05.3.2008 | 11:15 am | Junk Science, Nanny Nation
Dr. Shepard was one of the co-authors of the infamous Helena Study. The study made an astonishing claim: That in the six months Helena MT had a smoking ban in place heart attacks dropped by 60%. In order to fully appreciate this entry, I suggest you first read the details of the study here and here.
Tony Masset, a student at Carroll College in Waukesha, WI, attended a presentation by Dr. Shepard. Before the presentation he asked me to suggest some questions he could ask.
Tony tried to record the conversations, but wasn’t able to because of an equipment malfunction. Instead, he wrote down the questions and answers immediately after leaving the presentation. As a result this is an accurate, but not word for word, report.
The first round of questions took place during the presentation.
Tony: “There were only 44 cases. Why didn’t you ask a single person about their SHS exposure?”
Shepard: “Because we didn’t have the data from before the study to compare the results too. So even if we asked them about their exposure it wouldn’t have done us any good because we can not compare it to anything.”
Tony: “Your own graph shows a similar dip in the heart attacks in 1998. Why did you ignore that?”
Shepard: “That data isn’t similar as shown in my graph.” Then he pointed to a new column graph that showed the number of heart attacks by year instead of by month. The average showed the rates increasing every year up to the year of the ban and then slowly climbing again after the ban was lifted.
So when one graph proves you’re a liar, create another that shows you in a better light.
Tony: You announced a 60% reduction in your press conference, but your published study only claimed a 40% reduction. Why?”
Shepard: “We did a (phonetically spelled) qwuaz-eye study and the BMJ wanted us to do a linear study.” I am not sure what it means, I think his point was that he had the data determined using one method but the BMJ wanted them to determine the data using their approved method. It has to be a round-about way of saying “we manipulated the data and they didn’t want to publish our manipulated findings.”
My guess is Shepard was admitting that the 60% number came from a “quasi-study.” In other words, an imitation study, something that resembled a study, but was not a real study. What does this say about his integrity?
After the presentation:
After the questions I stayed to argue with him for about 15 minutes. He had an older listener and a younger college student on each side of him giving him a bobble head visual “surround sound” effect, two people that literally shook their head yes to every single thing the man said! A few things said in our Q&A were:
Tony: “Why can’t the bar owners make their own decision about how to run their business? If it truly was beneficial to bar owners wouldn’t they implement smoking bans on their own?”
Shepard: “People do not have a right to smoke because it harms others so bar owners can’t permit a practice that someone does not have a right to do. And no, bar owners have an irrational fear that they will lose business if they implement a ban so they will never decide to ban smoking on their own.”
Bar owners fear of losing business is hardly irrational. Smoking bans always destroy a significant number of businesses, especially bars.
He brought up various court cases where smokers always lost and concluded, “See, no one has a legal right to smoke.”
Nice sidestep. This is not, and has never been, about anyone’s right to smoke. It’s about junk science and the property rights of venue owners.
Tony: “People can decide for themselves whether they want to patronize a bar or not, so why do we need a blanket ban that forces owners to decide how to run their establishment?”
Shepard: “The employees can’t decide for themselves. They often have no skills, no education, and they need to put food on the table and so they have to bus tables, their choice is taken away. Does the owner have the right to subject employees to that?”
Tony: “The employees chose to work there, they knew people smoked and yet they took the job anyway. If someone doesn’t like where they work they can find another job.”
College student bobble head: “What experience do you have in the work force?”
Shepard: “(smirking) You are falsely believing that people can go out and find a job anywhere at anytime, that there are limitless jobs available, and that people have the ability to change jobs. Most people don’t and those individuals that don’t have a choice of where to work can not be subjected to SHS because of how deadly it is.”
Could Shepard have been any more condescending? He claims his mission is to protect bar employees, but it’s because they’re talentless losers who can’t find work anywhere else.
Tony: “I believe one of the great aspects about living in America is that you can choose to leave a job at anytime for any reason and find one where you want to work. Positions for unskilled laborers are probably the most abundant in this economy and you are going to tell me that it is impossible for them to find another job at a different restaurant?”
