Saturday, December 18, 2004

Matthew Gross Promotes GoMainStream.org



Mathew Gross Promotes GoMainStream.org

Mathew Gross, Mark Sundeen, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are appealing to values which most Americans hold in common - regardless of whether we're on the right or left; whether we live in cities or in rural areas; whether our respective states are considered politically red or blue.

We all want clean air, clean water, and open lands.

Matt asks us to take one minute to learn about his new organization and to forward this email to everyone you know, and ask them to join GoMainStream.org.

His e-mail reads:



We’re building an army, and you are among the first to sign up.

GoMainStream.org was launched when Mark Sundeen and I joined up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and asked ourselves -- could we combine Bobby’s dedication to defending the environment with our lessons from the Dean campaign and revitalize the conservation movement in the United States?

We formed GoMainStream.org as an answer to that question.

We formed GoMainStream.org because more than 90% of Americans hold our values in common -- clean air, clean water, open lands -- yet 40% think that "most environmental activists don’t really care about people."

We formed GoMainStream because the corporate plunderers have hijacked our public lands and the public process.

And we formed GoMainStream because they’ve hijacked our language. They call polluting the air "Clear Skies" -- and they call it "development" and "access" when they lock Americans out of the public lands that we hike, hunt, fish and love.

We’re going to change that. And we’re going to change it by building a new coalition from the bottom-up -- an organization that helps Americans take action and that works to reframe the debate about the future of our country.

We’re going to do it by connecting hunters fighting to maintain access to elk habitat with suburbanites combating urban sprawl.

Because conservation is not an issue of right or left, or urban versus rural, or red versus blue.

It’s an issue of who we are as Americans.

In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out the online elements of GoMainStream.org -- tools that will speed up the networking potential of online activists, and that empower Americans to defend our way of life.

But first we have to build the army, and you can help today.

Take one minute to forward this email to everyone you know, and ask them to join us. They can sign up by clicking here:

http://www.gomainstream.org

Thank you for being with us at the very beginning.

Mathew Gross
GoMainStream.org


At Billy Jones' website, Billy speaks highly of Matt and the hope for the success of his new organization:

Ever heard of Mathew Gross? How about Howard Dean? Well it just so happens that my hometown friend and neighbor, Matt Gross, is the man who helped found Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidental Internet movement. That’s right, Matt Gross gave up months and months of his life to work-- sometimes for free-- to put Howard Dean in the White house. Regretfully-- at least for some of us-- it just didn’t work out.

But you haven’t heard the end of Mathew Gross, not yet. Through the use of his weblog MathewGross.com, Matt has managed to cultivate a daily readership of thousands upon thousands of everyday people like me and you who see the current White house administration as the leaders of a horde of Lemmings bent on destroying themselves and everything else with them. Now Mathew Gross, his friend, Mark Sundeen, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have teamed-up to start their biggest project yet-- GoMainStream.org-- a nonprofit environmental organization that all of us, true liberals and true conservatives alike, can join to help save the world from current and future environmental nightmares.



*Well-said, Billy*

Mel Gilles will be providing critical organizing support for GoMainstream.org.

Karma





Karma

For what it's worth, I took a karma test today. The test is meant to measure what shape your karma's in.

I was told:
jude, in the last year you've earned 874 karma points

You've earned these points by doing good things, therefore allowing good things to circle back to you. There are 6 different ways people earn karma, and by looking at your responses to this test, we can tell that your compassionate nature is earning you the most karma.

In fact, you seem to have a real knack for both understanding what people are going through and finding ways to support them during difficult times. By being a sensitive person with a keen sense of empathy, you can do much to alleviate others' pain. This has been an important way you've earned your karma up to this point. This kindness strengthens your current relationships but suggests it will come back to you positively in the future. Through your concerted efforts to care about and tend to the needs of others, you generate good karma for yourself and the universe.
I find this to be an accurate statement about my nature. Over the past year, I have donated many hours to helping others in my community, with no expectation of reward for myself. The old "I feel your pain" cliche is true for me. Sometimes I wish I could escape feeling the pain of others, but it is my nature to be empathetic at all times. I should have a gigantic "E" etched into my forehead. What does it get me? I'm not sure--and I don't really care--but I did score those 874 "Karma points". Yee ha.

Jude, Patron Saint of Other's Walking Shoes.


Washington Times'"reliable source" on al-Qaqaa Story is fired



Washington Times'"reliable source" on al-Qaqaa Story is fired

Last October I told you about a Washington Times story by Bill Gertz in which a so-called "reliable source" at the Pentagon, Jack Shaw (deputy undersecretary for international technology security) gave "reliable information" that Russia was allegedly behind the 342 tons of missing explosives from al-Qaqaa.

Well, it seems Jack Shaw's been canned (after refusing to resign).

Laura Rozen says Shaw seems to believe he's a victim of payback for his investigation of an Iraq cell phone deal allegedly benefiting friends of the office of Douglas Feith.

Chalk it up to an overabundance of trouble in Undersecretary paradise.