SOD THE KIDS I'LL STICK THEM ON THE ROOFRACK.IT'S ABOUT AS GOOD AN IDEA AS MOST OF THIS GROSS STUPIDITY COMING OUT OF THE US ANTIS /POLITICAL IDIOTS.I RECKON ALL ANTIS OUGHT TO BE CHECKED FOR BRAIN CELLS,SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY MISSING.
**My apology, - I posted this to the previous topic as well in error.**
Still more science through Press release.
According to the article: 'Michael Siler, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society in Utah and chairman of the Utah Cancer Action Network, said the U.S. Surgeon General has "really left no question that secondhand smoke is a dangerous poison."
Oh really?,...no question?
Sorry, I forgot, "The Debate is over."
(at least among the prohibitionist)
" Children who inhale it are at increased risk for complications ranging from sudden infant death syndrome to respiratory infections, severe asthma and delayed lung development, he said."
Will the BS ever stop!
BUT,...maybe there's hope;
"What a slippery slope we are starting down when we start mandating behavior in private places," said Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem. Rather than the state regulating smoking in cars, "we need to get back to personal responsibility."
There's that phrase again; "Personal Responsibility" Isn't that something that used to be relatively prevalant in America?,...you know,...before Tobacco Control became an incredibly lucrative industry unto itself?
Doc said; "If we're really talking about parents exposing their kids to a poisonous and deadly gas, then does it really matter what the perpetrator's intentions are? How does the fact that the person wants to quit smoking affect whether or not they committed an offense which warrants punishment?"
Here's a better question Doc;
How does the fact that the person DOES NOT WANT, AND HAS NO INTENTION OF EVER quitting smoking affect whether or not they committed an offense which warrants punishment?"
Is the fact they they are thumbing their nose at TC warrant the extraction of the children from the home simply because they don't buy into the TC propaganda?
Simply because they believe they have the right to smoke in THEIR car with THEIR children present?
(1) exposing a child to tobacco smoke is essentially holding them captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas;
(2) holding a child captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas is unacceptable and must be outlawed by the government; AND
(3) we must allow parents to continue to hold their children captive and force them to be exposed to the same deadly gas, only for far greater lengths of time, in the home.
#1, - BS!, open any window 1 inch.
#2, - BS!, back off and raise your own kids to be weak and feeble Anti-freedom jerks in your own image.
At least my kids would know the difference between minding your own business and forcing your point of view (no matter how warped or correct it may be) on other people.
#3, - ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, only the reality is that this is not the impenatrable cloud of smoke in the home that it is routinely portrayed to be. You know it, and so does everyone here.
Until you step up to the plate Doc, and explain in excruciating detail to anyone that might still listen to you, that this is not the gas chamber on some death row prison block this Anti-American, treacherous lunacy will only continue to escalate.
What kind of sick mind would promote such a law?
This warped Senator would subject these children, who have probably been raised to trust and respect the police, to their parents being ticketed by a police officer for "child abuse?" Right in front of them, a policeman is accusing their mom or dad of inflicting deadly harm on them.
How could a child possibly understand this issue?
How more intrusive into the parent - child relationship can you get? How far into the home does the state want to go?
Most likely, this wannabe Nazi views this as just a first step.
"(1) exposing a child to tobacco smoke is essentially holding them captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas;
(2) holding a child captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas is unacceptable and must be outlawed by the government; AND
(3) we must allow parents to continue to hold their children captive and force them to be exposed to the same deadly gas, only for far greater lengths of time, in the home.
I can follow arguments #1 and #2, but I don't then follow argument #3."
Or we could put it this way, which is a little less convenient for your position, doctor:
"(1) exposing a worker to tobacco smoke is essentially holding them captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas;
(2) holding a worker captive and forcing them to inhale a deadly gas is unacceptable and must be outlawed by the government; AND
(3) we must allow employers to continue to hold their workers captive and force them to be exposed to even deadlier workplace hazards such as oval racing, window washing, etc, as measured by the lifetime exposure risk (40/40), which is important to calculate and know..
I can follow arguments #1 and #2, but I don't then follow argument #3."
Once again, I believe this is simply about punishing the smoker for refusing to give in.
"...about the dangers of secondhand smoke" -- I wonder if even you believe this anymore Michael. You should have seen enough of the corruption in your "movement" by now to raise doubts.
What if SHS isn't at all dangerous? What if it is actually protective in small doses? Hmm... (referencing Gilster's post yesterday) What if early exposure to peanuts really DOES prevent nut allergies...? whoops!... Hmm.. what if we provided the best evidence we have (all of it), with no political agenda attached, and charged folks with making their own health decisions...
What a world that would be.
A little OT but nice piece..
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/
2...ng_ban_fo.shtml
Repeal smoking ban for sake of pals
"So now, four years after the smoking lamp was put out, if you will, the smoke has cleared. Even though I do not smoke, I am saddened that this prohibition (reminiscent of the one of yesteryear that took our drinks from our hands) was based on questionable scientific research and is, I believe, a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
What's more, I am saddened by the terrible reality that the ban has driven a wedge between smokers and nonsmokers. The price to be "smoke-free" has been paid for by the abrupt separation of friends and neighbors."
Clearly there is no pleasing Dr. Siegel. Criminalizing smokers just won't do. But here we have the tamest possible enforcement against car smoking, and he opposes that too. What he obviously wants is for the government to take no real action against this behavior.
There have already been tons of education campaigns on the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke. For any parents who are still so clueless and/or selfish as to smoke in an enclosed space like a car with children or infants a foot away, educating and encouraging clearly hasn't worked. The way to change this behavior is to put it into law. This has no negative consequences for anyone other than tobacco companies, who want to keep people mindlessly puffing away.
"So why would legislators aim to ban smoking in cars with children, but to allow parents to continue to expose their captive children to deadly smoke in the home." Why don't you ask them? I'll give you my take. Car smoking bans alone won't completely eliminate this health hazard for children whose parents smoke around them in the home. But laws don't have to make the world a perfect place to be justified, only improve conditions, and car smoking bans would do that for children: first by providing some immediate protection from smoking close by in a small enclosed space; and second by making it clear to parents that they shouldn't smoke around their kids. And they would regulate parental smoking in the one place where it can be easily regulated and enforced, when the car is out in full public view. Perhaps that's all the more reason to regulate smoking in a car -- they are setting a bad example for other parents, and with society's complicity.
The lack of a home smoking ban is not a valid argument against banning smoking in cars. This is a classic all or nothing argument: we can't completely eliminate the problem with this measure alone, therefore, do nothing. We do what we reasonably can, and car smoking bans would improve health conditions for children.
I can't defend Utah's decision to make this a secondary offense. But lawmakers can only implement what society is ready to accept, and perhaps that's as far as they feel they can reasonably go at this time given the circumstances in their community. It's still better than nothing. Or maybe they feel primary enforcement isn't needed, that it's enough to give police the authority to caution (ie, educate) parents.
From the mouths of the drug pushers themselves:
"Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation."
http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/
e...dhand_smoke.asp
Asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, middle ear infection, SIDS, eye, throat and nasal irritation, and perhaps a head start on lung cancer and heart disease. And all for what, so parents can conveniently get their drug fix when and where the urge strikes them?
It seems rather odd see a medical doctor work so hard to oppose any and all regulation of parental smoking, and to defend the notion of a fundamental right to smoke.
Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them? You too may receive forgiveness.
http://www.geocities.com/
corpora...rate_opposition
I know I'm a lay person. I don't really know the first thing about medicine. But here's how I see it: When one of my children complains of a sore throat, gets the sniffles, and develops a fever, and then another one of my children displays similar symptoms, then another child, then my husband, I learn that a neighbor is also sick, and suddenly MY throat begins to tingle, I look around and I say "Wow, there must be SOMETHING going around!" I don't need stats or peer-reviewed scientific articles touting the findings of recent studies to convince me, I CAN OBSERVE IT WITH MY OWN EYES!
The Doctor writes: "exposure to secondhand smoke in the home far exceeds exposure in cars, and is a much more important source of childhood health problems, including respiratory symptoms, respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma." So, where ARE these kids???? None of my children have any of the above listed illnesses, none of my smoking-friends' children are afflicted with these illnesses.. I only know ONE person with asthma, my mother, who never smoked, nor was she exposed to SHS, because my grandparents didn't smoke! I recently read an article that stated allergies to CAT DANDER was considered a leading "cause" of asthma in children. Come to think of it, my mother has 4 cats. Perhaps a feline-ban is in order.
Look, just give me a break, already. Kids get sick. Kids get ear infections. Kids get asthma. I have OBSERVED no connection between childhood illnesses and smoking. And I know alot of smokers with children. I can't imagine Bill or Cathy have any first-hand knowledge of smoker's health and/or the health of their families, considering how outwardly hostile they are to the smokers who visit this blog. Maybe if they would get their noses out of the magazines, blogs, & newspapers, and get out there and actually meet the people they "spout off" about daily, they might LEARN SOMETHING!!!!!
That goes for you too, Doc.
I just can't see how you can get around the fact that the doctor is crying foul here because the legislation in question addresses ONE "significant health threat" while ignoring what he considers a far greater danger.
But if that amounts to inconsistency, then banning smoking in bars while allowing ANY more dangerous work hazard to persist amounts to the exact same kind of hypocrisy.
So, doctor: Are you arguing that SHS amounts to the MOST dangerous workplace hazard that anyone faces? To avoid being inconsistent, should all smoking bans come complete with bans on anything more dangerous?
Remember, it's important to speak in lifetime exposure risk. 40/40. That's how smart people discuss such things. Like the health board in Amherst.
Moreover, doctor, it seems to me that ALA and CTFK and numerous respected health groups have come to a consensus on the car smoking ban. A while back you said that we must bow to such a consensus.
Weird how that doesn't apply anymore.
If you still disagree, perhaps it is true that these groups have not been sufficiently warned about the dangers of smoking bans.
Can you come up with the wording for a warning that would give them adequate knowledge of the dangers?
Barring that kind of effective warning, should there not be a ban on proposals to ban smoking?
Just for consistency's sake?
Cathy -- since you're here -- can you explain that bit about Dr. Romano's promotion of tobacco on campus, please?
Cathy,
Will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for not supporting a measure which actually would improve health conditions for them? (banning smoking in the home).
Leave my kids out of your arguments please. They have parents to protect them.
feel free to speak of "the children of America minus 4..."
Better yet -- gee! what an idea! Don't the vast majority of children of America have parents or guardians who are ALREADY making health decisions for them? So -- how about leave ALL of the children of America out of this -- because neither of you are responsible for any of them.
I apologize -- I missed the Romano discussion on the previous thread. Now I AM however, LMAO -- oh thanks Cathy -- I needed that laugh.
"And in the midst of all this, CAGE was organizing "monthly parties are aimed at the university aged crowd...alternating venues among the various nightclubs that have agreed to support CAGE’s efforts" in order to "popularize the name and mission of CAGE...and to remind every one of how much fun it is to simply, 'have fun'."
My God -- dismissal is too kind -- the man should be hung!
You know GDF, I almost agreed with you about leaving our kids out of it, but changed my mind and decided that I prefer you asking them about their health now and as a child. Go ahead and give them a complete physical from head to toe, take blood, make them urinate in a cup. I promise you won't find a thing! Try to tweak anything you can to make it come out favorable to your arguments TC. Be prepared to spend alot of hours on it though. You are going to be so sad when you find nothing.
I wish you would all leave the kids out of it though. In the car, in the home, on the street. They have nothing to do with this. This is between you and me. I did not harm my kids by smoking in front of them, in the car or in the house, at the ball park or on an airplane. As a matter of fact, I didn't hurt any of you in the TC crowd either. You know it as well as I do. How do I prove it? If I had, none of you would be around to say I did. By your own admission, it only takes 30 minutes of exposure and you would be dropping like flies and the only ones left on the face of the earth would be us smokers. By the way, the air we breathe is mine too whether it is in a car, a house, an airplane, restaurant, bar, oh you get the drift, I don't think I need to explain more do I?
Tobaccoscamola wrote:
"This has no negative consequences for anyone other than tobacco companies, who want to keep people mindlessly puffing away."
And:
"And all for what, so parents can conveniently get their drug fix when and where the urge strikes them?"
It seems your personalities have a difference of opinion on this one.
I agree with GDF.
I would add IMO: Kindly be specific as to the childern your talking about. If you can not name the persons you are talking about; to bad. Find another way to express yourself without being so inclusive of all. Thanks.
Anyone know where we are standing on the fund for Mr. Nuttal's surgery? Haven't heard anymore on that in the last couple of days. Hope this isn't going to go by the wayside as we do need to follow through with it.
"Will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for not supporting a measure which actually would improve health conditions for them? (banning smoking in the home)."
That's an interesting attempt to defind my position for me.
First of all, car smoking bans would actually improve health conditions for children and infants.
As for banning smoking in the home, from my previous post on this subject: "Yes home smoking bans would be the right thing to do. It may not be the practical thing to do."
I would support that measure if it were being proposed. But that's not the political reality today. Governments do what they reasonably can to improve living and health conditions, within the context of what is practical, enforceable, and widely acceptable to the general public. The lack of a home smoking ban is not a valid argument against banning smoking in cars.
http://www.geocities.com/
corpora...rate_opposition
That's an interesting attempt to define my position for me.
Cathy Bell - Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them? You too may receive forgiveness.
.........
Cathy Bell,
As an "alleged" human being, will you apologize to Canadians and Americans for promoting the philosophy of Fascism?
The only hypocrisy in Mike's posting is Mike's hypocrisy in advocating smokefree workplace laws for all adults in all workplaces, while simultanteously opposing any laws that protect children from tobacco smoke (including locations where levels of smoke pollution are the greatest).
Cathy,
Will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for not supporting a measure which actually would improve health conditions for them? (banning smoking in the home).
Michael Siegel
Damn Doc, I knew you were all in favor of invading homes too. What took you so long?
And, for the record, I'm with Diane. Go on, have at my son (if he'll let you that is, after all he IS an adult of 27 now).
According to you and Cathy, he should be dead. He's not, and neither are either of you.
That brings us once again, to my famous question: Please explain HOW us baby boomers have managed to survive as long as we have and as healthy as we have up to now where govt and corporations are panicking over our upcoming retirements?
Please explain also, HOW all the children of smokers, and baby boomers themselves, who have been constantly exposed to SHS for decades (54 years in my case) are healthier AFTER years and years of exposure compared to the "children" of today?
I put my money on the chemicals in all our food as being the REAL causes of all these so called problems of yours. They didn't exist years ago when we were more exposed to smoke, germs, etc.
I've been asking you this for over a year, and I'm STILL waiting for an answer. Or rather, I'm waiting for you to finally and once and for all, show your cards OR wake up and smell the coffee.
OMG, it pains me to say this..........really pains me to say this, oh God, help me...............ummmmm........I'll be back as soon as I take some drugs to settle myself and numb the pain it is going to cause me to say what I have to say.......
I feel your pain Lynda... I once had to say it too...
Lynda----"They didn't exist years ago when we were more exposed to smoke, germs, etc."
Add to that the victimazation (remember Bill was an "involuntary smoker")of the entire world, they have all been rendered mental cases. They refuse to seek help from mental health professional instead they ring up their friendly politicians to enact legislation.
.
I'll do it straight up Lynda.
I agree with Bill G. Doctor you are being hypocritical with this stance.
I will never agree with Bill G again.
Looking forward to Lynda drug induced statement.
Just more of the same BS. I am sick and tired of a bunch of elitist do-gooders nosing in my business. Please get a life of your own and stop trying to run mine and my families.
We all know SHS is a fabricated issue to force smokers to quit. We all know the history, first it was airplanes, then work, then resturants, bars, outdoors and now cars.
Next they'll be following obese people around to see what they are eating. They will probably try to have children who they think are not eating properly taken from their parents.
I am sure that some of these McCarthyist will try to take a smokers kid and claim child abuse.
Doc you fooled me, after your post the other day I thought you finally understood what the real agenda was. You know that the exposure required to harm someone takes years and years. And that is true only if you believe any exposure is harmful.
I agree with Lynda, what happened to all of us babyboomers. We should all be dead. Both my parents smoked and lived into their 80's. Do you dismiss Engstrom and Kabot?
rrgabe23---"Doc you fooled me, after your post the other day I thought you finally understood what the real agenda was. You know that the exposure required to harm someone takes years and years"
He seems to pretend that he has changed more times than I can count.
You are not the first to be fooled by this tactic.
.
Bill, did you ever respond to my previous post? I can't find it and I'm too lazy to look.
All, since we are all putting up money on the previous thread on a bet/challenge that we will never ever have to actually shell out money for...I'm in for a gazillion dollars.
talk about minding your own business. the following three links demonstrate what's wrong in the so-called 'developed world'. the first article is particularly bizzare. clearly people have far too much time on their hands.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB...3529930697.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_ne...ide/
7003325.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/19...e.ap/
index.html
i'm still shaking my head over the clothes line piece.
Lynda-
I was being sarcastic in my response to Cathy. I don't actually support smoking bans in the home. I was just demonstrating that her reasoning is flawed. Sorry for the confusion.
Cathy-
Now I think it's very clear that you have no respect for privacy or parental autonomy. You support a law that would ban smoking in the privacy of one's home if children are present.
You're certainly entitled to that view, but I think it is a dangerous intrusion into parental autonomy and privacy.
So far, even the most radical anti-smoking groups have not gone as far as Cathy in supporting home smoking bans.
But at least it should now be clear to our readers who we are dealing with and how fanatical her views are.
When you are beyond even Action on Smoking and Health, you are clearly in the realm of fanaticism.
The more spotlights Dr. Siegel aims at the hypocrisy of the anti-smoking movement, the brighter his own hypocrisy shines.
Dr. Siegel believes in public health over individual treatment. In his supreme arrogance, the good doctor has declared all of us to be his patients, whether we wanted to be or not.
He believes in the greater good over indivdual autonomy, and believes this trumps two of the most basic of human rights: the right to refuse treatment and the right to accept risk.
Here is where his hypocrisy and hubris reigns:
Parents should be educated about the effects of SHS and make their own decisions, even if it means that some will disregard the warnings and continue to smoke in the presence of children. YET its is NOT possible for business owners OR employees to evaluate educational materials about SHS, therefore their autonomy must be overruled. Their autonomy must be subjugated to such a degree that may must not even be able to choose risk reduction. They may not reject your will, by law, for their own good.
Those very same parents no longer have the option of disregadring your medical opinion when it comes to choosing where to have dinner or a drink, as you have removed the choice for them. You sent them home with the children.
Your argument that preventing parents from smoking in cars make no sense in light of greater dangers elsewhere is exactly what you have done with bars and restaurants. You advocate risk reduction for ALL the carcinogenic dangers faced by employees, except SHS. Cooking fumes, alcohol fumes, cleaning solutions, and hand sanitizer all pose a greater risk than SHS, yet you do not lobby politicians to eliminate those risks. You have no secret study of how many workers will die from these things. You will never testify at city hall about these, now that you have eliminated the SHS.
That is because you have not had a 20-year career in worker safety, you devoted yourself to tobacco control. If your goal was anything but tobacco control, you would move on the the other workplace hazards.
You cannot criticize others for their motivations when yours are so transaprent to everyone but yourself. Quite simply, you have no standing.
I don't know if the following has yet been posted.
“It's all fat, fat, and more fat. Now I'm obese."
http://reason.com/news/show/29238.html
Excerpts:
“Interestingly, the same study also found evidence that declines in smoking have contributed to rising BMIs, since people tend to gain weight when they give up cigarettes. Banzhaf failed to note this finding, perhaps because he's afraid fat people might start suing anti-smoking activists.”
“In the case of smokers, economic analyses indicate that taxpayer savings from less health care in old age and fewer Social Security payments (because of shorter life expectancies) outweigh the costs of treating tobacco-related diseases.”
This article is another beauty from Jacob Sullum. And one has to comment that it's all part of the f.....g busybody insanity taking over the world.
.
So wait, if I pump methane gas into a car with children, I get arrested for murder or attempted murder (depending on the results), but if I pump my car full of cigarette smoke, I get a ticket? Wow, two deadly gases, and yet, the punishment is not near equal. I would expect that if they are both deadly gases then they should be treated equally....Something seems a bit wrong with this picture. Unless, of course, it's not really a deadly gas...hmmm...If it is a deadly gas, then isn't every anti-smoker out there an accomplice to murder/child abuse since they haven't pushed for a complete ban? I mean, if I were to stand by while someone else pumped deadly gas into a car full of kids, and not called the police or tried to stop them, I'D get in trouble..yet anti's are perfectly ok to stand by while us smokers go pumping "deadly gas" into our homes and cars and only give us a ticket. Even though they claim we cost lives by the hundreds of thousands....Wow, you guys really suck at protecting anyone.
It's really funny how horrifyingly dangerous cigarettes and cigarette smoke is, but no one wants to ban it....just give you a ticket. Hmm...maybe it's just me, but does this strike you as horribly illogical?
Callous Cowbell,
So the effect of Dr. Siegel's work is to raise the ETS exposure of children at home:
http://news.scotsman.com/politic...fm?
id=341192007
http://www.ifs.org.uk/
publicatio...ication_id=3523
"In fact, children spend a lot more time exposed to smoke in the home than in a car. Even when the magnitude of the exposure is factored in, exposure to secondhand smoke in the home far exceeds exposure in cars, and is a much more important source of childhood health problems, including respiratory symptoms, respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma. So why would legislators aim to ban smoking in cars with children, but to allow parents to continue to expose their captive children to deadly smoke in the home?"
"By the way: there is a better way. And there are public health practitioners who are really sincere about trying to protect children from secondhand smoke. At least one state health department - the New York State Department of Health - is putting up $5 million to educate parents about the dangers of secondhand smoke and to encourage parents not to smoke around their children."
Boy, doctor, you're finally spinning away into Lulu Land!
As far as the first quote goes, don't you realize that, after the car, the next target IS the home? Therefore, these people aren't being hypocrites by not mentioning homes, as you state, they're simply being slyly incremental, which is not the same thing.
And as to the second quote ("At least one state health department - the New York State Department of Health - is putting up $5 million to educate parents about the dangers of secondhand smoke"), how in hell is that going to be effective when the 'dangers' can't be explained to bartenders? Or are you saying that parents are a special case, and that, yes, if bartenders are also parents, then the 'dangers' CAN be explained to THEM? I must say, that opens up the topic considerably!
And I defy you to muddy the conversation by saying that, well, acute effects are easily explained and understood, while chronic effects are not. Do you think anyone is going to buy that, doctor?
.
More Sullum:
http://reason.com/blog/show/122606.html
Why not address the part that concerns ventilation, doctor? You remind me of one of those cartoon characters who runs off a cliff and stays suspended in mid-air because he doesn't yet realize that he's run off the cliff.
Glance down, doctor; that's a rocky terrain you're seeing way down there, and if you had any sense you'd be even now screeching out eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah!
.
Sorry, doctor, I forgot:
"Iro asked whether I think that ventilation can solve the secondhand smoke exposure problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it can. The reason is that in order to remove the health hazard, you would have to eliminate the smoke immediately after it left the cigarette but BEFORE it reached the nonsmokers in the room. I don't see how that is possible." --Dr. Siegel, 03-15-07
At least no one ever accused the doctor of being a rocket scientist!
.
Doesn't this expose itself for what it's all about when it says you can duck the fine if you vow to intend to quit? Isn't forcing adults to quit the actual (c'mon-- admit it now) point?
It might have at least had a crack at consistency, if it asked for a vow to quit smoking around your kid, or a vow to attend a class about the "dangers" of ETS (that "education" the doc loves.) But why allow daddy to even smoke on the patio, when you can force him into 12 step lockstep abstinence, at least in your wildest dreams?
Cathy, bless her heart, adds this as part of the crime. That parents who smoke in cars (in supposedly plain sight)
are setting a bad example for other parents, and with society's complicity.
Here we pop open a glorious can of worms. Parents allowing their children to eat Fritos, setting a bad example for all other parents who might, then, allow their children to eat Fritos. Or how about, wait!--parents eating Fritos, right there on the beach blanket, utterly unpunished "with society's complicity!" Or parents drinking beer in front of their children, right there in the ballpark. Or parents, just walking down the street, being fat.
Clearly, it's the duty of every individual to conform to some ideal (Cathy's ideal-- her Object All Sublime) and live homogenized lives, not as individuals but Example-Setters, constantly haunted by "What will the neighbors think?" And if they aren't, then dammit, there ougha be a law!
DIANE
About the Nuttall fund. See my last post on the thread where it all started, Add to it what you will
:
Of all that Cathy wrote above, this is the scariest:
And they would regulate parental smoking in the one place where it can be easily regulated and enforced, when the car is out in full public view. Perhaps that's all the more reason to regulate smoking in a car -- they are setting a bad example for other parents, and with society's complicity.
