Precor 62/80/82 treadmill consoles- the Stupidity stops here.
Posted On: Monday - August 17th 2020 5:29PM MST
In Topics: Artificial Stupidity
Just skip this post, everyone. Peak Stupidity has this sub-fixation with the bio-physics calculations incorporated into the electronics in exercise machine consoles, and, by God, we're gonna finish this. In this case it's just praise for the Precor P62/80/82 series of treadmill machine console, the first of which is the console describe in our previous post on this matter.
After doing a workout on this nice machine (both mechanically and electronically), I checked it out just a bit more than last time. For one thing, I got the model #, which I didn't know last post - it's the Precor P-80, and I looked into the one I'd discussed before and determined that it was a P-62.
Then, I played with this one some. At two speed/slope combinations, the elevation gain is right on the money, per calculation. That should not be very difficult as it's simply speed x slope, but this just tells me the programmers at least weren't making it up as they went along. This treadmill** goes to NEGATIVE 3% slope. That was interesting. The only problem is, the elevation gained was not decreasing. I went up to 10 mph, but nope. That's just a little bit of stupidity there, as why shouldn't it go back down? It makes me think some "compassionate" women were involved in the marketing or programming - mustn't discourage the poor exerciser. "3 more calories too. You're a winner!".
See, with the slope at -3% at 1 mph, the display still shows ~3 kCal burned per minute. There may be something to that. As we tried to explain in some of the other similar posts, biological work done is not an easy thing to calculate. However, simple mechanical-work-wise, the exerciser is getting work done ON HIM. At -3%, 10 mph, more "calories are burned", but the damn thing is dangerous! If you stumble or can't keep up, I believe this thing could throw you into the bars and that nicely-engineered console.
Here's something I forgot to mention before, for some of the new treadmills: If you jump off onto the sides, as I do, to check my heart rate, the smart(ass) machine detects no user (no spikes in motor torque?) and will display a "no user detected message" with the heart rate I'm trying to watch off the display! #Annonying! Then again, the doctors or exercise pros would have you just bring the slope down and turn the speed way down for measurement of heart rate recovery. I suppose the idea is to keep one from leaving the machine running all night, and to keep some dumbass from getting back on it in the morning while it's running 10 mph 3% downhill.
One more thing regarding the exercise machines in general is my continual annoyance with the Precor 842i bike machine. That's the one that just screws me out of my efforts. My goal is to go 5 miles in 20 minutes, which, though really shouldn't have to be the case, seems to be a good standard workout for me on most of the recumbent bike machines. You've got to start a little easy, so I get behind that pace, then start ramping up the resistance. I keep the same 80 -85 rpm pace, and the speed averages well over 15 mph (5 miles in 20 min pace), yet the thing shows me further and further behind! It'd be one thing if the increased resistance on the machine were to represent hill-climbing, hence a higher calorie-burn rate but no speed increase. That's how it is on a real bike. But, NO, the speed shows an increase, but the pace is slower. WTH, Precor?
What? You're still here?? [/Bueller] If you've gone this far, I want to say that I appreciate our loyalty. A sneak peak into the near future is that we'll have more "scenes from the Kung Flu re-Panic", more on the religious questions in relationship to little Landen, and movie reviews.
* That may not be the case with all treadmills that have this console though.
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Little Landen's miraculous recovery
Posted On: Saturday - August 15th 2020 8:20PM MST
In Topics: Bible/Religion
An article by Steve Sailer on that shooting of the 5 y/o white boy by a black neighbor made me think again of little Lqnden Hoffman of Minneapolis, the 5 y/o boy (6 now) who was thrown of a balcony down 3 stories by some crazy black man "looking for someone to kill". I'll link to that in another post on the matter, but it just happens to be 2 weeks since Peak Stupidity's post on this, Little Landen in Minneapolis.
I meant to write a lot more about forgiveness (or lack thereof) and whether the Christain religion, at least the modern version, IS really going to be the downfall of white civilization, as I've read commenters argue. I'll leave that for another post to come next week.
Right now, I'll just mention that I read today very good news about this boy's recovery. Though he had lived, things looked very grim for the boy's full recovery last year, per the post linked-to above. He's just one boy, and bad things happen even to good little innocent children every day, but I am so glad about this.
I had a newer site page pulled up on a different computer earlier, but this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from around Thanksgiving of last year is about the most recent proper article I can find. The world "miraculous" was used in that post I can't find anymore and in plenty of others. I'll let the kid speak for himself:
“He tells people all the time when they get hurt, don’t worry, I fell off a cliff, but Angels caught me and Jesus loves me, so I’m ok and you will be too!" reads a post on the site from Nov. 22.The boy is walking normally, and the articles I've seen don't mention any permanent health problems that the boy would have to deal with the rest of his whole life. This is great news.
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And now, we have longer cattle lines, for your own Safety and Security
Posted On: Saturday - August 15th 2020 11:18AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Americans Liberty/Libertarianism Kung Flu Stupidity
(Note: Not taken of our line. We had a more convoluted path, everyone wore masks, and then there was the
We ask the reader to please skip to at least the 2nd portion of this post if you've read this before (somewhere?), as this is basically an addendum to COVID / TSA twin peaks of stupidity post from over 2 months back. This post describes our experience at the TSA line in a different location from that at which we encountered the pleasant experience described 2 days back in Thank you, TSA guy!. Instead of just our family and the one guy (that was the beauty of it, as I think nobody was nearby enough to watch him), there were thousands.
Let me digress just a bit to inside the airport terminal, by which I mean on the flying side of the security lines. (Actually some of this is outside too.) Go back about 20 years, and, yes, one would hear about "the FAA advises this" and "the FAA requires that" when it came to luggage handling, plenty of rules on-board the airplanes, of course and this or that procedure. I want to mention 2 things:
1) I do know that much of the Nazi/Commie-like behavior of gate agents and flight attendants (especially) is due to out-of-control FAA rules, making these (wanting-to-be) customer service type individuals into cops. I can tell you from experience that were a F/A to know there are no company, FAA, or any other tattletales in the cabin, she would be much more relaxed and congenial. "Don't want to put the seat-belt on. Fine, I'm not gonna make a Federal case out of", she might think, not say, on occasion.
2) The FAA, being involved in actual, real, sometimes acute safety issues, with plenty of technical decisions to make, are a group composed of fewer AA/Dieversity hires than most government agencies. They've got lots of White men, in other words, making decisions. This is a good thing. Since I mentioned that, I'll note that I have actual high regard for the NTSB, a different outfit, because they are engineering/technical types. I have personal experience even.
OK, but that's going back 2 decades, almost. Go back 1/2 a year, or slightly more, through 18 years, and you will remember that you'd hear "the FAA this/that" AND "the TSA this/that" around the terminal, telling you what you must do to "be safe" and "for your own good". Yeah, I guess we are used to that enough to where our brains completely block it out. (I wish I could say the same for CNN in the terminals. )
Here's the latest agency we may hear from forever, the way the Kung Flu Panic-fest is going - the CDC. "The CDC recommends...", "The CDC requires ...", etc, is what you have blasting at you along with the commands from the other two organizations. Yes, put your money in noise-cancelling headsets, people! That's my stock tip. I sincerely hope it will make up for the tip that most readers hopefully missed in February to "get all your funds out of the floor sticker sector! It's going to bottom out!" Hey, this is not a financial-advise site, and (due to, cough, cough, our following our own stock tips, cough...) WE ARE NOT WORTH SUING! [Thank you - PS Legal]
Because there are these twin peaks of stupidity at the airport terminal, the War on Terra and the War on Germies, the American experts and authoritahs have worked out a system. We need to screen EVERYBODY because, fairness and shit. We also need to keep everyone 6 ft apart and not spreading germs even through the face masks that we require them to wear, because pandemic! Therefore, there was a long, long stretch of cattle-pen type line, bordered by 8 ft sections of ~ 7ft tall plexiglas with metal support. Let's not worry about any Covid-cooties going up and above or below, or through the breaks. We hope they have not mutated to be that smart yet.
Subtract the expected throughput (yes, that's the terms they use, as in a production line - you are the input and you minus your toothpaste, gerber tool, and bottled water are the output) from the rate of entrants to the terminal during the peak times, multiply that by 6 ft, and you get an idea of how long the line must be. There were multiple hundreds of sections of plexiglas that wound around like the line to the best E-ticket ride in Disneyland. Hey, we didn't mind the walk actually. It was only about 5 -10% of the number of steps we'd done on our long hike*.
No, it's the indignity of it all that really pissed me off. Some may reply to me that, yes, that's what we have to put up with, but I say that firstly, it's NOT a necessary indignity. The Kung Flu healthcare theater is ridiculous and the security theater is ridiculous. Both are for show, and I don't like being turned into a cattle/sheep-like creature for this show. Both of these worries could be better handled by individuals and private companies (the airlines in the case of both worries).
