Sunday, March 07, 2010
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
We burned our fingers on another Rocky Patel Sun Grown this afternoon as the mercury exceeded 55 degrees for the first time in ages here in Ohio.


We are reading In The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Fiction, he writes from Stalin's perspective about the burdens on inheriting one's predecessor's problems (P. 103-4).

Lenin in his irresponsible way had muddled matters, recklessly littering the place with promises, which had since become a crippling burden to his successor, to Stalin. "Any cook must be able to administer the state," but how had Lenin pictured this in concrete terms? Did he mean that the cook, instead of cooking on Fridays, would take her seat on the oblast executive committee? A cook was a cook; her job was to prepare dinner. Governing people was a rare skill, a task that could be entrusted only to special cadres, cadres specially selected, trained, and tempered, highly disciplined. Management of the cadres themselves must rest in a single pair of hands, the practiced hands of the Leader.


Sound familiar?

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  Friday, February 19, 2010
Friday Afternoon Cigar
41 degrees is 15 degrees warmer than the past three weeks, hence a reason to burn a Santa Damiana.

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  Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
Our first cigar in almost two months. A Rocky Patel Sun Grown. Always good.

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  Saturday, November 28, 2009
Saturday Afternoon Cigar
A Camacho SLR burned as we continued reading Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow. A book about the first man made famine after the Bolshevik takeover.

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  Saturday, November 14, 2009
Saturday Afternoon Cigar
Another Rocky Patel Sun Grown went up in smoke today.

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  Monday, November 09, 2009
Monday Afternoon Cigar
We smoked a Rocky Patel Sun Grown - our favorite - to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. How did you celebrate?

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  Monday, November 02, 2009
Monday Afternoon Cigar
A Rocky Patel Sun Grown smoldered as we watched the few remaining leaves fall to the ground.

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  Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday Afternoon Cigar
The ingredients for a relaxing afternoon: A rabbit, a sexy hat, a CAO Brazilia, and our new national drink, Leninade.

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  Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday Afternoon Cigar
We smoked a Rocky Patel Cuban Blend as we did some routine cleaning.

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  Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
CAO Brazilia burned before the Bears-Bengals game.

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  Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wednesday Afternoon Cigar
We smoked a CAO Brazilia as we read the fiction book, Red to Black by Alex Dryden. A story in Putin's modern day Russia about British and Russian spies, and Putin's commie intentions. Hard to tell non-fiction from the fiction.

Link to Amazon.

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  Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Wednesday Afternoon Cigar
At the risk of federal charges against us for 'shilling' products on our blog by the FTC...

We can't get enough of these Rocky Patel Sun Grown cigars. Another burned as we discussed current events with Mikhail.

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  Sunday, October 04, 2009
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
Today's Rocky Patel Sun Grown was extra smooth and extra special. We celebrated the choice of Rio as the site of the 2016 Olympics.

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  Saturday, September 12, 2009
Saturday Afternoon Cigar
There is no better way to kill the two hours before the Ohio State v. USC game than to smoke a Rocky Patel Sun Grown and read some commie history.

We're only half way through Robert Conquest's The Great Terror, a book about Stalin's purges.


Stalin's purges led to about a million killed, and many more suffering in work and re-education camps. But like all liberal progressive communist programs, it cost far more than was expected.

One example is the analysis of others that Conquest discusses. Most work camps, while 'free' in concept to Stalin, actually cost more than they produced when one considers the capture and transportation of the prisoners, housing, supples, etc. And, at a loss to Stalin's (and every commie's) most prized asset, the army. It is estimated that 250,000 soldiers were pulled from outward-facing duties to support the transportation, prison and execution operations.

