Modern Church music is not the Rock of Ages
Posted On: Friday - February 1st 2019 8:03PM MST
In Topics: Music Curmudgeonry Bible/Religion
I spent some time in the past going to one of the more modern churches for a while. It wasn't a "MEGAChurch" by any means, but just modern in the building style, the lack of formality, and the music. I'm of the opinion that if you're going to go to church, it may as well be a real church. The type of sermons going on in these modern churches vs. the old fire & brimstone or any other sermons one may have been used to in the past is too long a topic for this post. It wasn't so much the rest of the service, though, but just the music that took the church out of the place.
As can be readily seen in 90% of the over 220 posts with the music topic key, Peak Stupidity is not at all against the rock and roll. We have no problem with Christian Rock, either. In fact, lots of it is done very well, and, when compared to almost ANY other modern music being made, is more joyful and less annoying listening. It has not been featured here, mainly because, at the time that I enjoyed a lot of that on the radio, I was already past the point of categorizing artists and collecting music. I'd have to go back and find people from the past to get a handle on what was/is the good stuff. However, there's just no place for Christian Rock in a church, though!
It's just not church if you don't have the old familiar hymns, sung, or better yet, sung and accompanied by a loud pipe organ, that's all there is to it. The hymns are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. They've been time-tested, see, while the new songs played on guitar, keyboards, and bass have not.
Because the tunes don't stay in the churchgoers heads, the lyrics don't either. It doesn't help when the tunes are complex and don't have a simple bunch of verses and same chorus. You can tell this music doesn't stick, because, well look at the picture above. That big screen up there is required, with a dot that goes from syllable to syllable, to show those who want to sing where they are in the song at all times. For a good solid song, you shouldn't need that.
Nope, you need a loud-ass organ to put me under the impression that, yes, we are in Church. I don't know if the Evangelicals would ever think of going back to the old standard hymns. As a sop to the music directors with their insistence on modernity, I'd give them the option of not buying the old hymnals and letting people pull out their phones for the lyrics. "Let us all stand, type in hymn number 218 on our phones, and go to airplane mode..."
" ♪♫♬ Rock of Ages, cleft for me ... ♪♫♬"
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Thursday night Bagpipe Rock
Posted On: Thursday - January 31st 2019 7:23PM MST
In Topics: Music
No, we are really not in any kind of pattern as far as featuring the good music goes, and there is not really a very wide-ranging genre of music called "bagpipe rock" either. Peak Stupidity intended to post a comparison of old and new church music tonight, but this AC/DC music seemed to take precedence.
This is just a warning, but if you are not in a position to turn this up loud, you should not be playing it at all. This is such high-energy uplifting music! The video is great too, as it shows an Australia (Melbourne in the mid 1970's) that I'd LUV LUV LUV to bug-out to. Got the bug-out bag, got the passport, got the cash, oh hell, now you need a time machine too.
This song/video features the original singer, Mr. Bon Scott, replaced after an early death by the limo driver, Brian Johnson. Per Wiki (yeah, see what I mean), "The song chronicles the hardships endured by a rock band on tour, such as being robbed, assaulted, stoned and cheated by a greedy agent.". Well, It's a Long Way to the Top, if you Wanna Rock and Roll! - from the album High Voltage:
Excellent guitar/bagpipe dueling leads there. I know only one guy who has bagpipes. He brought them over a few years back to show me around midnight, and I asked him play Scotland the Brave out on the front lawn. I don't think the neighbors would have appreciated it a whole lot more, even if he did know how to play it.
Says Richard Bain, 4 months ago (youtube comments):
My Neighbors Loved This Song So Much They Threw A Brick Through My Window So They Could Hear It Better.HEH!
AC/DC at the time:
Bon Scott – lead vocals, bagpipes
Angus Young – lead guitar
Malcolm Young – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Mark Evans – bass guitar
Phil Rudd – drums
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All Hail the Editing King of Wikipedia!
Posted On: Thursday - January 31st 2019 1:20PM MST
In Topics: Internets Websites Political Correctness Media Stupidity
Wikipedia is big. That was a good idea, using the same clever idea described by Peak Stupidity in The F.A.G.S. space and user-generated content to fill up 5.7 million web pages (so far) of general knowledge. Let the website users do the work, once the framework ("platform" is the word the geeks use) has been set up. I'm not at all knocking it.
Peak Stupidity references wikipedia quite often, and we link to the site not quite as so often, but a decent amount. There's no doubt that if you just want a few facts from history (The Long March) technology (Drum Brakes), and so on, for 5.7 million things, that site is extremely useful for anyone, including lowly bloggers. As with the screenshot at the top, taken of a wiki page on the membership in the political parties of the House and Senate throughout US history, you're not likely to get many errors. That's what the wiki editing features are about - again, let the site users do the work, to avoid a staff of, what thousands of people tediously reading web pages?
Like with a lot of life, things work pretty well until people get political. Wikipedia is a big open target for those on any side, but (since fewer of them have real jobs, mainly) particularly the ctrl-left crowd to mob the site with their own unintentional and intentional falsehoods. What does wiki believe, and how far left are they? I don't know the answer, as the site is not up there in lights like the (supposedly) money-making highly-capitalized sites like Facebook and Google. However, I've never seen anything Big-Biz-like yet on the web that leans Conservative and anti-PC. Without experimenting via editing oneself, one would not know if the wiki people themselves are even involved. Without their involvement, it's more a matter of, again, who has the most time on his hands? I think I know the answer.
It's likely though, that to avoid trouble, the wiki people do have some sort of filters, mostly automated, but probably with human back-up, to screen out whatever is beyond the pale. "Beyond the pale" in whose opinion is the big question. Think of some virtual (on-screen, that is) slider bar that wiki management can move around at will. That can make it even harder on a conservative un-PC guy that wants to stick some extra truth into a wiki page, or correct untruths edited in by the ctrl-left.
Well, in a surprisingly pop-up/annoyance-free page on the CBS website, there is an article on the guy below - Meet the man behind a third of what's on Wikipedia:
The guy's work is pretty impressive, even if he is just making it up as he goes along! He's done something like 2 MILLION edit jobs. (Granted, some may have been just date changes, or even spelling corrections, but it all takes time.)
Still living with his parents in the home he grew up in, Pruitt has always remained true to his interests.That was just humorous, but that's not anything I've got against the guy. I've got a lot of respect for hard-core fanatics, so long as they aren't stupid along with fanatical.
[SNIP]
How much money does he make from his work? None.
"The idea of making it all free fascinates me. My mother grew up in the Soviet Union ... So I'm very conscious of what, what it can mean to make knowledge free, to make information free," he said.I don't really think free or costly is the problem. Information today costs even less than the USSR version of the Lyin' Press, Pravda* did, with the internet now. It's not about free or not, it's about truthful or not. I hope the guy's got as much respect for the truth as he does for free stuff.
Pulling from books, academic journals and other sources, he spends more than three hours a day researching, editing and writing."All the damn time, huh? It's really nice to work for the government as a non-essential employee, ain't it? His colleagues think he's nuts? Well, perhaps, Mr. Pruitt shouldn't be on Wiki doing edits during work hours, and instead be helping keep the Borders Protected. He's had plenty of time for his edits, if his Mom would leave him alone, over the last few weeks.
Even his day job is research, working in records and information at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He joked that his colleagues probably think he's nuts.
"Because I edit Wikipedia all the damn time, I think that one sort of goes without saying," Pruitt said.
That may have changed when Time magazine named him one of the top 25 most influential people on the internet, alongside President Trump, J.K. Rowling and Kim Kardashian West.J.K.Rowling, Kim Kardashian? Who gives a shit? This guy has a lot more influence, when it comes down to it. I hope it is mostly for the benefit of those seeking the truth on-line. You ain't gonna get that from Harry Potter books or the tweets out of Kim Lardasshian's ass. The article mentions that this fanatical editor fixes the Wiki pages by checking with the books. Books can have all kinds of agendas too. To get at the truth, it's best to use multiple sources. Does this guy have time for that? (I'd rather know that only people who are real experts in certain areas spend the time to straighten out the appropriate Wiki pages.)
"We know there's a lot more to be done. That's why we're very excited about projects like Women in Red, which seeks to identify and place more content on women on our platform ... Steven has been a large contributor to that project,"Kinyanjui [Wikipedia's VP of Communications] said.OK, there ya' go. Specifically putting in certain content - is that the job of an editor, to slant the news? I guess Mr. Pruitt got this sort of thinking from his Mama's side.
