"Here's Uncle
Posted On: Friday - June 21st 2019 4:45PM MST
In Topics: Commies Elections '16 - '24 Environmental Stupidity Socialism/Communism
(The title is in reference to an old, old TV show, Petticoat Junction, before my time, but the intro song is now stuck in my head for the evening.)
Zerohedge's "Tyler Durden" posted a comparison last week of Blue-Squad Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' platform to the 1936 Constitution of old "Uncle Joe"* Stalin. It's more of an accusation of direct plagiarism actually, as described by Mark Levin in the video below. It'd really not be any better, actually, if Bernie Sanders is no Joe Biden and hadn't plagiarized anything, and had just thought of this all by himself.
* The right to a decent job that pays a living wage.
* The right to quality health care.
* The right to a complete education.
* The right to affordable housing.
* The right to a clean environment.
* The right to a secure retirement.
Uhh, you really ought to come up with different terminology than "Bills of Rights" for all this stuff, all you politicians, as our Founding Fathers' version was created to LIMIT government, not to expand it. No, nothing in there about American citizens rights to not have to pay for all this by giving up years of their lives' labor in taxes ... musta missed it. Are we going to just skip the ratification process on this stuff? That seems to be the trend.
The Zerohedge post lays out Articles 118 through 122 from that old Soviet Constitution, yes that old Beacon of Freedom, that directly match 5 out of 6 of Uncle Bernie's proposed rights. It's missing the clean environment bit. I don't think that it was in the forefront of the USSR Commies' minds back in 1936 or really anytime in that hellholes 70 year history. If all the rest of the "rights" were really implemented, than it'd be the same here after the economy goes down the toilet - poor people can't afford to worry about the trees ... and the bees, and the whales ... and those snails... Ask a 1960's Chinaman, and then a 2010's Chinaman about this.
Bernie Sanders would get some credit here for his stance on immigration, were he to have kept it. I don't see any integrity out of him, though, besides his unwavering support of Socialist stupidity. I suppose if America does head that way, more and faster toward Communism, per Uncle Bernie's platform, the immigration invasion WOULD stop cold after a while. Just as in the former USSR, nobody but nutcases will want to immigrate. We'll still need that wall though - to KEEP PEOPLE IN! Don't blow that $5 Billion yet.
As you know, Peak Stupidity is not a "consumer" of TV, but this Fox News clip is here for the reader's reference:
* He was affectionately known as "Uncle Joe" by our very own Socialist/proto-Commie Franklin Roosevelt. Granted, that was not because of the Communism itself, but due to Joe Stalin, of course, being OUR Commie, helping defeat the Nazis from the east. It may have been wise to have made a deal with the Fuhrer, and let the two fight it out, or later, just listened to General Patton.
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Posted On: Friday - June 21st 2019 10:47AM MST
In Topics: Humor Salesmen Scams
(I loved this guy's cartoons, but "salespersons? Really?
This PC bit was with us back 3 decades ago!)
Just some Steve Sailer Southern California nostalgia, "The 1970's Called", here to follow up on Peak Stupidity's Jonestown retrospective (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and story of Congressman Leo Ryan), was some memories of both "pyramid power" new age nonsense and "pyramid schemes", sales nonsense. Unfortunately the latter survives to this day, dubbed now as Multi-Level Marketing. These annoying schemes and the bullshitters that promote them give the average salesman, not a favorite of Peak Stupidity to begin with, a bad name.
Why Peak Stupidity is so down on Salesmen is the subject of this post. (Note that not all the topic keys are groupings of posts on subjects we rail against. Some are subjects we like, such as The Dead.)
It was an example of one particular comment on the old Steve Sailer iSteve site*, under a 10 year-old post of his he linked to, The Great California Pyramid Scheme Mania of May 1980, that got me thinking about these salesmen.
Almost all of the well-written comments showed an understanding of the stupidity of these pyramid schemes, at least for those who didn't start them, along with great personal stories and some discussion on how these scammers talk or write to rope people in. Still, at the tail end of 40 comments, 6 years after the thread mind you, ( minus 2 other late ones a few years later), comes this comment from, well, one of these salesmen, making a sales pitch. Yes, I LOLed, in fact. His pitch here, though writing to a database with 6-year-old blog-comment data, is that, hey, "I felt the same way", but with "MLM", it's different this time ... with my way, if you get a "full Matrix", whatever the hell that is!:
D Smith said...D. Smith uses the "MLM" term 5 times without ever saying that it stands for Multi-Level Marketing. I got it after about 5 seconds, but that's after just reading the Steve Sailer post with comments. I suppose D. Smith is reckoning he'll tell customers what it stands for AFTER they get into a Matrix.
I was in So. Cal. during the pyramid time frame and saw that it fizzled out when there were no new people to invest in it. It was on all the news channels and was quite a spectacle.
I can identify with previous posts on MLM because I felt the same way.
Since it is apparently a legal form of business has anyone spent any time at all on developing a MLM business plan that would actually be a benefit to people?
I think the majority of people think that the last people to join a MLM would be left holding the bag, so to speak.
What if the last people to join would be in profit?
How would that be possible you might ask? [ uhhh-oh, here we go ... ]
With the schedule C 1040 Tax Form claiming home based business write offs.
How much would it cost to participate? $60 or less per month.
How much could you make per month residual? $29,523 with a full Matrix.
Compensation plan would be a 3 X 9 Forced Matrix with spillover and compression to infinity.
Don't know what that is? Well, I guess you might have to spend a little time to figure it out for yourself. That is if you want to make some money in MLM.
It seems that if even MLM was a good thing it would still be outside most peoples comfort zone to even consider stepping outside group think.
If I am right, who do you want to here it from me or your friends?
Talk with whoever who does your taxes and get their advice on the subject.
It takes a thick skin to be a salesman, and trying to hook people on a pyramid scheme at the bottom of a thread that takes a retrospective laugh at those very schemes is bold. Well, it'd have been bolder if he'd caught up with that thread the same day, the same week, maybe? It also takes stubborn persistence, and D. Smith is nothing if not persistent. (I wonder if he'd reply within the hour, if I wrote a comment now, 4 more years later, or do they have the internet in white-collar prison?)
Before I finish here, I want to point out that there are plenty of exceptions of salesmen that don't deserve any disdain. There are engineering sales types who have products or services to sell in which the technical details matter, and the persistence on their part is simply to get the ear of the customer, not to bullshit him. Let's say his company's roller bearings have been engineered to last twice as many cycles as the competing product, and he has test data to show it. Maybe, this other guy's wiring harness company has a new interactive website in which one can specify lengths, conductor sizes, connector types and even colors for quantities as low as one-offs and get them back within a week.
In these cases, the persistence can be really important just to have a chance to get this information to somebody in this world in which Big-Biz dominates all the mass-media. (Hey, that's what internet ads are about, though, to circumvent all that and advertise more directly, but it's been overkill and many like me never even see them.) "Keep at it", as they say, but the "never give up" part, that's another story. "Yeah, you like minor league baseball, so do we! We'll see you at the game. I'll come see you during the 7th inning stretch and buy y'all some hot dogs - just give me 5 minutes.", whatever you've got to do.
However, this kind of salesman is still a technical guy with integrity at heart, so if the counter-argument is (in the former case) "Dude, you don't get it. We WANT our bearings in these cheap Sears China-made exercise bikes to fail!", or (in the latter case) "No, see we buy thousands of the same harnesses at a time. You've got that great site, but it costed money, and we'd rather save $10 apiece. Sorry.", well, he's right. He's right, and you leave him the hell alone after that. You give up. That's integrity as opposed to BS.
