yet another blog

Sign spotted in one of the car parks near my local hospital.

Ok, I know its a hospital car park, but it has to be observed that this particular car park is in fact on the other side of the road from the hospital buildings.

And its a car park. You know… those places where people park their cars… you know, those smelly things that emit loads of noxious fumes from their exhaust pipes.
And car parks are places where folk tend not just to park their cars, but also rev their engines, leave the motors idling, and generally belch out even more noxious fumes.

Yet if the implications of this particular sign are followed through, then all that’s fine, providing one doesn’t smoke. Clearly, in the hospital authorities’ opinion smoking in the environment of a car park is a far greater health hazard than car exhaust fumes.

Now don’t you think this anti-smoking campaign is getting just a tad too obsessive, a mite too ridiculous?

Check this one out!

Doubt if this’ll indicate any significant change overall for smokers, but its about time we saw initiatives like this being developed.

The almost world-wide anti-smoking campaign that we’ve seen maturing over at least the last decade (possibly longer - its been going on too long now for me to remember accurately) is a superb example of successfull mass brainwashing.

Mention smoking now to self-professed human rights, civil liberties and freedom campaigners and it seems their ability to think clearly and rationally, to question, to probe, and to analyse, suddenly goes into melt-down.

Yeah. Sure. Smoking is seriously bad for one’s health. But so are countless other human pursuits, not least of which is the excessive imbibing of alcohol.

And the bottom line has surely always got to be the question: “Should we have the freedom to choose”?

Whilst I’m totally in favour of ensuring that full information is freely available regarding the risks attendant upon the pursuit of a given activity, the choice of whether or not to pursue that activity should still be ours to make.

Far too many of the tactics and arguments that’ve been used to promote the anti-smoking position have been, to say the least, dubious. Words such as spurious, logically flawed, and downright dishonest spring to mind. (a propos of which, its almost amusing to note the way the following article’s been written: a classic example of the way emotive words can be used to elicit a desired response!)
IOL: Smokers light up, chill out on their airline
By Eva Kuehnen

Berlin - “We would like to remind passengers that smoking is permitted on this flight.”

It has been a long time since most European air travellers heard anything like this, but a German entrepreneur has set up an airline that will give its customers the freedom to chain-smoke from take-off to landing.

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