Big Brother knows what's good for you

If you have nothing to hide,
look into the magic box.
Big Brother wants to know.

September 14 [19:00 GMT] - We have the technology: what are we waiting for?... - Drinkers, junkies (and soon smokers): you will not escape us. We will dig you out. We make you breathe in machines, we have computers to instantly recognize your fingerprints, to know your criminal record (and even what you bought yesterday). We have cameras in the streets. We force you to pee in glasses - to make sure that you don't take the funny stuff we do not like. Now we will scan your eyes. You cannot hide anything from us, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. You will not do what (we say) is bad for you – not even when you don’t hurt anyone, not even when you do it in the privacy of your home, alone or with others. Why? Because we are the Therapeutic State that knows what’s good for you. And we make laws that force you to do it.

Sadly, up to a short time ago, we did not have the technical means to really intrude in your life the way we wanted -- but fortunately things are changing, and ever-advancing technology is coming to help. Do you remember all that old-fashioned, useless crap about moral boundaries, respect of the individual, privacy, ownership of your existence, choice, personal liberties…? Finally it is all fading away thanks to the baby-boomer generation in firm control of the situation. To the business at hand, then! Thanks to the elimination of those stupid obstacles, the Final Victory over vice and behaviour is afoot. We can check your every action, decision, choiceto make sure that you do what we say is right for you. Wake up, the social contract is changing, and we are altering the deal -- every day, unilaterally, as fast as we please. That's the way of "progress": get used to it.

And of course we don't take away your freedom of choice, you little whining brat!... You are always free to choose to go to jail and to pay fines! Let's put it all together: morality is defeated, technology is in place, and the police machine is well-oiled and all ready to be your pal. All we need is the list of citizens to control. Let’s see… Thanks to terrorism (what a godsend it is!) the Constitution is being forgotten (...and what a pain in the neck that was!) We already have drinkers and junkies firmly in hand. Fatsos and smokers are coming along. All is proceeding well and according to plans. Imagine what a heaven the world is becoming… no more arguments even about whether you are tired or not: just look into the machine and it’ll make the decision. Soon you’ll have just one easy choice to make: go to sleep or go to jail. Isn’t this wonderful progress?

Big Pharma

September 14 [19:00 GMT] - A Grim Day for Big Pharma - It is unquestionable that the largest single private source of financial fuel for the antitobacco enterprise is the pharmaceutical industry, which pours hundreds of millions a year into the false propaganda against cigarettes and smokers, supporting both junk science and rabid antismoking activism. It's "pull" on the public health structures (even at the political level through powerful lobbies) does not need pointing out. We recommend the reading of this very interesting piece that describes enormous violations of  legal and moral law, day after day, year after year. And these crooks are going to define the “appropriate behavior” for consumers such as people who smoke?

Readers' contributions

September 14 [19:00 GMT] - It's a Shame about Australia - This reader contribution concerns a recent trip to Australia with his wife. Australia used to be a nice, free place where one could go and look forward to a future of freedom. Then the healthist cancer came - and Australia got one of the worst case of metastasis. Antitobacco is the most pronounced expression of the "health revolution" - that is, of the regression into a rough, obtuse and backwards mentality that puts the perception of health before the right to freedom, hates the joy of living and poisons it with fears - and all implemented with arrogance and fraud. Antismoking in Australia is one bad case of all that - perhaps the worst of them all. "Down Under" indeed - in every sense of the world. God help the nice, smoking people in Australia - better yet: may they learn to defend themselves.

Some kids never grow

September 14 [19:00 GMT] - University plays babysitter to smokers - When they were young, baby-boomers insisted on taking risks, on making (sometimes foolish decisions) on their own, on challenging authority, and on exploring the world on their own terms. They tried, as all young people do, to come to terms with their own ideas about integrity and personhood, and in doing so, they sometimes brutally refuted the ideas of their parents. Many in the “youth revolution” had some cause for regret in the years to come, and they came to question their early rebellion. For some, it was the beginning of wisdom. For many others, it was the beginning of “the reactionary revolution”.

Here, a modern university student laments the fact that, with the baby-boomers in control, the rite to passage to adulthood never occurs, at least not on her campus, where smoking is completely banned and the university administration ”deems us unfit to make our own lifestyle decisions.” She adds, “Soon we'll be wearing latex suits spritzing Germ-x with iPods strapped around our necks, not talking and never touching.”


What a face

September 13 [17:52 GMT] - American Cancer Society demands that the federal government funds cancer research... isn't that the job of the American Cancer Society? - Of course it is , but since the American Cancer Society is wasting all of its (and RWJF) resources on funding smoking ban efforts, even though secondhand smoke levels are 25,000 times SAFER than required (not a health hazard), ACS does not have the ability to fulfill its obligation to donors by funding cancer research, and fulfill its promise to the pharmaceutical nicotine interests at the same time....to fund smoking ban efforts. So ACS is demanding that the federal government provide funding for cancer research. (Continues on Clearing the Air)

From philosophy....
 

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek

September 13 [17:45 GMT] - A philosopher’s take on the anti-smoking movement - We link to a long interview with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. It’s not about the smoking issue, but he has an interesting psychological take on the motives behind smoking bans, which we quote below:

“Let's take the campaign against smoking in the U.S. I think this is a much more suspicious phenomenon than it appears to be. First, deeply inscribed into it is an idea of absolute narcissism, that whenever you are in contact with another person, somehow he or she can infect you. Second, there is an envy of the intense enjoyment of smoking. There is a certain vision of subjectivity, a certain falseness in liberalism, that comes down to "I want to be left alone by others; I don't want to get too close to the others." Also, in this fight against the tobacco companies, you have a certain kind of politically correct yuppie who is doing very well financially, but who wants to retain a certain anti-capitalist aura. What better way to focus on the obvious bad guy, Big Tobacco? It functions as an ersatz enemy. You can still claim your stock market gains, but you can say, "I'm against tobacco companies." Now I should make it clear that I don't smoke. And I don't like tobacco companies. But this obsession with the danger of smoking isn't as simple as it might appear.”

... to the fight for rights and human respect

September 13
[17:45 GMT] - Greensborough nursing home elders tried to fight for home turf - Residents of an extended care centre have successfully rolled back a full smoking ban at the centre. "They had to grant us our rights," said one elderly resident about the dispute.

Yet the “victory” in reality is hollow. “The smoking ban has been relaxed. Old residents have been grandfathered into the policy and can light up in a specific courtyard, but they must remain at least 10 feet away from the building. New residents are prohibited from lighting up.”

In short, the ban was only modified enough to follow the strict letter of the law, but the disrespect for the wishes of the elderly residents remained.


The cost of junk science

September 12 [14:00 GMT] - The EPA's fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standards, lung disease, and mortality – In these corrupt times, the great trick to hold on to power and money is to keep people in a constant state of alarm and hysteria. Together with the passive smoke fraud (and strictly related to it) is the fraud of atmospheric fine particles. Fine particles (PM2.5), being so small, can go deep into pulmonary alveoli. This is, however, where the knowledge ends. The actual effects of the particles on people are guessed with the old villain, multifactorial epidemiology – yes, the very same used for passive smoke. Through questionnaires and “creative interpretations” of utterly unreliable data, risk is assessed and once again – like passive smoke – we are talking about a mere 10-20% risk elevation, which is absolutely insufficient to establish that the risk is real due to the huge number of un-measurable confounders. There is no way to know - not even to have a pointer - whether fine particles constitute any danger at all for health. After all, we have been exposed to them since the dawn of time, and more in the past than in the present.

On the other hand, as in the case of smoking, the social and economic cost of laws and regulation against this indemonstrable danger is no guess at all: “…the standards have cost at least $70 billion a year to implement [in the US alone!], eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs a year, and likely have cost lives (because of the huge cost) without providing any public health benefit.” Antitobacco all over again. As long as epidemiology is portrayed and considered a legitimate “science” -- and science it is not -- a handful of professional cons armed with questionnaires and computers keeps on costing hundreds of billions a year to the world while killing liberties, industries and economy in the name of false public health. All those thousands of junk science-based laws must be replaced with just one -- that makes the use of epidemiology of this kind illegal as base for public policy.