As for Peak Stupidity, still not quite on the top 100 of influential people on the internet, we do like to look around when we provide links. I'll link to Wiki on the straightforward, non-political stuff, but we really try to look around a bit on anything in which an editor like this can slant the story.
* translates to "truth" in English.
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Drum Brakes, the Internet, and Digital Cameras
Posted On: Wednesday - January 30th 2019 1:51PM MST
In Topics: Internets Humor Cars Artificial Stupidity
While perusing an older post, DIY Tire Repair with Cheap China-made Crap recently, I noticed that it had a note about another humorous story about cars to be coming at some unnamed time. That's now.
This quick story is about drum brakes on cars and the advantages of some of our new Artificial Stupidity, which (can you tell?) has been often bad-mouthed on the Peak Stupidity blog. Let's give some credit where credit would have been due, had we had much of an internet, and any cheap digital cameras, in the mid 1990's.
Drum brakes are still around on older cars, and even on some of the low-end new cars. Disc brakes are simpler, and provide more stopping torque. They have replaced most drum brakes for this reason, but there was probably a reason they didn't come around until to be used in autos until the 1950's through '60's. The drum technology continued from the old band brakes, and possibly the ability to contain the higher hydraulic pressure needed by disc brakes was a factor. (See, the drum brakes are MORE ingenious, as lots of things were in the past. The arrangement of the "shoes" to have one for forward and one for rearward motion set up to where the friction force vector helps force the appropriate shoe into the drum keeps the pressure and/or piston size required lots lower.) Here's a quick comparison of these 2 types of auto brakes.*
This ingenuity just mentioned is part of the story. I had the car jacked up, the one wheel off, and the brake apart, with all of the pieces seen in the picture - they all seem pretty similar - on the ground. I had my new brake shoes ready to go. As I tried to get this thing back together, my memory being not photographic (more like pornographic), I was not sure of the placement of all of the three springs, and maybe another small part or two.. That's where a digital camera would have been really nice, right? Take one picture, or even one at every step, and view them during re-assembly.
Nah, but the auto parts store was just 1/4 mile away. The one jacked up being my only vehicle, I proceeded to walk there, get to the right Chilton's book (remember there was nothing on the internet of note, not even Peak Stupidity). Rather than pay the $20 for the book, I just perused it, took a long long at the picture of the innards of these brakes, and walked home. At home, I worked for another 1/2 hour before realizing that, no, my memory really was not that good, and I didn't have it down. I know what you're thinking: "look at the other wheel, moron!". See this is where a jack-stand would have been nice, but this was not a time of plenty for this blogger. Yeah, I could have used a cinder block, but I decided that I'd leave the other brake together, and walked back to the auto parts store.
I took another look at the Chilton's book, which was starting to get rather greasy, on that one page. Back at the house again, I almost had it together. I wasn't sure though. I made a 3rd round trip to the auto parts store, and really, really, had a picture of the drum brake assembly in my head!
Now, I suppose this is why you do see people looking at their phones all day long. A smart phone that was on-line would have been nice. I'd have settled for bringing a lap-top computer outside and working like that, no, just going back-and-forth into the house to look at that 15" CRT monitor would have been better, had I a computer at all!
Next time I'm back in the mid-90's working on something complicated, I will at least spring for the book.
* Note that the ease of incorporating the emergency/parking brake in the drum systems is an additional plus for them.
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Americans' attitudes on the income tax
Posted On: Wednesday - January 30th 2019 8:56AM MST
In Topics: Trump Economics Americans US Feral Government Taxes
This post is not about the political aspects of the > 100 y/o US Federal Income Tax, so much as just THE MONEY! Peak Stupidity has discussed the Trump-signed, slightly-favorable, tax change law over a year ago in Merry Christmas from
It's that time of year again, when
Purposefully (using the W-4 forms over the year) arranging to have a refund coming at tax time is not really wise. It's true that it's nice to have the US Gov't saving money for you, so you can't touch it in the meantime, but, well, that does put you back into the group of poor planners, or just those who are not disciplined enough to save. However, though, granted, for now one still can't get more than approximately JACK-SQUAT in interest on any savings that is not large and/or in something risky, why would you want the US Gov't to have use of your money, if you don't even have to? Secondly, the IRS ends up with leverage over you, if you are owed money, rather than if you owe them some. I've got a story on this for another time.
To the point of this post, finally, different income-level Americans have to have different strategies, and attitudes, regarding the IRS. Let's put us into 4 groups, starting with the low-income, and (usually) poor-planning folks who see this kind of form*:
** stolen from some other taxpayers.
The first group of Americans does not pay a lot of attention to this whole income tax thing. These people are, if not tax-eaters, getting money redistributed from other Americans via the income tax, along with other ways, or at least not paying in anything significant. Hey, I don't say they deserve to pay more (in fact I'd like to see the lowest bracket go up to $50,000 in today's money), but they also don't have as much reason to care how it's spent, either.
You are going to tend to not worry about the US Gov't spending a $100 billion here, a $100 billion there, even for things you know to be stupid, if you have no skin in the game.
Then, there's the lower middle class. They (if they save the money on accountants or software and spend an hour or two downloading/printing/filling-out) will see the tax tables below:
The tax payments due are based on income after all deductions/credits.
When you are already paying 22% (lower by 3 points over 2017 - thanks a little, President Trump), on any money earned over ~ $77,000, plus the 10-12% on the money before that, plus 0-10% state income tax, plus the ~ 8% taken out from DOLLAR ONE for medicare and the SS ponzi-scheme** donation you will never get back, you really see how years of your life are taken away. This is a big group of people that really don't have the wherewithal to avoid getting screwed this bad.
I would say, for this group of Americans, especially the ones that actually look at the numbers once in a while, the animosity against the Feral Gov't for taking these years of their labor is pretty intense.
Then, you've got your upper middle class. They may use the simple calculations shown, or their accountants' software will, to figure tax amounts, as the tables only go up to $100,000:
This is done after all the shenanigans performed to avoid higher screwage rates.
Upper middle-class Americans do have the money and the interest in using the myriad complexities of the US Feral Revenue Code to help them lose fewer years of their lives. The thing is, one must still buy property here, or invest in this small business, or sell of this investment and buy this other, etc, etc, to make use of the rules. Some, probably most, of these are things that these tax payers in the high brackets would not normally be particularly interested in doing. It's just shit ya' gotta do, per your accountant, and yes, it does complicate your life. Welcome to tax stupidity, people, we warned you when you moved or were born here!
These folks see the tax code and tax planning finances as a big part of their lives. I wonder if some ever thought of another way, as there's only a few alive to remember it. When you are making well into the 6 figures (not counting right of the decimal point!) it's not like the income tax makes life miserable, but one can see some huge amounts of money going straight to the feds. The complexities in life introduced in order to keep some of that money cause grief for some that I know, as it's almost like an additional part-time job.
At the very high end of this upper middle-class, there are taxpayers who could have influence on local, state, and even federal laws that can not only help, but give an advantage over the next guy. So not all of this group of Americans would even be up for killing the IRS and the horrific fuck-up known as Amendment XVI of the US Constitution.
Then ....:
I mean he just donated 1/2 his money, just to date a 50-y/o bimbo! WTH, man??
The 4th, very-select group of "Americans", if they don't already figure they are World Citizens, are the ones making the laws that will favor whatever it is they are into. They also have plenty of ways to keep their money away from the hands of the IRS, so, no, the IRS and the idea of a tax on Americans' life labor does not concern them. They've got things set up the way they like right now, thank you very much.
* The reader should suspend disbelief here, if these pictures of the forms seem, let's say, antiquated. People want to go all electronic, but I will tell you what: You will learn MUCH BETTER what the system is about (who is being favored, what the incentives are, etc.) if you work out your own forms a few times. It's not hard if you just round off numbers, do math on a napkin and don't sweat the details - that's the IRS's job, provided they do come back to work.... I've got all fingers crossed ...
... hoping they NEVER do!
** Peak Stupidity discussed the Social Security
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Black History Month will be followed by National Frozen Food Month ...
Posted On: Tuesday - January 29th 2019 2:28PM MST
In Topics: Humor Political Correctness Race/Genetics
... so it's gonna be a busy Spring here at Peak Stupidity. We're hoping not to gain more than a few pounds during the festivities.
