K-12 LGBT
Posted On: Friday - October 11th 2019 7:56AM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Feminism Educational Stupidity
It's the LGBTism, not the feminism! Should I be relieved? Feminism has taken a terrible long-term toll on American society. The LGBTism* at least is stupid enough to not really change the world in the way that feminism has. Not enough people really want to be a part of it ...
OK, let me explain. My elementary school kid has had a habit, ever since he's been going to school, of saying "person", when talking about anyone he doesn't know well, or know by name, or is, in fact, of unknown** sex. (By "sex", now re-labelled "gender", at least I'm talking about in the traditional binary sense.) This has bugged me for quite a while, and I know he didn't get it at home. "We had a person come in to talk about the rules of the playground ..." Think about it - wouldn't it be normal to just say "we had a man come in ..." or "we had a lady come in ..."?
I don't think he always talks like this in referring to other kids, because he's got the term "kids" itself. "There's a new kid in
In the 2nd half of the Peak Stupidity post Great gender-neutrality debunking video and other tidbit, I mentioned this verbal behavior before. I had chalked it up to feminism, just as with the use of "Ms" starting back in the day when feminism was taken a little more lightheartedly. I'd thought this was just another way to get rid of any sex-distinguishing pronouns of the NORMAL type, especially the use of him/his for people of unknown (OK, how about "not yet known!) sex.
Ahhhaaa! I had a thought this morning that I'm almost sure is correct. I now think that all this use of "person" for anyone of known or unknown sex, is part of the LGBT genderbender flavor of stupidity. It's not feminism at all! This is the school's way of getting the students' minds right, without outright teaching the BS of one's sex being determined on the fly.
I've already told the boy to refer to people in a normal manner, but, they are really working on these kids. You've got to fight this stuff all the way through. Though it may not sound like it, homeschooling may be easier, at least in the avoidance of the constant battling for this part of the minds of your children. It's a sick sick sick sick world!
* I spent 5 minutes looking for the poster shown under BLT-G. All I could remember for this initialism**** was Bacon Lettuce and Tomato, with Guacamole on the side. That didn't work!
** Unknown to my son, that is, not to the "person" in question!
*** Peak Stupidity will keep using "Miss" and "Mrs" until the cows and/or bulls come home, or until it becomes illegal, and then some.
**** I was corrected by someone on-line on the difference between an acronym and an initialism (in an acronym, the letters taken from the original term can be pronounced, as in NASA).
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Bread and Circuses - Part 2 - Unlimited Breadsticks
Posted On: Wednesday - October 9th 2019 7:29PM MST
In Topics: Bread and Circuses
We want to draw parallels to the decline (yes, and fall) of the Roman Empire with regard to political atmosphere of "Pan et Circenses", or "Bread and Circuses" for those not conversant in Latin. History does not necessarily repeat though, it just rhymes, and our Bread is a half-dozen orders of magnitude more tasty and varied than 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire.
This is not Rome, in which the poor may have felt grateful just having those European-style baguettes of bread, dipped in some olive oil, like at the Olive Garden. Come to think of it, if you grew up on white Wonder Bread, that other bread is definitely a step up!* However, even a poor Roman slob, walking around in proto-Birkenstocks on his dirt floor, would probably get really tired of it, and dream of the bread aisle in a standard American grocery store.
You've got 20 kinds of normal bread, English muffins, pita bread for the health nuts, baguettes for the Euro-trash, cupcakes, red velvet cake, German Black Forest cake, standard yellow cake with massively-sugar-laden icing printed into a picture of ancient Rome ... That's just the bread aisle. We're not really talking about just bread here, though, as the deal is to have the hoi polloi walking around on a satisfied stomach.
I won't go down all the aisles in our imaginary tour of the store, as the reader may not be mobile right now, and we need you to keep reading. (I'm getting a hankering for some of that Black Forest cake, myself... but, hell, I'm the blogger, so ...) IThis amazingly varied food is not just available to any average working American (and Westerner, Japanese, etc.), but even those on the lowest economic rungs can swipe that EBT and buy a coupla' ribeyes, a 2 lb bag of chips, 4 liters of Mountain Dew, and a bottle of Don Perignon - no, I understand the EBT doesn't cover Don "Per-in-yoan", I'm talking about the knock-off Don "Per-ig-non". It's a cornucopia never seen till half a century ago.
Lately, tastes have gotten even more picky, but then food manufacturers have kept up to make the formerly gourmet products easily obtainable by all. You've got your "Foodies" now and your craft beer makers. There have always been connoisseurs of fine food around, but they've been the very well-to-do. Now, everyone wants the granite counter-tops, even if she only makes a mean dish of Mac-and-Cheese once in a while. Beer-making is in fashion (kind of fun), but some of us, cough, cough, would be fine with just a Miller High-Life (none of that "Genuine Draft" crap for me) or a Bud, and there are hundreds of brands of the cheap swill too.
In any medium-sized city, one can just go out and find 20 or more kinds of ethnic food, which is why, you know, we need to bring in millions of people, because it's not like you can just get the recipes from places far away over the internet or something... There are the microbreweries too, so let's bring in some Germans! "Kum on, guys. Vat, do you need a refresher curse? Eeez all fermentation nowadaysss!"
Then, to keep themselves a rung above the common Foodies and Brewers and those who go out nearby for ethnic exotic food 3 times a week, the very well-to-do do this while earning Gold Status on the airlines. The magazines in those seat-back pockets will tell you where one can get Greek food in Austin, Texas, Somalian food in Albuquerque, where's the best seafood place in Paraguay, and the best Texas BBQ place in Greece. Nobody wants to just stay the fuck home and eat his meat and potatoes anymore.
For those on the lower rungs, well, you can go out too. Low-budget Americans can go out for General Tso's chicken, and low-budget Chinamen can go out for Colonel Harlen Sander's Kentucky fried chicken (see Superpower Battle of the Chicken Titans - Sanders v Tso). If not that, there are mile-long stretches of fast-food places with all varieties of material all containing the four basic food groups, your fat, your sugar, your salt, and your caffeine. Taco Bell, Taco John, In-and-Out Burger, Cook-Out, Zaxby's, Chick Fil A, McD's, Wendy's ... it really can go on for miles. Each one will often add new "dishes" which are just different combinations of that salt, sugar, and fat. Hey, believe me, I'm not knocking the taste or the business model. The stuff IS good-tasting!
What's the point here, besides getting the readers hungry? It's that all this variety and quantity keeps American busy, too busy for more important issues. Due to this distraction, these issues have become important enough to perhaps result in their country reverting back to the eating of nothing but pieces of bread in olive oil, maybe hyrdro-unsaturated peanut oil, hell, maybe motor oil, if the SHTF. Nobody here on a full stomach of this infinite variety of food is that awful ready to raise hell about anything.
* Hey, it was good to me, as a kid, but that's because it's nothing but expanded starch, ready to turn into sugar at the drop of a
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Advancements in Higher Education
Posted On: Wednesday - October 9th 2019 8:25AM MST
In Topics: University Educational Stupidity
As if often the case, it's Steve Sailer's commentary on the stupidity he reads in the Lyin' Press (this time the Seattle Times) that sets our site's Peak Stupometer off. The stupidity Mr. Sailer related in Seattle Times: "Is Math Racist?" was enough to peg the needle in fact, so we cannot really tell you exactly HOW STUPID this stuff is, beyond a certain number.
From Mr. Sailer's excerpt of the Staff Reporter Elise Takahama:
Seattle schools are in the process of developing ethnic-studies frameworks for different subjects, including social studies and art.OK, I felt my eyes roll back early on, during that bolded (mine) wording. This stuff is exactly why Colleges of Education should be TERMINATED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!
… But while some school districts are only building stand-alone ethnic-studies classes, Seattle is also rethinking existing courses to be taught through an anti-racist lens. …
In math, lessons are more theoretical. Seattle’s recently released proposal includes questions like, “Where does Power and Oppression show up in our math experiences?” and “How is math manipulated to allow inequality and oppression to persist?”
The advanced-degree programs in these Ed-Schools get lots of enrollment, as it is forced upon the poor budding elementary/middle/high school teachers as a qualification required for employment in many school districts. Many of them, students and faculty, have got to know it's all a waste of time. These colleges just have to keep these people busy though, so they don’t all know for sure that their whole required degrees are SCAMS. If you’re going to have 10’s of thousands of future elementary school teachers writing theses every year, you’d damn well come up with some topics.
That’s where this stuff comes from. I have some BS on a couple of "here's what we did this week" papers my elementary school student brought home. One said “I am learning to: use prior knowledge (schema) to make connections and inferences when I am reading”. The other said "I am learning: strategies that I use to read unknown words".
For crying out loud, if the kid is smart he can just up and read. He's got a brain, so he can understand what he's reading. If he comes upon an unknown word, he can sound it out and ask us later. If the kid ain’t too bright (not ours!), he sure as hell won't be able to explain his "strategy" and will not understand what a “schema” is! I sure don’t!
So, I don’t know if this Elise Takahama of the Seattle Times really believes any of her own crap, but, dammit, if you’re gonna have a whole “Education Lab” paid for by Bill Gates, you’ve got to come up with some new shit now and then. Microsoft customers are gonna get wise. They may, worst case, get off their asses and switch to Linux... some day in the near, near future ...
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Bread and Circuses - Part 1 - Intro.
Posted On: Tuesday - October 8th 2019 6:25PM MST
In Topics: Bread and Circuses
The topic key Bread and Circuses has been used here on Peak Stupidity for at least a year, I'm guessing (I'll sometimes update older posts with appropriate keys). Up to now, there are 8 posts already. I think it's time to explain this term, so we'll have a few posts about it, this one being just an intro. - got a bit distracted today...
"Pan et Circenses" is the expression, for all you Latin speakers out there from, like, Latin America or something. No, seriously, back during the decline of the Roman empire, the expression was used disdainfully regarding the lives of the common people.* To placate the masses during the times of decline, giving the people enough basic food to sustain them, and events to regularly entertain them, is the idea. As much as I'd like to sometime, I don't have the time to read Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (3980 pages!) just for this one post here.
America is in a decline of many types, and it really would be a great learning experience to read more about what really went on during the late years of the Roman Empire to have knowledge for comparison and guidance. Peak Stupidity is far from the first to mention it, but "Pan et Circenses", or "Bread and Circuses", describes pretty well the treatment of the average modern America by the elites and/including the Feral Government of it's empire.
While looking up the Latin, I came across this 2013 American Thinker article by Jack Curtis. Though it doesn't cover the same material as my examples to show America's version of "Bread and Circuses" in the subsequent posts, it is a nice short summary of the parallels of the Roman Empire's destruction of their finances and America's (as described herein under the Global Financial Stupidity topic key).
I also came upon a Christian Post article by one Ron Hart, coincidentally also written 6 years ago, on this topic. Mr. Hart wrote in quite a humorous manner, and the sportsball (part of the circuses, right?) fans will probably get the football jokes that I didn't.
I'd recommend at least the latter article, if not both of them, as I get it together to write more on the subject, starting off with the "bread".
* Per the Christian Post article: In 100 AD, satirist Decimus Juvenal in Satires X fittingly pointed out that society ends when voters are pacified by politicians with "bread and circuses."
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Diamond business getting a little less friendly
Posted On: Monday - October 7th 2019 6:33AM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Financial Stupidity Economics Female Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity
Peak Stupidity wrote a 3-part series of posts (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) 2 years ago called "You've got a friend in the Diamond Business". These discussed the great expose, written in the late 1970's, by one Edward Jay Epstein of the entire diamond De Beers monopoly
Zerohedge had an article on this business past Thursday saying "Global Diamond Glut Crashes De Beers' September Sales". Per "Tyler Durden", "The global diamond market is in a crisis, currently reeling from oversupplied conditions as demand from consumers evaporate." It doesn't sound like Zerohedge's often-seen hype:
De Beers' Sept. sales totaled $295 million of diamonds, a 39% YoY drop. The latest collapse in sales from the world's largest diamond miner is a continuing story from summer.Suckers, the both of them! If you want to know why Peak Stupidity is so down on this "industry", please read the 3 posts linked-to above. The gist of it is that, over most of the last century, men of the developed word have been pushed by women who have been pushed by DeBeers/Hollywood marketing to buy these worthless* rocks, in order to get properly married. (I personally WAS involved, but got off pretty light, as these things go.)
Last month, we noted that De Beers sold just $280 million of diamonds in Aug., compared with $503 million in the same period a year ago, which represents a 44% decline.
A diamond analyst last month said markets remained oversupplied, resulting in weak sales from the miner."The current malaise in the market is due to oversupply," said Paul Zimnisky, an analyst in New York, who said diamond buyers had too much inventory.Most of the lackluster demand for the rock is coming from the world's two largest diamond-consuming countries, the US and China, which has fuelled uncertainties for the overall industry.
As usual, the ZH commenters don't disappoint. You must click on a box to see comments, but I'll include a few first-glance favorites:
Willie the Pimp: Overpriced junk rocks to keep skanks happy.
Peanut Butter Engineer: Diamond Advertisement was came up by a man to direct towards dumbass men like you. Women were pretty happy with gold but idiot men decided to buy diamonds instead. Go blame this on fucktards like yourself.I'm not sure why he was so peeved at the first guy...
djealas: THis is old news. Debeers have been stockpiling diamonds for years, and marketing the fancy colored diamonds as a new way to raise revenue. Yellow and brown diamonds were once considered the garbage of the gem world, now they're rare and exotic" and prices are insane. Plus the new market for artifical diamonds, a millennial's best friend, are driving prices down for real ones.
I considered getting a 1 carat flawless recently because the price was incredibility low, but heard the words of my long dead father "she won't last forever, why buy her a diamond?"
Able Ape: If it's ok to have fake tits what could be wrong with fake diamonds...? Yeah, nothing... De Beers better diversify and get into breast implants - with each pair, get a fake diamond...!
disagreeableness: I buy my diamonds at the pawn shop, but too, I find my women at dive bars. A sound strategy I think
We are hoping it gets worse for the implementers of this century-long scam. Remember young people: You can always try the blood-diamond line. Depending on the SJWness of the young lady, she may just buy it:
"Listen, I'd love to buy you that big diamond we saw at Jarrod, and yes I know it makes you horny (for a while). It's just that, sob sob ..."
"Yes? What's wrong, honey... wait, you've GOT THE MONEY, don't you?!"
"Yes, it's not that ... it's just ... well, the terrible conditions in the mines in these countries in Africa ... I'm so concerned. There are murders every day. Rape! Genocide! I can't be part of this ... no way!"
"Ohhh.... "
"Yeah, I think I should get you a ruby instead. Sure, they're, cough, cough .. a little bit, cough, cough, cheaper, but they come from different African countries where all the miners do is kick the ever-lovin' shit out of each other."
* No, they are not comparable to gold and silver because they can be, and are, made by man with just as good quality.
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Jessica - The Allman Brothers Band
Posted On: Saturday - October 5th 2019 7:36PM MST
In Topics: Music Southern rock
Plenty of posts are already written in my head, but I'm not up for it. Let me share this wonderful instrumental by the Allman Brothers from their Brothers and Sisters album from 1973. It's Dickey Betts playing lead guitar, as guitarist Duane Allman had died in a motorcycle wreck 2 years earlier. Les Dudec plays the acoustic guitar and helped Dickey Betts out with the writing of it.
Next week should bring some posts on the "Bread and Circuses" theme, and more financial stupidity involving student loans and the university bubble.
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Population Replacement - "Swedes are Fleeing"
Posted On: Saturday - October 5th 2019 2:20PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity The Neocons
From random readings of ZeroHedge, we come up an article entitled simply Swedes Are Fleeing. Peak Stupidity has ranted on the problems large-scale immigration of Moslems has been causing in Stockholm, including equal numbers of people from opposite sides of foreign wars! From what I've read, the big city Malmö is more of a lost cause.
This ZH article, however, is not about the ruination of Sweden's big cities, but is about a small "idyllic village" of 10,000 people called Filipstad. You've just got to read the numbers:
Between 2012 and 2018, 640 native Swedes left the town, and 963 foreign-born people moved into the town. Those leaving are people of working age (20-64), which means that the municipality's tax revenues are shrinking, exacerbating town's financial crisis.This is 1/10 of the town being replaced, nearly person for person. OK, that's only a minority still, one may say. It doesn't work that way. These newcomers will swamp the system while they have lots of offspring, as the older Swedes just die off. This is pure population replacement of the town of Filipstad.