Back to the BS, what gets me is not the persistence itself, as that is usually a good quality in people. No, it's that the persistence is often based on this saleman's KNOWING that I don't need, even DO NOT WANT his product or service. His plan is to be persistent to sell it anyway. There's no integrity there. It's not always even that I don't want it, but I want to think about it and make a decision with some facts. What does it say about you as a salesmen when you keep trying to sell me windows without ever giving me any price estimate, no matter how many times I ask for it? It says you are assuming I'm stupid - that's what it says. I don't like that assumption, so don't wonder why I won't let you in the house next time.
Now, there you see Peak Stupidity's problem with (most) salesmen. It'd be a good change if our society would produce more of the engineering/technical types and fewer of the bullshitters.
Michael Scott, Branch Manager of the Scranton office of Dunder-Mifflin Paper, shows you that it's pretty easy to get roped into one of these pyramid schemes, even as a salesman one's self:
(Of all the great scenes with Michael Scott (Steve Carell), this may be tops, and I couldn't find it on youtube until recently. "You know what, Toby, when the son of the deposed King of Nigeria emails you DIRECTLY, asking for help, you help! His father ran the freakin' country, OK?!")
* BTW, it struck me also that the almost even-decade-ago post has writing just as good as Mr. Sailer's current writing, and also the commenters are just as good. None of the names match the current ones, so I assume it's a different set of them in general. (Some may have switched handles during the changeover to the unz blog or for other reasons, but I'd think people this bright and literate would want to hang on to their handles.)
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Vintage Photo - signing of the Damnation of America
Posted On: Wednesday - June 19th 2019 8:07PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity
(One could not put as simple a picture and date up for the other cause of America's ruination, the Welfare State. It was more of a boiling frog deal...)
The picture above happened to be on top of a VDare post today with a reader's letter. (The letters are usually pretty good.)
Peak Stupidity needs a disclaimer first, to explain why that picture was the beginning of the end. As I wrote near the top of the Nov. '17 post Immigration invasion, assimilation, and refugees, some of my best friend have been, and still are, immigrants. That there is not a joke. It's just that all of them had been the kinds of people to want to become Americans, and really had not much choice in the matter, as it was an earlier time, with lower numbers. Assimilation does not happen with large numbers.
Just look at that beautiful day in New York harbor, with that stupid bastard Johnson, and then Ted Kennedy looking on like an idiot. Was that another Kennedy to his left that had not yet done something stupid and killed himself yet? Then, who were the men there behind it all. Did they really know what they were doing? Evil or stupid, the end is the same.
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Revisiting the Higi Station, now with new disapproved software!
Posted On: Wednesday - June 19th 2019 7:29PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity Orwellian Stupidity Healthcare Stupidity iEspionage
(pretty much a continuation of this post)
We do know, here at Peak Stupidity, that there IS more important stuff to write about than our personal pet peeves. There are, in fact, 10-12 posts to be written, simmering on the back burner, emitting who knows how much carbon into the ionosphere. Though it was, after all, the subject of the very first post of this blog, these little peeves are not the point of it all. However, we figure the readers may still enjoy the curmudgeonry posts, even those not about particularly existential problems.
In other words, I don't HAVE to use the stupid-ass "Higi Station" blood pressure
It's been 4 days under 2 years since I wrote that previous post on this Orwellian machine, seen again here:
The update I have for the Higi Station today is about a change in the software. Now, I wouldn't give a rat's ass what software changes are made that work behind the scenes, but now there are new menus and new pieces of data to be intentionally-erroneously entered. (Fake or not, it still slows down the process.) I was even getting used to the little digital-presented-as-analog gauges that would shoot up from the left and settle down on the BP readings - there was a kind of suspense involved.
Oh, man, as railed on before here in Software as a Tool, here comes another case of having to learn new stuff just to do the same job as before. There is now a survey. Though one can skip each question, that still takes a "button" push on the touch screen. Each "push" is another trial, as touchscreens are notoriously not reliable, for me, at least. I'd had to wet my finger with spit to get it to work, and I really don't think this spreading of germs this way is what you really want in a piece of
I got through that, and things became familiar, though still with different displays. Again, this type of re-learning process just slows things down and raises the blood pressure (so all initial uses of this machine will have a 10 mm-Hg handicap for me). I found the same functions available, such as averaging of my readings and all that other Big Brother data storing crap that I take no part in.
After all that, roughly 15 screen clicks at minimum, there are no cool gauges anymore. Oh, well, what do you want for the price of your privacy... OK, for me, FOR FREE. This is how the company sees it:
"self-service" - yes, we're all used to that.
"engage consumers" - I guess that's just a typo. "Enrage comsumers" is probably what they meant, but WHY?
"improve their health" - Actually, it's none of their business. I understand the simple concept of a free BP reading being a way to bring business into the store. It's way beyond that now though.
"customer loyalty" - to the old 2-button machines. Good going, marketing team.
Speaking of marketing teams and data collection, I'd really rather be able to skip all data entry with these things, but you can't get out of some of it. I make it all up, as I've written (more on the store loyalty cards). I'm not trying to screw up the studies, but these 110 year-old women with decent blood pressure and a solid BMIs (you can weigh yourself too) are probably gonna be outliers that will have to be thrown out. Sorry, guys, there was no MYOFB button.
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Political Correctness in weightlifting
Posted On: Tuesday - June 18th 2019 4:46PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Student and other Snowflakes Political Correctness
You'd figure weightlifting would be the last place political correctness would be able to rear its head, as 1) you can't fool people as you can either lift that weight or you can't - it's pretty hard to fake, and 2) guys that lift weights aren't very likely to be the kind to submit so easily to it.
I am no powerlifter, but I just have started some small-weight medium-rep workouts with barbells (only about 5 - 10 minutes worth after a different work-out). These are the barbells that I ran into last week, and the impetus for this post:
The brand (you can't make out in this image) is "Hammer Strength". Did you notice that all the barbells, no matter the weight, are of the same diameter? My immediate thought is that this is PC having come to the gym now. No, we don't want to show off that we are up to 25 lb. curls now, from our previous 12-oz. ones ;-} We don't want that one guy feel bad when we see him barely lifting 5 lb. up to his chest, so let's make them all the same diameter so one can't tell from a front view.
BTW, I saw the same weights again today, and this post might make more sense to the reader (who's seen the picture above) that the weight numbers on these one are much smaller than those seen in the picture - 3/4" high numbers at the most. The idea really seems to be to hide the amount of weight being HEAVED from others in the gym.
OK, to be technical, we can't use "diameter" to describe a "regular dodecagon" (a 12-sided polygon with all same side lengths and angles, for those of you in Del Boca Vista). Sure, the heavy ones must be thicker, unless one could change materials to keep densities linear with nominal weight, going on up to depleted uranium for those paleo-dieting huge guys.
I don't know - is there a reason other than the current-era "we are all winners!" thing? Shipping carton design is simpler. The weightlifter can get used to the same stroke length without busting himself in the lips, I guess. Maybe manufacturing is easier for the same shape in one dimension. That's all I got.
Is this really just another case of trying to be sensitive and not offending anyone? Is Hammer Strength worried about those snowflakes, in the gym? All in the name of a
PS: More annoyances at the gym appeared in this post (see blockquoted text near the bottom), and there another one coming regarding exercise machine physics calculations.
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[Updated, 06/22:] Added correction to the barbells as depicted in the picture - paragraph 4.
