Believing that it’s not possible to make that analysis, I began to wonder how such a claim could even arise. And then I remembered a story that might explain the whole thing.

Once upon a time a Cossack officer rode into a small Russian town.

As he glanced to his left, he noticed a fence with a lot of small chalk circles, each with a bullet hole right in the middle. He had never seen such marksmanship before, and decided to seek out the shooter to express his admiration.

Upon making inquiries, the Cossack officer was chagrined to learn that the marksman was an itinerant Jewish peddler named Schmul.

His irritation was understandable. After all, to Cossack officers, itinerant Jewish peddlers were nothing more than dirt. To be abused, mistreated. Certainly not to be admired.

However, being an officer and a gentleman, he searched for Schmul until he found him. Then with great difficulty, he complimented the man on his outstanding shooting ability, all the time staring at the ground, not willing to look Schmul in the eye as one would with an equal.

Visibly embarrassed, Schmul proceeded to reply somewhat diffidently that he honestly didn’t deserve any praise. You see, he told the Cossack officer, he really couldn’t shoot well at all. So what he did to impress people was shoot holes in the fence first, and then draw a circle around each hole.

Now in the case of the secondhand smoke billboards, I suspect that the people who claim that secondhand smoke kills are not very good at scientific analysis. And so to impress the public, they came up with the conclusion first and then the analysis.

What was telling to me is that even with such a contrived approach, they still couldn’t get the chalk circles to completely wrap around the holes.

Think about it.