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"When health is equated with
freedom, liberty as a political concept vanishes." Defeatism February 16 [02:00 GMT] - British Gestapolizei against smokers - As smokers and "fatsos" are denied medical care in England because the British Government is stopping the "waste" of treating citizens, who pay their contribution (taxes) to state health care straight out of their own paycheques, the same government is ready to spend 29.5 million pounds (about 60 million dollars) for smoke police "who will be able to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals and take court action against premises." As all "good" "health" ministers should do, Patricia Hewitt is running with the state fraud of passive smoke - and citizen oppression. From the country that fought the Nazis this zeal in persecuting those that refuse to honor the upcoming smoking ban proves that Hitler was right about his "final victory." The victory he was talking about was obviously ideological and its triumph is unfolding before our eyes. While it is immoral for a government to endorse a blatant statistical and methodological fraud and disgusting that it is proud of it, it becomes revolting when it uses Gestapo methods to enforce it. The agents "will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people." Smokers should warn the "authorities" that nicotine tends to stain camera lenses when puffed directly on them. And let's hear the blatant, in-your-face arrogance of pitiful petty tyrants such as Liverpool City Council official Andy Hull, who said: "We want to make our presence felt from the start, and while we will probably just issue warnings on the first day, we won't be afraid of making an example of people or businesses if they try to make a stand." Be warned, British second-class citizens: don't stand up for yourselves or you shall be punished exemplarily, as to discourage others from defending themselves. Perhaps it is high time that smokers start making an example of trash like that, and taking care of the corrupt system behind it. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen as long as we read statements such as this:
Distasteful? What about plain fascist? Worse is to come:
That's the problem, Mr. Clark, that's the problem. Obedience and intimidation are exactly what the "public health" fascists count on - to come into people's houses next and forbid cigarettes, control food, and make them drink mineral water instead of beer. After all, "public health" officers are not police, thus they won't even need a warrant. There are times when the law-abiding conscientiousness of the citizen comes into conflict with his dignity, self-respect and personal freedom and if he chooses to cower and cringe, he will deserve exactly what he gets. And this, no doubt, is one of those times. Anti-smoking propaganda February 16 [02:00 GMT] - It'll make you go blind! - It appears the only real "study" done here was finding out what would be the scariest lie one could tell the children (or anybody) in an effort to keep them from lighting up.
The empty threat of blindness has been used for centuries in an effort to deter "unsavory" behaviors. One of those behaviors should certainly have led to most all of us being well versed in Braille. Fascism February 16 [02:00 GMT] - Operatives pressure the government - We get new postage stamps, new money, hey, why not new smoking warnings too, after all it is just the tax payers money paying for this frivolous waste. The Nannies are concerned the current warnings are now ineffective. Well, hell, maybe that is because we know you are lyingto us. Duh. Someday the politicians will stop being afraid of special interest groups, but that will take support from the Voters — uh, that's you by the way — before they get the backbone to stop this attack on a legal product. Economic fascism is state control of business while keeping the fiction of private ownership intact. Political repression February 16 [02:00 GMT] - Political snooping on the World Wide Web - Republican senator John McCain, who is also running for president, introduced a bill that will require Internet service providers as well as web sites to report to the government any illegal images, photographic or cartoon, of minors. Penalties would be significant, ranging up to $300,000. The alleged target is online child pornography, which is already illegal. McCain's enhancement converts ISP's and web sites into online monitors, which could be required to read customers' e-mail messages. The definition of pornography would be broadened to include "in the eye of the beholder" subjective interpretations. More worrisome than the needless expansion of definitions is the imposition of protocols that could easily be tailored to encompass any speech that the powers-that-be consider provocative or subversive. It doesn't take much of an imagination to envision McCain's bill being used to rub out images of tobacco products or smoking. From there it is a hop, skip and a jump to eliminating anti-tobacco or pro-freedom arguments and research. With McCain's rabid history of anti-tobacco legislation civil libertarians should be outraged at his latest attempt to stifle dissent. Population Control February 15 [03:45 GMT] - Urinal Cakes Support Public Health Policy, Too! - The men's room will no longer provide a respite from the hectoring world if an experiment in New Mexico takes hold. Instead of relief those