And then they came for the... Jesus Christ, popcorn eaters? Is this right? - UPDATED

Okay, this is just specific subset of 'And then they came for the salad dodgers' really, but Jesus fucking Christ on a state approved dietary regime, popcorn? Seriously? Well, since Velvet Glove, Iron Fist is taking a look at a comment piece in the Independent entitled 'Filling your face with popcorn is not a human right' one has to assume that it is serious. And so insanely authoritarian that even the normally restrained Chris Snowdon has seen red.

...it's clear that many people find it hard to resist fatty food and cheap alcohol, which leaves government intervention the only serious option.

Well, let's not be so hasty. Are we sure that all the other possibilities have been exhausted? Have you, for example, considered the option of fucking off and leaving us alone?

Quite. It's a thorough fisking and not wishing to steal his thunder I recommend you go read the whole thing there. There's little I can add except for two points. First, and I'm getting a bit personal here, if one person cannot be free to smoke or drink or eat popcorn then why should another be free to walk around with a face like a dropped pie? That's not personal abuse aimed at Joan Smith - well, okay, actually it is really, but it's not just personal abuse. The point is that if it's okay to be so judgemental about certain people's harmless habits then why not others? Why not be as judgemental about who they play hide the sausage with as you are about how many sausages they eat? And why not other aspects, even physical imperfections? It's not like it hasn't all been done before by various other bunches of mad left-wing authoritarians with hard ons both for improving health and for the cost to the public purse. You can sound the Godwin alarm all you like, I don't give a rip. Because it's fucking true, d'you see?

"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmarks
during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too." - Wikipedia.

Secondly I'd expand on something else Chris Snowdon says:

Once we have accepted the healthist world view, no principled and logically consistent objection can be made against photos of rotten teeth on soft drinks. Those who welcomed the 85% sales tax on cigarettes are in no position to oppose an 85% sales tax on bacon. They can only wriggle and squirm and hope the puritans tackle their pleasures last.

And so, in a sense, I welcome the likes of Joan Smith and Jonathan Waxman for finally coming clean and alerting us all about what is afoot.

Yes, but I think they should also be welcomed simply for reaching these insane levels of wanting to regulate popcorn intake and put health warnings on bangers and mash (also a wank fantasy of another a revolting authoritarian cunt - the aforementioned Waxman - and also fisked at VG,IF). If something is going to derail their plans, if something is going to halt the marching of those nasty little boots, then it could well be when the owners of those boots strap them onto a surfboard before going and jumping a shark.


UPDATE - Oh, Jesus, this is just so fucking depressing. How can people understand liberty when it comes to people inclined to bump uglies with someone of the same gender but be unable to grasp the concept when it comes to everyone deciding what food to insert in the other end of their bodies?

Could it be simply that they're not supporting gay marriage for reasons of liberty but because they've been they've been made to think they should, just as they've been made to think that the government should be doing all their thinking for them?

Baaaa. Baaaaa.

Your five a day is going to kill you

This was only a matter of time, wasn't it?

AN APPLE a day is supposed to keep the doctor away, but a small but passionate group of Melbourne medics believes apples and other fresh fruit are in part to blame for the extra kilos some of us are carrying.

And if you're a bit of a fatty then you're a salad dodging couch potato who's already under a deferred sentence of self inflicted death, aren't you? The Institute of Stands To Reason Dunnit (among others) has told us so.

It is a controversial concept that riles nutritionists, but anaesthetist Rod Tayler's theory that restricting fresh fruit in the diet can result in weight loss has been borne out by the participants in a trial he is running at the Epworth Hospital.
Dr Tayler believes the biggest driver behind the rapid rise in the nation's girth is sugar, not fat.

Actually I'm not sure this is all that new. Sugar is a carbohydrate and there are lots of low carb diets, Atkins being probably the most well known, and plenty of people who find that they lose weight that way. And it is, or should be, pretty common knowledge that fruits, berries and vegetables contain lots of sugars. It's why they taste so good. Sweetcorn? Yes?

Mary McPherson, 60, was astounded to learn how much sugar she was consuming as part of what she thought was a healthy vegetarian diet that included four to five pieces of fruit a day. By reducing that to two pieces - ''some berries and a banana'' - Ms McPherson watched excess weight fall off.
''It was a slow loss of weight but in six to eight months I dropped about 10 kilograms and I have kept it off,'' says Ms McPherson, who now weighs 60.5 kilograms.
Instead of snacking on fruit, she ate dry roasted almonds. Occasional sweet cravings were satisfied with a single piece of dark chocolate. She also followed Dr Tayler's advice to reduce refined carbohydrates such as white rice and pasta, replacing them with brown rice and sweet potatoes. But she struggled with his recommendation to cut back on alcohol and continued to enjoy two glasses of wine with dinner

Oooh, they'll get you for that, Mary. Probably should have kept shtum about it or at least said you'd cut down like Katrina.

Katrina John, 26, a nurse who subscribes to Dr Tayler's recommendations, says that by cutting out the two to three pieces of fresh fruit she used to eat each working day she not only lost one kilogram in a fortnight, she started thinking more carefully about everything she ate.
''Then I removed the dried fruit from the nut mix I used to have every day and I stopped drinking orange juice on the weekend and I think it all made a big difference,'' Ms John says, adding she lost seven kilograms in seven months as she also reduced her alcohol and white carbohydrate intake.

Needless to say not everyone is thrilled to hear this.

Nutritionist Rosemary Stanton rejects the argument, saying there is no evidence for it, pointing out that Dr Tayler's sweet study has not been published in a medical journal. ''I think what they are doing is mixing up fruit and fruit juice,'' Dr Stanton says.
[...]
Dr Stanton says that overall fruit consumption in Australia is low and it is a struggle to get most people to eat the recommended two pieces a day.

Two? I thought it was five? And am I right in thinking that 'nutritionist', unlike 'dietitian', is not a legally protected term here? Not saying that Dr Stanton is unqualified or anything, and what she's said there doesn't seem unreasonable to me (and of course Dr Taylor being an anaesthetist is away from his normal field of expertise here anyway), but my point is that all this advice we get on what to eat and what not to eat is hardly clear. One week butter is good for you, the next it'll murder you in your sleep. We must eat five pieces of fruit and veg per day, then we get fat if we do and anyway it was really only two per day all along.

What's the right advice? Don't ask me, I'm as unqualified to give advice on eating as they come. But what I can tell you is that moderation in all things seems like the most sensible approach as well as the most pleasant (the idea of an all sprout diet doesn't bear thinking about), but I know it's not an ideal I live up to in reality. And yes, I could stand to drop a few kilos - I did say I was as unqualified as they come. The point is that there's no magic food and no magic maximum or minimum number for what's 'good' for you. For many things too much is bad, and invariably too little isn't a goo idea either. If you're not happy or not well then probably you need to change something. Otherwise the only thing I'd really suggest is not to read the newspapers too much, because consuming more than five articles on health per week is incredibly dangerous and is likely to send you to an early grave.*

* Research pending. ;-)

Another Gordon Brown chicken comes home to roost

And to no great surprise rather than being the kind that maybe provides a few eggs it's a chicken of the shitting everywhere and possibly giving everyone bird 'flu variety. Well, what else could we expect when it's enjoyed Brown's faecal Midas touch.

[Health Secretary] Andrew Lansley says he has been contacted by 22 health service trusts which claim their "clinical and financial stability" is being undermined by the costs of the contracts, which the Labour government used extensively to fund public sector projects.
[...]
Under the PFI deals, a private contractor builds a hospital or school. It owns the building for up to 35 years, and during this period the public sector must pay interest and repay the cost of construction, as well as paying the contractor to maintain the building.
However, the total cost of the deals is often far more than the value of the assets. As a result, Mr Lansley says, the 22 trusts "cannot afford" to pay for their schemes, which in total are worth more than £5.4billion, because the required payments have risen sharply in the wake of the recession.

