Thursday, June 28, 2012
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The Property Rights Newsletter June 29, 2012 - Issue #670 "As the world's finest democracy, we do not do guillotines. But there are other less bloody rituals of humiliation, designed to reassure the populace that order is restored, the Republic cleansed."- William Greider | ||
Tobacco Control Tactics: War of the Wikis - A grassroots response to the latest attack against tobacco users. When asked to describe what the TCT project was all about, Michael J. McFadden of the US-based Citizens Freedom Alliance said, "Considering the unremittingly positive media imaging of antismoking organizations we expect people to be shocked by what they read in these Wiki pages. We ask readers to simply read our pages carefully and compare them with information presented on the other side of the issue. We believe people will be angry at the way trusted officials and institutions have used the same sort of manipulative and cold-blooded tactics long associated with the Tobacco Industry in order to push a hidden agenda of denormalization and eradication rather than an open program of simple education and proper control."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Suggests Public Shaming Speeders As Form Of Punishment. Bloomberg, frustrated with the state legislature's unwillingness to vote on proposed speed-cameras that would be placed in the city's most dangerous intersections, voiced his idea on his radio show on Friday in order to slow down speeders and keep residents safe. "We'll put up their names and pictures someplace," he said. "Maybe we can shame them, and we should look at that, because if Albany is not going to let us do this stuff, we've got to save lives."
Public humiliation: Read about shameful exposure, painful humiliation, public punishment... Remember history. MI: Motorcyclists celebrate helmet law repeal at annual rally. Bikers from throughout the state gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to exalt the recent lifting of Michigan’s mandatory helmet law, an issue that many cyclists have been fighting for more than 30 years. USA: Do Smoking Bans Really Save Lives? If So, Whose? By Geoffrey Kabat. Something is amiss, when, in the service of advocating a particular policy, activists and health authorities have to base their claims on a weak body of evidence and ignore a much stronger and more rigorous body of painstakingly accumulated data, which helps put the matter in perspective. Canada: Meet Randy Hiller MPP at the Canadian Property Rights Conference in Ottawa from September 14-16, hosted by The Institute for Liberal Studies (ILS). Canada: Tobacconist's case has to wait six months. Bob Gee will have to wait six more months to get his day in court. Gee said he has received much support from his customers and others who view his case as small business taking on big government. France: The Global War On Tobacco Awakens Ghosts Of Prohibition. Well, the ghost is back to haunt us again, if you are to believe a report handed over by French Member of Parliament Yves Bur to the Health Minister. Under the impetus of the World Health Organization and its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, countries across the globe have committed themselves to "denormalize" tobacco use and to punish the tobacco industry. On top of taxes getting higher and higher, a whole battery of regulations is also being implemented. But since the demand for tobacco "refuses" to disappear, prohibition is increasingly being brought forward as the only solution. Vietnam: Vietnam has passed a law banning smoking in public places and all tobacco advertising. "We are very happy about this development," SEATCA director Bungon Ritthiphakdee said, adding that the final version of the law was strong and in line with the WHO-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. World: Smokers Blogs. Watch instant postings to your favorite blogs. | ||
 Our 4th of July card for you, and to share. | ||
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The Property Rights Newsletter June 22, 2012 - Issue #669 "There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."- Will Rogers | |
Sweden Wants to Outlaw Stand Up Urination. A Swedish political party is taking a stand against upright urination. At a county council meeting Monday, the Left Party, or Vansterpartiet, tabled a motion that would require office washrooms to be genderless with a sit-down-only requirement, reported the news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra. Vansterpartiet, known as a socialist and feminist organization, believes seated urination is healthier for men and more hygienic for both sexes.
