"No Sesame Street, please...we're British"

Of all the exports Britain has brought to America, there is one American import that hasn't caught on - Sesame Street.

The BBC flatly rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because they thought the programming was "authoritarian."  (How can Big Bird be authoritarian?)  So it went to another network in England (HTV) before Sesame Street was cancelled.

And like today, the BBC still won't tell British children how to get to Sesame Street - unless you live in Northern Ireland.  The reason: there are already other children's programmes out there, including the "talk down to children's" Blue Peter and other shows.

Which leads me to believe one thing and one thing only: the BBC doesn't want Elmo or any of his friends running the Beeb, because you know Stadtler and Waldorf will have their own rollicking politics show, and that the Count will be a financial advisor, and that Bert and Ernie will surpass the popularity of the two women from Absolutely Fabulous.

No President is above reproach

Criticizing the President of the United States, no matter how unwarranted or wildly bizarre it may seem, is not sedition, even if the President is your close friend.

No President is above reproach.  In fact, we're fortunate enough to criticize, mock, cajole, protest and needle the President of the United States without getting thrown into jail, tortured, murdered, disappeared, or fined into poverty because their leader is seen as a God who must not be challenged.  (Viz: North Korea, the former East Germany, Cuba, etc.)

If the Governor feels that the opposing party is being too harsh on the President, perhaps it's because there's a legitimate reason for the agita that resides beyond the Beltway, i.e. the President is not the Emperor, the United States isn't the Roman empire, and people don't like to be ruled.

896 million reasons why cigarette smoking will never be banned in Massachusetts

With cigarette excise taxes $2.51 per pack and $562 million taken in as tax revenue, plus $315 million from the tobacco settlement, you would figure that half of that money goes to smoking cessation programs, right?

Wrongo.  According to WBZ's David Wade, out of nearly $900 million, only one half of one percent - $4.5 million - is earmarked for programs that help people quit smoking.

The other $895.5 million heads right to the General Fund.  You buy a $7.50 pack of cigs in a poor section of Boston, you buy a firehouse for a well-to-do tony village in the Berkshires.  Your dirt-cheap $5.75 pack of below-generic cigs purchased in Springfield may show up as a perdiem for a representative in North Andover, a dedication for a library of a state senator in Taunton, or even a re-election campaign push for the governor.  Redistribution and super-easy cash at its best.

Put another way - if the state ever banned cigarettes, the tax revenues from cigarettes at both the state and federal level (which was raised to $1.01 in 2009) would mean billions of dollars lost per year.  Now we know why the state will never ban cigarettes, at least until the federal government determines that all cigarettes are a health hazard and must be pulled off the shelves immediately.  Once the Federal government is willing to give up their money habit, the state will be forced to follow suit.

Russet Morrow Breslau, head of Tobacco Free Mass, makes this astute judgement: ""You can't balance the budget on the backs of smokers[.]" 

Who are those smokers, who are shelling out an effective tax rate of 45-60% to the general fund?  The poor and middle class.