The value of hard work
Posted On: Monday - December 11th 2017 6:33PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity
I don't have a topic key "Self Stupidity", but it would have definitely applied for this writer today and for this post. I reckon I won't add it either as I don't experience a whole lot of it.
The curmudgeonry has been attached to many Peak Stupidity posts, as that is my thing, though not the whole theme of this website. Lots of curmudgeonry posts have to do with customer service, now called "customer care", due to the plain fact that dealing with that now is a chore for about anyone. This is only occasionally due to the people that work in these call centers, but more to the bureaucracy, the waiting, and the voice-activated menu trees, especially the ones that act like you will be connected to a human, but then proceed to ask you more questions. Hey, anyone could write posts with customer service stories - that's kid stuff.
Today, however, I had thought the lady on the phone just did not get this thing we were trying to figure out, even though the call started out good. I was on my best behavior, but at one point, when it seemed like she just didn't want to get my question, and we were going round and round, I got rude to the point that I really regretted it later on in the day. It's not just the choice bad words that came out, but the fact that I think she wasn't stupid after all - it was me this time (at least, I had missed something).
In the meantime, before calling back to apologize, what made me feel so much better was getting outside to finish some manual work around the house. It makes all the mental BS go away so fast. (I get lots of post ideas too then, while doing work that doesn't require too much thinking, though that's not all manual labor by any means). As I worked in the front yard, a man that came by said "you're working too hard", basically, just to be friendly. "You should have seen me 10 minutes ago, sitting on my ass." would have been an appropriate honest reply, but the point here is that people appreciate others doing hard work.
(not me, just some guy raking the yard)
Sure, engineers and doctors can work hard to where it's mentally exhausting, but people appreciate the manual labor because it is obviously honest work. Much of white collar labor is too, but then, some trial lawyer can "work hard" at suing poeple's asses off for 15 hours a day, but most of us do not appreciate that at all.
What I've noticed also is even city workers, not known to be the hard-charging types, are easy to deal with when they are the ones doing the actual physical hard work. The guys doing the paving, or grabbing the leaf piles with the hydraulic machines (yes, it's hard work, as they have to rake too) may be tired, but I find them easier to deal with than some lady in the office downtown.
None of this is to say a full-time manual labor job is something I'm looking for now. As you get older, it's not a good thing to NEED to do for a living. However, sometimes you've just got to get out and dig or pound some nails to clear your head. It relieves the stupidity.
No comments - Click here to start thread
Bitcoin - money, or another form of stupidity?
Posted On: Saturday - December 9th 2017 5:35PM MST
In Topics: Economics
In keeping on top of all the current news, as usual, Peak Stupidity may think of investing in bitcoin, as it seems to be at a local minimum of 14,730 dollars per, errr, coin. Wait, whaaaattt? OK, sometimes a post title or this lead sentence can get the reader riled enough to pay attention and read, right? Isn't that how the Lyin Press does it? Of course, we continue into some truth or at least truthful opinion, while the Lyin Press bullshit just streaks on for pages at a time.
Anyway, we will opine on this, as the subject of what money really is, or what is real money, has been hinted at before in posts with the Global Financial Stupidity topic key. Bottom line top, Bitcoin is in no way a stupid idea. I and the Peak Stupidity blog support any way to form a decent currency, if not money (not the same), that (a) can help evade the tax thieves of all the world's governments. Even more important is that (b) this form of currency is not "made" by any government.
Bitcoin is NOT really un-trackable, and in fact, from my understanding, the times of transactions and the accounts to/from which buying/selling is performed is tracked by definition of the mathematics of this currency. So, property (a) may not be all it's cracked up to be, but it sure beats transferring money (checks, credit cards, letters of credit, account transfers, etc.) via the big banks that take their cut every time, but more importantly, will always be the sac-hangers of the Feral Governments of the world (some say vice vera). That is the importance of property (b), the governments may try to get their grimy hands around the flow of this currency, but, without the ability to make it, cannot dilute the value. That dilution, called inflation, is a hidden large tax on the population.
Additionally, a 3rd important property of bitcoin is that (c) it can not be confiscated easily, as it's not tangible, but like our digital dollars which are most of them, is out of control of the banksters in cahoots with the Feds and FED.
I will admit right here that I wish I'd bought some of this with about 10 grand or so a couple of years back. Commenters on Zerohedge went back and forth under hundreds of articles about this digital currency over the last 3 years, and that is a pretty good way to learn, by reading other's arguments (unless they are morons). I can't say I didn't learn, as I can not be sure to this day that bitcoin will last, and more on this in a bit here. It just would have been a winning gamble. I am not a gambler and this is what I think of it. I have met people who have made a killing off of "investing" in this 2nd run-up in the dollar value of bitcoin. They were not math/computer whizes, but just speculators. You don't have to be smart, just lucky, sometimes, to do well.
Let's discuss Bitcoin in a descriptively technical manner. I.E., no I don't know that math behind it but get the idea. It takes computing energy to create more of this digital money per it's mathematical basis, and steadily more with time. It sounds like the amount of total bitcoin asymptotically approaches some value, from what "people" say (sorry that's all I got), and that it's already fairly well along toward it's total amount that can exist based on the math. If this is true, then even big leaps in computing power will not let anyone suddenly corner the market, quickly diluting the value of the rest of it. The value of Bitcoin as money, and not just a good form of currency is, as with precious metals, one can not easily mine a lot more of it. That's why the term "mining" is used for the computer calculations performed to "make it", in fact.
"It's just some computer program/data, someone will figure out how to hack it." is the typical response of those with distain for digital currencies in general, not precluding them from having made a killing in it anyway! This is a discussion we had with a proponent of bitcoin (yep, and he made a killing) and another friend who is a computer guy. The misunderstanding was in the proponent thinking that, by "hacking", the computer guy meant someone hacking into someone's wallet or better yet, the exchanges (like bitcoin banks). "Hey, people have hacked all into B of A ... etc, and that's a whole lot easier." was the Bitcoin proponent's rebuttal. Probably true, but the really worry, as the computer guy MEANT, was, what if someone can hack the whole formula or algorithm that MAKES Bitcoin?
