tagged w/ Petitions
-
The USDA is testing a program that lets poultry companies inspect their own chickens... at a rate of 175 per minute. What could possibly go wrong?!The USDA is testing a program that lets poultry companies inspect their own... more
-
-
Cabal
-
added this
-
1 month ago
- |
-
By Hayley Tsukayama and Sarah Halzack, Thursday, January 19, 2:54 AM
Support for two online piracy bills in Congress appeared to wane Wednesday after opponents of the legislation staged a dramatic protest in which vast swaths of the Web effectively went dark.
Visitors to Wikipedia who tried to search the online encyclopedia’s usually trivia-filled pages were instead greeted by a message informing them that the bills could “fatally damage the free and open Internet.” On Craigslist, those looking to search the classifieds had to first read through a note urging them to contact their representatives to block the bills. And while you could still run searches on Google, a black censorship bar blocked the area where a cheery Google Doodle logo normally resides.
The search engine directed users to a petition opposing the bills.
More than 4.5 million people signed their names to the Google petition and 300,000 people emailed or called their lawmakers, according to the protest organizers. In New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas, protesters held rallies to draw attention to the bills. The Library of Congress said late Wednesday that it had been hit with a denial of service attack by “a group opposed to the online piracy legislation.”
By the evening, a number of lawmakers had done an about-face on the legislation.
The Senate version of the bill lost four of its co-sponsors, including Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
“It is simply not ready for prime time and both sides must continue working together to find a better path forward,” Hatch said in a statement about the Protect Intellectual Property Act.
Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Mark Rubio (R-Fla.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) also released statements Wednesday saying that they had reservations and would not vote for the bill if it came up for a floor vote.
In the House, where lawmakers are considering a similar bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters that “it’s pretty clear to many of us that there’s a lack of consensus at this point” on how to proceed with the bill.
The online piracy bills had been aimed at protecting U.S. companies against foreign Web sites that illegally post copyrighted material. Companies opposing the legislation had argued that the bills would impose heavy regulatory costs, harm innovation and give the government too much power to shut down Web sites accused of copyright violations even if they are later found to be innocent of the charges.
“The entire approach is philosophically wrongheaded,” Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said Tuesday evening in an interview with The Washington Post before the protest began.
In a statement posted to his public Facebook profile, co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the bills “get in the way of the internet’s development.” Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt encouraged his followers on Twitter to sign Google’s petition against the bills, calling on them to “Defend the web!”
The darkened Web sites represent some of the largest properties on the Internet: Google easily has the widest reach, with 187.1 million unique visitors in December, according to data from ComScore. Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia and other wiki sites, and Craigslist also have broad audiences, reaching 83 million and 49.8 million unique visitors, respectively, in the same period. Reddit, which compiles links to funny stories, was visited by 4.8 million users last month. Another participant, Boing Boing, had 1.6 million visits.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate bill’s lead sponsor, on Tuesday had steadfastly defended the bill, arguing that the Web firms involved in the protests were overreacting. Much of what has been claimed about the the bills is “flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions,” he said. Leahy did not comment Wednesday.
Staff writer Felicia Somnez contributed to this report.By Hayley Tsukayama and Sarah Halzack, Thursday, January 19, 2:54 AM
Support for... more
-
-
-
Well, we've demonstrated they don't care about their users. They don't care about their own Terms of Service. They don't care what people say or write about them. They don't care about their integrity. They don't care about honesty. They don't care about much of anything, it seems. Except... The bottom line
http://www.turningovertherocks.com/2011/12/27/what-does-facebook-care-about-not-you/Well, we've demonstrated they don't care about their users. They don't... more
-
-
-
-
-
A group of activists from red-state Oklahoma are petitioning the Democratic Congressional campaign committees to tell the half-ass Democrats who oppose the American Jobs Act to get aboard or they will get no further support. At the same time, we pledge to donate to the committees if they follow through, and no more donations unless they do.
Can you help us reach 10,000? Everyone who signs the petition should forward it to as many Democrats as possible.Here is the link, followed by the petition:
http://signon.org/sign/democrats-must-support?source=c.fwd&r_by=226791
Our future is in our own hands.
Bradley Byers and Frank Canada, Tulsa, OK
To:
Sen. Patty Murray, Chair, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
Rep. Steve Israel, Chair, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
It is unthinkable that some Democrats in Congress oppose the American Jobs Act. They are a disgrace to the Democratic Party and a roadblock to restoring jobs and economic stability in the United States.
We, the Petitioners, call on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to inform their members that such actions against the best interest of their constituents and of all Americans no longer will be tolerated without adverse consequences.
(1) We, the petitioners, promise to make at least one donation to one or both of the Democratic campaign committees, provided that
(2) The committee pledges to inform Democrats that it will withhold all support and assistance from any Democrat who fails to support and vote in favor of the American Jobs Act, and further
(3) We will make NO further contributions to either committee until we know that such action has been taken.A group of activists from red-state Oklahoma are petitioning the Democratic... more
-
-
Why this is Important
Cristian Fernandez is a juvenile and should be treated as such in the criminal justice system. A gag order was placed on his case, preventing the public from accessing information pertaining to his circumstances and the events surrounding his brother's death. That order needs to be lifted and the decision to try Cristian as an adult, subjecting him to a sentence of life in an adult prison, needs to be reversed.
Case Background
Cristian was born on January 14th of 1999 to a mother who was as old as he is today. Cristian is 12 years old. On March 15th he was arrested relating to the alleged beating of his 2 year old brother David. At the time of his arrest, David was under the care of St. Luke's hospital, receiving treatment for injuries he sustained the day before.
David died on March 16th as a result of injuries to the head. Doctors who took care of the young child indicated that if his mother had brought him to the hospital when he was first injured he might not have died as a result. However, the child's mother waited for six hours or more before taking him to the hospital. She did not call 911 before taking her son to the hospital.
12 year old Cristian was left in the apartment to care for his 2 year old brother even though he had broken the child's leg while wrestling in January of the same year. Cristian's arrest report indicated that Cristian was worried about the condition of his brother and was also concerned about what would happen to him as a result of his hurting his younger brother.
Cristian's mother was arrested on the 15th as well. It is documented in the arrest report that she failed to immediately seek medical attention for little David and that she spent time researching his injury online before she took him to the hospital. David was unconscious while this occurred. Biannela also admitted to leaving Cristian alone with David.
On June 3rd, Cristian was indicted for first degree murder in his brother's death. On the 8th of the same month he was arraigned in court for this charge. The prosecution requested a gag order placed on the parties involved in the case. Prosecutor Mark Caliel stated, "We have a concern that any comments being interpreted by a potential jury pool could inhibit our ability to fairly and adequately try this case."
Their request was granted.
On June 5th, media outlets reported that Cristian had been examined by two separate forensic psychologists. Each concluded that he was "emotionally underdeveloped but essentially reformable despite a tough life."
On July 22nd, Cristian appeared for his pre-trial hearing. At this hearing he was charged with first-degree murder in adult court. As a result of this charge, Cristian faces life in prison.
Cristian's life has been very difficult. When he was just two years old he was found wandering the streets naked in a hotel parking lot. He was dirty and neglected. Cristian's grandmother was acting as his guardian at the time and was charged with possession of drugs and neglect. Cristian and his 14 year old mother were placed in foster care.
In October of 2010, months before David's death, Cristian and his younger brother were home during the suicide of his violent and abusive stepfather. Authorities found Cristian's brother David covered in the stepfather's blood after he shot himself with a 9mm gun. The stepfather committed suicide to avoid abuse charges stemming from his having punched Cristian in the face, giving him a severe injury to his eye.
Cristian's mother would later claim in a letter to the Florida Times Union that DCF placed her children on a waiting list for counseling, denying them access to the therapy they needed to cope with the trauma they endured. DCF has not responded to these claims. However, the Florida state attorney's office issued a subpoena to have the letter turned over to them on September 1st. The Florida Time Union argued in court on September 9th that they had a right to refuse to turn over the letter, citing the first amendment.
Cristian is scheduled for his next hearing on October 5th to evaluate the results of a third psychological examination.
Cristian is a child who has been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. The system failed him his entire life and now it stands to repeat history by refusing Cristian the right to be tried in juvenile court. Cristian has demonstrated he is amenable to rehabilitation. There is no logical reason to deny this child his right to the programs and treatment provided through the juvenile court system. Help Cristian receive the justice he deserves as a juvenile.
Find out more:
Visit www.justice4juveniles.com to find out more about Cristian's case and other juvenile cases.Why this is Important
Cristian Fernandez is a juvenile and should be treated as... more
-
-
Petition from the School of the America Watch for the UN to abandon its military actions in Haiti and provide more aid.Petition from the School of the America Watch for the UN to abandon its military... more
-
-
Online petition to Vietnamese authorities to drop charges against workers charged with organizing strikes.Online petition to Vietnamese authorities to drop charges against workers charged with... more
-
-
To stabilize our already chaotic climate and to avoid catastrophic global warming of 2-7 degrees centigrade or more, we must reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) pollution from our current unsustainable global level of 389 parts CO2 per million to 350 ppm or below. Otherwise, we face massive crop failures, starvation, water shortages, pestilence, and unending wars for dwindling natural resources. In practical terms, this means reducing current fossil fuel use (especially in the food, transport, housing, military, and utilities sectors) by 90% by 2050; while sequestering or storing as much CO2 as possible in the soil through organic soil management and reforestation.
By the year 2020, the U.S. needs to generate at least 25% of its energy from solar, wind, and other renewable sources (currently at 6%, while Denmark is at 20%). By 2020, 25% of our food needs to be certified organic (currently it is 4%), while drastically reducing the most-devastating greenhouse gases spewed out by industrial food and farming, methane and nitrous oxide. Only 1% of the U.S.'s 435 million acres of cultivated farmland are currently certified organic. In addition to drastically reducing fossil fuel energy use and slashing GHG emissions, each acre of farm, pasture, or range land brought under organic cultivation or management can safely sequester or store the equivalent of 7,000 pounds of climate-destabilizing CO2 per year. If all of U.S. farmland (not to mention pasture) were managed organically, we would be able to sequester almost 25% of all current GHG emissions, while significantly reducing fossil fuel use.
Given the fact that the direct (CO2, nitrous oxide, and methane) and indirect (deforestation, draining of wetlands) greenhouse gas emissions from factory farms and chemical and energy-intensive industrial agriculture constitute the majority of greenhouse gases, we call on U.S. elected officials, political candidates, and regulatory agencies to support and implement the following three public policies:
(1) Implement Truth in Labeling
Give consumers the opportunity to freely choose sustainable, climate-friendly, humane, and healthy products by requiring GMO, pesticide, antibiotic, hormone, CAFO, GHG, and country-of-origin labels on foods and products sold in grocery stores and restaurants. At the same time we must safeguard consumer choice by maintaining strict certification and labeling standards for products which are organic, Fair Trade, or genuinely healthy and sustainable.
(2) Stop Subsidizing Destructive Policies
Stop subsidizing industrial food and farm production, fossil fuels, and resource wars, and instead use these funds to promote and qualitatively fast-track clean energy, a green jobs economy, and organic farming. It is currently estimated that U.S. taxpayer subsidies to the fossil fuel and industrial food and farm sectors amounts to $60 billion a year, while wars for oil and strategic resources in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing us $200 billion annually. The money wasted on wars and industrial agriculture by the U.S. alone is enough to fast-track the conversion of the U.S. and global economy to organic agriculture and clean energy and save the world from climate catastrophe.
(3) Build an Organic and Green Economy
Begin the phase-out of industrial agriculture's most energy, GHG-intensive, and hazardous practices. These practices include the massive over-production of livestock and animal products, Genetically Modified (GM) crops and biofuels, toxic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, sewage sludge on farm lands, and slaughterhouse waste in animal feed. Ban factory farm CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) and all inhumane confinement of farm animals.To stabilize our already chaotic climate and to avoid catastrophic global warming of... more
-
-
This is the sixth volume of the Sustainable Agriculture Group's Monsanto Roundup, where I try to bring you up to date on GMO/Monsanto news and what it means to you. In this ediiton we have the DOJ investigation into seed monopoly and American farmers speaking out. Then, Bulgaria saying no to GMOs, one million standing up to ban GMOs in Europe, illegal GMO imports in Kenya and their implications, and pushing Smartstax on South Africa. I also mention PLA and composting bags, and something I have coming up.
Please take some time to read the news and use it for your own empowerment.
It is the only way we will ever take back our food.
Thank you!
http://current.com/groups/sustainable-agriculture/This is the sixth volume of the Sustainable Agriculture Group's Monsanto Roundup,... more
-
-
As we close in on the first Ban the Bag Day September 26th, please support our push to ban the bag forever by signing the petition.
On September 26th ask everyone you know to say NO to single use plastic shopping bags.
Tell everyone to sign the Petition to STOPlasticBags.
Thank You
Greenhouse Neutral Foundation & supporters - United Nations Environment ProgramAs we close in on the first Ban the Bag Day September 26th, please support our push to... more
-
-
Even well-addressed, well-thought-out petitions have their problems, chief among them the lack of a guarantee that anyone is collecting and collating the signatures or will deliver the completed documents to the right parties. The mere existence of a petition doesn't warrant that anyone will do anything with it once it is completed.Even well-addressed, well-thought-out petitions have their problems, chief among them... more
-
-
Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: Union of Concerned Scientists
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of global warming pollution in the United States – yet right now, our country is poised to increase these emissions by building many new dirty coal plants.
Virtually all of these proposed, new coal plants lack carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which aims to capture a plant's carbon emissions and store it underground. Building more plants without CCS would lock us into decades of rising carbon emissions at a time when we must rein in global warming pollution.
We already have renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies readily available that can meet our country's near-term energy needs. Please urge Congress to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they feature CCS technology.Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: Union of Concerned Scientists
Coal-fired power... more
-
-
It will only take about 2 mins and makes a vast difference....
Sign it if you truly believe in it otherwise feel free to tell Obama (or me) that he is (or I am) a prick for soliciting your signatures.. either way... Let Democracy Flourish!!It will only take about 2 mins and makes a vast difference....
Sign it if you truly... more
-
-
and again and again..... when all our natural resources are gone, either used up or polluted beyond any repair - no water no food, well, oil and money are just not that tasty or digestible....
From Earth Justice:
"Did you know that the oil and gas industry, thanks to Dick Cheney and his old friends at Halliburton, are exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act?
That's right: thanks to a provision slipped into the highly-controversial Energy Policy Act of 2005 at the request of Halliburton, Exxon and a handful of other corporations, the oil and gas industry was exempted from having to comply with critical provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act—a law that protects underground sources of drinking water for millions of Americans.
This exemption has allowed hydraulic fracturing—a process that increases oil and gas yields by shooting an oftentimes toxic brew of chemicals underground at high pressures—to go completely unregulated by federal law.
Hydraulic fracturing is already suspected of endangering drinking water in six states. However, due to the "Halliburton Loophole" exemption, EPA lacks the authority to investigate instances of contamination and cannot regulate this controversial practice.
Thankfully, concerned members of Congress in both the House and Senate have recently introduced legislation to close the "Halliburton Loophole" and ensure that Big Oil has to follow the same laws that every other industry does.
H.R. 2766, introduced by Diana DeGette (D-CO), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Jared Polis (D-CO); and S. 1215 introduced by Bob Casey (D-PA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Please contact your congressperson and senators and ask them to cosponsor these important pieces of legislation."and again and again..... when all our natural resources are gone, either used up or... more
-
-
And again.....
As Joni Mitchell sings: "You don't know what you've got till its gone - you pave paradise and put in a parking lot!!!!"
"The Obama administration is currently reviewing hundreds of mountaintop removal permits to make sure they are based on the best science and follow the letter of the law. But the policies currently governing these permits go against the intent of important environmental laws like the Clean Water Act.
It's up to the Obama administration to issue a new rule that prohibits mountaintop removal mining altogether. Although the administration recently promised more stringent review of permits, it has not yet taken the bold action required to end this destructive practice."And again.....
As Joni Mitchell sings: "You don't know what... more
-
-
Obama is backing tougher legislation but lobbyists are pushing back hard... Moveon is helping to rally for this much needed cause (I'm not affiliated), contact your senators at the link.
>
Don't let the banks water down credit card reform
Right now, the Senate is considering a strong bill that would curb the most outrageous ways that credit card companies abuse their customers.
But the bill is stuck in limbo because too many senators are scared to take truly bold action against the banks.
We need to let Congress know that we're watching them and we expect them to protect us, not the banks.
A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your senators.
http://pol.moveon.org/creditcards/Obama is backing tougher legislation but lobbyists are pushing back hard... Moveon is... more
-
