More Smoker's Oppression - In DC

Nancy Pelosi is starting her effective run as House speaker, by banning smoking in the Capitol Building. Now if legislators want a smoke break during votes (more likely with the stress of having to listen to Pelosi's inane rambling) they'll be forced outside to a freezing balcony (but not within 25 feet of an entrance, that's forbidden!)

Pelosi cites "unquestionable" scientific evidence that second hand smoke kills, probably about as accurate as "unquestionable" scientific evidence that global warming exists. So as long as we're using fuzzy logic, here's some that is at least common sense (via Cigars & Theology):

All claims of the EPA and anti-smoking crowd depend for their general acceptance on the credibility of those disseminating them and upon the inability of the typical listener to perform simple sanity checks using common sense and arithmetic.

The simplest check is this: it takes 20 years or more for damage (cancer, emphysema, etc.) to manifest itself in a smoker. ETS is hundreds of times more diluted than the smoke that enters the smokers’ mouth (unless you happen to perform mouth-to-mouth for some reason). Non smokers would have to live with ETS for upwards of 2,000 years to incur the same damage.

Here’s another easy test of truth: Smoke from charcoal contains many of the same components as those most feared in tobacco smoke (carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, carcinogens and so forth). A ten-pound bag of charcoal produces as much smoke (and harmful chemicals) as 160 packs of cigarettes. Are you going to quit barbecuing? Probably not. Yet the slightest whiff of tobacco smoke gives many anti-smokers apoplectic fits. Are they being hysterical?

Once again, libs are cracking down on people's rights based on their flawed, "scientific" logic.