In the city/during rush hour which is pretty all the time you are right, it is stupid to leave any lane open. All i'm saying is I've got a speed I normally try not to drive over but if someoen wants to drive faster then that I will gladly get out of their way, forgive me for expecting the same.
Your right to smoke does is not more important than my right to not breathe it. My right to not breathe it IS more important than your right to smoke. Thats why it is against the law to smoke many places. On the other hand, if I go to a bar having prior knowledge that smoke is going to be there, I have no room to b****.
I'm saying that years of smoking is bad for you, no doubt for many reasons other than cancer but to say you're going to die from sitting twenty feet from a smoker for a half hour at Luby's is going to cause you long term health problems is also ridiculous.
I agree, that is why there are designated areas for smokers and non smokers. It is also your right to ask to move to another table or to not be seated so close to the pariah in the first place, if it bothers you that much.
proof, you say?? http://my.webmd.com/content/article/33/1728_84633.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90-BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348} Your Cigarette Is Killing Me By Daniel DeNoon WebMD Medical News Archive Reviewed By Charlotte Grayson, MD July 24, 2001 -- Even brief exposure to cigarette smoke hurts a nonsmoker's heart, a Japanese research team reports in the July 25 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association. The American Heart Association in 1992 concluded that nonsmokers have a 30% higher rate of heart disease if they are exposed to tobacco smoke at home. The new findings suggest that even brief exposure to cigarette fumes stresses a nonsmoker's heart as much as it does the heart of the smoker. "This provides direct evidence of a harmful effect of passive smoking on the [heart's blood flow] in nonsmokers," conclude Ryo Otsuka, MD, and colleagues at Osaka City University Medical School in Japan. Otsuka's team used a sophisticated test to measure the blood flow in the heart arteries of 30 healthy young men -- 15 smokers and 15 nonsmokers. The men underwent tests before and after spending 30 minutes with cigarette smokers in a hospital smoking room. This so-called "passive smoking" had almost no effect on smokers' heart arteries -- because smoking already had lowered the function of their hearts. But this short, one-time exposure to smoke had a significant effect on the hearts of nonsmokers. This lowering of blood flow in the heart arteries indicates a serious problem. What it means is that tobacco smoke is killing the cells that line the blood vessels leading from the heart. Thinning of this lining makes the blood vessels tighten -- and can lead to the serious blocking of the arteries known as atherosclerosis. "What they are showing is that with smoke exposure you get changes in the blood vessel walls," Emory University cardiologist Joseph I. Miller III, MD, tells WebMD. "This blood-vessel lining is affected every day by things that affect heart-disease risk: cholesterol and exercise and diet and smoking. It explains why passive smoking repeated over long periods of time can lead to heart disease." The heart damage to nonsmokers happens much more quickly than damage to their lungs, according to an editorial accompanying the study. Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, and William W. Parmley, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, note that 37,000 of the 53,000 U.S. deaths each year linked to passive smoking are due to heart disease. "Everyone should be protected from even short-term exposure to the toxins in second-hand smoke," Glantz and Parmley state. "Not only will everyone breathe better, but they will also have healthier hearts."
I hated growing up with my mom smoking, and all her husbands (I think she's on number 6 now) smoking and doing drugs as well. It made me feel like crap going to school and having kids ask me if I smoke because my clothes smelled like it. Growing up around it is probably what has caused me to feel the way I do. But like someone said earlier, if I go somewhere like a bar and I expect it then I have no room to complain, which I don't. A good example of what does drive me crazy is when I'm waiting in a line outside, a Rockets game for example, and someone lights up with hundreds of people around them (me being one of them). Is that called disrespect, stupidity, freedom, or just not caring about anything or anyone but yourself? Even though it should probably fall under freedom I feel you should have courtesy of the people around you, but so often people don't. Pugs
i'll keep that in mind!!! hey...i don't like all the anti-smoking legislation. i've never smoked in my life...but it would just feel weird to hang out in a bar that didn't smell a bit smoky. i wouldn't know what to do with myself! but if you're looking for proof that second-hand smoke is harmful...and you're saying there's none out there...then you're being less than honest.
and I hate it even more when they do it in a sneaky and underhanded way as trying to brainwash the majority (non-smokers in this case) into believing something so as to only weaken the stance of the minority.
