Taking the Wall Street Journal, ass-backwards
Posted On: Friday - December 14th 2018 10:46AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Humor Pundits Curmudgeonry Economics Media Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity
Back in the day, the Wall Street Journal paper newspaper was seen by me as a fairly-erudite information-packed part of the mainstream media*. There was a 1 1/2 year period during which I made an effort to buy the paper version at an old-fashioned newsstand/store on the way home from work, my goal being to learn more about business. I enjoyed my routine of trying to learn from this newspaper, except from that Money and Investing section, which was damnably boring until I realized it was also full of trading-advice via after-the-fact explaining by a bunch of bullshitters. I quit reading that part, and I am happy to say I never took any investing advise from this newspaper.
The other 3 sections were interesting enough for a while, especially the occasional, often-humorous, story on small business. I would save the editorial section for last because I enjoyed it back then. I was fooled by the "conservatives" who wrote in, with the exception of a nutball lefty named Al Hunt. Was he on there just to piss the readers off? I don't know why else he was. The immigration stupidity, especially as espoused by editor Robert Bartley, was just beginning to kick in for me at this time.
Well, the price of a paper WSJ went up by a quarter one day, and, as economists who could tell you about demand-elasticity very well know, my demand was about as elastic as pair of underwear worn for five years by that fat chick that gotten taken out by that Dodge Challenger** in Charlottesville. That is to say, I quit reading what I then considered a rag, the extra quarter just being the straw that broke the Lyin' Press's back.
What the hell this post is all about is, that I happened across a paper version for some post I thought I wanted to write, and subsequently read an excerpt from the WSJ also. These writers still do the same thing: They write numerical changes in their verbiage in the WRONG ORDER! "Ass-backwards" is the term of art. It's been like that since I read the paper daily, and it's irked me the whole time. It's like this: "Due to the latest FED announcement by Mr. Yellen, short-term treasury yields dropped sharply today, to 2.71% from 2.86%, and we coulda' told you that ahead of time yesterday, but nope, you wouldn'a believed us.". Note the "to" BEFORE the "from". "Trading volume on the Big Board rose slightly today, to 2.16 billion shares traded from 2.13 billion shares." What the hell is wrong with these people? That's my beef today, but this has been happening for a long time.
Look, you dipshit writers, we read from left to right. That's the way numbers should go to. Picture a graph in your head. Got it, WSJ writer?! The Peak Stupidity reader is right now reading this post to the right side from the left side. How stupid does that sound?
I think this style has been picked up by writers outside of the Wall Street Journal. They would like to emulate this pseudo-erudite style, and additionally are mostly too innumerate to even notice what's wrong with it. For years later, not due to my having taken*** the paper copy (I don't see how) subscription offers would come in the mail, every 3 months or so. I would dutifully put them in the nice post-paid envelope they provided me with, with the words "FIRE AL HUNT! Then I'll think about it." or "Close the borders!" across it. Some poor Filipina girl, at a mail-opening facility in Manila, may have learned something, I can hope, from my demands, but those Editorial Idiots at the WSJ have gone TO more clueless FROM clueless.
* Looking back, that would have been my term too, as opposed to those that are more accurate now, the Lyin' Press, Government-Media, or the System Media (h/t James Kirkpatrick of VDare).
** Yeah, but it's just one of those retro versions, not at all the same as a real 1960's or '70's Challenger.
*** Now, that's an interesting phrase you hear from old people, from the day when people "took" Time Magazine or "took" Better Homes & Gardens. To "take" it meant, as in, having a subscription. In my WSJ case, I didn't "take it" unless I was missing a quarter!
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Therapy for our hard-working Lyin' Press
Posted On: Wednesday - December 12th 2018 7:10AM MST
In Topics: The Russians TV, aka Gov't Media Humor Media Stupidity
Well, the Peak Stupidity blog has been trying very successfully to avoid the Lyin' Press infotainment, in all it's forms. I find it amazing that the last time I even so much as glanced at any of the reporters, talking heads, or newspaper headlines and had to put up with anything regarding THE RUSSIANS! was 1/2 year ago, yet, apparently this ginned-up BS is still going on!
Per commenter Lurker on unz.com, the folks that are still truly worried about THE RUSSIANS! may be well-advised to enroll in some psycho-therapy sessions. Apparently, they've got new methods now, but some of the well-paid illustrious members of the Lyin' Press should easily be able to afford that old stand-by, electro-shock therapy. AC/DC, 2-phase/3-phase, 115 kV to as low as 220V, there are protocols for everyone now. It sure couldn't hurt, right?
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Protest Creep, Movement Creep, and Co-option
Posted On: Tuesday - December 11th 2018 7:49PM MST
In Topics: Commies Liberty/Libertarianism World Political Stupidity
(Did it really take them 2 years to get going?
The big bank bailouts were in '08, and these guys were around in '10.)
In the previous post on the gilets jaunes, or Yellow Vest, movement* Peak Stupidity coined the term "Protest Creep" (Yes, we have a mint in the back of our
What is this movement creep? Well, ostensibly the first protests were just about this increase in the diesel fuel tax. It'a about more now, though. This is to be expected. Once the participants realize how much power they have (and often how much fun some of the ass-kicking of officials and the destruction is), they'd naturally want to bring up some other beefs. There are things that have been stewing in all of us, and the time is ripe in France now for the population to air their grievances to the elites. That's all fine. If the movement goals creep onward and upward, eventually it becomes a real revolution.
One could say the American Revolution went on along similar lines, at least until the Declaration of Independence put many men's lives, fortunes and sacred honor directly on the line. There were incidents 10 years before, and then things would quite down, then a new tax on this and the Boston Massacre, then the Boston Tea Party, etc. It wasn't until the goals of the "rights of Englishmen for Americans" movement got high enough that it all got wrapped up into one goal, a Great Brexit, way before "Brexit" was cool, you might say. Of course, it all worked out well for the Americans in general, but that's definitely not usually the case.
Within many political movements, there creeps something else, infiltrators of political ideologies that want to take advantage of the momentum for their own purposes, like say... I dunno ....
COMMUNISM?!
Yes, that's the history of lots of these things, going back a century or more, as I think of Bizzaro Germany (more here.)
Do you remember those "Occupy Wall Street" people seen in the picture at the top? It was supposedly first about the big bank bailouts and the economy tanking (not due to that, but the bailouts being an egregious example of the problems). The occupiers never seemed to be any kind of Ron Paul libertarians to me from the get-go, but these people got more Socialist and Communist in their demands as time went on, their camps got filthier, and their leaders got stupider:
Yeah, that's the kind of slogan a Commie would take to, indeed. The Occupy Wall Street movement may have been somewhat, let's say, unsound, at the start, but it got co-opted toward a total Communist, totalitarian vibe by the end. It was kind of like those anti-Globalism protests way, way back, in 1999-2000 in Seattle, Washington, but more long-term and filthier. Those anti-Globalists may have originally been on the right track, but their complete lack of conservatism made pretty much everyone hate them. Did some Commies infiltrate and originally-decent movement? I don't know, as I never learned enough about it.
Speaking of the Occupiers again, around this time near the end of the 1st decade of this century, there was the Tea Party movement. It was not exactly the type of Tea Party movement mentioned above, ready to raise hell and dump someone's private stash of tea into a harbor while dressed (very un-PC'ly, I might
The movement creep within the Tea Party was originally for the good, support for certain kinds of candidates, downvoting of Øb☭macare, more term limit talk, etc. However, the infiltration this time was not by Commies, as they would have been weeded out like a pot plant in my neighbor's Yard of the Month. There were instead establishment conservatives, no liberty-lovers they, who used the Tea Party to elevate themselves above their status as standard Washington, FS Beltway regulars. Some of them were indeed still better than average conservatives, but they were bound to let most of the principles of the Tea Party slide, when they obtained their goals of national political offices.
... but not stalwart enough to really help the movement.
Some of the neocons nudged their way in:
And then there's Beck:
Any questions?
* BTW, just as a Libertarian, I'd have been pissed off to begin with to be required to carry a yellow vest in my vehicle. That is the law over in France, they say, and that's where the yellow vests came from. Laws like that were reason enough for Revolution in our forefather's time. I think bright yellow and orange are getting so ubiquitous, that our eyes may just see them as background scenery after a while.
** As written here, Mrs. Palin was the only reason to have even CONSIDERED voting for the Neocon scum McAmnesty.
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The Yellow Vest protests and "Protest Creep"
Posted On: Tuesday - December 11th 2018 11:26AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity World Political Stupidity
It's about time to write something about this encouraging hell-raising political movement in France. The French, and the Europeans in general, are big on the whole "general strike" thing, and just strikes in general. Peak Stupidity will not get into strikes and labor union discussion right here (good one for a coming post, I suppose), but there's a lot Americans don't like about this sort of thing. If you travel in Europe, possibly northern Europe partially excepted, you will run into the train not running, cabs not driving, and just general annoyances that we aren't used to putting up with in America. The General Strike thing, in particular, is something people here could perhaps not fathom. We do like to do our jobs, government workers partially excepted.
