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New Uh... How, exactly, do you reckon you're "vindicated" here??
"City air pollution just as dangerous as second-hand smoke!" doesn't mean second-hand smoke is non-dangerous, it means city air pollution is dangerous.

You're not "vindicated" at all.
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New In our last, um, er, "discussion"...
I had the audacity to make the claim that living in a city was just as dangerous as second hand smoke... Which was laughed at, ridiculed, scorned, mocked, lashed out at, persecuted, etc... I also had the luxury of doing a contract at the EPA in the early nineties when the original political football of "second hand smoke" regulation was being bandied about. I watched two folks (one of which mentioned in this article) resign as a result of this.

I think my point back then was that it was a nuisance ordinance and not a health ordinance insofaras, based on the research that was present, more "harmful" second hand smoke eminates from a car exhaust in 5 minutes than can eminate in from a smoker in a lifetime. In other words, if you are concerned about "the rights of other's health", we must certainly ban combustion engines long before smoking... Just more happy horseshit legislation, unenforceable and a money making racket for the states (and I feel vindicated there too!)...

Keep checking it out... Sometimes even losers like me fall into some good info at times.
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Read the article again
You say:

more "harmful" second hand smoke eminates from a car exhaust in 5 minutes than can eminate in from a smoker in a lifetime.

But in the article, they say:

He said the biggest sources of such pollution are coal-burning power plants in the Midwest and East, and diesel trucks and buses in the West.

Which seems to indicate that automobile exhaust isn't the problem the fearmongers seem to want us to think it is.

I've got to agree with the trucks and buses thing - you can *see* the particulates from those sources, whereas catalytic converters and other standards have significantly reduced automobile emissions.

And there are cities (like Los Angeles) that are located in natural inversion zones that trap emissions no matter what you do. Draconian rules against lawn mowers and cars might help, but I don't think that'll pass. And, unfortunately, bad locations like Los Angeles tends to produce federal US-wide guidelines that are entirely inapplicable to most areas of the country.

more "harmful" second hand smoke eminates from a car exhaust in 5 minutes than can eminate in from a smoker in a lifetime.

And this is just plain bullshit.
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
New On plain bullshit...
That's what I thought of your entire last post. Give me your car keys man...

Look, my contention is that we shouldn't ban combustion engines (not just cars... what drives those generators???), I did make the distinction any more than we should ban smokers from smoking in any public place. Either particulate and carbon monoxide are a "health hazard" worthy of regulating or they aren't. If I remember right, I was using the whole issue to point out that people will continually give up "rights" unless it directly effects them. I also conceed that cigarette smoke is offensive smelling and a nuisance. That's what brought up the I'll defend rights I care about... until it's your ox being gored...

To the nonsmokers... If you have a right to breath "clean tobacco free air", I have a right to breath "clean automobile exhaust free" air... It's either a health hazard or not... Now, give me your car keys...
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New The BS is yours; you're missing a fundamental point.
Da Screamer does:
Look, my contention is that we shouldn't ban combustion engines [...] any more than we should ban smokers from smoking in any public place. Either particulate and carbon monoxide are a "health hazard" worthy of regulating or they aren't.
You're missing the distinction: There's necessary risks, and there's unnecessary risks.


If I remember right, I was using the whole issue to point out that people will continually give up "rights" unless it directly effects them. I also conceed that cigarette smoke is offensive smelling and a nuisance. That's what brought up the I'll defend rights I care about... until it's your ox being gored...
I neither smoke nor drive a car, but I can see the fundamental difference: Cars (and lorries/"trucks" and buses, and most non-automotive combustion engines), besides polluting, _perform a useful and often[*] necessary service_.

Smoking doesn't -- there, the pollution is the whole _point_ of the excercise. That doesn't matter, to me, as long as it doesn't *affect me*... But when it does, why the fuck should it _let it_ do so?!?

Seems like a perfectly consistent and non-self-contradictory[**] personal philosophy to me; in the light of this, all your ranting and raving is just so much ranting and raving.


To the nonsmokers... If you have a right to breath "clean tobacco free air", I have a right to breath "clean automobile exhaust free" air...
No you don't: You, like I, have to accept that if you live in, are part of, a society then you gotta take some inconveniencies to you personally, in the name of the greater good; some socially useful phenomena (like goods transport and personal mobility) unfortunately have negative consequences which we must take because their positive consequences are worth more to society as a whole.

