Utah: No Smoking Allowed, Nor Dogs, Nor Double Measures

The greatest confidence trick Public Health has ever pulled must be redefining the concepts of "public" versus "private."  Business owners do not own their property -- the [Nanny] State owns them.  There is a massive difference between "protecting" people from, say, eating at a rat-infested greasy spoon diner and "protecting" people from their own choices.  But Public Health and the State see no difference between the two.  In order  to implement "public" smoking bans, the definitions for what are private and public had to be redefined.  Without this con-trick in place, smoking bans could not have succeeded. With this great con-trick firmly rooted in the consciousness of society, backed up by a tangled web of legalese and fines, the State can force private businesses to do whatever the State wants.

We're in Utah this morning, and leaving in about an hour or so.  We've spent two days here. The first day we holed up in Kanab, which is central to a host of amazing sights and natural wonders like Bryce Canyon and Lake Powell.  The landscape here is stunning and we are not sorry for spending two days to see it all.  But for all its splendour, Utah has serious issues with free choice.

You could blame it on the Mormons, who aren't allowed to smoke, nor drink alcohol or coffee, but that blame would be somewhat misplaced. Because I spent some time here years and years ago, and back then you could smoke in restaurants and other places.  I remember several very late nights drinking coffee and smoking in a restaurant that stays open for 24 hours.  So at one time, Utah was much more liberal and accepting of smokers, despite it's predominantly Mormon population and beliefs.

All that has changed since Public Health's New Inquisition took hold in the past decade or more.  Now in Utah, thanks to the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act, it's illegal to smoke inside "public" places -- it's even illegal to smoke within 25 feet of a "public" building's entrance, although the latter is widely ignored.  Break the law and you're liable to pay hefty fines. I am hardly surprised. Here's a slightly-fuzzy-but-still-legible photo I took of a notice posted on the door of a souvenir shop in Kanab.

If there was ever a place where an oppressive anti-smoking law wasn't needed, it's Utah. Because even 20 years ago or more, most places were non-smoking, because most businesses owners here  are Mormons and don't smoke, and the majority of smokers will generally abide by no smoking notices posted by business owners. But that's how Public Health rolls. This is denormalisation, and it must be applied everywhere, under the threat of extortionate fines.

Strange that dogs and other pets are not allowed in a souvenir shop, which did not serve food, due to a state law.  It would be fine if the owner decided she did not want animals in her shop.  But the State decided that for her, and so unless you're blind and need a guide dog, your dog is unwelcome. That said, I saw a dog hanging out inside a coffee shop ... nobody cared.

As for booze, well the beer here is limited to a maximum alcohol content of 3.2%.  This restriction is definitely a product of the religious beliefs here. Public Health should rejoice and praise the Lord, however, since most beers in America tend to fall in the 4% to 6% range, which means Utahns are 0.8% to 2.8% less likely to get some kind of alcohol-induced cancer or liver disease.  I suppose.

You can get full-strength spirits, but there appears to be a twist. You can't order a double gin and tonic. You can get one single measure per person per order.  So no double gin and tonics for Mrs Tyranny, but we worked around that by ordering a "primary" for each of us. Nevertheless, a customer in the restaurant we were at said that he thought the law had been changed to allow double measures and that the restaurant was probably unaware of it.  Regardless, it is or was a dumb ass law.

Let people decided for themselves. Let business owners decide how to run their businesses. It doesn't matter where in the world this should be.  If we want to live in a free society -- and clearly Public Health does not like freedom and liberty and individual responsibility -- then our governments need to stop passing laws that restrict our free choices.

That North East Slippery Slope

You know how the anti-smokers always deny the slippery slope or domino effect every time it is fairly and accurately brought up?  Well, they're lying. They know they're lying, too.  It's one thing to repeat the lie not knowing that is a lie; it is an entirely different thing to know that it's a lie and continue to say it anyway.  Let me put it another way:

No matter what your cause is, no matter how noble you believe it to be, deliberately lying and misinforming the public makes you an immoral son of a bitch.  It means you're a duplicitous, evil bastard from hell.

Of course when you're giving presentations to your own groups of like-minded prohibitionists, or to those sympathetic to the cause of governments controlling everyone's lifestyle, there's not any need for deceit. You can tell like it is.  So enter Andy Lloyd, the Media, Communications and Social Marketing Manager for the taxpayer-funded anti-smoker group Fresh NE.

