|
|
|
|
February 17, 2006 |
|
|
Discrimination
February 17 -
Push back -
Recently
a radical anti-smoking organization has been stridently calling on
corporate America to fire smokers who refuse to quit. Last
year a Michigan company made headlines by doing exactly that, firing
several smokers. Finally recognizing that smokers far
outnumber radical anti-smokers a few politicians are introducing
legislation in several states to prohibit employers from terminating
smokers who smoke on their own time.
Michael Siegel, an advocate for
tobacco control, examines legislation introduced in Washington State
that would protect smokers from unjust employment practices.
Siegel has grave concerns over tobacco control outfits advocating
employment discrimination. That politicians are now crafting
legislation to counter anti-tobacco's call to fire smokers indicates
that the tobacco control movement is beginning to be seen in a
negative light.
Prohibition
February 17 -
England imposes prohibition -
Reneging
on an campaign pledge, Labour imposed a 100% smoking ban on England.
The vote wasn't close as MP's fell over themselves to proclaim a new
era of better health.
Despite claiming that the country
welcomes this bit of nanny state interference compliance will be
obtained only by levying huge fines on those who have the temerity
to cater to their smoking customers. The Magna Carta is a gift
from England to democracy. It's hard to image a like document
ever originating from such a frightened nation of hysterics.
Hysteria
 February
17 -
Hypersensitive Hysterics Rule! -
As
a justification to barring all smokers from employment one in
particular takes the cake. Some people, it is claimed, are so
sensitive to secondhand smoke that even a few molecules of the stuff
can ignite an asthma attack.
While Michael Siegel is far
kinder to these hysterics than is warranted he does effectively
demolish the outrageous contention that the alleged hypersensitivity
to smoke is cause to ban smokers from smoking on their own time.
February 17 -
Supermarket health hazard -
Next
time you are doing the weekly shopping at the local market be sure
to bring a bottle of Phisohex and Handiwipes. If you don't the
latest research reveals that you will be romping through bacterial
heaven. The study also fingers doorknobs, subway straps and
elevator buttons. Beware and be very scared. |
|
Pro Choice Smokers
Newsletter
February 17 -
Latest
Edition Out Now - An American anti-smoking psycho is
hassling the French. Check up on smoking related
issues and legislation in your state.
Population Control
February 17 -
Modern day silly talk -
One
line in the President's State of the Union speech sent
shudders down the spines of those who have a respect for the
language. Referring to the nation's reliance on
foreign produced oil, Bush said that "America is addicted to
oil." This trendy use
of an adjective not often connected to petroleum sent Walter
Williams to the dictionary. He was not pleased to
conclude that President Bush manipulated the language to
invoke an emotions rather than rationality. As a side
issue the dictionary definition of addiction Williams read
is itself a reflection of corrupted language in that it
places smoking in the same category as alcoholism and heroin
addiction. Including smoking as addictive was a
political decision and has nothing to do with
physiology. Corruption
of the language leads eventually to chaos and ruin.
Somewhere between the malicious use of euphemism and the
equally malicious use of hyperbole, truth gets so twisted
out of shape it can't be recognized. To those who want to
tear down our civilization, this confusion in communication
is welcome. Beneath most of the social problems in our
society are self-interested liars saying whatever advances
their peculiar prejudices. If the public can be convinced
that lies are the truth, they can be manipulated to act
against their own welfare.
Junk Science
February 17 -
The myth of consensus -
Purveyors
of junk science are adept at halting dissent against
politically correct but scientifically dubious orthodoxies
by citing the mountain of consensus that is on their side.
Anti-tobacco claims that scientific consensus supports the
theory that secondhand smoke is hazardous when this
"consensus" represents only those "scientists" who are paid
by anti-tobacco. The
theory that human activity is causing the planet to heat up
to dangerous levels is also supported by the consensus of
scientists. As study, of all things, confirms that
this consensus exists.
