Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Sarah Palin and Harry Truman

Keep St. Louis Free doesn't endorse any presidential or vice-presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin seems more pro-freedom than most other politicians.

Let's be fair to Palin. Truman did not consider himself qualified to be President when he accepted the VP nomination under the gravely ill FDR. The elites mocked the FDR choice of Truman. Yet Truman rose to the occasion. Palin with her strong character and right philosophy can do the same.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/truman_09_wm.html#v166

Monday, September 29, 2008

Bill McKenzie defies Bob McCulloch and Obama Truth Squad to arrest him!

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch has pretty clearly abused his office in order to intimidate opposition to Barrack Obama.

Keep St. Louis Free member Bill McKenzie has just put out this challenge to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch:

I defy Bob McCulloch to arrest me!

As a member of "Keep St. Louis Free" I will display the following message on a sign outside the Vice-Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden at Washington University on Thursday, October 2:

Hey prosecutor McCulloch!

Hey Obama "Truth Squad"

Barrack Obama voted

to let doctors kill babies

who survive abortions!

Arrest Me! Arrest Me!

I told the truth!

This statement is true but Obama's campaign denies it. I defy Bob McCulloch or any other "Obama Truth Squad" members to arrest me. If they were really concerned about truth they would be nonpartisan and correct Obama's lies about John McCain. The real purpose of these prosecutors is to intimidate American citizens and threaten our free speech rights.

Bill McKenzie

Sarah Palin and the St. Louis VP Debates

I don't want to put off any of the Democrat friends of Keep St. Louis Free with this post. I am not a Republican myself, and my grandfather, Robert E. Hannegan, ran the Democratic Party in St. Louis many years ago. But I like and feel sorry for Sarah Palin. She seems like a free spirit whose real self has been distorted by the fears and restrictions put upon her by the McCain campaign.

I hope in St. Louis Sarah Palin regains the freedom to be her true self. If she sounds as she did in earlier interviews, she might win Thursday night.

Check out how smart and confident she sounds when she is free to speak her mind as she did in this CNBC interview:

Dallas Morning News

I just discovered that I got a letter published in the Dallas Morning News back on August 14th concerning smoking bans and drunk driving deaths:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-thursletters_14edi.State.Edition1.1385dc8.html

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Smoke-Free St. Louis City heart attack study discredited

A Scottish heart attack study put forward last month in support of a St. Louis public smoking ban by Smoke-Free St. Louis City has been discredited by Dr. Michael Siegel, a researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health.
http://smokefreestl.org/17-fall-in-hospital-admissions-for-heart-attacks-a-1.html
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-data-from-scotland-show-that-pell.html

This debunking of what had been considered the strongest evidence of the health benefits of a smoking ban shows how flimsy the case for a St. Louis City smoking ban really is!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. brick theft law

Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. is proposing a new law to help stop the theft of brick from St. Louis City buildings. This new law, Board Bill # 10, would require City brick yards to close on weekends and require these yards to record each brick transaction on video tape that will be available to police.

http://stlcin.missouri.org/alderman/eventDetail.cfm?Siteid=31&DocDayOfWeek=2008-09-22%2000:00:00.0

Alderman Bosley is right to take action to protect City architecture from such vandalism. But couldn't City Aldermen just require that St. Louis brick can only be sold to City yards by contractors with appropriate St. Louis City business licenses.
http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/license/democontractor.htm

Individuals with brick to sell without licenses could be required to document the address from which their brick came. I believe that such a law could greatly limit the City market for stolen brick with out imposing an undue restriction on City businesses.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Marth Brothers brochure



Click on the red x above to see the new Marth Brothers & Co. brochure that we will soon send everywhere. I hope it will prove a real ban-killer. Download it for yourself and send it around.
http://marthbrothers.com/uploads/AirCleaningMailer.pdf

Monday, September 15, 2008

20 North

Watching this old video of the Grateful Dead really brought back to me the experience of hearing St. Louis Dead bands such as Jake's Leg, the Schwag and Kerosene Willy at 20 North ten years ago. I am still mad that we lost that jewel of a place to eminent domain abuse.


Sunday, September 14, 2008

ChopStix

I stopped by ChopStix tonight. What a nice experience! The Garlic Shrimp I ordered tasted as good or better than any food I have ever ordered at the most expensive St. Louis restaurants. I hope to return soon to try all the other food ChopStix offers. I can certainly see why ChopStix has been nominated for "Best Chinese Restaurant in St. Louis" by the Riverfront Times.

I am so glad that Louis and Salina Erby are now in the restaurant business! Please remember that mom Hazel is a special friend of Keep St. Louis Free. I hope that all local readers of this blog will make a special effort to soon patronize this tasty establishment.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

What's next?

Marth Brothers has a beautiful brochure that I want to circulate throughout St. Louis the way we put out the Keep St. Louis Free flyer back in 2005. Such printing is expensive but worth it in order to get the message out about air filtration.

Also Keep St. Louis Free has pledged to help County Councilman John Campisi in his upcoming campaign. John has proven a true friend of freedom and property rights in St. Louis County and deserves any help we can give him.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Scott Marth calls out antismoker for slander on Joe Bonwich's Post blog.

Scott Marth calls out another Fred on restaurant critic Joe Bonwich's Post-Dispatch blog:

"The owners, staff, and patrons of both Gladstone's and Nadine's are very happy with their filtration systems. I hang out at Peppertini's in Chesterfield about 3 times a week and get nothing but compliments on how our machine works - even before the people know who I am. Nadine's does not have an upstairs area and we were told that Gladstone's upstairs area was for private parties only. Both places have MBC filtration only in one area by the bar, which may be the place for you to sit, if you've actually been there. People, please go and judge for yourselves rather than listening to slander."
http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=561696&start=156

The Marth brothers fight back. That is good news for St. Louis freedom and property rights!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Anyone can post now.

I just changed the settings on this blog to allow anyone to post. Somehow the blog got set wrong. I hope no one in the past has been unable to express their opinion on this blog. All posts are welcome. Please let me know if anyone has trouble posting.

Has Stacy Reliford ever lived in St. Louis!

According to Stacy Reliford, the American Cancer Society representative to Smoke-Free St. Louis City, City residents don't often cross Skinker Blvd. to go to bars in the Loop. And the City doesn't often follow the County in legislation. Has she ever lived here?

"The city is the city, and the residents here go to the bars and restaurants in their community and their neighborhood. They don't drive all over the place," Reliford said. "We don't normally look to the county to determine whether we should make people wash their hands."
http://www.smokefreestl.org/

Sunday, September 07, 2008

McGraw Millhaven interviews Keep St. Louis Free

Check out this tough but fun McGraw Millhaven interview with the Marth Brothers and I. If nothing else, go to the end of the second tape to listen to McGraw call out a phony antismoking caller: "You're a liar Fred!" It was wild.

http://pheistyblog.com/billhannegan/1.mp3
http://www.pheistyblog.com/billhannegan/2.mp3

Many thanks to Joey at Ban the Ban Wisconsin!

Friday, September 05, 2008

Please check out ChopStix!

I just found out that Keep St. Louis Free friend County Councilman Hazel Erby has a son and daughter-in-law now in the restaurant business. Louis and Salina Erby opened an Asian restaurant, ChopStix, last April. Their restaurant is located at 8021 West Florissant, Ste B, previously Northland Shopping Center. They are on the strip with U. S. Cellular, the Police Substation, and Congressman Clay's office, facing Schnucks and Target.

ChopStix has been nominated for "Best Chinese Restaurant in St. Louis" by the Riverfront Times. They will also be featured on Great Day St. Louis, on Channel 4 around the 23rd of this month. After my wife and I have dinner at ChopStix, hopefully this week, we will go to www.riverfronttimes.com and click on the big red box on the top left corner that says “voting best of 2008”.

Hazel Erby has proven a great friend of St. Louis bars and restaurants. It is great that her children are now in the restaurant business! Keep St. Louis Free needs to promote and support ChopStix as much as possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

rBar's decision to allow smoking with air filtration registers in Wisconsin.

From the Ban the Ban Wisconsin blog:

"Keep in mind that Corey Lawson (and member of the Smoke-Free St. Louis Coalition) had initially opened “rBar” as a non-smoking establishment, and had to close it because of lack of business.

