Egypt not only plans to execute the 528 folks it sentenced to death back in March for their alleged role in a protest-turned-riot last July (including more than 400 in absentia), but has lately sentenced almost 200 more folks to death since then on similar charges. I'll say it again: if a country has to kill over 700 people at once, then something's horribly wrong. You don't even have to know that the court convicting and sentencing these folks barred defense lawyers from the trial on its second day to know that. And can you say killing all your political opponents at once, kids? Seriously, if Russia or China pulled this crap, we'd see through it right away. Still, there is-so such a thing as bad PR, especially since the world is not only watching Egypt, but I dare say pulling for Egypt to do the right thing, given the optimism we had when the good people of Egypt threw Mr. Mubarak out of office. Hence Amnesty International helps you tell the Egyptian authorities to overturn the death sentences.
Meanwhile, the National Women's Law Center has a novel idea to promote S. 942, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: they're planning to deliver "the largest Mother's Day card ever" to Congress on Mother's Day with signatures supporting the bill. (At approximately eight feet tall, it's certainly much larger than what any company would be willing to manufacture in any volume.) The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would force corporations to make reasonable accommodations to their pregnant workers, which may include more frequent bathroom breaks and less lifting and sitting for long periods. Woe unto the corporations who say they simply cannot let their cashiers go to the bathroom more frequently when they're pregnant, for these managers will mark themselves as extremely incapable people, who could not be counted on in a real crisis! S. 942 would, not incidentally, also prevent corporations from discriminating against job applicants just because they're pregnant. So the National Women's Law Center helps you tell Congress to support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Pennsylvania Gov. Corbett not to overturn a moratorium on gas drilling in state parks, as he obviously has a jones to do, the Sierra Club still helps you do that. We know he has a serious jones for gas drilling on public lands because he's tolerated the nearly 600 wells that are already on or right up next to public lands and because he seems sanguine toward gas drilling corporations' plans to add 3,000 more, but, as a famous philosopher once said, this livin' with the joneses just ain't where it's at. Here's where it's at: these lands belong to us, the citizens of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania; they're the lands where we hike and camp and hunt and fish, the lands that wildlife and the scientists who study them call home, the lands that hold the air we breathe and the water we drink, and all the Governor's talk about "non-surface disturbance" drilling which makes him sound so smart! doesn't change the fact that gas drilling, as currently practiced, puts all of the common wealth at risk. So don't put up with it; fight it instead.
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