heaven & hell... I can't marry a shishkabob, but I am going to marry someone who doesn't want to become one

heaven & hell...

history's most effective incentive-based reward system...

think of the chaos that would ensue if we learned, for a fact, that neither existed...

think of how many people today, right now, DON'T do things for fear of spending eternity burning in hell...

if they knew they were not doomed to a fiery bath should they commit, say, murder, or adultery, would they commit?

if they knew they were not going to spend forever skipping through rolling green hills, barefoot, hand-in-hand with Jesus, would they pray, give, donate, remain honest, do right?

do you trust mankind to maintain order in the event its primary reason for keeping such is revealed a lie? 

I sure as FUCK don't...

anyway, I've been a tad skeptical about church-goers in modern times... most scare me to death....

but now, after witnessing the evil capable by the opposite sex for, well, over 10 years now, relative to truthfulness, faithfulness, severe rationalization, behavior polarities, and basic overall justification of catastrophic emotional impact on partner, etc., I think I am only going to put a ring on a finger connected to a body trembling with fear in response to imagining what will happen to her, for eternity, if she were to commit adultery, or "cheat" on me during our marriage together...

who says Satan can't be a pal? he's arguably responsible for keeping a majority of marriages monogamous... 

(it's all about perspective... happy Thursday!)

nature vs. nurture... it's VITAL parents coddle and stroke their... egos?

I have grown to see the opportunity the classic "nature vs. nurture" debate, or the argument over the determinants responsible for human development, more specifically factors affecting children's ability to grow into healthy adults and adopt certain traits, opens for selfish, egoic parents to completely indemnify themselves of any and all responsibility associated with disruptive mental conditions in their children. I used to laugh off critics who accused parents of blaming "nurture", or society and the personal experiences that accompany communities, for all their child's ailments, but were first in line to praise and promote the same child's accomplishments in school, often indirectly claiming and celebrating credit for their A+ in calculus, hence "nature", as irresponsible, poor, etc. parents, mainly because I was in love with the pop culture parental ideology.

I have learned yet another lesson in life. Yes, my Grandpa would be proud; "boy, life ain't fair now, ya' hear?"

I have since experienced this miracle of, what I call, "total positive attribute responsibility", or otherwise known as "I''ll take credit for everything awesome about my pro-creation, and anything failing to coddle or stroke my ego is automatically, obviously, and arguably the result of factors affecting my pro-creation that are clearly out of my control". Let me provide some examples of credit-taking, subconscious or not, some I'm sure will hit very close to home.

"We are so proud of our daughter. She is really excelling in sports, and making awesome grades. Her father was always such a diligent student, and I won state on the balance-beams in 1978."

"Our son graduated honors in engineering. I just know he gets that math stuff from his Dad! I was never good with numbers."

"Our son has a beautiful girlfriend, and they will likely marry and have adorable children. I was always told he had my eyes, and he definitely gets his lips from his father."

"Our son is such a hard-working American. We made sure he learned the value of a dollar at an early age, and now look at him... trying million-dollar cases... and winning!"

Now, let's look at some relate-able scenarios where parents duck and dodge negative characteristics their children may be starting to display or are already demonstrating full-blown symptoms.

"We just found out our daughter, at 16, is pregnant. Can you believe that? What are we going to do? I always knew that boy she was dating was bad news."

"Our 27 year-old son was recently diagnosed with severe depression. I always feared those concussions he experienced in middle school and high school football would lead to this. It's all over the internet, how concussions cause depression."

"Our son beat-up another school mate today. Can you believe what video games are teaching kids these days? It's unacceptable. Congress needs to intervene."

"That rap music! It's ruining my daughter's discipline for use of clean, friendly language! I taught her better than that. We need to stop those rappers!"

Please note all are fictional, and unrelated, respectively, to one another. And sure, you can argue either side (nature vs. nurture) for any of these statements. Sure, a son may get his math skills from his dad, and a girl may very well learn to say "bitch" from Snoop Dog. But what I want you to see is how powerful ego preservation and defense can be, even when a child's well-being is either at risk or already compromised. I do not have the answer; parents will always, forever, without any judicial consequences, be able to assign blame for unfavorable behavior in their child to society; was it the fact that the daughter knew Mom was pregnant at 16 that caused her to believe such is acceptable since "Mommy did it", or was it an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine on "how to tease your man tonight... be young, sexy, fabulous, and hot..."? No way to tell.

All I know is I have seen parents do an excellent job promoting their children's strengths simply because it reflects positively on them, just like when they write their resume, and fail to take responsibility for weaknesses simply because it may, although you can argue otherwise, "chink" at the armor of the self-image they have heavily invested in creating and protecting.

To Moms, Dads...

Step up. Help diagnose and cure. Otherwise you could be trying to celebrate that all-state high school football story while friends and teachers share stories of how depressed he was the two years leading up to his suicide. Going to be tough to ignore whether or not more could have been done when "there are plenty of fish in the sea, so stop sulking and get those A's in history back" was all that was said in reaction to his constant sadness after his girlfriend broke up with him... "we thought it was just puppy love... he was too young to be in love", or how maybe since depression and alcoholism really did run rampant on dad's and mom's side of the family, respectively, but conveniently ignored, could have played a factor in his decision to end his life. Hold yourself accountable in helping those same math whizzes, sports stars, and doll-faces deal with and confront the root issues in their early pregnancies, severe depression, and anger / rage before those same children have 14 more kids, commit suicide, or kill someone, as adults.

Don't abandon. The time when they need help the most is the same time your parenting reputation is on the line. Choose them. Choose to "nurture" your "nature" instead of choosing "nurture" to indemnify your "nature".

Because after all... does it really matter whether or not it was "nurture" or "nature"? Does it matter if his closet, chronic alcoholism is a result of your genetics or effective iPhone app advertising associated with Angry Birds? No. It doesn't. What matters is your pro-creation has built a dependency on a dangerous substance, and you can help break it. Ignoring it or blaming elsewhere will most certainly do at least one thing...

not help it.

Make a commitment today. Commit to take responsibility for the "good" and the "bad" in your children, whether you already have them or not. And I don't mean you have to promote their new anti-depressant prescription after sharing their LSAT score at your next black tie affair or on the detergent aisle at Wal-Mart. You can keep your facade. I mean if you are going to attribute their LSAT abilities to your or your spouse's nature, then you automatically assume responsibility for the possibility the same nature is a factor in their depression.

my 2012 resolution: stop acting like a gazelle with a hungry lion lunging at my ass (you should consider the same)

"Thousands of years ago, we mostly lived until we either starved, were accidentally poisoned or we were eaten by another animal. Now, we have the distinct ability to slowly kill ourselves over a period of about 80 years with chemical laced foods, too much alcohol and prolonged reaction to stressful events. All are avoidable, if we make the choice to do so."


http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/stress-portrait-of-a-killer/

(you can also watch it on Netflix, which is where I saw it, per my free 30 day trial with an AWESOME company whose stock I picked to triple in value February 2009, only to watch it, without buying any, increase ten-fold through this past summer!)

The point that stuck me in the chin and rocked my dome back like a Dr. Dre beat was how a certain breed of monkey, in its normal, wild habitat, evolved to serve as the ideal non-human population for studies concerning lifestyle and social interaction, due to the fact that they spend, like humans, very little time obtaining calories required for homeostatic sustainability (big combo-word there... thanks ASU biomed), and, therefore, had quite a bit of time remaining prior to subsequent caloric consumption and consequent slumber, to do whatever they wanted. In this case, annoy each other and ultimately compete for social status.

Damn. Sound familiar? I'll let you watch to learn more about that. Moving on to the part that is more appropriate relative to my post title.

The film introduces the scientific details behind how external stimuli triggers the release of certain types of hormones associated with the "fight or flight" psyche, or chemicals responsible for physiological processes that help us "fight", or defend ourselves when threatened, or "flight", or run like hell when we are not confident we can win that fight (again, designed to help defend our life). This is a process we humans share with the wild kingdom.

"Stress" is what we experience when in the throws of the "fighting" or "flight-ing". The film dissects how gazelles, or zebras, when being chased by a hungry lion (we've all seen that infamous "slow-mo" race through the African safari...) is experiencing "flight" and all its sacred physiological processes (without them he's lunch), including the release of certain chemicals that, relative to the rather short nature of the experience and subsequent short "burst" of chemical release, are not harmful to the prey's state of being long-term (assuming he / she escapes becoming an entree). In other words, the prey "flight", they escape, and the animal has the ability to no longer acknowledge the stimulus because...

well, it's gone, and so are the chemicals that helped the animal "flight"...

Humans, on the other hand, are currently exposing themselves to the same "burst" of chemicals, only doing so repeatedly, all day, day after day, for years on end, in response to stimuli that either 1.) exist, with potential consequences over exaggerated, or 2.) don't exist, with imaginary consequences. The film's scientists prove this by measuring the concentration of the aforementioned hormones in 1.) animals, following a "stressful", or life-threatening event, and 2.) humans, following a "stressful" event, such as being late for work, etc., but not life-threatening.