The largest influx of immigrants came during the migration crisis in 2015. Filipstad, according to the documentary, was one of the municipalities that received the highest number of immigrants as a percentage of its population. Claes Hultgren, head of the municipality, wrote in Filipstad's latest financial report:Socialism and mass immigration REALLY don't mix - that is present day Sweden. The use of the word "crisis" is bugging me. It's one thing to call what's happened to the town of Filipstad a crisis - it's about beyond that, even. However, the reason these people are here is because many Swedes and their government CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN. Their causing the crisis of today was not a crisis in 2015 - it was a steaming piece of massive stupidity!"In Filipstad, there are around 750 adults from Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq.... In this group, unemployment and dependency are very high, while education levels are very low. This group runs the risk of ending in an eternal exclusion that is already heavily burdening the municipal economy."Hultgren explained that many of the newcomers do not have the qualifications to enter the labor market."[They] are maybe too old and illiterate, or have a very low educational level. We must accept that there will be some people who will need the support of society for their livelihood."According to the documentary, unemployment is at 80% among the non-Western foreign-born residents of the town, even while the town is suffering a severe lack of teachers and nurses. In ten years, Filipstad's expenditures on social welfare have increased 200%
About this story, it is not a ZeroHedge original, but originated from the Gatestone Institute, a neocon outfit from what I read on their site - it's one thing to not like large numbers of Moslems being in YOUR COUNTRY, but, from the links I see, the Gatestone people want to destroy Moslems in their own lands. What is it with these Neocons? Many are the ones that encourage both parts of the "invade-the-world/invite-the-world" policy. Are they having second thoughts about the latter?
The destruction wrought by the Neocons has got people fleeing all over the place. Join the party, Swedes.
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Occasional Cortex and the importance of the Kook-vote
Posted On: Friday - October 4th 2019 9:19PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Humor
"We've got to start eating the babies!" says AOC voter and amateur Climate Theoretician. Well, I mean, it's not really any kookier than believing there is a working mathematical model* of the entire Earth's climate, is it?
Here is a perhaps all-too-typical Blue-squad town hall meeting:
OK, about this leading lady in the t-shirt: I am not impressed. She is either a conservative plant, which is a great idea and such an improvement over other current methods of trying to reason with the ctrl-left, or she is a for-real kook.
If it's the former case, this is B-movie-grade acting job. I really was disappointed, as I had expected a good deal of screaming and jumping around. Sure, you don't have to be a William Shatner and overact the part, but come on, lady! You call this performance art?
If it's the latter case, and this lady was for real, then, well, I would have expected a good deal of screaming and jumping around. That's what crazy people do, in order to "keep it real" as they would say, were they sane.
Now, what about the 2nd leading lady, AOC herself. Yes, she is a 29 y/o (maybe 30 now, I'm trying NOT to keep up) bartender from Queens, but she'd have to be really, really dumb, to take this lady seriously. Are all solutions to this Global Climate DisruptionTM, lately known as Climatic Disequilibrium, on the (dinner) table?
The 2nd possibility, and I sure hope this is the case, is that Miss Cortex was humoring the lady. See, people, that's what you have to do when you are the party of tolerance. You don't want to lose the Kook vote, as they could be a fairly large segment of the constituency. Therefore, AOC must stand there and pretend to take the "eat the babies" lady seriously. That part, the 2nd half of our small feature film, is just as funny.
A Conservative would allow himself to have a big belly laugh and to tell the lady to "get the f__k outta here. You're killin' me!" The Blue squad can't afford to do that.
All in all, I give this film only 2 stars, for originality. Next time, I want to be rolling on the floor LOLing.
* Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5
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The Elites don't feel the heat
Posted On: Friday - October 4th 2019 7:42PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity History
As Peak Stupidity's 1200th post here, this may as well be on our most written about brand of stupidity, the Immigration Stupidity. It's just that this type is an existential form of stupidity for America, meaning, if it keeps up, none of the rest will matter. There will be no America and therefore no point in worrying about any of the other stupidity. I just won't care.
Not a bad picture from when all you had was a Nokia brick, right?
Anyway, herein we will look again at the rhyming of history, in this case with the history of cessation of mass immigration (got a NICE rhyme to it). It's the rhyming of history, NOT the repeating of history, we have, per some smart fellow. That means that it won't necessarily end the same way. I finally found some VDare writing I'd been looking for, and it was hard to find, being a VDare reader's letter, rather than a post by one of the great writers. A guy named Delmar Jackson (if he's bright enough to write there, probably not his real name), wrote this short letter* about the impetus for the almost complete curtailment of immigration to America in the early 1920's.**
There really are large parallels between the mass immigration to America in the earlier period, the 1880's to early 1920's and that of today. There are differences too, one being that the people involved in the mass immigration of that previous day, though being from different lands from the traditional British Isles and partially Western Europe of the settler, were not THAT different, as is the case today. Assimilation of these large numbers took a long time, even so. Back to the parallels, there were large numbers that brought the population up to ~ 15% foreign-born at the peak. The period of time, 45 to 50 years, WOULD BE roughly similar to the current era had we quit in 2010 or 2015. The common people had had about enough! It's very similar, except for the exotic mixture of people and the much greater lawlessness and stupidity involved in the current version.
100 years ago, Misters Jackson and Fulford maintain, the elites of this nation were feeling some of the heat from that period's out-of-control immigration. The large numbers people from southern Italy gave us the mob, of which we have still not gotten rid of, but it was large numbers from eastern Europe that gave us the Communists and the Anarchists. Though it was the Commies that were much more a problem for us in the long run, a century back the Anarchists were doing things like assassination of Presidents, as with the shooting of President McKinley by one Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York on September 6th of the 1st year of the 20th century. Mr. Czolgosz was not an immigrant himself, having been born in Michigan of Polish immigrant parents. His parents were not at all down with the anarchy thing, as serious Roman Catholics, but just as with today, when you bring in large groups with strange new beliefs, new kinds of trouble may bubble up that nobody's had to worry about before.
The fear of these Anarchists was already felt by the time of the McKinley assassination, but violence in the name of their cause continued through serious bombings of Wall Street.
The smoke hadn't even cleared yet at the time of this shot.
This was September of 1920 and 30 people were killed and more injured.
Once the elites felt the heat, people in Washington were going to do something about the problem. The 1924 immigration bill signed by Peak Stupidity's favorite, Calvin Coolidge was damn close to a complete moratorium on immigration. The numbers were reduced by an order of magnitude, giving the country > 40 years to solidify.
Mr. Peter Brimelow, the erudite founder and leader of VDare, wrote his book Alien Nation (great title, eh?!) about immigration in the early 1990's. This was also a time, as the VDare writer have mentioned that there was an "interglacial" period of softening of the PC of the media and elites that had before (and has since) worked to punish the speaking and writing about this important matter. So, if Mr. Brimelow's (and lots of others', of course) call for an immigration moratorium at that time had been heeded, < 40 years after the horrific 1965 immigration act, this threat to our nation may have been neutralized. Even had that happened, we'd need more than the previous century's 40 years for solidification.
The problem we have now is, as Tucker Carlson got partially correct in his great book Ship of Fools (review continued in Part 2 and Part 3), the American elites of today don't have any inclination to help the commoners of their country. The Gate's, Zuckerbergs, Gore's, etc, can live so extremely aloof from the people, that I think they just don't get it... "it" being how lives are being lived outside their gated compounds and private islands.
A century ago, a Rockefeller or JP Morgan may have a number of houses out on hundreds of acres to stay away, but he still had to ride that carriage or motorcar into town or the city and deal with people once in a while. It took a week-long ocean voyage to get out of America to somewhere else civilized and there were still regular people on the ship. These current-era elites can get driven to a secure place on the ramp of an airport, get on their Gulfstream or Challenger, and head off way above the heads of the hoi polloi to a waiting bulletproof car across the country or another continent.
