Lesbians at the coffee house
Posted On: Friday - September 4th 2020 7:26AM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Humor
A long time ago, a guy in a local country music band told the audience he that he felt like a "lesbian trapped inside a man's body". At the time, I thought that joke was the funniest thing ever. (It's still up there near the top.)
In our movie review of Rocketman in the previous post we had some criticism of the blatant homosexual scenes in the movie. This hilarious video is one I came across in the unz.com comments (what's new?) a while ago, but now is the time for it.
I'd never heard of MadTV, but then I don't know what goes on on TV anymore. These guys took that joke and made it into one of the funniest skits I've ever seen.
PS: This and the previous posts are really not about "genderbending", though we have that topic key attached. Elton John never claimed to be anything but a man. He was often pretty close to a tranny is the old sense of the word, as in "Transexual Transylvania", which, BTW, is another musical, but the viewing of, viewers of, and movie itself, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, are so weird that it's really in its own genre. "Movies in which you dress as characters, yell back at the screen, sing along, and throw foodstuffs at the screen at appropriate moments" is just too long. Anyone? Bueller?
We just don't have all the topic keys for everything so have been labelling some posts with keys that don't apply exactly. It may be time to add 5 or 10 more all at once, but it would require going through almost 1,600 posts to see what applies. Ugghhhh!
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Rocketman
Posted On: Thursday - September 3rd 2020 7:45PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Music Movies
This is the 3rd of the 2 1/2 movie reviews I intended to write way back after our vacation trip flight. I watched the whole movie, if that's important to you, this being a review and all...
Elton John* was not only one of the best pop music artists of all time, but, with his band, he was close to being one of the best rock artists too. The 1970s were a great time for music, well up into Disco put the kibosh on all that around late '77. Thanks a lot, Brothers Gibb!
You would expect anyone who likes Elton John and his band that much to enjoy the movie Rocketman. It just doesn't work that way anymore, I guess. Everyone has to get creative and shit...
That's actually the same way it used to work when there were things called record albums (or tapes, or CD's even). A band like Fleetwood Mac would have 2 or 3 great albums with not a bad song on the one of them. The concerts would sell out (it helped that the price was $9.50 vs, I dunno, $950?), they'd be on the cover of the Rolling Stone, all that, but then they'd have to go and "get creative". "We are tired of that same formula we've been playing..." [It was called great melodies, good musicians, a tight band, you know, that sort of thing.) "... so we're going in a new direction." "OK, well, there are a hundred other great rock bands around, as this is then 1970s, so See Ya!"
This Elton John movie is very recent, from 2019, and I'd even considered taking my son to it at a small theater. The Kung Flu changed the plan there, but, let me tell you, that was just as well. I'll get to this part a little later.
OK, here's the main problem: This movie didn't have to be a documentary, as Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. was close to being. That could get boring. Of course, you want the best of his music in there - they had a full 2 hours - so you could have some special narratives of the artist's life, rather than the whole story, with concert footage and such.
No, this album was a freakin' Musical! Wait, you say, of course it's a musical, it's about a musician and you just wrote you wanted to hear the music. No, no, no, this was a musical as in the genre "musicals" (at least the first half was) that included My Fair Lady, Singing in the Rain, West Side Story, The Sound of Music**, Oliver Twist and The Wizard of Oz. I don't like the whole genre. Here's the deal, see, you've got a story going on, but it gets interrupted every 10 minutes by a 3 to 5 minute song. Who does that?! Uhh, the makers of musicals, I guess, but no, I definitely did not expect this movie about Elton John to be a musical in that sense.
The songs that were inserted, as per a musical, were not in order of the story of Elton John either. That alone threw me for a loop. It was the various actors playing the younger Elton John, as a kid, a teenager, whatever, singing or lipsynching the songs. Naaah, that's not what I paid my ticket for. I'd have much rather seen a good musician who looks like Elton John and can sing his songs similarly do it. They can find guys like that.***
Rocketman was a little too much VH1-Behind the Music-like to me. If you can recall, that show documented the lives and music of mostly recently-deceased young artists (drug O.D., helicopter crash, etc.) They had the same formula for each artist or band. After a rocket ride to the Billboard top 10, he (or they) had some bad times with the drugs, with the sex (huh??), and with the rock-and-roll, but he was JUST coming out of it and turning his life around when... cue the ending of Detroit, Rock City. This movie showed all the problems that Elton John had with his life much more than the good times that maybe he's forgotten. Tell me that guy up on stage with the crazy suits and 1,000 pairs of glasses wasn't having a good time out there jumping around the piano! If it was all an act, then, Elton, why didn't you write a Bob-Seger-like number about how bad it sucks to be a famous rock star out on the road?
Lastly, a problem with this movie is the focus of Elton John's being gay for most of 2nd half of the movie. Yes, he was gay, he didn't really mean his lyrics in Grow Some Funk of Your Own, and so on. It was a big deal in his life, though, luckily for the audience of the 1970s, it was just not made into that big a deal****.
There are damn-near sex scenes in this movie. They pretty much are, but for whatever rating it's got, I guess. This is why I'm glad we didn't go to the movie together earlier this year. On the airplane flight, as my son sat next to me watching Angry Birds 2, I had to stop/skip the movie when these scenes were on. It was worrisome, and even without him there, I sure didn't want to see that.
There was plenty of room to tell Elton John's story, along with giving credit to his long-term lyrics-writer Bernie Taupin. There is a bunch of family background stuff, if you want to know that. It's not all bad.
In summary, Rocketman was not an uplifting movie, it did not showcase nearly enough of Elton John's really best music, and the creative format was stupid. I am not a professional movie reviewer, so I ask the readership to excuse the lack of writing about the cinematography, the lighting, and the casting, because I honestly don't give a rat's ass about all that.
This movie could have been much better with all the great music and showmanship it had to work with. If you are a big Elton John fan, maybe you feel like you have to go see Rocketman, but you may be sorry you did.
Here's just a sample of some of the great stuff from Elton John and his band (Davey Johnstone on guitar, Dee Murray on bass, and Nigel Ollson on drums):
(The band really only kicks in at 2:30.)
* His real name is Reginald Dwight, but we'll stick with his music name in this post.
** While discussing this point, a friend told me that this one, The Sound of Music was better in that the music was the story. I haven't seen it, but my parent's had the album.
*** There's a recent musician-story movie done like this, that I can't pull out of my memory for the life of me.
**** Maybe in the tabloids and all it was a big deal. Everything is a big deal in them. Mr. John, or Reggie Dwight was flamboyant as all hell, but he didn't make his homosexuality a political thing to gain audience, as I think was the deal with The Indigo Girls. Well, it wouldn't have worked. People didn't want to know anymore, so long as he wouldn't "get creative".
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Fun with blacks and LEOs in Gwinnette County, Georgia
Posted On: Wednesday - September 2nd 2020 7:23PM MST
In Topics: Liberty/Libertarianism Race/Genetics
The blogger Paul Kersey* has written a lot about the racial demographics of Atlanta, Georgia over the years. From reading him, one thing that sticks in my mind is, for some of the multiple (something like 10!) counties that make up the metro Atlanta area, the ratio of black people to white can change drastically in a couple of decades. (That would be toward a higher number.)
Gwinnett County, to the northeast**, is one, and let me just paste in this bit from wiki:
Gwinnett County is often cited as one of the counties in the US that has demographically changed the most rapidly. As recently as 1990, over 90% of Gwinnett County's population was white. By 2007, the county was considered majority-minority.[My bolding - wiki wouldn't be so bold as to bold it.]
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 927,781 people, 283,256 households, and 203,238 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,871.2 inhabitants per square mile (722.5/km2). There were 312,896 housing units at an average density of 677.4 per square mile (261.5/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 47.4% White, 28.5% black or African American, 18.8% Asian, 0.8% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 4.4% from other races.
