Ciagrettes to over $10 a pack?

Holy smuggler, Batman!

Almost $11 for a pack of cigarettes? It might soon become a very real reality in many stores in New York City.

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The Paterson administration hopes the proposal would generate $440 million in revenue this year, which would be a help close the state budget gap which is estimated to be over $9 billion. Despite the dire budget situation there is no guarantee that the emergency bill will pass after Republicans threatened to vote against a bill that includes tax increases.

By at least one estimate, half the cigarettes consumed in New York are purchased from Native Americans who don't collect and pay state taxes. A new proposal would attempt to limit the number of cigarettes purchased from tribes.

I remember Sea Stores cigs were $1.00 a cartoon..... and Flight Rations had a free 4 pack, usually Winstons...

Now I wonder when MJ will be cheaper than tobacco????


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

Texas trucks

Mike L sent me this:

A lady was telling her neighbor that she saw a man driving a pick-up truck down the interstate, and a dog was hanging onto the tailgate for dear life.

She said if the pick-up truck driver hadn't been going so fast in the other direction, she would have tried to stop him.

A few weeks later, her neighbor saw this truck at the local Bass Pro Shop.

The pick-up truck driver is a local TEXAS taxidermist with a great sense of humor.

Taxidermists are a twisted lot anyway.

And it is not a dog in the 1st Place ; it is a Coyote.

Can you imagine how many people tried to stop this guy?

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

Let's stir the birthplace pot.

It's great fun and keeps the blood stirring. And that's important for us old folks.



link

Hat tip to Trish!

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

Father's Day

This is an old post about my Father. I thought of him today.

I think it's time for a Father's Day post.

What? You say it isn't Father's Day? True, but I'm not much on such "days," believing that they were created more to put money in some one's pocket rather than honor a Father, or Mother or the birthday of Christ.

But I think of him a lot, the older I get the more so. Born into a middle class environment, he saw that disappear with the Depression. And while banks even then were probably cutting special deals for Senators, a la Dodd and Hussein and Conrad, no one was cutting any special deals for the common man. At least not until Roosevelt.

So his formal education was cut short but he loved books and newspapers and because of that tolerated his oldest reading anything and everything in sight. He loved to hunt and he loved dogs. There's a picture of him with his dog and his shotgun. He would grin and say that he had no shells for the gun but carried it because the dog expected it. He loved jokes but his humor was gentle and I have often seen him dance around the warm morning stove in the morning, just pleased to be alive and in the world.

There were no jobs, just farming, timbering and working in a "store." So he went to Roosevelt's CCC camp and sent money home to the family while working to build roads and parks. It was hard physical labor with actual things done. No "organizing," no "midnight" basketball. Just work. And that was precious and meant something.

Later he met my Mom and they married and I came along. Having nothing they became sharecroppers and lived in a shotgun house. When WWII came along he was 36 and it was unlikely he would have been drafted. Yet he joined the Marines and served in the Pacific. He never discussed his service and refused to see any war movies. But he was always a Marine and had a disdain for the Army that was only partially hidden.

He was Scot Irish tough but would give you anything he had if you asked. Family came first followed by friends and country. Politicians and police were not to be trusted although both groups were required. He taught me that it was "Yes Sir and No Sir and Thank You Sir Please." He never lectured about segregation, but the "N" word was not allowed. It was "Colored People" or "Negro" and the greeting of respect was used without exception to race. Both may be out of favor now but remember this was in the early fifties.

He learned to be a machinist and my Mom worked in a local garment factory. They bought and paid for a farm and they retired comfortably, yet he never wanted to quit working. He worked a few years with the University on demonstration projects and could drive you around the county and show you the results. We have to grow more food he would say. Simple and direct and spot on. I don't have to wonder what he would think about using corn for ethanol while people in the third world are going hungry. "Who in the hell is doing that?" he would demand, even though he knew.

He never had a major health problem, yet at age 75 stood up one morning while at a friend's place of business and announced, "I feel bad." He died on the spot the same way he lived, quietly and with little fuss.

It broke my heart but I have since come to understand there are much worse ways to die. He was a Common Man that did much with very little. The country use to have millions of them. But there appear to be damn few left. We suffer because of that.


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

Stupid is as stupid does....

The U.S. government is snapping up Russian-made helicopters to form the core of Afghanistan's fledgling air force, a strategy that is drawing flak from members of Congress who want to force the Afghans to fly American choppers instead.

In a turnabout from the Cold War, when the CIA gave Stinger missiles to Afghan rebels to shoot down Soviet helicopters, the Pentagon has spent $648 million to buy or refurbish 31 Russian Mi-17 transport helicopters for the Afghan National Army Air Corps. The Defense Department is seeking to buy 10 more of the Mi-17s next year, and had planned to buy dozens more over the next decade.

The spectacle of using U.S. taxpayer dollars to buy Russian military products is proving a difficult sell in Congress. Some legislators say that the Pentagon never considered alternatives to the Mi-17, an aircraft it purchased for use in Iraq and Pakistan, and that a lack of competition has enabled Russian defense contractors to gouge on prices.

snip

"If people come and fly in Afghanistan with the Mi-17, they will understand why that aircraft is so important to the future for Afghanistan," said Brig. Gen. Michael R. Boera, the U.S. Air Force general in charge of rebuilding the Afghan air corps. "We've got to get beyond the fact that it's Russian. . . . It works well in Afghanistan."

Will somebody tell this bureaucrat, he can't be a military man, that helping our enemy is kind of like.... well.... stupid?

I sear. This right after some doofuss in the Coast Guard can't figure out how to inspect barrages for fire extinguishers and life vests while they are working.

There is a theory that says there are alternative universes... These two birds must have slipped across with Obamie and his minions. They could not have been born and raised in the USA.

Link

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

You have to wonder why some Jews want to commit suicide

Can't we all just get along?

A group of German Jews planning to take a boat with humanitarian aid to break the Gaza blockade now says it's looking for a second boat because so many European Jews have asked to join them. Jewish Voices for a Just Peace, which includes the offspring of German Jews who fled the Holocaust, want to take children's food, clothes, medicine and school supplies as well as musical instruments, "food for the soul."

"We just see that a Jewish state is occupying Palestine, laying a siege, and depriving children of the things that they need. We as Jews are saying, 'not in our name.'" - Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer, a leader of the new flotilla effort.

These are the children and grandchildren of those who survived Nazi death camps, yet they still can't grasp that when Hamas, and other radical Muslims, say they want to kill Jews and destroy Israel, they mean it.

You have to wonder what it is in their background... education, societal influence... exactly what drives them.

Link

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

Got a moment for something serious?

Pour yourself another cup, lean back and consider


some things to think about.

Click here


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt