We've lost what, 4000 or so in 4 years? That number is so fucking small if any of those soldiers are scared of dieing they need to get the shit kicked out of them. You are more likely to get hit by a car crossing the street than a soldier in Iraq is to get killed or injured.
Says the guy who has clearly never gotten closer to actual combat than playing Halo, and instead probably spends most of his time wacking off in his mother's basement.
What's to keep someone - anyone - your wife, boss, insurer, whoever, from taking that toothpick you used after lunch and sending it in to one of these companies?
Please, that will never happen. You're just being paranoid. And of course, such irrational paranoia is exactly the type of behavior I would expect, given that you have a repeating ATTCAGGGATTAG sequence on your chromosome 3, which results in a 500% increase in the risk of developing paranoid schizophrenia.
My movie script is called "Dinosaurs versus Robots". Scientists bring dinosaurs back to life, but the dinosaurs escape and start killing everyone. So the scientists invent robots to fight the dinosaurs. But the robots rebel. So now it's dinosaurs and robots killing everyone. Think "Jurassic Park" meets "Terminator".
I've even got a sequel sketched out. It's called "Dinosaurs versus robots versus zombies". Think "Jurassic Park" meets "Terminator" meets "Night of the Living Dead".
Because if the Wall Street Journal put ANY story out that even insinuated that women were less than the epitome of all that is good and right in the world, their offices would be firebombed.
Nah, firebombing is totally a guy thing. Chicks would just gossip and spread nasty rumors behind the Wall Street Journal's back to all of their friends, so the New York Post and the National Review would stop inviting them to parties.
Can you not see how this is an impossible self-contained system? You can't convert water to its component gasses and back, and expect to make an energy profit.
Hello? Did you even watch the video? It's pretty impossible to argue with what the video shows.
The video clearly shows a little, blue car with the words "Water Energy System" in small, green letters. What's more, the car has the words "H2O POWER", in big, white capital letters, written on it. "H20 POWER" is written on the front, the back, AND even the sides, in ALL CAPS so it's impossible to miss that this car uses H20 POWER. If it's NOT powered by water, then how come it says "H2O POWER" all over the car, Mr. Smarty Pants?
If that wasn't enough to silence the skeptics that the car uses H2O POWER, the video features a guy in a suit talking about the car. The fact that the guy talking is wearing a SUIT clearly shows that these guys are professionals, because professional people wear suits. Now, I can't tell what he's saying, because it's in Japanese. But that's not important. The fact that he is saying it in JAPANESE is the important thing. Because that PROVES that he is Japanese! And everyone knows that Japanese people are very, very smart. To top it all off, the video is narrated by a woman with a sophisticated-sounding British accent. The same kind of sophisticated British accent you will hear on the BBC, one of the world's most reliable news organizations. You can't argue with information that is presented with a sophisticated sounding foreign accent.
You can make a safe, lightweight car, such as a Formula 1, but it's going to cost you. Carbon composite isn't cheap. You can make a safe, cheap car. Just add a few hundred pounds of metal to the frame to strengthen it. But your fuel efficiency is going to be lousy. You can make a light, cheap car. Just strip away the frame until there's almost nothing left, but if you get into a serious crash, it's gonna be a coffin on wheels. There are other compromises too. Comforts like well-padded seats, and sound insulation that keep noise down, also result in increased weight. A larger engine is going to increase weight. And so on.
That's not to say that we couldn't find some relatively inexpensive, safe ways to improve mileage. We may not be able to fill the highways with cheap cars that get 50 mpg and survive like a tank in a crash, but shaving a few mpg off every new car produced over the next 5 years would do a hell of a lot to reduce consumption and emissions. And of course the other question is, are there other ways to get to our destination other than driving?
6,500 lightbulbs may sound like a lot but if it costs millions...
6500 light bulbs isn't all that much. Let's be generous and say that each bulb is a high-powered, inefficient 100-watt incandescent bulbs. 6500 bulbs x 100 watts = 650,000 watts, or.65 megawatts. To put things in perspective, a coal or nuclear plant might put out 500-1500 megawatts of power (according to various Wikipedia pages). Obviously, the power output is going to be a lot lower if they're talking about 15 watt compact fluorescent bulbs, however; that'd be about 100 kilowatts of power. That's a respectable amount of power, but you've got to ask (1) how expensive is it going to be, (2) how widely applicable is this model going to be, and (3) how reliable is this power source? Presumably foot traffic is going to decline substantially at night, and perhaps on weekends and major holidays, so the average power generation will be much lower than peak power generation.
