tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22476172533976933942024-03-13T04:25:17.917-07:00The Devil In the DetailsNow what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.~Mark TwainAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.comBlogger337125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-87302355722878066532014-08-05T21:22:00.002-07:002014-08-05T21:22:29.326-07:00Oscar Wilde and Motivating Vapers and Cigar Smokers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not sure how to make you care,how to make you understand what this is.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What will resonate with people?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Should I talk about this being our last stand?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Should I tell you that disinterest and ennui will destroy everything we hold dear?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Should I tell you a lack of activity will doom us to being a black market activity?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Something made illegal by the partnership between large corporate interests and our regulatory agencies?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Should I mention that we stand together or we fall as one?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not a good motivator.I never have been I am a just the facts kind of person.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If I were a television character I'd be Joe Friday.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The facts are you have one chance to step up and do something and so many are letting it slip through their fingers and I don't know why.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">By the time this goes live on my blog we will have 3 days. Three days.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It sounds like an eternity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It is anything but an eternity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Why does this make more people to respond than anything I can manage with words?</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fpbOEoRrHyU?rel=0" width="560"></iframe> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why when it means the things you love could be taken away in a matter of 24 months if not sooner does it mean that no one cares?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">How is it a comedian can make people care more than the people trying to lead the way?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And it's not just vapers this time...........</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.jrcigars.com/blog/post.cfm/last-call#respond"><span style="font-size: large;">Last Call</span></a><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23.100000381469727px;">Stop posting pictures of what cigar you smoked or are smoking. Because if you don’t get busy your cigar days will soon be gone. We are in the last hours to submit comments to the FDA on its deeming proposal that would bring cigars under its control. To date, the FDA website shows only 66,000+ comments on the proposed rule. Now considering not only cigars would come under the FDA, but so too would e-cigs, which don’t even contain tobacco nor emit smoke, and there are by estimates millions of e-cig users, that comment number is pathetic. To give you an idea, when the Federal Communications Commission called for comments on the so-called net neutrality issue, there were </span><a href="http://associationsnow.com/2014/07/cigar-enthusiasts-lit-fda/" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">more than a million comments.</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23.100000381469727px;"> Of those 66,000 you can bet many are from the anti side, although the Sunlight Foundation says as of July 18 </span><a href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/07/18/influence-analytics-fda-keep-your-hands-off-our-cheap-cigars/" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">slightly more than half come from our side</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23.100000381469727px;">. But then again another 11,000 comments have come in since that report. We still have to do better.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When even the cigar rights people think vapers have done a shit job I'm going to say we have done a terrible job in rallying the troops.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">How the hell do we fix that?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some people tried showing people how to comment</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But it doesn't have the punch of that Net Neutrality video now does it?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And that makes me wonder if deep down we're all o.k. with being told what to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We as a society must be if we have to get a comedian to tell us to be politically active.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Or it speaks to the great truth of society </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"If you want to tell people the truth make them laugh,otherwise they'll kill you." Oscar Wilde</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps Wilde got that wrong though it seems more like if you want to motivate people you have to make them laugh or they'll ignore you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Any comedians want to try and motivate vapers or cigar smokers?</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-66891798337745596302014-07-23T21:09:00.000-07:002014-07-23T21:10:13.678-07:00State attorneys general's and e cigs aka Y'all gonna make me loose my mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am no blogger.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More's the pity,because honestly this could use a rewrite by someone with good grammar skills and an understanding of how all of this connects to each other.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The state AG'S are a force to be reckoned with.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They run a sort of regulatory agency all of their own with no constitutional restrictions or oversight.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think to best explain it you would need to look at an article written by Daniel Fisher in 2008.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The name of the article is </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0901/098.html">The House Tobacco Built</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I'll place a small portion of the text here but it is worth a read to try and grasp exactly what I think is coming.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Beside funding antismoking campaigns, the loot from the tobacco companies has helped turn this once sleepy professional association into a kind of super regulatory body, hunting for antitrust and consumer-fraud violations. It doesn’t sue anybody, instead working behind the scenes to coordinate the efforts of state attorneys general and provide legal advice.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>“This is a de facto regulatory agency, they just don’t call it that,” says Michael S. Greve of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It corresponds to nothing we know about the constitutional landscape.”</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So from that piece we see some odd things,the MSA money and what is done with it,where it goes and what they do with the things they have uncovered.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But it gets weirder and it once again ties into the State AG's and yet another Fischer piece,this one more recent but still worth careful reading.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/09/24/holy-end-run-attorneys-general-urge-action-as-e-cigarettes-gain-market-share/"><span style="font-size: large;">Holy End Run! Attorneys General Urge Action As E-Cigarettes Gain Market Share</span></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">There could be trouble ahead, however. Payments under the MSA fell from $7.6 billion in 2009 to $6.2 billion last year, and Fitch Ratings <a href="http://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/fitchwire/fitchwirearticle/E-cigarette-Success-Could?pr_id=801172">warned earlier this month</a> that e-cigs could threaten bonds backed by MSA payments.</span></b><br />
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<b>All of which explains the concern over at NAAG, which some jokingly dub the National Association of Aspiring Governors. In their letter to the FDA, and by extension, Congress, the AGs warn that youth surveys show e-cig use doubled last year.</b></span><br />
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<b>Consumers are led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to cigarettes, despite the fact that they are addictive, and there is no regulatory oversight ensuring the safety of the ingredients in e-cigarettes.</b></span><br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>All good reasons to fold the newfangled products under the oversight of the feds, which the FDA is expected to do by the end of next month. But there’s not much the AGs can do to plug the loophole that is draining revenue from their 1998 settlement agreement. Having bet on the continued success of conventional cancer sticks, they were caught sleeping when the market went digital.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">(I have to stress the above portion of text are not my words.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We know the tobacco bond market is in the toilet and circling the drain ever so quickly.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some blame e cigarettes,they might be correct in that assumption,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again from Forbes</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/tobacco-bonds-feel-heat-from-e-cigarettes-1403648086"><span style="font-size: large;">Tobacco Bonds Feel Heat From E-Cigarettes</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>Meanwhile, lawmakers in states including New Jersey and Minnesota are taking measures to tax electronic cigarettes like traditional tobacco products, which could reduce growth.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>"Something that might slow this down is if more legislation gets implemented to tax or ban e-cigarettes, which would be beneficial to the sale of combustible cigarettes," said BlackRock's Mr. Milway.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So here we can sense a sort of threat both in the language used and in the implications about regulation and what the bond market would like to see,a growth in traditional tobacco and a steady death of e cigarettes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And from a recent New York Times piece</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/us/officials-focus-on-e-cigarette-ads-aimed-at-youths.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0"><span style="font-size: large;"> Officials Focus on E-Cigarette Ads Aimed at Youths</span></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">State attorneys general must investigate, and consider taking legal action against, e-cigarette companies that appear to be using some of the same advertising tactics that once drew young adults into smoking, a Kentucky deputy attorney general told his law enforcement colleagues gathered here for a retreat to discuss emerging legal issues in states nationwide.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>The gathering of nearly two dozen attorneys general, and senior members of their staffs, came on the 20th anniversary of the initiation of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/24/us/mississippi-seeks-damages-from-tobacco-companies.html">historic lawsuit</a> that states filed against tobacco companies — resulting ultimately in an approximately <a href="http://publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/tobacco-control/tobacco-control-litigation/master-settlement-agreement">$10 billion annual payment</a>, which is still being made, and an agreement to restrict advertising everywhere from outdoor billboards to sports events, to try to curtail the appeal of tobacco to youths</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>Sean Riley, the chief deputy attorney general of Kentucky, told his law enforcement colleagues that Kentucky had left behind its status as the state with the highest percentage of youth smokers. But he said he was concerned that e-cigarette advertising could reverse that progress.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I find it fishy and suspicions are raised when every single one of these mentions one group or another willing to step on and stomp to death a new industry for it's own gain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am starting to assume from a careful look that the next few years are going to be an uphill battle for vapers as they start to be attacked on all sides,from the WHO,from their own governments both state and local and of course from the propaganda pieces like this that we're starting to see appearing in newspapers everywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And if you never thought it or ever dared to believe it before by now you can begin to see why it rings so true what Dick Puddlecote has always said.</span><br />
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<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2014/04/welsh-minister-confirms-its-never-been.html"><span style="font-size: large;">It's Never Been About Health</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">(And because it's tradition a song that feels fitting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">They are headed our way and we know it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ya sorry about the profanity, But it was more included because of the chorus.)</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-13573670857990542732014-05-20T19:45:00.002-07:002014-05-20T19:45:46.990-07:00Follow the Money and give yourself a migraine and a revelation AKA The failure of the sin tax<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Read the entire thing.<br />
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It's enlightening. If you follow the money (it will give you migraines lol) you can see why the governments around the U.S. are enacting such insane legislation.<br />
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The taxation rates,the demonizing,the shunning all of those contribute to people going another way.<br />
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Some grow and harvest their own,some vape and some very smart people roll their own.<br />
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This is the monster striking out at people for starving the beast.<br />
It looks like it's only going to get worse for these governments.<br />
Tax too much,shun too much,enact too much legislation against people and they will rebel,some through black market tobacco,some through vaping and some through quitting smoking just to spite you.<br />
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A smart person will not pay anyone to abuse them,why the governments expect to be exempt from that simple fact is beyond me.<br />
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I don't enjoy watching cities and countries falter and not be able to pay their bills but in truth by following the anti-tobacco blueprint they have helped to sign their own death warrant.<br />
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The money won't last forever and if you keep robbing the same group of people over and over again they will wise up and walk away.<br />
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Put people out of the society they used to share and they will abandon it and learn to live a different way.<br />
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Persecute smokers and drinkers at your own peril.<br />
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They might not run America but their sin tax dollars make America run.<br />
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Don't pay these bastards to persecute you,starve the beast.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-20/gross-s-tobacco-bond-gain-shows-default-risk-defied-muni-credit.html">Starve the beast</a><br />
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"Moody’s predicts that the accelerating rate of decline in cigarette shipments will cause Gross’s Buckeye debt to default. From 65 percent to 80 percent of tobacco securities may fail to pay principal on time as demand for cigarettes falls short of assumptions, the company says.</div>
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The ratings firm ranks the bonds due in June 2047 at B3, six levels below investment grade. The Total Return Fund is also the biggest owner of tobacco debt from West Virginia maturing in 33 years, with a $155 million stake, Bloomberg data show. The securities have a B2 rating from Moody’s, which includes them among bonds that will probably default.</div>
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The default likelihood stems from rosy projections for cigarette shipments, which have declined each year since 2007. Tax increases at the federal, state and local level and e-cigarettes have contributed to depress demand."</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-1237487468711841022014-04-17T20:11:00.000-07:002014-04-18T19:11:20.728-07:00Entropy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FpNpdpPdAH8" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://m.thelocal.fr/20140414/french-scientists-we-lost-some-sars-virus"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">French scientists: We've lost SARS virus vials</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-slow-death-the-old-global-order-10247"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The Slow Death of the Old Global Order</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.internationalman.com/articles/the-future-of-countries"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The Future of Countries</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9187741/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-2/"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The slow death of free speech</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/04/17/drone-murder-of-new-zealander-justified-by-prime-minister/"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Drone murder of New Zealander “justified” by Prime Minister</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.thealternativedaily.com/california-senator-proposes-warning-labels-sugary-drinks/"><span style="color: #0b5394;">California Senator Proposes Warning Labels for Sugary Drinks</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2547278"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Fight federal abuse of property rights by making the government obey its own rules</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/87715/provocative-portraits-challenge-stereotypes-of-gun-owners-in-the-u-s"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Provocative Portraits Challenge Stereotypes of Gun Owners in the U.S.</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/how-big-deal-hr-347-criminalizing-protest-bill"><span style="color: #0b5394;">How Big a Deal is H.R. 347, That “Criminalizing Protest” Bill?</span></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38256.htm"><span style="color: #0b5394;">LA Sheriff's Dept. On New Surveillance Program: We Knew The Public Wouldn't Like It, So We Kept It A Secret</span></a></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-54600813614770618652014-04-14T20:10:00.000-07:002014-04-15T23:26:54.252-07:00Tid Bits April 2014 Edition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.sovereignman.com/tax/if-its-such-a-privilege-why-do-they-have-to-stick-a-gun-in-your-face-14179/">If it’s such a privilege, why do they have to stick a gun in your face?</a><br />
