Smoke on the water

I swear, bottled water is the greatest scam in the history of marketing. Water comes out of every tap in America, there at a simple touch, yet people are willing to spend something like $8 a gallon to drink it out of plastic six-packs, more than three times the cost of the gasoline we get so apoplectic about. This story from Los Angeles is a predictable result - while city government was spending $1 million to promote the quality of the municipal water supply, various city departments were spending almost $90,000 of taxpayers' money to provide employees with bottlled water. A little reminiscent of the tobacco paradox, isn't it, with the government spending money both to susidize tobacco farmers and encourage Americans to quit smoking?