kevkev.ca

Mar 28

Gareth found my new favorite website. Without my middle name it’s “Evil Thicken”.

omigod you guys. do you remember when TFDL wasn’t even built!??

Mar 24

The Hunger Games

The most hyped movie since Star Wars Episode I.

The Hunger Games did not disappoint. I admit that I have not read the books, but I found the movie accessible and compelling. The characters are strong and even Woody Harrelson impressed me. Jennifer Lawrence was perfect for the role, and totally BA.

People that I’ve talked to said it stays pretty true to the book, minus a few details. I give this movie 12 districts out of 12. (HA)

Mar 21

nationalpostsports:

Same old song
Bruce Arthur: The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won a game in the sterile and lucrative confines of the Air Canada Centre it vaulted them to seventh in the Eastern Conference, four points behind the fourth-place Philadelphia Flyers, who were coming to Toronto a few days later. “You have to go through a hard time to realize what it takes to win,” said Leafs goaltender James Reimer that night, presuming the hard times were behind them. Well, we all make mistakes.

That was 43 days before Tuesday night’s 5-2 loss at home to the New York Islanders, which came one day after Boston dug the Leafs a new sub-basement with an 8-0 thrashing. The Leafs managed 13 shots on Monday. They managed 14 shots on Tuesday. The past two games, the lights have gone out.
Photo: Mike Cassese/Reuters

The best thing about being a Flames fan is that I’m not a Leafs fan.

(via nationalpost)

Mar 20

[video]

Mar 11

crooked indifference: Birth Control 101 For Idiots -

bemusedlybespectacled:

This is hormonal birth control. [see article]

As you can see on the box, you take exactly one pill per day. To make sure it works, you need to take one pill every day at the same time, or it stops working. You take only one pill, and you keep taking them regardless of what you…

Everyone needs to read this.

Mar 07

KONY 2012

I saw the video, and like many of you were I was moved. You can see it for yourself if you want - google KONY 2012 and you won’t have any trouble finding it.

I was then invited to a rally in Calgary in support of the movement over facebook, which is impressive in itself that Calgarians feel passionate enough to “hit the streets” over their beliefs.

I don’t know if I’m the type to “hit the streets” per se, but I went to the facebook page which was topped by a quite negative, quite ignorant comment which I would like to share here and address. I have not included the poster’s name out of respect for his anonymity, although I don’t believe he deserves anonymity because from the looks of things he’s already deleted the comments of people who have disagreed with him. Class act.

This is what sort of sparked it all (http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/qjvvl/the_best_30_minutes_you_will_spend_all_week_i/) which is not good. The video itself is a good piece of emotional porn but that’s about it. It’s honestly NOT worth the 30 minutes when you find out somethings about the organization that is doing this [Invisible Children].

I would like to firstly take issue with the tone. People have been made aware of a serious issue and feel passionate to respond in some way, a gesture which I think shows the best of humanity. The commenter’s tone seeks to belittle those who have chosen to take action with the best of intentions. Who have taken a public stand saying “I will not let children be abused in my world, NOT in my world”. The commenter calls it “Emotional Porn” suggesting those who felt moved by the video are social deviants, or that they are weak minded lemmings who fell for the theatrical tricks of the organisation. Even if his arguments against the video are credible he’s already alienated his audience, bullied them into feeling ashamed for taking a stand against injustice. But let’s read on, shall we?

First of all, the guy who made that film get’s paid $90,000 a year. That’s for him and his family. This does not include him paying costs for film equipment, video editting software, nor does it cover travel or accomodations whilst in anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with. Let’s go to that now.
Here are some expenses from [CharityNavigator.](http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429):

**Compensation of Leaders | % of Compensation relative to amount of money made by IC | Title**

* $88,241 | 0.99% | Ben Keesey - CEO
* $89,669 | 1.00% | Jason Russell - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
* $84,377 | 0.94% | Laren Poole - Co-Founder/Filmmaker

**Revenue**

* Total Contributions: $10,334,060
* Program Service Revenue: $3,423,351
* Total Primary Revenue: $13,757,411
* Other Revenue $7,769
* TOTAL REVENUE: $13,765,180

**Expenses**

* Program Expenses: $7,163,384
* Administrative Expenses: $1,444,570
* Fundraising Expenses: $286,678
* TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES: $8,894,632

**Payments to Affiliates $0 Excess (Or deficit) for the year: $4,870,548**

**Net Assets $6,584,811**

As if that isn’t bad enough, they’ve refused to Co-operate with the Better Business Bureau, Their transparancy rating is fairly low on Charity Navigator, and allegations of fraud. HuffingtonPost has an article on it [here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/fraud-in-facebookchase-co_n_433928.html).

Wow, so many things to adress. Since I’ve already addressed this guy’s abusive tone, I’ll focus on the content here. Firstly: The filmmaker makes almost $90,000 a year. Seems excessive from a first glance - I would agree with that. Working a standard full time job (40hrs a week, 50 weeks per year) that’s close to $45/hr. But it’s not a standard job. It’s a job that has him travelling to Africa, away from his family, and exposed to the dangers of being an affluent white dude in a developing country with guerrilla warfare much of the time. It’s also clearly a cause he’s passionate about - so I guarantee he’s spending more than 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year working on it. When you break it down hourly, I’d be surprised if it hits minimum wage in the USA.

