Pentagon Health Experts Urge Ban On Tobacco Use In Military

Pentagon health experts are campaigning to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates "to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property." This is based on a report by the Institute of Medicine, which focused on tobacco use in the military. The reasoning behind the move is that "tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity, says the report, which used older data. The Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses, says the study, which was released late last month."

The report found that "troops worn out by repeated deployments often rely on cigarettes as a 'stress reliever.'" Since that is the case, why would you want to take that outlet away from them? They defend our freedoms, why shouldn't they be able to make the choice as to whether or not they want to smoke? To save some money? How about killing just one pork program? Viola, there's the money for tobacco-related health care!

Of course, the anti-smokers also weighed in. "The military complicates attempts to curb tobacco use by subsidizing tobacco products for troops who buy them at base exchanges and commissaries, says Kenneth Kizer, a committee member and architect of California's anti-tobacco program.

Seventy percent of profits from tobacco sales — $88 million in 2005 — pays for recreation and family support programs, the study stays."

With that in mind, consider that maybe military personnel know what other military personnel want, and find ways to help each other out. They know their brothers and sisters in arms may smoke, so they took steps that would benefit the military community. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to me. Those who choose to smoke can smoke, and the money generated from that goes to help their families.

Instead of trying to figure out ways to keep service members from smoking, maybe the Pentagon and Washington should try to figure out ways to, I don't know, HELP THEM WIN THE WAR?

Justice Ginsburg Just Lets It All Out

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a soon to be released interview in the New York Times Magazine, gave her thoughts on Sonia Sotomayor, as well as her (Ginsburg's) views on abortion.

"In an interview to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she thought the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion was predicated on the Supreme Court majority's desire to diminish 'populations that we don’t want to have too many of.'"

*Crickets chirping*

"Ginsburg discussed her surprise at the outcome of Harris v. McRae, a 1980 decision that upheld the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the use of Medicaid and other federal funds for abortions."

*In the distance, a dog barks*

"In 1993, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing:

'(Y)ou asked me about my thinking on equal protection versus individual autonomy. My answer is that both are implicated. The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.'"

Justice Ginsburg has, how can I say this politely, a...skewed...view on abortion. Deciding to get an abortion isn't a choice, it's a crime. What else do you call the voluntary termination of a life? Government doesn't control a woman's decision to get pregnant, she makes that for herself. Where government intervention should come in is when that woman decides she wants to take the life of the baby, more often than not because of a question of convenience. THAT is when somebody MUST step in. That isn't being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices, that's acting to stop a crime from being committed by someone who is trying to avoid being responsible for a choice she already made. Being stupid or not having the forethought to think of what raising a child will do to your life is not an excuse to snuff out an innocent life. You didn't take precautions to avoid getting pregnant, you pay the consequences...it's not the unborn child's fault you have no self control.

G8 Leaders Agree to Weather Control

It's no secret that many world leaders have inflated views of their own power, but this is just ridiculous.

"President Obama joined other leaders of the industrialized world Wednesday in backing new targets for battling global warming. But the wealthy nations were unable to persuade leaders of developing countries to commit to reductions of their own, and their cooperation is critical to avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

White House officials confirmed that Obama agreed to language supporting a goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit."

Yes, you read that right. The G8 leaders have agreed to keep the world's temperature from rising more than 3 degrees in the coming years. How in the hell are they going to do that? Would it work the way the $787 billion stimulus worked to keep unemployment below 8 percent? What if every country on Earth limited their greenhouse gas emissions, and the temperature still rose? That would not only thwart their plans to prevent the temperature from rising, but it would also prove that climate change is just as much a natural mechanism as it is a man-made one.