Search This Blog

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Why does Google News...

"Signal Proof" headwear - Please wear before reading...
Keep showing me TIME magazine links?

TIME's been "going out of business" for a long time.

Yet surprisingly "Google News" recently (let's say the last few months) has begun showing an inordinate number of "Time" hits.

When I was young and stupid you could read TIME magazine and believe what it said.  It was in print right?  Must be true...

These magazines (TIME, Newsweek, etc.) all hit home runs in the days of Nixon and Watergate.  But that was nearly fifty (50) years ago.

The idea Google pedaled was that "Google News" would show you the latest news everyone else was looking at.

I get google is full of millennials who are really just lefties (go Bernie) in disguise all suddenly reading TIME?

TIME?

I am supposed to believe that somehow everyone is suddenly reading it...

Is it full of Bernie articles?

So much so that its a top hit on "Google News...???"

Probably some "secret" link between Time Warner and Google - like money and a plan to push the TIME/Google agenda.

Where's my tin foil hat...

Oops - "tin foil hats" are no longer made of tin foil (actually aluminum foil).  No doubt even the words "tin foil hat" make some millennial some where tear up and cry...

Today they are called http://shieldheadwear.com/.

And they are "signal proof" - is that alien signals?

See, and they are even cool to wear in public.  They make you young and attractive.

And no, Virginia, these hats aren't really "faraday cages"...  (A faraday cage keeps out all electrical signals.)

These are "faraday cages" (from this link):



Not as attractive as "shield wear" but what the hell, they seem to work!

"No," says the Apple car...

Posted Apple: The Bigger They are the Harder They Fall... in 2015.

Here is the WSJ take: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-earnings-fall-on-iphone-slump-1469565018

All you need to know (from the WSJ link):


So I want to be an iPhone developer any more?  There is a large market of existing iPhones so I guess for $99 USD its probably a no brainer for one more year...

Yet with web apps do I really need to care?

They dumped the beloved 17" MacBook Pro... - the 15" is okay but the screen is still too small.

Tim Cook's been riding the Steve Jobs wave for a long, long time and its finally hit the shore.

To be fair part of this is the shitty Obamanomic economy.

But little Suzy and Johnny, at least in the largest part of the world, probably have all the iPhone's they need at this point.  They don't need Apple music or Apple navigation.

For me personally, I am still trying to get rid of the Apple music that comes out of my phone when I plug it into my car.  Seems as if you can't delete all the songs.  One or two stick around and play in the car by default...

Personally Spotify is fine - I don't like the Apple autocracy.

An Apple car makes little sense.  How does one fit into the Apple autocracy model?

Will the Apple car work like my iPhone?

"No," says the Apple car, "I am taking you to the restaurant Tim Cook thinks you should go to..."

"No," says the Apple car, "you lost your keys and you must use iforgot.apple.com to get access back - but there's no internet or cell service here so I guess your injury bleed-out will just have to continue..."

"No," says the Apple car, "I won't show you your speed, instead I'll demand you dismiss the 'Update Apple Car Software to 2.5.3' dialog..."

"No," says the Apple car, "I will insist you use the Apple Navigator 1.0 software instead of google or Waze to find your destination..."

"No," says the Apple car, "There's no gaping vaping in here.  Smoking is evil and you shouldn't be doing it and still today I, Apple Car, will not allow the word "vaping" into the spell checker no matter how many times you use it so when you text mom she'll see: 'Mom, how's your gaping coming along'..."

"No," says the Apple car, "I don't have a lighter..."

"No," says the Apple car, "I'm taking you, your mom, little Suzy and Johnny to the gape vape shop... I insist... I can't even say the word 'vape' because its evil..."



Saturday, July 30, 2016

FDA Regulations: Touching Vapes AFTER the Sale...

Here's a technical question: In your shop you sell a customer a setup with, say, a separate coil, tank, etc.

Under the FDA regulations even though they are a beginner you cannot "manufacture" for them by helping them to set it up (touching or installing batteries, messing with coils, etc.).

However, once purchased aren't the items no longer yours and now owned by your customer?

So the customer gives the items back to you, the shop owner, after purchase...

Can you help someone in your shop to set up their equipment in this way?

It's no longer yours, after all, you the shop owner no longer posses the item.

In our case we have videos to prove this as well as detailed times and dates in the cash register and on the receipts.

I speculate that once the change is returned to the customer you, the shop owner, is no longer covered by FDA regulations because the items in question are no longer in your inventory and you are no longer selling them.