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<a href="http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/14/mistaking-hibiscus-for-marijuana-dea-rai">Mistaking Hibiscus for Marijuana, DEA Raids Gardener's Home</a><br />
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<a href="http://boingboing.net/2014/04/11/leedir.html">LA Sheriffs launch crowdsourced crowd control: LEEDIR, a surveillance app that uses your photos and videos</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/12/feeding-ban-alabama_n_5135722.html?utm_hp_ref=crime&ir=Crime">Pastor Banned From Feeding Homeless Because He Doesn't Have A Food Truck Permit</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10763080/UN-green-police-say-ditch-oil-and-change-your-diet.html">UN green police say ditch oil and change your diet</a><br />
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<a href="http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/14/progressive-puritans">Progressive Puritans</a><br />
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<a href="http://overlawyered.com/2014/04/federal-government-seizes-tax-refunds-citing-decades-old-claims/">Citing decades-old claims, feds seize tax refunds</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/curious-cop-downloaded-hundreds-private-prescription">Curious Cop Downloaded Hundreds of Private Prescription Records Because He Could</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQb0qJLhea8#t=666">The magic marker of public ownership</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14">US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-90876149361830303052013-12-08T14:19:00.003-08:002014-04-21T20:14:40.516-07:00Signs Of A Broken Society Part Three<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/zero-tolerance-policies-schools-are-often-destructive-fueling-school-prison-pipeline"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Zero-Tolerance Policies in Schools are Often Destructive, Fueling a School to Prison Pipeline</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2011, a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/student-arrested-for-burping-during-class/" style="text-decoration: none;">13-year-old student</a> in Albuquerque, New Mexico burped audibly in class (perhaps the school lunch didn’t agree with him). His instructor summoned the school resource officer, one of a new generation of<a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/are-police-schools-making-students-safer-or-putting-them-greater-risk-abuse" style="text-decoration: none;">police officers and specially trained go-betweens stationed in school environments</a>, and the student found himself booked into a juvenile detention facility. He had fallen victim to his school’s zero-tolerance policy, a framework used across the nation to crack down fast and hard on unwanted behaviors, but one that has resulted in what critics are calling a <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-43-spring-2013/school-to-prison" style="text-decoration: none;">school-to-prison pipeline</a>, as students are fast-tracked to juvenile courts for offenses like writing their names on desks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s a pipeline that consumes some students more than others; students of color and disabled students are being suspended, expelled, and sent into the justice system at <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/155526/police_handcuffing_7-year-olds_the_brutality_unleashed_on_kids_with_disabilities_in_our_school_systems" style="text-decoration: none;">much higher rates</a> than their white, nondisabled counterparts. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.mcall.com/news/local/carpenter/mc-pc-dna-registry-20131207,0,773886.column"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">DNA registry legislation raises concerns about Big Brother</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Orwell foresaw a dystopian society controlled by a "Big Brother" power structure that closely keeps track of individuals so the ruling party's authorities can pounce on those who stray from what is considered proper behavior, using data in a registry to crush anyone who opposes the police state.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Supporters of HB 150 point out that people who are arrested, but not convicted, must be fingerprinted, and DNA samples are the same thing, on principle. That, unfortunately, is not very comforting to those of us familiar with what happened in western New York some years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Troopers there were accused of planting fingerprint evidence as a way to win criminal convictions in dozens of cases. Several, including a lieutenant who ran a criminal identification unit, were charged with crimes and some went to prison.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Planting fingerprint evidence is difficult, but a few years ago, scientists in Israel conducted a study demonstrating that planting DNA evidence would be easy. "You can just engineer a crime scene," said one scientist. All you need is a DNA sample.</span></div>
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<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/191979-libraries-back-legislation-to-curb-ravenous-snooping-by-the-nsa"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Libraries fear 'ravenous' NSA</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Government snooping of libraries has a long history. Under the Patriot Act, for example, the FBI has the power to compel libraries to hand over user data.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the activities of the NSA seem to go far beyond traditional police work, reflecting an “almost ravenous hunger” for collecting information, according to Lynne Bradley, director of the ALA’s Office of Government Relations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show the NSA has been collecting vast troves of “metadata” on Internet activity and phone calls that shows when communications were made, who was involved and how long it lasted.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That’s especially troubling to the ALA, as “libraries are all about metadata,” Inouye said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The records that libraries keep — when a user logs on to a library computer, what websites they visit, when books are borrowed and returned — seem to fit the mold of what the NSA is seeking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“We’re talking about the information patterns of people. If that’s not personal, I don’t know what is,” Inouye said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While no libraries are known to have received NSA requests, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been tapped for data.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just like Internet companies, libraries are prohibited from revealing NSA requests. The ALA is concerned that local libraries are being forced to keep quiet about government snooping.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Bradley said.</span></div>
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<a href="http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/icelanders-overthrow-government-and-rewrite-constitution-after-banking-fraud-no-word-from-us-media/"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Icelanders Overthrow Government and Rewrite Constitution After Banking Fraud-No Word From US Media</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Iceland, the citizens took to the streets by the thousands, banging pots and pans in what is known as the “pots and pans revolution,” leading to the arrest and prosecution of many unscrupulous bankers responsible for the economic collapse. Icelandic citizens also refused to pay for the sins of the bankers and rejected any measures of taxation to bail them out. In the U.S., the government bailed out the banks and arrested no one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The pots and pans revolution in Iceland was not covered by mainstream U.S. media. In fact, any information about this revolution is found only on international newspapers, blogs and online documentaries, not on mainstream front-page articles as would be expected from news organizations covering a story of this magnitude. The New York Times published a small handful of piecemeal stories, blogs and opinion pieces, but mostly glossed over the main narrative by saying the 2008 financial collapse in Iceland caused “mayhem far beyond the country’s borders” rather than pointing out that Icelanders took to the streets with pots and pans and <i>forced their entire government to resign</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/smokers-bill-rights-repealed-session-59320/"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">'Smoker’s Bill Of Rights’ Could Be Repealed Next Session</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">Habitual cigarette smokers could face backlash from potential employers if the Indiana Chamber achieves one of its goals for the upcoming session.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Chamber is seeking repeal of Indiana’s 1991 “smoker’s bill of rights” which says employers can’t refuse to hire smokers and can’t charge them higher premiums for health insurance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Indiana Chamber President Kevin Brinegar says the law went too far in its protection of smokers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Right now smoking is just as much of a protected class for hiring purposes in Indiana as race, religion, and all of the things that fell under the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Brinegar said.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/holding-a-cellphone-in-hand-while-driving-is-illegal-2013-10-01"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Holding a Cellphone in Hand While Driving is Now Illegal</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your phone could be on Airplane mode. And you could hold it for only two seconds. And you would be breaking the law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Court of Appeal for Ontario over the weekend ruled that it is illegal to hold a cellphone while driving regardless of whether it is transmitting or how long it is in a driver's hand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The decision came following two rulings where drivers attemped to avoid punishment through current loopholes of laws. Quoth <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/dont-hold-the-phone-ontarios-top-court-says-its-illegal-to-have-cell-in-hand-while-driving/article14584208/#dashboard/follows/" style="color: #ff9447; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Globe and Mail</a>:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In one case, Khojasteh Kazemi argued that she had just picked up her cellphone, which had fallen off the seat to the floor of her car when she stopped at a red light, when a police officer spotted her holding it. A lower court judge dismissed Kazemi’s charge, ruling that there must be some “sustained physical holding” in order to convict, but the Appeal Court overturned that finding.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.freerangekids.com/the-ultimate-child-protection-state-forcibly-sedates-mom-performs-caesarean-takes-baby/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Ultimate “Child Protection” — State Forcibly Sedates Mom, Performs Cesarean, Takes Baby</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She called the police, who arrived at her room when she was on the phone to her mother. The police asked to speak to the grandmother, who explained that her daughter was probably over-excited because she suffered from a “bipolar” condition and hadn’t been taking her medication to calm her down.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The police told the mother that they were taking her to hospital to “make sure that the baby was OK”. On arrival, she was startled to see that it was a psychiatric hospital, and said she wanted to go back to her hotel. She was restrained by orderlies, sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told that she must stay in the hospital.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By now Essex social services were involved, and five weeks later she was told she could not have breakfast that day. When no explanation was forthcoming, she volubly protested. She was strapped down and forcibly sedated, and when she woke up hours later, found she was in a different hospital and that her baby had been removed by caesarean section while she was unconscious and taken into care by social workers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/bloomberg-nanny-state-refuting-opposition-public-health-112222188.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory">Bloomberg’s “Nanny State”: Refuting opposition to the “new” public health</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 24px;">The bottom line is that elected officials should be held accountable for the health of their inhabitants. Those who disrupt the </span><i style="color: black; line-height: 24px;">status quo</i><span style="color: black; line-height: 24px;">, such as Bloomberg, have thus far shouldered the burden of accountability, facing fierce criticism and industry backed judicial challenges. But the vast majority of public officials have stood by and done nothing amidst skyrocketing obesity rates. It is time for the political class to be held accountable not for trying to make the population healthier and safer, but for </span><i style="color: black; line-height: 24px;">failing</i><span style="color: black; line-height: 24px;"> to act in the face of manifest suffering.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/university-of-london-student-protest-ban-senate-house-occupy">London's biggest university bans student protests</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.75;">The University of London - a body representing London universities including University College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Birkbeck and the London School of Economics - has banned protests on its campus for the next six months.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Students who hold sit-in protests in an area in Holborn, central London, including the Senate House, the student union building, and the buildings of SOAS and Birkbeck, can be imprisoned.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The president of the University of London student union, Michael Chessum, told <strong style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Channel 4 News </strong>it was a "draconian" reaction and "a sign that the university had lost the argument".</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The <a href="http://www.london.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/news_events/Senate_House_-_Sealed_Injuction__attaching_plan_.pdf" style="border: 0px; color: #005987; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">court order</a> obtained on the 4 December by the University of London bans "occupational protest" in the area for the next six months. Anyone breaching the order can be charged with contempt of court.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/plain-brown-package_769625.html?page=1" style="background-color: #cccccc;">In a Plain Brown Package</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The attractive and understated Montecristo cigar band—in a rich walnut brown—has also disappeared. It’s been covered with a paper collar of requisite plainness. This is nearly an inch wide, deprives me of a third of my smoke, and any attempt to remove it tears the wrapper leaf and destroys the cigar.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Each of these strips of paper has been fastened by hand with scotch tape. Mindless, useless, idiotic work is typical of many government jobs, but this seems to exceed even the typical work done in the Australian parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And the Australian parliament is, no doubt, working very hard indeed. There’s no end to the work to be done once moral philosophy has become so perverted that something like “plain packaging” is considered a public benefit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Beer is certainly next, with pictures of drunken fistfights, snoring bums, and huge, gin-blossomed noses on every can. Airplane crashes kill a lot of people. No plane should be allowed to land in Australia unless it’s painted drab dark brown and bears an image of fiery carnage along its fuselage. Cars kill even more. Perhaps a banner showing lethal wrecks could be pasted across the inside of every car’s windshield. And there’s food. Make all food drab dark brown (something of a historical tradition in Australian cooking anyway) and deck the labels with naked fat men.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-81337458850208232322013-12-04T20:05:00.002-08:002014-04-21T20:15:26.269-07:00True Faith/Anthem The Tobacco Control Cult<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://antithrlies.com/2013/12/03/on-public-health-activists-and-true-belief/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On “public health” activists and true belief</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Contrast that with “public health” causes, where none of the activists are willing to give up their comfort or take any risks. The closest they come to doing anything other than chattering and trying to use personally-risk-free force (government) to impose their will on people is occasionally vandalizing a piece of outdoor advertising. If they were to chain themselves to their handiwork and call the press and police to come see them, I might have some respect for such actions. But as practiced it is just adolescent vandalism, hiding in the shadows so they can brag about it to their friends and pretend they are similar to truly dedicated activists for important causes.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101247181">NYC eyes electronic cigarette ban in public spaces</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">" He added that the city's measures to ban smoking from outdoor public areas under Mayor Michael Bloomberg were more about public acceptance of smoking than science.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Those second set of measures were more about sociology and denormalizing than they were hard medical science," Gennaro said on <a class="inline_asset" data-nodeid="15838381" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838381" style="color: #2d648a; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self">"Squawk on the Street."</a> "We thought it was important to make sure smoking was completely denormalized."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/government-plans-to-curb-smoking-are-not-only-wasteful-but-unworkable-8976031.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Government plans to curb smoking are not only wasteful but unworkable</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But there’s a second strand to this anti-smoking legislation which makes me take a step back and question whether the politicians are really concerned about our health (something, incidentally, I think adults should be able to decide for themselves) or for their political positions.It is when the plans for anti-smoking campaigns sink to the levels of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive that I am once again reminded about how easy it is for politicians and political establishments to become cozy with big businesses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This can be seen clearly with this latest piece of proposed legislation which will limit people’s access to e-cigarettes. Of course the EU won’t come straight out and say that it wants to “ban” e-cigarettes – merely turn them into pharmaceutical products. This means they will only be available in chemists, instead of over the counter where people go to if they will buy real cigarettes. We already know from government reports about impulse buying at counters. That’s why supermarkets are supposed to remove all chocolate and sweets from around the queuing area and replace them with carrots or Brussels sprouts and all manner of items children are never going to reach for, unless it’s to bash a sibling over the head with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/index.php/2013-04-07-09-50-07/142-scandalous-propaganda-from-a-pharmaceutical-company" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Misinforming European Union in order to manipulate decisions on electronic cigarettes </a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px;">I am absolutely certain that MEPs are clever enough to realize the games played behind the back of vapers and smokers. We are dedicated in our efforts to reveal the truth concerning this sensitive public health issue, without hiding any facts, whether positive or negative for e-cigarettes. This is how we have proceeded so far, and this is how we will continue.</span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In case the news media ask for the name of the pharma company and the PR firm, i have no problem giving them all details.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">.</span><a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/383116-e-cigarettes-challenge-to-indoor-smoking-ban/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">E-cigarettes Challenge to Indoor Smoking Ban</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said the cultural shift away from smoking as socially acceptable has been a key effect of the smoke-free ban. He said the indoor smoking ban has been the single most effective policy at cutting smoking in the city. Now indoor e-cigarette use is complicating enforcement of that ban, Farley said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He said allowing use of e-cigarettes in restaurants and other public places is challenging enforcement of that law because now waiters and business owners have to make sure customers are using an e-cigarette and not lighting up a combustible cigarette.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Further, allowing e-cigarettes to become socially acceptable by allowing their use in restaurants and public places could affect social acceptance of conventional cigarettes, “undermining the enormous progress of tobacco control over the last decades,” Farley said</span></div>
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<a href="http://niklowe.blogspot.com/2013/11/lies-damn-lies-and-fiddled-statistics.html"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lies, damn lies, and fiddled statistics.</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>But the continuation of Hammond’s work, with its demonstrated </em><em>faulty methodology, was used by the Australian authors to deduce that smoking causes premature death to the extent of 17,800 per year in Australia. Their conclusions should be compared with the results of a survey by the Australian Statistician in 1991 of 22,200 households, chosen at random. This showed "long term conditions", including cancer and heart disease, to be <strong>more common</strong> in <strong>non-smokers</strong> than smokers.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/how-to-bash-vapers/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">How to Bash Vapers</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is good that the court dismissed the allegations, but the Zealots will be back using some obscure complexity in the law, as has been the case here. The idea of equating ecigs with actual tobacco is really silly, which is the foundation for the court judgement. But note below the weirdness of TC thinking.</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US recently showed the number of middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012.</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mr Slevin said the Tobacco Products Control Act was due for a review and could help ban e-cigarettes as well as address issues such as the need to reduce the number of licensed tobacco retailers. <em>This incident of a failed attempt to prosecute points to the fact that the current provisions are not adequate,” he said.</em></span></em></div>
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<em><em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=43983&icid=2&d_str=" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Cigarette production output soars despite tobacco control</a></span></em></em></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Annual cigarette production in the world's most populous country has jumped 50 percent across the decade, with about 2.175 trillion cigarettes produced in the 12 months to October, showed "Tobacco Control in China from a Civil Society Perspective 2013" on Tuesday, Xinhua reports.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://vapingpoint.blogspot.com/2013/11/smokers-rights-and-tobacco-control-on.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Smokers' rights and tobacco control on BBC Breakfast - oh yes? - well no actually - smokers got muzzled again - vapers beware</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">All I saw, was some shrieking blonde</span></b> yelling everyone down with all the old anti smoking drivel we hear over and over again. There was hardly a moment for proper discussion about anything sensible. No time for smokers allowed. The shrieking blonde turns out to be <a href="http://tobaccofreefutures.org/who-we-are/staff/andrea-crossfield/" style="color: #ca6060; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Andrea Crossfield</a><a href="http://tobaccofreefutures.org/who-we-are/staff/andrea-crossfield/" style="color: #ca6060; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a><span id="ext-gen150"><a href="http://tobaccofreefutures.org/who-we-are/staff/andrea-crossfield/" style="color: #ca6060; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Director of Tobacco Free Futures</a>. </span>I live in the Northwest and I've never heard of her! The interviewer should have put her in place - but of course he didn't.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-72417386252880105022013-10-11T20:42:00.000-07:002014-04-21T20:16:16.548-07:00Original Fire (Tobacco Today)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-11/new-york-state-parks-outdoor-smoking-ban-blocked.html"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">N.Y. State Parks Outdoor Smoking Ban Is Blocked by Court</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The organization <a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york-city/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New York City</a> Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment sued in April to block the actions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“This is putting the prohibitionists on notice that despite their ugly war being waged on adults who choose to smoke, they are not entitled to a free-for-all in governing when it comes to this segment of society,” Audrey Silk, founder of the group, said today in a statement.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">New York City banned smoking in almost all workplaces and indoor recreational venues in March 2003, and the state Legislature followed with a similar ban four months later.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/436002/MADNESS-Council-zealots-order-florist-s-wooden-caterpillar-to-stop-smoking-shisha-pipe"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MADNESS! Council zealots 'order' florist's wooden caterpillar to stop smoking shisha pipe</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Debbie said she was astonished when questioned about the Alice in Wonderland inspired display. She said: "He told me he'd come in to investigate because there had been a complaint that the shisha pipe was contravening UK smoking in the workplace regulations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I said, 'but it's a wooden caterpillar', and he said 'yes, but it's smoking', and I said 'no, it's not'. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I really thought someone was winding me up, I wasn't taking it seriously. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It's not even a real shisha pipe, it's an ornament, it doesn't work. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"But he didn't have a problem with the shisha pipe, it was the caterpillar smoking on business premises. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I said to him, even if it was a real caterpillar the chances of it lighting the pipe were pretty thin, but the fact that it's a wooden caterpillar renders it impossible." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Debbie said she refused to let the officer investigate further, and told him to leave the shop in Bolton Street, Blackburn. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She said: "I wouldn't let him investigate, I said to him 'if you haven't got better things to do, I certainly have, you need to leave, I don't believe it needs further investigating'. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"He said there was a real problem in Blackburn with shisha. I don't know if that's with caterpillars smoking it. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.norwichbulletin.com/article/20131008/NEWS/131009695"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Killingly Council rejects tobacco ban at town parks </span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Council members Dennis Alemian, Harold Reeves, Richard Levola, Brian Gosper and Jonathan Cesolini voted against the proposal, with Joyce Ricci, John Hallbergh Jr. and John Sarantopoulos supporting the measure. Council member Ed Grandelski was absent. Many of the council members who opposed the proposal called the changes too far-reaching.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.theridgefieldpress.com/22377/students-ignore-smoking-ban/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Students ignore smoking ban</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite the month long ban on smoking at Ridgefield High School, many students continued to puff away, the Oct. 6, 1988 Press reported.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A number of students argued that the policy was unfair and that the school was being hypocritical for allowing its employees to light up. “People are going to smoke, no matter what the rule is,” said sophomore Roger Metz who said he had been a smoker for three years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I’m 18 years old. I have a legal right to buy the things,” said senior Jon Valen. “It’s my choice if I want to smoke ’em or not.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.openpop.org/?p=646" style="line-height: 16px;">Is Smoking a Positive Fiscal Externality?</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An unpublished report produced by the U.K. government, which was leaked to The Guardian in 1980, estimated that a public anti-smoking campaign would cause a substantial fall in tax revenues and a substantial rise in pension outlays (Phillips, 1980; Temple, 2010). A report produced by Arthur D. Little for the Czech government in 2001, which was commissioned by Philip Morris, estimated that smoking has a moderate positive impact on public finances in the Czech Republic (Philip Morris, 2000; Tiihonen <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al.,</em> 2012). Given that the report was commissioned by a tobacco company, its findings should obviously be interpreted with a fair amount of scepticism. Yang <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al.</em> (2011) estimate that smoking confers net costs on the Chinese economy, yet they do not attempt to quantify any of the potential benefits of smoking. Finally, Tiihonen <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al.</em> estimate that, in Finland, the average smoker’s fiscal contribution is around €133,000 greater than the average non-smoker’s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In conclusion, the weight of the evidence suggests that smoking is a positive fiscal externality. Smokers pay less in income taxes than non-smokers, yet pay considerably more in consumption taxes. Their lifetime healthcare costs are probably slightly lower than those of non-smokers. And they take far less from the pension system than non-smokers, relative to what they pay in</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/4218/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Is Tobacco Control Disintegrating?</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the Health Evangelism is to be stopped, then it is obvious that one cannot rely upon the Government. The Gov is powerless. What might work is an amalgamation of the interests of Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol and Big Food. In fact, of course, that amalgamation might already be in place. If it is not, then it ought to be. In fact, I remember seeing a Zealot claiming that Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol were already colluding. Needless to say, the Zealot did not explain why the entities Big T and Big A should NOT collaborate. In fact, they ought to have been collaborating for the last four decades. If Big A had any sense, it would be producing ‘studies’ showing the lack of harm for SHS and Fast Food. Big Alcohol is acting like an infant, shaking and shuddering and waiting for Big Nanny to give it a good hiding. If Big Alcohol had any sense, it would commission ‘meta studies’ with the objective of showing that SHS is harmless. In other words, it would be defending itself by proxy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is all-right to say that Big A and Big F did not see what was on the horizon. But there is no excuse now. Both, surely, must be aware. Both must surely have seen the drip, drip tactics of the Zealots.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is beyond my comprehension that a combination of Big T, Big A and Big F have not produced their own free newspaper, and produced their own blog-site. Both should, a) demolish the quack surveys and studies, b) replace the idea of QUADRUPLE minuscule danger with negligible REAL danger, and c) find out how much money is changing hands in bribes in the UN and the WHO and the EU. IT MUST BE SO, since there are no ‘commercial imperative’ checks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.wgal.com/news/susquehanna-valley/state/funding-cuts-hit-antismoking-programs/-/9758860/22380160/-/hvwu0jz/-/index.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Funding cuts hit anti-smoking programs</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now the state is paying up around $170 million to these companies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It has to do with the Master Settlement Agreement. In 1998, those big tobacco companies entered into this agreement with states which called for the companies to reimburse the state for medical treatment for smokers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In return, the states couldn’t sue them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pennsylvania would get around $300 million a year from the agreement with funds going to research and anti-smoking programs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the tobacco companies are saying the state didn’t properly collect payments on the state's 2003 sales of tobacco products.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The cut means smoking cessation programs, like the one at Wellspan’s Gettysburg Hospital, will cut more than 50 percent of their anti-smoking efforts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“It was a tremendous shock. We were told all along we would have ongoing funding through June 30, 2014,” said Kevin Alvarnaz, director of community health.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Six states are being hit with a similar ruling. The state’s Attorney General’s Office is fighting it.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-74988263861299038752013-09-09T20:30:00.003-07:002014-04-21T20:16:55.935-07:00Amnesia (How Did We Get Here?) Or Another Look At The Tobacco Control Industry's Playbook E cig Edition Part One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.pymnts.com/news/businesswire-feed/2013/september/04/fitch-e-cigarette-success-could-hurt-tobacco-settlement-abs-20130904005954"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">E-cigarette Success Could Hurt Tobacco Settlement ABS</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The annual MSA payment is determined based on inflation and the amount of traditional tobacco products shipped within the U.S. E-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products are excluded from the shipment amount. We would expect this shift to stress tobacco settlement ABS, not tobacco manufacturers, as the largest three are expanding into the e-cigarette market.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any sizable shift in consumer behavior away from traditional tobacco products in favor of e-cigarettes could lead to a decline in traditional tobacco shipments and thus reduce the MSA payments received by tobacco settlements trusts. In recent years, high shipment declines due to the increases in the federal excise tax and some state taxes have put stress on the cash flows to tobacco settlement bonds, and we would expect a shift in market share to further exacerbate the strain on the payment streams. Since Fitch's approach to rating tobacco settlement bonds is based on the amount of MSA payment decline the bond could withstand, a smaller payment amount could cause downgrades across the sector.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_s_palm_beach_county/boca_raton/e-cigarettes-police-looking-into-potential-drug-abuse-in-palm-beach-county" style="background-color: #cccccc;">E-cigarettes: Police looking into potential drug abuse in Palm Beach County</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They are marketed as a safe alternative to cigarettes. Local law enforcement has a warning about how electronic cigarettes are being used and abused.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some believe E-cigarettes could be part of South Florida's next big drug problem. Go on YouTube and you will be able to find exactly what many in law enforcement are worried about. <br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />"There's no telling how far this will go," said Lantana Police Officer Nelson Berrios, who is among those concerned about potential misuse of electronic cigarettes. <br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Some say E-cigarettes are a safer alternative to typical cigarettes. Berrios says that would only be true if the E-cigarette is used the way it was intended. "Parents might see it as a safe product where we don't know what they're going to be smoking out of it," he said. "This is going to become a growing trend." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/08/22/e-cigarettes-electronic-but-maybe-not-online/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">E-Cigarettes: Electronic, but Maybe Not Online</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; line-height: 17px;">This article has been changed from its original version to reflect that the Food and Drug Administration did not initiate the idea of a proposed ban on online sales of e-cigarettes. It also clarifies that the FDA did not make nonpublic information available in its discussions with e-cigarette makers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.se/2013/08/the-mhra-has-been-collaborating-with-ash.