The importance of the Royal Wedding
Posted On: Monday - May 21st 2018 10:43AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor Media Stupidity
Just WTF are these people, anyway?
No, I mean, that wasn't an exclaimation point, just a question. I don't know who these people are. Who is the son or daughter of what Queen or King? Do your job, media - I don't know what the hell is going on here!
OK, it could be, that, as lead and only blogger of Peak Stupidity, I may have missed an important event of this weekend, over in the old country, formerly-Great, formerly-Britain. As a reader, I think you may be doing yourself a great disservice by using Peak Stupidity as your sole source for current events knowledge. Not tryin' to turn off readers ... just sayin'...
I think that the groom there is related to the Princess Diana whose death rudely interupted an episode of Saturday Night Live back in the 1990's, but I don't know who she was the daughter of. Should I be concened that I can't seem to keep up with this stuff? I perused the front page of the National Enquirer and other tabloids at the grocery store over the weekend, while I waited for some lady with more than 10 items, but I must have missed this one. Should I feel bad that I just like the original non-rehashed version of Elton John's Candle in the Wind (BTW, the Peak Stupidity blog has just gotta put up some music from that great album Goodbye Yellow-Brick Road from Elton John's prime songwriting years. Nope, I didn't forget Bernie Taupin)?
OK, listen, it'd be one thing if these people really were in some sort of power, as 150 years ago. There are people in the current age that pine for a, or "The" Monarchy, seeing it as better than democracy. Well, I'll tell you again, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, Kinks songs notwithstanding, and this country was NOT EVER SUPPOSED TO BE A DEMOCRACY - IT WAS A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC! (Yes, WAS.) Still, if this monarchy had power then it'd be important who marries whom, as it was in the day. Oh, and I guess the brides weren't all actresses and sluts back then either, but I dunno, we didn't get into all the details in high school history class.
I just don't know if there is any way to care less about things like Royal Weddings. If there is, please inform Peak Stupidity via the comment section (put PS before the rest of the writing).
PS (see it's easy!): No, we absolutely will NOT provide links here to pictures of and gossip about, the Royal Wedding. Our best suggestion, if you missed this story is: See where all those candy bars are? Yeah, right near the checkout counter. OK, now get even with the tic-tacs. Turn around ... there you go. Got it? Good.
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Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac
Posted On: Saturday - May 19th 2018 8:21PM MST
In Topics: Music
Most of the music on Peak Stupidity lately has been associated with a post in some way. Here, I just want to feature a great song that the reader may not have heard in a while or at all. You can't help but like this one.
This is Second Hand News by Fleetwood Mac from their big-selling album Rumours (yeah, spellcheck works - they're just British.) from 1977. Only a couple of tracks on that album are NOT great.
This great '70's rock band has been featured here before with Say You Love Me and Blue Letter, both from the album previous to Rumours, just called Fleetwood Mac.
It's Lindsey Buckingnam singing here and his bright-sounding guitar.
For those of you living with the life-long effects of childhood lyricosis, as this writer is, I want to make sure that you know this: Lindsey Buckinham is NOT singing "I'm just sittin' here nude, I'm just sittin' here nude... yeah!" OK, just making sure we are all on the same page.
Lindsey Buckingham – electric guitars, acoustic guitar, percussion, lead vocals
Mick Fleetwood – drums, timbales, shakers, marching snare drum
John McVie – bass guitar
Christine McVie – Hammond organ, piano, backing vocals
Stevie Nicks – backing vocals
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Minnesota Nice, terrorists, and the Security State
Posted On: Saturday - May 19th 2018 10:21AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Student and other Snowflakes US Police State
While writing the post Nice and Stupid DO NOT MIX, people! the other day, I had something more to say that post-length precluded. This story is a 1st-hand one.
At a work site in Minneapolis, Minnesota, we ended up having to work in an area where one needs "badges" (pieces of plastic), "escorting", and all that security-state crap that is around when in a "sensitive" area. This was a place in which someone could do a lot of harm to the public, if he were bent on that, pretty easily, in fact. I just put those quotes around the words because most security-state stuff is for show and not truly a serious attempt at preventing what the AUTHORITAE seem to be most worried about. I'll get to that, or you'll just understand that from the gist of the story here.
This was a lot like my experience at the Eiffel Tower, dealing with the French Estate Securite. I had had about enough of the bullshit, as all the Americans had to go through all the hassle to get things done, while in the meantime, the workforce out in the "Secure Zone" consisted of AT LEAST 1/2 SOMALIANS! Yeah, true. Now, I'm sure some manager over them could tell me about the extensive, extensive background checks done on these men and women. Yeah, right, you people checked for arrests and traffic tickets since they've been here for 3 years. Uh-huh, OK, but how 'bout the other 25 years back in the chaos of Somalia? Got the records from their high schools, if any? Got the paperwork from jihadi clubs, do ya?
I don't like being bullshitted, so just stop, security-state apparatchiks. Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. You tell us that we should take this terrorism stuff seriously, yet you have hundreds of Somalians working in the "Secure Zone".
Now, this nice Minnesota lady was standing around checking who goes where. I'd had enough and said, "what are you worried about me for, there's a bunch of Somalians working over there?" Wow, that smile just disappeared, as I was NOT AS NICE as she was! "What do you mean by that?" she scolded, figuring I'd apologize. "I mean, it's defeating the purpose!" I said, and walked off. What would go through a snowflake like that's mind?
In the words of Cosmo Cramer "oh, yeeaaahhhhhhh!"
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Post # 666 - Don't Fear the Reaper
Posted On: Friday - May 18th 2018 7:02PM MST
In Topics: Music Trump AntiChrist Hildabeast
We've had just a little less to fear from the reaper since early November of 2016. No matter how badly President Trump has been screwing up and how many promises he's already broken, don't you wake up each morning and just think "whewww, imagine if that nightmare had been real."? WELL, DAMMIT, YOU SHOULD! The Hildabeast of our nightmares pops up to mouth off with that forked tongue every few months, but it's not enough to make me have to change the sheets more than I would regularly.
Since this is post number 666, the Peak Stupidity blog will lay off our regularly scheduled smorgasbord of stupidity, if you will, for today, and just present some music that is appropriate for the post number.
"All our times have come.
Here but now they're gone.
Seasons don't fear the reaper,
nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.
We can be like they are/
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...
Blue Oyster Cult (and, for the life of me, I never knew you had to put 2 dots over the "O" in Oyster. WTF is up with that? I've got vertical pairs of dots, but not horizontal, sorry):
Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser - lead guitar and vocals
Eric Bloom - lead vocals, "stun guitar"
Allen Lanier - keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Joe Bouchard - bass, backing vocals
Albert Bouchard - drums, percussion, backing vocals
They were from Long Island, New York.
BTW, I'd wanted to write some more related to this morning's post on "Minnesota Nice" and the Somalians, but post # 666 doesn't come around every day, ya know.
Man it's a week later or so after I wrote this, but I really forgot to add that I had for a long time thought this song was Don't fear the reefer. I mean it was from the 1970's, it only stood to reason that Blue Oyster Cult wanted their fans to enjoy it as much as they did.
