Help with smoking

I need some help with my smoking. I never smoked tobacco when I was younger. I'm 58 now and I think it would be appropriate to my dignity to start smoking a pipe. My father smoked one and I have often remarked on the attractive fragrance of pipe tobacco. I bought myself a pipe and some tobacco and tried it out. Twice so far. The second time I felt a bit sick and disoriented. I still want to smoke, though and don't want to fail at this endeavor. I don't seem to be able to get myself to keep at it long enough to make it a habit. Sort of like playing my violin. I wonder if there's some easy way to get started. I aspire to the Sherlock Holmesian state of heightened mental functioning, which he attributed in part to smoking shag tobacco. Maybe I need a deerstalker cap. Hey, and he played the violin, too!

What he said

From the Ayn Rand Institute website (hat tip to Diana Hsieh):

It is often said that we must win the "hearts and minds" of supporters of totalitarian Islam. Indeed we must: their hearts must be made to despair at the futility of their cause, and their minds must be convinced that any threat to our lives and freedom will bring them swift and certain doom.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Discovery

I am impressed by this Adamant guy. I just can't see why he has so few commenters when idiots like Kos and Andrew Sullivan have hundreds. You don't think that's because most people are idiots, do you???

Here's a sample of Adamant:

Al Qaeda cadres and Islamist Kashmiri separatists can readily lose themselves among the flux of refugees in a region famed for discreet hospitality. It cannot have escaped Osama Bin Laden's attention that in the 19th century the Aga Khan spent tranquil years in Hunza while internecine war made him a hunted man elsewhere in the Islamic world.

Lots of stuff you won't see anywhere else.