Well done, Labour, and well done, Gordon, you shower of epically incompetent cunts. It worked well as an idea to help you spunk money into things so you got nice headlines along the lines of 'Government announces new £X million hospital for Anytown' while also being a way for you to be less than open about the full scale of the debts you were running up in the country's name. But it was a bad deal and I struggle to believe you didn't know it, because if the papers can work it out surely someone in the Treasury spotted it as well.

Earlier in the year, The Daily Telegraph disclosed the extremely poor value offered by many PFI schemes. Taxpayers are having to pay more than £200billion for schools, hospitals and other projects whose capital value is little more than £50 billion.

And this leaves the Cobbleition with having to find ways to make payments. They don't want to make cuts, which is just as well since contrary to popular belief among the hard of thinking they haven't made any, and I get the feeling they don't have a clue how to. My bet is they'll borrow because the mandarins who run things don't know any other way and today's politicians don't have the balls to stop it or the vision to privatise or charity-ise (if there's such a word) almost everything the British state does and let the whole fucking lot stand or fall on its individual merits. Christ, they're barely getting to grips with trimming some of Labour's fat.

It also emerged last night that the Coalition was expected to announce it is abandoning Labour's calamitous £12billion NHS computer scheme. Ministers will dismantle the National Programme for IT, a "one size fits all" project started in 2002 which has never worked, and relace it with regional schemes.

You've been in office for 16 fucking months, you feckless cunts. Is this all you've got to show for almost a fucking year and a half's work? You've worked out that scrapping one of Labour's hare-brained, over priced vanity projects - one that should have been killed before that fucking Labour drone and, judging by the fresh-from-a-come look he sometimes wore, possible rohypnol victim Andy Burnham had even left the fucking building - will save you a few quid.

Well, that's a relief. I thought for a moment Britain might have been in trouble.

'Kinell!

Welcome to The Asylum

In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the late Douglas Adams introduced us to a minor character by the name of John Watson or, as he preferred to be called, Wonko the Sane. Those who've read it will probably recall Wonko's unusual house and the reason for it being that way, but for those who don't know the story this is how the book put it.

His house was certainly peculiar, and since this was the first thing that Fenchurch and Arthur had encountered it would help to know what it was like. It was like this:

It was inside out.

Actually inside out, to the extent that they had had to park on the carpet.

All along what one would normally call the outer wall, which was decorated in a tasteful interior-deisgned pink, were bookshelves, also a couple of those odd three-legged tables with semicircular tops which stand in such a way as to suggest that someone just dropped the wall straight through them, and pictures which were clearly designed to soothe.

Where it got really odd was the roof.

It folded back on itself like something that M. C. Escher, had he been given to hard nights on the town, which it is no part of this narrative's purpose to suggest was the case, though it is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have dreamed up after having been on one, for the little chandeliers which should have been hanging inside were on the outside pointing up.

[...]

The sign above the front door read "Come Outside," and so, nervously, they had.

Inside, of course, was where the Outside was. Rough brickwork, nicely done pointing, gutters in good repair, a garden path, a couple of small trees, some rooms leading off.

And the inner walls stretched down, folded curiously, and opened at the end as if, by and optical illusion which would have had M. C. Escher frowning and wondering how it was done, to enclose the Pacific Ocean itself.

[...]

"Your wife," said Arthur, looking around, "mentioned some toothpicks." He said it with a hunted look, as if he was worried that she might suddenly leap out from behind a door and mention them again.

Wonko the Sane laughed. It was a light easy laugh, and sounded like one he had used a lot before and was happy with.

"Ah yes," he said, "that's to do with the day I finally realized that the world had gone totally mad and built the Asylum to put it in, poor thing, and hoped it would get better."

This was the point at which Arthur began to feel a little nervous again.

"Here," said Wonko the Sane, "we are outside the Asylum." He pointed again at the rough brickwork, the pointing, and the gutters. "Go through that door" -- he pointed at the first door through which they had originally entered -- "and you go into the Asylum. I've tried to decorate it nicely to keep the inmates happy, but there's very little one can do. I never go in there myself. If I ever am tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away."

"That one?" said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.

"Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."

The sign read:

"Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."

"It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."

And it's Wonko the Sane and his house that immediately spring to mind when I read, via Watts Up With That, that fat people are the latest cause of warble gloaming ...

Researchers at the Robert Gordon University have completed a study that addresses the link between climate change and obesity.
The academics suggest that global weight loss would result in a drop in the production of the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO(2)).
The study was carried out by a trio of researchers within the university's Centre for Obesity Research and Epidemiology (CORE). It suggests that if every obese and overweight person in the world lost 10 kilograms (or 1.58 stone), the resulting drop in greenhouse emissions would be the equivalent of 0.2% of the CO(2) emitted globally in 2007 (49.560Mt).

... and via this PR that watching TV is as bad for you as smoking.

Every hour spent watching television shortens your life by a little over 20 minutes – on a par with smoking a cigarette, Australian researchers claim.
And the worst couch potatoes – watching more than six hours of TV a day – can expect to die almost five years earlier than people who watch no TV at all, researchers calculated.
Writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (online), the Brisbane-led group say Australia’s love of TV poses a significant threat to the health of the population.

Click for linky, and also to increase your risk of developing a need for lithium carbonate

We've known for some time that Niemöller's warning is as relevant today as it ever was, that as victories are won over the smokers and drinkers the rest of us would come in for our turn, and that the salad dodgers would be among the first. And now I think the next couple of phases are becoming clear. Your weight isn't just your problem anymore and it's not just for your own good that the swivel-eyed are exhorting you to lose weight. No, it's also essential to help stop warble gloaming. Yes, folks, we have identified passive obesity, and since we're also going to be told that TV is as bad as smoking - no qualification, no consideration to the obvious differences between, say, an hour's telly time after a hard afternoon's slob and an hour's telly time after a daily 10km cycle followed by a warm down and a shower - we can expect passive TV watching to be only around the corner. Christ's sake! I'd intended to sit down with Mrs Exile this evening and watch Sons of Anarchy together over some delicious take-away food from Urban Burger* just up the road in Balaclava.** Actually I still do intend to, but I'm wondering how much longer we'll be allowed to get away with it if we're going to be told it's bad for us and accused of raping polar bears to death with our wanton secondary televisioning.

Wonko the Sane was very nearly correct: the world, or at least quite a lot of people who have a disproportionate say in its running, is completely mad. Where Wonko was wrong is the nature of the insanity. It's not the harmless*** and almost genteel lunacy of Adams' H²G² universe, but a vicious psychosis that increasingly seems determined to stamp out anything it does not approve of - freedom, mostly - and isn't at all reticent in coming up with all kinds of reasons why having your liberty reduced and removed is A Good Thing. Why you must be nudged into it if you don't want to and punished if you refuse is rarely far behind.

And so I find Wonko the Sane's take on house design increasingly appealing. So appealing, in fact, that I might have applied for planning permission if it wasn't for the problem that there isn't the faintest hope of the inmates of The Asylum granting it. But I've also spotted a critical flaw in the design. Remember that door that Wonko pointed out to Arthur and Fenchurch, the door they had just opened and walked through minutes before to come in from The Asylum?

I reckon it needs a big fucking lock on it.


* Which incidentally serves delicious burgers and chips, and preempts the possibility of food packaging legislation in the future by putting them in plain brown paper bags. I'm absolutely not making that up, and even if it is just coincidental I wouldn't bet against it one day coming in handy for them.

** Yes, I'm still in Melbourne, not the Crimea, and no, I have no idea why a landlocked local suburb is called Balaclava. After the battle, I think, but why exactly and why that battle I can't imagine.

*** Okay, mostly harmless.

Take it back and start again

Men who smoke the longest have the lowest risk of needing a total joint replacement, researchers found.

Wait, what?

After accounting for potential confounders, those who had smoked for 48 years or more had a 42% to 51% lower risk of total knee or hip replacement than men who had never smoked, depending on age, according to George Mnatzaganian, a doctoral student at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and colleagues.

Ah, well, that's probably because they cark it before their joints wear out, right? Eh? What do you mean 'no'?