Andy made a presentation about Fresh NE that I stumbled upon whilst searching for something else related to plain packs (Google is a very useful tool!). That presentation is stored on the LGcommunications web site, which seems to be a national body comprised of government institutions as members that aims to "raise the standard of communications in local government."  I have no idea whether the Lloyd's presentation was supposed to be publicly accessible. I searched the LGcommunications web site's pages for anything referencing Andy Lloyd or Fresh NE and came up with squat.  But I found it, because Google offered it up to me, so I'm going to share it with you (PDF - 2.3MB).  Hell, you paid for it, so you might as well get to see how your money is spent. Right?

The whole presentation is a fascinating look into the minds of the anti-smoker movement and the slimy techniques they employ to dupe an increasingly gullible media and public into believing their tripe.  A number of slides leapt out at me as particularly important, but this one below really captivates:

presentation slide no.5 (click image to enlargify)

Now the third bullet point says that Fresh NE's aim is to "make smoking less desirable, normal, accessible and affordable."  That's no surprise. We've seen all of this as part of the anti-smoker denormalisation programme for years. The whole idea is to make smokers pay through the nose for the legal consumption of tobacco products.  If you have no money left to spend on tobacco, then you're counted as a successful statistic in their books.  So what if you're poor and living on the street. At least you aren't smoking, is their view.  Curiously, no mention of "The Children" in that bullet point. I think Andy Lloyd may have missed a trick there.

But the fifth bullet point ... that one is gold. It is proof that the alcohol control group Balance was "set up in 2009 along similar models" to Fresh NE's programme. We call this the Tobacco Control Template.  If something works for the tobacco control industry, you can be assured that other prohibitionist industries, working under the guise of the Public Health religion's banner, will try the same techniques.

Indeed, if you pop on over to Balance's web site, you see that the same guy who helped develop Fresh NE's programme of hate is now working at Balance to target drinkers (emphasis added):

Colin Shevills
Director
His knowledge, experience, passion and communication expertise really allow Colin to lead from the front - driving home the message that alcohol is damaging our region and calling for changes which will make a positive impact on the health and wealth of the region. A former communications consultant, he has extensive experience working in the field of public health. He previously helped to develop the brand for Fresh, Smoke Free North East and was instrumental in the successful launch of the office. He has worked at Balance since it was launched in 2009 and he has been instrumental in the growth and development of the organisation.

The same people who drove smokers out of the cosy warmth of a pub onto the cold, wet pavements of Britain, the same people who are responsible for the increasing amount of intolerance and hate against decent human beings who smoke (although they deny they encourage it, they most certainly do encourage it), they are also in the alcohol control industry.  That speaks volumes. Does it not?  And this is only just one example. There are dozens of these people in the UK doing the same.

Because Public Health isn't about keeping our drinking water clean, or protecting populations from communicable diseases.  Public Health isn't even about "The Children," despite that they wave that banner almost ceaselessly.  No, Public Health is about telling you that you are a very bad person if you do not conform to their ideas of a perfectly clean lifestyle devoid of any pleasures that humans might possibly enjoy.

Public Health these days is corrupted. Public Health is all about prohibition and control of the plebs. Plain and simple.

But you knew that already.

Deception Comes Easy For Them

It takes no courage at all to sit down and write posts for this blog. It's mostly easy to do. The difficult part, as any writer will tell you, is forcing yourself to sit down and write.  Motivation, inspiration, determination and time are the things that are required. There are a hundred things I could be doing (or sometimes should be doing), but I write when I can because we need more voices out there providing an opposing viewpoint to the anti-smoker, anti-drinker, anti-civil liberties and pro-Public Health crusaders.

The hard-to-swallow truth, however, is that there are not enough voices in opposition. People are afraid to say what they think. People are afraid to stand up for themselves. And too many people simply do not care either way. This leaves the unenviable task of challenging the prevailing and truly evil Public Health crusade to a few disparate voices willing to stand up and say something.

Whether a loose collective of bloggers has any relevancy to the debate can be argued, certainly, but I take it as validation knowing that the tobacco control industry views free speech and bloggers as a threat to their campaign by including them on their wiki of shame.  In any case, what we all have in common is that we'll write what we think, promoting freedom of choice and liberty for all. More or less.  Sometimes we feel obligated to write in support of those who often do not stand up for themselves, which is curiously both gratifying and disappointing.  It's disappointing because if more people did fight back then we would not find ourselves in this situation where governments believe they have the moral authority to dictate how you live your life. 

Every so often someone outside the collective does stand up to the bullies. And when this happens it's an absolute joy to read and write about.  I'm talking about Bandit Brand, the California-based T-shirt peddlers who Simon Clark wrote about a few days ago.  I'm not going to recover that part of the story, though, suffice to say that Bandit Brand was not cowed by the Public Health nutjob puritans in New Zealand who objected to a seeing a woman smoking on a poster. Bandit Brand made no apologies for their poster and told the nannies to fuck off.

That act of defiance endeared me to Bandit Brand, because how many other small, medium or large companies would have backed down and apologised and removed their ad campaign?  Most? Certainly too many.  Anyway, they are awesome as far as I'm concerned, and I immediately "liked" Bandit Brand's Facebook page, which put their posts into my news feed. And from that I learned that there is another part to this story, which I feel is certainly worth covering. This other part of the story is about deception and cowardice. Maybe. Make of it what you will.

I mentioned at the start that it takes no courage at all to write posts for this blog. Indeed, you could say I am mostly anonymous. Except that I'm not.  Jay is my real name; it's the name I use in real life every day. I have never given you my surname because it's unimportant. I don't tell you much about my life because that is also unimportant. What I think is important is the message. It makes no difference who I am, where I live, where I've been and what I do for work. Knowing those things won't change the message, so I don't feel obligated to provide them.  "Jay" suits me just fine as an on-line persona, and honestly I prefer to keep my on-line life apart from my real life, just as I keep my work life separate from my private life. I am a private person.

This is why I keep relatively anonymous. It is more to do with that there is way too much information about every last one of us on-line and our governments and other organisations are keen to exploit that. Of course, sometimes it's our government that "accidentally" puts that info out there in the first place, which allows people like me to learn things about you, if I so desire. And in some cases I do desire it.

Most of the collective of liberty-loving bloggers and a few of my readers do know my real full name. I don't believe that it makes one bit of difference to any of them. I know some of their names, too, and really, so what?  The only people who would care are those that would try to hurt, villify, and denigrate you.  They're the ones who complain about people being anonymous on-line.  And, as you will see, that makes them hypocrites.

So Bandit Brand got an e-mail from a Public Health nutjob, and Bandit Brand posted that correspondence on their Facebook page.  It appears to me that message came via Bandit Brand's contact page on their main web site. The message simply said:

How uncool to be promoting smoking to young women.

And Jen, of Bandit Brand, replied as follows:

As awesome as that response is, now I wish to draw your attention back to the original message sent to Bandit Brand.  The sender's name is Lou Scott, and the e-mail address is louscott49@gmail.com. 

I'm always suspicious of people who send messages like that, thinking they probably work in tobacco control. My suspicions are often correct. So my first act was to plumb in the e-mail address into Google. It came back with only one hit.

Following that link led to a written submission (PDF) to the New Zealand Parliament in respect of their Alcohol Reform Bill.  I've screen-capped a portion of the first page (redacted - something that was requested but apparently the NZ Parliament committee couldn't be bothered with (do not trust your governments!), so I'll be kind and remove almost all of the contact details), and the highlighted parts are relevant:

Oops! The NZ government really messed up here.

Initially, I believed that the e-mail address belonged to Penelope's husband and that they shared it. It wasn't until I began to search on both Lou Scott and Penelope Scott that I realised something wasn't quite right.  Let's focus on who Penelope is for the moment.

Penelope Scott is a True Believer. She is the Health Promotion Manager at Cancer Society of New Zealand (Otago and Southland Division), as you can see here (warning, slow-loading and bandwidth heavy page due to huge images not properly thumbnailed), or you can just click here for a more reasonably sized image.  And lest you might be tempted to think she is not in the tobacco control industry, I give you this which indicates she works on behalf of Smokefree Otago:

Source: NZ Parliament

So, I kept on searching and found  more than a few other things, but you get the point. She's one of them.

I then wanted to find out who Lou Scott was. Another Public Health believer, possibly with the dubious title Professor of Public Health or something? Were these two people a husband and wife team, a dynamic duo fighting the evils of smoking, alcohol and freedom of choice in Kiwi land?

I searched for Lou Scott. And searched. Then I searched some more.

Nothing. I couldn't find any trace of Lou Scott involved in Public Health. That would not be unusual per se, but I had a feeling that Lou Scott was not who he claimed to be.  I had a hunch.