Shepard: (smiling as the two bobble heads bobbed up and down)”I think you do not understand the point. Bar owners can not be allowed to subject employees to SHS because of its harmful effects, plain and simple. I also think you are not being sympathetic to the situations most people live in and you have never experienced the choices that they have had to deal with.”
Tony: “I want to go back to the question about the first three months of the ban. During that time, with little compliance, heart attacks decreased. In the second three months, with enforcement, heart attacks returned to normal levels.”
Shepard: “Most businesses were in compliance with the ordinance, only a handful weren’t. Part of the reason the ban was lifted was because of the difficulty with enforcing it. They got fed up with trying and overturned the ban. I think it is unfair to bring up those specific statistics because you are focusing too much on the data.”
This is a flat out lie. A substantial number of businesses weren’t complying and he knows it.
Tony: “We have many taxes on cigarettes, if we ban smoking besides the loss of jobs for those individuals wouldn’t the government just push the tax onto some other product or service because they will not want to lose funding?”
Shepard: “We would double the tax each time the percentage of people that smoke is cut in half. It would maintain our tax income and discourage others from smoking. I would hate to be the guy that pays $1,000,000 for the last pack of cigarettes. Also like you said, those people could easily go find other jobs because it is America.” (Head bobbing and laughs)
Tony: “You really pushed the idea that nicotine is the most addictive drug in the world so why would increases in the tax rate suddenly cause people to break the habit? Why wouldn’t they just go bankrupt making them dependent on societal programs such as welfare, increasing costs for nonsmokers?” (A big point of his was that nonsmokers pay for smoker’s health insurance.)
Shepard: “If you were listening that is not what I said. Poor people that can’t afford cigarettes stop smoking; it is the rich that end up being the primary smokers with higher tax rates because they can afford to smoke.”
It is a joke. On the one hand he says “Because the nicotine is so addictive even if smokers want to quit they can’t.” Yet later he says poor people will stop smoking when they can’t afford cigarettes. Like they can suddenly stop buying them because cost becomes the over whelming factor in the decision to smoke. What will really happen is a poor person will steal cigarettes if they can’t afford them, plain and simple. I wish I would have said that.
A few will steal, but the majority will buy “illegal” smokes, cigarettes that have been purchased without paying the tax. There is a huge black market for cigarettes that aren’t burdened with confiscatory taxes, and it grows every time tobacco taxes are raised.
Well I hope I gave you some insight into how the presentation was conducted. He had an answer to everything I said. I learned a lot. I’d like to take their responses, research them, and blow them out of the water next time I argue. I’d like to find weaknesses in their logic and pick their ideas apart. Hopefully I can strengthen my argument after this.
I think I shocked the people when I told them I did not smoke or drink but I would be the first to fight for everyone’s right to do so. I wish I could remember more of what we argued about at the end or even the points he argued in his presentation.
I want to thank you again for the questions and for reading my e-mail. I love your website and I hope you can maintain it with more relevant information!
Tony Masset
West Allis
Great Job, Tony. Yes, nannies, like all fundamentalists, have stock answers for the tough questions. But, as you learned, there is little substance to those answers. If you keep pressing them they usually end up contradicting themselves, revealing their dishonesty.
Comments (1)
04.30.2008 | 11:25 pm | Nanny Nation
MADD is demanding that Grand Theft Auto be giving the rating of Adults Only because players can drive drunk in the game. Citing their tiresome ass numbers, they proceed to give us their standard lecture, and then “suggest” that Rockstar remove the game from the market.
Rockstar has spent an estimated $100 million developing the most eagerly anticipated game ever, and these mouth-breathers think they’ll pull it because it offends their tender sensibilities.
This story was sent to me by Mike T, via Kotaku. Mike writes, “I remembered your MADD show a while ago and am pretty shocked at how dumb these people are.” I’m not. Nannyism is a mental disease, a religious infection that makes nannies immune from reason, logic, facts, or even simple common sense.
Mike says, “I’ve had GTA since it came out and the game *really* discourages you from driving drunk. You crash a lot, (usually with others in the car, sometimes sending them to the hospital,) and it’s a great way to end up with cops chasing you.
