StumbleUpon | universalcat's blog posts

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/27080088/

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:15:10 -0800

Hello Everyone

I don't usually do this and I'll try to keep it short. I tried to weed out all the non-US citizens from my email list... so that would make most everyone I'm talking to American, even if only by residence. North American to be precise. We are indeed a we. Lets call us US.

I think I know how most of you feel about politics; I imagine that I feel the same. It's sort of like pro wrestling; embarrassingly stupid and ugly, yet annoyingly compelling in a strange way none the less. Like wrestling, politics is false, and we theatrical creatures always enjoy watching our fellow man pretend, especially when he is pretending to be serious, yet, unlike the fools in tights in the ring, politics is serious, because of the power involved. For better or worse, politics plays a fundemental part in the extremely necessary task of guiding our country and our world to a better place.

In the US at least, things have seemed to just get stupider and stupider with every election. A successful campaign in America these days seems to be nothing more than the study of how ignorance moves through masses of people. The campaign that can capitalize the most on that ignorance wins, and this usually involves some production as well. Any soundbite containing the words Freedom or Democracy or Unity that could ever have possibly been conceived of by the best twenty-something PR jerks out there has already been said. We've heard it all before... 'its a new day coming' and 'this time it's different'.

And yet this time it actually is.

If you can bear it, take a look at this video, it's about 30 minutes. I don't know if it was on US television or not, but here's a link to watch it: http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6142550. It's a political ad that doesn't make me gag, and that is saying something.

I talk with cynics everyday, I live in Europe. I'm officially a French citizen! If that doesn't make me familiar with cynicism I don't know what does. I'll tell those of you who may not know that Europeans have generally stopped believing that the US will get its shit together. I think the last of them washed their hands of us in November of 2004. I'd say most people over here are really just waiting for the meltdown, and wondering what the balance of the old fashioned ingredients of nationalism and religion and weapons will be when it comes. So I get dubious looks when I try to explain the scope of the change that is presently so astonishingly close. I can't count the times I have heard, wincing, after pointing out that Obama is almost surely going to win, somebody say 'But they'll just shoot him'.

Many of US also feel this cynical as well, no? We don't allow ourselves the requisite naiivite which would permit a true optimism concerning our future as a nation. Its not that we've been let down so many times before... it's that we've never believed in anything before. We've come to accept that this country will always be run by people undeserving of power, and we've abandoned the hope for change. We don't know what it means to be excited about a revolution, because we've never been a part of one. We view the system as static. In truth, it's anything but.

I, personally, am putting my cynicism aside for this election. For just a moment. Just long enough to see the reaction that Barack Obama gets in Washington, DC. I want to see how much resistance he encounters should he try to change this broken system, and I want to see if he can overcome it, should he try. The inertia of a standing train is enormous, but once it gets rolling, things can move quickly. I believe we may finally have an engineer who is up to the job of driving the potent engine that is the United States government in a direction that is not only neither insane nor wrong, and neither worthless nor hopeless, but could actually be called positive and extremely hopeful.

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/27080142/

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:14:49 -0800

Nothing like Barack Obama has ever happened in the history of this country. This isn't just another face on the same old story. This is something completely unprecedented. We have never seen a president so unattached to the oligarchy. In a couple of weeks the president of the United States' grandmother will be a barefoot woman in a shack in rural Kenya. That is awesome.

Change can happen. We really can have a government that is responsible and trustworthy. We can live in a country that is a positive force in the world. We can have an economy that is not run through with corruption and exploitation. Maybe we can even have a parliment? All of these things and more are absolutely possible, and though there is much work between here and there, I don't think there is as far away as we think it is, if we can just take the next step. The next step is President Barack Obama.

I hope everyone reading this plans to vote this Tuesday. It seems that I can't. Despite following all the instructions, and getting the fax off well before the deadline, the great state of Florida has unfortunately not responded to my absentee ballot request. Maybe Jeb ran the numbers and decided that you could safely predict the political leanings of someone living in the Borne district of Barcelona. To make up the loss for Obama I need to convince one of you who was not planning to vote to suspend your own cynicism for just a moment, and to believe that something can move this busted train. Let me know anyone, if it worked.