A 2nd factor in neutralizing the late 19th/early 20th century immigration threat was that the US Gov't was but a small fraction of its current size, even percentage wise (from budget spending of ~ 1/100 of the GDP to a ratio of 1/4 to 1/3!). People had much more of a say in the matter. This is the point which caused me to write about Mr. Carlson being only partially correct. The elites of a century ago had less power to control the government, as there was only so much it could do back then. On the immigration issue sooner or later, the American people could have gotten their congresscritters to get the bills passed as per Mr. Fulford's history (in the link above).
In addition, States' rights really meant something. Were the illegal immigration going on a century ago, and the Feral Gov't not doing their job, as today, for its part, Texas could have said "we're going to take care of it", and that would have been that. None of that State power is a factor today.
Anyway, so as not to negate the original thesis any more than that, yes, when the elites feel the heat, things will change. There have got to be ways to make them feel the heat.***
* I like the way VDare labels the guy's letter too: "A Reader Points Out That The Last Immigration Pause Didn't Come Until Elites Felt The Heat Themselves"
** For a lot more history, one can read an 18 year-old article by James Fulford in which he had expounded on this topic of the history of the immigration moratorium. See The (First) Thirty Years War For Immigration Reform
*** No, not involving anarchists and their methods.
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Inflation in auto parts prices - batteries
Posted On: Thursday - October 3rd 2019 12:34PM MST
In Topics: Cars Inflation
I'll bring up this inflation topic each time I notice a product or service that is more pricey AND realize that it's been going up steadily with numbers that I can remember. This is such a case. The Advance Auto battery above is one that I have bought recently and fairly long ago, along with times in between.
I remember buying the "silver" quality battery (you really wonder why they just don't make one BEST one of each geometry and cranking-amp-rating, as what is the difference - weaker acid? less lead?) around 15 years back. I didn't want to pay almost $90 for the "gold". That "gold" one is now priced per below. I could not include it all in the graphic, but this is for the very same style (top terminals) and either 650 or 800 cold-cranking-amps (same price per site):
That's right about double. Wait, why do I use the no-core-return price? I'll tell you why - because until a few years back, they not only didn't give money for the core, they didn't WANT the core, and they, in fact, charged a coupla bucks for some disposal fee of a core that they didn't want! WTH was the deal on that? So, before this new deal, I would dispose of these things in my own way. Now, to get a bit on the paranoid side here, could it be that some government (State or Feds, I dunno) has required the collection of old batteries by auto parts stores in order to keep people from acquiring extra lead? For what? Hmmm... Anyway, for an apples-to-apples comparison, I'm using the no-core-return price. That's a 100% increase in 15 years, not exactly any kind of 1-2% annual increase we read about from the BLS. It's in the range of 5-6% That shows what 5-6% does to the value of one's money over only a decade and a half.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on...", I'm sure the reader may be thinking, "that's just one part of many dozens of common items on a car." You may want to ask a mechanic, as I have. There aren't many parts like the battery that the average car driver would have exposure to the price of, or remembrance of from a bill. Because he charges the customer (and then some!) the mechanic I know best doesn't care that much except for his own vehicles. Yes, many items have been going up, if you can look at parts that can be compared apples-to-apples. One exception could be windshield wiper blades (another one that average car owners may keep up with). They are still dirt cheap, but (getting to this point shortly) how long do the cheap ones last?
As Peak Stupidity noted in this general article on inflation and the switch from American manufacturing to Chinese, there was a big lull in the mid 1990s through early 2000s. I noticed this personally, after a time lag. Additionally, this was a time during which Chinese goods were not as poor quality as today. The corporate world had increased their profits via going to low-cost manufacturing. Later on, after they'd milked that out, to keep the profits ever-rising, they had to start cutting costs in other ways, hence the Cheap China-made Crap.
Some of the batteries ARE still made in America, believe it or not*. I'll admit that it's not the type shown above. I use the example shown above in some cars, out of habit. I've seen a definite decline in the length these things last. I remember having one in the car for 10 years before.** Now, you are lucky to get 5 out of them. As we've discussed in Hedonics in the Current Era of Cheap China-made Crap, taking this reduction in quality into account would make the real apples-to-apples inflation rate even higher.
Then, there are the wiper blades, that, while very inexpensive, rot out in just a few years outside. Tires have the same problem now, per part my experience but also the mechanic's. How about the price inflation on tires, come to think about it? The overt numbers may not be too bad, but then there's the quality thing.
Hey, I'm just noticing stuff. Perhaps it's just Curmudgeonry, as maybe I don't think about the steady-priced items. Peak Stupidity will keep its eyes open on the matter.
* "Interstate" brand batteries are made in either America or Mexico, and their website tells you which ones go where. I do have Interstate batteries in some of the vehicles. We'll see about the quality, but I think I've already had to replace one before its time.
** It's hard to get perfect comparisons, as we tend to abuse some car batteries more than others. Was it a time when I drove a vehicle very infrequently, or left the lights on and had to jump start it 3 different times, etc?
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TV for thee, but not for me, even for free
Posted On: Wednesday - October 2nd 2019 4:51AM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Salesmen
That's just for starters, I'm sure. Once they've got you hooked on the idiot plate, they'll start jacking it up. It seem hard to get them to believe you when you threaten to cancel anymore. I used to do some real brinkmanship* with them in the past with the internet service. I'd get a personal call from a guy you could call back without mashing random buttons when it came down to 1 week left on the plan. They don't seem to do that anymore. You can still cancel and switch back and forth with the missus each year to get starter rates.
Yes, I COULD do all that for TV, but I won't get it unless they PAY ME to have the service. Nobody can force me to turn it on, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did though. From my recent thoughts, it's not the money. They just really want people watching that infotainment, as the narrative must go on.
It's twice a month with these ads, going on for years. Doesn't that add up to $10 - $20 yearly in handling and postage? I'm no CEO, mind you, but if you're trying to increase shareholder value, is this the kind of thing you keep doing? Again I don't have my MBA, mind you, so, you know ... Did I ever write a post about donating that money to the Indian School in S. Dakota? No, I just did a search, and I haven't. It kinda relates.
* Old Cold War term, don't sweat it.
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Straight outta' Sweden: Greta v Agnetha
Posted On: Tuesday - October 1st 2019 1:55PM MST
In Topics: Global Climate Stupidity Socialism/Communism Female Stupidity
(I'm so sorry I had to cut Anni-Frid off on the right. No tag-teaming allowed!)
We left off yesterday speculating whether is was the Socialism that produces the kind of people coming outta' Sweden these days. There are terms for the personality type that is responsible for the massive immigration, feminist, and environmental stupidity emitted out of that Scandinavian land over the last few decades. Some call it variations on "suicidal altruism". As a recent Steve Sailer post, Haidt on Liberals' Leapfrogging Loyalties, put it, the people of NW Europe, maybe Scandinavia in particular, have been bred to have loyalty to not just their nuclear family and near cousins, but people unrelated (originally from their tribe, which is the evolutionary point).
However, in the modern world, with global communication and transportation, the "leapfrogging loyalties" of the people have them caring more for, and treating better, people that live thousands of miles away better than their neighbors. I did not read the Jonathan Haidt article that Mr. Sailer referred to, but the comments under his post delve into what this all means.
The Socialists here, as I'm sure in Sweden, love to tout how they care for each other, via their government. I don't want to get really into the stupidity of an ideology that could be de-bunked by an average kindergartener who cares about his toys right now, so let me leave it alone for this post. Though not producing any kind of entrepreneurial society, and with a defense umbrella provided for > 1/2 century by the American military, the Socialism of Sweden could have been said to be not 1/2 bad. There are definitely worse places to live, but then, I never did see any massive immigration from the US to Sweden by Socialism aficionados happening either over those years.
I can't blame Sweden's current state solely DIRECTLY on Socialism, as the ruination from their immigration stupidity is another matter. HOWEVER, as I could say for America too, when you let the Government get too big (as is part-and-parcel to Socialism), when they tell you they will import strange foreigners, you have no say in the matter. As a matter of fact, the snowflakes of Sweden have been so worried about people saying very impolite things, that they've made it illegal to say anything against this ruinous policy. Sometimes you need people who aren't so nice. Sweden doesn't have any - the Vikings have left the
Going back 40 to 50 years now, before the Swedes even started their extreme experiments in feminism* (OK, that was the Norwegians, whatever!), and the immigration stupidity, what we got out of the place was two long-legged beauties (yeah, with a piano player and other guy too) who couldn't really understand a lick of English but could belt out Waterloo and other hits in short-short miniskirts. I know I speak for more Americans than myself when I say we were quite impressed. OK, OK, the Swedes also made and exported luxury autos and fighter planes (same company), but hell, we could do that. We gave them a break on their save-the-world BS (easy to talk about from your safe white homeland of 1970's Sweden) and their enivro-nutiness because of one thing alone: We figured there'd be another ABBA.
