WARNING LABELS and the Nanny State. The Food and Drug Administration announced that it will soon require tobacco warning labels to be much bigger -- and more graphic.

The proposed warnings, reports the Washington Post, include one "containing an image of a man smoking through a tracheotomy hole in his throat; another depicting a body with a large scar running down the chest; and another showing a man who appears to be suffering a heart attack. Others have images of a corpse in a coffin and one with a toe tag in a morgue, diseased lungs and mouths, and a mother blowing smoke into a baby's face."

Smoking is unhealthy, no question about it. But the loss of freedom is more hazardous by far.