But by discriminating only against smokers, I think they have exposed the true force beyond the policy: bigotry and intolerance of a large segment of the population whose personal and private lifestyle choices they are unwilling to accept.
Suddenly, people who smoke are a large segment of the population. Man, Doc, all the media says that people who smoke are a teeny-tiny minority. Geez, everybody knows that. :-/
These employers...I hear a lot about so many but most are companies that I wouldn't have otherwise ever encountered. (Cleveland Clinic is an obvious exception.) Wonder what will happen to them as they start discriminating against everyone. If they applied the healthist policy across the board, you might take them more seriously but they would have a mighty small applicant pool from which to draw their human resources.
Smokers not allowed to earn a living if they protest against the bans, if this twerp gets his way.
http://
www.manchestereveningnews...cig_rebels.html
excerpt
Coun Pat Karney, NHS director of Smoke Free Greater Manchester, branded a `mass light up' held at The Swan in Bolton yesterday a `flagrant breach of the law'.
He said he would write to Bolton council demanding that the pub's licence is taken away.
Coun Karney told the M.E.N. today: "You cannot pick and choose which laws you obey."
This man knows naught about world history. History is littered with bad laws being protested and often not peacefully. Foe example without protest and "flagrant" disregard for the law we would not have equality for blacks or gays or women, hell we would not even have America.
This ongoing persecution will end in tears.
GreatScot
Doctor.....'I'm sorry, but employers have no business inside the homes of their employees, other than to ensure that they are not engaging in illegal behaviors or behaviors that directly impair their job performance.'
Neither does the government or 'public health', but that seems perfectly acceptable to you. You (TC) have invaded tens of thousands of private business' on private property with the agenda you seek.
BTW have your spoken or written to Dr. Cosgrove about this? Or do you feel this posting is sufficient to address this?
.
.
Of interest:
From Marcus' site:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....science-
in.html
~snip~
'All of the stories on secondhand smoke were examined, and the results revealed a strikingly one-sided discourse consistent with self-silencing by the media. Specifically, out of more than 500 articles examined, fewer than 10 afforded any sense of either scientific uncertainty or of negative findings challenging the prevailing consensus. -Sheldon Ungar and Dennis Bray'
http://www.data-yard.net/77/
sile...ing_science.pdf
.
But it's NOT about smokers, is it? Noooooo, it's about the smoke. Isn't that what Cathy and her kind claim?
If this is allowed, then we may as will kill the anti-discrimination laws. Discrimination is discrimination, there is no fine line.
I truly can't wait for someone who really dose NOT smoke, is NOT exposed to it, to flunk their little 'test' due to the diet they eat.....want to bet a discrimination lawsuit follows?
I can't wait until they add fat people to that little form of discrimination, using their argument of "weight is something you can control and change, like smoking"...........you KNOW there will be at least a dozen lawyers lined up to take THAT discrimination lawsuit to court.
That this is happening in America is dispicable. Just one more reason why I can no longer find joy in celebrating our Independence Day here.
And here is someone trying to prevent smokers from joining the army!
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/...293810-
sun.html
Michelle
Michelle,
Obviously they forget who won World War II and how many of them were smokers.
As to the Cleveland Clinic I foresee several applicants working in private practices rather than the hospital settings. Gee's maybe SG Carmona could get them a job at that health spa in Arizona where he is now employed!
And here is someone trying to prevent smokers from joining the army!
Then they'll be whining about their dwindling armed forces and talk about a draft to build it back up again.
Idiots.
Lynda,
Is it just my computer, or has the Cleveland article disappeared?
.
Maybe your computer? I was able to link to them. Here's the URL's, see if this works any better for you (though I don't know why) in order articles 1, 2 and 3:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/pl...ll=2&
thispage=1
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch....html?
print=yes
http://www.cleveland.com/printer...6560.xml&
coll=2
Hope this helps you some.
Lynda,
I couldn't agree more with you regarding "Independence Day"!!!
As far as these policies go, I hope they get exactly what they deserve. Currently, my sister is working at a hospital in Peoria, IL; they just instituted a smoking ban on all the properties of all 3 hospitals in the city (to the amusement of the Peoria Journal Star's editor--an card-carrying idiot).
Funny thing is, when I worked there (briefly--it's a dump!) they had a helluva time finding anyone competent to do a job, much less show up on time every day. It'll be interesting to see how they fare now. I asked her if they have malpractice under control; she just chuckled "they're not concerned about that."
Found this quote of interest:
http://www.bennettmornings.com/a.../
featured.jsp#0
It has happened before with the educated elites:
'Haim Ginott's Note to Teachers
Dear Teacher: I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is: help your students to become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane."
Is this what our institutions of higher education are releasing upon the world? Granted we're not to this point, yet. But as Walt pointed out it started with Jews being allowed to use only the gutter to walk the streets. It started somewhere and ended in the ultimate evil.
.
.
GreatScot,further to your link,you know you live in a crap society when dimbos without a brain cell think it is highly amusing to watch smokers being forced out onto the street in order to light up,pity the owner didn't turf the whingeing non smokers out like the landlord in Arundel.The wedge between the 2 sectors is being driven in ever more forcibly.What is so moronic is that not all that long ago Northern Ireland was sectarian along religion.And yet those turds are voted in and believe what they are doing is helping society.
Thanks Lynda, But I mean the article on the Docs site? I know it was there as we are all commenting on it---but I only get the Docs site with the Helena article at the top.
I guess I'll check back in a bit.
.
Sorry Sunz, then I have no clue what you are talking about. The Doc's site? What have I been missing?
This site:
http://www.tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/
What is the top story you get?
Above was me. I'll email you.
Sunz,
I get the Cleveland Clinic posting. THAT is also the haloscan that you are coming up on and that I'm responding to.
Somewhat off topic, but relevant too.
Found this on FORCES this morning. I’ll bet she was a non-smoker too…..after all, smokers are NOT good enough to be foster parents or adoptive parents.
“The night before Tyler DeLeon turned 7, he was so thirsty he ripped a hole in the screen of his bedroom window to eat snow. By the next evening, Tyler was dead. He weighed just 28 pounds, the size of an average 2-year-old.
Records released this week by the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) say that between 1988 and 2005, DeLeon had deprived at least four other adoptive or foster children of food and that she was accused of punishing her biological children by withholding food, as well. Yet DSHS didn't recognize the pattern until after Tyler died in January 2005.
http://
seattletimes.nwsource.com...9_abuse28m.html
So, when's the last time you saw a story anywhere about any child abuse involving exposure to SHS?
The anti-mentality is downright scary, and apparently contagious. Now THERE'S an epidemic that needs eradicating, and FAST.
On topic posted on the speakeasy forum via the second link here:
Smoking can knock you out of a job, and it's legal
At least 6,000 U.S. companies refuse to hire smokers, the National Workrights Institute estimates, and the number is growing. Although lifestyle discrimination laws in 29 states prohibit employers from smoker discrimination, the other 21 states including Texas allow such practices.
and laws do not protect against self-inflicted disabilities.
Interesting……………considering that obese people ARE protected by law from hiring discrimination policies, and the majority of obese people are that way due to “self-infliction” eating habits, not any disease or medication. So THAT statement right there is a LIE. And what about the person who breaks their leg skiing. THAT is also “self-inflicted”….after all they don’t NEED to ski.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=ca...clnk&cd=2&
gl=us
There is no more slippery slope, we are plunging head first over the steep cliff:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot....ght-
police.html
Clarian to charge workers who smoke $5 per paycheck
http://cms.ibj.com/ASPXPages/6if...02727&
NoFrame=1
"The smoking surcharge is part of a broader 2008 requirement by Clarian that each of its employees declare their health risks before signing up for health insurance. In 2009, Clarian also will give a health screening to all its employees that sign up for the hospital's health insurance. The screening will test workers' body mass index, "bad" cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure."
This one's a little different as it applies to those with the companies health insurance. But the idea is there--we all pay an insurance premium *plus* premiums for lifestyles and body types. I think the idea is to get people so tired of paying extra premiums that we all flock to the idea of universal health care...which will ultimately cost even more and not just in terms of dollars.
I am playing devil's advocate here, and I certainly don't believe this, but the "pro-health" companies who wish to fire/not hire smokers have probably thought this out.
We know obesity is more prevalent with age, so discrimination on the basis of obesity could be paralleled with age discrimination, which would be shot down quickly. However, people can ALWAYS quit smoking.
====
On the other hand, another ad hoc argument is, if smoking is banned in bars, smokers are less likely to go out to bars and therefore get drunk there, and wouldn't you rather have employees who don't do that?