One last consideration is in order: smokers (individuals or groups) routinely point their finger at fine particles ("pollution") to show that they are the “real” (or at least a more “serious”) cause of the diseases attributed to smoking. The untold hope is that “the people” realize who the "real villain” is, go after it and leave them alone – something that obviously does not work. But once again their finger points in the wrong direction, as the real villain is multifactorial epidemiology, the devastating weapon of corrupt states and institutions.

... and more junk science!

September 12 [14:00 GMT] - Heavy consumption of cured meat linked to impaired lung function - You know, it is really tough to keep up with the production of junk science, it's a full-time job! Try this: "People who eat high amounts of cured meat are more likely to have impairments of lung function ... Although smoking is the major cause of COPD, only 15% to 40% of smokers develop it... The questionnaire categorized respondents' cured meat consumption as never, fewer than 3 times per month...[etc.]" So, we have a questionnaire-based statistical/epidemiological study, with an obscure point concerning the difference in kind (heterogeneity) of the compared groups. Unless there are large numbers of those groups, chances are in favour of a substantial difference between the groups, which makes the already good-for-nothing study even worse. Furthermore, the measurements of pulmonary functionality are known to be variable in the same individual in different times. Finally, the "surprise" factor cannot be missing in (junk science) statements: "This was a very interesting study and I was surprised that the effects seen were so large". "I will look forward to seeing if other studies can replicate these findings". How, with more junk science?... Replication can be done only with experimental science, which is certainly not the case here!

What do you think, time for the trash can along with the substantial amount of public money this National Institute of Health-funded joke costs? We think so, it's funny enough - but careful now: "The study could have implications for future research and for health policy as well" - and >this< is the only serious thing to worry about.

Maternal smoking

September 12 [14:00 GMT] - And finally a study that is not trash science: Carbon monoxide may help prevent debilitating pregnancy condition; New Queen's study explains why smoking mothers less prone to pre-eclampsia - Sure, one can immediately think that we don't rate this study a junk because it shows a benefit of smoking - and during pregnancy to boot! But it's not so. This study is valid because it is an empirical one, as opposed to questionnaires and attributions. "...Tissue from the placentas of nonsmoking women who had delivered babies by caesarian section was exposed to the same kind of oxidative stress – not enough oxygen being supplied through the blood – experienced by women with pre-eclampsia. When the tissues were treated with carbon monoxide, at levels similar to those found in the blood of smoking mothers, cell death in the placenta was significantly reduced".

There you go, verifiable science at work, no guesses, no questionnaires: experiment and observe the results - and smoking gets exempted! The Canadian researchers must be shaking in their boots - and in fact here comes the ever-present political caveat in a great rush: "...He stresses however that any perceived benefit of smoking during pregnancy is outweighed by the many risks: premature membrane rupture, preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome". Sure, sure... but all those trash attributions are based on speculations and on - you guess it! - questionnaires on how many cigs mothers smoked, biases in data, political agendas and arbitrary attributions. This is an experimental study that can be truly replicated, and that demonstrates that smoking helps the future mother, like generations and generations of healthy children born from smoking parents have already overwhelmingly demonstrated. Incidentally, prior evidence on pre-eclampsia confirmed the reduced risk of developing it with tobacco exposure. Click here for further documentation on the multiple benefits of smoking during pregnancy.

From Michael Siegel's blog

September 12 [14:00 GMT] - The face of antismoking arrogance: Attorneys General hide Legacy's conflict of interest in presenting data on effectiveness of Truth Campaign - To say that antitobacco has absolutely no shame or decency is a waste of words. Not only the antismoking gangs want to interfere with the freedom of information and expression consecrated in the First Amendment; not only do they want to influence the free choice of people on smoking, but they also want to achieve that by presenting (what else is new?...) false data to hide that antitobacco advertisement does not work. If General Motors did something like that it would be faced by a multi-billion dollars law suit for false advertisement; but antismoking groups are obviously above the law. Siegel tells us the rest of the story. We only have this to add: people who exist only by lying (and are in a system that rewards them) can only lie every step of the way – to the point that they perceive their own lies as truth, and name their campaigns accordingly.

