As part of an after-school chess program called Making the Right Moves, Greene has been developing his bullying skills and learning how to think more strategically as he abuses his targets –and not just on the chess board, but in life as well.

The 11-year-old Greene, who was enrolled in the program by his parents to keep him out of trouble, had been tormenting Samuelson and chasing his King and lone Bishop around the board for over fifteen minutes with the boisterous encouragement of a small group of classmates encircling the chess match.

“I could have totally ended this game ten minutes ago,” whispered Greene who has been developing his strategic antagonizing techniques through this after-school chess program over the last year.

“Trevor is so lame. He can’t even do a proper Petrov’s Defense opening move. Greene said. “Ten bucks says he starts to cry when I take his bishop.”

Greene is among a growing number of bullies who are looking to take their tormenting skills to the next level through the chess instructional program now being promoted within the City Of Chicago School District 299.

Greene says that his bullying tactics used to be so superficial and uncreative, admitting that he used to just make it up as he went along.  Like most children his age, his thought process was dominated with near-term proximal thinking and lacked a long-term strategic view.

“Before the program, I used to just knock someone’s books out of their hand from behind whenever I had a decent chance,” Greene said. “But now I’m actually putting some thought into it. Like, really planning ahead and stuff.”

But training bullies to think more strategically and stay several steps ahead of their victims was not the intention of the three-year-old after-school program.

According to district spokesperson Sheila Moore, Making the Right Moves was developed to improve math skills, critical thinking, and increase confidence for all children.  But like other activities designed for the good of the many, such as recess, dodge ball and class elections, it was soon taken over by kids committed to imposing their power over others.

Bullies taking time outside of the program to hone their strategic tormenting skills

Since the program has started, Moore has seen significant improvement in bullies’ skills in pattern recognition, abstract reasoning, and the tactical oppression and psychological torment of other children.  She says that bullies have learned so much from this program, “they are now three to four moves ahead of our school counselors and their traditional bully prevention techniques.”

“We used to advise kids to tell an adult if they are being targeted or dial the bully hotline,” Moore said. “But bullies who’ve gone through the chess program will have likely established some clever countermeasures such as destroying the victim’s credibility beforehand or using other kids to act as pawns and shield any punishment. Or they might use a traditional castling move and swap out another child in their place to avoid retribution.”

“They really are employing some clever moves,” Moore said.

The school system is now considering setting up a special bully-prevention chess program which will teach kids about the various defensive strategies such as pawn sacrifices, playing a stubborn defense to exhaust their opponent, getting more advanced players to step in on their behalf, or just knocking over the board and pieces and quitting altogether.

Image courtesy of CLUB DE AJEDREZ LINEX-MAGIC

Street Photo by Adam Jones

A series of disastrous events are due to take place at the end of 2012 according to those who have studied Maya Alvarado, a Northwestern University senior whose calendar appears to work on a 365-day cycle.

Maya's calendar ends on Dec 31, 2012

While those familiar with Maya disagree about what is expected when her planning calendar abruptly ends after December of this year, most predict earth-shattering waves of emotional destruction and the lives of hundreds turned upside down.

Maya’s sister Sofia. who claims to have observed Maya for years, forecasts widespread catastrophe around the Alvarado household over the holidays and beyond.  She points out that Maya’s calendar doesn’t go beyond 2012 due to a very unique combination of circumstances.  It appears that Maya is beginning to enter a cycle of depression due to her expecting to graduate with only an English degree in December and has no serious prospects for employment. Combined with the fact that she recently broke up with her boyfriend, Maya has largely written off 2013.

According to Sofia, the rare but inevitable alignment of Maya’s heightened levels of anxiety, lack of planning, and a significant rise in pressure from her parents, has made her impending meltdown and the devastation of the lives of those around her nearly certain.

“Oh, it’s coming, you better believe it,” said Sofia who is convinced there is no escaping the impending Maya 2012 apocalypse.  “She is totally going to lose it, particularly when she finds out her ex-boyfriend is getting married next June.”

Others believe that Maya’s calendar says nothing about her world coming apart.

“For Maya, it has always been a big deal to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” said her mother Maria Alvarado, who has studied her daughter for decades. But to mark the end of 2012 as a doomsday or moment of crisis, she says, is “a complete waste of energy and a chance for a lot of people to get all worked up over something that probably won’t happen anyway…we hope.”

While December 2012 may come and go, there are those who are not taking any chances and are convinced  disaster  looms.  Many point to past near-calamitous events that took place over a decade ago on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K.

