WRAL has a story up about the new laws that take effect now that we're in 2008. But the story has only a summary of a few laws, and not the entire list.

You know why? Because the "Summaries Of Substantive Ratified Legislation," as released in 2007, is a big honkin' PDF that's over 300 pages long. It includes changed and even vetoed legislation, so it's not a quick read to see the new laws. (And I can't find a summary anywhere on the NC Leg site.)

If you want the skinny without reading 300 pages, I'll give you two tricks you can use to discover what's new on the NC lawbooks for 2008.

TRICK ONE: Download the PDF (the link's above) and search for effective January 1, 2008 . (Don't use quotes.) That'll quickly take you to legislation that's in effect as of today.

TRICK TWO: Use a search engine like Google and start your search like this: "effective january 1, 2008" legislation inurl:ncleg . That'll take you to 36 pages from the NC Legislature. The nice thing about this trick is you can add search words to it. If you were just interested in legislation about nursing homes, for example, you could try "nursing homes" "effective january 1, 2008" legislation inurl:ncleg. It's not perfect, but does narrow down your search considerably.

TRICK TWO AND A HALF: Interested about changes taking places across the state or in state agencies? Try this in a search engine: "effective january 1, 2008" (site:nc.us OR site:nc.gov).

Happy 2008! Here's to a safe and happy one.

PS -- Wondering about legislation across the rest of the US? Click here for a summary of new laws on a variety of topics.