If you would have wasted a thought on what I was asking, you would have recognized that you've massively failed to answer what I was asking you.

That doesn't matter. A bus station is a public perimeter. If smoking is allowed there, not even a public servant could tell a smoker to stop.

And we both agree that the most smokers are civilized people, too, and would stop smoking, or at least won't have another smoke when they're finished. That's what I would do, not having another one if asked to do so. But I'd never step aside or immediately stop smoking. It's unpolite to expect that vice versa.

I gave you a reason.


Which brings back to the point that since it's public, they have no right to damage me (or others)


Most? Not sure. Plenty? Yeah
But anyways... And? I don't get it, I always ask politely the first times.


Ok?

Calm down on the /FAIL factor people

Thank you, I never liked it's such a cheap way to avoid responding

I like the fact that you said that the smokers acted like if they were better than non-smokers. You are doing the opposite.

By the way, Householder's Right, what's that?

How can I do the opposite by asking them politely (at the beginning at least) to stop damaging me?

House holder right - The right to behave as if the place you are in was your own property

Carried of from Chatter thread.

Firstly dave, or should i say D@ve, if your going to quote dates do some reaserch. Feb 14th was the date that it was passed in parliment, not when i came into effect. It in fact took place on 1st July 2007. That not only gave me 2 months being allowed legally to consume alchohol, but gave me 1 year and 2 months to leagally work behind a bar (since the legal age is 17). And also you may or may not be aware it is perfectly legal for you to be in a pub under the age of 18, so i could legally enter a pub far in advance of may 4th 2007. I think it is fair to say your are completely wrong there and i have EVERY right to speak my mind, or do i suddenly not have the same basic human rights as everyone else? I will now offer you a lovely freshly baked slice of homemade humble pie, whether you choose to accept it is up to you.

Now, it says your birthday is on July 18 1989. Oh dear, on your logic my opinion is now worth more than yours since i was able to drink before the smoking ban. So (in your logic), who are you to say the smoking ban is belony since you have not (apparently) set foot in a pub before it. Also i think you will find most under age binge drinking is a result of off licences, not pubs, so i think we can agree that is completely irrelevant to the smoking ban. Also i must presume your still in school, seeing as you seem to know , 'It's also the exact same crap that's spoon fed in schools over here nowadays.', either that or you just read a little too much daily mail.


Ok, so lets talk passive smoking. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2925633.stm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking, hmm ok, to quote "Currently, there is widespread scientific consensus that exposure to secondhand smoke is harmful" , can you find me a single piece of evidance that passive smoking dosnt exist? Can you? Well, go on, I'm waiting...

"If you think that smoking should be banned because you find it to be disgusting and can't work in the presence of it, then you sir, are no better than people who fired staff upon find out they were homosexual"

hmm ok. i think youll find 90+% of people will disagree with you there. Your just trying to make me look a villian with a frankly silly comparison.

Smoking is unattractive?
Yes it is

Smokers are all Idiots?
In my view - yes. I can recognise intelligence, but idiocy is not linked with necisarily stupidity. You can be enourmasly intellectual but still an idiot. Besides the geniouses you mention smoked before it was expencive and its dire health risks were fully realised.

It costs a fortune?
If people didnt smoke they could save alot of money, im not telling people how to live there lives but if i want to throw money away id prefer i wasnt paying for cancer.

It rots your teeth and makes your breath smell?
certinly does.

Have you ever tried to file a lawsuit for bodily harm because you were 'forced' to inhale the smoke of a smoker in a public place? No court on this planet would grant that lawsuit because the argument is simply complete nonsense.

Simply put, but that's right. On a public place, only a public servant would have the authority to order you to stop smoking. However, if smoking on public soil isn't outlawed, there is no legally binding handle for anyone.

It is not a silly comparison. Actually it violates the EU guide lines against discrimination to fire an employee for smoking or to reject an applicant because he is a smoker.

You may think so. Others don't. But considering the fact that about the half of all smokers are male, this shouldn't be a business of yours.

That's the most embarassing way to fortify one's argument that I've ever witnessed. Idiocy and intelligence are the most opposite terms psychology has to offer.