It's been A-OK, so far, as notably to some readers perhaps, but not likely, there was no celebration of the Commie race-hustler Reverend, Doctor, Martin Luther King, Junior this year. Last year, at least the blog made mention of General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States of America, who fought valiantly that losing 2nd American Revolution.
This year, we all forgot. Yes, seriously, as I was away, the un-PC (a bit unaware too) wife brought our elementary school kid in, first thing last Monday morning. Yes, they did have to return home. Hey, I'd have done the same, as I only thought about this travesty of a holiday about that day. This kid is usually very up on these things like holidays, so we all dropped the ball.
Next, there will be one whole month of being indoctrinated with black history. That is, unless the groundhog sees his shadow or something, in which case we'd rather spend that time outside. I've learned from commenter Autochthon* here, under a Steve Sailer post on unz, that March is designated National Frozen Food Month. Excellent. I think we - all of us, of all colors and creeds - can all find something to look forward to all months of the year.
... another
If it weren't for that sufferin' succotash (the peas and carrots), I reckon I could eat one of those every night. Oh, except I'd tune in unz.com instead of CBS.
Come March I want to see National Frozen Food Month celebrated with the same fervor as we all (uhhh) put forth each February for the good Doctor-Reverend-Commie. In fact, I hope to see posters of famous frozen food in the hallway's of my kid's elementary school this March. My favorite is Swanson's TV Dinners, as pictured above. I'm guessing the teachers will have all the kids do reports on their Daddy's and Granddaddy's favorite TV dinners of the past.
Then, in Science time, they can take a few of them that some PTO pack-rat/prepper parent** has kept in the chest freezer for some decades, and see how they've held up over the years ... probably a whole damn lot better than that "judging a man by his character bit", I can tell you right now.
* No, I don't know how to pronounce that either.
** Ya gotta love that alliteration.
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Sexy* Senator Sinema S-AZ
Posted On: Tuesday - January 29th 2019 10:25AM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Humor US Feral Government Female Stupidity Bread and Circuses
* She's actually not particularly sexy, but when you hang around with likes of the Feinsteins and Karmasutra Harrises of California, the Washington State Murray/Cantwell sisters, the Minnesota nice ladies, the re-Maine-ing sister, and the Stabenows of Michigan, you tend to stand out in thigh-high boots.
Peak Stupidity spent 10 minutes looking for a sexier picture for our post,
but, alas, this is it - Senate-Hot, as it were.
What I'm doing in this post not a frequent thing here on Peak Stupidity, but the comments under the Steve Sailer article But Will They Let Senator Sinema (D-AZ) Shop? were really top notch, especially the funny ones. They hearken back to those best years (behind us now) of Zerohedge, with the commenters that site attracted, about 3 years back and further, now. Therefore, what follows will just be some of the funniest ones there, though Mr. Sailer's take-off on shopping and a Pretty Woman scene are great too.
Twinkie says:
January 29, 2019 at 7:53 am GMT
It’s not just the boots, is it? That outfit… I don’t have any personal experience, so I’m not sure, but isn’t that how ladies of the night dress?
Mr. Anon says:
January 29, 2019 at 7:54 am GMT
Isn’t her whole thing that she is the first openly bisexual Senator. Probably a lot of the white men who voted for her (and why any white man would vote for a Democrat at all I have no idea) were just imagining her in a Letters to Penthouse vignette.
Mr. Anon says:
January 29, 2019 at 7:55 am GMTJimDandy says:It’s not just the boots, is it? That outfit… I don’t have any personal experience, so I’m not sure, but isn’t that how ladies of the night dress?@Twinky
Fitting, given that Senators are essentially whores anyway.
January 29, 2019 at 7:58 am GMT
First senator who is openly bi. Polar.
JohnnyD says:
January 29, 2019 at 8:10 am GMT
“Where was she when I was in office?!”—Bill Clinton
The next comment is not a joke, far as I know:
Anonymous[117] • Disclaimer says:
January 29, 2019 at 8:13 am GMT
‘Sinema’ used to be the name of an ‘erotic’ film review magazine.
Anonym says:
January 29, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
She looks like the kind of Sinema with sticky floors.
Danindc says:
January 29, 2019 at 11:03 am GMT
@Mr. Anon
No such thing as a lesbian. Just a woman who hasn’t met me.
the one they call Desanex says:
January 29, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
With senators like Kyrsten Sinema
Our land will soon be one with Nineveh.
This Babylon sister
Will run from a clyster;
What’s left of her after an enema?
Nice work, gentlemen!
Peak Stupidity's opinion: With regard to this Senator's wearing of these fancy thigh-boots, bought or not, on Rodeo Drive, I’m not so sure what the problem is here. So long as no other Senator shows up wearing those exact same thigh-high boots, it should be fine.
Now, were a Republican Senator* to wear the same style during the same Senate Session, that’d be no time for bipartisanship – I think the nucular option would be well called for.
* perhaps one of the delegation from South Carolina, just as a random example… ya know, cause they’re both Republicans and all ….
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Pure Curmudeonry - On Celebrity Names
Posted On: Monday - January 28th 2019 7:09PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Media Stupidity
Right: Madonna - TOO FEW NAMES!
(Just another excuse to get in some bikini pics? You betcha!)
Going way, way back, from near the beginning of this blog, Peak Stupidity has had a bug up it's server about names. In I should have named him after a man of the cloth, I mentioned how I'm really not enamored by the current 10-year old increasingly prevalent trend of naming kids last names. I could go on about it, but the reader could just think of the kids in the neighborhood (no not in "the hood", as those names are a whole nother thing entirely, plus I don't know French) or ask around the elementary school. I am running into new ones every day.
As I went to read a Takimag article by a guy named Joe Bob Briggs, I dropped out of memory what I meant to write about his article (I'm sure I was in agreement though) in order to rant on about this 3-name crap. Look, we are very lucky to have middle names here in the Western world - I! GET! THAT! No, the Chinese have no such luxury. The family name, which appears first, is fixed, so there is only one name to come up with, hopefully not a last name of a Communist! It IS nice that we can honor a couple of family members at one time, if we wish, easily both last names these days.
It can be an especially big convenience having this spare name, in the case when the first name is something like "Gaye", for example. Yes, it's a real example, and the lady in question is known by her middle name. Somebody screwed up, but this solution is satisfactory.
However, the blatant use of the three names together is annoying. It is mostly a movie star and famous people thing. I will make an exception for anyone, including movie stars (including possibly Joe Bob Briggs, the Takimag writer who inadvertently instigated this post) who is from the South. From the time of way before TV character Mary Ellen Walton*, Southerners, especially girls, often used their middle names along with their first names as their everyday names. It isn't/wasn't a pretentious thing for them.
The actors and actresses should just get off their high horses and use a first and last name like any normal American. I'll give you a break for a middle initial, as in Michael J. Fox. Once in a while, names can be too close, or the same as some other well known person. As examples, Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe are two DIFFERENT novelists, the former having died just recently, and the latter back in the 1930's. It may have been wise for Tom Wolfe to have used his middle initial.
Then you've got the other end of the spectrum, those who think they are so well-known that they will use nothing but one name. Musicians "Prince", Sting, and Bono are examples of musical artists indulging in this flavor of stupidity, along with Madonna above. Does this make you special, people? Prince Jefferson, Sting Williamson, Bono O'Connor, and Madonna Smith would be perfectly fine names to put on your album covers (what the heck are those?!), if you'd asked me.
Yes, there are more important pieces of stupidity to cover, but you've gotta get things out of your system. That's what blogging is about. There are quite a few posts on the front burner, so it should be a decent blog-week here.
* Not to be confused with the bra-less wonder, Sue Ellen Mischke, the Oh Henry! candy bar heiress of the show Seinfeld. (More here.)
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Midnight Flyer by The Eagles
Posted On: Saturday - January 26th 2019 6:42PM MST
In Topics: Music
Peak Stupidity featured the song James Dean in our post yesterday on Rebels (with or without causes) from the great 1970's band The Eagles out of southern California.
As I read the wiki page on the album On the Border, the 3rd album by this band on which the song appeared, I read that this piece of opinionated BS from a Rolling Stone reviewer of the time, one Janet Maslin: "Overall, she judged the album "a tight and likable collection, with nine potential singles working in its favor and only one dud ("Midnight Flyer") to weigh it down, ..."" Well, we know Rolling Stone is nothing but a rag now, but it was the in magazine/newsletter for fans of the music industry for decades. Even so, I really beg to differ with this lady's writing from 45 years ago. I'm sure it's not what she's worried about right now, but, yeah, she didn't get the country/bluegrass side of The Eagles.