Yours,
gregory

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/26373642/

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 07:40:21 -0700

Take a look at this. These numbers are from the McCain and Obama campaigns themselves:

McCain will cut taxes for everyone... including the top .1%. Everyone making over $3,000,000 a year will pay even less in taxes under McCain than they did under the already low levels of the Bush years. All you multi-millionaires out there, McCain wants your support. And to get it, he will premept billions from reaching the US treasury.

Obama will also cut taxes. Everyone earning up to $267,000 will pay less under Obama than they did under Bush. And his cuts for the average taxpayer are greater than McCain's. All Americans earning under $112,000 will pay less taxes under Obama than they would under McCain. People earning $227,000-603,000 will see their taxes unchanged.

However what is most significant about Obama's plan is that while 95% of the population will pay less than they do now, the treasury will bring in billions more than it currently does. How? Simple. People earning over $603,000 will contribute more taxes under Obama than they did under Bush, and significantly more than they would under McCain. People who earn over $3,000,000/year (McCain's fanbase) will see a significant raise in their taxes. And that's just fine with me.

When government is legitimate, taxes are each individuals fiscal contribution to a better society. For the super rich in America, there is a debt to the society that has allowed them the freedom to get so incredibly wealthy. They can afford to contribute, and that's exactly what they should do. It is what's fair. And considering that under Obama all that money won't be going to support any new bogus cash-cow wars, we should be able to get some positive things done with it. Like healthcare.

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/25516615/

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:41:34 -0700

Obama supporters.

RNC

These pictures say a lot, I think.
The first shows a group of people looking and listening carefully, and liking what they see and hear.
The second shows a bunch of cheerleaders at a football game.
Unfortunately, their votes count equally.

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/20818727/

Sun, 04 May 2008 10:32:19 -0700

I n�� t h e�� g r e a t � w e s t e r n � d e s e r t � o f � E g y p t

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/20785235/

Sat, 03 May 2008 09:55:37 -0700

In the Alhambra, Granada, Spain

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/20546093/

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:19:37 -0700

Fes, Morocco

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/16053211/

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:57:45 -0800

In golden sand,
in gold, my stand,
in windswept, sculpted, golden sand.
With the skin of my hand,
I caressed it and
the setting sun kissed the desert sand.

In bronzed light,
she glowed, that night,
her molten skin it drowned my sight.
Her eyes they shone,
as black as night,
at once, like love, both dark and bright.

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/15822551/

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:41:50 -0800

A Divide as Wolves Rebound in a Changing West

Some people think that the reintroduction of the Grey Wolf has been a bit too successful.
Apparently, 1500 animals over an area twice the size of New York State is unacceptable.

From the New York Times article:

"From the 41 animals that were released inside Yellowstone from 1995 to 1997, mostly from Canada, the population grew to 650 wolves in 2002 and more than 1,500 today in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The wolves have spread across an area twice the size of New York State..."

It then goes on to state:

"Human head counts have also climbed in the same turf. From 1995 to 2005, a 25-county area in three states that centers on Yellowstone grew by 12 percent, to about 691,000 people, according to a report earlier this year by the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana. "

Well this is interesting.

The population of the previously endangered wolves has grown to 1550.
And the population of human beings in the same area over the same period of time has grown to 691,000.

That's nearly three quarters of a million people consuming mountains of precious resources every single day, turning them into acres of non-biodegradeable waste, eating cows shipped from brazil which were raised on the ashes of our planets lungs, powering their entertainment centers on electricity produced at the expense of the atmosphere, pissing in, defecating in, and otherwise wasting 100 times their fair share of potable fresh water, and taking space after space of virgin American forest, prairie and desert and covering it with asphalt so they have somewhere flat to leave their SUV's while they browse the Chinese plastic crap for sale at their local Wal-Mart.

And they're breeding like flies.

But it's the wolves that are the problem.

http://universalcat.stumbleupon.com/review/15371111/

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:34:17 -0800

Here I am.