Some woman on the the Factor last night:

Quoting Tammy Bruce:

Liberals... now do not know how to have a discussion without [race and gender] being an element, and it’s eating them alive, literally.

Literally?  I doubt it.

Pennsylvania has been dubbed "the ashtray of the northeast" because it is the only state in the region without a public smoking ban.

There is no debate in the scientific and medical communities: secondhand smoke kills Americans by the tens of thousands every year.

And the people of Pennsylvanian overwhelmingly support a public smoking ban.

The only debate is in the Pennsylvania legislature, where our lawmakers continue to stall on the smoking ban, ignoring the scientific and medical evidence, and violating the will of the people.

Why?  Because Pennsylvania lawmakers are corrupt.  They are bending to the lobbying from the tobacco industry, and are unwilling to damage the tax revenue stream they receive from tobacco sales.  Ostensibly they are trying to protect businesses who claim they’ll be hurt by the smoking ban, but that’s a lie because all evidence shows that smoking bans do not hurt businesses.

To be fair, I should say that I have no proof of this corruption, and there is one other possible explanation: that PA lawmakers are incredibly, mind-numbingly incompetent.  But when you ignore the will of the people, ignore the scientific and medical evidence, when all the other states in your neighborhood are on board, and when the only group on your side is the tobacco industry itself, well, that sure smells like corruption.

Here is a timeline including the many delays that our lawmakers have caused so far by failing to act on the public smoking ban:

1993-2006: PA Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery County) introduces smoking ban bills in every legislative session, to no avail.

Summer of 2007: there was supposed to be a vote on the ban, but it was pushed back to September.

Fall of 2007: the two chambers produced differing bills on the ban, and failed to reach a compromise on them.

April of 2008: a joint House-Senate committee was supposed to produce a compromise bill, but postponed it for a month.

April of 2008: a month later, the committee postponed their work again, for a week.

May 7, 2008: a week later, the committee again postponed their work.

Quoting The York Daily Record:

A vote on compromise legislation that would ban smoking in most indoor places was postponed again.  A meeting of the joint House-Senate conference committee was tentatively scheduled for Monday, according to the office of Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery.  A Wednesday meeting ended shortly after Sen. Chuck McIlhinney, R-Bucks, said he needed time to revise his proposal to incorporate concerns from the governor’s office over enforcement provisions.  McIlhinney would not talk about any other aspect of his proposal.  Some of the major issues that have divided legislators for the past year are whether to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and casinos, and whether a state law should pre-empt local smoking bans, such as the one in Philadelphia, that are stricter. (Senate Bill 246)

May 12, 2008: the committee was set to vote on a bill written by Senator Chuck McIlhinney, but failed to do so after Governor Ed Rendell threatened to veto any bill that weakened Philadelphia’s existing smoking ban.  McIlhinney is trying to paint the delay as being the fault of Rendell’s veto and/or of Philadelphia itself:

Quoting Chuck McIlhinney:

"This whole issue is coming down to Philadelphia getting its own law or not," McIlhinney, R-Bucks, said.

But the truth is that McIlhinney’s "new" bill is essentially the same as the failed bill that the Senate passed last year, and the whole issue is really coming down to the fact that what lawmakers are putting forth isn’t what the people of Pennsylvania want.

McIlhinney continues:

Quoting Chuck McIlhinney:

"If Philadelphia is allowed to have its own law, then each municipality will want its own law..."

And why is that?  Because your state-level law is shaping up to be a piece of garbage, so naturally each municipality wants to have the option of implementing a real ban, as Philadelphia has already done.

May 28, 2008: the committee is scheduled to meet next week, on June 3rd and 4th.

June 3, 2008: the committee finally produced and approved a compromise version of the smoking ban, which must now be approved by the full House and Senate.

June 4, 2008: the House approves the committee’s ban, but the Senate rejects it, thanks to Senate Democrats who are upset that the ban preempts local ordinances other than Philadelphia’s.  In theory they’re right, but in reality, 90% of Pennsylvanians currently have no smoking ban, and this bill would cover the majority of them; so the Senate should get its act together and pass this ban.  They’ve got a re-vote scheduled for June 9th.

