You Got A Light?

I find this "Barak Obama Smokes" story fascinating.  Peter Lawler discusses it here.  For your amusement, take a look at the comments.  The speed at which the discussion descends into the fever swamps of anti-smoking extremism serves as an education into the puritanical zeal of some anti-smoking activists.  For example, take New Orleans (please!).  In New Orleans you can walk down Bourbon Street and pass the establishments advertising live sex shows (Men and Women!), using rather graphic pictures (but with the naughty parts blurred or covered) as evidence of what you will observe.  But at the same time, due to a new law (state or local, I don't know), you cannot smoke a cigarette in any establishment that earns over 30% of its income from food, i.e., restaurants.  Live sex shows: OK.  Smoking: So awful we must use the power of the state to stamp it out. 

This story points out that in post-Katrina New Orleans the sex trade is suffering.  Tourism in the French Quarter is down considerably.  A stripper used to make $1200 a night, but now she has to resort to prostitution to keep up that standard of living.  Perhaps the Democrats can use this as yet another reason to raise the minimum wage.  Talk about the working poor!