It was written by someone who has since been effectively fired over bribery allegations, and I do mean 'allegations' because there was - without doubt - a perfectly reasonable explanation for his jetting off to the Bahamas to scout for places amenable to stashing "sums of up to $100 million" just before being accused of soliciting €60 million via an intermediary.
Still, that's all water under the bridge for the EU. No point in dragging such an inconvenient fact up again. It's not like
So the process moves effortlessly on to tomorrow's vote which is taking place from 10:30am GMT and you'll be able to watch it here if you have the time. Of course, most will be at work around then so - if that applies to you - here's the result.
I think we're going to require a new EU directive on time travel considering Jean-Paul's remarkable ability to speak "after the vote" but still manage to get his opinions published the day before. I'm not sure that all precautionary avenues have been exhausted to prove that time travel is safe, do you?
Frippery aside, it's fitting that a directive which was written under dubious circumstances; was rigged from the very beginning; was furthered by a Maltese replacement who didn't have a clue about his subject matter; was bombarded by pharma and EU-funded lobbyists while the public were dismissed as tobacco stooges; and as recently as Friday saw its wording altered without debate or discussion, should now be declared as a foregone conclusion without so much as a pre-determined vote being cast.
There are very few certainties in this world, but tomorrow will exhibit two bankers in tandem to the detriment of Europe as a whole. Tobacco control has never been about health and the EU has never been about democracy.
Can we leave yet?
Now, I'm sure that the above may have dampened your expectations of the event but there may yet still be something unpredictable to look out for. The BBC reports that the stand out most liberal nation in the EU is sending a representative to speak tomorrow.
The voting session will be interrupted by a formal address to MEPs from Milos Zeman, the President of the Czech Republic.And rumour has it that he may be contemplating blasphemy by talking about {gasp} the freedom to smoke! So place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Will he be browbeaten by McAvan and her cronies or stick to his script and enrage legions of tax-sponging Euro tobacco control execs by mentioning the 'F-word'?
Milos, we double dare you!
12 comments:
"BBC reports that the stand out most liberal nation in the EU is sending a representative to speak tomorrow."
Perhaps the stand out representative is no other than Dr Who and while he was there speaking someone stole his tardis leaping forward then back in time to publish this article
Spoilers ;)
Scotty beam me up please...
My lobby good, your evil child killing supporters bad
I ,together with a few hundred other European extremists are the only ones who are fully aware of the long term EU agenda. Forget the simplistic fear of a European Superstate, that would ony lead to a more powerfull European Entity,not what the EU deviants want.
A gradual softening of traditional fortitude leading to a easily managed populace over which a select clique of financiers,media manipulators and
showbiz/sports cringers hold unquestioneed authority.
An upmarket Stalinist set up we could suggest.
In the not to distant future,some of you under 60 will ask youself ,why,did'nt you do more to avoid the demise,why did'nt you stand up to be counted
why did you plod along the digital path to no avail
....................................................WHY ?...........................
"It's not like a billion Europeans deserve a binding directive which is entirely whiff-free, now is it?"
Total population of the various EU member states was about 400 million the last time I looked. Or are you adding back 600 million who have died from tobacco-related illnesses in the past [made up number of] years?
Yet more totally pointless, self-congratulatory regulations emanating from the minds of hatemongers and voted in obediently by slavish idiots. The “terrifying” pictures are there already – does making them fractionally bigger (because fag packets aren’t actually very big in the first place) honestly make any difference to people who’ve now become so inured to them that they don’t even notice them any more? And as anyone who likes the occasional menthol smoke probably already knows, a Polo mint slipped into a packed of cigs (after you’ve smoked two or three first, of course), effectively makes the remainder into even nicer (milder, less after-taste) menthol cigs than the pre-mentholed version. Interestingly, after accidentally spilling some fruit cordial onto a packet of cigs once in a “shopping misadventure” I discovered that home-made fruit-flavoured cigarettes were possible too and – rather surprisingly – not as unpleasant as I thought they’d be!