I can't believe that I'm actually about to argument on that low level, but here I shall go with a small excerpt of a list of famous smokers who are certainly not idiots, alive and aware of the risks of their passion:

*Helmut Schmidt, German oldchancellor and elder statesman
*Bill Clinton, 40th President of the United States
*Queen Margrethe II of Denmark
*Princess Stéphanie of Monaco
*Gerhard Schröder, German oldchancellor
*Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall
*Günter Grass, Nobel-Prize winning author
*Joanne Kathleen Rowling, author
*Monica Belluci, actress
*Christopher Lee, actor
*Kate Winslet, actress
*Sigmar Gabriel, German minister for environment
*Nicole Kidman, actress
*Pierce Brosnan, actor
*Al Pacino, actor
*Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California
*Franz Müntefehring, Oldvicechancellor of Germany
*Jennifer Anniston, actress
*Colin Farrel, actor
(...can be randomly continued)
*Jeanne Calment, the worlds oldest person (t 122, smoked for 105 years)

I know, in that list there are many, many idiots, all are about to die young, and of course all have very rotten teeth.

With disease-causing ingredients of tobacco it's like with everything else - it can affect you, or it can affect you not. My grandfather smoked three packs a day, and died from leucemia he got because of his work as a radiologist.


Many people never got cancer from smoking. Heart- and vascular-diseases are very more likely.


I can make a picture of my teeth. Well, I've got one bad tooth, but it was rather the fist of a fellow turkish citizen who tried to take my money than nicotine that caused that problem...

Well, aside from your blantant mud slinging Biggles (the Daily Mail is almost as offensive as Hilary Clinton it seems! Who are you to question my choice of paper anyway? I only get it for the TV pages and classified!), you seem to have constructed a good well referenced argument. It's still flawed nonetheless for the reasons I stated before. (Lack of scientific proof, referencing of dubious quality articles et al)

So, let's take it from the top, by looking at the great reference source that is wikipedia. (it's worth noting that most university's, including my own, have an instant fail policy for people who reference Wikipedia) Regardless, let's have a look at some of their so called "consequences" of passive smoking shall we? I'm not going to cover all of them because a lot are just repeat (it's worth noting that a rhetoric hammer is a sign that the writer has no idea what they're talking about)

1. Cancer
As we've already established, this is bullsh*t. No direct link has been proved. Period.

2. Risk of infection
How is that even scientifically possible? Infection comes about when an open hole in the skin is, as the name would suggest, infected by various bacteria and the like. So, unless smokers breath out countless knives, then I think that's also complete bullsh*t.

3. Risk of heart disease
I can't really argue about this, if it is true it's unlikely, view the next argument.

4. Lung problems
In small amounts, Carbon Monoxide temporarily decreases the amount of oxygen in the blood. This is probably true. Aside needlessly exaggerated.

5. Pregancy
Ok, I'm not even going to bother with this one.

5.1. Risk of premature birth
Premature birth can be caused by anything, so it's almost as crappy as the "cancer" argument.

6.Worsening of asthma, allergies, and other conditions
Yes, but Asthma is worsened by practically everything. As for allergies and "other conditions" (not specified, showing a great degree of knowledge), there's no sufficent proof here either. It's worth noting that the source of this states "the evidence is sometimes conflicting", ie, it's bullsh*t.

7. Risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
This is my favourite. Right... SIDS... Or, to give it the full and correct name, sudden unexplained infant death syndrome. As there is no evidence that could possibly link this to smoking (or, indeed anything, as it is unexplained), this is complete bullsh*t.

8. Risk of Crohn's disease (in children).
Crohn's disease is a digestive disease, not a circulator disease. In addition it's from the same source as 6, so it's probably also bullsh*t.

9. Risk of learning difficulties, developmental delays, and neurobehavioral effects (in children).
I like this one too, it seems to me to be the same argument against MMR vacine (which was subsequently proven to be bullsh*t). "My Child has a learning difficulty, someone must be to blame, I shall blame Jews Black People homosexuals Atheists Communists someone richer than me Muslims the MMR vaccine Smokers!". This is essentially a bigotry argument, meaning it's bullsh*t.

10. Overall increased risk of death
"Right, people are dying, who do we blame?"
"That's easy, MMR"
"No, they found out we couldn't blame that anymore!"
"Oh sh*t! Er... Smokers!"

As for the BBC page, you'll note this:

Well! There's no conflict of interest there at all. Upon closer research into these groups I found that

90% of people will disagree with me?
Well, more than 90% of people will disagree with me if I told them Echidna's lay eggs, doesn't change the fact that it's the truth. Just because a lot of people think something doesn't mean it's right. I may well be trying to make you look like a villain, because in my eyes, you are for suggesting that people should be persecuted for their beliefs.



