corona – Techdirt (original) (raw)

DailyDirt: If You're Into Weird Beers…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are thousands of different beers in the world, so it would take a while to try all of them. And at some point in a hypothetical exhaustive test taste, you’ll run into the problem of how to define what a beer really is. If you’re not too picky, here are a few kinds of beer-like beverages that you might want to try.

• Heineken has diluted beer with lemonade and introduced this concoction to 23 markets. Adding a lime wedge to a Corona isn’t too strange for Americans, but a 50-50 mix of lemon soda and beer strays pretty far from beer. [url]
• If you’ve ever wanted to “just add water” to beer concentrate to get a beer, you can buy such a thing from Pat’s Backcountry Beverages. Pat’s BCB sells a portable carbonator and a couple of different beer mixes that take a few minutes to turn into 16oz bottles of freshly-made beer. [url]
• Starbucks is testing a beer-like beverage (without alcohol) called the Dark Barrel Latte. Supposedly, it mimics the dark, malty flavors of a Guinness… but you can get it with whipped cream and a caramel drizzle. Uh, yum? [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: alcohol, beer, beverages, corona, drinks, food, lemonade, reinheitsgebot
Companies: guinness, heineken, pat's backcountry beverages, starbucks

California City Looks To Evade Laws On Redlight Cameras

from the but-look-who-benefits dept

The city of Corona, CA is apparently looking to change the way it deals with redlight camera violations in an effort to avoid having to cough up some of the money it gains from redlight fines to the state and the county. They claim that this is to lower the fines that those caught by the cameras have to pay, and are positioning it as such, but it seems that residents aren’t buying it. Beyond trying to evade California laws on redlight camera violations, it actually means the city would get more cash from such violations, and has some other nefarious effects. As Jeff Nolan notes, it’s also of questionable constitutionality:

The problem here is that Corona is shredding the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the right to a trial by jury. By reclassifying a moving violation (a traffic offense governed by the vehicle code) to an administrative violation (governed by the appropriately named government code) Corona is doing something really nefarious. In order to appeal an administrative citation you have to admit guilt, pay the full fine, and then apply for a hearing in front of an administrative official, not a judge in a court. The city could simply deny all hearings for administrative violations or schedule them far out in advance knowing full well that they have your money, which you had to pay before you could appeal.

The original article also notes that the majority of such fines are not on people running redlights directly, but people doing rolling stops before doing a right turn on red — an action that very rarely leads to an accident. But it sure does dump lots of money in city coffers.

Filed Under: california, corona, redlight cameras
Companies: redflex