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Women of the Weather Channel
Posted On: Monday - June 17th 2019 8:59PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Global Climate Stupidity
I know, I know, you were expecting girly pictures. There may very well be bikini photos, or better, of the women of the weather channel somewhere on the internet, but this is all Peak Stupidity could come up with on short notice. Consider that I'm not even sure these ladies, or ANY ladies of the
Yes, the good old Weather Channel has morphed. Peak Stupidity mentioned this morphing of the TV channels nowadays in our post about the Myth Busters a couple of years ago, and I'll just excerpt that part of the post:
It seems like one should be able to watch the History channel to see shows about history, as WAS the case, what, 15 years ago or so? Yeah, they pretty much concentrated on WWII and the European theater only, so it was the "Nazi" channel to me (now we have youtube antifa videos for this!), but that's still historical. At this point, or last I checked, this "History" channel broadcast non-stop views of people getting ripped off, or ripping people off on some cheap oldAt the time of that post (Sept. '17), it may be that the Weather Channel had not yet morphed into something that doesn't have much to do with weather. Something needed to happen, though. Weather information is available not only on "apps" on your average phone, but often already part of the general set-up of the phone. There is really no call to turn on the TV just to see what will (is supposed to) happen tomorrow. Even if you are a real weather junky, all the dozens of different types of weather maps, with frontal systems, satellite cloud views, looping radar composite images, 500 millibar winds aloft, well you name it, are on websites of your choice.Cabana-wearcrap. I don't know what's that awful historical about these "pawn stars". You had your Learning channel for, I guess, learning; what is it now, nonstop Gilligan's Island, or is that another one? Oh, anyone remember MTV when it broadcast Music freakin' Videos. That ended about in the early 1990's. The American Movie Classic channel would show, let me guess, American Classic Movies, and this one was about the last one to morph.
I suppose that "Storm Stories" business was for the weather junkies, but after the channel lost their core audience that in 1985 or even 1995, regularly turned their channel on in the morning and/or late at night, stories of misery, woe, and the "perfect storm" were not "sustainable". The last I'd seen of the channel, the women weather ladies above had become nothing but weather scolds. "It's gonna be hot. Drink lots of water! Bring your water bottle with you." "Tomorrow evening will see a chance of rain, so DON'T FORGET YOUR UMBRELLA!"
Another pet peeve was that "feels like" bit, which, admittedly, is on the web sites often also. Today it will "feel like" 157 Fahrenheit, which is 70 Celsius. I get that humidity changes the body's heat-transfer rate (which is what we actually feel, not temperature) and that, in the winter the wind does the same in the opposite direction. I! GET! THAT! LADIES! No, just give me the temperature and the humidity and the wind. If I don't want the real feel in the winter, I'll get out of the wind. Please, just give me the raw numbers with no scolding, weather (oops) those numbers were obtained via rectal extraction or not.
The biggest turn-off of the Weather Channel, though, was its incessant promotion of the Global Climate DisruptionTM hoax. Cleavage alone is just not enough for me to put up with any of it....
.... for more than 5, 10 minutes tops.
OK, so it stands to reason that I should have expected this channel to have squat-all to do with weather by some point. It's obviously a lot of trouble and expense to change the channel name, and this one is, last I checked, all about airplane crashes. There are documentaries about specific airplane crashes each 1/2 hour, and, I'll tell you what, it's damned interesting stuff, people. Next time I get time to waste in front of a TV, I may consider watching the stories of 10 airplane crashes in a row. Now if these producers would only get really smart and find a way to fit the Women of the Weather Channel in bikinis. No, I mean hopefully they can already fit into the bikinis, but I mean into these shows.
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Marshall Crenshaw - She Can't Dance
Posted On: Saturday - June 15th 2019 9:34PM MST
In Topics: Music
We promised some more music from the geek rock genre in the Elvis Costello post this past Monday. Whether it's just his appearance (the Buddy Holly style glasses) or not, Marshall Crenshaw, from about the same time period as Elvis, is whom I had in mind.
This guy was a Buddy Holly fan, and I just learned a minute ago that he played Buddy Holly in the movie La Bamba - I'd watched it way back, but I had no idea about that - pretty cool. Additionally, before he had a hit or two (the biggest being Someday, Someway, from the same 1982 eponymous* album that She Can't Dance is from) Marshall Crenshaw played, and sang as, John Lennon in the live musical "Beatlemania" shows. I would have guessed John over Paul, too.
This is pretty obscure stuff, mind you, but it's a nice, cheery song with a bright guitar sound and voice. "She can't dance, she can't sing, but she's got to be a part of that pop music thing ..."
* means named after the artist.
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Citizenship in the Nation
Posted On: Saturday - June 15th 2019 5:49PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity China Liberty/Libertarianism
There was more that I'd intended to write about in that 2nd post on the 30-year-ago Tiananmen Square "democracy" movement. The post got long enough anyway, but I'd even put in the tag Immigration Stupidity already, based on what I was going to write (took it off that post now). Here it comes now then.
My contention was that there is no history of the Chinese people ever being into democracy, much less very limited government in their 5,000 history, contrary to the situation in American/British history. The optimistic young students and other "rebels" in Peking 30 years back may have chanted about democracy, but, other than a few who had been to the US and seen what existed in a still-early stage of unravelling Constitutional Republic, they don't know squat about it. It isn't "in them", so to speak.
That's all just fine, as hopefully enough Americans have learned by now that pushing for "democracy", whether in the Middle East, Africa, or China is not just a lost cause, but more importantly, IT'S NOT OUR JOB! ... not in a Constitutional Republic, it's not. Because of major economic reforms made over 40 years ago, after the Commie butcher Mao went off on his Long March to Hell, and the major help from the US, China is doing just fine, economically, at least. I think the Chinese having "good government" (an oxymoron as it is) is really not our problem, and we'd be better off working to have some of it over here.
The problem is, with our Immigration Stupidity mostly focused on the invasion from Latin America, we really need to think of the mindset of the people that are coming in huge numbers from other places too. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the good qualities of the millions (legal AND illegal*) Chinese who live here. They do work hard. They are responsible for hardly any street crime. The kids are non-disruptive in school and study like Mofos (not always a good fit, though).
Yet, those good studious kids are not necessarily the ones who will get those "Citizenship in the Community" and "Citizenship in the Nation" merit badges in the Boy Scouts though. (Sure, archery and wood carving are more fun anyway.) The Chinese work their asses off to take care of their family, often their friends, and sometimes their churches. They do not have it in them, as a whole, to care about the integrity of the legal system, the safety of the streets for ALL THE KIDS (not just their own crowd), saving the beauty of the national parks, and all those kinds of things. I know, there are some exceptions, and back 40 years ago, if it were one family living amongst regular white Americans they would have gotten assimilated to these values. It just doesn't work in the thousands to millions at a time. In general, THEY DO NOT HAVE IT IN THEM.
So, shouldn't we be kind of careful about importing another whole class of people who don't get it? They will not vote for your Barry Goldwaters or Ron Pauls of the current or any future era.
Harold Ramos teaches the American way to newly-minted "Americans":
*See also Another aspect to illegal immigration - Visa overstayers.
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Great (pundit) minds think alike
Posted On: Friday - June 14th 2019 1:21PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media History Trump Pundits Media Stupidity Dead/Ex- Presidents
when all three TV channels were a bummer ..."♪♫♬
This is another case of Peak Stupidity being beaten to the punch "by that much" by a fellow pundit, in this case Pat Buchanan. Perhaps it was the statement (1st line of Mr. Bucahan's column) “History is repeating itself, and with a vengeance, ..." out of John Dean to the Judiciary Committee - yes, THAT John Dean - which brought up a comparison of Nixon's Watergate to this on-going Russiangate (geeze, Pat!) involving President Trump. I did not see any of this new bit Pat writes about in "Russiagate Is No Watergate", but had just read something about this same-old-same-old John Dean in a blog comment.
