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- Kentucky and West Virginia — where people traditionally smoke the most — have the highest death rates from smoking, a new federal study has found. Rounding out the 10 states with the highest average annual smoking death rates were Nevada, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana and Missouri.
- But obesity and other problems that trigger heart disease are also factors. Smoking, added to those problems, "is like gasoline on the fire," said Terry Pechacek, a CDC senior scientist for tobacco-related issues.
We know WV leads the nation in obesity and diabetes, as well as being poorly educated. Same for some of the other 10 states.
Of the top 10 smoking death states in the study, 8 went red in the 2008 election: WV, KY, TN, AR, AL, MO, MS and OK.
Only 2 went blue: IN, NV.
Obviously there is some correlation between red states and the levels of smoking, education, and overall health.
These states also lead in taking more Federal taxes than they put it. Sure it's easy to vote fore "less taxes" when your sucking off the blue state Federal tax teats.
Very interesting that the GOP states tend to suckle in more tax dollars than they produce, living off the more affluent liberal high earners that they seem to hate with a passion.
This does not surprise me that much after reading Bill Bradley's book, "The New American Story" where he details as many as 12 separate factions within the GOP. One particular faction is what he calls "The Subsidists" which are people, especially here in the west, who want to graze cattle on federal lands, for free, log the timber and drill for oil & gas on federal lands and generally slop at the federal trough. Midwest farm states do a booming business sucking up the ethanol subsidy, plus the farm subsidies that Bush doubled in 2001 so he could buy their votes for the 2002 Mid-Term elections. In fact, a Time Magazine story the other year showed that Farmers are the wealthiest class of Americans, most of them now being millionaires off of these subsidies.
They are fatter, dumber, and less healthy. Yup, sounds like a typical conservative.
Yep, the leading contenders in our nation's race to the bottom.
UPDATE! News Flash! Stop the Presses! Extra Extra Read All About It: The race to the bottom is on hold. America has a new president who has the brains to reverse the 8-year demise of the real USA. Phew, that was close.
Yeah, now we get a bunch of nannies, crybabies and whiners. How fun.
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