Torturer-In-Chief

Bush wants to "re-define" the meaning of torture. I can't believe this is even a subject for discussion. He is proposing that the little moral high ground we have left in the world's eyes be further tarnished by what is clearly a move to cover his own ass. Once again, Bush serves as a reminder of how far we have fallen since he and his cabal of lying warmongering thieves stole the White House. He wants to legitimize torture and make us equals to the countries we have previously condemned for using torture. He wants to take us out of the elevated realm of civilized behavior and into the same world of the evil-doers he condemns.

There are several things he has conveniently ignored in trying to backdate the law in order to prevent his third term being served out in a prison cell. The first one being that most our courts, the courts of law in the USA that are the envy of many in the world, would not allow confessions obtained by torture. As far better minds than Bush have determined, such evidence does not demonstrate truth but rather the desire for the person being tortured to make the torture stop.

Any of us, no matter what our political and religious beliefs, have a tolerance threshold for pain. Once we reach that level we will confess to anything, even things we could never do, no matter what the circumstances. That's why it is called torture, because it is something few human beings can endure for any period of time. And it is not valid in courts of law, which is why Bush has his secret installations to deal with that little technicality. It is why he avoids trying in a real court any of the thousands who are rotting away in illegal prisons without ever being brought to trial or charged with a crime that is related to terrorism.

Bush claims that we need to torture people in order to prevent terror attacks in the planning stages. So he rounds up everyone who looks Arabic or went anywhere near a Mosque or is of the Islamic faith, and sticks them in secret prisons where they are brutally tortured until they confess to something, anything that will then be put together and announced as a terror alert, preferably before major and minor elections.



Keep in mind this is the same man who holds the record for executions in Texas while Governor. With this record, his attempt to make torture legal, his assault on civil liberties, and his penchant for being the punisher-in-chief, he gives Torquemada and the Inquisition a run for their money.

The other thing he fails to understand is this puts our own troops in severe danger. He would understand this if he did not shirk his own military duty. He would understand this if he ever put his own ass in a position where it could be captured.



I have had many discussions with a former POW. He told me many times that his captors were very familiar with the limits of the Geneva Convention and followed those limits because they knew their own troops would be treated accordingly. Strange as it may seem to many, civilized countries, which is most of the world and not the one painted and portrayed by Bush as "all evil all the time," go by our guidelines on how to treat prisoners.



We are, or rather WERE, the model of decency throughout the civilized world. Having rules against torture, against secret courts and tribunals, being allowed to see the evidence of the crime we are accused of committing, those were the things that made us good in the rest of the world, the things that made us occupy a higher moral ground in their eyes. Bush is taking this and more away from us in order to cover his own crimes, to perpetuate his own mental illness and greed.

And to refute those who say well how are we going to stop another terror attack if we don't torture, I say to you there's nothing anyone can do about the murdering fanatics, anymore then there was anything we could do to prevent our own homegrown fanatic McVeigh from blowing up the federal building. We did not round up southern white men and torture them to find out where the next attack was going to be. We followed the rules of law, gave him a fair trial and then executed him according to those laws.



This is how morality works. This is how you can talk about morality to the rest of the world and not seem like a damn hypocrite. Obviously it is just one more thing Bush just does not get and we are the ones who end up having to pay for his ignorance.

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Design from Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Torturer-In-Chief

Who Bush Thinks He Is

I finally figured out who Bush "sees" himself as--one of those crazy televangelists. He's watched too damned much tv and one of them snuck in, sucked out all his gray matter, and inserted Reverend Dubya, put on earth to save YOU! I've read in several places that the Grahams of tv preacherdom and walmart style church baptisms are the ones who brought him to his knees, along with thousands of other ill-educated, bigoted, Bible-thumping morons who are now considered foreign policy experts. That's "experts," as in their limited little pea brains had some poetic metaphor from the Bible read to them and interpreted for them as some sign the world was coming to an end.

What those poor fools stuck somewhere in the middle of the evolutionary process between pond scum and prehensile tails fail to understand is that they are the ones creating the end of the world. It's not some them. It is THEM with their crazy talk of nukes and big old bombs and devils hiding in the ground way beneath the earth. I cannot imagine anything more destructive and dangerous than a bunch of unevolved, dumb, jingoistic, goose-stepping, lacking in cranial capacity idiots put in charge of things like nukes. Now THAT'S what scares ME.

But Bush, like the preaching fool that he is, is on the campaign of fear trail for Jesus, who apparently favors the Republican party. He is spreading stories of demons, devils, ghosties, ghoulies, evil-doers, and other residents of his own personal hell. He is shouting from the pulpit that we must believe or we will fry in the hellfire of people with names he can't pronounce. He is threatening our eternal damnation if we don't vote Republican. He is prophesizing the end of the world without telling us he is the one with his finger on the nuclear trigger. And like all good for nothing televangelists, he is picking our pockets in the name of salvation.

If there is such thing as a god, I'm sure that he, she, or it will be profoundly pissed at those like Bush who use fear and oppression to crush the unbelievers in god's name.

Who Bush Thinks He Is

A Measure Of Your Humanity

I'm not much for celebrities because I tend to value people based on how they affect me with their humanity and not what they do for a living. But lately those in the world spotlight have used their celebrity status to do good in the world. In this way, they affect me with their humanity and I applaud and thank them. I especially thank George Clooney because not only does he put himself out there for those who are suffering, he went and saw that suffering for himself and let it affect HIS humanity.

Today he told the UN Security Council Members that millions of lives were at stake in Darfur and that we, as human beings, need to do something about it. He asked them to send peacekeepers to the region to stop the genocide going on. He put himself out there for people who are having a difficult time getting noticed in a world where there is so much war, hatred, division, and tragedy. Because he did this, I am speaking up and asking all of you to do so as well. We have until September 30th to get our voices heard because if we don't, as Mr. Clooney said: "After September 30, you won't need the UN. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones."

Darfur is not just a place on the map where people are dying; it is a test of our owh humanity, our own compassion, our own right to even call ourselves human beings. We had the chance to stop the killings in Rwanda by not demanding the UN act then and close to 800,000 people were murdered. This is happening again in Darfur and again there are not enough voices demanding that the killing stop. We MUST speak up or the blood of more human beings will be on our hands. So far over 200,000 have been murdered and over two million people have become displaced since 2003. They are homeless, traumatized, and living in fear of their lives and those of friends and family. We must help them or our own humanity suffers.

On Sunday, The Save Darfur Coalition, a combined force of over 170 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organizations, will rally in New York's Central Park. There will also be simultaneous events worldwide. Get out there and let your voice be heard. The African Union's Peace and Security Council will meet on Monday in New York, just before this year's U.N. General Assembly speeches. Let them know your voice speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves. If we are to move forward into the next century, let us do it with our humanity intact and a record on Human and Civil Rights our grandchildren will point to with pride instead of shame.

A Measure Of Your Humanity

Are You Scared Yet?

Do you know what a dying beast does? It puffs itself up with one last gasping breath and snarls threateningly in an attempt to overcome its enemy by fear because it has nothing left to fight with. It huffs, puffs, gasps, accuses, belittles, intimidates, scares the crap out of, digs up past enemies in an attempt to distract you from its death throes, and it won't stop until you are quivering in fear in your hole in the ground. Remember that hole in the ground? The one with all the duct tape and rolls of plastic? That hole. That's the one it hopes you crawl into so you won't notice it is all bluff and bullshit.

This is Bushco now. It will stop at nothing to scare people because that is all it has to run on. Fear is the Republican platform. Fear is the Republican agenda. Fear is all it has and it hopes you buy into it because if you don't, then there is nothing. They can't run on getting Osama because they didn't. They can't run on protecting us at home because Katrina proved they had no interest in doing so. They can't run on lowering your taxes because unless you are wealthy, you didn't get a tax break. They can't run on honor and integrity because they've stolen, cheated, betrayed, committed treasonous acts for revenge and personal enrichment. They can't run on the economy because the housing market is going to hell, gas prices are insane, and people go to work sick because they can't afford to take a day off, even if they did have health insurance--which most don't. They can't run on freedom because we have less civil rights now than ever before. They can't run on tolerance because their agenda was to create hatred and division. They can't run on Democracy because that's for other countries. They can't run on education because teachers have to buy school supplies from their own pockets. They can't run on peace because their whole reign has been to make war on anyone and anything in order to destroy our rights under the guise of "being at war." They can't run on honesty because they have lied about everything and everyone since they first soiled the government they lied and cheated to take over. They have nothing but fear.

So listen carefully to the hatemongers on right-wing radio. Watch for the too slick message packaged in nice neat little bundles of propaganda when you turn on the TV. Watch who they attack, what they say, and why. Know it for the distraction, the lie, the diversion it truly is. Nothing this administration says or does is honest, truthful, or ethical. They will stop at nothing to keep power because the minute they lose it their next term will be behind bars.

That makes them very very dangerous. Pay close attention. Take nothing at face value. Their corporate handles will not let you kill their golden goose very easily. Know your enemy, your true enemy, and the fear tactics will roll off you like the shit it is.

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Design from Ursine Logic

Are You Scared Yet?

Impeach

Impeach

Mean People STILL Suck

People often say that it doesn't matter who is president or who makes up congress because it has no real world effect on THEM. While in many ways I agree, especially when we only seem to have a real choice between right-wing Christian whackos who make the Taliban seem moderate and lukewarm Republican-lites. Somehow, someone defined the rules while most Americans were sleeping and made it okay to deviate from the middle on one side and not the other.

I want to know how come it's okay to be an out there whack job if you're a Republican and not okay if you're a Liberal Democrat? You mean to tell me it's okay to form a party based on such mean and cruel crap such as discrimination against people based on their gender, their spiritual beliefs, their income, their appearance, and it's not okay to form one that wants equality for all human beings regardless of gender, religion, nationality, sexual preference, income, color of skin? Who made these rules, and why are we helping to enforce them with our silence and indifference?

As for not affecting us, well yes, it does. You see, these people who are currently running things are what is referred to as "rot from the top down." When the Republican party begins to stand for things like greed, corruption on a scale that over-shadows all political scandals to date, perpetual war to enrich the War Party, and downright hatred of anyone who isn't white and strapped into a restraining suit and tie and has butt burns from endless hours on church pew, then the rot begins to infect us all.

In a government without accountability, people get the idea that it's okay to do whatever they want. Human decency gets lost in the need to be first in line by shoving others out of the way, fastest on the freeway by cutting off other cars, the quickest to buy and turn over a piece of property and put it out of reach for the average person who can't afford to speculate on a place to live--and then make laws punishing people for being homeless.

It creates a society where the wealthy compete with each other to see who can hire the cheapest labor and thereby increase the profit higher than his or her competitor. It creates a society where there are only the wealthy and those who serve them. It creates a taxation system that is more unfair than the one during feudal times. It creates a society that cares more about a blob in a Petri dish than it does a child who is forced to live on the street for lack of social safety nets. It creates a society without a heart that sucks the blood from those who have nothing left but their hearts.

And you still believe it doesn't affect you?

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Design available on over 80 different products at Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Mean People STILL Suck

Fleecing The Sheep In An Election Year

The First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

For those of you who spend more time worrying about arming bears than your rapidly vanishing personal freedoms, let me break it down for you...no branch of American government, whether it is Congress, the President, or paid lobbyists for corporate spirituality has the right to establish ANY form of religion as the law of the land.

That includes them ALL. Get it? No matter what you want to believe, America is a country of Free Thought by law. It is not a country of Christianity, Judaism, Bozoism, or any variation of the themes. It is a nation whose earliest document some are so fond of quoting when it's about guns, also says right above that amendment, that no one can force their religious beliefs on everyone else.

You can't have one amendment without the other. Either give up your guns or give up your religious freedom. It's not pick one and ignore the rest. It's all or none.

And as far as that thing with the money and god, well the truth is that the regular use of "In God We Trust" on US coins did not begin until 1908.

"In God We Trust" was not made an official motto of the United States until 1956, and the motto did not appear on paper money until 1957.

