Posted Without Comment

Posted without comment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54328466

The Welsh Government plans to ban smoking in playgrounds by March.

Smoking on the touchlines at children’s football matches is being banned by the Football Association of Wales.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething praised the ban by the FAW and its trust, which supports grassroots football.

“Voluntary bans like this one help protect children from seeing smoking as an acceptable and normal behaviour and can help prevent them from taking up smoking in the first place,” he said.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/singing-dancing-pubs-bars-banned-coronavirus-laws-a4558486.html

Fury over new ‘draconian’ coronavirus laws which includes ban on loud music, singing and dancing in bars and pubs

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ron-paul-question-science-go-gulag

“YouTube does not allow content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of the World Health Organization.”

Killjoy Moral Crusaders

Taking :Liberties:

A leading Labour-run council has banned staff from smoking at their desks if they are working from home, in what campaigners say is an emerging “moral crusade” by local authorities against tobacco lovers.

Hammersmith and Fulham council, which represents one of the country’s richest areas in London, told its staff in guidance that “any part of a private dwelling used solely for work purposes will be required to be smoke-free”

The war on smoking has always been a moral crusade. It’s never been anything else.

It’s never been about Health. How could it have been when the war on smoking saw smokers expelled from pubs, exiled to the cold and wet outdoors?

The simple fact of the matter is that the antismokers hate smoking. They think, like the late Dr W, that smoking is a filthy habit. And they want to put a stop to it. That’s the beginning and the end of it. But they disguise their moral crusade as a Health measure.

They’re concerned with appearances. They don’t like the sight of smoking. They also don’t like the sight of drinking. And they don’t like the sight of obesity. They have a long list of things they don’t like the sight of, or the sound of, or the idea of. And they want to put a stop to all of them.

And they’re killjoys. They disapprove of anything that people enjoy. Food, sex, drinking, smoking, idleness, luxury.

And they of course make a lot of enemies.

And they are prophets of impending doom.

And they claim the moral high ground. They regard themselves as good people, and better than most. They never have any doubts about it.

They seem to multiply in times of prosperity, and decline in times of hardship.

In our prosperous times they are of course numerous, and they seem to be most numerous in America, the most prosperous country in the world. And their current prophecy of doom is that of Global Warming, which is claimed to be a consequence of our current prosperity, as we generate carbon dioxide (usually just called carbon, which is black) with our industry.

Most American killjoys seem to belong to the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton banned smoking in the White House and Michael Bloomberg banned smoking in New York City, and both have run for the Presidency as Democrats. It seems to be Democrats who are usually behind restrictive environmental protection measures like smoking bans. They often call themselves “progressives”, but if progress is measured by wealth and prosperity  and freedom, they are really the enemies of progress.

If such people loathe republican president Donald Trump, it’s because he’s not only very rich, but is ostentatiously and unapologetically rich. And the American economy has boomed during his presidency, with environmental protection slashed. Donald Trump is not a killjoy.

The current coronavirus pandemic provides another excuse for killjoy control freaks to impose draconian restrictions on everyone. But this time they may have gone too far, and made too many enemies, precisely because the new strictures apply to everybody.

Contrary to current polls, I expect Donald Trump to be re-elected in November. It’ll be a big defeat for the killjoys. But they’ll be back. They never really go away.

The Forgotten People

Something Michael Moore said (10:00 minutes):

“I can say that from my end of the political spectrum, we don’t forget people. We’re actually about remembering the people who are forgotten, and fighting for them… The real forgotten people, the people who still don’t have the power, that don’t have the voice: women, people of colour, young people. These are the forgotten people”

Are those really the forgotten people?

Is there any way that they can possibly be the forgotten people?

The very fact that people like Michael Moore are remembering them means that they’re not forgotten. They’re really the unforgotten people.

We have lots and lots of these unforgotten people. Women. Blacks. Jews. Gays and lesbians. Etc, etc. There’s an entire literature attached to each of them. We’re never allowed to forget them for a moment.

