Jeff Sessions, Tommy Tuberville, Trump, The South, and worship of Football
Posted On: Wednesday - July 22nd 2020 8:40PM MST
In Topics: Trump Bread and Circuses
Peak Stupidity urges our readers again to not regard this site as a primary new source (haha!), as we can be weeks behind sometimes. In this case, it's just over one week, but we read a few days ago about the loss of prospective returning immigration patriot to the US Senate, Mr. Jeff Sessions. Mr. Jeff Sessions lost in a GOP primary race for Senator from Alabama to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville on July 14th.
This loss of the great immigration patriot Jeff Sessions was due in part to support give by President Trump, acting like a bitchy, on-the-rag 15 y/o schoolgirl out for revenge. I looked back just now and am very surprised I haven't mentioned this at all on the blog, not even anywhere in the Trump-bashing posts of late. I feel bad for having written the one post, Good night, Sleepy Jeff, taking Trump's side in Sessions dismissal 1 2/3 years back.
Peak Stupidity is nothing if not self-referential most of the time, so if you don't feel like reading that post, I'll just say that my beef against Mr. Sessions was not about his gentlemanly self-recusal from the Russia-hoax hearings. It was about the Justice Department not coming down on the Anarcho-Tyranny of the Charlottesville, Virginia travesty and other pro-White America stuff the the DOJ could have gotten involved with. Things did not get much better on this score after Mr. Sessions' dismissal anyway.
VDare had numerous posts/articles about the AL primary, coming down squarely on Mr. Sessions side. He is a staunch immigration patriot, as greatly opposed to Coach Tuberville. This is why Trump's little hissy fit, turned a year and a half later into a prissy, revenge-filled effort to work against an immigration patriot like Jeff Sessions was so #SAD. No Ronald Reagan master strategist is he.
Mr. Tuberville won the primary election. An unz.com commenter the other day brought up a very good point the other day. (I'll link to it if I can find it again soon.) Tommy Tuberville was the head coach of Auburn University's football team, one of the 2 biggies, Auburn and 'Bama itself (Univ. of Alabama in Tuscaloosa). It is very likely that for most Alabamans, the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn in football is more important than the primary race, or any election held anywhere, for that matter.
The South takes college football very seriously, much too seriously in my opinion. Sure, pro football is just not as big, and there used to be not much of it around. People LUV LUV LUV the tailgate parties and spending the big bucks to SUPPORT THE TEAM! Rah, fucking, rah... I mean, there are people that fly in from around the area, drive in caravans down the interstate with their four flags flying, and even many housing units that one can BUY (not rent) to have a place to hang out during those 6 or 7, tops, home football game weekends. There are people that never even graduated from the institutions that know more about their football team's plays than the best engineering students know about Newtons' laws of motion.
These coaches get paid the big bucks and are more widely known and talked about than anyone's US Congressman.
This aspect of the Bread & Circuses really wouldn't bug me in normal times, say the 1980s (and, granted, I went to a number of games back then myself). These aren't normal times, though. There are things going on and decisions to be made that are much more critical to our future as a country and a people... than who's got the best passing game.
Yet, the Coach won the primary, albeit with help from President Trump, if he is of any help anymore, his mojo seeming to have vanished up Jared Kushner's ass. As this country goes even more to hell, I wonder if the good people of Alabama will think about how important having an immigration-cuck Senator that was the famous Auburn football coach really was.
PS: From the Fox News article on the election result, we read:
On Saturday, after Trump tweeted that “Jeff Sessions is a disaster who has let us all down. We don’t want him back in Washington!” – Sessions returned fire – calling Trump’s tweets “juvenile insults” and emphasizing that “Alabama does not take orders from Washington.”No, Alabama takes orders from cucked-out football fans. I'm so sorry, Jeff Sessions and America.
Comments (7)
From the "You can't make this shit up!" department
Posted On: Wednesday - July 22nd 2020 4:13PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Humor Movies Educational Stupidity
Without the one cuss word in there, this was Dave Barry's bit, wasn't it? I confuse him a lot with P.J. O'Rourke, but I believe it was the very humorous Dave Barry of the Miami newspaper. That and "that'd be a great name for a band" were my favorite lines.
From across the pond, on an island of stupidity, call it the Stupidity Annex, comes this laugh-a-sentence story from the Beeb, which is what the Dweebs there call the BBC (Government British Broadcasting Company). The humor starts in the title - Hakim Sillah death: Teen stabbed at knife awareness course. First, we read:
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named*, knifed Hakim Sillah, 18, twice in the chest at the west London centre on 7 November last year, Isleworth Crown Court was told.Yes, isn't that ironic, like ray-ay-ain on your wedding day ... but bloodier? I can't skip a single paragraph, as the irony just keeps on ...
Prosecutors said there was "a cruel irony" that Mr Sillah was stabbed while attending a weapons awareness course.
The teenager denies murdering him.He stabbed him in the chest with a knife multiple times and the guy died, but still, he denies murdering him (maybe the other "gentleman" dies of the COVID-one-niner - "Chalk up another one, Liam!") You just can't get a good Barrister these days.
He also denies two counts of wounding with intent and one count of unlawful wounding.
Sorry, this is not a fisking here. This post simply contains people-of-color commentary.
Michelle Nelson QC, prosecuting, said all participants at Hillingdon Civic Centre had been risk assessed before the session, which was run by the Youth Offending Teams (YOTS), and "those classified as high risk were precluded from attending".Yeah, we're all assessed in here, I'm assessed, he's assessed, my grandmama's assessed. None of us would think of bringing our knives, but, well, this one guy may not have been perfectly assessed, so I'm gonna bring just the one knife in case he starts anything.
"Both the young men must have been risk assessed, but the sad reality is that both attended that course carrying knives," she said.
Then comes a few words about the DNA evidence and the "Rambo Knife" found in the woods near the defendant's home.
"He says he did not intend to kill or to cause really serious harm and told the police in his caution interview that he had acted in lawful self-defence. [He] had intended to stab Hakim Sillah in the arm, but he moved.FIFY, Beeb. Heh! Defence? My spell check bill is gonna be intense this month.
"The prosecution say the defendant took a deliberate decision to stab the deceased to the chest twice, we say, lawful self-defence does not arise."
Thetrialstupidity continues.
I don't know how much guys like these two knife awareness students had kept up with Western culture, what with being in England and all, after all. You'd think they might have watched a little Indiana Jones at some point in their lives. Never bring a knife to a knife awareness class when you could have brought a gun.
Peak Stupidity included this scene before in one of our other 2 posts about stabbings in formerly-Great formerly Britain, Knife, immigration policy Clash on the streets of London. The other post was an earlier one, Knife control in London - some well-forecast stupidity.
It's one thing to have to deal with this violence from black thugs in America. They've been here a while. It's the utmost in stupidity to import them in large quantities after you already (should) know better! "Madness!", as the man said.
* I dig, I dig. Some of those names are hard enough to pronounce, but spelling them correctly is not worth the trouble. I don't blame The Beeb for not even trying.
Comments (10)
Pictures from the end of America?
Posted On: Tuesday - July 21st 2020 7:25PM MST
In Topics: Economics The Future Peak Stupidity Roadshow
Yeah, I realize that the post's title sounds like unz.com writer Mr. Lin Dinh's column title, "Postcards from the end of America". For whatever reason, I have not read but one of Mr. Dinh's columns, and didn't like what I read. Is it because he is anti-all-things-American, as the proprietor, Ron Unz, seems to be? I read a lot from young people who have no idea of the country this used to be. I can't blame them for that, but I can blame them for writing on what they no nothing about. It doesn't help that I see Mr. Dinh (obviously Vietnamese) as a foreigner writing about America, though perhaps he has lived here his whole life (until his recent traveling, going by his titles that I see). I have not bothered to check.
That initial digression completed, this view of a seemingly disintegrating America presented here is of the runways, taxiways, and ramps of the northeast side of the Minneapolis airport, one of the hubs of Delta Airlines from a while back. To get these nice views shown here, I'll give the airline traveler some advice here, at least for those spending some time at the MSP airport.
