Social Justice News, 8-3-06

Oil Safari: One intrepid reported did what has long been considered impossible –he traced the gasoline from one station back to the ground from whence it came. The story is both insightful and intriguing. The first link is to the broadband site, which includes videos, audio files, an interactive map, and most interesting of all, a constantly running counter that shows how many barrels of oil our country has burned since you entered the site. The second link is to the story itself, for those of us who (like me) either don’t have broadband or prefer to read print stories. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/broadband/chi-oilsafari-html,0,7894741.htmlstory
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-oil-about-story,0,2013022.htmlstory

Chicago Passes ‘Living Wage’ Law!!!!: Last week Chicago passed the first law in the nation to require a living wage for any of its workers. Granted, the law isn’t perfect –it applies only to employees of large retailers –but it’s a start!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5587612

Creationists Kicked Off Kansas School Board: Two of the Kansas school board members who voted to include ‘intelligent design’ in the classroom were voted out of office this week, much to the surprise of many.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/02/kansasevolution.ap/index.html

Tent Village: The growing controversy over the homeless in France. It should be noted that the controversy didn’t start until a well-meaning philanthropist started handing out tents to the homeless, and that most of the complaints are because of the ‘eye-sore’.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5612453

Confusion = Profit ABC has unearthed evidence that an electricity co-op in Colorado paid a global warming skeptic to produce ‘evidence’ that it wasn’t happening –all in the name of stopping customer complaints over its dirty, polluting, coal-fired power plants.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2242565&page=1

It’s the Sun, Not that SUV: Yet another organization, this time of religious evangelicals, claiming that global warming isn’t happening, or that, if it is, the sun is the reason.
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0041403.cfm

‘Extra-Sunny’ (Satire): A satirical take on Bush’s determined denial of global warming.
http://www.bigfib.com/issue70/world4-en.html



Website of the week: A lot of interesting ideas for sustainable living.
http://www.eartheasy.com/

UU Joke of the Week: After the secular humanists came along, we said that UUs believe in One God - at Most.
Now, what with the 6th Source and the pagans, we say that UUs believe in One God - More or Less.