• Sign up for the newsletter at FactCheck.org.
• Sign up for The Progress Report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
• Watch the video (or read the transcript) of Abu Ghraib whistleblower Samuel Provance speaking out on torture and cover-up, and then write a letter to your local newspaper.
• Watch the Wage Peace: The Cost of War video at the American Friends Service Committee site, and then do any of the related actions listed there.
• Check out WAND’s (Women’s Action for New Directions) listening guide to the State of the Union Address, listen to the President make the speech on Monday, then contact Congress with your thoughts and questions.
• Tell George Bush the REAL State of the Union (Democratic Congressonal Campaign Committee / Care2 Petition).
• Urge your Senators not to pass wiretapping legislation that violates our rights as expressed in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, or that gives blanket retroactive immunity to the telecom companies who helped the Bush Administration commit violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Credo/Working Assets).
• Say No to the Homeland Security Department’s attempt to corrupt the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (Care2 Petition).
• Tell Your Representative to stop the Bush Administration from rushing through the sale of oil and gas drilling leases in Alaska’s prime polar bear habitat before it makes a final decision about protecting these imperiled bears under the Endangered Species Act.
• Send a message (before Feb. 8th) to the Bureau of Land Management to protest the Bush administration’s plan to sharply increase oil and gas development and off-road vehicle use over a full 11 million acres in Utah. This fragile land of ethereal red rock, rivers, and canyons (which I love), belongs to all of us and deserves protection, not exploitation (The Wilderness Society).
• The Fish & Wildlife Service has made it easier to kill wolves in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies region — even while they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. Tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that this rule change is unacceptable (Defenders of Wildlife).

It has had an effect.

I planted more lavendar, and golden thyme, and french thyme, and some patches of mondo grass, and a new annual called a chartreuse leafed lemon talinum (which has tiny little pink beads on its stalks that are supposed to erupt into tiny rose-pink flowers).

Then, I got into water, namely our little pond. I mean I really got in. I pulled out the dead leaves, and cut back the drooping iris, and trimmed the evergreen grass, and pulled out some of the more than abundant green stuff in the water (I forget what it’s called, but the fish eat it and it sprouts little white flowers), and arranged the arrowheads, and put the lotus a little off-center, and cleaned the pump off, and rearranged the rocks so that the water flows down in a more interesting pattern.

One song. Just one song did that.

I’m so glad that it wasn’t a Flock of Seagulls song.

(I got the song and the little embedded player from IMeem.com. I saw it at one of my Care2.com friend’s site. I’ve just joined up – add me as a friend.)

Share your opinion (and see what others think) by taking the short poll from Care2.com and Legal Momentum!

And yes, it’s most likely intended to introduce you to the sponsoring organization. Legal Momentum is the nation’s oldest organization of legal advocates for women. They work on legal issues such as freedom from violence against women, equal pay and equal work, and comprehensive healthcare for women and girls.

Check out Care2.com – free email, clicks for causes, news shares, free blog, and a lot more. I’ve been on their system for years now, and I really enjoy it.