Got to the content stage - vaping devices content that is

I haven't blogged for a while. Taking a break. I just got new vapemail and it's a repeat of many before it. I've got to the content stage now. I have found the most pleasing way to vape (for me), is just a battery and a tank and some good e liquid. I don't long for bigger or better stuff. I don't need fancy anything. I just need to know that what I have will not let me down - ever. I practise the vapers' creed "Backup" "Backup" "Backup". And the devices I use are simple, reliable and affordable to would-be vapers.

I made videos today - simple videos without introductory fanfare, badly filmed, badly edited, short and full of waffle - but uploaded with the sincere hope that someone will enjoy them, someone who's still needing basic information from someone who's happy with what they've got.

Vaping for the over sixties Best vaping for beginners

Vaping for the over sixties, taking a secret nip

Vaping for the over sixties, my current devices

The Wages of Sin Taxes - thank you Christopher Snowdon

Sometimes I read insightful stuff that makes admiration for the mind behind it overwhelm me.

A while back it was Sock Puppets which took me four days to read (43 pages). When I was finished reading, confirmation of my feeling "something was wrong with our UK Government" flooded in, and, that, yes, I was right, and what it was that was wrong, was clarified.

Today I have started The Wages of Sin Taxes - 64 pages - PDF - worth reading. It might take me another five days reading.  I hope, like Sock Puppets, we see the ideas in it filtering into the public consciousness. Or rather, government consciousness!

If you have time and inclination, this paper is well worth reading. Thank you Christopher Snowdon!

Lobby groups and sheeple  people.

Nicotine addiction - time to move on

While I smoked, I was never aware of anyone who crashed their car because they were addicted to smoking, or killed their spouses because they were "blown" on cigarettes. I never heard of gangs of youth under the influence of tobacco, vomiting in the streets or attacking passers by. I did not read in the papers of folks overdosing on cigarettes. In my personal life, none of my children suffered low birth size, cot deaths or asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's even though I would light up to feed them in the night, or if they stressed me out with messy rooms, or fussy eating. We lived in a big house, five kids and smoking Mom and Dad. None of our children smoke, although they tried it, all dumped it in their twenties. None of them, or us, committed any offence under the influence of smoking.

Our friends smoked too. None of their children suffered low birth size, cot deaths, asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's. Most of them no longer smoke, seeing the benefits of not doing so. I seemed to be the only determined smoker, rebellious to the last, who carried on. And I did, because I enjoyed smoking and the more I was bullied into stopping, the more determined I became, to carry on. The ex-smokers I know now drink more. I don't drink.

I think that tobacco control might be disappointed now that smoking rates are not reducing - but I think there will always be a percentage of the population that enjoy nicotine. In the old days, smoking was the main way to ingest it. I can remember how surprised I was when I first heard of nicotine patches and gum to help smokers desist. Trouble is, they don't work well. No one under the influence of nicotine patches  has smashed up the ATM machine, or assaulted a nurse. No one has been reported as having died. Do patch users' children suffer low birth size, cot deaths, asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's?

Nicotine has been properly trashed as the evil addictive chemical in cigarettes. But I do not believe that. Some Scottish doctor dude isolated nicotine as the addictive chemical in tobacco in the 1800's. (link unavailable) And that's been accepted as gospel ever since. I think we should move on now. As a vaper, I never get a desperate urge for my nicotine fix, like I used to when I smoked. If I can't vape, well, toughees, I just wait until I can. And that's usually when others are "gagging for a cuppa"!

I love vaping as much as I loved smoking. I can't see nicotine being a dangerous drug to society. It will not make us more violent, or addled. In fact, I think society was more relaxed and less anal when most people smoked!

Vaping is such an ingenious way to continue to be a nicotine addict. And I like it. It is far, far more interesting in every way than smoking ever was. I get sick of the continual yapping on about nicotine and its demonic ability to trap all humans in its terrifying claws. We are missing something. Nocotine in cigarettes is not the nicotine I know. And where are the millions of patch wearers hopelessly addicted to wearing patches?

This is not the 1800's. We absolutely must move on. We must separate nicotine from other chemicals or processes that happen to people whilst smoking cigarettes that make smoking tobacco more addictive than simply the nicotine in it.

