|
|
|
|
February 10, 2006 |
|
|
Straightening up Eaters
February 10 -
Littering with secondhand fat - Norman Kjono talks about the
war, not on obesity or smoking, but on the working class. It's
Robin Hood in reverse as the elite riffles the pockets of the poor
and middle class, remorselessly promoting its thieving ways as the
path towards happiness and good health.
LifeFebruary 10 -
Terms of Endearment - The good will engendered by the
holiday season is gone, all too soon. A respite from
seriousness is provided by a loving grandfather whose smoking is
irrelevant to those who love him best.
Health
 February
10 -
Misanthropic, left-handed, substance abusing smokers beware
-
Since
we're so modern and up to date we'll forgo peering into a crystal
ball or examining the lifelines on our palms for a forecast of the
future. Instead we'll answer probing questions devised by a
gerontologist who's been calculating individual death rates for 30
years.
One thing for sure anti-tobacco is
not pleased with Dr. Demko's death calculator. For one thing
the good doctor's questionnaire endorses the proposition that health
and longevity are determined by countless factors rather than
anti-tobacco's mono-factorial falsity that smoking status determines
all. More heresy is on display as sexual promiscuity, lack of
committed relationships, drug abuse and cosmetic surgery, among
others, each are weighted more negatively than smoking.
Smoking, in fact, is only one of the 29 factors calculated by Dr.
Demko's longevity formula.
So answer the questions, light up a
cigarette and pour yourself a martini. The results may not be
guaranteed but Dr. Demko's method is heads above the garbage rolled
out by anti-tobacco. |
|
Pro Choice Smokers
Newsletter
February 10 -
Latest
Edition Out Now - The EPA is chastised while shysters
go after coke machines. Check out the news from your
neck of the woods.
Discrimination
February 10 -
Consumed with hate -
Michael
Siegel, an advocate for tobacco control, has seen the light.
After pondering what on earth Action on Smoking and Health
hopes to accomplish by lobbying private business, and now
state and local governments, to refuse to employ smokers he
realizes the only logical motive is pure hate.
We've known for years that
beneath the anodyne platitudes about improving health, those
who are the true believers in the anti-smoking movement are
motivated by a distain for the stubborn people who refuse to
obey the orders of better and wiser people. It's
important that those who do not hate, such as Siegel, speak
out against the ugliness that has no place in what purports
to be a charitable organization set up to educate the
public.
Pharma CartelFebruary 10 -
Long overdue -
A
Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted that drugs
such as Ritalin should carry strong
warnings that usage may be linked to an increased risk of
death and injury. The drugs, methylphenidates, are
prescribed for children, mostly boys, who exhibit behaviors
not conducive for our passive times. The syndrome they
treat is known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
a condition that didn't exist a generation ago. More
than 2.5 million American children are on these drugs
enriching the pharmaceutical industry $3.1-billion in 2004.
A mere four years ago only $759-million of these drugs were
sold.
While most
advisory panel recommendations are adopted by the FDA the
pharmaceuticals can be expected to oppose mandatory warning
labels and their clout is formidable. The politically
wired industry will not accept any threat to their enormous
profits without a fight. | |
|
|
February 8, 2006 |
|
|
Population Control
February 8 -
Ban car ads -
Social
engineering is a concept many Americans naturally abhor, because it
attacks our deeply held freedom, and we have always believed in
doing virtually anything we want.
The first sentence of this commentary is typical of
the social engineer who justifies an outrageous proposal by linking
virtuous attributes with a falsehood. While abhorring social
engineering and holding freedom dear are qualities that most
Americans would say they embrace, never has that concept of freedom
meant that people should do "virtually anything" they want.
Freedom always includes responsibilities both personal and social.
As the tobacco control industry belittles complaints of lost
liberties by fallaciously stating that smokers think they should be
able to smoke anywhere, so too do social engineers justify coercion
by proclaiming licentious anarchy is just around the corner if
restrictions are not imposed.
Bob Ecker hates the internal combustion engine and
the vehicles the run off it. He would love to rid the world of
them and has found the parallels with tobacco that give
respectability to a proposal to effect that goal. Banning
cigarette commercials on television and radio, so he says, produced
big declines in smoking rates that trumped free speech. The
same can be done to put the skids on America's love affair with the
automobile and yes, it's the right thing to do for the children. |
|
Straightening up Eaters
February 8 -
Candy warning labels -
Chocolate
bars in the United Kingdom will soon carry warning labels
modeled on those that grace cigarette packs. The
labels will support the government's call for balancing
lifestyle with physical activity.
