blonde poker forum

That's been my view since I quit, October 8th last year.

I feel pity & contempt for those slaves to addiction who have to rush outside & get their "fix", it's weak & so are those that can't quit. In Scotland, Ireland & Wales, they can only smoke outside "public places", where they are given an "Air Lounge" (a room with no roof!), & England will soon follow suit.

The best part about quitting is not being a slave to nicotine, not feeling owned by ciggies, it's lovely.

So it's hard to understand how I've fallen off the wagon.

A pal bought me some Henri Winterman Half Coronas, always my fave cigars, for Christmas, & for some reason, I took them to Monte Carlo with me in March or April, & smoked one. It was lovely, I had 2 days holiday, sat in the sun, chilling with friends, & I enjoyed my cigar.

I smoked 1 or 2 more, & then I started little cigars now & then, particularly savouring a cigar when on a long drive, very relaxing.

In Dublin, a young lady whom I'm very fond of offered me a ciggie, & I smoked it. It was horrible, but that's not the point. I had 4 or 5 cigars over the weekend, too.

I'm not sure where I go from here with cigars. I don't think I'll go down the ciggies road again, but I'm enjoying the occasional cigar.

The health side (my health) does not trouble me, it's a little too late for that, & I'm a bit too old to worry really.

But being a nicotine slave DOES bother me a lot, also it's so socially unpopular these days.

I also hate the thought that I've failed, & I don't much care for failing in anything I attempt.

I guess with age comes stupidity. It's just mad, bad, & sad.

So, thats what we all have to look forward to  then Tikay .... ;hide;   :tikay:



Looks like you'll just have to saddle up and try again   ;slavedriver;

Some of us don't want to quit, don't feel like slaves, are not social lepers and don't feel sad or unhealthy.
We are just the latest targets for the woolly hatted tree hugging brigade who happen to have the power of the propaganda machine at their disposal, the ban itself is just another labour stealth tax.

"I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your f****n' mouth."
Bill Hicks

Isn't that what the tobacco companies want you to think?

I've more or less given up for six weeks now, having only fallen off the wagon when playing poker somewhere (only twice). I'm content with that - but if the signs are I am smoking more and more, and heading back to full time, then it's blanket ban time.

Cigars are awful - I gve up for six months once and started on the odd cigar, which soon turned into 10 or 20 cigars a day!!! Cigarettes followed swiftly!

I don't see how a little of something that you like does any harm.  Smoking 40 a day is clearly bad for you health, but a cigar every so often is more of a treat.

Everything  in moderation.

I can't imagine how difficult it is giving up smoking.

I have never smoked and never will but I'm currently trying to lose some weight and can't stop eating all the pies so I can only imagine how hard it is to give up something which is actually addictive.

That being said I cannot wait for July 1st. Despite having non smoking card rooms- I always come home stinking of cigarette smoke, gets everywhere- on my clothes and in my hair.

Will also be nice taking the kids down to the local without fear of passive smoking.

Yep quite agree George, I'm very much looking forward to July 1st too - like you said, be nice not to come home and absolutely reek of ciggies, makes me feel quite ill sometimes. 

Tony, I packed up smoking cigarettes around 1991 and have never been tempted to smoke another one, but I do enjoy an occasional cigar, expensive ones, Havanas, and i treat myself to a box whenever I have a decent win.

However, I've not had one for a couple of months now  ;reallyamsorry; and can honestly say that I really can take them or leave them. I'm not addicted to cigars like i was to ciggies for twenty-five years, I just really do enjoy them.

So don't feel bad or guilty, just enjoy a simple pleasure when you feel like getting jiggy with a nice cigar  ;)

[quote author=Karabiner link=topic=24294.msg492318#msg492318 date=118103573
So don't feel bad or guilty, just enjoy a simple pleasure when you feel like getting jiggy with a nice cigar
[/quote]

Quote from Bill Clinton?

