Tobacco

The “straight talk express” is evolving into the hypocrites chariot right before our eyes. It turns out that John McCain is a man with no courage of his convictions. McCain not long ago absolutely insisted that waterboarding was torture and should not be permitted. Now he has voted against a ban on it. Flip-flop does not do justice to this blatant hypocrisy. McCain wants to be President so bad he is willing to do anything…anything. What do you expect from a guy willing to be photographed hugging George W. Bush? Sorry, John, if you ever had any credibility you don’t have it anymore. Why not dishonor yourself even more, pick your buddy, Mitt Romney, for your running mate. Don’t let your apparent dislike of him keep you from it, it didn’t keep you from voting on torture. If the Brafia allows this old fool to be their candidate they will only be humoring him in his dotage and waiting for the 2012 election. Such a strategy has worked for them before.

I’ve been thinking about tobacco. Well, actually, I was provoked into thinking about it by someone who insists people should be allowed to smoke if they wish. Interestingly enough, I agree with that. If people want to smoke and take the risks (alone and outside) I think they should be allowed to do that. If a bar owner wants to run a bar where customers want to smoke, fine. None of this bothers me in the slightest. What bothers me about tobacco is not the rights of individuals to do stupid things if they wish, it is that tobacco is allowed to be produced and marketed at all. Tobacco, it seems to me, is a unique product. It is the only thing produced for the express purpose of killing people. Tobacco is a poison. It kills people. Everyone knows this. Even the tobacco companies know it. But they still go ahead year after year packaging and marketing it. You don’t even have to abuse it to get killed. Alcohol is bad, but in order to actually kill yourself with it you have to truly abuse it. Drugs of various kinds, too, can be bad. But they are not produced with the knowledge that they are going to kill people, unless, again, they are terribly abused. How do you explain an industry that knows its product kills hundreds of thousands of people but goes ahead and produces it anyway. Not only produces it, but spends millions of dollars promoting it, even to children. And what do you think of a nation that allows this murderous enterprise to persist and thrive? Just another example of our culture of the absurd. So…if people want to smoke and kill themselves, let them. But let them grow their own weed, roll it up, stick it in their mouths, and light it on fire. There’s no accounting for taste. Marijuana, by the way, doesn’t kill. If you sell it you go to jail. If you sell tobacco you make lots of money, legally, and live (happily?) ever after. If, that is, you have no conscience or respect for others, like Bush the Dumb and Dick the Slimy.

The Clintons have a new magic word – “solutions.” Obama just has speeches, Hillary has solutions. But what if it turns out Obama has both speeches and solutions? Maybe the Clintons could claim they have “magic?” Black magic. Lots of people would eagerly believe they have black magic. That’s why Hillary has a cackle instead of a laugh, she really is a witch or a sorceress. If she has black magic I hope she works it on the Brafia, they certainly deserve it. The polls show Clinton with a pretty commanding lead in both Ohio and Texas, and also in Pennsylvania. I bet when the time comes those leads won’t be so commanding. I think if Obama should unexpectedly take any one of those three states it will be all over for the Clintons, in spite of the superdelegates (do not lose sight of the fact that I am often wrong). Prognostication is not my forte. In fact, I seem to have no forte.

LKBIQ: