Note: This video contains language that is not appropriate for work or children. So, pop on the headphones already and watch!

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Well, it’s Blog Action Day and the subject this year is poverty.

If you’re world-aware, you’ll know that the United States is phenomenally lucky in terms of our standard of living and the number of opportunities available to residents, legal or illegal. (Thus, the reason so many risk the law to come to our country.) Poverty in the world is a huge issue and it’s simply a grinding reality that most of us don’t see from day-to-day.

I know that when I travel, particularly to third-world countries, I never cease to be shocked by the difficulty people have in getting the basics, food and shelter, on any given day. What if there was something you could do to provide a chance to people to affect their situation and find some possible escape from poverty?

Kiva.org is an organization that enables people to make micro-loans to entrepreneurs in other places without access to capital. Rather than a simple gift, it’s a capitalization of a business, something that has the potential to not only help the owner, but any number of people who may be employed by the business and/or supply the business with materials, raw or finished.

So, take action. Join the group Blog Action Day at Kiva.org then peruse the various business looking for loans and take an action by lending as little as $25 to help these budding entrepreneurs make a difference. I’ve done it and I hope you’ll do so too, there is nothing in the world like being an angel investor.

It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been far too serious lately, so, here are a few business names that really, pretty ill-advised. The first comes from Georgia where rather than a personal name, the geography helped christen the business. See below:

The second comes from close to my old stomping grounds around Ohio. Specifically in eastern Indiana where a fellow named Tom put up a number of billboards to advertise his recreational vehicles. It seems that now he’s branched into trailers and homes. See below:



The final entry is a real fixer upper. Without further ado, I give you Mr. Queen, mechanical contractor. See below:



Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

In California, we have a proposition on the ballot that would amend the constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. This is Proposition 8.

There is no easy way to say this. So, I’ll just be blunt.

Anyone who would vote yes on Proposition 8 is a bigot.

Plain and simple.

As a straight man, married for thirteen years in a “traditional union between a man and a woman,” I can say without reservation there is no way a same-sex union has any bearing whatsoever on my marriage. There is no sane person who could believe otherwise. The issue, like the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s is about equality for all individuals.

The same rationale being used to deny the rights of same-sex couples as was used to deny the rights of blacks in the past. Words like tolerance, concepts like separate but equal, and overall fear of the outcome are used as levers to goad the innate bigotry in the public to come to the surface. On an advertisement on KCBS this morning the rationale to vote for Prop 8 was that “decent people can be arrested for acting in a way consistent with their morality, churches can lose their tax exempt status, it’s no longer about tolerance, you have to accept it, and our children will be taught about gay marriage like they did in Massachusetts.”

It seems to me, if two people are committed to one another, they should be able to celebrate that union legally regardless of their color, creed, or sexual orientation.

Let’s be clear, a vote for Proposition 8 doesn’t protect your family, it doesn’t honor your marriage, it doesn’t make any material difference in your life. It does deny basic human rights to others and it proclaims you to be a bigot.

Don’t be a bigot, vote no on Prop 8.

Photo Credit: Brett Marty (brettmarty.com).

A picture is worth 1,000 words (even if it only has eight on its lame sign.) I can’t say I’m surprised, but it does continue to be disappointing that full-grown people (I won’t say adults) actively spread these lies. After all, Obama isn’t Muslim nor am I aware of any baby killing on his part. Should evidence of baby homicide exist on the Senator’s part, I’m certain it would have been mentioned during the course of the campaign.

The lying and spread of lies is not surprising but very disappointing. It goes hand and hand with the fact that 84% of US Americans (shout out to Ms. South Carolina) continue to believe there is an all powerful being out there that will reward them when they’re dead if they don’t act like complete jackasses while alive. Guess that rules the guy in the picture out…Some non-fundie christian god is gonna smite him good!