THE W.H.O. IN FULL ACTION TOWARDS THE DETRIMENT OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

''Look out for “big food, big soda and big alcohol.” The UN is trying to interfere in what you eat and drink, Anthony Furey is joined by Christopher Snowdon to discuss the World Health Organization’s hunger for power.''
View the interview here:  http://en.video.canoe.tv/archive/source/marblemediasinking-ship-production/taking-away-food-choice/2472847685001  

SLIPPERY SLOPE? NAH WE MUST BE INVENTING THINGS AGAIN.

So let's see a raise of hands from all those who thought we were wearing tinfoil hats when we said that once you give in to one type of government encroachment the rest will follow...one by one.   

Are you willing to also let this one be adopted without putting up a fight? 

Read the article:  

Ontario doctors urge junk food warning labels and taxes

And watch a video:   

 

NANNY BLOOMBERG

In case you haven't yet heard, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now wants to ban sugary drinks sold in formats bigger than 16 ounces.  For some comic relief here's an ad in the New York Times depicting Bloomberg for the nanny he is. 

Source:  http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/01/nanny-bloomberg-wears-dress-in-full-page-new-york-times-ad/

News Digest May 17, 2012

Coffee

It’s healthy, it’s healthy not, it’s healthy, it’s healthy not, it’s healthy…according to this umpteenth study on the issue:   

NIHstudy finds that coffee drinkers have lower risk of death

  

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Efforts by anti-smoking campaigners to reinstate a smoking ban in small cafes and bars failed on Wednesday when judges in The Hague ruled the law does allow exceptions.

In theNetherlands customers can continue to smoke in small bars, judges rule

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It Officially Costs More To Be Overweight Than A Smoker In America

So let’s fix that with yet more government control and taxation!  Hate to tell you we told you so. 

‘Fat tax’ would have to be a whopper to work, study says

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All plain cigarette packaging as adopted in Australia and under consultation in the UK will accomplish is to make tobacco more affordable since with nothing else to stand out except their name in identical fonts, the only way the tobacco companies would be able to compete with each other is through prices.  Case in point:

BAT launches budget Tobacco brand in Australia row

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Experts are surprised that the number of asthma sufferers continues to rise while the number of smokers falls.  Perhaps they should start looking elsewhere for the solution to the problem as some researchers have found that being subjected to smoke prevents allergies by making the immune system stronger. 

Number of Asthma Sufferers Sky-Rockets; Doctors are Puzzled

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It is frequently claimed that consumers of ‘unhealthy’ products place an excessive burden on public services and that this justifies additional taxation.  This is not true according to a report from The Adam Smith Institute: 

The Wages of Sin Taxes: The True Cost of Taxing Alcohol, Tobacco and Other "Vices"

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‘’ To be sure, obesity is a public health problem that should be addressed with scientific discipline. Instead, as the current campaign illustrates, activists are politicizing obesity -- using it as a vehicle to try to remake the American way of life.’’

Opinion: Obesity forecast is overblown

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Evidence based public health policy?  Yeah right! 

Government-Funded Medical Research Is Hazardous to Your Health

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California food police gone wild: LA County health enforcers conduct door-to-door raw milkconfiscation operations

‘’ In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own.’’

NEWS DIGEST MAY 6, 2012

High school students do not appreciate in the least that the Ontario Ministry of Education limited their choices of food in the school cafeteria.  Some now leave their school to eat elsewhere where they can choose what they want causing losses of revenue to the school cafeteria.  When will governments learn that you can drive a horse to water but you cannot make it drink?   

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An excellent column in the Globe & Mail about how we are being manipulated and medicated for profit.  

Isanybody normal any more?

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Another good opinion piece about how insecure and fearful of living (or is it of death?) some of us now are.   

TheLand of the Free, and the Home of the Neurotic

''Ontario, in particular, has gone crazy in terms of safety''

Analysis:Playgrounds without swings just aren’t playgrounds

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It doesn't matter how many people still smoke and how many kids they tell us are starting every day, the neo-prohibitionists will never give research for a safer cigarette the time of day. Who is more guilty, those who stifle all progress towards a safer product or those who attempt to better a product for which there is still a considerable demand and for which there will always be a supply even if they succeed to put the legitimate tobacco industry out of business.  

ControversialChina Tobacco Research Withdrawn from Prize Competition

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The following video is more than just a discussion about plain tobacco packaging which is presently being debated in the UK. It's a must watch to discover or rediscover many of the shenanigans in tobacco control. 

NEWS DIGEST

And some thought it would never go this far with obesity because being fat doesn’t ‘’hurt’’ other people.

 

Texas Hospital Says Fat People Need Not Applyhttp://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/05/11036667-texas-hospital-says-fat-people-need-not-apply?lite

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Isn't it nice to know how our donations and tax money are spent?   And to think that since there is no legal age for use and possession of tobacco, if we listened to these lobbyists, minors wouldn’t be able to enter a theatre to see a movie that depicts smoking but they would be able to hang out outside that same theatre smoking to their heart’s content in all impunity. 

New Data Finds 85% of Films in Ontario That Feature Tobacco Are Rated for Children and Teen Audiences

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Good people disobey bad laws. 