That's where it takes a real hard-core computer/math guy to know whether this is impossible, possible, or even probable. Since I am not that guy, and haven't talked to a real expert, that is an unknown for me. I would think that the guy (a Japanese guy, as I recall) that started this digital currency, along with all the guys doing the big trading would know the answer to "Is the whole algorithm mathematically impossible to hack?" Wouldn't they all think yes? That's where you've got to wonder it there is someone inside who knows something different, but has good reasons to hold off for a while.
In the meantime, anything that can screw over central governments and big banks around the world, is greatly appreciated by Peak Stupidity. No, this stuff is not stupid. Is it stupid to buy some at $14,730 per "coin"? Probably, but that's because I'm no gambler. That's why I'm not rich. It's also why I'm not poor.
No comments - Click here to start thread
About our peakstupidity future - Part 2
Posted On: Friday - December 8th 2017 8:54PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Websites The Future
(continued from here)
I just wanted to finish on the plans, if you could call them that, for the future of Peak Stupidity.
One more thing on the content - I have not put up much music lately. Partly, that's because I've only been putting in the youtube clips lately when the song has something to do with the post. I can go back to just putting up some really good songs up here, at least 2 or 3 times per week. I have got figure out how to get the embedded videos to show in Windows Explorer too... this leads me to the next section.
Yes, Peak Stupidity is a pretty crude site, but I would like to keep things simple. There is no javascript or any other scripting on the client side to slow down loading of pages. Right now, however, all one can do is read the 15 or so posts on each page, then go to OLDER POSTS. One can comment, something we'd really appreciate, but, granted, there is no way to edit submitted posts and no way to keep track of who's whom. That last part is low priority, right now, with the only occasional comment. Remember to write the two characters "PS" at the beginning, as ...
I want to put more navigation methods here, and that will not be so hard really. Probably, there'll be a drop-down box, with the option of alphabetical or chronological ordering of posts to allow selection. A search of just Peak Stupidity would be nice too. The one hang-up I'd like to overcome first is the stupid display of the page at locations down in the white space. Yes, I DO KNOW ABOUT THIS. It is not a very simple ANCHOR tag problem though. The php software creates the page and I have tried to find out how to get the location at least just to the top every time, much less exactly where I want it. Any help would be appreciated.
Yeah, the same simple HTML for embedding youtube videos works just fine on the unz site (easy enough to copy to test). There must be some header setting or what-have-you to make it work in Explorer though. I don't want to be one of those guys who says "You've got to use version 10.3 of this browser, with javascript enabled to see my site". Hell, nobody needs to read most websites that badly, right? Therefore, I will do more work in researching a solution for this.
As far as formatting, besides an addition to the blogroll, with an appropriate review, once in a while, not much will change. It it does it'll be small changes. I hate revamping of anything for no reason - that's a salesmen and marketing people thing, and I want no part of it. As written in the short post about "Clippy" and other annoyances with software, a tool should just work the same way every time, and software is nothing but tools, usually written by tools.
* (Yes, the Berzerkely landlord in "The Graduate" was also Mr. Roper, the landlord in "Three's Company", whose job it was to make sure Jack Tripper didn't boink either Chrissy or Janet.)
No comments - Click here to start thread
Just when I thought I was out, SHE! PULLS! ME! BACK! IN!
Posted On: Thursday - December 7th 2017 6:41AM MST
In Topics: Pundits Media Stupidity
Yeah, we WISH! The point is, though, that we have just stated our intention to keep up more of the original writing here at the Peak Stupidity blog rather than just lots of excerpt/rebuttal or excerpt/"right-on!" posts. Well, Miss Ann Coulter has been a favorite since she came around from being a pro-GOP, neocon pundit most of a decade ago, and her latest column, about the Roy Moore (Free Spirit - Alabama) senatorial election deserves a SHOUT OUT!
I will only put the last short paragraph in here, as, again, READ THE WHOLE THING! (too much SHOUTING OUT!?):
We have no rebuttal here, but it's always good to get the last word, at least on your own damn blog. Oh, one thing, Ann, it's the Lyin' Press - after all, YOU are part of the real media (truth seekers) - welcome to the party, pallette!
The media say that Republicans support Moore just because they want another GOP vote in the Senate. I support Moore just because I hate the media.
Yes, I like a free spirit like Roy Moore, (see here and here) even though I'd bet he's not a true conservative, more of a showman. Anything to poke a stick at the Lyin' Press and both the blue and red wings of The Party establishment would get my vote - I just don't live in Alabama - don't dox me, bro - you've got 56 states to go, according to Øb☭ma.
No comments - Click here to start thread
About our peakstupidity future
Posted On: Tuesday - December 5th 2017 5:52AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Websites Movies Curmudgeonry The Future
"Sir, that's 2 words ..."*
Since our 500th and blogversary post was over a week ago, let us write a post here about the blogfuture of Peak Stupidity. First off, don't worry readers, as this will not be some big change that will ruin the site for you as you know it. Keep in mind, that the Peak Stupidity blog has been, and will be, all about curmudeonry, from post 1 onwards! Just like you, we don't want change just for change's sake. I will write here about the future style of blog-posting, the content "going forward", formatting changes (if any), and the improvement of site usability.
By "style" here, I don't mean formatting, just the blogging method on the continuum from Instapundit-style quick blurbs pointing out other writings on the web (50 times a day) to the long essays once-a-week type style. I'd like to post at least once a day, but closer to 2. It's easy to do more than that when most of them are simply posts that excerpt and comment-on other good articles relating to the Peak Stupidity interests. These are always articles that I feel are worth reading. However, the reader can just "read the whole things" there, as we urge, and possibly have not that much interest in the Peak Stupidity ideas themselves. On these type posts, I will continue to have at least 1/2 of the writing be my commentary. As an opposing example, the writer Brenda Walker on VDare.com, when writing these types of posts, tends to excerpt big passages from the Lyin' Press with not enough commentary, especially at the bottom. You've got to get that last word in, to fight the stupidity! (This is is no way a big criticism of Mrs. Walker, who writes well about the human and environmental cost of our immigration invasion.) I also don't want to get too much into the pundit-on-pundit relationships and feuds that are all over the web. "Mr. X of Breitbart wrote that that Politico guy's tweet regarding the unz article on Y, is blah, blah..." Sometimes, the pundits would be well-served to be reminded that 90% of Americans have not heard of ANY of them! The point is to get the ideas to the people that can make a difference, and that is mostly just the American public, but they are still all ON! THE! DAMN! TV! half the day, so what is the point?
