I was talking today on the phone to a friend in California and he was telling me about a new law so that you can’t hold a cellphone while driving. He asked if Texas had this law. Actually, we do not. In Texas it is legal to drive with a cellphone in one hand and a gun in the other!
The LA Times has a story on why you should not give your money to National Right to Life Committee or the Heritage Foundation (among others). If you give money to any organizations that use fundraising companies, you might want to give this story and database a look.
These rabbis are pretty smart. They finally figured out that smoking is dangerous and are forbidding it.
Has my life been a waste? Yes, according to George Adam Smith. I did have a chance to go once and figured I’d go next time. Next time has never come.
Of the two hills beside Shechem, Gerizim is the more famous historically, but Ebal is higher, and has further prospect. The view from Ebal virtually covers the whole land, with the exception of the Negeb. All the four long zone, two of the four frontiers, specimens of all the physical features, and most of the famous scenes of the history, are in sight. No geography of Palestine can afford to dispense with the view from the top of Ebal (Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 120).
yep, it’s called the ‘hands free’ law….it makes no sense because my hands are not free…I still steer, change the radio, check my email, put on chapstick in the mirror…oh, and talk on my phone…on speaker whilst holding my phone or on headset. I’m pretty sure the intention behind the law was good (well, if you call generating new $ ‘good’), but I wonder when they’re going to draw the line on legislating stupidity. We all know that paying attention whilst driving is the issue…but California would rather dictate exactly what the means by restricting you from holding one particular item up to your ear. The up side to CA legislation is that if you’re a homosexual, you can now legally be married in our state. Thanx California. :)
technically the law says nothing about texting or dialing or even holding the phone while not on a call…it is awesome to think that they thinkl they can make people smart…seriously sacnning the right song to play on my Ipod can be much more distracting but whatever…dude, if i just had a gun in my car I could solve a lot more problems than just cellphone users…HA!
One of the problems with laws (or rules of any kind) is that they tend to take away responsibility from the individual. That is, instead of driving carefully, now you simply have to 1) buckle up and 2) not hold the phone while talking. It makes people think that they are ok if they follow a few, specific laws. We all have seen drivers who were clearly impaired by their phone conversation, and we all have probably seen people impaired by other things (noisy children, radio/gps control, etc.). Passing a law that covers one of these things seems arbitrary. Certainly a line has been crossed; why can they not now regulate how distracting a child can be? If your kid distracts you, you get a fine. Also troubling is the fact that the government benefits from the fines. I’d be less cynical if the fines were returned to the taxpayer in the form of an annual tax credit. That would certainly show that the real purpose of the law was not revenue enhancement. But since it appears to be so, the law is more likely to be honored in letter than in spirit.
FYI #1: It’s illegal for drivers under 18 years of age to use cell phones, even if they have a hands-free device.
FYI #2: It may seem that it’s still legal to text-message while driving instead of talking; however I’m fairly confident that the law states that you’re not allowed to “use” a cell-phone that doesn’t have a hands-free device. So basically, if you’re using your hands to text-message, you’re violating the law. I’m sure someone will eventually market a speech-recognition phone that will convert your spoken words to ASCII text to accomplish the same goal … they may even have an option to convert your speech-recognition text message into a computer-generated voice-message. Think of what a convenience that’ll be!
(FYIs courtesy of a CA resident who has only used his cell phone for actual phone calls