Keep this in mind as you watch the video below. This is straight from Steve Sailer's recent post Georgia Cop Fired for Violating America's Newest Constitutional Right, with it's quick snark by the writer and good discussion, as usual, in the comments. This is not to be a George Floyd or Jacob Blake riot-causing story, as there was no shooting, just a lady getting tased twice, coming out none the worse for the wear and tear... It is true that black people have built up herd immunity to the taser?***
Let me say here that Peak Stupidity, being Libertarian in disposition is not a proponent of the "LEO's" and their "going home safe" to be an excuse for criminal acts that would put other people in jail for life. The point I make, with the hard-core sovereign men, Constitutionalists out to truly defend our rights, etc. excepted for now, is that interactions with decent cops mostly stay decent if both parties treat each other like human beings from the start. Here is one out of the two anecdotes in our post "First Responders!" - The Cops
More than 25 years back, in the big city, I got "pulled over" in current parlance, while walking to the mailbox (one of the rapidly disappearing big blue boxes on street corners) late at night. Keep in mind, though in the city, this was a neighborhood with houses and max. two-story apartments, so there wasn't anybody much around. This cop was walking, at least for a stretch, as he didn't pull up in the car. Already, that was a more decent situation than having the bright lights flashing in my eyes. When the guy asked, I told him, "No, I don't have an ID", as I tried to stand up for liberty even in my younger days. Actually, I didn't used to carry anything but my keys and some cash back then, so very likely I didn't have a driver's license on "my person".When you view the video (you're gonna want to skip some of the boring parts) note that the cop that later got fired here did a good job at least trying to act like a decent human being, to the very lucid and reasonable black lady with the complaint in the beginning and initially with the subsequently-tased-and-arrested woman (I can't use the word "lady" for the latter). The cop at first didn't have enough evidence to go anywhere with the complaint (about damage to the first lady's car). It'd have been easier for him, and he'd still have a job afterwards, if he just kept blowing off this complaint. Maybe it could get passed along, or the complainant may have given up. (Hell, they didn't want to do squat-all when I got a car stolen right next to my place.)
I talked in a friendly manner to the guy because he did not come off like the guys in the pic above, as a threat to me, that is. I had been causing no trouble to anybody, but the guy just told me he thought I might be up no good, in particular burglary. Why? Because I was grimy with dirty, greasy clothes and dirty hands from working on the car.* "Where are you going?" "To mail this letter." I had it in my hands, as the letter would get even greasier if I tried to stuff it in a pocket. "Oh, OK, so you live around here?" "Yeah", and I showed him the return address. It made sense, so "Sorry, see you later." "Yeah, no problem." The guy was doing his job, but what made this a decent encounter with a cop was that he started off treating me like a human being, not a "PERP!", and I treated him like a human being.
However, I give the cop credit for following up. He really did start off very much in a decent manner with the 3 women on the porch, with another "camerawoman" nearby, that he (based on video evidence) suspected of being the culprits. The idea is that if the women don't want to talk to him in his investigation, they can be arrested as they are suspects. Now, I could see myself starting out with "get off my lawn" and so forth too. I could see myself questioning the legal aspect of what's going on, with not much luck, as I am no legal expert (everyone ought to know more). Once the story was clear, though, I'd be reasonable in my interaction. If you are a guilty serial-killer suspect, well you may rightly have different plans to end this, but this was about keying a car or something.
The problem here was that these women just kept ranting and raving and simply would neither listen nor shut up. Is that the time to just leave it be? I'm no "LEO", so I don't know the rules. I will say that at some point the job has got to be done. Again, this cop was working for the complainant, the lady in the beginning. If the job is EVER going to get done, then you can't leave these people alone forever. Maybe the guy should have gotten his partner first to try to handle the woman, rather than using the taser, but otherwise, it's like Steve Sailer writes: Black people seem to want the right to be able to decide whether to get arrested or not. (Of course, they could just all calm down and be less criminal, but that's a whole 'nother story.)
Here are a few points from the video:
- As an unz commenter noted too, it's funny that the cop asked the boy (complainant's kid) if he wanted to sit in the cop car. Yeah, he may very well, someday...
- At that time, the cop, just trying to be a friend told the kid "yeah, it's a great job" or something like that. Really? In today's Gwinnette County, I think he was fibbing a bit to be friendly.
- The women on or off the porch while the trouble was going on kep yelling "I'm calling the cops!" What do you call that, recursive?
- These are nice, fairly new houses. There are probably mostly good black people there, but it only takes a few bad ones to make it a bad neighborhood anyway. You can't blame all this behavior on "the ghetto".
- Even the calmer of the women just keep yapping, so the whole business takes 10 times longer than with someone calmer who will either call a lawyer, just answer some questions like a human being (not always best if one's guilty, and even otherwise), or get hauled in without 1 hours and 40 minutes going by for the whole shebang, per the body-cam on-screen clock. That last is a MINIMUM, as I don't know if the thing was turned off at any point.
This whole bit of police work went on from broad daylight to full nightfall. Is that what the taxpayers want to pay for? It's so much drama with these people. There's something to be said for defunding the police, per neighborhood request.
* Not his real name, for damn good reasons. The handle is taken from the main character, played by Charles Bronson. in the old series of Death Wish movies.
** Just as with lots of exurbs, the biggest town there, Lawrenceville was a completely separate town in the recent past, with country in between it an Atlants. Exurbs are exurbs because of white flight from the suburbs... don't worry, this is all good news ... for the real estate agents and mortgage brokers.
*** Full disclosure: I didn't develop that joke from scratch. Commenter Rob McX on a different iSteve thread theorized "It seems blacks have evolved to be taser-proof."
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I had a Dream!
Posted On: Wednesday - September 2nd 2020 1:49PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor
No, this one is not some grandiose dream about people living in harmony and being judged by the contents of their characters by a Commie philandering race hustler. Plus, hopefully I won't get shot for writing about it by the Deep State or somebody...
(This is the closest file photo I could get to the scene in my head.)
We don't remember but a small percentage of our dreams, because it's only when we wake up right after that we remember at all. Even then, for me at least, the story and scenes will be gone from my head by later in the day, unlike the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior's one, unless I make a special effort to hold onto them. Sometimes, I'm left with one scene in my head, and only for a few days. This dream was not even anything very weird, interesting, or foreboding - it's probably nothing but an indication that I follow politics too much. Hey, if it's good for a blog post, what the hell.
I was at an outdoor concert with just a small crowd. It was nowhere that I recognized, and then I realized that I was in Ireland and these were Irish people standing around watching and listening. (I'd attended a small outdoor concert in Ireland long ago, from which I still have the free T-shirt somebody was tossing to the crowd. That explains the venue in the dream, I guess.) While we were waiting for the music to begin, one of the band members, the leader I guess, call him Bono, was calling out to the audience to get them excited about the show.
" ... and thanks to the Turks for coming here today!" WTF? The audience hushed up completely. "WTF?" was exactly what they were thinking. "Are there a lot of Turks in Ireland, what are they doing here, and why is this guy calling out to them rather than his Irish audience?" was what I was thinking. I looked around and then saw a few dark guys that I guess were the Turks in question. This small venue was the perfect place to be heard by this arrogant lefty rock-and-roller, and I waited for SOMEONE in the crowd to yell "Shut up and sing, asshole!" Though they were dumbfounded and some of them pissed, no one yelled out a thing, and I looked around at the huge stadium (you know how dreams morph a lot) and woke up before I personally could yell "Shut up and sing, asshole!" Isn't that just frustrating when you wake up before the dream should be done?
I'm assuming this was Bono and U2, so I'd at least like to have heard the long version of Bad* before I awoke.
Any Sigmund Freud acolytes in this Peak Stupidity audience? It's a small venue, so feel free to give your learned opinion on what this all means. Potty training problems when I was a child maybe? My parents playing too much classical music instead of Zeppelin and Cheap Trick? Resentful of my Father regarding my mother's ...
... forbidding me to partake of our psychedelic mushrooms until puberty?
* See Bono, you'd be serving up
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6% dying from Kung Flu alone - Vindication, bitchez!
Posted On: Tuesday - September 1st 2020 7:11PM MST
In Topics: US Feral Government Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
(Pic above is from a PJ media article - Instapundit's stomping ground. I'll read them over the Lyin' Press any day.)
"I heard it from a friend who, heard it from a a friend who, read it on Trump's tweet you were messing around ... with the numbers." Even if you are an REO Speedwagon fan, I suppose that was pretty lame. The middle friend was missing, but that's the deal - I don't read tweets, even very important ones from the President, as I don't want to encourage him doing that shit. However, this is a real vindication of what your Peak Stupidities, your Hail To You's, and the rest of, well, anyone on the internet with any perspective whatsoever.
