While this might be funny to gamers, I think that this is funnier.

Snapple. Heh. That’s almost (almost!) as good as Rent-a-zilla.

A bit more from yesterday’s Gazette (yesterday’s post), this time from the “Readers’ Voice” segment, featuring small quotes from readers who’ve called in to offer their opinions on various tidbits. Based on the topics covered in the Voice, I’m guessing that something over the weekend put people’s minds on smoking, because that’s what seemed to come up a lot.

What do the Gazette’s readers have to tell us about smoking? Here are a couple of my favorites:

Yes, smokers are stupid. Overall, they are a lower class of people.

That one was just nice, wasn’t it? Gave me the warm fuzzies. I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post at all if it hadn’t been for this comment, which was brought to my attention by my boss as she went out to have a cigarette and noted that, according to this reader of the Gazette, she was a member of a “lower class of people.”

To the smoker in Readers’ Voice who said that the smoke “we put in our bodies . . . is none of your business” is dead wrong. Second hand smoke kills 32,000 non-smokers each year, plus it stinks. Don’t forget the poor taxpayers who pay your medical bills for smoking-related illness.

I’ve never cared much about the smell of cigarette smoke. While I can’t say I like the smell, it does somewhat remind me of my grandmother, so it doesn’t repulse me, either. I’m mostly including this one because no discussion about smoking ever leaves out second-hand smoke. (I’m shocked that they said 32,000 non-smokers instead of digging up the number of children it kills, honestly.)

Last week when my husband and I ate at Cracker Barrel, one of the female employees was taking a smoke break just outside the door, blowing smoke in everyone’s face. I really don’t think this should be allowed.

Honestly, I want to meet this person, because my response was to ask myself, “It shouldn’t be allowed by whom?” Cracker Barrel? I think that’s potentially a fair argument, and I’d fully support this person’s using the market, by walking into the store, asking to see a manager, and informing the manager that they won’t be eating there as long as they allow workers to do that. But if they think that the government should be worried about where someone stands to take their smoke break, I want to smack them with my rolled-up copy of the Gazette and scream “Bad American!” a few times. Am I the only one who wishes that Americans would remember that the country’s single most defining philosophy is a love of liberty?

I’m becoming really irritated with the arrogant smokers that think that watever they put in their body is their business…

I bet you think this person’s going to talk about second hand smoke again, don’t you? Surprise!

…They get sick, they go to the hospital, and my medical insurance premiums go up. Yes, it is my business.

The libertarian in me cringed when I saw the last one. When I read this one, he broke down and cried. Either this person is in absolutely perfect health and never does anything even remotely fun dangerous, or he/she is an idiot hypocrite. Smoking is far from the only optional activity that causes people to go to the hospital. This “medical insurance premiums” justification would give someone the right to stick their nose in people’s business for virtually anything. Extreme sports? Injuries cause you to go to the hospital! Can’t do that! Alcohol? Cirrhosis and drunk driving! Ban them! Sex? STDs and pregnancy are expensive, and really adventurous sex could lead to other sorts of injuries. We should outlaw sex, too. Actually, you know who really drives insurance premiums up? People with chronic illnesses who don’t just tough it out (or people with potentially fatal illnesses, like cancer, that don’t just give up and die)! Those selfish [expletive deleted]!

Finally, a quick quote about something besides smoking:

I left West Virginia in the ’50s because of the lack of job opportunitties. When I returned in the late ’90s there were still no jobs. If coal is so good for West Virginia, as the Massey ads say, then why are we still last in everything?

While I have my theories about why (pay close attention to the very first sentence) the state of West Virginia is last in everything, this one confused me. Is the contention here that West Virginia would really be better off without the 40,000 jobs (source) that the industry brings into the states? The coal industry destroys forests, mountains and natural beauty, according to its most outspoken opponents, but there’s plenty of all three elsewhere in the state. If the coal industry was hurting West Virginia, we’d see more money coming in (from logging or tourists, I guess) in those non-mined areas than we see from the mines, and that’s simply not the case. Can anyone help me understand how, exactly, the coal industry is supposed to have caused us to be last in everything?