I thought this article http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90714692 provided a much more practical take on the problem. Apparently, factories, mills and refineries which generate high temperature exhaust can use that exhaust to generate power. A major difficulty here is legislative, not technological; if you install the machinery to generate power from the heat produced by a steel furnace, laws designed to protect utilities mean that it's often difficult to sell it.
That being said, I don't think that recycling waste heat, or any other single technology will solve our energy problems. We need a whole suite of technologies- the ability to drill for deeper oil deposits, more cost-effective mining of tar sands and oil shales, more efficient cars, solar, wind, and more efficient houses, cars, and light bulbs- to increase our supply and reduce our demand.
On the bright side...well, maybe some of those industries will come back, but, that takes time...and with all the tree huggers over here taking so much power...it still may not happen. I like a nice clean world too...but, strike a balance guys....if it comes to the US failing, and a couple of spotten owls, I'll feel sorry for the owls, but, I gotta say humans and our needs take priority.
I disagree with this argument for a couple of reasons. First, the assumption is that conservation is somehow altruistic. It isn't. Having a healthy environment is a selfish thing. It means that you don't have to worry about the air or the water making your children sick. It means you can hunt deer, catch fish, and grow vegetables in your yard and actually eat them. It means you can eat sushi whenever you want. It means being able to take your family out for a walk and being able to show them something besides a strip mall. Fuck the owls, I want the environment saved for me and my kids.
Second, I disagree with the idea that raping the environment is the way forward. It's a short term solution. Unquestionably, cutting down all the redwoods would create a few jobs and make some money, but once you'd finished, you'd be right back where you started. The way forward is investing in infrastructure, technology, and education. Lay down broadband, improve the quality of our primary and secondary education, make college education affordable for any kid who works hard in high school. Invest in alternatives to oil- you'd simultaneously help reduce our dependency on mideast oil and create a product the rest of the world would want to buy. Build more mass transit, which would create jobs, reduce energy consumption, and provide the infrastructure to help the economy grow. It's not a situation of having a liveable environment or a good economy; we have to try for both.
Salmon sized fish, huh? Once they release these into the ocean, they aren't going to last very long against the sea lions. Of course, we could solve the sea lion problem with a robotic orca...
I think that there is a serious market for something which fits between a notebook and a blackberry in terms of size and capability.
Laptops and desktops will stick around because that's what you need to do extended computing- sitting down for 30 minutes to several hours to work on a paper, a PowerPoint presentation, write some code, play a video game, or do graphic design. Anything smaller than the current MacBook or MacBook Air models would give me eye strain and carpal tunnel.
But I'd argue that as the internet and computers have become more ingrained into our lives, there are more and more short-term computing sessions- anywhere from five seconds to five minutes- where it would be handy to have something just a bit bigger than an iPhone or BlackBerry, but smaller than a full-scale laptop. Looking up directions or restaurants on Google Maps, finding movie showings, Googling some random fact, checking weather or stock prices, using Facebook, checking email, playing a quick video game. I'd say that the perfect size would be something that folds up to be a bit smaller than a CD case.
However, I disagree with the idea that the only way to make money on these is to sell services. At such small sizes, interface design is going to be everything; the iPod proves how good interface makes a difference, and how people are willing to pay for that. Apple and Brand X might both produce a pocket-size laptop with equivalent functionality, but if one has a better screen, keyboard, and touchpad, and packs those features into a smaller package with better battery life, it's going to sell better.
I was going to say the same thing. Trains can be good for shorter trips. You can get from downtown(ish) Ottawa, to downtown (real downtown) Toronto in 5 hours. The flight is only 45 minutes, but once you count check-in, security, boarding, taken-off, and travelling from the airport to downtown, you're looking at about the same amount of time anyway. Both are roughly the same price, but the train seats are a lot more comfortable, and the whole experience is much more pleasant.
I agree with you completely, but I'd argue that trains work best when they're connecting two mass transit systems together. In New York, you can hop on a subway to 34th St. Penn Station, and then jump on a train to Washington or Boston, and then take mass transit to your destination. It's a doorstep-to-doorstep solution. Disney Land to Vegas lacks that advantage. After arriving in Vegas, I'm going to need a car to get anywhere, so it starts making sense to drive, so you'll have that added flexibility and convenience of not needing to rent a car or take cabs.