Other phenomena, which have the same negative consequences *without* the positive consequences (like smoking), we *don't* have to take.

Seems like a perfectly consistent and non-self-contradictory[**] societal philosophy to me; in the light of this, all your ranting and raving is just so much ranting and raving.


It's either a health hazard or not
And it either is socially useful, or not; it either is personally avoidable, or not.

To spell it out, again: combustion-engine exhaust is unfortunately not personally avoidable, but at least it's socially useful[*]. Exposing others to your smoking is at least in principle avoidable (albeit at some inconvenience to the smoker, but that inconvenience is eminently acceptable[***]), but smoking is of no social use whatsoever to anyone else.


Just a few thoughts,
Too bad they're misguided ones.


"Nietzsche has an S in it"

Celina Jones
Well, an 's', to be precise...



[*]: I wouldn't *dream* of contradicting Karsten!

[**]: But sure, there's quite too much "non-societally-useful" combustion-engine pollution going on; personally, I wouldn't mind fining drivers for taking the car two blocks when they could just as well have walked, or impounding the giganto-SUVs from all the soccer-moms who only ever drive -- on paved roads! -- to school, work, and the supermarket in them. Buy some little box-on-wheels that only pollutes one third as much, bitch! (It'll cost yerself less not only to buy but to operate, too.)

[***]: You wanna smoke and "I" am making that _inconvenient_ for you? Well, tough fucking luck -- it's _you_ who _wants_ to smoke, not I who am obligated to make your filthy habits _convenient_ for you to indulge in! Why the fuck should I, at the expense of _my health_ and my _own_ convenience?!?

(That last is really the clincher: In the case of cars and buses, the answer is, "You should accept it, so people can get to work and the supermarket, and get their kids to school, and all the other things that make society go round". In the case of smoking, there is no such _social_ argument, that I as a member of society should reasonably be expected to take some personal inconvenience for. There, it's all about indulging the smoker's _strictly personal_ habit; something that *only s/he* derives pleasure, and *nobody* any benefit, from. And therefore, he or she should take any inconvenience that arises from it upon her- or himself, and not bother the rest of us with it.)
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Dunno how it works in Finland
Here in the US the money government receives in the form of taxes and settlements from the tobbacco is huge, we smokers should be revered not derided. Afterall we wont be around to collect Social Security.
thasnx,
bill
There is no difference between a "settler," "soldier," "secular," or "Chassidic Jew." The target is the JEW.
- Harvey Tannenbaum
New Works exactly the same here. Unfortunately...
...they use it all up in health care for their smoke-debilitated bodies.

That, too, probably works the same way over there: OK, so your health care isn't tax-financed, but then they drive up the cost of health insurance for everybody else.
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Don't we wish
I keep seeing stories about what various states are doing with their share of the settlement. Never see anything about health care.
I can't be a Democrat because I like to spend the money I make.
I can't be a Republican because I like to spend the money I make on drugs and whores.
New The one on your head?
The point? You claim some sort of societal "good" is coming from screwing up "my God given RIGHT to exhaust emition free air"? Who the flying fuck are you to decide that it's more important for some second hand car smoker to drive 30 miles each way to work? You best add "short term good" to your ridiculous "point". S/He's poisoning the air for future generations and continuing to open up a big ol' friggin hole in the ozone layer - something tobacco smoke doesn't do... just so he go to the (polluting auto plant) to make more cars...

By the way, the tobacco "industry" provides jobs. By the way, smoking calms people, wakes them up and does a lot of other "nice" chemical things to the body of the smoker which is why they smoke...

Using your kind of logic (non accomodation of people who don't think like you should be regulated because you are in a repressive minority) might lead us down a wonderful path of "rights" like - compulsory plastic surgery for all the ugly mofo's that I "have a right not to see", telling all the damned handicapped people to learn to friggin walk and quit messing up the aesthetics of architecture by putting those damned ramps everywhere, banning any food that makes people fat (and I should be able to knock them outta my way - 'cause they bother me - see the compulsory plastic surgery right) 'cause they are running up my health care costs (and compulsory abortion for anyone with known genetic defects/propensities wishing to parent a child), and I don't like people who drink - they are running up my health care tab as well, and like tobacco, serves no real societal good...

Are we having fun yet?

Nietsche reference is in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life"... Watch it and get back to me.
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New No, the one that swished past above yours.
Dan Reck'lessly storms
You claim some sort of societal "good" is coming from screwing up "my God given RIGHT to exhaust emition free air"? Who the flying fuck are you to decide that it's more important for some second hand car smoker to drive 30 miles each way to work?
Not I, but Helsinki and Finland as a whole. Not you, but Cincinnatti, Ohio, and (above all!) the U.S. of A. as a whole.

If society as a whole *didn't* see some overriding societal value in enabling people to travel in cars, then they'd close off city centers and build electric tramways, right? (And electric trains for long-distance travel.)

But you and I, and all the other Helsinkians and Finns and Ohioans and Americans, keep voting in people who allocate funds to city streets and traffic lights (and interstate highways), so obviously it is our collective will (with you, and in many areas me, as dissenters from the majority) that this be the way it shall be.


You best add "short term good" to your ridiculous "point". S/He's poisoning the air for future generations and continuing to open up a big ol' friggin hole in the ozone layer - something tobacco smoke doesn't do... just so he go to the (polluting auto plant) to make more cars...
Sure, I never said it was the *most* enlightened thing to do... But at least "we", society as a whole, get *some* use out of (many of) those car rides and lorry ("truck") transports -- which *still* is a fuckofalot better than you smoking at me, which neither of us gets ANY benefit, and I only bother, from.


By the way, the tobacco "industry" provides jobs. By the way, smoking calms people, wakes them up and does a lot of other "nice" chemical things to the body of the smoker which is why they smoke...
Eat some peppers and a carrot, take a two-mile jog, and then whack off in the shower -- you'll have the same effects, only without bothering me.

Or, fuck, take your morning fag at home -- or in your car, for all I care! -- just as long as you don't traipse in at our common place of work, and *then* start huffing and puffing your stinking smoke, in *my* face.

You can whine and rant 'til you're blue in the face, and you'll still never convince me you should have any "right" to do that.

Because YOU JUST _D_O_ _N_O_T_.


Using your kind of logic (non accomodation of people who don't think like you should be regulated because you are in a repressive minority) might lead us down a wonderful path [...]
FWIW, the curse of a democracy (or, as in your case, a capitalist oligarchy masquerading as a republic) is "the tyranny of the majority", not a minority.


Are we having fun yet?
Naah, sorry, not all that much, really.


Nietsche reference is in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life"... Watch it and get back to me.
Uhh... I *have* actually seen that, even though it was a long time ago now... But surely, even they don't spell him "NietzSche", with a *capital* 'S'?!? Thas'sall I meant, really...
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New was the swish in yer title intentional?
Or, fuck, take your morning fag at home -- or in your car, for all I care!
But when little rickee arrives what do I tell my wife? Think id rather smoke.

American, the other English
thanks,
bill
There is no difference between a "settler," "soldier," "secular," or "Chassidic Jew." The target is the JEW.
- Harvey Tannenbaum
New "We must ban combustion engines before smoking"? Only if...
...you think peole are in the habit of running combustion engines in restaurants, malls, and whatnot -- i.e, *indoors* -- as often as they smoke indoors.

Somehow, I don't quite buy your logic. (That is, I wouldn't, even if Harris hadn't smashed it already.)
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Ever live in a city?
Been in an enclosed mall lot. Or any parking garage for that matter? Look at a smokestack on a power plant some day. Look at how far and how wide that plume is... then imagine a man standing next to it... Can he do that? How about 1000 men? Can they do it 24/7? How about a million men versus 100 power plants. Then through in the cars, trucks, lawnmowers, airplanes, etc...

Damnit, I gotta go, but I know you're gonna make me get facts and figures. You bastard!

:-)

To be continued...
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Don't think you need to look for figures; they're so obvious
Scream-ing, he asked me:
Ever live in a city?
Well, maybe they don't count in your eyes... I live in Helsinki, some 555,000 inhabitants; before that, in Uppsala, ~250 - 300,000(?). But I've worked in Stockholm, somewhere around 1.0 - 1.2 million, I'd think. Any of those qualify?