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">The MHRA has been collaborating with ASH</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ASH is a small political lobby group. None of its staff are scientists or have any relevant experience in toxicology. I can see no reason why the MHRA would seek the advice of a private interest group to this extent, nor why it should be arranging its press conferences. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;">At the very least, there are questions for the MHRA to answer about why they were sharing confidential information with an outside lobby group like ASH. Who is pulling the strings at this organisation? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/08/electronic_cigarettes.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Electronic cigarettes: Should people smoke them in public places?</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the e-cigarettes are being closely scrutinized.<a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/06/indoor_smoking_ban_lawmaker_sa.html" style="color: #305cb6; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"> At least one Pennsylvania lawmaker has proposed legislation to expand the state's Clean Indoor Air Act targeting smoking cigarettes and their electronic cousins in more public places.</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In New York City, mayor Michael Bloomberg is seeking to regulate the tobacco-less e-cigarettes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://downtrend.com/james/bloomberg-administration-trying-to-snuff-out-cigarettes/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Bloomberg Administration Trying to Snuff Out Cigarettes</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to a Professor at the Boston University of Public Health, as noted in the story, the move would be a “de facto ban” on electronic cigarettes. He believes it would encourage users to return to traditional cigarettes, resulting in a “public health disaster.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And, if he’s right, they’ll pay a bit more for a pack of smokes. <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gothamist </i>reports the Bloomberg administration is seeking a $10.50 price floor per pack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2013/0810/FDA-and-e-cigarettes-Nicotine-addiction-must-not-be-the-norm" style="background-color: #cccccc;">FDA and e-cigarettes: Nicotine addiction must not be the norm</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 25px;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In taking any action, the FDA must assume people do not want to become addicts to nicotine. Government already takes that approach inherently with increasing restrictions on the sale and use of tobacco products. The result has been a welcome decline in public smoking and smoking in general. People tempted to take up smoking now face difficult choices – in costs, inconvenience, and social stigma.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/anna-soubry-should-be-sacked.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Anna Soubry should be sacked</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Here we have a junior minister single-handedly deciding the fate of a controversial piece of legislation that will affect hundreds of millions of people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;">In her own mind, the fact that the EU vote was finely poised made it imperative for her to cast the deciding vote without bothering with parliamentary scrutiny or democratic mandates. In fact, it makes her behaviour all the more scandalous. She made herself judge, jury and executioner despite not even understanding what she was voting for (see video below).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #020202; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://risk-monger.blogactiv.eu/2013/07/31/ex-smokers-are-vindictive/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">Ex-Smokers are Vindictive</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From past experience, the Risk-Monger knows that this type of activist legislation against benign developments doesn’t just happen. There is some serious, and seriously unethical, lobbying going on with people passionately driven by personal agendas. This cannot simply be the pharma industry worried about the loss of sales from anti-smoking products presently marketed (although bashing big pharma seems to be the flavour of the month). Although blogs and comment files are full of testimonials of grateful ex-smokers who have been able to quit smoking with the help of e-cigarettes, I see a trend of health gurus (those leading the “denormalisation of smoking” drives) teaming up with ex-smokers who lead or volunteer at local anti-smoking organisations to campaign against the threat of nicotine addiction.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://antithrlies.com/2013/09/07/cdc-lies-about-kids-using-e-cigarettes/" style="background-color: #cccccc;">CDC lies about kids using e-cigarettes</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">CDC apparently did not actually measure e-cigarette <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">use</em>. They could have, of course. Presumably they knew that the results would contradict the alarmist prohibitionist message they wanted to deliver, and so avoided the truth intentionally. Actual use is clearly trivial. If you actually wade though their breathless rhetoric to find information, you learn that 2.8% of high school students reporting trying an e-cigarette in the last month. How many are actually using them? If it is even as high as 1/10th of that, we are talking 0.3%. But, hey, if you report something like that people will not be worried. And worrying people is the goal. So stick with “doubled!!!!!”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Identifying the other important lies requires a bit of knowledge rather just the level of math that we can hope every subject of the studies learned many years ago. (Am I being too optimistic about the quality of our schools? Perhaps. But that is off-topic.) It turns out that almost all the e-cigarette triers had also tried cigarettes and indeed that almost 80% of them were “current smokers” (which, given CDC’s misuse of terms may be an overstatement of how much they actually smoke, though we do know that — unlike with e-cigarette trying (“hey, what is that? can I try a puff?”) — a large portion of those who puff a cigarette in a month are genuinely current smokers). So this means that it is quite conceivable that most of those kids who tried an e-cigarette were pursuing THR! That is, they consider themselves to be hooked on smoking and are seeking a low-risk alternative. But we can’t have that, can we?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: red; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17px;">This is just part of what brings us here today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/09/e-cigs-and-kids-audit-trail-of.html" style="background-color: #cccccc;">E-Cigs And Kids - An Audit Trail Of A Manufactured Moral Panic</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">It fits together like a jigsaw, doesn't it? Just as Dr Siegel predicted.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">It doesn't matter that kids using e-cigs is </span><a href="http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1262" style="color: #e1771e; line-height: 19.59375px; outline: 0px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;">not a significant danger to worry about anyway</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;"> (recommended read), nor that the e-cig industry is being more responsible and scrupulous than those who pretend they hold the moral high ground. The job is done; a smear story has been manufactured; and is working exactly as planned - just as the tobacco control industry has been doing successfully for decades.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;"><u>About health, is it? Think again.</u></span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-82925171707131017642013-09-06T20:41:00.000-07:002013-09-06T20:41:43.647-07:00Interventions Cover Bigger Problems (Who's Life Is It Anyway?)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://mybrandlite.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-other-side-of-anti-tobacco-campaign.html">The Other Side Of Anti-Tobacco Campaign: A Good Distraction From Terrible Realities</a></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A friend once said that when he was in medical school, the common practice was if you cannot remember anything about the causes of some diseases, just write “smoking and drinking.” That reveals the degree of mystification around the use of tobacco products, even among those who are supposed to know better. One problem with mystification is that it is often counter-productive. When young people eventually find out that the claims made against tobacco are both unreasonable and unsubstantiated, nothing will be able to hold them back when they venture into its use.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/thymonophobia/">Thymonophobia</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ll let other people shout about the bans, the restrictions, the plain packaging and warnings that are definitely coming to an Electrofag near you very soon. Frankly, I’m sick of warning those who have sided with the Puritans that they can expect a knife in the back at any moment. There are many drinkers’ groups out there who are delighted to see their remaining pubs turned into restaurants and kindergartens as long as there are no smokers (and soon no vapers) around, and they won’t believe that there are plans <a href="http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-rigorous-science-of-public-health.html" style="border: 0px; color: #1982d1; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">to have all the booze stored out of sight, with unmarked hand pumps</a>. Even when presented with the declaration of intent at the start of another rigged study, they’ll just laugh it off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you are an antismoking vaper, read those Mail comments again and be honest with yourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/last_orders_for_the_british_boozer/13984">Last orders for the British boozer</a></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.4em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a consequence, immature behaviour is more likely to be amplified among teens than tempered by the presence of older people. It also means that the let-it-all-hang-out, therapeutic norms that young people have been schooled in are less likely to be challenged, as they would be in a more public environment. Far more worrying is that, cut adrift from older members of the same community, young people are less likely to develop ties to the areas they live in. In the wake of the 2011 riots, there was the familiar call for more ‘youth centres’ for young people to go to. A far better alternative would be to encourage young people to drink alcohol in pubs, a state of affairs that is unlikely to develop when beer tax has made a pint so unaffordable in recent years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.4em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9136771/Non-smoker-stole-tobacco-worth-15-000">Non-smoker stole tobacco worth $15,000</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A non-smoking cleaner who stole almost $15,000 worth of tobacco from a cigarette factory said he planned to give it away to people who couldn't afford smokes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"You seem to have thought of yourself as a sort of Robin Hood," Judge Bill Hastings told Mafutaga Ulimasao, 52, yesterday in Hutt Valley District Court.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Judge Hastings said he accepted Ulimasao may have had good intentions. "But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He said he considered anyone who may have been given free cigarettes by Ulimasao a victim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Because of your actions they have smoked more tobacco than they would have, and there's a risk they could become a burden to the health system."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/is-smoking-still-a-problem-among-teenagers/?_r=0">Is Smoking Still a Problem Among Teenagers?</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nothing specific here but go read the comments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/nanny-state-government-schools-sending-parents-fat-letters?cid=rss">Government schools sending parents 'fat letters' </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you are a parent, you may soon receive a letter from the school your child attends informing you they believe your child is overweight. <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/04/schools-sending-fat-letters-to-parents-about-overweight-children/" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">CBS News in Los Angeles is reporting yesterday</a> that schools in that county are sending parents so-called “fat letters” claiming their children weight too much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The CBS article reports, “Lauren Schmitt, a registered dietitian, starts the school year by checking out the weight of hundreds of preschoolers in the San Fernando Valley. “We look at growth charts and percentiles. And when a child is at 95 percent of their…we can look at weight for age or weight for height…that child would be considered obese,” she said.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The story reports that the students called the correspondences, “fat letters.”</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-76059821033302929992013-09-05T17:47:00.001-07:002013-09-05T17:47:43.416-07:00Public Perception (A Linkbank Lesson)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/fitch-e-cigarette-success-could-hurt-tob-idUSFit66890220130904">E-cigarette Success Could Hurt Tobacco Settlement ABS</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21584984-warning-bonds-linked-cigarette-sales-may-be-harmful-your-wealth-unlucky">Warning: bonds linked to cigarette sales may be harmful to your wealth</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/e-cigarette-use-doubles-among-u-s-students-cdc-says.html">E--Cigarette Use Doubles Among U.S. Students, CDC Says</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRnMoFWh2Ks&feature=youtu.be&a">SPECIAL REPORT: E-cigarettes revive debate over smoking in public</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2013/09/05/democratic-senators-pounce-on-e-cigarettes-after-cdc-study-shows-teen-use-spike">Democratic Senators Pounce on E-Cigarettes After CDC Study Shows Teen Use Spike</a><br />
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<a href="http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.fr/2013/09/irresponsible-e-cigarette-theatrics.html">Irresponsible E-Cigarette Theatrics from Federal Officials</a><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2013/09/05/european-parliament-delays-vote-on-new-tobacco-regulation/">European Parliament Delays Vote on New Tobacco Regulation</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/09/05/will-australias-gruesome-cigarette-warnings-show-up-on-soda-and-potato-chips-next/">Will Australia's Gruesome Cigarette Warnings Show Up On Soda And Potato Chips Next</a><br />
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<a href="http://watchdog.org/104307/in-one-florida-county-nicotine-is-a-banned-drug/">In one Florida county, nicotine is a banned drug</a><br />
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<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/09/ireland-and-myth-7.html">Ireland And Myth #7</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"What we are is the sum of a thousand lies</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">What we know is almost nothing at all"</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-85122697788362501922013-07-19T12:47:00.000-07:002013-07-19T12:47:12.833-07:00The Anna Sobury Collection <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The past history of the Tobacco Products Directive is interesting stuff.Authored by a man who was eventually sacked for being a corrupt official and soliciting bribes,it was nonetheless picked up ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What's shocking from here in America is that such vast corruption in connection with this is ongoing and not being reported on by the mainstream media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One would think that they aren't reporting it because it's just a tobacco issue and they think no one is watching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Plenty of people are watching,I expect this is just the tip of the Anna Sobury/Andrew Black iceberg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Ms Soubry refers to article 24 (plain packaging) and then says "...I would have thought you would have commended us for doing all that we could to ensure greater sovereignty for this parliament..." Clearly she believes that the other articles in the draft directive are completely irrelevant or she does not understand what she has done. She says "...some of us believe that these public health measures are very important..." It would be nice if she considered the whole directive rather than just article 24.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Mr Philips: "The draft directive had been deposited in December 2012 ...you wrote ...to this committee in January 2013... and then there is no correspondence at all from you or the department until June 2013, despite this committee having raised a series of questions ...in a report to the house and despite the fact that you must have known that matters were progressing..."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Ms Soubry replied "...I don't think it's as simple as that..." [Andrew Black then intervenes]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Mr Philips: "... why did the write round [to the government departments] take so long that this committee heard nothing for 6 months?..." </span></div>
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<a href="http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2013/7/18/minister-denies-mps-opportunity-to-scrutinise-eus-tobacco-pr.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Minister denied MPs opportunity to scrutinise Tobacco Product Directive</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">It beggars belief that a junior member of government has done this without, it seems, any consultation with stakeholders, ministers in other government departments, or the very committee that was set up to scrutinise EU Directives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">One member of the Scrutiny Committee criticised her for asking for a scrutiny waiver and accused her of failing to keep the Committee informed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Another pointed out that the Committee was charged with carrying out scrutiny and when that opportunity was denied they could not carry out that work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">A third said it was “remarkable” that the Minister did not seem to know that nothing had happened between January and June in terms of the European Scrutiny Committee’s position.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Soubry said she took full responsibility for the decision she took, and she was sorry that things were not done in the way that they should have been.</span></div>