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Nice and Stupid DO NOT MIX, people!
Posted On: Friday - May 18th 2018 7:35AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Student and other Snowflakes Movies Race/Genetics
I'm gonna link to a story in a few paragraphs that is just another pallet in a 90-boxcar freight train-load of immigration stupidity. The Peak Stupidity blog could expound on immigration stupidity day-in-day-out, but we would like to keep abreast of many areas of stupidity in order to stay relevant and keep the resume polished for the nice HR ladies
Speaking of nice, that is leading to the story here. In the upper Midwest portion of the US, say, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, you have your people that are just known to be very nice. The phrase is "Minnesota nice", even, up in that state. The people who settled these lands 150 - 100 years back were Germans, and Scandinavians, for the most part. I'm not sure (topic for another post?) where exactly came from, but the attitude of agreeableness and helpfulness with the nice smiles and "you betcha"'s can still be noticed if one visits from elsewhere. It's got it's pros and cons. People are ready to get along, but it doesn't seem like they would be ready to question authority and to stand up for themselves like the Scots-Irish, say, in the Appalachian regions and (what was the) West way back, Kentucky and Tennessee. You wouldn't see the clannishness and violence that you see in the Scot-Irish. That was, in fact, part of what made the movie, Fargo so funny, at least the first time. Even with the kidnappings and all (a big part of lots of Coen Brothers movies), everyone is just so calm and quiet-talking, with that hilarious midwest accent, with no yelling, threats, or violence, ... well, yeah ... there is that wood-chipper scene...
The Americans up there would just like to all get along and be agreeable. Don't fight the authorities. If the nice people from the Feral Government and our own local Lutheran Churches say they are bringing some nice people from Somalia into our town, well, we'll help them with a bake sale. They will fit in fine just like Rhoda over there in Mary
Well don't bet TOO much, nice Minnesota bitchez, cause this deal ain't working out like you planned, or I should say, "should have planned, or at least freakin' thought about for a bit!". Finally we get to the link to this story Millions of dollars in suitcases fly out of MSP, but why?. Even though from the Fox branch-office of the Lyin' Press, this one is worth reading*. You socialist-leaning Minnesotans like to spread the money around to the downtrodden via your governments' confiscation of people's incomes, huh? Got some of your taxpayers' money going to free daycare** for "THE CHILDREN", do ya? When you import large crowds of people who are not as nice as you, you find out you're being scammed oftentimes by the Somalian daycare-center owners. Oh my goodness, why, this shouldn't happen!
It's not just that they don't fit in. The Islam, the chaos, and the corruption that exists in their old country Somalia can't be taken out of the Somalians just because you've been so nice to them, just as your pleasantness and work ethic wasn't taken out of you Scandinavians when your people came to Minnesota > 100 years back. Wouldn't that be obvious? I guess not, if you are just too nice to want to think about it, and heavens-to-Betsy, say something about it out loud. Oh, heavens no!
They're going to just keep being nice up there and saying nice things until they're broke and it kills them. Well, I mean it's a whole lot better than raising hell, and, my Gosh, being called all sorts of names!
Your niceness, combined with utter ignorant stupidity, has been a really bad deal for the formerly nice city of Minneapolis, and other areas of Minnesota.
*I want to state categorically that Peak Stupidity has no problem with the Cash is King aspect of this story, as we are nothing if not liberty-loving and Libertarian. In addition, for the same reason, government-provided day-care in ANY way, shape or form - WE'RE AGIN' IT!
** Just another way to ruin the family, and ya gotta get both parents out of the house to be good socialist worker-bees, doncha' know?
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Have the Population Bombs been Duds? - Part 4
Posted On: Wednesday - May 16th 2018 3:53PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Globalists The Future
This is the concluding post from the series - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Why is the AntiChrist Soros' ugly mug on here? I'll tell ya. It's because, as King of the Globalists, he represents the people who want to destroy nations - the whole concept of nations, that is - and this has to do with the Population Bombs and Duds, how??
I'll tell ya, but let me wrap this whole thing up to include the ideas from the other 3 posts. The worries about the Population Bomb (singular, as in, the whole world, used at that time) dissipated over the years, for a number of reasons:
1) By the 1970's the baby boom all over the West was over. See posts 1, 2 , and 3 of the Peak Stupidity discussion on "Demographic Soo-ee-cide of the West". The problem WAS defused there. By about 2 decades later, the developed Far East (the Orient, that is) had also defused their population bombs (see Parts 2 and 3) If that had been the end of it, these nations would have remained great places. In the West, however, the Globalists had other plans.
2) Over in the underdeveloped lands, the "shitholes" in modern parlance, the Population Bomb there had not been diffused.However, the cntrl-left does not want to talk about that, as that would be racist. They chewed out the Westerners for a few decades about not ruining the planet with all those children, but won't say a word about Africa and the Middle Eastern lands. I will include a graph (again with projected data 2020- 2050, so take that part whatever way you want) from Part 3, the conclusion of the Demo-suicide posts. (Note the numbers are /1000, as in Billions, not Millions)
That bright red is a large amount of people, with the legend "Asia except China and Japan". Well, Asian Russia can't be more than 100 million, and the Koreas are stable, there's over 90 million Vietnamese, so most of that red is India and the Moslem countries. And then there's Africa in purple. The purple and the red are the numbers growing pretty rapidly at the current time. We don't know what will happen in those countries. It may not level off for a century, and those places are un-diffused Population Bombs.*
The big problem is that the Globalists want to set new detonators in the defused Population Bombs of the developed world, the West and the Orient. The want to fill these lands with people fleeing these Population Bomb countries to make sure we no longer have coherent nations. They just can't stand having middle-class, united peoples in their world, it seems.
If they can get 10-20% of the people out of the Population Bomb world, that will be more than enough to preclude assimilation and completely change the make-up of the nations to which they migrate. Now, that's a feature, not a bug, to the Globalists. That this huge migration will not nearly be enough to relieve the pressure in the origination nations does not really concern them.
The Globalists and their useful idiots have been implementing their plan very successfuly (SO FAR) in the West, as the Western people seem have a very big built-in guilt complex. In the Orient however (China in Part 2 and Japan/Korea in Part 3), it is a different story. The Globalist line of BS is not making many inroads there. The Chinese realize what enough people looks like and will not even let many Chinese people move back! Likewise, the Japanese display no nonsense when admitting people to stay for good in Japan. You can go look back at VDare articles and elsewhere around the web, but it is almost laughably encouraging. When one reads about the admission of refugees and sees numbers like 4 or 5, that's not 4 or 5 THOUSAND, not 4 or 5 HUNDRED even, but 4 or 5 PEOPLE!
That's why the Lyin Press flying monkeys under Globalist control keep trying to pound in the exact opposite worry from 5 decades back - "OMG! There will be no people left! You can't support yourselves. You've got to let more people in your country, or ... some bad things will happen!" Whatever happened to those hippies from the 60's telling us that we were polluting the world with all this offspring? Oh, wait, that was only for white people to listen to.
