Pepe's Non-Smoking Party Lounge

Poll: 74 percent of smokers want to quit

2008-07-25T11:17:00.001-06:00

A new Gallup poll on smoking today had some really interesting results.

(You gotta click on these graphs to really be able to ready them.) First of all, the percentage of adult smokers continues to decline. From a peak of 45 percent in 1954, it had declined to 40 percent in the 1960s and 1970s to 32 percent in the 1980s to 26 percent in the 1990s, and finally 25 percent in several surveys taken between 2000 and 2006. The latest survey shows a smoking rate of 21 percent.

Looking at the annual survey results, you can really see the progress that has been made. In a 1986 survey, 31 percent of adults said they were smokers. In a 2006 survey, that number had only dropped to 25 percent. In 20 years, the percentage had only dropped 6 percent. (By comparison, the smoking rate plunged from 43 percent in 1972 to 30 percent in 1987, a 13 percent drop in 15 years.)

Those 20 years between 1986 and 2006 saw the height of Joe Camel and tobacco industry marketing geared toward teenagers. In the last two years, the percentage has dropped 4-plus percent from 25 percent to under 21 percent. I credit the flurry of smoking bans in the last two years, frankly. People are getting the message that smoking ain't cool, it isn't tolerated in public anymore, and there aren't very many places you can still smoke.

The same survey showed that 74 percent of smokers want to quit and 67 percent of smokers admit that they are addicted to cigarettes.

Smoker in Wales hassled for smoking in his own van

OK, this goes too far. The smokers' rights folks are going to have a field day with this one, and frankly, I can't rightly blame them.

A smoker in Wales was written up for a fine of 30 pounds because he was caught smoking in his workplace, which is against the law in Wales. Well, he's a self-employed painter and his workplace was his own van that he uses to drive to work sites! He was sitting in the van by himself minding his own business when he got written up.

I admit it. This is silly. These are people who obviously have too much time on their hands, and it makes us anti-tobacco people all look pretty stupid. A local council upheld the ban, but he has the right to appeal. I hope he does and that he wins.

Yes, Paul Newman smoked

2008-07-24T11:57:00.000-06:00

I have photographic evidence. See?

Anyway, I'm reposting this story because I've gotten a remarkable number of hits on this blog from people trying to find out if Paul Newman is/was a smoker. I've gotten well over a hundred hits just for Paul Newman. Probably more than any other story.

So, to sum up. Yes, he did smoke. Yes, he did quit at some point. And yes, he does have lung cancer. How much he smoked, I don't know. When exactly he quit, I don't know. This article I cite states that he was once a chain-smoker.

In other smoking news, New York billionaire/mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Microsoft CEO/billionaire Bill Gates announced jointly that they are going to spend $375 million to combat tobacco in the Third World. Seattle Times story. New York Times story. That sounds like a pittance compared to the billions the tobacco industry has available for advertising, but it's a lot more than the $20 million currently being spent to stop smoking in the Third World. Bloomberg, a former smoker (and former Republican), has already chipped in $125 million to this program and agreed to contribute another $250 million. So, that's $500 million these two are going to spend on the issue.

Funny newspaper article

A friend of mine sent this funny photo of a pregnant woman smoking, talking about how she's afraid nearby jackhammering at a construction site is going to hurt her unborn baby. Click the photo to read the caption. Oh, man. It's really funny ... but it isn't. I can't believe how stupid some people are.

Bush comes out against FDA regulation of tobacco

2008-07-23T00:10:00.004-06:00

Ok, I've harped on this and harped on this and I'm gonna keep harping on it and if you don't like it, you can go watch YouTube.

Sigh. Republicans and Big Tobacco.

What are we going to do with you?

The utterly venal and morally bankrupt Bush administration today came out strongly against any kind of FDA regulation over tobacco and nicotine (even though nicotine is a drug, and FDA stands for "Federal Drug Administration" ... duh.). The bill giving FDA regulatory authority over tobacco (Which could be used to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes and to control tobacco advertising.) is widely popular in both the House and the Senate. It will easily pass both chambers. But, Bush opposes it, under some idiotic supposition that FDA regulation could lead to people believing that "cigarettes are safer ... and that would mislead people."

Ahhh, so this is about the people ... not Big Tobacco ... not the tobacco industry that Bush and his cronies have coddled for 7 years ... not the tobacco industry that contributes millions of dollars to Republican candidates ... that sends 75 to 80 percent of its contributions in the direction of the GOP. No, that has nothing to do with it. It's about the people.

Sigh. Six more months. Look, I know that compared to the outrage of the Iraq war and Guantanamo and domestic surveillance, this is chump change as far as an issue, but it's part of a pattern of not giving a rat's ass what the American people want and what's good for the American people. It's this vapid, long brain-dead, overgrown frat boy faux-Texan screwing with common sense.

Do the House and the Senate have enough votes to override a Bush veto? I don't know.

So, it appears quite possible (or even likely) that FDA regulation over tobacco will have to wait until after Jan. 20, 2009. We've been waiting 40-plus years, I guess six more months isn't so long.

The good news is is that both McCain and Obama are co-sponsors of the legislation. Whoever wins in January, at least on this specific issue, it's win-win for the American people.

Study shows tobacco manipulated menthol to hook teens

2008-07-17T11:17:00.001-06:00

A study done at Harvard has shown that tobacco companies manipulated the level of menthol in their cigarettes to help hook teenagers.

To wit, a small amount of menthol makes cigarettes easier to smoke for new smokers. Too much menthol is too harsh for new smokers. The study showed that several brands of cigarettes, such as Newport and Marlboro Mild, that were marketed to teens years ago had a small amount of menthol to make the smoke less harsh.

This is how scummy the tobacco industry is. They, of course, deny the whole thing. But, tobacco industry documents released in the 1998 settlement show that in 1987, R.J. Reynolds said in an internal memo that low levels of menthol help alleviate the negative reaction to "first-time smokers." (a tobacco industry code term for teenage smokers.) How can they deny this ... when it's in black and white?

In other smoking news:

DVDs to carry anti-smoking messages

You're probably already seen some of these kinds of commercials at movies. There's a really gross one about chewing tobacco I've seen at the theatres a hundred times.

Now, several Hollywood studios have agreed to put anti-smoking messages in DVDs. You'll have to excuse me a bit if I don't stand and applaud too long. I think this is just an attempt by the studios to try and avoid the MPAA really cracking down on smoking in PG-13 and PG movies ... by showing the MPAA that the studios really, genuinely care about teen smoking.

Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a speech at the announcement of the anti-smoking DVD commercials. Schwarzenegger, an avid cigar smoker (and former steroid user who defends *that* habit, too), came out against banning smoking in movies. What a doof, even for a relatively moderate Republican.

First of all, most of us aren't talking about "banning" smoking in movies. What we're talking about is that there's been a dramatic increase in smoking scenes in movies over the last 10 years -- even after the 1998 tobacco settlement supposedly banned the use of tobacco product placement in movies. Even though Big Tobacco is no longer paying big money to insert smoking into movies, Hollywood is still stuck in this mindset that smoking is "cool" and insists on trying to include smoking scenes in movies ... when smoking has nothing to do with the plot or the story or the character.

No one wants to start "banning" things in movies, but we are asking Hollywood to be a little more responsible. In olden days, teen movies used to include a lot of drug-using scenes, and after MADD made a big deal out of this, the MPAA started slapping R ratings on movies for prevalent drug use, and you saw drug use in a lot of movies go away. If the studios simply can't do it, or refuse to be responsible ... then automatic "R" rating for any smoking that isn't set in a historical context. Prevalent marijuana or cocaine use results in an automatic R rating. Cigarettes should be treated the same. Smoke all you want in an adult R rated movie.

My bodacious climb of Little St. Joseph Peak

2008-07-16T10:18:00.003-06:00

Little St. Joseph Peak

9,060 feet

2,930 feet of climbing

OK, first of all, you should always get more than 4 hours of sleep before climbing a mountain.

Second, when in doubt, follow the cairns. The cairns are your friends.

Third, there really is a trail to the top of Little St. Joseph Peak. It’s just hard to find. Especially on 4 hours of sleep.

I decided to try this new mountain for me … on 4 hours of sleep after working the night before. I could probably do this with no problem in my 20s. But, all the energy shots, vitamins and orange juice in the world can only carry me so far anymore.

“Little” St. Joseph Peak is somewhat of a misnomer. It’s only “little” compared to St. Joseph Peak, which at 9,587 feet, is one of the biggest mountains in the Bitterroots. Little St. Joseph is about 2 miles due east of St. Joseph (From now on, I’m going to call them Little Joe and Big Joe), and it’s an impressive little behemoth in its own right at 9,060 feet.

Don’t let the “little” fool you. This trail is a beast. The trailhead sits at 6,130 feet, for a total climb of 2,930 feet. According to Summit.org, it’s 2.8 miles long, which I can’t believe, because it took me 2 hours, 15 minutes to get back down. I’m slow, but I’m not that slow. I can get down Mount Jumbo in 50 minutes and that’s 2 miles. “Hiking the Bitterroots” by Mort Arkava says the trail is 5 miles long, and I think that’s more accurate.

In any case, you get to the trailhead if you go past the Bass Creek recreation site west of Florence. You stay on a nice gravel road for eight miles until it stops at an overlook.

At the trailhead, I immediately ran into trouble. For the life of me, I simply couldn’t find a trail. I walked down a couple of paths that looked like trails, but they soon faded away. After 20-plus minutes of wandering through the woods, I finally stumbled onto the trail. On the way back, I figured out why I had such a hard time finding it.

Anyway, the trail starts fairly easy, climbing gradually through a pretty, relatively bug-free forest, but after about a mile, the gradient really starts to bite. According to my little GPS gizmo, I climbed more than 2,000 feet in less than three miles, a grade of about 14 percent. Ouch. No wonder I bonked at 7,500 feet on only four hours sleep. After wolfing down an energy bar at a little campsite with a beautiful view of the Bass Creek Crags, I felt better and continued on, knowing I still had 1,560 feet to go … and only one more energy bar.

At least my foot was holding up well. I dislocated a tendon in the foot about a month ago, and could barely walk for about three or four days. After being told I would have to stay off it for four weeks, it suddenly got better. I climbed St. Mary Peak on it last week and it felt fine. Anyway, it popped back out Saturday night and I was able to pop it back into the sheath.

Fortunately, about a mile from the summit, at about 8,500 feet, when the whitebarks get really small and bushy, the route actually flattens out a bit. The trail more or less disappears, but a series of cairns points the way. There’s still a lot of snow up there, and I got a bad feeling there were some cairns still buried under the snow. I zigged and zagged through a maze of rock and grass to get around the snowfields, but I kept finding cairns hidden among the whitebarks.

Little Joe can fool you. It seems as if the best way up is to go straight up a ridge on your left, but I kept finding cairns waaaay to the right – toward the north. It didn’t seem like the right way to the top, but I trusted the cairns.

Toward the top, the cairns pretty much peter out, too, and you’re completely on your own – just you and Little Joe. But, you’re only a few hundred feet from the top. I made a beeline for what appeared to be the top of a ridge, and sure enough, it turned out to be the summit plateau. A 30-foot-high pile of boulders on the plateau is the official summit. Photo No. 1 here is the view to the south of the Bass Creek Crags and big St. Mary Peak (9,350 feet) there in the background. I've climbed St. Mary five times now.

From the top of the boulders, you get one of the most amazing views I’ve seen in the Bitterroots, of St. Mary Peak, the Heavenly Twins, Big Joe and the dual summits of Lolo Peak. Many of these peaks are still covered in snow. Photo No. 2 is toward the southwest, looking at the snowpacked Heavenly Twins in the background.

There’s a ridge connecting Little Joe and Big Joe (There is supposedly some debate over whether Little Joe is a distinct peak or just part of Big Joe. My attitude is anything over 9,000 feet gets to be its own mountain.). Much of the connecting ridge looks easy, but then there are three big rock formations along the ridge that make Big Joe a difficult climb (One of them is an evil-looking nearly vertical cliff about 100 feet high) – too hard for me on my own, at least.

