2001-07-16 - 11:31 p.m.

with a capital E

listening to bbc world service on the drive home from BigSis's. apparently Phillip Morris gave the Czech Republic a cost benefit analysis of smoking in their country. it showed that the premature deaths of smokers saved the government more money in uncollected benefits than it lost them in lost income taxes and the medical care for those smokers.

the fact that companies and governments are clinically discussing the econonic pros and cons of deliberately causing the premature deaths of millions of people is perhaps the most disgusting thing i've heard in a long, long, long time. (only eRoommates photos of his recent visit to Dachau is coming to mind as something worse.)

i'm so very disgusted and depressed and shocked and offended and just plain pissed off by this piece of news that i don't even know what to say.

i throw around the term evil from time to time in a relatively cavalier manner. this time i really, really mean it.

the Phillip Morris company is evil.

with a capital E.

that is all.