Allies and Enemies

Yesterday's post about unhelpful vapers may have touched a nerve with a few folk -- check out the full comment thread if you'd like. To be perfectly clear, I do not view vapers as enemies of smokers. I see you as brothers and sisters; allied with smokers in the war against the tyranny of Public Health's New Inquisition, even if you don't. And if you don't see it that way, someday you will -- along with drinkers, chubby people, gamblers, people who work for "Big Anything" and the lot.  Because the control industries of Public Health hate all of you, whilst at the same time seeing you as an endless source of taxpayer funding for their hate campaigns against you. They are all evil bastards.

With that said, the subject of my post yesterday, Jonny Lavery, dropped by with a comment explaining that his quote was taken out of context. I reproduce Jonny's comment here in full:

Why thank you for the coverage Jay. It shouldn't surprise anyone that indeed the quote was taken out of context. It was, in fact a witty explanation of my decision to prefer vaping to smoking. I haven't attacked smokers, as I love smoking, and yet I have a predilection for life, hence my dilemma. I didn't write the piece, you shouldn't be surprised, as the BBC did. The point was and remains to elucidate coverage of our mass protest in Brussels- to protest against the potential waste of life that would be resultant from the actions of this 'nanny state' that you derise.
And so, we find ourselves on much the same platform, except that mine was international news media and yours is a little blog.
I hope we can overcome these differences to support freedom of choice for smokers as that is my agenda.
Best wishes,
JL

According to Jonny, the BBC took his quote of context. He says he meant it as a tongue-in-cheek response as to why he now prefers to be a vaper.  OK, fine. If my "inordinately bad mood" (as DP put it in the comments yesterday) made me fail to see the comment as witty repartee, then I apologise to Jonny.  Sorry, kid. I must have got it wrong -- I do that sometimes, and I'm fine with admitting that when I come to realise it.

I do think that if you're going to be on this grand "international" stage you speak of, Jonny, you will need much better press skills. Because the press is going to "pwn" you every time if you give them opportunity. You have to be more precise and leave no room for misinterpretation or to be misquoted -- not an easy task. Know your talking points, hold to them, do not let them manipulate the interview. Journalists should not be trusted inherently. Never forget that.

First impressions matter; second impressions count. My first impression of Jonny was perhaps wrong due to my bad mood and because of what the BBC article had printed. My second impression of Jonny after he left his comment on my blog, if indeed it really is Jonny, isn't any better to be honest. Because condescending remarks about my "little blog" is not going to win me over, and it certainly doesn't overcome any differences in opinion. It just makes Jonny look like an egotistical dickhead, and honestly, our "related causes" cannot afford assholery like that. His view of blogs or bloggers and our usefulness in the fight against Public Health matters not at all to me. Perhaps he'll change his view over time; perhaps he will not.

To Jonny's credit, at least he is doing something. So good luck with your trip to Brussels, Jonny, and may the force be with you and all that jazz. We are all lucky to have you. Say hi to my fellow blogger Dick Puddlecote when you see him.

* * *

One of our vaping allies is Jan Johnson -- she isn't just pro-vaping, she supports all tobacco users equally and she despises the insidious nanny state that pervades our once-free societies. Jan is incredibly active on social media, tweeting as "J Johnson" (@themorrigan1972), where she regularly tweets/re-tweets all of the "smokey" blog posts as well as linking to them in her Daily Nicotine and Vaper's Daily newspapers.

If you're aren't following Jan on social media, you might consider doing so. She is relentless in tracking down and tweeting every "nicotine-related" and "bans-related" article she can find, for all of our benefit, and many of her finds I've blogged about here.  Jan also can be found on Tumblr here, and her blog on Blogger is here (as well is in my blogroll at right).  She also hosts the "Anti-Nanny" podcast on the Vaper's Place Network, which is broadcast every Monday evening at 6 p.m. EST (11 p.m. GMT).  You can listen to archived episodes on Soundcloud here.  (If you didn't already know, I wrote the "The Root of All Evil" song for Jan's podcast.)  Jan is not only our ally, I consider her to be my friend.

Vapingpoint Liz also commented on my post yesterday, and she blogged about it here.

Some [vapers] believe they are better than smokers, and that vaping is something different - but is it?. Vaping is NRT some think. But it is pleasing and delightful to do - not like NRT at all.

The difference between my attitude and those vapers who are trying to save their necks by clambering up the pyramid of suffering smokers, putting their feet in the mouths and ears of the already persecuted, is that they do not want the same thing as happened to smokers to happen to us. It's a kind of panic. So they use the anti-smoking rhetoric as a way of making us vapers look better than smokers. And also to sell their products! It is truly sad. But I understand why it is happening.

The shame of it is, that what we do is considered smoking and our lot will be the same as that from which we thought we'd escaped. We should also be fighting for relaxations in the smoking ban and removing medical porn nocebos on cigarette packaging. We should be on the side of smokers, not against them.

The other comments left on my blog post yesterday are also worth reading. So please do so if you haven't already.

What we have in spades are enemies. Far too numerous to list them all (though in respect of the UK I gave it the ol' college try here).  The short list is as follows:

• Public Health control industries (Tobacco Control, Alcohol Control, Food Snobs, et al.)
• Pressure groups, organisations and other rather uncharitable "charities" who seek to denormalise smokers
• The mainstream media
• Many of our democratically-elected tyrants (politicians)
• Activist doctors
• Academics
• Big Pharma

That list is not all-inclusive, and is presented in no particular order.

Perhaps we are our own worst enemy. If smokers and the rest of the people that Public Health despises and seeks to control are unable to unite and stick together in this fight against these despicable nannying tyrants, then what chance do we have of prevailing? We cannot afford in-fighting amongst ourselves -- we cannot afford to be divided nor segregated. That isn't to say we must agree on every last thing -- we certainly should not. The soundest decisions are made after robust debates, where the pros and cons are weighed up and analysed fully, where all views are listened to and given due consideration and the best course of action to meet our goals is subsequently chosen.

We either accept all of our differences and try to tolerate them and focus on our common enemies, or we fail. There is no other option in my opinion. So in the spirit of tolerance, perhaps we can afford a bit of assholery on our side, but I'd prefer that we avoid it if we can.

RESIST.

Is Dr Margaret Chan The Most Dangerous Woman in the World?

Repeat after Public Heath:

There is no slippery slope.

There is no slippery slope.

There is no slippery slope.

Stop.

Most certainly there is a slippery slope, and now it's a veritable avalanche of New Inquisition hatred against capitalism and consumers, all designed to force you to live your life precisely in the manner that Public Health deems fit.

In the last 30 or 40 years, Public Health has transmogrified from a group of compassionate scientists and doctors, who strove to eradicate communicable diseases all over the world, into what I call The New Inquisition, which is a self-serving socio-political / activist taxpayer-funded industry staffed with socialists (i.e. anti-capitalists who hate that people make money) and prohibitionists of the worst kind.  Public Health, in its present incarnation, is the greatest threat to freedom and civilisation the world has seen since National Socialism ran roughshod over continental Europe in the 1930s.

You don't have to take my word for it, though. You can read the following excerpted incantations of the High Priestess of Public Health, one of the Grand Inquisitors of the New Inquisition, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, which she chanted to her faithful minions of hate in Helsinki, Finland, just two days ago (emphases added):

The determinants of health are exceptionally broad. Policies made in other sectors can have a profound, and often adverse, effect on health.

