Happy 49th birthday wishes to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin!
January 16th Birthday Babe – Yvonne Zima
Government Surprised No One Wants To Play Their Silly Game
Have your insurance exchanges in place by January 1st or else! Or else we’ll give you more time that is.
The White House says it will give states more time to comply with the new health care law after finding that many states lag in setting up markets where millions of Americans are expected to buy subsidized private health insurance.
[...]
The exchanges are a crucial element of President Obama’s health care law. Every state is supposed to have one by October, and most Americans will be required to have coverage, starting in January 2014. The federal government will run the exchange in any state that is unwilling or unable to do so. It now appears that federal officials will have the primary responsibility for running exchanges in at least half the states — far more than expected when the law was passed in 2010.
Hmmm…”far more than expected when the law was passed”. Gee, ya think? Even the states that are setting up the exchanges don’t want to, or they don’t want to do it the way the government wants it done. Rebecca D. Lockhart, Republican Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, is quoted in the article as saying, “I am opposed to using one dime of Utah state taxpayers’ dollars to comply with federal requirements for the exchange.”
Obamacare is about power and money. It has little to nothing to do with health. I find in humorous to see the administration dumbfounded by the notion that states don’t want to play their silly little game.
I Wonder What This Does
Do not let this woman clean your car.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A cleaning lady stole a train and drove it off the end of the tracks and smashed into a house in Sweden on Tuesday, injuring only herself in an incident police are investigating.
Rumor has it she will be getting a job cleaning the White House. It should be OK, that train wreck has already occurred.
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January 15th Birthday Babe – Kelly Kelly
This Time It’s Personal
On February 22nd I get to celebrate my first anniversary of being smoke free. That was the day my electronic cigarette starter kit arrived. I had try to quit before, on my own. That didn’t work at all. Switching to ecigs has worked, and it’s worked amazingly well.
So, leave it to the government to want to screw that up.
Section 918(b) requires that the Secretary of HHS, after consultation with recognized scientific, medical, and public health experts, submit a report to Congress examining how best to regulate, promote, and encourage the development of “innovative products and treatments (including nicotine-based and non-nicotine-based products and treatments)” to better achieve the following three goals: (1) Total abstinence from tobacco use, (2) reductions in consumption of tobacco, and (3) reductions in the harm associated with continued tobacco use.
Many people will react with a “so what?” Well, it’s government regulation, and we already have enough of them, and this time it’s personal. Here is what V2, my distributor, has to say on the subject:
This added regulation could have a negative impact on the availability, accessibility and cost of V2 Cigs and other e-cig brands’ products.
But you can make sure that your opinion is heard!If V2 Cigs electronic cigarettes have made a positive difference in your life, please share your story with the FDA. Ask them not to implement additional regulations which would limit your ability to obtain V2 Cigs.
Read the notice of public hearing on the FDA website. You can click on the blue Comment Now button in the upper right corner of the FDA’s site to submit your comments through Wednesday, January 16, 2013.
Your opinion matters! This is your chance to make a difference for the entire electronic cigarette industry. Visit the FDA Website today and encourage your friends to do the same. Together, we will be heard!
Quite frankly, I don’t trust the government to get this right. Some of the advantages of vaping include
- Being able to vape where you can’t smoke.
- A near endless variety of flavors. Everything from tobacco and menthol flavors, to coffee, chocolate covered cherry, fruits, mints, and some that I wouldn’t even want to try. I mean, I love bacon, but I wouldn’t want to vape it.
- A big, big money savings. Of course the government is going to want to tax these products even more than they want to regulate them.I saved nearly $1000 so far. I’m sure the government wants a part of that. A BIG part.
All of this is on top of how much better I feel. Ecigs are not marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking, but the pure fact is I feel 100% better since I switched. I can breath easier, walk further, do more without feeling exhausted.
If you’re a smoker I do encourage you to give ecigs a try. I suggest V2 (Use the code MyVaporLife at checkout for a discount!) because that’s what worked for me, and I’m an affiliate. You can also search for ecigs, but I urge you to do your homework. There are a few scams out there. Be very cautious with “free trials”.
Here is the comment I left at the FDA site:
I am a 57 year old male, and I don’t know when I started smoking, other than it was sometime in my thirties, but I do know when I quit – February 22nd, 2011. I had tried to quit previously on my own, using the patch, and with gum. None of those methods worked.