Also, the first time I came out of a bar in the game, my cousin, (in the game,) said something like, ‘we really should get a cab. You’re in no condition to drive.’”
My guess in the MADDtards have never played the game, but are going on some report somewhere that someone heard about from someone else who told them that there’s drunk driving in the game.
Wait until they hear about the hookers. . .
Comments (4)
04.29.2008 | 12:29 pm | Police State, Poker, Nanny Nation
North Carolina police staged a military style raid to protect the pubic from….a poker game.
After wasting taxpayers’ money with a ten month investigation, they burst into a home poker game and arrested 27 people, including an assistant prosecutor. They confiscated all the money they could find, including, according to one report, cash that people had in their purses and wallets. Then they went after people who weren’t at the game, but had played on other occasions.
Doesn’t that make you feel safer?
The police were enforcing a law from 1802 that prohibits laying any time of game, in your home, that uses dice or cards. Better find a good hiding place for your Monopoly, Sorry! and Cranium.
Comments (2)
04.28.2008 | 1:21 pm | Junk Science, Nanny Nation
Now that European nannies have succeeded in using bogus claims to outlaw smoking nearly everywhere , They’re moving on to their next target: passive drinking.
Uber Nanny Dr. Peter Anderson claims, “The total tangible cost of alcohol to EU society in 2003 was estimated {pulled out of someone’s ass} to be €125bn (€79bn-€220bn), equivalent to 1.3 per cent GDP, and which is roughly the same value as that found recently for tobacco.” Anderson was a driving force in vilification of Europe’s smokers. His primary tool was lying about the effects of second hand smoke, relying, of course, on ass numbers. “The intangible costs show the value people place on pain, suffering and lost life that occurs due to the criminal, social and health harms caused by alcohol. In 2003 these were estimated {pulled from way up my ass} to be €270bn, with other ways of valuing the same harms producing estimates between €150bn and €760bn.”
Did you really think the nannies would stop at tobacco?
Comments (2)
04.18.2008 | 12:42 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation
While most countries are badgering their citizens to lose weight, France thinks they have the opposite problem – some of their citizens are too skinny.
New French legislation makes it a crime to promote excessive thinness. Anyone guilty faces fines of up to $70,000 dollars and three years in jail, where the food is, evidently, abundant and excellent. The law applies to all media, but the primary target seems to be pro-anna web sites which proclaim anorexia or bulimia is a good and preferred lifestyle.
I found this post on a pro anna site: “its so strange ive had like a rice cake and i feel like purging. i think im going to have to. i cant cope today!” Evidently she’s too weak to hold down the shift key.
France’s government did this after a Brazilian supermodel literally starved herself to death, lowering the country’s total IQ by nearly sixteen points.
Ladies, if you’re considering doing something as stupid as developing an eating order on purpose, please accept this observation from an average male guy type person:
Guys like women that are woman shaped. That means curvy bits, not straight lines. Breasts are sexy (we really like breasts). Visible ribs are gross. Hips are sexy. Hip bones are disgusting.
If your boyfriend gets painful bruises when he hugs you he won’t continue being affectionate. Nor is he likely to stay around if he runs his fingers down your shoulder blades and cuts himself.
So have a sandwich.
Comments (2)
04.14.2008 | 1:12 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation
Evidently it doesn’t take much to be a professor in New Zealand. Or a “top public health expert,” for that matter.
Professor Rod Jackson (which would be an excellent screen name for a porn star) has declared that butter is poison. He uses the word repeatedly in his rants. He claims “We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter. It’s the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand. It’s about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison.” It’s easy to picture him wiping the foam from his chin after his rant.
New Zealand is a very nanny state, but this is too much even for them. There are no plans to make this idiot’s demand into law. For now.
Japans contribution to this kind of lunacy is even worse. The government has mandated that everyone over 40 must have a “regulation size” waist of 33.5 inches. Companies are not only required to monitor their employee’s weight, but also the weight of their families. Companies who don’t comply will be fined 10% of their profits. Expect to see more fat people on the unemployment lines, and blocking the sidewalks begging for change.
