Hilarious article of the day...

I hope everyone knows second hand smoke is complete nonsense. This is a good article, mainly because it's true.

Oh good lord, Peggy Noonan. She writes books about how horrible Hillary Clinton is and how wonderful Ronald Reagan was. She's a goddamned psycho that makes me ashamed to be a Republican.

Here's a good quote from one of her columns:

It was Sept. 14 at 9 p.m., and I was on Fifth Avenue, directly across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral. I was standing, that is, directly in front of the statue of Atlas holding up the world, at the entrance of Rockefeller Center. I was with my 14-year-old son. We were waiting for friends who were going to accompany us downtown to see the memorials that had sprung up in Washington Square and other places.

Our friends were a few minutes late. We waited together on the quiet, near-empty street. New York had been attacked only days before, and our city was quiet; people were home.

Suddenly to our right, on the sidewalk, we saw two "Mideastern looking men," as we all now say. They were 25 or 30 years old, dressed in jeans and windbreakers, and they were doing something odd. They were standing together silently videotaping the outside of St. Pat's, top to bottom. We watched them, trying to put what we were seeing together. Tourists? It was a funny time of day for tourists to be videotaping a landmark--especially when the tourists looked like the guys who'd just a few days before blown up a landmark.

We watched them. After a minute or so they finished taping St. Pat's and turned toward where we were. We were about 20 feet away from them, and we eyeballed them hard. They stared back at us in what I thought an aggressive manner: a deadeye stare, cold, no nod, no upturned-chin hello.

They stared at us staring at them for a few seconds, and then they began to videotape Rockefeller Center. We continued watching, and I surveyed the street for a policeman or patrol car. I looked over at the men again. They were watching me. The one with the camera puts it down for a moment. We stared, they stared. And then they left. They walked away and disappeared down a side street.

Let me tell you what I thought. I thought: Those guys are terrorists.

Wow, uber conservative.

Peggy Noonan said:

No, I don't smoke. I used to. I still have some feeling for my old messier, more anarchic self, but now I don't like the smell of smoke and don't think I'll ever go back to it. But that doesn't mean no one else can. And it doesn't mean I won't let you light up.

I'll tell you this. being a smoker in NY is tough if you buy in the city. and thats the rub about mayor mikes cig tax hike. he expected the city to get a big chunk of money from the sales of ciggies, but instead people are goin to long island, new jersey, and the internet to buy smokes. so the plan to exploit smokers failed and now he wants to ban smoking in in all public buildings to further deter our habits. I can see offices where smoking still goes on. I can see the ban in food establishments. but just straight up bars? whats next? you can only smoke in your house on you bed with the lights turned off under the covers?

plain and simple, mayor mike is an anti-smoker to the extreme. I never voted for him, and I'm sure any smoker who did wishes they could change their vote. thats my pair of pennies.

Linguica said:

Peggy Noonan said:
...Let me tell you what I thought. I thought: Those guys are terrorists.

Wow, uber conservative.

Agreed.

Whether it harms me or not, I would prefer to work in an environment not containing foul smelling tobacco smoke.

I would prefer if I could go to bars with my friends and not return home with my clothes stinking of tobacco smoke as a result.

I would prefer if you took your drug addiction out of my face.

I don't smoke, and I don't care if anyone else smokes. I'm constantly surrounded by smokers, and I'm not dead yet. Big deal. If they wanna smoke, let them. Besides, we all gotta die someday, right?

The topic said:

Halarious article of the day...

I guess they'll have to add that form of hilarious to future dictionaries, my latest edition doesn't have it...

At my last workplace, an instant-dismissal policy was put into action against ANY staff member caught outside smoking - even on breaks or lunch, and even in the designated smoking 'shelters' (bus-stops with ashtrays and vents).

Fucking ridiculous.

Correction noted for future reference.

I agree with fraggle's post 100%. I find the piece AndrewB quoted sad (i.e. sad that someone can view things that way), not funny.

"I might not agree with what you say (or smoke), but I will defend to the death your right to say (or smoke) it."

Funny how back home, where smoking is considered a sin against God, the no-smoking laws seem much less anal than what you guys are describing.

Peggy noonan is one of the the biggest terrorist apologetics in US history. She Liked regan, but didnt like clinton. They were practically the same person. Either a. knows nothing about extremely recent history or b. has no ethical standards whatsoever

More importatnly, if she really belives in the freedom to kill yourself, then she shouldnt have supported Reagans support for the Drug war , after all, *many more people die of US lethal drugs (such as her friend big tobbaco) than of cocaine or marijuana produced elsewhere*. Why does she have a double standard for office workers in America, but not starving peasnats in columbia?

IMJack said:

"I might not agree with what you say (or smoke), but I will defend to the death your right to say (or smoke) it."