June 9, 2008: the Senate postpones their scheduled vote.

June 10, 2008: the Senate votes to approve, so the public smoking ban will become law.

June 13, 2008: Governor Ed Rendell signs the public smoking ban into law, to take effect in 90 days.

Seen on a church sign yesterday:

GOD LOVES YOU
AND HE APPROVES
THIS MESSAGE

So there I was, writing my weekly letter to Obama wherein I beg him to carry my children since he’s obviously the second coming of Christ, when I heard this on the news:

Quoting Barack Obama:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them," Obama, an Illinois senator, said.

"And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," he said.

Thanks Obama; we love you too!  But you forgot cannibalism and NASCAR.

Anyway, we’re sorry for turning to such barbaric things as our belief in God, our second-amendment rights, and our desire to have secure borders.  We’ll try to do better by taking after you, and turning to more enlightened things like cocaine.

Quoting Ahmadinejad:

the names of the 3,000 people were never published

Quoting Ahmadinejad:

nobody was able to respond to the main question, which is how is it possible that with the best radar systems and intelligence networks the planes could crash undetected into the towers

Yes, just how did those "terrorists" sneak 2 giant commercial airliners into the US?  How is it possible that they didn’t show up on our radar?

The mind boggles.

Here’s PA representative Bob Belfanti in a Philadelphia Inquirer article:

Quoting Rep. Bob Belfanti:

"Face it, cigarettes are part of the military," Belfanti said. "Those guys and girls who come home, maybe without an arm or a leg, want to go to the VFW and have a cigarette."

That statement is all kinds of dumb, not least because 70 percent of the military are non-smokers.

Conversely, an intelligent comment by senator Stewart Greenleaf, from the same article:

Quoting Sen. Stewart Greenleaf:

You wouldn’t allow people to blow asbestos in other people’s faces.

Why not?  Because it’s a carcinogen, exactly as tobacco smoke is.  The only difference is that asbestos lacks the rich and powerful lobbying forces that tobacco has, and states aren’t collecting millions of dollars in tax revenue from asbestos sales like they are from tobacco sales.

More from the article:

Quoting The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Cigarette maker Philip Morris spent $275,000 seeking to influence lawmakers in 2007.  The Breathe Free Coalition (American Lung Association, American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society) staked out a spot in the Capitol this year where they set up a large poster reminding passersby that six people die each day in Pennsylvania from the effects of secondhand smoke.

Just saw the movie The Kingdom and thought it was great.  There are lots of movies that I like a lot, but when rating them (in my Netflix account), I think "definitely 4 stars, probably a little more, but 5 stars?  nah..."  However with The Kingdom I didn’t hesitate to give it 5 stars.

There was a lot for me to like about this movie.  First of all, it’s a government/political action movie sort of in the same genre as the Bourne movies, but it’s actually based on reality: terrorist attacks that actually happened, in particular, and the strained relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia in general.  From the movie’s opening scenes you might initially think it’s going to be a documentary, but not for long.

The second thing I really liked about The Kingdom is that while it’s definitely an exciting action movie, it’s not non-stop ridiculous action like Mission Impossible, and not even non-stop awesome action like the Bourne movies.  There’s lots of action, but there’s also lots of character, lots of quiet, lots of random artistic scenes, and a bunch of funny or thoughtful comments by the characters throughout the movie.

Finally, I liked that The Kingdom had Jamie Foxx in it.  I think he’s awesome, and I love how he manages to come across as both a bada** mofo (pardon the expression) and a sensitive thoughtful guy at the same time.

The only substantial criticism I have is that The Kingdom sort of made the Saudis seem incompetent in terms of forensics; it’s like they were just clueless about how to solve crimes so the Americans came in and figured everything out for them.  Of course I have no idea whether the Saudis are good at that kind of stuff in reality, and it’s entirely possible that America is in fact better at it, but it seems unlikely to me that the Saudis are as helpless as the movie made it seem.  But, it is only a movie, and there had to be some areas in which suspension of disbelief was required.