So much for the claim of that one and only deity being around since our forefathers amused themselves by shooting the crap out of each other while stinking drunk. God didn't get into the fight until your grandpa got into his first brawl over religion...1908. Unless our founding fathers had some kind of longevity serum in their veins, they were long dead by the time our money was altered to suit the political whores of religious pandering.

Therefore, when the pious pleas for your hard-earned money start flying around the pulpits and state-run media, just remember...if they lie to you about our founding fathers and religion, what else are they lying about? Do you really want to pay for that kind of misguided and foolish nonsense?

And it's a perfect time as you are calling them on these lies, to have them show you in what book, in what document, they think gives them the right to spread hate, war, intolerance and just plain stupidity without decent people calling bullshit on them?

And if you are a believer and want to be pandered to in the name of equality, I've made some designs to publicize that you too were left out of the founding fathers early days of constructing what would become the laws of this country, and it is time your palm was greased with some silver...or at least a nice bridge across some swampland or something.

Actually, since our founding fathers did not choose a religious framework for our country, Atheists might have a valid claim that American is an Atheist nation.

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Wear these designs and strike fear in the mean little hearts of those who can't see beyond their own ignorance when it comes to human rights. They will know the truth is out there and you are wearing it.

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Designs available on everything from t-shirts to mugs at:

Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Fleecing The Sheep In An Election Year

Pink's Song "Dear Mr. President"

I've had Pink's heartwrenching song "Dear Mr. President" as my profile song for several months now. The first time I listened to it I cried. A few days ago I shared a bulletin with the song and some images that were powerful and heartbreaking at the same time. I also cried but there were tears of anger as I watched these images of war and the horrors that grew stronger because of Bush's attempt to bomb another country into his hallucination of democracy. I wept angry tears at the legacy he is leaving behind such as torture, the loss of innocent people, the complete and total destruction of the lives and homes of those who had nothing to do with the reasons, the excuses, the lies that started the Iraq war. I felt angry that because of him and his actions, much of the world sees us as inseparable from his policies. We are him in the eyes of the world. It made me more determined to speak up and let at least the small part of the world I can reach see that he does not represent ALL of us.

Then today I watched the version where Pink is singing to an audience with her other bandmembers. I saw the same anger, the same passion, the same despair in her eyes as she sang that are in me. I felt her reasons for writing it. I KNEW them as well as I know my own passion for peace, for justice, for the equal and humane treatment of all living beings. I felt her frustration and rage that such things still go in this so-called civilized world, and within moments I was crying harder than the other times. There was something in her face and in the face of her audience that was painful to watch because it was the raw emotion of witnessing mass injustice and knowing who was reponsible, and knowing he walks free while others die for his madness. I saw people singing along with the same passion, the same anger, the same disgust at this awful excuse for a President.

When the song ended I felt something growing in me, a fire to do something, a desire to not sit back and let those who shout write the script of my life and the lives of those in places like Iraq. Often I tend to adopt the quiet path of small change instead of being confrontive, or rude, or mean or abusive because I feel that way change grows stronger because it is more solid, more carefully nurtured and tended.

I still believe that and will continue to do that, but I also want to be more active, be more out there with my voice because so many people retreat into themselves when the world becomes as horrible as it is now and it us up to the loud voices to draw them and us out.

There are many ways to be loud. Write letters to the editor because the warmongers fill the space with their very loud voices. Call those same radio and tv talk shows where people yell at each other and call it news. Make your voice as loud as theirs. If you see biased coverage or stories, call the stations and complain. The warmongers certainly do when they see something that displeases them. Call advertisers and threaten boycotts if they don't start forcing publications and other media to provide balanced coverage of events instead of using them as opportunities to instill fear in the vulnerable. Get as loud and as active as those who are and continue to be responsible for inflicting the cruelest, most ignorant and shallow president on us that we've ever had. Let people know he does NOT speak for you.

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Here are the latest designs I made as a response to my anger. Buy a shirt or give one as a gift. They help spread the word that Bush needs a congress that can challenge him instead of kissing his ass so they can feed at the war trough with him.

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Designs available on many items including shirts and mugs at Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

Pink's Song "Dear Mr. President"

Are You Being Used?

It's not easy to convince someone that he or she needs to kill another human being. It takes time and effort and the right seeds. It takes a cheering section of already convinced plants to lead the call to kill, kill, and kill some more. It takes emotional language: war, revenge, payback, pre-emptive defense, spreading democracy, eminent domain, the right of kings, acquisition of territory, theft of resources, or any other variation of the same theme, to get people to agree to let others kill in their name. And it all comes down to one carefully planted and tended seed.

That seed is the product of an industry whose only purpose is war and the products of war and the selling of those products to countries at war. It has nothing to do with ideology except as something to manipulate in order to do their business unchecked. These whores of war will pretend to be fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims or any other belief that will allow them to become rich on the sales of their wares. They are Atheists when they sell arms to socialist and communist regimes. They are believers when they are required to be believers. But they really believe in only one thing: the obscene profits of the armaments industry and how they can get their share by legal, illegal, and mostly immoral means.

They will create an enemy that is scary enough to rally everyone around their demands for war. They will attack with all their means those who threaten their free reign to sell weapons of mass destruction to any country they want. Those who object to their lies and manipulations are labeled treasonous traitors, liberals, extremists or any other term that is the antithesis of what their hand chosen cheerleaders believe.

And they own these cheerleaders because they bought their loyalties by holding pep rallies with free hotdogs, massive quantities of corn-syrup sweetened beverages, watery beer, and music that is the country-western version of Wagnerian calls to war. They trained them with inspirational speakers, televangelists, big box churches. They trained them to spread their seeds of hate. They use them to attack visible groups that are "not them" such as homosexuals, non-white and non-Christian ethnic groups, foreign countries, and of course--those opposed to war and senseless stupid killing. They know that people who hate are easily manipulated into doing their bidding, no matter how vile and how evil. They tell them god is on their side. They tell them their weapons will prevent another 9/11. They tell them god wants them to kill.