Midnight Flyer features the banjo of Bernie Leadon, and the vocals of Randy Miesner, the bass guitar player. That's what you need on a bluegrassy song, that high-and-lonesome sound. The song was written by a guy named Paul Craft (died about 5 years back) who was also known for writing the country song Dropkick me, Jesus as sung by Bobby Bare.
Enjoy this great music, and thanks for reading!
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National Emergencies
Posted On: Saturday - January 26th 2019 6:18PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump US Feral Government
No, not Ponch and John - different show, same era of "First Responders"* TV
This "National Emergency" idea of President Trump's to allow a bypass of the stonewalling rest-of-the-US-Government with regard to ever securing the US southern border is something I've not put much thought in. I see the invasion of people from anywhere, unwanted and with unknown identities, as a national security threat that should have warranted the military a long time ago. However, per a James Fulford post on VDare, this "national emergency" thing is just some silly-assed trick that is used, well, for the most part, to single out powerful individuals and money flows from/to countries that we "have a problem with".
Let me explain that better by just pasting in 1/2 of the 32 instances of national emergencies:
1. Blocking Iranian Government Property (Nov. 14, 1979)Get the idea? Not a one of these uses of this power is anything the average American would have been, or is even now, aware of, besides that bolded one, number 10. Interesting, that! "Why?", the reader may ask. Oh, because this one instance in which Americans saw 3,000 people get killed on live TV, meaning they were really ready for "their" Feral Gov't to DO SOMETHING resulted in absolutely no curtailment of immigration of (not agonna argue this here/now) people from the countries that caused this emergency. In fact, immigration from Moslem countries, including Saudi Arabia, has gone way up since EMERGENCY # 10.
2. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Nov. 14, 1994)
3. Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process (January 23, 1995)
4. Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Development of Iranian Petroleum Resources (March 15, 1995)
5. Blocking Assets and Prohibiting Transactions with Significant Narcotics Traffickers (October 21, 1995)
6. Regulations of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels with Respect to Cuba (March 1, 1996)
7. Blocking Sudanese Government Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Sudan (November 3, 1997)
8. Blocking Property of Persons Who Threaten International Stabilization Efforts in the Western Balkans (June 26, 2001)
9. Continuation of Export Control Regulations (August 17, 2001)
10. Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks (September 14, 2001)
11. Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism (September 23, 2001)
12. Blocking Property of Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Zimbabwe (March 6, 2003)
13. Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq has an Interest (May 22, 2003)
14. Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria (May 11, 2004)
15. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus (June 16, 2006)
16. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (October 27, 2006)
That's kind of ironic, since almost the whole US Government is against the calling of an emergency 17 1/2 years later to deal with the problem. Can you call it an emergency when the big problem has been on-going for more like 1/2 a century? That seems like a stretch of the English language. However, Constitutional issues notwithstanding, like for the last 32 times, if this works to get anything done, more power to the President. I am not at all hopeful, as the dealmaking by this guy is not of the caliber we would have expected. (As far as the Donnie vs. Ronnie** goes, I'd say Donnie ought to be sick of #LOSING by now.)
Are we going to just lose this immigration invasion and war without a fight?
* Peak Stupidity came out with a series of scathing posts on first responders (including the term itself) around 8 months back. I enjoyed writing these, so, if it's your thing, check out: First Responders and Heroes, "First Responders" - The Fireman and Fire Departments, "First Responder" - Ambulance drivers, excuse me, EMTs, "First Responders" - The Cops, "First Responders at "The Office", and 911 - The Phone Number.
** Here's another link bomb for ya', for the reader with time on his hands: Ronnie vs. Donnie: Intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Conclusion,
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Rebels with a cause
Posted On: Friday - January 25th 2019 9:14PM MST
In Topics: Music alt-right/MAGA ctrl-left
I guess today it'd be a pretty big deal to even smoke a cigarette today, maybe, gasp!, within 50 of a building entrance. That's rebelious. OTOH, you can't be much of a rebel if you just drive a scooter as the kids tend to do today. Get a real bike - gas is cheap again.
James Dean* was an actor from long ago, the mid-1950's, who. before his untimely death in a car crash, played the rebel in the movie Rebel without a Cause. In that movie, which can't be all that memorable, as I know I've seen it, but that's about all, Mr. Dean could not fit into the conformist 1950's. Sure, it was a time of conformity, but the establishment that one would conform to was American conservatisim, in one of the best times, economically and socially, in American history. The disparaging of the '50's decade has been a continual ploy by the ctrl-left since at least th 1970's to help culturally destroy the country, and will be the subject of a future post (I can just tell).
The thing is, things were going pretty well in 1950's America, and that is probably why the screenwriters and film-makers couldn't find a cause for this guy to be a rebel about! Even so, though I'm sure his looks helped, the girls always like a real rebel, whether they understand the cause or not. This post (James Dean is mostly in it just for the song below) is here just to expound a bit more on the notion mentioned in the final post of the "Battle Lines ..." series in this paragraph:
Cmon, young people, people now, people now, I really wish I was one of y'all now. It can end up being a real blast, and you'd be doing this country a big favor. Here's the best part, that I am finally getting to: Chicks dig the rebels. They liked James Dean, even, rebel without any damn cause, right? You've got to get out of your heads the nonsense that the cntrl-left is fighting the "establishment", as if they were the hippies of 1965. THE! CNTRL-LEFT! IS! THE! ESTABLISHMENT! They have been for 20-30 years now. YOU1 PEOPLE! CAN! BE! THE! REBELS! (and WITH a cause). Do you know how much sex those young guys got in the 1960's? I am not sure, but, let's just say, like, A LOT.I see that I did mention James Dean there (it's been 10 months). Back to the Covington 20 +/- 5, the young men from the Catholic school are not your modern rebels. They really just would have rather gone home and avoided the drumming-in-the-face Indian, and the other assorted whackos involved. In another future anti-white-hate incident, however, there will eventually turn up a guy just made for the part of rebel against the modern ctrl-left establishment. He doesn't need to start a fist fight then and there, but just stand up, take no grief, and be a leader. We will soon see some modern day rebels, and they will be alt-right or conservative.
See, there is this persistent idea of the baby-boom generation that the rebels are the lefties, the people pushing for civil rites, bigger government to help "the working man", saving the trees, and ending all wars and stuff. I hate to break it to them here, but this stuff is 50 years old now! (Going on 60) The welfare state part has been tried and is continuing to cause long-term misery and the bankrupting of the nation. The civil rites business has been screwing white males for the 50 years, we are all aware of the environment, and warmongering is apparently good now, or at least when the left is in power.
The 1st Earth Day was long, long ago, people. You are not this big rebel against the establishment when you push for bigger recycling bins, I've gotta break it to you. The girls ain't going for this anymore.
I don't guess that many boys of this age, or even young adults in their 20's, would have enough experience to know that the girls just love the rebels. You won't know until you become one. I write this as a plea to the young people that have been taking grief from the ctrl-left establishment, in schools, in the working environment, and even in the courts of law, to understand that you can be the rebels now. You've got a great cause, and it will come with bennies.
No, the rebel at the top didn't wreck on his motorcycle. As the song below goes, " ... along came a Spyder**, picked up a rider, took 'em down the road to eternity ..." That was back in 1955, and he's still a legend (for wrecking his car?)
Peak Stupidity has complained about the great 1970's band, The Eagles holding their stuff off of youtube. However, they did leave James Dean, which is the main reason he's even mentioned, as this is a great song off of the On the Border album from 1974. Apparently, James Dean was released as a single, but I didn't know that until 1 minute ago. The song was written mostly by Jackson Brown, but also with Glenn Frey, Don Henley, and J.D. Souther (the latter was involved in the writing of a number of their songs).
The core of the original Eagles played this one:
Glenn Frey – rhythm guitar, lead vocals
Don Henley – drums, background vocals
Bernie Leadon – lead guitar , background vocals
Randy Meisner – bass, background vocals
* There are loads of interesting tidbits in the IMDB biography link. My favorite: President Ronald Reagan referred to Dean as "America's Rebel".
** The sports car James Dean crashed on a winding road in Cholame, in central California, between Paso Robles and Fresno on CA HW 41 - not the same as US HW 41 from Ramblin' Man by the Allman Brothers - speaking of motorcycles, as I wrote, TWO of them died on motorcycles.
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There's strength in numbers.