I'd like to have a majority of longer essays of my own writing. I will point out here that my style is to write without many references in these posts. The continually looking-up of details on the web just slows me down. I don't want factually-wrong stuff in the posts, of course, so I look up the occasional item. If you don't see enough detail on some of the longer essays, it's because I can't write that way without taking forever to finish. I want to lay out the general ideas, and detail will appear when they are needed, such as in post which has simple calculations, as in the Financial Stupidity writings.
Finding content for a blog about Peak Stupidity is like finding a needle in ... like, a sewing shop. There is no problem finding material of all kinds, and there may be a few more topic keys to add yet, for content that doesn't fit with any of the existing ones. We have not focused on the financial stupidity enough lately. This is the variety of stupidity of most importance, in my opinion, as, when the financial stupidity peaks and our country and/or much of the world has the mother of financial crashes, soon enough, this will foretell the peak of all stupidity. As written about in our "What is peek stoopidity?" introduction on the left side, the stupid will be neither fashionable nor feasible once things "get real", as the survival blogs say. It may be time for more on the prepping topic too, come to mention it. Other musings on economics will be made in future posts - not about the elasticity of demand, so much as just which parts of that whole
Because politics is inherently stupid, there will be no lack of post on politics in general, as it's so easy to come up with ideas to write about on that topic. Just read the headlines on Drudge any day of the week, and you will think things have gotten so stupid, the world must be ending shortly. Hell, I would really think that, if I didn't know about our financial turmoil to come.
I didn't want to leave out the curmudgeon-type writing, as that is not only the easiest writing, especially when it gets humorous, but the ideas come like mad. It's also the type that involves just original writing with no references usually. I mean, why rag on some modern stupidity that another pundit has already ragged on - like, say an Ann Coulter (favorite of mine) with an article on "Ever notice that these cheap tampons don't ever ... anymore? (NO, not a real article, but you get the point.) A curmudeon's gotta come up with his own bit.
OK, part 2 of this will be about the plans for improving the usability of this site and about any formatting changes, if at all.
* It is a big enough assumption to make, that all our readers have seen the classic movie "The Graduate", so I will in no way assume that they have seen the movie with this take-off on the one "PLASTICS!" scene from The Graduate. It's from the movie "My Tutor" - one could call it B-grade, but compared to present-day movies, it's probably an A+. All I remember, besides the sizzlin' hot tutor, is that scene in which the Oriental guy (not so PC in the day of that movie) says to the young guy "One word for your future - COMPUTER CHIP!" "Uh, that's 2 words".
No comments - Click here to start thread
Kate Steinle's murderer, at least woman-slaughterer, aquitted
Posted On: Friday - December 1st 2017 9:21AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity California Treehuggers Anarcho-tyranny
(Picture taken from VDare.com)
If I were of a certain persuasion, and lived a bit closer to the jurisdiction (San Francisco), and had more time on my hands, this would be a good occasion for joining a riot or at least to get
One can read about this case all over the internet, with great detail at VDare.com, so this will be one of those mostly cut-and-paste posts. I have read the 130-odd comments (so far) under Steve Sailer's blog post at unz.com. Since I couldn't have done a better job at this myself, I am just pasting in one of the comments (also featured in the post by Sailer) by one Auntie Analogue:
If You’re Going To San Francisco Wear Some Armor When You’re ThereAdditionally, I will paste in the best summation of this madness, the sheer anarcho-tyranny of it, from a commenter that goes by Dr. X:
If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear your armor and beware
If you’re going to San Francisco
Foreign felons get away with murder there
Aliens who come to San Francisco
juries will be your love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Kate was murdered, the jury did not care
All across the nation, endless foreign invasion
People in motion
Endless foreign invasion, lawless exoneration
People in motion, justice dead by implosion
For those who come to San Francisco
Be sure to wear your armor and beware
Justice ain’t done in San Francisco
Kate Steinle died and the jury did not care
Alien felons, San Francisco
Juries are your love-in there.
This is absurd beyond belief. California has implemented some of the most drastic, unconstitutional gun laws in the country — which, of course, only affect law-abiding, taxpaying, home-owning, job-holding citizens who have a LOT to lose if they violate them.Anarcho-tyranny, indeed. Additionally, the lame-ass (I'm no lawyer and I don't have much info. on the actual trial) excuse of the guy just taking shots at some seals brings up two things. Dangerous negligence like this still should result in a manslaughter charge. This guy got let off on almost everything.
Conversely, an illegal alien who had been deported multiple times and had a felony record shoots an innocent bystander and gets off with no homicide conviction. This is the very definition of anarcho-tyranny.
Even if the shooting was an accident (and frankly I don’t know how the defense was able to “prove” that it was, other than the mere assertion of the defendant ) they guy still should have been convicted of some kind of homicide charge, such as manslaughter or criminally-negligent homicide.
This is nuts. California is nuts. This f-ing country is nuts.
Secondly is the thing about that excuse about aiming to shoot some seals, or sea lions, or some damn sea mammal. Imagine what kind of trouble a white guy would have gotten into for doing that even without an accidental murder involved. Even if you were to mention THINKING about shooting at some sea lionx to your average white San Franciscan, you’d know he (probably she) would never speak to you again.
The treehuggers will let anything ruinous to America slide, just as the Sierra Club decided 20 years ago that talking about the environmental problem of too many people is a big no-no. That one was about the money to begin with, but once the cntrl-left takes over, all the real environmental/conservation stuff takes a back seat to the gaining of POWER. It’s just about power. I mean, the USSR was not a treehuggers paradise, to be generous.
So, power of the cntrl-left and dieversity comes first over sea mammals, even the cute ones… even the cute land mammals that end up in an early grave.