Lastly, and this is the point that'd I'd asked readers sick of this TSA-posting to come read. The problem we got, as described by some blogger who I can't recall many years ago, is this: Americans come from an organized people. The British Founders especially, but also Germans, Scandinavians, etc. are good with organization. OTOH, we have this unConstitutional and Police-State type behavior out of governents-gone-wild.
Now, you do down to S. America, and yes, they have lots of stupid, arbitrary rules too, and lots of hype too. However, they are not good at organization. So, the rules are in place, but people are too lazy and/or incompetent to really enforce them correctly**. There is the corruption aspect (that could probably get your pocketknife through the line, because, "hey, my Dad works for ...")
Our people do the best they could to comply with all recommendations by the experts and the letter of the law. So, you've got your floor stickers, your plexiglas sections by the hundreds, your face shields on the TSA guys (that's gotta suck, I don't care who you are, and no, if you work there I don't care who you are.***) so that we can all be SAFE when they ask you to take the mask off to match your face with your ID card, your touching of the ladies behinds by ladies only and little kids by ....
Oh, as a last thought here (I promise), when the cattle chute got within 100 ft or so of the entrance to finally get screened, well, people get anxious, you know, so ... they all bunch together. At that point we were back at normal, or what is now "non-social" distances apart. A lot of damn good this all does!
* Totally off-topic, but thanks to the nice backpacker who lent our 9 y/o the toilet paper! We were 2 1/2 hours from anything resembling a bathroom, and, though I used to have a pack with the required and emergency stuff for day hikes that might turn into overnights, we don't have a family of preppers exactly, right now. That needs to change. The wife is FINALLY catching on that thing are getting worse here. (The kid wouldn't have gone another 5 minutes, much less 2 1/2 hours!)
** The bad thing that comes from this is that anyone not in good standing with any authoritah can be taken in for any one of these rules that's only enforced when said authoritah damn well wants to.
*** Actually, I shouldn't be so harsh. A post coming sometime will be about that "I just work here. I don't make the rules" business.
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Inflation Note: National Park fees
Posted On: Friday - August 14th 2020 8:48PM MST
In Topics: Inflation
(Note: This is not necessarily the location we visited, but just a file photo.)
This is just a short inflation note. Is this cherry picking, is what I wonder myself sometimes? Well, if there were something related to counteract the items I see going up, I'd write about it too. I suppose we could have a post soon about the things that have been truly getting cheaper but being made of (or served resulting in) the same value or better.
Anyway, the National Park entrance fee is now $30 for a good-for-7-days entrance and $55 for a year-long one. I do not remember the comparable 7-day one, but through only 12 years ago, I used to go enough to one particular beautiful National Park that I'd get year-long ones.* They were $30 then. With the online calculator Money Chimp (yeah, I just like the name, and it works), I get a 5.18% inflation rate with compounding accounted for.
There is another data point that I wish I could give more details on. Let's call it a transportation service of some kind. This exact same service in the exact same location costed $6.50 in 1999. It is $20.50 today. Ka-ching! 5.62%, says the Money Chimp.
Hey, these Inflation notes I've been posting are just anecdotes. They add up though. Don't believe the BLS.
* One could and can also get year-long ones good for ANY of the National Parks. That was $80 last week, and I think it was $50 back in the day I'd buy the $30 ones. That's right at 4% yearly inflation.
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Mr. Øb☭ma fails to perform
Posted On: Friday - August 14th 2020 9:30AM MST
In Topics: Books Dead/Ex- Presidents
"...yet", says Penguin Random House, ex-President Øb☭ma's book publisher.
Look, Peak Stupidity would have been glad to have never heard from, read of, or written of, this "community-organizing" phony Constitutional scholar for the rest of our blog-life. This little tidbit regarding the retired President is worth mentioning due to the I-told-you-so effect. The first of our Affirmative Action Presidents (Kamel-Toe, or Tamil-Ho*, being a likely 2nd), I never thought Mr. Øb☭ma was a git-er-done type of guy.
I mean, increased Socialism, continued war-mongering, and the purposeful continuation of the immigration invasion aside, I figured, hell if this guy could racially heal this country, then maybe it would be worth putting up with 8 years of his condescension and ignorance of what made America great. I don't feel the healing right now, though. Maybe we were healed for a while, and I just missed it. If that's the case, it didn't take!
The ex-President, early-on AntiChrist candidate Øb☭ma has been reneging (wheww, thank you, spell check!) on a 3 y/o contract to write another book, or get someone to write another book for him. Per The American Spectator, Publishers Fret Over Obama’s ‘Failure to Perform’ his next book was to be published almost 2 years ago. In this short article it is also mentioned that Mr. Øb☭ma also blew off a book deal in the early 1990's, and kept most of his $125,000 advance anyway, because, poverty:
According to Osnos, the publisher [an "imprint"(?) of Simon & Shuster] asked that Obama return at least some of the advance. According to biographer Christopher Andersen, Obama had spent $75,000 of the advance and could not pay it back. The publisher let Obama keep the money only after he pled poverty due to “massive student loan debt.”Later on, in 1994, Mr. Obama was convinced to finish the book for Random House, unfortunately, as that became the racist whine called Dreams from my Father (his father being the reprobate that ditched little Obama and Mom - forget it, Jake, it's Africa).
For this most recent book from Obama, we are talking real money this time, $65,000,000. I'm just glad it's not my tax money. It'd be great if we never heard another word from this guy, and I'd never even pick up the book from the library. We are eagerly awaiting the latest Dogman book though, to be titled Grime and Punishment.
* Another great piece of wordplay by the illustrious unz.com commenter Reg Caesar.
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More rockin' music by Linda Ronstadt
Posted On: Thursday - August 13th 2020 8:12PM MST
In Topics: Music
In our Linda Ronstadt movie review, Peak Stupidity expressed our shock that we had not featured any of her great music before. It's time to remedy that right now.
As we noted, Miss Ronstadt didn't write very many of her songs. Every single one that I consider a good one was written by another writer/artist. It's So Easy was written by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty and performed by Buddy Holly and the Crickets back in 1958. You gotta always give the writer(s) credit, but I will say I like Linda Rondstadt and her band's version better (perhaps because I heard it first).
I bring up the band, because that's important. Miss Ronstadt had such a great voice, but this song would not be one of my favorites without that band - the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and just the right amount of cowbell!
From the album Simple Dreams, this song went to number 5 on the Billboard magazine top 100 chart in 1977.
Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me was written by the late great Warren Zevon**. He had it on his eponymous album in 1976, and then Linda Rondstadt released it in 1978, from that same Simple Dreams album. I really like that hard-rocking guitar sound - I wish that ending would just gone on for longer. Oh, more cowbell? You got it!**
A youtube commenter (under the first video):
Rob Saunders 4 years ago (edited)
"She could sing the phone book and still sound better than any singers today."
* Peak Stupidity has featured his music 3 times so far, here, here, and here.
** OK, he's hitting the rim of the snare drum, but it's the poor man's cowbell.
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Thank you, TSA guy!
Posted On: Thursday - August 13th 2020 7:08PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity US Police State
From our recent family trip comes a story of a GOOD TSA guy. Can you imagine? Try to get in your head "good" and "TSA" together. OK, I'm just hearing the hilarious Good Samaritan skit from this recent post in my head. It's probably hard for the Peak Stupidity reader to understand that I'm not being sarcastic this time. Don't worry, more complaints about this whole government organization devoted to illegal search and seizure is coming ... tomorrow or on the weekend.
I try to direct my anger against the operation rather than the people, for whatever the indignity may be. In the case of the TSA, though I abhor the whole point of this agency and the process, I've tried to be civil lately with the people. Yeah, I know, "they just work there". I would really like to give this shout-out to the TSA gentleman with his location, just in case anyone reads it who might let him know, but we do try to keep a low profile here. Secondly, it would likely get him in trouble!
I'd lost something that would have allowed my normal quick pass through this checkpoint into the airport. At this one location, at a pretty big airport, there was nobody but our family in the line. The guy was pretty lenient about what I was taking through there, as we were very close to missing the flight (the search for my item was part of the problem, but the delay getting to the airport is what I blame for my losing of the item to begin with). Maybe it was because it was slow, but I have never met such a reasonable and helpful guy in the TSA in a long while.
The fact that he was reasonable meant that he was using common sense rather than enforcing random stupidity. That is part of what could get the guy in trouble. It's like that nowadays, in all government and other big organizations. The stupidity from on high must be enforced. Anyone being reasonable is taking a risk of getting in trouble, as one can't go wrong nowadays by enforcing "zero tolerance".