And it wasn’t entirely antagonistic towards the Saudis, either: the Saudi counterpart to Jamie Foxx’s character is very likeable and is portrayed as a good guy and a hero.

Quoting ABC News:

The Iranian Foreign Ministry, however, called the incident "ordinary"

Yes, a speedboat jaunting around in the wake of another country’s warships is entirely ordinary.  These guys were obviously trained by Baghdad Bob himself.

It’s certainly possible that Iran is trying to provoke us into war, but nonetheless the above statement is absurd.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the history of maritime incidents as they relate to the wars we’ve fought.

From the recent Democratic debate:

"I’ve been in hostage negotiations that are a lot more civil than this," [Richardson] said, sitting with Mrs. Clinton to his left and Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards to his right.

Starting next month, Wegmans will no longer sell any tobacco products.

Quoting WBEN:

The Rochester-based company, which has consistently been voted among the best places to work, told its employees that "heatlh concerns outweigh any profits the company gets from tobacco products."

Quoting Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

Wegmans has rightly recognized that tobacco products are no ordinary consumer products.  Rather, they are the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people, sickening millions more and costing the nation nearly $100 billion in health care bills each year.

It’s not every day that you read about a company voluntarily doing the right thing, especially when the right thing will probably cost them some profit, at least in the short term.

Now if only the government could summon half the moral courage that Wegmans has demonstrated here, and at least make it illegal for smokers to kill other people with their tobacco products, by passing a public smoking ban.

Quoting Roger Kimball:

To My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Best commercial I’ve seen in a long time.  Probably the best political ad ever, and certainly Huckabee has the best sense of humor of any of the candidates that I’ve seen so far.

"There’s no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard, only another fist."  That’s gold.

Vicente Fox was interviewed on The Factor this week (transcript here; Fox News’ dumb website doesn’t seem to have a direct link to the video, but part of it is currently on The Factor’s main page, titled "Border Battle").  The interview was somewhat interesting, but Vicente Fox dodged pretty much every question, constantly responding with "that’s not Mexico’s problem, it’s America’s problem."

It’s true that America is to blame for the out-of-control Mexican illegal immigration problem.  For decades our government has failed to adequately protect the southern border, failed to adequately punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants, and failed to adequately punish and/or deport illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes once they’re in the US.

But Mexico is also to blame for this out-of-control situation.  Of course Mexico doesn’t want to try and stop its people from emigrating to the US, because those emigrants send enormous amounts of money back to Mexico, money that the Mexican economy is heavily dependent upon.  But Bill asked the obvious question: Mexico is sitting on vast oil reserves and has two beautiful coastlines, so why is it unable to create and sustain a first-world economy?  Unfortunately, Vicente Fox had no answer to this or any other question that Bill asked.

(Update: the public smoking ban went into effect on September 11th 2008.)

The PA House of Representatives and the PA Senate were both working on legislation in the past few weeks that would ban smoking in most public places, including restaurants.  But the ban ultimately stalled because the two chambers could not agree on a set of exemptions to it.  The ban is now shelved until September.

I hate breathing other people’s smoke.  That’s not only because second-hand smoke kills 50,000 Americans including 3,000 Pennsylvanians every year; it’s also because it’s freaking disgusting.  So naturally I want this ban enacted into law as soon as possible.

The main arguments I’ve seen that are against the ban -- i.e. that are pro-smoking -- are:

1. Waaaaah I want to smoke and you can’t take away my rights and next thing you’ll be making it illegal to eat thumb tacks!!

2. Restaurants (etc) should just have smoking and non-smoking sections as they do now.

3. This is a decision that’s best left to market forces to decide.

The first argument makes me angry because it’s so common and yet so moronic and/or disingenuous.  No one is trying to take away a smoker’s right to kill himself.  The issue is whether smokers should be allowed to kill other people, as they have been doing for years and years without punishment.  When you’re spewing cancerous filth in an enclosed area, others have to breathe it in, and that’s as issue of their rights, not yours.

