Saturday 8 January 2011

Fragments of the future.

(The Kindle gadget arrived. More on that when I've had time to play with it.)


Well, it's been a day of incredible lunacy today.

First up, a vaccine against drink. It's billed as a vaccine against alcoholism but this line gives it away -

'With the vaccine, the desire to consume alcohol will be greatly reduced thanks to these reactions,' Mr Asenjo told Radio Cooperativa.

Have you heard of Shaggy Inkcap mushrooms? There were some growing near a place I once worked. They are very nice fried as long as you catch them before they start dissolving into black mush but you can't have wine with that meal. They contain a substance that reacts badly with alcohol, and no meal, however fine, tastes anything like as good on the way back. The chemical involved was extracted and used to treat alcoholism. It didn't work on the worst cases. They just chucked up and carried on drinking. So does this vaccine work more effectively?

Researchers have already successfully tested the vaccine on rats who were dependent on alcohol and got them to halve their consumption.

They didn't stop drinking. Plus, that statement does not tell us whether all the rats drank only half as much, or whether some rats stopped and some didn't even slow down. Sounds like it's no more effective, really. It will work on overdrinkers who aren't alkies, like me, it will work on mild drinkers, but the hardened alkie will chuck up and chuck more in. It's not for them.

With boozers 'costing the NHS money', how long before this vaccine is administered to anyone who turns up in Casualty drunk? How long before the law offers it as an alternative to prison? If you cost the NHS money, the NHS has the right to meddle with your liver metabolism. Nobody will object. It's only the drinkers.

Next, a vaccine against cocaine. Drug use costs the NHS money so the NHS has the right to meddle with your immune system. Nobody will object. It's only the junkies. Nobody will notice that if it works for cocaine, it will work for pretty much anything. Even caffeine.

In defence of the NHS for a change, a bouncy castle with a head on it wants to sue the NHS for not controlling his life, thereby letting him get fat. There are many things to moan about with the NHS, but they have never come round to my house and force-fed me. I have never answered my door to find an NHS-delivered pie. In fact, I have never met nor heard of anyone who has experienced such a thing. A more common complaint is malnutrition due to hospital - I hesitate to call it - 'food'.

In this man's case, the NHS have given him a stomach-stapling operation which has reduced his weight considerably but I really don't believe the NHS were responsible for him getting fat. Perhaps he should cast a bleary eye towards the baker and the pie shop... or on second thoughts, perhaps not.

I put on some weight over the last couple of months. Work is silent at this time of year, the weather (it's snowing yet again) does not make the outdoors appealing at all and Christmas food is like a calorie TARDIS - when you eat it, it calls in calories from other dimensions. So I am on a strict no-snack regime until I return to normal size. I don't need the NHS to lose this weight and I certainly didn't need them to get fat. I put on the weight, I will deal with it.

This is a consequence of the nanny state. As long as the NHS and the rest tell people they can't manage their own lives and need to be managed, they can expect to get sued for not managing people's lives. Why does Mr. Creosote believe it's the NHS's responsibility to run his life for him? Because successive governments, lobby groups, vested interests and NHS have insisted that it is so.

The NHS are not to blame for him being fat. They are to blame for his belief that it is their fault.

Smokers didn't get the day off either. We are to be eradicated by 2050. I probably won't live to see the final solution but others will.

The social aspect of cigarette smoking – which costs the NHS approximately £2.7billion a year – has also suffered after the 2007 ban on smoking in public places.

Interesting phrasing there. The social aspect of smoking costs the NHS money? Well, let's look at that 2.7 billion a year alongside some other numbers from the article.

Ten million smokers. £6 a pack (rounding down). Let's say an average of a pack a day per smoker - some will be more, some less. Three-quarters of the price is tax, so every smoker pays £4.50 extra tax per day. Smokers overall pay an additional £45 million in tax every day, on top of all the other taxes they may or may not be paying.

