July 11 - FTC: E-commerce Lowers Prices, Increases Choices in Wine Market - A Federal Trade Commission staff report released today concludes that e-commerce offers consumers lower prices and more choices in the wine market, and that states could expand e-commerce by permitting direct shipping of wine to consumers. The empirical study finds that state bans on direct shipping prevent consumers from saving as much as 21 percent on some wines and from conveniently purchasing many popular wines from suppliers around the country. FTC Chairman Timothy J. Muris stated, “E-commerce can offer consumers lower prices, greater choices, and increased convenience. In wine and other markets, however, anticompetitive barriers to e-commerce are depriving consumers of those benefits.”

In addition to its findings regarding competition, the report concludes that states can limit sales to minors through less-restrictive means than an outright ban on direct shipping. According to officials from a dozen states that allow direct shipping, these states typically require that a supplier verify the recipient’s age and obtain an adult signature before delivering the wine. Many states also require that a supplier obtain a permit to ship wine to consumers within the state. Of the states that have adopted such less-restrictive safeguards, most report few or no problems with direct shipments to minors.

This is the same argument the Online Tobacco Retailers have been making but Congress and the General Attorney's from every state are demanding cigarette taxes that are sold over the Internet.  Apparently the wine industry has a stronger lobbying group then smokers.  It certainly is stronger in anti-tobacco California.  The wine industry can do no wrong according to the politicians and the mainstream media.  The addled old boozers that now run the state are quick to scream "prohibition" when their favorite drug is proscribed but have no problem adopting the same restrictions when it comes to online tobacco sales.

July 11 - Let's Squeeze Philip Morris Dry - Altria Group Inc.'s shares slid Wednesday on concerns an Illinois appellate court may find that the amount of the bond Altria posted to appeal a $10.1 billion verdict against the company's U.S. tobacco unit was improperly lowered.

Concerns about Altria are based on comments made during oral arguments Tuesday at the Illinois Fifth District Court of Appeals, tobacco industry analysts said.

At issue is an April decision by Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron that allowed Altria unit Philip Morris USA - the leading U.S. cigarette maker - to post an appeal bond that was lower than $12 billion typically required.

Perhaps the reporter was writing with tongue firmly in cheek when he penned that a $12 billion bond is something that is typically required.  That amount of the bond is unprecedented and the astronomical amount is why Philip Morris summoned 30 state attorneys general to lobby on its behalf in Illinois.

The story notes that the bond amount is based upon the verdict rendered against the cigarette company.  No matter how laughable the award may be -- it is likely that it will be reduced dramatically -- there is a requirement that an equitable bond must be posted so that the losing party can appeal.

Anti-tobacco attorneys general are wringing their hands right now knowing that payments into the tobacco settlement are jeopardized.  We couldn't be happier.

July 11 - The U.N. Gets Tough With A Dictator: Quit Smoking Or Else - There was, of course, an admirably anti-smoking political leadership active in Europe 60 years ago, but after the last week one feels the N-word has perhaps become somewhat devalued. Still, Nanny Bloomberg, New York's control-freak mayor, is an awfully tempting target. Musing on the Republicans' antipathy to gay marriage, Nanny told reporters, "I have always thought that people should be allowed to go about their business themselves. I don't know why any of these platforms should deal with issues like that."

People should be allowed to go about their business? As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto remarked, try going into a New York gay bar and asking for a cigarette. Male life expectancy in Nanny's antiseptic city is 74.5 years. In Albania, where many of those Kosovar refugees lucky enough to escape Canada wound up, smoking's gone up 20 per cent in recent years and the nearest available cancer treatment programme involves hanging off the Eurostar to Waterloo. Yet life expectancy is 73. The New Yorker lives an extra 1.5 years, but loses all of it sitting in the Holland Tunnel going to New Jersey to buy cheap smokes.

Mark Steyn examines the weird values of the United Nations which can view starvation, disease, mayhem and genocide with equanimity but gets its panties in a twist when a dictator smokes a cigarette.  Mr. Steyn deserves an award not only for nailing the U.N. on its pomposity and irrelevance but also for writing a column in which the obligatory "I know smoking is bad, but..." equivocation is not uttered once.  Anti-tobacco isn't remotely about health and Mark Steyn is not afraid to say it.

July 10 - Round One Goes To The Trial Lawyers -  Senate Democrats won their fight Wednesday to bottle up legislation limiting damage awards in medical malpractice cases, all but dooming a measure that President Bush made a priority.

Republicans said the bill was necessary to attack a spreading medical malpractice crisis. "The problem is caused by out of control jury awards in frivilous lawsuits, which are cheaper to settle...than they are to fight," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "And the reason they'll settle is because of the potential for huge awards......then pass the higher rates on to doctors.

Reigning in the trial lawyers will take far more than polite argument on the Senate floor.  As the reformers are finding out any curb, not matter how small, no matter how just, will be fought tooth and nail by the most powerful lobby in Washington.  The country is crying out for relief but a handful of hyper-rich lawyers have decreed that their yachts, mansions and hefty portfolios are more important than medical services provided at a reasonable price.  Those who are proposing reasonable tort system reforms vow to bring up the issue again next year.  They should be held to it.  This issue must be brought up again and again until common sense finally wins out.