Posted On: Friday - January 25th 2019 10:59AM MST
In Topics: alt-right/MAGA ctrl-left
Before getting into this very far, let me point out again Peak Stupidity's 6-post series on "There's battle lines being drawn ...": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6. Please don't get the wrong impression from the title - the title is part of the lyrics in an old iconic political (maybe anti-political) song from that time, the 1960's. I do not pretend to be a keyboard/internet warrior or armchair general. These posts are about the CULTURAL war going on, though the way things are going, and with history as a guide, it may become a real one. That's not something we should relish, as much as we would all like the stupidity to end.
On some of the Liberty/Constitutional sites, writers do describe how real, widespread, serious violence could flare up from the turmoil we have now. Some of these people are armchair generals, and some are real soldiers or vets who do have knowlege of how things go down in wartime. I have no problem reading and listening to the latter group of guys. Maybe many Americans thinking of a civil war may imagine that "well, I'm too old to be IN it anyway" and "we'll have our army, they've got theirs, such as it is, and then what will the official army do?", as if will just be set-piece battles, as most of the American "Civil War" consisted of. Well, I put "civil war" in quotes, as (I think I've written on this blog somewhere(?) this), American had more of a "War Between the States". In a real civil war, where enemies exist together in the same states, counties, and even voting precincts, it could be worse for regular people as the war in 1861-65, if that's possible. Let's hope the stupidity can be nipped in the bud, if not ended once we are in midst of a serious financial crisis, as is Peak Stupidity's opinion. Regarding the former, there is some hope, as far as this extreme racial animus against the white man as of late is concerned.
A difficult question usually arises when discussing how civil, regular Americans should handle trouble with the ctrl-left that comes up, as we admire how the Covington, KY boys handled that scene with the lyin-assed, drum-pounding Indian putting himself in their faces. If one cowers from these people, it will not only never end, but get that much worse. They smell cowardice (often pretty justifiable fears of losing college plans, entire careers or even violence to their families) and treat it as a shark does, a reason for stronger attacks. If one just starts shooting, lets say, then the establishment, run now almost completely by the ctrl-left will use this as justification to clamp the US Police State down, only on certain people. That's been the way of the Commies since way back. It's not usually really just about ideology, just pure power to control others.
The Covington 25 (OK, +/- 5?*) took the middle road, with no backing down, but no action to stop the ctrl-left stupidity either. It was a good job, for a bunch of teenagers without the confidence of 25 y/o men, and having been cloistered somewhat from the vast masses of stupidity that abounds in modern America.
As topsy-turvey as the struggle between the people and the establishment is now compared to the 1960’s, I think there is a lot to be learned for the Deplorable regular Americans and the alt-right. It’s not the ideology, of course, but we really could learn a lot from the TACTICS of the ’60’s radicals.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: There is strength in numbers! I don’t mean the > 100 million regular Americans, a majority being gun-owners. I am talking tactics, not strategy. On the small level, let’s say another incident like this confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial, all that we need is a little more courage by just a few, and a small bit of organization. Imagine that a crowd of 100 gathered after some texting, twittering, etc. to not cause any violence, mind you, but just give its support to these kids. Come up with some chants on the fly, smile, but just don’t give any ground. Even more will join due to the reduction in the ability of a large group to all get punished in various ways by the establishment.
How can mass tweeting about a few hundred people from various places cause any punishment? It will be difficult for the ctrl-left, Lyin’ Press, all of them to TARGET THEIR HATRED.
If, in some other event, the trouble does start along the lines of what happened in Charlottesville, there is a big difference between the railroading of a dozen or two guys by establishment local law enforcement and the courts. vs. doing that to a few hundred. The jails can’t hold you all, the courts can’t deal with it, and pushback from friends/family will be too overpowering for the kind of anarcho-tyrannical “justice” seen in/after Charlottesville. Even the worry of an arrest record will dissipate when it becomes known that “hey, we can’t not hire anyone who’s been arrested for causing a public nuisance. There’d be no one left to hire.”
Do you all see the parallels to the 1960’s? I’ll have to bring up Alro Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree (in four-part harmony) again with:
“… and the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Littering.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, …”Young people, study this stuff. Watch some movies on Netflix. It will take just a little more strength via numbers to flip this whole thing one day. In hindsight, we’ll wonder why it didn’t happen 10 years back.
* Anyone know the number? I haven't found that yet, so please chime in (PUT "PS" first at the beginning of your comment body!) if you do know. As I wrote in the footnote to the previous post on this incident, it would be very cool to be known as part of the Covington x, x being any positive integer, below, say 50.
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Tribal Elder Nathan Phillips speak with forked tongue
Posted On: Wednesday - January 23rd 2019 10:26AM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Political Correctness Trump
As Mr. Steve Sailer is one of the go-to guys for the real stories on many of the race-hoaxes and general anti-white events of animus, I link again to his writing in WaPo Corrects Itself: Nathan Phillips Didn't Fight in Vietnam. It's about one particular detail regarding the Covington Kids*, this annoying Nathan Phillip's status as a Vietnam (era) Veteran in the Marines. As I've written before at least once, Mr. Sailer can a bulldog on these things. This veteran status may seem like a small detail, but once you catch someone in a solid lie, you can then rest assured that there was, is, and will be, more BS out of him, with help from the Lyin' Press.
The debate is over the use of "Vietnam" by this guy to show himself as some brave warrior. Well, a "Vietnam-Era" Marine veteran is NOT the same as a Vietnam veteran, someone who spent time as a soldier, sailer, or airmen IN, OVER, or ABOUT the war zone. One could also break it up further into those who actually shot and got shot out vs. a mechanic at the motor pool in Saigon.
Anyway, plenty of details are in that post and comments linked to just above, but I've just got a point to make from observations of video of this guy. Before that, just from having heard of this Nathan Phillips, I think the term "Elder" sounds like a bunch of hooey in addition to the Vietnam-vet confusion. What exactly does this guy mean by his status as an Elder? Does Elder Phillips really pass down lore from to the rest of the tribe through the spirits of the ancient ones at the campfire every moon or two? Or, does it just mean that he gets 15% off at the early-bird special at the casino? I believe the answer is much closer to the latter.
The very specific wording about this guy's time in the Marines (apparently stateside in Nebraska and southern California as a refrigeration tech. and a rifleman, without work in the 2nd field of course) is a function of news reporters, the wording of the guy's statements, etc. I won't call him a liar over that. However, upon looking at the video here, passed on by a commenter on unz, I saw from just 15 seconds of the 8 minutes, that yes, he IS a DAMN LIAR!
About this video, let me just say here that this guy (the dude on camera) is pretty damn entertaining, and I love his sales pitch at the end (“… for the price of a 6-pack of Blatz Beer …” haha!), though I never got the dude’s name. Please go back an watch the whole 8 minutes if you have time.
Anyway, let me explain where Nathan is a liar here. Start at 05:42 with “I’m a Vietnam-times veteran…” OK, that’s no lie, as American men were in the war during the 1st year or so of his time in the Marines. However, he continues using this “Vietnam-times” bit to explain that this means “I know that mentality, that ‘there’s enough of us, we can do this’.” I don’t know what/who exactly he means here, but that’s not my point.
What kind of particular “mentality” does he know about just because he was a refrigerator mechanic and rifleman in Nebraska (when he wasn’t AWOL in southern California) that someone outside of this “Vietnam times” window would not?? If he had been in-country, etc., he indeed could brag about some special mentality that he has or knows about. However, if not, what the hell does he know that another former stateside Marine, whether in 1955, ’65, or any other time would not know? That’s the lie, people. From that 8 minute video, you only need to watch that 15 seconds to see he’s a damn liar.
* Maybe there are too many for them to be "the Covington 10" or what-have-you. That's too bad, as you know you are somebody if you are part of a group called the "So-and-so x" where x is any small positive integer.
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Eclipses and the Galilean Moons of Jupiter in the Age of Exploration - Part 2
Posted On: Tuesday - January 22nd 2019 7:48PM MST
In Topics: Geography Science
(... continued from Part 1)
Now, back to Astronomy, here's where it came into play in the quest for accurate longitude. Things in "the heavens", as Astronomers still use the term today, happen at a certain time, and differences in the observing location on Earth are negligible (with the exception of fairly near events like our own moon's and sun's eclipses). What those Galilean moons turned out good for, as they are very easy to observe, is for basically getting time checks. To get a time check to within a few seconds, the astronomical event had to be something precise, so the best were eclipses involving Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto and the big Kahuna of planets they orbit, Jupiter.
Note that both kinds of eclipses work here. The non-dogfood-related ALPO, the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, has a great short informative .pdf here! As one of these moons (in the ballpark, in size, of our moon, but with a planet 10 X bigger in diameter, hence diameters ~ 2-3% of that of their planet) enters the shadow of Jupiter, it can blink out within 4 minutes to a couple of hours (for the Callisto, the outermost/slowest). That doesn't sound like great accuracy, but that's the total eclipse time. As the moon enters the shadow of Jupiter, light fades slowly - that's no good. However, as an observer, whether in the 1500's or 2019, watches, the last light can be timed to with a second or so. That translates to a value of longitude within (1 hour = 15 degrees, so 1 second of time = 15/3,600 degree = 15 arc-seconds (note: not time units, but angle)), or more commonly stated, 15 seconds of arc. That is 1/4 mile at the equator and more accurate with increasing latitude, going as 1/4 mile x cos(latitude). However, come to think of it, that number is only as good as the regular sextant star-shooting angle is, but it would allow as good as one could get for latitude or that 1/4 mile x cos(latitude), whichever is larger.
Do you see how it works? It doesn't matter where you are, an eclipse of Io happens when it happens, ANYWHERE. Even if the sailing expedition did not have the ephemeris charts from the Astronomers of the Royal Society in London with them, with the predicted times of these eclipses, the position of any known star would have been shot by sextant and logged*. That's the key. The calculations of the position of that expedition could have been calculated after the fact, maybe many months later, back in a cozy pub in Genoa, Lisbon, or London. The maps could be made then.
On the other hand, if an expedition DID have the astronomical charts on them, which helped Cristobal Columubus' crew stay alive on Jamaica on their 4th voyage, then longitude, hence, accurate position, could be determined on the spot (OK, maybe after a few minutes or an hour of calculations). I would imagine that this way would be loads better, as decision-making for the voyage could be made with real-time position information.
It's a bit out of order here, but I did mention BOTH kinds of eclipses. For a planet that big, with moons ~ 2-3% the size of it, a solar eclipse there would be in the form of a transit of a shadow across Jupiter's disk, probably not visible with Galileo's original telescopes. One would need 100-power, or more importantly, a lens or mirror big enough to RESOLVE 100X. Shadow transit observations are not as accurate as the lunar eclipses described above, as the timing of a dark spot appearing on one edge, or the disappearing on the other edge is inherently not as easy to pick out. BTW, there are the two other types of events, a transit of one of the moons itself across Jupiter's disk, and a disappearance (occultation) of one behind the disk, with a reappearance later. Both of these latter two sets of events are difficult to time due to trying to make out a bright object on another, or next to another.
After all was said and done, the accurate Harrison clock, the invention of which is described in that book, won out. However, Astronomy had its place in the sun, for a purpose that one had to be clever to even think of. What a time of enlightenment, indeed!
Wait, what? Where's my stupidity?!!
Hey, we are fresh out for tonight. Don't be alarmed, readers, as from our normal daily analysis of stupidity, it is as vast as the Universe itself, with billions and billions of metric shit tons spread out over the galaxies, dating all the way back to a few months before the big stupid-ass bang!
* Information like this, along with all that other botanical and anthropological knowledge gained, would all be in the ship's scientist's logbooks, and this explains why those would be just as valuable as gold and spices to some enlightened Westerners back at home.
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Eclipses and the Galilean Moons of Jupiter in the Age of Exploration - Part 1
Posted On: Tuesday - January 22nd 2019 7:17PM MST
In Topics: Geography Science
There was a beautiful lunar eclipse 2 nights back. This reminded our blog staff of an "upcoming" post promised way back in the summer of '17, the day of that once-in-a-lifetime (for folks without Lear Jets) solar eclipse in a post called Eclipses in History: Learn some science - it may save your ass some day. The post discussed the use of science by Western Civilization's own Cristobal Columbus to get out of a tight spot with the natives of the island of Jamaica.
I'd mentioned the fact that scientists were known to be included as part of the team on those courageous and amazing voyages of discovery 4 to 500 years ago. One reason was that the science of Astronomy was useful for purposes of navigation and map-making, and eclipses and the like have something to do with this. Observations of rare lunar eclipses (our moon entering the Earth's shadow) and much rarer solar eclipses (the Earth entering the shadow of our moon) from various far-off locations served to increase scientific knowledge. However, for these 4 moons below, it was the other way around - the science of Astronomy helped explorers gain more accurate position information:
These 4 of more than a dozen moons that orbit the brightest planet in our sky, Jupiter, are by FAR bigger than the rest. They were observed as soon as Galileo Galilei made a half-way decent model of his invention, the telescope*. They could be seen with the unaided eye were they not so close to the bright disc of Jupiter. However, even 7-power binoculars will make them out easily. The mechanics of the orbits of moons and planets had been worked out before, during, and since that time, and now let me get to the geography for a bit.
A great book named Longitude by author Dava Sobel discusses the major stumbling block for accurate navigation and map-making of those years, the determining of longitude. Why is latitude so much easier to determine? It wasn't about getting accurate sextant-based angle measurement from the horizon to known astronomical bodies. Hell, even an amateur now could get a fix within a few minutes of arc, with each minute being 1 nautical mile (~ 1 and 1/8 "normal" miles).
Why can't one do the same along a curve the other way? You could, but the problem is that, unlike latitude, with the rotation of the Earth, the object moves with the date and time. These guys knew that date, but what one may not realize, is that timekeeping was not what it is now. Not only were the no GPS time signals, or (going back 30 years) ham radio time signal stations, but clocks were just not accurate in the long run. As described in the book by Mr. Sobel, finding accurate longitudes meant the invention of clocks with long-term accuracy.
That was a big quest back then, Holy Grail expeditions notwithstanding to build a better clock. There was a lot of money involved, and eventually a guy named Harrison, after 40 years of work, gave the world of exploration what it had lacked. In the meantime, though, could there be another way? I really believe that scientists in those days had to be MORE CLEVER in their thinking than those nowadays. How else could one know the standard accurate time in Greenwich, London, England (which we still use today as GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) after having traveled thousands of miles over some months with inaccurate clocks? Well, let's get back to ...
(This is getting too long for one post. I will finish the 2nd within 1/2 hour of posting, as the suspense is probably killing you, right?)
* BTW, there's more on this whole "China invented everything"** mantra in the Wiki page I checked to find Galileo's last name (easy, right?) and some moon sizes:
"A Chinese historian of astronomy, Xi Zezong, has claimed that a "small reddish star" observed near Jupiter in 362 BC by Chinese astronomer Gan De may have been Ganymede, predating Galileo's discovery by around two millennia [7]"
Really? Is that how science works? One guy in China 2,381 years ago saw what we now know is Ganymede, and reported it as a star. So damn what, Wiki! That's NOT the discovery that it IS a MOON of Jupiter, because there's no science there. I can see a bit of anti-Western slant there on Wikipedia. As Mr. Galilei might say, " ... yet it moves ... and you don't know squat about it."
** OK, that was just a humorous post, but a review of the book The Man who Loved China will have more on this topic in, what, another year and a half?
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Is "Be Safe" the "Have a nice day!" of the 21st Century?
Posted On: Tuesday - January 22nd 2019 12:01PM MST
In Topics: Humor Curmudgeonry
Do you remember that old TV show, Hill Street Blues, from the early/mid 1980's? During their morning briefing this cop Sargent (or whatever) would tell the beat tops that, before they went out into the hoods. I guess he could have said "follow the Constitution out there!" in old 1950's America, and it may have worked as a tag line. No, I guess in the hood in 1985, there would have been no point to that.
Speaking of points, the point of this post is a new all-too-common goodbye phrase that's been bugging the Peak Stupidity staff as of late. No, we don't do briefings in the morning ("Guys, go out there and find you some stupid!" would be superfluous, wouldn't it?) here at the blog-house. This phrase is now being heard by all of us, at least in this country. First, it was just an add-on: "See ya later; be safe." Then, I've heard it as a complete substitute for "goodbye". What is this crap?
In the early 1970's, as a last vestige of the hippy era, there were these yellow smiley-faced button, stickers and what have you. It was big, man, as big as CB radio became about 5 years later. Around that time, to go along with the buttons, and starting in California of course, people began to say a cheerful "Have a nice day!" to each other. Well, it was cheerful at least if it wasn't specific corporate policy. That was a little annoying, but ya got used to it. It was fairly reasonable, right, I mean, we all want to have a nice day.