So, cost to the NHS from UK and health tourist smokers - £2.7 billion per year.
Additional tax paid by UK smokers - £16.4 billion per year.

And those are antismoker numbers, not mine. I have also reduced £6.50 to £6 and 'more than three-quarters' to three-quarters. The real revenue take is higher. This makes no mention of Pharmer profits on patches and gum and the tax paid on that, nor of the tax given to ASH in order to stop smokers paying extra tax which pays for ASH... like they are really going to let that happen. No, ASH don't want us wiped out. They prefer to see a gradual decline because if we go, they go. Rather like a tapeworm, in fact.

The article speculates that smoking might be banned. Yes, because that worked really well for heroin, cocaine, guns, knives, and terrorists. Do these people imagine the government will ever ban something that earns them £45 million a day and saves on pensions too? Do they imagine ASH will ever call for a ban on the one thing that validates their existence? No, ASH will call for more funding and higher tobacco taxes to cover it and the government, like a penny prostitute, will do absolutely anything for money.

In other news, massive amounts of fattening cakes might have been poisoned by naughty German eggs. The poison in question is dioxin and it's one of those that accumulates. Alcohol gets metabolised, as does nicotine, so once you stop taking it in your levels decline. Not so with dioxin. It stays in there. Take in more later and the concentration in you increases. It's cumulative, like the mercury you inhale as vapour if you break a Green light bulb. It just keeps building up.

So, what's the death toll? How many are sick? How many even felt a bit queasy? None. It's cumulative, yes, but you'd have to eat enough sugary goodness to give yourself a cardiac arrest before you'd take in enough of the contaminant to notice. Still, they've been withdrawn.

But there's an undercurrent here -

Around 90 per cent of our exposure to dioxins comes from food.
The main sources are foods high in animal fat such as milk, fish, eggs and meat.
Doctors say they have no immediate impact on health, but can cause problems if they are absorbed into our bodies over long periods at high levels.

Over time, you will absorb and retain dioxins from non-Green food sources and therefore, meat, fish, eggs, and milk will... (drum roll) cost the NHS money. It's the same game.

Why the frantic recall of foods that don't contain enough toxin for anyone to notice? To scare people. Then link it to all the foods we are not supposed to eat, from cakes to caviar. How could you set up such a scare?

You need a product with many uses, such as eggs. But you don't want to actually kill anyone or make anyone sick because that risks compensation claims. Therefore it has to be diluted to a level that's not dangerous but is detectable. As when eggs are deshelled and sold as liquid egg, where eggs from multiple sources are pooled. Oh, but how to get your trace poison into the eggs? You have to feed it to the hens and no farmer, nor any feed producer, would risk their livelihoods by doing that. So you make a 'mistake'. You send the crappy vegetable oil intended for biofuel instead of the clean stuff intended for mixing into feeds. Deliberate? You decide.

While deciding, remember that you live in a world where this woman claims that government cuts will harm child care and where second-hand TV watching is considered an actual, real disease (Thanks to Anti-Citizen One for that last link).

Personally, I wouldn't put it past them. They do, after all, aspire to a world like this. It's no joke. That is really the sort of world they want and they will stop at nothing to get it.

You will be vaccinated against booze, vaccinated against drugs, taxed out of your car and your cigarettes, and having proved that left to your own devices you will get fat (The Blob will set a legal precedent there) your food will be rationed. No meat, fish or dairy, it will make you ill and you will cost the NHS money.

Impossible? Conspiracy theory? Tinfoil hat? Cannot happen? Nobody could possibly want it to happen?

Watch the video again. It's all in there and it's all happening now. You can deny it if you like, just as you can deny the sky is blue.

I'm over fifty which means I am approaching the age where I will be deemed to be 'costing the NHS money' even though the local health centre don't know who I am. I also smoke and drink and care nothing for any of the health fads. I won't live to see this world of boxes and blind obedience and don't want to.

If you are twenty or thirty, you will see it.

Do you want it?

Well, do you?

18 comments:

JuliaM said...

