The Reddit penny-ante crowd beats The House
Posted On: Thursday - January 28th 2021 7:34PM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity
"The House always wins", they say. The odds favor the Casinos in the "gaming"* world of cards, craps, and one-armed bandits that don't even spit out coins anymore (and that was 10 years ago). They've got to earn a living, provide that free beer when you push that button on top of the nickel slot machine**, and pay off the politicians that work out the deal with gambling on the river. Fine.
In the
This is by far the favorite news national story I've heard of in quite some time. This comment by commenter Talha under an Audacious Epigone post on this story has an image from Reddit with a very good explanation of shorting stocks and what happened in this case. By bidding up Gamestop stock up by something like 700% they cost The House, aka, the Big Finance guys, LOTS of money, as covering shorts can be very costly. It's a risky business, but then The House is used to arranging things so that the risk is minimal. Not this time! The House doesn't like to lose, though ...
The Big Finance guys are now out there on TV, apparently (I only read about it here and there) going on about REGULATION!! We must not allow people to game the system, dammit! How obviously hypocritical is this? Shoot, I wish I'd thought of this, but I'm not even a penny-ante guy. I don't like games of chance, hence I choose Chess over Trouble and Tetris over Solitaire.
Now, about Gamestop and video games, there was a store near us that closed more than 5 years ago. Yeah, can't people download it all from the "App Store"? Even I, a non-playing character in the market, would not have been buying up GME. Why are people in the market gambling and trying to beat The House to begin with?
That's an easy one. When the price of money, that is, interest rates, are forced down to values that don't even keep up with inflation, there aren't many choices when it comes to finding a place to store the value of one's labor. Inflation is not the low 1-2% that the BLS advertises. The loss of one's money to theft via inflation is significant. Because I had once believed this same thing, I think lots of people think that's all interest is supposed to cover, inflation. When one finally gets to thinking about the basic point of borrowing money, and the point of lending it, one gets to the concepts of the time value of money, and interest as the "price of money".
After more than a dozen years of the Federal Reserve forcing interest rates down in the basement, and housing purchases as investments being seen as not always a great move, the stock market is all that's left for people who want their money to "grow" (as in, at least be there in value for them in a few decades.)
So, ordinary people feel they have to gamble ("game"?) just to keep even. The House has to win though, and for every stock share bought, that's a stock share sold, a zero-sum game. The House doesn't want any more of this crazy losing shit, and they have already used Big-"TECH", that Robinhood site, to try to put the kibosh on future efforts to beat them like this.
Who knows, though? This Gamestop thing, nothing really about the video stores at all, but just the game, was very heartening. Maybe the penny-ante people will rise up and beat the living out of The House. That same Italian guy who's on all those mob movies explains:
* "Gambling" sounds too, I dunno, risky and addictive, so we say gaming now, meaning, like, gambling.
** Long ago, in Lost Wages, I was trying to show a friend how to push that button somewhere on the slot machine to get free beer (to even the odds), and I couldn't find it, so a rent-a-cop came over thinking we were somehow out to break into the machine, then figured out one of us was under the age to be in the joint, and kicked us out.
Comments (4)
The Farewell to Kings didn't take
Posted On: Wednesday - January 27th 2021 10:06PM MST
In Topics: Media Stupidity US Feral Government
I just cannot walk by a working TV set these days, even for 5 seconds, without coming up with a blog post. This time, it was the Lyin' Press Infotainment with a story about Joe Biden's being rude or aggressive to someone, I guess a reporter, pundit, or maybe politician.
The video this screenshot came from was about an incident back in late November '20.
"What's the problem?", the reader may ask. It's amazing that the Lyin' Press is saying something bad at all about this President, knowing that they are nothing but another branch of the Feral Gov't, and we know where it stands. Yes, Peak Stupidity could write bad things about Zhou Bai Dien for months itself, but we don't want to bore the readers or cause a Peak Stupidity staff suicide of some sort.
I also have noticed Joe Biden's aggressiveness. That time he got in the face of a factory worker (in Ohio, I believe) who politely asked the candidate a question got me wondering how much seniority the guy had. Were it me with less than 15 years in, I'd have been likely to have just took a quick swing at the guy's face. Yeah, Mr. Biden could use to spend some time in an Anger Management class.
Again, what's my problem? Here's the problem: I miss the old American Republic, or what was left of it in my younger days, where the President did his thing, and only the National Enquirer cared about these little personal stories. The President is supposed to be Administrator of the Executive Branch. Congress did the lawmaking, the courts didn't do so much of it, and the President could push an agenda verbally with that "bully pulpit". However, I don't recall it was all about Executive Orders so much back in the day.
We posted I'd thought we'd bid Farewell to Kings a couple of years back (yes, of course we included a Rush song). That post was about flags being lowered to half-mast for G.H.W. Bush dying, which was just too much obsequiousness for this guy. Now, it's constant reporting on every little detail, that just evokes thoughts of the USSR or North Korea. "Oh, our Dear Leader sneezed. What does that mean for our future?" "So and so visited the White House yesterday. How will that affect policy?" "He's wearing a red tie today. What's that mean?"
It could be partly that the 24/7/365-6 Infotainment must fill up all that air time. It's also the huge amount of power the President is let to wield these days, should he see fit (Biden, lots of it, Trump, not so much). I long for the days of Calvin Coolidge. "The President hasn't been heard from for 2 1/2 weeks." "Good!" America's Founders bid Farewell to Kings, but it seems the belief in Kings has come back to America.
The constant harassment of President Trump was for other reasons, but even this negative "story" about Joe Biden's personality quirks turns me off as just too Soviet or North Korean for my tastes. We need to know what kind of horror is in the new legislation coming down the pike and the names of all the assholes voting for it. That'd be news I can use.
Comments (6)
Magic? Politics? Science? Did President Biden Cure Covid?
Posted On: Wednesday - January 27th 2021 12:07AM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Pundits Liberty/Libertarianism Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
The post title is the title of former Congressman Ron Paul's latest weekly edition of his Liberty Report. I thank a friend for sending me a link, though I should be watching this every week for a number of reasons:
1) I should support this guy, one of the few real Constitutionalists ever in Congress, one of the few ever in the pundit world (here's another), and one of the few left in the world, period.
2) I can get some more material for this site.
3) It is a breath of truthful fresh air in an atmosphere of lies. It is so relaxing to watch these videos, and I can spare 1/2 hour a week for this guy.
Ron Paul's co-host Dan McAdams doesn't do as much of the talking as Dr. Paul, but he think he does more of the "leg-work", searching for examples to illustrate the points, etc. He had a bunch of comparisons of Lyin' Press narrative output, errr, reporting from just before and just after the Zhou Bai Dien inauguration. This is my favorite, from the smooth, polite .... you're getting sleeeepy ... folks at NPR:
Yeah, the story seems to have changed over a couple of days there around mid/late January*. We used to worry, but it's all over now...
I've said good and bad things about Ron Unz, creator and proprietor of the unz.com site, but of the good, the most important is that Mr. Unz will host the words/videos of guys like Dr. Paul. He had hosted Ron Paul's Liberty Report videos before, but they are not on there now. Because I trust Ron Unz on this sort of thing, this is NOT because he wants to "cancel" the guy. It may be that he's boycotting youtube at this point and will put bitchute videos of the Liberty Report on at some point. Mr. Unz still has Dr. Paul's columns here.
* For you higher math dudes - I mean if you can read our masthead... - when you have an "acceleration", as in an increasing slope, just before a peak, doesn't that mean there's going to be a discontinuity? I hate
Comments (3)
Kung Flu, or just the Flu?
