Wednesday, July 29, 2015
The Property Rights Newsletter Issue #807
July 31, 2015 - Issue #807"The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself." - James Wolcott |
Northern Ireland Smoking Order. Antrim man fined for smoking in tractor. So here we have a bloke sitting in his tractor minding his own business and enjoying a fag when along comes a Brownshirt and slaps a fine on him for smoking. We will ignore the fact that [as far as I am aware] most if not all tractors are single person vehicles. We will ignore the fact that if he was parked at the side of the road and therefore technically he wasn't using it for business purposes. We will ignore the fact that £1,000 is grossly disproportionate as a fine. We will ignore the fact that this "crime" was harming precisely no one. What we can't ignore is the depths to which this whole Anti-Smoker purge has sunk.
The inconsistent Libertarians of Convenience. Or, on the other side of the spectrum, consider e-cigarettes, which many liberals want to see regulated as tightly as traditional cigarettes. E-cigarettes contain no tobacco and produce no smoke. There's no evidence that they're linked to cancer. What part-time freedom lovers don't understand is that, absent a wider culture of liberty, their calls for change will probably go unheeded. Anti-Drug Senator's Office Manager Arrested For Importing Meth And "Date Rape" Drug From China. The office manager for anti-drug Senator Thad Cochran was caught importing meth from China, to allegedly sell and trade for sexual favors. Pagan has been under government surveillance since April 9th when one of his packages was intercepted by customs agents in Ohio. That package was addressed to him and contained over a kilo of GHB. Breaking bad at NIST. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) appears to have been the unwitting victim of a real-life Walter White, the meth-cooking chemistry teacher in the hit television show Breaking Bad. A weekend explosion at the federal laboratory's Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus was linked yesterday to the production of methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant often "cooked" in home laboratories. Federal and local law enforcement agencies are now investigating how the explosion happened and whether a NIST security guard injured in the blast might have been involved. "I am troubled by the allegations that such dangerous and illicit activity went undetected at a federal research facility. It is essential that we determine exactly where the breakdown in protocol occurred and whether similar activities could be ongoing at other federal facilities," wrote Smith in an accompanying press release. Massachusetts official faces charges for painting crosswalks. Police and town officials said painting the street without authorization was illegal and charged him with two counts of destruction of property, according to Billerica police spokesman Roy Frost. Simolaris defended his actions. "I'm just trying to do right by the people in my town," he said. "I didn't think I was intervening in other people's day-to-day activities or doing anything wrong." Deadly Bootleg Alcohol. Mumbai: alcohol and tax are a deadly cocktail. 102 people have now died in Mumbai after drinking tainted illegal alcohol. Those responsible for producing this deadly brew should be punished with the full force of the law, including officials who may have turned a blind eye for personal gain. But the real roots of this disaster lie in the prohibitionist and protectionist tendencies of government. The reason that poorer people turn to illegal liquor is that they can't afford the legal variety. Beer Cocktail Bans and Other Stupid Booze Laws. Virginia only recently legalized mixing spirits with beer or wine, and some blends are still off limits. Then there are the just plain weird laws. In Louisiana, where booze is plentiful, donut shops are the only type of restaurant unable to obtain an alcohol permit. In Ohio, grocery stores can sell "diluted spirits" that have had their proof lowered to below 21 percent alcohol by volume. Utah's absurd "Zion Curtain" requires that bartenders mix drinks out of view of consumers, who would presumably find the sight of a deftly stirred Manhattan impossible to resist. In Montana, consumers are limited to ordering no more than three pints per day in a single brew pub. Although it seems like every other vice is legal in Nevada, the state explicitly bans vaporized alcohol; in Alaska and a handful of other states, it's the powdered form that's banned. UK: Does Brighton still Rock? I have read, in total disbelief actually, the proposal to 'ban' smoking on Brighton's famous pebble/stone beach. The actual composition of the beach is immaterial but the proposed ban is not! UK: Patients 'ignore' Bristol