Lazy, not stupid

We here at peak stupid are "lazy, not stupid". That is why we haven't posted
for a while. While we get our act together, here is a quote to ponder:

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction." -Blaise Pascal

Obamessiah runs for president

“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos' National Football League team plays.
Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington's Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.”
-- Reuters, Aug. 26, 2008

Politically Correct inversely proportional to intelligence.

A major new study of the political correctness of faculty members may challenge assumptions all around.

If you look at the actual figures it turns out -suprise suprise- that the most PC professors are in the most degraded parts of academe: Sociology, English, and the humanities generally.

Barbara Boxer

Barbara Boxer may be a new source of stupidity.

George Monbiot

Britain has excellent sources of stupid:

George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist and predictor of the world’s end, has undergone a metamorphosis of Kafkaesque proportions in recent years. Never mind poor Gregor Samsa, who awoke one morning to find himself transmogrified into a monstrous insect; Monbiot has made an even more remarkable cross-species leap. Some time during the past five years he went to bed an hysteric, the closest thing Britain had to a nutty Nostradamus, and awoke to find himself labelled a man of reason, a ‘defender of truth’ no less, who is praised on the dust-jacket of his latest book for possessing a ‘dazzling command of science’ (only by Naomi Klein, admittedly, but still).

New Non Scientific Alliance Against Logic

Art imitates life:

Three environmental pressure groups, 'The Soiled Association', 'Purplepeace' and 'Fiends of the Globe' have formed an association against those demons of the modern world, The Royal Institution, The Royal Society and The Institute of Biology.

Its funny because its true.

Biofuels

One of the stupidest ideas in the long, sad, sorry history of stupid:

Growing crops for oil was supposed to solve global warming. Now, as food prices soar, biofuels stand condemned as a crime against humanity. Christopher Booker and Richard North report.

With photosynthesis running at an efficiency of 1 to 3%, what did they expect?

Kayak to the North Pole

LONDON (AFP) - A British explorer unveiled plans Tuesday to kayak all the way to the North Pole to expose just how quickly the ice cap is melting.

Well, if there is one thing we need, its more awareness raising for global warming. I mean there must be at least one or two people who have not had this drummed into them yet.

Here is a crazy idea. Instead of doing more "awareness raising" how about inventing some new energy source/energy saving device/mode of transport/something/anything!

Traditional Stupid

While academia, the media and various other groups in society are producing new and inovative forms of stupid, let us not forget more traditional stupidities.

We here at Peak Stupid have long marveled at thos who think that bits of rock and gas millions of kilometers away effect our finances and love lives. We are refering, of course to Astrology.

Catherine Deveny

Age journalist Catherine Deveny is glad that Australians are suffering:

AM I the only person terrified by everything getting so big?

Yes.

Is anyone else feeling that the bigger things get, the more soulless they are becoming?

No.

Mega-meal deals devoid of nutrition complete with a stuffed cheese crust, chocolate Bavarian and 1.25 litres of fizzy emptiness to wash it down.

We, here at PeakStupid like to enjoy these things occasionally. Deveny, howevery, dosn't like our personal choices. But enough of our take. Here is what James Lileks has to say about Deveny:

There’s so much twaddle in that piece it’s hard to know where to start – it’s like a bucket of depression larger than a human head, flavoured not with reason but panic-flavored fear-sauce – but there is one telling line:

“Abundance takes the value from everything.”

Ingratitude takes the value out of everything. I can easily imagine the columnist complaining about the abundance of a civilized frippery like toilet paper, and wishing we could go back to corn cobs, which would get us back in touch with nature. Literally. If you needed any benchmarks about what the apogee of comfort looks like, there you are: a newspaper columnist paid to worry about the size of other people’s popcorn purchases.

Hold on: after reading more, I discovered that she does complain about bulk toilet-paper purchases, which one can obtain at that imported American horror, Costco. I belong to Costco; I go there a few times a year. I like it. I like any store where you can buy a 48-pack of shaving razors, a piano, and lettuce. She says: “it encourages a mentality of fear, famine and greed.” Well, at the 1930s Soviet Inner Party Costco, yes, but ours is rather cheerful. She says:

“It encourages people to consume more than they need. Eat three chocolate bars for the price of one. I’ve opened that kilogram bag of chips, so I may as well polish it off.”

