Should smoking ONLY be allowed in private single family homes

March 14, 2007— Dozens packed the Belmont (California) city council chambers tonight for the first public airing of a new smoking ban proposal.

The law would give Belmont the toughest smoking ban in the nation — possibly in the world.

The crackdown aims to curb the harmful effects of second-hand smoke by preventing puffs not just in parks and around public buildings — but in private apartments and city streets as well. If the law passes, the only places left in Belmont to smoke would be single family homes and private cars.

Mayor Coralin Feierbach says the proposal was made to protect residents who suffer from health problems aggravated by smoke.The council didn't take action tonight. It's just the first of several meetings to discuss the proposal.

• Should smoking ONLY be allowed in private single family homes - ?
  • Use of illegal drugs, alcohol consumption, and cigarette - giddy pc guru
  • Georgia has a no public smoking law...sm - Georgia Gal
  • Absolutely not. They need to MTOB. - mtintx
    • Agree. - They should mind their own business.
  • personally I would sign that ban in a heart beat! sm - nn
  • Yes, and then only if there are no children. - Sure
  • They should be more worried about the effects - of drunk driving.
    • yeah and people have been saying that --sm - nn
    • Agree, also what about global warming and environmental pollution..! - sm
      • Global warming all hype - mtintx
        • Obviously you have not done your own research :) - nm
          • As a matter of fact I did. I used to agree with you (sm) - mtintx
            • what research did you do - you just said - I *heard* that Gore's documentary had no facts
              • No dear, you are wrong. The "I heard" comment (sm) - mtintx
                • blah, blah, blah....... - N/M
                  • No snappy comeback? - LOL (sm) - haha
          • AGREED - the poster has done NO RESEARCH! - and entitled to that narrow opinion too! nm
        • that's what YOU think..... - and entitled to that narrow opinion too! nm
          • Heard Al Gore's "documentary" had no facts in it(sm). - mtintx
            • you *heard*???? LOL......... - and entitled to that narrow opinion too! nm
              • Gore cares? - don't make me laugh
                • LOL- and he has the nerve to preach to the average person - hahah)sad -people believe him - Indy
            • Gore's Inconvenient Truth it was on HBO last night. - and entitled to that narrow opinion too! nm
              • He is just such a hypocrite - - nm
      • great post, thanks for pointing out hypocrisy - which is alive and well in the good ol USA
        • folks who do not agree are in for rude awakening! - and entitled to that narrow opinion too! nm
          • I'll be long gone before the doom and gloom descends upon us. - not me
            • ya think? nm - oh well, some of us are very young and worry

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I was raised in a large single-family home, although it was on a cul-de-sac and there were no other girls my age in the neighborhhood.  That was okay for me at the time because I was a tomboy (and because that was decades ago!).  I didn't attend school with the kids on my street.  I went to a private school where my mom was a teacher.

Now, I am raising my granddaughter in an apartment community (I was already in an apartment when she came to live with me).  Because of my financial situation and the area in which I live and the schools I want her to attend, there is no possible way for me to purchase a home for the two of us.  My own kids lived in a single-family neighborhood before my divorce, then lived in a mobile home (double-wide trailer...common in these parts of the woods). 

I have so many conflicts about how children feel about the type of living arrangements they have, i.e., a _real house_ versus an apartment complex versus a mobile home community.  Personally, I would rather rent an apartment and not be responsible for reparis, but that means a constant turnover of other kids for my GD to relate to, which is also the situation in an apartment complex.  I don't want to buy a mobile home - which is what I qualify for grants, subsidies and low-interest loans in this area - so she can go to a better school.  Would this cause her to be more shame in her personal relationships with other kids at school than a mobile home community??

I would rather live in a townhome or condo, but that won't happen for some years to come.  Since I would be a first-time buyer, there are grants I would qualify for, just no financing because of the high cost of single-family homes and for TH/condos in the area where I want her to attend school.

Can anyone offer advice or experiences about growing up in a multi-family community such as an apartment complex...mobile homes (I know how my own kids felt about it now in hindsight)..versus a condo/townhome or single-family home?  I have some time to try to put things together before she starts school, so I am trying to decide what the best course of action for her sake.  If I decide to move, it will be to plant roots for the two of us for a long time, so I want to try to make the best decision possible.

Thanks for any input!

I own and live in a house in a midwest city in a bad neighborhood (wasn't that bad 11 years ago).  I spent the day waiting for the plumber to come and jackhammer the foundation (slab house, no basement) to find a leaky pipe that is flooding my DD's bedroom. Last week, it was the electrician with quotes for costly repairs.

In the meantime, I've really been thinking about selling out and moving into a mobile home.  Has anyone done this before?  Is a mobile home in a decent park less of a hassle than a regular house?  I'm so tired of cutting the grass and spending $$ to fix things and tired of old flooring and cabinets, etc., that are just too costly to replace.  I'm single with no man to do these things for me and I can't afford a mortgage on a newer house in a good neighborhood.  Some of the pictures I've seen of the mobile homes look really nice and modern on the inside. 

Any advice and comments appreciated.  Thanks!

This was on Kim Komando's Cool Site of the Day.  Thought y'all would enjoy these! 

with my husband and I am an IC.  I have never been asked to get a letter from a service stating I would have work for a period of time.  Anyone you contract with, would probably not do that.  They cannot promise you anything.   WE know that.

BUT what I am asked is how long I have been in the business.  That seems to matter the most, as it should.  And when I say *over 32 years*, then there is no problem. 

If you are happy with you mortgage company and have good rates, then just explain to the loan officer how your job works and emphasize that you have been in the business for 6 years.

