1st World Memories of Suid Afrikaanse Lugdiens (CtDC - Part 7)
Posted On: Tuesday - June 20th 2023 6:04AM MST
In Topics: History Geography Race/Genetics World Political Stupidity
(The title would have ended up too long, but I'll consider this Part 7 of the Peak Stupidity series "Cry the DeConstructed Country". It's a series on the ruination of South Africa due to the ending of White rule. Earlier: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.)
That'd be South African Airways in English, and these aren't my personal memories. As a family, we'd thought about going to "Jo-burg" and then out to "the bush" to see the big cats and other animals in the wild, maybe 5 years back. I think now, 5 years later, that it's not worth braving the medium-sized animals for a chance to see the big ones.
Though I'm not at all enamored with State-run enterprises, such as nationalized airlines, it has been the mark of a 1st-World country to have a big international airline. South Africa was no exception back when it was a 1st World country, run by White men - Englishmen and Afrikaners*.
They wouldn't have had 14 girls. The required crew is 3 or 4, but the better service in the day may have called for a couple more. I note there IS one coloured Stewardess in the picture, actually - at the center.
There's lots of good information on the company in this Wikiwand** article. At the start, in the middle 1930s, SAL flew a handful of British-built de Havillands and Airspeed Envoys and a decent number of German-built Junkers (13's, then 50's, 52's, and 86's). The airline all but shut down during WWII, then acquired some Douglas DC-3's and DC-4's.
SAA (to use the English name from here on) entered the jet age in late 1953 with the first jetliner, the de Havilland Comet. By this time the piston-engined airliners had gotten pretty fast and capable too, so the Lockheed Constellation and the DC-7B were also used. The DC-7 could do the Jo-burg to London flight with only one fuel stop, at Khartoum, Sudan, on the eastern route - 21 hours total, or Kano, Nigeria, on the western route - 18 hours total. (Africa is a BIG continent! Note that, of the 5,600 statute mile shortest distance, Jo-burg to Palermo - the latter which could be considered entry to Europe on a direct route - is 1,130 miles, 4/5 of the whole route.)
Anyone with some knowledge of the history of aviation knows about the problems that befell(?) the Comet, so SAA's jet age continued with their delivery's of Boeing 707's***.
Even in the late piston-engine age for them, there were many countries on the African continent, neighboring countries being and exception, that would not allow overflights by SAA. These countries were butt-hurt, I suppose, about a bunch of upstart White people, having been on their land only 4 centuries, running an Apartheid plan against their Black! newcomers. These same people couldn't run a 1st-World airline themselves, much less a 1st-World country. How they planned to shoot down an encroaching SAA airliner I have no idea. (Soviet help, perhaps?)
By the mid-70s, the rest of the 1st-World too had gotten into this shunning mode against SAA. (See Parts 4 and 5 of this series.) Therefore, the airline had to plan large deviations or totally different routes to operate international flights, putting them at a competitive disadvantage often. This had an effect on their aircraft acquisition decisions. Either way, everyone who's anyone wanted that long-range 747-400.
Per the Wikiwand article:
The US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 banned all flights by South African–owned carriers, including SAA. In 1987, SAA's services to Perth and Sydney in Australia were ended, in light of the Australian Government's opposition to apartheid.30 years back, it was decided by the world and S. Africans under immense pressure that this nation would convert to Black! rule. The ruination started then, but as Peak Stupidity often says - and Adam Smith (the OTHER Adam Smith) too, "There's a lot of ruin in a nation"****. South African Airways got their international routes back, but had lost control of their country.
Competence goes down, and things fall to ruin, first gradually, and then suddenly. As per Part 2 and the original article that inspired this series, South Africa at War with Itself, South Africa has no airline service now - they don't even have reliable rail service due to Black! theft of the rails themselves for scrap metal.
After 2 decades of Black! rule, SAA went from serious reductions in the fleet in '17 to bankruptcy ("Business Rescue") in '19 to shutdown with the help of the Kung Flu in '20. The once proud and glamourous Suid Afrikaanse Lugdiens, South African Airways, is supposedly restructured, having "restarted" in September of '21, but they haven't taken to the skies since.
Do you think that couldn't ever happen here? I don't know. There will be a Part 8.
* Descendants of the Dutch who settled the land starting almost 4 3/4 centuries ago. (See Part 1.)
** A version of wikipedia.
*** The 707 and the Douglas DC-8, both coming into service in 1958-59, marked a "restart", if I may, of the jet age, at least in the 1st-World. Those Tupolevs built in the USSR flew in that interim, '56-58, but that was the 2nd World. I should add the runner-ups, the French-built Caravelle and the General Dynamics Convair 880, also being delivered in the late 1950s.
**** See also Part 2 and Part 3.
Comments (11)
24/7 Stupidity
Posted On: Monday - June 19th 2023 6:10PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor Salesmen Big-Biz Stupidity Customer Care
When did people start saying "24/7"? A couple of internet sites told me it was the early 1980s, so 4 decades back. That could be, but I know this phrase as one said by businessmen, especially those dot-com 1.0 types. Amazon's Jeff Bezos used to use this one. (I don't know if it was his alone, but he also had the "It's still Day 1" bit. At this point, Mr. Bezos, I'd call your company's point on the timeline as "The End of Days"!)
It's been more than 20 years since "24/7" came into widespread use. The meaning is, of course, that something will work, be available, be open, what-have-you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I guess that implies that this goes on over the years too, until early bankruptcy*, so the "365" is not necessary, and using it would also imply that the site goes down on leap days - Feb 29's. You can't have that!
Originally, "24/7" was meaningful. It's been used so much that it's become trite and/or erroneous. What happened is that proud businessmen all over have forgotten the meaning of the phrase. That's the case with the website of a company called Laptopscreen.com.
The reader may infer some computer problems here at Peak Stupidity from the sudden revelation that that particular website's banner info has an important contradiction. Yeah, I needed a laptop screen. As the reader may know from all of Peak Stupidity's Customer Care complaint posts, I like to talk to live humans often. My only question for a live human in this case was on the delivery time, whether a few days to a week or something like 1-2 months via slow boat from China.
I want to make it clear here that I was actually very pleased with the job done by Laptopscreen.com. An American guy answered the phone in less than 1 minute, after ZERO button pushes. He assured me that "no, we don't drop ship stuff from China." and gave me a rough arrival date. The thing came and worked!
Therefore, while I was on that call ... on Monday morning... when they were open... I both held my tongue, and forgot in the meantime anyway, to give whomever answered a little shit about the contradictory banner.
See, it was a Sunday when I had found the site. Maybe I HAVE had this thing wrong for 20-odd years, but this whole time I've been under the impression that 24/7 meant that I could call these people on Sunday, even late at night. Nope, I got a voice message. Also, I'm not a chatty guy by this internet definition - that's a very LAST resort for me - but the "chatterers" are apparently offline too during, errrr, non-business hours... wait, whaaaa?
I supposed the way I should see this is very much along the lines of the standard joke I would pull out were I a clerk at the Circle-K. "How late are you open?" "24 hours." "Oh, good, 24 hours." "Yeah... I mean, but... not in a row."
PS: Ohhhh! Maybe they meant 24 days a month, and 7 hours a day. That's not quite right either but a lot closer to reality than what they say now.
* Yeah, I've got that dot-com 1.0 era in mind here.
Comments (27)
Payback time for Starbucks and Shultzie
Posted On: Thursday - June 15th 2023 9:32PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Big-Biz Stupidity Legal Stupidity
For the usual reasons (either logging out of email or doing a "Peak Stupidity" search) I glanced at a yahoo news headline. This one was surprisingly not biased and stupid, but some good heartening news.
From the NY Times , I just now noticed (trying to NEVER click on a thing from that rag) and writer Ed Shananan, we learn White Starbucks Manager Fired Amid Furor Over Racism Wins $25 Million. This story goes back over 5 years. Peak Stupidity commented a few times back then, with Starbucks - fake coupons and raising hell and Nationwide 10,000-Store Barista-Based Synchronized Struggle Session a Success!, on the caving in to yet another race hustling set up* by the huge Starbucks exotic coffee chain.
Caving in and giving out a couple of hundred thousand bucks to the 2 huckster guilt-trippers is one thing. Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz went way beyond what the risk-averse corporate lawyers would have told him. He turned his back on loyal, but not Woke enough, employees, and initiated a guilt trip, including what I called a big "struggle session" along with new rules to "be kind" to (especially Black!) deadbeats. As Peak Stupidity saw over the last couple of years personally, this move has come back to haunt Starbucks. (See Starbucks Wokeness Backfire, and the 3rd item of this post.)
Well, White people, you can't lose them all. A fairly high level manager of Starbucks, one Shannon Phillips, has won a lawsuit and hopefully taught someone at Starbucks a lesson. Keep in mind when you read the article, that 5 years is how long the manager in question has been fighting Starbucks, not knowing all that time whether she'd lose to the Woke Big Biz Establishment.
