Offence seeking déjà vu

Do you remember the end of 2010? I do. My very last blog post of the year was titled "Last effort for the Offence Seeking Twat of the Year Award" and was about the Top Gear Christmas special outraging literally some people, most of whom were white, middle class Graun readers. Oh, and Andy Choudary.

Needless to say I haven't actually seen Top Gear's "Three Wise Men", and being a Christmas special I expect it'll air here between Easter and late June, but it has already made some news here. And it's all thanks to James May, a rock, a few square yards of black cloth, and bloody Anjem "Is-It-'Coz-I-Is-Slamic" Choudary. It seems that James May brained himself with a rock somehow and that when he came out of hospital, for reasons I don't pretend to understand, this was what he was faced with.

Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond disguised themselves as women by wearing Islamic face veils which only revealed their eyes in a Christmas show filmed in Syria.

Don't fancy yours much.

Andy, with almost gravitic inevitability, was upset because he saw this as an attack on a symbol of his religion, which as far as I could tell the burqa isn't, having been predictably silent over the years about Muslim attacks on the symbols and traditions of other religions.

Still, all to be expected, and so is the nature and level of outrage directed Top Gear's way over this year's Christmas special.

Jeremy Clarkson has been accused of offensive behaviour once again after mocking Indian culture in a Top Gear Christmas special.

Okay, can I interrupt to make a brief point. There's no 'accused of offensive behaviour' about it - if someone was offended then ipso facto his behaviour was offensive. The question is whether that's a reason for doing anything, and since nobody's ever done so much as two fifths of fuck all about most of the things that offend me, and since that doesn't keep me awake at night, I'd say the answer is no, no reason to do anything at all. Being offended is painless and causes no loss unless someone chooses to allow it, which says more about them than what they're complaining about. By all means take offence and say so if you like, but don't tell me it harmed you and the other person must be silenced.

Viewers have complained to the BBC after the outspoken presenter made a series of controversial remarks about the country's clothing, trains, food and history. At one point, Clarkson appeared to make light of the lack of sanitation for poor residents by driving around slums in a Jaguar fitted with a toilet.

And? It's not the wittiest way of making the point but unless it's actually wrong and Indian slums typically have indoor plumbing, piped water supplies and sewers now I don't see the problem. These people are dreadfully poor and literally don't have a pot to piss in. I'm not saying that Clarkson was subtly highlighting the issue of Indian poverty but it's not as if he was saying something that isn't true. Even if he was the appropriate response is rebuttal, not howls of righteous outrage and the usual demand to have him sacked and flogged with broken glass.

And then we have the actual volume of complaints.

A spokesman for the BBC said they had received 23 complaints about the programme, which was broadcast on Wednesday evening.

And how many watched? According to the Graun, who I imagine would like nothing better than the anger of the terminally thin skinned over Clarkson's shoot public sector strikers remark to kill TG's viewing figures, five million people watched and it was the most popular show in its time slot. Assuming every one of those 23 who complained actually watched the show that's 0.00046% of viewers who were offended, and given that about a million people in the UK are of Indian ethnicity it says even more that only 23 complained. Not that all those 23 were necessarily Indian - some are probably white, middle class Graun readers getting offended on behalf of Indians, who presumably don't know when they're being offended. Certainly some of the people taking to message boards and Twatter seem to be.

Owen Hathway tweeted: “Whats wrong with the BBC that they think casual racist stereotyping is acceptable on top gear?”

No idea, Owen, but why don't we leave it up to the million British Indians and the billion Indian Indians to decide whether to be upset. Many of them might think it's some middle aged white guy making a tit of himself and find it amusing. But no, they're clearly mistaken and should be as outraged as the Owens are on their behalf, because it's raaaaaaaacist, see? Raaaaaaaacist!

Which reminds me, where do I write in to complain about this sketch by Goodness Gracious Me from a few years back? I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but now thanks to 23 anonymous complainants and an assortment of condescending pricks I now realise that it was mocking English culture and... what was it again? Oh, yes, I remember: casual racist stereotyping.

I mean, what is wrong with the BBC that they thought it was acceptable?

 

What's good for the goose is for the gander, offence seekers, and you can't have it both ways. Either both are bad and offensive and shouldn't be allowed, or both are fair play regardless of whether someone somewhere is (or just decides they ought to be) offended by it. I'd say the latter because, as I've said before, there is no right to go through life and never be offended, and since one person can be offended by something that is said while another can be offended by it not being said there never can be a right to not be offended.

As someone who's offended by opening the paper and has moved somewhere that has its own special name for the English my advice would be to get offended all you like as often as you like by absolutely whatever you, er, dislike. Just don't sit there fuming and expecting it means you have a right to insist that anyone else has to accommodate your feelings, because a free society can never work that way and all an unfree society can do is to pick sides.

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.

Then they came for the drinkers... redux

How long have I been banging on about this? Bloody long enough, I reckon, and other blogger have been at it far longer. Smokers? Pah. Oh, don't get me wrong, they're still very much in the firing line, very much the modern untermenschen. But the battleground has shifted and the current main target, whether they know it or not, are the drinkers, and quite a big gun has just been fired right at them. Less than three months ago I blogged about the tell tale signs that this gun was being loaded and remarked on how it was a gun that had been shot at smokers several times. Well, now it's gone bang and it only remains to be seen how much damage it does. En bloc - my bold.

State and territory ministers have signed off on the introduction of mandatory pregnancy warning labels on alcohol.

Ministers responsible for food regulation met in Melbourne today to consider their response to former federal health minister Neal Blewett's review of food labelling.

Dr Blewett's most controversial recommendation, that a "traffic light" system be introduced to help consumers make healthier food choices, has been rejected.

The traffic light system of colour coding would tell a consumer, at a glance, if the food had high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.

Instead, ministers have agreed that public health, consumer and industry groups be consulted in the development of an alternative front-of-pack labelling system, which is to be considered in June and hoped to be in place by the end of next year.

They also want to give industry two years before making pregnancy warning labels on alcohol mandatory.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand is drafting a standard for nutrition and health-related claims and ministers also agreed to the development of a national nutrition policy.

The federal government has come under fire from public health and consumer groups for opting not to pursue the traffic light system, but the food manufacturing industry has welcomed the move.

Does this sound at all familiar? It certainly should, and it will to smokers. Anyone want to bet that it'll stop there and will not progress towards huge pictures of diseased livers covering two thirds of the label of whatever's your preferred tipple? Any takers? No? Yeah, thought not.

Don't get smug about this being more Australian nannying. It is, but I think it's as much to do with Australian politicians having less on their plates than their counterparts in some parts of the world, especially Europe and the US, and so more time to listen to the whining of the nannies, moralists, control freaks and wowsers. Wherever you are, this is coming to a label near you soon.

And I can't help but feel that if more people had stuck up for the smokers it wouldn't be happening at all.

Hero of the Day - UPDATED

In a small way Gerry Reynolds is a minor hero today for speaking up in support of Jeremy Clarkson's freedom to be as hyperbolical as he likes.