I thought back to 25 years ago, when the security guy was just someone hired by the airport authority. This was at LAX, mind you, and the guy said "hey, that pocket knife is probably a little too big. Do you mind putting it in your checked luggage?" The situation was so relaxed and non-confrontational that I could have probably argued him into letting me keep it on me. I did bring it back downstairs, and the only checked item I had was a rifle. It was already in a room behind the counter, so I was all, "hey, can you put this knife with my gun?" "What? Can't hear you." I had to shout "take this knife and put it in the box with my gun." Yeah, I'd be face down on the floor if this happened in this century.
So, thank you Mr. TSA man! You saved our trip from going haywire. Of course, if there were no TSA in the first place ....
PS: The reader may be long sick of these posts about the TSA. If you've read this far though, let me say this: If you don't travel on the airlines much, I understand that it's out-of-sight/out-of-mind to you. However, even if you don't travel, you've gotta know this Police State stuff is slowly building up. (Do you remember long ago when DUI checkpoints were actually debated based on Constitutionality?) This won't be just an airline travel thing in the long run. I thought they'd be doing the same at the train stations, but then, with Amtrak, who cares? A train on the Chicago-San Francisco line could get blown up, and the families on the other end would not know for a couple of days that something was amiss, the way that they keep to a schedule.
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The Horrible Legacy of Slavery Continues ...
Posted On: Wednesday - August 12th 2020 6:48PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Humor Race/Genetics
... Contra Costa County, California and Chicagoland hardest hit.
(Note: May not be the same exact slavers as per news stories mentioned herewith.)
I guess it's not a legacy anymore, come to think of it. Damn, this resets the clock in the neighborhood of 165 years back. See, slavery is still on-going in the United States, contrary to popular belief and the strict stipulations in Constitutional Amendment XIII. Worse yet, it's in the North now. Well, I never! Are the Northerners out of their cotton-pickin' minds?!
Peak Stupidity has mentioned before, in the Amend. 13 post linked-to above for example, that VDare has posted articles about slavery in the US a number of times. I really have a hard time searching for stuff on that site (using their own "Search" feature), but the recent article I read by regular writer James Fulford points out another instance of this practice. From an unz commenter, I was linked to another recent case.
Mr. Fulford, in Sunday's article reports on a story from suburban Chicago (do they still call it all "Chicagoland", Mr. Blanc?). Let me just give Mr. Fulford's source's title, then his own title. They are "Suburban Chicago Family Forced West African Kids Into Forced Labor: Feds" and "West African Family Enslaving Suburban Kids In Chicago", respectively. Ha! Well, in a way, I guesssss... they are both true, but really, that's just how you lie nowadays when you are known everywhere as the Lyin' Press.
See, both the slaveholders and the slaves, who LIVED in suburban Chicago, for what purpose I don't freaking know, were ALL from Benin, in west Africa. They are Beninians, or something. That makes them Africans living in suburban Chicago rather than a suburban Chicago family. (Mr. Fulford was getting his digs in with his "suburban kids" bit too.)
Nawomi Awoga*, 71, of Hazel Crest, and her two daughters, Marina Oke, also known as Marina Fandohan, 34, of Country Club Hills, and Assiba Lea Fandohan, 31, of Hazel Crest, are charged with conspiracy to conceal, harbor, and shield from detection two children from the West African country of Benin, according to an indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The indictment also charges the defendants with forcing labor through threats of serious harm to a victim or another person.
They were arrested Monday.
According to the charges, Awoga coached the victims, then age 14 and 12, in Benin to lie to U.S. immigration authorities about their family relationships in order to obtain tourist visas, and then accompanied them into the United States. Once in the U.S., the defendants harbored the victims in residences in the Chicago suburbs of Country Club Hills and Hazel Crest while the victims were forced to provide labor and services for the defendants’ financial gain, the indictment states.
"Come for the opportunities. Stay
Then, just 1 day later, per the Contra Costra District Attorney's office (east of S.F. Bay, north of Oakland, specifically, the city of Martinez), we learn that slavery has been going on there too.
DA’s Office Files First Criminal Labor Trafficking Case Involving Domestic Servitude [There's that servitude again. I don't like the sound of that!]Once you set foot in the Bodie McMansion, you'd best setcher mind ta workin'.
Martinez, Calif. – Last month, [Californians] Ijeoma Chukwunyelu and Nnamdi Onwuzulike made their first court appearance and entered pleas of not guilty in Contra Costa County’s first criminal labor trafficking case. In addition to labor trafficking under Penal Code section 236.1(a), defendants are charged with extortion and conspiracy to violate Labor Code section 1199 which requires employers to follow California’s minimum wage and hour requirements.
In this case, a woman was recruited from outside the United States to be a nanny for a family with young children in East Contra Costa County. Defendants instructed the victim to obtain her passport and visa fraudulently and claim she was coming to California for three weeks as a tourist to attend the wedding of her son and the defendants’ daughter. Because of her economic circumstances, and fear that the job opportunity would be given to someone else, the victim followed the instructions she was given. She was not aware of her legal rights to minimum wages, breaks, overtime or employment conditions under California law.
When the victim arrived in California in April of 2017, defendants took possession of her passport and visa. From the time she started until October of 2018, the defendants required her to perform work beyond what she was hired to do. She was required to sleep on the floor of the children’s room so she could care for them round the clock, to cook for the entire family and clean their 5-bedroom house for no additional wages. They did not provide the victim with breaks or days off from her work responsibilities as required by California Law. The defendants never paid her overtime for any of the additional hours she worked and continued to employ her with knowledge that her visa expired. This made the victim a particularly vulnerable worker without immigration status who was fearful of deportation.
It's horrible man, as I thought we had this shit licked the Night they Drove Ole Dixie Down, but someone dropped the ball a while back ... cough, cough, the 1965 Immigration Act, cough...
Remember that old underground railroad, from the mid-1800's? I wonder what it would take to spruce that thing up and reverse the polarity of the DC circuit. Could we get these people down to Mississippi or South Carolina, where they still abide by Amendment XIII? It may be harder to get the folks out of California though. Rail has gone to hell in this country since the 1930s Streamliners. Per that post, the Chinese are really kicking ass, railway-wise, and may be able to provide us with some cheap or maybe even free Coolie labor ... nah... scratch that... forget I mentioned it, even.
If nothing else, this is a perfect instance for the Peak Stupidity Reparations Plan to be invoked, with extreme prejudice. [Note from PS Legal Team: that term is not applicable here.] <--- Screw you guys, I like the movie, and "extreme prejudice STAYS IN! Yeah, now there are actual live slaveholders and slaves to be made whole, and per PS's plan, "reparations contributions will be pro-rated based on years of slaveholding practices, while reparations payouts will be pro-rated by years of jumping-down-turning-around-picking-bales-of-cotton."
* Isn't Nawomi Awoga one of the Waukegan Awoga's, the old-time hog-slaughtering Awoga's? Anyone, anyone ... Buehler? (He was a suburban Chicagoan, is why I'm asking.)
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Linda Ronstadt - the movie
Posted On: Tuesday - August 11th 2020 8:52PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Music Movies
Of course, she was a great singer, but just askin'...
With a couple of plane rides under our belts and relaxation time, Peak Stupidity now has 2 1/2 movie reviews in mind. The 1/2, BTW, is not for a movie I quit watching (sometimes it doesn't go well - see Tried to watch a movie - here's 3 reviews in one!). One of them just has what I think is an important opening sequence - the first 1/2 hour or so. That post is upcoming.
Anyway, the big thing now, since the movie makers ran pretty much out of original ideas a coupla' decades back - it's just sequels, prequels, and comic books - is to feature some of the great rock music artists. I've got no problem with this. The Peak Stupidity reader should know by now that I think the heyday of good pop music is long gone. There was an Elton John movie available (with a review to come) and this one about the great Linda Ronstadt, called Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. This movie is pretty much a documentary.
I've really got no problem with a documentary as the format, but then with the Elton John movie being more like a weird musical*, I would have liked something in between. By in between, I mean how about the life story as acted out, not so much told, with lots of the great music of the artist stuck in there. The Buddy Holly Story is a great example of what I would have liked more for this Linda Ronstadt movie. They did show lots of music, but not always the whole song, so if just that's what you want, I'd go see it.
Linda Ronstadt grew up in a very musical family. The story on this was heartwarming, as a story of good old Americana back in late-1940s/50s/'60s rural Tucson, Arizona on 10 acres. She's been proud of her Latin American blood (a little more on this to come), but really it sounds like she's only 1/8 Mexican - her Dad's grandfather was a German engineer who moved to what was then a part of Mexico and married a Mexican lady back in the 1840s. This part of the movie was done very well.
