Despicable Acts and Friday #ShoutOuts

This week has had so many despicable acts it made a very cynical person even more so (I mean myself, and I view myself as a very cynical realist).

Starting off we have the now world-famous letter telling a Grandmother in Newcastle that she should have her Autistic Grandson euthanized because he annoyed this person (and the author of the note seems to view this child as a menace). This Luddite then had the gutless temerity to write an anonymous note. Let me first state as the father of a child on the Autism spectrum, if this letter is genuinely from a neighbour, the author should go sodomize themselves with a fish fork. I realize that some folks have issues dealing with people who are different, however, this kind of a hateful note would cause me as a Father to want to seek out this person to confront them.  Yes, I am pissed off by this ( and I hope this does not end up being a hoax ).

The next despicable act seems to be that the Syrian Government allegedly used chemical weapons (again, if we are to believe previous reports). Using this kind of weapons was outlawed after the First World War, yet stockpiles of them still exist, astounding that it does not seem to be causing any kind of a stir in the United Nations. There are already allegations that this might actually be the rebel forces attempting to drag the U.S. and Europe into the confrontation, which wouldn’t be surprising either.

More alleged despicable spending in the Senate with Senator Pam Wallen’s expense issues now even overshadowing Mike Duffy’s expense shenanigans. If these accusations are proven truthful, I am shaking my financial blogging finger, scolding those Senators who seem to think that wasting money is a birthright of the chamber.

I did a non-despicable act by giving Blood this week, unfortunately it is only my 16th time, however, I am back in the swing of giving, and I would ask those that can give, to please give!

I was happy to see the Canadian Men’s Rugby squad defeat Team USA in the first game of their two game World Cup of Rugby qualifying series. Interesting that Brian Burke is now on the board of directors for Rugby Canada too, might have to reconsider my views on him (glad to hear he played at Harvard as well).

My Weekly Recap

A nice week for me, as it is the Anniversary of me marrying Mrs. C8j:

Links for the Week

The CIBC says we are delaying our retirement to help pay for our kids education, and my opinion of that statement is, “I’ll take state the obvious for $100 Alex” :

Top Stories of the Week of August 23rd Retirement is Possible but When is the Question
Currency Exchange at BMO Investorline Michael James does a good technical explanation of how much you can lose on exchange rates on your trades and how to work around those fees.	How It Works: A 3-D Printer For Liver Tissue I kid you not, Popular Science talks about how they will start printing livers soon (hopefully), and that is way cool to me!	Handcuffed: Comparing Mobile Phones and Life Insurance Riscario asks have the regulation changes in both of these industries caused a big change in how business is done?
When Should I Start a RESP? Bet Crooks from Financial Crooks took a different route with RESPs and did not start one right away for their kids.		Google goes dark for 2 minutes, kills 40% of world’s net traffic That is the power of Google or at least how much of the Internet it uses, an interesting observation.
Why dividends matter Mark from My Own Advisor who is a self described lover of dividends tells us why he thinks it is an important part of your investing plan.	Link Went Away	 Dividend Investing – Getting Started Boomer from Boomer and Echo gives us a nice intro on how to get into Dividend investing.

A Fun Video

Given my fairly cranky opening I figured I’d close this with a little bit of levity (sent to my family by a Bishop):