It’s true that they once were forgotten. But the forgotten women got the vote a century ago. And the forgotten blacks got civil rights 60 years ago. And forgotten homosexuality was decriminalised 40 or 50 years ago. These are all people who’ve been remembered for a very long time. So how can anyone say that they’re forgotten? If anything they’ve been remembered for far too long.

I think there are lots of better candidates for the truly forgotten. They’re the people who really are forgotten and ignored and despised like women and blacks and gays once were. They’re the people that the likes of Michael Moore never remember.

For just when women and blacks and gays were being given the vote, given new rights, and stopped being persecuted, other people started being excluded and persecuted instead.

For example: smokers.

A century ago smokers could smoke everywhere. Now those rights have been taken away. They can hardly smoke anywhere. And they are robbed with punitive taxation. And nobody listens to them. Nobody pays any attention to them.

Another example: fat people.

Twiggy

A century ago fat people were held in high esteem. Santa Claus or Father Christmas was a beaming fat guy who brought everyone presents on Christmas Day. But over the past century the admired body type has become thin. Remember Twiggy from the 1960s? Fat people are now pressured to lose weight. Fat people  are despised. Fat people have told me that it’s much worse for them than it is for smokers. And I can believe them. In my experience some people are just naturally fat, and some naturally thin, just like some people are naturally short and some naturally tall. I’m naturally thin. My mother used to implore me to eat more. But I stayed thin however much I ate. Don’t ask me why.

There’s an odd relationship between smoking and obesity. Smokers tend not to get fat. Maybe that’s because smoking suppresses appetite. But a century or so ago, particularly during wartime, when everyone was thin and wiry, more or less everyone smoked. It’s really only been over the past 60 years, while people have been stopping smoking, that people have started getting fat. You either smoke and stay thin, or you stop smoking and get fat: you’ll be disapproved of either way.

Smokers are despised and excluded, and fat people are despised and excluded too (although I’ve yet to see any No Fat People signs. Why not?). And both are forgotten. They’re the forgotten forgotten. And there are probably plenty more forgotten forgotten people: I forget who.

The persecution of both smokers and fat people has been carried out in the name of Health – Public Health. The UK National Health Service was created in 1948. The UK government Department of Health was created in 1988. Public Health is a tyrannical new invention. Somehow or other us Brits survived for thousands or years without Public Health. It’s a new religion. In the old religion you died and then went to heaven (or hell): in the new religion you never die. Or you’ll never die if you eat a Healthy Diet, don’t touch Junk Food, get plenty of Exercise, and breathe Smoke-Free Air.

The old religion was run by bishops and priests and monks in monasteries and cathedrals. The new religion is run by doctors and nurses and health experts in hospitals. True believers in the old religion are now regarded as being gullible, believing everything they were told unquestioningly. True believers in the new religion are equally gullible: they believe everything they’re told by doctors.

The old religion ended when the monasteries were closed down, and monks evicted onto the streets. It’ll be the same with the new religion. The hospitals will be closed down, and the doctors and nurses evicted from them. It’ll happen when Public Health becomes even more completely insufferable than it already is. It’ll happen when Public Health has succeeded in excluding and demonising not just smokers and fat people, but everybody else as well.

And with the UK about be locked down yet again because of the current crazy coronavirus panic, we might be approaching the point where absolutely everybody is completely sick and tired of bullying and blackmailing Public Health zealots.

And when they’ve all been swept away, people will be encouraged to enjoy their lives, stop trying to live forever. They’ll be encouraged to eat and drink and smoke. It’ll be a new Restoration after years of oppression by the pinch-faced killjoys of Public Health. And then all the forgotten will be remembered, and all the too-long-remembered will be forgotten.

The Selfish and the Selfless

I guess that Progressives believe in Progress, and Progress is something that makes the world a better place. They think the world can become a better place.

