Political bullshit Click here to comment
GO TO HELL, Chavez! (Context)
How about you build up a political support base from real values… “I hate the US” is not a value, it’s a gimmick.
-TJ
Update Click here to comment
Another batch update due to not enough time during the week to play with the blog…
Standardized important-investor-issues reports
From http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/funds/mutualfundmonday/10332478_3.html:
“What we don’t want is a blizzard of new regulations and big government setting pay levels. His first proposal has a lot of merit. He simply wants to force companies to disclose executive pay more fully in advance, and to make sure shareholders get to vote on it. The problem right now is that although there is plenty of “disclosure,” it’s buried across pages and pages of legal jargon in the proxy statements. Frank could make sure that each proxy statement discloses the total amount, in clear English, that the top executives stand to make.”
So I was thinking that it would be a good idea to legally standardize the kinds of reports that are given to shareholders, and in the process make a summary section of sorts that would put all the important info at the forefront so that all shareholders can see transparently the issues that are important for investing considerations. I guess the laissez-faire folks out there would be against this in principle, but I think the times are changing and we should seriously consider this kind of government involvement into private sector affairs. I’ll expound on this later, I’m sure I’ll be talking about it again in the future.
Morningstar - the increasingly valuable trading tool
I am slowly discovering new items in my Morningstar premium service subscription. I’m coming to it increasingly due to all the different things I’m finding out the website provides. For example, I’ve recently found the price-to-fair value ratio that is denoted on the different stocks covered by the Morningstar analysts. It’s these kinds of in-a-nutshell data points that prompt me to do further research and make a decision on whether to invest or not. I’ve also recently thought about checking out the Motley Fool’s Rule Breakers service.
Google Reader - my shared items RSS feed!
That’s right! I just realized I could put more RSS goodness into this website by sharing articles I come across in Google’s Reader service! I’ll be attaching that to the sidebar when I have time to do it…
Blackberry Pearl - I like it!
So I bought a Blackberry Pearl this week, and I love it! I finally have a organizer that I’ll constantly look at due to it being my phone as well! I tried putting music onto it, and for the most part it works, but in this process I realized that…
iTunes Music Store is evil
Talk about making a contract with the Devil! I’ve decided to boycott iTunes Music Store (iTMS). (Note that I do not link their website… they don’t deserve traffic from me.) The idea of downloading from a vast library of music that I actually listen to was nice, but when I realized I couldn’t directly put my iTMS-purchased music onto my blackberry without having to (1) burn the purchased music to a plain old audio CD and (2) re-import the audio CD as un-protected media, it became “So long iTMS, it’s been a blast!”
If you need more evidence, check out this article that significantly opened my eyes to the existence of the anti-Digital Rights Management (DRM) scene.
New California Spanking Law?
So I was taking a breather at work and watching the news. Fox News Channel happened to cover a story on some CA government person wanting to ban spanking from the state. (Here’s an article from ABC7 news if you’re not familiar with the situation)
So, I suddenly had the notion to check out the current state of law in CA regarding spanking. I found the website where you can do a text search through California Codes, so I did a search on their website by checking “All” and putting in “spanking” as a keyword. I found the following (source):
CALIFORNIA CODES
WELFARE AND INSTITUTIONS CODE
SECTION 300-304.7300. Any child who comes within any of the following descriptions is within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court which may adjudge that person to be a dependent child of the court:
(a) The child has suffered, or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm inflicted nonaccidentally upon the child by the child’s parent or guardian…. For purposes of this subdivision, “serious physical harm” does not include reasonable and age-appropriate spanking to the buttocks where there is no evidence of serious physical injury.
That bold text came directly from the results of my search, by the way. Nifty tool that CA has implemented… I hope I can find more like it when I start looking up law on a more regular basis. 
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And that’s all I have for today, ladies and gents. And ladies. (haha) I keep hoping to post on a daily basis but with all the studying I have to do (MS, Staff, AFOQT, GRE, Violin) that probably won’t happen. At least I have a life forming up that exists outside of the box.
-TJ