My mum smokes around 4 ciggies a day, always has one at lunch, one when she comes home from teaching 30x 10 year old children and one before she goes to bed and as much as i hate smoking i would never want her to stop what she enjoys. 3 or 4 cigarrettes a day isnt going to kill her, I think the stress of not having them probably would though!

But thats a person who has been smoking 30 years, when i see someone my age smoking (none of my really close friends smoke!!!) AFTER all these really effective (IMO) anti-smoking campaigns have come out and the fact there are 20 known carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) in a ciggie then i am disgusted by them, and, in my opinion there is no bigger turn off than having a girlfriend that smokes, which is why i have never had a smoker as a girlfriend!

Saying that, we all always used to have a victory cigar after a big rugby match, a team-bonding thing, and me and my mate went through the young teenage thing of smoking a couple of fags when we came home from school but i have never found them addictive or never felt the urge for a ciggie at any time in my life, it was more fun selling them for a quid each at the local dances to the older lot who had run out!

Plus ciggies gave me one of my most favourite memories ever, with the above mentioned friend and the smoking thing when we got home, we went round the back of the house before mum came home to have a drag, i had turned the lighter up like you do so it was like a flame thrower but when my mate came to light his ciggie he forgot about this and did that shielding from the wind thing you do when you light up and lit the flame thrower and burnt off all his eye brow and eye lashes on the one sde, well i was in tears for about an hour!!!!

I hate smoking though now i have grown up, a bit, and hate seeing other people do it especially mum and it took me until the 6th of the 8 years my bro has been with his girlfriend to discover that she smokes!!!!!!
But what a lovely feeling it is to come home now from a night on the slosh and not wake up the next day with your clothes and hair not smelling of other peoples smoke!!!

And TK it sounds like you are one of the worst types a smoker, a social smoker as you only seem to do it when your out and other people are, this is the trouble with having mates as smokers but you havent failed, smoking is one of the hardest things in the world to give up and if you can keep the number down in this period of relapse then it wont be long before you are back on track again. But 1 quick question

Do you actually want to give them up ???

Edit:- plus smoking gives rise to one of my favourite sayings, "bum a fag!" lol.

You smoke, or you don't smoke. There are no in-betweens.

Someone mentioned the other night (might have been Eck, but it could have been anyone really, the Guinness was good), that in night clubs where smoking is banned you notice a strong smell of BO, which was obviously previously masked by the smoke.

Not suggesting that smoking is good, but I think an increase in hygiene levels needs to be encouraged.

I have a friend with a drink dependency problem. Recently his liver stopped working and he was taken into hospital where the doctor advised him that he would have to give up the beer. When he was released from hospital he started to drink wine, problem solved.

giving up was the best thing I ever did.

Appart from the improvement in my health there's the benefits to my kids, their health from my smoke, their health from not following my example and taking it up and them having a dad longer.

more money in my pocket (don't know where I found the money) and cheaper health insurance

I can taste and smell my food so much better.
 
Finally, I don't smell like a tramp (sorry smokers, but until you give it up you won't understand how a smoker smells a couple of hours into the day).

Giving up was also one of the hardest things I ever did and people attempting to kick it have my sympathy. Stick with it. Its worth the pain. Red's right. you smoke or you don't. 'Social smoking' is an oxymoron and cigars are no better. Good luck to anyone packing in July 1st

I have never smoked cigarettes but I do enjoy the very occasional cigar with friends particularly at weddings.

I always thought they were better for you than cigarettes but apparently not :-

      
A:    
   All tobacco products are toxic. The notion that cigars are not as dangerous as cigarettes is a myth deliberately and elaborately promoted by the tobacco industry, as shown by internal memos from the Cigar Association of America.

Cigar smoking causes cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus and lungs, and also increases the risk of emphysema and heart disease. These risks increase with the number of cigars smoked and increase even more if cigar smoke is inhaled. Cigars contain higher concentrations of tar and nicotine than cigarettes. Because cigars are less acidic than cigarettes nicotine is more readily absorbed into the bloodstream, raising heart rate and blood pressure, and ultimately leading to addiction.

