It makes paint taste better, too
Yesterday was the last time the hostess at one of my favorite restaurants will ever ask me if I’d prefer smoking or non-, but at least I can look forward to regaining the right to choose leaded or unleaded gasoline:
U.S. environmental regulators are considering removing lead, a heavy metal linked to learning problems in children, from a list of regulated pollutants because past rules have greatly reduced levels of the toxin […]
The EPA said that from 1980 to 2005 the national annual lead concentrations have dropped more than 90 percent. Lead levels in air have mostly fallen because it was banned as a gasoline additive starting in the 1970s.
Maybe I’m just being a starry-eyed idealist, but it seems like a bad idea to approach environmental toxins the same way Oprah conducts her policy on, say, flourless chocolate torte.
Gavin adds: Some good might come of this, Travis. Since anti-smoking laws have reduced levels of smoking in restaurants, those laws can also be abolished.
The point of lead was that engines ran better on leaded gasoline. Now that all engines for 25 years have been designed to operate without the lead, what is the point of putting it back in? Are we supposed to redesign engines so that they need a toxic additive? Aside from the policy madness, what advantage is this to any special interest other than the lead industry?
I’m no damned libertarian; I like it when we oppress the fucking nicotine junkies. Fuck them. FUCK them. Let them smoke at home and stunt their own goddam kids’ growth. That’s what I say.
As for lead, do you know how many times that shit saved Superman’s life? What’s the matter with you people? Christ. Buncha goddam Mon-El fellaters, that’s what YOU all are. Lead rulez, smokers drool! HELL yeh! ::whooping as I leap through the French doors::
Ahem. I mean, freedom doors. Pardon my momentary lapse into non-patriation.
You have to love the logic. There’s less lead around (because it had been banned), therefore we don’t need to ban it anymore. I wonder if that works for things like drugs. . . if pot use goes down, will they make that legal, too?
Gosh, I guess the delicate balance must be preserved. How will future generations look at us if we let them grow up in a world with insufficient lead in the air?
Handsome,
you’re gonna like smokers a whole hell of a lit less when I go all Marathon Man on ya. Don’t pick on us, man. We have a ready made
torturealternate interrogation technique with us at all times.Grrr with the HTML in these comments. That word torture was supposed to have a strikethrough.
I don’t think they’re putting lead back in gas, but they’re allowing more of it to be released from, say, power plants.
The obvious argument, of course, is that tax rates on wealthy people are now much lower than they used to be, so obviously there’s no need to extend the Bush tax cuts or cut things like the estate tax further.
Grrr with the HTML in these comments. That word torture was supposed to have a strikethrough.
[El fixo!]
Thaaaank you, sir!
sounds like true GOP approach to governance:
The law is working!! Repeal it!!
Conservatism is good and moral.
The Free Market solves all problems
Have you read Hayek?
Minumum wages are for pinkos.
Government is evil, always, even when they’re good.
Corporations only do what’s best for America because they are in the business of making money and if they do something wrong then people would be mad and if the people are mad then Coporations will lose money so we don’t need your stinking government telling us what to do, commie.
It’s all too easy.
Good grief, is there absolutely nothing the Republicans won’t do to enrich themselves and their cronies? OK, OK, I know the answer already, especially since Haley Barbour just defunded one of the most succesful youth anti-smoking programs in the country:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/04/alabama-gov-haley-barbour-a-former-tabacco-lobbyist/
Just think of it: to make money they’re willing to go back to the days of lead-filled car fumes and encourage kids to smoke.
Snowwy,
I don’t think your judicious deployment of your constant weapon would be Marathon Man-esque. It seems more in Rorschach’s… ah… hrmmm… oh, what’s the word… idiom, that’s it. Or I guess it might be Cheech & Chongie. But Marathon Man was all about the dental drills.
Still, it’s all essentially futile. Why torture me now when your second hand smoke will see me dying a protracted, horrible death in ten or twenty years?
‘Cuz I’m NOT THAT PATIENT!
Ooh. That was my outside voice saying that. Man…the stress…really getting to me. I better go have a cuppa and a fag.
Or maybe a nap. Yeah. That’s the ticket. Smoke. Coffee. Sleep. Yeah.
(you’re a good sport, Handsome- I laughed until I cried. Thank you! Back later today!)
Our lead levels are dangerously low! Thank GOD we have an administration willing to look out for the little guy.
Ralph Nader called this the “liberal’s dilemma”, in which the success of a liberal policy becomes the rationale for undermining or eliminating that policy.
Hey, if murder rates go down, will we decriminalise that, too?
Man, that was, a lot of, commas, for such, a, short sentence.
