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.

Fraudzilla's USA Invasion

If I somehow lapsed into a drug-induced stupor tomorrow, I'm sure my views on President Obama would alter considerably.  Years after he leaves Office, for instance, when surviving presidential papers see release publicly, we'd discover that Obama took actions to save the country and performed heroic maneuvers of which we had no concept during his two terms.  Then. . .

Yeah, but then I'd wake up and return to reality, wishing instead that the day would come, sometime after a gaggle of lowlife frauds among the Obama bunch retire on huge government pensions and write truth-distorting books and lie-lecture around the country, when cooler heads of refreshing integrity find a way to indict, fine and imprison these folks as appropriate for crimes against the nation.  When one takes an oath, but then deviates from established promises to a degree bordering upon or encompassing criminality, there is no other solution, no matter how much time elapses.

Funny, too, isn't it, how we're JUST getting around to charging named Chinese commie military members for hacking into corporate and U.S. government computers to steal secrets?  Why now?  Maybe because elections are coming up soon, and the Administration, like clockwork, wants to put on a happy face proclaiming we're on the job?  By the way, assuming (assuming?) the Chinese are guilty of said crimes, let's take the appropriate action and, hmm, say, demand they cut at least half our "debt" to them -- and later we can cut the other half based just upon the crappy  toxic "treats" they export which reportedly continue to poison our dogs and other pets.

As we still scratch our heads over ongoing mega-purchases by the Obama Admin of ammunition outlawed for international -- but apparently not domestic -- conflicts, why are federal agencies such as the Dept. of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management and others being infused with their own SWAT teams?  Near as I can figure, the only agencies requiring such extra man/firepower -- and all those acquired military tanks -- are those charged with protecting national borders.  Yeah, as if. 

How is it that the Most Powerful Man In The World has allowed a PTSD-ridden ex-active duty U.S. Marine to languish in a Mexican prison after taking a wrong turn and ending up in Mexico?  This disgrace has gone on for some 55 days now, and the Marine has been chained, his life threatened (causing him to attempt an escape) and he faces years of prison time.  He did have his legally acquired firearms in his car when he mistakenly drove into Mexico through an area not known for suitable or abundant signage warnings.  Still --  seems all Mr. Obama needs to do is make a phone call to retrieve our Marine from a country all too willing to export its own prisoners across our own borders with our president's blessings.  Why hasn't he ended this?  Sorry, either they return the Marine at once, in good health, or a little drone action might be in order.  One must ask in such instances, how much of a friend is Mexico?  Sure, make me a diplomat. . .

The Southern border situation itself has worsened with a weekly influx of thousands of young people, mostly boys, now making their way through Mexico from Central and Southern American countries, determined to invade our country with "Dreamer" expectations of free education and amnesty.  Housed temporarily at U.S. Air Force bases, these people need to exit the USA quickly and firmly and the message returned with them must be keep out, otherwise the world's masses will continue to engulf and then rot the nation's beauty and resources, uninvited, from within without limitations.  This concept is an emergency, not rocket science.

Why are  "stars" of the Democrat Party throwing the issue of race into graduation ceremony speeches at high schools and colleges this month?  Race-baiting by re-invoking injustices of the fifties and sixties serves what purpose in the minds of young people now?  Graduation speeches used to be about the future and opportunity.  Obviously, with nothing to offer young minds but promises of high taxes, horrible debt and the new slavery, it was inevitable that Democrat speakers needed to fire up the way-back machine to blame the past for their own current policies. 

Maybe these folks should be forced to attend endless classes in sensitivity training, otherwise known as mind control indoctrination, concocted by the most evil people in the country.

Ringing hollow:   Obama proclaims his love for the military veterans, etc., blah, blah, blah.  Psst, hey America -- The worst qualities of VA medical care will be the best qualities of Obamacare.  You're getting a preview that money can't buy, right now.  Isn't it a knee-slapper that both Obama and the VA chief said they were "mad as hell" about the VA situation?  What, is there a script out there that these folks read from?  Mr. Prez knew of VA problems when he assumed Office, so let's not give him a pass on the VA "death panels" now.  He only learned about the VA trouble from news reports, he says?  Wow, every time there's a problem this liar and/or total incompetent claims he knew nothing until a news report passed his way. 

It so happens that I'm personally aware of VA corruption, a story that I won't explore here because it wouldn't be appropriate for me to take advantage of this personal issue in a blog -- but I will say that it wasn't uncommon in the past for VA directors, the people at the very top of a VA medical center, to be brought up on federal charges, and sometimes they exited their huge medical facilities in handcuffs.  ABC News did an excellent report on VA corruption many years ago, frightening to say the least.  Ultimately, the VA medical system may be scrapped in exchange for something better and more efficient, but that depends upon whether veterans' groups wish to loosen their grip on an antiquated entity intended originally to support WW II and Korean vets who returned in huge numbers.

Congratulations Republican primary voters for your stupidity in choosing the standbys instead of Tea Party members with integrity.  Truth is, every senator and congressman of any political party should get out of the way after a maximum of two terms and give fresh brain matter a chance to solve national problems.  Voters have only served to give Washington an endlessly contaminated cocktail party of deals and dealers out for their own interests.  Nice work, fools.

Obama meets with TV meteorologists about climate change:  Oh, that's a comfort.  You know what?  My local TV meteorologists, starting in February, promised every few days that the bitter cold spell was ending at last, and then temperatures would plummet again and again, each time as bad or worse than the last.  Now, Mr. President, just what do you and the TV weather celebrity dolts have to say to say to one another about the future, when they can't even get the local forecasts down within reason despite all the fancy special video effects? 

And now there exists new satellite data indicating that "global warning" hasn't occurred for the last 18 years?  The science is most definitely not settled, as political morons and the United Nations continue to insist in order to control us all, and the "consensus" of international scientists is not there -- unless one means a consensus of dunces.  Yes, the climate changes, for better or worse, and I'm kinda thinking it will persist in doing so even after our bodies are as dead as a goodly proportion of our brains apparently seem already.

Our Children are the (Clueless) Future

Aside from some outstanding UFO reports offered up in, particularly, the seventies, the "old" National Enquirer could be pretty novel and sometimes adept about forecasting things to come.

Across the nation public schools often fail to educate, and children fail to learn, either with or without "legally" prescribed or illegally acquired drugs intended to put their minds on temporary life support.  Meanwhile, Obama's fellow fascist wannabes at the Dept. of Education continue to push "Common Core," holding state funding for ransom as teachers are forced to submit or perish professionally, hating every minute of the federal usurpation strangling their classroom hours with some bizarre leftist agenda which is no friend to the educational system in the USA.

But, hey, at least we have the computer to inform, educate and allow every human kid to push buttons and administer mouse clicks on the road to success.  Unless -- could this digital miracle be our undoing? 

 

Yes, according to prognosticators of that ancient year, 1980.

The National Enquirer of April 29, 1980 enlisted the views of several professional educators regarding the burgeoning computer era, and what was their consensus of thought 34 years ago?  Beware.

The late Dr. Max Rafferty, whom we've quoted on previous occasions, put it bluntly:  "The human brain is endangered. Our powers of thought and creativity could shrivel up through sheer mental laziness if we allow our own machines to dominate us further."   Was Rafferty correct?  Just take a gander at high school students with zero ability for critical thinking.

Education professor Dr. Gerald Boardman at the University of Nebraska warned, "We may be producing a generation who views math as simply a process of pushing buttons on a little black box."

Dr. James Shields, Jr.,  professor of education at the City University of New York believed we would end up as a nation of "intellectual cripples" as we turn to machines to make decisions for us, giving up our own human intuition as computers tell us what to do. Even back in 1980, Shields realized and warned that people in executive positions were becoming fearful of making decisions on their own, preferring instead to put their faith in the electronic digital judge.  "We must guard against this," he continues, "or we'll end up as a bunch of simpleminded zombies."

We suspect, Dr. Shields, that many of us have become simpleminded zombies -- even TV shows honor the zombie now.  Why not?  Zombies don't need math classes, they invent nothing and they get all the brainpower they desire merely by eating the brains -- or make that intellectual property -- of others.  We've gone from bite to byte and back to bite in just a few years.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Which came first, the computer or the digital zombie?

Then, four years later, this from a Chicago Tribune article in late July, 1984:  "Mankind Evolving Backward, Theorist Says."  Biochemist Allan Wilson, of the University of California at Berkeley, speaking at a symposium in Maine, asserts, "I'm afraid we've reached a plateau and that Homo Sapiens is in a nose dive."  Wilson believed that our abilities to invent and adapt using our own ingenuity instead of awaiting the agonizingly slow process of natural selection and genetic evolution has put us on the fast track to waving goodbye as a species. 

