First, my apologies on how my posts show up on the list. I've tried formatting as plain text, but all the paragraphs get squeezed together and the links sometimes duplicate. I read with interest Mark Snyder's response to my post on how the smoke banners' two pet studies didn't support the idea that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer. He was a little more scatalogically emphatic in his personal reply to me, but I don't hold that against anyone. I'm not a chemist nor an environmental scientist, nor do I play one on TV. But I can read, and if I take off my shoes and socks I can do higher math. Growing up in a family that had two businesses, newspapers and polling, I got a fairly good practical education in how news can be manipulated as thoroughly as statistics. And for the record, I'm not a shill for Big Tobacco, the liquor industry, or anyone else--but I may be a whack job. That's for others to decide. The problem I have with Mark's response is that he didn't address my arguement, which was: There is no hard evidence that secondhand smoke is killing people. In it, I cited the 1998 WHO report and the 1993 EPA report. I had a link to the WHO report, but I couldn't find the EPA report online, so I included a link to a Cato Institute article that referenced it. Mark first made an ad hominem attack on the authors of the Cato article. This is fine--it's always wise to know the background of someone being cited as an authority. But ad hominem attacks don't invalidate data. Mark then referenced an ACSH article that criticized the Cato article. ACSH is a reputable organization, and their critique may well be valid--*as far as it goes.* The problem is, I couldn't find anything in the ACSH article that referenced the issue at hand here, which is whether or not secondhand smoke has been proven to cause fatal disease. I'm not argueing that direct cigarette smoking isn't linked to fatal diseases. The point is that secondhand smoke isn't linked. There's been a ton of publicity and noise, but none of it alters the fact that the WHO report failed to find the link, and that the EPA report was politicized crap. Our Rosevillian, David Shove, is refreshingly honest--he wants to ban the smoking because he just doesn't like it. Ed Felien asks why bartenders have more lung problems than quarry workers or firefighters. I don't know if they do or not, but there can be very good reasons for this other than smoking. That's why studies must be carefully done to screen out cofactors and other noise that can hide the true facts. There is indeed reasonable doubt, Ed--and even if there weren't, the mayor and council could save a lot more lives and protect the public welfare better by banning drinking instead. Chris Johnson guarantees to us that research will show more deaths due to secondhand smoke. But that's the problem with the EPA report--they drew their conclusions, then fudged the numbers to support them. It may well be that ETS is proven to cause serious harm--but so far, it ain't been done. Finally, a nitpick to Matt Brower: It may be counterintuitive, but the research shows that smoking seems to be a net benefit to the health care system. Not only do smokers pay a lot of taxes, but they do tend to die younger--and more quickly--than nonsmokers. They (smokers) don't have the long lingering illnesses that cost megabucks to mitigate. Plus, the nonsmokers are a much more heavy drain on the various retirement systems as they draw their less-taxed benefits for more years. REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
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