Well at least the Japanese and Chinese just will not let their nation be changed, like it or not, Soros.
* Latin America, especially South America is kind of an exception. Even without a whole lot of prosperity, the bomb has been somewhat diffused, and it's a smaller bomb to begin with.
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Oriental is the term and we're done talkin' about it.
Posted On: Tuesday - May 15th 2018 7:04PM MST
In Topics: Political Correctness Curmudgeonry Race/Genetics
OK, after already suggesting that I'd beat this horse to death in the future, in the previous post and back on Saturday, I'd better get 'er done. However, upon searching, I noticed that this PSPP (Peak Stupidity Pet Peeve) has cropped up not just once, as I'd assumed, but twice in the more distance blog-past. Our annoyance with using the term "Asian" for "Oriental" was discussed in a post featuring Aja, the great song by Steely Dan, in addition to the mention of the older, more mellifluous English names for places in China, with the accompanying Rod Stewart song, Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?.
Let's hope this doesn't crop up too many more times, but it's gotta be fixed, dammit! I think using "Asian" for "Oriental" started sometime in the 1990's. "Oriental" means "Eastern", just as "Occidental" means "Western" from its Latin roots. As far as the Europeans were concerned, way back in the past all the way to those Roman times, the people in China/Japan/Korea/SE-Asia, (whatever those countries were called then) lived way to the east. Europeans were not called Occidentals, simple because the Orientals didn't use Latin words, and the Euros (Occidentals) didn't need to call themselves ANYTHING but Greeks, Franks, Anglo-Saxons and what have you.
From Steve Sailer or a commenter of iSteve, after some discussion there, I did learn that the good folks in Turkey and parts near there were also called Orientals way back. "Think about the Orient Express railroad. It doesn't go to East Asia." they explained. Good point, I figured, as I had thought that train DID go all the way to China. OK, so you've got people somewhat to the east, the "Middle East", and those in the Far East who, let's call them Orientals again, please, not Asians. Why?
There's a Korean, a Siberian Russian, an Indian, an Indonesian, and a Saudi Arabian.
THEY ALL LIVE IN ASIA.
Got it? It's the biggest continent in the world and has people of widely varying racial and ethnic groups in many nations. Political Correctness works in strange ways, but is in general based on not hurting people's feelings. The Peak Stupidity blog does not aspire to be PC in any way anyway, but in this case, I don't even see how feelings could be hurt. How is being called an Easterner an insult!?
The pics above had guys with various hairstyles and headgear. Maybe that is confusing things. How about this lady? What type of Asian is she? Answer, from this view, who cares?*
* Feel free to put in your guess in the comments section. Winner gets the girl for one night.**
** Virtually only, as Peak Stupidity is on a low budget after bidding entirely too much on that giant rabbit sculpture at Sotheby's.
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The Eiffel Tower and Le State Securite
Posted On: Tuesday - May 15th 2018 8:52AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism
(previous post on Paris and the Police State apparatus there here from last Friday. Again, topic key "US Police State" will have to cover France too now.)
While in gay Paris, doing non-gay things there, one must see this wrought-iron composed still-marvel of structural engineering built 130 years ago. Yeah, not quite "what we still can't do today!", per Neil Young. It' no simple sphinx, stonehenge, or coliseum; it is an engineering marvel. What I noticed is, contrary to lots of things and places I've revisited after a long while, the Eiffel Tower looked BIGGER than I remembered it.
The Securite/Police State business came into play during this visit due to, well you know who. A certain group of immigrants, mostly nice and harmless who still don't fit in worth a damn, but with a small but non-zero number of angry zealots among them who hate the people of their welcoming new land cause changes to life in Paris. They come from places somewhere to the east, but not too far, let's call it the Middle (of the) East to be PC about it. (Hah! - more on that riddle in an upcoming post on the meaning of "Oriental").Now, this writer had already read on, you guessed it, VDare, that things had to be tightened up at all the tourist sites in Paris. (Yeah, VDare covers ALL aspects of the immigration issue.) So, even with the embarrassment of my assumption of security procedures when that was not the point, as in that short post on our visit to the Notre Dame, I was well aware of what was going on lately, and prepared to be pissed off.
It wasn't everyone in our party who was well aware however. We found that we had to go through a security line looking for metal only, not nearly the strip-search-like procedures at airports nowadays. Yeah, OK, guns, I get it - except what are you worried about, someone shooting and making a small dent in the heavy wrought iron and bringing down the Eiffel tower? Ludicrous! OK, it's about some rag-head shooting up the crown up in the tower. OK, but then it's the usual disarm-the-good-guys procedure, a really bad idea. Looking at the "French" people running the security lines, I saw hardly one white person in there. Ever heard of an inside job? Anyone? Anyone? Buehlaiere?. Also, yeah, there's a crowd up there, but there are big crowds in all the cafes along the Seine River... all over Paris there are big crowds.
OK, it was something I was ready for, so we enjoyed the view and the engineering. The problem came in when we got out back at the bottom. True, I could have thought about it more thoroughly and left via the SE corner (or is it due south really?). We didn't, and then found out we needed to go basically across the footprint or around to get to the subway station, but the direct way along the river was blocked. No problem, I can navigate (no, no Artificial Stupidity needed). Then, the fences started. One couldn't go in a short route just to the north of the base of the Eiffel tower. There were too many security fences. At one point, I was willing to even go back throught a "security" line just to walk under the base of the tower, like someone's going to blow up the whole thing from down there. How strong are these terrorists, anyway? Can one guy carry enough explosives? Would he not be seen setting it up? Going back through was going to involve a big wait though.
Anyway, it was like one of those bad frustrating dreams, where you are trying to get something done, or get somewhere, yet obstacles keep getting in the way. Each time I'd try to turn us east, or even northeast, another fence would appear (yes, by myself, in my younger days, I would have jumped one). We ended up doing close to 1 mile to get around. At the 3/4 mile point or so, one in our party was getting so annoying - "where are we going? Why are we going this way!?" that I just lost it, thusly": "France imported lots of Moslems, and now they've got to fence off everything. It's all a waste of time anyway, but we've got to get around this thing. Do you want to get home, or not?!"
It may have been a little bit loud, as the French and "French" crowd looked truly pissed at me with some glares I haven't seen since I mentioned (erroneously) in Starbucks that Trump was gonna kick some ass. I just glared back as much as I had time to, and still look for that NorthEast passage around the fences. Plus, "hey, wait a minute, I thought you all told me you didn't know any English! Remember... when we asked for directions to the metro?". Not pleasant, readers ... not pleasant at all.
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The case of the purloined Picasso
Posted On: Monday - May 14th 2018 5:30PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor Global Financial Stupidity Legal Stupidity
Peak Stupidity has loads of follow-up and new posts on the back burner, but this Zerohedge post was just too good not to pass along. Yep, I will continue to badmouth the site for its software till the day they fix it, as it's almost guaranteed to crash the browser (this is my 2nd time writing this post, as it crashed the browser - all windows the 1st time!). The commenters can't be beat though, as I've been saying, and 250-odd ones so far below this humorous Zerohedge post will be a riot.