He said: “I have decided that if I am ever put in charge that I would like to line all the UK’s copycat complainers up against a wall, tell them that I have had enough, and shoot them myself.”
... “Of course, that is a joke, I don’t own a gun, never want to, and would rather use a sledgehammer.
“The reason why I want rid of these people is simple. Just as I take the freedom to walk across a picket line as seriously as the right to stand on one, the freedom to express jokes and opinions is very dear to me.
“The moment creativity is constrained by the opinions and values of copycat complainers, religious fanatics or people trying to sell newspapers, we are in seriously deep trouble."

Good for Gerry Reynolds for understanding this very important point about liberty, and good for him also for ignoring the inevitable offence seeking, freedom-phobic handwringers who promptly complained and demanded the comments, made on a council blog, be removed as well as the editor of the blog who said he didn't see anything wrong with what Gerry Reynolds had said.

“It’s a blog and it is personal opinion. I don’t agree with all he says, or with his high opinions of Jeremy Clarkson. There is a comments box if anyone wanted to put forward an opposing view.
“He is not writing this as a council officer, and he is not representing Northings or Hi-arts. It is a person blog.”

In fact about the only thing a reasonable person could have against Gerry Reynolds is that he too is a public sector employee, occupying the position of Events and Promotions Manager at Highland Council. And since I feel that events and promotions management should not be a function of any level of government I'd suggest that his reward should be to be taken out and shot. Or possibly just his job since he sounds like someone who'd find something in the private sector without too much difficulty.

UPDATE - Gerry Reynolds himself has ducked all the gunfire going on to leave a thanks and a FYI that his blog is not a council one but a personal one on which he avoids talking about anything to do with his employer. Fair dos, correction noted.

Silencing of dissent

Yesterday the Snowolf put up a video that was put on YouTube, apparently by the European Central Bank if the user name is any guide, in celebration of the Euro and its forthcoming tenth birthday. Wolfers suggests that with Europe's current financial problems and the part the single currency has played no small amount of chutzpah must have been needed to post a video celebrating that, but he notes something else interesting.

Perhaps a little surprisingly (or not) the owners of the video have decided to disable comments on it.

No room for dissent, Comrades.

No room indeed, though when has the EU or its institutions ever shown much interest in what people think? However, in the spirit of freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, I've re-uploaded their video with commenting enabled and the following message:

Original video by YouTube user ecbeuro at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0YrRM7yee0
The European Central Bank has chosen not to allow comments on its video, and given current issues within the EU I feel this is disappointing and undemocratic from an institution ultimately dependent on taxpayers. Accordingly I'm re-uploading the video with comments enabled, which I feel is fair dealing under the law where I currently live (Australian Copyright Act 1968 - for the purpose of criticism or review (s41, s103A)) and fair use in the US where YouTube is based.

All rights to the video and soundtrack remain with its creators. I will happily remove this copy if the original opens to criticism/review in the form of YouTube comments.

Will YouTube take it down and give me a smack on the wrist over copyright or will my bit about the undemocratic lack of comments on the original and appeal of fair dealing be enough to keep it where it is? If it goes it'll reappear on EyeTube, though not if the ECB enable commenting on theirs, but I hope YouTube will see what I'm getting at. In the meantime you can watch the ECB version either at Wolfers' or at the link above, and if you want to be able to comment on the single currency then you can do it on the one I put up instead. At least for the time being.

I've banned smoking in the road outside my house

Of course I've done no such thing really. Smoke in here and I'll tell you to put it out, go outside or just leave. If you take the last option I must accept that once you're any measurable distance at all from my gate, even if its in millimetres, I have no right to tell you to stop. Well, that's how I see it, and I don't feel that's anything to do with being a libertarian and a fan of property rights - it is, but it's mainly just being fair and reasonable.

But of course not everyone is prepared to be fair and reasonable with smokers, the twenty-first century's designated primary untermenschen (drinkers and salad dodgers being the next down the list). Three months ago I left a slightly off topic comment over at Velvet Glove, Iron Fist on a post about smoking establishments starting to reappear in places in Europe. I said this:

Slight tangent, this. I saw a sign in a office building doorway here in Oz recently that said something like 'No smoking with 5 metres of this doorway'. Might not have been 5 metres (I didn't think to get a photo) but I remember looking at it and thinking that that applies to rather a lot of pavement and even a bit of road that I very much doubted the building's owners had any legal control over.

I should have added that I thought the idea was not only a bit iffy from the property rights angle, what with it setting rules on land the rule maker doesn't own, but that it was completely ridiculous anyway - I've been a non-smoker long enough to have grown to dislike the smell, but I find that a couple of paces is all that's needed and sometimes not even that. Metres plural? Several metres? That's just being silly.

A quick google image search suggests that these X metres away from the door restrictions are springing up everywhere now as I found examples of signs in Canada and the US plus a UK site selling them them in 5, 10 and even 20 metres of self righteous bastardry. What I haven't found, except in Queensland where they are mad and have banned smoking 4 metres from entrances with a $200 fine (PDF) if you're closer than that, is any indication that these things can carry any legal force where that area is both open and public, much less owned by someone else. Even in Queensland footpaths are going to be less than 4 metres wide often enough that this is a problem, and where the smokophobes have demanded the right to make rules over an even larger area of property that doesn't belong to them it can become significant. How significant I noticed last weekend on a trip into South Melbourne.

The buildings I've highlighted here form the Spotlight Centre, a small suburban shopping centre consisting of Spotlight, a supermarket, a pharmacy, a few small stores and cafes, and a gym in the larger building on the right, and an Aldi and a Dan Murphy's liquor store in the one on the left.

Smoking is, of course, prohibited inside according to state law, though this only came into force in July 2007 and I very much doubt smoking was allowed inside before then. I can't remember having seen a shopping centre anywhere that permitted smoking in their buildings even before the law banned it. However, the Spotlight Centre has gone further and has decided that they don't want nasssty smokersss gollum stinking up their entrancesss, no preciousss. And so there are signs on the doors which say, among other things, 'No smoking in centre or within 10m of entry', though for reasons which I'll come to I don't have a photograph.

There are three entrances on different streets to the main building and one to the smaller building (there looks like there will be a second when a currently empty unit is filled). I've marked out the rough size and extent of the no smoking zones that result from Spotlight's banning of smokers a full ten metres - nearly 33 feet in old money - from their entrances, first as they are and second as they'll be whenever that last main unit with its own entrance is occupied. Embiggering is possible on both images.

Yes, not only do the owners of the Spotlight Centre not want you to smoke inside their buildings, which is perfectly reasonable and absolutely up to them even if there wasn't a stupid law demanding they do what they'd almost certainly do by choice, but they're so insistent that even their doors are protected that they demand the right to ban smoking in cars parked outside or even driving past. 'No smoking in centre or within 10m of entry' is what it says and there's no mention of an exception for people who are within that distance but are inside their own property, much less on public property.