Now, Sweden is finally facing its Waterloo. We see that from the idiots awed by 16 y/o Greta as proof that this country is too far gone with its caring for the world 3,000 miles away while importing violent rapist murderer foreigners to their nation to live among them.
To summarize, on the one hand, you have 1970's Sweden with it's biggest female export being 2 long-legged singers that made every nation in the world (well, the men in them) desire massive immigration of long-legged Swedish blondes (and don't forget redheads). We speak here of Agnetha
On the other hand present-day Sweden sends a part-time autistic teenage sailor girl named Greta to come berate us and the whole world for our murder-in-progress of Mother Earth. She does not wear miniskirts. Here at Peak Stupidity, we are not at all impressed.
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Greta v Agnetha - by a thigh, the winner is .... wait for it ... Agnetha ... netha ... tha with runner up Anni-Frid.
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* See also, Feminist Cops vs. African "Refugees" - venue: Modern Sweden for more on life in Sweden.
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Robert Mugabe, Destroyer of Rhodesia - Rot In Place
Posted On: Tuesday - October 1st 2019 6:01AM MST
In Topics: Commies Music The Dead Race/Genetics
From a very interesting and readable site called the Law Dog blog, I came across an honest obituary of the black murderer/tyrant Robert Mugabe. He not only murdered people, but a whole country, the country of Rhodesia. It had been run by white men and been the former "bread basket of Africa". Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe is known mostly for the stealing of the white's productive land, murders of white people, and, just after that, an inflation rate not seen since post WWII Europe.
That is, unless the Chinese kick some ass there. We wish them well.
The blog post starts with a great Mark Twain quote. He sure had some good ones:
Mark Twain once said:I did try to contact Mr. Lawdog in his comments section, with the anonymous option, but without Facebook or some such crap, it didn't take. I hope the author doesn't mind my posting this verbatim then. It's good as are his and other writings* I've seen just now.
"I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
Now this is a real, honest obituary - none of that not-speaking-ill-of-the-dead claptrap:
Robert Mugabe is dead.
Sod that quote for a game of soldiers.
Robert Mugabe,
You were a degenerate, fathered by a rabid cane-rat upon a syphilitic warthog; whose only genuine claim to fame is not having the common decency to catch a bullet with your face in 1975.
You took the gukurahundi, and you gave the rain blades, and hate, and fire, then you set it loose in Matebele-land. 80 000 Ndebele butchered, mostly unarmed civilians.
I hope the screams of the tortured, the wails of the dying, and the keening of the grieving families strips the flesh from your ears.
You whispered to that murderous bastard in Pyongyang, and gave him rapists, and murderers, and oath-breakers, and he sent back the Fifth Brigade, whom you set against your opponents, and journalists, and men of peace. How many thousands did the 5th drop down the mineshafts? How many were lucky to be dead before they hit bottom?
You cursed them to remain, mourned, but un-buried by their kin. I hope they drag your screaming soul into the bottomless dark.
You sent flame-throwers and guns to Chikurubi, and hours later one thousand, two hundred prisoners were slaughtered. For what?
I hope you spend eternity choking on oily smoke.
You took the bread-basket of Africa, and you starved its people -- hundreds of thousands of them -- for your own gain. Then you set bulldozers against the slums you created to "Move the rubbish", grinding the shanties and the starving under the treads.
You were less than an animal, you leprous buffoon. Your clan should cut off their genitals for the shame of having borne you, you shadowless thug.
The only grave you deserve is a septic tank, and the only respect due your remains is to be dragged out of the feculent excreta by starving hyenas years in the future, to have your empty skull repeatedly sexually violated by diseased jackals.
Burn in hell, you miserable, oath-breaking, murderous, sack of offal. I hope the dead you created pound pineapples up your arse for the rest of time.
Lawdog
Hey, he was a happy guy and he meant well, I'm sure.
Remember: Good Intentions + Stupidity + Power = Evil
So as not to confuse our readers with the Topic Key The Dead, which has been only applied to posts with Grateful Dead music embedded, well, we'll just have to embed some. In this post, I also refer to the grateful feeling many in Africa may have due to the death of this man.
For the white people left in Zimbabwe and the south of Africa in general, here is Sugaree, played by The Dead at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ around Thanksgiving time in 1978 (please, any commenters with better versions, put a link in, and I'd be glad to switch it out):
When they come to take you down,
when they bring that wagon 'round,
when they come to call on you,
and drag your poor body down,
just one thing I ask of you,
it's just one thing for me,
please forget you knew my name,
my darling, Sugaree.
Shake it, shake it sugaree,
just don't tell them that you know me.
Shake it, shake it Sugaree,
just don't tell them that you know me.
You thought you was the cool fool,
never could do no wrong.
You had everything sewed up tight.
How come you lay awake all night long?
Just one thing I ask of you,
it's just one thing for me,
please forget you knew my name,
my darling Sugaree.
[ Chorus ]
Well in spite of all you've gained,
you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
One last voice is calling you,
and I guess it's time you go.
[ Chorus ]
Well shake it up now Sugaree.
I'll meet you at the jubilee,
and if that jubilee don't come,
maybe I'll meet you on the run.
Just one thing I ask of you,
it's just one thing for me.
Please forget you knew my name,
my darling Sugaree.
Shake it, shake it Sugaree,
Just don't tell them that you know me.
...
...
* Just from perusing the site, it seems that the blogger used to post a time or two weekly. He has slowed down recently - is he in the middle of suing somebody? Uh oh.
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[UPDATED later in the day:] Ooops, Peak Stupidity has featured Sugaree (Same version too!) before in the post
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Greta is Gettin' Upset!
Posted On: Monday - September 30th 2019 6:22PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes Global Climate Stupidity Socialism/Communism Female Stupidity
>
Were Bono or Sting not available?
In The Carbon Neutrality of Davy Jone's Locker Peak Stupidity chimed in yesterday on this Greta Thunberg story. This is a follow-up regarding this extreme fixation on the opinions of a 16 y/o Swedish girl. Again, the reader can go to the Global Climate Stupidity topic key to learn why Peak Stupidity is NOT DOWN with the sky-is-falling crowd. This post is more about what the hell is up with people from Sweden (and America) and how could they have gotten this way.
First, let's go to Russia Today for an opinion piece called MSM wants angry male incels to just SHUT UP & agree with Greta – or else be shamed into it. This article is pretty fair and not particularly on one side or the other on any of the science purporting to show man-made "Meteorological Disequilibrium"*. You're not gonna get this from the American free press, those Soviet bastards!
Greta is not happy, and she told the world:
“How dare you...all you can talk about is money...you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is...we will not let you get away with this...change is coming, whether you like it or not.” [kept bolding from RT]I hope she doesn't mean ME, personally. I just blog here.
I don't follow the infortainment directly, so I don't get the ongoing 24/7 saga, of everything else this silly child has said, and everything said about Greta, and everything said about the people that have said things about Greta. Russia Today does, though, so:
But criticize her, and you’re Satan incarnate. “Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering for certain men?,” newspaper columnists ask, as if being critical is being “triggered,” and as if men alone are critical of Thunberg. Critics are“gender reactionaries,” “kid bashers,”“cowards,” and “morally bankrupt.”People in power have come in all shapes and sizes. China had it's little Emperors and the many European monarchies have had all kinds of child Kings and Queens. Well, you would not have been wise to say too much about those ones. We still live in the remains of a Constitutional Republic here, so, about anyone who is put into a position of power like this young "activist", I'll damn sure say whatever I want about the girl.
They’re also manchildren who “get irrationally angry at a Swedish girl who wants to save the planet,” according to a satirical video from ABC News Australia. “If you’re a grown adult who needs to yell at a child for some reason,” the video recommends you call a specialized helpline before “going full caps lock in an article comment section.”