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<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/07/why-are-labour-not-outraged-by-this.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Why Are Labour Not Outraged By This?</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">Then ask yourself this - where is the outrage from Labour? Yesterday at </span>PMQs<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">, Labour MP after Labour MP rose to condemn what they imagined was a case of one individual interfering in government business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">On the same afternoon, though, a Tory minister was excluding parliament entirely and committing the country to EU laws on the say-so of, well, herself and herself alone.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">If Labour are going to allow such sleazy actions from a Conservative - and you know how they love to attack Conservatives - without so much as a murmur of criticism, you have to wonder which industry's lobbyists might be pulling </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">their</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;">strings, eh?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19.59375px; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://nannyingtyrants.blogspot.com/2013/07/black-marks.html">Black Marks For Anna Soubry MP</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.1875px;">Be amazed that Anna </span>Soubry<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.1875px;"> makes "no apology" for her actions against the British people (except for an apology to the committee itself), for deciding that only she could save us all from ourselves. Be astounded that Andrew Black says his wilful failure to answer the committee's questions for over SIX MONTHS is merely a "learning point." Be gobsmacked over the fact that </span>Soubry<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.1875px;"> didn't have to do anything at all -- the UK could have abstained -- but Irish Health Minister James Reilly and Andrew Black had convinced </span>Soubry<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.1875px;"> that something had to done right away, because if they didn't act then you couldn't trust the Lithuanians to do anything when they assume the European presidency.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="line-height: 18.1875px;" /><span style="line-height: 18.1875px;">And they did all of that simply because they just had to have plain packaging in the UK. Because they couldn't afford to let MPs have a debate on it. What they truly did was agree to ban menthol cigarettes, without giving MPs and tobacco consumers a voice in the matter, and at the same time agreed to completely shaft vapers by effectively banning e-cigs by regulating them as medical devices, without giving MPs and the British public a voice in the matter.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.1875px;"><a href="http://f2cscotland.blogspot.com/2013/07/house-of-commons-scrutiny-committee.html">House of Commons Scrutiny Committee questions Under Secretary of Public Health Soubry</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Not only did she give a national position on the Tobacco Products Directive without UK Members of Parliament being able to debate them, but she failed for the preceding six months to keep the committee advised of progress. She thereby contributed significantly to the fact that time ran out for proper scrutiny and debate.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">This is open and unembarrassed abuse of process – Soubry says she feels the committee ought to be grateful to her setting out to create conditions whereby the UK government will be able to come back and introduce plain packaging. She somehow attempts to make the case that her abuse of the parliamentary process was designed to protect Westminster's sovereignty.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Will the UK opposition start asking pointed questions? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://josefk1925.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/scrutinising-anna-soubry/">Scrutinising Anna Soubry</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"> This leaves us in the position of a rush to judgement over the TPD, before the end of the Irish presidency, without proper debate in the UK. This has resulted in a swathe of horse-trading between health ministers from member states, including those from Sweden who have accepted TPD endorsement in order to retain SNUS flavourings in Sweden (for example).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The UK government, via Anna Soubry, have taken part in those discussions while in breach of scrutiny procedure and without recourse for parliament to debate and discuss the meat of the TPD.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">We need to withdraw and step back from any agreements made by Anna Soubry until such a time as scrutiny requirements have been met and MPs have had the opportunity to discuss and debate the TPD in parliament. Voices have failed to be heard.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Failure to do this will result in MPs being denied from representing their constituents.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-3851522808952703202013-07-13T16:56:00.001-07:002013-07-13T17:18:04.162-07:00Signs Of A Broken Society Part Two<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/inmate-sterilization-and-eugenics/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Inmate Sterilization and Eugenics</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the former inmates who had worked in the infirmary stated things a bit more clearly:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right’… Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?”<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21.875px;">Unlike </span><i style="line-height: 21.875px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Slate,</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21.875px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21.875px;">the Center for Investigative Reporting places these practices in the broader historical perspective:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">California still grapples with an ugly past: Under compulsory sterilization laws here and in 31 other states, minority groups, the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill and criminals were singled out as inferior and sterilized to prevent them from spreading their genes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was known as eugenics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Between 1909 and 1964, about 20,000 women and men in California were stripped of the ability to reproduce – making the state the nation’s most prolific sterilizer. Historians say Nazi Germany sought the advice of the state’s eugenics leaders in the 1930s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jul/12/school-meals-ban-packed-lunches">Packed lunches: pupils face ban in new school food plans</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The report, which suggests a link between <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/nutrition" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Nutrition">nutrition</a> and academic performance, highlights that parents currently spend almost £1bn on packed lunches but only 1% of them meet nutritional standards. In contrast, scientific studies show most school meals are a healthier option.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The report suggests a range of measures for headteachers to increase take-up of school meals. They include banning unhealthy packed lunches full of sugary drinks, crisps and sweets, or even a total ban on all packed lunches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/children" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Children">Children</a> could also be barred from leaving school premises at break time, preventing them from buying unhealthy food, such as takeaways. But <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/schools" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Schools">schools</a> should also make their meals more exciting and ensure unhealthy snacks are not served during mid-morning breaks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/07/man-has-home-ransacked-by-police-for-paying-cash/">Man Has Home Ransacked by Police for Paying Cash</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> On Sunday a male and a female police officer appeared on Mr Syvertsen’s doorstep. Upon seeing them, Mr. Syvertsen at first feared that something may have happened to his mother, who is 86 years old and resides in a nursing home. But the police were there with a warrant to search his home, charging that the cash he had spent was money that “came from a criminal offense.” In fact, the money was actually part of an approximately one-million dollar advance on an inheritance he had received. Mr. Syvertsen attempted several times to explain to the officers where the money had come from and to show them a letter confirming that fact, but they would have none of it and proceeded to invade his home and his privacy. Eventually the police realized their error and left his home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although the police now admit that they investigated Mr. Syvertsen <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prior to</em> the warrant being issued and found that he had never been implicated in any criminal activity, they insist that “there were reasonable grounds to suspect” criminal activity given the “sum of the information available,” that is, the large cash payment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/t-Nanny-State-leave/story-19507309-detail/story.html">Why can't the Nanny State leave us alone?</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 21.9375px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The HSE, through the courts, has imposed criminally high fines against a window cleaner, because he was cleaning windows.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But not only that, they fined the people who hired him too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The free market economics in fenestrated hygiene and piscatorial cuisine is being undermined.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/07/09/bc-smoking-cessation-drug-liberals-ndp.html">NDP claims Liberals halted stop-smoking drug research</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The drug is also the subject of a class action lawsuit in Ontario over alleged side effects that include psychiatric problems, including attempted suicide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The NDP says it has uncovered an email written by a former health ministry employee that was sent to the independent Therapeutics Initiative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/tricking_the_public_to_promote_health_a5qqcx607ITmonBWBRZqsJ">Tricking the public to ‘promote’ health</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sneaky public-health messaging appears to be on the upswing across the country, particularly when it comes to soda. In California, a taxpayer-funded group, First 5 California, recently used Photoshop to transform a healthy-weight adolescent girl drinking skim milk into an obese girl drinking from a giant sugar packet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Similar tactics are becoming common in public-health research. In 2011, the author of a widely reported study linking soda consumption and teen violence later admitted there was no reason to think soft drinks cause teens to be violent. In 2012, a Harvard-affiliated hospital was forced to admit it had promoted a “weak” study tying aspartame, an artificial sweetener used in soda, to cancer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And just last month, the eminent scientific journal <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Nature</i> took the extraordinary step of criticizing the chairman of the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Willett, for referring to a peer-reviewed study on obesity as “a pile of rubbish” because its results run counter to the prevailing public-health orthodoxy. Willett argued, ironically, that the authors’ exhaustive review of data on millions of people “could undermine people’s trust in science” because the results could be used to oppose policies that restrict “soft-drink and food” choices.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/4980962/Parents-warned-they-could-face-court-for-lighting-up-at-home-in-front-of-kids.html">Parents warned they could face court for lighting up at home in front of kids</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">LEGAL experts last night blasted a sheriff’s ‘nanny state’ meddling — after he ruled a mum was risking her kids’ lives by SMOKING.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sheriff Scott Pattison claimed the mother-of-three’s ciggie habit showed a “lack of parental care” during a hearing into the youngsters’ welfare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He referred the case at Ayr Sheriff Court to the Children’s Panel — where the woman could now face <b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOSING</b> her kids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But his decision has sparked fears of a massive rise in meddling by authorities, which could land more Scots parents in the dock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sara Matheson, a Glasgow University lecturer and partner in MTM Family Law firm, said: “There has been a move towards greater state interference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.wtoc.com/story/22798811/beaufort-parks-look-to-ban-grilling-balloons-smoking">Beaufort parks look to ban grilling, balloons</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Waterfront Park is the main attraction for tourists and locals. It's a place where folks can go for peace and quiet or walk the boardwalk. It is a place where families can go and make life long memories. This is why officials want to ban those things, and make folks register to throw parties in the park and other parks in the city. Folks will have to pay a small deposit, but officials don't have a dollar amount set yet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"If you want to attract family, this is good. I think they should have a small designated area for grills where people can use them, and then when they're done they can go out and enjoy the smoke free area," said Janine Palmitessa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/09/former-german-chancellor-stays-one-step">Former German Chancellor Stays One Step Ahead of European Nannies, Hoards Cigarettes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.59375px;">Schmidt, a well known lover of menthol cigarettes, is not being overly prepared. The European commission is </span><a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/bruno-in-brussels-eu-unplugged/brusselsbruno/192/eu-goes-menthol/" style="border: 0px; color: #f37221; cursor: pointer; line-height: 21.59375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">hoping to ban menthol cigarettes</a><span style="line-height: 21.59375px;">. The proposed ban on menthol cigarettes is only the latest example of the nannying instinct exhibited by many legislators in the European Union, which has already proposed or implemented bans on unsupervised children</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8816601/Children-to-be-banned-from-blowing-up-balloons-under-EU-safety-rules.html" style="border: 0px; color: #f37221; cursor: pointer; line-height: 21.59375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">blowing up balloons</a><span style="line-height: 21.59375px;">, </span><a href="http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/storm-in-a-dipping-bowl-over-europes-olive-oil-rule/" style="border: 0px; color: #f37221; cursor: pointer; line-height: 21.59375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">refillable olive oil jugs,</a><span style="line-height: 21.59375px;"> and </span><a href="http://www.openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/got-milk-writing-nanny-state-into-eu-law.html" style="border: 0px; color: #f37221; cursor: pointer; line-height: 21.59375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">pictures of babies on baby formula</a><span style="line-height: 21.59375px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21.59375px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://kelo.com/blogs/the-daily-dose/742/anti-smoking-zealots-will-never-relent/">Anti-smoking zealots will never relent</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lalley was incensed to learn that bars and restaurants, many of whom don't appreciate voters interfering in their business decisions, are catering to smokers outdoors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have a vision of Lalley, like Colonel Kurtz from "<i>Apocalypse Now</i>", cowering under his outdoor restaurant table, wringing his hands and muttering, "The horror...the horror."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mr. Lalley, exactly where did you think smokers were going to go? Did you think they were going to form 'smoker colonies' in the countryside after they were ostracized by voters?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lalley is calling for a closure of this so-called 'loophole'.<span id="pastemarkerend"> "</span>If there’s no smoking inside, there’s no smoking outside where food and drink are served," Lalley writes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's an off the wall suggestion, Patrick. Go INSIDE where smoking is prohibited. Is it too much to ask that you pick yourself up and move 15 yards? <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">God forbid you should be inconvenienced in any way! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm absolutely sick to death of the anti-smoking zealots thinking they're the only people entitled to courtesy. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Why should we pass further regulation when a little common sense is all that's needed?</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://thepubscout.com/2013/06/wacky-tobacky-the-lies-of-anti-smoking/">Wacky Tobacky: The Lies of Anti-Smoking</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smokers are experiencing an ancient truth: if you concede the moral high ground, your opponents will have <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">zero</em> qualms about lying and claiming truths that simply “ought to be so” to drive home their advantage. For example: Did you know that there has been a study on the side-effects of lying on the human body? On average, each lie shortens your lifespan by 11 minutes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">Oops!</em> Sorry, that’s actually the result (and now blindly held fact) of a 2000 study by Shaw, Mitchell & Dorling, subtly titled: <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">Time for a Smoke? One Cigarette Reduces Your Life by 11 Minutes.</em> Do a quick Google search for the phrase, it yields thousands of hits on government websites – but all the pages have been removed because it was…just plain false. I don’t know much about science, but this dubious conclusion sounds like what the big boys in lab coats like to call an “unquantifiable claim.” We laymen call it a lie. It was, and is, effective – because nothing is quite as convincing as the lie one desperately wants to be true.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/07/the-real-reasons-behind-public-smoking-bans.html">The Real Reason Behind Public Smoking Bans</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">PBS NewsHour:</strong> And do these arguments pan out?