Friday Open Thread [7.20.12]
Friday! Yay! And there’s rain! Personally, I’m ready for this week to be done. How about you?
The Delaware State Fair gets into gear this weekend. I’ve been to state fairs in Maryland, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois — never have been to the Delaware one. Tell me what I’m missing and if you are going!
And Fireflyis going on this weekend — this is a really interesting lineup. I’m not going, but have offered my house to friends who might want real showers and AC before they head home on Sunday. If you are going, I hope you’ll check in and update us on the happenings occasionally.
Back to politics: Working the Refs — Fact Checking Edition. So the GOP finds that fact checking units are routinely labeling their claims lies and damned lies. What do they do? Work on labeling these units as BIASED. Which is unfortunate, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Truth-telling is sure nuff kryptonite to today’s GOP. And while these units have their own problems, it is useful to have someone tying to get to the bottom of the loads of BS that the media feeds us pretending it is news.
CSA-friendly recipe: Eggplant Tomato Hash (with Bacon!)
Hmmm. What interests you today?
Yo!
That is all.
Carry on.
P.S.: Bacon.
Now how cool is that?
You mention bacon, and rsmitty visits!
Nice to see you rsmitty.
EDIT: For you — 1050 Bacon slice whopper
I noticed that the anti-Paul Clark blog was removed today. Wonder if the blogger’s identity was compromised or if Clark threatened suit.
He probably wasn’t getting much attention.
Ya know, Cass, I’d say that bacon crash-cart sandwich looked appetizing, but why the lettuce and tomatoes? Ruined the whole, damned thing!
In which we find Fox News talking out of both sides of its mouth:
68 degrees and raining, on the ONE day our camp had a pool party. Which they cancelled, which was the first domino in a very messy problem coming at us.
And they wonder why people in this town drink.
Spot the journalistic bias:
I am shocked to see there are only 187 citizen cosponsors of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed Bill at the time that I am writing this. Ron Paul urged us all to become citizen cosponsors at the following website. This is a transparency issue where the 1% are behind closed doors, migrating wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. Every liberal should be behind this.
Please help ASAP:
http://www.majorityleader.gov/citizens/
And call John Carney! He has shamefully not yet become a cosponsor. He needs to be told to do everything possible to see that it receives a 2/3 majority vote on Tuesday.
Socialism makes Canadians richer and healthier
Cowboy, let’s see the text of this Audit the Fed bill. Got a link?
With more and more crackdowns on smoking in public, I’m beginning to think that people are acting irrationally in their fears of second hand smoke. The general consensus these days is that no amount of second hand smoke is acceptable.
If you believe in evolution, how can believe that just smelling someone’s second hand smoke is automatically harmful to you. Humans have been surrounded by smoke for close to a million years. Wouldn’t you assume that we have adapted to living around some level of smoke at this point. People have lived with open fires literally in their shelters since man has had shelters.
I’m actually thinking that being completely removed from all smoke may actually be bad for you. Sort of like the problems that have come from people being totally removed from dirt.
We are “fire apes” after all.
Go look up the current ingredients of cigarettes and then tell me about smoke being good for you. (I’m an ex-smoker, full disclosure) Benzenes, ammonia, formaldehyde, various pesticides among others are added to modern tobacco cigarettes that were not added to the wood or coal that people used to burn. It isn’t the smoke that is dangerous to you, it is the burned additives that are dangerous.
Cassandra, Im not saying that tobacco smoke is good for you. I’m saying that being exposed to small amounts of smoke is probably not bad for you. I agree that the chemicals in processed tobacco are probably bad for you as is any substance that enters the body that was not in our natural surroundings during our evolution. GMO products included.
And I should know better than to even engage with you. You are never going to even read what people write.
It isn’t the smoke, it is the additives. And there are some people for whom even small amounts of these additives are dangerous. Like kids or elderly people.
So you don’t mind if people smoke around your kids?
Cassandra, I’m just saying that there is an unjustified hysteria around second hand smoke, and even if you were smoking totally organic tobacco with no chemicals, the hysteria would still be there. I also believe that there is a difference between smoking around people in an enclosed area and smoking outside.
They want to ban smoking in public areas in San Francisco except if you are smoking medical marijuana. That should tell you how much they really care about the whole smoking thing. They are just anti tobacco.
So do you let people smoke around your kids?
Just measuring the unjustified hysteria here.
Depends on what you mean by smoking around children. Do I care if someone is on the same beach as my kid and just a small amount of smoke passes by….no I wouldn’t care. Would I let someone smoke in the car with him…no I wouldn’t. So back to my original argument. I don’t think small amounts of smoke are bad for people for the reasons I have already stated.
@ FBH,
“Do I care if someone is on the same beach as my kid and just a small amount of smoke passes by….no I wouldn’t care. Would I let someone smoke in the car with him…no I wouldn’t.”
Careful now, your common sense is showing. Better tuck it in when you go out in public.
Of course if I were on a beach and within a few feet of anyone (old or young) I would refrain from smoking simply because I am considerate of others. Sort of why I don’t drive in the left lane when I feel like lollygaging.
And your credentials as a thoughtful consumer of science are well known.
🙄
Would I let someone smoke in the car with him…no I wouldn’t.
So how is this not anti-tobacco hysteria? Exposures with people smoking in cars likely mimic the kind of exposure you would get from smoke in a house, like the kind you cite as routine to our ancestors above. By your own criteria this is probably harmless and anti-tobacco.
Even though my house is bigger than a car, I don’t let people smoke in my house Cassandra. They can go outside and smoke. Just like Dave said, a little common sense and some courtesy goes a long way.
Your house is bigger than most of the very old houses that used fire for heating and cooking. And unlike the few minutes of car exposure, you would have been exposed to smoke from cooking or heating pretty much all day long if you were relying on fire. You know — the kind of exposure you said was OK.
But you aen’t here arguing for common sense — you are trying to paint a group of people as being intolerant. And for being intolerant of pretty much what you won’t expose your kids to. The difference being that a city street with a bunch of people outside of every doorway getting their smokebreaks on can be a pretty uncomfortable gauntlet to run — and heaven help you if you are someone with a compromised respiratory system. SF is a community that has said they don’t want to tolerate the walls of smoke from the entrances of these buildings. WTF is it to you if they make that decision for their community? You don’t live there and never will — which means that you can still be tolerant of smokers on the beach.
I think it is another case of attempting to legislate courtesy. I wouldn’t dream of standing outside a doorway or in a traffic area and smoke any more than I would pass gas in a restaurant (unless I can pawn it off on the table next to me).
There are things that you just don’t do. Not because they are not allowed or that you don’t have the right but simply because in polite society we don’t do those things.
I don’t think it’s that people are rude or uncaring but that they are so self absorbed that they fail to understand how what they do can affect others. Of course, there are those who may understand but just don’t care.
Go back to my original comment cassandra. I stated that the general consensus is that no amount of second hand smoke is acceptable these day’s.
I was just trying to spark a conversation about whether people believe that this consensus is true, given the fact that we have been living with smoke for a million years, and that the human body must be adapted to small amounts of smoke by now.
I do however, believe that people in specific regions should make laws according to the desires of the population as long as it abides by the Constitution.
I stated that the general consensus is that no amount of second hand smoke is acceptable these day’s. [sic]
Which is true and that consensus is based in some real science about the effects of the additives from cigarettes do to you. Even in second hand smoke form. What may look like some societal tyranny to you has some basis in science. Which is where I know I’ve lost you, given that you’ve gone back to the smoke canard. Smoke that you find too risky for your own kids.