How could it possibly get to this, in the world (not even at Peak Stupidity yet), when a significant share of the population acts like a 16 y/o girl has anything at all important to say to us about public policy?! Where did this girl come from? (I know, I know, across the Atlantic in a yacht, but I mean ...) She could have come out of America too, maybe up the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, past Tupelo and Corinth, through Tennessee into Kentucky Lake, down through the locks at Calvert City, into the Mighty Mississippi at Paducah, upstream with a right fork into the Illinois just north St. Lewee, under the bridges of downtown Shy-town (watch for waste-dumping outta Dave Matthews tour buses), up Lake Michigan, through the Mackinac Straits and the rest of the Great Lakes system (excluding the big one they call Gichegumi), down the coast of the Maritimes and New England to dock right there by in NY harbor, taking a kayak through open storm sewers to the UN building, using the stairs of course, not the Planet-killing elevator.
Perhaps. Stupidity reigns the world over, but there seems to have been an excess up in Scandinavia, in some sort of Stupidity Disequilibrium, if I may. I was in Sweden 3 decades ago, long before the immigration stupidity there was implemented. (We'd all like to hear from commenter Ganderson on his most recent experience, BTW.) It was a country of Swedes, an intelligent hardworking bunch, you could figure.
The big difference I noted between that land and America of that time was the Socialism. I hung out with a few local guys for the day. I was impressed by the amount of free time they had, working fairly short weeks and hours. There was more free stuff from Big-Gov. These guys were not exactly bums, but it struck me that this would be a much better place to be a bum than America. On the other hand (and I thought of this even as a young guy then), it was a worse place to be an entrepreneur. Someone's got to pay for the free stuff, and you'd have to work much harder to get somewhere with some new idea or business model that the Swedish Gov't would tax and regulate anyway.
I gotta say, I didn't run into any of the Snowflakes, but it was summer and 30 years ago, so even in this Socialist economy, things hadn't gotten so stupid yet. Is it the Socialism that eventually breeds too many irresponsible whack jobs, or is the whack jobs that support Socialism?
Well, this post did not at all turn out as it was supposed to. I even had to swap the title out with the current one, explained here:
More on Greta and Sweden tomorrow.
* Yes, this a new one! It was said in a comment by one Jeffrey P. Harrison in the RT article:
She's a clueless kid. I have no problem recognizing that we are experiencing meteorological disequilibrium. I have a problem calling said disequilibrium the result of CO2 trapping heat. CO2 couldn't trap heat if it's life depended on it. I'm telling you that as a physicist, not a 16 year old kid.Man, I would use this one, but, you know climate is not weather (said here seriously), so the "meteorological" part should be dropped and "climatic" inserted. Global Climatic Disequilibrium - rolls right off the tongue, don't it?
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Ignorance is Bliss
Posted On: Monday - September 30th 2019 5:20AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity The Future Healthcare Stupidity
... hence the smiley face.
This was right in front of me taped to the gas pump. I guess you're gonna get that when you shop around for the lowest price. Unfortunately, I don't smoke cigerattes, as that seems like a steal.
I had to go inside anyway, as every station I've seen since the extremely high gas prices of 2008 has wanted me to prepay, yet they give a discount for cash (fair enough on the latter). I couldn't help myself, in all good humor:
"Hey, did the manager write this?"
"Well, I'm A manager, but I didn't write it."
"Tell the manager that I won't buy any more gas here unless he learns to spell."
I think the only reason she smiled is that the spelling is so stupid-looking that she saw the mistake.
BTW, I searched everywhere on-line for something I should have taken a picture of, but the corporate WaWa (Florida mini-mart/gas chain) had a spelling error on their LCD screen. How many times a day at each pump in all of their stores does it get seen?! Maybe the new intern at corporate corrected it by now.
I do take Idiocracy seriously. What was a funny movie 13 years ago about a dystopic future 485 years hence has become a prescient documentary.
The following scene from Idiocracy documents the coming single-payer health care:
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The Carbon Neutrality of Davy Jone's Locker
Posted On: Saturday - September 28th 2019 8:29PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Music Humor Global Climate Stupidity Environmental Stupidity
No, we are ABSOLUTELY NOT referring to the memorabilia removed by Gerardo Reviera from the dressing room of ex-Monkees Davy Jones! Please ... stop ... we have been besieged by Monkees fans since the beginning of this blog ...
Once again, Peak Stupidity has not kept up with even some of the more egregious acts of stupidity affecting the planet (and we've only got one, we've just learned. Apparently, there is no planet B. Damn.) Lately, it's this admitted "on the spectrum" (and I don't mean just vitamins) young lady named Greta Thunberg. Well, she's on all kinds of spectrums, infrared, UV, you name it! However, being a young Swedish lass, we probably should listen to her warnings about the climate of our planet. No, I really don't want to get into the argument again in this post today - it's just too tiring and takes too much carbon out of my system.
When I first heard about young Greta's voyage across the high seas of the north Atlantic, well, her being a nutcase or not, having done a bit of sailing back in the day, I was very impressed. Then I learned some more today about it. This was no single-handed voyage or a trip with her Dad. She had 2 skippers doing the actual sailing. Reports don't mention anything at all about a Boatswain's Mate responsible for keel-hauling young Greta as punishment for any climate transgressions en-route, but that's a possibility, meaning even more manpower.
The Malizia II is a 60 ft. serious high-speed yachting ship. There are more stable and steady boats one could use for a trip across the north Atlantic.
Greta Thornberg, this teenage Swedish girl, thought it important to attend a conference at the UN (still in America, damn-you Donald!) via travel on the yacht Malizia II, rather than via steerage on a 767 or A-330. That's a nice symbolic gesture, but, see, the crew must be sent home, and another crew flown over to bring this yacht back to the east side of the pond. I read 6 airline tickets were involved. Besides the skippers, let's not forget tickets for the Professor, Gilligan, and the Howells, and then there's Lovey's wardrobe (drop-shipped outta New York, maybe?) No, Mary Ann and Ginger won't be going back - why even ask?
Does Greta, or much more importantly, anyone else on the Planet (Planet A, that is), really think that we should all travel by sailing ship
Then there's the Pacific travel. Tourism is big bidness. Whaddya' gonna expect these modern tourists to take the slow boat from China?
Nope, this is pure symbolic stupidity here, even if you DO think that all this travel is responsible for warming the whole planet because you have some sort of working mathematical model that the rest of us have not been privy to.
I've got another post to write about this Greta and the stupidity of Swedish Socialism. Speaking of yachts and weirdo's of the white race, let's hear from Regatta de Blanc*:
Perhaps 20 years from now (depending on who you believe) we'll find that bottle off the coast of Tennessee come the climate change and ocean's rise. Contained in a piece of the Malizia II's sealed finest glassware we may find nothing but pint of Greta Thornberg's pee, as she tossed it overboard instead of submitting to the Skipper's "random" drug screening, which would have otherwise resulted in another keel-hauling.
I'm telling you, though, most people feel just a wee more comfortable up at 37,000 ft in that B-767, eating re-named Chef Boyardee and playing Bird v Bird than ON the high seas in a sailing vessel ... just sayin'. The sailing is at times dangerous, and I want young Greta to avoid Davy Jone's Locker, as carbon-neutral as it may be.
Oh, crap, Davy Jones again. Will you fans EVER leave us alone?! OK, here, now no more sending in emails of your panties:
The Monkees were:
Micky Dolenz – vocals, drums, percussion, guitar, moog synthesizer
Davy Jones – vocals, percussion, drums, guitar, bass died 2012
Michael Nesmith – guitar, vocals, keyboards, harmonica
Peter Tork – bass guitar, vocals, guitar, keyboards, banjo died 2019)
I just read that 2 of these guys have died, Davy Jones, the hearthrob (least according to Marsha Brady) in 2012 and Peter Tork just this year.
The Police were:
Sting (aka Gordon Sumner) - lead vocals, bass guitar, primary songwriter
Andy Summers - guitar
Stewart Copeland - drums, percussion
* Yeah, we gave Sting kind of a hard time in the long-ago post Of course the Russians love their children, you dumb bass player!, but you do need to hear that great bass guitar to enjoy The Police.
