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Welcome to The Property Rights Newsletter
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Issue #556
The Property Rights Newsletter
February 5, 2010 - Issue #556
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test
a man's character, give him power.”
- Abraham Lincoln |  The psychology of power. Absolutely. Power corrupts, but it corrupts only those who think they deserve it. These results, then, suggest that the powerful do indeed behave hypocritically, condemning the transgressions of others more than they condemn their own. Which comes as no great surprise, although it is always nice to have everyday observation confirmed by systematic analysis. But another everyday observation is that powerful people who have been caught out often show little sign of contrition. It is not just that they abuse the system; they also seem to feel entitled to abuse it.
EU: The EU has declared war against smokers! A dossier with recommendations for the 27 member states has been released by the EU. The objective - a "100 per cent smoke free environment". Brussels wants to eliminate cigarettes with a ‘smoking police’, ashtray bans and high-publicity legal processes against celebrities who enjoy a puff. The new 31-page document makes recommendations for drastic measures to ban smoking in all workplaces, public buildings and facilities.
Anti-smoking laws: Shaming smokers makes it harder to quit, study claims. There is an "urgent" need for governments to revisit their anti-smoking policies, the academics say, suggesting that the stigma around smoking could lead to patients hiding their tobacco use from doctors, and feeling desperate about ever kicking the habit. The policies run counter to how other addictions are treated by the public-health field, they argue. IN: Bill would kill anti-tobacco agency: Transfer of funds to health department seen by some as efficiency measure, by others as government power grab.
KS: ALERT: Help Topekans Against The Ban get signatures.
MA: Cigar Store Owners Oppose MA Governor on Proposal to Increase Tobacco Taxes, cigars and smoking tobacco.
NV: No smoking at the tobacco show. More folly from local Nanny Staters. This lawsuit is likely to fail. At which point, the courts should order the prohibitionists to reimburse the convention authority and Nevada's taxpayers their legal costs. But more important is what this effort again demonstrates.
Hong Kong: Failed tobacco tax sees hopes go up in smoke. Smokers may evade the indoor smoking ban by sneaking puffs, but evading the tobacco tax is more dangerous. The 50 percent tax hike last February increased the cost of a pack of cigarettes and smokers, like most savvy consumers looking for a deal, are finding cheaper packs can be bought on the black market.
Italy: More than two million people started smoking again since ban.
Scotland: Scottish Display Ban Becomes Law.
UK: The Free Society. Say No to Big Government.
UK: In the media spotlight: Health Secretary Andy Burnham's preference for smokefree homes and cars without regulation.
Parachutes Study: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. (Read that again!)
Michael Siegel: More Shoddy Science on Smoking Bans and Heart Attacks: Study from Switzerland Has No Comparison Group and Results Don't Support Conclusion.
Weight gain from quitting smoking linked to diabetes. So, quitting smoking is now linked to Diabetes along with a long list of other adverse effects. Stress was not included as a confounding factor, it should be. | Watch: Glenn Beck:
"Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free or Die" documentary.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 | | Join FREE - Home - Events - Forum - Videos - Please Help - © |
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Posted by samantha on Thursday, February 04 @ 09:01:34 EST
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Issue #555
The Property Rights Newsletter
January 29, 2010 - Issue #555
"People deserve freedom...
it is the most precious of all commodities."
- John McCain |  NO SMOKING - Yes You Can Says Federal Judge. Federal U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon sided with electronic cigarette makers as he criticized what he called the FDA's "tenacious drive to maximize its regulatory power," saying he found its interpretation of the law "unreasonable and unacceptable" in his 32 page opinion. "This case appears to be yet another example of F.D.A.'s aggressive efforts to regulate recreational tobacco products as drugs or devices," Judge Leon wrote. Over the last year, the FDA had been unlawfully seizing shipments of e-cigarettes coming into the U.S. and engaging in a smear campaign by releasing misleading information regarding the safety of e-cigarettes...
 R.J. Reynolds Publishes Cigarette Ingredients by Brand; Shows Stupidity of FDA Tobacco Law and Demonstrates that Anti-Smoking Groups are Full of Crap. By Michael Siegel. Unless the anti-smoking groups are willing to concede that Winston cigarettes are safer or less addictive than other brands, then they are completely full of crap. And since the anti-smoking groups would not in their right mind assert that Winston cigarettes are safer or less addictive then other brands, they are completely full of crap. ...In other words, they are all full of crap.
Chew: Britain’s Royal College of Physicians has found that smokeless tobacco is 10 to 1,000 times less dangerous than cigars and cigarettes. Furthermore, doctors Brad Rodu and Philip Cole of the American Council on Science and Health have found that smokeless tobacco is 98 percent safer than smoking.
PETITION: Stop the Pipe Tobacco Tax. H.R. 4439, A tax increase of 775%, from $2.83 to $24.78 per pound. This is nothing more than an attempt to rope in taxes from roll-your-own cigarette tobacco. The roll-your-own industry has re-labeled cigarette tobacco as pipe tobacco to be taxed at a much lower rate.
GA: Study: Workplace Bans Don't Extinguish the Habit.
IN: Cigar Store Owners Express Concern Over Proposed Bans.
MO: Southeast smoking ban: Little known and largely ignored.
MT: Video gambling revenue falls 18 percent with the new ban.
NV: Bring back SB372 to remove some restrictions on the ban.
OK: ALERT: SB1809e, Smoking in public places-Modify provisions.
SC: Smoker Power. Don't just sit there - do something.
UT: Mood of America Says No New Taxes in Utah.
Cyprus: Smoking ban, is it working? Gradually it will be ignored.
Scotland: Mary Scanlon Proposes Removal of First Three Sections of Tobacco Bill, includes the section that prohibits tobacco display.
Spain: Split on smoking ban, being debated in the halls of power.
Tahiti: Refines anti-smoking legislation, ban on hold for a year.
UK: Hypocrisy, Or Down-Right Lies? You Choose. Confirmation from the House of Commons Commission has confirmed what we already know... the big cover-up at Westminster regarding their members-only smoking rooms.
UK: Watch Phil Williams: Two faced lying bloody bastards. | 
Check these Smoker Friendly Calendars in your area. | | Join FREE - Home - Events - Forum - Videos - Please Help - © |
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Posted by samantha on Thursday, January 28 @ 14:25:50 EST
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Issue #554
The Property Rights Newsletter
January 22, 2010 - Issue #554
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
- Douglas Adams |  Gary Nolan, national director for Citizens Freedom Alliance, a group that fights for property rights, challenged proponents to a debate on the issue of whether secondhand smoke is harmful. "Instead of making a brief presentation, let's have a real honest debate on this subject," Nolan said. "It is an affront to the property rights of restaurant and bar owners to pass a smoking ban. It is their property and they should be making that decision," Nolan said. He said the decision of whether to go into a restaurant or bar with or without smoking should be a decision of the individual. "Allow them to continue to have a choice," Nolan said.
| From The International Mailbag |
Canada: Butt ban for teens? Convenience stores want teenagers banned from possessing tobacco, a call timed to coincide with National Non-Smoking Week.
France: Smoking Ban? The French Light Up Again in Public.
UK: Joe Jackson's New Year message. I fear we are moving closer and closer to a sort of Soviet existence where authority is simply accepted and only grumbled about around the kitchen table - which is where all the parties are going to be anyway, with no pubs left!
DC: Council Smoking Ban Proposal for 25 feet from doors.
GA: Outdoor Smoking Bans Spread Without Science. According to the Athens Banner Herald, “the county commission and the state legislature both considered extending the ban to 25 feet outside doorways but abandoned the idea.
KS: Store Owners Say "No" to Governor’s Proposed Tax Hikes.
SC: Cayce Smoking Vote Puts Heat on West Columbia.
SC: York County Council chambers packed with people fuming over smoking ban. Council to discuss whether to exempt private businesses from ban.
WA: Proposed Washington State Tobacco Tax Increase Causes Committees to Clash. HB2493.
USA: FDA to Study Cigarette Ingredients to Determine if They Pose Any Danger. "If we can just get our politicians to be sleeping with each other rather than with industry, then they can be doing to each other what they're currently doing to us."
 Big Benefits Are Seen From Eating Less Salt. In a report that may bolster public policy efforts to get Americans to reduce the amount of salt in their diets, scientists writing in The New England Journal of Medicine conclude that lowering the amount of salt people eat by even a small amount could reduce cases of heart disease, stroke and heart attacks as much as reductions in smoking, obesity and cholesterol levels.
Fat: Call for obesity action as new links to heart disease emerge. The researchers called for increased efforts to reduce people's weight to prevent them dying from cardiovascular diseases.
Studies don't show smoking kills people. By Thomas Laprade. Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not just passive smoke, but also and especially the potentially serious contaminants that are independent from smoking.
Vehicle exhaust fumes linked to severe pneumonia in seniors. "We postulate that there might have been effects on the innate immune system, that is these air pollutants would affect the ability of the lungs to clear pathogens," he said in an interview from Hamilton. |  Watch Phil Williams
Anti smoking home goal
Anti smoking home goal 2
Wherever smoking bans are introduced we see a growth in smoking rates, especially amongst the young. Thank you anti smokers for making smoking cool again, and congratulations for your service to the tobacco industry. | | Join FREE - Home - Events - Forum - Videos - Please Help - © |
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Posted by samantha on Friday, January 22 @ 02:41:45 EST
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Issue #553
The Property Rights Newsletter
January 1, 2010 - Issue #553
"In the New Year, may your right hand always be
stretched out in friendship, never in want."
- Irish toast |  Michael Siegel - Tobacco Policy Blog:
On the Similarities Between Health Care Reform Legislation and the FDA Tobacco Bill: Compromising with Special Interests and Selling Out Principles. Selling Health Protection for Votes in Both Cases Leads to Bill that Does More Harm than Good.
Error Disclosed in Meta-Analysis of Smoking Bans' Effect on Heart Attacks: Will Anti-Smoking Groups Report the Error?
No Change in Trend in Heart Disease Death Rates in Connecticut During First Three Years of Comprehensive Statewide Ban.
Heart Disease Death Rate Increased by 16% in First Year Following Indy Smoking Ban; By IOM Committee's Logic, Ban Caused Increase in Heart Attacks. CA: LA Tobacconists Gear Up for Showdown on Outdoor Smoking.
CO: Colorado Update. By James L. VonFeldt, President, Coalition for Equal Rights. They are back. It began in Fort Collins and Arvada.
HI: The Smoke Vote. Home of the Army of Smoke.
KS: Bootleggers Saloon is CLOSED, no more charity events.
MI: Tobacconists Prepare to Battle Increased Taxes.
NV: Letter response from the American Cancer Society, regarding them suing the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
NY: Blowing Smoke at a Ban. "Everyone looks the other way." Clearly, Mayor Bloomberg didn’t make the guest list.
VA: A list of where to eat, drink, and smoke in VA.
USA: Is ObamaCare Constitutional? Do You Really Have to Ask? By Chuck Muth. America’s founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government.
USA: Texting while driving, smoking target of '10 laws. Smoking Bans, Harm And Violence. By Phil Johnson. Well, lady healthiest and denialist ‘extraordinaire’, one of our diligent researchers has unearthed all that you denied, all that you were unaware of – and worse still, all that your bosses do not want in the public domain.
The pubs that died after giving up smoking. By Vicki Woods. She'd said "It will ruin me", and it did. She saw her takings drop by 90 per cent, struggled through her last New Year and left the trade she'd worked in since she was 15.
Watch: A two party state. By Phil Williams... corrupt EU puppets. | 
Happy New Year! Here's what to expect. | | Join FREE - Home - Events - Forum - Videos - Please Help - © |
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Posted by samantha on Saturday, January 02 @ 08:14:47 EST
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Issue #552
The Property Rights NewsletterDecember 25, 2009 - Issue #552
"Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.”
- Oren Arnold
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Posted by samantha on Saturday, December 26 @ 04:42:24 EST
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Issue #551
The Property Rights NewsletterDecember 18, 2009 - Issue #551"Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it."
- Lincoln Steffens
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Posted by samantha on Friday, December 18 @ 09:54:22 EST
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Issue #550
The Property Rights NewsletterDecember 11, 2009 - Issue #550"Mind Your Business"
- The very first motto on a U.S. Minted Coin
USA: State "Smoker Protection" Laws. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have laws in effect elevating smokers to a protected class.
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Posted by samantha on Friday, December 11 @ 13:36:25 EST
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Issue #548
The Property Rights NewsletterNovember 27, 2009 - Issue #548"If you make any money, the government shoves you
in the creek once a year with it in your pockets,
and all that don't get wet you can keep."
- Will Rogers
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Posted by samantha on Saturday, November 28 @ 12:56:03 EST
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Issue #547
The Property Rights NewsletterNovember 20, 2009 - Issue #547"The Hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who,
in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."
- Dante, "The Inferno"
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Posted by samantha on Friday, November 20 @ 10:17:36 EST
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Issue #546
The Property Rights NewsletterNovember 6, 2009 - Issue #546"Smokers being forced outside.
Abuse is abuse, no matter what the excuse."
- Nick Melnyk
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Posted by samantha on Thursday, November 05 @ 13:19:51 EST
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Issue #545
The Property Rights NewsletterOctober 30, 2009 - Issue #545"I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time."
- Mark Twain
Presidents Who Smoke: 61% of all U. S. presidents smoked tobacco. As the legendary story reveals John F. Kennedy gave orders to Press Secretary Pierre Salinger to round up as many Corona cigars (JFK's favorite) before signing the Cuban trade embargo. Salinger later reported 1,200 Coronas in his possession. It was not until the Clinton administration when an absolute no-smoking policy was implemented in the White House and Hillary happily removed all the ashtrays from the premises. So where might Barack Obama sneak a smoke? It's rumored that Willie Nelson fired up on the White House roof when invited to spend a night, though we doubt it was tobacco he was smoking.
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Posted by samantha on Friday, October 30 @ 09:07:47 EDT
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Issue #544
The Property Rights NewsletterOctober 23, 2009 - Issue #544"Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Phil Williams
Watch: Ashbusters 4, Turning Point.
More Phil Williams
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Posted by samantha on Thursday, October 22 @ 14:32:20 EDT
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Issue #543
The Property Rights NewsletterOctober 9, 2009 - Issue #543"There are times when silence has the loudest voice."
- Leroy Brownlow
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Posted by samantha on Friday, October 09 @ 08:56:43 EDT
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Joe Jackson Smoke, Lies And The Nanny State
The Research of David Kuneman 
Rest of the Story. Michael Siegel
Arnold and smokers rights
Johnny Depp has vowed to defy bans.
Catherine Zeta Jones and private planes
Mel Smith defies Scotland's ban.
Bad NY air for heroes.