These cheerleaders become willing soldiers in the war between good and evil. Good is the side that makes the merchants of death even wealthier. Evil is anything that stands in the way of their excessive profits. The hatred they spread is mainlined into them with narcotic frequency. It is spewed at them from hate radio. It is regurgitated at them from fake news shows whose mission is to sow division and fear. The cheerleaders end up believing in this hate far more than they ever believed in any god.

And once they are so completely trained, they will come for you, for your mind, for your heart, for your fears, for your prejudices and biases, for your desire to belong and not be judged for being different, for your lack of love and acceptance, for your need to believe. They will use and twist you until you hate and then they will have you as a willing servant to their sick and perverted souls. And the merchants of war will have free reign to continue unchecked their pursuit of their one true god: wealth and the power it brings.

Are you strong enough to resist them? Are you strong enough to stand for peace and against war? Are you strong enough to stand down hate with love? Are you strong enough to defeat them? Are you strong enough to accept that a seed is one small piece of a very large world, but without it, there is no forest, no country, no planet. Are you strong enough to be that seed?

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Design from Ursine Logic
(changing minds one t-shirt at a time)

Are You Being Used?

Impeach Bushco

Add your voice to the growing chorus to impeach the corrupt, warmongering bastards. Go to: http://www.impeachbushco.com for instructions on how to join the choir.

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Design from Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

Impeach Bushco

Why We Love Pirates

I was trying to understand why pirates are so popular these days. Even people who turn their nose up at organized fun you have to stand in line for like Disneyland, are standing in line for "Pirates of the Caribbean." At first I thought it could be explained by people's need for escapist fantasy in a world growing meaner and more brutal everyday. Then I thought it was just the hunky guys playing the pirates or the sex symbol hollywood wax figure of the week starring alongside them. Or maybe it was the simple plot in a too complex world that gave people a nice break from reality.

It's probably a little bit of all of the above, but also has a lot to do with the fact that we ARE living in a time of pirates. Look at the people in power now. Surely they fit the definition of pirate quite well. They care only about accumulating treasure and booty, killing and pillaging their way to democracy and even sadder, still use rape as proof they can conquer and humiliate a weaker enemy.

The romantic ideal of pirates seems to ignore the bad side of piracy, if there can even be a good side to it. We think Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld. We want our thieves to be handsome and driven by altruism instead of ugly old white men driven by greed and cruelty. We want to believe pirates were the last of the rugged individualists instead of hired thugs employed by expansionist-minded governments to act as cover for their crimes, much as that paid whore Oliver North did for the Reagan administration.

Today's pirate ships are called Halliburton, Exxon, Neoconism, Bushco and other names we've come to associate with our poor excuse for a government. They are here for one purpose only: to steal as much as they can for themselves and their masters before someone comes and boards their ships of corrupted state and hangs them all for the treasonous criminals they are. After all, pirates rarely die of peaceful old age. They mostly end up getting exactly what they deserve in the end and history, except for the few brief periods when romanticism takes over from reality, records them for posterity as the bastards they truly were.

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Design from Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

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Back to school sale in progress now. Free Shipping on orders over 50 dollars. Use code: BTS2006

Why We Love Pirates

Why Fur Is Anti-Peace

There are some issues that are inseparable in working for peace, and one of those is how we treat our own and other species. If we make war on something that is weaker than we are either in size or in ability to manipulate weapons, then we contribute to an environment where peace cannot grow. And if we murder a creature for food, we kill twice...first the creature, and then ourselves because eating the flesh of an animal contributes to our early death from the unhealthy effect animal flesh has on our bodies. And if we kill a defenseless creature whose flesh we don't need to eat to survive, but intend solely to skin it and use it as "fashion," then we are murderers. It is as disgusting and cruel and immoral as taking the flesh from our own children and making a coat for our pet to wear from their flesh.

I realize this is an issue that not many understand or an argument they cannot accept. After all, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, fish...they are all raised for human consumption. I've been told many times they are raised simply to feed us and the use of their different parts is a sensible form of re-use and re-cycle ecology. That may very well be true and if there was a starvation problem in this country and the only option was to put the dairy cow up on the barbie, then maybe I could see it. But I can also see that once that cow is cooked there is no more milk, no more cheese, no more ability to produce more cows. Killing it ends the supply. That seems stupid to me. And unhealthy. Just ask those who live on such things as steaks and burgers and fried chicken how their hearts and arteries are and how many drugs they have to take to counteract the ill effects of eating meat. You could feed a lot of people if you ate the grains yourself instead of feeding them to cattle, and you planted vegetables in the acres and acres now required to raised just a few cows.

As I said, I can be flexible in that area because in some places meat is all there is until something better comes along, and it is still something that although unhealthy and often cruel in the conditions under which "meat" is raised for eventual slaughter, some people are convinced they need to survive. It's their bodies and consciences and I don't expect to change their minds or the world overnight.

But I draw the line at fur. That is murder plain and simple. There is no need for it at all. We are long past the period of time when we needed to hunt beasts in order to stay warm enough to survive harsh climates. We have heat. We have fabrics that are made of natural fibers that keep us warm enough. We even have fabrics made out of recycled synthetic materials that will keep our bodies nice and toasty. We do not need fur for anything but an intolerable act of cruelty called "fashion." It is a disgusting thing. It is immoral and completely unnecessary. It is symptomatic of people with no conscience, no compassion, and a life so empty that the only way they can get any kind of thrill at all is by wearing the skin of some other creature. How disgusting is that? They need therapy, not fur coats!

And the number one reason to not wear fur is that it sanctions and promotes cruelty to animals. There have been numerous studies showing that most serial killers, most murderers began by torturing and killing small creatures. Doing so was symptomatic of their illness and killing animals for their fur is symptomatic of ours. If we don't stop, then the wars will never stop because without the smell of blood, the pain of defenseless creatures, we will not feel complete. As long as we are stuck in this twisted cycle of making ourselves feel better, bigger, and more powerful by killing something, then we contribute to perpetual war.

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Design from UrsineLogic (changing minds one t-shirt at a time)

Why Fur Is Anti-Peace

So Many Mean People, So Little Time...

Last month, the Gill Foundation's Born Different campaign to educate people that gays don't choose their sexual preference, posted ads of a dog with a solitary "moo" coming from it.

Of course, that champion of preferential treatment for religious fanatics--James Dobson of the infamous anti-gay group "Focus On The Family"-- unveiled a new ad with the words: "Dogs aren't born mooing, and people aren't born gay."

In response I made this design showing a dog that not only moos, it moos in rainbow colors and celebrates its difference. And for Dobson, I have one message: people aren't born stupid. They rely on you to teach them how to be that way.

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Design available on everything from t-shirts to thongs at Ursine Logic -- Changing the world, one t-shirt at a time.

So Many Mean People, So Little Time...

Add this Candle For Peace to your blogs and websites

I first saw this on myspace and it's such a wonderful and visible tribute to peace that I am passing it on. Please feel free to copy it and add it to your own blogs and websites. Join the ever-growing choir for world peace!

Add this Candle For Peace to your blogs and websites

Share Your Art, Music, Words and Actions for Peace

In the last weeks I've been stunned by the amount of violence, the wars, the killing that is going on all over the world. My first reaction was to hide away from the world and come out only to work and do the absolute minimum outside the safe confines of my little home. I had a relationship with the meaningless and stupid deaths as I would with some bad ex-lover who stalked me if I dared to open my door. As a result, the wars became stronger and my love and trust became weaker. I let myself give in to evil.

And then, as many of you who are artists, musicians, writers will understand immediately, this is not the way we face such things. If we were hiders, we would never create a damn thing. We would lock ourselves away and everything would go silent, especially our creativity.

I fought back as all of you fight back. I created and created and created. I have never made so many designs devoted to peace in such a short time. It is almost a fever, a fanatic need to not become a victim of hatred, of greed, of warmongers who go through life taking lives and land and money and honor until nothing is left but a pile of dead dreams for the rest of us.

These designs are my strength as your own art is your strength. It is my voice as yours is your voice. I think of how many of us are on this planet who speak for peace and yet there is still war. So I ask all of you to pick one piece of art, music, words that is symbolic of fighting back. Share it with everyone you know. Pass on the works of each other. Buy a cd, a shirt, a poster, a painting, a poem, a story, give to a cause devoted to peace, teach a child about peace, talk to an adult about peace, live a day totally in peace.

Let's be heard and let's get louder. Art is power

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Design from: Ursine Logic(changing minds one t-shirt at a time)

Share Your Art, Music, Words and Actions for Peace

A Few Words From A Proud Moonbat

It's true. Language IS a virus. And the only reason the present administration even came close to winning the elections (close, but not legitimately won because they didn't honestly win), is they were able to set aside such inconvenient things as ethics, morality, and nagging consciences to inflict it on an oblivious populace. The reason the virus took hold so easily is due to the pathetic state of education in this country. All you have to do is look at the "C student only because daddy was rich and they didn't dare fail his ass" poor excuse for a president we have, the moronic frat boys he surrounds himself with who were pushed toward graduation the way pigs are weaned so they can wallow in someone else's shit, to see what happens when we don't value education. When all will be said and done, not only will Bush go down in History as the worst president ever, but his entire administration will serve as a warning to future generations what happens when you scrimp on education.

So, these simplistic minds resorted to the only tactics they knew to win...they used stupid frat boy insults that focused on body parts and functions to get their message across. They defined female politicians by appearance, sexuality, amount of cleavage, and subservience. A strong woman was portrayed as frigid because her strength was an indictment of their lack of ability in the bedroom. She became every woman who mocked them in bed. Her intelligence, often far superior to their own, became something that made her unattractive, bitchy--a ball-buster who could castrate them with words far quicker than they could gut a chicken.

And men who did not buy into their immature and threatened assessments became wimps, pussies, moonbats, homos...words that don't really mean anything except a juvenile reaction to something too far beyond a kid intellectually to be responded to except in whimpers, grunts, and sputtered insults. Men who actually admitted to having a conscience, to caring about something outside their own butt itch, were and are the biggest threat to them.

I am convinced that is why there is such a backlash against gays, because their true target are straight men who disagree with them. They fear these straight men with progressive ideas far more than they fear gay men, because ideas are far more subversive than a man-loving penis. One they can run from, the other might just creep into them while they sleep.

This language virus found the perfect receptacle for their simplistic fears and hatreds: uneducated simpletons like themselves. Ignorance has no class or social status. It is immune to both so it is natural that the Bushco frat boys would find a kinship with the uneducated, bible-thumping, inbred morons that form the war party's base. To them they could scream non-nonsensicle crap and it would find a willing home. And all they had to do was stuff a few free hot dogs and cola down their throats at those staged support the troop rallies that preceded the Iraq war, and the idiots would offer up their own children as sacrifices to an out of control madman.

There is one place we need to start to even begin to fight back and reclaim this country and that is to turn their tactics against them. Don't let them get away with saying that peace is bad. Speak up and remind people that it is war that is bad, not peace. Don't let them get away with using gays, Mexicans, Arabs, and progressives as wedge issues in this upcoming congressional election. Remind them that this country was founded on Democratic principles and they have no right to wipe their ass with OUR constitution. And for god's sake, take back your damn religion from these ill-bred shitheads. They've done more to destroy Christianity than any other fundamentalist whacko from another country could ever do.

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Design available on everything from t-shirts to thongs at Ursine Logic Changing the world one t-shirt at a time.

A Few Words From A Proud Moonbat

Mindless, Senseless Violence: Or Rot From The Top Down

If anyone ever has doubts about whether rot begins from the top down, all they have to do is take a look at what is going on around the world--endless, mindless, pointless violence. Then take a look at the leaders whose watch that senseless violence is thriving under. I'll make it easy for you...draw some dots and connect them back to Bush. Go all the way back to when he was governor of Texas and led the country in executions. He set the standard then for what the world would become--one continual violent tantrum orchestrated by a very sick and twisted individual.

If you study Bush as I have studied Bush you will discover what I have discovered: the man has too many daddy issues and we are all victims of his unresolved crap between senior and junior. How many more people have to die before this psychopath gets the treatment he so desperately needs?

I hear people say that he is just a puppet, that he is being used by Cheney and Rumsfeld because he is too stupid to know he is being used, that he is the idiot king with no power except for ceremonial duties where he is trotted out to sneer and snarl and make stupid frat boy jokes that only embarrass this country further.

I believe he is not very intelligent, that because of his wealth and position life was greased for him to slide through in his mediocre way. He is the cracker king of the demographics he so aptly courts. I also believe he is a very sick and twisted individual. I would have no trouble believing he tortures puppies or has a backyard stashed full of bodies his family paid lots of money to cover up. He is the demented spawn of too much wealth and privilege. He is the poster boy for an estate tax to prevent more of him screwing up the world anymore with his sick personality. And he will destroy the world just as he has destroyed every company, every sports team, every endeavor he has greased with his dirty, greedy fingers.

What makes the situation we are facing far worse is his rampant use of nepotism to fill political positions. Imagine the most drunken, the most illiterate, the most cruel and disgusting frat boys and you have the Bush administration. These people are not brain trusts. They are trust fund morons who are where they are because of powerful, monied political connections. They care nothing for you and me or the evangelical idiots they court and use to enrich themselves. They are not religious except for political photo opportunities. They believe in nothing but profit, unbelievable stinking profit that is just a game among them: whomever can steal the most is the the best for that week.

How do you fight against such rot? How do you take back the country from these greedy, self-serving bastards that care nothing for me and you? The answer is deceptively simple.

You take it back with love because that is the one thing they will never understand, the one thing they will never see coming. Love. So simple. So beyond them. Love of your neighbor. Love of those different from you. Love of those who came from somewhere else and are now your neighbors and co-workers. Love of those who love each other regardless of gender. Love of those who see wealth as a crippling influence on humanity, on compassion, on the very ability to love without expectations. Pure love. The kind of love that children have for each other, for puppies and kittens. The kind of love that doesn't need to be bought. It just is, pure and simple. It exists because it is.

It takes effort to hate. You have to get up every day and plan out how you are going to hate, who you are going to attack, who you are going to destroy, what people, what country you will trash in order to accumulate even more wealth, more power, more bodies stacked on the road to shallow glory.

But love is easy. It is who we are. It lives in us in pure form. It needs nothing to exist because it is strong enough to exist on its own. Hate needs constant feeding. Hate takes from you, it feeds on your heart, your soul, your spirit. It burns in your belly. It destroys you so it can exist.

Love needs none of this. Therefore, Love is stronger that hate. Love will defeat those who seek only to destroy, to grow fat on their greed. Defeat them by loving their many enemies. Embrace those they disenfranchise. Accept those they exclude. Raise up those they step on. These are the strengths they will never see, never understand, never know defeated them.

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Design from Ursine Logic (changing minds one t-shirt at a time)

Mindless, Senseless Violence: Or Rot From The Top Down

Saving The Planet From Ourselves

I live in one of the last places in the US that still clearcuts entire mountains. This is not the land of selective pruning; this is the land of cut and run greed gone wild. It is profit-taking without concern for the next rainy season when mud will take out at least a few homes as it does every winter. It is a complete and total disregard for any ecological rights their own children and grandchildren might have on this planet. It is the same mentality that destroyed and continues to destroy entire species of plant and animal life in the rain forests so the world can become obese on crappy mystery meat burgers.

When I first moved here several decades ago, fresh, wild salmon was all over the place. Now it is out of reach of most people who cannot pay premium prices for real food and must settle for dyed farm raised trash fish. My once favorite crabbing spot is in the path of the sewage plant's outflowing water. Only a fool or someone new to the area would eat anything from there. Ever more frequent red tides have made me cut down on the amount of fresh clams I used to eat on the beach with my friends. The raspberries taste like pesticides.

Have we lost our frigging minds here? Do we not see what we are doing not only to ourselves, but to the earth that is a legacy in our care for our children and grandchildren? Will they ever be able to forgive us for what we have done with our silence to their planet? Will they accept our excuse that we were too small and weak to fight against those in power whose greed was so monumental it destroyed even our will to fight for our home and theirs?

I remember an argument I had with a man from Germany. He tried to tell me that not everyone supported Hitler, that he was elected because of a very small voter turnout, that people just didn't care, that they were too busy trying to survive to notice one lone madman taking over their country. I remember tearing into him and telling him that by his silence he was complicit in the crimes that happened in his name and those of his countrymen. I was practically in tears as I asked him why didn't he put himself out and save just one person, that surely that was not beyond him if he didn't have the courage or will or desire to speak against the evil growing all around him.

He didn't say anything for several minutes and then he finally responded: "I did save one person with my silence...myself."

Will that be your justification when the last forest is gone, when the air is so polluted that it is not safe for the very old, the very young, the unhealthy to go outdoors at all, when the last drop of oil burns up in the a war machine in yet another war fought for ever dwindling resources?

Or will you find your voice, your will, your vision for a future that belongs to everyone and speak up, make noise, be heard? If you are not the marching kind, then don't go out in the streets. Make a work of art instead. Write a song, make a phone call, send a letter, an email, to the editor, your congressional representatives, your friends, your family. Get involved in saving your planet because no one will do it for you.

Peace

After I came home today from camping in a clearcut that was a lush forest last year, I poured my despair into designing some new images for those who can't speak but want to be heard. This is one of them.

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Please do check out my other designs with ecological themes devoted to saving our planet. Buy a pack of buttons and hand them out. Wear a t-shirt. Send a card. If you can't speak out, you can at least wear something that speaks for you and for future generations.

Ursine Logic, saving the world from itself one t-shirt at a time

Saving The Planet From Ourselves

This Is How Freedom Dies

I am pasting in an email I received today that shows exactly what kind of stormtroopers are in charge of our precious freedoms. I never thought I'd live to see the day when there were "rainbow tribunals" set up to interrogate and punish those who did nothing wrong but try and attend this year's Rainbow Gathering. You are welcome to cut and paste it, link to it, tell people about it in any way possible. Some of my fondest youthful memories are of attending Rainbow Gatherings because I learned that we can live in peace and harmony if the desire is strong enough. We can make a better world. We can step lightly upon the earth. If this is what threatens Bushco, then I fear for us all.

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Dear Friends and Family,

I need your help to protect my family, the collective efforts of tens of thousands of citizens known as the "Rainbow Family." This week, near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service has taken illegal action to stop this annual assembly for _expression and prayer, in gross violation of the participants essential Constitutional rights.

The 'Rainbow' Gatherings have borne a legacy of spiritual & cultural pilgrimage to the National Forests since 1972, the purest exercise of open consensual assembly in our time. The annual 'Gathering of the Tribes' draws thousands over the first week of July, focusing on the 4th as a holy day of prayer for peace and freedom. In recent years small regional events in this mode have emerged, and such gatherings have taken place in many nations around the world.

THE GATHERING EXPERIENCE --

Some say the "Rainbow" Gathering is the continuation of the idealism of Woodstock. I think of it more as my annual spiritual retreat and family reunion. Since 1980, I have gathered with my family to compare ideas and pray for peace. I arrive loaded with the burdens of my work, depressed about the world situation. Each year I depart with my faith in humankind renewed and with the energy to fight the beast another year. The rainbow family is not organized in any way; it is an exercise in self-determination and cooperation in the public interest, without need of government controls. We understand that no matter what comes down, it is the respect and care for each other that win in the end. We have no leaders or leadership, we have no offices or officers, we have no treasurer or treasury. We sit in counsel, often for days at a time in order to make mutual decisions, but there is no power to enforce these decisions on any individual. In the end, just like in society, it works because enough responsible people make sure that what needs to be done gets done. We have been doing rainbow gatherings for over 30 years, each time in a different national forest across the country. We come in and set up a village in the woods. Cooperative kitchens pour out a wide variety of foods. Seminars on just about any topic are run by the hour. The Rainbow is known as a healing gathering; people with various ailments come for help. Here in one place they can receive healing, from herbalists, acupuncturists, chiropractors and masseuses working with place they can receive healing, from herbalists, acupuncturists, chiropractors and masseuses working with osteopaths and physicians. These healers work as a team and share their knowledge in a holistic approach that teaches all involved a lot about the roots of medicine. Religious groups, ranging from Christians to Hare Krishnas set up camps. It's truly a free society. We go pretty far back in the woods to get away from the ills of civilization like alcohol and hard drugs. We have our gathering and then restore any damage we cause to the woods. And we have a perfect record of restoration of the forest. It's great to walk through a gathering and see so many people but not a scrap of paper on the ground, not a cigarette butt in sight. Each year we train thousands of newcomers how to get along in the woods without destroying the place. Knowledgeable Forest Servide 'Resource' personnel love us; it's the Federal bureaucrats and police from Washington who are on our case.

REPRESSIVE FEDERAL POLICIES --

The Bush Administration has spent millions of dollars trying to stop the Rainbow Gatherings. They are enforcing a 'Noncommercial Group Use' permit regulation that is impossible for unaffiliated individuals to comply with 36 CFR 251.54 They require that that someone sign as an agent for a fictional group entity named as permit Holder -- which then must assume full liability from the Government and bind participants vicariously to its terms. By the creed of the gatherings, no one can appoint themselves to such a position. More importantly, such an ad hoc gathering has no legal capacity to designate agents or act as a group party in any way. As a result, individuals are denied personal standing in First Amendment exercise and subjected to harsh criminal prosecution for being anywhere near the area. The Forest Service requires that a permit be applied for in advance of the gathering. And they use any excuse possible to deny a permit application when we manage to submit one. This year their denial was based on the fact that a logging company had a permit to log in a nearby parcel of the national forest, even though there is no logging activity present whatsoever. The site is far remote from any inhabitants -- but still the Forest Service is all over our case. Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to block this harmless gathering from taking place. The scariest aspect of all this is how Homeland Security is using these gatherings to perfect their techniques of martial law. Regulations written for the Federal Emergency Management Authority to deal with natural disasters are now being used to crush dissent in this country. Each year the Rainbow Gathering is declared a "National Incident" and federal military law ensues. A Special Agent is appointed "Incident Commander", with a Delegation of Authority, a large law enforcement "Team", and huge budget to control the gathering. Qualified Forest Service administrators lose their power, while the county sheriff and other officials are brought into targeted law enforcement actions by inclusion in the Incident Team and other inter-agency agreements. Each year Homeland Security gains more power over the individuals involved.

RIGHTS CRISIS IN COLORADO --

At this writing Forest Service law enforcement has issued over 500 tickets to the early arrivals at the gathering in Colorado. They have blocked the road and have prevented food and water from reaching those who managed to get into the gathering before the police roadblock was set up. The 500 people with tickets are being herded into trials like none anyone has seen before in America. These pseudo trials are prototypes for what Homeland Security will use in the cases of insurrection or even a plague. Defendants lose the right to a public hearing (this year these hearings are being held behind closed doors in a firehouse garage near the site. Attorneys and legal observers have been denied the right to even view these trials. The defendants are not explained their rights nor afforded the right to an attorney, the right to summon witnesses, the right to a jury trial, etc. Defendants ordered to appear each day at 9:00 a.m. and sit in the hot sun without water or sanitary facilities until their trials. Some have now been waiting for several days. These abbreviated trials only take a few minutes. Last year I tried to help a string of defendants defend themselves in these trials but felt helpless to do much as the system was clearly stacked against them. This year is especially frustrating to me as I have to watch this come down from 6000 miles away. Right now I am in Hungary at a medical conference for my employment. I am flying home on Thursday and plan on being in court Saturday, July 1st, to defend some of my best friends who got a ticket for illegally gathering as they drove down a public highway.

