Well - the "truth" seems to be on focus, in this locus of the universe at any rate - then I found this - Politicians lie, new study shows Report asserts that lying is key part of democracy
LONDON, May 17 — It’s official. After intensive research, scientists have concluded that politicians lie.
The RM archive copy - read it all here if the original link has problems

RM Comments:
Well - not that that is any news (more newsworthy would be a story on who decided that looking into the question of whether politicians lie would be worth spending time and money on - what next? do fish swim? do young males like fucking? or the old classic - do bears shit in the woods? jeezus people - we got a lot of problems in the world you could be working on - but DO POLIICIANS LIE?!?!? - actually, a good research question would be something like - why do so many people still vote for they lying bastards - but I guess that's a bit too un-PC or something - we must pretend they are mostly honorable - thus lying ourselves - ohoh - and this is a site about truth?) - but what I find interesting is that they are starting to spread around the idea that lying by these politicians is ok - even, at times, good!! - yes, at the end, they go on a bit about how probably, at times (wars, etc) people themselves realise the truth is something they probably don't want to know anyway, so it's ok that the politicians are lying!

Note now - they're not actually taking the step yet of saying "Yea, we lie!! AIn't it great!!?" - no, they're coming in from the side - "real people" like you and I say it's ok!! - and although you might say "fuckin lyin politicians" or something if the politicians themselves were trying to justify it, you're more likely to have second thoughts if all your neighbors think it's really ok. Such is the theory of politics, anyway - the bandwagon effect, it's called - like all the news stories coming out of the states saying 70-80% of Americans support big George, think he's The Man, the war is fan-fucking-tastic, etc and etc. I don't doubt a lot, possibly a majority, of that ill-educated populace actually do support their great fuerer sorry president, elected or appointed, but from what is available on the net, you can see a lot of people are pretty cynical about what is happening too - one figure they haven't got around to tinkering with yet is the voter turnout, and when no more than 50% or so of the electorate bothers voting, you can tell there's something pretty wrong. I think this institutionalized lying is a big part of it - people don't really think it's just fine at all.

RM Comments: Well - doesn't really require much comment there - typical elitist shit - do what we say, not what we do. And as I keep saying - as long as you keep voting for these lying vermin - why should they change?!?!?

Well, let's get onto something else.
Be truthful about passive smoking, Tom Utley, The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Last week, two American academics felt the full of force of the anti-smoking lobby's righteous wrath, after writing in the British Medical Journal that the link between passive smoking and disease "may be considerably weaker than generally believed." Dr. James Enstrom and Professor Geoffrey Kabat reached this conclusion after studying the husbands and wives of no fewer than 35,500 smokers over almost 40 years.
The RM archive copy - read it all here if the original link has problems

RM Comments: I gotta confess I feel a bit strange offering a piece from them (National Post) that I agree with - but what the hell - anyway, they're reprinting from a Brit rag. I do have some strange bedfellows, as the saying goes, I have noticed over the years. I guess I'm just a libertarian socialist or something, and must live with the consequences. Anyway, this is a good piece - few papers dare to print anything at all that dares to criticize the anti-smoking crowd, or, as in this case, the anti-passive-smoking crowd, and we need more of it. But the PCers don't like it - the attack dogs were out bigtime on these (non-smoking!!!) researchers, who were just looking for a little piece of the truth, and thought (as any sensible person does - I think there are still a few of us left in the world, although we certainly don't get much time in the major media) that the whole second-hand smoke thing had gotten way out of hand. And their research - on 35,000 people over 40 years - found no link between second-hand smoke inhalation and disease. Man, did that get the anti-smokers going!!

I don't mind some smoke-free places - I only smoke a couple packs a week, and rarely to never in the daytime, and I do prefer a smoke-free environment at work - getting a lungful of smoke, even second hand, in the morning can give me a headache. But to try to make every bloody restaurant and bar and public place in a city or something (as many places are doing) is going way overboard - people who smoke are people first, and they/we do have some friggin rights, whether you want to admit it or not . As do the people who own bars and restaurants - it really ought to be up to THEM whether or not they want to cater to smokers or non-smokers or see if they can get away with both - not the government and PC-ers stepping in trying to make us all live THEIR version of perfect-life - compromise does not mean EVERY-FRIGGIN-WHERE IS NO SMOKING!! How disgusting, how sickening, how fascist, to do this stuff! - it's like seatbelts or eating a cholesterol-hearty meal - as long as I am not physically interfering with your life - keep out of mine, please!! Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot - and I spent the time and money necessary to develop a big lobbying effort, and tried to pass laws that said that NO bar or restaurant had the right to be smoke-free!! - how would you like that, pal? How would you like to find yourself in court some day because of the "emotions distress!!" you caused me by not allowing me to smoke in your town!!?? - Of course, as a person who believes in maximising rather than minimising freedom, I would never do that. Too bad the anti-smokers didn't have just a bit more regard for the freedom of other people as well. Not to mention PC-ers in general, who seem to feel that THEY know exactly how all people should live their lives - and are by god ready to set the attack dogs an anyone who disagrees. This, my friends, is how wars start - sooner or later all us people you are trying to force into your little fantasy world say ENOUGH.