Not quite says George H. Taylor, the State Climatologist for
Oregon and past President of the American Association of
State Climatologists. Taylor examined the study that
claimed scientists overwhelmingly agree that human beings
are responsible for global warming and found that the
so-called consensus boils down to a small minority of
scientists who have studied global warming. More
importantly Taylor points out that in the world of science a
consensus cannot be considered proof. | |
|
|
February 15, 2006 |
|
|
Virginia
 February
15 -
Immediate Action Needed - The Virginia Senate passed Senate
Bill 648 (Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act) prohibiting smoking in all
"public" places on February 13. Essentially smoking would
remain legal only within the home or in the car. This bill
moves now to the House where it will be assigned a House Bill number
and taken up for consideration. Residents of Virginia should
write or call their delegate immediately demanding a no vote on the
Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act. If you don't know who your delegate
is click
here. Your time will not be wasted. Much of the
legislature is adamantly opposed to smoking bans but they need to
hear from the public.
Hate
February 15 -
The silence is deafening -
Michael
Siegel, a long-time and respected advocate of tobacco control, is a
lonely voice of decency in the face of an aggressive campaign by one
anti-tobacco organization to ruin smokers' lives. To him the
call to fire all smokers (worldwide, no less) and to prohibit
smoking from every square inch of the planet is not only hateful but
terribly misguided.
Doubly disturbing to Siegel is the
silence from respectable tobacco control organizations to Action on
Smoking and Health's radical advocacy of hate. While most
disagree with ASH's rhetoric and tactics they seem afraid to
distance themselves from its hate speech. While we are
grateful that Siegel gives FORCES credit for recognizing the danger
that ASH presents to a civil society we fear that ASH is merely
speaking openly about what much of tobacco control supports.
Straightening up Eaters
February 15 -
Fat War enlists perfect spokesman -
The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the billion-dollar foundation
financed by drug company stock, a few years ago branched out from
its mission of banning smoking and raising cigarette taxes to
benefit the manufacturers of smoking cessation devices to working
the "epidemic" of obesity, another racket designed to enrich Big
Drugs. This week RWJF announced an $8-million grant to be
given to Bill Clinton, a former president of the United States.
President Bill fronts for something called the Alliance for a
Healthier Generation. Its agenda includes encouraging children
to eat better and exercise more. How novel! And
certainly a better gig for Bill than selling used mattresses.
When two con artists such as these two meet, hold onto your wallets
tightly.
February 15 -
The orthodoxies crumble -
There
is a seemingly inexhaustible willingness to believe that the voice
of science is the voice of truth -- impartial, incorruptible, and
unambiguous. It isn't, of course. Scientists are no less vulnerable
to error or bias or ego than the rest of the human race. Scientists
too can blunder or act from ulterior motives or convince themselves
of things that aren't so. And yet on the whole they enjoy a level of
deference and public trust that people in most other fields can only
envy.
It's refreshing that these words are
written by a newspaper man on the collapse of yet another casualty
of the ginned up war on fat. If only he could persuade his
colleagues in the American press to stop reporting press releases
from scientists and researchers as straight news. The level of
hysteria over health would diminish dramatically if reporters cast
their supposedly skeptical eyes on health studies that daily clog
the news. Old media may stop hemorrhaging subscribers and
viewers if reporters made it their business to report what a study
actually means, including accurate explanations of what the risk or
benefit percentages actually mean. Above all the people and
organizations that fund the study must be identified. The
Chicken Little approach to health and science will backfire unless
the hype is curtailed. |
|
Population Control
February 15 -
Enfeebled constituency -
Yet
how odd that so few among us are incensed by such behavior.
How strange that so many of us seem oblivious to the idea
that if enough freedom-stomping legislation is passed, that
eventually we’ll all be guilty of some crime or another,
many of which are simply manufactured out of whole cloth at
the hands of our politicians.
Whatever Maryland’s
motives, perhaps the most offensive aspect of such nanny-statism
is the undeniable fact that as government further purports
to assume for its citizens the responsibilities individuals
should retain for themselves, dependence upon it only
increases. Extrapolated to its logical conclusion, such
abuse of government authority will slowly encourage and
compel citizens to surrender their liberties to the point
where we effectively become wards of the state.
