The changing US population

Interesting article on the top 10 cities in the US that people are relocating to.  All but 1 (Denver) are in the South and Southwest. Austin is #2.  A lot of people in Austin really don’t want it to grow anymore, I can actually understand that.  Austin has a certain charm about it that it might lose if it became too big. I heard (I think on NPR) that Texas is projected to be the state with the largest population, larger than NY or CA, by the year 2040.  The funny part is I remember in college I had a professor that predicted 2 things about the future of the US (this was in the early 90s), that people would mostly telecommute for their jobs and the South/Southwest would be the new large population centers of the country by the middle of the 21 century. When I read this article (and heard the same day on the radio that Houston is getting ready to overtake Chicago as the nation’s 3rd largest city)  it resurfaced to my memory what one of my professors had said so many years ago in college.

Here is a funny story on The Onion about this also.

Rick Steeves

I went to see Rick Steves speak at a local bookstore. He host a travel show on PBS that Ive watched for years. It was great to watch him speak, he is very political when he is off camera.

He just finished a show about Iran. He said the reason he did this show is to try and show the west what the people of Iran are really like. The corporate media has been so busy dehumanizing Iran, that he wanted a chance to show how they (the people of Iran) are just people, like us, just trying to live their life. We shouldn't confuse the people with the policies of their government.

We voted

Im glad they have early voting here in Austin. Nikki and I both voted. Looking forward to seeing what happens in November. For anyone who knows us it shouldn't be a big surprise who we voted for.

The reason McCain may be the next president..

Here is a great article on the Republic of Redneckia and the political system, worth reading.

Blather bla po fadder poo doo

Will Palin speak in tongues during the election debates? We could have the whole debate in tongues. She is also part of a religious group who is obsessed with the end of the world. They also believe in Christianity(their brand of it) taking over the world, banishing witchcraft(lookout Harry Potter) and other "interesting" stuff. I think they are drilling for gas a bit too much up in Alaska, there seems to be a leak in the church.



Speaking of the end of the world, here is an interesting article.

Hopefully this story is false...but probably not

I found this story about how the US might be stepping up plans to attack yet another oil rich country.

Polar bears, schmolar bears..wheres my $$$?

Endangered Species Act is soooo getting in the way of that $6,ooo,ooo,ooo profit, so lets just change the law.
What this is in a nutshell, the act will bar federal agencies from studying and tracing the pollution caused by corporations that contribute to global warming and how its causing animal species to go extinct.
The story this refers to is here

Medieval Politics

Pretend you are a political adviser for a presidential nominee and you have to go back into time, into the dark ages, and market your nominee towards the mindset of the medieval times. What kind of ad would you come up with? How about this one calling Obama the Antichrist, that would work, right?
Seriously, this is working? (Sadly it is)

Propaganda

So what country is this again? The US....right?

Local "News"?

I read this story about how product placement is going to local news TV broadcast. Yet another reason not to watch local (and this one really deserves quotes) "news".

2 different angles

This is about the same story but CNN says
Iran describes nuke talks as 'constructive'

and BBC says
Iran must decide between confrontation and co-operation

Funny how you can describe the same event and have the tone sound so different.

The Corporation (repost)

The following is from Nikki's personal bog but I wanted to repost on this blog as well. We both are having cognitive dissonance dizziness from this movie
---------------------

I really had no idea. I just finished watch a movie called The Corporation.

I knew that corporations were "people" in the eyes of the laws and had all the rights therein. I had no idea that lawyers were able to establish this from the 14th amendment, which was added to the constitution to protect freed slaves.

I have some idea about the new lawsuits involving intellectual property, but I had no idea that the US patent office now allows patents on LIFE - i.e. LIVING organisms - with the only exception being a "fully born human". That means that a corporation can own a gene, an animal, a plant or microorganism.

A Texas corporation called Ricetex received a patent for basmati rice, one of the largest mainstays of India's economy.

I knew that governments gave privately held corporations contracts for public services, but I never heard that companies were trying to privatize water. I like to think that I follow the news, but I didn't realize what happened when the World Bank instructed Bolivia give the water of one of it's larger cities to have a California company, making it illegal to collect rainwater and charging up to 25% of a families income for WATER!*

I do keep up to date on all the very bad things that are happening to the planet, and to us, due to consumerism, but the movie's presentation was a stark reminder of all the work that needs to be done to get off this runaway train.

This movie makes a very strong case that if companies are people then they would be diagnosed as psychopaths by the DSM.

This is really my beef with the health care industry: health care companies are just that companies. They only reason for their existence is to make money. But the result of their bottom lines is that people don't receive needed medial care and people die or their quality of life is diminished.

I'm in shock. I feel nauseous.

