If you haven’t yet seen Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey speaking live at the Green Our Vaccines March, please check out this awesome video that made the hair on my arms stand up. I’m so thrilled that people are continuing to speak out on this topic and Jenny is a great example of a MOM SPEAKING UP!!!!!

Last week, conservative religious leaders launched the “We Get It” campaign to promote global warming skepticism and derail support for the Lieberman-Warner Senate bill, which is intended to establish a cap and trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the We Get It campaign web site:

“Millions of people are threatened by extreme environmental policies (like the ones that protect the air, the water and the ozone?) Your signature will tell our leaders we don’t have to choose between caring for people and nature”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the point of caring for nature because it’s beneficial to every species on earth, including homosapiens? Is it not plainly obvious that if we destroy our habitat there will BE NO PEOPLE TO CARE FOR???

They claim that global warming policies are not based on “sound science.” You know, kind of like that evolution nonsense.

The insanity continues (also from the web site):

Efforts to cut greenhouse gases hurt the poor. By making energy less affordable and accessible, mandatory emissions reductions would drive up the costs of consumer products, stifle economic growth, cost jobs, and impose especially harmful effects on the Earth’s poorest people. Each of the series of increasingly expensive treaties being proposed to fight global warming would cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year, with the multiple treaties gobbling up many times more every year than the estimated one-time price of providing sanitation and clean drinking water to the nearly 2 billion poor people in the world who lack them now.

I’m not opposed to clean drinking water for anyone and certainly, it should be a priority for global aid entities to see that those who need it get it. BUT…without these so-called “extreme” environmental policies, there won’t BE any clean drinking water or, thanks to changes in weather patterns due the global warming that they refuse to see as problematic, droughts will ensure that even if systems are in place to provide clean water, there won’t BE any water to clean. Durrr.

In short, none of the things they’re worried about are going to matter one bit if we don’t preserve the conditions under which life on earth evolved. When those conditions become altered, life as we know it will NOT BE ABLE TO EXIST.

Short-sighted much?

Watch the video to see the crazy for yourself.

What kills me is that these people are using the Bible as an excuse to NOT be good stewards to the earth, despite their complete and total insistence otherwise.

Why are these “leaders” really so opposed to acknowledging global warming?

What is the true agenda behind this “campaign”?

*cue Twilight Zone theme *

Did you know that just 6 media conglomerates control most of the media in the US?

This may seem unimportant to you and your family and I assure you there are some folks that are banking on that and expecting you will be passive, but don’t be fooled; it’s important to the freedom of all Americans.

Have you ever wondered why some news stories, even really important ones, are buried in the back of the newspaper or only mentioned in your alternative weekly? Ever wonder why the media makes almost no mention of certain alarming or newsworthy topics and other topics (Britney Spears’ escapades, Anna Nicole Smith’s death) get non-stop coverage?

In a free country, media concentration hinders vigorous public debate and limits the news, viewpoints and perspectives presented to citizens — often to their detriment.

The problem just got worse when Bush’s FCC basically gutted a rule that limited the number of both newspaper and television stations giant media conglomerates are able to buy up in the same city.

Right now a few major corporations with with ties to many special interests are controlling the news and influencing your world view.

And independent or dissenting voices are being silenced.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, unless you’re a female civilian contractor in Iraq, that is.

This really made my blood boil.

In a recent press release, Toys R Us has announced a new policy in which they will no longer allow the use of harmful PVC, phthalates, and lead in toys sold in their stores. This is commendable and definitely a step in the right direction. I hope other toy retailers and manufacturers will follow suit so we can freaking exhale already…

You need to listen to this. Then try to tell me with a straight face that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I read a few years ago that health insurer Kaiser-Permanante’s CEO got a $20 million dollar bonus that year in addition to his exorbitant salary. TWENTY. MILLION. DOLLARS. In healthcare, bonus’ like that come when the company has been extremely profitable and the way they do that is to raise premiums, deny care and lowball doctors on their negotiated fees. It’s a nasty, nasty business.

Okay, so imagine if a company covered it’s overhead but never overcharged, denied or lowballed. Imagine if that $20 million dollars had stayed in the pockets of their insured. Imagine that people actually had good health insurance that they could actually afford.

I don’t understand why such a thing can only be imaginary. I don’t understand why there cannot be non-profit health insurance agencies, kind of like credit unions, where profit is not a motivating factor and savings are passed on to their customers. Where the agency and the insured work as partners in care instead of having an adversarial relationship, as is the norm with profit-driven companies.

People would pay their “premium” out of their paychecks like most already do for Medicare and and their health insurance except 1) they wouldn’t have to pay that Medicare tax because Medicare would be dismantled and 2) They would pay on a sliding scale based on their paycheck, just like the Medicare tax. 3) Exorbitant premiums would be a thing of the past. No more $800-1000 a month for a family of three, no more outrageous deductibles that you’ll never meet unless you’re stricken with a horrible, catastrophic illness.

