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March 17, 2006 |
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Propaganda March
17 -
Big fat zero - First comes the junk science
"proving" that secondhand smoke causes nonsmokers to keel
over dead. Prohibition follows. Finally
"research" is released showing that everyone loves the
smoking ban, businesses are booming and the workers' lives
have been saved.
Our correspondent from
Denmark examined the proof anti-tobacco conjured up to laud
Ireland's country-wide, total smoking ban. After
laughing uproariously he places the bilge into perspective
pronouncing it much ado about absolutely nothing. |
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Pro Choice Smokers
Newsletter
March 17 -
Latest
Edition Out Now - Schizophrenia is breaking out in
the states as the attorneys general crow about reducing
smoking while the legislators worry about shortfalls in
tobacco settlement revenue.....All scents may be banned in
one Massachusetts high school.....Hysteria reigns in the
land of the free and the home of the brave; depleted
uranium, radon, the air, the fat and new car smells!
Catch these stories and all the
latest news about smoking bans throughout the USA and the
world. | |
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Health March
17 -
Life as a marathon -
The
health establishment is fascinated with longevity. A long
life, they preach, is superior to a life lived to the fullest.
As the baby boomers begin their shuffle to the old folks homes the
obsession with prolonging life is more poignant as this generation,
the most terrified of mortality, faces inevitable old age and death.
The happy faces that work the health
rackets are only too willing to play into these fears by first
labeling much of the good life, such as smoking, terribly risky
followed by the sucker punch of the false promise of pseudo
immortality.
Live to 150 years old! Even one
thousand years! All that need be done regularly to break the
"current upper limit of 120 years" is exercise, eat right and do
exactly as the healthists order. Work, of course, needs to be
done on stem cells, gene therapy and other techniques so funding,
lots of funding, needs to be allocated.
It's ironic that this breezy report
doesn't mention
Jeanne Calment, the record holder in the longevity
sweepstakes, who defines the "upper limit" by lasting 122 years on
the earth without any of the theoretical and expensive techniques.
Ms. Calment, of course, smoked unfiltered French cigarettes for over
a century and didn't give a hoot about surpassing the finish line. |
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March 15, 2006 |
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Framing the Issue March
13 - Where are we headed?
- The level of control exerted upon the supposedly free citizens
of Western Europe and North America is reaching a critical point.
People today submit to a level of control that our grandparents
would have found unbearable yet we, the product of their sacrifices
to maintain liberty, grumble and grouse but ultimately shrug off the
responsibility of taking positive action.
While we have focused primarily on
the anti-smoking movement we are aware that that agenda is only one
of the manifestations of the control that is tightening like a vise.
Anti-tobacco, of course, has gone the farthest and has paved the way
for all the other efforts to remove freedom in the name of safety
and health.
Michael Siegel, a tobacco control
advocate, could be considered a cog in the machine that is
flattening variety and eliminating choice. He, however, for
quite some time has been looking critically at the movement in which
he has worked for so long. He has, in his own words, been
challenging the dogma of anti-tobacco.
Gian Turci addresses the dogma that
Dr. Siegel challenges but wonders whether the dogma is being
challenged at all. He looks at the core assertions of the
tobacco control movement and finds they do not measure up to any
standard of scientific reality.
Challenging Dogma?
The Real Dogma Is Not Challenged At All
Olivia Anne Mac Diarmid places the anti-smoking movement in
perspective by noting that while smoking is a trivial issue to most
people, including smokers who are the victims of anti-smoking
policies, its place in the overall agenda to protect people from
themselves is crucial as a marker to just how much the controllers
can get away with. Ms. Mac Diarmid responds to Michael
Siegel's horror over policies such as that enacted in Calabasas
California which take punitive measures against smokers to a new
height. She finds disturbing that "health" is being used to
whip up hatred against "the other" while simultaneously layering its
agenda with an aura of religiosity.
Tobacco Control: The Canary In The Coalmine |
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Travel March
13 -
Smokers. Don't go to Thailand - A smoker of 60 years
(still going strong!) reports on his last trip to his beloved
Thailand. To his dismay he discovers that the terrible habit
of intolerance, a product of Western "civilization" has made
significant inroads into Bangkok. As a Dane living in
Luxembourg he is aware that anti-smoking hate is seeping into Europe
while much of North America is already under prohibition.
Facing it in Thailand is a shock. The author is a member of
DAnmark's
RYgerforening, a pro-freedom organization in Denmark.
HateMarch
13 -
Elderly smokers told to go to hell -
The
Seattle Times Monday printed a story that is astonishing on many
levels and one that gives to a state that prides itself on civilized
progressivism.