The second argument is invalid because the "non-smoking" sections are still contaminated with smoke, as anyone who’s eaten in one knows.  Any high-schooler who’s taken a physics or chemistry class can tell you that smoke, like all other fluids, moves freely within its container and does not pay any attention to the "non-smoking section" signs.  This whole concept is exactly like having a peeing section in a public pool, except that urine is a sterile fluid, whereas tobacco smoke is a lethal fluid.  Air ventilation and filtration systems have been shown to be ineffective in solving this problem, and in any case, the workers in the smoking sections are not protected at all.

The third argument says that anyone who doesn’t like smoke can simply avoid establishments that allow smoking.  I’ve seen a bunch of news or opinion articles making this argument, stating that "many" or even "most" restaurants are already smoke-free so non-smokers should just patronize those businesses instead.  I don’t know where these people are coming from, but around here, literally none of the restaurants that we go to on a regular or semi-regular basis are smoke-free: not Chili’s, not the Olive Garden, not Carrabba’s, not TGI Friday’s, not Ruby Tuesday’s, not Red Lobster, not Outback Steakhouse, not Applebee’s.  If there were such a restaurant, we would be all over it.  Instead, when we’re being seated, I always have to say "please seat us as far from the smoking section as possible," and still about half of the time, we need to ask to be moved once we’re seated, because the "non-smoking section" is too darn smoky.

Second-Hand Smoke Statistics

therecordherald.com, 20070619:

According to the American Lung Association, secondhand smoke is responsible for approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers annually in the United States.

nosmokeindoors.com, 20070621:

Three-thousand Pennsylvanians die each year as a result of the health conditions caused from breathing in someone else’s tobacco smoke.

For every eight smokers that die from the effects of their own tobacco use, one nonsmoker dies from the effects of secondhand smoke.

84 percent of Pennsylvanians believe that all workers should be protected from exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace.

Waitresses are almost four times more likely to die of lung cancer compared to workers in other fields, and bartenders face a 50 percent greater risk of dying from lung cancer, other cancers, and heart disease than other workers.

Secondhand smoke is harmful and hazardous to the health of the general public, and particularly dangerous to children.  It is a proven cause of lung cancer, heart disease, serious respiratory illnesses, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome.

businesswire.com, 20070626:

In June 2006, the Surgeon General of the United States declared that there was no safe level of second hand smoke, ever. Secondhand smoke - a carcinogen classified in the same league with asbestos, formaldehyde and radon - is known to kill more than 53,000 Americans each year, including 3,000 in Pennsylvania alone.

And that doesn’t include people who actually smoke. These are just the people who stand within breathing distance of smokers and suffer the fatal consequences.

During just a one-hour dinner in a restaurant where smoking is permitted, nonsmoking patrons "smoke" the equivalent of three cigarettes. That’s enough to cause stiffened arteries, prompt irregular heartbeats, exacerbate colds, bronchitis and pneumonia, worsen heart attacks, and trigger asthma, particularly in children.

Nonsmokers who are regularly exposed to tobacco smoke pollution, either at home or at work, have almost double the risk of heart disease. And secondhand smoke causes 30 times as many lung cancer deaths as all other regulated air pollutants combined.

An interesting post on American Thinker:

Lenin - Dead of the complications of a stroke, perhaps assisted by poisoning, January 21, 1924.

Benito Mussolini - Executed without judicial procedure by communist partisans, April 28 1945.  The act was robbed of any meaning by the concurrent murder of his innocent mistress, Clara Petacci.

Adolf Hitler - Dead by his own hand beneath the ruins of the Berlin Chancellory, April 30, 1945.

Stalin - Dead of stroke aided by medical neglect at age 74 at his dacha outside Moscow, March 5, 1953.

Ho Chi Minh - Dead of heart failure at age 79 at his home in Hanoi, September 2, 1969.

Francisco Franco - Dead of old age at 82 on November 20, 1975.

Mao Tse Tung - Dead of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at age 82, on September 9, 1976.

Tito - Dead of circulatory problems on May 4, 1980, three days before his 88th birthday.

Nicolae Ceaucescu - Shot out of hand at age 71 after a bogus "trial" following a national uprising, December 25, 1989.