If you have extra time beyond what it takes to get to your next gate and perhaps get something to eat from the Somalians, go over to the D-concourse. You may not know there IS one, as it's smaller than the stretched out C and G ones, and the fairly big E and F, and the A/B complex. From the main "mall" area, go as if you're heading to the C concourse, but go straight instead of hanging a right toward the first C-gate (and that white tram). You'll see a McDonalds (wasn't very busy) on the left, and you can go through a door to your left right after the McD's that says "restricted, blah, blah" (ignore the sign) or a stairway with no door on the left that's just at the entrances to the D-concourse.
Either way, you must lug your luggage (pun? unintended) up about 30 steps, or 1 1/2 flights of stairs, I'd put it. You'll find yourself in what must have once been a ramp tower, that is, not an air traffic control tower, but one used to direct traffic in the ramp areas. It's an observation area that obviously most passengers don't know about, as it's nice and quiet up there with nobody else, or a TSA guy on lunch, and an occasional other passenger. Classical music is playing. Is that to keep away the riff-raff, and/or Somalians? Nah, I think the music is playing throughout the airport, but it's drowned out usually by too much noise elsewhere.
While at peace up there, I noticed how dead the airport really was. With only 2 parallel and sometimes an angled-off runway normally used for landings and take-offs, it'd normally be a great view for kids that like airplanes. Don't they all? There would be one after another, rolling out or taking off, and the view, even though from only 50 ft high or so, is very nice, though it's only of this runway on the NE side (12R/30L) and the ramp/gate areas of E, D, and C concourses. Nope, I think I saw 2 or 3 take-offs and the same number of landings, in about an hour and a half. This is not normal*.
In the sunshine, the huge expanses of concrete were bright and clean, the planes looked beautiful, and ground vehicles and planes just occasionally did what they do. The terminal, the parts that were open, had a few restaurants open, and things were clean enough. People were perhaps extra friendly with the extra time due to low levels of business. This huge airport terminal**, however, costs a lot of money to keep like this. The airport itself costs lots and lots of taxpayer money of various sorts too - FAA, surcharges on tickets, etc. - to keep the cracks in the pavement fixed, keep weeds out, clean the signs, paint markings, chase out critters, keep the many fire trucks in good shape, and lots of things I've probably missed.
This running of < 25% of the flights compared to normal out of there, with them < 1/2 filled, and the loss of revenue that goes with that is not, errr, sustainable. It can't go on like this. If it can't be paid for long term, this nice hub airport would eventually have to go to rot. That's all there is to it.
I sat there and imagined the hard work in building the runways, taxiways, and terminals, the setting up of jet bridges, laying of fuel pipelines, and all that being ignored by hordes of ignorant masses taking over this weed-overgrown place for shelter, farm land, and scrap metal, in a Planet of the Apes sort of way. The engineering of flying machines, and the art of flying them are long forgotten. "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
Looking due north, one can see a gleaming city about 10 miles away, with the larger buildings poking out over the horizon and trees. It looked nice and peaceful from 10 miles and a couple of months after the Kung Flu Infotainment intermission rioting. I was imagining how it would have looked for those few days when the thugs and Commies were setting things alight. Could one have seen the smoke rising in the distance from my same vantage point? Come to think of it, Minneapolis has already experienced a Planet of the Apes moment.
Anyway, it's quite nice out there right now still. Business better pick back up, though.
* Granted this was on a Sunday, but it was Sunday afternoon. The slow time for the passenger airlines is Saturday afternoon through Sunday noon-time. Business travelers mostly travel home on Fridays, not the weekend, and don't go out until Sunday afternoon. The short-term vacationers are where they want to be in the middle of the weekend, but many are traveling home (in normal times) on Sunday afternoon.
** It's one out of 2, as there is a Humphries Terminal (Hubert? Nah.) completely separate on the SW side where Southwest, Sun Country, and few other airlines park. The big one, where mostly Delta, but also United and American too, park, is called the Lindbergh Terminal.
PS - specifically for commenter Adam Smith: Per our conversation on the iSteve thread regarding image meta-data, I'd like to experiment on this one, if you could help. Could you let me know which if any of these 3 images has meta-data? (I know you used a different term, but I'm sure you know what I mean. You have the program that you downloaded to display the values. I'd rather you not give all the values, even the dates, but there really is nothing much anyone could get out of them to track me. I'm a little bit careful.
You could just write in what you found quickly in the comments - just referring to image 1, 2, or 3, I suppose. Thanks. This will be kind of fun.
Comments (12)
Reason-TV: People will die!
Posted On: Monday - July 20th 2020 1:25PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Websites Humor Liberty/Libertarianism Poetic Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Peak Stupidity has done its share of disparagement of Reason magazine. I used to read the print version about 15 years back, but quickly got sick of their ridiculous support for open borders for the US. How many of the writers there were/are stupid enough to not understand that the 50 million or so people who have come here over the last 50 years do not lean in any way Libertarian? (It seemed like most of them, but I don't know now because I quit reading Reason - paper and website - cold turkey long ago.) This is not the way to get greater market penetration, if that was all that this pro-immigration-invasion writing was about.
However, we give credit where credit is due here, and I came across this video in an unz.com comment thread. This very humorous rap-style political skit is not just big laugh at the Kung Flu Panic-Fest, but about lots of the stupidity seen in recent American politics and culture. I take it that Reason magazine doesn't think so much of this Kung Flu situation, but maybe it's just this guy Remy that doesn't.
OK, with no further comment, here's one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while - People Will Die!
Comments (2)
Boogie On Reggae Woman - Stevie Wonder
Posted On: Saturday - July 18th 2020 6:28PM MST
In Topics: Music
Wasn't it great when black people made great music regularly? There was plenty of good music to go around in the 1970s, but guys like Stevie Wonder added a lot to the pop music scene. There may be some black musicians playing great music right now, but I sure don't hear any of it. Is this rap or hip-hop crap what people really want to hear most? That doesn't say much for the audience, if that's the case.
This is my favorite song by this artist, though I have ~ 10 others I'd feature here too. Wiki says that, song title not withstanding, this song is neither boogie(-woogie) nor reggae. I think the extremely funky bass sound, created on the Moog synthesizer by Stevie, does have a missing-beat reggae sound to it. Yeah, you'd call this funk, though, with that fuzzy sound.
Except for one other guy playing conga drums, all the instruments were played by Stevie Wonder. Boogie on, Reggae Woman has a great melody and a great sound. The lyrics are good too, but this is unimportant, as Peak Stupidity noted long ago.
Comments (4)
The long arm of the Infernal Revenue Service
Posted On: Saturday - July 18th 2020 5:56PM MST
In Topics: Globalists US Feral Government
This is at the top of the 2019 tax-year 1040 form.
I noticed a number of things while filling out the income tax forms on or about the 15th of July. (You can't prove I didn't finish on the 15th, not in a court of law you can't!) I think there are 2 more posts coming on this, but today I just want to point out one small change.
I saw the last line in the graphic above, a place for one's foreign country and such. Something clicked, so I checked. That was not on the form last year.* Very interesting! What's the deal here? Have enough tax-paying Americans gotten the hell out to where this line needed to be added? Was it an oversight before. Was this line added for the Globalist elites?
Although commenter Adam Smith is someone I think may have a great handle on this too (be glad to hear about it), from a website that reads fairly straight-forward and knowledge-full on this issue, Premier Offshore**, I got information that fits in with what I'd heard before about our lovely IRS: From their page on taxing of foreign income by different countries:
The only major nation that taxes its citizens (and green card holders) regardless of where they live is the United States. So long as you hold a U.S. passport or green card, the Internal Revenue Service wants its cut of your profits and capital gains.With the exception of the Philippines, I see we're in with a great crowd there!Some lists of countries that tax citizens and legal residents on their worldwide income include Libya, North Korea, Eritrea and the Philippines. The tax systems of these countries are not well developed and data is limited.The United States taxes all U.S. persons on their worldwide income. A U.S. person is a citizen, green card holder (who is a legal resident but not necessarily present in the United States), and residents. A resident is anyone who spends more than 183 days a year in the United States.
