Ginger Whinger

And there was me thinking it was just an amusing Christmas card. You live and learn, eh?

Harsh, But Fair

Bruce Anderson in the Indy.

We have a Prime Minister who would do anything to win the next election. If he could scrape home, he would not care what state the country was in. If he lost, he would have as little interest in Britain's wellbeing as the Hitler of April 1945 did in post-war Germany's recovery from defeat.

Last week, the Irish Finance Minister delivered one of the bleakest economic assessments in the history of democratic politics. He had only one priority: his country's national interest. This week, every week, until the end, the Brown bunker will be scheming and plotting and brooding, in a fug of ill-temper and resentment. The national interest: never be naive enough to look for that in their agenda.

Harsh, Mr Anderson, but a fair application of the journalistic boot to Brown's gonadal area. Especially after the quite blatant political maneouvring of the PBR which seemed to have been drawn up by the PLP desperation committee rather than a Chancellor surveying the wreckage of UK Plc.

This weekend's cat and mouse, Labour/Tory, we're ready/so are we, game of electoral chicken over a possible March election is further proof, if we needed any, of Brown's - and Labour's - treacherous manipulation of the political process for their own selfish ends.

Removing the need for a Labour pre-election budget, and with it the damage that would be done to Labour's vote by actually doing something about the economic catastrofuck they have created, is surely one of the prime motivations behind the idea.

These sickening, self-interested maggots, and their dung beetle overlord, have already lobbed Britain's future self-determination onto the out-of-control EU inferno, against the wishes of the people, and the promises they made to the electorate in 2005. They have ushered in an era of suspicion and paedohysteria whereby all are presumed guilty until proven otherwise. They have destroyed community, social cohesion and quiet enjoyment of life with an overbearing, dictatorial predilection for healthist finger-wagging. While at the same time encouraging the most obnoxious, holier-than thou arseholes in society to be even more assiduous in their interference in the lives of others - a plan at which they intend to throw even more scarcely affordable money in the future.

They could use the diminishing months before the election to rectify these problems. They could have started making cuts in the PBR but resisted. They could have adhered to democracy instead of despatching Brown to squint in a European darkened room as he signed off Lisbon. They could scrap, or dramatically roll back, the remit of the CRB (and cease the endless hilarity at that policy amongst fellow Europeans). They could take their fingers out of their fucking ears and realise that many have different ideas about enjoyment of life than those prescribed by vested interest lobbyists. And they could re-instil the lost British tradition of looking out for your neighbours instead of ratting on them.

They could but, as anyone who has ever received a Number 10 e-petition response will tell you, they won't. Nor do they want to. I fact, they are perversely accelerating their destructive policies exponentially as the general election looms. Shovelling more shit in the cesspool before someone orders them to stop as it's already overflowing.

Instead, this weasel administration merely look for ways of gerrymandering the electoral process to their own advantage. Ways to cheat, ways to misdirect, ways to place a quango barrier between them and the public, ways to gain votes in any snidey way they possibly can without actually listening to voters.

You are not important to Labour. Never have been, never will be. Only Labour, and their dogmatic, selfish pet projects, are important to Labour.

Who Needs Research?

Well, that's another £500,000 spunked up the wall.

From last week.

The BIG Lottery Fund has awarded just under £500,000 to ASH Scotland over the next four years to manage a research partnership with the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The aim of the project is to develop knowledge which will lead to better interventions within homes of smoking parents/carers and better health.

But research takes time, and Labour can't wait.

Parents face ban on smoking in front of children

Stopping parents lighting up at home, or in cars, if they are with their children will form part of an aggressive new anti-smoking campaign to be launched by ministers this week.

Who needs research? Certainly not Labour. In light of this, shouldn't the Big Lottery Fund be asking for their half a mill back?

Are Our Politicians As Stupid As American Ones?

I suppose we shall soon find out.

Listen, ASH have been lying for decades. It's what they do. But when such mendacity becomes as quite incredibly laughable as this, one has to worry about their sanity.

New Jersey is poised to become the second state to ban the use of e-cigarettes [e-cigs] in public places where smoking is already prohibited, with the New Jersey Senate set to vote today on a bill already passed unanimously by the Assembly.

A primary purpose, says Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the antismoking organization which supplied a detailed report supporting the bill, is to protect bystanders who otherwise are at possible risk from heart attacks, just like those inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke.

More to the point, one must wonder what kind of raving lunatics the poor people of New Jersey are subjected to in their legislature that this law was passed unanimously.

It's not only demonstrably false, but so shot full of holes as an idea that it's difficult to understand how just one person paid by the public to look into such matters could have failed to notice. Let alone every single one of them.

An anti-smoker is appalled. And for good reason. After stating categorically how the ASH claim is physically impossible and rooted in fantasy, he delivers this exasperated plea.

This unscientific hysteria threatens the scientific credibility of the entire tobacco control movement.

I believe it is the responsibility of all anti-smoking groups to speak out against this inappropriate tactic, and publicly refute the claim that ASH is making. By being silent, anti-smoking groups are actually complicit in the deception of the public.

The problem is that the person making these claims is the very same one who kicked off the entire money-grubbing tobacco control exercise in the first place. An ambulance chaser called John Banzhaf who not only uses the most shameful methods in pursuing his own enrichment, but has also become so accustomed to wealth accrued by lying that he is branching out into new areas.

His latest crusade is against McDonalds ... plenty of bucks there for someone employing the correct dodgy science, one must assume.



So why this unsubstantiated attack on the e-cig? Well, he's got to stay true to his sponsors, hasn't he? And Pfizer, who haven't yet manufactured their own e-cig style nicotine delivery device, throw a mighty $100,000 per quarter his way.

Without wishing to be accused (again) of not knowing my subject matter, or of ignoring externalities, I have tended to suggest many times that Banzhaf and his UK-based ilk are merely shills for big pharmaceutical interests before. This is merely further incontrovertible proof that one cannot believe a word that ASH, or any smokefree body, says. It has always been the way, it's just that our current MPs have been too stupid to see it.

As the saying goes, follow the money.

Now, there is a possibility that UK politicians will finally prove themselves to be less gullible, less self-absorbed, and more questioning of the junk science, and motivations of those who promote it, on the e-cig question, but considering the fact that they seem as willing to grab as much cash as they can themselves when the opportunity presents itself, it's a remote one.

Are UK politicians as quite stunningly dense as those in New Jersey? We shall see, but secretly you know that I'm going to be back here very soon pointing out that they are, don't you?

Female Pop Stars Caught Gunning Down Their Audience

Actually, it's worse than the title suggests. The Wail explains.

She's known for pushing the boundaries on what people expect of a popstar, but this time Lady Gaga may have gone to far [sic].

For performing in Canada, the 23-year-old shocked attendees by lighting up a cigarette and inhaling deeply - despite the fact smoking indoors is illegal in British Columbia.

Shocked, they were. Shocked, no less. The Sex Pistols swearing and gobbing were mild in comparison to Lady GaGa unleashing chemical warfare on her audience. Safety consultants around the world are now advising the issue of a bio-hazard suit with every sale of a Lady GaGa concert ticket.

In other news, Lily Allen has also been implicated in this new female-led assault on the health of concert-goers everywhere.

Lily Allen sparks smoking ban row at Liverpool Echo Arena gig

STARLET Lily Allen angered fans after appearing to light up on stage during a city gig.

One fan said she ruined his night because other revellers then started to follow suit.

An investigation is now underway by environmental protection officers after photos surfaced apparently showing the misdemeanour.

One of those present was incandescent with rage at the orchestrated attack, employing a substance which, as everybody knows, was reclassified as mustard gas in July 2007.

Dad-of-two David Hall, 52, who attended the gig said once Lily started smoking others around him joined in.

Mr Hall, a carer from Irby, Wirral, told the ECHO: “Lily sucked a puff of a fag and I thought maybe she’s feeling a bit tense but that was the trigger for people’s cigarettes to come out. They thought ‘because she’s doing it, so can I’. But the cigarettes were waving about in my children’s faces.”

Mr Hall paid £23 each for his wife Nicky, 17-year-old daughter Robyn and son Freddie, 15, to go to the concert.

He added: “We like Lily Allen because she’s a bit of a rebel.

“But it completely ruined the night.”

Immediately prior to his googling 'irony' on his iPhone.

When questioned further, Mr Hall said that references to spending ages giving head, post-coital wet patches, and fucking the girl next door were fine for his little darlings, but this was just too much.

Mr Hall, born in the smoke-filled 50s but seemingly still quite healthy, was last seen disappearing up his own gullible, self-righteous arse.

Johann Hari Hates Big Macs But Tells Whoppers

For a lefty propagandist like Johann Hari, a chance to link the collective Copenhagen gnashing of teeth with an anti-capitalist rant against favoured socialist targets, Coke and McDonalds, was too delicious to resist.

Johann Hari: Leaders of the rich world are enacting a giant fraud

Every delegate to the Copenhagen summit is being greeted by the sight of a vast fake planet dominating the city's central square. This swirling globe is covered with corporate logos – the Coke brand is stamped over Africa, while Carlsberg appears to own Asia, and McDonald's announces "I'm loving it!" in great red letters above. "Welcome to Hopenhagen!" it cries. It is kept in the sky by endless blasts of hot air.

However, according to one of his commenters, the only fraud being committed here is by Hari himself.

As senior programmer on the sphere you complain so bitterly about, I know for certain that there is no coke logo or macdonalds either. Seems like you made the whole thing up (again).

No coke, no macdonalds.
In fact all of the logos move continually, so the bit about " the Coke brand is stamped over Africa, while Carlsberg appears to own Asia, and McDonald's announces "I'm loving it!" in great red letters" is patently false.

The only macdonalds advert is on a macdonalds restaurant 100m away.

But then, the story wouldn't have had the same righteous appeal if Hari had mentioned sponsors such as the prominently-featured Siemens instead. Their global involvement in energy and healthcare isn't as easy to dismiss as irrelevant to COP15 as a Happy Meal is.

As socialists do, Hari seems to enjoy picking on products enjoyed by billions worldwide, simply for the fact that the companies who make them gain huge profits from their success.

In the words of Richard Pryor, Hari should maybe have a Coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up.

Transatlantic Quote Of The Day

"I certainly believe that neighborhood disputes are usually better resolved without firearms being involved."

Colorado District Attorney Pete Hautzinger, pointing out the obvious, in relation to the death of a woman shot nine times by her neighbour. No criminal charges were brought.