To leave one's home, according to Cathy, is to have to surrender one's liberties. I see, now there are conditions attached to the constitutional protections afforded the people.
And I tell you what, we here have come to the consensus that having you walk and talk among the people sets a bad example and that you're allowed to do so makes society complicit in the danger you pose.
See, you don't have the market on determining what is and what isn't "harmful" and should be regulated under your conditions. And hey, for the sake of this game, I say you get what you want and we get what we want. How can you complain? I AM playing by YOUR rules, no? Build consensus and eliminate the problem. So let's get all the "problems" that way!
Doc,
It'd make things simpler if you just used the equavalent of html codes, for example:
[sarcasm] The air flow produced from having your car window open while you're smoking wouldn't be enough to clear the car of smoke, you'd need wind speeds of 300mph+ to do that [/sarcasm]
NB found out another fascinating fact from one of my (idiot savant) academic colleagues. The needle-less subcutanious injector pens actually "fire" their contents at about 340mph, so if the 300mph ventilation muppets get their way we wouldn't have to worry about second hand smoke through the lungs, just the skin...
Call me old fashioned, but when I accidentally burn the toast, I open the doors and windows to get rid of the smoke, I don't demand legislation against toasters.
The menace of secondhand smoke has been dealt with similarly for the last 400 years.
We now have new, shiny, electric car windows these days, I fail to see any problem.
Education, not legislation.
Mind you, if some one needs to be told to open their car windows to get rid of the smoke, should they be driving at all?
"Call me old fashioned, but when I accidentally burn the toast, I open the doors and windows to get rid of the smoke, I don't demand legislation against toasters."
Yes, Rose. One might assume that is plain old common sense, but you're dealing with Experts here, whose standard of exposure is zero.
Dr. Siegel and his ilk have decided that workplace safety is NOT the province of workplace safety experts, like OSHA.
No, no. It's the province of doctors and activists.
And private citizens' daily lives are their business, not ours. We're way too stupid.
"Mind you, if some one needs to be told to open their car windows to get rid of the smoke, should they be driving at all?
Rose | 09.21.07 - 4:57 am"
See Rose, they don't think we are smart enough for simple solutions. But the expert genusis' who are "driving" the way we live our lives just plow down the highway to a fascist state.
.
To Lynda----"I was being sarcastic in my response to Cathy. I don't actually support smoking bans in the home. I was just demonstrating that her reasoning is flawed. Sorry for the confusion.
Michael Siegel | Homepage | 09.20.07 - 10:44 pm "
But from his original article:
"... you're going to go home and imprison your child in the home, exposing them for hour upon hour to deadly and poisonous smoke, and there isn't a damn thing that the police officer can do about it."
Who is confused? I know I am. Or did you mean this to be sarcasm as well?
"
It is remarkable the real research behind such efforts is not revealed to the public the dollar values which sway legislators who always seem to be battling deficits. What we can refer to as profiting from predictable behavior. The bugets of governments are filled with revenue sources which include many so called criminal activities which enhanse budgets and the governments would be unwilling to part with easily. Parking tickets, Speeding tickets and clawbacks on child support payments are near the top of the list Cigarette taxes exceed the lot of them we also see along with a host of driving related tax grabs such issues as fines for not sorting your garbage and fines for not wearing helmets on a bicycle, drinking or not having enough life jackets in a boat at work climbing a ladder more than 10 feet off the ground could net you a 10,000.00 fine or washing your car is good for 500.00 Having too many unlicensed cars on your own property could get into thousands of dollars payable on demand.
What can we do, or not do, that the government can not collect for when they use our taxes to pay an advocacy group to make the crime a public menace?
The fines are not indicative these actions should be stopped thet would be devastrating to budgetary concerns the fines are simply taking advantage of human behavuior whioch can be identified and made into a budgetary item.
The auto deaslers continue to advertise their products with a sexy woman peeling out embracing a defiant and dangerous way of driving yet we punish any of their customers for doing what the product was advertised should be done with the product. City councilors in Toeronto recently chastized the Ticket packers for having their hands in their pockets insteasd of writting more parking tickets which is a reality which speaks for itself.
Now we have to look at the smoking in cars issue to add to cigarette revenues at the municipal level and the predominantly female segment of the population who will get the vast majority of these tickets many single moms by the numbers in lower income homes who although by the deadbeat dads campaign we were taught; could not raise children without financial assistance. Those women can now, if they go to work instead of drawing welfare and handing child support payments over to Gov coffers, can be forced again in another way, to send in the government's share of those funds.
The parrots will no doubt sell these financial impositions to cash strapped municipalities with predictable results, however the measure will not improve the lot of children or their parents who are aggravated and will be driven by that rage to smoke even more, quitting is not even a predictable side effect, simply less food on the table for those who might need it the most.
Being forced to attend smoking classes allots these people the distinction of being treated the same way we treat the clients of hookers who are allowed to attend John school in order to avoid a sex offense on their record. After the re-education if they are foolish enough to re offend they will then be handed stiffer sentences, when the prosecutor informs the judge they definitely knew better.
Granted what will happen to a single mom when they "re-offend" will not be decided by the courts at this point, however as this prohibition effort grows, we can't rule anything out now can we?
BTW Michael, I missed the research which links "casual exposures" to asthma. Can you explain the biology? I have been lead to understand there is no connection. The head of the Cancer society while banging his tambourine is also claiming SIDS is also linked to "casual exposures" despite the experts in SIDS research who claim this is not likely either.
It seems the line is being erased in respect to casual and chronic exposures, as fears are being promoted all out. Stop breathing smoke or you will find Hell on earth is the theological mantra. This would extinguish all perceptions of a smoker quiting, finding any benefit. More important it indicates most of those who lived in the 60s when 99.999% of the population were close to chronically exposed, by todays standards, will die of smoking related diseases, irregardless of what happens with prohibitionist efforts.
Rewriting the history books and movies is the only way we can avoid a tremendous loss of credibility among the faithful. I had almost forgotten efforts are also underway to quell any controversy along those lines as well isn't it?
Jalestra wrote: "So wait, if I pump methane gas into a car with children,I get arrested for murder or attempted murder ..."
Come on, I do this all the time and so do most children. It's called farting 
.
Thanks Walt. I should have gone back and found my answer before asking. That is what happens when you have 1000 things on your mind and no time to follow up on your own.
"The fact that the sponsor of this bill is willing to intervene in the private car because he sees it as a situation where parents are holding their children captive and forcing them to inhale deadly smoke suggests that he should also be willing to intervene in the private home, where children are exposed - to a far greater extent - to deadly smoke."
Or...
"The fact that Dr. Siegel is willing to intervene in bars because he sees it as a situation where bar owners are holding their workers captive and forcing them to inhale deadly smoke suggests that he should also be willing to intervene in other businesses, where workers are exposed to far deadlier workplace hazards."
Proof? Let's say, somehow, that your child faces a choice: Next Sunday, your child must either be a driver at a Nextel Cup race, dangle from a skyscraper to clean windows, or wait tables in the smoking section of a Denny's. If the child's safety were your foremost concern, which would you suggest as your first choice? Which as the second? Now extrapolate that out and assume that your child would have to do that job 40 hours a week for 40 years. Which job is the most dangerous?
If you answer that working at Denny's would be the most dangerous, then you could hold the doctor's position regarding workplace safety without being inconsistent in your position.
If, on the other hand, you acknowledge that waiting tables at Denny's would be the LEAST dangerous of these jobs, then you would be inconsistent if you adhered to the doctor's position regarding SHS, particularly in light of the argument he is making in this post. That is, the argument that it is inconsistent and hypocritical to demand government intervention in one case of severe public health risks, but not demand it in more severe cases.
You COULD, in fact, just embrace that inconsistency and argue that SHS is a special case. But you CANNOT be a proponent of strict logical consistency and hold all of the doctor's positions mentioned above.
Which would seem to be clear--even obvious--from the fact that on this point, Bill Godshall has found common ground with the posters on this blog.
"... you're going to go home and imprison your child in the home, exposing them for hour upon hour to deadly and poisonous smoke, and there isn't a damn thing that the police officer can do about it."
Sunz-yes, this is being sarcastic. The words are not my own. I was just taking the words of the sponsor of this measure and showing how, if he truly believes what he says, he would have no choice but to also support banning smoking in the home.
"Sunz-yes, this is being sarcastic. The words are not my own. I was just taking the words of the sponsor of this measure and showing how, if he truly believes what he says, he would have no choice but to also support banning smoking in the home."
Michael Siegel | Homepage | 09.21.07 - 9:45 am | #
You know very well that is coming. And it seems (to me) as though you are helping to pave the way. Callous is right when he points out that you have done the same thing by advocating smoking bans in bars/eating establishments. If a smoker can enjoy a meal, a glass of wine, AND A CIGARETTE in the warmth and comfort of their own home, why would they choose to spend considerably more to eat/drink at a place of business where they would be forced outside into the freezing cold to smoke? Most wouldn't. And you must know this.
I go back and forth with you, Doc. It's very difficult for me to get a definite read on your position. The more you speak about the "dangers" of parents smoking in the home in the presence of children far outweighing the dangers of smoking in cars/sidewalks/outdoor areas, the more I wonder if your ultimate goal really is to ban smoking in the home. You must know they will eventually outlaw smoking in cars with children present as well as outdoor smoking, and since you've already pointed out the only alternative is to smoke at home, (according to you, the WORST thing a parent can do) what do you believe will follow?
I really, really hope that I am wrong about this. I've acknowledged many times in previous posts that I am not the brightest or most educated person who visits this blog, so there's an excellent chance I'm drawing the wrong conclusions here & talking out of my *ss. If that is the case, then I sincerely apologize.
Dan, you fart, in the car, with your children??? Don't you know that's a deadly gas? There's no safe level of exposure to methane gas!
Ok, so I did forget that farting produced methane gas LOL
"... if he truly believes what he says, he would have no choice but to..."
Again, apply this to your own position.
What you are doing here is challenging people's motives. Which seems rooted in the much maligned "TC playbook" we hear so much about.
Not to defend people who support absurd measures such as this, but I do think that it is entirely possible to support legislation that does not do everything you desire. For instance, I think that a firmly pro-life legislator could support a law that made "partial-birth abortions" illegal, but left other abortions legal. The legislator in question might be making the best of what he considers a bad situation. Or using the legislation as a wedge to force further discussion.
The same is true of firmly pro-choice legislators. In a country where abortion is currently illegal, such a legislator might support a bill to make abortion legal--even if that bill only allows abortions in the first trimester. Even of that legislator supports the legalization of all abortions regardless of gestational chronology, he could clearly support the bill as a step in the right direction, and surely could not be taken to task for adding measures he knows would doom the bill's chances.
Is this hypocritical? Or is it politics?
I would cetainly support a measure requiring bar owners warn bartenders in writing if that measure would eliminate the need for a ban. Even though I think requiring bar owners to tell anybody anything is ridiculous, and that such a warning would amount to telling many people what they already know.
Would supporting that make me a hypocrite? Or would it make me a pragmatic legislator?
If anyone here is unwilling to accept the full ramifications of his position, doctor, I think it might be you.
That's a really good point, Sam. There are many people who support abortion, but wouldn't get one themselves (I'm one). They aren't pushing abortion, they are simply in favor of others having the CHOICE. I know you referred to this in the opposite direction, but it's good to point out to SOME people, that you can support a measure you don't agree with and not be "pushing it".
On a separate note, I'd like to point out that as an adult, I could really care less what example I set for other adults. If they are too stupid to have their own minds, I don't really see that as my problem. I'm not raising anyone but my kids, especially other adults.
I was thinking about Philip Morris when I happened on this on Forces.
Good old PM is once again providing lots of laffs over its flat footed machinations. More foolishness from the "stupid company?"
The reflexively anti-tobacco San Francisco Chronicle is in high dudgeon over a $6-million grant from America's largest cigarette manufacturer to the professionally anti-tobacco University of California. What sets off alarm bells for the paper and its anti-tobacco clients is the grant documentation itself, a 200 hundred page proposal that is heavily redacted. Missing information includes the names of the researchers conducting the research, the nature of the research itself and a purpose or goal for the research.
"I am flabbergasted," said Stanton Glantz, a University of California professor (degree in mechanical engineering) and pharmaceutical company shill. "If they are so ashamed of what they are doing that they have to hide it, they shouldn't be doing it."
Considering his nasty slanders against smokers, propped up by his own shoddy "research", shame is obviously a concept as foreign to Glantz as common sense is to Philip Morris. Glantz's outrage could be due to chagrin with all that tobacco money flowing into the university some of it should have made its way into his pockets. He, after all, has gotten rich off tobacco money himself.
I was considering the company and the quote that Ms. Bell shared with us from their website. I ahave come to the conclusion that PM will do or say anything to protect their share. They have sold out their customers. having said that we should sell them out. Everyone that smokes Marlboro or any other PM product should switch. Hit'em in the pocket. PM controls around 50% of the US market. If 10% switch it might wake them up.
Yeah, I know it's OT but...
Childhood Obesity Epidemic a Long-Term Challenge
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/
2007...qSiVzzcIuPVJRIF
"Today, more than one in three children and adolescents in the United States -- some 25 million kids -- are overweight or obese, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which recently announced an unprecedented effort to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. The Princeton, N.J.-based philanthropy said it plans to spend at least $500 million over the next five years on public health efforts focusing on kids and families in underserved communities.
It's the foundation's largest commitment ever. While the foundation has spent roughly as much in the area of tobacco over the years, "we never made the scale of that commitment up-front and public like we have with this," said Dr. James S. Marks, senior vice president and director of the foundation's health group."
********
Now that they're after the kids directly, I don't doubt that "denormalization" and flat out abuse will be the preferred methods for social engineering (especially given the recent second-hand obesity news). Obese kids (and by whose standards?)will soon be accused of harming their peers with their obesity... And so on. Oh, it's all just too scary, isn't it? I'd like to get these folks in front of a mirror. I'll bet they have no reflection.
Representative Davis,
This paper shows that casinos thru ventilation and filtration can now make their indoor air cleaner than the air outdoors. Tests done at the Bellagio Casino found that RSP concentrations in its air ranged between 12 to 58 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3). Outdoor air that clean would receive one of the EPA's two best outdoor air quality ratings: Good or Moderate. Less than half of this RSP was found to be tobacco-related. Belagio Casino air is well within the range of 100 or fewer (ug/m3) of tobacco-related RSP that the 1986 World Health Organization guidelines said would be of "limited or no concern". No wonder the American Cancer Society wanted to get rid of the Chicago ventilation exemption. Any
Illinois business that can get its indoor air this clean and still allow
smoking should get an exemption from the Illinois smoking ban!
http://www.americangaming.org/as...APER_7-7-
06.pdf
Sincerely,
Bill Hannegan
*whew* I’m so glad everyone actually figured out what I was gagging on saying. Thank goodness for that because there isn’t a drug to make that go down easily at all and the thought of actually having to say it had me heaving…..hehehehehe
Doc, sarcastic or not, IF you truly believe that grown adults who CHOOSE where they work and socialize are in extreme danger IF someone smokes in those places, therefore banning smoking in them in necessary; THEN you MUST hold the same belief regarding cars and homes. Parental autonomy is no more precious that any other person’s individual autonomy. A parent’s right to choose what their child is or isn’t subjected to is no more precious than my own personal right to choose for myself. SHS cannot be a serious health threat to grown adults choosing to be in a smoking environment that has better ventilation than most homes, and then only a slight increase in risk for “ear infections” to small children in cars and homes, most homes not having commercial ventilation systems, with NO choice in the exposure. THIS is where your hypocrisy is crystal clear. There is NO avoiding it. You cannot possibly make both statements and expect to be taken seriously. One of those statements is a lie. WE know which one is a lie (one MIGHT have some possibility to some some person with a weak immune system). Can you even admit it? To yourself even?
Doc, Bill and Cathy.........I'm still waiting for one of you to explain how I AND my child managed to survive 24/7 exposure to SHS (we both grew up in smoking homes). Neither of us has cancer, respiratory problems of any kind, allergies, ear infections, or even ingrown toenails. So, IF you are correct about this "poisonous and deadly gas" kindly explain why I am still healthy and alive at 54 and how my son is the same at 27.
Backtalk: I really, really hope that I am wrong about this. I've acknowledged many times in previous posts that I am not the brightest or most educated person who visits this blog, so there's an excellent chance I'm drawing the wrong conclusions here & talking out of my *ss. If that is the case, then I sincerely apologize.
Unfortunately Backtalk, I don’t believe you are wrong. Prohibition IS the goal, but they haven’t the gonads to say it let alone do it, so they implement these step by step bans to achieve it sneakily through the back door. This method is just slowing getting people used to stricter regulations in their lives until they reach a point where you can literally strip them of their rights and they won’t notice. Then there’s the issue of an outright prohibition making even the sale of cigarettes useless since there’s NO PLACE left to smoke, and cities, states and feds LOSE all that delicious cigarette tax money they are all so addicted to.
The fact that no one but us sees the shredding of the constitution in all this is frightening. Because we all know it is not stopping with smoking. Every single special interest out there will be demanding THEIR preferences be forced on all, until the women in Iran and Saudi Arabia will be more free that any American. We see it happening already, just look at the links we are finding for different things. Clotheslines for chrissakes, and then those same complainers of clotheslines complain about global warming.
Our children are dying in a war to “free” others, just so they can come home and be shackled by a bunch of nosey-body do-gooders who are too lazy to think for themselves.
Prohibition IS the goal, but they haven’t the gonads to say it let alone do it, so they implement these step by step bans to achieve it sneakily through the back door.
Well--I think they SAY IT. "We want a truly smoke free XXX, but we can't do it right now because it's not politically feasible...but ONE DAY...the oppressed majority of non-smokers, plucky underdogs that we are, will overcome the...(shudder) smokers! This is a small and significant but necessary step..."
I think any time someone asks the nonsense question "This world would be better off without tobacco, wouldn't it?" it reenforces that view--that they are RIGHT.
The problem is, if the "progress" they want happens too quickly, they'll have nobody to listen to them about what neeeeeeds to be done next.
This excellent artilce on Progressivism will leave Bill G screeching for Uncle Woodrow!!
http://townhall.com/columnists/
M...gressives_again
~snip~
"Nonetheless, it is important to know what a progressive is since that is now the preferred term of the left. It comes from the Progressive Era. One of its intellectual and political leaders was President Woodrow Wilson. The Progressive Movement's chief aim was to centralize power by eliminating those pesky little concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances and escape the confines of a fixed constitution so that America could progress"
"Wilson believed that the Constitution should be a living document. As Wilson stated: "All that progressives ask or desire is permission to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle." The outside master, then, was the fittest among us whose societal beliefs could be inserted into the constitution. Wilson thought certain men were able to "embody the projected consciousness of their time and people" and that these men whose "thought[s] run forward apace into regions whither the race is advancing" would master progress."
If the last sentence is NOT Ma Bell and WeeeeWilly I don't know what is.
.
Doc, -
Perhaps you've answered this in the past I don't know so I'll ask anyway, or ask again.
Since clearly, people continue to smoke inspite of the warnings currently printed on cigarette packs; How would YOU change those warnings? What would YOUR best effort be in the verbiage used to convince me that I shouldn't smoke.
Keep in mind the rather limited amount of space available in package size, and anything under 6 point type will be unreadable by an average adult without bi-focals. (at least in my case)
What would meet your criteria of "sufficient" warning under your definition of what that might mean?
Also remember, you're trying to reach the broadest audience possible with this, so keep in mind that most smokers don't read ANYTHING that appears on the package itself, and are creatures of habit,...(pun intended),..and simply buy, open, and smoke.
Or is it like the "No Safe Level" BS? Is there No Sufficient Warning?
Is that your true position?
[-X
Sam M,
I may have missed it, but have you considered the risks in NASCAR are not only from crashing, but also from spending hours driving around in extremely dense traffic with cars getting a couple of miles per gallon without pollution control devices?
As for NASCAR, I think that is where Benny Parsons contracted lung cancer. He spend his whole life breathing exhaust fumes. He said he smoke until he was in his thirties,yet he developed small cell cancer at 65.
I wonder how many fans are exposed on race day??? Come on Cathy,Bill, Doc, what about the children at the races? When do we ban NASCAR?
What about the children in major cities exposed to diesel and gasoline exhaust?What about the county fair where diesel engines run the various rides?
Don't forget about the guy spraying his garden or yard for insects and weeds. The overspray probably drifts next door to where little Johnny is playing.
And lastly what about the over 1 million avoidable deaths in the US. You know what it is?? ABORTION. Do you really care about the children?
The artilce she is refering to here was posted last week by Sam M or Great Scot.
Yo-Yo science and the dangers of coincidence
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot....dangers-
of.html
~snip~
"Growing numbers of people are finally getting wise to pop science and those studies that claim something is dangerous one day and healthy the next'
.
Excellent point about NASCAR and pollution. I wonder what the impact of breathing in all those fumes would be if they raced 40 hours a week for 40 years?
I might also add that in the case of smoking bans in cars, the doctor is incredibly keen on pointing out that kids are not actually in cars enough to have all that great of a health impact. But he seems profoundly less keen on considering the time element when calculating the risk SHS poses to bartenders.
Yes, children are in cars less than they are at home. But bartenders are at work far less than accountants are at work. So different safety standards would seem to apply.
Either the time exposure is a crucial factor in crafting public policy regarding SHS exposure or it isn't.
So doctor: Is it?
If it is, in what way should the time factor come into play regarding bartenders, whose workplace time exposure is widely accepted to be a tiny fraction of that experienced in other professions?
In what way have you taken that crucial element into account regarding bartenders? Or maybe you disagree with the BLS and contend that bartenders don't typically have different career paths? Or maybe you think time exposure doesn't matter? (In which case you need to revisit your position on the ban in cars.)
Or maybe time exposure matters with regard to kids in cars, but does not matter with regard to bartenders. In which case I wonder of you could explain why?
I apologize; I missed a thought.
Again:
"Iro asked whether I think that ventilation can solve the secondhand smoke exposure problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it can. The reason is that in order to remove the health hazard, you would have to eliminate the smoke immediately after it left the cigarette but BEFORE it reached the nonsmokers in the room. I don't see how that is possible." --Dr. Siegel, 03-15-07
With that, Dr. Siegel brought in all the nonsmokers. That is, he brought in PATRONS, who stay away or freely enter, as well as staff. Would he, then, have the jackboot of government come down upon the necks of bar owners to save patrons as well as staff from this dreaded thing? Because if that's what he's saying, then we're talking about something entirely different than intense 40/40 long-term exposures.
Please clarify, doctor. And you still haven't answer the question of staff exposure on patios.
.
OK, I give up...
This is getting Stupider and Stupider.
http://www.jahonline.org/article...001826/
abstract
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
rele...70920072058.htm
Secondhand Smoke Increases High School Test Failure, Study Suggests
Science Daily — Teens exposed to secondhand smoke at home are at increased risk of test failure in school, suggests a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Then why are they not banning anyone still contageious with an infectious disease from being in a car with a child?
This would probably be a good reason to ban daycare centers too. Kids pass all sorts of cintageious illensses among themsleves there.
But here's something interesting, please visit
http://
www.associatedcontent.com...of_smoking.html
where Stanford University purports to explain the risks of smoking in a car.
"Stanford Explores Health Risks of Smoking in Cars
By Regina Sass
Imagine driving in your car with the windows rolled up. Now imaging you or someone else in the car smokes just two cigarettes. Research from Stanford University that in just two hours you would have exposed yourself and anyone else in the car to particle levels that way exceed the safety standards set by the government.
They did many tests under different conditions because the type of car and different conditions can bring up different results.
One of the co authors of the report, Wayne Ott, is a CEE consulting professor. He also worked for many years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He makes a point that states are considering banning smoking in cars when children are in them. As a matter of fact, Arkansas passed just such a law last year.
"Our hope is that this research can lend rigorously acquired and analyzed, objective scientific information to this debate," Ott says.
The other researcher is Neil Klepeis, who is a consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) at Stanford. These two, along with Paul Switzer, who is a statistics and earth sciences Professor worked together on the project.
The aim of the research was to measure smoke particles that measure less than 0.0001 inch, or 2.5 millionths of a meter, in diameter. These particles have been deemed an extremely high health risk by the EPA because they are so small that they can penetrate deep into the tissue of the lungs. The EPA has established a rate of 35 millionths of a gram per cubic meter (35 μg/m3) on average over a 24-hour period to be dangerous.
The team used four different cars for the research. They did the test in one of two ways. One way was to release tracer gas into the cars and the second was to have volunteer smokers puff away as they drove the cars.
