Ping.... Ack....

I'm pretty proud of myself. I successfully navigated the 501(c)(3) application process. What the hell is a 501(c)(3) anyway? 501(c)(3) status means that your organization is exempt from taxes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and, more importantly, donations to your organization are tax deductible. What the hell am I doing that requires a 501(c)(3) status? That requires a longer answer: With the help of a couple of friends (thanks Colette and Henry), I thought up an idea for providing a service that allows online lenders to the working poor to lend their funds indefinitely into the future. I'm first working with Kiva.org lenders who are a great group of people. Anyway, I founded Poverty2Prosperity.org (P2P) last summer (2008) and this summer (last week), I got my exemption letter from the IRS and I'm now an official non-profit organization - woo hoo.

So, how the hell does it work. I'll need to give you a sad but true example of what P2P does. I was recently contacted by a daughter of a Kiva lender (she herself is a Kiva lender too). Her mother has pancreatic cancer and is terminally ill, but she didn't want her Kiva lending to cease at the end of her life. She wanted to continue to make loans forever. What she did was to donate her entire Kiva portfolio to the P2P Perpetual Fund. The P2P Perpetual Fund is an account with Kiva.org that is non-withdrawable. All donations to the Perpetual Fund will be loaned through the Kiva platform over and over and over for as long as their is a Kiva platform... and even if Kiva disappears, we'll find another lending platform to continue making those microloans.

So, how's it going so far? P2P is a very young non-profit and has very modest goals, but as of this week, P2P has already made just over 500 microloans to the working poor. The exciting part is that not one single loan has defaulted to date. We working with amazing entrepreneurs who are genuinely trying to make a better life for their friends and families. Now that we have our 501(c)(3), we can earnestly proceed with grant proposal writing and I'm hopeful we'll secure more funds this year to double the number of loans we've made by the end of the year. And perhaps next year we may begin to expand to work with other microfinance sites such as Microplace and others.

This is all very exciting for us and we're (I am) very proud of what's been accomplished so far. I love doing this work!

Poverty2Prosperity.org

From "Burn the Rope" video game. Shortest video game ever with a soundtrack that's longer than the game itself.

"Congratulations, you managed to kill that boss you see.
The Grinning Colossus, you're the hero we all wish we could be,
you made it through that tunnel then you grabbed that fire on the wall.
You jumped up above him then you burned the rope and saved us all.
You burned the rope and saved us all.
You burned the rope and saved us.
Now you're a hero, you managed to beat the whole damn ga-ame.
We're happy you made it, but how are you gonna spend the rest of this da-ay?
Maybe watch a video, maybe press refresh and start again.
Yes, it's over now. We didn't want to make a longer game.
This is it, I swear it's true-oooh-oooh."

Play the game yourself. It takes about 3 minutes to WIN the game.

http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php

In my first annual award for best videos I've seen on the 'net go to the following three:

being the owner of a six month old girl, I think The Girl Effect is my number one choice this year - Girlz Rulez.

Look, I understand the concept under which Obama has invited California minister Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration - that is to have multiple view points represented by different people. I really do, but to throw support behind Rick Warren who recently compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia, incest and polygamy during a video interview posted on Beliefnet.com and widely circulated on YouTube* is just totally unacceptable and disappointing. Jeez, at least Obama said Warren's views on same sex marriage (Warren was a force that helped Proposition 8 to be passed in California**) and abortion were contrary to his own***, Still, I'm very disappointed that this particular person has been picked to get such a role in the inauguration. I'm very sorry to my best friend who is gay and to all my gay friends. This selection is just wrong. I've signed the online petition to Say No To Rick Warren.

