Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Smokers should be praised not banned. They contribute many billions more to the economy than they take in healthcare



?There is no more selfless and heroic breed of civilian than smokers, who contribute many billions more to the economy than they take in healthcare, and save untold billions more by declining to claim the state pension due to early death.?


While that is more dark humor than scientific fact he makes some interesting points in this article.

?There is no more selfless and heroic breed of civilian than smokers, who contribute many billions more to the economy than they take in healthcare, and save untold billions more by declining to claim the state pension due to early death.?


Someone's gotta do it. Where do I pick up my cheque?

Muley Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It's a small distinction, and of no comfort to the

> Afrikaans, but didn't the British action against

> the Boers ultimately have a military purpous

> rather than being motivated by concepts of racial

> purity/inferiority?


Sorry, I?ve just read this. Not entirely correct, no it wasn?t about racial purity but it was an attack on and attempt to eradicate a cultural identity rather than a purely military exercise.


Yes the genocide* was intended to break the guerilla war. That was the excuse Kitchener used in order to have his plans implemented. The other reason was to depopulate the Transvaal and parts of the Free State and eradicate the Transvaal Boers as simply beating them in war and governing them had proved impossible. They sat on top of and had political sway over the world?s largest supply of gold. They were in the way of the mining magnates.


Thankfully, due to opposition very much from some of the British themselves, Kitchener didn?t succeed in killing off the entire nation. The English did however move in and take over the economy and the Boers were left impoverished, landless, disenfranchised and economically discriminated against. (Which in turn led to the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism and all the bullshit that brought with it. But that?s another, often ignoble, story)


That?s just a very brief overview. Sorry I could have left it alone but for some reason I feel compelled to set the record straight. For what little it?s worth.


Back to how smoking is good for all of us.


* and it was genocide even though it didn?t succeed and the army still deny it. We can get into that separately but (mockney) assume that I know what the term means and that I wouldn?t use it incorrectly.

Thankfully, due to opposition very much from some of the British themselves,


Ref: Emily Hobhouse, and the radical wing of the Liberal Party (David Llord George). Although Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader at this point, waited until public opinion swayed until he spoke out against military stratey.


At a late point in the Second War, the British military actually started refusing women and children entry to the camps. They justified this as responding to objections about conditions in the camps. But of course it burdened the Boer military with ill, starving and immobile civilians, slowing them down, and making them less effective. A double result for the British.


Admitting them to the camps and then feeding and treating them, of course, was the other (untaken) option.

Everyone smoked pipes back then. Women, children, dogs.


It is a dying and beautiful art far more elegant than the crude dose of concentrated, nicotine injected into the body by tailor made cigarettes.


What the fuck are tailors doing making cigarettes in the first place?



EDIT: to make sense.

I thought I would back my satement up with some old photographs depicting life at the end of the 19th Century


http://www.ramshornstudio.com/d6b52e90.jpg


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2272/2171677617_05c5f469a3.jpg?v=0


http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/Pix/NAT/84/10466984_T.JPG

Meet me! Meet me! I?m important. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2009/09/not_so_special.html


But we speak the same language. We?re very, very important don?t you know.


France? Germany? Where are theses places, in Spain somewhere?

I really get annoyed by this sort of thing though: "There's our debt in two world wars, and especially the last one. If Franklin Roosevelt hadn't prepared for years to come in on our side we would probably have lost. If we had, Europe would have been a different place." More crassly, Americans have been known to utter such sentences as 'you'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for us'.


Er, well, yes. Not to mention the poor Russians who fought and died in their millions, or any of the rest of the allies. The Americans fought desperately against getting involved in "Europe's War" and only did so after the Japanese rather directly brought them into the conflict. It's a very good thing that they did come into the war, but it's pretty rich to expect gratitude from the allies that they would happily have left to swing if it hadn't been for Pearl Harbour.

I?ve always thought/suspected that the American?s were going to get involved in the war at some stage anyway in order to secure an allied (to them) power base in Europe but Pearl Harbour just forced their hand a little earlier.


I also don?t think they were in a position to get involved in the earlier stages of the war.

More accurately if they hadn't got involved the French would be speaking Russian, well, in the Warsaw pact.

We'd have probably been finlandised and with a full Germany and France (which is downright commie at the best of times) communism may well have been successful (it was always intended for Berlin Paris and london, Marx never intended it for a backward agrarian economy) the cold war would have been a case of containing US power and the world may indeed have been a different place.


I'm pretty sure central America would still be screwed but the Vietnamese would have been much happier.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • We’ve got a gap on the roof of our shed that needs patching  don’t want to buy a huge roll so hoping someone has some leftover  happy to collect/reimburse 
    • I never said I thought it was targeted or deliberate. There also has never been a “stand off” or confrontation, we’ve spoken to them in a friendly manner about it. Our experience is they don’t seem to care. That’s the frustrating thing for us, if someone politely raises a concern at least take a second to reflect. Treat others how you would want to be treated.  I don’t want them to lose their job, far from it. But considering it could cost me a days work to fix any damage, I’m within my right to try prevent it.   
    • The SE22 Evri delivery family are lovely, and always say hello wherever we spot them in the area. We gave them a box of chocolates during Covid as they were working their socks off at Christmas
    • What was he doing on the stage at Glastonbury? Or on the stage at the other concert in Finsbury Park? Grinning like a Cheshire cat whilst pissed and stoned 20 somethings on the promise of free internet sung-- Oh Jeremy Corbyn---  What were his policies for Northern mining towns with no jobs or infrastructure? Free Internet and university places for youngsters. What were his other manifesto pledges? Why all the ambiguity over Brexit?  I didn't like Thatcher, Blair or May or Tony but I respected them as politicians because they stood by what they believed in. I respect all politicians across the board that stick to their principles. Corbyn didn't and its why he got  annihilated at the polls. A socialist, anti imperialist and anti capitalist that said he voted for an imperialist and pro capitalist cabal. He refused to say how he'd vote over and over again until the last knockings. He did so to appease the Islington elite and middle class students he was courting. The same people that were screaming that Brexit was racist. At the same time the EU were holding black and Asian immigrants in refugee camps overseas but not a word on that! Corbyn created and courted a student union protest movement that screamed at and shouted down anyone not on the left . They claimed Starmer and the centre right of labour were tories. He didn't get elected  because he, his movement and policies were unelectable, twice. He turned out not to have the convictions of his politics and died on his own sword.    Reform won't win an election. All the idiots that voted for them to keep out Labour actually enabled Labour. They'll be back voting tory next time.    Farage wouldn't be able to make his millions if he was in power. He's a very devious shyster but I very much doubt he'd actually want the responsibility that governance requires.
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...