On the way down, one the east face of Little Joe, I came across a bunch of metal and glass and rusted electronic parts in the rocks. I picked some of them up then put them back. It looked like an old plane crash and it seemed wrong to pick up pieces of debris from it. I found a memorial later at the trailhead to two pilots killed in a 1991 crash. The plane parts are still up there 17 years later. Photo No. 3 here is from the summit to the west toward Big Joe. You can't see this mountain at all from the Bitterroot Valley. Like the true summit of Lolo Peak, it's hidden.

After I stumbled across the old plane crash site, I lost the path zigzagging through the snow on the way down and I decided to just give up and cross the snowfields. There were fresh footprints in the snow, and I figured as long as I didn’t find a corpse at the end of the snowfields, it seemed like a good route. I kept an eye out for piles of rocks, and sure enough I found friendly cairns showing me the way back down. Eventually, the cairns give way to the trail.

On the way down, I didn’t feel so bad about bonking. I really came to appreciate just how steep the middle section of this trail is. It just dives straight down for two or three miles. Photo No. 4 is from the summit east toward the Bitterroot Valley.

I realized, too, why I couldn’t find the trail. It actually starts at a little picnic area/campsite adjacent to the road’s end, and goes down, not up, for several hundred yards. No wonder I couldn’t find it. Who wants to go downhill to climb a mountain?

Percentage of people breathing secondhand smoke drops dramatically

2008-07-11T11:10:00.002-06:00

A new study by the CDC shows that nonsmokers are being exposed to a lot less secondhand smoke, mostly because of more smokefree laws nationwide, the drop in smoking rates and because of changing attitudes about smoking around nonsmokers.

The study showed that in blood tests done between 1999 and 2004, 46 percent of nonsmokers tested had nicotine in their blood, compared to (holy crap) 84 percent in the late 80s and early 90s. The tests looked at 17,000 samples, including kids as young as 4.

One negative trend in the study is that the number of kids exposed to secondhand smoke is still high. About 60 percent of kids tested from 1999 to 2004 had nicotine in their systems. Kids don't have the options of simply leaving if someone is smoking around them. One theory is that more people are smoking more at home around their kids because they can't smoke at bars and restaurants anymore.

Tennessee anti-smoking law upheld

Oh, Harleyrider isn't going to be happy. A federal judge threw out a lawsuit challenging Tennessee's smoking ban and raise in cigarette taxes. The litigant claimed the laws were a "conspiracy" to drive down smoking rates. The judge said the plaintiff, a smoker, simply had no standing to sue.

Tennessee's smoking ban is fairly lax. It only applies to restaurants. And the tax is only 62 cents a pack, way less than the national average. Why would you even waste the time and money to fight it?

Lots of drama in Missoula last night

2008-07-10T09:10:00.000-06:00

Some kids started a fire in town last night (Tom Bauer photo/Missoulian) and it went right up the side of Mount Sentinel, for 2,000 feet all the way to the top. It burned more than 300 acres in less than four hours. And the grass is still relatively wet! Yikes. It was quite the event last night. Today, there is still a bit of smoke coming off the mountain and lots of helicopters buzzing around town dropping water on it. Boy, another eight full weeks of summer.

Anyway, here is another really interesting story that the Daily Missoulian printed yesterday about a former smoker who quit a couple of years ago after several tries, and now she's running in a marathon. She's not only running in a local marathon, she's gunning for a fast-enough time to qualify for the Boston Marathon. So, it's never too late to quit. She says now she can't even imagine smoking a cigarette. The thought of a cigarette makes her want to throw up.

Huge anti-smoking ban rally in Hawaii!

2008-07-09T13:43:00.003-06:00

Oh, wait, only 15 people showed up at the big rally at the state capitol in Honolulu. Still, it was enough to attract a local TV news crew. (Smirk)

Well, that ought to get all those liberal Hawaii lawmakers shaking in their hula-hoops.

Anyway, in *real* smoking news, the Federal Trade Commission yesterday ruled that it would no longer regulate "low tar" cigarettes, because this was being misused by tobacco companies to insinuate that official FTC low tar cigarettes were somehow safer than regular cigarettes.

McCain makes a smoking joke

Liberals have been tearing into John McCain for making a joke about Iran. He suggested one way to beat the Iranians was through a trade deal that is sending more cigarettes to Iran. "Maybe we'll kill 'em all with cigarettes."

Liberals are saying this was really insensitive of McCain. Oh, brother. It was just a dumb joke. Lighten up.

Bar business *up* in Colorado

Well, Colorado is one of the real hotspots for opposition to smoking bans. Bar owners are still fighting that state's smoking ban in the courts.

It turns out that since the ban went into effect, bar and tavern business in Colorado is *up* 5 percent. It's not wrecking or devastating the bar and tavern industry. It's gone *up*! Bar owners in this Colorado Springs story are quoted as saying business went down briefly, but now is stronger than ever.

You know, you never hear the smokers' rights groups quoting these numbers showing bar and tavern business going up after smoking bans, and countless economic impact studies have been done showing this. The most dramatic was in Washington, where the bar and tavern business went up *20 percent* after a smoking ban went into effect (And that number is based directly on bar and tavern tax receipts to the state -- hard numbers.). You won't read about that stuff on Forces.org.

Self-arrest!

2008-07-09T12:57:00.002-06:00

So, Monday, I climbed St. Mary Peak. There is still a lot of snow up there, but it was my best climb of St. Mary Peak ever.

the first time I climbed it, an arson fire at Gash Creek flared up and the whole mountain was choked by smoke. The second time I climbed it, it was Labour Day, and the mountain was really crowded, and there were some especially obnoxious people up there with cell phones calling up all their buddies. The third time I climbed it, it was a 100-degree day, so I hard to start at 5 a.m. and get down in a hurry so I didn't cook.

This time, the weather was perfect. There was a little bit of haze (from California fires, believe it or not), but not bad. I hit snow after about two miles. Just some small patches. The biggest patch was maybe 200 or 300 yards. And the snow was really soft and mushy, so the footing was good.

And I got to the top and no rude, obnoxious people with cell phones. Just an hour by myself and the Bitterroots. I got a good look of St. Joseph Peak, which I'm climbing next week, and the Heavenly Twins, which are both still buried in snow.

