Bob West – Voice Actor

Characters, Narration, Comedy Dialog – Barney, Jasper, Pasqually

Same song, different verse: WhatsApp cofounder is leaving Facebook

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When did they stop teaching this in Startup School? It should be in the first and last courses you take.

1) Visionary Founder creates Magical Startup™.
2) Magical Startup™ experiences explosive growth.
3) Big Corporation® throws mountains of money at Visionary Founder, while cooing “you will keep control… you will keep control…”
4) Visionary Founder sells Magical Startup™ to Big Corporation® and becomes insanely rich.
5) Magical Startup™ is shuttered. Hundreds of millions of users’ voices suddenly cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.
6) Big Corporation® welcomes Visionary Founder to their corporate headquarters, locks the door behind Visionary Founder, and turns off the lights.
7) A shot rings out.
8) The lights come back on, and Visionary Founder’s Dream is found lying on the beautiful parquet floor, bleeding, dead.
9) Visionary Founder is shocked and appalled.
10) Big Corporation® pushes Visionary Founder – wearing a Golden Parachute – from top floor of Big Corporation® headquarters.
11) Big Corporation® dissects Visionary Founder’s dead Dream, removing vital organs and clumsily transplanting them into their machinery.
12) Big Corporation® users are confused by the appearance of yet another new feature that no one asked for, but which some begrudgingly use.
13) Big Corporation® shareholders see an extra penny in their next dividend check.
14) Repeat.

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Article: WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum is leaving Facebook | VentureBeat

Wounded by ‘Fearless Girl,’ Creator of ‘Charging Bull’ Wants Her to Move – NYT

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Artist A gets paid to create the most famous symbol of rampant capitalism. Artist B gets paid to create a statue of a little girl standing in front of Artist A’s bull. Instead of praising B’s artistic/social statement, A files a lawsuit. Artist A instantly hands Artist B. — and the company that commissioned the “Fearless Girl” — a moral victory. Sorry, A. Your artistic Kung Fu is not strong.

Article: Wounded by ‘Fearless Girl,’ Creator of ‘Charging Bull’ Wants Her to Move – The New York Times

 

Real American Journalism: Tiny Paper Takes Pulitzer

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Art Cullen, center, editor and co-owner of the Storm Lake Times newspaper, poses for a photo with his son, Tom, left, and brother, John, outside the paper in Storm Lake, Iowa, after Art won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. (Dolores Cullen/Storm Lake Times via Associated Press)
Art Cullen, center, editor and co-owner of the Storm Lake Times newspaper, poses for a photo with his son, Tom, left, and brother, John, outside the paper in Storm Lake, Iowa, after Art won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. (Dolores Cullen/Storm Lake Times via Associated Press)

This is thrilling. This classic story is what American journalism is all about: a tiny newspaper — circulation 3,000, printed on actual paper — cranks out fact-based, well-written editorials that stand up to big business, like the Koch Brothers.They’re in a red state, represented by the horrific Steve King, and according to other articles, Art Cullen’s editorials have also helped the immigrant community to feel somewhat safer.

If Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra were still making movies, they’d make this one.

Take a moment to visit the Pulitzer site, where you can read all of Cullen’s submitted editorials. They’re hard-hitting, with a lightly conversational wit. I’ll be working my way through all of them soon.

Read the story at the Washington Post.

The Military-Industrial Complex: Profits at the Expense of Lives

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Motherboard has two excellent articles that take on the seriously flawed thinking in the Pentagon.

As part of its mission, the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about does its best to promote war and profit from it; its greed drives military leaders to constantly acquire bigger, more expensive weapons. In the case of the F-35 Raptor, they’ve spent $1.5 trillion — yes, Trillion, with a T — developing an aircraft that’s vastly over budget and seriously under-powered. And now, to cut costs and rush the planes into the field, the Air Force has watered it down. The manufacturer is set to deliver a jet that has no infrared missiles for air-to-air combat, no small GPS bombs, no cruise missiles, and no gun. One of its intended missions was close air support — and yet the plane has no small GPS bombs or guns. So, ‪#‎MissionFailure‬. The F-35 is basically an overly complicated, hard to fix, incredibly expensive brick.

And was it needed? A lot of people say no. The one existing aircraft that can kick the Raptor’s butt in terms of close air support is the A-10 Thunderbolt, a.k.a. the “Warthog.” It’s a legendary Vietnam-era aircraft that does that job and does it incredibly well. The irony is that in order to pay for the piece-of-junk Raptor, the Warthog fleet had to be retired. Isn’t that brilliant?

But what about other planes? Is there something out there that can serve our ground troops with great air cover? Yep. It’s made in Brazil. And it has a propeller.

It’s time for the military to stop ordering expensive toys, and start equipping our troops with what they need. If they must fight wars, they deserve the right tools for the job.

Motherboard: The WWII-Era Plane Giving the F-35 a Run for Its Money

Motherboard: The US Air Force Watered Down the F-35 Fighter Jet to Avoid Embarrassment

How a corporate cult captures and destroys our best graduates

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Today’s hero: Gordon Chesterman, head of the careers service at Cambridge University. He recognizes that the lure of money thrown at graduates by large corporations’ recruiters is robbing the world of bright, concerned young people who could make a positive difference if they followed their hearts instead of taking the money-bait.

He told me his service tries to counter the influence of the richest employers. It sends out regular emails telling students “if you don’t want to become a banker, you’re not a failure”, and runs an event called “But I don’t want to work in the City”. It imposes a fee on rich recruiters and uses the money to pay the train fares of nonprofits. He expressed anger about being forced by the government to provide data on graduate starting salaries.

“I think it’s a very blunt and inappropriate means [of comparison], that rings alarm bells in my mind.”

Source: How a corporate cult captures and destroys our best graduates | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian