10-FOOT PUPPY IN HAMBURGER BUN SERVES MEATY MESSAGE AT ANIMAL RIGHTS PROTEST IN DOWNTOWN (CITY)
Demonstration Questions Why We Call Some Animals Pets and Others Dinner

CITY, State - Lunchtime commuters in downtown (city) today will be served some serious food for thought - in a thought-provoking demonstration by the national animal rights organization Mercy For Animals that features a massive, 10-foot-long inflatable puppy crammed inside a hamburger bun and topped with ketchup, mustard, cheese, and lettuce. This provocative display will be joined by activists wielding signs with images of an adorable puppy and lovable piglet sitting side-by-side and reading, "Why Love One but Eat the Other?" Other activists will hold signs with images of pigs and chickens abused and confined on factory farms that read, "Boycott Animal Abuse - Choose Vegetarian." 

Date: June 11, 2012
Location:  2nd St between Main and Harrison in downtown Davenport

The demonstration is part of a new campaign, which includes billboards, bus ads, and a national protest tour, and aims to spark debate over why we call some animals pets, and others dinner. Far from receiving the kindness and respect afforded most dogs and cats, the billions of cows, pigs, and chickens raised and killed for meat in America lead lives filled with misery. On today's factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy sheds and cages where many are unable to even fully extend their limbs, walk, turn around, or engage in other natural behaviors. Animals killed for food are routinely burned, castrated, dehorned, tail docked and debeaked without any painkillers. Before slaughter, frightened animals are often electrically prodded onto crowded transport trucks and hauled through all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse, where many will have their throats slit while still alive and conscious.

Although farmed animals are every bit as capable of feeling pain and suffering as dogs and cats, not a single federal law provides protection to them from abuse on factory farms. Undercover investigations by Mercy For Animals at factory farms, hatcheries, and slaughterhouses nationwide have exposed workers beating animals with metal pipes, stabbing them with pitchforks, and bashing in their skulls with pickaxes. MFA's hidden-camera investigations have also exposed farmed animals suffering from untreated infections and wounds, live chicks being thrown into grinding machines, and dead hens left to rot in cages with birds still laying eggs for human consumption.

"If you wouldn't eat your dog, why eat other animals? Cows, pigs, and chickens are just as intelligent, sensitive, and worthy of our respect as the animals we consider companions," said MFA's National Campaign Coordinator Phil Letten. "If meat producers subjected dogs and cats to the array of standard abuses they inflict on farmed animals, they could be jailed on grounds of animal cruelty. The most powerful action we can take to prevent egregious animal abuse is to adopt a compassionate vegetarian diet."

About Mercy For Animals (MFA)
Mercy For Animals is a national non-profit organization dedicated to preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies. Founded in 1999 and over 75,000 strong, MFA has become a leading voice for farmed animals through undercover cruelty investigation, corporate outreach efforts, legal advocacy, and consumer education campaigns. MFA's work exposing animal abuse in the nation's factory farms, slaughterhouses and hatcheries has triggered international outcry as well as legislative reforms, corporate animal welfare policy changes, and criminal prosecutions of animal abusers. The organization is headquartered in Los Angeles. For more information, see www.MercyForAnimals.org.

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By: Joe Thomas of Left Brain Digital

... So the guy stands there with his mouth agape and says, "But Doc, why do you have to operate on my foot? The splinter is in my finger!"

Why am I leading off with a punch line? Because it applies to about 80 percent of people who can't figure out why their website doesn't "work."

Pretend your website is the patient in my half-a-joke. Now toss in a "web guru" as the doctor. There are two main reasons why you've gotten surgery on a foot when a finger was the problem.

1. You didn't correctly explain the symptoms. If your product or book is not selling from your website, don't tell the doctor you don't like the colors. Or that you need more Flying Thingies on the page. Tell the doctor that your product is not selling from your website.

Some people consult with their sister-in-law, best friend and lawn boy before seeking the help of a professional. Or, they guess at the cause of the problem themselves. When they finally consult with a professional, they tell him or her what they want: Use blue not red, make that picture bigger, add a joke of the day. For the right diagnosis, just tell the doctor, "The site's not selling" and let him or her figure out why.

2. There are a lot of quack doctors out there! Let's be honest, a surgeon makes his living performing surgeries, and a web guru makes his living performing guru work on web sites. The moral? Without patients and web projects, the surgeon and the web guru go on unemployment.

In all aspects of business, and especially Internet marketing, some people may say whatever it takes to sell you on "surgery." Proceed with caution! Before you hire someone to develop, design or "fix" your site, get referrals. Ask people you trust for recommendations.

Ask the "doctor" questions. If he or she can't take the time to explain every procedure, find someone who will. You need to understand the suggestions - and the reasons for them. Also, be warned there is no Standard Pricing Guide. My best advice is to avoid being sucked into the cheapest deal you can find, or being fooled by the "we are the best so we charge the most" designers.