Say No To Rick Warren Petition Link

*San Francisco Chronicle
** San Francisco Chronicle
*** Anderson Cooper/CNN

Apparently an F18 Hornet that was flying from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln crashed today in a University residential area killing three people on the ground including an elderly woman and two children. Does anyone besides me get nervous each year when the Blue Angels come to town and spend Friday practicing over the extremely densely populated city of San Francisco. "They practice over the Bay and Ocean." I've heard that, but it is so not true. They do their practice and show directly over San Francisco. If one of those were to crash... and actually it would be more likely that two of the hit each other in the air so it would be two places coming down out of the sky... wow, I can't even begin to imagine the damage and catastrophe that would be. I have to also admit, I do love seeing those air-rending turns which seem to rip the fabric of air itself, but deep down I am a little nervous when they come to town.

Original

F18 Crash News Story

Original-1

"One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,"

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 and the topic this year is Poverty. I'm having a hard time coming up with a unified theme to write about so, instead, I'm just going to mention a few things that I find fun and interesting that also help alleviate poverty.

1. Kiva (http://www.kiva.org)

Kiva offers personal micro-lending. If you've got the time and inclination, you can manage your own portfolio of micro-loans (as little as $25 each) to the working poor around the world. For example, have a look at my own Kiva lender portfolio where you can see my portfolio of 168 loans:

http://www.kiva.org/lender/saabnet

2. Poverty2Prosperity (http://Poverty2Prosperity.org)

Okay, so let's say you don't have the time to spend managing your own Kiva portfolio but you are interested in this concept of microlending. Poverty2Prosperity.org can help you out. This is a non-profit (501c3 pending - California Corporation) that I founded this year that does two things. 1. It provides a Perpetual Fund. This fund is a permanent fund at Kiva that can never be withdrawn and that means the money donated to this fund will forever be used to make microloans through the Kiva lending platform. Donors can specify lending preferences to be followed such as agriculture, women, or a particular country. Since its inception, P2P has made 161 microloans.

Poverty2Prosperity.org

3. The ONE campaign (http://one.org)

And finally... well, not much to say... I ordered a ONE campaign wristband recently and now wear it proudly...One.org aims to make global poverty and Millennium Development Goals a priority.

Hey, you can do something about poverty. It's easy now.
 

C'mon, it's over... I admit I was very pessimistic when Obama picked Biden and that was followed up the next morning by McCain announcing Palin, a woman, as his running mate. For me, it took all the wind out of the Obama sails from what, for me, seemed like a slam dunk win for the Democrats. I'm a registered Independent and I have six sisters, a wife, daughter, and two sister-in-law's, and I cannot vote for any candidate that would limit women's rights especially when it comes to reproductive rights. That said, I am, however, somewhat fiscally conservative (yet somehow at the same time socially progressive). This eliminates McCain/Palin for me, but when Obama didn't choose Clinton as his running mate, I started to think about considering what other progressive candidates there might be. With Obama and Biden's performances in the debates, I've been swept firmly back into the Obama fold. Wow, to have such a well educated, articulate, and smart president for a change... what a thought.. how exciting...

Anyway, with McCain's average debate performance followed by Palin's incoherent interviews followed by McCain's poor debate performance (kinda followed immediately by his "My Fellow Prisoners" quote).. the race is over. For my prediction, it's all about Florida AGAIN. There are many more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida so if the vote gets out, what was once a red-leaning state is going solid blue in my electoral map.. I even handed over Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio to McCain. I've put Colorado in the Red column even though it is now a swing state. I gave Michigan to Obama which seems like it is no longer a swing state and I gave him Virginia as well which could be a mistake. However, my total gives Obama 299 electoral votes to John McCain's 239. Here's my Electoral map below.

Scottsprediction

Go make your own predictions here. I'd love to see them so feel free to let me know what you come up with!

