Opinion
In the blink of an eye, the life as you know it could change forever. A poor decision or an unwise action could affect you, your family, friends as well as those that you don’t even know.
Every 15 minutes, someone in the United States is killed or seriously injured in an alcohol-related collision.
I refuse to call these traffic accidents simply because the term “accidents” implies that these crashes resulting in injuries or deaths are unavoidable, when, in fact, they are predictable and preventable. This is particularly important when referring to alcohol-related traffic crashes since drinking and driving is the conscious (albeit impaired) choice of the driver.
Many of us have a sense of invincibility that it can’t happen to me. It can and it does. We all know someone who has either been the victim or the cause of such crashes because the statistics show that approximately one-third of all fatalities are caused by the impaired driver.
With this in mind, the decision is yours to make. Do I take the chance and gamble that I can drive safely to my destination after drinking or throw away life as I know it, possibly destroying my future and the futures of those around me?
The choice is yours.
Lance Mino is an officer with the Clear Lake office of the California Highway Patrol.
If you have any questions about this article or ideas about future ones, contact CHP Officer Adam Garcia, 279-0103.
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- Written by: Lance Mino
If you value the Internet, it's time to take action.
Monday, July 16 is the deadline to sign a petition to Congress demanding that they protect the Internet from being taken over by phone and cable companies who want to become the gatekeepers of the Internet.
To sign the petition, go to www.savetheinternet.com, where you can learn more about this important issue.
The central issue is “Net Neutrality,” which no discrimination on the Internet.
Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.
Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data – not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.
The battle for Net Neutrality won't end next week, and it requires everyone to educate themselves about the issue.
Helping spread the word is the www.savetheinternet.com coalition, an historic grassroots alliance of hundreds of groups from across the political spectrum, thousands of bloggers, and millions of everyday people concerned about the future of the Internet.
The coalition came together last year when Congress first took up dangerous telecom legislation that failed to protect Net Neutrality, which has been called the Internet's First Amendment.
"I think www.savetheinternet.com's success surprised everyone, especially those who thought the public was way too uninterested in issues like 'Net Neutrality' to give a damn," said Tim Wu, a leading Internet scholar who first coined the term Net Neutrality – the fundamental Internet principle that prevents big phone and cable companies from discriminating against Web sites and services.
After leading the effort to stop telecommunications legislation last year that would have handed phone and cable companies unprecedented gatekeeper power over what Internet users see and do online, www.savetheinternet.com is ramping up its campaign to reinstate Net Neutrality this year.
While phone and cable companies spent millions and millions on inside-the-Beltway advertising and Astroturf groups, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition – which takes no corporate money – kick-started a public conversation about what the future of the Internet should look like. Word spread thanks to local organizers, bloggers of all stripes, and Internet auteurs, who made dozens of viral videos about the looming threat to Internet freedom.
To find out more about Net Neutrality, check out the following video.
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