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December 07, 2005

Terrorized

I caught Dave "Mao Tse" Thune on the KARE11 morning show today, in re the citywide smoking ban proposal in Saint Paul.

"I don't blame them for being scared...they're being terrorized by thesmoking industry", he said.

No, Mao Dave; they're being terrorized by the thought that their businesses, and the huge investment these bar owners have made in them, are going to get run out of business by a group of plush-bottom yoohoos at Saint Paul's City Hall who have never run a business, wouldn't know how to if you held a gun to their head (shush, Jay Benanav, your "Private Sector CEO" gig was a pseudogovernmental patronage plum and you know it), and have never needed to ponder the whole notion of "unintended consequences".

Posted by Mitch at December 7, 2005 12:11 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Mitch,
Saint Paul's future in 4 years...no smoking, no bars, no businesses, Ford's gone, a dandy light rail tyranny heading up University and people by any means leaving in droves. Thune, Benanav and company plan to kill Saint Paul because they are c*unts and hate anyone no like them.

Posted by: Greg at December 7, 2005 12:29 PM

Yesterday's Pioneer Press featured a piece (as opposed to a well written article) on a study the PP did on the business effect of the smoking ban.

On my blog I suggest the piece (and possibly the study) implies much and says less.

For example, they don't define an alcohol establishment, food establishment, or what constitutes as more establishments since the ban... they do not include the number of establishments before the ban, how many closed since the ban, how many opened since the ban, what types they were, and how many now exist.

I'm perfectly willing to say the study was done in good faith, but at the very least the piece wasn't written with enough detail.

Posted by: Badda-Blogger at December 7, 2005 12:30 PM

But that nice lady on the commercials is dying from a Smoker's tumor. Her only crime was being a waitress. We must let government save us. No one has ever gotten lung cancer without the influence of smoke. Except Andy Kaufman. But no one else.

Posted by: Kermit at December 7, 2005 01:03 PM

Heard that commercial so much on KSTP and television every 5 bloody minutes that I wrote the two heads of MPAAT that I am tired of their government paid propaganda and frankly wish that Heather would croak because of the bloody overkill the commercial is being broadcast as.

To say the least the director of MPAAT and their media director did not write me back.

Arrogance linked with money leads to this kind of Bolshevic/Nazi advertising technique.

Posted by: Greg at December 7, 2005 01:20 PM

Wow Mitch,

Yet another well written article full of biased, even bigotted commentary.

Based on your standard, since Brian Sullivan's business was basically failing at the time he sold it, and was propped up by a Federal Government plumb, then the conservatives first choice for Governor wouldn't know the first thing about running a business unless you held a gun to their head. (I did a review of the books of Sullivans business - FYI - there was no conclusion but that it was failing).

Red baiting is childish, perhaps we should call you Mitchler, it would be about as useful, and factual.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 7, 2005 01:58 PM

Yeah Mitch, why can't you be as open minded and thoughtful as peebs? You pro-smoking bigot!

Posted by: Kermit at December 7, 2005 02:05 PM

PB,

I'm not addressing the specifics of your comments on this issue , but more a general sense I have of your comments.

You rant and rave over Mitchs comments continually, with a hyperbolic and tangential style that continues to amuse and confuse me.

I here by salute your ability to take one point on which you believe "oh Mitch has this wrong! I'll so screw him to the wall on this" and turn it into a long winded rant which serves only to remind me why I wished Willy Nelson had written a followup song "Mommas , Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lefties"

Perhaps you and Angry Clown can get together and have rant fest?

Posted by: Chaosfish at December 7, 2005 03:27 PM

In fairness to angryclown, he's no ranter. More of a dismissive quipper, which is a bigger challenge in its own way.

Posted by: mitch at December 7, 2005 03:47 PM

In unfairness to PB: dude, you need to learn either to spell or to type. I'm not sure which is the problem, but I haven't seen a comment from you yet that doesn't include spelling/typo problems.

To your credit, though, at least you use caps and puncutation...