Speak for yourself, ma’am.

“Because it’s cheap people feel they’re getting value for money. They’re not. It just means they’re eating more, spending more and feeling emptier. Instead of going to the local supermarket to buy what they need, they’re driving kilometres, taking 20 minutes to park and buying stuff they don’t need, because it’s cheap. And it’s there.”

I can’t speak for Australia and its parking lots so wee it takes a third of an hour to find a spot; around here I find a spot in 30 seconds. But I will admit that I drive actual kilometres, or miles as we Yanks call them, to get there. But why do I go where, when the local supermarket has what I need? ecause it doesn’t, or because it costs too much.

Because Costco sells large deli trays for the party we’re having, printer ink at low prices, great barrels of gummi vitamins the kid likes at half the price, and great bolshy bags of dog food I can store in the basement so I don’t have to walk to the common market and buy a half-pound bag every other day.

I know she would prefer that I slump to the People’s Distribution node every afternoon wearing sandals made out of old tires and walk home with a farking bag of Purina on my head and two hemp sacks of produce nurtured in night soil strung around each shoulder, but that sort of rich, community-building, soul-enriching experience is usually reserved for people who have to pause on the way home because a soldier butted their ear with a rifle butt for sneezing in front of a picture of Mugabe, and it still hurts.

Deveny is essentially a sanctimonious blowhard who presumes to know whats best for the common man (and woman).

Stupid Police

The toxin of political correctness has created a new source of stupidity in Britains police. Reports the Sunday Times:

Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes
of Muslims so as not to cause offence.

Naturally, we regard political correctness as a vast, indeed, almost inexhausible source of stupid.

Climate stupidity

Here in Australia, we have just had the release of the "Garnaut report", urging Australia to commit economic suicide to prevent global warming. The proposal will cause economic pain and will make no difference to climate. This represents a new and innovative form of stupid.

Hypersensitivity

Why is it that some people hyperventilate over something so trivial:

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a
Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from
Muslims.

stupid business ideas

Convenient New Easter Egg Service Now Available

Stupid Government

The Stupid BBC reports that:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to
invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

You know that a country is turning stupid when such an event can provoke such a reaction.

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained
to the Swedish Parliament.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. Anyone else think Sweden is finished?

"brainstorming" replaced it with "thought showers"

A british council has banned the word brainstorming, reports the telegraph:

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent was accused of taking political
correctness to extremes after instructing staff to make the change.

The move came as council chiefs feared the word brainstorming might offend
mentally ill people and those with epilepsy.

Never mind that no-one actually thought that the term was offensive. The council, no doubt thought that the idea was doubleplusgood.

Beyond stupid

Can anyone make sense of this?

Stupid Journalists

The Age's Catherine Deveny is another renewable source of stupid. The defamer gives us insights into this woman's subtle ability with words:

The Footy Show is a celebration of the very worst that television, sport, Australia and human beings can cook up. It's offensive, toxic, corrosive, encouraging viewers to be stupid, shallow and sexist. Sit down, shut up and hang on. And ladies, bring a plate.

Such outbursts would cause an attack of hives or the vapours from anyone with lessers powers of stupid. All hail Catherine!

Stupid Congress

Our congressional representatives are a virtually inexhaustible source of stupid. Take Maxine Waters and her threat to nationalize the oil industry. Russians learned the hard way that this sort of thing doesn't work. They had shortages of everything except queues to stand in. The youtube video is here.

What is Peak Stupid?

Is stupidity a finite resource? No less a genius than Albert Einstein thought not. For decades, miserablists have been predicting that we are reaching peak production of stupidity. Have we, indeed reaked Peak Stupid? At peakstupid.blogspot.com, we have a more optimistic outlook. New sources of stupidity are being found all the time. There are vast untapped reserves in government, academia, and the media.

We at peakstupid.blogspot.com hope to discover new and innovative sources of this amusing resource. Help us to show the miserablists wrong. Give us your stupid news, your stupid ideas and especially your stupid money. Let's overcome Peak Stupid.