Oh right, smoking is worse than drinking, even if people don't talk about how wasted they got on all those cigarettes last night/Friday for the first half hour of work. It just is.
And while the hospitals have time for this nanny nonsense...look what was fermenting in NHS:
http://news.independent.co.uk/
uk...icle2730423.ece
You would think the health ministers had more pressing concerns.
But hey, it's smoke-free!!
Smoking = $75 billion in medical costs out of $1.4 trillion in total medical expenditures. Smoking therefore accounts for 5.3% of the total.
If the average annual premium is $6,000, smoking accounts for $318 of that ($26.50/month). Of course you'd have to deduct from that the cost of some other chronic illness that would likely take its place.
I might add that those medical costs are not just associated with current smokers. Former 3 pack a day Bill Godshalls account for at least half of the lung cancer costs. Therefore, former smokers (and smokeless users) should not be hired either due to cost arguments. We're talking over 100 million adults.
Slippery Slope:
Britain's 'top doctor' calls for total ban on alcohol advertising
http://www.freedom2choose.co.uk/...ewer.php?
id=261
Quote:
"Michael Grade,executive chairman of ITV and former head of the BBC,also launched an attack on the idea of restrictions on advertising, saying it amounted to `scapegoating’ for society’s problems."
Do ya think?! I'm not a drinker...but...is this really the best way to go? This is how it started with tobacco, isn't it? Do we have warning labels on alcohol yet? Most alcohol ads have a "drink responsibility" message in them. People claim that there are no benefits of smoking--which actually can be refuted--but alcohol really doesn't have any advantages, does it? Other than stress reduction...and possibly some benefit from red wine.
Anyway, sounds familiar. And the scapegoating thing...just like the antitobacco stuff has done all along.
Just a couple of quickies.
One of the fundamental laws of everything is that if something can happen once then it can happen more than once.
Nicotine occurs in lots of plants, especially eggplants, tomatoes and potatoes.
As for obesity, I can't wait for the lawsuits to start coming in, especially as if they're relying on BMI for obesity measurements. I can't help but think of Jonah Lomu (for those in the US, he's a rugby player) he's 6'5" and weighs 125kg. That gives him a BMI of 32.5, making him obese. He can also run 100m in 10.8s.
The big question is would you like to tell him he's overweight.
The big question is would you like to tell him he's overweight.
I'm sure there's a Bill Godshall, or Cathy type person in the "anti-fat" brigade that would be dumb enough to do just that. After all..........it's for HIS own good, right? ROFLMAO 
British terror probe focuses on doctors The headlines read (scream at) to you, to me, it brings up an interesting question, Is all this smoking ban pushing by doctors just another avenue for terrorists to sow dissent? Think about it a minute, It IS mostly doctors that say that we must quit smoking, for our own good, of course, but as this article points out, at least in the UK, it appears doctors (at least some of them) aren't really interested in whats good for the patient/client, but more interested in their agenda than truth and their hypocratical oath's, so, if they can be plotting outright terrorism, why not plotting diseent through pitting neighbor against neighbor in a futile struggle to seperate the classes and sow havoc?
Story here on the doctors probe:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
20070...n_terrorism_118
If we are going to support the idea of excluding smokers from employment to save health care costs for employers and to promote a healthy workforce, then we must also support the idea of excluding fat people from employment.
The difference is that people need to eat, even if they don't make the best dietary choices. Eating is a natural and necessary human function, smoking is not.
See Section 3.4 of the tobacco promotion handbook, "Claim smoking is a fundamental right, introduce other issues as a diversion"
http://geocities.com/corporate_o...?pg=8&cnt=1&
t=a
The minute someone chooses to put a burning stick of tobacco into their mouth they have a crossed a line that is not comparable to overeating. You could compare it to other forms of drug use, including chronic drinking, but those could also be justifiable reasons to exlude someone from employment.
You talk about respect for privacy and autonomy but you would prevent a health clinic from hiring people who reflect their values. I should think it would set a rather bad example to have a nurse puffing away in front of the clinic.
If you think they don't have a right to do it, take them to court.
The silence on the other, non-tobacco-related health matters is deafening. Great post, and fascinating blog you've got here.
Uh - did you miss this post on my new favorite "must read" blog?
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot....ing-fat-
or.html
Here's a company mandating it's employees are all on the healthist bandwagon.
Don't worry - in an organiztion such as the Cleveland Clinic - it's just a matter of time before the impose all their healthist views. What do you think when it's not just smoking - but every little thing you do?
Oh and you might want to think about what effect having such an organization being a major healthcare provider the smokers in the area. I for one would have to be dying before I'd utilize their services.
Cathy Bell
P A S S
.
The difference is that people need to eat, even if they don't make the best dietary choices.
NO Cathy, it is the "right" to make those unhealthy choices that we advocate. IF you can allow people to run up the health care dollars, clog the health care industry with "obesity related" illnesses because you all them to make the wrong food choices, then you have to also allow us the right to make our own wrong choices.
We can live with reasonable restrictions, it's your nazi-like laws we are fighting. And if you don't like the term nazi-like........you might try re-reading history.
You can't pick and choose who is allowed the right to make wrong lifestyle choices (make that choices you don't agree with). Either all make the same choices or all are allowed their own choices.
You can't have it both ways dear.
Cathy Bell wrote:
"You talk about respect for privacy and autonomy but you would prevent a health clinic from hiring people who reflect their values."
So fat people reflects their values? What about wife beaters?
"I should think it would set a rather bad example to have a nurse puffing away in front of the clinic."
Bad example for whom? I thought it was smoking in movies that made kids smoke? Or are you afraid you'll start smoking if you see a nurse light up?
"If you think they don't have a right to do it, take them to court."
If you don't think Dr. Siegel has a right to voice his opinion, take him to court.
“Smoking costs more than $75 billion annually in direct and indirect medical costs. These costs and statistics call for healthcare organizations to take the lead in promoting wellness and disease prevention, regardless of the tough choices that may be involved”
And to combat this, Cleveland health Clinic believes that having unemployed persons who smoke, would help reduce costs. Shifting the entire supposed “smoking costs” and others, upon the non-smokers, via the unemployed. Geniuses they are.
This is unbelievable. What about basic sanitation before this craziness!!
http://uk.reuters.com/article/od...Type=RSS&
rpc=92
.
http://www.spiked-online.com/ind...e/article/3546/
~snip~ UK
The smoking issue shows that the authorities have found an area where they can intervene in our lives and show themselves to be ‘caring’ and ‘attentive’ without provoking much protest.
~snip~ Ireland
'In Ireland, decadent establishment figures have used the smoking ban to reinforce their grip over an increasingly atomised public. Someone should blow smoke up their arses.'
~snip~ Sweden
'but, personally, I would rather wash an extra load of laundry and live in a mature society where we decide for ourselves what to do, rather than one where we’re infantilised by the apparently caring authorities'
~snip~ NYC
'We are now encouraged to see our fellow drinkers or ravers as toxic and threatening, and apparently we must all be separated into smokers (bad) and non-smokers (good) for the benefit of our own health. Whatever you think of the smell of cigarettes, that idea should be stubbed out.'
.
Cathy:
The difference is that people need to eat, even if they don't make the best dietary choices. Eating is a natural and necessary human function, smoking is not.
Eating may be a natural and necessary human function but overeating is not.
Si,
Seeing Through the Smoking Ban
http://www.spiked-online.com/ind...e/article/3538/
~snip~
We are left at the end of the Blair years with a society where signs tell us kiddies at every turn not to smoke, where we are encouraged to ring shop-a-smoker hotlines to bring the anti-smoking cops running, and where outcasts ‘come together’ by huddling in some filthy corner for a smoke – or maybe going for counselling. And most depressing of all, all this is depicted as some sort of ‘victory’ for the left. The civil liberties lawyers who are permanently up in arms about New Labour’s anti-terror laws or ASBOs have nothing to say about smoking bans.'
The Sad Addiction To Anti-Smoking.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol...icle1392504.ece
~snip~
'The problem here goes way beyond the waste of money on the passive-smoking police. It is about the social cost of allowing passive smoking to be used as the pretext for promoting active snooping. It seems that if smoking did not exist today, the anti-smoking addicts would have to invent it.
enjoy
I just want to highlight an important point that Lynda made in response to Cathy, whose work here is now done:
"You can't pick and choose who is allowed the right to make wrong lifestyle choices (make that choices you don't agree with). Either all make the same choices or all are allowed their own choices. You can't have it both ways."