Been in an enclosed mall lot. Or any parking garage for that matter?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "an enclosed mall lot", unless it's just another parking garage... (One that happens to belong to a "mall"?) Anyway, yes I have... Thing is, not very much.

No, no -- DON'T take this as me disclaiming that I'm not qualified to speak on parking garages! On the contrary, that is MY WHOLE POINT: Do YOU hang out in parking garages a lot of the time? Does ANYONE?!?


Damnit, I gotta go, but I know you're gonna make me get facts and figures. You bastard!

:-)
Naah, don't think so. Or do _you_ really think you'll find any statistics to prove that people hang around in parking garages for anywhere NEAR the time they spend in bars and restaurants and such?



By the way, most parking garages I've been in (the above-ground ones, at least, that is) were built with a mesh of girders in stead of solid walls, so the air circulated pretty well into and out of them.
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Need a unit conversion
You're speaking metric, we're speaking Murrican.
Helsinki, some 555,000 ... Uppsala, ~250 - 300,000(?) ... Stockholm, somewhere around 1.0 - 1.2 million, I'd think. Any of those qualify?
<snip>
By the way, most parking garages I've been in (the above-ground ones, at least, that is) were built with a mesh of girders in stead of solid walls, so the air circulated pretty well into and out of them.
I'm reminded of a saying, "America is where they think 200 years is a long time; England is where they think 200 miles is a long distance." The scale here is just so different, it crosses some threshold into a different type of problem.

In New York (and many other cities) the density downtown is unbelieveable, unless you've been there. And that density has breadth, too. Many parking structures are contained wihin the first few stories of a high-rise building. Ventilation is an afterthought at best. Even if the walls are open to the outside, they most likely face -- across a narrow alley -- the back of the next building's parking levels.

I've driven into buildings before that had a blue haze up by the ceiling as bad as anything I've ever seen in a restaurant.
I can't be a Democrat because I like to spend the money I make.
I can't be a Republican because I like to spend the money I make on drugs and whores.
New Nope; hours / minutes / seconds is the same here as there.
Kimsky Drew-ls:
I've driven into buildings before that had a blue haze up by the ceiling as bad as anything I've ever seen in a restaurant.
And how long did you stay there?

How long do you usually stay in a restaurant?
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Yo... Sir majesty...
How long do you need?

I'll tell you what, LET ME DRIVE MY FUCKING CAR INTO A RESTARAUNT and see how fucking long it takes until they all die on the spot... Now how long does it take with second hand smoke from cigarets? MORON!!! You knew what my point was. You are being a little deutsche weasil at this point... I fart in your general direction.
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Kneel when thou talkest to me, peasant!
You "fart in [my] general direction"?!?

Well then you obviously don't need that car to kill me; I'll be dead already!









(And what's the frigging use of a car in a restaurant[sic]?!? Why, bloody well none at all -- just like smoking!)
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Dang, it's like IRC or something... You've been
waiting for me, haven't you?

So, you wanna fight, doya? Well my second hand smoke's bigger than yours. :-O

Face it, old freunde, we'll killing the planet daily for us... It's like we're facing the firing squad already... You wanna smoke?
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Gimme socially responsible, tasty, juicy chewing terbacky...
...any day!

Won't spoil anybody else's lungs or anything; my pleasure affects only *me*, as it should be.











Dang, now where's that spitoon gone to again...?
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New I'm adding to my list...
I've been doing some thinking... You're right. We should only be able to do disgusting things that effect ourselves. But since there is a "societal cost" associated with most of that...

I want a mandatory weigh in for all people. They should be withing 5 kilos of their ideal weight.

We need an immediate ban on alchohol, world wide.

If all people followed the ten commandments (or the two main condensed ones following Carlin) it'd be a better world, so it's now mandatory.

I also don't like people who cuss (you got that, asshole!), so, from now on, for the societal good, no more cussing.

You know what, it would also be better for society (and solve the income equity issue) if we had mandatory education through at least graduate school, no exceptions. Just think if everyone were a doctor, lawyer or engineer... and no one would be allowed - by law - to do anything wrong; like getting pregnant before a doctoral degree or playing ball instead of studying. We could make this world such a great place!

Oh, oh, and I would eliminate (ethical suicide) all people with any defects that could run up health costs up to and including people who wear glasses, need dental work or pass gas in public. Yeah, now we're talking...
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Now you're so bogus it's just boring.
None of those problems people can have (I, and I'd bet you, have several from your list) directly affect *anybody ELSE*.