WHAT TO DO --

The confrontation this year is getting more intense by the minute, which is why I am asking for your help. The only way to stop a massive conflagration in Colorado in the next few days is to get thousands of people to contact their political representatives as well as the responsible administrators at the Forest Service to demand that this repression stop immediately. Please, even if you can never conceive of yourself at a Rainbow Gathering, you must understand that if these citizens lose their constitutional right to gather, we all lose such rights. This year the Rainbow Gathering is being used to set precedents that will be turned against drug policy, civil liberty, anti-war or other activists in the near future. Following are some instructions on who to write and/or call. We hope to start flooding the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service with complaints starting Monday morning and not stopping until harassment stops. It is especially important that we get a few Congressional representative and Senators concerned enough to write the Forest Service for an explanation of why so much money is being spent to keep people from camping in the National Forest set aside for exactly that purpose. Please keep the pressure on these bureaucrats until we are able to spread the word that the government has backed off and that the gathering can proceed unhindered. If you do not know the contact information for your Congressman or Senator, you can find this here. You can call your representative at 212-224-3121. Besides your representatives in Washington, please call and write the following people to voice your protest to this harsh treatment of people who just want to go on a camping trip in the woods. Keep the calls coming until word is passed around that the government has called off their dogs. Please forward this letter to your friends and feel free to re-post it on any listserv or website you wish. Email me if you have any questions.

Don E Wirtshafter
Attorney at Law
Box 18 Guysville, OH 45735
740 662 5297


USDA, Natural Resources & Environment
Mark Rey, USDA Undersecretary
1400 Independence Ave. SW, .. 217-E
Washington, DC 20250
202-720-7173 Fax: 202-720-0632


Kathleen Gause, Director 202-205-8534
USDA Forest Service
Civil Rights Staff
Stop Code 1142
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington., DC 20250-1142
Tel (202) 205-1585

Office of the Chief
NetZero Message Center 06/26/2006 01:52 AM
link Page 5 of 6
Dale Bosworth, Chief
USDA Forest Service
Yates Federal Building (4NW Yates)
201 14th Street, SW - Washington, DCÊ20250
202-205-1661; Fx: 202-205-1765

Executive Assistant...Karla Hawley, 202 -205-1195
Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests,
Mary H. Peterson, Supervisor
2468 Jackson Street -- Laramie, WY 82070-6535
307-745-2300 Fax: 307-745-2398

U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region (R-2)
Rick Cables, Regional Forester
Mail: P.O. Box 25127 -- Lakewood, CO 80225-0127
303-275-5451

Richard Stem, Deputy Regional Forester, Resources: 303-275-5451

Steve Silverman, Office of General Counsel, Regional Attorney: 303-275-5536

Bill Fox, Law Enforcement & Investigations, Special Agent in Charge: 303-275-5253

Jerome Romero, Deputy Director of Civil Rights: 303-275-5340

Some resources to research these issues further:


The best Rainbow website: Welcome Home


A good article written before the feds came down hard: article


More recent coverage: Rocky Mountain News

and
Denver Post


thanks to
NEW WORLD ODOR STINKS and
AMERICA BETRAYED




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Design from Ursine Logic

This Is How Freedom Dies

Why YOU should care about Darfur

Sometimes I get asked why I care so much about a country so far away. I also hear people say it's too huge a problem, too far along, too beyond our control to do anything about. They view it as a hopeless cause, and goddess forbid we waste our time on hopeless causes! My answer is always the same: we must care, we must get involved, we must let people know what is going on there because if we do not, we lose another piece of our already frail humanity.

Throughout history, there are numerous examples of societies and cultures remembered by how they treated or mistreated those beneath them in power, how they defended or failed to defend the weak and powerless, how they failed or succeeded as human beings. Those who remained silent are judged the harshest because with their silence they implied consent. By not speaking out, they let their neighbors be dragged away in the night and killed. They let living, sentient beings undergo torture and abuse. They let entire generations be wiped out and the face of nations be forever changed.

Think about it. If you are walking down the street and you see a very large person attack a very small person, what would you do? Would you turn your head, walk away and say it wasn't any of your business? Or would you at least make a phone call as you were running away? That phone call, small and insignificant as it may be, could very well be the one act that saves a life.

Let's take it in another direction. You see a helpless creature such as a dog, cat, horse or other sentient creature being abused. What do you do? Do you run away? Do you say it is not your problem? Do you say there is nothing you can do? Or do you respond because everything in your heart tells you what you are seeing is wrong, that something weak is being abused by something strong? Do you see NOT responding as a condemnation of your own humanity, your own right to call yourself a human being?

What all those questions demonstrate is that we will be defined for posterity by the actions we take or don't take on issues like Darfur. Our humanity will be judged by how we live as a WORLD community. And most of all, we will be judged by the children who died because we didn't think they were any of our business. They are the reason I speak up. They are the reason I try and educate people about what is going on in Darfur. Children are not political. They are not policy makers. They are not armies. They are not militias. They are not the knock on the door in the middle of the night. They are children. And they are our conscience. They are why we must speak up and demand the rest of the world, the bigger reaches of our world community, look at Darfur and see what is happening. It is called GENOCIDE and with our silence, we let allow it to continue.

What you can do:

1. Get educated. I'm not going to provide links because there are so many and so much is changing day to day. I recommend typing "Darfur" in any search engine. There are thousands of people like yourself who have devoted their time and energy to educating the rest of us. Go read what they have to say.

2. Call your elected representatives. Most of us have cell phones with national plans, so it will cost most nothing but a few minutes of your time to call. Emails are easier and will do if you can't afford to call, but from talking to politician's staffers, it's the phone calls that get attention and not the emails or ten mile long petitions.

3. Get loud. Tell others what is going on. Donate to groups who are doing something to increase awareness. Write a song, poem, novel, or create a work of art as there are many ways to get loud. The image at the top of this posting is my contribution. I've made it available on t-shirts, buttons, and stickers in my store Darfur Items

I keep a supply of mini buttons on hand to give out at concerts, fairs, and other events where people of conscience can be found. I remind them it is about the children. I call my representatives and ask them what they have done lately to bring this matter to the world's attention. Some of them are tired of hearing from me. That is my intent because maybe they will act from their conscience so I won't have to call anymore.

Why YOU should care about Darfur