Around the Web

-- The New York Times is no johnny-come-lately on climate change. One of its first distress signals was printed way back in '95 -- 1895, that is!

-- Here's something as rare as a "smoking permitted" sign: The Wall Street Journal's Hugo Restall spends an entire column waxing rhapsodic on the joys of smoking.

-- The birthplace of Ebenezer Scrooge moves to ban Santa Claus.

-- Be proud: Your tax dollars are financing post-Thanksgiving congressional vacations to Brazil.

-- Councilman James Oddo, fresh from his long, lonely and hard-fought battle to ban metal baseball bats, has another big idea.

Around the Web

• Pat Buchanan actually writes something worth reading (even if Stephen Moore wrote much the same column only a few weeks ago).

• An anti-tobacco activist says New York City's health czar, Dr. Thomas Frieden, manipulates the science of second-hand smoke in the tradition of the infamous Tobacco Institute.

• Robert Gates continues his audition for the next Clinton Administration.

• The Center for Consumer Freedom's Rick Berman reports: "During the same time that health officials have placed increasing emphasis on obesity rates, the incidence of eating disorders has nearly tripled."

• A Johns Hopkins professor says claims of an obesity epidemic are "wildly exaggerated" and hurt children.

• A British editorial says a proposed regulation that will "warn" parents of obese "seem to assume a level of stupidity among the general public." It also has an intriguing suggestion for remedying obesity: "eat less and exercise more."

(hat tip to my pops & the Center for Consumer Freedom)

Since No One Ever Talks About the Benefits of Smoking ...

"Long-term and current smokers have a lower risk of Parkinson's disease than the general population, researchers say in a report that confirms previous observations that people with Parkinson's disease were less likely to be smokers," Forbes reports.

Dr. Beate Ritz of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health and colleagues analyzed data from 11,809 people involved in 11 studies conducted between 1960 and 2004. Of those, 2,816 individuals had Parkinson's disease.

The data showed that current smokers and those who had continued to smoke within five years of Parkinson's disease diagnosis had the lowest risk. People who quit smoking up to 25 years before diagnosis also had a reduced risk. Other tobacco products such as cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco showed reduced risk as well.

It Is Done

New Hampshire casts away freedom, embraces nanny-tyranny. The Boston Globe reports:

CONCORD, N.H. -- Governor John Lynch signed a law yesterday banning smoking in New Hampshire's bars and restaurants.

"The science is clear -- secondhand smoke poses a dangerous health risk, and that is why this new law is so important," Lynch said.

Actually, the science is ambiguous at best. If it's as clear as Gov. Lynch says, he should have no problem producing a list of all the New Hampshirites who've died from second-hand smoke. Still, this point is irrevelant. As the governor of a state bearing the motto "Live Free or Die" should know, if people want to work and patronize a bar that allows smoking -- even if it compromises their long-term health -- that is their choice.

But as with smoking bans everywhere, this bill concerns itself not with the interests of individuals, but politicians.

Opponents argued for education instead. They said restaurant and bar owners should decide when or whether to ban smoking, not the state.

They tried unsuccessfully to carve out an exception for "fully enclosed" smoking rooms in some businesses. The rooms would have been required to have separate ventilation systems, and employees would have been able to choose whether to enter them.

But ban supporters said allowing smoking rooms would make it difficult for workers to say no to their employers. They said the rooms would be bad for smokers and their children and for anyone seated near their doors.

Opponents could have argued for allowing smoking only so long as it is done within giant plastic bubbles. Ban proponents would have responded that children exposed to the sight of people smoking in giant plastic bubbles would think it's cool, and that we need to think first and foremost about The Children.

Politicians pushing bans in the name of public health care only about the self-satisfaction received from imposing their life choices on all those they control. Perhaps it's time for New Hampshirites to die, since they're certainly not living free. Or, at least, change their license plates.

