Nobody's Business

Another Way to Squeeze Smokers (Goodbye, Oscar Madison)

Publishing conglomerate the Tribune Company has a new smoking policy that concerns itself with whether employees smoke at home, and Tribune worker Michael Mayo (a non-smoker) wonders "what the hell?".

So much for the old stereotype of a fedora-wearing reporter pounding out copy on deadline, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Or the days of sportswriter Oscar Madison chomping on his cheap stogie.

Starting next year, employees of my company will have to pay a $100 per month fee (that’s $1,200 per year) if they smoke. Or if anyone in their family who gets health insurance from the company smokes.

Note that the company presents the question of whether you smoke as a binary, yes-or-no choice. No allowances, then, for people who smoke two or three cigarettes (not packs) a day; or for occasional tobacco aficionados like yours truly, who never smoke cigarettes but savor maybe five or six cigars a year, on special occasions.

Mayo wonders if his employer will next target the consumption of his namesake condiment, and other lifestyle choices that are believed to be 'bad' for you.

[W]hat other unhealthy sins will be surcharged in coming years? Will there be fees for alcohol use? Eating fast food? Having high cholesterol? Not adhering to proper weight/body mass guidelines?

Yes, Michael, most likely. Also, in a few years, don't be surprised to get hit with higher premiums if you're caught speeding. And if you have unprotected sex. And if you make fries with trans fat. And if you sometimes play violent video games. And if you don't eat at least seven helpings of fruit and vegetables each day. And if you live in an area with lower-than-average air quality. And if you don't drive a car with at least 12 air bags. And if your hobbies include rock climbing or football or any number of other 'risky' activities that go beyond chess and light gardening.

Hey, at least your colleagues haven't been fired for smoking at home, like these people were.

At least not yet.

Attack of the Sappy Home Videos

Yesterday was my wife's 28th birthday (give or take a decade or two) and so I presented her with a DVD. No, not the Dukes of Hazzard remake or the new Diehard (although I was sorely tempted), but a homemade disc containing a short movie about the adoption of our daughter, Jolie, back in February and March of last year. I stitched the film together over the past week, and (this being the Internet age, in which nothing is private anymore), promptly uploaded it to YouTube.

Bear with me if you decide to watch it. This is my first attempt at (ahem) filmmaking, and it's become sadly clear to me that I'm no Martin Scorsese. Or even Ed Wood. On the bright side, you won't have to sit through a precious two-and-a-half-hour costume piece, or through a succession of flying-saucer attacks enacted with Tupperware. Instead, the whole treacly ordeal will be over in just 8 minutes and 42 seconds. Rejoice!

Robobugs Are Here, and They're Watching You

Well, at least if this Washington Post story is any guide.

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month. "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. ...

Three people at the D.C. event independently described a row of spheres, the size of small berries, attached along the tails of the big dragonflies — an accoutrement that [entomologist Jerry] Louton could not explain. And all reported seeing at least three maneuvering in unison."Dragonflies never fly in a pack," he said.

George Orwell and Blade Runner combined. The future is here, and it may be a lot nastier than the Jetsons led us to believe.

[thanks, Anita]

Unfortunate Ad Placement of the Day

From Yahoo News. Click for a closer look.

Don't get it? Check out what zombies like to eat.

'Doff Your Cap To Your Betters'

As I've pointed out a few times on this site, wearing any kind of headgear is forbidden in an increasing number of pubs in England. Shopping centers, too. It's all about 'security' (more specifically, about letting the establishment's surveillance cameras get a good look at any and all punters). Neil Davenport is unimpressed:

What lies behind such demand for safety and security is a perception that individual autonomy is problematic in and of itself. Thus all individuals need some kind of rules and regulation because anyone can suddenly ‘get out of hand’. Forcing pub goers to remove their personal choice of headgear is done to constrain someone’s free will and independence, lest that free will leads to aggro and arguments - the dress code implies a behaviour code, too. Indeed, there is something servile about forcing customers to ‘remove their hats’, with ugly echoes of the ‘doffing your cap’ reverence to society’s supposed ‘betters’ in the past. In this case, it’s a reverence to New Britain’s principles of authority, order and knowing-your-place. At root lies nothing but contempt for pub-going folk.

The E.U.: Taxing Anything That Moves

Why would European lawmakers promote innovation if they can tax the hell out of it instead? Via dpreview:

The CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) has today released a statement on the recent re-classification of certain digital [photo] cameras as 'video camera recorders'. The new EU rule states that any digital still camera with a resolution higher than 800x600 and the duration of video of 30 minutes of more (at 23 fps or higher) must now be classified as a 'video camera recorder' and hence be taxed at a higher rate. This new legislation will undoubtedly mean that any promise of serious video capture on digital still cameras becomes an even more remote possibility.

U.K.: Petty-Tyrant Alert # 3,451,783

Meet barmaid Wendy Chapman, fined for littering after she dropped a cigarette butt down a street drain. Where else but England?

"I was standing outside the pub having a smoke during my afternoon break when the street warden saw me drop it in the drain. I would have thought he could have given me a warning, but he insisted that I would have to be fined. I don't think putting it down a drain should have caused any problems. It's better than setting a bin on fire." ...

Phillip Wright, acting director of neighbourhood services at Erewash Borough Council, said the authority would not tolerate environmental crime.