Who's paying what?

Check out this NBC article on smoking. It talks about the health costs to the state relating to smoking. It shows that smokers pay not only for their own health costs, but also for education and health care of others. Not a fact many media companies and governments like to portrait since it doesn't fit the smokers are evil money eating killers and should rot in hell image.

I agree smoking is bad for health and that people should quit, but the smoker bashing and calling them scum of society needs to end!! Don't we live in a free country in which the people are entitled to make up their mind whether to smoke or not? Can't people choose not to go to a non-smoking bar? If there are enough people willing to go to non-smoking bars there would be a bunch of them all over the place. That's how the market functions. If there is a demand and people take advantage of it because there is money to be made. Northfield has a couple of them and its because people there want it. If one can't find any non smoking bars that means people don't care for them and so maybe that person could open a bar and make a good profit (or maybe nobody cares for them in that specific town). Apparently people in the US are too dumb for that and thus need some authority figure to step in. Needless to say that reminds me of communism in which the State always knows better and regulates everything. Is that were we're headed? The way I see it is that smoker bashing has turned into a trend, and politicians want to capitalise on this trend by implementing bills in which they ban smoking.

Even looking at the global warming issue it seems that the government is years behind the market. Companies all over are moving in the direction of cutting down emissions while the central government is dumb found. Maybe the people in charge need to listen more to people and facilitate things rather than banning everything that isn't trendy. And with facilitating I mean taxes and caps (carbon caps). That way the smoker, polluter, whatever can choose whether to quit or to pay a fine (as smokers have been for years!!).

Here is an except from the aritcle: It is clear that states could see some medical savings from reduced smoking, but it is difficult to say how much, and whether those savings might offset the lost tax revenue. Minnesota’s Department of Human Services estimates it spends $295 million a year to treat smoking-related illnesses for 647,000 people on public assistance....

...In 2005, tobacco taxes contributed $13 billion to state budgets. But cigarette tax collections that year were down in 15 states compared with the year or years before, according to a study backed by the tobacco industry. States such as New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are all forecasting a drop in revenue.

Sure, there may be more cost involved with smokers but 13 billion versus 300 million should give some better perspective on the contributions of smokers to the state budget.

PS: After smoking for 12 years I finally got to the point at which I haven't smoked for 6 days. This should prove that my smoking or not smoking has nothing to do with what I perceive about this bull crap that's going on.

Snow, Wii, and Gyoza

Three very unrelated topics. The thought of placing them all into one post appears daunting and though I may fail I hope this will show whats been going on lately.

Before I start though here one fact that may explain some strange behavior in this post (if there is any). The last cigarette I had was consumed on Wednesday after lunch. That was the last smoke in the pack and I haven't ventured out for the next pack. I think that I'm trying to quit, but ever since Wednesday I've been dreaming of smoking, been hallucinating that I'm sucking in the dense, aromatic and joyous smoke, and I've been fightimg off the temptation to stop by the good ol' PDQ for fresh pack of awesome and sexy coffin nails. Well, so far I've done well and I hope this keeps up. This may be the best chance to quit once and for all so I'm putting extra effort into this try. The down side is that I'm highly irritable and feel like I have x-treme ADD. Oh and I woke up with a headache.

So, what have I been up to? Well, during the week its been basically work, cleaning up the apartment (trying to keep things clean is lots of work!), making dinners, playing lots of Zelda on the Wii and on lucky days spending the time with Katie. I finally gave in on the "no console" streak and bought myself a Wii. Its been really fun and I can't believe what a great game Zelda is. I've put lots of hours in it already and am looking forward to putting in a lot more!
Then on the weekends I usually spend quality time with Katie, quality time at the cycle 90 spinning class (90~110 min of indoors biking), and usually lots of cleaning, cooking, and being lazy.
I spend lots of time with Katie...and yes, she is sporting bunny ears ($1 cost at Target, unlimited amounts of fun)

Last Friday Katie and I make gyozas. These are Japanese dumplings and they happen to be my favorite meal. Since we have the issue of over eating we were smart and make ca. 80 gyozas, this way we can eat and eat and still have lots of the goodness left for later consumption.
These qyoza's are waiting to be fried and steamed!

Today my plans are to spin for 110 min and then afterwards head down to Farmington to visit Jeff and Beth with Katie. I'll be taking my Wii and DS (we're going to have a total of 4 DSs between the four of us!!) and hoping to have dinner at some diner. The only problem is that it has been snowing quite a bit. I'm not all that used to driving in the snow any more so I hope everything goes well on the road.

Well, thats about it. And tomorrow its back to work!