Friday, May 30, 2008

Banning body odour

While doing some research for my other blog, Stand FAST, I came across an item on the Forces International website about stinkers and smellers. Uh-huh. I said stinkers and smellers.

Apparently, the Murfreesboro (Tennessee) City Council adopted a good hygiene policy back in 2003, to the effect that: "No employee shall have an odor generally offensive to others when reporting to work. An offensive body odor may result from a lack of good hygiene, from an excessive application of a fragrant aftershave or cologne or from other causes."

That’s right folks. Up here in the Great White North, Ontario’s Liberal government passed the Smoke Free Ontario Act to control the alleged health hazards of exposure to secondhand smoke. Down in Tennessee, they’ve passed a fragrance free Murfreesboro law to protect society from the hazards of exposure to Chanel # 5, Irish Spring and Old Spice.

According to the anti-fragrance fanatics, fragrances contain neurotoxic, carcinogenic, endocrine-disrupting and other toxic chemicals. The toxic chemicals contained in fragrances can make anyone sick in large enough quantities. People with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) are especially susceptible to the dangers of this public health hazard and will virtually always get sick from even slight traces of these chemicals.

People don’t speak out about the dangers posed by inconsiderate stinkers for very good reason. Your fragrance may have already affected someone so much that she or he has trouble speaking, thinking, taking action or even remaining awake and conscious. Uh-huh. They could be knocked unconscious by a whiff of Bounce from your freshly washed shirt.

And, just what criteria will be used to identify and define offensive odours?

Well, according to City Councilman Toby Gilley, the standard would be the same one a U.S. Supreme Court justice used to identify pornography. "We'll know it when we see it," Gilley said. Or, in the case of the Murfreesboro anti-fragrance ordinance, "We'll know it when we smell it."

Now, I don’t want to make fun of people with MCS, even if the National Institute of Environmental Health Science says the very existence of such an affliction is in dispute. But, I do think that banning people who wear perfume, cologne, scented hair spray and the like from public places is going a little too far.

Besides, I don’t think it’s all that funny.

There are people out there who don’t like the smell of burning tobacco. So, they turned secondhand smoke into a health hazard and banned smoking in all public places, bars, restaurants, etc. Anti-smoker fanatics, through distorted science and suspect statistics, managed to turn smokers into social misfits.

The odour activists want to eliminate harmful smells.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve made up your mind that this is a joke. And, you’re wrong. “So what?” You say. That kind of nonsense won’t work in Canada.

Wrong again. More in my next post.

To be continued

Saturday, May 24, 2008

I’m still here, just busy elsewhere

For anyone who thinks I haven’t made a post in the last month because I was too drunk to find the damn keyboard, you’re wrong. I’ve been busy doing a little research into the anti-smoker brigade and smoking bans around the world.

Not a shred of evidence that secondhand smoke is likely to kill anyone. They’re running a con game to justify bans, punitive taxation and other discriminatory practices directed at smokers. And, some polls place the number of people who believe the lies and distortions of science as high as 80%. And, worse, even smokers are beginning to believe their bullshit and bafflegab.

Check out my other blog to find the truth about the alleged hazards of secondhand smoke. Stand FAST


I’ll return to making regular posts to this blog, probably twice a week, in about a week. I’ll also be updating the music files within the next week or so. For now, here’s a little bit of lunacy from merry old England.

Bureaucracy run amok

Eighty-two year old Jean Raine and a friend were driven to the mall in Kendal, Cumbria (England boys and girls, England) by a neighbour. Miss Raine, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, has a valid disabled parking permit. She had her neighbour park in a handicapped parking spot and placed her permit in the front windshield.

Feeling unwell, she told her friends to go about their shopping and stayed in the car to rest, and, promptly fell asleep.

A parking warden (Parking Control Officer) noted Miss Raine asleep in the car. He also noted that her permit was upside down. So, he issued a ticket with a fine of 35 pound sterling ($ 68.00 Canadian). He didn’t bother to wake Miss Raine, simply placing the parking ticket on the windshield.

Miss Raine and the driver of the car appealed the ticket.

A council spokesman said: “If anyone feels they have reason to challenge a penalty charge notice (ticket) then they can appeal to the council in the first instance, followed by an appeal to an independent tribunal if they choose.

"Guidance notes (instructions) issued with the badge and parking disc (permit) clearly state that it should be clearly and correctly displayed at all times."

So, we have a valid parking permit placed in full view with an elderly woman asleep in the vehicle. And, we have an overzealous parking control officer so anxious to make his quota that he’s willing to give the old girl an $68.00 ticket because the damn permit was upside down. And, even worse, we have a pompous bureaucrat defending the injustice and refusing to deposit the ticket where it belonged – in the nearest garbage can.