This is PRECISELY the problem with the Cleveland Clinic's policy, and with Cathy's argument. They seem to have a selective intolerance for smoking, yet no similar intolerance for a host of other unhealthy behavior choices that many people make. Lynda is absolutely right. You can't start selectively dictating one particular health choice.
Kudos also to James for pointing out the extreme danger of the idea that an employer should hire workers based on their "values," when the values in question are lawful, personal choices an individual makes in their own home. That's quite a loaded statement, because it would support the idea of employers not hiring people of a particular religion because they don't share the same values, or employers not hiring gay people because they have conflicting values, etc.
It's nice to look at the comments at the end of the day and see that my readers have already hit the key points on the head. I guess my work here has been done for me.
Doc: Kudos also to James for pointing out the extreme danger of the idea that an employer should hire workers based on their "values," when the values in question are lawful, personal choices an individual makes in their own home. That's quite a loaded statement, because it would support the idea of employers not hiring people of a particular religion because they don't share the same values, or employers not hiring gay people because they have conflicting values, etc.
How far away do you think that idea is? The danger of employers imposing their values on employees is here, now.
Doc, responding to Lynda: "You can't pick and choose who is allowed the right to make wrong lifestyle choices (make that choices you don't agree with). Either all make the same choices or all are allowed their own choices. You can't have it both ways."
This is PRECISELY the problem with the Cleveland Clinic's policy, and with Cathy's argument. They seem to have a selective intolerance for smoking, yet no similar intolerance for a host of other unhealthy behavior choices that many people make. Lynda is absolutely right. You can't start selectively dictating one particular health choice.
I partially agree. You *can* selectively dictate one particular health choice if your goal is to dictate *all* health choices. Going back to Lynda's comment, either (1) everyone makes the same choices or (2) all choices within the law are allowed. If the second option is not valued then...that leaves the first option only and all choices are made for us.
If you enjoyed the irony of the Afghan efforts (Sunz's link above) you'll love this one about how our provisional government of American know-alls attempted to impose a ban on Iraq. Apparently, the one thing the new Iraqi government was able to unanimously and instantly agree on was to bring back the ash trays:
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...storyId=6096545
:
I invite the non-U.S. posters and readers to join us Americans in celebrating Independence Day by lighting one up and smoking that cigarette with all due deliberation in asserting our independence from those who seek to rule over us and make us conform to their values and "religion" (Anti-Smoking) or be persecuted and punished.
Take a bow Bill. I, for one, will be blowing that one (of many I'll be smoking) in the direction of Pennsylvania.
(Canadian (?) Cathy was just born in the wrong country in the wrong period).
Off topic. There is hope for todays youth and made me smile. I hope they can endure and flourish.
http://ashmob.com/index.html
GreatScot
Sunz "This is unbelievable. What about basic sanitation before this craziness!!"
Sunz,
not so unbelievable. This is happening all over the world in some of the poorest and war torn countries. If we assume that Country's leaders are not stupid people it begs the question "why is smoking bans a priority."
Possible answers
1 they are sheep (unlikely)
2 The anti's have infiltrated the Governments (unlikely)
3 Corruption (everybody has a price)
4 Coercion (carrot and stick,threats to withhold aid, goods,free market,withdraw troops, money, perhaps the IMF or World Bank could withhold funds or freeze interest or defer repayment)they will comply or else.
GreatScot
Sunz,
remember that 190ish Countries world wide have signed on to the WHO FCTC guidlines, with about 30% of them ratifying the document, which makes them sworn bound to impliment the requirements (it is filled with persecution tactics and even makes it impossible for any of the countries to question the "science", the debate is over).
The UK have ratified and the USA have signed on.
But the question remains WHY did they sign???
GreatScot
GreatScot,
Three cheers for Ashmob (your link above)
~snip~
'. Freedom of thought – The ability to make independent, informed judgements is a very important part of being a rational human being. Therefore, educating someone of the dangers of smoking is to do them a favour, as it provides information useful in making a decision regarding smoking. However, to use the media as a tool to stigmatise them into stopping smoking is not only to underestimate their ability to make the best choices for themselves, but also to unfairly poison society’s minds against them.'
Perhaps, there is hope. I often wonder do the young see through any of the smoke (anti-induced) these young seem to see this for what it is.
GreatScot,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I know about the WHO FCTC but the lunacy never ceases to amaze!!
After all is said, I am left with your exact question:
'But the question remains WHY did they sign???'
.
Walt,
So nice to know the nannies have their invasion going worldwide!! They sure have the priorities set properly!! s/
BTW-Your thought on correcting Hitler's grammer, best line of the week/month. Genius.
.
JTF`--"Take a bow Bill."
I think he is still bent over in his last bow.
Above was me. Sorry
On this Independence Day rather than celebrating I am appreciative of the freedom to do what I'd like on my own property. That may not be around for long.
This is from Milton Friedman, The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals," May 18, 1961
"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself. The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible, or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated. It essentially requires a system of checks and balances, like that explicitly incorporated in our Constitution..."
.
"The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men"
How did come to be that we are so afraid of freedom?
.
May be of interest to some here though I hope this is not an attempt at revising history:
Never-before-seen Hitler footage to air on US television
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/art...&ssid=1&
sid=ENT
~snip~
'"Instead, you see something that is so human; something that could very easily be appealing almost anywhere."
-----
The TC movement is loaded with these 'human' types, IMO. Are we capable of electing such monsters into office?
.
Frpm my 'old stuff' I found this quote from a book called The Road to Serfdom-Hayak (chapter"Why the worst Get on Top"
'Second, since this group is not large enough to give sufficient
weight to the leader's endeavors, he will have to increase their
numbers by converting more to the same simple creed. He must gain the
support of the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of
their own but are ready to accept a ready-made system of values if it
is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.
It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily
swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will
thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party.'
===
This ring a Bell/Bill with anyone? Just asking?
Apologies Hayak should be Hayek.
.
Never-before-seen Hitler footage to air on US television
No real surprise there, Sunz. We constantly refer the anti's as nazi-like, hitler-like, so it makes sense one of them would dig up something to try to make that connection "nicer".
Gag me with a spoon, please. 
I found this posted on the speakeasy forum this morning. Unfortunately, I don't know where it originated from, but it was an interesting (and fast) read:
In 1992 the Australian Federal Statistician published (No.4382.0) the results of a large survey of the Australian population. It was designed to measure the numbers of smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers and the prevalence of "long-term conditions" in each group. It is apparently the only such such study ever conducted. The "long-term conditions" assessed were:
http://members.iinet.com.au/%7Er...y/
19jun2006.htm
11.0% of the smokers had none of these conditions compared with only 8.2% of never-smokers. A possible explanation for this result could be that the sickest smokers became ex-smokers. This can be discounted: from the data provided 9.0% of the group comprising smokers and ex-smokers had none of the 9 conditions.
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that with regard to health, smokers are healthier than non-smokers.
Would love to see the Doc delve into this one further.
Lynda, Above link is dead. Sounds too interesting to miss. Thanks
BTW--even though you said please, no I will not gag you with a spoon.
Some interesting tidbits from the SmokersClubInternational forum this morning:
Even though China has just implemented a “smoking ban”
China 'buried smog death finding'
Beijing has just reported its worst pollution for June in seven years
The World Bank is alleged to have cut from a report research that suggests pollution causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually in China.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-...fic/
6265098.stm
It looks like some UK journalists have more backbone than US journalists. The burning question is where were they BEFORE the ban?
All done with passive smoke and mirrors
Anti-smoking activists can celebrate today one of the most remarkable lobbying campaigns in modern politics. The statutory no-smoking signs outside every "enclosed public space", including churches, synagogues, mosques and Buckingham Palace, will always remind us how they find the smell of other people's smoke offensive. One thing they cannot claim, though, is that protecting people from others' smoke will save thousands of lives.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...01/
nbook101.xml
Doc: They seem to have a selective intolerance for smoking, yet no similar intolerance for a host of other unhealthy behavior choices that many people make.
Ummm Doc, I really hate to break this to you, BUT………..you do the same thing. You require zero tolerance for smoking inside so-called public places (even when those places are privately owned), yet have no problem allowing people to be exposed to all other risky things. And I’m sorry Doc, but if you are all for the health of workers, than necessity and convenience are poor excuses for allowing many of those other dangers (as we’ve pointed out recently).
DTB: You *can* selectively dictate one particular health choice if your goal is to dictate *all* health choices. Going back to Lynda's comment, either (1) everyone makes the same choices or (2) all choices within the law are allowed. If the second option is not valued then...that leaves the first option only and all choices are made for us.