The smoke released from cigars, like cigarette smoke, is poisonous, containing toxic substances such as carbon monoxide, cyanide, ammonia, benzene and arsenic. In some instances the amounts of these chemicals emitted by cigars greatly exceed the amounts from cigarettes. So both you and those around you are being exposed to serious toxins every time you light up.

Don’t be fooled by glamorous images of cigar smoking promoted in movies and advertisements. There is nothing glamorous or sexy about having part of your tongue amputated because of cancer. Did you know that cigar smoking caused Sigmund Freud to suffer cancer of the soft palate (roof of the mouth) and Babe Ruth to die of throat cancer?

Freud didn't die of cancer  ;whistle;

It genuinely interests me when people throw out statistics and facts relating to many subjects, not just smoking.
As with the above there are many more just as high profile cigar smokers that didn't have mouth or throat cancer, even more that did but didn't smoke at all.
Don't get me wrong i know inhaling what is effectively dust is not going to do you any good at all, it just fascinates me the way facts and figures can be manipulated by all sides of an argument.

post didnt say freud died of cancer

after 30 operations for mouth cancer he commited assisted suicide. It might be fair to say the cancer was a contributary factor

indeed...I smoke (not proud of it but hey also not too upset about it) and even when I only smoked a few every now and again I never kid myself about it...I smoke..I live with it :)

I think that probably says more about the type of nightclub, and their clientele, that Eck (or whoever) goes to. :)

I too cannot wait for July 1st. Being able to wear something to the pub for a couple of hours without having it smell like an ashtray will be great.

I fell off the wagon last year sometime after managing 4 months (only!) without smoking. I am planning to give up on July 1st too! :)

You don't need to tell me about Eck and foul smells.  Isn't that right James? ;D

FFS what have I done to be subject to this abuse!! (ok there was a moment on sunday morning but i'm blaming the guiness as well)

What I did say (before I get hunted by our irish friends) to daniel was that a colleague of mine who comes from Dublin had said that post the smoking ban there was a noticeable smell of stale beer in some pubs that had previously been masked by the stale cigarette smoke.

Neverends.

"MY INSPIRATION has always been Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who smoked and drank every day and died a few years ago at the age of 122. When asked the secret of her longevity, she replied: 'I laugh a lot.' Well you would, wouldn't you."
Victoria Coren


"I loved smoking. I remember every single ciggarrette. I even gave them names, steven was magnificent."

AA Gill

well yeah it is scotland ffs they all stink up there ! ;whistle;

 ;iagree;

I smoked 20 a day until six months ago.

The best pubs where i live had already banned smoking.When one evening i decided i would go for a pint in a pub where smoking was still allowed to watch the football.When i got there they had decorated the place and banned smoking!

I decided enough was enough and went to see a hypnotist,it cost me £65 and i haven't had or wanted to have one since.

I think its VERY difficult to give up on will power alone.

After lots of previous failed attempts i was amazed how easy i found it to quit this time, 4 months in and all is good, i still work with smokers and socialise with them and it doesn't bother me.
As for Tikay, it was from reading his original thread on quitting that helped me on my way to being a nonsmoker, so all i will say is thankyou and hope you choose the right path for you.

pity and contempt are very strong words tony imo, you have been in our shoes and have been in the same position many of us are in now, in trying to quit, i think it is vey different for one person to quit and another to quit, different genes have different effects on the mind and effect the endevour to quit. For you to feel contempt and pity for all smokers is really out of character i feel for someone who i have played with and respect as a person and pioneer of poker.

I have a friend who is a DJ.  He said that he did a gig in Cardiff following the Welsh smoking ban in April.

He said that after a few hours of the dance floor being packed the overiding smell in the club was ! Sweat ! where it would have been smoke. 

Never mind glow sticks....  Pine Fresh Trees are the future.

All the best

Wrighty.
PS: Cant believe my first post on this poker forum is about sweat!

Never said it did, Freud is actually quite famous for getting his pal to help him on his way..........