There's more to it, One can stay out of the US for 11 out of 12 months of a year (not on a monthly basis, but one must be away 330 days) and have ~ $102,000 excluded, which may suffice for lots of ex-pats.*** Failing that, one can obtain residency to avoid this same amount of money.
I'm no tax man or ex-pat advisor. My point here is that the IRS, as instructed by the US Congress, acts with an unmitigated gall that's not the norm throughout the world. They will not leave you alone unless you:
a) Renounce citizenship. It's not as simple as, say, getting a divorce in Islam-land, such as "I renounce thee, I renounce thee, I renounce thee!" One must pay an over $1,000 fee, and fill out paperwork.
OR
b) If you don't plan on ever coming back, it's a lot easier. Just leave no phone number or forwarding address and blow them off. Above all, don't let them sucker you into filling out that last line on the top of the 1040!
* I pull out the previous ones to see if I'm missing anything that will save me money, and more importantly, keep some money from flowing to the Feral Government.
** I just found this one with my duckduckgo search on this question. I am not fixing to move to S. America at this point in time or anything like that.
*** Don't confuse the >183 days (1/2 a year) in America - with the 330 days (as in < ~ one month in America). The former is for definition of a "resident", while the latter is about the exemption on that $102,000.
Comments (8)
Trump Fail
Posted On: Friday - July 17th 2020 9:01PM MST
In Topics: Trump US Feral Government
Before I get too far with this post, let me categorically state a few things: Yes, I will vote for Donald Trump in November, if I vote at all. Yes, Joe Biden would be a whole lot worse. Yes, President Trump is pissing off the kind of people that I'd like to piss off, as they are our enemies. That all said, this continuation of our disparagement of the President in yesterday's post is warranted. He has been a severe disappointment.
(Thanks. commenter Adam Smith for the meme suggestion.)
OK, this meme is perhaps too harsh. I can't really say that President Trump has been lying with his promises. As Elwood explained to his brother Joliet Jake*, "It wasn't a lie; it was just bullshit". Yes, Trump is a real bullshitter, an art that I guess he honed in his high-level real estate business. When a man doesn't keep his word, though his intentions may be good, do you call that a lie? Nah, but it just doesn't say much for him as a man.
Here's what I wanted to add to that last post: I realize that the President is not, and should not be, anything like a King, with absolute powers. It's good that he can't just do ANYTHING. What he IS supposed to be, however, is Administrator of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government**. Congress writes the laws that enable the powers of the various Departments, bureaus, and offices of the Executive Branch, tasking them with certain functions. How things are carried out within those functions are up to whoever runs things in each of these, with everyone eventually reporting to the President.
There are Federal judges all over the country ready to stop every little move by the Trump Administration, to be sure. They cannot directly block actions by the bureaucrats and other employees of the agencies of the Executive Branch though. By that, I mean legally, possibly they can, but practically they cannot. ICE, as is this example, can just keep on doing its job, with the details left to the employees and lower-level managers. There is nothing stopping President Trump from simply telling high-level managers that if this new visa policy doesn't get implemented, they will be fired. In turn, the middle and lower level people are motivated in the same fashion.
The revoking of foreign student visas for those enrolled in now-remote-learning universities is/was not some new law passed by Congress. It was just going to be the way the visa offices were to handle things now, based on this change in university policies. There are a myriad small decisions that have to be made within these agencies. Under the last I don't know how many Administrations, many asylum seekers, for instance, have been let into the country, from Africa, by way of Ecuador, then Mexico, or something, with any BS story about people hot on their heels ready to persecute them. That was not based on law, but based on men (and women), who operated based on the will of the Administration, all reporting up to the Chief Executive.
Many times, the Chief Executive, the President, that is, may not care about day-to-day bureaucratic decisions, or let the status quo continue. However, if he wants things to change, he has every right to administer it his way. The key word is "administer", and that means having people loyal to you at the top, and letting them know they won't be there long if the word doesn't get sent down, and changes don't start happening. Every single employee can be fired by the President, and that's no business of the US Congress!
The left knows how to handle these things. Even when laws do get passed to stop their policies, they seem to get the bureaucrats to just keep on keeping on in the direction they desire. Why can't our side do the same? Ignore the pesky Nancy Pelosies and the "rulings" by judges. Administer the Government. Unfortunately, we don't have an Administrator - we have a Bullshitter.
* Wow! The Blues Brothers movie is 40 years old. What a different world America was then! I can't find the scene on youtube, but the quotes are on the IMDB page.
Elwood : Well, what was I gonna do? Take away your only hope? Take away the very thing that kept you going in there? I took the liberty of bullshitting you, okay?
Jake : You lied to me.
Elwood : It wasn't a lie, it was just bullshit.
** Speaking of which, there are things he's NOT supposed to be, one of them being top "General" of the armed forces when there is no declared war ongoing. This Commander-in-Chief role is only supposed to be put on the President during a war declared by Congress. Maybe they wrote up an open-ended declaration of war, with the enemy and cause left "TBD" while we weren't paying attention.
Comments (18)
Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 6
Posted On: Friday - July 17th 2020 10:12AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
It's been a whopping 4 days since we at Peak Stupidity got upset enough about the Kung Flu (Season 2!) stupidity to write a Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic post. Here we go...
It really is sad, what you see in that picture. You don't have to be a out-of-control full-of-compassion women voter to feel bad for the kids. What kind of life is this for them? It's been 20 years since the helicopter parenting has been big, meaning kids just don't run outside to play with friends and get told to come back for dinner*. They've had to have their parents arrange "play-dates".
That's bad enough, but over the last 4 months, they've had to get their parents to lend them their phones or computers just to talk with friends or see them on zoom. That's no way to interact, just on a screen, not for months at a time! (We've been lucky enough to deal with some other parents that don't mind the kids all being out together ... no masks, no muss.)
Can you imagine what the little ones are thinking, though? If you are a 2 y/o toddler, you may have solid memories only going back 1/2 a year or so. You will think this is the way the world has always been. Adults don't show their noses and mouths in public, in the same way that they don't show their pee-pee's and ass-cracks... OK, well, some of them. If this goes on for, well what will it be, another year, two(?), what kind of impression of the world will this be?
The kid on the right below might have an obsession with not showing his face when he grows up. He may have the same dreams about leaving his face mask at home, you know, like those dreams where you go to the office and realize you forgot to put your pants and underwear on. (Usually it's just the pants, unless it's one of THOSE dreams... with Ivanka working in the same cube as me ... Jared is my reporting manager with his web cam... we've all probably had this one ...)
We went to an outside deck at the restaurant/bar nearby, so I could do a little training with a friend in a field we both work in. I and my boy went up the wooden stairs straight up to the deck, outside the whole time. "Oh, you have to wear a mask", the waiter said. "What? We're outside, and look, they don't have any masks on." "They" were 6 20-something people having a good time about 8 ft. away. "No, you don't need a mask here, but you have to come in through the inside, with a mask on." WTF?!
OK, I know part of this is about being carded, something they all feel obligated (more like, pressured by THE LAW) to do to anyone, no matter how old or young**. They want you to come through the door that would have the bouncer, were it not daytime in the COVID-19 era. "Yeah, well, we're already out here, so ..." I should have added "and I don't want to take a chance on my boy picking up the Kung Flu walking through the crowd", but I'm just not that quick on my feet. The guy let us just sit down.
Next, where's the friend? He thinks the same way as I do on this whole business (and really a whole lot of my co-workers do too, from my informal surveys). I was looking forward to some fun when he showed up! It turned out he was parked, down below the deck, ready to also go up the wooden stairs. "Hey, Joe, here's a mask! Put it on!" I yelled from up top, as I pulled out a balled-up face mask from my pocket and threw it down toward his car. It ended up on the asphalt, and, then the waiter told him to head around the front. He didn't want too much trouble so he came through the inside unscathed. What a country!
* There are lots of reasons for this that may or may not have been discussed in a previous post, but would be good for another.
