Was Right!.
Yeah, "the hard way" is how Mr. Kirkpatrick puts it. President Trump didn't worry about all this too much when it was Alex Jones getting cancelled, or Laura Loomer, or the Proud Boys or whomever else. Now it's about that big NY Post story on the Biden scandal that is very important for Trump in this last stretch leading up to the re-election. (Haha, note that I'm still on his side.) Trump's people and I believe the NY Post's tweets were wiped out for whatever normal Orwellian reasons Twitter comes up with for this sort of thing*. Suddenly NOW this Section 230 of the Communications Act is important! The personality of this guy, man, amazing, just amazing, you wouldn't believe ... [/Trump]
I mean, it's been years of this Big Tech censorship crap and the Trump administration has done nothing but occasionally bluster about it. It's been empty threats. Now, down toward 2 weeks before the election, the President wants to at least threaten them with legal action by the FCC or someone. Really? Can't those 2 Big Tech titans wait it out a couple of weeks with whatever kind of obfuscation their $500/hr lawyers can come up with and see how the election turns out? This stuff should have been in progress and either changing the law or putting some serious fear into these people long before now!
But no, see, now it's PERSONAL! Come on, man!
That's "The Bad" Trump. I've still got my sign in the yard, and I'm very glad to be able to write about "The Good" Trump later on or tomorrow.
* The latest Babylon Bee news on this is Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News. Yeah, they are still considered a parody site, but I don't know how long that's gonna work for.
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Driving the Autobahn
Posted On: Thursday - October 15th 2020 7:21PM MST
In Topics: Cars Peak Stupidity Roadshow
This post is a follow-up of yesterday's No parking in the show-off lane!. That post describes driving in the US of A on limited-access highways. ("Controlled-access" is what Wiki calls them.)
It was near 2 decades ago when I got to drive on the German Autobahn while doing doing some business in Germany. I got around too, coming in from Amsterdam Schiphol airport deep into Germany, then with a day trip to Czechia, and later back to Amsterdam.
Before I relate my experience regarding speeds, lanes, and passing on the autobahn, in comparison, I'll give just a very brief history of these "Federal Motorways", the English translation of Bundesautobahn. Though a good, fast highway network in Germany had been considered during the Wiemar Republic years in the mid-1920s, nothing much happened with that until Adolph Hitler, yes THAT Adolph Hitler, embraced the idea right after the Nazi take-over in 1933. Within 3 years, there were 130,000 Germans directly working on the Autobahn network and another 270,000 indirectly.
The first section finished was between Frankfurt am Main (the big Frankfurt*) and Darmstadt, a 21 mile stretch to start off with. Work was done until WWII, the big one, and then it didn't resume until the early 1950s. That was the time that our Interstate system was being started. Right now, there are just over 8,000 miles of Autobahn, while the American Interstate system has just under 50,000 miles.
I can't for the life of me find out how much of the Autobahn network is 4-lane road, but whether it is or has more lanes makes all the difference, from my experience. Yes, the Germans take the passing lane business seriously, and everyone has to with the speed differentials between lanes. Plus they are Germans, so a rule is a rule. OK maybe 85% of them are Germans now.
Though we always hear about these roads without speed limits, only some of it is this way, though a majority of the mileage, from what I've just read. Then the truckers have a limit that if I recall correctly was only 100 kph which is 61 mph! Of course, they stay in that right lane. However, I was not driving a BMW sports car, but a Subaru wagon. Not only that, I don't pretend to be a race car driver. What I wanted to do was a comfortable 75 mph +/- 5 being OK too.
That's not easy on the 4-lane sections (2 lanes each way). I got frustrated at 60 mph among the Schneemensch and his other good buddies in the convoy. I had to come left to pass. However, I'm not exactly the Bandit either. I had to wait till that left lane was clear for 1/2 a mile, get over there and gun it, and get to the next decent open stretch between the trucks before someone came right up on my ass with the headlights frantically flashing. That's no way to drive! I'd rather do the lane-to-lane thing on the interstate than that.
It was all better when the roads had 3 lanes or more in my direction. The slow guys just stay right. The fast guys do as you're supposed to here too, come left, but only to the first lane to their left that has room for passing. In general those 120 mph and up guys would, and would need to, stay in that left lane. I could find spots in the middle lane (talking specifically 3 lanes now) to pass a number of trucks and other slow pokes without pissing people off.
So, the number of lanes makes all the difference in the world in how functional the German Autobahns are.
While trying to find out how much of the 8,000 miles of Autobahn are only 4-lane road, I did find this neat web page with a little advice from experience and a nice video near the bottom. Yeah, it looks pretty fast - he got up to 180 mph.
PS: In case you were wondering the Schneemensch is the Snowman, played by the late Jerry Reed in the movie Smokey and the Bandit and the sequel.
* Just as with the towns in England withe the olde-timey names like Watford-on-Thames, etc. (I made that one up), Frankfurt am Main is "Frankfurt on the Main River", a tributary of the Rhine, while the Frankfurt an der Oder, is way east on the Polish border, on the Oder River.
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Another household use for the common face mask
Posted On: Wednesday - October 14th 2020 6:50PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Due to a certain family member's squeamishness about the Kung Flu, which has thankfully mostly dissipated finally, we do have lots of the regular medical face masks all over the place. I have one or two balled up in a pocket, besides my Dead Head one, then there's a box in the living room, some oldies but goodies in the car I think ...
This post will either read like Reader's Digest or Popular Mechanics to you. Peak Stupidity had found yet another way that these stupid ubiquitous face masks can be used around the house. As a good homeowner, I have to blow leaves quite often. The time is nigh. That sounds ominous, but after so many years of resisting these blowers, I finally quit raking cold turkey 3 years ago. I got a Kobalt electric. I really had to have batteries as, in some situations up high, a cord really could have made me bust my ass.
The 80V 2.0 Amp-hour battery was OK for the first 2 seasons. Sure, I had to take a half-hour union break, as I called it, every 20 minutes, due to my having just the one battery. It was pretty impressive that this ~ 4" x 3" x 6" package could power the leaf blower on high speed for 20 minutes.
Well, the battery life has petered out and I'm down to 7 minutes of work time now, with the same union break time rule, as far as I've noticed the latter based on the charge time. Someone at the Master Executive Council has done a bang up job on our last contract, apparently.
I gotta face it, this battery is dying.
A friend walked by and I mentioned all this. He noted that lots of these rechargeable battery packs in tools, and I've opened a few myself, have just regular or at least easily obtainable cells inside. They can be replaced with good rechargeable batteries. Hmmmm?
Well, they did not make it too easy. The 4 Torx-head screws were not a size I had on my regular fold-out one, but luckily a friend had gotten me a set of jeweler's screwdrivers a few years back. These screws were not TINY, but one of the medium sized Torx drivers fit well. However, the little blue-anodized handle of the set was not made for any serious torque (plus, the bits aren't made for too much torque anyway.) The screws were in tight though. I needed to use the small vise grips, but didn't want to mess up the knurling.
What to use, what to use ...? Ahaaa, the handy face mask ... here's another use for one of these - shown up top. It worked like a charm.
Finally, as for the result, it really was just a learning exercise. There is a circuit board, the check energy level switch, and something like 20 of these cells, as one can see above. What would be the chances I'd come out ahead on money AND with the pack still in working order? Not good, and that's not even with accounting for my time being worth something.