On the way down, I ran into a group of people who said they got lost for an hour because they tried to go around the snow and take a shortcut up the side of the mountain. "I wouldn't do that," I told them. The route through the snow was easy to find, I told them. Just follow the dirty footprints!

On the way down, though, one of those snowfields completely collapsed underneath me. I've never had anything like that before. I was crossing over this soft, mushy snow, then suddenly, I drop down four feet and I'm on my butt, sliding down a 45-degree slope ... straight into a bunch of trees about 60 or 80 feet below me. (I think what happened is that in the spring, you can get big air pockets forming under snowbanks caused by snowmelt, and I was walking over one of those air pockets in the mid-afternoon when the snow is really soft and it just caved in.)

Anyway, I was really proud of myself, because I did the absolute right thing. I quickly rolled over on my belly and dug my trekking pole into the snow and stopped my fall. I had performed a self-arrest! I fell a total of about 8 to 10 feet. When I stopped, I looked under my armpit to the trees below and said, "Wicked!" The next thing I said was, "Agggh, I got snow down my underpants."
I had to unclick my other trekking pole I had on the back of my pack and use both of them to climb back up the snowfield to the trail over the snowbank. It was quite an adventure for easy little St. Mary Peak.

COBRA strikes!

2008-07-05T11:17:00.003-06:00

As they promised, COBRA (a group of Clinton County bar owners) and another group of bar owners filed suit against the new Iowa state smoking ban. Good luck guys. Lawsuits against state smoking bans are about 0-for-20. At this point, any state smoking ban almost automatically invites litigation.

The groups are asking for an immediate injunction while the constitutionality of the law is decided. They want to take their fight national for other states where smoking bans have been implemented and argue it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (I wouldn't like smoking bans' odds against this current Supreme Court. Obama better win.)

The guy behind COBRA is also running for the state legislature ... specifically to overturn the state smoking ban.

Sigh.

In other smoking news:

Idiot tobacco store owner in Kansas

Well, this guy gets my award for asshole of the week. Some tobacco shop owner in Hutchinson, Kansas, put a sign in front of his store saying, "Smoking realy is cool" (That is actually what it says. Either he ran out of "l's" or he thinks that's how you really spell really.) What a jackass! Nice message to the teens and kids, jerkweed. The county health department is sending him a mailer on responsible tobacco advertising. That's about all they can do. He has a right to do. The First Amendment protects even the biggest idiots. How much you want to bet that packet ends up in the wastepaper basket?

Strict schools result in more smoking

Ah-ha! You mean if you tell teenagers not to act up ... they'll act up more? (It's amazing how hard of a time some people have wrapping their heads around that.)

An interesting study points out that strict, authoritarian schools end up resulting in higher teen smoking rates than schools that, you know, value the input and opinions of the teens. It's almost as if smoking has something to do with rebellion.

Sheesh. People still haven't figured this out since the 60s? If you treat kids like they have half a brain and reason with them like semi-adults, you'll probably have a *little* more success.

Wisconsin smoking, anti-smoking advocates gird for their next battle

The battle lines are being drawn in Wisconsin for the next round of the smoking ban war. It will be coming back this next legislative session. Everyone knows it, and they're digging in for it. The head of the Wisconsin Tavern League is quoted in this story as saying every state that has passed a smoking ban, revenues have dropped 10 to 30 percent.

Not true! Washington passed a smoking ban, and revenues at bars went *up* 20 percent!

Illinois smoking ban helps catch serial killer

2008-07-02T12:28:00.000-06:00

Well, sort of.
In any case, this is an interesting story. Some guy who murdered 8 people in the Midwest walked into a bar in Illinois. Some patrons recognized his face from TV. Then, he asked for a lighter and went outside to smoke. While he was outside, people in the bar called 9-1-1 to smoke and the cops showed up and arrested while he was still standing outside smoking.
So, Illinois' smoking ban helped catch this guy.

Teen smoking down, but not much

2008-06-28T12:07:00.000-06:00

A number of articles came out yesterday about new numbers from the CDC regarding teen smoking.

It's kind of good news/bad news. The good news is that "current teen smokers" (teens who have smoked at least *one* cigarette during the past 30 days) is at 20 percent -- the lowest since 1991. At the height of Joe Camel (1993 to 1999) that number was at 34 to 36 percent. In 2001, it dropped to 28.5 percent, then dropped again in 2003 to 21.9 percent. It rose slightly to 23 percent in 2005.

Here's the bad news. That number dropped dramatically between 1999 and 2003 because millions were being spent from the 1998 tobacco settlement agreement on teen smoking education programs and because Joe Camel was put down by the same settlement. Since 2003, the drop-off in teen smoking has stalled somewhat, because those millions are now being diverted into state general funds so state legislators can balance their budget without raising property taxes.
Still, despite some critical articles, such as this good Washington Post story and this Reuters article, I still manage to see the glass half full. A drop from 34.8 percent in 1999 to 20 percent in 2007 -- just 8 years -- is something to be optimistic about.

Other numbers in the CDC report include:

* 8.1 percent of teens are heavy smokers, down from 16.8 percent in 1999. A heavy smoker is defined as smoking 20 days in the past 30.

* 50 percent of teens have ever even tried a cigarette, down from 70 percent in 1999.

In other smoking news:

Illinois survey shows huge support for new smoking ban

Despite some whining, a recent poll in Illinois shows *73 percent* support for that state's new smoking ban. 62 percent of that is *strongly support.* That compares to 68 percent overall support before the ban went into effect.

Only 25 percent of the people in the poll oppose the ban.

It's interesting, the smokers' rights crowd always claims these polls are utter bullshit. But, you know something, they never seem to have any of their own polls to quote showing that people feel otherwise.

Majority of English publicans support ban

Here's an even more surprising poll. In this survey published in the Publican (which is a really big English Pub trade magazine), *64 percent* of pub owners in England support the smoking ban in that country, up from 57 percent when the ban was first implemented. A couple of pub owners are quoted as saying that there was a lot of opposition to the ban at first, but once it was implemented, it didn't turn out to be that big of a deal.

