The strange case of the killer Kornflakes

When I first came to Freedom To Choose, just a few short months before the UK smoking ban was foisted on us, I came across Michael J. McFadden, author of Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains, and quickly became a fan.

Michael writes tirelessly dissecting (no pun intended) junk science wherever he my find it, and believe me, there is a massive amount for him to choose from.

The story below surely must be a contender for the Bloggers Silly Season award, but first here’s Michael’s preamble to the story:

The news story below is factual. It is not a satire. It is not made up. It is about a real study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology which found that eating a bowl of cornflakes induces the same sort of "threat" to the heart as Otsuka et al found in their famous "30 Minute Heart Attack" studies. According to the findings of this study, giving your children supposedly healthy bowls of flakes with milk is just about the same, from a heart health perspective, as locking them up in a smoke choked gas chamber for 30 minutes with a bunch of chain smokers.
Note that the effect from the bowl of cornflakes is NOT similar to the effect of simply smoking around the child. To the best of my knowledge there has never yet been a study showing any arterial elasticity distress or any other significant heart problem associated with the levels of smoke that would be normally found in realistic home or commercial situations where adults smoke around children. Feeding your child a bowl of cornflakes may be FAR more "deadly."

And now for the junk scientific evidence, as unravelled by the keenest of detective work, by the sharpest medical minds this world has to offer.

Doctors have known for decades that too much carbohydrate-laden foods like white bread and corn flakes can be detrimental to cardiac health. In a landmark study, new research from Tel Aviv University now shows exactly how these high carb foods increase the risk for heart problems.
"Looking inside" the arteries of students eating a variety of foods, Dr. Michael Shechter of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine and the Heart Institute of Sheba Medical Center — with collaboration of the Endocrinology Institute — visualized exactly what happens inside the body when the wrong foods for a healthy heart are eaten. He found that foods with a high glycemic index distended brachial arteries for several hours.
Elasticity of arteries anywhere in the body can be a measure of heart health. But when aggravated over time, a sudden expansion of the artery wall can cause a number of negative health effects, including reduced elasticity, which can cause heart disease or sudden death.
Using a clinical and research technique pioneered by his laboratory in Israel, Dr. Shechter was able to visualize what happens inside our arteries before, during and after eating high carb foods. It is a first in medical history. The results were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Time to skip the wedding cake?
"It's very hard to predict heart disease," says Dr. Shechter, a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. "But doctors know that high glycemic foods rapidly increase blood sugar. Those who binge on these foods have a greater chance of sudden death from heart attack. Our research connects the dots, showing the link between diet and what's happening in real time in the arteries."
Like the uncomfortable medical warnings on packets of cigarettes, this new research could lead to a whole new way to show patients the effects of a poor diet on our body.
Using 56 healthy volunteers, the researchers looked at four groups. One group ate a cornflake mush mixed with milk, a second a pure sugar mixture, the third bran flakes, while the last group was given a placebo (water). Over four weeks, Dr. Shechter applied his method of "brachial reactive testing" to each group. The test uses a cuff on the arm, like those used to measure blood pressure, which can visualize arterial function in real time.
The results were dramatic. Before any of the patients ate, arterial function was essentially the same. After eating, except for the placebo group, all had reduced functioning.
All roads lead to the endothelium
Enormous peaks indicating arterial stress were found in the high glycemic index groups: the cornflakes and sugar group. "We knew high glycemic foods were bad for the heart. Now we have a mechanism that shows how," says Dr. Shechter. "Foods like cornflakes, white bread, french fries, and sweetened soda all put undue stress on our arteries. We've explained for the first time how high glycemic carbs can affect the progression of heart disease." During the consumption of foods high in sugar, there appears to be a temporary and sudden dysfunction in the endothelial walls of the arteries.
Endothelial health can be traced back to almost every disorder and disease in the body. It is "the riskiest of the risk factors," says Dr. Shechter, who practices at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center — Tel Hashomer Hospital. There he offers a treatment that can show patients — in real time — if they have a high risk for heart attacks. "Medical tourists" from America regularly visit to take the heart test.
The take-away message? Dr. Shechter says to stick to foods like oatmeal, fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts, which have a low glycemic index. Exercising every day for at least 30 minutes, he adds, is an extra heart-smart action to take.

Please Note: There is no truth in the wild rumour that this study was bought and paid for by the

Mr. Kellog would be pleased, he did love his nuts!

PS: It’s about time I got my hand in my pocket and get a copy of Michael’s excellent book Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains.

Blogger Tags: Michael J. McFadden, Antismokers' Brains, Killer cornflakes, Heart Attacks, New study, Smoking, smoking bans, Freedom To Choose, F2C

Sheeple need saving from themselves!

 

The headlines shout.

A SHEEP which was stranded on a cliff ledge for a month was shot dead after a rescue attempt was deemed too dangerous, the RSPCA said today.

I just watched on my local news station with incredulity how this sheep was shot by the RSPCA to 'save it from itself!' In the same breath the announcer stated:

While the sheep was stuck half way up a cliff face for a month and looked in good health It had to be shot for it's own good.

Smokers, watch out, someone wants to save you from yourself!

"The sheep was humanely destroyed yesterday evening, as arranged by the owner. The procedure was carried out quickly and cleanly and the sheep would not have suffered.

"This is a very sad situation and we understand the public's concern. We wish to assure people that this difficult decision was taken in the very best interests of the animal involved."

