Since today is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout, I thought I'd shake American's greatest enemy after terrorists, illegal immigration, alternative energy sources, liberals, gay marriage, Communism, and the Kyoto Protocol: Smoking.

FUN FACTS ABOUT SMOKING

• Christopher Columbus was given "certain dried leaves" by natives during his early expeditions, but threw them away because he could not afford to sacrifice valuable maps and journals to use as cigarette papers.

• Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances to mankind, right behind heroin and fantasy baseball leagues.

• Indians communicated over long distance with smoke signals, or the controlled release of smoldering bonfires with wet blankets. This form of long-distance communication eventually fell out of favor when the practice of tying messages to arrows and firing them at the chests of frontiersmen was invented and the Indian FCC failed to protect the Smoke Signal Industry from its untaxed rival.

• Camel's cartoon mascot Joe Camel was removed from television advertising in 1987, but he was still more recognizable to young children than Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus. So the Coca-Cola Corporation and then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner had him assassinated in 1997.

• The Marlboro Man was actually a woman in a mustache. Whether or not the mustache was fake is still up for debate.

• Dancing With The Stars was originally proposed to ABC as Smoking With The Stars, but Emmitt Smith would have lost to Tommy Chong.

• Did I ever tell you about my Aunt Sylvia? Man, was she hairy. Not only did she get a Seniors Discount at the zoo, but she got three proposals in the monkey house.

• Smokeless tobacco as an alternative to cigarettes reduces the risks of lung cancer and increases chances of lip, gum, mouth, and tongue cancer.

• But you can live without those things just fine... just look at... um... any beheading victim of Islamic terror?

• Early theories that the Hindenberg disaster was caused by careless smokers were debunked after it was proven that the Germans had angered the Thunder God, attracting lightning to the vessel's highly flammable outer skin.

• Stupid Nazis.

• The "Cold Turkey" method of quitting smoking was developed by inventor Benjamin Franklin in 1785 during his campaign to make the turkey the national bird of the new American nation. Instead, the nation adopted the "Cold Eagle" method, which involved threatening a smoker with a trained attack-eagle.

• On Election Day, news stations were faced with a difficult decision when reporting from losing Texas Gubenatorial candidate Kinky Friedman's campaign. Kinky vehemently insisted on smoking his cigar, drinking his beer, and remaining Jewish.

• Ever switch your girlfriend's birth control patches with nicotine patches? Heh heh heh. Well, the joke's on you! Here's a cigar!

• Bhutan is the only country in the world to have banned smoking and the sale of tobacco products. Bhutanian conservatives claim that not the cigarettes to blame, but it's all the fault of the abundance of readily-available ashtrays.

• Using your dead relatives' crematory urns as ashtrays is considered bad manners unless you regularly empty out the urn so others can use it without fear of overflowing the urn.

• In addition to Ted Turner's deranged colorization of classic movies, there's now a movement to edit out cigarette smoking from classic movies and filmstock, or at least replace the cigarette with other common objects. So don't be surprised if Franklin D. Roosevelt appears to be sucking on his Secretary Of War instead of a cigarette because of crossed agendas.

• Jim Carrey in "The Mask" will no longer say "SMOOOOOOOOKIN!" Instead, newer editions of the film will have the character say "Smoking is bad for you!" He'll also say "Buckle up!" and "Stay in school" and "All these crappy modern cartoons suck compared to Tex Avery classics!"

• Crack was developed in 1979 by CIA scientists as a less-unhealthy and cancer-free alternative to cigarette smoking and addictive nicotine.

• Okay, okay... it was invented by the Mossad to kill black people. Just as Louis Farrakhan keeps saying.

• Oh, and he's dying of cancer. Should have smoked crack instead of cigarettes, Mr. Black Supremacist Smarty Pants.

• According to government statistics, Cigarette smokers who would walk a mile for a camel back in 1953 are now only capable of walking 7.2 feet without some kind of simple mechanical assistance.

• The purchase of Kraft by RJ Reynolds was not an attempt by the cigarette manufacturer to sneak addictive nicotine into common grocery prod- produc- (Man, I need a cheese break. Can I boorrow your crackers?)

• The banning of smoking on domestic flights was introduced by the Clinton Administration in 1996 to prevent Al-Qiada from carrying out their planned "Hookah Horror" attacks against Springfield, Illinois in 1998.

• Smoked salmon... mmmmmm... delicious! Pass the cream cheese!

• The Indians introduce the West to tobacco, we slaughter them, then we let them build casinos, and the casinos have smoking bans... man, that's just messed up.

• Pro-cigarette comedian Denis Leary actually spells his first name with just one N. He had the other N removed after it turned up cancerous from smoking 3 packs per day.

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Rating: 2.2/5 (6 votes cast)

Know Thy Enemy
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