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I discovered the evidence was really weak. The evidence of harm to non-smokers on the beach or in a park from someone smoking is virtually non-existent. The evidence that fish and birds are dying because of cigarette butts is virtually non-existent. And even the evidence that seeing someone in a park or beach will encourage kids to smoke is extremely weak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So I said to myself, what's going on here? What's the public health impulse that's involved that leads to these bans if the evidence is so weak? Because everyone in public health believes that what we do should be evidence-based.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I thought about it, it became very clear that what was involved wasn't that we were trying to protect non-smokers from sidestream smoke on parks and beaches. We weren't really concerned about birds and fish. There wasn't really evidence that we were going to protect kids by disallowing smoking in parks and beaches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What was involved was that we really wanted to make it less and less possible for people to smoke, because it's bad for them and we're trying to protect smokers themselves from a behavior that's going to increase the risk of disease and death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I know Orgy isn't everyone's cup of musical tea,but like every song I post with every linkbank piece it's words mean something.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You might want to look at the lyrics to this song because if you're reading this I think the words will mean something to you too.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-14800254595723811982013-07-07T11:49:00.000-07:002013-07-07T11:51:32.357-07:00Signs Of A Broken Society Part One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thelocal.se/48888/20130705/">Law professor calls for ban on parents drinking</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The proposal was presented at a seminar organized by temperance society IOGT-NTO's at the </span><a class="nodec" href="http://www.thelocal.se/tag/almedalen" style="background-color: white; color: #f57000; text-decoration: none;">Almedalen</a><span style="background-color: white;"> political week and is specifically designed to tackle "everyday drinking".</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white;">The law currently has no scope for punishing parents who drink in the company of their children and Leijonhufvud argued that the proposal is an attempt to prompt a discussion on the issue.</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white;">She compared the offence to minor assault which currently carries a penalty of up to six months imprisonment.</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white;">While the proposal is aimed at "everyday drunkenness" it in effect suggests that parents would not be able to share a glass of wine at dinner.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://watchdog.org/91727/humorless-ohio-government-no-prescription-for-ending-abuse/">Humorless Ohio AG mugs ‘prescription’ coffee cup</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here’s the issue: does a coffee mug that mimics a prescription bottle and says “Prescription Coffee, RX#: VRY-CAF-N8D, Drink one mug by mouth, repeat until awake and alert” make fun of prescription drug abuse?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">DeWine thinks so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“People die from accidental drug overdoses in this state every day, and these products make light of the problem,” DeWine said in a May press release. “We don’t find these products funny at all.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“These products” referred to the <b style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Prescription Line</b> produced by <b style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Urban Outfitters, Inc.,</b> a national company listed on <strong style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">NASDAQ</strong> with revenues of $2.8 billion and three locations in the state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">May was when DeWine and 22 other state attorneys general asked the company to pull the Prescription Line of glasses, coasters, mugs and drink holders. On June 10, the <b style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">American Association of Poison Control Centers</b> and 57 local poison centers wrote a similar letter asking that the products be removed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/elderly_man_who_picked_dandelions_for_food_gets_75_ticket/">Elderly man who picked dandelions for food gets $75 ticket</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Most agree, dandelions are a notorious weed. But some recognize that dandelion greens can contribute to a tasty and nutritious meal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Among the fans of the food is John Taris, a 75-year-old retiree who lives in the Chicago area with his wife on a $1,500-a-month social security payment. When the couple's food supply was a bit low recently, he volunteered to go pick some to provide a vegetable, writes columnist John Kass in the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0628-20130628,0,2509839.column" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Chicago Tribune">Chicago Tribune</a> (sub. req.).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But, caught in the act of picking the weeds by a Cook County Forest Preserve cop, he was issued a $75 ticket. His court date is July 9.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A spokeswoman for the forest preserve district noted that foraging is prohibited there and called the practice "unsustainable, especially when it's done for commercial purposes," the article reports.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.freerangekids.com/sandals-recalled-because-flower-choking-hazard/">Sandals Recalled Because Flower = “Choking Hazard”</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“This is risk aversion to an unsustainable extreme. What lesson should a company like Stride Right take from the recall? It’s impossible to manufacture a shoe, or for that matter any product, that’s completely incapable of causing any level of danger. A recall like this doesn’t promote safety so much as it promotes hiding behind a wall of lawyers, crossing your fingers, and hoping that the risk of a product recall doesn’t put you out of business.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He’s so right. Any product can, under some circumstances, turn lethal. That’s a fact we can’t seem to get a grip on without running to issue a new warning or law, making everyday life seem ever scarier to parents. That’s one of the reasons for helicopter parenting — we are told that almost everything is out to kill our kids unless we are exceedingly vigilant.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-83751968348545137322013-06-17T19:52:00.000-07:002013-06-17T19:52:29.624-07:00The MHRA Collection (Part Two)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lXUne-2FgoM" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://gossipy.co/tag/mhra">(Gossipy) MHRA</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/index.php/research/why-e-cigarettes-should-not-and-cannot-be-regulated-as-medications">Why e-cigarettes should not (and cannot) be regulated as medications </a><br />
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<a href="http://www.ecigarette-politics.com/blog/mhra-announces-decision-to-regulate-e-cigarettes.html">MHRA Announces Decision To Regulate E-Cigarettes</a><br />
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<a href="http://blog.casaa.org/2013/06/mhra-decision-on-e-cigarettes-casaas.html">MHRA decision on e-cigarettes, CASAA’s take on the implications</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3789/smoking_costs">Smoking costs (Examines the MHRA from a $$ angle)</a><br />
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<a href="http://dreamsofdarkangels.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/grumbles-about-proposed-e-cig-legislation/">Grumbles About Proposed E-Cig Legislation</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/press-release/iea-criticises-mhra-decision-to-regulate-e-cigarettes-as-medical-products">IEA criticises MHRA decision to regulate e-cigarettes as medical products</a><br />
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<a href="http://hsdispatch.com/2013/06/12/big-e-cigarette-news-here-and-abroad/">Big e-cigarette news, here and abroad</a><br />
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<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.fr/2013/06/questions-need-to-be-asked-so-lets-ask.html">Questions Need To Be Asked, So Let's Ask Them</a><br />
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<a href="http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-you-need-to-know-about-simon-chapman.html">All you need to know about Simon Chapman</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3840">Should electronic cigarettes be as freely available as tobacco cigarettes? No</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3845">Should electronic cigarettes be as freely available as tobacco? Yes</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-13/future-of-e-cigarettes-in-question-on-european-crackdown-health#p2">Future of E-Cigarettes in Question on European Crackdown</a><br />
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<a href="http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/more-about-the-mhra-decision-to-treat-ecigs-as-medicines/">More About the MHRA Decision to Treat Ecigs as Medicines</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/cancer-society-looks-for-regulation-of-e-cigarettes-234276.html">Cancer society looks for regulation of e-cigarettes</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/06/economist-explains-11">The Economist explains Who opposes e-cigarettes, and why?</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1262">We need to talk about the children – the gateway effect examined (Not specificly about the MHRA but good explaination of anti harm reduction mentality)</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3801/big_pharma_more_conflicts_of_interest">Big Pharma: More conflicts of interest</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wioNmo5r3Xc" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-54748542750051123372013-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:002013-06-15T16:00:11.717-07:00The MHRA Collection (Part One)<a href="http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/2013/06/british-government-promotes-cigarettes.html">British Government Promotes Cigarettes</a><div>
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<a href="http://www.thefreesociety.org/Issues/Smoking/big-pharma-and-big-government-go-to-war-on-consumers">Big Pharma and Big Government go to war on consumers</a><br />
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<a href="http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51572">Prevent the classification of e-liquids containing nicotine as a medicine as defined by the MHRA</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/06/e-cigarettes-conspiracy-theorists-might-just-have-it-right">E-cigarettes: the conspiracy theorists might just have it right</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.longrider.co.uk/blog/2013/06/12/buy-your-e-cigs-now/">Buy Your E-Cigs Now</a><br />
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<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-mhra-kills-golden-goose.html">The MHRA Kills The Golden Goose</a><br />
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<a href="http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2013/06/e-cigarettes-control-lobby-shows-its.html">E-cigarettes: The control lobby shows its true colours</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.ecigarette-politics.com/blog/mhra-announces-decision-to-regulate-e-cigarettes.html">MHRA Announces Decision To Regulate E-Cigarettes</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1252">10 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.ecita.org.uk/blog/?p=595">ECITA denounces MHRA proposals condemning smokers to quit or die as bad news for public health</a><br />
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<a href="http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/stupid-stupid-murderously-stupid.html">Stupid, stupid, murderously stupid...</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/06/13/comment-this-puritanical-attack-on-electronic-cigarettes">Comment: This puritanical attack on electronic cigarettes will cost lives</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/distrust-of-ecigs-and-big-tobacco.14-06.html">Up in Smoke: Distrust of E-cigarettes Cement Big Pharma’s Monopoly</a><br />
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<a href="http://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/monsters-in-steam/">Monsters in steam.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.thefreesociety.org/Issues/Smoking/big-pharma-and-big-government-go-to-war-on-consumers"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Tr7Wlslj3o8" width="420">Big Pharma and Big Government go to war on consumers</iframe></a><br />
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<a href="http://vapingpoint.blogspot.com/2013/06/stuff-them.html">Stuff them!</a>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-87651273243458601342013-05-31T11:18:00.001-07:002013-05-31T11:18:10.347-07:00Can't Take It<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RkCLw8nJjWQ" width="420"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/05/smoking_ban_inspectors_facing.php">Smoking ban inspectors facing agression</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Government inspectors are too scared to check the smoking ban is not being flouted in cafes and bars and are now travelling in pairs with police back-up, according to media reports on Thursday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The food safety body NVWA says inspectors are afraid of agression from cafe owners and clients and have been working in pairs since last year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0531/453804-russia-bans-smoking-in-public-places/">Russia bans smoking in public places</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The new legislation will see smoking prohibited within 15 meters of entrances to stations, airports, metro stations and ports, workplaces, entrances to apartment blocks, and in children's playgrounds and beaches from tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In June 2014, the ban will be extended and enforced on long-distance trains and shipping journeys, hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes, shops and markets and on suburban railway platforms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-31/smoking-ban-doubts/4724818">Smoking bans face court challenges</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tasmanian authorities are scrutinising legal advice that indicates Launceston's smoke free areas are invalid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It now appears that the regulations have not been finalised, which a court might consider if a fine or power was challenged.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Launceston City Council says it has received legal advice that the Public Health Act regulations are not complete.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Launceston mayor Albert van Zetten says that has called into question the smoking ban in the city and means plans to extend the bans have been deferred.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"We thought we had the legal ability to do that but what's happened is apparently there's some by-laws that we were relying on under the DHHS which hasn't quite been done," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Launceston City Council discovered its smoking bans in two malls and two bus stops where in trouble when it tried to extend the bans to other areas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The bans have been in place for two years but the council has legal advice they are not valid because it is not the "occupier" of the affected streets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://belshaw.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-inhumanity-of-modern-social-policy.html">The inhumanity of modern social policy</a></span></div>
<div style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; text-indent: 10px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smoking is legal. It is totally inhumane to tell a sick person that, by fiat, they are not allowed to do something, that they must have "therapy" imposed on them when that has little to do with their immediate condition, when they are not harming others. It can be hard enough to get a person to seek necessary help. It can become impossible unless they are forcibly detained when they are provided with a powerful reason for refusing help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is no health gain from this. It is a cruel infringement of human liberties that really benefits no one, it is (and I accept that this is a bias) another blind application of universal rules based approaches that has become so prevalent in what is called social policy. In pursuit of goals and targets, in the desire to control, we have become inhumane, censorious, lacking in fundamental human empathy. </span></div>
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<div style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; text-indent: 10px;">
<a href="http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/leaders-smoking-ban-proposals-invade-private-space-1-2946618">Smoking ban proposals invade private space</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In this new debate, however, the focus of legislators’ interest has narrowed considerably, and now includes some of the spaces we might naturally regard as our most private – namely the interiors of our homes and cars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Legislation that determines what we can and cannot do in our own homes simply does not fall into the same category as a law to stop you lighting up a cigarette in a crowded bar. The health lobby might present this new push as simply a natural progression from existing legislation, but the fact is that this crosses a significant line, and is in danger of setting new and unwelcome precedents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And there are other issues over how this will be policed. Will police have the resources (given the cuts in their budget) to effectively prosecute this; and given the finite resources they have, is this where we want them spent? Look at the number of drivers still seen on their mobile phones. And what if the windows are open? What if the roof is down on a convertible?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Perhaps the biggest concern, however, is precedent. If the state has the right to stop parents smoking in front of their children in the car, why not the living room? Does it also have the right to control what they feed to their offspring at the kitchen table? Does the state have the right to determine what levels of saturated fat children ingest? Or what TV programmes they are permitted to watch?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The urge to protect children is an honourable one, but it cannot be a carte blanche for illiberal laws.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-75683408631852020062013-05-29T12:05:00.005-07:002013-05-29T12:05:48.926-07:00Exscuse My Miserable MessSad times for me.<br />
<br />
Using this for that and I never have before.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NmxaFf-lpZY" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HsucxjYnlTA" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mOsxqNEsiAQ" width="420"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/INgXzChwipY" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
I miss you.
