With police crackdowns in recent years on the dens of iniquity that made the Triangle interesting, sins worth paying for are becoming hard to find.

Gov. Mike Easley's plan to finance teacher raises and mental-health reforms on the lungs and livers of smokers and drinkers -- a sin tax -- is a good one: fairly or not, lushes and smokers are singularly unsympathetic figures.

Nobody likes new taxes, either, especially not legislators who will face cash-strapped voters in a few months. Senate and House leaders cite the recession, high gas prices and the mortgage crisis as reasons to table a tax on transgressors.

Easley, who is barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term, doesn't have to worry about incurring the wrath of Joe Sixpack or Johnny Smoke.

That may explain why, in a moment of transcendent truthfulness -- the kind of truthfulness that comes only from lame duck politicians -- Easley said of the proposed 4-cent beer tax "if that causes somebody economic hardship, then they're probably drinking too much and going to be customers of mental health, substance abuse sooner or later anyway."

I'll drink to that, Gubna.

If you've ever found yourself tossing seat cushions searching for loose change to buy a 40, he's talking about you.

There must be some sins out there -- if not sins in the biblical sense, at least against good taste -- that can be taxed without raising voters' ire. Hmm, let's see.

You know those inconsiderate Philistines who talk in movie theaters? Tax 'em.

When you pay $9 for a movie ticket, the last thing you want is to have the experience ruined by some Siskel & Ebert wannabe who's already seen it.

Same with people who dine out at fancy eating establishments like Golden Corral and don't wash their hands upon entering. They should have to pay a higher meal tax to offset the health care costs their germ-laden hands will require the rest of us to incur when we scoop up mashed taters using the same ladle they just picked up after licking their fingers.

Anybody seen in public wearing one of those Bluetooth things that go in your ears should have to pay a tax, as should any grown man who wears his shirttail hanging out while wearing a sport coat or sweater. Unless he's drunk, in which case he's already been taxed to the gills.

You know who else should have to pony up? Any male over the age of 12 who wears a sports jersey with someone else's name on it or a baseball cap backward, unless he makes a living behind the plate for the Yankees, that's who.

Likewise, there should be a tax on motorists who drive around with their air conditioners on when it's sunny and 72 outside.

Lastly -- and I realize that this proposal might be a wee bit controversial -- the state could painlessly finance schools and mental-health reforms if the governor imposed a tax on strip club habitues.

Every teacher would be assured a double-digit raise -- annually -- and every mental-health patient could have his or her own shrink with a matching sofa if men paid a tax each time they entered a licensed sin den.

Talk about a pole tax.

What a moneymaker, Gubna, slapping a tax on each lap dance one receives from Kandi, Amber or Bootylicious: "One dollar for you, one dollar for Governor Mike. One dollar for you ... ."