Link Tank 03/12

Enjoying that hangover?

McDonald's outwits San Francisco's ban on Happy Meal toys

"Never trust a charity to tell the unvarnished truth"

After Strauss-Kahn, France discovers sex addiction

Jeremy Clarkson: a public-sector worker speaks his mind

MMMhop: Hanson go into the beer business

Seasteading is "not a completely crazy idea"

A strike by the affluent and protected

It was never about health: Workplace e-cig ban introduced in Boston

Men don't think about sex all day long, after all

Beak gesturing Ravens

A Mascot Is Crowned, Shame About The Ceremony

Here is something of an exclusive for this blog. Behold a true liberal meeting someone who is just pretending to be one.


We acted to get Philip Davies the Reader's Representative prize at the Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year Awards for his freedom-loving credentials, and were successful. Yet the 'guest of honour' (pfft) dishing out the gongs is at the opposite end of the political scale.

Davies earned his award for listening to the public and acting on their behalf, as we were all brought up to believe is a parliamentarian's purpose. Clegg is famous for being an illiberal moron who doesn't give a shit about what you think.

How ironic that Davies's principled liberal stance on the EU, smoking bans, and alcohol prohibition should gain him plaudits, only to be confronted on award night by a grinning idiot - wielding power - who seems to think being liberal is opposing personal liberty at every turn.

Irony is thick as treacle in that picture.

The restraint of our Phil, eh? The rest of us would have struggled not to lamp the pillock.

UPDATE: Just realised that I didn't add a caption for the picture, anyone care to provide one?

At Last! Unbiased Research On Smoking Bans

You'd have been staggered anyway, but emphases are mine just in case.

ATLANTA, Nov. 30, 2011 - As part of ongoing efforts to reduce disease and death caused by smoking and secondhand smoke exposure, the CDC Foundation and CDC have launched a new initiative to study the economic impact of smoke-free policies on restaurants and bars in nine states. While the health benefits of smoke-free policies are clear (debatable, surely? Ed.), the perception that they might negatively affect restaurant and bar business can pose a barrier to the broader introduction and acceptance of these policies.

This initiative, made possible by a partnership grant from Pfizer to the CDC Foundation, will assess the economic impact of local smoke-free laws on restaurants and bars by examining objective economic indicators.

Because previous junk science in this area didn't quite mop up those mould-infested dregs from the bottom of the barrel, obviously.

RIP satire.

"Regulate Junk Food As A Pollutant"

It's been mooted before here that Harvard occasionally get all righteous about food and drink, and blow me if they haven't been doing it again.

Health Experts: Regulate Junk Food as a Pollutant

M'kaaay. Not quite the measured response we'd expect from an intellectual institution, but let's see where it goes.

The U.S. government should deal with unhealthy ingredients in food the same way it deals with pollution: with cap and trade, a suggestion published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The very same 'expert' journal which published Jill Pell's Scottish heart miracle nonsense, you mean? Oh I see, I think we understand better now.

In the imagined cap and trade policy, companies could manufacture products above a government-capped level of sugar and fat, but would be taxed for the additional unhealthiness at a cost passed on to the consumer.

The idea of government trying to regulate what people eat to improve public health, increase productivity, and reduce health care costs is not that farfetched. Denmark made headlines after implementing a "fat tax," adding a premium to things like sugary soda.

Err, they made headlines precisely because it is that far-fetched. And fundamentally wrong to boot. I'd have thought people living in the (cough) Land of the Free would recognise that.

Kristina Lewis, a doctor at Harvard Medical School's Department of Population, co-author of the report, recognizes that establishing such a policy would be an uphill battle. But she also believes something has to be done ...

Yes, she did say that. This is not satire.

... in the realm of public policy, because she said encouraging people to change their behavior is not enough.

Forgive me for offering a different viewpoint, but I'd say that not only is encouragement definitely enough, anything more is none of their fucking business, quite frankly.

Fortunately, there are still a dwindling number of health professionals who don't seem to have entirely given up on common sense and reason.

[...] health secretary Andrew Lansley launched a new goal to bring down England's obesity levels by 2020. He said Britons should be eating five billion fewer calories a day and urged people to be honest with themselves about what they eat and drink. The government has also been calling for 'fat' taxes on unhealthy food and a ban on advertisements aimed at children.