Posted by: Steve G. at December 7, 2005 04:03 PM

In fairness to angryclown, he's no ranter. More of a dismissive quipper, which is a bigger challenge in its own way.
Posted by mitch at December 7, 2005 03:47 PM

I had no problem dismissing his request to have Allah infect me with a bactrian venereal disease.

Posted by: Kermit at December 7, 2005 06:02 PM

Being left means never having to grow up. You get to play at being Peter Pan and Robin Hood your whole life. And it also means that you get to rebel against your parents teaching you that you can't just take what doesn't belong to you, no matter how badly you think you or someone else "needs" it.

Posted by: Eightgun at December 7, 2005 10:32 PM

Angry Clown's wit and brevity (in sharp and unflattering contrast to myself) are always appreciated. He is the rarest of breeds: A liberal with a sense of humor. All those wrong-headed ideas trapped in the mind of a good writer... no wonder he's angry!

Posted by: chriss at December 7, 2005 11:13 PM

To be fair, Chriss... the Left never plays Robin Hood.

He fought tyranny and unfair taxation. Reagan was Robin Hood... and the Left *hates* that. ;)

Posted by: badda-blogger at December 7, 2005 11:30 PM

In all fairness to Mitch, he may want to invest in a spell-checker. Steve, I type either very quickly, or when I'm very tired. If I felt the quality of the blog deserved a qaulity response, I'd probably worry about typos.. so I think you have your answer. That's not to say I think all the readers are fools, not at all. It's jus that the text that starts the chain sets the tone, it's so filled with mistatement, exageration, intentional misrepresentation, I just don't find it rational to spend time worrying about whether pervarication is correctly spelled.

As for Angry, I think he's a gas. Easily the wittiest writer here, and Angry, I didn't mean that as faint praise, you crack me up.

Regarding growing up, well, as far as I've seen here, Mitch can do nothing but blame everyone else but his own side for any problem, but I guess in my rose-colored glasses view of the world, childishness equates to honesty, and accepting responsibility is the handiwork of babes.

Chaofish, if you believe me tangential, perhaps someday you should actually read Mitch.

If you want an opinion on a smoking ban.. The evidence is not conclusive (no matter what one side says or the other) that it is long-term harmful to the business to such a degree that 38,000 second hand smoke deaths a year are a worthy price. Where it has been instituted in other areas, some bars failed, no question, others flourished. Perhaps we need to keep opium bars open too. I don't really even have a big problem with smoking, or bars, not really even a little one. I don't have a great care if it passes, I don't want folks dying of smoke exposure, nor am I uncaring about the economic impact, I see it more of a trend that is unlikely to be set aside because the national will has recognized that smoking is a. Dangerous and b. addictive. Smoking will lose this fight in the end, and you all are wasting a lot of bandwidth on something you won't stop. Is that non-tangential enough for you?

But the thing that is really at issue is that rather than talking the point, Mitch almost universally uses it as yet another mechanism to advance hate or at least contempt, rather than considering there might even be well meaning, and well thought through folks out there. So no Chao, I don't always speak to Mitch's point, sometimes their flat dumb wastes of time (like this), instead I poke fun at his unecessary and usually utterly hypocritical insults.

Don't like it, oh well. Perhaps you can blame me for something and then tell me what an adult you all are.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 02:05 AM

Well after today's vote, smoking will be back in vogue in HC bars. MPAAT a$$holes burned up $100,000 in taxpayer money - that's right taxpayer money... it didn't just fall out of the sky. I hope every one of those a$$holes is looking for a new job in the coming months. I won't go on about all the businesses losing money and firing people left and right, but these idiots that put this into place need to be hung out to dry, as well as the nitwits at MPAAT. The crowds of people who want to have a few beers in a smoke free environemt never materialized. I think were talking about a bunch of fascists who want to dictate their personal wills - I don't like smokers, I don't like guns, I don't like foreigners. These people who are running our government are just a bunch pompous dickheads...

Posted by: cd at December 14, 2005 12:03 AM
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