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[UPDATED 9/30 AM:] Forgot to include band members as is usual Peak Stupidity policy. I especially regret not mentioning Davy Jones specifically.
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What's the
Posted On: Friday - September 27th 2019 11:56PM MST
In Topics: Salesmen Economics Inflation Scams
(Peak Stupidity apologizes for almost a half week here with no posting. The subject of this post explains about half of that.)
Upon making use of a "rent-all" center the other day I ran into something similar, but more blatant, than the price-switching scam described in this post. I gotta admit right here, this was NOT a Big-Biz scam, as I went to a friendly, small-time operation to rent the machine.
"$100 for the whole day" (24 hours) is what the guy told me in person a while back and again on the phone, when I was determining whether to avail myself of these services. (Honestly, if I hadn't, I'd probably be hurting too much to even write this one post ;-} ) Fine, though one hundred bucks sounded high, but that's just because the last time I did this was over 20 years back (from the same place), and it was either $40 or $50* back then.
This was a nice machine, and the people were as helpful as can be, so no problem there. Just to make sure before driving home: "100 bucks if I bring it back first thing in the morning, right?" "Plus tax." "Yeah, sure, so, it's gonna be $110 or so total?" "Well, about $120." (OK, I'm NOT innumerate, and sales tax where I live is not THAT high.) "How do you get that much?"** "Sales tax plus the fee for putting in more gas and checking hydraulic fluid ..." "uhhh, OK", I said, as I mentally noted that that there is a small pricing scam.
Listen, I know you've got to take care of the machines. In fact, I sometimes wonder how these establishments come out ahead the way renters may, usually inadvertently, treat them. All it takes is one broken part, and all the profit is lost. Sure, but that's part of the service they were selling. It's in no way a tax! It shouldn't even be a "fee", but even then, one should hear that included when asking the price on the phone. Tax is almost always not included in a quote, but this "fee". Taking care of the machine is what you do - I pay for that - that's in the PRICE.
OK, I wasn't going to argue with them or even admonish them on this small scam, as they really were a good bunch. There were some nice friendly young white guys*** that worked in the back on the machines and this store owner was in general a good guy too.
But, as they say "there's more!". "It's $5 for using the credit card." Now, I'm usually all about cash (see also Part 2 and Part 3), but I figured they needed a card for me to rent it at all. "OK, I'll bring $120 in the morning. There's no point in my paying another 5 bucks." They were fine with that, but, GEEZE, isn't that normally also an integral part of the price? Stores do have to pay that 2% on every CC sale, and many gas stations give me a break on that by charging a cash price. I don't know - this was a hidden-at-first-glance nickle-and-diming here.
Believe you me, were this a Big-Biz chain, I would be naming names. As I wrote, these were the kind of people that should be supported instead, but they really ought to have just shown some more integrity, and told me $120 or $125 on the phone. Perhaps that loses some sales, but .... that's not WHO WE WERE.
PS: In case this post's title makes no sense, see here.
* Please revisit Peak Stupidity's Inflation section - this is just one more example that incites me to think that, no, inflation does has not been running 1-2% yearly. Even compounded the high end would make the rental $60-$70, depending on what I did pay 2 decades back. I may see if I can look that up later in some records.
** It could have been that "we" passed a law putting extra tax on equipment rentals, I mean, who knows? That's the situation with rental cars, but that had to do with some supposed improvements to the airport terminal. As PS noted in The tourist dollar and funny money, that's often the way cities do it - soak those OTHER PEOPLE. There are fewer complaints because many won't ever come back to do so (wonder why?)
*** That just gives me a lot more confidence in getting the job done with an operating machine.
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Video Games, great and stupid
Posted On: Tuesday - September 24th 2019 6:10PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity
In the beginning, there was Pong, and it was Good, or pretty decent anyway, after the best one could do with computers before was to play battleship with ASCII characters or something ... Really, the sound was nothing but a beep every bounce, but you could get those unexpected shots off the edge of the paddle and try to put spin on the ball - I don't know if that was ever programmed in, though, but, gosh-darnit, we used our imaginations back then! Was it worth putting it all into a nice wooden stand-up cabinet and having poor 1970's teenagers put in a quarter a pop? Maybe.
Things would get a lot better with advances in technologies:
See, you had everything, some type of spaceship sounds, the sound of your ship's cannons, a great concept of no more ammo loaded till you hit something (that was used in lots more shooting games), and great suspense as these aliens got closer and closer. It was my kind of game, that Space Invaders, along with the spin-offs, your Galaxians, Galagas, and that one where the whole screen would turn red (Defender, I got it!) and the poor aliens would radio out "Sos, sos, engine trouble" (that's exactly how our friend would pronounce it, as he was neither familiar with the sailing world nor Morse Code, haha!) How could you improve on Space Invaders, really, when you think about it?
Asteroids was a simple vector-graphics game for which the designers did so much with what they had. "Vector graphics" was old-school, in which the CRT beam would trace out only what was to be shown (monochrome of course) to save computing power/speed over the "raster graphics", as with a TV. That let one just make outlines, and, in Asteroids your spaceships were just equilateral triangles, while your 'roids, as we called them, were polygons. You would push one button for bursts from your thrusters to move forward, and two other buttons would spin you either clockwise or CCW. Another was for shooting.
What they did with that simplicity was make a very good game. Now, since they had the big cabinet, why not put a big woofer in there for that big rumbling sound you'd get when you busted up a 'roid? Great stuff! The rules were simple, but that didn't mean it wasn't exciting. As more and more of those rocks came at you, you had to bump the thrusters, spin this way and that, and try to avoid getting hit by the rocks created. Eventually you lost.
Listen, in the early 1980s, we didn't know America was being ruined all to hell, so we figured we'd be in Space more regularly soon. This defending of Earth from aliens and shooting up dangerous objects in general was probably gonna' be an important skill in the near future. It all made sense, these games. Why you just get another shot only after making a hit never really conformed with reality though, but it made the games require great hand-eye-ear coordination. We were gonna need that, come the aliens. We had no Earthly idea that they were not going to come from above, but below the Rio Grande instead. I mean, who knew??!
Next came your Pac-Man, then (yes, we'd been through the 70s) Ms. Pac-Man. Let me get that straight - you'd eat dots up to move up in the world with your big Pac-Man (or woman) mouth and eat some fruit to turn your tormentors purple to give you 15 seconds or so to eat them instead? OK, I didn't see a connection with anything practical in the Pac-Man games, but at least the simple rules and speed increases with more playing time made them challenging.
The name of that first game of this type was Donkey Kong. OK, no donkeys were involved, as I recall, and was Kong that gorilla? Nevermind the dumb name, but it's the point of this one that to me marked the era of video game stupidity. It's not like those old games had a chat window to a live help-desk manned by a guy named Josh in India. There was no one to ask this simple question: Why do I want to hit my head on some bricks to get points? What is the meaning of this?! Really, I mean, of course aliens are likely out to get us, so we need to be able to shoot them quickly and accurately. Asteroids can be quite the menace, so breaking them up into "billions and billions" of little pieces makes sense ... uhhh, I think, though I'm no Carl Sagan. But, c'mon now - hitting your head on bricks?
See, that wasn't the half of it, though. The problem with lots, or really, MOST, of games since then, is that you have to memorize. You find little tricks that you can only know by putting more quarters in (ahhhaaa, I'm starting to really hate marketing people), as each new game is for learning more tricks. Eventually, one knows the stupid secrets (yeah, throw some rice at that monkey over there and get sent to a new level) that enable one to play for longer. The Mario Brothers* games pushed this concept, and it took off in thousands of other games since.
I do not like that whole concept! In my opinion, a good video game has a few simple rules. You play longer by getting quicker and more accurate. Your fingers KNOW what to do before you can think it, and that is that beautiful "work flow" they talk about. It's such a great feeling to be in the middle of it. No, no memorization is needed. It'a all hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and endurance.