Posted On: Tuesday - January 26th 2021 8:13PM MST
In Topics: Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
On the first day of this year, commenter Mr. Anon noted under the Peak Stupidity post Prognosis Positive that's it's been a really quiet flu season. I mean really quiet, just too freakin' quiet to be believable. All we anti-panickers have wondered about which types of deaths were being marked down by coroners or doctors as being FROM the Covid-19, rather than a death of someone WITH the virus, or, for that matter, WITHOUT some times too. There are plenty of incentives to do so.
Now, when we hear of or read about the "excess death" count, as Steve Sailer wrote about (with a slew of 10 graphs from some guy), it's easy to get baffled by all that excess. After all, if more people are dying, period, than what IS the deal. We noted in the comments that these baselines (or base curves, actually) that are being subtracted out to determine these excess deaths are, shall we say, "unsound". Are the actual general rises in deaths of a rapidly aging American population being taken into account?
Even if that base curve represented some "normal" year of people dying, can't there be significant rises in other deaths of any sorts that should be subtracted off of these large supposed Kung Flu deaths? With the LOCKDOWNS having (purposefully) caused an economic depression, there must be higher levels of some types of deaths - (suicides, for example) along with lower levels of others (traffic accidents, for example).
Let's just look at the flu though, or to speak technically, the influenza. The wonderful CDC itself, as reported by the United Press Int'l, says about the current flu season (defined as a period centered on the wintertime) Flu continues to have 'low' impact as COVID-19 pandemic rages. In the words of a different Satan, not in the employee of the US Feral Gov't, How convenient!
Our good friends, by this point, at the Statista.com site show the death counts for 10 of the most recent flu years on this page:
An average year over that decade had 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from influenza. Here's a table from a wiki page with the same data along with the number of hospitalizations:
OK, now what did the CDC have to say? Oh, yeah, here:
Only 136 people across the country have been hospitalized with the flu so far this winter. No flu-related deaths have been reported, the agency said.Now, that's a little far-fetched, don't you think? Oh, but it's because we have been diligent in wearing our masks and keeping our 6 ft. distances, the short UPI article says.. That's not reality, though, and why do those Kung Flu filled droplets still hit their marks, while the influenza filled droplets don't? Is the former really that much more contagious? We've been told different stories on that, often from the same people.
By this time last winter, more than 15 million people in the United States had been sickened with the influenza virus, with 140,000 requiring hospitalization as a result, the CDC estimated.
This last wiki table has 10 years worth of Flu-symptomatic Illnesses and medical visits due to flu. Man, those are big numbers. What happens to those people that get sent to the hospital for the flu this season? Well, they get tested for the COVID-19 antibodies, and, if positive, whatever problems they've got will be chalked up to the Kung Flu rather than the "normal" flu. Peak Stupidity has already noted the big incentives, both monetary and political, in place to encourage this to happen.
OK, with 425,000 supposed total Kung Flu deaths in this country as of today, an average flu season would be 8-9% of that. Is it no big factor? Yeah, how do we know this wouldn't have been a killer flu year, if we'd been logging them? What happens when patients with these typically elderly patients with normal flu symptoms get sent to the hospital? They are getting more crowded now. The patient cannot have visits with his loved ones, and bad things happen at the hospital. I think the sorrow alone can kill a lot of the elderly, and there's plenty of sorrow to go around now.
Comments (5)
Bad news, good news.
Posted On: Monday - January 25th 2021 9:16PM MST
In Topics: China
After our 6-part series of speculation about looting of America by the Chinese (Part 1: Intro, Part 2: Housing, Part 3: Big Biz, Part 4: The Fruited Plain, Part 5: The Wilderness, and Part 6: Conclusion - The Golden Rule), it's time for a little good news. Good news for us, not for the Chinese, that is. This is purely anecdotal, but I think I can extrapolate some.
It's about the Chinese middle class. Even with a few hundred million rural people still in poverty, that middle class is bigger than the entire U.S. of A., even with 30 million illegal aliens. The question is, what kind of middle class is it. I know from experience in the country, the salaries people make, and the cost of living, that this Chinese middle class in NOTHING like the American middle class of the 1950s through the 1990s, well even what's left of it now.
The Chinese economy is booming, because they make all the stuff. (OK, some is being outsourced for cheaper labor, but they are a manufacturing powerhouse.) The hardest working of the Chinamen are not the ones getting the biggest benefit of this economy though. The Chinese Communist Party runs the show there, and it's those high-up and those connected, who unfairly reap the big bucks via corruption. The owner of a 200 employee plant that I'd visited (a lean, mean operation, with an office staff of 8, including said owner) was able to get a nice Toyota, but that was the extent of the extravagance.
The people we know there are working couples, both working long days to support one or two kids. The grandparents, if not living with them, are close by to take care of the kids during the daytime outside of school hours. This for the equivalent of $3,000 a month* tops for the family. In the big city, cars are expensive to own, and the public transportation can make for a long working day. Plenty of Americans do the same, but this is LOWER middle class, at best.
Peak Stupidity has mentioned before the situation that has arisen from the 1-child policy, which has been pretty much rescinded only in the last 5 years or so. With 1 or 2 kids getting attention from 6 parents/grandparents, there are a lot of spoiled Chinese young adults by this point. There are stories of divorce, kids dropping out of school, etc, that we heard. Life is not easy for the middle class, but more of the social problems the US has had for half a century may be cropping up there too.
I will write a post on the "demographic collapse" some time soon. That's in quotes because declining population, especially in a place with 1.4 Billion people is not in itself a bad thing. Right now, though, China, is not so much the place of family formation (affordable or not) that it once was.
No, I don't have the stats on me. These thoughts are just along the lines of: China is no monolithic juggernaut, at least as a people. We can hope that they have enough social problems of their own that they don't get a chance to do all that looting. OTOH the CCP big money guys are the ones that would do the big looting and they are doing well. We can hope that the hard-core turn toward Totalitarianism of Xi Jinping will do to the economy what it usually does. I'd like to see that before our SHTF. It's a race of competing lumps of shit headed toward their respective fans. Get some real assets and go long Orville Redenbacher.
* The Chinese discuss their salaries on a monthly basis.
No comments - Click here to start thread
He's leavin', on a jet plane, don't think I'll give a crap again...
Posted On: Saturday - January 23rd 2021 4:38PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Trump Dead/Ex- Presidents
That's it. We knew we couldn't expect this guy to make it all better for us, but most of us expected a lot more help out of him than we got. The reader will find plenty of posts of disparagement, discouragement, disappointment, and distain for the (mostly) words, actions and lack thereof from President Trump. He will also find a number of posts with hope and encouragement. The former are likely more in number than the latter, as this guy was a really big failure compared to what he could have been.
John Derbyshire lays it out pretty well too, in his recent column The World of Null-T—Next Time, We Need A Cadre Who Know Their Way Around*. "Failure" is the word he uses too. There's no hope here for "yeah, wait for the midterms!" or "2024!" The hope we have is based on those of us, in the dozens of millions, who put some hope in Donald Trump but realize now that things can't be fixed by one man anyway. More realize now that the GOP is just one of 2 major squads of The Party, and The Party is not on our side, and, no, "we ain't in it."
It would have been nice for Donald Trump to at least done a few decent gestures and said a few good words for his supporters at the end. Nope, instead of pardoning some Conservatives or the Deep-State nemisae(?) Ed Snowden* and Julian Assange, he pardoned some assistant to an Israeli spy and some black dudes for I don't care what. And, nope, instead of at least saying words to minimize and fight the BS infotainment barrage about that "insurrection", and giving a little support to the Capitol Gang, he just left us with some more about HIM, HIM, HIM. Hey, man, we don't care anymore. This wasn't all about YOU! We just thought you'd be a good help for our cause.