They charted the results taking into consideration different situations such as whether or not the fan or air conditioner was on, the speed of the car and whether or not the windows were closed.
By taking all of these variables into consideration, they were able to calculate the air change rate, which is the number of times an hour that the air in the car is replaced by fresh air.
It is this measurement that determines what the concentration of particulates is in the car's air. This is the first time that any research has studied this on as large a scale. They took over 100 measurements of the air change rate using different speeds, vent settings, air conditioner settings and window positions.
These are the results that they got when they drove a 2005 Ford Taurus at 60 miles an hour under different conditions.
The first test was done with the front passenger window opened 3 inches, with no air conditioning. the particulate concentration reached a maximum of only 608 μg/m3 while a cigarette was smoking
The second test was done with the windows shut and regular, non circulating air conditioning. This time the maximum concentration rose to 1,394 μg/m3.
The third test was done with the windows closed and the air conditioner maximum. The peak concentration hit 3,808 μg/m3.
When they averaged it out for the 24-hour period, they calculated that in a car with the windows up and the AC on maximum a passenger would be exposed to 21 μg/m3 per cigarette. The passenger would exceed the 35 μg/m3 EPA cutoff by 20 percent after just 2 cigarettes.
Even with a car's windows open, the levels were higher than they were in a similar previous study of California bars, before the smoking ban went into effect"
Note all tests are done with the windows closed. Please also note, that when the windows were opened, the air only got as bad as in a pre-ban bar in CA, which it seems to me, a kid could endure for an hour or 2 once a day.
When they say after smoking 2 cigatrettes that the EPA fine particulate limit would be exceeded by 20%, they must assume none of the smoke from the first cig leaked out.
Stupidity wins again! Dave K
What about segregation Doc?
"Smoking Permitted", or "Non-Smoking" businesses.
Neither being mutually, or completely exclusive meaning;
A smoker could still visit a non-smoking establishment and simply not smoke for the duration of their visit there, while a Non-smoker that recognizes the alledged risk of entering a Smoke friendly environment could still do that as well.
As long as the Smoker doesn't smoke in the "Non-Smoking" venue, and the Non-smoker doesn't whine about the smoke in the "Smoking Permitted" venue, BOTH would likely be welcomed in the respective environments.
It would be a lot like the real world,....you know,....before the BAN.
Would segregation work for you?
This of course means you would have to give up on sufficiently warning people that you know better than they do about the risk THEY PREFER to take.
Are you capable of that?
Can you simply let people make their own choices?
Live their own lives without interfering?
Science Daily — Teens exposed to secondhand smoke at home are at increased risk of test failure in school, suggests a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Since the majority of today's school aged kids are NOT subjected to SHS at home, then I have to claim this is another piece of BS UNLESS of course they are insinuating that the minority of smokers have the majority of the children.
HOW do they come up with this crap? Better yet, HOW do they even get it published anywhere?
Someone better tell Einstein that he was really a retard and not a genius.
Would segregation work for you?
This of course means you would have to give up on sufficiently warning people that you know better than they do about the risk THEY PREFER to take.
Are you capable of that?
Can you simply let people make their own choices?
Live their own lives without interfering?
Nope, he's already stated that there was no way to properly warn the employees, let alone the general public, therefore the employees should not even have to think about making such a choice. Hence, total bans.
Zero tolerance has NO room for reasonable OR compromise.
Lynda,
I'm not sure how they arrive at their results. My best guess would be that "low-income" teens tend to score lower, and "low-income" people tend to smoke. Therefore, SHS causes teens to have low test scores. I suspect that many of the connections drawn between SHS and health/developmental problems in children, could also be attributed to social/economic status. Or maybe smokers are so selfish, lazy, and inconsiderate, they just don't care enough to help their children with their schoolwork.
Gilster,
I heard about that study on the news last night. Secondhand smoke effects teens test scores. It came a day after it was reported that a diet of candy, cookies and chips effects their test scores too. Gee's, my son scored 1470 on his SAT's, and now I am wondering what his scores would have been had I never smoked around him. My daughter's test scores was only in the 1200's so I guess this study must be true. So, let's give them the grant money they earned on this one!
This is really too sad to be true.
"Now I think it's very clear that you have no respect for privacy or parental autonomy. You support a law that would ban smoking in the privacy of one's home if children are present."
What law are you refering to? Because I don't see it anywhere.
Dr. Siegel has sunk to a new low here (or perhaps an old one). He knows his position opposing car smoking bans doesn't hold water -- that they would indeed have a positive impact on health conditions for children -- so he wants to change the subject and talk about home smoking bans instead.
Note the ad hominem attack:
"So far, even the most radical anti-smoking groups have not gone as far as Cathy in supporting home smoking bans.
But at least it should now be clear to our readers who we are dealing with and how fanatical her views are.
When you are beyond even Action on Smoking and Health, you are clearly in the realm of fanaticism."
Which is to say that since I would support banning smoking around children in the home, I must be a fanatic, and therefore my position on car smoking bans must be fanatical and wrong as well.
In fact, there are no home smoking bans to support. What I actually said is that if home smoking bans were actually on the table -- if they were at this time practical, enforceable, and widely accepted by the general public -- I would support them. That's not fanaticism, it's common sense, despite Dr. Siegel's attempts to define my position for me.
I would suggest that it is Dr. Siegel who has demonstrated "who we are dealing with".
First he baits me and puts the words in my mouth, then attacks me for it. This is truly disgusting, there's no other word for it.
Michael Siegel demonstrates that he is pure spin doctor at this point. He has clearly lost his moral centre, assuming he had any to begin with.
It's sad and disturbing to see a medical doctor work so hard to oppose any and all regulation of parental smoking (even with the tamest enforcement imaginable) and to defend the notion of a fundamental right to smoke.
Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them?
Cathy, when, as an slanderous accuser, will you provide proof of all the various accusations you have made against people and groups that do not warrant it? Um..said proof has to be proof that would be accepted in a court of law (go ahead and collect it, at the rate you're going you'll need it), and not the questionable, and egotistical, results of your own website.
It's pretty pathetic when your own proof is simply your own pathetic meanderings. I must assume that since you can't link any other source, that this is, of course, all in your twisted little mind.
He knows his position opposing car smoking bans doesn't hold water -- that they would indeed have a positive impact on health conditions for children
I’m sorry, where again is your proof that this ridiculousness will improve anyone’s health? Better yet, tell me why I am still healthy and alive after being exposed 24/7 (one of my parents and all my relatives smoked) to SHS and then took up active smoking myself 39 years ago. How is it my son, with 2 smoking parents, also constantly exposed (24/7) to SHS is also still alive and healthy as a horse and now 27 years old. YOUR statement doesn’t hold water and all us smokers prove it, since OUR children are healthy and it seems to be the children of non-smokers who are so bloody ill.
In fact, there are no home smoking bans to support. What I actually said is that if home smoking bans were actually on the table -- if they were at this time practical, enforceable, and widely accepted by the general public -- I would support them. That's not fanaticism, it's common sense, despite Dr. Siegel's attempts to define my position for me.
Someone really needs to get out more. They have already started on home bans, and not only when children are present. A couple in Colorado are now court ordered to NOT smoke in their own condo, because their neighbor dislikes the smell and considers it a nuisance. And some judge agreed. The community they live also has a no smoking anywhere on the property (even in your car in the parking lot) rule.
Belmont California is also working on instituting a no-smoking law for all multi-unit dwellings, children or not.
Considering how you claim to not hate smokers, I notice you are totally prepared to back ANY law that discriminates against them, including barging into their own private homes. You need to get a life and stay the hell out of ours.l
Dr. Siegel doesn’t have to define your position, you make it quite clear all by yourself where you stand.
And WHERE is the proof the doc asked you for regarding Romano and Cage? We are all waiting for that (and the rantings at your site do NOT constitute irrefutable proof).
Weekend read:
Of interest, in that we have often noticed the antis quest for perfection in health above all else.
http://www.americanthinker.com/
2...mer_left_1.html
~snip~
"Starting in the Sixties, the Left began to deny the Reality Principle, leading to a kind of mass neurosis. Whole Leftist philosophies, like post-modernism, explicitly deny that reality is real. Terms like "Reality Principle" and "mass neurosis" have therefore lost popularity; but they capture the essence of the problem. "
"Start with the false certainty that youth is eternal, and you end up undermining responsible parenting and kids. Assume that cultures are easy to change -- and not the treasured heritage of a hundred generations -- and you end up importing millions of dangerously indoctrinated militants into your peaceful land."
.
Then according to Dr. Siegel, that judge in Colorado is a fanatic. He should therefore be removed, should he not? Dr. Siegel, have you notified the proper authorities that there is a fanatic on the bench in Colorado?
The city council of Belmont, California must be a bunch of fanatics too. And the same must be true of the citizens of Belmont, since they support that law. Clearly mass hysteria has set in. Shouldn't the National Guard intervene to restore order?
Of course not Cathy,just ship every anti to Devils Island BYE BYE.
Clearly mass hysteria has set in
Yes it has indeed. Just read your own rantings dear.
Until YOU provide all the answers and proof that has been asked of you here on this blog over the past several months, I suggest your check your attitude and sarcasm at the door. YOU are in NO position to talk about anyone else.
And for the record, as far as I'm concerned, yes, you and Bill are definitely fanatics.
The Doc isn't far behind you, unless he finally wakes up and realizes that being on the side of freedom does not mean trashing your beliefs, it just means utilizing common sense and tolerance.
And while I absolutely despise and hate what you believe and say................I tolerate and respect your right to say it and believe it. Something you are incapable of doing.
WOW people really can change;
"Which is to say that since I would support banning smoking around children in the home, I must be a fanatic, and therefore my position on car smoking bans must be fanatical and wrong as well."
Thanks for being honest Cathy. I am delighted you finally took a long hard look in the mirror and you seem almost prepared to take the next big step and seek professional help.
Congratulations and we will all hope you get well soon.
Gilster wrote: "Science Daily — Teens exposed to secondhand smoke at home are at increased risk of test failure in school, suggests a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health."
I guess that explains why I graduated from high school as the number one science and math student. Not only did both my parents smoke, but I started smoking at 15. Thoughout college smoking also helped me think; better concentration and I remember reading articles to this effect about 25 years ago. Is it not funny how the smoke of today is different from back then?
Doctors do not look out for people's health, People do.
Doctors are trained to diagnose and heal.
Researchers investigate and epidemiologists theorize.
Health relevant information is a right of autonomy in a person's right to chose, what is best for themselves.
Not their neighbors choices or their neighbors choosing for them, a person has a right to choose.
Is that so hard to understand Cathy, even through the purple haze?
Absence of complete and honest information voids a contract and leads to compensation.
The Health scare cult should make note, because one day the MSA settlement is going to be seen as chicken feed.
Dave K. points out the following study:
http://
www.associatedcontent.com...of_smoking.html
While I was not able to gain access to the full text of this study, the study is suspect because it was funded by Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute. The actual study can be found here, at least the abstract:
http://www.nature.com/jes/journa...s/
7500601a.html
I am not willing to pay for the full article. However, from the abstract they measured “We made more than 100 air change rate measurements on four motor vehicles under moving and stationary conditions; we also measured the carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particle (PM2.5) decay rates from 14 cigarettes smoked inside the vehicle.” Note that vehicles exhaust CO and measuring fine particles means nothing more then that. They measured particles in the air regardless of source (if I am wrong here please correct me).
Problems with the study based only on the abstract include no control. What was the CO and particle levels outside the vehicles? They may report them in the study, I do not know. False premise, they never studied what the habits of smokers are while driving a vehicle. While I do not have a study, anecdotal observation indicates that smokers DO NOT smoke in vehicles with the windows closed. Also anecdotal, while smoking in a car with windows cracked, side stream smoke usually immediately exits the vehicle. It is only the exhausted smoke from the smoker that stays in the vehicle.
Again from the funding source only and just reading the abstract, it is my assessment that this is maybe not science by press release, but a study that was purposely designed such that the outcome was known before the study was even conducted. It was designed with the end result a press release in mind funded by a source known for its bias as most as the tobacco industry is accused of. If someone can provide a full copy of the article please do. However, this as it stands it junk science at it best.
Kevin,
I can’t recall the case law this quote originated from. But it seems applicable. IMO.
“Fraud taints with immorality and illegality everything it evil shadow touches”.
tobaccoscamalysis wrote about Dr. Siegel’s comments: “Note the ad hominem attack:
"So far, even the most radical anti-smoking groups have not gone as far as Cathy in supporting home smoking bans.
But at least it should now be clear to our readers who we are dealing with and how fanatical her views are.
When you are beyond even Action on Smoking and Health, you are clearly in the realm of fanaticism."”
Clearly Cathy, you do not know what an ad hominem attack is. “You are a fanatic and therefore any you say should not be listened to” is an ad hominem attack, but attacking your views is not. The two are not the same. The doctor is saying you have fanatical views. Not the same thing.
Cathy,
What about the 1 million children destroyed by abortion every year in the US??? These are real numbers, they were not magically generated by a computer in Maryland.
If you are not a hypocrite and really care about children you should be appalled that 1 million lives are destroyed ever year.
This is easily the most preventable cause of death in the US and probably Canada too. Is this issue not PC? Is that why you ignore the death of 1 million children a year?
But, we know that the children mean nothing to you and your associates. You use it as a means to an end.
tobaccoscamalysis wrote about Dr. Siegel’s comments: “Michael Siegel demonstrates that he is pure spin doctor at this point. He has clearly lost his moral centre, assuming he had any to begin with.”
Now that is what I call an ad hominem attack. You are attacking the doctor personally.
You continue: “It's sad and disturbing to see a medical doctor work so hard to oppose any and all regulation of parental smoking (even with the tamest enforcement imaginable) and to defend the notion of a fundamental right to smoke.
Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them?”
Now again that is what I call an idiot. The doctor is an MD and is suppose to ADVICE his patients not support laws that take away personal liberties. If his patients choose not to listen, that is their choice. After all the patients are the customers, if they do not like his advice they are free to choose someone else. That is a lot different then and MD trying to force everyone to comply with his personal beliefs with government force.
"Research from Stanford University that in just two hours you would have exposed yourself and anyone else in the car to particle levels that way exceed the safety standards set by the government."
This struck me as funny. Government standards are a giant flag to wave when exceeded, but when NOT exceeded, such as in a smoking bar, the standards are insufficient and should be superceded.
Personally, I do not smoke with the car windows closed, no matter how hot or cold the weather. Perhaps somewhere there are smokers who do that, so how about legislating the windows, not the smoking. (snort)
I also have to wonder if the car was moving when they tested the air with the windows open. When my car is not moving, at a red light for example, I hang my cigarette out the window. I do this for two reason: to flick ash and to let the smoke out.
While the car is moving, I smoke with my LEFT hand, so the smoke will be sucked out the window, and to keep it farther from my passenger's face. I also blow my smoke straight out the window.
Testing smoke behavior in a stationary car with stationary cigarettes will not give an accurate measure of how smoke, or the smoker, behaves.
tobaccoscamalysis wrote: "The city council of Belmont, California must be a bunch of fanatics too. And the same must be true of the citizens of Belmont, since they support that law. Clearly mass hysteria has set in. Shouldn't the National Guard intervene to restore order?"
I hate to admit it, but for once I agree with you. I will go as for as to say the state of California is a bunch of loonies. After in which other state would they lift a park smoking ban for a weekend so people can smoke pot.
It is amazing the hoops these researchers will go to in order to spin the research. With the windows up and the fresh air ventilations turned off they measured 6.6 ACH. However they play down the fact that the air change rate improved 8 - 16 times! This is tremendous and puts the ACH rate at 52.8 - 105.6 In other words the air it turned over 1 - 2 times per MINUTE. In the 10 minutes it takes to smoke a cigarette, the smoke during the 1st minute is 1 / 4000 its original concentration. The best they can do is measure a smoke blossom from a momentary flare and this is most likely only IF the monitor is down wind.
From the abstract I also see no reference to ACH rates with the vent system turned on. Why do the select the least likely scenarios in order to maximize their finding? I have yet to see someone smoke in a car with a hermetically sealed environment such as this, yet these yahoos love to jerk the population off with this sensationalism.
Lastly, they are fall back to the EPA "OUTDOOR" standards rather then the "OSHA INDOOR" standards, and they must have thought TWA means Teeny Weeny Analytical skills and not Time Weighted Average.
It should also be noted that the EPA doesn't measure air quality from a point anywhere NEAR a major traffic artery, much less from a vehicle ON the roadway, as most major cities would fail air quality standards.
While I haven't read the paper, only the abstract, I'd be willing to wager, the automobile used would be an expensive model with little road noise (caused by air exchanges), and fairly new. But I have to wonder would they exceed EPA air standards for methane if they broke wind in their test vehicle.
More less than objective research from a group with an agenda, what more can you expect.
Oh btw Cathy, you still haven't shown that exposure from smoke in a car is anywhere as significant a risk as riding in a car. I keep reading in the papers day after day of all the children that have died as a result of being a passenger in a motor vehicle due to traffic accidents, but I've yet seen a single account where a child has died because someone was smoking tobacco in a car.
Excuse me but the 1/4000 should have been 1/4000 - 1/250000
backtalk-
Just to make it very clear, I oppose the idea of banning smoking in the home in order to protect kids from their parents' smoking. I suggest that smoking needs to be banned in homes only to point out the hypocrisy of the position that smoking is so bad that it needs to be banned in cars, but not in homes.
Lightning Boy-
If I were "in charge," I would remove the warning labels from cigarette packs completely. I don't see the point of warning people AFTER they have already made the decision to smoke. I don't think that seeing the warning on the label is going to cause anyone to stop and say: "Oh, I better not light up. This stuff is bad for you."
Cathy-
I am not trying to argue that you are a fanatic. I would not make any comment about your own personal integrity or character. I think you are a fine individual, obviously very concerned about health, and that is highly commendable and admirable.
However, I am arguing that your arguments and the positions that you are taking are fanatical. Maybe I should take the time to explain what I mean by fanatical. What I mean by fanatical is "demonstrating uncritical enthusiasm or zeal."
I find your arguments, as well as your attacks on me and my moral character, to be evidence of uncritical zeal. I think that the idea of banning smoking in the private home in order to protect children from just one of many potential health risks is a fanatical idea - one which is based on uncritical enthusiasm regarding protection of children's health.
The city council members of Calabasas are not fanatics. However, the policy which they adopted is fanatical, because it exhibits extremely uncritical thinking about public policy development.
Honestly, I do think that the agenda of advancing smoking bans in the private home to protect children is a fanatical agenda. That's what I'm trying to point out to people.
Sam-
I am not trying to malign anyone's intention. What I'm going after is their arguments and justification for their proposed policies. Someone supporting a ban on smoking in cars may well have the very best of intentions. I actually share those very same intentions - to protect the health of children. But unfortunately, the argument that smoking should be banned in cars, but not in homes, just seems hypocritical to me. I don't think one can justify that position.
Now you raise the point of whether one's argument is truly hypocritical, rather than just politics. I completely agree with you - if a policy maker states that he believes all smoking around children should be banned, but simply thinks that it is not politically feasible to pass a home smoking ban, then that is not a hypocritical position. It is simply a politically feasible position.
For example, I don't view Cathy's position on this issue as being hypocritical at all. She supports car smoking bans, but she also expressed that she would support home smoking bans as well. There's no hypocrisy there. She is entirely consistent (fanatical in her arguments, but consistent).
If the Utah legislators had said: "Look - we feel that smoking should be banned everywhere around children, but we don't think it is politically feasible to ban smoking in homes at this point in time," then I would have a lot more respect for their position. I would not view their position as being hypocritical.
However, that's not what they said. What they said is that smoke is a dangerous, toxic poison and that smokers are holding their children captive and forcing them to breathe in this poisonous gas.
To say that, and then merely propose to ban smoking in cars, is indeed hypocrisy.
But you're right - if they said that this is a poison and children should be protected from exposure to it in all venues, then there would be no hypocrisy.
As usual, Walt H. provides a very insightful comment. Forcing a child to ride in a car as a passenger is by far putting that child at risk much more than smoking in a car. In fact, the risk is literally life-threatening. As Walt H. correctly points out, we can count the number of children who have been killed needlessly because their parents insisted on taking them out in the car. But it is not clear that there is any indication of exactly the morbidity that could be prevented by banning smoking in cars.
Now Cathy would of course come along and argue that while smoking in cars is unnecessary, driving a car is necessary.
Not true, actually. In many cases, there is no necessity to drive a car. What if a parent could just as easily walk to a location, but instead, decides to drive? Clearly, that is unnecessarily putting the child at an increased risk of injury.
The point is simply that once one goes down the road of supporting a law that merely protects children from an increased risk of harm caused by a parental decision or behavior, then there is a whole slew of parental behaviors/decisions which would also have to be regulated (to be consistent).
The only way to get out of this would be to argue that smoking in cars is a far greater threat than any of these other parental behaviors. But that simply is not the case. There are far more risky decisions that parents make every day that truly do put their kids at great risk of significant harm. But Cathy and other car smoking ban supporters don't seem to be calling on regulation of those parental decisions.
And to beat Cathy to the punch, it is manifestly untrue that all of these parental behaviors involve "necessary" activities or activities which uniquely (compared to smoking) bring social benefit.
I don't have any problem with people supporting a car smoking ban. I just think they haven't (at least yet) sufficiently thought through the justification for this position and thye have not yet offered a compelling response to my arguments. I'm not saying that a compelling response is not possible. I'm only saying that I haven't heard that response yet. And believe me, I'd love to be able to hear such a response. It would take me out of this completely unenviable and uncomfortable position of having to oppose car smoking bans.
Dr. Siegel wrote: "Cathy-
I am not trying to argue that you are a fanatic. I would not make any comment about your own personal integrity or character. I think you are a fine individual, obviously very concerned about health, and that is highly commendable and admirable."
Then I will say what the good doctor can not. Cathy you are a zealot who is worthy of contempt. My definition of fanatic is someone with a very small mind who is a robot incapable of critical thinking. There was nothing commendable and admirable for the Nazi hatred of the Jews as there is nothing commendable or admirable about your obvious hatred of smokers or those that do not support your agenda. You are incapable of rational thought or even reason. Like most religious zealots you are incapable of thinking but can only BELIEVE. And belief is just that, backed up by no substance.
I read this blog from time to time...in part because I respect and admire Dr. Siegel for his stand on certain issues as well as his integrity. I don't agree with his position on second-hand smoke, but I do believe his motives are sincere. But also, I enjoy reading this blog because of the comments and links provided by his readers. It's good to know that there are so many free-thinking individuals out there. Listening to the main stream media, I was beginning to think there was no hope for our free society.
I don't understand people like Cathy and Bill. If a person enjoys a LEGAL PRODUCT, who are Cathy and Bill to judge, discriminate against and ostracize that person? I'm sure each of them engage in extremely annoying habits that the majority of people would choose to disassociate with. Cathy's smugness for one...I couldn't stand being around her for one minute. Just reading her rantings causes me stress and probably contributes to my ulcers (because I know there are MANY more people just like her who actually have power and influence). Bill's tobacco-chewing habit is personally offensive to me. Just the site of a spit cup with tobacco juice and saliva in it makes me want to vomit. But, I won't ever try to do anything about people with personalities or habits that are offensive to me...I will just avoid them (or, if I really like someone who has a habit that's offensive to me, I will put aside my bias and accomodate them as much as I can).
The majority of restaurants are now smoke free. Even restaurants that still allow smoking will most often provide a non-smoking area to accomodate that customer base. For the FEW remaining smoking venues, why can't the anti's just leave them be?? A business owner will do what he/she needs to do to attract customers. Since the prevalence of smoking has declined, it stands to reason there will be plenty of choices for non-smokers...dictated by market demand. At least Dr. Siegel believes he is protecting workers' health...people like Cathy and Bill are trying to force their own lifestyle choices on others.
Also, if tobacco is in fact the deadliest substance on earth, why is it legal? How can our representatives continue to tax smokers if tobacco is such a toxic product? If our representatives believe what they are saying, passing a tobacco tax is the equivalent of allowing unsafe products to be made with no restrictions or guidelines...the more dangerous the product, the higher the tax. The politicians who support tobacco taxes, while professing that "tobacco is deadly," are ALMOST worse than the anti's! A bunch of hypocritical mobsters.
The reason I take this so personally is that this smoking issue is dividing people. I enjoy socializing with friends and family who smoke (and I even enjoy smoking a few cigarettes with them from time to time)...but there are people who are non-smokers, who USED to be my friends, that will no longer associate with smokers. It doesn't matter that a smoker is courteous (most are). If someone has a hint of smoke on their clothing, my non-smoking ex-friends will shun them. If a bunch of non-smokers huddle together, they chastise smokers...thinking everyone thinks as they do if they are a non-smoker (by the way, I may be a non-smoker, but I don't tolerate bigotry in any form and won't allow them to spew hatred against smokers...at least in my presence). People who previously had no problem with tobacco smoke are now severing friendships and ties with smokers...for the most part, they are a bunch of hypochondriac sheep who react to every study published about environmental "hazards."
