Zombies afoot!

My personal account's always been a bit wonky, so I'm not surprised to find that LJ's notify function has failed to inform me of a response. It's hard to tell whether it's been more fallible of late because I simply don't check every nook and cranny where I've commented to see if anyone's responded. The odd thing is that I've suddenly been flooded with notifies, some of them dating back to late month. They've been trickling in over the past week or so, but today I got over twenty in a single block. WTH? Did they take the scenic route through the Internet to my mailbox?

If it's smoke you hate, ban cars!

Those of you interested in discussion of Chicago's new comprehensive smoking ban and its relationship to civil rights could do worse than to check out Issue Chick's most recent rant and the ensuing commentary--in particular, the comments of phaedrusdeinus (some of which are conveniently located at the top of the page). At the risk of doing violence to his arguments, I'll attempt to briefly summarise one of them: A ban this sweeping can only be justified on health grounds. However, if health is the issue, then why wasn't it dealt with in the same way as other health issues, like food quality, i.e. by setting minimum standards and then leaving it up individual proprietors to determine how best to meet them, rather than by attempting to legislate behaviour?

shawnwrites also has an intriguing idea in the form of a smoking license, which doesn't really address the underlying rights issues, but allows for more individual choice than the ban while at the same time putting more money in the pockets of the revenue department.