September 12 [14:00 GMT] - Nicotine yield of Philip Morris cigarettes drops in 2005; [nicotine] yields of Philip Morris cigarettes have actually declined since 1997 – Nicotine contents go up! Nicotine contents go down! Anything goes to keep the antismoking gangs on the media. But – yes, you guessed already!! – that is yet another lie: “The rest of the story is that in contrast to the report, which gained widespread media attention and led to newspaper articles throughout the nation implicating Philip Morris in a scheme to increase its nicotine levels over the past seven years or so, the truth appears to be that there has been no real change in nicotine yields of Philip Morris cigarettes, including Marlboro, over the past nine years.

…Could it be that the antismokers’ zeal to “treat” us as smokers is actually a cry for help, begging us to treat them? They are obviously affected by what is called compulsive lying -- a psychiatric disorder that is more and more recognized; it seems to be related to depression. More on compulsive lying here. Could it really be that, instead of "treating" free choice, the antismokers are those who need treatment?  You’ll never know: human needs manifest themselves in strange ways, sometimes. Perhaps we are hearing a desperate cry for help that smokers, media and politicians have never understood.

The passive smoke fraud

September 11 [16:45 GMT] - Silencing science: the agenda of an out-of-control “health” movement - Long-time FORCES readers are well familiar with the Enstrom-Kabat SHS study and the controversy that surrounded it.

This links to an interesting study concerning the furor over the study and is a must-read for anyone who wants an inside look at the unscientific aspects of the anti-smoking movement. Of particular note is the self-censorship exhibited by the media. Also, look for this:

“According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal (2003), the results from Enstrom and Kabat underscore some intractable problems:

In trying to understand the risks posed to human health by environmental contaminants, we have a limited range of research methodologies at our disposal. We cannot do randomized trials to test the effects of smoking . . . We're stuck with observational studies: always messy, confounded, susceptible to passion and open to dispute. The problem with the data on passive smoking . . . is that the estimated risks are so close to zero.”

HIDE THAT DATA!!! "Smoking bans are good for business... didn't you know?"

September 11 [16:45 GMT] - The antis are squirming over this one - A radical anti-organization is aghast that a local newspaper forced them to disgorge the entire contents of an air-quality “study”.

ClearWay Minnesota, formerly the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT), was more than happy to crow to the press about fine particulate measurements taken in what appears to be more of a fishing expedition than anything relating to science, but has balked at releasing the portion of the study showing drastic reductions in patronage of the hospitality venues they visited. Questionable as the air-quality science is, the headcounts that were taken before and after the ban in St. Paul are hard to deny.

But deny they will. Invoking everything just short of acts of God and the kitchen sink, ClearWay is backpedaling furiously on the data they tried to suppress. Statements such as “wildly unpredictable number of factors” and “There are multiple, multiple things that could explain this” (multiple, multiple?) sound like the lunatic rantings of desperate people who may have lied about the windfall profits these businesses would experience after prohibition was shoved down their throats.

Naturally, ClearWay says it will undertake a “broader economic” study (anti-speak for cherry-picking data and coming up with a pre-determined result) in which they will try to account for things like weather and other less tangible factors.
Weather? Apparently acts of God are being invoked.

From Michael Siegel's blog

September 11 [16:23 GMT] - Finally an appropriate definition for the antitobacco disease! - For the first time ever to our knowledge we see an appropriate definition of the antismoking social involution: a “faith”: “…Members of Faith United Against Tobacco, a diverse coalition of clergy and lay members throughout the country, sent a letter to all Congressional candidates urging them to support legislation that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. The legislation would protect kids from tobacco and save lives” reports Michael Siegel, who tells us the rest of the story (and how effortlessly many are falling into Philip Morris' trap thanks to Tobacco Free Kids). The rest of our story is even shorter: it truly takes an act of faith to fight an “epidemic” for which no one death can be scientifically demonstrated to be caused by smoking. Rather, one must have faith in fraud and junk science and be contemptuous of liberty, personal choice, freedom of information, expression, advertisement. Finally, one must believe in repression and prohibition to the point of being sick. We believe that we have described an antismoking activist sufficiently well.