Oh well, $89 for a refurbished pack, which to me means new cells in a cleaned up case with the used electronics, is what they want, plus shipping and tax. That's OK by me, as a new battery costs over 75% of the whole blower with the battery. I guess that's the idea, suck you into the blower ... expense, then sell you expensive batteries until the blower itself dies a Cheap China-made death.
Keep these face masks handy. You never know when you might need on in These United States.
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No parking in the show-off lane!
Posted On: Wednesday - October 14th 2020 2:59PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Peak Stupidity Roadshow
It's been a while since we've had any real, solid curmudgeonry here on Peak Stupidity, other than the Kung Flu complaints. In this one, I just want to ask the readers this: Can we remain friends after this post?
One can write about politics and offend lots of people but still have a decent number of readers who agree 95% of the time, or enough to keep reading. As the reader may well, know, Peak Stupidity is very proud to be a US Dept. of Truth certified Equal Opportunity Offender. It takes effort to keep that certification, and this post ought to help.
See, this one, from thoughts on my road trip a week or so back, is not about politics but driving. We all know that we are each THE best drivers on the road, and also the safest, notwithstanding what some insurance agent has to say about it.* Therefore, this one may deeply offend some political allies that read here, because, I'm telling you, "YOU NEED TO STAY TO THE RIGHT!"
On the standard 4-lane Interstate, freeway, whatever, but limited-axis highway, as shown above, there is this pet peeve that's bugged me ever since, well, I got a clue. Unless there is a jam, or heavy traffic, he left lane is for passing ONLY. PERIOD.
Are you going faster than the guy in front of you in the right lane? OK, then you use the left to pass, and get it the hell over with. There is a line of slow cars on the right, you say? OK, you pass them all, then pull back to the right. "Oh, but I'm mostly going faster, so I'll just stay in the left lane. NO! I may want to pass the right-lane guy in front of me too, but I gotta see WTH you're gonna do first. If you're behind me in the left lane, then I don't know when you're going to get this passing done.
The guy on the right can't seem to hold his speed, so now he's passing you back up to your right? Either speed up and pass him, or fall back in line. You got cruise control, so you're keeping the same speed down the hill, while the trucks and I are building up speed? Get to the right, either behind or in front.
I know I can't tell even this one friend this stuff. He's a good friend, that I ride with once in a while. He's a pretty good driver too with all sorts of vehicles, some of them perfectly safe at 120 mph. He will run at that speed too, on occasion. During the early part of the Kung Flu, this guy accelerated one of his sports cars from 60 mph to ~ 110 mph - well, the cop said lower to be nice - from the on-ramp onto the highway. He told this cop that he had been practicing social distancing. Humorous, true, but he may or may not be a "bad driver" soon, depending on who shows up to court (you know with the Kung Flu and all, might not be prudent ...)
But we're cruising in the left of 2 lanes, going 80 to 90 mph, and I still would like him to come right. It's just the way the road is supposed to work.
How about on the huge roads in the city areas with 3 to 6 lanes in each direction (not even counting "exit only" lanes)? It's the same idea, people. (Most people who do understand the passing lane concept still don't get this.) Yes, there are exceptions. Seattle, Washington seems to have lots of exits to the left, likely due to the terrain. OK, you don't need to come left 3 miles ahead. If you are not passing the guy to your right, then come right. That will work for all the 5 lanes, let's say. The way it is, I've often taken the right-most lane to get somewhere fast, as everyone else thinks, "I dunno, I kinda like THIS one - lane # 4 is my favorite today".
I don't care how many lanes there are. Every one of them is a passing lane besides that rightmost one. Going too fast for the guy passing in the 2nd rightmost lane? Move to the 3rd, and so on. I swear if everyone knew this and practiced it, driving on it would be like a dream. You'd feel like a molecule experiencing laminar flow rather than turbulent flow. Laminar flow is much less stressful, for everyone.
It gets downright dysfunctional, on both the standard 4-lane roads (2 per direction) and on the > than 4-lane segments. What this dysfunctionality does is CAUSE some of those traffic jams in which people do have to use both lanes, going 30 mph or stop and go because of one guy after the next not getting the concept.
You know what? I'm so worked up that there will a Part 2 this week. It won't be a curmudgeonly post though, as it'll be about my experience on the German autobahn.
PS: Truckers, in general, are not the professionals they used to be either. I've seen one semi pass another semi with only a speed difference of 2 mph or so. Let's see, from 25 ft behind the guy (I've seen those guys cut it close) and a length of near 75 ft (I'm not talking about those doubles), then 50 ft or so before the passee mashes the headlight interrupt button (probably not since they are not so professional anymore) to signal enough room, and we're talking 150 ft at, say 3 ft/sec. It takes almost a minute for this, as the vehicles have all gone a whole mile and the blood pressure of the guy behind in his Mercedes goes way way up. A professional trucker passee would slow down by a couple of mph to speed this up.
* It's been the longest time for me in my life, BY FAR, during which I've been considered a "safe driver". I haven't been pulled over in years now. What does that mean, though?
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Chinese Visiting Scholar Scam
Posted On: Tuesday - October 13th 2020 6:29PM MST
In Topics: University China Educational Stupidity Scams
"Yeah, no shit."
Because she came to register the twins for elementary school on a certain date that we remember, my wife and I realized it's been a year since this Chinese Scholar visited in our presence.
At this point, see, the Kung Flu comeback is in slow progress, in our area anyway. Basically, besides young idiot frisbee golf players and dufuses* driving around in their cars with face masks on by themselves, everyone seems to have relaxed. Actually, I hope it's more that they've seen through the hysteria.
My son and I were outside the elementary school when this Chinese lady, speaking very good English, told us that these were her twins (fraternal, a boy and a girl) she was registering for school. Now this is a nice school, paid for with lots of middle and upper-middle class property tax money. "Yes, I'm a visiting scholar at the University."
I've seen a lot of this lately. I can remember a dozen Chinese science guys visiting for a year, back in the 1980s, who were like people from Mars at that time. It was in the newspaper and everything, as they were from the mainland, and that was a rare thing. You knew people whose families were from Hong Kong or Taiwan, or else they'd been here for a long time. There was this guy from Latvia, back when it was still in the East Bloc, an engineer who may have had lots to share with the professors about his esoteric field.
That's all good stuff. This lady, and she's not the only one, told me "oh, English is my field." What the 乘坐飞机 性交?! I understand we can all learn something from each other. At the university, it's great to have some new perspective introduced into one's field. But, but ... how in the hell can a Chinese lady add to the body of knowledge of English? We have plenty of Chinese people in every university town or city in America, so we're already culturally enriched up the ying yang!
I don't blame the lady for taking advantage. She's got her 2 children immersed in an English- (and very, very low level of Ebonics-) speaking classroom. The folks footing some of the bill, the Chinese government, are paying for the school indirectly via the property taxes on Mrs. Chinawoman's stipend-supported rent payment. The lady can hang with Chinese people all over town to eat real Chinese food. Her husband got to visit, then went back. He missed the whole Kung Flu fiasco, at least on this end. The two kids are getting along and seem as nice as can be.
The question I have is, how on Earth does a visiting Chinese scholar in the field of English benefit Americans in any way? Will we introduce new words into our languages, say to describe new type of chicken dishes in the buffet restaurants? Will she teach people how to pronounce words like lawyer correctly? (That one's a bitch for them.)