Sayonara, suck...., oops, we're the suckers.
* See also another 2-part review of the movie - Part 1 and Part 2
Comments (9)
Katherine Tai - our man in China
Posted On: Friday - January 22nd 2021 6:50PM MST
In Topics: China US Feral Government ctrl-left
Steve Sailer has a post out, Has Biden Nominated Any White Protestants to the Cabinet?. I'm sure we'll get the usual culturally destructive nation-destroying set that you'll get when the blue squad is in office, somewhat worse than the swamp creatures
Next here are Biden’s existing appointments and nominees for these 21 positions and their ethnicities:The reader can go, or probably already has, to that post for commentary. I just figured I'd put these names out there with possibly a post on them later, but this post is only about one of these minions.
Secretary of State (Antony Blinken – WHITE-JEWISH)
Secretary of the Treasury (Janet Yellen – WHITE-JEWISH)
Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin – BLACK)
Attorney General (Merrick Garland – WHITE-JEWISH)
Secretary of the Interior (Deb Haaland – MIXED RACE (Red Indian + Norwegian))
Secretary of Agriculture (Tom Vilsack – WHITE-CATHOLIC)
Secretary of Commerce (Gina Raimondo – WHITE-CATHOLIC (Italian American))
Secretary of Labor (Marty Walsh – WHITE-CATHOLIC (Irish American))
Secretary of Health and Human Services (Xavier Becerra – HISPANIC (Mexican American))
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Marcia Fudge – BLACK)
Secretary of Transportation (Pete Buttigieg – WHITE-CATHOLIC)
Secretary of Energy (Jennifer Granholm – WHITE-CATHOLIC (Scandinavian + Irish))
Secretary of Education (Miguel Cardona – HISPANIC (Puerto Rican))
Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Denis McDonough – WHITE-CATHOLIC (Irish American))
Secretary of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas HISPANIC-JEWISH)
Trade Representative (Katherine Tai – ASIAN (Chinese American))
Director of National Intelligence (Avril Haines – WHITE-JEWISH)
Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Neera Tanden – ASIAN (Indian-American))
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (William Burns – WHITE CATHOLIC (Irish-American))
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Michael S. Regan – BLACK)
Administrator of the Small Business Administration (Isabel Guzman – HISPANIC-JEWISH)j
I’ve been looking up some info on this Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative. She is full-out Chinese and was born in Connecticut. Both her parents were born in mainland China. However, (and I haven’t found those details yet), I’m guessing her folks were hard-core anti-Commies, as I read that they “grew up in Taiwan”. They must have gotten out of Red China with the rest of the Nationalists in the “Great Retreat” in late 1949, pretty young I guess, since Mrs. Tai was born in 1974.
Going to the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, FS, then Yale and Harvard Law School, can knock the Conservatism right out of a guy, or gal, though. Mrs. Tai taught English at a university in China for 2 years – this had to be between the late ’90s and ’07. That was kind of a weird deal for a young woman law graduate, as that is a better deal for young Western men with Yellow Fever who can live on a low budget and pick up chicks.
Oh, from CNBC:
Tai, who is Asian-American, would also be the first woman of color to serve as the USTR. She is fluent in Mandarin.No shit? I would never have known, had I not read the enlightening article. Did you see that “first woman of color” bit? I had thought Oriental people were not part of that P.O.C. crowd. I guess it’s good for the stats without having to hire some dumb corrupt black lady.
Whose side is Katherine Tai on regarding trade? I’d guess she’s on the side of all the Establishment, meaning she’s down with giving all that’s left away. Zhou Bai Dien says he’s not going to take away Trump’s tariffs yet, but we’ll see. I think he’s on the hook to the CCP, and they will both do whatever they are told.
Comments (12)
Et tu, Ann?
Posted On: Friday - January 22nd 2021 12:44PM MST
In Topics: Trump Pundits Americans Liberty/Libertarianism
(Image stolen off VDare, a regular thing here.)
Ann Coulter's latest column is First Duty Of The Press—Make It About Race!. Says Miss Coulter, in her intro. paragraph:
Why can’t liberals ever just let Trump hang himself? Isn’t what he’s actually done bad enough? No, the media always have to punch up the story, layering lie upon lie, until normal people are forced to say, I don’t want to defend the guy, but that didn’t happen.I've got no problem with Ann's basic point of this column. Being called a "racist" is currently the worst it can get, insult wise, worse then bum, philander, dog-torturer, pedophile, or your standard asshole, jackass, shithead, fuckface, hell, even all of the above. (Where's George Carlin when we need him?) Of course, we don't have to let it be that way, with a little courage. "Racist!!" "Yeah, what about it?"
Miss Coulter is right that if any story can be made about race it helps the ctrl-left, the Lyin' Press being a solid part of this crowd. I haven't read a lot or listened to/viewed anything but that one line in passing, on the Jan 6th festivities in Washington, FS*. That's because, having some perspective and not being a lying sack of shit**, I do know that the event was not any big deal. In the sane America of 1955, yeah, it would have been a big story. Compared to a summer of BLM and a year of LOCKDOWNs, no it's surely not. So, yeah, lying to make this event about race is a usual trick of the Lyin' Press to make stories worse and more horrible. I! GET! THAT! ANN!
Then we get to the ending:
The raid was disgusting, appalling, sickening, but it’s not a license for concocting imaginary accusations. Trump is bad. The thugs who stormed the Capitol are bad. You don’t need to manufacture evidence against them, media."Raid"? "Disgusting"? "Thugs"? All those 3 terms are lies out of Ann Coulter.
Raid - Definition:- Nope, nobody on the patriot side was armed. I wouldn't say it was a surprise in the sense of a pre-planned surprise attack like George Washington and his men on Trenton, New Jersey either.
n. A surprise attack by a small armed force.
n. A sudden forcible entry into a place by police.
n. An entrance into another's territory for the purpose of seizing goods or valuables.
- Forcible entry is questionable too, and nope, they were not police.
- Seizing goods or valuables? Does that count Nancy's laptop? (I wish.) This protest was not made for the purpose of seizing goods or valuables.
You are a liar, Ann.
Disgusting - Definition:
adj. Arousing disgust; repugnant. synonym: offensive.
Causing disgust; offensive to the taste, physical, moral, or esthetic.
adj. That causes disgust; sickening; offensive; revolting.
- People were amused. "Our" leaders were fearful, for no honest reason. Others were worried (as they don't want patriots to actually ever get organized). Nobody found it offensive to their physical, moral, or esthetic taste.
- Well, if it were a real revolt, I guess one could call it revolting, but it was not. Sickening? Nah, that doesn't it. Offensive to what? Even if they didn't like the implications of this protest, many thought it a pretty fun crowd.
You are a liar, Ann.
Thug - Definition:
n. A cutthroat or ruffian; a hoodlum.
n. One of a group of professional criminals, devotees of Kali, who robbed and murdered travelers in northern India until the mid-1800s.
n. A member of a confraternity of professional assassins and robbers formerly infesting India, chiefly in the central and northern provinces.
- Not one of the patriots cut anyone's throat, though one was shot in the throat at close range by a cop. My image of a hoodlum is someone who usually lives in the hood, and is 180 degree from the images I saw of these patriots.
- Nah, most of the people in this MAGA crowd have real jobs, though some may indeed be professionals. I saw hardly any •Indians in the crowd (not a very patriotic bunch), plus they would be technically infesting American, not India. Who is this man Kali of which you speak?