This system would be far more efficient than Medicare because it would still be run as a business by non-profit contractors who would bid on the contract and whose contracts would be renewed contingent on their service and efficiency levels, pretty much like any other contractor in the private sector. The government would effectively be out of the healthcare business and healthcare would be run like a non-profit by people who are actually experienced in running businesses.

There is NO reason this couldn’t work and there is no reason it wouldn’t be totally superior to our currently broken systems of Medicare and private healthcare. When you remove the profit factor, which totally degrades healthcare, and focus on serving customers and fairly compensating doctors, people will finally get the care they need.

Here is Republican candidate Fred Thompson’s take on energy and global warming, in his very own words:

“Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto. NASA says the Martian South Pole’s “ice cap” has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter’s caught the same cold, because it’s warming up too, like Pluto. This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle. Silly, I know, but I wonder what all those planets, dwarf planets and moons in our SOLAR system have in common. Hmmmm. SOLAR system. Hmmmm. Solar? I wonder. Nah, I guess we shouldn’t even be talking about this. The science is absolutely decided. There’s a consensus. Ask Galileo.”

Is this the man you want running our country? Do you want Fred Thompson to have nuclear capabilities? Not that he has a snowball’s chance in hell but still…please say no!

You can look at all the presidential primary candidates and their views on key environmental issues here.

I urge you to go take a quick look to see where your candidate stands and while you’re there, take note of how completely anti-environment all the Republican candidates are save for John McCain who seems to have a modicum of common sense, despite his dismal voting record on environmental issues.

God help us all if the Democrats don’t win in 2008…

(If you liked this post, please DIGG it and SK-RT it!)

This YouTube video is just a portion of this awesome film. It’s actually Chapter 5. But believe me, chapters 1-4 are also totally worth watching and if you go here, you can watch the whole thing from start to finish.

It’s about twenty minutes but it will be some of the most illuminating, eye-opening minutes you’ve ever spent watching any indie documentary. Show it to your kids and send the link to friends and family. Everyone in America should watch this film.

In New Jersey, children who attend preschool or daycare will soon be required to have annual flu vaccinations, despite protests from many parents who don’t think the government should be able to tell them what substances, toxic or otherwise, they must inject into their children.

Of course, I find this reprehensible because while it is in the public interest for all people to be vaccinated and I did choose to have my kids receive the normal childhood vaccines, having the government tell you can’t refuse something you feel could be irreversibly dangerous to your child is actually pretty scary.

I wonder how many people will object when they mandate that we must all be microchipped because it’s in the public interest?

But I digress, because what I really wanted to touch on besides the forced flu shots is water fluoridation.

If you want to talk about having something dangerous forced upon you without your consent, you need only turn to you kitchen faucet. In most counties, townships etc. in the US, water is fluoridated without the consent or permission of those who have no choice but to drink it.

So what’s wrong with fluoride, you ask? Well, for one thing, it’s not medical grade fluoride. It’s actually a by-product of the phosphate industry that is considered toxic waste until they put it in your drinking water.

Additionally, fluoride is a cumulative poison. On average, only 50% of the fluoride we ingest each day is excreted through the kidneys. The remainder accumulates in our bones, pineal gland, and other tissues.

Is this bad?

Well, considering that fluoride is directly linked to thyroid disease, damage to the male reproductive system (and we wonder why male sperm counts are down 50% in the last half century?) and a whole host of other potentially dangerous health problems, I’d have to say yes. It’s bad.

Shockingly, the US Public Health Service first endorsed fluoridation in 1950, before one single trial had ever been completed.

Have you ever read your toothpaste tube? The directions state that you should NOT swallow toothpaste. Why? Because it’s not meant to be ingested and yet we drink it in our water everyday.

The dental community acknowledges that fluoridated water does little or nothing to stop pit and fissure cavities, the most common kind of tooth decay and too much will actually cause dental fluorosis where the enamel of the tooth is eroded.

Both of my children’s baby teeth came in with enamel hypoplasia where the enamel was already damaged. The dentist speculates that it’s actually dental fluorosis from drinking so much fluoridated water when they were in utero. Nice. Think my county water department will pay our dental bills?

Oh, and it’s totally in your breastmilk, moms. Your babies are being fluoridated whether you like it or not.

FLUORIDE WARNING FOR INFANTS

Does your drinking water contain added fluoride? If so, keep it away from infants under the age of one. This directive was issued recently by an unlikely source: the American Dental Association (ADA). Read the whole thing and see why fluoride is also now being considered a neurotoxin that’s dangerous to developing infant brains. It’s horrible.

I could go on and on and on about water fluoridation because the facts are really, REALLY jaw-dropping but in the interest of brevity, you can read about it at the Fluoride Action Network if you want more information.