Of course the reason for this new phenomenon of pushing smokers even further away is as simple as it was predictable. Give the smokers a place to go, as was the policy in the past, and they'll go and smoke there. Take it away and they'll smoke wherever there's a bit of shelter instead, and often that means doorways and entrances where 'normal' people - or 'tomorrow's victims of denormalisation' as I like to think of them - have to go in and out. This is particularly true of workplaces, which generally used to cater for smokers and non-smokers alike and would often set aside a room or an area for the smokers if there was space. The law then said they had to stop doing that so of course the smokers ended up going outside, and if the weather was poor naturally they'd stay as close as possible to the door. Incidentally, this is the reason why there's no photo of the Spotlight's Centre's sign informing of their 10m exclusion zones - I did take one but I didn't realise that a member of staff who was standing a couple of metres behind me having a cigarette was reflected in the glass, and such casual defiance of an unreasonable rule didn't deserve to be rewarded with evidence put on the interwebs for anyone to see.* For all I know it's a sacking offence, so just take my word for it that it really does say 10 metres.

The effect is clear. Wherever there have been smoke bans in certain buildings there are now smokers who want or need to use those buildings dragging the life out of their smokes around the entrances rather than relatively evenly spread around, and having been brainwashed into increasing levels of terror at the sight of a lit fag much of the non smoking public have kicked off often enough that some now feel they can apply their own in house rules beyond the boundaries of their property. Currently this is not enforceable anywhere I know of apart from Queensland, where, as I mentioned, they are mad but also rich enough to be able to hire thousands of Zone Enforcement Response Officers (or ZEROs) to roam around with 4 metre tape measures and books of fine forms.** Sadly it's only a matter of time before somewhere else follows suit and introduces legislation too, and if it's here in Victoria there'll be close 170 feet of non-smoking pavement on one South Melbourne road which you won't even know about until too late because the damn signs are attached to the bloody doors ten metres inside the zone. Worse, a piece of footpath on which you can smoke today could be turned anti-smoking simply be someone knocking a hole in the wall and putting a door in.

And as usual with all anti-smoking measures that will be cheered by some non-smokers when it should really be feared by smokers and non-smokers alike. Because when someone else gets rights over property they don't own the can is open and the worms are wriggling everywhere. Don't believe me? Well, as Leg-iron and Bucko have just pointed out coffee drinkers look like joining the ranks of smokers, drinkers and salad dodgers, and while I don't currently have any desire to ban even strong smelling coffee being consumed by someone who happens to be walking past my house it happens that I am a tea drinker, you see... ***

Can't happen? Yeah, I expect the smokers who'll be walking out into roads all over the world to avoid getting too close to someone's door thought that too.



* Or maybe it wasn't defiance but the rain that kept the mystery smoker near the door. It was pretty wet that day, but I doubt that's an excuse so I'm still not using the photo.
** My mistake. Queensland is $53 billion in debt and would be even deeper in the hole if it hand't sold some state assets. And I made the ZEROs up, though that doesn't mean something like them doesn't really exist.
*** Coffee too, but that spoils the point.

Flying looks about to get a whole lot... er, similar

Great news! You can go on holiday and take liquids with you. Medicines, baby milk, drinks bought away from the airport at considerable less than ludicrous prices, all will soon be allowed through the ring-piece of steel at international airports in Australia, and no doubt other nations.

International travellers will no longer have water bottles, perfumes and other liquids confiscated as they board planes under a radical overhaul of airport security.

Radical overhaul. Sounds good, sounds like it could be what's been needed for a while now.

The easing of restrictions will begin next year as Australia's international airports begin rolling out new explosive detection equipment.

Ah. Now it just sounds like another machine to queue up for.

The shake-up, to be announced by the federal government today, also promises to cut waiting times for passengers by easing bottlenecks at security gates.

Er, but if we've got one more machine to queue up for how's that going to cut times?

The new technology, which has been trialled at Sydney airport, would enable authorities to detect the smallest trace of explosives in liquids.

Okay, and what happens if someone decides to take a pint of the stuff into the queue for the machine and detonate it before they get there? In the queue. You know, attacking the people in the fucking queue instead of screwing around with the impossible task of getting it on a plane. Well, sort of impossible.

• January 7th 2011, undercover French journalists are reported to have smuggled a dismantled 9mm pistol through security at two French airports and were able to assemble the gun in the toilets on the plane.
• February 21st 2011, in the US a female undercover TSA agent is reported to have carried a handgun through Dallas/Fort Worth airport body scanners in multiple tests by hiding it in her knickers.
[...]
• June 13th 2011, it is reported that 30 staff at Honolulu International Airport are fired for not having screened luggage properly.

Still, long as somebody has got a nice big market for their feel good bomb sniffing machines and governments can carry on acting as if they're doing something, eh?

"It will make air travel easier and less stressful for passengers as well as free airport security staff to better focus on their core screening responsibilities without the distraction of having to confiscate items from people's bags," [Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese] said.
"While preventing acts of terrorism remains our number one priority, we're also determined to minimise the disruption and inconvenience experienced by passengers as they transit throughout major airports, including by deploying the latest technologies."

Sorry, Tony, but if you're really serious about that I still think you should be looking at how the Israelis do things. In the meantime one more bloody thing to queue up for having already queued for check-in, the X-ray, the metal detector and the bollock baking body scanner and/or professional groper does not tempt me back into flying anywhere except as a last resort.

Vote early, vote often

Bucko the Moose has a link up to an online poll about banning smoking in all cars - ha, fat lot of good the BMA's retraction of the 23 times lie has done, eh? They got the headlines and response they wanted and now idiots passing as journalists who can't or won't question the no-stop feed of bullshit PRs they're given. So do pop along and have a little vote at the Lancashire Borgograph and remember what it is you're voting for. On the one hand it's the right to be left alone in property that you've paid for and belongs to you. On the other hand, well, you work it out.

New enemies in the war on terror?

From Wikipedia:

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.

'Terror' itself being defined in Wiktionary as:

Noun
terror (countable and uncountable; plural terrors)

1. (uncountable) intense dread, fright, or fear.
2. (countable) specific instances of being intensely terrified
3. (uncountable) the action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction
4. (countable) something or someone that causes such fear.

And coercion as

Noun
coercion (plural coercions)

1. (not countable) Actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person; the act of coercing.
2. (law, not countable) Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something, or to abstain from doing something, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will.
3. (countable) A specific instance of coercing.
4. (computing, countable) Conversion of a value of one data type to a value of another data type.

So ignoring that last definition that relates to computing and thinking about that very first sentence in which Wikipedia suggests terrorism is simply the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion, I find myself wondering how broadly this applies and whether any organisation or organisations that use scare tactics in order to get their way, to see people cowed - terrified, in fact - into submission, would count as being terrorists. Specifically, I'm thinking about whether the BMA, ASH and so on could be seen as terrorists. Ridiculous? Of course it is. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, most or all of these anti-smoking - and of course the anti-drinking, anti-drugs, anti... er, where are we up to now? Oh yes, anti-salt, anti-soft drinks, anti-red meat and/or junk food (like I even need to bother finding a link for that), anti-caffeine, even anti-muesli - anti fucking muesli for Christ's fucking sake, oh I wish I was making that one up - basically anti-whatever it is you do that you enjoy that might shave even a picosecond off your life according to anything that even passes for a scientific study in a bad light, most of these anti-whatever groups are either run by or partly funded by the government, or at least exist with their tacit approval. And clearly that legitimises them, doesn't it? How can they be terrorists with government approval and even funding, no matter how much they try to coerce people by means of fear?

Ummm, well, I didn't want to mention it, but...

State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.

So depending on how broad a definition you want to use maybe they could be after all. Ah, but Angry, old mate, I hear you say, it's not like they're blowing anybody up, is it? They're not using force, are they?

Aren't they?

A former pub landlord yesterday became the first person to be jailed in connection with the smoking ban.
Nick Hogan, 43, was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to pay a fine imposed for flouting the legislation.
Two years ago Hogan, who ran two pubs in Bolton, became the first landlord convicted of breaking the law for allowing his customers to routinely light up in his bars.

Tracey John, 48, from Pontypridd, was fined £350 by local magistrates plus £100 costs after refusing to pay a £75 on the spot penalty.
Ms John said: "They're making me feel like I'm a big criminal... it's not like I've done a massive robbery."
She was spotted smoking on the doorstep of her home in Maesycoed by a passing litter enforcement officer.
She claimed that despite picking up the cigarette she was given a fixed penalty notice.

The Health Act 2006 came into force in July 2007. The Health Act prohibits smoking in almost all enclosed public places, workplaces and even includes work vehicles.
Mr Minihan, a tanker driver from Liverpool, was seen flicking ash and disposing of a cigarette butt from his cab by council enforcement officers. Mr Minihan fought the charge by claiming he was using an Electronic cigarette.

I think a lot of people would argue that they certainly are using force and violence and the threat of same - the monopoly on force and violence enjoyed by the state whose ear the antis have long had and whispered into, Gríma Wormtongue style. That's about as forceful as it gets and the threat of state sanctioned violence is always in the air. Hangs around much longer than cigarette smoke too, which I very much hope all drinkers, salad dodgers, coffee lovers, Red Bull fans, salters, muesli munchers and anyone I've missed is by now noticing. Terrified? You fucking should be, though not for the same reasons the antis want you to be terrified.

Nor are innocent bystanders unheard of, and not just folks like the e-fag smoker up there:

A non-smoker was stunned to be given a £50 fine for throwing a cigarette butt out of her car window.
Gillian Leah has never had a cigarette and is vehemently anti-litter.
So the 46-year-old, of Hove Edge, Brighouse, thought the matter would soon be sorted after contacting council officials.
But her dispute has left her paying £50 for a crime she claims she didn’t commit.
The alternative was a fight through the courts with no guarantee of winning – and a legal bill running into thousands.

Ah, there's that monopoly on force, you see?

A RETIRED policeman was fined for dropping a cigarette end out of his car window – despite being a non-smoker and not even driving at the time.
Robert Marshall received a £50 fine from Nottingham City Council after a warden reported spotting him littering while driving along Hucknall Road, Nottingham.
But the council has now dropped the fine against the former officer after he told them he does not smoke and his car was in a car park at the time of the alleged offence.
The authority was also unable to confirm to Mr Marshall where in Hucknall Road the offence had taken place.
It has told him that a line has been drawn under the matter, after speaking to the warden involved.

A near miss, but (my bold)...

Mr Marshall, 48, of Moor Road, Bestwood Village, said: "The council have said they had a word with the warden, he said he was mistaken, and that is the end of the matter.
"This sort of thing is just unacceptable. I wonder how many others have been unfortunate enough to get this sort of ticket and have just paid the £50 fine because they cannot prove otherwise?"

So we've got an intention to coerce by scaring away resistance, a willingness to use force and innocent bystanders getting affected too. And now, this very week, the BMA - the British Motherfucking Authoritarians as Wolfers called them - are claiming that smoking must be banned in all cars (there's a poll on that article and you know what to do - vote early, vote often).

There is now strong evidence that smoking in vehicles exposes non-smokers to high levels of second hand smoke which is known to be damaging to heath, the BMA said.
Because of the small enclosed space inside a car, smoking creates 23 times more toxins than found in a smoky bar, it was claimed.

This is, of course, complete arse gravy and has not only been debunked by the likes of Chris Snowdon but, as he pointed out earlier this week, has even been repudiated by a Canadian Medical Journal.

The "23 times" claim is even more fun, because it involves a rare mea culpa from tobacco control. In a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled 'Second-hand smoke in cars: How did the “23 times more toxic” myth turn into fact?', MacKenzie and Freeman showed that the "fact" was entirely without scientific evidence and stemmed from a, obscure quote in a local newspaper in 1998 (as I had revealed on this blog two months earlier).

They concluded with the following unheeded recommendation:

We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be no evidence for it in the scientific literature.

Yet the BMA are still using it and assuming they're not ignorant of its complete lack of any authenticity it's not a huge leap to think that perhaps they're doing it with the intention of achieving their aims through scaring people. More terror. More coercion. More force. Fucking hell, some of them have even got the same kind of three letter initials: BMA, ASH... PLO, IRA.

Okay, I'm kidding - obviously that's not a fair comparison and lots of other organisations are known by TLAs. More importantly ASH, the BMA and so on don't use guns and bombs to scare people, but nonetheless their stock in trade is to try to scare everyone into submission and they're using the most powerful force inside any nation (often more than one nation). Dragging someone into the cells for failing to be an unpaid smoke warden in his own pub seems like violence to me, and not only are innocents already being affected we can all look forward to becoming as guilty as the smokers. And while they don't actually want smokers dead the same can't be said of their supporters, as a look through Dick Puddlecote's smoke psychosis gallery will tell you.

So is it terrorism? I don't know, I really don't. I suppose the day I feel genuinely afraid to do something I've always done and which was done peacefully by millions in past generations then I'll have my answer.


PS If you haven't already seen it there's a good op-ed piece in The Tele titled "All these smoking bans have left me fuming" and which has a particular go at the BMA over their proposed car ban.

And now, the campaigners are back: some people, they’ve noticed, have been smoking in their own cars. And other people might be in the car with them! So we need a new law, and a new set of criminals to prosecute – because, honestly, there’s nothing more important for either the political class or the medical establishment to be thinking about just now, right?
[...]
You might wonder how – were the ban to be introduced – it could be policed. Well, Oxford City Council has the answer to that. It plans to force CCTV into every taxi in the city, in order to record every conversation between driver and passenger. (I pity the official who had to review my conversations: it’s bad enough that the poor cabbie has to listen to me wittering on, without council officers having to listen in as well.)
Why not take it one step further, and insist on CCTV in every vehicle? Indeed, why stop there? (I doubt the BMA will.) Why not put cameras into every house, so that functionaries from the BMA’s Professional Activities Division can monitor our every move? You could even make it two-way, so that Dr Nathanson’s acolytes can bark out instructions every time some foolish little person tries to have a cigarette, or pours a second glass of wine.

Worth a read.

Beiberporn and smashed dogs

With Bieberporn and smashed dogs appearing all over Faecesbook this week, no doubt giving the Zuckerfuckers another excuse in the not too distant future to demand your name, height, weight, gender, shoe size, proof of parentage and a DNA sample to satisfy them as to your real identity, this rant from Foamy the Squirrel seems appropriate.

Enjoy, and then get off Faecesbook if you haven't already. You'll feel soooo much better.

The best weapon against smokophobic nannies

Good quality piss taking, as ably demonstrated by The Daily Mash in response to the anti smoking mob again trotting out the tired and demonstrably ridiculous line about smoking in cars (see Velvet Glove, Iron Fist).

JAGUARS are not the only cars with fully opening windows, doctors have been told.

As the British Medical Association called for a ban on smoking in cars, experts said the windows on cars like the 1998 Ford Focus or some grubby little Astra went right the way down into the door.

Dr Bill McKay, a GP from Peterborough, said: "Are you absolutely sure? Well, I'm afraid that if poor people's cars can do the same things as our cars then we are going to need more money."

[...]

Smoker, Tom Logan, said: "I don't have kids and in the interests of my health I don't allow kids in my car.

"And if an adult is sitting in the passenger seat when I light up they can either open the window - because my car is one of the ones that does that - or they can get the fucking bus.

"Because it's my car. D'you see?"

Gold. Do go and read the whole thing.

Getting around Australia's plain tobacco packaging law #5

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3       Part 4

A final few ideas for sticking a middle finger up in the direction of Canberra in response to Australia's plain tobacco packaging law. Back in post #1 of these George in the comments suggested this:

Seems to me the way round it is to supply the standard pack (with no nanny warnings or porno cancer pics) wrapped in a goverment approved paper sleeve. Buy the pack, rip it off and leave on the counter.

I'm guessing that a simple outer wrapper might be deemed not to qualify as "the packaging" for the purposes of the law, but if the tobacco companies can swing it that's an excellent idea. If not then perhaps an inverse of that, a kind of packet within a packet. Perhaps some kind of light weight card carton with the foil containing the cigarettes, and more importantly on which designs and logos can be printed, and which can be slid out from the main package which is chucked in the bin on the way out.

I'd expect it to look much better
than this quick pshop but
you get the idea

Three downsides occur to me right away. First is cost - it will make packaging a little more expensive and therefore the cost per pack will rise. However, that might be offset by a lowering in cost of the outer packet as there should be no money being spent on pack design, Canberra having taken over the job in order to inflict plain packs on the industry. The second is that the light weight inner "packet" won't do a very good job at protecting the cigarettes, but that might be useful as the nannies will fart sparks if people throw away their plain outer packs and wave around something with those hated logos and branding on - the response is that it's just an inner sleeve and you can't stop people throwing away the real packaging. The third downside is that even if this idea is legal you can be damn sure the liberty loathing, bansturbating nannies will have it banned as well before long. It might be good for a year or two but there will be a new law and that will be that. In the meantime though it might be a possibility.

The other suggestion in the first post's comments was from Marcy, who said:

There should be a good market starting up for fancy reusable cig packs, including those supplied by manufacturers with their proprietary labels, given away for free of course to anyone who wants them, made out of tin maybe and bound to become a collector's item in the future.

Tins and cases I've already covered, and I don't see any reason why Marcy's suggestion of branded accessories, tins and cases included, couldn't be made by the baccy companies. Sure, there may already be a law against it, and if there isn't then eventually there will be even if any other bugger can make them, but it's about not giving in and again it'll buy time and annoy the nannies. But it also reminded me of fakefags.co.uk and their joke health warning labels that stick on over the originals. Joke horror pictures and stick on branding could be next.

About the only thing I don't think it's worth Ausssie smokers doing is hanging on to their existing packets since the horror pictures now are large enough that the packs are semi-debranded already. If I still smoked I'd lean towards a case that fitted the normal length of a hand made cigarette or a nice leather pouch for the loose tobacco and a pocket for the papers, but if I smoked pre-mades I'd probably get some card and use a template in post #3 to make my own packets. Ehow have more detailed instructions on this here and links to a couple of videos on origami ciggie pack making, as well as instructions on how to make a very nice looking wooden cigarette case.

The long and short of it is that foiling the Australian Baccy Nannies is restricted only by imagination and the amount of effort smokers are prepared to put in to avoid carting around drab packs with the colour provided only by the horror pictures and shouty warnings. And even though I've not smoked for a few years I may make up some cigarette packets in advance of the plain pack law coming into effect... you know, just so I've got one or two handy in case I see a smoker with a boring nannied pack. The fun begins soon, and I don't see the fact that I'm a non-smoker as a reason I can't join in.

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3       Part 4

Getting around Australia's plain tobacco packaging law #4

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3               Part 5

Learn to knit... yes, seriously.

Obviously that's not a real example. There'd be no need to knit little woollen matches and woollen cigarettes as well - that'd be as silly as, oh, I don't know, a law saying that cigarettes could only be sold in a boring green box with the obligatory death cancer horror picture on. But here's what I'm thinking, right. To protect it in my pocket with change and keys and so on I keep my mobile phone in a little pouch like the one below (but plain - I'm not yet barracking for Carlton).

Looking at it there doesn't seem to be any reason you couldn't knit a similar slip on cover with whatever design you like and make it large enough to fit a 20, 25, 30 or 40 cigarette pack snugly. They're hardly going to ban wool in a country with a hundred million sheep, are they?

/ Waits for inevitable sheep sex jokes in the comments.

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3               Part 5

Getting around Australia's plain tobacco packaging law #3

Part 1       Part 2               Part 4       Part 5

Make your own cigarette packets. Google is your friend and can find all sorts of services for you, even including people who will make cigarette boxes in your own design. Don't know what the prices are like as I wasn't going to bugger around getting a quote, but if that seems like too much expense then there's the DIY option. Without too much googling I found a template and instructions to make a cigarette packet. Just in case that ever disappears I'll save a copy here for posterity, and in case either of my readers smoke (hi, Mum, and I thought you'd quit years ago) and want to give it a try.

Click for embiggerisation - or buy smaller cigarettes

I suggest a design that takes the piss out of hysterical health warnings, or possibly pre-empts the next generation of hysterical health warnings. Perhaps something like this.