And, finally, your most flawed argument
"If people didn't smoke they could save a lot of money"
There are lots of things people could not do to save money. Spending money on computer games is one of them. It's also worth noting that computer games are being blamed for causing aggressive behaviour by large numbers of supposedly "informed" groups, despite that a noted academic institution has published results that prove the exact opposite. Apparently fanatics like yourself don't listen to reason though...
WoW is a perfect example of this. In fact, it's the one that survey was based around. So, it's expensive, check, it's apparently unattractive, check, it's widely and erroneously believed to be hazardous to people around it, check, and it damages the social life of the user, check.
Well, by your logic, we should ban video games. I mean, it's really just the same thing, isn't it?

So is sueing someone for pushing someone else away.



There's, though, moral binding, and me.

Moral Binding?

So you're saying it's immoral to smoke? That's a religious argument, as I have stated countless times morality always stems from religion. Because when it comes down to, can you seriously tell me how it is immoral to smoke in a public place? Because your moral compass tells you to?

You might as well just say that your moral compass tells you to rob from the poor, because when it comes down to it "moral compass" is just another way of saying "God". And the last time I checked "God told me to do it" doesn't hold up too well in court.

@D@VE
It's useless to play down the risks of smoking and passive smoking since they are proven. To smoke can cause lung cancer and other diseases, it may tighten blood vessels, it can reduce the volume of the lungs, it can harm an unborn child during pregnancy. But: All of that can happen. That means neither of that can happen, too. And it surely won't happen as long as the contact to smoke, be it the smoker himself or a passiv-smoker, is rather sporadical. Even all these studies that see a connection between smoking and higher lung cancer rates among smokers suggest that a smoker needs to moderately consume tobacco for at least five years so mutations in his lung cells can be proven at all. It's the goddamn WHO that says that.

Lung cancer rates are the only valid argument in my eyes. Every study on other diseases that might be caused by smoking are flawed by the fact that it's not totally possible yet to elaborate on the result of a disease. If someone dies from a heart attack for example and he was as smoker, he might appear in these studies despite being also an alcoholic and an obese, what could have caused the attack as well. It's also the goddamn WHO which admits that.

It surely won't hurt anyone to inhale the smoke of one cigarette once in a while and that's the reason why no court in the world would ever grant the lawsuit of anyone who states he had suffered damage to his health by smokers.

I don't get your point.

One answer: No.

1. On public soil, only public servants can make legally binding decisions
2. As long as smoking is not outlawed on public soil, even public servants can't make legally binding decisions
3. Smoking isn't inmoral. To state everything else is pure hypocrisy. If you say "Who are they to think they could be allowed to smoke next to me", then I say "Who are you to think they could not be allowed to smoke next to you". Same rights for all.

@ Dave
Stop misreading Or I won't be responsible of my actions
I mean it's immoral to smoke near to someone who is clearly damaged by it



It's nonsense to sue someone for smoking near to you on public soil, I agree, but so is sueing me in case I push them a few metres away



And again, Will that stop me? One answer : No
No way I'll let anyone harm me in such a direct way

Also, as soon as a smoker damages me and persists, he looses any right to me, and to think they are not allowed to smoke nest to me, I am a person who is damaged by smoke (as proven by the fact smoke makes me cough. a lot.)

It was rather you misreading what he had written, like so often. And all of us could be hold responsible for what we wrote here.

How does it damage you to be in the closer environments of a smoker once in a while? That's ridiculous nonsense.

It's not nonsense. You aren't legitimated to do so, so the one who'd sue you is right.

Read above...

He said it's immorl to smoke, I said it's immoral to smoke near people



You tell me why I start coughing a lot and breathing becomes harder when I directly inhale cigarette smoke



I dare you sue me after I push you and see who wins

That's not inmoral either.

You start coughing because you are not accustomed to the smoke and not because you're immediately taking life-threatening damages.

What?

i have made no remark on the lines of 'people should be fired because they smoke', thats why its a silly comparison.



Its quite simply not. I work 5 days a week in a pub. If people were able to smoke 5 days a week thats alot more than once in a while. I find it hard to believe that Dave is still convinced he can argue passive smoking dosnt exist when is pretty clear it does. If theres even a 0.00001% chance that i will get lung cancer from passive smoking during work then the smoking ban should exist.



