I cant help but wonder who the Taliban was..Why do they LOOK like farmers? and the areas they seem to control are ALSO, marijauna, poppi fields... Then start to wonder if our ''War on Drugs''..DIDNT PISS OF THESE FARMERS, and try to take their power, AND DRUGS...and thats why we may have SOME, of this ''terror''.....
The holy war was declared because they felt oppressed by us... The Qua ran says thats the ONLY reason they can declare one.. Obama then says in his speech about the war, ''WERE NOT TRYING TO CONTROL YOUR COUNTRIES RESOURCES''..Like hell we're not, we control their oil, AND I THINK WE WANT THEIR DRUGS!!! Im not sure about ANY of the shit going on in the world today, THAT I'M SURE OF 
.. But If Obama says it, IT MUST BE TRUE, RIGHT? lol
But drug money, is money, and our govt is ruthless in their pursuit for it, maybe the war on drugs, is really a war for control..Hmmm, Im just saying though.. Its startn to look like that to me.. I mean we have so many drug dealers in jail, THE REAL CRIMINALS HAVE TO BE LET GO...Its pretty obvious this ''War on Drugs'' reeks of, SOMETHING BEING TERRIBLY WRONG WITH IT!!
Dont all jump on my ass at once, for questioning the status quo and norm, k?? LOL
It's about the only thing intelligent you have said on this board...particularly the war on drugs.
you're sounding like a liberal. lol.
I have to make a technical correction here. The Taliban...i.e. Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East. But that aside....
Yeh, basically Osama is a big drug dealer. However, what's not well known is that the Taliban, being the religious nuts they were, actually cut down on the poppy fields. It made the price of heroin on the streets shoot sky high, and it made the quality crappy, so in the late 90's heroin use went way down.
Now poppys are growing all over Afghanistan and heroin is cheap and plentiful. Hell, Hamid Karzai's own brother is one of the biggest poppy growers in the country.
There's an interesting documentary on Showtime right now (if you get the on demand stuff) called The American Drug War that goes into the history of this stuff. It's interesting to watch.
Personally, I think all drugs should be decriminalized if not legalized. It would solve a lot of crime. Let the gov't regulate it to control quality like they do with booze and tabacco, and put a nice tax on it to help balance the budget. You can then use the tax dollars collected to treat addicts for their health problems instead of putting them in jail and costing the tax payer even more money. Plus, I'd rather us keep violent criminals in jail than fill the jails with stoners and junkies.
You've made a post that I agree with completely.
Same thing goes for cocaine. Back in the seventies and eighties cocaine sold for well over two thousand an ounce, today after 30+ years of the "war on drugs" cocaine sells for half that much, and that is not even an "adjusted for inflation" number.
The "war on drugs" is an abject failure, every bit as much as combatting teen age pregnacy and STD's by a policy of preaching abstinence.
Oh yeah, I agree about filling our prisons with stoners while we let murderers and rapists loose early due to prison overcrowding.
How about this? Legalize weed, have farmers cultivate it, have our scientists come up with a way to make it even stronger. Place a 50% Federal Tax on it (it'll still be cheaper than when it was illegal), and use the billion and billions of tax dollars from it for FREE universal health care for everybody, from the provider of their choosing! 
Oh, and pardon every stoner still in prison.
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The one thing I agree with is the legalization of weed, and most drugs for that matter, but I don't want the govt creating and operating another industry. Trust me, they will fuck it up somehow. Plus I doubt you will find farmers willing to do a little pro bono work for the govt just to finance another govt program.
Now this should piss you off, but how about letting pharma and the biotech industry in concert with the Ag industry grow the weed? Adds to the overall GDP, creates new jobs and new taxes at the corporate and individual level. You can then buy stocks of Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Monsanto, and make a little extra cash so you can fund your own health insurance versus asking me and others to subsidize you. Also we drive those pesky little Mexicans out of business.
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It doesn't piss me off at all... in fact, it sounds like a great idea. Maybe we should start a "grass"roots organization to promote it!
Sounds like a win-win for everybody!
We agree..100%, maybe I am starting to sound like a lib..OR, just maybe, youre starting to sound like a conservative!!! LOL...
PS- I know Afghanistan is in Asia, but I lumped in with the middle east, because they're still ruled my Islam, AND SHOULDN'T HAVE...That is actuaLLY a mistake I make alot, even though I do know better..
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no biggie. everyone kind of lumps the Muslim world with the Middle East. I do too sometimes.
Funny thing about that...technically not even Iran is in the Middle East. It's Persia which it's own demographics. Iranians aren't even technically Arabs. They speak Farsie (I doubt I spelled that right) instead of Arabic.
anyway...just blathering.
Thanks penny.. Ive been looking into who they are, I also feel like I know who the are, and I have a pretty good grasp on what the Holy War is, and how it started, or why it started..I was just starting to wonder, WHO THEY WERE (like in a past tense)... ..