Smoking bans are seen as Progressive. Smoking bans make for a smoke-free world. And ridding the world of smoke (of any kind whatsoever) is seen as Progress.  Clean air is good air, and unclean smoky air is bad air. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

The UK Clean Air Acts of the 1950s were mostly intended to reduce the burning of coal, and to increase electric and gas usage. But once one form of smoke could be outlawed, the way was open to outlaw  every kind of smoke. And that could – and eventually did – include tobacco smoke. So smoking bans were regarded by Progressives as a further extension of the Clean Air Acts. Smoking bans made the world into a cleaner and better place.

But there’s at least one big difference between coal smoke and tobacco smoke: nobody actually liked coal smoke, but lots of people liked tobacco smoke. Nobody ever lit lumps of coal just to produce some smoke: they lit it to generate heat. But smokers never lit tobacco to produce heat: they lit it to generate smoke. Tobacco smoke was what smokers wanted.

And that meant that while Progressives approved of smoking bans, smokers disapproved. With smoking bans, smokers lost the smoke they liked. One bunch of people gained, and another bunch lost. But the smokers’ protests were ignored.

More or less anything can be seen as Progress if the people who don’t like it are ignored.

It might be said that smokers don’t want Progress. Or that smokers don’t believe in Progress. Or that smokers don’t think the world can ever be a better place. It might even be that smokers are people who just want to soothe and calm themselves as they live in a difficult, imperfect world. They’re not trying to make the world into a better place: they’re just trying to make it a bit better for themselves.

Faced with a trying and difficult world, Progressives set out to improve the whole world, while smokers  just try to make it slightly better for themselves. It’s the same with drinking: people feel better after a beer and a cigarette. It doesn’t make the world a better place: it just makes them feel better for a few minutes.

Smokers are often regarded as selfish in their pursuit of their own private, personal good, and Progressive antismokers are seen as unselfish.in their selfless pursuit of the common good.

And it’s from this that the Progressive antismokers acquire their moral superiority: they’re not claiming to act selfishly for their own benefit, but selflessly for the benefit of everybody.

But can anyone act for the benefit of everybody? Is it possible to act for the benefit of everybody while simultaneously disregarding the opinions of everybody else? After all, the opinions of smokers are always disregarded by antismoking Progressives. Anyone who claims to act for the benefit of everybody is also claiming to themselves know what’s better for everybody. And anyone who is claiming to know what’s better for everybody is giving primacy to their own opinion, and this is itself a form of extreme selfishness: I know best. So the supposedly selfless Progressives are actually the most selfish.

Equally, smokers who act solely for their own benefit are not claiming to know what’s good for everyone else. They don’t claim primacy to their own opinion. They allow other people to have their own, differing opinions. In this manner supposedly selfish smokers prove to be selfless: they don’t impose their opinions on everyone else.

People are always acting selfishly all the time. I eat when I want to eat, not when everyone wants to eat. I put on a raincoat when I want to wear one, not when everyone wants to wear one. I go to sleep when I want to sleep. not when everyone wants to sleep. But I don’t expect everyone else to eat when I want to eat, or sleep when I want to sleep. Yet this is what the antismokers want: when they don’t want to smoke, they demand that nobody smoke. And they will make laws to enforce their demand.

Can anyone ever really act selflessly? Can anyone stop being themselves, and start being everyone? No, we can’t. We are all each always helplessly ourselves, and ourselves alone. The only thing we can know about anyone else is what they tell us about themselves. To the extent that we ignore other people’s opinions, to that extent we pay attention only to our own opinion. To the extent that antismokers ignore smokers, to that extent they listen only to themselves,

New Scares For Old

Via Chris Snowdon:

Smoking continues to be a problem in multi-unit housing, and while stay-at-home orders have helped to reduce transmission of COVID-19, they have also increased exposure to secondhand smoke from neighbors.

My interpretation of this is that, ever since Covid-19 took over as the latest big scare, the zealots running the old scares (like tobacco smoke and global warming) are desperately trying to revitalise their tired old scares by linking them to the new scare.