Its not flawed, its true. And how am i any more 'fanatical' than you? im just taking a different side to the argumant which for some reason you cant seem to handle. Your also eagerly happy is disprove extencive scientific reaserch with your own magic wand of logic. talk about mud-flinging, your started the flinging by telling me i had no right to comment, which was a clear load of BS. You have to draw the line somwhere, you cannot compare the damage acused of being caused by computer games and cigeretts, its another silly comparison drawn upon 'by your logic'.

Yes it is



Are you FRIGGIN KIDDING ME?! NONSENSE
It's... It's.. It's pointless! It's just like if this happened
"Hey Please walk 2/3 metres away, smoke makes me slightly sick" "NO! I will smoke in your face! So you learn to like it Non-smoking Twat!"



You can't sue someone because he pushed you, if you do, you loose

I was referring to the comment by Daniel von Rommel who said he is sporadically bothered by smokers at the bus station. And even for your example it is nonsense. As I've said before, the WHO states a person must be sporadically exposed to a cig's smoke for at least five years so mutations that could cause a disease one day become even provable. I don't think you were hanging out all the time directly in front of the smokers during your work or were you?

Well, that's what I call a priceless argument. It is inmoral just because you say it's inmoral? Okay, be it so then.

If you inhale something your body doesn't know, it simply triggers a throat reflex that throws out the unknown particles from your bronchial tubes. You can rest assured that if you cough because someone is smoking next to you it's either that or the same reflex triggered by your psyche because you think the smoke is smelling. As I've written above - and I'd appreciate if you read what I write sometimes, at least in discussions - there is little chance to get a disease even if you're exposed to smoke for years. That's simply a fact.

What follows below in your post then is either evidence for your lack of substantial arguments or is to be tracked back to language barriers.

Maybe in Italy I would lose. If I would find a judge here that actually thinks the incident would be worth a trial at all, I'd probably win. That's called Unlawful Duress.

Then it isn't because you say so? Works both ways


Where did I say I'm afraid of serious diseases? (as in cancer etc.)
I don't really believe in passive smoke (I do believe there is, but I also believe it's way weaker than people think, maybe the only persons it could actually hurt are infants, fetuses and old people with breathing problems)

I'm saying that it just isn't fair that they come where I am and do something which clearly bothers me, when 6/7 steps could easily fix it
You're afraid of 6/7 steps?


Well, I can assure you would loose in Italy (and probably in every serious country)
Pushing? comon, lol

ahh fair enough. Unfortunatly yes, people were able to smoke at the bar. The result is you were literally working with a face full of smoke every shift. It is a traditional pub, not a bar you might find in a busy town centre.

I appreciate the point your trying to make in the fact it could or could not cause a disease. But thats the same as arguing people who drive like idiots taking roundabouts at high speeds, tail gating etc... could go there entire driving career without having a single accident. But they could also cause the death of a entire family in a high speed incidint. The chance alone is enough for me to argue people just shouldnt do it.

More than anything, the health risks etc... its just nice to not have to change to complete new set of cloths every day. Im not trying to decide what people should or shouldnt do, but when somthing they do do has a possable effect on me, with most the scientific community believing some possable harm can occur, then i have every right to object. Itleast until conclusive scientific evidance proves otherwise, which frankly it never will.

Daniel Von Rommel, posting in all capital letters is not allowed, as it equals yelling.

Everyone, if this "discussion" keeps going in the same way with the yes/no replies or personal puns instead of substantial arguments it means this subject will be short lived.



One side yelling "yes it is" and another "no it isn't" repeatedly doesn't actually achieve anything.

I don't see how passive smoke shouldn't be classed as harmful. I don't particularly like breathing in any fumes really, welding and soldering espeically. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some harm in it. And as I said in the other thread, I really don't miss my clothes smelling like crap the next day. Or having that horrible feeling on the back back of my throat and nostrils. I have a cig now and again at the odd festival, but i've never felt as crap as the morning after when i'd been in a pub the night before.

The only times I typed a whole in capital letters, I "WAS" "yelling"

It's called interpretation

OT-
Of course both sides say yes or no, Smokers want the right to smoke anywhere anytime, non-smokers usually don't even want to see them, there isn't a compromise, it's like 2 sides, one saying Consoles are bad or not,for example, (that's also another famous unresolved arguement (Don't start it please))

There are some points we can argue about, and some we cannot. The following is written especially in view of Biggles Trevor's senseless rants of yesterday about smokers:

Fact is...

