If footage from this McCain/Britney/Paris ad is so controversial …

… good thing they didn’t include footage from this

Why?

Find out here.

Well here’s a fascinating twist of taxation fate.  From today’s Washington Post:

Cigarette sales have dropped by nearly 25 percent in Maryland since the state’s tobacco tax doubled in January, as sticker shock apparently has curtailed some residents’ smoking and sent others across the border for better deals.

Maryland lawmakers voted last fall to raise the tax to $2 a pack to help bridge a budget shortfall and expand subsidized health care. Fiscal analysts predicted that the new rate, the sixth highest in the nation, would cause cigarette sales to drop off, following a pattern with past increases.

But the decline during the first six months of the year significantly exceeded their projections, exacerbating Maryland’s budget problems and prompting speculation about what other factors might be at play. The tight economy, for example, has almost certainly added incentive for some to kick the habit.

Still, “it’s unlikely that this is exclusively because of an abrupt cessation of smoking on the part of Marylanders,” said House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve (D-Montgomery), who suggested that people are probably picking up extra packs of cigarettes when they are in the District, Virginia or Delaware, all of which have lower tax rates.

So in addition to a Surgeon General warning, should cigarette packs now have a warning from the Comptroller: “Excessive taxation is hazardous to your financial health”?

Fun and unfiltered item in Yeas & Nays:

Big government versus big tobacco took a personal twist on the House floor in debate Wednesday afternoon as one powerful member called out another for his smoking habit.

Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, took to the floor to oppose legislation that would place tobacco under FDA control. One of the most notable smokers in Congress, Boehner assailed the bill as too much regulation, calling it a “bone-headed idea.”

Then it was Rep. John Dingell’s, D-Mich., turn. The House Commerce Committee Chairman and the longest-serving member of the House warned Boehner that “this legislation’s on the floor because people are killing themselves smoking these evil cigarettes, and the distinguished gentleman, the minority leader, is going to be among the next to die. He is commmitting suicide every time he puffs on one of those.”

Reached for comment, Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel said the minority leader “feels great and — obviously — hopes Chairman Dingell is wrong.”

Those zany exhibit artists at the Newseum have done it again — J. Edgar Hoover like you’ve never seen him.

Click here for the hilarious makeover results.

Think negative advertising exists only in politics?

Think again.  Here’s an example from the corporate world.

Only one hitch: The motorcoach folks are none too pleased with the spot.  The folks at the American Bus Association think it’s Febreze that needs to clean up its act.

“Today’s motorcoach is more than 98 percent cleaner in terms of emissions than those from the 1980s. It takes 60 new motorcoaches to create the same amount of smog-forming emissions produced by a single bus from 1988. So the very notion that any modern motorcoach requires the use of Febreze is preposterous,” writes ABA President & CEO Peter Pantuso in a letter to Febreze’s flak. “We urge you to cease and desist running the television ads at once.”
And an interesting side nugget we’ve uncovered: Febreze does not clean, rut rather masks odors, and was the target of citizen group pressure a few years ago when an active ingredient in Febreze was thought to be toxic to house pets.  Odd, then, that they would target such an environmentally friendly form of transportation.

From today’s Yeas & Nays:

Henry Kissinger was apparently so excited that the Woodrow Wilson Center decided to name its new Institute on China and the United States after him that he …  zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Yes, at a news conference on Tuesday announcing the new institute that bears his name, we caught the 85-year-old diplomat sneaking some shut-eye.

Kissinger, with his chin tucked into his neck, fell victim to elongated blinks and head bobs shortly after Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi took the stage for a 30-minute monologue on Sino-U.S. relations. And when Yang lit into such lines as “Let me give you some figures,” Kissinger went lights out for several minutes.

We’ll return the insomnia-fighting favor.  Here’s an hour with Kissinger and Charlie Rose.

Ted Stevens Airport …

Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute …

Ted Stevens Bridge …

Ted Stevens House …

Barack Obama meeting Hill Democrats yesterday, according to Dana Milbank:

Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, “This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”

The shuttering of Bennigans restaurants means this is the one of the last times we can take the below joke out for a spin.

So, for one final trip around joke nostalgia lane:

This …

plus this…

equals this …