With the passage of a statewide
smoking ban (minus tribal casinos, restaurants and bars) residents
of rest homes are not only forbidden from smoking in their homes but
must haul themselves 25 feet away from the rest home if they wish to
light up. Many have been hurt by accidents in complying with
this ridiculous provision.
The rest homes reaction to this is
deplorable. Instead of demanding the 25 feet restriction be
eliminated by the legislature they are instead weeding out those who
refuse to quit. If there is a hell it will be filled with
tobacco control advocates who take pleasure in causing pain to the
most vulnerable of society. |
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Smokers
March
13 - The Horror - To
my horror, while watching an old DVD of the series World at
War, I noticed that Winston Churchill was shown puffing on a
large cigar, whilst Adolf Hitler, a dedicated non-smoker,
was revealed as having lost the war.
This is sending
out all the wrong signals to our children. Something must be
done. Either, World at War must be re-edited, showing Hitler
brandishing a cigar and Churchill as a non-smoker, or the
ending of the war should be altered, with the non-smoker
Hitler winning. —
Letter to the editor, Daily Telegraph, March 2, 2006
Junk ScienceMarch
13 -
"Evidence" questioned -
Anthropogenic
(human-caused) global warming is an article of faith for the
media that is popularizing the notion at the behest of
special interests who know they are conning the public.
While the terminology and scientific methodology for
determining whether the globe is warming and, if so, what is
the cause is daunting to the layman and incomprehensible to
the reporters who write about it.
This short
article from the American Thinker provides insight into the
bad science that has politicians and a segment of the public
panic stricken. Sadly the issue as to the cause of
global warming may have progressed beyond anything the
scientific community can say or do about it. It has evolved
into an emotional and faith-based issue, where scientific
fact has no validity. | |
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March 13, 2006 |
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Understanding the Obvious March
13 -
End of the road for anti-tobacco research? -
We've
heard of mid-life crises but there can also be professional crises
that are more wrenching than noting the mere passage of time.
Michael Siegel, a tobacco control advocate, has been fighting the
good fight for scientific integrity as the core value of the
anti-smoking movement. While FORCES has for years demonstrated
that integrity long ago went out the window of the tobacco control
establishment, Dr. Siegel is examining the movement from the inside.
His insights are invaluable for gaining an understanding of where
tobacco control is at this point of time. Sadly for Dr. Siegel
his view of his anti-tobacco peers is becoming a bit jaundiced, to
say the least.
"It used to be that the science,
including research that I conducted and reported, helped to
shape and support the agenda. Now it seems that the agenda is
shaping the interpretation of, and response to the science."
What Dr. Siegel is noting here is the
anti-science of determining the outcome (the agenda) then
constructing the scientific research to further that agenda.
Science, then, is subservient to anti-tobacco's goals.
Relegating science to second place inevitably takes its toll on
credibility as his examples make clear. Where Dr. Siegel errs
is assuming that the current state of affairs is somehow an anomaly,
a grievous example of good intentions gone horribly awry.
Missing the target seems to be the
specialty when it comes to tobacco. Here we have an honest tobacco
control advocate complaining about the antismoking movement having
gone amok and no longer caring about science, following instead a
path of hysteria, persecution and misinformation that has taken on a
life of its own. Siegel misses the target —
along with Big Tobacco, several other honest tobacco control
advocates and even many supporters of the freedom to smoke. I have
learned to respect Dr. Siegel but facts are facts, and they must be
told.
Firstly, the dangers about passive
smoke that Dr. Siegel talks about are not there, as no effect on
health has ever been demonstrated by exposure to passive smoke in
any and all the studies ever performed. No book of epidemiology
states that puny elevations of 20% relative risk obtained with
recall questionnaires on generation-skipping retrospective analyses
for multifactorial diseases of unquantifiable exposures are reliable
science. In fact they are tantamount to trash —
and the whole deal with smoking bans is officially based on that.
Secondly, as a tobacco control
advocate Dr. Siegel must know that many of his colleagues are aware
of that reality, but they see the trumpeting of the 'dangers' of
passive smoke as a tool to curb primary smoking and all the presumed
damages caused by it. Because of that, the inevitable conclusion
that antitobacco is based on a dishonest representation of reality
must follow. A movement based on dishonesty inevitably brings
either the corruption of its participants or the break-up and
isolation of those participants who still have integrity, as has
apparently happened to Dr. Siegel.