The only other angle I could see is that this would effectively allow you to hit both on a single vacation. The problem is that I don't see these markets overlapping much. Disneyworld sells a wholesome, innocent world of talking mice, princesses, and teacup rides. It's pure. It's where to go when you want a world that's unadulterated, and Vegas is where you go when you want adultery. Disney Land tries to be like Eden before the fall, innocent and sinless. Vegas is the city of sin, it's more Sodom and Gomorrah. It's about gambling, gorging yourself on buffets, going to the strip clubs for your buddy's bachelor party, maybe buying a hooker. It's trying to be more family-friendly than it used to be, but still... there's no way in hell I would go to Disney Land unless I had young children. And there is no way in hell I would go to Vegas with young children.
I would be interested in this, but I just heard about that video showing gameplay for Duke Nukem Forever, so I think I'm going to wait and get that instead.
How is this kind of stuff news, really? We act differently depending on whether we're in front of a few friends, our family, our employers, or a large audience. Things you would never put in a letter you'll say over a beer, because you can always deny it later- there's no proof. People do things in Vegas they would never do in their home towns. And so on, and so on. We're social animals, we act according to the social context.
The problem is that all banana plants around today are sterile. The only way to cultivate new plants is by cuttings (taking a small section of an existing plant and growing it into a big plant). Consequently there is no way to introduce new variations. If all the varieties around today become susceptible to disease then that's it, they're gone.
It's like I am Legend, if the movie was made with bananas, instead of people!
I highly recommend Makita's 7.2 volt lithium cordless impact driver (http://www.amazon.com/Makita-TD020DSEW-7-2-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Cordless/dp/B000MPP558/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1212378432&sr=8-1
At the risk of sounding like a shill for Makita, this thing is freakin' awesome. I was told to buy one by the guys at the local hardware store; they said they had one at the store and used it constantly. Given how tiny it is, I was kinda skeptical, but in a hurry to get something, so I went ahead and got it, and I'm really happy I did. Although it's small and billed as a cordless screwdriver, it makes a great little cordless drill as well. Although it only takes quick-change hex bits, you can get a set of those at Home Depot, and quick-change bits make it really easy to switch bits without constantly fiddling with the chuck. So far I've used it for building various equipment and making repairs around the house. Obviously its small size means it isn't going to be as powerful as a full-size cordless drill, but I've yet to find a situation where it didn't perform, and I find its small size to be a real advantage over a heavier, more cumbersome full-size drill.
It also does a neat job of solving the problem of what to get one's mechanically inclined male relatives for Christmas, birthdays, Father's day, etc.
I get a few NPR shows on podcast, one of them being This American Life. They did a rather interesting episode recently that connects the human elements of the housing crisis drama- the people taking out mortgages, the brokers selling them, the Wall Street guys buying them up and turning them into securities. It's a collaboration between This American Life's typical quirky human drama thing, and NPR's news team, and they do a good job of explaining what's going on. I would highly recommend giving it a listen (http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355; it's #355, "The Giant Pool of Money".
In short, the collapse of the housing market destroyed trillions of dollars. Nobody knows how much was destroyed, exactly. And nobody is entirely sure what the long-term effect is going to be, but the short-term effect has been that people are becoming afraid to lend money, and if you can't borrow money, then our economic system doesn't work so well.
Alright, MR. GENIUS, can you tell me where microwave radiation comes from? THAT'S RIGHT, it comes from a MICROWAVE OVEN. And what does a microwave oven run on? You guessed it: 110-volt ELECTRICITY!!!
Score: Electric Universe Theory: 1. Mainstream science: 0.
I agree, and it's got to be better than some of the things the US Army has invested millions of dollars in, like the "gay bomb".
Actually, the gay bomb was a good use of our tax money. Not just good... I'd go so far as to call it fabulous.
But seriously, I disagree with the logic here: justifying an idiotic use of money (crazy-ass fringe science research into fusion) by pointing to a more idiotic use of money (gay bombs). It's like arguing, "I'm gonna burn twenty-dollar bills. Why? Because it's far less wasteful than burning hundred-dollar bills."
Nope... as far as I've been able to tell, the electric universe "theory" is still purely in the realm of pseudoscience, being touted by various internet quacks. Of course, many of its proponents also believe that the empirical scientific method is some sort of outdated relic of a bygone era, so I'm not really sure what sort of standard they should be judged by. I'm actually really curious about where CMEF, the organization which gave Eric Lerner the $600 million in funding, got its money from. Their website doesn't seem to have that info, although it looks like they're trying to raise private funds via the interweb.
In related news, $750,000 has been awarded to Gene Ray to create a source of renewable energy based on his "Time Cube" concept, and $1.5 million for research into improved fission reactor designs has been awarded to Ludwig Hansen, a.k.a. Archimedes Plutonium.
I tend to favor the opinion of professionals over some random jerkoff on the internet. If you've studied the issue for more than a decade and also have a legitimate reason for going against the consensus of your peers, I'd love to hear it.
Whether or not nicotine addiction is a disease is completely irrelevant. The issue is control and choice. Tobacco users had control and made a choice which led to them becoming nicotine addicts.
Saying "I shouldn't be discriminated against, because addiction is a disease!" is bullshit. It may be a disease, but you gave it to yourself because of your poor life decisions. It's like deliberately injecting yourself with the Ebola virus, getting Ebola, and then saying "it's not my fault I have Ebola symptoms! I have a disease! Don't discriminate against me!" It's like deliberately mixing radioactive waste into your food, getting radiation poisoning, and saying "It's not my fault! I have a disease!" And back in the 1950s you could (legitimately) plead innocence, but anyone who took up smoking after 1980 knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.
Comparing tobacco users to people with inherited disorders is bullshit. Tobacco users have a disease, if that's what you want to call it, because they made a stupid decision. A person with hemophilia inherited defective genes. One has a disorder because of something under their control, their decision to smoke. The other has a disorder because of something completely out of their control, the mixture of genes they inherited from their parents.
Slashdot Mirror
Says the guy who has clearly never gotten closer to actual combat than playing Halo, and instead probably spends most of his time wacking off in his mother's basement.
Please, that will never happen. You're just being paranoid. And of course, such irrational paranoia is exactly the type of behavior I would expect, given that you have a repeating ATTCAGGGATTAG sequence on your chromosome 3, which results in a 500% increase in the risk of developing paranoid schizophrenia.
I've even got a sequel sketched out. It's called "Dinosaurs versus robots versus zombies". Think "Jurassic Park" meets "Terminator" meets "Night of the Living Dead".
Nah, firebombing is totally a guy thing. Chicks would just gossip and spread nasty rumors behind the Wall Street Journal's back to all of their friends, so the New York Post and the National Review would stop inviting them to parties.
Hell yeah they did. Lousy transdimensional totalitarian imperialist alien assholes.
Hello? Did you even watch the video? It's pretty impossible to argue with what the video shows.
The video clearly shows a little, blue car with the words "Water Energy System" in small, green letters. What's more, the car has the words "H2O POWER", in big, white capital letters, written on it. "H20 POWER" is written on the front, the back, AND even the sides, in ALL CAPS so it's impossible to miss that this car uses H20 POWER. If it's NOT powered by water, then how come it says "H2O POWER" all over the car, Mr. Smarty Pants?
If that wasn't enough to silence the skeptics that the car uses H2O POWER, the video features a guy in a suit talking about the car. The fact that the guy talking is wearing a SUIT clearly shows that these guys are professionals, because professional people wear suits. Now, I can't tell what he's saying, because it's in Japanese. But that's not important. The fact that he is saying it in JAPANESE is the important thing. Because that PROVES that he is Japanese! And everyone knows that Japanese people are very, very smart. To top it all off, the video is narrated by a woman with a sophisticated-sounding British accent. The same kind of sophisticated British accent you will hear on the BBC, one of the world's most reliable news organizations. You can't argue with information that is presented with a sophisticated sounding foreign accent.
-safe
-cheap
Pick any two.
You can make a safe, lightweight car, such as a Formula 1, but it's going to cost you. Carbon composite isn't cheap. You can make a safe, cheap car. Just add a few hundred pounds of metal to the frame to strengthen it. But your fuel efficiency is going to be lousy. You can make a light, cheap car. Just strip away the frame until there's almost nothing left, but if you get into a serious crash, it's gonna be a coffin on wheels. There are other compromises too. Comforts like well-padded seats, and sound insulation that keep noise down, also result in increased weight. A larger engine is going to increase weight. And so on.
