So I’m leafing through my Financial Times today sipping an espresso with my Partagas Shorts and read a most excellent letter written by Michael J. McFadden (Author of Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains…highly recommended)
Anyone else see the letter? talk about “hit the nail on the head”
Here are some good links from Michael as well
www.Antibrains.com
www.TheTruthIsALie.com
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
They make good reading and certainly give some food for thought.
He has a new book coming out soon that I’m looking forward to http://www.amazon.com/TobakkoNacht-The-Story/dp/B001O0ED0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229673890&sr=8-1
Have a great weekend and …peaceful puffing
Mitchell
Here’s the link… Viva UK Libre!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/78b5f92c-dede-11dd-9464-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Hey! Thank you Mitchell! I’m glad you found my book and enjoyed it. 🙂
I just spent a hopefully productive evening here blogging at some news sites about something you may have heard about even o’er the pond: the SCHIP bill. This is basically a massive bill to fund a huge expansion in child health care here in the States, but of course no one wants to pay for it. Soooo…. what do they do? They stick it to the smokers of course!
As I noted at one cigar site I visited a bit earlier before wandering in here, at the moment cigars are getting off fairly lightly, but when the cigarette money doesn’t come rolling in as they expect it to, they’ll be back to round the cigar smokers up and haul them away faster than you can blink. People need to stand up and make their voices heard while they still HAVE a voice to make heard, but unfortunately too many cigar smokers in the US are simply saying “Well, it’s not really hurting US that much…” ::sigh::
Let me share a sample of what I’ve been posting, and then I’ll wander off as you enjoy a Havana and foment plans to stop the Antis before they take over the world! 🙂
===
This bill suffers from one major weakness: SCHIP will be mainly funded by a 200% tax increase on most smokers, but there’s more. It also adds a truly MASSIVE tax increase on one of the poorest of the poor minority groups in the US, a group that’s poorer on average than blacks, hispanics, senior citizens, or single mothers. I’m speaking of smokers who can’t afford to buy regular cigarettes but who are honest enough to avoid the black market and simply buy loose tobacco and roll their own.
This minority group will be hit with a TWO THOUSAND PERCENT TAX INCREASE over the next few months if Obama signs the SCHIP bill: taxes on roll your own loose tobacco will go from just over a dollar a pound up to almost twenty-five dollars a pound. This tax increase will pour huge amounts of money into the black market, increasing law enforcement and prison spending, and send more money into supporting the next terrorist strike on America.
This bill should NOT be supported until the taxation to support it is shared among *ALL* Americans who love children… not just smokers.
===
Mitchell, someday I’ll make it back over to England, Wales, and Scotland for another extended visit and when I do I hope to meet you! With any luck we’ll find a pub where we can enjoy some Havanas together!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers Action Network (PASAN)