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/election2008/2008-election-map.html#/president-nprOvM/

-Scott

Thatone

Amazingly enough, on November 4th, we in California are being asked yet again if we support same-sex marriage (don't they get it yet, YES!) or more accurately, according to Proposition 8, if we would like to see discrimination written into our state constitution in the form of a law against same-sex marriage (don't they get it yet, NO!). Here we go again. I support marriage between too committed people. I think it is good for my neighborhood, good for my county, good for my state, and society in general. For me, it represents a basic freedom of happiness - a basic freedom, period. I'm proud to vote NO on prop 8. A good friend of mine wrote up some great facts about same-sex marriage issues (like did you know that in 30 states you can be fired from your job for being gay?). I am reprinting what he wrote to me here because it is so well written.

Remember on November 4th, VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 8!

·         The state’s financial analysts have reported that Proposition 8 will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars over the next few years as the additional tax revenues created by same-sex marriages are eliminated.  This will cost the state and especially county and city governments millions which will have to be made up in some way – through cuts in services or higher taxes.

·         California’s constitution and the Federal constitution fully protect the right of any religion to determine who can and cannot marry.  The Catholic church, or any church, will not have to recognize any marriage (many religions today don’t recognize marriages after divorce). This discussion is about civil rights, not religious rights.

·         California’s constitution is generally seen as one of the best in the nation when it comes to protection of human rights.  The California constitution’s equal protection clauses provide more complete protection than the US Constitution’s 14th amendment – meaning that the government is more strictly prevented from interfering in our lives.  Proposition 8 would change this and open the door to further changes in the future - all by a simple majority vote.

·         Why is it important that California set an example? Because in 30 states*, you can be fired for no other reason than being gay.  Think of that.  What if you could be fired for being a women, or being white or black, or for having children?  That’s the level of uncertainty millions of Americans face every day.  It’s tough to live your life when you don’t have any economic security whatsoever.  California’s current laws are examples for the rest of the nation and the world in this regard, and cause others to think before taking action that would restrict rights.
 
* States that permit workplace discrimination against gays: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Alaska,  Also the US Federal Government and the US Military.
 
States that prohibit workplace discrimination: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii.

This summer I realized that for me, a guy whose job it is to be on the Internet day in and day out (I webmaster a very large online enthusiast community), I was falling way behind and getting out of touch with user technology especially the sharing and social aspects of the Internet. I'm pretty good with the back-end technology, but had traditionally put down what I thought were fad technologies - no longer.

So, I started to explore web tools that could help me do some of the things I was already doing, like sharing nifty web sites with my users and friends which took me to the Delicious.com bookmarking service. I also took time to do a total rewrite of my own personal home page (Scott-Paterson.com) which led me to wonder if I could get my Delicious.com bookmarks dynamically updated on my home page - of course - this was being done all over the web already in the form of Lifestreaming, so I incorporated all my various versions of my online self into a lifestream (AIM, Delicious, Twitter, Flickr, Amazon, Vox Blog, Last.fm, Netflix, YouTube, etc etc). I also picked up my blog writing. I was a writer by training in college and I did a ton of it for work and I like doing it, so this would be one way to stay in writing shape, although my writing style is naturally rather casual. Anyway, I really liked what I saw, but to get to the point...

I opened a Facebook account thanks to a long lost college friend and my wife. I like Facebook. Half my family is on Facebook (why didn't they tell me they were - their Internet brother - I'm still trying to figure that one out). Now that I've been studying Facebook for all of a week, I've been running into problems left and right. Every other thing I look at seems busted. How many people are on Facebook? 45 Million or more? They get 250,000 sign ups every day? It dawned on me that Facebook no longer has to provide a decent service or make sure that they're not hosting slew of broken third party applications. The thing is a monster force of its own. It's like a black hole. It only has to sit there and do nothing yet continue to grow at an event-horizon pace. On my profile page, Facebook provides an integrated service in which it will automatically import Delicious links (Busted), Flickr photos (Broken), YouTube Video (Not Working), and RSS/Blog Feeds (okay, SOMETMES works). So I tried two third party apps for Delicious links, a number of RSS feeders, YouTube apps, etc etc, hardly anything at all is working in there unless you do it manually... so I tried to share this Hugs Campaign video from YouTube today (easily shareable here)...