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bzzzttt...
wrong

but don't let facts get in your way...

The FDA point is somewhat more important here then anything. I bet you have been conditioned from the no smoking laws and all the reports being threaded to the public that if you look at a cigarette you will get cancer and die a horrible death 3 days ago. And if you ever see someone smoking, your eyes will fall out, you will have a heart attach and die on the spot from cancer.

The fact of the matter is that less than 10 percent of life long smokers ever get cancer and only about 30 percent of all cancer deaths are attributed to smoking. Granted, your risk of cancer does increase and certain types of cancer do increase if you smoke, but it's not the death nail in the coffin it is made out to be.

As for second hand smoke, This is more to the point as the health effects have not been proven and by some accounts, scientific principle has been completely ignored in order to make the association to the dangers.

But by no means am I saying smoking is not bad for you or that you shouldn't avoid second hand smoke if you want to either. But the hype surrounding some of the issues is blown way out of proportion and often are exaggerated. Even the US EPA lost a lawsuit in 1993-1998 for a report it issued stating people were dieing from second hand smoke due to cherry picking data and construing science in order to reach a predrawn conclusion. I guess I should also add that in 2003, the EPA had the decision reversed on appeal, not because their study or release was good, valid, or anything, but because it didn't carry any regulatory weight so it wasn't regulated by The Radon Research Act passed in 1986 under Title IV of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA).

Again, I'm not saying second hand smoke is good for you but it does appear that the science behind it being bad was if not originally, a political motivation in the least with the goal of using junk science to fuel future scientific reference to it by corruption of reality and pollution of facts. The fact is the EPA conducted itself in the exact same ways as you remember the cigarette industry doing. With open access to all the information, both can be detected more readily and pointed out publicly.

I recall the same things being said about America's voting system. Around 2004, there was this big hoopla that Bush was rigging the election, even the EU was asking to have oversight of the US elections. Bush won that election, fairly and by a landslide. The people who didn't see their candidate win didn't like it, and made a LOT of noise about it.

Being the libertarian that I am (my chosen candidates never win,) I can observe this kind of bullshit and call it for what it is, but in the case of the US I haven't seen any sufficient evidence of rigged elections. Some voter fraud here and there (which democrat supporters have done a lot of, ironically) but not enough to influence the results in any election in my opinion.

I don't know about Russia's system, but I'm not going to be so arrogant (as the EU was) to demand that America take oversight of their elections; if they have voter fraud, that's their problem. Much in the same, I think it is pretty arrogant of the Russians and Chinese to demand that the UN get regulatory powers over the internet.

We've seen forest fires and other major fires caused by lit cigarettes as recently as six months ago. From a quick Google search:

• http://www.tobacco.org/news/214045.htmlJanuary 2006
• http://belairnewsandviews.blogspot.com/2007/06/cigarette-butt-in-trash-caused-forest.html, June 2007
• http://www.goskagit.com/index.php/news/article/cigarette_causes_forest_fire_at_heart_lake/, December 2007

In fact, in Oregon alone, Cigarette-induced fires have killed 29 people and injured 129 since 2001, and have been responsible for 1500 residential fires, 70 forest fires, and $28 million in damage in that same time period. (Source: http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/01/firesafe_cigare.html) Of course, that's a year old, so the numbers today would be higher, but that should give you a good picture of the problem, anyway.

Various states are passing laws to require fire-safe cigarettes (though don't kid yourself, these are not truly safe, just safer), but AFAIK, they haven't taken effect anywhere.

If Google is going to litigate its way to success, the company is in sorry shape. Maybe they should replace Schmidt with a tobacco company exec, because that is where the litigation strategy is leading.

Interesting thought... Maybe search engine companies will be looked on with as much suspicion as tobacco companies in the future. "For those who choose to search..." It's possible that all you will have to do is replace "health" with "privacy" where you find tobacco related literature if you want to get a glimpse of the future.

May I recommend The Tobacco Conspiracy?

In addition, Kraft is owned by Philip Morris^H^H^H Altria, the worlds largest (?) and perhaps one of the most aggressive tobbaco companies.

Alas, they own quite a lot of food companies here in Sweden too, including the no 1 mainstream chocolates company, Marabo.