The anti-smoking movement is hateful and evil. It possibly began with good itentions, but it's become a tyrannical and scary thing...which Dr. Siegel should be most proud of disassociating himself with.
First of all, Dan is correct -- I doubt that study is worth $30 plus whatever membership fees are involved.
The first site, Associated Content, bills itself as "The People's Media Company". It kind of conjures up images of Mao. Anyone else getting that visual? Blech!
At the AC website, this article accompanied such pollyannaish dribble as "How to Teach Your Brain to Outwit Pain" (oh puleeze, not that rehashed bs again) and "How to Relieve Stress Through Homeopathic Methods" (Aromatherapy figures high on this list).
Unicorns, spells, and incantations. They're there for the taking. If they put out a printed copy of this rag you can probably buy it in the check-out line of your supermarket, along with those other fine examples of journalism dealing with such metaphysical conundra as alien abductions, children resulting from human-animal matings, and other studiously scientific articles.
Then we move on to the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute. Ok, I must admit, it elicited a laugh, conjuring up images of flight attendants who, in their spare time, when not pushing carts up and down the aisle of a plane, don lab coats and goggles and slave devotedly over bunsen burners.
Although it looks like FAMRI doles out some grants for primary research, they do seem to be a one trick pony. It's impossible to deny a bias there.
You have to love the way they summarize the abstracts of their awardees, implying a foregone conclusion. When you read the abstracts, however, you see that the proposed work doesn't support the premature assertions of ETS related causality...they are works in progress, and not all of them are concentrated on ETS (although most are).
I hate to see whatever good work comes from such research to be tainted by hyperbole before the research is done.
But that does seem to be the way everything is done these days. Please pass the puke bucket.
"Iro asked whether I think that ventilation can solve the secondhand smoke exposure problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it can. The reason is that in order to remove the health hazard, you would have to eliminate the smoke immediately after it left the cigarette but BEFORE it reached the nonsmokers in the room. I don't see how that is possible." --Dr. Siegel, 03-15-07
To satisfy Dr. Siegel, you would need to treat each smoker with spot ventilation/filtration. It could be done. Check out these photos and substitute smokers for welders.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/w...com/
welding.php
Cathy vs Michael in an ethical and integrity sense was discussed in detail by a fanatic in his own right.
http://www.theaustralian.news.co...30-
7583,00.html
Sorry Cathy, you really do need to read the memo.
As for the car particulate they missed a few vital points first how do they verify what they were testing actually was originating from the cigarette and not simply the dust acumulation inside the vents and rising from the carpets
Bill H. writes: "To satisfy Dr. Siegel, you would need to treat each smoker with spot ventilation/filtration."
Dr. Siegel is incorrect. You would have to separate smokers from non-smokers and create negative pressure in the smoking section. This is equivalent to wind blowing west to east but having the non-smoker on the west side. Have you ever seen smoke travel in the opposite direction of wind (upstream). That will not happen. Creating a similar environment indoors is possible. Developing an indoor ventilation system maybe expensive or not depending on how it was designed. But if Dr. Siegel is against outdoor smoking bans an indoor system could be developed that is even better then having to breathe outdoor pollution. However, if TC ever would acknowledge that fact it would take away from their ban agenda. Personally, while I consider the risk to other people statistically insignificant, I think if TC were ever to define what safe is (besides there is no safe never, which is a farce) it could be accommodated. Businesses would complain about the costs, but hey smokers and non-smokers could be happy.
"Oh btw Cathy, you still haven't shown that exposure from smoke in a car is anywhere as significant a risk as riding in a car. I keep reading in the papers day after day of all the children that have died as a result of being a passenger in a motor vehicle due to traffic accidents, but I've yet seen a single account where a child has died because someone was smoking tobacco in a car."
Walt H. | 09.21.07 - 8:11 pm | #
I pointed this out a few weeks ago. I suggested that the "do-gooders" who are soooooooo concerned for the saftey and well-being of OUR children, might consider devising and/or advocating safer modes of transportation for our kids, like, oh, I don't know,.. WALKING when possible? If smoking in the car with a minor present is akin to child abuse based on the purported risks associated with SHS, what do we say about any parent who would drive their child to a destination that is within walking distance, in light of the PROVEN risks of bodily injury and/or death while traveling in an automobile? No way is this about protecting the children!
Julie, that was extremely well said.
I'm just sorry that those types of descriptions of "whats-goin'-on" seem to fall on deaf ears so often. But like you, I am encouraged by the knowledge that there are people in the world like the other posters on this blog.
Rational Lake St. Louis Aldermen may have crafted model workplace smoking legislation:
http://
suburbanjournals.stltoday...z_smoke.ii1.txt
http://
suburbanjournals.stltoday...erito_1.ii1.txt
Di Pierri presents a fairly extensive and well-referenced argument around the general area of smoking/childabuse in his "Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger...", a very thoroughly researched resource foe anyone up for reading beyond myself, Sullum, and Oakley
Dr. Siegel: the only reason they're focusing on cars and not on homes is because they're afraid they can't quite get away with taking children outright from functional nuclear families yet. Wait five years (if that).
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
Doctor:
Nope. No way you can slide on this one. You are now saying that it all comes down to what people are "saying." Or, here are your exact words from a few comments back:
"But you're right - if they said that this is a poison and children should be protected from exposure to it in all venues, then there would be no hypocrisy."
But that's not what you said in your original post. Your original post made no mention of words or statements or the lack thereof. It took ACTIONS and the lack thereof as DIRECT EVIDENCE OF HYPOCRISY. Remember your three-point rhetorical flourish, the last of which was:
"(3) we must allow parents to continue to hold their children captive and force them to be exposed to the same deadly gas, only for far greater lengths of time, in the home."
Who said that? Did anyone? I doubt it. I seriously doubt it.
I think what you did was took their position and took it to what you considered a logical conclusion. But it is no different, in any way, than proposing a ban on SHS to protect workers while ignoring obviously greater threats to workers.
So if statement number 3 is "what they are saying," then you are clearly saying:
"(3) we must allow employers to continue to hold their workers captive and force them to be exposed to threats far greater than SHS."
In what way is it different?
Bill Hannegan wrote: "Rational Lake St. Louis Aldermen may have crafted model workplace smoking legislation:" links not included but are in Bill H's post.
Now this is where things should have gone. To bad more politicians are not like him. A compromise should have been reached before zealots got involved (Cathy anyone?).
Cont. from above;
Second because particulate from outside the car is involved, surface investigation of the particulate needs to be considered, because there are a great many particulate sources outdoors which vary in so many ways the only way to get to the meat of what is cigarette smoke and what is not is to identify all suspects before jumping to conclusions. The investigators seemed to be unaware of the inexpensive instrumentation now available to separate the suspect sources.
http://
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov...tid=1350952#R17
"Surface properties of aerosols in the Mexico City metropolitan area have been measured in a variety of exposure scenarios related to vehicle emissions in 2002, using continuous, real-time instruments. The objective of these experiments is to describe ambient and occupational particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations associated with vehicular traffic and facilities using diesel vehicles. Median total particulate PAH concentrations along Mexico City’s roadways range from 60 to 910 ng m−3, averaged over a minimum of 1 h. These levels are approximately 5 times higher than concentrations measured in the United States and among the highest measured ambient values reported in the literature. The ratio of particulate PAH concentration to aerosol active surface area is much higher along roadways and in other areas of fresh vehicle emissions, compared to ratios measured at sites influenced more by aged emissions or noncombustion sources. For particles freshly emitted by vehicles, PAH and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations are correlated because they both originate during the combustion process. Comparison of PAH versus EC and active surface area concentrations at different locations suggests that surface PAH concentrations may diminish with particle aging. These results indicate that exposure to vehicle-related PAH emissions on Mexico City’s roadways may present an important public health risk."
It seems like a huge volume was produced from the two cigarettes much more than one would expect. It also seems almost an amateur effort to not realize inhaling clean air still results in Carbon Dioxide and the more people in the car the more will be produced by the act of breathing alone. Further the injection of more air resulted in much higher concentrations, which seems to defy all logic.
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~dpower...r/resp/
main.htm
http://www.lenntech.com/carbon-d...bon-
dioxide.htm
"Carbon dioxide is essential for internal respiration in a human body. Internal respiration is a process, by which oxygen is transported to body tissues and carbon dioxide is carried away from them.
Carbon dioxide is a guardian of the pH of the blood, which is essential for survival.
The buffer system in which carbon dioxide plays an important role is called the carbonate buffer. It is made up of bicarbonate ions and dissolved carbon dioxide, with carbonic acid. The carbonic acid can neutralize hydroxide ions, which would increase the pH of the blood when added. The bicarbonate ion can neutralize hydrogen ions, which would cause a decrease in the pH of the blood when added. Both increasing and decreasing pH is life threatening.
Apart from being an essential buffer in the human system, carbon dioxide is also known to cause health effects when the concentrations exceed a certain limit.
The primary health dangers of carbon dioxide are:
- Asphyxiation. Caused by the release of carbon dioxide in a confined or unventilated area. This can lower the concentration of oxygen to a level that is immediately dangerous for human health.
- Frostbite. Solid carbon dioxide is always below -78 oC at regular atmospheric pressure, regardless of the air temperature. Handling this material for more than a second or two without proper protection can cause serious blisters, and other unwanted effects. Carbon dioxide gas released from a steel cylinder, such as a fire extinguisher, causes similar effects.
- Kidney damage or coma. This is caused by a disturbance in chemical equilibrium of the carbonate buffer. When carbon dioxide concentrations increase or decrease, causing the equilibrium to be disturbed, a life threatening situation may occur."
BTW;
ETS dangers from acute exposures and likely long term exposures as well, in cars and homes seems to indicate this guy is a fanatic.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/3...t/328/7455/
1519
Dan, Dr. Siegel didn't dispute that smoking sections or rooms can contain smoke thru negative pressure. He said that when smokers and nonsmokers are mixed together in an establishment, the nonsmoker might breathe some of the smoke on its way to ventilation/filtration.
Julie,
Although I haven't seen Bill G. say it, I can almost certainly guarantee you he doesn't use smokeless tobacco.
The reason he's such a cheerleader for smokeless, in my opinion, is that if smokers switch to smokeless he won't ever have to deal with SHS.
Bill Hannegan wrote: "Dan, Dr. Siegel didn't dispute that smoking sections or rooms can contain smoke thru negative pressure. He said that when smokers and nonsmokers are mixed together in an establishment, the nonsmoker might breathe some of the smoke on its way to ventilation/filtration."
I stand corrected about Dr. Siegel's beliefs. In that case of mixed company it would be difficult. However, if the cealing to a room was high and the negative pressure was straight up it could minimize exposure to non-smokers. But in order to do so would possibly require holes in the floor. What is needed is getting away from "no safe level" to what a safe level might be.
Dan wrote: I guess that explains why I graduated from high school as the number one science and math student.
Add me (Masters) and my brother (DVM) to the list, both smokers and children of a smoker.
I have an uncommonly high number of uncles and nephews (their children) which are MDs and were mostly heavy smokers. I remember one of their marriages where they invited their friends (mostly MDs): you wouldn't have been able to cut through the smoke, even with a knife, in the restaurant after dinner.
Dan, my letter to Illinois Representative Davis argues that the Bellagio has met EPA, WHO and Chicago clean/safe air standards:
Representative Davis,
This paper shows that casinos thru ventilation and filtration can now make their indoor air cleaner than the air outdoors. Tests done at the Bellagio Casino found that RSP concentrations in its air ranged between 12 to 58 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3). Outdoor air that clean would receive one of the EPA's two best outdoor air quality ratings: Good or Moderate. Less than half of this RSP was found to be tobacco-related. Belagio Casino air is well within the range of 100 or fewer (ug/m3) of tobacco-related RSP that the 1986 World Health Organization guidelines said would be of "limited or no concern". No wonder the American Cancer Society wanted to get rid of the Chicago ventilation exemption. Any
Illinois business that can get its indoor air this clean and still allow
smoking should get an exemption from the Illinois smoking ban!
http://www.americangaming.org/as...APER_7-7-
06.pdf
Bill Hannegan
Dan, please read the American Gaming Association paper and see that the antismokers blocked attempts by OSHA to set a permissible exposure level to ETS in order to preserve the legislation of smoking bans by city councils and state legislatures.
The car study should also have used the control of driving the same cars--same model, same year-- down the same highways/ roads, under the same sets of conditions on the very same day, with no smoking going on. And also, as Dan said, should have measured the outdoor air on the particular day of the study.
It should also have compared the particulates and CO from... sitting around a fireplace, a table with burning candles, or walking a city street.
Further, it appears that for maximum "effect," they've reported and made much of the momentary peaks of the least likely scenario. Objective, this is not.,
Doc says-- by way of defining "political" thinking:
If the Utah legislators had said: "Look - we feel that smoking should be banned everywhere around children, but we don't think it is politically feasible to ban smoking in homes at this point in time," then I would have a lot more respect for their position. I would not view their position as being hypocritical.
However, that's not what they said.
Well of course that's not what they said. Had they said it, it wouldn't have been smart political thinking. Since the home-ban agenda hasn't yet been properly seeded by extravagant propaganda, they know that it won't fly so they won't admit to their real agenda till it stand a chance to succeed, That's politics, Doctor.
Or, to put that another way: they aren't hypocrits, They ARE politicians.
Kevin said that doctors aren't supposed to run your life, but just diagnose and heal.
Them days are long gone, and with them, people's willingness to go to a doctor at all, not to mention the bond of trust. Nor is this phenomenon restricted to smokers. People won't go because they don't want to take statins, or bone-builders, or any of the solely preventive drugs that may actually not be needed but are suddenly de rigeur and whose side effects are denied. They also don't go because they don't want to take tests that are usually unneeded.
The friendly GP from our childhoods is gone-- the one who said, it's the flu, go home with some chicken soup.
:
“backtalk-
"Just to make it very clear, I oppose the idea of banning smoking in the home in order to protect kids from their parents' smoking. I suggest that smoking needs to be banned in homes only to point out the hypocrisy of the position that smoking is so bad that it needs to be banned in cars, but not in homes.”
If a person says that smoking should be banned in cars but not in the home, that’s hypocrisy. If a person says that smoking should be banned in cars but doesn’t even mention homes, how is that hypocrisy?
“Lightning Boy-
"If I were 'in charge,' I would remove the warning labels from cigarette packs completely. I don't see the point of warning people AFTER they have already made the decision to smoke. I don't think that seeing the warning on the label is going to cause anyone to stop and say: "Oh, I better not light up. This stuff is bad for you."
Does that make any sense, doctor? Why remove a warning label that is a constant reminder of the dangers of smoking?
“Cathy-
"I am not trying to argue that you are a fanatic. ... However, I am arguing that your arguments and the positions that you are taking are fanatical. Maybe I should take the time to explain what I mean by fanatical. What I mean by fanatical is "demonstrating uncritical enthusiasm or zeal."
So let me get this straight. Just because a person holds fanatical opinions doesn't mean that person is a fanatic. When, then, is a fanatic not a fanatic? Remember, the definition of fanaticism is “fanatic outlook or behavior,” and the definition of a fanatic is someone “who is marked by excessive and intense uncritical devotion.”
“The city council members of Calabasas are not fanatics. However, the policy which they adopted is fanatical, because it exhibits extremely uncritical thinking about public policy development.”
Hitler wasn’t a fanatic. He just exhibited extremely uncritical thinking about the Jews. According to your definition, doctor, there are no fanatics, only people who hold fanatical opinions!
“I don't have any problem with people supporting a car smoking ban. I just think they haven't (at least yet) sufficiently thought through the justification for this position and they have not yet offered a compelling response to my arguments.”
Then you don’t have any problem with people supporting a smoking ban in the home to protect children; it’s just that they haven’t sufficiently thought through the justification for this position. Well, as I understand it, their justification is child abuse. But even though you'll admit to adverse acute effects of secondhand smoke on some children, you don't believe it rises to the level of a trigger for state interference in the family unit. Well, we don't think that your "dangers" of secondhand smoke to bartenders rises to the level of state interference in private businesses. Moreover, back in July, didn't you suddenly uncork the dangers of ETS to asthma sufferers when the criticism of your position seemed about to sink the Siegel boat?
“I think that the idea of banning smoking in the private home in order to protect children from just one of many potential health risks is a fanatical idea - one which is based on uncritical enthusiasm regarding protection of children's health.” So Cathy engages in fanatical thinking but she isn’t a fanatic.
“The city council members of Calabasas are not fanatics. However, the policy which they adopted is fanatical, because it exhibits extremely uncritical thinking about public policy development.”
So Hitler wasn’t a fanatic. He just exhibited extremely uncritical thinking about the Jews.
Call me stupid and color me puce; I just don’t get it. And could you PLEASE tell us EXACTLY what you have in mind when you talk of "public policy development"?
.
"Cathy-
"I am not trying to argue that you are a fanatic. I would not make any comment about your own personal integrity or character. I think you are a fine individual, obviously very concerned about health, and that is highly commendable and admirable." -- Dr. Siegel
"Once again, I would ask Cathy: if you have the evidence to support your contention, then please provide it. Otherwise, you are going to have to stop accusing CAGE of being a tobacco front group. At least on my blog." -- Dr. Siegel
Doctor, I think we all like you a hell of a lot better when you talk straight talk and not that namby-pamby crap.
.
Dan and Bill,
I was in a small restaurant (ten tables) that used a system like the one you're talking about.
Air intakes in the ceiling pulled the smoke straight up from the table. Returns were at floor level.
Even smoke blown sideways from the mouth was immediately drawn upwards. It didn't even reach the next table. The owner was quite proud of it. This was approximately fifteen years ago.
With improved technology like charcoal filters, such systems are probably even more effective today.
Dr. Siegel claims he he not a zero-tolerance man, but it's hard to reconcile that with "before it reaches a non-smoker."
Michael;
"
The point is simply that once one goes down the road of supporting a law that merely protects children from an increased risk of harm caused by a parental decision or behavior, then there is a whole slew of parental behaviors/decisions which would also have to be regulated (to be consistent).
The only way to get out of this would be to argue that smoking in cars is a far greater threat than any of these other parental behaviors. But that simply is not the case. There are far more risky decisions that parents make every day that truly do put their kids at great risk of significant harm. But Cathy and other car smoking ban supporters don't seem to be calling on regulation of those parental decisions.
And to beat Cathy to the punch, it is manifestly untrue that all of these parental behaviors involve "necessary" activities or activities which uniquely (compared to smoking) bring social benefit."
Since when did freedom or autonomy carry a restriction of social benefit vs necessary behaviours???
Necessary or not If a person chooses to break the Guinness record for standing on their head they are free to try, and what does that have to do with the price of tomatoes in Brazil?
The wings of a butterfly starting a hurricane is only theoretic and you have as much chance of documenting it consistently as you would have proving; ETS harms anyone, let alone everyone consistently. The theoretic is growing beyond the confines of it's own britches. To support a belief any of this involves fact or science is rediculous and should be described exactly as "fanatical". For the "Fan" following, no more credible than a fan club however much more dangerous than any pandemic we know.
The statistical reliability of the EPI process should speak volumes as to the trust we should have in the so called facts produced, in support of abusive efforts targeting others. EPI is an entirely poor method of gathering reliable information let alone in judging probability beyond a proof a risk may exist at all.
A direct measure of risk sent out in a news release, to confuse what was actually measured in public perception, interferes directly with autonomy and freedom to choose, that should be a point to be lobbied in legislating criminality.
From a purely Canadian perspective;
The installation of a political science professor as "head scientist" at Health Canada and assigning a hand picked ethics committee who openly sing the praises of his tutelage, will do far more to protect Health Canada, than will ever be gained in protecting the Health of the general public they advise.
This is a good discussion about whether or not putting a child in a car is "necessary."
If that's the standard, I propose a ban on animated films at any movie theater with a parking lot.
Animated fils are clearly aimed at children. But seeing Snow White is clearly not necessary to growing up. I never saw it.
So clearly, anyone taking his child in a car to go see an animated film is endangering his child for something that is not necesary. So allowing movie theaters to include parking lots is obvioulsy encouraging reckless behavior.
And I might also add, regarding "hypocrisy": As far as I ca tell, the doctor still supports the smoking ban in Madicson Square Garden. To protect workers. But has not lifted a finger to protect other workers there from far greater threats. Like the boxers who get punched in the face and the hockey players who get body checked.
Not a finger.
"(3) we must allow Madison Square Garden to continue to hold their boxerss and hockey players captive and force them to be exposed to uppper cuts and body checks."
Why must we allow them to do that, doctor?
Sam'
"As far as I ca tell, the doctor still supports the smoking ban in Madicson Square Garden. To protect workers. But has not lifted a finger to protect other workers there from far greater threats. Like the boxers who get punched in the face and the hockey players who get body checked."
I have to ask Sam, do you personally consider the Doctor's opinion any more valuable than your own?
I have to wonder sometimes how the ad agencies seem to make us believe because of a different form of life education, a doctor or Health scare advocate's single voice, carries more weight than the voice or opinion of any other person on the planet.
Is their actual claim to credibility more linked to ad agency spin, than any real claim which we perceive should exist.
More so, these so called experts with little regard of individual communities or evaluation of the effects are for the most part hardly experts in the fields they traverse.
Lobbies and partnered politicians hardly ever mention what will be the long term effects of their fast track strategies. We never seem to question enough if they even considered long term evaluations. Parrots will always avoid disclosure of information sources, the oversight of "total population averaged" only considers immediate perspectives expanded virtually with World health Organization projected verse. Can we seriously allow the fan driven short sightedness and hurry up strategies to throw caution to the wind, while ignoring what is credible and what we can actually see?
Campaigns with defined times of completion even they see as incredible, enlist denormalization of choices which are lacking in all sense of respect for others in planned efforts to actually dominate the lives and any right to choices of others. Far be it from including their victims in the discussion at all.
The majority of these groups promote financial interests and impositions to control behavior as the most predominant benefit and method respectively, of public health strategies regardless of the fact poverty drives health deficits far beyond the ability of any deficit they can name.
Are these so called experts the wisest choice in defining communities or even public health protection? The lobbies themselves create, through increased poverty limiting autonomy or any ability to make reasonable choices, a larger morbidity and mortality risk than the risk of what "they" as parrots propose is the underlying problem.
The gathered fan base certainly drives an awful lot of expenditures we have to wonder though was it really money well spent?
People for the most part are not well versed in the principles of autonomy and the right to make choices guaranteed in Helsinki and Nuremberg pacts.
If Michael were your doctor and he handed a prescription for a smoking cessation device across the table to his patient, that patient has a right to find confidence in hos advice and buy the prescription through no legal obligation choice of their own free will, or simply seek another opinion. If the prescription causes harm you are not at fault you simply were victimized by bad advice and as such should be compensated for any damages.
Personally because of his political leanings I would find it only logical to seek a second opinion. When we understand Doctors by social pressures alone in the absence of alternate discussion [ruled out as tobacco industry promotions] would all prescribe the same drug, I have to step back and consider if the medical profession is a reliable source in which to define my choices.
When it is demonstrated others can be permanently harmed by smoking through inhalation of an extremely small amount of the same smoke I consume daily, do I see any benefit in quiting at all?
The politics undermines the credibility, and as the sole beneficiary of my choices I prefer to ignore them all, until such time as they cure their own phobia and allow the art of discovery to lead decisions beyond the ability of a top down structure. Medical associations with openly conflicted funding are forcing the Doctors to dispense political jargon in place of science.
The cult mentality within science expands human mortality and risk, as we are all forced through their lack of credibility to consider the real risks of diesel exhaust, Global warming strategies or drug treatments promoted by self regulating industries with a profit obligated goal.
BTW
Affording Cathy a medical license would only lead to her eventual conviction, for obvious reasons.
Perhaps the consideration of handing a gun to a police officer only after a psychological evaluation, should be the same principle applied to doctors when affording their credentials. The destructive force of those credentials could last for years, causing a tremendous mortality risk, compared to the short term effects of a berserk cop on the beat.
Bill H. wrote: "Dan, please read the American Gaming Association paper and see that the antismokers blocked attempts by OSHA to set a permissible exposure level to ETS in order to preserve the legislation of smoking bans by city councils and state legislatures."