From the US embassy/consulate site for China (in English), I read something about the visiting scholars in the Fulbright Program. No, this is not the well-known Fulbright Scholarship. It comes under the umbrella of the Fulbright Program, though, proposed by Senator J. William Fulbright in 1945 (signed by President Truman in 1946) to foster cultural exchange in both directions at universities around the world.
This may not be the exact program the woman is in, as there are so many people coming to "visit" (who knows?) I do know that almost all of these deals are for a year. Well, it's been over a year. The twins are still in the school. Because this Kung Flu business has the mode of schooling up in turmoil at the present time, she can now be involved, with 2 kids, mind you, in the decision of how to run things.
An assimilated Chinese source in America asks me this: WTF are they still doing here?
PS: Re: "What the 乘坐飞机 性交?!": I did the best with the translation I could, with the internet I got. I back-translated as a check, and, with my English words appended at the beginning, it gave me "What the have sex by air?" Hahahaaa! Pretty good.
* Sorry, spell check is nervous about this one. Is it dufae?
Comments (12)
Happy Columbus Day!
Posted On: Monday - October 12th 2020 7:08AM MST
In Topics: Political Correctness History Holiday from Stupidity
I don't care what the schools do (actually, a little bit, which I'll report on later), the Feral Gov't, the universities, and anyone else. Over here at Peak Stupidity, Columbus day is celebrated ... though one time it was a bit belatedly. It has been since this blog started in late November of '16, so here are posts from 2017 (the belated one), 2018, and 2019.
I also note that 2 of my go-to sites have posts in celebration, VDare here, as usual from writer James Fulford, and surprisingly Ron Unz or his software put this nice Jared Taylor post on top. Excellent!
Let the PC people do their thing (up to the point of trashing statues, I know, they've been there, done that ...) I’ve this to say, though, about the hard-core political types who have trashed the holiday and the accomplishments of Captain Columbus for 3 decades running:
It’s one thing to dispute that the man was a nice guy, that he treated the natives well, or that he did everything for unselfish reasons. It’s another to simply try to stomp out any history of the amazing accomplishment of that 1st voyage 528 years ago. It was 5 weeks across the Ocean Blue with the biggest vessel, the Santa Maria. being a boat of estimated 150 tonne (metric ton) displacement, a hull length of a little over 60 ft, and a beam of 18 ft powered solely by sail and with celestial and dead (deduced) reckoning for navigation.*
Shoot, most people today wouldn’t be comfortable setting foot on a modern fiberglass boat this size with GPS, auto-tiller, auto-trimming sails, and even GretaThunberg as their Captain Courageous for a trip across the Ocean Green. (“Green” for Greta – anyone remember Greta?)
That is not to mention the unfathomable beneficial impact that Columbus’ and subsequent European explorers had on the future of the Americas. To leave the Western Hemisphere as lands full of mostly violent savages would have been a sin.
I believe that most of the people who fight politically against the Columbus Day holiday are losers who have never read ANY books about the man with any political view. They are too stupid to actually read books. Otherwise, we could discuss it, calmly, right here, bitches!
* Along with the science (that I
Comments (21)
Accessorize, Accessorize, Accessorize!
Posted On: Saturday - October 10th 2020 2:26PM MST
In Topics: The Dead Female Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Do we have any women readers that would like to chime in on this, ... anyone, anyone, Bueller's hot girlfriend? ("So that's how it is in their family?")
Steal your mask right off your head.*
I read a long time ago, I believe in one many issues of erroneously sent Cosmopolitan magazines, which my roommate and I would keep to look at the girlie pictures, that dressing nicely involves accessorizing.
For men, we have it easy. Just try to remember to put your belt on, as explained in Trending in Breakfast Attire. Women have lots more accessories, including scarves, hair clips, shoes, old "I'm with
The newest thing, for women at least**, is Kung Flu face masks as accessories. This means that women who are down with the panic must go shopping yet some more. Ugghhh, right? No? OK, right. There is a market out there for designer face masks, though I don't mean Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent yet, cause the Chinese manufacturers are not quite set up to make the knock-offs yet. I mean that multiple colors for accessorizing must be purchased, the thought of which came to me as I saw a black woman in a red dress with a matching red face mask***. The couple selling face masks out on the lawn near me were at it again today.
I couldn't help it. If I'm gonna have to wear a mask in certain places, well, as one of Jerry's Kids, the least I could do is get one with a "Steal Your Face" logo. This is the skull with the lightning bolt that is my favorite DEAD logo. The one I bought is not the one shown above and doesn't have that fancy venting system - anyone know what that's about anyway?
"Rat in a drain ditch, caught on a limb, you know better, but I know him.
Like I told you, what I said.
Steal your face right off your head.
Now he's gone, now he's gone, Lord he's gone, he's gone
Like a steam locomotive, rollin' down the track
He's gone, gone, nothin's gonna bring him back... He's gone.
Nine mile skid on a ten mile ride, hot as a pistol but cool inside.
Cat on a tin roof, dogs in a pile.
Nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile.
Now he's gone, now he's gone Lord he's gone, he's gone.
Like a steam locomotive, rollin' down the track.
He's gone, gone, nothin's gonna bring him back...
He's gone"
Goin' where the wind don't blow so strange,
maybe off on some high cold mountain chain.
Lost one round but the price wasn't anything,
A knife in the back and more of the same.
Same old, rat in a drain ditch, caught on a limb.
You know better but I know him.
Like I told you, what I said.
Steal your face right off your head
Now he's gone, now he's gone Lord he's gone, he's gone
Like a steam locomotive, rollin' down the track.
He's gone, gone, nothin's gonna bring him back... He's gone
Ooh, nothin's gonna bring him back
PS: Commenter Ganderson. If you have a favorite version, by all means tell me which one in the comments. A youtube link would be even better. I didn't spend much time on this selection.
* For some reason, I ALWAYS think of Tennessee Jed first when I think of the lyric, but it's not from that song. Every! Single! Time!
** For men, though, there are the logos and all too. You know that's another post about the ridiculousness of it all. It's not just T-shirts and sneakers with which we are doing free advertising now.
*** That'd have been easier and cheaper to deal with in the old America, with women making a lot of their own clothes - just cut out extra material while making underwear or something. Of course, that traditional America would not have gone for this Panic-Fest to begin with.
Comments (16)
Brazilian indigenous tribe supporter killed upon first contact
Posted On: Friday - October 9th 2020 8:18PM MST
In Topics: Treehuggers Geography Race/Genetics Science
I was going to be pretty snarky about this story, seeing as a sort of hard lessons-learned post about excessive virtue signalling, but I've got mixed feelings. I have some respect for a guy like the Brazilian government official in the story Brazil Amazon tribes expert killed by arrow to the chest while approaching an uncontacted group (though MSM/LYin' Press, the site at least doesn't throw up all kinds of pop-up crap at me).