Accounting for the competing risk of death, which was higher in the heavier smokers, did not change the association, the researchers reported online in Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Nope, not good enough. Haven't you been keeping up? Nanny's instructions are perfectly clear on this matter: there is to be no positive effect even tenuously associated with smoking. And if there is, which there isn't, then it's certainly not to be spoken of in public. Policy based evidence, that's what we're looking for these days, understood?

Good. Now go back and do it again until you get the answer right. Your target is a finding that smoking smashes knees and shatters hips of both the smoker and everyone he's ever met or will meet, including those he's first introduced to years after he quits.

Here's one for all you smokers out there

Apologies for the light posting. Real life priorities have been, well, a priority. In the meantime and especially for those of my fellow bloggers and either of my readers who enjoy a smoke, I saw this and thought of you.

It'd be funnier-haha rather than funny-bitter laugh if it wasn't so close to the truth, the main unrealistic aspect being that they wouldn't even allow smokers to go out on a ledge these days (elfinsafetee, you know, can't let people open the windows any more anyway). Still, there is a little bit of comfort for the smokers in that, as we all should know by now, you and the drinkers are being joined in the firing line by the fatties and salad dodgers, and in the state next door this means - you guessed it - new laws about labels on so called junk food.

Jane Martin, senior policy advisor at the Obesity Policy Coalition...

Some might say senior nannying stick insect for some puffed up bunch of self righteous Kraft durch Freude wowsers, but that's perhaps a little cruel. I was quite fond of stick insects as a kid and can't recall ever being bossed around by one.

... said she wasn't shocked to read the offending burger – the Ultimate Double Whopper – packed a punch of 5085 kilojoules, 80.5 grams of fat and 2.3 grams of sodium.
New South Wales was the first Australian state to introduce legislation, effective from February next year, whereby all takeaway franchises with more than 20 outlets were required to include the kilojoule count on their menus.
But this didn't go far enough, according to Ms Martin...

Is there anybody reading who didn't see that coming? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

... who said all states and territories should want to introduce this legislation, as well as tax on unhealthy foods and a subsidy scheme for low-income earners to eat healthier.

And of course the Korpulenz Politik Koalition isn't the only one having a whinge about the Ultimate Double Whopper and the chain who sell it. For added bitter laughter have a butcher's at the name of the whingers.

Packing an artery-clogging 5085 kilojoules, 80.5 grams of fat and 2.3 grams of sodium, the Hungry Jack's Ultimate Double Whopper has been named the unhealthiest single menu option in Australian fast food.
Consumer advocate CHOICE looked at all items on offer at major Australian fast food outlets, and Hungry Jack's claimed not only the title but also the second position with its Angry Angus Double Burger, with 3276 kilojoules, 52.1 grams of fat and 1.7 grams of sodium.
[...]
CHOICE is pushing for all states to join New South Wales, which has introduced legislation for any store with more than 20 outlets to have kilojoule details displayed on their menus.

Nannies see this all the time

CHOICE there, showing little to no understanding of the meaning of the fucking word. Personally I wouldn't eat a Hungry Jack's Ultimate Double Whopper if you paid me, though not because it's unhealthy and people think I shouldn't so much as I just think that Hungry Jack's make among the most shit burgers money can buy and I'd rather have a Macca's if I was going to have a cheap takeaway at all. This, CHOICE, is what's known as, er, "choice", and it's mine, not yours.

Better budge up on your ledge, smokers. It's not just the drinkers you need to make room for. In the meantime I suggest anyone visiting Australia who might like a burger gives New South Wales a miss. Oh, and try a burger with a slice of beetroot in. It's very Aussie and bloody weird, but it's a good weird.

Unintended consequences

Victoria is one of those places that have decided that people conceived through sperm donation have a greater right to know their biological parents than that biological parent has to anonymity, and predictably enough it's creating problems with supply because there is also a ban on importing, er, gentlemanly fluid. Not into the country, just into the state.

VICTORIA is so short of sperm donors that some women are flying interstate for IVF treatment, prompting calls to ease restrictions on importing sperm.
Fertility doctors say demand for sperm has surged since laws giving single women and lesbians access to IVF were brought in last year, with some patients waiting up to nine months.
The removal of anonymity has also made some men reluctant to donate, and restrictions that mean they can only give sperm to 10 families have also increased the need for more donors.

Now I'm quite sure that these rules and laws were well intended. I'm sure that public health issues were in the thoughts of those who banned imports, and that human kindness was considered when anonymity was scrapped (though considered only for one party), and that simple fairness and possibly even a touch of liberty was the motivation for allowing single women and lesbians to have IVF. But surely, surely someone involved could have noted that the combination of the three was going to push demand up and reduce supply and lead to what can best be described as a black market for wanking, with all the problems that implies.

With just 184 registered sperm donors left in Victoria, fertility doctors say some patients are resorting to DIY inseminations using unscreened sperm, which carries the risk of infection.
...
Melbourne IVF director John McBain said the regulator was being too strict with the rules.
''The shortage is as bad as it's ever been and when the wait is so long to get access to a donor it just pushes it underground again and people seek their own remedy using uncounselled, unconsented donors and unquarantined sperm,'' he said.
''The worrying risk of that is chronic viral illness infection with either hepatitis B or HIV because a lot of single women tend to source gay men as their donors.

So the combined effect of controlling supply on health grounds is forcing desperate women to unhealthy sources. Oh, great. Give yourselves a fucking pat on the back, you idiots.

Federal laws prohibit paying donors for sperm, although reimbursing costs is allowed.

But payments will be made for sperm and it's naive to think otherwise. There's already a black market for breast milk as I blogged last September. Can anyone seriously think it isn't going to happen with sperm? If there's a demand someone will supply it, legally or illegally. That's just how people are.

Fortunately we have the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority on hand to solve the problem. Oh, wait, no. They're just explaining why we have to have the bloody problem and put up with it rather than go back to anonymous donations or import sperm from elsewhere in the country or even, such as a clinic in Brisbane, from the USA.

''The guiding principles of the act are that the welfare of persons born as a result of treatment is paramount, and they have a right to information about their genetic parents.
''There would be no regulatory body in the US ensuring that their donor's details are kept up to date because there is no central register like there is in Victoria.
''There's a growing body of evidence that young people want to have the choice to obtain information about their donor when they become adults, so it not just the matter of supply.''

Oh, well, fine. It's not going to solve a damn thing unless a lot more men answer the predictable request for more sperm donors at the end of the article, but I'm sure knowing why it has to be this way will make everyone feel a lot better.

Wankers.

Shock news: something that isn't smoking causes cancer too - UPDATED

Unfortunately it turns out to be oral sex, so presumably the public health killjoys will see Steak And A Blow Job day ruined forever and the ladies will never see Fur Burger At The Y Day happen at all. It always has to be something pleasurable that gives you cancer, doesn't it? It's never paying your taxes on time or using a parking meter, is it?

UPDATE - apparently it's Cake and Cunnilingus Day for the ladies, which just shows how sadly out of touch with reality women can be sometimes. It's not so much the arriving on his tongue aspect that's wildly optimistic as the expectation that he's going to be good at baking cakes as well. Except for the lucky few a supermarket eclair is likely to be as good as it gets, and depending on how it's being held I'd suggest checking carefully before biting into the end.

UPDATE 2 - via The Filthy Engineer, it turns out that that's not the only thing you can eat that's supposed to give you cancer. The thought occurs that about the only thing all these experts have categorically said is good for us is breast milk, and somehow I can't see that working out too well.

I want bitty!

Attention Salad Dodgers

And I mean stand at attention suck that gut in you fat waste of space don't you eyeball me sunshine everybody down right now and give me fifty how dare you be that fucking shape! You have absolutely no excuse since your caring food gauleiters, through the auspices of the equally caring Department for Health and its minister, Andrew Lansley, are making sure you can't even get it wrong if you eat out a lot. In fact fuck it, fatsos, give me another fifty!

Restaurants and work canteens will put calorie counts on menus and food manufacturers will promise to cut down on salt and artificial fats under a set of agreements to be announced today.