I have read the white paper and it is well written. I believe it is possible to make an indoor facility safer for the general population then even outdoor air even when indoor smoking is allowed. But with the standard that there is not safe level and without an attempt to define what a safe level is, unfortunately smoking bans will continue. The paper also talks about even with a ban it is impossible to prevent ETS as it carried by smokers on their person. While smoke particles maybe carried by smokers on their person I do not believe that it is harmful to anyone. Anyway you are preaching to the choir here, I agree with almost all your views. I think it is possible to establish a safe indoor smoking environment for everyone. But unless we have some definition of what safe is (mine would be better indoor air quality then outdoor) nothing can be done.
I know what fanatical means, and it's not a compliment.
Cars provide important benefits as well as risks, while smoking does not. And smoking indoors around children even less so. Rather than comparing parental smoking to driving, the correct comparison (if you must make one) would be to driving without seat belts or child seats/restraints: in both cases, the risk is eliminated by a simple precaution.
tobaccoscamalysis wrote: "I know what fanatical means, and it's not a compliment."
You are right. However, calling someone's views fanatical on a single issue is not the same as calling you fanatical. The doctor called your views on TC fanatical.
She continues: "Cars provide important benefits as well as risks, while smoking does not."
In your radical fanatical opinion idiotic opinion perhaps. However to others smoking does provide benefits. It relieves stress, helps concentration, among other things.
"And smoking indoors around children even less so. Rather than comparing parental smoking to driving, the correct comparison (if you must make one) would be to driving without seat belts or child seats/restraints: in both cases, the risk is eliminated by a simple precaution."
I will accept that comparison. It the same as allowing a child to ride a bicycle without a helmet. No great cause for concern and cause no harm to the child.
Dan, how do you show a safe level of something(ETS) that has not been proven to be unsafe? I am still waiting for the charge of the famed 220 into the "valley of death".
I don't see how cars are so necessary, there are countless other methods of transportation that are all much much safer. Walking, horseback riding, wagons, bicycling.
Cars are simply a convenience. Faster, air conditioned, perhaps more comfortable..but only a convenience. With a few simple changes we'd remove our dependence on oil, improve the environment, knock out countless deaths, and find safer means of getting around (healthier ones too). Your opinion that cars are needed is actually not based on any kind of proof I can't knock down.
BTW, your opinion on the effects of SHS on children is actually irrelevant. As I actually have children..do you? You have no idea what it's like in our home, or any home with a smoking parent. Heck, it's doubtful you have any idea what being a parent is like.
Of course, I could be wrong. Cathy, you care soooo much about children surely you've adopted several? Given them a good home? Or are you only concerned about children when it meets your agenda?
Speaking of exposing kids to unnecessary risks, while downtown yesterday I saw a young mother bicycling along with a 1 year oldish in a back bicycle seat weaving in and out of some very heavily congested traffic.
Quite aside from the fumes, and despite the fact that I am a bit of a bicycle fanatic, I recognize the dangers of cycling and would be quite hesitant myself to ever strap a baby on the back of my bike.
Should that be outlawed?
Funny thing is that I'll bet that well over 90% of bicycle enthusiasts extreme enough to use such seats are probably at least moderate Antismokers who would quickly support laws against car smoking.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
Cathy incorrectly concludes the risk of injury to a child is eliminated by the use of seat belts or restraints.
No Cathy, it may be reduced, but it is far from eliminated. Kids are killed everyday buckeled up and restrained properly. However, you have not demonstrated a single case where a child was killed by tobacco smoke exposure in a car. Since you have failed to demonstrate this hazard, the point is moot, but if you had, the more appropriate comparision would be simply rolling down the windows (to reduce the risk of injury) like seat belts reduce the risk of injury in the event of a car accident.
Furthermore, I contend you are placing children at increased risk of a fatal traffic accident by legislating smoking in cars, as this would place the driver at increased stressed to as you called it get their "fix" and would speed, or take unnessasary risks in order to get to somewhere where they could "satisfy their urge".
Parents should be encouraged to avoid smoking around their children, and minimize their childs exposure by rolling down windows, etc. but this legislation is rediculous since the risks of second hand exposure is dwarfed by the risks of permanent death or injury caused by being a passenger, and instead a means of targeting smokers for punishment.
nemo31 wrote: "Dan, how do you show a safe level of something(ETS) that has not been proven to be unsafe? I am still waiting for the charge of the famed 220 into the "valley of death"."
Given the premise that a bar worker is exposed for 40 hours a week for 40 years in an environment without any ventilation where every customer smokes perhaps 5 cigarettes an hour with the establishment having no fewer the 100 customers at a time and the bartender is a non-smoker, I do not find the 220 deaths, due to a smoker related diseases (whether do to smoking or not) unreasonable . I believe the problem we have that while the studies themselves may be correct in their conclusions, the studies often our designed for a predetermined conclusion. Confirmation bias, sometimes easily detectable in for example the car study funded by flight attendants with an issue. How many people really smoke in a car with their windows closed?
Jalestra wrote: "Of course, I could be wrong. Cathy, you care soooo much about children surely you've adopted several? Given them a good home? Or are you only concerned about children when it meets your agenda?"
Damn you Jalestra, now I am going to have nightmares envisioning Cathy as a mother. Curse you.
It appears through crafty political manipulation; the entire medical community finds itself in an entirely embarrassing situation walking a mandatory Industry supportive path, in systemic ignorance of their obligations of Helsinki and Nuremberg.
The denormalization strategy places an obligation on Doctors, to treat a medical condition defined as noccotene dependency, by emotionally punishing their patients in so doing also reducing the chances they will ever be able to quit by further instructing them how impossible the task will be. The responsible path of moderation as a solution, is abandoned completely now with the "no safe level" mandate.
Emotional punishment is accomplished by placing guilt on smokers for many medical conditions, Child abuse and the horrific way many of us leave this world. Guilt laid squarely on the shoulders of smokers in addition to antagonizing, dehumanizing and finding every way possible to make a smokers life more difficult. All in order to undermine or eliminate personal autonomy.
Incredibly punishment administered by Doctors is the new prescribed treatment for chemical dependency.
Imposing treatment is not quite the same as providing treatment now is it? Neither is hatred and segregation an entirely useful medical procedure either.
The embarrassment is intensified in a medical standard which demands other addictive devices be promoted universally creating new addictions in the wake of the promotions. The net effect will be a largely expanded market which only promotes more irresponsible medical treatments.
Sustainability of cult activities will always require extended epidemiology creations, to support the propaganda campaigns. The lie told long enough creates only a temporary or artificial truth.
Questions which arise and the efforts of uncontrolled partnership zeal, will require the creation of more lies, all in support of the first. All lies will require support funding for distribution, until the the unquenchable thirst for expanded funding exhausts the funding source. At which time the legitimate truth will rise to destroy the cult and the debts accrued in promoting ignorance will have to be paid.
We in the public can be patient and wait. The cultist campaign has a best before date and that date is quickly approaching.
Doc, - "If I were 'in charge,' I would remove the warning labels from cigarette packs completely. I don't see the point of warning people AFTER they have already made the decision to smoke. I don't think that seeing the warning on the label is going to cause anyone to stop and say: "Oh, I better not light up. This stuff is bad for you."
So, since the choice has already been made by the smoker, why do you persist in aiding in the persecution of them for the choice they have made, and for which you "don't see the point" in bothering to warn them any further?
If that's the truly case, then Stop it already!
If they already smoke, and you don't see a reason to warn them about the alledged dangers, then why all the posturing about "sufficient warning" to ANYONE?
You're clearly not talking about warning smokers, so what would your warning be to the obvious idiot non-smoking Bartender, who is apparently too stupid to realize they are working, or will be working in a venue that allows smoking?
How hard could this possibly be?
Anything more than a single paragraph statement regarding the alledged dangers would be "over-kill".
So how 'bout it?
How would you word that "sufficient warning" to the "dumbest among us"?
Segregation of likeminded individuals is the only viable solution, and
ventilation/purification/recirculation is just another expensive "feel-good" measure designed specfically to alleviate the unfounded fear of Anti-smoking zealots whether it would actually work or not. (and I have no doubt that it would) OF COURSE IT WOULD WORK, and this is why the "zero tolerance" cliche is so important for TC to maintain because they know (you know) it would work as well.
Segregated "Smoking Permitted" establishments would resolve the issue completely.
Don't smoke, don't go there.
Don't smoke, but don't care; have fun.
"Smoking Permitted" signage should be adequate warning to any Non-smoker that wishes to avoid the alledged dangers
This applies to patrons and employees alike. It's really still no more complicated than this.
Cathy;
One erroneous statement well always lead to another until you find the courage to look within and deal with your demons.
"Rather than comparing parental smoking to driving, the correct comparison (if you must make one) would be to driving without seat belts or child seats/restraints: in both cases, the risk is eliminated by a simple precaution."
Did seat belts or child seats/restraints eliminate all mortality in car crashes?
It appears the numbers are rising.
Will elimination of smoking eliminate all smoking related diseases?
I have a little bad news for you...
Cathy argues that "the correct comparison (if you must make one) would be to driving without seat belts or child seats/restraints."
I think there is a huge qualitative difference between the two. Failing to put a child in a seat belt or child restraint could, with great probability, lead to the death of that child in the case of a car accident (which itself is extremely common). We are talking about a life-threatening risk here - literally.
In contrast, smoking in a car with a child merely increases the risk of adverse health outcomes, such as ear infections, respiratory infections, or respiratory symptoms.
Perhaps this exposes the true reason for the difference of opinion here. Cathy appears to view smoking in a car with a kid as a substantial life-threatening risk. I do not.
If smoking in a car with a child were to be shown (with scientific evidence) to actually present a substantial risk of death to a child, then I would be the first to be supporting car smoking bans. So far, I haven't seen any such evidence.
To really understand Cathy's position, I would like to ask her the following question:
Cathy - Would you support a law to ban smoking while pregnant?
More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette.
Ads of yesteryear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g...h?
v=gCMzjJjuxQI
http://www.wagicalplace.com/imag...20Camel%
202.jpg
Dr. Siegel you've come a long way baby
Michael;
To be fair; we already know the answer.
The position you placed her in by asking will only promote embarrassing her, which I am sure you would not support.
In the early days of tobacco control, tobacco companies denied that cigarettes were dangerous and addictive. Science has subsequently proven them to be. So many of today's tobacco defenders use a different denial tactic, and it goes something like this: "That will never work!" Those four little words sum up many of the anti tobacco control arguments made by tobacco defenders here and elsewhere.
Tobacco taxes? That will never work! They won't lead smokers to quit or prevent teens and young adults from smoking.
R ratings for movies showing smoking? That will never work! They won't lead to any substantial reduction in youth smoking.
And now, we have the same argument from Dr. Siegel on car smoking bans: That will never work! Parents will still smoke around their kids at home.
Well maybe they will and maybe they won't. I see at least two potential benefits to car smoking bans:
1. Children and infants will be protected from secondhand smoke exposure in the small enclosed space of a car. That's not total protection from all exposure, but it's better than nothing. As things stand now, there is no limit to the amount of time children could be compelled to spend in smoke-filled automobiles.
2. Parents would be informed or reminded that secondhand smoke is bad for their kids. This should lead to less exposure in the home since, as Dr. Siegel has pointed out, parents don't want to hurt their kids.
And the downside?
1. Parents will have to wait to light up (if you want to call that a downside).
2. Tobacco companies will make less money because parents will smoke less and be more likely to quit.
So all indications are that car smoking bans have only good things to offer for the health of children and infants, at the cost of a minimal sacrifice on the part of parents, and at potentially great financial loss for tobacco companies.
Car smoking bans may be a step toward regulating parental smoking in the home (since Dr. Siegel insists on throwing home smoking into the discussion), but I very much doubt it could happen any time soon here in Quebec because the people are nowhere near ready for it -- and tobacco control laws must be widely accepted because they are counting on voluntary compliance for the most part. On the other hand, it may turn out to be unnecessary. At the rate smoking is disappearing in Canada, where we have strong tobacco control laws, we could be all but smoke-free in a generation. In any event, there's no point in speculating on imaginary laws. I can neither approve or disaprove of regulating parental smoking in the home because it's a complete non-issue (at least here) -- though Dr. Siegel would like to make it an issue to distract people from the merits of car smoking bans.
Dr. Siegel says my position is fanatical because I put the health and safety of children and infants above the "right" of parents to smoke around them. In response, I say to Dr. Siegel that it's sad and disturbing to see a medical doctor work so hard to defend the concept of a fundamental right to smoke even when it endangers others, and the "parental autonomy" to expose children and infants to unnecessary, pointless, and easily preventable health risks. Once again we see that Big Tobacco's agenda is being promoted thinly disguised by other issues such as freedom, choice, privacy, and autonomy.
Note that I'm not accusing Dr. Siegel of being funded by Big Tobacco. As I have outlined at another topic, such claims can never be made because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement.
For reasons known only to himself, Michael Siegel has resolved to become part of the problem rather than the solution. One can only hope that at some point his conscience may get the better of him. In order to help Dr. Siegel, I invite him to take the first step:
Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them?
Michael--
"In contrast, smoking in a car with a child merely increases the risk of adverse health outcomes, such as ear infections, respiratory infections, or respiratory symptoms."
And you know this how?
Cathy fails to consider the negative outcomes...
1) Parents wanting to smoke in their car would simply hide their children unrestrained in the floorboards.
2) Parents would leave their children unattended at home.
3) Parents would take additional risks while driving thus placing children at much higher risk of death or injury.
It appears Cathy is so obsessed with punishing the consumers of tobacco, as a means to injure the manufacturer of tobacco products that she overlooks the obvious. Make cigarettes illegal to manufacture. Problem solved.... The government doesn't condone the product even for tax revenue basis. There is no need for advertising as there is no product to sell. People would still be able to roll their own, thus quell the major black market. But this is too easy, and would lead to the greatest number of people abstaining from the habit.
I live in a country, where we can't make a lawnmower without a deadman switch to shut if off, yet we permit the manufacture of cigarettes. It's no wonder kids don't understand how dangerous smoking is. What kind of message does this send? We've got every major tobacco control agency trying to protect the industry to keep them legal.... Why?
We have every tobacco control agency promoting governmental tax increases to encourage black markets, yet they claim they don't want to prohibit cigarette manufacture because it would cause a black market. Allowing a roll you own would significantly curtail such.
You come out and say cigarettes are such a dangerous product we will not allow a company to make such a product. We don't say you can't use such a product but we do say people can't make it, just as we allow people to make their own lawn mowers and don't require them to incorporate deadman switches. Tobacco should be stamped "Not for human consumption".
Cathy;
"Dr. Siegel, as a medical doctor who is supposed to be looking out for people's health, will you apologize to the children of America, who lack the ability to protect themselves, for lobbying against measures to improve health conditions for them?"
Will you apologies to the last generation or this, of Canadian children who lived in a more corrupt and violent society, prior to the lowering of tobacco taxes in Canada, in response to the growing influence of organized crime, the sin taxes supported?
The RCMP lobbied the Cretin Government for almost 4 years pleading for a reduction in cigarette taxes because enforcement was taxing their resources beyond the limits of their funding.
The level of crime this time out is grown to unbelievable proportions. With the unrestricted sales of black market cigarettes now priced lower than we have seen in 40 years. How much will this generation suffer before the government realizes the folly in following liars and dreamers with profits of their own, inspiring the fear lobbies.
Your perceptions of smoking simply going away in Canada, could be easily dashed, in observing the gatherings in school yards across Canada with opened eyes, you may also see the next generation of smokers In WallMart stores. The younger kids milling around the addictive chewing gum racks deciding which flavor tastes better are also the next generation of smokers, who will increase the addiction numbers beyond all reason.
Those little people, you love to use in support of your arguments, but don't really see, behind the blinders you've adapted into your personal wardrobe.
Ultimately the TC movement will fail.
Largely because of the combative approach. Children will feel much more comfortable aligning themselves with the leanings of their own parents than the societal paternalist. They will witness first hand the lengths fanatics will go to to secure the positions they promote.
The net result will be the normal caring parents in society being accused of child abuse, will be judged by their own children to be innocent.
Developing a new generation of opposition for the paternalist to deal with, and a growing epidemic not necessarily of smokers but entire communities more resilient to promoted fears from governments and UN agencies selling the politics of self serving propaganda.
A generation who will take chances and ignore the lost credibility of those who steal from our quality of living to sell themselves today.
"If smoking in a car with a child were to be shown (with scientific evidence) to actually present a substantial risk of death to a child, then I would be the first to be supporting car smoking bans. So far, I haven't seen any such evidence."
If we assumed that the child would be in a smoky car 40 hours a week for 40 years, would it present such a risk?
But children are not in cars that long. Correct? So using that figure to guage risk would be asinine.
Correct?
And anyone trying to accurately gauge how dangerous an exposure is would clearly take that into account.
Correct?
Or would finding the "lifetime travel risk" be "useful."
What would you say about someone who used the 40/40 figure in discussions about public policy regarding children in cars?
Doc-"If smoking in a car with a child were to be shown (with scientific evidence) to actually present a substantial risk of death to a child, then I would be the first to be supporting car smoking bans."
All of us would.
Cathy-So, if we're about eliminating easily preventing health risks, I suppose you'd support a ban on bottle feeding and the return of wet nurses? Elimination of candy bars and other kind of sugary junk foods to decrease the risk of obesity and diabetes? Making it against the law to place a sleeping baby on their stomach? Make it against the law for a child to ride a bike without a helmet and kneepads/elbow pads? Mandatory padding on all furniture in homes with children, or where children might ever be present? Make a law that places all electrical plugs be placed at an adults eye level? Jeez, I could go on and on...
If we're going to start eliminating childhood risks, I just named off many that could be eliminated WITHOUT eliminating the actual activity. Wanna try for some consistency Cathy?
tobaccoscamalysis your last post was well said. Unlike previous post you articulated your position well. I do disagree that it should be the position of MDs to seek government coercion as means to achieve goals. In Dr. Siegel's case he is not truly an MD, but is instead a TC/health advocate.
Where you are blinded is in what smokers truly do with kids. As parents, my wife and I, who are both smokers, do not smoke in cars. Why, not because we have a son, but instead to protect the resale value of our cars. We did this even before our son was born. We also do not smoke in our own house. Why, not before we have a child or think that SHS is dangerous health risk for him, but instead after we got married we painted our house and my wife does not like our house smelling of cigerettes. I have been known to cheat though and sometimes smoke in the bathroom before a shower with ventilation and me wife is none the wiser. The exhaust fan and steam eliminates the smoke before I am out and my wife has a great sense of smell. When we do go out or visit others that smoke, we have no problem selecting the smoking section. We want to be treated better then we are at home. If not, no reason to go out. Unless I am on vacation, I hardly ever go to bars, like I did when in college (almost 20 years ago). That is up until last year when a colleague started asking to meet for a drink or two after work. However, if smoking were not allowed in a bar we would instead meet elsewhere, his home or mine for a few drinks. I have in fact quit smoking three times in my life. Twice for a year with three months between and the last time for three years. I started again getting to know my wife who is a smoker. I started smoking because my first girl friend, at age 15, was a smoker. So you see, I already do what you would ask of all smokers. However, it is my choice to do so or not. I will do want ever I can to protect that choice for all whether or not I am a smoker in the future or not. Coming from a military family and working as a civilian for the military I am keenly aware of the freedom that our soldiers have fought so hard for. Now that the Cold War is over, and I lived for three years in Berlin (1973-1976) before the iron curtain fell, I am so surprised that people are so easily willing to give up hard fought for freedom. The freedom to make one's own choices without government intervention. I do not claim any right to smoke, I know it can be prohibited. The government that governs the least governs best. There is no reason why I should not be able to open a bar, hire only smoking workers, with the idea that the bar is for smokers. Non-smokers would be welcome if they so choose. You are Canadian, and therefore may have a different out look as to a limited government. But compared to other things, SHS is a minor concern if it were not for activists like you or even Dr. Siegel who want to dictate (as in dictator) other peoples lives. A reasonable compromise could be reached the can accommodate all.
Once again it is not the HEALTH pollution but the SOUL pollution that my children are exposed to in this filth & porn infested society that bothers THIS mother. If only all this effort was going in THAT direction perhaps we really could make a difference in our children's lives and not let a little SHS blind us to what's really important.
Let's refocus our priorities by reading the #1 best seller:
Power to the People (Hardcover)
by Laura Ingraham (Author)
“So many of today's tobacco defenders use a different denial tactic, and it goes something like this: ‘That will never work!’ Those four little words sum up many of the anti tobacco control arguments made by tobacco defenders here and elsewhere.”
That’s an argument that few (if any) posters here will even recognize, not only among themselves, but in the larger world. And if you’re implying that posters here are using tactical instead of honest arguments, then perhaps you’ve been looking in a mirror too long. Frankly, I find your insinuendos repulsive.
“Tobacco taxes? That will never work! They won't lead smokers to quit or prevent teens and young adults from smoking.”
I dunno, who ever said that?
“R ratings for movies showing smoking? That will never work! They won't lead to any substantial reduction in youth smoking.”
Do you really believe that R ratings for movies will lead to any “substantial” reduction in youth smoking? Or any at all? Or might R-ratings have the opposite effect?
“ And now, we have the same argument from Dr. Siegel on car smoking bans: That will never work! Parents will still smoke around their kids at home.”
Sorry, I don’t recognize that as Dr. Siegel’s argument. Could you please cite something he said to that effect so that we can believe it isn’t just your mouth flapping?
“As things stand now, there is no limit to the amount of time children could be compelled to spend in smoke-filled automobiles.”
Don’t you think that “compelled” is rather, er, tendentious?
With car smoking bans, “Parents would be informed or reminded that secondhand smoke is bad for their kids. This should lead to less exposure in the home ...”
Yes, and, “Car smoking bans may be a step toward regulating parental smoking in the home.” It makes me shudder to think of the society you visualize. How does that kind of thinking differ from the mass groupthink of a totalitarian society? Are you, then, a fanatic or are you not?
“At the rate smoking is disappearing in Canada, where we have strong tobacco control laws, we could be all but smoke-free in a generation.”
Are you really so obtuse as to think that smoking is going to disappear from the planet? You don’t even have simple common sense.
I can neither approve or disapprove of regulating parental smoking in the home because it's a complete non-issue (at least here) -- though Dr. Siegel would like to make it an issue to distract people from the merits of car smoking bans.”
Now isn’t that nice! Dr. Siegel is using the home-ban issue to distract people from the car-ban issue. Maybe it takes a devious person like yourself to see such deviousness in other people.
“Dr. Siegel says my position is fanatical because I put the health and safety of children and infants above the "right" of parents to smoke around them.”
Really, is that what Dr. Siegel says? I love the way you phrase things!
And this accusation against Dr. Siegel: “Once again we see that Big Tobacco's agenda is being promoted thinly disguised by other issues such as freedom, choice, privacy, and autonomy.”
But, no: “Note that I'm not accusing Dr. Siegel of being funded by Big Tobacco. As I have outlined at another topic, such claims can never be made because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement.”
In other words, you can’t accuse, but little old Cathy knows the truth, because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement!
Gee, what a fun kid you are!
.
While no one has discussed it, i presume everyone knows that when car AC's are set on MAX no fresh air is drawn in from outside? and the study only shows data with the AC on max, or shut off. and no data are provided when the heater is turned on..which always draws in fresh air?
Then cathy says a car is an enclosed space, when it reality, most of the time, it is not, because one more time, the antis pulling cathy's strings have fooled her into taking a purely fanatical position by avoiding any mention that most of the time, people use normal Ac which does draw in fresh air or the heater. or do have a window opened.
So there ya have it, antismoking activity in action... getting someone who knows nothing about the technical aspects of the subject in question to attack dr. siegel,and anyone else, so that the true perpretators can sit quietly aside.
I'll bet hitler never, personally killed one jew in his entire life.
And here we see it again.
So, if Utah is really concerned about childrens' safety, then why don't they heap an additional fine on anyone caught speeding in Utah with a child under 6 aboard? Or why is not cathy in utah right now trying to get speeding included in the measure...since, I assume, her motivations are so pure?
What about a leaky exhaust system? Shouldn't utah include massive fines, if someone is caught transporting a child in a car with a leaky exhaust system?
It's so easy to prove these people dont' really care about the health and safety of kids, bartenders, or whatever, it's laughable.
Doc, I assume you read the bellagio study, and are now reconsidering your position that ventilation can not negate the need for smoking bans?
Dave K
"But, no: “Note that I'm not accusing Dr. Siegel of being funded by Big Tobacco. As I have outlined at another topic, such claims can never be made because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement.”
In other words, you can’t accuse, but little old Cathy knows the truth, because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement!"
Lets examine this more carefully and try to determine who Cathy believes set up this systemic "hiding of the facts"
Who hides these facts? Known only by a few enlightened among us and only then by pure instinct by only the few more remarkable individuals without which we would never be aware of such a practice. For what purpose was this, hiding methodology which remains unknown, instituted?
Oh yea, the almighty tobacco company execs working their magic once again...