• ...that smoking and exposure to the smoke of others increases one's risk to get serious diseases.
• ...that it takes years of sporadical exposure to smoke so mutations that could cause serious diseases one day even become provable.
• ...that smoking causes provable risks to unborn life.
• ...that the risks of smoking have been exaggerated by its opponents and have been downplayed by its proponents for decades. The first time a connection between lung cancer and smoking was supposed was in 1873. Till today, the "big seven", the CEOs of the seven biggest companies of the American tobacco industry, deny the risks of smoking.
• ...about 40% of Earth's population consists of smokers or former smokers. The chance that all of them are idiots is little enough.
• ...that our governments try to influence our consumerism by outlawing smoking everywhere they can. Indeed this steps are taken not for our well-being but to raise taxes on tobacco and by doing so increasing the state's income. Take the Netherlands for example where public smoking is outlawed now but smoking of marihuana is not.
• ...that smokers encounter discrimination in today's world where they're close to become equated to heroine addicts.
• ...that everywhere where smoking is not banned, only the bearer of the Householder's Right can tell a smoker bindingly to stop.
• ...that on public soil where smoking is not banned, no one can tell a smoker bindingly to stop.

Grievous bodily harm and Aggressive contact with intent to cause a breach of the peace?

Ironically, in most country's pushing someone over isn't so much of a pushover...







There's a chance that the research at CERN could create a beachhead suitable for an intertemporal or interdiamensional invasion (or both!). So should we suspend all research into Quantum dynamics?

Put simply, there's a chance that by doing anything you're likely to cause some form of harm to someone somewhere. Frankly, if you're going to say there's a chance it could kill someone, then why not ban drinking, I mean, there's a chance people who're drunk could get violent and kill someone. There's a chance they could do something dangerous and hurt people around them. There's a chance they could think it'd be the funniest thing ever to break into the nearest hospital and throw syringes full of morphine at people.

That said, the way things are going it won't be long before alcohol is banned...

The ban isn't about health, it's about social acceptability. This ban has the exact same justification as the hunting ban. Someone somewhere once thought that it might be somehow wrong, the government don't like it because it conflicts with their party policy, so it gets banned. I think it's no small coincidence that the percentage of smokers is higher in the upper classes.

And it's also occurred to me that your argument to cost is self-defeating, because Tobacco itself is actually pretty cheap, what's really being paid for is the massive amounts of taxation put on Tobacco when the government noticed that people tend to buy a good bit of it, combined with people like you ranting about all the malefits* of it.





(*that's a new word I just invented, it relates to "benefits" as "malefactors" relates to "benefactors")

We'll have to agree to disagree pM,
I don't think it's right to respect a person who clearly disrespects you
Apparently you do

Points of view

the line has to be drawn somwhere. Smoking causes thousands of more preventable deaths than somone getting drunk and violantly killing somone. Its not really a fair comparison. However comparing it to the amount of deaths caused by dangerous driving is....



Thats a matter of opinion, i think its fair to say most people are more concerned about the health risks of smoking rather than the type of person holding the cigerette, well from my experiance anyway. Maybe its different depending on where you are/the type of people you assosiate with etc..



Its not self defeating though is it? it dosnt matter if most of the cost is tax, so is petrol, it dosnt stop it being exspensive to purchase in this country. http://www.thehypnosisworks.co.uk/cost-of-smoking.html, if somone smokes 1 packet a week that £234 a year. How expencive that is to you would depend on your wage i figure. Over the course of a year thats nearly enough money to get you a PS3, well on ebay anyway. Thats a waste of money to some people aswell, im just trying to present what that sort of money could get you. You could put it into a ISA or somthing.

Perhaps i was rash by calling all smokers idiots, but i just find it a bit silly that people spend a significant amount of money on somthing that really does no good for you. And btw, im not somone who has never picked up a cigerette before, or refuses to stand and talk to smokers. Pretty much all my friends smoke, and im not always telling them to quit or anything like that. This is just a personal opinion voiced over a interent forum. So i do resent a little being called a 'ranter' and refered to as 'people like you' as if im some sort of social outcast and wrong for not conforming to your "its mine it must be right" view.

