Pipe Smokers Intelligencer

This is so much fun, isn’t it?

Congress sets the place on fire and then takes off on vacation to fiddle around in la la land. Lame, lame, lame.

Don’t know about you, but I think the whole bunch in Washington needs to be tossed and we start all over again.

Of course, I know that isn’t going to happen, but I still have hope.

Here’s my point: Congress pushed the U.S. to the very brink of economic disaster and then high tailed it for home. Then, S&P downgraded America’s credit rating at a time when the economy is swirling in the tank. This is the same group, recall that approved all those exotic mortgage swaps that went toxic and south a couple of years ago, taking the U.S. economy with it.

All this time, the Food and Drug Administration has been quietly, but surely, administering its death blow to the tobacco industry, which provides jobs and, must I say it, taxes, to the economy. Oh, yeah, that makes sense: let’s kill off an industry, although jobs are dropping like flies in delta heat and the economy is on its knees in the desert, looking for a watering hole.

Why, those tobacco taxes are now being counted on to bail some communities out of poor money management, poor investments, and crooks running city hall.

I’m just saying, it again seems to me that the FDA and other wonky agencies have been heavy handed with an industry that at least pays its way, unlike some I can mention, such as Big Oil, Big Pharma, and a slew of others.

Yeah, I know the routine: cigarettes kill 400k smokers a year. That’s from the CDC. I am still looking for the direct connection of tobacco to all that crap the antis hoke up.

Give me the science and the details so that I can read it for myself and come to a conclusion. I am not about to take the FDA’s word, the word of the CDC, or the anti-zealots, who are in this to advance their own agendas. That is as bizarro as believing Congress has your best interests in mind.

Uh, if you look at the number of automobile accidents, the number of gunshot accidents, the number of alcohol-induced accidents, the number of drug-induced accidents leading to death and mayhem, you might wonder why those social realities aren’t labeled with gruesome warning photos, or those death tolls bandied about freely by the CDC such as is done with tobacco?

OK. I digress. I am just tired of the federal government picking on an industry that, like all others on this planet, has its own set of environmental problems. But, ahem, tobacco does pay more than its fair share to make amends and to help bear the burden of health costs that it may or may not cause.

That’s like paying the daily double before the horses leave the gate. But, nonetheless, tobacco in its ever decreasing state in the U.S. continues to bear increased prices, taxes and handing it all over to people who should not be left in a room alone with anything sharper than a rubber ball.

You can do anything with numbers, make ‘em look like a gold mine when what you have is a dry hole.

 I am fed up with the FDA’s number crunchers, who like S&P need to learn how to add and subtract properly.

Oh, you didn’t hear? Standard and Poor’s downgraded the U.S. debt on bad math. Its bad math.

When sharp-penciled folks in the U.S. Treasury Department pointed out that S&P based its downgrade on a $2 trillion dollar mistake, S&P said, “oops. Well our bad. No matter, your debt stinks and we recommend that it be downgraded anyway. Ha, ha, ha.”

Sound familiar?

I love this country. It’s the only place in the world where you can elect politicians to steal you blind, run you over a cliff and have those who are supposed to help you cheer you on over the side.

By the way, I got some swamp land down in Louisiana that I need to sell.

Selah