From the mighty American Digest:
Actually, a mullet was a step up.
An Unpaid but Sincere Endorsement
Those of you who know me know I have smoked for most of my life- I started at 13 in the ‘olden daze’ when it was frowned upon but not all that hard, at least nothing like it is today. At one point I was quit for a dozen years. I slipped, started back, and was back to two packs a day within a month, where I have remained for the past 15 years an addict of a decidedly nasty habit. Ms. JW is close to a 3-packer, plus she likes menthol, which I understand makes the habit even harder to lose.
About a month ago we began an experiment- we both switched over to the new E-cigs. She got the full rig- 3 rechargeable batteries, a little USB dongle to recharge them, and the cartridges to go with them. I went with the disposable, being the suspicious sort. Basically these things work by heating a gelatine compound which contains nicotine and you inhale the vapor, thus duplicating the act of traditional cigarette smoking.
The things are fantastic. No smoke. No smell. No ashes or ashtrays. No cracking the car window. No offending those around you, or toddling off to some ‘smoke hole’ to enjoy your little habit. Plus at least for now they’re not taxed to hell and back so the equivalent of a carton of cigs costs between 5-15 dollars. You also have a selection of strengths of nicotine content which allows you to begin tapering that off, all without losing the little routine of having a smoke, which is a big part of the habit and where many who wish to quit get tripped up.
Like I said, both my lady and myself have been using these for around a month now, and the big test came with the ice storm this week- our shipment was delayed… we were gonna be ‘outta smokes’! Only those who have the habit know how non-trivial that little scenario is… so we both bought a pack of our old cigarettes to hold us over.
THEY WERE HORRIBLE. Nasty taste, smelly smoke, frigging ashes everywhere, smoke leaving a deposit on anything close by… In other words, in almost no time at all, with no freaking withdrawal or suffering, we have both lost the desire for traditional burning tobacco. Yes, there’s a habit still there, but one I can see tapering off to nothing after a time.
Sense of smell and taste has come back. No more coughing or trashy mouth in the morning… no more mess. We’re both completely sold, and I have an utterly clear conscience uttering the praises of a pretty nifty scientific advance. We get ours here, but a little time with Bing will find any number of people selling these things.
I would suggest that any of you who smoke out there jump on this before the government notices and comes along with taxes and restrictions to screw it all up- it really does allow you to have the pleasure of smoking (and to you non-smokers, yes, it IS a pleasure) with almost none of the downside.
Peekaboo!
via Ka-Ching!
The Law
Kinda speaks for itself…
Yikes!
Why I don’t post all that much any more.
From the commentariat at The Belmont Club, specifically someone with the nom de plume no mo uro:
The philosophizing and the social agenda are interesting, but they are the ultimate goal, not primary one in the present. The goal and not the means. We lose sight of that at our peril.
Hillary’s inevitability has more to do with the 47% Romney accurately described than anything else.
99% of the people in this country who get their income from a government source – public sector workers, welfare recipients, ag subsidy recipients, grant recipients, attorneys (most of whom are de facto public employees or rent-seekers) and rent-seeking “private” businesses – are going to vote for whichever candidate will have the lowest likelihood of cutting off or even diminishing their income stream. Period. Do not kid yourselves that anyone who works for the government, no matter how conservative their lifestyle is privately, will do anything but vote for the most fiscally irresponsible candidate under ANY conditions. All Hillary, all ANY candidate has to do, is project the image that not one single government expenditure will be cut in any way and they will win any election at the national level.
In a down economy, fear of losing the magic government check trumps everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. It is the real explanation for 2012. More than conservatives staying home. More than election fraud.
You can point out that this dynamic has been growing for a while, and perhaps so. But the real cause for concern is an ugly new twist. The left has become very aware of this new found permanent voting propensity. They have awoken to its power. They will exploit it to the max. We really, truly have reached the point where if Hillary set fire to a bunch of third graders on national TV pretty much everyone who gets a government check would vote for her against anyone from the center/right anyways. And everyone in the entertainment industry would either claim it didn’t happen or blame Republicans.
If she told the public work force, people in subsidized industries like education, and welfare recipients, “I’m planning to round up every serious Christian, conservative and orthodox jew, gun owner, and person we can prove advocates for limited government, confiscate their property, and send them to concentration camps and kill them – but your magic checks will never be interrupted”, 99% of those people would vote for her with a smile on their face and joy in their hearts.
If you believe otherwise, you are a terrible, terrible fool. Russians and Germans – people who had similar attitudes towards the size and power of government and were more educated, more informed, and more enlightened than today’s left living in America and the LIV’s who have profited by a bloated government – cheered on as their governments committed terrible atrocities, as long as their own situations remained comfortable. What, precisely, is different this time, such that we can be confident history will not repeat itself?
Emphasis mine. Down-vote away folks, hit that dislike button- I realize many who read these words will reflexively do so, for to do otherwise would be to admit just how corrupt they have become. Enjoy the decline!
Me, I’m just going to stand back and let it, and most of you, burn.
I watched as they stood before the coffins, and lied.
via Gerard
We have become willfully blind
So willfully blind we cannot see the terrorists among us…
Bomb-makers in Minneapolis
A big explosion occurs next door to a mosque that has an unabashed affection for the Muslim Brotherhood, in a Somali neighborhood where terrorists are known to hang out — what could possibly be amiss with that? Nothing, except possibly an Islamophobic hate crime, according to CAIR.
…
The explosion was subsequently blamed on a gas leak, which is interesting because the Star Tribune has been caught lying about its conversation with the gas company responsible.
…
Throw in the fact that Homeland Security was spotted on the scene and it points to the probability that the police and media are covering up the explosion of a Somali bomb-making factory in Minneapolis.
Nothing to see here folks, move along. And when the Mall of America goes up in flames, we’ll wonder how on earth that could have happened.
via Vox Popoli
Sometimes you see something and just have to share…
via the Bleatniks
Weather is not Climate. Climate is not Weather.
Hillary!!!
Hillary Clinton’s conservatism, if it is correct to characterize her as such, is more that of a Warren Harding than a Calvin Coolidge. That is to say, she possesses the cultivated conservatism of the palm-greaser, the chiseler, the positioner and maker of small deals. She is the exemplar of the new mandarin class, a dealer in leverage and self-dealing. She will not again break her back on grandiose utopia-building foolishness like the first, failed attempt at government takeover of what remained of the private healthcare market. For one thing, another clutch of morons broke the ice on that, and the lucrative patchwork of recovery, repair, and reform that this catastrophe will spawn like maggots from a table heaped with entrails – that lifetime of paydays stretches in front of her client-base like the prospect of the promised land before the heirs of Moses.
The commentariat at Ann’s place is the best ever- this quote is downright legendary. Oh, the burn…
Great advice for aspiring musicians
WWJD?
via Gerard
News from the HMS Inconvenient Truth
For the Tolkien lovers out there
A hand-illustrated Silmarillion.
Nope, you can’t have one, unless the Tolkien estate relents and allows it to be published. One can dream…