On Monday, in a surprising twist, a federal jury in New Jersey ordered Starbucks to pay $25.6 million to a former regional manager after determining that the company had fired her amid the fallout from the Rittenhouse Square episode because she was white.The verdict was unanimous (wow!), and yes, I guess it IS surprising to see justice be served to White people, come to think of it.
The jury found that Starbucks had violated the federal civil rights of the former manager, Shannon Phillips, as well as a New Jersey law that prohibits discrimination based on race, awarding her $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.
[My bolding.]
At the time of the episode, Phillips oversaw about 100 stores in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, Delaware and parts of Maryland. She had been promoted to the job in 2011 after what she called her “exemplary performance” in six years as a district manager in Ohio."Damage control" in the Big Biz world meant screwing over whomever in order to placate the Establishment, even an exemplary employee. She was so exemplary, that she wouldn't play along in what I'd call "Big Business,
Phillips said in the suit that Starbucks, as part of its damage-control effort after the arrests, had sought to punish her and other white employees in and around Philadelphia even if they had not been involved in the events that led to the police being called.
Amid the image-burnishing campaign, Phillips said one of her superiors, a Black woman, told her to suspend a white manager who oversaw stores in Philadelphia, though not the one in Rittenhouse Square, because of allegations that he had engaged in discriminatory conduct — allegations that Phillips said she knew to be untrue.Remember that John F. Kennedy book Profiles in Courage? Is there a way to add an addendum, because this Shannon Phillips ought to be in there?
In contrast, Phillips said, no action was taken against the manager who oversaw the Rittenhouse Square store, a Black man who Phillips said had promoted the employee who called the police.
Phillips said she was fired not long after balking at the order to suspend the white manager.
The plaintiff rests. You know, there's always another side of the story, though. Let's hear from Starbucks:
Starbucks denied in court filings that Phillips had been fired because she was white and said she was let go because she performed poorly in response to the episode that led to the arrests.Oh man, they're right. She did perform poorly. The plaintiff should have instituted her own struggle sessions, fired Capitalist Roaders, hung vente-character posters around White employees' necks, and sent a few baristas to the pig farms. Regarding her lack of performance, I gotta admit, Starbucks' lawyer is right about that too. Miss Phillips failed in that role. Not everyone is cut out to be a Red Guard style Communist.
“During this time of crisis,” a lawyer for Starbucks wrote in a court filing, the company’s “Philadelphia market needed a leader who could perform,” adding that “Ms. Phillips failed in every aspect of that role.”
PS: For some comments, including informative ones from lawyer/commenter Jack D., look in the thread under this Steve Sailer post.
* This is not anything new. It goes back to Rosa Parks, at least.
** Just to be complete here, we'll link to 3 other posts on Starbucks, these relating to the Kung Flu PanicFest: Grasping at Straws - Part 1 - - Grasping at Straws - Part 2 and Grasping at Straws - Update from Starbucks. Looking back at those posts, I see that some of the PanicFest stuff was just freaking weird.
Comments (15)
T'chaniekwa has left the building
Posted On: Wednesday - June 14th 2023 6:35PM MST
In Topics: Humor Political Correctness Race/Genetics
Peak Stupidity has tried our best to introduce and explain Modern Peak Stupidity telephone etiquette over 5 years ago. Just today, I didn't follow my protocol of just listening for a non-salesman human voice before replying to an unknown number.
It wasn't one marked by the system (on-phone software, the carrier, I don't know) as "probably SPAM"., but who did I know in Indianapolis* that might be calling? You never know - people move and keep the old area code or whatever...
... at the other end there was background noise, but then a young lady spoke up to say hello. It was a little confusing, as there was too long a pause after I told her my first name just to check who I was dealing with and shake her brain loose, and I also realized the other end was on speaker phone. I imagine the conference room seen above with some business to be done with someone named ... "Hello, is this, err, T'chaineikwa?"
It's not like I've likely spelled it right here, but that name is one that I'm familiar with from occasional text messages and calls from (obviously) Black! guys asking for her. T'ch... or whoever had this # before me.
"No, I'm not, uhh, her. These Black! names get really tough, don't they, but anyway, she must have switched phone numbers. Sorry."
Well, this woman on the other end was really chuckling at that, I mean, for the rest of the call. I thought about her having the phone on speaker, meaning usually others are on the line, some bill collectors or what-have-you. The rest were probably cracking up, but inside. The really funny part is imagining some diversity at the other end of the line, and whether this (obviously) White young lady couldn't help herself.
I'd cut through the Woke Curtain for just a few moments. Felt good, man.
* Both the area code and 3-digit prefix are used to come up with a nearest town or city.
Comments (17)
What we have heah is failure to communicate
Posted On: Wednesday - June 14th 2023 4:30PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Curmudgeonry Peak Stupidity Roadshow
The curmudgeonly complaint in this post could be called a "1st World problem". That said, it's a problem that wouldn't exist even in 3rd World countries, as most are at least not multi-cultural Towers of Babel. The multi-cultural madness we've got going on manifests itself in very poor communication, but then there's native stupidity too.
The Peak Stupidity reader could get a flavor of the present-day hotel complaints in our series Hotel Haiti: Introduction - - on Competence - - on Caring, and Conclusion. Yes, I know this post sounds elitist. It's more about the continuously decreasing competence we Americans are experiencing than anything.
We often have a reason to stay in hotel rooms later than check-out time, as arranged upon our arrival. The ability to keep up with that arrangement by the staff is just getting stupider as the years go by. Let me put this in terms of communication methods:
3-Way Communication: The on-duty manager should be able to let the housekeeping staff know what the deal is on check-out times. They have clipboards with this info - I know that. In the modern day and age, I could see an easily-writable software program - OK, app, fine, dammit - that could be used to communicate 2-way from the desk to the staff or vice-versa. I'm old fashioned, and I'd be fine with a clipboard were I doing this housekeeping work. (I sure hope I don't, as it's hard work and not my kind of thing at all!)
However, even when that doesn't work, one gets a knock on the door, "Housekeeping?" and just tells her "we're not leaving till one.", she gets that, says "OK", and then at least someone knows the deal.
2-Way Communication: As I was getting to, often this quick conversation above doesn't result in anything getting written or updated anywhere else. So, another housekeeper comes by an hour later. "We're not leaving till one." "OK, thank you." It's not optimum, but, no problem. (They just don't really have their shit together, but who does, right?)
This has gotten worse due to the language barrier that exists within the English-speaking world... wait, whaaaa? "What??" "I said 'we'll be here till one.'" Then it's "OK" - maybe she got that, maybe not. 10 minutes later, at 10:45, "Housekeeping?" "We're staying till one, remember?" Well, this might be someone else, who also knows minimal English.
It just gets worse when people don't reply at all, as that seems to be just as much a modern thing as the language barrier.
1-Way Communication: This is mostly the case now. I hear no reply when I give someone information. I'll sometimes poke out the door, "one O'Clock, that's when we're leaving." Maybe I get a reply then, maybe not, depending on language and/or attitude.
However, the way it is today, they've also gotten to just trying to break into the room, either while simultaneously saying "Housekeeping?" or not. Because they need the feature, the staff has master card keys, which can also open the deadbolts. However, with the security latch on, the door just bangs against it. It might be a little jarring, is all.
0-Way Communication: That's me nowadays. Because communication with the housekeepers is usually futile, I don't answer anyone. Go ahead and bash away on the door - I just sit there and wait for them to go away. Occasionally, I'll comment that "you're gonna break something, if you keep doing that!" They'll figure it out. It's still a shame it has to be this way.
PS: Yeah, Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown would be very appropriate for this post, but we featured it already in this post from the waning days of the Kung Flu PanicFest.
Comments (4)
The Potomac Regime goes full Tranny
Posted On: Tuesday - June 13th 2023 9:19PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders US Feral Government
... while in the meantime, nobody can analyze the root cause of that Nashville school shooting 2 months back done by a tranny, because it might lead to bad thoughts and more understanding.
Last summer, Peak Stupidity first noted how the Potomac Regime has taken up new colors, and let its freak flag fly. They are at it again. It is pissing off a lot of Americans, but to me it's a good thing that The Regime has made it clear to everyone that it is not America's government anymore. (I could say it's not American's government any more.)
Angry Americans have been rebelling in schools, tearing down store displays and even, GASP!, cutting up their Target credit cards. The latter, though it may not feel as good, is probably the best idea though. We need to quit thinking we can teach this government in the Federal Shithole what is right and what is wrong. We need to realize that it's not our government up in there. Let Target decide which side it's going to be on.
Slow but sure and steady separation from this other nation parasitically infecting our land is the way to go. That means cultural separation, financial separation, and hopefully eventual geographic separation.
Meanwhile, since it's Pride month and all, it would seem like we would want to get it all out in the open - what makes these trannies tick? What would make one of these Proud people go shoot 3 9 y/o's and 3 60 y/o's in her old Christian school. It's been 2 months, and the Nashville police have not released the information they have straight from the late psycho-killer's hand.
Peak Stupidity says:
Comments (9)
GOPer Mike Pence - Another dumb Trump hire
Posted On: Monday - June 12th 2023 4:39PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Immigration Stupidity Trump
Candidate Donald Trump picked Mike Pence to be his VP-candidate back in '16. I don't know what his decision was based on. Mike Pence was not some high-seniority Senator with a lot of pull, and his State of Indiana, where'd he'd been Governor, is not a big enough one to warrant picking a candidate for those votes. Besides, Trump was really his own man. I don't think somebody nobody had ever heard of before would have changed Trump's chances.
Mike Pence has been a GOPe (GOP establishment) man, with no value I see in being the guy who could make the ctrl-left think twice about impeachment, or something like that.
I don't know the deal there. I do know from some reading that a number of Presidents had VP's that they didn't particularly like or actively hated. I don't think there was much love for the Socialist Scumbag LBJ out of JFK. Ike made an effort to kick Nixon off of the GOP ticket for 1956. (It didn't take.)
Looking back to '15-'16, the only reason Donald Trump came even CLOSE to the office of President, EVER, is because he cared about, and worked on, the immigration invasion problem. Mike Pence supported most of Trump's policies on immigration during those 4 years, but as VDare's anonymous FS insider Washington Watcher II tells us, Mike Pence, Whatever Else He Is, Is No Immigration Patriot. In other words, he was being loyal, but faking it.*
Pence’s immigration record before 2016 was one of the worst among prominent Republicans. In 2006, then U.S. Rep. Pence, who represented Indiana-2, proposed his own Amnesty. He fronted the Pence Plan at the behest of Treason Lobby Mistress Helen Krieble of the horsey set. Amusingly—or not!—the Amnesty was considered the “conservative” alternative to the John McCain-Ted Kennedy plan backed by the Treason Lobby. Nothing was “conservative” about it, but that didn’t stop Conservatism, Inc., from supporting it. It would have legalized millions of illegals. The only difference between it and McKennedy was that corporations and megawealthy GOP donors like Krieble would decide how many “guest workers” should flood the American job market. Pence claimed it was the Christian thing to do, and that Ronald Reagan, the man who supposedly made Pence a conservative, would have supported it.Now, this guy is one of the 2nd tier GOP candidates for the '24 Presidency. Mr. E.H. Hail has a great run-down on the GOP candidates, in his post on his Hail to You site, and the term "2nd tier" comes from that post. The 2nd-tier as of May 27th, per Mr. Hail, are Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and 4 others**.
Bunk.
Pence backed it on Krieble’s orders. And he absurdly claimed it was not an Amnesty. He cited his own immigrant ancestry—his Irish grandfather was an Ellis Islander—to justify rewarding illegal aliens. Insultingly, Pence said Amnesty was a critical test for the American Right. “It’s a test of the character of the conservative movement in the 21st century,” he said. “We are either going to prove that we believe in the ideas enshrined on the Statue of Liberty or the American people will go looking elsewhere” [Star of the Right Loses His Base at the Border, by Jason DeParle, New York Times, August 29, 2006].
Fortunately, conservatives “failed” Pence’s fraudulent test. They rejected Amnesty, and him.
I want nothing to do with either of those 3 I spelled out. As for Mike Pence in particular, his attempts at treasonous acts on immigration are THE reason, but there are more. He could have made an effort in various ways to support Trump's (and my) claim of a major Cheatfest in '20. Going full Constitutional - see Article II, Section I v Blue Squad CheatFest: Part 1 and Part 2 is beyond a guy like him - but how about some words of support and loyalty for his former boss? Nah, this guy's fealty to the GOPe and the UniParty are much stronger than any love for this country.
I write many of these posts going by written descriptions of the words out of, and the actions of, these people. If you would kindly check out the video in the tweet embedded in Mr. Watcher II's article, regarding his stance on pardoning the J6 Political Prisoners, you'll be disgusted by this man. Screw you, Mike Pence, you traitor!
Ha! I nearly forgot my main point for this post: What does it say about Donald Trump that he picks people who are against his agenda, and in this case, not loyal in the long run, to work for him? Ron DeSantis isn't stupid in this way.
* Or has he had a Road to Damascus moment? WWII gives examples that show "no way".
** ... one of them being Tucker Carlson. IMO, if he were to actually say he's running, he'd get to1st tier right quick!
Comments (32)
A-Woke-end from a dream
Posted On: Monday - June 12th 2023 1:36PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Political Correctness
This is either the 3rd or 4th Peak Stupidity post written based on a dream of your Peak blogger. I understand that our commenter Dieter Kief out of the birthplace of Sigmund Freud may be curious and helpful, but that's not why I write these. As in the other posts, that I'm dreaming something like this says something about the times.
I was in an engineering or physics lab classroom, not the lab itself, but in the class in which the experiments were being discussed. Here I was, with a big pad of paper and a pencil, trying to get a point across to the teaching assistant or whoever he was. (He seemed to be in charge.) The young people now don't do much with paper and pencil. All data must be entered on some screen somewhere. So this was a bit difficult for him, as I made a table and told him how we should collect data "like this".
The other guys in the room were not getting this at all, so I got a tad frustrated and showed it - not loud or angry, mind you but just a tad vehement, let's call it. That wasn't a problem for the students and this instructor, but for some reason, my getting forceful about my idea was responsible for bringing about 5 HR reps, into the room, and STAT! Speaking of "STAT!", they were all wearing nurse scrubs. So, were they actual HR people? I don't know. Their purpose was to squash any disagreement going on in a classroom. They weren't particularly after me, but just any disagreement going on was verboten.
I told these apparently on short-call classroom "controllers" that "Hey, I was just passing by and came in to help. I don't have to be here."
Then I walked out, and right then I Woke up.
Johnny, what can you make out of this?
Comments (6)
Night Train to Lisbon
Posted On: Saturday - June 10th 2023 7:44PM MST
In Topics: History Movies Geography
In answer to my question, an older lady getting off the airliner with her husband the other day told me that, before their connection at the hub, they had come from a visit to Lisbon Portugal. "Really? You've got to watch the movie Night Train to Lisbon!", I exclaimed. She said they would - due to that brief, but positive recommendation. That's what I've got here, well, a positive recommendation, but not necessarily a brief one.
First, I have noticed that Lisbon is a tourist destination. Maybe it has been for a while, but it seems like a new thing. (We may go there sometime, but then, we have other destinations in mind too.) Perhaps what's new and cool about it is that it's an out-of-the-way European city. I still have traveling on trains in mind, for which Lisbon would be not on any other route if one is touring the European continent. I guess that's an old practice now, with Ryan Air, Value Jet, and the like, so I guess it's not nearly as out-of-the-way as before. People like to say they've been somewhere that others haven't, though, and that also makes it better when one is there too - not so many damned tourists around!*
There's the scenery, I suppose. Lisbon is a coastal city, and I'm sure Portugal has its beautiful spots. However, California, Oregon, and Washington have more than enough of that to beat Portugal. The movie I'm trying to review here shows some scenery near the end, but most of it occurs in urban Lisbon (per IMDB, the Caxias area, which is the actual location of the historic drama in the movie). I have a feeling that the movie-makers and government incentivizers want movies filmed in their locales to attract tourists. I think that works.
There's the history. Like most Europeans cities, all kinds of madness and travails have occurred throughout the 2 to 3 millennium that we know about. I looked up some quick Wikipedia history on Lisbon and Portugal in general. They had it all, Roman rule, Christianity, various barbarians, Moslems**, then the Age of Exploration, colonization, (and, as of late, reverse colonization, which I'll get to shortly). Unfortunately, a huge earthquake in 1755 destroyed most of the city, and more was torn down for a different more modern cityscape during the rebuild.
Then there was the whole 20th century thing. Going along with this out-of-the-way country idea, Portugal is about as far away from the USSR and East Bloc one could get. There was no chance of it going Communist due to invasion from the east, but the southern European countries did and still do tend to get a little wonky - as in a "wonky knee" - and kind of unstable politically. Greece seems to be the worst of them. It went nearly Communist on its own for a bit. Italy too has had new governments yearly or monthly. Portugal though, somewhat like its (only) neighbor, ended up with a dictator from 1932 until 1974. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar had been a valuable finance minister earlier, seemingly the only guy who could keep to a budget. During the 1920s political turmoil, he, often unwillingly, stayed in the government, and the President appointed him Prime Minister in July 1934 of what was called the Estado Novo - "New State" - and was an authoritarian dictatorship.