i get that. and that's a legit argument. but i think the effects of second hand smoke may give them a right to. now there are other people's interests being affected by the smoker's "freedom." if there were no effect on others than you could say, "hey..i'm not hurting anybody else. mind your own business." but according to the reports i've read, you can't say that. you are hurting someone else when you light up next to them.
everyday idiots: People who stand and talk in the doorway People who walk into an elevator without first letting people exit the elevator people who stop in the middle of the road because they don't know where they're going all motorcyclists (except for police) people who buy/lease a car that's much more than they can afford people who frivolously rack up credit card debt while important expenses are being neglected (bills, etc.) people who don't sit quietly in a movie theater people who bring really young kids to rated-R movies people who walk too slow with their friends, and they're all walking side-by-side people who drive the speed limit or less while in the fast lane people behind me and in the other lane who speed up when they see my signal, hoping that I won't get in front of them people who don't accellerate while merging onto a freeway people who are very rich, and then screw themselves up by breaking the law people who smoke smokers who spend thousands a year on cigarettes and then b**** about not having money people who don't control their pets people who wait in line to order their food and don't look at the menu until they get to the front of the line. Then they stare at the menu wondering. people who won't pull out of a parking lot until all three lanes on the feeder road in front of them are empty. people who don't turn right on a red light people who don't turn left on a red light (off a one-way, onto a one-way) people who continually try to convince me to eat sushi ... ... I could go on forever NOTE: IN HOUSTON, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PASSING LANE. Now you may say that the far left lane is supposed to only be used for passing, but there's two things to remember: 1) There are no laws in Houston stating that the left lane is only for passing. 2) When you say it "should" only be used for passing, that's your opinion, not mine. -- droxford
1) There are no laws in Houston stating that the left lane is only for passing. droxford, are you sure about that???
People who have road rage in general.. Like we were driving down the road.. plenty of empty lanes.. not very many people on the road at all.. going up the hill and my clutch started to go out and wasn't grabbing or whatever right so we couldn't go very fast. Of course we started looking for a place to pull over... but we were in the middle lane.. and a light was right there so had to wait until after the light to get pulled over.. so put hazard lights on so we could let people know behind us as we got out of the way.. of course the idiot behind us has to start honking then pull up beside us to flick us off for going slowly.. and proceed to yell random cuss words out the window at us
all you people not going at least 20 mph over the limit in the left lane need to get the hell out of the way... seriously. I wouldn't have to weave through traffic like a madman if you people would just move and not take it so personally. it's not a contest of our manhood. I'm not questioning your level of testosterone. I'm in a hurry. You're not. Who cares? Just move.
Yeah - I'm 100% friggin' sure! How do I know? 'Cause my best friend is a seargent in the Sheriff's department, and I asked him. I'll say it again There are no laws in Houston stating that the far left lane is for passing only!. If you want to use it only for passing, that's fine. That's your choice. I will will choose differently. -- droxford
I just recall what it was like before municipalities started restricting smoking. Being stuck on an airplane with smokers. My junior high principal walking through the halls smoking a pipe. Not being able to go to a restaurant without having to deal with the smoke. It wasn't fun. And it's the sort of thing the free market wouldn't necessarily take care of. I mean, do you give up flying until the airlines decide to disallow smoking? Oftentimes, that's not a feasible solution. Now, the question of when the balance shifts too far is an open one. The complete smoking ban in Dallas restaurants, for example. I don't know that was necessarily when the required separate sections was apparently working fine for the vast majority of customers. It's rare I ever smell smoke in a restaurant these days, not because people aren't smoking necessarily, but because the smoking sections have been effectively segregated.
Not to say your friend doesn't know, but if you were to ask the average Dallas police officer if "failure to ID" was a legal charge in Texas. You'd obviously get an answer of "yes" from quite a few of them even though the City Attorney and the Chief quite forcefully said it wasn't a legal charge. I wouldn't expect that being a county sheriff would give anyone extra insight into City of Houston laws. I wouldn't expect there to be a passing lane in the city since, so often, the highways are designed to be used to capacity, necessitating using the left lane as a regular traffic lane rather than a "passing only" lane, but I don't necessarily take the word of someone who is a peace officer for a different organization.
What's the problem with motorcyclists? I am a motorcyclist, and my worst fear is someone in a car who hates me just because I'm on a motorcycle.
