The Famed Earth is Flat Award!!

I hesitate spotlighting the declared enemies of tobacco two issues in succession...but...U.S. President Clinton's recent move to regulate tobacco is deserving of an award. While the goal of keeping youth from starting the habit is laudable, the government does not have the right to regulate how an entire industry sells its product. Tobacco is a legal product (for now) that is consumed, and I don't care what you think of this, by people of their own free will. Now that the government has given themselves the power to determine how this product will be sold, there is no going back. Laws will become increasingly restrictive and will goad our Canadian government into even more draconian laws here.

Two days before the announcement Sen. Ted Kennedy called the move bold and courageous. Tobacco, the moral beacon stated, is the gateway drug for substance abuse. I suppose Ted Kennedy would know know all about substance abuse...

Free market? Only when the government seems to want one...One Earth is Flat Award for Clinton...guess he won't have a cigarette to celebrate.

Wait! This month you get two for the price of none! On a more humorous note, it was recently reported that an Edmonton doctor felt betrayed by a patient who is suing him. Why is she suing him? Oh, merely for leaving a piece of surgical equipment inside of her body during an operation. Dr. Terry Traff performed a tubal ligation on the unnamed plaintiff in 1995. A few days later the woman started experiencing severe cramps and pain, along with difficulty walking and eating.

About four days later the woman passed an object about 6cm long. In response to the lawsuit, Traff referred to it as an 'occupational hazard.'

I've yet to pass 6cm of metal...but I imagine it's none to pleasant. It strikes me as being more than merely an occupational hazard. A big Earth is Flat Award to Dr. Terry Traff -- pity he couldn't pass that.

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