A story on Missouri kids and tobacco I missed

Last month, a story was released on Missouri's rank, nationally, on how it funds programs to keep children from tobacco and smoking. Unfortunately, it's not good news: Missouri Ranks 48th in Protecting Kids from Tobacco WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Missouri ranks 48th in the nation in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, according to a national report released today by a coalition of public health organizations. Missouri currently spends $60,000 a year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is 0.1 percent of the $73.2 million recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)." What's really horrible about this, besides, first, that we don't seem to care about our children's health statewide, is that Missouri collects $245 million this year "from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend almost none of it on tobacco prevention programs." Making this far worse is that "•The tobacco companies spend $419.9 million a year to market their products in Missouri. This is 6,998 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention." The final travesty? That money is just shuffled off, to be spent elsewhere. Sorry, kids. Really. Sorry. Apparently there is no shame in Jefferson City at all. Link: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/missouri-ranks-48th-in-protecting-kids-from-tobacco-108682719.html

Missouri: 2nd worst number of smokers per capita, nationwide

The latest study is out from Gallup, on the numbers of smokers nationwide, on a state-by-state basis and Missouri has the 2nd worst (meaning, most) number of smokers as a percentage of the state. Only Kentucky is worse--they're at 29% of the population, we're at 26%. Ugh. Surprisingly and happily, Kansas is on the "lowest percentage" list at only 19% of the population so good on you, Kansas. Links: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150779/Smoking-Rates-Remain-Highest-Kentucky-Lowest-Utah.aspx#1;

Does "mind your own business" mean anything to you?

N.J. woman chides NYC smoker, gets stabbed with pen

Liberalism vs Libertarian philosopy

I just took this from a friend's Facebook page, frankly:


"...just swiped this from the comment section over at Truthout:
Genuine freedom includes two components:
1. Freedom to


and


2. Freedom from

Libertarian ideology only recognizes the first component--which is why it's inadequate.

The two often come into conflict.
Take smoking. Smokers' freedom to smoke in public conflicts with non-smokers' freedom from harm (cancer, etc.). Society initially supported the former but as evidence of harm mounted, shifted to the latter.
Take the environment. A company's freedom to pollute conflicts with citizens' freedom from harm (in various forms, including cancer and global warming). We've addressed this issue only in an adequate way to date.
The free market alone can only support "freedom to." It takes government regulation to support "freedom from."


That's why the liberal theory of freedom is much more powerful and ultimately beneficial than the libertarian theory of freedom.
Libertarianism = the greatest good for the rich & well-connected


Liberalism = the greatest good for the greatest number"

Food for thought, for sure.

Have a great day, y'all, and enjoy that terrific, continuing stretch of wonderful weather.

Further proof of why we shouldn't have smoking in public areas

I still see and hear, once in a while, someone complain that they can't smoke in public. Last week, someone wrote in to The Kansas City Star, sarcastically ripping our smoking bans, saying life will be perfect one of these days, if we just keep passing laws similar to this one. And to this I say, you need to read the following scientific information on what smoking does to us, just released this morning: Scientists led by Dr. Ronald Crystal at Weill Cornell Medical College documented changes in genetic activity among nonsmokers triggered by exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke. Public-health bans on smoking have been fueled by strong population-based data that links exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke and a higher incidence of lung diseases such as emphysema and even lung cancer, but do not establish a biological cause for the correlation. Now, for the first time, researchers can point to one possible cause: the passive recipient's genes are actually being affected. The results suggest that the genetic changes among the low-exposure volunteers, some of whose exposure is exclusively secondhand, mimicked those of smokers and represent the first molecular steps toward later lung disease. ...the latest findings should reinforce public-health messages about the dangers of cigarette smoke, even if it is secondhand, says Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association. "When you look at the biology, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke," he says. "This [study] adds an important piece of evidence that inhaling secondhand smoke is deleterious and does things to the airway that are not good." Okay? Got that? It's bad enough your cigarettes make us stink. We could live with that. And the scientific data told us years ago that secondhand smoke does cause cancer, even though you may not want to believe it. But here is further proof of just what you, smoking in public, in restaurants and so on, does to us--all of us. Could we get over this now? Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201210300;_ylt=AiwAHJetTqWiLcUjXzd7otHpCcB_;_ylu=X3oDMTM1dTVqMjI1BGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDA4MjAvMDg1OTkyMDEyMTAzMDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM4BHBvcwM4BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDc2Vjb25kaGFuZGNp

Now, there's a thought

Put Oil Firm Chiefs on Trial, Says Leading Climate Change Scientist
Monday 23 June 2008

by: Ed Pilkington, The Guardian UK

Testimony to US Congress will also criticize lobbyists. "Revolutionary" policies needed to tackle crisis.

New York - James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.