Monday, April 28, 2003

Nonsmoking Paradise. See how the ban on smoking in bars is improving the quality of life in New York. [Hit & Run] The night life for which this city is so famous is undergoing a metamorphosis as bar patrons who smoke are spending time on the sidewalks rather than spending money inside ever since a citywide workplace smoking ban took effect on March 30. ''It's creating a social scene in the streets. The streets are becoming the new bar,'' said David Rabin, co-owner of Lotus, a supper club in the Meatpacking district. ''That's not good for the neighbors trying to sleep, and it's terrible for business.'' California has similarly draconian laws, and businesses here have developed a way to cope. In the past year I've seen a number of cafes and restaurants located in strip malls here in Koreatown remodeled so that their front "wall" is moved well back into the store, leaving most of the seating area technically outside but still protected by the roof and two walls. The mild climate in Los Angeles makes this comfortable almost the entire year. 9:02:40 PM    comment () From grabbe: "When your daughter asks for a pony, don't tell her that it's too expensive; after all, if you had your last twenty years of tax money back, she could have ten ponies. Tell her the truth: that the IRS has taken her pony and given it to an evil dictator in North Korea who will probably eat it." -- unattributed [End the War on Freedom] 6:49:08 PM    comment () News.Com: "The software will be able to read music files encoded with ACC, a format that Apple says 'compresses much more efficiently than older formats like MP3...while delivering quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio.'" [Scripting News] And a format which is proprietary to Apple and can't be read by any other software, I presume. 6:04:34 PM    comment () President's brother Jeb gives gun owners shot in the arm. The Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, has thanked the National Rifle Association for helping elect his brother President of the United States in 2000. Mr Bush, the keynote speaker at the gun lobby's annual convention, said that, based on exit polls, 48 per cent of the voters in the 2000 presidential election were gun owners. NRA support played a key role in several states, including Florida, where the vote was so close that the Supreme Court eventually had to settle the matter of disputed ballots, and in Tennessee, home state of George Bush's Democratic opponent, Al Gore. 'Were it not for your active involvement, it's safe to say my brother would not be President of the United States,' the younger Bush said on Saturday. [FirearmNews.com] Presumably he's a clever enough politician not to come right out and say, "Thanks, suckers." 6:01:17 PM    comment ()

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 2/15/2006; 1:53:44 PM.