The “Iraq War” has now officially lasted longer than World War II, I learned today from a WV Gazette editorial. Here’s an excerpt from the editorial, which I can’t seem to find online:

Last week, historians noted this comparison: The “big one” started for America on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan bombed the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. The Europeon phase of the war ensued for 1,248 days, until VE (Victory in Europe) Day on May 8, 1945. The Pacific phase continued three months longer, until Japan surrendered in mid-August.

Bush’s Iraq invasion was launched March 19, 2003, and the conflict passed its 1,248th day Friday. There’s little doubt that it will continue three more months — or maybe three more years. Thus its length will excede the cataclysm that shaped the lives of most older Americans.

Never mind the fact that this editorial is apparently three months early (the title and the lede, which I didn’t excerpt, both imply that the Iraq War has already lasted longer than America’s involvement in WWII), and that the method of determining the “length” of WWII is apparently designed to deceive (I think it’s a stretch to say the war started when Japan attacked us and ended when Germany surrendered, even though the war with Japan was still going strong at that point). I can’t imagine why the Gazette would bother running this editorial now, especially since no one believes that the war will be over within three months, and they know they’ll be able to run this editorial when the Iraq War actually has exceeded the length of WWII*.

Isn’t the length of time that a war lasts a pretty silly way to measure this anyway? Let’s look at some numbers that are more important:

WWII American Military Deaths: 407,300 (source)
American Military Deaths in Iraq: 2600 (source: The WV Gazette’s editorial page, 8/21/2006, “Iraq War: Longer than World War II”)

WWII German Casulties (civilians and military): 7,500,000 (including 160,000 Jewish Holocaust victims) (source)
WWII Japanese Casualties (civilians and military): 2,600,000 (same source)
Iraqi Casulties (according to the Gazette): ~100,000 (I’m not sure about the source of this, but I remember seeing a lot of controversy over a report that set the number of Iraqi casulties this high… for the sake of argument, though, we’re accepting it as true)

I don’t particularly care for these comparisons, because I don’t like dealing with the deaths of all these people and treating them as nothing but numbers, but it annoys me even more when the Gazette (among others) treats these numbers as somehow less important than time.

* Though, to be fair, the argument could be made that the war against Iraq ended with President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, and that we’re currently not battling Iraq so much as we’re occupying it while we’re rebuilding. A more fair comparison might be to measure it against not only the war in Japan, but also the post-war occupation, which didn’t end until April 28th, 1952 (3,430 days from the start of the war).

All you need to know: I have yet to find anything quite as cathartic as throwing a saw blade through a group of zombies and watching it mow them down, slicing off various limbs.

Dead Rising: 9/10.

From Kim du Toit:

Ryan Sager at RealClearPolitics reminds us of this un-Constitutional atrocity:

When Congress comes back into session, roughly 60 days before the November midterms, it will essentially be immune from criticism. That’s because Congress—acting, of course, only in the interest of “clean” politics—passed a ban on ads that mention federal candidates’ names in the window 60 days before the general election, as part of McCain-Feingold in 2002.

So, say the Senate takes up an immigration bill granting full amnesty to all illegal immigrants this fall—it will be almost impossible for grassroots groups to advertise against it, because they won’t be able to run ads during this period naming the people who are sponsoring or voting on the bills. Criticizing them by name during this window is against the law. You can’t ask voters to “call Congressman [So-and-So].”

Wanna bet?

…

And if Congress or for that matter law enforcement think that I’m going to refrain from criticizing an elected or wannabe-elected official, ever, they’re sadly mistaken.

Kim’s offering free ads on his blog during the 60 day “time out” that Congress has put on the 1st Amendment. I’m not going that far, but I will happily criticize any elected official (or candidate for elected office), regardless of McCain-Feingold or any other un-Constitutional “law” that Congress decides to pass.

There are a good number of people out there who are worried (and rightly so) that, in our zeal for security, we might be too anxious to give up our liberty a little bit at a time. I think we need to also pay attention to the possibility that while we’re keeping a suspicious eye on the Patriot Act and other security measures, we’re ignoring what the government’s other hand is doing. McCain-Feingold is a travesty, and if we allow this encroachment against our free speech to stand, we have betrayed the principles that this country was founded on.