So, Doc, which is it you really believe in? Everyone thinking alike OR everyone using their GOD-GIVEN free will to make their own choices? You cannot have it both ways by selecting what things we can and cannot choose, and right now that is precisely what you are doing, based only on your own personal feelings.
Sunz, here is the copy and paste. I just looked at that link 10 minutes ago, don't know how it can be dead. In fact I just pulled it up using the link in haloscan. Me thinks you have ghosties messing with your computer there.....hehehehehe
In 1992 the Australian Federal Statistician published (No.4382.0) the results of a large survey of the Australian population. It was designed to measure the numbers of smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers and the prevalence of "long-term conditions" in each group. It is apparently the only such such study ever conducted. The "long-term conditions" assessed were:
arthritis
asthma
bronchitis, emphysema
neoplasm
hypertension
heart disease
atherosclerosis
high cholesterol
cerebrovascular disease (including after-effects of stroke)
The results, to some, were surprising.
Overall these conditions were commoner in never-smokers than smokers.
Arthritis, neoplasm, hypertension, heart disease and high cholesterol were all commoner in never-smokers than in smokers. Only asthma and bronchitis, emphysema were commoner in smokers.
11.0% of the smokers had none of these conditions compared with only 8.2% of never-smokers. A possible explanation for this result could be that the sickest smokers became ex-smokers. This can be discounted: from the data provided 9.0% of the group comprising smokers and ex-smokers had none of the 9 conditions.
This survey was of people living in households. It excluded those in hospitals and nursing homes. Could these latter two institutions have so many ill smokers that the survey is misleading? That can be discounted: there are too many ill non-smokers compared with so many healthy smokers. From the survey results it would require more than 1, 200, 000 ill smokers to be living in hospitals and nursing homes to produce even equality.
These results do not prove that smoking is good for health. Smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers are all self-selected. It could be for example that people who decide to smoke are congenitally healthier than those who don’t.
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that with regard to health, smokers are healthier than non-smokers.
Lynda, The link is now working.
Damn, I must have bad computer Karma this week!!
.
From Lynda's link
'These results do not prove that smoking is good for health. Smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers are all self-selected. It could be for example that people who decide to smoke are congenitally healthier than those who don’t.
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that with regard to health, smokers are healthier than non-smokers.'
from 1992.
.
Me thinks you have ghosties messing with your computer there.....hehehehehe
Or it could be the 'loose nut behind the steering wheel'!!?!!!?!??!
Sunz: Or it could be the 'loose nut behind the steering wheel'!!?!!!?!??!
Naaahhhhhh, I think it's ghosties, and I'll bet they are anti-smoking ghosties on top of it..........ROFLMAO
Lynda---'The burning question is where were they BEFORE the ban?'
Indeed, Lynda. My best guess would be that they were told to STFU while all the Anti-advert $$$ were rolling in. Now it is safe to speak their mind. Ha Journalistic integrity???
.
Re: Passive Smoke and Mirrors (Lynda's link)
~snip~
'In the early years of this decade, the anti-smokers had become so carried away by the rightness of their cause that they no longer worried about finding disciplined evidence for their statistical claims. One notorious but widely-quoted study commissioned by 33 councils campaigning for a "smoke-free London" came up with the wonderfully precise claim that 617 Britons die each year from passive smoking in the workplace. No longer was there any pretence at serious debate. This was a propaganda war, in which statistics could be manufactured at will. (The European Commission's 2006 figure for annual deaths from passive smoking in the UK was around 12,000, some 20 times higher than the figure quoted by the British Government itself.)'
*******
'This was a propaganda war, in which statistics could be manufactured at will.'
And the band plays on.....
.
.
The juggernaut continues,the rantis want total control http://abcnews.go.com/Internatio...tory?
id=3344387
So now Si, that we have all the smoke free air you could want...we can all relax...breathe easy.
Not so. This is so funny, but God help us when they get this notion accepted.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/
home...5109.guest.html
~snip~
'"Humans are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun’s energy captured by plants - the most of any species." Now, try to envision this. There are some people who seriously think this is a problem, and it leads to global warming. Humans are greedy. "Human greed takes the lion's share of solar energy.'
Now I guess the only thing we CAN do is drop dead, en mass.
Well I'm off to feed the methane producing cattle, in the bright sunshine, smoking a cig!!!! Think of it, when I drop dead at an early age from any number of smoking related cause, I WILL BE doing my fair share in saving the planet.
How K L is that?
.
I told you Cathy and the rest of the rantis are seriously causing global warming http://www.spiked-online.com/ind...p?/about/
hotair
I reach a point where i wonder what is exactly known about lung cancer."Smoking is the greatest risk " it quotes BUT then why is lung cancer rare in smokers given the hype concerning the risk.I think the last figure i read was 2 smokers in 10 come down with it,ie 8 out of 10 do not.It then closes by stating little is known about enviromental factors and their contribution.So if little is known ,how come they BELIEVE they know that smoking is such a FUNDAMENTAL FACTOR.If science was supposed to be factual means of providing PROOF ,I RATHER THINK A RETURN TO THE DRAWING BOARD WOULD BE IN ORDER.
A link helps i suppose http://www.sciencedaily.com/
rele...70703172417.htm
Is this the replacement for the WHO's study finding SHS exposure provided a protective factor for developing lung cancer in later life ? Why don't scientists sort out the mess that they continually contribute to ,ignore thier own studies and then just state what is politically required.It eventually equates to the same thing.It really is so remarkable that man as a species has survived for so long without all of this knowledge being available.What is of even greater consideration was the quality of life people enjoyed.Scientists on a mission should be prosecuted and banned from ever practising again. http://www.sciencedaily.com/
rele...50128223746.htm
WHO FCTC signatories.
No surprise to find Afghanistan and Egypt in there.
http://www.who.int/tobacco/frame...t/en/
index.html
Check out the map... Greenland anybody?
GreatScot
It is just as well that the Cleveland Clinic has banned smokers from its workplace. The Cleveland Clinic seems to be unfit as a workplace anyway.
Check out the map... Greenland anybody?
Awww gee, Greatscot, can't we at least pic a WARM climate? I hate the cold, can't tolerate well either..........*kicking the dirt and pouting*
Think about it Lynda. If the Glowball warming crowd have it right, they could be harvesting their first crop of bannas by the time we arrive.
I'll meet you under the swaying palms with tropical smoothie in hand.
Soren,
It seems like an unfit place to go for treatment as well. Smart of them to be so worried about their image. s/
.
Shades of Hitler
http://www.spiked-online.com/ind...e/article/3564/
Anybody else conjure images of blond, blue eyed men in rows doing exercises?
History. Lessons. Ignored. Repeated.
GreatScot
I'll meet you under the swaying palms with tropical smoothie in hand.
Palm trees? Tropical? YEEESSSSS I'm there.........hehehehehe
From Greatscot's link: Achtung: if you’re fat, you’re anti-social
The German government’s new anti-obesity campaign seems designed to turn people’s weight into a measure of their moral integrity.
This is totally disgusting, not to mention, it's an outright lie. When's the last time you saw an obese serial killer? Seems to me the majority, if not all, of serial killers (now there's an anti-social person) are thin.
What's more amazing is all the debunking and outrage that is popping up over this issue, where everyone was silent (to a deafening level) on the smoking issue. Which just proves my point that their outrage is selective and depends on IF they like the issue or not. They obviously still don't see the connection.
Thank for the post Great Scot "Shades of Hitler"
~snip~
It started by exercising some poetic license with the statistics.
Health and weight are no longer the subject of a meaningful debate – they are consensus issues on which you raise awkward questions at your peril. Those who disagree with the need to lose weight are regarded as ‘stupid’ or wilfully contrary, and it is hoped that the new emphasis on health education in schools will help to stamp out these unorthodox views.'
....and repeats and repeats and repeat.
When the hell will people wake up?
.
Just a note on the Afghan smoking ban. I've lived in Afghanistan as a child. In Afghanistan, it would be considered a great luxury to die of a 'smoking related' disease at the ripe old age of 75.
At least the smoking ban won't be killing bars. There aren't any.
"Anti-social"
Then we have "denormalization."
The next step is to declare smokers and "fatsos" as abnormal - then "subhumans."
Then, as it has always been:
"Üntermenschen," eligible for medical experiments and, of course, extermination.
The next healthist phase ? http://WWW.spiked-online.Com/ind...te/article/
3542
Here's one that might send you back to the drawing board, Doc. Found this on speakeasy just now:
Major gene link seen to childhood asthma
PARIS (AFP) - A newly-discovered gene boosts the risk of childhood asthma by as much as 70 percent, according to an investigation into asthma-prone infants in five countries
Twenty-four experts from Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Austria joined the DNA trawl, comparing samples from 994 children with asthma against those from 1,243 local children who did not have the disease.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
2007...opWVJd4BeXMWM0F
The next healthist phase ?