Or, is a fake traced-out by the ex-wife?
ZH started as a site that criticized Global Financial Stupidity and the people involved, and the guy in this post is one they've had it in for for years now. I don't care at this point who Mr. Bill Gross is, but as part of the F.I.R.E. economy Peak Stupidity AGREES, whatever it is. In Bill Gross's Ex-Wife Stole A $35M Picasso From Their Bedroom And Replaced It With A Hand Drawing, there is discussion about a rather acrimonious divorce, or maybe this is just a normal one in a power couple like this one.
In November testimony, the ex-wife readily admitted to swiping the Picasso, citing an e-mail Bill sent to her where he instructed her to "take all the furniture and art that you’d like."Yes, BTW, this money IS from the transaction fees you've been paying if you're an investor trying to make it big in "the markets." Don't worry, they'll get more.
Let's just present this short transcript of something resembling a deposition:
[deposition mode]Now, hold on a bit. What was that last part? I'm not that concerned with the Picasso, there are plenty of 'em and color laser printers now. I would like to know more about that 300 lb rabbit sculpture. Peak Stupidity will send an errand boy up to Sotheby's to bid for us (no, due to slow donations as of late, we will not spring for the $35 million El Repos or even facsimile thereof).
"And so I did," she said.
But it wasn’t quite that simple, as testimony revealed the ex-wife’s prowess for both painting and artful deception.
"Well, you didn’t take it and leave an empty spot on the wall, though, did you?" lawyers for Bill Gross asked.
"No," Sue responded.
"You replaced it with a fake?" the lawyer asked.
"Well, it was a painting I painted," Sue responded.
"A replication of the Picasso?" the lawyer asked.
"A replication, yes," Sue answered.
"And it had the Picasso signature and everything, didn’t it?" the lawyer asked.
"Not exactly . . ." she said.
"Whose signature was it? Sue Gross?" the lawyer asked.
"I don’t remember how I signed it. Bill will remember because I painted it at home years ago," she said.
"Did you tell him that you took the Picasso?" the lawyer asked.
"No. We didn’t speak for a year and a half," she answered just before the line of questioning turned to a 7-foot, 300-pound rabbit sculpture she also admitted taking.
[/deposition mode]
While Gross admitted that he couldn't tell the difference between the original and the wife-drawn replica, he said he wasn't surprised to learn of the original's fate.I have said it before, and I'll keep saying it, if you see it coming, liquidate the assets you can, get all of the stuff out of the house that you can and get it over to a trusted friend's basement.
According to court documents, Gross alleged that several other choice items had gone missing from their home shortly after their separation - including a Tiffany clock, 20 bottles of wine, Christmas decorations and a 1,000-pound-statue.
"I'm flat broke - it was freakin' Vegas, man! I was sure I couldn't lose!"
"Wow. 20 bottles of wine, a big statue of a rabbit, and a painting byPicassoyour kid! You shouldn't have! I love you, man!"
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Have the Population Bombs been Duds? - Part 3
Posted On: Monday - May 14th 2018 9:20AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Globalists The Future
(continued from this post.)
At he end of the last Peak Stupidity blog post on the subject of the Population Bombs and Duds we left the reader off in the Orient, specifically China. OK, readers, back on the tour bus with your easily mis-understandable guide to another
The population of Japan has already been decreasing, albeit slightly for now, for about 8 years. It's not been due to anything unusual, just the expected change due to the country having been pretty much prosperous and developed for 40-odd years now. Again, this is a good thing in general, as Japan was always held up as one of those crowded places that was just going to get worse. There are still 127 million people in that country that is slightly smaller in land area than the State of California (lost a bet on that, so I've got that down now!). Yet, California has roughly 40 million, and I considered it getting crowded enough for me back 25 years ago with 30 million! Besides just the beautiful land of varied topography and climate and part-nutty, but still wonderful people (a veritable Paradise Lost, at this point), California back in the day had room to spread out, "find yourself", or just get a few acres in a canyon on the coast to just meditate, medicate, and burn up that trust fund, while completely avoided the use of clothing (OK, that last part was just my image of it.)
This decrease has been ~ 1 million people from 2010, and man, I HATE, HATE, HATE people that make graphs with cherry-picked enlarged y-axes! Here is an example of making this drop into an El Capitan via the use of a bar graph with an enlarged y-axis, showing only values from 126.6 to 128.2 million. That doesn't just take stupdity; that takes some gall.
Having this total population decrease slowly toward a level more fitting for that fairly small chunk of land is a good thing for the Japanese people. Sure, there are problems with the demographics on a medium (generation or two) scale, with the age cohorts that is. There is a relatively much bigger number of old people, for instance. There are fewer people coming into the workforce paying their taxes to support the pretty-damned-socialized system of government. Socialism aside as a problem in and unto itself, these medium-term problems can and are already being solved by the Japanese. We all know that the Japs are no slouches when it comes to invention, including in the social realm (sex robots, anyone?) The country is a cohesive, unified society of one type of people that can peacefully get through the slow population transition to a stable demographic profile with just a lower total. This is leading very close to the point of this series, though I still want to wrap it up with a summary in Part 4.
(Completely off the subject just for a paragraph, but let me write this here because I wanted to go through the VDare.com website to look for Japan articles and blog posts. I'd like to point out that the site has become barely usable, format-wise, on a number of different devices, since they made it through a bunch of anti-truth hacker "Denial-of-Service" attacks a month or so back. I hope they can straighten out the site soon, because it's one of my favorites and source - as they advertise - of comprehensive info. on immigration - all aspects.)
VDare is not a travel/geography site, right, so what does that have to do with anything? I'll tell ya'. Due to that explained in the above aside, rather than point out directly some of the many (probably in the dozens over they years) articles about Japan, I will just say that the country is discussed there due to the immigration issue. I don't mean that Japan itself HAS any issue - no, that's the problem for the globalists, and why that nation is discussed on VDare. See, Japan takes immigration very seriously, because they, like, want to remain Japanese and shit. Talk about your in-your-face gall! Wanting to remain unified and resisting population replacement takes more gall than can be found in the biohazard trash-can of an operation room that specializes in gall-bladder removal! (Yes, Peak Stupidity made that one up.)
That's what is pushed now by the Globalists via their Lyin' Press - If you've got everything under control in your country, maybe you should change that with an immigration invasion. We can't have countries just taking care of problems and doing their own thing ... wouldn't be prudent. OK, Part 4 will wrap this up nicely. It'll be coming in a day or two.
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Have the Population Bombs been Duds? - Part 2
Posted On: Saturday - May 12th 2018 7:30PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity History China The Future Geography
(This is a continuation of this post.)
On to the Orient. Let's get one thing straight first. "Orient" means "East" from it's roots in Latin. Conversely, "Occident" means "West". How it calling someone "Oriental" or a whole region of the world "The Orient", a slur on anyone or anything? Using "Asian" is ludicrous, as Asia is the biggest continent in the world, and all sorts of people that aren't Oriental live there! That's a subject for another curmudgeonry post, though I did get started on this a bit on the post Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?. Anyway, Oriental is is, dammit!