I already miss you,but I knew I would.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-82797185253426928592013-05-21T21:56:00.001-07:002013-05-21T21:56:10.051-07:00Videos Seemed About Right Tonight<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1_Uf9S5P-XY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6DIorNVfZ8U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JEPRzdFubJU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nwIUfLttd0A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/loffrap7_sE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lRosDFad32I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Not sure if the story about version one and version two of this song are right but apprarently one was first and it wasn't allowed to be played as written because it "simulated drug use". Guess which is which?
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OOCsyagzjFI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Wg89x455WK4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-39394544420680282292013-05-15T10:12:00.000-07:002013-05-15T10:14:16.142-07:00Carolina In My Mind<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/99RuZPCGQrg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
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<a href="http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/05/14/senate-bill-could-snuff-out-smoking-bans-wrightsville-beach-cfcc"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Senate bill could snuff out smoking bans at Wrightsville Beach, CFCC</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Now a bill in the state Senate could send the ordinance up in smoke.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Senate Bill 703 would effectively eliminate regulations on outdoor smoking and limit how municipalities control it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vfPlX_8g5-8" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.sedaliademocrat.com/news/article_d27b6240-bc46-11e2-ae0d-001a4bcf6878.html">Questions raised on smoking ban during city council session</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">After hearing an overview of the proposed ordinance — which in its current form bans smoking across the board at all businesses, restaurants, bars and private clubs — council, one by one, said what they liked and didn’t. Ward 2 Councilwoman Becca La Strada said while she supports a ban in restaurants, she’d like to see private clubs and bars excluded.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://legiscan.com/NC/text/S703/id/808339">North Carolina Senate Bill 703 (Bill Text)</a></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-85756602716228188692013-05-12T21:10:00.001-07:002013-05-13T17:49:25.842-07:00Daily Nicotine or How It Would Have Looked If DNS Issues hadn't cropped Up<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since my Daily Nicotine paper is down here is what would have been in today's issue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/why-are-britains-tories-courting-michael-bloomberg/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why are Britain’s Tories courting Michael Bloomberg?</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Really? I never even knew Bloomberg and the Tories were an item until I read this article. I rather doubt whether David Cameron raises much of a blip in the United States. (If RMC and RTL are any evidence, though, the French public and some of the media seem to like him. They say he takes the ‘tough stances’ against welfare they would like to see in France.)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The article filled me with apprehension, especially when I read that Bloomberg likes London ‘because the city has so many health and safety regulations’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shudder.</span></div>
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<a href="http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/commenting-on-newspaper-articles/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Commenting on Newspaper Articles</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The articles STATES that pregnant women WILL be tested for CO by midwives. The article suggests that NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) HAS ORDERED midwives to test pregnant women for CO as an indication of whether they are smoking or not. Of course, NICE has no such authority. The whole thing is just another example of Tobacco Control spin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the important thing is the comments. How can it be that there are so many mentally ill, emotionally-driven people in the world? So many people who cannot distinguish between REAL harm and IMAGINED harm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 16.789772033691406px; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/05/ireland-eu-leader-in-tobacco-control.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DickPuddlecote+%28Dick+Puddlecote%29"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ireland: EU Leader In Tobacco Control Failure</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 16.789772033691406px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.58806800842285px;">All that taxpayer cash handed to obsessed single interest bully boys and doom-mongers, and the upshot is a decline of 3% in around a quarter of a century. Epic fail, huh?</span><br style="line-height: 19.58806800842285px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.58806800842285px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.58806800842285px;">Of course, if you look carefully at the figures, it isn't difficult to work out which European nations are performing the best.</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.3em; margin: 1em 20px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Large declines occurred in Nordic countries, in Denmark (from 45% in 1990 to 20% in 2010), Iceland (from 30% to 14%), Sweden (from 26% to 14%), Norway (from 32% to 21%), and in the Netherlands (from 37% to 21%). </span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.58806800842285px;">That is, Nordic countries where smokeless tobacco and snus are widely available - and Holland which has one of the loosest smoking bans in Europe.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.58806800842285px;"><a href="http://vapingpoint.blogspot.com/2013/05/nocitine-addiction-time-to-move-on.html">Nicotine addiction - time to move on</a></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 16.789772033691406px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 16.789772033691406px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 18.18181800842285px; text-align: start;">While I smoked, I was never aware of anyone who crashed their car because they were addicted to smoking, or killed their spouses because they were "blown" on cigarettes. I never heard of gangs of youth under the influence of tobacco, vomiting in the streets or attacking passers by. I did not read in the papers of folks overdosing on cigarettes. In my personal life, none of my children suffered low birth size, cot deaths or asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's even though I would light up to feed them in the night, or if they stressed me out with messy rooms, or fussy eating. We lived in a big house, five kids and smoking Mom and Dad. None of our children smoke, although they tried it, all dumped it in their twenties. None of them, or us, committed any offence under the influence of smoking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 18.18181800842285px; text-align: start;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 16.789772033691406px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 18.18181800842285px; text-align: start;"><a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/business-consumer/smoking-ban-cheap-supermarket-prices-1884136">Smoking ban and cheap supermarket prices blamed as Scotland loses 147 pubs in six months</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">PUBS are closing at an alarming rate in Scotland with 147 calling time in the last six months, figures show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Research by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) suggests six bars shut down every week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said the dismal statistics showed the smoking ban, the recession and cheap supermarket booze had taken their toll on traditional watering holes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He said: “The industry have never recovered from the smoking ban and have never had the same influx of people coming in.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4924625/pregnant-women-to-be-breath-tested-to-prove-they-are-not-secretly-smoking.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pregnant women to be breath tested to prove they are not secretly smoking</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Royal College of Midwives source told the Sunday Times the guidance is "ill-judged", adding: "Midwives should not be seen to be policing pregnant women and enforcing CO monitoring."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The test will not be compulsory but midwives fear many mums-to-be will feel under pressure to take it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Parenting expert Ellie Lee, of the University of Kent, said: "It's outrageous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"If pregnant women think they need help with stopping smoking then that is fine, but it's not the place of midwives to start dictating to women what they do and don't do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The next thing will be blood tests on women to see how much they drink."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://f2cscotland.blogspot.com/2013/05/plain-packaging-in-independent-scotland.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Plain packaging in an independent Scotland?</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_986781022"></span><span id="goog_986781023"></span><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #fafefd; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.71875px;">The health of the people is surely the highest purpose of government, so it is chilling to hear that the Coalition does not consider the prevention of ill health and premature mortality to be part of its role</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: #fafefd; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;">I suppose that is what you would expect doctors to say, and as it happens I agree that a Conservative government would prioritise corporate interests over public health more than I would like. But as it happens, I don't happen to believe that plain packaging is a policy that has any particular merit – the evidence for it has been collated entirely by people employed specifically as tobacco control advocates and suffers disastrously from a lack of objectivity. Government sources know that most people start smoking before they can buy tobacco legally, indeed it is only a matter of years since the legal age of purchasing tobacco was raised, and smokers generally tell you that they were given cigarettes by friends before they could purchase legally.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fafefd; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;"><a href="http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2013/5/12/stats-life-welcome-to-the-fictional-world-of-tobacco-control.html">Stats life – welcome to the fictional world of tobacco control</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The University of Bath's sleight of hand or deception would be unimportant if it wasn't for the fact that the case against smoking – and passive smoking in particular – relies to a large extent on epidemiological studies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to Wikipedia:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Epidemiology is the study (or the science of the study) of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. It is <em>the cornerstone</em> [my emphasis] of public health, and informs policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive medicine. Epidemiologists help with study design, collection and <em>statistical analysis of data</em> [my emphasis].</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given this, you might expect publicly-funded tobacco control campaigners to demonstrate a rather better grasp of the data concerning their own website.</span></div>
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<a href="http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/mailbag/tim-shanahan-smoking-in-taverns-isn-t-necessarily-over/article_7e91fe3c-096d-5ac9-a576-b8f13754f1df.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smoking in taverns isn't necessarily over</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They say history repeats itself, and this is reminiscent of Prohibition in the 1920s. As a Wisconsinite I have been in many taverns and bars across the state, and I cannot believe how naive people are as to what happens in real life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't think for an instant I don't know which establishments I can go in to smoke and have a beer. The more north I go, the more prevalent these establishments are. So I can stop in and socialize. In the southern part of the state, sentries actually stand guard, which I find amusing.</span></div>
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<a href="http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/opinions/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Opinions</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 23.99147605895996px;">And some people I immediately distrusted. Dr W, in whose house I once lived, and who was the first antismoker I ever encountered, profoundly shocked me one day by breaking out into a loud tirade against his errant eldest son (probably caught smoking), and stood bellowing in the hallway of his house against the “filthy, filthy, filthy” habit. I immediately concluded that he was a bit mad, and when a few years later I took up smoking, it was in part because there couldn’t be much wrong with it if a nutter like him thought that there was. Dr W gave me a permanent lifetime inoculation against antismoking. Because I witnessed the irrationality of it at first hand.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 23.99147605895996px;"><a href="http://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/irony-overload/">Irony Overload</a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">“Well it doesn’t cost anything to get it checked out. Especially if you have any trouble getting deep breaths” [Already there was no way she could take a deep breath, she was seconds from hyperventilating]. “I mean, the tuberculosis outbreak is certainly real. It’s all over the news. Anyone can catch that. Well, anyone who doesn’t smoke.” [Look up, eye contact time and try not to smirk at the panic in them] “Tuberculosis is a lot faster way to die than smoking.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She left just as I was getting warmed up. Sometimes it’s just too easy. I have yet to hear whether she saw a doctor, she certainly isn’t out in the smoking patch with the rest of us so she hasn’t taken the easy option.</span></div>
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<a href="http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/california-lawmakers-vs-electronic-cigarettes/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS VS. ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And <a href="http://www.csnews.com/top-story-tobacco-senators_call_on_fda_to_regulate_e_cigarettes-63468.html" style="border: 0px; color: #404040; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">just last month</a> five U.S. senators wrote to the FDA asking that it restrict e-cigarettes’ sale, distribution and marketing to young adults even though the FDA hasn’t yet conducted research in regards to e-cigarettes’ safety.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And now California bill SB 648 is gaining momentum as it seeks to ban e-cigarettes in every location regular cigarettes are currently prohibited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The motive behind it? <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Smoking-SB-648-Anti-Smoking-E-Cigarettes-Vapor-205331011.html" style="border: 0px; color: #404040; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lawmakers say</a> e-cigarette use encourages smoking of traditional cigarettes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A question worth asking is if the FDA hasn’t yet done long-term research on e-cigarettes, then how can lawmakers anywhere make <i>any </i>conclusions — good or bad — regarding this product?</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.bodynomics.com/is-your-boss-watching-your-cholesterol/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is your boss watching your cholesterol?</span></a></div>
