Month: July 2007

Philadelphia City Council can apparently scrape together some serious money when it comes to protecting themselves:

Visitors to the upper floors of Philadelphia City Hall will soon be required to sign in and wear an identification tag, and possibly be photographed.The new security system goes into use Wednesday. It ends a century of generally unimpeded public access to the building.

The six-point-five (m) million dollar system has been in the planning stages since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Visitors won’t have to show identification. A city official says photos will be taken only “when we feel we need that level of security.”

The first floor of the building can still be accessed without going through security.

Sign in, get a photograph taken, and show identification.   This cost a cool 6.5 million?  That’s one damned expensive camera! Hell, I’ll take the six point five, and do that service for city hall.   How many police officers would that have hired to patrol the streets, so we could have maybe stopped some real criminals, who I’m sure don’t make a regular habit of showing up to City Hall.

Well, it depends on what kind of choice we’re talking about:

In September of 2006, the city of Philadelphia passed a ban on smoking in all work places, galleries, sports facilities, restaurants and most bars and 20 feet from any building entrance. Establishments that receive over ninety percent of their revenue from drinks are exempt as are private clubs and outdoor cafes, although they must acquire a waver.

Last February, Philadelphia joined New York City in banning trans fat. Restaurants will not be allowed to fry food in trans fat or serve trans fat based spreads. The ban should take place in September and next year will be extended to ban all food with any trans fat prepared in a Philadelphia restaurant.

The city of Philadelphia claims to believe a woman should have “ultimate control…over her own body,” but clearly not so much control that it might extend to a woman smoking a cigarette or eating a basket of fries cooked in trans fat in a privately owned establishment with which she engaged in a voluntary contract for the exchange of goods and services.

Clearly Philadelphia is pro-choice as long as your choices conform to the expectations of Philadelphia’s left-wing political establishment.  I should note that I probably would have many disagreements with any organization that has the term “Family” in it, including this one, but I’m glad to see them calling the city politicians out for their hypocrisies when it comes to choices they don’t approve of.  If we’re going to be a pro-choice city, that those choices ought to extend to proprietors allowing patrons to light up in their bar, or cook with trans fats.