You have been warned.

Blogger Tags: #Silly season, Sheeple, smokers, health, for your own good, freedom to choose, here comes de judge, they are after YOU!

 

What you didn't read about smoking stats yesterday

Yesterday's released statistics on current smoking trends were highly-trailed all day on Comrade Beeb media outlets, naturally, but one wonders why, when they were largely conspicuous only in illustrating the ineffectiveness of post-ban anti-tobacco hectoring.

The big revelation was that there are now a million less smokers since the smoking ban. Except that was apparent from last year's stats too. It was noted by an 'expert' on the BBC web-site, for example.

Dr Jennifer Mindell from the Faculty of Public Health said the drop in the numbers wanting to quit showed 2007 was "basically a blip".

"It's more or less what we would have expected. The smoking ban was a good trigger for some people but many people quickly realised they could carry on smoking."

Well of course people could carry on smoking. What else did she expect? Wasn't this ban not actually about making people stop smoking, but the health of the bar staff? Or were there incredible porkies flying around?

It would seem so, and the responses to the ONS survey show that, even with millions upon millions spent on convincing the public of the lie of second hand smoke, it is still not the preferred excuse for intolerant individuals to dislike the practice (click to enlarge).


Yep. The smell and the clothes having to be washed trump such concerns yet again.

Remember that the ban was brought in to protect bar workers? It was a workplace ban after all. Well, click here and you can search the PDF file yourself. I tried "bar staff" and "bar workers" but there were no matches. Likewise "pub staff" and "pub workers". So, dispensing with the description of the premises might have a chance, eh? Not so. There is no occurrence of the words 'staff' or 'workers' in the entire 127 page document.

Doesn't that appear strange?

Well, not really. We are all well aware that it was never about protecting bar staff, and this document merely emphasises that. The fact that no measure of bar workers' health since July 1st 2007 has been conducted, merely an exercise in extolling the virtue of the ban via quit figures, puts paid to the sham behind its introduction, whilst simultaneously proving the Department of Health as a bunch of liars.

This is what they said in December.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Smokefree laws were introduced to protect employees and the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The legislation was never intended to be a measure to reduce smoking prevalence.'

In which case, why are you not measuring the effects on employees along with the prevalence of smokers? And why is this all over the BBC when the legislation was argued, in parliament, for one reason and one reason only?

MPs should hang their heads in shame at being conned so very comprehensively, but they won't. They could, however, partly right the wrong by lending their weight to a redress in the form of an amendment which would allow some form of choice for the 11 million smokers identified in the ONS document. Like this one, for example.


Mark Easton at the Beeb is one of the few who has interpreted these figures properly.

But the 11 million remaining are a steadfast band - banished from offices, pubs and restaurants, you will see them huddled in doorways, sheltering from wind and rain as they light up.

Within this al fresco routine, a camaraderie often develops; a spirit of solidarity and doggedness with undertones of rebellion. Loyalty grows, to each other and perhaps to the weed which unites them.

Today's attitudes survey from the Office for National Statistics finds that among Britain's smokers, there is a larger proportion who smoke heavily - up from 24% to 29%.

Steadfast band indeed. And government need to understand that they have well exceeded the limits of what is value for money spending under Pareto's principle.

In economics terms, there is diminishing marginal benefit. This is related to the law of diminishing returns: each additional hour of effort, each extra worker is adding less “oomph” to the final result. By the end, you are spending lots of time on the minor details.

Unfortunately, despite the conclusions of this study, no matter how clear it is that further expenditure is throwing good money after bad in a vain cause which is doing nothing but calcifying resistance, economics will be roundly ignored in favour of blind, wasteful idiocy by bansturbating morons.

Taxes are an ever-running tap to the unthinking public sector, and smoking is a never-ending avenue for wasteful spending however little the returns are proven to be.

Who let the dogs out? The dogs of war, who are they?

Let me tell you a story.

As a once serving soldier who, in 1971 and newly married at 19, I was sent to Northern Ireland to keep the peace (what a fucking misnomer that was) and saw five ( I mean figuratively speaking of course) of my regiment killed while I was there for a four month tour of duty. (the Scots Guards.)

The one dead body I did see was a friend of mine and he was the cook getting breakfast ready in the house we had taken over because it gave us an advantage point overlooking the Falls Road.

We had taken over the house next door and from my bedroom, which I shared, bunk bed fashion with my comrades, and a hole was made in the wall for the soldier on guard duty to check the adjoining house, which the British army had bought, whilst on his two hours on, two hours off roster.

The house 'next door' was being renovated by outside building contractors to make it 'safe' for us to look through the breeze block'd windows, with narrow slits for us to see and point our rifles (SLRs then) toward the Falls Road in case car bombers rammed our position, or any other target for that matter, so we needed the best advantage point.

I came off patrol in the early hours of the morning with the last two hours patrolling the streets of Belfast behind me, but still in my brain... how the tenements of Glasgow were strikingly similar, I thought, as I kept looking up at windows for snipers.

Later, while I was laid asleep in my cot, Paul Madison was on guard duty and went through the 'hole in the wall', down the stairs and checked the builders pre requisites for doing their job; bags of cement, breeze blocks and bricks etc.

After Paul had raked his fingers through the many bags of cement he made his way upstairs...and as he reached the top step there was an almighty explosion.