Just like the indigenous people, who were pushed off the continent of North America, those down south still left have no concept of property rights. Encroachments on what they figure is their territory by mining and lumber companies can be expected. I don't think there's any good solution when one tribe, who may very well have killed the men and captured the women of another tribe to get to live there, run up against people with a concept of the purchase and holding of property. Peak Stupidity discussed a little about this and our fair-handed opinion of the life of savages vs. civilized people in our 3-part review of the very good Sam Gwynn book Empire of the Summer Moon - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Some of the people trying to save the way of life of these savages truly care about them, as I'd say is the case with Mr. Rieli Franciscato, who worked for the Brazilian government and was a "top expert". (Make of the quotes what you will.) I have lots of respect for a dedicated individual devoting his life to a cause like this. Of course, it WAS on the taxpayers of Brazil, but then I doubt he made a lot of money either. Mr. Franciscato was trying to set up reservations for these people, though I assume more like plots owned by the Brazilian government to let them live their lives as savages deep in the jungle rather than the American way of the 1800s, which for horse-riding tribes of the plains, by definition changed their ways of life.
There's also something really cool about these uncontacted tribes. I don't think there are many left in the world. You don't have to be an anthropologist to be in awe of the idea that these people have never seen anything outside of their primitive existence. They are IN the Stone Age, not just living LIKE they were because they want to, or too many years of Communism. Imagine that. (That's why you just want to buzz them in a Cessna Skyhawk and throw empty Coke bottles out the window, hell, full ones for that matter, in a Gods Must be Crazy fashion, just to fuck with 'em.)
I've even thought it would be a great project to somehow get cameras on them that were well hidden, but how to place them without any "contact" at all? If the tribe doesn't even understand the idea of a camera, and they never find out, is this a blow to their dignity? In general, I think it is very much so. They are not animals, so I suppose it is, no matter what. Would it not be cool though, for the world to be able to check up on them on the internet at all hours of the night, like a REAL reality show, Naked and Unafraid?
Well, the do-gooder Mr. Franciscato was trying to help just such an uncontactable tribe when:
On Wednesday (local time), as he moved close to a previously uncontacted Indigenous group, he was hit by an arrow above the heart.First contact didn't go so well. Mr. Franciscato didn't see this coming, was too complacent from all his previous contacts, I guess.
The attack happened in the forest near the Uru Eu Wau Wau reservation in the western Brazilian state of Rondonia, near the border with Bolivia.
"He cried out, pulled the arrow from his chest, ran 50 metres and collapsed, lifeless," a policeman who accompanied the expedition said in a social media post.
The Kanindé Ethno-Environmental Defense Association Mr Franciscato helped found in the 1980s said the Indigenous group had no ability to distinguish between a friend or a foe from the outside world.Of course not. How would these people know? They are obviously not living in peaceful noble savage bliss though, or they would neither have killed the first outsider they saw, nor have had bows and arrows to begin with.
"Rieli was a calm, methodical, soft-spoken man who knew the dangers very well, but he was alone and so he went to ask the police to accompany him," Mr Possuelo said.Sure, more people probably did make it worse, and maybe were Mr. Franciscato by himself they may have just kept his bright orange life vest and Zodiac boat as treasures and brought him into their camp, gestured excitedly to him for a while, and then eaten him.
Mr Possuelo said the presence of police might have triggered the incident.
I could see plenty of the indigenous people being ready for war against the Brazilians, after they'd seen big Cat machines knocking down trees and guys using guns. However, this was an uncontacted tribe, supposedly. Whaddya' expect? I don't think they appreciate another outsider's help, so you've got to do it from afar.
I do respect Mr. Franciscato's dedicating his life to this cause, no matter how ironic his death was. R.I.P. Rieli Franciscato - you tried your best.
Comments (5)
Site Note: SSL back loading correctly; got the procedure down
Posted On: Thursday - October 8th 2020 6:50PM MST
In Topics: Websites
In case that SSL makes your eyes roll back a bit, welcome to the party, pal! See the site note from yesterday, if you want to understand just a tad bit of what this was about.
Here's the main thing: If you are not computer savvy, and you clicked through the warning pages about insecurities and such, and made an "exception" for your browser, well, you're here, you've got nothing to worry about and never did. You shouldn't see that again, even on another browser/device. That last part is important, because site visits did go WAY DOWN to roughly 25% of normal.
That drop could mean that we have lots of new visitors daily, in addition to regulars, OR that these warnings do turn even frequent readers away. As I wrote before, that's totally understandable to me.
For the readers who ARE computer savvy, just so you know, I went with the free ones from zerossl. It was not about the money. Though my hosting company wanted 80 bucks a year, one can get these dealies for $7 yearly. Sure, but I'd rather just download without more C-card info being given. This causes me to have to go through the process every 90 days, but my phone does nice alarms at least, and I pasted in all the helpful links I needed and instructions for 3 months hence. Thanks to commenter Adam Smith for all of that.
I'll say this too: If you really don't know what is actually going on with this computer stuff, it is nerve-wracking to do something as supposedly as simple as this. Even with all the videos and written instruction, from various places, nothing worked as per instructions. Little steps are assumed by people who DO know what's what. When you hit a snag, there's no telling if you have to go to a new way. That's the nerve-wracking part: wondering if there will be one of these snags, where things no longer look like the video or instructions.
I had to use an amalgamation of different instructions and had a few "aha" moments and had no idea the final way would be successful till the very end. I suppose some reading by me would be the answer. I just don't know if I care enough to do more than just follow my saved successful instructions for next time. SSL? Whatever.
Comments (12)
Trump Triumphs, Kung Flu Kapitulates
Posted On: Thursday - October 8th 2020 4:47PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
It's been about a week even that the President has been pozzed. (Our post was 6 days back, but the first news was from the night before.) He's been out of the hospital, what 2 or 3 days already? The guy is 74 years old and a decent amount overweight, and he was released after a couple of days. People tell me that, well, yeah, President Trump's got the best medical care in the world since the Shah of Iran came. OK, I get that, but if things had been critical at any point, he would not have been released so quickly.
James Fulford at VDare writes that this quick little bout of the Kung Flu and apparent recovery makes the President look strong. (Trump Projects Strength After COVID-19 Recovery. Maybe That’s Not What Post-Americans Want But It’s What Real Americans Need) Sure, that's probably good for election results, but "looks ain't is", as I will always recall a character saying in Hawaii 5-0 (believe it or not). I'd rather he DO stuff than look strong.
In Mr. Fulford's article above, another item on VDare a few weeks ago about the refugee limit for next year going down to 15,000 people (85,000 has been the kind of number seen a couple of years back), Peter Brimelow's White Pill: Trump Has 'Literally Shut Down Legal Immigration To United States"—Immigration Lawyer, and finally, just today, Allan Wall's Trump Triumph—Caravan Stopped Cold In Central America; Telemundo’s SHOCKED*, I will have to take back some disparagement of the President.
I suppose still President Trump can't get a real, solid strategy on some of the big items on immigration, ending Birthright Citizenship, an appreciable wall - but even that is getting to be a brighter spot - and a permanent slowdown in the legal flood. No, of course, that's not all his fault. However, all of the small below-the radar items may last only until the next guy gets in (let's hope, in 4 years) or Congress and judges get wind of them.
It'd really be best if the curtailment of our immigration-invasion got put into solid law. Overturning of it can be attempted, but at least the public would be more aware. Also, if Mr. Trump had cleaned house, bureaucratically, in all the Feral Gov't agencies involved earlier, we'd have an attitude change by the rank-and-file that would help. That's another reason I do hope for a 2nd term for this President, as maybe this turnover could be accelerated.