The
chocolatiers
obviously hope to stave off the inevitable shakedown that is
building momentum in countries where the epidemic of obesity
rages. The warning labels will be as successful as the
cigarette labels were in holding off the con artists and
gangsters.
Hate
February 8 -
Cutting off medical care -
A
Colorado senator introduced a bill to stop the state from
paying for lung cancer treatment. The Republican from
Grand Junction offers the usual rationalizations for picking
on one group of people but none are persuasive. The
senator neglects to take into account the huge taxes each
smoker pays that more than pay for their so-called drain on
society.
Michael Siegel finds this proposal another manifestation of
the ugly bigotry that defines the tobacco control movement
and wonders whether any anti-smoking group will publicly
oppose this hateful bill. | |
|
|
February 6, 2006 |
|
|
Censorship
February 6 -
Smearing the messenger -
While
this article from the Competitive Enterprise Institute doesn't
specifically address how critics of tobacco control are silenced,
the author does explain how "progressive" special interests groups
cast doubt upon their opponents, not by winning the argument but by
smearing them with ad hominem attacks. The favored method is
to pour through the opponent's income, hoping to find connections to
politically incorrect companies. This article explains the how
and also why such links are irrelevant when the argument stands on
its own.
Commentary
February 6 -
Sue the bastard - Outrage greeted Action on Smoking and
Health's strident call to terminate all employees who refuse to quit
smoking. ASH obscures its hatred of smokers by claiming its
bigoted message is merely a proposal to reduce health care costs.
Our correspondent from Denmark sees beyond the shocking hatefulness
to the core of lies that ASH has been dissembling for decades.
Prohibition
February 6 -
Hypocrisy, the tribute to cash -
It's
either laugh or cry as jerkwater towns up and down California
stumble over each other to be the first to stick it hardest to
smokers. The winner in the stupidity sweeps so far is
Calabasas (with a name like that it would be wise to keep foolish
laws to a minimum), a community in southern California.
Calabasas is taking the simple route of banning smoking everywhere
unless specifically permitted. It's lawful, for now, to smoke
in one's own home and yard but not on any city sidewalk unless some
weird conditions are met. One can also smoke in the town's
largest shopping center. Apparently the effects of secondhand
smoke and the bad example for children of adults smoking a cigarette
are not so bad when the anti-tobacco agenda would interfere with
trade. |
|
Junk Science
February 6 -
Consensus of one -
Two
weeks ago the California Air Resources Board, the same
organization that injected the cancer-causing MTBE into the
California groundwater, declared that secondhand smoke is as
dangerous, if not more so, that the pollution generated from
California's millions of vehicles. Most newspapers
regurgitated CARB's press release giving the impression that
a scientific landmark had been reached. USA Today,
however, looked a bit farther and found that CARB stands
alone. Especially egregious is CARB's ridiculous
contention that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer, a
link that anti-tobacco hasn't found with primary, firsthand
smoking.
However, none of the
nation's leading cancer research organizations,
including the American Cancer Society, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention or the National Cancer
Institute, has endorsed the breast cancer finding.
"We're not disputing that
there is a plausibility that secondhand smoke could
cause breast cancer," says Harmon Eyre, the American
Cancer Society's chief medical officer. "All we're
saying is that the evidence has just not reached that
level." The disease kills 40,000 women each year in the
USA.
Such is the dubious veracity
of CARB's findings that even the American Cancer Society, a
fervent apologist for junk science, is doubtful.
February 6 -
An embarrassment -
If
active smoke cannot be proved to cause breast cancer, how
can passive smoking cause this disease? The American
Cancer Society can't answer that one either. CARB's
latest report was issued from the Twilight Zone. | |
|
|
FORCES INTERNATIONAL (Forces, Inc.) is a
non-profit educational corporation organized under the laws of the
Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. Forces, Inc. has received a
charitable tax exemption under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)3.
Your contribution is tax deductible.
FORCES INTERNATIONAL ©
trademark, logo and original material copyright © 1995-2004 is
property of FORCES INTERNATIONAL unless otherwise indicated.
Original FORCES material may be reprinted or used in any
non-commercial form if proper credit is given to FORCES and original
intent remains intact. All other material remains property of its
creator/owner. | |
|
Now you can use Paypal!
Donate today!