Michigan smoking ban stalls

The proposed smoking ban in Michigan stalled without final action. Both the Senate and the House passed bans, but there were subtle differences, such as whether or not to allow smoking in Detroit casinos, so they didn't reach a compromise before the Legislature broke for the year. It will have to wait until 2009. What a shame. It seemed like fairly minor differences in the two bills that could have been reconciled without too much angst.

Fresno State wins it all!

2008-06-26T10:43:00.004-06:00

Yayyy, Fresno State is now known for something other than having its own Web page on "cracksmoker.com." (RIP cracksmoker.com).

And Fresno is known for something other than being the birthplace of the meth lab.

(And just for the record, Deadspin, which reported that Fresno is the birthplace of Cher, Kevin Federline and Trent Dilfer ... Dilfer isn't actually from Fresno; he just played college football there. I couldn't get Deadspin to fix that.)
Famous athletes or coaches actually from Fresno, Deadspin? Try Tom Seaver, Henry Ellard, Ickey Woods, Darryl Lamonica (Well, Clovis, anyway) and (eeek) Jerry Tarkanian.

Anyway, as you probably have heard by now, Fresno State won the College World Series, outscoring Georgia 25-11 in the last two games of the three-game series. Steve Detwiler hit two home runs and a 395-foot double with a torn ligament in his thumb. and those rude Georgia fans had it coming for wearing all those t-shirts that said, "We're the *real* Bulldogs."

The sports blogs and radio shows have been all a-twitter about the Bulldogs and whether they represent the biggest cinderella in college sports history. Fresno started off 8-12, finished its regular season only 33-27 and entered the postseason as a No. 4 regional seed (which is equivalent to being a No. 13-16 seed in the NCAA basketball tournament.)

And just for the record, while Fresno State's Tommy Mendonca looks like Colin Ferrell, don't you think Steve Detwiler bears an amazing resemblance to Lou Diamond Phillips?

The people in Fresno have been up all night burning cop cars and meth labs ... although that's just another Wednesday night in Fresno.

Seriously, there's really not a whole heck of a lot to get excited about in Fresno, so this is a big deal for people there. The basketball program became a joke after Tarkanian showed up; Pat Hill keeps wanting to jump the football team to the Pac-10, even though Fresno can never beat Boise State or Hawaii; it's hot, it's foggy, it's flat, it's smoggy; there's strip malls as far as the eye can see; it's incredibly crime-ridden. I hated it myself, but I take a certain kind of pride that somehow I survived Fresno without getting shot or stabbed.

Fresno State playing for all the marbles!!

2008-06-24T23:21:00.001-06:00

The Fresno State (real) Bulldogs beat the Georgia Bulldogs like 103-0 today! They were behind 5-0, but came back to win. (I'm not sure how Georgia lost their five runs in the final score.) It forces Game 3 of the College World Series Wednesday night. I like all the adjectives from the AP story. "Unimaginable ... amazing ... amazing (again) ... heart ... incredible ... moxie (my favourite) ...
"

Anyway, has anyone else but me noticed that Fresno State's slick-fielding third baseman Tommy Mendonca bears a remarkable resemblance to Irish actor Colin Farrell? I'm just saying.
Tommy Mendonca...
...Colin Farrell
Separated at birth?

Also here is a joke from Deadspin.com:
College World Series: Championship series, Game 2, Georgia vs. Fresno State in Omaha (7 p.m., ET). That guy in your office who keeps saying "I predict the Bulldogs will win!" ... you have my permission to poke him in both eyes with a pencil.
Really, what kind of *asshole* would make a joke that stupid?

Amy Winehouse doesn't have emphysema

2008-06-24T10:21:00.001-06:00

Aha, I knew it. You don't get emphysema at the age of 24.
After her father came out and told the entire world that Amy Winehouse has emphysema, her publicist later came out and said, "Um, well, actually, she doesn't." She does have lung damage and she has a condition that *could* eventually lead to emphysema. Dad was just freaking out, apparently.
She did, however, leave the hospital and was smoking away. Sigh. Someone who just doesn't get it.

Amy Winehouse has emphysema

2008-06-23T15:11:00.001-06:00

More weird news from the Amy Winehouse front ... and this time, not all that funny. Her father announced that she has been diagnosed with emphysema.

You might remember some Amy winehouse news from a few months ago when she got a horrible infection in her face. She got the infection because she was asked to put out a cigarette in a club, so she put the cigarette out in her face, and then the wound got infected.

Anyways, her father said she got emphysema from smoking crack and cigarettes. She's only 24 and it's incredibly rare for someone that young to get emphysema (It usually shows up when people are in their 50s and 60s and it's almost exclusively smokers who get it. My dad was diagnosed with it when he was around 47 or 48, I think, and he still didn't quit smoking.) Sure enough, here's an interesting article from (Eek!) Foxnews.com about how there is a genetic form of emphysema that can show up as young as 24. The article goes on to say that smoking cigarettes and of course, crack can accelerate emphysema if you have this gene.

Anyway, there is a new star on the smoking news forum. Some barely literate crazy idiot from Tennessee named Harleyrider (Really, I barely read these comments anymore, they're just so toxic and depressing, but Harley's pretty entertaining.). Here's what he had to say about Amy Winehouse:

"... the antis have placed her in the hospital to use her for propaganda........guaranteed. She is still scheduled to sing at a concert in London on Friday celebrating the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela, the South African Nobel Prize-winner, and plans to take part in the Glastonbury music festival the following day. you think the antis are gonna not use her when she is going to sing for the commie nazis socialist HERO herr mandella......."

Wow, charming, huh? Typical smokers' rights' drivel. You can't even begin to reason with *that*. Nelson Mandela is both a commie *and* a nazi! (I guess ol' Harley missed the day in history class in which he was also a champion to overturn Apartheid.)

In other smoking news:

Iowa fight going national? Hmmmm

A group of bar owners in Iowa (calling themselves COBRA) announced that they're going to band with bar owners from a bunch of other states to fight smoking bans on the federal level. It sounds like these guys are giving up trying to fight Iowa's ban in the state courts. They're hoping to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court to get smoking bans overturned nationwide. (With the present make-up of the Supreme Court, I wouldn't put this out of the realm of possibility.)
the group says it's willing to spend the millions of dollars it will take to get the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Wait a minute, isn't the problem with smoking bans is that they cost bar owners money? They'd rather spend *millions of dollars* fighting them?

