Look who’s joined the browser wars…

 

Safari on Windows? Right on! However, I can’t get it to work on my work computer since I can’t configure proxy settings. I’ll give it a whirl at home soon, though. Exciting news; but I’m not sure of what value it is. I would much rather had heard an announcement about .Mac upgrade/update/merge with Google. I’m quite close to dropping it altogether.

 

 

FW: Cell phone bill, text message ban signed into law

Several of my friends have been unaware of the status of this bill. If you live in Washington, get used to no texting while driving and you may want to spring for a decent headset. At least you have until January (texting) and July (handsfree) to get it all figured out.

 

Cell phone bill, text message ban signed into law

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/7470007.html  

Story Published: May 11, 2007 at 4:42 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 12, 2007 at 4:48 PM PDT

By Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – Hang up or pay up: Using your hands to talk on the phone or tap out a text message while behind the wheel of a car will be illegal next year.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the measures into law Friday, flanked by children who suffered serious injuries after being hit by distracted drivers.

Under the new laws, drivers who read and compose text messages or talk on a cell phone without a hands-free device could face a $101 ticket. The text-messaging ban takes effect Jan. 1; the cell-phone law will be enforced starting in July 2008.

Drivers are exempt in some situations, including emergencies, and neither offense will be enough to get a driver pulled over by the police.

But parents of children injured in collisions with such drivers said the new laws are still a major improvement.

Cindy Baker-Williams and her son Billy were among those who stood by as Gregoire signed the bills. Billy, 12, suffered a brain injury four years ago while walking to the school bus. Witnesses to the crash said the driver was talking on a cell phone at the time, Baker-Williams said.

"It’s a very emotional time," she said. "Behind this bill, we see faces of people in our community who hopefully will never have to go through a pedestrian-car accident."

Billy Williams, who was in a coma for nearly a month and suffered injuries to his brain’s speech centers, now helps his mom keep an eye out for distracted drivers.

"Every single time I see a person on a cell phone, I say ‘A person on a cell phone!’ I just, like, scream it out," he said Friday.

Drivers who cut in line at the ferry terminal also could get a $101 ticket and be sent to the back of the line, under another measure the governor signed Friday. The ferry-line law takes effect in July.

A fourth driving-related bill approved by Gregoire takes aim at dangerous commercial vehicles, including increased penalties for multiple safety violations.

The bill was inspired by two scientists who were killed in 2005 when a load of logs spilled from a speeding, overweight truck near Humptulips.

 

 

 

 

 

Fish Story

Well, this is probably the weirdest fish story I’ve heard in a long time.

Jumping sturgeon injures woman in Fla.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROCK BLUFF, Fla. — A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on the Suwannee River, officials said.

Tara Spears, 32, of Bell, was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported.

The large, prehistoric-looking sturgeon have hard plates along their backs. They can grow up to 8 feet long and up to 200 pounds.

In April, a leaping sturgeon severely injured a 50-year-old woman from St. Petersburg who was riding a personal watercraft on the Suwannee River. She suffered a ruptured spleen and had three fingers reattached by surgeons, but she lost her left pinkie finger and a tooth.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1120AP_ODD_Leaping_Sturgeon.html?source=mypi