With the UK General Election only weeks away, I’ve spent a while today constructing cartoon images of prominent people. I fairly soon gave up trying to draw them myself, but instead found suitable photos of them online, and then (using an ancient version of PaintShop Pro) started brightening and increasing contrast in them, and drawing lines for emphasis as features (e.g. noses) started to vanish.
I started with Nigel Farage (which I may re-do), and then did David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and Alex Salmond. I also got hold of Hillary Clinton, Jean-Claude Juncker (the new EU president), and Vladimir Putin, but didn’t make cartoons of them. I chose photos of them which had their mouths open, like they might be talking.
Here are my 4 new cartoons characters:
I’ve also got Lana del Rey, Humphrey Bogart, and Clint Eastwood. They may be needed to intervene forcibly. Deborah Arnott and Stanton Glantz will be no trouble (I’ve already got a prod-nose Arnott)
So, first question is: Any suggestions for other cartoons? I haven’t done Obama (yet), because he’ll only be around for another 2 years. If you know of a photo of someone’s face, directing me to it would help
…
Second question. Jltrader sent me a whole bunch of smoking-related pdfs a day or two back, and it reminded me that an awful lot of data that’s buried in comments would better be placed in a Reference section of this blog.
So today I fought with WordPress’ menu creation procedure, and eventually managed to create a top level References menu under the banner at the top, with two sub-menus under it. All the pages are currently empty. Comments can be left under them
The second question is: What would make for a good sub-menu item under References? Examples might be WHO, Tobacco Control, etc, etc.
I haven’t tried making sub-menus under sub-menus yet, but I think it can be done.
Frank Davis 
Dick the Prick Cheney please.
Dick Cheney was one of George W Bush’s lieutenants, wasn’t he. As such, isn’t he past history?
(I’ve already got a prod-nose Arnott)
An older Big Nose Kate around 1890.
Though she was born to a prominent family, Kate would grow up to be just one of the many “soiled doves” of the American West, as well claiming a small slice of fame as Doc Holliday’s on and off girlfriend.
By this time, Kate had earned the nickname “Big Nose” Kate. While the dance hall girl and prostitute was attractive, she did have a prominent nose. Kate was tough, stubborn, and with a temper that matched Doc’s. She said she worked the business because she liked it, belonging to no man, nor to any house!
Kate would spend the next several years with Holliday, traveling to Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota and New Mexico. Their relationship was often rocky, with Kate still plying her trade as a prostitute from time to time.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-bignosekate.html
Has a good pic too and a nose to match
How about Van Rompuy’s successor Donald Tusk? A household name at last, unlike Rompuy, not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Council
I suppose that he will be in the news sooner or later.
P.S. Juncker is of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Commission
Yes.
Don’t forget Mayor of the World Michael Bloomberg!
Oh yes – do him, next to a really big cup and then trap him under it. Consider it a soda ice bucket challenge ;)
Definitely.
Tony Blair’s 10 Years Of Tobacco Control
“The Bloomberg initiative helps to translate the principles of the FCTC into action, with particular focus on the 15 countries where two-thirds of the world’s smokers live (which include China, India, Indonesia, and Russia).”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/75557.php
“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.”
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/13/edict-not-funded-nyc-mayor-muhammadiyah.html
Michael Bloomberg: I’ve ‘earned my place in heaven’ for anti-gun crusade
Yes.
In the past I’ve commented here on more than one occasion of my initial creeping disdain for California hippy culture, which kind of started early 70ish, after attending some nouveau purtitan get-togethers in Santa Cruz. To wit: “It wasn’t long before you’d go to a booze-free party that featured boring organic vegetable H’oerderves served with an unseasoned humus dip and everyone in the house spoke with a Boowaston accent.”
Well, looky here everyone. Here’s a tidbit from an article on Rand Paul flying coach which describes some of Hillary Clinton’s (the quintessential nouveau puritan and antismoker) haughty prerequisites.
Clinton has come under fire in recent months for accepting large speaking fees and requiring rock-star contracts that call for private jets, presidential suites, room-temperature water, hummus and crudités.
Water (booze-free), hummus (unseasoned no doubt and, yes, I spelled it wrong) and crudites (or-gan-ic no doubt and, once again, I massacred the spelling of hors d’oeuvres.)
Flying coach with Rand Paul
If she’s our next president, it’s all over. Do a cartoon of her definitely.
I’ve already started work on one. She’s the one person I do not want to see as POTUS.
Bloomberg arrogantly walking past the queue of people at the gate of heaven. At the gate we can see a sign “smokers welcome” and a blackboard stating the various foods and drinks available?
Something I thought about yesterday, here’s an idea for you Frank: create a cartoon or series of cartoons featuring two animals. Lots of possibilities, add in soft little poignant lines in their speech balloons. Create your own approach and style with them. Which two animals? An elephant and a sheep.
I think I see what you mean. The elephant in the room?
Exactly that. Anyway, just a thought.
Re these references.
A first point of contact might be Tobacco Control Tactics.
I know the site’s not being maintained, however they do have a wealth of references.
http://tctactics.org/index.php/Science
Isn’t it being maintained? It’s Wiel Maessen’s site.
Last entry on tobacco control tactics was 2013.
Last entry on Forces Nederland was 2012.
http://www.forces-nl.org/
Oh and 3rd from last in your blog roll is a 404
http://svobodenizbor.org/bg/
You could do Manuel Barroso or a Cod. see if we could tell the difference.
Barroso is past history, I believe, now that he’s no longer President of the EU Commission, or whatever.
As for references, I could pull together the 1942 cover up of Nicotinic Acid, the various bits of evidence are all over the internet at the moment.
That would be interesting. It’s all cover-ups all the way, in this business, as far as I can see.
I just wanted to know what happened to nicotine when it burned.
I would gather all references about active smoking (first-hand smoking as you put it). That’s the shaky foundation of the whole anti-smoking movement which nowadays is very rarely addressed anymore. Most of the science is buried among the millions of documents in this library http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/. As far as I can tell, the debate about ‘smoking controversy’ as it was called then was over by the late 60s when the US government via its various institutions (mostly medical and public health) decided to side with the anti-smoking activists. Because we’ve been only hearing one side of the story for so long, we’re lead to believe that active smoking is indefensible. Far from that, when the debates were still taking place, several distinguished statisticians, doctors, scientists noticed a lot of problems with the anti smoking arguments. And they testified before US congress about it. Even though 40-50 years have passed since then, I’m not aware of any scientific developments to have refuted their points. This is further strengthened by the recent Mctear case. We should make available to the public both sides of the story and let everyone decide for themselves which has more credible arguments. Some of the testimonies following the 1964 US Surgeon report that I have unearthed from that library I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else (in Colby’s book ‘In defence of smokers’ or Rich White’s book or on this blog during CATCH debates).
We should make available to the public both sides of the story
Hasn’t the public had quite enough of one side of the story already? Apart from that, I agree completely.
Slightly off at a tangent, but relevant to the discussion, I happened upon this article today about a Dr John Ionnidis:
Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.
……………………….
“The studies were biased,” he says. “Sometimes they were overtly biased. Sometimes it was difficult to see the bias, but it was there.” Researchers headed into their studies wanting certain results—and, lo and behold, they were getting them. We think of the scientific process as being objective, rigorous, and even ruthless in separating out what is true from what we merely wish to be true, but in fact it’s easy to manipulate results, even unintentionally or unconsciously.
……………………..
“There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
It’s not specific to the issue of the foundations of the anti-smoking movement, but speaks volumes about how it came to be.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2939693/Lung-cancer-cancer-killer-women-rich-nations.html
According to http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/types/lung/incidence/#trends there were 22.6/100k age adjusted female lung cancers in 1975 and 40.9/100k in 2011. Over this period the female smoking rate has just about halved. I have the following data (in an excel table, from ONS I think) 41% females smoking in 1948, 36% in 1980 19% in 2010. So how can one attribute a doubling of cancer rate to smoking when smoking rates have been falling all this time ?
The situation for males: 112/100k in 1975 and 58/100k in 2011. Smoking rates: 65% in 1948 42% in 1980 20% in 2010.
Not even the statistics (their strongest and arguably only point) doesn’t seem to support the anti-smoking camp. I left a similar comment at Simon Clark place, maybe he’ll take a public stance.
Incidentally, do you have links to the pdfs you sent me?
No, I saw no point in saving the links too if I saved the files to my computer. But all of them are from http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/
But they’d be in your browser history, which would save an impossible amount of searching!?
And duplication of effort, for others… I set my browser history to at least a years worth though.
Perhaps you could find and copy the download page links? Paste to a txt file, copy, upload?
Clipboard Magic (if on Windows) is very handy for capturing multiple copy operations, BTW.
http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipboard-magic.html
But if links gone then… either searchable by title part, or maybe can be uploaded to… (?)
@jltrader: The lung cancer trend rate in women follows the womens general 50 year trend from housewives to workers. Housewives have very little lung cancer, while many occupational groups have high lung cancer rates.
