Roots Stupidity - Beware: The internet can be wrong!


Posted On: Wednesday - July 22nd 2026 5:23PM MST
In Topics:   General Stupidity  Internets  Music  Artificial Stupidity  Science

We've been into politics here, most of the time, because, as the man paraphrased, "You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in YOU!" We'll get back to one of our niche topics, the stupid pick of someone's sister Darlene for US Senator and the special GOP Primary that's heating up. We'll also talk Communists some more.

Let's get back to our roots today, though, with 3 items of stupidity.



1) Yahoo units:

They locked me out of my long-term emails a year ago, so yahoo is of no use to me. I'm not sure how I got to this headline. Florida dumped half a million oyster shells into the Gulf of Mexico [sic]. No one expected the results to be this good..

Besides that "Florida", the place, can't DO anything at all, but PEOPLE in Florida can, this half a million number seemed ... a bit fishy. I think, and perhaps the yahoo headline writer should have, "Does it make sense?" I can imaging a thousand oyster shells barely filling up a 55 G trash can at the restaurant. 500 trash cans full of shells is something a spot in the Gulf would not even notice. The article itself says 500,000 tons though, dumped over a 17 year period. That's 30,000 tons from Florida restaurants yearly, ~80 tons a day, something that "DOES make sense".

Those yahoos have no feel for numbers. Put them on the political beat or email customer care. Those Florida naturalists, BTW, did a nice job with the reefs off Cedar Key, as reported by real reporters. The fish, turtles, and dolphins are lovin' it!




2) Answers.com:

This web site has answers to your questions. In response to a stupid question, you can expect a stupid answer, even from The Internet. However, I didn't ask what I think is a stupid question yet got a stupid answer nonetheless. It's not supposed to work like that!

While playing around with simple Carnot Cycle COP calculations for our post The Warmth of Collectivism v The Coefficient of Performance, I wanted to check myself on 459 degrees on the Rankine scale being equal to standard room temperature, 68F and 20C. It'd been a LONG while. I remembered 459R, but was that 459 = 0 C, a common value one might want, instead of Room T? Better call Saul ask the internet.

The most promising results blurb that came up was for my question (expecting AI, but it was useless) was from this Answers.com page.
Me: "What is room temp on the rankine scale?"

Anonymous
โˆ™ 16y ago
Updated: 5/23/2024:
Room temperature on the Rankine scale is approximately 560-570 degrees Rankine. This corresponds to around 68-77 degrees Fahrenheit on the more commonly used Fahrenheit scale.
"Room Temperature" has a specific meaning in Science, not just, say, the temperature in a room in our house before we ended up on window units only. The range in Fahrenheit is reasonable for yes, some rando family's average living room, and the Rankine range would have matched it if it weren't off by 100! Anonymous got it wrong 16 years ago, and whoever updated it 2 years back didn't fix this erroneous information.

I hadn't seen the front page of answers.com till just now, while getting an image. OK, that explains it. Next time, I'll have to make use of that other website, RightAnswers.com.




Hah! I had a real problem finding "drunken Indians by the road" images. "Drunken Native Americans by the road" worked MUCH better!


3) Full-Blooded Alcohol Content:

American Indians, "Feather Indians" or "Casino Indians", if you must, have a big problem with the firewater. That's unfortunate, because they like it so much.. which is... that's the problem.

Via The Gateway Pundit, which has some really sensational stuff at times, we got to the News Nation Now site with an incredible, make that non-credible, story about 2,000 Indians being missing or dead in Arizona. Arizona Medicaid fraud case: Up to 2,000 Native Americans dead or missing, attorneys say. That would be heap big story, if true. Perhaps it's really a handful of Indians, but, anyway, they were kidnapped and drugged with alcohol and what-not by people scamming them for $Billions in Federal "care" money. The stupidity in the reporting is apparent early as who those evil people are was never mentioned (but something tells me they are not your standard-issue Arizonans).

For the sake of this post, though, here's a real nugget of stupidity contained within:
Wood described one victim found with a blood alcohol level of .543, more alcohol than blood, who he said was dumped on the street outside a sober living home.
Look, I'm no biologist, doctor, nurse, "First Responder", or any other kind of "Health Professional". I'm no State Trooper, Precinct Captain, Special Victims Unit Leader who drives the black van, or any other kind of LEO or other armed member of the Zodiac. I had to take a written driving test at 16 y/o - not sure I could pass it again right now - but I don't know how old I was when I understood that "blowing a point oh 8" does not mean 8% alcohol is in my bloodstream but only .08% is*. (Seems like a pittance - I'm not sure what the big deal is.)

Writers Jesse Weber and Tatiana Carter, hell, anyone who writes about drunkards, really ought to know this, so as not to be off by a factor of 100 in his article. I know it's just stupidity, but that could be interpreted as very racist toward our Indian brethren. OTOH, I gotta respect ANYBODY who can drink so much that his blood alcohol content achieves the level of 54.3%. I'd be babbling on, jumping out of moving vehicles, and eventually visiting the Porcelain Goddess for an hour or two just at that last .3%!

54.3% Blood Alcohol Content - I ain't livin' long like this....



Rodney Crowell wrote this one, but Waylon had a minor hit with it in 1979.



* By mass, I think, not volume. I'll check.

Comments:
Peak Stupidity Book Club
Saturday - July 25th 2026 8:40AM MST
PS: Good morning, everyone...

https://www.unz.com/isteve/isteve-open-thread-28/#comment-7705928

As recommended by The Alarmist...

