And I know a lot of other non-smokers who have a lot of problems also.

This isn't about defending smoking. In fact Using tobacco products in any form is the hallmark of an idiot. I quit in 1976. Haven't missed it a bit.

My point, if I have to hammer it in, is that we are all going to die, and no matter how much we think we are going to be immortal, smoking or not smoking is more in line with choosing the mode of our demise. There is more to this matter than concern for health.

The anti smoking zealots are the same as the mothers against drunk driving zealots, who both by the way, have been pretty successful in meeting their goals. The number of people that smke toady has fallen drastically, and there has been a real dent in dui. Those "random" stops are yielding less arrests now, and in my area (college football and student town) the "random" stops were a real cash cow for a while. Now they might stop a few hundred people and net one or two.

But now we see weird stuff like "third hand smoke" or "impairment starts with the first drink". There is outrage over vaping, which you would think the zealots would embrace, because now the evil tobacco users aren't using tobacco, and not inhaling all that nasty stuff into their lungs - just nicotine. But people trying to quit with nicotine patches is okay? And one drink will turn you into a careening drunken killer on the highway.

Yet nicotine is not carcinogenic, and ethanol in proper amounts keeps the CV system clean and healthy. Note that either in large amounts is nasty bad for you.

More like a lot of people just need a target to bestow their hatred upon. They need something to hate. And there is a weird streak of puritanism in the ultimate goals of both parties - prohibition take 2.

In the end, my story is we are all gonna die, and just because we do what the "smart" people say you should do, doesn't meant you are going to live any longer than the stupid people who don't do as the smart ones demand.

But they might.

So many readers here tend to think that these "give a kid a computer" programs are made up by people that think every kid is going to become an Einstein ot the next (fill in the blank genius/innovatorprogrammer)

It's not. But the computer might fall into the hands of someone who does just that.

Most of the kids will do just what most kids in our first world society do. Play games do their facebook or whatever the cool soc site is at the moment.

We have no stranglehold on the "proper use of computers".

It's not like this program will break the bank, and I suspect some of our more racist posters might be afraid that little "Shaneeqwon" might just be a whole hell of a lot smarter than him.

Always something eh? All the conflicts in the Middle east are someone else's fault eh?

You trying to say they are all the wiilling participants in some sort of Hunger games for the rest of the world?

You would think they'd say - "Hey! we aren't fighting for you all any more". Then their love for each other would blossom like the flower it wants to be.

Yeah, all this situation needs is a big group hug.

Wow yourself - sometimes an outsider does know things about you that you don't know.

Arrogant? Perhaps, Dismissive? Oh no, not at all. Do as you will. I won't judge. I would suggest people get along with their neighbors, but talk about dismissive. Each side in each conflict has a long list of injustices that they use to justify whatever they are doing at any given moment.

In general, people who want to have peace manage to have it. People wh odon't manage to be in neverending warfare. In general, notice how my opinion pisses off both sides. Actually all sides, since there is a lot more conflict in the mideast than isreal - Palestine. I'm talking about the inability for peace in that entire region.

Each group assumes that one side be taken, and my posts are worded so that no one side is singled out. Because no one group is guilty - they all are.

Homeland? What "homeland" am I speaking of? There is a clue there - will you get it?

In other news ther is far more to the mideast than Isreal and whoever they are fighting with at the moment.

Because everyone blames something other than the root cause.

Everyone in that part of the worl is the root cause. Look up mideast conflicts. Take out the ones where other countries have become stupidly involved. This is simply what people in that area do. They fight each other constantly, and that's that. Not one thing can be done about it,

All the blame is meaningless, because it just gets shifted around for each inevitable new conflict.

It's 100 percent wrong, and an evil situation, but it is like gravity, a force we don't completely understand, but it undeniably exists. They fight each other, they kill each other, and they will not ever stop.You can't stop people from doing what they want to do.

Like I said, all the reasons come out.

All you wrote simply ignores the fact that these conflicts in that area existed long long before world war 2.

Different actors, smae old wars, forever and ever, amen.

You don't understand the issue. There will be new conflicts arise continuously, It's just what people in that part of the world do. You are thinking of the Isreal -Palestinian conflict. Don't forget Isreal-Egypt, Isreal-Lebanon, Iraq-Iran, Iraq versus the Kurds Arab-Isreal, Lebanese CIvil war, and many many more

They all like to fight and kill each other, different actors, same results. Neverending war.

There are things the rest of the world can do something about, and things they can't, Sadly, the rest of the world has not known how to tell the difference.

It's a shame and a travesty. But it's just how things are. There will not be peace in that part of the world, and there never will be.

Whatever. Fact is, this situation is exactly analgous to two neighbors that refuse to get along. Some people manage to get along with their neighbors, some people move from place to place, and apparently have really bad luck, never getting along with their neighbors.

And they (meaning all of them) don't want to get along either. And they make sure they won't. The 50 year old thing is just the latest "reason" in a religious war that goes back much, much, longer. There will always be a new reason, a new conflict with another neighbor who also needs a conflict, until proton decay.

Citations?

Blah, blah, blah. These two will not stop until one or the other is eliminated from the face of the earth.

Both sides spout off the terrible things the other side is doing to them. And have no intention of ever stopping. My guess is this came down to someone stole someone's goats thousands of years ago, and it's been Hatfield and McCoys - Middle Eastern division - ever since

Because any time it looks like some calm, one or the other side starts screwing with the other.

Neither side has any intention of stopping. - ever. The biggest mistake is that both sides end up dragging others into their "neighbors who can't get along" war

So spare me the atrocity whinefest from both sides. It's awful, and it's sad, and its horrifying. But you all are doing this because this is what you want to do. If both sides didn't want to do this, they'd have stopped doing it - a long long time ago.. Peace is not an option here.

This has been going on from biblical times, and will go on as long as humans exist. Nothing can be done about it. Neither side wants that. For whatever insane reason, both sides are getting something they want from the situation.

Que the "yeah but" arguments from both sides.

The market is not the device.

Her is the car analogy everyone is looking for:

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen of 1886 is generally agreed to be the first modern automobile.

The model T of 1908 was the auto that really created a market for them.

This can be wordsmithed of course. There was a very tiny market for the autos produced before then. So in that respect Ford didn't "create" the market. That might even be wordsmithed to the market for steam powered vehicles in the late 1700's. There was a tiny market for those too.

So yes, people who cannot give Apple or Ford any credit for the initial creation of the market for Cell phones or autos can argue all day about it, but one thing they cannot deny is that the iPhone and the model T surely changed the hell out of the market.that was there

So most of us that don't froth at the mouth when we hear "Apple" do understand what is meant by "created the market". The created the demand for the smartphone as it is today.

Some times people get the concept of inventing something crossed with creating the market for it.

Apple did not create the smartphone. But they did make the device that created the demand for smartphones, and therefore, the market tor smartphones

So it's actually smoking women that cause autism?

That's just joking. I agree with you otherwise. This is like those creepy commercials that shows some dude that claims he lost his legs because of smoking.

Smoking is just plain bad, which is why I gave it up in 1976. All of this FUD is becoming cruel.

Nothing like suggesting to a pregnant woman that being around cigarette smoke is yet one more thing that she has to fear she'll harm her child with. She feels a tremendous weight of responsibility in the first place - who wouldn't. Let's just amp that up some, eh?

Both of my parents smoked. And aside from the webbed fingers, and the nictating membrane on my eyes, I'm pretty normal.....

That is not only sad, but really disturbing. Well, I guess if you would love an adopted child more than one you home-brewed, you did the right thing