Salazar was neither Fascist, Communist, nor Theocrat, though he favored Catholicism more than the other isms, which he actively hated. He was a Nationalist, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, it's just very difficult for a dictator to remain completely benevolent for very long. You make enemies, some with cause and many of them just against traditional society, like the Commies. Well, if you want to stay "benevolent dictator", you've got to crush those enemies, with secret police and the like. It doesn't end well. The end of Mr. Slazar's dictatorship in Portugal is a big part of the story of Night Train to Lisbon. It's been almost 50 years now, but that's not so long in the past - again, kind of out-of-the-way, out-of-mind for me, but not for the characters in this movie.
Jeremey Irons, the star of this one, plays Raimund Gregorious, an upper-middle-age conservative teacher of literature and such at a school in Bern, Switzerland. (For some reason, wiki and half the IMDB reviewers say he's a Professor, but, as I recall, he taught younger kids.) He's single, having been divorced a few years back - we find out later - and he understands that it's a safe but boring life he leads.
Luckily for us moviegoers, something odd happens to Raimund on the very day we are watching. Some young pretty girl was about to jump to her death off a bridge into the Aar River. Raimund saves her, and brings her to the school so he could teach his classes, but she leaves with no goodbye or contact information. What she'd left, though, was her jacket with an interesting book in the pocket.
The viewer couldn't be faulted for thinking at this point that our protagonist will chase the young lady down and things would eventually get all kissy-kissy and such, but, alas, the movie takes a different direction. He being a bookish guy, Mr. Gregorious takes to the book of wisdom he's found, A Goldsmith of Words, written by one Amadeu de Almeida Prado in Portuguese, and also finds inside it a train ticket to Lisbon, bought by that skinny young girl. Since he couldn't find her at the train station, he makes an impulsive decision, probably the first in a while, to board the night train to Lisbon. (Oh, yeah, he left the kids in the classroom that afternoon. Whaddya' gonna' do?)
Raimund's search for the author of this book (1 of only 100 copies made, per a guy at the bookstore back in Bern), Mr. Prado, soon turns his trip to Lisbon, hence the movie, into a detective story. He has no P.I. license, and doesn't work for $200 per day + expenses like Jim Rockford*****, unfortunately, and this investigation is into goings-on in Lisbon from 50 years back (well, 40 when this movie was made, in 2013). Luckily, most of the people that his investigation involves are still living, in the movie. So, rather than a street-smart taco-eating ex-con with a business card printing press in his Firebird pretending to be an insurance salesman, we have a multilingual straight-talking intellectual with a penchant for history having tea at old townhouses, coffee shops, and nursing homes. Instead of a jive-turkey sidekick who's of no help whatsoever, he's got a nice middle-aged lady optician he met, who spends the time to help him dig into this most interesting past.
The past in question was the time at the end of the Salazar dictatorship. It was a time when revolution was in the air - pardon me a minute while I cue up an old ABBA song. There are no Fernandos that I recall, but the long flashbacks that come from Raimund's interviews of the characters in the present bring to life a bunch of idealist young people with Spanish-sounding names - Portuguese, of course - with plans and plots. The young Amadeus Prado, he the author of that great book of philosophy that started our protagnists' quest, was a very bright medical doctor involved in these plans along with his ex boarding school roommate/close friend.
Then there's the girl. She was young in the past, so not the girl from the bridge back in present-day Switzerland. This very pretty young lady was heavenly, make that heavily, involved in the plots, her having an amazing enough memory to keep all contact info on the many plotters in her head. See, now that's why we use thumb drives now, because you just KNEW she was going to ruin things due to LUV. You keep the women out of these things, I could have told them, and I did actually, but it's just a big screen, this was 50 years ago, and they weren't real people then even.
There's not very much action as we are used to in modern movies, but the story is complex enough to be very interesting. Besides the love story from the Salazar era, there's a mild one in the present too. I'll leave the story line at that, except to note that the ending in the present time was pretty good. There's not a lot of humor in Night Train to Lisbon, as it is a serious story. However, there's the running theme of Mr. Gregorio's headmaster or fellow teacher back in Bern calling his mobile phone occasionally asking when he's planning on coming back. He doesn't know.
Production values? Yet again, I don't know. It wasn't blurry. Also, it was nice that the dialogue was in English.
Well that was probably one of Peak Stupidity's longest movie reviews. No problem though - you should have had enough time to read it on the night train to somewhere. Any readers who've been to Lisbon, please comment here with your experience there please.
That's a wrap! I'm done for the week. Have a good Sunday, folks.
* I wonder how many Chinese tours go there. The Chinese tourism in general has tailed off since the Kung Flu Panic started.
** The fighting men of Portugal were able to expel these Moors from their lands about 3 1/2 centuries before the Spanish did.
*** They had Henry the Navigator, but they really could have used a Henry the Geographer with that S. American deal with Spain. As I recall, the dividing longitude line they agreed on - and even I, a Euro-colonization non-apologist, see that as pretty arrogant - was a bad deal for the Portuguese. Next time, don't sign anything without a good map in hand!
**** It's not just the reverse in geographical direction, but the reverse of the colonization process, aka, things go backwards in a de-civilizing process.
***** Yeah, you can find something like 10 Rockford Files posts all in here.
Comments (9)
The Born Inferiority
Posted On: Friday - June 9th 2023 7:36PM MST
In Topics: Humor Movies Race/Genetics
You've seen The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Bourne Supremacy. Now, coming to a theater, drive-through, nail salon, or funeral near you, it's The Born Inferiority!
"Make-up!"
(I started this video at 24 seconds in simply due to the cuter news reporter that appears at that point. Nice blue dress!)
It has been the case in most communities that dead people end up at funerals. One difference in the Black! community is that a lot of people at funerals end up dead.
There's a hilarity factor in both the story ("... they have arrested and charged the owner of the funeral home that was actually providing yesterday's funeral service for the 10 year old" and "... identified in court documents as the owner of Compassion and Serenity Funeral Home" and "... he is now facing charges of 1st and 2nd degree murder.") and the reporting ("Witnesses say shots rang out at around the time family and friends were told to gather around the casket"). No, you can't just make this stuff up so easily ... in anything but the Black! community.
I was impressed by this part, (@01:15 in):
“… court documents say Chavis backed up, tripped over the concrete vault lid on the ground next to the grave, and fell, and as he landed he immediately pulled a pistol from his waistband and allegedly fired …“Wow! This guy is good. I mean, he's much more than Mr. Anderson (of The Matrix) material. As he fell, I'm sure he had his head tucked in and, from Judo practice, been slamming his left arm down to break the fall, but in the meantime, his right hand went straight to his gun, and he clicked off the safety... he did have the safety on, right? ... and fired... allegedly, or course ... with the gun held sideways for better accuracy in azimuth, and killed a pallbearer all while in the process of busting his ass! Dude!
Now, folks of other backgrounds could never have done this. Folks of other backgrounds WOULD never have done this. Even though involved in a business dispute, they'd have probably acted serene and compassionate at a funeral. ("You diss me now, on diss, da day of my daughter's funeral?" [/Godfather I] ) No, but not Wilson Wesley Chavis. He's a man of action.
Wilson Wesley Chavis - he's even already got a great Hollywood name - should be in the next Jason Bourne movie! Oh, I've seen 3 of the movies already. They've got Matt Damon shooting while riding motorcycles and small European cars down stairways and all, but can he shoot while tripping backwards over a casket lid? No way, plus he's a White guy, and you can't make another Bourne Something-or-Other movie in 2023 without wokening it up.
Peak Stupidity has come up with a working title already: The Born Inferiority. Is there some way it can take place all in a prison, if at all possible? It's called, by us in The Business, "making movies on location".
Comments (10)
Cry the DeConstructed Country - Part 6: Africa Wins
Posted On: Thursday - June 8th 2023 7:37AM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics ctrl-left World Political Stupidity
(Continued from Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.)
Peak Stupidity had only linked to the original article that brought up this series of posts in Parts 2 and 3, so let me link to it again. It's SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF, written by Michael Witkin. Mr. Witken, an architect "from" Michigan, is a White ex-South African.
There are quite a few of them. About 125,000 S. Africans (less than one month's worth of Hispanic and mystery-land crossings across our southern border!), have come to the US. Over 200,000 have come to the UK and slightly lower than that to Australia. There is S. African emigration is to other locations on that continent. This writer says the Afrikaner farmers - fewer of the emigres - go to Nigeria and the Congo, and also Georgia (that'd be the Georgia of Back in the USSR fame). The wiki numbers that I gave don't screen out Black! S. Africans, but they match rough numbers of White S. African emigrees. Oh, a wiki author is worried about "brain drain", with mention, but not so much concern, about why they'd want to leave a ruinous shithole in fear for their quality of life or lives, period.
