First Thing We Do, Let's Tax All The Smokers

      Dalton McGuinty and his cronies have proven that they are not Liberals: they are fucking Puritans. Let's face facts: a $15 per carton (or $2 per pack) added levy is a convenient and disgusting tax grab that has absolutely nothing to do with 'health considerations' or anything else. It's a cynical gesture of beating up once more on a group of people who've been beat up on time and time again by holier-than-thou activist groups. And it's nothing short of extortion. And I won't even go into the many, many, many ways in which the 'health and finance' arguments are flimsy and downright idiotic. Hitting smokers again, and so kosh-like, is just self-righteous bullying.

      And, by the way, the note about Ontario having the cheapest cigarettes in Canada: this may be true, but that's only because all of the other provinical governments have done the same damned thing of exhorbitant cigarette taxation. Talk about bullshit logic.

      (I write this as a smoker, yes, but I'd feel the same way were any one part of the population so egregiously extorted. As a matter of principle, it's picking on a group of people that are treated with pariah-like disdain. And that, to me, is fundamentally unconstitutional.)

      Another point: I am astonished at the "but we didn't know" reactions of McGuinty to the higher-than-reported provincial deficit which is supposedly causing the Liberals to backtrack on promises. All through the election campaign McGuinty said that the deficit was going to be about 5 billion, undermining the claims of Ernie Eves that the deficit would be 2 billion. Okay. We get it: Ernie lied. But McGuinty *knew* the approximate deficit well before he came to power, and yet he still made extravagant promises to get himself elected-- promises to which he would never adhere. Face it, McGuinty: you lied. You're just as much of a bloody huckster as you accused Eves of being. So stop whining. You feigned knowledge in the campaign, and now you feign ignorance. You can't have it both bloody ways, you manipulative slimeball. The honeymoon's over, you inveterate bullshitter.