Public health has been on the receiving end of these policies for a very long time. With this meeting, it is time for us to move to the top of the table, and have our say. A great deal is at stake.
[...]

The challenges facing public health have changed enormously since the start of this century. In our closely interconnected world, health everywhere is being shaped by the same powerful forces: demographic ageing, rapid urbanization, and the globalization of unhealthy lifestyles.

Under the pressure of these forces, chronic non-communicable diseases have overtaken infectious diseases as the leading cause of morbidity, disability, and mortality.

As stated in the UN Political Declaration on NCDs, prevention must be the cornerstone of the global response to these costly, deadly, and demanding diseases. Their root causes reside in non-health sectors. Collaboration among multiple sectors is imperative.

The consequences of this shift in the disease burden reach far beyond the health sector to touch economies everywhere. Recent studies demonstrate that the costs of advanced cancer care are unsustainable, even in the richest countries in the world.

[...]

Today, the tables are turned. Instead of diseases vanishing as living conditions improve, socioeconomic progress is actually creating the conditions that favour the rise of noncommunicable diseases. Economic growth, modernization, and urbanization have opened wide the entry point for the spread of unhealthy lifestyles.
The globalization of unhealthy lifestyles is by no means just a technical issue for public health. It is a political issue. It is a trade issue. And it is an issue for foreign affairs.

[...]

In the 1980s, when we talked about multisectoral collaboration for health, we meant working together with friendly sister sectors. Like education, housing, nutrition, and water supply and sanitation. When the health and education sectors collaborate, when health works with water supply and sanitation, conflicts of interest are rarely an issue.

Today, getting people to lead healthy lifestyles and adopt healthy behaviours faces opposition from forces that are not so friendly. Not at all.

Efforts to prevent non-communicable diseases go against the business interests of powerful economic operators. In my view, this is one of the biggest challenges facing health promotion.

[...] it is not just Big Tobacco any more. Public health must also contend with Big Food, Big Soda, and Big Alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and protect themselves by using the same tactics.

[...]

Tactics also include gifts, grants, and contributions to worthy causes that cast these industries as respectable corporate citizens in the eyes of politicians and the public. They include arguments that place the responsibility for harm to health on individuals, and portray government actions as interference in personal liberties and free choice.
[...]

As we learned from experience with the tobacco industry, a powerful corporation can sell the public just about anything.
[...]

Not one single country has managed to turn around its obesity epidemic in all age groups. This is not a failure of individual will-power. This is a failure of political will to take on big business.

This is the guidance gospel given to all public health fanatics the world over -- this is their rallying cry.  Let's summarise and rephrase Dr Chan's evil beliefs and intentions for world domination, shall we?

YOU are incapable of free choice and free will. Everything is the fault of capitalism. You have no control over anything you do.  Public Health will save you, but only when Public Health can force governments to let Public Health save you by destroying free markets and individualism, by eradicating responsibility and choice.  Every decision you can ever make is wrong, because you don't know how to make decisions -- only The New Inquisition has the knowledge, the know-how, the drive even, to force you to comply with their demands. You will be immortal, if only you have faith.

And that, if I do say so myself, is an excellent summary of the Slippery Slope / Avalanche of Hellish and Biblical Proportions that is coming to every country in the world, thanks to people like Dr Margaret Chan and those who think just like her.  We are all in imminent danger from Public Health.  We should never have to say those words, but sadly they have never been more true.  Public Health is a menace to society, and it must be stopped.

For more on this, see this video with Christopher Snowdon discussing the "non-existent" slippery slope with the Sun News in Canada.  It's about 14 minutes long and Chris appears about 4 or 5 minutes in...

By the way, you may remember Margaret Chan from my Black Seoul Days post -- she's holding a glass of champagne. So I suppose it's all right for her to drink alcohol, just not the plebs of the world.

High Priestess of Public Health, Dr Margaret Chan

Pure Evil

If you give the New Inquisition an inch, it will take a light-year.

Picture if you will a horrific, compassionless campaign of oppression against some of the most vulnerable people in society, relentlessly waged by a charity an organisation of hate that the dark lord of Hades would be delighted to call his own. In a dead-end street in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, stands a brick building worth a million Australian dollars that overlooks a tiny triangle of trees in Daffodil Park.  The occupants that toil and scheme within this structure look like any other ordinary figure you might bump into on the street, for those within do not have glowing red eyes, nor horns protruding from their skull. They look like us, but make no mistake, they do not act like us. Ironically, those beings inside the building in Dowling Street do not realise that they are the minions of evil; they believe that their mission is that of love, that they are doing good works. The same holds true for all of the world's greatest tyrants who brutally tortured and demonised minorities and other groups of people they deemed unworthy of living in their utopia. Do you now have the picture in your mind's eye?

It is time for this organisation of hate masquerading as a charity to be named:  It is called Action on Smoking and Health Australia.  ASH Australia to be more precise.

We begin this sad tale of denormalisation with a recent Facebook post which outlines their evil plans to prevent the mentally ill from ... smoking:

ASH Australia, the most evil organisation down under (excepting the current government, of course)

It is always easy to target and bully those who are unable to fight back, so this is the campaign ASH Australia has decided to wage.  This is an act of pure evil; one of cowardice as well. While the Facebook message above comes as little surprise to those who are already aware of ASH Australia's campaigns of terror against smokers, what may be surprising and bizarre to some of you is that The Root of All Evil, Simon Chapman, the man whose acts and efforts throughout his entire life is the basis for which ASH Australia wages their hate campaigns against tobacco consumers, does not agree with ASH Australia's present course of denormalisation against the weak, the mentally ill.

We point our camera lens to the comments of that post:

Click to enlargify

I must point out that The Root of All Evil has never favoured outdoor smoking bans, with the exception of banning smoking at outdoor dining areas at cafés and restaurants.  More to the point, The Root of All Evil understands that extreme actions such as preventing the mentally ill from using a legal substance has the potential to derail the freight train of denormalisation.  You see, in order for denormalisation to work, it must be implemented piecemeal, very slowly over time, so that the denizens of the world have adapted to the previous infringement of their civil liberties before surrendering the next infringement of their liberties.

The Root of All Evil is more clever than the minions within the brick building in Woolloomooloo; he understands how to implement denormalisation effectively.  But he set the train in motion down under, and this is the ultimate consequence of his actions. Evil always grows beyond your control; it is its very nature after all.

No doubt the sheep minions of hate at ASH Australia have frustrated The Root of All Evil by revealing their scheme a little too early in the battle for humans without compassion. The endgame for tobacco control is not yet here. Patience should be exercised if evil is to prevail. But having succeeded so many times on the slick track of denormalisation, the sheep minions are now unable to brake the train, not that they would ever want to do so.

Because if you give the anti-smokers an inch, they will take a light-year.

This will be their undoing. Expect the train wreck.

WATCH FOR HATE CAMPAIGNS IN THIS AREA

The Abject Failure of Tobacco Control in Wales

Right now, I suspect that quite a few tobacco controllers in Wales want to kill themselves. Why?  Because they're rubbish at their jobs of denormalising smoking, and because almost everybody despises them.  Actually, I have no idea if almost everybody despises them.  That was an embellishment -- I am allowed to do that.  But I despise them. So does Handyman Phil.  I'm sure there are plenty more people who despise the New Inquisition in Wales -- or at least what's left of it since some recent compulsory redundancies.

So the story is that the 2012 Health Survey reveals that there has been only a 1% drop in smoking prevalence in Wales since the smoking ban took effect in 2007.  That means, if we're to believe the figures, that 23% of people in Wales are smoking -- I believe the figure is likely higher, but whatever.  In this Wales Online article, the caption for the picture reads (emphasis added):

Almost a quarter of Welsh adults still smoke, despite the introduction of the smoking ban six years ago

OK, journos and editors of the world.  Pay attention: What's this "still smoke" bullshit?  Why do you need the word "still"?  Just write it as "Almost a quarter of Welsh adults smoke despite the introduction of the smoking ban six years ago."  Stop making the assumption that nobody should smoke. It's none of your business if people are smoking.

Anyway, the rest of the Wales Online article is a bunch of wibble from various figures in the New Inquisition with the blame on the government for not doing enough to meet arbitrary smoking prevalence targets.* It's interesting, yet unsurprising, that the article segues from smoking to obesity, with the usual shrill calls of "something must be done" to protect the chubby from themselves.  All of the smoky bloggers have been warning that this was going to happen for years and years. The day the programme of the denormalisation of fat, a hate campaign designed to make ordinary people stigmatise others based solely upon what other people look like through the rose-tinted lenses of the public health nutters, is nearly upon us. Expect it.

(*Never blame yourself for your own failure(s) is one of the most important tenets in the fanatical public health movement. Another is demanding more money from government so you can continue to fail spectacularly whilst also demanding more asinine legislation that doesn't work. And one last pro tip for the True Believers is never forget to blame capitalism and Big "Anything" (Tobacco, Alcohol, Sugar, Meat, Energy -- whatever) as the cause of the world's problems.)

What I find most interesting is not what's in all of the articles about the smoking prevalence in Wales; it is what isn't in those articles.  Allow me to explain by way of this handy chart produced in 2008 by NHS Wales.

click image to enlargify

So what do you see in that chart?  I know what I see. I see the total, abject failure of all tobacco control initiatives, legislations and hate campaigns in Wales since they began in earnest in roughly 2001, give or take a year or two. 

It's obvious. Before the display ban, before the vending machine ban, before the smoking ban, before graphic health warnings were mandated, before all of it, the adult smoking rate was dropping all on its own. And then from about 2000 when the hate campaigns were loosed onto the unsuspecting public, the rate has plateaued. It has barely changed a percentage point. There has been no significant statistical change to the smoking prevalence in Wales for 13 years.  None.  Everything the tobacco control industry has done in Wales (and by extension in England) has failed time and time again.

The message is most clear:  If you try to force people to conform to your beliefs, the people will reject it every time, either consciously or subconsciously. Prohibition doesn't work. Legislation doesn't work.  But if you leave people alone to make their own choices, they will by and large make the right choices for themselves.

You see, the problem with "tobacco control" is the word "control." It smacks of hatefulness.  You shouldn't even attempt to control people or their lifestyle -- this is what we expect from brutal dictatorships, not representative democracies. Few people like being told what to do and how to live their lives, and we certainly didn't ask anyone to save us from ourselves.

But the New Inquisition's tobacco control branch will never understand this; it is incapable of fathoming the most basic concept of "freedom to do something," instead replacing it with "freedom from something." They believe that the all people should be exactly as they are:  to think, eat, drink, dress, work, play, and hate exactly as they do. They call this "love."  It is not. The worst people in tobacco control believe the number of Twitter followers you have is important, as most cults of personality would do. It is not important. Tobacco control is a false religion with false gods and despicable leaders. The New Inquisition leaves only a miserable wake of destruction in its path, obliterating anyone and anything it deems unsuitable. The more they fail, and they always fail, the more despicable and oppressive they become.

The ordinary people of the world, however, are beginning to wake up and see the truth about public health's hate campaigns to force all of us to conform to some misguided belief of human perfection sold with the false promise of immortality.

Meanwhile the press and our governments still fail or refuse to recognise the will of the people. So they are desperately trying to maintain control -- sometimes it is through subtlety and other times it is through blatant propaganda or oppressive legislation.  Someday, although I know not when, they too will awaken from their dream of controlling every last one of us. They must. It is inevitable.  Perhaps it's time for all of us to begin prodding them from their slumber.

Back to Black

You would be forgiven for thinking otherwise, based on everything we know about the so-called public consultation of plain packaging of tobacco products to date, but the above image is spoofed.  Not genuine. Fake.  The original image is here, and it was captured from a PDF of a presentation that Andrew Black gave to a host of unelected, interfering, thieving technocrats at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on 16 March 2012.

Curiously, the presentation is listed under the heading of "Effective domestic consultation" in the final programme for the two-day workshop on trade-related issues (indeed, the PDF (found here) is named "Effective domestic consultation - UK"):

It is curious not because of the word "effective" (which it certainly will be for the New Inquisition) but instead because of the word "domestic."  You see, when we think about UK public consultations, we assume that the consultations are domestic consultations meant exclusively for the British public and businesses to respond with their views.  This assumption is wrong.  As a matter of fact, any nation's government and population outside of the EU can respond to a UK public consultation, including countries like Brazil or, say, North Korea and its ideologically-twinned sister nation, Australia.  More important, any responses from foreign entities outside of the UK (or the EU, if we choose to make that exception) will be included and passed on to British MPs.  So it would seem that the words "public" or "domestic" no longer hold their true meanings when it comes to the affairs of Britons.

I am, of course, every bit as shocked as anyone else might be by the revelation that Australia's government would respond to a UK public consultation as well as have the temerity to ask for an extension of time to respond.  But there is nothing at all preventing any foreign person, organisation or government from responding to a UK public consultation.  Nothing.  I know, because I've spent the past several days reading everything I could find about the rules and procedures for UK consultations. There are only recommended guidelines, which say nothing about who is entitled to respond.  (If I missed something, please advise in the comments.)

The consultation document itself reads:

"The purpose of this consultation is to seek the views of interested people, businesses and organisations on a policy initiative that would require the packaging of tobacco products to be standardised [...]"

And it lists the "target audience" as:

PCT Cluster CEs, NHS Trust CEs, SHA Cluster CEs, Directors of PH, Local Authority CEs, Businesses, Public Health Organisations, Academics, Members of the Public

I don't see anything about foreign governments or citizens from other countries as acceptable respondents.  But then again, I don't see anything that excludes foreign governments and their citizens.  So this is the problem. A lack of clarity and definition. We have wrongly assumed that UK public consultations were intended to be solely domestic matters (or perhaps EU-wide).  This is what we get for making assumptions, I suppose.

Back to the purpose of a consultation, is it really to seek the views of interested people?  Do your opinions really matter?  Perhaps not, according to the sixth slide of Andrew Black's presentation:

Allow me to put that slide into proper perspective by translating it for us plebs. What it really says is this:

• Through consultation, the Tobacco Programme group of the Department of Health seeks to include only our views, the evidence we asked to be created and the wholly-biased opinions of those who have vested interests in tobacco control.
• All other opinions will be de-emphasised and/or discarded in order to give Government a one-sided view and shore up our agenda.
• The people most likely to respond, apart from tobacco controllers and the public health religion's grand inquisitors, are those who will be detrimentally affected and they do not count.

And what better way to ensure all of the above than to install your own people, namely Andrew Black, to oversee the entire consultation process, from start to finish, to obtain the results you want.  To get a better picture of what I mean, we need to look no further than what the Tobacco Programme is, in Andrew Black's own words (PDF - page 22, section 3.1.1.5):

The Tobacco Programme at the Department of Health (DH) is the national coordinating mechanism for the United Kingdom for non-devolved aspects of tobacco control policy.

So, it all starts there, almost every last bit of smoker hate and deception originates from the DH's Tobacco Programme.  All of the taxpayer-funded anti-smoker groups, like Smokefree South West or Fresh NE to name but only two, all answer to the Tobacco Programme Manager, Andrew Black.   That's right, Black coordinates their every move.

And, incredulously, this is the guy put in charge of the consultation?  Can we really expect any impartiality?

I think we all know the answer to that.  I think we all know what to expect.

The only question left is:  What are we going to do about it?

?

Happy Fucking New Year

Much to the chagrin of The Root of All Evil, perhaps, I am still alive and quite healthy.  Clearly, he missed me.  Bless. I suspect that, deep down, he likes me. Or maybe it is his enormous ego that enjoys anything I write about him.  Of course, the Root still gets everything wrong.  I'm not a libertarian, nor a stalwart for the libertarian cause. I don't follow any political party or belief system.  Some of my personal beliefs may tend towards libertarian, but I would eschew the label as a matter of course. I do not subscribe to any group's ideology, even a disjointed group such as libertarians. In any case, I'm not dead yet, and with this new year I shall return to writing for this blog.

I needed the break from blogging for a multitude of reasons.  Suffice to say that after a few months of dedicated prohibitionist / socialist-watching and writing about these cunts, I felt a little burnt out, and that what remained lurking amongst the charred embers in the forge of my mind was a simmering rage that had to be quenched in order for me to return to some semblance of normalcy and well-being.  For a time I wasn't sure why I was angry at just about everything and everyone; I just knew what I felt could not be left unchecked.  So I decided to not blog for the whole month of December, and I stopped watching and using Twitter (it should be said I loathe Twitter), and I avoided Facebook (also loathed -- actually I despise almost all social media), and I didn't open up e-mails for days and I failed to reply to many, and most importantly, I stopped reading the news and keeping up on current events.  Ignorance is bliss, indeed.

Instead, I focused on doing the one thing I love to do the most.  Create and play music.  Does music soothe the savage beast?  Absolutely.  Funnily enough, I don't play in bands any longer because I have no tolerance for unreliable, egotistical arseholes, a species that pervades the music industry in spades (much like politics), particularly lead singers for cover bands, but certainly not limited to only them.  But I still love to play music.  I can spend hours playing the same riffs over and over, mastering them, perfecting them -- each and every note and nuance carefully considered.  However, what I enjoy most is just winging it, so to speak. Kind of making it up as I go along on the top of a song's structure.  Sure, I can play something exactly the same way every time, but where's the fun in that?  This is one reason why I never liked to play in cover bands unless we completely reworked the songs, and that almost never happens. Because people who come to listen to cover bands generally desire to hear the songs as they've always known them.  People don't like change.  They seek comfort in the things that are known to them, and this is especially true for playing in a cover band.

So anyway, I spent the month of December playing my keyboard, and catching up on some films, and generally avoiding everything related to this blog and the people I write about.  I am not sorry for this.

The time away did allow me to think a few things through.  I have a much better idea of what of "our side" needs to do and how to make these things happen.  Yet, in getting people motivated to actually do these things, to step outside from their comfort zones, to accept the risks involved, to take just a few baby steps of action ... well, I remain at a loss.  I'm not a charismatic leader, I have no powers of persuasion, and by the time you finish reading this blog post, you will have already forgotten this paragraph. Still, the things that I believe must be done I cannot do alone, and I am nevertheless wary of asking anyone to do them, let alone write about them.  Never telegraph your true intent to your enemies, is my point.

Speaking about enemies, I have considered who ours are at great length and I list the four of them in the order of importance:

The mainstream media -- I have long intended to write a proper blog post about the media, but for now, please know that the media is our greatest enemy.  Without the media's support, those who follow in this list could never have impacted us as greatly as they've done these past few years.  I am all for a free press and freedom of speech, but the media has been actively and purposefully deceiving all of us and promoting a socially-divisive agenda for too long, all to sell their brand of news.  Stay tuned for another post in the coming weeks.

National Politicians -- Our political system is utterly broken and beyond repair.  This shambles of a government we call a representative democracy has failed.  Completely. There is no saving it. It is a "demockery." Trust me on this. It has failed everywhere, not just in Britain.  If a politician votes against the wishes of the vast majority of the public and/or his constituency, then he is not representing anyone but himself (or herself) or his party's beliefs.  We have all been duped into believing that what we think matters. It doesn't matter at all to these motherfuckers. They are truly not interested in your well-being; they seek only to empower themselves.  They all need to go. 

The EU -- Some of you will say this should come before our national governments, but I disagree.  If we could fix our national governments, the EU problem could be readily solved.  You've probably noticed a lot of scaremongering coming from the leaders within the EU.  That's because they are desperately clinging on to the last vestiges of power they have. They know as well as you and I do that it's all going tits up -- it's just a matter of when.  The last three or four years, perhaps even longer, have seen endless plasters (Band-Aids for my American readers) stuck on the growing sore that is the EU, but none of these will or can cure the underlying infection. The EU experiment in control has also failed.  It has become a rabid monster that needs to be put down by any means.  I've always liked the free trade of goods and avoiding duty, particularly in respect of cross-border shopping, but upon honest consideration it's simply not worth enduring the misery. 

WHO / Public Health Advocates / Activist Doctors -- Public Health should be about things like clean drinking water and fighting off communicable diseases.  Instead it has become a breeding ground for prohibitionists and anti-capitalists and socialists, and it is most evident that the "cure" is far worse than the disease.  Not to get all lefty-sounding here, but there are many places in the world where people still do not have clean water, where infectious diseases run rampant, so why are these prohibitionist cunts worried about how much booze you drink, plain packaging for tobacco, how much food you eat? Have they ever saved one life? One child?  The answer is, "no."  All they really have done is destroy culture and lives, the very substance of our societies and social well-being. They have lied, they take and steal and use our money against us, and why the fuck do we put up with it?  Any individual who works in or identifies with the current construct of Public Health must be considered an enemy.  They must be given no quarter.  Little minions or big minions -- they are all equally dangerous and should be held to account.  Do not play nice with these people, for they have not played fair at all and they do not intend to.  It really is time to take off the gloves, don'tcha think? Or you can keep trying to play by their rules in a system rigged against you, and if you do, you will keep losing. Guaranteed.

Of course, the above is not all inclusive of all of our enemies. There are plenty of others that should be noted, too.  Like some departments at universities and members of their staff, any and all socialists, some in the legal business, certain charities, that stupid cow in America who spilt coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds (a blog post is forthcoming about that because I've realised it's an enormously important moment in understanding why things are the way they are), and any individual who is in favour of legislation banning anything under the seemingly noble yet hopelessly misguided pretense of "protect the children."  These people all suck in no small measure. 

And if you're one of those people noted above, people who work and pray for the New Inquisition, and you're reading this blog post, go fuck yourself.  Yes, I am talking to you people who cry out "protect the children." You are everything that is wrong with the world, even though every last one of you probably believe you're doing good works.  You aren't, though.  So let me put your troubled minds at ease and assure you minions of what you all know is true:  that you're just shitty people who place their emotions above rational thought processes. You are all like a harried mob, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake, because you always need to lash out when the world frightens you, so your gut instinct is to destroy anything you do not fully understand.  Because as we all know, the children demand a sacrifice, apparently.