Mr. Witkin is one of the smart or lucky ones to have left, but, here's the thing: He still doesn't get it. I don't believe he knows, or maybe he just won't state out loud, the reason his old country has been ruined. From his article:
At the end of the Apartheid, and the end of racial discrimination in 1994, there was joy and optimism and the promise of a unified society known as “The Rainbow Nation”.One wonders how joyful and optimistic Michael Witkin was 29 years ago, though he'd already left his country for San Diego, California 11 years earlier.* Was he like this girl or the typical lefty Californian? He did write further down that this "Rainbow Nation" was a myth. He also wrote, though:
This expression was coined by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu describing post-apartheid South Africa with the assurance of a total multi-racial society and a country where everyone has the chance to prosper.
Well, not exactly and Nelson Mandela must be turning in his grave witnessing what has become of the ANC. A caricature of itself, this ‘movement for change’ has itself ‘changed’ having morphed into an organized criminal conspiracy, eviscerating the country of everything it had, and gutting its citizens of all they have left."Turning in his grave"? How so? Does Mr.Witkin still think that this Rainbow Nation could have worked were it not for those baddies that took over and ruined the dream?
Ha! Not quite. The Mandelas were murderous thugs. All of these people were out for revenge and wanted the political power and money for Black!s, most especially themselves. The Big Men, such as the crooks that have completely corrupted and stolen huge amounts from the power company Eskom - and the writer has lots of stories, some personal, of the ruination the lack of electricity has caused - are part of how the real Africa works. It's just what they do... without White colonists or original settlers (in this case) in control of things.
This Rainbow Nation actually meant a return to REAL Africa in the formerly 1st-World nation of South Africa. I don't think emigre Michael Witkin understands that. It was NEVER gonna work. Apartheid had been the best way to stave off Africa in South Africa. It's gone, and Africa has won.
* The timeline in his bio at the bottom of his article says 28 years in San Diego and then 12 years in Michigan. That means he emigrated in '83, 40 years ago, unless he left some detail out.
Comments (17)
Trump v DeSantis: Round 9 - Ken Cuccinelli interview
Posted On: Wednesday - June 7th 2023 7:40PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump President DeSantis
To keep track of the rounds of on-again-off-again series on the Trump v DeSantis match, let me link here to: Round 1 - Personalities - - Round 2 - Immunity to Kung Flu Panic - - Round 3 - Immigration Invasion - - Round 4 - Tag Team? - - Addendum - David Cole article - - Round 5 - The Ukraine/Russia War(mongering) - - Round 6 - Quantity of Hatred Generated - - Round 7 - Richard Hanania Substack post and Round 8 - Birthright Citizenship.
Next, let me write again a big Thank You! to commenter Adam Smith for making the effort to enable the video embedding here. The video is on his own youtube channel. What is the name of your network, STV, ASTV, Adam? Whatever, this was a GREAT help! I'll expand more on what the trouble for me was in a postscript at the bottom.
This 22-minute-long video interview of one Ken Cuccinelli, former Motherland Security Director under Trump for almost 2 years, by a guy named Bill Mitchell, is an excellent source of informative opinion on the ways of Donald Trump v Ron DeSantis. There are a number of points that Mr. Cuccinelli made that cover the exact problems that Peak Stupidity, Ann Coulter, VDare (specifically on the Immigration issue, of course), and millions of other people have with Trump's way of attempting to get good things done.
Now, Ann Coulter herself talked to President Trump IN the White House and all, apparently multiple times. She's got a bit of a "woman scorned" attitude in her columns, but nothing she points out is off base, IMO. The big difference that I get out of the words from Ken Cuccinelli is that he was THERE, for 20 months, working for, with, or against Trump on behalf of Americans on the Immigration Invasion problem. He lays out the problems he saw with Donald Trump very well. This video is EXCELLENT!
I saw it first (before Mr. Smith's help) in a tweet embedded in VDare's Federale's Trump Or DeSantis? My Answer—DeSantis By A Mile. Mr. Federale has more to say than just direct excerpts and commentary, but I'll discuss that below. Please, PLEASE take the 22 minutes of your time.
Let me just add that Ken Cuccinelli is not someone I'd ever heard speak before. He was the Virginia Attorney General and a Gubernatorial candidate there and is well known in political circles, but then I don't watch the idiot plate. The interviewer, Bill Mitchell, is someone I'd never heard of. He did a great job letting Mr. Cuccinelli speak most of the time, and with that smile, you gotta like him - he comes across as a successful car salesman. I want to buy a car from this guy! (In fact, if you are reading, Mr. Mitchell, and you come across a decent 1990s Jeep Cherokee, write the year, milage, and your best offer in the comments.)
I won't point out the specific times on the video, because I hope you watched it all, but here's just what I've been saying about Trump for years!:
1) He hired important underlings whose ideas were against his and ours. Why would he expect them to help him? Mr. Cuccinelli started with "If you have a kind of anti-war agenda like Trump does, why do you make John Bolton the head of your National Security Council?" The others he mentioned were: Rex Tillerson, John Mattis, John Kelly, Rence Preibus, Christopher Ray, Mark Milley, and Anthony Fauci. He added that the list is a lot longer than that.
I note that much of that short list was guys associated with "defense". As I've mentioned before, there are no 9th Circuit Court judges blocking decisions of the Commander-in-Chief regarding military operation. If the guy won't obey, you get rid of him and let the others know that they will be next.
JarVanka was not mentioned, but then Mr. Cuccinelli probably didn't want to get personal, and they were not actually hired personnel. They should not have been near the White House except for during holidays. Trump could have put them up in a hotel, if he wasn't sure how long they were gonna be in Washington.
2) The petty dealings and tweeting Trump did, in public, rather than just firing people as on his old TV show, is something else that Ken Cuccinelli mentioned. We have too, most especially with regards to the travails with Jeff Sessions.
3) In one of his handful of times taking an active role in the interview, Bill Mitchell (with Mr. Cuccinelli agreeing) said that "both men have basically got the America First agenda at heart." True!
4) Mr. Cuccinelli had a great point here: Out of three portions of making and enforcing policy, 1) the preparation, 2) the decision making, and 3) the execution, Trump was good at (2), not so good at (1), and terrible at (3). Indeed.
The example he gave about DeSantis and Disney is a good one. "He keeps harping on The Mouse - fighting wokeness is not everything" and "He's gonna drive Disney out of Florida." is what I've read and heard. Guess what? That's called follow-through or persistence. Was Big Woke Mouse just gonna roll over dead after the first actions out of DeSantis? No, they fight back. You've got to keep fighting. Like a house cat, Trump would have already gotten distracted by a squirrel over there and let the Mouse go on with this woke agenda for the kids, no less!
5) Trump either never knew or was never willing to take on the Deep State. Per Mr. Cuccinelli, Trump never "crossed" Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell. Those two were and are, respectively, penultimate Swamp Creatures. (Hell, McConnell has already got the amphibian look down pat!)
Mr. Cuccinelli maintains that Trump is NOT anti-establishment, at least going by his actions as President. IMO, it's that he has too much respect for the Beltway "experts" in the Federal Shithole. He couldn't shake that.
6) This is about DeSantis in Florida rather than Trump, but one could extrapolate someone to the Feral Gov't level: DeSantis had a political strategy. He helped build up the GOP margins in the legislature. It's not like Trump couldn't do this - he was VERY GOOD at turning out to get those he favored elected or not, not - it was one of his strong points, and still is. DeSantis thought of the future, with a strategy that made things easier for him later - shades of Ronald Reagan, IMO.
7) As opposed to Trump, DeSantis has led in Florida under Constitutional principles. Trump has no principles. Mr. Cuccinelli didn't say that part - that's me. He did say that Trump was better at name-calling though.
8) On Covid-19, Ken Cuccinelli noted that most Governors followed the Trump administration's guidelines, telling them to shut down this and that. while (after a short spell) DeSantis let the State's businesses keep running.
9) It was Bill Mitchell bringing up this great point, one I've also discussed (if not on this blog, elsewhere): There was talk about election discrepancies long, long before the vote in November of '20. Trump talked about it. He didn't do ANYTHING about it during those 4 years. He's quite the procrastinator to wait for late on election night to worry about it!
10) Along with this point, Mr. Cuccinelli explained how President Trump could have gotten thousands of Americans in each State to become election officals and that kind of thing just by urging them at his rallies. I hadn't thought of that, but I had thought of the same idea regarding impeachment and recalling of judges. Trump would have been great at that! He could have even used twitter for this.
For every bad point about Trump, the corresponding better way of Ron DeSantis is described. With the exception of (5), (9), and (10), all of the explanation of Trump's failure is in the first 9 minutes. The rest is a few minute advertisement of Ken Cuccinelli's "Super" PAC (Political Action Committee), then DeSantis boosting and the Florida boosting that does along with it. (They even mentioned that "Make America Florida" slogan that I first saw there myself 2 months ago.)
