even the dictionary doesn't know

I love news.
I can't tell you why, but I love it. all kinds. Serious, not-serious, snarky, whatever-the-opposite-of-snarky-is. I might, just might, compile some links for you. Links to the strangest, least reliable, or most reliable, or most liberal :o) sources that I know and love. Because I firmly believe that everyone should know what is going on in the world, even if what you know is that some crazy woman crossing the border into Palestine was caught wearing three live crocodiles strapped around her waist. You should you know, expand your mind or something.

Apparently some jackass legislator in texas has proposed paying individuals $500 if they carry their unborn child to term and then hand it over to the state, instead of having an abortion [you know you want to read this] This means that you, should you happen to be a resident of texas, can pay for all these unwanted children instead. Now, according to the Administration of Children and Families (specifically this cool chart they put together), the state of Texas had an estimated 10,768 children in foster care awaiting adoption in FY2005. This doesn't include children in the system who 1) haven't had parental rights terminated, 2) are unaccounted for (you'd be surprised how many kids just get lost) or 3) who are institutionalized. The rate of successful adoption steadily declines as the age of a child increases. Not to mention that Texas had (in FY2005) the greatest number of children awaiting adoption out of all 50 states. NY came in a close second with around 9900, and Michigan and Florida follow with 7 thousand and something each. Beyond that, the numbers are in the 4000s or lower.
Now, ask yourself - does Texas really need to be encouraging people to have babies they don't want, much less paying them to put those poor kids into the state system? I mean, I'm all for life, but come on now.

While I'm feeling persnickety, I thought I'd toss this out there. If you haven't already been introduced to the world of Foamy the Squirrel, I have to forewarn you that a) it's a cartoon and b) don't be taken aback by the language; it's kind of unexpected, but once you get past that it makes it funnier. If you really know me, you probably know which one I picked for you. If you don't, well, you'll know why I picked it once you see it. afterall, C is for Cookie...
--->if you watched it, and liked it, you can check out more Foamy & Co. toons here.

One of my favorite things to do when I've exhausted all other sources of intertainment (don't jab me for the spelling. it's intentional) is to use LiveJournal's Random Journal feature. You click it, and it takes you to some random person's LJ. Now, this can end in one of two ways: the first is that you end up discovering the insightful, witty, unusual, or for some other reason intrigueging blog of a person you don't know yet suddenly perhaps wish you knew or via said stranger's blog you stumble across awesome websites, resources, etc; the second potential end is that you are taken to the blog of some melodramatic teenager who can't spell, doesn't understand love, thinks the world doesn't understand him/her, only ever talks about homework and love interests, only blogs quiz results, or the entire journal is in russian, japanese, chinese, or sanskrit. The entire point of this is that, well, I really really hate it when I get a cool page, and then do it again and get 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 more in aforementioned foreign languages (yes, teenager speak is a foreign language. yes, i know i was a teenager once. no, i'm not happy about it. no, i cannot sympathize.) I mean, Google has a translator so that you can see nearly any webpage in your language. It would be cool if when I view pages on LJ, they are viewable in the language that I set as default for my account. I know I'm not quite the computer programmer, but honestly it wouldn't be that difficult.

Finally, because I have no desire to talk (whine? sorry) about my life right now...
Links:
Real News: Reuters, AP (the Associated Press..this is where all the other news folks get their news), The Post because I know you're a little to the left, BBC, CNN, and the renaissance woman of the internet - Google
Real News, only Better: Slate (my personal favorite), The Onion, Fark which also sort of counts as a parody, but not really.
Fake News: Just One :o)


And just in case I haven't give you enough ways to procrastinate, here's one more. I swear, it's everything you wanted to know.



edited to say, I fixed the link to the foamy video. CLICK! you know you want to!!!!!!!!!