How did this turn into an immigration post so quickly? Anyway, big kudos to the President for his work discussed in the things I've read recently. I take back a few of the things I've said.
Even without all this, it's great to see Donald Trump back for another reason. What are the Kung Flu panickers going to say now, just a lucky break? They are starting to look pretty silly. One reads about all the White House staffers testing positive. Are they cases of the COVID-19? I suppose so, right?
Let's just wait a month, shall we, and see if we read a huge headline on Yahoo** about ANY ONE of these people dying. Put it this way. You are an order of magnitude safer being around the Kung Flu-positive President Trump than you would have been in the White House around Bill and Hillary. Just ask Seth Rich, and who was that other guy with the important papers down his pants? Oh, no, wait, you can't ask those guys. They are not exactly available for comment at the moment.
The President will be fine, the First Lady will be fine, and the staffers will be fine. What are we to make of this?
Now, I gotta mention this next thing. In the tweet shown below from near midnight on 10/01 about the Kung Flue infection of him and his wife, President Trump uses the term FLOTUS! I'm sorry, but that really cracks me up.
I thought SCOTUS for "Supreme Court Of The US was way too pubic-sounding for my taste. FLOTUS sounds just silly and way too close to "floozie". Maybe she WAS a floozie before, but what kind of dignity does that give a First Lady? Please, Mr. President, don't try to save characters. No more FLOTUS.
* That is only part of Mr. Wall's title, as this was a compendium of 6 items of interest. Mr. Wall is really solid writer and big asset to VDare.
** OK, not Yahoo - I'll leave that to someone else, but I mean the standard Lyin' Press in general.
Comments (5)
Kung Flu Update: Good news and bad news
Posted On: Wednesday - October 7th 2020 7:20PM MST
In Topics: Peak Stupidity Roadshow Kung Flu Stupidity
No, this post is not about President Trump, though we will discuss the COVID news about him tomorrow. It's not about the disease itself. Part of this post is something commenter Ganderson reminded me that I was going to write about from over a week back, and the other part is from this week.
Do you want the good news first? Nah, you'd rather hear the bad first, right? I'm the same way. No, no, no, this isn't a doctor joke either, dammit, but I've got some.
My 9 y/o and I played 12 "holes" of frisbee golf, excuse me "disk golf", so sorry, professionals. There are the professional-style
Were they marking something? I didn't want to mess up something, so I asked. "No" is what I got out of this reticent pair. I think that's what the woman said. We started tossing the disks their way, and it took a couple of throws each. Well, now the disks were 20 ft from them, and I just made sure "you wanted them back, right?" The guy was just silent. "DO YOU WANT THESE?", I tried, really slowly. (Maybe the guy was deaf.) He finally just said he'd rather we left the disks alone. Whaaaa? I didn't even think of the Kung Flu germ worries. I thought all that contact contagion bit was behind us.
That's what it was though. This guy, no more than 30 y/o, was scared to death of germs on his frisbee!! Perhaps he'd have been safer staying at the house on this beautiful day. I made some remark about "we can get wipes out of the car ... ", as if I were his Mama. Actually, there were no wipes in this car, just insurance, registration and change for parking meters. I wish he'd just said "keep 'em!". I really want to use some better equipment some time, seeing as I averaged only 6 throws per basket and my kid about 11 1/2.
I wish I hadn't bothered trying to help, though. People do have the right to be left alone with their, if you asked me, it's stupidity.
That was the bad news, people still being freaked out. A road trip had the good news.
Mr. Ganderson mentioned a gas station along the way on his roadtrip from MSP airport up into Minnesota on the way to Nisswa, in a town called Royalton. I'd never heard of EITHER, and man, I've been everywhere in this here land! Well, Nisswa is a little ways north northwest of Brainerd, dontcha' know, while Royalton is 75 miles along the trip from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.
I was on a road trip myself, a kind of stressful one, having run a few minutes late on the way to something important in a far away part of the State. Everything ended up fine, so I was relaxed on the way home and stopped to gas up, pee, and get some snacks for the rest of the trip back. This little gas station had 2 friendly women behind the counter. I didn't bother with a mask, and they didn't either*. I wondered, from also observing in the town I'd visited earlier, whether this part of the State was more relaxed about this stuff. It seemed like that.
I remarked about the masks and we all were in agreement about the stupidity going on. I did need to use the bathroom, but his little place had no bathroom at all. I've never seen that before. "OK, I'll guess I'll use the one in the back then." They knew what I meant, and we discussed the best spot. This was at a fork in the road with quite a bit of traffic, so I had to go back into the trees some. This was urgent, come to think of it, so I came back in for the snacks afterwards. "See, now you two can't do that." They smiled, rather than getting offended. Come to think of it, what the heck do they do?
That stop really brightened up the road trip.
* There was an inch and a half of plexiglas keeping out the Kung Flu germies (not a bad section of town from what I could see, but most places seem to have this now). If it can stop your average bullet, well that ought to do the trick on COVID-19. There is that airspace at the bottom, and the girls had stocking duties too. I guess the manager just had some common sense.
Comments (17)
Site Note: DO! NOT! BE! ALARMED!
Posted On: Wednesday - October 7th 2020 6:23PM MST
In Topics: Websites
Sure, that helps right? If you have gone to Peak Stupidity from last night onwards, you may have seen pages that you had to get through to get to this page. Obviously, you weren't too alarmed, or I might have, at least temporarily, lost you as a reader.*
The problem is that our SSL Certificate has expired. The "Secure Sockets Layer" is an encryption method that stops hackers from intercepting data between the client and the servers. Please read the comments under our post about recycling from yesterday to get a good idea of how little I know and the great help I've been getting.
I really got somewhere with reading and viewing commenter Adam Smith's links. However, now I ran into a really stupid problem regarding email from the zerossl site designed to verify the site not showing up. That's definitely NOT this zerossl site's fault, as I can't get emails I sent to myself from various accounts either in my hosting company's email server space. I hadn't found this problem before, because I didn't ever use the email. I'll contact them when I get myself psyched up to get through a computer phone tree.
Here's the gist of what you should know, if you are no real computer type, as with me: There is nothing bought and sold on this site, no CC's used, no nothing but comments that anybody can read. There is nothing for anyone to worry about, and that's a Peak Stupidity promise.
Do I need this SSL? Well, I know there was a serious problem without it when I signed up for it. I let it lapse, and I don't want new readers or even non-computer-savvy and/or cautious regular readers to get freaked out and close out the tab - that's perfectly understandable to me.
I need to get this going soon, but I'd rather write another post right now, honestly. I will write a very quick post when this is done, just for the record.
* Once you "create an exception" for this site, you shouldn't see that again from your same device, so you're good.
Comments (11)
Dis fuckin' Pope, he ain't even Eye-talian!
Posted On: Wednesday - October 7th 2020 11:16AM MST
In Topics: Commies Socialism/Communism So-called Pope Francis World Political Stupidity
[/Sopranos mode (for now)]
Free markets work. "Trickle down" is not an economic ideology, but a catch-phrase.
Peak Stupidity will take a break from the Kung Flu stupidity and the election stupidity for a post here to go back to one of our least favorite topics, this So-called Pope Francis they've got over there at the Vatican. Not being Catholic over here, we can say what we want, but certain Catholic people, at least cough Ann Barnhardt, cough, cough*, do not seem to like this guy either, based on religious reasons.