On 2/22/11 my electronic cigarette starter kit arrived. Since that time I have smoked two and a half packs of regular cigarettes – the half pack I had left when the starter kit arrived, one when I was still starting with the e-cigs, and the last one when I forgot my battery charger at work. All of that was within the first month, so I can honestly claim to have been smoking free for more than 10 months.
I can personally tell you that I can breathe easier, exercise and work around the house without getting so easily winded, taste and smell better, and I greatly enjoy the nearly $1000 that I’ve saved. I am convinced that e-cigs have improved my quality of life and that I would not have quit any other way.
I urge you to take a thorough and honest look at the science, and to include in your evaluation the positive impact electronic cigarettes have for so many people. In my office alone four (out of five) smokers have fully replaced traditional cigarettes with electronic ones.
Most of all I urge you to NOT remove or regulate the positives that I, and others, find so attractive about e-cigs:
• The variety of flavors that are available
• The low cost relative to traditional cigarettes
• The ability to vape whenever and wherever I want
• The ability to use a product that has, in my personal experience, allowed me to stop smoking
In my opinion, removing these incentives will do greater harm than good. I am convinced that should e-cigs become harder to obtain, or less attractive to use, I would in all likelihood return to smoking. I am sure I am not alone in this belief.
The positives of electronic cigarettes are many, and I ask that you cautiously and honestly consider their benefits when adopting any policies related to their use. Please do not regulate them out of existence, or make them difficult to obtain or less attractive to use. I don’t want to go back to smoking, and electronic cigarettes have made that possible.
Thank you.
Cross posted at My Vapor Life.
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Representative Ross on His Fiscal Cliff Vote
Representative Dennis Ross (FL-15) is my Congressman. He voted “No” on the fiscal cliff Senate amendment to H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act, and, in an article in the Tampa Tribune, he tells us why.
I voted against the fiscal cliff Senate amendment to H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act, because it was not a viable long-term solution for America in order to regain control of our finances. The Senate amendment only addressed the expiring tax rates and did nothing to address Congress’s out-of-control spending.
I am proposing a better alternative that addresses both tax reform and spending reform: enacting the Bowles-Simpson Plan of Lowering America’s Debt Act (BOLD Act), which puts forth substantive tax reform and reduces government spending, as well as enacting the Zero Based Budgeting Ensures Responsible Oversight Act (ZERO Act), which requires that all expenses are justified each year, not just once in its lifetime.
I encourage you to read the rest.
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January 14th Birthday Babe – Jordan Ladd
Today’s Birthday Babe is Jordan Ladd. She’s 38 today.
Least we forget, Jordan has some good genes.
Mom, Cheryl Ladd
Playoff Football 2013
It’s time for some (more) playoff football. Today’s games are:
Seattle at Atlanta (1:00pm – FOX)
Houston at New England (4:30pm – CBS)
What? You thought I was going to post pictures of Matt Ryan and Tom Brady? You can discuss the games at the bRight & Early Sports Forum.
Sunday Roundup
Here are some of the stories people were talking about this past week (1/6/13 – 1/12/13):
- Nice Deb – Krauthammer: Hagel Chosen to Dismantle the Military (Video)
“In a second term, Obama is going to show us who he really is”, Krauthammer began ominously. “Remember when he said to the Soviet president, after the election, I’ll be more flexible?”
Yes, we do, in fact.
Video at the link.
- Twitchy – #TGDN boot camp: Twitter Gulag Defense Network founder shares tips for avoiding #TwitterGulag
The buzz continues to build for the Twitter Gulag Defense Network, a grassroots project launched last weekend by Twitter user Todd Kincannon. Using the hashtag #TGDN, the project connects conservative activists and helps Twitter users combat the abusive flag-spam tactics used by some leftists to silence conservative voices.
- Support Your Local Gunfighter – Bill Clinton: Father Of The Year
Clinton has one child – one – and she’s a married woman now. What has he done, specifically this year, to deserve Father of the Year?
- Sister Toldjah – Shocking: Implementation of ObamaCare is a job killer for franchise expansion
These are troublesome realities that CEOs, small business owners, and potential franchisees in the REAL world have to contemplate in the face of the implementation of the mammoth legislation known as the ACA aka “ObamaCare.”
- Pirate’s Cove – Biden Unleashed: “No Silver Bullet To Stop Gun Violence”
Leave it to Sheriff Joe Biden (who resembled Barney Fife when it came to monitoring the Stimulus spending) to use poor metaphors
The Sunday Roundup is a compilation of stories that I found interesting from the previous week. Of course interesting is in the eye of the beholder. Your mileage may vary.