The Drinks Industry Missed The Boat

I've repeated this many a time since its first appearance in 2009 in relation to an attack on alcohol.

You simply cannot pick and choose which freedoms you like and which you don't. You either stand up to all of the dictatorial bullying, or you will inevitably become a target.

Yet that's exactly what the drinks and hospitality industry refused to do when smokers were being harshly treated. Not their problem, they said.

In fact, many even supported the de-normalisation process.

I once engaged in online debate with an arrogant, self-serving beardy from CAMRA (yes, he did have a beard, seriously). Having mentioned that his smug defence of the smoking ban might come back to haunt his particular vice at some point in the future, he replied with words to the effect of "most of the public like a drink, so that will never happen".

Fast forward a couple of years (as I preen my prescient self) and I'd love to know what such people think of the situation now they are on an equal footing with those evil, filthy smokers.

The Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WSTA), which speaks on behalf of major supermarket chains on alcohol issues, accused organisers of a "calculated and deliberate attempt to mix the issue of alcohol misuse with the known and proven health harms caused by smoking".

Oh dear. No-one saw that coming, did they? Well actually, there was the odd, ahem, blogger or two. Mostly ignored, natch.

WSTA spokesman Gavin Partington said: "The decision to refuse access to those in the industry who wish to discuss issues regarding alcohol misuse openly and honestly only adds to the impression that Alcohol Focus Scotland have their own agenda and wish to stifle debate".

They don't want to debate with you, Gavin. You are the enemy and they wish to paint you as a drug dealer, d'you see? It's how they work. For Chrissakes keep up, man, this has been planned for years, and it was your job to spot it. You failed.

If the alcohol industry had been clever enough to recognise the threat that anti-smoker invective was causing to their business, they would still be buffered against it right now. Instead of supporting the exposed 'unapproved' first line of defence against hordes of public health savages, they just allowed them to be sacrificed in naïve belief that the terminally puritan wouldn't then storm the ramparts - their weapons intact, sharpened even by success - and massacre whatever they found inside.

Alcohol Focus Scotland said its stand was done to fall in line with ASH, which bans the tobacco industry from its events.

That's a bit of a whopper, it has to be said. They've wanted to do so for years but have never had the confidence or the gall before. But emboldened by the stunning success - aided significantly by appeasement from the drinks and hospitality industries, ironically - of tobacco control, why not give it a go, eh?

In fact, the process of getting alcohol producers banned from government consultations is in full swing, as evidenced by this article last month.

Dr Evelyn Gillan, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, claimed yesterday that its efforts to combat cheap booze were derailed because the industry had learned from the big tobacco companies on how to influence decision-makers by minimising the dangers of the product.

There's that comparison to tobacco again.

“Everybody has the right to lobby for their interests but my concern is, and it’s something that the World Health Organisation has said really clearly, that the alcohol industry’s role should only be in terms of producing and distributing alcohol products. It should not be involved in directing Government alcohol policy and it should not be involved in health promotion or responsible drinking campaigns.

“They’re not educators, they’re not public health people. They produce a substance that is dangerous, that is not an ordinary commodity. It requires regulation.”

I do believe that is a call for censoring anyone who defends alcohol as a valid consumer product. Or, as Vivienne Nathanson of the BMA said just the other day.

"We have to start de-normalising alcohol - it is not like other types of food and drink."

Scary, huh?

Join CAMRA and the BBPA on the stupid step, WSTA. It won't be long until your industry is treated as a social illness and denied all contact with legislators, charities, and universities.

Reap the whirlwind, guys. Your chance to stem the tide of rampant health fascism deteriorated considerably about four years ago.

There is a solution, of course - gang up just as the righteous are doing. Not holding my breath, mind.

Johnny Ball's Final BBC Appearance

Well, they won't be inviting him back after this, will they?

Go, go. Go, Johnny, go.

Worldwide, Progressive Policies Are Toilet

Thirteen years of Labour illustrated very clearly that the lefty mindset of passing poorly though-out laws, based on blind ideology, is a recipe for a hangar-load of unintended consequences. Naturally, when presented with the disastrous fallout (before or after legislating), the general response is to simply place a couple of digits in each ear and pretend nothing is awry or, if that isn't an option, to compound the error by doing something utterly daft.

Here's a superb example of the latter from everyone's least favourite stalinist dictatorship.

San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.

Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.

The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem.

It would seem that a law signed into existence by Governor Arnie in 2007 is not exactly having the desired effect. Not satisfied with crippling California's economy, the 'progressive' lunatics are finding their attempt at green toilet oneupmanship is hurtling down the pan faster than their morning dump tends to do these days.

And it's only going to get worse.

California law should require fixture manufacturers to provide a portion of toilet and urinal models that are high efficiency on a five-year schedule, starting with 50% of fixtures offered for sale in 2010. The proportion of high-efficiency toilets increases to 67% in 2011, 75% in 2012, 85% in 2013 and 100% — except for institutional toilets — in 2014.