I don't know Si, I found that piece chock full of sarcasm (I hope).
Then again, some fool anti will read it and think it is a wonderful idea (at least all the parts that don't affect him/her).
Not sure if I want toshake in my boots from hysterical laughter or absolute fear, at this point.
The numbers and descriptions expanding!
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/
...p#comments_form
~snip~
Smoking is behind nearly one-quarter of deaths in Scotland, rising to almost one- third in some communities.
snip~
'Maureen Moore, chief executive of Ash Scotland, said: "There are a massive amount of people under the age of 70 dying from smoking. These are preventable deaths.'
===
What number does massive indicate?
~snip~
Shetland and the Western Isles, followed by more rural parts of mainland Scotland, have the lowest death toll'
Gee wonder why.
'
.
From Greatscot's link:
Achtung: if you’re fat, you’re anti-social
Excerpt:
But you need more than just concocted scientific evidence to launch a national campaign on what people eat and how they play: you also need a cultural climate that is open to such interventions. And in today’s Germany, the ground has been well-prepared for this kind of government activity.
In Germany, the fatness issue has been harnessed by a government keen to intervene into people’s private lives at ever more intimate levels. In recent debates, obesity has been linked to child neglect (that is, parents feeding their children the ‘wrong’ foods and letting them get fat), and it has also been taken as evidence that people have gone consumerism-crazy, misled by the advertising of big food companies. Once body weight has been squeezed into such a moral framework – which raises questions of choice, free will and independence – then it quickly becomes an issue around which all sorts of authoritarian measures can be enforced. And questioning the government’s anti-obesity campaign has become tantamount to blasphemy. Health and weight are no longer the subject of a meaningful debate – they are consensus issues on which you raise awkward questions at your peril. Those who disagree with the need to lose weight are regarded as ‘stupid’ or wilfully contrary, and it is hoped that the new emphasis on health education in schools will help to stamp out these unorthodox views.
..........................
Also see:
Fascism and the campaign to end smoking
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2yhb38
.........................
And:
The National Socialist Medical Welfare State
Excerpt:
Here I think we must avoid a mistake. It is easy to say that such a policy could only take place in a dictatorship: a Western democracy could never do such a thing. Quite the contrary, sterilization was very popular in the United States. Twenty-nine states had laws allowing compulsory sterilization, beginning with Indiana in 1907. Oliver Wendell Holmes found these laws constitutional in Buck v. Bell (1927). He declared, "three generations of imbeciles are enough." In fact, the Nazis modeled their policy on the American laws. They were influenced by American racial theorists and eugenicists, such as Lothrop Stoddard. He later visited Germany and described the genetic courts in his book Into the Darkness. European nations such as Denmark also had sterilization laws. Once a nation abandons self-ownership, individual welfare must indeed bow to the general good. The National Socialists carried out more consistently than others an idea that was widespread.
URL: http://tinyurl.com/37lfhb
.................................
Socialism: The Ultimate Evil
By Balint Vazsonyi
Excerpt:
Socialism, by whatever name and in all its forms, is the ultimate evil. Sooner or later, it destroys everything in its path: law, morality, family, prosperity, productivity, education, incentive - finally life itself. Portraying Stalin as the cause of evil puts the cart before the horse. Socialism creates the conditions for a Stalin; socialism creates the conditions for a Hitler.
Yes Lynda,i read it as being a cynical take on events,however casting your mind back 18 months ago,would you have expected to be in the position we are now ? A consensus of opinion dominating what was once the scientific domain,scientific research that does not prove the mantra being totally ignored as if it has no place at all.It was one thing skewing the statistics,that was bad enough but just making it up as they go along.....I had naive faith that science would never allow such cynical exploitation by the few who have no integrity or professionalism to promote their ideals in the name of the cause .Progress it most certainly is not.Let the Pharmaceutical Companies loose on the public,scrap the FDA and you have the same playing field.YET i'm the flat earther and in total denial of my chronic addiction which kills in 20 minutes and the rest of the make believe fairy stories the loonies come out with.I just want the science to prove what Dr Siegel says about his research is totally watertight and accurate .A return to old fashioned scientific research would also not come amiss.How this is denial,just escapes my intellectual capacity ,or lack of.
From Sunz’ link:
The devastating loss of life is revealed today in the most detailed ever report on the nation's addiction to tobacco.
How many people smoke community by community is also estimated by the research which is intended to help target services such as quit clinics. bolded emphasis is mine.
OK, maybe it’s just me, but this sounds like they “estimated” the number of deaths too. Ever notice when they announce these things there’s never any link to direct a person to read the report for themselves? Gee, I wonder why.
Across North Glasgow, smoking claims the lives of 34% of men and 36% of women who die before the age of 70, according to the study.
Must be a shortage of people between the ages of 18 and 70? Again, WHERE’S the proof?
She said: "Smoking is a primary cause of health inequalities, with the average smoker losing 10 years of life expectancy compared to non- smokers living in the same area."
Now it’s 10 years? Good, then I shouldn’t have to worry about putting up with all this anti-cartel crap for too much longer. NOW if I live beyond the age of ………..55 (my next birthday in January) or 60, who can I sue? Of course they don’t consider other possible causes for the “health inequalities” like, diet, exercise, exposure to diesel and other carcinogens other than tobacco, quality of health care available? Of course not, that would defeat their agenda. Goddess forbid we actually use REAL data.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...7/01/
view02.xml
From the comments section of this piece:
'To all those boasting about taking their kids to the pub for a lovely smoke-free Sunday lunch:
Pubs are intended for adults. The last thing most pubgoers want is to be subjected to the probable health risks of "passive parenthood."
Show some respect for others and enjoy your noisy, antisocial offspring in the privacy of your own home!
Posted by Fergus Mason
LOL---Passive parenthood!!!
Sunz,perhaps it's my outlook but in every report you read about smoking you constantly get the same old rhetoric.whether it is "there you have the proof" or its good to see what we've known about for years or if boys do that it will make them blind.After every damn report is issued.But with the same reports being issued every other alternate Tuesday it makes them look dumber than ever.Come on,they KNOW the contents of these reports THEY'VE HELPED COMPILE THE DAMNED THINGS !
Sunz,the one thing i look forward to is these motormouthed offspring playing up and grabbing daddy's pint of beer and swigging it.Pissed up cretinous motormouths,that really will spoil the Sunday outing.
Si: however casting your mind back 18 months ago,would you have expected to be in the position we are now ? A consensus of opinion dominating what was once the scientific domain,scientific research that does not prove the mantra being totally ignored as if it has no place at all
Actually, Si, I've doubted science and medical professionals for quite some time now...............at least 20 years.
What I never thought however, was that our elected officials would buy it all so fast and easily (though I never trusted them before so this shouldn't have surprised me), and I never once thought the media would be so biased, so blinded, so NOT free press.
TOO TRUE Lynda.
From Si...'.I had naive faith that science would never allow such cynical exploitation by the few who have no integrity or professionalism to promote their ideals in the name of the cause'
Silly us Si. This must be the delusional thinking 'old Bill accusing us engaging in.
Lynda-- On the Australian Federal Statistician, the final note, "Smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers are all self-selected. It could be for example that people who decide to smoke are congenitally healthier than those who don’t.
The conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that with regard to health, smokers are healthier than non-smokers." This is something that I cam across last year in one of alan Carr's books. (He was the ex-smoker who made an emoire of the quit smoking thing. I think he recently died of lung cancer.) He also commented that the people who smoke are the people who didn't actually turn green when they first inhaled. That is, the people who weren't healthy enough to handle the smoke never developed the habit of smoking. It's effectively the same thing: Only people who were healthy enough to smoke became smokers, i.e. smokers are healthier but that could be a result of the self-selection mentioned above.
Also, I agree about the media shocker. More than my dismay with the role of "scientists" in SHS scams, I'm still amazed at how corrupt and/or lax the media has become! Thanks for the smoke and Mirrors article. Yes, I see more and more articles in popular press that are not merely questioning the science of SHS dangers and wisdom of smoking bans, but actually denouncing them! Yes, it's a little late for it, but...I dunno. We need to see how this thing plays out and just do our best.
Sunz-- The Hot Air Calculator is *great*! Thanks. But I must say...the "passive parenthood" comment is a gem! And I couldn't agree more. Really. *grrr*
soren-- You always have great, insightful comments! 
Sorry, doc. They're hypocrites, but you're not?
