The Treaty of Versailles - signed a century ago ...
Posted On: Monday - July 29th 2019 7:15PM MST
In Topics: Music History World Political Stupidity
... plus one month and one day. (Hey we're tryin' ta keep up, I swear! It was this post by "Audacious Epigone", with some discussion below, that even reminded me of this anniversary.)
(pronounced "ver-sales", if you're in the vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky):
The armistice made that stopped the bloodshed of the "War to End All Wars" (also called just "The Great War" until WWII) was over 6 months earlier, as remembered and memorialized as The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.... Negotiations on the treaty have been going on that long. As the treaty was signed, it happened to be 5 years since the shooting of an Archduke in Sarajevo, Serbia, one Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, one of three great empires (also the Ottoman - Moslems, and the Russian - due to the Commies).
Though the Americans had only fought during the last 1 1/2 years of the war, this help made the difference as the Germans had made a big offensive since the Russians had quit fighting the eastern front 8 months before the armistice. President Wilson, Mr. PhD know-it-all, having been already responsible for a lot of American domestic destruction, tried his hand at rearranging the people and borders of the world there at Versailles.
It had truly been a World War, and countries and (many now-former) colonies all over the world wanted to get their due share, in their leaders' views at least, of the spoils. Just as an example, a man named Ho Chi Min - you may have heard of him since - came to Versailles (he'd been living in France most of his life anyway) to petition Mr. Wilson for the treaty to include and ending to the French rule of what was called French IndoChina at that time, later on Vietnam.* He was able to get a letter to someone, but Mr. Wilson basically blew him off. Truly, as per history-rocker Al Stewart, at this time, "the colours of the maps were running".**
I'm no historian, and there is no room to have a discussion on some of the ifs of WWI, whether the Germans had been ready much earlier in The Great War to work out a treaty with the Allies, why the US had gotten, or "been gotten" involved, etc. The point most history of this Treaty of Versailles will include is that the Germans were just plain boxed into an economic corner with the terms of this treaty. Was it all Woodrow Wilson's fault, with his 14 points? (Sound a little familiar with GHW Bush's "1,000 Points of Light"?) The other allies had something to do with it, but it was Mr. Wilson's show there in Versailles. He brought up the "spreading of Democracy" bit too, which also is very, very familiar, 100 years later. Economic reparations were set up that were odious for the Germans - "reparations", now that's a word you don't hear a lot ...
There are plenty of "ifs" in history, but IF the German people had not been boxed into an impossible economic situation, which resulted in the incredible inflation of the early '20's, Adolf Hitler would have probably not come to power***, or at least to that high a level. World War II would probably not have happened.
Just as an aside, and as a reason for some Al Stewart history rock, as the Germans were going through their terrible times in the early 1920's, the Americans were having a ball. It really helped that we had a string of Presidents that were still leaving the people the fuck alone. One was Mr. Warren G. Harding:
"Warren Gameliel Harding
Alone in the White House, watching the sun
come up on the morning of 1921.
I just want someone to talk to,
to talk to,
to talk to."
That was from Stewart's 1974 album Past, Present, & Future.
Al Stewart wrote a song about the Palace of Versailles shown at the top too, even, but it was about the French Revolution, 1.3 centuries prior to the signing of the treaty one century ago now. From the upbeat calypso beat of the tune above, we come to a brooding balled. It's not by any means my favorite off of the 1978 album Time Passages, so we'll post some more tunes from it soon.
* Ho Chi Min was no Communist by any means at the time of his petition to meet with the American President 100 years back. Communism just seemed to be his best road forward to work out a way to get Vietnam independent, much later on, as the Japs came, and then the French came back.
** I gotta use the British misspelling there, in respect for my favorite (and only) history rocker, Mr. Stewart.
*** He may have still come to power as an anti-Communist, as Communism was ready to take over the place, but was that only because the economy was so terrible that many felt Communism might be the answer? Even with the Commies, but with no terrible economy and resentment of the reparations, it's doubtful the German people would have supported this madman to that high a position. (Of course, here in America, our madmen have made some decent inroads lately ...)
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Nat-Geo and the once great Royal Scientific Societies - Part 1
Posted On: Monday - July 29th 2019 12:11PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Global Climate Stupidity Globalists Media Stupidity Geography
In a short post, back near our blogogins (blog origins, that is), Peak Stupidity discussed the downfall of the once great National Geographic magazine. "National Geographic, no more girly pics of the natives ...." was just about the magazine, but it's the loss of the whole concept of the great "Societies" of Astronomers, Physicists, and, yes, Geographers too, that I'll about in the 2nd part.
"Nat Geo" is the modern, shortened (in the vein of JLo and AMLO) name for the TV channel of the National Geographic brand, as in, I'm guessing, a better way to make money than with the old glossy magazine. Who knows whether there is anything about geography on that channel anymore? We've mentioned a number of times in posts with the TV, aka Gov't Media Topic Key(see "The TV Mythbusters vs. Science & Engineering" and "Women of the Weather Channel") that TV channels over the last 2 decades have been just "platforms" for various formats or themes that they can morph between without ever changing the channel/network names - cheaper this way, I guess. Last I recall, Nat Geo was about animals, and everyone LUVS animals. They also sells kid's education books/toys, so maybe they really don't care about the magazine anymore.
Let's talk about the magazine though, as a new article I read brought back my thoughts on National Geographic. VDare writer Lance Welton in his article What Makes NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’s Race-Denying Editor Susan Goldberg Run?*, explained that the background of that previous-5-years' editor is the problem. Without any argument with Mr. Welton, I don't really care about this Susan Goldberg's ethnicity and background - the magazine has been a piece of ctrl-lefty crap for at least 20 years now. She's apparently made it even worse, though.
The pro-immigration and Globalist views of this purported geography magazine are what the VDare article rails against. After all, if all nations (except the non-white ones that are A-OK to keep anyone they want out) are to be of mixed peoples from around the globe, why would we need this magazine? The kind of real diversity that one could look forward to seeing in beautiful color pictures and reading about, in far away corners of the world won't exist anymore if Globalists have their way. By becoming "diverse" all nations will become the same - "Welcome to Brazil, sector IIIa".
Peak Stupidity's beef, in the past, with this formerly great publication has been more about their incessant agenda of
May as well spend that savings to go see the turtles,
excuse me, tortoises, before we're all gone.
This is just a shame for the young people. Maybe they couldn't give a dang about an exciting glossy magazine coming every month - man, what an ancient concept! In the past though, National Geographic, with its excellent photography and writers who went where most people would never get to go, was a beautiful window to the world. That world had an actual DIVERSITY of people, economies, animals, and other things. Now, the magazine is pushing for the modern definition of diversity, which pretty much means destroy and traditional-white-run places. As the first cover above shows, National Geographic celebrates the same, bleak, lame-ass Globo-Homo culture being spread the world over. Why would I want to go anywhere now?