So, in honour of a crappy and disappointing 2012 (and 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007) I'd like to wish all of you who are not nannying tyrant motherfuckers from hell a happy fucking new year, a year which I suspect will be filled with all of the regurgitated miserabilist shite of saving everyone from themselves until we all choke from the stench of it, and equally likely, hardly anyone doing or even willing to do a damn thing about it -- business as usual.

And 2013 is the year where I will no longer give one fuck about your children -- anyone's children. Because it's not my job to protect them. It's your job as a parent, and far too many parents have abdicated their responsibilities to an increasingly paternalistic socialist state that is bereft of honesty, integrity, and common decency and therefore incapable of protecting anything except its habits of corruption and controlling the lives of others. By a very large margin, your child would be safer in a large room filled with 650+ paedophiles than they are when our government tries to protect them. (I am laughing my ass off thinking about the looks on your faces after you've read that and possibly tried to imagine that scenario. Keep thinking about it, because deep down, you know I'm right.)

But the worst part about "the children" (or "protecting their innocence", which is equally galling) is that everyone has become so worried about protecting them, and to a lesser extent (but equally insidious) protecting the "womenfolk" (who Public Health advocates believes are incapable of rational thought or even being classed as an adult) that it appears that we have entirely forgotten about the adults who live in this world and what it means to be all growed-up.  The world is dangerous, cruel and unfair.  The world has never been safe; it has certainly never been safe for children. You're supposed to teach them that as they grow up.  You're supposed to warn them of the dangers.  You're supposed to gradually take away their naivety.  All so that when they do arrive at growed-up, they should know how to identify what is or may be dangerous and, one hopes for their sake, avoid things that can harm them ... maybe.  But that's not what has been happening. No, what has been happening is trying to make the world itself child-safe, which is impossible.  Throwing a sheet over the monster at best only temporarily distracts it, but its teeth and claws are still there and will make short work of you if stray too close to it, covered or otherwise.  By covering up the dangers, by attempting to hide them from your children's sight, by banning things that were always meant for adults, all you do is blind your children to the risks and put them in greater harm.  So if that's what you want for your children, if you truly want them to be unable to protect themselves as adults, then so be it. I don't care what happens to your kids any longer.  They are not my concern.

Asbestos Bear
Because Your Child Might Not Be Worth It After All

The Power of Hatred

If you are a smoker in Australia who now believes that the flavour of your chosen brand of cigarettes has changed for the worse since the implementation of plain packaging, then let me help you understand the reasons why you may believe it.  It is because the anti-smokers hate you.  Oh, rest assured that they hate tobacco companies, too.  But the anti-smokers are using you to get at the tobacco companies, and they will go to any extreme to achieve their crusade's goal of prohibition, including propagandising mere anecdotal reports without any basis in fact.

So what about that flavour?  Did it change?  Maybe it has for you, but it's not because of how the external packaging looks. It could be because Australia's plain packaging legislation also dictates how the cigarette can be made, e.g. the type of paper that can be used (it must be white), what the filter can look like, etc.  So there may be some real physical changes to the cigarette that has altered its flavour, or it may be because the manufacturing process has been altered.

Or it could just be all in your head. Mind over matter.  I don't know.  But what I do know is that the anti-smokers love the fact that some of you think the flavour of your machine-made cigarettes has changed, because they also intend to legislate which flavourings and additives can be used during the curing process -- and that will greatly alter the flavour of your tobacco. This is all part of the denormalisation programme, all part of the endgame.  You are but pawns in this game, and you will be sacrificed as the crusade marches on. Count on it.

There are, however, numerous things that can alter the flavour of a cigarette.  The obvious factors are the tobacco blend and the curing processes.  Paper and filter types, too, play a substantial role in taste.  But did you know that the length and diameter of a cigarette also determine the flavour?  It is believed that slim cigarettes generally taste better than king size cigarettes because of the slim cigarette's smaller diameter -- something to do with the airflow through the cigarette, I believe, although I cannot recall exactly why this is so and I'm too lazy to look it up today.  Those who roll their own cigarettes can easily confirm this by rolling a slim cigarette and comparing it to a thicker-rolled one.  You will definitely notice a difference in flavour between the two.

So, I strongly suspect that those in Australia who smoke roll-ups have not noticed any change in flavour.  Because the only difference for them is the imagery on the packaging. They still roll their cigarettes as they've always done, using the same papers and filters.

I don't know whether to believe if four out of ten people who visit a sole Australian shop think the flavour of their chosen brand has changed.  I suppose anything is possible in the New Inquisition.

Damned No Matter What You Do

Remember when the tobacco control industry said smoking bans were vital public health measures to protect people, particularly non-smoking women and children, from second-hand smoke?  Remember that?  I do.

Well, they lied.  But I know that you knew that already.

The ultimate goal for the tobacco control industry is to annihilate every last tobacco company, big and small, so that the only legitimate supplier of "clean" nicotine products is Big Pharma.  But as the battles are waged all over the world, it is we ordinary civilians who are under constant bombardment. The laws passed are designed to have a greater effect on us than they do for tobacco companies. The idea behind the Public Health religion's crusade is to increasingly make it more difficult for Big Tobacco to have willing customers, and one way of achieving that aim is to change the norms of society itself.  In practice, it is a massive effort to denormalise society -- to change something that is absolutely normal for millions and millions of people into a despised and feared activity.  Forcing society to conform to the beliefs and tenets of Public Health, in other words.

And those who do not conform, those who do not convert and accept the gods of prohibition into their hearts and minds, those who fail to spread the gospel accordingly or dare question its legitimacy, are iniquitous heathens who must be tortured and vilified at every opportunity.  This is the New Inquisition.

And this is its mark:

The grand cathedral, the holiest all of the temples of Public Health, is the headquarters of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. Shielded from public scrutiny, the WHO is where new and ingenious methods for torturing the unconverted are devised.  The WHO is The Source of All Evil.  It is a place where Grand Inquisitors of the New Inquisition lay down roots and tentacles to greedily slurp up the nutrients that sustain them throughout their careers crusading for Public Health. But in this dark and secret place, the WHO Secretariat of the FCTC refines the scriptures for the True Believers in order to keep the faithful on message and to guide them accordingly on their relentless crusade to save everyone from themselves.

So let us have a look at a few recent scriptures prepared by the Convention Secretariat.  By doing so, we will learn what to expect from the New Inquisition over the coming years.  We will see just how evil their intentions are.

Our first document is the Control and prevention of smokeless tobacco products.

With the war on smokers going rather well (i.e. smoking bans under Article 8 (protection from tobacco smoke)), the zealots are most concerned that smokers will seek out alternative sources of nicotine that do not fall under pharmaceutical regulations, e.g. Smokeless Tobacco  Products (SLT), such as snus or dissolvable lozenges. This is unacceptable in their view, so something must be done to stop it, or at least regulate it to make it difficult for any company who wishes to supply SLT to consumers:

Click image to enlargify

In this paragraph, we can glean quite a few insights. However, note the highlighted sentence. If you thought the smoking ban was about protecting people from tobacco smoke, you would be wrong. It's about forcing smokers to quit.  In their minds, if they keep taking away the places where you can smoke, you will eventually be forced to quit.  This is all part of the endgame.  But if you switch to using smokeless tobacco products like snus when you are out and about, you are still a bad person and you are not helping their cause.