Last I checked, you're not pushing to ban overeating in bars and restaurants.
45 Million Americans lack health insurance! This figure is quoted over and over. Take a look at the source of that figure and decide whether it's true:
Junkfood Science
July 02, 2007
Uninsured — making a diagnosis
Lead in:
This past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an early release of its estimated findings from the 2006 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The report that’s received the most publicity has been the one citing the numbers of people in our country without health insurance.
As with all statistics used to create the perception of a national health crisis in need of government intervention — such as obesity — we’ve learned to look at them carefully. The CDC reported that 43.6 million Americans don’t have health insurance, but the devil is in the details.
Let’s look.
Survey designs. For more than a decade, repeated studies have reported wide discrepancies among population survey estimates of the numbers of uninsured. These problems have not been widely reported in the media, however. Instead, every interest picks the survey with the data most favorable to its agenda. Primarily, we hear the beefed up statistics because they make the best soundbytes, and federal funds to the States and various programs are based on those figures.
URL for complete article: http://tinyurl.com/ysqzt4
Another factor to consider is that this decision may actually interfere with Cleveland Clinic's primary objective of providing top quality health care. The nursing shortage in this country is well known, and its impact is visible daily on the wards--nurses are overworked and often unable to keep up with the demands placed on them. Limiting the pool of applicants for these critical positions is likely to exacerbate the existing problem. Furthermore, it is already difficult to convince young people to sign up for this "unglamarous" profession. For a young smoker contemplating a career in nursing, this may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and turns him or her in another direction. This is NOT what the doctor ordered!
Actually, Dr. Siegel, I think you are giving Cathy's argument too much credit. Unless I didn't read between the lines enough.
you would prevent a health clinic from hiring people who reflect their values
When, in fact, you are really allowing a health clinic to fire those who do not share their "values" perfectly.
It's the same sort of logic stretch as saying people who oppose smoking bans are really looking to light up en masse in subway cars and don't possibly agree there are any norms about smoking.
The above statement also implies that the anti-tobacco movement is a moral crusade and not about the smoke.
What happens with the new applicants that have a spouse, boy friend, girl friend that smokes? Do they now not socialize with smokers (to include family) because their inhalation of second hand smoke will now show up on the blood tests? Does this now further cut in to the social stigmatism of tobacco smokers? Sounds a lot like social behavior modification to me. Madness! Total madness!
Rod -- re Buck vs. Bell
It's the sentence before the "three generations one that's most chilling to me...
"The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 , 25 S. Ct. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 765. Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Also...
http://findarticles.com/p/articl..._87854861/
print
And remember, in NAZI Germany it began with bans on smoking.
War Against the Weak
by Edwin Black
Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race
It began on Long Island and ended at Auschwitz..and yet it never really stopped.
Excerpt from the introduction:
"When we were done, we had assembled a mountain of documentation that clearly chronicled a century of eugenic crusading by America’s finest universities, most reputable scientists, most trusted professional and charitable organizations, and most revered corporate foundations. They had collaborated with the Department of Agriculture and numerous state agencies in an attempt to breed a new race of Nordic humans, applying the same principles used to breed cattle and corn. The names define power and prestige in America: the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Harriman railroad fortune, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Stanford University, the American Medical Association, Margaret Sanger, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Robert Yerkes, Woodrow Wilson, the American Museum of Natural History, the American Genetic Association and a sweeping array of government agencies from the obscure Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics to the U.S. State Department."
Excerpts from Chapter One:
"A single day in the 1930s was typical. The Montgomery County sheriff drove up unannounced onto Brush Mountain and began one of his many raids against the hill families considered socially inadequate. More precisely, these hill families were deemed “unfit,” that is, unfit to exist in nature. On this day the Montgomery County sheriff grabbed six brothers from one family, bundled them into several vehicles and then disappeared down the road. Earlier, the sheriff had come for the boys’ sister. Another time, deputies snared two cousins."
"Eventually, out of sight of the world, in Buchenwald and Auschwitz, eugenic doctors like Josef Mengele would carry on the research begun just years earlier with American financial support, including grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institution. Only after the secrets of Nazi eugenics horrified the world, only after Nuremberg declared compulsory sterilization a crime against humanity, did American eugenics recede, adopt an enlightened view and then resurface as “genetics” and “human engineering.” Even still, involuntary sterilization continued for decades as policy and practice in America. "
URL: http://tinyurl.com/3bfj7j
Rod, all I can say is OH MY GOD!
I don't remember ever hearing about OUR (American) role in this. I was aware of a brief period of forced sterilizations, but nothing even close to this.
Oh my God!!!!!
Lynda, Here is a brief recap of Eugenics in America.
http://history.enotes.com/1930-s...genics-
movement
http://webgiant.sdf1.org/carniva...e/
eugenics.html
http://www.amphilsoc.org/library...easures/
aes.htm
~snip~
The message of eugenics was delivered in more subtle ways that appealed directly to "normal" Americans. The AES sponsored "Fitter Family" contests, open to all who chose to participate, using measures of physical appearance, health, behavior, and intelligence to judge which family displayed the greatest potential to produce genetically superior children. Divided into small, medium, and large family categories, as well as couples, the contests were enormously popular.
http://history.enotes.com/1930-s...genics-
movement
http://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/
pub...publicityf.html
Pretty sad, huh?
.
Doctor,
My goodness. Can't you see how close this comes to criticizing your own position? In fact, it does. Just look at it:
"Obesity - that's fine. Alcohol overuse - fine. An unhealthy diet - fine. High trans-fat intake - fine. High cholesterol intake - fine. No exercise at all - fine. The only thing that is not fine is smoking. You can't convince me that the Cleveland Clinic is solely motivated by a desire for a healthy workforce. Clearly, they don't give a particular damn about whether their new employees have a host of other health problems (which may be far more severe than smoking at their particular ages). They only care about whether they smoke or not."
So... do you give a particular damn about NASCAR drivers or stuntmen or loggers? Or what about jobs that require people to eat? Or drink alcohol? Why are YOU not concerned about those workers? Does your failure to propose protecting such workers show you to be a hypocrite?
Driving 200 mph, three cars wide, on an oval? Fine.
Getting punched in the face by Mike Tyson? Stupendous.
Getting crushed by 20-ton trees so the Joneses can have pretty cabinets? Sure.
Doing death-defying movie stunts to Bruce Willis can be safe? Excellent.
Window-washers tumbling 100 stories off a skyscraper so people can have dinner with a view? Sure. Why not?
But good grief. Allowing Denny's to serve eggs to a man who is smoking a Marlboro? Good god!
40,000 dead! 40,000 dead!
The corpses are so deep, we will despair for enough grave space? The streets are awash in phlegm and blood!
40,000 dead!
Perhaps your "concern" is just as exaggerated as the Cleveland Clinic's? And just as suspect?
If failure to respond equally to other threats is proof of guilt in this regard...
You. Are. Guilty.
godownfighting: Rod -- re Buck vs. Bell; It's the sentence before the "three generations one that's most chilling to me...; "The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 , 25 S. Ct. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 765. Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Rod and GDF, I've believed for a while now that these sweeping laws--"compulsory" and, now, "ban"--have their roots in eugenics. I thought I was relatively alone in this. (With vaccinations, I question the wisdom of one-size-fits-all. It can't be right for everyone; I personally advocate looking at family history, though.) I surprised to find one pro-smoking site--mind you, non just anti-ban--run by someone who was very pro-vaccination. I can't give proof or anything like that...I just keep seeing the two put togther in different venues and contexts. Maybe I'm completely off my nut...but...I wonder if there's a stronger connection and, if so, what.
The similarity bet. the eugenics movement and the anti-tobacco crusade is
a) both were predicated on a pre-existing bias against groups conveniently "discovered" by "science" to be genetically "defective"
b) both were based on junk science (the guy who did the "study" of the Jukes and the Kalikaks was shown to be a fraud-- and so was Henry (?) Goddard whose "studies" "proved" that "80% of Jews are of moron grade") but the science gained "consensus" because it rationalized a) the pre-existing bias.
c) in both instances, then, the "science" which justified the bias was spread widely by (often state sponsored) propaganda, recruiting even more people to join the bias , find a funnel for their tribalism, and get to feel superior simply on the grounds of not belonging to the "scientifically proven" inferior groups.
d) from there it was easy to make laws against the groups (as the 1924 US Immigration laws barred the moronic Jews from entering America-- laws still enforced in the 30s and 40s against European Jews attempting to flee the Nazis, who were using this American science of eugenics as an excuse to exterminate them.) Once you;ve successfully denormalized a group, any barbarity becomes possible.