We used to just be kidding when we said California is the land of fruits and nuts (errr, at least the nuts part).
No comments - Click here to start thread
Future Alabama Honorable Senator Roy Moore and Going Native
Posted On: Thursday - November 30th 2017 6:41PM MST
In Topics: Trump US Feral Government
Earlier today, Peak Stupidity argued with Pat Buchanan's column explaining how this Senate candidate's election is important for getting Supreme Court justices in place to implement this, use the Senate rules for the other thing ... blah blah. Our problem is not with the logic but with the assumption that the whole political world is like that of the 1970's. We then listed 4 reasons to attempt to explain why politicians, including judges, will "go native" once they have been in Washington, FS for some time. We don't mean this in a good way, either, as "going native" means fitting in and becoming one with the Washington, Federal Shithole crowd that creates laws that turn the rest of America into a different kind of shithole.
Peak Stupidity has mentioned Roy Moore of Alabama and his US Senate campaign before, Now, Roy Moore has been dinged, along with a bunch of the Hollywood crowd, on some alleged harassment thing. I don't particularly care what happens to most of them, let the left eat it's own, I say. I don't care what most of these people did either - it doesn't bother me a bit. I don't even care if Roy Moore was a bit of a perv, or a full-blown prevert for that matter, though I have no evidence and ain't looking. He is pissing off a lot of the insiders in national politics, as was the case with Donald Trump, and that alone is a reason I'd vote for him were I registered in Alabama.
I don't want to repeat 1/3 of my last post, so you may want to refer back to that top-4 list of "reasons politicians go native". (Yeah, I wish it were just a Dave Letterman joke.) The fact that Roy Moore stands up to the establishment rules out #3, his being a ringer. You may not agree with the man, but he stands on unchanging principles, which rules out #1 and #2. # 4, the blackmailing thing is a big part of the reason I'd like this guy to be a senator. If dirt's being dug up on Mr. Moore now, all over the place, than what's to dig up later? It's all out in the open, and guess what, nobody cares a whole lot anymore about this stuff, at least the mundane stuff that's not up to the sickness of the Hollywood crowd and some of the highest-level politicians.
It's hard for the Deep State to handle a guy like this, and that
There's one more point I want to make about the lies that come from either wing of The Party, in this case the Red-colored one. I've seen word written by pundits [yeah, WTF do they know? - Ed.] to the effect of "The conservatives in the House and Senate don't want to have to put up with another guy who puts his foot in his mouth, like some "Akin" guy..." etc. BULL! That's not what this is about. They want a guy that will be an upstanding member of their Senate CLUB. That's really not about what the guy will spout off about, but whether he will toe the line on the legislation, making sure the right things happen, no matter who gets to put in an occasional "Nay" vote for the constituents' sake. George Carlin said it best: "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Roy Moore doesn't plan to join, and that worries the establishment deeply. GOOD! TO HELL WITH ALL OF THEM!
No comments - Click here to start thread
Future Alabama Honorable Senator Roy Moore and the Supreme Court
Posted On: Thursday - November 30th 2017 6:40AM MST
In Topics: Pundits US Feral Government
The former politician, presidential adviser, and TV talking head, now pundit, Mr. Pat Buchanan lays out a bunch of political logic to illustrate that this one senate election will be critical to the anti-abortion cause (via Supreme Court justices, etc.) Hey, Peak Stupidity has lots of respect for the views of Pat Buchanan. His heart is in the right place, and as we've written numerous times (somewhere) the country would be in a whole lot better shape now if he had kept his momentum in the 1992 R-presidential primary campaign. The Lyin' Press was not his friend, of course.
Firstly, this post is not about abortion and Roe vs. Wade. It's about the Supreme Court. Again, in Buchanan's article, his heart is in the right place, and he runs through the scenario with the supreme and lower court pick numbers. Now, I'm not saying that the Supreme Court is not important, in fact they are far from it and OUT! OF! CONTROL!. My point here is that Mr. Buchanan is living in the past as far as his idea of how the American political system works in 2017. He writes about political strategy as in how many votes "we" get if this happens, and what the Senate rules are with the "nuclear option" having been set up by the D's, and it's gonna work against them .. blah blah. OK, you DO know how all this works better than a lowly Peak Stupidity blogger, Pat, but listen, things are not as civil politically as you are used to, and they are quickly getting even less civil. The rules don't matter to the cntrl-left, and most of the people we think are on our side are not on our side. I have not seen ANY political legislation/ruling/whatever go in the RIGHT direction since the EARLY 1990's, Pat! The elite have been getting what they want, one way or another.
Next, about the Supreme Court "conservative" picks themselves, in this very article, my main argument with his point is backed up by Mr. Buchanan right there in the same article! He lists 5 (or 7, if your main issue is abortion) S.C. justices that were appointed by Republicans from Reagan's term on that went native. What is to say every single one of the new appointees would not do the same, or at least a significant number, and same with the lower courts?
Let me speculate on why these politicians, and, yes, judges at that level are basically politicians, switch views and loyalties, almost always toward the left, after they get in power?
1) Some may actually have a change of their views over time, however, most times it is from living too long in the elitist bubble that they enter.
2) Some just don’t like being one of the bad guys as far as almost all of the Lyin’ Press is concerned. They want to be the good guy on TV, and get invited to all the best dinners and cocktail parties in Washington, FS. It’s peer pressure over principles for these ones.
3) Some may be ringers, in that they may be held up to the public as conservatives when the people behind the scenes know that what their real, anti-constitutional views are. Sure, there is a history, and that history may
4) Some may have plenty of sordid things they have done in the recent past (usually after they have been in some type of office, as that’s when they pick up the psychopathy). They can be blackmailed very easily, cough, cough, John Roberts, cough, to rule in favor of whatever the elites want.
It may not have been the case only 25 years back, but I would say now that my reasons for going native are in least-likely to most-likely order.
Now, Roy Moore himself has been slighted in this post, I just realized, though we have written our support before here. In a follow-up post, later today, I will tie future-Senator Moore in with my reason #4 (about politicians going native).
No comments - Click here to start thread
1 year of stupidity and counting (500th post)
Posted On: Tuesday - November 28th 2017 10:55PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Websites
Yea! It's our 1st Blogversity here!
