I was watching a programme on television last night and I saw something that disgusted and horrified me.
Yes, dear readers, it was similar to the photograph above.
Isn’t that horrifying?
Isn’t that disgusting?
After months of trying to quit, I took one look at that image and was hooked again.
I am ashamed of myself, but first thing in the morning I will be off to the village to satisfy my cravings that were reignited by that ghastly image which is now forever burned into my eyes.
Yes.
I am back on the lipstick.
Lipstick use is the leading cause of death and preventable disease today. In this country alone, statistics prove that approximately 423,981 women die from lipstick use each year.
Lipstick is known to contain over 3,872 different carcinogens and its wearers must be confined to the streets where they belong. In a civilised society there is no place for the lipstick wearer.
Lipstick must be banned for all our sakes. Before that though, steps must be taken to keep our children safe. Lipstick must be heavily taxed, as higher prices are a proven way to reduce consumption. Lipstick must be hidden from public view in all shops. Films containing women who wear lipstick must be X rated and never shown on television.
Of course the dangers of second hand lipstick are well documented. Drinking from a cup or glass that is tainted with the stuff is tantamount to putting a loaded revolver in your mouth and pulling the trigger. Kissing a person who is wearing lipstick can shorten your life by over ten years. It is estimated 80,002 men die an agonising death each year from kissing women who wear lipstick.
I know I am weak willed for returning to this loathsome habit, but it is a known fact that lipstick is twenty times more addictive than heroin.
A couple of my readers have been kind [or perverse] enough to point out an item of ‘news’ that is doing the rounds at the moment.
I say ‘news’ but this little nugget has been around since 2008.
I am referring to a rather alarming study regarding Third Hand Smoke.
We all know what smoking is, I presume? There are still major questions hanging over the dangers of that one, but I will leave that aside for now.
Then there is Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or as some people like to call it – second hand smoke. The dangers of ETS have never been proven. We constantly hear expressions such as “the well known dangers of” and “is known to be” and vague airy expressions, but I have yet so find any authoritative and definitive study that proves any dangers. In other words, the dangers of ETS lies only in rumour, popular belief and innuendo.
Back in 2008, a paediatrician by the name of Jonathan Winickoff made a solo run and decided to invent the concept now known as Third Hand Smoke. Note that he is a paediatrician; not an oncologist or an environmentalist, but an expert on children’s health. He took it on himself to investigate the effects of tobacco smoke in a room after the smoker has left.
Winickoff’s initial ‘research’ consisted of a survey of people’s opinions. Yes. He asked them if they thought that Third Hand Smoke could be dangerous. When the majority expressed an opinion that, yes, they thought it could be harmful, then Winickhoff had his ‘proof’ that it was harmful! By the same token, he could have asked them if they believed in Extra Terrestrials, and that would again have provided ‘conclusive scientific proof’?
Science is pretty advanced these days. Equipment has become ever more sophisticated to the point where it is safe to say that if something exists, no matter how small the quantity, that it can be detected. We are at the stage where individual molecules of an element or chemical can be detected in a sample of matter. As a simple example, I can guarantee [and will stake anything you care to mention, up to and including my life] that tests will find traces of Zirconium-95 [which is highly radioactive] in every living person in the UK and Ireland as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. There may only be a molecule or two, but it will be there. In fact, I would suggest that just about anything could be found if one searched hard enough. I would imagine that I would have several molecules of meteorite dust on my body, and probably a molecule or two that once passed through Napoleon.
Now here is the problem. If I find my molecules of Zirconium-95, how do I describe the amount? Do I say I have found one part per trillion, or do I say I have found a ‘significant’ amount? Anti-smokers tend to choose the latter.
I have searched the Interweb looking for further studies, but all I can find are press reports announcing this ‘alarming new threat’. I found one reference to a study that found that the bedrooms of non-smokers had concentrations of nicotine of 0.09 mcg/m3, while those of smokers had levels of 0.22 mcg/m3. Two things I would point out here – the first is that nicotine was found in the bedrooms of non-smokers just goes to show that it’s a naturally occurring substance anyway [do you eat potatoes?] and the second is that while there appears to be an ‘alarming increase’, the safe level is considered to be 500 mcg/m3, so there is hardly a ‘significant threat’?