Were it not for the millions of selfish smokers all in their employ they could never get away with it.
"that most of the time, people use normal Ac which does draw in fresh air or the heater. or do have a window opened."
The is exactly the way my AC is used in my car. In the 8 or 10 cars I have owned I have never used MAX.
.
Julie wrote:
"Bill's tobacco-chewing habit is personally offensive to me."
and
"The anti-smoking movement is hateful and evil."
Considering that I've only tried using chewing tobacco once (when I was a teen), and considering that Julie wasn't present, its Julie's absurdly false accusations that are hateful and evil.
"Doc, I assume you read the bellagio study, and are now reconsidering your position that ventilation can not negate the need for smoking bans?"
Dave K
My question too.
So how can you keep suggesting smokers are better switching to smokeless tobacco Bill,when YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT IT,THAT IS PURE DUMB,BUT IT FIGURES COMING FROM YOU I SUPPOSE.
Harry is correct that Cathy is completely mis-stating my argument. Whether she simply didn't read my argument, didn't understand it, or is purposely mis-stating it because she can't defend against my actual argument, I don't know.
But at any rate, my argument against car smoking bans has nothing to do with whether they will work or not. Let's stipulate that they would be 100% effective and no one would ever smoke in a car again. OK - well I'm still opposed to car smoking bans.
More troubling, however, than Cathy's mis-statement of my arguments, is her continued accuastions that I am a Big Tobacco front.
She claims she is not making such an accusation, but then she states publicly that the only reason that she isn't making that accusation is: "because the system is set up to hide any proof of tobacco industry involvement."
So what she's actually saying is that she suspects I am funded by the tobacco industry, but that the system is set up so that she cannot prove it.
Well in my book, that's an accusation. She's insinuating that this blog is funded by Big Tobacco, but that she just can't prove it.
So I'll ask one last time - Cathy, if you have any evidence to support your insinuation, then please provide it. Otherwise, I am going to require that you stop making such insinuations on this blog.
If you don't have the evidence, then you're going to have to stop publicly insinuating that I am funded by Big Tobacco.
Could someone point me to the studies that are apparently the basis for one of TC's major assumptions; that all smokers secretly want to quit.
An awful lot of their tactics seem to rely on this assumption and are cited as the premise for employing those tactics.
From pushing for raising taxes, to "science by press release" to get the scariest headlines, to stealing my civil liberties through solicited Smoking bans, to outlawing smoking in cars with kids present.
They're just being helpful,.....right Doc? It's still for my own good?
Gee thanks soooooooo much!, but I'm still not convinced this is anything other than the biggest money-making fraud in history.
How 'bout that "sufficient warning" Doc? What would that be?
With the never-ending assault on my liberty by organizations that are clearly motivated only by power and profit, maybe I'm just a little too jaded at this point to care what TC has too say.
I used to smoke just for the enjoyment of it, I still smoke because I still enjoy it, but I enjoy it even more now knowing that it's in spite of all that helpfulness.
I know I'm not alone.
"Could someone point me to the studies that are apparently the basis for one of TC's major assumptions; that all smokers secretly want to quit."
The fraudulent statements are the only way to explain the immoral acts of treating patients without informed consent.
The implication of this assumed need or want is weak and demands much more attention. You can't help someone across the road if they don't want your help, and you can't help a smoker to quit, or treat any other medical condition for that matter without a specific request.
Did you sign a medical release?
I didn't either.
Kevin "Did you sign a medical release?
I didn't either."
Me neither. And yet they persist.
;(
Also, I'd really like to know Cathy's position about banning smoking during pregnancy.
Cathy - given the harm we know is done by smoking during pregnancy, would you support a ban on this behavior?
I think understanding your position on that is critical to my understanding your overall position on these issues.
The real crime is among those doing the "helping" most don't even qualify as Doctors, which in most places would be a criminal act.
Doctor,
You got your answer on the thread below this one:
Cathy's response to my asking for documentation that CAGE is funded by Big Tobacco:
"Joe Camel said: "Hey kids, smoking is fun!" Well I've always suspected that Joe Camel was a fan of this blog. Now there's indisputable proof."
Need I say anything more?
Michael Siegel | Homepage | 09.22.07 - 3:50 pm |
Or did you forget? A cartoon character is her indisputable proof in her fantasy world. Same with all of her other accusations.
Does anyone else hear the theme of Twilight Zone like I do?
.
LB -- you are not alone. I know I (and many others I've discussed this with) see smoking as a political act now too.
btw-- I'd really like to examine the evidence that suggests smoking in a car under normal driving conditions is harmful to children. Anyone know where I can find it?
Bill says: "and considering that Julie wasn't present, its Julie's absurdly false accusations that are hateful and evil."
Well Bill, I have never seen you in any of the bars or restaurants I patronize, yet, you insist they should be smoke-free because you don't like smoke (any more).
Kevin----"The real crime is among those doing the "helping" most don't even qualify as Doctors, which in most places would be a criminal act."
100% correct.
"Considering that I've only tried using chewing tobacco once (when I was a teen), and considering that Julie wasn't present, its Julie's absurdly false accusations that are hateful and evil.
Bill Godshall | 09.22.07 - 3:55 pm"
Once. Yet he is the expert on chew. He also claims (several threads ago--tooo lazy to look for it) that he smoked 3-packs a day somewhere shortly after college only for a very brief time, but claims to know all about this dreaded addiction that addles all of our brains.
So there you have it folks---these experts are running the world now.
.
.
I can't let this one go by...
Jalestra said:
"Making it against the law to place a sleeping baby on their stomach?"
My first two children were born at the time when only a "moron" would have put a baby to sleep on her back. EVERYONE I knew followed the Dr's advice that babies MUST sleep on their stomachs to prevent SIDS. I often checked my daughters during the night to make sure they were on their stomachs. The last two were born when everyone knew that babies MUST sleep on their sides -- propped up with blankets and such if necessary. It's pretty much impossible to keep a baby on her side all night so... despite our best efforts, they generally slept most of the night however they landed. Just after -- came the news that babies MUST sleep on their backs.
I am not making light of SIDS one bit -- and I hope they have this thing figured out by now (if there is any connection at all) -- But when I have grandchildren, I won't be surprised to hear that they MUST sleep hanging upside down...
"...considering that Julie wasn't present, its Julie's absurdly false accusations that are hateful and evil..."
So is it a hateful and evil accusation when you accuse all the posters here of being "selfish smokers"?
Even the ones who don't smoke?
Were you present when they were smoking selfishly? If presence is not necessary, then why is Julie's comment hateful and evil?
IIRC, The point of Julie's post was that it is the promotion of intolerance she found hateful and evil.
She used Bill's chewing (which she apparently attributed mistakenly) as an example of a habit which she disliked but, if necessary, she would tolerate.
I don't think whether Bill in particular chews or not, or whether Julie was there, was central to her point.
Bill G: I was trying to make the point that people have habits annoying to me...and that I would not try to impose my standards on them. I apologize for accusing you of chewing tobacco...I assumed you did since you seem to defend it so vigorously (my bad...I shouldn't assume).
However, I'm sure you have equally annoying habits, similar to Cathy, that would cause me to avoid you in any social situation.
In this Op/Ed from Hawaii, it seems the American Lung Assn was permitted to "survey" 1400 elementary school students:
http://starbulletin.com/2007/09/
...ditorial01.html
Did they have signed permission slips from parents for this?
~snip~
"Jean Evans, the organization's executive director, said the survey "seems to indicate that family members really do not understand that smoking in confined areas, such as homes and cars, actually is harmful to their children and others."
Jean Evan does not seems to understand the concept of parental autonomy. Damn these idiot are dangerous, and so are the goofs that gave them unfettered access to these kids.
.
Sunz;
Most don't realize, when they enter a hospital or clinic and are presented with a questionnaire; they are volunteering the self same information which is being used to defame them. If properly informed, how many smokers would respond to the surveys which they almost demand you fill out prior to treatment, if they truly understood the cost of participation?
Informed consent? Hardly
Si===" SOD THE KIDS I'LL STICK THEM ON THE ROOFRACK."
http://thumbsnap.com/v/KJQfSpH6.jpg
There is obviously only one solution to Doctors taking over parental responsibilities.
Parents faced with kids pleading to go for a ride in the car could always provide the child with the family Doctor's phone number, telling them if the Doctor says it's OK they can ride in the car.
The scammer spammer a parent? Perish the thought----I'm not sure she is even .......nevermind.
Dr Siegel: Cathy - given the harm we know is done by smoking during pregnancy, would you support a ban on this behavior?
WHAT harm, Dr.??????
My OB-GYN had more concern about alcohol consumption than cigarette smoking, and to be honest, I trust her far more than any anti-smoker crusader. Including those who are MDs.
My daughter was not premature, not low birth weight, did not get ear infections, does not have asthma and now at the age of 9 the only time she has seen the doctor for other than vaccines and school needed record checkups was when I didn't trust the school nurse about a case of head lice.
BTW - if there was ever any truth in the old saw from when I was a kid that "smoking stunts your growth" it's probably a good thing I started smoking, as I'm 5'10" We used to joke about that onsense when I was in high school...........and the 30th class reunion is being planned as I type this.
Life, Liberty and Freedom: The Greatest Common Good on Earth
http://www.newmediajournal.us/st...ms/
09202007.htm
~snip~
"Our second most fundamental right is to individual Liberty. Life and Freedom are of no value to any people lacking the individual liberty to make their own choices. There is no greater communal good that can trump the power of individual Liberty."
Didn't Kathy just state smoking was disappearing?
According to Sunz's link, smoking it seems, is more prevalent than ever in Hawaii.
"Nearly half of 1,400 elementary school children surveyed in Hawaii say someone in their home smokes cigarettes, which is unfortunate but perhaps not as alarming as it might seem. An increasing number of homes are off-limits to smoking, forcing the tobacco addicts in residence to take their puffs outdoors so nonsmoking family members are not subjected to secondhand smoke."
"Tobacco addicts" now that sounds like a fine compassionate way to describe a fellow human, being helped to quit doesn't it?
"Why be concerned about Chromium VI? Hexavalent chromium (Cr VI) is an IARC-1 human carcinogen. According to the EPA, "The best estimate of the excess risk of lung cancer from exposure to hexavalent chromium...is 8 cases of cancer in every 100 workers exposed." -Environmental Protection Agency, Chromium VI (CASRN 18540-29-9). Other adverse health effects associated with Hexavalent chrome overexposure include irritation of the nose, throat, and lungs. Repeated or prolonged overexposure can damage the mucous membranes of the nasal passages and cause ulcers to form. In some cases the damage is so severe that the septum (the wall separating the nasal passages) develops a hole. Skin exposure over prolonged periods can cause ulcers to form. Some workers develop an allergic sensitization to chromium. In sensitized workers, contact with even very tiny amounts can cause a serious skin rash. Exposure can also cause permanent eye damage in some cases."
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/c...com/
chrome6.php
Dr. Siegel, can filtration/ventilation technology sufficiently protect welders from Chromium VI exposure? Should indoor welding be illegal?
"Bill's tobacco-chewing habit is personally offensive to me."
and
"The anti-smoking movement is hateful and evil."
Considering that I've only tried using chewing tobacco once (when I was a teen), and considering that Julie wasn't present, its Julie's absurdly false accusations that are hateful and evil.”.. BG
Sense when did anyone need strict proof to express opinion about the anti smoking world :Bill?
Anti -smokers have managed to obliterate families, business, and culture, using half truths and out right lies.
Buy yourself a bullhorn Bill and start shouting the *names* of the people or should I say subjects, that you only *allude* to when promoting fascist ideals.
Its not so shocking that you cry foul here. Because you’ve proven to be such a D coward.
Smoker.
Bill the evidence is irrefutable the dangers of second hand smoke are much more urgent than mere chromium. There is no safe level of ETS, a widely held opinion of the entire medical community world wide.
What is chromium in comparison? lets put it in the kool aid and we can share a toast, to the health care community giving thanks for their wisdom and guidance.
above should be 'Since' my bad; again.
OT -- and I don't know if this has been mentioned -- but there's a book out titled "Nanny State" by David Harsanyi, in which Dr. Siegel is quoted re the Carmona claims.
Mr. Harsanyi claims that "the moderately small revolt against the smoking ban did not come exclusively from conservative/libertarian elements but primarily from the high-minded liberal literati."
Now I would never elevate myself to the status of literati; but I would identify with one of them, the satirist Fran Lebowitz (quoted by Mr. Harsanyi), who a few years ago in her essay, 'When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ... Shut Them,' wrote: "I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many -- even most -- things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs."
Of course, neither Cathy nor Godshall will be able to understand any of that, because, basically, they're both peasants. But the posters here should get the message that this is a common-ground libertarian issue, and not one that should divide us politically.
If that sounds pompous -- as it probably does -- I apologize.
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"Bill G, Do your parents know you are using their computer again?"
A beauty, Sunz.
.
Harry I found an amusing piece of insight, in a very unlikely place quoting the least likely of sources.
Posted earlier in this thread;
http://www.theaustralian.news.co...30-
7583,00.html
The evidence base for public health policy must be vigilantly respected and the arguments for tobacco control never allowed to haemorrhage into the moralism that characterised tobacco control of previous centuries. For enthusiasts of untethered paternalism that abandons respect for smokers' choice to harm themselves, their hubris awaits its inevitable fate.
Simon Chapman is professor of public health at the University of Sydney
The statement well exceeds the ability of either Bill or Cathy to fully appreciate, making both of them the only consistent and legitimate big tobacco stooges posting on this blog.
IIRC, Cathy comments chillingly that smoking bans in the home would get "voluntary compliance for the most part." Contemplating the lesser part is raising the hairs on my neck.
Children have been killed by air bags, Cathy,
And finally, you're a fanatic because the only factor you care about in "the health and safety of children" is whether their parents smoke. In fact, the only factor you care about is that anybody smokes. You're completely obsessed with smoking. A fanatic is one with "an obsessive interest," in one particular thing, a person who's filled with a "single-minded zeal."
And just ftr, not only did generations of kids ride in cars with smoke, we also rode in cars without seat belts and bags and we rode in the front seat. Riding in cars was fun. And I never knew a kid who was ever hurt in a car or a "grownup," either. People drove sanely. That was the key to safety.
As for doctors and Camels, my father was a doctor during that time and here's the story he later told : Somebody called him up and said, "Doctor, if we sent you some free Camels, would you smoke them?" My father said "Yes." (My mother smoked Camels.) The guy answered, "Thank you, More doctors smoke Camels." And that, folks, was the source of the advertising claim. And, yes, he got the Camels a couple of days later.
:
If things were done Bill's way, all science would stop because, by golly, it's reached its endpoint. No more can be learned. Or as they crow from their soapbox, "The debate is over."
Well stuff it, Bill. Your ideas, ideals, and ideology are dangerous to us all. The impetus for this outburst follows:
Research tools offer new look at common cold
Reuters - September 21, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/
s...136996920070921
[Excerpts]
It used to be called the common cold. Now scientists are starting to put some not-so-common names to the hundreds of viruses that make people cough, sneeze, wheeze and worse.
This week they described how new research techniques are uncovering a host of new respiratory viruses -- including a new, monster-sized virus -- and spurring efforts to better understand the role of these viruses in disease.
But scientists have only recently had the molecular research tools to identify these bugs, McIntosh said.
"We know they are there ... but we don't know what we really need to know about their capacity to produce disease," he said.
That information may prove to be important as cold viruses are the main culprit behind 50 percent to 80 percent of asthma attacks.
"In children, up to 80 percent of the time when you have a bad asthma attack, it's because you've got one of these wimpy cold viruses," said Dr. Jim Gern of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
"With the advent of new tests that are based on genetic material, we're finding there's a lot more out there that we were not able to detect before," he said in a telephone interview.
Another new virus is the human bocavirus, a close cousin to the bovine parvovirus and the canine minute virus, which cause diarrhea in cattle and dogs. "Now it is being found in acute respiratory disease in children," McIntosh said.
But no. According to Bill, the science -- no wait, correction, EPIDEMIOLOGIC studies -- have ended the debate on the role cigarette smoke exposure plays as far as CAUSE.
Statistics are guessing games. Identification of a virus wins the conclusiveness game hands down.
And look at that Bill! New tools to advance the science. Who woulda thunk.
A fanatic is one with "an obsessive interest," in one particular thing, a person who's filled with a "single-minded zeal."
Dr. Siegel fits this description as well. It's just a matter of degree.
He's not about worker safety. He's about worker safety from ONLY SHS. He's been loud and clear about that, and since he's achieved his goal, for the most part, he has not moved onto any other aspect of worker safety.
So worker safety wasn't the point. The smoking ban was the point.
Dr. Siegel is willing to curtail rights and freedoms. He is willing to use faulty science, and he is unwilling to compromise. He criticizes others for behavior he himself embraces.
For example, education over legislation, EXCEPT when it conflicts with his smoking ban.
He's caused a great deal of harm, but I don't see him doing much to undo that harm.
Because Dr. Siegel's degree is lower than Cathy's, that doesn't make him a reasonable man. It makes him a fanatic.
OT: Just on the drinking in pregnancy mentioned earlier: (Maybe posted before) BBC May 2007....
'No alcohol in pregnancy' advised
quote
The change follows concern from some sectors that there is no safe amount of alcohol that mothers-to-be can drink.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Fiona Adshead said
"This advice could also be included on alcohol packaging or labels,"
No Safe Level.
Warnings on packaging.
west
----
Smoking bans are a result of nothing less than fanatical followings. Politically through reasonable compromise and respect the leaders of tobacco control had found the end of the road. Bans on airplanes and in private places through reasonable compromise had gone as far as a dislike of a smell could take it.
Politically to go further would be a dangerous path without being labeled appropriately as a fanatic or worse as a paternalist.
Risk had to be invented in order to keep the movement alive. After a Judge took a look at the ridiculous political promotions of the day and condemned the top down government creation of risk. Research had to originate elsewhere in order to find public acceptance, so the political number crunchers masquerading as researchers were hired with conflicted public funds to create a risk. While politically in scientific terms their stature was escalated to a position of insight they could never realistically achieve within their field, without a huge ad agency massaging.
Risk assesments defining a need to fear, were simply the new plan to hide from the shame of a judges descision aligned with the WHO study which took away all doubt as to the definition of fanatic in the public view.
Doctors were forced by their own industry to quit smoking or at least to hide it because the majority of those in practice smoked at the time It was traditional to hand out cigars outside the delivery room door and smoke them with the doctor, while he brought you the news of a birth. This just set a bad example for where the medical industry wanted to go.
As born again non smokers, they would follow in any direction they were commanded to go. The cannon of proof they love to refer to as credence for their protection of the rest of us, is found only in their own shame and emotional projections to balance the books in their own minds. To account for their subservience to a hundred year old Industry control of the entire medical industry.
Second hand smoke is a lot closer to harmless than it ever will be to a serious health risk and as with the emperors clothes it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, whereas it takes and entire medical industry world wide to define the lies by promoting calculations beyond their worth, which to date are only representative of the fact a risk might exist.
Thats the way I remember it, and all the movie bans and rewriting of the history books they do, will not erase history or my ability to tell the children the way it really was. In explaining why you should never trust anything a doctor or a politician tells you.
When I was a kid in the 1970s my mom smoked in the car all the time...with the windows usually closed. She smoked Winston 100s in the gold pack. I don't think there is a cigarette on the market today that has that high a level of tar and nicotine.
A minute after putting out her cigarette (in the car ashtray, not out the window), she would press the cigarette lighter (back when they were used) and would soon light a fresh cigarette. Anytime I was in the car it was smoke filed, smoke going straight in my face, day after day and year after year.
Of course she smoked in the house all the time too. I was exposed to as much SHS as any kid ever....yet still here I am!. I am now in my 40s and haven't had any health problems. I don't think there is anything remarkable about my immune system. I am living proof that the health risks of SHS are way overstated.
I do think it looks attractive when women smoke cigarettes and I am drawn to women smokers and enjoy their company (even if I'm a non-smoker). I am open to the idea that having such a heavy smoking mother might have something to do with that, but her SHS had no impact on my health.
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Sir Winston Churchill
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/.../709230317/
1002
Smoke (won't) get in your eyes
By Andrew Ostroski
Staff Writer
BETHANY BEACH -- The smoke is closer to clearing as a motion to ban smoking on the beach and surrounding areas was formally presented to Town Council on Friday.
Bethany Beach Charter and Ordinance Committee chairman and newly appointed Vice Mayor Tony McClenny made a motion at the town's monthly meeting to prohibit people from lighting up on the bandstand, beach, boardwalk, on children's playgrounds and in the ocean.
The ocean was a late addition to the list of locations, but was discussed nonetheless as some members of the committee felt smokers may try to bend the rules by lighting up in the surf.
According to Bethany Beach Mayor Carol Olmstead, an ordinance will be drafted and the Town Council will take a vote at a future meeting.
"An ordinance has not been set yet," she said. "There is no timetable for that, but I believe it will be moved along quickly."
McClenny cited messages received from several local property owners, showing the majority of the population was in favor of a full ban.
"Seven were opposed to a smoking ban," said McClenny. "Seven were in favor of (it) in some areas. Thirty-three comments were in favor of a full smoking ban."
The committee hopes the proposal will be adopted soon, so it can take effect Jan. 1, 2008.
The matter was first brought up in July. Statistics presented by town officials earlier this week showed more than 1,200 cities and counties nationwide have banned smoking within their limits. Additionally, 47 beaches and 222 parks have also snuffed out smoking.
"I think people will still want to come here," Committee member Jerry Dorfman said at a meeting held last week. "This is a family resort"
***************
IN THE OCEAN???
Prohibition is coming to America through the front door for a change as the TC campaign delineates into full blown paternalism. Polish up the tambourines and get out the hymn books they will soon be in vogue. Best babies contest will be coming of age soon as 100 years of history and lessons learned fade away.
"The matter was first brought up in July. Statistics presented by town officials earlier this week showed more than 1,200 cities and counties nationwide have banned smoking within their limits. Additionally, 47 beaches and 222 parks have also snuffed out smoking."
Ignorance breeds only more ignorance and TC promoted it all.
I noted something which is a reality we will soon be forced to deal with as well. The first nations people who's economies were until recently largely Dependant on government subsidies are now becoming much more Dependant on revenues from gambling and black market sales of gasoline, Cigarettes and alcohol. Once entrenched in their communities how will policymakers ever end that dependence?
Has it even been considered or is the growth planned and supported by back room strategists?
The growth of a new racist reality will have us associating low moral values to first nations people. As their primary source of income is entrenched, which will allow governments to ignore the issues they face while growing a population norm in the racial profile we will all grow to accept.
By allotting these sales to First nations people the government slips the noose of responsibility which will allow prohibition to be made law and the black market to blossom with a protected tax base for governments to continue, still collecting their ill gotten gains while not recognizing credit, for where the funds actually originated. Politically speaking smoking would have been eliminated and all smoking is restricted to the reservations outside of federal control, unless of course criminals are involved.
For smokers criminality will place you outside of the responsibility of medical treatments and government aid
Shifting of budgets allows the tax department to deny any cigarette taxes have been paid at all, while collecting every cent and more as they do currently, opening up the field to new more extreme situations.
Kevin asked----" Didn't Kathy just state smoking was disappearing?'
http://www.charlotte.com/busines...ory/
283773.html
In 2005, tobacco acreage dropped 27 percent from the year earlier, to 297,000 acres. With the government no longer supporting prices, those dropped too, to $1.64 per pound, from $1.98, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Cigarette makers worried that they wouldn't have enough supply.
"But predictions from some quarters that tobacco farming was headed for extinction in the U.S. proved incorrect. Today, farmers can grow as much tobacco as they want, wherever they want. Economies of scale have kicked in"
"Before the buyout I couldn't expand," he says. As a result, "we weren't competitive on the world market." Today he is growing 120 acres, double the 60 acres he grew just before the buyout. He has invested more than $300,000 in new farming equipment, barns and land. "I'm unlimited in my opportunities," says O'Reilly, 42. "I have nobody that can hold me back now."
Now if we could only be allowed to enjoy this legal crop as intended?
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"But no. According to Bill, the science -- no wait, correction, EPIDEMIOLOGIC studies -- have ended the debate on the role cigarette smoke exposure plays as far as CAUSE." How accurate you are JTF.Since the rantis decided lung cancer was a smokers disease they have virtually stopped all research.They are guilty of negligence as is every medical professional who automatically blames smoking for everything regardless.Science has NOT fully proved causation,only statistical association GIVEN a certain set of circumstances.Dr Siegel is guilty of ignoring scientific research that is contrary to his viewpoint.It has not kick started any reconsideration on his part.SCIENCE IS NOT STATIC,IT ADVANCES,WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING WITH IT DR SIEGEL ? WHY AREN'T YOU DEMANDING MORE RESEARCH BE UNDERTAKEN ? THE POLITICS SUCKS,SO WHEN WILL YOUR QUEST FOR SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY REALLY BEGIN ?