That one doesn't count. ALL the way down, tubs.

The three voluntary “responsibility deals” agreed with the food industry are aimed at helping the public to eat more healthily, in a drive to tackle the growing problem of obesity among both adults and children.
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, believes that firms will be more likely to set ambitious targets for themselves if they are negotiated on a voluntary basis.
...
If firms break their promises, the Government will however consider taking compulsory measures.

Remember the kind of voluntary arrangement suggested by The Portman Group for alcohol, which is that they volunteer or get made to do what they should have volunteered to do? Exactly, my flabby friends, so you won't be able to claim you didn't know how many calories the cake was once we get daily intake limits in too.

Rather than a “nanny state” approach, he is keen to arm the public with the tools they need to cope in an “obesogenic environment,” where people are bombarded with adverts for unhealthy food.

See, you're not being nannied. We just know you can't help yourselves so we're doing it for your own good.

In parts of the United States, restaurants are obliged by law to provide diners with the calorie content of their meals.

See? We're not being nasty authoritarian cunts at all. That's the land of the free over there. It must be, 'cause they sing about it. So do as you're fucking told or else it's the trucks, right?

Now then, have we all finished? Alright, you lot at table 19 can just carry on and we'll get round to you in a minute. The rest of you may now have your allotted lunch. Would you like to see the menu or the specials board?

Kraft durch Freude!

When the cat's taken away...

So government gets a stupid idea that it has a right to dictate what people put in their own bodies and ban a potentially harmful substance that's been taken in vast amounts but linked only to a small number of deaths (not terribly conclusively in some cases), and thinks that having removed this risk everyone who would have taken it will party down safely and while wearing flat shoes. And then it acts all surprised when clubbers decide that they still want the effect and either carry on anyway or start looking for something else.

The report, the key findings of which are to be published this week and is the first authoritative survey of mephedrone users since the government added the drug to the list of banned substances in April 2010, reveals that more than half of those questioned had noticed no change in the availability of the drug in their area.
It also shows that 44 per cent of those who have used mephedrone said the ban made them more likely to use the Class A party drug ecstasy instead.

Not that E is the killer the government and tabloids beat it up to be either, but Jesus Christ on a speedball, are these people so fucking dense that they can't see this coming? Are their memories so poor that they forget this happens every single time they ban something? Is it so far beyond their comprehension that from point of view of a clubber wanting to get high you might as well be hung for a cat as a kitten? You ban opium and laudanum and people begin injecting heroin instead. You crack down on heroin and they break into clinics and pharmacies for morphine and methadone. You crack down on cocaine too and they start taking crystal meth. You notice party drugs and ban Ecstasy, only to find later that they're on GBL and Miaow-miaow now. You ban those too and then sit wondering why it is that people are either still taking them or going back to E.

I'll tell you, shall i?

It's because they're waiting for the next legal high to come out. And when you ban that too you've gone full circle and it starts all over again.

Twats.

Pork flu returns to kill us all.

Click for brain damage linky

We're DOOOOOOOOOOMED! Doooomed, I say! Run, run for the hills. Run for your li... oh wait, no.
What's that last bit again?

... and other winter viruses.

Ah, so should we run around screaming, "PORK FLU" at the top of our lungs before rounding up absolutely everything that looks a bit piggy?

Kill it! Kill it with fire!

Or should we calm the fuck down a bit first and look at what viruses we're talking about that are all being lumped together with pork flu by The Daily Jellygraph?

Yeah, I'm going for the second one (my bold).

Scores of hospital wards closed due to norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, which put more than 1,200 beds out of use in one week as nurses attempted to isolate the disease.

Norovirus. Okay. Although my medical expertise doesn't extend beyond A level biology I'm reasonably confident in saying without bothering to check that norovirus, while it may be unpleasant, possibly deadly and apt to make you able to shit through the eye of a needle or puke your own sphincter across the room (not sure which, possibly both), is not actually swine flu. But just in case I'm wrong I will go and check. Bear with me.

Okay, I've checked and it isn't. I won't bother to reference it since anyone with internet access can confirm it in seconds unless they are either lobotomised, retarded or, just possibly, a journalist.

And, er, that's it. The only illnesses mentioned are norovirus, flu and swine flu, and it's not made clear how much flu is swine flu or whether the writer intends flu to mean non-swine flu versions of flu. Beyond that we've got mention of a couple of deaths from swine flu and a list of areas where hospitals have cancelled routine surgery, slightly spoiled by the admission that many hospitals do that at this time of year anyway. Again, the article fails to say how many have cancelled routine surgery who would otherwise have carried on, though presumably Southampton General was one.

Southampton General Hospital spent more than three weeks on “black alert”, closing 10 wards as norovirus swept through the centre. It was forced to stop all non-emergency surgery and cancel most appointments for outpatients during the period. The crisis warning was finally lifted on Thursday.

Three points. One, it's norovirus again, not swine flu. Two, they seem to be over it now. And three, it's fucking norovirus for fuck's sake.

Okay, maybe it's just that one and all the others are ... oh, who am I kidding?

Because of the same bug, four wards were closed at Royal Cornwall Hospital last week and cancer and surgery wards in Poole, Dorset, were closed to new admissions. Three wards were closed at West Suffolk hospital.

Again, norovirus in the case of the first two for sure and by implication the third as well, though since the article says no more than that they were closed it could have been for fucking redecorating for all we know.

Now I'm not saying the NHS is struggling to cope or that the restrictions on routine surgery are a non-issue. This is not a dig about health so much as journalism, and in particular the use of this headline

Swine flu: hospitals 'gridlocked'

to describe events that the article itself ascribes largely to other illness such as norovirus, which pops into my head for no obvious reason whatsoever, and standard fucking procedure for this time of year.

All of which leads me to wonder whether the Jellygraph is after the crown of another newspaper.

PS - looks like they might be gunning for The Express as well.

Denormalisation and the march of hatred.

Over at Leg-iron's there's a post on discrimination in which he says:

"You cannot, so far, tell who we are unless we're actually smoking but that's going to change. We will be made identifiable. Third hand smoke will be the excuse."

Which prompted me to write in the comments,

Perhaps some sort of yellow star motif? It'll make aiming easier when the time comes...

I don't say that lightly since I have Jewish neighbours that I like and respect, and obviously what's going on has yet to reach Shoah proportions (and we should all very much hope that it never does) but all the same the parallels are disturbing. While some may be prepared to live and let live those who believe they are in the right - the Righteous, to use Leg-iron's expression - make no room, sometimes literally no room, for those who disagree.

Not "Smoking is not allowed". It's actual smokers who are not allowed

No more Nanny State? In our dreams.

Not for the first time I'm experiencing the depressing feeling that NuLabour and its nasty, intrusive, bossy little ways never really left, and it's the fault of whoever was pulling the talk-cord on the Health Secretary Sockpuppet, Andrew Lansley, when he came out with this weapons grade cuntwaftery.

Click to article

For fuck's sake, this is Brownian level cognitive dissonance here. No more Nanny Statism but instead there will be nudges in the right direction, said direction decided by none other than the fucking Nanny State. And what kind of nudging are we going to see from BlueLabour's Health Sockpuppet? Well, let's have a look-see.

Government will be less 'intrusive' in people's lives and not tell them what to do, minsters said as they published the new public health white paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People.
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said Jamie Oliver's approach in schools had been a good example of encouraging healthier living but then had been taken too far with dictates laid down about what could and could not be in lunch boxes.

Okay so far apart from the bit about schools encouraging healthier living. Schools are there to fucking educate, and some people might feel they'd do so more effectively if they restricted their focus on health matters to not letting the kids eat anything from the chemistry lab's jars and sticking plasters on grazed knees.* Other than that not bad, but I have a feeling that it can't last. Oh, and sure enough (my bold)...

He said: "I think what Jamie Oliver did was brilliant but telling people what should be in lunch boxes all the time was a mistake. We want people to have changed their behaviour not just be told what their diet should be."

In other words what Jamie Oliver did wrong wasn't that he came across as a hectoring, nosey, self-important, nannying know-all but that he was ultimately unsuccessful in making the proles do what they're told.