The origin of the protests in France over the last week seem to be a bit confusing from the articles I've read. A big tax on diesel fuel (taxes on fuel being a BIG Euro thing, many times more than 100%) supposedly was the impetus. I've also heard of it being President Macron's talk of this extra tax money being used to mitigate the feared Global Climate DisruptionTM causing the good French people to have had enough. President Trump had mentioned that, per sources I've read, and that of course, has been dismissed by the Lyin' Press. The continual forced extraction of the labor of the French workers in the form of taxes, to pay for stupid projects around the world is reason enough to raise hell. That is nothing but good conservatism. However, the French are not in general good Conservatives but fairly Socialist. What they are becoming is more nationalist.
As they think of what "their" governments in Paris and Brussels are doing with their tax money, the out-of-control immigration of foreign free-loaders, seems to be now part of the protests. Then, they want Macron out, for sure a worthy cause itself! (There is a caveat - to be replaced by whom?). It's become a case of protest creep over there.
Protest creep can be good. All the problems that the patriotic French may have with their government should be aired. If, as is the same case in America, the French and Euro governments are working against the people, they should be changed and opted-out of, respectively. While you're having this general strike, inconveniencing a lot of your fellow French and causing a lot of damage*, etc, you may as well make it comprehensive.
However, what I'll write in the next post is that often these protests, or eventually, movements, get co-opted. That's the problem the French are probably running into right now.
* As far as the damage goes, it could indeed be a lot, but I'm really getting pretty cynical about what the Lyin' Press would have to say about it. From the BBC (what should I expect? Right?), we read:
Le Parisien newspaper reported that in the capital about 50 vehicles had been burnt and dozens of businesses vandalised, with some of them looted. The authorities in the city say that riots have caused millions of pounds of damage.50 cars? Are you serious? I think the Moslems burn 10X that many each night during the right time of the month (or wrong time of the month depending on whether you are an auto owner or pyromaniac)! I believe the Lyin' Press figures we are all innumerate or have no memory whatsoever.
Regarding the immigration portion of the demands of these French protesters, I believe they'd have to torch most of the structures in all of France to equal the LONG-TERM damages (just the monetary part) being done by the extensive Moslem infestation that their "leadership" has burdened them with.
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His name was Patrick McCalley
Posted On: Monday - December 10th 2018 8:19PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes Race/Genetics ctrl-left Orwellian Stupidity Educational Stupidity
Peak Stupidity is not known for being compassionate, sharing, and all that crap ... we call out the stupid whenever and wherever we see it. You won't see a lot of sob stories on here, but this one is kind of close. I'd like to just illustrate today how bad the effect of the oppressive, Orwellian, anti-white-male establishment can be, even at the high-school level.
It's been two years ago now, but, because there is now a lawsuit, a sad story we missed, out of maybe many more like it, caught the attention of the Peak Stupdity blog. In the semi-Lyin' Press New York post, "Excessive Fear" after in-school suspension drove Air Force hopeful to kill self, we see a tragic result of the ctrl-left cultural repression at the lower-ed level. A 16 y/o high-school kid killed himself as soon as he got home after 'suffering “extreme and excessive psychological distress' while being questioned by an assistant principal about two racially inappropriate Snapchat messages he sent to another student." Again, as written above, this could be taken as a sob story about some student snowflake, as "in my day, they slammed us on the ass repeatedly with a paddle with small holes in it just to make it swing that much faster" (yeah, I always thought that hole thing was just a crock, just said to put more fear into the students).
I believe there's a lot more to it than that, though. Did you get the part about the racially inappropriate Snapchat messages? Yes, back in the day, it would have been more about blowing up toilets with M-80's, fighting in the halls, or smoking (too much) dope in the parking lot, with the exception of the last, much more serious actions than sending "racially inappropriate Snapchat messages"... one would think! However, times are different, and the cultural oppression, just as severe at this point than that of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is serious business. Making comments, even jokingly, about the wrong people - the correct races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and lately sexual out-patient organ-conditions - is very very bad. To make that clear, anyone non-white, non-straight-unadulterated male has a higher caste ranking than, say this Patrick McCalley, who made the simple mistake of writing the incorrect Snapchat (WTH is that?) messages.
See, the cops came, which can scare any diligent non-thug of a student who has plans for his future:
Patrick “remained isolated” in a closed room as Carmel High School assistant principal Toby Steele and Carmel Police Officer Phil Hobson questioned him about the messages. He then wrote a “self-incriminating statement” under the penalty of perjury and was told he was being expelled or suspended from school, the lawsuit claims.An arrest for any charge, no matter how stupid it sounds to the sane, is an arrest on his record nonetheless, and the HR ladies don't take too kindly to that. Really it'd be better nowadays to have a conviction for blowing up a toilet with an M-80 than even the CHARGE of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGING, OMG!
Yeah, next thing, even if Big Brother of the school could not really get the boy expelled, he would be an outcast for the rest of his time in this high school, once the facebook shunning came down on him. I don't mean to say this lightly - it's how bad the young ones have been brainwashed by 9-10 years already of this anti-white, anti-male indoctrination at the government propaganda camps. It take a very loyal girlfriend not to break up with him over this. This making fun of the correct people - IT'S! JUST! NOT! DONE! More from the NY Post article:
Prior to the incident, Patrick had been an “outstanding student” at the school, where he was a member of the marching band, jazz band and concert band. He also had no prior disciplinary infractions and was preparing for a future in the United States Air Force.Yeah, it is very sad. I could be callous as usual and say this kid was a snowflake but it really doesn't sound like it. High school kids don't have any perspective yet. The school and "questioners" made Chris into the worst person in the world. In addition, it's not like any other kids would likely visibly support this boy. Besides the brainwashing, even a truth-seeking youngster would not likely be brave enough to publicly defend his friend on this BS. Chris McCalley was all alone in this struggle.
“When Patrick awoke on October 6, 2016, he was a happy, well-adjusted boy and had just received email correspondence from a representative of the United States Air Force and was excited for the future when he left his home for school,” the lawsuit states.
But within minutes of leaving the school after being summoned to meet with Steele, the teen decided he no longer wanted to live.
“Patrick’s father, Christopher McCalley, arrived at the home shortly after Patrick but was too late to prevent Patrick from shooting himself out of the despair caused by Defendants’ actions at school that day,” the lawsuit states. “When Christopher McCalley saw Patrick, he called 911 and tried to stop Patrick’s bleeding. When law enforcement officers responded to his 911 call, Christopher told them this had to be because of whatever just happened to Patrick at school.”
I don't want to blame the Dad at all (and I wouldn't, OTOH, blame him either if he took this more personally out on people at this school than a lawsuit does). It's just advice now, for other parents. Please, please, spend time with your kids to get them used to listening to the truth from you. They must be made aware early on that the world is full of lies. Possibly, if his Dad had talked over some of this anti-white-male BS with him, whether it's telling him to be careful in everything he says (shame it has to come to that) or how to handle any trouble that comes from what he says, it may have given the boy more strength. Yeah, it's a sob story because I feel so sorry for the father of Chris McCalley, a victim of the Orwellian school system of Carmel, Indiana.
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History's rhyming - 1/2 or full century meter?
Posted On: Saturday - December 8th 2018 2:49PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Lefty MegaStupidity History ctrl-left
More thoughts on the ctrl-left violence that's been escalating over the last 2 or 3 years in America came while I was writing the previous post on the verdict in the James Fields (Charlottesville street battle) trial. Back in March of this year, Peak Stupidity posted a 6 part series - "There's battle lines being drawn" (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6), comparing the political violence occurring nowadays to that of 1/2 century ago, during the famed '60's. We also speculate on how this new bout will turn out.
The image above does show a car being blocked, or so it seems. There were protests, and there was tear gas sprayed around. Some people did beat on each other. Are current events nothing but a repeat, but without the great music? I wasn't there, but sure did read and hear more stories of what went on when it was a lot fresher in people's memories. Though most of the protesting was peaceful back then, especially as the hippies did not go for the antifa look, methods, and utter stupidity, there was, of course, quite a bit of violence. People took over university buildings, and they did block roads, as now, but, no there are a couple of major things that are different now.
The first big difference between the '60's political protest scene and that of the '10's is that back in the day, The Establishment was not of the left. The institutions of America had not yet been infiltrated by the long march of the left yet (though they sure were cranking it up then). R or D, people in charge of governments were hard-core conservatives compared to today. Read about California Governor Ronald Reagan TAKING BACK OVER the Univ. of California, Berkeley some time. University administrators may have wanted to appease the students, but they were not yet down with the stupidity. The press had an agenda already by the 1960's but they were not the completely one-side Lyin' Press of today.
Finally, as related to this sickening James Fields verdict, the justice system was in no way a tool of the left. Rule of law, due process, and, hell, even the US Constitution, were taken very seriously by the conservatives that ran the institutions. The left could take advantage of that when protesting and/or getting arrested when getting violent, but it wasn't run by them. See, they don't care about rule-of-law and due process, now that they are running the show. That's not something that one shouldn't have seen coming a mile away.
The second big difference is that America now is a collection of diverse people and diverse ways of life that in no way resembles the America of 1968. (The Ted Kennedy sponsored, LBJ-signed immigration act of 1965 had not resulted in much accumulation yet in 3 years.). Though millions of Americans were against the Vietnam War, wanted some kind of "civil rites" for "fairness", wanted to take drugs without hassle, etc, the country was still very united culturally in so many ways. (See, that was the result of it being > 40 years since the severe-curtailment of immigration due to the immigration bill of 1924.). Granted there were hard-core anti-Americans, including, but not limited to, Communists behind the scenes. However, the "shock troops", the guys running around in the streets and blocking cars, that was, did not HATE America and Americans. One could more likely peacefully talk over the issues with them once everyone washed the tear gas out of their eyes. Yes, these protesters wanted some changes for the good, and stupidly lots more for the worse, as taught to them by the guys behind the scenes. However, almost every man and hot, albeit smelly, hippie-chick on the street cared for his country.
We are not in this situation today. The antifa in Charlottesville would never have been interested in a peaceful back-and-forth discussion of heritage and the value of the General Lee statue in the part that summer day. They were only interested in putting down any peaceful resistance to their agenda from the alt-right. They knew that any police action was going to be in their favor, as it was right from the beginning. (Please read some on the events that day, even if just in that same article.) As for the 2nd difference, most of the ctrl-left today have been steeped-in, if not brainwashed about, all things American being hateful, and white people being the cause for all the ill in the world, for minumum 13 and up through 18 years. They don't like anything about this country and want it destroyed. Again, this is the attitude of the shock troops on the streets, not just the evil bastards behind the scenes, as has always been the case.
I'm of the opinion that this rhyming of history that we are seeing is not a rhyme of 1/2 century ago, but more like of a complete century in a different locale. That's be the Germany of the 1920's and '30's. It's not exactly the same, and that's why they* say history doesn't repeat, but sure does rhyme.
The "boxing into a corner thing" is not just in the realm of violent acts on the streets. It's also a more large scale thing, as I mentioned in the previous post (near the end). The Communists, along with, unintentionally(?), the victors of WWI had made it hard for the Germans to get their economy out of a deep quagmire and to live normal lives. The Communists wanted badly to make Germany into another USSR of some type (just experimenting, you know, to see if it results in that Utopian working-man's society). Just as today, the left calls the conservatives names** and puts forth all the lies, making it unreasonable for normal people to defend themselves peacefully. That first verse has been already read .... how will the second one go?
This 5 minute video (thanks to unz commenter "Wayfarer" for finding it) explains why the right better understand that the left is beyond being reasoned with nicely:
I'd almost forgotten, but the Peak Stupidity blog featured another "Black-Pilled" video by this Mr. Devon Stack less than 2 months back. The guy makes some powerful points, and he gets lots of views. (I suppose I should join his "channel" or whatever you do.)
* Somebody that I can look up later, sorry!
** No, they couldn't use fascist or Nazi just yet.
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Guilty as Planned - The James Fields Charlottesville Verdict
Posted On: Saturday - December 8th 2018 12:42PM MST
In Topics: Cars alt-right/MAGA ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny
This is one of the most timely posts here on Peak Stupidity, though that is not our forte. Nope, the TV news is not blaring out around me, as in some homes, so, though I may miss some current events, I miss the brainwashing infotainment, hence, have a much better idea of WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON. So, when reading this article by a friend of the defense on unz.com this morning, along with the comments, I noted that just yesterday, Mr. Fields, the young man on trial on charges of murder via automobile back in the middle of the Charlottesville, VA antifa attacks in the summer of '17, was found guilty of 1st degree murder, supposedly after a fair trial of a jury of his peers. (This was after this article was published, but there are comments from after the verdict.). No, it wasn't manslaughter, more appropriate for a man trying to get out of a bad situation in a panic. It could have even been self-defense, as couldn't a 300 pounder like that destroy the entire cooling system, raising engine temperatures within minutes on that hot summer day, causing a seizing of the cylinders and thus rending the vehicle inoperative for an escape? (OK, now that last would require a really crack lawyer - speaking of cracks, too soon?)
First, without even going into this bit of "justice", one can learn that part of the Anarcho-Tyranny on display there was what went on afterwards as far as criminal charges to the ctrl-left antifa vs. the Unite-the-Right group. The latter, if you recall had gone to peacefully assemble to speak about saving a General Robert E. Lee from cultural destruction. Some were appropriately armed for their own safety, as, well, you can't keep being beaten up or running forever. There was not one of the antifa who were ever given meaningful criminal sentences, even the ad-hoc flamethrower users, the guys who dragged a man into a parking structure to beat hell out of him, and the rest who used violence condoned by The State.
The fat broad who Mr. Fields hit with his car at a fairly slow speed while trying to get out of the whole area was the only one who died that day - that is a fact. However, if you don't already know the details, please read the article linked-to above. A blog post is not the court of law, but there is lots of evidence to give a reasonable doubt of Mr. Fields' alleged intention to murder the lady with his car. The discussion in that article and comments also includes doubt about the ability and motives of the public defender, and the partiality of the judge. The Mayor of Charlottesville and his deputy are apparently hard-core ctrl-left, making one wonder why a trial with this publicity (including a completely asinine, ignorant statement by our Tweeter-in-Chief*) couldn't have been moved to a different venue for a fair trial. There was no escaping the hostile media, but he may have gotten a fairer judge and jury.
I would say the poor young man was railroaded as a big lesson taught by the ctrl-left to the alt-right yesterday. They want you to back down next time immediately after their minions start anything up. They want you to think of James Fields rotting away in a max-security prison next time, so you will just let yourself get beaten up, or, better yet, never show up for any rally, protest, or other event to defend your people and heritage. As a matter of fact, they would rather you not speak up or write about anything against the ctrl-left establishment period. See, they can work on controlling Twitter, Facebook, and Google (most of The F.A.G.S.). They've got TV fairly locked up (with one dude going rogue that they've been trying to get a handle on recently.). However, going out and speaking in public, now that's something that's really in-your-face and totally un-called for. Freedom of speech is for the establishment, not the haters, right?
The Peak Stupidity blog posted Don't let yourself get (Reginald) Dennyed to relate the experience of Mr. Fields in light of what happened to an innocent truck driver caught in, then pulled out of, his vehicle during the LA riots of 1992. It's always been a big tactic of the ctrl-left over the years to block roads and vehicles with their bodies. Look, they have nowhere important to go, unlike the drivers on the way to work. I believe they look forward to so enraging a driver that he will go berserk and just hit the gas. (They hope they can get out of the way, a lost cause for some like your big victim of Charlottesville, but I'm not sure they care about their fellow, uh, protesters.). It's a quandary to be in that situation as a driver for a number of reasons. Depending on how violent the people are, and what they have for weapons, they may not just do costly damage to the car. They may be able to get inside at some point after breaking a window/windshield. At that point, the driver, especially the unarmed one, is in a bad situation. I'm pretty sure, he'll wish he'd tried to push through the crowd already.
Additionally, the question comes up again, how long can we keep taking the abuse? A single man without a family to worry about, caught in this situation, may have more of a big picture in his head. "How long are we going to take this?" "Enough is enough." The other thoughts will be "I don't want to be James Fields." Those thoughts will conflict, but sometimes the decision was made unconsciously long ago. When the adrenaline starts pumping through the body, and seconds count, one's action will follow that decision made long ago. See, these ctrl-left shock troops really want to put us in that situation. I believe they haven't thought it through. After this verdict today, the next guy stuck in a car with a mob surrounding it, if he really feels like there is no way out, will not go 28 mph. He will floor it. I hate to put it this way, but he’ll remember what the 1st one costs and that the rest are free. That’s what it’s gonna come to, unfortunately.
Some people remember what happened to Reginald Denny, beat senseless on the street. Others don't, but will just go with their instincts. It's a bad idea to box people in a corner, on both the small scale, as in one panicked (or NOT) guy in a car, or on a big scale, as what they are doing to normal American society. You don't box people into a corner because, civilization and all, we are still animals. Just like with the squirrels, who, as cute as they may be (or NOT), YOU DON'T BOX THEM INTO A CORNER!