<span style="color: #7b7876; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">That raises troubling questions about such a nanny-like approach to employee health. Is it really your boss’ business if you’re gorging at buffets or running marathons? And doesn’t it invoke shades of Big Brother, to be constantly monitored for things like blood pressure or glucose levels?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“It’s a laudable goal to encourage employees to improve their health, but it’s not clear this is the best way to go about it,” says JoAnn Volk, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, who co-authored a recent white paper on wellness incentives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are also serious legal questions, too, about health-related rewards and penalties. While they’re allowed under health laws like HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), that doesn’t mean companies couldn’t face potential action in the courts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“You can’t penalize workers if they have a family history of a certain condition, or a particular genetic makeup,” says Volk. “There are also privacy issues, depending on who’s running the program and whether the information is being kept confidential. So there are a number of different legal hurdles that companies need to clear.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There would have been more,but it's late and I'm tired.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My apologies to the lovely people from Bath (sarcasm) who visit my twitter paper every day for a much longer period of time than a normal user would.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I know you guys will miss my paper most of all.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NaXKSP-6ZSE" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-56825302620286568492013-05-10T17:22:00.000-07:002013-05-10T17:23:42.899-07:00New York State Of Mind<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/itN5lCuKp18" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-york-city-prohibition-prison.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">New York City: Prohibition Prison</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;">Unfortunately local, state and federal officials have blindly embraced tobacco prohibition. </span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;">Mayor Bloomberg’s policies have made New York City a tobacco prison, with cigarette prices, at $12-15 a pack, the highest in the nation.</span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;">Now he wants to prohibit cigarette sales to anyone under 21 years of age (</span><a href="http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/17863135-bloomberg-wants-to-raise-age-limit-for-buying-cigarettes?lite" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6;">), which will force more of today’s legal consumers to the black market.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Half of the cigarettes sold in New York State are illegal, shifting a quarter billion dollars of government revenue to criminals (article <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/burned_by_bootleg_smokes_IqtVTHYSTsWW6KcabOliRO" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">here</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Prohibitionists love to claim the moral high ground, but they are bootleggers’ best friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://reason.com/24-7/2013/05/09/nyc-ban-on-smoking-in-jail-creates-black">NYC Ban on Smoking in Jail Creates Black Market</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The average price for a single smoke at Rikers Island is $30, jail sources said — a far cry from the 50 to 75 cents a “loosie” typically costs at a bodega. And full packs that legally sell for $15 in stores can bring as much as $200 in the Rikers Island “brown market,” according to a DA source.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To combat the underground trade, the Correction Department uses dogs to sniff out drugs, tobacco and even cellphones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/05/10/the-michael-bloomberg-nanny-state-in-new-york-a-cautionary-tale/">The Michael Bloomberg Nanny State In New York: A Cautionary Tale</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It may be a good idea to consume less sugar, salt, trans fat and tobacco, but should government tell us what we can and can’t eat and drink? At a time when we often toss around rhetoric about taking rights away like its yesterday’s newspaper, Bloomberg actually is taking away New Yorkers’ rights to decide what to drink, eat and consume with increasing regularity. It begs the question: what is next? It is not much of a stretch to imagine Bloomberg requiring sandwich shops to serve only whole grain bread (more fiber), employees to use stairs instead of elevators (more exercise), or Girl Scouts to sell crates of apples instead of Thin Mints (more vitamins).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our government was not created to interfere in our lives or restrict our freedom of choice in such a way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://politicker.com/2013/05/mayor-bloomberg-mad-that-courts-steep-delaying-his-plans/">Mayor Bloomberg Wants the Law to Stop Interfering With His Plans</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“We’ve got to do something about our court system. Because they just stop everything,” Mr. Bloomberg lamented during his weekly radio interview Friday morning with WOR’s John Gambling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mr. Gambling chimed in in agreement: “Everything gets stopped–everything the city does.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="more-53383" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>“Every single thing,” Bloomberg echoed. “You just can’t run a railroad this way.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mr. Bloomberg said that, while he was “sympathetic” to judges who are “supposed to determine the law,” the courts are now being used “as a process to stop things rather than a process to really find out what the law is. And that’s unfortunately the direction we’ve gone. And they’re just gonna delay and delay and delay.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The mayor’s third term agenda has increasingly been blocked by judges, including his plan to bar the sale of large, sugary sodas, and a plan that would have forced men looking for space in homeless shelters to prove they really have no place else to go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/smoking-ban-in-new-york-sstate-parks-clash-audrey-silk_n_1556280.html">Smoking Ban In New York State Parks Suspended After Objection From C.L.A.S.H.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Apparently the crusade against smokers to date has so emboldened government that the rule of law no longer need be practiced when it comes to its citizens that choose to smoke," <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/politics&id=8681263&rss=rss-wabc-article-8681263" style="border: 0px; color: #058b7b; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">said Audrey Silk</a>, president of <a href="http://www.nycclash.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #058b7b; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">C.L.A.S.H.</a>, a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/audrey-silk" style="border: 0px; color: #058b7b; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">HuffPost blogger</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25tobacco.html" style="border: 0px; color: #058b7b; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">urban tobacco farmer</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And of the signs, which tell New Yorkers smoking is prohibited, <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/politics&id=8681263&rss=rss-wabc-article-8681263" style="border: 0px; color: #058b7b; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Silk said</a>, "There is only one way for the public to interpret this language. There's nothing to imply that the 'prohibition" is unenforceable, which it now clearly is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The Office of Parks' behavior goes from bad to worse - from at least the facade of official policy-making to settling for simply fooling people with unofficial signs."</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/nyregion/03smoking.html?_r=0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 21.988636016845703px;">Smoking Ban for Beaches and Parks Is Approved</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Opponents of the bill spoke strongly against it; several members derided it as an overly broad law that would infringe on individual liberties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“We’re moving towards a totalitarian society if in fact we’re going to have those kinds of restrictions on New Yorkers,” said Councilman <a href="http://council.nyc.gov/d7/html/members/home.shtml" style="color: #666699;" title="His page on the City Council’s Web site.">Robert Jackson</a> of Manhattan, who described himself as a marathon runner and nonsmoker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Others said the ban would set a dangerous precedent. Councilman <a href="http://council.nyc.gov/d19/html/members/home.shtml" style="color: #666699;" title="His page on the City Council’s Web site.">Daniel J. Halloran III</a> of Queens said, “Once we pass this, we will next be banning smoking on sidewalks, and then in the cars of people who are driving minors and then in the homes.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A compromise that would establish designated smoking areas outdoors was scuttled by Council leaders in favor of an all-out ban. The bill will become law 90 days after Mr. Bloomberg signs it, which he is expected to do this month.</span></div>
<a href="http://statepolitics.lohudblogs.com/2013/05/10/smoking-ban-at-state-parks-expanded/" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 21.988636016845703px;">Smoking ban at state parks expanded</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smoking is prohibited in all New York City parks, for both those run by the city or the state. There are more than 300 municipalities that have restricted smoking in locally owned parks, state officials said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fines of up to $250 could be issued by law enforcement if the smoking regulations are violated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smoking will still be permitted at most campsites, open air picnic areas, parking areas and undeveloped areas within the 330,000-acre state park system, the state said.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-77596495228225440782013-05-08T17:49:00.000-07:002013-05-08T17:50:39.075-07:00Tiny Bites<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CEkXAHIKdKI" width="420"></iframe>
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<a href="http://www.f2c.org.uk/blog/?p=269"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Barnacles of Smoking, Alcohol and Cyber-Snooping</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 23.99147605895996px;">It seems a small step, but it’s definitely going in the right direction, and may just be the first sign of a long-overdue “Smoking Spring”. Huge congratulations and thanks to Angela Harbutt and the HOOPS team.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 23.99147605895996px;"><a href="http://www.news-mail.com.au/news/derisory-and-distasteful-threaten-smokers-blindnes/1859995/">Derisory and distasteful to threaten smokers with blindness</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They would therefore be surprised to learn that in reality smokers have a high 90s% chance of not getting cancer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They go on to claim, "at any time (ie. imminently) smoker's cough (a myth in itself) can become lung cancer".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Well why shouldn't we believe the claims of the anti-smokers?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are many reasons but to take just one, the highly respected British Doctor Study ran for 50 years and repeatedly reported that over 20 years of active smoking did no harm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These findings are not disputed and bizarrely, even Prof Chapman once admitted this in an obscure corner of his otherwise virulently anti-smoking website.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.snusgirl.com/2013/05/should-eu-decide-about-swedish-snus.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Should EU decide about Swedish Snus flavoring?</span></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is there some way for us snusers in Sweden and in the EU to help and fight for Swedish snus?</span></b></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The only thing we can do right now is to inform people what’s going on behind the curtains, cause one day we might stand there with a ban on snus and then it will be too late. </span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 16.363636016845703px;"><a href="http://www.theprovince.com/news/Nelson+magazine+lights+fire+under+local+tobacco+police+growing/8355928/story.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tobacco plants pulled from Nelson office window, but ‘joke’ sign was the real problem, say health officials</span></a></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 21.988636016845703px;">While the plants were ostensibly grown to provide “shade” in a sunny front window, Chesney was really trying to do something else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I proved my point,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That point, said Chesney, is “that the laws are stagnant and designed by people out of touch with reality.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chesney, who hails from Dresden, Ont., but has been living in Nelson for two years, isn’t a smoker but he defends the rights of those who choose to light up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact, his ambition is to eventually market a less-harmful cigarette.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“It’s close to my heart,” said Chesney of tobacco. “I appreciate the sacredness of it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact, he said the tobacco plants he was ordered to remove from his window were an ancient strain of the plant, which had strong cultural implications in some settings.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2247617253397693394.post-73151288525038334342013-05-06T21:16:00.000-07:002013-05-06T21:16:19.451-07:00A Mixed Bag<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Hh72kgn5Bk4" width="420"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.youblisher.com/p/619935-Ninety-Smokers/">Ninety Smokers</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two months before the smoking ban in Great Britain came into force photographer Dan Donovan was invited by ninety tobacco smokers to take their photo's in places that they would no longer ......</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/mcclellan-government-should-let-us-eat-drink-smoke-and-be/article_2f7160b4-4d6c-5a78-9d87-fa0883499c27.html">Government should let us eat, drink, smoke and be merry</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Longevity is not a friend of Social Security.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For that matter, longevity is not a friend of Medicare. The older we get, the more medical problems we have. There is no way around that. Our bodies wear out. I have some older friends whose hobby is going to specialists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With that in mind, you’d think the government, at the very least, would take a hands-off approach to longevity. If a citizen wants to live a long life, fine. If not, that should be fine, too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Instead, the government has become a scold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320293/Packets-cigarettes-Rikers-Island-sell-200-prison-tobacco-ban.html">Packets of cigarettes on Rikers Island sell for $200 after prison tobacco ban</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tobacco bans have been enforced across nearly 40 states for the health benefits of prisoners. But some are defying the ban and are paying on average of $200 for a packet of cigarettes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Inmates are shelling out a staggering $300 to $500 for a tin of tobacco in states including Florida and Ohio, according to local reports.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-57405288-247/hospital-alarm-system-will-sound-when-people-light-up/">Hospital alarm system will sound when people light up</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.985795974731445px;">The alarm, which is followed by a presumably shaming loudspeaker message to stop breaking the rules, </span><a href="http://www.nhsforthvalley.com/news/2012/new-device-to-stub-out-hospital-smoking" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2964bf; cursor: pointer; line-height: 19.985795974731445px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is sensitive enough to be triggered by a single smoker lighting up</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.985795974731445px;">. A representative of the company that installed the machine said in a hospital statement that its purpose is twofold: to encourage better health and to keep the hospital grounds tidier.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.985795974731445px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2013-05-03/smoking-ban-bills-projected-fail">Smoking ban bills projected to fail</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, a non-smoker, the apparent defeat of the Crownover-Ellis bills, session after session, is not surprising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I have great respect for Representative Crownover, she is my friend and we agree on just about everything, but on this bill we differ (because) it is about personal liberty and about private property,” Hughes said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hughes spoke against Crownover’s bill in the 2011 session when it passed in the House but was ultimately killed in the Senate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“If you have a business, a restaurant and you want to allow smoking in your business, I don’t have to go there if I don’t want to,” Hughes said. “It is not the government’s job to tell you what you have to do with your property.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His Republican colleagues John Frullo of Lubbock and Four Price and John Smithee of Amarillo, see it the same way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I don’t advocate smoking in any way, shape or form, but I just don’t think it’s the state’s business to tell you where you can or cannot smoke,” Price said.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00647320329218827425noreply@blogger.com0