I am still in range, so why not?

I keep looking at the way the country is heading and I wonder.

Now, this is a very small petty thing, but it is indicitive of a lot.

Candy cigaretttes have been outlawed.

So? You might ask. Smoking is a bad thing and yada yada yada.

What it tells me is that we are now chasing symptoms instead of the disease. Outlawing a candy novelty does nobody any real good that I can see and simply puts a few candymakers out of business. When you think about it for a minute, it does nobody any good whatsoever. All it does is make a few lawmakers feel they have done something to prove to the public that they are taking action.

It makes them look busy.

A while back I posted that I was refused service at a Philly hospital because I had an inert bullet-one with no casing- on my key ring. The idiot at the metal detecting machine told me that it was a SYMBOL of gun violence.

It made me wonder if I was tattooed with something they didn't like. Would that mean I could not get medical attention?

I have heard a lot of what I will call total unmitigated horseshit over the past few years.

For quite a while it has been a running joke among seamen that the only reason we keep the job is that it gives us a place to dry out. Guys that had, say, a single beer in three weeks off may claim they came back to work to dry out. It is also a common line among guys that drink a lot more than that ashore.

Still, most of us are afraid to use that line in front of any office types or doctors after some truck driver admitted to his doctor that he would occasionally drink a six pack in a single evening. The doctor took it upon himself to declare the guy a problem drinker and had his CDL yanked.

As soon as that got out, there wasn't a doctor that could get anything close to an honest answer from anyone with seamans papers or a CDL regarding questions of alcohol use. A generation of liars was created, thanks to government meddling.

Truth be known, he probably never got near a motor vehicle after more than a siingle drink.

Still, the doc decided to do his bit and make America a lot safer.

The definition of alcoholism is not too clear. The truth of the matter is that an alcohilic is simply sommeone that drinks more than his doctor. It is kind of like the definition of a 'heavy smoker'.

To a nonsmoker, a guy that has a cigar on the 4th of July is a heavy smoker. To a pack a day smoker, a guy that smokes 1 and a half packs a day is a heavy smoker.

I suppose there are official charts defining alcoholism and heavy smoking out there, but I have never seen one.

If they are government produced, I suppose that anyone that drinks more than the subcommittee member of Congress that defines the term is a whatever. Alcoholic, heavy smoker, whateever.

For the record, there is no excuse for imbibing at work anywhere unless you work as a taste tester for Jack Daniels or something along these lines. Then the company had best provide transportation home for said employee.

Government claims that they are trying to make the planet safer, and I suppose they ought to to some extent, but the idea of controlling a person's off time is not doing anyone any good. It's just an infringement on someone's freedom. It also doesn't really do much for making the rest of us any safer.

Outlawing candy cigarettes is nothing more than window dressing and if that's all they have to do is stuff like that, then they really ought to adjourn and go home and spend time with their wife and kids. Maybe take their kids fishing.

On the other hand, if they did that they wouldn't have access to Washington hookers,quality blow, good booze and illegal Cuban cigars.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/