relieving themselves will be harangued by a chirpy female voice that gives a lecture about the dangers of drinking and driving. The voice will issue from the urinal, undoubtedly causing the bar patron to spray wildly as he attempts to locate the voice's source. Bathroom messiness is the least of our problems as the behavior police intrude ever further into every moment of our lives. Norman Kjono, as only he can, takes the absurd talking urinal cake to the all too predicable outer limits. Fight for freedom February 15 [03:45 GMT] - This is war - Gian Turci examines recent comments by a tobacco control advocate and places them in the overall context of the escalating assault upon all people, not just smokers, in the name of health. It is not a pretty picture and makes for an inauspicious commencement of a new millennium. The lessons that should have been learned from the previous, bloody, murderous and soul-destroying century are being ignored as nations embrace a perverted philosophy that turns over free will and dignity to a faceless collective whose only value is the acquisition of sheer power. Although it is monolithic its hold on us can be broken. Hatred February 15 [03:45 GMT] - Erasing smokers - It's no secret that at its core anti-tobacco is a failure. People in the millions and at high percentages continue to smoke. In the United States the past dozen years have seen no overall decline in smoking rates or numbers. Some data, in fact, indicate that smoking rates are going up. With this failure, however, comes an escalation in fomenting hatred against smokers. Even those who grace the silver screen are not immune, as this frightening article makes clear. One may hope in vain that the movie business will fight back against an agenda that is specifically calling for curbs on artistic freedom or that is demonizing some of the industry's most popular stars. The film business, like the country as a whole, is spinelessly acquiescent to an agenda that is composed of people who frankly should be in jail for growing rich on promoting frauds. Smoking bans are good for business, right? February 15 [03:45 GMT] - Level that playing field! - We keep hearing, from city and county officials who are being burned by losses of restaurant and bar businesses due to smoking bans that 'if only we had a level playing field' it would be OK. They think a statewide ban will work by forcing smokers to patronize non-smoking establishments, if it's 'too far' to go somewhere they are more comfortable. But the REALITY IS, a statewide ban only results in a much SMALLER playing field for all, and huge losses of business income. See Economic Losses Due To Smoking Bans I think it would be difficult to think of a more level playing field than the Hawaiian Islands, now that they have their state wide smoking ban in effect. It doesn't sound like it's working out the way they expected. Health February 15 [03:45 GMT] - [Not] For the Children - The United States and Britain ranked at the bottom of a U.N. survey of child welfare in 21 wealthy countries that assessed everything from infant mortality to whether children ate dinner with their parents or were bullied at school. Few countries have passed more special-laws in the name of “the Children.” It seems to us that such an aggressive focus should put children at the top of the world’s list for child well-being. It turns out that by a factor of about 4:1 compared to the highest scoring nations the US and Britain are at the bottom of the list. Just another example of anti-tobacco’s “bait and switch” tactics. Following anti-tobacco’s recommendation always means that they get what they want but those who comply are left holding an empty bag of promises. Is anyone out there ready to “get it” about anti-tobacco yet? Nation of babies February 14 [03:00 GMT] - Expanding the play pen - From that cutting edge of oppression, New York State, comes a proposal to ban the listening of music or talking while crossing the street. No kidding. Anyone using a cell phone, a Blackberry or an MP3 player must power off the devices while crossing the street in New York City or Buffalo. The politician proposing the latest in politically-correct behavior control bases his proposed law on two incidents where pedestrians were struck while their headphones were delivering music to the ears. A better solution would be to outlaw stupidity. Albany, of course, would be deserted, as well as the other 49 state capitols and Washington, DC. Let's go for it. Paragons of safety and health February 14 [03:00 GMT] - It’s a dangerous life working at the headquarters of health and safety - And now we zoom into one of the world’s great nerve centres for Global Well-Being, the offices of the British Health and Safety Executive. The alarming rate of accidents and injuries there is not so much indicative of the selfless, risk-taking spirit of the assorted receptionists and middle-managers who labour there to forge finer bodies and fart around with national health outcome stats. No, it’s more a matter of conscientious paperwork, offering a fascinating glimpse into the thoroughness and, indeed, the psyches of our brave soldiers in the Public Health trenches. “… the inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive, and the offices in which they work, appear to attract mishaps and slip-ups with unnerving regularity. Falling lavatory-roll dispensers, flea bites and ill-fitting safety shoes were among hundreds of incidents