But smokeless tobacco products aside, the New Inquisition greatly fears the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), more commonly called e-cigarettes. Let us now look at another document prepared by the Convention Secretariat, Electronic nicotine delivery systems, including electronic cigarettes.

So far, it seems the crusaders know next-to-nothing about these "dirty" and unacceptable alternative nicotine products:

Lack of knowledge aside, something must be done. Because these devices not only frighten them, they are also in direct competition with pharmaceuticals. The only acceptable use of nicotine is "clean" nicotine provided by Big Pharma. Therefore, e-cigarettes must be banned, or barring that, regulated in precisely the same way as tobacco products, e.g. bans on advertising, promotion and prohibiting use in public places.

And the lack of evidence that vaping is potentially harmful to the user or the non-vaping public doesn't matter either. Just ban it.

Why would they do all of this before even looking into these products.  Perhaps these two paragraphs will shed a little light on the matter:

As you can see above, it doesn't even matter if the products contain nicotine or tobacco extracts.  E-cigarettes must be banned because they resemble cigarettes and this undermines that whole denormalisation part of the crusade.  Anything that looks like smoking is harmful and therefore should be given no quarter. Ban it. Ban everything.

And finally, just so you understand Big Pharma's role in all of this, note that nicotine is an "active" pharmaceutical ingredient. 

 

So, in the coming years, we should expect to see bans on smokeless tobacco products and e-cigarettes happening in all the places where they are currently available and on sale. This is the territory where the crusade is heading. But other battle fronts remain. There are still many battles to be fought against smokers, namely plain packaging, and bans on smoking in cars and in your homes. These are coming. They will happen.

Yes, I fully expect the Public Health crusade to succeed, and I believe that all of these bans will happen as part of the New Inquisition.  Because the hard-to-swallow truth is that we will let it happen. We will let them do it to us because it's easier to complain about it than it is to take action, to make a stand.  Most of you already believe that even speaking out against it is pointless.  Am I right?

For too long both consumers and tobacco companies have tried to appease the zealots by making concessions, but we have been tricked and deceived by our own sense of fairness. We accepted their denormalisation regime as a matter of course, because many of us wrongly believed that we were harming others, that we were bad people, and we felt ashamed for our habits.

We have already lost every battle because we didn't bother to fight them. We cannot even agree on what should be fought for, because we are presently disunited.

We could, however, change our destiny if we wanted to do so. We could unite. We could find just one thing to agree on (even temporarily, because I know that some of you think it's unimportant and do not care) and make a stand against it, against the True Believers of Public Health.  In the UK, we have the plain packaging battle to fight.  This is not a fight for the tobacco companies -- this is not a fight to protect Big Tobacco's interests or rights.  This is a fight for ourselves, and our way of life. For freedom from the prohibitionists.  This is a battle that we could win if we stand together and speak out against it. We have already partially succeeded, but there is still a bit more work we must do now. The battle is not yet over.

All it takes is a very small amount of your time to write to your MPs -- even if you have already signed a petition, write to your MPs.  Just one letter or e-mail. That's all you have to do.  If you aren't sure how to do that, contact me by e-mail only and I will do everything I can to assist you.  Maybe we win. Maybe we don't. In the eyes of Public Health, we are damned either way. There is no point in making it easy for them. But we cannot win anything at all if we do not even try to fight, we will only lose if we do nothing.

Still, I wonder if even this is asking too much. Perhaps too many people think that someone else is going to do it, and what difference would your letter make anyway?  But if everyone thinks that, then no one will do it. And we will lose for lack of trying. Again and again. Like we have done for years.

As always, it is entirely up to you. Make the choice and do what you like. But please, if you do nothing at all, if you expect others to do it on your behalf, if you believe your voice doesn't matter, then be considerate and spare me your complaints in the future when the New Inquisition has taken everything else from you.

Blackout

Ever since the plain packaging consultation began, there have been quite a few curious happenings at the Department of Health's Freedom of Information site.  In case you aren't aware of how the DH typically releases FOIs to the public, it works like this:

Once every three months, the DH quietly posts up a full disclosure log document listing the FOI requests that were received and released to interested parties over a given quarter, for example:  FOI releases to requests made from 1 January to 31 March 2012. 

It's not exactly a "full disclosure."  If you want to know what was released, you have to write to the DH and request copies of the correspondence relating to a particular FOI.  I don't know why they do it this way, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's to make it a lot more difficult for people to be aware of what's going on. How many people in the general public are going to take the time to write to the DH for a particular matter?  The answer is likely to be very few, and I would think that the DH counts on it. What the public doesn't know, and what the press won't tell you, won't hurt the government.  

Because it would be just as easy to dump all of the documents on the site -- to make them all available to all UK citizens at once when they release their disclosure log.  We know that the DH can do it.  They've done it recently.  For some "unknown" reason last September, the DH released all of the documents pertaining to this FOI request:  

FOI release – correspondence about the Government’s consultation on the packaging of tobacco products:

Click to enlargify

Obviously, somebody at the DH believed this particular FOI, as opposed to 1,647 FOIs released over the previous seven months (Jan 2012 - July 2012)  in the typical fashion, was in the greater public interest to provide all of the documents on their server. The question is not necessarily "who did it?" (we may never know the answer to that, but I can of course speculate wildly) but rather "why was this done this way?"  Whose purposes are best suited by publishing the FOI in this manner?  Because the documents released seem to indicate that one signature gatherer for the plain packs opposition was cheating, caught out by none other than the man responsible for the plain packaging public consultation, Mr Andrew Black.

Indeed, "filling in screeds of made up names," said Simon Chapman on Twitter on 20th June 2012, a time before anyone else in the general public had been made aware of Andrew Black's confrontation with a signature gatherer near Waterloo station.  How on earth did Chapman come to know this information? Who shared it with him? And just as important, why did someone in the DH share that knowledge with a man who lives in Sydney, Australia, or at least share it with someone else who later shared it with Chapman?  Again, we need to ask, whose purposes does it suit to do this? 

(And just another curious aside here:  the very first mention anywhere of the FOI release up on the DH's site was by Mr Collins, a volunteer ambassador for CRUK, a man who tirelessly campaigned for plain packaging. Do note, I'm not saying that Collins made the FOI request, but he certainly knew about it before most people. How? Maybe I ought to ask him...)

Another thing to pay careful attention to when noting the curiousness of this release is the length of time it took the DH to publish the data on their web site -- just a few short days over a month.  They sure did not waste any time -- it takes longer than that to post up the disclosure log for previous quarters.  To be fair to the DH's FOI office, they are incredibly efficient when responding to FOIs.  Here's a table of their performance for this year -- it's perfect, even in February when they received a massive 672 requests:

Source: https://www.wp.dh.gov.uk/transparency/files/2012/10/FOIperformancestatisticsJan2011todate.doc

Also in fairness to the DH, it also broke usual form again in posting up another FOI release from someone who had requested documents about the pro-plain packs campaigners, also in just over a month and some change, which was:  FOI release – correspondence about the Government’s consultation on the packaging of tobacco products:

Why they published this request is also a mystery, although we must assume they did it to placate the opposition to plain packaging, to avoid a scandal, perhaps.  "We published both sides' FOIs," they can claim. Regardless, we know that the DH can release the full contents of any FOI request when it suits them. But normally, they just release the disclosure log and (one assumes) quietly hope that nobody notices it and/or bothers to write in for the materials pertaining to any given request.

