Hard to believe, Harry, but the National Park Service is writing new regulations as we speak that will allow drones to fly in our national parks. Not necessarily the kind of weaponized drones our government uses to illegally kill people all over the planet, mind you, but still, the kind of drones that can harass wildlife and film good citizens in the park without their consent -- and the kind of drones that can get shot down after pestering someone for too long. And the price of drones has come down, by the way, almost to the point where you and I can get one -- currently a Parrot AR drone sets you back about $300, and it's got Wi-Fi and HD video and everything! But even those of us not killing civilians in places like Pakistan and Yemen aren't terrifically good with keeping drones from hitting skyscrapers and aircraft -- and, ah, those of us who are killing civilians in places like Pakistan and Yemen are also slamming drones into houses, farms, and highways, and frankly it's a miracle no one's been killed in a drone accident yet. The conservative in me would caution against releasing technologies into the world before we've proven we can control them. Hence CREDO helps you tell the National Park Service to keep banning drones from public parks.
NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby and yes I do love saying that provides a number of children-themed action alerts, and I'm just going to put them all out at once. S. 2527, the Summer Meals Act, would help more low-income kids get nutritious meals through their summer programs, and you can support that effort here. Meanwhile, the number of unaccompanied children fleeing violence in their home countries (mostly El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) has lately exploded, more than doubling from last year to this year and not just to the American border, either, so NETWORK also helps you tell your Congressfolk to treat these children as something other than enemy invaders. Pursuant to that latter goal, NETWORK also helps you tell Congress to increase funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (or ORR) so that it can deal with the influx of these children properly and compassionately. Currently the ORR has to reduce the services it provides to other refugees -- including folks running from chaos and destruction in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, and Haiti -- so that it can deal with the influx of unaccompanied children at the border. But an extra $200 million isn't actually a whole lot to ask. Surely there are some non-flying planes we can cut from the defense budget, or some handouts for banksters we can axe.
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