A few days back, the prohibition of tobacco and alcohol in Iraq by Muslim extremists raised the question of whether Western antismoking organisations would support such measures.
H/T Harley, it would seem that at least one Muslim group in Indonesia was getting funding from a Michael Bloomberg-owned organisation in 2010:
An organization owned by the mayor of New York City has channeled over US$390,000 to Muhammadiyah as part of a global anti-tobacco campaign, but the country’s second largest Islamic organization denied the funding influenced its recent edict banning smoking.
A. Fattah Wibisono, a deputy secretary at Muhammadiyah’s council tasked with issuing religious edicts, acknowledged that his organization was cooperating with the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, a philanthropic organization established in 2006 by Michael R. Bloomberg to fight tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries…
The Bloomberg Initiative says on its website, http://www.tobaccocontrolgrants.org, its program with Muhammadiyah aims “to mobilize public support towards obtaining religious policy on tobacco control and to support FCTC [Framework Convention on Tobacco Control] accession”.
Muhammadiyah issued an edict banning its followers from smoking on Wednesday, basing its argument on the Koran, which bans Muslims from taking their own lives. It also urged the government and the House of Representatives to ratify the FCTC.
Muhammadiyah denied that it received funding to issue the edict. But it would seem that “obtaining religious policy” of this sort was precisely the aim of the Bloomberg Initiative, and it got exactly what it wanted.
And this shows that antismoking organisations are now prepared to reach beyond governmental public health agencies and attempt to secure religious support in their war on tobacco and smokers.
It has, in short, become a religious war on smoking.
Of course, the war on smokers always was a fanatical religious war, masquerading as a public health campaign. Tobacco Control is a religious cult. So it’s really only revealing its true nature by acquiring Islamic allies.
But it raises the question of whether the Bloomberg Initiative grant is just one of many such grants being made by Western antismoking organisations to other Muslim groups. After all, since Al Qaeda is strongly antismoking, it cannot be beyond the realms of possibility that Al Qaeda has itself been the recipient of similar funding. And since ISIL/ISIS in Iraq is an offshoot of Al Qaeda, they also may be receiving funding from Western antismoking organisations.
And if Islamic groups are being funded, why not Christian and Buddhist and Hindu ones as well? Has the Bloomberg Initiative approached the Vatican with a view to having smoking added to the list of Seven Deadly Sins?
And since this is now a religious war on tobacco, might we not begin to ask what the religious affiliations of the Tobacco Controllers might be? Perhaps we will find that many of them are converts to Islam, and maybe even members of Al Qaeda. Maybe someone should ask Deborah Arnott which chapel or mosque or coven she attends.
Frank Davis 
Actually, I believe I ran across stories about Christian and Jewish “Faith based initiatives” in the antismoking world a few years back. I don’t think they’ve gotten a lot of traction, and don’t remember funding transfers, but there’ve definitely been efforts made out there.
– MJM
Oh Mike its much deeper than that at least when it comes to RWJF’s FAITH BASED OUTREACH PROGRAMS…………..
Faith United: Disparate Faith Groups Come Together Against Big Tobacco
In 2005, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and leaders from many different religious denominations launched a national campaign — Faith United Against Tobacco — to mobilize the faith community across the country to support proven solutions to reduce smoking.
Faith groups involved in Faith United include, among others, United Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, National Council of Churches, Seventh Day Adventists, American Muslim Foundation, Southern Baptist Convention, Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, Church Women United, Church of the Brethren and Islamic Society of North America.
We were involved in Prohibition and against pornography and gambling as predatory enterprises. Fighting tobacco use also fits well with Christian and other faith groups’ teaching in general that the body is a holy temple.
http://www.rwjf.org/publichealth/product.jsp?id=40788
Oh Lord they’ve even branched out into anti-obesity in faith based out reach programs!
Faith-Based Coalitions to Combat Childhood Obesity …
http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/…/01/faith-based-coalitions-to-combat...
In a new multimillion-dollar initiative, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has joined with 21 faith-based coalitions across the country to prevent childhood …
.
Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships for Public …
http://www.rwjf.org/en/blogs/new-public-health/2013/04/faith-based_and...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships engages with community organizations across the country …
I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, and over the past few months on a Sunday I’ve noticed a couple of people handing out leaflets about the Bible outside the Princes Street entrance to Waverley Station. They have quite a substantial display rack with them which holds religions pamphlets, part of which has space to display posters. Two weeks ago I was startled to see a poster asking ‘What Does The Bible Say About Smoking?’ accompanied by the usual stock footage of a close up of a cigarette being held up against a pair of lips accompanied by unlikely-looking clouds of thick smoke. I didn’t have time to investigate further but remember thinking the obvious answer to be ‘zilch’ of course. I only hope that children were told not to look at the pillar of smoke that guided the Israelites across the desert and that people were careful not to get too close.
If the Bible has something to say about smoking, then I’m sure we will find a passage in there about e-cigarettes.
It seems there’s nothing they won’t use – childbirth, parenting, family relationships, religion … whatever next?
A cult? Yes. But it’s a medical cult, i.e., neo-eugenics or hygienism (currently referred to as “healthism”). It’s medical in that “health” is portrayed as only a physical, absence of disease phenomenon, i.e., biological reductionism.
We know it’s medical because it’s a medical collective (Godber Blueprint) that set this crusade in motion and has nurtured and developed it since. We know it’s not just tobacco. It’s also alcohol, diet, exercise. That’s the behavioral dimension of eugenics.
The “recruiting” of groups, e.g., religious, feminist, environmental, that could be manipulated to the antismoking “cause” has been a part of the plan from the outset: Make alliances of any group that can be useful to the “cause”.
Report on 5th World Conference on Smoking and Health, Winnipeg, Canada, 1983 (see Godber Blueprint)
One of the “top priority” recommendations said that world religious leaders and groups would be asked to support actively the international anti-smoking program. An approach was to be made to the World Council of Churches which meets in Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – August 10. It can be presumed that the Confereence chairman communicated with officials there. The Council holds an Assembly every six to eight years; its previous Assembly was in 1975.
A session on smoking and religion was held during the Conference. Speakers included a Canadian Rabbi, a US Seventh-day Adventist, A session on smoking and religion was held during the Conference. Speakers included a Canadian Rabbi, a US Seventh-day Adventist, a UK Archbishop and a US Mormon. The chairman was an Egyptian Moslem, Dr. Omar Sherif. All inveighed against tobacco with varying degrees of clarity. Only 14 persons attended what had been promoted as a major new field.
For the benefit of readers in Islamic countries, the section on smoking and Islam is reported here in more detail. Dr. Omar Sherif gave a short resume of the introduction of tobacco into Moslim areas and the teachings of Islam regarding its use.
Reference was made to studies and tradition within Islam as a basis for serious questions about tobacco use with a consensus that it should be prohibited because of the following reasons : harmful habit, no nutritional or medical value, wasteful habit, offensive and irritating to others (especially in Islamic worship environs) , classed as an intoxicant or narcotic and as a behavioral modifier and change agent, i.e., “making a pleasant person unpleasant”. Having identified these reasons for prohibition, Dr. Sherif concluded that Islamic law does not specifically prohibit tobacco use and usage depends on interpretation of the law. He further explained, however, that, current Islamic thought affirms the dangers of experimentation with both tobacco and alcohol, and the requirement for older Moslems to teach discipline and model sobriety for new Islamic generations.
Dr. Sherif ended his presentation by reporting on two recent events that support a more aggressive strategy for a policy of prohibition. The first was a March 1983 International Islamic conference in Saudi Arabia at the holy city of Mecca that recommended prohibition because tobacco usage was not beneficial but harmful to human health, wasteful (time, energy, creative accomplishment for Allah), and causes lassitude in users. The second event described televising anti-smoking sermons by imams from Cairo mosques and the positive response from the Moslem community, thus promoting more extensive media use by religious leaders in anti-smoking campaigns. (p.9-10)
We can see that there was initially very little interest in the antismoking crusade by religious groups. But by 2000 quite a few religious denominations had been talked onto the bandwagon. The easiest ones to convince were those religious groups that are themselves anti-tobacco (and usually anti-alcohol), e.g., Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons [these groups were also supporters of anti-tobacco early last century in America and Germany]
The medical cult (social engineering towards ideological goals) sees itself above all, that it can tap into any institution, regardless of that institution’s beliefs, to advance its ideological agenda. The medical cult approaches all sorts of groups with its standard inflammatory propaganda – “saving lives”, destroying the “merchants of death”, “helping the addicts”, creating a “healthier” society. Unless an organization has considerable wisdom and familiarity with the hysterics of moralizing zealots, they are easy pickings for the neo-eugenicists. And, as has been seen, there are few, if any, with this critical insight.
It’s disturbing that there are few, if any, that haven’t joined the “crusade”. It’s to these religious groups’ great shame that they cannot recognize a bigotry bandwagon or the agenda-driven, inflammatory lies of activism when it’s right before them. For so-called “Christian” groups where there is a very clear distinction between the carnal and the spiritual, it’s an even bigger shame to submit entirely to medical (carnal) “authority”.
So, most religious (and others) groups have placed themselves entirely under medical authority and, therefore, the abuse of that authority – “appeal to authority”. So the medical cult trumps all. Tragic!
It’s led to the totally extreme, absurd and perverse circumstance like ISIS where bloodthirsty murderers are not only giving “health” (anti-tobacco/alcohol) advice but enforcing that advice with tyrannical fervor.
From the same 1983 Conference:
The primary session on “Taxation and Social Intervention” was held on Tuesday afternoon in a side room with an audience of around 45 people and contrary to the agenda, chaired by Dr. W.F. Forbes, Canada. The session ranged far beyond taxation and addressed itself to strategies and tactics on the “economic war” against tobacco. It should be noted that increasing taxation as a successful tool for reducing consumption was mentioned by several speakers at various other sessions.
…Last but not least : Kjell Bjartveit of Norway, a leading anti-smoker campaigner, said the EEC should be drawn into the fray. (p.11)
Four years ago at the Stockholm Conference, it was observed that there were two quite distinctive institutional interests represented within the anti-smoking complex . Bureaucratic interests (W.H.O., Western government agencies, Third World government agencies) and movement interests (the various non-governmental anti-smoking groups). These two interests were anything but identical, with the bureaucratic interests being more reasonable, less absolutist, and therefore capable of compromises with the industry. Although the distinction between these two interests is still apparent, there appears to have taken place a certain interpenetration. A number of bureaucrats seem strongly committed to the anti-smoking cause. More important, the non-governmental anti-smoking groups have clearly become more bureaucratised and professionalised since Stockholm. There has been a displacement of missionaries by technicians, i.e. by people with a great deal of political and organising competence. They may be less fanatical in their adherence to the cause, but they are much more formidable in getting things done both on the level of influencing political processes (including legislation) and on the level of shaping public opinion (“education”). One might now speak of an anti-smoking conglomerate, a network of interlocking governmental and non-governmental organisations. (p.12)
WHO’s commitment to the anti-smoking cause is absolute and considerable. One need only read these comments from a speech made at Winnipeg by Dr. Roberto Masironi, Coordinator of the WHO program on Smoking and Health :
“WHO’s position is … that measures like legislation to control advertising, taxation, health education and public information systems have already proved effective to some extent in developed countries. These activities should be more vigorously pursued. An intensive educational campaign should be directed at young school children… THE AIM SHOULD BE TO HAVE A NON-SMOKING GENERATION AND NO SMOKING BY THE YEAR 2000” (Emphasis added). And further : “If steady pressure is maintained and is further spread, it is reasonable to expect that the habit of tobacco smoking, which is a major threat to health and a social nuisance, could progressively be phased out of the social mainstream”. (p.14)
The WHO originates national and international seminars on lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory ailments at which smoking control often is a priority item. Another purpose of these seminars, according to Masironi, is “to sensitize governments to implement national smoking control programs”. (p.15)
The UICC has a busier, more structured anti-smoking program than any other major international organization. The medium for this is its Smoking Control Program which, under the leadership of Nigel Gray, conducts Smoking Control Workshops around the world. The program reportedly is financed by annual grants ct $55,000 from UICC and $50,000 from NORAD, the latter earmarked for developing countries. Obviously, host countries contribute. Twenty-four Workshops have been held since 1976 and it is hoped that there will be at least 10 annually from 1983 on. (p.15)
For the first time, a representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was at Winnipeg to make a formal presentation at a World Conference on Smoking and Health. He said UNESCO considers tobacco and alcohol are drugs. The agency occasionally issues publications dealing with drugs that include mention of tobacco. Another first at Winnipeg was the appearance of a representative of the League of Red Cross Societies. He briefly expressed the League’s support for the Conference and said it was the League’s hope to have a new generation of non-smokers. (p.19)
The 1987 World Conference on Smoking and Health will be held in Kitakyushu, Japan, a city seven hours by train from Tokyo. For this to have happened means that somebody has already guaranteed the availability of a substantial amount of money. Dr. Hirayama will be the Conference President. The Winnipeg Conference attracted 1,086 delegates from 79 countries (11 more than Stockholm) and cost $700,000, according to its organizers. Expecting a deficit, they were seeking more funds. They also needed money for a number of third world delegates who had been given one-way tickets to Winnipeg. Some funds for the Conference had been provided by the government- sponsored Swedish International Developmental Authority, which has been involved in previous Conferences. (p.20)
Michael Daube proposed that tobacco industry representatives be barred from future Conferences. Delegates were asked to respond to this point on a questionaire and, while results were not disclosed, it is possible a majority would be in favour. Daube also suggested that anti-smoking activists single out tobacco company officers and directors by name. In other words, personalize the attack. The BUGA-UP presentation attracted such a crowd that it was repeated – to much applause. An Australian doctor (Chesterfield- Evans) who is a member of the group said it was started by “three fringe lunatics” and now involves hundreds of people.