So Covid-19 is making people stay at home and breathe secondhand smoke from neighbours. The suggestion seems to be that this is what’s really dangerous about it: Covid-19 amplifies the danger of secondhand smoke. In this manner secondhand smoke is restored to its rightful place as the greatest single threat to human life.

I expect to read that Covid-19 is increasing global warming, as people isolate themselves in their cars, and burn more fuel. In that manner global warming will also be restored to its rightful place as the greatest single threat to human life.

All it really shows is that a couple of old scares have now been overtaken by a new scare, and are struggling to stay relevant.

In time, Covid-19 will in its turn be overtaken by yet another new scare. Are there any likely candidates on the horizon?

Right now California seems to be on fire from one end to the other, with smoke reaching the east coast. That should be quite easy to link to secondhand smoke: the California fires could be said to be adding to the pre-existing (and far more dangerous) threat of secondhand smoke from neighbours. It’s even easier to link to global warming,  because the fires will be producing huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

It’s the same with all the rioting and burning and looting currently going on in US cities, which some people think is a prelude to civil war. That could also be linked to the threat of secondhand smoke from neighbours (as their homes light up as well), and to anthropogenic global warming.

Personally I discount all these threats. I don’t think there’s going to be a US civil war. I just think that the more one gets threatened, the more likely that Americans will vote for the one man who’d act decisively to stop it happening: Donald Trump. I think Trump is going to win in a landslide. And with luck he’ll then start arresting the rioters and looters and firebrands en masse, along with their Democrat politician enablers.

And also with luck the threats of secondhand smoke and global warming will have by then become past history, and as much long-forgotten threats as the Ozone Hole and HIV and Fidel Castro (remember them?).

Old Broadcast Media and New Internet Media

Mail:

Donald Trump says he wants Joe Rogan to host US presidential debate against Joe Biden

This is interesting. In the past the debate would have been hosted by CNN or NBC or something like that. Now the proposal is to have Joe Rogan host it on his podcast.

If nothing else it shows how the old mainstream media studios are giving way to new internet media personalities. In the old media a topic would be covered in a news or current affairs program in about 10 seconds. In the new media the same topic can get chewed over in a discussion lasting three or four hours.

Perhaps it’s simply that the technology is cheaper and simpler. The old media needed big studios with bulky cameras and cameramen and directors and producers, plus a radio or TV transmitter. The new media just needs one guy with a webcam and an internet connection. And he can do it from his bedroom: no need for studios and lights and cameramen.

In this circumstance the one guy becomes the most important element. Can he keep talking? Can he stay interesting? The technology fades into the background. And Joe Rogan  is someone who can do this. So, sure, he could host a debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He hosts such debates every day. Here’s Joe Rogan discussing doing a Trump-Biden debate (2,01 hrs)

“This is 2020. We have the ability to have that. We’re not talking about 1979… I’d 100% do it.”

It probably won’t happen. Joe Rogan doesn’t think Joe Biden could handle it.

“I’ve seen him fall apart,”

Joe Biden will want to use his friends in the old media, with prepared questions, prepared answers, and limited time slots.

But Trump’s up for it. Trump’s up for anything.

If Biden won’t do it, Trump should just have a discussion with Joe Rogan (who is a Bernie Sanders supporter).

Also interesting is how the mainstream media have picked up this story. e.g. NYT

There’s going to be no getting away from this election for the next six weeks.

If there’s no discussion of smoking bans, it’s because the mainstream media never discuss it. They have their own agenda. If it ever gets discussed seriously, it’ll have to be in the new media.

A Marginalized and Underrepresented Population

Steve Turley on new Oscars guidelines:

The first requirement includes hiring “at least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors” that belongs to a marginalized population…

Similarly, 30% or fewer “secondary or more minor roles” must be occupied by women, people in the LGBTQ+ community, or a racial or ethnic group, as well as those with cognitive or physical difficulties, or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The first standard also requires that storylines focus on the same underrepresented groups.

Can anyone think of another “marginalized population” or “underrepresented group”?

One glaringly obvious one comes to mind: smokers.