Part 1       Part 2               Part 4       Part 5

Getting around Australia's plain tobacco packaging law #2

Part 1             Part 3       Part 4       Part 5

Cigarette cases - I bet they will be making a comeback here, and I'll bet you that as well as clever ones like that from TheSmokingShop.com.au above (they also do one for the car that automatically lights the cigarette as it's dispensed) there will be branded ones, either legit or made without the approval of the IP owners, appearing before long. Whether those tobacco companies whose trademarks are being infringed will have any motivation to do anything about it when they can't use them anyway is another matter. Currently they do take trademark infringers to courts in Oz but only because they're losing money from counterfeiting. If they were selling the fags that are being put inside a really cool looking cigarette tin I doubt they'll give a shit, which would be another unwanted side effect of the plain packaging law.

And if the wide variety available online doesn't flick a smoker's switch and you don't care about trying to find one with your brand on, authorised or not, why not go for something DIY such as the iPod Classic ciggie case?*

I thought I saw an iPhone version as well but it turned out to be a case for e-cigs and an actual iPhone, but I'm sure that sooner or later someone somewhere will make an iPhone-a-like cigarette case, much to the natural disgust of Apple and to the inevitable excitement of their legal department. But I'll leave you with one more example of a cigarette case that I saw among those at this online seller - one which will not only make the plain packets law here irrelevant but will drive the Righteous even further into outraged palpitations. I doubt I'll have to explain why... < evil grin >

Mwahahahahahahahahahahah!!

Tell you what, I think some of my Christmas shopping is going to get done early.

*  If any smoker reading this has a dead iPod they fancy converting into a ciggie case I'll mention there's a knack to getting into these old iPods. A watch case opener does the job but the trick is to give the iPod a gentle squeeze as you apply it. You'd still need a case opener each time though, so if it was me I'd be thinking about how to change it so it's be easier to open. Maybe remove the catches and glue in a spring loaded hinge or something. I dunno, I'm speculating there. I'll leave that to DIY experimenters.

Part 1             Part 3       Part 4       Part 5

Getting around Australia's plain tobacco packaging law #1

Part 2    Part 3    Part 4    Part 5

I'm not sure this hasn't already been covered in the legislation but as it's been reported it's going to be mandatory plain packaging, and the defence the Commonwealth government intend to use against the tobacco industry's accusation that their trademarks have been appropriated and that under Australia's constitution they should be compensated is that the trademarks have not been actually been taken, they just can't be used on cigarette packets. I'm no lawyer but we all know that the number of places the industry can use its trademarks has been diminishing and I feel that at some point you have to concede that effectively they've been taken from them, but in the meantime I wonder if there's anything to stop the trademarks being used on the cigarettes themselves. Most cigarettes have always had their makers' names on so it doesn't seem to unrealistic to use the whole cigarette. Maybe whatever ink ends up being used on the paper to do this would actually make cigarettes slightly more harmful for their users, I have no idea, but on Planet Smokophobia the alleged health benefits from the plain packets would surely offset any harm done by fully branding the cigarettes themselves instead. No, I know that makes no sense, but when we're talking tobacco legislation is that even necessary any more?

Part 2    Part 3    Part 4    Part 5

There are no winners, only victims of the security state

Via Longrider at his own place and at the Orphanage a couple of days ago, news that Muslims Against Something That Ended In The Thirteenth Century were leant on by Her Majesty's Home Secretary and Official Speech Permission Granter, Teresa Maybe, is being banned for being not nice enough. Longrider points out an obvious problem, though clearly not so obvious that Teresa Maybe was able to see it.

Home Secretary Theresa May is banning Muslims Against Crusades, a group planning an anti-Armistice Day protest.

Despicable though this group is, abhorrent as its message may be, their liberties are our liberties and holding a protest no matter how distasteful, is a basic civil liberty. In banning them, May hands them a victory without them lifting a finger, she does their work for them far better than they ever could.

Agreed, and via Trooper Thompson I see that this has been followed by a mass arrest of English Defence League members, for... well, since the now banned Muslims Against Historical Catholicism weren't there as planned absolutely nothing at all as far as I can see.

Scotland Yard said the group were detained "to prevent a breach of the peace" at a pub near the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Doesn't this seem a bit like crushing your car to prevent speeding? Technically they can probably do this if this is anything to go by.

A breach of the peace is not in itself a criminal offence, but the police and any other person have a power of arrest where there are reasonable grounds for believing a breach of the peace is taking place or is imminent. The Court of Appeal defined a breach of the peace as being ‘an act done or threatened to be done which either actually harms a person, or in his presence, his property, or is likely to cause such harm being done’ – see R v Howell. This power of arrest will, of course, be closely scrutinised in connection with [The European Convention on Human Rights] Article 5 (the right to liberty and security), Article 10 (the right to freedom of expression) and Article 11 (the right to freedom of assembly and association).

And of course the ECHR being the pale imitation of a Bill of Rights that it is, doesn't really seem to prevent this either. Article 5 guarantees no deprivation of liberty except for various reasons including (my bold)...

"c. the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so;"

... while Articles 10 and 11 both say freedom of speech and association respectively is guaranteed unless it's felt necessary to restrict it. These are the worst kind of rights: positive rights, permissions to do things as long as someone says you're allowed. They aren't liberties, they're just lip service to the idea of liberty. So with the ECHR being as much against you as for you, all the police need in order to arrest people who've done nothing for nothing is a semi-plausible story that it was "reasonably considered necessary" to prevent something they might have been going to do.

So this is liberty in modern Britain. Where NuLab started the Cobbleition has carried on, and in order to prevent you from damaging it your freedom is taken and locked in a cage. But at least they're doing to everybody, so that's alright, isn't it?

In short: fuck, no!

Tip of the Akubra also to Quiet_Man in the comments at Trooper Thompson's for the Telegraph link.

There oughtta be a law against it

Oh yes, a law. God forbid that we should sit down and think an important decision through rationally. That would never do, so having done something remarkably silly that we now regret we should demand that the state protect us from ourselves. That's partly so that nobody else makes the same mistake, but when it's something really exceptional that very, very few other people are inclined to do in the first place I can't help but wonder if people demanding a law actually want it to stop themselves. In case they try to do it again.

Susan Tollefsen became a mother after receiving IVF treatment at 57 from a Russian clinic in 2008, where she conceived daughter Freya.
Many criticised her decision, saying she was too old to become a parent.

Not me. Personally I wouldn't, but if someone's decided to ignore nature's subtle hints I'm inclined to trust that they've thought it through. All the way through. Of course I would be aware that that trust might be misplaced, but with nothing to contradict it I'd still give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the time, Mrs Tollefsen defended her choice and pointed out that her partner Nick Mayer was 11 years her junior – and would therefore be around to care for their daughter Freya during all of her childhood.

So she had thought it all the way thr... oh.

However, she says the couple have now split and concedes her critics were right as she encounters the difficulties of bringing up a three-year-old child alone at the age of 61.

Right, so apart from the 'what if my partner's not around' point she thought it through.

"Every Saturday he wanted to go and watch them, either home or away, and some weekdays. I felt as if he didn’t want his life to change at all after Freya came along, even though mine had changed completely."