*Trump's statement was made in haste and ad-libbed, almost per usual:
I think the driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family and this country. And that is — you can call it terrorism, you can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict. That’s what I’d call it.I would appreciate the President getting involved, but not by shooting his mouth off. He could have the DOJ question whether proper justice was served today in Charlottesville by the ctrl-left establishment. That ain't gonna happen though ...
And there is a question. Is it murder? Is it terrorism? Then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer, and what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.
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Pearl Harbor attack - 77 years ago
Posted On: Friday - December 7th 2018 9:22PM MST
In Topics: History
The "day that will live in infamy", per the words of US President-at-the-time Franklin Roosevelt, is still remembered by some, such as we here at Peak Stupidity, I doubt there are so many who would understand the infamy part, as 77 years is ancient history for the younger people, and the Japanese of today don't seem to be the same as the brutal, viscous, Emporer's armed forces of 1941 (and right up to the point of being bombed to the stone age in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945).
There is lots of writing that discuss the possible reasons or even justifications for this attack. The President FDR seemed to want to get America into WWII to help the English, though a big share of Americans wanted to stay out of it. He and the Feral Gov't of the time may have not only tried to box in the Japanese with trade policy, but there is lots of information out there that says the President had warnings ahead of time, but wanted this attack to start the war ... shades of 9/11 there.
That back story nonwithstanding, this was a terrible attack on those sailors, soldiers and airmen, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that December day of 1941. Over 2,300 were killed, and > 1,100 were wounded. 97% of the mostly men killed were military personnel. Survivors of Pearl Harbor would have to be at least 95 y/o or so now. One wonders what they might think of today's America, and whether that big nasty war was worth it.
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Ronnie vs. Donnie - 3: Domestic Policy
Posted On: Friday - December 7th 2018 10:44AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump Americans US Feral Government Dead/Ex- Presidents
(continued from Part 2)
In this post, I will include discussion of the existential Immigration issue, though it could easily be considered foreign policy too (the subject of Part 2).
The times are/were indeed very different, those of the Reagan vs. Trump presidencies. Just the financial situation is a world different, both the sorry state of the US economy today vs. in Reagan's time, and the part directly due to government, the spending and the national budget and debt. President Reagan had a chance to stop the out-of-control growth in spending by the Congress, to some degree. He did have the House (the branch that spends the money) in Democrat hands the whole 8 years, by 20% to almost 40%, but NOT so the Senate, which was 12% to 20% in the GOP's favor (see When did the Feral Government get OUT OF CONTROL?). Mr. Trump had the slight House and Senate majorities for the 1st 2 years.
I don't think either of these men did a good job in reining in spending. The debt has been going up steadily (perhaps steadily on a log-scale) since before Reagan's time. Mr. Reagan could not take care of this himself with the Democrat-held House, but then he supposedly had this general deal with them. The defense budget would have to be increased to build back up the military and hold our own in the Cold War (we did a lot better, it turns out!) The D's were supposed to cut the welfare state portion of the budget in return. Keep in mind, they were different D's than that of today. Some of them were much more conservative than the R's of today. Anyway, Mr. Reagan, like that mild-mannered guy in Fargo reckoned "but it's my deal here, see ..." No, the deal was not honored, or, in hindsight, there was no deal after all, apparently.
President Trump wouldn't fall for any deals, as he doesn't have that misplaced trust (except for his ill-picked advisors) that Reagan did. Trump has to fight everyone, and any deals he does seem to make are bad deals (more on this re: immigration). Mr. Trump is no Libertarian to begin with, so I wouldn't have expected him to purposefully make any headway in cutting back THE STATE. (I figured if he'd kept his foreign policy promises, and scaled back the US military, the budget may get a break, unintentionally.) In addition, the Republican-"led" Congress of '16-'18 did not consist of many of the Reagan-era types who were actually Conservatives. He had to deal with the Paul Ryans and other scum who will not be of any help in any conservative policy. That is a big disadvantage that Reagan didn't have, even WITH a large-majority Democrat House of Representin'.
Neither president stopped the Feral Gravy-Train juggernaut, nor did any of the guys in between.
Mr. Reagan was a real conservative, almost a Goldwater Libertarian in his principles. No, he didn't lead in that way, as his one of his first campaign promises reneged on was the one in which the brand-new Department of Education would be nixed. It had just been put into place during Jimmy Carter's presidency to FULFILL a campaign promise as payback for votes from the teacher's unions. (Yes, it IS much more easy to fulfill a big-government campaign promise - why do you ask?). Working against the Democrat-led spending body those whole 8 years did not help him, of course, in this respect. Mr. Trump has had the legislative branch on his side for 2 years, but, again, they are not the conservatives of yesteryear (or any year), and Mr. Trump never said he was a fiscal conservative or libertarian. So, in other words, WE CAN'T WIN like this, hence the doom coming, per Peak Stupidity's many posts on Global Financial Stupidity.
On the subject of the immigration invasion, this is where President Reagan's naivety and trust cost Americans dearly, as Peak Stupidity explained here regarding the 1986 illegal alien amnesty, and as regretted by Mr. Reagan later per his own words. In the case of President Trump, because the situation is so much farther along, meaning WORSE, now, immigration was his most important issue. Put it this way: he wouldn't have been in office today, if he hadn't have railed about this problem from the day he stepped out of his hotel in 2015. What's he done? I don't think anything of major note could be said in regards to the current president's accomplishments here. It's just been a shitshow, I'm very sorry to say. I refer the reader simple to the Immigration Stupidity Topic Key for much more discussion.
In summary, accomplishments in domestic policy to make things better for regular Americans did not happen much during either of these presidencies. That's not to say it's been any better with the 4 jokers in between either, BTW. As a comparison between the 2 men, though, Mr. Reagan failed due to misplaced trust along with the impossibility of getting his way in beating against the wall of the large Democrat majority. Mr. Trump is failing due to misplaced trust in his advisors, lack of understanding of what his powers are, and large distractions from the Lyin' Press. I'll get into the relationship between these two Presidents and the media in the next round of Ronnie vs. Donnie.
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The George HW Bush '88/'92 Presidential campaigns
Posted On: Thursday - December 6th 2018 5:22PM MST
In Topics: History US Feral Government The Neocons Dead/Ex- Presidents
Another great column by Peak Stupidity's number 1 pundit, Miss Ann Coulter, brings up the myth/ancient history of Bush's Finest 30 Seconds—The Willie Horton Ad. This is a very interesting and informative correction of the Lyin' Press narrative on the much-maligned Bush campaign ad, back in 1988, along with something on the famous GOP campaign operative, Mr. Lee Atwater. He may have been the last Republican campaigner to fight like a man, by telling the truth.
In 1992, Mr. Bush did not win the election for these reasons:
1) People DID remember that he lied with that “read my lips, no new taxes” bit. We were still not used to ALL of them being liars yet. Now we are.
2) Ross Perot got something like 19% of the vote, taking much more from the R-side than the D-side. Bill Clinton got 43%, if my memory is on point.
3) He had already been blowing the promised peace dividend, and I think people thought an old-fashioned (yeah, ‘cept he wasn’t) Democrat would change that. Haha, yeah, right?
4) I’m only one guy, but as I wrote already, some of his proto-globalist crap was not sitting well with people like me. The Bush family has big Mexican connections, or at least interests. My quick thoughts about his speaking in Spanish on the campaign trail, mentioned in the previous post may have occurred to others as well - "This guy is a Globalist", though the term wasn't in vogue* yet.
I guess you could lump (4) into (2), come to think of it. I really miss Ross Perot. That’d be a guy for whom I’d be sad about when he leaves this world.
* Not even in Vogue magazine, as their articles, if you're not distracted by underwear ads, tended to be about how to have sex better and differently.
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Where in the world is
Posted On: Thursday - December 6th 2018 4:57PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media US Feral Government The Neocons Deep State Dead/Ex- Presidents
[Obscure early-'90's CD-ROM software reference there - Good luck with that - Ed]
Correct answer: Who Cares?
(Yeah, he was probably a fun guy. I'll give him that.)
I thought that this post would be most untimely, as it's pretty late for breaking news. Yeah, ex-President George H.W. Bush has died. I! GET! THAT! Lucky for Peak Stupidity, I'd glanced at the TV while traveling today, and Lo and Behold, there he was again, being buried! Was it file footage, or was this funeral today? I'm sure the astute reader knows the answer already ... I don't care!. What is this deal about going on for a week about some guy who was chief executive of the executive branch of the US Feral Gov't 26 years ago?