The next post on this will get into the old Royal Societies and such, and what a great age of discovery it was.
* It's on the Unz site for comments here
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Paying it forward
Posted On: Saturday - July 27th 2019 9:33PM MST
In Topics: Americans Bible/Religion
(Kids at the ball park - just a file photo.)
Now, after the previous generally-depressing post about the future of stupidity, or the stupidity of the future, I'll end the week with something greatly more up-beat.
The Peak Stupidity staff are not poor, or even close. We're doing fine for now. At the baseball game tonight, though, a really nice guy just came up to give us tickets as we were about to buy our own. I figured he just had extras to sell for whatever he could get, as the game had started a while back. "How much do you want for them?" "No, take 'em." He just didn't seem like a scammer, and you don't get much of that here. "Well, let me give you something ..." Nope.
The man not only was giving the tickets away just to be nice, but they were extra-special seats, and later he made sure to get us the refreshments on the house ... whatever we wanted. (No, he wouldn't take a refusal on that either.)
"I like to give the kids a treat." he told me, or something to that effect. This was just a genuinely kind-hearted, giving individual. It made me realize that I don't do enough of this sort of thing. Just ragging on all the stupid BS that happens (more and more frequently, or it'd just be a part of life and no reason for a blog) brings out a real distaste for people. This man brought a taste back.
Possibly living only in this way is ignoring the good work in trying to stop, even if only by writing about it for now, the nasty stuff of near-future America. "It's all good" till it's not. Yeah, but you can at least do random goodness for people that are on your side, and maybe doing a few nice things for people on the other side could swing them around ???
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If you're not doing anything wrong ...
Posted On: Saturday - July 27th 2019 9:15PM MST
In Topics: Orwellian Stupidity Female Stupidity iEspionage
... you've got
Someone close to me was shopping for a new "phone" today. Yeah, "phone" is in quotes now, because a powerful computer with built-in accurate motion and position sensors, still and video cameras, area microphones and speakers, and methods to transmit information from all these devices to anywhere in the world in seconds, is, well, no longer anything resembling a telephone. The iEspionage Topic Key is one that Peak Stupidity has promised to spend more time on, and this post will be a quick introduction. (Orwellian Stupidity overlaps this a lot, but is a more broad topic.)
These thing are expensive, at least the newest available, and it wasn't like this customer I know really knows all the bells & whistles to need the newest stuff. "These ones are just the best spying devices" is what I said. "I don't care. I don't' steal. I don't deal drugs. I don't ..." something else, "why should I care if anyone spies on me." That was the response. That's what you'd have gotten from lots of people well before any of the electronic iEspionage too, of course.
Maybe 100 years back, as people were told that the US Feral Gov't needed to know where they worked, for reasons involving the new income tax, some said "That's a real invasion of privacey." Someone else said "If you're not working at any criminal operation, you've got nothing to worry about" back. How about when the Social Security
Back to the personal electronic
You've got cameras on both sides. Is that really necessary? Well, sure, you can take selfies. Wow, how convenient! You've got a microphone that can catch sound from around the area, nicely up to 5 ft. away. You need that for the speakerphone function of course, right? How convenient! Sure, I do think seriously that these "features" (DON'T SAY "BUGS") are demanded by customers. There are the customers, maybe a majority of Americans that will be the ones to tell you "if you've got nothing to hide ..."
Yeah, you live a clean life, huh? It's just possible that things that are legal now, won't be so in the near future. ("Oh, but retroactive laws are illegal" - hahhaa! Yeah, that old Constitution ... it USED TO mean something. Now, not so much ....) Have you not done anything embarrassing, even? I don't mean something you can be arrested for, but ... you know that camera sticks out of your pocket while you're sitting on the john, don't you? It's sticking out of your pocket wherever you go. Oh, you're really careful - I! GET! THAT! Whatever is filmed by "accident", again, one can't be arrested for em-bare-ass-ing stuff. Butt of course not, butt then, if whoever has that "data", so to speak, wants so stop you from doing something else that is also perfectly legal, such as speaking out about injustice and shit, well, it'd be a shame if that em-bare-ass-ing stuff went viral.
Wait, I thought you had nothing to worry about? Oh, and another thing - what about the microphone? All this information stored on what you do can be used to make you stay in line, politically speaking. It makes one a virtual slave. This is yet another reason women, such as the phone customer, for example, shouldn't be in politics and shouldn't be allowed to vote.
In the next post on this subject, I'll get into these nice features (not BUGS, but they sure can be used as 'em), and whether it's possible to impede of defeat them, without throwing your piece of iEspionage in the pond. In the meantime, is there nothing to worry about
* Part 2 on this intentional Socialism/unintentional(?) Ponzi scheme.
** or NOT.
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Latino Littering vs. the old American Ingenuity
Posted On: Thursday - July 25th 2019 7:14PM MST
In Topics: Humor Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity ctrl-left
Steve Sailer has been on a tear lately* about the Latino Littering - OK, Chicano, wait, Hispanic - no, Latino it is, as this is all about alliteration. (C'mon bloggers, whaddya' need a refresher course? It's ALL alliteration nowadays!) It's not just the littering itself he notes, but the ctrl-left's cognitive dissonance about it. They just do not want to admit something that is right in front of their
It becomes very difficult for people to hold one opinion, that these model immigrants are as good as, or most likely better, than Americans, yet see that it is just not so in many aspects. Americans, for the most part, got over our littering phase in the 1970's, quite a bit after Lady Bird Johnson's "litterbug" campaign (one of the least annoying of the un-elected-first-lady programs). We all were pretty broken up by that crying Indian by the roadside on TV.** This was very timely, as America still had only 200 million people back then, so things were not so trashed to begin with, and there was a smaller and more united population to educate. The ctrl-left, with this great cognitive dissonance in their heads, get very perturbed when anything in the actual world is brought up, so they naturally lash out with lots of TWEETS. That's what the Sailer articles (linked-to below) are about.
Anyway, it was a VDare letter that I read yesterday, A Talk Radio Listener Shares His Eyewitness Account Of Latino Littering In Mexico AND The US, that got me thinking of some funny stuff related to littering during the old America.
See, this friend of mine's family had a 20 ft Bayliner boat, good enough to go out on the lake with. When they used it, they could tow it with a number of their large American cars that lots of us had 30 years ago, if they ran, that is. This Malibu or Chevelle of my friend's was hooked up to the boat trailer last. It kinda had to be, as the trailer hitch had the usual padlock through the mechanism, and unfortunately the key to said padlock was long gone.
Therefore, my friend he would simply drive around town with the boat in tow, whether anyone wanted to go out on the lake or not and no matter what time of year. Sure, your mileage is gonna suffer, but gas was at a relative low then. At this time, it hadn't been that long since that cryin' Indian got us all choked up, and this guy was not around to see him anyway, so there was still a decent amount of littering "going on".
