Thursday, May 29, 2014
May 30, 2014 - Issue #758"The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense." - Thomas A. Edison |
Smoking salmon cancer risk. Two University of British Columbia researchers are trying to find out whether the way First Nations in British Columbia have been smoking salmon for generations is actually carcinogenic. Cooking wild game or fish in these smokehouses requires extreme heat, which can result in polyaromatic hydrocarbons tainting the fish.
Cadmium and Polonium. If you live with smokers it will take you about ten thousand days to absorb the amount of cadmium you'll get from one big healthy bag of sunflower seeds. And if you're worried about Polonium killing you like it killed that Russian spy a few years ago you'll have to hang out in a smoking bar for roughly 2.7 **TRILLION** years.... that's several hundred times as long as our entire universe has existed. If you're worried about the Nitrogen Oxides, don't go near an airport: the takeoffs at an average medium-large airport emit roughly 8.5 Billion cigarettes worth of NOx PER DAY... all nicely being swooshed into those pleasant smoke-free terminals through their ventilation systems. The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease. Are butter, cheese and steak really bad for you? The dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias. Consumers Internationali and World Obesity Federationii. Impact of unhealthy food requires tobacco style response, say global consumer and health experts. To develop a global convention to fight diet-related ill health, similar to the legal framework for tobacco control. Unhealthy diets now rank above tobacco as a global cause of preventable non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The two international membership bodies will officially launch their Recommendations towards a Global Convention to protect and promote healthy diets at the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week. Handshakes now declared more dangerous than smoking. Entire healthcare facilities may soon be dubbed "no handshaking zones." As "smoke free zones" become more accepted today, so too could "no human contact zones." Touching is now being proven to be more dangerous than smoking, as deadly super bugs like the MERS virus spread. Hospitals may begin prohibiting human touch, in fear of spreading disease. The Federal Government Has Violated My Right to Chainsaw. Read P. J. O'Rourke. I am furious with the USG and all its meddling in private affairs and all its intrusions on the freedom of individuals. My chainsaw won't start. UK Banning Books. Classic novels Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird will be banned from British classrooms because Michael Gove thinks teenagers should study works by British writers. (Links added to listen to, and read for free.) |
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New Zealand: Govt won't ban smoking in cars. The government isn't prepared to ban smoking in cars with children in them, Tariana Turia has admitted.
Australia NSW Ignores Ban. DESPITE the clearly displayed No Smoking signs outside local shopping centres, they are blatantly ignored. "It seems to me like it is just something that is just swept under the carpet and it happens everywhere." Beijing Ignores Ban. China banned smoking in indoor public buildings in 2011, but lax enforcement and vague penalties have allowed many smokers to puff away without fear of reprisal. A survey of more than 50 mid-range and low-end Beijing restaurants conducted by the civil environmental group Daerwen Nature Quest Agency months after the 2011 ban was introduced found the regulations were ignored by nearly half of all restaurants. Singapore Ignores Ban. These smokers have no qualms puffing away at playground - even after being told off. "I pointed to the no smoking sign and told them no smoking is allowed, but they just ignored me. "They don't care about our laws."  |
Thursday, May 22, 2014
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May 23, 2014 - Issue #757 "On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind." - Dan Lipinski |
Rep. Duncan Hunter fights for soldiers' right to smoke. "We sleep in the dirt for this country. We get shot at for this country. But we can't have a cigarette if we want to for this country, because that's unhealthy," the California Republican said Wednesday. "Well, I'll tell you what. If you want to make us all healthy, then let's outlaw war, because war is really dangerous," Mr. Hunter said. "And it was bad for my health, and it's bad for other people's health. So if you truly want to make it so we're all healthy, then we shouldn't have a military at all, because that in and of itself is dangerous."