In order to be certain about my hunch, I had to do two more things. The first was to locate Penelope Scott's Facebook page with the hope that some of her personal information was publicly available, and I was not disappointed. (Although easily found, for the moment anyway, I will not link to Penelope's page.)  None of her Facebook friends are named Lou, or Louis or anything like that. Although this Penelope Scott "liked"  the plain packs NZ Facebook page. That is not proof, though.  The second thing I did was search for "Penelope Louise Scott" because I thought Lou might be short for Louise, and again I was not disappointed.

People often ask me how I have come to know things, and I tell them that all of the information is out there on the Internet.  It's no big trick. You only need a little determination and motivation to look -- anyone can do this. I mean that. Anyone. It helps to know how best to use various search engines; how to make them give you the results you want and to limit the scope so you don't waste time trawling through irrelevant web pages. But any of you can do this just as easily as I can, if you have the inclination and time to do it.

So I found a Penelope Louise Scott on a few genealogy web sites, and by comparing the info to her publicly-available Facebook friends list, and by looking at what Penelope's friends have posted publicly, I know that I have the right person.  I did do a bit more to confirm, although I probably didn't need to.

Anyway, Penelope Louise Scott is also Lou Scott. If the New Zealand Parliament had not made Scott's e-mail address public, I might not have ever known that. But if you have received a scathing, puritanical e-mail from someone named Lou Scott, now you know who it really is.

The question I have is why she won't send her e-mails using her real name? Why hide that?  Why use a pseudonym?  I think I know the answer to that.

A lot of people in the Public Health religion pretend they are caring, loving, decent people, out to save everyone from all of the harms that people could possibly inflict on themselves. But peel back that false veneer and you will see them for who they really are. Hateful, spiteful, mean-spirited people who feel at ease lording their moral superiority over those who fail to follow the commandments of the Public Health religion. And they will use any tactics they feel are necessary to advance their agenda, to promote their propaganda, to force us all to kneel down at the altar and partake of the sacrament for our own good. It's a crusade, and they do what they like.

If Penelope had any moral conviction about her beliefs, she wouldn't hide behind a pseudonym to send an e-mail to Bandit Brand. She would have sent that e-mail as herself, the same name she uses in her tobacco control industry work for the Cancer Society and Smokefree Otago (which, by the way, the Cancer Society is responsible for the plain packs campaign in New Zealand, the web site is registered to them).  But she didn't.

Somehow, I really don't think her role at the Cancer Society would have been compromised if she had used her real name. I have a feeling the Cancer Society would approve, to be honest. Dunno. Maybe it's because Penelope lobbies the NZ government regularly?  Perhaps Penelope was using simple deception to make Bandit Brand think it was an ordinary consumer who was complaining.  Yeah, that seems likely in my opinion.  If so, it's also cowardly, disingenuous, and typical of people who work for or support the tobacco control industry.  No lie too great or small.  Hell, it takes even less courage to send an e-mail under false pretences than it does to write a blog.

But even so, Penelope has every right to write under any name she chooses.  Just as I do, and as any of you do too. It's not her fault that the NZ government is incompetent and outed her.  It's also possible that she prefers to be called Lou rather than Penelope, Penny, Pen, Nelly or any other possible derived nicknames of her first name.  Just as I prefer to be called Jay, rather than Jason.  (Ah... another bit of info about me -- do with it what you will, you evil bastards!)  We all have our reasons for the things we do. Given what I know of the tobacco and alcohol control industries, how they operate, how they aim to deceive, I simply remain suspect of Penelope's motivations in this case, as one is wont to do.

There was a further e-mail exchange between Bandit Brand and Penelope "Lou" Scott. You can read it here on Bandit Brand's Facebook page, but I've screen-capped Penelope's e-mail for your ease of reference:

Is that a plain packs supporter saying that advertising alone doesn't make people smoke?
Why, yes, I believe it is.

Anyway, Jen at Bandit Brand is unafraid to say what she thinks, and she'll stand up for herself and her company. She doesn't need us or anyone to do it for her. She puts it all out there, from the heart, and she is refreshingly honest and unashamed.  Jen's a hero in my book.  I truly hope she has great success with her company.

Penelope Scott, however ... well, she's a anti-smoker, anti-drinker, a True Believer Public Health nutjob in my opinion.  I have no hope for people like her.

Penelope Scott
Photo: Cancer Society of New Zealand

Professor of Prohibition

Clearly relishing that exuberant natural high of a successful hate campaign against Australian smokers, master miserabilist* Mike Daube wrote a little somethin' a little over a week ago. It's called, "Bring on the end of tobacco use – but not a total ban tomorrow".  It's the usual claptrap one would expect, i.e. plain packaging is not the end, but only the beginning of their holy quest of eradicating smokers from existence.