Beautiful catch Frank! It looks like the world is continuing to catch up to TobakkoNacht! Here's a partial excerpt from the "Satirical Smoke" section:
===
Magickal Tobacco Smoke!
BREAKTHRU! BREAKTHRU! BREAKTHRU!!!!
The newest PARADIGM SHATTERING STUDY from the Time&SpacePortal (Reg. TM by Roger Wood’s Junky Foundation) of the WorldWide Antismoking Lobby has hit the airwaves and the world of Epidemiological Temporal Physics will never be the same again!
New research has smashed through the old Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy (After this, therefore because of this.) and is leading us along the Mobius Highway at warp speed into the new Pre Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc world. As Dr. Michael Siegel has noted ... in a just-published study to be published in 2000-and-something, researchers will discover tomorrow that a smoking ban implemented next month will cause a fall in heart attacks THREE MONTHS AGO!
The implications of this breakthrough are ENORMOUS! It has long been recognized that tobacco smoke exhibits strange and wonderful Magickal properties heretofore unknown to the minds of mortal men. (Early research by "Health Physicist" Jamie Disgrace) is now being extended beforehand by others who will discover that even solid steel walls are no match for insidious tendrils of smoke as they wend their evil way along electrical cords only to sneak out of light sockets to attack innocent lungs cowering in their owners’ apartments.
The Temporal Breakthrough!
Marlboro's Magical Molecules (Reg. trademark: *MMM* by Evil Big Tobacco) shredded osmotic boundaries in the early years of the new century as they learned how to sneakily degassify out of the air onto walls and cabinetry, and then regassify and launch themselves at any infants who were inadvertently brought into a death chamber that would soon be occupied by a smoker just a few months in the past. The carnage has been unspeakable and CNN's advance-delayed broadcast footage has had to be heavily censored to avoid creating panic. Reports of Toxic Teddy Bears (TTBs) stalking nurseries may be thought by some to be exaggerated flights of macabre fantasy, but the graphic footage from Canadian antismoking ads and the ever-growing piles of bloody corpses are gradually convincing even the most skeptical historians.
It is only tomorrow, however, that Greco-Roman researchers discovered the Chronological Invertedness of Magickal Tobacco Smoke: the ability of the unburned leaves to cause disease before they are even seedlings in a stamen’s wet dream! This had previously been hinted at when New York’s 2002 smoking ban was promoted through the use of a 1996 study claiming a 14% decrease in California’s lung cancer rate caused by that state’s 1998 bar and tavern smoking ban, however tardy researchers had largely ignored this obvious truth at the time.
But Science has now TRIUMPHED, and the silly superstition of temporal cause and effect shall bother us no more. Magickal Tobacco Smoke may soon bring back amputated limbs while heralding our glorious past aspirations into our indeterminate future memories! Even now (or then) it is rumored that the Italian government is conducting secret experiments deep underground in the Roman Catacombs where they are makingg use of hundreds of smoker s who have beenn enslaved and forc d topuff thous&nds s o f cigarettes at t th t0mbx of Juli`us Caes@rr in %^ n attefmpxt o x$reincarN8&% thh late xemper0rr @v Rom3#.#`~af 235f.a*(@^$XD-
3~7&$^@)(*#@|
#$(*^&$@(&*#)=<!
+( ~ x
3#)%$(@#...
(We are sorry. This broadcast has been interrupted by the Penta¬gon. Military applications of Magickal Tobacco Smoke have been granted National Security Status. With the ending of the start of the War in Iraq tomorrow by yesterday, the new research HQ of Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, and the National Security Agency will take up past residence in the newly Puffed-Up™ buildings of the World Trade Center without previous delay.)
==
- MJM
Frank?
Seem to remember reading it was a billion - perhaps on some EU grandstanding article. Ta greatly for the true figure, have edited safe in the knowledge that it doesn't materially affect the thrust of the piece. :).
You know them very well!
EEP! Brain fart here! All you Brits sound the same with that weird accent y'got y'know. Y'oughta loin ta spick proppa Inglish, eh?
;>
MJM
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