"...At a Pettin' Party or a Poker Game"

Tex Winters Redux

It's been feared for the last few years that China is about to take over the world, not only with massive population numbers (featuring more than 700 men taller than 7 feet), but also with economic strength unparalleled in today's market. It's scary to think that our country borrows money from China every day...As a "half-full" kind of guy, I might be the only one not worried, though...they'll all be dead soon.
Merle Travis wrote a song back in 1947 decrying the addictive qualities of tobacco and complaining that he would gladly commit murder if he ever met the person who invented the cancer sticks...not because they were unhealthy, but because people just couldn't complete ANY task before finishing the fag (if you're too young, that was a slang term for cigarette back in the 60s). Anyway, just because I can, I've downloaded a YouTube (where else?) video of Winters lip-synching the song...you know you want to see it if only to see what 1947 looked like!
Anyway, I figure at the rate they're going, the Chinese will be mostly dead before we have to pay the loans back. Here's why:
Earlier in the week, officials in Gong'an county in China ORDERED its government officials and teachers to begin seriously smoking the local cigarette brand: Hubei. Officials reckoned that if these officials could smoke 230,000 packs in a year, the economy would get a big boost based solely on the tax paid on smokes. Those who did not meet their quota of butts were to be fined or, possibly, fired from their government-sponsored jobs! The same punishment was to be meted out to those caught smoking OTHER brands besides the local one.
This in a country in which roughly a million people die as a result of smoking every year, and one in which more than half of all doctors continue to smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette! Really! No need to have Joe Camel promote cigarette smoking to folks in China: their doctors will do that FOR the companies.
I wonder if cigarette reps in China(like drug reps in this country) visit every doctor's office and provide free samples for patients.
What? It could happen? Anyway, we can keep borrowing money without fear since we'll never have to pay it back.
Of course, if WE start lighting up in numbers akin to those in China, it won't matter either way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbKQklwNScA