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• HULK SMOKE! 

DRIVER Oh I see, you must be one of those fugitives from the law. I pick up a lot of those. That's fine. What a man does in his own time is his own business.

DR. BRUCE BANNER Thanks.

DRIVER Of course, you're going to have to put out that cigarette.

DR. BRUCE BANNER But… we've got a long drive ahead.

DRIVER Sorry, rules are rules. There's no smoking in my car.

DR. BRUCE BANNER Please… don't make me stop smoking. You wouldn't like me when I'm not smoking…

DRIVER Why? What, are you one of those gamma mutants? When you get enraged you turn into a 14-foot tall green monster?

DR. BRUCE BANNER That, and I tend to gain weight.

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THIS FILM CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF TOBACCO CONSUMPTION
Advisory on Universal's US ads for "The Incredible Hulk." You can see a depiction of the ad, and closeup of the advisory, at this site.

14 Smoking Accessories that Nobody Should Own 

First up, we have this double-barrel cigarette holder. Makes perfect sense, right? You’ve got two lungs, gotta have two cigarettes. Of course if you used this I don’t think you’d have two lungs for very long…

Invalid “Fed” Cigarettes on a Stick Thank god someone has solved the age old problem of how to smoke in a hospital bed when both of your arms are broken! And people say nicotine isn’t addictive?

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BLANCHE (taking the cigarette): I have always relied on the kindness of strangers 

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN rise from their seats in the audience, joining the trio, who are smoking. They stand there, motionless and smokeless. LINDA clears her throat aggressively.)

GUILDENSTERN: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and a presumption that once our eyes watered. . . .

Suddenly, Attorney General LORI SWANSON enters, brandishing the business end of an enormous fire hose. She surveys the room, which has fallen silent except for the slight hiss of ash hitting the beer-soaked floor and the sound of TOM hocking a tubucular loogie the size of Rhode Island.)

BELARIUS: The game is up.

(As the firehose is toted into the bar by members of the Association for Nonsmokers — Minnesota in hazmat suits, Swanson, who is not smoking, regards the room. She aims the hose at the stage and gives a nod. The hose becomes engorged. Just before the watery onslaught, her words can be heard:)

SWANSON: Years from now, when you talk about this ... and you will ... be kind.

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• WOESTENDIEK: Up in smoke 

Tomorrow at midnight the last smoldering cigarettes will be snuffed out in barroom ashtrays across Maryland. . . .

Nevertheless, you must remember this: For hundreds of years, the smoky tavern/pub/cocktail lounge/jazz club/blues bar have been part of our culture, and to erase the memory of it would be wrong, on numerous levels. So, too, would be failing to acknowledge its demise.

Hence, this homage to the smoke-filled bar - an ode to an odor most foul, a paean to a pain in the neck. For in losing the smoke-filled bar, we are losing a layer of society's texture - granted, an unhealthy, lung-irritating, certifiably toxic texture - but texture all the same. It's another vanishing icon, like the milkman, the typewriter, 8-track tapes and the rotary phone.

It's another tool lost for writers and movie directors . . .

When a piece of popular culture bites the dust - even as unpopular a piece as the smoky bar - it rates an obit ...

Smoky Bar, the illegitimate son of Sir Walter Raleigh whose roots stretch back to Colonial times, died today after a long illness.

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BARRY: I (cough) was a teenage smoker! 

As a ranking national opinion-maker (currently in 1,539th place), I would like to do my part to get teenagers to stop smoking cigarettes. Ready? Here goes:

You teenagers stop smoking right now!! There! Did that do the trick?

I didn't think so. Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as ``a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.'' . . .

Arguments for smoking: Other teenagers are doing it.

Case closed! Let's light up! That's what I did, and I eventually reached the point where not only could I tolerate cigarettes, but I actually needed them so badly that if I ran out of my own, late at night in the newspaper office, I would root around in the wastebaskets and smoke stale, stinking, spit-stained butts discarded by people I didn't even like.

Of course, you young smokers starting out today have years to go before you reach that level of coolness and maturity. Meanwhile, I'm sure you don't want to hear any lectures from the likes of me. So I'm going to just shut up now.

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Funny: Stephen Colbert Interviews Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman From The Center For Consumer Freedom 

Rick Berman is generally considered to be an astroturfing shill bag of the highest order, and there are whole websites dedicated to debunking his "Center For Consumer Freedom."

60 minutes profiled him in a segment called "Meet Dr. Evil." You could watch that, or you could watch Stephen Colbert. Yeah, we thought so. Enjoy.

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Nico Market 

Welcome to Nicomarket, the new website for tobacco lovers.

*

Are you a smoker?

Our products have been specially designed to increase the effects of tobacco on you and the people around you. . . .

* nicoteeth

* nicoclean

* nicobreeze

* nicovox

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• EU launches tongue-in-cheek anti-smoking virals 

The European Union is launching an anti-smoking campaign with a series of tongue-in-cheek viral ads promoting fake nicotine-based products.

Developed by French agency Ligaris, the campaign also includes a spoof website, nicomarket.com, for a corporation peddling the products - complete with a contact email address and chairman profile.

The four tongue-in-cheek virals are being seeded on entertainment and youth community websites, by specialists GoViral, in the big five European territories of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Each of the virals promotes a different product - a room-freshener, throat spray, toothpaste and skin cream - with the twist being that the nicotine-based products have adverse effects.

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Here's a shocker! 

In congressional testimony on Monday, the immediate past-Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona told of (gasp!) pressure from “White House officials” to exclude actual scientific data from medically related reports that didn’t support the administration’s (shock!) political opinions. Y’know, on stuff like stem cells, HIV prevention, secondhand smoke, greenhouse gas, prisoner health, mental health issues…

[GRAPHIC:

Doctor labeled "SURGEON GENERAL" is operating on a patient labeled "SCIENCE." The doctor is calling out "Scalpel"

Beside him is a small figure, possibly President Bush, holding out a huge sword labeled "POLITICS."]

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Editorial Cartoons 

[GRAPHIC:

Doctor labeled "SURGEON GENERAL" is operating on a patient labeled "SCIENCE." The doctor is calling out "Scalpel"

Beside him is a small figure, possibly President Bush, holding out a huge sword labeled "POLITICS."]

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• 20 things about the classic pack of 20  

1 The number of cupfuls of tar found in a smoker's lungs when they die.

2 The tally of cigarettes smoked by John Hurt in a taxi during a seminal scene in the otherwise largely forgotten 1997 movie Love and Death on Long Island. . . .

3 The total of extra days a smoker takes off work each year, on average, through illnesses and complaints associated with the habit. . . .

19 Thousands of pounds a year currently being advertised as the salary for a 'smoke freedom officer'. The post, with Canterbury council in Kent, will include the task of advising landlords how to deal with customers who light up in pubs.

20 The seconds it takes for nicotine to hit the brain.

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Rated R For Smoking 

The Motion Picture Association of America has announced that smoking will now be a consideration when determining a film's rating. What do you think? . . .

Daniel Drysdale, Cat Breeder "Then how else are lazy aspiring filmmakers supposed to learn how to establish character?"

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PRITCHETT: End is nigh for this column of smoke  

Some people still do not realise that, from July 1, it will be against the law to smoke while reading this column. This applies whether you are in an enclosed public space or in the privacy of your own home.

It is pure common sense. You can see how easy it is for second-hand smoke to drift across into the Obituaries section, thus exposing the recently deceased to the perils of passive smoking. . . .

We expect the ban to improve readers' safety. Unfortunately, there are no accurate figures for the number of smokers suffering death or injury after accidentally setting fire to their paper when finding an unexpected joke in this column.

We do know, however, of the horrifying case of a Hampshire pipe-smoker who came across an unintended pun and badly singed his cat. If this ban can save just one family pet from being traumatised by a similar injury it will surely be worthwhile.

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Celluloid cigarettes 

NEWSFLASH: The Motion Picture Association of America, the Hollywood ratings watchdog, has leaped into the cigarette smoking fray. Just 41 years after the federal government mandated that warnings be put on cigarette packages, the MPAA has taken the courageous step of realizing that smoking may be possibly, somewhat unhealthy. When a movie comes in for a rating and actors light up on screen, the MPAA is taking the draconian measure of ... "taking that into account." . . .

Above all, gunplay, assault weaponry, and murders will not be limited on the big screen in any way. "We can't deny preschoolers their Second Amendment rights," says the source. "Besides, we have to be able to compete with TV."

The official did stress that all changes are merely under consideration. "But one thing we can say for sure," he adds. "The [possible partial] ban on smoking in kids' films is proof, once again, that self-regulation truly works!"

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The Motion Picture Association of America has added smoking to a list of such factors as sex, violence and language in determining the ratings for movies. 

This move inspired Style to add "anything that could possibly be bad for you" to the list.

Rated I for showing an overweight guy with a blotchy complexion and excessive nose hair making it with a gorgeous movie star, which doesn't mean that you have a shot.

Rated I for scenes of a man power-mowing his lawn without obtaining the proper carbon offset.

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