My mother-in-law got me this for Christmas last year - EASILY my best Christmas gift of the year! It comes out once a week at least, and I wish I had one at work too. Nothing gets through those accursed plastic bubble packs better or with less pain. I use it even when the package says it's "easy-open" and has directions for alternative opening methods. Hey... maybe I should actually order another!

I don't think that two would double your pleasure -- but I guess you could open packages in stereo? Meanwhile, in response to the post on gas prices and online shopping, reader Dale Britton emails:

Your site got me turned on to Amazon Prime a couple of years ago, and I’ve never looked back. I’m at the point now where I don’t buy things online that aren't from Amazon - or don't have free shipping for other reasons - because I figure if Amazon can do it for me, so can everyone else. And they will. Matter of time.

Hell, I very rarely buy in a brick & mortar store any more. When you figure taxes (7.75% in San Diego), gas ($4.50/gallon in San Diego), the intrinsically limited selection you can have in a physical store, the lack of knowledgeable salespeople, and the inability to instantly compare prices, it's a no-brainer.

Plus the "experience" of actually shopping just blows these days. Case in point - just got back from a quick trip to Barnes and Noble with my friend. Loud kids, inadequate selection of what I was looking for, and obnoxious music blaring in the entry area of the store. After my friend mentioned how annoying their "thank you for shoppping" music was, I told her this is why people prefer online shopping, and why B&N is going in the tank.

P.S. Only reason I went? The item I ordered from Amazon is back ordered due to supplier issues, so I thought I'd see if B&N had it in stock. They didn't.

Online shopping can save you a lot of trouble. On the other hand, I do like visiting real stores from time to time. I wish my local grocery stores would let me shop for groceries online and then get home delivery, though. You can buy nonperishables via Amazon, and sometimes I do, but you can't really cut out your grocery store visits.

UPDATE: Reader Russ Emerson emails:

I've been doing my grocery shopping online for a couple of years, via Lowe's Foods (http://www.lowesfoodstogo.com) - it's a terrific convenience, particularly as I've become disabled and have tremendous difficulty strolling the aisles of the grocery store.

You can shop the website and choose next-day delivery (not cheap - $20, I think) or you can order for same-day pickup, with a three hour lead time, for a fee of about $5. If, like me, one has a hard time doing the shopping due to physical or time constraints, the service is well worth the expense. They even bring the goods out to your car for you.

I don't know of other chains offering the same service, but I can't see how they can avoid doing so in the future, if they want to remain competitive.

I agree.

Looking back at my family’s expenses over the past few years, I see big increases in our health care costs and in how much we pay for food. The rise in what we spend on gas is not nearly as extreme as our increases in categories like electricity and telephone. So why does the amount we spend on gasoline feel so enormous? I think it is because of the way we buy gas.

For the several minutes that I stand at the pump, all I do is stare at the growing total on the meter — there is nothing else to do. And I have time to remember how much it cost a year ago, two years ago and even six years ago.

Yet I have no such memory about the prices of items in any other category. I have no idea how much milk was six years ago, how much bread was three years ago or how much yogurt was a week ago. But I suspect that if I stood next to the yogurt case in the supermarket for five minutes every week with nothing to do but stare at the price, I would also know how much it has gone up — and I might become outraged when yogurt passed the $2 mark.

If only people were this aware of taxes. . . .

New York tax filers reporting more than $375,000 a year in earned income may end up paying nearly 60% of their wages in taxes to the government under a Barack Obama presidency, economists who have analyzed his plan said. The Democratic presidential candidate is proposing not only raising the federal income tax, but also adding a Social Security tax for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. For New Yorkers, that could mean that if the current Social Security rate is applied, the marginal tax rate, or rate on every extra dollar earned, could rise to 58%.

Well, good for him. More on Obama's tax plans and blue-staters at TaxProf.

Plus this:

"We are the people we've been waiting for"? Actually, I'm pretty sure we're the people who put all our money in Yahoo and then bought a house to flip and now are hocking everything we have. We're the people China has been waiting for.

Read the whole thing.

Now Lenz is out to teach the music industry a lesson.

What Lenz and her attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation want are for media companies to stop sending take-down notices in a "willy nilly" fashion and to make sure that they have a legitimate claim of copyright violation before acting. They failed do this with Lenz's video, according to Corynne McSherry, an EFF attorney.

"This video is so clearly noninfringing," McSherry said. "What we've seen is that Universal Music had the view that they could take down Prince content as a matter of principle. But what they were obligated to do was form a good-faith belief that the video was infringing...They may not have formed a good-faith belief at all."

I've noted the vulnerability of these takedown procedures in the past. Glad to see that someone is going after them. Read this, too.

I do a lot of my shopping online now -- especially what with the free shipping -- and it not only saves me hassle, and money on gas, it also saves me money because it reduces impulse purchases. Go to Target to buy something and I inevitably seem to buy a bunch of other stuff. Go to Amazon and order it and I usually don't order anything else. Judging by the email I got on this earlier post, I'm far from alone. And here are some related thoughts on why telecommuting and online shopping are good for the environment.

Tar. Feathers.

That's a good idea. Related item here.

UPDATE: Obama arrives in Afghanistan.

My question: Is it -- unlike the original iPhone -- a workable blogging tool? Can you cut-and-paste?

Thank God I'm not running for President.

The purpose of modern government is to take money from the folks who save and pay their bills and live within their means, and use that to hire government workers; and to keep their power by using the money to buy votes from those who do not save and pay their bills and live within their means. And of course the money comes from those who work and save and pay their bills and live within their means -- who else will have any money for the government to take?

Or am I unduly cynical? But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Reader J.P. Hrutka emails: "You may be more correct than you think. Gilderoy used memory erasing spells and liberals use the memory-hole/current-truth incantation. What is the difference, eh?" This would explain the website-airbrushing . . . .

UPDATE: More on Heller's gun permit, here.

On the other hand, Michelle Malkin has a "clarification" from the APS that seems to undercut the above.

Old media line -- "Of course we're losing -- that's why we have to talk about it all the time." New line: "Of course we're winning -- so it isn't news!"

UPDATE: People sending me email mocking SayUncle's knowldge of firearms are missing his sarcasm here. Trust me, this guy knows his assault weapons . . . .

The Wall Street Journal reports that Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, met with a group of 25 prominent supporters and fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Clinton at a private home in Westchester County, NY. The group included several so-called "Hillraisers," each of whom have raised in excess of $100,000 for Clinton's failed primary campaign. The meeting was repeatedly sought by the Hillary supporters and is at least the second such meeting between backers of Clinton and the McCain campaign.

An organizer of the meeting, Amy Siskind, said that the pro-Hillary groups represented pledged to help deliver, "hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of votes," to McCain if the groups find areas of agreement between themselves and his campaign.

Apparently the healing isn't complete.

UPDATE: John Tierney has three questions for Al Gore.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More charges of Gore hypocrisy: "Gore didn't ride his bike or take public transporation to the event. He didn't even take his Prius! Instead, he brought a fleet of two Lincoln Town Cars and a Chevy Suburban SUV! Even worse, the driver of the Town Car that eventually whisked away Gore's wife and daughter left the engine idling and the AC cranking for 20 minutes before they finally left!" Video at the link. (Via MM).