Monday, February 21, 2011

Outlaw smoking or back off.

Public buildings, restaurants, public property, IN YOUR CAR on public property... What's the next ban?

I don't smoke and never have but it's getting ridiculous. Smokers practically have to carry a book to keep track of where they can't smoke.

Instead of chipping away at it, just outaw smoking and get it over with. Government at various levels has been raising tobacco taxes and increasingly banning smoking.

One of the biggest problems with these methods is they depend on the taxes to fund health care and government but keep increasing rates to discourage smoking. How much money will you bring in if everyone quits?

Before Oklahoma banned smoking in restaurants I simply avoided places where I had trouble breathing. Business owners chose whether to have smoking, no-smoking, or separate smoking rooms. Free market at its best. Now the inside is smoke free but you walk through a cloud of smoke and step on cigarette butts to get inside.

When people smoke inside they are more likely to use ashtrays. When smoking outside the ground is one big ashtray. That's not really littering, is it?

Come out and ban smoking or loosen up the restrictions on inside smoking. Either way there should be less litter and confusion.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

If everything you know about tornadoes came from the movie "Twister."

1. Tornadoes sound like a wild animal. Somehow I don't think this is what they meant when the warning said "listen for the roar."

2. All Oklahoma farmers in 1968 knew what an F-5 was. Since the Fujita scale was just developed in the 60's it's doubtful even Gary England knew about it and he certainly didn't mention it on the air.

3. Corporate sponsors? What's that? Nearly all weather research is funded by government grants.

4. "Nexrad realtime" is an oxymoron. While faster processing is coming out, at the time there was a six minute delay between scan and display update.

5. Putting something on top of the truck and driving off... Ok, I've been doing that for years, storm or no storm.

6. The red and green blobs on the radar dance around when there is a tornado. Darn it! I've been reading it wrong for years.

7. It's only dark right where the tornado is and sunny all around.

8. Horses wait till the fence is coming apart before running from a storm.

9. You can tie yourself down to keep the tornado from blowing you away and somehow survive the thousands of pieces of 300 mile per hour debris.

10. Tornadoes always hit something important and then abruptly disappear instead of gradually getting weaker.

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