Tuesday 8 November 2011

Consensus Gives Lunatics Wings

One reason why the term 'consensus' is so very sinister is that, when feeble-minded individuals see themselves as firmly in the comfort zone of a hive-minded group, they come out with execrable nonsense.

Take Cumbrian Councillor Bill Wearing, for example.

Mr Wearing, who represents Grange-over-Sands, said: “Smoking in playground areas is a problem. Play areas may be outdoors but they are enclosed by barriers or railings.

“If you are in an enclosed area, even outside, and there are three or four people smoking, it doesn’t take long before there is a secondary effect.”
Yes, he really said that.

Speaking out in favour of a 'voluntary ban' - a description which laughably bastardises the English language in itself - this no mark jerk-off has set himself up as being more knowledgeable than the entire sum of human discourse surrounding secondhand smoke.

Eschewing silly little things like, err, evidence, the idiot has created a health issue which has not only not been proven, but also barely been looked into. The reason being that even hardened anti-smoking liars epidemiologists have quickly learned that it is impossible to twist any data set into pretending that outdoor smoking is going to pose any problem whatsoever.

But, ensconced as he is in the current anything-is-OK-against-tobacco-as-we-all-agree mentality, he feels perfectly comfortable in spewing forth utter garbage.

Still, even by grandstanding as some kind of global scientific expert, he's not even close to the superiority complex exhibited by a bunch of anti-smoking clowns in the US.

They've re-written the word of God, so they have!

Physicians and Nurses Against Tobacco (PANAT), a Rhode Island-based public health non-profit organization, announces the start of Project XI. “We’re taking our lead from the Rabbinical Council of America who in 2006 declared tobacco ‘non-kosher’.” stated Dr. Claude Curran, a founding member of PANAT. “The RCA had the insight and courage to bring the moral dimension to the tobacco addiction problem. We’re using their pronouncement to define The Eleventh Commandment—‘Don’t Smoke!’
If any further proof were needed that the medical profession have graduated from merely bit players in the theatre of life, into ministers in the new church of puritanism, that's it right there with sprinkles.

While life cries out for proper debate, scrutiny, and detached evidence in matters concerning how people live their lives, 'consensus' dictates that all we get is some ruddy-faced northern prick who thinks he's a Nobel Laureate, and doctors who feel qualified to dispense new religious scriptures.

In a world populated by moderately intelligent populations, such wibbling 'tards would be committed along with the geezer who thinks he's Napoleon. Sadly, we're not living in anything remotely resembling that, so we are forced to watch as insane shit-spouters with worrying delusions of grandeur are afforded respect for grinding freedoms into the dirt.

Good grief.


12 comments:

Diesel said...

The Eleventh Commandment—‘Don’t Smoke!’

Sure, no problem. I've already broken the first ten in spades, so one more won't matter.

Richard H said...

Just so I am clear on the supposed facts - SHS is so pervasive, so deadly that it can permeate apartments and adjoining office spaces through the electrical outlets, the light fixtures, underneath fitted door jams and even directly through solid walls.

And it is so deadly that it can cause considerable health problems for the persons inside these spaces even to the point of death.

Yet, I am also to believe that in an outdoor play area, the mere perimeter barriers and railings(??) are sufficient to hold in this "all powerful" tobacco smoke, causing it to accumulate and cause harzard to those in the play areas.

Clearly this type of ranting is characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia and the idea that anyone would believe any of this for one second is most disturbing.

Jim Jones, David Karesch, Heaven's Gate and now PANAT. I wonder if they will have an online fan club and decoder rings - or perhaps tee shirts with a big wagging finger and the saying "Just say NO - NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT...OR THAT...OR THAT...OF THAT EITHER...or that..or that

Anonymous said...

What seems like a new anti-smoking commercial debuted this week in California, funded by a new fake-charity other than the one operating on taxpayer money out of Sacramento. In this ad it shows a man smoking at his kitchen table, then it shows the two children eating on either side of him blowing smoking out of their mouths and ends with big letters across the screen, to the effect, "Second Hand Smoke - It's More Dangerous Than You Think". The government paid ads run continueally throughout the day also but hone in more on the smoker than on the fictitious second-hand-smoking-fraud invented by Adolph Hitler and revived for today's brave new world of idiot believers. It will be to justify more outdoor smoking bans like the ones in San Francisco that command a $500 fine as punishment.