- NRA members? Sure. Ducks Unlimited members? Yeah, probably. Members of a confraternity of professional assassins and robbers formerly infesting India, chiefly in the central and northern provinces? I doubt there were more than one or two of them, and they would have been way in the back, out of the fray, shitting on the grass over behind the Lincoln Memorial.
You are a liar, Ann.
I've gotten a lot of truth out of Ann Coulter over the last 15 years, along with great snarky humor. As of late, she's had a lot of courage, too, delving into the race issue, as in this very column. I've described her as batting a .980 with her views. Other than some big thing against "the pot" and then her clueless support for Affirmative Action (only if it's fair, though. Wait, that's an oxymoron.), there's not been anything substantial I've disagreed with her on since 9-11.
This one paragraph has got me pretty pissed off at Ann Coulter. I don't understand how she could have such a great perspective and then see these events in this fashion. Sure, maybe someone got to her. Maybe she realized on her own that she'd better put this paragraph in some column, before too long, if she wants to stay in the high-status punditry position that she occupies.
I don't care about all that, though. I don't like being lied to. You've figuratively stabbed these patriots in the back with this writing. Shame on you, Ann Coulter.
PS: Oh, and Miss Coulter, if you really want to be truthful on the race issue, why do you still support Affirmative Action?
* That's Federal Shithole, for those who are new here at Peak Stupidity.
** About the cusswords on this post, in for a pound, in for a metric shit-tonne.
Comments (13)
The People of GoDaddy
Posted On: Thursday - January 21st 2021 1:06PM MST
In Topics: Internets Political Correctness Race/Genetics Big-Biz Stupidity Customer Care
I should spend more time on office center roofs, apparently, if I really want to go far with this site. I think I'll just send the HR department up there, maybe next tornado warning, you know, as entrepreneurial, like, look-outs, or something...
Yeah, Godaddy is our hosting company. I was hesitant to write this post a couple of weeks back when last dealing with the tech support people for assurance regarding our SSL certificate update. This was due to the fact they they do a very competent job in a nice way, and I just didn't want to piss off any of them who look at the site to check problems or verify things. Some may still be reading regularly even today, so, Welcome Aboard, GoDaddies! (Don't use your real name - Peak Stupidity won't be able to hire you on full time, much as we'd like to, if your HR ladies get wind of what kind of trouble you're up to.)
If voice is any indication, to a guy that's been around a while, everyone but one of the GoDaddy tech-support or billing support (they are x-trained) was white or very damn close*, and about 2 times out of 10 or so, they were women. I don't recall names, which I assume are real first names, not the fake American ones you hear from "customer care" people in India and the Philippines. Nobody even used one of those fowe-French style black names, even. (Perhaps management has put the kibosh on that due to too many disconnected calls.)
Yet, on a page that one can click through to see these very helpful people that I talked to, or will, I haven't seen but 1 or 2 that I just might have gotten help from.
Here's the thing. Affirmative Action has been around my whole life. As much as I know there are plenty of competent black or Hispanic and women software people around (have run into both, and I'm not counting •Indians either), I just can't be very confident that your average one is nearly as competent as the White guys. This is due specifically to Affirmative Action. White guys are the only people who have not benefitted (and of course, being left out of the hand-outs, are being screwed by it).
Were there no AA, then I'd just assume the managers and even dipshit HR ladies had hired the most qualified people. Why not? I know that's hard to imagine after 5 or 6 decades of this shit, but why not? Just charity? There are well-meaning people who want to lift up those poor competency-challenged People of Color and women, but you really don't want to piss off the customers or (in other businesses) get someone killed. However, with Big Gov involved, if you don't do this hiring, they will end up being the ones to shut your place down.
It's not always the case, by any means, but due to AA, I've just got to assume that I'll be better off with a White or Oriental guy helping me, and I've asked specifically before**. That's just the odds, and pretty good odds at that.
Back to GoDaddy specifically now, I've never talked to anyone on the phone whom I thought didn't have much of a clue. Some were more helpful than others, but that could vary over the course of time even for the same guy, based on time pressures. I will also assume that all of the people shown on the GoDaddy help pages that I got these pictures from are real. However, I'd bet whole lot of money, based on location (Scottsdale, Arizona) and the great help that I've gotten, that the place is staffed by mostly young intelligent white guys.
Fine, GoDaddy, make your site however you want. Political Correctness will get you in good with the authorities, so I can also understand that reason, as cucked-out as it is. However, what about the great guys that helped this customer out a number of times? How do they feel about being relegated to non-entities as far as your website, hence initial customers are concerned?
Dear hardworking white guys of GoDaddy,
Please stop emailing us with questions about having your photos and names on our external website. We've got your photos from your orientation day. We don't need them. We will not be able post any of you on the site due to ... reasons. You are not worthy.
Keep up the good work guys...
... or we will replace you with $3/hr cheaper •Indians.
Sincerely,
GoDaddy HR Team
* Maybe one or two were very, very light-skinned blacks who have gotten with the program, and don't even say "let me axe you a couple of questions about our service today." For most of them, no way even that. They sounded Whitey White.
** Can't find the post in question - link will come when I can.
Comments (6)
Borat 15 years later - what's so funny?
Posted On: Wednesday - January 20th 2021 4:02PM MST
In Topics: Movies Trump ctrl-left
I was quite a bit younger when the movie Borat* starring comedian Sasha Cohen, came out, even when I finally watched it on DVD. At that age, I was a bit too naive to understand what the actor was doing with that movie.
Just the guy with the funny Eastern European accent trying to be an American and asking stupid questions ("Does this car come with chick magnet?") was funny enough for me. Some of the jokes are still funny now. The Americans that character Borat interacted with were helpful and hospitable. To me, it was very much an example of what VDare has often stated, of being anti immigration (at least massive amounts of it) without being anti immigrant.
From watching youtube clips much later, I understand now that Sasha Cohen was using the movie to make fun of Americans and Americans' politics. It helped him that those he interacted with were too trusting, drunk in one case I recall, and asking stupid questions** usually elicits stupid answers. Mr. Cohen took real advantage of trusting people to make Borat funny, and to make Americans look stupid.
Sasha Cohen let Americans speak freely, as they were still used to doing in 2006, and there were no Americans calling for he to not be able to do the same with his movie. Mr. Cohen has apparently changed his mind about free speech:
Hey, I don't get it. What's so funny?
That's how the ctrl-left rolls. Since the 1960s, the left has been pro-free-speech and any other Constitutional rights when it helps them... not get thrown in jail, get off on technicalities when they do, and be able to spout off any manner of inciting anti-American garbage. Conservative Americans may have been quite triggered, had that been a word then, by much of this, but they understand the whole concept of free speech. The ctrl-left only pretends to when it's of help to them.
They don't need this help nowadays, as they have taken over all the institutions of American society. This idiot Borat is part of this new establishment. I wonder how long it will take Conservative patriotic (normally white male) Americans to understand that we are the counter-culture now. We're not going to get any breaks from that old US Constitution though, sorry.
* The full title is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Yeah, that's funny, and there are still some lines from it that I borrow today for this very blog.
** In one of Mr. Steve Sailer's posts on Sasha Cohen, Borat is Back, he has a clip of Cohen, in his character "Ali G", interviewing Donald Trump. It is stupid enough for Mr. Trump to have terminated the "interview" after a minute and a half after being very patient and humoring the guy. "Humoring" was necessary, as I didn't find Ali G one bit humorous.