"The chemical involved was extracted and used to treat alcoholism. It didn't work on the worst cases. They just chucked up and carried on drinking."

Why would they ever think that WOULD work? It's like treating a bulimic with a ticket to an all-you-can-eat buffet!

/facepalm

PT Barnum said...

I'm so relieved that smoking and eating crisps and chocolate are going to kill me before this brave new world arrives. Although I am worried they might not kill me quickly enough because I have the lung function of a teenager (thank you, NHS, for that fact) and a BMI at the low end of normal. Must try harder.

Furor Teutonicus said...

I ask WHO (W.H.O?) is paying for him to sue?

It's a damn good way for the N.H.S to rile up the "Mail crowd" into screaming for compulsory food rationing for the overweight"

I mean, with "that" lot, you only have to mention the word "sue" and they would sell out their bloody Granny, let alone their "world view", in their moral indignation.

(If that shower HAVE "morals" that is).

Neal Asher said...

This guy was so fat he couldn't get out of bed or whatever. So who the hell was bringing him all the pies? They should have told him, 'Your dinner is out on the lawn, if you're so addicted to food then go and get it.'

Absolutely ridiculous this stuff about the dioxins. Not enough to harm anyone yet they have to make a scare story out of it. What was the bloody point of reporting it in the first place?

Anonymous said...

I'm not surprised that the dioxin contaminated foods were taken off the shelves. DDT was banned because it also accumulated in body fat, and although it could be detected in most human test subjects, the concentration was very low.

I don't think that the dioxin contamination was deliberate - farmers/food producers don't need a food scare as it scares customers off. Aspirant empire-building bureaucrats probably wouldn't mind, as it can be used as justification for another layer of Europe-wide oversight.

Anonymous said...

I was given the drug FLAGYL to treat a recent 'hospital acquired infection' while visiting a relative.
This drug reacts badly with alcohol and I believe that it is used to treat people that drink alcohol on the pretext of it clearing up an infection.

Anonymous said...

Here's what Mr Blimp looks like.

I do wonder how he manages to scratch itches. Or how much fluff collects between the folds. And whether that great mound of fat in his nether region is really part of his leg.

Amusing Bunni said...

I wouldn't let these nuts get within 50 feet of me with any needles, I don't go to the dr. either, I don't like them. You can't trust anything in the vaccines, or even in the water, FFS! Out here, now they are saying there IS TOO MUCH fluoride in the water, after all.
I can't afford to buy and lug home gallons of the bottled stuff, and it's been proven most of that is just taken out of the city water supply anyway!

Oh well, we're going to die eventually anyway.
Eat, drinks, smoke whatever and how much you like, but don't let the NHS or anyone else get near you!

Jayce Kay said...

@Fausty - Some stones are best left unturned.

@Leg-iron - "bouncy castle with a head on it" bordering on tears of laughter here.

Leg-iron said...

JuliaM - the thing about scientists is that we're mostly socially dysfunctional. So it probably looked like a great idea to those scientists - inoculate people so their liver can't process alcohol, and that will stop alcoholism.

We're also, for the most part, atrociously politically naieve (aside from the politico-scientists who appear in the papers).

The nuclear scientists who worked out how to get cheap energy from nuclear reactions didn't think that the politicians might make a bomb out of it. Even gunpowder started out as fireworks. Guns came later.

Likewise, these guys are honestly trying to cure alcoholism but have come up with Don Shenker's wettest dream of all - an injection that will stop everyone drinking.

Science also came up with a pill to stop people smoking. It worked, in that the smoker committed suicide.

Which, to certain people, is just fine.

Leg-iron said...

Furor - a few days ago, he was singing the praises of the NHS and their stomach-staples, that had lost him more bodyweight than I've ever had.

Then he decides to sue.

I have to wonder if some oily suited slime from 'Claims-R-Us' has been in touch.

Leg-iron said...

Neal - there are people called 'feeders' who delight in making someone grossly fat and incapable so they have control over them. I don't know if that's the case here.