Southmead Hospital smoking ban. About half put out their cigarettes when challenged, she said, but others responded in a "less positive" way. A task force is assessing if a smoking shelter can be provided. "Because of the nature of the things we do in our hospital, some of the trauma cases, for some people, it seems to be very very difficult for them not to have a cigarette. UK: Knife Ban. With Knife Murders Spiking After Gun Ban, UK Urges "Save a Life–Surrender Your Knife." Don't try to think this one through. The logic fail and sheer volume of absurdity might just make you sick if you do. The program involved several weeks of "amnesty" for "pointed knives." Civilians can turn in these apparently dangerous weapons at their local police station in exchange for "amnesty," apparently, even though knives (rounded or pointed) aren't illegal in the United Kingdom. There is, however, a ban on people under 18 buying knives – going so far on the absurdity scale as to ban underage purchases of plastic knives! No joke. One woman in her 20s was even barred from buying spoons without proper ID. |
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Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The Property Rights Newsletter Issue #806
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July 24, 2015 - Issue #806 "Home ownership is the cornerstone of a strong community." - Rick Renzi |
Condo smoking bans catch fire around Chicago. The best solution to smoke-creep isn't a ban but tighter building standards, said David Kuneman, St. Louis-based Midwest regional director of the Citizens Freedom Alliance, a smokers' rights advocacy group. "If condos are being constructed so loosely that smoke could diffuse from one unit into another, then pathogens and cooking odors and cat hair and fleas and any number of other things could also diffuse into neighboring condos," he said. "If you've got a problem, fix it by building tighter, but don't pick on smoking as the only cause of indoor air pollution," he said.
Jacob Sullum: Two Surveys Find That Almost All Regular Vapers Are Smokers. Fears that e-cigarettes lure nonsmokers into nicotine habits seem to be unfounded. American officials who are freaking out about the rising popularity of electronic cigarettes, especially among teenagers, generally fail to distinguish between experimentation and regular use. In fact, as Boston University public health professor Michael Siegel points out, surveys sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do not even ask about frequency of use beyond once or more in the previous month. Two recent studies highlight the importance of inquiring further, showing that very few nonsmokers who have tried e-cigarettes are regular users.
Sydney... Could You Please Chill The F*ck Out With The Nanny State Vibes? How on earth did we, Sydney siders, become so bloody conservative? How did we become so fearful of breaking rules, challenging social norms, and being innovative? When did we decide that politicians should decide what 'fun' is and that it should be legislated? When did we lose all common sense and decide to be told how to live in our cities? Scientists now working for tobacco companies to fight cancer. Philip Morris International Inc has hired more than 400 scientists and technical staff at its research facility in Neuchatel, Switzerland, including toxicologists, chemists, biologists, biostatisticians and regulatory affairs experts. But proving a product reduces risk requires sophisticated science, and the FDA wants to see health benefits for both individual smokers and the population as a whole. Road noise may cut life expectancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) sets 55 decibels as the threshold of community noise beyond which health problems are possible. In places where daytime road traffic noise exceeded 60 decibels, there were four percent more deaths than in quieter areas where the noise was 55 decibels or below. EU Copyright Reform Looking At Restricting Outdoor Photography from the erecting-public-structures;-denying-public-access dept. Others feel any photographic reproductions of structures in public spaces are a violation of the creators' rights. You can already see the effects of the legal disparity in regards to the "right of panorama" in effect at Wikipedia. The big fat myths of our obesity epidemic. Childhood obesity is falling. Adult obesity is flatlining. And it's longevity that really costs the NHS. By Christopher Snowdon. Britain's health service is plagued by an endless stream of deviants who are a 'burden' on its resources. Otherwise known as patients, they are the drinkers, smokers and fatsos who, we are told, will bring the NHS to its knees unless lifestyles are regulated by the state. |
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