I think I can say a huge degree of confidence that unruly behaviour of people under the influence of alcohol has caused a lot more harm in terms of both the number of incidents per year and cost to the health system than passive smoking has. There is no reason why this comparison is invalid.



No benefits. Well, if this was true, I could warrant that this is a great reason for people to stop smoking, in fact, if it was true it would be a brilliant reason to outlaw Tobacco all together.
Unfortunately, it isn't true at all. There are a number of benefits to tobacco smoking, beyond the obvious.

1. Tobacco lowers Parkinson's disease risk


2. Tobacco statistically lessens the effect of gum recession (yes, that is true, despite the fact nearly everyone thinks to the contrary... I actually didn't know this! So it turns out Sir Walter Rayleigh was right... damn him!)


3. Nicotine is capable of preventing the spread of TB.


4. Reduced Risk of Hypertension during pregancy


And numerous others.

TBH, I'd JGFI

Were not talking cost to the health system, or incidents, they i do not doubt, were talking deaths. If you review you sarcastic responce i think you will see that. There is every reason why this comparison is invalid.



Ok fair enough you have proved me wrong, smoking has it advantages. However the drawbacks clearly outweigh the advatages ie. increased risk of mouth, larynx oesophagus, liver, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder and cervix cancer. Are you seriously telling me goverment dont outlaw smoking because of its health advantages? Reduced risk of hypertension during pregnancy? But at what risk? http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pi...749379798000890.

Also what does JGFI mean?

D@V£, it's pointless to play down the risks of smoking and passive smoking alike. It will just fuel scaremongering. I stick to it, there is a risk, but it's exaggerated by far.
Recently I had the mixed blessing to have an appointment with an oncologist because of my spleen. He interviewed me to make an assessment on my risk to get cancer one day and he confirmed to me what I've been repeating like a mantra in my last replies here: The risk to suffer lung cancer because of smoking or passive smoking is ridiculously low compared to what the government and everyone else with an anti-smoker agenda want to make us believe.
That guy, a professor after all, explained to me that the most lung cancer patients he has treated in his career have been smokers for fifteen to twenty years or more. He was talking of real addicts, of people that smoke several packs a day.

Acrylamides that are generated by frying French Fries are much more likely to cause cancer than nicotine and all the other ingredients of a cigarette together. Did you know that? Have you immediately stopped eating French Fries in meanwhile?

It's a pure agenda that is interestingly mainly found where a state-run health system exists. Guess what? They fear they had to invest a bit in their bankrupt health systems when some more people would turn ill, that's all.

Pmaster i agree to in a way, smoking dosnt give you cancer, it increases the risk of cancer. That is why, as you have stated earlier people can smoke for 80 years and never develop any cancer or any other alements assosiated with smoking. But there is certinly is a risk, and perhaps it is overplayed by goverments, perhaps not, i am not a scientist so i couldnt tell you. But if somone works a pub there whole working life, and many people do (ie. managers / owners) , they should have the right to be protected from that risk. If that means making some people move about 10 feet and get a little cold, so be it. Also i lay of the french fries as they contain lots of saturates. Saturates = spots and fat you cant burn All in all, fast food is most likely worse for you than cigeretts if you have it in any large quanitity. It dosnt matter if your lungs are rotten if theres no blood going to them.

TBH the smoking ban has had its advantages even for smokers, nightclubs now actually have decent outside areas with heating and tables, meaning you can now hold conversations with people without having to yell down there ears inside. The outside areas are now busteling and a good place to chat to people you havnt seen in a while.

I agree on that, I've never said a pub owner would not have the right to ban smoking in his premises. I only wonder why governments intervene in this issue. It's a double-edged sword after all.
My party has introduced a total ban on smoking in bars in Bavaria and I can assure you that this ban isn't popular among the owners of bars and restaurants.
I had to deal with roughly a dozen angry innkeepers over Easter when we had run an info booth on that topic then. All of them said they would not have mind if their guests did smoke and complained that their turnover shrunk since the law had been passed because smokers stayed away from the bars.

Germany's supreme court currently runs an inquiry to find whether the ban could be unconstitutional...Some argue it would violate a smokers right on selfdetermination and would discriminate them and that the state would unlawfully intervene in the businesses of innkeepers.

perhaps, Its worth noting the smoking ban in the england has had no real effect on buisness. Not itleast in the town i live in. Is D@ve welsh? i heard a rumor certian areas of Wales smoking in pubs was still legal, might have been a complete load.