Having taken about 400 million years for brains to become their largest -- in humans -- Wilson concedes ". . .the size of the human brain stopped increasing about 30,000 years ago, primarily because of 'cultural' behavior. . ."  He, along with other scientists, accepts that brain growth occurs because of a need to gather information about coping with the environment, and the pure need for innovation caused an expansion of the human brain.  Alas, according to the article, humans eventually learned to imitate the behavior of others rather than innovate -- thus providing no reason for the brain to grow larger.

If you bet all your money on Pac-Man, Pac-Man is all you're going to get.  Education in days of old at least taught subjects one could use as a backup plan in case of something unanticipated.  Pixels, on the other hand, are one-trick ponies of momentary pleasure.

Taken together, the warnings in these two old articles don't bode well for Our Wonderful Age of Computers, and we won't even bother to comment further on the status of human brains currently.  But just look around, from the White House to Congress, to the Supreme Court, to TV, to hand-held devices, down to a measured flow in the fetid undercurrents of national, state and local political sewers.

Bits and Pieces for May 2014

 

(The stamp image reproduced here comes from the pages of Mad Magazine, now owned by Time-Warner, Inc.)

 

 

First, a brief note about Al Feldstein, who died this week and was best known for three decades (1955-1984) as the editor, heart and satire-lovin' soul of Mad Magazine.   There are Madmen on TV and there are Mad men in the publishing world, and this gentleman and artist was decidedly in the latter category.

Aside from writing about UFOs, for a time I attempted to contribute humor material to Mad (and other publications) on a few occasions way back, but my ideas were rejected (see one letter above, with a notation by Feldstein) consistently.  That didn't matter -- what mattered was my encounter as a reader of Mad Magazine as a kid.  Its pages gave me my earliest lessons in the structure of writing satire -- a literary form where one uses wit, wisdom and sometimes just dumb luck to imply one thing, but actually mean the opposite.  Satire, obvious to most of the public of days gone by in political cartoons, is a lost art among many young people today, and I dare say that those who find themselves the victims of ongoing scams wouldn't be if they understood satire and ridicule disguised as something else.  Offers too good to be true, for instance.  Or accepting everything issued by the Obama bunch as the truth, rather than the absurd, semantically dressed-up crap it really is.

While Feldstein's magazine took on issues of the day with artistic verve and daring, it did exemplify wholesome standards.  I unsuccessfully searched for another rejection letter to post today, upon which Feldstein, sometime in the early seventies I think, gently admonished me for a contribution in which I incorporated illegal drug use in a lighthearted manner..  At Mad, they seemed carefully aware that a fair share of their readers were kids and parents, and yes, there were standards to uphold.

At some point in the sixties or early seventies, a Mad issue contained what looked like real postage stamps with funny pictures on a gummed sheet.  I've posted a sample today, and wish I could post the whole series under fair usage, but pushing the copyright envelope too far is always a concern.  Thus the obliterations, too, and I apologize.  At any rate, just imagine all the post office personnel from coast to coast cursing Mad Magazine when readers tried to send letters stamped with these!

Move over Norman Rockwell and make room for Al Feldstein.  In some strange way, methinks there should be a place reserved for the kind of Americana served up by this artist and editorial master.

Remember when the promise of spring meant flowers and outside activities, and not persistent revelations about the lies and incompetence of a presidential administration?  Thanks to Glenn Beck's investigative staff and The Blaze TV, Sharyl Atkinson and a pathetically scant number of other real journalists and TV "news" programs, we now have further proof that Benghazi seems very much about both incompetence and shuttling arms to Al Qaeda.  And Susan Rice told us what?  "The video" blamed by all the admin players was clearly irrelevant, but they seemingly said anything to protect Obama  prior to the elections,  the incompetent and absent president (yes -- where was he as Benghazi unfolded?).   How do the new disclosures make one feel as a family member or friend of a deceased or otherwise damaged Middle East combat veteran?  Forget Richard Nixon -- I want to know why Barack Obama, for starters, isn't led out of the White House in handcuffs and by shirt collar because of this outrage.  Is race a factor?  And who's going to shut this deplorable White House operation down, Eric Holder?  As the Obamas continue luxuriating via expensive taxpayer-paid vacations and fooling a decreasing number of Americans as the phonies and frauds they actually are, my suggestion would be, come November, don't vote for any member of Congress who has no interest in initiating and/or supporting articles of impeachment as required by law.  And let's keep a few prison cells warm for new occupants who continue to cover up the truth.