Yes, one year ago, on November 28th 2016, Peak Stupidity was loosed on the world with FIRST POST - Am I a curmudgeon?:
It is not a complete coincidence that this is POST #500 also, as I have accelerated posting just a bit over the last 2 weeks to make this number.
OK, I'm going live after messing with this URL and my doctored-up blog software on-and-off for longer than I want to admit right now.
I will try to keep a lot of humor in my posts as I write about the crazy, stupid, and once-in-a-while decent things going on in the country and the world. You can see this in the banner above and the "What is ...?" link on the left. However, I will probably come off as a curmudgeon much of the time.
That brings up a good point - what kind of blog is this supposed to be? Well, our "about" page tries to describe the content. We try to point out and discuss stupidity of all flavors, with right at 30 topic keys already. If Peak Stupidity has been remiss at fulfilling any part of our mission statement, it is probably in explaining the causes of the different "flavors" if you will, of stupidity. We have not made any effort in predicting time lines, or just how far we are from the stupidity peak. Math is hard.
"What kind of blog is this?" is a question about the style of the blog too. That has morphed just slightly since Post 1, one year back. Blogs, good and bad, run the gamut of posting frequency and average post-length. There is no physical law, but for a given amount of effort being spent, this is a constant, call it "C" (for Constant!) - we don't care. You've got your Instapundits with very short blurbs scores of times daily to link to articles elsewhere to a few I've read that post 10 page essays once a month or so. There are those that excerpt outside articles every time, and others that come completely from the writer's head. Peak Stupidity has moved slightly since Post 1 toward longer, less-frequent posts, and stayed about the same as far as alternating original stuff vs. the "look at what these idiots (or geniuses) are saying" posts. The average of only (500 post/365 days = ) ~ 1.4 posts/day is about 50% lower than that of the 1st month, but the posts probably average more than 2x as long, so there's more effort now.
Commenting hasn't been used much, but that does not perturb the staff here. It is not a sophisticated system, and thus could prove a bunch of work. However, readership has been increasing steadily with the exception of the high month of October '17 with the anomaly of our Russian (IPs anyway) commenting bots having gone crazy then been curtailed via our simple commenting bot-stopper:
Just a core of steady readers is what I'd like to see here. More is better, but so long as I know there are people reading, I'll continue the writing. Changes to fix the poor navigation and problems (yes, Explorer doesn't show youtube vids) will come in due time.
PS - in reference to last post, the computer-tech stupidity/curmudgeonry complaint therein was a follow up from Post 1! It read ... let me write about Windows software another time..." See, we get around to things eventually!
No comments - Click here to start thread
Whatever happened to this guy?
Posted On: Tuesday - November 28th 2017 6:57PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity
His real name is, or hopefully WAS, "Clippy". Not having seen this nosey bastard pop down lately onto my computer screen while I'm in the middle of getting things done, has been a blessing.
Yeah, there's plenty more of this type of stuff: indentations that you don't want that happen anyway, automatic capitalization of letters, windows fading out when you accidentally moved the cursor over the task bar. I'm still thankful to have Clippy gone anyway, to an early bent-up rusty grave, hopefully.
I get it, I get it, computer geeks, you are proud of your new "features" and you want to have them default-on for the running of new forced-upgrades of the software that people who are TRYING to work use. You know, right, that I don't want to keep learning new things about my TOOLS, and software programs are nothing but tools? I know that my hammer works the same way EVERY SINGLE TIME that I pound in a nail (or beat the hell out of my computer), and I LIKE it that way! That's how tools are supposed to be.
OK, I can recommend Linux versions, but am still working under Windows stupidity right now, so who am I to preach on this. I will expand this post another time, when I can organize my thoughts better, but this post was really written for closure (haha, that sounds serious ... but it's not here) on this Curmudgeonry topic key for a certain reason to be disclosed next post, this evening.
Comments (2)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - BJ Thomas song
Posted On: Monday - November 27th 2017 6:44PM MST
In Topics: Music Movies
This morning's post alluding to the Federales reminded me of the scenes in the classic 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy) and Robert Redford (the Sundance Kid) were chased around Bolivia by their Federales, set in the 1890's.
Peak Stupidity just got done mentioning the Frito Bandito, but these two guys were the Yankee Banditos:
The short scene below has Butch Cassidy riding the newly-invented bicycle with Etta (Katherine Ross), along to the music of the BJ Thomas song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head".
No comments - Click here to start thread
Gentrification article from the "It takes a lot of gall" department of the LP
Posted On: Monday - November 27th 2017 6:12PM MST
In Topics: Economics Race/Genetics
Steve Sailer notes an article written by the west coast branch of the Lyin' Press that points to almost Peak Gall. The writer, a black lady who lives in Inglewood, California, seemed a mite upset that she ran into a ... gasp! ... white lady walking her dog, which might be leading to gentrification by white people, now up to 3% of the population of that city (just west of LAX airport in the Los Angeles basin).LA times lady:
All I could think was: White folks abandoned Inglewood, and now they’re coming back with no memory or acknowledgment of all that, expecting neighborliness?I don't think they abandoned the neighborhood lightly... it got too dangerous to stay. Now, some urban pioneers, grandkids, perhaps of the ones who couldn't live there anymore 5 decades back, want to try to clean it up. Peak Stupidity has written fairly long post about gentrification before, using that same word "pioneers"* These urban pioneers would like people to be neighborly, sure, but I don't think that's as important to them as just not having riots, continual property theft, and gang riots. You don't have to crank up the welcome wagon. LA Times lady again:
… But black people in particular will feel the sting. We will be out not just apartments and homes we can afford to rent or pay the mortgage on. We will lose our space, our place.Yeah, if you call selling your house, "having it taken away", I guess ... but that deal is not as bad as having your family's safety taken away, is it? Yeah, the white people sold their houses, and some others are buying houses now - pretty much on the up-and-up. Rather than pissing-and-moaning you Inglewoodians could spend that energy fixing up your houses or teaching the young ones not to hate, steal, and kill, so the property values would stay high.
It’s an enduring American truth: Whatever black people have can be taken away.