Serenity now ... OK, in Part 1, I discussed the ongoing demographic transitions that are especially scare regarding Africa as a real population bomb, per old Club o' Rome lingo. The next post will be about Japan, which is kind of the impetus for getting to the final point I will make. However, China has been a special case of continuous over-population for centuries. Back in the post A tale of 2 Countries (for picking blackberries) Peak Stupidity wrote the following regarding the Chinese population density (at least this time I am including a map. I'm nothing if not a big map guy.)
Do you know that China had more people, over 400 million, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, back before 1900 AD, than we have now? It's been overpopulated for a long time, and keep in mind that, though the land area on a map looks close to that of the continental US, the western 40% of that is just Tibet and Xinjiang , both just mostly barely-inhabited mountains and high desert. Then the other 60% is mostly mountainous. I'd estimate the population density of China as 15 X what we have in America, not 5 X, as one might think from a glance at the globe.See that brown in the northwest and tan to the west? Subtract that out in your mind, and look at the land left.
The place has been crowded for about forever, and way overcrowded is the way any American not from NY City would see it. After the death of the Commie Chairman Mao in 1976, the next leader Deng Xiaoping instituted the widely-discussed One-Child policy. Controlling, or trying to, how the population may reproduce is about as Statist or tyrannical as it gets, folks. I'd never defend it, as had Communism not turned that nation into a backwater shithole for 3 decades already, China could have become a modern prosperous nation more quickly, resulting in a tailing off of the population increases. That said, one must admit that the policy took care of the problem. The population has leveled off to the point where this draconian policy has been completely removed as of late. (Please don't think that a Chinaman would get shot for having a 2nd kid, but it was more like dismissal from jobs, rejection of school attendance of the kid, etc. Additionally, out in the country, it was a lot more like anything goes, not matter what the dipshits in Peking came up with. The Peak Stupidity blog just discussed something about that this week.)
Now, in China, the big cohort of young working-age men and woman (the Commies were kinda big feminists in that sense - hey, double the people, double the output, praise be to the Chairman, and all that crap - been there, got the Mao jacket) has also diminished, as the first of the only-children generation are in their late 30's. The cheap manufacturing is being done in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and elsewhere now. The elderly demographic is rising quickly. This concerns such websites as Zerohedge, and this one, "No Longer Reversible": China's Low Fertility Rate And Birth Restrictions Set Stage For Disaster. OK, first let me say that, though we've praised the site just this week about the commenters and have learned so much over the years from the writers on financial topics, their political articles are hit-and-miss on stupidity value. This is one of the misses.
Let's get this straight: Too many people is bad (we agree!), but not quite as many anymore, but still a lot of Chinamen, is also bad and is leading to DISASTER. Durden, please! Well, if the site doesn't fuck with your browser too much, enjoy the comments, but the article is downright silly. China is definitely better off with fewer people. Now, they do like living together, so maybe 500 million would be closer to right. If Americans, who don't, were living there, 100 million would be fine for that mostly-mountainous territory. Plus we'd appreciate the wall all set-up for us.
This post is dancing around the conclusion as to the good and bad of the modern-day demographics around the world. We will look at Japan in the next post to illustrate our opinion of why people, err, cough, the Globalists, cough, cough, are purposefully misunderstanding the good and bad of the trends and spouting off about it. Immigration Stupidity is a big part of this propaganda.
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Notre Dame cathedral and Le State Securite
Posted On: Friday - May 11th 2018 7:38PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Liberty/Libertarianism Bible/Religion
(I don't have topic keys for everything, hence using the "US Police State" tag, but this was in France.)
A while back the family had a chance to see Gay Paris - no you don't have to be gay, but it probably helps. A few post ideas occurred to me during the trip, but it's been a while and I recall only 2 things, this being one of them and related to the 2nd one to come.
We had run into parts of the now-considered-necessary security apparatus at some of the famous sites in Paris. I had expected that from reading VDare for 15 years, and they keep up with the immigration stupidity "across the pond" pretty well, as does Zerohedge, BTW. We all know that the Moslem immigration has caused a need to lock things up. I mean what can one do, right? ... because I guess sending people home or keeping them out is too embarrassing compared to just the occasional everyday bomb, beheading, or sidewalk mow-down.
Anyway, so after going through a load of trouble (to be mentioned in that other Paris post to come), we entered the Notre Dame cathedral one fine warm day. I had a hat on for the sunshine, and a guard of some sort asked me to remove it. Thinking that this was just another annoying security deal, I took my hat off, said "see, just hair, whaddya' expect", realizing that my joke may fall flat, and put it back on after he had a chance to look.
"Non!" he emphasized "you must take your hat off." "Uhh... oh!! So, sorry!" I realized through his faulting English, that he just meant for me to KEEP the hat off. Why? We were in a Church, and one of the most beautiful, amazing ones in the world at that. I had just assumed I was going through Le Securite detail stuff that is cropping up everywhere. I was very embarrassed not for just misunderstanding but for not having thought of taking my hat off for this reason to begin with. What a relief that was from the modern world!
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There's no such thing as a free steak dinner
Posted On: Thursday - May 10th 2018 6:32PM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Financial Stupidity
Hat tip to Milton Friedman, Libertarian economist, in case you thought Peak Stupidity made this one up.
This is what you have to go through to get the scrumptious meal, but that's not what Milton Friedman meant, was it?
More asterisks than the baseball stats after the strike.
Let's read: "Products [sic] that keep your principal safe from market declines" Oh, so they are selling cash and gun safes? That's the only way I know your money will be safe, and even then, not from inflation. The drawback is you may lose 0.15 % interest, enough cash to power the de-humidifier in your safe and get one box of .380 FMJ.
"Strategies to feel good about your retirement strategies." That's a lot of strategizing. You're going to feel good as that steak is going down, and that's all that matters, right? You may not feel so good later after having eaten a big meal that late - possibly it'd have been better having just gone to the Early Bird Special to gum down that creamed corn instead.
Oh, I see, "How you can get income you can't outlive." Make sure you get the steak cooked at least medium-well. I wonder if that's what they're up to.
"... that let you avoid taxes..." Count me in! I don't care how bad this strategy is going to be, long as I can screw over the IRS and the Feral Gov., I'll be a happy camper.
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Have the Population Bombs been Duds? - Part 1
Posted On: Thursday - May 10th 2018 5:57PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity History Globalists The Future
(As soon as I started thinking of this post, it came to mind that the point will be too long for just one. Therefore, this will be the 1st of 2 or 3.)
If you are old enough or read enough political history, you may know about the "Club of Rome". It was not a drinking establishment, though that's not to say the discussions held there (if there really was a physical club) wouldn't encourage a heavy amount of it. During the early 1970's, about Earth Day's Birthday, out-of-control exponentially-growing population around the world was the biggest fear 2nd to nuclear war, I'd guess. The graph above is one of perhaps thousands, as the group, others, and their followers, almost all in the Western world were getting freaked out. Step ahead only 1 1/2 decades in history, and you would not only not have heard of this stuff, but it would be generally pooh-poohed already by the political establishment, both left (they had their cultural war to wage .. so much ... to destroy ... not ... enough ... time ...) and the right (never took it seriously as we were going to prosperity our way out of it).
