>
>[Rant on]
>I *just* had somebody deliver a shipment of medical supplies needed by
>my wife who is extremely ill. The smell of tobacco smoke still reeks in
>our house.
>
>I fail to understand how *any* rational person can smoke, let alone those
>in the medical profession.
>[Rant off]

It does kind of boggle the mind..
Especially when they are around people who are rather sensitive to this sort of thing. 
It didn't bother me for years, but now I hardly can visit in person with one of my friends, who smokes. If I do, my lungs don't feel right for half a day, and that's when he doesn't smoke! It's just the pervasive chemicals that get me.

Our local hospital has banned smoking anywhere near the entrances, it used to be that the smokers all hung out just outside the doors, and anyone who was entering or leaving had to run the gauntlet.


>To heck with that. Throw 10% of that money into education and you'll
>probably solve all those problems within a generation. And the other
>90% could be used to pay off the deficit.

I hear that!

We have a "book fee" locally, that I've never been able to figure out. 
They charge each student, enough to pay for all they books they use in a semester, then they only buy one book for each seat, so that the students can't bring them home. 
They replace the books every 6 years.  Looks to me like they are getting roughly 12X the cost of the books.  Where does that money go?  Nobody knows..

>So far the US has been extremely lucky. Most countries have seen far
>more terrorism than the US ever had.

Well, there was that whole thing back in the 1770's, but the terrorists won. 


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