No, I can't prove that I thought of this post 2 nights ago, but I'll just state here that I saved the pictures shown here yesterday morning. Nice job beating me out of the gate, Pat. We will dub this "punditgate" but no hard feelings are held toward one of Peak Stupidity's favorites - see here, here, and here, for starters.
Before I get to any discussion of President Nixon, let me state that there is no love lost between Peak Stupidity and that man. Between taking the country all the way off sound money, causing the ensuing decade of high inflation, implementing Affirmative Action, and picking unsound choices for the Supreme Court, he did his fair share in ruining America. What he did do, though, was bring American soldiers, sailors, and airmen back home from Vietnam. The left didn't seem to have any gratitude about that, perhaps because Nixon had tried to knock the Commies so hard that they wouldn't be able to turn the whole place Communist. He was prevented by the left from ending the war in that way, and the South Vietnamese people suffered the consequences for years.
Back to the subject now, Pat Buchanan starts off the comparison of the last few years media infotainment stupidity on "THE RUSSIANS!" to that more civil, and maybe slightly more honest time of almost 5 decades ago in Washington, (Pat is a little be stuck in that era himself), by bringing up the actual Watergate Hotel burglary itself. It HAS been a long time, so for younger readers, that term comes from the hotel in which some Nixon operative broke in to look at file, and maybe to take stuff out, or who knows, put stuff in. Yes, that's a crime. Contrary to Mr. Buchanan's view that this and the cover-up thereof, is what makes Watergate a bigger deal, we all know that this is petty crime compared to what goes on daily in Washington, F.S. It does not compare to the daily occurrences of bombing factories or sending cruise missiles into cities in the Middle East just to deflect attention or the daily abuses of the US Constitution done by Federal Agencies. Really, the only reason President Trump may be less guilty of this kind of thing than other Presidents over the last 3 decades is that most of his subordinates don't work FOR him anyway. They wouldn't do petty crime for him, as their agenda is being implemented no matter what Trump wants.
On the cover-up bit, if President Nixon hadn't covered up the shenanigans, the media of the day would have just come straight at him anyway. His paranoia was part of the problem, but, as Mr. Buchanan writes, he did have the media against him more than is possible in this day of tweets, youtube, and 1000 channels of TV.
And the balance of power today in D.C. is not as lopsided as it was in 1973-1974.I have no disagreement - I just meant to write this first! Pat Buchanan has been around politics for more than half a century. As for me, I was too young to appreciate (as if anybody did) those Watergate hearings that went on seemingly all summer, every summer, on the black & white TV (would it have been better in color? Nah!). During this latest Russia-collusion business, with the exception of a time or two, I have made no effort to follow this infotainment. I don't know the players involved, I don't care, and I just wish President Trump would hire a trusted lawyer or two to handle it, and pick up my attitude.
During Watergate, Nixon had little support in a city where the elites, the press, the Democratic Congress and the liberal bureaucracy labored in earnest to destroy him. Nixon had few of what Pat Moynihan called “second and third echelons of advocacy.”
Contrast this with Trump, a massive presence on social media, whose tweets, daily interactions with the national press and rallies keep his enemies constantly responding to his attacks rather than making their case.
Trump interrupts their storytelling. And behind Trump is a host of defenders at Fox News and some of the top radio talk show hosts in America.
There are pro-Trump websites that did not exist in Nixon’s time, home to populist and conservative columnists and commentators full of fight.
Leftists may still dominate mainstream media. But their unconcealed hatred of Trump and the one-sided character of their coverage has cost them much of the credibility they had half a century ago.
With that caveat, let me make my observations now. It's not that Nixon's petty crime was proven, compared to the 3-year-long unsuccessful witch hunt against Trump, that caused his downfall. It was minor stuff, the kind Ronald Reagan brushed off in a year or so. It was that full control of the narrative by a vindictive Lyin' Press that beat on Nixon so hard. This was their heyday, this time of all-day-long hear hearings on the only 3 channels of entertainment people could watch. The ctrl-left is frustrated by their tireless efforts to reproduce another "Watergate", their way of getting around the Presidential election process, after trying all the others.
It worked for their granddads and those revered Woodward & Bernstein guys. Why shouldn't it work now? "We are letting them down. It worked for them in the '70's. We use the same chants. We've got our people in place in the bureaucracy. We dragged out John Dean, no worse for the wear and tear, out of the nursing home, for cryin' out loud. This should work, dammit!"
Well, I'm here to tell you, that it IS working. They don't need to impeach anybody. There's just this guy who's very easily distracted, and distracting the President may not feel as good to you ctrl-lefties as seeing him wave goodbye with a tear in his eye from Marine One, but it's got the same effect. Nothing will get done. For Nixon, that was pretty much an OK thing anyway. For the man we knew of as Candidate Trump, it's very bad.
If nothing else, after the 2nd round of this take-down-the-President crap, could we at least get rid of this "-gate" terminology? (Pat Buchanan, you're no help whatsoever here.) You had your "Watergate", OK, named after the site of the break-in, then for cutesies and lack of originality there was (OK, could have been) Charles Manson&Sharon Tate-Gate, your Contra-Gate (literally "against the gate"), and your ClimateGate. After a dozen more hoaxes or so like that of Jussie Smollett and the Oberlin College Bakery Deal*, we'll likely hear of Climate-of-Hate-Gate. We could really use a Two-Day-Late-Airborne-Freight-in-a-Broken-Crate-Gate. (Dr. Seuss, you were born too early.) Heck, Peak Stupidity, after those few semi-inadvertent inclusions of skimpily-clad girls on blog posts (here, here, and here), may be responsible for Masturbate-Gate.
Peak Stupidity would be a good time in which to put the kibosh on this worn-out non-descriptive term ... end it, Checkmate-Gate.
* We won that one - here's more.
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Tiananmen Square and the American Press
Posted On: Thursday - June 13th 2019 10:58AM MST
In Topics: History China Media Stupidity
Since our 1st post on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square movement, I've read a little bit of revisionism, pointed out by Ron Unz on his site, referring to an article from a decade after the protests and violence. This post is just a quick comment on that.
One Jay Mathews calls the whole thing a myth, but pretty much all he had to say was that the violence wasn't all in the square, most shootings by the Chinese army were in different locations, and that more rebellious workers were shot than students. Okay, fine. I do remember that the local workers supported the students, and the Chinese big wigs would have been much more worried about the movement going countrywide at that level. There were, and still are, a cool BILLION Chinese workers, but you can always kick a few 10's of thousands of students out of school - for good. Now, that I've read it, I see that Mr. Mathews' article name, "The Myth of Tiananmen", is itself a load of misdirection!
Keep in mind, CNN had not gotten all it's Lyin' Press mojo up yet by 1989 and all those reporters wanted to film, film, film... live footage of shit happening in China. Mr. Mathews, during the Clinton administration, was part of the pro-China slant that is nothing but the extension of their century-long pro-Communism slant.
Through the smoke and confusion at the time, and from 30 years of confusioning of the story by various parties with different agendas, I can't say I know the whole story, but I get the gist of it.
Anyway, one would have to BE in China and speak to lots of people who were there (not necessarily in Peking, as the movement was widespread) to get the details. 30 years later, even in China, you'd have to weigh the stories carefully. This is all nothing new - my Dad told me, well it was many years ago, "Believe half of what you read and one quarter of what you hear."
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Freedom in China, Tiananmen Square, and Freedom in America
Posted On: Thursday - June 13th 2019 10:42AM MST
In Topics: Commies History China Liberty/Libertarianism
(continued from this post)
Peak Stupidity does tend to have long introductions to posts, and as an example, what I wanted to write here didn't make it into the last post on China and the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 30 years back. Here we go then.
No, their one didn't come with a poem on it about "huddled masses" or some crap, either.
As I wrote, the big protest movement in China that started May 4th of 1989 could have been like any number of likely hundreds that any big country with a 5,000 year history should expect. That it was made into a demand for more "democracy" was probably just a good meme for these Chinamen, as throughout a lot of their long, often isolated, history, there either was no such thing in the world or they were in no position to have heard about it. In the midst of the Mao-created craziness in the 1950's through 1970's information about the outside was not easy to obtain. In 1989 however, there had already been a decade since Chairman Mao died, and, more importantly, Chinese people from the mainland were starting to get around. Personally, I'd seen the first Chinese visitors to the University in the early 1980's and by right at 1989 I have memories of more students from the Chinese mainland. Before that, even in NY City Chinatown, the Chinese people you'd run into were from Hong Kong, or otherwise Taiwan, then the Republic Of China (written on the back of our small toys).
Therefore, I maintain that the Chinese people had gotten some solid info. from those who'd spent time in America, back when it was a whole lot closer to a free country than it is, spit ... now. (What a shameful difference 30 years has made!) We WERE something of a beacon of freedom and liberty still, and I could see the Chinese students back in Peking and other universities getting their hopes very high after their movement had been building nicely. As I wrote in the previous post, it got the ex-Cold Warrior American's hopes up too.
In that picture up top, one can see that Lady Liberty symbol, as the meme of "democracy, democracy!" became somewhat of a demand, rather than just the usual cries for an end to the endemic corruption in a central government. Now, that's a lost cause, as, well, it's endemic. It is a never-ending thing, and you may stop one certain corrupt practice in this branch here, but, if you're going to have a central government with a lot of power, than you will have those abusing it. So, sure, overhaul the whole thing, and set yourself up with a Constitutional Republic, like that of that amazing place a colleague of your Professor visited for a year-long stint studying material science. That doesn't fly too well with The Party though, hence the crackdown.
No matter what the words out of 10's of thousands of Chinese student's mouths, and what their large-character posters said, in June of 1989, I don't think these people really understood what it would take to have anything resembling the America of 1989, much less 1959. The problem is that, in that 5,000 year history that they are so proud of, the Chinese have NO (ZERO) history of running governments in democratic, much less republican or libertarian fashion. It is just not in them.
There have always been literate, intelligent "Mandarins" and "Cadres", lots of them honest, perhaps, during the many dynasties over the millennia in the Middle Kingdom. That the smarter Chinese guys were in the government is something the Chinese are proud of. As I pointed out in some post I cannot find right now, here in America, in general, it's been the stupid people that end up in the government. Maybe that is, and maybe it's not, something to be proud of, but here's the point: smart or stupid, what you need is government employees that CAN'T DO MUCH ... TO YOU! To have that situation, the central government especially must be very small. As the protesters in Tiananmen Square chanted about "democracy", the example they looked up to was forgetting the same things that these Chinamen and their ancestors never knew.
Ancestors of most American, at least before the latest, and maybe also the century-back great immigration waves, came from a long history of steady curtailment of government power. The Magna Carta was signed 814 years back in Great Britain. It's not been 5,000 years but damn near a millennium. If not having any ancestors from Mother England, at least one could be descended from a few generations of assimilated Americans that were steeped in the ideas of small-government liberty in civic institutions and the schools of yesteryear.
That seems to be the case no longer, as the number of un-assimilated foreigners climbs to record levels. The situation here can't be blamed solely on immigration either. Per the political orientation graphs displayed by blogger Audacious Epigone a few days back, we've got more people who see themselves as liberal (in the modern sense) than can be explained by immigration, as, in fact, a higher percentage of the Blue-Squad seeing themselves as such are white vs. other, and immigration is almost entirely non-white.
No, the Chinese were never in a position, pretty much genetically, I'd say, to turn their country into a real democracy, much less a Constitutional Republic, even with America to emulate 30 years back. Nowadays, China is so mighty economically, and their people as arrogant as always, that they don't want to emulate us anyway. It's just as well. Really, at this point, nobody has anybody to emulate. I'm starting to think that the wonderful limited government set-up that our Founders made for us is a once-in-history fluke.
Here's the future of America's "Democracy" Movement and OUR Lady Liberty:
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A microaggression ties the knitters in knots
Posted On: Tuesday - June 11th 2019 7:57PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor ctrl-left Peak Stupidity Roadshow
The SJW crowd is very easily offended these days. Are they knitpicking because they are really so sensitive, or are they shrewd and cunning and just pushing their agenda to ridiculous levels to probe our forbearance?
Hearing the stupid complaints about politically-incorrect language in the political world or at the universities is something we are used to at this point. Reading about a microaggression from someone in a knitting group is another thing entirely. Blogger Stacy McCain*, about 4 months back, tells us Knitting Bloggers in Meltdown Mode Over ‘Social Justice’, putting Peak Stupidity in stitches.
A lady big in the knitting world, one Mrs. Karen Templer, ran into a kink with some easily-offendables in that small world of theirs by simply writing on her knitting blog that she was excited about going to India. What? Does one have to vet every thing one writes or says anymore with the truth ministry somewhere downtown? Otherwise, I can't see how I'd see a problem like this coming. It only takes one guy thou... wait, what, a guy in the knitting group?! One Alex Klein, "accused Templer of expressing 'a colonial/imperialist mindset'.". Others piled on, backing up his strange yarn, as such is the world of Facebook and Twitter.
As is the usual cowardly way out of this type of nonsense, Mrs. Templer caved in with an apology. Next trip lady, just save a few bucks and don't offend anybody, OK, by going on that road trip to see that biggest ball of yarn in the world. I'm sure it's what you really wanted to do anyway.
* His blog, which I've always liked, is named "The Other McCain" due to it being around when that douchebag Globalist was still with us. I guess it's too late to rename it now.
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Freedom in China? On the Tiananmen Massacre 30 years ago.
Posted On: Tuesday - June 11th 2019 7:22PM MST
In Topics: Commies History China Liberty/Libertarianism
Peak Stupidity just CANNOT
There are revisionist Commies right on unz.com and I'm sure all around the web as they've been crawling out of the woodwork, who will tell us that this Chinese flowering of freedom protests, along with a subsequent serious crackdown. were just all made up. I really don't know why anyone thinks our Lyin' Press, even of the late 1980's ever had, or now has, an anti-China slant. Communism was promoted until the horrors and deprivation couldn't be hidden anymore. Americans sent corn to China even during the dark days of the Cold War in the 1960's as Mao was causing millions to starve. (OK, feed corn, but still...)
Late spring of 1989, when the democracy protests started up in China, was also during the heyday of not-quite-infotainment-yet CNN. Live photos of such an on-going political happening were such a new and cool thing 30 years back. I'm sure, sympathies aside, the ratings were well worth showing things that vindicated American Cold War winners. It was a hell of a time to be a Cold War winner too. The USSR had fallen, and most of the East Bloc had also, or was in that process. Yeah, Cuba was still in the midst of its ongoing "revolution", and there were a few problems down in Salvador and Peru. That was all kid stuff, though, compared to the biggies, the USSR (GONE!) and Red China. To think that billion-person Communist land could turn around in a virtual heartbeat of history as the USSR had, made us very hopeful about the goings on in Spring 1989. Change was coming, "Right Here, Right Now", at least right there on the color TV!