How's this all been working out? There are almost 8,000,000,000 (8 billion, but it's good to see the zeros) people in the world now, and there were ~ 3 billion when the Club of Rome and the environmental movement in general were greatly worried about the "population bomb".
(Note the word "projected" on the right.
That is Non-Governmental-Organization-speak for "rectal extraction".
Dark blue is all we know.
Also, I'm not very enamored with this particular graph, as I really didn't need the 1st derivative - red line - and the scale of the value itself must be read as 0.2% = 1 billion.)
One can see why people were getting worried back in the early 1970's as the curve had just turned more sharply upward do not solely the baby boom in the 1st world, but moreso due to health improvements in the 3rd world (the 2nd world, in case you're wondering, was the Communist world, mostly the USSR and Red China - due to Chairman Mao, Red China could be in the 2nd and 3rd categories, a bifecta, if you will!). I will not go over all the details, but this was just to point out the prevailing worries of the 1st world. The 3rd world was happy to be eating better and having just as many kids a previously ... watch out ...
What happened in the 1st world was that population numbers stabilized very well until the effects of massive immigration to "some countries" was felt by the 1990's. However, before that, or barring that, population was becoming stable (or would have) and even declining in various places. Now, I could not say that the worries of a population bomb that were lectured to people all over the 1st world were the reason for things stabilizing. Family formation was hindered greatly by the infestation of feminism, and the implementation of the welfare state just created a dysgenic effect in which the people having the most offspring were those who could least afford to raise them right and passed on some of the worst genes of society.
During this time the 3rd world just put the pedal to the metal. I don't think the matter of whether they heard about the coming population bomb or not would have had any effect. They didn't care. They didn't have a lot of feminism to ruin the family unit either.
It seemed like (for various ACTUAL reasons, of course) that the developed world was doing it's part to diffuse this population bomb, while behind the scenes (most didn't care, but it's raciss to mention it), the 3rd world was arming a bomb of it's own. With that going on, one could say, or could have said, "hey, that's their own business." Not any more it isn't though, with the Globalist push for population replacement in the developed world. That's getting close to my point, coming next post... I sure hope!
Last November, the Peak Stupidity blog posted a sequence of 3 pieces on this "demographic soo-eee-cide", so before the next in this sequence, the reader may want to peruse Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of that series. I will show last though, to illustrate the problems coming, one graph that has been highlighted by Mr. Steve Sailer time and again, as "The World's Most Important Graph" (more here, but Sailer's been over this many times, so do a search on unz.com for lots of hits on this.)
For this one, I cropped the heck out of the graph to get rid of most of the projected stuff. It's only going out 20 years there, but it's worrisome nonetheless.
Next time: Let's talk about the Orient.
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Where have all the Czars gone?
Posted On: Wednesday - May 9th 2018 7:17PM MST
In Topics: The Russians Humor History Americans US Feral Government
"... long time passing."
Tsar Nicholas and family, before being murdered by the Commies.
Last summer, a century ago, the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II (Nicholas Romanov), was imprisoned after abdicating his position of Czar due to the turmoil and tragedy of the Great War Russia had been fighting in since the summer of 1914. It's not long after today, a century ago, in June of 1918, that he and his whole family were killed by the Bolsheviks*. The Peak Stupidity blog is not a history site, for the simple reason that the higher level of stupidity in today's world deserves our focus. Not, only that, but 20 or 50 of my posts wouldn't do the subject justice compared to a talk with your local Russian history
Something that came up in my head though recently is a thought not about the Czars that ran Russian, but the "Czars" that used to try to run things in America. I mean the appointed positions in previous US Presidential administrations that were named "Health Czar" and "Economic Czar", etc. That was going on for a few decades, and getting a little out of hand, if I do say so. See, the idea was that the bureaucracy was getting too much to handle, and the various agencies worked at conflicting agendas sometimes, probably a good thing for the American people, but the work of the Feral Gov't to try to help us just WASN'T GETTING DONE. Each executive branch since I don't know when, but something tells me after anti-Communist Ronald Reagan, would add its own new Czar positions.
"Czar" basically means "King", and didn't the US Constitution prohibit that sort of thing? I shouldn't have to answer to any damn King, Russian appellation notwithstanding! Well, OK, it's was just a word used to show that this was going to be a guy, or gal (a Czarita?) who was sovereign in the area of expertise within the political goings-on of the administration. Hence, we had the Energy Czar to run meetings with the various head-butting heads of unconstitutional agencies involved with energy, a Health Czar to run meetings with the various head-butting heads of unconstitutional agencies involved with health, etc. This trend of appointing tax-payer-supported Czars, who one could also call "Tsars" to show one's worldliness and sympathy with the Romanov family, I guess, increased until, what about 1 year and 4 months ago (why exactly then?).
I don't know where the American line of Czars built up to, but probably by Peak Czarism, we had been blessed with a Housing Czar, a Food Czar, a Sewage Czar, a Feminine Products Czar, a Carbon Czar, a Vodka Czar (naturally!), and even a Russia Czar.
However, since the Trump administration started up, I haven't heard Czar-one in the news. Are these guys still there, laying down a heavy Czarist hand on our government agencies and
The answer is not known as of press date. Peak Stupidity is unfortunately not in the loop here, as we have recently blocked electronic communication from our Russian sources due to their incessant spamming of the comments section with unreadable Viagra ads.
* BTW, in part 2 of our series on Russia and China and the long-term effects of Communism, I pointed out a great epic movie called Nicholas and Alexandra along with a book on the treatment of the former aristocrats of Russia after their time, during the 1920's through WWII.
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Zerohedge commenters never disappoint
Posted On: Tuesday - May 8th 2018 9:10AM MST
In Topics: Websites Humor Global Financial Stupidity
Now, the website is another story. I've been beating this dead
Anyway, I TRY to read Zerohedge for the articles, mostly decent, but more for the comments. I've just read someone on another site badmouthing the people who comment there, yet they never fail to enlighten and amuse me. These people seem to really have a handle on the financial/economic matters at the personal and nationwide level (though the ZH site itself leans more toward politics these days). I learned quite a bit from them over the years. Sure, they can get pretty racy, mean, and vulgar, but you need that sometimes. Even insults about someone's mother are much more amusing on Zerohedge than anywhere including meat-insult-space. It's supposedly the Fight Club, right?
This writer had thought of registering long ago to comment there. I didn't in the past just due to the extreme time-wastage this would entail. I wasn't sure if that would be made up for in entertainment value. However, there were a few dozen commenters whom I used to read regularly and really would have liked to say "hey" and "thanks" to. Many of them are gone off the site now anyway.
