Monthly Archives: April 2006

What's So Special About Gasoline?

That’s the title of an essay by Jane Galt (thanks to Lorie at PoliPundit for pointing it out).

Jane mentions, as one of her points, that there are “no coupons for cut price gas.” I’d have to disagree with her there. One of our local grocery chains (which is owned by Safeway) gives you a 3 cent discount (update: per gallon) every day at their gas stations if you use your Fresh Values card.

You can get 6 cent discounts too. For every $50 purchase, you get a 6 cent discount (update: per gallon). It’s noted as a fuel offer on the receipt.

Related posts : Durbin-Cavuto Transcript
Gas Prices on the Rise

Transcript: Sen. Durbin @ Neil Cavuto

Senator [tag]Dick Durbin[/tag] (D-IL) was on [tag]Neil Cavuto[/tag]’s [tag]Your World[/tag] yesterday afternoon.

Ian has the video here.

Lorie’s got a post up on it too…

Cavuto: Democrats taking more swipes at President Bush’s gas plan, capitalizing on ample public anger over rising prices at the pump. And now it’s getting personal.

{videoclip}
[tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag]: We are one accident or one terrorist attack away from oil at a hundred dollars a barrel, not just seventy-five. We have no leadership…
{end videoclip}

Cavuto: Democrats are calling for the rollback of five billion dollars in subsidies granted to oil companies. House Minority Leader [tag]Nancy Pelosi[/tag] also going after oil executives citing Quote [T]heir obscene record profits and immoral salaries.

Republicans now firing back accusing Democrats of being obstructionist by blocking drilling in [tag]ANWR[/tag]. The RNC also pointing out that [tag]Harry Reid[/tag] and Nancy Pelosi, the two Democrat leaders voted not once, but several times to hike the federal gas tax, and on and on we go.

Welcome everybody, glad to have you. I’m Neil Cavuto, this is Your World.

Are lawmakers more focused on political gain in all of this or on solving the nation’s gas problem? Let’s ask Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Senator Durbin, thanks for coming.

Durbin: Good to be with you.

Cavuto: What do you make of Hillary Clinton’s remark that we’re one event away from hundred dollar oil? Is that a scare tactic, or is there something to what she said?

Durbin: If you go to the business journals and ask them, is $75 the ceiling for the price of a barrel of oil? they say no, there’s no end in sight. There’s nothing to hold it from going even higher. I think what Senator Clinton said is a fact. If there is, God forbid, some emergency, or some tragedy, we could see the price of a barrel of oil go up dramatically.

Cavuto: Alright, so this zeal about trying to do something, you know you can cast blame, I guess, on both parties Senator, Democrats didn’t do much about this when Bill Clinton was in office. Both parties sort of lagged around on it and only respond when we get these spikes. Who’s to say now either party is going to get anything done?
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48 Hours – plus

I would have written about this at the time but Bitsy and Duncan had taken over my chair…

both.jpg

Still doing well. This is the third “wake-up” since the treatment and I still have not “reached” for the cigarettes and lighter.

I have tried several different methods to quit smoking before. One (many years ago) was a little machine that you would press a button every time you had a cigarette for a certain period of time, then it would start telling you when to have a cigarette. It was supposed to slowly wean you off cigarettes altogether. Didn’t work for anyone in my family.

I’ve tried the patch, gums, regular cold turkey (hey, I quit every single night! – until I woke up, of course).

This has worked.

Ace of Trump is skeptical of this treatment. He says he thinks it’s a placebo effect.

Eye Doc,

I can’t tell you if my endorphin levels have increased or not. I don’t have access to (or knowledge of) whatever I need to check the levels. But this is working. Cravings are minimal. Withdrawal symptoms are minimal to non-existent. I was smoking right up until the treatment in the afternoon on Monday.

Placebo or not, I’m one happy ex-smoker right now. And so are my family.

kimsch

Previous: 24 Hours Post Treatment
Smoke Free?

The Rules of the Blog

Don Surber came up with a shortlist of really good, common sense, rules for blogging. Check them out here.

24 Hours Post Treatment

I’m really doing okay. I’ve been thinking about cigarettes all day, but I haven’t felt a real need for one.

This is pretty amazing to me as this is technically cold turkey and there isn’t any medication involved at all. No extra nicotine, no patches, no gums, no anti-depressant medications.

I’m drinking a lot of water and my sinuses are draining so I’m going through a lot of tissues.

I feel like I could have a cigarette, but then I think about the fact that I paid to have this treatment and it would be completely wasted…

I think this will work, but, again, it’s only 24 hours.

To be continued….

Previous – Smoke Free?
Next – 48 Hours Plus

Smoke Free?

I hope so. I went today to have a cold laser treatment for stopping smoking. I haven’t had a cigarette since about 1:45 this afternoon, just before my 2:00 appointment. It is now 8:00 pm, so I’ve gone over 6 hours and I’m doing okay so far.

The treatment was cold laser accupuncture/pressure at various points in both my ears, 3 points on my head, both sides of my nose, several spots on my hands and on my knees.

The stimulations are supposed to jump start the organs so they will start to detoxify. I need to drink a lot of water, which will be good for me and should help the oral fixation part of stopping smoking…

I am still craving cigarettes, but not as often as yesterday (when I was actually following through on the desire to smoke) and the craving seems to be going away rather quickly when the craving is not met.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

24 Hours Post Treatment

48 Hours Plus

mm-5