Movie Smoking Scenes May Get ‘R’ Rating

Lobbying groups and some Members of Congress, notably Sen. Jay Rockefeller, are pushing to force the Motion Picture Association of America to assign an automatic "R" rating to movies depicting characters smoking cigarettes. MPAA president Dan Glickman is resisting but says the ratings board "will now consider smoking as a factor among many other factors, including violence, sexual situations ...

10 Reasons You Aren’t Rich

Jeffrey Strain explains that, "The reason why you aren't a millionaire (or on your way to becoming one) is really quite simple. You probably assume it's because you aren't earning enough money, but the truth is that for most people, whether or not you become a millionaire has very little to do with the amount of money you make. It's ...

Cathy Seipp, RIP

Freelance writer and longtime blogger Cathy Seipp died yesterday after a 5-year-long bout with lung cancer. She was only 49. And, no, like a lot of people who die from lung cancer, she never smoked cigarettes. Her daughter, Maia, Susan Estrich, John O'Sullivan, Virginia Postrel, Matt Welch, Joanne Jacobs, Marc Danziger, Amy Alkon, Jim Treacher, Justin Levine, Ken Layne, ...

Voter ID Requirement Lowers Turnout

The NYT reports on a new study that shows a decline in voter turnout in states with even modest voter identification requirements. States that imposed identification requirements on voters reduced turnout at the polls in the 2004 presidential election by about 3 percent, and by two to three times as much for minorities, new research suggests. The study, prepared by scholars at ...

Operation Overkill

Radley Balko's report on police paramilitary raids has finally come out at the Cato Institute. It is pretty chilling, in my view. We are treated to all the anecdotes that Balko has been digging up over the past several months. For example, The Diotaiuto case is far from unusual. Just a few months before the raid in Sunrise, ...

Oregon Uses Sexy Teens to Entrap Store Clerks

Well, she LOOKED 21 anyway, maybe older, and what's more the clerk at the small store in this Coos County [Oregon] town says he was much distracted by what he called the young lady's scanty attire. So distracted, he said, that he didn't see the "Minor until 2007" stamped on her driver's license. She got the six-pack, and store owner ...

Marijuana May Ward Off Lung Cancer

Ezra Klein, reflecting on a new study finding that, "smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer" and "even a suggestion of some protective effect," observes: Quick thought experiment: if a martian landed on this planet, and you explained to him that there were these two types of cigarettes, one that was violently addictive and increased your ...

Why Stop At Junk Food and Cigarettes

Also from Radley Balko comes this story about how smoking bans in English pubs is expect to lead to a rise in female binge drinking. Smoke-free bars and public houses will attract more female customers and could fuel the rise in binge drinking among women, a report warns. It points out that as bars and pubs become more appealing venues to women, ...

Cigarette Suspected in Cruise Ship Fire

AP reports that "A fire apparently started by a cigarette spread smoke through a cruise ship in the Caribbean early Thursday, killing an American, injuring 11 other people and damaging about 150 cabins." We all know what's coming: A call to ban smoking on cruise ships. Or, perhaps, the Caribbean. Related posts below the fold. Tobacco Lounge Gets Around Smoking Ban England Bans ...

Tobacco Lounge Gets Around Smoking Ban

R.J. Reynolds has taken advantage of a loophole to get around Chicago's public smoking ban. Glasses clink, friends chat in plush chairs and a fire crackles in a stone hearth at Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans, a "tobacco lounge" that has opened in Chicago's trendy Wicker Park neighborhood. It appears every bit the bar or coffeehouse. But appearances can be deceiving: Marshall ...