Sofia reminded everyone about how on that year, Maya didn’t get what she wanted for Christmas and “completely lost her freakin’ mind, threw a tantrum that lasted well into the New Year, and made the world unlivable for everyone around her. It was just awful.”

While the debate rages on, Sofia and most of her friends and family are not taking any chances and expect to make preparations for the 2012 transition.

“We’ll probably leave town for a couple of days and let this thing blow over,” Sofia said. “I don’t want to be around when Maya’s world comes crashing down around us all.”

Net’s Best Satire, Vol 1

News roasted by some of the best independent satire writers on the web in 2011

The Dope authors are representing nicely in this collection of media stories which brings together some of the funniest, most insightful pieces of parody and sharp irony available.  Comprised of nearly 70 individual humor pieces by 25 authors, the book offers a burning critique of everything that happened in 2011.

Covering world events, politics, sports and pop culture, this assemblage of satire includes such Dope stories as “Katy Perry’s breasts sign $8m deal with EMI Records”, “Sarah Palin recovering from ego-ectomy and victimitis” and “Local weather man ‘just trying to warn you about a f*#cking tornado!!!’”.

Also included are selections from a dozen other humor sites which include great writing such as  “NATO Offers ‘Groupon’ Discount to Arab Spring Uprisings”, “Romney Dazzles in Swimsuit Portion of Debate”, McDonalds Launches Healthy Go-Eat-Elsewhere Option”, and “First Lady Vows to Humiliate One Fat Kid Per Week.”

Available for:

- Nook at barnesandnoble.com – $3.99 – direct link,

- Kindle on Amazon.com – $3.99 – direct link

Free reader apps

Don’t have a Nook or a Kindle reader?  Download free readers for multiple devices (including Mac and PC, iPad, iPhone and Android).

Download it, read it and let us know what you think in the comments. Better yet, leave a review on either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Lin, a reserve point guard for the New York Knicks who emerged from obscurity in January when injuries to the Knicks backcourt rotation propelled him into the starting lineup, recently experienced the knee problem and will be off the market for six weeks.

Before the malfunction, Lin was exceeding all expectations and averaged 22.5 points and 8.7 assists, leading New York to a 9–3 record up to the All-Star break and nearly 15 points per game on the year.

Lin’s inexplicable success with the Knicks not only took the NBA and it’s fans by surprise, but also alerted Taiwanese officials that the American market was ripe for the unique product line.

The knee malfunction is just a temporary setback for Taiwan’s goal to be a net exporter of professional athletes. Taiwanese basketball players currently only have a small niche appeal in the United States, showing up on high school teams as a second string shooting guard or as walk-ons at largely academic colleges.

Before the recall, Consumer Reports had just upgraded the Taiwanese basketball player as a “Best Buy“, saying in last year’s annual basketball review that “despite not having the typical ‘ups’ necessary to keep pace with most ballers in its class, they are ”smart and persevering with a high motor, have low maintenance costs and remain a viable third option to keep on your bench.”

Taiwan’s Economics Minister Shih Yen-shiang said Wednesday that the recent Consumer Report accolades still describe their products accurately and that despite the recall, the popularity of Jeremy Lin in the United States proved that Taiwan’s efforts to develop a model that also has a “sweet crossover dribble,  shut-down defensive skills and a decent mid-range jump shot” is paying off.

Shih expects Taiwan to quickly resolve Lin’s knee issues and will double production of the new model by the end of the year and have more Jeremy Lins playing in the NBA by next season.

“We are confident that with the minor adjustments to the Lin line’s lower extremities, we will be back on track in lowering the huge trade imbalance we have with the United States when it comes to professional athletes,” Shih said referring to the hundreds of poor quality American basketball and baseball players that flood the Taiwanese sports market every year.

Image by DvYang on Flickr

This Alabama woman is being punished for leaving the house without her husband's permission.

Several state legislatures have passed or are in the process of adopting laws that, among other things, require women above the age of puberty to wear chastity belts with the keys held by their fathers—or their husbands after they become married.

Some states are also requiring that any woman caught having sex or using birth control outside of marriage to either wear a scarlet letter A on their clothing or, in southern states, be branded with a letter A upon their breast and spend time in a public stockade.

The stocks would also be employed for a variety of new crimes, such as any woman leaving the house without the written permission of either her husband or eldest male relative.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed the chastity belt and scarlet letter bill into law on Monday. Although a previous version called for the branding of “unholy and adulterous” females, public outcry resulted in the law being changed to require a cloth scarlet letter A instead of branding.

“People said we were trying to turn the clock back to the 1950s as far as reproductive rights were concerned. Well, we’re not going back to the 1950s or even the 1850s. We’re taking things back all the way to around 1600 or so,” Corbett said. “Women don’t need birth control, they just need us men to tell them what they can and can’t do with their bodies.”

In Wisconsin similar measures are pending in the state legislature, which previously passed a law that requires the teaching of abstinence-only sex education in schools. Dubbed the “Increase Teen Pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Act,” it is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker.

“We’re just going to ignore the fact that states with abstinence-only education have more teen pregnancies and abortions as well,” Walker said. “All you have to do is tell kids not to have sex and they just won’t do it.  After all, we told kids not to drink and presto, underage drinking was cured overnight.”

In Kansas a bill pending before the state legislature, dubbed the “Mandated Lying to Women Act,” would require doctors to falsely tell women seeking abortions that it would increase their risk of breast cancer and turn them into ax murderers.

Gov. Sam Brownback has vowed to sign the bill, over the objections of medical groups, if it should reach his desk. He insisted the bill would pass any Constitutional test in the courts, as the Constitution does not specifically give women any rights.

“The Constitution is about We The People and those who signed it were men, so what does that tell you? It was clearly referring to men, not women,” Brownback said. “As a Republican I’m in favor of getting the government out people’s lives and by people, I mean corporations. State-mandated lying is fine  if it spreads misinformation and gets between a woman and her doctor.”

Chastity belt and scarlet letter laws were passed earlier this year in Tennessee. Any woman caught having sex outside of marriage will have to wear a scarlet letter or, if she’s 18 or older, be branded in the public square. Her male partner will receive a medal from the state as a testament of his virility.

A bill pending in the Tennessee House of Representatives would require the state to publish the names of doctors who perform abortions, along with enough detailed information as to make it easy to identify women who’ve had the procedure.

Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesboro) said the idea for his “Encourage Anti-Abortion Violence Act” came from the murder of Dr. David Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider who was killed in 2009 after being publicly attacked by conservatives, such as Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

“This bill will make it easier for pro-life activists to go after those we disagree with. Now, my lawyer reminds me to state publicly that I’m not encouraging violence against women or their doctors,” Hill said. “Of course, if anyone wants to violate these women’s right to privacy and shame them publicly or their doctors, well that’s their business, wink, wink.”

Elsewhere in the U.S., Alabama adopted a law last week that bans women from working outside of the home.  Georgia is considering a law that would require full-body burqas for women age 12 and older. Mississippi already forbids women of any age from leaving home without being escorted by a male relative.

“The war on women isn’t over, not by a long shot,” Hill said. “We’ll have our own version of sharia law here in the U.S. in no time. We need to keep these womenfolk covered up and in the home where they belong.”

The decision came after a surge of Puppy Bowl videos crashed YouTube in February, having overrun site’s server farm in Mountain View, Calif. Rather than spend significantly more on server space, YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar announced the site will instead promote only its cash cow content.

“We severely underestimated our users’ interest in pet videos,” Kamangar said. “Pet owners seem to have hours of free time to film and post videos that defy the old conventions of what’s entertaining or even interesting.”

Cat videos alone account for 34 percent of all monthly uploads to YouTube and have driven 79 percent of global traffic to the site in 2012 according to officials. Even in China, where access to YouTube blocked behind a firewall, more than 100 million users have risked imprisonment by subscribing to the “Mao”channel, documenting the antics of Wushi Nushu, a Siamese house kitten that struggles to catch koi fish.

To make room for web’s adorable animal stars, YouTube will be eliminating content it deems inane and too human-focused. The first wave of cuts will include: personal video logs belonging to teenagers, gadget unboxing videos and any footage shot at the annual American Library Association conference.

“If you’re given the option of watching at a sad, lonely little people or fuzzy, wuzzy wittle puppy wuppies, it’s like ‘duh, no brainer!’” said Henrietta Speller, 53, who owns the popular channel “DancingwithDogs.”

The new policy will also penalize organizations that upload long, unpopular videos categorized as “bore-a-thons.” Kamangar cited an example, comparing a 30-minute clip from the PBS documentary “Concentration Camp,” with only 270 views, to “El Cato Siesta Naptime” – video of a sleeping tabby cat in a poncho that falls off a toy horse – which garnered 270 million views.

PBS, along with video channels such as WhiteHouse.org and C-SPAN, will have their YouTube accounts temporarily suspended until they can incorporate more pets into their posts.

To comply with YouTube’s new standards, PBS has asked Charlie Rose, talk show host and Emmy award winning journalist, to co-anchor with a baby Koala.

“In all my years, I never thought I’d see the broadcast business become an actual zoo,” said Rose. “But these Google people seem to know what’s best for the viewing public, numbers don’t lie.”

