Big Tobacco is intentionally misleading voters in Ohio. Currently health groups are petitioning for smoking bans. These groups are petitioning with the name “Smoke Free Ohio.”

Tobacco Companies have created a similar petition group called “Smoke Less Ohio,” which different in one way… it actually allows smoking in virtually all public places. The same is happening in Arizona. The tobacco companies are trying to eliminate smoking bans throughout the country by confusing voters.

The following quote is from a very good MSNBC article:

But are the tobacco companies playing fair? When NBC News approached petition gatherers in Phoenix with our hidden cameras, they never told us they were being paid by cigarette makers. In fact, they implied just the opposite.

Petition gatherer #1: Do you smoke?

NBC: No, I don’t.

Petition gatherer #1: Oh, yeah. Well, this is The Non-Smoker Protection Act.

NBC: So, if I am a non-smoker, that’s the one to do?

Petition gatherer #2: Yeah.

NBC: So this is a good one if you’re a non-smoker?

Petition gatherer #3: Yeah, this is a good one because I have asthma, that’s why I believe in this one.

Air conditioning is something that most Americans take for granted. I grew up living in air conditioned houses, riding in air conditioned cars, and going to school in air conditioned buildings. When the air conditioning is off, we notice, but when it’s on, we say nothing.

Today, many Americans could not “live” without air conditioning, and I see this as a problem. In a recent article in Slate, entitled The Deluded World of Air Conditioning, three main problems were discussed in regard to AC use. For one, using air conditioning at our current rate takes a lot of energy, both in houses and in cars, and doing so produces greenhouse gasses. Secondly, the more we use air conditioning, the hotter we make it outside, which we respond to by using even more AC. Finally, due to air conditioning, we don’t immediately have to face the consequences of our actions because we can stay in our enclosed, artificially cooled environments.

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Starting today, I have enabled my del.icio.us account to post links to gimme-five every day at noon. This means if I happen to stumble across any excellent websites on a given day (and I often do), I will post the links here at 3:30ish! Isn’t that incredible?