July 4 - Send This Letter - Yes, New York state, New York City, Washington, California and a dozen other high-tax states are losing money because of the Internet. Not just on cigarette sales, mind you, but on thousands of other products. These states need to recognize that they have long since gone beyond the point of fair and reasonable taxation, and for the Congress to aid them in their effort to extract the last nickel from their working-class citizens is truly a sad commentary.

The topic is Senate Bill 1117, which will prohibit private citizens from comparison-price shopping for tobacco products through mail order and Internet stores.  It is designed to rescue a handful of high-tax states from the consequences of their fiscal mismanagement. 

Take the time to send this great letter taking Senator Orrin Hatch, the author of Senate Bill 1117  to task for concocting legislation that will cost individual smokers hundreds of dollars per year.  We make it easy to get your voice heard.  Take this letter and send it to your senators by finding the image in the left margin of this page labeled "Contact Congress - GO!".  Enter your zip code.  Click on your senators' names and send this letter with whatever personal comments you may have.  Be sure to let them know who you are and why Senate Bill 1117 must be killed.  Send it as well to Senators Hatch and Herb Kohl.  Don't them them get away with another tax scheme that only smokers will pay.

Senator Hatch

Senator Kohl

July 3 - The Anti-Pleasure Principle – The use and abuse of junk science to constantly inflame fears and apprehension in the public is described very well in this piece from the always excellent Reason Magazine, describing the apparent lunatics of Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). We say “apparent” because we do not believe at all they are sick in the head – just plain dishonest.

“CSPI is a hit with journalists largely because of its inflammatory rhetoric and dependable alarmism, which make for eye-catching stories,” Reason says. Who needs science, anyway? In a society so devoid of values and mind; what’s left is only fear and apprehension – not to mention hatred and pre-packaged health slogans, this is all the science we need:

[soda pop] makes you fat (but "it has not been possible to prove that [soda] is responsible for the excess calories that lead to obesity"); it causes osteoporosis (because "people who drink soft drinks instead of milk or other dairy products likely will have lower calcium intakes"); it rots your teeth (because "refined sugar is one of several important factors that promote tooth decay"); it causes heart disease (because "high-sugar diets may contribute to heart disease in people who are ‘insulin resistant’"); it gives you kidney stones (possibly because of the phosphoric acid in colas, but "more research needs to be done"); it is spiked with an addictive drug (caffeine) that "can cause nervousness, irritability, sleeplessness, and rapid heart beat"…

...Just like antitobacco junk science, isn’t it? The finger behind which the health cons hide themselves is getting thinner every day – but it is also getting longer. And it’s going to get longer yet , unless we decide to cut it off – all of it.

July 3 - People like people like themselves – “People like people like themselves. That's the conclusion of a study by Cornell University researchers, who asked 978 people what qualities they valued most in a potential mate, and then asked them to rate themselves on the same qualities.”  

How much did this astonishing discovery cost the taxpayers? And did it take Cornell University to discover that? Did we need to get the National Academy of science involved? How low has "academia" fallen? Well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it? After all, this is the same academia that states “without a shade of doubt” that smoking kills and passive smoke poisons, no?... How far do we want to go with our fixation on the reliance on “experts”? With specialists like that, it is much better to trust oneself -- it is always better to trust oneself, in fact. Light one up and ask yourself: “Why do they want to convince me that I am dumb?” We leave the answer to your vivid fantasy.

July 3 - Lifestyle Discrimination In The Workplace - Americans have long accepted that employers have a certain degree of control over what we do while at the workplace. But increasing numbers of employers are dangerously broadening the sphere of their control to include what employees do in their own homes. Many employers now refuse to hire people whose private lives are deemed "unhealthy". A few even fire current employees who don't change their lifestyle to meet new company demands. The most common victims of this type of discrimination are smokers and fat people.  According to a 1988 survey taken by the Administrative Management Society, 6% of all employers (about 6,000 companies) now discriminate against off-duty smokers. The number has almost certainly increased since then. It is more difficult to estimate the number of companies which discriminate against fat people, since this is seldom an official corporate policy. However, anecdotal evidence collected by the National Association for Advancement of Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) suggests that discrimination against fat people is even more common. Other employers refuse to hire people who drink alcohol, have high cholesterol levels, or ride motorcycles.

The early Americans adopted the Bill of Rights to limit the government's involvement in their lives and modern Americans demonstrate the same unwillingness to tolerate intrusion whether by government or by employer. According to a 1990 poll by the National Consumers League, 81% of Americans believe that an employer has no right to refuse to hire an overweight person. 76% believe employers have no right to refuse to hire a smoker. 73% believe employers have no right to require an employee or applicant to change their diet.