involving the organisation’s 3,500 employees. One minor injury was also reported after someone walked into a warning sign. According to data released to The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, there were more than 500 accidents and injuries in a 3½ year period. The rate equates to one incident almost every two working days and far exceeds sectors such as heavy industry, farming and vehicle repairs. “ Straightening up eaters February 12 [02:00 GMT] - Forget Transfats! Step Away from that Copy of Seventeen Magazine! - Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine picks up on a new study which tells us that reading about diets is correlated with a higher rate of anorexia in teenage girls. Commenting on this and a Center for Science in the Public Interest call to ban food advertising to children, he comments: “Get it? Advertising makes you fat; diet information makes you anorexic,” he comments. “Kind of a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don't’ situation. It won't be long before the food and nutrition busybodies conclude that since information is toxic that we need to suspend the First Amendment. Of course, they'll do it "for the children." February 12 [02:00 GMT] - The tyrannical doubletalk of the transfat bans - “Smokers have been relatively passive and have allowed the anti-smoking zealots to run roughshod over them. The question is whether those of us who wish to eat as we please will allow the food zealots to do the same. These people are cowards, and here's why: If Mayor Bloomberg and other food zealots think I'm eating too many trans fats, let them personally come and take fatty foods off my plate or remove them from my shopping cart. Since they don't have the guts to do that, they correctly deem it safer to use the brute force of the state to control what I eat.” Political geldings February 14 [03:00 GMT] - Nicorette for President - Inquiring minds want to know the answer to “the big question” for Sen. Barack Obama: “Will Nicorette be enough to get him through Iowa and New Hampshire? Or will he inhale?” Pundits speculate over whether the junior senator is a suitable person for the presidential candidacy if he is a smoker, or whether it should disqualify him. But in any case, he’s trying to quit – using Nicorette gum. For those who are interested, it’s available at your local pharmacy. The antismoking squad, who applaud Sen. Barack Obama for trying to quit using Nicorette gum, see him as a great poster boy for "public health" "education". They only wish he would talk about it a lot more, talk about how he has fallen by the wayside, pulled himself up, tried and fallen again, and if it weren’t for the help and ceaseless support of his lovely wife etc. etc… "I think it would be an enormous first step forward if he would come all the way out of the closet and say, 'I smoke, I wish I didn't, I plan on quitting again, I've tried this many times,'" said Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. "Because if you dig deep behind the story, my guess is that's probably the reality, that he wants to quit and has tried many times." All the way out of the closet indeed. Someone studied that one well before it made its way between the quotation marks. And what does Obama say? He says that he’s trying to quit with the help of Nicorette gum. Dismal, isn’t it? At least a lot of the posted responses to the story indicate that not all Americans are comfortable with the horrible vapidity of so much of our political “discourse”. From one poster: “I wish our current leaders would take a smoke break. Perhaps a few extra soldiers would get home alive.“ Free Speech February 14 [03:00 GMT] - Burning the heretics - As the artificially-induced panic over anthropogenic climate change reaches the outer limits of hysteria we need to pause a moment and hark back to a collateral purpose of the secondhand smoke scare. The primary purpose for lying about the dangers of secondhand smoke was to convert smoking from a personal choice to a matter that affects everyone. The end result is to impose a societal rationale for banning smoking. The media, pushed by the economic interests of the pharmaceutical industry, presented a near seamless assault on smokers that has resulted in the imposition of numerous smoking bans. Global climate change as the result of human activities was created to reduce, or even eliminate, the utilization of fossil fuels. The media, once again, is cheerleading the con artists whose "research" provides the societal rationale for reducing so-called greenhouse gasses. In both cases critics of the "science" must be silenced. Those who persuasively argue that the dangers of secondhand smoke have never been proven have been marginalized by ignoring them in favor of a mythic "mountain of evidence" and "consensus." Critics of the methods used to promote man-made, catastrophic climate change have not been completely ignored because everyone, not just the dumb smokers, will be negatively affected through government regulations to reduce climate change. The businesses that will suffer economically because of increased government regulations have also, unlike the tobacco industry, not been completely passive in the face of junk science. Several highly placed individuals who have spoken out against the methodology "proving" human caused climate change have attracted the ire of the climate change crowd who are quite willing to eliminate free speech for these "heretics."