I don't need to show President Trump's tweet directly, as this info. is indeed right on a CDC web page of cause of death statistics, as my friend pointed out.
Comorbidities[My bolding, except for the heading.] Now, in the charts contained therein, you can't sum up all the causes of death on that page to subtract from those listed as COVID deaths, as the site tells you, so I'm glad they spelled it out like this. Actually, I'm quite amazed the CDC spelled it out like this.
Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.
That's WAY WAY lower than even Mr. Hail's reasonable 50% guess of how many deaths have been FROM the Kung Flu vs. WITH the Kung Flu. Now, granted, maybe some of these co-morbidities would have resulted in a number of years left for the patient minus the COVID-19 virus. However, it's a pretty good low estimate. That 6% is the deaths that can definitely be chalked up to this virus. At the peak week of this purported Black Plague 2.0 in mid/late April of this year, here are the numbers for known COVID-only deaths vs. the original rectally-extracted ones.
(Ahaa, I just did the arithmetic in my head. My graph-reading was pretty good. There is simply a .06 ratio from the original death count to the (now) middle column.)
Now let me discuss the co-morbidity thing for a bit. It's not like the COVID-19 virus couldn't be a big factor in many of those other 94%. It's just that, for lots of them, the older patients especially, who ARE lots of them, combined problems can go wrong quickly.
If you've dealt with an older family member or friend in the hospital for serious illness (not the same as with young people hurt in a car wreck), you may know how this goes. This one condition requires this treatment, but we can't do that until he gets his XYZ readings up. For that, we will prescribe drug ABC, which does have a worsening effect on this OTHER condition. Additionally, the same drug, that he really needs to take, has a side effect causing this OTHER problem, which hopefully will not be bad enough to stop us from doing that original treatment we were going to do ... It gets pretty sad and/or scary, as things as up in the fashion of a puzzle. Solving the puzzle is the way to get through it all, until something else crops up next month. I hope all you readers can somehow avoid this, but ... as opposed to what, right?
After all that, for some months, if the patient doesn't make it home, then the cause of death must be logged. What was it, exactly? Note that 2.6 average co-conditions. But, we need a code or two, and "old age" is not one of them.
Peak Stupidity has written about the big incentives to log deaths as due to COVID-19. These are on the doctors' side, from money and pressure to conform to the narrative to keep the scare going (also meaning more money coming in) and on the patient/billing side - no copays and deductibles make it a better deal for all involved. See Kung Flu Mission Creep + Goosing the Numbers and Are Kung Flu death counts being goosed for insurance reasons?. This latest information is proof these incentives are working.
It's too late to walk all this LOCKDOWN, business/school/university/Bread&Circus closure back now, high government experts! What's the plan? I don't have one, but for starters, I'd like to see an apology to the whole country by Dr. Fauci on his knees. President Trump has got this one right. Vindicated, Bitchez!
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"Think Globally, Act Locally"
Posted On: Tuesday - September 1st 2020 6:22AM MST
In Topics: Music Treehuggers Globalists Environmental Stupidity
"Think Globally, Act Locally" may have made someone in the bumper sticker business pretty well off over the years. I first saw this catch-phrase on bumper stickers in the mid-1980s, but per Wiki, it was at least around since 1971, said by the founder of Friends of the Earth.
Yeah, it's pretty catchy. Maybe it was a treehugger thing at the beginning, but I've also heard it from the left regarding various other issues. I don't begrudge the treehuggers their point either. Maybe you spend hours a week looking at pseudo-3D, multi-colored displays of results from mathematical models of the Earth's climate, because you are worried shitless about it. Maybe you also (used to, hopefully*) give money to the local chapter of the Sierra Club. When you go backpacking out in the wilderness, you want to clear your head of all this, especially the incessant haranguing from little Greta, but you will still bury all your waste and toilet paper 2 miles from the next soul and leave the place as clean or cleaner that you found it.
There are the hard-core recycling families that spend extra time sorting their stuff at home (used to be more of a thing when cities didn't have better ways to separate the materials). As Peak Stupidity noted in Towards Sustainable Stupidity**, some are fooling themselves with this. OK, I'm fine with that, thought they may cost me some minor tax money, it's their business. (Hell, I am pretty adamant about at least burning all the corrugate we get now ... oops, was that wrong?)
"Think globally, act locally" is a fine attitude. More people
What I have seen though, since the time these bumper stickers were printed, is that the left does not just think globally, but they act globally too. They don't just want to raise money for a new National Park or buy hybrid cars anymore. They want to force their agenda on all of us through government. Global Climate Stupidity is one of the biggest examples. However, it's not just the realm of Environmental Stupidity in which this bumper sticker has been misread. Globalists want control in every political realm, and in every physical realm too. (Think back on the Commies back in the old USSR. They were not content enough to have wonderful Communism in their one country - they wanted to spread the LUV with International Communism. No thanks, you bastards!)
These control freaks around here ought to finally take off those bumper stickers. It's been 30 or 40 years, and that transmission ain't gonna last on your old VW Jetta anyway. How about we, as Americans, back it off a notch and Think Nationally and act Nationally?
Alternatively, we could go back a long ways and Think Nationally and act Naturally:
* See also Part 2.
** Really, our point was the other way around, about the stupidity of some modern "sustainability", but that's one of our favorite post titles, so it stays.
*** See Peak Stupidity's take on the homeschoolers, as the good folks "poking the beast in the eye with a big stick" - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
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Antifa in The Hamptons
Posted On: Saturday - August 29th 2020 3:58PM MST
In Topics: Humor ctrl-left
There's been lots of deep and serious stuff here on Peak Stupidity this week, at least. We've gotta put a stop to that, at least for the last post of the blog-week. Since the Commie antifa bastards and bitches have been in the news lately, well, thankfully 2 less than on Tuesday, a video I've had in mind for a week or so would be perfect.
This guy Tim Dillon is extremely funny here. I don't know if he does the physical humor like falling down and breaking coffee tables like the late Chris Farley, but he reminds me of a long succession of fat funny guys. John Belushi (yes, that was fat for his day), John Candy, then Chris Farley, and now this guy*? It seems like as soon as one dies from a drug overdose or heart attack, there is another fat funny guy ready and available. Here's a website with picks for the top 10. This Tim Dillon hasn't made that list yet. I should mention John Pinette just because Peak Stupidity has featured his famous Chinese buffet routine.
There's not much about the antifa that Tim Dillon left out here. Thank you all for reading. More posting will occur on Tuesday I believe.
* Yeah, I could have gone back to Oliver Hardy and Lou Costello, both part of the old standup straight**-skinny guy/funny-fat guy teams. It was Laurel & Hardy and Abbot & Costello.
** Not in the not-gay sense.
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KYLE'S LIFE MATTERS!
Posted On: Saturday - August 29th 2020 8:10AM MST
In Topics: Americans Liberty/Libertarianism ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny Guns
Peak Stupidity is only ~ 4 days late on this one, but it is good to get more of the story if you're going to opine on it.
I'll just put it plainly: I called Kyle Rittenhouse a hero in a comment I made. As I wrote regarding the "First Responders"*, I believe that term should be used for those who put their own lives on the line, when they'd otherwise be safe. By going out to that street battle that day, the young man was a hero of sorts. By doing that great job defending himself from antifa Commie street fighters, Mr. Rittenhouse has my respect and admiration, and should probably be called a role model.
He did the best job I could imagine in extracting himself from a situation in which he would have been killed or beaten badly (the latter already in progress by a big man with a skateboard). During the video below that you've probably all seen, I at first didn't see how this guy was going to get out of this. He did the right thing regarding all the shots he took - note that he did not shoot at the guy with his hands up, even though that guy was still pretty close. He had to get this crowd to stop going after him, or else...
That's pretty much all I need to write about what happened, as I'll just refer you to 4 articles on unz.com about it.** There are millions out there on the web of course, but one could spend a day reading these articles and the comments below them (mostly the many comments under the Mike Whitney one). Rather than spend time on all of them, as I will restrain myself from doing, it'd be best to try to fund this guy's defense*** or otherwise promote this perfect example of what Amendment II is all about.