Let me write just a bit about this musical artist before I go on. Linda mostly sang other artists/writers songs. As the musical friends/bandmates/interviewees in the movie noted, she made them her own. (No not IP theft, but in a musical sense.) She picked some of the best too, Warren Zevon, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Paul Anka, J.D. Souther, Hank Williams, Phil Everly, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, that other Elvis .. something or other. It goes on and on. No one denies she had one hell of a good strong voice too. I will have to add, that if you are of the male persuasion and of a certain, pretty wide, age range, her presence on stage and on album covers wearing the short shorts, cheerleader's uniforms, and even the Cub Scout outfit** probably did not hurt her career at all either.
Peak Stupidity is SHOCKED, and not in a Louis Renault fashion, that we have featured exactly NONE of Linda Ronstadt's music so far. I would have bet someone that I had, but the dBase says what it says. (Yeah, even I, the blogger, need a search function!) We'll have to remedy that, starting today. Though Miss Ronstadt sang both lots of ballads*** and rockers, it's the latter that I enjoy, as once she got her long-term band****, that rock sound out of guitarist Waddy Wachtel and the rest. This was supposed to be a quick movie review, so, OK, fine ...
The story of Miss Ronstadt's rise to stardom, with her great music mixed in goes pretty quickly, as she moved out to Los Angeles, then got hooked up with one band after another. She rose to fame fairly quickly, being in the right place at one of the best times in rock music there's ever been. Not all of anyone's favorite songs can be in an hour and a half movie, but they did put in some of the classics, and they fit in with the documentary pretty well.
You get to hear from Linda's musical friends. We heard from Don Henley, Jackson Brown, and some of the music industry people. Emmylou was in there along with Bonnie Raitt, both favorites of mine for a while there. By some point though, the feminism angle came in a bit (whaddya expect from the mid 1970s?). One could get past this part with the whining of "oh, it's hard to make it as a woman, because ..." cause, what, every producer, member of the band, male member of the audience... wanted to make it with you? I'm not sure what the problem would be, really, but if you like the 1970s music, you'll enjoy hearing the story.
At some point, California Governor Jerry Brown (during his first stint as Governor Moonbeam) had a long relationship with Miss Ronstadt, who remained "Miss" her whole life. It turns out from my reading, that this relationship started in the early 1970's, but the movie only starts on about it when it was a big item toward the end of that decade. I don't mind a short stint on that, but then I got this out of Miss Ronstadt, and I am paraphrasing: I don't think a musician should concern herself with these political issues... blah, blah...", but then proceeded to give her very left-wing, opinions on all the BS that Jerry Brown was spewing back in the day. It was California, mind you, so lots of that stuff would be lefty even today!
That was it. I didn't want to be politicked to, there in the middle of a flight, when I could simply click [EXIT] and watch another... which I did ... which will be that 1/2 review coming. I don't know how much time was left in Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of my Voice by this point. She was truly a 1970s artist, period, no matter how long she sung after that. So, I figure, with my exit from the movie at about 1979, I didn't miss much.
One more last thing: I figured that, since Miss Ronstadt got into her "roots", in her mind, anyway, with music in the 1980s sometime, the Latin American stuff, some more political BS that I might not enjoy was coming anyway. I don't fault this artist at all for delving into material that was off the mainstream and in deep in her soul or something. It was, though, a lot of music that I never listened to a bit of. Maybe I missed something, maybe I didn't. At least during my watching of the movie, I avoided any more political stress that would deter me from wanting to hear any more from Linda Ronstadt. We'll catch up in the long run, but for now, here is my favorite, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones (did I need to write that out?)
Speaking of movies, and man, this post is getting long, but the reason the video had some other footage at the beginning is because this song Tumbling Dice was featured in the cool 1978 movie FM - no static at all ... Anyone younger than 30 don't bother, you wouldn't understand the whole radio business. It was a big thing! I wanted this live footage:
* No, see that may cause a "duh??" out of the reader, but I'll explain in that upcoming review.
** It probably brought a number of early-onset-puberty boys into the program!
*** Plenty of the ballads were great too. My favorite is Blue Bayou, written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson.
**** After she left The Stone Ponies at the end of the 1960s, Linda was called a solo artist, but a great band sure helped. Initially, it was Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. If you don't recognize those names, you should just leave this web site right now and not come back .. until next post. OK, they became The Eagles a force more powerful in 1970s music than Linda Rondstadt. During the best and most successful years, 1975 and '76, Linda's great rocking band was:
Waddy Wachtel - Guitar, Background Vocals
Andrew Gold - Guitar, Keyboards, Background Vocals
Brock Walsh - Keyboards, Bass
Kenny Edwards - Bass, Banjo, Harmonica, Mandolin, Guitar, Background Vocals
Dan Dugmore - Guitar, Pedal Steel Guitar
Mike Botts - Drums
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Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 9
Posted On: Monday - August 10th 2020 8:09PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Kung Flu Stupidity
It's been over a week, though that includes Peak Stupidity's short hiatus, since the last re-Panic observations. I had to go back to the store today, Target again.
"See, now that there's your post."
"What post, all you did was go to the store?"
"That's what I mean, it's a site about NOTHING!"
"But why would anyone want to read a site about NOTHING?"
"Because ... it's on the INTERNET!"
[Not yet, it isn't. - Ed]
No really, in this Kung Flu era, even a trip to the Big Box store is worthy of a post. (Yeah, because people still have too much time on their hands, and it's either surf the web or riot ... hmmmm. ... what to do, what to do? Oh, I got it, surf the web while rioting, they got those big-ass phones now ...)
I was prepared for what I was to see at the Target store, but only mentally, not emotionally. I put my mask on last minute, almost to the point of waiting for the first yell from some poor employee tasked with that. Not a soul was without a mask, even the hotties. Let me tell you, in this location there are a ton, and with the hot weather, the short shorts made up for missing out on the cute faces (though one could still tell). It wasn't all bad, so I got my stuff merged in with the stretched-out but fast-moving line, and bought my stuff.
Let me go back though, as that's not ANY kind of post. It was on the way across the parking lot TO the store in which I got pretty disgusted with this whole country. Under the hot sun, across the parking lot, came a number of (many grossly overweight) shoppers with masks over their entire faces, right up to their sunglasses. (The image above doesn't do justice to my view.) There's fresh air out there, they were out of the store and well away from it, and this is not crowded NYC or China. Did I mention it was hot out, near 90F? That didn't stop 'em. It just looked like these folks were down with the masks for the "duration". What is the duration, the rest of their lives?
At least when the cute young women leave the store, they pull off those masks. They need to be seen.
While searching for the image I wanted, I noted the source of this one. I'd have to be a real bastard to put the link in here, as it was a site that informed us of "The Riskiest Places for Catching Coronavirus Revealed", each rated with a score to from 1 to 10 with 2 significant figures after the decimal. Yeah, it's a women's site. After perusing the stupidity there, I didn't even find the original pic of the young lady with the (1995-era) Jennifer Anniston hair with which the page was supposedly associated.
Now that I've written about my disgust with this "new normal", I realize that I should have early on linked to a C.J. Hopkins article - Invasion of the New Normals. He explains very well what's going on.
And, make no mistake, that is exactly what the “New Normal” movement intends to do. “New Normalism” is a classic totalitarian movement (albeit with a pathological twist), and it is the goal of every totalitarian movement to radically, utterly transform society, to remake the world in its monstrous image.
That is what totalitarianism is, this desire to establish complete control over everything and everyone, every thought, emotion, and human interaction. The character of its ideology changes (i.e., Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc.), but this desire for complete control over people, over society, and ultimately life itself, is the essence of totalitarianism … and what has taken over the minds of the New Normals.
In the New Normal society they want to establish, as in every totalitarian society, fear and conformity will be pervasive. Their ideology is a pathologized ideology (as opposed to, say, the racialized ideology of the Nazis), so its symbology will be pathological. Fear of disease, infection, and death, and obsessive attention to matters of health will dominate every aspect of life. Paranoid propaganda and ideological conditioning will be ubiquitous and constant.
Everyone will be forced to wear medical masks to maintain a constant level of fear and an omnipresent atmosphere of sickness and death, as if the world were one big infectious disease ward. Everyone will wear these masks at all times, at work, at home, in their cars, everywhere. Anyone who fails or refuses to do so will be deemed “a threat to public health,” and beaten and arrested by the police or the military, or swarmed by mobs of New Normal vigilantes.
The threat of “infection” will be used to justify increasingly insane and authoritarian edicts, compulsory demonstration-of-fealty rituals, and eventually the elimination of all forms of dissent. Just as the Nazis believed they were waging a war against the “subhuman races,” the New Normals will be waging a war on “disease,” and on anyone who “endangers the public health” by challenging their ideological narrative. Like every other totalitarian movement, in the end, they will do whatever is necessary to purify society of “degenerate influences” (i.e., anyone who questions or disagrees with them, or who refuses to obey their every command).
Despite this increasing totalitarianization and pathologization of virtually everything, the New Normals will carry on with their lives as if everything were … well, completely normal. They will go out to restaurants and the movies in their masks. They will work, eat, and sleep in their masks. Families will go on holiday in their masks, or in their “Personal Protective Upper-Body Bubble-Wear.” They will arrive at the airport eight hours early, stand in their little color-coded boxes, and then follow the arrows on the floor to the “health officials” in the hazmat suits, who will take their temperature through their foreheads and shove ten-inch swabs into their sinus cavities.Yep.
Coming: a number of movie reviews, a new review of the TSA, and some feminist and customer "care" stupidity... oh, and the legacy of slavery.
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[UPDATED - 08/11:] Added reference to and excerpts from the C.J. Hopkins article.
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China roves Big Blother rong time
Posted On: Monday - August 10th 2020 5:37PM MST
In Topics: China Orwellian Stupidity iEspionage
From my Chinese sources, I've got information on the Orwellian state of the place, and I'm kinda glad to have not been there in a while (we were supposed to go this summer, but that's completely out*). I think I would not like what I'd see. That's after having already been disappointed but what I've seen over a decade and a half (see Dashed Hopes for China - Part 1 and Part 2).
The deal is that anyone who is in the least iEspionage-savvy, meaning likely anyone under 60 years old not living out in the sticks (whatever sticks are still left out there), is using his smart phone for payments. I was told that if one wants to take out a serious amount of cash out of the bank, say 元 100,000, or ~ $14,000, one now has to get paperwork and signatures, as impediments set up to make this difficult. The Chinese people are taking to this big convenience of cashless transactions very well.
Come to think of it, Peak Stupidity has posted about this already recently in a small section of the post Big Trouble in Little China. This was just confirmation that for most people over there, Cash is no longer King, and that is a 180-degree change from only a decade ago.
Then, the word is that the COVID-19 worries have been the impetus for the Chinese to implement a contact tracing program that beats hell out all the minor programs that have been tried here in America, for comprehensiveness. It's nice not having a competent government IT Force, isn't it? I guess the apps are required on the phones there (as I don't see another way), to make sure that everyone has color-coded "health scores" now, due to the fears of the Kung Flu, you know, but, hey, maybe we can keep this around ... for the next time ... and forever.
Yep, there's green when you are at home in a non-Kung-Flu zone, but it will turn yellow if you enter Zhejiang, for example. Zhejiang has some cases of the Kung Flu, so if you step across the border a foot or so, well, one can't be to careful ("one" being the CCP government). You will only get your health score back into the green if you quarantine for 2 weeks and then leave the province without passing GO. ("Go" means "dog", so forget the Monopoly reference - it means don't eat anything that used to fetch someone's slippers.) I suppose if you get sick during these 2 weeks, you can keep an eye on your red status from the hospital. Purple or black means someone is already bidding on your piece of iEspionage from your estate. OK, I made up the last part.
The Chinese people are falling for this Orwellian stuff because they know no better. Granted, many of the Millennials here have no clue what privacy and freedom are all about either. Others are learning from those of us who remember something about them.** Meanwhile, in China, and as Peak Stupidity covered in Citizenship in the Nation, one can go back 3,500 years and not learn of anyone who really understood what we know and knew 50 years ago. Old and young, the Chinese people are getting sucked into the "convenience" of all the iEspionage crap, because they have ZERO history of knowing any better.
Social credit, health scores, cashless buying and selling ... This Orwellian and straight-out-of-Revelation business is something Orwell, an Englishman, expected out of his own country. He was not wrong, mind you, other than being off by a few decades, as formerly-Great formerly-Britain has the Ministry of Truth aspect of it down pat. However, China is now #1 with a bullet, at Billboard magazine would put it, if they had an End Times top-100 chart. (Of course, number 3 would be The Calamity Song by The Decemberists and number 2 The End of the World as we Know It by REM.)
Here's what's considered one of the very few references to China (also "land of Sinim" in Isaiah 49:12), from, you guessed it, the book of Revelation.
Chapter 12, verse 3:
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.Chapter 16, verse 12
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.I dunno, I can't make heads, horns, or tails out of most of this. Where's Nostradumbass when you really need him?
* One would have to quarantine in the big city (Shanghai, Peking, or Hong Kong) for 2 weeks, even after making a 3-5X more expensive and twice as long journey to get there. This is at one's own, or company, expense, including the hotel room that one must stay in the whole time and meals served to the room. This goes for Chinamen/women or foreigners. (Knowing the Chinese business mentality and propensity for corruption, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a deal between the Chinese Gov. and some hotel chains to keep them booked!)
Oh, then there's a 2-week quarantine at any final destination. How are they going to know, if you got a car ride, you ask? There's that Orwellian tracking business again ...
** That's another part of the silver lining of the Kung Flu. With the schools closed, and even in the Fall most being conducted remotely, meaning no real contact, kids are getting a chance to learn from their parents more directly again. For a large majority of them, that's a good thing. The Deep State and Globalist elites have got to hate this part of it - ooops!
Comments (4)
Trending in Breakfast Attire
Posted On: Saturday - August 8th 2020 2:53PM MST
In Topics: Humor Race/Genetics
Thank you all for putting up with the short hiatus, and thanks to those who commented under Monday's post. In general, it was a pretty good trip. One can do some things for cheap now, as Peak Stupidity noted in Road Trip 3 months back, due to some of the temporary silver linings in this Kung Flu Panic-Vest. Other things have just gone up, up, up, at an Inflation rate that is obviously not what those green-eyeshade boys at the BLS have been touting for the last couple of decades. We will, of course, have a post on the latter.
Speaking of additonal posts, yes this trip will produce a number of Curmugeonry-style ones based on the not-so-fine aspects of this family travel experience. This post, however, is not one of those and not even from this particular trip.
On a trip for work a couple of weeks ago, I found out the night before that the hotel was to have their regular buffet breakfast, Kung Flu be damned, and it's some good stuff, let me tell you. (There's no point, is there, since I don't give many details?) OK, I won't say where, but there are grits, sausage, breakfast potatoes, muffins, etc, though no fresh fruit back yet. They do
No problem, but I was in a hurry this particular morning, so I was glad that the other people there, 4 black guys together eating in, were getting the made-to-order omelets or what have you, leaving the other guy to get my stuff. Being in a hurry (not to get to the gist of this story, but that morning, I mean) I didn't take the TSA-proof belt off my good pants and put it on my blue jeans to go downstairs. It's a good thing, but these pants are just a tad too small now, and I was hiking them up every minute or so. No, they didn't hang down half as much as they do on these black guys with their authentic style, as discussed in these pages (see Dress for Egress), but I cannot stand for my clothes not to stay put.
With my tasty breakfast in one hand and the other one pulling my pants up, I passed these 4 young black guys. Now, OK, I see the 4 with that hair with 4 braided things hanging down, and I don't automatically think "businessmen". Stereotypes are real, man. I was a little wary, but, WTF, as I walked by, frustratingly yanking my pants up, I noted to these fellows "hey, I'm gonna be like you guys", and not in a proud BLM fashion, either. Ha, two of the four guys cracked a smile!
OK, maybe on another morning, the manager may have found me with my face in the grits, but no matter all the stupidity and (often legitmate) hate in and around all of us, most people are pretty decent.
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Rest o' week hiatus for Peak Stupidity
Posted On: Monday - August 3rd 2020 7:19PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Websites
Due to a family trip, for the rest of this week there won't be any posts, unless I just CAN'T STAND IT... the stupidity, that is. It's a matter of time, not a lack of new topics for posts, as usual. (I've got the images saved already for 10 of them or so.) Stupidity stops for no man! Anyway, a few days break will be good, and I'll have so new posts pop up in mind, but I think I won't promise that anything new will be up till next Monday.
In the meantime, if you appreciate the entertainment here, there are 1560 posts on the site (including this one), and I doubt anyone has been following since late November of '16, or has gone back to read them all. If you take exception to that, PLEASE write in.
I am very glad to have had the many comments lately and slowly increasing readership during the Spring at least. Interestingly, the number of views went way up for a few days, each time I included links on the unz site to Part 4 of our "re-Panic" series ... along with a warning to the reader that this post has girly pictures, or it is "not safe for work". The numbers were doubled for a couple of days after I put the link in a Fred Reed post. That goes to show he gets a LOT of readers, or the horniest readers, or both. Nah, I wrote "interestingly" above, but "expectedly" works too, as we all know how we men are.
I don't think the commenting system is good enough for me to just advertise "Open Thread". However, feel free to write in on anything. You all know I haven't minded any digressions, though they've been few. I mean anything, other than viagra ads. Feel free to discuss viagra ads or viagra itself, for that matter, as we put the kibosh on those bots long ago (easier than I thought, but I sure don't want to jinx it ).
Again, thanks to all the readers, and the commenters more so! More next week.
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The parable of The Good Samaritan
Posted On: Monday - August 3rd 2020 5:10AM MST
In Topics: Humor Political Correctness Bible/Religion
It's only a parable, after all ...
An anonymous commenter on an iSteve thread embedded in this 2 minute sketch that could have been one of the best of Monty Python. The English accents are very much the same, to me, at least. The actors are different, so I had to look this one up.
This sketch if from the British show That Mitchell and Webb Look*. It was only on TV from '06 until '10. If youtube has more sketches or full episodes (which are just made of sketches anyway), I will be entertained for days.
I'm amazed this is from only a decade ago, as this one makes fun of the Political Correctness, and it's Jesus pushing the race realism here. Uh, oh, maybe that was the agenda, to imply something or other... I won't take it that way though. For something not at all completely different from Monty Python, here is one of the most hilarious videos I've seen in quite a while:
You know, because of that ending, I feel obligated to give some equal time to Monty Python, as this "he's making it up as he goes along" bit from The Life of Brian is equally hilarious. This clip may have appeared on Peak Stupidity already, and it's likely to appear again.
* That's the Wiki page. The IMDB site has this page.
Comments (5)
Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 8
Posted On: Saturday - August 1st 2020 2:52PM MST
In Topics: Humor Hildabeast Kung Flu Stupidity
It's been again just over a week, as this Kung Flu, Season 2 is no fast-acting panic like the Black Plague times. It's slow enough to last all year, but fast enough to keep most ... zzzz .. people's attentions.
Pretty near to home today, I saw an older couple out on their front yard near the road with a "Home Made Designer Face Masks" sign. They had a whole rack of colorful stuff out there, something that would turn a few heads of young men, I imagine as instinct kicks in, even at 45 mph, and they think those are bikinis out of the corner of their eyes. I know, nobody is in them, but you remember when your imagination would fill in something there... There were no young women models like the lass above. (LEFT! Careful, or you'll burn an eye out!) It was just the two of them with no face masks on.
On the way home, I slowed down and asked how business was. OK, I think was the reply, but they didn't sound too enthused. I wasn't trying to start an argument, but I just couldn't help telling them "you'll never find me in one of those face diapers." (That's not strictly true, as I've written, so that's why I felt bad about it. There wasn't time to get into a discussion.) Good luck to them, I guess. It's better buying local than buying Cheap crap imported by 3-M from China.
Right around this spot, there were two college-age blond girls walking, not hot enough to require a neck-twist, but I still glanced as I drove by. With the windows down, I swear I heard only the following two words, and as part of a sentence mind you, not said separately: "... like totally ..." I heard it clearly, as they didn't have masks on either. Again, it wasn't a quick agreement "sentence", but right in the middle of a sentence. What's the odds of that with this generation, like 1 in 5 or something? I could like totally believe that.
Thanks for reading, PSers. Have a good weekend or what's left of it.
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Sick Commie Fuck Michael Brune v John Muir - Part 2
Posted On: Friday - July 31st 2020 9:50PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Political Correctness Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity ctrl-left
(Continued from this post.)
Stupidity comes and stupidity goes, but for some reason nothing has pissed me off about stupid/evil fuckers lately more than this Sierra Club cancellation of naturalist John Muir.
Oh, come on! "Nature" is just a dog-whistle for stuff White people like. #WildernessTooRaciss!
John Muir was an instigator for, an activist, one might call him now, for the saving of millions of acres of beautiful wildlands for millions of Americans to enjoy. That was with the help of this guy, not my favorite President politically-speaking by any means, but a real tough guy and a man who also loved the land:
John Muir was a co-founder of the Sierra Club, with its 128 year history, most of that time working to save the wilderness, with its generous almost-all-white members who also enjoy the wilderness and money from White people all over America. But the problem is, he didn't have herd immunity ... to racism... or something...
And Muir was not immune to the racism peddled by many in the early conservation movement. He made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir’s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.Well, yeah, there was that one darker-looking guy that came to the meeting back in November. He pretended to have never even heard of John Muir, so he was probably hurt about this. Then, the San Pedro chapter had that other foreign guy with the weird Science Officer Spock-like ears, and that guy seemed pretty alienated by our membership flyer... About these Indigenous members, Peak Stupidity may very well agree with a comment or two by John Muir, as we have wondered before Are American Indians slobs?
The whiteness and privilege of our early membership fed into a very dangerous idea -- one that’s still circulating today. It’s the idea that exploring, enjoying, and protecting the outdoors can be separated from human affairs. Such willful ignorance is what allows some people to shut their eyes to the reality that the wild places we love are also the ancestral homelands of Native peoples, forced off their lands in the decades or centuries before they became national parks. It allows them to overlook, too, the fact that only people insulated from systemic racism and brutality can afford to focus solely on preserving wilderness. Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color continue to endure the traumatic burden of fighting for their right to a healthy environment while simultaneously fighting for freedom from discrimination and police violence.I hope Mr. Brune will show his enthusiasm for this effort by resigning by end of the business week (conveniently, that's today, even in California!) and hand picking some indigenous mofo to run the place, when he's not busy with the traumatic burden of fighting for freedom from discrimination and police violence (cops are too hard on drunk Indians, I guess). Perhaps the new hire could work from home or from the rain forest to save on the long commutes in overcrowded California, to have extra time for all that fighting.
The persistence of this misguided idea is part of the reason why we still get comments from our own members telling us to “stay in our lane,” and stop talking about issues of race, equity, and privilege.I couldn't have said it better myself. Stay in your lane, Brune! And I'm not even a member, and,
DON'T DONATE ONE RED CENT TO THE SIERRA CLUB, EVER!!
But as writer Julian Brave NoiseCat says, “The environment is no longer a white sanctuary. The messy business of society, power, and race is everywhere and intertwined.”Julian Brave NoiseCat? Hey, man, I'm hip to your music, man, but can you cats turn that noise down? OK, seriously, this will indeed get messy. Yosemite will get messy. The Sequoia National Park already got messy from a 5-times deported Mexican illegal alien burning 44 square miles of old growth forest. Can't get no respect from these people for the wilderness, I tell ya, no respect.
The Sierra Club has got no choice though. They must get into the fast lane on the immigration issue, as they got told in no uncertain terms, 100 million of them, what is now the first rule of Sierra Club: YOU! DO! NOT! TALK! ABOUT! HOW! IMMIGRATION! AFFECTS! THE! ENVIRONMENT!
That above is what we hear from the Executive Director, no less, of the organization founded by the great naturalist John Muir. It doesn't sound too promising.
Per his Sierra Club bio, this guy is a family man, with 3 kids with names that sound whiter than "John Muir" by a long shot - Olivia, Sebastian, and Genevieve. They live in Alameda, California*, at 11% Hispanic (and 8% black), not the most diversified place in California by any means. Need more
Mr. Brune's biggest claim to fame, and it got him into Time magazine for it, was his Rainforest Action Network** convincing (in some way) the Home Depot chain to quit selling wood from old growth forest. Now, I don't know how this coercion actually went down, but at least that sort of thing is something one could definitely see as part of the Sierra Club's mission, in their lane, if I may. (Sure I may, it's my own blog.). BTW, I'm not at all sure that John Muir would have approved, as this was wood from private lands, not National Park land. Men had principles back in the day. That Home Depot deal was all back in 1999, though. It's a different planet now.
Then, Mr. Brune became aware of Global Climate DisruptionTM due to his parents' basement being flooded during a big storm:
In October 2012, the need to solve the climate crisis was brought into sharp relief when "superstorm" Sandy ravaged the East Coast, including Brune’s hometown. The storm flooded his parents' home, which had been built by his father and uncle nearly fifty years before.It was a SUPERSTORM, man, and it should be pretty obvious to anyone but a complete 'tard that when your basement gets flooded, the climate is changing. They never do that!
We will create a dialogue with, and resources for, our members about the intersection between racism and environmental justice issues, and invest in our HR and training capacities to ensure that staff, volunteers, and members are held accountable for any harm they inflict upon members of our Sierra Club community who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color. We will also spend the next year studying our history and determining which of our monuments need to be renamed or pulled down entirely.OK, so,
In subsequent posts in this series, we'll talk in much more depth about the steps we’re taking to rebuild the Sierra Club on a basis of racial and social justice and to try to repair the harm we’ve caused. I know that the steps I’ve outlined above are only the beginnings of what will be a years-long process to reckon with our history, regain trust from the communities we have harmed, and create a diverse and equitable Sierra Club for the 21st century.
DON'T DONATE ONE RED CENT TO THE SIERRA CLUB, EVER!!