Inglewood was almost all black during Fred Sandford's, Lamont's, and Aunt Esther's time (maybe they were in Compton?). So, Sailer, being a statistics guy AND a resident of Los Angeles, easily notes the sheer gall of the writer to complain when:
Inglewood in the 2010 Census was 51% Hispanic, 44% black, and 3% white. The mayor is still black though, but half the City Council is Latino.Let me get this straight - Hispanics have moved in and live in over half the city, yet there were no complaints about gentrification. Is that saying that the Hispanics don't fix things up very well? Isn't that, like ... racist, or ethnicitist, or something? Or is it maybe, that they couldn't give a rat's ass about your complaints - "we don't need no steeenking altuism!"
Oh, and a bit more gall to top it off. The writer's deceased husband was a white guy. They moved to Inglewood together. OK, that's enough gall for today, over and out.
* "Pioneers" is an interesting word to use, but part of the lingo of the gentrification issue. It has connotations that make one think of people who take risks to live out in the wilderness among the wild animals. Can you still say it, then? .... cause, you know ...
No comments - Click here to start thread
Federale on the Illegals
Posted On: Monday - November 27th 2017 10:14AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump US Feral Government
OK, that sounded good for the headline, but we don't mean the Mexican Federales; this post is pointing out an article by the VDare writer psuedonamed "Federale" whom Peak Stupidity has quoted before here regarding Elon Musk and Global Climate DisruptionTM nonsense and here regarding a southern border wall/fence. As we stated, this guy is an ex-US-Federal
Mr. Federale at VDare has been feeling a bit more optimistic than he has been, writing that "Illegals Are Starting To Feel The Trump Heat"
Your correspondent has been critical, and justly so, of the Trump Administration immigration program. In the defense of the Administration, much of their problems have been outside their control, though not all. DACA was major blunder, but sabotage by #DeepState Resisters has also been a major problem.Federale quotes a worried NYT writer named Vivian Lee, who is completely impartial in the matter of immigration, as she is a "member of the JOURNALISM PROFESSION". Illegal invaders are crouching down in the roach coaches, not making it to school, skipping MS-13 gang meetings, and worse, apparently. To the Peak Stupidity staff the article is nothing if not heartwarming.
But there are some good signs. Importantly the Trump Administration has illegal aliens living in fear. Fear is the mind killer, and the illegal aliens and their enablers in the #LyingPress are not happy. And frightening illegal aliens was something I advised, nothing like a panic to encourage illegal aliens to leave. [NOTE: He has links on VDare that don't show here.]
Along with Mr. Federale, I (and the great/lovely Ann Coulter) have not been pleased with President Trump's missing of many opportunities to do things within his power to at least not make the immigration problems worse. This article makes it sound like there are at least some good people in this branch of the Feral Gov. that have been left to do their jobs to some degree:
And it might appear that there are secret orders out to ICE ERO on the issue. Word has come to your correspondent that ICE ERO and the Border Patrol have restarted interior enforcement, and not just arresting criminal aliens, absconders, and previous deportees, the ostensive subjects of “targeted enforcement” that saboteurs like David Marin keep babbling on about.That is one decent positive thing due to action by the President. Peak Stupidity maintains that, for right now, just the fear of trouble will in itself cause the benefits that Federale's article touts:
While this has not reached problem areas like San Francisco, is CP and AC on the way back to the Sanctuary Cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles? I hopes so, and I encourage Thomas Homan and President Trump to expand CP and AC to those areas defying immigration law. Operation Wetback, it worked, but keep it on the down low; first rule of Operation Wetback is don’t talk about Operation Wetback.(Gotta like the "Fight Club" reference, even though the movie sucks.) As we've said before, though, regarding other subjects, reputations don't last forever, when there is nothing real to back it up. This is at least some real action, but the fear that may drive some invaders to just go on home will not last without steady pressure from real policies.
Again, please read the whole article, as besides giving a better picture, VDare always has scores of links in their articles. (I can't pop them all in here due to time constraints.)
(They've put on some weight in the new Mexican non-Siesta-based high-powered economy.) I'd take the one on the left only, so long as she could make a mean carne burrito
No comments - Click here to start thread
We Won't Get Fooled Again!
Posted On: Saturday - November 25th 2017 8:17PM MST
In Topics: Commies Music
... sure about that? (Yeah, actually the song lyrics do imply my point, so we've got no argument with The Who here.)
The last couple of posts got Who songs going in my head, as "people forget" (about Communism) brings up "Eminence Front" and "hope I die before I get old" brings up "My Generation". Yeah, there was lots of great stuff from that supergroup of the B-b-b-boomer G-g-g-generation, baby, but the post about the Commies really suggests "Won't Get Fooled Again", a song written by Pete Townshend in 1971.
The lyrics are just perfect in describing the guys like N. Lenin below and his revolutionary followers along with the next Commies coming along:
"We'll be fighting in the street
with our children at our feet,
and the morals that they worship will be gone.
And the men who spurred us on
sit in judgment of all wrong.
They decide and the shotgun sings the song.
[Chorus]
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution,
take a bow for the new revolution,
smile and grin at the change all around,
pick up my guitar and play,
just like yesterday,
and I'll get on my knees and pray
we don't get fooled again
The change it had to come.
We knew it all along.
We were liberated from the foe, that's all.
And the world looks just the same,
and history ain't changed.
Cause the banners, they all were flown, in the last war.
[Chorus]
I'll move myself and my family aside.
If we happen to be left half-alive,
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky,
for I know that the hypnotized never lie.
Do ya?
There's nothing in the street
looks any different to me.
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-by.
And the parting on the left
is now parting on the right,
and their beards have all grown longer overnight
[Chorus]
Yeah!!!
Meet the new boss,
same as the old boss!"
The Who:
Roger Daltrey - Lead vocals
Pete Townshend - Lead vocals and guitar
John Entwistle - Bass guitar
Keith Moon - Drums
Comments (1)
Retro Classic Autos... a boomer nostalgia thing I guess
Posted On: Saturday - November 25th 2017 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Cars Americans
I came along the first of these I've ever seen cruising down the highway today... trying to pass to the right when the left (the passing) lane was slowed behind an unprofessional semi-driver:
I can leave the rest of the comments on the ignorance of most American drivers on the idea of passing lanes, acceleration lanes, etc. for a post to come, but this is just a short comment on these retro cars.
