School shooting, 1 dead

EDIT: A second student died this morning as a result of his injuries in this shooting.

EDIT, again: A third student died later from injuries. Horrible to be sure, but it is three people compared to ...



1,205 people died from tobacco.

Nothing about that in the news.

Here are your leading causes of death in the US PER YEAR:

Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353

Many of those are due to tobacco use.

Where do school shootings rank on this list?

Nowhere.

"Die. All of you." His words on Facebook the day before the shooting.

http://gma.yahoo.com/chardon-high-school-shooting-left-friends-laying-over-140607825--abc-news.html

Show me pictures of a flaccid penis on cigarette packs

The FDA has released its new cigarette warning images, to be displayed on packs as well as advertisements.

I can only say, it's about time. I've been calling for this for two decades, even in my 1998 article, "Tobacco: The Worst Crime in World History?"

And actually, the images are not that bad. Some are even cartoons!

My favorite is probably this one to the left.

Or perhaps this one to the right.


Actually what I'd most like to see is a picture of a flaccid penis since erectile dysfunction is also caused by smoking. It also happens way faster than other pesky things like cancer, heart disease and death.

Plus, young people would actually take notice since they do in fact tend to care about sex and being able to perform.

Students always say to me, "You have to die from something." And I like to reply, yeah but you do want to be able to get it up while you are alive, right?

Erectile dysfunction can occur in men after only ten years of smoking. Which is not only inconvenient and totally NOT sexy, but also is a warning sign for more serious health problems in the future (sorry fellas, the capillaries down there are much smaller than the arteries leading to your heart, so they get clogged up first).
 
In this Washington Post article, the news media discuss the issue.  It points out this: "At least 30 other countries already require graphic warnings, including some, like Brazil, that go even further than the U.S. messages. Canada, which became the first country to require more graphic warnings in 2000, has seen a significant drop in smoking."

Nice to know we are only about 31st in the world to do this. Too bad we were not the first.

But hopefully we'll see smoking continue to decline anyway.

As meth labs grow, children are at risk

Here we go, again!


Another article about the toxic effects of chemicals from making Meth on children.

And not a peep about the toxic effects of chemicals from tobacco on children.

A quick google search shows what is in tobacco smoke. And it is FAR more dangerous for kids than Meth simply because FAR more kids are exposed to it.

Yet, the news media are silent.

Gotta' keep us afraid of the evil Meth people.


http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/04/03/2958899/as-meth-labs-grow-children-are.html#ixzz1IT5fo3MZ

US government wants to make tobacco tell the truth

What is wrong with that?

From the article:

The Justice Department wants the largest cigarette manufacturers to admit that they lied to the public about the dangers of smoking, forcing the industry to set up and pay for an advertising campaign of self-criticism for past behavior.

As part of a 12-year-old lawsuit against the tobacco industry, the government on Wednesday released 14 "corrective statements" that it says the companies should be required to make.

One "corrective" statement says: "A federal court is requiring tobacco companies to tell the truth about cigarette smoking. Here's the truth: ... Smoking kills 1,200 Americans. Every day."

Another of the government's proposed statements begins: "We falsely marketed low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain our profits."

"For decades, we denied that we controlled the level of nicotine delivered in cigarettes," a third statement says. "Here's the truth. ... We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain smokers' addiction, because that's how we keep customers coming back."

...

The government proposed 14 statements to cover the addictiveness of nicotine, the lack of health benefit from "low tar," `'ultra-light" and "mild" cigarettes and negative health effects of second-hand smoke.

The proposed statements are labeled "Paid for" by the name of the cigarette manufacturer "under order of a federal district court."
 
Other proposed statements include:
 
"We told Congress under oath that we believed nicotine is not addictive. We told you that smoking is not an addiction and all it takes to quit is willpower. Here's the truth: Smoking is very addictive. And it's not easy to quit."
 
"Just because lights and low tar cigarettes feel smoother, that doesn't mean they are any better for you. Light cigarettes can deliver the same amounts of tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes."

"The surgeon general has concluded" that "children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma."

And I would suggest adding this one:

We are greedy, immoral assholes that have killed people for decades by hooking them on our products as kids by making smoking look sexy and cool, even as we knew that half our customers would eventually die from our products, an average 14 years earlier than normal in slow, painful, expensive deaths.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_justice_tobacco