Category: random

The Nevada Senate has approved a bill designed to give law enforcement quicker access to cell phone locations in times of emergency, by-passing warrant procedures. SB 268 gives carriers protection for providing information during certain circumstances.

A Kansas mother who struggled with a cell phone company to provide call location information when her daughter went missing testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Labor and Energy, urging them to pass the bill requiring such information be given to police agencies in emergencies.

Missy Smith of Overland Park, Kansas, told committee members of her frustration and anger when her daughter, Kelsey, was taken from a store on June 2, 2007, just nine days after graduating from high school. The 18-year-old’s body was discovered four days later and her family believes she might have been found sooner, possibly alive, if her cell phone location was tracked and made available to authorities.

At least nine other states have adopted similar laws.

Don’t feed the horses. That’s the message the Nevada Assembly is sending with passage of a bill increases penalties for feeding feral livestock.

Republican Assemblyman Tom Grady of Yerington says AB 264 isn’t about Nevada’s wild horses but public safety. It’s intended to discourage feeding horses, which lures the animals to populated areas, creating hazards on roads and highways.

Under the measure, violators would be given a warning for a first offense. After that it would be a gross misdemeanor carrying a possible fine of up to $2,000.

The bill passed the Assembly on a 30-9 vote. It now heads to the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Nevada Senate has passed a resolution expressing support for wild horses and burros. Senate Joint Resolution 1 recognizes wild horses as living symbols of American Western heritage, as well as a natural resource and cultural asset.

SJR 1 also expresses support for wild horse and burro eco-sanctuaries, something supporters say could encourage rural tourism in the state. It now goes to the Assembly.

Chain restaurants will have to post nutritional information on menus under a bill passed by the Nevada Assembly.  AB 126 was approved on a mostly party-line vote.

It requires restaurants with 15 or more locations to post  calorie information on-site, up from 10 in the initial bill.  Another change makes penalties administrative, rather than criminal.

Opponents of the bill say federal officials are already developing similar regulations, and they didn’t want to pre-empt  those rules. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Lawmakers are creating an avenue for domestic violence victims to get out of lease agreements early. The Assembly passed AB 284 allowing domestic violence victims to get out of leases without penalty by telling the landlord the situation and providing a written report by the victim, law enforcement personnel or a third-party such as a minister or social worker.

Supporters say the state needs to do whatever necessary to help victims leave abusive relationships. Opponents contend allowing victims to go through means other than law enforcement would allow the abusers to continue living in the community without real repercussions.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory is reversing himself, ordering flags lowered statewide in honor of seven the Camp Lejeune Marines who died in a training explosion last month at Hawthorne Army Depot. The Governor plans to attend a memorial service at Camp Lejeune Tuesday and has ordered flags lowered for the day.

The order reverses an earlier decision by his office to not lower the flags.  McCrory’s office released a statement after the deaths saying there was no “precedent for lowering flags for tragic military accidents.”

The training incident occurred on March 18th when a 60 millimeter mortar tube exploded during a field exercise in the Nevada desert. The blast also wounded another seven Marines and a Hospital Corpsman.

The Nevada Senate, on a strict party-line vote, amended a proposal seeking to clear the way for gay marriage in Nevada. An amendment offered by Democratic Senator Pat Spearman of North Las Vegas inserts language ensuring churches and clergy would not have to solemnize same-sex unions.

The resolution seeks to repeal a constitutional measure passed by voters in 2002 defining marriage as between a man and a woman. It also eases the political angst of some lawmakers to secure votes and keep the measure alive.

The amendment passed on an 11-10 vote. Senate Joint Resolution 13 must still be voted on in it entirety by the Senate.

SJR 13 needs to be approved by lawmakers this year and in 2015. It would then go to voters in 2016.

At first he was named as one of the possible bombers, then that changed to ‘Person of Interest.’ But Abdulrahman Alharbi is in the U.S. illegally,  but claims to be only a witness to and  victim of the Boston Marathon bombing.

UPDATE: 04/01/2014 — Alharbi is now suing Glenn Beck and his network for defamation, even though nearly every TV network and news organization named him as a suspect in the attack.

