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Why this site?

Harridan (n): A vicious and scolding woman, especially an older one.

Whatever compassion we may feel towards Seraphie, charged with managing the Beyle household and provided with little in the way of emotional or material recompense, evidence scarcely softens Stendhal's portrait of an ignorant, vindictive, mean-spirited harridan. -- Jonathan Keates, Stendhal

Over the past few years - more and more often - governments, organisations (often funded by the tax payer) and special interest groups (again, often funded by the tax payer,) are enforcing their views on others in ever more vindictive ways.

Be it tobacco, alcohol, sugar or salt, there is rarely anything which is enjoyed by a significant part of the population for which there isn't a 'puritan' group willing to lobby governments for more and more controls, misusing statistics and using sub-standard research to justify forcing their views onto others.

This site aims to collate evidence of this misuse.

Smoking

While it is widely accepted that smoking causes ill health to those who smoke, there are ever more shrill calls for controls on the pricing of tobacco, where it may be consumed, and in what form it should be sold.

Measures used to control tobacco are being used as a template to control other areas of life, despite claims from anti-tobacco groups to the contrary, claiming tobacco is unique and measures like banning, excessive taxation and plain packaging would never be used for anything else.

However, like smoking, but unlike second hand smoke, all the rules and regulations put into place do demonstrably kill and maim people.