2)
        When people suggest that governments should do something to ban cigarette smoking altogether, I do not think they are being serious. It is absurd to suggest we ban it after several hundred years, especially when you think of the possible consequences brought about by such banning. Banning cigarette smoking would endanger the survival of many related businesses and industries: tobacco growers, cigarette-making factories, retail businesses. Tax apart, tobacco industry is an important source of income even to developed countries.
        After all, smoking is not so bad as it seems when you look at the benefits it brings.
        First, it is manly to smoke. The unique charm a cigarette smoker holds could not be achieved otherwise. Second, smoking makes social contact easier, particularly when one meets a stranger. Third, a cigarette works like a dream when you take one after long hours of reading or writing, or after a tiring job-the soothing effect it creates is simply beyond description. Those who are against smoking often ignore the fact that smoking can relieve stresses of a long working day.
        I do not mean that smoking does no harm to people’s health. However, in a society that advocates freedom, individuality and democracy each individual should be entitled to decide whether he quits smoking or not; banning goes against democracy.

       If people decide on retaining the habit, the tobacco industry is not to blame. After all, it has donated vast sums to medical research on smoking related ailments. As a result of the painstaking research, new techniques have been adopted in the cigarette manufacturing process, which makes smoking much safer. (267 words)
        Is the Space Race a Huge Waste of Money?
        (1)
        The early 1960s mark the beginning of the space race. From that time on the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Japan and India have each expended billions of dollars in their space projects. Hundreds of space vehicles have blasted into space: first satellites, then spaceships and now space shuttles. What are the returns of these billion-dollar investments? Well, just some rocks of the same composition collected from the moon, if they could be called returns. Displayed in museums, these rocks are hardly of any value compared with a rich variety of their counterparts on the earth.
        
        Why then, are these countries so interested in the space race? Some countries claim that they do this for pure scientific research of the universe and the well being of their people. But what has the space race done to alleviate the agonies of millions of people who are suffering from poverty, starvation, disease and war? In what way has it improved our living conditions? The real interest of these powerful nations lies in the manifestation of both their technological and military powers. For centuries man has been playing many different power games-allies, wars, sanctions, cold war, and the race of nuclear armament, and the space race is just an extension of the race for power on earth. In the mid 1980s, for instance, former U.S. president Ronald Ragan came up with a brand new military project, the SDI (strategic defense initiative), which suggests striking the enemies’ targets with missiles and laser weapons up from space.
        
        Of course, no such world powers want to admit their aggressive ambitions. They would argue that their space programs basically aim at finding a better planet live on. But their argument does not seem to hold water when it comes to the point that however hard they try, it is unlikely that they will ever be able to travel even to the nearest star.
        Let us make our nation’s budget like we do for a family: a family would often consider buying daily necessities before trying to obtain luxuries (If a man buys a piano at the cost of selling his house, we would think that he is a nut). Why can’t great nations act in the same sensible way?