There goes Sumo as a national sport.
Japan has socialized medicine like all socialized medicine, is getting difficult fund. This gives them the justification to force people to be healthy.
Meanwhile, back in the states, schools across the country are banning “junk food,” foolishly believing that all you have to do to get rid of something popular is make it illegal, because that always works so well. And everywhere this happens smart, entrepreneurial students load up their back packs with candy, soda and chips to sell to their fellow students. If they’re caught, instead of being given extra credit for their initiative and business acumen, their goods are confiscated and they’re sent to detention. I’ve yet to see an article mention what happens to the confiscated candy, but I’m guessing the teachers aren’t losing any weight.
Comments (2)
03.31.2008 | 9:37 pm | Nanny Nation
This just in from the wonderful world of socialized medicine.
The U.K. mandates that anyone who visits an emergency room must be treated within four hours. Sometimes the demand for “free” heath care is so great a hospital can’t meet that deadline. Fortunately, they’ve come up with a novel solution.
They leave the patients in the ambulance.
Outside.
For an hour. Or two. Or five.
Last year they did this with over 43,000 patients.
And of course, while the sick and injured were being kept in the ambulances, waiting and waiting and waiting, those ambulances were unavailable to anyone else who had called in an emergency.
Isn’t government heath care a great idea?
Comments (4)
03.26.2008 | 10:37 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
A high school project in New Jersey asked teens to design public policy. They designed one that requires Big Brother to punish kids for making incorrect decisions, proving that government schools are doing a fine job of raising the next generation of sheep.
The new bill would fine kids caught possessing tobacco or smoking in public places.
The article quotes Marie Kakogiannis, a junior at Rutherford High School. “I think it’s a great way for kids not to smoke, but kids are going to find a way to do it. But whatever the government could do to prevent it, they should.”
Only a high school junior, and she’s already a Nicotine Nazi. Isn’t that cute?
Comments (1)
03.20.2008 | 12:35 am | Nanny Nation
People who despise the nanny state will sometimes say, “pretty soon the government is going tell us how to wipe our ass.”
Florida has come one step closer to making that a reality, with a proposed law mandating that restaurants always have enough toilet paper on hand. But they aren’t defining “enough.” Would this mean that greasy spoons, chili parlors and Taco Bells must legally have more T. P. available than, say, a steak house?
If this passes the next step is inevitable. In a few years Floridians will will see a new notice under the “Employee’s Must Wash Hands” sign:
Comments (4)
02.14.2008 | 1:25 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Very Old Jokes, Nanny Nation
Thailand’s Assumption University (yes, that’s their real name) asked 2400 teenagers if they were planning on having sex on Valentine’s day. 27% of them said “yeah, maybe.”
Bangkok police, armed with the knowledge that teenagers never lie, especially about sex, are springing into action. They’re going to turn all the lights on at public parks, tell parents to make their kids come home early, and check cheap motels. They’ll be sending patrols to parks, restaurants and shipping malls, no doubt practicing the ancient oriental secret birth control technique of jumping out from behind something and shouting “Hey, stop that!”
There is no evidence they’re considered changing city’s name to something less suggestive.
Comments (1)
02.3.2008 | 5:44 pm | Nanny Nation, Big Brother
New Mexico legislator Gail Chasey, evidently attempting to prove she can be as dim-witted as any Mississippi legislator, has teamed up with the Sierra Club to propose a tax on TVs and Video games. The money would be used to fight childhood obesity and improve education. If the people behind this proposal were educated in New Mexico, one could argue that education improvement is sorely needed.
After writing that paragraph I Googled her. She lists her occupation as “Retired Educator.” I rest my case.
I’ve always felt that for the first year of any new law, it should only apply to those who voted for it or advocated for it. If that were the case, I’d support this one. Imagine the results.
First we’d hire personal trainers to visit the offices of the legislators and the Sierra Club. They’d weigh and measure all of them, and using the ridiculously inaccurate BMI determine who was obese. Anyone who was would be locked out of their office and moved to the nearest public park, where they would be forced spend eight hours a day doing sit ups, pull ups, push ups, throw ups, fall downs, and any other calisthenics that would amuse bystanders. Weather wouldn’t be allowed as an excuse - they’d exercise in the sun, the rain, the snow (do they get snow in New Mexico?) until they achieve the officially sanctioned BMI.
They’ll have 30 days to reach their goal. If they do, great, they can go back to work and resume pretending to do whatever it is they pretend to do. If not, they’ll be fired. And when they get home they’ll find the fun police were there first, and have removed every TV, DVD, Video Game and computer from their premises.
BTW, here’s her contact information. Feel free to drop her a line about her brilliant plan.
Comments (1)
02.3.2008 | 5:05 pm | Nanny Nation, Politics
Here’s yet another example of how difficult it is to write satire or parody in today’s world. Back in 1999 I wrote an article that ended with fast food workers being forbidden to serve fat people. It was intended as a joke.
Now, from the brilliant brain trust that is Mississippi, comes proposed legislation to do just that. “Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health.”
Residents of Mississippi (State Motto: “Who Needs a Full Set Of Teeth?”) can only hope they have enough porky legislators to keep this from becoming law.
Comments (1)
02.3.2008 | 4:47 pm | Political Correctness, Ridiculous, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
How many mouth-breathing brain-dead adults can you find in this picture?
A fourteen year old boy in Lewisville Texas applied some hand sanitizer that was on his fifth grade teachers desk. He smelled it, but evidently inhaled too deeply.
The school officials called the cops, who hauled him into the police department, photographed and fingerprinted him. The DA charged him with delinquency, claiming he smelled the stuff “induce a condition of intoxication, hallucination and elation.”
Eventually the charges were dropped, but not until the boy’s father hired a lawyer and the story received media attention.
It’s not surprising that a school administrator would do this - they are almost always anal retentive dull normals with less imagination than a Britney Spears lyricist. But any cop with a double digit IQ should have laughed the thing off, called the school official a disparaging name, and then snickered about it over donuts back at the station. Instead, he hauled the kid in and treated him like a criminal. The police chief should have stopped it right there, but he didn’t. The prosecutor should have cited the police for being assholes and ended it there. But it wasn’t until lawyers and the media were called in that any of the authoritarians backed down.
The school officials, the cop, the chief and the prosecutor should all get together - in the unemployment line.
Comments (0)
01.16.2008 | 2:05 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation, Big Brother, Politics
Inspired, perhaps, by California counties that have made it illegal for people to smoke in their own homes, the government is eager to continue expanding their tentacles into once private residences.
The California Energy Commission wants to require all new homes, and remodeled homes, have special radio controlled thermostats which Big Brother could control. First they’ll set it to “suggested” temperatures. Customers would be allowed to override the “suggestions,” but Big Brother would have the ultimate control, and the final say.
Concerns that the signal could be hacked have been brushed aside. A spokesweasel for PG&E says that’s not possible, a statement guaranteed to inspire geeks to prove her wrong.
Comments (1)
11.23.2007 | 10:51 pm | Political Correctness, Pop Culture, Nanny Nation
When my kids were little I watched Sesame Street with them, and some of the jokes were obivously aimed at adults. I remember Cookie Monster, sitting in a big leather chair in a library, smoking a pipe and announcing, “This Is Alastair Cookie, bringing you Monster Piece Theater.” My kids didn’t know why I was laughing - that joke wasn’t in there for them.
Some of the original shows have been released on DVDs, but according to this article (sent to me by Michael Tighe of thecheapstudent.com) they carry a warning: ““These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”
Cookie Monsters pipe was too offensive. According to Carol-Lynn Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.” Oscar was too grouchy. Parente said, ““We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now,” she said.
And the pussification of America continues. . .
Of course, it’s not limited to America. In Australia, Santas are being told to say “ha ha ha” instead of ‘ho, ho, ho” because someone might misunderstand and think he’s calling someone a whore. I’m sorry, if you’re that easily offended, if your brain is so poorly developed that you find that offensive, rest assured that we’re far more offended at your stupidity than you are at this innocuous phrase. And you’re probably a ho too.