Comments (9)
Just a quick question
Posted On: Wednesday - January 20th 2021 8:20AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Humor Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Oh, and this is post number 1776!* That ought to mean something, but 1776 doesn't ring much of a bell anymore to me. "Bell" get it? Liberty bell? Wait, did they they throw that out too, due to wokeness and that crack?
Here's the question about these face masks. We are told that the masks are for other's benefit. No, they can't screen out all the Kung Flu germies. They can prevent droplets from flying from here to there and everywhere... up to 6 +/- 0.01 ft. (I give an eight inch tolerance for people not being centered on their appropriate floor stickers.)
Wait, what's the question? OK, why are we told that these masks must be over our noses in addition to our mouths? Do droplets come flying out of our noses too, other than during the sneezing process, at which point, I don't recommend catching it all in one's face mask anyway?
I haven't experienced this, personally. I have seen spittle fly out of my mouth though, especially when I'm in an argument about the mandatory wearing of face diapers. It's great when they catch the sunlight, and just ballisticly settle in the spinach bin at the grocery. I've just gotten a real attitude about the germophobia at this point. That attitude about germs is "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
* There are 2 or 3 fewer posts than this, though, due to database table incrementation after deletes. I figured out how to fix it a year ago or so but may not have taken any notes ...
Comments (8)
I Wear my Face Mask in my Car
Posted On: Monday - January 18th 2021 6:59PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
A hat tip goes to Adam Smith for posting this video on unz recently. I hesitated to put the "music" tag on this post just because we like to have quality music (IMO, of course) on the site, at least with the music tag. The singer ain't the best at singing, and he reminds me of Al Yankovich. Hell, maybe that's from singing through his face mask. Either way, this was a nice creative job, making fun of the face-diapering 'tards that are ubiquitous in early '21 America.
I had to look on the webs to to find the original artist. It was Canadian Corey Hart with (I wear my) Sunglasses at Night from way back in January of 1984. Wiki also says that the video is of a "fashion police state". Hey, we resemble that remark!
For another funny take-off from when the Kung Flu PanicFest was still just a silly joke, see SHUT DOWN THE DISCOS!
Comments (7)
Will America be looted by China? - Part 6: Conclusion - The Golden Rule
Posted On: Monday - January 18th 2021 6:22PM MST
In Topics: China Economics The Future
(continued from Part 1: Intro, Part 2: Housing, Part 3: Big Biz, Part 4: The Fruited Plain, and Part 5: The Wilderness.)
In parts 2 through 5 of this series on current and upcoming looting of American assets by China, be it housing, big business, farmland, or even the preserved wilderness, I see the same problem for us. I don't think it'll be easy to stop this. It's simply about money, and money talks.
With manufacturing having been eviscerated over the last 3 - 4 decades, America just doesn't create as much wealth as it consumes. Trade deficits have ensued, and, by far, the biggest one is with China. As one can see from this same graph seen before in Part 4, the difference between our imports from China and our exports has gone from a piddling amount in 1990 to $419,000,000,000 in 2018:
The US Census site, for some reason, has a nice month-by-month chart of the balance of goods trade between the US and China on this page**. Way on back, in 1985, while the Japan imbalance had already gotten a little worrisome (nearly $50 billion in 1985 dollars***), America had a small even-Steven trade with China, at $3.86 billion in exports, and $3.86 billion in imports. (To be more precise, there was a very small trade deficit of $6 million - that's "million".) Things went downhill from then on, or uphill if you're Chinese. That balance in 1985 went to a $1.5 billion deficit a year later, $10 billion by the end of that decade, $83 billion by 2000, and from 2005 onward, it was in the $200 billion and higher, to the moon, Ai Leitz!
For the last 15 years, we've really just been giving away the power to buy up our country to China. The numbers are staggering now. Almost half a Trillion bucks flowing out of the US economy and into Chinese hands happens yearly.
The money talks. Even if this country had non-Chinese sympathizing, blackmailed, or bribed officials encouraging the selling out of our country, it's just not that easy to prevent the Chinese big money guys from purchasing assets. There were laws passed in Canada, from the province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, to put higher taxes on the purchase/holding of property to try to stop the conversion of Vancouver to Hongcouver. There were raises in both sales taxes and property taxes. This did send more Chinese business to Seattle, San Francisco, and LA.
However, there can be front owners that are citizens, Chinese of course, to get around it. China is well known for corruption, and the CCP is about nothing but corruption, so who's to say officials won't be bribed to let it slide? Then, the last step is to increase your population share so much that your influence, and money too, can change the laws to lock open the barn door.
It can be the same story for land. The sale goes to the highest bidder, and no seller of farmland is going to lose money selling to a known American over foreign money, even if it were not hidden. If he did, the American would be ready to just "flip it", same as with houses.
I don't even need to get into the situation with the Globalists that will sell out Big Biz. As for the wilderness, the influence will have to go a little higher, on up to the Pai loe qis and the Zhou Bai Diens.
Perhaps the hope is with local jurisdictions making laws requiring residency for purchase of real estate. Again, there are ways in which the money talks louder though.
Let me wrap this up with a comparison to the looting of Russia in the 1990s. The USSR had fallen. The place was an economic shambles. The still solid economy of the US, with it's almighty reserve-currency dollar let the big NY City finance boys treat Russia like a yard sale. Well, we don't have too long before the this economy fails. You don't just print up 1 to 3 Trillion bucks yearly and expect it to keep its value. Now, if we created more wealth to back it, that'd be one thing. The Kung Flu PanicFest sure hasn't helped, but even without it, our social and demographic problems are making it harder and harder for this country to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing.
I don't see why that Russian experience couldn't be repeated here, with America as Russia, and the Chinese CCP oligarchs as the NY City finance boys. Can we prevent this during the SHTF to come? If not, we will not just be buying everything from the Chinese, but we will be working for them, renting from them, and getting priced out of everything nice that was built by Americans.
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."**** I wish it were the same people that looted Russia that would get their comeuppance, but it doesn't work like that. In large economic matters the golden rule is slightly different anyway. It goes "He who hath the gold, maketh the rules."
* The trade in services is not insignificant, as, per the US International Trade Commission, in '16 the US "exported" $54 billion in services vs. importing $16 billion. That's a $38 billion surplus, not even 10% of the goods trade deficit. (That's the most recent data I could find on short notice.)
That page is interesting in that it has a breakout of the types of services. A whopping 62% of the service exports are travel services. Just seeing who's been doing the flying back and forth since then, even pre-Kung Flu, that will get more than balanced out shortly. The Chinese airlines have been growing fast, both domestic and international. Without the former imbalance, when the US dominated the skies, that service surplus will be, or is already, insignificant.
** It's easy to look year-by-year there too.
*** Japan is no slouch itself, with $166 billion yearly surplus with us as of late, very significant even compared to China. It's just that the Japanese just don't seem to be the same type of economic threat.
**** From Mathew 7:12, but there are 4 to 5 other instances of it.
Comments (2)
Anarcho-Tyranny and the murder of Ashli Babbitt
Posted On: Saturday - January 16th 2021 6:31PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media US Police State Media Stupidity Anarcho-tyranny
The above graphic is from VDare, but I've seen videos too. Ashli Babbitt was shot from just what sure looks like 8 ft away or less. She was on the other side of a door with a partly bashed-in window, trying to find a way in. She was of absolutely no imminent threat to this cop who shot here in the neck, and would have been no threat even if she were right next to him.
Yet, the Lyin' Press will treat her as the villain to go along with their narrative that the events at the Capitol on Jan 6th were part of an insurrection. As commenter Mr. Anon put it, "Right, a bunch of guys who all own guns break into the Capitol without their guns, and that's an 'insurrection'? Sure, they staged an "unarmed insurrection". Perhaps, history's first."
