Close argument is always a pleasure to read. I mean, It all stand to reason, don't it?
Is the blade unique in the quality of its letters to the editor, or just the source you happen to check?
My question: Has anyone ever stopped at a gas station when they had no gas to supply for your demand?
Yes.
My question: Has anyone ever stopped at a gas station when they had no gas to supply for your demand?
Why, yes, I have. I was a little kid, but I expect many people my age or older have. Do I get a cookie?
Wow. I can't believe God hit that dime from a million miles away.
The chances of Bill Gates getting away with the deal with Microsoft were what?
Has anyone ever stopped at a gas station when they had no gas to supply for your demand?
He does realize that prices adjust, right? I mean, that's exactly what he's complaining about. They have supply to meet your demand because the prices went up. If this is prevented from happening (see, mid-1970s), they will in fact likely not have gas to meet your demand.
It should be noted that there are as many large decreases in the price of gas as there are increases. It's just a fluid market. Deal with it. My recommendation is to start taking public transportation. If you don't have good public transportation in your area, you should definitely call your Senators about that immediately.
Dear Mr. Tabner,
Throw a dart out the window. WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED. Don't even watch where it goes. Then find it. WHAT WERE THE ODDS THAT YOU WOULD HIT THAT EXACT SPOT? You couldn't do that again in a million years. That should be obvious even if you don't draw a target around where it hit.
If you can do something so very very unlikely, WITHOUT EVEN TRYING, then how can you be so arrogant, sir, how can you be SO AMAZINGLY ARROGANT, as to suggest that God cannot do the same?
Regards,
Berengaria McGillicuddy
Cordwood, WI
On 9/11 I stopped at a gas station late at night, swiped my credit card, and then found there was nothing coming through the pump. Maybe they shut off the tanks without shutting off the pumps somehow, but I suspect that people had been buying gas superstitiously (my mom on the east coast said there were long lines at gas stations that day).
My credit card company called a few days later, because apparently a common trick when you've stolen a credit card is to run it through a gas pump to see if it passes the pre-authorization. Just a little trick to remember if you ever become a petty thief.
The really wonderful thing is that the editor must have rejected many other letters in favor of these gems.
In my sister's home town the instinctive reaction on 9/11 was for everyone to take their biggest vehicle and fill it up. There got to be huge lines at the pumps, anger spilled over, thankfully gas didn't, and people got into fights before they ran out. She was writing editorials then and wrote a blistering one, shaming such mass cupidity—not the word she used. I don't get along with her but sometimes she's magnificent.
I recently saw an interview with a medical doctor
That should settle it, because medical doctors are reliable authorities on issues in life science.
10: I'm talking to Karl Pet/ersen. Why?
What's wrong with the smoker letter, besides its energetic prose?
Its complete divorce from the reality of second-hand smoke risk.
20 - I like it because it starts out kind of normalish and then turns into "Smokers are like Saddam Hussein!!1!" In reality, it's not that different from what Bloomberg said the other day (about you being more likely to die by smoking than from a terrorist attack) but with the crazy factor amped up by 10.
[21] I think you're conflating the smoking-has-caused-millions-of-deaths facts with the second-hand-smoke-causes-serious-problems claims.
22 - thought that was probably the writer being snide - "the country freaked out about Saddam's nonexistent WMDs but The Blade is ignoring something scientifically demonstrated".
No, it's really pretty crazy:
This is why I look at a smoker spewing his poisonous cloud at others as kin to the drunken driver who drives his car through kids waiting for a school bus.
25 - LB, I would guess that integrated over the appropriate time frame more kids die (suffer serious harm, etc.) from second-hand smoke than drunks at bus stops - but say it's 1/10: wouldn't that be "kin to", given that people ought to know the risks?
I may be off base here, or the science has changed since the last time I looked at it, but I'm pretty sure effects of secondhand smoke are, while statistically significant, really very very small. Also, you're comparing the ill effects of 'every smoker who exposes someone to secondhand smoke' to 'every drunk driver who plows through a bus stop full of kids'. On a per capita basis, I'm comfortable saying the latter does a lot more than ten times as much damage.
