Sept 1st Dolphin Day protest

September 1st marks the start of the Japanese Dolphin and Whale hunting season. Be part of the protest  at your local Japanese consulate.

Boeing pays CEO more than it paid in taxes

Via the Dave Ross show - corporate and person greed reaches an all time high in a report that find Boeing and other big corporations entire tax burden is less than what they pay one employee.




The report claims Boeing only paid $13 million in federal taxes in 2010. That's about $800,000 less than Boeing CEO Jim McNerney made.

One of the reasons I dislike working for Costco is that 50% of its workers are denied health care coverage while executives are being paid fat cat multimillion dollar salaries in addition to receiving health care benefits. If corporate profits dont go to taxes then they need be distributed to the workers not a few suits at the top.

Lord Stanley's Cup takes a fall

Hard to be a kid in the Us II

More tails of parents and families killing and maiming their children. Seriously, how many kids have to die or suffer before its enough to motivate regular people to do something. Naa..I guess its easier just keep ignoring the fact that "family" is an obsolete concept that doesnt work in modern society. Most of these have pictures of the "parents". Can you guess what they look like?

10yo murder by parents; Denied water for days for wetting the bed
Mom leaves 12yo to wander street after giving her drugs
30 pets and 3 children removed from feces filled home
Father throws 7yo off cruise boat into ocean for crying
6yo suspended from school for growing hair for cancer patients
Gay Seattle doctor kills partner, 2yo son
Wa Judge allows 13yo to live with parents who killed 5yo and 8yo siblings

National Lemonade Freedom Day

There are so many examples of government workers shutting down lemonade stands nationwide that Forbes magazine has complied an article tracking them. In response angry parents have organized National Lemonaid Freedom Day, which I guess was August 20th. I'm sure there are all sorts of health code issues regarding producing and selling lemonade on the street corner..but when did Americans become such wimps that we need government to protect us from spending 25 cents on questionable mixes of water and fruit. How about take the salary of government workers who prowl around looking for children to make cry and put it towards a program that lets kids practice mercantile skills.

10 reasons to be excited about Guild Wars 2

Anderson Cooper calls college "useless"

CNN talking head Anderson Cooper, a graduate of Yale, confirmed what I have always felt - the education part of college is useless, pointless hoop jumping. Here is the interview. Skip to around 11mins in

Was there a class in college I found useful in life ? No actually. Did anybody. I majored in Political Science which is basically majoring in reading the newspaper every day. I didnt learn any actual skill. Adults say college is the best 4 years of your life. If that is the best 4 years of my life just shoot me in the head. 

College, like "family" is one of those archaic fossils that really doesnt work in the 21 century. The lesson here is to skip college and the debt involved and just go do whatever it is you want to do. If you do it well you wont need the diploma.

Travel/Marijuana guru Steves gives away $1 Million

Guess he didnt need a condo

"It's my hope to inspire other caring high-income people to step up and fill those funding gaps with private donations, to support causes that should be borne collectively by a community -- arts centers, parks, schools, libraries, local symphonies, and to speak out on the wisdom of rolling back the tax cuts for our wealthy.". "I see it as a civic duty for businessmen like me, who's directly benefited from our vibrant communities, to do our fair share," Steves said.

Gamestop steals coupons from customers

As if you didnt need another reason to use game downloading services like Gamersgate. Evil gamestore empire Gamestop is developing its own download service (after buying and ruining one of the better ones) and ordered its employees to open up games and remove competitor coupons.

Whoopi Goldburg adopts Vinny the cat

Not my Vinnie, another Vinny. This Vinny was thrown off a bridge apparently.







Also in the news ::

A 12yo who reads medical texts in his spare time got to birth his new baby brother. "I had to wash my hands because it...yah..." Great video

A couple in Florida were arrested for owning 700 cats

The NYPD is spying on religous groups 

The US is still doing nothing about those other rebels being slaughter

Pax Prime (PAX is a three-day game festival for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers) starts this weekend in Seattle

Rick Perry, one of two likely republican nominees is backed by scary hatemongers

Astronomers find planet made of diamond

Everett police pay $25,000 for interogation of kids

Everett taxpayers rather. Heh. No one should be suprised. If you are a child in Washington you are not a person with rights you are a tool to be manipulated. A confrontation over how the prosecutor and caseworkers "interview" kids was the straw that broke the camels back and effectively ended my career there.



This is the biggest problem though : Neither the city nor the now-retired detective admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement

No accountability. They know they can get away with it most of the time so its just going to keep happening.

Why are Gov workers immune to lawsuits ?

Get ready for another big payout taxpayers of Washington. DSHS is being sued again by foster children. Why cant they sue and file criminal charges against the caseworkers who were negligent?

What a great billboard this photo would make along I-5. You wont see it though because Joel Benoliel and all his irresponsible friends need big houses and boats and a new Mercedes every year. 

Projecting Ads onto the moon

I was thinking we could rent billboards to inform the public on the criminal behavior in the child welfare system. But forget billboards.. lets rent the moon instead

DCF has a grudge against the Gardners

Recently here in Florida a mother tried to sell her 5yo child for $2000 The child had lived for the majority of its life with  foster parent couple (the Gardners) from the mothers church and today DCF rejected that home as a foster placement due to a conflict the family had with DCF in 2005. I dont know what the family did not qualify, but I they are licensed foster parent with currently place children, and the kid had spent his entire life with them. The choice to not place the child with them seems vindictive and not in the child's best interest. But hey..at least DCF got them back for whatever happened in 2005. 

Sholem Aleichem

There was a biography about a famous Jewish author on NPR today. I guess I knew about Fiddler on the roof but didnt know anything about the guy who wrote it

Sholem Aleichem was often referred to as the "Jewish Mark Twain" because of the two authors' similar writing styles and use of pen names. Both authors wrote for both adults and children, and lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. When Twain heard the writer called "the Jewish Mark Twain," he replied "please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem.

Its seems he felt strongly that Capitalism was killing family life and Jewish culture..which explains why my father never tried to introduce me to his works.

Concerned about Guildwars 2

I 've been really excited about Guildwars 2 ever since they released information about charecter's personal story and a world full of dynamic events. But recently I've had the wild taken out of my sails by concerns I have with the crafting and PvP system.

Done with World of Warcraft

I guess you can have my stuff but I'm not logging again to give it out heh.

Guild Wars 2 video

This is the one world I am most looking forward to.

Hard to be a kid in America II

More horrible stories from the newspapers..remember these are the ones that get caught and/or we hear about. Imagine how many are going under the radar. How does it make sense to leave the future of our society in the hands of 1-2 "adults". As Dave Ross points out, the people who procreate are rarely the people best equipped to raise children.

Parents arrested for giving children Tylenol PM
Dad takes 11yo to drug deal, both are shot
Prisons accused of over medicating child prisoners
Mother beats son for using Facebook
US Olympic Skier pees on 11yo girl
Child living with sex offender nearly drowns..twice
Mother given probation after failed home circumcision

India takes a step towards dictatorship

The so called "world's largest democracy" arrested 1300 people protesting the arrest of a man on a hunger strike against a new anti-corruption law. There are certainly times when governments need to step in and curb protests...but arresting people for non-violent protest..arresting them for in essence not eating...thats pretty hard line. The law the original protester was protesting against made accepting a bribe a criminal offense, however it excluded high level government officals.

Vinnie loses his milk teeth

Like people cats lose their baby teeth as they grow. The interweb says if you find them they must be lucky since usually the cat just eats them. They come from the side of the mouth and usually end up going down the throat and being digested. While I was checking up there I discovered that cats have the same tentacle-like fronds on the back of their upper lips that they do on their tongues. I figure they allow the cat to make an upward swipe with the tongue and a downward swipe with the lips when cleaning themselves.  

Drill baby drill!

I am sad to report that we are back using the Bush era drilling regulations...and what kind of wackjob, in the pocket of big oil judge would cut regulation after the gulf oil spill ? Why one Obama appointed of coarse
  

Revisting Animal Crossing

Via Evil Avatar- an excellent retrospective on what is possibly the best kids video game ever made or that ever will be made. It was a life skills class dressed up as a video game -teaching work ethics, sustainable farming, economics, letter writing, empathy towards others ect ect.

All of this weird connectivity reminds me how lucky we were that Animal Crossing didn't actually run on the internet. If it had been born in the current climate, it would have to be some horrible kind of service, a mess of micro-transactions and Facebook spam about super pumpkins.
Instead, marching to the ticking of the GameCube's internal clock, which remembered when to start the snow falling, when to send the yearly Groundhog Day letter from mum, and when to tootle Tortimer off on his holidays so that one of us got to actually go inside the lighthouse for him, Animal Crossing became a universe in a bottle

Two good ideas

The first is the website Kickstarter.com, which I found through this movie project. Kickstarter is basically a public grant website where you post your ideas and ask for funding. I guess it works because many projects seem to be fund and even way over their funding goals. I'm going to look into putting up my Shark's With Lasers hockey team for foster kids up there and see if anyone will fund it Or maybe ask for funding to purchase reform foster care advertisements on billboards from random stranger since I cant count on my own family.