Anyway, there is one huge flaw in this strategy. A group of Colorado bar owners already went to the federal courts to fight that state's ban a couple of years ago, and they got slammed down pretty hard in the federal court system. That suit as far as I know is dead. It likely set a precedent. The Iowa group might want to look into that. That doesn't bode well for success for a case in the federal courts.

Nevada ban barely being enforced

Well, this isn't terribly surprising. Nevada a strange place to try and have a smoking ban, and sure enough a lot of bars in Nevada aren't stopping people from smoking. And the state isn't really stepping in to stop it. Part of the reason is that the state is still working on rules to enforce the ban. But, again, when that ban first passed, I sure wondered how it was going to fly in Nevada.

Fresno State playing for the National Championship

2008-06-23T14:53:00.001-06:00

I'm one proud Bulldog today!

I was afraid of writing about this for fear of jinxing Fresno State, but my Bulldogs did it. They beat North Carolina Sunday to qualify for the finals of the NCAA World Series.

Fresno State is playing in the finals, and so far, I haven't been successful going around town betting people a million dollars that the Bulldogs will win the NCAA title. (Fresno State Bulldogs vs. Georgia Bulldogs, get it. That trick actually worked once on a real stupid former editor of mine. I bet him the Wildcats would win the national championship in basketball when it was Kentucky vs. Arizona, and the nitwit actually took me up on it.)

Here is a great story from ESPN about how this very well could be the biggest cinderella story in the history of college sports (Bigger than Villanova beating Georgetown in the '80s? Wow, that's a mighty big statement.). Fresno State entered the postseason with a pretty pedestrian record of 33-27 (Hah, I know now why I hadn't heard that they were so good ... because they weren't.). But, they've gotten really hot in the postseason and knocked off a bunch of national powers such as Rice, North Carolina and Arizona State.

People have said to me, "wait, I thought Fresno State was a football school. Well, yeah, everyone knows about Fresno State football because crazy Pat Hill schedules a lot of games on Wednesdays and Thursdays so Fresno can be on ESPN2, but they were a big baseball power in the '80s and the '90s. Dan Gladden, Terry Pendleton and Bob Jones, three pretty good MLB players, all played for Fresno State. (And I think Ted Lilly did, too, but I'm not positive.)

Bob Bennett won something like 1,000 games as the coach of Fresno State's baseball team. They played in the college world series a few times during Bennett's reign, but they never got this close to the title.

Fresno State has won one college national title. That was about 10 years ago in women's softball.

Game 1 of the three-game series is today. At this point, if Fresno wins any more, I figure it's just gravy.

Crazy smoker disrupts flight

2008-06-20T12:57:00.000-06:00

Have you heard about this story? It's all over the Internet today. In all honesty, I find it so sad and pathetic I can't even laugh at this poor woman.

Apparently, in her seat (Not even in the bathroom like most nicotine addicts), she tries to light up a cigarette. When a flight attendant took the cigarette away, she went ballistic and punched the flight attendant in the face. She had to be restrained twice and the flight had to be diverted because she was being so disruptive (what a nightmare for the other passengers. I was once trapped on a flight was a passenger who decided to freak out. It is no fun.)
It turns out the woman had had a few drinks before she got on the plane. It's pretty obvious that at best, she's got some substance abuse issues way beyond cigarettes and is probably is carrying around some mental health issues, too. It makes it hard for me to laugh at her. (Though most people are.) She does look pretty sloshed in her mug shot, though.

Some of the posters on the Internet are saying the most horrible things about her. Though, one of the dumbest posts came from a stupid smokers' rights idiot from Tennessee who spouted that the flight attendant was probably some snooty "Anti" who had it coming for screwing with her civil right to smoke.

Kansas City ban upheld

A judge in Kansas City recently issued a temporary restraining order on Kansas City's new voter-approved comprehensive smoking ban. Today, he issued his ruling saying that the ban can now go ahead.

Jacoby Ellsbury featured in an Indian museum

2008-06-20T12:49:00.000-06:00

An American Indian museum in New York has an exhibit through Dec. 31 about Indians who played Major League Baseball. Front and center of the exhibit is Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox's leadoff hitter. Ellsbury is a Navajo from Oregon. Also featured is Joba Chamberlain, the pitcher for the Yankees. (And it's apparently pronounced like "Jabba" as in "Jabba the Hut."

Speaking of Indians and baseball, I decided to get this cool Spokane Indians cap. The baseball team went to the Spokane Indians and asked them to design a logo. They designed two; one with an eagle feather, and this one that says "Spokane Indians" in Salish, which is the predominant Indian language in the Northern Rockies.

A story about emotional abuse at Sean Kelly’s

2008-06-20T12:39:00.000-06:00

The other night, I had dinner at Sean Kelly’s, and I was subjected to this really bizarre conversation between these two people who sat at the bar next to me.

Anyway, the discussion was between this real arrogant, pompous loudmouth blowhard and this mousy woman. As near as I could tell (And believe me, I was really *really* trying not to listen), they were in the midst of some kind of breakup. The poor woman couldn’t get a word in edgewise, because the guy was definitely doing ALL the talking. And he was mostly talking about himself, and what a great guy he was.

Well, to sum up, their relationship problems were ALL her fault, because she was holding him back and holding him down.

I swear to GOD, this guy really, actually said: “I'm a lone wolf. Look, BABE, this is the way I roll… and if you want to roll with me, you have to roll the way I roll. I do what I want, when I want, how I want.”

I … swear … to … GOD.

I mean, who actually says, “that’s the way I roll, BABE?”

The whole time this guy is spouting off, the woman was just saying, “b-but, b-but, b-but.” Then, the guy would interrupt her and continue telling her off.

Finally, at one point, he went out to smoke (What a shock, he’s a smoker), and I felt like grabbing this woman by the shoulders, shaking her and telling her, “tell him to piss off! Tell him off. Tell him he’s an asshole and you don’t need his crap and walk out on him!” But, of course, she didn’t. When he came back, she … just … kept … taking it. It was really, really depressing … and annoying. I couldn’t take any more of it, so I quickly paid my tab and scurried out.

