Texting Ban Takes Effect March 8

Texting Ban Takes Effect March 8 — The law banning texting while driving takes effect, Thursday, March 8.

The law will prohibit drivers of all ages from using interactive wireless communication devices for the purposes of reading, writing or sending a text message or email while operating a motor vehicle, according to State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)  Texting while driving will be classified as a primary offense, allowing a law enforcement officer to pull over a driver solely for that offense. Anyone who is found texting while driving will face a $50 fine.

Any driver who reads, selects or enters a phone number or name in an interactive wireless communication device for the purpose of making a phone call will not be in violation of the texting ban.

Interesting Fact Of The Day


1.5 million people competed in two or more triathlons in 2010.

A Homily On Religious Liberty

The Catholic Church is finally starting to understand the amount of loathing those who rule the Democrat Party and our financial and media institutions hold for it.
This is a sermon delivered by Father Sammie Maletta, Feb. 5, at St. John the Evangelist Church in St. John Indiana. It shows he gets it.
Pass it on.
Hat tip Cathy Craddock.

Journalists Fear Lawyer Attacks In India

A story in the March 4 edition of the Times of India expresses concern that journalists in the subcontinent might be intimidated from reporting the news due to attacks by lawyers.

It was not talking about courtroom action.
It was talking about physical attacks.
It apparently has something to do with lawyers watching pornography on cell phones.
The story, which can be found here, was rather confusing.

Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke And True Misogyny

Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke And True Misogyny — Sandra Fluke is a 30-year-old activist who testified before Congress that the Catholic Church should be made to pay for the birth control of the women of Georgetown — which believe it or not is a Catholic school. She said this commodity costs the poor women of Georgetown $1,000 a year.

 
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been innocently wondering what kind of a woman would need $1,000 a year for birth control.
 
This has outraged — the word should probably be all caps but for aesthetic reasons I’ll leave it lower case — the usual suspects who have demanded in their tolerant open-minded fashion that Limbaugh be silenced forever.
 
Now ladies, before you start throwing around words like “misogyny” think real hard about this: 
 
Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein are pornographers who have influenced our society far greater than most can imagine. Their publications have featured the vilest and most degrading images of the female sex. They have horribly abused the women in their personal lives, which in Flynt’s case includes his daughter.
 
Whose side would they take in this debate? Limbaugh’s or Ms. Fluke’s?
 
Whose side would Bill “Better Put Some Ice On That” Clinton take? 
 
Do you really want to be on the same side with this type of men?
Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke And True Misogyny

Credit Republicans If Refineries Are Saved

Credit Republicans If Refineries Are Saved — A state cabinet member told the House Appropriations Committee, Feb. 27, that there is a strong likelihood that two of the three Philadelphia area refineries scheduled for shut-down may be saved.

C. Alan Walker, secretary of Department of Commerce and Economic Development, told the legislators that an angel in form of United Refining Co. of Warren, Pa. may be interested in buying the Sunoco ones in Philadelphia and Marcus Hook.
Apparently a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes. Note the work appears to be being done by the Republican Corbett administration.
Hopefully, someone can be found to find save the idled ConocoPhillips plant in Trainer.
It might be bargain. If the administration changes in Washington, relief would be expected from the regulatory burdens largely responsible for its closure that had been imposed by the religious zealots who have taken over the Obama-run EPA.

Interesting Fact Of The Day


L.L. Bean still sells wooden snowshoes.

Power Plants To Close In Pa. And Life Gets Harder

Power Plants To Close In Pa. And Life Gets Harder — Put this in the life gets harder file: Houston-based GenOn Energy Inc. will be closing five power plants in Pennsylvania which are in Portland, Shawville, Titus, New Castle and Elrama.

The plants provide 3,140 megawatts of electricity. They are fired by coal, however, and that is why they are closing. New environmental rules make them unprofitable for them to operate.
GenOn is also closing two coal-plants in Ohio and one in New Jersey.
Now there is nothing wrong with trying to wean ourselves off of coal for electricity and on to something else, but if that something else is windmills or solar panels just expect our lives to get harder unless of course you are one of the privileged few in government who will find ways to exempt themselves from the suffering they cause.
The combined megawatts from the plants to be close is about what a larger nuclear plant would generate.
Of course, nobody is talking about building one of them in Pennsylvania.

More Honors For Joe Martin

Joe Martin, the Havertown, Pa. resident who is the associate director of engineering management at Drexel University, has been named Philadelphia Civil Engineer of the Year for 2012.

On Feb. 16, he was feted by the Delaware County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers as Delaware County Engineer of the Year.

I hear he’s a pretty good teacher too.

Interesting Person Of The Week

Pat Farmer is a runner. 

But that’s not what makes him interesting. What makes him interesting is that he is running from the North Pole to the South Pole. He’s averaging 50 miles a day and the trip should take him 10 months.

Last report had him being in Peru. So, what happens when he reaches the Straits of Magellan? Water wings?

Some people think he’s crazy.

Pat is a former member of the Australian Parliament.

Hat tip Outside magazine.