Intermediate Technology Development Group
ITDG – About us – About ITDG About ITDG Is small still beautiful? We think it […]
Forbearance
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Indonesian organization needs tsunami relief help
WALHI – Indonesian Forum for Environment 2nd Donation Appeal for Indonesian Tsunami Victims Approximately 200 volunteers […]
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Ending Poverty
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Ending Poverty What if we could end global poverty? What if […]
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Devotion
Make the crooked straight, Make the straight to flow. Gather water, fire, and light. Bring the […]
GOP congress to eviscerate congressional ethics laws
READ THIS AND TAKE ACTION I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading this article on the front page of today's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37521-2004Dec30.html?sub=AR In a nutshell, Republican leaders in the House are planning on GUTTING the ethics rules governing their own members, for the most part because one of their own, Rep. Tom Delay, got caught doing a lot of nasty stuff. So in retaliation, they're changing the rules to make it next to impossible to file an ethics complaint in the future. Any complaint will be dropped, period, unless a majority of members on the committee in favor of it. Like that will ever happen. But oh, it gets better. They also plan to change the rules so family members of congressmen can more easily accept gifts from lobbyists trying to influence the congressman in question. AND, they even want to permit congressmen to BRING A PARENT ON A CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION. Yes, now we're giving them perks for mom and dad. Wouldn't it be nice if all of our companies let us bring the folks on business trips to Europe, at the taxpayers' expense, no less. This is absolutely outrageously disgusting what they are planning on doing. All the more so because this is the "values" party, and they're now trying to railroad new rules that will permit them to be less ethical. What a way to cast your first vote of the new Congress, and in the case of new members of Congress their first vote ever. There are a few clear action steps that are needed: 1. I hear from good sources that the Dems in the House are terrified of taking on this issue full-blast as they don't want Tom Delay to get mad at them. Well, I'm through with playing nice, hoping the Republicans will throw us a few scraps while they lead us to the slaughterhouse. Call Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, both Democratic leaders who need to grow a set of balls (or vaginas) and finally throw down the gauntlet on this outrageous behavior by the Republicans. What more do the Democrats need handed to them than this proposed vote on Tuesday? If this were the Dems planning this kind of vote, what do you think Newt Gingrich would do? He certainly wouldn't be sitting back issuing press releases and having the occasional press conference. He'd be plotting all out war to embarrass the hell out of the Democrats. It's time the Dems did the same. Call Pelosi and Hoyer and tell them it's about time the democrats started fighting back - demand that they go nuclear over this proposed change to the ethics rules this coming Tuesday. And it is irrelevant if you're from their state or not - they are the leaders of the Democratic party, tell them you're one angry Democrat and demand that your voice be heard, or we should throw them all out. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Phone (415) 556-4862, (202) 225-4965 Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov Rep. Steny Hoyer(D-MD) Phone (202) 225-4131 - Fax(202) 225-4300 Phone (301) 474-0119 - Fax (301) 474-4697 Phone (301) 843-1577 - Fax (301) 843-1331 Web form for email: http://www.hoyer.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=hoyers&type=Let%27s%20Talk 2. Then contact your own House member, Democrat or Republican, and let them have it. I'm serious, the only thing these people understand is pissed off constituents - I worked there, trust me, it gets their attention. Use this zip-code locator to find your member of Congress. Call and email them today through Tuesday - fill their voice mail with messages over the weekend. Blast them over this issue. http://www.house.gov/htbin/zipfind 3. Call and email your local newspapers IMMEDIATELY over this issue, especially if you have a new member of Congress elected from your district. Will your congressman's first vote of the new congress, and possibly their career, be in favor of lowering their ethical standards? Make sure your local papers cover this issue - call the paper and ask for a reporter or editor covering the US Congress and talk to them about this issue. Trust me, if they get 20 or so calls from people, they'll write about the issue. Find some friends and have them call too (just look your papers up online for email and phone contact info, letters to the editor, etc.) You can read more on this issue here: http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/20041216/ Feel free to copy this post and put it on your site, or to email this message to your friends. It's high time the Democrats fought back and stopped this outright theft of our government.
Good posting at jack * on atheism
j a c k *: My Life as Nothing… Good post, and good expression of the […]
Great post at Worldchanging on how we can improve disaster relief
What if relief and reconstruction efforts aimed not just to save, but to improve the lives of the victims of this week's disaster? This might not seem like the time to look ahead. The situation all around the Indian Ocean is grim: the bulldozers are digging mass-graves for as many as 100,000 bodies; at least a million people are homeless, hungry and utterly destitute; clean water and sanitation facilities don't exist; disease is beginning to break out; and relief is still far off for too, too many people. This is a full-blown global crisis. But this is exactly the right time for foresight. For one thing, history shows that the world tends to lose interest in disasters in developing world once people stop dying in large numbers. If we don't think now about our commitment to helping these communities recover and rebuild after the immediate crisis has passed, we never will. And the ruined cities and villages lining the shores of the Indian Ocean are now home to some of the poorest of the world's poor. In many places, traumatized people, who had very little with which to earn their livelihoods to begin with, now have nothing left at all. Add to this the long-term challenges they face -- like decimated local economies, massive pollution (and some new industrial accidents), declining fisheries and forests, lack of capital and, perhaps most ominously, the rising seas and catastrophic storms they can expect from global warming -- and their fate may not be an enviable one. But that fate is not written in stone. We can still change it. What if didn't just do something to help, but did the right things, and did them fully? What if we looked at this relief and reconstruction effort as a chance to not only save lives (and of course that must come first) but to truly rebuild coastal Southeast Asia along more sustainably prosperous lines? What if we made the commitment to take what are now some of the most ravaged, destitute areas on Earth, and worked with the people there to reimagine and rebuild their communities to be the cutting edge of sustainable development?