Still, maybe "have a nice day" was a harbinger of the decline of America, as having a nice day neither does much to stop the Commies, Globalists, and ctrl-left from taking over, as they have, nor does it necessarily help us have a productive life. Perhaps "See ya, beat the crap out of a lefty out there." or "See ya, get something done!" would have been better. Now, this "Be Safe" thing is just too much. In many ways, the immediate world in front of us is safer than it's ever been, thanks to a lot of engineers who didn't always have a nice day, but were productive (and maybe beat up some Commies during lunch). Being safe may be what women aspire to, versus more risk-taking men, so this could be another indicator of the matriarchy we live under.
Your wife or girlfriend may say "be careful" or "drive safe" every time you leave home. I know she means well, but I think this is a superstition more than anything. Imagine if she neglected to say "be careful" one morning and your car stalled on the railroad tracks and you got plowed into by a 50-car unit train. Yeah, that wouldn't have happened if she'd said "be careful" would it have, and (oh yeah) you actually listened? Right! 30 seconds after hearing "drive carefully" and you're on the road, and this asshole cuts you off, you may decide to pass him and return the favor. Did that "drive carefully" make a difference? No, but the thing is, that guy was an asshole!
OK, what brought this out was my taking a short cut on a walk the other day to avoid the main busy/loud road. As I cut through a car wash parking lot, one of the guys told me that I was too close to the operation and might get hurt. "For your safety, you need to walk around the front." I was 20 ft from any entrance, so his admonishment was just ludicrous. Well, I do respect property rights, even though it sure wasn't his place, so I didn't argue and went around the long way. (It was probably a liability thing, I imagine.) "OK, I'll head around the front. Sorry." "You're fine. Be safe." "What the hell? Oh, see you later."
I gotta admit, it was still more friendly than NY City where, I believe, "get the fuck outta here." is still in vogue, or is that just between friends. I've probably taken it the wrong way ...
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Based MAGA-hat-wearing youngster
Posted On: Monday - January 21st 2019 7:00PM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Media Stupidity Race/Genetics alt-right/MAGA ctrl-left
"What the hell is 'based'?", is what I wanted to know when there was a guy called "based stick man" pushing back on the radical antifa types in Berzerkely, California a coupla' years back. Besides not knowing how many syllables it contains (1, not 2), I hadn't known then that it just meant a stand-up guy. (Where do they come up with these silly-assed terms?) Nick Sandmann, a teenager going to Catholic school in Kentucky is no alt-right, or any, leader. He and his group of pro-life advocates were in the wrong place, or the right place, at the wrong/right time, depending on how this small incident being blown up into Lyin' Press infotainment turns out.
As Peak Stupidity resists the tweeting and twittering, we found out about the tweetstorm agains this young man, his schoolmates, and his school through the usual channel, the iSteve blog on unz. Mr. Sailer will latch onto some episodes of stupidity like a bulldog, so therefore he posts with the usual great comments are multiple - Which Kind of White Boys Does the NYT Hate Most: Protestants or Catholics?, -- You Can Tell They Are Racist Just by Looking at 'Em: Racism Is in Their DNA!, -- Buzzfeed Journalist: Sure, Maybe I Got the Facts Wrong, But I Was Right to Hate That Kid's Face. Why? Because I Hate Faces Like That!, -- Catholic High School Boys Smirking, -- SmirkGate, and -- Jessica Valenti Can't Stop Thinking About That Awful Smug MAGA Boy and His Smirk. You'll learn as much as you want to know about these bouts of media/tweeter stupidity that can make a mountain out of a mole hill.
When one reads all the Steve Sailer posts and comments, the facts of which he comes by from the world of racial political struggle against the normal people by the establishment, it may really look like this is the start of some Bolshevik-style action against the white male. If you get too much into this stuff, you may indeed think the end of this country is near, or the start of a much-needed conflagration.
This excitement is induced by the 24/7 Lyin' Press infotainment that can blow one small incident into a week or month long news story to keep those viewers tuned in. I only learned that this deal was on the TV now, due to being in a place of forced viewing (or at least listening) this morning. If one were to steer clear of the continuous media shitshow, not check tweets all day long, and stay off the blogs for a bit (no, NOT YOU, PLEASE!), one could get through that time never meeting and never believing there are people in this world with the kind of sickness and hate that make this small confrontation into a statement on the evils of white people. They are really few, but their tweets are many.
I really don't know if the Lyin' Press (who just cares about viewers) and these outraged tweeters (who really are angry) know how much they are waking up white people to the amount of hate that may (or may not really) exist against them. Hanging out in the real world with decent people around and ignoring this BS would make one less concerned, but the concern level is being ramped up by these
Of course, some of it is real. The Charlottesville, Virginia street fighting (see Charlottesville and the Lyin Press, Don't let yourself get (Reginald) Dennyed , On Charlottesville again - cntrl-left is picking up the pace, and Anarco-Tyranny at Charlottesville) was the start of some real 1920's Deutchland-style Commie action. The ctrl-left really does want to destroy traditional America, of that I have not doubt. Some of the small blown-up incidents like based MAGA-hat-guy's simply not cowing to some freak Indian dipshit, however, are picked out and used by the ctrl-left to (try to) put the fear of God into anyone daring to defy their power.
Unlike Charlottesville, where the antifa types had plans made ahead of time to attack the peaceful-intentioned group there to stand for the heritage of Robert E. Lee, some of these unplanned outrages end up as own-goals for the left. As the Lyin' Press and crazy tweeters jump onto the bandwagon with scant evidence of wrongdoings, such as not-OK facial expressions or hats they don't like, the real narrative makes it into the public's eye via the internet. As people see how sick the ctrl-left is, these types of incidents will just grow the alt-right. This is all as Nick Sandmann and his classmates simple don't want to get kicked out of school by some pansy-ass cowardly Catholic "leaders" rather than be part of any movement ... for now. The more publicity this incident gets, the more these boys will realize that "politics is interested in THEM", and change their views accordingly.
The blogger Audacious Epigone, in his post on this brewhaha, Merciless Indian Savages and Their Mendacious Media Sodomites (love that title!), says in regard to this media hate on the white man:
It’s easy to become demoralized. It’s also foolish. All we have to do is wake up and we win.That’s right, its really that simple. Its a matter of the right timing, in my opinion. Let’s say in a similar situation there are white guys around, a majority of whom have just had enough of this stuff. A small group of them make a peaceful stand. Then, the word gets spread quickly and people join the crowd by the dozens and then hundreds.
Here’s the thing: Once you get a decent sized crowd, people will lose their fears of being singled (or doubled, or by the dozen) out for media hate sessions and readily join the crowd. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: THEY CAN’T GET US ALL FIRED! THEY CAN’T GET US ALL ARRESTED! ETC!
That is why I smiled at that Tommy Robinson video* in which he had support from the British soldiers. Sure, the army decided to discharge one of the supporters, for whom they claimed that this was just the last straw. That then started a “I am Soldier X” type movement. Try to shut that down, and things are bordering on mutiny. Are you going to discharge half the bloody army?
* More discussion and video is here.
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Lord, I was born a ramblin' man.
Posted On: Saturday - January 19th 2019 9:33PM MST
In Topics: Music Southern rock
From the miserable year-long 5,000 mile rambling of the Chinese Communists, we move to rambling in the 1970's American freest times every seen by man in recorded history. This blogger has considered himself a ramblin' man in the past.... though I have ridden the hound many times, I do have a birth certificate, if I can find it, that shows I wasn't born on it. I do remember the times, though, when the Greyhound driver slowed down in the middle of the night, looked toward the back, and yelled "put that joint out, or I'll drop you off right here!" No, that was not directed at your blogger here.
Compare the life of the lyrical "Ramblin' Man" in America in this song to a real-life Commie marcher of only 3 1/2 decades earlier
Here is the Allman Brothers from their album Brothers and Sisters.
This song has Dickey Betts singing, rather than the more bluesy Gregg Allman, two songs of whose were featured here right after he died about 1 1/2 years back. (Also, Peak Stupidity posted the song Dreams, also with Gregg Allman singing, a year ago on Robert E. Lee's birthday.) That's Dickey and a guy named Les Dudek on lead guitar. Duane Allman had already been killed in a motorcycle wreck, and the bass player Berry Oakley was killed the same way 3 blocks from the site of Duane's wreck, during the making of this album.
