Thank You Hillary Clinton!

The Secretary of State has declared the U.S drug war a failure. It's about fucking time. We've been losing this war ever since it started, and it's clearly getting worse. (Hey, guess how many college kids went to Mexico over spring break this year? Yeah, none.)

I think we're finally seeing what happens when an unstoppable force (U.S. lust for narcotics) meets an immovable object (hard-right approach to narcotics enforcement). I heard one Mexican law enforcement official brilliantly describe this as the long arm of the law trying to stop the invisible hand of the market.

So what are the options, now that we've finally decided to grapple with the truth of the situation? We could do one of two things, it seems.

First path: keep fighting, change nothing. This seems the most likely path. There's just too much money being made, too many high paying jobs at stake, for us to stomach scrapping the whole thing. Unfortunately this damns Mexico to a lawless hellscape that makes today's news look like a playground tussle.

Second path: stop fighting, change everything. This seems the sanest thing to do, which is of course why we probably won't do it. We'd literally have to re-do everything; imagine all the laws that would have to be overturned, all the prisoners we'd have to let out, all the new detailed regulation required by the FDA... it would be an unholy mess. This doesn't even include the huge cultural and psychological shifts needed to blend legal narcotics into our society...

...but it beats doing nothing. Imagine every drug cartel, every street dealer, every dirty narcotics agent, every compromised cop and on-the-take military official suddenly stripped of all power. Hard to imagine, but try it.

Imagine all the non-violent offenders out of jail, saving the taxpayer billions of dollars a year and making room for the real criminals. Imagine consigning drug overdoses to history, requiring all hard drug users to obtain their fix through licensed professionals who know when to say when, not unlike what bartenders do today (and have been doing for generations). Users -- er, customers -- would have detailed information on quality and potency not available today.

I know it's hard to imagine scoring a dime bag at Target or some heroin at Walgreen's, but try. It's worth it. Don't be scared by the naysayers who pull their hair out and scream of the bloody nightmare that we'd unleash if we were to legalize all narcotics. It's time to shut these voices out of the debate, because it's patently obvious that their hellish nightmares have already been realized in the southern U.S. and in Mexico.

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous are fond of reminding each other that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. I have a low regard for 12-Step programs, but they are right on this point. It's actually possible to choose to walk the path of sanity. Let us find the strength to make that choice today.

Or we can continue as before and change nothing. But if we do, we should at least make one change. We should stop referring to it as a "war" on drugs. As David Simon points out, you can't call it a war if it never ends.

Clawback's A Bitch

America does not negotiate with terrorists... unless they work for a bank.


Watching the Obama Administration carefully negotiate the iffy terrain between financial responsibility and neo-populism is turning into a bit of a spectator sport. Will President Obama and his crack team manage to stop the financial bleeding before the glow of the torches and the clanking of the pitchforks draw too close? Tune in next week on Comedy Central to find out.


Our president either still has time to work some magic or he's dancing on the edge of sanity with the devil's daughter, depending on which poll you pay attention to. Critics on the right, apparently suffering from a confounding case of amnesia, have already forgotten it was the Bush Administration that started the march to bank nationalization back in September. Critics on the left find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending bank executives and uber-money hawks like Geithner, Summers and Rubin. Where then to turn?


It seems one must completely step outside of the traditional two-party paradigm to avoid these intellectual pitfalls. I'm convinced that Arianna Huffington, Robert Scheer, and Jon Stewart are the kind of watchdogs we need right now. (They comfortably embody the populist spirit Sarah Palin tried unsuccessfully to win for months.) Having stepped back to this third-party vantage point, one sees the twin specters of mounting desperation and Marie Antoinette-ism engulfing our nation, with no end in sight. The national outrage can be seen clearly through a new lens, and it becomes obvious that it utterly transcends politics. We are witnessing the first stirrings of class warfare.


We've already seen wave after wave of unjustified bonuses paid out to bank executives, using taxpayer money meant to jump start lending. We've seen the ridiculous, misplaced outrage from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the ensuing Steward-Cramer smackdown, and now we have -- what's on tap again? Ah, yes. Even more executive bonuses. You could say the winds are blowing in a very specific direction these days.


So I'm outraged and horrified that a well-respected, center-left American institution like the New York Times would put its credibility and integrity on the line by publishing a jaw-dropping defense of this AIG foolishness on their front page. What on earth are they thinking? Are they trying to rev up ad revenues by causing another national outrage on The Daily Show? Have they been bought up already by the Murdoch empire? Whiskey tango foxtrot?


Anyone who didn't think this country was being mugged at gunpoint by terrorists must now face the music. For months we've heard nothing but threats of a global meltdown unless we do what these thieves and snake oil salesmen tell us to do, and it's getting worse. Now we're being told (by the New York Times, no less!) to not stop paying out bonuses and to honor these ridiculous contracts because we need to convince the very people who got us into this mess to stick around and help us figure out how to fix it... or else they will go out and make things worse from their respective hideouts in the wilderness.


I say, No, no, no, a thousand times no. Do not let these scum bags get away with it, and shame on the New York Times for allowing this drivel to stain their front page. President Obama is right to be scared of a populist backlash, but not nearly as scared as the douchebag patrol at AIG should be. Any company or institution that accepts taxpayer bailout money to stave off bankruptcy is in no position to defend the privacy of their contracts. They gave up the right to do business as usual when they signed up for help from the government, and the government has a responsibility to make sure that the American people aren't getting screwed in the process.


The Obama Administration royally fucked up when it failed to write these no-bonus provisions into the bailout legislation to begin with, and now all they can do is damage control. It's time to begin the clawback. It's either that, or take back the money and let AIG and all the rest of them go in to bankruptcy.


Pick one.

Maya Angelou Frozen Dinners

I wish I could take credit for this one!

I was at a friend's house watching movies last night when, while raiding the freezer for ice cream, my friend saw a frozen dinner package from the corner of his eye. He laughed out loud and said, "I could have sworn it read, 'Maya Angelou Frozen Dinners'!"

We laughed for about ten minutes straight. I actually think I peed a little, I was laughing so hard.

Almost immediately afterward came my contribution to the hypothetical product line, I Know Why The Free-Range Chicken Sings. Above is a quick and dirty rendering of what we had in mind.

This was a moment of sheer comic genius, and it was all because of my friend's peripheral vision... or should I say prophetic vision? Patrick gets all the credit here.

I blame the chemo.