It started with the new "Beetle", I guess, right at the end of last century, that I will never call a "BUG". People had nostalgia for the formerly ubiquitous (really through about that time) ACTUAL VW Beetle. Hey, just buy an old one and fix it, that was the point of those cars - they were so easy to work on, that bailing wire and a pair of pliers would get it back on the road half the time. Well, the new beetles were NOT air-cooled, making them right away not the same simple design. That was the baby boomer generation thing, once they got up in age a bit. "I want one of these again, but I don't want to have to do the work I used to."
Next was the retro muscle cars, starting with the Mustang, maybe 10 years back or more now. I was tempted on that one, but the gas prices were shooting up at the time. They've got the retro-Dodge Challengers now, and the retro-Chevy Camaros. They do look kind of cool but not the same. All of them have nice shapes to them, as they remind us of 50 year-ago automobiles that ruled the roads. They even look much smoother, cleaner and brighter, but face it, old farts, that Mustang is NOT a '69 original, yet that lady riding with you in it IS! I bet you'd like it the other way around, would it have been better if you had died before you got old, as Roger Daltrey sang? It' tough getting old, especially when you're stupid, or something like that, as that guy, what's his name... that Lil Wayne or somebody said.
No comments - Click here to start thread
Commies crawling out of the woodwork... it's about that time
Posted On: Saturday - November 25th 2017 7:27PM MST
In Topics: Commies Websites History Socialism/Communism
Wish we could say the same for the Commies.
Peak Stupidity is on-board with the analogy to cockroaches. Instead of a yearly time scale for the cycle of growing to be a nuisance, be fought back with everything we've got until squashed to a pulpy mess, and coming back in the early summer, the Commies seem to be on some kind of century-long cycle. We posted before, back in the summer, on the goings on in American history right at one century ago, again +/- 5 years.
We'll refer to world history in this post, as the Communist ideas certainly did not arise in America, but were brought over from the Old World. Going back to the middle of the century before, the mid-1800's we come to Karl Marx, the alleged father of Communism. The ideas have probably been around much longer, but Marx, in a pretty boring screed (according to a friend who attempted to get through it - not my idea of a good time either), came up with a motivation for "the people" whoever the hell that really means, to work for this entirely unworkable utopia. It's too much (except for this one) for this blog and been written about all over elsewhere how the Frankfort school and other followers of Marx infested their way into the institutions of America. Here, we maintain that it is not likely some big overriding conspiracy to destroy American, but just people with the same stupid ideas working independently on it.
Why the post now? Well, I've just personally read about 3 downright idiotic articles on unz.com (of all places) that promote Communism or glorify it's sordid history. Firstly, I don't link to stupidity, I just describe it. Of the articles, one was an article praising Mao Zedong the Commie butcher tyrant of Red China, like he was the cat's mao, or something. Another was about all the good things the Russians received (in the ass) from the mass murderer Lenin, Bolshevik co-founder of Russian Communism ("co-" initially, till he had his partner murdered with an ice axe - just another statistic there...), and a 3rd one too stupid to even remember. Hey, as I noted to Mr. Unz, I understand that your site purports to provide "A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media", but man, I didn't know that included material only found at the absolute apex of stupidity. I just don't want to have a hyperlink on the Peak Stupidity blogroll to a nest of Commies, that's all. Is that too much to ask?
Anyway, I guess that my noticing of those articles at the present day may not in and of itself mean the 2nd coming of the Reds, but it's just the extreme ignorance of the present generation of young people, which was bound to happen, that may let history repeat. I say "bound to happen", as there are 30-year-olds who know nothing of the Cold War now, and never really got to even hear from their parents of the brutality and misery of Communism in the Soviet Union, the East Bloc, Red China, Cuba, Cambodia, and all the rest of places where entire human lifetimes were wasted. They don't read about and won't hear much anymore about all the dear leaders who gave this economically and psychologically unnatural system of living their best shot(s, to the "right" people's heads). They didn't get to hear personally from the apologists in the West, who insisted that Communism is great, but it just hasn't been implemented right this time ... maybe next time, after they spent years denying the atrocities it caused. This is all too far back in history for them.
That's what happens by a century after the last time (dated from the time of the Bolshevik Commie take-over of Russia, almost exactly a century ago this evening). People forget. That's not individuals, but a population as a whole forgets the hard lessons, and we have to hear from these "new" Commies crawling out of the woodwork telling us the same bullshit their century-ago bullshitters told our ancestors. We've got lots of cats... we've tried "commie motels" (we call them "Universities" now) ... they just come back the next century anyway.
No comments - Click here to start thread
America - Ventura Highway
Posted On: Wednesday - November 22nd 2017 8:02PM MST
In Topics: Music
I imagine the acoustic rock/easy listening group America wrote the title in reference to the Ventura Freeway, back in the day when these roads were reasonably new and didn't have the amount of traffic that would turn it into a parking lot very often. What a time that would have been to live in California!
Since bringing up this highway two posts back, this would be some good music for tonight. This band was formed by 3 guys whose Dads were stationed in London, England for the US Air Force in 1970. There songs were mostly acoustic guitar stuff, with great melodies.
America was Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek, all of whom sung and played guitars.
"Ventura Highway in the sunshine,
where the days are longer
the nights are stronger than moonshine.
You're gonna go I know.... "
No comments - Click here to start thread
These are not your Father's illegal aliens
Posted On: Wednesday - November 22nd 2017 7:49PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity
Peak Stupidity used the term "Chicanos" in reference to the most-likely illegal "film" narrator and participants in the US Hwy-101 blocking display of force(?) discussed in the previous post. (The scene was described nicely by Steve Sailer.) Readers may (or may not, I don't care) notice that Peak Stupidity uses a lot of retro terminology, especially for place names. This is not done to confuse the reader, but just to piss of the people who need pissing off.