The Professor of Prohibition and Twattery even opines as to what he believes tobacco companies will do next, although one must presume it's his trade mark bland attempt at humour (emphasis added for the "knee-slapping funny" parts, but all of it is quite entertaining):

[Big Tobacco] will continue to spend big on public relations; use loopholes in the advertising ban legislation (such as for “political” advertising); try to develop further in-store promotions; ensure the maximum number of sales outlets; re-name brands for further publicity; reduce prices in the short term, willing to take a loss in Australia to undercut plain packaging’s impact here and globally; claim that plain packaging has “failed” if all smoking has not disappeared by 2 December; beat up such illicit sales as they can find or generate; promote alternatives to conventional cigarettes that may still keep the industry in business and ultimately help to keep people smoking, such as e-cigarettes or snus; try to make the life of governments difficult with time-consuming activities like FOI requests; run sob-stories about retailers who can’t feed their children because cigarette sales are falling; and (as ever) look for creative ways to promote or maintain cigarette sales in what their own documents describe as the “dark market”.

But Mike Daube loves you, smoker.  He doesn't want to ban tobacco use right now.  No, he wants to make it as difficult as possible for as long as possible to humiliate you, to harass you, to make you a third-class citizen, a reject of civilised society, so that you "choose" to quit smoking in accordance with the gospel of Public Health.  Because he's only trying to help, you see (emphasis added):

We have to recognise that some smokers find it hard to quit, and a complete ban on smoking is a measure that could lead to legitimate counter-arguments. Proposals for a total ban on smoking would provide justification for hitherto unsubstantiated claims from tobacco companies and their fellow-travellers that tobacco control advocates are penalising and persecuting smokers, when the reality is that our activities are aimed at helping them, and preventing young people from starting to smoke.

Ah, well thanks for the help I didn't ask for, but it appears to me that you're trying to keep your industry alive for as long as possible, all so you can continue to milk the government cash cow.  Is that what the paragraph really says?  Don't give smokers any justification to claim persecution -- just whittle away at their resolve in a piecemeal fashion over the course of many long years?  Let's not hurt our careers here, fellow anti-smokers. They're on to us.

That's how I interpret it.  I could be wrong...

Wait. No. I'm not wrong. Here are some proposals that you think are worth considering:

There has been much discussion in the tobacco control literature and the community about a range of approaches. These include:

• Extending restrictions on smoking in any environment so that it essentially becomes a practice only for consenting adults in private.

And where would that be? People like you are won't let us smoke in restaurants, pubs, and are actively seeking to ban smoking in our own homes. Where is this magical private place that smokers will be allowed to indulge their tobacco use? Huh?

• Reducing the supply of tobacco in the market.
• Licensing schemes for smokers.

Why not just tattoo us while you're at it? 

• Restricting cigarette sales to specific outlets, such as pharmacies.
• A government take-over of the tobacco industry.

Oh? Government takeover? Very nice. Now we see the crux of the matter.  Why should private companies be allowed to profit when the government can take all of that profit for itself?  Doesn't that sound like some dictatorial regime in Africa somewhere?  Sounds like pure communism to me.

• Banning tobacco sales to anyone born beyond a specific year.
• Manipulating the cigarette itself.

How so?  To make it taste like shit?  To poison it in some way? To reduce its size? What exactly is your plan?  This is just smacks of fucking evil. Yes, I know you don't see it that way, Mike. To you, it's all necessary to save us all from ourselves.

• Mandating reduced supply of tobacco into the market.

Why? To drive up prices artificially (like the diamonds market) so that the government-owned tobacco suppliers can charge a greater premium and rake in ever-increasing profits. Clever.

• Proper implementation of legislation banning sales to minors – and progressively reducing the number of tobacco sales outlets.

You already have proper legislation banning sales to minors -- hell, nearly everywhere does. What more can you do? Cut off the hands of any kids who manage to buy a packet of cigarettes? Hang people for selling tobacco to minors?  Why not just throw them in prison camps waiting for their turn in the gas chamber?

• Suing tobacco companies for the costs of harm caused by their products.

Like that hasn't been happening already? Earth to Mike Daube... ... hello?

• Setting a date by which tobacco companies have to demonstrate that their products meet normal consumer standards. After that date cigarettes would simply not be permitted in the market.

Ah. That's a good one.  You and your sheep-minion cronies get to devise "normal standards," rules designed in such a fashion that you know a cigarette could never meet them (which you admit).

