Gringo

Unfortunately, the previous thread bearing this title seems to have got lost, so at the risk of boring you all, I thought I'd resurrect it. From the google archives, it appears the score before was 48-38 against. Has the mood changed? In order to supply some completely unbiased ( ) opinion, here's a couple of recent articles to do with security of personal data: Fury as Straw hands over your private records to Euro snoops No high-tech scanners for Commons over fears terrorists could chop off MP's finger to get in And more interesting a comment on a US blog, relating to the idea of privacy and what it really means to different people. An attempt to debunk the idea of "nothing to hide" and highlight the dangers that such complacency may bring. Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide Solove's full essay is available to download here (pdf) A really interesting piece of work, and it does help frame the conversation. Blurting out "if you've got nothing to hide" without reference to such work tends to weaken the argument on that side. The idea that privacy is a multiple and different thing, with different meanings to different people in various situations I believe is aimed at reducing the complacency of sleep-walking into a surveillance society.

Posted in off topic as it appeared in a dream: To the tune of the Tom Jones "It's not unusual".... "Its not unusual to get skinned by Ashley Young Its not unusual to get flattened by Big John And when I see your keeper crumpled on the floor Its not unusual to see you cry, Oh you're gonna die" I'm sure it could be made to work.

Tom Robinson - glad to be gay

England have a problem dropping their keepers - seamen stayed on two or three years too long, james kept the gloves when robinson was the in-form keeper in the country, and now that james, carson and green are all playing better than robinson he seems unshiftable.

"it's never ending now he's in the slammer, the cold grey slammer" One of my happier tunes - oh and it's intaferon, not interferon, skuleboy error.

Steamhammer Sam - Interferon

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Someday I Suppose

FGTH - Born To Run

Malcolm struggles to maintain control at the meeting of the local supporters group

If ingerland are winning he won't get on until the last five minutes as ginge won't disrupt a winning midfield. If ingerland are losing he won't come on at all as he's not seen as being someone who can help chase a game.

Don't bother clicking cos you won't believe it anyway You're taking the piss now, a report from "Smokers Against Discrimination." Are you THAT desperate?

and some anecdotal rubbish from people who actuall live there

More lies. So bar sales were down (after just seven months) wonder what it was like after three years. Dublin bars have not suffered too badly as they still have the stag do crowd, but the number of pubs closing in the west or ireland is quite significant. I can't vouch for many examples as I can't be arsed to go back that much anymore since they introduced the silly legislation. But my parents who drive those roads quite a lot pass on certain tales, and anyone who regularly reads the oirish press will have picked up tales of woe from the villages where what was once the local pub/post-office/local shop is now a bed and breakfast. Please spare us the apocryphal rubbish. Don't bother clicking cos you won't believe it anyway And here's a story from that pro-smoking group the BBC for you to ignore as well

Smokers as a minority have foisted their filth on us for too long. "Tyranny of the majority?" Oh yes, have some of this clean air, yer bastards. Having to go outside for a fag, what an imposition. Yup, wonderful authoritarian viewpoint. Antagonism always brings the best results.

More lies. So bar sales were down (after just seven months) wonder what it was like after three years. Dublin bars have not suffered too badly as they still have the stag do crowd, but the number of pubs closing in the west or ireland is quite significant. I can't vouch for many examples as I can't be arsed to go back that much anymore since they introduced the silly legislation. But my parents who drive those roads quite a lot pass on certain tales, and anyone who regularly reads the oirish press will have picked up tales of woe from the villages where what was once the local pub/post-office/local shop is now a bed and breakfast.

Hang on, will they be paid more or not? If they will then why, if there's no actual real risk of working in a smoking pub. Are coal-miners really paid that much nowadays? If they are then fair enough. As for nuclear plant-workers, I suspect many of them are actually very well educated which may influence how much they get paid. If you're looking for dangerous jobs, I'd say being in the army heads the list, but they are hardly paid a fantastic amount either. As stated previously, there will be a shortgae of people willing to work in the smoking pubs as the lemon fresh crowd will all want to work in the smoking pubs, therefore scarcity of resource leads to an increase in price for that resource. An understanding of market economics is not a betrayal of socialist traits. And as I said, the coal miners wages have fallen as safety has improved, a perfect illustration of my point that perceived risk, decreases supply, increases price.

Oh, how many? Is yours is the majority viewpoint? If I found some stats you wouldn't believe them anyway It's not about majority views - it's about not attacking minorities for no good reason. There are sensible ways to regulate the leisure industries and their smoking, and this isn't one of them, this is simply the tyranny of the majority.

Sorry, it was the Spanish Consumers' Association. And I'm sure as a smoker in Spain, you're going to present us with a completely unbiassed view. There isn't a single one of your arguments that stacks up. Smokers inflict their filthy habit on non smokers. Not smoking doesn't hurt you, therefore you're rightly losing your "choice" to hurt others. Passive smoking increases the risk of cancer. it's a fact, stop reading reports funded by the tobacco industry. You say the smoking ban works in Spain. Firstly, it isn't a ban. Secondly, the total ban works perfectly in Ireland and other places. And as part of the antitobaccofascist wing your view is completely balanced. You hurt me by restricting mine and others movements. Passive smoking has never been showing in a reliable study with strong statistical support to show a causal link with lung cancer - never mind saying it's a fact. If the evidence was so good you'd be linking the studies. The ban works in spain, people are happy they have a choice, and businesses are booming both smoking and non-smoking. The ban works in ireland and pubs are closing.

Please, go ahead and name them. I don't know what this big stick you refer to all the time is, by the way. All I've said so far is that smoking is bad for you and people around you, and you shouldn't be allowed to puff smoke in a strangers face if said strangers doesn't want to. I think the example of the spanish legislation has been mentioned a fair number of times already. A fair equible solution liked by non-smokers. The big stick is the authoritarian state dictating what happens on private premises. Maybe, after a few years of seeing how the smoking ban works, a Spanish model could be tried in selected establishments. I'm not going to rule that out, if it does work like you say it does. Pubs, bars and restaurants are public places that should be accessible to all. Allow smokers to exercise their bad habit in these places, and these smokers will keep some people out of these public rooms. So maybe we can turn things around and say that the cigarette is in fact a big stick dictating where some people should have access to. I half buy this argument and said at the time that the emphasis needed changing. It should not be the case that you presume you can smoke unless there's a sign saying you can't - the presumption should be placed upon the smoker to determine whether an establishment accepts smoking before lighting up. This is easily done - you work along, you see a restaurant - no one smoking, no ashtrays on tables, you carry on walking till you find one. It works.

Ok, but they are places people spend time. The law is correct that these places should be smoke free. And are 100% of that 50% against a ban then? There are even some non-smokers who oppose the ban. I called the private establishments, adn established the basis for the argument in the terms of which the legislation was drafted, publicised, consulted upon and then twisted.

Excellent rebuttal - which makes my point - the most dangerous jobs were the highest paid - oil rigs, nuclear plants, coal mines. Danger from working in macdonalds - low, danger from working in a smoking pub - low, but fractionally higher than a non-smoking pub (you might get burnt by a nub end) and the comepnsation would be higher because of the market forces.

How do you know it works in Spain? Because Gringo said so? Pathetic. You might have been advoctaing your hopeless ideas for 20 pages, but you haven't said once how this choice would work. How much time you spent in spain since the ban? I've been there at least once a fortnight. Just come back from two weeks. And you quote random wibble without referring your source - pathetic.

Your talking about private clubs, right? 50%, right. I'm sure you'll find a source for that but I still wont believe it. No a "public house" is in fact a private establishment and bicks will be able to back me up that you have the right to refuse entry without giving a reason. Same with restaurants, and with private clubs, snooker clubs, british legions, working mens clubs. They are not public places. The law was not instigated on the basis of access to these places for the public but on the spurious premise of the risk incurred by the people "forced" to work there. The 50% figure was commonly quoted at the time of the legislation and I doubt it has varied much since, but as you can't be bothered to consider the evidence, I can't be arsed to find it.

With respect, this is a non-argument. If people don't like smoky atmospheres then they won't apply to work in a smoky pub. It would be their choice to work there if they so wished. And people who are willing to take the risk will end up getting compensated for that risk. Working in a cola mine is dangerous and people get compensated for the risk. BAN COAL MINING NOW. Hopefully in the future, we'll have cleaner energy sources than coal, so in a way the bit in bold is true. Anyway, you can't compare coal mining to working in public places such as pubs and restaurants. Coal mining has been an industial necessity for centuries. How smoking indoors is a necessity, I sure can't see. It's an analogy of the risk-compensation culture we live/work in. A similar argument is people who work in nuclear plants get compensated at a higher wage than similar jobs where such a risk is not so obvious.

Compensated in what way exactly?