About the smoking bans going up all over the country.... I don't like them. I think a business owner should have every right to allow people to smoke in his business if he wants, and those that don't like it can find somewhere else to go. It's just more nanny-state poltiics. Find something you don't like, and complain until the government bans it. Then when someone else tries the same stuff pushing for a ban you do not support, you start whining about the imperial government. Most everyone has fit in to this sort of hypocrisy at some point. The simple fact of the matter is that the government needs to stay out of private affairs, and should not be legislating how we live our lives.

That said, I fully support the right of a business owner to fire employees who smoke. It's their business, they can employ whomever they want, and there should be no restrictions at all, even the ones that are on the books right now like racial motivated employment, gender discrimination, all that jazz. If I own a business and decide to only hire males with bald spots, that's my right, no matter if there are more qualified candidates who have full heads of hair. I've discussed the fantasy of starting a business with some friends, and we all agreed that we wouldn't hire morons (and, all of us being highly intelligent, a moron to us is probably anyone who is only average intelligence or worse), and that if one slipped through the cracks, we'd fire them eventually. Is there intelligence discrimination? Also, if I had a secretary... Well I'm a single guy who is as superficial as the next guy, so I'm going to probably skip over hiring anyone but someone who matches the picture of a secretary that I have in my head. I'm sure I could get in hot water with discrimination suits for that, but it's my business, why shouldn't I be able to hire only buxom blondes, or short asian men if that's what I want?