Here's another example of how these people can't be trusted to bring a project in on time, or under budget. From pate 287:

The cellars of the Lubyanka were really a sort of basement divided into a number of rooms off corridors. Later on, in ordinary routine, the condemned handed in their clothes in one of these rooms and changed into white underclothes only. They were taken to the death cell and shot in the back of the neck with a TT eight-shot automatic. A doctor then signed the death certificate, the last document to be put in their files, and the tarpaulin on the floor was taken away to be cleaned by a woman specially employed for that purpose. (Execution with a small-bore pistol is not, as might seem, very humane. Of the 9,432 corpses exhumed at Vinnitsa, 6,360 had needed a second shot; 78, a third shot; and 2, a fourth shot, while many others had been struck over the head with a blunt object to finish them off. Again, we are told in a recent Soviet article that in the mass graves at Kuropaty the sand thrown above a new batch of those executed could still be seen moving some time later.)

That is a 68.3% cost over-run.

We expect similar overages with Obama's heath care 'reform'. We further expect a book to report the results of his 'reform', in the same vein as Conquest's, in some future date.

Amazon Link

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  Thursday, September 10, 2009
Thursday Night Cigar
It was almost one of those days where we could never fit in a cigar. After a rushed, but delicious dinner by Catherine The Great, we ventured out back to celebrate with a Santa Damiana.

Our reason to celebrate? The double-post today (below) from both Karl and our new Guest Blogger, Mikhail. Two bourgeois capitalists with keen eyes for newsworthy events tirelessly working together to mock and defeat liberals progressives commie bass-turds.

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  Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Tuesday Evening Cigar
We smoked a Camacho SLR Maduro to celebrate our latest video of today's townhall meeting. Click here to see it!



One of our signs:

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  Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday Evening Cigar
We received some Torano cigars in a free sampler pack recently, and lit one tonight. A Carlos Torano Exodus 1959. Tasty, very smooth with an even burn. Different than what we're used to, so the jury is still out, but definately not a reject.



Two American Thinker articles deserve mention tonight. It appears more are making the outrageous comparison between Obama and previous Communists. Pretty soon the political discourse will be completely derailed as all conservatives will see Ushanka-wearing commies around every corner! It reminds us of the time an Obama supporter tried to buy one of our Commie Obama hats because she thought it was "cute". But we digress...

James Lewis' 9-page article, Obama as Leninoid, starts with a bang, but does lack momentum. The point is: those with knowledge of history of evil are making comparisons that seem to stick.

As to "scapegoating the rich and all enemies of the regime":


Leninoids always find victim groups, or create them, or import them, and then claim to speak on their behalf. That is happening today in the United States with illegal immigrants. These are not just accidents but deliberate policy.


and to the tactic "Demonizing the Opposition":

It's weird for an American president to consider most of the American population "the enemy."


Andie Brownlow's article is From Russia With No Love, discusses the 'ol KGB theory that the US can be destroyed from within in four steps: Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, and then forced Normalization. A good refresher about the tactics of that For-The-Greater-Good crowd.

Can America return to conservative values and save itself from the jaws of Marxism, or will it spiral down a path of self destruction guided by none other than the former Soviet Union?

It can be argued that the destabilization of our culture and economy, magnified by policies of the Obama Administration, conform to KGB plans for the collapse of the United States. The only question remains: Is Obama masterminding the current events for economic collapse, or is he just the hapless puppet holding the hot potato?


Andie blogs at AndieBrownlow.com.

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  Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday Afternoon Cigar
A short Santa Damiana and a cool breeze...

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  Friday, August 21, 2009
Friday Afternoon Cigar
A Rocky Patel Sun Grown smoldered as we caught up with our extremist podcasts...



UPDATE 6PM: Our first podcast, Rush's show today, we learned about the VA 'Death Book'.

Rush tells us that the dastardly Bush canceled the VA booklet, Your Life, Your Choices, aka the Death Book. Obama, the first US president that suggested veterans pay for their own health care, brought the book back to life - so to speak. We downloaded the book - from here - and here are screenshots from the cover, page 21, and page 23:





Link to Wednesday's WSJ article by Jim Towey, The Death Book for Veterans:

If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.
---
When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran's health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.