• Progressively reducing the number of sales outlets.

I think it's fairly safe to say that you're a prohibitionist twat from hell, Mike.  Instead of having the courage to support it outright, however, you think it's better to demean, demoralise and denormalise smokers over the course of many years in pursuit of your wank-worthy dream of everyone living forever.  How compassionate.

Meanwhile, there's always the fatties and other big corporations to go after. Job security in the Public Health Sector, after all.

*Yes, I stole miserabilist from Dick Puddlecote. Hope you don't mind, DP.

Of Course Tobacco is Unique - Redux

Via Angela Harbutt on Twitter and the Irish Times, we can once again see that there is no other product on the planet as uniquely capable for harming consumers as tobacco.  Not buying that?  Neither am I.  Now alcohol companies are under threat to have their advertising and sponsorship taken away in Ireland.  Won't be long before plain bottles, because that will be the last "loophole" of marketing to close.  Let's have a quick peek at some quotes:

Referring to the research, Mr McConalogue said “alcohol abuse has become a cancer in our society in recent years” and he demanded to know the Government’s response to the report and what it would do to address the problem.

That one is particularly good. It's got the word "cancer" in it. That ought to be enough. But no, it is not enough. It's never enough. He demands government to address it. 

The report also said alcohol marketing led to young people starting to drink at a younger age and drinking more. And 16-21-year-olds “list alcohol advertisements as five of their top 10 favourite advertisements”.

Fucking-A. Sold on that one -- it is just like CRUK's shocking, shocking, SHOCKING video. If kids like it, then clearly it should be banned.  One last quote:

Mr McConalogue highlighted the cost of alcohol-related illness in Ireland at €1.2 billion in 2007 and alcohol-related crime cost €1.19 billion that year. Alcohol abuse was responsible for 2,000 hospital beds being occupied every night.

Good god on a gecko!  Drinking costs the health service billions every year! The bloody cheek of you selfish drinkers!  None of this vaguely sounds like ASH's claim that there is no precedent, that tobacco is unique.  No, not at all.

So who is this Charlie McConalogue? Nobody, really. Just a spokesperson on children for the Republican Party Fianna Fáil in Donegal North East. Looks like this young whippersnapper is trying to carve a niche for himself in the protect the children racket.  Good luck with that, Chuck. 

Can you all please stop having children now so we few adults who are capable of thinking for ourselves may have a life free from the imperious nanny state?  It's getting old, this neo-puritan prohibition.

Censored in York

I meant to post about this sooner, but it slipped through the cracks for which I apologise; fortunately a tweet this morning reminded me of it. A little over a month ago, SadButMadLad (SBML) advised me that York Council had blacklisted and banned this site on its free public wi-fi near Guild Hall in York Centre.  He also sent this image as proof:

Since I am not one to leap to conclusions, I asked him to check to see if any other pro-tobacco blogs had been banned, along with any tobacco company web sites. SBML obliged and duly reported a day later that only my site had been blocked.  In his words:

Well I tried a number of blog links from Dick Puddlecote's and other than yours found no problems. I didn't check 100% as the signal strength was very low and kept dropping out but I checked the most obvious ones. I also checked a number of Philip Morris' sites and could access them without problem. I could get through to Tim Worstall's which I can't normally via my smartphone ([provider redacted]) unless I give age verification.

So, based on his checks, I suppose we can safely assume that "tobacco" is not the likely reason for the ban.  I should point out here that a) I have not yet asked York Council why my blog is banned or if they would unblock it upon request, and b) I strongly suspect that my site is auto-blocked by their child-protection software, perhaps due to language.  I do use very bad words sometimes. But then so do others. Again, looking at the image that SBML sent to me, it shows the reason as "Content of type: Pornography blocked - Content Filtering."  My site is certainly not porn, not even for smoking fetishists.  So, does the word "cunt" automatically equal pornography these days?  Or perhaps these words are flagged:  fuck, motherfucker, pussy, slag, bitch, hooker, whore, porn, tranny, gay, lesbian, bisexual, cocksucker, blowjob, cum, MILF, wank, wanker, etc., etc.  They are only words -- I don't find any of the words particularly dangerous or harmful. Do you?