I was awoken from my much earned sleep with dust and debris falling all around me and, once I got my act together I made my way downstairs, outside, for the obligatory roll call.

Our names and numbers were taken as we stood, half dressed and dishevelled...all except one, David Williamson, aka 'Chips' (we would ask, what's for dinner, is there any chips and he'd say 'there's chips with every fucking thing'.)

I, and a couple of others went back into the unsafe building looking for David...and we walked through the hallway, turned left into the kitchen area and trampled into the back garden...nothing! We walked back through the kitchen and as we did so we saw, in the left hand corner, the dead body of Paul 'chips' Williamson.

We dragged his corpse from the rubble and laid his puffed, marked and bloated body in the front garden where we, only a few minutes before, had a roll call. (The bomb was in the breeze blocks laid, in perfect symmetry, against the wall where David was working at his stove on the other side, and had not a clue about his demise, I thank God, Allah or any other deity that he did not suffer!)

With rifle still in hand, clipped to my left arm by the sling in case the enemy took it off me and turned it against me, (the sling was short enough not to allow this to happen) I sat on the next garden's wall and cried my fucking eyes out unashamedly!

Passers by wondered what was going on and I lost it, I started shouting and bawling at them as if it was their fault, not the first time I did this, I'm ashamed to say, but that is another story.

The upshot of this was when an ambulance came and I was carted of to hospital. While in hospital I was visited by one of the army's legal team and he asked me a few cutting questions.

How far were you from the bomb blast?

Are you traumatised by this, and by how much?

And the questions kept coming...on and on and on to which I said No, No and No! I had came out of this with two legs, two arms and my body intact but this man was determined to get me some compo. In the end I got £200, which was a shitload of money to a 19 year old in 1971, which I duly gave to a corrupt car salesman when I arrived back at Victoria Barracks in Windsor! The car fell apart after only one outing, the bastard!

You all must be thinking what's the point of me offloading all my shit on you all, well I just can't help it when I've just seen The British Bullshit Corporation pointing out that our illustrious government are going to court, GOING TO FUCKING COURT, to contest how much Light Dragoon Anthony Duncan, who was shot while on patrol in Iraq, and Royal Marine Matthew McWilliams, who fractured his thigh in a military exercise get in compensation while reading this:

Prisoners denied hard drugs get compensation

Drug-addicted prisoners forced to go without hard drugs at Lancashire jails received compensation payments totalling £34,263 last year.

This government is taking the piss, surely!

FUCK THE UK, IT'S BANKRUPT OF ALL MORALS!

Blogger Tags: Simon Weston, Iraq, Alphganistan, British soldiers, compensation, dogs of war, Freedom To Choose, Death and destruction, Drug adicts, prison, freedom, Freedom who pays for it?

UKIP gain another couple of purveyors of common sense

UKIP seem to have an in-built gravity when it comes to politicians devoid of illogical and damaging self-indulgent poppycock.

THE United Kingdom Independent Party (Ukip) have gained their first seats in the South Wales Valleys after two Independent councillors pledged their allegiance to the party.

Merthyr Tydfil Councillors Adam Brown and Neil Greer announced they were joining Ukip following a heated debate regarding foster carers and smoking.

Merthyr Council last week became the first in Wales to impose a blanket ban on smokers adopting or fostering children.

Both members joined the Independently-led Council in May 2008, but say they have since become “despondent” about the way the council is running things.

They are not alone. It's a malaise amongst the political classes that they are now so comprehensively mired in dogma and righteous diktats that they have become insulated from the realities of life.

Simply by being smokers, foster carers are quite plainly no danger to children by any measurement. Even tedious witches at ASH have, in the past, made this very clear, and that is saying something, ain't it?

Don't hate the smoker

This is not what Action on Smoking and Health is fighting for - we are anti-smoking, yes, but not anti-smoker and in today's climate we think that there is a very real danger that smokers are being marginalised in our society.*

That these councillors are willing to make a stand is laudable enough. That they did so in protection of kids disenfranchised deliberately by idiots encased in the political goldfish bowl is inspiring. That UKIP were their party of choice proves that Farage and his mates are attempting to corner the market in good old-fashioned common sense.**

In the meantime, vulnerable children will continue to suffer child abuse from Merthyr Tydfil council, until such time as they stop mutually-masturbating in their ivory tower, and start treating people as human beings rather than the stuff of self-promoting press releases.

* If you would shut the fuck up occasionally, Deborah Arnott, such pronouncements from you wouldn't be as necessary, of course. See what you have done?

** There is another party to consider in this regard, you can read about them by clicking here.

To pre-empt cigarette machine ban...count the wrinkles!

As the UK gears up for the Olympics and our government tries forcing the great British smoking, drinking, and eating unwashed public to go on a health kick by bringing in draconian laws to make us all conform (and in doing so running businesses into the ground, if not wiping them out altogether, at the stroke of a pen) this bugger blogger has the answer to at least one national business’s woes when the Scottish and English parliashites parliaments decide, and they will, to ban Cigarette Machines from the UK.

Ok, ok, it’s a Japanese idea, and I’m sure (almost) that the smoker in the street would have thought of it too (hands off, I got to it first,) but it could be the saving of the cigarette machine industry, and I want the credit here in the UK for it’s mind numbing blowing brilliance, it’s to save the chiiildren you know, godamnit! So here’s the brainstorming idea:

A new wrinkle in smoking enforcement...

Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.

The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.

For a minute I thought it said ‘farcical’ features.

By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.

"With face recognition, so long as you've got some change and you are an adult, you can buy cigarettes like before. The problem of minors borrowing (identification) cards to purchase cigarettes could be avoided as well," Yamamoto said.

At this point I must introduce a Freedom To Choose member that may find some difficulty with this idea, her name is Brenda Orsler and she might kick the shit out of the cigarette machine and/or barstaff if she was refused her cigs because she was deemed to be one of the ‘chiiildren’ to be ‘saved’ from us adults and our smoking habits, here is her avatar:

But I digress.

Oh chit, I’ve just saw a flaw in my argument for this, bugger!

so long as you've got some change and you are an adult???

I thought the whole idea was for this ‘new technology’ was to separate the men from the boys? (Girls can pee off and find their own axe to grind about this wonderful idea, this is men's talk!) Brenda excluded of course…GULP.

Yamamoto said the system could correctly identify about 90 percent of the users, with the remaining 10 percent sent to a "grey zone" for "minors that look older, and baby-faced adults," where they would be asked to insert their driving license.

Oh chit, chit and chit again, so it’s not kiddie proof? There’s a grey zone??? And here was me thinking that child smoking prevalence was almost licked all over the world by draconian anti smoking methods, methods to save the chiiildren from us adults and our filthy habits?

Oh, draconian bans on the filthy smoker do work and save the chiiildren to boot, say the likes of ASH Scotland (spit) and ASH UK (double spit) and their god, John Francis Banzhaf III, (if there’s an ambulance I'll chase it) and if they say so it must…?

Underage smoking has been on a decline in Japan, but a health ministry survey in 2004 showed 13 percent of boys and 4 percent of girls in the third year of high school -- those aged 17 to 18 -- smoked every day.

On reflection please ignore this line above:

I want the credit here in the UK for it’s mind numbing brilliance. (Changed my mind, no way Jock!)

Now I’m taking my biometric wrinkles down to the local ‘Booze 4 You’ to stand in the booze queue, get my dram, come home, go back to them and stand in the food queue to buy my dinner for tonight! (Thank god I’ve enough rolling baccy or I would have to go back to a third queue to buy my under the counter tobacco products, all in white with no logo’s, showing them my doctors certificate to say I am a smoker and eligible to buy such horrible products…all biometrically of course. Thank god my local porn shop does not have such draconian restrictions.

Blogger Tags: #Silly Season, Cigarette machines, ASH, ASH Scotland, John Francis Banzhaf III, Under age smokers, ASH UK, porn, Brenda Orsler, Smokers rights, Smokers, Arshole governments, Drinking, smoking and enjoyment, having a laugh, being human, Denormalisation, kids, kiddies, teenagers smoking, Lies, damn lies and statistics, Freedom To Choose

Golf balls for your gonads

THE BAD SAMARITAN

It is now the 21st century, we live in a so called civilised society, Gordon Brown our Prime Minister proudly boasts that he is listening, understands and is getting on with the job.

Has Gordon Brown listened to and understood approx 25% of the population?, namely high taxed law abiding smokers?.

The answer is a clear resounding NO--- the only job that he is interested in is supporting every initiative to bully smokers into submission and wasting millions of pounds in a Government quest.

Only yesterday it was announced that patients at Rampton failed to overturn a smoking ban.

The patients at the hospital have been in a legal battle for 2 years stating that the ban amounts to discrimination and violates human rights.

The poor souls at Rampton do not have the choice of popping outside for a therapeutic calming cigarette they are incarcerated with no choice, and now thanks to the ruling of the three appeal judges the patients are being forced to stop smoking against their will.

It was only 24 months ago that the smoking ban was introduced on the pretext of protecting workers from so called second hand smoke, this piece of legislation is now being used to bludgeon vulnerable people / patients into submission.

• Casting our eye back to April 2008 --- Mentally ill patients detained at a Chester hospital will have fewer rights than prisoners :-

• Depressed taxman kills himself over smoking ban --- We think the ban killed him, he was so depressed hardly ever went out :-

• NHS want to close smoking room to terminally ill patients --- It doesn't matter if patients are terminally ill, said Dr Spencer Jones :-

There are hundreds of other examples where the week and vulnerable smoker are being targeted in a crusade reminiscent of Medieval England.

Gordon "The Bad Samaritan" Brown should be aware that the smoking ban is based on bad science as described by Times online.

Whether Gordon likes it or not he is Prime Minister, --- he has the power to turn spiteful vindictive anti smoking policy into a fair balanced policy, --- he can offer choice and heal division, --- Gordon can give the OK for an indoor smoking facility at Rampton Hospital, he can ease the patients frustration and agitation, --- The good Samaritan would.

After the smokers they came for...

For the past two nights an advert has been playing out on our North of England TV screens. An ad sponsored by such august fake charities as

and

An ad that boasts:

Over 90% of the UK’s adult population drink alcohol. Studies show that North East England has one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the country.

Where have I heard that before? Ah yes, the same chit I've been hearing about my homeland since I was a boy in the fifties, especially my home town of Glasgow, which has always been seen as the "sick man of Europe!" How the hell Glasgow ever got to be the first European City of Culture with that reputation this Glasgow boy will never know! But I digress.

The time has come when we all need to talk about the role alcohol plays in our lives.

Well, the majority of people in this shiny Nu Labour world of Alice in Wonderland like a wee tincture or two after work, not every day you understand, and on the occassional weekend get blasted and have a fucking ball, so sue us...oops, sorry I said that, bastards!

What do people in the North East really think about the alcohol issue? We invite you to contribute to an open and honest debate.

Open and honest debate, hmmm, where have I heard that before? Ah, yes, the "open and honest" smoking ban debate which resulted in the largest 'minority' in this Kingdom being treated as lepers because they like a drink smoke in the comfort of an adult place of relaxation, the pub!

The feedback will influence how we tackle risky drinking.

Feedback? Risky drinking? I can smell a quantifiable scientific study questionaire in the air...sniff.

To achieve this, we are asking people to fill in a short and simple questionnaire, and enter the prize draw to win one of 10 iPod Shuffles.

Well there you go then, for the chance of winning an iPod Shuffle you only have to fill in their innocuous 'questionaire' and you are quids in...

This information will be used to produce a detailed report that will be shared with key decision-makers with the aim of developing a regional alcohol strategy. It will also help shape future government policy on this vital issue.

What's the betting YOU will not be a key decision maker and have NO control over this VITAL issue?

But do enjoy your iPod Shuffle, if you should ever be a winner.

Click To Play

The corruptness grows & grows

Today is a sad, sad day for justice-not a word to be incorporated in the same sentence including court/s. Today has shown that the Scales of Justice might as well be removed from the top of the Old Bailey and weighed in for scrap as the courts have, without doubt, bent to the will of this corrupt, lying, cheating, all fabricating government.
The Rampton case has held the interest of many fora long time as this cruel smoking ban has smashed whatever equanimity there might have been in one of our secure mental institutions. Because it is the patients home they should be allowed to smoke-after all, smoking is a great pacifier for the mentally ill!
Because it is also a 'workplace' the law states that there can be no smoking-but this is a special set of circumstances altogether.
The Court of Appeal has ruled against the patients claim that they should have an indoor smoking area. Why should they have an indoor smoking area? Simple, Rampton is a "secure" hospital therefore no patients are allowed in the grounds-not even escorted by a willing member of staff for a fag!
To deny these unfortunate people the right ( the Human Right ) to smoke is totally inhuman. It is obvious that the appeal court has been 'bought' by this government as was the wondrous 'public consultation' that aided the implementation of the smokeban two years ago.
Justice Silber & Pill took the view that security was the main issue thus over-ruled the complaint last year.
I am of the opinion that the security argument was a very weak argument but enough to carry the judgement.
This time round the appellants had a mountain of information to go to war with, no stone had been left unturned on the appellants behalf and this is why, in my humble opinion, it took 6 months for the bewigged, supposedly learned men to pass judgement-they couldn't find a way out!
This government have lost their power in the eyes of the people already, the ballot box will confirm their utter rout in the near future. They are so bloody minded that they cannot possibly back down from a law that was brought in on the back of lies, fabrications, statistical manipulations and paid for consultations. They cannot prove that SHS kills, nor can they prove this imbecilic total ban has saved a life-everything is based on estimates tailored to suit these wunch of bankers.
As for the poor patients in Rampton, you have my deepest sympathy and I would not blame you at all if dissent was shown. Why should you be denied the one simple pleasure you have left?
The the outgoing government I say this, "you will go down in history as biggest bunch of turds in the history of British Politics."
To the incoming government I say this to David Cameron, " you perhaps don't smoke, but millions of people do and you reap the taxation benefits thereof. How can you sit back and advocate Human Rights, Charters etc yet watch this spiteful, malicious debacle continue-especially now we have seen the courts firmly in the pockets of governments!"
The time has come for all men/women to become freemen of the land

Inhaling Second Hand Shite

Dead Certainties - Second Hand Shite
Phil Johnson21st July 2009.

We have all now become only too well accustomed to reading, seeing, hearing the constant stream of denigrations of the humble cigarette by the likes of ASH, CRUK and every other self styled healthist lobby group.
We have witnessed the saving of 40,000 lives over the past twelve months (I don't think so - do you?)
We have witnessed tobacco sales falling week after week (I don't think so - do you?)
We have witnessed tobacco shares plummeting (I don't think so - do you?)
We have witnessed the strengthening economy due to this healthist lunacy (I don't think so - do you?)
Finally, we have witnessed the rapid increase in pubs/clubs in the last 2 years thanks to the removal of the dreaded SHS (I don't think so - do you?)
Approximately £48,000,000 thrown at the most hate-ist campaign ever and we are facing economic meltdowm. Eurpoean parliament has bettered that by spending £106,000,000, yet they too cannot prove to have saved one single life!
Amidst this furore of health freakism where smoking is blamed for virtually every form of cancer (and a host of other illnesses) we find that smokers are less prone to "Swine Flu" than the healthists would like - something to do with 'cytokens' apparently!
An email dropped into my inbox which caused this flurry of wordage, the contents of which I will now share with you.
Despite all the warning about smoking causing every disease known to man (sic), this government, to it's eternal shame seem to have ignored the following list of horrendous jobs where the employee is at the mercy of untold toxic damage:-

"Here you are Phil........... Where you can still smoke yourself to death (without a cigarette!)"