It's not about duck hunting. It's not even about self-defense. Further events will show us what Amendment II was about.
As for the near future for the role model Kyle Rittenhouse: Looking back at the aftermath of the Charlottesville street battle 3 summers ago, one can see that the Establishment will try to railroad this guy. He's been arrested on murder charges among others, though this act of self-defense is clear for all to see. I've read that, well, the idea is they want to hang a big charge on him that won't fly in court. This is to please the political world, and then later he won't be found guilty. I don't like it. Why should one be put in jail for months or a year awaiting/during trial and take a chance that some jury will vote based on hatred? This guy shouldn't have charges against him at all, unless the first shooting of his, not on this video, is not as I've read.
Here are the 4 articles on unz that I've read:
By Mike Whitney, simply Rittenhouse - Mr. Whitney's only small bit of stupidity is his serious use of the term "social justice" 3 times or so, giving credence to a term that rally means nothing more than "give us more of the White Man's stuff!"
By one Spencer Quinn, In Defense of Kyle Rittenhouse - His little flaw is this bit: "This is because Americans these days really want to scream at each other, and relish any excuse to do so.". Uhh, no, not unless by “Americans”, he means talking heads on TV, Fed level and NYC politicians, antifa Commies, black looters, and SJW college students only.
By one Eric Stryker (haven't read him much before): Kenosha: All Three Anarchist Rioters Shot Have Violent Criminal Histories - This one is just simple facts gleaned by the writer about the not-so-stellar backgrounds of this sample taken of the antifa.
By the esteemed John Derbyshire: From Wisconsin to Washington D.C.—"Our Culture and Way of Life" Under Attack - Mr. Derbyshire mentions VDare's Peter Brimelow having noted 8 years ago that regular American were realizing that "this will come to blood." About the only thing I question is whether immigration is really a cause of this particular problem, the Commie antifa. Besides being weirdos and misfits, they seem to be regular Americans. You could say that the country is so disunited because of the massive immigration. This article lists a number of facts that are amazingly straight out of the NY Times - yeah, someone fucked up over there.
OK here's the video, thanks to commenter Adam Smith:
* See First Responders and Heroes, "First Responders!" - The Firemen and Fire Departments, "First Responders!" - Ambulance drivers, excuse me, EMTs, "First Responders!" - The Cops, "First Responders!" at "The Office", and 911 - The Phone Number.
** I've railed on the weird Ron Unz multiple times here, but I'll give this man great credit for publishing many articles on this Kyle Rittenhouse incident, well un-biased articles, as that is the important thing, Thank you, Mr. Unz!
*** Of course, Big-Comp-Tech is blatantly refusing to be fair on this. GoFundMe will not let an account be opened for a legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, while they are perfectly find enabling the funding of yet another black guy that got the cops antsy. (Yet, some otherwise intelligent, on-the-ball writers want to give control over Big-Search, Big Data, all of Big-Comp-Tech to the Feral Gov't. Yeah, I'm sure they are completely unbiased, with the separation of powers and all.... hahaha.)
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A lesson from Empire of the Sun
Posted On: Friday - August 28th 2020 8:50PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes History Movies Preppers and Prepping The Future
Well back now, in Peak Stupidity's review of a Linda Ronstadt movie, it was noted that there'd be 2 1/2 movie reviews. That one, the movie being Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice to be exact, was the first full one. This is the 1/2 of a review, and we'll have another review of a movie about another 1970s rock musician coming soon.
I'm only writing this half a movie review because I think the beginning of this one, Empire of the Sun, is a good thing for a potential prepper to watch. I did watch the whole thing, mind you, as this movie was made, must have been made, before the PC era*. (I just looked- it was produced 33 years ago, in 1987.)
I'll get to the point of this post shortly, but since this is at least partly a movie review, in the usual Peak Stupidity un-Siskel/Ebert fashion. I'll just say TL/HTW (Too Long / Had To Watch), cause it was a fairly long flight. I had seen 157 as the movie time, thinking there was a colon in there, so, OK just under 2 hours. Oh, no, there was no colon - that's 157 minutes, as in 2 hours and 37 min! Whew. It's not a bad movie though. I like war movies, and this one involved war, in the fashion of Bridge on the River Kwai, one of my all-time favorites. (That one is 4 minutes longer, so what am I complaining about?)
While watching Empire of the Sun, I had thought the movie was just based on the general situation of actual events during the Japanese capture of the International Settlement** in Shanghai, China in December of 1941. I found out just now that the movie was based on an autobiographical book by J. G. Ballard. More power to him, as it was an amazing story. Most of the movie is the story of life in the Japanese prison camp outside of Shanghai, a place called Lunghua. There is a side story about the love of flying. The movie is suspenseful, I won't spoil the ending, and, yeah, it's an OK movie, just too long.
Now, to get to the point, the opening 30 minutes is something I think those worried about the future just the least little bit, other than single guys, who have a much better chance of making out OK, no matter what the troubles, should watch. The life of the British boy, Jamie Graham, is luxurious, like that of a posh English family, but just in Shanghai, China, instead of St. John's Wood, or whatever-the-hell, I'm just going by Rolling Stones songs here, so ... His Dad is a diplomat, they have a very nice house, almost a mansion, with Chinese servants, one dedicated just to the boy, and a driver. (Obviously, the driver had not learned all the tricks of the modern Chinese drivers, though - no incessant horn-honking, ignorance of all traffic devices, and all that.) Mrs. Graham lived a life of a high-style, with her life centered on arranging the boy's schooling and hobbies and around entertainment with the other British Shanghai settlement dwellers. In fact, they were on the way back from an overnight costume ball, when the real SHTF.
Mr. Graham, the diplomat, would have been the first to know that big trouble was coming to his family's beautiful and tidy life in that island in the middle of a huge conflict. Even this guy, much less the average Joe, wouldn't know exactly when the real trouble would start. If you were not sure that this Sino-Japanese war would pass through your area at all, you were not sure you'd have to ever leave your nice life there. You don't know when or if, so why not keep living your life, as it is? There's also an aspect of denial you may have, as, haven't they left this special British/American settlement alone in the past? Your kids have to keep learning, the wife's got a busy social schedule, and you've got that job that you are dedicated to.
All of a sudden though, the war came to the settlement, and the Shit Hit The Fan within a day. As the Grahams tried to return from the party to their house in the settlement, the Japanese war machine was rolling through. Chinese were scrambling, and there was just general mayhem in the streets, blocking the vehicular traffic. As the family tried to get through the crowd, they got separated (see the top image, in which the Dad is the guy with wearing the fedora on the right, and the Mom is on the left). Seeing that will cause the viewer great anxiety. Watch the movie for the rest.
With the troubles going on in America today, on a timeline that just seems to be accelerating, we've got to wonder if we are in the situation of that British family in early-1940s Shanghai. My neighborhood is a nice one. There are lots of older people, who I don't think can get the concept that things could get really bad in this country. We haven't even been on a wartime footing since the time in which that movie was set (+ 4 years), so 75 years ago, much less had a war going on here. (That'd be 155 years ago.) Nobody can picture it, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
The prepper types will tell you that it's better to be 5 years early than a day late. It's some work, keeping up with stashes of goods, emergency equipment, bugout plans, etc. At times, one may feel that he is wasting his efforts. Then, all it takes is a look at the news, or a look at the financial picture of this country to reassure oneself that, yes, this is definitely a good idea. From the gun sales numbers as of late and family members' comments, I think the idea that this country could collapse into chaos is not so remote for people as in, well, 2019.
However, just as with the buying out of bottled water in the grocer stores within 2 days of a hurricane's expected arrival, most people will wait for the last minute to decide to be a prepper, which is NOT being a prepper. It's the lack of information of the "when" or even "if", and the difficult-to-grasp concept that it CAN happen here that, just like in the beginning of Empire of the Sun, will put people in trouble when the SHTF. I guess with the communications of all sorts we have now, it'd be harder for things to go down like in the movie, with your kid being lost to you. Who knows, though?
You've got to live your life, but you can be a prepper at the same time. Even a plan to bug out of your area can be in place as you live your life as normally as possible. It's time for us to make some contingency plans.