Ain't nothin' random about evolution. What are the chances that earth-dwelling creatures evolve to use oxygen? One hundred percent!
The American Lung Assoc. claims:
Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 1,900 to 2,700 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.
The CDC claims:
More than half of the 414 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-related crashes during 2005 were riding with the drinking driver (NHTSA 2006).
In 2005, 48 children age 14 years and younger who were killed as pedestrians or pedalcyclists were struck by impaired drivers (NHTSA 2006).
Looks to me like it's 2nd-hand-smoking 2k+ infants, drunk drivers 300 preteens...
Aw, man, I should stay out of this, because I've been a paid mouthpiece for the tobacco companies. And they really really are evil lying sacks of shit. But because they are such evil lying sacks of shit, there's a tendency to use any stick to hit them with regardless of how well supported it is, or it isn't. I don't know how good the stats you linked to are, but reliable or not, be reasonable:
There are two situations -- a drunk driver careening at high speed toward a bus stop full of kids; a smoker walking toward the same bus stop, apparently intending to stand among them and smoke. Are you really telling me that you perceive the danger the smoker poses to the kids as comparable to the driver?
Rilkefan, did you write the letter? You can be honest.
"Are you really telling me that you perceive the danger the smoker poses to the kids as comparable to the driver?"
Of course not - but Struwwelpeter is more dangerous at a bus stop than second-hand smoke too, and I'm not worried about him. You have to integrate over the exposure.
If that's the case, driving is certainly comparable to secondhand smoke, but we're not talking about banning driving because of car accidents.
Eh, but I can't argue this, because I have worked for them, so I feel dirty talking about it.
32 - no, just hired the guy - and I want my money back for him dropping the links to the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics [warning, pdf].
Oops, that should have been "2nd-hand-smoking 2k+ infants, drunk drivers 500 preteens".
34 - that's entirely a distraction.
35 - but ok, putting down the google.
Here is a poster about the SIDS and second hand smoke thing:
http://www.epa.gov/scienceforum/2006/pdfs/disease_susceptibility_final_posters/DS-44_Adgent.pdf
I am surprised. There is some evidence of a link and it is apparently biologically plausible.
It's true. I smoke because I hate America, and because it's too late to abort PK.
"And they really really are evil lying sacks of shit."
I guess this statement doesn't violate client confidentiality because it's a matter of public record.
39 is awesome. I hope to God that when I have kids, I make jokes about aborting them.
"Listen to your mother, son. Until your Bar Mitzvah, she can still decide to get an abortion."
It's never too late to get a retroactive abortion. You just need a really big coat-hanger.
Thanks, Joan.
Btw, I meant to say that I totally love these letter-to-the-local-paper posts. Thanks, Becks!
Ain't nothin' random about evolution. What are the chances that earth-dwelling creatures evolve to use oxygen? One hundred percent!
Not at all; there could well be some bacteria or tube worms that only "oxidize" with sulfur.
Don't be one of those wiseasses who has to one-up everybody with your fancy biology, anarch. You get the point. It's not random that we breathe oxygen.
I had some vague awareness of the little bacteria, but the sentence was punchier without them. They had to be sacrificed.
smoking is the single biggest danger to this country next to nuclear annihilation.
Why do you think they call it "the smoking gun"? Huh?
It's my understanding that the largest and longest ever longitudinal study carried out on second-hand smoke exposure found no link between exposure to second hand smoke and increased mortality. Which is a bit annoying for the 'other people smoking is teh killzors' line.
That's not the same thing as childhood asthma, obviously, where there is a known link with exposure to second-hand smoke.
What was that I heard somewhere about asthma inhalers being placebos? Is that true?
I don't believe it, but I haven't got a link for you.
re: 48
They contain bronchodilators or steroids usually. There may be a placebo element to the effect given that asthma attacks can be stress related, but they definitely aren't designed as placebo medications.
http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/23069155/
I'm not asthmatic but a good friend at school was.
re: the longitudinal study -- it was reported in New Scientist and the results were, if I recall, somewhat confounding.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3737-controversy-over-passive-smoking-danger.html
However, there are lots of other studies that DO show a link with some specific conditions. So ... meh.