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at a third party, but then when the third party wasn't there we decided that as long as we were invading the country we would remove the Taliban from power and set up a corrupt puppet government that steals from the Afghan people.
Somehow, I think drug policy is way down on the list as to why the Taliban don't like us.
of reasons. Always have and always will. Nevertheless, it appears the top 5% income earners are going to have to pay for the Afghan troop surge. If you are in that tax bracket, then why not find a way to individually cover that tax increase by profiting on the surge. I'm not a fan of Jim Cramer, but he did identify a number of companies that will profit. So why not us. Personally I think airlifting in porn and cristal will tame the Taliban, but I think we need to focus on investing in companies airlifting in bomb busting all terrain vehicles and the like.
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My boy, I have one word for you... Halliburton.
I assume you don't like Halliburton because Cheney was their CEO before becoming VP, but they are good at what they do.
It's not that I don't like Halliburtion... in fact, I was serious when I suggested that they're a good investment.
However, what I DON'T like, and I can't blame Halliburton for it, is that they get no-bid contracts because of their connection to Cheney. Again, I don't blame Halliburtion... they're a capitalistic corporation, and they wouldn't be serving their investors to look a gift horse in the mouth. But the whole no-bid thing just reeks.
Halliburton was around long before Cheney came on the scene. Check out some of Bill Clinton's no-bid contracts that went to Halliburton.
Along other lines, the FBI and other government agencies, after a 2 year investigation, have, through an Atlanta grand jury, brought a 6 count indictment of fraud against the Kuwait based Public Warehousing Company, (PWC), known also as Agility. The lawsuit alleges that since 2003, PWC, The Sultan Center Food Products company, (TSC), and Tarek Abbul Aziz Sultan Al-Essa, Agility's CEO, have made false claims for payment under PWC's multi-billion dollar contracts with the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency to supply food for the U.S. military in Kuwait, Irag, and Jordan. The suit alleges that PWC received $80 million in kickbacks from suppliers, and $374 million in overcharges to the U.S. DLA on their $3.69 billion contract. An additional contract with the DoD for $932 million, to supply repair parts for comm gear is also under review.
Wonder if they learned the tricks of the trade from Halliburton? Nah, can't trust the Arabs. Just ask ARAMCO.
''Always have and always will'' (be a problem)
Alliant Techsystems whose subsidiary Accudyne makes land mines.
I'm willing to invest in Altria and McDonalds and other companies that make products that are bad for you, but even I draw the line at land mine manufacturers.
But I think your "bombard them with porn" idea is a great one. Cristal would be wasted on those guys. Boones Farm should do the job.
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issues in order to make a few bucks. Actually I was thinking of companies like Oshkosh that makes speciality all terrain vehicles, and Harris Corp that make the communications/radios that go in these type of vehicles. This is more of a guerrilla insurgency type war, hence the typical large defense firms are not necessarily a play here.
Altria is a great dividend play, and there are still billions of Chinese, Indians and even Europeans that love to smoke. Oh yeah, your BAC investment will be fine. You will get back to even, and possibly beyond by mid-2010. The TARP payback is positive.
A land mine does not care whether that's Osama Bin Laden or a six year old girl strolling by. IMHO the manufacture of land mines should be a war crime.
As for BAC, it keeps heading south and I'm seriously considering making a defensive purchase (sign) to lower my escape cost a bit.
Until it became necessary, none of the fast-food chains ever divulged just how much fat, sodium and calories were in their products. I think even intelligent people who realized that big macs weren't good for you truly knew how they really, REALLY weren't good for you.
Did you ever see the movie "Supersize Me"? Hey, I'm a fast food junkie and I stll eat at McDonalds, but I rarely ever get a big mac or a fish sandwich these days after seeing that movie.
Even stopped eating cheese burgers in favor of plain burgers, and actually their regular hamburgers have so little meat on them that they're actually not too bad nutritionally.
as an example. It is amazing how much we have been educated about fast food in recent years.
But I think you are going too far if you've stopped eating cheeseburgers- arguably America's greatest contribution to cuisine.
I know John Belushi would never forgive you.
After a while, I didn't even miss the cheese.
I'll admit I'm somewhat addicted to the $1 double hamburger... Something about the taste of those re-hydrated onions that I actually prefer to fresh cut ones.
And talk about ambushing. The cost of the double hamburgers and the double cheeseburgers are both a buck. It got to the point that I would have to open the wrappers and check before I pulled away from the drive-thru, because even though I specifically ordered double hamburgers, and even re-iterated it so they'd get it right, 9 times out of 10 it would be double cheeseburgers in the bag.
BTW, I've actually eaten in that burger joint in Chicago. And I DID order a "chee-burger" (and a Coke and "chips", knowing better not to ask for fries or a Pepsi). lol
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