Various news items I noticed today, presented without comment.
Number one: smoking and non-smoking lanes:
Number two: Smokers in Norway ‘like Jews under the Nazis’
A politician from a fringe conservative party in the far north of Norway has compared the plight of smokers in the country to that of Jews during the Nazi occupation.
“We are fighting against a systematic discrimination against smokers,” Geir Finne, leader of the Coastal Party in the country of Troms, said an article published by TV2. “We have not seen anything like this since the time of the occupation.”
The party, which describes itself as “culturally conservative” has made the battle against smoking bans in cafés, restaurants and bars key to its campaign ahead of this month’s municipal elections.
“This is legally enforced discrimination. Jews were also already being persecuted from 1933,” he continued. “We are more monitored today than under the Stasi.”
Number three: Clinton email scandal spills into UK politics:
As the scandal surrounding the Clinton emails continues to grow, private criticism of British politicians by the Democratic Party establishment has been revealed. A close ideological ally of Hillary Clinton described Prime Minister David Cameron as snobbish, his deputy Nick Clegg as suffering from “inbred arrogance” and then Foreign Secretary William Hague as disingenuous.
Number four: Quran older than Mohammed?
Upon this Quran’s discovery last month, experts believed that it could have been written by the Prophet Muhammad himself and may have included many of his teachings, BBC reported.
But now historians say the Quran’s parchment may have been produced between 568 and 645 A.D., the Daily Mail reported. Muhammad’s existence is often believed to be between 570 and 623 A.D., according to the Daily Mail.
“It destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Quran emerged — and that in turn has implications for the history of Muhammad and the Companions,” historian Tom Holland told The Times.
Muhammad is believed to have verbally received the Quran’s words from God, which he used in his teachings, Breitbart News reported. After his death, his companions wrote the Quran based on his teachings, Breitbart reported. But if this book existed before Muhammad was born, it would mean the religion was created years earlier.
“This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition and the history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised, somehow accounting for another book of scripture coming into existence 50 to 100 years before, and then also explaining how this was co-opted into what became the entity of Islam by around A.D. 700,” Holland said, according to Breitbart.
Number five: Ebola in Sierra Leone again.
AFP August 31, 2015 4:41 PM
Freetown (AFP) – A woman who died last week in northern Sierra Leone tested positive for Ebola, the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said Monday, in a setback for the country’s bid to gain Ebola-free status.
There had been celebratory scenes last week when the country’s last known Ebola patient was released from hospital in the central city of Makeni after being cured of the virus, raising hopes the west African nation may finally have beaten the devastating epidemic.
Frank Davis 
Statutory Warning: Smoking illegal cigarettes kills economy
ROFLMAO
http://www.businessinsider.in/Statutory-Warning-Smoking-illegal-cigarettes-kills-economy/articleshow/48756357.cms
Cigarette packets to hit $30 by next year, health group says
Smokers face the prospect of $30 packets by this time next year after today’s huge tax increase, a health group told Daily Mail Australia.
Which kills economies……………lol
That’s not a sin tax.
That’s a sin tax, mate!
Clicky, got a Crocodile Dundee-with-a-knife automated GIF handy?
https://tribzap2it.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mad-men-joan-laugh.gif?w=500&h=282
Having trouble with the gifs, Click?
Number one: They fully admit that “smoking lanes” will not prevent contact with SHS. They are proud to claim this is yet another attempt at segregation, demonizing and alienating smokers from the rest of society in an attempt at social reform. Absolutely disgusting. I won’t even get started on the author’s unadulterated regurgitation of junk science “statistics.”
I know! But a separate smoking room is not allowed in pubs… how does that work, then?
@ Some French Bloke (re comment on previous thread)
Yes! People who are old now are pretty likely to be either people who smoke or people who once smoked. So not only are smoking related diseases (i.e., diseases of age) more likely in that population– but I suspect that the reduction in smoking is at least in part to blame for the “rise” of such diseases in non-smokers. That is, many those non-smokers, in previous generations would have been counted among the people who smoke. More or less the same amount of disease, just a change in the categories of people.
many those non-smokers, in previous generations would have been counted among the people who smoke
They’d simply have actually smoked, if only in moderation… Your remark about a possible “rise” of so-called smoking-related diseases in non-smokers points to the real etiology of these various – in fact very diverse – ailments, which revolves around strong confounding factors that are quite extraneous to smoking habits, even though somehow correlated to them at the time, and which have been largely neglected by generations of biased “researchers” (with dire health consequences).
Quite so.
2007
“Figuratively blowing smoke in the face of conventional wisdom, the study asks: “Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?”
Arunachalam Kumar, Kasaragod Mallya and Jairaj Kumar take little for granted. They begin: “The clinically high correlation between smoking and carcinoma of the lungs has been the focal point in societal campaigns against the habit and the tobacco lobby.” But their experience with patients suggests to them a different, seldom-told story. “We are struck by the more than casual relationship between the appearance of lung cancer and an abrupt and recent cessation of the smoking habit in many, if not most, cases.”
“Experience is their guide, numerically speaking. Of the 312 lung cancer patients they treated during a four-year period, 182 had recently quit smoking. The report goes into detail. “Each had been addicted to the habit no less than 25 years, smoking in excess of 20 sticks a day. The striking direct statistical correlation between cessation of smoking to the development of lung malignancies, more than 60% plus, is too glaring to be dismissed as coincidental.”
“There is, they surmise, a biological mechanism that protects smokers against cancer, that gets exercised and strengthened by years of diligent, heavy smoking. As in habitual marathon running, the body becomes accustomed to suffering grievous damage, and develops habitual ways to fix up whatever breaks down. The smoker’s body becomes a sort of lean, puffing, self-damaging-yet-self-repairing machine.
But when a smoker gives up that regular regimen, the body cannot adjust. “It is our premise,” say the doctors, “that a surge and spurt in re-activation of bodily healing and repair mechanisms of chronic smoke-damaged respiratory epithelia is induced and spurred by an abrupt discontinuation of habit, goes awry, triggering uncontrolled cell division and tumor genesis.”
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/oct/16/highereducation.research1
And again
2010
“Much of what people think they know about smoking and lung cancer might be wrong, according to findings presented here at the 11th International Lung Cancer Conference.
For example, many if not most patients with a history of smoking quit decades before. In a retrospective study of 626 people with lung cancer treated at a tertiary-care facility in Southern California, 482 (77%) had a history of smoking. Of those, only 71 patients (14.7%) were still smoking at the time of their diagnosis. Of the remaining 411 patients, 245 (60%) had not smoked for a mean of 18 years, 8 of whom had quit 51 to 60 years earlier. The other 166 (40%) had stopped smoking within 10 years of their diagnosis.
“Sixty percent of our cohort developed lung cancer despite doing the right thing by stopping smoking over 1 decade ago, according to the researchers.”
“These findings contradict the popular perception that most people with lung cancer are ongoing smokers who did not kick the habit until cancer symptoms appeared, the researchers note”
“In 1995, California passed one of the first antismoking laws in the nation when it banned smoking in enclosed workspaces. This might have encouraged more people to quit smoking than in other parts of the country and might help account for the preponderance of patients in the earlier stages of cancer.”
“Lung cancer suffers from a stigma because most people assume that the patients did it to themselves,” said David R. Gandara, MD, professor of medicine and associate director of clinical research, Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.
However, that perception is changing rapidly, and funding for lung cancer research is growing, added Dr. Gandara, who was not involved in this study. “Although smoking cessation is important, it is not the total answer. One third of lung cancer patients have never smoked and have never been exposed to second-hand smoke.”
Identifying the cause of these malignancies is now the focus of intense interest among investigators. “Is it viral? Is it something else? We still don’t know,” Dr. Gandara said.”
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/725138
“One third of lung cancer patients have never smoked and have never been exposed to second-hand smoke.”
If the patients Dr. Gandara refers to displayed a typical age distribution at diagnosis for LC, most of them must have been born in the late 1930s to mid 1940s, and there’s no way a lot of them could have escaped SHS during the 1960s and 70s.