Mens lung cancer: Although falling since 1980 after a huge rise since 1930 the male rate is still higher today than the female rate. The fall from the 1980’s may be due to the phase out of many cancer causing substances from parts of industrial production, like diesel, led in petrol, asbestos, PCB and many others.
niacin
“pellagra-preventing vitamin in enriched bread,” 1942, coined from ni(cotinic) ac(id) + -in, chemical suffix; suggested by the American Medical Association as a more commercially viable name than nicotinic acid.
“The new name was found to be necessary because some anti-tobacco groups warned against enriched bread because it would foster the cigarette habit.” [“Cooperative Consumer,” Feb. 28, 1942]
Nicotinic acid was first prepared from nicotine in 1867 by C. Huber
But nobody knew what it did until it was found to be the Pellagra preventing vitamin, but the original chemical name had been established.
Conrad Elvehjem
“Conrad A. Elvehjem, (May 27, 1901–July 27, 1962), was internationally known as a biochemist in nutrition. In 1937 he identified a molecule found in fresh meat and yeast as a new vitamin, nicotinic acid, now called niacin. His discovery led directly to the cure of human pellagra, once a major health problem in the United States.
“Elvehjem began teaching in agricultural chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 1923, and became a full professor in 1936. In 1944, he was elected chairman of the biochemistry department”
The Nation’s Food – 1941
“A necessary vitamin is B—a group of at least half a dozen different chemicals. Most radio listeners, said Vice President Wallace last week, know B as the “oomph vitamin, that puts the sparkle in your eye, the spring in your step, the zip in your soul!” Vitamin B is found abundantly in whole wheat and coarse grains, is appreciably reduced in the milling process, when the rough coat is “scalped”‘ from wheat kernel.
Most of the big flour mills and bakers have recently agreed to put vitamin B1; nicotinic acid and iron back into their flour and bread. But experts last week pointed out that such “enriched bread,” although a step forward, was not the ideal solution of the problem.”
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,795342,00.html
Which naturally interested the tobacco companies.
May 7, 1941
Subject Nicotinic Acid page 1
Dear Sir,
Since your Inquiry cf March 6th and our reply of March llth relative to the possibility of existing in Old Gold cigarettes, permit us to state that we have given the matter quite a little thought and have conducted several experiments.
As a result of the latter we feel that we have made certain surprising discoveries, which, if they have’any appeal to our advertising people, might be worthy of more extensive investigation.
As you probably know, there is a vitamin, recently identified as nicotinic acid, which when absent from the diet causes black-tongue in dogs or pellagra in human beings.
Ten to fifteen milligrams dai1y of nicotinic acid are neccessary to keep a man from acquiring the disease in question. Thus, in poor sections of the South and in countries, such as Spain after the recent Civil War, we find a deficiency of this necessary element us exhibited by a prevalency of pellagra. Since nicotinic acid can be manufactured by the oxidation of nicotine, since it is readily available at a reasonably low price, and because of its favorable physical properties, we decided to run a few tests on cigarette smoke to see if it was normally present, or if it could be added by enrichment of the original tobacco.
The tests which we will summarise were run on Ripple cigarettes, rolled by hand, but we feel sure that the conclusions are equally applicable to Old Golds.
Page 3
“In other words,analyzed the saliva, which would have otherwise been swallowed. No nicotinic acid occurred in the smoker’s saliva before smoking. We feel that we have made this report sufficiently long to cover the discoveries, which we regard as quite remarkable. If you have any questions in the matter or suggestions, we will be glad to hear from you, We would also be interested in learning your opinion of the material for advertising purposes, as, of course, this constitutes it’s principle value.
Very truly yours, Chemist Middletown Branch.
P. Lorillard Co.
http://tobaccodocuments.org/product_design/04365489-5491.html
No longer available
LORILLARD RESEARCH ON NICOTINIC ACID
“Parmele informed Mr Riefner that work on nicotinic acid could be confirmed free of charge by Dr Elvehjem at the University of Wisconsin.
Dr Elvehjam analyzed samples prepared by Parmele by the microbiological assay method of Snell and Wright. The mirobiological method was more specific than the chemical method employed by Parmele.
Lower levels of nicotinic acid were found, but Parmele’s essential findings were confirmed”
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=jbw98c00&page=1
Nicotinic Acid
October 3, 1941
Dear sirs,
Referring to the subject of nicotinic acid, or the anti-pellagra vitamin, in cigarette smoke, permit us to state that we have heard from the University of Wisconsin, and are pleased to report that they have confirmed our findings in every respect. In other words, in aqueous solution of the smoke from ten Old Golds they find .8 milligrams of nicotinic acid,”
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yoi46b00/pdf;jsessionid=6684AFB8B2C2AFA5C12819FEE8C03777.tobacco03
But not everyone was pleased about the plan to use nicotinic acid to prevent this terrible disease.