These passionate words were
not written to decry yet another smoking ban passed to
better the public health. Had tobacco control not
become so powerful in the past decade it's likely that the
paternalistic legislation decried by the author would not
ever have been written. Smoking bans were the canary
in the coal mine and once the public acquiesced to the
canary's death it was open season on all sorts of other
personal liberties. The trend to remove rights and
responsibilities from the public is mushrooming.
February 15 -
The Borg are winning -
The
popular space opera Star Trek: The Next Generation
introduced the Borg, an alien force that assimilated
conquered cultures by transforming the captives into
technologically enhanced organism. An arm, for
instance, is replaced with a mechanical appendage that can
function as sophisticated tools far superior to the fingers
and thumb it replaces. While the Borg figured
prominently as villains in many of the Star Trek franchises
they were, in the end, always defeated.
That was fiction and in
reality the Borg could be having the last laugh, if such a
collective was capable of laughter. A company has
implanted silicon chips in employees as a fool proof means
of identifying them. Of course the company says it has
good reason to alter its employees' physiology and the
outfit that developed the technology and performed the
insertion babbles on about how there is nothing to worry
about. That's what the pioneering proponents of drug
testing said back in the good old days when people regarded
such technological advances with a healthy skepticism.
Prohibition
February 15 -
Good news, bad news -
On
the plus side Oklahoma declined to enact a total smoking
ban, leaving bars free to determine their own smoking
policies. On the minus side restaurants are prohibited
from allowing smoking unless various hoops, often expensive,
are jumped through. Restaurants may set up rooms on
their premises where customers may smoke. This scheme
is similar to that in Italy, which despite anti-tobacco's
propaganda is not a "smoke-free" nation.
FORCES finds the whole thing
silly, a waste of money and effort but is happy that
prohibition is not complete. Michael
Siegel, an advocate for workplace smoking bans, is not
happy with Oklahoma's awkward compromise. Since
servers will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke such
a smoking ban is useless. Worse than useless,
according to Siegel, since the separate smoking rooms pose a
greater hazard than the situation that existed before the
smoking ban was imposed. Siegel's concern is focused
on the ventilation of the smoking rooms, a consideration
that needs to come to the fore in any discussion of indoor
air quality. We agree. | |
|
|
February 13, 2006 |
|
|
Prohibition
February 13 -
Tripping up on the contradictions -
Lacking
the courage (or political savvy) of their so-called convictions, the
anti-tobacco operatives who guide legislators in smoking ban
legislation often write in various exemptions to what is advertised
as a total smoking ban. Some good examples are the smoking ban
in Washington State, which specifically exempts Indian-run
restaurants, bars and casinos, the California ban that specifically
exempts Indian-run restaurants, bars and casinos, as well as bars
that have no employees. In Utah "private" restaurants and bars
can allow smoking. States and cities that haven't yet enacted
"total" smoking bans like the aforementioned states often exempt
bars and even restaurants that derive a small percentage of their
sales from food. Apparently secondhand smoke is harmful only
in the presence of food. These
contradictions are endemic to anti-tobacco thought and will
eventually bring the whole rotten edifice down. Michael
Siegel, himself an advocate for tobacco control, presents an
insider's view of these contradictions by analyzing the exemptions
that riddle Scotland's "total smoking ban."
February 13 -
No
exceptions! -
The
committed anti-smoking fanatic cannot sleep for fear that somewhere,
somebody is enjoying a smoke. After banning smoking nearly
everywhere in Chicago an alderman named Ed Burke is already willing
to modify the just-passed law to tighten the screws on tobacco
shops, currently not effected by the ban.
It's possible that Burke's hissy fit is
due to the high-profiled smoking lounge, the object of his ire,
being owned by R.J. Reynolds rather than concern over protecting
nonsmokers. After all no nonsmoker need every visit a tobacco
shop. It would be nice if R.J. Reynolds, a company that has
undisputed standing to sue over the smoking ban law, would haul out
its heavy artillery and litigate Chicago to the U.S. Supreme Court
on the secondhand smoke fraud but in the "go along" to "get along"
miasma that suffocates this country, expect a spineless capitulation
to the bully Alderman Burke.