There had been a building movement since May 4th of the year. May 4th is famous day in exactly one century-old Chinese history, also missed by Peak Stupidity (but we lay no claim to be all-China 24/7). There had been a big student protest, unoriginally dubbed the "May 4th Movement" 70 years before our subject here, also in Tienanmen Square in Peking, Really the "Tienanmen Square" protests were a copycat in method, but not in demands.
The demands 30 years ago were more openness in government (yeah, right, under Communism, OK?!), and the usual. By some point, say, when the Lady Liberty statue was brought out, the students had gotten bold enough to talk about democracy and all that jazz, which couldn't have sat well with Chairman Deng. Deng must have felt they were a bunch of ungrateful Chinamen (AND Chinawomen) to be demanding anything, after he had help get the countries economy going on the first decade of an amazing rise, by allowing free markets in some industries in some areas.
The Chinese students went for it all, which was what gave Americans hope that this could be another fall of Communism (the biggest, population wise, though, in 1989, the USSR was by far the biggest, military-wise). It was not to be. The crackdown on the protesters had started, with arrests and shootings by troops, and later executions, well before the famous picture up top, with the gentleman blocking the tank. How many people were killed, arrested, and/or executed later I don't know exactly. There were reports at the time of thousands executed. This attempted peaceful movement was spread throughout China, not just in Peking. I found out years later of someone only known to me 2nd-hand had been kicked out of his university as a bright electrical engineering student and barred from further entrance to school, ending up as a TV repairman. Hey, it's not execution, by any means, but still repression at about the level we are coming to here in 2019 America.
I really meant for this post to go into China and ideas about freedom, but that'll be a 2nd part for tomorrow's blogging.
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What's so funny 'bout PEACE, LOVE, and UNDERSTANDING?
Posted On: Monday - June 10th 2019 8:28PM MST
In Topics: Music
Well, that depends on whether you are an 18 y/o college student during the time of the real Elvis, or a parent who should be wise enough to know what that all entails.
Yeah, this guy was the real Elvis for a short time in the history of rock music. What a goofy guy, but he sure wrote some good music. Peak Stupidity will feature him, and another even-less known figure from the not-very-often-touted genre of geek rock some more in the near future.
Elvis Costello and the Attractions:
As I walk through
this wicked world,
searchin' for light in the darkness
of insanity.
I ask myself
"is all hope lost?"
Is there only pain and hatred,
and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside,
there's one thing I want to know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
Ohhhh. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
(What's so funny bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding? was written by English musician Nick Lowe in 1974, but was covered by Elvis, and put in the American release of Elvis's 1978 album Armed Forces. (This Elvis is English too, BTW.)
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Here We Believe ...
Posted On: Monday - June 10th 2019 8:04PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Lefty MegaStupidity ctrl-left
... a whole lot of conflicting stupid BULLSHIT. Why? Because we want to show we are better people than you people without the sign:
Yeah, these blogs posts come out of the strangest places and times. As we visited relatives recently, I noticed the sign above on the very small yard (so highly visible) of the very next-door neighbor of our relatives. I wrote "very" specifically because these are townhouses so we're talking 20 ft away from our location. The sign reminds me of one of the two signs in Peak Stupidity's long-ago post on the Unitarians, Unitarian Stupidity - it's how they roll at the UU.. I'm guessing the Unitarians nearby have gotten their own well before this neighbor to get ahead in the game.
The game is called "virtue signalling". I believe the term was coined by John Derbyshire of VDare (articles here) and Unz.com (articles here). Hey, that's as accurate a term as any of what people with these signs boldly displayed are all about. However, I'd really be up for a less polite, civil term and something much more disparaging. Is that just because I am one of those hateful meanies that won't understand the love and wisdom in this sign?
No, I'm getting really pissed about this stuff now. Let me describe the mentality of these people to you. It's not just simple stupidity. That can be forgiven. No, the sign is out there to tell me without the sign that I do not understand these simple concepts of LOVE, PEACE, and UNDERSTANDING! I am the stupid one, per the sign-wavers, because they are so DAMN ARROGANT, that they can not see that maybe they don't have the whole picture of what's going on in the country. Their assumption is that they can't be wrong, and I am both stupid and hateful for not getting it, even after reading these signs.
The stupidity comes in simply in the obvious contradictions written in those rainbow colors. The first and most glaring one is the "No Human is Illegal" juxtaposed with "Water is Life" (come to think of it, the sign I saw had some more treehugging phrases than the one above*). Let me get this straight: You understand that clean water is important, yet you don't think that there should be ANY limit on how many people live in America. This disregard for population growth, caused SOLELY BY IMMIGRATION, for the last 3-4 decades, which is a basic factor in EVERY SINGLE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM THAT EXISTS, is to be ignored. Nah, there must be other things we can do to mitigate the effect of 3 X the number of Americans on the same land in, in 100 years. How about we recycle more cardboard? Yes, toward Sustainable Stupidity! Oh, but VDare, and others, have found the reason the biggest of the environmental groups, the Sierra Club, has decided change their 1st rule of membership to "YOU! DO! NOT! TALK! ABOUT! IMMIGRATION!" One guy didn't want them to, and he donates a lot of money**. These are not treehuggers, they are tree-whores.
I could give 2 or 3 more contradictions inherent in just this one version of the plethora of products from the virtue-signaling yard-sign industry. It would just take too long for one post. This brings up the fact that it would take too long to explain to these people also. They are so simple-minded, yet think their minds are wide-open.
The next day, I noticed something that could have been a scene in a movie. As I walked out to the car, I noticed that, beyond the sign, the neighbor house had a young girl sitting eating in the kitchen. I mentioned that these are townhouses, and because they are symmetric, that kitchen abutted the firewall of our relatives' place, with it's kitchen on the other side. Our boy of likely the same age +/- a year, was in our place on the other side of the wall. On the one side there is the little boy getting taught to seek truth by his parents, and, unbeknown anyone but me (or the movie viewer) was a little girl getting taught bullshit by virtue-signalling ctrl-left batshit-crazy parents.
Fade-out to 10 years later, and pan between (Look, I'm not Francis Ford Coppola, OK!) two scenes of the same girl and boy walking across their college campuses, the purple-haired, multiply-tattooed Wymyn's Studies major going out to a political rally against white people, and the solid-A Mechanical Engineering student who is so into his interesting work that he just doesn't want to be bothered by politics, respectively. Oh, wait, that's a lot of suspension of disbelief there. I don't believe we'll even have a country by then.
* Yeah, Peak Stupidity has a file photo up top. OK, it's simply a photo downloaded after a quick image search on bing (bing seems to be best with images). It's a matter of both convenience and, occasionally, anonymity, that we use those photos 95% of the time over our own camera photos.
In this case, I WAS very tempted to take a picture with the phone and download it. I really would have enjoyed this very likely (since the sign was right outside the window) exchange with the neighbor:
"Hey, like our sign?!"
"It's just for my blog."
"Oh, interesting... what blog?"
"Peak Stupidity."
(Listen, they are not MY neighbors, so I don't have to be the one wondering if they'll then call the city on me for not sweeping my walk.)