I can only elaborate on the situation in Germany and here innkeepers federations say their members would report decreasing turnovers. The reported minuses range from 25 to 40 percent.

I'm not Welsh (well, not entirely, I'm about 1/20th Welsh or some minute proportion like that), I do however live and work (to the extent studenthood can be considered work) in Wales. To the best of my knowledge this isn't true. Probably in a few of the more welsh pubs, but they wouldn't be doing it legally (more in the case of "f*ck the English Parliament, we'll smoke all we'll like", but they say it in Welsh, they're like that, being Welsh and all)

I also think pMaster's hit the nail on the head here, if a pub owner wishes to ban smoking on his property, then there's no reason he shouldn't. What I'm saying is the government shouldn't ban it in all public buildings. We had non-smoking pubs before the ban and there's no reason the status quo shouldn't have been maintained.

Unless someone can provide me with evidence to the contrary then this ban is, in my opinion, a breach of the property rights of the owner of the establishment.

(I'm not playing down the risks of smoking, I'm merely pointing out scaremongers for what they are. Any doctor who isn't some kind of crack or an NHS GP will tell you there are therapeutic benefits to tobacco. There's therapeutic benefits to morphine (or Heroin, as most people call it) and cannabis too, but as with all drugs, there are also malefits)

(Yes, it's my intention to use that word as often as I can, and I wholly implore you to do the same! Malefits! Not only does it roll of the tongue so well, it's correct in greek/latin (delete as appropriate))




No real effect on business? Well, you've got smokers giving up, that's an effect on the business of tobacconists and cigarette companies.

Today 64 years ago...

The memorial plague exactly marks the place where the heroes of the German military resistance against Hitler were put up against the wall.

July 21th, 1944
00:15 h

Colonel General Ludwig Beck (06.29.1880 - 07.21.1944)
General of the Infantry Friedrich Olbricht (10.04.1888 - 07.21.1944)
Colonel Claus Schenk Count of Stauffenberg (11.15.1907 - 07.21.1944; His last words were "Long live Germany!")
Colonel Albrecht Knight Mertz of Quirnheim (03.25.1905 - 07.21.1944)
First Lieutenant Werner of Haeften (10.09.1908 - 07.21.1944)

Ruhet in Frieden.

There is a full list on wiki also.

But only these five men died on July 21st. Sometimes I wonder how the world would look like today if they had succeeded.

If he succeded, Either Rommel or Heinrich would have taken over the Reich I think

We know more or less what would have happened with Heinrich

With Rommel... We'll never know

Which Heinrich are you talking about?

it might have been worse, itleast for people such as the Poles and French. Germany might still have won the war, getting rid of Hitlers ridiculous grasp on military strategy.



Or Beck. Though it has to be said killing Hitler might not have necisarily thrown of the Nazi power base, somone like Goring could have quite easily stepped in.

Himmler

What the plotters intended in the case of success is well-known. Julius Leber would have become Imperial Chancellor, who was supposed to offer surrender to the Western Allies. With their permission, the Germans would have fought against the Red Army to restore the boundaries of 1939, and then offered uneasy truce to the Soviets as well. Hitler, Göring, Himmler and Goebbls should face a trial infront of a German tribunal.

What I meant was more the overall development in the world. So many things would be different.

many of us may never have been born, i certinly wouldnt.

Just want to ask you guys bekus this is political i think and feelings are mixed.

But what do you guys think abut using the skul in unit patches and so on?
What i have understud some ppl think its just abut the SS.

Exampel

If you want my opinion, being "afraid" of symbols (for example, the svastika) is one of the most pointless things I heard of

That being said, in Germany it would be an unlawful offense punishable with up to five years in prison to use that symbol.

This form the of the skull insignia is directly derived from the badge of the SS and to wear it can only be interpreted as the wish to honour the SS or to adopt all what sums the SS up. As a soldier, I would not want to wear it.

hmm that might be a problem on exercise to germany then haha.
Yes my problem is just like Daniels that wy are symbols so banned?
The svastica wher even used by the fins befor the germans, so i dont realy get it.
But oki maybe its good idea to change the skull

Hornet, what I meant is very simple: I'm aware of what crimes have been committed once by soldiers that wore this insignia and thus me as a soldier could not account for wearing it, too.