I doubt that cop will lose a day of pay, much less get fired, and much less get deserved jail time for at VERY LEAST manslaughter. After all, he was putting down an insurrection against the revered legislative branch of the US Government, so he is possibly a hero. Hey, they are barraging people with the big lies so heavy that they may as well go with "hero".
It's just all part of the Anarcho-Tyranny that has been ramped up over the last decade. I wrote a comment to question the premise of Michelle Malkin's latest column, Amnesia of the Anarcho-Tyrannists. Mrs. Malkin's asks:
Is it just me or has the entire universe of establishment media, politics and Hollywood forgotten that this country has endured an entire year of relentless violent anarchotyranny?With all respect to, and admiration for, this brave pundit and activist for the right, I would like to answer the question:
There's been no forgetting. Anarcho-Tyranny has been working well for them. We all can see it in the treatment of these slightly-over-exuberant-at-worst Capitol Gang, as the BLM and antifa have destroyed private businesses and beat and killed people in cities all over the country last year. Michelle Malkin gets that. What she doesn't get is that this Lyin' Press effort itself is part of the Anarcho-Tyranny. Why can't the press get in on this too? The treating of this small single protest of the right as an insurrection not seen since the French Revolution, causing the need for a new, domestic version of the Patriot Act, while the BLM "peaceful protests" are treated as pleas for fairness and more taxpayers cash IS the Anarcho-Tyranny here.
It's Anarcho-Tyranny all the way down. What of the murdered Ashli Babbitt? Speaking of heroes (earlier), is she a hero? No, Peak Stupidity is pretty tight with our definition of "hero" - see First Responders and Heroes. She is a victim of the evil system we live under in which conservative white people are on the T end of the Anarcho-Tyranny. We all know the fuss that would be on the Infotainment for months had a white cop shot an unarmed, unthreatening black lady trespassing in the "people's house" to demand Social Justice.
If White people got their act together, the late Mrs. Ashli Babbitt could be a martyr for the cause. To some degree, there are already millions, men especially, kept out of careers they could have thrived in, kept out of universities, screwed in courts, and vilified in the media. The martyring of Ashli Babbitt is just more visible and complete. Don't let the Lyin' Press Anarcho-Tyranny make you think otherwise.
Murdered - 01/06/21, Washington, Federal Shithole
Comments (12)
Spreading the anti-panic LUV around
Posted On: Saturday - January 16th 2021 8:22AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Race/Genetics Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
I couldn't find a picture to better represent the scene at the small gym I was working out at a week or so back, so that's all I've got. This Kung Flu PanicFest story is more encouraging though.
Before I'd gotten started on the recumbent bike machine, a black woman was already jogging on the treadmill, one of just 3 machines. Of course I had no mask on, but this lady did. No, I didn't get any shit from her, as that one time last summer. The result was far from it, I'm glad to write.
First, about this lady's butt. What?! Any regular reader knows that this blogger is anti-TV to the extreme, so I wasn't watching anything on the treadmill console. (In fact, that one, if I recall, has no screen, just red LED readouts - old school FTW.) The machines were angled left, and I was on the right, so what do you want me to look at?
Here's the thing. Black genetics matter! Hell, any genetics matter, and it's just a genetic thing that, in general, black women have larger butts. Natural selection gave them this capability and likewise the capability of black men to appreciate them. More glutenous power to them all.
However, nobody appreciates obesity, and that can't be blamed on genetics alone. That was not the case here. This lady had a larger-than-necessary rear end, butt I could tell that it wasn't all fat. The lady was not just playing at working out. She had a good pace going, and I'm pretty sure the treadmill was set at a slope, as opposed to level. That matters a lot, as Peak Stupidity has gone on and on about with our exercise machine calculation sub-fixation. (If you care, check out some posts with the Artificial Stupidity topic key.) I give her great credit for working out hard to try to keep it all solid.
From rear ends to the subject matter now, I really wondered how much that face mask affected the lady's workout. It just can't be good to breath in your own CO2 and strain more for any Oxygen. They've got those lawyer-required warnings on the machines telling you that you'd better go ask your doctor if it's OK to work out, don't keep going if it hurts (whaaaa?? Don't tell that to the drill Sergeant.), etc. Shouldn't these exercise machine manufacturers be issuing recalls or service bulletins in order to make sure there are warnings about, I dunno, keeling over and dying due to lack of Oxygen to the heart? I'm not a doctor, and I haven't even yet played one on TV, but ... I could easily play a lawyer in real life, were it me... assuming a recovery, of course.
I was not much in her view with the angle of the machines, so I don't know if was her watching me work out without the face diaper impediment or just some thoughts about it, but I looked over after a while, and it was gone. Yea!
I'm glad to have had some influence. People learn from example to some degree. I think people will learn even more from very obvious examples. Here's a guy at the Home Depot with no mask on. Nobody seems to care much, as they are helping him with one item with no fear in their eyes. Nobody's dragging the guy out of the store by his feet. Hmmmm.... Perhaps this is all a bunch of crap... [/cartoon thought bubble*]
Spread the anti-panic LUV!
* I wish I could draw better. Memes and cartoons are where it's at these days.
Comments (7)
How close to danger?
Posted On: Friday - January 15th 2021 6:24PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Media Stupidity
"How close to danger ...", as the start of a question, was what I heard passing by a TV with CNN on this afternoon. I didn't stick around long, but I heard enough in the background to know that this Capitol Gang story must still be in the forefront of the media barrage. It's been over a week now since this small effort to fight back against the powerful leftwing forces that run almost everything in this country.
As with the 3 year-long Russia Collusion, because I don't participate in Lyin' Press stupidity, sometimes I am quite surprised that some story is still going on (see Nothing but Distractions). Peak Stupidity was pretty excited, in a good way, to see what went on a week ago Wednesday.
Is this story still on the news because 4 or 5 deaths, 3 of them, maybe even 4, deaths from natural causes that the odds may favor during a stressful event attended by some older folks? By the end of this past summer, some death during one of the riots in Minneapolis, Portland, etc. wouldn't have even been on the news. There were many. It's surely not that a black cop shot a white woman who was no threat to him in the neck from 8 ft away, is it? That ought to be a big part of the story here, as she was the only one murdered during the event.
Let me go back to that one line I heard clearly. I don't know how stupid these talking heads and their associates on CNN really are. I find it hard to believe that they think that the Congressmen and Senators were in real danger there. We've all seen plenty of video, and they've seen plenty of video. This was not a crowd out to purposefully harm anyone. Therefore, the news lady was either very, very stupid, or putting out one big fat lie by implication. "OMG, luckily our priceless, irreplaceable leaders were just far enough to avoid being beaten to death by the crowd of middle-aged fun-loving MAGA people!" was the implication. (I heard something about "100 ft" in there.) The implication is that common Americans have no business being anywhere near these important "leaders", much less in the same room, without being invited.
The man with the horned hat should have made a proper appointment, on his knees, to his Congressman's secretary, and taken his hat off before entering the house of our dear leaders. Something about this reminds me of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.
PS: I have a number of more posts coming on this "insurrection" (insurrection, ha, we wish!) There are so many posts built up, but there's been not so much time lately. Thank you all for reading.
Comments (8)
Will America be looted by China? - Part 5: The Wilderness
Posted On: Friday - January 15th 2021 10:10AM MST
In Topics: Treehuggers China Economics Environmental Stupidity The Future
(continued from Part 1: Intro, Part 2: Housing, Part 3: Big Biz, and Part 4: The Fruited Plain.)