I'm going to bring up a post written here when John McCain, then sitting Senator from Arizona, died this summer, called Juan McAmnesty, Rot in Place. To quote that post's quote of another post (whewww!):
It'd be one thing if he were just a retired, possibly reclusive old man living out his life by this point. I wouldn't go into mourning for his death IN ANY SENSE, but I couldn't see any reason to write or say much about it besides "hey, John McCain (Ted Kennedy) died, did you hear?" That's not the case. This guy was a US Senator, one out of 100, and one of the most influential ones, until the day he died. If his dying is the only way for Americans to be rid of his influence and power, then, yes, I'm glad he died!So, that's just it regarding Mr. George H.W. Bush. I'm not glad he died. He was a human being, at this point in time (well before whenever it was he died), a retired gentleman living his life out, and kind of a fun one at that. The more I've learned about this guy since the time of his Presidency, the more I know he was part of the Deep State/Neocon efforts (even, if unintended) in the destruction of this country. He's not been in power to do more of that, so, if he died, he died ... whatever, as they say.
As a sort-of obituary here, let me write a few things about the man that I know. I can tell you that I never voted for the man. In 1992, I voted for the proto-Trump (though quite smarter) Ross Perot. What happened 4 years before that, to cause me to vote L (Libertarian) was, in a way, kind of prophetic regarding the future and especially the Bush family. I can remember quite clearly to this day, that I saw a quick cut on TV showing candidate GHW Bush speaking for less than a minute in Spanish to a crowd. "WTF?" was my first thought, and my 2nd: "Why is he pandering to foreigners?", and my 3rd: "If the audience is not foreigners and this is in the US, then why can't these people assimilate and speak English?" That was enough - no vote for the guy outta me, though he won, as I recall.
Mr. Bush was the last 1/2-way dignified US President, if that matters in this day and age. He was most obviously a smart man, and his supposed conservatism, and after 8 years of President Reagan, made us figure that the decent times would continue. The Cold War was almost over, a very sudden thing that would not have been expected even 3 years earlier. That would provide a peace dividend that should let Bush bring the military home, save money after the USSR-destroying military build-up, and maybe even get the budget balanced.
What did Mr. Bush do with the big peace dividend, in terms of both goodwill and (theoretically) extra money that did not need to be used to defend the entire 1st world anymore? He blew it all to hell with this New World Order crap. It’s not like I heard that term but the one time, and I was paying attention to politics then too. Was it orders from the Deep State? I mean, no self-respecting American would have thought "New World Order” was anything good for the U.S. of A.
President Bush got a big lift in support from Gulf War(1) as Americans WERE gung-ho about it, but that was just because it was a chance to see the great firepower that had not been used against Soviets (thankfully), and it was such a wipe-out that hardly anyone knew an American killed there. Lastly, it made people feel very good about the future where the “good guys” had the upper hand everywhere. We didn’t know the good guys were supposed to continue waging war all around the world .. not the plan, far as I knew. The Neocon stuff, such as the boxing in of Russia, the FORMER USSR now, by NATO, started with this guy. NATO should have been disbanded by this Commander-in-Chief, instead, as a relic of the Cold War. The Neocon stuff was just cranking up during the beginning of the 1990's, and Peak Stupidity and lots of other conservatives sure didn't see it coming.
Mr. Bush's CIA background, from way back, well before he may have been quite involved in the Reagan assassination
As I wrote way above, I always liked this President based on personality. I did like that he jumped out of an airplane on his birthday at 90 y/o.* Throwing up on a Japanese politician was pretty cool, I suppose, though not really in-line with the whole dignity thing. Speaking of that, I enjoyed his way of speaking about “that Act-Up** crowd”, haha, and still remember the “wouldn’t be prudent” imitations on SNL.
Yeah, that's all the memories for now. I am so thankful for not having to put up with the TV infotainment regarding an ex-President dying. Has it been a week again, as with McAmnesty? Come-on, people, we don't' have Kings and Queens here, so the guy's position was simply chief administrator of the executive branch. Are we going to put the flags at half-mast for every chief executive and his brother? We may as well keep them at half-mast, or just get shorter flagpoles. I guess this is just the Government Media's usual way of showing how big and important THE STATE should be to us American subjects.
* Sure, in the picture above, it's just a tandem jump, meaning the guy doesn't really have to do much but move out of the plane correctly and put his feet on the ground, but heck, he was 90. Wow!
** Funny, I've never forgotten that line, but had no idea until reminded, who that Act-Up "crowd" was ... just as well.
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#MeToo hits up President Trump
Posted On: Tuesday - December 4th 2018 7:37PM MST
In Topics: Humor Trump
Yeah, I just had this old .jpg lying around in the computer gathering dust, so why not? Trump hasn't been doing very well in the 3 (Intro, Pt. 1, and Part 2) Ronnie vs. Donnie posts, so it's time to show that Peak Stupidity still likes the guy (well, much better than the alternatives at the time).
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Is sportsball rivalry splitting homes and relationships?
Posted On: Tuesday - December 4th 2018 4:32PM MST
In Topics: Americans Bread and Circuses
It's OK, the bread and circuses are necessary to keep the American population contented, or at least stable and un-organized. The globalist elites need it this way. As a quick addition to the Peak Stupidity post on Sportsball last week, this post was inspired by a headline I'd read during the big college football weekend around Thanksgiving, something about "Alabama-Auburn* rivalry splits homes and relationships".
The article was lighthearted, it turns out, as most people are sane enough not to take a college football rivalry as anything more than entertainment. It all sells very well, though, and lots more than just the shirts, as above. In the previous post, I mentioned the big money involved in spectator sportsball, especially 80,000-attendee college football games (the pros likely easily make much more from their TV rights and merchandising). OK, besides the big money, which people obviously have PLENTY EXTRA of, to spend on this sort of thing, yeah, it's fun for people.
The talk of splitting homes and relationships is just too close to the words one reads in the history of the American War Between the States (or "War of Northern Aggression" for you history, buffs. The reason lots don't label this it as a "civil war" is that it was about a whole group of (formerly) sovereign States making an effort to leave the Union of States. A civil war is one in which the divisions are WITHIN every region (which, worryingly, is what we have today). Still, there are many stories of brothers fighting on different sides, especially in the border states and then in places like Missouri and Kansas where there weren't set-piece battles but more guerilla warfare that was very localized.
The kind of wording used for the Thanksgiving football game rivalries reminds me of this history. I don't expect troops from Tusceloosa to lay seige to Auburn and seize the War Eagle, though those things (the latter part, anyway) used to be done in fun. No, but this talk is just part of the distraction effort, in my opinion. It's a way to let guys blow off steam and feel manly about something, as if it were a war. "What's the problem?", one might say, as that sure IS BETTER than the real thing. It's just that people are being softened up, and are not ready to fight the small battles, say against the Antifa Commies and others, that really have a violent agenda in store for us. People are too distracted by the sportsball to have energy left to fight those that really are intent on harm. Maybe it'll change soon. The goings on with Tommy Robinson in the UK (of all places) are a good sign in this regard.
Still, the more I think about the picture above, and a multi-decade now continual war on Americans' heritage that has pretty much been lost without a fight, the more I wonder about people. You go yelling and screaming and sometimes drunkenly fighting about which of the squad of football thugs is YOUR TEAM and kicks THEIR TEAM'S ass. Yet the Rebel flag has been let to be taken down from almost anywhere in public, and you've got University administrators telling you that you have to call Latinos "Latinx's" and other made up asinine terms. There's loads of ctrl-left Cultural-Revolution type aggression being just allowed to go on, but NO, SIR, do not use the name War Eagle in vain or dis Muh Crimson Tide**!
* Not exactly - names have been changed to protect the innocent, if any.
** Is that really a good name for a football team anyway, or would it be better as a name for a new heavy-duty feminine product? Don't get on my case, Alabama sportsball fans, I'm just sayin...
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America vs. China - not a static situation
Posted On: Tuesday - December 4th 2018 2:07PM MST
In Topics: History China US Feral Government
This is just a little bit more regarding the latest Fred Reed article on the politics and economics of American vs. China. It's a comment under that article which erroneously praises the idea of central governments' power... of course, when run by the right people, which, is a matter of luck. The Chinese are into luck, but luck can run out at any time.
I am not knocking the observations of how things run economically in America vs. in China. I think the article does a good job on that. However, the whole analysis part seems kind of STATIC. I know Fred knows better, as he grew up in what was a different country and BY FAR the most powerful economically, precisely because it was when the US Feral Gov’t still left private (at least small) business alone for the most part.
You do realize, Mr. Reed, that the US was NOT created to be a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic? China WAS a totalitarian society, but things only got (WAY) better after Chairman Deng decided that the central government would start leaving people alone to do business. The Chinese are very good at business and are very hard workers.
