After the (smoke filled) air clears

From your profile.

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute of Religious Freedom, 1779

Can anyone tell me why I'm forced to pay for NPR and PBS?

Because people like you keep supporting the increase in government power beyond its constitutional authority. And since nothing is totally safe and hazard free, and thus most idiot Americans support intervention in private property and affairs, even where say 1 person in hundreds of millions might be injured, therefor, there is no limit to government as a general rule. You object to NPR, and rightly so, but fail to see NPR as but a small part in a larger problem.

Mark my words. I see nothing that will officially stop the health nazis from ruling high fat foods illegal. I could even see President Bush supporting some initial legislation. There is no reason food can't be made tasty and lowfat, it is only the greed of the merchants and the ignorance of the great unwashed victims. I can see the ads, of men showing their bypass scars on tv, and saying McDonalds did this too me. Or a widow and children who are asking, "Where's dady, Mommy?" BurgerKing killed him children.

You wait.

AUGUSTA: "The Department of Human Services is proud to announce that we have submitted to the state Legislature a statewide, smoke-free restaurant bill with broad, bi-partisan support," announced DHS Commissioner Kevin W. Concannon today. "Our goal with the bill is to protect workers in Maine restaurants as well as Maine children and adults rom the toxic hazards of secondhand smoke."

Regardless of smoking/non-smoking debate. WE HAVE GOVERNMENT PUSHING BILLS TO OTHER BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT SO THAT YET OTHER BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT CAN INCREASE YET MORE GOVERNMENT?

Is it me or is there some sort of critical mass starting to build up here? What ever happened to the people. Oh, I forgot, they are sitting in front of the tube, waiting for a government check, unless they are working for the governmet, or just plain old working, in which case they are too exhausted to protest (how convient).

announced DHS Commissioner Kevin W. Concannon today. "Our goal with the bill is to protect workers in Maine restaurants as well as Maine children and adults rom the toxic hazards of secondhand smoke."

This is the same Kevin W. Concannon whose department was "protecting" Logan Marr to death:

Sally Schofield, the foster mother of Logan Marr, was found guilty June 25 of wrapping the 5-year-old's body with 42 feet of duct tape during a "timeout," causing the little girl to suffocate.

Six weeks before she was killed, Logan was on a visit to her birth mother when, in the presence of a child-welfare worker hired to supervise the visit, she complained that her foster mother was hurting her. "She did this to me and I cried 'cause it hurts me," the child is heard saying on a videotape, although she isn't seen. Despite this information, there was no immediate investigation and Logan's child-welfare worker failed to make a required quarterly visit to the foster home.

"In Maine, they don't even try to visit children more than once every three months," Wexler told ABCNEWS. "And they weren't even doing that until the scandal surrounding the Logan Marr case."

ANTISMOKING "GURU" STANTON GLANTZ ADMITS MISREPRESENTATION OF DATA IN BAR STUDY
PR Newswire 01/15 1605 - Anti-Smoking Activist Stanton Glantz Admits Using Wrong Data in Bar Study

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by the National Smokers Alliance:

University of California San Francisco professor Stanton Glantz has now publicly admitted using the wrong data in his study of smoke-free bar ordinances, which analyzed the economic impact of bans in bars in seven communities in California.

In a letter to the editor published in The Dominion Post in Morgantown, West Virginia, Glantz wrote: "In his attack on our work Auxier (Gary Auxier of the National Smokers Alliance) did identify one error we made. Two of the bar ordinances covered unincorporated areas of counties and we used data from the entire counties."

The National Smokers Alliance had pointed out numerous errors when the study was released last November. Despite overwhelming evidence of misrepresentation, Glantz originally insisted to a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner that he had used the correct data and attacked National Smokers Alliance revelations as "politically motivated."

"Glantz's admission came not in California; not in the American Journal of Public Health, which published the study; not in a press release from the University of California, which promoted the study; and not in an apology to the reporter to whom he lied. Rather, it came in a letter to the editor of a small newspaper in West Virginia," said Thomas Humber, president of the National Smokers Alliance.

"We believe the people of California should have the same information since California smokers and businesses are now the guinea pigs for a field test of Glantz's bizarre theory that a smoking ban won't hurt bar business."

Glantz also stated in his letter to the editor that: "We have since obtained the correct information and analyzed it. Our conclusion remains the same: Smoke-free ordinances do not affect the bar business."

"The bars in those two counties did not lose money because the vast majority of them -- all of them in Santa Clara County -- were ignoring the law and continued to allow smoking, which we documented in our original criticism," said Humber.

"Faced with the proof of our charges against him, Glantz is desperately trying to cling to his tattered credibility. He can't, because at the end of the day, he is nothing but an academic con man who would already have been exposed were it not for the political correctness of his cause," Humber said.

"We have attempted, time and again, to bring Glantz's abuse of his university position and taxpayer grant money to the attention of the university, the media, the courts and the people of California. Perhaps now someone will pay attention.

"As every journalist in California knows, Glantz has held himself up to be an expert on the California Board of Equalization data he has used in his studies," Humber continued. "His desperate 'oops, but I fixed it' explanation just doesn't pass the smell test.

"If smoking bans do not have a negative economic impact on the hospitality industry, then why are thousands of business owners up in arms as a result of the bar smoking ban implemented on January 1, 1998? Because they are pawns of the National Smokers Alliance, as Glantz would have people believe, or because they see their livelihoods going down the drain? If the law is enforced, the State of California is about to pay for the most expensive economics lesson it has had in some time," Humber said.

As a result of Glantz's new admission, on January 14, Humber wrote University of California President Richard Atkinson to reinforce the request for an investigation of Glantz's bar study that Humber made in a letter to Atkinson on December 2, 1997. (The text of the January 14 letter to Atkinson follows below.)

"I continue to believe that President Atkinson is an honorable and responsible president of an honorable and responsible university. Because of the deep emotions over the issue of tobacco use in this country and attacks on the National Smokers Alliance by university staff aligned with Glantz, he has thus far defended his own. Now hard evidence is on the table. A partial admission by Glantz is on the table, and I believe that President Atkinson will do the right thing," Humber concluded.

Supporting documentation of all misrepresentation by Glantz is available on request.

THE LETTER OF THOMAS HUMBER (NATIONAL SMOKERS ALLIANCE) TO DR. RICHARD C. ATKINSON, PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

THE LETTER OF THOMAS HUMBER TO MR. MERVYN SUSSER, EDITOR, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

CONTACT: Kathy Fairbanks, 916-341-1000, for National Smokers Alliance/ CO: National Smokers Alliance ST: California IN: SU:

> BACK TO FORCES MAIN PAGE <

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.