Sure, people with bad teeth aren't the nicest thing in the world to look at... But that's THEIR problem; I can just avert my eyes. They don't make MY teeth go bad. How do I avert my lungs from the smoke you're puffing at me? You're probably giving *me* lung cancer too, and you DO make MY hair stink just as bad as your own!

If you don't see that difference, you really are a moron; if you're just pretending not to see it, you have just become boring.

Sorry, Dan, but I really think you should just give up on this age-old troll; we all, hopefully including yourself, know that you were wrong to begin with.

Now fucking be a man and admit it, and we can all start looking for some new and funnier controversy. This horse is dead, and you know it.
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Hope you're not too bored...
Sir cus,
You can wear a damned gas mask if you're so paranoid.

You are right, I am beating a dead horse, and I am getting silly (I hope), although a war on obsesity is not *so* far fetched now.

I am a man, but I will not admit that I'm "wrong" on this issue. I will admit that I will disagree with you in that I fundamentally view this whole issue as a microcosm of the enlightened world view - All smoke and mirrors. Unlike you, I still am not at all convinced that second hand smoke is a significant health risk. So, at that point, your argument becomes very weak. You see, my friend, you are still basing your assumptions on the fiction that the second hand smoke studies "proved" something conclusively. May I remind you,

[link|http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/second.htm|of this,]
 
[link|http://www.ornl.gov/Press_Releases/archive/mr20000203-00.html|
or this, ]
 [link|http://www.imaginis.com/breasthealth/news/news10.22.00.asp|
or this,]
 [link|http://www.jeremiahproject.com/smoke/ets.html|or this,]
 [link|http://www.davehitt.com/facts/epa.html|and so on...]

I am, on the other hand, very concerned that all the shit we've been throwing into the atmosphere is. It's like having a zit ontop of a tumour. The solution is to pop the zit... and then self piously claim some sort of moral high ground about public health... It just kind of reaks of hypocrisy to me.

Now reasonable people can agree to disagree... Right?
Just a few thoughts,

Screamer

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."

P. Townshend

"Nietzsche has an S in it"
Celina Jones
New Hypocrisy comes in 'scales' and has 'relativity' too..
(Possibly 'hypocrisy' isn't the right word though, when we reach the scale of massively-shared illusion?)

I'll agree with your placing of second-hand smoke VS the Larger, ongoing problem to which (most-) all are inured. But it is moot: it's unThinkable to most Muricans to even imagine! winding-down their utter God-reverence for Very Expensive Personal Wheels. Not even with a free / magic overnight / instant creation of the most modern public transport. Not even when the cost of maintaining subsidized-lo gas prices is: becoming an Imperial Power - taking what we want from the less-armed; using 25% of the world's supply of lots of stuff.

I believe this started as freedom from the oppression of one's family, neighbor group, especially in small towns. Early-on it was realized that Sex could only become more possible (in Really Puritan times) via the privacy afforded, too - with or without the drive-in movie.

Clearly there are many +s; but it took decades for the -s to rear their ugly confounding heads. By then the fad had modified the genetic structure of homo-Muricanus-Disneyensis. By now: for too many homogenized souls, The Car encapsulates Everything! (the more so.. the younger the car-besotted one).

It proclaims status, for certain tawdry definitions. Its appearance -- so utterly impractical of maintenance in a land of narrow parking spaces -- Must be maintained on a level with jewelry: an industry in itself. Just look at the impractical shapes, from any repair standpoint. And with Ronnie's reduction to the 2\ufffd MPH bumper as Corporate sop - windfall! for the panel beaters. And Corp spare parts. (My '77 Saab has 5 mph bumpers that ARE "5 mph". 5 mph-PLUS - one was tested!). But that's just a tiny aspect.

The spin-off in parasitic industries has become such that: any effort towards deemphasis would be deemed as blasphemous as to say, Were Jesus alive today - he would not want to be a Christian, all things considered.. Many many! jobs are intertwined with this addiction - which makes nicotine seem almost benign.

No, I think we'd take the hit from the asteroid rather than give up Car Worship. It is perfectly irrational (like the other example), thus perfectly impervious to logical - let alone reasonable argument, in the mass.

