Thursday, February 05, 2009

Nicotine



I was quite impressed by Barak Obama’s level of fitness yet surprised that he continued to smoke. Smoking seems so wrong for someone who wants to stay in shape as inhaling anything that’s not clean air into your lungs cannot possibly be conducive to health. Well, I suppose it could be but my understanding of the workings of the lungs is that they are very sensitive and smokers only survive for as long as they do because the human body is amazingly resilient and you actually have to work quite hard to damage it so badly that it won’t bounce back. This is why you can probably smoke up until the age of thirty-five without causing irreversible damage to your body.

I used to smoke moderately, probably an average of two or three cigarettes a day. I stopped in order to reduce my insurance premiums. There did seem to be some benefits to smoking and the main one was that when I was working on a stressful problem I would go and have a smoke and very often the answer would come to me. Did this happen because I took some time out from my problem or was it something in the cigarette that helped my thinking?

I was reading that Obama’s clear thinking during the campaign, while aided by many things such as relative youth, exercise and innate intelligence, could have been enhanced by the use of nicotine in various forms. He is trying to give up smoking and was using nicotine gum. Now it seems that nicotine itself is not particularly harmful. It is one of those natural chemicals found in plants that were probably synthesised as a response to insect predation – nicotine kills insects apparently. Some studies have indicated that nicotine might ward off Parkinson’s disease and other neurological maladies. OK you might start to get the feeling that I’m starting to go somewhere with this…..

Yes, it’s time for; I am a Lab Rat Three. I have purchased some nicotine gum, extra strength. Nicotine is supposed to be more addictive than heroin so this could be dangerous folks although I do feel confident that I can kick it as giving up smoking I found to be quite easy.

In my next post…the results.

4 comments:

Redneck Texan said...

.... looks like cannabis smoking has limited Michael Phelp's lung capacity down to just 14 gold medals.

Its not that I'm addicted to nicotine, as much as it is I just happen to enjoy spending $1825 a year on it.

I dont see anything good coming from your new experiment.

...... of course I've been thinking about taking up crack smokin' just to make the Obama term go by faster.


...... btw, I've been taking the Google Earth Street View tour of your fair island lately. Not quite what I envisioned after watching Lords of the Ring. The rural areas remind me a lot of East Texas. I think I could enjoy living there if it became the last outpost for the anglosphere. ...... then I priced online some of that rural real estate...... my god man that stuff's expensive ..... you could sell your farm there and buy a couple of counties in Texas.

Love y'alls immigration policy as well.

Question 1: What advanced skills do you have that we need?

Question 2: How much cash are you bringing with you?

AngloAmerikan said...

I dont see anything good coming from your new experiment.

Possibly not, although my father suffered frpm Parkinsons and I would be interested in preventing that disease if it is possible. I would probably need to take nicotine daily to significantly reduce the progression of Parkinsons. I would certainly do that if I had any symptoms. Perhaps some gum once a week would be enough to stimulate the nervous system and keep it in shape.


..then I priced online some of that rural real estate...... my god man that stuff's expensive .....

What sort of land would you be interested in? I once had a 10 acre block with an old farm house and out buildings. It cost me 192K but would now cost around 800K. In real terms it has doubled in price going from 5 years wages to ten years wages in about 15 years. I wish I had kept it now.

We might loosen up our immigration policy a bit now with the financial crisis. I think some years we have a net loss of people as Australia is very attractive having a higher standard of living. NZ is sometimes just used as a large transit lounge for people who really intend on settling in Australia.

The populated areas of NZ aren't as mountainous as you would see in LOTR - for that you need to go to the South Island. In the north the climate is warmer if a bit too wet and the countryside is a mixture of pasture and green jungle like bush.

Thanks for dropping by. I've not been commenting on your blog much lately although I do visit often. The whole Obama thing is more personal for you guys and I feel like a bit of an intruder with my eccentric ideas. I see the young idealist Gabriel H has returned. I thought he might have given up in disgust after the Georgia thing and my support for the Russians. (It always amazes me when Americans criticize the Russians over what happened in Grozny). My focus has always been the wellbeing of the people in the Anglosphere - people in other countries just cannot be equated with us.

Redneck Texan said...

Uh Oh, major snafu in my emigration plans. NZ Banned smokeless tobacco in 1986. ..... that would be a problem. I could up my guns before I could give up my Copenhagen.

I cant really consider myself an expert on NZ just from looking at about a hundred Google Earth Road Views, but after looking at rural locations all over both islands..... I haven't seen anywhere in NZ that wasn't beautiful. Its really quite a diverse jewel you have there. And no snakes males it even more appealing. I think I would definitely prefer NZ over Australia.

Only bad thing I see in street view, is a high potential for head on collisions, due to the fact everybody seems to be driving on the wrong side of the road.

...... yeah, I just cant believe how adversarial most everyone at RR is to your, what I usually consider, well reasoned POVs. I dont blame you for lurking..... confrontation has its time and place. It does tend to get old.

On the Obama thing..... imagine how you would feel if a majority of your fellow Kiwis elected an activist Maori as PM. Or how you would feel if the Kiwi Government voluntarily handed control back to the Maori. Similar to how Rhodesia and SA turned out. Texas is full of anglo refugees from there.

In my opinion, which is no doubt tinged with racism, it seems like we are voluntarily giving back the nation our ancestors took by force. And it only upsets me worse that most are not concerned with the consequences of that. Its the decay in our resolve that depresses me.

But I also realize I cant turn back the hands of time. This is what human progress looks like. What seems to me to be societal decline will appear to the generational benefactors as a godsend.

AngloAmerikan said...

I've always kind of wished I had an ally in the comments to keep things a little more interesting. I made a comment today and GH wrote, "You are a sick and perverted traitor to the West." I'm worse than Benedict Arnold it seems.

I understand completely where you are coming from about Obama. The problem for us outsiders is that he looks and sounds urbane and is relatively successful unlike our home grown radicals and an American Negro is still quite exotic. I was initially anti Obama purely on name and colour but eventually I grew to identify with him as we shared some similar interests and are the same age. I disliked the other guy because of his call for more sacrifice for the freedom of strangers which is a concept I'm personally opposed to. He seemed to be a member of the older generation.

we are voluntarily giving back the nation our ancestors took by force

Yes, it appears that we (The West) are giving away our inheritance. We (you and me) don’t necessarily deserve it, as who really deserves their inheritance, but that’s beside the point, it is our inheritance they’re giving away. It wouldn’t be so bad if those that were getting it appreciated it and cherished it as many Asians do but many other groups just outright despise it. The inheritance which started as Anglo culture but has been built on since needs to be continually added to otherwise it will decay. Every citizen should honour their inheritance and pledge to build upon it in order to pass on a richer inheritance to those that follow. Just giving it away to those that despise it is foolish indeed.