1 Case hardening Dept - Where mild steel parts are immersed into red hot vats
of Sodiun Cyanide, heated to red heat then dipped into oil baths giving of dense
clouds of smoke choking even the rats to death in minutes

2 Cast Iron foundry - Red eyed spluttering workers dragging blistering hot castings
from smoke belching sand boxes, the air black with the fumes of various added elements
such as carbon,chrome,tin,zinc and other added improver constituents.

3 Fettling Shop - Veritable Hell on Earth Where human beings grind the excess
iron of cast components showered with sparks and dust and fine chem-sand.
Free milk has to be supplied to wash down the grime.

4 Tricoethylene baths - Degreasing open vats , when oily parts are immersed ,the
fumes can stop you breathing untill you've finished the op

5 Enammeling shop - Where the vapours make your eyes bleed.
Good bonuses to save for the widows

6 Spray booths - Breathing masks needed , you still spit blood

7 Stick and Mig welding bays - The air saturated with a dozen or more different
metals arcing off sparks and fumes that can discolour the toughest masks.

8 Boiler works flange end forming shed - Worse than hell
20 Ft + Dia red hot flanges craned from blistering hot ovens guided by red faced workers
to rotating formers where smoke and spitting steel flakes shroud the whole shed.

9 Internal vessel welding and de-scaling
Lowered inside a boiler to finish of the internal weld seams . arc lights , 140 F,
smoke , sparks and 200 decibels from the pneumatc de-scalers. Sheer murder .

10 Vessel Rivet and dolly ops
One on the outside, one on the inside, tongues ,white hot rivets, ear shattering
pneumatic hammer and the one on the inside gasping for air holding a dolly against
the rib battering rivet pounded by his mate outside.Lung shattering

11 Aluminium Die casting - White hot alloys injected into moulds, the blue hued bauxite
fumes forcing the eyes to close and the throat to dry out

12 Polymer Foam chip compression Machine ( For carpet underlay etc)
Not for the faint hearted ,this Device of Lucifer
Scrap foam chips,resins,glues and dyes manhandled into a press box ,steam injected
and subjected to high prssure to give the consistency required for EASYTREAD etc
The operators scalded ,burned ,deafened and choked in one swift op

13 And now the latest HIGH TECH lung retcher
Computer Aided Machining------ Giant open plan machines
Vapour coolant sprayed onto the metal cutting heads. 24 hours a day operation
giving off a fine penetrating mist which envelopes the factory (and offices)
An earlier coolant version had to be banned because of Dermatitis which damaged the
outer skin surfaces, the later one just cocks your lungs up.


The above list contains only a bakers dozen of these life threatening jobs, I am assured that many more can be listed but all the above are still part of life in non "smoking" works.
People are still expected to slave away in the above circumstances yet the mention of a cigarette brings on fits of apoplexy from certain quarters.
Just how many of the deaths from this industrial toxic environmentare actually caused from this type of environment? One thing for sure folks, the people that enjoyed a cigarette after working in this lot will be simply dismissed:- "smoking killed him".
Those that didn't smoke will be equally condemned:- " His mates all smoked, they killed him".
Should anyone question this anti smoking crusade blurb, the answer will be simplified - yet again!

Unavoidable say the antis........................... can't impede production etc
My thanks to the redoubtable northern warrior known to us as Visigoth for this horrendous list of 'heavy industrial employments' which have been completely ignored by the healthists. Perhaps they ought to spend a year or two performing these tasks so that their respiratory systems can be regularly monitored for damage!
Any takers?

SMOKING BAN IS A ROAD TO FAILURE

The Government and main news media are keen to report that the smoking ban is a huge success, compliance here, compliance there they trumpet and herald.

While they have been concentrating on Pubs / Businesses etc, our motorists are firmly in the fast lane smoking the metaphorical Churchill cigar.

And at the end of the drivers working day there are no dead bodies to dispose of, no casualties to be piled up back at the works depot, no mountains of bodies hidden behind the factory gates, there are no second hand smoke victims.

Where are they hiding the victims of so called second hand smoke?

Stand besides any of our main roads, you will be pleasantly surprised:-

• White van man and his workforce all crammed in the drivers compartment, all enjoying their cigarettes while cocking a snoop at authority.

• Council vehicles all proudly emblazoned with the local authorities logo, council operatives all seated in the drivers compartment drawing on their Mayfair Lights.

• Mondeo man or todays equivalant, no smoking sticker in the window, representatives and their customers snug in the leatherette interior all enjoying a Super King or maybe a Berkeley.

Our motoring population are giving the big thumbs down to the smoking ban and long may it continue.

The Smoking ban is on the road to failure, help it on its way,:--- help consign it to history.

Smoke Free Catastrophe

Two years on from when the final and largest piece of the UK smoking ban was in place, even the Government sponsored spin from the health lobbies is being drowned out by the undisputed failure of the legislation.

Are the pubs and clubs full of non-smokers?
Well ASH convinced the Trade Organisations that they would be swamped with smoke-averse new customers, and so would be foolish to not support a blanket ban.

So, what happened?
Soon after publicly mocking the pub trade, ASH moved on to tobacco display and vending machine bans with no evidential basis, and continued promoting hatred of smokers- job done.
Meanwhile the pubs are closing at 50+ a week and while those with egg on their faces, scapegoat supermarkets(always sold cheap alcohol), or blame the recession(started a year after the ban), as the elephant in the room merrily tramples unhindered over the livelihoods of thousands of licensees.

