failing journalists

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aKnLb7Zqtfv4

In this article Rupert Murdoch is very angry that his company News Corp. as well as other publication places, are not getting the credit or money deserved because of sites like google. With google someone can just go right to a news article instead of buying a news paper cutting out the middle man completely. This is good for consumers and college students that need current events, however this is causing mass layoffs and less need for journalists everywhere. Murdoch discusses getting a fee for looking online at the articles. He also says he will block google from getting to his articles so that yo have to go directly to his websites that pay for the news service and pay due credit. This i don’t agree with because a company like google is just trying to make it easier for people to connect to websites whether they be pay sites or not. It is the companies fault to begin with that they decided to give out free news. Google just makes it easier for the people to find those free news websites. Also if these news companies decide to cut Google off and also charge people for what used to be free news, then I think they will lose a lot of business.

smoking ban

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Smoking-bans-march-across-region-8594073.html

Today, Tuesday December 1st is the day that smoking in taverns in Virginia is finally banned. Maryland and D.C. have already had these bans but Virginia has now joined them. There has been a lot of controversy over this subject of whether or not it should be a government decision of to let the bars be the ones to decide. I think it is the governments job to enforce whether or not bars should allow smoking. Many tests and studies have shown the terrible effects of second-hand smoking and people shouldn’t be forced to deal with that when going to a bar. If the bars were allowed to decide whether or not smoking was okay then they could also decide what age to drink or other laws that they don’t have control over. This is why we have the government, to help the people, which means helping them not get sceond-hand smoke