It left me wondering why this woman would want anything to do with this pompous blowhard. (He was fat and not particularly good-looking.) Why women put up with arrogant assholes like that. Is it just sheer lack of self-respect and self-esteem? The way he was talking to bordered on verbal and emotional abuse. Never at any time did I hear him give a crap about her or her feelings or her point-of-view. I just don’t understand people who make the choice to be victims.

Washington bar business up 20 percent

2008-06-13T12:41:00.001-06:00

Two cute columns about smoking bans
This first blog entry is from Dan Savage who writes a column called "Savage Love" for the Stranger, which is an alternative weekly in Seattle. Savage usually writes really nasty columns about gay sex. A former boss of mine from Friday Harbor really liked him.
Anyway, on his Stranger blog, Savage writes that it turns out that the smoking ban isn't all that big of a deal, and that bars are *not* being devastated by the ban. The column is titled "wasn't the ban going to destroy bars," but Savage found out that bar business in Washington went up 20 percent in 2007 after the ban was passed in 2006. 20 percent! From $500 million a year to $600 million a year. Savage points out that most smokers don't even like coming home reeking like cigarette smoke after going out for a night on the town.
(The Stranger, by the way, vehemently opposed the smoking ban, which was passed by Washington voters with 64 percent of the vote.)

The second column comes from Annapolis, Maryland, which has had a ban for over a year. The title of this column is "smoking ban outrage turns intoa whimper." This writer, Eric Hartley, basically says that smokers have basically accepted the smoking ban there with a shrug of the shoulders. He points out that smokers have gotten used to the idea that they just can't smoke whereever they want anymore.

Hartley writes: "... A surprising consensus emerged: The ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, which took effect Feb. 1, has been no big deal. That's the official word, too. The county Health Department said no local businesses have asked for "hardship" waivers. The department has investigated just 10 complaints of violations since February. And despite the predictions that it would hurt business, bars seem as full as ever."

Hartley admits that smoking bans drive down smoking rates and make workplaces more healthy, but in the end, he doesn't sound that enthusiastic about smoking bans. Oh, well. He sure ends up making a good argument in favour them, though.

Smoking banned at U.S. Open

The U.S. Open announced that smoking in the gallery has been banned.
Apparently, a big part of the problem other than the smoke annoying non-smokers is that the smokers were leaving their dirty butts all over the nice golf course. Jeez!

Pennsylvania officially goes non-smoking

Gov. Rendell signed the bill to make Pennsylvania the 33rd (semi) smokefree state. Pittsburgh and Scranton will get to keep their smoking bans. More or less a victory, and an *extremely* long and hard-fought victory. This took nearly two solid years of wrangling just to get a not terribly tough smoking ban in the Keystone State.

Fargo, N.D. goes smokefree

The city of Fargo passed, by a large margin, a ballot measure to go completely smokefree. (North Dakota has a smokefree law, but it's really weak, and so doesn't count as a smokefree state.) With the state's biggest city now smokefree, that might encourage the whole state to follow suit.

The story of Chico Kowalski

2008-06-11T11:14:00.001-06:00

By the way, it's snowing like crazy here in Missoula, Mont., ... on June 11th! And we're only at 3,200 feet.
sigh. No mountain climbing until mid-July, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I want to tell you the story of Chico Kowalski, who is a Marine I killed playing Halo. I killed one of my own guys. I feel terrible about it. Chico was riding in the back of my Humvee and I rolled the Humvee trying to cross a river and I crushed him. Poor little Chico.
Chico grew up in Mankato, Minn. He was half Hispanic, half Polish, half Chippewa Cree. He was a good kid who just wanted to serve his country. He helped his little sister do her algebra. All his life all he wanted to be was a Marine. He followed his big brother into the Marines. And I killed him. I crushed him under my Humvee.
I'll miss Chico's excited whoops whenever we went airborne, his gleeful "that's what I'm talking about" every time we mowed down the enemy ... in our Humvee.
I felt so bad about crushing Chico that I had to start the game over and bring him back to life.
But, before I did, I decided I had to make up, er... tell the story of Chico, so people would know about him.

Paul Newman ill with lung cancer, and Pennsylvania has a smoking ban

2008-06-11T00:23:00.001-06:00

Sad news today came out that Paul Newman has terminal lung cancer. He isn't expected to live much more than a few months. So, he gave away much of his fortune (About $120 million, mostly made from his Newman's Own products) to charity this week. Pretty amazing.

Newman used to be a chain smoker but quit in the 1970s. He and I have a lot of common. We both have the same birthday (Jan. 26th) and we both like hockey. In fact, did you know Paul Newman played hockey in college in New Hampshire.

Anyway, it was very sad to read this. You always expect someone like Paul Newman to go out under a cascade of "Fuego!! Fuego!!"

Like I said, he quit smoking 30 years ago, but he's still a victim of tobacco.

In other tobacco news:

Pennsylvania has a smoking ban ... of sorts.

After killing their smoking ban, the Pennsylvania State Senate turned around and passed a smoking ban by a vote of 41-9. The governor is expected to sign it.

It turns out the biggest sticking point in the whole bill was that it allowed Philadelphia to have a tougher smoking ban than the rest of the state, but not Pittsburgh and Scranton, which had passed their own smoking bans, only to have them invalidated by the courts because they conflicted with state law.

So, Republicans agreed that they would approve amendments to the law that would allow Pittsburgh and Scranton to have their comprehensive smoking bans, along with Philadelphia. Pretty unnecessarily complicated, if you ask me.

Pennsylvania's ban isn't very strict. It will allow smoking in casinos, private clubs and small taverns that derive less than 20 percent of their revenue from food. It has a lot of exemptions.

No surprise. The nine votes against the smoking ban? All nine of them were Republicans.

Speaking of Repubnicans

What an amazing coincidence. Here is a really interested article about how Altria (ne Philip Morris) just donated $50,000 to the Ventura County Republican Committee. $50,000 to a county Republican committee. What the hell? It turns out this $50,000 donation is 88 percent of all the money Ventura County Republicans have raised this year. Boy, that's not being beholden to tobacco interests or anything. Talk about not having any shame. Criminy.