Anyway, the comments under the iSteve article included this:
Who is old enough to have watched this in the evening on bulbous glass TV with wood finishing?along with a reply from one of our favorite commenters:
;_;
Nah, I was too engrossed in "Chico and the Man"* to (GET UP and) change stations. That was back when men were men, you were pretty sure the Charlies Angels were women, Hispanics were Chicanos, and TV’s were furniture.
* Immigrants were pretty cool back then. The lady in the video is not your father’s immigrant. To think back to the day when the biggest threat we had from Mexico was from the Frito Bandito:
Even, then, they weren't sending their best.
No comments - Click here to start thread
Ponch and John to the rescue on the 101
Posted On: Wednesday - November 22nd 2017 7:33PM MST
In Topics: California ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny
That's US-101, called the Ventura Freeway, the Santa Anna Freeway, or the Hollywood Freeway depending on where you are and which way you're going. Like any road in Southern California since Jim Rockford used to tail people, at $200 per day, + expenses, the word "Freeway" cannot be counted on to be applicable at all times. Yesterday, it was the northbound lanes of this road that got jammed up. No, not a 27-car pile-up due to a woman putting on make-up, but some anti-Trump latina/o's decided to block the lanes with a banner. People hate these antifa wastes-of-human-protoplasm (we at Peak Stupidity have 1st-person knowledge of this) already, but Southern Californians hate traffic jams probably more than that.
This is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the people, people! Here's the cool part, off of iSteve (the link above):
Five protesters were taken into custody, and the lanes were quickly cleared, according to the CHP.Now, CHP stands for the California Highway Patrol, and we will now explain the post title to our younger readers who have never heard of them. There was this late-1970's TV show that immortalized the CHP back in the day when California was still almost paradise, but put in a little "i" to make the abbreviation CHiPs, the show's title. It seems as though only one CHiP officer came to the scene... probably John, as his Chicano* partner Ponch (Officer Frankl Poncheralla) was probably in the middle of his siesta at this time of day. He tore down the poster pretty quickly and got the traffic going. We are not fans of the US Police State, but yes blocking the freeway with a banner is not legal, and that is a decent use of the highway patrol for a change.
"We've got a 7-Mary-3 over here on the northbound 101 at mile marker 223. There are a couple of Mary's, no 7 Mary's blocking the road, and we've only got 3 tasers, so call it a 7-Mary-3. OK, it's done. Call rampart, yeah, patch us over to that other show, "Emergency", so we can get these Mary's patched up, then ship them off to Bellevue." Wait, I may be conflicted among a plethora of action '70's TV shows here, but YOU GET THE IDEA, RIGHT?
Well, some lightly-annoyingly-accented Latina chick filmed the whole thing, and it sounds like she was part of the crew that decided to win the hearts and minds of the people trying to get to work on time. (The video is at the same link.) It's really hard to tell whether this chick is so damn stupid to really believe what she spouts out or just trying to push the envelope to the hard-left a little further. It is hilarious:
- "Oh my God. They're holding a fucking banner on the 101 freeway, and he's ... ripping that..."
- "This is fucking absurd.. a cop from the highway patrol is ripping the banner and threatening the protesters..."
I can't continue. Even 5 minutes or so of extreme stupidity exposure (listening to this sick broad) could be damaging, according to the hard-working folks at "our" OSHA, but the one cop got the mess cleaned up that quick. Kudo's from Sergeant Getraer for cleaning up the situation.
Our illustrious narrator just didn't get the anarcho-tyranny she expected while eating her refried beans and listening to the Mexican Radio the other morning.
No comments - Click here to start thread
Is this Pope on Dope?
Posted On: Tuesday - November 21st 2017 11:54PM MST
In Topics: Commies Humor Global Climate Stupidity So-called Pope Francis
One can only hope. Peak Stupidity can cope with a Pope on dope, but nope ... Back in September, in "Is Global Climate DisruptionTM Real? Is the Pope Catholic?", we chalked up the stupidity of this Argentine Commie up to a run-in with the structure of the Pope-Mobile.
Now, we see that "Pope" Francis, titular* head of the Catholic Church, has got a bug up the Papal rear-end about his apparently undeniable
Now, not to get into the history of some of the Middle-Age Popes in terms of being perverts, we would be the last to tar all Popes with the same broad brush. The current Pope is no pre-vert, and probably not high, but just lightly retarded. That's OK, that's OK, a differently-cognizant individual should be given an opportunity to run the Catholic Church, as appointed by God, as any thinking man, even in these times of anti-Christian fervor, what with 1.5 Billion Moslems having started a demographic invasion of Europe, because, like, diversity. It's kind of like how one of our great military leaders, General Casey said about the Ft. Hood massacre, "... as horrific as this tragedy
From the San Francisco "Gate" article:
In his landmark 2015 environmental encyclical, Francis said global warming is "mainly" due to human activity and he called for fossil fuels to be progressively phased out without delay.Yes, semi-retarded Pope = engineer/physicist with 20 years mathematical modeling experience. Well, he's partially right, in that one cannot develop a technical solution to a theory that has been neither defined nor observed.
In his message, the Argentine pope denounced that efforts to combat climate change are often frustrated by those who deny the science behind it or are indifferent to it, those who are resigned to it or think it can be solved by technical solutions, which he termed "inadequate."
Is it possible that "Pope" Francis IS like some of the corrupt Popes of the days of yore after all. Again, we don't think he is a pre-vert, but he may be trying to bring back the concept of indulgences. 1000 years ago, +/- 300 (I've read books on this, but can't recall many details ... at least before Martin Luther came along) forgiveness by God for sins was sold by big wigs at the Vatican and its branch offices for cash - they had neither debit nor credit cards during those years - I do remember that. These deals were called "indulgences". Is it possible the Vatican would like to take charge of a sort of Carbon-Credit (forgiveness for sins of emmission) in trade for cash (or major credit cards)? You know they're gonna be needing infusions of cash to buck up that wall, seeing as how ISIS has already photoshopped-up a poster of the Pope's beheading. They don't want him alive. We here at Peak Stupidity would just rather he cut out the Papal Bull, is all.
* Yeah, had to get that word in here somehow.
No comments - Click here to start thread