The result are not all in yet, at least for our assessment of the Commie Fuck Michael Brune***. I can see into the near future, though. With donations going down, the Sierra Club's best bet is to beg from the US Feral Government for money stolen rather than donated from Americans. (OK, you can call it donated if you want, if it makes you feel better next April 15th.) However, without white people running the chapters of this club, things will go downhill fast, no matter how much money they steal from us. Then, how is the Sierra Club going to get people of various colors out into the wilderness, via gunpoint? That's just not good optics, I don't care who you are.
We're heading out into the wilderness for daytime hiking pretty soon. It will be nice to get away from hearing anything from or about any of these anti-white Commie sons of bitches of the Sierra Club or any other organization for a while.
That's the "Grizzly Giant" tree, a Giant Sequoia still standing in the Mariposa Grove area of Yosemite Park. The volume of wood is 34,000 ft3.
Oh, the winner, I forgot because it was too easy, is John Muir. Mr. Muir beautified the lives of millions of Americans, while the hatred espoused by Michael Brune will make us more miserable in the future.
Winner: John Muir by a Giant Sequoia!
* On the island off of Oakland that used to have the big Navy base. I guess they closed it because the Global Climate DisruptionTM is fixin' to cause the waters to rise and ships can't ... wait ...
** Its non-PC title being the Jungle Agitators.
*** I just realized that I've seen this guy before in a debate on youtube (very likely Tucker Carlson). It was about the immigration issue, I believe, and this guy was a real ass on that clip too.
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Lyin' Press on display - Portland, Oregon edition
Posted On: Friday - July 31st 2020 8:10PM MST
In Topics: Media Stupidity Anarcho-tyranny
As Peak Stupidity stated a week ago in our short mention of Feral Government intervention in the on-going rioting, in Tales from two pundits, we are not in favor of Federal intervention ... in pretty much ANYTHING. We'll have a post tomorrow with more discussion on the idea of the Country Sheriff as ultimate authority (well, after the US Constitution). For now, let me just say that I take for granted that Federal agents can be involved with criminal activity on Federal facilities and Federal land.
That intro. was just written to make sure the reader knows that my point in showing the video below is not about Feds vs. the City of Portland, OR, or whomever. No, the short excerpt of this > 11 minute-long video is to show the sheer unmitigated bias of the Lyin' Press these days. It is not lying by commission or lying by omission in this case. It's "lying by definition", if that's a term.
The Fed building seen has been graffitied-up like a 10-car freight train that spent a month in the rail yards of Detroit. The guy being interviewed, US Attorney Billy Williams, noted that the front door to the building has not been there since July 3rd*, so there's no doubt that there has been destruction.
Yet, the lady reporter from KGW TV, refuses to call this for what it is. Mr. Williams comes across very sensible. He just got tired of the reporter's continual use of "nighttime demonstrations", or worse yet, "nighttime activities" to describe what's clearly vandalism. It's about a minute in of what I include here (10:15 and then 10:35) in which the lady is just insistent on things like "I'm not a police officer so I can't...." meaning calling out vandalism as criminal activity. No, maybe that's modern art and is SUPPOSED to be there. (You know, those Federal programs for starving artists and all, on our tax money... I could believe it, actually, so ...)
These Lyin' Press people just won't give up any ground. The narrative comes first, terminology like the word "criminal activity", and God forbid, "rioting" be damned.
Oh, for just a little Kung Flu angle here, if you replay this from the start, you can see Mr. Williams take off his hospital-style face mask in the first few seconds. That's what I've been saying - nobody can understand all you say with one of these on. At the end, I believe that is the KGM reporter, and she has a mask on. Did she put it on at the end for walking in front of the cameras? Her stupidity comes out just too clearly to have come through a mask. Those masks not only block the COVID meanies, but they've been known to filter out some of the stupid molecules too, just the higher octane stuff.
* I'm not really sure whether that's due to normal Federal Bureaucracy or that the door keeps getting smashed up.
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City cops vs. Sheriffs
Posted On: Thursday - July 30th 2020 8:22AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism Anarcho-tyranny Legal Stupidity
While reading Michelle Malkin's first-hand account of being on the bad end of Anarcho-Tyranny in Denver a week-end ago, as Peak Stupidity wrote about in the previous post, I noted a comment by a cop in the thread. The guy somewhat defended the cops, really only in the sense of, to paraphrase, "no, we don't all just want to obey the chief, whatever he says, and collect our pensions. We don't make that much."
Well, it may be true that in some locales the job is not as lucrative as in NY City and such places, but it is a pretty good deal. There are the perks of not going through any hassle to carry a gun in self-defense, driving and parking in whatever manner one likes, and retiring early with some pension*, large or small, at a young age. These are pretty big incentives to lay low, and "just do things the way they pay us to do them." (That's a line I've heard a WHOLE LOT lately in my job.)
In American large and medium sized cities, the cops are not at all beholden to the local population, i.e. we are not their "customers". The mayor picks a chief, both of these jobs being very political, and then the cops answer to the chief. They are not men, women, or what-have-you of the people. They may even really try to "protect and serve", but after a few years in, they will understand that they can't last long like that. Gotta "serve" out those 20 years. So, that "protect and serve" crap on the side of the cars (not really the idea anyway) is about protecting serving the years and protecting the jobs.
To the contrary, the local Sheriffs of at least the rural counties of America are a different story. If you go back to the body of law that was passed on to America from our British Founders, you will first of all realize that, hey, there were no police officers back then. There was no police. The establishment of a police force would have disgusted the Founders of our country, as, from their very recent experience, they abhorred the idea of a "standing army". However, the Sheriff was a local elected official of the people. We all have heard of the evil Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood, and whatever you want to make of that story, there were Sheriffs going way back into British history.
(Sanders County, not one of the very biggest ones out west, has ~ 11,000 residents on 2,800 mi2. That's the way to run a country.)
Now readers, our law/Constitution-minded commenter Adam Smith may need to chime in in the comments, as Peak Stupidity does not claim to be a team of legal eagles. I will say that per my reading of the Constitutionalists types on the web over the years, the Sheriff of the county, whether it IS in a big city even, is the highest authority, higher than the State and the Feds. Well in the cities, there is the Police. No matter what is Constitutional, you won't hear of the Sheriff of Bronx county overruling the Police Chief and Mayor De Blasio.
Out in the rural counties, it's a different story. When you have a population of as little as 450 (this was in a county in central Montana about 1/2 the size of Massachusetts) the people are going to know the Sheriff and be able to tell HIM what to do. That's the low-end in population, of course, but even with 15,000 people in the county, a significant number (vote-wise) can be in personal touch with the guy. Instead of the Feds saying "jump!", and law enforcement saying "how high?", oftentimes, the local Sheriff can (at least try to) tell the Feds where to go.
The local Sheriff is the guy that Americans of the old days relied on as "the law", and he was elected by them. That's the key, but it only works with relatively small populations, as otherwise the more global politics are overwhelming. That's the case today with the cops in the cities, such as in the case with the Anarcho-Tyranny Michelle Malkin personally witnessed in Denver, Colorado. The attitude of the cops could come down the chain of command from a George Soros hand-picked official.
It's too bad the United State is not mostly rural, as it was the first century and a half. We might not have the Anarcho-Tyranny we see today if that were the case.
* Oh, about those pensions, yeah, if you men in blue were to read a little Peak Stupidity on the Global Financial Stupidity going on, you might know this: Even if your pension plans somehow remain officially solvent during this era of (12 years already) basement-dwelling interest rates, then then you might indeed get your $6,500 a month (wow!) in 2032 based on your last salary with the O/T, but ... how to break it to you ...
Uh, that condo in Sarasota that you plan to buy? It may have been hyperinflated to $4.5 Million by then, and you'll be lucky to living off of happy meals and and an occasional Dunkin Donut, for old time's sake, with your retired LEO discount (of course!) at $27 and $8.99 respectively. You could probably get a good deal from a buddy on an old cop cruiser... to sleep in. "Got a cop motor, cop shocks, cop tranny ... sharing the back seat of your dwelling - she's a man, baby!" Good luck with all that!
** There's a story behind this picture, as, per Idahoans for Liberty Sheriff ABC was involved in the events out in Malheur County, Oregon 4 years ago. Says the post: "Sadly, he [Sheriff Rummel] stops short of ordering the feds to say out of his county entirely."
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Anarcho-Tyranny at the Support-the-Police rally. We're finally on our own.
Posted On: Wednesday - July 29th 2020 8:10PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Pundits ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny
I'd meant to post about the latest Michelle Malkin column last week. She has done a bang-up job banging on the Kung Flu (Season 1!) stupidity, along with Ron Paul (both can be read on the unz.com site - here and here, respectively). Mrs. Malkin's latest writing was on a different subject entirely.
