RickSpace

Today has been a good day for reading and perusing the internetwebthingamajigger.

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It’s that time of the year again. People look forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Years as times they can take days off from work, on either side of the holidays, and therefore have a larger chunk of time off from work. While I love the seasons and the festive nature of the holidays, I have grown to realize that I really hate vacation/holiday time.
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Okay, so in the spirit of what everyone else in the blogosphere is doing (trust me, I have to read the entire thing each week as part of my job) I’ll post a short list of things for which I’m thankful in absolutely no order.
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Do not ascribe to intelligence what can be attributed to accidental innovation.

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I probably am not really allowed to go into much detail regarding the work I’ve been doing recently, but it is super interesting (well, some of it is)…
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Not surprised by any of this… I would have guessed I’d fall exactly where it says I do.

You are a Social Moderate (43% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (68% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I will start this rant by citing Reuters:

Scientists may have found a gene for fear — a gene that controls production of a protein in the region of the brain linked with fearful responses.

Science News Article | Reuters.com

So, by reading through the article we find that this discovery CERTAINLY has positive aspects and may lead to many wonderful treatments for serious ailments. What is causing MY amygdala (see article for reference) to go crazy is that this is lauded as a completely positive discovery. We are a society, nay a WORLD, driven by the few feelings and emotions we still allow ourselves to have, and are in the process of trying to eliminate those pesky ones that are still around.

Fifty years ago if your mom and dad died in a trainwreck and you were raised by nuns, only to end up rebelling and starting up a pornographic video production firm at age 22; later to be come wealthy but clutched by the vices of alcohol and drugs… You cried about it. You sobbed. You dealt with it and you moved on. Maybe you found Jesus and became a Christian and started anew. Maybe you sold your business, poured yourself into a more positive venture and lived a fulfilling life. Or maybe you killed yourself; tough crap. Now, if mom and dad swerve on the road and accidentally kill a possum (MAYBE HE’S PLAYING DEAD, YOU DON’T KNOW!!!), the child is instantly put on anti-anxiety pills, anti-depression pills and just for good measure, another experimental drug guaranteed to chemically lobotomize the child so he won’t act out. The parents take no responsibility to merely teach the kid about death, explain to him/her that sometimes things happen but you’ve gotta keep going, and treat this as a chance to help the child grow up.

Fifty years ago, people had mood swings. Now people have bipolar disorder.

Fifty years ago, kids were happy, playful, hyper and sometimes couldn’t pay attention in school because they wanted to be playing! Now they have ADD/HD and need to be medicated.

And now, since we can already slow thoughts, calm nerves, relieve anxiety, dull pain and remove ambition with pills… all we lacked was a God-like fearlessness. Is this a good thing? I mean, aside from killing YET ANOTHER natural human emotion, is there nothing else wrong with this?

The article states that mice naturally are afraid of open spaces and tended to stay near walls and under things when they can. You want to know why? THAT’S CALLED SURVIVAL. A mouse under a cabinet cannot be stepped upon. A mouse up against a wall may not be seen. The doped up mice wander out into the middle of the room without fear of anything. What things are we as humans afraid of? Falling off tall objects (like buildings), being hit by cars while crossing the street, very hot or very sharp objects in close proximity to our skin, etc. If I were not afraid of falling off of a building, I probably would be more inclined to walk dangerously close to the edge of the building, and even try to see what it feels like to walk on the air surrounding the building.

If we continue to embrace the “make it go away” culture that has come into existence and eventual proliferation, empowered by pharmaceutical research and distribution companies but openly embraced by the common people, we will soon be able to feel nothing. Maybe I’m too old-fashioned and ‘burly’ (I quote that because no one who knows me would call me burly) but I think some pain, some fear, some anxiety, and some of just about every feeling is OK; in fact I would argue that it is necessary in order for us to become the people we are. This nation of prescription-induced Zombies is not for me.

A friend of a friend (of a friend?) named Earl has a blog and the friends I have that know him seem to be touting him as a political savant. I am not in any way disputing that, as I’ve ready only one post he has written and I only really partially disagree with it at that.