A representative from the Consumer’s Association of Penang, Malaysia, said there were 500,000 heroin addicts in his country and that tobacco smoking leads to heroin addiction. Martin Khor Kok Peng indicated he would try to establish some sort of international network to provide politicians with anti-tobacco information. His association has just begun publication of an anti-smoking newspaper called “Liberation”. The walls of the Conference centre’s corridors and meeting rooms were covered with anti-smoking posters done by children in various countries. It was reported that many of these posters will be used for a book. (p.22)
The most popular exhibit was one that played the British television film “Death in the West”, every day, all day. Members of Californians for Nonsmokers’ Rights [Stanton Glantz], the exhibitors, took orders for tape copies at $50 each. It was said nearly 500 copies had been paid for or ordered. (p.23)
Free apples, bananas, oranges and bran muffins were available at breaks during the Conference. Young athletes, clad in gymnasium attire, conducted brief exercise rituals for delegates at many sessions. Health for all. (p.23)
US Federal Trade Commissioner Michael Pertschuk said a universal prescription for the “cure of smoking” would be 10 percent medical and 90 percent political. (p.24)
The anti-smoking forces see the industry as a wealthy and powerful entity, but one that is vulnerable and can be defeated by carefully planned and patiently executed campaigns. (p.25)
Building a Culture of Health
Building a culture of health means recognizing that while Americans’ economic, geographic, or social circumstances may differ, we all aspire to lead the best lives that we can. For the Foundation, it also means informing the dialogue and building demand for health by pursuing new partnerships, creating new networks to build momentum, and standing on the shoulders of others also striving to make America a healthier nation. Examples include:
The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, an organization made up of 16 major food and beverage companies that pledged to remove 1.5 trillion calories from the marketplace by 2015. Acting together, the group not only met the challenge early but exceeded it, selling 6.4 trillion fewer calories in 2012 than they did in 2007.
The state of Oklahoma, where policy-makers put partisan politics aside to create a statewide program providing pre-kindergarten classes to every 4-year-old for free.
Habitat for Humanity, revitalizing neighborhoods across America with an eye toward providing shelter while also building community gardens, health support systems for older adults, and strong community coalitions.
The California Endowment and its 10-year Building Healthy Communities program, promoting health across the state using innovative programs, including a unique museum exhibit targeted to children.
http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/annual-reports/presidents-message-2014.html
Rizzo’s latest plan of action. I have a feeling somewhere in it RWJF financed the latest study that claims nicotine is now a carcinogen…………
If they do that they destroy the NRT market which is pretty well dead anyway.
Are they giving up on anti-tobacco for a greater scheme who knows but the Nicotine study that just hit the media outlets would be a sure fire bet they aren’t out to just wipe out ecigs but also their own NRT market share so it means something is up and in a big way.
HERE from Audrey at CLASH
After 60 years of research NOW one piece of research is concluding nicotine is carcinogenic?? The cynic in me is tempted to believe that the antis want e-cigs so bad that they’re willing to indict (sacrifice) nicotine patches, gum, etc. too. In that case, the Big Pharma (“follow the money”) explanation goes out the window as ideology (and its cult) is the trump card.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/06/15/researchers-nicotine-can-initiate-a-cancer-state/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Why-nicotine-gum-patches… Interesting comments follow this article.