[Elaine George, specialist bariatric nurse at BMI The Clementine Churchill Hospital] is very against this idea: "I don't think that's a solution, I really don't. It's ostracising people. I do believe that the fast food chains shouldn't be as unhealthy, there should be more healthier options or just take them away. I don't think making things more expensive is going to change anything. I think education is key from an early age. Teaching them good habits and how to cook. There's a lot to be said for education rather than just penalising people."

I fear for the career of Elaine George, however bloody perfect her argument and understanding of the human condition is. She seems blissfully unaware of the modern denormalisation agenda surrounding lifestyle choices.

A heretic burning beckons.

Legislation As Corporate Sponsorship

Via SteveVape comes news that we kinda knew anyway, that bans don't really need to have anything to do with health.

Major U.S. and foreign airline associations unanimously endorsed a Transportation Department proposal to ban the use of electronic cigarettes on scheduled airline flights to, from and within the U.S.

In a letter to the DOT, the groups said all airlines already prohibit the use of e-cigarettes and would welcome a government ban.

Aren't private airlines entitled to set their own policies, I hear you say? Yes. Of course they are, but that's not the point of the article. Instead, airlines are petitioning government to ban something purely for their own self-interest. See here, for example.

For years, flight attendants have spoken out against electronic cigarettes, saying passengers have confronted attendants over electronic cigarettes because some air travelers argue that the federal tobacco ban does not apply to electronic cigarettes.

Of course it doesn't. Because there is not - and probably never will be - any damaging health effect ascribed to passive water vapour.

There's a distinct lack of bodies to prove the computer modelled devastation of secondhand smoke too, but considering the world and his equally bovine wife have been comprehensively duped by that con job, we'll leave it aside for now.

Suffice to say that here we have airlines calling for a ban so that their lives are made easier. Nothing whatsoever to do with health, just an easing of administration by way of government diktat to save poor airline staff from the onerous burden of doing their job.

Oh, don't get me wrong. They do at least hint towards health hysteria ...

The DOT proposed the ban in September fearing that electronic tobacco products, which are inhalers that come in the shape of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, pens or other objects, may introduce harmful vapors into aircraft cabins, even though they do not rely on combustion.

... it's just that there is quite literally zero evidence for any of it.

And how did such a destructively lazy and illiberal mindset become entrenched? I think you might have worked that particular conundrum out for yourself by now. It's, of course, because anti-nicotine bans have never been about health, merely the interests of one set of nicotine suppliers pitted against those who profit from an alternate delivery system.

E-cigs just happened to have wandered into the middle of a shit-storm and are being treated the same as traditional tobacco manufacturers. Pfizer et al don't look kindly on such impertinent competitors ... their shareholders would kick up such a darn fuss, so they would. Oddly enough, this kind of legislation is usually enthusiastically aided and abetted by lefty progressives who are too dumb to realise that they're boosting profits for aggressive global corporations.

Thanks to the fanatically insane tobacco control lobby, anything can now be subject to legislative banning without any scientific evidence required.

As precedents go, that's quite a biggie.

I Hope You're Suitably Grateful For Not Being Mugged Again

While I'm on, I couldn't help but zero in on this quote from George Osborne in today's Autumn Statement.

As a result [of freezing fuel duty], Mr Osborne said the average family would save £144 a year on filling up their car.

This is the world of the gut-wrenchingly absurd politician. By not punishing us further, he is actually saving us money. D'you see?

How very fucking generous.

Thanks to This is Money for showing us how very much politicians have 'saved' us in the past decade.

They've been stealing your earnings for years - funding hare-brained schemes and disgustingly illiberal shite - but have now decided to keep their thieving fingers to themselves for a few months ...

... and we're meant to be grateful?

If they don't disgust you, why not? Serious question.

REAL Smoking Kids

Sadly, not being paid for this stuff (contrary to anti-tobacco opinion), real life (that is, really being paid) is obstructing things here somewhat.

However, thanks to incredibly gifted fellow jewel robber, David G, here is a follow up from yesterday's 'smoking kids' post. You might remember his genius from June 2010.

See, 21st century kids dressed up as 1920s adults by some artsy snapper isn't as interesting as real 1920s smoking pics. Here are two masterfully restored photographs from his collection. Descriptions are David G's.

"The first is of two young girls posing for the camera, playing dress-up, holding cigs."

"The second is technically a midget, but a Midget for Coolidge, during his presidential campaign in DC."

Well, I thought they were damned intriguing, anyway.