OK, well the picture above, seen 4 days ago on Zerohedge, is the reason I'm writing today. The picture represents the usual head-in-the-sand ostrich-based satire to point out that people are willfully not paying attention to something (in this case stock-holders are ignoring blah, blah ..) Yeah, we get this image, but it's not usually a woman in the picture. Yes, I get the business suit part of it, but the shapely legs and butt in the air take all emphasis away from the stock market!
What kind of comments do you think you will get under this one? "Yes, the volatility is something to be worried ab ...", "There's lots of geopolitical risk, and the price of oil ..." No, like I said these people never disappoint me. It's worth going to the article for the comments as usual to have a good laugh. I came THIS CLOSE to registering because nobody had the exact good one I had, something about "priming the pump" or "what a nice visit with my broker - I'd like to sleep with you again in the desert tonight... with a billion stars all around.", you know, that sort of thing.
Yeah, it's an entertaining website, and "Tyler Durden" puts these types of pictures up for hits. I know I'd hit that .... article.
PS: The Peak Stupidity blog has featured some comment samples before, on vehicular manslaughter and hot babes that the President may have "hit", though it's hard to get the full flavor of it from these few. Yeah, in terms of opinion and humor, Zerohedge commenters are BEST IN CLASS.
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Juan McAmnesty and the Hawk and Chihuahua tail
Posted On: Monday - May 7th 2018 6:34PM MST
In Topics: Humor Globalists The Neocons
(not exactly how it is in the old gospel song, is it?)
The Peak Stupidity blog has a visceral hatred of Senator Juan McAmnesty (Arizona - T*). It's been mostly about his traitorous, and at the same time hypocritical stance on massive immigration. There's not room to explain it all here, but my opinions get shaped by the fact that I don't forget what these types of people say 10 and 20 years ago, like lots of voting Americans do, unfortunately.
Now, on his deathbed, or maybe it's his regular bed for now (OK, bad Seinfeld joke there), he is still jibberjabbing away, trying to be the "maverick" that the Lyin Press just LUVS! He just had to bad-mouth President Trump, and even the always-smiling Sarah Palin, who was the only thing that got this bastard's poll numbers into the black in 2008. As I wrote in an older article on this guy, Speaking Dead of the Ill - re Juan McAmnesty, it's not like I'd be rooting for the guy to die ... if he weren't a sitting, or bed-ridden US Senator, that is. In that post, I explained the same thing about former U-boat commander, Lying-of-the-Se
However, these people hang on in their positions, inviting and invading the world, until death nowadays. Don't they have a pretty good retirement plan? If the only way to get these people out of office is for them to die, I am in favor of them dying. That's all there is to it.
Oh, that was not the humor part, per tag attached! It's just that I read a post referencing some tweets (jeeez!) by, yeah, Steve Sailer again about the Senator's rooting for a hawk to eat his wife's (?) little Chihuahua doggie. Now, who really cares, but if I did, I'd have to root for the hawk myself, which makes me feel creepy ... no, not about birds preying on small mammals, mind you... no... just about being in agreement with still-dammit!-Senator McAmnesty. I may need to take a shower.
However, this scenario suggested a joke that could not be passed up (who knows when the next time some Senator mouths off about birds of prey and their tastes in small canines, right?). So, here goes, and Inspector Clouseau is provided below for reference purposes only.
Juan McAmnesty’s Chihuahua-owning wife: “Juan, do you think your hawk can pick up my dog and take him away?”Thank you. Thank you. I'll be blogging here all week. Don't forget to leave a few comments (Starting with PS) for your moderator, and try the stir-fried Chihuahau ... it's to die for.
Juan McAmnesty: “Non! Your doggie is too eavy.”
(JMCoW let’s her chihuahua run around for a minute.)
JMCoW: “What!! Your hawk just snatched my doggie and is eating him on top of that power pole! OMG! I thought you said my dog was too eavy?!”
JM: “Zhat is not my hawk.”
* T for Traitor.
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A China story and Chinese vs. American police states
Posted On: Monday - May 7th 2018 11:03AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Movies China
Picture from Blind Mountain starring Yang Li and a bunch of other people named Li, He, Fan, Yuan, Zhang, Zhu, Zhou, and Zizeer-Zazzer-Zuzz.)
Yes, they are kicking our asses in most areas of manufacturing and kicking our whole bodies in growth in quality of life, but how has China been doing in the Police State business, where America has been leading the pack lately? I can't put in all the history and details, even what I have found personally, in one post here, but Peak Stupidity just has a quick story today to contrast the two nations. It is from someone I know personally about her 1st cousin back in deepest yellowest Cathay, as we say.
Some 20 or 30 years back this cousin in China was kidnapped from her and my family friend's home town to be taken to be a bride somewhere way east, I think Fujian province (across the straits from Taiwan). The way this happened is that the young lady, a teenager, I think, got engaged in a conversation with a couple who had leads for a good job. In general, Chinese people seem almost too wary, and not at all friendly to strangers. The lead to a good job, however, was enough to entice her to hang out with these strangers, who proceeded to slip her a Mickey (or I guess it'd be a "Chenny" over there) to drug her up, and sent her on the way to Fujian to be married. That's a hell of a thing, but the young lady made the best of it, while still trying to get back home. Keep in mind this was way before cell phones, and most of China skipped the whole land-line phase. (Alexander Graham Bell is dead to these people!)
Anyway, over in Fujian,
The family had been looking desperately, of course, but it took a few years for some lead, possibly information passed from the lady or her adoptive village, but I can't remember all the details of the story. When the family found out their daughter's location, they requested the help of the local police (finally, something related to the title??) who were helpful and proceeded to go on a road trip for a number of days (we all like a good road trip once in a while) to the village. The interesting part here is that the local police at the destination, or kidnapping-Point-B, so to speak, would not cooperate with the girl's family's road-tripping hometown police. Nope, they told the family, "you can't have her. She ain't coming." It was a standoff between two local police forces, not the way one would think it would go in China, right? Wasn't there some big Central Red-China Police that would straighten out the whole thing from Peking? No, some things are not nearly as centralized as one would think, and that is almost always a good thing.
Contrast that incident with the way things would go in the USA. You can't get a ticket for rolling through a red light in Montpelier, Vermont without hearing about it within a few months in your home in Artesia, New Mexico. With the aid of computers they've tightened it all up over the last 3 decades - this writer has lots of experience in this non-felonious realm. There's good and bad, I will admit. Kidnapping was made one of the 1st Federal crimes just due it being too easy to move out of a jurisdiction when committing a terrible crime like this. It's gone way too far in Police State USA though. Sometimes you'd really like to leave a few bills and ongoing annoyances from the state and county behind.
The American way is still OFFICIALLY that the local Sheriff has the sovereign power in legal matters as an elected official. He SHOULD be able to tell the governor, or even the President to piss off, so long as local law does not conflict with state or federal law. It does not work that way in reality, right now, and we all know that. If someone from state government tells him to jump, he'll be all "how high?", no matter who was in the right by the laws. In addition, Federal law has been made into a 20 ft wide tome of books that can neither be all known nor all followed. This way, they can just forget the 10's of millions of letters of the law and just rule the living hell out of us.
