One thing that I have not been able to get over is the smell of tobacco. I absolutely hate it. When I am walking somewhere and have to go by someone who is smoking, I will deliberately go out of my way so I don’t have to breathe in the smoke. I know it’s a little “extreme” to do this, but I really, really do not like cigarette smoke.

It makes your breath stink. It makes your clothes stink. It makes your hair stink. It makes anything you’re carrying stink. And it makes everyone around you stink. Furthermore, it kills you. And it kills your friends. There is absolutely nothing good about tobacco.

I have friends who smoke. My boss and some of my co-workers smoke. They are really great people, I don’t want to make it look like I hate smokers. I don’t hate smokers, I hate smoke!

Apparently, scientists would like to see a tax placed on soda. Soda, if you haven’t noticed, is a pretty darned big source of empty calories because of the high sugar content. The idea is a basic economic concept: upon market failure, government intervention can help eliminate the negative effects of an externality. In this case, the externality is that soda causes people to become fat and increases medical costs for everyone, and thus, the government can reduce the consumption of soda by raising its price, and thus eliminate the externality.

I don’t really think this is going to make much of a difference. An overall healthy lifestyle, which includes moderation in food, exercise, sleep, etcetera is the most important thing. You can avoid soda all you want and still be unhealthy. Perhaps the tax will reduce consumption of soda, but maybe then people will just start overconsuming diet coke and die of cancer, or start drinking water, but supplementing their sugar fix with candy bars.