Behind The Laughter

Are you planning on seeing expelled?

Then make sure you read this first:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

‘Someday you will die somehow and something’s gonna steal your carbon’

Mad props to Austin wildlife rescue for making it so easy to drop off the injured bird I found.
Drive in, leave some info, bird gets inspected. Squirrel outside gets fed a pecan.

All done.

Last Friday, I was sitting in class and, as usual, my attention began to wander away from the current topic, UNITY.

From there, I began to wonder how much money I was wasting by not paying attention.

First I took X, the cost of a standard three credit-hour class, and divided that by the total minutes I spend in class per semester (5 class periods of 8 hours each = 40 hours = 2400 minutes). The result Y, multiplied by the number of minutes wasted (in this case, 10) provided me with my answer.

At that point, I realized that I’d just wasted another 5 minutes trying to find the result Y.

And that my friends is proof of just how dumb I really am.

Peter Sagal on gender inequality. He’s a father of three girls who took his family to see Horton hears a who. The mayor or whoville has 96 daughters and 1 son. BTW, this whole business is new to the story, not something that Dr. Seuss wrote.

His essay can be read or heard at this link

Wal-Mart backed off.

Read all about it on WalmartWatch.

Wal-Mart still sucks.

Wal-Mart, the world’s foremost supplier of cheap crap, has finally crossed the line from retailer that displays everything that is wrong with the world into the realm of pure, unadulterated evil.

Here are the facts in the case:

1. Wal-Mart employee is hit by truck
2. Said employee is left brain-damaged and confined to a wheelchair
3. Wal-Mart covers employee’s medical expenses
4. Employee sues trucking company responsible for accident and settles for $1 million
5. Wal-Mart sues employee to recoup said paid medical expenses
6. Wal-Mart wins lawsuit
7. Wal-Mart descends into an unending abyss of moral turpitude

Here’s to you, Wal-Mart. We appreciate you forwarding the cause of human suffering beyond what anyone could have dreamed.

The bigger question is who is really to blame here? The company for suing a defenseless and hurt human being or the legal system for allowing this to occur (and upholding the decision upon appeal)?

I can’t believe I missed 37 signals’ response to Jason Calcanis’ original article.

To say they are both interesting reads wouldn’t be doing them justice. Read Calcanis’ article, then read the linked response from Techcrunch and from 37 signals.

This quote sums up how I feel (emphasis mine):

If your start-up can only succeed by being a sweatshop, your idea is simply not good enough. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better that can be implemented by whole people, not cogs.

– Daily Show/Colbert Report
– Ani Difranco (refer to her song “fuel”)
– Good Magazine
– CSPI
– NPR
– Enviromedia
– Biodegradable plastics made of (wait for it….) Corn!
– Sandeep’s Blog Posts

This week proves, once again, that you’re damned if you and damned if you don’t.

Over this past weekend (March 15-16), the Federal Reserve forked over $30 billion in tax payer dollars to help J.P. Morgan Chase buyout Bear Stearns, before the latter collapsed into (all-but-certain) bankruptcy.

What was the net-effect of this transaction?

• In the short-term, the dollar’s worldwide devaluation continued, falling to a new low against the Euro: 1 USD = 0.639 EUR
• On Monday morning, J.P. Morgan closed up 10% which roughly equates to an $12 billion increase in their market capitalization

Commenting on the deal, New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin had this to offer:

But it galls me that on Friday, President Bush asserted that we must go slow in helping the millions of struggling American homeowners. He stated that “we got to be careful and mindful that any time the government intervenes in the market, it must do so with clear purpose and great care.” I live in Michigan and drive every day past the many foreclosures and for-sale signs. It breaks my heart that these people are struggling to keep or sell their houses, and the Fed just awarded this boon.

What choice did the Fed have? I mean, sure, they didn’t have to use our money to bail-out a bunch of greedy bastards who bet other people’s money on investments backed by risky mortgages, right?

What’s the point? We’re all screwed. That’s the point.

Folks, this is not the bottom. We’re not even close. We have a deficit in the trillions and billions in continually mounting debt. Our currency’s value is going to continue in a downward spiral.

Have I mentioned that most analysts predict gas will hit $4/gallon by summer?

Call me crazy (crazy!) but I don’t think that tax rebate check is going to make much of a difference.