** See "You need to know how to pick your battles."
Comments (16)
Amazing prescient Peak Stupidity prediction that Trump will renege on policy
Posted On: Thursday - July 16th 2020 11:27AM MST
In Topics: University Trump US Feral Government
(This one was from the last weeks's article by Federale, with the original good news.)
Yes, you heard it here first, readers, President Trump's promises are not to be trusted. This goes for almost every single one of them, even small pieces of immigration policy, as per the link to the story about yet another type of visa that leads to non-immigration visitor "students" staying here for good.
I'd really thought Peak Stupidity had already posted something about this, but I it must have been only in a blog comment on unz.com where I specifically mentioned the latest encouraging little tidbit, as reported by Federale at VDare, Trump To Expel 3000 Chinese Graduate Students For Espionage—Why Not ALL Chinese Students?. Yeah, the excellent idea was to at least use the Kung Flu re-Panic as an excuse to cut down on the Chinese student visa numbers. I mean, if you're going to be learning remotely on Zoom, you can learn just as well from China. What's the point in even being here, right?*
Though Federale noted that the anti-American Kushner crowd was already trying to soften this ICE policy, per:
Sadly, it appears that Jared Kushner and openly anti-Trump university lobbyists are working behind the scenes to soften the blow, instead of expelling all Red Chinese students and prohibiting all future students from Red China, only a select few will get the chop.... he was still ebullient about it, after noting the original NY Times article (written by one Ed Wong - no conflict of interest there! - and a Julian Barnes) admits this is all about the Benjamins for the U's:
American universities are expected to push back against the administration’s move. While international educational exchange is prized for its intellectual value, many schools also rely on full tuition payments from foreign students to help cover costs, especially the large group of students from China.Federale again:
But aside from the direct national security threat of Red Chinese spies, the more damaging threat is the American jobs Chinese students steal through Optional Practical Training, Curricular Practical Training, mass numbers of H-1B NIVs, employment visa fraud, and illegal employment, not to mention those who stay illegally after graduation.There's that ebullience for ya'. Those VDare guys and gals are nothing if not hopeful.
More than 3,000 Red Chinese need to be expelled, all 360,000 should be expelled. Imagine the fury of the pointy headed intellectualoids in the universities who all hate President Trump! Just for political reasons alone the President should order all Red Chinese deported. This will also cause a fury in Red China, undermining the implicit agreement between the Chinese and their Red government; the government gives the population prosperity and a chance to study in America in exchange for the tyranny and corruption, but if the Reds can’t deliver prosperity and a ticket to America, things get hot. But the best part is the financial impact on leftist universities losing hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition.
I was not at all very hopeful. In an unz comment 3 or so days back, I predicted with great confidence that President Trump would renege on this small, but worthwhile, step in immigration enforcement. Now, I know what you're thinking. How can Peak Stupidity have this much insight? How did we know that President Trump would change his mind within a week? Just to put to to rest the hope that this Peak Stupidity blogger is the 2nd coming of Nostradumbass, let me put it this way:
President Trump is full of shit most of the time! That doesn't even mean that he doesn't WANT to put this small ICE policy into effect. It means that he said that he would go this without having an idea of how you get things done as the damn head of the Executive Branch of the US Government! The employees of ICE work for Donald Trump, period, judges, rulings, and BS from Congress notwithstanding. I'm gonna elaborate on this in a 2nd post, but for now, let me point you to the let-down that was amazingly prognosticated by this blogger.
I just understand that President Trump's word is worth absolutely nothing. A man is as good as his word, so what does this say about Donald Trump?
VDare writer James Kirkpatrick, in a post about another subject, (OK, no more Polish jokes out of this guy - time for American jokes out of the Poles.), notes in passing:
Depressingly, in the face of Establishment opposition, the Trump Administration has just backed down from a policy that would have banned foreign students from receiving visas [A link follows to an article that I just don't even feel like reading. WTF is new?]There you go. Not a week later, the weak non-leader Trump has let us down again, even on just another small piece of what could have been encouraging policy.
No, it didn't have to go this way. Again, that's another rant for another post.
* We know the real reasons, a chance to live in a better environment, get the kids immersed in English in one of the good schools (you know, with the white and other Asian kids), and work on staying permanently.
Comments (5)
The new cruelest month and day
Posted On: Wednesday - July 15th 2020 9:18PM MST
In Topics: US Feral Government
Peak Stupidity noted the cruelest day of the cruelest month last April 15, the date by which income tax returns are normally due.
We really need a few new topic keys here, one being "Taxes", but the reader can find a number of posts on the income tax under the US Feral Government topic key for now. That post linked-to above was written last April 15th, as I inserted my tax return into the middle of the big pile of procrastinators. (I'm not a procrastinator on this, but I have my other reasons, as explained in Tax withholding and Leverage and Another reason to owe the IRS money.)
This evening has not become a lot of fun, as the 3-month extended time limit for filing the tax forms has run out today, and I had much better things to do the rest of the day. There's also the fact that some quick and surprising calculations done in late January resulted in the knowledge that I would be writing out a decent sized check this time. It's not that I don't have the money, but his is by far not my favorite way to spend money.
I don't let the IRS run my life, though either, so I'm just not that awfully concerned about getting this stuff in the mail exactly on even the new date. With all the other cancellations and postponements due to the overreaching Kung Flu response, this seems like another thing that people are probably not "getting around to" so much in 2020.
Trying to get a certain book or movie at the library? Sorry, COVID-19. Want to send the kids off to school? (WHY?!!) Sorry, COVID-19. Planning on taking a girl to dinner and movie? Sorry, COVID-19. All this business has rubbed off on me just a bit after 4 months. Income tax return due on July 15th? Sorry, COVID-19. I owe the IRS 2,100 dollas? Fuck me, pay you? No, fuck you, COVID-19!
Now, if I could only say this with the accent of one of the Goodfellas, or like Joe Pesci, at least:
Comments (6)
Peak Constitutional Amendment - XIX, Part 3
Posted On: Wednesday - July 15th 2020 8:39AM MST
In Topics: Female Stupidity Morning Constitutional
Continued from Amendment XI, Amendment XII, Amendment XIII, Amendment XIV, Amendment XV, Part 1 on Amendment XVI, Part 2 on Amendment XVI , Part 3 on Amendment XVI, Amendment XVII, Amendment XVIII, Part 1 on Amendment XIX, and Part 2 on Amendment XIX.)
OK, I'm not even thrilled about writing this anymore, but a morning Constitutional is always a good thing. (We've just got some recreational stuff to do today that I'm looking forward to more. It'll leave the madness behind for 1/2 a day, at least.)
Where we left off on the previous post was some discussion of big elections and the women's vote. No, we can't expect women to have the logic and principles that men are expected to exercise in attempting to steer society in the right direction via government. Sure, we fail at this too, often because others before us have failed to limit that government, and it comes to a choice between different evils.
The problem I see is that men do know that women are going to show mercy over justice and show compassion in the short term. These are two ideas that I promised to get back to in Part 1.
Regarding the latter, do you remember the deal with the washed up dead kid on the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea that, not quite started, but greatly exacerbated, the push for letting millions of "refugees" into southern Europe (and subsequently all over Europe) a few years back? There are loads of other examples I could give. The German Chancellor Merkel, maybe not due to any compassion of her own (not inherent in evil Commies), used this dead kid to invoke compassion in the German population to get these society-destroying young African men into Germany.
"Oh, that poor little dead kid!" How can one not feel sad upon seeing the pictures? However, as Peak Stupidity has written before, compassion + stupidity = evil. It's not that compassion is bad. This is just short-term compassion, though. Is it that the Conservative Germans (the men more likely) are not compassionate people? No, it's that they can think ahead. They have compassion for plenty of people. They care about the German people, including their own and others' children and grandchildren who will live in much worse of a society in the future due to the millions of foreigners being allowed in. They probably have some compassion even for those invaders, especially the little ones. They just may have the smarts to understand that if you discourage those dangerous sea voyages, they will quit being attempted. This is simple stuff, but only if one thinks rather than feels. We don't need that "my feelings" crap in the voting both.