But, then, you've got the boat. It's right back there. The beauty of this situation is that one could simply toss beer cans or food wrappers back there into the boat! It was a roving dumpster that needed to be emptied out infrequently, perhaps when one wanted to go to the lake.
One more story is that this same guy, on one of his long road trips x-country, spilled some hot coffee out the window of his pick-up. He must not have been checking his mirrors as a bunch of coffee made it onto the windshield the highway patrolman on his tail! Though the officer was not pleased, a liquid is not litter, am I right? "Tell that to the magistrate."
* See Why Does Mentioning Latino Littering Trigger Liberals Into Rage? and Liberals War On Noticing Latino Littering.
** Really, as Peak Stupidity discussed in Are American Indians Slobs - based on one very good datapoint of personal experience, BTW - it was easy for Mother Earth to clean up after (in the neighborhood of) 5 million Indians on the vast North American continent. Perhaps more Americans could have been convinced to quit throwing coke cans and Big Mac wrappers out the window if we'd have had a more realistic example of a perturbed guy on TV. It should have been a white man in an orange jumpsuit, having to hang out with a dozen punks from the county lock-up by the shoulder over the Interstate due to his getting that 4th DUI.
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Mencius Moldbug and "Unqualified Reservations"
Posted On: Tuesday - July 23rd 2019 9:04PM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits alt-right/MAGA
In our post yesterday that linked to two sources of the idea of American society as a new type of hierarchy, one of the source was one Mencius Moldbug. He is fairly well-known, at least on some corners of the internet. Per wiki, which shouldn't be trusted but so far on anything regarding a political pundit, such as this guy, Mr. Yarwin is known to have been read by Steve Bannon, formerly of the Trump administration. Good on Mr. Bannon, as Mr. Yarwin is a great writer (a computer guy by trade) with some amazing ideas, not all of which I will end up agreeing with, though, from first glance.
My first glance was initially just to see what the large article I linked to yesterday was really a part of. Well, my apologies on any disparagement of long-windedness by Mr. Moldbug (I'll use the pseudonym from here on, at least regarding his writings) in my footnote, as what I linked to was a web-book, not an article. A GENTLE INTRODUCTION TO UNQUALIFIED RESERVATIONS is a book-length explanation of Mr. Moldbug's website, Unqualified Reservations. Mencius Moldbug quit his writing on "Unqualified Reservations" in the over 5 years ago (with a short goodbye in '16). He had started writing in '07, and there is much there to be read, possibly months of reading, I'd guess. Then there are 10 or so web-books of his for sale on amazon, but I don't know if they are just compilations of his long essays.
Was Curtis Yarwin doxxed as Mencius Moldbug during 2016 as it was found out that Mr. Bannon read him? I really tried to find something on this, but this sounds too political to even get the answer on duckduckgo (so far, nothing)? I thought maybe he'd quit in '14 knowing he would get political in the real world in the near future. This paragraph is speculation, so I'd appreciate a comment (please type in PS at the beginning, per instructions) if any reader knows anything more than I do.
Anyway, Moldbug's "Unqualified Reservations" is something I can read in any copious spare time I end up with. No matter if it gets a bit weird, as I see coming, it's very entertaining.
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Snowflakes come in infinite shapes and sizes
Posted On: Tuesday - July 23rd 2019 8:28PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes Race/Genetics
While up in the formerly great white North again, I had a conversation with a very nice employee on a number of occasions. It turns out we knew some places in common, and we exchanged numbers for possible contact later on. I was trying to set the guy up with some help in his hobby and knew just the guy, who lived coincidentally very close to this guy's 2nd home.
He was not at all what one would think as a fragile snowflake, as per our Student and Other Snowflakes (yeah, it got expanded) Topic Key. A big guy who lives part-time in that 2nd home up in the severe cold, he must see a lot of snowflakes, but how could he be one?
It was just a matter of the end of a conversation we had when I was leaving. A local story was in the news of a young lady getting abducted and killed by a black man (arrested soon after). I knew something of it and mentioned that the young girls ought to be taught more about where they shouldn't hang out at night at late hours. It was particularly a very naive move by, not just the murdered young lady, but afterwards by her friends, whose memorial to her showed that they sure had not learned a damn thing. It's a matter of race and stereotypes that are true. Do you want to be racist and alive, or purposefully naive and dead? That's the question.
Well, where this guy lives up north is becoming not so pure-white anymore. I mentioned that this type of happening would be something to think about for people in his area now. Oh, no, he did not want to say another word. Was it that he really doesn't believe anything will change? I can't be sure, but I don't really think so. This big snowflake didn't have the guts that it takes to speak a bit of truth, even just between the two of us, and, after all, I brought up the subject. If you can't even speak some truth, even between two acquaintances in private, well, then you are a delicate snowflake, if only on the inside. America doesn't need any more of this. Snowflakes will melt along with the rest of the country.
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The 500 MAGA hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Posted On: Monday - July 22nd 2019 4:09PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Political Correctness Pundits Race/Genetics
One of Steve Sailer's posts the other day featured an interesting thought from one of his commenters that Mr. Sailer featured in his post The New Hierarchy of Innate Privilege. To give credit where it's due, mostly likely independently, one of the commenters also mentioned this article by the pundit Mencious Moldbug*, the very last part of which very entertainingly presents the same thought, about 10 years back.
The general reference in Mr. Sailer's commenters writing comes from the latest peak-of-stupidity blast of infotainment about one Georgia State Representatard Erica Thomas. Not in her position as an esteemed member of the Georgia house, but as a Publix grocery shopper, she created this "news" blast due to being disrespected by a man at the store who deemed to talk to her about her having hauled way more than 10 items through the express check-out lane. (Hey, this isn't a big Peak Stupidity peeve, but from the XXX posts with the Curmudgeonry Topic Key, the reader can see we've got lots of our own originals!)
There were tweets and rumors of tweets ... and then retractions when the lady thought that the man in question** could prove what had really been said from store security camera footage. (Nope, he couldn't but how's a Representatard to know?) People gave press conferences in which they postured, backed-off, and tried to defend themselves.
The idea in that comment and Moldbug's article is that that America has lately become a hierarchical society, such as those of Middle Ages Europe. It's not the warrior class that's on top nowadays, but the non-whites of all sorts, the unusually-gendered, and the immigrants from the 3rd world. The regular American whites are the commoners and should be treated as such, per this new hierarchy.
As often was the case in the days of old when a member of the nobility could have numerous titles, this Erica Thomas holds a couple of spots in the hierarchy simultaneously. She is both A Person of the Sum of All Subtractive Colors and, being in the Georgia House, The Baroness of Lower Cobb County. Holding these two prestigious titles SHOULD give her more respect, and the fact that a commoner would dare to question her use of the 10-items-or-less line at Publix is an example of how our society is just going straight to hell.
What this incident reminds me of is that Brazilian woman grabbing a Boston man's MAGA hat story from early this year as compared to an old Dr. Seuss tale, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins***.
