Take Action for the Center for Biological Diversity

Take Action for the Center for Biological Diversity

Help Stop Ocean Acidification

Act now to stop ocean acidification, sometimes called global warming's evil twin. The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking public input on how to address ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act -- a process that opens the door to greater opportunities to regulate the emissions that are causing ocean acidification. It is extremely important that the EPA hears from you in support of these efforts.

Our thirst for fossil fuels is turning our world's oceans more acidic -- with potentially devastating impacts on marine ecosystems. The oceans absorb about 22 million tons of CO₂ daily, causing seawater to become more acidic. Ocean acidification prevents crucial marine life such as plankton, shellfish, and corals from building the protective shells they need to survive.

Leading scientific experts warn that if we do not rapidly reduce atmospheric CO₂, our oceans will dramatically change and entire ocean ecosystems could unravel from the bottom up due to acidification. It’s not too late to act, but time is short.

The Clean Water Act -- our nation's strongest law protecting water quality -- provides tools that can be used to rein in CO₂ pollution. The law has a history of successfully reducing water pollution, including other atmospheric pollutants such as mercury and acid rain. The EPA has the ability to invoke this powerful law to curb CO₂ emissions that are causing our oceans to acidify.

Send a letter using the form below to urge the EPA to act quickly to address ocean acidification.

Why Not to Shop at Office Depot

Let me begin by saying this is NOT about the sales staff or store management.  

This is about Office Depot as a company, a vendor, a provider of products.

Knowing, I have never once had a good experience at any Office Depot and have walked out every-single-time I've gone into one without purchasing what I need (other than office supplies) I really should have known better than to waste my time.

This all began last Sunday when I went to pick-up a monitor for my pc.  Piece of cake, you say?  Hardly.  Of the three monitors I wanted to purchase, NOT ONE was in stock!  All I wanted was an 18.5 inch Viewsonic, LG, or Samsung.  Now one of these brands was on sale, and one would think (but you'd be incorrect) that what Office Depot advertises they would keep in stock...Not so.

So after waiting over 20 minutes to find someone to help me.....and being told they didn't have any of the monitors....I was informed that they could have one delivered to me at home...  But I work a 5/40, so I'm not home to receive the monitor and I do not want to pay a delivery & handling charge for something that they should have in stock.  

Next they tell me they can get me one from another store, but that they are also going to charge me a delivery & handling charge.  Now by this time, I getting angry.  So they check the warehouse, and the warehouse Doesn't Have Any of the monitors in stock either.  I then ask when they might expect that the warehouse might get the monitors & deliver them.... "Well, most likely by Thursday."   Great... I ask if I can be called...."No, we don't do that....but since you really need this, we'll call you."

Thursday comes and no phone call.  So I go in and guess what?  Right!  They still don't have the monitors and they don't know when they will have them.   So I settle for a larger monitor; a 20 inch Viewsonic....I have to tell you the picture quality was beautiful, but this blog, my e-mail, and other webpages DO NOT fill up the screen, there is a gap of 2.5-3 inches on each side, which makes the $40 extra dollars I spent wasted.

Friday I call Office Depot and talk to the very nice Asst. Manager (Mike) and tell him I'm bringing back the monitor today (Saturday).  So, I get there today and I trade the Viewsonic in for a 18.5 HD Samsung.....  I should have known better.  I get the Samsung home and you know what?  It's a FARKING HD T.V. with pc capability, BUT... you just can't plug it in to your pc and turn it on...OOOOOOOOOOOOH Nooooooooooooooo!  YOu have to first use the Remote Control to turn it on and then you have to set the Language, Date & Time....  After that, it acts like a t.v. with a bad connection...ALL SNOWY!   I couldn't figure out the remote control buttons or how to make it work as a monitor.  Needless to say, I boxed it up went back to Office Depot and got my money back.

There were no other 18.5 inch monitors (except an "Acer") in stock and it didn't have built in speakers.

I am so angry I could spit....but I won't instead I'm writing this blog and telling you once again: That unless you need office supplies Do NOT shop at Office Depot.

Tomorrow I'll go to Best Buy, where I purchased my last monitor and buy a monitor there.  At least with Best Buy, I can go online and see what is in stock and they will put it on "hold" for me.

I Am an Addict

and I am addicted to Farmville....not Facebook, oh no, I don't give a fig about that, because the only interest I share with my so called "friends" is Farmville.

The photo is a photo of my ever changing farm.  It is loosely based on the Montalvo Rancho, but I try to make mine prettier and more hospitable.  In the photo you can see my crop of Heavenly Blue morning Glories and some type of Red fruits, Raspberries, I do believe.  You can also see my sauna (because having an Initi is not an option), my lake, my Japenese garden & tea house (where if it were real, I'd be seeing my clients), and a variety of fruiting trees.....  I have moved my dreams to a visible location via virtual reality.

Now here's the problem with Farmville, it panders to greed and the  insatiability of craving for more bigger & better.  There are people who purchase so many animals that they are lined up like an abundance of tchochkes on a hoarder's shelves.  Some people have 3-4 "homes" on their farm, some have general stores or libraries!  

Another unfathomable thing is colored hay bales & fences...I have hay for my animals to eat (see I told you...I am lost in virtual reality) not for decoration....I do not need, nor do I want 3 or more Dairy Farms...that's a whole lot of b.s. (that's a pun)!  Someone actually asked me, "Why do you have water troughs for your animals? It's not as if they are alive and you need to feed & water them."  Well, yes as that is true, I'm trying to make my fake reality as real as possible....if I had farm animals (which most likely I wouldn't), that I was making a living off of, I would indeed have to feed & water them....

Then we have the holiday "stuff". Valentine's Day we had a mailbox, collected Valentines and traded them in for such exciting & much needed gifts as (ok, I'm not kidding here): an I Love Ewe (a pink sheep with a headband supporting two red hearts, a bench with kissing ducks, a pair of flying winged cupid pigs, a garish 3 tiered heart shaped fountain.  St. Paddy's day: a flower cart (cool), a green ewe with head band and shamrocks (I Do Not Lie), a Leprechaun, a stone castle, etc. Christmas: Reindeer, Reindeer with Christmas lights strung on her (yes her, only female reindeer have antlers during winter) antlers, a illuminated flat Christmas box, fences with wreaths (those were nice).  Olympics: a bobsled, torch, ski something-or-other. Mardi Gras: Carnival masks, French Quarter Buildings, Carnival Mask Tree....  Get the picture.  Super Bowl: A Referee Leprechaun, a Referee cow, a field goal kicking cow, team flags, and a pretty good b-b-q (that I got for my back yard). One theme had a Totem pole, which was pretty insulting as it uses cartoon characters.  Ok, get my drift?

Farmville is so busy that most times it doesn't even function properly....I have lost numerous crops to "Out-of-Sync" issues than to anything else.  I spend my time plowing, planting & harvesting...but it gets lost in down time.  What should take me no more than 45 minutes (15 per task), as I have 200 plots of plantable land, takes me hours.

I can not visit my "neighbor's" farms to fertilize their crops, feed their chicken, run off the foxes, raccoons, or crows, or weed their gardens, because they own so much "cutesy" crap on their farms that it takes near forever to load their farms......

Part of the problem is that the creators of Farmville have too much going on at once.  They add too many new applications at one time.  I say focus on one thing at a time....do not add more gifts, new crops, "specials" if all they are going to do is slow down the running of the application itself.  We do not need all that "cutesy" crap...it is taking too much virtual memory to run and again it is pandering to the never ending greed of our existence.  My pc may be old (Windows XP) but it doesn't have problems with any other website or program except Farmville.

Farmville can be fun and at one time it was a relaxing way to spend a few hours after work, but lately it's becoming a chore.  

I am addicted to Farmville.....see my farm...isn't it pretty with all the dead blueberries? 

Say NO to Blackwater

CREDO Action | more than a network. a movement.


We can't continue to outsource our security
Say no to Blackwater

Your message to your representative:

Please co-sponsor the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act (HR 4650). We must stop relying on private, for-profit companies like Blackwater to wage our wars with little regard for anything beyond their bottom line.

Clicking here will add your name to the petition.

This is how we stop Blackwater for good.

Dear Friend,

There's finally a bill to stop private, for-profit companies like Blackwater from waging war in our name with little regard for anything beyond their bottom line.

More than 22,000 mercenaries are operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, and these unaccountable hired guns have shot civilians and participated in torture at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities.

The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, just introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, would prohibit hiring private mercenaries like Blackwater to perform tasks traditionally done by the military.

Click here to automatically sign our petition to urge your representative to co-sponsor the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act.

Recent Congressional hearings have painted a dismal picture of Blackwater's operations. Employees stole hundreds of weapons meant for Afghan national police. They billed the U.S. government for a prostitute. They created a shell company called "Paravant" so they could keep getting government contracts after they trashed the Blackwater name.

But Blackwater is just the poster child for all that's wrong with hiring mercenaries for our military tasks. Contractors waste billions of taxpayer dollars while engaging in legally and ethically questionable activities. And when they commit morally repugnant acts like the killing civilians, they're doing so on our dime and in our name.

The Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act would ban private security contractors from performing military, security, law enforcement, intelligence, and armed rescue functions. The bill also imposes better transparency requirements on existing contracts, so firms like Blackwater that still have contracts would be forced to report their activities more frequently and would be under better Congressional oversight.

Such oversight is desperately needed for economic as well as human rights reasons. As the most contracted-out war in U.S. history, the conflict in Afghanistan is a model of fiscal irresponsibility. The Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting called the billions of wasted taxpayer dollars "fiscal hemorrhaging."

And worst of all, the number of private military contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan just keeps growing. In fact, private mercenaries far outnumber U.S. military personnel. It's hard to tell the difference between a security contractor and a U.S. service person — and when these hired guns shoot civilians, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are rightly outraged at the United States.

It's past time we stopped wasting money and destroying lives with our reliance on mercenary contractors.

Click here to automatically sign the petition to ask your representative to co-sponsor the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act and put an end to private contractors performing duties our military should.

Thank you for standing up to companies like Blackwater.

LiAnna Davis, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

P.S. It was recently reported that despite Blackwater's atrocious record, it is likely to get a $1 billion contract from the Department of Defense to train the Afghan police.

Click here to automatically sign our petition and tell your representative to co-sponsor the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act and stop Blackwater for good.