CA: Prop. 29 consigned to ashtray of history. We come to bury Proposition 29, not to praise it. What we oppose is singling out classes of people for targeted taxes. So-called sin taxes, such as this additional tax on tobacco products, unjustly punish people who engage in entirely lawful behavior. If our society finds tobacco use evil, a more appropriate approach would be to outlaw it. CA: Waddling Into the Sunset. Foie Gras Ban Update. Beyond the kitchen, there are other responses in the works, including whispers of culinary civil disobedience, in which restaurateurs would continue to serve the dish - and risk fines of up to $1,000 per violation. Others have suggested that they could skirt the law by offering the foie gras free (with $20 glasses of wine). MA: Cambridge wants to Ban All Soda and "Sugar-Sweetened" Drinks in Restaurants. If NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg's dream to limit the size of sodas and other sweetened drinks has made people in New York angry, how will citizens of one Massachusetts city react if their elected official block all of these drinks, large and small in the city's restaurants? The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (the home of Harvard & MIT) has proposed such a thing. UK: "Plain Packaging? No Minister!" from Hands Off Our Packs! Using actors, the video features a conversation between a fictional health minister and his chief civil servant about the desirability of plain packaging. It also includes a spoof "partly political broadcast" featuring the minister, the Rt Hon Peter Perfect MP. World: Smokers Blogs. Watch instant postings to your favorite blogs. | |
 Watch the music video: They Don't Care About Us. Tell me what has become of my life - I have a wife and two children who love me - I am the victim of police brutality, now - I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate - You're rapin' me off my pride - Oh, for God's sake - I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy - Set me free. - All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us. - Tell me what has become of my rights - Am I invisible because you ignore me? - Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now - I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame - They're throwing me in a class with a bad name - I can't believe this is the land from which I came - You know I really do hate to say it - The government don't wanna see - But if Roosevelt was livin' - He wouldn't let this be, no, no. - All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us. (Same song, filmed outside the prison.) | |
Thursday, June 14, 2012
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The Property Rights Newsletter June 15, 2012 - Issue #668 "You know who they're blaming for global warming now?This is true. Fat people." - Craig Ferguson | ||
Regulating Our Sugar Habit: Their contention is that sugar is hardly "an empty calorie," but rather an actively harmful one: "Fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic metabolic diseases." Added sugar is not the only dangerous food. But unlike animal products, for example, which we also overconsume, it has no benefits. Yet we down it at the rate of 150 pounds per person per year, and while scientists argue whether it is addictive in humans (it meets the criteria for addiction in animals), it is most certainly habit-forming. Lustig and his co-authors suggest that actions like imposing taxes on added sugar or establishing a minimum age for purchase of sodas (they mention 17 in their paper) would reduce consumption.
Food additives: Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling (with vinegar), salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the 20th century, many more additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin. MORE: Fat articles from The Property Rights Newsletter. AMA More Bans on Salt. - What is the correct time to drink water? - Obesity. USA Plans to drug test welfare recipients. Nearly two dozen states are considering plans this session that would make drug testing mandatory for welfare recipients, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This year conservative lawmakers in 23 states from Wyoming to Mississippi - where lawmakers want random screening to include nicotine tests - are moving forward with proposals of their own. 
MA Middleborough: Swear in public? Pay $20 fine. Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks. The ordinance gives police discretion over whether to ticket someone if they believe the cursing ban has been violated. Duphily said, "I don't care what you do in private. It's in public what bothers me."
Watch: The Forbidden History, The concept of "Free Speech." | ||
 Watch a parody ad of those lame truth.com commercials. Richard Darge shows us what he envisions would happen when one smoker stands on his own crate and defies the loud megaphone blaring activist with his own retorts. | ||
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
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The Property Rights Newsletter June 8, 2012 - Issue #667 "Between New York and LA, there are 200 million peoplethat aren't hip, and they don't want to be hip." - Jeff Foxworthy | |
Bloomberg proposes banning drink cups bigger than 16 oz. Coca-Cola Co and McDonald's Corp slammed a proposed limit on soft drink sales in New York City that would turn a small McDonald's drink into the new large and could trigger a wave of similar restrictions aimed at curbing obesity. "This raises the specter of this going to other cities as well," said Bernstein Research analyst Ali Dibadj. "These companies may have to start playing whack-a-mole if this gains momentum." The ban would apply to restaurants, mobile food carts, delicatessens and concessions at movie theaters, stadiums and arenas where sales of fountain drinks are common. It would not apply to convenience, grocery or drug stores, which mostly sell beverages in bottles and cans.
Bloomberg Backs Plan to Limit Arrests for Marijuana. The New York Police Department, the mayor and the city's top prosecutors on Monday endorsed a proposal to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana, giving an unexpected lift to an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to cut down on the number of people arrested as a result of police stops. The marijuana arrests are a byproduct of the Police Department's increasingly controversial stop-and-frisk practice. Mr. Bloomberg and police officials say the practice has made the city safer, but, because most of those stopped are black or Hispanic, the practice has been criticized as racially biased by advocates for minority communities. MORE: Articles about Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 
UK Concentration camps for the unhealthy: Patients whose conditions are "self-inflicted" should be driven out of Surrey into concentrated poor areas with low-quality healthcare, a councillor has said. Councillor John Butcher, an elected member of Elmbridge Borough Council and Surrey County Council (SCC), wants people who become ill due to alcohol, smoking, drugs or obesity to "move away from Surrey" to ensure better healthcare for those who remain. Under Mr Butcher's plan, the UK would be divided into "equality" and "other" areas - with a 20-year life expectancy gap between them.
List of USA bans: As further detailed in this list, smoking laws vary widely throughout the United States. Some places in the United States do not generally regulate smoking at all, some ban smoking in certain areas and not others, and some ban smoking nearly everywhere, even in outdoor areas (no state bans smoking in all public outdoor areas, but some local jurisdictions do). World: Smokers Blogs. Watch instant postings to your favorite blogs. | |
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