We at Peak Stupidity admit to being treehuggers* of a sort. Our Libertarianism has led us to rail against some of the treehuggers and enironmentalists for not putting their money where their mouths are. That's the case in two ways, the 2nd much worse than the first.
1) Other than the Nature Conservancy, I don't know too many of these people and groups that put their own money down to save wilderness, rather than agitating for others to give up their land or land rights for the wishes of these treehuggers. Economies have been eviscerated by some of these enviro-freaks, and they don't give a damn about that.
2) Worse than that are the organizations like the Sierra Club who care more for the money over the environment, as they purposefully ignore the damage to the environment due to massive immigration. They were paid off to not talk about immigration over 25 years ago. Besides selling out for what is still a considerable number of silver pieces (I calculate ~ 4 million of them at today's spot price), they have now joined the anti-white bandwagon, disowning their founder. (That's the subject of these 2 posts with family-unfriendly titles: Part 1 and Part 2)
I do tend to get really long with the intro, but that paragraph about the Sierra Club gets into what I want to say here. It's the White People, Stupid! Nobody else cares as much for the environment, including saving big chunks of wilderness, as white people do. Nobody. Yet, we have not been importing a majority of Swedes and Norwegians these last 55 years. Peak Stupidity has noted many times that the Mexican immigrants, illegal or not, don't have the same attitude about the environment. Neither do Somalians. Neither do the Chinese.
As mentioned in The Ugly Chinaman (just the expression about the huge influx of arrogant tourists), sure, they get around, including in the national parks, in droves. Watch out on the road! That's to say they were there, to take billions of pictures a year (hey, they're free now!) in front of this rock, this mountain, or this bear wood carving. It's not to enjoy the beauty and solitude in the forest or desert.
I've been there (11 times). The Chinese people don't seen to particularly LIKE solitude. Even in rural areas** there, the houses are right next to each other, often not even detached, when they could be spread out a bit. They like this, and more power to them. I don't care.
The country of China, due to being overpopulated*** forever or so (3,500 years is almost forever), hasn't been able to keep the enironment in any kid of pristine conditions. Years of poverty, made worse during the hard-core Mao Commie era, had people denuding the mountains and hills of any old trees. I will say that the Chinese government and people have changed their ways on this over the last decade or so. However, having old-growth forest takes some time, like centuries. In the meantime, they can come here to see it.
Another point is that we have inherited a beautiful land. Sure, China has its Snowy Mountains, plenty of big sharp mountains all over, and its share of desert. There's NOTHING like the beauty that can be enjoyed in Yosemite, Yellowstone, the deserts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, or, yes, my favorite, obviously, Olympic National Park, though. We should be so grateful that our forefathers saved these places for us over a century ago.
It'd be nice to keep these wilderness areas, which is the point of this post, in addition not growing so big in population that we can't enjoy them as much. This series of posts is about the possible (OK, probable?) looting of this country though. I see no reason that the big money can't be spent by the Chinese to influence the population, buy the population off, or whatever it takes, to use some of this land. They just plain don't really care as much as we do about keeping it the way it is.
I already mentioned the lack of forested land in China. It is the reason one must pay for extra napkins at a restaurant, even if just 25 cents. They've mostly run out of good wood, and even wood for paper. It's already the case that the cheap shipping costs allow a Chinese company to buy trees from Canada or America, turn it into lumber, turn that into furniture, and ship the furniture back to us, and STILL beat out costs of North Carolina made furniture! Perhaps they would like to own this forest land themselves. They could determine just how better and faster it could be exploited.
Would they stop at private forest land or push for taking just small bites at at time out of even the preserved-to-a-controlled amount National Forest land and then National Park land? I've joked before about the Chinese turning the Olympic Park into chopsticks if they had their way.**** Chinese owners will not lay down for ranting white environmentalists. They don't know who John Muir was. He was just an old White Man that like to be alone in the beautiful wilderness and wanted to give that opportunity to others.
PS: I went to some HUGE cave deep in China. That is, deep in the ground, of course, but deep into the interior of China too. Yeah, it was cool, but the Chinese don't like to just light it up enough for people to see. They have to have computer monitors with one's postion, colored lighting, and of course there were way too many people in there. (Imagine working out the air changes for HVAC in that place!)
* However, there has never been any penetration.
** I don't say small towns, because that implies a couple of hundred thousand people, in China.
*** China had more people in the mid-1800's than America has even now. Real useable land there, when you subtract out the 30% or whatever of Tibet and Xinjiang, then take out the ridiculous-to-live-on mountainous areas, is a much smaller amount than that in the continental US.
**** You know, that would be a fun calculation to do, but then, no, this isn't going to be funny after our financial SHTF.
Comments (6)
Ann Coulter lets loose
Posted On: Thursday - January 14th 2021 7:50AM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '24 Immigration Stupidity Trump Pundits
It's going to take more than letting words loose to stop the stupidity, but that's all we at Peak Stupidity have for now, as does Ann Coulter.
In Most Disloyal Man in History Finally Finds a Cause Worth Fighting For our favorite literary pundit really tears Donald Trump a new one.
When Ann Coulter gets really mad, I can see that she goes a little overboard (as with her neocon calls to wipe out the Islamic world back right after 9/11). Therefore I don't agree with her about pretty much the biggest CURRENT issue she wrote about here, the '20 election CheatFest (oh, and probably Georgia, '21 to boot).
For the items on Trump’s 2016 campaign agenda, he actually had solid arguments. On overturning the election, he has no argument at all.Miss Coulter may or may not believe that the election was stolen, but her point is that you do things ahead of time to prevent stuff like this, and had Trump fulfilled some of his campaign promises, maybe his vote would have been so high as to be beyond theft even by this crowd.
The bulk of Trump’s rally speech last Wednesday consisted of the fanatically detailed claims of a paranoid about the election being stolen. The media, of course, have barely covered this part of the speech, since they’re determined to suppress all mentions of any oting-vay aud-fray.
Not to worry, media! I’m angrier after reading Trump’s full exegesis on the election than I was when you were hiding it from me.
He cited vote tallies in this and that county, the media’s use of “suppression polls,” constitutional provisions, the precise time of day votes came in, different states’ voting rules and practices, the numbers of felons, dead people and illegal aliens who allegedly voted in various states and on and on and on.
Do you think Trump has any idea how many illegal aliens are in the country right now?I agree completely. Oh, and I already did, way before this column. For one, I've stated repeatedly that this "oh, the judges!" and "he doesn't have the power" were bogus with respect to some of the issues the President could have made lots of headway with. That goes especially for his job as Commander in Chief. He could have brought the military home.
None whatsoever. Trump knows more about the accuracy settings on signature verification machines in Clark County, Nevada, than he does about DACA.
For four years, I’ve been told that Trump couldn’t keep his campaign promises because: No one has ever faced such historic resistance! It’s not his fault. Poor Trump!
Well, how hard was it to keep his promises compared to overturning a presidential election?
Now that we’ve gotten a bracing view of Trump’s skills as a demagogue, I just want to know: Why didn’t he ever use his powers for good? Why did he never hold a rally on the ellipse and ask his supporters to pressure their representatives to fund the wall? To repeal Section 230? To penalize outsourcing?