We both share the same reactions.

In other words, we have conditioned ourselves to respond to heavy traffic in the same way a gazelle responds to being chased by a hungry lion.

Wow. That is incredibly...

sad.

Think about that the next time your overpaid boss shoots you a negative look after you fail to include a key chart or piece of data in an important meeting. You likely just excreted the same type of chemical, at a relatively similar concentration, as the gazelle who is being chased by a hungry lion, 4,000 miles away, through the Africa safari, at the same time.

The difference is when the gazelle survives, he forgets about it, "stops responding", and goes on about his day grazing, trotting, sexing, and wild-ing. You will dwell on that look from your boss all day, all night, and probably the next day, repeating the event over and over and over in your mind, "still responding" the same way you both did shortly after the stimulus occurred.

Watch the film to learn how this "continuous response" is killing you.

2012 motto: "stop acting like a human and piss off a lion!"

Merry Christmas! is anyone else tired of hearing the same "when I was a kid" bullshit stories from older relatives every year? here's how to remind them how thankful they should be...

"When I was a kid, I worked for $X.00 a day... you kids have it easy nowadays..." - relative, referring to wages in the late 40's and early 50's in America

X usually = a small fraction, sometimes 10%, maybe 15%, of what kids earn in the same time nowadays

Every year, I hear these same sob stories about how "tough" life was for our relatives "back in the day". I usually experience a bit of guilt and shame, as these stories are framed to trigger the mathematical equation in our heads that usually outputs something like "wow, I made that in an hour when I was as old as my relative was then", and I feel bad for them. Once they realize they have an audience, the diatribes continue.

Not this year.

I asked my relative what they valued more, their wages or their marriage. They answered "my marriage, obviously... I wouldn't trade my spouse for anything in the world". I then asked if they would rather live happily married in fiscal poverty or unhappily divorced and fiscally wealthy. "Happily married in fiscal poverty". I said "well, then you had it pretty good compared to me because I am twice as likely to lose what you value more than money, nowadays".

There were an average of 10 divorces per 1,000 married women in 1950, over 21 per 1,000 married women in 2010.

$6.00 a day had never felt so good to them, after they adjusted their perspective.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Remember it's not what you're looking at, but how you're looking at it!

stepping across the aisle today; rich people do not create jobs

I just heard "because rich people create jobs" as an excuse to not raise taxes on "the rich" for the last time.

That is bullshit. 100% horse cakes. 

"Rich people", for the most part, by definition in terms of the SEC and private placement memorandums, are those "sophisticated" and or "accredited", or meeting the following criteria:

1. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person;
2. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or

http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm

When you hear the Demmy's talk about raising taxes, it's usually in terms of targeting those who meet #2 above, right? We've all heard "people with income of $250,000 gross annual or more..." etc. etc. on the news. They often equate this metric with those in the "top 1%".

In other words, "don't raise taxes on these people... that will prevent them from creating jobs!"

The truth is these people are not the "job creators". They are the "job maintainers", and, if anything, the "job eliminators", or the "offshore-ers" and "cost-cutters". They are the blue chip P's and VP's, Dr.s, lawyers, upper level management personnel, white collar Americans who have not ever "created" anything relative to a "job" for another American. They found themselves earning money through a system that was, in most cases, freely cash-flowing far earlier in time relative to when their decision-making skills argued their entrance into the coveted "top 1%". These people, on average, don't create, and, actually, for 7.5 hours out of the day, are in desperate search to destroy, or create cost-cutting initiatives. Remember... cutting costs increases profit, and an increase in profit is the #1 way to justify an increase in pay, and that is why they are breathing from 8 to 5 in their office. 

People will always get cut before goods needed for the sale. Remember that. 

Adding a "job" to an established business is an incredibly, extremely, expensive process and recurring burden for a company. Management cringes at the thought of the new costs that will eat EBITDA when they offer to hire. It's a real expense, and unless the market is absolutely demanding a position, will be avoided AT. ALL. COSTS. This is usually in terms of sales and demand relative to products needed in new markets. In that case, the market created the job, not the dipshit MBA with a weak LinkedIn profile. All he is going to do is assess the risk associated with a cost-benefit analysis on the new hire. 5th grade math. 

Here is the harsh truth: the only way, in this case, a "job" will be created, is if demand for a company's product or service increases enough to justify a new position, and no one can control free-market demand. The opposite option is to take an "unjustified" risk, or investing in new jobs without adequate comfort those jobs will yield reward. 

Companies run by these people do not do this. They get fired for doing this. Now, less taxes certainly increase available cash, but an increase in available cash does not mean patriotism trumps greed; if the market does not demand a new job, that cash, not being paid as tax, will either be 1.) retained, 2.) invested, or 3.) paid out in the form of dividends. 

"Rich create jobs."

Stop believing that bullshit from the media. That's a tip of the hat toward their viewers, whose ego's are in love with the false belief they are helping struggling Americans reach the "American Dream" by paying them shit and making double-digit returns on the base-level, pre-tax labor, or g&a, expense every month they're in the black.

FALSE. FAIL. BULLSHIT. DO NOT PASS GO. TAKE A WALK. 

The truth is this. Entrepreneurs create jobs. No, this is not personal bias. I will explain it detail. 

Entrepreneurs are the people who notice an unmet need, or market opportunity, and create a plan to meet that need and capitalize on the opportunity. This is a natural process ancient to the world of scarcity, and specialization with talents, that we live in. I don't care if it's breaking twine in a fishing village off the Nile River or trillion dollar credit default swaps for AIG, new demand is new demand. They then, relative to a cash-based currency, or fuck even a conch shell, or pig ear, or broken shoe lace, or dirt clod based currency system, have to collect enough cash / conch shells / whatever to trade with other product and service providers essential to offering the service / manufacturing the product designed to meet that unmet need. Stronger twine, or OTC CDS servicing; meeting demand.

Now, pay close attention: the word "collect" is synonymous with today's stock market concept; spreading risk in terms of asking 1,000,000 people for $1 versus 1 person for $1,000,000. The entrepreneur, who, most of the time, cannot afford to fund his / her new idea independently, needs alot of capital. So he / she can 1.) sell stock, or 2.) issue bonds, to accomplish this goal. Once they "collect" their currency, they then do something magical:

They create jobs. They pay vendors and they hire employees with the intent to launch the idea that will meet that unmet need. This is where the "job creation" comes from; you have people who were not able to work, and not hired by the "rich", who now have a "job". A "job" has been "created". 

Some of you clever folks may be anticipating my next point; "Who do you think buys the stock or bond from the entrepreneur and provides the capital for him / her to create those jobs? Those "rich" people! And taxing them reduces the money they have to buy that stock or bond and help create that job!"

Yes, an indirect way of arguing against my point. I agree, that the more money one has, the more likely they are to risk it on new things. But the "rich" have a lot of money because they "DON'T" risk it on new things. 

New things are risky, and risky things can lose money, and "rich" people are good at "not" losing money. So, if we want job creation, we need to 1.) encourage, or incentivize, entrepreneurship, and 2.) encourage, or incentivize, investment in new ideas. 

Oh, and revert to the early 1900's definition of a "corporation", including all limited rights originally assigned to the "Inc.". BIG factor in the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" (watch documentary "The Corporation" http://thecorporation.com/)

does anyone else see the racial profiling? trying to sharpen my pencil here, and this kid keeps cutting in line... I'm running out of time!

Definition of racial profiling, according to Dictionary.com:

"government activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

Given the obvious ability for accusations involving race by non-Government to be considered racial profiling, I am removing "government" from the definition, and using the following modified definition instead, and will be referring to it during the rest of my post:

"activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

I believe there is a crystal-clear racial profiling problem in America's higher-level academia admissions criteria. It has to do with preventing qualified citizens from pursuing educational opportunities whereby they are, on paper, every bit qualified, by all standards, for the look. 

Except color seems to introduce a determinant that negates the aforementioned.  

I am talking about the requirement for us to disclose our race on school, primarily graduate level, academic applications, because they are required, even incentivized, to admit a certain % of certain minority races, relative to their admission class, despite a "standardized" entry barrier and determinant testing process. 

It's blatant racial profiling. Let's break apart the definition.

     "race" - an applicant's ethnicity 

     "suspect or group of suspects" - the applicants who do not meet the specified minority race criteria

     "activity" - limiting the # of applicants who do not meet specified criteria

     Therefore:

"activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

     becomes:

 

     "(limiting the # of applicants admitted who do not meet specified criteria) directed at (the applicants who do not meet the specified minority race criteria) based solely on (an applicant's ethnicity)"

      huh...

I therefore will assume that because I do not meet the specified minority race criteria, as I am Caucasian, and due to the fact that the # of applicants indicating Caucasian race will be limited, regardless of standardized comparison indicating a more qualified application relative to non-minorities, I run the risk of denial of admission due to the color of my skin.

Wow. Thought we were done with racism in America? Anyone else see a problem here, perhaps a digression in social reform? 

