You do realize that there are also medical studies and medical professionals that refute exactly what YOU are saying (that is to say, they insist that the evidence plainly indicates that second-hand smoke is not a risk (or if it is a risk then it is vanishingly small)).

Since you didn't bother to cite any sources, I won't either. But you can just as easily google things like "second hand smoke myths" as you expect us to google for your sources.

Making meat consumption illegal is not a likely consequence of making tobacco illegal.

However, both are equally absurd. Adults should be free to make their own decisions about their own health, choosing their own trade-offs between short-term pleasure and long-term consequences. The government should be stepping in to protect this important freedom, by preventing companies from screening/punishing employees for what they do on their own time.

Being bad for you is NO JUSTIFICATION for making something illegal.

People should be free to seek happiness, even if the mechanism of doing so is self-destructive. That includes the freedom to overeat, sit around and relax instead of exercise, spend too much time keeping their skin tan, watching movies/TV that makes them stupid, and on and on.

When your pleasure-seeking causes direct and significant harm to others, THEN you have a case for making it illegal. If it only harms yourself, self-determinacy trumps the nanny-state (or should, at least).

I will add, from a completely practical perspective, that when you make highly-desired goods illegal you create black markets (because humans make lousy slaves). The black markets then funnel significant money into the hands of criminals who have no qualms about murdering people to maintain their power base. Not only must I then live with these threats, but my tax money gets spent on more law enforcement which is generally ineffective no matter how much is spent and which takes away even MORE of my freedom in order to search for crime. So...making these things illegal causes very direct harm to me...much greater harm than keeping them legal causes me (should I free choose not to indulge).

You need to check your facts, buddy.

Are you aware of the numerous communities that live their entire lives, cradle-to-grave, without ever eating meat? Some of them live right here in America! Like the Seventh day Adventist sect of Christianity.

Their children are not stupid or weak or sickly or any different than anyone else's children.

Communities like this, all over the world, have empirically demonstrated that plants give us all the nutrients we need, with plenty to spare.

Lobbyists for the meat and dairy industry have spent quite a bit of money to convince western culture otherwise, with good success. Looks like they convinced you too. But the facts suggest otherwise.

You are not safe. Reality forces you to deal with other beings who want to kill you (whether they have weapons or not).

Making guns illegal does not make you safe. It does not even make you safer. It instead makes you and everyone around you more exposed to harm, which serves as an invitation to execute such harm (in the minds of those who are keen on doing so).

Allowing your neighbors to own guns does make you safer. The would-be criminals don't know who will and who will not shoot back, so they are less likely to perform such crimes. Furthermore, if they perform such crimes anyway, shooting back can put a quick end to their harm.

If you don't like guns, don't own them. But when you try to force your neighbors to make themselves as vulnerable as you want to be, expect them to resist you.

And remember, when the seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

You have not demonstrated that taking away the guns would prevent the killing spree. A different weapon could be used instead.

Granted, your odds of being shot are lower if there are no guns, but the mechanism of injury/death is not quite as troubling as the incident of injury/death.

Even though your 40 year old never used the government school, (s)he did benefit from an economy full of a basically-educated workforce. That benefit is worth the tax money.

No one is an island, you see. We are all trapped in a symbiotic circle, whether we want to be or not.

No, because those schools benefit you in the following ways:

1) They prevent most of the kids from spending their free time vandalizing your property (by keeping them busy).
2) They keep the economy supplied with a basically-competent labor force, which helps support your job and also reduces crime.

If these panda-people drive players away from WoW, then I will agree with you. If, on the other hand, it draws in new players (of *any* demographic) or retains existing players, then this will be a good example of exactly why listening to your customers is good.

The purpose of WoW is to make money for Blizzard. Everything else is just details.

You may be surprised to learn that the English language predates your birth, and that you are not the final authority on the meanings of its words.

Some people play games because they want to do hard things. Other people play games because they want to have fun. There is nothing "wrong" with games that are designed to be fun rather than hard, they are just a different kind of game.

Nor is there anything "wrong" with wanting to reach a wide audience. From an economic perspective, this is as right as rain...wider audience = more money = right!

So the abundance of easy games is not something wrong with gaming today. You are simply in a smaller target audience.

The only thing wrong here is your expectation that game-makers should sacrifice profit potential to cater to an audience of people who don't want to have fun. There are a small number of games designed to cater to your market segment, but that number will always be small because there aren't very many of you, and that is exactly how things should be.

Why do people keep posting this nonsense? This is the third comment I have seen that assumes that owning a gun somehow makes a person stupid. People with guns on them wouldn't automatically start shooting randomly into a crowd of civilians when they can't even see an assailant. Sheesh.

Says who? Having a gun doesn't automatically make a person start shooting randomly, when they can't even see a target.

In colorado, one must take a class in order to get the concealed permit. While a single class is nothing compared to real military training, they usually cover "don't shoot in crowded areas where you can't even see your target."

While having a gun might not have done much good in this circumstance, it seems unfair to assume that any carrier would automatically just start shooting randomly.

So who voted for them?

Diebold.