Lightning give Vinnie 33 Mil; tell him to play elsewhere

Vinnie Lecavalier: Team Leader, Playmaker, Fan Favorite. Unwanted. HUH>? WTF I get that the team wants more flexibility given the salary cap..but what business can just give away 33 million dollars to someone who isnt playing for them anymore? And why?  Vinnie is one of the very few superstar players who is actually worth tons of money because hes not only a good scores but also a play maker who thinks on the ice.

33 million dollars is 1/3 of the annual budget for entire Tampa area school district. All that money basically thrown away to pay to Vinnie just to leave the team. He could sit on his butt and do nothing if he wanted to or sort crack off hookers. Rich keep getting richer doing nothing while everyone else works for measly 30 grand a year. We need a good old Russian style decapitation of the bourgeois..these oligarchs arnt giving the money up and its not going to "trickle down". 

Living wage at Costco?

Here is the math. Stating wage there is $11/hr. Much better than 7$ fed minimum. 50% of Costco workers are part time. I would argue the concept of a "part time " worker is just a corporate gimmick to avoid giving this people benefits, since a large number of the part time workers need all the hours they can get and end up taking as many hours or more than a full time. But they are suppose to be part time so let say they work 30 hours and end up with 1400 at the end of the month before taxes and fees. My research has found that if you want a basic apartment and you dont get any asstiance (wait list for section 8 is 2 year and counting) you are going to pay 800/month and another 100 for water/power/garbage. Lat leaves barely 600 bucks a month for food/entertainment. On top of that Americans need a car to get to work so there is gas, insurance and a car payment to pay, unless they find a bus route that goes to Costco, which is rare because Costco are not in the same areas low costs apartments tend to be.And forget about saving any money for a rain day.This really doesnt seem to be a sustainable wage in this economy unless you are leaning heavily of public assistance. And if you have other mouths to feed you are totally screwed.

Meanwhile the white collar executives get 4-8x an hourly employees yearly salary PER MONTH. A man can work an entire year and not make what another makes in a month of work. It just seems wrong. Especiall for one of the most profitable corprotations in america. Yes they are better than walmart. They are very good at making that point. But that doesnt make the unbalanced division of profits reasonable. Who sets their goal at beating the absolute worst? I've worked in the warehouses and I've worked in the corporate office. The warehouse workers work a lot harder more demanding jobs, both physically and socially dealing with members. Yet the meaningful, enough to better yourself living wage salaries go people with a desk job.

Why do billion dollar sports programs need handouts?

The country of Brazil has seen some mass protest of late. The government raised the cost of bus tickets, which poor Brazilians use to get to work, while spending tens of billions of dollars on Stadiums for the the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. There is a running joke in Rio that goes "if your child is sick take them to a stadium". To the working poor, it appeared the Brazillian government was putting the needs of FIFA and foreign tourists above the needs of Brazilian citizens who need schools and hospitals and buses none of which get the sort of funding and handholding these stadiums are.

Here in Jacksonville, we have a very similar scenario going down. The city has pledged 43 million dollars to build "The worlds largest scoreboard" for the Jacksonville Jaguars football stadium. Included in the taxpayer funded renovations is a swimmingpool so people can swim and watch football at the same time. Meanwhile the city is closing a community center and 6 libraries  and limiting park hours and well as shuttering a few fire stations. Many schools outside the affluent parts of town are unfit for human habitation.

Now sports do bring with them an economy of their own. They certainly do inject value into the community as well as giving something for the citizens to unite behind. But these industries make millions and billions of dollars. Why do they need handouts when not for profit services like education and healthcare are totally underfunded. How out of touch do you need to be as a politician to promote welfare programs for billion dollar private businesses?Why doesnt the city build a free swimming pool for my business?