Tactics will be switched from nannying and legislation to nudges and persuasion. This will include vouchers for healthy living, walk-to-school incentives.

Which is fucking nannying and will fucking require legislation, making the qualitative difference between Labour and Cobbleition as near to zero as makes no fucking difference.

“People’s health and wellbeing will be at the heart of everything local councils do..."

Oh, Christ. As if the government and councils weren't already overly concerned with the minutiae of citizens' lives, now we can look forward to even more. Some day a council will eventually employ gauleiter type solely to make sure everybody has had a shit today, probably known as a Constipation Avoidance Officer or Regularity Regulator.

Or a Bottom Inspector.

In addition there will be five Public Health Responsibility Deal networks, involving charities and industry on food, alcohol, physical activity, health at work and behaviour change, to formulate ideas.

Translation: five more fucking quangos associated with a bunch of fake charities and corporatist fuckbaskets lobbying government to nag the poor cunts paying for all of this to stop living how they want to and start living how they're told to. Fuck me dead, they're already well under way with elf'n'safety at work as well as the food and drink - and clearly Andrew fucking Lansley has no intention of putting a stop to it - and now they're going to start on physical activity and behaviour change. The first smacks of good old Kraft durch Freude, which is nasty enough, but the Orwellian sounding "behaviour change"? Am I the only one who finds that term just a bit fucking disturbing?

And this is all supposed to be a reduction, nay, an end to Nanny Statism? Do me a fucking lemon, will you. Look at what else we have coming out of the Health Sockpuppet's department lately:

• Minimum prices on alcohol.
• Increased tax on stronger beers.
• Confectionary companies should fund anti-obesity campaigns.
• Cigarettes and tobacco in plain packaging.
• Smart cards for kids and readers on lampposts to prove they're walking to school. (H/T Raedwald for that one).

Jesus, if this is a retreat from nannying I'd hate to see what he'd consider an increase. Interfering in the decisions of individuals, interfering in how private companies run their business and encouraging council busybodies and prodnoses to take yet more interest in both, all on the taxpayer, natch. Well fuck you, Lansley, fuck you right in the lungs - this is nothing but bloody nannying, and if you can't see that you're a bigger bellend than is normal even for Westminster. Did I say cognitive dissonance earlier? I was wrong about that. Cognitive dissonance implies that someone is aware of the contradiction in what they say and in the positions they hold, and far from Lansley recognising that I suspect he honestly believes all of what he's said. There's a much better term for what Lansley is doing here.

Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them...

Doublethink and other IngSoc-like habits were often characteristic of NuLabour ("Peace is War" and "Knowledge is Ignorance" both seem pretty apt examples of doublethink for the Blair and Brown years), and to find the new Health Sockpuppet at it as well just shows once again how similar the main parties have become. The policies themselves are not altogether a surprise because the Tories were always a bunch of paternalistic bastards who assumed they knew what was best for everyone, though no less unwelcome for all that, but Lansley's claim that this is somehow an end to the Nanny State is really pissing into the wound.

Bastards!


* Not that they're allowed to stick plasters on knees or teach chemistry anymore in case pupils might turn out to be allergic to plasters or have a fit from trying to remember Avogadro's number.

Anti-smokers.

Just a very quick blog this, because I've just read something that boils my piss virtually to flashpoint.

Parents should be banned from smoking in their own homes and private cars, a Government health chief said today.
Dr Tony Jewell, chief medical officer for Wales, said that stopping people lighting up in their own homes would protect their children from the dangers of passive smoking.

Go fuck yourself, Tony. Go fuck yourself in as humiliating and degrading as way as possible. Do I have to explain what's wrong with this?

But furious opponents said the ban would be a breach individuals' right to privacy.

Clearly I do. It's not fucking privacy rights, which in any case are a fucking fantasy anywhere that is a public space. It's property rights that are being trampled on here, got it? PER-OP-ER-TEE, not fucking privacy. Why, apart from the fact that I got this from The Mainly Fail as well, is this so difficult to grasp. It is not an infringement of privacy but an infringement upon property. Yes, it is property which belongs to an individual and is therefore private, but it is the property rights that are being shat on and if people can't understand exactly how their liberty is being eroded how the cunting fuck can they expect to hang on to what's left?

Oh, and in case you didn't get the message the first time, fuck you, Tony Jewell. Fuck you right in the lungs.

Warm disregards, a fellow non-smoker.

The state is mother.

And that means, ladies, that if you bring any children into the world you are in fact bringing them into the world on behalf of the state, and as you lie exhausted and drained in sweat by the effort of childbirth, and as the hours of labour and the straining of both your body and your entire vocabulary of swearwords is swept away by new maternal feelings as you see and hear and touch for the first time that being you have created within yourself, the state would very much like you to fucking remember whose kid it really is and how they're to be brought up. So tits out for the sprogs, girls, because breast is best and the state's drones want to ensure you don't have any other option.

A CONTROVERSIAL call to make infant formula available only on prescription to boost breastfeeding rates has merit, the Australian Breastfeeding Association says.
A Melbourne expert argues that infant formula should be available only on prescription to boost breast feeding rates.
Doctors say a push to restrict infant formula could create difficult hurdles for young mums.
But association spokeswoman Kate Mortensen said RMIT University expert Jennifer James' proposal had merit and should definitely be seriously looked at.
Ms Mortensen also backed Dr James' proposed ban on infant formula manufacturers marketing their products to the public.

Yes, this is still bottle milk formula we're talking about, not tobacco.

"We support more support for mothers in general because most mothers do want to breastfeed, and they're able to with better support and better information," [Kate Mortenson] said.

It sounds like she's nicked half the supports for that Delhi footbridge. Look, Kate, our species is about 200,000 years old and our ape-man antecedents go back maybe twenty times that, and in those thirty or forty centuries we've managed get along without any need of support for support in support of breast feeding. We're good at the whole sex and child rearing thing, including breast feeding infants. We're so good at breeding and raising children that we managed to rebuild the population from possibly as low as a couple of thousand individuals 70,000 odd years ago to its current 7 billion despite war, famine and disease wiping out uncountable millions of us in the meantime. Individuals may not be, which in the past meant they'd be unsuccessful at raising children and in the present means they'll buy formula, but as a species we're bloody good at rearing replacement humans not only without supportive types supporting supportive efforts of support but, for much of that time, without a even a language with which to offer any bloody support. Christ, my cat managed, and in her case six million years of evolution has produced a creature that, while capable of surprising affection, is also so daft that she'll walk over the food in the near side of the dish to see if the stuff on the other side tastes better. Thick as two Planck length planks, I'm telling you. But despite being dense enough to bend light she still managed to feed a litter of kittens without some bossy tortoiseshell earth mother cat offering support for support of support to support her. In a supportive way.

I've got no problem with Kate Mortenson or Dr Jennifer James or anyone else thinking that breast is better. Hell, I'm prepared to believe it probably is better since we've evolved for it and it for us, whereas drinking cow juice and formula is a very recent move. And I have no problem with that information being put out there and I have no problem with trying to remove social barriers that might discourage breast feeding. Obviously in an ideal world everyone would just be able to look at breasts very functionally and mothers could simply feed whenever and wherever they needed to without anyone being bothered, but the world is not ideal and breasts do have a sexual significance. Sorry, sisters, but they do, and denying it is not dealing with it. And so prudes will complain about the dreaded breast while most of us men will either try to sneak a peek or look in absolutely every direction but the breast feeding mother unless forced to, and even then we'll try to look at a point at least twenty feet above her head. Yes, I am one of those, and yes, I realise that while it's a lot less embarrassing for her than staring straight at them and going, 'Phwoar' it's still going to make the poor girl feel self concious. It's often embarrassing for the mum and for men around her doing their best to respect both her privacy and her right to do one of the most natural things she ever will. We all know it shouldn't be, but it is. A very brave girl might go to extremes and bare her breasts with the announcement that the gents have a few minutes to admire the view after which she's going to feed her child, thank you very much, and she'd deserve nothing less than a twenty minute standing ovation for it. Others would be mortified at the thought and choose - the operative word, for the benefit of Jen and Kate - choose a more private environment. Probably the majority these days take the middle ground of lifting tee shirts or undoing some buttons and ignoring the extra attention drawn by what is really a pretty modest amount of skin being exposed, and there are even products available to help with that. Not surprisingly the breast zealots (is 'brealots' a word?) disapprove of them.

