Interesting little conversation I had today in a pub garden. A lady (aged about 60, I guessed, and very well-spoken) was wandering around looking for an ashtray, so I invited her to use mine with me. Naturally we got talking, and got along very well. Towards the end of the conversation she said that the cigarette she was smoking was her first one that day. Her husband had given up smoking 30 years ago, and she’d cut back a lot. She only smoked about 3 cigarettes per day. More when she met up with friends.
I asked her whether she smoked in her own home, and she said only in the kitchen. She added that she didn’t mind the smoking ban, because it helped her to cut down, and she didn’t like coming home smelling of tobacco smoke.
It takes all sorts, I suppose. I must have smoked her full daily ration in the half hour we were talking.
Meanwhile, somewhere near Lynchburg, Virginia (reprinted from email with permission):
Newest one from the building manager –
Had a meeting with her today about this whole anti-smoking petition thing which went to HUD.
I was trying to explain to her and her assistant about smoking preventing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s…
…and how terrible it is to expect elderly disabled smokers to have to go out to smoke in severely inclement weather…
…and how deaths have occurred because of this…
Her answer – well, just think of the TONS of other awful things smoking does to destroy people. It destroys fingers and toes!
I was like – hey – WHAT?
Yes, she says, your fingers and toes can fall off if you smoke.
Her assistant manager agreed.
When I got back to my apartment, I Googled it. Yes, smoking can, among other factors, affect fingers and toes IF you have Renaud’s Syndrome or
Beurger’s Disease.
And how many people have those?
No sense trying to get my point across with the building manager – who is so rabid an anti-smoker and so closed-minded that every benefit I or anyone else might bring up will cause her to spew a litany of dread diseases allegedly caused by smoking.
Oh – okay – one of them was – your eyes will fall out. REALLY. SHE SAID THAT.
It’s amazing what people will believe. And disgusting that supposedly responsible authorities will use these kind of lies to set people against each other.
Meanwhile, the USA is stepping into the EU crisis:
Europe’s creditor powers have been warned against igniting an “uncontrolled” financial and geopolitical crisis in Greece by letting the country fall out of the eurozone at the end of the week.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew waded into the crisis on Tuesday, as Athens was preparing to make its final attempt to secure its future in the single currency. The Greeks have been told they have three days to prevent a fatal eurozone exit.
Mr Lew said lenders risked making a “mistake for Europe, the European economy and the global economy, to take the risks that are involved with an uncontrolled crisis in Greece”.
Washington has become increasingly exasperated by the mishandling of Greece’s woes, which they fear could destabilise Europe’s fragile Mediterranean periphery…
Mr Lew said it was no longer clear that there will be a solution to Greece’s turmoil. He said both parties were gambling with the stability of the global economy in entertaining the prospect of a “Grexit”.
“Before things broke down and they went to a referendum, they were within a couple of billions of euros of closing the gap,” Mr Lew told the Brookings Institute.
“For anyone who has participated in fiscal policy discussions, you wouldn’t usually buy hundreds of billions of dollars of risk for a few billion.”
And Nigel Farage tells Tsipras to get out of the euro:
“They will give you no more, these people. They can’t afford to. If they give you more, they will have to give other eurozone members more,” Farage said.
“Your moment has come and, frankly, if you’ve got the courage, you should lead the Greek people out of the eurozone with your head held high.
“Get back your democracy, get back control of your country, give your people the leadership and the hope that they crave.
“Yes, it’ll be tough for the first few months but, with a devalued currency and friends of Greece all over the world, you will recover.”
“The European project is actually beginning to die,” he added.
“The plan has failed. This isn’t just Greece we are talking about today. The whole of the Mediterranean now finds itself in the wrong currency, and yet virtually nobody in the political arena has the courage to stand up and say that.
“I feel that the continent is now divided from north to south. There is a new Berlin Wall and it’s called the euro.”
Tsipras, who was present in the EU parliament, did not applaud.
Frank Davis 
When I got back to my apartment, I Googled it. Yes, smoking can, among other factors, affect fingers and toes IF you have Renaud’s Syndrome or
Beurger’s Disease.
Frank I actually looked it up one time and it affects 1 out of every 8000 smokers……….that’s it and what we would call no case or even link. They claimed when the person affected quit smoking the so called disease disappeared. The pure madness that its 1 in 8000 leaves the claim pure BS.
