Life Spot

January 6, 2012

Veterans Rebuild Their Lives with Service Dogs!

Service dogs can add assistance and joy to a veteran's life!

As you're aware, veterans in America still do not receive the treatment and care they deserve. Veterans have laid down their lives to protect our country, and we have a moral right to provide for them after they return from service.

Service dogs are just one way we can give back to our veterans. Those who served in the armed services, and especially during wartime, can experience many emotions and difficult circumstances when they arrive back home. At times it can be hard to return to normal life, performing regular daily activities, connecting with others, or managing the stress of what they've been through. These difficulties are compounded when a soldier has been injured or is experiencing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Service dogs can add assistance and joy to a veteran's life, without adding the extra burden of payment for services. In addition, helping train a service dog can enhance a veteran's experience back at home and help him or her manage PTSD.

Shelter dogs in particular should not be overlooked when considering a dog for service training. Shelter dogs are in more dire need of rescue than breeder or pet store dogs, and can provide just the same quality of service.

I am writing to ask that you continue to advocate for our veterans by crafting legislation that would create a program that would allow them to help train all types of healthy dogs, including those from shelters. In doing so, we may be able to save the lives of more veterans and dogs in need.

Please go to The Veteran's Site and sign this petition! Simply click on the link below: Thank You!

http://theveteranssite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/campaign.faces?siteId=10&campaign=VeteransShelterDogs

Sacramento's Top 10 Kid's Fun This Weekend!

Top 10 For Kids This Weekend, Sat, Jan 7th - Sun, Jan 8th.

1. Learn about the BLACK-TAILED DEER at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. Sat-Free

2. Build a Savings Shed at the Home Depot KIDS WORKSHOP. Sat-Free

3. Commit to be Fit with Radio Disney at the Arden Fair KIDS CLUB. Sat-Free

4. Play carnival games and get your face painted at the North Natomas Library BIRTHDAY PARTY. Sat-Free

5. Design your own CALENDAR at Lakeshore Learning. Sat-Free

6. Make a robot in DR. GLADSTONE’S WONDERLAB at the Crocker Art Museum. Sat-Sun

7. Relax at Folsom Library’s KidMOVIE MATINEE. Sat-Free

8. Use your imagination at Central Library’s LEGO-RAMA. Sun-Free

9. ROLLER SKATE to Disney music at King Skate’s Tiny Tot Session. Sat-Sun

10. Enjoy a puppet show, dancing, and crafts at an ITALIAN CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL. Sun

http://sacramentosidetracks.com/?p=16431

U.S. Supports U.N. Anti-Free Speech Plan

The United States under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

From Forbes: The US has officially adopted UN resolution 16/18. An initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly Organization of Islamic Conferences), the confederacy of 56 Islamic states, Resolution 16/18 seeks to limit speech that is viewed as “discriminatory” or which involves the “defamation of religion” – specifically that which can be viewed as “incitement to imminent violence.”

Whatever that means.

Initially proposed in response to alleged discrimination against Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 and in an effort to clamp down on anti-Muslim attacks in non-Muslim countries, Resolution 16/18 has been through a number of revisions over the years in order to make it palatable to American representatives concerned about U.S. Constitutional guarantees of free speech. Previous versions of the Resolution, which sought to criminalize blasphemous speech and the “defamation of religion,” were regularly rejected by the American delegation and by the US State Department, which insisted that limitations on speech – even speech deemed to be racist or blasphemous – were at odds with the Constitution. But this latest version, which includes the “incitement to imminent violence” phrase – that is, which criminalizes speech which incites violence against others on the basis of religion, race, or national origin – has succeeded in winning US approval –despite the fact that it (indirectly) places limitations as well on speech considered “blasphemous.”

What’s worse, the measure codifies into the UN agenda support for the very notion democracies now wrestle with, and which threatens to destroy the very fabric of our culture: tolerance of the intolerant, or rather, the question of whether a tolerant society must also tolerate ways of life that are intolerant – that oppress women, say, or advocate violence against homosexuals, or force strangers to marry against their will. It is, in fact, this very concept that the OIC has long pressured Western governments to adopt in other ways, and that those supporting the adoption of Sharia law in the west have emphasized. Yet if we fall into that trap – as it appears we are – we will have lost the very heart of who we are.