{sigh} Seems that species-wide we are averse to studying history and avoiding repetition of earlier follies / and also not much oriented towards any planning beyond the next quarter (bizness being both cause and effect of the junk-DNA within?).

ie We Serve The Car, now.. not vice versa. Best accept our profligacy and also our overall suicidal nature. (After all, it's just an illusion - this maya, you know? ;-)



Ashton
Blessed are those who expect noth-

PS Especially - do not expect the Corps [oil] to go gently into that Good night.. wherein alternatives to [oil] petroleum reside; speaking of expecting..
New Re: Hypocrisy comes in 'scales' and has 'relativity' too..
Ashton, if I could get from my home to work and back, with only, say, two or three times the elapsed time it takes me to travel by car (automobile takes 10-15 minutes, let's say a 45 minute public transport commute), I'd do it.

If there were public transportation that hooked up reasonably close to my house, transporting me to reasonably priced Amtrack (or other train travel) to my parents' house, I'd probably visit them more than once or twice a year.

The trouble is, the U.S. has built itself up into a corner these past five decades or so. The public transportation available sucks and blows, it's easier to use the Interstate to drive my ten or fifteen miles to work than to endure the stupid routes a bus might take (and those buses emite fragrant clouds of particulates, much more than my car anyway.) And thus it's a self-fulfilling machine: you drive, therefore they don't set up more convenient routes, and therefore you drive.
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
New No argument there..
I don't know how much company you have, but I don't think it's insignificant - either. But as you say - we have burned the options along the way to now being wholly dependent upon steams of single-driver commuters. And they can't relax or read, for sometimes several hours a day. Just follow the car ahead. Wearing, to say the least.

BTW though, if.. we found some way to recapture what was simply abandoned - and modernized it too - those particulates would be a lot less/person than all those cars in an endless row, idling.

We may have to get back somehow. It's just not working, this way. (Note how smug are the looks on those who can commute in decent time).

It'll be tough.


A.
New OK, so you think it's better if I get *annoyed*, in stead?
YAN of my posts Zips right across the Screamer's view without him catching on:
Sir cus,
You can wear a damned gas mask if you're so paranoid.
Of course I could.

But, AGAIN, that would be an inconvenience to *me*, wouldn't it?

And, for the umpty-fourteenth time, why should *I* shoulder any inconvenience because *you* want to indulge in a filthy habit?


You are right, I am beating a dead horse, and I am getting silly (I hope), although a war on obsesity is not *so* far fetched now.
Well, with the typical American hyperbole and misuse of the word "War", they *could* use that moniker for a public health drive, I suppose: A campaign to encourage everyone to get rid of their *own* overweight problem. As long as it didn't take the wildly exaggerated forms you suggested, maybe that wouldn't even be so bad a thing -- obesity *is*, as I understand, the #1 cause of health problems in America (and rapidly becoming so elsewhere, including here, too).


I am a man, but I will not admit that I'm "wrong" on this issue.
Well, AFAICT you fucking well should: Not *once* in this thread have you quoted and directly replied to any of my main points of fact and/or principle. (See "umpty-fourteen", above.) For the last time, before I finally abandon this discussion, I'll give you the chance to do so here; if you again chose not to, I'll just have to put you down as "won't admit when he's wrong".


Unlike you, I still am not at all convinced that second hand smoke is a significant health risk. So, at that point, your argument becomes very weak.
No, it doesn't -- it is *self-evident*. What is "very weak" is *your* insistence that there even *is* such a thing as "second hand smoke"! Where the F do you get that from??? Smoke is smoke is smoke, fercryingoutloud! Is *smoke* detrimental to your health, yes or no?


You see, my friend, you are still basing your assumptions on the fiction that the second hand smoke studies "proved" something conclusively.
No, I'm not -- I never read them. Why should I? Is it, or isn't it, fairly conclusively proven that *cigarette smoke* is carcinogenic? How in the blue yonder could it matter to me who is *holding* the damn thing, me or someone else? As long as there is *one* carcinogenic particle that gets into *my* lungs from *your* cigarette, my cancer risk is increased. Infinitesimally, yes... for *one* particle. But if I get one, I get millions (or billions?), don't I?