One more thing: Part of prepping too, is raising the children to be tougher than the way most have become, from the helicopter parenting and no-winners/no-losers coddling in school. One can see the results in the SJW college students, and it's not pretty. In Empire of the Sun the smart but spoiled boy Jamie grew tough from the time roaming around violent Shanghai and then spending those years in the Japanese prison camp. He turned out OK. It may not go so well for those raised as snowflakes today.
A different world may be coming. Be prepared, as the Scouts say.
* Because I was on an airplane flight, I could have, and already had, for a couple of others on another flight clicked it off any time any PC shit came up. I'm pretty quick about that.
** This was the British and American "concession" formed in a merger way back in 1863. The British had told the Qing dynasty that they wanted to do business in China, and that was that. It took a war, in which the British won, of course. Part of this area, with the old Victorian style houses and such, is called "The Bund" now, and one can visit via a tour on a double-decker bus - there are loads of them.
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Christianity - Living for the next world, but what about this one? - Part 4
Posted On: Friday - August 28th 2020 3:13PM MST
In Topics: The Future Bible/Religion
(continued from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
This series of posts has been kind of disjointed and rambling, so, for consistency's sake, we'll keep up with that style herein. We'll start out with some more thoughts on the small scale and then go to the big scale and wrap it up.
These thoughts started from reflection on the case of Little Landen in Minneapolis and Little Landen's miraculous recovery. As far as the little boy's parents go, they've had so much grief and worry that I do not blame them one bit if they want to forget the why's of what so many black thugs or simply insane black men are doing in their formerly white city to begin with. They can forgive or not. It would take more than the average amount of courage to speak out, as putting the family in jeopardy some more is not something I would do either.
How about the parents of Molly Tibbets, raped and murdered by an illegal alien? (As I wrote, I'm not giving statistical analysis here, but if these were once a year occurrences, I can assure you, I wouldn't feel the need to write about them.) Their girl is gone from this world. It indeed takes a lot of faith to forgive as commanded by Jesus, but does that mean one should not speak out either? What about not hating the sinner, but hating the sin. There were a lot of sins committed, mostly for money and adoration, by the elites who enable these sorts of things to happen more easily. (Having a REAL nation, with borders and all, and a real justice system, helps immensely!)
Parents stricken with grief like this over innocent little ones taken from them may have faith, but have they any courage? It doesn't take courage to speak out at the press conference in favor of the Establishment narratives - "it's the guns!", "they're mostly good people!", etc. It takes courage to say "these people shouldn't be here", "they should be locked up", "diversity is killing this country", and "I'd like us to remain a mostly white, law-abiding, peaceful country." You will most certainly be called a "hateful hater" of some kind, with some other names thrown in.
If you are a Christian, well, being called a "hater" hurts almost as much as the anguish from what happened to your child(ren). It's an impugning of one's faith, which tells one not to hate. It's quite a quandary, but one must see the lies and have some courage.
Back to the big picture, the large, large majority of us thankfully won't have anything like this happen. However, when the situation is getting worse ("trending", in modern parlance), we'd be better off doing something about it. We are told to not put our faith in this world though and concentrate on reaching the next in good shape. Does that mean we should just not care what's been going on?
The old lefty adage "Think globally, act locally" ought to be taken to heart by Conservatives too. It's not that I agree with the left's "globally" part of it, but I respect their putting their OWN time and money where there mouth's are.* Many Christian Conservatives (but I repeat myself, a real Christian by nature has got to be a Conservative in this day and age, at least) DO indeed act locally. Sending one's kids to Christian schools is probably the most important act. One can be kind and forgiving to his neighbors. That's easy enough, most times. (Well, you haven't met one of my neighbors though.)
Whether one does act locally, or just go with the flow, if one follows the many pieces of advice to put the next world first, it's then hard to justify raising hell, pissing lots of people off, and being called (OMG!) a HATER for working for Conservatism on a large scale. You really can't be forgiving of all your enemies when you do this.
Things are most certainly NOT getting better in America right now, or the world either. Even if you have no kids or little nieces and nephews, do you want to leave the country and world in worse shape than it was when you came along? Are you supposed to just live your life in a Christian manner and watch? I don't know.
Per commenter MBlanc46's comment under Part 3, the problem may be that lots of the Scripture was written when the thoughts were that the End Times were coming pretty soon, maybe even in the lifetimes of those writing and depicted therein. It's been 2,000 years now. If you know that this world will be ended, and anything you do to save this world is for nought, then just living per the Book is the way to go. If we all think like this, I guess this world IS doomed, but in what way?
Nations have undergone terrible periods of Communism, Naziism, and tyranny of all sorts. It wasn't the End Times, but just many years of terrible times, often with lives ruined for 2 or 3 generations. During these times, it's usually the case, that Christians aren't even allowed to worship openly, much less change things for the better. Totalitarians don't like your religion, as they have their own, which is you worship The State, and they are The State. They don't want competition.
Again, I am no big historian, especially regarding religious history. I can't argue over what changed in the past from when the Crusades were started to pay back the Moslem world for lots of atrocities. Raping and pillaging was just the way then, and I doubt there was much forgiveness from those Christian soldiers. In these times, people have got to decide that is worth saving this world. If Christians don't save it, there won't be a Christian world left to ponder any of these questions. At that point you won't be in any position to save souls for the next one. That, or the End Times better come PDQ.
*I think this "Think globally, act locally" bit from the 1980s, maybe earlier, deserves its own post - coming. (Lots of posts are in the "coming" stage.)
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Waitresses to wear doggie cones? - Governor Mills' orders
Posted On: Thursday - August 27th 2020 8:25PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Kung Flu Stupidity
Thanks go to illustrious commenter Adam Smith for the picture below, from a tweet, about what medical doctor Sherri Tenpenny (formerly Dr. Sherri Penny, but for Inflation) has called "peak insanity". We beg to differ, but maybe it's a fine line between high stupidity and insanity.
The photo in the tweet is a photoshop, but the order about the wearing of doggie-injury-style inverted lampshade by Maine Governor Janet Mills* is not. It's a sort of cruel and unusual punishment she seems to think she has the power to dole out to those who won't wear face masks. It may be breathing problems with one of those infernal things adding resistance to your air flow, as per one of our commenters**, that is the reason for a waiter or waitress not wanting to wear a mask. It could be as with someone like me, his just not wanting to take part in the stupidity.
Perhaps patrons of a restaurant could decide for themselves whether they are comfortable having food and drinks served by someone without her face diaper on. Then, the boss of the establishment could make his own rule accordingly.
That's not current-era American thinking, however. If you don't want to wear a face mask, the Maine Governor, ruling during this long-trending emergency, says, no, you can't even wear one of those shields (looks like a lightweight welder's shield without the deep tinting). The breath you exhale would go downward, into the food, she says, so you must wear the doggie inverted lampshade.
The last paragraph of The Post Millennial article describing this insanity says:
Maine has only sustained 131 COVID-19 related fatalities to date with the majority in Cumberland County, where the state's most populous city, Portland, resides.For 131 deaths WITH the Kung Flu, Maine's Governor Mills says waiters and waitresses must be treated like dogs.
I don't know who I would feel sorrier for, the family cat or dog with one of these cones on, or a human in Maine. You wonder if your pet is aware enough to be very sad, thinking "hey, I've got to live with this stupid thing forever. I can't scratch, or eat right. This is gonna suck." He can't understand when you tell him that you'll take if off as soon as that wound heals up. On the other hand, the indignity inherent in a sentient human being having to wear one is very sad in its own way.
* Governor Mills of Maine and Governor Whitmer of Michigan seem to have some totalitarian tendencies in common. Maybe they should get together for some Totalitarian Ted Talks or something.
** I tried to find the comment but couldn't for the life of me. Please chime in again.
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OMG! Pro Sports Boycott!
Posted On: Wednesday - August 26th 2020 8:48PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Race/Genetics ctrl-left Bread and Circuses
Hell, I didn't know if they were playing or not anyway. Even before the Kung Flu Infotainment Panic-fest, I haven't known who was playing whom for the last 10 years. This is about something someone did somewhere to some black guy, isn't it?
If the cut-off of the Circuses part of the Bread & Circuses (with the "Bread" part taking a pretty big hit lately too) wasn't enough to turn regular Americans off the sportsball, perhaps this boycott is.