E.O. Thorp's ๐ต๐‘’๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘€๐‘Ž๐‘Ÿ๐‘˜๐‘’๐‘ก (1.7mb .pdf):

https://tinyurl.com/w4hjardy
https://transfer.it/t/YXkCZm91TDgC
https://www.mediafire.com/file/be56cbkx1xj0re3/Beat+the+Market.pdf/file


William Oโ€™Neillโ€™s ๐ป๐‘œ๐‘ค ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘€๐‘Ž๐‘˜๐‘’ ๐‘€๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘’๐‘ฆ ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘†๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘๐‘˜๐‘  (31.2mb .pdf):

https://tinyurl.com/msep92wx
https://transfer.it/t/4DOTFm0HARTY
https://www.mediafire.com/file/eojq50od4kkpiyr/How+to+Make+Money+in+Stocks+Trilogy.pdf/file

You can also find a copy of each at This Link...
https://gofile.io/d/ROvNTO

Happy Saturday! โ˜ฎ๏ธ
Moderator
Saturday - July 25th 2026 3:15AM MST
PS: Adam Smith, Wednesday's Gone with the Wind.... [/Skynyrd], and Thursday and Friday now. I was half way through one post about Shiloh Hendrix but have gotten very busy.

I read that from Alarmist too, Mr. Hail. He said he didn't have too much in common to talk to Trump about though, and Trump thought Alarmist was trying to sell hims something.

Hello Colinsky. Heh!
Hail
Friday - July 24th 2026 5:04PM MST
PS

Nice one, Colin!

In Mr. Moderator's absence, I hereby award you the 480th Peak Stupidity Joke of the Week award.
Colinsky
Friday - July 24th 2026 4:12PM MST
PS Hail said,
Darline may be less qualified for the US Senate than Kamala was for her various positions

As proven by her book about her expertise, The Kamala Sutra.
Hail
Friday - July 24th 2026 2:38PM MST
PS

*** This just in ***

The Alarmist reveals
his meeting with
Donald Trump (Sr.):

https://alarmist.substack.com/p/i-am-the-lizard-king

_____________

"I met Mr. Trump in the early 1990s when my then GF worked for the Trump Organization. He was funny, even charming, and struck me as not being dumb or overly impulsive. For five minutes, I was the only guy in the room, though the room was filled for a charity event..." -- The Alarmist.
_____________
Adam Smith
Thursday - July 23rd 2026 7:16AM MST
PS: Good morning, Everyone!

๐ผ๐‘“ ๐‘ ๐‘œ, ๐ผ'๐‘š ๐‘ ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘ฆ๐‘œ๐‘ข'๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘Ÿ๐‘–๐‘”โ„Ž๐‘ก, ๐‘ ๐‘œ ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘ก ๐‘ค๐‘–๐‘กโ„Ž ๐‘–๐‘ก...
Yeah... I wouldn't be so sure... But thanks! ;-}


๐ผ ๐‘ค๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘‘๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘–๐‘“ ๐‘–๐‘ก ๐‘ค๐‘–๐‘™๐‘™ ๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘ก๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘› ๐‘Ž ๐‘๐‘–๐‘๐‘ก๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘œ๐‘“ ๐‘Ž ๐‘†๐‘–๐‘˜โ„Ž ๐‘‘๐‘Ÿ๐‘–๐‘ฃ๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘Ž ๐‘ ๐‘’๐‘š๐‘–...

There was a .webm going around the interwebs a couple weeks back. It was a video of a Canadian woman who got cut in half by an indian truck driver in Canada. Unfortunately, I can't find it right now. Probably for the best. (It was pretty gruesome.)


๐ท๐‘Ÿ๐‘ข๐‘›๐‘˜๐‘’๐‘› ๐‘–๐‘›๐‘‘๐‘–๐‘Ž๐‘› ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘Ž๐‘‘ ๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ ๐‘œ๐‘› ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘Ž๐‘‘...

https://i.ibb.co/4w0FJkVs/Drunken-indian-in-the-road-or-on-the-road.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/Jj44cLj7/a-man-lies-drunk-at-the-side-of-a-road-whilst-traffic-passes-him-delhi.jpg


The road is for cars, not for sleeping...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qClBRaretEk


Happy Thursday! โ˜ฎ๏ธ

(Thursday? When the hell did this happen?)
(What happened to Wednesday?)(WTF?)
Moderator
Thursday - July 23rd 2026 6:15AM MST
PS: I will look at post 3569 for more, Mr. Hail. I really don't trust that betting system one bit right now, but who knows? I think I'll get to the post on the SC special GOP primary tomorrow. We'll see if anyone else has filed. (One would think they'd all do it early on for more time to campaign on this short schedule.)

Alarmist, that would make the most sense, haha.
Moderator
Thursday - July 23rd 2026 6:13AM MST
PS: Hello, Adam. I thought you were going to correct something. If so, I'm sure you're right, so out with it. ;-}
The Alarm
Thursday - July 23rd 2026 3:40AM MST
PS

If you change the prompt โ€œDrunken indian in the road or on the road,โ€ I wonder if it will return a picture of a Sikh driving a semi.

๐Ÿ•‰
Hail
Wednesday - July 22nd 2026 9:33PM MST
PS

"the stupid pick of someone's sister Darlene for US Senator"

Current betting-market odds (Polymarket):

- Darline: 70% to win special primary
- Ralph Norman: 20%
- Russell Fry: 6.5%
- Mark Lynch: 1.5%
- Trey Gowdy: 1%
- Pam Evette: 1%

The momentum towards Gowdy is finished. I don't see what could happen in next three weeks that could cause a stampede towards another candidate given the gravitational pull of the Trump Machine being for Darline, who may be less qualified for the US Senate than Kamala was for her various positions (although Darline is likely a better person).

.

See also previous updates in the (totally unrelated post) PS No. 3569:

https://peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=3569
Adam Smith
Wednesday - July 22nd 2026 9:05PM MST
PS: 54.3% Blood Alcohol Content...

โ˜ฎ๏ธ
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