''Harkness says he doesn't plan to obey the law and will continue to blow smoke in the face of the expanded ban.''

Expanded smoking ban faces backlash

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Follow the money to understand exactly why offending ads such as the ones that Americans will be viewing for the next few months courtesy of the CDC  http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2012-03-30/CDC-Ads-spark-huge-increase-to-quit-smoking-line/53896854/1 are fair play but heaven forbid that the CBS projects anything that can make fun of the holier than thou deep pocket pharmaceutical industry. 

Hopefully the CBS will get flooded with complaints from listeners.  If people still can't see the conflicts of interest between Big Media and Big Pharma is there still hope that they ever will?  Here's where you can write to express your thoughts to them:  http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php

 Unamused by Stooges drug humor, CBS bans ad

''FREAKINITUS PINOCHIOTUS'' EXPLAINED BY Tom Naughton

Fat Head' writer/director Tom Naughton's speech about how to tell good science from bad science.

Whether one agrees with Tom Naughton's theories on paleolithic dieting or not, this video on epidemiological studies is a must watch both for the accurate information and the entertainment his explanations provide.   

THE MEANING OF ''HELPING'' IN NEWSPEAK

ObeseWorkers Have Higher Health Care Costs than Smokers, Study Says

And the ''we know what's best for you and our wallet'' movement keeps marching on.

So when will the W.H.O. set the trend for other employers to ban obese people from getting a job like they did with people who smoke? 

It's not that the idea didn't cross certain employers' minds.   Toby Cosgrove, CEO for the Cleveland Clinic, is one of them. If it were up to him, if there weren’t legal issues, he would stop hiring obese people as was reported here. 

This is the same individual  who banned people who test positive for nicotine from employment.  His explanation is that  ''As a healthcare institution devoted to the health and well-being of our patients and employees, it is our responsibility to do something to help those who suffer from this terrible addiction. ''  Obviously Dr. Cosgrove believes that using tobacco or nicotine in any form is terribly addictive but his solution to such a ''terrible addiction'' that doesn't interfere with anything or anyone when it is done outside one's working hours, is to bar such people from employment.   In fact you can be engaging in criminal activities outside your working hours and you can still get a job at the Cleveland Clinic but if you test positive for nicotine you become persona non grata.  

As a pre-requisite to employment, the Cleveland Clinic tests an applicant's body fluids for traces of nicotine and all those testing positive for ''the dreaded substance'' (irrelevant of the source) are barred from employment unless they're ''clean'' for 90 days at which time they can reapply.  Why is this less of an invasion of privacy than installing a camera in one's home to monitor what one does outside his working hours?

The Cleveland Clinic is in direct violation of article 23 of the Declaration of International Human Rights which stipulates that : Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment but in the present anti-smoking hysteria climate who's going to stop Cosgrove and his ilk from engaging in such unethical and immoral discrimination?   

 He pushes his idea of ''helping'' even further by strongly advocating for university campus bans, indoors and outdoors.    

If making ”those who suffer from this terrible addiction” uneducated, unemployable and poor is Cosgrove’s idea of ”helping”, what exactly is his defintion of ”harming”? 

HERE AND THERE

Not much time to blog lately but so much going on.  Here are some noteworthy articles, blog posts, and forums from the www.  This blog should be more active with analysis and commentary in March.  

  

FDA says your body is a “drug” and subject to gov’t regulation

 How does that make you feel ? 

 

Tobacco plain packs – a protection against the “Silent Salesman”

An ongoing discussion in a British MP’s blog about plain cigarette packaging and so much more!

Sugar 'is toxic and must be regulated just like cigarettes', claim scientists

The campaigns for taxing sugar are getting ever increasingly aggressive.  

The Marginalization of Smokers Benefits Corporate Interests and Conditions the Populace to Accept Totalitarian Policies

An article written by a green socialist author about the corporate interests of smoking bans and smoker de-normalization sparked controversy with some of the members of the party who even called for censorship.  A long but must read article and the comments that follow. 

Raw milk supporters speak out

A farmer faces maximum penalties of $13,000 in fines or 2 1/2 years in jail for selling to customers milk they prefer to consume and willingly buy.

Facebook and Twitter 'more addictive than tobacco and alcohol'

So when can we expect extortionist taxes and public bans on networking? 

Bylaw officers are busy enough

The City of Ottawa has undertaken an aggressive campaign to ban smoking in public parks and patios albeit public opinion is mostly against it.  

The Cleveland Clinic in the U.S.A. (one among many employers) no longer hires anyone who has traces of cotinine (the by-product of nicotine) in their urine.  This policy includes smokers, users of nicotine replacement therapy and e-cigarettes.  A policy that has sparked big controversy.  Read about it here:  Opposing view: Why we won't hire smokers  here :  Not hiring smokers crosses privacy line  and listen to more opposing views here :  Issues around bans on hiring smokers

Now that the precedent was set with smoking, anything and everything can be compared to it to create the necessary emotional effect.

Sitting can be more dangerous than smoking, study shows

The Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit now declare that there hasn’t been any global warming in 15 years! 

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about