The Food and Drug Administration has finalized its plan to bring electronic cigarettes under its authority. Among other changes—such as a ban on sales to minors, a step that some states haven’t yet taken on their own—this means that nearly every e-cigarette product will need to go through the FDA approval process. Each flavor and device will require a separate application, and each application will cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to complete.

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”—C.S. Lewis

Fool me once, shame on you.

A new Pentagon report on the US attack on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan is shedding light on the complete lack of a strategy in Afghanistan even as the US begins ramping up its military presence and activities there.

Back on February 15, just as the USD was about to plunge unleashing a global risk-on rally as a result of "Yuan stability", Goldman triumphantly announcecd its latest trading recommendation: short gold (at $1,205) with a target of $1000 and a 7% stop loss.