Most importantly, Dr. Siegel and many
others on both sides of the ocean fatally miss the target on a
fundamental issue: one cannot ever expect moderation from an
extremist ideology. Today's 'public health', exemplified by
antitobacco, fits the definition of extremism. A decision must
be made by Dr. Siegel and many others: either comply with the
totalitarian goals and methods of that ideology or refute it in
toto and work to demolish it and that must include,
unfortunately, whatever positive side effect we choose to see in it.
If that decision is not made the extremists win by default.
Apparently history has been for
naught once again. While I can understand the inexperience of
Americans when it comes to the effects of extreme ideologies —
thus their vulnerability to them —
Europe at least should know better, but that ain't happening. The
reason why fishing has been going on successfully since time
immemorial is that fish do not have brains large enough to
communicate or learn about bait, which changes its look but always
has a hook. So the fish bite. Apparently, so do we humans.
What a disappointment. |
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Prohibition March
13 -
New Salem -
The
ban's backers see smoking as a shameful vice that must be
kept out of sight, an indecent activity from which adults
must shield children's eyes as well as their noses. The
logic of forcing people to set a good example for the
kids—which also would justify banning fat people and
motorcyclists from public places—reduces adults to the level
of children whenever they venture out of their homes.
Salem Massachusetts, even now, is best known as an
intolerant, hysterical colonial settlement where innocent
people were killed as witches. Three centuries later
the religious hysteria is erupting in California where
municipalities are competing to see which can be the most
punitive to smokers. Calabasas is currently winning
that contest and, like Puritan Salem, revels in its role as
enforcer of morality. Jacob Sullum details the hatred
wrapped up in its newly passed smoking law and points out
how public health has nothing to do with the persecution of
innocent citizens.
March
13 -
Lying to push a smoking ban -
Action
on Smoking and Health is bullying New Hampshire legislators
into passing a comprehensive statewide smoking ban.
This out-of-state special interest group claims the smoking
ban in crucial to the health of nonsmokers because breathing
secondhand smoke, even for brief periods, is deadly and even
one half hour of exposure renders the nonsmoker as
susceptible to heart attack as a pack-a-day smoker who has
smoked for decades. One honest tobacco control
advocate labels ASH's claims as false (and worse).
Air TravelMarch
13 -
Poor air leads to blood clots -
Remember
the bad old days when smoking was allowed on the airlines?
Remember how eliminating smoking was to supposed to be a
boon to air travelers' comfort and health? Ever been
on a long flight lately?
While secondhand smoke in
airline cabins was not found to be dangerous by the federal
Department of Transportation smoking was banned anyway for
political reasons. The airlines, as a cost-cutting
measure, promptly reduced, by a significant percentage, the
volume of air that is circulated throughout the cabin.
From that moment on airplanes became a toxic miasma of
bacteria and viruses. Add blood clots to the mix
and anti-tobacco's promise of health and comfort proves as
hollow as its veracity. |
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Junk Science
March
13 -
In the service of politics -
Last
week we highlighted a study that seemed designed to ratchet up the
hysteria level over pollution, especially as it affects older
people. In record time Steve Milloy of
junkscience.com
splashes ice water on the overheated conclusions but more
usefully exposes the politics behind the "science."
It seems that the release of this
study was timed to coincide with the Environmental Protection
Agency's commencement of the rulemaking process begun in January.
The EPA in fact funded the study, a conflict of interest that is
endemic to the agency's modus operandi. This "latest" joins
hundred of studies, also funded by the EPA, that claim current air
quality levels harm the public. This is the same EPA that was
accused of “adjusting science to fit
policy” by its own Science Advisory Board. As its secondhand
smoke report was a creature of political expediency so too are these
egregious examples of a federal agency that is too corrupted to be
trusted on anything.
JusticeMarch
13 -
Vilification out of bounds -
One
of the charming aspects of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement
between 46 state attorneys general and the tobacco industry was the
creation of the American Legacy Foundation as a conduit to "educate"
children about the dangers of tobacco. ALF quickly deviated
from its mission to the more satisfying operation of demonizating
the tobacco industry, the entity that pays ALF's bills.
Michael Siegel, who is no supporter
of the tobacco industry, examines an industry lawsuit against the
American Legacy Foundation to terminate the hate campaigns against
it. Siegel notes that while the tobacco industry is hardly a
paragon of virtue the MSA clearly forbids vilification by ALF.
He ponders why ALF doesn't just follow the guidelines that govern
its operation. He is also puzzled why the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids, yet another anti-smoking organization, is
weighing in on the side of the American Legacy Foundation.
Perhaps the Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids is muscling in on ALF's territory to back up its ludicrous
contention that it is the
only national anti-smoking group
As
anti-smoking funding becomes scarcer the jackals are positioning
themselves to be the alpha male that gets to gobble up all the food. | |
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