The stench of self-righteousness in San Fran has been increasing for many a year, but now it is being matched by the stink on its streets thanks to an inept, dogmatic push to save water for the sake of the planet.

Something has to be done about this, of course. So what has the proud, majestic, sanctimonious, world-leading administration on green policies proposed?

Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.

That translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year.

How very environmentally friendly, eh?

Still, the law must have provided benefits apart from our peals of laughter at the discomfort suffered by right-on ex-hippies who choose this ghastly mirror of a soviet state as their home, right? Well, kinda.

As for whether the supposedly environmentally friendly, low-flow toilets are worth the trouble? Well, according to Jue, they have helped trim San Francisco's annual water consumption by about 20 million gallons.

Wow! That sounds quite a lot. But then, it's a big city.

According to this website, the Gross Annual Water Sales for San Francisco in 2007/2008 was 34,137,635 ccf. One ccf is 100 cubic feet which is approximately 748 gallons/ccf

That means the gross annual water sales for San Francisco is approximately 25,534,950,980 gallons per year.

San Francisco saves 20,000,000 gallons/year from low-flow toilets.

(20,000,000 (gal/yr) / 25,534,950,980 (gal/yr) ) * 100% = .08%

So, San Francisco reduces water consumption by 8 HUNDREDTHS OF ONE PERCENT at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars to the sewer system alone (not counting the cost to consumers of the low-flow toilets and associated plumbing problems), and they are now likely to add millions of pounds of the environmentally hazardous and corrosive bleach to their sewers.

This seems wacko even by government standards.

Not really. It's par for the course where lefties are concerned.

Give them a bit of power and everything turns to crap ... quite literally in this instance.

Early April Fool?

One could be forgiven for thinking the press are a month early on this story.

Police roadblocks are being set up to catch drivers who are breaking the law – by smoking at the wheel of their company vehicle.

Council wardens and Essex Police will carry out random inspections across the county to look for evidence of illicit cigarette use.

They will even hunt for cigarette butts in the ashtrays and smell the air inside the vehicles in order to clamp down on the outlawed practice.

But no, it would seem that this really is happening.

My, aren't the people of Essex lucky to have a police force who have beaten crime so comprehensively that they have to scratch around trying to find someone, anyone, to prosecute, eh?

Err ...

So not so much an early April Fool yarn after all, more the taxpayers of Essex being taken for mugs.

Are these the 'frontline services' the police say are at threat? They are? Well, what's with all the scaremongery then?

Keep cutting those budgets and axing those jobs, Osborne. With every passing day comes more incontrovertible proof that there's still plenty of flab in the system.

Lessons Of History

This could be fun, if you don't live in Scotland, that is.

MSPs have voted to scrap NHS prescription charges in Scotland, a key SNP pledge in the 2007 elections.

Labour supports the plan but the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats believe the cash could be better spent in other areas.

Or, more to the point, the extra cash which this will require to be spent could be a drain on other areas.

Although the NHS, which was founded in 1948, was meant to provide a completely free health service for everyone, a growing drugs bill prompted the introduction of prescription charges in 1952.

[...]

In 1965, under Harold Wilson, Labour abolished prescription charges. This caused the NHS drugs bill to soar, as many low-cost items that patients had previously bought for themselves were increasingly prescribed. Labour relented in June 1968, and restored prescription charges

Good luck with that soaring drugs bill, Shona.

A Risky Career Choice

Public health officials love to tell us all how their studies show we're heading for an early date with a brass handled wooden box, but perhaps they should instead seriously consider researching the risks attached to choosing health hectoring as a career.

Because things like this happen along quite regularly.

Dr. Richard Daines, the state Commissioner of Health during the Paterson administration from 2007-2010, died Feb. 26 at age 60.

Dr. Daines left a legacy as a fervent supporter of the public health of New Yorkers—whether or not New Yorkers wanted to grapple with their obesity, smoking habits and soda addictions. He championed the fight for a tax on sugary beverages, taking to You Tube to graphically educate New Yorkers about the dangers of obesity and the empty calories in soda.

Not a great advert for their health recommendations, is it? Still, at least Dr Daines scrambled past the 60 mark, unlike others one could mention.

Considering the story of the day, perhaps insurance companies should think about offering favourable terms to public health miserabilists wishing to take out pension plans.

Just saying.

H/T The mushroom lover

Don't Panic, Just Adapt

The UK Libertarian has unearthed this neat video illustrating a perennial failure by doom-mongers in the face of man's ability to adapt and overcome (they should have learned by now, our species have survived on this planet for millions of years, after all). I'm sure the current crop of lefty worryworts will never be convinced but, as Davy points out, here we have yet another example of how free markets are the best solution to the obstacles life places in front of us.