More than a few strong words, Adam earlier said my Mother smells like a tramp.

Or as a very wise man said earlier in this thread.....

it just fascinates me the way facts and figures can be manipulated by all sides of an argument.

 ;popcorn;

just strange, what you would have said if you were still a smoker and someone used the same terminology as you have done in this instance.
well done you have quit smoking....  **applause** some of us are not as strong willed and motivated as you sir.

pity and contempt are very strong words tony imo, you have been in our shoes and have been in the same position many of us are in now

Well that's the whole point of the Post - I WAS a smoker for about 45 years. I WAS that man. I was poking insults at myself, for being so foolish for smoking in the first place, quitting, then starting again.

And "pity & contempt"? Well I'm sorry if it offends, but it is my honest, personal thoughts. Directed at myself as much as anyone else, I'm flogging myself for being suich a fool as to start again.

After I quit, I saw things differently to when I was smoking. Suddenly, little cameos of human behaviour amused me, & I felt pity for those who could not see it. For "they" read "me before I quit", & if I ain't careful, "me" now. They get off a train, & the fag is already in their mouth, gotta get that nicotine kick. Don't want to, HAVE to. At a break in a Tourney, rush to the smoking area, with all the other smokers. Miss hands to get a quick drag of a fag in an ashtray, "is it mine?" they wonder as they deeply inhale. In a Restaurant, gotta be in the smoking area, nowhere else wil do, ruled by the addiction. In a car with 3 non-smokers, one smoker pollutes the air for the other three, & makes their clothes stink. Neat trick that. Can't bear to be without ciggies. trapped by nicotine addiction, expensive, lethal, anti-social. Ever thought what a non-smoker thinks when they kiss a smoker?

So after I quit, I saw all this clearer, & wondered how & why I'd been so stupid for so long.

So yes, I feel contempt for myself right now, to have been so weak-willed & stupid. And I see other smokers in the same light. If that offends, I apologise. But I'll still think it, I can't change what my mind thinks, only what I say. And I think it knowing full well that I was a smoker for 45 years, & I was punishing myself in revealing my personal feelings.

ANYONE should be able to give up ciggies. It does not hurt - not one bit. It saves money. You smell better. You breathe better. You live longer. There is no valid argument to make in favour of it. I smoked for 45 years. Which was dumb. Then quit. Then failed. Which was seriously dumb.

I feel nothing but contempt for my weak-willed capitulation. But if it makes you feel better, I'll not tell you what I think of other smokers.

Wirh respect, you have misquoted me by omitting "Or as a very wise man said earlier in this thread....." which changes the meaning of the Post entirely.

And.....

just strange, what you would have said if you were still a smoker and someone used the same terminology as you have done in this instance.

Again, that's the WHOLE POINT. I AM still a smoker! I tried to quit, & failed. Please also see my previous Post, where I (tried to) explain my thinking.

I know you and IFM have a great point about anti smoking campaigners using famous celebreties who smoked heavily then contracted various types of cancer to try to stop people smoking aswell as statistics when themselves are being deceiving as so many more people contract it without ever having lit up a fag. But you cant argue with the fact that a cigarette contains 20 known cancer causing substances so im not saying like they would SMOKE AND YOU WILL GET CANCER but surely it can be said without question that stop smoking will greatly INCREASE the chance of you contracting the life threatening disease.

And yes I agree the smell of BO has gone more obvious in the late hours of a pub now since the smoking ban!

dunno tony, you write and argue so well, that you often make me backtrack and agree with your stand point. For my money you are the george galloway of poker.
still think pity and contempt are strong though ;-)

I agree, maybe it was too strong  but I gotta be honest, it's what I was thinking.

Who is George Galloway when he's at home? Is he that mad Scottish MP who was in bed with the Iraqis?

lol, im tired now......  outspoken scottish ex mp of bethnal and bow,   excellent debator

yes!

contempt

  • noun 1. the feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration.


Pity all you like but generalising all smokers as worthless and beneath your consideration isn't what you meant,,,

Is it?