Ruhollah Khomeini - Dead of cancer on June 3, 1989, at the age of 89.

Kim Il-sung - Dead of a heart attack at 82 in Pyongyang, July 8, 1994.

Pol Pot - Dead at age 72 (possibly a suicide) on April 16, 1998, while waiting to be turned over to an international tribunal.

Idi Amin Dada - Dead of old age at age 79 on August 16, 2003, after years of exile in Saudi Arabia.

Slobodan Milosevic - Dead in his cell under unexplained circumstances while in the hands of an international criminal tribunal at the Hague, March 11, 2006.

Most of the great butchers of the 20th century died of old age, in their own beds, some of them honored by millions.  Not a single one met justice in the sense accepted in free states across the world.  The handful who died otherwise are aberrations, victims of strange events that act as models for nothing.

There is one single exception - the hanging of Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006 after a careful, lengthy trial carried out under extremely difficult circumstances according to internationally recognized judicial norms.  The state of Iraq has succeeded where the rest of the civilized world has failed.  It is a singular achievement, and it will stand.

SDB:

2000, Democrats: "We wuz robbed!"
2002, Democrats: "We wuz robbed again!"
2004, Democrats: "We wuz robbed yet again!"
2006, Republicans: "Bummer. Oh, well, we’ll do better next time."

Note that right-wing pundits and bloggers don’t seem to be fixating on voter fraud, despite documented evidence that the Democrats have been doing that kind of thing?  Note that Republican candidates who lost very narrowly gave in gracefully, without demanding recounts or resorting to the courts?  Why the difference?

I think it’s the basic Democrat culture of entitlement showing through.  Democrats were angry in 2000, 2002, and 2004 because they felt that they deserved to win.  Republicans don’t feel that anyone deserves anything.  They believe that all rewards have to be earned.

There’s another way of looking at this.  In 2000, 2002, and 2004, Democrats explained their defeat by looking to see what the Republicans had done to inflict defeat on the Democrats.  In 2006, the Republicans seem to be explaining their defeat by looking for all the ways they themselves loused up.  The Democrats are showing their investment in the cult of the victim.  They didn’t lose because of any fault or failure of their own; they lost because of the nefarious acts of villainous Republicans.

Tomorrow is a very important day.  Your last post is an excellent reminder.  Please exercise your American right and vote.  It’s what keeps us free and pays honor to all those who fight and die for this awesomely free country!

God Bless America!

Lizard 1: It’s terrible.

Lizard 2: The horrible loss of American soldiers freeing that country from tyranny...

Lizard 3: ... only to have it devolve into Civil War.

Lizard 1: Car fires, busses burning, security forces being attacked...

Lizard 2: ... and the native population seeming to be helpless to stop it.

Lizard 1: Unemployment sky high...

Lizard 2: ... no vision for the future ...

Lizard 3: ... a leader at odds with the U.S.

Lizard 2: No-go zones with anti-government gangs in control.

Lizard 1: Terrible. We never should have "liberated" them. It was a mistake.

Lizard 2: And I was so hopeful..

Lizard 1: They voted in a constitution...

Lizard 3: The economy was doing well - exports were increasing...

Lizard 1: But now, just thousands of dead and wounded Americans.

Lizard 2: Billions of dollars squandered.

Lizard 1: And for what? Muslim radical driven civil war.

Lizard 2: Yeah. Sad. What a waste.

Lizard 3: But enough about France. Now what should we do about Iraq?

(LGF)

Kim and I were in Utah last weekend, and I’ll be posting about that soon, but one of the really cool things about Utah is that smoking is prohibited in all public places including restaurants and bars.  It was so nice to go out to eat and not be bothered by the smoke that never fails to infiltrate the "non-smoking section" in Pennsylvania restaurants.

When I learned about Utah’s public smoking ban, I looked it up and found lots of other good news on the subject:

On September 25th, a public-smoking ban went into effect in Philadelphia.  And Allentown is making noises along the same lines:

On Sept. 20, Allentown City Council approved a resolution urging the state of Pennsylvania to enact a statewide ban on smoking in public places.
...
This is not an issue of choice.  Those directly affected by second-hand smoke did not choose to bear the negative effects of someone else’s habit.  Taxpayers do not choose to shoulder the financial burden of those who require regular, costly treatment for lung disease.  In fact, most consumers are in favor of indoor bans.  According to a national Zagat Survey of more that 110,000 restaurant patrons in the United States, 80 percent of respondents said that all restaurants should be smokefree.  In California, 70 percent of respondents said they would eat out less if smoking were permitted again in restaurants.

Earlier this month, Philadelphia became the latest major U.S. city to go smoke-free indoors.  This continues a trend at the state and municipal level that is spreading across the United States.  According to Americans for Non-smokers’ Rights, a California-based lobbying organization, 17 states and 474 municipalities have enacted smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other workplaces.  Hawaii begins a ban in this November, and Washington, D.C., is going smokeless in January.

Even those crazy Europeans are on board with this:

Four fifths of EU citizens support a ban on smoking in offices, shops and other indoor public spaces, according to a poll marking World No Tobacco Day.

However, they are less sure when asked specifically if they support a ban in bars - in this case, 61% are in favour.
...
The world’s first nationwide smoking ban in public places was imposed in Ireland in 2004.

Italy and Scotland have outlawed smoking in enclosed public places and the rest of the UK is following suit in 2007.
...
"More and more of us don’t smoke and don’t want to be anywhere near smokers either."

The poll suggests that young people are the most likely to find smoke unpleasant, for reasons such as its smell.

This is January 2005, and even Italy, where it is not unusual to see doctors smoking in hospitals and pupils lighting up in school corridors, has moved with the times by introducing a harsh new law banning smoking in public places, including bars and restaurants.

France is to ban smoking in all public places from next February, the prime minister has announced.

Cafes, nightclubs and restaurants are to be given until January 2008 to adapt, said Dominique de Villepin.
...
Smoking kills more than 13 people a day in France, said Mr de Villepin - calling it an "unacceptable reality".
...
Opinion polls in France - often considered a nation of smokers - suggest 70% of the people support the ban.

And the BBC has this roundup of smoking bans around the world.

While watching the new movie V for Vendetta on Friday night, all I could think of was Trogdor and how the "s" is for "sucks."

OK, so the movie didn’t totally suck.  It was entertaining and interesting, but also annoying.  The thing is, with all the hype about "it’s by the Wachowski brothers, creators of the Matrix!!1!", I was expecting something great.  I guess I should have more heavily factored the suckiness of Matrix II and III into my expectations.

[Warning: spoilers follow.]

V for Vendetta rather overtly panders to the liberal crowd.  It paints a picture of the future where Great Britain has become a totalitarian state in the wake of an awful terrorist attack.  Of course, in the end it turns out that it was actually the British government who carried out the attacks, in order to have an excuse for stomping out civil liberties and amassing more power in the government.

In other words, it’s everything the crazy leftists believe that America is today.  The ruler of Britain was depicted exactly like Hitler, complete with raised arm, buggin’ out eyeballs, and red flags waving all around him.  If V for Vendetta were a thread on an online forum instead of a movie, it would have been over pretty quickly thanks to Godwin’s Law.

Then there was the pointless lesbian subplot.  Apparently some liberals believe we’re on track for a future where homos are collected up and put away by the government, again Nazi-style.  Never mind the fact that in the real America today, some states have gone so far as to change the centuries-old definitions of words in order to give special rights to homos.

In general, I liked the characters in the movie, I liked what little action / fight scenes there were, and the plot itself wasn’t bad.  They managed to not include the pointless sex scene that virtually every movie has nowadays, so that was cool.  If it weren’t for the whiny liberal tripe underlying the whole thing, I’d give it two pretty solid thumbs up.

Kim’s recent post about smoking reminds me that I have an anti-smoking rant that I’ve been meaning to post about for a while now.

I have two questions.  Why does anyone smoke, and why is smoking legal?