Who puts the lead in leadership…we do, we doooo…
This makes sense.
After all, where will we get the next batch of paint chips for the next generation of Republican leaders to chew on?
And Ann Althouse defends transfats on her blog.
The Mighty Right’s plan to deregulate industry and let the market place decide everything about everything would fast track this planet and its inhabitants to extinction, with a pit stop in hell along the way.
(My mom, once a heavy smoker, died a slow and agonizing death from oral cancer 4 years ago. Seeing what this cancer did to my mom gave me all the reason I need to support public smoking bans. I wish there could be penalties for parents who smoke around their kids. Cigarettes are deadly and people who smoke are idiots. Really, if you smoke you should take a tour of a cancer ward. If you live in Canada and buy packs, those hideous photographs of deseased body parts are real, not exaggerated.)
And if you live in the US and smoke, you might as well save your lungs and just send your money directly to the Republican party. That’s where it ends up anyway.
Lesley,
You so totally rock.
gawd, it’s hard times to be an addict.
C’mon you guys. What’s with the love taps? Kick the smokers harder!
We love it, you know.
C’mon you guys. What’s with the love taps? Kick the smokers harder!
You guys are like a flood of child-molesting SUVs driven by Hitler over a mountain of cute bunnies.
This is a point where I will have to split from my more liberal friends. Death is not really a situation that you can outrun, no matter how much plant roots you chew or how much you jog. And persecuting smokers for the sins of the tobacco industry is well… stupid.
Maybe that’s a bit fatalistic of me, though. I’m sure that if we just ostracize enough actual smokers into living at home and giving them evil eyes, the actual tobacco industry will crumble!
I mean, I know everytime I see a morbidly obese person, I yell at them about the fast food industry and their part in propping up an evil business. And then I tell them to stay home like the wicked sinful people they are.
And look how the fats food industry buckles, even now, under my attacks!
You guys are like a flood of child-molesting SUVs driven by Hitler over a mountain of cute bunnies.
Ooohh, hurts so good!
Botanical Fact1!!!11
Dutch rolling tobacco is better for you because it isn’t grown in soil contaminated by Polonium-containing fertilizers.
There was this treaty in the 1700s, see, that guaranteed the Dutch the best of the Virginia tobacco harvest, and…
[bonk!]
Ow. Brick.
It’s not like Lead is a persistent pollutant or anything.
When I got thown in Sacramento county jail in 1987 (it was all a big misunderstanding, dontchaknow) they gave you a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers. Fortunately, I had a little experience with the procedure. But it struck me as weird on a couple levels. Now, pretty much all county lockups are “smoke free”, which mostly means smoking in the showers…
mikey
Oh dear, the previous thread apparently unleashed Gav’s latent botanifascism.
How does that genie go back in the bottle?
How does that genie go back in the bottle?
I understand that you can do so anytime with the judicious application of a brick…
mikey
Being several kinds of nerd myself, I mostly encourage people to let their geek flag fly, but if we get to, “Oh yeah, funny story about pollen distribution…” then, yeah, its the Brick.
This is a point where I will have to split from my more liberal friends. Death is not really a situation that you can outrun, no matter how much plant roots you chew or how much you jog. And persecuting smokers for the sins of the tobacco industry is well… stupid.
It’s typical of the addicts and fatties to say we’re all gonna die anyway, so why not be 500 lb cracked out smoking drunken Taco Bell-addicts?
Smokers have exciting lives until they find they can’t get it up, or move without wheezing and coughing up phlegm. Gray skin and mouths that smell like ashtrays – so sexy.
Sure you’re gonna die, but do you really want to experience – a year and a half before blessed death arrives – the hell of having your teeth, tongue, and throat removed and being fed white mucousy goop (the only food you’re ever going to taste again) through a stomach tube, likely spending several months screaming when the pain periodically escalates beyond the control of the drugs until you end up in palliative care where it can be properly managed?) Not being able to breathe is fun, too.
It’s in my self-interest to persecute tabaccie companies. The fewer toxic fumes around me the better.
Quality of life, dear…living as ache-free as I can. Especially past middle age and retirement. I don’t want to spend my life creaking and huffing with the support of a cane for 30 or 40 years like a lot of people do.
My mother died young. She loved life, longed to live. Her death was heart-breaking. I don’t appreciate the flippancy of idiots…but hey, she once talked a lot like you. Rest in peace, ma.
Sorry about your mom, Lesley. But your loss– and the fact that you may find smokers personally unattractive– is not a justification for the government’s intrusion into people’s personal habits.