If you prefer not supporting tobbaco plugging (and bully corporatism in this case too), have a look at
http://www.tobacco.org/Resources/00pmbrands.html

Sort of like tobacco?.

Let me get this straight -
You want inefficient and wasteful government solely for the benefit of computer programmers that work at Closed-Source houses?

About 2% of the employed population of the US works in "Computer and Mathamatical Science" jobs. Pare that down to the number that work for the government, get rid of the "Mathamatical Science" jobs, and you should be well less than a percent.
Your inability to cope shouldn't stand in the way of progress.

Also, what is so bad about paying taxes? Like it or not, the services are (mostly) needed. There's something inherently funny about Libertarians and people against the Government. (Originally from the Onion)

But if I told you I had something that would not just cure but outright prevent cancer and specifically the most lethal cancer, the type that causes 30% of all cancer deaths, wouldn't you be interested?

It's not sexy, it's not high-tech, it's not at the cell level, but I have a vaccine for the most lethal cancer. It's called tobacco prevention. It's proven effective and cost effective.

Tobacco product causes 30% of all cancer deaths in America.

The most effective way of fighting those deaths is not at the cellular level, when the cancer has already started. The most effective way is prevention, reducing tobacco consumption as rapidly and effectively as possible.

This is not sexy, doesn't involve high tech -- and there's nothing high tech cancer cures have ever delivered that even comes close.

Put yourself in an oncologist's shoes and think about it.

Better yet, think about all the people you know, and chances are you knew someone who died from tobacco product. You should. This product kills 1 out of 5 Americans.

You want to fight cancer? Stop it before it starts. Learn about tobacco .

Learn about the scope and scale of the problem, the big picture

Learn about what tobacco product does to the customer, to those nearest the customer, to all of us:

Learn how tobacco product is engineered, marketed, and spread across the globe:

And, if you decide you do want to do something about this, learn what and who you will be fighting, and how to fight effectively.

It's not sexy, it's not high tech, but it's nothing less than a vaccine for cancer, and it works.

>This implies, along with your previous cato.org (a political organization with a very ideological axe to grind I might add) reference, that the academic scientific community as a whole is engaging in large scale manipulation of data and conclusions in order to justify increased research grants from the public sector.

A few bad apples do spoil the bunch, don't they?

Do they all do this? Certainly not. But, just as people lock their doors because there's one or two robbers in the neighbourhood, I remain eternally vigilant and sceptic about new scientific claims. I like to see more than just a few scientists agree nowadays before I'm happy. One scientific paper will never satisfy me, unless the results are something I could reproduce myself.

>I find that charge laughable at it's face.

So do I! Wholesale fraud is a long cry from what I'm speaking of. I'm simply sceptical on fresh scientific claims until I'm satisfied that I'm not being jerked about. Sure, the percentage might be low (oh, say 2% of all research is crooked) but it's enough for me not to trust it implicitly based on the fact a scientist said it was true. If that's good enough for you, that's great, but it isn't the way I work, and it isn't the way a good deal of your friends work.

I've met some scientists and professors, and I would even trust some of them to do my taxes properly (and that's a mathematician!).

>You have no evidence to substantiate that charge other than editorials by political 'think tanks' imbued by ideology rather than data.

Fine, you want to read the ruling without the choice pull-quotes. Here it is. I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion. I can give you more data if you would like. I should even be able to find you the EPA's scientific findings that the judge said are way off base. Even prior to the trial, the inflated numbers aren't even all that scary, and required some serious marketing spin to get people to pay any attention. If you would like to check my journal, I've spent a little time researching this topic.

The basic summary is:

Because EPA exceeded its authority under the Radon Research Act and also failed the Act's procedural requirements, the court will direct the entry of judgment in favor of Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and vacate Chapters 1 thru 6 of and the Appendices to EPA's Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders, EPA/600/6-90/006F (December 1992).

>But to claim wholesale conspiracy -- wow, that's rich

But I never did claim that! Please stop with the libel; it's making you look childish.

You'd rather have corporations than governments control the web, eh? SO who would you rather turn your web site over to: The MPAA, Microsoft, or CyberCop?