If this were not true then hanging out behind the convenience store for a smoke could cause problems: the clerk gives you a light and suddenly the convenience store owner becomes a "manufacturer."

If you don't own an ENDS system, is there a problem with you touching it?  Changing it?

How is this different than the convenience store clerk taking the wrapper off your smokes and throwing it away: the clerk and convenience store owner would, under this logic, also be "tobacco manufacturers."

Perhaps the new owner could "hire" you personally to fix their vape?

Give you personally a fiver to set things up.

On the other hand the FDA could claim the "vape shop" is somehow magic and these thoughts and ideas don't apply.

Again, though, it would also apply to throwing away the wrapper from a pack of cigarettes.

What if I go to your shop?  Can I help someone in your store?

What if I have contract employees, i.e., people in my store who are employed say, by a temp agency, and not me, the shop owner?  Could they help a customer?

DNC Emails: Russian "Hackers" or Simply "Foreign Journalists"?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday, July 25, 2016

FDA Espouses False Labeling...

[The] FDA says this: "Regarding your fourth question, if the product does not contain nicotine and you have submitted a statement to FDA certifying so, according to the regulatory requirement, then you would not have to include the mandatory warning regarding the contents of nicotine in the product."  (from http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.il/2016/07/fdas-convoluted-response-to-simple.html)...

(This post is interesting in and of itself...)

But on to the business at hand...

SO if I have e-liquid that contains no nicotine AND I register it with them then I don't have to label it as a nicotine product if I register it?

Now if you look at page #8 of the deeming regs (https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-10685.pdf) it clearly says that e-liquids ARE tobacco products through the "components and parts" logical nonsense espoused on that page.

This is the nonsense: "Components and parts of the newly deemed tobacco products, but not their related accessories, are included in the scope of this final rule. The following is a nonexhaustive list of examples of components and parts used with electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) (including ecigarettes): e-liquids; atomizers; batteries (with or without variable voltage); cartomizers (atomizer plus replaceable fluid-filled cartridge); digital display/lights to adjust settings; clearomisers, tank systems, flavors, vials that contain e-liquids, and programmable software."

And here we find "e-liquid..." - really anything else that does not contain nicotine: mods, ENDS, software, whatever.

So it would seem that, according to this FDA correspondence, if your e-liquid (or software) does "not contain nicotine" AND you have "submitted a statement to the FDA certifying so" you would not have to include a mandatory warning label that it contained nicotine.

Hmmm.....  this is new - recall my blog posts about the FDA making software a "tobacco product."

Now it would seem that, if we register it with the FDA, at least it won't be labeled as such...

So if its not LABELED as nicotine (because it isn't) and it does not contain nicotine (because it doesn't) it's apparently still regulated as if it were nicotine because...?

Could it be an "accessory:"

(page #8 and #9 of the deeming regs): "FDA is defining "accessory" to mean "any product that is intended or reasonably expected to be used with or for the human consumption of a tobacco product; does not contain tobacco and is not made or derived from tobacco; and meets either of the following: (1) Is not intended or reasonably expected to affect or alter the performance, composition, constituents, or characteristics of a tobacco product or (2) is intended or reasonably expected to affect or maintain the performance, composition, constituents, or characteristics of a tobacco product but (i) solely controls moisture and/or temperature of a stored product or (ii) solely provides an external heat source to initiate but not maintain combustion of a tobacco product."

 No, probably not...

 So I guess e-liquid that contains no nicotine and is properly registered with the FDA as having none is an unlabeled tobacco product.

 But we have this: "... this rule authorizes FDA to take enforcement action against manufacturers who sell ... or false or misleading claims on their labeling or advertising, ..."

 The result of all this is that we have an unlabeled tobacco product which is a clear violation of  the FDA regs - this being exactly what the FDA tells us to do.

So to be unclear it would seem that if we certify something with no tobacco content has no tobacco content with the FDA and our product contains no nicotine then what, its a regulated tobacco product?

At least from my point of view there is certainly nothing lost in registering anything without nicotine with the FDA...!?!??

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Vaping Tax: Harbinger of Holocaust

(Note: I know many of those reading this blog were educated in the United States after the teaching of history was corrupted (perhaps since about forty years ago); thus much of what you are about to read will be both politically incorrect and, quite honestly, frightening.

If you are wearing your tin foil hat (or if you have newly joined the tin foil hat ranks after last week's budget vote) you'd better tie it on securely.

