Plastic In the Afterlife

The true price of smoking

New Hampshire resident Josh Muszynski bought a pack of cigarettes with his debit card at a gas station and went on his merry way.  When he checked his balance later on he noticed a slight oddity--- a $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars) charge for said cigarettes.  To add insult to injury, he was also charged a $15 overdraft fee by Bank of America. 

There's yet another reason to quit smoking.

Ding Dong the witch is dead?

Sarah Palin's sudden resignation on Friday as Governor of Alaska sent shockwaves through an already fractured Republican party, still reeling from their crushing defeat in the 2008 election.  While Palin made it clear that she would still try to serve the public as a private citizen, many see her move as an attempt to ready herself for the 2012 election.  It has long been a common practice for those in public office to decline a bid for re-election in order to gear up for a run at the White House.  Former Massachusettes Governor Mit Romney did not run for re-election in order to enter the race for the Presidency in 2008.  Likewise, present Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty says he won't seek re-election, which would leave him time to gear up for the 2012 Presidential bid.  The big difference with the two former cases is that Romney finished out his term and Pawlenty plans to finish out his.  Andrew Halcro, a political rival who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to Palin said of her move:  "If she is thinking that leaving her term 16 months early is going to help her prepare to maybe go on to bigger and better things on the political stage, I think she's sadly mistaken. You just can't quit."   Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, concurred: "I think it eliminates her from serious consideration for the presidency in 2012."  Oh, DARN!!!

In reality, Palin can rake in a whole lot more dough in the private sector than the $125,000 she's been pulling in as Governor of Alaska.  For instance, Palin recently inked a deal with publisher HarperCollins to write her memoirs for an undisclosed amount.  Tentative titles include:  Golly, I Really Am A Crazy Bitch, or Of Bullets and Beauty Queens, or I Ran For Vice President And Other Neat-O Stuff, or 20 Other Wacked-Out Names I Considered Giving My Kids.  The book will be pamphlet-sized, will be large-print, and will be filled with colorful pictures and illustations for the enjoyment of little kids and for ultra-conservative-types who were so suspicious of the liberal public educational system that they never learned how to read.

Palin, who spent exorbitant amounts of campaign dollars on fashionable clothing for herself and her kids during the 2008 Presidential election, will also be starting up her own line of professional-looking clothing targeting post-menopausal businesswomen who:  "Want to get a leg up in their profession, without having to put their 'legs up'."  Her new Palin Professional Wear line will be sold exclusively at K-Mart, and will be supplanting the Jacqueline Smith line of clothing, which was K-Mart's previous nod towards the "mature" woman shopper.