No doubt these 2 gentlemen are biased towards Ron DeSantis. Mr. Cuccinelli is still young enough to want to hitch his wagon to an up-and-coming politician, while Bill Mitchell, well I don't know... they may both honestly see Mr. DeSantis as the best guy to, well they figure "fix the country", but to me, at least to fight for us.
Let me get back to Federale and his opinion on the match-up. It is kind of extraordinary to see VDare writers go head to head on an issue, even if in a very polite manner, as is the way in the VDare community. They are all still on the same page, having worked for 2 1/2 decades against the Immigration Invasion. In his post though, Federal rebuts a two-week-earlier article by Washington Watcher II, that said Ron DeSantis Looks Great On Paper. But Is He Really The Great America-First Hope?. Because we did not comment on that WWII post, the reader here may wonder about the bias of Peak Stupidity toward Governor DeSantis. Yeah, we are biased towards DeSantis. However, I may have included that post in some writing about these 2 Presidential contenders, but, honestly, there is so much else to write about that I didn't have a specific post in mind about it. Federale writes this regarding WWII's point of view with other point-by-point argument that I won't include:
My response: DeSantis is less likely to betray us than Trump—as his Administration’s largely failed immigration efforts showed.There's a lot more in this column by Federale that adds material to our 9th Round of Trump v DeSantis. One thing that VDare writers know more than anyone about is the immigration invasion rhetoric and actions out of these two.
During that time, I wrote repeatedly about Trump’s flip-flops and general incoherence on immigration. One day a policy would be announced and then the next day modified or withdrawn at the slightest criticism. At first, I blamed former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But add the foolish appointments to most positions in the Department of Homeland Security, and Trump’s tolerating deliberate sabotage by his own officials, big and small. Example: He was on both sides of the H1-B visa issue during his campaign, to say nothing of the contretemps among advisers when he was president [Donald Trump flip-flops, then flips and flops more on H-1B visas, by Michele Ye Hee Lee, Washington Post, March 21, 2016].
Also questionable: Trump’s competence. Candidate Trump famously said he wanted a “Deportation Force” but apparently didn’t know that the country has a deportation force that is supposed to identify, arrest and deport illegal aliens. It’s called Immigration and Customs Enforcement [Donald Trump’s ‘Deportation Force,’ by Lawrence Downes, New York Times, November 11, 2015].
I believe DeSantis knows about it and will use it.
This video may create many more DeSantis supporters. You know where Peak Stupidity stands on this subject, based on the topic key names alone.
PS: Federale's post had the whole tweet with this important video. First, I tried to find the same video on youtube, bitchute, and rumble. 30 minutes or more of searching over 2 frustrating shifts did not find it. OK, so it's not on there. It's in that tweet though. I found embedding the tweet easy enough to do - I tried that in an older post.
The thing is, I am taking a stand by just saying NO to embedding of tweets on Peak Stupidity. I don't want to be THAT guy. So, I played around by deleting certain parts of the html that came with the tweet embed. Nah, it doesn't work like that. I did see the twitter downloader site. I wasn't on a computer on which I could save the video to put on my server, but as Mr. Smith agreed with me on, doing this repeatedly would take up a lot of my space allotted by the hosting company. (Images are peanuts compared to video - the last ones I put on my server space were those short videos on the Covid~Zero nonsense in China - see Chinese Covid-testing Craziness - quarantining babies and the testing video - - The latest on the Covid-Zero Shanghai Shitshow - - Escape from Suzhou - the motion picture - - China LOCKDOWN Totalitarian fun - Video and Shanghai Congee Line and the Covid-Free Highway.)
Mr. Smith has his own YT channel, so his uploading of this video was a great help. (Yeah, I know, I could set up one - better yet on bitchute or rumble. My problems are a) laziness, but b) getting past that, privacy - I suppose if all they want is an email address, I can get myself another anonymous proton mail account for this.
Comments (16)
Kids getting audited and going to camp
Posted On: Tuesday - June 6th 2023 8:16AM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Taxes
This is a follow-up to our April 15th post Kids eating goldfish and doing taxes. OK, it's not an audit, per se...
You give a kid everything he needs, the forms, copies of last year's forms, a computer, a calculator (on said computer), I mean what else would he need? The job was to get the Fed and State income tax forms done, copied, and sent off. Yet, STILL, 2 months later, there was a 2 page computer-generated reply in the mail saying we erred and owe the State some money.
The State's computers found 2 problems. The 1st one was a credit inserted that apparently we didn't qualify for. Well, you sure won't get these things without giving it a good go! Bully for him! The 2nd one was a wrong calculation on tax owed or overpaid. It was overpaid, but now it's owed. There are the tables, and then there are the simple formulas. I think the kid screwed up the math on the formula. That's not so excusable. He will need to pay his share of the penalty for that, out of his cash that he's accumulated... for a college fund.
I made a call to the lady in the office just to verify what the errors were for sure. Secondly, I wanted to make sure we wouldn't accumulate any more penalties and interest while we sorted this out.
"It's OK if my boy does these forms, right?" "Yeah, I mean I can still count him as a dependent?" "OK, now, it's his job to fix these things, but he can't get to it for another week. He went off to camp."
The adults already know, when there's trouble, you hit the road running. You'd better learn it fast, you'd better learn it young, 'cause someday never comes ...
It's a sad one, but that's one of my favorite CCR songs, though almost all of them are! Has there been any better voice in Rock music than that of John Fogerty?
Comments (16)
Emboldened Shoppers and Emboldened Liars
Posted On: Monday - June 5th 2023 6:33PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Media Stupidity Race/Genetics Big-Biz Stupidity
From the yahoo home page:
What flat-out blatant liars these people are! The article*, categorized as "Finance" on yahoo.com, was written by Jaclyn Peiser and Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post. The headline was supposed to scare readers, as that's what gets clicks. Also, the idea is to paint the normal people as dangerous. From what I read, cause you know, who has time for the whole damn story, a lay made A THREAT against Target employees.
However, what the heck, I suppose I could read the story just to scare myself further silly and maybe learn more...
Well, first of all, yeah I mean the lady customer was BRANDISHING a weapon, you know.
Brandishing her own scissors in front of guest services in a Target store in south Florida, the customer chopped up her store credit card while lambasting the retail chain for carrying Pride Month merchandise. "I am never shopping here again," she warned.Note first that these were her own scissors, so we can confidently assume it was a White customer... probably named Karen... obviously bent on violence.
That is some blatant in-your-face lying in the headline. The lady customer didn't use her scissors on an employee but on her own Target store credit card. What she threatened was withholding her business, which is not a crime in any non-Communist country, which this is still supposed to be. She lambasted people! "I am never shopping here again," I'm wondering what else this "lambasting" included, perhaps "I'm going straight to Wal-Mart!" Hey, them's fightin' words! "Book her, Dano, Lamb-assing One!"
This episode - recounted by an employee to supervisors - was just one of several tense encounters that workers have reported over LGBTQ+ items at the South Florida location, said the manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity over fear of losing his job.Now, why would the manager lose his job? The only way for that to happen is if he himself is not down with all the BLT-Guac+ narrative. Did he treat this ex-customer too sympathetically? Sure, this encounter was pretty tense, I'm sure, with employees getting told by one lady customer that she is leaving the store to shop elsewhere from now on. Like they actually give a rat's ass to begin with. These big media people are Emboldened Liars.
I'll tell you what can get pretty tense or even IN-tense. That'd be an encounter with some REAL emboldened shoppers:
Peak Stupidity will have a post soon with some more discussion on the mostly peaceful, in the very real sense, pushback by some plain old Conservative Americans against the Wokeness, staring with the Bud Light boycott.
* Well, I had to log out of mail somehow, and this one just screamed "blog about me!!"
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June is a Two-for - Lots to Celebrate!
Posted On: Monday - June 5th 2023 2:24PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Lefty MegaStupidity Humor
It's that time of year again. Peak Stupidity announces:
Hey, just what the hell are you trying to imply here? I'm not your buddy.
Oh, wait ... OK, well, I'm an intolerant bastard. I hate that flag and the Potomac Regime that it represents. I'll just be myself then, sure...
Not to worry anyway, there's more. Who could be against a safety campaign? I mean, unless you want People to Die!
There are only 12 months during which one can implement public indoctrination campaigns, so they had to double up in June. So, it's Pride Month and Safety Month. This should work out fine, right?
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[UPDATED 06/05 Eve:] Changed out gay bar picture for clarity.
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The Dead and the 2 Charlies: Mister v Cosmic
Posted On: Saturday - June 3rd 2023 7:00PM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead Books
I picked up a book* on the lyrics of Grateful Dead songs with annotations by one David Dodd. A large majority of the words were written by the great lyricist Robert Hunter, who never played with in the band onstage. (He died about 4 years back.) John Perry Barlow wrote lyrics for some of the other songs, as did various band members a few times here and there. Then, The Dead did a number of cover songs of various styles and a decent number of their songs are "traditional", as in some old-timey writers, either known or lost to history.
Other than as a compendium of the lyrics, this book is not that good. Mr. Dodd, goes on about some obscure origins of a phrase of 3 in a song but takes not even a guess at some of the meanings. In particular, I really wanted to read more about the brilliant lyrics of the long series of tales on the 2nd side of the 1977 album Terrapin Station. Mr. Dodd's annotation did not satisfy my curiousity.
However, all the lyrics are there (barring many cover songs, which is fair enough). I noted the 2 songs from a bit over half a century ago - yep, you read that right - with the name "Charlie" in the titles. They are very different.
Mr. Charlie, first performed live in July of '71 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut is said by Mr. Dodd to be based on old Negro-slave chants. Mr. Charlie is said to be an oppressive White man - no, not the local sheriff at the stadium who keeps stopping Jerry's kids from somersaulting down the hill at the end zone - this goes way back.
In this one, there is the back-and-forth repeating of lyrics, first the singer, which is (pretty unusually) Pigpen McKernan, then the harmonizers - Jerry and Bob, like "Chuba, chuba (chuba, chuba), wooley bulley (wooley bulley), lookin' higher (lookin' higher), lookin' lower (lookin' lower)" It's very rhythmic. Well, The old-time Black! folks were very rhythmic and did like to dance, as do the current ones too!
Even for the nearly White Deadhead set, if you can't dance to this one, you must be on something really, really strong!
(Audio only, unfortunately.)
Cosmic Charlie, first performed 3 years earlier, in October of '68 at The Matrix in San Francisco is a much, much different style song. To me, this is about as trippy as that band could get. Now, normally, The Dead are much better represented in live recordings, but this song is so deeply trippy that the trippiness could not be captured live. (Just my opinion, based really on what "trippy" is supposed to mean. I can't say - were this a SCROTUS case, I'd have to conclude that I know it when I hear it, or maybe even see it.) Cosmic Charlie is whomever your mind conjures up - he may have a lightning bolt cracking across his skull, I dunno.
If you CAN dance to this one, you must be on something really, really strong!
Well, that's that. If you don't know The Dead well, Cosmic Charlie may not be appreciable by you, but you can probably get into Mister Charlie. He told me so.
Next week we'll have that other movie review, with 2 thumbs up this time. then finish up on the ruination of S. Africa, post that humorous one promised on some D.I.E. madness, discuss modern hotel Tower-of-Babeley stupidity, and much, much more! Have a good Sunday. Thanks for reading and writing in!
* I had to link to amazon this time because the goodreads page was pretty confusing as to which book this is. (It didn't have anything about David Dodd, the author of the book, on the page.) BTW, the book has a nice long forward by Robert Hunter.
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IMDB and the battle of the Mermaid Movies
Posted On: Friday - June 2nd 2023 5:45AM MST
In Topics: Websites Political Correctness Movies
Apparently, because I wouldn't normally give notice and give a damn, there's a remake movie out of a 1999 Disney classic titled The Little Mermaid. That link goes to the IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase) website. That classic internet site is where Peak Stupidity movie links almost always go to, while the book links go to Goodreads.
IMDB is truly a classic site on the www, as it's been around since long before I ever opened a browser window, 1990, wiki says. 1990?! Was anyone viewing websites that year? Well, IMDB was the go-to place for movie info. Though they had their own very good review and rating system already, Amazon.com wanted the existing data and format so much that it bought IMDB in 1998. Now, the site has gotten graphically intense, hence much slower, but the news I just read is more annoying than that. I'll get to it below in due time, but let me discuss The Little Mermaid '23 first.
That's Halle Bailey with the scales there. I can see she's a hottie,
Another thing you do, maybe even if you haven't watched the movie and plan on never ever watching it is to give it bad ratings on the internet just due to having had enough of the Wokeness. I don't know, and IMDB doesn't know, who actually watched The Little Mermaid '23, but Tim Young at the American Greatness site says IMDb Is Rigging Reviews for ‘The Little Mermaid’. Here's the gist of it:
In the audience review section for the Disney film, IMDB added the note:Yeah, the math doesn't quite work. Even if every single one of those other 20,000 ratings are 10 stars, the average would be 6.35 stars, which should not be rounded up to 7 stars. Dang, so close too, for deniability of the scam, implausible deniability, but deniability nonetheless. The Democrat party could have pulled this off in its sleep ... on any first Tuesday in any November!"Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied."So, because the audience doesn’t like the film at such a high rate, the website has decided that it should alter the actual review numbers to make it look like the people like the movie, after all.
Deadline reported IMDb added a note that not all votes have the same weight on the final rating, but they didn’t want to say how they calculated the score. Essentially, IMDb admits they decided to alter the numbers in an arbitrary way."'Although we accept and consider all votes received by users, not all votes have the same impact (or ‘weight’) on the final rating. When unusual voting activity is detected, an alternate weighting calculation may be applied in order to preserve the reliability of our system,’ the website explains. However, it does not disclose the exact method used to generate the rating."How did this impact the final rating of the film? As of this writing, “The Little Mermaid” on IMDb has over 34,000 ratings, of which roughly 14,000 (or 40.6 percent) are one-stars. Yet the average score, according to the site, is a seven out of 10. In short, it doesn’t matter if the majority of viewers—or even a plurality—didn’t like the new film. Their opinion no longer matters to IMDb. It gets a seven because they say so.
Well, it's not like I ever looked at IMDB movie ratings. I just start up the movies, and I takes my chances. I use the site for details and trivia, if needed. When it comes to mermaids though, I will end up having watched neither of these Disney ones, White or Black!, because I know what a mermaid should look like:
For you young readers there was a 1984 movie, no cartoons involved, titled Splash, starring Tom Hanks and one Daryl Hannah. Yes, there was Hanky-panky, and just so's you know, name notwithstanding, Daryl Hannah has most certainly ALWAYS been a woman. No, I couldn't prove it, because ... well, how does that work with mermaids anyway? Where exactly does everything merge together? Just asking for a friend ...
Shame on you, IMDB! Thanks for the memories, Daryl Hannah, or should I say thanks for the fish... or something ...?
Note to readers: There's lots to write about, some built up from before, and some new stupidity, but the next few days will be busy for me. I figure we'll just have one music post through this week. It's been a while since we featured The Dead, come to think of it.
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[UPDATED: 06/02:] Thanks to commenter Alarmist, I stand corrected on the '23 Little Mermaid actress. That is Halle Bailey, not Berry! That's why I'd had the line "or used to be", because I couldn't see how Halle Berry could hold up THAT well. Who knows, I figured it was computers? How many Black! girls are named Halle, or how many people period are?!
Well, she and Miss Hannah have or had very nice Dorsal fins, which is what matters to the sharks. Cue Jimmy Buffett's Fins from his fun Volcano album.
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Big Massacre on the Prairie
Posted On: Thursday - June 1st 2023 7:51PM MST
In Topics: Internets TV, aka Gov't Media Political Correctness History Media Stupidity Americans
In the 1970s, there was a weekly hour-long TV show called Little House on the Prairie. For some reason, I can even remember the name of the star actress, Melissa Gilbert, who played little "Half Pint", aka, Laura Ingalls. This TV show was adapted from a series of popular fictional, but personal-account-based, books, first Little House in the Big Woods (that was in Wisconsin) and then Little House on the Prairie.*
The real-life Laura Ingalls, later Ingalls Wilder by marriage, was born in 1867. The Ingalls family had moved to what's now Independence, Kansas, due to Mr. Ingalls' mistaken believe that it could be settled. They found out if was Osage Indian territory, moved around more, and then ended up in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, about 50 miles west (where there's now US Highway 14) of Mankato. This was in 1876, when little Half Pint was 9 years old.
I was only looking up details on this old TV show because, under a Steve Sailer post** with opinion poll data on that persistent myth of the American Indians having lived in "peace and harmony"***, even without Co~Caine based Coca~Cola, a commenter had written something about Mark Twain's hatred of Indians and then another's about Laura Ingalls Wilder.
It happens that the young Miss Wilder moved with her family to Walnut Grove only 14 years after a Dakota Sioux massacre of 358 civilian men, women, and children near that very Mankato, Minnesota. That horrific event took place in 1862. I remember this history, but I wanted to look up a few details to write a comment.
This was another amazing realization for me of the evil deeds of the Lyin' Press, internet-search department. Looking up the terms "Mankato" and "massacre" and a couple of other words in combination gave me only the story - many blurbs worth - of the subsequent hanging of 38 Indians after the massacre of those 358 White settlers. That was based on US Gov't justice, as crude as it would have been, though better than today's, I'd guess. The list of people to be hanged was approved, as pared down from a from a larger list of over 300, by President Lincoln.