That is America of the current era. Read that early-'19 post if you don't recall the incident. A (actual) Boston man was simply eating his breakfast out, when a Brazilian immigrant broad decided that his MAGA hat should not be worn in front of her. She's apparently part of the new nobility, and commoners should know better. Of course, he'd sure better not slug her or even talk back, or others in the nobility will start proceedings to remove him from his job, career, and maybe, indirectly, his family. You've got to know your place.
One could have nightmares about it - you're surrounded by the black, brown, antifa, and immigrant nobility, but you forgot to leave your MAGA ball cap at home. As the crowd closes in, you take the hat off, but there's another one under it. This crazy shit keeps going as you are running around the Publix store scattering those red MAGA caps all over the produce section like Bartholomew Cubbins. "Off with his job and career!" Alas, that's the life of a commoner.
* Go waaaay down to the bottom - there are multiple subjects in his article linked-to here. A friend has told me of reading articles by Mr. "Moldbug" before. He is apparently pretty long-winded, but if that entertaining article is any indication, I wouldn't mind that at all! He's a very good writer.
** Mr. Eric Sparks, the commoner who dared speak to noblewoman Erica Douglas, defended himself by telling us he'd voted "D" (Blue-squad) his whole life, and that he's no racist, he's Cuban. Ooookay then, at least this incident had some "news you can use". If I ever get called that evil, evil word, I now have it memorized: "I'm not racist, I'm Cuban!"
*** BTW, for a Dr. Suess book, this one is a bit too adult for a 6 y/o who can read it. I have memories of long ago thinking of that poor boy running about trying to fix things so that he won't be beheaded.
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Peak America - 1/2 Century Ago Today
Posted On: Saturday - July 20th 2019 10:14PM MST
In Topics: History Americans Science
That's a pretty well-defined peak, July 20th of AD 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first human beings to set foot on another world. That there were only 10 more to follow, and we don't have cities in space, the Moon, or Mars right now are the sad thing. That shows that America has been on the decline for a long time.
It's true that the radical cultural changes of the 1960's had already been going on for 4-5 years, the immigration disaster from the 1965 act was in progress, and the welfare state had already been set up. However, as Peak Stupidity discussed* regarding Adam Smith's words in terms of economics, "there is a lot of ruin in a nation." 1969 could still be the peak, as the momentum of the can-do WWII generation and US economic might took a while to slow, and the rot that was started in the political realm hadn't taken near full effect yet.
I'd have to say that even through the 1970's, and then the optimistic Reagan era of the '80's, and through the dot-com times, I had not yet noticed that the country was in a decline**, and it's really only been until 15 years ago. Of course, some of that is just due to growing up during this slow decline and therefore seeing it as normal, but even as a noticer, well, I hadn't noticed. The acceleration of the decline of America is pretty hard NOT to notice, at this point.
A half century ago, more time than had passed on that day since the Wright Brothers first flew in powered controlled flight, all the engineering needed to design and build that 360 ft. high rocket, with just the command module and lunar lander left, had worked as planned to get these 2 men onto the surface of another world. That America was a can-do country was proven to the world in a feat that was applauded around the world. It was indeed a giant step for all mankind.
I've been giving most of the credit to the 100's of thousands of engineers and technicians that built this amazing technology to allow a voyage like that to be possible, lately, in my mind, at least. Those brave pilot/engineer/astronauts deserve a lot too though. Unlike with the also-brave explorers of this world, on land and sea, who needed determination and toughness, these explorers of the since-aborted space age also required real smarts. That engineering knowledge needed to understand the systems of these spacecraft enough to have any chance of "walking away" from a real problem during a mission required smart, educated men, and this was borne out during the Apollo 13 mission.
We really need to keep this awesome American technical feat in our minds. Don't let what's left of this day pass without thinking about what America was on July 20th, 1969.
Look up at that moon sometime that man throughout history, up until a measly 1/2 century ago, could just stare at as something impossible to reach, even after we knew what it was. Imagine those American men walking on that other world, talking to us on the radio from that Sea of Tranquillity. It was just 12 of them over that brief 3 year spell. Is that going to end up being the peak of not just America, but humankind?
* See Part 2 and Part 3.
** A review of Strauss & Howe's Generations and Fourth Turning books is really in order soon. That's been on the back burning since this blog started.
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Down with Yoga Pants!
Posted On: Saturday - July 20th 2019 10:04AM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Female Stupidity
When you can do moves like this, you've earned the pants.
I may be fairly prolific with the Peak Stupidity posts, but damn if I don't get some things for years sometimes. A frequent commenter on the ZeroHedge site back in the day when I read it obsessively used the handle "Down with Yoga Pants", with a small avatar of the rear end of a yoga-pants wearing lady of some sort. I swear it took me about 2 years to get this joke! Now that I've explained here, it ought to be quicker for the reader.
It's been, what, 10 or 15 years now, since yoga pants have been worn regularly by people in all walks, runs, and waddles of life? It's not always a good look, the wearing of these skin-tight pants. In fact, it's not a good look 95% of the time, in my estimation, but your mileage may vary based on location, gross weight, and surface conditions. The question I've got is how and why did the firm, svelte, and trim yoga instructors let these pants get out into the world at large (pun not-intended, but serendipitous nonetheless)? It's those 95% non-yoga-instructors that have ruined the reputation of this formerly-hot outer/inner wear.
The other should not be wearing them for long.
Face it, women, it'd be great if you were all in firm shape to where these pants would be delightful to look at. That's a pipe dream though, and, even though the women in the movies or on TV wear these (I wouldn't know), it doesn't mean it's right. If those same women jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge (in yoga pants), does that mean you should? We've been over this sort of thing when you were in kindergarten. No, there are other types of pants - I'll get to that in a bit.
It's not just that, without a pretty hot body, the imperfect curves can be seen. It gets a lot worse though, to the point in which these pants are so tight, and contain so much biomass, that one little cut, just like a sliver of glass into the tire of a Tour-de-France cyclist with 100 psi in the tires, will cause massive failure and injury to all concerned.
I realize that yoga instructors aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed, but shouldn't the yoga community, as it were, uhh, police themselves regarding this proprietary clothing? I mean, police themselves in a nice soothing way, of course - "... hey, quit resisting, just hand over the pants... watch your ass getting into squad car" [uses one hand to protect her ass on the way in]. Yoga pants should be EARNED, not just bought at Old Navy - just as one can't go out and buy a Tae Kwon Do black belt with 3 red stripes.
The Yoga Community should decide on some rules at their yoga conferences, possibly with Yoda as a titular leader, sitting in their yurt, doing yoga and eating yogurt, with Yo-Yo Ma music in the background. "First Rule of
Now, back in my day, the women wore jeans of various levels of tightness. This gave everyone a chance to look decent.
The one-hit-wonder above's name is David Dundas, and I had no idea he was British until listening to this song after, oh, about 40-odd years. This cheerful song, with that great electric piano is Jeans On, and it was a minor it in 1976.
