Blogroll

Jan. 17 – Wondering why those motorists in the lane beside you look so old? Could be because they are.

New state figures show there are 110 licensed drivers in Washington who, as of Jan. 10, are 100 years old. They are among the 2,394 state residents 95 and older who are still licensed drivers.

S-R reporter Chelsea Bannach came across the statistics today while working on an article about organ donors. As part of the reporting for that article, she had requested figures from the state Department of Licensing about the number of motorists who list organ donor on their driver’s licenses.

The agency sent a list showing the statewide numbers by age and gender. And the columns kept going and going and going. The list stopped at drivers who are 100 years old.

Jan. 18 – There are more than 100,000 unfilled jobs in the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, and thousands more in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, according to a Canadian official who visited the Idaho Legislature this week as part of a delegation from the Pacific Northwest Economic Region – and if a PNWER effort gets off the ground, Idaho workers could have a crack at some of them. Lyle Stewart, minister of agriculture for Saskatchewan and president of PNWER, said the idea is to find skilled American workers – particularly targeting returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan – to head up to the oil sands for temporary work.

Due to recent regulatory changes in Canada, Stewart said, “A U.S. worker can work temporarily in Canada for up to four years.” PNWER has launched a pilot project, first targeting the Puget Sound area, where there’s a large pool of unemployed skilled workers.

Jan. 17 – Ever see prints in the snow behind your house that your family didn’t make?

Sure, maybe it was someone up to no good.

But I’ll bet it was the meter reader.