[Links to studies elided]


Why would I need "studies", when I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets to me? It's quite obvious, really: I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets into my clothes and makes them stink, irritates my eyes so they get red and run and hurt, and gets on my skin and in my hair so *I* stink. Apart from the nuisance value[*], that *shows* your carcinogenic smoke gets to my lungs. Don't believe me? OK, AFAICS, it's easy to logically convince me I am wrong. You only have to show that, either
  • The stink somehow propagates separately from the health risk; that those smelly particles lodged in my hair and clothes and lungs are not the ones that could give me cancer, but that those somehow go somewhere completely else. (Where?) Or,
  • That the stuff that clings to my hair and clothes and skin does not, in fact, get into my lungs at all; that your smoke somehow magically knows not to go down my breathing apparatus (what, maybe it thinks, "Yuck! Been there, done that... Never again!"?), and that the air I actually breathe comes from somewhere else. (Where?)
I wish you luck in proving either of those... Which one are you going to tackle first? Hey, maybe you can find some "studies" on the Web that show it! Only, no voodoo-jumbo that differentiates between "air" and "second-hand air", please -- I'll take bullshit like that as a priori proof that the "study" isn't scientifically valid.


I am, on the other hand, very concerned that all the shit we've been throwing into the atmosphere is. It's like having a zit ontop of a tumour. The solution is to pop the zit... and then self piously claim some sort of moral high ground about public health... It just kind of reaks of hypocrisy to me.
Well, no -- the "zit", as you call it, is *also* a tumour. OK, so I'm only ranting against the smaller tumour here... And WTF's wrong with that?!? Do you seriously think a good doctor, faced with a patient with two tumours, one easy to treat and the other much harder, should let the lesser one be? Why, *just because* it's easier, or what?


Now reasonable people can agree to disagree... Right?
Sure... But truly smart people would of course never -- by definition! -- disagree with me! :-)



[*]: Oh yeah, BTW, I recall you said something upstream about "your point" being that this was "nuisance, not health, legislation" [from memory, probably paraphrased]. For one thing, that's idiotic: If the "nuisance" is smoke, and smoke[**] is carcinogenic, how the heck could the "nuisance" *not* also be a health risk? But that is neither here nor there: *I* sure never claimed that "the point" was that this would be "health, not nuisance, legislation". _Either one_ is reason enough, IMutterlyHO, to forbid it.

[**]: At "first", "second", or umpty-fourteenth hand: Smoke is *smoke*. To disprove *that*, you only have to show how *your* lungs are perfect scrubbers, trapping *every* carcinogenic particle that goes in them and never exhaling a single one of them. (And that still leaves the issue of the glow-stick in your *hand*, smoldering away...)
   Christian R. Conrad
Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower.
-- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764|Andrew Grygus]
New Does it even matter if it is carcenogenic?
Why would I need "studies", when I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets to me? It's quite obvious, really: I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets into my clothes and makes them stink, irritates my eyes so they get red and run and hurt, and gets on my skin and in my hair so *I* stink.

Actually, even without evidence of carcenogenic effects of second-hand smoke, this in and of itself makes smoking in the presence of a non-smoker impolite at best. At worst, even without carcenogenic effects, it can be hazardous to people with other breathing ailments or smoke-related sensitivity. I'm not normally hypersensitive to cigarette smoke, but if I have a cold the stuff increases my misery considerably. Someone with more severe ailments like bronchitis might even find it life-threatening.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's, when I was pretty active in tournament chess, I could go to a chess tournament, play games in a smoke-filled room, and smell smoke for a week. (It clings to the fine hairs inside your nose, making it next to impossible even to wash the stink out.)
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
New Foolish attempt at some sort of summary (?)
YES - that smoke does stink, and cling.. as said. That it is 'carcinogenic' to *some* degree - appears by now to be incontrovertible. The mere impoliteness ALONE: in any sane society [Hah!!] ought to render any discussion moot. DO NOT create smoke in others' air supplies. If outdoors - usually that Ought to be enough space to permit a reasonable coexistence. Usually.

But I'll still support Dan re the smarmy deflection of attention towards THIS (problem of uncivilized intrusion) and FROM: the evidently larger problem, ongoing and as evidently, more-SERIOUS situation for ALL.

Just the amount of crap that enters the atmosphere as consequence (say) of the creation of One Computer [much worse: One New Auto..] illustrates the magnitude.