US Highway #41 goes down from Chicago, where it is Lake Shore Drive, down to SW, Florida and east across the Everglades, passing through the Allman's part of Georgia on the way.
If you're not in a good mood after hearing this, there's nothing that can help.
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[UPDATED 01/29/19:] Corrected info on Hwy 41 per commenter Ganderson.
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The Long March of the Chinese Commies
Posted On: Saturday - January 19th 2019 8:31PM MST
In Topics: Commies History China Geography
Comrade Mao takes a few hundred mile breather on the march:
This post comes out of left (yes, LEFT) field, though Peak Stupidity did mention the 1934-5 Chinese "Long March" back in one paragraph in the post called Long Marches, never-ending marches, and Revolutions. I've been reading through this Wikipedia article and another on the site Alpha History about this period of Chinese History near the beginning of the 1st phase of this (of many in the 5,000 year history) civil war. (It had to be interrupted for a few years in order to fight off the Japanese, with American help, I might add.)
The Wiki article seems fairly unbiased, as many can be, when the politics are left out. I was surprised to find the Alpha History site even disparaging this period in the Communist's history and Mao himself. It should be easy enough to find diparaging material on the tyrant/butcher/torturer Mao Zedong, but it's not as easy as it should have been.
If it weren't for the fact that the winners write the history, we'd be calling this whole deal the "Long Retreat" rather than the "Long March". See, the Kuomingtang, the Chinese Nationalists (and on-off-on-again anti-Communists) under General Chiang Kai-Shek had built fortifications all around the eastern province of Jiangxi (just west of Fujian province, which is 100 miles across the straits from Taiwan) to surround this first Chinese "Soviet" with its armed forces of 130,000 men, located in Ruijin, in the SE of the province (the closest big city being Ganzhou, with it's current population of 9,000,000, located about 600 miles SSW of Shanghai).
After a diversion in a different direction by some of the Red forces, of 86,000 people trying to break out past the fortifications of the Nationalists, only 36,000 made it out of the area, the rest having been killed or having deserted. The group headed west, through northern Guangdong province, then northern Guangxi province, into deepest, mountainous Guizhou. During this time there were power struggles among the leaders Mao, General Zhou, a guy named Bo, and a German Commie advisor named Otto Braun*. General Mao, who was able to remain in charge, moved his forces, the 1st Army, in a continual retreat from the Kuomingtang, sometimes back and forth and around-and-round, adding to the mileage. There were regroupings eventually with the 2nd Army and the 4th Army, but they resulted in more division again and both the other two armies had their own subsequent just-as-long (2nd) and not-quite-as-long (4th) marches to go.
The dashed curve is the path of Mao's 1st Army.
The southern dotted curve is the path of the 2nd Army,
and the northern dotted curve is the path of the 4th Army
Almost until the end, the Long March was a retreat from the Chiang Kai-Shek's forces, with battles of all sizes along the way. One of them, the early-on Battle of the Xiang River, was reported to leave 40,000 Commies dead, and another, over the Luding Bridge (on the Dadu River), a famous victory said to be a fierce battle by the Reds, was reported later to be a skirmish in which the local warlords (no Nationalists) just turned and ran. The worst of it must have been the trek across the over 13,000 ft high mountain passes through the Snowy Mountains heading north from Yunnan into Sichuan province. Mao's Army ended up by the Great Wall in late October of 1935, with something like 8,000 people remaining of the 160,000 total people who had participated. I don't think any general in any army in world history would consider this a successful operation.
The length of that miserable trek is on the order of a round-trip from Chicago, Illinois to LasVegas, Nevada. I'd prefer the latter, myself. I'd much rather get my kicks on Route 66 than travel with a bunch of stinking Commies on the run in the backwoods of China. However, for a Commie with propaganda at his disposal, this Long March is a thing to celebrate and reminisce about. That town of Ruijin, where the Red Chinese had their 1st little Soviet, with their "28 Bolsheviks" (they were good with that abacus) is considered a destination for a pilgramage of the hard-core Commie, Mao-sackhanging set to this day. In the meantime, as bad as things are here, I'd rather be in the south side of Chicago (for not too long) or losing my blogging profits in the pits of Lost Wages!
* The Nationalists had their own Germans, including one Hans von Seeckt, who helped General Chiang in developing the plan to surround the Commies back in Jiangxi. "Whose Germans were better?" is always the question that crops up in military history.
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Thousands Standing Around without pay
Posted On: Saturday - January 19th 2019 12:47PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government
Actually, the problem is more that some of them DO work hard,
but at a job that involves DOING US WRONG, for anyone who values his freedom.*
Per Zerohedge yesterday, More TSA Workers Citing 'Financial Hardship' As Reason For Calling Out Of Work. They can just as well stand around at home. I think this can only be a good thing. If there are a dozen or 2 passengers stranded at a slow-moving TSA line at a small airport, the airline WILL hold the flight. They will eventually put pressure, as much as one can on a government agency, to speed it up to avoid this. At the airline hubs, the mass of misconnected passengers will cause the execs to do the same.
Early on here, I do want to emphasize that the discussion here is based on the major wrong assumption certain people make, that the TSA SHOULD be able to even operate in America to begin with. This is not a new topic for Peak Stupidity, as we have discussed the wrongness of the TSA before, (along with the Communist-inspired name of the Cabinet Dept. it operates under, the Department of
The Zerohedge article gives some easy-to-work-with numbers: There are ~ 51,000 employees at an average annual salary of $41,000. Lop off the one-thousands, and it gives a cool $2 billion spent yearly. Hey, wait, 2 1/2 years of that, and we're in the (widely-government-style-inflated) cost of a wall on our southern border. Let's see, if these TSA people had been sent home when Trump became President, with this extra money, the wall could have made it from National City, California to somewhere around Del Rio, Texas by now! (Let's ignore for the moment that this all is < 1/2000th of they yearly Feral budget, so it's all just chump change.)
Just looking at the $41,000 annual salary, for a minute, and the ZH headline, no, it's not much money these days. It does beat minimum wage service jobs by a long shot though. I don't want to hear that these government employees are living paycheck-to-paycheck-to-well, missing the last couple, haha. One can live off that and even save enough after a year to enable being shy a couple of checks. One just can't try to live like a 1980's or '90's middle-class American though, and do that, which is another topic. I guess the almost-impossible-to-be-fired, low-pressure government lifestyle makes this crowd unworried about living on the edge with their finances.
In earlier discussion on this Feral Gov't Shutdown, ... is it a threat, or a promise?, we brought up the "office-to-pool-hall pipeline idea. The TSA would be a choice example for the best use of that policy. Imagine if we just paid these people to stand around, but NOT AT AIRPORTS. You have to stand up while playing pool, so these people should be acclimated to that new use of their time. What a more pleasant experience air travel would be! Sure, pay these people the 2 billion anyway, it's the same as welfare - what's the diff?
I mentioned that bad assumption made to enable this discussion to begin with, on whether it's Constitutional. No, it's not. Even if we don't go this far, to basic principals on which our country was founded, such as this security of person and property from the Feral Gov't, there is the other stupidity implied in having these 51,000 people do this job while the southern border remains wide open. Let's get off the overwhelming Hispanic immigration-invasion for a bit here, and just think of others who are getting in to the US illegally and without anyone's knowledge of their identities. Yes, there is evidence of plenty of people from all parts, cough, cough, MOSLEM, cough, parts of the world getting in this same way. Though some may have come a long way just for the bennies like the rest, others may have different agendas. The stupidity implied by the leaving wide open of this most basic path to a loss of security while insisting that we need these 51,000 people searching American children and grannies is some high-level stupidity indeed.
I'll just send you to the ZeroHedge article comment section to get some more comment on the utter stupidity of having the TSA. I wasted 1/2 hour on an Apple device trying to learn to copy text better off of some sites (while it works fine on others), so I cannot put my favorites in here right now.
* There is an Anarcho-Tyrany aspect to this, as, even with all the riff-raff in government, many Americans do try to do a thorough job at whatever their jobs are. Were this Latin America, there would be no integrity, making it somewhat more pleasant, ironically. Additionally, having travelled from the same places a lot, I have met some very decent people going through this nonsense, which is a dilemma. Do you make everything personal based on principle, or just go along, like everyone else, and treat the decent guy as you would a neighbor (which he might end up being)? This is the subject for an upcoming follow-up post.
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