:
Walt - Once you;ve successfully denormalized a group, any barbarity becomes possible.
....
"Denormalize."
Exactly. Right now, the term is used oppose the open display of tobacco items for sale. Also, the depiction of smoking in movies.
The next thing, already in its first stage, is to characterize people that smoke as not normal, genetically defective.
Obesity (as defined by the state) is well on its way to being the result of defective genes.
Alcohol will be next.
What does the future hold if we allow socialism to replace our present system of government?
It's been quoted many times from 1984:
O'Brien speaking to Winston Smith:
"The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy—everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy."
And:
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever...and remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again."
Dr. Siegel's comment: You can't start selectively dictating one particular health choice.
Yes you can, and the reason is because smoking is unlike any other health "choice", apart from other forms of drug use.
To eliminate the health risks associated with being overweight, you would have to do one or more of the following: eat less, eat healthier foods, exercise more. Each of these has its own challenges. As an example, financial hardship makes it hard for many people to afford healthier foods, such as produce which can be quite expensive. Many people would find losing weight especially difficult due to an abnormal metabolism or glandular condition. In short, this is a relatively complex problem.
By contrast, to eliminate the health risks and immediate physical harm from smoking, you are required to do one very simple thing: don't put burning sticks of tobacco in your mouth. Which incidentally will also save you a lot of money.
So the comparison is just silly. Like comparing parental smoking to letting a child choose to wear heelys or play hockey. This is what tobacco promoters do, introduce other issues as a distraction from the reality of smoking – an easily preventable cause of death and disease, with no redeeming qualities.
It's very sad to see a medical doctor spend his time defending smoking.
Dr. Siegel's comment: I just want to highlight an important point that Lynda made in response to Cathy, whose work here is now done:
Now, what exactly is that supposed to mean? Here is what I got out of it. First, you encourage your followers in their nasty and petty bickering against me, which by the way have no effect on me, any more than the rantings of a lunatic on the street would. Second, I get the sense that you would like my work here to be done because this is really getting to you. I don't think you're used to being confronted with reality, at least not here.
Of course you could always ban me, but I think I'm going to just go ahead and grant your request. This blog should only be frequented by smokers' rights nuts anyway. It's good that they have a place to feel normal instead of the freaks that they are. (I meant that in a nice way)
Cathy Bell: nasty and petty bickering against me, which by the way have no effect on me
Yeah, those who don't have a soul usually don't have a heart.
I pity you.
.
Now, what exactly is that supposed to mean? It's good that they have a place to feel normal instead of the freaks that they are. (I meant that in a nice way)
Cathy, to refresh your memory.......it was YOU who stated (months ago I might add) right here on this blog site, that: "my work here is done". Please do not pretend the Doc is making this up.
The doctor needs not encourage us in any way, it is statements like that you made above (and no way you meant that in a nice way so shove the lie), Bill's calling us murderers, comparing us to rapists, you calling us child abusers. You brought on the attack yourself by throwing the first punch dear.
Besides which, you seem to be conveniently forgetting that smokers don't follow the trend or obey orders too well. We think for ourselves, and make judgements on our own experiences and research versus soundbites and anti rantings.
I truly hope you do in fact stick to your promise this time and just leave. No one here gives a flying fart in space about your regurgitated propoganda.
By contrast, to eliminate the health risks and immediate physical harm from smoking, you are required to do one very simple thing: don't put burning sticks of tobacco in your mouth.
Switch smoking to alcohol and burning sticks of tobacco to a bottle, and you get a hard line stance that would get you booed out of any alcohol treatment center, at the very least.
And if that is all that needs to be done to quit, you can't really say "Well, stopping kids from being hooked young is a big priority."
Because it is that easy to quit.
I'm not saying any one part of your argument is wrong, but all together, they are inconsistent except for the common goal of trying to make smokers look dumb.
Just think of it this way: you see an infomercial guy on the TV. He says "In order to be rich, all you have to do is TRY HARDER."
You are smart enough to know that the details about how to try harder, and what to try, and what is most effective, go unanswered, making that statement useless.
Cathy: one final example. I despise reality TV. But I don't think it's right to put in place a social apparatus that slights people who watch it. And I understand there are things about it people enjoy that I don't, both that I know about it and that I don't. And if someone stepped in and said, everyone who watches reality TV is stupid, I hope I would call them on it.
So I am defending reality TV, even though I frown on it.
Does this make me a nut, even in a nice way?
Lynda F wrote:
"Cathy, to refresh your memory.......it was YOU who stated (months ago I might add) right here on this blog site, that: "my work here is done". Please do not pretend the Doc is making this up."
No kidding. If she doesn't remember saying that or being ridiculed for it two dozen times after coming back time and time again...well, what can you say that hasn't already been said about her? (I always liked "ding a ling". Who came up with that one, Sunz? LOL)
Ding a ling rants 'As an example, financial hardship makes it hard for many people to afford healthier foods, such as produce which can be quite expensive. Many people would find losing weight especially difficult due to an abnormal metabolism or glandular condition. In short, this is a relatively complex problem.'
Many People, you sound as if you are laying the groundwork for a defense against the upcoming obesity campaign?
What size are you wearing these days?
Would you want any of these fine folks on this blog running your life? Hmmmmmmm Didn't think so. I bet the Doctor wouldn't want that for his life either.
Someday, somewhere when you least expect it, Many People,
smile----
you will be the hunted.
Good Riddance
.
Andrew: [Quoting Cathy]By contrast, to eliminate the health risks and immediate physical harm from smoking, you are required to do one very simple thing: don't put burning sticks of tobacco in your mouth.[End Quote]
Switch smoking to alcohol and burning sticks of tobacco to a bottle, and you get a hard line stance that would get you booed out of any alcohol treatment center, at the very least.
And if that is all that needs to be done to quit, you can't really say "Well, stopping kids from being hooked young is a big priority." Because it is that easy to quit.
I had never noticed that but you're absolutely correct! The idea that people should *simply* quit smoking is in direct contrast to the emphasis placed on preventing young people from starting!
Huh. How interesting.
Also, Sunz, I'll lay odds that Cathy has very real health problems--or, at least, very real self-esteem problems. That is probably the reason that she has a strong narcisistic (sp?) compulsion to attack everyone else. ASDS. Very dysfunctional. Maybe she'll wise-up before she's the next target or maybe not. The dysfunction will undoubtedly be her undoing whether she likes it or not--and whether she *agrees* with it or not because the health police will be doing it for her own good.
Run for your life, freak hunting season is just around the corner...
the road to hell is filled with good intentions
Unbelievable, but not surprising. I currently work as a travel nurse at the cleveland clinic in florida. The most dangerous and unsafe working environment I have ever seen. Avoid if you value your health. This is just another money grubbing hospital that is concerned with one thing. The bottom line and making mONEY
the chickens have come home to roost:
http://blog.cleveland.com/
medica...nts_dont_g.html
http://www.cleveland.com/
medical...of_longevi.html
Roizen a perfect example of UTOPIA
(Maybe he's wishing the nurses live to 160 since they can't find new ones)
http://www.townhall.com/MediaPla...ae-
49637ea2a101
it's only been 10 months since the no smokers hiring policy at the Cleveland Clinic and now they are testing new wellness waters....while serving us, their beasts of burden, oats and seeds in their vending machines...for starters
http://www.cleveland.com/plainde...5820.xml&
coll=2
Happy Liberty Day (not)
http://www.newsnet5.com/health/1...782/
detail.html
The rise to the top by promotion of these inhuman bigots is not because of their own claims to be "the cream of the crop" a positive notion, but a sign as we see many more signs around us; of horrors and expansions of misery to come. Incited by the ignorant, who claim to be something more.
Anonymous | 07.11.08 - 9:25 am |
prime example...
the Cleveland Clinic
first? in heart health
last in LIBERTY (giving me a coronary)
http://blog.cleveland.com/ medica...ort_hospit.html
Doc~
Thank you so much for standing up for us nurses. I appreciate that more than you will ever know.
The #1 USA/world Cleveland Clinic is into its second year of smoker discrimination. They have just opened a top notch, cutting edge bunch of shiny new buildings.
One question. Where will they find the nurses?
Will they have to import them once again while discriminating against the locals in the #1 poorest city in the USA?
You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a discriminating pig.
~RN
utopia | 09.13.08 - 11:38 am | #
utopia - yes.
My wife is a nurse and smokes occasionally after a stressfull day. She might have a couple of cigarettes twice a week. She's been a nurse for 26 years and I can't imagine a hospital saying see you later unless you quit. Is that what the non-smokers want, is to be able to dictate that?