Nursing covers - the postnatal clothing accessory designed to allow mothers to breastfeed "discreetly" - are becoming an increasingly common sight as mothers cover up for fear of accidentally flashing a bare breast or midriff in public.
Mothers and breastfeeding experts are firmly divided over whether they are a wonderful idea or a step back to the Dark Ages.
Firmly in the "pro" camp is Murrumbeena mother Rebecca Azzopardi, who says her Peek a Boob cover allows her to feed six-month-old daughter Maya in situations where she might otherwise feel too self-conscious.
"I'm not ashamed of breastfeeding, but [the cover] is something that comes in handy when I'm out in public by myself, or even when I'm in a group with some male friends or around people that I think might feel uncomfortable," she says.
"For example, I used it at the doctor's surgery the other day. I had to feed her in front of quite a few older men and I thought they would probably be a bit embarrassed to see me breastfeeding. It comes in handy for those times when you're not sure how people are going to react."

Fair enough. She wants to breast feed and has chosen - Kate, Jennifer - chosen to buy a product that means she's comfortable doing it in places where otherwise she'd rather not. Sorry the world's not perfect yet but in the meantime isn't something that gets more women who want to breast feed actually doing it a good thing? Apparently not.

Jennifer James...

Oh, gosh, what a surprise.

Jennifer James, a senior lecturer in breastfeeding at RMIT and a lactation consultant for 28 years, believes breastfeeding covers only reinforce the idea that nursing women should cover up.
"It's time that women stood up and said, 'Sorry, don't like it? Then look away'," she says.

As I said, it takes a brave girl. Or possibly just one more intent on making the point than feeding the baby.

"It also sends an incredibly negative message to the baby."

What, more negative than, 'Sorry about lunch, kid, but your mother's tits are political now'?

Breastfeeding is meant to be a very interactive thing. When they are awake and feeding they are learning, so if you cover them up with a tent, the baby loses that contact with the world.

Oh, come on. What about the millions and millions of us who were born at a time when mothers had to leave the room? Did we all lose that contact with the world, and if so did we miss out? Or did it all take place at an age where we couldn't even focus on the world, which we would entirely forget within five or six years, and actually had few desires anyway beyond mum, milk, cuddles and not being in our own shit for too much of the day? I'll credit the Australian Breastfeeding Association spokesbrealot - not Kate this time - with being a bit more practical.

Australian Breastfeeding Association spokeswoman Karen Ingram says there are arguments for and against the cover-up range.
"We need to be really clear that women don't need to cover themselves while they are breastfeeding and by law they are allowed to breastfeed anywhere, any time, whether they have a cover over their baby or not," she says. "But for some mums it does help. Whatever assists the mum to breastfeed her baby should be accepted."

Quite. It's simply a matter of choice, and if the brealots are right that most mothers want to breast feed - and again I suspect they are - then given half a chance those mothers are likely to make that choice of their own volition. Ideally there'd be boobs on every street corner (and not a car crash to be heard) as women exercise their right to breast feed anywhere, but in this less than perfect world some women would rather minimise the exposure of their breasts.

But the ultimate sin against the sacred boob is that other women don't do it at all and buy formula milk instead. There are lots of different reasons why but again it boils down to a personal choice, the most offensive c-word in the vocabulary of the righteous. Choice is bad when the wrong choice might be chosen, so what Dr James and her ABA pal Kate want to do is to make breast feeding the only approved choice - approved by them and, since they want the law to remove the option of formula for any woman whose nipples aren't sufficiently wrecked to convince a doctor to write a 'scrip', approved ultimately by the state itself.

So let's just imagine a scenario where this actually comes about and let's imagine what the results will be when, for whatever reasons - and the actual reason is none of our business - some women want to bottle feed their babies. 'Breast is best' is already orthodoxy and there's an element who'll judge and criticise mothers who've chosen bottle, which must make them feel really good about themselves if they've tried to breast feed and given up with cracked nipples or just didn't produce enough. So let's imagine that formula milk is basically off limits to anyone who is feeding a baby and who isn't in fact a man. How many will feel judged and looked on as failures, inadequate mothers, by society and by their peers and by the medical profession itself because the orthodoxy of breast is best is even stronger than now? How many of them will go to the doctor to ask for the government permission slip to buy formula milk, and how many will be too embarrassed and ashamed to? How many will be bullied and cajoled or shamed into carrying on as best they can despite pain and discomfort, or a possibly underfed baby? How many of them will actually have to beg milk, breast or formula, on the QT from their most trusted friends or relatives? And how long will it be before a black market supplies that which Dr Jennifer James and Kate Mortenson want to have put beyond the casual reach of mothers, and the nourishment of a significant minority of babies becomes reliant on the activity of criminals?

Ridiculous? Impossible? Not at all. Why wouldn't there be when there's already a black market in breast milk?

A BLACK market in breast milk has developed in Australia as families desperate to feed their babies the natural elixir are being charged up to $1000 a litre on the internet.

A thousand bucks? 'Elixir' had better be right. That's... that's... that's more than petrol for God's sake. Does it come in a 24ct gold bottle? Was it expressed by Scarlett Johansson? It's MILK, not cocaine.

One mother contacted the Gold Coast based Mother's Milk Bank to ask what the real "going rate" was for breast milk after online sharks demanded the extortionate amount when she placed a web advert seeking human milk.
 Mother's Milk Bank director Marea Ryan told her that the not-for-profit bank sold milk for $50 for 1.2 litres.
 "I think it is increasing more and more as people become a lot more aware of the benefits of breastfeeding," Ms Ryan said.

Or as they're increasingly made to feel like lousy parents if they're buying formula.

"It is very dangerous because in an unregulated fashion there are no checks and balances, the milk would not have been tested for viruses and bacteria," Dr James said.

Well, yeah, obviously, but ... hang on, Dr who?

"Women are being put in this insidious position because of a lack of breast milk banks nationally."

Which will be the same as if government controls the supply of formula. But what did you say your name was again?

"They have no option but to look outside the system."

Exactly what I've said will happen if women have no free choice between breast and formula. In fact it sounds like you'll not only create a black market but you'll boost an existing one. And sorry, but I'm sure you said your name was Dr James, am I right?

RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) lactation expert Dr Jennifer James said she was aware of the growing unregulated black market.

It is you! Bloody hell, Jen, you may know more than I will ever care to about lactation but how the hell can the likelihood of a formula black market escape you when you've got the evidence of a breast milk black market in front of your face? It's demand and supply - what the fuck did you expect was going to happen when you inflate that demand by nagging about breast milk all the bloody time?

The risky practice has increased with the advent of the internet where women advertise their milk for sale.

[sarcasm]No? I'm in shock.[/sarcasm] And her solution?*

Dr James said there should be breast milk banks in all major hospitals but blamed inconsistent legislation for making them difficult to set up.
"In some states it is classified as a food while in others it is human tissue or bodily fluids," she said. "The milk bank at the Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney had to close down because it was classified as bodily fluid. We need nationally consistent guidelines."

Ah, yes, of course. The answer is central government. The answer is always central government, especially when it comes to raising future generations of the taxpayers that are essential to governments' own survival.

Quite often I blog with a slight element of despair because someone has suggested giving government even more power to intrude and micromanage lives, and rather than howling them down vast numbers of people begin to nod and mumble that yes, it would be just super if the government would monitor and rule on the minutiae of their existence, and yours and mine and everyone else's too because the government have to do it for/to everybody. Happily, stepping between mums and their children looks to be one step too far (my emphasis).