Yes, the Chinese government runs much better, at this point, than the US Feral Gov’t after years and years (say 5 decades) of infiltration by the ctrl-left. All of our institutions have been infiltrated, governments, big-business, media, universities, lower education … all of it. China had it’s physical Long March, and 3 decades of hard-core Communism, but they got over it [economically, not necessarily mentally]. America has had it’s Long March on the down low, and is reaping the whirlwind at the present. Will we get over it? Maybe, but it’ll take guns. We got ‘em.
The winds of change have blown through. They can change direction again. For a place like America, it’s not going to take one powerful man (look how ineffective President Trump has been), but the people and a movement. Just as some have been unobservant of China over the last 2 decades, many will miss the changes here too.
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Ronnie vs. Donnie - 2: Foreign Policy
Posted On: Monday - December 3rd 2018 9:03PM MST
In Topics: The Russians Trump Americans US Feral Government Dead/Ex- Presidents
(continued from Part 1)
The two Presidents, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, presided (and is presiding) over almost opposite situations in the history of US foreign policy. President Reagan came into office as the Cold War had been going along for > 3 decades already. There was no reason, during most of the years of his presidency, to think it would ever end. Left or Right, most Americans, still a much more united people than they are now, wished it would end though*. The Soviet invasion/occupation of Afghanistan was in progress, so, though it wasn't in as hot a phase as during Viet Nam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Korea, or the Berlin Airlift days, let me put it this way: The Cold War was THE foreign policy issue, and had been for a long time already.
That's not to say that some of the neoconnery hadn't already started up by the 1980's. However, not very much of it was seen as just in defense and promotion of Israel, even if the Middle East was the battleground. There were proxy wars all over the world that both sides of the Cold War waged to keep each other in check or test the other side. If they're aligned with Iraq, well we've got Iran (till we didn't, that is). If they're in Angola, then we need more bases nearby in Africa. This was going on in about every damn continent but Antarctica and Australia ('cause it's only one country, and we already had those blokes!). There was the Grenada, and Panama (but the latter was during George H.W. Bush's term). That was America's backyard, just as Hungary and Czechoslovakia were the USSR's backyard. The deal was, the big power would not itself go to war over fighting going on in the other's backyard. Now, you could send all the weapons you wanted to ...
Mr. Reagan was inaugurated, not coincidentally, on the day that the 52 Americans that had been held for over a year in Tehran, Iran were released. There was definitely some Deep-State involvement in that deal, a subject for another post. The biggest foreign policy failure during Reagan's term was the killing of 220 US (mostly) Marines in Beirut, Lebanon by suicide bombers with two truck bombs in the fall of 1983. This was definitely a portent of things to come, and NOT seen as part of the Cold War. President Reagan did the right thing and pulled Americans out of the place. (Yes, Lebanon did go to hell, before and after that, from one of the most decent places in the Middle East to what other Presidents might call a shithole. Still, Reagan was right - Lebanon was NOT OUR PROBLEM.) I'd read somewhere that these deaths affected Mr. Reagan more than any other horrible occurrence during his terms.
Well, the world is a different place for President Trump in the mid-10's. Instead of getting us out of Salvador, Nicaragua (our backyard), and getting missiles out of Germany and Turkey being the mantra of those on the Left wanting to wind down the Cold War via unilateral retreat from encroaching Communism, we have those on the conservative right now being the ones saying "we can't be the world's policeman". (It's true, and this police department is BROKE.) With the Cold War long over, just about 3 decades now, almost all of the foreign adventures are of no benefit to America (sure, maybe to SOME Americans, but not to America). The American military is NOT defending against the threat of an Orwellian totalitarian system closing in on us.
President Trump's job, as specified by most of his voters that heard his campaign promises, is to extricate our military from their 100's of foreign entanglements on every continent (except, yeah, Antarctica and Australia). That seems a much easier thing than trying to shore up local forces in every potential Communist-infested hot spot, doesn't it? I believe his job is much easier than President Reagan's job was, on foreign policy.
For 30 years, America has had an overwhelming advantage over every army/navy/air force in the world. (True, that's changing.) We've shown off all of the fancy gadgets, and it's time to bring them and the men all home. It's not like you need to raise the budget for this sort of thing. As a friend said to me the other day, it'd be best, the way things are going, if countries just started kicking us off of our bases, like the Filipinos and various other nations have sporadically done over the years. That would require no thinking or planning. "OK, they don't want us here. Shut it down ... they'll ... sniff, sniff ... be sorry." (Some might even, but it's not the Cold War era - none of what we do for them is helping America.) In the current era, we've had 30 years to try to be friends with Russia. It's not your Daddy's Soviet Union, people would be wise to realize. You don't go about this by expanding NATO right up to their damn border, when, in fact, the organization has long outlasted its charter and usefulness. The NATO enlargement is not President Trump's doing, but he's not been undoing it either, which was another promise of his.
I think that the foreign policy round of this contest between these two Presidents, only brought up by President Trump in the first place, has just been overwhelmingly won by Ronald Reagan. Let me summarize: Mr. Reagan, with lots of help from Maggie Thatcher of the UK, the old non-Commie real-Pope J-Paul II, Konrad Adenauer of West Germany, Lech Walesa of Poland, and MILLIONS of American soldiers/sailors/airmen, engineers, and technicians, WON the Cold War. Without President Reagan, and his stalwart opposition to the evil empire, it wouldn't have happened. President Trump has so far failed badly at stopping American aggression around the globe. He has not curtailed our terrible antagonistic "diplomacy" with Russia. We are antagonizing China now, militarily. Our problem with China is only economic, so I'll give him credit only on the work on import tariffs.
Ending the threat of the scourge of world Communism vs. NOT winding down wars around the globe? This round is a lopsided victory by Ronnie over Donnie.
* The exceptions lay on both the right and the left. The extreme Left (for the time) wanted to believe the Soviet Union was, and tried to make it out to be, this economic powerhouse to prove that, yeah, Communism is great, or something. On the Right, there were definitely many in the Military-Industrial Complex (Ike's term) who had a big stake in seeing the USSR as a big powerful enemy, worthy of new weapons systems and higher military manpower.
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Da Wei on China as a Can-Do country
Posted On: Monday - December 3rd 2018 7:31AM MST
In Topics: China US Feral Government
Peak Stupidity has a special interest in China. Therefore, we broke our "to hell with Fred Reed" shunning to read and comment on 3 Reed columns written about his observations from a 2-week trip to the Middle Kingdom (he went to Chengdu, which is not exactly in the middle of the Middle Kingdom, but a great big city, anyway.) Mr. Reed's first two travelogue-type columns, here and here did not have his usual vitriol against Americans in general, but the 3rd one, along with repeating some of that usual "Americans are bad, mmmkaaay." business, also has a STATIC view of the political situations in China and America, but more on that in another short post to come later.
I don't think I can sum up the reasons for China's rapid economic rise, including the AMAZING build-out of infrastructure, any better than China ex-patriate commenter Da Wei:
As an Old Timer White Privileged Good Ol’ Boy American Working Man who’s lived in China for nearly 12 years now and not around ex-pats either, but with Chinese, I offer these additional possibilities for China’s advance:What can I say, but "Fuckin-A, Da Wei!"
1) No PC;
2) No FED;
3) No IRS;
4) No BLM
5) No hard-ass cops and no reason to have them;
6) No kissing Israel’s ass. Period.;
7) No mention of Marx and the boys or sign of what you would call “Communism”;
8) No welfare give-aways or victimhood;
9) No whining, entitled, fat-ass affirmative action;
10) No massive, oppressive war industry economy and no fighting of Israel’s wars anywhere at all or in any way.
Instead, you see stoic self reliance, self respect and a willingness to work, a “market economy” just as we used to see it in the USA. Now, what’s caused the change? What should we get rid of in the US to get back on track?
P.S. China ain’t perfect, mind you. There are plenty of flaws. It’s an imperfect world anywhere you go, but the good ol’ USA could take some pointers.
More on China shortly, along with the continuation of Ronnie v. Donnie, and various and sundry small forms of stupidity ...
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The Origins of Rap?
Posted On: Saturday - December 1st 2018 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor
Kids today! Well, 5-7 year-old kids have probably always talked smack like this:
"Well, you eat chocolate and poop for breakfast."
"You drink blood and pee, and you eat butts."
"You drink pee, and you eat boogers AND butts."
"Eating boogers is OK. Watch, see I literally ate my booger.
It's fine! Now, I'm eating ear wax."
"You eat butts and eat boogers in your hot chocolate like marshmallows." (See now that kid's got potential.)
I'm just wondering if any reader can confirm that this kids' talk was the origins of Rap and/or Hip-Hop. It occurred to me, after witnessing this illustrious conversation today, that it would seem to likely be the case. Though I have a pretty good knowledge of the best of rock and pop music of the last 50 years, I am no accredited music historian. You don't need that to know that rap and hip-hop suck ass.
Now, others may say that the rap all started with Aerosmith's Walk this Way. As much as Peak Stupidity would like to embed this song to illustrate the point. I don't see it as one of that band's best songs. Let's go with Sweet Emotion from the most famous album by Steve Tyler and his band, Toys in the Attic. Besides a great hard rock sound, Steve Tyler throws in some good lyric lines. "Your get-up-and-go must have got up and went." is one of the best, but go listen to Adam's Apple sometime for a different slant on the Adam & Eve story. It's from the same album.
At the time of this 1975 album, Aerosmith was:
Steven Tyler – vocals, keyboards, harmonica, percussion
Joe Perry – lead guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, backing vocals, percussion
Brad Whitford – rhythm guitar, lead guitar
Tom Hamilton – bass, rhythm guitar on "Uncle Salty"
Joey Kramer – drums, percussion
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We're detecting an increase in the stupid, Mr. Sulu ...
Posted On: Friday - November 30th 2018 8:05PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Humor
Ex-Starship Enterprise Helmsman Sulu, otherwise known as George Takei, has had some strange emanations of stupid, which may require his removal from not just the starship fleet, but possibly this instance of the universe itself. Peak Stupidity spent some time on the Holo-deck researching
This from a guy who complains about having to lower phaser setting to stun?
First, as a slight aside, but completely stupidity-oriented, this was perhaps the first time I'd viewed an actual twitter page without getting to it by accident. What a clusterfuck that whole twitter thing is! I can't tell who's replying to whom, who's following this other guy, and how the hell people could possibly want to waste their lives by sending out this crap every 5 or 10 minutes. As the evil side of Captain Kirk admonished his audience at the convention, "Get a life, people!"
Anyway, Mr. Takei is apparently as lefty as they come. That's to be expected in the entertainment industry, but during the latest infotainment on our ongoing southern-border invasion, this man tweeted his stupidity about it for all to see. (Well, I didn't directly, but it came up under a Steve Sailer post.) The guy's freakin' Japanese, for crying out loud, and has got to know some history of the Pacific Theater of WWII. As an American born to Japanese parents he was interned during that war in Arkansas and California and had an aunt and baby cousin blown/burned up in Hiroshima. He's got to know something about violent weapons, and tear gas (CS gas) doesn't compare to any of that from the brutal island war in the Pacific. Whose side is he on? Oh, I guess that pretty well explains the internment camps - one thing FDR might have gotten right, then.
Is is because he's gay? I've not met a single gay person who is any kind of true conservative. Mr. Takei should have admired the tolerance in this country even in the late 1960's when Star Trek ran on TV with a Diverse crew, before diversity was ever made up and forced down American's throats. The agenda was "hey, all the nations of Earth will get together, people now, people now, and boldly go forth ..." Tell you what, without those white guys designing and running those ships like the USS Enterprise nobody would have been boldly going anywhere, even on TV.
Was the crew of the Enterprise under the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy already in 1966? Did the crew, or even the audience, know that Mr. Sulu was gay? Not that it mattered a whole lot, but it would fit in with the diversity and leave more hot aliens for the Captain, Science Officer (though not very good with the ladies), Head of Engineering, and Bones to bone. Speaking of TV shows with gays, a decade later, there was a show called Three's Company. In this comedy show, Jack Tripper shared an apartment with 2 lovely ladies, one arguably a good bit hotter than the other. Jack, however, had to appear gay to his landlords, so they would not think anything romantic was going on, even though he wasn't getting any anyway, at least on-screen ... no off-screen either from any ladies, as the actor John Ritter is gay himself. That's real irony, come to think of it.
Oh, back to Mr. Sulu and the US Southern so-called border, rather than hear from this dipshit helmsman, let's see what the Captain has to say. Come in, Captain, is there any intelligent life down there?
"Mr. Spock, are you detecting mariachi music on the scanners? I’m seeing lots of … fake IDs … people mooching off welfare…. claiming … erroneous deductions … swamping the …. Mr. Spock, do you read? swamping the emergency roo … ugghhh … detecting 0.45% blood ... alcohol levels, ... Scotty … must. .. close … the …. uhhhggh… border ….
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Ronnie vs. Donnie - 1: The Personalities
Posted On: Friday - November 30th 2018 3:37PM MST
In Topics: Trump Americans US Feral Government Dead/Ex- Presidents
(I hope it's not too confusing but, the first actual discussion on this was in the intro. This post should then be labeled 1, and so on, as I can see some interesting contrasts here.)
One more thing that I could have added to the end of that Intro, but I'll put here: After I had written that post, I read the same evening another great column by our Number 1 (literary, at least) Pundit, Miss Ann Coulter. It was a big beratement of President Trump for not having fulfilled his most basic anti-immigration-invasion promises after almost 2 years now. Besides reading this latest great column for that, you will notice, as I did, that Miss Coulter made comparisons to Ronald Reagan and his accomplishments ... well, I don't want to spoil the ending, but you can probably see what's coming later on that. It's somewhat coincidental in that I'm on this Ronnie v. Donnie kick, but this happens quite a bit in our little pundit world. ;-}
OK, on the personalities and methods of President Trump versus the late great President Ronald Reagan, we can't see two men being much farther apart really. Mr. Reagan was a true statesman and an orator of no small renown. Mr. Trump is a loudmouthed, brash big-city businessman. Though his speeches made as President were often written by speechwriters (like the execrable broad Peggy Noonan), earlier on, Mr. Reagan had made radio addresses weekly* for a number of years that were well written and spoken. Mr. Reagan, though he was lambasted and name-called in the press regularly (more on this stuff in another post), was so polished, smiling, and polite, that even the politicians on left still liked him when they dealt with him in person. (Granted, it was a more civil era.) In the time of Reagan, compromises and deals could still be made with the left, though they were often times broken (in Reagan's words here.) His manner helped him get things done when he was opposed by the House and Senate for most of his 8 years in the White House.
Mr. Reagan grew up in the old middle America. He lived in Illinois farm country, where he spent some time working in radio (politics already!) and then moved to California back when many midwesterners did (not just the Old Okies). It was a white conservative land back then. Mr. Reagan didn't fight in the war (WWII, the big one), and he, in fact, got into the least conservative business that America and California probably had, the Hollywood-based movie industry. That's when he learned who his enemies were. Lots of people know no history of his battles first for and then against the actor's unions, the latter when he realized who damn Socialist/Communist some of his colleagues were. This is where he came to have his very principled conservative views. He then spent a number of working years at General Electric, where he was employed as a spokesman of some sort. He honed his speaking skills and his political ideas during this time.
President Trump, on the other hand, though interested in politics for a long time, did not spend time in the same type of world that Mr. Reagan did. He lived in the always-somewhat-corrupt big-money world of New York City real estate as a big-time developer. He talks like a New Yorker (no, not popular, but we've put up with it because of his promises .. going on 2 years, dude!) He's in your face like a New Yorker. Now, it's probably what we need at this point, as a statesman in the vein of Mr. Reagan may not be able to push back against the much-more-vicious Lyin' Press and ctrl-left crowd that regular Americans are up against. The quick in-your-face retort is what is needed, though that's not to say Ronald Reagan was not quick with a reply. He was, in fact, known for his one-liners**, but it sure wasn't on the same level of incivility maintained by Trump. It's a different time, 3 decades after Ronald Reagan LEFT office, and the country has changed for the far worse. The right must fight fire with fire.
As far as these two men's methods of getting things done, as President, the important factor in my mind is the delegation of work and authority. Reagan had been governor of California, and Trump had been a long-time executive of companies building big high-rise projects. They both had plenty of executive experience, and that means knowing that one cannot do it all himself. An executive must delegate work to those competent people he can trust. That's been the problem with Donald Trump, as I've mentioned before on this blog, and it is his 1st obvious losing comparison to Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan picked his team from many of his long-time insider political buddies. He had a long political life already by the time he took office in 1981, from CA governor through the 1976 campaign for the GOP nomination. He did good with getting a cabinet of conservatives, albeit some of which who may have gone somewhat rogue.
Mr. Trump, though, seems to have really failed badly in this important regard. I believe it's because this high-level political scene is not what he's got experience with AND the man doesn't have the kind of strongly-held principles that Mr. Reagan did. When Mr. Trump ran a building project, he'd have to have trusted a lead structural engineer to make decisions on that aspect of it, as he himself did not have the knowledge, and rightly knew that. That's why you delegate. On becoming President, I believe Mr. Trump trusted way too many others as experienced insider picks that had the knowledge to do the job, because he didn't realize: This is all politics - there are no experts that know anything that your 70-year life of experience and instincts don't already tell you. These expert politicians aren't experts in squat-all, and they are making it up as they go along. Lastly, insiders are the LAST THING WE NEED at this point. Trumps's delegation of work in his administration has been an absolute failure.
