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.

 

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

 

Every time I clicked on a word, the blasted “Research Pane” (pain?) opened up. Every single document that I opened was doing this, even after shutting down and restarting Word. I could not find a obvious reason for this happening, so I tried the standard Windows software repair tool: reboot. This seems to have worked.

iPhone launches on 29 June
Apple meets scheduled release date

 

• Though initially I was filled with geek-lust for the iPhone, I’m not so certain that I’ll dive into this market. Of course, the $1,500 I’m about to dump into my transmission might also help cool that lust.

 

 

Former Apple execs join Palm board
Rubinstein brings considerable hardware expertise; Anderson brings cash

 

• I really, really hope that this can instill some vigor and innovation back into Palm. Next month I’m due to replace my Treo, and it’s very unlikely the next choice will be the 680. I’m leaning towards the Cingular Blackjack. More to come.

"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking."

Johann Goethe

 

Diversity Inc. has an interesting piece on the embattled Rep. Jefferson. I’m not surprised that some folks are calling for his resignation, and that some are holding their tongue. The statement that “the Congressional Black Caucus is asking that Jefferson not be tried in the ‘chambers of public opinion’ after supporting the House vote” is what grabs me, though. I, too, would like for this machine to remain silent until due-process has been rendered. However, the chamber of public opinion is brutal, relentless and merciless. Unless he can be proven innocent, he will be ground by this machine, and probably so even with irrefutable proof. Such is the nature of this. If he’s innocent, I wish him the best of luck facing this. If he’s not, he would do well by all parties (especially himself) to resign. Only he knows the full truth, and he would be wise to act on that.

“Thus the paradox in all this abundance is that the easier it is to create and store info, the harder that info is to manage, and the greater is the threat that we will not be able to find something when we need it.”

 

– Deanna B Marcum, New York Times

 

I’ve certainly found this to be true as I navigate my information saturated life. Data, data, data! How doth I love thee even as I loathe with venom. Anyway, thank goodness for tools such as Google.

FOX News Apology Not Enough for Conyers

 

Interesting…..

The brilliantly irreverent folks at Grist say it better than I could. Enjoy!

 

http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2007/06/06/5/#comments

 

That’s It, We’re Not Washing Our Undies Anymore
Groups ask U.S. EPA to ban chemical in detergent that feminizes fish

Your detergent gets your clothes clean, sure — but does it feminize your trout? Five green groups and a labor union are petitioning the U.S. EPA to ban a family of chemicals used in cleaning products that have been linked to gender changes in fish. Each year, the U.S. produces about 400 million pounds of nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates, much of which ends up in waterways by way of sewers. In lab tests, the endocrine disruptors have been shown to cause male fish to develop female characteristics; finned fatales have also been found in the wild. While the effects on humans aren’t known, the groups — led by the Sierra Club — say the environmental risks are "unreasonable." Some major companies, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble, have stopped using the chemicals, and Wal-Mart has asked its suppliers to phase them out as well. The EPA, which is instituting its own voluntary "Safer Detergents" program, has 90 days to respond to the petition. We’ll give you one good guess on the outcome.

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straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 06 Jun 2007

straight to the source: The Kansas City Star, Associated Press, David Dishneau, 05 Jun 2007