The fight for dignity February 13 [03:00 GMT] - Standing up to harassment - Cases like this happen every day - the endless scolding of smokers, such as: "that stuff will kill you" or, as in the case of Edmonton's mayor, '"a look of disgust" and snap: "You shouldn't smoke."' Because of state-endorsed persecution propaganda, many non smokers/antismokers believe that they are granted the license to do their daily "good deed" by harassing smokers. Wrong, and this time Andrea Heinz, a 23-year-old personal fitness trainer, is giving the mayor a dose of his own medicine. Well done. She should not let this go. That kind of stuff seems "innocent" but it is far from it -- and it should not be tolerated. Of course Dr. Roger Hodkinson, a pathologist who's also with Action on Smoking and Health, said he didn't see anything wrong with the exchange. We are not surprised. "Let's face some hard medical realities here. It may seem intrusive, but sadly, many smokers do need multiple nudges in order to do something that is going to be of great benefit in the long run," he said. The "hard medical reality" is that Mr. Hodkinson cannot prove even one death or disease to be caused by smoking, and that he is abusing his practitioner authority to divulge indemonstrable (or blatantly false) information to the public to push his lousy hate-based ideology and to make it look like a "harmless nudge". If he is really affected by paternalistic compulsion he should dump that on his "patients", who are guaranteed not to talk back. In all other cases he should be shown the door. During the Apartheid in South Africa, when blacks were tried in court there was often a question posed to black citizens by the "authorities" behind the bench: "We don't understand why you call yourselves blacks, as you are more brown than black", a fine way to compare blacks with excrements, hidden behind a factual statement on colour. That question often caught the victims unprepared, and some of them did not even realize the real meaning on the spot. But when Biko was tried, the same question was posed to him. His prompt answer to the magistrate was: "... and I don't understand why you call yourselves whites, as you are more pink than white". It is said that the question was never posed again in South African courts. Sometimes all it takes is to stand up with dignity to the oppressor, who may be far less strong and powerful than he seems. That's why Andrea Heinz's reaction should be an example for us all for setting the boundaries of personal respect. Big Tobacco
Truer words have seldom been printed in the insanely biased New York Times. In a nutshell this analyst understands why smoking tobacco will always be with us. The current anti-tobacco hysteria is a blip that years from now will be a historical curiosity. Even now, as this story relates, the cigarette business is doing quite well, thank you very much, particularly in the case of Philip Morris, aka Altrius Group. PM is on a role after the huge Kraft Foods was spun off. In a nice bit of irony the disreputable cigarette portion of the old PM is doing much better after discarding its food business. This irony is of course lost on the anti-tobacco hacks quoted by the Times who seem to take personal umbrage that Altrius is doing so well. These nay-sayers need to realize that they, as well as PM's smoking customers, are irrelevant to the company's bottom line and that they are pawns whose usefulness waxes and wanes as corporate circumstances dictate. Another set of grifters is unhappy with spinning off Kraft Foods. Trial lawyers who dream of billion dollar settlements against the cigarette manufacturer want Kraft Foods to stay in the Philip Morris family so that potential, obscenely huge judgements can be attached to the entire corporation, including Kraft Foods. Philip Morris vows to crush any attempt to derail the Kraft Foods divestment and when Big Tobacco really is riled it generally hauls out the heavy guns and gets its way in the court system, something to bitterly contemplate when observing its inept, flaccid and ultimately futile efforts to combat smoking bans and tax increases. Property Rights February 13 [03:00 GMT] - "Rights" trashed....again - The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the state's smoking ban in restaurants and bars by a 4-1 decision Monday. The law was challenged by a group of bar and restaurant owners who claimed the statewide ban on smoking in those establishments is unconstitutional and hurt their businesses. The group claimed that the ban violated their equal protection rights because it excluded private clubs and casinos. "Rights"? What Rights? A "health issue" is a "health issue". Unless it interferes with "certain" business entities profit line. No, private clubs, existing or new, do not have the right to serve tainted food, so why do they have the Right to allow Second Hand Smoke? We could go on about "level playing fields" or tax dollars stripped from local budgets and diverted to the Reservations - but Norm Kjono has covered that extensively in his columns. Again, until we address the fraudulent use of the studies behind the bans, this will only continue, and continue to escalate into more and more prohibition, not only of second hand smoke, but other non tobacco products too. Consider this, IF tobacco were actually to be legally classified as an illegal substance and the States could no longer collect the tobacco tax revenues and Tobacco Settlement funds who will pick up the tab for those missing millions or billions of lost tax revenue? You got it, the NON smokers. Wonder when they will figure this out. We would like a copy of this State Supreme Court decision and any other court decisions from anywhere in the Untied States. We have quite a collection but that collection must stay current to be of use in the future. Please send them to FORCES, Inc., PO Box 533, Sutton, WV, 26601-0533 or send a scanned copy or link to info@forces.org. Thanks for being our eyes and ears to the Nation! Behavior control February 12 [02:00 GMT] - Legislating all possibilities - Better pull off and park at the next exit before taking a sip of your Perrier if this Vermont state legislator gets his way. And we'll all have to fight off that occasional compulsion to bang out a spirited rendition of "China Grove" on the guitar as we negotiate rush hour traffic.