Regarding the former point, women's preference for mercy over justice, this is the reason there is but one woman, Deborah (thanks, commenter Federalist!) to be found among the Kings and Judges in the Bible. The Old Testament has a lot about justice, but not much mercy at all! That comes in the New Testament, but Jesus does not tell us that justice is to be overruled by God's mercy. Even his "turn the other cheek" teaching has its limit. How much do you take from your enemies, before we've had enough? The number is 7 x 70. I think most of us have hit that magic 490 with the people who hate us. 491 is the point at which it's time to kick some ass!
Justice tempered with mercy is one thing, but there is no justice at all when mercy overrules it. Some women may only learn that when they or their children become victims.
It'd take numbers that I don't have on me right now to prove that the women's vote is what pushed the Socialism on this country over the century during which States have been forced to let women vote. However, once Socialism WAS implemented, starting in earnest in the 1930s with Roosevelt's Raw Deal and being ramped up greatly by the scumbag Lyndon Johnson, women have been the one to get the most out of it. Socialism, due to its incentives toward irresponsibility, have made it easy for women to depend on this alt-husband, the State, if things aren't going swimmingly with the first. They also allow women to let the State be 1st husbands to them and fathers to their children.
You can't run a Constitutional Republic like this, with large groups of people dependent enough on the governments to vote for free shit over principles. The women's role in this behavior is huge.
With a thank you to blogger Steve Sailer, and his many posts and mentions of the "marriage gap", I will note the following: Many polls have shown that married women vote pretty Conservatively. The influence of an actual husband can be big. I don't know the break-down between those married women with or without kids, but that could be a 2nd factor, that women with kids may realize that Big Government is not going to be a friend to their children.
Hell, it was just a really bad idea, and it's too bad that the men of 100 years ago let their wives and the activist harpies push and push them, until they figured "what the heck? I'm tired of suffaraging from this nagging. OK, here's your suffrage, bitches. Happy now?" If nothing else, why wasn't this issue just left to the various States? Peak Stupidity agrees with our #1 literary pundit Ann Coulter, who is against voting rights for women. Two thumbs down for Amendment XIX.
Comments (4)
Peak Constitutional Amendment - XIX, Part 2
Posted On: Tuesday - July 14th 2020 11:36AM MST
In Topics: Feminism Hildabeast Morning Constitutional
Continued from Amendment XI, Amendment XII, Amendment XIII, Amendment XIV, Amendment XV, Part 1 on Amendment XVI, Part 2 on Amendment XVI , Part 3 on Amendment XVI, Amendment XVII, Amendment XVIII, and Part 1 on Amendment XIX .)
Part 1 of our Amendment XIX discussion contained a few details on the history of Amendment XIX to the US Constitution and its proposal and ratification in 1919-1920, a century ago. In this post Peak Stupidity will explain why this one was another really bad idea.
I looked up some data on voting patterns during Presidential elections, such as that below from the Pew Research organization from exit polls.
I couldn't get but so far back a whole century (perhaps exit polling is a fairly recent thing), but this is opinion here, not a Sociology papers, and we feel our common sense is just as good as one of those. It's back to the I know what I know, if you know what I mean. meme. Here's what I know, if you know what I mean:
There is evolutionary psychology. It's an interesting subject, one that I had never even though about until reading comments on the internet a decade ago (now, there's some scholarly work!), but one that has to have some truth to it. Like most of evolutionary theory/hypotheses though, such as what could help in the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate, nobody seems to have any numbers.
There's no doubt that women and men are different creatures is more ways that just external features, and didn't the difference in mindsets come from our different roles in ancient history (hunters vs. gatherers, etc.)? One would think there would have to be an evolutionary element that persists in the present day, just as with race or the difference between the mindset of dogs and cats. You'll find this kind of thinking all over the internet comment threads when any mention of women's bad behavior is discussed. However, it's easy to explain almost ANY kind of behavior with evolutionary psychology - "yeah, they are like this, because the opposite behavior would have gotten them killed or reduced their chances of mating due to this .." You can come up with an EP explanation for about anything.
Presidential voting exit polls aside, we all know that women, as nurturers, have a different attitude about, say justice vs. mercy, and are supposedly more compassionate than men (more on both), etc. Then, there's the point that women use their feelings rather than logic or principles much of the time to make decisions. Speaking of polling data, though, the old story from the 1960 Nixon vs. Kennedy election, that those who saw the debate on TV (the beginnings of TV's involvement) favored Kennedy's having won the debate, while it was the opposite for those listening on radio. Is there any doubt that this would apply to women more than men. "Oh, he's so charismatic, that young JFK!"
Yeah, I know, one could say, what about the alt-right men's fixation with Tulsi Gabbard, early-on possibility for Blue-squad candidate, pretty much because she has a nice rear end?* What about Sarah Palin, VP candidate with John McCain in 2008**. When it comes down to it, though this may help visibility of a female candidate, men will vote more on logic than their feelings of lust, most of them knowing that their one secret ballot will not get them laid with a particular candidate. (Honking the horn when she's crossing the intersection is a better bet than that!) Geraldine Ferraro, the first female VP candidate, running mate to Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan, was no hottie at all. And then there's
Voting for the big cheeses on the TV debates is one thing, but all the local/State stuff is important too. For voting of all sorts, the problem comes in that the candidates will pander to the whims of the voters, rather than any Constitutional principles. We're going to continue on this topic tomorrow.
* There IS more to this, of course, as Miss Gaddard was one of the only of these politicians of either squad to come out strong against America's war-mongering around the world. They seemed to forget that she was a complete Socialist SJW type otherwise though.
** Sure, she had a nice rack. Was that the cause of her popularity? For me, it was simply that she was a real Conservative at heart, and about the only reason I might have voted for John McCain, hoping he'd kick it in the first few months.
Comments (3)
Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 5
Posted On: Monday - July 13th 2020 6:07PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Media Stupidity Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
It was supposed to be time for my next Morning Constitutional today, as I'd written on Saturday, but this latest piece of stupidity just threw me off my schedule. I've never been as pissed off about the Kung Flu panic-fest, even the first season, as I got from listening to just a 15 second snippet of the Infotainment this morning.
I'd thought that the amount of CNN penetration (yes, it's a kind of penetration) in the airport terminals had been decreased greatly over the last few years, due to both the fact that people are too busy on their phones to watch, and that many of the screens hanging down are used for displaying lists stand-by or 1st-class seating. Well, it's baaaackk! Perhaps due to the COVID, with still fewer people in the terminals (though increasing quickly), making it quieter, and different methods of seating people, CNN is around and penetrating their captive audience from behind. See, I moved far away from the screen to sit looking the other way for a few minutes, but the speakers are spread out to keep the sound loud enough to be difficult to get away from.
It was something like this: "Mr. Whomever, we have these new policies in place, but how many lives could have been saved if we'd done blah, blah, blah?" She brought up the over 135,000 number, of the people who are said to have died FROM(?) the COVID-19 over, what 4 months now. (Keep in mind that 700,000 or so Americans die in 4 months normally, and perhaps many of these people are dying a half-year earlier.) Mr. Whomever hemmed and hawed, and the the lady repeated this, like she was just outraged.
I'm sure the TV lady was outraged. With a lack of perspective* that might lead one to ponder "well, lots of people die of all sorts of things, and we donate to the Heart Association, we support medical science, there are safety people of all sorts in all industries working to prevent needless deaths, and we never talked about needless deaths during other flu seasons", sure, one might be outraged. Do talking heads go on and debate or berate the "black community" for continuing to serve and eat the most heart-unhealthy foods in the country? How many needless deaths have there been? Do talking heads freak out about the slow progress in cancer treatments or how many people visit tanning beds? How about diatribes and big loud discussions about diabetes, or high blood pressure? More people still die from these causes than the Kung Flu, here in the middle of this "pandemic".
The line between stupidity and evil is not always easy to determine. I lean very much toward the side of stupidity when it comes to the journalism "profession", though, from experience. These people are very, very stupid. This outrage was likely real, due to the woman's complete lack of perspective and the constant hype she's been receiving from her whole Infotainment world that she lives in.