I know what the Pope is SUPPOSED to be about, and it's not politics, economics, or science (though this guy DOES have a "Technician's Diploma", whatever that's worth) in Chemistry. Of course, the Vatican was a BIG part of international politics during the Middle Ages. I've read about those Borgia Popes, the orgies, whatever else, and the orgies and stuff ... (actually, there were no picture, so ...) However, we figured that stuff was almost over with when Henry VIII told Pope Clement VII to bugger off in the early 1500s. Martin Luther obviously had a lot to do with it, but since then, their power in world politics waned until by, what(?) the 1700s or more they aren't mentioned so much in the general history books.
Now, all these guys can do is just run their mouths about politics. They have other things that they are supposed to run their mouths about, of course, but this new guy takes the cake. (I write "new guy", but it's been 7 1/2 long years.) I mean, one could say Pope John Paul II, who spoke out about Communism, was "all political and shit" too, but Communism was/is by nature anti-religious. There are obviously not many blatant Catholics in Communist societies, (in Vietnam, there were the most educated and worldly Vietnamese, so they were the first to try to get out). Communism is a religion in itself, and Communists don't want competition for religion, along with for everything else.
Peak Stupidity has railed on this guy Francis before - we even have that whole Topic Key. His latest words that we question are described in this article from Amny, where the image above came from. (It's some NY City website, that I just came upon - one can look a thousand other places for the info.)
As I noted, the "Trickle down" theory is really just a catch-phrase said first by Will Rogers, then brought to the forefront by remarks by President Ronald Reagan's budget director David Stockman**. He thought "supply side" was a more acceptable term to people.
I am sort of agreeing with the so-called Pope in using this terminology in disdain. Pope Francis is against what he sees, a bunch of huge corporate monsters that are making a killing, with elites that make many 100's of times what an average hard-working guy makes. Sure. However, the guy's logic is UNSOUND.
He thinks free markets are the problem. What kind of free market does this fool imagine we have? Show me free markets. Where are these free market of which you speak [/Seinfeld immigrant imitation] That's the problem with lots of political talk against the Crony Capitalism we see now. The speakers/writers create the wrong bogeyman in their minds to fight against.
Secondly, this Pope has not done any kind of job defending the Catholic Church and faith. It's been quite the opposite. That's most of what we've gotten on his case about in these pages. His support for immigration invasion, his equivalizing Christianity and every other religion are not things that would have been contained in his job description as specified by Vatican HR.
Note, for the record, this Francis, aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio is from Argentina. (Who is he running from anyway, what with the alias and all? We got the internet all over your ass, buddy.) Peak Stupidity has discussed the political landscape in Latin American countries before - see Mormons, Commies, Shitholes, and Crown Jewels. To bottom line you, there are a couple of percent rich bastards and a high 90% of poor peons, and the peons want some of the rich bastards' stuff and occasionally will go Communist to do so.
So-called Pope Francis (yeah, paid by the word here!) has got that "Liberation Theology" stuff ingrained in him, and a trip over to and long stay in Europe isn't going to shake it out of him either. He's a Latin American Communist politically. I haven't excerpted a thing yet, so the reader ought to read the article, which seems to be slanted toward this guy. I'll just excerpt this one sentence that says it all:
Francis repeated past calls for redistribution of wealth to help the poorest and for fairer access to natural resources by all.Redistribution is not charity. It is always meant as forcible redistribution, otherwise we would just call it charity. If this Pope were going off about Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc. giving more money to charity, including, hey, how about a little to Christian Churches or causes, then I'd have no problem with his pronouncements. No, he wants to tax the hell out of them, which everyone who's seen what happens know WILL NOT WORK. In Crony Capitalism, Big Biz and Big Gov make the rules together. The middle class, which Pope Francis may not have any familiarity with, will get screwed. Does he want to live in a Latin American society? If so, what's stopping him from going home ... besides his Commie and pro-Western-cultural-destruction speechmaking.
You know, except for that millennia or so in the Middle Ages, I think the Catholic Church has been better off with the standard European Popes. I looked on Wiki's Wiki Pope list page to check birthplaces. Holy
[Sopranos mode back on.]
Now we got dis fuckin' guy?!
* No, I didn't just catch the Kung Flu, and I don't know exactly why Ann Bernhardt rated the "this is bullshit" style coughing. I just think she's quite the character. BTW, her latest post is right on the subject of this guy, Praying the Rosary in Light of the Bergoglian Antipapacy: The Joyful Mysteries. She takes Catholicism very seriously, which I just can't follow her on. I only got onto Miss Barnhardt's site way back when she had this hilarious video of her burning pages of the Koran. In the video her bookmarks for the worst of the passages were strips of cooked bacon! Mmmmm, bookmarks .... [/Homer]
Oh, and she called Lindsey Graham a jackass a bunch of times, which is not only correct in general, but the cussword "jackass" is extremely underutilized these days. Freakin' Millennials - bunch 'o jackasses! (That was just written to show the use of the word. No offense intended, believe me!)
** He is quite the pundit today. I think he writes some good stuff, from what I've read occasionally.
Comments (2)
Make Stupidity Sustainable Again
Posted On: Tuesday - October 6th 2020 4:44PM MST
In Topics: China Economics Environmental Stupidity
2 3/4 years back, Peak Stupidity came up with our favorite title so far, for the post Toward Sustainable Stupidity. A more accurate title would have been "Stupid Sustainability" or something like that, but we couldn't help it. This post is sort of a vindication of what the point of that old post was - why do recycling when it doesn't pay off.
See, the free market will do a helluva job in allocating where the trash goes, based on a lot of factors, all then can be quantified in terms of money. I'm gonna excerpt about 1/3 of that post to explain:
Are we going to run quickly out of areas to bury our stuff? No, take a look at google earth aerial pics sometimes and I doubt you'll find one landfill without making an effort. The cntrl-left enviros really don't care about that part, as most of them just want to feel good about themselves and know they are a BETTER PERSON than you are. Were they to go talk to the city managers who probably know the real problem, they'd know that it's hard to build a smelly landfill close in to the city. You can build them farther out, but that requires more money to continuously truck the trash much further. Is that sustainable? That depends on how much wasteful crap the city does with the rest of the budget, but I would not have any problem with any of the treehuggers who are in favor of charging for trash based on weight (Oh, no! Free markets! Ewwwww!). Sure, though, let's recycle what PAYS to recycle, as in stuff that the city can get enough money back for to cover what it would have cost to truck it to a far-out landfill (Landfills. FAR OUT, MAN!) That's what I call sustainable.In the on-line magazine Quillette, about which I don't know too much otherwise, one Mr. Howard Husock, of the Manhattan Institute says As City Budgets Shrink, It’s Time to Rethink Recycling Programs. Well, obviously if a recycling program paid off or broke even, there wouldn't have to be cuts along with the associated city budget. (You may even want to expand it.) These Quillette people are right on my wavelength, it seems (might be worth reading in general):
Instead of letting a free market take care of decisions about what to do with our trash, based on a concept called "pricing", we have these treehuggers pushing for decisions based on their emotions. They feel very good seeing these big cans filled with supposed "recyclables" in some citiies, when lots of it gets sent right to the landfill from the transfer station. See, not many treehuggers work at the transfer station to see this, just regular working people work there. Some of the process doesn't pay off at all, as in, it would still be cheaper to gather up the unsuitable-for-reuse trash normally and bring it straight way out of town to a landfill. That means that the taxpayers are on the hook, of course. Is that sustainable? At some point we're gonna' run out of taxpayers. Yeah, there are indeed bigger boondoggles than the recycling process in some progressive cities, and yes, you need to know how to pick your battles. The point here is to debunk this whole meme of "sustainability, sustainability".