Earl, if I’m to understand, is stating that people need to stop blaming big oil companies for the high prices we pay at the pump. If that is indeed his argument, as I said, I only partially disagree with it. I think saying they are not to blame at ALL would be ridiculous. The taxes we pay ARE a substantial part of the cost of gas at the pump. However, did the taxes jump so much that they caused the price per gallon that I pay go from around $1.60 or $1.70 per gallon up to $3.19 per gallon following Katrina? I doubt that was the taxes; in fact if I hadn’t read anything else about it, I would assume that there was enough damage done to domestic oil production equipment during Katrina that the companies had to recoup by raising prices… I guess I wouldn’t have been too miffed about that. In a free market if your cost goes up, your customers’ cost goes up. But, I don’t really believe they were hurting too bad.

“…executives represented five major companies that, along with their global parent corporations, earned more than $32.8 billion during the July-September quarter. Consumers, meanwhile, saw gasoline prices soar beyond $3 a gallon in the aftermath of supply disruptions caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita…”

Oil Company Execs Defend Huge Profits - Yahoo! News

“Exxon Mobil Corp. posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion Thursday, the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices.”

Exxon Mobil quarterly profit $9.9B, biggest ever - Oct. 27, 2005

The quarter in which the American public had to endure a near doubling of cost per gallon for gas, oil companies reported record profits. Not just SALES, but PROFITS. That means that despite the damaged equipment and hits they took during the storms, the amount they cleared above and beyond that was even greater than the quarter before or ANY quarter before, for that matter. How did that happen? Hmm.. I seem to remember paying a good bit at the pump…

How many Americans are truly far left or far right? 20%? MAYBE? Not every conservative is Newt Gingrich just as not every liberal is Jesse Jackson. I have a feeling at LEAST 80% of America is not only not in line with the far extremes (I guess hence the term extremes) but is tired of/annoyed at those extremes.

Typically the conservative far right is associated with Republicans and fundamental Christianity, and it seems the liberal far left is associated with Democrats and either a lack of religosity, or an unwillingness to make public religous views. Why can’t there be a party for the other 80% that maybe contains members of all religions and those of no religion, where religion can be a part of those peoples’ lives without being platformed and shoved down each others’ throats? Why can’t there be a party that covers people who have socio-economically conservative views, but feel that a more liberal foreign policy (i.e. any method of foreign interaction dissimilar to Bush’s current paradigm) would be better? Why is there no party you can agree that some times people are down on their luck and need a little help but at the same time be disgusted by the fact that some people purposefully keep themselves in such a position that they can draw government aid indefinitely without ever having to do anything; I mean, does it really have to be all or nothing? We either say “If you can’t cut it, you should have tried harder” or “Here, we’ll by you cigarettes for the next 50 years while you pump out kids that you don’t take an active roll in raising.”

I think political extremism was so last-century. I understand that these people have to exist in order to define the far left and far right, and I know that their main concern is basically scaring the 80% who fall in between into voting for their party’s candidate because that candidate can supposedly fix all the problems that the other party’s candidate either WOULD cause, or HAS caused by being in office.

Give me an honest candidate. Give me someone who says “I inhaled, but I don’t smoke now.” Give me a president that says “We’re going into this country, and we’ll PROBABLY spend a lot of money, lose a lot of lives, and be there for a very long time, but we have to. This is why” and then procedes to give the American people the proof/information that has caused the decision. Obviously not all the intelligence could be shared, but enough information to show us that we need to go and enough honesty to tell us that it’s going to be rough and probably end in an occupation for an indeterminate amount of time. Heck, if a presidential candidate had done a lot of wrong things early in life but had made amends and was willing to be perfectly open and honest about it without side-stepping every question regarding those issues, I would not hesitate to vote upon them; even if many of their views conflicted from mine, I would likely vote for them because I would KNOW what their views are, and I would know which conflicts to expect in the future.

Anyway, it’s nothing that hasn’t been said before, but where is the party for the extreme moderates? Those people who are only left-leaning, right-leaning, slightly left of center, slightly right of center, etc… I’m waiting for the Peoples’ President but I’m not sure we’ll ever see him/her… at least not in my life time.