** See More on the destruction of California.
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The Brain-Fart of a Heel
Posted On: Friday - June 7th 2019 8:11PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Books
That's what this guy is to me now, just a "heel". Per the Oxford Dictionary on-line, definition 4:
Heel: (dated, informal) An inconsiderate or untrustworthy person.OK, that definition is dated, Donald Trump is dated at this point, and this whole immigration issue with Trump's half-assed on/off "solutions" smells like it's way beyond its sell-date. My recollection of old-movie talk is that a "heel" is a sucker.
The latest deal that got many of us immigration patriots hopes back up was President Trump's Mexican tariff-ratcheting idea. It's a great idea that, of course, should have been done > 2 years and a couple of million immigrants ago. Tariff were an early American tradition and the main source of income to run the US Federal Gov't on up until the extremely stupid idea of the income tax. Ratcheting them up on the Mexicans according to their efforts to seriously stop the southern immigration invasion is a great way to do it. While we wait for some action, we'd make taxes on the good from down there, and if that went on long, it may bring some manufacturing back, even if just a little.
It's a great deal for us, that has already gotten the Mexicans talking about doing something serious, which is good feedback on how good a deal this is.
What's the latest? As usual, Trump has already rescinded the tariffs, citing some agreement with the Mexican top-hombres. This is getting ridiculous. THATS! NOT! HOW! YOU! RUN! THIS! DEAL! I am as far from a salesman type of personality as one can get, but damn if I do know that you don't back off on this type of deal before you see serious action taken by the opposing side. A piece of paper being signed is NOT action. People lie. Sorry, President Trump, but don't expect royalties from me (it'd have been library bond money anyway) from your book.
Here's the nice-sounding words out of Trumps Tweeter:
I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended. Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border. This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States. Details of the agreement will be released shortly by the State Department. Thank you!Yeah, sounds great... "strong measures", whatever. Talk is cheap.
This is supposed to give me lots of hope that this existential problem has been SOLVED, but nothing's going to change*. The stupidity of this man is boundless, but I'd figure, though not principled, not understanding of history, and not good at hiring (maybe only firing, on TV), at least Donald Trump was good at making deals. This is the only deal I see:
Donald Trump = Charlie Brown
AND
AMLO = Lucille
****************************************************
I really had high hopes for President Trump 2 1/2 years back. On this particular issue, the expert on Mexican politics, Allan Wall of VDare**, paints the Mexican Presidente, AMLO as a fairly reasonable guy who limits his macho rhetoric on this topic. It’s a shame we have to put our hopes in the Mexican President rather than our dufus. #STUPID!
* Mark my words here, I'd love to be proven wrong. If that happens, I'll write a special serious apology post, and in 1070-odd posts, Peak Stupidity has only apologized ONCE so far, and that one was pretty half-assed.
** Mr. Wall's latest article on this tariff-pressure deal, written before Trump ended the deal, was Is the Trump Tariff Threat Accomplishing Something? Maybe. Better Keep Up the Pressure!. Note that "Better Keep Up the Pressure!" bit.
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More on Red Flag laws from America's First Freedom
Posted On: Thursday - June 6th 2019 8:08PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism Orwellian Stupidity
Here is more on the Orwellian anti-gun, anti-Constitutional "Red Flag" laws from the NRA magazine, as Peak Stupidity discussed this past Saturday. The excerpts here are from the 2nd article, by a pro-2nd Amendment lawyer from Arizona named Dave Hardy, and it deals specifically with new laws passed in Colorado (signed by the Democrat Governor there).
A very important point in all Constitutional matters is that the most basic jurisdiction, the COUNTY, with its ELECTED sheriff is the final authority on the law. (OK, he's supposed to be. In the lefty wonderlands in the cities, some Senator says "blow me", and the mayor says "how long?") I used to read the Constitution/Libertarian sites, and you learn some of this stuff.
Well, the sheriffs in most of the counties in the state of Colorado are not ready to enforce these Orwellian laws as described in the article thusly:
Colorado’s latest experiment came in April, when Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed into law Colorado’s version of a “red flag” law. The new law allows petitions to be filed by any relative of a gun owner, as well as by anyone who has resided with him or her during the past six months (in other words, any vengeful ex-spouse or romantic partner). The petition must allege that the person who is its target: 1) owns guns; and 2) poses a “significant risk of causing personal injury to self or others.”Yeah, this law has been passed, which shows you a) how little regard most politicians have for the US Constitution and b) how the violation of one Amendment in the Bill of Rights can impact the ability to uphold the other ones. It is some Orwellian shit, people, but the Oceanian authorities in 1984 never had to deal with citizens armed with semi-auto shotguns, ARs, and AKs, unless I read an older version. This NRA article has blurbs about a number of sheriffs in Colorado:
If the court finds a basis for these claims (and remember, the gun owner cannot argue against them, since he or she has not yet even been notified that the petition was filed) the court must issue an order commanding the gun owner to give up his guns to law enforcement or to a federal firearms license holder (FFL). Afterward, the gun owner would finally get a hearing (at which the vengeful ex-spouse or other petitioner can testify by telephone). Next, the court can order the guns held for a year, then has the power to renew the order at the end of the year. The court can also, under certain circumstances, issue a “civil search warrant”—a concept with no constitutional meaning. The Fourth Amendment requires search warrants to be based upon probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, not a judge’s guess that there is a risk that a law-abiding person might commit one in the future.
Even before the law was signed, Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams announced: “I’m refusing to enforce a law I believe is unconstitutional, and I believe my constituent base is in agreement. I can’t enforce a law that I believe goes against our state Constitution or our federal Constitution.”The next excerpt is from Sheriff Bill Elder of El Paso County, the most populous in the state, at just under 1/4 million people (Colorado Springs is there. I guess Denver is spread out over several counties.):
“My deputies will not,” he said, emphasizing the word, “search for or confiscate firearms. Nor will we execute any warrant that is not signed by a judge and based upon probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.”This is why the office of Sheriff is a very important one, and the people need to keep a close watch and possibly friendly terms with their local Sheriff or deputy thereof.
When I wrote that many sheriffs are "not ready" to enforce this type of law, it meant two things. Indeed, at least from their words, many of these Colorado guys take their oath to the Constitution seriously, amazingly enough (not as amazing in rural areas, but still...) There is another aspect: This kind of law is a set-up for some kind of violent stand-off. Granted, it doesn't prescribe a mass weapons confiscation, sure to be a losing battle at this time for The Man. There won't usually be a big crowd ready to back-up the gun owner, as it's a very un-due-process-like deal in which the confiscatee may not know about this until a cop car is at the end of his driveway. However, not all will go quietly. This is something that has got to also make the Sheriffs nervous, no matter what their principals, and not ready to enforce the law for that reason.
Red Flag laws, besides being unconstitutional, are a recipe for trouble. However, or BECAUSE of that, the ctrl-left persists:
Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general, argues that any sheriff who refuses to enforce the law should resign.I guess this guy swore HIS oath on the Koran or something. He doesn't understand the Sheriffs' job or he doesn't understand the Constitution, or the idea of right and wrong. Many of the county's Sheriffs are planning on suing the state of Colorado about the Red Flag laws. That's all well and good, but personally, I think just standing down and un-ashamedly not complying shows more guts and means more. Will they fire all of them? Can they? Can the people elect new guys just like them, and have the old Sheriffs be picked as deputies? DO! NOT! COMPLY!