Joe's Movie Reviews : Man of Steel

Thumbs down. The visual effects are awesome; the work they put into creating a living breathing world of Krypton was fantastic. If they had made the entire movie about the events on Krypton leading up to baby superman being sent into space they would have had a truly awesome flick. Sadly the krypton scenes are only the first 15 minutes of the film. After that we are on Earth and the director largely drops the sweeping landscapes shots for intimate zoom ins on the characters like he did in 300. This movie can be broken down into two core scene types - big action sequences and zoom ins on emotional reaction to whatever was going on by the characters. With the exception of Russel Crow, none of the actors/actresses seemed to be able to pull these emotional scenes off at all with any sense of flow or build up. The guy playing Zod was particularly mechanical and awkward with his angry outbursts. The superman character had very little actual dialog and spent most of the movie seemingly trying to find places to pose for the camera. It was also a very violent movie. Several people get their necks twisted and broken by super-people, and I felt those scenes were disturbing and over the top. Superhero movies, and Superman in particular are suppose to be inclusive of young audiences and I was uncomfortable with the level of realistic violence and death in this film. Especially the neck breaking.

Oh what a tangled web

"Information about the usage of chemical weapons by Assad is fabricated in the same way as the lie about [Saddam] Hussein's weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq]," Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, said on Twitter, according to RIA Novosti. -CNN

In order to protect the integrity of our republic we need an amendment to the constitution that prohibits politicians from using partisan data or disputed "facts".

Joes June Newz Links

My bookmarked interesting story list is getting long so I think its time to unload.

Update: Had to add this one Naked women missing somewhere in Wa. Forest

Ship Graveyards photo adventure
Brad Pitt suffers from Face Blindless just like me!
Cool Paint used as wires for power and whatnot
Hulk Hogan does the local weather in Tampa
Public required to pay back money school employees misspent
Wikipedia caught censoring info on Wicka
Kool chemistry project for kids you can do at home
Mom declared dead gives birth and returns to life
Belts made with radioactive melt recalled
Israel working on simple organic computer
Cops see black 14yo on beach with puppy - tackle him
Wa. State Gov caught in radioactive leak cover up
GOP wants redistricting emails kept away from public in Florida
Free online college run by Yale/NYU
Salmon and Trout found to be crossbreeding
Mormon's march in support of Salt Lake Gay Pride

"Giving to Charity" is giving into fraud

The Tampa Bay Times has a series of stories out this week about the 50 worst charities and it is absolutely no surprises to me than many of them claim to help children.Having worked with many so called charitable organizations I have often found myself frustrated by the lack of work these people actually get done. Even the more honest one are more about their own existence and less about helping people. Its not just rich people stealing from the top - its middle and lower level employees taking grants to help people and doing the absolute minimum required of them.
What I hear a lot of is people saying "I give back by giving to charitable organizations". NO. At best you are passing on your responsibility to someone else who you likely wont check up on in any meanful way to be sure that money goes to something useful. The ONLY way to actually do your part, fulfill your responsibility to society is through you own time with your own hand, blood tears and sweat. Giving money to fraudsters like Juvinal Diabetes Foundation or Jewish family services only creates random middle level jobs that may or may not actually do anything. 

Joe's Movie reviews: Epic

Thumbs up. Def classify under feel good movie of the summer. Nature was, as expected, beautifully rendered. The music was fantastic (Danny Elfman duh). I think they wanted to pull together an adventure fantasy movie boys and girls would enjoy and I think they pulled it off and while keeping the girls all the princess and flowers and the boys all the warrior soldiers. There were no evil girl charecters asfaras I know but who can tell the sex of a bat right? I think they got in trouble a little at the editing table a few times - there is a charecter killed off at an early point in the movie which leads to a need to replace that charecter..but it turns out that the event that killed the charecter off was the start of seeking his replacement..so if he had just not gone on that mission, which wasnt needed at the time because he was still alive, he never would have died. Bleh its a kids movie..just roll with it. Anyhoo fantatic voiceacting and charecters! Whoever did the bad guy really nailed the role. This movie will prob sell a metric ton of toys as that clearly was one goal..but its ok cause fighting to save nature from rot and decay is a decent subliminal toy messages as those tend to go. I hate myself for saying this but with all the flying and zipping about I wonder this might be a movie worth seeing in 3D..