Avondale Heights mum Christine Rookas said it should be a mother's choice whether to breast feed or not.
"I would be very frightened and afraid to think that formula will be prescribed," Ms Rookas said.
"I think there's already a paranoia for mothers. They feel guilty enough about using formula milk."
... other mums who commented on the heraldsun.com.au were scathing about Dr James's suggestion.
"What do these people know about every person's situation?," Dee said in a post at 12.57am this morning.
"Unless you are in a situation such as my family, please don't speak for us. Don't push your ideas on us if you haven't walk in our shoes. These are personal decision that is made (sic) by each individual."

They are woman, Jennifer, hear them roar, 'Piss off and leave us alone'. You would force mothers into breast feeding despite the fact that many would choose to do so anyway, even if many of them would rather keep their breasts covered up instead of partaking in the open display of maternalism that you advocate. Surely it's best if mums can find whatever level of exposure or screening they as individuals are comfortable with and then carry on with the job of getting milk down babies' throats, which I thought was the whole idea. But if you get government to intervene, if you get it literally to lay down the law on how babies must be fed and to force mothers, who by nature overwhelmingly want the best they can do for their children anyway, to breast feed regardless of whether they're comfortable, then once again government takes away a little bit of our ownership of ourselves. Parents may still conceive their children and mothers may still give birth to them, but the state, which already demands so much control over a child's upbringing and education and yes, diet too, will also control how they are fed from birth. With that level of needless interference over both of them how much could a new mother honestly say that her child, and even her breasts and milk, are hers and not the governments?

I'm sure your intentions are the best, Dr James, but the road to hell is paved with many more like them.

* That is the process which will solve the issue, not her personal solution. That'd be yucky and not what I want to think of when I'm about to get a milky cup of tea.

Edging towards sanity...

... but no doubt infuriating the Righteous.

A number of hospitals are reintroducing "smoking shelters". They are doing so on health grounds: not, of course, because they have changed their minds about the hazards of cigarettes – that really would be a spectacular medical U-turn – but because patients have been caught smoking in dangerous places. Stairwells, lavatories, storerooms: nowhere except the operating theatre is safe, it seems. Some patients have even been caught smoking next to the oxygen store.

The normal pattern of prohibition. Take away the opportunity to be reasonable and sensible by removing smoking rooms and what else is going to happen? Don't get too excited, though. It says 'shelters' not smoking rooms, and The Teletubbygraph was helpless to resist the temptation for a little Righteous style dig at smokers implying they should give up and that they wouldn't be in hospital if they had.

There are a few more stressful experiences than a stay in hospital, and it is not an easy time to give up. So let the patients puff away in their shelters – reflecting, perhaps, that if they had kicked the habit earlier they might not be there in the first place.

Oh, really? I was still a smoker on my last visit to hospital and it had fuck all to do with what I was going in for. In fact I've never been to hospital for anything related to smoking or any other lifestyle choice I'd made. Nor was it at all stressful being unable to smoke because they had me off my tits on morphine - that drug of instant evil that a previous generation of Righteous had banned - and what a success story that wasn't. The fact I subsequently gave up smoking and never became a heroin addict suggests I'm either unusual, and I assure you I'm not, or that there's a lot of bullshit being peddled by those who love telling others how to live.

Which of course is what the Righteous themselves are addicted to.

Death cured.

Well, more or less if certain figures are to be believed. I refer you to Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. Having seen the the claim that 40,000 deaths are due to junk food he's done what I've wondered about for ages and added up all the claims of the things that we like to do that supposedly kill us. Interesting reading.

I've wondered for some time what would happen if you added up all the 'preventable' deaths claimed in reports like this. I've never got round to doing a proper estimate but as a very rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation, here's what I've come up with...


As a starting pointing, there are about 490,000 deaths a year in England and Wales (ONS, 2008). Of these, 175,000 involve people aged 85 or over. It's surely pushing it to describe these deaths as 'preventable', so lets exclude them, leaving a total of 315,000.

Of those 315,000, there are some that even the most eager public healthist has yet to blame on lifestyle. For example:

Intentional self-harm: 8,000

Flu/pneumonia: 11,000

Accidents (including traffic accidents): 13,00

Alzheimers/Parkinson's/motor neuron disease: 7,000

There are many, many others but let's be ultra-conservative and just exclude these 39,000 deaths. That leaves us with a total of 276,000.


Now let's look at how many deaths are attributed to specific causes in the newspapers:

Junk food: 40,000

Smoking: 106,000

Alcohol: 40,000

Obesity: 30,000

Air pollution: 50,000

Medical accidents and errors: 40,000

= 306,000 deaths

In other words, we seem to have more deaths from the estimates than we have bodies in the graveyard. Even with the implicit, if ridiculous, assumption that every cancer and every heart attack is preventable, the figures don't add up (and we still haven't taken into account things like fires, assaults, drownings, murders and contagious diseases).

As a commenter over there pointed out we also have to make some allowance for deaths which have multiple causes, though I think using the term 'cause' implies something rather more definite and 'factor' is probably a better choice. Still, if the claims of the various bansturbators, killjoys and Strength-through-Joy types are to be taken seriously it looks like if only we'd put that bloody fag out, board up the pubs and burn down all the take-aways then dying would be a thing of the past.

Almost.

Any related deaths in the cleansing process will not count towards statistical purposes

Of course, the other way of looking at it is that they pull numbers of dead from [insert hated activity here] out of their arses whenever they need to top the last lot of terrifying headlines, but who'd seriously believe that?

Well, for starters anyone who remembers that these healthist bastards have form in making up the safe limits in the first place.

End of lifeline -part II

A few days ago I blogged about a paper on involuntary euthanasia in Belgium, or rather on the tabloid misinterpretation that JuliaM's blog on it alerted me to. One point the paper made, which the Daily Mail managed not to include, was that while some questionable things were happening in Belgium they were also going on in other countries which, unlike Belgium, have no legal euthanasia or assisted suicide.

"In previous surveys, physicians reported that nurses sometimes administered drugs explicitly intended to hasten death. Nevertheless, uncertainty remained about the understanding by the nurses of the act that they performed. In our study, nurses did administer life-ending drugs with the recognition that the death of the patient was intended. In the cases of euthanasia, 12% of the nurses administered the drugs. In the United States, where no legal framework for euthanasia is provided, 16% of critical care nurses 10 and 5% of oncology nurses reported engaging in euthanasia. Similar findings have been reported in other countries."

In other words if you look at other countries it doesn't seem to matter if the law allows it or not. Kind of makes the supposed slippery slope that the Fail is getting all excited about seem rather flatter and high-friction than their article suggests, though in fairness they covered this when they said... er... just bear with me, I'll find it in a tick... sorry, no, my mistake. They didn't mention it.

And as if to bear that point out in The Telegraph we have this:

A GP cleared of murdering three patients has broken his long silence to admit that he did hasten their deaths as well as those of dozens of others in his care.
Dr Howard Martin, once feared to be a “second Harold Shipman”, told The Daily Telegraph that he gave what proved to be fatal doses of painkillers to elderly and terminally ill patients.
But he said he only acted out of “Christian compassion” and was merely trying to limit their suffering rather than “playing God”.
He disclosed that, in two cases, he hastened the deaths of patients without their permission, while one of those to whom he administered a final injection was his son, Paul, 31, when he was dying from cancer in May 1988.
Dr Martin, 75, spoke out as the General Medical Council struck him off for professional misconduct, ruling that he had hastened the deaths of 18 patients in “egregious, despicable and dangerous” conduct.
He accepted that his confession put him at risk of “spending the rest of my life in prison” if it prompted police to reopen his case.

If there is a slippery slope then I feel it's likely that most industrialised nations are already on it anyway. It might even be worth asking whether the slope was ever flat. The other way of looking at it is, as above, that recognising that people own their lives and should be free to relinquish them if they want and seek (which is not the same as successfully find) professional help to do so does not necessarily increase the numbers of medical staff who are prepared, for whatever reason, to stick the needle in without asking.

End of lifeline.

Strolling past the Ambush Predator's cave again today I saw that she's again baring her fangs over euthanasia and assisted suicide, prompted by something similar (which I'd missed somehow) over at Counting Cats. Julia, and probably Cats too, and I don't completely see eye to eye on this subject, but I'm not posting about it here instead of commenting at Julia's out of fear of those impressive upper canines - you can always get away safely if you throw a couple of CiF articles behind you as you run - but because the reply was just too big for a blogger comment (now I know - 4,096 characters isn't just a good idea, it's the law).

Anyhoo...

Taking up the gaunlet thrown down by Counting Cats..., here's my take on the euthanasia report from last week:

A high proportion of deaths classed as euthanasia in Belgium involved patients who did not ask for their lives to be ended, a study found.

More than 100 nurses admitted to researchers that they had taken part in 'terminations without request or consent'.

And why are these admissions not made in the dock, following the words ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and…’?

In spite of my pro-euthanaisa views and my desire for a big dose of barbiturates or something if I'm ever at a stage where continuing my life looks much less attractive to me than ending it, I also have to ask why this hasn't emerged in a court and why the fuck nobody has been charged with murder. Turns out the answer is that the study was designed in such a way as to guarantee anonymity, so it's rather hard to know who to charge. Not only that but since it's the result of a survey it's all a bit anecdotal. Pity, because this sort of thing damages the pro-euthanasia position and shook my faith (inasmuch as I have faith in anything in particular), so I'd really like someone to have been in the dock over this. However, my faith in newspapers is less than my belief that I should have the option to end my life at a time of my choosing and to be able to seek (not necessarily successfully) medical expertise in doing so, and that goes double when the newspaper in question is The Mainly Fail, who I feel are not as unbiased on the issue as we might hope for. So I went back to the article for another read.

The fact that they just say the research is from "a study" and don't give a source for it beyond the fact that it appeared in a Canadian medical journal made me wonder if that was the whole idea. It's hardly unheard of for something described as a study to turn out to have been the result of funding from a source pushing a particular agenda. Would this study, I wondered, turn out to have been funded by one of those groups that, like one commenter on the Fail's article, believe your life is still about serving their 13 billion year old invisible friend even if every waking second is merely prolonging an agony - an agony which they also believe the same 13 billion year old invisible friend inflicts on people to begin with, the sick fuck? But not to worry because after a little googling it looked like just sloppy journalism - I found and read the paper (via this related paper, which incidentally is also worth a read) and it's nothing like that at all, though I feel the Fail still restricted itself to what supports the anti-euthansia position.

For example, the wild-eyed headline claimed half of Belgium's "euthanasia nurses" admit to killing without consent, and from what I can see that's complete bollocks. For one thing it's far from established in the paper that there's any such thing as a euthanasia nurse - if there is the survey certainly wasn't looking at them so much as nurses who had said in an earlier survey that they were involved in a case where the patient was euthanised or had assistance to commit suicide. And that's it. Not the Angels of Death at the Belgium version of the Dignitas clinic, if there is one. And the claim that half the nurses admit to "killing" without consent is an even bigger load of bollocks. What the paper actually says is:

"In our study, more than half of the nurses surveyed in Flanders, Belgium, reported that they were involved in the physician’s decision-making about the use of life-ending drugs. In most cases, the involvement was merely an exchange of information about the patient’s or relatives’ wishes and about the patient’s condition."

The Fail seem to be equating a nurse passing along a patient's wishes to the doctor with strapping 'em down and sticking the needle in without asking. Make of that what you will, but in my opinion impartial reporting it ain't. Incidentally, the criticism here seems to be that Belgian law apparently says that doctors must always discuss such a decision with nurses, and far from being Angels of Death running around with syringes full of poison without the knowledge of the doctors it's actually doctors failing to meet the legal obligation to involve the nursing staff all the time. The only hint of this given by the Fail is... uh... it's er... well, there isn't one as far as I can see.

Then there's the caveat. Or rather caveats. (My bold.)

"In previous surveys, physicians reported that nurses sometimes administered drugs explicitly intended to hasten death. Nevertheless, uncertainty remained about the understanding by the nurses of the act that they performed. In our study, nurses did administer life-ending drugs with the recognition that the death of the patient was intended. In the cases of euthanasia, 12% of the nurses administered the drugs. In the United States, where no legal framework for euthanasia is provided, 16% of critical care nurses 10 and 5% of oncology nurses reported engaging in euthanasia. Similar findings have been reported in other countries."

In other words if you look at other countries it doesn't seem to matter if the law allows it or not. Kind of makes the supposed slippery slope that the Fail is getting all excited about seem rather flatter and high-friction than their article suggests, though in fairness they covered this when they said... er... just bear with me, I'll find it in a tick... sorry, no, my mistake. They didn't mention it.

And...

"First, we wonder whether nurses overestimated the actual life-shortening effect of the drug administration, especially when opioids were used, and whether the physician had intended to end the patient’s life when he or she ordered the nurse to administer the drugs. Nurses may have thought that they were ending the patient’s life, when in fact the drugs were intended to relieve symptoms in an aggressive, but necessary manner."

This is a very important point. I certainly don't want to denigrate nurses or have a pop at their pharmacological knowledge (which will be a hell of a lot better than mine) but when the doctor says to give the patient X milligrams of something potentially dangerous they can't know the doctor intends it to oil the hinges on the door to the next world unless the doctor actually says so. Further, if it's a dose that's certain to be lethal then you'd hope the nurse would have raised the matter there and then. What could well be happening here is that the nurse gives the drug, the patient then carks it and it's not clear that the drug was not responsible, and the nurse then begins to wonder if the doctor actually meant that to happen. As Julia's title points out, they're not mind readers, and that applies as much to the intentions of the doctor prescribing a big syringe full of morphine as to a patient's desire to live or not. In the Mail this was dealt with by ... sorry, no, actually it wasn't dealt with at all.

And on that topic...

"...the nurses we surveyed who administered the life-ending drugs did not do so on their own initiative. Although the act was often performed without the physician being present, it was predominantly carried out on the physician’s orders and under his or her responsibility."

Which the Mail's article made crystal clear in... er... oh, actually they didn't mention that either.

Also...

"We also have to consider that the administration of life-ending drugs without the patient’s explicit request may have included situations of terminal sedation or an increase in pain alleviation, in which the delegation by physicians to nurses to administer the drugs is considered common practice."

Which occurs in places without legal assisted suicide and/or euthanasia, as pointed out by the Mail when they said... er... uhm... oh, who am I kidding? Of course they didn't fucking point that out.

Sure, I've been selectively quoting too, and the caveats themselves have caveats which strongly suggest that there are cases that are at the very least a bit iffy and more probably downright illegal. I'm not arguing that and I'm still disappointed that some Poirotesque Belgian isn't exercising his leetle grey cells to get someone in the dock. I want the choice of when to go, preferably after first getting utterly off my tits on all the highs (legal and otherwise) that I've never indulged in, and there's no element of choice if some medico, no matter whether for sick kicks or a kind and well intentioned act, sticks me with an armful of Happy Exit Juice. On the other hand I've quoted rather more than the Fail and provided the fucking source so people can read and decide for themselves. But for those in a hurry I can boil it down to a few sentences.

Firstly, Belgian euthanasia law is almost certainly being broken but actually instances of euthanasia and assisted suicide are no more common than it is in countries where the law does not permit it at all, which suggests we have nothing to fear from legalisation that we should not already fear anyway. Secondly, and from the other study, euthanising patients without their consent seems less common in Holland and other countries where it's legal, which suggests that there is something unusual about where this survey took place. And thirdly, The Mainly Fail really is waste of a perfectly good tree sometimes.


Post(humous) Script: it's slightly depressing that the only commenter at The Mainly Fail to even mention that the findings of the survey were "more complex" than the article suggested (an understatement if you ask me - I'd have said the Fail got it arse about face in places) and to suggest that a properly framed law to allow rational adults the choice of when to end their lives got a large negative rating. Choice means no more and no less than that. It emphatically fucking does not mean Lifeclocks in everybody's hands or anything like it since this would not be a choice.