So, the issue of the Chicago smoking ban came up yesterday. And I found myself on the minority side of the battle all throughout the day, unable to convince anybody of my viewpoint. Both sides of the argument were very well addressed on fellow contributor to this project, Jeff's blog, over a year ago. So, instead of starting the debate at ground zero, read those comments, then state your thoughts. After a day straight of debating this, I think it comes down to a few simple points. Is a bar a private establishment? And if so, should the city be able to tell that owner that people can not do in that establishment something that is not against the law? By the way, the ban is already underway, so it's not about stopping it. This is just a simple exercise in thought and fascism.

So, there's a lot of "global warming is a myth" rhetoric going around recently. Most of it is fairly unconvincing to me, even though it's very tempting for me to want to believe. But, this is the first piece of evidence I've read in a while that is actually fairly compelling - the fact that the planet Mars is experiencing a global warming of their own. A few months ago, I read an article that theorized that the sun was getting hotter, a process called 'global irradiance' and therefore, could be responsible for the majority of our warming pattern on Earth. Turns out that carbon dioxide "ice caps" on Mars have been diminishing for the past three summers. Obviously, humans are not the source of this problem on Mars. Could it be that big flaming ball my bronzen skin worships?