Food and Water Watch is encouraging concerned citizens to contact President-elect and his transition team to develop solid policies and programs for food, water and fish.
This is the link to send a message: http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/5915/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=392
Hello MYBO People,
The very first Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009 -- originating right here in MYBO -- has a challenge for 40 people in our network of campaign volunteers.
We are trying to secure a venue in Washington that is convenient, on the Metro with space for more than 1000 people, and we are trying to do this for what is regarded as the inauguration that will be the most widely attended in our nation's history. Everybody wants to be there to witness this historic event and celebrate, and maybe nobody more so than those of us here on the MYBO listservs. Obama's Internet Army soldiers.
It's really, really hard to get space in Washington right now, and MYBO has done it. Almost.
So, The Challenge.
We are on the verge of signing a contract for a venue, and to do it we need 40 people to kick in $1,000 so that we can be ready with our check for the down payment before someone else beats us to it.
Your underwriting of the down payment not only assures us the space to hold our very own Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009, it will cover $40,000 of our total budget. Think of yourselves as part of Barack's tax plan. That top 5% that will help to reduce ticket prices and make our ball more affordable for everyone--most especially for the 95% of MYBO who need a break after all the donating to the campaign!
What else will you get? You will receive:
What else, you ask?
The undying thanks and devotion of everyone who wants this ball to happen. You can also choose one of our sponsor gifts, once we figure out what they will be.
We need this as quickly as possible. Don't think it over. Reply right away to Russell Miller, our treasurer, at Russell@grassrootsballdc2009.com, and we go to contract to have a ball!
You don't have $1,000? That's okay.
If you have $500 to help us underwrite the ball, we can guarantee you:
And If you don't have five hundred dollars to get the ball rolling, don't worry. We'll be rolling out other sponsor levels, and tickets will be available shortly at a range of prices that make sense for every working American. (We revere the Constitution, but we're breaking the law of supply and demand.)
This ball is going to be for EVERYONE—or at least as many as the fire codes allow.
Thank you!
Jacqueline Ashton de Floris, Mary Ritter, Russell Miller
Members, Organizing Committee
PS: Money Where Our Mouth Is Department—All three of us are already in as sponsors. It's lonely out here, but we know it won't be for long. Join us!
PPS for shy folks: You can be anonymous sponsors if you like!
By Stuart Fox Posted on Popsci.com
After a year of winnowing down questions from 38,000 scientists and citizens, Science Debate 2008 sent 14 covering health, research, the environment and science to the presidential candidates. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama answered the questions, and their answers can be read here. However, it’s easy for a politician to make promises, so PopSci investigated both senator’s voting records to see if their history matched up with their promises for the future. Each day for the next two weeks we'll present an analysis of the candidate’s voting records as compared with their answers to the ScienceDebate2008 questions. You can follow the entire series at popsci.com/election, where you can also sign up for an RSS feed.
Premiere California water activist Dorothy Green's plea for a reformed water policy appeared in the Los Angeles Times on October 8th, a week before her death.
Heal the Bay's founder lays out her vision for a clean and sustainable state supply.
by Dorothy Green October 8, 2008
To everything there is a season; but water is eternal. Or it was, until we started disturbing its natural rhythms. We penned it behind dams and diverted it to aqueducts, starving the life out of rivers and creating an unsupportable addiction to using more water than we need to live. Despite the looming crisis in water, we have enough to live on, but not enough to waste. And waste it we have, with great enthusiasm for lush green lawns in a desert and a penchant for backroom deals with agribusiness. These deals end up as sweetheart ones for the moneyed corporate farmers, providing them with essentially a bountiful private water supply, which they sell off at a profit, while the rest of us are carefully metered and potentially rationed.
John McCain has responded to the issue of water scarcity posed by Science Debate 2008. His complete response is found below.