Peak Stupidity mentioned this other trait of Donald Trump of only taking action when it's personal, in our post President Donald Trump: **the Bad**, the Good, and the Ugly. We were discussing this in terms of his last minute (3 weeks before the '20 election) talk about Big "TECH" censorship, when he had nearly 4 years behind him of doing nothing on that issue either:
Actually, if the President would take the criticisms of Candidate Trump's ideas hard and worked to show them up, that'd be just peachy with me. However, many times he seems to take things seriously ONLY when they apply directly to him. That is, he's not a man of principle. I knew that going in, and have written this before. That Donald Trump doesn't understand the Constitution like Ron Paul does, or Ronald Reagan did, for that matter, is something I figured we could live with. That is due to his bringing up the existential issue of the immigration invasion right away as THE most important issue and his fairly good stance on ending the warfare state.Ann goes on with this:
The problem is that the President doesn't fight when he has the tools to beat the ctrl-left, as brought up by many a smart policy wonk or pundit, unless it hits him. ["personally", I should have written.]
Now that we’ve gotten a bracing view of Trump’s skills as a demagogue, I just want to know: Why didn’t he ever use his powers for good? Why did he never hold a rally on the ellipse and ask his supporters to pressure their representatives to fund the wall? To repeal Section 230? To penalize outsourcing?Again, you could have read this stuff years ago, on such web sites, as I dunno, Peak Stupidity or something. However, that last sentence is hyperbole by Miss Coulter, and, again, I chalk it up to a hot feisty temper. I myself have not problem with Senators and House members fleeing for their lives. We'd rather they be more contained than that, however, so our policy statement calls for Congressional LOCKDOWNS as standard policy. Hey, we're willing to compromise a bit on this. Force them to flee for their lives via rubber raft to Guantanamo, Cuba, and hold remote Congressional sessions semi-annually from the exercise yard during exercise hour.
None of those proposals is insane. Now that I think about it, they are the exact ideas that got Trump elected. Another plus: Asking his supporters to lobby for popular issues would not have ended with senators and House members fleeing for their lives.
Yeah, Ann Coulter went overboard on this one in her now almost hatred for Donald Trump. A woman scorned and all that ... but we are on her side in general. You will probably enjoy Ann Coulter's column, as usual. Words are fun, but they ain't gonna cut it from here on. I think Ann Coulter knows that too.
PS: Don't forget the post of ours, Amazing prescient Peak Stupidity prediction that Trump will renege on policy, from last summer. We were not quite as mad as Ann Coulter though.
Comments (15)
Merkel reassures her countrymen Germany is safe for transitioning
Posted On: Wednesday - January 13th 2021 7:10PM MST
In Topics: Commies Trump
(No, not that kind, but I'm sure she'd be all in on that. Cultural destruction is good, and comes naturally to Commies.)
Since twitter is in relative time here, I can't say for sure, but I think Herr Merkel wrote this on the 7th.
This was to reassure the German volk that "Listen, I knew Donald J. Trump, maybe in the biblical sense, as warned about in Leviticus, and let me tell you, I'm no Donald J. Trump!"
"Do not be alarmed by the insurrection into the Volk's Hausen in Washington, FS there in America. Over in Deutchland, vee, errr, we will have a peaceful transition of power, just as we've done since before you people were ... well... quite a long time."
I can't help wondering if at this point, Herr Merkel is not so much reassuring others of, but pleading for, a peaceful transition of power from her sorry, ruinous ass, rather than her "getting transitioned", as happened at the end of the Cold War to one particular loathsome Commie:
That picture is of the execution of the hated (there were a lot of them) Nicolae Ceaușescu, with his wife Elena there too as part of a 2 for 1 deal.
Sic semper tyrannis!
Comments (5)
Will America be looted by China? - Part 4: The Fruited Plain
Posted On: Wednesday - January 13th 2021 1:23PM MST
In Topics: China Economics The Future
(continued from Part 1: Intro, Part 2: Housing, and Part 3: Big Biz.)
I do want to get to my conclusion on this, I swear, and now there are also a bunch more other posts I'd rather write first. However, Peak Stupidity likes to finish what we started. (Yes, we will complete that fisking of that feminist article that we started way on back in early September!) This post is about possible buying up of American rich farmland by Chinese people with fistfulls of dollars.
I refer the reader again to "There's a lot of ruin in a nation." - Part 3. I will admit my lowball estimate from that post was way too low, as Statista shows just > 30% of the US (slightly under 3 million mi2 of the contiguous US being farmland. I had estimated about 1/3 of that. I have a feeling that includes a lot of very marginal farmland. With all the near desert in the West (ranch land, if anything), and the mountainous areas, it just seems well too large. They are obviously including some poor pasture land. I'd estimated 10-15% and gotten only 300 million acres rather than the 900 million that Statista states.
The rich dark soil of the ex-tall-grass-prairie States*, and the California central valley, and a few other small areas with great farmland, add up by my estimate** to 300 - 500 thousand mi2. That's around my 10-15% of the contiguous US per my old post, and this is the good stuff. For these States, such as Illinois and Iowa, with almost nothing but good farmland, it was pretty easy to look up average cropland prices. In general, the web comes up with $7,500 +/- $500 per acre. States with a mix of tough farm land and some good, such as Georgia, Alabama, Miss., and Louisiana, you see from $2,000/acre to $4,000/acre for cropland. Sure, you've got the Willamette Valley in Oregon (~ 5,500 mi2), the smaller Snoqualmie Valley in Washington, and other river valleys with some fertile soil, but they don't add up to much.
Let's take all that rich farmland, at the top end, 300 million acres, at $8,000/acre (going up as I type), and the rest, 600 million acres at $3,000/acre. We get, wah-lah, America has around $4 Trillion bucks in farmland. That is quadruple my old estimate because a) Land has gone up and b) My previous estimate was only including the good stuff, and c) I'd lowballed it before, and for this one I've gone to the high side.
How much American [sic] farmland do foreigners own right now? Freedom Outpost (May '19 article) says 30 million acres. That is only 3.3%. No problem, right? How about just China? The same author on the same site, one Michael Snyder, has no numbers in his '14 article, which is more of a (perfectly fine) rant: Chinese Buying Land In US Communities All Over America. There are no numbers there, so is this a real problem?
Now consider this:
It looks to me like a less than a decade of China's pocketing this money, as a conservative hard-working couple would on a house down payment, would do it. Unlike the conservative couple striving to purchase that nice cottage on the top of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, for China, this would be enough for it all, not just a down payment. We will suffer greatly if this goes on any longer.
Again, one can bring up proposed new law against the purchase by foreigners, well not for the next 2 years, I'm sure, and that sort of thing. The money talks though. Even if indirectly, the American Fruited Plain of song and story*** can be controlled by the Communist Party of China. How's that future strike you?
I'll get to more of the speculation about the future of this in the conclusion, but there's got to be one more part, I realized, on the preserved wild lands of America.
PS: Well, I like doing the back-of-the-envelope calculations on my own, but it was about 1/2 hour of work looking things up this time. Then, I just did the obvious (well, non-obvious to me, apparently!) and looked it up. I came up with a Statista page again as number 1 (duckduckgo) and it says $2.7 Trillion, but this counts farm buildings too, which I've got no problem with. Not bad, as that was between my low and high. This number is for '18.
* This what the wetter side of the Great Plains was called vs. the dryer short-grass prairie farther west back in the day. The eastern portion of what we now called "the Great Plains" was the Prairie, and the western portion was the Plains.
** I took nearly the whole land area of whole States like Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. and parts of others, plus that CA central valley.
*** It's the name of this non-fiction book about American farming that I read long ago - I lost the library book at a laundromat on a long road trip ... across the fruited plain.
Ha! Even amazon doesn't have this one available themselves, or even a review from when books were their main thing. I wonder if one of the 15 resellers got that book from that laundromat in Grand Junction, Colorado back in the 1990s. I can see an email coming. "Give me back my book, you bastard! I was busy loading the whites and just forgot."
Comments (6)