At the start, I stated that the studies were alarming. I meant that for two reasons. The first is that I find it alarming that anyone would take such a ‘study’ seriously. If I produced a result like that in my primary school exams, I would be failed without hesitation. The second reason for alarm is that the public are being duped by the whole farce. This is a myth that has become fact purely through popular belief.
It has reached the stage now where ASH [good old ASH!] are now claiming that even if you smoke in your garden, the residue you bring back on your clothing is killing your children. This is clearly an irrational and insane proposal, but this is the level to which the public is descending. ASH are using their own theory now to propose that smoking be banned in private homes.
The zealots love to quote that there is no safe level of tobacco smoke.
I would contend that there is no safe level of anti-smoking zealots.
For those of you who don’t know him, he is one of the leading lights in Ireland’s very own Third Reich – ASH.
Now why should I be so happy about someone whose stated aim is to ban all tobacco products?
The answer is simple.
By studying his methodology and the way that he obtains statistics, it makes our job in WANK [Warning Against Natural Killers] so much easier.
For example, his is vomiting forth yet again on the subject of smoking in Ireland and amongst his claims is the one that smoking kills 6,000 people a year. What he actually claims is that “tobacco is linked with about 6,000 deaths in Ireland each year”, but in his own inimitable cute fashion, he conjures up visions of smokers coughing their lungs up until they expire.
Of course the truth is significantly different. What he is referring to is the number of people who die each year of illnesses that are associated with smoking. This means that a non-smoker who unfortunately dies of cancer is lumped in with those figures. Also, he fails to mention what age they are when they die?
So, you see that makes WANK’s work so much easier.
Lately we have been carrying out some more research [using Clancy’s methodology, of course] and have come up with an incredibly startling result -
At considerable expense, we have studied over ten thousand people who lived between 1900 and 2000, and the result of our study shocked even us. Every single person in the study walked at some stage, and now they are all dead. There can be only one horrific conclusion to be drawn.
Walking is fatal.
Of course we are going to put considerable pressure on the government to curtail this horrific blight on society.
Footpaths must be torn up immediately.
A massive tax must be placed immediately on walking boots to dissuade the young from starting.
All posters, photographs and films of people walking must be eradicated.
Pedestrians must be treated with the utmost contempt and must be shunned by society.
Young people must be educated and taught that walking is only for the weak willed.
All footwear must contain a graphic image of a bunion.
As you know, I have been an admirer of ASH for some time now.
I have always admired their devil may care attitude to science and the philosophy of not letting the facts stand in the way of a good story. This is the way research should be done. Who cares if the facts are distorted so long as it looks good. If you can throw in a few irrelevant but snazzy sounding credentials, then so much the better.
My one criticism of ASH though is that they confine themselves to smoking. Why? There are far worse killers out there.
To this end I am founding a new organisation – Warnings About Natural Killers.
We in WANK have already done some extensive research and have come up with some startling results.
In conjunction with Cornell University, we have analysed the water that you drink every day.
Do you know that you are killing yourself with this stuff?
Forty fucking carcenogens? Fucking radioactive materials? Do you realise you are in imminent danger of being a nuclear explosion?
Let’s have a look at some of these vile chemicals which you are taking into your unwitting body, and will cause you to die of a virulent cancer immediately:
On behalf of all you poor innocent sods who are drinking this lethal cocktail, we are campaigning to have all water banned from the workplace, home and every other fucking place.
Under no circumstances should you have any contact whatsoever with water. If you see some, please stay at least one hundred feet away from it and warn everyone else to do the same. Warn the authorities so that they can collect it in lead lined containers and ship it to safety.
We urge everyone, for the sake of their health to take up smoking cigarettes.
At least they only contain microscopic traces of eight carcenogens.
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