Around the Web

-- The New York Times is no johnny-come-lately on climate change. One of its first distress signals was printed way back in '95 -- 1895, that is!

-- Here's something as rare as a "smoking permitted" sign: The Wall Street Journal's Hugo Restall spends an entire column waxing rhapsodic on the joys of smoking.

-- The birthplace of Ebenezer Scrooge moves to ban Santa Claus.

-- Be proud: Your tax dollars are financing post-Thanksgiving congressional vacations to Brazil.

-- Councilman James Oddo, fresh from his long, lonely and hard-fought battle to ban metal baseball bats, has another big idea.