Behavior Control
February 13 -
Bottled H2O;
an eco-disaster -
The
past decade has witnessed the ubiquity of a bottle-carrying adult
population that must have a swig of water on hand at all times.
The rise of designer water is due to a collusion between health
advocates and industry that imparts the message that an up to 144
oz. intake of water per day is necessary for health. So
successful has been the message that downtown areas in major cities
more resemble playpens than work places, so prevalent are the adult
babies sucking on their ersatz teats.
In yet another of the amusing collisions
between types of progressive thought the healthy-water fanatics are
raising the ire of the environmentalists who claim the bottled-water
habit is "heavily taxing the world's ecosystem." The biggest
offender, of course, is the United States but per capita the
Italians are the most taxing of them all.
The damage caused by bottled water
includes increased oil production, toxic landfills and, ironically,
water shortages in third world locations. The only thing left
to do is to identify a rich corporation —
Coca Cola is the only company that produces and sells bottled water
mentioned here — to target for lawsuits and shakedown payments. |
|
Commentary
February 13 -
Wearing a white hat - In these polarized times a
black and white view has become the standard.
Republicans evil, Democrats good and vice-versa.
President Bush as heroic, brave and wise but also
simultaneously incompetent, cowardly and stupid. There
is no in between. Actions speak louder than words and
oftentimes an "evil" person does some good while a "good"
person endorses and enacts evil proving that looking at the
world through a black and white lens is limiting and
self-defeating.
TaxesFebruary 13 -
Perpetuating failure -
The
federal deficit will exceed $400-billion and both political
parties are squawking in outrage. The trouble is, as
Debra J. Saunders reports is that political noise never
manages to cut the fat and useless.
Saunders focuses on one
program, the Byrne grants, that costs the American people
$500-million per year, a drop in the bucket to be sure but
hardly chump change. Although the The White House
Office of Management and Budget bestows an F minus on this
program it continues to be funded year in and year out.
It's success is assured because it falls under "the war on
drugs", a huge boondoggle that dispenses huge wads of cash
that employs an army of experts but produces scant benefit
to the public. It's no surprise the two of the Byrne
grants' most ardent supports are the stridently anti-tobacco
Senators Dayton and Harkin. Wailing over the
horrendous federal deficit is politically fun but cutting
useless, expensive programs is too hard for our budget
deficit hawks.
HateFebruary 13 -
The really ugly American -
In
a move that damages what little credibility it has left,
Action on Smoking and Health is blanketing the globe with
calls to ban smoking everywhere and to deny employment to
every smoker. Considering one quarter of the adult
population in the United States smokes, with much higher
percentages in many other countries, ASH's exhortation could
be regarded as sheer insanity. Michael Siegel doesn't
think ASH is insane and posits a few explanations as to why
the organization is behaving so oddly. He does
recognize that ASH is threatening the credibility and
legitimacy of the tobacco control movement. Already
ASH in Great Britain is firmly distancing itself from the
United States ASH as has a prominent spokesman for tobacco
control in Australia. To their shame, American
anti-smoking groups have been silent.
IncoherenceFebruary 13 -
Deadlier outdoors than inside -
Is
there method to anti-tobacco's madness? This is the
question Michael Siegel, one of a dwindling band of rational
tobacco control supporters, asks himself as a Louisiana city
bans smoking from the great outdoors but leaves indoor
smoking a responsibility of the business owner.
Although FORCES applauds Alexandria for recognizing that
restaurants, bars and office buildings are not public
places, we echo Siegel's astonishment that city hall would
bother propitiating a movement that behaves so senselessly.
His concern is that the anti-tobacco movement is moving in
the direction of jaw-dropping buffoonery. We hope he
is right and that a wave of public scorn will smash it to
bits. | |
|
|
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!