Sources are provided for your convenience.)

Let's start out with a quotation from the Huffington Post (see if you can guess if these quotes are about the 40% Pennsylvania "vaping tax..."):

"... the story of going from freedom and entrepreneurship to living under the oppression ... , lost her business almost overnight. But, how did the [they] target entrepreneurs for their theft? Why did they block entrepreneurship and free ideas? And, perhaps most importantly, how did their efforts to tax and seize ... wealth so quickly ..."

"... would be required to declare their wealth. If they hid any assets, they would receive an automatic ten-year prison term and have their wealth confiscated."

"... used this data to institute a 20% tax on ... wealth, raising millions for the government."

Sure sounds to me like the same thing.

Tax those bastard vapers.  Ignore the Royal College of Physician's report.  Fill those government coffers...

But it's not.

No, this is none other than the story of the rise of Nazi power in post World War I Germany.

According to the linked article perhaps one third of Germany's war effort was financed through the confiscation of Jewish wealth.  Accomplished just as Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Wolfe (it was he who proposed it last year) has done with Article XII-A of House Bill 1198 (see page #50).

Seizing wealth for "government purposes."

Ignoring the welfare of those whose assets are being seized.

Oh no! You cry... That's not what our good Democratic governor and Republican representatives are doing!

I believe it did not pass last year because the FDA had yet to weigh in on whether or not vaping was a "tobacco product."

I was sadden to see many I know revile at the action of our state's government.

I saw betrayal, treachery, and worse.  Representative were called vile names on open Facebook posts by those who felt the betrayal the strongest.

Yet for those who read this blog there should be little surprise what a government is capable of doing for "your own best interest."

For me, to express my feelings, I created the shirt linked at the top of this post.

Its a picture of the Nuremberg trails.  According to Wikipedia (linked previously): "... the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in The Holocaust and other war crimes. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany."

What is different here?

Not much really...  In jolly old England, for example, the medical establishment is not so far gone toward evil that they cannot see true benefit of vaping.

Here the state uses its power to tax as the first step in eliminating that which is unacceptable to it.

In your case vaping.

Imagine, what you do to help your own health - despite decades of FDA failure - is taxed.  Taxed to finance, er, well, something other than your health.

How does that make you feel?

The slight of hand in the government of Pennsylvania is our officials are hoping that all that "core curriculum" which expunges the deeds of the Nazi's and Japanese in World War II is forgotten.

If you don't know this has happened before why you won't realize the extent of the problem.


Instead of marching along with the police we vapers now huddle outside  the back of most buildings or restaurants - if we are even allowed to vape on the property, e.g., UPMC is a good example because you can be fired if you test positive for "nicotine."

Sadly these sorts of activities are concentrated in the "blue" portions of the state with the pending Allegheny county "anti-vaping" laws.

(And yes, Virginia, there are consequences to political choices - and they have now arrived at your door.  Its good to see many in the vaping illuminati have now discovered that their political favorites are really not much concerned with their constituents well being...)

I have created the shirt linked at the top of the article from this image:



Feel free to download it and spread it around with this article.  (If the blog makes this image too low-res message me for the high-res...)

Better yet, make a shirt for your representative who voted for this tax (they are all listed in the image).  Send it to them in a gift wrapped box along with a copy of the Royal College of Physician's report.  (Don't forget to include a "Thank You!" card.)

The point of this post is that, after the war, those fighting Nazi Germany conducted the Nuremberg Trials.  These trials convicted many of the Nazi's who perpetrated the heinous against the Jews.

Like smokers the Jews had little choice but to ultimately be rounded up for what they were and shipped off to re-education concentration camps.   They complied because, like a frog in a pot of cold water on a lit stove, they didn't see the threat until it was too late.

Which is sort of the point.  These words aren't a threat to anyone.  But actions have consequences and hopefully we will all be around for that part: whether conducted in the voting booth or a trial.  Imagine betrayal having to explain to elder mom that the vape that makes her blood oxygen "normal" has to go away because it now costs too much...

Smokers are docile and trained by decades of anti-smoking rhetoric to believe they smoke because they are bad people: just like the Jews.

So you also need to ask yourself: "If I proudly vote for the libertarian guy" what is really going to happen to my vape shop and the vape shops of those who are still around after the election?  (Hint: Senator Richard Burr is one of the very few who I have seen personally stand up for vaping...  Please make a wise choice.)