· Mothers Against Drunk Driving comes out forcibly against the Paris Hilton three ring circus, along with Lindsay Lohan, Shemar Moore and the 1.4 million annual arrests for drunk driving. MADD reports "alcohol-related traffic deaths are at an all time high since 1992", claiming about 18,000 deaths in 2006.
· On the other side of the pond, George Michael ordered to community service for his latest DUI.
· More Fortune 500 companies are asking their law firms to commit to hiring minority and openly gay attorneys including "Verizon Communications
Inc., the second-biggest U.S. phone company, and Bentonville,
Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart stopped doing business with two law firms because it wasn't satisfied with their diversity efforts."
· Taye Diggs and his dance troupe, dre.dance, announce their summer schedule.
· For the second time in two years, the California Assembly passes legislation that would make same-sex marriage legal and "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed the 2005 legislation, said earlier this year that he would do so again."
· Mitt Romney proposes privatizing Social Security.
· The immigration reform bill championed by the Bush Administration, Senate Democrats and the John McCain-Lindsey Graham wing of the Republican Party is dead. "The defeat came after months of painstaking negotiations and weeks of debate as a 45 to 50 procedural vote fell well short of the 60 votes needed to break the filibuster.
I saw yesterday that MADD is saying that Paris Hilton is one of 500,000 people who drive drunk, have their license suspensed, and drive anyway each year. They say they are trying to raise $500,000 by the end of June to combat these 500,000 unsafe drivers; I've pasted part of their email below:
"MADD's Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving would help stop these 500,000 Paris Hiltons by 1) replacing long license suspensions with restrictions on driving that require offenders to use ignition interlock devices and 2) increasing penalties for driving while suspended to help deter people from committing this crime.
There are three things you can do to help stop these 500,000 offenders:
1. Donate to MADD online and help us meet their $500,000 goal at http://support.madd.org/combat500
2. Forward this email to on to your friends and family
3. Email your legislators to let them know you would like better ignition interlock laws at https://secure2.convio.net/madd/site/Advocacy?id=477"
It seems to make sense -- why not try to solve the larger problem?
Posted by: Nick | 14 June 2007 at 10:22