Date:         Thu, 30 Dec 2004 09:33:10 -0500
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: Help BusDepot Donate to Tsunami Victims
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> My personal opinion is that the best thing that we, as a
> collective, can do is to contact our Senators and Congress 
> Representatives indicating support for an increased amount 
> total toward aid to the victim countries and associated victims.
> 
> http://www.senate.gov/
> http://www.house.gov/

> REGARDLESS of political party, the relative percentage of National 
> budget allocated to this and other humanitarian efforts compared to 
> the cost of war is flat out embarrassing.



The death toll has reached 116,000 as of this morning.

The $35 million that George Bush has pledged so far in direct aid is $5
million less than his own innauguration party (the largest in U.S. history)
will cost.  It is half of what even small countries such as Spain are
giving. It is less than we spend every 3 hours (!!) in Iraq. 

If you believe that as the self-proclaimed "greatest nation on Earth" (or so
our leaders constantly tell us), we have a moral imperative to do much
better than this pathetic gesture (or perhaps at least do as much as Spain
is doing :-), then I would second Jim's suggestion that you write your
congressman right away. Perhaps our President might consider asking his
benefactors to donate their part of the $35 million earmarked for his
inauguration party to tsunami relief instead.  Surely he can settle for a
slightly smaller party when there are hundreds of thousands of innocent
people dead and dying.

If you believe that government should be small and taxes low, because the
private sector will pick up the slack instead of big government ... Well,
here's your chance to step up to the plate. You are the private sector.
Please make as large a personal donation as you can possibly afford.
116,000 people are dead.

Required VW content (sort-of)... The Bus Depot effort continues until New
Years.  25% of the net profit on all busdepot.com orders placed until then
will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to support the relief effort. I
will be adding more from my personal savings account as well.  It's a tiny
drop in the bucket, but collectively all of our drops can help fill the
bucket. I hope everyone here will also do what they can, as little or as
much as that may be. 

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

_____________________________________________
Toll-Free for Orders by PART # :  1-866-BUS-DEPOT