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As part of my pre-SCHIP cigar acquisition program I also bought a couple of inexpensive humidors through eBay.  They came with analog hygrometers but I decided that I would add a digital one to each humidor that also included a thermometer, since you have to maintain both humidity and temperature for optimal cigar storage.

I ordered two of the Western Humidor Caliber III units and they arrived today.  Analog hygrometers usually require calibration and there are a number of methods that usually involve water, salt, and plastic bags.  This digital one, though, does not require calibration and it had the following warning on the sheet that accompanied it:

WARNING:  This is an electronic instrument.  To maintain the warranty of this product and enjoy many years of error free operation, do not attempt to perform the following; DO NOT wrap this gauge in a wet towel to test the accuracy.  DO NOT attempt to perform the salt test.  DO NOT submerge the gauge in water!  DO NOT microwave or insert in an oven.  Should anyone suggest any of the above to test the accuracy of the CALIBER III ™, we recommend that you run from them immediately!  If you need help to any questions, please call us directly…

I have to give credit to the folks at Western Humidor for making my day with this product warning.

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday.  I’ve been wanting to tear into it, but I haven’t had time until today.

College students have shown such amazing maturity with respect to alcohol, frat rituals and spring break (just visit Cancun in March and see for yourselves), that it seems only obvious we should throw concealed handguns into the mix.

What are Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Reps. Joe Driver, R-Garland, and Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, thinking? (See: “Gun bills are in lawmakers’ sights,” March 1)

If these bills become law, they will bring the law of unintended consequences: only Texans will be foolish enough and culturally inclined to apply to colleges that allow concealed handguns on campuses. And Texas will reinforce its image as “a whole ’nother country” and “the home of broad lawns and narrow minds.”

Most of our Texas colleges and universities are too good and too safe to suffer this foolishness!

— Rufus Schriber, Fort Worth

While Mr. Schriber’s PSH-laden missive would have us conjure up the old Animal House image of college students as a bunch of drunken frat boys, it helps to remember that people who are licensed to carry concealed are adults over the age of 21 who have clean criminal backgrounds and are perhaps the most law-abiding segment of society that you will find.  The idea that someone with a CHL will get drunk and shoot up the campus is ridiculous on its face.  Responsible adults with a CHL simply aren’t going to be doing this.

This line, though, is highly ironic:

…only Texans will be foolish enough and culturally inclined to apply to colleges that allow concealed handguns on campuses. And Texas will reinforce its image as “a whole ’nother country” and “the home of broad lawns and narrow minds.”

The writer accuses us of having narrow minds, while being quite guilty of the same alleged fault.  I mention this because there are indeed other states where concealed carry is either explicitly allowed or possible if the school allows it:

15 “Right-to-Carry” states leave the decision of concealed carry on college campuses entirely to each college/university. A person with a license/permit who was caught carrying a firearm on a college campus could not be held criminally liable but students and employees of a university would be expelled or have their employment terminated. These states are Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.

Though these states contain a few colleges/universities, such as Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) and Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA), that allow concealed carry on campus, most prohibit it. Utah is the only state to allow concealed carry at all public colleges/universities, by prohibiting public colleges/universities from creating their own restrictions.

Of course, this seems par for the course with this kind of blood-will-run-in-the-streets hysteria.  Everywhere that expansion of the right to carry is proposed someone can be relied upon to come out of the woodwork (much like the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock) to claim that their state will become the OK Corral, completely ignoring the experience of the other states that have already done so.

Aside from this letter I also heard a comment from a member of some anti-gun group claiming that our Texas universities are already very safe and that most crime occurs off-campus.  This may be true, but it ignores the fact that a lot of crime occurs when law-abiding adult students are going to-and-from campus and are legally required to be disarmed because of the law against carrying on school premises.  While the new law itself won’t stop all crime, it is a good start towards making our campuses safer against both mass-murderers and on-and-near-campus rapists. 

It’s always good to remember that wherever the law bans guns, it just means that only the victims will be disarmed.  Bad guys don’t give a damn about any silly laws.

Tam brings the snark concerning Obama’s national health care plan:

Obama’s plan will guarantee that the nation’s elderly are shovel-ready.

I was looking forward to going to Phoenix this year for the NRA Annual Meeting and the Second Amendment Blog Bash.  However, I’ve decided that I’m not going to go.