Additionally, though President Reagan had some cabinet members that he had to change out, and I'm sure there were many squabbles over whether he'd be able to stick to his conservative principles, that was kept mostly in the White House. There were leaks as always (at least when the Lyin' Press is against you, as it was bound to be when you were a conservative, even back in Reagan's time). However, the President of the US wasn't in twitter arguments, or the 1980's equivalent, with his own damn employees! Look, he regular Peak Stupidity reader will know that we like this guy, but Mr. Trump has been failing due to picking almost all the wrong people to help him get a job done, and his squabbles with these people have been made in public for all to see. It's time for him to go back to his roots, pick some trusted friends and/or former employees for the jobs, and not worry that they are not experts in the American political establishment. That'd be a feature, not a bug.
Having mentioned Ronald Reagan's great oratory skills above, I do want to contrast his with that of Donald Trump. It's also an effect of the times we live in, but, though Mr. Trump's vocabulary and style are NOT statesmanlike, his "speechmaking" is probably MORE effective than Mr. Reagan's was. Reagan could keep the crowd listening, and lay out the principles of conservatism in a way Trump couldn't dream of. However, it was still just speechmaking. I put quotes around that word in reference to Mr. Trump, as he really doesn't give speeches in the traditional way at all. He has rallies and gets the crowd riled up an excited. His talk goes back and forth, and around in circles, but he is really WITH the crowd. Reagan had speeches, but Trump has pep ralllies. I think the pep rallies are indeed what we need right now.
That's all well and good, but Trump's problem seems to be, as I mentioned in that intro. post, that he thinks the talk is all that's necessary sometimes. Encouragement, when all about you, the media establishment puts out it's usual lies, is a good thing. It is no doubt very helpful in rallying the base to vote, but what good is voting if the politicians you successfully elect don't really do any good for you? That's what happened - two years of President Trump and a GOP House and Senate, and what ?? Nada. Nada whole lot. I wish the current President would use the bully pulpit and (yes, sigh..) even the tweets to target Americans to help him get the work done - "Impeach Judge X in this district in California." "Tell Congressman Y to vote YES on ABC, or you will not re-elect him." That would need some attention to detail, which Trump doesn't have, and his traitorous underlings refuse to take part in.
In their dealings with the Congress and the media, there is a difference in these men in the trust factor. Though I mentioned that President Trump has put TOO MUCH trust in his beltway-boy advisors that only want to continue the back-stabbing of Americans (along with the President himself), I think President Reagan had too much trust in another sense. As a midwest-raised, old-time Californian (back when it was populated with 80-90% regular Amricans), Mr. Reagan thought people in government and the press would keep their word. His misplaced trust here was especially bad in his dealings with the US Congress. President Trump, coming from his NYC big-real-estate-deal background is supposed to be a much better wheeler-dealer and not so naive. More on this with regard to policy will be in latter posts.
I mentioned this already, but it deserves more mention: President Reagan was a man of principle***. I have no doubt about that from my readings of his biography and his own writings. I never saw Donald Trump as a principled man, as that type of personality would not have helped him as a NY big shot personality and smoozer in his business. When he came out swinging against massive immigration in the summer of '15, that didn't matter so much. The immigration issue is existential, so, no matter what else, like a somewhat Statist mindset that he has, we could live with that. I still think his lack of principles wouldn't matter right now if he'd get the right people to do the job we've expected. His heart is in the right place, on the side of the average regular American, and I could also say the same for President Reagan.
* This vinyl album is all I could find on amazon, but I'd read an entire book, from the library, of the transcripts of some of this stuff - I cannot find it now.
** When asked about being too old to be President during his campaign for the 2nd term in 1984, President Reagan retorted "I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." This is one his most famous ones, with more here.
*** ... at least, that is, until after he was shot by John Hinkley early in his 1st term (only 2 1/2 months in). Was that possibly a hint from the Deep State that he'd better play ball? The more I learn about what happened with that assassination attempt, the more I think so. That could explain some of President Reagan's latter policies. He should never have hooked up with George H.W. Bush, CIA, and no, not "hooked up" in the modern sense, but it was probably more unseemly than that would have been.
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[Updated 11/30, couple hours later:] Added
3rd/4th to last paragraphs on speeches and rallies.
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[Update - 12/7:] Added short paragraph on trust,
to fortell more info in Part 3.
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Chinese vs. American infrastructure - "From Scratch" vs. Repair modes
Posted On: Thursday - November 29th 2018 4:15PM MST
In Topics: China Economics
And it this corner, work goes on fixing this old subway in America:
After posting here about the amazing build-out of infrastructure in China going on, and lately reading the two posts by pundit Fred Reed about what he observed in his two weeks there (Part 1 and Part 2), there's a major point to be made when comparing all this to the same structures/systems in America. That is, America has been mostly built-out for a while, one could probably say from 70-odd years ago (after WWII) to the 1980's sometime. The period is very arguable, I realize, and would depend if we are talking trains, roads, skyscrapers, or what.
In China, nothing of consequence** was built until the mid-1980's after Chairman Deng's reforms of (basically easing way up on) Communism took hold. Before that, it didn't matter what the hell the Central Committee wanted, and how the money would be raised, THERE WAS NO MONEY. They could barely survive back then, much less build skyscrapers. Now, all that money they've been collecting from selling us the Cheap China-made Crap is there for the spending - 1000s of miles of new roadway (each year, I would bet), a high-speed rail network (in way < 10 years!), and dozens of cities that all look like New York, but with better lighting (the Chinese are nothing if not connoisseur of lighting everything the hell up). Why can't we in America keep up with this type of thing, one may say, if keeping up with the
Besides the fact that possibly our governments are mostly broke already, there is another big factor that makes it hard to keep up with the Laos: Starting from scratch is SO MUCH EASIER than keeping the old stuff running. This is true for roads, subways, sewer systems, and the whole gamut that defines an infrastructure that befits a decent civilization.
America was a young country once. It may have not have been building the SAME gleaming new stuff, but some of it was amazing, built 1/2 to a whole CENTURY before what the Chinese are building now. Some of it does the same function after 114 years, no China-made crap this is:
(Black & white pictures were all you got back in the NYC subway's time of glory.)
However, face it, we get old, and stuff gets old. The constant repairs going on in New York city have been a fact of life for a century. It's so much more difficult to divert traffic and dig up and under the road for a week with expensive union labor than it is to build a city street anew. In other cities I've seen new techniques to knock out old leaking concrete sewer lines with a cool machine, using another machine to run a plastic pipe through. Cool! However, each house still had to have the street dug up in front for the new connection, then filled back in then repaved with the usual imperfect surface remaining. It's the same problem for repairing rail lines that are old*** vs laying down new track with a machine that lays down sections at a time of 2 rails and ties together in short order.
If you don't pay attention to this stuff, then I hope you are familiar with old houses. Whether it's your money or your time and sweat, everything is much more hassle, if not impossible, to make like new. "Well, I can knock out this wall, but the wiring's got to be re-routed, and there are pipes in the way." "To run the new wires to replace what the squirrels have been eating, we've got to pull it all, and we're going to run into cross pieces requiring knocking out part of the walls." "I'd like to put new flooring in, but I'm gonna see how bad the sub-flooring is, and I know I'm not gonna like what I see. That'll require tearing this whole room apart." ... etc., on and on it goes. How about "Let's just burn this thing to the ground - I've had enough!"
The same can be said for NY City (especially the "burning to the ground" part, though that's a job that Americans just won't do - we'll need some immigrants for that ...), along with all that's been built and finished 100 to 25 years ago all over America.
This is not to detract from the amazing projects that the Chinese have been building all over:
It's rough terrain over most of that country. We have our mountains too, but much of America can be paved over with drainage created, with just the standard road-crossing bridges for new roadways. I give the Chinese a lot of credit and awe over this stuff. However, over here, we are in repair mode, and you can't always just tear down and build anew. We're in a really tough state to try to keep up with the Lao's, and it doesn't help that we're beyond broke!
* I'll give Mr. Reed credit, as I also did here, that these 2 posts were not Anti-American or Anti-Americans, as his stuff has been lately. It was just a travelog from someone writing the way a reporter SHOULD (yes, highly irregular, I know!)
** OK, except for that one big wall ...
*** Thanks to the wonderful Mighty Machines videos from mid-'90's to late '00's Canadian TV, I've seen sets of machines that will knock out old ties, punch passageways, put new ones in, and set in the spikes. Still, it's way more trouble than with new stuff.
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