But what is missing from all of the FOI correspondence the DH has released to date is Simon Clark's response to Andrew Black in respect of the "screeds of made up names" by a lone signature gatherer for the Hands Off Our Packs campaign.  And we must ask the "why question" again.  Why has the DH not released that information?  

Well, we know it fell out of the time period of the first FOI request, so it cannot appear in that batch, obviously, but even so, the public deserves to have all of the information to hand about the plain packs consultation.  The DH has released two FOIs so far.  Surely, the answers to the first FOI are equally important?  Yes?  No?  Apparently not, because there is no more information to be gleaned from the DH's FOI site, and questions raised there remain unanswered. Publicly, at least.

And there is something else -- something that is most unusual and disturbing -- happening on the Department of Health's Freedom of Information page.  As I wrote above, they usually release three-months' worth of FOIs in their full disclosure log, all at one time. Yet all of a sudden -- well, let us have a look at what they've done recently by comparing it to how it used to be done:

Here is how FOIs are typically released on the DH's site.

And here is how they are doing it this month. Spot the difference!

Did you spot the difference? What's changed?  And what's missing?

Well, they've switched from releasing three months' worth of FOIs in one posting, to posting up the months individually.  And can somebody explain what happened to September's posting?  Why, that's curious. It's not there.  Where is September?  Why isn't September posted?

Better question:  What, exactly, is the DH hiding by not releasing the disclosure log for September 2012? Is there something in September's releases that damages the plain packs supporters?

OK, OK, OK, I know.  Let's not jump to conclusions. I gotcha. True, this is all circumstantial. Right?  We have no evidence of any deliberate attempt by the DH, a government body, funded by the taxpayer, to obfuscate the truth by withholding information from the general public. The DH may have a very good reason for not releasing September's disclosure log. Maybe they forgot.  It could happen.

But when you add up all of the circumstances that we already know to date -- that the DH clearly wants to implement plain packaging, and the early release of the plain packaging FOI request, and how Simon Chapman knew about the "screeds of made up names" well before anyone else on this side of the world ("screeds" is certainly a gross exaggeration, but then we come to expect nothing less from the Root of All Evil), and of course the sudden changes to how the DH is presenting their full disclosure logs, and ...

... it stinks.  Something is curiously amiss. Something is going on. I can feel it, balls to bones.

It certainly appears to me as though the DH is desperately trying to influence the opinions of the public and our ministers in Parliament by presenting a wholly-biased view of the facts and by withholding vital information about what happened during the consultation, to deliberately mislead them into believing that those who oppose plain packaging had cheated.  Appears that way to me. But I do not know.

There is, however, one man who certainly does know.  Andrew Black. We must ask our MPs to investigate whether a known tobacco control advocate has any businesses at all presiding over a public consultation that must remain unbiased and fair.  This is scandalous. Yes, scandalous.

And I would wager anything that Stephen Williams MP also knows what is going on, along with the other anti-smoking members of the APPG on Smoking and Health and ASH. But of course I have no proof of collusion, no proof of deliberate obfuscation, and no proof of corruption throughout the Department of Health. But I suspect there might indeed be something in September's FOI release that is going to hurt them. And I suspect that the reason why we aren't seeing it is because they don't want you to know what is happening. Because all things being equal, it is a clear lack of transparency to exclude the disclosure log from September, especially when we are expecting the report on the consultation any week now.

There are many unknowns at present. I would not be surprised if the DH tries to throw out the signatures gathered against plain packaging. It's a likely scenario as any. But if they do not throw out the signatures, then perhaps they will probably ignore the public's will and do what they like. That is equally likely. 

The game is afoot, except this is no game. This is very real for a great number of Britons. The livelihoods of real people, ordinary and hard-working citizens in Britain, are at stake here, and they will indeed by greatly harmed by plain packaging if the government goes against the public's will and proceeds to implement it.  

It's almost time we made our move and put an end to this rampant bullying against a significant percentage of the population.  So stay tuned for more details over the coming days.

UPDATE:  Rather timely, Simon Clark has just posted up his response to Andrew Black regarding the signature gatherer incident at Waterloo station.  You ready for this? The kid that Andrew Black confronted added two signatures!  Two! How the hell does two forged signatures constitute "filling in screeds of made-up names"?  It just proves that the people working in the tobacco control industry are deliberately and maliciously deceiving everyone. And this includes some of our elected representatives in Parliament, like Stephen Williams MP.  Do not trust these people! They are not telling the truth.

UPDATE 2:  Dick Puddlecote shine more light on the corrupt and deceptive practices of the APPG on Smoking and Health, and it's corker!  I really don't want to spoil it for you. ;)

UPDATE 3:  On 22 November 2012, the DH finally released the September 2012 FOI disclosure log.  I cannot be certain that this blog post had anything at all to do with that, but it's a nice thought.

How They Lie and Deceive

In August, I wrote about the use of castoreum, which is a [possible] additive in some cigarettes and tobacco products (along with many common food items and perfumes) and how the tobacco control industry distorts the facts to suit their agenda of hate against consumers of tobacco products and, of course, particularly the tobacco companies.  It's underhanded and false propaganda, which is exactly what we have come to expect from the anti-smokers. 

But the other day, I stumbled upon these two similar images that are currently being distributed through social media sites like Facebook, mainly directed at teenagers and to younger children.

This one comes with handy cut-outs for hours of entertainment for your kids.

These images are both incredibly funny and enormously sad.  Let's start with the funny.

Can you imagine some gormless anti-smoker running around town looking for piles of dog shit to stick one of those signs in to make their anti-smoker point?  Hilarious that imagery, definitely, and we wish you grown-up morons who should know better all of the best of luck in your quest.

But please -- and this hugely important -- do not ask your kids to stick these signs into piles of dog poop, because there really is some nasty bacteria in animal waste that will certainly harm your child if they happen to rub fecal matter into their eyes or ingest it.  Seriously.  Your child could go blind (and that's why we have laws against dog fouling -- hell, it's why we ourselves use toilets rather than defecating in the street).

This campaign of misinformation and hate against smokers is ill-advised and possibly dangerous.  But potential child-harming aside, it is also sad because it's a distortion of the truth -- which is altogether even sadder because the group putting out this information and seemingly hoping to blind your children is an organisation run by the American Legacy Foundation called TRUTH. So the truth is that TRUTH are blatantly deceiving you with bullshit propaganda, trying to make you feel rather than think by linking ammonia with shit, by exploiting your lack of knowledge about chemicals and even the meaning of the word chemical (i.e. that all chemicals are toxic -- they aren't). They even say they love smokers, which is bullshit. They probably don't. In all likelihood, they hate you, and I base that opinion on the bullshit propaganda they put out there.

Ammonia is certainly found in fecal matter, and it's in tobacco as well, sometimes added during the leaf-curing process and also produced naturally during the burning process.  But ammonia is everywhere all the time. It is a naturally-occurring chemical that is vital for life on this planet, and it's even out there in space. It's in the air. It's in the foods you eat. Fish make ammonia, too. Wikipedia states that (emphases added) "[a]mmonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building-block for the synthesis of many pharmaceuticals [...]."  Good enough for Big Pharma, so why isn't it good enough for tobacco?  And hey, guess what?  You produce ammonia in your body, all the time, every day of your life. It's in your breath, it's in your blood. Livers and kidneys.  It's part of your chemical make-up. In large enough quantities, ammonia can be very toxic, and it doesn't smell very nice at all. But in the case of your body's production of ammonia, as well as the amounts found in tobacco and tobacco smoke (or any smoke for that matter), we're talking trace elements that are insufficient to cause anyone harm.

It is wrong to associate a vital chemical for life with the excretions of Sparky, your pet Labrador. We may as well blame oxygen for all of the world's woes. But the tobacco control industry, formed of several groups like ASH, and TRUTH, and FRESH, and CRUK, and even the gloriously taxpayer-funded Department of Health Hate... they are masters of deception and spin. They don't tell you the whole truth about ammonia.  Most of the time, they don't even tell the truth. They will say that tobacco companies add ammonia to create a freebase nicotine, designed to instantly addict you to nicotine. That is theory, and so far it seems to be untrue. You can even read about it on the BBC's web site.

So here's some truth for you. The stuff that is added to tobacco during the curing process is not harmful. The flavours, like chocolate and honey, that are also added to tobacco during the curing process are not designed to hook the next generation of smokers or three-year-olds for that matter.  When tobacco leaves are cured, the chemical properties of the leaf are altered, sometimes for the worse depending on the type of tobacco, so additives and other ingredients are added to restore some of the balance in the taste or flavour. We do this with most of our food, and our wine and beers? Why wouldn't it be done for tobacco, too?

The tobacco control industry is lying to people to promote their agenda of hate against tobacco companies and especially smokers. It's the New Inquisition. They will say and do anything to make people hate smokers, to turn ordinary people into hateful activists, particularly using your children to do their work for them. They will rig consultations in their favour. They will produce studies that have no scientific merit whatsoever to support any and all of the goals. All to make you stop doing something they do not like.

There are definitely possible health risks associated with smoking, and many smokers will also say that there are many possible benefits to smoking. We all know the risks. We have all been adequately informed, and not even plain packaging will increase our awareness level of the risks, no matter what these awful people say. At some point, we all make a choice and ultimately we are responsible for ourselves.  It is not the government's job to teach your children about the risks of smoking -- it is definitely not TRUTH's job, nor is it any charity's responsibility.  It is your job as a parent.

And isn't it about time you started taking ownership of your responsibilities as parents?  Because when we leave it to the government to parent your children or the organisations who have a clear agenda of hate, we all stand to lose a great deal.

The New Inquisition

I was awake last night until 4 a.m. because I had been reading up on the world's greatest (i.e., infamous) dictators and tyrants.  I had one simple question in my mind that I wanted to answer:  What is worse than a Nazi?  Our human history is filled with horrific atrocities perpetrated by individuals and their sheep minion supporters in the name of some misguided righteous and holy quest.  I wondered, idly, as I searched the web, if perhaps we are sometimes too quick refer to the Public Health zealots as fascist Nazis, to make comparisons to the Holocaust, etc.  World War II and Germany's Third Reich is recent history, so it seems reasonable that we would draw on that recent memory to make our associations in present-day events. Despite the horror of that time, the millions of deaths, the unfathomable evilness of it all, and the obvious parallels between Public Health's present-day anti-smoker movement and Hitler's anti-smoker movement, could it be possible that there is something in history that was worse than the Nazis?

When I was young student, I did not care about history. I found it dull and uninspiring. I had better things to think about.  I, like many of my contemporaries, was focused on the future. My future. The past was the past, and back then I failed to see how what had come before had any relevance on what was happening now or would happen later. The folly of youth, perhaps. It is not until I was much older, in my early 30s, at a time when I was writing fiction and editing part-time for a magazine, that I began to find our human history utterly compelling. I suddenly realised that a majority of fictional works were based on events in our past -- the names and places changed, details modified, but the story had been ripped from history and reworked for a modern audience. Now, I understand the benefit of knowing our history, but even so I am playing catch-up and there is a great deal I have not learnt.

So the question -- "What is worse than a Nazi?" -- is what drove me to abandon a reasonable bedtime and seek out history's worst atrocities and those who caused them. But by 4 a.m. I had barely scratched the surface of evildoings, so I left a comment at Leg-Iron's and posed the question to him instead (which I will come to later in this post), and then I went to bed and dreamt of sunshine and bunnies.

What dreams may come...

But what inspired me to seek out the answer to my question was this article about Alabama's largest employer refusing to hire anyone who uses any tobacco product.  And it should come as little surprise that this particular employer is in the health-care (read as Public Health) business:

Starting July 1, 2013, all new hires at the University of Alabama Medical Center must be tobacco-free.
[...]
"As health-care providers, UAB Medicine and the entities that comprise it should be role models for good health behaviors, and lead by example in the quest for good health,” says UAB Health System CEO Will Ferniany, Ph.D.
[...]
Prospective new hires will be tested for nicotine use during the pre-employment drug screening. Anyone who tests positive for nicotine use will not be hired.

Whilst I read the article, I began to believe in the possibility that the Public Health movement-cum-religion is much worse than Nazis. These people in Alabama, they are evil. They are promoting a campaign of hate and tyranny that is far more insidious than Hitler's reign of terror.  The University of Alabama Medical Center and its related entities have chosen to not hire people who use any kind of tobacco products, to make an example of out of those who do not conform to their belief system.  That is just indefensibly amoral and cruel. People should be hired based on their skills and qualifications, their ability to do the work, not based on what legal substances they choose to use.  Any person who supports a policy of depriving a person of making a living based on whether they smoke or use other tobacco products is worse than a Nazi.  At least the Nazis, for all of their inexcusable sins, did not try to hide their true agenda of eradication and the perfect race.

So what is worse than a Nazi?  The answer is of course the Public Health movement. But to draw an apt comparison from history, I posed the question to Leg Iron in a comment on his blog.

He replied:  The Inquisition.

The Inquisition cared nothing for where their victims came from or what nationality they were. An accusation was all they needed, no proof required. You would be arrested and you had to prove your innocence but you were not informed who accused you nor what you were accused of. Acquittal was impossible because the Inquisition never arrested the innocent so you were held until you confessed to something. Anything. Nobody went unpunished, if you were lucky it was minor, if not you were burned.

That is the Righteous mindset. The Common Purpose mindset. Nazis is indeed too small a word, but they don’t teach about the Inquisition in schools any more.

It would be a bit of a give-away if they did.

Bloody hell, mate. I think you're on to something here, and thanks for that! I like it, so long as I can get past Mel Brooks's version of it.

So now I am beginning to believe we are in the midst of a New Inquisition, an unholy and evil movement that easily tucks the Nazi anti-smoker mindset under its wing.  Drinkers and eaters, these are targets. Anyone who supports Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol, Big Soda, or even the Big Meat industry is a target.

But it's not limited to just those few groups.  The New Inquisition casts a much wider net -- it is such a great evil that it is inaccurate to compare it only to the Nazis in Germany. The New Inquisition encompasses everything that has the merest potential to cause harm, and even the most minuscule risk must be erased from existence .  It has infiltrated our governments and educational institutions, and it is presently infiltrating both our public and private places of employment.  There is no escape -- it's worldwide and its tentacles slither out into the deepest, darkest corners of human existence. Any person who does not believe in Public Health is a heretic, and will be cast out of society to live out a slow, agonising torturous existence.

This is what we face. A New Inquisition.  And there are Grand Inquisitors the world over (even in Alabama) conspiring with the dark forces of evil to force you to convert to their religion. We must stop them before history repeats itself, before we add yet another great atrocity to our history books, before the damage to the fabric of our societies becomes too great to repair.

They must be stopped.