Monthly Archives: October 2010

Counter-Revolution, Anyone?

The smoking ban has always struck me as an act of cultural vandalism, and part of a war on traditional British culture by people who, even if they have been elected as MPs, hate that culture. The global warming scare … Continue reading

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AGW, Smoking, and Slavery.

I’m always interested when the global warming controversy gets linked with the smoking controversy. Here’s someone who’s comparing both of them with the abolition of slavery. Addressing climate change requires a shift in cultural attitudes about greenhouse gas emissions on … Continue reading

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Zyban, Chantix, NRT, etc.

A comment by Rose earlier today set me thinking: Smoking pill link to 35 deaths "GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second largest drug company, conceded yesterday that the anti-smoking drug Zyban was suspected of causing adverse reactions in 35 people who have … Continue reading

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Burn Them Out with Flamethrowers

I read a month or so back that the UN were going to a appoint someone to meet aliens from outer space. WHEN aliens arrive on Earth, they will no longer have to worry about who will greet them. The … Continue reading

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Clegg, Science, and Drugs

In the comments yesterday, Dick Puddlecote posted a link to a brief clip of a video interview of Nick Clegg from earlier in 2010. I’d not seen it before, and found it very interesting. The more I listened to it, … Continue reading

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Clegg’s Stash of Cigarettes

Poor old Nick Clegg. Everybody is kicking him for saying he smokes, and for asking for "a stash of cigarettes" to take to his desert island. (H/T to TBY, you can hear his recording of Desert Island Discs here) The antismoking … Continue reading

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No Such Thing as Society

"There is no such thing as society," Margaret Thatcher famously once said. "There are only men, women, and families." I think she meant that there is no such thing as "society" which exists over and above its individual members. We … Continue reading

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20 marlboro please.

In his Open Letter to Vince Cable in the New Statesman, Peter Kellner makes a number of claims which defy common sense. He says the tobacco display ban won’t hurt small retailers, when it quite obviously will, and the retailers have … Continue reading

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Two Wings of One Army

‘We are,’ he said, ‘subject to a heavily biased and carefully organized propaganda.’ ‘The current debate is a public policy debate with enormous implications… It is about the government, the politicians, their scribes and the lobbyists who want to get … Continue reading

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Smoky Drinky Thoughts

While I’ve been tinkering around with statistics and scatter diagrams and so forth, I’ve been thinking about something Leg-iron wrote a few days back: I have seen the future and it’s smoky-drinky. He said: I like pubs. I really like to spend … Continue reading

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