Recognizing that refusing to hire people for reasons unrelated to job performance is unfair and often prevents the company from hiring the best qualified person, some employers have adopted a different strategy. Employees who have lifestyles the employer considers unhealthy are required to pay more for their company health insurance. Some employers say they are charging unhealthy employees a premium over their "normal" rate, some say they are giving healthy employees a discount. Either way, one employee is paying more for their health care than another.

This may not be wrong in principle, but such programs should be based on sound actuarial data. The company should be able to demonstrate that the behavior in question increases employer health care costs by a measurable amount. While such relationships may exist, the data currently available does not demonstrate it clearly. For example, the Bureau of National Affairs reports that 95% of companies banning smoking reported no financial savings,  and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found no connection between smoking and absenteeism.

The methods used to enforce these policies raise independent civil liberties issues. Most employers currently take an employee's word that they are not violating the rules for off-duty behavior. As discrimination grows more common, however, it will become more difficult to simply avoid companies with whose policies one doesn't comply. People will take jobs, not reveal their lifestyle, and hope the employer doesn't find out. When this occurs, employers will have to hire spies to follow people away from work and/or require frequent universal medical testing (such as urinalysis) in order to enforce the policy.

Do we really want a society that relies on snitches to rat out employees whose personal -- and private -- lifestyles offend the growing Puritanical class?  The U.S. Supreme Court last week tossed out some archaic laws that should not have been the business of the state.  As ludicrous as those laws were the number of people they affected pales in comparison to the 50 to 60 million smokers who are targeted for behavior modification schemes the like that hasn't been seen since the Soviet Union Gulag system.

 July 3 - No shaking it: Government Hooked On Tobacco - Surgeon General Richard Carmona uncorked a genie's bottle of political hypocrisy with his recent comment before Congress that he would support banning tobacco products.  Why didn't such a bold, sincerely delivered statement, coming from the nation's top physician, win him any measurable praise from the anti-smoking lobby and politicians who have long decried smoking? Leaving aside issues of individual freedom, adult responsibility, social engineering and political correctness, the answer may lie in that famous piece of advice: "Follow the money."

Carmona, perhaps unintentionally, revealed the ultimate game of wanting to have it both ways. The government is "addicted" to tobacco revenue.

State governments are particularly dependent upon cigarette funding. If the surgeon general were to get his wish, for example, California would stand to lose $2.3 billion annually. New York would be out $2.1 billion. Texas would fall short by $1.7 billion and Michigan more than $1 billion.

Ironically, even the anti-smoking lobby didn't warm up to the concept of banning cigarettes. Perhaps that's not as surprising as it might seem. Revenues from taxes and the Master Settlement Agreement between the states and major cigarette manufacturers have provided more than $2 billion in funding for youth nonsmoking programs and other tobacco-control activities; many of the anti-smoking groups receive a portion of these funds.

We're shocked.  Say it isn't so.  Surely the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, the American Medical Association, uber anti-smoker Stanton Glantz, secondhand smoke crusader John Banzhaff and all the yammering do-gooding anti-tobacco zealots have already jumped on the Carmona bandwagon.  If they haven't then they truly do have blood on their hands.  They all claim that around one half a million people are killed each year in America by tobacco so accepting the status quo means they are responsible for the devastating death toll.  Their silence damns them.

July 2 - Proxy Government - The present Duluth city administration is working as a puppet of a proxy government, blindly doing the work for the nonprofit American Lung Association and turning the once All-American City of Duluth into a replica of Gorky.

Duluth is now known as the city where everything legal is illegal, such as tobacco consumption. Even private businesses have been nationalized, much like the private businesses when Castro took control of Cuba. Business owners and citizens live in fear of the de facto and administrative cloud of control groups that have spent their whole time in office manufacturing and promoting ordinances that are neither enforceable or compellable, leaving the city in a confused state with indecisive and dictatorial laws.

Archie Anderson, President of FORCES-Minnesota, isn't dainty in this scathing commentary on how the American Lung Association has taken over the government of the city of Duluth.  Every harebrained anti-smoker scheme is given reverential treatment by the people who were elected to represent the voters.  If business go broke that's just tough, even though the ALA never offers to make up the tax revenue lost to the city, let alone the unemployment payments to restaurant employees laid off because the customers have disappeared.  Why not dispense with the farce that Duluth has any representation and just turn over city hall to the ALA.

July 2 - Times Are Hard All Over So Stick It To The Smokers -  ''Every state is raising cigarette taxes through the roof,'' says Darlene Brennan, 56, a smoking rights advocate in Caribou, Maine, who smokes a pack and a half a day. She says smokers are finding other ways to buy cigarettes. ''It's the American way to shop cheap,'' she says. ''We now go to Indian reservations, roll our own and shop the Internet. And the states don't like it because they don't get the money.''

As Ms. Brennan, President of FORCES-Maine, notes, the law of diminishing returns hit cigarette taxes long ago.  Each increase now, although it does provide a temporary influx of cash, is now a losing proposition.  Vendors in the high-tax states are lose money immediately as well as the states themselves over the long term.