The protesters, a mix of permanent street dwellers and those who recently lost their homes through foreclosures, confronted Romney as he left a campaign appearance and asked if he had a plan to help them.

“You lost your home? Wow, you have my sympathies. Do your servants have their own homes? Maybe you could live with them?” Romney said to the protesters. “No one wants to have to move in with their butler but these are hard times, my friends. That’s why my I’m running for president, so the upper classes don’t have to associate with those who are beneath them.”

The demonstrators were momentarily speechless. Romney approached one protester, Sarah Jacobs of Toledo, and asked why she was upset.

“My husband lost his job at the mill and they’ve served a foreclosure notice on us. We were just a few years from paying off the mortgage.” Jacobs told Romney. “Our retirement savings are gone and we have nowhere else to go or turn to for help.”

Romney suggested the woman try tapping into whatever trust fund her parents left for her, sell any Arabian horses she may have or unload whatever foreign currencies she’s invested in.

“Of course, you shouldn’t take that as financial advice. I’m sure your portfolio manager knows more about your investments than I do,” Romney said. “Maybe you could relocate to one of your vacation homes for a while? I realize not everyone can afford to have three or more houses, but doesn’t everyone have at least have a timeshare or a condo in Palm Springs or Boca Raton somewhere?”

Romney was then led away by campaign staffers, leaving the speechless protesters behind, and ignored questions shouted to him by reporters. One staffer said Romney was late for an appearance at a local orphanage where he would talk about the importance of having good parents.

Former Mormon leaders Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor are now are now three dead, gay married Jews.

For the past several days a coalition of inter-denominational straight and gay activists has  secretly performed gay marriages and religious conversions between deceased Mormons in states where gay marriages are legal.

The movement is in reaction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice of baptizing the dead of different religions without the consent of their surviving family members. Many Holocaust victims, former football star Pat Tillman and President Barack Obama’s late mother are among those who’ve been baptized posthumously by the church.

“The Mormon Church said it would stop this practice years ago and yet it keeps on happening.  They simply don’t care how offensive this. They’re saying someone else’s religion doesn’t matter,” said a coalition leader who asked to be identified only as Rabbi Feinberg. “They’re taking away my people’s Jewishness so we’re doing the same to them. Last night we gave bar mitzvahs to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor. Then we gay married the three of them together, since they all believed in polygamy. Now, in the eyes of the Lord they’re three dead gay Jews.”

Smith, Young and Taylor were the first three leaders of the LDS Church. Feinberg said he is awaiting the approval from the family of gay activist Harvey Milk to see if he could marry Milk’s departed spirit to other prominent deceased Mormon leaders.

“I was going to start off this protest by marrying Harvey to a couple of Mormons but I realized that if I didn’t get his family’s permission then I’d be no better than the Mormons who think they can just convert someone against their will,” Fienberg said.

Jewish organizations, such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center. have protested the dead baptisms since the 1990s when it was first discovered. In 1995 the Mormon Church said it would remove Jewish Nazi victims from its baptismal database but the practice has continued.

Many well known Jews have been posthumously baptized, including Albert Einstein and Irving Berlin, without the approval of their families.  The issue was reignited when it was discovered that the church recently baptized Holocaust victim Anne Frank.

“Officially speaking, the Catholic Church doesn’t approve of gay marriage but in this case I’ve agreed to make an exception since the couples in question have already passed on. Two days ago I baptized and married several dead Mormons and sent the baptismal and marriage records to their families,” said a Catholic priest who asked to be identified only as Father Dan. “The Catholic Church may seem old school to a lot of folks but the Mormons are practically Stone Age compared to us.”

The group said they’re busy gathering the names of departed gays and lesbians and, with the approval of their families, will be gay marrying them to converted dead Mormons until the Mormon Church stops its practice of forced baptisms.

“If this doesn’t get their attention, well we’ve got something really special in mind. Stay tuned for the largest interfaith gay marriage ceremony you’ve ever seen. Come to think of it, it’ll be the only interfaith gay marriage you’ve ever seen,” said a bishop within the Lutheran Church of America who asked not to be identified. “We’ve never sanctioned dead baptisms or gay marriage before, but we never thought it’d be necessary. We usually try to tolerate the peculiarities of other faiths but such forced conversions are really over the line.”

The boxes feature the cereal’s iconic cartoon character “Lucky” the leprechaun with his new companion who has yet to be named.

New boxes of cereal started coming out in major retail chains over the weekend, in advance of Monday’s official announcement from the company itself.

Kendall J. Powell, General Mills CEO, said the company will hold a contest whereby kids can nominate and vote on a name for Lucky’s new “companion.”