The second good idea is a point Tobold raised. He suggested that if companies counted worker salaries as part of profits instead of expenses unemployment would be curbed and the world would be a better place. That seems to be a blatently obvious thing we should be doing already..so how to make it happen ? Maybe give a tax deduction equal to the amount paid in salary ?

600,000 starving kids 18000 die every day.

Soooo..math problem...there are 600,000+ starving kids Somalia right now due to famine. How many could we buy a hot dog at Costco for if my parents sold their golden calf condo? Throw in the boat too. And thats just one couple. "Capitalism" has gotten totally out of hand when people are dying while others enjoy extravagant trivial luxuries.

Here are a few more news stories that were interesting but dont warrent their own post..most are from Fark

mom arrested for biting children
bill requires CIA to reject "secret patriot act laws"
Phone # on toy truck leads to sex chat line
Cuba is open for US tourists now
Mother asks 11yo to hit 10yo brother with brick
Canada no longer giving free hot tubs to people on welfare
family of hiker killed by goat wants 10million from taxpayers 

London is burning

London and its suburbs have just had their Rodney King moment. ~200 people have been arrested and the police are compounding their mistake by letting apartment blocks burn down and shop be looted due to fears for their own safety.

My understand is that, Mark Duggan, a father of 3 and rumored drug dealer was getting out of a cab when police surrounded him and he was shot dead. All the bullets found at the scene so far have all been police issue and the community claims the killing was race related. Not sure what I believe other than the guy sure wears a lot of jewelry.

Real Madrid soccer signs 7yo player

I guess at 7 years of age you can tell if someone is going to be good at soccer when they become adult. Real Madrid, for those that dont follow soccer, is one of Europe's (Spain) major professional soccer team..David Beckham played for them at one point. It would be like signing a kid to play in the NFL or NBA

Here is "Leo's" facebook page if you want to request autographs :)

Harvestable Antimatter discovered in Earth's field

Via those fine folks at the BBC - scientists claim to have found antiprotons  trapped by the Earth's magnetic field. If we find a way to contain it and explose it to regular matter we can make even bigger weapons! Because you know we are so responsible
with the other resources we mine.

Cuts to end beach water quality monitering

The Tea Party government has already lowered water quality standards to allow regular human activity in water that is "safe to swim in but not to drink". Now, starting in November the Dept of Health will stop monitering water quality all together on beaches in Florida. As gross as that is the real sneak is that without the testing we wont know if someone is polluting, and if so who. Big win for the corporations.  

10 unused human organs

Via Fark an interesting article about organs in your body you dont really use. Ya the cartoon doesnt match but I liked it.

Renton police sue for cartoonist's indentity

Cops dont like it when you hold them accountable. Just ask Everett. See the video here.

Left Behind

Via Fark and CNN : a kool story about what happens to the vehicles that the US leaves behind when they invade a country.

NASA to annouce significant Mars finding at 2pm ET

Keep your eyes peeled on NASA TV for the latest news of scientific interest. 

Update :: Flowing saltwater rivers believed to be found on Mars

Can I borrow your submarine ?

The latest "UFOs are real" news is this finding on the ocean floor. Sure doesnt look natural. I'm in the camp that our current human history is too short given the age of the planet and our level of evolutionary development. Much of who we were might have been hidden by the moving of the continents and the raising and falling of the seas.

Diablo 3 Auction House to trade in real money

Blizz released today that along with regular in game gold the AH in diablo 3 will allow their 12 million subscribers (including many kids under 18) to buy and sell loot with real money. From each transaction blizzard will of course take its cut. I think this is a horrible idea! First, this is another step in the direction of games no longer being games and rather becoming peoples lives. They are already surrogate social lives for people who dont want to interact in real life, and now they will become a source of income. A rather purposeless source of income honestly. Secondly, with this Blizz is going to circumvent the age restrictions other gambling establishments are required to respect and open the door to any kid or irresponsible adult with a credit card. And that is going to draw the eye of big brother to the game industry, to tax and then to regulate. I guess we have to hope government will draw the line because apparently Blizzards corporate responsibility to the people (and kids) who will ruin their own lives with this wont.