Look fans, the owners, the TV people who make lots of money off of it, and most of the players themselves are telling you that they actively hate your kind. It's bad enough you are rooting for mostly thugs who you wouldn't want anywhere near your family unless you are King of the Cucks. Now, they are siding with the 1/2* of the people who are in the process of destroying the inner cities, OK, what's left of them, of America. Really, you want to keep supporting this shit.
On my end, the TV has not been getting signals to it from other than the DVD player with movies I select for decades now. None of this concerns me in any way. If nothing else, at least the money to be saved by turning off those huge floodlights is coming out of my pocket in some way.
Americans ought to think about sports as being something you get out and PLAY, not something to veg out on the couch and watch. Could that be changed by the Kung Flu LOCKDOWNS and this scary boycott by your favorite thugs? We can hope.
Just END IT, already!
* The other 1/2 being the Commie antifa.
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I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone ...
Posted On: Wednesday - August 26th 2020 7:55PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Music The Dead Peak Stupidity Roadshow
... that is not quite the case today, for our Uber ride to the beach. The Uber drivers must be drilled like hell from their corporate Uber-menschen ("but, but, wait, we are mere contractors") on the Kung Flu hysteria. Two different drivers were wearing masks - I wish I could have seen them drive up, but it was the usual "well the GPS says you are supposed to be here...".
Riders are not allowed in the front seats, so we had to squish in pretty tight, without masks, cause, like, whaddya' gonna do, kick us out? Your stupid ass drove 10 miles to get us, brought us 12 miles, then had to go 10 miles home. With that traffic it was probably about an hour, so that 16 bucks, minus Uber's 25%(?) cut, you are spinning your wheels to begin with.*. On the other hand, I suppose you could tell Uber we weren't masked up, and they'd have to take the driver's side - zero tolerance RULES!
I guess I think "stupid ass" of this lady just from her politics. Oh, yeah, someone "went there", and not me either. It escalated fairly quickly, as, badmouthing Trump is one thing (we all have our beefs with him). However, when I mentioned that, "well, Joe Biden is gonna die soon, and that Camel Toe hates all White people", the lady noted "well, I hate all White people!" Did I mention she was White? OK, this was getting nasty in a hurry.
Let me go back, way back, ~ 30 years, to when I was hitchhiking around parts of Ireland. I had to, because the trains would only go certain places, and we didn't have the money for driving back then (restaurants were out of the question, so my diet for over a week was, baguettes of bread, cheddar cheese, Guinness, and Cadbury bars) I was with a Swedish girl, but not "with her" so to speak, but just travel companions for a few days. (No, she wasn't that hot, if this is what you have in your head.)
At this one place we couldn't get a ride for 4 hours. We hung out in the light rain, and finally a Saab pulled up with, well a yuppie guy, as you'd figure. As we conversed, the talk turned to politics somehow. The Swedish woman, as you'd also figure, was a flaming leftist. I doubted this guy giving us a ride for 50 miles (excuse me, 80 kilometers, excuse me, kilometres) was any kind of lefty. Well it got to apartheid in S. Africa, and luckily the talk just stopped cold. I wasn't like that back then, but now I would have said out loud "hey, the guy's giving us a free ride - don't piss him off!" Maybe I did have thoughts about getting into her pants, hence the silence out of me.
You just don't piss off the driver, or you end up needing another ride. Regarding our Uber ride, well we were paying for this ride, but were things the opposite, the result would be my telling the riders to "just get the hell out right here." Now, I thought this lady a complete idiot after her statement and wished she somehow wouldn't have the right to vote again - maybe she'll commit a felony (not on our ride, hopefully!) - but, from my experience, it was time to stop this. "You don't talk politics when getting a ride", I simply said, and everyone agreed.
The lady turned out to be pretty nice. Who knew? However, when I think back on the political stupidity of people who are voting here, I lose hope. No, I won't miss her now that I'm gone.
If you are a Dead Head, you know that I Know You Rider is always preceded by China Cat Sunflower, but for newer listeners, this version from the Europe '72 2-record live album is a great first version to listen to.
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I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone.
I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone.
Gonna miss your baby, from rolling in your arms.
Laid down last night, Lord, I could not take my rest.
Laid down last night, Lord, I could not take my rest.
My mind was wandering like the wild geese in the west.
The sun will shine in my back door someday.
The sun will shine in my back door someday.
March winds will blow all my troubles away.
I wish I was a headlight, on a north bound train.
I wish I was a headlight, on a north bound train.
I'd shine my light through cool Colorado rain.
This song was not written by The Dead or anyone associated. It's another one they played that was a traditional number, going back at least a century.
* Yeah, I need to do an economics post about this Uber/Lyft thing.
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Unitarian Stupidity - it's how they roll at the UU - Part 2
Posted On: Tuesday - August 25th 2020 8:44PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Student and other Snowflakes Bible/Religion
What has now become Part 1 is a long ago post regarding the Unitarian Church's virtual signalling displays of BLM and Pro-immigration-invasion. That was almost 3 years ago, during an earlier round of the BLM BS.
The UU Church's main dogma is that there are one or fewer gods, and that's about it. Many of the members, undoubtedly Mary Moon* being one, believe in Karma. I think some of that not-so-instant karma, but within the standards of modern day court justice karma, has come down on the Kenosha Unitarian Church:
This is kind of a cheesey sign, this plastic type, for any church, because this UU one
I had read Mr. Steve Sailer's post on unz.com, Wisconsin Governor Urges, in Effect, Blacks to Riot, but only just looked at a 7 second tweet on VDare, here. Mr. Sailer has always been a bit too pro-cops in his writing for me, but there are 2 sides to every story that should be listened to before the rioting is to start.
I don't know about the Commie antifa crowd that has been driving from all over to help start and continue the rioting in many American cities, but the black looters ought to like these Unitarian supporters. They are down with you homies - they've got big signs on the church where I live, and note the letters on the plastic sign in the picture above. The other night though... dayum, nigga, look at that sheeet!
Gotta be tolerant, brothers. The Unitarians out-tolerate all other Churches around. Fires, pssshaaaw, it's Social Justice, man. Gotta tolerate those BLMers and those Commies. We can rebuild the sign - we have the stupidity. That's how we roll at the UU.
* Yeah, I put the song in that previous post, and I know it's not "She's a Unitarian" but "She's a vegetarian" in the lyrics, but that's how I hear it - it's just as good.
** I wanted to check it out, and maps.bing.com got me a nice aerial, then this street view from July of '19. This is not any cheesy strip-mall church. It looks very nice, especially when unburnt. (OK, the fire only got the sign and cars in the parking lot, as far as I know.) The sign is not in this picture, so, I don't know... talk to the sign committee. Was that BLM message put up there to keep insurance premiums low?
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Lost & Found - "customer care"
Posted On: Tuesday - August 25th 2020 1:09PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Big-Biz Stupidity Scams Customer Care
It's time for another Peak Stupidity "customer care" story. It's been a while, and this one is a doozy, really more like a scam than just a customer service failure.
In our post Thank you, TSA guy! of a week and a half ago, derived from a family road trip, I noted that we had lost something, which was related to what slowed us down at the TSA. Part of it was somewhat important, and I was sure I'd left it in, around, or under the rent-a-car that we returned, as we were in a big hurry there. While getting on the plane I used some of their internet to figure out how we'd reach these people.
As usual, they made it impossible to call them, at least per the web site. That is the thing now - nobody wants a phone call. The young people don't even know how to use it properly as a telephone anymore. I found that there was a web page for lost items and went through the whole semi-frustrating thing. (You always get stuck on something or other.) OK, fine, but, as I've written before, doing everything electronically gives me absolutely no confidence that any live human being even knows or is thinking, or ever will know or think, about this lost item! How would I ever know?
We've all been through something like this, and one thing (which deserves its own post) you learn is that it's best to try to find something right away. Even with honest people - and in this case, it was nothing but 3rd world immigrants (they were very nice, I'll admit, but who knows about 'em?) - someone may hold your item for you, but the chain of custody can get longer than the chain of communications.
Therefore, I was happy to find a local area code phone number of the rent-a-car location. That had to wait until I got back, that night. I laid in the bed, not expecting to get a live person right off the bat, but maybe soon... maybe ... With my obstinate policy of not talking to computers, I went through some button-mashing sequences. No, "0" right away hangs up, OK, try to get through this one, OK got "lost and found", excellent, should be someone answering... nope, more menu options ... "listen, as our menu options have changed", that last thing being a scam of its own...
Within the lost and found menu, I tried every sequence I could find but it wanted you to listen to what was an ad, AARP discounts, something like that. There was no way around that. OK, I gotta get a person, so I went through that ad and found out there was another after it. Keep in mind that during these trials, I hung up, or got hung up on (for mashing "0"), many times in my experimentation. I was resigned to listening to now a 3rd ad, as one had to get through them to get anywhere. Here's where you get - it hangs up on you after that 3rd ad!
Man, I was pissed. Not only could you not get a live person at all, I'd wasted 1/2 an hour, and got suckered into listening to 3 advertisements in order to TRY to get to a live person. It's just plain a scam. (In case you are wondering, this was definitely the rent-a-car company's voice system, as I got to the front end each time, and then their lost and found option.)
Oh, the item was deep in my luggage, I found out the next day sometime when I rummaged through it better. That doesn't let these marketing bastards off the hook. Now relieved to have my belonging back, I just have to put up with auto-emails from the company daily that tell me that, yes, the lost-and-found computer program knows that I lost it, but does not know where it is. I can't figure out how to stop these emails so far, unless I tell the computer I found the item. I will not give it the satisfaction - haha, like there's anybody to care!
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Christianity - Living for the next world, but what about this one? - Part 3
Posted On: Monday - August 24th 2020 1:09PM MST
In Topics: Bible/Religion
(continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)
In Part 2 we left off with discussion of the large-scale stupidity of the huge emphasis on forgiveness and tolerance over other aspects of religion that is part of the dogma now of the large Christian denominations. Even many of the evangelical Mega-Churches have this same stupidity.
This post will start off with the small-scale effect, which is back to where this started, with the flat-out execution of one little white boy, and the trauma done to another from hateful black thugs. (Note that this would not need to be written about here were these 2 in a decade happenings, but things as bad as this happen much more often than that.) In the Hoffman parents' case, since little Landen has recovered amazingly, it's not a murder. What I'll write about here doesn't apply to them exactly, but I'm sure during that long period when their boy was in critical condition, getting this surgery, this other procedure, and with their worries about what the permanent function of his body would be like, they had some of these thoughts.
I will also mention an adult (as much as a college student today is, anyway) named Seth Smith, a very bright, promising Cal Berkeley student murdered in that town. The latest post and commentary is in Steve Sailer's Seth Smith, Seth Rich, Nobody Much Cares When Seths Get Murdered.*
What's a parent to do when something as terrible as the murder of their child happens? It's the biggest sorrow most can imagine, and turning to religion or something resembling that is the usual, best course. For a Christian, the way to abate the sorrow and hate is to slowly try to forgive. "Forgive thine enemy" is all over the New Testament (per this site, at least 100 times). I do not think that most of the people that forgive these evil non-white thugs that are not all, but most of the problem, are doing it for virtue signaling reasons either. It is the way forward, and the thoughts of this being the way to best enter the next world are the only hope and joy left.
Failing that, the neutral course of thought is to simply trust in the legal system to give justice and "closure". Nowadays, this is a very long process, becoming a big portion of these parents/siblings/friends' lives. There is a significant chance that justice won't be served either. You can also spend a portion of the rest of your life working for a cause to help avoid the fate of your child for other parents. That is often a good thing, doing the best you can for this world.
However, because of the stupidity of political correctness, the efforts spent do improve this world often do nothing but distract or even cause more destruction of this world. "Integrate the schools, more midnight basketball, give 'em more of our stuff!" and "It was the gun! It's those guns! Take 'em away from everyone!" come to mind, respectively.
Lastly, and partly because we don't have the justice system of the 1950s, vengeance served cold is probably in the thoughts of ALL of these parents. For some, it's only occasionally, when the despair gets too heavy. For others that may be their thoughts from the time it happened, and for some, in the back of their minds. The problem with this latter thing is that most religious people of today's world are pretty sure this behavior will not help them in the next world.
Per the information from the commenters under the article about the young man murdered in Berkeley, CA, Seth Smith, his Mom not only was one of these BLM supporter types, but SHE STILL IS. The suspect, 60 y/o Tony Walker, has a long rap sheet**, and he is a black man, as might be expected. This Mom just lost her bright, promising son, and yet her response is to tweet out more about evil white people and Trump. Just double down, I guess, if that makes you feel any better. I guess it must, and when you think about it, the SJW stuff is her religion, so she's on the same road as others. Only thing is her religion is a load of crap.
Peak Stupidity related another sad news story of the loss of a daughter (in this case) to a murder by an illegal alien - Mollie Tibbetts murder - no regrets?. In this case, it was the Dad I wrote about. He wasn't a kook like the BLM Mom of Seth Smith, but still could not dispute the narrative about the illegal aliens being "good Iowans". This was after his daughter had been raped and killed, mind you. This Dad was called brave for his stance, but, as we noted, some real bravery would be standing up and calling out the immigration stupidity. Oh, but he'd be called names!! What does it matter after something like that?
Perhaps that's a way for a parent to cope with this - stand up and call out the bullshit, LOUDLY. Your life will never be the same anyway, so why not go all out? You can still forgive the individual, if that's possible, and hate the sin, not the sinner. Where the sins happened are perhaps just not so simple. They go back to people that enable these things to happen in our country.
I pray that I never get a chance to ever find out how I would handle something like this.
There was to be a good wrap-up of this, more related back to the big picture. That'll be in the last post on this.
* If you search around in Mr. Sailer's archives, based on the date of this murder or shortly afterwards, you'll find more on this story.
** See some fairly unbiased reporting in this Berkeleyside article. The comments are amazingly not very woke at all.
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Do I look like a Daddy to you?
Posted On: Saturday - August 22nd 2020 8:29PM MST
In Topics: Music
I'd really wanted to finish the last part of the discussion about "Living for the next world, but how about this world." I think I am not up for it right now, so it's time for some good music if nothing else.
Here is some old Don Williams country music. He wasn't as famous at the other Williams and his son, but Don Williams wrote and sang some good tunes. This was from back in the time before country music went seriously downhill. That could be arguable the end of the 1970s but there were still some good artists in the early 1990s.
Don Williams was even in a movie, as a bit cameo part in Smokey and the Bandit - II*. Mr. Jerry Reed, who plays the trucker with the handle "Snowman", is a country singer himself, and he tells Mr. Williams "you're my 2nd favorite country singer."
Rake and Ramblin' Man was not written by Mr. Williams, but by Bob McDill. Off of his 1977 album Country Boy, this is my favorite Don Williams song.
* Sequels are hardly ever as good as the originals, and Smokey and the Bandit itself was not exactly a world-renowned film.
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Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 11
Posted On: Saturday - August 22nd 2020 4:22PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
(If she'd had a butt like this I think I'd have put a mask on and enjoyed the view.)
There are a dozen or more posts on the front burner here at Peak Stupidity, all with their specific cooking times as determined by the smoke alarm, and I thought it would be another week before the next "Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic".
But no, the only reason, I mean, the only reason I'm here writing this post today [/Arlo Guthrie] is that I just had to leave the gym for a while this morning due to my first Becky encounter, and it was completely due to the Kung Flu re-Panic. My schedule allowed time for writing later, but I had this time, 20 minutes forced on me, as I must wait for this hysterical lady to finish her workout on a (nice, Precor with the best console!) treadmill.
I would not have believed it, if this woman had not apparently opened her mouth. I say "apparently" as she had one of those thick black masks on. I just got started on the bicycle machine (Precor P60-series, baby!) 12 ft away from the lady. I mean this is as far as I could get from her, though that was not my thought anyway - it was just the only recumbent bike machine. I had spent a couple of minutes finding the remote, getting it to work, then turning off the TV. Then I got 2 minutes in on the bike, with my heart rate coming up a tad, when this 55 y/o or so white lady told me I need to wear a mask... while working out!