“The issue of gay rights have gone mainstream. What better way to acknowledge this fact and help explain it to kids than by slowly introducing Lucky’s new relationship,” Powell said. “Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional in California and Washington state recently approved a gay marriage law. It looks like gay rights are here to stay.”

An ad campaign, to be launched later this week, will introduce the new character and invite kids to help name him. It will feature a storyline where Lucky will eventually come out of the closet and the relationship with his new friend will become more apparent over time. The two characters will eventually get married but a date has not been set.

Unfortunately for the company, this effort to reach out to the gay and lesbian community could wind up backfiring in both directions—from gay-rights supporters and their opponents. Mike Thompson, acting president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said the company was pandering to a stereotype and his organization would call for a boycott.

“Sure I ate Lucky Charms and Froot Loops as a kid, but I also ate Cheerios and Wheaties. Why is it always the fruitier cereals that are perceived as being gay? Why not Cocoa Pebbles or Cap’n Crunch?” Thompson said. “My favorite cereal was Sugar Corn Pops because back then it had a cowboy on the box but there’s no need to get all ‘Brokeback Mountain’ in the cereal aisle.”

Reactions among shoppers were mixed. At the Kroger grocery store in East Peoria, Ill. Valerie Johnson said it was irresponsible for the company to promote “the homosexual agenda” and that she would no longer feel safe taking her kids shopping.

“I’ve had a hard enough time explaining to my eight-year-old how come some kid in his class has two mommies,” Johnson said. “Now I gotta explain why there’s two men  having breakfast together and they’re not related and why is this guy always sleeping over at his friends place? What’s next, will Snap Crackle and Pop run off with Tony the Tiger? You start messing with the laws of cereal nature, there’s no telling where it could end.”

There was a much different reaction at the Rainbow Grocery Co-Op in San Francisco. The store usually doesn’t stock sugary cereals but made an exception in this case. Shopper Bruce Anderson bought several boxes with the intention of sending them to his extended family members in Oklahoma.

“My sister has been struggling to give her kids an answer on why their uncle Bruce isn’t married and how come his ‘friend’ Larry is on his Christmas card every year,” Anderson said. “I haven’t been back there for years but maybe this cereal will pave the way for a visit, although frankly I was always more into Trix when I was a kid. Just love those rainbows.”

Linsanity, a psychosomatic syndrome that has swept across New York City and the basketball blogosphere like a tornado during tornado season, is inspired by the stunning and unexpected recent play of underdog NBA point guard and Harvard graduate Jeremy Lin. Now Lin, the first Taiwanese-American to ever play in the NBA, who has led the underachieving New York Knicks to five straight victories, finds himself the latest chess piece in a six decade-long struggle for sovereignty and political recognition.

A prodigy of the pick and roll becomes a chess piece in global conflict

With leaders of the suppressed, long-enduring Taiwanese independence movement increasingly taking to Twitter and underground basketball shelters to trumpet Lin’s success as further evidence of Taiwan’s distinct identity from its occupiers in Beijing, Chinese government officials are reportedly growing fearful that a contagion of Linsanity might inspire the first show of aggression in the Taiwan Strait since 2004. In response, the government proactively interjected its position on Linsanity on Tuesday, with Li Xueju, Minister of Civil Affairs for the People’s Republic of China (“Mainland China”), issuing a statement to basketball reporters worldwide celebrating Lin’s success, while reinforcing it as a distinctly Chinese accomplishment.

“In the People’s Republic of China, we are very proud of our Chinese brother Jeremy Lin and the Linsanity. However, the People’s Republic of China wants to make it clear to anyone who believes that Linsanity is not a Chinese ecstasy, that, while it comes from Taiwan, Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China, as affirmed by the 1971 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758,” said Xueju. “Any suggestion that Linsanity is not Chinese is simply propaganda from a small group of radical dissidents looking to exploit our brother’s sudden scoring rampage. It does not reflect the feeling of most Taiwanese people, who love the People’s Republic of China. As his sovereign, politically unified brothers and sisters, we are very excited to see our Chinese brother Jeremy Lin turning his herky-jerky, dribble-drive game into NBA success. We believe it is obviously more evidence that China will soon rule the world.”

For the time being, U.S. State Department officials are applying their long-standing diplomatic position on the conflict to the Linsanity debate, maintaining its Taiwanese alliance while not officially recognizing its independence. One State Department official, speaking confidentially, reported that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will not intervene on the matter unless violence occurs across the Strait of Taiwan, there is a credible threat of nuclear activity on either side, or until Lin proves he can consistently hit a jumper. The latter is not expected this season.