But have any lives been saved?
We have seen no unusual increase in the population, but have witnessed 100,000+ jobs disappear from the hospitality trade. We have seen the usual science by press release from the health lobby, citing a huge drop in heart attack admissions to hospitals, in Scotland, then in England. The same contrived reports have appeared after each ban in each country worldwide. Of course when the true, published results came out, the actual figures revealed (as always), quite a different story altogether.

Is there a more pleasant environment in hospitality venues?
Yes if you like empty pubs, or a constant transit of people walking in and out, doorways decorated with huddled smokers, and an environment devoid of atmosphere, plagued by unventilated smells of body odour, perfume and stale beer.
Otherwise no, especially when instead, you could have the choice of a pleasant, convivial environment, where smoking is permitted.

But there must be fewer smokers now you can’t smoke inside?
Yes, if you believe the Cancer Research UK survey of their own supporters paid for by the Government and generous grants from the companies that make nicotine patches.

No, if you read the NHS figures from detailed lifestyle questionnaires (Health survey for England 2008) conducted year on year, and compared with pre-ban habits. In fact smoking numbers have risen in the age group (16-34) mainly targeted by the subtext of the legislation itself. Of course similar rises were seen in Scotland and Ireland, who implemented their bans sometime before the rest of us.

So, instead of saving the NHS money the Government has spent £2.6 billion (£1bn over budget) on the ban, and lost countless millions in duty, as disenfranchised smokers show their contempt by choosing to buy tobacco abroad or from ‘tobacco dealers’. The trough continues to feed the Pharmaceutical companies with the free promotion of their products, subsidies, and NHS staff employed to ‘encourage’ their use. Unfortunately for the tax-payer, it was recently announced that Nicotine patches, gum, inhalers etc have a 98.4% failure rate. - More wasted money.
Think how the NHS could really have benefited from such loose purse strings.

So, what are we left with?
A choice. But unfortunately not for everyone. No, the choice lies within the walls of the Palace of Westminster, and it is this:
Continue to play the tune of the unelected ‘health’ lobby groups who have no regard for personal choice, jobs (apart from their own), or social cohesion. Continue to mistrust adults to co-operate to agree their own arrangements. If the ban continues in its current form there will be no traditional pubs left. There will be no Workingmen’s or private members clubs. There will be no Bingo halls. There will be no rights for property owners who might like to allow a legal product to be consumed on their own premises. There will be no rights for patients in secure hospitals, the repercussions on staff this entails hardly make for a healthy workplace.

Or

Allow hospitality venues, and rooms within these venues and other workplaces to be set aside for smoking. Utilise relatively inexpensive modern Air Management technology to negate concerns about/aversions to tobacco smoke. Hospitals use such technology to protect patients and staff from airborne viruses in isolation units. Simpler variants on this technology exist to remove tobacco smoke, and prevent it from reaching non-smoking areas, where a measurable high standard of air quality can be guaranteed.

The much publicised chemicals in Tobacco smoke are still present in indoor air from soft furnishings, cleaning products, perfume, and cooking smoke from kitchens. These often go unchecked as ventilation systems are not now as prevalent since the ban, and modern building regulations mean rooms are becoming sealed.

It’s interesting that welding shops can be 100% enclosed and not breach the HSE Workplace Exposure Limits for the smoke that welders inhale. Yet we ignore the same guidelines we already had in place for the constituents of tobacco smoke.

There is a simple solution to what was a relatively small problem. That same solution can prevent what is now becoming a catastrophe.

AMEND THE BAN!

At least the Queen doesn't lecture us

It's interesting to note that the never-ending supply of public money is being liberally tapped by those who seem to believe they know better than the public how to spend it.

Health officials to spend £30 million on Twitter and Facebook marketing campaign

Health officials could spend up to £30 million on advertising campaigns that will include networking on Twitter and Facebook, prompting criticism that the money could be better used in frontline services.

The budget, which will be spent over three years, has been set aside by the NHS in the North West.

It will help 50 organisations raise public awareness on such issues as healthy eating, the dangers of alcohol, and sexual health.

Up to eight public relations companies are being hired to devise suitable campaigns.

We have MRSA and C.Diff in our hospitals, there is a huge shortage in nursing staff according to the Nursing Times, yet this is considered a good way of spunking our money up the wall utlising public funds.

Not that there will be much value gained from such knob-jockey initiatives, of course, just a bit more righteous back-slapping in the offices of NHS admin clock-watchers the length and breadth of the country. Oh, and can we have a big pay rise and a taxpayer-funded party at Christmas too?

Strangely enough, this story came but a day after an insightful lad pointed out to the business world that Twitter was a bit of an irrelevance to youngsters, the health lobby's usual preferred reasoning for dicking our taxes on hare-brained schemes.

Twitter is for old people, work experience whiz-kid tells bankers

Today he is the talk of Tokyo, Wall Street and the City. Fund managers, CEOs and analysts are poring over his report, How Teenagers Consume Media, which he wrote last week while on work experience at Morgan Stanley.

In it he laid out the world according to the teenager: a confusing place where the PC is a radio, the games console is a telephone, the mobile telephone is a stereo and text-message machine, the DVDs are pirate copies and no one uses Twitter.

As for Facebook, the NHS office dickwads seem to have blithely ignored health concerns about the medium, in their drive to convince us that their daily dalliances on networking sites, at our expense, are somehow health-related.

