In February I purchased the Xikar Genesis Lighter. I had heard great things about the Xikar company, and I was tired of fussing with matches and cheap lighters. Within four months I started having trouble getting my Genesis to stay lit so I took advantage of the Xikar Lifetime Warranty, and mailed the lighter back for repairs. Apparently they were unable to repair it becuase today a package came with a brand new Xikar Genesis Lighter! In a world where customer service means “sell them something they don’t need, and hope you never see them again,” it is refreshing when you have a great cusotmer service expereince. Thank you Xikar!

An article in the Summer 2008 issue of Cigar Magazine entitled, Secondhand Smoke and Global Warming More Connected Than You Think?, by James M. Taylor speaks to the similarities in scare tactics, biased reporting, and bad science found in the battles against secondhand smoke, and our carbon footprint. Taylor points out that as a whole, Antarctica is actually getting colder not warmer. The ice melt on Kilimanjaro is not related to global warming, and that the glacier atop the mountain has been retreating since the 1800s. A Gulf Stream shutdown is not going to happen. Droughts are actually occurring less frequently. And there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming despite what the media is telling us.

Among the most interesting tidbits included in the article are the fact that Al Gore’s, Inconvenient Truth, “contained so many misrepresentations of scientific fact that the British government could no longer allow it to be part of the public school curriculum unless they government first provided teachers with a list of the movie’s numerous scientific errors”, and that there is a petition found at the Web site of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine that has been signed by no less than 19,000 scientists that do not believe the erroneous information the world is being fed about global warming.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the entire article online. However, I have contacted the author and perhaps he will provide me with such a link. In addition, I remarked how nicely the issue of firearms ownership would have fit into his article if he had wanted to make it a hat trick. You can find much of the same information in similar articles written by Taylor at the Web site for the Heartland Institute.

An article in today’s USA Today entitled, Pressur Mounts For Pharmacies To Put Out Smokes would have been more aptly titled, Pressur Mounts For America To Become Socialist. The article, written by Wendy Koch, is another glimpse into the growing ignorance of what a free market can and should do, and a corresponding ignorance of what socialism can not and should not do.

This month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed an unprecedented city ban on drugstores selling tobacco products, including cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco. “This will be the beginning of a national movement,” Newson predicts…

Others are on the same track. Bills are pending in New Hampshire, Illinois and Tennessee to bar pharmacies with walk-in clinics from selling tobacco, and a bill in New York would apply to all pharmacies, including those in big stores such as Wal-Mart. “Pharmacies are places we go to get healthy,” says Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, author of the New York proposal. “It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, they sell something that kills.”

Thank you for your insight Mr. Hoyt, but America is where people go to be free. It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, you should take that freedom away.

I got this unexpected gift in the mail today directly from Oliva. Included with this beauty was an Oliva sampler to break it in with! I’m not sure why I got the gift, but it may have something to do with some insignificant help I offered for the Oliva website…than again, maybe not. Either way, it absolutely rocks!