What Industry do vapers belong to? EU Envi question.

Here is the full recording of the ENVI workshop (thanks Dave Dorn)- the phrase that sticks in my mind is after the representation of the CONSUMERS - us vapoteurs - with which I agreed in full, someone from the floor asked "What Industry do you represent?"

Well - US of course, us - vapoteurs. People do not understand what a tight knit group we are. We link across borders, across seas, across language, across nations. We pool ideas and share needs. That guy was speaking for US. He was speaking for ME.

What industry indeed! 

"**** *** *** *** ****"

I got my first insulting comment on my videos this week. It said "**** *** *** *** ****". I was going to keep it to remind myself that I'm not wonderful. But then, after over 40 000 hits to be told "**** *** *** *** ****" only once is really quite remarkable. I deleted it.

And I thank everyone for not insulting me more!

Plain packaging to be scrapped rumour, if true, is a giant leap forward for UK Government

I will be very proud if it is true that the UK might keep their head (for whatever reason) and NOT introduce Standard Packaging for cigarettes as it is now called.

I think it had to be re-named because "plain" packaging was obviously ridiculous. If you follow my blog, this one, Vapingpoint and  Life on an Alien Planet,  you will know that I am very against the medical porn that is shown on them. I believe that the pictures alone are an act of violence on smokers and smokers should get sicker quicker by nocebo. So, to me, "plain" packaging is a criminal act.

I have made my thoughts clear to the original government investigation and to my MP, who, horrifyingly, was pro "plain" packaging for the sake of the cheeldren. He got a snappy letter from me, and I met him shortly afterwards at an event. I was verbal again about supporting what is really an act of rape on the mind of smokers and how he should be ashamed.

That event was a fortunate moment. He must have rued the day, for I also demonstrated the benefits of vaping and how my PV worked in detail. I told him about the EU effort to make them medical devices - and he had NO IDEA!  (He also had no idea that citizens in the UK are not allowed to listen to the public radio broadcast in public without a licence!) So he went away educated. I have not voted for him today.

If the UK can keep their head about Standard Packaging for cigarettes when all around are losing theirs, it will be a proud, proud day.

vapingpoint: Offensive in every way.
vapingpoint: The cost of meddling - leave us alone!
vapingpoint: Plain paper packaging - not!
vapingpoint: I LOVE the ingenuity. don't you?

Life on an alien planet: Plain Packaging on its way
Life on an alien planet: "Plain" Packaging (again) and Vaping
Life on an alien planet: The dessicated in spirit
Oh dearie dearie me. Oh dearie me! - Life on an alien planet

Farting against Thunder

Several bloggers have discussed The west's democratic deficit and I enjoyed it too. I have written about the arrogance of the Government who will probably overrule us here in our village about the communication tower that has now gone to "appeal". In the UK "appeal" to the Government means the locals' wishes will be disregarded and an Australian Company will be allowed to do what it wants here.

So I saw much truth in the article. But I felt uncomfortable with this sentence "So while our politicians rail against big tobacco, big finance, big oil, big pharma etc, what we should really, really be worried about is big government." I wondered which politicians "rail against big tobacco, big finance, big oil, big pharma etc". We need more of those but I haven't seen them. Have you? Bring them on! They should be worried about big government, yes, too big by far.

I was surprised by this paragraph "Thirty years ago, the number of politicians in the UK was 3,000 including 650 MPs. In 2009 the BBC under the freedom of information act, discovered that in nearly 30,000 professional politicians and their (sic), costing £500 million a year."

I think these facts explain most of what is wrong in the UK today. Too many politicians. Too many pompous people poking their probosces' into the money stream of meddling. Too many quangos, too many lobby groups, too many rules and regulations, too many select committees, too many unselect committees! Too much bowing and scraping to The European Union. Too large. Too suffocating. Too interfering. And far too powerful.

No wonder us ordinary people feel that trying to get heard about any issue like a smoking ban review (that was promised), re-animation of English Pubs, the "plain" packaging intrusion, pro government bias in science, corporate greed, governmental engineering of society, the health blame game, the carbon footprint blame game, the attempt to twist the vaping success story and control it, and much more, is like farting against thunder.