Meantime -- never forget the words, Islamic extremists.  You may not hear them in places or on occasions when they need to be heard.  These folks are emboldened, not defeated by White House policies, and I can only imagine the rage harbored by government and military security personnel who have to put up with this dangerous admin bunch day in and day out.

Oh -- and Hillary Clinton?   As secretary of state she botched every move made in the Middle East in the name of the U.S.  Simply look at country after country, as entire societies and cultures continue to fall apart.  This is the woman whom some continue to go ga-ga over as the potential next president?  My country, Hillary right or wrong?  In the real world, the Benghazi issue would bring any supposed presidential aspirations down -- and note that Sen. Rand Paul has confirmed that embassy personnel begged the State Dept. for heightened security for six months before the tragedy occurred, all to no avail.  Even as the State Dept. was spending millions on prettying up other embassies around the world with gardens and expensive dinnerware.

Antibiotics aren't what they used to be.  Well, actually they are, it's just that organisms they once easily battled to the death are quickly developing a fervent resistance, making even routine hospital surgery or minor skin cuts a potential matter of life or death drama.  Of course, as measles, out of control tuberculosis and other long-forgotten diseases creep back into the USA, and the usual authorities blame everything on international airline flights, don't dare be politically incorrect and look to southern borders for the human filth and detritus dragged in by the thousands every year -- a situation which could be easily corrected if we weren't lorded over by a criminal administration insistent upon having law enforcement personnel serve law-like lawlessness conjured up by its inner circle.  One day -- prison sentences, lengthy and unforgiving, and then border security folks can do the vital work they expected to accomplish when hired.

Vultures vs. carrion, current day:   Okay, so Donald Sterling probably isn't going to be a representative for Black History Month next year, and he may well qualify as racist of the month, but the noteworthy thing is the way multi-race vultures descended while the private recordings of his conversations were still warm.  I'm sorry to continue referencing the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers every time these little group pile-on incidents occur, but, wow, this time the pod people wasted no time.  You know who they are and they know who they are.

I don't care a whit about sports in any form, particularly those of the media-colossus variety where mind control and thug enhancement seem to be the major ingredients of worship.  The first tragedy of the Sterling situation lies in its ability to deflect even more attention away from the ills perpetrated on this country by the Dem-Obama machine, helped along quite nicely, thank you, by diehard Republicans who dearly need to be put out to pasture in exchange for something akin to Tea Party folks or others of solid integrity.  I wish all of that "team spirit," in this case the stuff of children and infants on a playground, could be bottled and used to make the "fans" concentrate more on the freedoms we lose, the restrictions increasingly placed upon our lives by evil politicians, and the mounting costs of everything we purchase.  Imagine if the fan base all forgot about athletics, uniform colors and who spent more years in prison for rape for a moment and took the time to kindly but firmly call or write government representatives in protest -- instead of just repeating like mynah birds the mantra, hey, why are  food, clothing and gasoline so expensive?  To paraphrase from the Bill Clinton era, it's the Obamaconomy, stupid.  And lie after lie after lie.

The other and truly frightening part of the Sterling state of affairs is the quick and blind "lynch mob" pounce upon what were recordings of private conversations.  In California, as many have already stated, Sterling's ever-so-helpful ex-girlfriend has apparently broken a very specific law about recording without the other person knowing, and she should rightly be eligible for some rather extreme legal punishment.   Or maybe a mental institution, since she was observed to tell a group of reporters that she intended to become president of the United States!  Probably not an impossibility, considering what we sadly have.

We in the USA widely maintain the right to say things that shake up and offend others, though many in the progressive and religious extremist realm spend every waking hour attempting to flummox that constitutional guarantee.  Sterling is entitled to be as racist as he wants to be, without physically harming others -- and make no mistake, people of races other than Sterling's do the same.

The current lesson?  Be careful what you say, because pod people will do all they can to rip up your First Amendment rights, will act deeply offended as if going for an Academy Award nomination, and then deprive you of as much of you and your stuff as possible in the process so the nebulous demons of social justice can overcome rational thought and established rights.