You know how some folks talk of slippery slopes or hidden agendas? How about this news item:

[The Straight Story]

Outrage follows strict Calif. smoking ban

BELMONT, Calif., Jan. 29 (UPI) -- A proposed strict ordinance seriously limiting the places one can smoke cigarettes in Belmont has caused outrage among many throughout the California city.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Belmont City Council has been criticized for proposing the stringent ban that limits approved smoking locations to single-family detached homes and their yards.

Key among those criticisms was a recent Web site posting that prominently featured Belmont Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach and nefarious Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler.

The council's proposal has drawn a warning from the director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project that it may be too much too soon.

"I think the folks in Belmont have to be very careful in what they do on this one," Jim Bergman told the Times. "There is always a question of how fast do you move."

http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-20070129-16151600-bc-us-nosmoking.xml

So here have the key phrases 'too soon' and 'how fast you move' - not that the idea is bad in and of itself, but that the idea is another step in a larger goal and so one should chill for awhile then propose more limitations.

Turn up the heat slowly on the frog as they say. And never give back once you have taken. Baby steps forward to whatever the ultimate goal is.

I am sure they said many times when banning smoking in bars - well, we just want the public places, we don't care what you do in your home or car....

To me, slippery slope here is pretty apt - they tossed us onto an wet slope and are slowing cooling it till it turns to ice - because in the end the goal is for us to end up at the bottom line they want to achieve.

[walldude]

1. Single family detached homes and their yards??

Incredible. I was watching Bill Hicks the night before last. He said two hilarious things. First was, "I don't want to quit smoking, I'm afraid I'll become one of you whiny non-smokers." The second was "You should be grateful for my second hand smoke, if I weren't allowed to smoke you'd be getting second hand bullets." :rofl: He'd be going nuts if he were alive today...

[Raydawg1234]

2. The government should never be able to tell you what you can do in the privacy of your own home or

car. This appears discriminatory, since people with lower incomes generally live in apartments.

enlighten me, do they actually ban smoking when your walking on the sidewalk out there???

[The Straight Story]

4. Give em time

It could waft into a home nearby or something....

[stillcool]

5. the hospital here allows..

no smoking anywhere on the property. If a nurse wants a cig she has to go into her car and smoke it there. I haven't seen any parking-lot police yet though...I wonder how these laws will be enforced..and if the penalty will be one of those new detention centers?

[The Straight Story]

6. When my wife went in for a brain scan I went outside to have a smoke

they would not let me go back there with her and I was nervous.

I was standing in a small smoking shelter with...a surgeon. He had just gotten through with an operation and needed a smoke.

I asked him if people gave him shit about his smoking, he said 'oh yeah' but then he said he rips into them about everything they are putting into their bodies, car fumes, you name it. His philosophy was don't preach to me and I won't preach to you - cause we all are sinners.

Then we talked about how nice it would be if they replaced the coke machines (also not good for you....) with beer machines :)

[stillcool]

7. wouldn't it be ironic if...

they made tobacco illegal at the same time they made pot legal? We've come a long way baby...I'm going to be five oh this year, and while that alone is mind-boggling, the comparisons between the 70's and today are schizophrenic. Hard to believe I'm on the same planet...

[TheMadMonk]

9. Hospitals here in Australia tried that.

However, people soon figured out that most emergency departments front onto gazetted roads, (gazetted, even if those roads are wholly inside hospital precincts).

So rather than having smokers standing in the middle of the street, with all the safety issues that entailed, they caved and set aside a fews smoking zones for patients and staff.

For the record I'm a smoker and I was one of the ones who parked myself on the tarmac with a ciggie one hand and a book in the other. (I also try to be considerate and make sure I'm downwind of others at bus stops, etc. (But if you move into my space AFTER I've lit up and try to complain, prepare to cough.))

[Raydawg1234]

3. self delete

[1620rock]

8. Hmmm, they should ban * farting in the WH.