Yeah, I like China's way better in this regard. Decentralization is almost always a good thing.
Oh, did you want to know what happened after that? The local police from the family's (and original) girl's hometown made a second trip with some reinforcements some months later and were able to extract the young lady, but without the son. Here comes the great human-interest part. The Peak Stupidity blog is not normally about "human interest", cause it's too girly, but this is a good one. The young lady was back in her hometown when her ex-husband traveled that long way (back before the new roads and fast railroads) to try to get her back, carrying a large sack of peanuts as an apology gift(?).
After setting down the large sack of peanuts at the doorstep, the man begged "Please, ask her if she would come back to her husband and son. We miss her ... blah, blah." (This was in Chinese, of course.) "OK, that's all fine and very romantic, but this is not the right house - you're at her cousin's, dude." Well, he did the same thing at the correct house, and the young lady decided, "yeah, WTF, let's go back."
It was a happy ending to this story, but I will tell you that that movie (see picture at top) named Blind Mountain", which is about a similar occurrence of this kind of kidnapping, ends a bit differently. It's a good, but very obscure movie that, even on the great Internet Movie Database, took me a while to find.
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At the zoo two... how to avoid animal microaggressions
Posted On: Friday - May 4th 2018 4:15PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Treehuggers
Over a month back, in a post about goings-on at the zoo, Peak Stupidity complained about a young decent-looking treehugger's long rant about the environment that drowned-out the sounds of the seals and sea lions that we intended to watch. The beginning of that rant was more of an apology. The young lady informed us, as if we'd be stupid enough to care, that these sea mammals were not being treated like show animals. We should not be guilty or embarrased, as they were not embarrased. Can animals even get embarrased? That's really the question here.
Bottom line? No, otherwise they would not do their waste elimination right in front of us. I didn't notice any of the animals in the whole zoo heading away from the crowd to the bushes to use the bathroom. Well, the penguins and the particular sea mammals in question can probably get away with it without embarrassment in the same manner as a 10-year old in the swimming pool. No, I don't think the animals being displayed at the zoo have the emotion of embarrasment. They don't feel our microagressions in the same way as our beloved SJW animals do.
There may be other reasons that it's not a nice thing for the animals to be in the zoo, no doubt. However, my solution to that is to keep only the retarded ones. - retarded penguins, retarded monkeys, retarded snow leopards, and retarded brown bears, whatever, they will definitely not feel bad being confined in a smaller area than the natural environment and having people stare at them all day. Even for smart animals, it's all they know after a while, but there may still be some discomfort in their minds. The "learning-challenged" brown bear, however, should be glad he's not in the wild, or he'd have starved or been eaten by now. How are the visitors going to know or care about whether the particular samples of wild animals are the brightest bulbs in the pride? It's a win/win.
Now that I've got that great Simon & Garfunkle song, At the Zoo, in my head from that previous post in my head, let me present another seemingly-lost song by these guys. I write seemingly-lost, as just to me, because At the Zoo and this next one were not on the famous Greatest Hits album that has all that I think of as their classics.
Simon & Garfunkle were REAL New Yorkers (meaning NYC, in this case) back when it was still a very decent place. One can tell from the music, including their summer 1981 concert in Central Park, that these two had a great love for that city. Both At the Zoo and The Only Living Boy in New York evoke their feeling for the Big Apple (don't mind the maggots*). Words aside anyway, this one has such a great tune with some great vocal harmony:
* From a different guy, who understandably did not have quite the same feelings for NYC!
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Computerized testing - pros and cons
Posted On: Friday - May 4th 2018 3:34PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity Educational Stupidity
The Peak Stupidity blog does try with our utmost alacrity to follow up on the thoughts from previous posts. This and the subsequent one will be that type. As a follow-up to the somewhat boring discussion on multiple-choice testing, I will relate what I've learned only recently about the newest type of computerized testing. This WILL NOT be boring to you if you do have a test like this coming up. You may be more like enraged and exasperated, in fact, if you are old enough to have taken these types of tests, in this case it's a medical board test, in the past.
Look, I completely understand the value, in terms of quality control and cost savings (to the test-MAKER, BTW, not passed on to you, the measly test-TAKER!) of automating this type of thing. It's a pretty mindless and tedious process otherwise, though not as tedious as the grading of problem-working tests, as explained in that previous post. However, it turns out that things have changed lots since software has become so fast and cheap (to write, not to buy!), and these new tests are way, way out there, man!
What it comes down to is that the newer tests are designed to completely eliminate any test-taking strategy. That's the gist of it, and I don't say that is particularly a bad thing, just a different thing, hence the curmudgeonry tag attached herein. More on the philosophy of this, but let me get to some details to show you the weirdness that makes a testing strategy pretty much impossible.
Yeah, first thing you may already know, is that computerized test can be made for which one cannot go back to previous questions. There's no reason they have to be this way, but they seem to all be - both in school and in these national boards. This eliminates one valuable tactic that is known by many who went through lots of schooling. It doesn't take accidental duplicates, but there are usually a number of questions who's premises help answer a following or previous question. The lack of any way to flip back and forth eliminates this way of correcting wrong answers. Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing, and not any less fair.
However, look at this shit:
I'll give you more details. You've got most of the day to do this test, OK? However, you don't HAVE to finish all the questions and you may not GET TO finish them all! As you can see in the graphic above, the questions get harder the better you
Oh, and this little tidbit of stupidity may come into play: Were you to not finish all the questions by the time limit, yet the software hasn't sent you home, then the last 60 questions matter as to whether you passed or failed (but you've gotta get past about 3/4 or so of the questions for this unknown ending).
What can one say about this? Well, it may be a "pro" in favor of just testing for knowledge and eliminating all general "testing ability" gained from taking many tests over the years. Those who have never done this sort of thing and didn't take 10 practice SAT's with a stopwatch will be made equal. This does make it more fair, as a way of testing just what the test is about. OK, fine, but with all the complicated rules, the bad thing is this - It's hard for someone in the middle of it to have any confidence at all. You don't know how you're doing, you go counting how many questions you've nailed, how many just need a quick check-over, and how many are pure random guesses. This, for old-fashioned, normal standardized multiple-choice testing, gave one a good idea of where he stands (with an eye on the clock too) during the test, and a very good idea of how one did after it's over, but before the results come in.
Mull on these test rules for a bit, and think of how you could possibly have any kind of strategy and/or confidence. The only way this test can be made NOT maddening is if you know the material inside and out (that's not always even the case, as per the post on multiple choice tests, sometimes one has to guess the knowledge of the test-makers.) As for the rest, is it any wonder that these test-makers get their questions spread all around the internet? When you fail one of these things, you won't ever know how you went wrong. Oh, yeah, is it really that tough to make the software give you your results before you leave the room? It knows, so why can't it tell you? (Yeah, I guess they check for guns and hammers at the same time as for cell phones and earbuds.).
Yeah, can you tell that I'm starting to think the cons outweight the pros? Computerized Adaptive Testing, yeah, I'm so glad I am done with all of this.
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