Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for May 16, 2012

The last of a dying breed.

A product that, by design, kills off its customers; amazing.

I’d have a lot of trouble taking advice from this doc.

But the Cyclamates were never taxed like cigarettes are. If an item provides major income TO the government they’re unlikely to ban it.At which point one must wonder about the ban on things like hemp and its derivatives.

Pardon me while I twist one up.

Six months, Steve! Live it up! Cough cough!

“Poo-Poo”? C’mon Doc, lay off the fancy medical jargon and just give it to Steve in layman’s terms!

Less see…180 days two packs a day…hmmm, I’ll need at least 360 packs… 10 packs to a carton…

Hey, we tried banning California, but they objected and got loose.

I always hope Breathed tries to use an assistant or two to do the daily strip again, just to see if it helps lighten the workload and allow him time for his other projects, too. It might even generate a whole new line of ideas for the strip, just by giving himself some time to percolate. Like everyone else, I really miss Bloom County.

My sister announced she just quit smoking. Saving her $250 per month; that’s $3000 per year. Besides her health, she can do a lot more living with that extra cast!

Six months…So many things he hasn’t done… So many women he hasn’t flirted with…

A friend of mine was taken to the hospital because she couldn’t breathe. On the way she smoked, because she figured they’d ban smoking. She died a few years later from emphysema.

MAD Magazine once asked, “How can you trust a doctor who tells you to quit smoking, with a full ashtray on his desk?”

It’s pretty straightforward: Cancer cures Smoking. An interesting idea might be to each year increase the legal smoking age by one year. Anyone old enough to smoke could continue. In 50 years, you’d need to be at least 71 to legally buy cigarettes.

My sister died from throat and lung cancer because of those nasty things. She was unwilling or too weak to kick the habit. There is no way the product will be banned by any government. The taxes generated by tobacco is enormous.

They do the same with their food recommendations and subsidies. The USDA’s primary purpose is to promote U.S. agricultural interests; a side gig is to give advice as to the proper diet (e.g. the food pyramid). Hmm… no conflict there. Initial draft of a new food pyramid recommends significant restrictions on sugar, sugar lobby whines, pyramid gets modified accordingly. Evidence about dangers of eating animal products is presented; it gets ignored or watered down because of the huge gobs of money made by the meat industry. Without government oversight we’ll go back to the days of acid rain and rivers catching fire, but somebody needs to oversee the government.

Read somewhere that drinking was bad for me…I immediately quit reading.

Very curious. No one has commented that the same tactics used by the tobacco companies to deny the scientifically established link between smoking and cancer are now being used by the fossil fuel companies to deny the scientifically established link between CO2 emissions and global warming.

More that the sugar lobby as much more money and political clout than the artificial sweeteners lobby.

Note that the study on cyclamate was funded by the sugar lobby.

Hardly the last, just look at the harsher penalties for crack cocaine, mostly used by minorities, compared to those for powder cocaine.