Man and a half said...

Don't you have to wonder really about the "journalists" who give ink and air time to cretins like Wearing? There's no shortage of thick fucks squirting buckets of dribbling shite, nobody would pay any attention to then normally. What kind of training are they getting in journalism school? Schoolteachers... snarl.... don't get me started.....

P T Barnum said...

Blimey, makes the Nottingham lot sound quite sane with their shiny new playground/school gate voluntary ban-you-will-comply-with. Is it just me, btw, or did the BBC ever include 'balance' from FOREST before with no mention of ASH at all?

"Nottingham City Council said a play area smoking ban would help protect children from potential health problems

A local authority has become the first in the East Midlands to introduce a no smoking policy at playgrounds and around its school gates.

Nottingham City Council said it wanted to protect children from the effects of smoking and reduce its uptake.

It added the policy was not enforceable by law, but wanted people to comply.

Pro-smoking group Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) said the plans were "heavy handed".

Councillor Eunice Campbell, from Nottingham City Council, said: "Parents do not want their children to be exposed to smoking or to take up the habit.

"We hope that they will support this initiative."

Simon Clark, director of Forest, said: "It is not the business of a local council to tell adults how to behave.

"There is no evidence of a health risk to children from smoking in the open air."

No-smoking signs designed by children will be displayed in playgrounds maintained by Nottingham City Council from Tuesday.

The signs will also be available for primary schools in the Nottingham city area to display at their school gates."

JuliaM said...

"Play areas may be outdoors but they are enclosed by barriers or railings."

Barriers and railings that keep in both the children AND the cigarette smoke?

Wow! I want some of what he's smoki..

Oh.

Angry Exile said...

Play areas may be outdoors but they are enclosed by barriers or railings.

In other words not enclosed in any real sense, you epic twat.

Woodsy42 said...

"Play areas may be outdoors but they are enclosed by barriers or railings."

But railings are designed to stop things so they will surely keep the smoke in.

Anonymous said...

"Play areas may be outdoors but they are enclosed by barriers or railings."


It's not supposed to make sense.

We are the unwilling subjects of one of the new social denormalisation strategies.


Markers of the denormalisation of smoking and the tobacco industry

Denormalisation

"However, internationally, the term is also used to encompass efforts challenging notions that smoking ought to be regarded as routine or normal, particularly in public settings.

Hammond et al state that "social denormalisation" strategies seek "to change the broad social norms around using tobacco—to push tobacco use out of the charmed circle of normal, desirable practice to being an abnormal practice".

Several authors have suggested that Erving Goffman’s classic analysis of stigma and its resultant "spoiled identity" is consonant with how the meaning of smoking has changed in societies with widespread tobacco control.

Goffman described stigmatisation as the transformation "from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one", writing that "Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity".
Chapman


Look that one up and it will give you the general idea.

It should also give you a head start on the next ones.


Post Normal Science

"In the sorts of issue-driven science relating to the protection of health and the environment, typically facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.

The traditional distinction between ‘hard’, objective scientific facts and ‘soft’, subjective value-judgements is now inverted.

All too often, we must make hard policy decisions where our only scientific inputs are irremediably soft.
The requirement for the “sound science” that is frequently invoked as necessary for rational policy decisions may affectively conceal value-loadings that determine research conclusions and policy recommendations.

In these new circumstances, invoking ‘truth’ as the goal of science is a distraction, or even a diversion from real tasks.

A more relevant and robust guiding principle is quality, understood as a contextual property of scientific information."

Let's hope they don't start using it to design anything mechanical.


Rose

Lyn said...

Ok, now it has to be official - the lunatics really are running the asylum!

The Travelling Toper said...

If I were an elector of Cumberland or Westmorland I would be asking how much it costs to run and why they need the 'Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee' of which this pointy eared pillock is the chairman.

Anonymous said...

Late to the party here, but here's a comment from Andy on 4 November at 17:13:

'The more children are exposed to the sight of people smoking, the more they will think it normal behaviour. By reducing their exposure to smokers, you remove the risk of them becoming harmonised with the concept of smoking. Those of you who are defending smoking really have no concept of just how much contempt the majority of todays civilized society has for your addiction.'

Andy likes the concept of denormalisation.

Churchmouse