And, as always, where celebrities fail, bloggers are there to clean up the mess. Which explains why today is Blog Action Day, when over 10,000 blogs all take some time to mention poverty in the blind hope that readers will stop looking at videos of cats falling off things for a moment to be preached at by several inert bloggers who haven’t been outside for upwards of six or seven months.

So here goes nothing…

According to the Blog Action Day website:

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue. Out of this discussion naturally flow actions, advice, ideas and plans.

That last sentence actually ended ‘and empowerment’, but it’s our understanding that no cause is dire enough for anybody to ever use the word ‘empowerment’ for anything, not even ironically, so we deleted it.

Instead, here’s something about Kiva, a microfinancing scheme. Rather than donate money to a charity, Kiva asks you to loan money to a low-income entrepreneur who desperately needs it and, when the loan has been repaid, you get your money back. It’s a lot like Dragon’s Den, except you don’t have to be a mealy-mouthed Scottish ice cream man dipshit to take part.

Since Kiva describes itself better than we ever could, here’s how it describes itself:

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our microfinance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva’s microfinance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur’s chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

By and large, Kiva is incredibly successful – so much so that every loan it had has been funded so far. But, if you want to mark Blog Action Day by doing something about poverty that doesn’t make you look you look anything like Bono at all, you could probably do a lot worse.

Right, back to normal now. All this sincerity is creeping us out.

Visit Kiva now

Alright, that’s a lie – the Neverland ranch is probably near the bottom of the list, coming some way after his ghoulish facial surgery, the seemingly bizarre treatment of his children, his child molestation court case, the porn, the Jesus juice and that monkey he used to own – but it doesn’t matter. Michael Jackson has finally fought off foreclosure on Neverland, so it’s his forever.

Alright, that’s also a lie – by ‘his’ we mean it’s technically the property of the investment company who bought the loan that Michael Jackson took out to save Neverland, and by ‘forever’ we mean for about a fortnight until Michael Jackson gets behind on his repayments again – but that doesn’t really matter either. Probably.

Sorry friendless millionaire hermits, we’ve got some bad news. It looks as though you’ll have to build your own nightmarishly creepy fairground shrine to your lost childhood where you can get drunk and look at porn in now, because Neverland is off the market for good.

You’ll remember that earlier this year Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch faced foreclosure after Michael defaulted on the $24 million property loan. Although Michael Jackson managed to wiggle out of the foreclosure by refinancing it with a big investment group, it was only a temporary solution – instead of cancelling the foreclosure auction outright, it was only postponed until today.

But, just in the nick of time, Michael Jackson has managed to avoid foreclosure for good and keep Neverland for himself by doing all sorts of complex financial maneuverings that don’t really seem to be all that clever or safe, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

Pop star Michael Jackson sidestepped a foreclosure auction of his Neverland Ranch after an investment company bought the loan on the troubled Los Olivos property, a spokeswoman said Sunday. The loan purchase by Colony Capital LLC was the latest deal to keep the 2,500-acre ranch from being sold off. In a statement released by a Jackson spokesman, who identified himself as B. Michael, the pop star said he was “pleased with recent developments involving Neverland” that would “allow me to focus on the future.”

Thank god – now that Neverland is safe Michael Jackson can now finally start focusing on the future. That’s important, because it’s difficult to plan to spend far beyond your means, consistently fail to record any new material and entangle yourself in a string of ever more complicated financial woes when a house you haven’t lived in for several years is up for sale.

Although out of the woods for the time being, Michael Jackson has such an ingrained history of failing to pay those he owes money to that it’s only a matter of time before he has to sell the loan of the loan of the loan on yet again to another investment firm with a set of even more unfavourable conditions, putting Neverland in danger once more.

We hope so, at least, because we’ve got plans to buy Neverland and convert it into a fancy hotel. Honestly, we think we can charge to dollar to let people sleep in rooms where it was once claimed that a frightmask-faced shell of a washed-up pop star wanked off a teenage cancer sufferer, especially if the rooms come with views overlooking a harrowing broken-down fairground.

Read more:

Michael Jackson gets to keep Neverland Ranch - LA Times