That's not to say that we couldn't find some relatively inexpensive, safe ways to improve mileage. We may not be able to fill the highways with cheap cars that get 50 mpg and survive like a tank in a crash, but shaving a few mpg off every new car produced over the next 5 years would do a hell of a lot to reduce consumption and emissions. And of course the other question is, are there other ways to get to our destination other than driving?
6500 light bulbs isn't all that much. Let's be generous and say that each bulb is a high-powered, inefficient 100-watt incandescent bulbs. 6500 bulbs x 100 watts = 650,000 watts, or .65 megawatts. To put things in perspective, a coal or nuclear plant might put out 500-1500 megawatts of power (according to various Wikipedia pages). Obviously, the power output is going to be a lot lower if they're talking about 15 watt compact fluorescent bulbs, however; that'd be about 100 kilowatts of power. That's a respectable amount of power, but you've got to ask (1) how expensive is it going to be, (2) how widely applicable is this model going to be, and (3) how reliable is this power source? Presumably foot traffic is going to decline substantially at night, and perhaps on weekends and major holidays, so the average power generation will be much lower than peak power generation.
I thought this article http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90714692 provided a much more practical take on the problem. Apparently, factories, mills and refineries which generate high temperature exhaust can use that exhaust to generate power. A major difficulty here is legislative, not technological; if you install the machinery to generate power from the heat produced by a steel furnace, laws designed to protect utilities mean that it's often difficult to sell it.
That being said, I don't think that recycling waste heat, or any other single technology will solve our energy problems. We need a whole suite of technologies- the ability to drill for deeper oil deposits, more cost-effective mining of tar sands and oil shales, more efficient cars, solar, wind, and more efficient houses, cars, and light bulbs- to increase our supply and reduce our demand.
I disagree with this argument for a couple of reasons. First, the assumption is that conservation is somehow altruistic. It isn't. Having a healthy environment is a selfish thing. It means that you don't have to worry about the air or the water making your children sick. It means you can hunt deer, catch fish, and grow vegetables in your yard and actually eat them. It means you can eat sushi whenever you want. It means being able to take your family out for a walk and being able to show them something besides a strip mall. Fuck the owls, I want the environment saved for me and my kids.
Second, I disagree with the idea that raping the environment is the way forward. It's a short term solution. Unquestionably, cutting down all the redwoods would create a few jobs and make some money, but once you'd finished, you'd be right back where you started. The way forward is investing in infrastructure, technology, and education. Lay down broadband, improve the quality of our primary and secondary education, make college education affordable for any kid who works hard in high school. Invest in alternatives to oil- you'd simultaneously help reduce our dependency on mideast oil and create a product the rest of the world would want to buy. Build more mass transit, which would create jobs, reduce energy consumption, and provide the infrastructure to help the economy grow. It's not a situation of having a liveable environment or a good economy; we have to try for both.
Salmon sized fish, huh? Once they release these into the ocean, they aren't going to last very long against the sea lions. Of course, we could solve the sea lion problem with a robotic orca...
Laptops and desktops will stick around because that's what you need to do extended computing- sitting down for 30 minutes to several hours to work on a paper, a PowerPoint presentation, write some code, play a video game, or do graphic design. Anything smaller than the current MacBook or MacBook Air models would give me eye strain and carpal tunnel.
But I'd argue that as the internet and computers have become more ingrained into our lives, there are more and more short-term computing sessions- anywhere from five seconds to five minutes- where it would be handy to have something just a bit bigger than an iPhone or BlackBerry, but smaller than a full-scale laptop. Looking up directions or restaurants on Google Maps, finding movie showings, Googling some random fact, checking weather or stock prices, using Facebook, checking email, playing a quick video game. I'd say that the perfect size would be something that folds up to be a bit smaller than a CD case.
However, I disagree with the idea that the only way to make money on these is to sell services. At such small sizes, interface design is going to be everything; the iPod proves how good interface makes a difference, and how people are willing to pay for that. Apple and Brand X might both produce a pocket-size laptop with equivalent functionality, but if one has a better screen, keyboard, and touchpad, and packs those features into a smaller package with better battery life, it's going to sell better.