The COVID recession has caused tax revenues to plummet, forcing cities and states to make painful budget cuts. But as they struggle to fund schools, parks, public safety, and other essential services, there’s one simple and painless way for governments to save money: Rethink recycling. The goal should be to transform the practice from a virtuous-seeming exercise that drains funds from core public services, to one by which price signals assure taxpayers that diverted materials are actually recycled.We are not running out of room for landfills. That's a key point that Mr. Husock doesn't quite get to. However, he discussed the significant cost differences, depending very much on the materials, and the current market for different materials, that favor dumping them vs. recycling in the current climate.
When recycling programs became common three decades ago, they were sold to taxpayers as a win-win, financially and environmentally: Cities expected to reap budget savings through the sale of recyclable materials, and conscientious taxpayers expected to reduce ecological destruction. Instead, the painful reality for enthusiastic, dutiful recyclers is that most recycling programs don’t make much environmental sense. Often, they don’t make economic sense, either.
Speaking of climate, Mr Husock had to bring up the carbon emission crap that I don't want to get into in this post (see Global Climate Stupidity for plenty of that) as a factor in decisions to recycle based on environmental reasons alone. Even with that bogus climate-change reasoning, his Manhattan Institute calculates that nothing but metal, cardboad, and some paper is not worth recycling for "the climate's sake" either. Of course, that can change with demand and also is based on location, since there are certain locations where the landfills must be far out enough to make other options more competitive.
Here's what has really changed in the last few years, beside, the COVID recession, as the man calls it: China won't take our crap anymore. That's really not fair, man, as we pay money for plenty of their crap.
The chief buyers of American recyclable materials used to be Asian countries, chiefly China, where wages were low enough to justify labor-intensive recycling operations. But as part of Beijing’s “National Sword” policy, China began banning imports of “foreign trash” in 2017. Other Asian countries also began imposing their own restrictions. Meanwhile, reduced demand sent prices tumbling. The market price for mixed paper, for example, dropped from $160 to $3 per ton from March 2017 to March 2018.China used to REALLY be short on paper*. Yeah, you overpopulate your land for hundreds of years, ant that kind of stuff is gonna happen. (Shouldn't that be a lesson for (us) treehuggers here?) There weren't so many real forests left, though the Chinese are getting on a real environmental kick now. They need it.
[My bolding]
Look, readers, I'm as much of a treehugger as the next guy (though there's never been any penetration). However, the virtual signalling going on with those big trash cans being the recycling while the little ones are for trash is just that, a show of virtue. Lots of that stuff in the big can may go to the landfill too, but just a longer and more expensive way.
As a result, cities that once collected some revenue for bales of recyclables (though typically not enough to cover the extra costs that recycling introduces into a municipal budget) must now pay to get rid of them. In many cases, they simply send them to landfills.Ahaaa! See? What is done with your trash should depend on economics and the current market, not "makes us feel good". If that money wasted doesn't go to a more primary function of city government, it won't feel that good when your Volvo gets its front end bent up from that big-ass pot hole they didn't have money to fix.
I don't think I really need a guy from the Manhattan Institute to vindicate a Peak Stupidity post, but it feels kind good that someone else is getting around to it.
* At the restaurant, they would make you pay a small fee for another small pack of napkins if the few they gave you didn't suffice.
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If the COVID don't get you, then the lightning will.
Posted On: Saturday - October 3rd 2020 7:04PM MST
In Topics: Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
This post is the 2nd Kung Flu story from an expedition far out of the confines of our comfortable State of LOCKDOWN hysteria, a couple of days back ... to Lowe's and then Target. (Oh, the small project for which I got the parts from Lowe's was a success.) Well .. the Lowe's story morphed into an epiphany about black lives and whether they matter ... enough to advertise across one's face like an idiot. This one will stick to the healthcare stupidity that has kept this blog staff in Filet Mignon with half-off Target-bought Chef Boyardee pasta on the side, all chased with 6-packs of Huber fine ale, since around late March. Actually, no, not Filet Mignon, that was Chick-fil-a.
It was the same story, an experiment in social antagonistancing, as I wore no mask into the store, or at any time later. I didn't get any bad reactions, really no reactions at all as I spent the 10 minutes getting my stuff. Yes, lady, "I found everything OK". At the checkout line I was surprise to see a 50-60 y/o woman wearing no mask. She was standing in line right behind me, as the cashier was just starting to ring up my stuff.
Man, was I excited about this. "I'm glad to see someone else who's tired of all this stuff." was roughly the way I put it. She agreed and we spent a minute or more at a 2 ft. social distance just conversing about all the stupidity we'd been seeing. I brought up the students at the nearby university out in the sunshine mostly wearing masks. She brought up a topic we briefly noted in Part 6 of our Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic series, people who wear face masks while driving around, with the windows up! The word "retards" was bandied about ... a couple of times ... by me ... in hearing range of the cashier (that plexiglas doesn't work!), other customers, and a young lady who I'm pretty sure was this older lady's daughter.
That was great. All in hearing range could hear us both calmly discuss this Kung Flu Panic-Fest stupidity, in a very friendly manner. I was in a good mood leaving the Target store.
About a mile away from the store, I noticed a cop SUV in the rear-view mirror. He stayed behind me for a mile or so, as I got down below the speed limit, mostly just to piss the guy off, more than anything. OK, I used to get pulled over so often in another vehicle that my heart rate quit even going up. It's been years though. It just doesn't seem to happen anymore, and, no, I don't believe in jinxes, as of publication date, at least.
I had an interesting thought after the first 1/2 mile of this cop following me, beside, I mean, "he's just going the same way". What if the Target store employees had been told "don't bother anyone flouting the COVID panic rules directly - you might get hurt or infected. Just tell your manager and he'll call the cops on 'em." Well, maybe there would just be a warning and maybe a ticket for a low fine for a first offense, but think of the blog posts I could get out of this! Those were my thoughts as I looked back a half mile later and the cop SUV was nowhere in sight.
And to think, I almost cut my hair.
Happened just the other day.
It was getting kind of long....
Must be because I had the Kung Flu for Christmas.
And I'm not feeling up to par.
It increases my paranoia,
like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car.
Just letting my freak face fly, with all apologies due to Crosby, Stills, and Nash... for calling them dirty stinkin' hippies all these years.
Here's another one:
The wheel is turning, and you can't slow down.
You can't let go, and you can't hold on.
You can't go back, and you can't stand still.
If the COVID don't get you, then the lightning will.*
* I had had that Dead song in my head (The Wheel) for this post, lost the tab of the youtube video, remembered it, then found out I'd already embedded it before, AND, it was in a post about shopping at Target in the age of the Kung Flu. (See Targeted for Hysteria - Addendum, a follow-up post, of course, from Targeted for Hysteria.) What serendipity, except the independent coming up with the same idea bit was between me and myself of May 14th this year.