There is no need for new versions or improvements even. A good game lets the player try to get faster and faster, with no limit - you're eventually gonna lose, but man, what a rush! My favorite example has been around for at least 3 decades, and that is Tetris. I got pretty good at it at 2 points in my life, and the first time it got out of hand. I remember that I would go to sleep at night only after rotating shapes around and dropping them in, for about 10-15 minutes. That kinda' scared me, so I quit cold turkey. (To be clear here, I mean I was not playing the actual game but just fitting shapes in in my head until I got to sleep.) The 2nd time involved a slow computer, which after holding me back from some good moves, ended up with a twisted keyboard. Again, cold turkey!
* If not for that stupid illegal Italian immigrant Mario and his stupid immigrant hat, we'd have not had to deal with any of this.
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[UPDATED 9/24:] Added wording to clear up my Tetris experience.
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Back to School Loans
Posted On: Tuesday - September 24th 2019 6:28AM MST
In Topics: University Global Financial Stupidity Media Stupidity Socialism/Communism
I stepped on a USA today at the hotel again ... OK, no wait, they don't seem to put em outside the doors of the guest rooms anymore to demonstrate a high circulation. There are piles in the lobby now, probably 30 or more, and I suppose they are included in "sales" numbers. The headline above caught my eye.
Peak Stupidity has not delved into one of the most devastating forms of stupidity, the Global Financial Stupidity in quite some time. We need to get back to it. Yes, of course, the article was about student loans outstanding in the US and it's USA Today, not World Today (more on the latter in another post, come to think of it). America's economy still has a huge influence on the world's, so when bad things go down here, I doubt too much of the world will come out unscathed.
The number in the headline I saw was > $29,000 owed in student loans per student. Because USA Today is one of the dimmer bulbs in the already dimmed-out world of journalism, the article did not make it clear if that was per student graduating with a BS, or per student graduating with a BS with any loans to begin with. Maybe it's me, so here:
About 2 in 3 members of the class of 2018 graduated a little deeper in debt than the classes before them. Last year’s graduates with a bachelor’s degree averaged about $29,200 in student loan debt – a record in the USA. [They love that "USA" thing - they've been doing that since that newspaper came out.]Maybe it IS me, as the assumption could be that one absolutely MUST go in debt to get through colleges. Back in the 1980's only medical students had serious amounts of loans (maybe $50,000 - $100,000 in '80's dollars which WAS a lot), while my recollection is that only 1 in 3 other students had any at all. If they did, it was in the range of a few thousand bucks upon graduation.
Anyway, the number is 2 % higher than last year, and the total debt outstanding is now up to $1,600,000,000,000 - that's 1.6 Trillion bucks. It's a fun number to keep up with, just like "our" national debt, up to ~ 23 Trillion now. What's the powerball lotto up to? If there were a way for even just 10% of us to win, we'd be ALRIGHT. Come on, anyone? anyone? ... Chief Warren? ... Bernie?
Oh yeah, we see how The USA Today feels about this. There's no talk about maybe getting the Feral government out of the guaranteeing business, causing that moral hazard. No, if fact, the article (I guess it's not an opinion piece - it doesn't SAY that) urges the States to pony up more dough. It also speculates on which one of these generous Blue-Squad candidates will be more forgiving. We are supposed to be forgiving, per Jesus, but, Jeeeze , I don't think he meant with OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY! "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" is I believe what it's called.
Yeah, per that huge-selling The USA Today newspaper, the solution to this growing student loan piece of stupidity is to ramp it up. Forgive the students, never mind the frugal ones who ended up owing only a few thousand or nothing. We're all gonna pay up together, as fellow taxpayers to make these loans good. Whaddya' mean, the banks?? No, the banks never lose. Uncle Sam can take the loss. Look in the mirror taxpayers - you and I may not be wearing those red/white/blue top hats, but "Uncle Sam, that's who I am. ... been hidin' out, in a rock&roll band.
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Takin' it to the Streets ... or at least the playground.
Posted On: Monday - September 23rd 2019 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Music Global Climate Stupidity Educational Stupidity
Breaking news: Students took to the streets a couple of days ago to protest against the changing climate. Late September being a time of very nice weather in most climates in the areas in which anybody really cares, who could pick a better day for the kids to get outdoors and away from their computers?
OK, they were protesting against people who are alleged to be changing the climate for all of us. From the Wall Street Journal, which still prints that planet-killing pro-immigration rag on dead trees (they're not making any more of the ... wait ..), we can read that Students Take to the Streets for Day of Action on Climate Change. ♫♪♪ Takin' it to the streets ... whoa, whoa, takin' it to the streets." ♫♪♪ Let's see, that's only 4 decades old. It's not the ex-hippy parents all the time encouraging this shit - after all, most are beyond their parenting stage. Nope, this stuff is encouraged by the schools now, with the brainwashing on Global Climate DisruptionTM.
The first thing I thought about when I saw this stuff in the background behind my calorie burn on the exercise machine is "who wouldn't want a day off in late September? After the long summer (even longer now, they tell me), there's a certain time when the air is cool in the morning, you feel invigorated, and the cats just go jumping around for the hell of it, after spending the summer spread out on the concrete in the shade of the big oak tree. It's a great time of year, and why spend any day inside of the government indoctrination centers, if you don't have to?!
I was scooped on this thought by the British Daily Mail with 'I just wanted the day off': School children admit they used climate change protests as an excuse to skip class – as Melbourne crowd hits 100,000 during mass 'save the planet' strike. (Yes, along with Global Climate DisruptionTM, we have Headline Lengthening to deal with - lots of headaches these days, huh?) I KNEW IT! All those kids wanted was to get outside.
As the sea of people made their way to the event in Sydney at midday, some school students on scooters could be seen heading in the opposite direction - appearing disinterested in the event.Give 'em about 2 more years and they'll be more interested in these types of protests due to "treehuggers are easy!"
A group of 14-year-old boys straggling at the back of the crowd near the Domain told Daily Mail Australia they weren't interested in the protest. They said they were just happy to be out of the class room.
From the WSJ article now:
In the Solomon Islands, protests sprang up over rising sea levels. Hundreds of schoolchildren in Thailand burst into the headquarters of the environment ministry in Bangkok and then lay down to mimic their own extinction.I guess learning to tread water and raising money for bailing buckets is out of the question.
In Russia, a major fossil fuel exporter, climate activists on Friday held small-scale protests in across the country’s 11 time zones, with those in Moscow planning single-person pickets to circumvent official curbs on mass protests.I'm very dissapointed in Vlad Putin. First, the Communism, but he's put that behind him. Now, he caves to the Globalists on the Climate Stupidity. Well, I can tell you that Peak Stupidity's man-crush on Premier Putin is OVER. I will delete my entire folder of Vladimir Putin bare-chested horse-riding photos, you Commie cuck!
President Vladimir Putin ’s government recently decided to ratify the 2015 Paris agreement on limiting emissions and introduced proposals for a law capping industrial emissions despite objections from industrialists. It was a notable shift for the country’s government, and ordinary Russians also are paying closer attention to the dangers of a climate shift after a summer of devastating wildfires and floods.
Before Greta’s speech, many gathered in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan to march. They chanted, “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” Construction workers along the march route blew air horns in solidarity while passersby clapped and cheered.OK, now that chant is over 5 decades old. You people have GOT TO find some new chants! I always thought these were the creative types. Oh, and I'm pretty sure the construction workers just wanted to see all sides of the high school girls in shorts. You may call it solidarity. Another interpretation is horniness.
“We know we need to burn less fossil fuel, but when taxes on the most polluting fuels are zero or close to zero, there is little incentive to change,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “Energy taxes are not the sole solution, but we can’t curb climate change without them.”Aaahaaa! Finally, we get to the bottom of this. It's about money and control.
Parents, if your schools allow this stuff, you really need to consider homeschooling. I've been glad to have heard nothing about it. Now, if they give the kids a choice of acting like a 1960's lefty or getting to go play for the day, I'm for it.
When do we want it? We want it now!"
Now listen, I've said some bad things about Michael McDonald and his ruining the rock sound of the Doobie Brothers back in the mid/late 1970's. I'm gonna cut him some slack for this one. Forget the lyrics - it's the usual lefty-whining nonsense. (McDonald's influence? I can't prove it.) Though jazzy vs. rock sounding, at least vocals-wise, I like Takin' it to the Streets, from the album of the same name. After band leader Tom Johnson got ulcers from the stress of touring, Michael McDonald took over lots of the vocals - that was the downfall of this previously-great rock band.
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