September 11 [16:23 GMT] - Misrepresentation of nicotine report leading to confusion - In the last few days we have sufficiently discussed the myth of nicotine "damages" and "addictiveness". It does not hurt to emphasize the obvious, however: "...I didn't hear anti-smoking groups applauding the cigarette companies for decreasing the addictiveness of their products and making it easier for smokers to quit when the companies substantially reduced the nicotine yields of their products over past decades", writes Siegel. And the obvious is: anti-smoking groups cannot and will not applaud the cigarette companies no matter what they do because antitobacco has nothing to do with public health. It has to do with persecution and corrupt public policy. It has nothing to do with debate, either. But everything to do with war - and in war nobody cares about what's fair or true, as long as the enemy ends up killed. It would be nice if smokers (and the industry that supplies them) put that through their heads - and start behaving accordingly: if one must end up dead, better them than us.

The good life

September 10 [13:10 GMT] - Smoke and enjoy the flight - In this update on plans for Smoker’s International Airways, a proposed smoker-friendly luxury air service to initially fly between Düsseldorf and Tokyo, entrepreneur Alexander Schoppmann says he has lined up nearly €300 million in investments in the company since May from private investors in Europe and the Middle East, and hopes to have an operating license by the end of this month. If all goes well, flights could begin as early as next spring.

Health Gestapo and intimidation

September 10 [13:10 GMT] - New Mexico: outdoor bans and inspectors harass social smokers - In Santa Fe, New Mexico, tax-payers are footing the bill for two new inspectors to go around harassing smokers as an expanded ban targets people on outdoor patios. Anti-smokers are “reporting” smokers who they see with cigarettes outside of businesses.

Business owners are turning against each other: “In one case, a manager of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame Restaurant, 319 S. Guadalupe St., which was cited once for violating the ordinance, called to say Willee's was ‘openly not complying.’ A woman who answered the phone at Willee's on Wednesday declined comment.”

Welcome to America, circa 2006.

Profiting from the fraud

September 10 [13:10 GMT] - RWF and Johnson & Johnson cash in on the smoking bans - Here's how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Johnson & Johnson Company now capitalize on the smoking bans which they funded.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invested hundreds of millions lying to lawmakers about secondhand smoke.....to get smoking bans passed. But the payoff is now close at hand... good thing RWJF's parent company Johnson & Johnson recently bought Pfizer and their new smoking cessation drug Chantix.

Smoking bans are good for business... didn't you know?

September 10 [13:10 GMT] - Washington, D.C.: "The smoking ban will bankrupt your business? See if we care, find another job! - There are no worlds strong enough to describe the arrogance of the antismoking enterprise. As evidence that smoking bans destroy the economy becomes irrepressible, the antitobacco scum simply gets more in your face, counting that the majority of businesses and smokers are too sheepish to seriously fight the fraud-based smoking bans. Try this for size: "[the delay is intended to] give employees a chance to make some financial accommodations, either change careers or at least have a good head start in saving some money so that once this [the smoking ban] is implemented... for them to be able to sustain themselves."

See how generous they are?... They even "kindly" delay the ban so you can find another job before they bankrupt your businesses. Aren't these fraudulent bastards thoughtful - but (fraudulent) "public health" uber alles! In different times we would have called for taking to the streets, set up demonstrations and get armed with rotten eggs to throw this public trash out of office - once and for all. Today our calls are much more modest: what about the victims of antitobacco growing a pair first?...

Prohibition and antitobacco's statistical frauds

September 10
[13:10 GMT] - The Mysteries of Governor Gregoire, Part III - Final part of the analysis of the misrepresentation of facts by Washington's Governor Gregoire by Norman Kjono.