Health issues aside, (and if you watched Bullshit! with Penn and Teller, you'd be suspicious of all the 'second-hand smoke' scaryness)the only thing that really bothers me about smoking is the smell.
I never noticed it before, but then I moved in with a roommate who didn't smoke and then, I moved out on my own and I don't smoke, so now I'm super-sensitive to the smell and I hate it. I hate it on my clothes, I hate it in my hair, I hate it on my skin and in my car. No sir, I just don't like it.
Sorry about the random rant. I was making hotel reservations for my impromptu trip to Wisconsin next week and they asked me if I wanted a non-smoking room or a smoking room and so I thought about the one time I stayed in a smoking room and how it grossed me out to press my face into the pillow and smell smoke. It was like I had fallen asleep in a bar.
But hey, I'm not one of those anti-smoking Nazis. Smoke away, people! I personally think the whole banning smoking bars is pretty stupid, I mean, it's not like the people are there for their health. And people who cough and wave their hands and are totally obnoxious about smelling smoke should be bitch-slapped. Because, according to Penn and Teller, the whole second-hand smoke thing is mostly false. They did a whole show on it and it was pretty convincing.
Apparently, according to one study, non-smokers inhale about the equivalent of six cigarettes a year through passive means.
Most arguments for the dangers of second hand smoke are based on a study done by the EPA in 1992, which claimed to discover the perilous link between second hand smoke and cancer. In 1998, a federal judge declared that the EPA's decision to list second hand smoke as a cancer-causing agent was invalid because the 1992 study had "grossly violated scientific standards in their study." (Washington Post, 19 July 1998)
Here are a few interesting articles on the whole thing. Make up your own mind.
The making of ETS: Lying about passive smoking
Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98: Published in the British Medical Journal.
The facts about second-hand smoke
Huh. Did this become a rant or what?
Currents...
Currently Reading...
'America: The Book', by Jon Stewart et al.
According to this book, Alexander Hamilton founded the New York Post in 1801 and dubbed young Andrew Jackson "Wacko Jacko". Oh my god, I just about spit out whatever was in my mouth at the time when I read that. And if you're suddenly thinking dirty thoughts, shame on you! Although, speaking of shame and dirty things, really, did I have to see Ruth Bader Ginsberg naked? *shudder*
'The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists!' by Gideon Defoe.
Quite possibly funnier than the Daily Show book. Maybe. Excerpt:
"The pirates were slick by this state of their piratical careers, and they had managed to overrun the entire ship in a matter of minutes. The only casualty on the pirate side had been the pirate dressed in red, who had twisted his ankle trying to do that trick where you slide down the face of the mainsail, cutting it as you go with your cutlass-which worked fine up to a point but still left a twenty-foot drop once he reached the bottom of the canvas.
'Ouch! My ankle!' he cried, but none of the other pirates had much sympathy for his reckless showboating."
I also have a new word: 'Man-panzee'.
Currently Watching...
Dead Like Me
Comic Party
Adult Swim
Currently Hearing...
'El Oso', Soul Coughing