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It will come to blood.
Posted On: Friday - July 19th 2019 8:35PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Race/Genetics ctrl-left
Peter Brimelow, chief of VDare.com, has said this a number of times, going back years, about the trouble coming due to the extreme immigration stupidity that America has been operating under for 5 decades now. Just after the Donald Trump Presidential inauguration in '17, which Mr. Brimelow attended (as his first inauguration since ole Ronnie in 1981), he wrote "It Will Come To Blood"—Reflections On The Left's Anti-Trump Inauguration Tantrum. In that article he described the tremendous amount of police-state security designed to keep the ctrl-left under some semblance of control.
Things have not got any calmer since then, the ctrl-left has only pushed harder against a guy (Trump) who is not anything close to the able, conservative, can-do executive that patriotic conservative Americans expected, and these conservative Americans are getting more and more frustrated with both Trump and the out-of-ctrl-left. "There's battle lines being drawn" is what Peak Stupidity has been saying, from a line in an old Buffalo Springfield song of a different era of troubles. ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6)
Our enemy in what the alt-right and conservatives have been calling the Cold Civil War has started to draw blood now. They are extremely confident. They have every right to be, if American conservatives keep playing whiffle ball as the ctrl plays hard ball.
Just yesterday, James Kirkpatrick of VDare wrote an article that really sums up what is going on, called Generic American Party Vs. Great Replacement Party: Now An Irrepressible Conflict—With Or Without Trump. All I have to say for the rest of today is please, READ! THIS! ARTICLE!.
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On the Boardwalk
Posted On: Friday - July 19th 2019 7:03PM MST
In Topics: Treehuggers Global Climate Stupidity Environmental Stupidity
We've let the Global Climate Stupidity topic fall by the wayside lately here at Peak Stupidity, as our focus has been on different flavors. We are trying to multitask here, but, damn ... things are ... getting too .... stupid ... Scotty do you have my ... coordinates .... aaaarghhh ... it's not rocket science, Scotty ... beam me up ....
I would think that the issue would have heated up since the summer solstice or even earlier, and we usually read less about Global Climate DisruptionTM, as the issue cools down in the fall. (The reverse is unexpectedly observed in the Southern Hemisphere, maybe because it's in Spanish and Portuguese and the Coriolis effect and all ...?)
Anyway, this post is not specifically about this sensitive topic either, but just the same refusal to open one's mind to look outside the current narrative by scientists often just as much as the rest of us. This one is about a trip a few years ago that I made with some scientists. They were marine biologists and, seeing as I always wanted to pretend I was a marine biologist, and, more importantly, I really like the beach, I went along. No, biology is not a hard science like Physics and Chemistry. There isn't the seriously hard math involved, but they do study the natural world and do experiments so, yeah, it's science. I knew 2 out of the 3 guys, and they were good people.
Since these people were basically my customers, in a sense, I did not really want to get into arguments over, let's say, their Global Climate DisruptionTM worries. Therefore, I think I just made one remark, when they brought it up, to make sure they knew I was not onboard and may want to stifle the rhetoric a bit.
We walked out to the beach on a low boardwalk. It was just a set of those foot-off-the-ground walks to keep one's feet out of the hot sand and possibly keep out of the sand spurs, which suck just as much as the polar ice caps. These were new boardwalks made out of those recycled plastic planks. I like the idea of re-using stuff, as we move toward sustainable stupidity. Really, those are a great idea, provided one thing though - they don't degrade like mofo's in the direct sunlight. This was at the beach, as I may have already written, so there were no trees around, and the 75 degrees-in-altitude* sun beat fiercely upon these "green" planks on the boardwalk.
Plastic does not like sunlight, especially certain types, and more so when unpainted. How long will those planks last before they start breaking into little pieces of litter into the otherwise pristine beach ecosystem? Yes, the wood planks have problems too. It's the splinters first. Then, as some top portions splinter off, the resulting pits accumulate water, causing quicker rotting rates, and so on. However, as they rot out, all that goes into the environment is simply organic matter - ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nobody can argue against organic matter. The plastic is not so benign, once it does break apart. The next thing you know they'll be a big push for mitigation of the sand all over the place to get the plastic out. Can we do some thinking ahead? It's one thing to use this stuff for playgrounds and park benches that are in more shade, but at the beach?
Hey, I do get that these new, "green" planks may be more workable in the short term. Maybe they can be replaced before they disintegrate much, but then the same could be said for wood, and that obviously costs more than waiting until your feet punch though into the sand. Maybe the plastic will last longer, but when I brought up this aspect of these green plastic boards, I didn't get much thinking out of these scientists - Green is Good, mmmkaaay?
*You can't pin down my location by that one bit, doxers! After all, without knowing longitude (Part 2), you ain't got squat. Plus, I didn't say whether the sun was high in the south or north, so you don't even know which hemisphere I was hanging out in. Screw you - learn some geography bitches!
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Price Gouging - Peak Stupidity is FOR IT.
Posted On: Thursday - July 18th 2019 5:38PM MST
In Topics: Preppers and Prepping Economics Liberty/Libertarianism
Last week, in the comments in reply to one Bill H. of Anytown, USA, I mentioned that I would write a short post in support of the practice of price gouging during the aftermath of disasters and such. Of course, I don't mean I support scams of any sort, so I'm just referring to the honest, blatant, jacking-up-to-the-sky of prices when supplies get scarce.
This is just a pure Libertarian-oriented post, so if that's not your thing, wait a day for a return to other topics.
Maybe after the last hurricane, flood, earthquake, or whatever kind of natural disaster seen on TV, the National Guard brought in supplies, including pallets of bottled water, as shown above. Good on 'em - that's the Governor's job. However, when disasters go big-scale, such as what the real "preppers" are preparing for, there won't be that helping hand, available for everyone.
Things can get bad quickly in this world of Just-In-Time and intertwined computer and internet-based logistics systems that make the modern world run, sort of. When the water doesn't run, the toilets don't flush, and the electricity is off, things will become miserable enough even for a prepper after a while. For the rest, they may have notice with alarm that the stores were emptied of bottled water and, well, everything else, either before the disaster even got started, or within a few hours after. We live on the thin edge, people, and the grocery store shelves are only bountiful when the world is running smoothly.
Now, 3 days later, a truck pulls up selling water at 50 bucks a case of 24. (Well, you know how Peak Stupidity feels about bottled water, but that's another story.) "Fifty bucks! What a meanie!" "These people are evil" - that's the narrative today. However, at the normal price, would it really be worth if for them to truck this water from 2 states away? Not even close. "Well, they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts." Hey some do. These aren't the ones. "Oh, then, at least sell if for something to pay for the trip, and that's all." How would that motivate these guys to load up and truck this water from 2 states away?