Slipping in their real target (smoking) with what are obvious, common sense distractions that no "get tough on safety" lawmaker could possibly argue against (reading, writing and, yes, even playing a musical instrument), then throwing in eating and drinking to pre-empt and quiet the "Then you might as well ban everything while driving" dissenters, followed by an official sounding catch-all to confuse everyone (interacting with pets or cargo), and finishing up with the darling of all driving distraction enthusiasts (the dreaded cell phone), is just the sort of ploy that, in this dark age of state-sponsored worship of health and safety, may gain traction for this abomination in the hallowed halls of Montpelier. As usual, a compliant media has done their part:
Anyone else notice the emotional appeal of the incidents they chose to use? Notice also how none involve smoking. Banning smoking in our cars seems to be the current "Holy Grail" of the antis, no doubt because of it's proximity, both literally and figuratively, to our living rooms. It's a crucial step for their agenda and recent events in Bangor, Maine and elsewhere have emboldened them to quicken their pace. February 12 [02:00 GMT] - The Light Begins to Break Through, II - Giving meaning to the old adage of "better late than never", the mainstream press is finally taking a gander at the ties between the anti-smoking movement and the pharmaceutical industry. Ties may be too mild noun for the relationship between Big Drugs and anti-tobacco. Partnership is more appropriate as evidence emerges that prominent anti-smoking spokesmen are being paid by the manufacturers of smoking cessation nostrums to rail against smoking and to tout the usage of the products that purportedly make quitting smoking a breeze. Norman Kjono, who has been aware of the tight links between the anti-tobacco movement and the pharmaceutical industry for a very long time, takes us through the webs that operate more for the financial benefit of corporations than for public health. Junk science and politics February 12 [02:00 GMT] - Back to medieval witch hunts - One can say with confidence that future historians will characterize our times as "the era of ethical collapse", as a thick part of global or local policies are based on scientific fraud covered by induced hysteria. Of the collective frauds, that on smoking is the oldest but not the only one by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from lifestyles, take the global warming, for example. There may be some compelling evidence that the planet is warming up but there is no evidence whatsoever that the warming is caused by human activities. As in the case of passive smoking (where the glaring evidence that the studies are trash and that there is no demonstrated danger is utterly ignored) so, in the case of global warming, the most (literally) glaring evidence of all, our sun's activity, is utterly disregarded. Far more entertaining are the standard accusations of corruption against anyone who dares to disagree with the umpteenth and un-demonstrated belief of our era, that "we" are the cause of global warming. This is pushed as much as the belief that smoking causes cancer, but with even less real scientific evidence than that. Here we have an interesting article from the American Enterprise Institute about the slander campaigns against those who object the credo. And here is another article that questions that credo. The core of the huge problem afflicting the Era of Ethical Collapse is the very concept that "authoritative" talking heads with a clear political agenda who make catastrophic statements (on smoking, diet, climate - whatever) are science. Those statements are taken at face value by virtue of their institutional or personal authority without anyone ever demanding an open, face-to-face contradictory scientific debate on the grounds of verifiable evidence. Moreover, science is equated to democracy, where science has never been a democracy: a phenomenon is either true or false and if it is true it must be demonstrable, and the demonstration can be repeated by others. "Scientific consensus" used to mean that there is a physical and predictable reality that is demonstrated at the foundation of that consensus. Today "consensus" means that there is (or it is said that there is) an agreement (usually tied to personal agendas) on hypotheses the causality of which cannot be scientifically demonstrated. Thus the "consensus" is on the hypothesis instead of the verification of that hypothesis. And this fundamental twisting of the concept of "science" is at the foundations of insane social policies and of the enormous waste of public money by governments all over the world. |