     

The non-minority is therefore implied, or "suspect"-ed to be, somehow less worthy of consideration, despite rigorous standardization, or "suspect"-ed to be in less-need of the education than the minority, despite rigorous standardization. 

Regardless of my standardized performance, simply probability indicates the color of my skin could prevent me from prospering in a free society. 

Good thing I'm Caucasian! That means I must be rich already and don't need grad school! HA! 

POTENTIALLY HIGHLY OFFENSIVE POST: I’m straight-shootin’ on “I gots 15 kids to feed” today. Don't read if you are easily offended by highly-descriptive language and explicit content, or believe others are accountable for irresponsibility

“… says her children are a gift from God, but now she needs help caring for them, and blames … Sheriff’s Office Child Protection Team and others, for (the problem)…”

“Somebody needs to pay for all my (15) children… somebody needs to be held accountable, and they need to pay!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KUW2vCPX7w

I had to take a stroll for 5 or 8 minutes or so after watching this one. Wow. I passed “10 deep breaths” 23 deep breaths ago. I think I can type now without banging the keys.

So this woman expects “somebody else” to pay for her inability to control semen ejaculation, on behalf of a male, up through her Fallopian tubes and onto her fertilizable ovum.

My proposed solution:

STOP FUCKING YOU DUMB BITCH.

I cannot believe this mentality exists. It simply makes me sick to my stomach. Those poor kids, man. FUCK THIS PISSES ME OFF. We learn about the reproductive process very early in life. What, 5^th, 6^th grade? 7^th? This is usually way before any of us are at risk of even engaging in sexual intercourse. So, it’s safe to say we are aware of the nature of the “birds and the bees” before we start poking our stingers and getting stung.

We therefore know, when we do go to smack uglies, that when a man and a woman engage in sexual intercourse, 100% of the time they risk pregnancy. Now, certain types of contraception exist to reduce that risk. Condoms, birth control, plan B, etc. They are all available to help reduce the risk of pregnancy, and are great tools to help ease the stress of “wondering” after the “heat of the moment” triumphs our logical minds and its reason to “not fuck; I don’t want to get preggers!!".

In other words, when we bang, after trying oh-so-hard not to, since we learned what happens when a man inserts his penis into a woman’s vagina around the time we grew our first zit, there are things we could have done to prepare for this surrender (birth control), and there are things we can do to make the best of it (condoms, pulling out), and there are things we can do to minimize the risk that comes with neglecting the first three (plan B). (I’m going to steer clear of abortion as any form of “option” here).

So we pick one or combine a few, and ride the risk and our partner.

This seems to work fairly well for most of horny America.

BUT… somehow, some of us fail, time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time to demonstrate sexual responsibility, despite learning about its consequences before masturbating for the first time, and are still churning out mouths and deeply curious as to “where the fuck all these damn kids came from?!”.

This woman knew what would happen if she allowed a penis inside her vagina, and she obviously has not been playing the odds associated with modern medicine’s contraception. How can she hold anyone else accountable for her 15 dirty diapers, but herself and the respective biological father? They were clearly aware of what would happen if they had sex, especially if they did so without taking precautions, i.e. her taking birth control, him wearing a condom, her taking plan B, even him doing them both a favor and covering the basics; just pulling out. Shit that’s free! No one is too broke to pull out!!

Bottom line is she should be treated like any other person who cannot handle privileges requiring responsibility; she should have her ability to reproduce taken away. Bottom line. She is alleging it’s someone else’s responsibility to care for her 15 children, and that is a very, very dangerous claim. What happens when you drink and drive? You lose your privilege to drive, because you run the risk of doing damage to someone or something else. Parallel reasoning 101 here: she is running the risk of doing damage to someone or something else every time she fucks, because its going to negatively impact someone (the kid, or the "person" ending up responsible for supporting the child) or something. Shit it's not even a risk anymore... those mouths exist, and so does her empty bank account. Revoke her reproductive ability. Straight the FUCK UP. 

“They’re a gift from God!” she said...

Translation; "I love dick, so when it cums in me and I get pregnant, I can blame it on God and leverage the emotions associated with divine creation to get other people to pay for my mistakes... I'm gettin' laid tonight! Think I'll go for that hunky Denzel-lookin' cat down the block..."  

At least there is 1 father for 2/3 of the kids. He was not available for interview. LOL… probably about to nut up in some other braud and didn’t want to be distracted. Takes a lot of discipline to orgasm, and even more to blow one on her stomach versus at her ovum...

STOP. FUCKING. PLEASE.   

Sincerely,

“All of us who you want to feed your seeds”