dwer

Anyone local know where I can get sustainable, hormone-free, humanely treated meat in Chicagoland?

http://charterforcompassion.org/



A call to bring the world together…

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Join the list!

Take Dick Durbin's healthcare poll:

http://ga3.org/dickdurbin/po_poll.html

Dick Durbin wants people to fill out a poll about the public option:

http://www.DickDurbin.com/PublicOptionPoll

Go fill it out.

National Marriage Boycott wins $10,000 from ideablob.com national business competition

The National Marriage Boycott is a student-driven movement to urge Congress and President Obama to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Members sign a pledge to boycott marriage until DOMA is repealed and wear an Equality Ring to symbolize their commitment. The organization is quickly growing, increasing from a single campus to twenty campuses in over ten states in the past year.

The organization supports itself financially through the sale of $10 stainless steel 'Equality Rings,' that members wear on their ring finger as a symbol of their commitment not to get married until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed. People who are already married take off their wedding ring and replace it with the Equality Ring in solidarity.

You can order rings here. DO IT!!  amorsalado and I have.  It's only ten bucks, and it can actually make a difference.

I've been using this on some of the political boards, but I thought I'd throw this up for others to see. (h/t to gillen)



The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.

All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html

"When any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

(h/t, jblaque)

Cover them over with beautiful flowers,
Deck them with garlands, those brothers of ours,
Lying so silent by night and by day
Sleeping the years of their manhood away.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their future forcast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.
~Will Carleton

anyone know how I can file my 2006 and 2007 tax returns online?

Help me, Dr. LJ, please!

I am: Gregory Benford A master literary stylist who is also a working scientist.

Which science fiction writer are you?

The real Greg Benford once took this quiz, and it told him he was Arthur C. Clarke.

lol...

"When someone asks me, 'are gay rights civil rights?' my answer is always, 'Of course, they are.' Civil rights are positive legal prerogatives: the right to equal treatment before the law. These are the rights shared by everyone. There is no one in the United States who does not, or should not, enjoy or share in enjoying these rights. Gay and lesbian rights are not special rights in any way. It isn’t 'special' to be free from discrimination. It is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship."

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/03/naacp-chair-julian-bond-gay-rights-are-civil-rights.html