| Smokers Protest Illinois Smoking Ban
The Eagles Hall in Benton, IL was once a smokers paradise; not anymore. "They took our of our basic rights away. I don't want them taking anymore away," says Mohr. He used to enjoy smoking two packs a day with ease. "When I can't smoke especially at work, I'm eating constantly so I don't need to do that." These frustrations. . . prompted him to start the petition.Mohr says his motivation isn't all about habit, it's more about personal freedoms. So far, 3,500 people have signed his petition. Along with personal freedoms, Illinois Restaurant owners say the smoking ban is bad for business. At Sandy's Bar & Grill in Benton, the manager says they've lost about 30%. "They're either not coming in at all, or they come in to pick up an order to take out," says the manager, Kelly Mandrell. Tips for Eagles Club bar tender, Carol Scott, are down $40.00 a night. "It hurts," she says. But Illinois lawmakers are hoping this ban will save lives. It's predicted the ban will drop lung cancer cases in Illinois by 19% and heart attacks by 8%.
Jury-rigged, jerry-built: Maybe a problem?
The word had popped up the week before in The New York Times Magazine article, "The Sleep-Industrial Complex," all about the mattress and pharmaceutical industries. The piece included a reference to a man who was such an enthusiast for Sleep Number Beds that he "jury-rigged something similar for his bulldog." On the subject of exactly how the dog expressed its preference for a particular Sleep Number, the author was silent. Jury-rigging is a term with nautical origins. "Rig" is one of those little words so short that it contains nearly infinite meanings (an early form of nanotechnology). One of its meanings is "the arrangement of masts, sails, etc., on a vessel." In the days of the tall ships, when a vessel on the high seas lost a mast in a storm or a battle, the ship's carpenter would fashion what was known as a jury mast from spare parts down in the hold.
The Footnote Police vs. Ward Churchill
The University of Colorado committee investigating Ward Churchill has found him guilty, guilty, guilty. And on some level, they're right: Churchill is guilty of occasionally shoddy scholarship and the dubious practice of ghostwriting, and perhaps even more. But we should be alarmed by the investigative committee's report, and not merely because the committee exists only because of a concerted effort to fire Churchill for his obnoxious and idiotic comments about 9/11 victims. .
Robertson and Giuliani: A Not-So-Odd Couple
In a two-week span that saw several conservative Christian evangelical leaders finally climb down off the fence and begin spreading their endorsements across the field of Republican Party presidential candidates, it was the unexpected endorsement by one of Christian conservatism's longtime leaders that garnered the most media attention. When Pat Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the man who created and helped make the Christian Coalition a political powerhouse in the Republican Party of the 1990s, recently endorsed former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, he accomplished at least two things: He enhanced Giuliani's standing amongst those evangelicals still paying attention to Robertson -- his CBN "700 Club" draws millions of nightly viewers -- and he injected himself back into the political spotlight.
World trade, poverty and the environment in the age of global ...
We have all sorts of reports on the advantages of remittances, and I think that the advantages they offer to developing countries are one of the key issues. But this is less a criticism than another question that needs to be addressed. The second comment, which is perhaps more critical, is that insufficient attention is paid to the major obstacles that exist within countries and within regions (1). I agree that the major problem is with the industrialised countries, but beyond that it is clear that there are major impediments to enterprise creation, creative liberalisation. There are problems with insufficient investment in human capital formation. The entrepreneurs in most developing countries are screwed by their own, rather than by international institutions. This is one of the reasons that I was rather upset by the campaign in Dakar (2).
United Kingdom: Queen's New Year Honours List 2008
ASHWORTH, Dr. John Michael. For public service. BELL, Professor John Irving, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford and President, Academy of Medical Sciences. For services to Medicine. GOOD, John James Griffen, C.B.E., Chair, Edrington Group. For services to Industry in Scotland. HAREN, Dr. Patrick Hugh, Deputy Chairman, Viridian Group Ltd. For services to the Electricity Industry in Northern Ireland. HARRIS, Michael Frank, lately President, Social Security and Child Support Appeals Tribunal and Circuit Judge. For public service. JOWELL, Professor Roger Mark, C.B.E., Co-Founder and Director, European Social Survey and Research Professor, City University. For services to Social Science. KENYON, Nicholas Roger, C.B.E., Managing Director, Barbican Centre and lately Director, BBC Proms.
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