My wife is on my insurance and doesn't take benefits from the hospital and she doesn't smoke at the hospital. So then Bill Godshall, where are the risks to anyone from my wife smoking outside of our house?
Jerry | 09.19.08 - 10:50 am | #
and the discriminatory beat goes on...I'm just waiting for the meltdown of healthcare, as they struggle to find staff...to equal the mortgage mess...administration is so clueless as to what really goes on-- it is AMAZING.
Just stand in front of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio and look at the number of patients and visitors who stand around, right at the entrances, smoking away! With Clinic Police looking on and ignoring smoking on the "smoke free" hospital campus, saying nothing. Signs regarding "no smoking" placed all around the Clinic Hospital Campus should actually read "no smoking for employees only". Selective reasoning, monitoring, and punishment for employees only.
so...we had our little mandatory diversity training class...
you know...diversity, inclusion, tolerance...a slide show about how the Leave It To Beaver family of the 50's has been replaced by a single mother with bi-racial kids...
right, not in my neighborhood...any sexual orientation replacing the nuclear family etc...the usual propaganda
(Sexually ANYTHING goes, but God help you if you smoke!)
anyway so I asked for clarification... how does the Cleveland Clinic ban smokers with all of its 'tolerance'...
she mumbled the usual about 6000 other businesses doing it...all the usual blah, blah...I asked if BMI, blood sugar and cholesterol were next...she didn't have an answer...(an eye opener for all those in attendance that are still clueless I'm sure)
I told her about how many of the nurses are limping on our med/surg floors from all the hard work and no staff...esp. nursing assistant...plus the nursing shortage of course
they are discriminating against the low income, blue-collar, high school drop outs in the city of Cleveland... which is over 50% black...and most likely to smoke...and where we get most of our nursing assistant from
WE the floor nurses are paying the price for their 'wellness' policies...and we are paying with our physical as well as our mental health
HOW IS THE CLEVELAND CLINIC BEING DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE AND TOLERANT, exactly??
It seems as tho the CCF is still CLUELESS...lots of talk..no action that I can see..
and now Obama and the SCHIPS are on the horizon...hellllooo socialized medicine...the inmates are going to run the assylum
utopia is HERE
Secondhand Children
Ann Coulter
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
It's been weeks since the last one, so on Sunday, The New York Times Magazine featured yet another cheery, upbeat article on single mothers. As with all its other promotional pieces on single motherhood over the years, the Times followed a specific formula to make this social disaster sound normal, blameless and harmless -- even brave.
These single motherhood advertisements include lots of conclusory statements to the effect that this is simply the way things are -- so get used to it, bourgeois America! "(A)n increasing number of unmarried mothers," the article explained, "look a lot more like Fran McElhill and Nancy Clark -- they are college-educated, and they are in their 30s, 40s and 50s."
Why isn't the number of smokers treated as a fait accompli that the rest of us just have to accept? Smoking causes a lot less damage and the harm befalls the person who chooses to smoke, not innocent children.
The Times' single motherhood endorsements always describe single mothers as the very picture of middle-class normality: "She grew up in blue-collar Chester County, Pa., outside Philadelphia, and talks like a local girl (long O's). Her father was a World War II vet who worked for a union and took his kids to Mass most Sundays." Even as a girl she dreamed of raising a baby with a 50 percent greater chance of growing up in poverty.
How about some articles on all the nice middle-class smokers whose fathers served in World War II and took them to Mass? Only when describing aberrant social behavior do Times writers even recognize what normality is, much less speak of it admiringly.
According to hysterical anti-smoking zealots at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking costs the nation $92 billion a year in "lost productivity." (Obviously these conclusions were produced by people who not only have never smoked, but also don't know any smokers, who could have told them smoking makes us 10 times more productive.)
Meanwhile, single motherhood costs taxpayers about $112 billion every year, according to a 2008 study by Georgia State University economist Benjamin Scafidi.
Smoking has no causal relationship to crime, has little effect on others and -- let's be honest -- looks cool. Controlling for income, education and occupation, it causes about 200,000 deaths per year, mostly of people in their 70s.
Single motherhood, by contrast, directly harms children, occurs at a rate of about 1.5 million a year and has a causal relationship to criminal behavior, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, sexual victimization and almost every other social disorder.
If a pregnant woman smokes or drinks, we blame her. But if a woman decides to have a fatherless child, we praise her as brave -- even though the outcome for the child is much worse.
Thus, the Times writes warmly of single mothers, always including an innocent explanation: "Many of these women followed a similar and familiar pattern in having their first child: They planned to marry, found they hadn't by their 30s, looked some more and then decided to have a child without a husband." At which point, a stork showed up with their babies.
So apparently, single motherhood could happen to anyone!
How about: These smokers followed a similar and familiar pattern, they planned never to start smoking, found themselves working long nights at the law firm and then decided to have a cigarette to stay alert.
Then there is the Times' reversal of cause and effect, which manages to exonerate the single mother while turning her into a victim: "The biggest reason that children born to unmarried mothers tend to have problems -- they're more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes -- is that they tend to grow up poor."
First, the reason the children "tend to grow up poor" is that their mothers considered it unnecessary to have a primary bread-earner in the family.
Second, the Times simply made up the fact that poverty, rather than single motherhood, causes anti-social behavior in children. Poverty doesn't cause crime -- single mothers do. If poverty caused crime, how did we get Bernie Madoff?
Studies -- including one by the liberal Progressive Policy Institute -- have shown that control
ling for factors such as poverty and socioeconomic status, single motherhood accounts for the entire difference in black and white crime rates.
The Times' claim that poverty is the "biggest reason" for the problems of illegitimate children is on the order of claiming that the biggest reason that smokers develop heart disease and lung cancer is not because they smoke, but because they tend to work so hard. It's a half-baked, wishful-thinking theory contradicted by all known evidence. Other than that, it holds up pretty well.
Finally, the Times produced an imaginary statistic that is valid only in the sense that no study has specifically disproved it yet. "No one has shown," the Times triumphantly announced, "that there are similar risks for the children of college-educated single mothers by choice."
No one has shown that there are similar risks for smokers who run marathons, either. There are probably about as many college graduate single mothers by choice (7 percent) as there are smokers who run marathons. And, unlike single mothers, smokers who run marathons look really cool.
If the establishment media wrote about smoking the way they write about unwed motherhood, I think people would notice that they seem oddly hellbent on destroying as many lives as possible.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved. (THANK YOU ANN!!)
Excellent, utopia.
Thanx benpal...you're a pal
this blog is such good venting therapy!!!
LIBERTY IS DEAD.
SOCIALIST UTOPIA is here...
God help the USS of Amerika.
("America what have you done?")
http://townhall.com/Common/Print...568da0924db&
t=c
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...0502766_pf.html
breaks my heart on this Valentine's day
tea'd off
http://townhall.com/columnists/
T...ou_an_extremist
It all began with the smoking bans based on flat-out lies about second-hand-smoke as the excuse, but nobody would believe so as prejudice prevailed and "won't happen here" and "doesn't affect me", so keep on supporting one liberty-taking at the root without expecting all the others that comes with it and this is the road already started down years earlier, beginning with the bans and leading ultimately to the "health" care takeover - because government is now empowered to "save us" from ourselves and of course for the "good of the children" - and we tacitly agreed to let them in the door well over a decade earlier. And don't expect those bold, emblazened libertarian-minded smokers, the likes of Ayn Rand, whose spirit has been rendered impotent, to stand up as they so boldly did during prior periods of history and guard viligantly at your side. Expect them instead to just stand on the side, laugh and watch as everyone else who didn't stand up for their rights, even though they made clear what was happening from the get-go, now lose their basic freedoms next. First they came for, then they came for, then they came for, then they came for me - and it was all premised on "health" - even if the opening salvo was based on an easily provable basic scientific lie about second-hand-smoke as the oil to get the machine moving. Once lie becomes "truth", then the natural progression leads to this. Check your history, facts and science, read around the popular propaganda, and you will see this isn't the first time in history this same modus-operandi hasn't been used. And I am quite tired of saying I do not smoke, am not a smoker and do not endorse the tobacco companies nor am I a "schill" to off-set upfront the barrage of insults and knee-jerk accusations such a "taboo" statement and Ayn Rand way of thinking, as the aforementioned sets off, especially from those of the liberal-progressive persuasion who have already drunk the kool-aid of anti-smoking, and thus "health" care reform, a full two decades earlier in California, Boston, and now in much of conquered Europe and UK. Once a lie becomes the "truth", then anything is possible building upon the basic premise - and today, it has with the final payoff "health" care "reform". (blog brilliance)
America what have you done...
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