Nicotine isn’t just addictive, it’s also highly carcinogenic
Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute found nicotine causes a cell’s DNA to mutate in a way which could be a precursor to cancer.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2657016/Why-nicotine-gum-patches-not-safe-Scientists-discover-nicotine-isnt-just-addictive-highly-carcinogenic.html
Hans Schmidt, Kleindorf, Germany, 1 day ago
Even glucose, a harmless substance can cause oxidative stress at high concentration levels. It is not astounding that nicotine can have the same effect at high levels not occurring in practice.The authors of the study used 0.5 – 5 mM nicotine. Plasma nicotine concentration of smokers (approx. 30 ng/ml) is approx. 0.2 microM, i.e. factor 2,000-20,000 lower. This study has nothing to do with real life. And I wonder why the authors didn´t report results for 0.2 microM, I suspect this is because they found no proof for oxidative stress under regular conditions. From my point of view the article seems to be biased and not worth to be discussed.
Yes, their claim seems to rest primarily on “oxidative stress,” which is a very feeble basis. Nothing is ever declared to be carcinogenic merely because it causes “oxidative stress.” The quacky types like to invoke it because it sounds sciency. Viruses that cause cancer such as HPV, EBV and HCV, and the bacterium Helicobacter pylori do it, but even viruses that don’t cause cancer can nevertheless cause “oxidative stress.”
Study of oxidative-stress in rotavirus infected infant mice. CP Sodhi, R Katyal, SV Rana, S Attri, V Singh. Indian J Med Res 1996 Oct;104:245-249.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8952176
Presence of cytomegalovirus DNA in leucocytes is associated with increased oxidative stress and subclinical atherosclerosis in healthy adults. YL Lee, CE Liu, WL Cho, CL Kuo, WL Cheng, CS Huang, CS Liu. Biomarkers 2014 Mar;19(2):109-113.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24446591
Initial infectious dose dictates the innate, adaptive, and memory responses to influenza in the respiratory tract. I Marois, A Cloutier, É Garneau, MV Richter. J Leukoc Biol 2012 Jul;92(1):107-121. “Our results demonstrated that the initial infectious dose significantly affects the gene expression of antiviral (IFN-β) and inflammatory (TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β) cytokines and of enzymes involved in nitrosative/oxidative stress (iNOS, HO-1, NQO1) early in the response to influenza…”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22504848
Mag I think in all honesty the groups only came on board for the money!
How long would you stay at something if the money dried up……………….For us here its about freedom not money for RWJF its about grants and buying people to do your dirty work.
A cult? Yes. But it’s a medical cult, i.e., neo-eugenics or hygienism (currently referred to as “healthism”). It’s medical in that “health” is portrayed as only a physical, absence of disease phenomenon, i.e., biological reductionism.
But are they even interested in promoting “health”? Making smokers stand outside (which they knew would happen) isn’t physically healthy for smokers – because it’s often cold and wet outside, and smokers are likely to catch cold, flu, and develop hypothermia, etc. Never mind all the socio-psychological ill-effects that they ignore.
I think their eugenics programme aims to create a society in which people don’t drink, don’t smoke, and are slim and muscular. And that sort of ‘ideal’ society really has nothing to do with physical health per se, and everything to do with social control and organisation.
I think control is what cults are about. The reason defeats me, except that it must be about power, and that there’s something evil in it.
Faith in Action Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funds Religious Charities Innovative Approach to Charity or Paradigm for New Government Program?
Summary: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Faith in Action grant pro- gram offers a potentially innovative ap- proach to expand charitable solutions to the long-term medical care needs of an aging population. The foundation has a history of creating pilot projects to serve as paradigms for expensive government programs. Is this one different?
Here we go a way to make money off the taxpayer…………….
But here’s the irony: RWJF is notori- ous for funding pilot projects in states and localities in order to later convince gov- ernment to replicate them on a much larger scale. RWJF helped lay the groundwork for former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s failed health-care reforms. It also helped undermine market-based health care alter- natives because it had principled objec- tions to managed care.
Heres where I got this from:
PDF]
Faith in Action Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funds …
capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3759638098.pdf
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funds Religious Charities … Faith-Based Initiative to allow religious charities increased access to government funds.
