Clearing The Air

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Ok, Learned Foot called for the lightning........

.....now I'm bringing down the thunder.

I didn't hear it myself, but was told that this mornings NPR featured an exchange between attorney Ryan Pacyga and liberal St. Paul council member Dave Thune. When Ryan mentioned that smoking bans based on the justification that secondhand smoke is a health hazard are false because new St. Louis Park air quality studies show secondhand smoke concentrations are 150 times safer than OSHA regulations. Beavis's comeback?...uh...like...OSHA is outdated. This brought laughter from Pacyga and anyone with an ounce of common sense, which given the typical NPR audience, didn't include many.

Earth to Thune have you been inhaling too much french fry grease? OSHA doesn't need to update permissible exposure limit (pel)s for a given substance every year, because (pel)s are based on the human body's safe tolerance for a given substance during an 8 hr/ day, 40 hrs/wk. repeated exposure. The human body's tolerance for nicotine hasn't changed since the (pel) was last updated, nor is it likely to change for the next 10,000 years; (pel)s are based on science and physiology. .........What has changed of course is the tolerance of the liberal mindset.