As an aside - the last mortgage officer knew I was self employed but when we went in with our W-2s and 1099s, he was shocked at my earnings.  He said, *Most of the time, self-employed means no income and a lot of deductions."  Make sure your mortgage company knows you make money at this and are not using it as a tax write off.

Good luck to you!  and congratulations on your new house! 

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Mary Kalin-Casey and her cat, Monty, at home in Oakland, Calif. A Google map service can zoom in so closely on buildings that it has caused Ms. Kalin-Casey and others to complain to the company and on blogs.

OAKLAND, Calif., May 31 — For Mary Kalin-Casey, it was never about her cat.

Monty the cat was visible in a photo showing a street in Oakland.

Ms. Kalin-Casey, who manages an apartment building here with her husband, John Casey, was a bit shaken when she tried a new feature in Google’s map service called Street View. She typed in her address and the screen showed a street-level view of her building. As she zoomed in, she could see Monty, her cat, sitting on a perch in the living room window of her second-floor apartment.

“The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people’s lives,” Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview Thursday on the front steps of the building. “The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.”

Her husband quickly added, “It’s like peeping.”

Ms. Kalin-Casey first shared her concerns about the service in an e-mail message to the blog Boing Boing on Wednesday. Since then, the Web has been buzzing about the privacy implications of Street View — with varying degrees of seriousness. Several sites have been asking users to submit interesting images captured by the Google service, which offers panoramic views of miles of streets around San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Denver.

On a Wired magazine blog, for instance, readers can vote on the “Best Urban Images” that others find in Street View. On Thursday afternoon, a picture of two young women sunbathing in their bikinis on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, Calif., ranked near the top. Another showed a man scaling the front gate of an apartment building in San Francisco. The caption read, “Is he breaking in or has he just locked himself out?”

Google said in a statement that it takes privacy seriously and considered the privacy implications of its service before it was introduced on Tuesday. “Street View only features imagery taken on public property,” the company said. “This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.”

Google said that it had consulted with public service organizations and considered their feedback in developing the service, which allows users to request that a photo be removed for privacy reasons. A Google spokeswoman said the company had received few such requests.

For instance, Google worked with the Safety Net Project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which represents shelters for victims of domestic violence nationwide, to remove pictures of those shelters. “They reached out in advance to us so we could reach out to our network,” said Cindy Southworth, founder and director of the organization.

Not everyone believes the service raises serious privacy concerns.

“You don’t have a right to ‘privacy’ over what can be seen while driving the speed limit past your house,” wrote a Boing Boing reader, identified as Rich Gibson, in response to Ms. Kalin-Casey’s complaint. Others dismissed her as a crazy cat lady.

Edward A. Jurkevics, a principal at Chesapeake Analytics, a consulting firm specializing in mapping and imagery, said that courts have consistently ruled that people in public spaces can be photographed. “In terms of privacy, I doubt if there is much of a problem,” Mr. Jurkevics said.

Still, the issues raised by the service, thorny or merely funny, were perfect blog fodder. The hunt was on for quirky or potentially embarrassing images that could be found by wandering the virtual streets of the service.

There was the picture of a clearly identifiable man standing in front of an establishment offering lap dances and other entertainment in San Francisco. The site LaudonTech.com showed an image of a man entering a pornographic bookstore in Oakland, but his face was not visible.

Others pointed to pictures of cars whose license plates were clearly readable. One pointed to images captured inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, a controversial location for photography in this high-security era. On Lombard Street in San Francisco, various tourists who had come to photograph the famously curvy street were photographed themselves.

Google said that the images had been captured by vehicles equipped with special cameras. The company took some of the photographs itself and purchased others from Immersive Media, a data provider.

“I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,” said Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. Mr. Bankston said Google could have avoided privacy concerns by blurring people’s faces.

Back at her apartment, Ms. Kalin-Casey acknowledged that plenty of information about her — that she manages an apartment complex, that she was an Editor at the film site Reel.com — is already easily accessible through Google and other search engines.

“People’s jobs are pretty public,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean they want a shot of their sofa on Google.” She has asked Google to remove the image of her building, which was still online as of Thursday evening.

When a reporter first arrived to interview her, Monty the cat was visible in the window.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/technology/01private.html?em&ex=1180843200&en=83156047690c5c2c&ei=5087%0A

she was smart to do that....and she formerly had homes in London, then Germany, before locating to Zurich, and has had a home in S. France since the 80s, I think.....

She did not look like she had a total facelift to me last night....I thought perhaps a brow lift and definitely cheek implants - they are too big for her face and she looked like she had a very chubby face due to that, IMHO.....

If you can help or know anybody who can, please visit the below site and let people know, there are some really beautiful foals there that desperately need homes, please help.  All for the animals.

http://www.theanimalifarm.com/

Pit bulls are either not allowed in Miami-Dade County in Florida but I heard something about having $600,000 insurance if you own one.....but that COULD be Broward County where they are allowed.  I'm in Miami. 

No, it's not fair that you should have to pay for a private school, but that might just be what is best for your daughter.  We decided 16 years ago that our 3 children would not go to public schools.  We have spent a fortune over the years, but I do not regret it for an instant. 

I think most private schools don't have to follow those govt innoculations things - I'm not sure, of course, but I seem to have heard something about that from parents who sent their children to private schools.  I couldn't afford that back in the days.

As for the deep south....things have gotten better for the American blacks all throughout this country finally after 400+ years or thereabouts...........I look toward Atlanta, Georgia because it shows what I'm talking about.  There are a tremendous amount of successful black Americans in Atlanta (not just in Atlanta either - Florida for one) and living in GREAT neighborhoods, buying expensive property and kudos to them.....I'm tolerant of everyone and everything in life except the intolerant and the extremists/terrorists and people who take advantage of others.....