The $25 Cigarette

New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy, now pushing 80, is still being carded for a pack of smokes:

May 30, 2007 -- IT may not make the Guinness Book of Records, but I believe I paid the highest price in the world to smoke a single cigarette - $25, to be exact.

Up front, I have to say I deplore the evil habit of smoking. But there are so many souls out there, enslaved to the sinister cigarette, they will understand.

Now, back to the exorbitant price I paid for my sin of smoking.

I recently got my bill from a very charming boutique hotel in downtown L.A. called the Hilton Checkers.

On the 21st line of charges was the notation: "Smoking in the room: $200."

Yes, I had been told it was a nonsmoking hotel, but like most desperadoes in the grip of nicotine, I've gotten away with it before in nonsmoking rooms. (Wrong, I know.)

Over a period of four nights, I smoked two cigarettes a night, defying the prohibition. Total, eight cigarettes. Hence, my extra charge of $200 amounted to $25 a cigarette.

Listen, I'm not whining. I broke the announced rules, and I'll swallow (or inhale) the fine.

Back home now. For me it's an hour trip on the Long Island Rail Road to work. I stop at a Hudson News in Penn Station. Marlboro Lights, I ask, and this very sweet, polite young lady asks: "Can I see your ID?"

Digging through a thick wallet can be exhausting, so I leave the newsstand on the east side of the concourse and find another, on the west side. Again, politely, I'm asked, "Can I see your ID?"

I go upstairs to the Amtrak concourse, again request my fix, and again I'm asked for ID.

I finally produce a NYPD-issued press card, and I think the clerk was intimidated (something I hoped would happen), and she sold me a pack of smokes, although the press card did not state my birthdate.

Here I am, with more lines on my face than the San Andreas fault. I'm racing into my eighth decade seven months away, and these lovely ladies want to card me.

All right, I surrender on all counts. They've banned smoking at bars, hit us with giant taxes, but why declare war on us poor, wayward souls?

'Bad Habits Fuel Longevity'

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg and his health czar, Thomas Frieden, can hire Zhang Shuqing to head up a new outreach program. China Daily explains:

Zhang Shuqing, a centenarian in Pixian, Sichuan, has his own secret for long life - smoking every day and drinking liquor after every meal.

Zhang, whose daughter died eight years ago, turned 100 on May 7. He lives with his nephew Zhang Chenggui.

Zhang senior said he started smoking and drinking strong liquor when he was in his early 20s. Since then, he has smoked every day and taken a drink with every meal.

According to his grandson Xu, Zhang has consumed 15 tons of liquor and more than a ton of tobacco in his lifetime.

Zhang, who is in good health, has a huge appetite, with a standard meal comprising two chicken legs, a bowl of steamed pork fat and glutinous rice, vegetables and fruit. And he eats the lot in less than 20 minutes.

(Via Fark)

Quote of the Day

"I can only hope this means that the MPAA will strip such films as 'Casablanca' . . . of their G ratings and relabel them for what they were: insidious works of prosmoking propaganda that led to millions of . . . deaths." -- Christopher Buckley, author of "Thank You for Smoking," on the Motion Picture Association of America's decision to factor smoking into its movie ratings.

More on this, incidentally, to come.

Dr. Frieden Redefining Hip

The Connoisseur of Cool, city health czar Dr. Tom Frieden, says the (supposed) decline in smoking among city women reflects changing attitudes, The New York Post reports:

"Women are taking charge of their health," said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden.

"It may reflect that smoking is less and less cool. Most people don't want to smoke," Frieden told The Post.

Which brings to mind just one question.

On matters of what's "cool," who are you going to trust?

Him?

Or these guys?


























































































UPDATE: Mom e-mails: "I don't think I'd use a picture of Sammy Davis in your smoking thing as he died a very painful death due to his smoking--throat cancer. Maybe you could use Bogart. Oops, no. He died of esophageal cancer because of smoking. How about Yul Brenner? Nope, lung cancer because of . . . oh nevermind. (It's a mother thing.)"