Friday night at 7 p.m. is such a cruel time for the Czech Republic to implement its ban on all liquor stronger than 40 proof (so no vodka or Becherovka), but the alternative is worse: officials still haven't stopped methanol-poisoned booze from hitting the market.
This morning, during his regular Friday radio appearance, Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his public health policies in the wake of the uproar accompanying his big-soda ban.
Those who've lived in New York City for a while remember fondly a time when not much of anything was banned at all. But there's an even darker side to bans. They widen the divide between the rich, who can find a way around them, and the poor, who perhaps cannot.
The government in Pakistan banned Twitter for promoting a "blasphemous" cartoon contest on Facebook through Twitter on Sunday.
The ironic and rather wonderful thing about banning books is that the act doesn't, actually, do much to keep the books from being read. If anything, it inspires further interest in them, and sometimes sales, too.
Fairway CEO isn't backing down, though
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