It is odd that my blog had only been active for almost two weeks when it found itself blocked on York Council's wi-fi.  This seems awfully quick to me -- how often is their blacklist updated?  How is it updated?  Who is responsible for updating it?  I don't know.  I've done a very limited search on it, but I can't find anything apart from this in respect of York's library computers (emphasis added):

As you browse the internet at our libraries, you may occasionally find that some webpages have been blocked by our automatic filter.  The aim of this filter is to block illegal or harmful sites - it is not intended to be a barrier to any legitimate internet use.  With any automated system there are some mistakes, and we ask users to let us know if they come across a site which they believe has been blocked in error. 

All right, that seems fair enough - anyone can contact them and let them know a site is blocked incorrectly.  But what, precisely, is a harmful site?  How is that defined?  Who defines it?  Do the words listed above count as harmful? 

I suppose York Council does not want to be sued for providing access to porn or other "harmful content." There is the larger issue of unbridled censorship at play.  It is this idea that children need to be protected from "harmful content."  This is the same argument that plain packs supporters use -- children are harmed by graphics on a cigarette pack.  It's complete fucking bullshit.  All we have done is created a culture of fear, which leads to absurdities like this story.  Parents need to take back their responsibility for protecting their own children. The Nanny State cannot do it without destroying everyone's civil liberties, and it is harming your kids in a far greater measure than any creepy paedo could, or some random web site that uses bad words.  Censorship protects no one except for those who would seek to keep the truth from you. For a truly free society, we need to have it all out there for debate (and no, I'm not at all suggesting that kiddy porn is acceptable and should be out there -- there are always some limits to freedom, and no sane person would ever support sexually abusing young children), and parents need to monitor their own kids.

Right. So if you are out and about and accessing public wi-fi anywhere, and you discover that my site or someone else's is blocked, send them a message asking for it to be unblocked.  Do also feel free to let me know, copy me in, or tell me separately.  Perhaps I'll compile of list of "nannying fussbuckets" as SBML likes to call them. 

Of Course Tobacco Is Unique

 The Yahoo! Canada news blog headline reads:

"Is Coca-Cola the new cigarette? Soda industry fight looking a lot like cigarette industry one over past decades"

For the health nannies and technocrats, the "answer is plainly 'yes.'"  But so is most any "fatty food" or beverage these days.  My fellow bloggers, as shown in the blogroll at right, have been saying for years that the nannies will not stop at tobacco -- they will go after alcohol and fast food, and perhaps even sleeping.

The Yahoo! article goes on to say:

"With new packaging and calorie cutting, it's hard not to see a similarity between the soft drink industry now and the cigarette industry from a few decades ago. When studies began to show the negative effects of smoking, the industry fought it with a number of court battles, arguing they had no part in the death of people who smoked."

And so it now goes with the fizzy drinks industry. Can I just say to you, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, that now would be a very good time to speak out against plain packaging for cigarettes. They are coming for you next, and you can deny that all you'd like and pretend it won't happen, but you are now just as evil and life-destroying as tobacco companies in the minds of the nannying tyrants. Voluntarily agreeing to reformulate your products so that they contain fewer calories is the first step in capitulating to the health movement that seeks to destroy you.  Remember when cigarette companies were forced to create "light" cigarettes with less tar due to government intervention?  What happened then?  Tobacco control later decided that light cigarettes were deceptive and attacked the tobacco companies for that.  Next up will be warning labels for your soft-drink products, showing grotesquely obese children, rotting teeth and diseased organs -- these warnings on your soft drinks are coming.  These warnings will not work. They will be ignored just as they are on tobacco products.  And the nannies will insist that to protect our gullible children and adults that the "answer is plain."  It is coming for you.  Do not act surprised when it happens.

Back in the late 70s early 80s, my mother and step-father already knew that moderation was important in respect of sweet soft drinks like Coca-Cola. The issue then was not its caloric content, rather it was "caffeine."  So, my parents did not allow us to drink Coke or Pepsi very often, perhaps once every few weeks if even that, in very small amounts.  At some point, somebody had mistakenly informed my parents that a particular fizzy drink had no caffeine, so my parents bought some of it and brought it home. They never checked to see if the drink truly was caffeine-free. They relaxed the fizzy drinks rule a little to one per day, because that drink was OK for kids, and my brother and I were very excited.  Except it wasn't OK.  At the dinner table one night, I read the ingredients list on the can and proudly announced to everyone that our drinks did have caffeine, at which point my parents stood up, took our drinks away from us, emptied them into the sink and duly served us water instead.  My brother didn't talk to me for weeks, he was very angry.  I think he's still angry over that one.

