CREDO helps you tell the EPA to ban neonicotinoids, the pesticides that help kill off honeybees -- while Sum of Us helps you tell Home Depot and Lowe's, America's two largest home-and-garden chains, to stop selling pesticides containing neonicotinoids. We're losing more and more bees all the time, and scientists have linked neonicotinoids to their disappearance; if they all die, you can kiss a lot of fruits and nuts goodbye -- almonds, blueberries, peaches, cherries, and many more. Colony collapse disorder has many causes, but that's certainly no excuse for inaction. At least the bees are trying to save themselves -- scientists have found bees sealing off pesticide-contaminated pollen in their hives. Sadly, scientists found this out by studying dead hives, meaning the bees' efforts are too little, too late. We ought to give them a hand up -- and certainly we'd be giving our world a hand up if we did.
Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to support a la carte cable packaging, the Parents' Television Council still helps you do that. Media outlets get out money whether we watch their channels or not, and will never be accountable to us unless we gain the ability to stop paying for them. And word on the street is that Sen. McCain (R-AZ) plans to introduce an a la carte cable packaging bill soon. The bill reportedly would also prevent over-the-air broadcasters from making their channels cable-only, as some have threatened to do if they can't stop Aereo from broadcasting their content over the internet. The Times suggests that Mr. McCain won't be able to get such a bill passed, as he first proposed such legislation in 2006 and supposedly has less influence over media matters now, since he's no longer on the Senate Commerce Committee. But who cares? If we speak out loudly enough, none of that will matter.
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