Friday, September 08, 2006
Bloomin' Hypocrisy
Yep, Steve, you've got it exactly right!Let's go back to Dec. 30, 2002, when Bloomberg said of the bar-smoking ban, "We will save literally tens of thousands of lives."
He was talking about secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants and said we would all be healthier, if not wealthier, after the city curtailed it.
So smoking became the first legal product sold in New York that was partly banned in the city, based on Bloomberg's medical expertise, or access to pristine statistics about the effects of secondhand smoke in bars.
..............................................
In fact, there has been absolutely no scientific, completely scientific study that links secondhand smoke to cancer. The city has never come up with one credible statistic.
But there has been a complete scientific study - from Mount Sinai research that shows that at least 70 percent of the thousands who labored at Ground Zero as first responders reported, and proved, that they had awful trouble breathing or worse.Some are dead.
Bloomberg thinks these highly respected doctors are so crazy that they're barbecuing with the leprechauns.
"I don't believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular effect. There is no way to tell for sure and you've got to be very careful . . . If I say, 'I've got something because of this,' that's not just the way it works," said Dr. Bloomberg.
So now I have it perfectly clear: You ban smoking in bars with no statistics on secondhand smoke, but you are telling Mount Sinai, one of the best facilities in the world, they don't know their ear from their elbow when it comes to poison attacking the lungs like a spear.
Funny how selective politicians become in their moral certainty and outrage.
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