There is something we all have missed in the debate over smoking bans in the cars or even the homes. NO CAR or HOUSE is crack free!!! Whether your windows are down or opened, outside air is always coming in, therefore giving space for smoke to escape. I especially love the fact that this is coming from Utah. Wasn't it just a month or so ago, that some miners were trapped in a mine in that State? Wouldn't they be better served to protect their real workers safety? Of course, if the daily conversation is all about Government coming into our homes, maybe people will beable to forget Governments inability to protect the ones who really needs protection!
From Oregon:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/o...1460.xml&
coll=7
~snip~
"They decided to evade these constitutional requirements by asking voters to amend the Constitution. No, not by repealing the Constitution's supermajority requirement for raising taxes. Instead, they opted to etch the tobacco tax hike into the Constitution, right there with the articles on the three branches of government and the Bill of Rights."
Wow, re-writing their Contsitution to specifically include tabacco taxes.
And the band plays on. Shame on a once free country.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/
3...0doughnuts.html
Donuts and bread donations banned at a NY county's senior centers. They say it's not a "health" issue, but a "safety" issue.
Quote from Albert Camus, author of The Stranger and The Plague:
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience."
All (interested in Mr. Nuttal)
Check that story for update.
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Excellent quote, Brandz.
Do you think Dr. Siegel even noticed when he changed from an educator to a regulator? Probably not.
From one of Cathy's least favorite institutions. The Institute for public Affairs of Montreal;
An excellent oversight which spells it all out. Unfortunately there is no link this is coppied from the news letter.
To subscribe contact info@iapm.ca
"Freedom to choose and the cult of the victim
One of the saddest results of our surrender to statocratic engineering – submission to the “nanny state” as it has become known – is the abdication of individual responsibility. One of the cornerstones of liberal society is the freedom to choose. Even if we choose badly, that freedom must rest with the individual. But so must the responsibility for our actions. Indeed many times we will choose badly. Whether through simple misjudgment, or by giving in to family, peer or societal pressures. But the latter examples relate to our private lives. In our public life – in the relations between governors and governed – the point of liberty is that there be no such pressures. Liberty and responsibility are flip sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. Too many today fear that responsibility. As Shaw wrote, “Liberty demands responsibility. That’s why so many dread it.” What people fail to realize – or are too scared to accept - is that the false promises of protection from responsibility leads to nothing but restriction on liberty.
Politicians have capitalized on this fear for decades. They try to sell us the notion that we don’t know what’s good for us. They demonize us. This manipulation flows naturally from governments’ failures to deliver on its core responsibilities. To heal suffering. To cure injustice. To meet want. To deliver services. So the state deflects from its failures and blames the public for a whole agenda of ills promising to “perfect” us. That’s not the state’s role! It’s precisely our imperfections – and our right to them – that make us human, attractive, creative and compassionate. We don’t need to be pasteurized, homogenized and sanitized. Statist arrogance has led to little but the leveraging of peoples’ fears and fatigue by enacting measures that, in Benjamin Franklin’s words, “…trade permanent liberty for temporary security and in the end provide neither liberty nor security…” This nanny-state regulation has actually done nothing but give life to new armies of bureaucrats - paid for by increased tax revenues grabbed from our pockets - who broaden the power of the state over our most personal domains. Its nothing but deflection from spectacular failure.
As she so often does, Nathalie Elgrably of the Montreal Economic Institute has coined the perfect phrase to describe the paralysis that has beset our society through its dependence on the tyranny of bureaucratized state faith. She calls it “The cult of the victim”. The immediate target of her column this week in the Journal de Montreal is the latest obsession of government. Nutrition and obesity. The coming plans to interfere in our diets on top of our driving habits, smoking habits, health habits, etc… But her underlying message has broader implications. She reminds us that the point of ceding some of our natural liberties to government is to allow us as individuals the time and opportunity to maximize our personal potential. Not to become wards of the state. Not to be complicit in our own self-abnegation and have every aspect of our lives dictated by state fiat. Not to sit meekly by and allow for the “nationalization” of one of the last frontiers of personal choice. Your body! Her words are important. So if your French isn’t up to snuff, use a dictionary. It’s worth your time."
Thanks for that post Kevin.
And Brandz---Great Quote from Camus!
.
The article mentioned by Nathalie Elgrably can be found here.
http://www.iedm.org/main/
show_ed...itorials_id=566
The babble fish translator provides an English version of the article just copy and paste in the text and select the from and to languages;
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
The translator is primitive, its shortcomings will be obvious however the points being made shine through.
A salute to the Greatest Generation -- and a thank you to Ken Burns. We should never forget.
I love doughnuts.
Why does this man, first having made me a second class citizen in my own country, now want to deprive me of the simple pleasure of a doughnut?
http://banzhaf.net/obesitylinks.html
The War on Secondhand Smoke Continues
http://www.syracuse.com/
newsflas...storylist=state
~snip~
"The state's $5 million campaign, one more push for champions of the anti-smoking movement, came at the same time a report by the U.S. Surgeon General indicates infants and young children are especially vulnerable to secondhand smoke. One print ad warns "when you smoke around your kids, they smoke too. By the age of 5 they'll have inhaled over 100 packs."
.
Well if the kids smoke too,is really is time to get some Tobacco shares and make a profit,well ,to recoup some of the losses due to Taxation,MSA etc that have been heaped onto smokers.Perhaps i could even charge my kids for the smoke they deprive me of.So from now on any person who passively smokes my cigarette will be asked to contribute money to me,why should they have it free.It's a sick world when people RELY on the idiots like Bonzo,Banzaf in order to protect them.What would that moron do if he couldn't threaten people.Isn't there a relationship between size of penis and bullying as well as one to do with short arses ?
The one line in my post which caught my attention is the focal point which proves the immorality and illegitimacy of the entirety of "Public Health" As a credible enterprise.
THE BATTLEGROUND NON SMOKERS SHOULD BE RALLIED TO DEFEND.
"one of the last frontiers of personal choice. Your body!"
Consider the arguments of the Liberal Bolsheviks which legitimized abortion in Roe VS Wade. Your body is yours alone and the choice is yours to make. If the state is allowed to take dominion over your body what really do you have left in a claim to freedom?
Public health makes an illegitimate claim over your body as property managed under their domain. When Governments take the stance they can take genetic material without your permission the Law takes your side for the reason your body is your personal domain.
If you create an original work, copyrights and patents protect your interests. What legal protection do you have aside from respect in guarding what is implicitly your own domain and property "your own body"
Public Health organizations are intent on breaking that respect by pointing a finger of blame not just in respect to your offspring but to your personal abuse of your own body. They claim to be helping you when in fact they are helping themselves, to invade your personal domain to do as they wish once their ownership claim is established.
The thin line of claim they are making is akin to squatters rights, when only they take care of your body they can direct forever what will be allowed in respect to it's management.
From Rose's Post the reassons Banzass should win in the McD lawsuit are precisely the reasons he should loose in respect to smoking. The dangers of smoking are well framed perhaps a number of years ago they were no however people generally make a choice to start smoking regardless of the medical claims.
The 5000 deadly ingredients are public knowledge and we have heard them until our ears bleed. In the McD filings they say the reason McD is at fault is because people are being served food they believe is the same as the food they would prepare in their own kitchens.
Coke has a claim to secret ingredients as does KFC and McD used to claim a secret sauce. Without the knowledge of ingredients one has no way of gaging the dangers and choice is not well served. If any of these products contained peanuts and someone died they would be at fault and many of the products we consume do contain a deadly ingredients list of their own. The trouble is what do we consume today which can not be also vilified for the same reason?
The chemicals they use to preserve food or add to it's appearance or taste to make it more appealing and increase sales, can all be considered deadly in the same respect as the claim made against cigarettes. With the one large difference with cigarettes nothing is left to the imagination and no deceptions are actually legitimate, in a society which generally agrees smoking is not safe.
The Public Health Lemmings in their own vilification of smoking and smokers have provided sufficient information into the public realm there is no secret and as such choice is availed with adequate information known. The right of domain over your body has been respected.
The so called deceptive advertising which may drive your decisions of brand are no longer effective in hiding any dangers which might be available.
When a non smoker claims a right to not breathe your smoke they are only half right. The choice to breath is their own to be in your company when you smoke is also a choice.
If employees are adequately informed as the rest of the public obviously are, they should be allowed to accept or reject a smoking allowed environment.
If new research comes forth which is legitimate, new choices could be made at that time, as that information is revealed. Statistics provides theory alone and is not legitimate knowledge from an individual's standpoint, only supposition or politics. An individual has a right in choice to believe a politician or not, as they manage their own affairs and personal domain [The Body].
As far as children's rights in respect to their domain, those are afforded to the parent to manage until they take on the responsibility for themselves.
Those who claim it takes a village to raise a child are the thieves and tyrants who need to be set straight.
Trespassing is still illegal.
BTW in respect of public knowledge everyone should be advised Twinkie s contain Benzine in the coloring.
Should we ban them or just sue the manufacturers?
Remember.... A vote for Hillary is a vote for the anti's. Use your vote wisely, let them know we are 25 million strong and have had enough.
WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton lavished praise on New York City's tough anti-smoking laws yesterday - and said she supports smoking bans in public places across the country. Asked at an Iowa forum on cancer whether banning smoking in public places would be good for America, Clinton replied, ‘Well, personally, I think so.’"
Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Hill Eyes National Cigarette Curb,”
The New York Post, August 28, 2007
Cathy, what about abortion??? What about the 1 million infant lives???
The "Secret Sauce" is Jack's. The ingredients are on the packet, so it isn't much of a secret. Neither is anything at McDonald's.
"Beef Patty, Big Mac Bun, Pasteurized Process American Cheese, Big Mac Sauce, Lettuce, Pickle Slices, Onions"
The McDonald's website has an extensive list of the particular ingredients of the sauce and buns, even the salt and pepper added to the patties. They also have a poster in the restaurants listing the ingredients, or a handout sheet if you ask.
If I buy a box of pre-formed beef patties and all the rest of the ingredients at my local supermarket, I can slap together a pretty good approximation of a McDonald's hamburger right in my own frying pan. With a little Thousand Island dressing, I can have a Mac. I also have a FryDaddy for my fries.
It won't be any healthier because I made it at home, but it may be a little cheaper.
On the other hand, the list of the 4000 "chemicals" in SHS includes things like oxygen and water. I have yet to see the full list anywhere.
McDonald's has never advertized their hamburgers has "healthy," but they do call them "pure beef."
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together does not mistake that for a health endorsement, which is why Banzass keeps getting booted out of court.
Mickey D's has added a bunch of salads and wraps to appease the food police. They call those "healthy choices."
I go about twice a year. When I do, bring me the Mac.
Banzaff appears to be obese. His insurance company should raise his premiums. It is not fair for me to have to pay because he is fat and could lose weight.
Maybe someone could follow him around and write him a ticket when he doesn't eat healthy.
This guy is a role model for the children. When they see him fat they think it's OK to be fat.
No fat people in Movies below an "R".
Fat people should have to pay higer gas taxes. Because of their girth, they need bigger cars that consume more gas.
I know it seems mythical, but we thought the same 10 years ago as it relates to smoking. Now you can't smoke or chew in some outdoor places.
Who would have thought? They now do have the "Smoke Police".
My letter to the Editor;
Hillary is a lemming for an intrusive tyrannical monster, a virus in society which needs to be cured, we know it as public health. She should be made an example of, by pointing out, she is in favor of government intrusions into the last personal domain in a society barely clinging to Liberty and freedom, your own body!!!!
This should be seen as a danger not only to smokers but to all of us regardless of the smell, we in the majority detest. No one can claim the dangers of smoking are not well known and a choice to smoke is a fundamental right to do as you wish with your own body.
No one is harmed by cigarette smoke, who has not made a choice to inhale it, if a warning sign is attached prominently on the door.
Employees also have a right to work where they feel safe, compensation demands should be the only defining point which indicates acceptance of the working environment.
No one can still legitimately claim the dangers of smoking are not well known. We read about the dangers in the papers every day. "New" sensationalized research is presented everywhere you look, with the science found in statistical theories and political reasoning, none of which defines genuine knowledge. In its precipitous definition, presentations are accepted by the media groups as "science" which in reality are only the many redesigned calculations and statistical contortions created specifically to sell the smoke free, fat free or any other "not exactly free" campaigns. Media groups can not hide from the fact; they in return profit from the Public Health campaigns precipitously.
People find value which exceeds the price of purchase in the enjoyment of a cigarette or in a Big Mac. Enjoyment they define for themselves. Someone who does not smoke does not understand what is being purchased. They are only aware of the dangers which define their decisions to not make those purchases.
Vilification of "people" and not an industry [as Public Health Scare authorities claim is the case]; for purchasing a legal product and punishing people for what is defined as an addiction, is so wrong in so many ways, it underscores entirely the wisdom of the sources who provoke smoking bans and cigarette taxes. The targeted demographic in this case is the poor and the elderly who comprise the majority of smokers, the increased poverty created through financially punishing an addiction will have undeniable deficit effects on us all, both those immediately recognized, and more dangerously in the subtle inspirations of hatred, as we become less tolerant and forgiving of each others choices.
Banning smoking on private property is an invasion of governments on rights they do not legitimately control. If a sign on the door settles the matter of choice for non smokers and employees, why are legislated smoking bans even an issue?
A smoking Ban is a moralist cult imposition, we should see for what it really is; a theft of the property rights of individuals, to coerce the decision making rights in domain over ones own body, by making life for someone who chooses to smoke as difficult as possible. A return to the Tambourines and claims of moral turpitudes found laughably in our past.
Forcing a decision which belongs with personal autonomy and a persons ultimate right to choose is already known to be poorly considered. Or do we have to reconsider Roe VS Wade once more at Hilary's behest?
From Sunz link
"I think smoking in a car with a child has a more lasting effect than giving a child a slap in the face," said Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette, D-Queens. "They're both horrible things, but one is going to kill the child ... I know that's a hard comparison, but that's the reality of it."
“Hard comparison?”, “the reality of it?
Here’s some other lasting effects. Children who have grown up around SHS have become: Doctors, Lawyers, Astronauts, Religious leaders, Presidents, Teachers, Mechanics, Engineers, Architects, Labors, Carpenters, Plumbers, Electricians, Computer techs, Military personal etc…..Surly their parents had a positive influence on these and other individuals; despite all this mush about SHS. All of this was done without the intrusive flat out frauds suggested by enterprising politicians and TC.
I would suggested the Ass-emblyman take a long look around, chances are that nearly everything man made that he sees was in someway produced by a person exposed to SHS as a child, who by the way, are still alive and health today. That is but one “reality of it” which Mr. Lafayette refuses to express while he helps paves the way to governmentally approved child abduction.
Callous Cowbell;
The point I was making is the multitude of chemicals contained in a Big Mac or a more "Healthy" Salad are not immediately apparent, or even readily available. With smoking we all know what they contain we hear about it fanatically and perhaps far too often from the ban fans.
If you are being fed benzine, chlorine or nuclear waste, you have a right to know about it. If you choose to eat it with all information known; more power to you. Thats called freedom to choose.
The foundation of fear promoted in second hand smoke is only possible because the public perceives the smoke to be far more dangerous than other common threat to our health. The proposal is, we ignore known safe standards and declare smoking alone, to have no safe level. Public health by acceptance decides for you, what will be allowed and makes autonomy decisions for you. A profiting of authority by a strategy promoted in redesigned perceptions.
A case law no no; deceiving by altering a perspective, is just as damning as outright lying to promote a sale.
This industry has it right:
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/202732
'Make Driving While Eating Illegal'
Not really OT IMHO -- I continue to be moved by what I saw last night on Ken Burns' new documentary "The War". I believe it's 7 parts, so if you missed part 1, there's still plenty to see.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/ThisWe...tory?
id=3639419
"Ken Burns: We are losing 1,000 veterans a day in the United States. We are losing among our fathers and our grandfathers a direct connection to an oral history of that unusually reticent generation. And that if we, the inheritors of the world they struggled so hard to create for us, didn't hear them out, we'd be guilty of a historical amnesia too irresponsible to countenance. "
I have already lost my father (3rd army). My uncle is 83 going on 84, he was a navy medic. He was at Iwo and saw the flag raised. I have two other uncles who didn't make it back.
My uncle still smokes, he started at 16. My Dad was 88 when he passed. Doc said he just got old. Anyway he smoked, chewed and drank. He ate fats and enjoyed life. They spoke of facing real death and the need to enjoy the short time you have.
Both have spoken about the state of America today. Specifically the governement butting into a man's private business. My uncle told me he was glad he was old and would die soon so he wouldn't have to live in it.
Sad
Gilster, the bad thing is, I do not ever recall almost being hit because someone was smoking. I was almost hit twice by someone eating..I'm willing to put twice down to lousy drivers. However, I can't count how many times I've almost been hit by someone on a cell phone. I know I can't talk on the phone and pay proper attention to my driving, therefore, I don't talk. But every time we go out, it's apparent not many others can talk on the phone and drive, and aren't near as considerate as I am. Do we need a law about it? I don't know...I think it's a problem, but I'm willing to look over better information before I decide I agree with a law about it.
Jalestra --- I hear you aboutt he cell phone talking drivers, they scare the bejeezus out of me. I do not talk on the phone while driving, in fact if I forget to turn it off I will not answer it if I am moving. If my daughter is in the car with me she answers it and talks to whoever is calling until I can pull over.
I do most of my driving miles on two lane roads with no shoulders and lots of curves, or else on a major highway........there is no phone call so important that I will jeapordize myself, any passengers I have, or other drivers for the sake of a call. I wish others would have the same attitude and maybe, just maybe, our roads would be a bit safer.
There are far more serious and immediate hazards on the road our "leaders" should be worried about instead of smokers.
Like most business people, I have a cell phone. I've had it for more than 8 years. I've made exactly 2 calls in that time. The first to test it to make sure that it worked, and the second was a year ago, after witnessing a traffic accident ahead of me on the way into the office.
A Pickup Truck (driver was on the phone) ran the red and broadsided a car passing through the intersection.
I called Highway Patrol.
Strictly speaking for myself;...
There is nothing I have to say that won't wait until I'm using a REAL phone, unless it's an emergency.
If you're playing phone tag while driving, you're wrong.
Unless your life, or the life of someone else depends on it, there is simply no reason to be on the phone while you drive. It just isn't that important (unless of course, you have small children in the back seat and you've been pulled over for smoking while driving,..you could call your attorney, and ask the officer to speak up so your lawyer can hear the conversation.)
Well I thought Bill's site was objective. I found several references to the 438,000. This is not a "REAL" number. Not one person was counted.
"Cigarette smoking was responsible for a large proportion of the increase in cancer mortality in the second half of the 20th Century, a trend with important social consequences, including the widespread misperception that the U.S. was being consumed by a "cancer epidemic" caused by environmental pollution and industrial chemicals. In fact, the "epidemic" consisted almost exclusively of one disease, lung cancer, and was due to one lifestyle factor, cigarette smoking. A retrospective analysis of mortality statistics revealed that, if lung cancer is excluded, the mortality rate from all other forms of cancer combined has declined continuously since 1950 [18]."
From our old friend Sir Richard Doll from 1950. A shill for Monsanto.
Doll R, Hill AB: Smoking and carcinoma of the lung.
BMJ 1950, 2:739-748. PubMed Abstract |
Who counted before 1950 and what was the average life span. Of course more people are dying from cancer. People are living longer even with all the smoking.
This was alsao found on this site.
http://
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov...bmedid=16232311
Objective????
Doc writes: "Cathy - given the harm we know is done by smoking during pregnancy, would you support a ban on this behavior?"
I smoked during each pregnancy, Doc. My history beginning at 19 yrs of age:
1st husband: 1989: baby girl, 41 weeks, 5 lbs 12oz--To date, no health problems. (induced vag. delivery, narcotics)
2nd husband: 1994: baby boy, 40 weeks, 7 lbs 15 oz--To date, no health problems. (induced vag. delivery, narcotics)
1995: baby girl, 39 1/2 weeks, 7 lbs 9oz--To date, no health problems.
(induced vag. delivery, epidural)
3rd husband: 1998: baby girl, 39 weeks, 7lbs 2oz--To date, desceased (SIDS) at 3 1/2 months, less than 48 hours after vaccinations.. autospy: lungs (and all internal organs) "unremarkable" (vag. delivery, spontaneous rupture of membranes, epidural)
2000: twin baby boys, 37 weeks, 6 lbs 1 oz, 6 lbs 11 oz--To date, suspected PDD, stopped verbalizing, displayed symptoms that "mimic" Autism, immed. following 1 year vaccinations.. (vag. delivery, spontaneous rupture of membranes, epidural)
4th husband: 2003: baby boy, 38 weeks, 7lbs 5 oz--To date, no health problems. (induced vag. delivery, epidural)
2004: 38 1/2 weeks, baby boy, 7 lbs 11 oz--To date, no health problems. (induced vag. delvery epidural)
March 2007: 39 weeks, baby girl, 7 lbs 3 oz--To date, no health problems.
(induced vag. delivery, epidural)
No premature births. No low-birth weight. No respiratory illnesses, no asthma, no re-occuring ear infections to date..
Sarah died of SIDS but her lungs were CLEAN. If SHS were the culprit, so much so that it "caused" or even contributed to her death, why no traces of smoke inhalation found in her lungs? And isn't it odd that the only 3 of my NINE children who suffered death and developmental delays, were children from my 3rd marriage, and suffered immediately following their vaccinations? Perhaps a genetic inablilty to withstand the MERCURY contained in the preservative, Thimerosol?
Or would you somehow find a "link" to maternal smoking and/or SHS?
backtalk -- I began a post about that sentence too -- but gave it up in an "oh good grief" moment.
"Given the HARM we KNOW IS done..."
Perhaps you could rephrase that Michael?
Just back from vacation - no time to read 235 comments.
By the way: there is a better way. And there are public health practitioners who are really sincere about trying to protect children from secondhand smoke. At least one state health department - the New York State Department of Health - is putting up $5 million to educate parents about the dangers of secondhand smoke and to encourage parents not to smoke around their children.
I call BS doc - I've offered you the opportunity to convince me one on one that there is sufficient evidence for me to stop smoking in the presence of my children. Give me solid concrete evidence that I can not deny. I am a rational human being with a degree in Chemistry - a real science.
Show me the evidence.
I'm still waiting.............
And Jalestra is right. My initial comment was directed at you.
I find it funny though that when you get to Bill G he suddenly urps up all of this personal information. Perhaps to back you down? And it's always information (eg. death of father)that no person would ever know about. Then he is personally insulted.
.
Kevin,
Regarding the Chapman piece, I’m not as sanguine, since he occupies a middle ground between absolute insanity and a whole lot of state interference, and since he’s apparently bought into the ‘evidence’ about the long-term dangers of secondhand smoke. So when he talks of the inevitable fate that awaits the Anti’s hubris, he’s only talking about a step back. But not a step back from bans in bars and restaurants (echoing Dr. Siegel, he talks about “the occupational health rights of bar staff”) – or smoking in cars with children aboard or even apartment buildings! And if a car ban for the sake of the children, why not a ban in that detached home for the sake of the children (“There are many precedents for the state legislating to protect children from harmful freedoms exercised by their parents and others”)?
He writes, “Some experimental work has shown that even brief, acute exposure to second-hand smoke can cause measurable physiological changes in those exposed. This evidence has been important in demonstrating the basis on which cumulative exposure is pathogenic.” Note the “is” pathogenic, not ‘may be’ pathogenic. So much for science; it’s nothing but supposition passing as certitude. And so much for the “evidence base for public health policy.” And so much for linearity and the poison is in the dose.
Plus the evident bias: he talks of patrons being “half-pickled in smoke.” There, the argument is about patrons and not staff . Which is an argument that should NEVER direct public policy in PRIVATE establishments into which people freely enter.
So, again it comes back to the central argument, which is whether or not secondhand smoke poses a long-term health risk to staff in bars and restaurants. And whether, if it does (unproven, by the way), whether or not proper ventilation/air-cleaning equipment can reduce any risks to a point where smoking is a non-issue. While, incidentally, improving the overall air quality so as to make for a healthier working environment for staff, even WITH smoking.
That’s an argument that people like Dr. Siegel are scrupulous in not fully engaging.
.