Also, a source in St. Louis has informed us that Corey is admitting that he is installing air filtration technology to address the health risks of secondhand smoke in his bar. In other words, this member of the Smoke-Free St. Louis Coalition believes that modern air filtration (like the ones sold at Marth Brothers) does indeed filter out the “dangerous” chemicals in secondhand smoke.

We’ve also heard rumblings that the American Cancer Society is getting nervous because air filtration is becoming well-known and supported, and the St. Louis press is turning on the anti-smoking movement. Nervous? Why? If air filtration works, shouldn’t the ACS be supporting the installation of these air-cleaners?

If you’re from St. Louis, please support Corey’s new bar, “AM Lounge”, and let us know how how his air filtration system is working. We’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re a non-smoker."

http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/big-news-update-on-rbar-in-st-louis/

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Kuneman: 40 Secondhand Smoke Studies Find No Risk!

A great West County Journal post by Keep St. Louis Free spokesman David Kuneman:

Over 40 studies on Pub Med, which is the National Library of Medicine's online database, find no harm from SHS. One, published by Lawrence Garfinkel, who at the time was the Vice President of Epidemiology and Statistics for the American Cancer Society, found no risk. It was a huge study conducted over a 20-year time span. It is the type called a cohort study. Those kind identify huge groups of volunteers (all healthy) who describe their SHS exposure, and then the researchers recontact those individuals over time, to see if more of the exposed group got sick than the control group. Those kind of studies rarely find any risk from SHS. The kind the antismokers conduct ask nonsmokers who are sick and those who are not sick about their SHS exposure. If more who rate themselves as heavily exposed are sick than those who are ligthly exposed, then they claim SHS is risky. This type is easy to cherry pick because the researcher knows the outcome ahead of time. Since these researchers need to please their funding sources, which are the antismoking groups, that's why they can mislead you, and the media, by claiming most studies provide as you stated "overwhelming evidence". What is missed here, is that the quality of your evidence is low- ours is high.

http://westcountyjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2008/08/26/news/sj2tn20080826-0827web-smoke0.ii1.txt

Kuneman on Repace and ventilation

I know air filtration experts read this blog everyday. I wish they would also read this post on David Kuneman's web page carefully and, if possible, comment. Kuneman points out that ventilation, even according Repace data, reduces smoke to a level which would not pose a hazard.

http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/ASHRAE.html

AM Lounge will feature air filtration.

Corey Lawson tells me that his new place, AM Lounge, will have "smoke eaters throughout the venue to filter smoke and toxins." Any St. Louis bar that invests in the air filtration technology that allows everyone to have a good time is worth checking out. I hope every St. Louisan who reads this blog will stop by AM Lounge as soon as it opens.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Flagship Smoke-Free St. Louis City bar sinks. rBar renames and allows smoking.

The Forest Park Southeast bar rBar, which closed a few weeks ago, was a member of the Smoke-Free St. Louis coalition. Corey Lawson, who was one of the owners, said rBar supported the coalition because it was something that appealed to the people in their 20s who frequented rBar.

Lawson also said he would support an indoor-smoking ban in St. Louis city. “If I had it my way, it would be ‘no smoking’ just because of the work conditions,” said Lawson. “No one likes to work twelve hours a night in smoke. But you have to do it — it’s business.”

Lawson’s bar will reopen as AM Lounge, a late-night lounge and nightclub that will be open from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. The new concept, Lawson said, doesn’t work as a smoke-free environment.

“What we’ve learned in the last two years is that when you have earlier hours [as rBar did], the non-smoking is very important to people,” said Lawson. But, he said, people who don’t usually smoke often like to do so when they’re out drinking late at night.

http://www.westendword.com/NC/0/1039.html

Monday, September 01, 2008

Top County Libertarian expects to win fight against any St. Louis smoking ban.

"Over the last few years, Bill Hannegan has always been in the thick of the fight to protect the rights of citizens and business owners, and Libertarians have always stood with him in that fight. I expect that Libertarians will fight shoulder to shoulder with Keep St. Louis Free against the latest smoking ban proposal -- and I expect that we'll win."

Tom Knapp, chair of St. Louis County Libertarian Central Committee, just made this statement.
The next meeting of the St. Louis Libertarian Party happens soon and I will be there to report on the smoking ban situation.