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Trump Derangement Syndrome Spreads to China
Posted On: Saturday - October 3rd 2020 11:51AM MST
In Topics: Trump China Kung Flu Stupidity
This is just another virus that America has infected the country of China with, ON PURPOSE. It's those infected US dollars we tricked them into taking in return or all that Cheap China-made Crap. I wrote "another" because, see, the Chinese, hence Ron Unz also, believe that WE are the ones that infected them with that Kung Flu shit, it's nothing to do with labs or bats, man, nah, bats are cute!
This is not just the usual tit-for-tat statements that are part of diplomacy. The picture above doesn't say it all, but I couldn't get one off my Chinese source that'd make sense in English.
They are celebrating over there. Per my Chinese source, the people have been so flooded with BS out of the CCP that there is general happiness about President Trump's illness. We Chat messages of glee are flying around.
You know, this kind of thing is common in wartime, but ... Are the Chinese on a wartime footing emotionally right now? They need to calm the fuck down. After all, Americans mostly just don't want to keep up a half trillion dollar trade deficit up year after year until we have sold out our whole country*? Is that too much to ask? Peak Stupidity gives the President kudos for his efforts on the very-unfair trade situation often.
This Trump Derangement Virus, known by the epidemiology community as Trump Ooppositional Virus Idiot-favoring Disease, 2020, or TOVID-20, has got a pretty high R0, apparently. It also spreads through wheat and pork shipments and stays on doorknobs and the surfaces of returned broken Chinese goods for months at a time. Sometimes it spreads even through the internet. Be careful out there!
* This is the 3rd segment of our series "There's a lot of ruin in a nation.", the title of which is a reference to the OTHER Adam Smith. You may want to start with Part 1 and Part 2.
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Black Lives Do Matter
Posted On: Saturday - October 3rd 2020 6:53AM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Kung Flu Stupidity
This and the next post are anecdotal from a shopping trip I made two days back. I got distracted with other things, and so they will both appear today. All it takes is some time mixing among 2020 life to put a number of posts in my head. There will be no running out the way it's going ...
It's been a while since I have needed to go into the building supply store. That's a good thing, as nothing has been broken. On the other hand, I haven't been doing any even minor little projects. They can be fun, and going shopping for this sort of thing is more enjoyable* to me than other shopping.
I went into Lowe's un-masked. It was just that kind of day, too nice for that stuff, and I needed to get material for a blog post... so... I don't recall anyone even looking at me funny, as I went by the customer service area into the store and all the rest of the time. Since it had been a while and the 2 items I needed were ones that could have been in various areas , I talked to about 3 employees for directions to the appropriate aisles. Each of them was very helpful. Not a one said a word about my not wearing a mask. (I really think that they may have thought afterward "Now, what was different about that guy? He looked kind of... normal.")
A young black guy left his stocking work to ask me if I needed help with the weather stripping. He wasn't really of help, as I already was looking at the right stuff and just sorting things out, but he was nice enough. I hesitate to even ask the young people about anything very specific regarding use of the products, and especially a black kid. Still, that was nice.
Oh, then I had to shop for tools, just looking for something I might need while I was in there. Yes, that is woman-style shopping, but I know I'll think of what I should have bought in the next week or so, and the stuff just might be better than the Harbor Freight crap.
It was then up to the register where they had the plexiglas and a young woman with a thick black mask on was behind it. It wasn't till I finished paying and was grabbing the bag that I saw the "Black Lives Matter" logo on this white cashier's mask. Disgusting! I gave her that look and walked out. (You can give looks better without a mask on too, see?) This is where this turns completely from another Kung Flu post into a Race post.
Out in the parking lot, because the exit is about 50 yard from the entrance, I noticed what I hadn't on the way in. It was that solar powered police camera station on a trailer shown at the top. What kind of problems have they been having out in the parking lot? I don't know if it's been cars being broken into or worse.
I thought back to the idiot white check-out girl with her Black Lives Matter advertisement. I guess it's more of a warning than an advertisement. See, this is why those cameras up on the pole on that expensive trailer had to be there. Black lives matter. If it weren't for black lives, started by single black women living off the taxpayers much of the time, nurtured via feedings of unhealthy fatty food, instruction via loud yelling of obscenities and threats, nurtured further by gang-banging peers who never worked a day in their lives, with a genetic propensity to be on the violent side to begin with, well, we wouldn't need that camera trailer in the Lowe's parking lot.
We wouldn't have to avoid the convenience of the big city. We wouldn't need to spend an hour commuting daily to be able to send kids to safer schools rather than the other ones we're paying for. We wouldn't need to spend all that tax money on the world's biggest judicial and prison system. We could apply for the jobs we were qualified and get them. We could fire incompetent people at the job. We wouldn't have to be careful what we say all the time. We could have nice things. We wouldn't need to lock up everything at night or our cars in the Lowe's parking lot.
Yes, I've seen the light! That face diaper was right. Black lives DO matter!
* Except as a substitute for the dwindling supply of hardware stores, discussed in China vs. America and the local hardware store, as the big box store is farther, takes longer to do business in, is usually less personable, and one can't always buy small quantities of hardware.
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Elton John - 10 non-hit favorites + Where to now, St. Peter?
Posted On: Friday - October 2nd 2020 8:02PM MST
In Topics: Music
It's been a month since Peak Stupidity's review of the movie about Elton John called Rocketman. The movie could have been done differently and better, as I discussed, but I also called Elton John "one of the best pop artists of all time." Since that review, I've been wanting to list off many of his great songs.
I could come up with 50. However, today I'll just list out 10 non-hit songs that I think should rate just as high up as his real hit songs, such as Rocketman, the title of the movie. These are in chronological order, earliest to latest. Look, this guy may have written a few good ones in the 1980s, but sorry, that wasn't THE Elton John, IMO.These are from the 1970s, every single one of them, and every single one of them was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin (Bernie with the lyrics, first, then Elton with the music).
Links go to the appropriate youtube video, but I will probably feature a few of these later, that haven't been already.
Levon from Madman Across the Water, 1971
Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters from Honky Chateau, 1972
Elderberry Wine from Don't Shoot Me. I'm Only the Piano Player, 1972
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding* from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973
Roy Rogers from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973
Social Disease** from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973
Step into Christmas***, a single only, 1973
Dixie Lily**** from Caribou, 1974
Bitter Fingers from Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975
Grow Some Funk of Your Own***** from Rock of the Westies, 1975
Holy Moley, what a great 5 years - 1971 through 1975!
Top 10 lists of all kinds of things - sounds like either Dave Letterman or John Cusack in High Fidelity (Cool movie!)
I just found this one that I'd never heard before. It took pretty well with me upon first listen. From before all these others, from the Tumbleweed Connection album of 1970, here's Where to now, St. Peter?:
* The 2nd song of these 2 that MUST BE PLAYED TOGETHER, Love Lies Bleeding is the hardest rocking song of the 10.
** Social Disease was featured in our post called Beaches.
*** That's Bernie Taupin, for split seconds, by some percussion instruments at 02:19 in.
**** Peak Stupidity featured this favorite (#2 of the 10, I'd say after Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding) early in the life of this blog.
***** Also featured. This was a number 14 so, sort of a hit, but not one anyone but Elton John fans would know. I don't think you'll hear it played anywhere but here on Peak Stupidity!
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