Click on the huffingtonPost article he links to. The allegations of fraud were towards a completely different organization for the most part. There is mention of allegations of fraud towards Invisible Children, but those were discredited. In a facebook contest nonetheless - we’re not talking about breaking federal or international laws here. We’re talking about a voting contest on facebook, likely not managed by the higher ups in the organization in any case.

Charity Navigator’s overall rating of this organization is 3 stars out of 4. Not bad. Sure they could be a little more transparent. But that doesn’t mean their cause is bullshit, and it certainly doesn’t mean those who are passionate about following their cause are less than you.

Besides, they make a fairly large point about sending money to the Ugandan Military. This is a big no no for a couple of reasons. First of all, Kony isn’t even in Uganda. Funding a military that has no real authority over another country to LOOK in other countries, is a moronic idea to begin with. Secondly, the Ugandan military is already using this as an excuse to enter other countries and exploit resources from surrouding areas. The Government of Uganda is full of criminals that are worse than Kony himself. Not to mention the bloody PRESIDENT of Uganda is responsible for millions of deaths. [Then you’ve got allegations coming out that Kony is already dead. The LRA (Konys ragtag bunch of assholes) isn’t that large, or all that active.](http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/)

The worst thing about Invisible Children (In my opinion) is that they lobbies for DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION IN AFRICA. After all of the terrorist hunts in the Middle East, and having troops stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, don’t you think that the people would have learned by now that having troops in another country to hunt one asshole isn’t exactly the best idea? Especially when some of the Republicans believe that invading Iran is a fairly good idea at the moment. There are SERIOUS issues with this group, issues that people are overlooking. I will admit that at first I was already on Twitter and ready to bitch at people about the injustice that’s being served in other countries and then I decided to look into the organization. The information is there, and willing, but people are fearful to even look. Fearful, lazy, or just swept up by the movement.
Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that’s the nature of this planet at the moment. Humanity, since rising from the primordial ooze, has killed people over far less than anything you could imagine. Then there’s the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what’s it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn’t a game of chess. You don’t topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It’s like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in it’s place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear.
Hell, there’s a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of afafairs and are an *intergral part of the current system of global unfairness*. They ovver placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don’t change anything. If you think of large entites such as Global Corporations, conglomorates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this.
There’s a lot of reasons why Invisible Children has a good idea of what they’re doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and it’s practices.

*Information retrieved by use of google, and a variety of different comments spread across Kony2012 post comment fields.*

Not all of this dude’s points are bullshit. However, Kony isn’t going down with peaceful negotiations, and his reign of terror has to be stopped. Whether you agree or disagree with military intervention in this case, you can agree that this dude needs to be on the front pages of every newspaper for the evils he’s committed.

It’s terribly naive to think that you can take down a warlord like Kony without military intervention. I pride myself as a pacifist, but in this case military intervention is the only way.

And then this guy goes on to criticize people for not doing their research. Unbelievable. When someone believes in a cause, I know it’s the “cool” thing to do to disagree with everything about it. But this is one of the first times I’ve seen people in Calgary get collectively impassioned about anything that’s not getting hammed at Nashville North during stampede. Isn’t that worth something?

Can’t one contribute to the education of the masses without suggesting they’re nothing but worthless lemmings watching “Emotional porn”? Let’s support each other. Let’s help each other to learn about the causes that affect us with constructive criticism, not knee-jerk reactions and criticism for the sake of superiority.

And many others are posting “People should get more educated, I’m appalled at people not being educated about this issue”. Don’t scold. Without this powerful video people wouldn’t have any information about this issue. It’s adding to education, and instead of telling people that they are ignorant, why don’t you go and find some sources of education to share? Be a part of the solution, don’t just nag about how dumb everyone is.

I’ll stop ranting, even though I don’t feel like stopping.

Feb 29

I lolled.

(Source: companion-boobsmcgee, via kindeedoll)

Feb 20

Best put seatbelts on your ears…

I spent today painting with Jocelyn.

We are painting the apartment that we are renting starting March 1st.

Best.

Feb 19

[video]

Feb 16

“I get really upset when I’m walking downtown and there are three young people walking toward me—all with their heads down. I try to make eye contact to say hello, good morning, and nothing. The disconnect there bothers me, and that’s going to get nothing but worse. I’ve got my iPhone and GPS and news anytime I want it. But my mindset is: I’m not married to this thing. I don’t have to look at it every five minutes. I can kind of use the technology for what I need. I feel pretty balanced that way. And I’ve made a conscious decision not to go with all the social-media stuff, because it takes up too much of my time. I can’t read a book. I can’t sketch. I can’t go to movies if I’m constantly tweeting somebody.” — Jerry Manock, Apple’s very first designer. (via curiositycounts)

(via curiositycounts)

Feb 13

Just a little gif(t) (HAHAHAHA) from me to you. (HAHAHAHAHAHA)