Change has come

About Sarah Palin

It's too important NOT to link to this letter from Anne Kilkenny about Sarah Palin.

Librarians Against Palin!

Presidential milkshakes

Everything you needed to know about the Presidential candidates.

I drink your milkshake! -Daniel Plainview

I drink your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. -Mitt Romney

I drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it's allowed. -Mike Huckabee

I may drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that's what it takes. -John McCain

I drank a milkshake on 9/11. -Rudy Giuliani

I'll drink your milkshake a few months after everyone else does. -Fred Thompson

I drink your milkshake, but I'm paying for it with gold. -Ron Paul

America deserves a new milkshake. -Barack Obama

I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. -John Edwards

I have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* -Hillary Clinton

I peacefully drink your milkshake. -Dennis Kucinich

It depends on what your definition of "milkshake" is. -Bill Clinton

I voted for drinking your milkshake before I voted against it. -John Kerry

Global warming is melting your milkshake. -Al Gore

We're making good progress in the war on milkshakes, and make no mistake: we will prevail. -George W. Bush

Presidential candidates ... who really represents your beliefs the best?

Very impressive. I was a bit shocked about who matched my beliefs. Check it out!



"Glassbooth connects you to the presidential candidate that represents your beliefs the best."

Glassbooth is a nonprofit organization that is creating innovative ways to access political information. An informed and interested democracy is a powerful thing. As an organization acting in the public’s interest, we are very serious about our core principles:

• Integrity

• Nonbias

• Nonpartisan

• Transparency

• Insight

Are we too selfish to change?

I'm slowly trying to minimize the footprint me and my family makes on the environment. Green Bay is slow in adopting the environmentally-conscious way of life like my home town of Madison is, but it's getting there. I love the idea of purchasing locally raised meat. We have the vegetable garden, but we need to harvest soon before the threat of frost and get the food canned or frozen. The Omnivore's Dilemma is the next book on my "to - read" list. So I read No Impact Man's blog regularly, and I applaud this "Change the Message" message.

Reposted from No Impact Man (permission granted).

A hundred years ago, waste was considered immoral. Throwing out something that still worked was just plain wrong.

What changed that? Marketing. Factory owners wanted to keep their production lines churning and factory workers wanted to keep their tummies full. Repetitive consumption seemed like the answer.

Slowly but surely we convinced ourselves that new was better than old. It became ok to throw things out. It became ok to waste. In fact, out with the old and in with the new kept the economic wheels turning. Buying became downright patriotic.

The result of this old messaging is that, now, everybody wants the newest iPod, the biggest SUV, a huge vacation. And no one is going to give these things up voluntarily, right? Wrong.

Because history shows us that acquisitiveness, a twentieth century phenomenon, is not based on selfishness (which presumably would have been present from the Stone Age). Instead, our consumption arose because of newly-learned social norms and values.

So, we can change the message.

For many years, in this country, smoking was trendy. Now it’s not. The message changed. When I was young, people threw their wrappers on the New York streets without a thought. Now people sneer if you drop your trash. The message changed.

Why wouldn’t the same be true of our use of planetary resources? For many years, as a culture, we thought it was great to get more and use more, and that was the message.

People argue that changing course is impossible. You can’t, they say, change human nature. But we don’t have to change human nature.

All we have to do is change the message.

too true

I should be happy...

As a lifelong Democrat supporter, I should be ecstatic about the key wins for the party. I should be happy that our governor has been re-elected, the senate race was won by a Democrat, and other key races were won by Democrats. So why am I so sad? I suspect two reasons:

1. The two-party system seems to have melted into a choice for the better of two evils. I suspect Republicans feel the same way about their party's nominees. I have reservations about the Democrat winner, and I did consider voting Independent, but I didn't want it to be a "wasted-vote".
   
   
2. The referendum results astounded, shocked and dismayed me, not just here in NE Wi, but elsewhere. I'm thrilled that abortion rights were upheld, stem-cell research was legalized and that minimum wages were raised in a few states.
   
   
   YEAH!
   
   
   However, it saddened me that 7 out of 8 states banned same-sex marriage and referendi (I think that's the proper Latin plural) to legalize or allow medical marijuana were rejected.
   
   Wow.
   
   I'm astounded that people are so afraid of people different than themselves and so utterly ignorant of the real reasons why these bills should have been defeated.
   
   I blame it on the insurance and the drug industry and no doubt suspect much money was spent by these companies on making sure same-sex couples (as well as opposite-sex unmarried couples) did not receive benefits. And my take on marijuana is this: for many people who are able to or medically need to, ingesting marijuana in moderation shouldn't be a crime. It's been proven to alleviate pain and nausea. I'd rather do that than finding out the side-effects of pain-medication or anti-nausea medication.
   

I remember, and yet....

Everytime I think about 9/11/2001 and where I was and what has happened since that day, my heart grows heavy. Of course I remember where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt. I wonder how many years must pass for all of us to be able to talk about a normal September 11 without somehow remembering that black day.

Even with that horror, I fear my country's government has played us all for fools. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired with "them" using fear as their primary tactic to gain access to personal, PRIVATE information, to defend their baseless war against the people of Iraq, and to create a society which is less secure than it was before that Tuesday long ago.
I'm hoping to change my attitude and quell my fear by voting in this month's primaries tomorrow for at least one person, Jamie Wall, whose values and beliefs mirror my own. Will you join me in "being the change you want to see in the world" (taught Gandhi).

Namaste

What a week....

Although my high school grades say otherwise, I appreciate science, math, and get engrossed by television shows about quantum physics and quantum mechanics. I don't understand any of it, but I appreciate it.

"W" has had a busy week ... groping Chancellor Merkel, encouraging the escalation of events in Israel and Lebanon, and now, using his veto power for the first time.

Annie, Katie and Ann at inkycircus.com (life in a girl nerd world) is a great science blog for women. Their recent blog about "W" says it well:

But the thing is that scientists do think. They are not evil geniuses, they are smart, curious, well-trained people trying to give you and me a better life. Cutting off their funding at source doesn't help them to see the error of their ways. It limits their power to change things, and to find cures and solutions and treatments. And it makes people like me a little pissed off. more....

Indeed it does...