Grab and Keel

No texting! Just last year, the new California law went into effect prohibiting us from talking on our cell phones and driving concomitantly. We drove over the border, from Reno in July, on the day the last law went into effect, CHP’s were everywhere and had lines of people pulled over. However, had CA forgotten to include all those obsessive texters in that law.The state has now corrected that oversight. So, be prepared as you are driving across state lines for New Years. 

No-text Law Goes Into Effect January 1, 2009

 [Starting January 1, 2009 a new law will go into effect where writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication while driving will be against the law for all drivers in California.

 This new law applies to electronic wireless communications devices used to manually communicate with any person using text-based communication, including, but not limited to, communications referred to as a text message, instant message, or electronic mail.

 Violating this law is punishable by a base fine of $20 for a first offense and $50 for each subsequent offense. With the addition of penalty assessments, fines can be more than triple the base fine amount.]

 http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/no_text_law.htm

Arson! I case you didn’t hear, Governor Palin’s church was afire on Friday, in what may have been arson:

Arson suspected in fire at Palin’s church

FRIDAY NIGHT BLAZE: As many as 40 volunteer firefighters helped out; single service scheduled today.

By WESLEY LOY and RINDI WHITE 
Anchorage Daily News

Published: December 14th, 2008 12:35 AM

Last Modified: December 14th, 2008 12:40 AM

[WASILLA – A Friday night fire at Gov. Sarah Palin’s church caused an estimated $1 million in damage, and investigators say it could be the work of an arsonist.

Firefighters were called to Wasilla Bible Church about 9:40 p.m. and found flames and smoke coming out windows at the back of the three-story structure, said James Steele, chief of the Central Mat-Su Fire Department….]

http://www.adn.com/front/story/622635.html

NK Balks. This was bound to happen in an economic downturn and during our change of government, but how it restarts it the worry.

North Korea Warns of Slowdown on Ending Nuclear Capabilities

By Kurt Achin

Pusan, South Korea

13 December 2008

[North Korea is warning it may slow down the pace of ending its nuclear capabilities as part of a multinational negotiation process. The latest meetings in that process broke down this week in Beijing, leading Washington to suspend energy aid to the North. Other partners in the talks are expressing their regrets about the lack of progress.

A day after the United States and its regional partners warned they would suspend energy aid to North Korea, Pyongyang says it may hold on to its nuclear weapons capabilities a bit longer than planned….]

http://voanews.com/english/2008-12-13-voa7.cfm

Wow, is that the truth, when Hudson calls it imaginary earnings! This is the big concern; privatization. It’s one thing o have a new deal type program under the auspices of the government.  It’s another when we shuffle the resources, control and time to private hands like we did with BlackWater. I’ll say it again; I don’t want T. Boone Pickens anywhere near my wind power!

Will Obama Privatize Public Assets To Pay For “Economic Recovery”?

Wednesday, 10 December 2008

By BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

“Foreign banks, he said, were beginning to wake up to the fact that the balance sheets of their US counterparts were full of wholly imaginary earnings, wildly overvalued assets and unpayable loans.”

[Obama’s old school economic team are on record as favoring privatizations of public resources in principle. Unless Obama is willing to significantly cut the military budget or tax the rich, neither of which seems very likely, the only way to pay for even a reasonably large jobs and recovery program is to kill other jobs through a wave of Chicago-style privatizations. And privatizations are always bad for democracy….]

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=930&Itemid=1

The duck, ducks. He went to say goodbye. I know a lot of us have felt like doing the same thing in the last eight years. Consider this, first, he’s still got pretty good reflexes. Second, we elected him. He is our president for a little while longer. Maybe we think he should have been impeached, but as long as he has the job, he represents us, and our country. As we look back, what happened at the end will be just as important as the beginning of this eight-year odyssey. Human dignity is for everyone. End it right, and we will all feel better about ourselves.

Shoe attack mars Bush’s Iraq visit 

Photo by: Aljazeera.net

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008121419453773379.html

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