The Rampant, Irresponsible Political Thread

[WorkerCaste]

Towelmaster, I think the biggest reason the smoking issue stands out is because it is not attempting to protect people from themselves. It is looking to protect non-smokers from the smokers. This is the classic distinction between liberty and license -- liberty ends when the choice impacts the rights or well being of others. While the facts that drunks may injure others because of their inhebriation, it is not a given that anyone in the same room or area as a person drinking will harmed by the act of drinking.

[Radhil]

A curious thought hit me as I read TM's post there. I'm just gonna toss it out there and see what happens.

What triggered this was TM's mention of letting the free-market hash it out. Presume for a moment that such a thing would happen without a ban (for I've definitely never seen one) - a non-smoking restaurant of some stripe. For a free market it must've been a very rare thing, and strange that someone hadn't made the idea more common. In all my years, when there were smoking sections, they were drastically less populated and undercrowded, and I was always under the impression that the food joints had to provide them. The market couldn't be free, in TM's terms. So that leads to my thought.

Can I ask what there is to stop a smoker from suing that hypothetical non-smoking place on discrimination or other similar grounds?

[Jan]

Originally posted by Radhil
Can I ask what there is to stop a smoker from suing that hypothetical non-smoking place on discrimination or other similar grounds?

Oddly enough, some friends and I were discussing this at lunch. Basically, there's no law that prohibits discrimination on the grounds of smoking. Race, gender, sexual orientation, age, military status and religion are the ones that come to mind most readily. I'm no lawyer, but I think they'd need to come up with a class action suit in order to get to court. If they were that organized, chances are they would have lobbied successfully to prevent the laws about smoking in public areas from being passed in the first place.

There's one employer in my area who refuses to hire smokers. They actually make applicants affirm that they don't smoke *at all* before they will hire them. We're not exactly sure why, but we think it has to do with insurance rates.

As for free market, several hotels in my area have converted to all non-smoking rooms and I've heard of entire chains that cater only to non-smokers.

Once upon a time when the health risks of smoking were still under debate, I read an interview with (I believe) the then-Surgeon General. In it, he said that the only way to get smoking outlawed would be to have a long-term campaign to make smoking socially unacceptable. This was probably 30 years ago. Looks like perhaps he started the campaign and his successors continued it.

Jan

[Dr Maturin]

<<Once upon a time when the health risks of smoking were still under debate, I read an interview with (I believe) the then-Surgeon General. In it, he said that the only way to get smoking outlawed would be to have a long-term campaign to make smoking socially unacceptable. This was probably 30 years ago. Looks like perhaps he started the campaign and his successors continued it.>>

Guess who is involved in the anti-smoking movement around here? None other than the UN.

[Dr Maturin]

I was listening to the radio today and they were talking about how people are using environmentalism -- conciously or subconciously -- as a modern-day religion. When I got home, I ran a search and I found this speech that famous author Michael Crichton made a year ago:

http://www.perc.org/publications/articles/Crichtonspeech.php

Very interesting ideas.

[Radhil]

I am not particularly versed in current green thinking. Other than the usuals - such'n'such is bad, we need to curb process x, so on and so forth. So I can't go deep into what exactly is fact and what exactly is not.

I did read the speech however. Speeches I can very much comment on.

For a few bullet points -
- I have never, ever, heard even a reasonably comparable analogy from any Green thinker saying we need to get back to the good ol' days of the primitives. Of Eden, or anything else. On that, I'm throwing out half of Crichton's speech - the more impassioned and better half - simply on principle. (if some whackjob suggested it - well that would be why he's a whackjob).
- I realize this is just a speech, and actual accountability isn't supposed to be had, but making a blatant dodge and open insult out of the stories he was listing as fact certainly didn't win me over.
- Crichton may be a famous author, but a good bit of that is because he was a Hollywood darling for a few years. Not because he's some great scientist himself (at least not to my knowledge - and not judging from his books either).
- Allow me to laugh as he claims the Antartic cap is growing. There were two very well publicized events where massive chunks broke off the cap. The usual the-sky-is-falling idiots came out then too, but for him to claim the sky-is-rising makes him as much a kook.

[Dr Maturin]

Actually...parts of both caps are breaking off. If you look at this with tunnel vision, it looks bad. But if you look at the entire cap, other parts of growing while these others diminish.

[Radhil]

The shelf I was curious about when it happened, and definitely can comment on.

The cap always grows in parts. It was built inch by inch over years and centuries. This is geology, this is given.

If parts of the cap are growing fast enough to compensate for an area of ice roughly the size of Rhode Island (and that was one shelf), I'd truly be impressed.

There's no immediate threat - no sky-is-falling - because the ice was completely ocean ice and can't have much effect on ocean levels. Same way an ice cube melting won't overflow your cup - it was already in the cup. The fact that it happened points ominously as to what could happen though, should a land-based shelf begin to crack.

Ignoring either fact is tunnel-vision. I am well beyond tunnel vision, thank you.