Smokers everywhere in the world.

So in all new movies at least one leading actor will need to be a smoker. And several minor roles must also be smokers. And the plot should be about the exclusion and persecution of smokers.

Any suggestions?

Possible storyline: Several dozen smokers are sitting in a bar with beer and cigarettes when a bunch of Tobacco Control killjoys come in and put up No Smoking signs. The expelled smokers start dying of cold, exposure, etc, but nevertheless resolutely resist and carry on smoking anyway. A global smokers’ movement grows up all over the world, and eventually defeats Tobacco Control, imprisoning all the killjoys on a remote island. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Something along those lines, anyway…

Lead actor should be Humphrey Bogart. Lead actress Lauren Bacall. Set in Rick’s Bar in Casablanca.

 

Bad Craziness, Getting Worse

Where will it end?

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out the future for the nation the government is working towards, where daily coronavirus testing becomes a fact of life for millions and failing a test means being banned from social spaces and the workplace.

Nigel Farage responds:

This draconian law that comes in from Monday to allow gatherings of only 6 people will not be respected by protestors and those going to raves, so why should the rest of us comply?

Daily testing? Maximum six person gatherings? Whatever next?

This is very bad craziness. And it’s getting worse. It would seem that the British government has panicked as the number of coronavirus cases has begun to increase again. Will the British people panic too?

I discovered yesterday that my local Herefordshire town now has a 20 mph speed limit. Not sure if it’s a response to coronavirus, but I won’t be surprised if it was.

 

Trump Will Win

I’m not a betting man, but back in 2016 I placed a bet that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election. I won, and my only regret was that I didn’t place the bet a bit earlier, when I could have got odds of 100 to 1.

Why did I think he’d win? Because he was a political outsider up against a political insider, Hillary Clinton, who seemed to think that it was her turn to become president like her husband Bill Clinton had been. I thought she was heading for a fall. I didn’t think she was a good candidate. Bill was a charismatic man, a bit of a charmer, and she wasn’t. And about her only achievement had been to get Bill to ban smoking in the White House: she was a killjoy.

Four years on, I think that Trump is going to be re-elected. But the reasons are very different. He’s no longer really a political outsider: how can you be a political outsider if you’re President of the United States? But now, hard as it is to imagine, he’s up against an even weaker candidate than in 2016, in the person of Joe Biden, whom a lot of people think won’t last long as president, even if he gets elected. Vote for him, and you’ll see vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris become president. And she’s even weaker than Hillary was.

And at the same time, the Trump presidency hasn’t been a disaster. He’s been a perfectly good president. And he’s proven to be a man of remarkable character (in my opinion) for his steadfastness in the face of unrelenting attacks from the US mainstream media: he just soldiers on through. My opinion of him has risen over the past four years. I used to think he was just a showman.

So this time around, unlike last time, I think that he’s pretty much bound to win. Americans would be crazy to vote for Joe and Kamala. They’ll only vote that way if they so hate Trump that they’ll vote for anyone but him. And that’s what a Biden-Harris vote would be: it would be a vote against Trump, rather than for them, and for whatever they stand for (does anyone know?).

And it seems to me that the Trump-haters can see all this, and have begun to realise that he’s very likely to win. Hillary Clinton has said recently that if he loses, Biden shouldn’t concede. Why would she say that if she thought Trump was going to lose? She thinks he’s going to win.

In addition, I took note a week or two back that several Democrat politicians were switching sides.

Six Democrat mayors in swing state Minnesota endorse Donald Trump

Would they do that if they thought Biden would win? No: they think Trump is going to win.

Add also Noam Chomsky:

Trump will destroy us if he wins.

By “us” he means the Left. Looks like he’s another one who thinks Trump is going to win.

It seems like the Democrats are already resigned to losing. And now they’re threatening:

No Biden, No Peace

and trying to rig the election with mail-in voting.

They’re desperate. They’re utterly desperate.

So I think that, short of some extreme shock event, it’s going to be a landslide for Trump in November.

But I won’t be putting money on it this time: I suspect the odds won’t be anywhere near as good as they were in 2016.

It’s not just my guess:

The Supremacy of Public Health

Apparently you’re a Nazi if you protest against the official Coronavirus narrative in Germany:

On Wednesday, three days before the demo, having successfully whipped the New Normal masses up into a state of wide-eyed panic over the imminent neo-Nazi invasion, the Berlin government banned the protests. The New Normal masses celebrated. A few concerns about … you know, democracy, were perfunctorily voiced, but they were quickly silenced when Interior Senator Andreas Geisel explained that abrogating the people’s constitutional right to freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech, and to petition their government, was not in any way a totalitarian act, but was purely a matter of “protecting the public health.” (my added emphasis)

Here”s yet another example of the supremacy of “public health”. It’s the only thing that matters. Everything else – freedom of assembly and speech, etc – are trivial by comparison.

Smokers have known this for a long time, of course.They were expelled from pubs and cafes and restaurants to combat the supposed threat to “public health” posed by their tobacco smoke.

The latest threat to “public health” is the coronavirus epidemic. Unlike tobacco smoke, this actually is a real threat. But it’s not much worse a threat than that posed by annual ‘flu epidemics. But, as ever, it’s a threat that has been exaggerated, this time to more or less close down the entire economy.

But it’s just one in a long line of imaginary threats to “public health”, which include the threat of sea level rise as a result of Global Warming or Climate Change, Brexit, Trump, and much else beside.

Since huge amounts of money are thrown into fighting such threats, they now compete with each other to become the top threat deserving the greatest funding. For example:

Bill Gates issued a stark warning for the world: ‘As awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse’

and

Climate change is a more important issue than coronavirus, Brexit or Scottish independence. It’s time to start taking it seriously – Kenny MacAskill MP

The likely end result will be that nobody will take any of these threats seriously. And it will lead to the demise of the greedy, fear-mongering Public Health industry. And this may have just started.

There’s a collapse in public trust in all authority under way. It’s why the mainstream media are increasingly ignored, and new people – usually individuals, like Joe Rogan or Alex Jones or Michael Savage, to name just a few – have sprung up in their place, attracting far greater audiences than they do. There’s a public hunger for authentic individuals telling their own personal truth, rather than merely reading scripts from teleprompters.

What makes an authentic individual? For a start, they’re individual people rather than companies (like BBC or CNN). Secondly they’re not in glitzy well-lit studios, but instead in dim-lit simple rooms surrounded by personal effects. Thirdly they’re not wearing suits, and they’re often wearing headphones/earphones and talking into visibly huge microphones.  Fourthly they speak unscripted, smile, laugh, drink mugs of coffee, and (occasionally) smoke cigarettes (or something).

I think what happens is that people can identify with them, if they look like them, speak like them, and live in homes like them. People can believe them in ways they increasingly can’t believe the stuffed suits on television.

Television is old media: a single company one-way broadcasting to millions. The internet is new media: individual people in two-way conversation. In the old media the audience never got heard.

One of the most successful in the new media, Joe Rogan, is always in face-to-face conversation with someone. The conversations are perfectly natural, and can last for hours.

It’s a new world.

…

Following on from a recent post about Stonehenge, odd thing I found out yesterday: several of Britain’s major megalithic sites – Avebury (Latitude: 51.4238° N, Longitude -1.8525° W), Silbury hill (51.4157° N, -1.8574° W), Stonehenge ( 51.1740° N, -1.8224° W) and Old Sarum (51.1017° N, -1.7843° W)- all share within 7/100th of a degree the same longitude, and all lie within a north-south corridor 3 km wide and at least 80 km long. Several other less well-known sites also fall inside the same corridor. Is this just chance, or was there once a corridor connecting the sites?

If the north-south corridor is extended in length to some 560 km into northern England, it reaches the east coast of England at about the island of Lindisfarne or Holy Island (55.6808° N, -1.8009° W).