What's a polite way to say BIG FAT LIAR?

Oh, I know.

Obama's remarks upon signing the tobacco legislation yesterday are inconsistent with reality.

This legislation will not ban all tobacco products, and it will allow adults to make their own choices.

Well, no. Clearly it won't.

The new law bans candy and fruit flavors in tobacco products[.]

So as an adult, I will be prevented from buying an orange-flavored cigarette (similar to those Camel used to make) or a chocolate-flavored one. How does that allow adults to make their own choices?

Prohibition is alive and well, folks. I just didn't know they'd get around to banning FLAVORS so soon.

The War on Pleasure marches on.

You will jog for the master race, and always wear a frowny face.

IN bans smiling for drivers license photos.

Since smiling can distort facial features measured by the facial recognition software, Indiana BMV officials want people to put on their best neutral expressions when being photographed, according to numerous media reports. They also don’t want people having hair hanging over their faces, or wearing glasses, headscarves or other accoutrements that also might distort their facial features when getting license photos taken. No word on beards and mustaches.

So if you don't want Big Brother recognizing you, slap on a grin.

Smile, you're on camera...

Surfside SC may be getting a little ban-happy.

SC city about to ban feeding birds.

Why not instigate an argument between the big-government types by reporting these guys to PETA?

Life In Post-America Linkfest: 8/20/08.

Barack Obama sees no correlation between legislating paid sick leave and nanny-state liberalism.

Big Brother Is Warrantlessly GPS-tracking You.

The Card Check Bill, coming up soon in Congress, would abolish the secret ballot in unionization efforts.

What? A Texan wants to park his F-150 in his own driveway? Oh, THE HORROR!!! [H/T 2 Dickster's Random Thoughts.]

Clive homeowner fights back against the uniformity-loving Pleasantvillians by declaring his yard a "nature preserve."

ENFIELD NY breaks lease on communications tower property, plans to sieze it via eminent domain.

Paducah smoking ban makes casualty of eatery.

MA State Rep introduces ban on Rent-A-Pets.

Illinois Senate launches the War on Flavor.

If the Health Nazis had gotten the tobacco ban they wanted . . .

. . . then this convenience store worker would in all likelihood be dead.

Police said a masked man flashed a knife at the Cigarette Outlet on Friday and forced one employee to the floor, then demanded money from another worker, Ruth Wright.

Instead of cash, Wright threw two cans of chewing tobacco at the robber, and one hit him in the face.

Officers said a customer then tackled the man, but the robber broke free and bolted out the door.

Suggestion for California's idiot lawmakers.

Why not just pass an Omnibus Prohibition Law that bans everything and get it over with instead of banning everything one thing at a time like you're doing now.

What do they want to ban now, you ask?

Balloons.

No, seriously.

There once was a Bugs Bunny cartoon . . .

. . . where Bugs got a hair (hare?) up his arse about the low bounty paid for rabbits and rebelled against the government and sawed the Florida peninsula off so that it floated out to sea.

No, seriously, there was.



All that's missing is a Guy Fawkes mask.

Anyway, my point is -- I wonder if we could enlist Bugs to do the same to Seattle.

Paper or plastic? Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin say the answer is neither.

The two are proposing a 20-cent fee on disposable shopping bags at grocery, drug and convenience stores. Their plan announced Wednesday also calls for a ban on foam take-home containers, plates and cups at restaurants.

Remember the little yelow foam Big Mac containers McDonald's used to have? How convenient they were to put the burger in one side and the fries in the other? The squeaky feel of them?

And how McDonald's lost a lot of it's charm after it gave into the greenies and gave them up, first switching to totally unacceptable paper wrappers for the Big Macs, then responding to what must have been millions of customer complaints and building a lame little box?

That is what is about to happen to Seattle.

The calls to ban it . . .

. . . will begin in 3...2...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Electronic Cigarette.

The "E-Cig", or Electronic Cigarette, is claimed to be safe because there is no tobacco, tar, or smoke. The pen-sized cigarette is made of plastic and metal and is battery charged. The tiny white cartridges contain water, propylene glycol, nicotine, and a tobacco flavor, and supply enough nicotine for up to two packs of cigarettes.

Why would anyone want to ban such a marvelous product, you might ask. Wouldn't it nullify the arguments of the second-hand-smoke crusaders?

That is precisely why there will be calls for it to be banned.

You can't cut your strongest proponents off at the knees, now can you?

And besides, there's a movement afoot to ban these, isn't there? Doesn't that demonstrate that those who are ban-happy don't need a reason?

Why Minnesotan smokers rock.

Ah, the ingenuity of smokers!

All the world's a stage at some of Minnesota's bars. A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them "actors."

If you want to beat me to a bloody pulp . . .

. . . and I agree to let you, why should what Steve Harrelson thinks even enter the equation?

Success!

Looks like Illinois' Siphon Money To Missouri Act is a smashing success!

We here in Missouri certainly thank you, Illinois' professional meddlers!

Start hoarding novelty lighters now, folks.

They'll be worth a fortune on the black market soon.

The National Association of State Fire Marshals is backing an effort to ban novelty lighters across the country...

How long 'til the "light-easies" start popping up? Or the gang wars over novelty-lighter turf? Will the gangs identify themselves by the lighters they sell in the back alleys? Instead of the Bloods and the Crips and the Latin Kings, will we have the Opus The Penguins and the Bent Over Bare-Assed Santas That Fart Flames?

Define "sometimes."

From an article on people being arrested for smoking in Fayetteville:

There is also a smoking ban in private vehicles that sometimes carry children.

It's bad enough that the children don't have to be actually present at the time you are smoking in your car for you to be arrested, but what if once, six years ago, you took your brother's kid to school? Does it mean you can never smoke in your car again?

What if the previous owner of your car used it to ferry little curtain climbers around town? Can you never smoke in it, even though you don't plan on letting children anywhere near it?

WHO wants to meddle in my lungs.

That's not a question, by the way.

The World Health Organization offers up a plan that will surely make both of Arkansas former governors now in the national spotlight (especially Nanny Huckabee) stain any nearby blue dresses.

The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 urges governments to adopt six “tobacco control policies” — raise taxes and prices of tobacco; ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; protect people from secondhand smoke; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; help those who want to quit smoking; and monitor tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic.

1. When did words stop having meanings? Tobacco is not an "epidemic." If I stand next to tobacco, I am not going to "catch" tobacco. Further if you stand next to someone who is smoking, you are not going to "catch" smoking unless you choose to.

2. Note that individual choice does not enter into their equation.

3. I hate one-worlders.

Hands off my lungs, Health Nazis!

In a related note, smoking bans cause unemployment.

You'll take my crab rangoons when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

MS lawmaker proposes ban on selling food to the obese in restaurants.