We have been talking a lot about the new government, and today the government transition web site appeared.
Maybe your ideas and objections can be sent there. APPLY FOR A JOB IN THE NEW ADMINISTRATION !
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Updated (11-7). Transition Site Echoes Campaign Pledge of Open Government. Personal Democracy Forum
by
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
Dear Transition Team,
I urge you to put these items at the top of your priority list:
Food and Shelter
If you fix the food problem by allowing local sustainable sources, you’ll fix our health issues and our global warming issues, as well as any food security issues and angry citizen issues. Let us have rain barrels and grey-water wells. Teach us how to garden and raise herbs, milk a goat and raise a few chickens. Show us mother nature’s cures so we won’t need drugs that merely mask the symptoms, or worse.
Tax the urban lawn and reward the urban garden. We’re all dependent on 6 inches of topsoil. Technology can be beautiful, but it cannot be our food.
If you fix the shelter problem (a place to stay for everyone, where it’s warm and dry) and all the devilish details (solar energy to heat the water, sterilize the plates, and dehydrate the summer harvest for energy-free winter storage. Root cellars could make a come-back, too; shelves lined with jars of lacto-fermented sauerkraut. pickles and kimchee, potatoes, carrots, turnips and beets.
The Union of Concerned Scientists have been trying to tell you that grassfed is best, that grain refuse from biofuils fed to CAFO cattle are parallel to the distillery diaries that killed
10s of thousands in the early 1900’s.
Make a clean break from corporate bedfellows, let Americans be strong healthy and free again.
Respectfully,
M.B. McMorran
volunteer WAPF chapter leader
http://www.westonaprice.org
Administrator, Raw Milk Association of Colorado
http://www.rawmilkcolorado.org
M.B. McMorran,
i’ll challenge your statement that “grassfed is best” – i’d say kick the bovine addiction altogether.
otherwise – i sincerely hope that you get through to the transition team.
i challenge Biran….instead of kicking beef, why not eat free ranging bison.
and then I agree with your statement too. good luck
Can you imagine Republicans setting up a website like this?
This is just amazing!!
I’m feeling optimistic today even though the agencies are just as nasty as usual.
I left a few suggestions. I am interested in seeing what is done with any of the info they get. It is a real interesting concept. But then, Obama became president by taking it to the streets….he has grass stains on his loafers.
I was not aware of this. Thanks.
I’m preparing my resume…
According to news this a.m. Obama is already reviewing oil and drilling changes recently ordered by the Bush admin. On top of the list is the lands recently opened in Utah. I am amazed and in awe that it is an issue that was not only talked about during the race, but already being focussed on before Obama is officially in office. I am thankful. Darn thankful, and am hopeful. Let us keep a positive line of communication to this transition sight, tell them we like where they are headed.
I just got an email from the transition sight. It showed some of the energy and environment transition team. The head of energy policies for Obama’s election campaign and the former head of the EPA under Clinton are both on it. I find it interesting how energy and environment end up on the same “billing”. Perhaps it should be changed to Environmental Resources and Conservation…instead of just energy and environment…leaving the word conservation out of it leads to the constant over looking of what is important…
At any rate, I have heard back, and will continue to correspond. I urge each of you to do the same…change.gov–and they ask that you allow them access to email lists. Perhaps we should allow Ralph to give him a list of all of our emails. We could inform him if we are okay with it, and let him send them.
This type of list could be a valuable source of info for this blog, as we could all be emailed or forwarded notices on comment periods, meetings etc.
according to Obama’s website and the video I watched, the federal gov. spends 14 billion a year on energy costs for it’s buildings and vehicles. Their goal is to reduce that amount by 25% and to make new buildings and purchases meet certain greener standards.
That 25 percent is nearly four billion dollars a year. If they increased that amount, the savings could be exponential.
I think those funds should ‘recycled’ into making the government’s energy use more green. Eventually the feds may even be “off the grid” which would save the majority of that 14 billion a year. That could boil down to a martgage payment could get rid of a huge part of the current deficit.
Keep writing. They seem to be listening. And, give a good word for Grijalva while you are writing in too!
Vickif,
and everybody else,
If you go to the “Your Turn at the Table” section of the Change.gov web site, you can scroll down the page and select the “documents received” option and see that there is a large document, nearly 400 pages, of comprehensive set of plans for the next admin to consider on the environment. It’s labeled “the green group”, click on the document link and download this thing. It’s well worth the reading. You can also leave comments and join the dialog from that little segment.
Go for it guys.
S.
Salle,I have been ‘taking my turn at the table’. Thanks for the addtn’l info.
vickif,
Cool. I put that set of directions up for others to follow it since it’s a little ways down the page but it is vital that we go there and participate. this is a participatory government, in theory at least.
Today I watched, as every Sunday ‘Meet the press”. When Tim Russert died last year, I stopped watching this ownderful program for little bit but today show had interview of President-elect. I like this guy. I really do.
I like Obama.
I worry that he is not showing any visible, speaking about, progress for the nomination of Interior Secretary, EPA, Agriculture..all what is of interest to me. I have e-mailed the transition team and asked them to make wise choices.
I asked MR. Obama to preserve our National Parks, lands and animals for the future generations..for his children and grand children….
IzabelaM,
I think he’s doing fine. I believe that we have grown too impatient and are not allowing due process to be implemented. Consider this; if he “tells all” right now, the current resident has more opportunity to try and “cut him off at the pass” with regard to the immense damage being done at present and what he can do to counter it, until Jan. 20.
Let’s give him time to make the right decisions with regard to this set of conservation concerns.
Perhaps he’s waiting this long because he has a lot on his plate as it is and that he may be awaiting input from us.
I suggest you review the document submitted to the transition team, I posted instructions to guide you to it above earlier this morning, and then go to the web site and comment on it.
S.
IzabelaM
Announcement for these positions is supposed to be this week.
Salle,
I think you are right about not telling it all.
I am checking your document right now.
🙂
I get mad every time some one on TV news calls our President Obama; Obama, President Elect Obama or Mr Obama. He is the President of the USA he should be called President Obama at all times just like we have done with all other President.