After DuckDuckGo refused to to give me the information I wanted, I tried the Russian Yandex site even. Nope, nobody wants to talk about the massacre of a significant number of the White settlers in the area, and if they do, the search engines don't want me to know about it, not directly. OK, I finally got to this message on a minor "message board".
Yes, I could read about the Dakota Wars, which is what this was part of. I don't dismiss the grievances of those Indians, BTW. The US Gov't had screwed over Indians all over the country, reneging on deals made left and right. The Dakota had had enough of it, and there was a 6 week-long war, and war can be hell. I'm no historian, but I don't believe the American soldiers would have massacred non-combatant Indians in this manner.
Whatever you think of that, it's sobering to keep in mind that young Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in a town very near where this massacre had occurred only 14 years prior. There were no myths of the peaceful and loving Indians in perfect harmony in mid-1800s Minnesota, out on the prairie. What had recently happened - as if in 2009 for us - was very REAL.
* Of course, as the first sold well, I imagine Mrs. Ingalls-Wilder and the publisher decided to keep rolling with this, hence, there were a number of the "Prairie" books, at least.
** Yeah, we're kind of glomming on his material ourselves this and last week but with different points.
*** For a great take on this from one of the tribe that presents the best rebuttal, read the Sam Gwynne book Empire of the Summer Moon about the Comanche tribe. Peak Stupidity has a 3 part review Part 1 - - Part 2, and Part 3.
Comments (23)
JSM on Female-driven old-time charity v the Welfare State
Posted On: Wednesday - May 31st 2023 6:31PM MST
In Topics: Humor Socialism/Communism Female Stupidity
From iSteve commenter JSM, I read this great comment about welfare vs charity in recent American history, under a recent Steve Sailer post. This is the one with the NY Times (of course!) story of Uber corporate D.I.E. idiocy that we've already blogged about twice*, Uber Suspends Its Asian DEI Boss for Objecting to the "Karen" Ethnic Slur.
Here is the entire comment with its humorous and somewhat gyno-jaded take. Only 2 asterisks were added.
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Why has America become so dysfunctional? Why is it considered rude to talk about “the deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor” as if they’re all deserving, when clearly they’re not?
It’s because the Welfare State took away the occupation and entertainment of the good old middle-aged meddling busybodies, who now have nothing to do but get involved in politics.
In the good old days, once the kids were raised, middle-aged women looked around to see what else there was to do. And noticed the neighbor family that the dad fell off a roof and broke his back. The children! The poor children! Look at the rags they’re wearing! They haven’t any chalk for their slates! And upon beholding this injustice, the crone straightened her girdle, lifted her skirts and marched into her husband’s and male neighbors’ businesses and demanded they donate to her charity! Which, of course they did handsomely cuz who’s got the nerve to tell THAT old biddy no?
Such bush-beating for money took effort, and consequently the old dear held the charity’s purse strings very tightly. ONLY the deserving poor! The drunkards? the floozies who got pregnant during a one-night stand with the traveling sports hero? No money for you! Scolding is what YOU get.
But then came the Welfare State. Thanks Lyndon Johnson!** And no longer was Mrs. Buttinski kept busy as part-time Auxiliary Moral Standards Enforcer, much-loved and appreciated by the City Fathers, who acknowledged her as the heroine that she told you she is.
Nope. Instead, Mrs. B.’s volunteer career was turned into a paid gig by Fed Gov, and given to the sweet young things fresh out of college — who OUGHT to have been occupied competing for the attentions of her son but were instead busy collecting “clients.” And, fed gov jobs being what they are, the more clients, the more secure SYT’s jobs were. So the incentive to hold tight purse strings and give scoldings generously was GONE. More clients, more job security! “Hey bowery denizens, come on in!”
So, bored, these old bats looked around and saw, AH HA! I know JUST what I’ll do! I’ll run for Congress and make speeches like all about how Black Lives Matter!! and how loved the trannies are, and give scoldings to Sweet Young Things for flirting with young men instead of their true calling as social workers on the bums
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I can't recall anything but common sense truth out of this lady, JSM. Thank you, JSM, for letting Peak Stupidity use this great essay of yours!
* See This is no way to operate a country. and Big Business and small-scale corruption.
** Our asterisks, to exclaim Fuckin' A! regarding the destructive Socialist bastard Lyndon Johnson.
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[UPDATED 06/01:] Mr. Hail corrected me on the sex of commenter JSM. She is a woman. Her very last comment on The Unz Review says that directly, but I hadn't read that. Fixed.
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Trump v DeSantis: Round 8 - Birthright Citizenship
Posted On: Wednesday - May 31st 2023 12:10PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Trump President DeSantis
Only one punch as been thrown in this round in the Trump v DeSantis fight*, but this was a good one. Peak Stupidity has stated before that we'd like to see plenty of words, hell, punches too, fly between Trump and DeSantis, as long as they were about THE ISSUES. The "DeSanctimonous" and "Meatball Ron" stuff is both stupid and worthless.
I want to see a good fight. That means good discussion, loud arguments, nasty tweets, WHATEVER, so long as they bring out the problems that need to be out there in the open. Regarding the existential Immigration Invasion issue, the Anchor Baby loophole, aka "Birthright Citizenship" is a very big part of the problem. We have mentioned this scam before, but only briefly, such as in a post of right at 3 years back (during Trump's last year as Pres.) that so happened to be titled Give Trump a Break - ummm, NO, no more breaks. For the legal-eagle take by Ann Coulter, see FOX NEWS Anchored In Stupidity On 14th Amendment. We also have a kind of rant about it here.
This post comes by way of yesterday's James Fulford article on VDare, rump Promises To Abolish Birthright Citizenship, To Usual Shock, Horror (Your Move, DeSantis!). Off of Breitbart news (surprisingly, VDare's link to Breitbart is no good right now):
Former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner for president in 2024, rolled out a new policy pledge on Tuesday in which he promised if elected he would sign an executive order on day one of his second term in office effectively ending birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and so-called “birth tourism.”First day in office! Yeah, sure, that'll happen. Last time, per Mr. Fulford:
Yes, I know Trump may not keep this promise. He promised it when he was in office, and then kept letting himself be talked out of it.This Anchor Baby loophole is a BIG part of the immigration invasion. It has both legal and illegal components, I mean, if you assume the deal is legal to begin with. Those who break into the country via the southern (and now quite often, northern) border and those who get in through ports-of-entry airports just have to stick around long enough to have a baby or two, even, if by a stroke of extremely bad luck, American ICE agents end up finding them. The child is, ipso facto, somehow an American citizen.
The rich Chinese woman getting sent to Seattle to pop out a bug-out baby*** is an example of the "legal" component. She just came to see the Space Needle, is all. Who knew she'd give birth that very week?
Well, I am glad to read about Trump's promise, whatever few Continental dollars it's worth. As a VDare tweet, not Trump himself, said, "Ron DeSantis, your move?" Yes, I want to hear exactly what Ron DeSantis thinks about this. Let's get the problem out in the open for all Americans to understand the details of. VDare and Peak Stupidity can't do it all, you know!
If Trump had gone through with an Executive Order 6 damn years ago, that would have stemmed multiple millions of these "birthrights". It's not that I believe in the concept of the President making law, but a deal for a temporary halt until, say, the fairly Conservative SCROTUS got on it would have been a great way to do it. Unfortunately, Trump is no good with, like, plans and shit...
If Ron DeSantis says nothing about this issue, then I've lost a lot of hope in him. If he agrees with the idea that Trump just put out there, then I will be thrilled, as he has a pretty good record of doing the things he's promised.
Donald Trump is a bullshitter. I do write that to distinguish him from a liar. That's important. For this example, I don't doubt that he would like to do what he stated in the 3-minute video as reported by Breitbart. He just may not get around to it, is all. He doesn't sweat that "getting around to it" stuff so awfully much ...
Elwood Blues explains the concept to his brother Jake, well, sort of:
"What was I gonna do, take away your only hope?" Fitting, huh?
* Previous posts: Part 1 - - Part 2 - - Part 3 - - Part 4 - - Part 5 - - Part 6, and Part 7.
** That column of hers is from August of '15. Miss Coulter's first paragraph:
Based on the hysterical flailing at Donald Trump—He's a buffoon! He's a clown! He calls people names! He's too conservative! He's not conservative enough! He won't give details! His details won't work!—I gather certain Republicans are determined to drive him from the race.My, times have changed! Miss Coulter would agree with that "hysterical flailing" and "buffoon" bit today.
*** I gotta admit, I'm LOLing at myself for just coining that one. See, when the Commies drop the hammer on some corrupt $1200/mo salaried Chinese public official who owns a couple of 1 1/4 million dollar houses on the American west coast, he may need to bug out. That includes the money and the family. You just need a sponsor - oh, maybe his son who went to the UW can do it. How convenient!
Comments (7)