Life Unimagined/Unexamined

In this current era of political scare tactics, I am utterly sick of the preposterousness. I see people on the left telling me that we were going to return to the Bush era world. I see people on the right telling me how ridiculous Obama is and how all his ideas are wrong.

And those are the rational adults.

The irrational ones are telling me that Obama is evil, socialist incarnate with an agenda to rule the country forever. The other irrational ones are telling me that nothing positive ever happened under any Republican.

I saw someone this morning, and I can't remember who it was for the life of me, who said her two favorite presidents were Reagan and Clinton.

I'm not sure, but I know that my favorite president would be the one who runs the country like a rational adult who understands that shoving crap down our throats isn't good.

This is sleepy rambling, but I will say I am tired of the political nonsense.

I wrote a status on my facebook page today. That status was something about the day, and how I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day. I made a small, but rather significant typographical error. It's one, in my younger years that I would have jumped on, criticized and let get to me before I ever complimented the full thought, which was truly just a gentle wish for a Happy Independence Day. The only comment I got was on the little error I had made. I had typed 224 years ago, as opposed to 234 years ago.

It's an error, and I won't deny it, but this is what is tearing this country apart, limb by limb. We are so ready to focus on the negative that we don't even think to look to the positive. I was once that person. I couldn't find the positive in anything. What has taught me, over and over again, that I needed to focus on the positive, is what I have seen since I came back to the US.

We are too ready to hate, and not ready enough to like.

Not Having Written - Oil Spill

Oh, it's a sad, sad world where the failure of one becomes the bane of many. I am referring to the failure of one business becoming the bane of many. To be truthful, there are several companies involved in the original disaster. There is Halliburton, Transocean, Cameron and BP (check the article at the Wall Street Journal). The companies will continue to make money, and I don't have an issue with that. What I have an issue with is this: the millions of people, through no fault of their own who has had their livelihood curtailed or destroyed.

Reality says that any time anything happens it affects more than we realize. A car accident affects the first responders, the passers-by, the families of those in the accident, possibly the doctors and nurses at the hospital, the insurance companies, lawyers (yes, even if you don't do anything but make an insurance claim, there's often a lawyer involved), and goodness knows who else. Simply, one awful accident is affecting millions of people.

I'm often a proponent of the free market. I have crazy thoughts that run the gamut of libertarian thought. However, I see this as failure of regulation. I dislike regulation. I often think that regulations are there to keep the idiots from hurting themselves, which makes us utterly beholden to the lowest common denominator. But, the industry wasn't regulating itself, obviously, and there were preposterous failures on the part of the regulators.

The rig was built by a South Korean company, the blow-out preventer (see the above WSJ article) was built by an American company, and the melange of corporations ended up failing miserably. The regulators failed miserably, and now, the gulf is dealing with the failure.

I am not a litigious person, I believe lawsuits often fail to do what is needed or desired. I think that there needs to be a rational deal between the companies (and I think there is too much emphasis on BP) and the people who were affected. Simply put, get the government involved. Find out how much money they have made for the last 10 years, average that, build in a Katrina clause (those affected by Katrina do not average in the years of Katrina's effect), and that amount of money gets paid to the people. The lawsuits would be more costly and lawyers would make money.... And the non-litigious people would muddle along.

It's not a solution to the Oil Spill. I am aggravated and yet have utterly no solution. I am just trying to solve one of the problems caused by the spill.