A suggestion to the Feds for the large graphic warning labels soon to be required on cigarette packs

From the L.A. Times:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Corpses, cancer patients and diseased lungs: These are some of the images the federal government plans for larger, graphic warning labels that will take up half of each cigarette package.

The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year.

"It acts as a very public billboard because you all of the sudden are reading something about lung cancer from that pack behind the cash register, whereas before you were just reading 'Marlboro,' " said David Hammond, a health behavior researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who is working with the firm designing the labels with for the FDA.

....Anti-tobacco advocates are applauding the federal campaign and the new warning labels.


"This is going to stop kids from starting to smoke ... and it's going to give smokers a strong incentive to quit smoking," said Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds and executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America. Reynolds' father, brother and other relatives died from smoking-related illnesses.

It remains to be seen how well the scare tactics will work.

"I don't think they're going to be a deterrent at all for people who already smoke. Most people start smoking when they're young, and I don't think they're going to think about the effects," said 27-year-old Zak Hoffman, who has been smoking since age 14.

Well, Zak, that's because I'm not the one picking out the pictures. 
Forget cancer, gum disease, and tongue amputations. 
Put me in charge of the pictures, and I'll scare the hell out of some smokers. 

How about the now-proven link between smoking and economic retardation, communication difficulties, and an inability to speak without prompts? 

I got yer frightening graphic images right here.  Get the kids out of the room, back away from your computer, and hit this link. 

A fresh coat of Whitening to the P.O.W. In California for the heads up on this one. 

The most bizarre thing anyone will ever write about The Limits Of Libertarianism

Teacher:  Class, here's a piece that recently ran in The New York Times, called The Limits Of Libertarianism:

By denigrating several of the signal achievements of modern American society, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, Rand Paul has performed a useful service for voters who are angry at their elected officials. He has helped to illuminate the limits and the hazards of antigovernment sentiment.

Many Americans are sputtering mad, believing that government has let them down in abetting a ruinous recession, bailing out bankers and spending wildly. But is Rand Paul really the remedy they had in mind? His views and those of other Tea Party candidates are unintentional reminders of the importance of enlightened government.

Teacher:  Ok, class, does anyone out there see something wrong in that statement?  Anyone?  Yes, Harry, you had your hand up first.....

Harry Reid:  They said "denigrating", instead of light-skinned with no dialect? 

Teacher: No, Harry, that is not correct.  I won't even say Nice Try.  Let's read some more of the editorial. 

....Under (Rand's) philosophy, the punishment for a lunch counter that refuses to seat black customers would be public shunning, not a court order.

It is a theory of liberty with roots in America’s creation, but the succeeding centuries have shown how ineffective it was in promoting a civil society. The freedom of a few people to discriminate meant generations of less freedom for large groups of others.

Teacher: Now class, is there anyone who can name the largest group to legally discriminate against black Americans prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?  Yes, Bobby?

Senator Robert Byrd: It was The White Knights Of The Ku Klux Klan ! !

Teacher:  Bobby, take off your Klan robe and sit down.  You're an embarrassment.  We'll all read a little further.  Now children, listen carefully.  This part is funny if you've been paying attention all semester.....

It was only government power that ended slavery and abolished Jim Crow, neither of which would have been eliminated by a purely free market. It was government that rescued the economy from the Depression and promoted safety and equality in the workplace.

Teacher:  Ok, class, I'll make it easy for you.  Which organization WROTE the Jim Crow laws, which made it illegal for Black Americans to attend the same public schools as white kids?  Who made it illegal for Rosa Parks to sit at the front of the bus?  What organization made it illegal for Black and White people to use the same water fountains?  Yes, Barry ?

Barry Obama:  George W. Bush ! ! !

Teacher:  No, Barry.  It was the government.  All of these evil practices were approved and enforced by the government.  So when you read something like this, you should ask yourself if you would congratulate a man for no longer abusing his children.  And then you should laugh at what short memories people have.  Because using the phrase "enlightened government" to describe what happened in 1964 is very funny, isn't it class?  Yes, Barry? 

Barry Obama:  The failed economic policies of the past eight years?