Okay, okay, she didn't really think it through far enough at all, and if he thought it wasn't going to change his life much then I'd say he didn't think it... ooooh, footie. In fairness to both of them it strikes me that this isn't unique to people their age getting IVF - sadly there are plenty of children who were conceived naturally but whose conception was ill conceived, and whose parents love their offspring, sorta kinda, but miss the days they didn't have this small person depending on them so much. Tough shit, folks. If you want your life to stay the same as it is now the obvious thing to do is not fucking change it.

"I never imagined it would work out this way,’ Mrs Tollefsen said. "I’ve never regretted having Freya but I’ve had to pay a heavy price for my dream of being a mother. In fact, it’s cost me my relationship. You think you’re madly in love with someone and you just don’t realise what they’re going to be like after you’ve had children."

/ looks skyward with hands in pockets and begins to whistle

So now she's decided as wonderful and precious as her daughter is to her it really wasn't such a smart move after all, and that means - you guessed it - she wants there to be a law to stop the infinitesimally small number of people who want to become a new parent in their late 50s from doing the same thing.

Mrs Tollefsen, who is deaf in one ear and having a knee replaced, also agrees that, with hindsight, there should be an age limit of 50 for IVF treatment for women in this country.

Except she's still not thinking things through properly, is she? Hello, Susan? You went ... Susan? Susan? Hello? Sorry, wrong ear. Hello, Susan, you went to Russia to get your IVF, remember? And if there'd been an age limit of 50 at the time, and remembering that the NHS won't provide IVF to anyone 40 or over and even private clinics tend to balk at treating women over 50, exactly how would that have stopped you from doing what you did? Exactly how would bringing in such a law now prevent any other woman whose desire for a child has eclipsed everything else, including rational thought and taste and decency...

"Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Lovely sperm, wonderful sperm!" *

... from doing the same thing? Unless you want this law to ban women over 50 from getting on a plane as well you simply can't prevent doing the same thing. Your own story is a cautionary tale and should put a few people off, but unless we want the already far too powerful nanny state to grow yet more powerful we must accept people ignoring advice and making short sighted decisions as being facts of life.


* Apologies to Monty Python for ruining one of their most famous skits.

Fantasy drugs policy

On this blog I've occasionally quoted from Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld books since it's always been less a fantasy series and more a series of parodies, often of parts of the world we actually live in, and there are often bits here and there which align pretty neatly with libertarian positions. I've no idea if Terry Pratchett would describe himself as a libertarian but some of his characters certainly are, at least on some issues, and they tend to be the protagonists or people on the same side as the protagonists. So when Mrs Exile bought me the latest one I wasn't surprised to find in the first few pages almost exactly the kind of drugs policy I'd support for real, implemented by Lord Vetinari, probably the most libertarian tyrant ever, real or imagined.

... Incidentally, sir, we have received a missive from Diamond King of Trolls, thanking us for our firm stance on the drugs issue. Well done, sir.’
‘Hardly a concession,’ Vetinari observed, waving it away. ‘You know my position, Drumknott. I have no particular objection to people taking substances that make them feel better or more contented, or, for that matter, see little dancing purple fairies – or even their god if it comes to that. It’s their brain, after all, and society can have no claim on it, providing they’re not operating heavy machinery at the time. However, to sell drugs to trolls that actually make their heads explode is simply murder, the capital crime.'

Snuff, Terry Pratchett

Seems fair enough to me. What you choose to put into your body should be entirely up to you, though of course you would still responsible for your actions when you're under the influence of whatever it is you've taken, but selling you something that's certain to kill you on the spot is not on. In reality nobody making a quid either illegally or legally from recreational drugs - and as usual I include alcohol and tobacco, and I suppose possibly caffeine as well - has any interest in killing customers since dead people have a tendency to stop buying the produce. Some of these things are dangerous and may kill some users eventually, though often that's as much a result of the adulteration that's commonplace with illegal drugs as a result of the drug itself, but if any drug was both rapidly and universally lethal it would have no market. People want to get high, but very few want to get high so badly they'll take something from which they will definitely never come down. In fact the only time I've heard of a drug being deliberately made toxic it was on the orders of a government who did have a particular objection to people taking a substance that made them feel better and more contented, and, for that matter, see little dancing purple fairies fall over more often.

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.
[...]
Rigorous enforcement had managed to slow the smuggling of alcohol from Canada and other countries. But crime syndicates responded by stealing massive quantities of industrial alcohol—used in paints and solvents, fuels and medical supplies—and redistilling it to make it potable.
Well, sort of. Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable. The U.S. government started requiring this "denaturing" process in 1906 for manufacturers who wanted to avoid the taxes levied on potable spirits. The U.S. Treasury Department, charged with overseeing alcohol enforcement, estimated that by the mid-1920s, some 60 million gallons of industrial alcohol were stolen annually to supply the country's drinkers. In response, in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge's government decided to turn to chemistry as an enforcement tool. Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix. Others used bitter-tasting compounds that were less lethal, designed to make the alcohol taste so awful that it became undrinkable.
To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly.
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly.
The results were immediate, starting with that horrific holiday body count in the closing days of 1926. Public health officials responded with shock. "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol," New York City medical examiner Charles Norris said at a hastily organized press conference. "[Y]et it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."

Even now one foreseeable side effect of so many recreational drugs being illegal that they will end up being both more expensive and less safe through being adulterated with Christ knows what, and another is that people will turn to alternative drugs when their preferred choice is either too expensive or too hard to find. Because of this desire of certain people to make everyone else live to their standards rather than live as each chooses* we have almost the polar opposite of Vetinari's stance on the drug's issue - the belief is that user's brains are not their own and society does have a claim on them, and official policy has had the inevitable effect of making drugs more dangerous, sometimes deliberately.

Why does sanity have to come from the pen of a man who writes about trolls and dwarves and magic, and, sadly, who is also suffering from early onset Alzheimer's? And what does that say about the people who really are responsible for drugs policy?


* As a libertarian I have no desire to force other people to be libertarians as well. I'll try to persuade them it's a good idea but if they want to be neo-puritans Tories or socialists dumbly obedient to the state or whatever then that's up to them. That's their drug of choice and if they can do it without harming me I have no objection, just as I have no objection to people smoking, drinking or getting stoned around me if I'm not affected by it. The annoying reality is that neo-puritans and statists of all stripes have done me far more harm than drug users have, and much of the little harm I've suffered that was probably drug related (losses from a car break in and higher insurance, if you must know) may not have happened if drugs policies hadn't made the damn things cost more than they need to.

Questions to which the answer is "Fuck off"

Yes, I know there are lots of these and that anything on an official census probably qualifies, but the one that's uppermost in my mind at the moment is this:

How much do you drink?

A report to be published on Monday will say eight million professionals are routinely drinking too much alcohol, and endangering their health, even though they do not binge drink or get drunk.
It calls for new checks, so that GPs quiz all patients about their drinking habits, first at the age of 30, and again as part of general health checks which occur every five years from the age of 40.

And even though it's a non-issue for me and my honest answer would score maximum healthist brownie points, my inclination would be to choose from a range of replies starting with "Why are you asking?" and finishing with "Go fuck yourself." Aside from the intrusiveness I hope everyone can see in this that the concept of no-safe-level-every-drop-is-killing-you-a-bit has taken one more jackbooted step from neo-puritan idealism to policy. You don't have to binge and you don't have to get drunk, but you can still be drinking too much. How much is too much? Who can possibly know when, as pointed out on Devil's Kitchen a couple of years back, the recommended consumption levels for alcohol were pulled out of the collective arse of a working party of the Royal College of Physicians (the article is only available to people who pay The Times as even archives are behind the paywall now, so the rest of us have to put up with seeing it for free on Wayback - fuck you, Rupes).

Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”.
The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever.
[...]
The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something” came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it.
He told The Times that the committee’s epidemiologist had confessed that “it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t” because “we don’t really have any data whatsoever”.
Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee,” he said.

I'm not sure how a guess can be both intelligent and plucked out of the air, but really it's by the by. The point is that they have a number based on fuck all evidence and a vague feeling that the medical profession really ought have an answer, and if you exceed that number then you're drinking too much, end of discussion. Doesn't matter whether you're an enormous flanker type with the capacity to out-drink a small Moscow suburb or a five foot nothing woman who can get pissed on a glass of wine, you're drinking an amount which is officially unhealthy, and since a large glass of wine is three units on its own you certainly don't have to get sloshed to get there. Small wonder that some healthist think tank can found that 8 million people - about a fifth of the workforce overall and so a good chunk of the number of white collar jobs I suspect they mean by "professionals" -  are drinking too much. Christ, even if you just get tipsy once a week and that's not the only time you drank then you almost certainly had more than 21 units, although the current article implies that they've been raised slightly at some point.

Government advice states men should drink no more than four units a day and women no more than three.

Which despite being more over the course of a week is actually a subtle move towards further puritanism - it's still no more than a large glass of wine or a pint of medium beer per day for the ladies and a pint and a half of the same beer or maybe two pints of coloured water variety beer for the fellas. Even your openly teetotal and increasingly lightweight Exile could probably still drink two pints of piss-strength without being what anyone would really call drunk, and if I was going to make them last all day I seriously doubt I'd even feel it. That the goalposts have quietly been made so wide seems a little suspicious, and so I had a little Google and almost immediately I found a BBC article from August 09 that mentions the reason for the low daily limit rather than an even lower weekly one.

The 1987 sensible drinking limits, which set the bar at 21 units per week for men and 14 units per week for women, remained in place until 1995.
It was then that the government decided to switch the limits from weekly to daily in a bid to curb binge drinking and emphasise the harms of saving up a week's limit to blow in one or two sessions at the weekend - a decision it stands by today.

Which should be surprising only in that it was the previous Tory nannies rather than the Labour nannies or the current Cobbleition nannies who were behind the move. It certainly shouldn't be any surprise that after three different governments under four different PMs British drinkers are still being told to restrict themselves to the equivalent of two pints of fizzy piss a day in case they choose - and how dare, how very bloody dare they even think of choosing for themselves - to lay off the sauce during the week so they can make merry, or at least a little less miserable, at the weekend. Oh, except for British drinkers with breasts, who are to have no more than a pint and a half of fizzy piss, probably not even that if they've got children. Jesus, these days you could probably heave a brick at an Alcohol Concern meeting and hit half a dozen people who'd tell you it should be less even if someone hasn't got children but was in a slightly wistful and broody mood for half an hour or so around mid-afternoon. Yes, of course I'm being sarcastic but I'm afraid to Google again in case I also turn out to be right.

As an aside before returning to the current nannying there's one other thing in that 09 BBC article I'd like to draw attention to, which is that it was basically about neo-puritans getting their cocks in a knot because - you'll never guess, oh, fuck me sideways with a beer barrel, you just did already - the guidelines aren't tough enough and are fooling everyone into drinking too much.

Daily limits on alcohol consumption are meaningless and potentially harmful, experts have warned.
The government says men should drink no more than three to four units per day and women no more than two to three.
Liver specialist Dr Nick Sheron, of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, says these limits were devised by civil servants with "no good evidence" for doing so.

Why should there be? There was no good evidence for the previous suggestions either, remember?

He says the advice runs the risk of people taking it to mean that it is safe to drink alcohol every day.

And the older advice risked people not drinking daily and having what the puritans doubtless regard as a skinful and what everyone else would think of as a few drinks at the weekend. Heads the nannies win, tails the drinkers lose.

Dr Sheron's comments follow a report by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee which suggested public confusion about safe drinking levels was fuelling problem drinking.

Of course it is. On Planet Righteous where the public naturally deals with any confusion by getting throughly shitfaced nearly anything can fuel problem drinking. Certainly anything that doesn't make it absolutely crystal clear that no level of alcohol... come on, everyone, you all know the words by now.

Dr Sheron says we should go back to using the old weekly limits, which are based on sound research.

Sound research? Do us a fucking favour, they were based on two fifths of fuck all. Calling it sound research is either ignorant of the Times article less than two years before in which someone who was actually there admits that they were made up, or is simply bullshit.

And from misleading, ah, sorry, confusing the public with arbitrary limits based on nothing much and other policy based evidence it's now suggested that GPs have yet another set of boxes to tick, along with a financial incentive to tick 'em, in the form of interrogating patients about their alcohol consumption and having a regular schedule of opportunities to do so. All backed up by a report with some numbers to make it sound justified, natch. And don't go thinking this is lefty do-gooders at work here (my bold).

The report, by 2020 Health, a centre-right think tank, says many middle class drinkers are not aware of the risks of their evening tipple...

See? This is nudge stuff. That (mostly) unspoken assumption that you don't know what's best for you, are incapable of finding out for yourself and understanding, and therefore can't be trusted make your own decisions on the matter. It's old style rightist paternalism of the kind the alleged Tory PM, David Cameramong, is absolutely in fucking love with, the supercilious prick. In the minds of these people failing to comply with recommendations cannot possibly mean that an individual has simply weighed and accepted the risks - it can only mean that they didn't understand, that they're in a state of confusion and must be helped and guided and steered, and if need be cajoled and bullied and forced.

It's denormalisation, folks. Come now, you didn't think that was just something to be used on smokers, did you? The "normal" amount of alcohol consumption has been determined to be as near to nothing as makes no odds, and you will be questioned to see if you comply and nagged if you don't. And in case you're wondering who did the determining, here's a familiar name.

The Royal College of Physicians said the current guidance was 'extremely dangerous' because it implied that drinking every day was safe.

This is presumably the very same Royal College of Physicians that not so very long ago more or less sat around a table making up some very similar sounding guidance. There isn't an actual question in there, not as such, but all the same the answer to that is also "Fuck off."