Surely there is someone you admire that also smokes?

well, having considerable experience in this field, there is no doubt that there is NO excuse for anybody to START smoking these days.

anyone that claims 'it doesn't do me any harm' is obviously a complete muppet (unless they are part of the strong willed few that can smoke less than 5 a day)

anyone continuing to smoke knowing the health risks is deluding themselves if they think that anything other than lack of will power is the reason that they continue.

But then again it's a good argument that if someone really enjoys it then they should be allowed to smoke, but, they should not be able to subject the rest of the species to their vice...including their children - referring to passive smoking.

No, I did not mean it in the context of "worthless or beneath consideration." But we are being pedantic here, I think everyone knows what i was trying to say.

Do I admire anyone that smokes? Yes, plenty. But I still think they are daft to smoke. Not as daft as me, mind, because I did the hard part of quitting - then started again!

He was the one who said that Saddam didn't have any WMD  or links with Al anybody and that invading Iraq would be a bad idea.

Definity not one the sane English one's who said gung ho and sent other peoples children over to Iraq to die for oil.

very hard to argue with george, he's been proved right time after time and made yanks look a right bunch of muppets when he attended their kangaroo court!

Well I may have maligned Mr G, because Iraq never had any WMD, & everyone knew that, & invading Iraq was probably a bad thing.

But was there not some suggestion that Mr G was in the pay of His Excellency Hussein?

lol he considers himself a good friend with saddam so dont go praising him to much

he may have been but he's fronted everybody up to provr it...but to be sure, USA and GB were certainly in the pay of the oil in the region

Did you just make that up yourself or did some body else make it up for you ?

and I do remember someone saying that no matter how bad Saddam was, it would take someone like him to keep the country in order, otherwise it would degenerate into cival war....seems the oil merchants ignored the advice

Taken from the BBC news website

"George Galloway has denied "fawning" over Saddam Hussein as he continued his libel battle with the Daily Telegraph. 

Mr Galloway has gone to the High Court in London over claims he took £375,000 from Saddam's regime.

The newspaper is standing by its right to publish the story, which it says was based on authentic papers.


There were heated exchanges on Tuesday as Mr Galloway was cross examined by the Daily Telegraph's QC, James Price.

Saddam meetings

The court watched a video of the MP telling Saddam Hussein in 1994: "I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."

'No apologist'

Mr Galloway was also tackled about an article he wrote for the Mail on Sunday describing his meeting with Saddam in 2002, before the start of the war.

In the article, Mr Galloway described the Iraqi leader's "gentle" handshake, how he was "glancing shyly downwards" and "surprisingly diffident", said Mr Price.

He had also recounted how the Iraqi leader had offered the MP Quality Street chocolates and told him anecdotes about Winston Churchill.

Mr Price said people were entitled to think from the article that Mr Galloway was an apologist for the Iraqi regime.

"You appear to be presenting a rather charming shy man and no mention of the fact that you regarded him as one of the most brutal people in the world."

Video: Galloway takes on US oil accusers
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8868.htm
Broadcast 05/17/05

British MP George Galloway has told US senators who accused him of profiting from Iraq oil dealings their claims were the "mother of all smokescreens".

TRANSCRIPT

Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realise played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

personally i think that Saddam was a horrible monster but I also believe that every human life is equal. So if Saddam killed 100000 that is an unbelievable outrage. If Mr Bush kills 150000 in his war for oil, sorry war on terror, then I personally believe that he is a worse monster as is his arch allie Lional - sorry, Tony Blair

nice one celtic, makes my attempt look a bit pathetic!!

Apart from the usual reasons i take it?
I never started because i wanted to be fitter and healthier.


Muppet is strong, i would easily believe that there are/have been many millions of smokers that believed it never did them any harm (and it is indeed true that it has not harmed people), indeed some would believe it today they are probably just cynics though.
I read something once that a craze began shortly after the discovery of polonium where people used it for it's glowing effects, even making toothpaste out of it.


