Think that lovable, furry ol’ Elmo couldn’t get any sweeter? Well, now he’s using his helping hands by reminding kids to wash theirs in an effort to fight swine flu.
A new ad campaign, sponsored by three government agencies, will feature Elmo and Gordon teaming up. They’ll spread the message on how notto spread germs: wash hands frequently, cough and sneeze into your elbow, and keep your hands away from your face.
The best part? They don’t mention the swine flu vaccine in any of the 30-second PSAs. See?
The US State Department has warned students not to go to Mexico during spring break since drug gangs threaten violence. Drug cartels are threatening the stability of nations around the globe, assassinating police and government officials. A record opium crop is providing funding for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Can decriminalization of narcotics be a solution? Neuroscience offers new hope to cure addition.
I have my pet peeves. I really hate roller-bags, people not walking down escalators, and discovering that Flex Fuel has been around for over 20 years and nobody bothered to implement it. My feelings are not limited to Flex Fuel, but all abandoned fuel economy technologies all together. The fact that a nation as wealthy as ours has not been implementing fuel saving technology does not bode well for our collective energy future.
As we continue to discuss energy independence, debate drilling for domestic oil, explore alternative energy sources and ask our prospective leaders what their economic plans may be…should we also pay attention to a fence that is being rapidly built at the cost of disrupting a peaceful people, harming ecosystems and the alarming reality that a governmental department has been given the authority to run with no checks and balances?
Other motivation for this cartoon comes from the historical (and current) treatment of native Americans, and this unsourced quote from MAD Magazine: “The suburbs are where they cut down all the trees and then name the streets after them!”
The Bush administration has announced it will wave more than thirty federal laws to finish building a wall along the Mexican border by the end of this year. The Washington Post calls the move the most sweeping use of the administration’s waiver authority during the wall’s construction. The waivers allow the Bush administration to bypass mandatory reviews on how the wall will affect ecological areas in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. House Homeland Security Committee chair Bennie Thompson called the waiver “an extreme abuse of authority.”
Environmental groups have filed petitions challenging the waivers before the Supreme Court siting several potential ecological hazards that would be created by the fence. Biologists are especially concerned about a handful of extremely rare jaguars that prowl up from Mexico over mountain trails in some of the wildest country in the southwest.
In a desperate rush to complete something (anything) that at least a few Americans will consider worthwhile, by the end of his term, the Bush administration plans to run roughshod over environmental concerns in an effort to complete the planned border fence this year.