Those visits by RWJF Rizzo with Obama all those times in the Oval office have paid real big dividends for the Johnson Family. These Fuckers are into everything out there and its all a sham for rent seeking legislation to come back to them financially. Now we can see why CVS was taken over after placing the former CEO of J and J in its board of directors and then seeing them set up as a ObamaCare under company providing government paid services under the Healthcare law to them……………
F aith in Action, a grant program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), is a study in irony.
In April 2001 the Princeton, New Jer- sey-based foundation pledged to pay out $112 million over the next seven years for this program. The nation’s largest health- care grantmaker was making the largest funding commitment in its 30-year history, and it was going to support church-related organizations that care for the chronically ill, the elderly and the disabled. Charities like Eufaula Christ Centered Outreach in Alabama, Gilead Ministries in Jonesboro, Indiana, and the Storehouse of Love Min- istries in West Helena, Arkansas, are now receiving RWJF grants to support volun- teer caregiving to people with chronic health problems.
Faith in Action officials extol the vir- tues of community-based solutions to health-care problems and they herald their independence from government sponsor- ship. They argue that government prob- ably could not support Faith in Action projects as effectively without burdening
The Faith in Action program provides grants to charities serving chronically ill low-income people.
charities with regulations and red tape.
But here’s the irony: RWJF is notori- ous for funding pilot projects in states and localities in order to later convince gov- ernment to replicate them on a much larger scale. RWJF helped lay the groundwork for former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s failed health-care reforms. It also helped undermine market-based health care alter- natives because it had principled objec- tions to managed care. RWJF’s most suc- cessful programs have improved health care for AIDS sufferers and the homeless. But subsequently they required large fed-
eral outlays to expand these programs under the Ryan White Emergency Care Act and the McKinney Act.
A further irony: RWJF’s announced its historic pledge to Faith in Action just as President George W. Bush advanced his Faith-Based Initiative to allow religious charities increased access to government funds. How odd that just when conserva- tives and religious leaders were warming up to government grants to religious chari- ties, the government-friendly RWJF was freely funding them and voicing concerns about federal interference.
RWJF vice-president Paul Jellinek was coy about the coincidence. He told The Non-Profit Times that “the one sort of piece of good news for us about the president’s initiative is it has created a greater awareness that faith congregations have a potentially important role to play in their communities in helping address so- cial problems.”
LOOK HOW THE RATS FROM BOTH PARTIES HAVE BEEN WORKING TOGETHER ALL THESE YEARS!
$112 million over the next seven years for this program
And RWJF only gave the ACS,ALA,AHA 99 million to go out and screw us all!
Im starting to think RWJF is giving up on anti-tobacco altogether and moving into a scheme much broader and worldwide……………Just aint sure what it is yet.
Not a chance in hell RWWJF will give up on anti-smoking. They’re just broadening out to anti-vaping, food fascism, and “built environment” specifying as well.
I was in the middle of reading this page when the tornado sirens went off. I check wundergound.com weather, and there’s a rotating cloud south of town. The warning area is just south of me, and I can hear the sirens on the south side wailing. The warning expired at quarter after, but five minutes later there’s another. This time it’s a rotating cloud on the southwest side of town, heading northeast – straight for my location! The sirens start howling. Neighbors stir. I start closing [computer] windows so it’s quicker to shut down if I lose power. A lightning bolt knocks the dsl out of sync, so I put it to sleep. I put on my tight jeans with ID in the pocket for personal preparation, and stand in the doorway to watch. There’s not much thunder, very little wind, lots of rain, and no train sound. The ETA passes, so I go back to the computer. The dsl is still down. It always starts working as soon as the dailup connects, so I do that. Modem picks up, hears dial tone, then squawks and waits. Then it announces there’s no dial tone. I fiddle with the phone jacks and get a dial tone. Redial modem and connect. The dsl starts working again, and I get the storm reports.
06/17/2014 1210 am
Verona, Dane County.
Tornado, reported by law enforcement.
Windows blown out of house and other damage.
06/17/2014 1210 am
Madison, Dane County.
Tornado, reported by law enforcement.
Roof torn off of house south of Shorewood Hills on
Whitney way.
Whitney Way is about 5 miles west of here.
Here’s the live blog about the storm.
http://host.madison.com/weather/live-blog-strong-storms-move-through-madison-area-overnight/html_6bbe9db4-f5e4-11e3-a666-0019bb2963f4.html
I have a weather radio that makes a loud tone with flashing red lights followed by a brief voice announcement when there’s a bad storm. Once I fell asleep with my face against it on the wrong night – talk about a rude awakening.