No, they have every right to make some money, as much as they want, in fact, off of your misfortune. That's supply and demand, not Kumbaya at the Rainbow Gathering. The opportunity to price gouge may be the only thing bringing in this truck with its bottled water for your continued existence. Another good effect would be that paying that 50 bucks a case will be something you remember very well, before the next time around. Maybe you should have kept a dozen cases on hand. It's not like water has a short shelf-life. How hard is it to do that?
I suppose, for some people things like that and, well, life in general, is hard. As the man in the Western (apparently never) said, it's even harder when you're stupid.
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"Our New Planet is Going to be Great"
Posted On: Wednesday - July 17th 2019 7:05PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Immigration Stupidity Pundits ctrl-left
This post is nothing but a quick shout-out to Steve Sailer for his latest great article* on the Takimag** website, the name of which is our title.
There's lots of stupidity on deck for the rest of the week, but here we'll just urge you to read this Steve Sailer article. I think he's been getting better and better with the writing of articles vs. his shorter, snarkier blog posts. He's been combining his great ideas nicely lately, and even ending with a proper concluding paragraphs.
The graph above goes with the article, which combines the immigration "National Question" with extremely worrisome (most important graph indeed) population trends, along with the author's "coalition of the fringe", "intersectionality"***, and the "circular firing squad" of the ctrl-left's current American politics.
On this one, in particular, I can see that Mr. Sailer has turned the PIC, (Political InCorrectness) up quite a bit, not to 11, but at least to 7- 8 on the knob. It's a welcome change, as I think he would normally hold back a bit on the articles that I'd seen him write vs. the short posts on the same subjects on his iSteve blog on unz.com. For instance, in his column Dubious Domination, on women's soccer, he wrote on his own blog, in a previous post "America dominates women’s soccer for the same reason South Korea dominates women’s golf: because nobody else cares.", haha! He toned it down, just a tad, in the Takimag article, to " … because nobody else has much cared.".
I think the hard-core snark and PIC is a better way to go. The ctrl-left will not like you any better if you soften up the tone. He may as well go all out. That goes for all of us.
OK, just a bit here, to see the great writing and the PIC of Steve Sailer today:
While this would have seemed like an insane debate as recently as, say, 2011, there is a strategic electoral logic behind the Democrats’ Great Awokening that is constantly pushing them in an ever more antiwhite direction. As a Coalition of the Fringes, the only thing that holds together the Democrats is demonizing core Americans. Without ever increasingly whipping up hatred of whites, what is there to keep the Democrats’ collection of miscellaneous identity groups from turning on each other?Excellent stuff. Please take the 5 minutes to read the whole thing.
For example, the current fracas broke out with an intra-Democratic dot vs. feather brawl between two flavors of Indians. The brains behind Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) operation, her tech-millionaire chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, went on the warpath against fellow Democrats. Chakrabarti denounced as racist those who aren’t quite extremist enough on immigration, such as Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), who is advertised as “the first openly LGBT Native American elected to the United States Congress.”
(Peak Stupidity has been doing pretty well in avoiding the "hey, read this" type posts over the last year, if we do say so ourselves. Occasionally, we really would like the reader to check out something this good. More stupidity tomorrow.)
* To read or write comments, go to the quick summary here.
** Peak Stupidity has mentioned this on-line magazine before. Our 2nd-favorite regular writer there would have to be Jim Goad, with discussion of his writing here, here, and here.
*** As opposed to Peak Stupidity's intersectional stupidity ideas, which are about actual traffic intersections.
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On the way to the Moon - 5 decades ago today
Posted On: Tuesday - July 16th 2019 8:22PM MST
In Topics: History Americans Science
It was not the day of the first Americans to go toward the moon, as the 3 astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission had gone to the moon and orbited at Christmas time, 1968 (7 months earlier). It was the first mission to LAND human beings on another world.
July 16th, 1969
It was 50 years ago today! Just about anyone you would have asked at the time, not particularly just stoned-out hippies or members of a cult, would have told you that man would have explored the Solar System by 50 years hence, but more likely, headed out to Alpha Centauri, or some other solar system well before the year 2019.
The whole thing is just sad, and what's worse, I don't even hear much in the way of reminiscences. Should I watch TV for a few days? Nah.
What happened? How could the biggest economic and technological power ever seen in the world till then, have given it all up? We had a dream! Actually, that was the problem. Americans already had a dream before that bullshit out of some fake Commie "Reverend". The Socialists, Feminists, Race Hustlers, and later Globalists, Neocons, and the like had their own dreams though. These led us to nothing more than a Peak in Stupidity and not even farther from this planet than a few tenths of a percent of the distance that those 99% white-male engineers and technicians sent 12 brave Americans a half-century ago from today, using, BTW, electronics that an old Nokia brick phone would put to shame.
There's a near full moon up tonight. Look at it for a bit and think of the dreams of those half-century ago united Americans of all walks of life. Imagine that thrill of knowing of those billions of man-hours (yes, MAN-hours) of engineering work and highly-technical construction coming to fruition that July morning in Florida, as Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins sat at the top of the 7 3/4 MILLION pound total thrust* Saturn V rocket.
Imagine how America and Americans could have changed the future for mankind, had we not been diverted off course by the thrusters of the ctrl-left, starting just before the time of that amazing mission 50 summers ago!
* Just to get an idea of the engineering:
A gas generator was used to drive a turbine which drove separate fuel and oxygen pumps, each feeding the thrust chamber assembly. The turbine was driven at 5,500 RPM, producing 55,000 brake horsepower (41 MW). The fuel pump delivered 15,471 US gallons (58,560 litres) of RP-1 per minute while the oxidizer pump delivered 24,811 US gal (93,920 l) of liquid oxygen per minute. Environmentally, the turbopump was required to withstand temperatures ranging from input gas at 1,500 °F (820 °C) to liquid oxygen at −300 °F (−184 °C). Structurally, fuel was used to lubricate and cool the turbine bearings.
Each second, a single F-1 burned 5,683 pounds (2,578 kg) of oxidizer and fuel: 3,945 lb (1,789 kg) of liquid oxygen and 1,738 lb (788 kg) of RP-1, generating 1,500,000 lbf (6.7 MN; 680 tf) of thrust. This equated to a flow rate of 671.4 US gal (2,542 l) per second; 413.5 US gal (1,565 l) of LOX and 257.9 US gal (976 l) of RP-1. During their two and a half minutes of operation, the five F-1s propelled the Saturn V vehicle to a height of 42 miles (222,000 ft; 68 km) and a speed of 6,164 mph (9,920 km/h). The combined flow rate of the five F-1s in the Saturn V was 3,357 US gal (12,710 l) per second,[4] or 28,415 lb (12,890 kg). Each F-1 engine had more thrust than three Space Shuttle Main Engines combined.Wiki on the Rocketdyne F-1 engines, of which there were 5 on the 1st stage (2 1/2 minute burn, up to ~ 40 miles altitude).
