storyofstuff.org Hello Annie! Remember me? Years ago I helped push you and your "story of stuff" all over the net. Times have changed and some bad people have pushed back and blocked many of our efforts to unite. Getting your message out is important but our net access points have been blocked and stuffed full of commercials. Years ago it was known as spam and we would not allow span to interfere with our personal communications. Today, the net is full of beautifully created spam and interpersonal communication has been reduced to twitter size messages. Joining together is exactly what dozens of powerful international companies do not want us to do and they are blocking our efforts to communicate and unite towards better goals. To be fair, many other companies have switched towards creating a better and safer planet but as yet not enough are following your idea of 'BETTER'. This time around I need your help. I need a place to write and I need to regain much of the power that has literally been stolen from me and from sweet people like yourself. Can you provide me with a small writing area on your site? A place I can fill with dozens of links to great pro environment and better life web sites? Signed: Joseph Raglione Executive director: The World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement. human4us@bell.net

Gentle readers of this Blog: The United States government continues to struggle and the following is a message the Democrats are sending to all of you. Friend -- Last month, the federal government shut down for 17 days. The Office of Management and Budget estimates that the shut-down cost American taxpayers $2 billion in worker productivity alone -- millions of people went without work and critical services were cut off. Because OFA supporters like you never stopped putting pressure on Congress, the House leaders responsible for pushing us to the brink backed down. This budget crisis hurt -- and you and I know it didn't have to happen. What's worse is that unless something fundamental changes in Washington, we could be heading toward another series of budget showdowns in the coming months. Congress still has to pass a long-term budget, and address the devastating cuts that have been in place since the sequester took effect last March. Even though it might not be on the front pages every day, we're going to keep you in the loop on where we are, and what's coming down the pike. Check out this budget update on our blog, and pass it along to anyone else you think should read it. Here are the basics of what you need to know on where budget talks are in Congress: Right now, a bipartisan budget conference committee is working to produce a long-term budget solution -- they have until December 13th to hammer out a plan. From there, Congress will have until January 15th to debate, tweak, and pass the budget to avoid another government shutdown. That's also the day that the next round of devastating sequester cuts will go into effect -- these cuts were designed to put pressure on Congress to find a solution. If they fail to pass a budget by that date, the new round of sequestration cuts will be much more severe than the ones we saw in 2013. Many government agencies still had funding available from previous years that they were able to dig into, and take steps to prevent furloughs and deep budgetary cuts -- but now, they're running out of options, and another round of sequester cuts would slow our fragile economic recovery. The bottom line is that there's a lot at stake over the next two months. Congress needs to step up and pass a long-term budget that addresses sequester cuts and grows our economy from the middle out. We'll keep you posted on what happens after the conference committee deadline in December. But for today, make sure to check out this blog post, and pass it along to the folks you know who need to stay in the loop. http://my.barackobama.com/Budget-Update-Blog Thanks -- more soon, Nico Nico Probst Director of Special Projects Organizing for Action ---------------- The other side will spend millions to maintain the status quo. We're fighting for change -- chip in $5 or more to support OFA today.

Gentle readers of this blog. Festering anger is an emotion I intensely dislike. It is an anger I am feeling towards my Canadian government and towards all politicians and business people involved with the production and delivery of fossil fuels. It is what I feel when I see the horrible deaths of thousands of helpless Philippino people created by a destructive Typhoon the size and strength of which has not been recorded in human history. This festering anger burns inside of me every time I see a car commercial on television and every time I am forced to watch a government sponsored commercial depicting how creating oil pipelines will help develop our Canadian economy. I connected the dots years ago. Fossil fuels create warm air and that in turn creates warm Ocean waters and that creates extremely dangerous Hurricanes and Cyclones. Our so called political and economic leaders pretend they do not believe in global warming. I honestly wish they all lived in the Philippines. What feeds my anger is the certain knowledge that these cold blooded commercial human beings are the indirect cause of the most horrific climate disasters ever to curse our lives! My anger burns deep! It is the absolute knowledge that we could have slowed climate change years ago when U.S. Senator Al Gore first provided us with solid science based evidence of man made global warming. For his honest efforts, Al Gore was chastised and dismissed by global warming deniers who today continue to deride and obstruct any efforts to slow climate change. Why? Because it is not in their economic best interests to allow alternative energy systems to exist! The proof of that became evident when the first efficient Electric Cars produced by the General Motors company, were literally forced off the market by Oil rich Republican president Bush and his new pro Oil government. The U.S. Electric cars were completely destroyed but the concept was not killed. Today, the honourable Japanese have brought back the Electric Cars and more than a few international companies have followed suit; but is it too little too late? Has time run out on all of us? Within the last ten years C02 emissions in the atmosphere have jumped up and off the science charts. CO2 emissions are created almost completely by burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere. With warmer air the Arctic ice has melted and our Oceans have become a birthing ground for Hurricanes and Cyclones the size of continents. Today I am pointing the finger directly at every human being who is creating and pumping Carbon pollution into our atmosphere and sadly, that includes myself. I could have made stronger efforts to stop the pollution! Signed: Joseph Raglione Executive Director: The World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement. P.S. Hello President Putin! Please free your Greenpeace political prisoners. Eleven Nobel prize winners believe in Greenpeace and they also believe you should free the Greenpeace crew as an Olympic games goodwill gesture. The Olympic games are a world peace movement and you are creating a negative image for yourself and for Russia by keeping Greenpeace members locked in your prison. Don't allow the Sochi Olympic games to become a laughing stock for the world.

I owe the Canadian Broadcasting Company and all it's members an apology. I once called them cowards for not standing up to Canadian federal prime minister Harper when he threatened to cut their budget. I also worried, with good reason, that the CBC was not providing enough coverage on global warming! The reason I worried pertains to my information from NASA which was not correlating with anything the CBC was providing over the last few years. That of course has changed with the proliferation of deadly hurricanes such as "Super Typhoon Haiyan which has hit Guiuan, on the Philippine island of Samar, at 4:40 a.m. local time Friday. Three hours before landfall, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre assessed Haiyan's sustained winds at 195 mph, gusting to 235 mph, making it the fourth-strongest tropical cyclone in world history" and the C.B.C, along with many international NEWS services, finally provided sufficient if not prolific information after the fact. Ten thousand people are presumed dead because of hurricane Haiyan. How many of these people could have been saved with enough advanced warning? What if global warming deniers were fewer and far between and television commercials sold millions more Electric Cars? Meanwhile, my friend in Washington would like you to read this ....> SUPPORT THE EPA'S NEW CLEAN ENERGY STANDARDS. "Climate change is real, man-made, and dangerous -- and a lot of that is due to carbon pollution from power plants. It threatens the health of our communities, and is already leading to more frequent and damaging storms, wildfires, droughts, and heat waves. I strongly support the EPA's standards to clean up carbon pollution from new and existing power plants because it will protect Americans' health, spur investment in clean energy, and unleash American innovation." BARACK OBAMA.