Look! Sense. How nice. stop telling other people what to do, goddamnit. Fraggle, your type are the worst. 'I don't like that. You stop.' Sit back and watch as freedoms are stipped away.
Take my addiction out of your face huh? Who the hell are you? Boy you must be really important, because your right to not smelling cigarettes or washing your clothes trumps my right to have a cigarette in a fucking bar. I smell bullshit.

In my family so far, the ones who didn't smoke and lived some-what healthy lives died from cancer. I still choose not to smoke however, and try to avoid people when they are. If I die of cancer, go with Use3d. If I live past 55, fraggle's the superior.

Use3D said:

your right to not smelling cigarettes or washing your clothes trumps my right to have a cigarette in a fucking bar

Well, this is a conflict between one person's rights and those of another. Why shouldn't the non-addict's rights weigh a little heavier than those of the addict?

Coopersville: AFAIK, cancer is reckoned to be pretty much a random thing, but certain factors can make it statistically more likely. In my family (quite a large one), the smokers have generally died some time in their 60s, while the non-smokers (even those with an unhealthy lifestyle otherwise) tend to survive into their 80s or 90s (and in one case over 100).

I smoke if offered a ciggarette. I am not addicted, and I smoke at least once a month. The provincial government has raised cigarette prices to $15.99 (almost $20 american) just for one pack.

Second hand smoke isn't crap. It's real enough and it can really hurt you being around smokers all day your whole life.

That being said, I don't care what people enjoy as long as it doesn't affect me, as long as I'm not in the room. No I don't think they should take away the freedom of smoking if people want to do that, but I don't think it's bad if they just have to go outside or something to smoke. Then again, aws are getting more strict, trying to get rid of smoking all together. Maybe it's not that bad. I can understand how most of you don't think smoking is so horrible, but I know a lot of people 40+ who said smoking was the worst thing they ever did. But don't take it from me, take it from them.

//dashes into the crowd

Cigarette smoke gives me a damn headache. All of my close friends smoke while I won't touch the stuff. It's the reason a great deal of the family on my dad's side is dead. They didn't seem to hold up to it as well as a lot of other people do.

That being said, I don't try to stop my friends when they smoke. I don't try to stop my dad. I don't try to stop my brother. It's their life. They know the risk, and they prefer to chance it. It has nothing to do with me. If I don't like it I can just walk away to where I don't have to smell the odor.

If people are going to smoke, then so be it. Do they have the right to smoke wherever they want? No. Do non-smokers have the right to remove smokers where ever they don't want them? No. Ultimately it should be up to the owner of the facility to decide what they would like to allow based on the clients that they are aiming for. But as a general rule, smoking should not be allowed in a place where people are forced to be, such as an office building. If somebody wants to set up a room for smoking in, then so be it, but it should not be forced on people in a way where they would have to leave their job to get away from it. But that's just what I think...

//quietly slides away

Grazza said:

Why shouldn't the non-addict's rights weigh a little heavier than those of the addict?

Well see, in America all men are created equal, weather they smoke or not. Or does that not apply in this case? where is the line drawn when such a distinction is made? what a ridiculous statement.

Use3D said:

Fraggle, your type are the worst. 'I don't like that. You stop.' Sit back and watch as freedoms are stipped away.

Freedoms like the ability to breathe clean air?

ravage said:

Besides, we all gotta die someday, right?

True, but what makes you think everybody wants to charge toward the finish line as fast as possible?

Use3D said:

Fraggle, your type are the worst. 'I don't like that. You stop.' Sit back and watch as freedoms are stipped away.

Lüt countered:
Freedoms like the ability to breathe clean air?

This is always amusing to me. The Constitution doesn't say anything about man's right to smoke, nor does it say anything about man's right to keep people from smoking near them. And, of course, there's the concept of "Your rights end where my preferences begin" that always cracks me up. :)

If your habit harms other people, then you definitely have to live with the consequences of taking up the habit.

AndrewB said:

If your habit harms other people, then you definitely have to live with the consequences of taking up the habit.

Indeed. If you make a habit of getting into another person's face and methodically violating their privacy, using your personal preferences as an excuse or tool to do so, you should live with the consequences.

Hmm. I don't smoke, and I'd rather people didn't breathe smoke into my face, but I'm not going to tell them to stop just because I don't like it.

It's their own bodies they're killing.

Use3D said:

your right to not smelling cigarettes or washing your clothes trumps my right to have a cigarette in a fucking bar

Yes.

fraggle said:

Yes.

No sweat, Adolf.

Let's put it this way. All the bad shit in cigarettes has to go somewhere, right? It doesn't stay in the cigarettes appearently, and with filtered ones, a lot more of it gets put in the air. So the right to smoke cigarettes is put to an end when it hurts others that don't want to be hurt. That doesn't seem so wrong does it?

IMJack said:

Indeed. If you make a habit of getting into another person's face and methodically violating their privacy, using your personal preferences as an excuse or tool to do so, you should live with the consequences.

Hey you, you got mail!

Use3D said:

No sweat, Adolf.

You Fail it!