Anyway, if you drink 8 litres of Coke per day, like that woman who recently died, there are going to be negative consequences because of your habit.  I said, "habit," not "addiction."  Once upon a time, smoking was considered a habit. When nicotine replacement therapies arrived in the early 80s, the pharmaceutical companies replaced the word "habit" with "addiction" and the result of that clever word swap haunts all of us to this day.  Smokers, they tell you now, are full-blown addicts, considered more or less the same as dangerous heroin junkies begging or stealing to scrape up enough change for their daily fix, and utterly unable to quit even when they want to do so.  Something must be done to stop this horrible smoking addiction!  And guess what, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, nothing you do will be good enough to sate the nannies' desire to keep everyone safe from themselves. Something will be done to stop you from harming the public, in the name of protecting the children. And gullible adults. Because we're all stupid according to the technocrats.

Oh, they have got your number now, Coke and Pepsi.  The media will not side with you, either. You could join us in the fight, but you won't because you are worried about your image, which is getting worse each passing day.  So good luck, and nice knowing you.

H/T: J Johnson on Twitter

Say goodbye to your advertising, Coke. Image: Wikipedia Commons

Penn & Teller on Second Hand Smoke

Don't know how long this vid will remain up on YouTube, but it's good.   One moron says, "If they're telling me it's going to cause cancer, I'm going to believe them."  Evidence is not required.  Short summary, harm from SHS (or ETS) is Bullshit!

Thanks, gentlemen.

H/T: Silke

Enjoy:

Your Typical Small Village Smoker-Hater Neo-Puritan

So I followed a link to an article on Sky.com titled "Fifty Pubs Closing Every Week, Research Says."  Nowhere in the article is the smoking ban mentioned, not even in passing.  Because when I talk to pub owners, many of them say their business would improve if smokers were allowed to smoke inside the premises.  Who likes being forced to stand outside in the cold, or rain?  Some pubs, however, prefer to be non-smoking. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Every business owner should be allowed to choose.  It's their business, their property.  Before the smoking ban came in, we sometimes went to non-smoking establishments and we never complained or said they should allow smoking.  We respected their choice. 

Anyway, pubs are closing for a variety of reasons, some of the are just really shite and would have closed even if there wasn't a ban, but we all know that the smoking ban has had a detrimental effect on the pub trade.  Anyone who says it hasn't is a fucking liar.

Right, so I read the article, and then started to read the comments, which is always a recipe for elevated blood pressure.  Sure enough, some moron called Taxpayer-2010 writes this (as always, emphasis mine):

Posted by: Taxpayer-2010 on April 20, 2012 4:13 PM -- I live in a small village (Lambourn, Berks) - there are 2 rough pubs on the high street that always have tattooed smokers in their doorway but there are a dozen good pubs with friendly atmosphere and good food within a couple of miles. If one of the high street pubs close I would be delighted, if they both closed it would make the village much nicer after dark.

There are many bad effects from the recession/debt hangover but people drinking and smoking less is not one of them.
If a pub is well run and has decent food it will survive - if it relies on a core customer base of alchoholics (sic) and idiots then good riddance.

First off, what does having tattoos have anything to do with anything?  I have no idea what the percentage of people with tattoos is, but it's pretty up there.  Almost everyone I know has a tattoo.  People from all walks of life have tattoos -- rich people, poor people, politicians, doctors (even hateful activist doctors), schoolteachers...  Having a tattoo doesn't make you evil, or an alcoholic, or a thug, or a yob, or anything but someone who has a tattoo.  Tattooed people are not scary.  Do you want to see something really scary?  Click this link!  That's scary.  Imagine bumping into it her in a dark alley late at night.  *Shudders*  I'll take my chances with the tattooed people...

Secondly, during this recession people are drinking more and smoking more than they were before.  Tobacco and alcohol stocks are skyrocketing since Labour did us all in.  That wouldn't happen if sales weren't booming. Look!

Cigarette Sales Just Fine, say Big Tobacco

Thirdly, if you want your local businesses to close, you're a hateful dick, and you'd rather see people go on the dole than earn a decent, honest living.  You need to support your local businesses, and even if you don't want to give them your money, you can still support them by leaving them a-fucking-lone to get on with their business.  They aren't hurting you.  No one has attacked you in the village, because if they had, you would have written about it.  They are simply people out for a pint with their mates who are forced to stand outside because of bigoted anti-smoker people like you.

The only thing we need to get rid of is hateful people like you, Taxpayer-2010.  No, wait, we'll keep you around so we can be reminded just how stupid, arrogant, bigoted and hateful people can be, you arsewipe.

H/T - DP once again.