Then again, since someone was bringing him food, they could have brought him the low-calorie options without telling him. They could also have limited what they were willing to bring.

Or, he could have said 'No thanks' I've had enough'. That diet technique works, and it's free.

On the dioxins, the scare is still running today. Doctors can expect to be inundated with people who look up the symptoms and imagine they've been poisoned. Even though it's been weeks since the stuff was out there.

Leg-iron said...

Anon 12:01 - they were right to take the stuff of the shelves because of the cumulative nature of the toxin, but the amounts in this particular case were negligible. Nothing to be scared of.

Farmers and food producers won't contaminate their own products - and they didn't. The dioxin was in oil marked as feed grade supplied to animal feed producers. Nobody would have suspected dioxin contamination in that chain.

Leg-iron said...

Anon 13:36 - if you ask a doctor whether the medicine he's given you will react with alcohol, he'll say yes. It's a good way to get you to cut down on the drink.

Some drugs do react badly with alcohol, or are inactivated by it, but it's hard to know which are and which aren't.

Dioclese said...

Definitely sounds like the Fourth Reich's version of the final solution to me...

Anonymous said...

Just as an aside, I went to watch a rugby match today. The bar at the rugby ground is, of course, now all non-smoking, so those of us who wanted to smoke were obliged to nip outside for our smoke-breaks, which many of us duly did. On one of these occasions, watching all the jolly, non-smoking imbibers inside, happily quaffing goodly pints aplenty, I just wondered to myself whether any of them had even the slightest inkling of what’s in store for them. And as I watched, I thought: “No. Not one. Not a single one has any idea of what this bar will almost certainly be like in 2-3 years’ time.” Non-smoking drinkers today are as blind and artificially-secure-feeling as we smokers were 10 years ago. It was a bit like watching the wild, last-minute excesses of 1930’s Berlin before the Nazis cracked down on it.

Oh, and was it just a coincidence that on one of the busiest games so far this season, all of the outside stadium bars (the only ones where you can buy alcohol during the game) ran out of bitter (far and away the largest-selling type of drink at rugby matches) at half-time, no less? Or could it be that the Puritans (light-drinking, gin-and-tonic or half-of-lager drinkers that they are) are gradually infiltrating the hospitality arrangements for these events and downsizing the supplies – obviously in order to save all those heavy-drinking ale-men from their own foolishness?

Or have the machinations of the anti-smoking brigade over the years simply turned me into something of a health-conspiracy theorist?

will said...

Re the last few lines of the piece.
I'm 27 and I am planning on leaving this state asap. The main driver being that I cannot afford to remain. Homeownerism, behavioural consumptive taxes (drive less, drink less), forced to pay for 'society's' services, billion dollar a day pointless wars - I cannot stand it and I refuse to spend my only life struggling to pay for it. I am not alone amongst that age range in feeling revulsion. Almost everyone I know dreams of a cheaper, free-er life somewhere else. Few are awake to the reality that the state is the root cause of their dissatisfaction. Even if we were lucky enough to have our snouts in the public sector trough or some state protected monopoly industry and could afford to stay the state still manages to fuck life up. even millionaires smoke outside and sit in traffic.
the UK state is more socialist than the soviet union ever was - anywhere except the southeast has an economy completely dominated by the state sector. there is already 'key worker housing' how long till there is that Moscow style 3rd lane on the roads reserved for those favoured by the state?
But at the same time the UK state seems to also be extremely fascist. corporatism writ large. social engineering and the attempts to create perfect healthy citizens. There is no individual, no self ownership - only the state. Us peasants only cause the state problems so the tax slave farm is undergoing development

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX how long till there is that Moscow style 3rd lane on the roads reserved for those favoured by the state? XX

Was something like this not mentioned in the cerfuffle about the Olympic committee demands for London next year? That the "players and comittee members/guests were to get special routes which were to be kept clear by the police?

I remember pointing out the Soviet third lane system at the time, I am sure.

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