I took 7 months off from working after my daughter was born, and spent my days focused completely on the most important thing in my life, my family. I didn't realize how much those months changed the way I looked at things until I went to my first day of orientation at my new job at one of the largest online travel sites.

All the new hires were required to sit through 2 days of PP presentations detailing the history of the company, the company's interests and how I can help gain market share and make more money for the company.

A new hire asked the presenter a question about all the outsourcing that had taken place in recent years, apparently she was concerned about her job security. The presenter, with a straight face, said that we have to understand the company was loosing money and that we have to understand that they need to do what's in their best interest and that we should be sympathetic. Seriously. We should have sympathy. For the large profitable company. Right. Thanks for clearing that up.

Did I mention that marketing is my profession? Shoot me.

The job didn't work out for other reasons (evil boss from hell), and I'm a stay at home mom again. At some point in the near future I will need to go back to work. I don't want to go back into marketing, but I'm not sure what to do instead. I'd like to make money on my own, but every idea I come up with feeds into the same corporate system. Trust me, I don't want to be rich, I just don't want to worry about paying for basic things - place to live, utilities, food, education, etc - and to be able to go on vacation every year. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.


Footnote
* The people of Bolivia were able to prevent it the Bechtel company from owning the water. You guys rock! I just wish that their water problems were over. They still don't have an effective system in place. Here's the Wiki about the protest.

Name a country that starts with U

I showed this to Nikki and afterwards she had a dazed look on her face, I asked what was wrong, she said "the video was scary". Just realize when watching this that their votes count the same as yours does.

Also, we have a little poll going to the right (under the Flickr banner) asking who you think will be the next president, so far Obama is 100% (Nikki and I already voted).

You wont find this story on Fox or CNN

This article makes my teeth grind.

WTF?

I cant stop watching this. The older lady's pants keep disappearing and the lead singer actually washes her face with McCain at one point. Watch out for the floating McCain head (I'll be having nightmares about this one).

They're serious about this video, this isn't a joke. I guess its not that surprising considering who they're voting for.


Update (April 18th):
This turns out to be a joke video by a comedy-news website. They did a great job, very funny.

Bush in handcuffs, hyena soaps, and 1 other story

An interesting news article about several Vermont towns that have voted to arrest Bush and Cheney for crimes against the Constitution.

A New York Times article on hyena soap operas (its about their social structure and intelligence).

An article on the teaching of girls and boys, how they learn.

The 2008 election results

A little introduction for this hilarious video. Diebold is the company that supplies the electronic voting machines for the national elections that the US has been using. In 2003 the chief executive of Diebold announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W. Bush and the Republican Party. You put 2 and 2 together and anyone can see there is the blaring conflict of interest. But this video from The Onion says it the best.


Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

political stuff

Everyone who knows us knows that we are what you might call tree-hugging, crunchy, granola eating, progressive, open minded types. You may have heard Skip rant about the current US administration and their foreign policy. We have voted for the green party, independents and Democrats in the past, we bring our own bags to Whole Foods, read Chomsky, we marched with the protest against the Republican Convention in New York City in 2004 (some photos Skip took)...you get the point. So the last thing you would ever dream of seeing on our blog is a video for a republican candidate, right? We like to call things like we see them, regardless of political affiliation, praising views we agree with over simplistic party "loyalty". This guy is definitely worth checking out, he is a...(gasp) republican from...(double gasp and fall over with legs in the air)...Texas. You have to pause the video sometimes to read the text (or at least I did, but it is almost 1AM and I'm tired, so maybe you don't have to), and the music has a cheese factor of 8.2, but if your into politics and current world events, you should definitely check out what Ron Paul has to say on this video.

nepotism?

VP Dick Cheney, and presidential hopeful Barack Obama are distant cousins. This isnt that suprising, really. Franklin D Roosevelt was related to over 10 other presidents. It seems a lot of presidents and other high ranking politicians, not all, but a lot, have a branch of the family tree that leads to another president, another senator, another whatever. Is there a hint of nepotism in national politics? Hillary Clinton with her husband, GW Bush with his dad and brother in Florida, Obama with his distant cousin VP Cheney? Look at this photo of the last presidential hopeful John Kerry and the guy on our $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton and tell me they aren't related!

With our two parties most likely to be nominated, republicans AND democrats, is our choice really that varied? Whats wrong with a 3rd or 4th choice? Why not un-simplify our Hobson's Choice a little and get some other parties in there, different voices? Maybe look outside the presidential gene pool a little? You know what happens when cousins marry, right? The children are a little on the dumb side. And it only gets worse as generations go by. Hmmm, look at our political leaders today.
Ok-Im done with my monthly political rant, sorry. I really should be at work right now.