More like "Your Life, A Death Panel's Choices". But we'll hear our President tell us that this is only for those veterans...

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  Friday, August 14, 2009
Friday Afternoon Cigar
We smoked a Santa Damiana as we prepared our Weekend Reading post this afternoon.

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  Monday, August 03, 2009
Monday Evening Cigar...
...and road-trip report.

We did some community organizing in Obama's city. Since he organized the s**t out of the South side, we decided to stay up on the North side where government housing still has roofs, running water, etc.



We then moved on to visit Ushanka.us' Mikhail in an undisclosed location deep in the mid-west. Then a long drive home to tonight's Camacho SLR Maduro.



We're still reading Conquest's The Great Terror, about Stalin's Purges. He had to eliminate his main opposition in what only Stalin would likely call 'baby steps' before he could move the purges into full speed. That transition occurred at the February-March Plenum (leadership meeting) where he shared the following thoughts (page 177):

...as socialism gets stronger, the class struggle gets sharper.
He pointed out that the fact of there only being a few counter-revolutionaries should not comfort the Party: "Thousands of people are required to build a big railway bridge, but a few people are enough to blow it up."


Unchallenged, Stalin's philosophy is thus accepted. And the real killing begins.

Can you imagine that ever happening here?

Amazon Link

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  Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday Evening Cigar
We're still making our way through Robert Conquest's The Great Terror, a book about Stalin's purges. We smoked one of our last Rocky Patel Cuban Blends.



Stalin arranged the assassination of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, and used the crisis environment afterward to justify and kickstart his Great Terror. Conveniently, he had his Charter of Terror written on the same day as the murder, and before his 400 mile trip from Moscow to Leningrad to mourn Kirov's death. Page 41, regarding his Charter of Terror:

...Stalin's new technique, by which the state of emergency was used to justify personal, and technically unconstitutional, action.


We sure are lucky this tactic of crisis-as-a-means isn't in use today to go after say... capitalists, doctors or bitter clingers. Eh?

Amazon Link

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  Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday Evening Cigar
We smoked our first Camacho Maduro SLR at the Republican Convention last summer in St. Paul. Another burned tonight.

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  Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
Where is the global warming?! It was actually chilly in Northern Kentucky this afternoon as we smoked another Santa Damiana.

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  Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday Afternoon Cigar
We continued reading Robert Conquest's The Great Terror through a cloud of Rocky Patel Cuban Blend smoke.



Amazon Link

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  Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
Another Santa Damiana burns as we open the first pages to our latest book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest. A little story about the million or so murdered in Stalin's 1937-1938 purges.



Amazon Link

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  Sunday, July 05, 2009
Sunday Evening Cigar
A CAO Brazilia burned as we started our latest book, Alexander Solzhenistyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.



Our last quote from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 272:

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.


1984 Amazon Link

Day in Life Amazon Link

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  Friday, July 03, 2009
Friday Evening Cigar
We started with a Rocky Patel Cuban Blend maduro...



It wasn't enough, so we continued with a Rocky Patel Edge.



From page 208 of Nineteen Eighty-Four:

Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle of the century ... had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment.


Fiction? Or Non-Fiction?

Amazon Link

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  Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday Evening Cigar
85 degrees, clear, breezy. Perfect. We celebrated the rare mild weather with another Santa Damiana.



We're half way through George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book soon to be confiscated by Obama's Thought Police! Just $10.37 at Amazon - Link

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  Friday, June 19, 2009
Monday Afternoon Cigar
Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Busy at work. Here is our pic from Monday's Santa Damiana.

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  Sunday, June 07, 2009
Sunday Afternoon Cigar
Santa Damiana.

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  Saturday, May 30, 2009
Saturday Afternoon Cigar
Santa Damiana - #2 in as many days!

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