I'm not going to debate this but i did a hell of a lot of research into smoking a few years back because i was on a "team" that had to decide the smoking policy at my workplace, all aspects really from the WHO announcement in 1999 and the US supreme court ruling around the same time to the legal side, constructive dismissal, victimisation etc.
You usually get the smokers that get their info from forrest and the non smokers who get theirs from ash, i read both.
Oh and we banned smoking full stop.


There are some very interesting debates on passive smoking, a good read.

My argument is that he is a sympathiser which was clearly proven in the video footage and an article he himself wrote in the mail on sunday.

Stating on videotape "i salute your courage and strength" about a man dictator who used mustard gas on his own people, had his own secret police who's soul job was to capture, torture and kill any people who undermimed his regime, tried to get hold of WMD's  and terrified millions more hardly shows george as un upstanding moral man IMO anyway!

As far as im concerned you can think what you want.


Think that that was radium, they even put it on whatever contraceptive opjects they had at the timne as a novelty thing- oops!

Is this not the same guy who went into the Big Brother House?

Nuff said  rotflmfao

The trick is to base your arguments on facts or even the TRUTH, this will help them to  actually become arguements rather than just hersay, propaganda or plain ole nonsense.

What the hell are you on about? he is on VIDEO TAPE which was USED IN A COURT OF LAW to determine that he SYPMATHISED WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN! That was published on the BBC website which surely is a credible news source.

That is all truth and paints a picture of a man not deserved of so much of your time or respect.

Let me requote from my post above which you cant have read.


"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

As "crossover" threads go, this takes some beating. From my "quit smoking" failure to Saddam Hussein & WMD!

I was about to say
Smoking>George Galloway> Saddam> Polonium
Seeing as it takes me 15 mins to send a reply that makes sense i'm having a stab at Diana's crash being the topic when this gets posted!!

This is obviously the bit you refer to me have not read which of course I did. All this proves is that he was an opponent to IRAQ BUYING GUNS AND GAS OFF THE UK AND US.

It does not detract in any way from my previous post on what he actually thought of saddam hussein, which in clear and uncontestable fact he was recorded saying "you are a man of courage and strength" No propoganda, lies or hearsay!

I wonder what people would think of me if i recorded myself going into a prison and taping it saying those exact words to a murderer and posting it on here!?

"I salute your courage and strength" sounds like a standard piece of diplomatic fluff to me, hardly proves someone is a sympathiser.

Polticians of the world wouldn't get very far persuading tyrants and the like to stop all their naughtiness if they opened every meeting with "you are an utter bastard and I hate your mum!"

If he was your cell mate, if he was a big guy, if he knew how to smuggle a sheep into B-wing....etc

We would understand and not take it out of context.

Indefatigability.
Anyone who manages to slip that one into a sentence deserves a doff of the cap

But there is a middle ground, no need to shove his tongue quite so far up his arse!


Whoever i would be in a cell with they would be my bitch, not the other way round lol!

Always be the shunter, never the grunter!

 

I'll bet you owned the greenhouse at borstal. ;bumwiggle;

"diplomatic fluff".

Welcome back Mr Tank Sir, you've been much missed.

How's the new job going?

I started smoking cigars, (which someone said was jiggy....), we got to Mr Galloway, Irag, Saddam, Congresional Hearings, Polonium, & now your boozer. The circle is almost complete.

Man that bit is brutal isnt it! Even though its a film you feel so bad for that kid!!!!

I never went away chief, I just post less.

Can understand you starting smoking again, I would have given in too by now if cash wasn't a factor.
If you do quit again, I reckon the ban makes things ten times easier.

It should be shown in schools as a deterrent

Do you know what, you are completely right!
Not that i was a yob but if i was that would make me think twice because i committed a serious crme!

Quit again? You bet I will. And properly next time.

mine too sadly.

Tikay - you are stronger then this - I realise that being apart from me can be stressful but please don't smike - only when we're together .... :-*

Me & Ding, getting jiggy & smiking. Glory be.