“It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded.” Ecclesiastes 6:4 (NIV)

Anger equals evil.

It took me a year and some time to complete my study of the Book of Jeremiah, in the Old Testament. When I undertake a study from any book in the Bible, I try to place it not only in its faith-based context, but historical and real-world context.

For that reason, I found myself in December at a place so angry within myself that I lashed out at everyone on my Facebook page. It was the wrong thing to have done.

I realized, albeit too late, that everything I was gleaning from Jeremiah wasn’t about me or anyone else in my life – either personally or in cyberspace.

Following my ‘blow up,’ I stopped blogging my political opinions, whether nationally or locally. There was something in me that said it was a good thing to do and so I did and furthermore, I am not planning to return to that subject anytime soon.

Instead, I am going to share some of my notes on the Book of Jeremiah. This will happen over several weeks or maybe months – I don’t know.

What happens to this country isn’t up to me; it’s not even up to the leadership of this nation. Instead, it is up to God and how our relationship as a people is viewed by Him.

Call me crazy, but let’s get started with Jeremiah 1:6.

“I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and in worshiping what their hands have made.”

Over the course of the last few decades, the U.S. has slowly been erasing God from our national culture. No longer are children allowed to pray in school, in some places the “One nation under God,” is even struck from the Pledge of Allegiance, and finally after lawsuit after lawsuit, the U.S. struck a coin for circulation without the words, “In God We Trust,” on it.

Instead of God, we worship our federal, state, regional and city leaders. We praise the newest technology and the people who brought it to us and we eat our meals without saying grace.

My conclusion: We have forsaken God and he is judging us – the U.S.

BOSTON (AP) — Two bombs exploded in the crowded streets near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three people and injuring more than 130 in a bloody scene of shattered glass and severed limbs that raised alarms that terrorists might have struck again in the U.S..

Eighty-five runners in the Boston Marathon are from Nevada. Twenty-two are from Reno, eleven from Sparks and another 52 from eastern and southern Nevada.

Spark resident Frank Kight is one of those 130 people to recieve injures in the blast. He and his son-in-law, Scott and ex-wife, Marilyn were near the finish line hoping to watch his daughter Amy Blomquist complete the Boston Marathon.

The  retired track coach and school counselor says he ducked when he first heard the explosion. He believed it to be a celebratory cannon blast, or perhaps a very loud fireworks display.

A few seconds later, he heard the second blast and dove for cover. That’s when he thought of his son-in-law and ex-wife, who were next to him at the time.

When he raised up to see where they were, that’s when he saw the carnage. He describes the chaotic scene as filled with blood and body parts.

As soon as medical personnel arrived, they started treating him and others. Both he and Marilyn recieved injuries to the leg, but since hers were more severe, she went to a different hospital than Frank — one which is under lockdown.

After being stitched up and released, Frank spoke to Marilyn by phone where she told him she was scheduled for surgery.  Neither his daughter Amy or son-in-law Scott were hurt in the incident.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A person briefed on the Boston Marathon investigation says the explosives were in 6-liter pressure cookers and placed in black duffel bags. The explosives were placed on the ground and contained shards of metal, nails and ball bearings.

Adding to a small boat’s more than 5,000-mile  journey is where it came ashore — less than a mile from a  multi-million-dollar project to repair damage done to a harbor from a tsunami resulting from a March 2011 earthquake. Now authorities in Del Norte County have tracked down the owner of that vessel which washed up on South Beach in early April 2013.

It came from the coastal Japanese town of Rikuzentakata, where the tsunami took the lives of 2,000 people and left only three buildings standing.

A photograph of the goose barnacle-covered boat posted to Rikuzentakata city’s Facebook page lead to the boat’s owner: a high school teacher. The social media page also showed the boats handwritten Japanese characters of  “Takata-kou-kou,” which when translated, reads “Takata High School.”

This is the second find for Rikuzentakata. In April 2012, a soccer ball was found on an Alaskan island with a student’s name on it and returned.

Now,  Takata High School would like to have the boat back and Del Norte County officials are working to make it happen.