Nicotinic Acid vs. Nicotine – 1942
“Some have apparently gained misleading impressions from recent press reports to the effect that nicotinic acid is now to be derived from the tobacco plant. Information at hand indicates that individuals have concluded from these reports that nicotinic acid is of the nature of nicotine, and therefore undesirable as a product in the “enriched” flour program that has recently been launched —a program that deserves hearty endorsement.”
“The name “nicotinic acid” was attached to this factor because of the fact that it was first isolated during the chemical study of the tobacco plant. However, one is not to be misled by this association, for there is no relationship, as relates to effects and actions in the body, between nicotine and nicotinic acid.
In fact, authorities in the field of chemistry and nutrition are proposing that the name “nicotinic acid” be changed.”
“Had some other common name been given to this important antipellagra factor, as indeed will no doubt be done soon, no objection would have been made to this chemical substance, which is one of the links of the dietary chain needed for optimal growth and buoyant health.
Any implication or indication that flour enriched by the addition of nicotinic acid contains nicotine, or is undesirable because of that addition, we regard as very unfortunate, misleading, and wholly contrary to established scientific evidence.”
https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1942/01/nicotinic-acid-vs.-nicotine
So a new name was found.
The Journal of the American Medical Association – 1942
“A poor name is a handicap to the promotion of a meritorious product. The name “nicotinic acid” for the vitamin so important in the prevention of pellagra has been doubly unfortunate. To the general public the word “nicotinic” implies too strongly the relationship of this vitamin to nicotine, the chief alkaloid of tobacco often used as an insecticide. The term “acid” denotes a corrosive substance such as the liquid used in automobile storage batteries. The vitamin called “nicotinic acid” was first produced in the laboratory in 1867 by the oxidation of nicotine with potassium chromate and sulfuric acid. Later the compound was named nicotinic acid because it had been made from nicotine and it had the ability to form salts. As a laboratory curiosity, which it remained for over seventy years, nicotinic acid was adequately named.
From the point of view of those interested in furthering the distribution of foods enriched with this dietary essential the name has proved unsuitable.”
Following the announcement of proposed regulations for enriched bread by the Food and Drug Administration, a well known trade publication announced the event with the heading “Tobacco in your Bread”
“Although niacin is not altogether suitable from the purely chemical view, chemists and other scientists generally will continue to use the older terms, which to the initiated are unobjectionable.
Whether the new names will overcome resistance to the greater use of enriched flour and enriched bread remains to be seen.
They deserve to meet general approval.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=254218
The Jama article goes on to point out that the nicotinic acid in bread was being made from a derivative of coal tar as it is today, being so much cheaper.
“Commercially, niacin is obtained from beta -picoline or from quinoline, which are both obtainable from coal tar.”
http: //www.chemicalland21.com/lifescience/foco/NIACIN.htm
Which finally satisfied the prohibitionists.
Effectiveness of food fortification in the United States: the case of pellagra
Click to access 10800421.pdf
But the bread may well have been fortified with nicotinic acid from tobacco for a while.
Nicotinic Acid Utilization of Tobacco Waste – 22nd July 1960
“Nicotinic acid was first made by the oxidation of nicotine and Whiffens operate a commercial process in this country starting with tobacco.
Later they were supplied with nicotine by the British Nicotine Company and continued the oxidation.
Finally – before the Second World War – they found they were unable to compete with manufacturers starting from quinoline and picoline although it could be made directly from tobacco waste, from pyridine, some other coal tar bases, nicotine, anabasine, nor-nicotine or mixed tobacco alkaloids.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsored work aimed to make nicotine compete, as early as 1942, but although a new catalytic oxidation process was developed quinoline was still the cheapest source of nicotinic acid.
Comparative costs were published in 1951 by Coal Tar Products of Philadelphia”
Click to access ntcn0214.pdf
The Absorption of Niacin in the Smoking of Cigarettes 1944
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bde38e00/pdf;jsessionid=1470F794479649CD1E82FDA4A92FACB7.tobacco04
NIACIN AND NIACINAMIDE IN FLUE-CURED CIGARETTE SMOKE CONDENSATE. – 1960
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pnx69d00/pdf
Oops missing link.
NIACIN AND NIACINAMIDE IN FLUE-CURED CIGARETTE SMOKE CONDENSATE. – 1960
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pnx69d00/pdf
It’s only a tiny amount but that’s not the point.
I’ve added the missing URL, and put a link to your comment in the new Nicotine sub-menu under References.
Thank you, Frank.
I like this one: