goodbytes

My ex and I have been divorced since April of 16 and we are still making adjustments to the agreement. Kind of frustrating because at this point she is talking about going 50/50 custody which eliminates child support. Sounds great except when you take into account we spent the last year and a half duking it out in court and costing me thousands in lawyer fees and child support along the way. After the kids being kicked out of three day cares in less than as many years I finally said enough and asked her to let me have them and put them in day care under my supervision and parenting and see if there is a change. Going on a month with not even close to the incidents that went on at daycare under her..."care". This scenario has me wondering if kids are actually ADD/ADHD or just under structured at home and just put on meds because of a lack of the parent/s desire to control their kids as opposed to them having to deal with uncontrollable kids. They are talking about putting my kids on meds and I am like well if they aren't acting like that with me than it is consistent behavior thus it must be something external to the kids that is the problem. Their mom continually lies during the sessions and I am about to put a stop to them altogether because I feel like it is a waste of time for me and the kids. Hopefully we will make it to court to file for custody of them full time soon and be done with her insanity altogether. Anyone else successfully get custody of their kids? Or even remotely going through this hell storm that I am? would love to discuss

An interesting article from the CDC discusses the fact that roughly 80% of divorces today are initiated by women. Further research seems to indicate that this percentage has steadily increased ~10% every decade since the 70's. Thoughts?

Well I have gone ahead and commited myself to writing an idea that has been bouncing around my head for about three years now. I have been an avid student of history, philosphy, and a veteran of the most recent incursions in the middle east, and the three have lent me a great deal of experience and perspective I would be remiss not to bestow to the world at some point or another. The problem has always been how. But I feel like, in the influx of distopian novels and successful series about the future, I may find a niche as an author with a great deal of (if contraversial) reality intertwined with the visions of the future. Where stories like Divergent, Hunger Games, the upcoming Maze Runner series, and others are purely based on future scenarios without much reference to actual current world events or how we got from here to there. This series serves to bridge that gap, and add to the possible futures of this seemingly hellbent global community with more realistic and educational foundation. Such topics as elite mulit-centurian family lineages, secret societies, and an underground resistance will all play factor, as is a common theme in all these types of stories, but there will be very accurate (as best as can be gathered) ties back to real world events and scenarios. Names and faces may or may not be changed, I haven't really decided yet, but I will commit the prologue to revealing in plain english the parallels between our "real" world and the story portrayed. The introduction (so far): There is a vast difference between the perception video games and movies give of the life and experience of soldiers and the reality of the same. I suppose it can be said that since time immemorial, the chasm between the accounts of historians and the experiences of combatants they wrote about has been such, as well. Maybe that is a small instance of history repeating itself, as it always tends to do. Likewise what we are seeing the world today is an occasion of historical repetition. We are at a time of unnecessary war; inexperienced leadership directing acts of war and international diplomacy as if that is all that matters. Decisions are made and actions taken without a consideration or pause for all of those affected, all the lives inevitably to be lost, and the entire worlds destroyed. The problem with our current situation is a profound lack of understanding of those people amongst which we conduct these operations of foreign policy. Perhaps the most disgusting aspect of this entire scenario is the Commander in Chief, while inexperienced in war and combat, comes from an international background. His family--whether you want to believe he was born in the USA or not--comes from Kenya, an impoverished and often unstable part of Africa. His childhood was spent globetrotting from country to country, albeit under the umbrella of Islam, which I suppose introduces stability to recompense the shuffling about. But because of this, he should understand, perhaps better than most Americans ever could, the intimate details of the places we have so thoroughly injected ourselves and our policies, and thus he has no excuse for the severe and indiscriminate bombing campaigns that have comprised most of his foreign policy as President. In the end, it is the flag of the United States of America that is on every plane, every bomb, and the shoulder of every soldier, and it is a perception of terror in the minds of every noncombatant that sees that flag in correlation with these campaigns. The people of these nations do not have CNN, Fox, or whatever network you choose to subscribe to, they only see their homes and neighborhoods destroyed and American soldiers with guns associated with it. It is said that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. This statement is not one of subjection, but of reality. When I was in Afghanistan for the first many months the people of Afghanistan thought we were Russians. They knew nothing of 9/11, Osama Bin Ladin, or al-Qaeda. When you deal with countries such as these, they have no understanding of geography and flags and politics. They have no access to international news and current events. They only know what they know, and what has been taught to them by their elders. And all of them only know what is empirical, what they can see and prove through demonstrated reality. As Americans and anyone else in a developed nation, we take advantage of our access to international news and aggregate sources like Drudge Report, and forget that we are involved in nations that have no access to that information. That said, those people tend to be exposed to more reality, because there is an absence of politics and bias, because they actually live in…wait for it… The Real World. Our foreign policy is hinged on intelligence that is gathered without international verification and is often responded to with unilateral actions by a President who doesn’t have the power or the wisdom enough to belay an act of war in an effort to achieve a more diplomatic solution. He gives in to the war powers of his generals without any consultation with Congress or the American people, who are supposed to have the exclusive power to conduct acts of war. It is the duty of the American people to come together to defund this greatest act of terrorism on the world, and stop emboldening those labelled terrorists by conducting ourselves in a way more extreme than they ever could. I suppose it is only to be expected from a nation who responds to murder with murder (death penalty), and rape with enabling rape (men are statistically raped astronomically more than women, if you include prison populations, of which the US has the highest population in the world), and poverty with forced continuation of the same (pick any one of the 80+ welfare programs in America), but that is for another article. We must as the people of this nation, the people that the flag our neighboring nations see conducting all these bombing campaigns destroying their towns and lives represents, stop worrying about our personal self-image and come together to stop allowing the government to tarnish our collective national image for the sake of only their and their constituents (and controllers) self-interest. We The People gain nothing from war. Our homes, our jobs, and our livelihoods are taken to pay for these expensive multi-thousand dollar bombs that are dropped on mud huts and children. The lives of our children and grandchildren are used as collateral to get loans from foreign bankers to finance this war, as has been done since they dropped the gold standard. The power is still with the people if only through majority. And if it takes cutting off the cable television and internet to get people to wake the fuck up and do something about it, then maybe we need to look at that as a means to an end. This is an introduction to my vision of the future from here. This is everything I believe and the foundation for everything you will read hereto forth. I firmly believe that history repeats itself, or at least humanity is limited to certain duration before it reverts to the same old shit. Enjoy, or be horrified, but know that I have to the best of my ability maintained truth and integrity in everything this is based on. ---from the author, Jesse Lohse, veteran and citizen of the Old AmericaDonate BTC: 1BJFJdMyy5ASC6uA4SZ9qEgsSNsGLg6RET The New America series

if you press play it fast forwards to the part.

Just wanted to get you guys' take on this!

There have been an increasing fervor of debate and discussion regarding human rights lately. But during a conversation that started with UPB and ended up being a discussion about the innate nature of human rights I came to a startling conclusion: There is no such thing as rights outside of the sphere of government. The political definition of a right according to wikipedia.org is: Therefore, even recognizing the existence or need of rights implies a necessity of government. So what are rights really, and how can we better understand our existence and the ability to exist outside of government by changing some fundamental verbage we use that inadvertantly advocates the very thing we are fighting against? All human beings on this planet are innately free. From the moment we are able to form opinions and decisions and learn as much as we can to make the most informed decisions we can, we are at the height of freedom. It is only in our decision, albeit collectively, to allow a comparatively small amount of people influence the realities of the many that we become slaves to that reality instead of our full potential. I don't want to get too far into this to keep it open for discussion...so I look forward to hearing from you all about my thoughts!!!