I agree with you completely, but I'd argue that trains work best when they're connecting two mass transit systems together. In New York, you can hop on a subway to 34th St. Penn Station, and then jump on a train to Washington or Boston, and then take mass transit to your destination. It's a doorstep-to-doorstep solution. Disney Land to Vegas lacks that advantage. After arriving in Vegas, I'm going to need a car to get anywhere, so it starts making sense to drive, so you'll have that added flexibility and convenience of not needing to rent a car or take cabs.
The only other angle I could see is that this would effectively allow you to hit both on a single vacation. The problem is that I don't see these markets overlapping much. Disneyworld sells a wholesome, innocent world of talking mice, princesses, and teacup rides. It's pure. It's where to go when you want a world that's unadulterated, and Vegas is where you go when you want adultery. Disney Land tries to be like Eden before the fall, innocent and sinless. Vegas is the city of sin, it's more Sodom and Gomorrah. It's about gambling, gorging yourself on buffets, going to the strip clubs for your buddy's bachelor party, maybe buying a hooker. It's trying to be more family-friendly than it used to be, but still... there's no way in hell I would go to Disney Land unless I had young children. And there is no way in hell I would go to Vegas with young children.
Considering that the average male's wand is +5 to +6, you should be able to see why she's not getting excited.
I would be interested in this, but I just heard about that video showing gameplay for Duke Nukem Forever, so I think I'm going to wait and get that instead.
How is this kind of stuff news, really? We act differently depending on whether we're in front of a few friends, our family, our employers, or a large audience. Things you would never put in a letter you'll say over a beer, because you can always deny it later- there's no proof. People do things in Vegas they would never do in their home towns. And so on, and so on. We're social animals, we act according to the social context.
All post data delayed 15 minutes for Slashdot. Sigs are updated automatically, but will be turned off after 25 minutes of inactivity.
It's like I am Legend, if the movie was made with bananas, instead of people!
It also does a neat job of solving the problem of what to get one's mechanically inclined male relatives for Christmas, birthdays, Father's day, etc.
Personally, I'm just thrilled by the idea of 1 terabyte disks. I can't wait until I can back up my entire porn collection with only 50 or 60 disks.
In short, the collapse of the housing market destroyed trillions of dollars. Nobody knows how much was destroyed, exactly. And nobody is entirely sure what the long-term effect is going to be, but the short-term effect has been that people are becoming afraid to lend money, and if you can't borrow money, then our economic system doesn't work so well.
Another Dylan line goes, "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows". (Subterranean Homesick Blues)
Alright, MR. GENIUS, can you tell me where microwave radiation comes from? THAT'S RIGHT, it comes from a MICROWAVE OVEN. And what does a microwave oven run on? You guessed it: 110-volt ELECTRICITY!!!
Score: Electric Universe Theory: 1. Mainstream science: 0.
Actually, the gay bomb was a good use of our tax money. Not just good... I'd go so far as to call it fabulous.
But seriously, I disagree with the logic here: justifying an idiotic use of money (crazy-ass fringe science research into fusion) by pointing to a more idiotic use of money (gay bombs). It's like arguing, "I'm gonna burn twenty-dollar bills. Why? Because it's far less wasteful than burning hundred-dollar bills."
In related news, $750,000 has been awarded to Gene Ray to create a source of renewable energy based on his "Time Cube" concept, and $1.5 million for research into improved fission reactor designs has been awarded to Ludwig Hansen, a.k.a. Archimedes Plutonium.
Whether or not nicotine addiction is a disease is completely irrelevant. The issue is control and choice. Tobacco users had control and made a choice which led to them becoming nicotine addicts.
Saying "I shouldn't be discriminated against, because addiction is a disease!" is bullshit. It may be a disease, but you gave it to yourself because of your poor life decisions. It's like deliberately injecting yourself with the Ebola virus, getting Ebola, and then saying "it's not my fault I have Ebola symptoms! I have a disease! Don't discriminate against me!" It's like deliberately mixing radioactive waste into your food, getting radiation poisoning, and saying "It's not my fault! I have a disease!" And back in the 1950s you could (legitimately) plead innocence, but anyone who took up smoking after 1980 knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.
Comparing tobacco users to people with inherited disorders is bullshit. Tobacco users have a disease, if that's what you want to call it, because they made a stupid decision. A person with hemophilia inherited defective genes. One has a disorder because of something under their control, their decision to smoke. The other has a disorder because of something completely out of their control, the mixture of genes they inherited from their parents.