First, there’s the amount of time away from work.  I don’t want to fly and driving adds two extra days each way (it’s just over 1000 miles from here to Phoenix, and I just don’t have the stamina to drive that far in one sitting anymore).  Since my sister is moving back to Colorado from Alaska in June, I was planning on visiting her in July.  I can take the vacation time I would have used in May and use it for the Colorado trip.  Second, there’s the cost.  My rough estimate is that the total cost of this trip would be around $1000 by the time I was done with everything (gas, hotels, food, etc).  Somehow I’m having trouble coming to terms with spending that much money on a trip in the current economy. 

So, I’ve decided to stay, but to help the 2A cause, I will donate part of the money I would have spent on the trip to NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF.  The rest will be spent on additional ammo to maintain stocks in my ammo closet.  I will receive my yearly bonus later this month.  When it comes, I will send $250 each to NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF and set aside another $500 for ammo. 

To me this is a more useful way to spend $1000 so that it promotes the Second Amendment rather than spending it on gas and hotels.  I’ll still miss going, but I can always go another year when the meeting is closer to home.

What many people may not know about the SCHIP bill that was signed into law recently by President Obama is that it includes a brutally high increase in federal excise taxes on cigars, pipe tobacco, and roll-your-own cigarette tobacco.  This one seems to have never gained much publicity for some reason.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that, given that smoking is so politically incorrect these days.

Here are the basics of the new taxes, to give you an idea of just how outrageous they are:

• The tax rate on large cigars will now be 52.4% (with a cap of $0.40 for individual cigars)
• The federal tax on cigarettes goes from $0.39 to $1.00 per pack
• The tax on pipe tobacco goes from $1.0969 per pound to $2.8126 per pound
• The tax on roll-your-own cigarette tobacco goes from $1.0969 per pound to $24.62 per pound!

The only way I found out about this was when I got a mailer from Finck Cigar Company about the new taxes.

After receiving the mailer I started doing a little research into it and came across a letter to the editor from Bill Finck (owner of the aforementioned Finck Cigar Company), who is now finding himself having his squishy bits squeezed by The Chosen One™:

Our little family-owned, 115-year-old cigar factory will not be able to sell enough at the increased price to remain open, and our 59 employees, half over 50 years of age, will become unemployed. The brutal tax burdens from SCHIP will crush the small cigar businesses and the roll-your-own cigarette businesses. Thousands of American jobs in the myriad of support businesses such as tobacco growing, tobacco processing, package manufacturing, transportation and sales operations will be lost.

I am proud of our new president and his repeatedly proclaimed intent to preserve and create jobs in the United States. Someone in his group has failed to recognize the loss of thousands of jobs resulting from the tax provision in SCHIP.

This is basic economics, but it never fails to amaze me that people don’t get it.  When you raise taxes on something, someone is going to have to pay for it, and if it’s something that is discretionary, people will buy less, which usually means that it’s the people at the bottom of the “social ladder” that get hit hardest.  Still, I can’t help but feel a bit of Obamanfreude at his predicament (as it sounds like he was an Obama supporter). 

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand…  I guess I am going to have to stock up before the tax tsunami hits.  I will either get a bigger humidor or get a couple more smaller ones as well as three or four boxes of cigars.  It’s more than I would usually spend, since I generally buy them by the stick or buy samplers so I can get 5 or 10 at a time (as compared to the usual 50 in a box).  At the rate I smoke them, four boxes would probably last ten years, but at least I’d be set against supply disruptions as the cigar industry adjusts and consolidates itself in the new environment. 

I hereby propose a new word:

Obamanfreude – 1.  taking pleasure from the discomfort of Obama supporters as they come to realize that The Chosen One™ is just another Chicago politician.  2.  taking pleasure from the misfortunes of an Obama supporter as he or she is adversely affected by the policies of their Dear Leader.

So it appears that the digital TV transition will move to June 12th from February 17th.  The primary reason given is that millions of people aren’t ready and will lose their TV service if the switch is made on the original schedule.  Frankly, I’m not sure what, if any, difference waiting will make.  If people haven’t arsed themselves to get ready by now they most likely won’t do anything between now and June 12th, either.  Even if we were to delay another year there will be a large number of people who aren’t ready. 