A side-by-side comparison of his comments and Barack Obama's on this and other scientific issues can be found at: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=42
An online vote comparing the responses of the two presidential candidates, grading Obama's as substantially superior is located here: http://sciencedebate2008.com/vote/?cat=14
Pithy comments comparing the responses of the two presidential candidates can be found at: http://sciencedebate2008.com/vote/?p=39#comments
This race should not be close. What awful chord in American culture resonates with the distortions of the McCain ads and doesn’t bother getting the facts? Let’s each do what we can to get the result that will support sustainability now. You can forward this e-mail to friends. From my web page at http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/davidberry folks can sign on to the Obama site and read his detailed proposals themselves.
A historic process to protect the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River Basin has now been completed as the US House of Representatives passed a joint ressolution providing consent to the Great Lakes Compact.
As water shortages in developing countries become more acute due to climate change, the EU is backing policies to manage the demands of all sectors, prioritising health, sanitation and cooperation between states.
This post and the related links outline the approach to achieving the Millenium Development Goas of reducing the number of people without adequate access to safe drinking water and santiation by half by the year 2015.
These policies present a framework for an Obama administration policy on international water issues.
Wonder what all of the credit default waps that have been bringing our economy down ...
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html
Please DIGG.com it or share it on one or more your favorite social media sites.
The Texas Observer has a very complete article on the history of Phill Gramm - McCain's go-chair and economic mentor.
If there were justice in elections, this alone, would win Obama the race.
Check it out and PLEASE go Digg it and get others to Digg it too.
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2767
Quote from Gramm:
“The work of this Congress will be seen as a watershed where we turned away from an outmoded Depression-era approach to financial regulation and adopted a framework that will position our financial services industry to be world leaders into the new century,” Gramm said.
Some e-mails have been circulating with false information about the tax plans of Obama and McCain. The Tax Policy Center a joint project of the Urban institute and the Brookings Institution has analyzed the plans and finds the following percentage changes in after tax income based on the two plans. McCain’s tax cuts favor the upper brackets and those folks may favor his plan. While the Obama plan will neither cut nor increase my taxes, I strongly support it out of fairness:
Family Income
above $2.87 million: McCain tax cut 4.4% Obama tax increase 11.5%
603,403 to 2.87 million McCain tax cut 3.4% Obama tax increase 8.7%
226,982 to 603,402 McCain tax cut 3.1% Obama no tax change
160,973 to 226,981 McCain tax cut 3.0% Obama tax cut 1.9%
111,646 to 160,972 McCain tax cut 2.5% Obama tax cut 2.1%
66,355 to 111,645 McCain tax cut 1.4% Obama tax cut 1.8%
37,596 to 66,354 McCain tax cut 0.7% Obama tax cut 2.4% > 60% of taxpayers
18,982 to 37,595 McCain tax cut 0.5% Obama tax cut 3.6% > are in the bottom
Up to 18,981 McCain tax cut 0.2% Obama tax cut 5.5% > three groups
Many small family farms around the world are turning to wind energy as a way of keeping the family farm going.
For small family farms to be able to participate in the production of wind energy we need the tax credits that the repulicans are blocking.
Why is John McCain so focused on Nuclear energy? Sure Barack has also stated that he is interested in it, but the Rocky Mountain Institute has a 50 page pdf explaining it isn't economically viable. (Long lead time, expensive overruns, cost to consumer ) They also contribute to nuclear proliferation as we are seeing in Iran.
By doing so many promo's / ads with McCain in a nuclear plant, McCain is saying that he supports an industry that isn't economically viable outside of big government and is bad for homeland security.
Its a good example of McCain being in the pocket of lobbyists.
Sources: Thomas Friedman, Rocky Mountain Institute
McCain suggests renegotiating Colorado River compact to benefit Ariz., Nev., and Calif.
From Daily Kos
by mcjoan
On Thursday, Rasmussen reported a 2 point lead for McCain over Obama in Colorado, 47-45.
If they repolled today, chances are very good that slim gain would be gone. Because there's one thing you do not mess with in Colorado, and that's water.
