Hope in Dope

Marijuana is our nation’s leading cash crop, and the ONDCP says that’s a bad thing. After all, Colombia’s biggest cash crop is coca, and Afghanistan’s biggest cash crop is opium poppies, and it hasn’t gone well for them.

That’s a pretty stupid comparison. Afghanistan wasn’t doing any better under the Taliban, when opium was not a leading crop. Colombia’s problem is not coca, but the criminal activities (and near-civil-war) it funds.

Honestly now, if we legalized and taxed marijuana — and stopped locking people up for nonviolent drug crimes– we’d have enough money to pay for the war in Iraq and social security. I don’t see why the entire balanced budget lobby doesn’t get on that issue right now.

Now in Color

Those of you who read this through a feed, have a look at the actual page: all new and now in color. It’s not quite perfect yet– that picture of lychee nuts at the top of the page is misshapen and way too heavy a download– but it does have the advantage of being all WordPressy and colorful. Let me know if you have opinions.

Video About Blogs

After a bit of delay, Technorati finally unleashed its relaunched VLog, BuzzTV. What is it? A guy reading the top items from their website. In other words, they’ve has brought the internet and broadcast TV together, and formed something with the worst aspects of both.

Like a blog, it features minimal accountability or fact checking, low production values, slow downloads, and a host who is an ugly couch-potato. Like TV news, it caters mostly to people too dumb or lazy to read, is hosted by vapid talking heads, and makes you sit through ads and product-placement B-roll about dangerous wonder-drugs before getting to the real news about all those dead hookers in Ipswich.

The Opposite of A Recommendation

Studies suggest that friends having dislikes in common is just as important– if not more important– than having likes in common. I don’t remember where I read this, but I read it just this weekend.

Possibly in the same place I heard about the LibraryThing UnSuggester, which given a book you did enjoy tells you what books you should not read. For example, if you liked the Critique of Pure Reason, LibraryThing suggests that you avoid Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Although I have to say it strikes me that The Devil Wears Prada probably has a lot more in common with Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom than fans of either book would be willing to admit.