The only reason I can think that Philip Morris would give Ventura County 50 grand is that raising cigarette taxes in California is an ongoing debate, and Philip Morris is just trying to keep as many Republicans in their pocket as they possibly can.

Repubnicans! God only knows what makes them tick.

Illinois ban ruled constitutional

An Illinois judge ruled that the ban was constitutional and that eight smokers who were cited for violating the ban did not have their civil rights violated. Their attorney had asked for their citations to be dismissed, saying the law was unconstitutional, but the judge rejected the request. The smokers then asked for a jury trial.

What dweebs!

David Sedaris book about quitting smoking

David Sedaris just published a new hot-selling book called "When you are Engulfed in Flames."

One of the longest chapters in it is a humourous take on his struggles to quit smoking while he is in Japan. I gotta get this book just for that section. I'd have to wait weeks to get it from the local library, but I can get a used copy pretty cheap from Amazon. I say check it out.

Smoking ban goes down in Pennsylvania

2008-06-05T11:33:00.000-06:00

But, it's not necessarily a bad thing, because it wasn't a very good ban.

After months and months of wrangling over the issue, a Pennsylvania legislative committee came up with a compromise smoking ban bill. One house of the Legislature had passed a strict ban while the other house passed a ban full of exemptions. The compromise bill kept most of the exemptions, including a provision precluding Pittsburgh or any city in Pennsylvania other than Philadelphia from passing a stricter ban. So, basically, it banned smoking in restaurants. Smoking would've still been allowed in most bars and casinos. It was a pretty weak ban and would've been the weakest ban north of the Mason-Dixon line.

So, the Pennsylvania house passed it, but the Pennsylvania senate rejected it, by a pretty big vote, 31-19. Some senators voted against it because they oppose any and all bans, while others opposed it because it contained too many exemptions. The prohibition from local communities passing stricter bans seemed to have been a particular sticking point.

Anyway, it's back to square one in Pennsylvania. It's possible this bill might come back for a vote next week, but I'm not expecting anything different.

That's what happens when you try to compromise too much. My point is, either pass a real ban .. or don't, then take your lumps either way politically. Don't try to make everyone happy, because what'll happen in the end is that you won't make *anyone* happy.

Pennsylvania remains the only state in the northeast without any kind of smoking ban.

Another Minnesota bar loses its 'theater night' gig

A second bar in Minnesota had its theater night thrown out by a different judge. (This is a completely separate case from the first one.) That's 0-for-2 for theater night cases in Minnesota.

Cigs $10 a pack in New York? Holy crap!

With a new $1.25 tax on a pack of cigarettes in New York state and a big New York City tax on cigarettes, a pack of smokes in New York now cost $8 to $10, depending on the brand. Holy cow. That's more than Canada. (Cigs are about $8.50 a pack in Canada.)

$10 a pack? If you smoke one lousy pack a day, that's $70 a week ... $303 a month, $3,640 a year. Man, if that isn't incentive to quit, I don't know what is.

WHO urges ban on cigarette advertising

The World Health Association (Not the rock band from England, dummies), came out this week urging a ban on *all* cigarette advertising, something I wholeheartedly agree with.

Obama wins big in Montana

2008-06-05T11:08:00.002-06:00

OK, I haven't updated for a while. I am *still* learning how to use this new computer. One thing I learned is how to rip images off DVDs. See? I couldn't do that before. (That's Sara from Samurai Champloo, by the way.) I'm getting DSL next week and then I'm really going to fly.

Anyway, the night Barack Obama was declared the winner of the Democratic race, he had a big night here in Montana. He won with 58 percent of the vote, and here in Missoula, he got 66 percent. (Not quite as good as Corvallis, Or., where he got 70 percent.)

Missoula wasn't Obama's top city in Montana. I really thought Missoula would be. Shockingly, it was Bozeman, which is a fairly conservative city. Obama got 73 percent of the Democratic vote in Bozeman. (Seriously, Bozeman keeps putting these real right-wing whack jobs in the State Legislature. Some Bozeman legislators a couple of years ago opposed a bill requiring school districts to develop their own anti-bullying policies because they said it was a pro-gay bill, and that the bill was messing with Montana tradition -- what they were really saying is that it's tradition in Montana to beat up and harass gays and kids oughta be able to still do it ... these same Bozeman idiots also opposed a bill to create all-day kindergarten because they said that extra time in kindergarten was going to used to teach evolution and tolerance for gays. Huhhhh?)

Anyway, I digress. Now, those Bozeman numbers are a little deceiving, because here in Missoula, with a population of 100,000, over 25,000 Democrats cast ballots. In Bozeman, with a population of 80,000, only about 14,000 Democrats cast ballots. So, we have a lot more Democrats than they do. What few Democrats they have are more liberal.

I seriously doubt Obama can win Montana in November, but there's hope. The last poll done on Obama vs. McCain showed McCain ahead 48 percent to 43 percent.

Pepe's Non-Smoking Party Lounge

Poll: 74 percent of smokers want to quit

Yes, Paul Newman smoked

Bush comes out against FDA regulation of tobacco

Study shows tobacco manipulated menthol to hook teens

My bodacious climb of Little St. Joseph Peak

Percentage of people breathing secondhand smoke drops dramatically

Lots of drama in Missoula last night

Huge anti-smoking ban rally in Hawaii!

Self-arrest!

COBRA strikes!

Illinois smoking ban helps catch serial killer

Teen smoking down, but not much

Fresno State wins it all!

Fresno State playing for all the marbles!!

Amy Winehouse *doesn't* have emphysema

Amy Winehouse has emphysema

Fresno State playing for the National Championship

Crazy smoker disrupts flight

Jacoby Ellsbury featured in an Indian museum

A story about emotional abuse at Sean Kelly’s

Washington bar business up 20 percent

The story of Chico Kowalski

Paul Newman ill with lung cancer, and Pennsylvania has a smoking ban

Smoking ban goes down in Pennsylvania

Obama wins big in Montana

Amy Winehouse doesn't have emphysema