Comments (3)
11.15.2007 | 1:25 pm | Poker, Pop Culture, Nanny Nation, Politics
Yesterday, Annie Duke testified to the House Committee on the Judiciary about playing poker on line: Why it should be legal, why the whining nannies lament about compulsive gambling is ridiculous, why the “for the chillllllllllldreeeeen” bleat is sensless, how poker is a game of skill, not luck, and quite a few other related issues. Here are a few excerpts:
“Of course, opponents of gaming will cite the incidence of compulsive gambling and the possible exposure of minors as reasons to prohibit it. With respect to compulsive gambling, this committee has received expert testimony confirming what most academic studies on compulsive gambling have found: that the incidence of problem gambling in the population of adults who engage in gambling activity is less than 1%. From a similar study in the United Kingdom, we know that the availability of betting over the Internet does not increase it over time. Furthermore, even if one’s primary concern were the very small incidence of compulsive gambling, then licensing and regulation offer more effective and less intrusive means to combat it.”
“Of course, prohibitionists point to the possibility of children betting online as the other justification for prohibiting it. In fact, most people who seek to restrict individual freedom invoke protection of children as their motivation. I suspect they find that that argument has more resonance than what is often their real motivation — to treat adults like children, and manage their choices for them.”
“To reiterate: if your concern in this matter is about children, there are solutions available. If, instead your interest is in treating adults like children, then there are not.”
“The vast majority of Internet poker players are doing so for recreation and entertainment. On average, a person spends $10 a week playing online poker. 10 dollars! You can’t even get a movie ticket for that price where I live!”
“In the proposed rule issued by the Department of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the regulators come right out and say that they cannot and will not tell the regulated community what constitutes an unlawful Internet wager. Let me emphasize — the posture of the Federal government is, “We are going to create a new federal crime, but we will not tell you what it is.” In the proposed rule, the regulators explain their refusal to resolve this by saying that to do so would require them to examine the laws of the federal government and all 50 states with respect to every gaming modality, and that this would be unduly burdensome. Yet that is exactly what they are requiring the general counsel of every bank in the country to do.”
Read the entire transcript here.
Comments (2)
11.13.2007 | 1:41 pm | Junk Science, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is suing Mothers Against Illegal Aliens for using “Mothers Against” in their name. Their C&D letter said “MADD cannot be associated with your organization and the use of “Mothers Against” gives a strong implication of a relationship with MADD.”
Not really. As the writer of this blog discovered, a quick Google of “Mothers Against” returns hundreds of “Mothers Against” organizations. Why they went after this one is anyone’s guess.
M.A.D.D, like every other nanny organization, is a fountain of made up numbers and fake statistics. Their favorite, of course, is the number of drivers killed in “alcohol related accidents.” Note the careful phrasing. We’re not talking drunk drivers here, we’re talking alcohol related. If the driver swallowed his mouthwash before going to work and blew .01 on a breathalyser, that’s alcohol related, even though no sane person would consider that drunk. If a driver hits a drunk pedestrian, that’s alcohol related. If the driver is stone cold sober but his passenger had a few, that’s an alcohol related accident.
I’d suggest that they change their name. Just shorten it by one letter, to M.A.D: Mothers Against Drinking. They are no longer going after drivers who are actually drunk. Their goal is prohibition, one baby step at a time.
At one point, they used the motto “Impairment starts with the first drink.” They’ve dropped that, removing it entirely from their web site. Perhaps they realized they were jumping the gun by a few years. But a few quotes from their literature shows where they’re really coming from.
”Promoting ‘responsible drinking and driving’ is like promoting ‘responsible drive-by shootings’.”—MADD’s Driven Magazine, Fall, 1997
Forget limits on BAC. It’s just not acceptable to drink and drive, period” - Madd President Wendy Hamilton.
“Lowering the legal [arrest] standard will be a deterrent for light drinkers as well as heavy drinkers. There is no safe blood alcohol level, and for that reason, responsible drinking and driving means no drinking and driving.”—Catherine Prescott, former President, MADD.