It's very unfortunate that many Americans subject themselves to this idiocy from the Government Media Department. The reason I got so outraged myself today, is that I've really never heard any of this stuff off of the TV, as I simply haven't watched for 20 years. I tried to stay away from it, but it got me today, if only for those 15 seconds. It took that much time to realize what bullshit I was hearing and get out of range.
When I got to a part of my job that requires the wearing of a mask since this re-Panic, I refused to wear it. I'd just had it, and I'm just glad nobody confronted me about it. Keep yourself away from the TV as much as possible, readers, it's a non-silent killer ... of intelligence.
* See also "Perspective vs. Hysteria"
Comments (10)
Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 4
Posted On: Saturday - July 11th 2020 7:19PM MST
In Topics: Humor Female Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
Peak Stupidity
What are strippers supposed to do during this pandemic? This is not something that I need feedback on right now, mind you. No one in our family is employed or associated with the stripping, errr, exotic dancing, errr, industry, luckily, but, yes, I've been a customer long ago. It was a different time, you understand ... There were, and probably still are, some weird-ass rules created by local and State governments to regulate the industry.
See, in this one particular place where the girls were very decent looking, at least under the low luminosity in there (I guess they were simply watching their carbon footprints), the girls could take it all off. But, and this is a big butt, unlike those in the establishment, they could not sell you beer. They charged a few bucks to get in, and then the ladies get tips. Some State legislator worked out the logic of this, probably while at a different club that did sell him beer. It makes sense: if they take off all their clothes, you have to go across the street to the grocery store and buy your own beer. If they leave something on, I'm not sure what exactly, then, the establishment can sell beer, well, they will pretty much demand you buy it. No, really, it doesn't make any sense, but it worked out great. Beer at the store was $3/6-pack then, versus $5 each at the other places. The girls got naked.
The 2nd time we went to this club, we were told we needed shirts with collars to get in. We had T-shirts on, which obviously do not fit in with the girls with tiny bikinis or nothing on. No, this one had us stumped too, but the bouncer must have understood the logic behind the rule. We didn't get in there.
With the laws on Social Distancing, what is the protocol now? Must they wear masks even when they take their bikini tops and bottoms off? In that case, will we now save a trip to the grocery store, but be coerced by a big guy to "buy a freaking beer or get out!". I mean, if they have a piece of clothing on, the mask that is. For some of the strip joints, maybe the masks on the girl's faces would be a plus for all involved, oh, and stymie the Kung Flu pandemic too.
Can one really get a good lap dance from 6 ft. away? (Well, some of us can!) Perhaps the
Well, Peak Stupidity will have to speculate for now, as we've heard absolutely NOTHING out of the CDC or Dr. Fauci about this. We have zero guidance or policy recommendation regarding Stripper Social Distancing. I don't know what
Comments (8)
Peak Constitutional Amendment - XIX, Part 1
Posted On: Saturday - July 11th 2020 7:06AM MST
In Topics: Feminism Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Morning Constitutional
(Continued from Amendment XI, Amendment XII, Amendment XIII, Amendment XIV, Amendment XV, Part 1 on Amendment XVI, Part 2 on Amendment XVI , Part 3 on Amendment XVI, Amendment XVII, and Amendment XVIII .)
It's been a month and a half since Peak Stupidity's last Morning Constitutional, so we've got a lot to get out of our system here. For today's post seeking the peak of the series of 27 US Constitutional Amendments, there won't need to be much legal discussion other than our stating that here was yet another gift of power from the States to the Federal government. The rest will be purely opinion, opinion that this site has steeped in since we started our Feminism Topic Key in the 3rd month of our blog.
Yes, you can read it above and weep, or here in blockquotes, if there is some problem reading the graphic:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.Peak Stupidity doesn't usually have great timing with some of our "it was a hundred years ago today, when Socialists took the freedom away" post (sorry for the terrible Sergeant Pepper reference!). However, in this case, let's just reflect on the fact that it was just over a year and a month ago last century that Amendment XIX was proposed* by Congress. In this case, as with possibly all of the Amendments, it was via using method 1 for the proposal and method 1 for ratification**. That ratification occurred on August 18th of 1920. Should we post something that day in remembrance? It would not likely be pretty.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
To start off with, yes, Amendment XIX was another transfer of power to the Federal government, and another involved with the States' voting process, after Amendment XV. I hadn't mentioned in the A-XV post, but interestingly, these two do not specify that this voting law is only for Federal elections either. This makes it a power giveaway in two ways, getting into how State operations work along with the Federal election process. I don't like either one.
After all, looking back at it on Wiki, there were a number of States that had allowed women to vote well back before the proposal of Amendment XIX. The sordid history of this idea goes way back before 1920, at least 70 years for serious efforts, protests, and the like by the kind of women that appear on those dollar coins you occasionally get out of the Coke machine and are often confused with Chuckie Cheese money. This history is in that Wiki link just above, but this post can't cover all this stuff. (It's supposed to end up a polemic, dammit!)
Well, I LUV LUV LUV maps, after all, and this map from the Wiki link shows us which States were really conservative and which were not, in the year 1920, at least on this critical issue:
Because the legend didn't come with the picture, you may look on the Wiki page, but let me add it here:
Dark Blue - Full suffrage
Medium Blue - Presidential suffrage (vote only for President)
Light Blue - Primary suffrage (vote only in Primary elections) My note here: Would this not be more a political party matter than a government matter at all?
Very Light Blue/White - Municipal suffrage (vote only in city elections)
Tan - School, Bond, or Tax suffrage
Orange - Municipal suffrage in some cities
Reddish Orange - Primary suffrage in some cities
Red - No suffrage (Hmmm, why this color scheme?)
The Deep South was by far the most conservative, which one would expect, but the Eastern Seaboard in general had the lid on things, other than, of course, New York. Look at the West though. Was it the pioneer spirit and pioneer women being not so much a problem? I don't know, but it'd be a good subject for a Steve Sailor or Audacious Epigone post. (For the latter, we can't promise a bar graph!)
The geographic differences aside, suffice it to say that this issue could have been left up to the States. That's not because "it was going to happen anyway", but because they seemed to have a handle on what they wanted, and well, if voting was that big a deal to you as a women, you could move West, young spinster, or, yeah, New York. From what I'll write more about, I really can't see that this would be a big factor in where an American woman would have wanted to live and any big deal in their lives. It was those agitators that take up the large history section of the Wiki post that spend a century ramming this stuff through, and ramming America in the ass in the process.
As with a lot of history, some small beginnings happened way before anyone though very much about it, and the "Interactive" Constitution Center comes through with a humorous bit on its Interpretation page:
Alas, New Jersey’s early experiment with women’s suffrage didn’t last. After a few hotly contested elections in which rampant voter fraud was alleged, there were calls to tighten voter qualifications. In 1807, amid allegations that men dressed as women had been going to the polls to cast a second ballot, the right of women to vote in New Jersey was withdrawn. If there was much opposition to this act of disfranchisement, history has failed to record it.It sounds like a scene out of Monty Python!
Per the reasonably unbiased C-center interpretation - till the last 2 paragraphs, that is - the continual efforts for women's voting rights were put on the back burner during the lead-up to the War Between the States, the war itself, and then into Reconstruction. By the early 1870s, things cranked up again, in a long push toward 1919.
As for ratification, it was no easy win. (That doesn't mean they would not have tried, tried again, as it always goes now - there is usually no compromising or settlement. When the left/authoritarians push for something, they are never accepting of a no vote.) Tennessee was the last State to ratify Amendment XIX. From the same page:
Ratification was nevertheless hard fought. Tennessee was the state that put the Amendment over the top in a 49-47 nail-biter vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives. The decisive vote was cast by 24-year old Harry Burn, who had intended to vote against, until he received his mother’s letter urging him to “be a good boy” and vote for ratification.That's how it ends, not with a bang, but with some young kid listening to his mother. Too bad his mother was not named Ann Coulter, as things may have turned out differently for us. More to explain that one, and our whole polemic, for that matter, are going to have to appear on a Part 2 post, Monday morning. It's something to look forward to, right?
* The Constitution Center site drops the ball on this with the use of "passed" instead of "proposed". I understand that they mean that the proposed Amendment was passed, as in voted "yea" on, by the required 2/3 of both Houses of Congress. It would be confusing to the laymen, those not Constitutional Scholars such as a couple of people left in the country, including Øb☭ma, supposedly.
** See, I don't think we've ever gone over this, so straight from the document itself (Article V), here are the rules for creating Amendments. The language is not of the style we use today, but one can make out easily that there are 2 processes available for proposal of Amendments and 2 for ratification:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.Were any of the Amendments proposed and/or ratified with the alternate methods? I don't think so. Holding conventions on the Constitution could have been dangerous things, and Americans are only prone to convene for sportsball and Trump rallies so far.
Comments (3)
What's GNU in the open-source world?
Posted On: Thursday - July 9th 2020 7:58PM MST
In Topics: Artificial Stupidity The Future iEspionage
Maybe it's just me, but has it been a while since the good people of the open-source GNU world have been influencing the software world? The big project to write an open-source operating system originally compatible but separate from unix (GNU's Not Unix is what it stands for, recursively, a geek joke), became a whole world of software that was available to be used and modified by anyone.
I don't remember the original gnu animal that must have appeared on the cover of a book, but the aardvarks, llamas, horses, and owls that appear(ed*) on the O'Reilly series of books have got to bring back good memories to anyone who is not some kind of Bill Gates/Windows freak.
This open-source software deal was something that I initially frowned upon ever-so-slightly, as a Libertarian: "What is this, software Socialism?" However, seeing the monopoly that Microsoft had arranged for themselves and how much more geek-friendly the unix world was, changed my mind about this. After all, business could still be done and plenty of money made, WITH the software.
The GNU world was truly an all-American ideal back in the day, say the year 2000, no matter that people from around the world could participate. The volunteerism by 100's of thousands (I'm guessing) programmers and developers and the creation of all these software tools that were beyond the reach of monopolies and government was a splendid idea. Particularly important was that government or other nefarious organizations could not use espionage or sabotage to screw with users of the software. If you weren't the type who could look deep into the code yourself to know what was at the bottom of it, you could pay someone to check it out. More likely, were someone to bring up a concern, a hundred geeks would get involved and argue it out. These people are (were) nothing if not honest about their work - they had to be with it all visible - and proud to be flouting any government involvement.
I had a thought a month back about what happened to the GNU/open-source world. Is it still something like it once was? With the programming world even in the US being taken over by H-1B .Indians and Chinese coders, is there any volunteerism still around? I'm not involved at all, so I wouldn't know.
Well, just a day or two after I thought about this, someone in a comment thread on unz mentioned the open-source smart phones, such as this Pine Phone here:
I guess I really don't keep up, as I wasn't thinking "phones", but it'd be great if one could trust the software on these things, with iEspionage being so easy to accomplish nowadays. One (OK, thousands) could look for back doors build-in for the NSA or the Chinese Government. It's also nice that one can get away from Apple's control-freak mentality. Samsung's got Google involved in all their shit, too.
What about the hardware, though? See, back when the open-source software was run on the PC's, those PC's were simple enough that I don't think there was much anyone could do to spy on you. More importantly, before 1997 or so, most were not networked, so what happened on your computer stayed on your computer, if that's what you wanted.
Now, with the tremendous power in those chips on the smart phones, one can't help but wonder if it's even possible to stop an entity from building an undetectable back door for spying. These devices are communication devices in so many ways now, so you know they have ways of sending that all back home. Can the software even know what the hardware (or firmware) is up to?
I'd still not be so confident that open-source phones are truly under our control. From the Pine Phone site, on a page about the timetable for shipping these phones, I read this:
Finally I wish to briefly discuss future PinePhone production-runs. We will actively monitor and evaluate software development progress over the Chinese New Year period. This period is quite vital to furthering progress as partner-project developers will shortly have an entire dedicated audience of contributors and testers to work with. Admittedly we expect a lot of progress to be made in the coming two months thanks to community contributions. We have previously stated that larger scale production of PinePhones is scheduled for March 2020, ...OK, I see. A lot of development is going on in China, so it sounds like this is just going to be the same-old/same-old security-wise. Too bad. I was not really knowledgeable enough to be a participant, but I sure miss the GNU world of 2 decades ago.
* Holy Alpaca, they've got 1248 animals! Shouldn't it be limited to 1024 or something?
Comments (11)
Big Trouble in Big China
Posted On: Wednesday - July 8th 2020 9:06PM MST
In Topics: China
Yeah, the title* is from some
Just over a week ago, Peak Stupidity posted something on the flooding going on in China - see More Damn Quality Problems in China about the huge Three Gorges Dam. It's not the catastrophe that some news articles are advertising (yeah, fake news is world wide), but the flooding is just so widespread. Agriculture will suffer, from what my China source discussed with me.
From my China source, I heard that there is a lot going wrong in China, and these are medium/long term things too. This is not even about the Kung Flu, for which the Chinese response is widely touted by Totalitarians as "the way to do this". They may indeed suffer more from the Kung Flu, but not the disease so much, but the Chinese governments' responses. Again, what's new?
It can't be argued that China hasn't gone through an amazing economic transformation over 45 years, but mostly over about 20-25 years. Whether you want to call it an "economic miracle" or give credit to the American elites that gave away metric shit-tons of manufacturing capability, along with the Chinese policy of subsidizing exports is up to you. Peak Stupidity has seen first-hand, and touted, the amazing work that has been done, and is being done, on the infrastructure in the Middle Kingdom - see A Peak Stupidity apology to our Chinese readers, for example. As we stated in that post, Peak Stupidity will call out the bad along with the good.
A lot of big changes and long-term government policy is coming to a head there. The one-child policy** that was put in place after Mao died (not arguing over it right here, mind you) has changed the demographics drastically. The cheap, but smart and hardworking, labor force that made China THE place to manufacture anything is gone. They are still smart, probably not quite as hardworking, but definitely fewer now. It's been over 40 years since this drastic change, meaning for under 40 year-old workers the supply is much lower now. It's the young that can work those 300-hour months far away from their families. I'd heard about businesses moving their manufacturing facilities, at least, to Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc., but per my source this out-sourcing is big now.
The Chinese government has been subsidizing companies that export goods in a more direct way than what I've reported regarding their pegging the Yuan to the Dollar. My source says that they've been basically reimbursing most of other country's import tariffs. I really wondered know why they can't let the economy just operate self-sufficiently, with Chinese producing goods for their own consumption. There are still hundreds of millions of poor farmers, though, that still can't buy much on $1,000 a year or some such money. Additionally, as I have written (somewhere on this blog, I think) that much of the middle-class in China is still not living nearly as large as the lower middle-class here. They do travel around the world, as we noted, and they send kids to America to go to the Universities, but still a million here and a few million others there, are a still a small fraction. Even then, Chinese people scrimp and save to do these things.
Inflation has been significant in China, as we noted in A porcine crisis in China. Inflation is our biggest export, since the Chinese Government keeps the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Yuan fairly constant. If the Dollar become worth less, than the Yuan will follow.
Besides all these real economic problems, most of the Chinese people, at least the young ones, have let their government convince them that going cashless for convenience is the way to go. The payments via smart-phone are growing rapidly, and many establishments don't take cash or even cards for payment. This is the Chinese expressway to Revelation 13:16.
Peak Stupidity has already had a 2-Part series of posts, "Dashed high-hopes for China" (Part 1 and Part 2) in which we discussed our disappointment about any chance of China becoming a new beacon of freedom in the world. It includes more examples and some personal anecdotes to elaborate on this portion of the troubles in Big China.
We will admit that, yes, at least the Chinese government cares enough about Chinamen to not be actively trying to replace them. That's not enough though. If the reader can suspend his disbelief here, per my source, the Chinese Central Government is more nefarious than the Feral Gov. here. There is just so much that they get their dirty hands into, screwing up business and the lives of the people. Yeah, the people involved like the Chinese people, but they like themselves more.