Frank the eyes BS is just the latest claim by the Nazis.
Harley, I’ve had Reynaud’s Phenomenon since I was a child and so far, I still have all my fingers and toes.
Niacin is a vasodilator, nitric oxide is a vasodilator and I know when to come in out of the cold. Holding hands with a warm blooded friend helps a lot too.
Gel improves circulation disorder
“More usually symptoms are mild and involve poor circulation to the fingers and toes. This can be caused by cold or stress. ”
“The key to the treatment is nitric oxide, which is known as a very effective vasodilator (an agent which widens blood vessels).”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/516365.stm
“Although the cause of Raynaud’s syndrome is not entirely clear, one possible explanation is a defect in the body’s ability to produce nitric oxide.”
I disagree, from my lifelong observations my internal thermostat is set too low and if my hands and feet get very cold I go into the first stages of frostbite quite unnecessarily.
“Usually your blood carries oxygen to all parts of your body so that your body tissues are kept healthy. As a protective response, when your body is exposed to extreme cold, blood vessels narrow (constrict) so that blood (and oxygen) are diverted away from your extremities to your vital organs to keep your body alive.”
http://patient.info/health/frostbite-leaflet
Which is most annoying and has nothing to do with smoking at all, I had Reynaud’s Phenomenon as a child when I didn’t smoke, I still get it occasionally now.
Yet another reason why I flatly refuse to smoke outside a pub.
I have Reynaud’s syndrome, which is apparently hereditary. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like cold weather. I have, however, still got all my fingers and toes, and they show no sign of dropping off.
I still have a few Drachmas left from the 1980s I wonder if they will be legal tender again if and when they adopt it back.
Bill to raise smoking age stalls in Assembly
Los Angeles Times
Facing stiff opposition from the tobacco industry, a bill that would increase the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 was withdrawn from an Assembly …
CVS Health leaving US Chamber of Commerce over smoking spat
Fortune
The pharmacy is quitting the Chamber over the trade group’s efforts to target anti-smoking laws abroad, saying it runs counter to its efforts to promote …
Lack of education as deadly as smoking: Study estimates number of deaths attributed to low levels …
Medical Xpress
“In public health policy, we often focus on changing health behaviors such as diet, smoking, and drinking,” said Virginia Chang, associate professor of …
Wife to the Youngest Son Of The Dwarf has just borned our incredibly “sssüüüüüÜÜÜÜÜÜß” (‘cuuUUUte’) ‘Granddaughter Mk2. We went over to cuddle and take pictures today, well the Bestes Frau In The World did the cuddling while I, Your Dwarf in Norfolk, took the photos -women being not to be trusted with delicate technology such as cameras (nor good kitchen knives nor nonstick pans either).
Anyways proud father, Youngest Dwarfson, was saying that they were told (by the midwife?) that he, as a SMOKER (although as he only smokes about 30 day I reckon he is more of a hobbyist than a professional) should wait an hour after having a cigarette before having any ‘skin contact’ with baby as the nicotine could leech out of his body, through his skin by some process of reverse osmosis and HURT baby.
Would that be 3rd or 4th hand ‘smoking’ then, I lose count?
Glückwunsch, Alter! ;-)
Glückwunsch, Alter! ;-)-Reinhold
Danke. Zwergendorf-Über-den-Bergen stirbt nicht aus.
Super. Da halten sich ja auch die allerallerschönsten Mädchen auf, wie einst schon ein Spieglein an der Wand zu berichten wusste.
You do wonder where they get this stuff from, eh?
It’s a miracle that my generation (I was born in 1949) made it out of the womb, let alone beyond infancy, given that smoking prevalence in those days was 80% or so (I seem to remember reading somewhere).
And yet here we are, despite all those terrible, terrible things inflicted upon us by our smoking parents’ generation, fit, healthy and long-lived. It is a miracle of unprecedented proportions, it is. One could almost think that the medical profession was (no, no, say it ain’t so…)…….lying to us??? Nooo…, it can’t be, surely. After all, they are experts. Aren’t they?
Its called voodoo black magic and should be treated as such by rolling on the ground laughing and pointing your finger the one saying it as if it were real.
Nope. It’s called idiotic-hand smoke damage.
Dwarf, RELAX!!! We had a smoking room (with a coffee machine!) on the maternity ward. Due to my offsprings’ birth weights (delivered before expected dates) I had to stay 5 days in hospital with all of them. It was fun – babys sleep, mum is in the smoking lounge with loads of coffee and cigarettes. On one of the stays I bumped into a woman who did not frequent the smoking room. Non-smokers never did. Her baby had finally made the 4 pound needed to be transferred from special care to the maternity ward…. I HAD to see this little boy!!!! He was so much less than half the size of my baby!!!!
I do remember being polite and showing her my constantly sleeping offspring and then I said: “Going for a coffee and fag”.
The lady: ” you SMOKE”?
Me: “Yep. I only craved in this pregnancy: CIGARETTES and red ice lollies.”
She: “How much were you over your date”?
Me: “I wasn’t, I had a few weeks to go, but the baby was getting too big…”
So much for umbilical cord oxygen transfer problems in smokers and as for feeding babies as a smoker; all my offspring grew up fine and attended university. And the anti-smokers hate the facts.
Ansonsten schliesse ich mich Reinhold an: Glueckwunsch Opa!
Beo, actually I am relaxed, I found it rather amusing in an “Gibt’s doch gar net ” (“No way, Jose”) way. Or rather I was relaxed until this evening when Youngest Son phoned to say his wife and less-than-a-week old baby daughter had been in a car smash …THEN he told us that they were both unhurt. Danke für den Herzinfarkt! (“thank you for the heart attack, Son!”). No doubt the guilty party, the other driver was suffering from smoking induced ocular-dropsy…his eyes having fallen onto the floor of the car.
Ansonsten schliesse ich mich Reinhold an: Glueckwunsch Opa! Zwerg dankt.
No doubt the guilty party, the other driver was suffering from smoking induced ocular-dropsy…his eyes having fallen onto the floor of the car.
*kaputtlach!*
(Translation: ROFL)
These claims get more laughable by the day. Sadly for our friend in Virginia, the US public (commenters on here excepted, naturally!) seem more prone to believe these patently wild, plucked-from-the-air myths than people here in the UK are. It’s a shame, really, that they don’t try making some of these claims publicly in the UK, in fact, because I think that the reaction of pretty much everyone – smoker and non-smoker – that I know in this country would be to laugh, incredulously, just as everyone I know – smokers and non-smokers alike, again – thought the idea of smoke being able to travel magically through brick walls was hilarious. The madder the claims become, the less credibility the anti-smoking movement has over here. So, bring it on, puritans. How about “smoking makes your whole head fall off” for starters? Or have they done that one already?
Not yet. But then, you might have just given them an idea….
However, I do remember the “dirty blood” ad that quickly found it’s way into the little round “archive” … In the usual anti-smokers’ short-sightedness they forgot to think about the very basics of physics: where there is an action there is an equal reaction.
People stopped donating blood simply they feared to be held accountable as “deadly” smokers when a recipient shows an adverse reaction to the transfusion (for various real reasons as the red cells transfused are still FOREIGN bodies).
Incidentally, Reynauld’s syndrome affected people do have what is called cold agglutinins which causes the symptoms. They are generally advised to stay out of the cold and if possible to move to warmer climates. I do know of one woman who ended up emigrating to Spain… The last I heard was that she is perfectly fine there but the anti-smoker propaganda + smoking ban is curbing her newly found social life….
She should have moved to Greece, Brigitte – she wouldn’t have even known that anti-smoking propaganda and smoking bans existed in the world.
The persistent tobacco control propaganda has seeded a generation of antismokers. The new antismokers are driven by fear. They have been warned that smoking causes all disease. They even believe if they don’t smoke they will live long, prosperous lives. Of course the association between smoking and these many diseases is weak at best and non-smokers get all of the same diseases. Lung cancer, as all regular readers here know, is the cornerstone of this belief system. It is a fragile cornerstone since about 60% of current lung cancer cases are occurring former light smokers and never-smokers (see http://loop21.com/health/lung-cancer-deadliest-1381/ ).
The never-ending torrent of antismoker propaganda has led to bans (first indoors, now outdoors) and irrational fear of smoke and smokers. This fear triggers hate and abuse of smokers. When the tobacco control lies are exposed, hate mongering increase. It is actually all about control and when power structures are threatened they increase their reliance on control measures. That soughed make the break down of the global economic system an interesting time. I suspect the emphasis on antismoking (and now anti-vaping) is a diversionary measure used to keep the masses occupied so they don’t sense the coming collapse. Now that the collapse has arguably begun they will no doubt redouble their antismoking (read control) efforts.
What happens when the collapse continues and/or the public recognizes that the tobacco control propaganda for what it is–lies…
Yep, totally agree, has anyone else noticed the increasing fear mongering over alcohol lately, as well as smoking and vaping?
Seems every day there is a new alcohol fear whipped up, and they are predominantly fears that are focused on how “poor” people drink, and why banning cheap alcohol, or jacking up the price of some forms of alcohol, (namely the ones poorer people can afford to buy), is the only remedy.
In Australia, alcohol consumption has been falling steadily over the decades, as has crime, including supposedly alcohol fuelled crime, but the old moral panic is trotted out again. Unsurprisingly, this is at a time when the country is heading for a recession, and the government is full of liars, greedites and hypocrites.
I haven’t noticed an increase in alcohol-related fearmongering in the U.S. as of late, but then again, our media is currently enthralled with this whole Confederate flag nonsense. I’m sure it will seep over here soon.
R.I.P.
“This is a tragedy which affects the whole NATO family. I express my heartfelt condolences to the loved ones and the nations of those who lost their lives, and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured.” – NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg
“The Greek fighter jet was carrying out a NATO training exercise at the Spanish base but something went wrong during the take-off.”
source http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/27/us-spain-crash-nato-idUSKBN0KZ21320150127
And this is not fiction neither:
The Hudsucker Proxy (2/10) Movie CLIP – Waring Hudsucker Quits (1994) HD
Another cigarette …
Oh my God!
Another great idea for a planetary tax?!?!
source http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-to-stop-an-asteroid-hitting-earth-would-people-cooperate-to-face-a-global-peril-10353951.html
Thanks for that link. Asteroids are going to be the 21st century’s panic. Everyone will want a tin hat, or a house that’s 500 metres underground.
About The damsel in distress in Virginia:
does that manager have an email address? If so, what if a lot of us sent her one email each, a few polite lines long, with a link to some unimpeachable study–either about the benefits of smoking or negating the Your Toes Will Fall off stuff. (ONE, Harley. More is spam and harrassment.) Even if she refuses to read or believe the contents, the fact that the damsel appears to have many –let alone many intelligent– allies and backers might do some good??
Just a thought.
Btw: did she really mean your eyes would fall out of your HEAD? Like into your soup? Or imagine sidewalks littered with eyeballs outside of tobacco shops? And didn’t Chris or Dick a few years ago do some hilarious sendup about nipples falling off? Does anyone have a link to that?
Here you are, Walt.
Plastic surgeon’s bizarre breast lift warning spotlights smokers’ risks
December 8, 2011
“If you’re a female smoker considering breast lifts, consider yourself warned: smoking cigarettes could cause your nipples to fall off.”
“I cringe every time I see a patient for a breast lift who is a smoker,” Youn wrote on CNN. “I’m deathly afraid that despite my warnings, she will smoke before or after surgery and cause her nipples to turn black and fall off.”
In his blog, Youn relays the tale of one surgical patient who smoked too soon after surgery, causing her nipples to turn purple. Once purple, there isn’t much time before the nipples turn black and fall off, he said. The only way he could prevent this from happening? Leeches.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/plastic-surgeons-bizarre-breast-lift-warning-spotlights-smokers-risks/
“Walden said smoking causes blood vessel constriction, which cuts off the blood supply around breast, resulting in nipple death. Youn described smoke’s toxins as a “virtual tourniquet.”
I bet that plastic surgeon still does the operation and takes the money, though!
Sounds like a bad excuse for a mistake made during surgery to me.
Good idea, waltc, but I don’t think you can fight emotional hysteria with logic, and that’s the problem we have.
Youd be surprised how quickly facts make a emotional rantist person run for the hills or go str8 into denial………
In my experience, Harley, they just don’t believe the facts.
what if a lot of us sent her one email each
The distressed damsel reads this blog. And if she wants to invoke this ‘nuclear’ option, all she has to do is to drop the email address here. She may not want to, of course.
did she really mean your eyes would fall out of your HEAD? Like into your soup?
Of course.
And then the antismoker sitting at the next table starts complaining about being splashed by smokers’ eyeballs falling into their soup all the time.