Yet one third of the patients were from the tiny group of life-long non-smokers, be it of the active or “passive” description…
This seems to point to a protective effect of cig smoke even in minute amounts! So I suppose Dr. Gandara was just making a concession to the consensus by starting off with “Although smoking cessation is important“, surely he was just scared to be taken down on sight by ANTZ the minute he set foot out of his office had he said the only sensible, logical things:
– No doubt taking up smoking is part of the answer.
– If your constitutional inclination won’t permit it, at least socialize with smokers as often as you can.
– If you can’t even stand the sight or smell of smokers, on your own head be it!
WRT smoking lanes.
Someone on a previous thread (I searched for the comment but can’t seem to find it now) stated that they almost wished people who smoke *would* wear armbands – so we could recognize each other.
I kind of like the smoking lanes for the same reason. Yes, disgusting intent. But oh how useful!
But — it wouldn’t last long — they’d see soon enough that our side of the sidewalk was the fun side… and they couldn’t bear to be left out. Always happens that way.
Some time ago I suggested smoking communities with their own infrastructure and taxation, itself a form of segregation albeit voluntary, now they are doing it for us and reaping all the benefits!
I wonder if, now India (and maybe the Irish) are learning that the anti smokers are destroying their economy by promoting illegal tobacco through over taxation there will be a strong swing against the anti’s?
One of the posters there tried the classic “No one’s saying you can’t smoke. You just can’t smoke HERE!” argument.
I responded with this:
Louise Hanson What a moron!! The smokers are the ones responsible for killing, not just themselves but those around them as well. They are not being told “you can’t smoke”, just that “you can’t smoke here”.
Like · Reply · 1 · 16 hrs
Michael J. McFadden Louise, want to clarify what you mean by “you can’t smoke here”?
Do you mean like in a bar or strip club where the owner and all the workers smoke and that no one is forced to enter? Sorry, that’s against the law under most smoking bans. Do you mean outdoors on a patio in the open air where absolutely no harm has ever been shown by ANY study, much less valid replicated studies with significant results? Sorry. That’s becoming verboten too. Could you be saying it’s fine for them to smoke in their cars, or if they’re a farmer driving a tractor out in his field? Nope. In the first case the Antismokers have limited it with all sorts of rules in many places, and in the second case they actually FINE farmers if they catch them doing such a terrible thing. Maybe you mean on a beach with ocean winds blowing in? Sorry. Illegal now in a lot of places. How about while sitting around a blazing campfire in a national park? Nope. That’s one of the “here” places smokers are being told to get out of: their smoke might pollute the fire or something.
Maybe “here” is everyplace you yourself might possibly be capable of setting a foot in without an invitation or without having to break down someone’s door? Nope. Sorry again. If you’re not wealthy enough to afford a stand-alone home with empty land around it your neighbors can take you to court for smoking in your home in some states here in the US, though its usually limited in application to throwing old people without much money to fight out of their apartments. Homelessness is a good way to get rid of the smokers pretty quickly without having to get your hands dirty, eh?
– MJM
Sorry. Didn’t mean to include the paste of her actual post, though I guess it doesn’t hurt to see it in context.
Which article are you commenting on Michael? I can see no comments nor the ability to make one on either of them.
You’re right: Actually I think it was on the facebook page.
Yep! Here: https://www.facebook.com/TheLocalNorway
Found it now Michael!
How about driving lanes for smokes and nonsmokers driving cars, trucks and buses?
Slug, one of the funnier complaints you’ll bump into out on the boards are the people complaining about having to drive for miles behind a car with someone smoking in it and how their own car gets filled with the smoke.
Some guy on CNN years ago was complaining about seeing smoke rise above the head of someone walking in front of him while they both walked along the sidewalk in a big city. It ruined his mood. Some fellow in Montréal made a similar comment in the Montréal Gazette last year. This man felt that his personal health and wellbeing was under attack. Every time I walk, or bicycle, in downtown Montréal I get a headache. It certainly wasn’t triggered by tobacco smoke. The antitobacco folks paint a picture of hordes of people gathered together, puffing away, filling the air with noxious fumes, with people passing out on the sidewalks from secondhand exposure. That’s what the cars, buses and trucks do every day. One hundred fifty million of them cross over Montréal’s bridges both ways every year. They then spread out all over the city, into boroughs, neighborhoods, along highways and poisoning the air every second. That’s one billion motorized vehicles in the past seven years, equal to the number of motorized vehicles circulating around Planet Earth.
Better still, separate driving lanes for teenagers, adults and golden agers. Wider lanes for the golden agers to allow for swerving, fast lanes for hot rodding, pedal to the metal teenage drivers and a mixed bag for the more mature, seasoned drivers.
Reading this article today reminded me of all the different theories on the same subject that I have seen published in newspapers since I first started paying attention in 2007.
Former smoker who lost his voice box to throat cancer poses as a newsstand cashier selling cigarettes so he can warn customers about the horrific dangers of smoking
2 September 2015
‘I had already stopped smoking for 14 years when I had the cancer But either way it was because of the cigarettes.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3218924/Former-smoker-lost-voice-box-throat-cancer-poses-newsstand-cashier-selling-cigarettes-warn-customers-horrific-dangers-smoking.html
Hot Tea, Coffee May Increase Throat Cancer Risk
March 27, 2009
“So how hot is too hot for your throat? The scientists classified warm tea at anything below 149 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot tea, anything measured above 156 degrees Fahrenheit, doubled the risk of esophageal cancer. People who frequently had very hot tea, at 158 degrees Fahrenheit or above, had an eight-fold increased risk of esophageal cancer.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/story?id=7182731
Frequent heartburn raises throat cancer risk 80 percent, study finds
2013
“Previous studies examining gastric reflux and cancers of the head and neck have generated mixed results,” study author Dr. Scott M. Langevin, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said in a press release. “(Our study) is a large, population-based study with robust parameters that strongly suggests gastric reflux, which causes frequent heartburn, is an independent risk factor for cancers of the pharynx (throat) and larynx (vocal cord).”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/frequent-heartburn-raises-throat-cancer-risk-80-percent-study-finds/
Sexual link to throat cancer
2015
“Several overseas studies which have also found a rise in throat cancer rates have attributed this mainly or entirely to an increase in cancers associated with human papilloma virus (HPV), say the authors of the new research, Dr Carol Chelimo and Professor Mark Elwood, of Auckland University.”
http: //www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11426030
It’s a dangerous world out there.
Anti-smoking lobby targets cafe smoking areas with new court case
Anti-smoking organisation Clean Air Nederland said on Wednesday it is going to court to force the Dutch state to impose a total ban on smoking in cafes, bars and clubs.
Currently cafes can allow smoking if they have a suitable sealed off area. However, Clean Air says this goes against the letter of the law and contradicts all the agreements the Netherlands has made.
‘It is now time that the health and welfare of all cafe and restaurant guests is taken seriously,’ Tom Voeten, chairman of Clean Air Nederland told broadcaster RTL news.
‘The concentration of cancer causing substances is unacceptably high in almost all smoking areas,’ he said. ‘Every year, 3,000 non-smokers die because of being unwitting passive smokers.’
Outdoors
Meanwhile, news magazine Elsevier says the ban on smoking in cafes and bars is unlikely to be extended to outdoor terraces in the near future.
A cafe owner in Tilburg has recently created a smoke-free zone on part of his terrace and hopes it will act as an inspiration to others.
According to Elsevier, even though a majority of the population supports a ban on smoking outside cafes, most political parties are not in favour, or think it premature.
The ruling VVD says the move would cause too many problems for owners, particularly those who have been hit hard by the ban on indoor smoking. Most other parties say they consider the issue one for cafe and bar owners themselves to decide.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/09/anti-smoking-lobby-targets-cafe-smoking-areas-with-new-court-case/
I found this linkedin to Tom Voeten, the Dutch Clean Air antismoking lobbyist. He has no medical credentials whatsoever, but he knows what’s good for everybody. Like Debra Arnott and a host of others.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomvoeten
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pharmaceutical-firms-spend-40m-a-year-for-privileged-access-to-eu-decisionmakers-10481962.html
Pharmaceutical firms spend €40m a year for ‘privileged access’ to EU decision-makers