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Wednesday 26 September 2012

Hump Day News in Brief

Petition Watch

Most of you already know this, but in case you don't, Belinda over at Freedom 2 Choose (Scotland) has started a petition asking the Scottish government to consider allowing smoking rooms in accordance with EU air quality standards.  You do not need to live in Scotland to sign it -- you can add your real country of residence when you sign, although a few more "Scottish" signatures wouldn't hurt.  Presently there are 134 signatures. 

Meanwhile, the petition from the hateful anti-smoker pressure group ASH Wales, written about here, has managed 121.
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Bulgarian Businesses Going Bust?

One to watch:  Three months after the introduction of a public smoking ban in Bulgaria, businesses have seen their turnover decrease by 50% (emphasis in original):
The Bulgarian restaurant sector is registering record losses over the full smoking ban, according to the Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Atanas Dimitrov.

Speaking before bTV Tuesday, Dimitrov said the turnover has slumped by 50% after the introduction of the ban, adding it would not reduce the number of smokers in the country anyway.

[...]

The Health Ministry, however, remains unwavering on the ban, with representatives saying that in the last 3 months when it was in effect, nothing "apocalyptic" has been noticed, the society is accepting the ban reasonably, and going back in the other direction would be more detrimental.
Nothing "apocalyptic"? Businesses are losing half of their turnover and that's just fine with the Bulgarian Health Ministry.  I would say that businesses losing lots of money that they were making before the ban was introduced is certainly devastating, just like it devastated the British pub trade.

But if you're in the Public Health religion, the only thing that matters is to believe you are helping people, even when the facts disprove your faith.  Yes, let's put people out of work so that they can live forever, or starve to death. I do not think that starving to death is a smoking-attributable cause of death yet. Yet.

All I know is that the tobacco control industry cheerfully destroys businesses and gleefully ruins people's lives. They are helping no one except for themselves. They are evil. How any of them can sleep at night is beyond my comprehension.

H/T Laurel O'Neill and J Johnson 
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The Dark Art of Divination

Speaking of evil bastards in the tobacco control industry, Dick Puddlecote reports on a series of uncanny coincidences here. It seems that the tobacco control industry in New Zealand somehow knows a lot more about what will happen here in the UK than we do, and most uncannily the Root of All Evil is privy to information all the way back in June that we "fucking plebs" were not.  It stinks to high Public Health Heaven.

But hey, I don't need no stinking crystal ball to tell me what will happen, because I understand how the tobacco control industry works, and I know that so do you.  Britain's Department of Health will proceed to discount or ignore the opposition to plain packaging, because the fix is in. The consultation has been rigged from the start, and barring some kind of miracle, there is absolutely no doubt that these rotten, hateful bottom-feeders from hell that are living off the public purse will proceed with their evil machinations to denormalise adult human beings by implementing plain packs, despite the overwhelming public opposition to it.

Expect it.

A typical Tobacco Control Industry Bottom-Feeding Monster
The true face of  the Bottom-Feeding Tobacco Control Industry
Image via DreadCentral