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More Intersectional Stupidity
Posted On: Tuesday - July 16th 2019 6:09PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Peak Stupidity Roadshow
There is no shortage of stupidity in the current era, so it's not like this site, the leader in stupidity documentation, is out of material. However, when the lead blogger - that's me - runs into some asshole on the road, posts will result! (No, it was not an actual "running into", thankfully, but it was just in the sense of "having an interaction with"). As I wrote before under the Peak Stupidity Roadshow topic key, formerly "Traffic Stupidity", one could document this stuff daily in a blog of one's own. I'm sure there are blogs about the stupidity that invokes road rage. It would even bring in the comments big time, each with its own story of some asshole on the road, with replies from other guys, many who have run into that same first commenter-asshole on the road with a story to tell!
Well, this is my blog, and when I get peeved off, Peak Stupidity readers can read about it ... or not. Here we go (and again, sorry for no diagram - it's just a matter of time, so please use your visualization skills).
This 4-lane busy street, the one I was on, has an intersection with another 4-lane street. At least the one I was on also has left-turn lanes with signal arrows up top along with the regular traffic signal lights. I needed to take a left onto the other road. The green arrow had turned off, but my direction still had a regular green light, so it was time to yield to traffic going straight from the other side (2 lanes, towards me, or for anyone taking a right).
An older-model full-sized pickup truck was in the inside of the 2 straight-ahead lanes coming toward me, but the truck was stopped approximately 50 ft. - 2 or 3 car lengths plus space - behind the actual intersection thick white markings, with nobody ahead of it. What do you figure, is he broke down (it was an older model but with no hazard lights on), or is the driver texting? I've helped people before on the road, but this was neither the time nor the spot. It was more likely that there was texting, emailing, news-browsing, or face-booking going on - heck, maybe he was on Peak Stupidity making a comment! Either way, I don't have time to wait for idiots doing business instead of driving on the road. It's called a road for a reason of some sort.
He had not moved for 5 seconds, and was far away. As I started to go ahead, I finally could see to the outside straight-ahead lane, and 2 cars were heading through at a pretty decent speed. I waited for them, but to get the view, I had already pulled to a spot in which I was blocking the non-moving inside straight lane. The cars having gone past, I made the turn. Now, the asshole in the truck finally decided to use the road to get somewhere versus as a "platform" for social media interaction. OK, fine, but then he leaned on the horn going toward me, as I cleared the area. That's the part that makes him a true asshole bound to be described on blog sites such as Peak Stupidity.
That just take a lot of damn gall. "I got stuff to do here." 10 seconds go by. "Oh, I can go through this intersection." "Hey, what's this guy doing turning without the right-of-way?!" "This is My Space ... wait, that's so oughts, I need to get on Facebook and write about this guy ... at the next stop light."
Yes, I flipped him off, which is something I try not to do often. Where I live, it's very rude to use the horn other than as a warning, or to say "hey". The more I think of rude imbeciles like this, the more I start to wonder if anything I care about saving, as far as the American nation goes, is really worth the effort. Yeah, I know that sounds grandiose and a bit much based on one asshole driver ... or two... or three. However, that it what it comes down to in general - do we live among a good bunch of people who have unfortunately not been paying enough attention to prevent this country's path toward Peak Stupidity? Or, is it more like - most Americans have become too stupid to be worth worrying about - save yourself and yours. That is to be the topic of a post that keeps coming toward the front burner, to be called "Citizens of a Silly Country".
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Congressditz Occasional-Kotex OWNED by ex-ICEman
Posted On: Saturday - July 13th 2019 7:24PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Immigration Stupidity Trump
OK, in that title, I picked up the new A.O.C. designation from a commenter on unz. I really like that one! I only used this "owned" term, though, because it is well known now. I don't like that one, cause I don't get it.
Peak Stupidity has mentioned this young Socialist Congressditz before as one of the "young turds" grouping of the Blue-squad in intense competition to outstupid each other as leader of said squad of The Party. However, believe it or not, I have never seen her on any video before, other than just going by the imitation of this cute, hilarious 8 year-old.
I have to say here then, she is very pretty, at least with her congressional make-up ensemble, in the video below. However, as this clueless broad tries to act like the normal bureaucratic actions* of the US Government in even trying to defend the southern border are criminal in some way, ex-ICE director Tom Homan rips her a proverbial new one. Because this late-twenty-something woman is cute, it's hard to hate her, but I'd rather just see her tend bar back in NY City, flirting with the clientele and probably showing a little cleavage. That's what she is made for, and those are probably the quick thoughts in her head as she is rendered thankfully speechless by Mr. Homan's common-sense logic at the end.
It's simple, and most Americans have already thought this, if they haven't verbalized it: If I get arrested for DUI, my family will get separated that night, and convicted for a burglary a whole lot longer than that. What do you expect when you break into a country? You know, if President Trump was a little quicker on his feet with the logic, such as the words out of Tom Homan, it'd sure be nice to see. I think less and less of the guy every day.
* No, we think it's better than giving up, but this bureaucracy-as-normal business will not cut it. We need a serious border barrier and guys tasked to shoot if necessary.
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Tucker on Immigrant Congressbulb Omar
Posted On: Saturday - July 13th 2019 7:00PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Pundits
They'll be just a couple of good short videos tonight. I hope you, the reader, do have a browser in which you can view our youtube embeds. On MS Internet Exploder, it's been a problem, and I know there is something I can do, as I've seen vids on other site work in that browser. I just don't know what this "it" is, that I need to do.
Though he is Peak Stupidity's number 1 TV pundit, I can't say I agree with the guy 100%. The video below is an example. I'll point out the 10%* that is a problem at the bottom. Still, it's great to see this on TV, well not "on TV" for me, but on youtube, knowing it was on TV. As a matter of fact, it sure was a bear to dig this video up, though I saw it directly on VDare** in their post Tucker Carlson On Ilhan Omar: "A Living Fire Alarm" On The Dangers Of Immigration. I can see that youtube has a hell of a bias in the search "engine" - maybe it needs new rings and lifters.
Without any more fanfare, beside "GO TUCKER!", here's a reaming of the ungrateful incandescent-headed Somalian member of the House of Representin':
If you're anything like me, you may rather read the transcript, and if I trust any website to get things correct, it'd be VDare. Usually, a transcript can be read 3 to 5 times faster than the time it takes to listen. However, it was great to see Tucker do it, though. Here:
TUCKER CARLSON: The Democratic candidates for President are on the road this week telling voters that the United States is an awful country. “America’s institutions are built on white supremacy,” squeaked Beto O’Rourke in an event yesterday.
Of all the lies these people tell — and there are many — this is the most absurd. In fact, the United States is the kindest, most open-minded place on the planet. The U.S. has done more for other people and received less in return than any nation in history by far.
Americans like to help. It makes us feel good. Some of our deepest satisfaction as a country comes from watching penniless immigrants arrive on our shores, buy into our values and thrive. We call it the American Dream and nothing makes us prouder.