If you're not getting the results you need from your site, ask yourself a few questions:

• How does your site stack up against your competition? We'll assume you already have a website ... Whether you're an author, manufacturer, business or blogger, you have competition. Surf around and take a LOOK at the other guy's site. How does his LOOK compare to yours? We're not talking about what the site says, just the overall aesthetics. Does yours look as good, or better?
• When visitors open your site, do they know what you're selling? Obviously, you know your product or service, but is it plainly visible to visitors? Is the information your visitors are looking for easy to find and understand? Are the "calls to action," such as "sign the petition," "read the blog" or "buy my cool book" easy to find?
• Did you check your ego at the door? Who is your site trying to please? Are you trying to impress yourself or your customers? Too often, websites get hung up on self importance. While it IS important to show your visitors that you're an expert, the product or service needs to be the focal point. If you're selling beans or bikinis, nobody really cares that you climbed Mount Everest in your pajamas last October.

Common sense is the most valuable tool at your disposable, but be smart enough to know what you don't know! Successful websites don't just appear. They're properly developed, cultivated and then regularly watered.

Developing a successful website is hard work; finding the right surgeon can be even harder.

About Joe Thomas

Joe Thomas is the founder and owner of Left Brain Digital (www.leftbraindigital.com), a web development company. He's an award-winning web designer/developer with more than 18 years of experience in print and web design and development. Thomas' work became a major influence in graphic and web design in the "Y2K" era of the Internet's dot-com explosion.

DAVENPORT, IA - On June 8, 2012, Yolanda Marie Fitts, age 47, of Davenport, Iowa, was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day of imprisonment for two counts of wire fraud and one count of structuring financial transactions to avoid reporting requirements, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. United States Chief District Judge James E. Gritzner also ordered Fitts to serve a term of 3 years supervised release, pay an assessment of $300 to Crime Victims Fund, and pay $ 64,189.10 in restitution.   At her guilty plea, Fitts admitted the following:

• of an individual with the initials "AS" be liquidated and transferred to the defendant's account at RIA Federal Credit Union (RIA), thereby causing the resulting funds to be wire transferred from the account of "AS" at PNC Bank in Pennsylvania to Members United Corporation Federal Credit Union (Members United) in Warrenville, Illinois, Members United being a correspondent credit union handling incoming wire transfers for RIA.

• certification/notarization known as a Medallion Stamp Guarantee (MSG) on each letter of intent, a notarization required to certify the legitimacy of the letters of intent.

• Fitts created and mailed two bogus letters of intent directing that certain investments Utilizing the services of MidWest One Bank, Fitts fraudulently procured a letters of intent to PNC Funds in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

• the PNC funds on the Member's United computer system in Illinois to the defendant's RIA account. She then withdrew the funds for personal use via RIA's branch in Bettendorf, Iowa.

•  RIA account in ten separate wire transfers beginning on March 18, 2008, and continuing through March 20, 2008. From March 18, 2008, through March 24, 2008, the defendant withdrew $64,189.10 from her RIA account for personal use.

•  time she went to the bank, the defendant said that the first time she went in a lady at the bank told her that with a withdrawal of $10,000 or more the IRS would be notified. The defendant made the decision to take out less that $10,000 each time so that she would not have to fill out the paperwork

This investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bettendorf, Iowa, Police Department, and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of Iowa.

Fitts forged the signature of "AS" on the letters of intent. She then mailed the bogus Fitts caused RIA employees to transfer, by means of wire communication, credits for As a result of Fitt's actions, credits for $113,125.79 were wire transferred into her
When asked by law enforcement if she purposely withdrew less than $10,000 each

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The Community Foundation of the Great River Bend Welcomes a Strengthened Endowment Partnership with United Way of the Quad Cities Area

BETTENDORF, IA - The Community Foundation of the Great River Bend is pleased to announce their expanding partnership with United Way of the Quad Cities Area. As a result, the United Way of the Quad Cities Area is now the largest Endowment Partner at the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend. The United Way of the Quad Cities Area had a portion of its endowment funds at the Community Foundation, but recently transferred all remaining endowment to the Community Foundation.

In addition to the expanding partnership, the Endow Iowa Tax Credit program provides donors to the United Way Endowment a 25% income tax credit. This added benefit helps to raise endowment support.

"We look forward to working with the United Way of the Quad Cities Area to build upon an already strong partnership," stated Susan Skora, President and CEO of the Community Foundation. "The Community Foundation is now recognized as a trusted endowment expert in our region, and the United Way of the Quad Cities Area will benefit from this expertise."

The Community Foundation and the United Way of the Quad Cities Area have enjoyed a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship marked by very successful joint efforts including: the Community Vitality Scan and Snapshot, Achieve Quad Cities (www.achieveqc.org), and annual training for local non-profit board members.

The Community Foundation serves as a trustee of charitable trusts, manages an active charitable gift annuity program, and assists with donor stewardship. This expertise is fully available to organizations that commit to a 100% partnership to build  endowments. For more information about the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, visit: www.cfgrb.org

The Community Foundation of the Great River Bend is a nonprofit organization that connects people who care with causes that matter. CFGRB meets the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations as established by the Council on Foundations.

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