Consider merely all the noxius solvents that go along with each step from mining the ore to.. finished, color-packaged, product. I'm sure that everyone here has enough imagination to not need some stupid and lengthy list of those stages.

IMhO we do not pay attention to THAT because: it goes to the heart of infinite, mindless consumption = the very BASIS of all the current wet dreams of everything from personal wealth to the fucking ownership of..

One of Everything / TWO! of Some.

(No, I dunno how best we morph from this idiocy towards.. some Other measure of ego / self-worth than.. mere acquisiton of Endless Stuff. But we'd best take a stab at inventing some new myths and some new things to do, in the daily nonsense play which fills the time for most homo-saps.)



Ashton
'Chemistry' introduced me to (lots) - now its misuse may kill us all, quite ungloriously. Via our passion for Excess.

PS - is it even OT ??

I was in a local chain Everything-store (not ever Walmart, of course) on Sun. pm. Saw a corner of an island filled with...






..wait for it.




...all colorfully "blister-packed" sos you can salivate over the content of the Must_have thing you're about to put on your near-maxed credit card.




....because You Really fucking NEED this!




.....It was a slew of:







FART Machines.


Uh huh.. Uh Huh Huh... Uh Huh Huh Huh Huh.










Flaming assholes everywhere...
Talk to one of THOSE buyers about particulate matter in second-hand smoke....
Expand Edited by Missing User 70 March 12, 2002, 03:29:31 PM EST
New Nah, just right-shifting the monomania a bit :=)
Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
     Oh my gawd! I'm shocked... - (screamer) - (37)
         Uh... How, exactly, do you reckon you're "vindicated" here?? - (CRConrad) - (29)
             In our last, um, er, "discussion"... - (screamer) - (28)
                 Read the article again - (wharris2) - (8)
                     On plain bullshit... - (screamer) - (7)
                         The BS is yours; you're missing a fundamental point. - (CRConrad) - (6)
                             Dunno how it works in Finland - (boxley) - (2)
                                 Works exactly the same here. Unfortunately... - (CRConrad) - (1)
                                     Don't we wish - (drewk)
                             The one on your head? - (screamer) - (2)
                                 No, the one that swished past above yours. - (CRConrad) - (1)
                                     was the swish in yer title intentional? - (boxley)
                 "We must ban combustion engines before smoking"? Only if... - (CRConrad) - (18)
                     Ever live in a city? - (screamer) - (17)
                         Don't think you need to look for figures; they're so obvious - (CRConrad) - (16)
                             Need a unit conversion - (drewk) - (15)
                                 Nope; hours / minutes / seconds is the same here as there. - (CRConrad) - (14)
                                     Yo... Sir majesty... - (screamer) - (13)
                                         Kneel when thou talkest to me, peasant! - (CRConrad) - (12)
                                             Dang, it's like IRC or something... You've been - (screamer) - (11)
                                                 Gimme socially responsible, tasty, juicy chewing terbacky... - (CRConrad) - (10)
                                                     I'm adding to my list... - (screamer) - (9)
                                                         Now you're so bogus it's just boring. - (CRConrad) - (8)
                                                             Hope you're not too bored... - (screamer) - (7)
                                                                 Hypocrisy comes in 'scales' and has 'relativity' too.. - (Ashton) - (2)
                                                                     Re: Hypocrisy comes in 'scales' and has 'relativity' too.. - (wharris2) - (1)
                                                                         No argument there.. - (Ashton)
                                                                 OK, so you think it's better if I get *annoyed*, in stead? - (CRConrad) - (3)
                                                                     Does it even matter if it is carcenogenic? - (wharris2) - (2)
                                                                         Foolish attempt at some sort of summary (?) - (Ashton) - (1)
                                                                             Nah, just right-shifting the monomania a bit :=) -NT - (wharris2)
         Nah, this only means... - (bepatient) - (1)
             About the lack of warning signs on the GW... - (screamer)
         Not to worry, Dan - (Ashton) - (2)
             Not to mean to join threads but after the boom - (screamer) - (1)
                 ..barada Nikkto - (Ashton)
         get that chicken leg outta my face! - (boxley) - (1)
             Chortle.. - (Ashton)

I killed quite a few of my test rabbits when I first learned it.
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