Blimey, Carol, hope you’re OK. Let us know.
Really Carol watch out. The level 5 tornado that leveled parts of Hartsville tn and Lafayette tn I was right smack in the middle of back in 06. We just bought us a concrete tornado shelter out back and have used it 2 times this year already.
Really Carol watch out. The level 5 tornado that leveled parts of Hartsville tn and Lafayette tn I was right smack in the middle of back in 06. We just bought us a concrete tornado shelter out back and have used it 2 times this year already.
Well, I thought everybody would realize I’m fine because I went back online to comment about it. This was just a little one, not like the ones that take away everything plus six inches of topsoil. No injuries reported. It was moving about 50 mph, highway speed. The rest of the night was a few rumbles and some showers. But there might be more tonight.
Radar pictures
http://t.co/zcqAjtAR5n
It’s tonight, and a storm about 1 1/2 hour away near Dubuque has us in its sights. Severe storm watch went up a half hour ago.
I hope you were all pretty far away from this one!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/17/the-double-tornado-that-slammed-nebraska-last-night-was-a-rare-and-horrifying-sight/
In simple terms the anti tobacco hysteria is an unholy well funded Jihad. They obey no rules ,no conventions,they take no prisoners,to maintain their financial rewards they will stoop to any depths
To crush this universal disregard for liberty,freedom and choice we have no choice but to apply
their parameters of behaviour. The ends justify the means,anything goes,no principles,lets find out how keen the anti tobacco footsoldiers are ,when faced with some concentrated reaction.
Words whether written ,spoken or transmitted have been proved beyond doubt to be absolutely useless,whispers in a pointless void, floundering toads in a remote swamp of apathy.
Time to choose .
OT (though perhaps not entirely)
http://www.thetorontopost.net/2012/12/true-source-of-random-shootings-and.html
‘1. Varenicline (Chantix) – A dopaminergic anti-smoking drug that is a shocking 18 times more likely to be associated with violence than other drugs.’
I had a friend who went psychotic on that stuff. She packed it in after a short time. A few years later she got Motor Neurone Disease (which killed her). Any connection? We’ll never know.
30 states have experienced mass murders since 1962 which is directly related to the accelerated use of mind-altering psychiatric drugs ~ whose adverse effects can no longer be ignored.
I don’t think this is OT; Chantix (Champix) has been associated with mood changes despite ASH et al playing these side effects down.
If you want to stop smoking, taking varenicline (trade name Champix®) is likely to more than double your chance of success.
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/varenicline-champixr
Iran nixes smoking for executive aspirants
Tehran, Iran (CNN) — Want a job in Iran’s executive branch? Quit smoking.
People addicted to tobacco cannot get jobs with the government’s executive branch, according to the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency, which cited a directive published Monday by the Cabinet’s information office.
The directive — intended to ensure that applicants are healthy physically and mentally — follows the guidelines of the Law of the National Services Management, ILNA reported.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07/19/iran.tobacco.jobs/
From 2012 in Africa:
Islamists’ Harsh Justice Is on the Rise in North Mali
“But those are just the known cases, and dozens of other residents have been publicly flogged with camel-hair whips or tree branches for offenses like smoking, or even for playing music on the radio. Several were whipped in Gao on Monday for smoking in public, an official said, while others said that anything other than Koranic verses were proscribed as cellphone ringtones. A jaunty tune is punishable by flogging.”
playing music on the radio.
That’s probably even worse than smoking.
Obama just today invited Iran to help with the Iraqi mess…………….I start to see the entire world as one problem and it stems str8 from Obama and his leftist Totalitarians with of course the usual RINO commies.
This exposes the deceit of the recent BMJ study claiming that less salt consumption reduced heart disease mortality. They simply ignored the fact that those deaths were declining anyway, and less salt consumption didn’t change the trend. They’ve used the same trickery about secondhand smoke several times.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/GeneralPrimaryCare/46345
Newman’s Notes: Not Worth Your Salt
Published: Jun 16, 2014
By Elbert Chu, Associate Producer, MedPage Today
This week: He, FJ, et al “Salt reduction in England from 2003 to 2011: its relationship to blood pressure, stroke and ischaemic heart disease
mortality” BMJ Open 2014; DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004549
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/4/e004549.full
A study notes that in England from 2003 to 2011, there was a significant fall in BP and mortality from stroke and ischemic heart disease which may have been contributed to by a fall in sodium intake. Note that in another study looking at trends over time, stroke mortality has decreased in all Economic Cooperation and Development countries (except Poland and the Slovak Republic).
Don’t forget that King Murad, way back in the 1600s, banned tobacco use (a good example of abuse of monarchy).
1633
By the late 16th century, tobacco had spread across Western Europe and into the Ottoman Empire, where both religious and secular authorities regarded the product with skepticism. During the reign of Sultan Murad IV, tobacco, alcohol and coffee were banned in Istanbul, and thousands of people were reportedly executed for indulging in these illegal “intoxicants.” The irony is that Murad himself died of what was likely alcohol poisoning at 28. His successor, Ibrahim I, lifted the prohibitions.
http://www.history.com/news/from-pope-urban-vii-to-bloomberg-four-centuries-of-smoking-bans
There’s a good, brief history of smoking/tobacco bans (and brutal punishments in some cases) over the last 400 years at the link above.
Well I spent my day getting 2 molars pulled in the top of my mouth right side!
Ive made me a necklace for the wife from them………………….A few more and it will be done!
Til then OUCH OUCH OUCH!
Oh and the Dental tech was as anti-smoking as they come from Vanderbilt school she came………….I told her str8 up smokers rights smokers choise. Then I grabbed up my teeth from the paper covered table the dentist had set them on and shoved em in my pocket and hit the road! The bastards still have meat attached to em…….Im gonna have fun with the wife tonite when she sees them on that chain!
I got an implant drilled into my jaw today. I’d just about given up on ever getting that space filled again, because it’s been many years since they were pulled and jawbones are supposed to deteriorate so there’s not enough left if it’s not done soon. But not mine! Lucky me, I am among the few who have what they call “exostoses,” which means what the dental surgeon happily calls “lots of bone.” A metal stud sticks out of my gum now, with a stitch on each side. It’s a cap over a screw that the new tooth will go on. I shut my eyes and imagined the bone fragments drilling out like the debris from drilling a board.
More Brits Joined Jihad Than Volunteered For UK Army Reserves
More British citizens joined the jihad in Syria and Iraq than signed up for the Army Reserves over the last twelve months, according to the MailOnline. Whilst “several hundred” have gone to fight for militants in the Middle East, only 170 have enlisted for the British Army Reserves despite a major recruitment campaign.
Foreign Secretary William Hague believes that as many as 400 Brits have gone to fight alongside the jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis). Their activities are now a major concern for the government, as they are likely to return to the UK radicalised and with military training. It is widely believed that these British militants will continue their ‘struggle’ when they get back to the United Kingdom.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/17/More-Brits-Sign-Up-For-ISIS-Than-Signed-Up-For-Army-Reserve
Looks like Nigel is delivering already
Ireland’s legislation for plain cigarette packaging delayed by European Commission
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/17/Ireland-s-legislation-for-plain-cigarette-packaging-delayed-by-European-Commission
Frank said: But are they even interested in promoting “health”? Making smokers stand outside (which they knew would happen) isn’t physically healthy for smokers – because it’s often cold and wet outside, and smokers are likely to catch cold, flu, and develop hypothermia, etc. Never mind all the socio-psychological ill-effects that they ignore.
OUR health (physical or mental) doesn’t concern them. Individuals don’t concern them, Their first thought is for Society As A Whole which they believe will be collectively sounder in mind and body if nobody smokes. We are a bad influence, bad role models. They either want us out of sight (and therefore, they believe, out of everyone else’s mind) or want us to be seen as wretches huddling in back alleys, ejected from society. (“You don’t want to be one of THOSE, do you?”) They don’t even want us in their offices, factories or apartment buildings in case our coworkers, neighbors should accidentally learn that we’re not sub-human “addicts” but actually decent, kind, smart, funny or whatever we are, human beings.
We are the eggs that (too bad) have to be broken to make their omelet. And if, along the way, they can bend our wills and force us to quit (and become rabid ants as a byproduct) by firing, evicting, nagging, shunning, turning friends against us and making us stand in the corner with dunce caps, well, that’s all to the good, but their aim is larger. Maoist, in its way. Though in other ways I see them as a Taliban By Other Means.
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