I still have about a quarter of a bottle of red left, and so I’ll do a quick post.
Freedom to Choose (Scotland) [see sidebar] petitioned the Scottish Parliament to the effect that the smoking ban should be reconsidered since air-cleaning equipment has advanced spectacularly in the last several years.
Needless to say, the petition was kicked into touch with minimum examination.
But it is worth the while of readers to watch the actual discussion which took place in the ‘Health and Sport Committee meeting which dismissed the petition:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/newsandmediacentre/41393.aspx
It may take some time to allow the video to progress, but one should move to about 180 minutes in, at which point, the petition is discussed for a few minutes before being dismissed. One of the committee members says his piece against the petition and the walks out – can’t be bothered. Two members of the committee spoke against the petition without once referring to the evidence which had been put before the committee – both repeated the mantras of Tobacco Control. The Chairman the read from a preprepared script to dismiss. No effort whatsoever was made to discuss the evidence. Only the bigoted, heresay evidence of Paterson and Simpson (who walked out) was heard.
If that is the way the Scottish Parliament do business, then the sooner Independence is achieved, the better.
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But my main point is that it is clear that these Zealots (like Paterson and Simpson) DARE NOT CONFRONT THE EVIDENCE. They avoid it. They repeat mantras as though they were evidence. Mantras are not evidence.
But we saw EXACTLY the same thing in the McTear V Imperial Tobacco Company Case, in which Tobacco Control refused to bring to the Court their evidence that smoking causes lung cancer. Even there, they relied upon mantras.
I have been wondering recently why Tobacco Control have not been trumpeting the diminishing in lung cancers over the past decade or so, as a result of the great reduction of smoking since about 1960. I have investigated, and found that there has been only a marginal reduction of lung cancer deaths over the past 30 years, despite a massive reduction in smoking prevalence. I should be able to produce the figures tomorrow or the day after, since I have done the necessary work.
It is beyond my comprehension that these Members of the Scottish Parliament can be so mentally closed. It can only be that they are frightened. What are they frightened of? It can only be that they are frightened of being exposed as STUPID! Regardless of Tobacco Control’s mantras, it has always been as clear as the nose on one’s face that normal concentrations of tobacco smoke (or any other air contaminant) is harmless to the normal human body.
But what is also incomprehensible is that not one member of the Scottish Health and Sport (!) Committee spoke up in defence of the petition. Not one. Not one member had examined the evidence. Not one.
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Good luck to Scotland, when you become independent. As a ‘Watson’, my origins are Scottish, and I wish you well. But I am now very English. It would suit me very well be rid of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. But when you get your Independence, and rely upon the likes of Paterson and Simpson to ward off evil with their mantras and their switch sticks, don’t come crying to us English to bail you out – go to the EU. I am sure that the EU will give you the appropriate instructions.
I can’t wait for England to become an Independent Nation again. Maybe then we can be rid of this stinking political system which persecutes us all.
01/02/2013 at 05:43
Junican, thank you for the pointer to 180 minutes in. Truly infuriating.
I noted the “package of written evidence” — which seemed to actually still be in some sort of closed container. Is it fair to assume that the evidence had NOT been shared with the other members of the committee AT ALL?
Also of note: Not a SINGLE statement by anyone there along the lines of “I have examined this evidence and found it to be insufficient or whatever…”
Kangaroo Court would be too kind as a description.
Many kudos to Belinda, BillG, and the others who worked on this: the value of showing how such evidence and attempts are handled by those making the decisions is almost as valuable as any biased discussion of that evidence might have been.
- MJM, who has NO understanding of what the relevance is of talking about the air in the middle of an industrial auto-manufacturing facility filled with welding fumes, airborne metallic particles, and other such injurious elements at levels likely to be literally THOUSANDS of times greater than any comparably dangerous contaminants in a smoking pub.
01/02/2013 at 11:28
“… are handled by those making the decisions…”
That’s because these creeps are not making any decisions, they are being blackmailed into carrying out unpopular, oft treasonous, orders by those who made the decisions, namely, the City of London banksters and their think tanks, probably some time between the wars, in this case.
I think organising into private clubs, common law societies perhaps, is the way to beat these people. Social clubs, where smoking is obligatory, and members could sharpen their minds and bolster their defences by practising common law procedure on each other.
Home grown tobacco, home brewed wine and beer, organic food.
That’ll really show them.
01/02/2013 at 07:35
Good God almighty! Right or wrong ‘Don’t interrupt the programme’!
Says it all.
01/02/2013 at 12:14
Im telling ya guys,the days fast approaching!!! They are scared,there entire economic glass house is shattered just like their JUNK LAWS based Upon JUNK SCIENCE. The end is near I can taste it.
01/02/2013 at 20:58
I am also Scottish but long happily settled in England though a lot of my family are still there. I often think the problem in Scotland is that many ambitious people leave as we did to live all over the world. If Scotland wants independence good luck to them although I don’t know anyone who is voting for it. I told you before that I had surgery for lung cancer in August 2010, well I had my latest scan today and all is fine despite the fact that I never stopped smoking. I think my Consultant regards me as a ‘control’ patient but he doesn’t go on about it. I told him that as a thoracic surgeon.he must know that a lot of what’s said is junk science and he just laughed. Incidentally I had no other treatment at all. I smoked for 52 years when the nodule was found.
02/02/2013 at 03:02
The horrific situation, as shown by the video, is the ignorance. One can understand the bigotry, but one cannot understand the ignorance.
Why is it that EVERY member of that committee was ignorant? Why is it that not one member said, “Erm…. I think that we should look at the evidence”
This is not some sort of vague misunderstanding. It is the deliberate denial of FACTS, and the insistence upon RUMOUR.