Very interesting piece on CigarCyclopedia.com this week. Perelman pulls some interesting tidbits and observations from An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars from Hong Kong-based author Min Ron Nee.

Nee clumps the life of Havana cigars into 4 phases, the first of which is the sick period. This time is signified by the an awful ammonia aroma when smelling cigars newly manufactured cigars. One should be patient and put these away for a period of time (upwards of 8-15 years!) while they mature into a subsequent period. Proper ventilation can also be used to prevent this type of thing from happening to your Havana cigars.

This is born out by Rafael Gonzalez cigars that have carried the following message on the box:

"In order that the Connoisseur may fully appreciate the perfect fragrance they should be smoked either within one month of the date of shipment from Havana or should be carefully matured for about one year.”

This only seems to pertain to Havanas but it is a strong argument for grabbing a box of your favorite cigars from your preferred cigar shop and putting it aside (using proper humidification techniques of course) for savoring in the future.

The Stogie Guys blog has an interesting post in their Friday Sampler..

1) Only eight weeks after Colorado’s statewide smoking ban was thrust upon citizens by the state government, Denver’s ABC 7 reports many small bars have been devastated – losing up to 80 percent of their income. This crushing financial nightmare has triggered massive layoffs and sparked numerous brawls among patrons who are forced to go outside to smoke. Thankfully, a group of local bar owners – calling themselves the Coalition for Equal Rights – filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the ban. Good for them. There’s nothing constitutional about forcing your “high horse” agenda on private businesses and individuals.

While Prop 86 isn't about banning smoking in restaurants and bars (too late for that in CA), it does illustrate the ripple effect that these types of legislation has on the small business community. Prop 86's effect on small, mom and pop cigar and pipe shops will be devastating, perhaps even more so than that massive Prop 10 fiasco. Not only does this idiotic proposition not constrain itself to cigarettes, it doesn't provide a cap on the tax increase on other tobacco products.

It also has provisions for a floor tax on existing inventory that could amount to having to fork over 80% of the value of existing inventory to the state at the beginning of the year. Most small stores will not be able to afford this and will end up folding their tents instead. This is one of the reason why the small business groups through out the state are against this proposition.

The increase in cost for tobacco products will also decrease sales to small businesses as smokers are forced to turn to online sales from out of state vendors as well as to black markets. The increase in illegal sales (who's profits will benefit gangs and organized crime most likely) is why this bill is being opposed by Sheriff and Police organizations through out the state.

Vote NO on Prop 86!

Under California's Prop 86, approximately 85 percent of the new tax would pay for programs unrelated to smoking, but 100 percent of the tax is paid by the small percentage of people including cigar and pipe smokers. Why should one segment of society pay 100 percent of the taxes when the money goes to things like obesity control and health insurance premiums? If funding these programs is as important as proponents claim, all Californians should share the burden. It is unfair to single out one group of people to pay for programs that affect the entire population.
Voters have resisted recent attempts to tax one segment of the population to pay for unrelated state programs. In June 2006, voters rejected Prop. 82 to tax high-income earners to pay for universal preschool. In November 2005, voters rejected Prop. 67 to tax phone services to pay for emergency room services - a previous attempt by hospitals to generate money to benefit themselves.

-- from the CalLiberty website

This month's Cigar Insider, a subscription PDF newsletter from the folks at Cigar Aficionado, reports on a story that I'd heard mention of already but really didn't take to heart until reading Gregory Mottola's article.

Appears that the anti-smoking Nazis across the pond, this time in the form of the UK watchdog group Office of Communications (not a government office BTW), have requested that Turner Broadcasting edit cartoons shown on the British children's TV channel called Boomerang.

It appears that these meddlers have taken offense to 2 (out of 2,000) episodes of "Tom and Jerry" that showed them smoking. The image shown at right is from "Tennis Chumps". The word is that the entire scenes will be cut or altered frame-by-frame to remove the "offending" material while no move has been made to remove the scenes of extreme violence that have a greater impact on child viewers...

The part that really got my dander up though was his questioning the effect on artwork if we allow revisionists to make art more socially acceptable based on the whims of today's "do-gooders". Imagine where we would be if someone started "slimming down" Ruben's figure studies 'cause looking at these larger beauties glamorized obesity? Or since plastic surgery is acceptable, image these self-appointed protectors deciding that we should give The Madonna implants or that David's sculpture should be "cut"...

Spare me... But of course, let me know what you think using the comments below!

Hopefully none of you will really notice (except the comment spammers and the hosts of each blog) but  I've upgraded the SubText software used for these blogs to the latest version.

In an effort to better help secure this site from comment spammers, each of the blog hosts now has the option turn on comment moderation. For those that choose to use it, hopefully this will help prevent these slimeballs from further trying pollute this site with their ads for irrelevant material.

The news software is supposed to also provide better support for Windows Live Write (beta) software. We shall see with this post...

As always, if you are interested in having a blog here, drop me a note on the contact us page and we'll see about getting you set up!

MJG