One Nation Under Anarcho-Tyranny was written as a personal account, very personal, in fact, as Mrs. Malkin and her conservative co-horts were in just about in the middle of a street battle with the usual antifa types. In this account of what happened in Denver, Colorado a weekend ago, the writer appropriately brought out the term Anarcho-Tyranny, one of Peak Stupidity's topic keys. We've been discussing this, what's basically policy by government in America now, on and off since the Charlottesville, Virginia street battle 3 summers ago.
It was anarcho-tyranny as usual* in Denver, as the local police, besides one cop, per the account, stood down and not only let the speakers be harassed (one could say it's not their job to break it up), but prevented Michelle Makin's conservative crowd from defending themselves. This is how it's been going. Ironically, and not in the Morrisetteian sense of that word, Miss Malkin's rally was a "Law Enforcement Appreciation Day" rally, meant to show support for the "men in blue".
Of course, it's easy to write in hindsight "what'd you expect was gonna happen?" It is still unexpected that the law would just completely favor one side during a political conflict, at least by people who still assume we are living in a country with law & order and all that. Secondly, this was specifically a rally to show support for law enforcement, as a group, what with all the defund the police efforts going on. You'd really expect the cops to help you if you need help, if you came out to rally on their behalf.
Nope, the difference now is that the orders from on high are for the police to stand down when conservatives are being attacked and only enforce the law, good and hard, on any conservative in the least bit out of line. (Well, defending one's self is not out of line, but they don't want you to do that either.). It is to be perfectly expected, though, that the cops, with a few exceptions, will follow those orders, rather than doing the right thing. Like lots of people, they care about their lifestyle and finances more than they care about doing the right thing. Why hold a rally for these people, next time? They are just the enforcers of Anarcho-Tyranny, just doing their jobs, dontcha' know.
Peak Stupidity has never had a great respect for LEOs**, possibly due to our being a water sign, not at all compatible with Leo's. They are not by any means all bad guys, as I've found out through the multiple interactions involving traffic stops. One nice interaction is related in our post "First Responders!" - The Cops. Michelle Malkin did mention one exception in her column, a guy who did do the right thing when things got violent at her rally. Still, I'm of the opinion that there shouldn't be many times in one's life in which one should call the cops, as it's asking for MORE trouble, most of the time.
We need to all realize that at this late stage of what has just been a Cold Civil War between the ctrl-left/diversity crowd and traditional Americans is going hot . At this late stage, the left has infiltrated ALL the institutions of society. We thought Big Biz was somehow not against us, but that has been proven wrong. Some thought that law enforcement and the judicial system, if not on our side, would at least be impartial. That has been proven wrong.
I haven't included any excerpts this time, so please click on the link above to see how that support-the-cops rally went down, in this era of AnarIt seems like Mrs. Malkin learned a hard lesson in Denver a week and a half ago. The lesson is, as the song said: we're finally on our own.
PS: OK, just one excerpt from the end of Michelle Malkin's article:
[UPDATE: On Wednesday morning, the Denver police union president APOLOGIZED and confirmed that a “retreat order” was in place, effectively abandoning the duty to protect and serve the peaceful, pro-police rally attendees.]At least we've all come to an understanding now.
So the message is loud and clear. When push comes to bloody shove in End Stage America, under the rule of the anarcho-tyrants, we, the law-abiding, are the enemy. Those in uniform sworn to protect and serve will turn their backs on us because their bosses don’t answer to the public. They protect and serve the mob.
* Here's just another example out of many from Paul Kersey's blog: - - Black Police Chief of Raleigh Sides with Black Insurrectionists, Ceding Monopoly on Violence to the Mob; Says Will Not Put Police in Harm's Way to Protect Private Property (you won't find many short title's on his blog). I happened to have had this a tab open in the browser from a good while ago.
** I HATE HATE HATE that term and only wrote it here for the joke.
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Sick Commie Fuck Michael Brune Cancels Founder John Muir of the High Sierras
Posted On: Tuesday - July 28th 2020 8:35PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Political Correctness Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity ctrl-left
I'm sorry to have to put cuss words in post titles now, but this latest news out of the Sierra Club has me boiling. It's making me angry to write this post, and I'll have to break this into 2 posts just to not get carried away.
(Note the lack of Northface colorful rain-proof gear and water-bottles and tools hanging off anodized carabiners. This guy's in too nice a dress suit to even wear to church these days.)
John Muir was out hiking the back country of California in what's now Yosemite National Park a century and a half ago, and then spent time doing the same in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He passed up a professorship at Harvard (if that means anything to anyone anymore) to stay in the wilderness he loved. He was the co-founder, along with Univ. of California, Berkeley Professor Henry Senger, of the Sierra Club, a group of hikers and naturalists, 128 years ago.
More importantly, John Muir pushed for the designation of Yosemite as a National Park. Peak Stupidity readers will know that this blogger is as Libertarian as the rest of them, but these beautiful national parks are something I'm very grateful men like John Muir (and Teddy Roosevelt) created. Any backcountry hiker who hasn't heard of the man is just ignorant and ought to go live with the bears for a while like Timothy Treadwell. Here's what John Muir saved for Americans:
(For this and the follow-up post, all the color pictures are of Yosemite Park.)
The Sierra Club itself was instrumental in the creation of Yellowstone Park in (mostly) NW Wyoming and Glacier and Mt. Rainier Pars in Washington State.* (The latter has a Camp Muir at 10,000 ft. up in which climbers can stay till they start out for the summit of 14 1/2 thousand at about 4 AM.)
Because it is now somehow the most important thing in the world that John Muir was not even necessary a race realist of his time, but ASSOCIATED with someone or other, the Sierra Club is cancelling him as a person. He is the FOUNDER of the club! These people such as cocksucking fuckwad Executive Director Michael Brune** who are now throwing all the history of environmental stewardship away for Political Correctness, wouldn't even be able to hike in that beautiful wilderness, much less make a living off of donor money, had it not been for John Muir.
OK, I've mentioned the mission creep before in this organization - see Mission Creep by the Sierra Club - 3 1/2 years back. That betrayal of the cause of environmentalism for 30 pieces of silver (OK, more like 4.1 Million pieces at today's spot price) to open borders pusher/donor David Gelbaum was more than mission creep. It was an evil deed, selling out like that, but I guess if all you have is the love of money, it at least makes sense.
This latest stupidity is beyond making sense. I don't think this crap would have happened even in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Those sick fuckers hated the landlords and "capitalist roaders" and such. If they weren't too messy, and were more blessed in the first place, to ever have kept pristine a place like Yosemite Park, I really think they'd have not sent the owner to a pig farm in Manchuria.
Another thing about this that made this even worse is that I'd first though it was just the SJW set of the Sierra Club that possible was agitating for this cancellation of John Muir. I followed a link to this Sierra Club page and realized this was the damn Executive Director writing, well, read the following:
The Sierra Club is a 128-year-old organization with a complex history, some of which has caused significant and immeasurable harm. As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.See, John Muir was friends with the badwhite guy. OMG, he'd have probably LIKED Mr. Osborn on twitter if they were around today! So, the Sierra Club has got to evolve. I'm guessing the means your donation will not beautify the wilderness or allow you better access to it. Your money will be used to tell you what a piece of shit you are for being a white man (or woman now). They need a lot, too, because that's who comes to the meetings and goes out hiking in the wilderness, the white people. It takes a lot of money to tell all of them how much of a piece of shit they each are. So, ante up, Bitchez!
It’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history. That will be followed by posts on how we’ve had to evolve on issues of immigration and population control, environmental justice, and Indigenous sovereignty. We will also devote a post to a discussion of how the Sierra Club is working to center the voices of people we have historically ignored, so we can begin repairing some of the harms done.
The most monumental figure in the Sierra Club’s past is John Muir. Beloved by many of our members, his writings taught generations of people to see the sacredness of nature. But Muir maintained friendships with people like Henry Fairfield Osborn, who worked for both the conservation of nature and the conservation of the white race. Head of the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, Osborn also helped found the American Eugenics Society in the years after Muir’s death.
That's some angry facetiousness there, so please don't ante up. I should put this somewhere in every post on Environmental Stupidity, or at the top of every post here:
DON'T DONATE ONE RED CENT TO THE SIERRA CLUB, EVER!!
That's it, I gotta quit now. More on this in a later post.
* The name is just Spanish for mountain range, but I assume it's named after the Sierra Nevada mountain range* in California, in which Yosemite sits, as do Sequoia also and King's Canyon National Parks.
Unbelievably, when I looked on duckduckgo to just check on the naming of the Sierra Club I got pages and pages about the sick shit that is the subject of this post.
** His email address is michael.brune@sierraclub.org. Tell him Peak Stupidity sent you!
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