“If a sheriff cannot follow the law, the sheriff cannot do his or her job,”
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D-Day, 75 years ago, and President Reagan's '1984 speech at Pointe du Hoc
Posted On: Thursday - June 6th 2019 8:48AM MST
In Topics: History Dead/Ex- Presidents
Peak Stupidity, with an interest in history*, but not actually being a history site, has been very inconsistent in observing or memorializing important dates, especially right on the same day, and not 4 months later. It will probably remain that way, even with our great interest in the events that have resulted in the high stupidity levels we live under today.
We will at least observe today the 75th anniversary of the start of the WWII "D-Day" invasions of 5 different beachheads on the Normandy coast of France. The weather had been not good enough for the landings and air support on the planned days before, but June 6th, 1944 is when this went down. You can read the history plenty of other places, but as to the magnitude of the effort and the glories and hell of war, we'll just let President Reagan talk about it.
Going back just under 1/2 way to the D-Day date (47% of the way), America was still a serious country then. We had a President who could act and speak with dignity, and not commemorate an event with a 140-character tweet.
There is plenty the history-minded reader could argue about, whether WWII would have happened if President Wilson had not urged Americans into WWI, whether WWII could have been avoided anyway with diplomacy rather than reflexive militarism, and whether the US should have been involved even then.
One could also give Peak Stupidity some grief about President Reagan. No, he didn't fight in this war. As President, was he just too naive and trusting of the opposition in the US Congress, causing the beginning of the huge budget deficits (they'd promised to cut welfare spending as military spending was increased to end the Cold War) and resulting in his signing of the 1st in a series of illegal-alien amnesties (when promised the border would then be controlled)? Was he compromised already from the time of that .22 shot that ended up 1" from his heart in 1981?
Sure, one could argue all of that. That doesn't change the situation at all for an Army Ranger 75 years ago today that came on the beach among heavy fire and rope-climbed up the steep bluff to establish a base in France for fighting the Nazis. The war in Europe ended just about 1 year later, after General Patton's 3rd Army rolled across France and Germany to Berlin.
I'll listen to Old Ronnie's words again later. Let's try to lways remember this history.
* "And History is interested in us" or something like that.
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Black Helicopter Parenting
Posted On: Wednesday - June 5th 2019 7:41PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Orwellian Stupidity Socialism/Communism
(It'll be drones more than helicopters.)
We've likely all heard of the term "helicopter parenting". Parents don't have as many kids as they used to, their neighbors are less likely to have any for them to all hang around together with shared eyes on them, and the 24/0/365(6) infotainment brings local stories to the whole TV-viewing nation's attention for months now, such as a child abduction. I guess those are the main reasons, but more suggestions are welcome in the comments. (Put that "PS" at the beginning, please, for your own sake.) The term "helicopter" comes in due to a helicopter's ability to hover over a spot, as a parent will be present almost all the time for any children that aren't already being hovered over by teachers and such.
I have been plenty guilty myself of this, though it's not likely a very good thing for the growth of children into self-sufficient adults. Sometimes, they need to be left to learn their own lessons and make their own rules. It is still understandable that parents would like to keep any watch they can, for as far along into their children's lives they can, in the interest of keeping them safe. It's just not a good policy for long-term safety that comes from being an independent adult.
I had a thought the other day that maybe the women that do the most of this are the same, over the generations, that have helped vote in the Socialist agenda in America. It's gotten past Socialism or any "ism" really, to almost a full-on Orwellian Police State. Just think of the income tax - before that it was none of the Feral Gov't's business where the hell you worked and how much you got paid. After that, Big-Gov. needed to know all that. It's been just over a century now, and people forget there could be another way.
Then, there were the organizations that started the economic Socialism during the reign (basically) of Franklin Roosevelt. Big-Gov knew better how much corn, tobacco, and soybeans should sell for and who should be growing them. Next, came the welfare state instigated by the scumbag Lyndon Johnson. Since then, the US Feral Government knows why some people are poor and some are too rich and how much money should be redistributed for "fairness".
It wasn't until Jimmy Carter pushed for the US Dept. of Education (to pay back the teacher's unions for their 1976 campaign support) that it became the big Nanny-State's business what your kids should learn each day.
In order to perform all these tasks expected of the nanny, there must be lots of oversight. Luckily (!), electronic technology has come such a long way, cameras are a few bucks, and we can therefore be watched and kept track of, you know, to keep us safe and all... No, it won't really be black helicopters, but rather drones, for cost, efficiency and less noise.
The real difference between the helicopter parenting of the present times and the black helicopter parenting of the US Feral Government is that the former is really done for the safety of our children, while that of the latter is done for the safety of the US Feral Government. No, they do not want independent citizens, as they may not always agree with and obey The Party of the Establishment.
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The
Posted On: Wednesday - June 5th 2019 8:45AM MST
In Topics: Cheap China-made Crap Big-Biz Stupidity
(We came in through the back side, three times!)
As I wrote in my controversial* post on the BCE/CE business, though I was very surprised at myself to have not written that post in 2.5 years, it's a wash, as I already wrote the inflation-in-the-'90's post that the substitution/hedonics posts were to be precursors to. It's one thing to repeat myself, as much as I try not to repeat main points over and over. It's another thing to do it by accident! It's that CRS syndrome that I've been prone to, known by the MD specialists as Can't Remember Shit.
Anyway, the reader is referred to the early-October-'18 post Inflation and Chinese Imports and Exports if he would like to read Peak Stupidity's experience with the ACTUAL low-inflationary times of the mid-late 1990's.
Since I'm on the topic, I will relate this (mentioned long ago - in the footnote) story on the Cheap China-made exercise bike from, apparently, the
We paid close to 300 big ones for an exercise bike, and this was long enough ago to when Sears was still doing OK, as I recall, meaning quite a while ago. This machine we bought was not one with the fancy electronics that don't calculate power and energy right (dammit, another curmudgeonry post coming on that shit!). It was/is solid mechanically with a very small display panel - no TVs and internet, etc. - and no sensors but the magnet/proximity sensor type just to get rotational speed for all calculations.
What could go wrong? After about 2 weeks of use for 1/2 to 1 hour per day, the crank bearings started grinding. Upon getting at them, I saw they were just the same cheesy ball bearings with a sheet-metal cage, no outer and inner races but the housing and crank itself, respectively, like a cheap-ass China-made actual bicycle. I remember we didn't disassemble the machine, but just loaded it up and went to the back entrance to Sears for an exchange (it's not like I knew of another with guaranteed higher quality).
We brought the 2nd one home, I spent about 1 hour in assembly time, as it went quicker, and we started exercising. We used this thing for a month before ... yeah, the same bearings were grinding. ONWARD TO THE SEARS LOADING DOCK, AGAIN ... I can't recall, but I'm sure I'd have made some remarks about their business plan and the fact that I'd come back as many times as I had to. We brought this 3rd one home, and I assembled it with ease, as I am really good at that now! I think I didn't HAVE to look at this part, but I noticed one amazing thing: The cheap-ass crank bearings of the 1st 2 machines had been changed out with a nice solid Koyo or other precision-manufactured ball bearings with nice races and dust shielding.
Wow! Was it my remarks on the Sears website? I doubt they could make a change-out in design that quickly. No, probably people put the effort into bringing these $300 exercise bikes back enough times until some executive somewhere got the hint: "Hey, wait, we are selling 2.375 machines per customer, and then we had to build this whole facility in China to change out bearings. We can't make money this way. We may have to start using quality parts, but, but, then people might thing we're Japanese!"
I was very pleased by this, whatever actually caused someone to get off his ass and fix the problem. Those bearings have not been grinding ever since we got the 3rd machine. There've been some problems with the pedals ....
* Well, it got 2 non-agreeing comments, so that's a controversy here at Peak Stupidity! ;-}
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