Ah, that's one I would have liked to have read but haven't yet. I'm not very well read unfortunately ... a bit of a gap in my education.
mix brave new world and 1984,and youve pretty much got the modern world,or at least where its headed...two visionaries and no mistake...What's the feelies Ex?/QUOTE]
"Brave New World", Aldous Huxley. An essential read.![]()
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Well, but we don´t kill the Jews any more. We kill Arabs, and that is just humanitarian bombing, so it´s OK.
Still Waiting on that. I posted the same response online in the comments section.I wanna see the reply to this.....if he dares.
Americans have spoken all right... they have chosen to lose more liberty in the name of security.
Well, not many more will ever read that anti-e-cig article (Portland, Oregon newspaper). The page is now blank, and they charge $2.95 to read it from the archives. Is this normal practice, and does anyone have a copy of it?
Snuff that e-cigarette!
by The Oregonian Editorial Board Saturday January 10, 2009, 1:17 PM
Kiosks at Portland-area shopping malls have begun hawking "electronic cigarettes" as a dubious answer to Oregon's newly expanded workplace smoking ban.
The "e-cigarettes," also known as "e-cigs," are nicotine-delivery devices that involve no tobacco and no smoke. Thus they're legal in bars, bingo halls and restaurant lounges where smoking is now newly banned in Oregon, although some establishments probably won't welcome them.
At first glance, they look like cigarettes. When a user takes a drag on one, an orange LED light glows at the end. Meanwhile, a fine, heated mist is absorbed into the lungs, and then the user exhales what looks just like a puff of smoke.
But it isn't smoke. It's vaporized nicotine and other chemicals that the World Health Organization says could be dangerous.
Manufactured in China, the "electronic cigarette" consists of a white metal tube, approximately the size of a cigarette and painted on one end with a fake filter. The tube contains a lithium battery, a computer chip and heating device, as well as a cartridge of liquid containing nicotine and unspecified other chemicals.
The cartridges are available in a wide array of candy flavors, making them suspiciously attractive to minors.
A salesman at the kiosk at Washington Square was overheard last week telling prospective customers the product was perfectly legal to use on airplanes. That may be true, but the fact is that flight attendants on most U.S. airlines ask "e-cig" users to put them away because the puffing upsets nearby passengers.
The salesman also asserted that the $149 "e-cigarette" starter kit was a good way to break the tobacco habit. He said cartridges in the kit contained gradually diminishing doses of nicotine, designed to wean the user off the addiction while providing much of the physical and tactile sensation of smoking.
Oregon health officials say that's a completely bogus claim. The devices are not recognized by the U.S. government or the World Health Organization as smoking-cessation products. In fact, if sellers try to market them that way in this country, they will become subject to Food and Drug Administration oversight, like nicotine patches and chewing gum.
In our view, the FDA should test and regulate "e-cigarettes" no matter how they're marketed. Nobody knows exactly what chemicals the Chinese manufacturers are putting in the liquid in those cartridges, and nobody in their right mind should be inhaling them.
But, hey. Isn't the same thing true of real cigarettes?
The good news is that support is building in Congress for FDA regulation of tobacco products. They're long overdue for government oversight, and that goes for the fake "electronic" versions, too.
--Bob Caldwell, editorial page editor; bobcaldwell@news.oregonian.com