“…we do not want to overlook the casual drinker. If you choose to drink, you should never drive. We will not tolerate drinking and driving-period.”—MADD President, Karolyn Nunnallee.
Source: this informative, very ugly site.
A well done breakdown of how M.A.D.D lies with numbers can be found here. And you know you can trust it, because it’s published by Modern Drunkard Magazine.
Comments (3)
11.1.2007 | 1:35 pm | Cigars, Nanny Nation
The Great American Smokeout is November 16th, and we’re making plans to participate. I’ll be getting together with several cigar smoking buddies and we’ll smoke…out. We’ll start with a round of cigars, filling the air with thick tobacco smoke and light conversation. Then we’ll all have a very nice, very unhealthy dinner, followed by even more cigars.
All smokers should make a point to smoke publicly and obviously on this day. If you’re a non-smoking freedom lover you can still make a statement. Buy a big cigar and pretend. (And try lighting it up – you might find you like it.) Use this as an opportunity to make a statement about the whiney, sniveling, pussified, wimpy, nanny, lipidleggin society we’ve become.
Use caution, though, when participating in similar events for the first time. A few years ago I misinterpreted the intention of the Great American Meat Out and really embarrassed myself.
Comments (6)
10.20.2007 | 10:34 pm | Police State, Political Correctness, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
When Michael Graham took his daughter to the pediatrician for a routine checkup, he wasn’t expecting that she’d be grilled about his drinking. He didn’t expect the doctor would ask his kid if he and his wife got along well, or if either of them used drugs, or of he made his daughter “feel uncomfortable”, but that’s what happened. (Note, you can read the whole article by clicking on the numbers at the bottom of the page.)
He goes on to tell the story a five year old who was asked if her parents had a gun. When she said yes the doctor grilled her for more details; he wanted to know what kinds of guns the parents had, how many they had, and how they were stored.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the doctor then called the police and reported everything he had learned.
An errant doc? A nosy exception to the rule? Nope. These are not isolated instances. They are, in fact, required.
This policy document, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, establishes a policy requiring doctors to not only hound their young patients, but to question them about anything their parents do. The following are direct quotes from the policy paper:
“Pre-teens as well as teenagers should be interviewed privately during each office visit with the reassurance of confidentiality and a discussion of its limits. Even an apparently straightforward complaint such as headache or sore throat may be associated with an underlying substance abuse problem.”
“It may be helpful to begin with questions about the patient’s attitude toward use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs within his or her environment (home, school, and friends) rather than probing personal beliefs or habits.”
“Inquiry regarding the extent of tobacco, alcohol, or other drug use by peers and family should be a part of the routine history of every child who is seen in the pediatrician’s office.”
What happens when the kids get something wrong? When I was growing up my father had a beer with every evening meal. One beer, never two, and I never saw him drunk, or even tipsy. Yet, if I were asked, as a five year old kid, about Dad’s drinking I probably would have said “Dad drinks beer every day.” Of course, back then, pediatricians weren’t acting as the eyes and ears of Big Brother.
While it is reasonable for a doctor to make further inquiries if there are signs of abuse or he suspects something is wrong, this kind of fishing is unconscionable. Since this is official policy, parents should never leave their kids alone with their pediatrician.
Isn’t that sick?
Comments (1)
10.10.2007 | 9:55 pm | Political Correctness, Junk Science, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
In a semi-free country like the US it’s difficult to impose tyranny in one fell swoop. It has to be done slowly, little by little, baby step by baby step. And it’s important that those first few steps seem reasonable.
The first anti-smoker law was passed in the sixties. It demanded smoking and non-smoking sections in airplanes. That seems pretty reasonable, and it was passed with little objection. If someone said “In a couple of decades this will lead to it being illegal to have a smoke in a bar,” everyone would have laughed at him. And if he said “In forty years this will lead to it being illegal to smoke in your own home” he’d have been written off as being batshit crazy.
This week the city of Belmont CA passed a law that does just that. If you live in an apartment or a in a condo you’ve paid for, your private property, it will soon be illegal to smoke in it.
Fellow citizens, how long are we going to put up with this kind of shit? What will it take to wake up the American Sheeple?
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