…and thus a new “SHS” is born: “Second-Hand Soup”.
“Sorry, sir, soup is no longer served to smokers.”
“If you’re a female smoker considering breast lifts, consider yourself warned: smoking cigarettes could cause your nipples to fall off.”
“I cringe every time I see a patient for a breast lift who is a smoker,” Youn wrote on CNN. “I’m deathly afraid that despite my warnings, she will smoke before or after surgery and cause her nipples to turn black and fall off.”
…..
Her answer – well, just think of the TONS of other awful things smoking does to destroy people. It destroys fingers and toes!
I was like – hey – WHAT?
Yes, she says, your fingers and toes can fall off if you smoke.
…..
No sense trying to get my point across with the building manager – who is so rabid an anti-smoker and so closed-minded that every benefit I or anyone else might bring up will cause her to spew a litany of dread diseases allegedly caused by smoking.
Oh – okay – one of them was – your eyes will fall out. REALLY. SHE SAID THAT.
Surely I am not the only one having a giggle – the anti-smokers must be more desperate than we could ever imagine!!!!
We should keep anti-smoker nonsense for future references – to ask the people what on earth made them believe (if they do/did) these idiotic claims.
I usually tell people:
It is easy to find out who finances what study – I’m afraid if I am to consider tobacco control&friends financed studies, then I also have to take into account tobacco industry financed studies.
Where is the list of TRULY INDEPENDENT studies?
Farage: ‘The European project is beginning to die’
Published: July 8, 2015
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Farage%3A_%27The_European_project_is_beginning_to_die%27/44965/0/38/38/Y/M.html
“If you’ve got the courage you should lead the Greek people out of the eurozone, with your head held high,” said British MEP Nigel Farage (EFFD).
Discussing the Greek crisis in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Farage urged the Greek government to “get back their democracy” and “the control of their country”.
“Give your people the leadership and the hope that they crave,” he added.
Also addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, National Front leader Marine Le Pen told Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that “you cannot get your people out of austerity unless you’re allowed to escape from the Euro”.
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/12/14/study-smoking-bans-mischaracterizes-medical-data
Study on Smoking Bans Mischaracterizes Medical Data
Authors of a widely reported article on the health impacts of a local ban on smoking in restaurants claim their research shows significant health benefits, but the data examined in the article show no health benefits at all.
The Veterans Affairs psychiatrist tried to put me on Welbutrin at 10 mg a day for 2 months.
I remembered the name as an anti-smoking drug and I found it its basically the same drug as ZYBAN.
SHEILA MARTIN
Dr Richard Hurt, has opened himself an eight day, inpatient, tobacco cure clinic, which he is hoping to get the government to kick in and pay for. This “Clockwork Orange” clinic costs $5,500.00 and you are required to bring your own Johnson and Johnson patches and gums, and their Wellbutrin. Dr Hurt has lots to gain when he produces the junk science to justify the hounding of smokers. He is the Chicken Little in the barnyard, squealing that the sky is falling! Naturally, he is selling umbrellas behind the barn!
Needless to say the wellbuterin is still sitting on the shelf above me unopened or touched.
She claimed it helped with anxiety which may well be true but it also messes with your subconscious mind………….that aint gonna happen to this kid.
BTW Obama is now mixing his hand in with the GREXIT by basically financing a last minute protest of pro EU bussed in protestors in Athens and as expected china has told trading firms no more selling off stocks and other things for 6 months or face imprisonment. Microsoft laid off 8000 workers yesterday on top of it all. The FED in the US this morning started dumping more plastic dollars into the DOW exchanges to drive them back up. Then CNBC yesterday ADMITS that most companies and major corporations took out short term loans on the value of their stocks to be able to pay out the dividends on the super inflated values of the stocks which was caused by Obama and the FED pumping their values up to start with besides shorters in the markets who somehow get daily insider info on what the FED is going to buy up next then they hop in as it rides up in value and dump it before the price declines as the FED meets its target for what it wanted to purchase and hold.
My neighbors kid called his dad months after his gay wedding and says dad its just not working for some reason he just wont get pregnant…………..
LOL!!!
Harley, you are on a roll; take it easy and stay away from Zyban!!
Glad to see you are better! Best wishes to you and Mrs. Harley; it looks like Mrs. Harley looks after Mr Harley really well!
She saved my life and is my angel!