Lesley,
Truly, my sympathies. I cannot imagine the pain of your experience, losing your mother that way. I can understand why that might drive you now. And while I cannot agree with you, I can say that I completely support your right to breathe free. Encourage it, even. Take that deep, clean breath. Enjoy it. Savor it.
And then get the fuck over yourself.
My choices are mine, and I don’t believe you have any standing to deny them to me. Don’t like smoking? Don’t, then, and don’t associate with any.
Feel free to feel superior from a distance. Seems to be all you have left. I have the cold, self-destructive comfort of my cancer-sticks.
Love,
the Snowwman
Ok, snowwy, as long as you pay for your health care! Wheeeeee.
Oh shit, now I’m going to get the tomatoes thrown at me. It wouldn’t be fair to deprive you of the services you’ll need later on because you choose to smoke.
Get back to me when you’re older and wheezy and stuff. I used to smoke. I quit when it started to deprive me of a life. I’m saving more money too.
Smoking is a con. The tabaccie company is a pusher. I’m sorry you’re conned. I hope you find your way out of your denial about it.
It’s typical of the addicts and fatties to say we’re all gonna die anyway, so why not be 500 lb cracked out smoking drunken Taco Bell-addicts?
Don’t smoke, weigh 159.5 lbs at 6’1″.
I just don’t think it’s good planning to say “YES, government body, intrude on other people’s decisions! Please, do anything to persecute users, because it won’t affect ME!” Y’know, what with the War on Drugs working so poorly using that methodology.
We all die, and it’s never going to be a pretty way out in the end. Not for us, not for our dear sainted mothers, not even for Seb.
Not even for Seb? What the hell do you mean, Patkin? You talk about my mother, okay, but . . . I mean . . . wow.
Well, I know one group that is definitely going to stand up against this proposed change: The Republican Right. You know, “Culture of Life” and all… Right?
Cigarettes will never be outlawed, and while I’d be happy if everyone who smoked quit today, I’m a live and let live gal (like most Canadians). I’m for smoking being banned in closed public places where people gather (restaurants, bars, etc.) and I’m hoping smoking will eventually be banned in outdoor places where people congregate (like bus shelters). I wasn’t happy when smoking was banned in the workplace. (Where I live this happened in the early 80s and people made a stink about it but quickly adapted. I was one of those…a smoker. I can credit this change for helping me quit eventually).
No die-hard smoker will ever support their “rights” being taken away. But these bylaws seem reasonable to me because second hand smoke is harmful. The science is irrefutable.
Here, have a laugh.
Lesley’s final point is the only one that matters.
I’m the last person in the world to favor prohibition of any sort. I think people have a right to make personal choices, even if those choices are ones I wouldn’t make, and even find foolish.
However, smoking is the only vice I know that I can be forced to partake of by someone else doing it in the same room with me. THAT’s why I believe it should be restricted in environments that people have to share, like the workplace, bus stops, restaurants — things like that.
Honestly, if someone wanted to open a Smoker’s Only restaurant or bar, it wouldn’t bother me. I’d just stay out of it. But if I work somewhere, or I need to catch a bus, well, that’s entirely different.
That’s all.
Lead was removed from gasoline to avoid poisoning catalytic converters, not to avoid poisoning children. To reduce automotive emissions of nitrogen oxides, you need a platinum or palladium based catalyst in the exhaust sytem — the lead killed that catalyst. The reduction in ozone levels from where they would have been (and actually in absolute terms, even with more cars on the road) has saved many more children than leaded or unleaded.
The one area where lead still matters is aviation gasoline — it’s needed to avoid detonation and maintain safe operation of piston-powered aircraft, which don’t have catalytic converters in any event. So… regardless of whether young kids should smoke in bars (or whichever tangent this thread went…), the lead in fuel issue is only a health issue from the asthma/ground-level ozone perspective — the lead was irrelevant, except that it killed a way to cut asthma-causing ozone…..
This smoker has no problem with reasonable restrictions on where he can smoke. I try to make an effort to smoke well away from others. But I’m sensitive to the “ban it” drumbeat, and have as little tolerance for it as I have for right-wingnuts.
Apologies for the diversion.
well snowwy, maybe someone will start an organic tobacco farm and produce product sans the 4,000 lethal chemicals commercial cigarettes have. The shite might smell better, too.
Is there any evidence dope (grass) is bad for your lungs? If it’s reasonably safe, maybe something could be developed for you immortal youngsters.
“Is there any evidence dope (grass) is bad for your lungs? If it’s reasonably safe, maybe something could be developed for you immortal youngsters.”
Actually, there’s preliminary evidence that cannabinoids may even reduce lung cancer rates. No kidding. And all the hard evidence is that it at least isn’t anywhere near as bad as tobacco.
Lesley,
That smoking diatribe, the palliative care, eating goo with no jaws, and screaming in pain bit. I suppose it touched a nerve, but If I want to die screaming in pain, who are you to tell me that isn’t the path to a higher place, or that your judgement of what is dignified matters one whit.
I feel strongly that industrial emissions of toxic chemicals must be severly regulated, and agree that smoking must be somewhat regulated (for quality and additives more than anything else).
But I feel very strongly that equating the two is disingenuous and counterproductive.
The former is a public health problem caused by passive exposure to environmental toxins, the latter is a public health problem caused by active exposure to systemic poisons.
Nobody chooses to live next to a smelter, but we all DO “pick our poison”.
I do appreciate the concern, but let’s focus effort on the folks making the money by poisoning every single memebr of the general public for the next several generations. See, a victim will give you money and his vote. All you’re going to do by targeting an addict is lose his vote.
Also, if i don’t get to smoke, how come other people get to wear so much perfume?
oops.
better?
better?
why does it do this with broken tags? c’est la vie.
didn’ t mean to yell there, just feeling a little bold.
“well snowwy, maybe someone will start an organic tobacco farm and produce product sans the 4,000 lethal chemicals commercial cigarettes have. The shite might smell better, too.”
they did that, ’bout 20 years ago. I’m not here to advertise, but Atural-Nay erican-amay Irirts-Spay are the best of a bad lot.
I have a degree in toxicology and a 10-smokes a day habit. I get by. I’ve never been a runner (ankles) but I can hike up a mountain no problem.
now, what business the major tobacco companies have putting all that extra crap in there is another matter.
tobacco itself is, well. , probably pretty bad for you, but modern American cigarettes are very very bad for you.
umm, they still smell like cigarettes, they just taste more like plants and less like cowboys.
the brand I smoke, that is, tastes less like cowboys and dromedary crap, and more like a plant.
if I want to die screaming in pain, who are you to tell me that isn’t the path to a higher place
Go for it. And do it today. The planet’s overcrowded with idiots, you won’t be missed.
Nobody is taking away your right to smoke. Just limiting where you can do it. You claim not to have a problem with that and yet scream and yelp as if the bylaws are ruining your life.
If the subject of smoking is less important on the pollution scales, then comment on something else besides your poor oppressed smokers’ lives.
oh, and mdhatter, though I could care less what an internet troll says about my mother’s experience, those comments you opened with – the gum goo etc. – reveal you to be a flaming git. They don’t serve you in any way. I mean, really, how can you profit by attacking a cancer victim.
I couldn’t care less that you’re offended – and perhaps feeling manipulated – by a personal story. That’s life fella. Maybe someday you’ll have to actually take care of someone when they’re in deep trouble. Making fun of my mom doesn’t make me want to listen to you or support anything you have to say.
What astounds me is you can come on to a blog like this one – and be all against Bush and torture and the war and all the pain and suffering these gits in power cause, and yet say that shit. Maybe you belong on the right wing blogs.
It’s just this little chromium switch here.
Gah, you people are so superstitious….
I’m of the opinion that, 200 years from now, our extra-mutated hairless twelve-fingered descendants will look back and say, “Yeah, can you believe they actually used to inhale burning fumes, and got into fights about their right to do it?” From an anthropological point of view, smoking is just plain weird. Unfortunately, from a biochemical POV it makes perfect sense.
The Beatles had it right: Sir Walter Raleigh was such a stupid git!
Crikeys. Yeah, tobacco’s not a prize, but if you insert “heroin” for “smoking” in some of the anti-smokering rants above, the sound just like the right wing beating on drug addicts.
So these days we give hugs and methadone to the street junkies, but would compare FDR or Murrow (or any of the past century’s illustrious tobacco fiends) to a Hitlerian bunny-killer?
Geesh. I guess moralist authoritarian impulses are NOT limited to to the other side of the aisle….
… and yes, regulations, designated areas, public bans, etc are all justified IMHO (though I also think that if Joe wanted to open the smoker-only bar, he should be allowed to, but since I’m not a hardcore libertarian nor have a moustache large enough to be, I wouldn’t let that one lil bit supersede everything else that also happens to be more important than it…)
MCH,
Dude, the Hitlerian bunny-killer remark was at least a joke. Take it in the spirit offered (especially since I was the one who asked for it).
Lesly, now- s/he has hir head so far up hir so-leftist-politically-correct-s/he’s-a-fascist ass it’s a wonder s/he doesn’t hang out with the Connecticut for Lieberman folk. On that, you’re correct.