MO Council asks questions on smoking ban. An ordinance not written by the city may present a difference of opinion among its leaders. The St. Joseph City Council on Monday was given the opportunity to ask questions on implementation of the smoking ban. While the discussion was not supposed to be aimed at the merits of the law, it naturally turned that way. ND anti-tobacco agency spends big targeting smoking in apartments. One of the biggest spenders is the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy, an entity of the state government created when voters approved a ballot measure in 2008. The center, also known as BreatheND, has more than $15 million to spend this biennium, and spending they are. In their cross hairs - smoking in apartment buildings. USA CASAA. E-cigarette regulation by the FDA has huge costs and little benefit says The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association. "The proposed regulations are based on a faulty understanding of the science," reports CASAA Scientific Director, Dr. Carl V. Phillips. "FDA has cherry-picked the available evidence," says Phillips, "blindly accepting any assertion that favors aggressive regulation and ignoring the overwhelming evidence about the harms that these regulations would cause." USA Event: The Nanny State's War on E-Cigarettes with Reason's Jacob Sullum, May 28, 2014. With FDA regulation looming and massive e-cigarette tax increases proposed in New Jersey and Ohio, Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum will explain how policies aimed at e-cigarettes threaten to use phony science and scaremongering to kill a product that has the potential to save millions of lives. 
Canada Bill C-10 update. Most First Nations smokes, and buying and smoking them, will soon be a criminal offence in Canada. By Thomas Laprade. C-10 is an Omnibus Bill covering taxes and criminal sentencing increases for a long list of items and offences, and will make additional things a crime that were not crimes before. It is going to fill a lot of newly built and planned-to-soon-build prison cells. It is being "fast-tracked." Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a majority government, which many in Canada believe he got by very scary nefarious means.
Removing psychiatric patients' cigarettes deepens their trauma. As of April 30, keeping cigarettes - a legal product - in a patient storage locker will be forbidden. Any resident patient with off-site privileges who might wish to step outdoors for a puff - beyond the property, on the sidewalk, or across the street because smoking is not permitted on the grounds - would therefore have to buy a pack from a nearby convenience store each time the nicotine itch hits, then throw it away before re-entering. CAMH includes smoke cessation programs on its mental health menu. But most people who end up at any of its three primary Toronto locations are not there because of a nicotine addiction. Their mental health issues are far more complex, often paralyzing. They are in crisis, fearful, fraying. A cigarette is indeed a crutch but it does soothe and calm. It is also, frankly, a pleasure and many of these patients have precious little in their lives to comfort the churning mind, the twitching hands, the racing heart. 
100,000 sign petition against smoking ban in Russia. Calling Russian lawmakers to backpedal on the smoking ban. Also, restaurants and bars have found a way to partially avoid the ban that's due to come into effect on June 1. The Association of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers of Russia that unites over 3,000 food and beverage establishments is also demanding to postpone or cancel the ban on smoking in restaurants, cafes and bars. The organization, along with the all-Russia movement "For the rights of smokers," has drafted a list of amendments to the legislation.
UK ASH improper funding relationship. An MP has called for an investigation into the "improper funding relationship" between Britain's Department for Health (DH) and an anti-smoking lobby group. Philip Davies MP made the demand after revelations that DH granted money to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), which the group subsequently used to lobby for tobacco control measures under consideration by the department. Documentation obtained by Breitbart London shows that ASH - a leading proponent of laws that would mandate standardised packaging of tobacco products as well as other rules intended to curb smoking - applied for and received a section 64 grant from the Department of Health to pursue its "Capitalising on Smokefree" project.
Where Vapers Go Wrong. It has taken quite a while for the WHO to direct its minion, the EU (and, therefrom, the EU's minions) how best to deal with e-cigs. It must have taken quite a few sessions in "the WHO committee" to decide. We can see now how the thinking went... UK: Curing the working classes of their sins is now official Labour policy. By Simon Cooke. Ed Miliband plans to impose tough restrictions on the sale and advertising of alcohol, junk food and tobacco if he wins power, it was claimed. The Labour leader's plan would end the 300million sports sponsorship by drinks firms and impose minimum alcohol pricing to try cut down on the damaging effects of heavy drinking on people's health. AND read more by David Atherton. UK: Forest Event. Smoke On The Water. June 24. Join us! Obesity Epidemic Myth. By David Atherton. When it comes to dealing with obesity Dr. Webber said "The UK and Ireland, where obesity prevalence is among the highest, possess unregulated liberal market economies similar to the US, where the collective actions of big multinational food companies to maximise profit encourages over-consumption." "We need to make healthier food more affordable and less healthy food less so, by using taxes on sugary drinks for example and subsidies on fruit and vegetables." |
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