If we have to switch, then let’s just get it done and let the chips fall where they may.  Loss of signal is the only thing that will actually get the procrastinators motivated.  Those of us who paid attention have been ready for a while*.

* Most of my TV programming is delivered via Verizon FiOS, which handles everything for me.  I have one OTA TV in the kitchen, for which I bought a converter when they first became available.

People always say that things are bigger in Texas, and this woman seems hell-bent on living up to expectations. 

A woman from Texas has reportedly undergone nine breast enlargement operations to become the proud owner of the world’s largest breast implants — size 38KKK.

American doctors had refused to carry out any more operations on Sheyla Hershey, 28, when her breasts were a staggering 34FFF, but that didn’t stop her from going under the knife for the record breaking surgery.

“To me, big is beautiful. I don’t think I have anything to worry about,” the Houston-resident said.

Still determined to increase her bustline, Hershey jetted off to Brazil where there are no limits on the size of implants.

The surgery required a full gallon of silicone.

I can’t help but think that there’s something subtly wrong with her judgment.  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the appeal.  It looks like she had a couple of basketballs grafted to her chest.  Sometimes bigger isn’t better.

In yesterday’s plaintive whine I asked…

And why is it that this house has a GFCI outlet in the garage (next to the breaker panel) but none in the bathrooms?  I know that current code requires them in bathrooms, so I’m guessing that the old code didn’t when the house was built in 1986.  But if it didn’t require it in a bathroom, why would there be one in the garage?  If it’s required because there’s a water heater in the garage, then it would seem to have made more sense to put one in the outlet next to the water heater.  But no, that one doesn’t have a GFCI outlet.

The electrician just left and his visit was very informative.  When I told him that the outlets in the bathroom were out, the first thing he asked was when the house was built.  When I told him 1986 his next question was whether there was a GFCI outlet in the garage.  It turns out that for houses built at that time that the GFCI outlet in the garage also protects all the outlets in the bathrooms.  So the real source of all of my problems yesterday morning was that the GFCI outlet in the garage had tripped, which took out the outlets in the bathrooms as well as the the Verizon ONT.  Since the GFCI appeared to be original (which would make it 22 or 23 years old) he recommended replacement because they often start to trip on their own as they get old.

So I had him replace the GFCI.  It’s a treat to watch a professional at work, as he had the old one out and the new one installed so fast that the Verizon ONT didn’t even drop my Internet connection.  I have enough knowledge of electricity to change a breaker or an outlet, but I also have enough knowledge to know that I’d rather not if I don’t have to.  It would also have taken me three times longer, since I won’t work on a live circuit, and I would have had to trace down which breaker controlled the circuit before starting.

There’s a good opinion piece in today’s Ft. Worth Star-Telegram on the subject of eminent domain.  I’ve written a little about this topic before.  First, when the Cowboys and the City of Arlington grabbed private land for the new stadium, and again when the City of Keller took land from a developer for flood control (after apparently creating the problem by directing the water onto the developer’s land!).

As some of you may know, Governor Perry has come out in favor of a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of Texas property owners in eminent domain cases.  But, given his past support for the Trans-Texas Corridor (supposedly dead now, but probably really just awaiting a name change), I wonder just how far he’s willing to go in protecting our rights.  The law he signed during the last session didn’t really protect much. 

Given that, I have to agree with Roy Shockey on what a constitutional amendment should address:

An amendment to the Texas Constitution should plug loopholes, answer questions and protect the rights of Texas property owners. But if we’re going to amend the constitution, let’s get it right.

Let’s clearly define what is meant by the term public use and spell it out in writing.

Let’s eliminate the “blight” exception that enables the wealthiest to prey on those who have the least.

Let’s establish guidelines for compensation whenever property is seized for legitimate public use under the new statute.

Let’s address the issue of diminished access so our retained property values and access will be protected.

Let’s put the burden of proof in “public use and necessity” disputes on the back of government instead of where it is now — on the shoulders of private citizens whose property is being targeted.

The only thing I would add is a provision for punishment of any local or state official who participates in any type of scheme to deprive any citizen of his or her land for a private interest.  I think hanging them from lamp posts by their own entrails should be sufficient, but then I’m not know for being subtle or sympathetic towards thieves.

Just for the record I should inform you that I know Roy Shockey from the Keller Citizen’s Police Academy Alumni Association (KCPAAA).