The Natural Resources Defense Council asks those of us who care about our Mother Earth to contribute to a worthy cause, a plea to the people for a clean environment. Perchance, we can help advance the message.
Please help run this powerful new ad in The Washington Post and turn the tide in Congress against legislation that would sacrifice our fragile coasts to Big Oil and the threat of catastrophic spills.
NRDCActionFund.org With our economy sinking and oil prices soaring, George Bush is offering snake oil: a plan to sacrifice more of our coasts to oil drilling on the chance it will produce a few weeks' worth of oil and reduce gas prices by a few pennies a gallon...in 2028. Imagine America forever tethered to Bush's failed energy policy. It's like giving him five more terms.
It's a cruel Shell game. And BP game. And ExxonMobil game. Over the past five years, the number of domestic drilling permits has nearly doubled. But because of rising worldwide demand, oil prices have skyrocketed. More drilling off our coasts is not the answer. Once destroyed they can never be replaced. The only winners will be the oil companies.
Want gas at $1 a gallon? America needs a bold new approach to energy, from more fuel efficient vehicles to plug-in hybrids and electric cars. A cleaner electric grid powered by renewables.
Existing technologies could have us driving at the equivalent of a buck a gallon for gas!
Tell your Representative and Senators to stop the giveaway of our coasts. Tell them you won't stand for billions more for oil companies-and snake oil for the rest of us.
[The Advertisement will be] Paid for by supporters of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund.
Thank you for your consideration and contribution.
The Courts and Congress have come to believe there is reason for fear. Enemies are everywhere. Those who wish to do us harm are in our homes. They talk to us on our telephones. Some sashay in through our computers. "Evil doers" are ubiquitous in the United States. Our open society places the public at risk. We, the people, must defend ourselves. Thus, the Supreme Court and Congress have given the government and us the means. The highest judicial body in the nation has made it possible for the common man to protect himself with a pistol; Legislators provided the President ethereal firearms. Indeed, individuals and the Commander-In-Chief were bequeathed more than either had asked for. In 2008, we have entered the Summer of Separation. In the United States we say, "Farewell to privacy. Hello to arms."
Ok, call me crazy but I thought a foreclosure prevention bill is suppose to be designed to help average folks stem off foreclosures. So will someone tell me how a foreclosure prevention bill would contain bail-out money for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries? What do these clowns in Washington have to do to prove to the American public where their loyalties lie. Why is it that when average Americans seek help from their government they are treated to: rely on capitalism and the free enterprise system, but when these CEO's, who get million dollar bonuses whether their companies succeed or not, make bad business decisions it is ok for the government to bail them out. Who says we are capitalist? I guess the poor are, but the rich sure as hell aren't.
On Thursday, SB 286 passed with little opposition in the Florida Senate. Legislators who voted for the bill either don't understand the English language and literacy learning needs of the .25 million English language learners (ELLs) in Florida schools, or they simply don't care. In either case, if this bill passes in the House of Representatives and becomes law, it will result in our failure to prepare Florida teachers to meet ELLs' very real needs to learn to read in English and to succeed in school. Whether SB 286 has been motivated and propelled by ignorance or by negligence, it represents a giant step backwards for our students.
The fact is that Florida teachers of reading to ELLs need more ELL-specific professional development than some apparently think. I use the case of "Holly" to illustrate. Soon after SB 286 was introduced in the Senate, a reading teacher named Holly wrote in to one of Florida's major newspapers to assert that, based on her experience, teachers do not need special preparation to teach reading to ELLs. Holly stated that she had not pursued the ESOL professional development required by the state because, she explained, "If I had wanted to become an ESOL teacher, I would have done so."
Indeed, Holly claimed that she was "proud to be a reading teacher." Holly went on to report that last year she had been assigned to teach reading to two classes of Haitian students. In spite of the fact that these recent arrivals spoke "almost no English," Holly noted emphatically that she "was NOT teaching these students English. We focused on phonics."
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