GOVERNMENT
Protesting is so 2011, but that doesn't stop Wikipedia from blacking out their entire English-language site today to protest two pieces of proposed US legislation. Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director posted an open letter to the public on Monday claiming that these laws "would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia."
The first is circulating around the House of Representatives and is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Basically, the goal of this bill is to restrict access to sites hosting pirated content and therefore decrease copyright infringement on the web. It's hard for US companies to target our favorite foreign sites that host illegal movies, tv shows and music. So, SOPA aims to discourage advertisers from placing ads on the sites as well as flag certain links so they don't appear in search engine results on sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Opponents of the bill say it's essentially promoting censorship and becomes a slippery slope if we free-speech-loving Americans are denied access to even a single site on the web.
There are about 9,500 food trucks and carts in Los Angeles and the health department wants to round them up with some rules. The rules will be the same as restaurants. The trucks will be required to post letter grades based on food inspections as well as file route maps. No more surprise location announcements via Twitter. The department wants field inspections possible at least one a year.
Inspectors will be able to shut down trucks that score less than a C for lack of basic safety and food cleanliness practices. This includes dirty counters, food left out, and unwashed hands. Food truck operators as not fighting the changes and believe posting a letter grade will be good for business. Matt Geller, vice president of the Southern California Mobile Food Venders Association, said, “It brings more legitimacy to an industry that is fairly new in the mainstream.”
 |
 |
 |
 |
