The effort to keep it real comes in response to a union contract dispute between Gray Line and the guides on its double-decker buses, which could lead to about 150 human guides being replaced with recorded tours.

Tour bus guides are unionized?

A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.

[quote]We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us[/quote]

http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html

If it was my bus company, and the legislation went through, I'd put a big screen on either end of the bus and have some guy telecommute in from India to do the spiel.

kenmce - given the racial demographics of lower Manhattan's current workforce; that would be quite fitting.

And, there would be nothing wrong with it - New York is, above all else, a city where everyone comes from somewhere else. It is just the current large group of "newcomers" is from India.

And, as with groups who came before, they bring their foodstuff. Loads of "roach coaches" that have the most delicious Indian food park outside my place of work. And they beat the high prices of the company cafeteria and restaurants in the neighborhood - Yea free market!

Politicians should learn to let the free market be free. But, then they wouldn't have much to do or folks to boss around.

In New Jersey and Oregon, it is illegal to pump your own gas for safety reasons. Safety of gas station attendant employment, that is.

I hate passing through Jersey for multiple reasons, this is one of them.

Didn't know that about Oregon. I'll try not to pass through there, either.

I live in Oregon and the law has been that way as far back as J can remember. My dad told me they made it illegal because some guy sprayed himself with gas and set himself on fire at a gas station. I don't know if that is really why or if it's an urban legend. I prefer pumping my own gas, but can only do that out of state.

BunnyGirl I think you mean a group of ridiculously good looking male models who went to get orange mocha frapuccinos while listening to jitterbug getting into a gasoline fight and setting themselves on fire.

There are more horses in the US today than at the time of the Civil War, with its mainly horse-drawn armies. Although middle-age women are the ones running the horse industry (how do you think I meet women?) there are still plenty of male horseshoers!