Marks of the Beast, floods, inflation, loss of livelihood, totalitarian epidemic responses, shoot, what else is coming to the Middle Kingdom? This is why I wrote in that Independence Day post, that we're still better off here, for now. In America, patriots may not all know it, but we are still in a lot better position to fight back than the Chinese population is. We need to give it a go.***
* Just for fun, we have another post called Little joke in Big China... I think it was the Strayins!
** In rural areas the policy was that parents could have 2 kids if the 1st was a girl. In rural areas, many Chinese do whatever TF they want anyway. They don't have much to lose, still, many of them.
Also, the policy was changed to 2-children in '15, but has been completely rescinded in some big cities.
*** I do tend to go back and forth on this.
Comments (3)
Scenes from the Kung Flu Summer re-Panic - Part 3
Posted On: Wednesday - July 8th 2020 7:15PM MST
In Topics: Humor Curmudgeonry Kung Flu Stupidity
This and the next post on this re-Panic are just about the masks. I guess one could call it a trivial issue, but when one looks around, it all seems so sick. Our society is sick OF the COVID-19.
This post is about a handyman, a guy who can do all kind of residential jobs. We'll call him George. Well, George has done a lot of work for a friend of mine. He can be sometimes hard to get along with, from what I've heard from another friend, but he does good solid work with albeit irregular hours. When he's working, you leave him alone then.
My friend was out of town while this guy was continuing a bathroom project. "Hey, I need you to do me a favor, and bring George a face mask." "Sure, we've got plenty." Some of us are kind of worried at our house, so we have quite a number of them. I just occasionally use the one or two that are normally balled up in the pocket of my blue jeans, if there's no way out, "Put your mask over your face." "No, you didn't say 'Fauci says!'" "Alright, dammit, Fauci says 'put your mask over your face."
I pulled out a fresh 3 of them just for George. See, he'd tried to go to the tile store, and they wouldn't let him in. Haha, my friend should have known. Knowing the guy he is, I would have figured he'd been ignoring all the BS. Still, that store is more hard-core than you'd think a building supply store ought to be, but maybe it was the tiles, and the women in there...
Anyway, it was a good excuse for a bike ride, and I brought the 3 and we both bitched about the whole thing. I thought about this much later - why couldn't he have worn one of the dusk masks shown above? Oh, because he doesn't wear any of that stuff either. I gotta say that I'll go without the eye, mouth, and ear protection when using the chainsaw even, as I think you want all your senses keen when near a dangerous tool like that. What surprises me is that I can still hear fine after using a Skil saw for years with no hearing protection. Those things scream!
There was a negligible amount of money and time involved in supplying George and keeping the job going, plus I could see how he was doing on this job. On the way home I thought about this too. Could he not have gone by the drugstore on the way? No, because, that's right, they wouldn't have let him in! What a scene that would be:
"Sir, you can't come in here like that!"
"What, I've got my shoes on."
"No, we require wearing of face masks by all customers."
"Oh, yeah, well that's what I'm coming in here to get, so I'll have one."
"OK, but, Sir, you can't come in here like that."
"How can I buy a face mask if you won't let me in."
"We'll be glad to let you in to buy a face mask. You just have to wear a face mask to enter the store."
"But, if you don't let me in ... aaah, shit ... that's some catch, that Catch-19."
"It's the best there is."
Comments (12)
Newsboys / Collective Soul - Shine
Posted On: Tuesday - July 7th 2020 8:11PM MST
In Topics: Music Bible/Religion
Things got pretty hectic for a couple of days, Peak Stupidity readers. Now, since before Independence Day, it's been almost enough time to where I'm losing the number of ideas for posts out of my head. Most will come back, and others I've saved pictures for to remind me (oh, on a slip of paper, you say? Yeah, I keep losing those.)
We'll get back to business tomorrow, but for today, this one song came out of one rabbit hole I was going down on youtube recently. I had to wait to be sure this was the Christian Rock song I remember from long ago or not until the chorus, which is pretty nice. This is not to be confused with the same-named song by the band Collective Soul, whom we've featured twice with December and Smashing Young Man.
This one brings back some good memories, somewhat related to the latest youtube comment for the video shown here.
Any other evangelicals who remember sitting in the back of their parents minivan listening to this as a kid?That almost hit the nail on the head, but it wasn't exactly like that. I'll not put anymore details here for the usual reasons.
Besides a great tune, this song has got some great lyrics too, now that I just read them all:
Out of the shaker and onto the plate.I read up on Shine by The Newsboys and noted that this song is from way back in 1994. It was almost a decade later that I refer to with this memory. I heard some good Christian rock in the early/mid '00s, but I still maintain that it's not fit to be good church music, at least not during the service.
It isn't karma it sure ain't fate,
that would make a deadhead sell his van,
that would make a schizophrenic turn in his crayons.
Shine.I'd like to get more into this way of thinking/feeling, but do I just ignore everything that's going on in the country and the world? That seems the only way to have this kind of attitude and shine as in the song. If we all do, then doesn't the world go to hell, not allowing anyone to shine any longer?
Make 'em wonder whatcha got.
Make 'em wish that they were not
on the outside looking bored.
Shine.
Let it shine before all men.
Let em see good works and then
let em glorify the Lord.
OK, enough of that ... if you've got the Collective Soul song in your head, here's their song, likely more commonly known by "Whoa-oh-oh-oh, heaven, let your light shine down":
No comments - Click here to start thread
Them US Blues - 2020
Posted On: Saturday - July 4th 2020 11:10AM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead Americans US Feral Government Holiday from Stupidity
As is now a Peak Stupidity Independence Day tradition, we're posting The Dead's classic US Blues, same as last year, in '18, and in '17.
Son of a gun, better change your act.
We're all confused. What's to lose?
You can call this song "The United States Blues".
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my.
Though I'm sure some commenters (and you know who you are) could give me a date/venue of a better version, this one is from 2 weeks before the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Indpendence's signing by those courageous Founding Fathers. I do remember these times, though had never heard of The Grateful Dead yet* (unfortunately). I just figured this time, half a century minus half a decade minus one year** later, might be a good one to reflect on. (I can't go back 50 years as the song was from 1974.) BTW, the band had already been playing 11 years together by the time of this show.
How many more 4th of July's will have ANY sort of celebration? I don't think very many. We are not grilling out, but will shoot off some fireworks with friends (they've been burning a hole under the bed for 1/2 a years, though not literally.)
I can still be glad that I live in America, but that's now based more on the fact that "we got no place else to go!"*** You'd have heard a slightly different story from me even 15 years ago and a drastically different one 25 years back. That is not just age and experience talking, but look at this place. I guess it's up to us - a more complicated situation than the Founding Fathers had to deal with, but that causes both pros and cons for us.
Also, now, just as a comparison, there is lots of widespread bad news out of China. My Chinese source has lots of information that makes me think our situation here is not nearly the worst thing going on in even the "developed" world right now. I'll start posting on that after the weekend.
Enjoy Independence Day. It's a good time for reflection, but just as much about the near future now as our illustrious past.
* I did not understand what the term "acid rock" was exactly referring to either. Just from context, I'd assumed it meant very caustic guitar sounds, something I was not ready for at that age - still more of an ABBA, Neil Diamond, and Gerry Rafferty type. (Hell, I still am.)
Therefore, I was quite surprised to hear the sound of Alabama Getaway on Saturday Night Live, my first time ever listening to this band. It was nothing like I expected.
** Do I sound like Abraham Lincoln here? Sorry 'bout that.
*** In the words of Officer Candidate Mayo, from An Officer and a Gentleman, in case you were wondering where you remember that from - with a picture accompanying our post Toward Sustainable Stupidity. (Nominated but not the winner of "Peak Stupidity Best Supporting Post Title")
***********************************
[UPDATED -7/11/20!] Wow, it said 2019 in the title for one full week! What the heck? You people are too nice to say anything. Fixed.
***********************************
Comments (13)