OK, the ceiling in this room is way high, and there's loads of air flow with it opened up to another room. I told her about the 12 ft away part. I told her I need air flow to exercise, starting off nice about it, but this hysterical broad was telling me there are still germs floating around. Before I walked in, a guy with no mask on had already, and still was, doing sideways one-armed pushups and that sort of thing, about 8 ft. from me and 15 ft from this broad. He had nothing to say - I think it was the earbuds, but I don't know ...
The lady went off to talk to the management, but I really don't know what they told her. She came back insistent. I wasn't going to take this one to the mattresses for business reasons that I shouldn't explain here. "How long are you going to be?" "20 minutes." "OK, I'll be back in 20 minutes!" This is just a big sickness in people, but before I finish this post, the 20 minutes is up ....
...
(Written a few hours later:)
I got the workout in, heart rate up, and later the BP hopefully down. The lady was gone (I think I ended up giving her 25 minutes.) Push-up guy was still there. "Hey, did you hear that from this lady?" "Only the last part." I mentioned hysteria, but this guy was down with the Panic Program. It turns out he's an Ob/Gyn doctor who's been working in NYC. We discussed the herd immunity and mutation stuff. He didn't know any more than he'd been told on TV, I could tell. I've heard 2nd hand from an I.D. Doc on this (Infectious Disease Doc) months ago, who told my Doc friend "do you know anyone who's never gotten a cold? It's going to be like that after a while."
Well, the Ob/Gyn told me about people on ventilators, delivering pregnant women in distress in NY City, and then he finally put on his mask to go out! I was kind of glad I didn't start any conversation about problems in NYC, such as it being a big China-travel hub, it being much more crowded than most of this country, and it being damn close to the 3rd World in many parts. He was just a young guy with zero perspective on life.
I checked in with management about what the deal was on masks. It was a grey area, as nobody had an answer. They all agreed that it'd be silly to wear a mask while doing cardio workouts. I'm guessing now Becky lied to me.
PS: Yeah, I don't really take to the slur "Becky" much, but I don't know what else to call her.
Comments (14)
Is the Kung Flu Panic-fest part of a Globalist plan?
Posted On: Friday - August 21st 2020 8:24PM MST
In Topics: Globalists The Future World Political Stupidity
Peak Stupidity is in general of the opinion that there are no really big long-term conspiracies behind the major changes in American/world history. Our speculation on this matter, in Stupid vs. Evil and long-term conspiracy theories, is that the stupidity outweighs the evil in this world.
A commenter from Spain who goes by the handle Rogelio put a very interesting bit of speculation himself, that does either involve long-term plotting by Globalist, Davos types, or at least some Globalist types that know the big picture of what is really going on. Mr. Rogelio's comment is on a thread under the great C.J. Hopkins article discussed and excerpted last week in Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 9. Here is the comment in its entirety:
While I agree that spanish are showing compliance at the highest level, this is not a national problem, and the forces behind this are too powerful and transnational to not end up getting everyone.{That's my bolding of the last paragraph.) Is it all a set-up by some smart, super-rich, arrogant, evil people in the know, or is it just industrial-scale stupidity? I don't know for sure, but Mr. Rogelio's speculation is very, very interesting.
There is a pristine, obvious attemp to force a fourth industrial revolution. This one will finish, not millions of jobs, but the very concept of “job”, of “individual action”, of “business”, of “entrepreneur”. When they had erased the possibility, even the will to create something from nothing with our own effort, we´ll get the universal wage. All of this would not be possible without people giving away their lives voluntarily, and the only way to do it is with global fear. A fear so strong that they are ready to hand their individuality over to a greater good: security from sickness.
I´ve been watching this coming since 2010 more or less, although I did not forsee the global fear being a virus. I thought it was going to be climate+terrorism.And today I find the horrible confirmation of my guess. Words from two of the bigger fishes in the pool: Klaus Schwabb, founder of Davos Forum, and his buddy, Thierry Malleret. Take a look at this words:
“In one form or another, social- and physical-distancing measures are likely to persist after the pandemic itself subsides, justifying the decision in many companies from different industries to accelerate automation.
After a while, the enduring concerns about technological unemployment will recede as societies emphasize the need to restructure the workplace in a way that minimizes close human contact”.
“Indeed, automation technologies are particularly well suited to a world in which human beings can’t get too close to each other or are willing to reduce their interactions.
“In 2016, two academics from Oxford University came to the conclusion that up to 86% of jobs in restaurants, 75% of jobs in retail and 59% of jobs in entertainment could be automatized by 2035. ”
“The process of automation was set in motion many years ago, but the critical issue once again relates to the accelerating pace of change and transition: the pandemic will fast-forward the adoption of automation in the workplace”
“(…)at a global level, if viewed in terms of the percentage of the global population affected, the corona crisis is (so far) one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced over the last 2000 years. In all likelihood, unless the pandemic evolves in an unforeseen way, the consequences of COVID-19 in terms of health and mortality will be mild compared to previous pandemics. At the end of June 2020, COVID-19 has killed less than 0.006% of the world population. To put this low figure into context, the Spanish flu killed 2.7% of the world’s population and HIV/AIDS 0.6%”
So what's more aggravating is the fact that, not only they show their cards, but they also laugh in our faces, saying that the factor that will allow them to take over is basically bogus.
Comments (6)
These are not your father's treehuggers
Posted On: Friday - August 21st 2020 11:22AM MST
In Topics: Music Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity
(Did I get that translation right, Mr. Ganderson?)
Here in America, with other hysteria taking priority, we have gotten a welcome break from the harangues and harassment of the treehuggers for half a year now. "Greta who?" Right? Occasionally the Kung Flu stupidity and the Global Climate DisruptionTM stupidity are combined into a larger, denser piece of stupidity by some enterprising, even stupider people. The hysteria from each one combine not arithmetically but as a product, i.e.
M = 1/2 h2 So / (tms - t), where
h = hysteria (usually in units - gallons of spittle per university credit hour)
So = background stupidity level
tms = time of Peak Stupidity (we will need to change our banner graph)
M = Madness
Don't forget the factor of 1/2!
This break in the Environmental Stupidity must have created some space in my mind for flashbacks to the early 1990s and the treehugger agenda at that time. The goals were much more specific back then. I don't at all condone lying about saving owls and their habitat when it's really about saving old growth forests, mind you. That's what it was. I have no problem at all with Americans trying to save the old growth forests, but a) Put your money where your mouth is, as you are destroying good jobs in the process, and b) Don't lie about it, using cute owls and lynxes as your poster boys.
However, yeah, I'd hate to see the whales gone from the oceans of the world, so, save the whales you say? Maybe I'm down with that. Tell me more. A local musician that'd play a lot on the outdoor deck at a bar nearby had a "save the whales" number in his repertoire of mostly original songs. He was not crazed radical, just a young man who could play folk guitar and wanted to pick up chicks, like everyone else. I never did get straight whether this whale tune was his song or not, because part of the lyrics were the "Oh, oh, and up she rises...", but not followed by "way down in the sea-oh", as the old song from a kid's version(?) of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea went. I had this faint memory of the music from that kids story and something about one Captain Nemo (no, not the Saving Nemo Nemo).
In the chorus though, the song went "... going out to kill the whales". Well, that's not nice! When you go back to the early 1990s though, the country was still sane enough to where not every criticism had to be about America. It was not mostly American boats still doing whaling, but Japanese ones. If they can eat sushi, I guess whale fillets would go over well there too - high in Omega-6 acids, with maybe a side of blow-hole soup, why not? The Save the Whales crowd at least had an actual, tangible piece of destruction of our ecosystem to work against, rather than lame-ass, non-workable mathematical models of the entire Earth's climate. They didn't mind criticizing the Japanese, too - I recall this.
Maybe it was just me being a lot younger, but it seemed back then that the treehuggers back in the day were just an impediment for some industries, annoying, but pretty good songwriters. The treehuggers of the present day, with their plans to change entire economies*, seem to be a threat to the very existence of America, as if we didn't have plenty others of those.
PS: I never saw an instance of this particular anti-whaling song helping our musician friend pick up chicks. Maybe that's just my failure to hang out at the bar till 3 in the morning, like some of the people there. He was a good guy though. I hope he was able to make at least a semi-living playing music.
* I gotta say, the refusal of President Trump to sign the ridiculous Paris Treaty was one of his most solid moves.
Comments (6)