[bakana]

The part that is worrying most scientists is that the Glaciers, which ARE "land based" are moving faster than ever recorded before.

Daily, dumping tons of ice into the oceans that would normally have stayed part of the caps for hundreds of years.
It's the "best" proof that the Ice caps are getting Warmer.

[Jan]

Originally posted by bakana
The part that is worrying most scientists is that the Glaciers, which ARE "land based" are moving faster than ever recorded before.

Daily, dumping tons of ice into the oceans that would normally have stayed part of the caps for hundreds of years.
It's the "best" proof that the Ice caps are getting Warmer.

So the next question is, exactly how long have they been keeping records? "Ever recorded before" could easily be less than a hundred years. And geologic evidence isn't exactly an atomic clock, is it?

"What are the facts?" - Robert A. Heinlein

Jan

[Andrew_Swallow]

Originally posted by Towelmaster
Considering that the new anti-smokers-laws come into effect in Holland as well(and they will, it has already started) :

How come I am then not allowed to smoke in any restaurant because it is bad for the visitors, the clients, the customers?

Why is it that everybody is blurting on about 'the strenght of the free market' but nobody want to let the free market do its job?

1. Bullies find telling people off great fun. To get away with it the bullies need an excuse. Smoking is just the latest in a long line of excuses.

2. As for a legal ban - worldwide the main reason for banning something is just to create an exclude for demanding bribes.

[WorkerCaste]

Originally posted by Andrew_Swallow
1. Bullies find telling people off great fun. To get away with it the bullies need an excuse. Smoking is just the latest in a long line of excuses.

2. As for a legal ban - worldwide the main reason for banning something is just to create an exclude for demanding bribes.

There's certainly no shortage of people who want to tell others what to do, but do you really think these bans would be implemented if that was the only reason people were putting them forward? IMO, I just can't see that. I think there are more, valid concerns drivings these bans.

[Capt.Montoya]

Originally posted by Jan
So the next question is, exactly how long have they been keeping records? "Ever recorded before" could easily be less than a hundred years. And geologic evidence isn't exactly an atomic clock, is it?

"What are the facts?" - Robert A. Heinlein

Jan

Funny enough geologic evidence and atomic clocks (of a sorts) go hand in hand...
Geologic times can be measured by atomic decays, the composition of rocks being well known, and radiochemistry being also a known, if some of the atoms in a rock have decayed to other atoms you can detect a change in composition. The most commonly mentioned dating of this sort is Carbon 14 (but this is not used for geological measurements, much longer lived isotopes are used, I think a Potassium one is an example).

More directly related to the issue is the isotopic composition of oxygen in water, the "regular" oxygen has an atomic weight of 16, the concentration of the heavier isotope O 18 in sea water depends on temperature, this gives a record of average global temperatures reaching back to many centuries long before physical thermometers were used, given that ice deposition in the poles has a known rate the farther down you drill the further in the past you're reaching.

This may not be directly related to glacier records, but my point is that science does have tools to measure variables before the dates when we could measure them directly.

__________

On the smoking issue:

I'm a smoker, and I do support no-smoking sections, and even no-smoking in restaurants clubs and bars (but sometimes wish they had more easily accessible outside sections to go light up).

Smoking is a public health issue. Frankly even if I smoke by choosing I can welcome going to an establishment where I won't inhale so much second hand smoke that it was the equivalent of myself smoking several ciggies (minus the evil addictive nicotine dose you seek and get from "first-hand" smoke, second hand smoke is all the health risk, none of the chemical pleasure).

[Towelmaster]

Originally posted by Capt.Montoya
I'm a smoker, and I do support no-smoking sections, and even no-smoking in restaurants clubs and bars (but sometimes wish they had more easily accessible outside sections to go light up).

Smoking is a public health issue. Frankly even if I smoke by choosing I can welcome going to an establishment where I won't inhale so much second hand smoke that it was the equivalent of myself smoking several ciggies (minus the evil addictive nicotine dose you seek and get from "first-hand" smoke, second hand smoke is all the health risk, none of the chemical pleasure).

My point of view re. smoking is as good as the same. But I still think that hoarding smokers outside in winter when it's -10 Celsius is not the way to go. It will probably end up causing absence from work because of common colds and the flue.

I do agree that non-smokers should be protected from inhaling cigarette-smoke, or at least that they have the right to demand said protection. I'm just against the needless stigmatising of smokers that is going on at the moment.

[WorkerCaste]

Originally posted by Capt.Montoya
This may not be directly related to glacier records, but my point is that science does have tools to measure variables before the dates when we could measure them directly.

On global warming, I question whether or not we have sufficient information to tell if observed warming is the result of man or if it is, perhaps, the result of natural cycles. Here's the thought I end up with, though: it seems pretty clear that some kind of warming trend is underway, and we have pretty good scientific evidence that there will be some nasty side effects. Given that, does it make sense to continue to do things that, if not the direct cause of the warming, could exasperate the situation?