It was in that spirit that in 1992, the United States welcomed 10-year-old Ilhan Omar and her family. Omar was born in Somalia, one of the world’s poorest countries. It was then ruled by a Marxist military dictatorship. When Omar was six, she and her parents and their six siblings fled a worsening civil war and wound up in a refugee camp in Kenya. They spent four years there until America offered the family asylum here and let them settle in Minneapolis.
Omar’s father drove a taxi at first then got a job at the Post Office working for the government. Omar, meanwhile, grew up free in the world’s richest country with all the bounty that that implies.
She became a citizen, then went to work for the State University. A few years later, she became a Member of Congress elected by voters who are proud to see an immigrant succeed.
Omar is now at the age of only 36, one of the most powerful women in America. It’s an amazing story really. Only in this country could it have happened.
Ilhan Omar has an awful lot to be grateful for, but she isn’t grateful. Not at all. After everything America has done for Omar and for her family, she hates this country more than ever.
In a recent piece in “The Washington Post,” the reporter put it this way, quote, “In Omar’s version, America isn’t the big hearted country that saved her from a brutal war and a bleak refugee camp. It wasn’t a meritocracy that helped her attend college or vaulted her into Congress. Instead, it was the country that had failed to live up to its founding ideals, a place that had disappointed her and so many immigrants, refugees and minorities like her,” end quote.
If anything, that’s an understatement. Omar isn’t disappointed in America, she is enraged by it. Virtually every public statement she makes accuses Americans of bigotry and racism.
“This is an immoral country,” she says. She has undisguised contempt for the United States and for its people. That should worry you and not just because Omar is now a sitting Member of Congress.
Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country. A system designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it. Some of the very people we try hardest to help have come to hate us passionately.
Maybe that’s our fault for asking too little of our immigrants. We aren’t self-confident enough to make them assimilate so they never feel fully American. Or maybe the problem is deeper than that. Maybe we’re importing people from places whose values are simply in antithetical to ours. Who knows what the problem is, but there is a problem and whatever the cause, this cannot continue. It’s not sustainable.
No country can import large numbers of people who hate it and expect to survive. The Romans were the last to try that with predictable results.
So be grateful for Ilhan Omar, annoying as she is. She’s a living fire alarm, a warning to the rest of us we better change our immigration system immediately. Or else.
Here are a couple of problems with Tucker's words:
1) " In fact, the United States is the kindest, most open-minded place on the planet. " A country can't be kind. Does he mean the people? This sappy stuff is 5%*
2) More importantly: " A system [immigration] designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it." I hope Tucker put this just put in to keep himself on the air. No, over the last half-century, and probably America's entire history, it was a system to provide cheaper labor. There's another 5%*
* Sure, these percentage numbers are just pulled out of my ass - what of it? ;-}
** For the HTML-aware, I do know how to "view source" and get the url, but this was on a small piece of electronics, and I sure don't on this thing.
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My Introduction to the Lyin' Press
Posted On: Friday - July 12th 2019 8:57AM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Movies Media Stupidity
This was long ago in a country far, far away .. from what it is now. However, the Lyin' Press was in some ways not a whole lot different than it is now. This was before the internet, when newspapers were still read, and the 3 major networks were still seen as The News on the fairly-new cable TV. Ted Turner's Cable News Network had been around already for a while, but I sure hadn't heard of it.
At the university in which I was
It's from a pretty good movie called Shooter. The star is Mark Wahlberg there.*
This was a dorm, not a private apartment. In the latter case, I'd have a REAL PROBLEM with being told to leave. I imagine the university had some rules about this unique situation, but I wasn't the type to check that sort of thing. This was just to be a couple of hours anyway.
See, here's the thing: My friends and I had no complaint about that. We liked the speaker, who was a conservative stalwart, and yes, even at that age, I was a Conservative. Leaving the dorms wasn't the problem - we wanted to SEE the speech, preferably close up! Since we were to be kicked out of the rooms, we thought we'd bargain with some university bureaucrat to end up with some passes to get into the area to watch, maybe up near the front even. It was only fair.
Somehow, the LLP (Local Lyin' Press) got wind of this - this was not NYC or LA, mind you, so there wasn't much else important that day, apparently. It was the first and only time I'd was ever been interviewed on TV, as far as I can recall, and I can sure recall this one. We all start off kind of naive, don't we, and I figured I'd give the lady my quick statement to explain, and that might get the dean-of-what-have-you to get off his ass for a minute and help a poor group of conservative students out.
I was on TV!: "Well, we are being kicked out of the dorms during the speech,
(Look at the clock - hilarious!)
It's just a 30-odd year-old cartoon TV show, which, come to think of it, was not even quite on yet during the "episode" of this post, but yeah, the Lyin' Press was its evil self even that long ago. I'm glad I learned this fairly young though. Many of us don't. We'd all have been better taking Homer's advice at that point and finding a new life, under the sea!
* Sorry for the Arabic subtitles. a little worrisome, in fact! It's the scene I needed, and at least the "Shooter" talks to his dog in English. BTW, the character had talked about a 2,200 yard shot before this scene, but what he says here is "1,760's a mile ... a far piece ..." Even the one English number in the subtitle is wrong.
No, you wouldn't see the Dinty Moore stew can that well with the scope, whether it was 1 1/4 mile or 1 mile!
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Two greats from The Other Gerry
Posted On: Thursday - July 11th 2019 4:38PM MST
In Topics: Music Bible/Religion
Of course, any Peak Stupidity reader should know that Jerry with a "J" is Jerry Garcia of The Dead. We are big fans of this other Gerry, with a "G", also, the late Gerry Rafferty, featured on the site before here, here, and here. Gerry Rafferty arguably (argue in the comments!) has the smoothest male voice in pop music. In the studio, he was also known to add layers and layers of backing vocals, in his voice, on top, making a sublime sound.
Both of the songs here reference religion, the 1st as the theme, and the 2nd just in the one verse about the Knights of Columbus.
To make up for the slight disparagement of the Millennials in the last post and give equal time to disparagement of the Boomers, we note in the second of these two songs that, even in the late '70's the Boomer way of trashing all things traditional can be seen in the lyrics. Now, the lyrics don't make or break a great song anyway, as we have maintained since, like, forever. Still, the dissing of the Boy Scouts and the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic service club) are not really necessary in the story of the narrator's (Gerry, I guess) finding his way in life through the rock and roll. That's in the 2nd song, and the 1st one is purely anti-religious. I'm guessing Gerry Rafferty was a lapsed Catholic.
Here is Benediction from Stealer's Wheel, one of Mr. Rafferty's bands, in which he shared vocals with Joe Egan. It's from their 1975 album Right or Wrong:
This next one is from the excellent Snakes and Ladders album from 1980 after Mr. Rafferty had made the big-time with the single Baker Street off of City to City. It's I Was a Boy Scout:
Notice the artwork on the cover of both of these albums by John Patrick Byrne, Gerry's artist friend, to whom Gerry dedicated the song Patrick.
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