The only reason that anyone smokes is because they were tricked into it when they were young and stupid, and now they are addicted.  Virtually no one starts smoking after their late teens/early twenties.  Cigarette companies know this, so they deliberately target their advertising at young people.  Who really thinks that Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man are cool, other than kids?

(Of course, some adults who smoke will claim they do it because they like it, not because they are addicted; but for the purposes of this discussion we will consider such blatant lying to be invalid evidence.)

This is an unfair and frankly predatory practice.  It’s unfair because everyone is young and stupid for a while; it’s evil to take advantage of people in that state.  And it’s predatory because their product hooks into you and kills you.

This brings us to question #2: why is smoking legal?  Why are the cigarette companies allowed to exist, to continue to make billions of dollars, and to prey on children?  The only reason is that the companies are already rich, and therefore are able to influence politicians in ways that are favorable to the cigarette companies.

It bothers me that smoking is legal not only because it’s freaking nasty and it kills tens hundreds of thousands of people annually, but also because as public policy it’s so glaringly inconsistent.  If drugs like heroin are illegal because they ruin people’s lives by causing them to be severely addicted and/or killing them, then smoking should be illegal for the exact same reasons.  The only difference is that there is a powerful political force in support of cigarettes, while there is no such support for the other currently-illegal drugs.

I saw this advertisement in US News & World Report about PETA’s animal practices.  I guess it is not lucrative enough, so they skipped the "caring for animals" part and went straight to the legal blackmail and fund raising.

Be sure to check out their children’s literature.  PETA is their own worst enemy.

Mike has a post in which he states that he doesn’t like flag-burning, but doesn’t think the Constitution should be amended to prohibit it.  I agree, and I also don’t even really think there should be any laws prohibiting flag-burning.

The Constitution is the closest thing to a "sacred" document in our country.  It was so well-conceived and well-crafted that it has stood virtually unchanged for two hundred years, graciously accepting relatively minor amendments when necessary (which was a designed-in feature) but never being radically altered.

The most American of American ideals is the belief that all people have natural rights, and that government exists to protect these rights.  That is the very reason we revolted against the crown in the first place: in the rest of history up to that point, "rights" were things granted to the people by the government and they could be (and were) taken away at any time at the whim of the government or the king.

That is why the US Constitution specifically states that human rights are pre-existing, that the government does not "grant" rights to us but merely recognizes and protects them, and that should the government ever fail to perform that duty, the people have the right to abolish the government and create a new one.

Viewed in that context it is not surprising that all the constitutional amendments ever passed either increase the government’s recognition of the people’s rights, or further limit the government’s own power over the people.

The only exception to this rule resulted in the only amendment ever to be repealed: the prohibition of alcohol.

A flag-burning amendment is even more ridiculous than the alcohol one.  At least a case can be made that alcohol is A Bad Thing, since thousands of innocent Americans die each year as the result of intoxicated drivers.  But because many people use alcohol responsibly, the government decided that outlawing it was in fact unconstitutional.  Flag-burning on the other hand hurts no one.

On the other other hand, American citizens who burn American flags must surely be the lowest form of non-intelligent life on the planet.  What is flag-burning except the most emphatic way to say "I hate America"?  And if that is the case, then WHY DON’T YOU FREAKING LEAVE, DIRTY HIPPIE??!?  Therefore I propose a law whereby the government must club flag-burners over the head and then ship them off to some third-world country like Iran or France, so that when they regain consciousness they will be free from the brutal oppression of the American government.

Have you seen this billboard yet?  It has everyone in California outraged!  We had Gov. Schwarzenegger on our most popular radio talk show insisting that it be taken down.

There should be The Stupid Police, and their job would be to throw people like this in jail.

Quoting Associated Press:

Arkansas coach Houston Nutt said that players caught loafing will no longer wear pink jerseys during practices in an effort to avoid offending breast cancer survivors.

So it’s now Politically Incorrect to use the color pink in association with anything negative.  There are lots of other sensitive issues in our society, some of which have particular colors to identify their movements.  Should all these colors be off-limits for all uses with negative connotations?  Of course not, that would be stupid.

[Hat-tip to Mike.]