Facebook is to blame for 'friendship addiction' and is fuelling insecurity in users

and ...

'Social Networking Sites Pose Health Risk'

Still, it's only a small amount of wasted funds, as highlighted by the unnamed NHS apologist.

It works out at around £150,000 per year, per organisation, which is around £1.07 per year per head of population.

Why, that's OK then. Just over a quid each for an initiative which will do fuck all for anyone but those who gain out of working out ways to divert attention to their being paid to flick rubber bands at each other at our expense.

By the same token, that makes the Royal Family quite cheap at only 69p per taxpayer, considering the Queen and the palaces we pay for have a distinct benefit in attracting tourism.

The Queen and the Royal Family cost the taxpayer 69p per person last year - an increase of 3p, Buckingham Palace accounts showed today.

The total cost of keeping the monarchy increased by £1.5 million to £41.5 million during the 2008-09 financial year.

Doing the maths, it works out that a bunch of thumb-twiddling overheads cost us each 9p less, with no corresponding income stream to compensate for their draining the health service of badly-needed frontline funds.

And the Queen keeps her nose out of our personal choices too, God bless her Union Flag embroidered socks.

The health service forgetting its remit to cure us first and foremost, and to keep the hell out of wasteful and judgemental idiocy? I should coco.

Henry Allingham-the worlds oldest man-dies aged 113

Henry Allingham, the world war 1 veteran, died today at the age of 113 and already the tributes are pouring in:

Dennis Goodwin, founder of the First World War Veterans' Association, led the tributes to Mr Allingham, the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland and his old friend.

"Henry was truly a gentleman - his strength of character, his purpose. He left quite a legacy to the nation of memories of what it was like to have been in WWI," he said.

Veterans minister Kevan Jones said he was "greatly saddened" to hear of Mr Allingham's death.

"For one of his age, his vigour for life was extraordinary," he said.

"I was humbled to meet somebody who had led such an amazing life and we owe such a huge debt of gratitude to him and his generation."

Graham Mottram at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton said Mr Allingham was the "highest example" of a military man, who will be remembered for his "total even-handedness" in treating his colleagues in the forces, irrespective of age and rank.

Robert Leader, chief executive of St Dunstan's care home in Ovingdean, near Brighton, said: "He was very active right up to his final days, having recently celebrated his 113th birthday on HMS President, surrounded by family.

"As well as possessing a great spirit of fun, he represented the last of a generation who gave a very great deal for us.

"Henry made many friends among the residents and staff at St Dunstan's. He was a great character and will be missed."

Henry once attributed his longevity to Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women and I’m sure most of us cannot match up to all three of his pronouncements.

Henry was a true hero in every sense of the word.

We at Freedom To Choose believe our freedoms are being stolen from us by governments today,  freedoms you and your contemporaries fought for. We salute the late Henry Allingham.

You just gotta laugh

H/T to leg-iron

The world's debt for a packet of fags?

A man in the United States popped out to his local petrol station to buy a pack of cigarettes - only to find his card charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.

That is $23 quadrillion (£14 quadrillion) - many times the US national debt.

"I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card," said Josh Muszynski, from New Hampshire.

Shame you hadn't made such a purchase, Josh. If so, you could have sacked the lot of the shysters in Brussels and replaced them with representatives who possess some semblance of common sense.

"It is a lot of money in the negative," he said. "Something I could never, ever, afford to pay back.

"My children could not afford it, grandchildren, nothing like that."

Welcome to our world, Josh. Labour have been throwing money like water at denormalising smokers, whilst simultaneously saddling the unborn with debt which they will never repay in their upcoming lifetimes.

It's a weird and not-so-wonderful world when the righteous hold the reins.

UNEMPLOYED? BECOME A SMOKEFREE MOUTHPIECE

There are now 2.38 milllion people unemployed in the UK, and I am one of the statistics, personally I am pissed off looking for that elusive vacancy with some decent pay.


We all know that job seeking is no fun, so when you see a glut of vacancies for dental hygienists with salaries ranging from £48,720 -- £50,400 you become curious to what they exactly do.

Well what does a dental hygienists lot consist of?.-- It appears that one of the main priorities of a hygieinist apart from raking in the cash is to be a smoking cessation officer. Out of the 80 jobs advertised at Trovit Jobs all vacancies quote smoking cessation in the job description.

Dental hygienists have become another government frontline anti smoking mouthpiece and you are paying through the nose for their unwelcome advice. Further investigation at the British Dental Journal outlines their mission.

• Dental patients that smoke need access to local services to stop them smoking.

• A dentist that recognises the patient as a smoker has a duty to inform the patient of the options open to them.

• And:- Dentist can help stop their patients from smoking by recognising the oral signs of tobacco use, informing patients of these and asking patients whether they wish to stop.

In other words the dentist or the dental hygienist have become the new anti smoking snoops, offering unwanted pressured methods to try to get you to stop smoking at all costs, all paid for by you.

A card arrived today advising an unemployed me that my dental check up is due. I will dutifully attend but look at the £50,000 a year Hygienist through gritted teeth, I am not entitled to free treatment.

There are now 2.38 million unemployed, there are probably more than 2.38 million vacancies in the anti smoking / smoking cessation sector. There seems to be enough vacancies in the anti smoking industry to cure unemployment.

Anyone willing to take the Kings Shilling or in this case £50,000 to become a smokefree mouthpiece?.