Bill since you have such a chip on your shoulder you have got to learn to deal with it.Making smokers lives a misery in your vendetta is pure malice and nothing else.Stick to the facts and debate them,but quit implying you are the be all and end all of knowledge.People like you condemn EVERY lung cancer sufferer to a slow death SINCE in your foetid view only smokers will contract it,and research need not continue.I hope you are content in knowing never smokers also die from lung cancer.Control freaks and those who seek to coerce individuals into complying with the wishes of a belligerent minority should be advised to go and live in an openly fascist dictatorship,there is no place for them in a society free of their bombastic rantings.Promote smokeless tobacco as much as you like,just state you don't use it.
Thanks Doctor for removing my comments to your most respected friend Bill G.
He can play emotional blackmail----no one else is permitted.
Got it.
Yeah, he got mine too Sunz. Not sure what there was in there that was wrong...
Harry, look at all that filtration takes out of workplace air along with the smoke:
http://bp1.blogger.com/
_2eI4lUPy...ticle+chart.jpg
Check this CDC website too: "Guidance for Filtration and Air-Cleaning Systems to Protect Building Environments from Airborne Chemical, Biological, or Radiological Attacks"
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2003-136/
Wow, my relatively benign comment to Bill G's rediculous statement about (cough) "objective" information was removed,... I don't know why.
Doc, are you familiar with the term "A leopard can't change its spots"?
Welcome to the jungle.
As I recall, last year Bill Godhsall left a rather insensitive comment inferring I had caused my daughter's death by smoking. I don't know what Sunz & Jalestra wrote that incited you to pull their comments from this thread, but in my opinon, Mr Godshall spends the vast majority of his time here instigating fights like a little boy. When smokers express their frustration regarding smoking bans and limitations on their personal freedoms, Bill is right there, "Ha Ha! And it's only going to worse for you filthy smokers! Just you wait!" (Of course, I'm paraphrasing..) Why does Bill need protection from anyone here? He's a big boy. Let him finish what he's started.
I wonder if my comments to Bill will be deleted too. If so then fine, we will all know where the good Doctor stands.
I just wanted to tell Bill that I do feel his loss of his dad. I lost my Dad to Lung Cancer too. Only my dad didn't get it from smoking. My dad worked in the leather tannery business and he got it from all the chemicals that are used to tan the hides of deer or whatever animal that is being used for your leather gloves or shoes. So this winter, when dressing to go out to a smokefree business or to another meeting with a Politician, and you pull those gloves on so to keep you hands warm, think of my day will you Bill?! Fortunately, all the leather businesses in the Gloversville, NY area have all moved to China. The place where my dad worked moved about 10 years ago and they are still trying to clean up the contaminated soil and water in that area. Still think only tobacco causes cancer Bill and others? My dad and other workers are proof that you are full of bull.
To backtalk: I also feel the loss of your child. Last month, my newborn baby granddaughter died 2 days after she was born. It is still very painful to talk about but I will tell you all about it some day soon. For now, Bill and all can take comfort in knowing that my daughter followed their rulebook on smoking and I can promise it had nothing to do with Nora's death. So, babies do die, some for apparent reasons, some for reasons we will never know and smoking has nothing to do with it. All of TC owes you and me an apology.
backtalk
9 children????????
4 husbands?????????
no wonder you smoke!
NUTTALL UPDATE,
Response from Forrest today.
We are still looking into it and will get back to you as soon as we can. We have spoken to the hospital, the British Medical Association (which has guidelines about this sort of thing) and the local newspaper, but we are still trying to contact John Nuttall, who is proving elusive, and without his input (ie would he be interested in a private operation?) we are up a cul-de-sac.
Simon
I'll post this again on a newer thread when one arrives, for anyone w/o the patience to go thru 242 posts.
Tho I sense it may be censored, I'd simply ask MR BILL if, since his father smoked for several decades, he felt himself to be an abused child.
I especially ask because it's generally rumored that abused children grow up to abuse others.
I'll be curious to see if this reasonable question is allowed to stand. Especially since its object never misses a chance to describe all smokers as child abusers--not to mention rapists, killers, and selfish delusional addicts.
:
I'm appalled that Bill calls Sunz and idiot when he writes "The idiot hiding behind the alias of Sunz",/i> and is allowed and not censored, but others are?
And then there's this little gem: "Unfortunately, the vast majority of folks who post on this blog aren't interested in objective information, but rather in making false assertions and derogatory personal attacks." Bill do you even know what the word objective means? We consistently provide you with facts and data to support our view (unless relating personal experiences), yet you consistently run away when asked for proof to back up your statements. You have called us murderers and child abusers. You have called us delusional and uneducated. You have insinuated that we are rapists (in in that also insinuate we are pedophiles) in your descriptions of "passive smoking".
Seriously Doc, IF you are going to allow Bill to be so rude, you must allow us equal footing. Why do you never scold him for his words? Why do you never "doctor" or censor his accusations? Or Cathy's for that matter. Why ONLY ours?
Dr. Siegel, I am disappointed to read here that you seem to have censored the posts of three of your most regular participants.
I am a strong believer in non-censorship of internet posts (aside from the obvious flags - spam etc) but it's your blog and you have the freedom to run it as you see fit.
BUT... if you want it to remain a high quality discussion forum you SHOULD at a minimum make a public note of such censorship when it occurs. E.G.
"MMcF posted a comment referring to anomalies in BG's Kirlian Aura that I believed to be offensive to amoebas. His post has been deleted and he has been notified of that in an email."
I know you've got a lot on your plate, but if you're going to censor posts you should take on the responsibility of doing it properly.
Meanwhile, if posters here would like to be in touch with each other "off the blog" I'm willing to offer my services as a public email coordinator. I. E. send me an email with subject line "Siegel Blog", your posting name, and your email addy. When I feel that I've collected all that forthcoming I'll email the collection to the contributors. Let me know in the body text whether you have feelings/thoughts/preferences as to whether the sharing should be limited to those I judge to be clear free-choice supporters or open to all. (NOTE: I am NOT setting up and coordinating a mailing list: I'm just providing a way for folks to get in touch with each other off-blog.)
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
Diane: Thank-you.
Maraget: lmao!!!! (I often joke if the "do-gooders" want to see some REAL child abuse, take my smokes away from me!)
Michael McFadden: Thank-you. I'll take you up on that.
Is your mail address the one marked for contacting PASAN Michael ?
See what you started Doc?
Your spots are showing.
Thank you Michael McFadden.
Diane and backtalk, for your losses I am sorry.
.
In light of what we, as Americans, witnessed today at Columbia University, the above is no surprise, really.
Reality is set aside to let mad men speak.
Did anyone notice that Columbia covered up their name on all podiums today?
They actually think they will not in the long run be held accountable for their actions.
.
Dr. Siegel asked, "And how many classes do you actually have to attend? What if you realize that this is not going to work for you after two classes? Do you get called in to pay your fine? What if you actually succeed in quitting after just one class? Do you still have to go to the rest of the classes to avoid having to pay your fine?"
And what if you show up for class wearing a Smokers' Club or FORCES or "Dissecting..." Tshirt? Or if you voice a subversive opinion or openly carry subversive literature?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
I had mixed feelings about what occurred at Columbia today.
On one hand...........I have no idea why they would even consider letting that man speak.
On the other hand, we are a country that prides itself on "freedom" and "free speech" in particular. To not let that man speak would be basically doing the same thing we blast him and his beliefs for doing.
Besides, considering how biased, one-sided, and govt/corp controlled the media is (we do complain about that)........how can we really be sure that everything they tell us about him is a fact, and not something mis-construed or worse, twisted to suit an agenda?
As long as he wasn't issuing threats or insulting us, I'm having a hard time telling myself that he should have been barred from speaking.
Therefore, we need to practice what we preach. We either believe in freedom for all or we don't. We cannot have it both ways.
It's one of those double edged swords, where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
"At least one state health department - the New York State Department of Health - is putting up $5 million to educate parents about the dangers of secondhand smoke and to encourage parents not to smoke around their children."
Would these education efforts be enough to warn bartenders about the dangers of SHS?
If not, then why are they enough for parents?
If so, does that mean bartenders are dumber than parents?
more on donuts and protests.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20942178/
Sorry about the deleted comments without explanation. I had only a few spare minutes and decided to take down the whole line of argument. But I forgot to take down Bill's statement, which I have now done. My intent was to delete the whole line. I don't care for these personal attacks (in either direction), especially when they are directed at a specific individual. I can't clearly define where the line is, but if you call someone an idiot or a moron, it will be deleted. I'd prefer, obviously, for comments to be directed to the underlying issues as much as possible, rather than to the character of those personalities who are commenting here.
Update on the Nuttall Fund: For those interested, FORCES has agreed to host a Paypal mechanism for people to contribute to this fund. However, we are waiting for Forest to make contact with Mr. Nuttall, obtain more detailed information, cost estimates, etc. I will certainly make a prominent announcement here when things are finalized, one way or the other.
Si wrote, "Is your mail address the one marked for contacting PASAN Michael ?"
Cantiloper@aol.com Si. So far I've gotten emails with addys from three folks. I'll wait till I think I've gotten all there is to get and then I'll send an email to the respondents sharing them after a double check through whatever the most recent blog thread is.
Michael
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
"Would these education efforts be enough to warn bartenders about the dangers of SHS?
"If not, then why are they enough for parents?"
Because parents are bright and bartenders are dummies. Isn't that obvious?
Geeez, Sam.
.
Bill H.,
Thanks for the references.
.
"The point I was making is the multitude of chemicals contained in a Big Mac or a more "Healthy" Salad are not immediately apparent, or even readily available. With smoking we all know what they contain we hear about it fanatically and perhaps far too often from the ban fans.
If you are being fed benzine, chlorine or nuclear waste, you have a right to know about it. If you choose to eat it with all information known; more power to you. Thats called freedom to choose."
Kevin,
I absolutely agree with your point that people should know what they're eating, and should be free to choose accordingly.
The point I disagree with is that there is a "multitude of chemicals" in a McDonald's hamburger that cannot be found in a hamburger prepared at home. The reason they are not readily apparent is because they aren't there. The ingredient list IS readily available, both in the web and in each McDonald's restaurant.
What's in a Mickey D's salad that's different from the lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots that I bought today? Their packet of Newman's Own Dressing is just the same as what you can go buy yourself. There's no benzene in a Twinkie, either.
Coca-Cola does not have secret ingredients; the ingredients are right on the can. Likewise KFC. They have secret recipes. Big difference.
If you do a chemical analysis of ANY food down to the trace level, you'll find all kinds of alarming things. My coffee this morning contained mercury, chlorine, formaldehyde, dioxin, and a dozen other dangerous things, because those things exist in my tap water, and everywhere else in our environment. In amounts so miniscule they aren't even worth thinking about.
The anti-smokers' chemophibia campaign on SHS has been very effective in affecting the moronic public's perception of SHS as "dangerous." They harp on the formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, polonium-210, etc., while failing to mention that the amounts are so miniscule you'd need hundreds of thousands of cigarettes burning simultanelously in an unventilated space for hours to reach dangerous levels for any one of them.
I see no reason we should launch a similar chemophobia campaign against McDonald's or Twinkies.
People already have the information they need about fast food. It's high in fat and calories, and should be consumed in moderation, unless you're there for a bowl of lettuce. Moderation also applies for booze, cigarettes, candy, sex, and anything else considered a vice or even "bad for you."
The sponsor of the measure - Senator Scott McCoy of Salt Lake City - argued that the bill is needed because: "They [children] are essentially captives in a very small space with deadly smoke."
Maybe the senator can produce the bodies?
Let's ask him!!!
Office 801-538-1406
Home 801-359-2544
560 E 700 S.
Salt Lake City, Utah 84102
Thank-you, Sunz...
Diane, I'm so sorry.
love,
Dawn aka backtalk
Darn, I missed what Bill said? I'd actually prefer that one be kept up because it's a testament to what the anti-smokers are about and anyone with an ounce of sense, seeing it, would cringe and want to distance themselves from it. It works in our favor for Bill to talk (even if he insults someone personally -- just more ammo on his personality).
I'd rather see Dr. Siegel chastize a user who posts remarks that he finds inappropriate, rather than censor.
If an apology is warranted, ask for one. Censorship is the worst way to ensure civility.
In the wake of the whole argument, where I lurked:
I remember how I used to see antismokers who took shots at smokers. I thought, "Boy, you have to look at both sides of the story, and if they can't find a way to state what they have to say without being rude, why, environmental smoke must be THAT bad."
It was easier than searching for reasons/ways to really stand up for myself. It still can be if I'm not careful.
But the point? These tactics only work for so long.
Cowbell, even things that are good for you should be done in moderation too. Who was it that was telling me about water intoxication?
"But at any rate, my argument against car smoking bans has nothing to do with whether they will work or not. Let's stipulate that they would be 100% effective and no one would ever smoke in a car again. OK - well I'm still opposed to car smoking bans."
That's not what I meant by "work". My understanding is that at least part of your argument against car smoking bans is that parents would continue to smoke in the home, so car smoking bans would not "work" in the sense that they would not eliminate the health hazard posed by parental smoking for children.
I think that was rather clear in my post: "And now, we have the same argument from Dr. Siegel on car smoking bans: That will never work! Parents will still smoke around their kids at home."
No Cathy - it is not part of my argument that I oppose car smoking bans because
"parents would continue to smoke in the home, so car smoking bans would not "work" in the sense that they would not eliminate the health hazard posed by parental smoking for children."
Then you need to clarify your stand there Doc, for I too see your argument as why ban it in cars when parents can still smoke in the home where the kids are exposed even more.
"Would these education efforts be enough to warn bartenders about the dangers of SHS?" Sam M
How are welders currently warned about the risks of workplace smoke? Don't make Doctor Siegel reinvent the wheel.
Cathy brings up the issue of SIDS, but fails to respond to a simple question of where she draws the line with societies intrusion into ones privacy. The doctor has clearly stated his position concerning where he draws the line on parental autonomy and has articulated that quite well. Obviously Cathy's purpose isn't a rational discourse but character assassination instead.
In a strawman argument she states "What we really don't need is this cynical argument that says unless we can completely eliminate the problem tomorrow, forget it, it's not worth passing laws to improve things. If that's the standard, we would never get anywhere, in tobacco control or anything else." But unfortunately this is of her own creation.
When asked which she thinks represents a greater hazard to a child, being exposed to second hand smoke in a car, or being a passenger in a car, she can't seem to find an answer. Since this is rather obvious, it illuminates the pure extremism of her argument to prosecute the lesser of the hazards.
Likewise, Bill has stated parental smoking is child abuse, I believe it is a fair question as to if he felt he was abused by his father? Considering I grew up in a smoking household, I take offense to someone insinuating my parents abused me.
"Cowbell, even things that are good for you should be done in moderation too. Who was it that was telling me about water intoxication?"
Excellent point, Jalestra. One the good doctor should heed.
Too bad this only applies to reasonable people. Unfortunately, "good" things are crammed down our throats, while "bad" things must be removed entirely, by force if necessary.
Dr. Siegel is a prohibitionist, which is why he opposes smoking bans in cars. The risk would certainly be reduced, since exposure would be reduced. BUT the exposure would not be eliminated, so it's not worth doing.
This is classic all-or-nothing prohibitionist behavior. As you might recall, the prohibition of alcohol did not ban drinking. Prohibitionists simply said drink all you want, just can't drink here.
My personal opinion is that Dr. Siegel's ultimate goal is to prohibit smoking in private homes.
He has already shown disregard for private property rights, so this is not an issue, desipte his protestations to the contrary. The Supreme Court says that a business is not a public place because the public is invited in. Dr. Siegel believes his opinion supercedes that of the Supreme Court, and has stated public good supercedes property rights.
His notion of protecting workers evaporates at the suggestion of any workable compromise. He won't even allow adults to consent to exposure. His true goal of "protecting" all non-smokers becomes obvious, as that's where ihs focus shifts. Why else oppose a workplacefor smokers by smokers?
He favors education for parents, but not bartenders, because education is not his goal. His goal in "education" programs is the further denormalization of smokers. When it comes time to stand up in city hall and testify for or against banning smoking in private homes, what do you think Dr. Siegel will say?
He's achieved his prohibition in one area. Now he's moving on, so he has to flip the playbook back to chapter one: manipulating public sentiment. Cross out "workers," pencil in "innocent children" and flip that wedge back over to the thin end.
Dr. Siegel is man in desperate need of moderation. Perhaps it should be forced upon him to protect the public interest.
When it comes time to stand up in city hall and testify for or against banning smoking in private homes, what do you think Dr. Siegel will say?
Though I don't think he'd testify at all, (but, rather, post a blog after-the-fact), if hypothetically, he did, I think he'd testify against.
His position would be that a smoke ban in homes would be an over the top intrusion into parental autonomy, even though smoking around one's children presents a dire, serious, dreadful, even mortal risk to their health.
At least once every other hour, the Devil makes him say it.
After he's quieted down, he'll occasionally admit that the risk is gorgeously small, the illnesses are ubiquitous, and their possible "causes," are close to legion.
But in his Public Moments-- aside from the quiet hum of this blog- he will never veer from the deeply implanted party line. So he'll give with one hand and take with the other.
And there you have it, Your Honor. Case closed.
"His position would be that a smoke ban in homes would be an over the top intrusion into parental autonomy, even though smoking around one's children presents a dire, serious, dreadful, even mortal risk to their health.
At least once every other hour, the Devil makes him say it.
After he's quieted down, he'll occasionally admit that the risk is gorgeously small, the illnesses are ubiquitous, and their possible "causes," are close to legion."
How is any of that different from bartenders, waitstaff, or tax accountants who wish to exercise their autonomy by crafting their own workplace policies?
No employee is conscripted to work anywhere, yet children have no choice. Using the doctor's principles, this makes legislating restrictions on smoking in private homes even more compelling.
He's already made over-the-top intrusions into personal autonomy, without the possibility of compromise, so that doesn't seem to be a problem.
The best indicator of someone's future behavior is their past behavior.
I do agree with you on one point. When governmental intrusions into our personal lives finally reaches into our homes, the good doctor will say nothing.
He will also do nothing.
And verdict in favor of the plaintiff!
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Callous Cowbell---"I do agree with you on one point. When governmental intrusions into our personal lives finally reaches into our homes, the good doctor will say nothing."
And as Walt suggests he will post on this blog about it, after the fact.
What is it they say "When good people do nothing..."
Harry...'And verdict in favor of the plaintiff!'
Lock them all up and cease their property!!!
~the BIG picture...
Does the Left Value Truth?
By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
There are conservatives who lie and there are liberals who lie. Neither blue nor red has a monopoly on truth-tellers.
However, unless one denies that there are distinctive values on the right and on the left -- a proposition that no serious liberal or conservative would deny -- how much truth is valued may be different for the right and the left.
In the hierarchy of leftist (as opposed to traditional liberal) values, truth is below other values, such as equality, opposition to war, the promotion of secularism and a number of other highly regarded values on the left.
This does not mean that the number of truth-tellers among individuals on the left is necessarily smaller than the number of individual truth-tellers on the right. It means that truth-telling is not high on the left's list of values.
Since this is, obviously, a generalization, and a negative one at that, anyone who makes this generalization is obligated to provide arguments and examples.
The first example is what is known as political correctness. Leftist denial of what is true is so widespread that we have a term for it, political correctness. There is no comparable right-wing political correctness, i.e., denying truths so as not to offend right-wing values or certain groups.
For example, among many on the left, especially academics, it has been almost impossible for decades to tell the truth about the innate differences between men and women because of the leftist dogma of innate similarities between the sexes. So deep is the left's hostility to truth regarding the sexes that a president of Harvard University was forced from office after suggesting that men's and women's brains process math and some science differently.
Similarly, many leftist professors at Duke University used the false rape charges against three white lacrosse players to reinforce the left-wing belief (itself not true) that America is racist. The truth was not nearly as important to them as proving how racist whites are.
Textbooks. A prime example of the left's view of truth is its changing the goal of high school American history textbooks from telling truth to promoting self-esteem among minority and female students by depicting more women and more non-whites in American history textbooks.
"Bush is a liar." Currently, the most widely repeated lie of the left is that President George W. Bush lied about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. It is repeated so often ("Bush lied, people died") that many Americans now believe this. But it is not true. There were valid reasons for anyone to believe that Saddam Hussein had WMD. Saddam had used them in the past; he refused to allow unfettered inspections; he was the major foreign sponsor of Palestinian terror; and most important, virtually all Western intelligence agencies believed Saddam had WMD.
Nor did President Bush lie, as the left frequently charges, about Saddam seeking uranium in the African nation of Niger. The president said in his 2003 State of the Union address that "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That was exactly what British intelligence reported, and the British intelligence is now widely believed to have been accurate. It is a left-wing lie that President Bush lied when he spoke those now famous 16 words.
Callling liberals "unpatriotic." Another lie of the left is that Republicans and conservatives regularly label opponents of the war in Iraq "unpatriotic." Thus, during the CNN/YouTube debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton claimed that "I asked the Pentagon a simple question: 'Have you prepared for withdrawing our troops?' In response, I got a letter accusing me of being unpatriotic." That is -- and this is not said easily -- a lie. Anyone who reads the Defense Department response to Sen. Clinton will see that what she claims is entirely untrue. Her patriotism, or lack of it, was not even hinted at. Moreover, it is rare almost to the point of nonexistent for mainstream Republicans or conservatives to call any liberal critic of the Bush administration "unpatriotic."
The homeless, heterosexual AIDS and rape. For years, mainstream liberal news media purveyed false information supplied by Mitch Snyder, the major liberal activist on behalf of the homeless. Likewise, we were told by gay and AIDS activist groups that AIDS "doesn't discriminate," meaning that heterosexuals in America were as likely to contract the HIV virus as homosexuals. It was never true in America (Africa may be another story for other reasons). Feminist groups have offered statistics on rape and sexual violence that are patently false.
Few liberal activist groups tell the truth. Not because their members are liars -- in private life they may well be as honest as anyone else -- but because whatever the left advocates it deems more important than truth.
This does not mean the right is always honest. For example, conservatives who say that "pornography causes rape" are doing what the left does -- putting their agenda, in this case a loathing of pornography, above truth-telling. I have seen no credible statistics linking the proliferation of pornography with increased rape.
But when the left ceaselessly repeats the mantra "Bush lied," it may simply be projecting onto George W. Bush what comes quite naturally to the left -- when it offers false Iraqi death statistics, false homeless data, false rape statistics, FALSE SECONDHAND SMOKE STATISTICS, false claims about the percentage of gays in the population, and false claims of just about everything else the left cares about.
Dennis Prager is a radio show host, contributing columnist for Townhall.com, and author of 4 books including Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual.
~smile...
Actually, as I've said, if my anti-smoking colleagues start pushing for legislation that would ban smoking in homes with children in order to protect the health of children, I will oppose those laws. I'm not sure why people think that I would remain silent. I haven't exactly remained silent about the car smoking bans, and a home smoking ban would be even more intrusive. (Actually, I would say it would be equally intrusive because I don't see any qualitative difference between intruding into a car and into a home in order to protect children from the behavior of their parents)
"I'm not sure why people think that I would remain silent. "
That may be because, for instance, when you were invited to the news conference by the councilman in NYC proposing such a law, you didn't go.
They wanted your input in person. You blogged instead.
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cease should have been seize
Sorry.
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"Would these education efforts be enough to warn bartenders about the dangers of SHS?" - Sam M
How are welders currently warned about the risks of workplace smoke? - Bill H.
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How are waiters/waitresses working on outdoor patios and exposed to carcinogenic solar radiation warned? Why is patio dining allowed to begin with since it necessarily exposes these workers to a deadly risk that can only be reduced, but never eliminated, by sunscreen and awnings? After all, sunlight is not a necessary part of eating and the UN's WHO estimates that 60,000 people a year die from malignant melanoma largely caused by sunlight.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
How are waiters/waitresses working on outdoor patios and exposed to carcinogenic solar radiation warned? Why is patio dining allowed to begin with since it necessarily exposes these workers to a deadly risk that can only be reduced, but never eliminated, by sunscreen and awnings? After all, sunlight is not a necessary part of eating and the UN's WHO estimates that 60,000 people a year die from malignant melanoma largely caused by sunlight.
This tips off one other question I wanted to ask--I always thought I was being a smart aleck--was, the proprietor of a place called Keefer's allows outdoor dining and came out in favor of the smoking ban. Keefer's is near a busy intersection. Cars, trucks and buses are around at rush hour idling a lot.
Given studies showing the same 1.3 relative risk for living near a main street, what does that mean for people who work outside near a busy intersection, especially during rush hour with many cars and buses idling?
And yes, I can smell the exhaust when I walk near the edge of the outside dining area. It is there. And you cannot ventilate it out.
To answer your question, Doc-- you showed up at Amherst to flack for the ban. When have you appeared to testify (and "testify" was part of the question that somebody asked) to any city council or any Board of Health proposing a car ban, a beach ban, or any other ban they propose? Therefore, no reason to believe you'd show up about a ban in people's homes.
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