Trying to Make a Difference!

I have been blogging on animal topics on my other blog and I'd like to do one on here to point out how important of a cause this is and different campaigns you can contribute to. I hate feeling helpless to things that upset me. I figured I would check out the PETA website and see if there's any way for me to get involved. I realize a lot of people think they are too 'exteme,' but their overall mission is a wonderful thing.


You don't have support everything they do but you will most likely agree with many of them. I have already found four causes I wrote letters for. Here are a few of the latest issues:


KFC (Kentucky Fried Cruelty) - They breed chickens and inject them with drugs so they grow so large they can't walk. "They break their legs and wings" and cram them into "waste-filled factories." Sign Pink's petition.


Iams - A PETA investigator found this, "dogs who had gone crazy from intense confinement in barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs who had been left on a filthy paint-chipped floor after chunks of muscle had been hacked from their thighs, dogs who had been surgically debarked, and horribly sick dogs and cats who were languishing in their cages, neglected and left to suffer without veterinary care."
Join the Boycott!


China's Skinning of Live Cats and Dogs -
The first time I came across this was on the "girl in short shorts" blog that I am sure everyone is familiar with, she posted a video of it that is absolutely heartbreaking. It's also on the PETA site. The e-mail address is not valid but I am sending a letter to this address:
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador of the People's Republic of China
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W.Washington, DC 20008


Ringling Brothers - Two workers "witnessed a violent beating of an elephant that lasted at least 30 minutes" which left the elephant "crying out in agony and was left bleeding profusely from severe wounds." I never liked the circus as kid! They have a long past of similar activities.
Get Active!


PetSmart! of all places! - "PETA documented more than 100 small animals—including hamsters, domestic rats, lizards, chinchillas, and birds—deprived of effective veterinary care and slowly dying, out of customers' sight."
Get Active!


CBS - on a recent episode of "Kid Nation" which apparently is like Survivor where young kids were left for 40 days. The kids had become close to the animals but a few of them convinced the rest to kill chickens for protein. Some of the kids were apparently traumatized. This is not the first time the network has killed animals for ratings!
Get Active!


If you want to help helpless animals, join the PETA site and become active today! It will tell you what brands/companies to avoid due to their lack of concern for animal welfare and who is animal-friendly. Most of them have forms with sample letters you can edit and personalize in minutes and many are signature petitions that have made major differences in the past! Once you sign up they will e-mail the new causes so you don't have to check the site very often. I also have quite a few other links, if you don't like PETA, on my Rainbows and Butterflies site that support animals!


Take a few minutes and help out some needy animals - you obviously have a little spare time if you're reading my blog :) lol.


Thanks for reading!

Gas Prices and Energy Independence

So it's obviously going to be a Democrat that wins the next election. As unsatisfied with how a Republican ran the country for the last two terms, it is almost a sure thing. Personally, I think that there should be an unlimited amount of terms that a President can serve. It would keep them on their toes. It seems like during the second terms, they get the attitude of 'well I can't get elected again anyways so who cares.' I also think we need to switch from Republican to Democrat EACH time because they keep the country balanced - which would be pretty unrealistic to require it, but still would probably work out better if it happened by chance.


But anyways, which Democrat will it be? Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Due to my current frustration with the current president, I decided to do some research and get educated on the subject. I am doing a separate blog for each issue, so it doesn't take me a month to do one post.

Gas Prices and Energy Independence - This caught my attention since I pay $200/mo. in gas just driving back and forth to work. The leaders of the oil companies are driving silver cars and living in ridiculous mansions but we just have to take money out of our grocery budgets to hand over to them.. We give the dictators 800 million dollars a day, twice what we paid before George W. Bush!

"The Obama plan to create an energy independent America will cut U.S. oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, take 50 million cars worth of pollution off the road, and save American consumers more than $50 billion at the gas pump." He also plans to increase federal investment in energy efficiency. He said he will lift the cap that is placed on tax credits for consumers buying energy efficient hybrid vehicles. He also claims that he will get 20% of our nation's power supply to be from renewable sources by the year 2020.

Hillary plans to put 50 billion into R & D for developing renewable energy - from which she claims will come from the oil companies, not our tax money. I have seen some claims though that say she is going to increase tax on gas prices for the research though. She also has a plan dedicated to achieving energy independence, but I did not find many details on how it would work. The economy was doing so well with Bill in office, and many people feel she probably ran most of his presidency anyways. I still don't think it's safe to assume we will have the same prosperity as we did with Bill's terms though.

Theses both sound pretty similar - they both realize there's a problem, that is a good start I guess. They both seem to have voted very similarly to each other in the past on energy related issues as well. I did like the concreteness of Obama's numbers, but I'm sure it's not anywhere near a guarantee. He seemed to address things more specifically than Hillary did. I'm curious how she plans to make big oil companies fund research; if we had that much power to control them, why haven't we used it yet? Am I missing something there? Does anyone have a more detailed explanation of her plans? I couldn't find many specifics online, not even her own campaign site. So if you understand this issue better, enlighten me!

What are some ways that you try to conserve gas? Are you trying to conserve at all? If you have some examples of things you do personally to cut down on gas, please share!

Parenting

I am kind of combining two past posts I have done on my blog 'Rainbows and Butterflies.' I wish I hadn't deleted them completely because I had a lot of good comments on them. Since new news has come up, I thought I'd address them both again but in different ways: Parenting and Britney Spears.

The previous blog on parenting, semi-jokingly, suggested an IQ test be given to kids at age 12 and if they didn't do at least above a slightly mentally handicapped level, they would be 'fixed.' Then for those who were smart enough and became pregnant another requirement: 8 months of parenting classes (with the baby's father!) and possibly occasional random drop-by visits to check on the condition of the baby.

The previous blog on Britney was kind of defending her. It gets harder and harder to though. Things are coming out about her being a terrible parent and now she's charged with hit-and-run..? The Internet news sources are saying she didn't feed her babies well, didn't let them sleep after she came home from partying, bathed them in designer lotions that irritated their skin, did drugs, and did inappropriate sexual things around the kids. I still stand by that she should not be called fat, she is gorgeous, and the media really should stay out of her life.. but is she a lost cause? She's been to rehab, but is seen doing drugs the day she got out. She temporarily loses custody of her kids, then goes out partying? I think she should do what she wants with her life, but not if it affects innocent children. I think she probably just needs somebody genuine to reach out to her and help her get back to being her old self. Perhaps show her she can enjoy life without drugs, alcohol, and partying - once the addictions are under control. The alternative, K-Fed, hardly seems like a great parent either. These kids don't seem to have much of a great future.

Is it really that absurd to suggest that parents/potential parents be given requirements? Getting a job or driving requires certifications, so why not parenting? Do you think parenting is really what goes wrong with people, or their own weaknesses, or is society in general to blame? I had horrible parenting but I didn't become a 'train wreck.'

The current system is failing America's children. If I was a member of DCFS, I wouldn't let half of things that go on, continue to happen. Besides myself, I knew several other kids that were abused/treated badly. DCFS investigated and found evidence and did nothing. What is wrong with that organization? People get their pets taken away for less serious abuse than it takes to get their children taken away.. why is this?

Please leave your thoughts/experiences on this topic!