Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Trouble with Virgins

California:  Throughout history civilizations around the globe thought it essential to sacrifice virgins for one reason or another.  Now?  A self-proclaimed virgin and non-proclaimed psycho in California puts a new spin on tradition during his murderous turn-the-tables rampage.  A male virgin yet!  My, how times have changed.  Who knew?  Thing is, dude, you killed, you injured, you videoed, you turned out a manifesto, you psyched out -- and you still went out in a blaze of virginity. Elliot Rodger's problems with women may have been less about women and more about some hidden malevolent gay component and/or the man he thought he should be, but couldn't satisfy with any amount of money -- and this guy was apparently awash in funds and privilege. Not to mention material things such as an expensive car and sunglasses, which he assumed were female attractants, like something one buys in a tackle shop to bait a fishhook.  Women's intuition, however, would probably have seen this pampered little twerp's faults and danger a mile away. One suspects a major issue was -- and I'll coin this word here and now, if you don't mind, all rights reserved -- disturbation.  (Are you listening, Charlie Fort?)

But putting that aside, my first thought was, how many "professionals" and what kinds of drugs was this guy exposed to along the way?  Supposedly, he wasn’t taking prescribed medications recently, but what about years past?  He had been "in counseling," since the age of eight or nine, news reports advised.  Yeah?  Well, that did a lot of good, didn't it?  Aren't a few refunds in order?   Revelations about professional attempts at procuring good mental health will most assuredly not be of much comfort for victims' families.  Perhaps mental hospitals should become as common as fast-food establishments (the caveat being that progressives will unfairly attempt to fill institution treatment wings with conservatives, of course).  Is there a lesson here?  Yes -- don't tell every kid he or she is special and don't give everybody a trophy at children's sporting events.  Rodger seems to have believed fervently, in a crazy sort of way, that he was more special than other specials.

During the first day or so after the tragedy came to light, one predictably nasty, yet foreseeable  little detail popped up amongst panting members of the national media:  A concentration upon Elliot's guns and his gunshot victims.  However, far less attention was paid to the three men beaten and sliced to death by the killer in his apartment complex -- in fact, some news sources failed to mention the tools used at all.  Instead, early emphasis was upon guns, guns and more guns.

After all, one can't very well join the crowds, rabidly pumped up with outrage over gun control, when there's a bloody blade and a hammer thrown atop the pile of firearms.  Cutlery and other dreadful unanticipated devices sort of ruin the place card arrangements, you understand?  Yes, blaming gun owners when there's a hammer banging your skull and a blade redecorating your throat kinda deflates the anti-gun movement.  Didn't matter -- the three initial brutal non-gun deaths didn't fit in with the progressive mantra, so less emphasis appeared almost strategically in the media until such details could no longer be set aside in favor of shock over guns and bullets.  Why?  Because it's easier to blame the NRA than to confiscate your grandma's hammer, machete and set of steak and butter knives.  Nevertheless, Blumenthal and the rest of the usual gang of ban this-ers and regulate that-ers slithered out and recited their well-practiced gun control screed for news at eleven.  More will follow, to be sure. 

Yes, another tragedy, and on this occasion Mr. Crazyman arrived with a partner. This time, it was a damned upside-down virgin sacrifice, wherein we witness the ultimate climax of a virgin sacrificing himself.  With a little help from the police, fortunately.

But if you think you're safer with robots than with creepy 22 year old male virgins, better think again.  From Defense One's writer Patrick Tucker comes an article dated April 17 entitled, "Why There Will be a Robot Uprising."  Tucker interviews computer scientist Steven Omohundro, who clearly warns "that 'anti-social' artificial intelligence in the future is not only possible, but probable, unless we start designing AI systems very differently today."   Why?  Because as computers consistently increase their speed and abilities, they'll be primed to create ever more success and speed in their chores -- and, if we understand correctly, any human standing in their way  becomes expendable unless safeguards are implemented sooner, rather than later.  Tucker's article explores this issue in detail, and it is available online.

Did you catch the Rasmussen report of April 18?   Polls indicate that at least 37 percent of Americans fear the federal government.  The word was once respect, not fear, and unless folks quit being sheep, and instead speak out instead of cowering in anxiety-ridden silence and exhibiting blind obedience to every dictum pooped out by legislators at all levels, nothing will change. 

Remember to chew before you swallow.  Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich advises that we eat the bodies of our own dead because bad times are coming and normal food resources will run out.  Perhaps we should first saute' hundreds of thousands of copies of his book, The Population Bomb, published some 46 years ago, and ultimately a bomb itself because its contents turned out to be fantasy.  Anyway, I'm not eating anybody, and certainly not somebody cooked by a complete stranger, of whom I'd have to eventually inquire, "Say, that was delicious -- who was in it?

"Bring Back Our Girls."  Too bad, Nigeria, and too bad, world, but I hope we lose no American military lives in some rescue plan.  Until the world openly and loudly ridicules and rejects the well-funded barbarism embraced by so many mental defectives attached to Islamic terrorism, women will continue to bear the brunt of men whose brains remain stuck in the evil, brutality and quest to dominate of centuries past.