ya know . . . this anti-smoking mania is becoming ridiculous . . .

from this morning's New York Post:

"You could call it ashinine, but please don't tell Mayor Bloomberg.

"A man from Palmer, Alaska, was slapped with a $60 summons for flicking cigarette ash out the window of his pickup truck on a near-empty highway.

"A startled Troy Woods still had the cigarette butt in his hand when he was stopped and charged with littering."

It is one of the minor truths which the Busheviks wrap their filthy ball of lies around.

I agree with that but as a smoker, I think the wackos are the ones who want to ban all smoking indoors thereby telling a businessman what he does with his business. Segregation is better. Let waitresses opt out if they don't want to work in the smoking section.

out the window is "littering"? How? I can MAYBE see if the guy threw his cigarette but out...but an ASH??? Holy Moly!

Yeah, an ash is ludicrous. I should read more carefully.

Glad you read wrong....:7.

But I raised another good point in the process :)

and I agree wholeheartedly! :)

when smoking is allowed indoors; everything smells of smoke. IMHO, if you can't go an hour or so without firing up a heater, then you've got some substance abuse issues that should be addressed. As a non-smoker, I applaud the no indoor smoking laws that are in place just fine. Now, I'm not casting aspersions here, because I like to smoke a little.. just not tobacco! However, I have enough will power that I don't have to fire up a bowl immediately after dinner.

mi dos centavos.

ridiculous many years ago.

Mayor Bloomberg!!!! This is asinine! :mad:

It's our fellow liberals who are responsible for a lot of this kind of hysteria.

That's the ticket for eating a sandwich on the lakefront in my town. It's the same fine even for drinking a bottled water there. No joke.

As the towns, cities, and states go broke, they will create more and more of these nuisance fines because they need the revenue.

What town is that?

I would be willing to bet that the laws against eating or drinking on the lakefront are attempts to prevent young people from hanging out there and upsetting the busybodies.

By the way, there may be strict laws against cigarette ash in particular in Alaska because of the remote possibility that such ash, if still hot and given dry enough weather, could start a forest fire.

I hate to rain on everyone's anti-PC tantrum, but live coals from cigarettes have an unfortunate tendency to start wild fires, even on "near-empty highways."

New York Highway is where this happened, not Ca. AND it was an ASH, not a butt. An ASH from a cigarette is NOT going to start a fire, anywhere. The guy still had his cigarette in his hand when stopped.

Ever held a lit cigarette out a window of a moving vehicle? Tell me that only dead ash comes off. It doesn't. The fine is perfectly justified from a fire prevention angle. In fact, in Oregon, the moran would have been tagged for $500 -- he got off cheap.

Not misuse of fire

???

the anti-alcohol crusader from the turn of the century. She used to take an ax and smash up saloons.

I thought everyone knew about Carrie Nation. This short PBS piece gives the story; she was known to wield a hatchet, but she also used things like billiard balls to get her point across.

People & Events
Carrie Nation


Standing at nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, Carry Amelia Moore Nation, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, cut an imposing figure. Wielding a hatchet, she was downright frightful. In 1900, the target of Nation's wrath was alcoholic drink. Nation, who described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn't like," felt divinely ordained to forcefully promote temperance. A brief marriage to an alcoholic in the late 1800's fueled Nation's disdain for alcohol. Kiowa, Kansas was the setting of Nation's first outburst of destruction in the name of temperance in 1900. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times after leading her followers in the destruction of one water hole after another with cries of "Smash, ladies, smash!" Prize-fighter John L. Sullivan was reported to have run and hid when Nation burst into his New York City saloon. Self-righteous and formidable, Nation mocked her opponents as "rum-soaked, whiskey-swilled, saturn-faced rummies."

While Carrie Nation was certainly among their most colorful members, the members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, left more in their wake than strewn glass. Once the largest women's organization in the country, the WCTU concerned itself with issues ranging from health and hygiene, prison reform, and world peace.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/peopleevents/pande4.html

that she used to smash salons and bars. You might say she advanced the cause of prohibition. She started out in Wichita, Ks. Eventually to end in Washington. By the way, Carrie and me are related.

Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Carrie+Nation

I notice the states had a lot of trouble raising taxes on cigarettes because of the well developed tobacco lobby. The solution? Why lets just have the states sue the tobacco companies and settle the new "Tax" as a court judgement.

Strange, I always thought the legislative branch was the only ones that could institute a tax. Yet here again, the judiciary steps to the plate and hits a home run. Is the settlement constitutional? I don't think so. But then again, the tobacco companies actually loved it, because it lowered their exposure to future lawsuits.

Interestingly, much of that new "tax" money went to upgrade golf courses around the country. I hear even the future money from the "tax" was sold as a bond issue by many states, thus the states cannot pay for future increased costs to pay for elderly health care for smokers from future reciepts from this "tax", the original reason for the lawsuits against the tobacco companies.

Am I alone in seeing something wrong with this picture?

Edit to fix spelling and link

My dentist told me that smoking severely constricts the blood vessels in the gums, which accelerates tooth decay because your teeth can't get nourishment and weakens the gums.

I haven't quit entirely, but this knowledge motivated to smoke much less than I use to (less than a quarter pack a day instead of half).

I don't want to lose all my teeth by the time in my 40s or 50s.

for longer than I care to mention and I still have all of my teeth and healthy gums. I was just at the dentist on Wednesday. Haven't had a cavity since I was 13 years old. I'm 48. Brush, floss and use listerine. :7

You must have really strong gums! :)

seems the owner of a small (like one-man) video store was issued several citations for having an ashtry on his counter with one butt in it . . . he explained that a customer had walked into the store with a lit cigarette and, rather than asking him to go back outside, he just pulled out the ashtray for him to extinguish the butt . . . the fines apparently add up to several thousand dollars . . . again, it's just ridiculous . . .